Dear New York Times:

I really enjoy the regular 36 Hours feature in the Travel section. Lately, for instance, I tagged along with your travel writers for long weekends in College Station, Tex., Jackson, Wyo., and Lafayette, La. Each of those destinations—and I’ve been to a couple of them already—worked, too. I could imagine arriving about 4 p.m. on a Friday and hanging out until Sunday evening. And your travel writers gave interesting advice about how to enjoy the weekend. In fact, ever since I read the 36 Hours feature on Lafayette, I’ve had a hankering to try the eggs Begnaud—”two eggs on a grilled biscuit covered with crawfish étouffée, and accompanied by cheese grits flecked with andouille”—at Café Des Amis in Breaux Bridge, La. Yum.

But, um, I have to say I’m more than a little puzzled by Friday’s 36 Hours destination: Honolulu. Who was the target audience for this piece? Like you, I live on the East Coast. Getting to Honolulu would require, well, a significant adventure. If I arrived there at 6 p.m. on a Friday, I’d be tapped out. Tapped out from the airport security, the cross-country flight, the inevitable layover in Los Angeles, the flight halfway across the Pacific—whew, I’d probably be downright pooped from all of that. And if I somehow recovered enough to make the suggested 8 p.m. dinner at Hoku’s at the Kahala Hotel & Resort, I’d have to make it up by sleeping in the next day. But, no, you’ve got me headed off to a farmers’ market at 8 a.m. Good God! Are you trying to kill me?

And, believe me, I wouldn’t be ready to head back by Sunday evening (or even Monday morning). Gosh.

Actually, you must’ve understood, at least at some level, that Honolulu was a silly 36 Hours destination. Your travel writer, Jocelyn Fujii, started off her recommendation for 6 p.m. on Friday with a few thoughts about jet lag. Hmmm, yeah. Unless you live in Guam or Maui, Honolulu isn’t really a destination that’s feasible for a quick, 36-hour visit, is it? If it’s going to take me a full day to get somewhere, I’m going to want more than a day and a half, more even than a long weekend, to enjoy it. Honolulu would make a great 7 Days destination. Let’s do that instead, ok?

And let’s keep the 36 Hours destinations a little more manageable. I’m thinking Ottawa, Canada, might be a good choice. Have any ideas about that?

Thanks.

Report from the Birthday Extravaganza Weekend

Hey, I survived turning 40! Recent circumstances, which I’m sure I’ll be blogging about soon, meant that I had to keep things fairly low-key. Still, it was awfully nice. Several friends joined me on Saturday for drinks at the hotel bar at Loews, where I stayed for the weekend. Then, buttressed by the addition of another good friend, we headed over to The Capital Grille for a nice, nice dinner. I had the filet mignon, medium rare, and a side order of yummy brussels sprouts.

On Sunday, a slightly-different-but-overlapping group of friends joined me at the Phillies game. After the third inning, a Phillies Phunster came to my seat to sing “Happy Birthday” and shower me with confetti. Hours later, I was still finding that stuff in my underwear. Really. (Too much information?) A little bit later, my name was on the scoreboard with the names of, um, scores of other birthday celebrators. It rained some at the game, but the final score was a real treat: Phillies 10, Marlins 7. The Phils’ come-from-behind gumption was a real treat, too. Incredibly enough, they’re wild card contenders. Woo hoo!

I spent Sunday night back at the hotel bar, not-so-seriously watching some football and doing a little self-reflection. The Jack Daniel’s and apple juice may have made my life seem a little better than it actually is. But by next time this year, I’d definitely like to be a little less lonely. A nice hotel room should usually be, er, shared, right?

Actually playing on my iPod…

Since I’m not sure that Thursday’s 10-song random sample gave you any real idea of my taste, and since I’m too tired to provide you with any actual content right now, here’s a list showing the 20 songs most frequently played on my iPod since I got it in September 2004:

1.) “Insensitive,” by Jann Arden (from Living Under June) [you can’t be too surprised by that, I guess];
2.) “Best I Ever Had,” by Gary Allan (from Tough All Over);
3.) “Something About What Happens When We Talk,” by Lucinda Williams (from Sweet Old World);
4.) “The First Cut Is the Deepest,” by Sheryl Crow (from The Very Best of Sheryl Crow) [this one surprises me a little bit];
5.) “Give Me One Reason,” by Tracy Chapman (from New Beginning) [I’ve blogged about this song, too];
6.) “Headed for a Fall,” by Jimmie Dale Gilmore (from Braver Newer World);
7.) “Broken Arrow,” by Rod Stewart (from Encore: The Very Best of Rod Stewart, Vol. 2);
8.) “Letter from an Occupant,” by the New Pornographers (from Mass Romantic);
9.) “Insensitive,” by Jasper Steverlinck (from Songs of Innocence);
10.) “Let’s Stay Together,” by Al Green (from Let’s Stay Together);
11.) “Don’t Marry Her,” by the Beautiful South (from Blue Is the Colour);
12.) “Don’t Explain,” by Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan, and Herbie Hancock (from Hancock’s Possibilities);
13.) “Coffee, Coffee, Coffee,” by Freedy Johnston (from Real: The Tom T. Hall Project);
14.) “All the Right Reasons,” by the Jayhawks (from Rainy Day Music);
15.) “What Kind of Fool,” by Gary Allan (from Tough All Over);
16.) “Last Christmas,” by Wham! (from All-Star Christmas) [how embarrassing!];
17.) “Toledo,” by Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach (from Painted from Memory);
18.) “Missing (CL McSpadden Unreleased Powerhouse Mix),” by Everything but the Girl (Adapt or Die: Ten Years of Remixes);
19.) “Viva Las Vegas (American Casino Theme),” by Dread Zeppelin (from Chicken and Ribs);
20.) “The Mountain,” by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer (from Tanglewood Tree).

I wish there weren’t so many love songs, especially the been-done-wrong variety, on my Top 20. I’m so predictable.

Question of the Day: My Musical Horoscope

What’s your musical horoscope? (Put your music player on shuffle and write down the first 10 songs that come up.) Inspired by Stephanie.

I’m so tired right now that this is exactly the kind of blogging I can handle….

• “High Speed” by Coldplay (from Parachutes)
• “Wasting Time” by Jack Johnson (from On and On)
• “One in a Row” by Buddy Jewell (from Buddy Jewell)
• “You Ask Me To” by Waylon Jennings (from RCA Country Legends)
• “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home” by Patsy Cline (from The Patsy Cline Collection)
• “Close the Door” by Clem Snide (from Soft Spot)
• “The Good Ain’t Gone” by Rex Hobart & the Misery Boys (from Empty House)
• “In the Palm of Your Hand” by Alison Krauss and the Cox Family (from I Know Who Holds Tomorrow)
• “Devotional Songs from Southern India” by Aruna Sairam (from Under the Moroccan Sky)
• “Rainy Day Woman” by Waylon Jennings (from RCA Country Legends)

I currently have over 7,500 songs on my iPod, so any 10 songs won’t be all that representative of my collection. Still, this isn’t un-representative of my taste; there’s some modern rock, some hardcore country, an alt-country song, and a little bit of world music. Just add some folk music, and you’ve got a pretty good idea what I like….

Still, how bizarre is it that two songs from the same Waylon Jennings album came up in a 10-song sample?

Question of the Day: Let’s Go There

What’s your favorite vacation destination?

When I first read this question, I decided it was asking me where I go time and time again to relax. At various times over the past 10 years, the answer to that question might’ve been New Orleans, a condo on the Gulf of Mexico, or New York. Those have been my go-to places. Um, literally.

But I’ve stopped visiting those places—regularly, anyway. New Orleans got complicated, first, by the Soulmate-Who-Got-Away. Then, of course, there was Hurricane Katrina. Now I’m not sure I want to go back because the city won’t seem the same, because I’ll remember things that are hard to face, because I might see someone I don’t want to see, because it’ll just be too difficult. I’m sure I need to get over (most of) this psychological stuff sooner rather than later (ahem, now), and I’m sure I eventually will. But doing so hardly sounds like vacation, huh?

I also got in a little mini-routine for awhile of visiting the Alabama Gulf Coast. Puzzled? Well, there are beautiful beaches there, and it’s usually warm enough to visit well into September and October—just when I’m trying to prolong summer and forget that winter’s on its way. That’s also a good time to vacation because, well, there aren’t kids everywhere. Ewwww, kids. But as I’ve become more and more entrenched in Philadelphia, the Gulf Coast has started to feel too far away to be an easy getaway. (Actually, given how cheap it is to fly into Pensacola or Mobile, maybe I shouldn’t feel that way.) So I’ve pretty much stopped going. And the recent hurricanes didn’t help that as a destination, either, of course.

I’ve also visited New York several times in the past couple of years. I love visiting MoMA, seeing cool shows, getting a good seat at Carnegie Hall, eating black-and-white cookies, feeling like I’m in the most frenetic place on the planet. But it’s so expensive to visit, and I don’t really have any good New York friends who’ll put me up (hint, hint?). So New York remains a fun place to visit once in awhile, but it’s not really my go-to vacation spot.

Does all this mean that I don’t have a favorite vacation destination anymore? Gosh, I hope not. That would truly be depressing. I think it just means that I should reinterpret the question. Instead of understanding the question to be asking what my regular go-to vacation destination spot is, I’ll understand it to ask where I’ve had the best vacations of my life. And the answer to that is…drumroll, please…Yellowstone National Park.

I’ve only been to Yellowstone twice—first when I was 15 and again in 2002, with the ex. I loved it. I loved the wild weather (ice pellets on my first trip, hail on the second), the stinky mudpots, the geysers, the animals, the altitude. It’s all so bizarre, yet beautiful, that it sort of feels like Nature’s Disneyworld. Natural and bizarre—that pretty much sums up Yellowstone, I think.

Plus, I just enjoy being in the West. Westerners are tolerant and independent, and they expect those values in others. There’s also a sort of beautiful emptiness in the West. As crowded as some spots in Yellowstone might be, it’s very easy to find yourself alone in nature.

I’ve been to Yellowstone in late spring and in mid-summer. I’d like to visit in autumn and winter, too. Who’s going with me? Who knows how to use snowshoes? Let’s go.

Three Short Items

• Former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey’s new book, um, “came out” today. In honor of that, would it be wrong to refer you back to my open letter to him? (Yes, this is a special Best Of Rivers Are Damp edition.)
• Amusingly, Google opted not to celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day today.
• At least one American Airlines flight crew didn’t want to see any man-on-man kissing action back in coach. Bummer, huh? (Link via Kottke)

Links: The Non-Partridge Family ‘Come On, Get Happy’ Edition

I’m having a bad day week month, so I went looking for something that might cheer me up. Here’s what I found:

1.) The Kronos Quartet (the coolest string quartet ever) covers “Flugufrelsarinn” by Sigur Rós (the coolest rock band ever). Listen to that, and some other cool stuff, at Kronos’s MySpace page. By the way, I saw Kronos do “Flugufrelsarinn” earlier in the year at Carnegie Hall. That was so cool.

2.) It always makes me smile when the NYT features a gay couple on its Weddings & Celebrations page. This week, it’s Adam Berger and Stephen Frank. They were college suite-mates, who—somehow or other—didn’t “know”. Didn’t know about themselves. Didn’t know about each other. “I haven’t been totally straight with you,” one said a few years later. And before you know it, they’re getting hitched at a Pocantico Hills, N.Y., restaurant.

P.S. I don’t know what to say about the article’s reference to Princess Di’s funeral. Yikes.

3.) “Noodle Shop,” a Sushicam photograph by Jeff Laitila, made me forget my troubles for a few minutes. It also made me hungry.

4.) Tomorrow, September 19, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arrr!

These links are 35% less hairy than before.

I haven’t been a very faithful blogger this week. Those evil people at work just won’t leave me alone! Go here, go there, come back here, do this, do that. Yikes.

Anyway, let’s do some links:

1.) The Impulsive Buy hilariously reviews a product I can actually recommend: the Philips Norelco Bodygroom. Here’s, um, a snippet:

Many of you with testicles may be wondering if it hurts or if having cutting blades near your Humpty Dumptys make them have a great fall and crawl back into you….

Without an attachment it doesn’t hurt either, but every time I trim the trees along my main street and cul-de-sac I keep thinking of a possible scrambled eggs mess, so I’m surgeon-like careful when I cut down the Christmas trees on my snow globe.

P.S. I actually think hairy men should generally just be as hairy as nature intended. That said, I do, um, even things up a little bit here and there. (I can’t believe I told you that! Blush city.)

2.) I wouldn’t ordinarily blog about something like this, but how can I pass up this particular segué: A Michiana man underwent a full body wax in order to get tickets to the Notre Dame-Michigan football game. Really. (Link via Towleroad)

3.) All this talk about hair has me remembering a recent Savage Love column about a gay man who wanted to run with the bears but didn’t seem to be welcome. I hate it when the reindeer won’t let Rudolph join in any reindeer games—especially when there’s absolutely no good reason for it.

4.) I’m not entirely sure how this fits into the evolving (hairy?) theme, but PeaceBang is getting a gay vibe from the men in those eHarmony ads on TV. Hee. eHarmony, of course, doesn’t offer its services to same-sex couples. Hmph.

5.) And, finally, check out the mane on the horse in Sam Javanrouh’s Daily Dose of Imagery photograph from Times Square.

Question of the Day: Better on the Big Screen

If you could watch any movie on the big screen right at this moment, what would it be?

I should probably pick something that was meant for the big screen—something, in other words, that’s absolutely gorgeous. Nothing immediately comes to mind, though. Every once in awhile, I read about a movie and think I should make a real effort to see it in the theater—instead of on DVD or on HBO. I usually don’t make it, I guess, and now I can’t even think of anything I recently missed. Gosh, I’m a loser!

So, I’ll have to go with something older—er, something older that I’d like to see again on the big screen. And what comes to mind is The Mission, Roland Joffé’s 1986 film starring Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro. The Mission told the story of Jesuit priests who resisted Portugal’s attempt to take over, and enslave, an indigenous population in its South American colony. Oscar-nominated for Best Picture, The Mission was stronger in terms of cinematography and music than in plot. It was a beautiful-looking film, and Ennio Morricone’s exquisite soundtrack—which you’ve surely heard—focused your attention on the images. In fact, the images told the story. If you’ve only seen The Mission on the small screen, well, I doubt you’ve really “seen” it.

Something else that comes to mind is Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance, Godfrey Reggio’s 1983 documentary that was built on (out of?) time-lapse photography. As in The Mission, music plays an enormous role in the experience of Koyaanisqatsi; here, the soundtrack was written by Philip Glass, the brilliant minimalist composer. The photography, propelled by Glass’s beautiful music, forces the viewer to confront the way people, and especially our technology, have imposed on the environment. I’d love to see Koyaanisqatsi again—the way Reggio and Glass must have intended.

The 10-Not-So-Famous-People Meme

Despite my recent experience, I doubt I have enough influence in Blogistan to generate a meme that really catches on, so this will probably end up being just for me. Still, this sounds like fun. Here are the rules.

• Select 10 not-so-famous people that you’d like to meet.
• Give a brief, or not-so-brief, explanation as to each. Why would you like to meet Mr. X? What, if anything, would you say to Ms. Y?
• All 10 must be living and cannot be so famous that an average person would have heard of them. It’s ok if a pick is well-known in a particular circle, so long as most people don’t follow that particular endeavor closely enough to recognize the name. (As a lawyer might say, it’s ok if the persons are limited-purpose public figures.)
• The idea is to compile a list that’s mostly about you and your interests. The list should not simply be a reflection of who’s currently popular.

1.) Chris Moneymaker — Moneymaker came out of nowhere to win the 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP), the most prestigious poker tournament of ’em all. Moneymaker wasn’t a professional poker player; he was an accountant from Tennessee who won his entry in an online event. ESPN’s high-quality coverage of the upset by this underdog of underdogs is really what precipitated the current poker craze. All that’s interesting enough to make me want to meet Moneymaker, but there’s even more. After his WSOP win, Moneymaker turned pro, and I’m fascinated by what motivates someone who, well, nearly started at the top. Is he obsessed with proving his win was no fluke? Plus, let’s face it: Moneymaker is as cute as they come. I have an enormous (poker?) crush on him.

2.) Clinton Kelly – Kelly is one of the fashion stylists on TLC’s What Not To Wear, the show that rescues fashion disasters. Kelly and co-host Stacy London seem to be having so much fun that I can’t help but want to join them. Kelly, in particular, seems smart, mischievous, and, well, stylish. I’d like to think that I’m not a candidate for an all-out WNTW makeover, but wouldn’t it be fun to go shopping with someone like Clinton Kelly? Answer: Yes.

3.) Joan Hess – I’ve mentioned her before here, but Hess writes two comic mystery series that I love. One is the Maggody series, which features an over-the-top cast of characters from a town in the Arkansas Ozarks. The other is her Claire Malloy series, about a bookseller in an Arkansas college town (a stand-in for Fayetteville, Ark.). Hess’s novels make me laugh more than just about anything else, and I bet she’s fun in, um, real life, too.

4.) Handy Andy Kane – Handy Andy, as you may know, is the lovable carpenter on the recently departed Changing Rooms (which, for the BBC America-deprived among you, was the British equivalent of Trading Spaces). He was often the voice of reason on Rooms, telling the designers when their schemes were, well, daft. He came across as both cheeky and kind all at the same time. Is that an adorable combination or what?

5.) Mary Carillo – Carillo is, by far, the best tennis commentator on American television. She’s smart, she’s authoritative-sounding, and she’s witty. Not only is Carillo knowledgeable about tennis, but she has interesting things to say about, um, real life. And, yes, I’m thinking of things like Carillo’s excellent piece on living life like a clay-courter.

6.) J.M. Branum – I knew I wanted to include a blogger on my list, but I couldn’t decide which one. As I thought about it, though, the answer became clear. Branum is an Oklahoma blogger who recently completed a law degree. To pay the bills, he “drives” a pedicab in Oklahoma City. He’s a lay Mennonite minister. And he’s politically active in a state that doesn’t seem to share his values. That’s all quite a combo.

7.) Richard Shindell – Richard Shindell is one of my favorite folk singers. He first came to my attention, I guess, when he sang with Dar Williams and Lucy Kaplansky as part of the folk supergroup Cry, Cry, Cry. I quickly became a fan of Shindell’s solo work, and I’ve seen him in concert several times. I’m a fan of his storytelling, particularly his ability to sing a song from so such different points of view. Two of my favorite Richard Shindell songs are “The Next Best Western,” sung from the point of view of a weary highway traveler, and “The Ballad of Mary Magdalen.” Here’s a snippet from the lyrics of the latter:

My name is Mary Magdalen
I come from Palestine
Please excuse these rags I’m in
But I’ve fallen on hard times
But long ago I had my work
When I was in my prime
But I gave it up, and all for love
It was his career or mine

Brilliant stuff. Shindell moved to Argentina two or three years ago, but he still manages to tour in the States. In fact, I’m seeing him in November (wanna come?), and I can’t wait.

8.) Georg Hackl – Hackl is the greatest luger of all time. Yes, really. Since I was a kid, I’ve been interested in the Olympics and—strangely, I know, for a kid from Oklahoma—especially in the Winter Olympics. So I’ve been following sports like luge, bobsledding, biathlon, and curling for a long time. And Hackl dominated his sport like no other. After winning the silver medal at the 1988 Calgary Games, he won three consecutive gold medals—in Albertville, Lillehammer, and Nagano. Although he was well into his 30s, Hackl won silver in 2002 in Salt Lake City. And earlier this year, when he was past 40 and injured, Hackl competed in his sixth Olympic Games, finishing a respectable seventh. I’m interested in his devotion to the sport and, these days, in how he’s coping with retirement in middle age. Unfortunately, I doubt I remember enough German from high school to have a productive conversation….

9.) John Sherba – I’m sure you’ve heard of the Kronos Quartet—the brilliant string quartet that’s famous for its boundary-pushing repertoire. I’m a big fan. When Kronos is profiled, though, the writer always introduces the reader to David Harrington, Kronos’s founder and first violinist. In fact, after many years of following Kronos, I still don’t feel like I know Sherba, the quartet’s other violinist. When I’ve seen Kronos in concert, Sherba seemed witty and interested. I’d like to find out if that’s true.

10.) Stephan Pastis – Do you know Pearls Before Swine, the comic strip? I hope so. There’s so much, er, swill on the comics page anymore that it’s barely worth a visit anymore. (Will someone please get Sally Forth’s husband a good divorce attorney? Please?) Pastis’s Pearls makes the comics page relevant again. I appreciate the daily dose of irreverence, as the foul-tempered Rat frequently gives the business to his “friend,” the sweet, innocent Pig. Pastis himself is interesting in several respects; for one thing, he left a law practice to produce Pearls. But what really makes me want to meet him is his willingness to take jabs at other comic strips. When he drew the Family Circus family unknowingly giving shelter to Osama bin Laden, well, that was just pure genius. And Pastis has skewered other worthy targets, including (ugh) Cathy and (ewww) Garfield. Pastis is really satirizing the comics page itself, and, gosh, that’s a worthy target these days.