J.D. SALINGER: Holden Caulfeild/Teen Angst... Why Ernie Sucked and of course...CHICKEN BONES! d

Soooo….J.D. Salinger died. I really liked this guy and I had only read two of his books. One was “Catcher In The Rye” and the other was “Franny and Zooey”. Both were heartbreaking in their own way and had a certain redemptive power as well. A close friend of mine had just recently re-read Catcher and did not understand what the excitement was about the book and it really made me think about what I loved about the book. Salinger was a weird, introspective and ultimately private person. His character Holden Caulfeild was a kid who was a screw up and self selected out of society and paid a huge price for it. He was too “smart” for prep school and life and condescended towards the people he viewed as “posers” and could not suffer their company or even more odious to him the adulation these pretenders got from society. He did not come by this condescension honestly being a product of good fortune himself.

There was always a tension between trying to be somehow “authentic” and yet feeling at the same time that you were really, ultimately no good. The character was totally self involved and in my mind that is what I remember about adolescence. Every decision was personal, every perceived slight was personal, war in another country, personal. Ethipian famine, personal. It is silly but I do think as an adult it is important to remember this mind set and no one had it pitch perfect like Salinger did with Holden Caulfield. And he wrote some beautiful monologues that went on in the guys head. I remember reading this quote years ago and at the same time I was reading the book. I think Greil marcus was quoting it in Rolling Stone in a Neil Young Interview, probably around 78 or 79.

I swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes thought I was terrific, I’d hate it. I wouldn’t even want them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things. If I were a piano player, I’d play it in the goddam closet.
–Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye

I thought it was perfect that Marcus would quote Salinger when talking about Neil Young. Salinger through Caulfield was always raging about phonies and Young was always struggling with trying not be a phony and fall into the the perceived phonieness of the music industry. But Caulfield always spoke to me. Always tapped into my own teen angst. For me the angst was driven by my own laziness and insecurity and still probably is... but I suspect that I was no different from a lot of teen.

Who knows why Salinger withdrew from life and indeed, who cares. I think it noble. How much better served would we be as a society to have some of our artistic and sports gods retire and disappear rather then constantly watching them suffer in public, every day, on the 24 hour news cycle, on the internet. Perhaps Tiger should...disappear. Salinger withdrew and some say he still wrote, but just for himself because he loved it. I pray this was true and I pray that he found a peace in his writing and I also hope someday it will be shared with the world. We lost a good one. Fortunately he left us something good.

***

On a more interesting note I have been wanting to get/buy a bag of chicken bones. The reason i want them is that so with certain clients, when they are asking me to put on my Nostradamus hat and divine the future I can use them. I picture clients paying me several hundred dollars an hour in order to smile at them, open a nice little cloth or velvet bag and scatter chicken bones on the table, stare at them intently and then, tell them the future. Surprisingly I could not find them on line or on E-Bay or Amazon or any other place. I figured certainly that there would be a specialty store that would sell them on line as a novelty. So far, no luck. So if you know a good source for divining chicken bones please let me know. In the interim I emailed someone who practices voo doo and specializes in such tellings among other things. This is his reply. There is a lot of wisdom there.

"Usually when you want a chicken bone bag to fortell the future you have to order them, each set of bones are prepared for use for one individual, and if you go to a store and just buy a set that wasn't made for you, they usually don't work very well, they cost between 300 to 1000 dollars depends on who prepares them. I'm not sure if that answers your question
Linsou..."

That seems a steep price to pay for a lark. But who knows, in this economy perhaps they would help.

The Genius Jon Becker On iPad

http://mangosquash.tumblr.com/

Concert Review: Yo La Tengo at the Pageant 1/24/10

Soooo.... it is a Sunday night and i have had a hard weekend of having my wife out of town and my daughter out of the house at a Lutheran youth event which led to... well... lets just say it led to me staying up too late on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday all I wanted to do was watch playoff football. Buuuuuuut...I did not see enough live music in 2009. So it was 2010 resolution time and I needed to hit more shows and Yo La Tengo was coming to town. Even more importantly a very kind, young lawyer scored two tickets for me, and most importantly I was going with one of my best friends kids who is a music head... like I used to be. So instead of being home and warm I hopped in my car at 7:30 and went to pick up my 16 (almost 17) date for the show.

We parked two streets south of the Pageant and it was a cold walk to the show. Tickets were supposed to be waiting at will call and this time they were there as promised. The last time i tried to take this kid to a show I thought I was taking him to see the Drive By Truckers but screwed up the night and we saw Robin Trower. That was... interesting. Now it is Sunday at the Pageant. Sunday shows can be tough because it is a school night and the weekend is over and it tends to be... lethargic. The crowd skewed about 15-20 years younger then me. Kind of odd.

New Times Viking opened. I had pre-screened on iTunes and decided that I hated them. But they were AWESOME. Three piece band with girl keyboard player/singer, boy drummer/singer and shredding guitarist. They rocked channeling the Replacements and more. I could not place it for a while but they sounded a lot like one of my favorites, Built To Spill and the singers voice blended into the sweet whine if Doug Martsch. They sand about 14 two to three minute songs and had a great rockin sound and a lot of energy. It was a totally unexpected pleasure.

Beatle Bob was in attendance and looked good. Once again it is always comforting to see him there. Validating. Since he sees like 300 shows a year it lets you know there is nothing better going on anywhere else. I am very insecure about my musical taste or lack thereof.

New Times Viking had a minimal set up in front of Yo La Tengo's equipment and their backdrop which was a nice sky blue curtain with....big, ornate, antique buttons on it. Pretty. Pretty odd.

Yo La Tengo came on promptly at 9:07. They immediately played a "song" that was 12 minutes feedback and backbeat and I was bored. I feel old now in my dislike of feedback. When Crazy Horse did it 20 years ago, I thought that was cool. Now with a band from Brooklyn it seemed annoying and pretentious. Yo La Tengo is also a three person band made up of Ira Kaplan and his wife Georgia (George) Hubley and James Mc New on bass. Then they immediately went into a Georgia song which was sweet and soft and then immediately into a Mc New song and I was amazed at his voice and his range. The band has no pretense and seemingly invented "Shoe Gazing".

Every music source I have ever respected idolizes this band and I had never seen them. I had tried over the years buying the occasional CD or (gasp) Album but never being grabbed by anything. Still I felt like I needed to see them because everyone cool liked them, so I knew I should (see aformentioned musical insecurities). Most of the songs tended to be very poppy and often devolving to feedback and distortion. The band is clearly Ira's band and he has a limited stage presence but such a nice unthreatening voice.
Mc new is physically a standard issue bass player (fat with long unwashed hair). he physically reminded me of the bass player for Atlanta Rhythm Section who was so ugly he was almost physically unwatchable. Lots of the songs are pleasant, sometimes even twangy but then you get Ira's guitar spooky over the top. It really started to grab me, almost hypnotize me. As the show moves towards the end it gets this dreamy quality partially due to great rhythm section and that is what I realized. Jim and Georgia are a rock solid rhythm unit that can sing. They also bounce between some instruments and really provide a nice platform for Ira's ripping it up.

They ended set with feedback that became the Beach Boys song "Little Honda" and it was....sweet. They took a short break for their encore and then brought out the New Times Viking and did a song together. I am going to have to spend a lot more time with the Band's catalogue. Here is the set list if your bored. I stole it.

And the Glitter is Gone
Let's Save Tony Orlando's House
Stockholm Syndrome
Avalon Or Someone Very Similar
Seeing Double Or Triple
Bean Bag Chair
If It's True
Here to Fall
I Feel Like Going Home
Black Flowers
When It's Dark
False Alarm
More Stars Than There Are In Heaven
Tom Courtenay
Nothing To Hide
Little Honda

Accident - Electric Eels cover w/ Times New Viking
Fourth Time Around - Bob Dylan cover
Emulsified - Rex Garvin cover

Healthcare, Who Cares?

Well that is really the question. I thought I cared about healthcare. I thought that I (WE!) voted for someone who was going to bring national healthcare. I feared it slightly but that was the kind of change I was voting for. Then the congress started debating it. Then the Republicans made it clear that they were not going to agree to any reform, other then tort reform. Then the Democrats did what politicians always do, creating a bill that served a variety of special interests, towards doing a lot of good things, but short of national health care. Then they really started debating it. Then the tea Party people waded in. Just STOP they cried. Socialism! Death Panels. As I type this Tuesday night the people of Massachusetts are voting for another type of change because they like me think all this shit has got to stop, so we vote against whatever is going on. And I do not care. I know the Tea party People and the republican's will tell you it is referendum on health care, or even better a referendum on Barack HUSSEIN Obama but they are missing the point.

It is a referendum on our whole current government. Not the Democratic controlled Congress, but Congress itself. Not on the President, but the office of the President. I don't disagree at this point. the bill or bills that congress approved does not accomplish what I elected Obama to give me which was healthcare for everyone. I know we have healthcare for everyone now, but grudgingly and it is certainly not guaranteed. I would have even given healthcare to the dreaded illegal aliens. it also does not seem to be doing a lot to control costs since he cut deals with insurance companies, drug companies, the AMA etc... I don't know everything in the bill. I tried to get educated and what Glenn Beck. I tried to read summaries of it. I just could not take it all in. Neither could congress. I watched Beck and Limbaugh pull peaces out of it to demonize Congress and the administration. It didn't really tell me anything. Frankly the whole exercise has pointed out how divided our country is and watching cable news incessantly dissect every vote on every issue as the bill progressed... made me sick. I still wanted health care reform. But in the end I also want world peace. This appears to be something that is just not going to happen.

So I am assuming that weird Democrat lady in Massachusetts lost to that good looking, rich guy "man of the people" and that the republicans will be able to stymie health care reform. They will be lauded by the 20% of the country who adamantly oppose the bill. They will be vilified by the 20% of people who wanted the bill. The rest of us will just be dumbfounded and depressed that this is the best our elected officials can offer us. Seriously? This is it. Total division. Barack said he was going to "forge a new area of bipartisan politics. The Republicans made clear that anyone who would vote for ANY bill submitted by the Democrats was a dreaded RINO! The democrats then decided to play hard ball and use their elected supermajority to push through a more liberal bill, though still not as liberal as their far left constituents would have wanted. They miscalculated Teddy Kennedy's batteries and the patience of the people of Massachusetts with the current level of bull shit.

The Dems and crazy Nancy Pelosi will try and force through a bill, a watered down bill. They will likely fail and even if they succeed they fail because it will be a lot of nothing. So, we get the healthcare we deserve. Just like we get the government we deserve. You can vote these guys out but it is the dreaded "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" thing. Until we get rid of career politicians and big money special interest lobbying the game will remain the same. Demonize people who do not agree with you. Question their intelligence and their motives and their agendas and cobble together a 51% majority to try and shove your favorite policy down someone else's throat.

So. Who cares about healthcare reform? Well, you will when your old. You will when your sick. You will when your daughter marries a putz without health care from his job and she gets sick, or their baby gets sick. Ou system and the way we deliver healthcare is broke. Perhaps what Congress finally came up with would make it even worse but perhaps something might have worked and we could have started to sift through ideas keeping the ones that worked. Instead the healthcare industry will continue to dominate the debate and take up a larger and larger part of our GDP, our economy and what was formerly take home pay.

I want to elect Rush and Glenn. They have lots of creative ideas about how to fix the system. Oh, no they don"t. But they are entertaining if you can stomach them.

Democracy is a good thing. This is how it works. The Democrats have blown an opportunity here. It will be a while till they have another clear shot. Elections have consequences but this one, not so much.

***

Post Script: That was last Tuesday night and not surprisingly I called it. Although it is only the Senate seat in Massachusetts, the media (and not just FOX but all the media decided it was a referendum on Obama, healthcare, socialism, the economy, everything wrong in the country. This is of course silly but... I am wrong about this one. I am out of touch with the country. It is all about the economy and when the economy is bad everything is bad and it really is all that matters. All the social issues, abortion, gay marriage, immigration, taxation and even cries of socialism are all just back ground noise for the economy. The Tea Party cannot make tea if all those people are happy, employed and employing people. But they are angry and we are scared and we are sheep. We will vote these guys out quickly and vote in a different kind of problem. If the economy stays bad we will vote them out too and bring in some more.

On a brighter note, my brother and most of my clients were very pleased and it was nice to see them happy for a few minutes. Still angry... but hopeful.

Nothing will get done on healthcare because the only "change" we can stomach is change we believe will be beneficial for us. Any other change, no matter how needed is unacceptable and when your talking healthcare there is too much to scare people out of. Once again the only wisdom of the Diner Review is that we get the government we deserve. It is actually a George Bernard Shaw quote. He was a negative guy and the quote is:

"Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better then we deserve." God help us. Even better God have mercy on us because rarely has our country been collectively acting so ultimately scared and selfish.

Book Review: Jonathan Lethem, "Chronic City"

Soooooo.... the first completed book of 2010. Pretty exciting. I am sure I have spoken before of how my tired eyes, body and brain cannot seem to log more then 10-20 minutes a night of reading in bed. It seems so.... weak. But that is me. Let me bore you again with a rant about jonathan Lethem. I think he is in the top two or three writers plunking on a keyboard anywhere in America. He has perfect tone... pitch perfect for modern culture and society. His characters are immersed in pop culture without the total self irony that depresses in a Bret Easton Ellis novel. His characters are always well drawn and clearly, for lack of a better term, loved.

Chronic is set in NYC and our narrator is a grown up childhood star named (improbably as all of Lethem's characters) Chase Insteadman. he is engaged to be married to an astronaut trapped on the space station which has been cut off by Chinese space mines. This has assisted him, along with his residuals, in leading a life of glamour and sympathy in high society. He meets his angst in the form of a guy named Perkus Tooth, a failed rock critic, broad sider and social outcast and they get high on designer marijuana as Perkus spins tales speculating on whether they are just puppets in a play, like the Matrix. Perkus has a childhood friend who is now chief fixer for the mayor. The city is being terrorized by a giant tiger, or an errant tunnel digging machine and the weather varies from inexplicably deep snows to making the town smell of chocolate for days on end. Chase meet's another one of Perkus' friends name Oona and a love interest ensues.

The tangents of the book are what enthrall. Tigers and odd weather, homeless men and designers of alternate computer realities and chaldrons, virtual chaldrons, and getting high and bidding on things on E-Bay when your high. It just goes on and and on... but in a good way. relationships seem to bend almost to breaking but then seem to make a full circle. he explores friendships, relationships, art and pretense, without p[retention. I love this guy.

Needless to say it all gets complicated. It also gets a little sad but it is a tour de force of literature. This is a guy who is still writing at the top of his game and for the last hundred pages of confusion and tragedy, as his abandoned fiance' battles cancer on the space shuttle and has to have her foot amputated (yes it gets a little dark) the book is hard to put down. Surprisingly... things do not go well for Perkus and Chase confronts his own shallow life,,, in a good way... maybe... anyway. This is art.

Here is a better review from the N.Y. Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/books/review/Cowles-t.html

9 Slingers on the 10 Scale.

Artisan Bacon! WTF?

THIS JUST IN FROM WINE AND CHEESE PLACE AS FORWARDED TO ME BY JON D
Bacon
We have been thinking about this idea for about a year now. 2010 is going to be the year of the BACON at TWCP. Each month (or possibly more frequently) we are going to feature a great artisan bacon at our stores. We have been carrying Nueskes for over 15 years and customers love it and the response to Benton's bacon was overwhelming. I have been doing research for a number of months and I have plenty of exciting bacons already picked out. The first one should arrive next week! You know it is artisan when you call to order and they say we should have some finished next week and could ship you some then. They do not have 1,000 of cases sitting around waiting to ship out. It is all handmade slowly, best ingredients, with care and it is not rushed or compromised in order to satisfy orders.


First time in St. Louis!!!
In fact after we placed the order, they called to thank us for being their first customer in St. Louis!!
It is fun to deal with small family companies!!

***

Obviously, we at the Diner Review can do nothing but applaud 2010 being "The Year Of Bacon". It is long over due and don't talk to me about out Chinese friends and their occasional "Year Of the Pig". Not the same thing. But what do we say about "Artisan Bacon". It seems wrong. I have been a long time fan of Oscar Meyer. Now I grant it is a little pricier then some of your other store bought bacons but generally the quality of this product is not something to be trifled with. certainly sometimes it is a little thinner or has a little too much fat but this is quibbling.

I had no idea that this fancy schmancy bacon was a trend and it has been going on since at least 2005 according to this article in The Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/better-bacon

I have always been a fan of house made or house cut bacon at different establishments. A little wood and apple smoked bacon at Annie Gunn's or perhaps a nice heavily cured, slick sliced bacon from country diners... awesome. But buying high priced bacon at wine and cheese stores to take home? This seems like something from before the recession. Have we learned nothing? Bacon is a food of the people. All of us who are marching down the road to type 2 diabetes understand this. Giving me artisan bacon is akin to trying to replace my Busch beer with something brewed by Trappist monks. Perhaps it is a "pearls before swine" type of thing, I don't know but the whole idea of this makes me queasy.

I keep having people call me about "chocolate bacon". I have even seen it. Once again that does not make it right. Perhaps we should organize a protest. Picketing. Something. Perhaps write or Senators and Congressman? Why aren't the tea party people concerned about this? I bet that damn Claire Mc Caskill is spending our tax dollars on this fancy bacon! It has to stop!

The State of the (Music) Nation...Best of 2009

Soooooo 2009. All of these “Best of the Decade” things coming out. Exhausting. This decade had marked ny withdrawal from being a serious follower of popular music. Sure... my son Jon kept me on life support for his High School years as his interest was piqued and he developed in the budding, dismissive music snob he has become. I guess I at least accomplished something there. But for myself digital music is awesome but it has created lazy habits which I keep reinforcing. When I was buying albums and CD’s part of the discipline was to read the liner notes, find out who the players were, who produced it, where it was recorded. Now I might hear a new artist I want to try and I go to iTunes and download the two or three most popular tracks on the CD... then if I like it I go get more. Sometimes I prelisten to the 30 second snippet. Sometimes not. Sometimes when you buy the whole album you get the digital CD package which includes the liner notes and art.... but I never look at it. The loss of tangibility of the product makes it much less appealing.

More importantly I use to listen to the whole CD. I listened as Neil Young experimented on deeper tracks with something different. I listened when a band threw in a cover of an old blues artist I had never heard of. I listened to the song that they let the bass player record because they were so sick of his bitching. With talented artist there was always great stuff buried after the two or three “radio ready” tracks. Is there even radio anymore for music? I mean locally we have KDHX but after that we have a few WalMart Music channels that dependably deliver T Swift and the like, we also get rap and of course big hat Nashville Country but no one is out there playing new music like K-SHE did before getting hopelessly enmeshed in the dreaded (and very popular) classic rock format.

So where does that leave me? Reasonably happy. There is probably more access to more varieties of music then ever before. There are very few ultimate taste makers once you get below the national pop culture level. There are thousands (literally thousands) immediately below that that listen and opine on everything. All you can do is find someone with similar tastes and see if they have something new for you.

So this is what I liked in 2009, may it rest in blessed peace.


1. Mountain Goats: The Life of the World To Come. I cannot say enough about John Darnielle and the prolific work he does with the band The Mountain Goats. Last years Heretic Pride was a tour de force of sonic, lyrical angst. No one brings the dysfunction of day to day life to my ears like this guy right now. He is a man in the middle of the struggle figuring out where he is and what he should be doing. This time he paints a tableaux on a dozen Bible verses and in every case is thought provoking and in some cases beautiful. By this one and listen three times. It has my favorite song line of the year on it: "someone leads the beast in on it's chain. And I know your thinking of me cause it's just about to rain". Buy it.

2. Bonnie Prince Billie: Beware. Like Darnielle of the Mountain Goats and Will Scheff of Okkervil River Will Oldham paints his pictures through a band that changes names and casts with his mood. Lately he has been Bonnie Prince Billie and though it is an annoying name he has done some great stuff and this CD is no exception. This is about as accessible and country as he gets with lots of fiddle and pedal steel. Do not ignore this odd little man and this CD will be a great introduction. Several of the songs like "You Don't Love Me" are probably not suitable for the kids but...don't worry about, you are probably not suitable for them either if your reading this.

3. Elvis Costello: Secret, Profane and Sugarcane: Look, I love the guy. With Dylan and Neil Young he has done more for me then anyone else musically and has developed the dreaded "body of work" that cannot be denied. This C is country, country, country and is just awesome. Pedal steel and old school melodies and songs. He does a great country remix of "Complicated Shadows" which at least matches his original but from a different direction. "Changing Partners" and the title cut are also top notch. Buy it.

4. Bon Iver: Blood Bank: This was a nice E.P. and a follow up to last years beautiful CD "For Emma And Ever Ago". Last years "Skinny Love" was an anthem and this years creepy, haunting and Beautiful "Blood Bank" will make you question all analogies for love you have ever heard. It is all night music. It is night music. It is not for everyone. It shouldn't be.

5. Rhett Miller: Rhett Miller: This guy just writes great songs. He has turned 40 and is still fronting The Old 97's and has never (and will never) get any acclaim on his own but he writes great songs and I could turn the lights out, have a beer and listen to this guy sing the phone book any day. "Nobody Says I love You Anymore", "I Need To Know Where I stand" and "Haphazardly" along with everything else on the CD....just hold up well. Not liking Rhett Miller is a form of self hating. Don't give in.

6. Blind Pilot: Three Rounds and a Sound: This was the nicest surprise for me this year. Tuneful and hummable and memorable. It rocks and it rolls. It is well written and cannot be denied. I do not know why no one else is listening to this band. Download the title cut, "The Story I've Heard" and "One Red Thread". You will not be sorry. You have the Diner Review Guaranty.

7. M. Ward: Hold Time: I never know what to do with M. Ward. he is brilliant and he is clever and he is a great guitarist and he does a lot of interesting things. That being said there is a sameness to his stuff which is sometimes numbing. The cute stuff he did with Zoey Deschanel seemed to further loosen him up which is a good thing and "The Monsters Of Folk" seems to further emphasize that he needs someone else or perhaps several other people to bounce things off of but this is a very solid CD.

8. Sun Volt: American central Dust: Jay Farrar breaks out of his mold by going back to his solo roots. Ever since his brilliant CD Trace, Farrar and Sun Volt have been headed down this dreaded "more authentic then thou" and it just got more and more exhausting, minimalistic and depressing. With this CD he breaks out with a little great guitar from every one's favorite side man Mark Spencer. Spencer has an appreciation for Farrar which comes through on this CD and he helps Farrar not to get lost in his moping. This is their best since Trace and deserves a buy.

9. William Elliot Whitmore: Animals In The Dark. it is fitting that this guy follows Farrar and Sn Volt. This is old school solo country folk. My favorite song "Hell or High Water" is a tour de force of aching, remorse and celebration. This is great a cappella white boy blues from an Iowan who seems full of remorse. If nothing else download "Hell or High Water" and "Old Devils". Worth it

10. The Decembrists: The Hazards of Love. More solid work by the irascible Colin Meloy. There is some good stuff on this CD. "The Hazards of Love" and "The Rake's Song" are no less then brilliant. Meloys problem is that he is too clever by half and seems to be getting caught up in the legend of his own brilliance. If he continues in this direction he is going to become "precious" and we will be able to be done with him, as we got done with Lou Reed, David Bowie and all the rest who get caught up in their genius and personae. Until then, enjoy it. There is a lot of talent in these Shakesperian pretenses.


Biggest Disappointment: The Felice Brothers: Yonder Is the Clock, No New Okkervil River

New Years 2010: And The Beat Goes On!

Sooooo we always end our year with a series of bangs rather then a series of whimpers. December, once it hits is pretty much a write off with scheduled trip to Chicago recurring each year along with wife's birthday, Christmas, mother in laws birthday, new Years...etc... You get the idea. Along with all of the scheduled events comes the never ending carousel of end of the year happy hours, Christmas parties at work and client parties where attendance can be "mandatory". it is hard to get anything done and when you have ADD as badly as i do, "hard" becomes "impossible".

Still what a great season. The high points for me were two annual bashes that Sandy and I host, one on Christmas Eve and one on New Years Eve. A lot of food is cooked, a lot of wine and beer are bought, some is delivered and most of it is consumed. The events appear to be about consumption. Conspicuous consumption. But we try and make ourselves believe that it is all really just about family and friends. We inherited the Christmas Eve party from my brother in law and sister in law when they left town. It is a Dierberg/Becker affair with a lot of friends thrown in who have shown up over the years. At this point the party goes back at least 15 years and i think we have been hosting for 3 or 4. I lose track. it is a great event with beef tenderloin, chick-fil-et nuggets, little smokies, sausage, cheese, salted nuts and booze. This year it ended about 12:30 and we got in bed about 1:30. Thus started the sleepless week.

One would think that party is enough. Especially with sandy working again almost full time and having an elevated stress level but nooooooo.... we need to have another blow out on New Years Eve. For the last several years our son has been on staff at Camp Arcadia, up in Arcadia Michigan. We used to go to camp there every summer before buying a house up there but with Jon being on staff we have hosted an annual New years Eve Party/Staff reunion. It is a blow out and the staff members, (all between 19 and 24 or so) start arriving on new years eve, eve and we don't lose them all until today....January 2nd. It is an open question as to how many people are here but they come from all over country, Florida, Texas, Michigan, Chicago, Ohio (Chicago is a State) and clog our street with their cars as they eat, drink, play and sleep at our house. The party itself requires that cooking start the day before and we are constantly amazed at what people of that generation can eat. We have found that if we put it out, they eat it. The only exceptions to this rule at this point appear to be a Hautley Pimento Cheese (No Offense to the Hautleys) and fruitcake. Everything else gets devoured including pork tenderloin, home made tamales, little smokies, chic-fil-et nuggets and vegetable trays and on and on.

This year the actual festivities started about 7 with a great deal of eating and then food kept getting put out. Normally our friends the Kukla's and Bentzingers sit with us around the kitchen as the kids and party kind of swirl around us. To venture into the basement where sweat, music and beer pong reign is a mistake for anyone older then 25. This year our normal old people friends were indisposed with other commitments. I was sad. But my wife, my friends and chance intervened and she surprised me with Kris and Steve Park flying in from Michigan. Over the evening we were also visited by the Koehns, the Carrons and delightfully, the Mogermans. It was a party. Along with a lot of bottles of beer and wine a full half barrel gets consumed at this little get together before the 30-40 kids sprawl somewhere to sleep.

We have been blessed over the years that no one has gotten hurt at this event but it always gives me pause. This year the party went pretty hard I am told till about 4 A.M. but I cashed out at about 3. People started to trickle out the next day but most of the people seem to stay around for a full day afterwards, just to aid their recovery. And this morning, mass exodus...mass clean up. We generally need to call in a Federal Haz/Mat Team and then get the clearance from the CDC out of Atlanta. It is a long process but normally by February our house is put back in order and the insurance claims have been paid. All in all, it is an exhausting way to end the year but an exhilarating way to start the new one.

The Diner Review will weigh in the best of 2009 over the next few days and ruminate on what 2010 will bring us. Beware. You have been warned.