Nurse the Hate: Miller Wakes From Slumber

 

After a couple months off from writing, I am going to get back on the horse.  I was just burned out.  I'll get you caught up.  There hasn't been that much that has happened on the MW trail.  I won't get my results back until mid-September, which is a particularily European way of handling an exam.  "Thanks for the effort!  We will tell you how you did after summer break!  We are going to Greece all August!"  I follow a bunch of Euro wine people on social media, and these SOBs must work 7 months a year.  Bastards hopscotch from the Italian coastline to Greece over to Slovenia and then to Austria laughing it up the whole time.  Meanwhile I'm cutting the grass in Ohio long out of corporate sanctioned vacation time.  All those people that scream in your face "USA #1!!!" have likely never traveled outside their comfort zone of Disney and Myrtle Beach.  We have all bought into the lies of "trickle down economics" and unwavering fealty to the Corporate Beast.  Big mistake.

From June until finding out the result of the exam, the natural inclination is to wait and see what happened before proceeding in any direction.  It's hard to plan for the future when you don't know what just happened.  For example, if I passed, I really need to focus on shoring up my feeble understanding of chemistry to enable myself to discuss fermentation with the illusion of having a grasp on the subject.  If I failed, the focus will have to be on writing a note up to the standard of the master of wine.  Between us, I identified the wines on the exam fairly well.  The question is if I wrote well enough within the time limit to suggest I should be moved ahead to the final stage.  If I fail, I suspect my technical writing is to blame.  I'm often told within the program that I write "journalistically", which is, of course, how I was educated to write.  I am now cushioning myself in the idea that I failed, will be exiled from the program in shame, and will be forced to beg for re-entry after two years have passed.  The upside in carrying that mindset for three months is that anything other than that result is a pleasant surprise.  We shall see.

My basset hound Montgomery died in July.  He was an incredibly good dog, well behaved and filled with personality.  That dog would howl if I wasn't around, the saddest moan you've ever heard.  Like his sister Ryver who died in January, he collected every ailment and health issue possible in the last couple years of his life.  The level of care to keep those dogs on the rails was mind boggling to anyone that saw it first hand.  I had a zip up bag of their various pills, ointments and drops that was referred to as "The Nuclear Football".  Like the President of the United States, I was unable to go anywhere with the dogs without The Nuclear Football.  Despite the unbelievable hassle and crippling expense of their final year(s), I loved those dogs.  Covid was the best thing that ever happened for them as they spent each day sleeping next to my desk, supervising my workday.  We were 24/7/365.  It's a huge void not having them around, and I think about them every single day.  I am wired to have a basset hound, and a new generation Basset will take up residence this Fall.  

It should be noted that I am already exhausted just thinking about house training this puppy.  Guidebooks will refer to basset hounds as "stubborn", but I think of it more as "giving zero fucks".  It takes them forever to get on the same page in regards to house rules and expectations.  For example, a labrador retriever spends its life seeking to serve their master and win praise.  They live to please.  The basset hound spends their life looking for angles to benefit themselves and see how you can help them out in their quest for snacks and better sleeping accommodations.  The best analogy I can come up with is a basset is like a deadbeat cousin that moves into your house having no intention of finding work, lays on the couch all day and eats your food.  Despite that, you somehow look forward to seeing them every day because they are cheerful and are real characters.  They are like Kramer on "Seinfeld" or Jeff Spicoli in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High".   They're not for everyone, but they're for me.

There has been a cluster of celebrity deaths lately.  I was stunned to see the outpouring about Tina Turner, as if everyone drives around listening to Tina Turner records all day.  My favorite is on social media where someone you know posts something like "This one stings" and you've never known them to listen to Tina Turner, speak of Tina Turner, or even suggest they know who Tina Turner is.  It's one thing if every time you walked into a bar they would sprint over to a jukebox to load it up and "Private Dancer" would blast out of the speakers while they slowly danced by themselves in the middle of the room while closing their eyes and mouthing the words.  Same thing with Sinead O'Connor.  I can't remember the last time I thought about Sinead O'Connor, and when she died it was like a contest to see who could be most publicly heartbroken.  Look, I'm not taking anything away from either of their musical legacies, but let's be reasonable about the brief public displays of grief.  You're going to be OK.  You didn't know them.  They were 30 year old records in a little stack in your basement.  

The one that stood out for me was Robbie Robertson.  I have written extensively about Robertson, a guy who wrote some great songs with his friends, and put as much (if not more) effort into trying to promote his legacy as The Important Member of The Band.  The thing that made me sad about Robertson's passing was not a sense of loss but a sense of inevitable tribute shows that each town's flimsy Americana scene would put together featuring members of modestly popular bands all fighting with each other to see who gets to sing what song, and the doomed cringeworthy finale of each lead singer taking a verse of, and consequently over singing, "The Weight".  Somewhere in Nashville right now a guy is planning on doing the Gospel-singer-doing-the-national-anthem treatment to a line of "The Weight".  You can take.. you can take... you can take... Jack my DOOOAAAAAGGGG!!!  Heaven help us. 

The Whiskey Daredevils have been working on writing a new record and are looking to do more gigs this Fall.  We keep dropping new songs into set lists to see if anyone likes them, and I'm pleased to report that intoxicated folks after the show ask to buy "that record with the Willie Nelson song" and "the one about Leo dying in his trailer".  We haven't recorded them yet, but we will because that's what we do.  It hit me yesterday that I have been doing this rock and roll thing so long, that it's like if when I bought my first house and had asked my father if he wanted to come over to eat dinner, he couldn't because he had a gig with his band in Nashville that weekend.  Frankly, I think it's a shame that he wasn't willing or able to get a band going and write about someone in his office buying a used trailer and setting it on fire by accident while in his 50s.  Took his eye off the ball.  Missed opportunity.  

That's all I have to discuss today, but look for my continued rants as we go.  There's a lot of football to gamble on coming up.  A quick note on current events, in case any of your MAGA co-workers or neighbors can't understand why Donald Trump is being prosecuted for crimes, it's because he committed crimes.