Hey, Kids…check out the write-up for the novel “Out of Time” on the HWA (Horror Writers’ Association) official blog.
There was more to the write-up when I gave it to the Dark Whisperer poster, mainly about Michael McCarty’s Bram Stoker nominations and previous awards, but he did not post the entire article as I provided it. However, he was kind enough to post it very quickly, which is good during the holiday book buying season.
(Thanks, Vince!)
One of Santa’s elves stopped by our house the other night to drop off a toy for our geriatric cat, Kitty Kelley. She proceeded to spend the next two days camped out in the “cat house.”
Our larger (and younger) cat, Lucy, is too fat to fit inside, it seems, so Kitty Kelley has a place that is all her own. She would be fatter, too, if Lucy didn’t eat all her food.
Merry Christmas, cats, from Andy, the Christmas Elf!
Today’s journey took us from Sedona (AZ) through a tiny corner of Nevada (Loughlin) on into California. Along the way, we stopped in Williams (AZ), Seligman and Kingman (AZ), and are now in Barstow, California.
Williams was the last town to capitulate when Route 66 was officially decommissioned. They fought in the courts, but finally lost the battle. Now, Williams has some downtown displays, a purportedly haunted bar called “The Black Cat,” and, according to the woman who assisted me at a roadside gas station, her own house is haunted. (Mainly by a cat belonging to the previous owner who built it.)
Seligman had a Polar Express train display, but little else.
Kingman has a haunted motel called the Beale Hotel on Main Street, and another place where a local doctor took his victims to murder them.
It took from 11 a.m. until 8 p.m. to reach Barstown, California, where we are now.
Sunny Arizona (temperatures predicted in the 70’s until Thanksgiving) beckoned this morning, as we set off from Gallup to Flagstaff and then to Sedona on our tour of the Southwest, Route 66 and other interesting places that are hopefully warmer than the Midwest at this point in time. As established in a previous dispatch, we can now scratch Roswell, NM, from the list of interesting places, despite the fact that we drove hours out of our way to visit the alien museum there.
Most of the places mentioned on our Route 66 map didn’t have an address next to it that you could plug into our operating GPS system. Meteor City looked like we’d be driving quite a way out of our way to see a hole in the ground. (Can’t compare with the World’s Largest Ball of Twine!) I had a friend (Linda Henderson Hearn) who had a meteor in her backyard for years, so I was pretty blasé about driving out of our way to see this crater.
Therefore, we stuck to I40 until Flagstaff and then I selected one (of four) locations to try to GPS in, within Flagstaff, as a “tourist attraction.” The one I selected was known as the Museum Club. It wasn’t that I was that set on seeing the Museum Club; it was just that none of the other Route 66 era motels that were listed came up on the GPS, so the Museum Club it was, for lunch and a wonderful time. The place was great! I highly recommend it. I could easily have lost several hours in the dark fun place.
The bartender, Jane Bliss, is a treasure. She even was given a plaque recently, commemorating her 10 years behind the bar, which is a very dark, very picturesque old woody Route 66 place that has a lot of history surrounding it, ghosts, AND off-track betting!
Jane was only too happy to show me the tree that exists inside the club on the dance floor, which has quite a history. It seems that, in the old days, an African American was shot, hanged and burned from this very tree. (The bullet holes are still visible.) There it sits, right smack in the middle of the dance floor. No wonder the place is supposed to be haunted as hell! I went to the tree and whispered, “Barack Obama is President now!” I’d like to think that this poor allegedly innocent victim smiled somewhere in heaven.
I was told numerous stories about the various strange goings-on inside the Museum Club and strange they were! (You’ll have to wait for Volume II of “Ghostly Tales of Route 66” to hear them, though.) The girl placing pari-mutuel bets for the patrons told me some that were especially convincing. (Stay tuned and hang on to that idea).
From the Museum Club patrons, we learned that the haunted places to visit in Flagstaff were Monte Vista Hotel (this place is REALLY haunted!); lots of stories— the Weatherford Hotel, and the Riordan Mansion, reputedly the oldest house in Flagstaff. As we stopped by the Visitors’ Information Bureau, located inside the old train station, I learned from Justin Connors, the Native American visitors’ information representative, that the old train station itself is perhaps haunted by a brakeman who died there in an accident.
From Jane Bliss at the Museum Club, we were advised to take the scenic route (i.e. Oak Creek Canyon, the 89A exit off Highway 17) to Sedona, rather than the route the GPS would map for us. It was a twisting, turning drive through canyons lined with signs that urge you to “watch out for falling rocks” (some of the canyons actually have netting on the sides to prevent drivers from being hit by these falling rocks) and, also, some very futuristic homes that made me wonder if Frank Lloyd Wright designed them during his Arizona phase.
We eventually reached our destination: Sedona, Arizona, a lovely tourist town carved from the glories of the Grand Canyon, where our room tonight has a fireplace and is right off the pool. Tomorrow night, we dine at L’Auberge de Sedona, purportedly one of the cities’ nicer resorts, but one that was full up for the 2 nights we will be here.
A local Flagstaff newspaper “The Lumberjack,” put out by students at Northern Arizona University, had a front-age story entitled “Nationwide Protest Denounces Anti-gay Legislation” by Ashley Barela and, right next to it, a story by Jill Hallquist entitled “Homeless Shelters Packed in Winter” that detailed how the Sunshine Rescue Mission in Flagstaff just celebrated 51 years of community service in September and serves breakfast at 6:30 a.m., lunch at noon and dinner at 7 p.m. to the cities’ less fortunate homeless folk.
Palmer Williams, one of the Sunshine Rescue Mission’s three full-time coordinators, who has worked there for 7 years, said, “It’s very hard to be homeless in Flagstaff, especially in the winter time.” Somehow, I think that sentiment would go double for a colder climate, like Chicago or Minneapolis. [Maybe triple if you’re in Fargo, North Dakota or International Falls, Minnesota.]
The evening newscast announced that unemployment in Arizona has hit 6.1% with 30,000 people out of work and that Mesa, in particular, is gearing up to make “significant reductions” in staff. Chris Brady, the City administrator, says that 389 positions will be gone within the next 18 months, with measures like reducing the number of responding officers to an emergency medical call from 4 to 2. The city of Buckeye (AZ) is also experiencing a budget crisis, and figures about the nation’s young people (ages 25 to 35) indicate that, between 1985 and 2005, their income dropped 30% while their levels of debt rose by 44%. On the radio as I type this, I hear reports that 1 out of every 2 businesses in the U.S. is going to announce lay-offs this year, coming from the cheesy-sounding voice of that guy who sings stuff like Yanni-style music (John Tesh) and used to do Entertainment Tonight with Mary Hart.
On the bright side, one Arizona resident who has a shot at upping her income significantly is Janet Napolitano, the current Governor of the state (the 25th Governor, but only the 3rd female in Arizona history). She has been offered a position in the Obama Administration as Secretary of Homeland Security.
The 13-story Quixote Press book “Ghostly Tales of Route 66” is now available by going to Barnes & Noble.com or calling 1-800-571-2665.
The stories are set along Route 66 between Chicago and California and were researched by the authors, Connie (Corcoran) Wilson and Bram Stoker Finalist Michael McCarty.
The books cost $10. If you order from Quixote, be prepared to add $3.50 for postage and handling.
During December and January, at the River Music Experience in Davenport (IA), authors will be available to sell and autograph the book(s), and you will avoid all shipping charges. (Consult RME schedules for times of the “live” concert series.)
The video below, courtesy of Stacey Wilson (Connie’s daughter) is posted on YouTube, where it has become a viral phenomenon.
You should also check out www.outoftimethenovel.com for the latest 80,000 word offering from the dynamic duo.
The River Music Experience hosted “live” sessions of five bands on Monday, November 10, 2008 and the sessions were filmed by the Quad City Times for online posting. Arts and entertainment editor David Burke was there to cover the event, which promises to become even better on Tuesday, when the live sessions continue.
I missed the very first band because of an accident on the bridge and the slow traffic on the one-lane River Drive. They were listed as Sinjo Thraw Mash (noise).
Next up were The Unforgiven, consisting of Emily Majetic on guitar and vocals, Paige Kakert on bass guitar, Kayline Malzewski, and Austin Drake on drums. Austin is an 8th grader at Wilson Junior High School in Moline, and both Emily and Kayline are also Wilson Junior High School students. Paige attends Wood Intermediate School in Davenport. All very cute kids. Lots of chutzpah to get up there and sing when they are so young.
Second band was “Bumper Crop,” featuring Craig Smith on vocals and guitar, Justin Moulton on guitar and backing vocals; Dustin Roelle on bass guitar, Joe Hale on drums and Adam Smith on samples and turntables. One of the band members was holding an ice pack to his face moments before showtime and said he’d shut the car door on his head. The drummer for this group was especially good.
“40 Minute Detour” played next, featuring lead singer Chad Clarke, drummer Josh Morrissey and bass player Josh Elmer (AKA, “the new guy”). Josh Morrissey graduated from Wethersfield High School in Kewanee. He spent some time at Augustana before moving to DeKalb and attending Northern Illinois University, majoring in audio engineering. He has a physics degree in that field. When I said I didn’t know that Northern Illinois had an engineering program, he said he had constructed a contract major field where you write up your own major and submit it to the Powers-that-Be and that the field was mostly a physics degree. What does Josh do now for a day job? He works as a metal artist in Bishop Hill, Illinois. Josh is 30 years old, is very cute, and is unmarried.
I asked if he might not find that he has to move to a larger city to pursue his field and he did acknowledge, “I might have to move somewhere else.” One of the band members lives in Port Byron and they practice there “one to two times a week.” When asked what gigs they have played, Josh mentioned the River Music Experience and (in days of yore) the Brew ‘N View (Rock Island.) Both “Bumper Crop” and “40 Minute Detour” (so named because lead singer and songwriter Chad Clarke gets lost a lot and may suffer from “directional dyslexia”) were very good bands.
Also excellent was the evening’s closing act, Tennessee Tony Cavett and Greg Wilde on harmonica. Tennessee Tony has only been in the area about 4 years but that was long enough for him to meet and marry Connie, who works as a surgical nurse at the River Bend Animal Clinic. Born in Chattanooga, Tony said he had been playing music “since I was about 10.”
Tony’s grandmother was the bartender at the only bar at the Nashville airport and, as such, she met a lot of famous singers. She used to take pity on the struggling singers and songwriters she met and she ended up handling all RCA parties for FanFair. “One morning I came downstairs and there was Kris Kristofferson, passed out on our pool table,” said Tony, adding that this was before Kristofferson had made it big. He also reminisced about the time that Brenda Lee sang “Happy Birthday” to him on his 13th birthday. He has met many of the greats in Tennessee, such as Willie Nelson and Ray Charles.
How, exactly, did Tennessee Tony end up in Moline, Illinois?
It’s a long story that involves Hurricane Ike, the Rick Etheridge Tree Service in Moline, Tony’s being out of work and heading to the storm-ravaged area seeking employment. He didn’t find much work, but he met Rick and Rick invited him to come visit in Moline, Illinois if he ever got up here. (Tony was heading to Chicago at the time). One thing led to another and Tony spent the summer in Moline before meeting the lovely Connie and finding employment with a Wisconsin-based telecommunications firm called Network Engineering Techniques, which does all the telecommunications work for Sam’s Club and Walmarts in the Midwest. Tony mentioned “Jason and the Scorchers,” a band that was big in the seventies, and now is in to alternative C&W rock. The “Times” just did a story on them recently.
Tony’s set list, before he left with his lovely bride, included covers of “Midnight Special,” “Singin’ the Blues,” “Talk to Your Daughter,” “Ever Seen the Rain,” “Long Gone Loves Blues,” “You Ain’t Goin Nowhere,” “Hopelessly Hoping” and “Can’t Find My Way Home.” Two original songs that he and his partner sang were entitled “Surrender’s Ferry Lane” and “Painkillers.”
If you read this on Tuesday, stop on down to the River Music Experience where there will be another set of 4 to 5 bands playing “live” and being filmed for the internet. The price was right (i.e., FREE.)
Another attraction will be co-author Mike McCarty (Bram Stoker Finalist, 2005, and Midwest Writing Center Writer of the Year) and me selling and signing copies of our two new books: Ghostly Tales of Route 66 and the sci-fi thriller/romance/adventure novel Out of Time. (For more information on us, go to www.outoftimethenovel.com.) These will make great gifts for those hard-to-buy-for friends, are only $10 and $15 (respectively) and we’ll sign them. (Heck! I’ll even draw a picture of Snoopy on the inside cover if you ask me nicely!) How many other local authors with 80,000 word novels in print can you find while listening to at least five bands absolutely free. With the money you save on a cover charge, BUY A BOOK! (You KNOW you want to!!!)
Republican Presidential candidate John McCain visited Davenport, Iowa and held a rally at the RiverCenter at 136 E.3rd St on Saturday, October 11, 2008. It was the day after his Vice Presidential running mate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, was found guilty by a bi-partisan committee in Anchorage (AL) of abusing her power as Governor to have a commissioner fired who refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper.
The rally was scheduled for 10 a.m. and the National Anthem was sung by Nick Boyd of Rock Island, a young student from the Illinois Quad Cities, who did a wonderful job. [His voice has not changed yet, however; one wonders whether that pure high tone will stay with him into adulthood.] Nick had previously sung the National Anthem at a Cubs game.
The stage was decked out with a John Deere tractor to the right, amidst some fake foliage, as Moline, Illinois, in the Quad Cities is the international headquarters of Deere & Company.
I sat on the Press risers next to two sixth grade students from Rivermont Collegiate Prep School whose teacher, Leigh Ann Schroeder (a fifth grade teacher) had engineered press passes for her charges. Madeline Bowman, daughter of Carrie and Jerry Bowman, and Lollie Telleen, daughter of Amy and John Telleen, are two of just 12 students in the prestigious but pricey private school located in Bettendorf, Iowa. They seemed excited to be there and even helped by snapping a photo of me.
My old boss, Bill Wundram of the Quad City Times wandered by quite late in the game, and, later, said that “they all start to seem the same” of his over 50 years in the news game.
The Blue Devil (Davenport Central) Dance Team did a good job of keeping the crowd amused and occupied while we waited for McCain’s entrance, which was to good effect as the Straight Talk Express drove right into the auditorium, which held about 3,000 faithful fans.
I was very interested to see if there were going to be ugly scenes in this basically polite part of the nation. There was one protester who, at 11:22 a.m., was hoisted onto her male friend’s shoulders and unfurled a banner that read War Is Over. They were promptly escorted out and McCain’s retort was, “There are some people who just don’t get it/.” He went on to say that Americans don’t want to hear us yelling at one another.
Before the rally got started, the Master of Ceremonies had noted that, in 2000, Iowa was lost to the Democrats by 2 votes per precinct. In 2004, it was won by the Republicans by 3 votes per precinct. The message was clear, but the margin, this year, may be quite different.
The backdrop on the stage read, in large white on blue letters: REFORM, PROSPERITY and PEACE. I thought about those three banner words. Palin was brought into the race as an agent of “reform,” and it now looks as though she, herself needs to reform. PROSPERITY? We all wish for prosperity, in the face of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. PEACE? Another sigh and another prayer for deliverance.
The music that ushered McCain into the hall was not the usual Country and Western nor the rock-and-roll anthems that some (Jackson Browne, John Cougar Mellencamp, et. al.) have asked the Republicans not to use. It was a rather somber orchestral score, and it led into the remarks that McCain made, such as, “At this time of crisis, we must go to the heart of the problem and, right now, that problem is the housing crisis.”
The Men with the Big Cameras (national media) swept in around 11:10 a.m., but there were fewer of them than at the Cedar Rapids rally and the tripod count was more like 13 than the huge numbers that usually accompany traveling Presidential candidates.
McCain announced, “I’m so happy to be here in the state of Iowa where there are good family values.” Fifteen seconds into his speech, he used his favorite phrase, “My friends.”
McCain: “One thing I hear from America is that they’re angry.” ( I began to question whether this was a wise segue, in light of recent outbursts at other rallies.) “We’ll turn Washington upside down,” said McCain, adding, “I know how to do that” in reference to getting the economy back on track. The GOP candidate went on to say that he would order the Secretary of the Treasury to carry out a home ownership program, to replace high interest mortgages with affordable ones. “There’s so much on the line. The moment requires a government act,” said McCain.
Just before the female protester unfurled her anti-war banner and was unceremoniously hauled out of the hall, McCain said, “Which candidate’s experience in life make him a better leader? In short, who’s ready to lead?” I thought about this and wondered if this statement worked for or against McCain, who does have many years in the Senate—some of them quite contentious— but does not have the global ties that bind Obama, such as ties to Africa and years spent living abroad in the Philippines. Obama is more an “outsider” than Palin, with his birthplace of Hawaii, but he has Midwest roots, courtesy of his white Kansas grandparents.
McCain made reference to earmarks in a criticism of the “$3 million study of the DNA of bears in Montana.” He failed to mention the two weird and expensive earmark studies that Alaskans asked for and got, to study mating habits of crabs, as I remember one of them.
McCain got a big round of applause when he suggested, “Stop sending $700 billion in aid to foreign countries that don’t like us very much.” He also referenced Obama’s “We need a scalpel, not a hatchet” debate rejoinder in Nashville by saying, “Right now, we need a hatchet and a scalpel.”
McCain, again, expressed his capability of “confronting the $10 trillion debt” with his mantra, “I can do that.” He promised to “balance the federal budget before the end of my term,” which seemed very optimistic for any candidate of either party, at this point in time. He offered no specifics.
There were attacks on Obama: “We’ve all heard what he’s said, but it’s less clear what he’s done or what he will do.” He as good as called Obama a liar saying, “I wouldn’t seek advice (in truthfulness) from a Chicago politician.” [Gee, and just when I thought the Republican candidate was going to take the high road for a while, as when he told the misinformed woman in another state at another rally that, no, Obama was not an Arab and expressed admiration for his life story.
At 11:30 a.m. there were shouts of protest from the crowd as McCain spoke of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and accused Obama of remaining silent in reining in their excesses before the crisis and of taking money from these agencies for his campaign. McCain repeated the line accusing Obama of fining employers who don’t put employees in a federal health program he supports, and repeated a line from the Belmont debate, “He won’t specify the amount of the fine for not insuring employers.” Someone shouted out “accountability” at that point. It was unclear whether it was someone who was for McCain or against him.
McCain, again on the attack, went on to accuse Obama of wanting to raise debt by $860 billion dollars.” I swear that the first time he mentioned the figure, he said $850 billion; the next time, it had been raised by $10 billion. (What’s $10 billion or so when we’re dug into debt this deep?)
In his attack against earmarks (federal pork attached to bills), McCain was particularly incensed by Obama’s support for the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois to receive funding for a new lens. I live across the street from the Adler Planetarium. I am glad they got the new funding, as it is a major tourist attraction in Chicago. After all, Obama is the junior Senator from Illinois, and it makes more sense than either of the earmark programs mentioned previously.
A memorable quote, but one which made me uneasy: “You don’t have to wonder if there will be change if I am elected. You know there’ll be change if I’m elected.”
At 25 minutes to 12 noon, McCain thanked every veteran in the house and added of the many conflicts we are now engaged in (thanks to 8 years of Republican leadership, poor intelligence, etc., which includes Iraq, Afghanistan, et. al.) “I will bring them (our troops) home with victory and honor and not in defeat.” [I immediately thought to myself in alarm, “Unless they’re killed or seriously wounded before the 100 years is up that you have previously said we should stay and fight.”]
McCain vowed to “fight for you and put the government back on the side of the people.” He added, “I know I can inspire a generation of Americans to serve a cause greater than their self-interest.” Again, I wondered whether the next generation will be more inspired by the almost 73-year-old McCain and his Alaskan running mate, or by the 47-year-old Obama and Joe Biden from Delaware.
At 20 minutes of noon, just before the rally ended, McCain made a reference to the United States Naval Academy and there was a huge round of applause and big cheers from behind him. Showing the good humor showcased to good effect on many “Saturday Night Live” appearances, McCain turned and said, “Naval Academy graduates, I guess,” with a shrug.
And then the rally was over and we all exited into the bright, sunny 80-degree weather to find out whether the University of Iowa Hawkeyes would beat Indiana’s football team in their Big Ten contest (they did).
And, soon, we’ll see if the Old Warrior can beat the odds, fend off his Republican ties to the least popular President of all time, and pull out what is now an upset win against the junior Senator from Illinois, AKA “that one,” which state is just across the I74 bridge I took home.
Today (September 24), John McCain announced that he was suspending his campaign in order to rush back to Washington, D.C., to help solve the nation’s financial crisis. This is a little like sending a pyromaniac into a burning building to put out the fire he started. John McCain was one of the chief voices railing against governmental regulation…until the you-know-what-hit the fan.
John McCain is also the candidate who has openly admitted he “knows nothing about the economy.”[Barack Obama, on the other hand, has 3 former Secretaries of the Treasury advising him and is a Harvard graduate (as compared to McCain’s graduating fifth from the bottom of his class, and that, arguably, only because his father and grandfather were both Admirals.)
Voters on AOL’s main blog, when asked whether it was a good or a bad idea for McCain to suspend his campaign activities, voted 55% no and 45% yes with 303,501 total votes cast at midnight. In regards to postponing the debates, the “no” vote was even higher, with 58% saying “no,” 38% saying “yes” (not people who have bought a plane ticket to fly there to attend, obviously), and 4% saying they were “unsure” with 297,018 votes cast.
It is so patently obvious that whenever the Republicans are struggling in their uphill battle against the facts they either throw the facts, themselves under the bus (or train) or, failing that, they hike off to visit a natural disaster like Hurricane Gustav during the Republican National Convention. This time, rather than weather, they are citing the decline and fall of the American empire (aka, the current budget crisis) in order to avoid doing their debating duty. The rest of the time the Republican Presidential and Vice Presidential are apparently hiding out in Cheney’s bunker or coffin or wherever it is that our current Darth Vader VP keeps his guns, his defibrillator, and himself.
McCain also suggested not having Friday night’s debate, scheduled for the University of Mississippi in Oxford on Friday, September 26th, but postponing it. Barack Obama responded in a Clearwater, Florida news conference, “It’s my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess.” He added, “It’s going to be part of the President’s job to deal with more than one thing at a time.”
Point well taken. Also, the Commission on Presidential Debates has been working out the details of these appearances for literally months, I know that I have been jumping through hoops along with AC news personnel to attempt to get Press Credentials for the second Presidential debate, scheduled for October 7th, Tuesday, on campus at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, for literally months. If the first debate is pushed back, it will cause a domino effect and all other debates will have to be pushed back, including the third debate set for Wednesday, October 15th on campus at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.
I know from my daughter’s firsthand reports that the campus in Nashville has been working on arrangements for this debate for months and months. The place is lousy with Secret Service and the countdown has been going on since the beginning of the school year. It is completely inconsiderate to those organizations, sites and that Commission, as well as unnecessary, for the debates to be postponed or canceled, and it is clearly a political ploy on McCain’s part. McCain is not a particularly skilled speaker, yet he has constantly gone after Barack Obama, claiming that Obama won’t debate him in Town Hall meetings, when the truth is that there have always been three such meetings that an independent commission has been working out the details of for months, and now McCain, not Obama, is the one who wants to torpedo all the hard work that the groups and campuses and Secret Service have put in.
The way in which McCain handled this new idea for weaseling out of debating was particularly unsavory. The two candidates for President had just spoken on the phone and agreed to try to work together for the good of the country in solving the economic crisis and trying to get bi-partisan support for some kind of financial bailout. Then, as Obama put it, “When I got back to the hotel, he (McCain) had gone on television to announce what he was going to do.” Not really the sporting way, is it?
It has not escaped the attention of those, like Senator Harry Reid (D, Nevada) that McCain is trying to divert attention from his fading campaign and the issue on which he is weakest: the economy. Yet Senator Lindsey Graham, McCain’s advisor, announced that he would not attend the debate(s) “unless there is an agreement that would provide a solution” to the financial crisis, and that, furthermore, this solution would have to be publicly endorsed by Obama. Meanwhile, “W” has stepped in to call the two campaigning candidates to the White House to meet and talk and work together for the good of the country. Now I’m really alarmed: the last person I want guiding any kind of solution is the most inept President in history! Give George a pretzel and a beer and let him eat it while trying not to choke, but keep him away from being “the Decider.” Please!
As a person who has already secured lodging, a plane ticket, and all the other things necessary to be in attendance at the Presidential debate on the advertised-far-in-advance date in Nashville in October, I’m opposed to pulling the plug on an open discussion of the very issues we most need to be exposing the American citizens to so that we can safeguard the future of this country.
Al Gore was seated directly behind me (Section 101, Row 35) in the Skybox at Invesco Field at Mile-High Stadium in Denver, Colorado on August 28th, the night that Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for President.
Also visible inside the skybox at various times were Oprah Winfrey, Kanye West and other notable celebrities. In town during the four-day event were Jennifer Lopez, Sean Penn, Cindy Lauper, Ben Affleck and Jennnifer Garner, Steven Spielberg (who I did get a side shot of), Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Charlize Theron and her boyfriend, Stuart Townsend, and a cast of literally thousands (delegates, press, volunteers, etc.).
I got to the stadium at 2 p.m. to get a good seat, and it was good enough that the main press officer for the German Embassy was seated directly in front of me and Mo Rocca was within a few yards of my placement.
More pictures to follow
I walked down to the Bennigan’s opposite the Art Institute in Chicago on Tuesday, July 29th, planning on having a nice lunch inside this always-busy restaurant, which, I have learned, was, in fact, the busiest restaurant in the entire chain.
Imagine my surprise when, taped to the window (see picture) was a sign that told me it was closed. I haven’t been that surprised since…well, since I drove to Cheddar’s in Davenport, Iowa—another very busy and popular restaurant—and had exactly the same experience.
Bennigan’s filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Tuesday (apparently) and closed all 150 of its corporate-owned stores, including the Jewel in its Crown, the Bennigan’s in Chicago at 225 N, Michigan Avenue. The stark sign said it all: “Closed for business as of Tuesday, July 29.” Apparently even the employees were surprised, because one of them, Caleb Kosek, age 24, had just shown up for his first day of work, only to learn that the Metromedia Restaurant Group, which owned 150 of the cafes (another 140 are franchisee-owned) was now defunct.
Metromedia is owned by a billionaire named John Kluge, but he wasn’t responding to requests for comments on Tuesday. There were lots of Bennigan’s in the Chicago area, but only one (in Elgin) and three in northwest Indiana are owned by franchisees. It is also true that the area around the Art Institute is not exactly lousy with restaurants, so this location was primo.
Other restaurant chains in the “medium” price range are suffering as well, most notably Cheddar’s, mentioned above, Steak & Ale and Village Inn. In the chilly economic climate we are experiencing, people are either eating at fast food chains like McDonald’s or they are eating at home. Ruby Tuesday and Applebee’s stock (I own one share) were trading at their lowest ever, as a result of the glut of restaurants like these and T.G.I.F. abroad in the land at a time when jobs are in short supply, the minimum wage has been raised and food prices are soaring faster than the ice cap is melting.
But watching Bennigan’s on Michigan Avenue and a chain in business since 1976 go belly-up is still painful for those of us with a yen for a MonteCristo sandwich.
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