National Merit Semi-Finalists

Back in high school, I was a National Merit Semi-Finalist. Not a Finalist, a Semi-Finalist. That's actually tougher to do than make it to the next round. Something like 80-90% of Semi-Finalists become Finalists, and at my school I was the only SF in my year, the year before me, or the year after me to accomplish that (that's about 1 in 40).

So that's my spin. Bexley High School has six NMSFs this year, most of whom will eventually become finalists (only 6, you say? Well, so say I as well, but I have a hypothesis... 5 of the 6 are boys, and I think that some of BPS's creme gets skimmed off and lands up at Broad and Drexel...). I happened to notice that Bexley High School's resident mayoral candidate wasn't on the list. Not a big deal, but it could have gone onto his campaign lit. Which got me wondering... Are any of our mayoral candidates National Merit Scholars? Would it be strange if none were? If anyone knows of a mayoral/council candidate who was a National Merit Scholar/Finalist/Semi-Finalist, or heck, even Phi Beta Kappa in college, drop me a line.

Off-Line Comments

I got a note from Bill Harvey today. Earlier today, I saw his competitor John Brennan going door-to-door on Euclaire and I pointed him out to my wife, who had missed his visit. When we got home, she read the Brennan lit and said something to the effect of "Parks and Rec, huh? That's as good a background as any, isn't it?" And I concurred. Something started nagging at me then, and it came to the surface when I got the email from Mr. Harvey - I've been a bit less than fair.

See, Mr. Harvey wrote to let me know that he did not leave the anonymous comment directing me to put up a link to his website, and that he would have, in fact, asked nicely. For the record, I never really thought it was him. I've had a bit of interaction with him now, and he has never been anything but polite, so I believe that part, too. I can certainly see, however, how anyone reading that post might have thought that I was trying to imply that he left the comment.

How does this relate to John Brennan? When my wife asked which one he was, I responded "the one with all the girls in t-shirts," not "the former Bexley Parks and Rec Director."

So far, as I've been following and writing about the municipal races, I've been following the Print/TV model of covering the horse race, rather than the issues. This allows the commentator to maintain a certain neutrality as to the caliber of the candidates as potential officeholders, by limiting opinions to the candidates in their role as candidates.

In my role as a blogger, I sometimes take advantage of the general perception of bloggers as bottom-feeding journalist wannabes to act like, well, a bottom-feeding journalist. I'm not above a bit of dehumanization. These folks running for office, however, are my neighbors. And furthermore, if I'm going to tease them, even simply as candidates, I should make sure my aim is a bit better.

So, Mr. Brennan, Mr. Harvey, I apologize. I'm still going to have fun writing, and I'm sure I'm still going to end up saying some things that I'll wish I'd said differently, but I will try to do at least a bit better.

John Edwards in Columbus - Cheap.

John Edwards is coming to Columbus next week to do a fundraiser at $15 per ticket. Reservations can be made at that same link. Cheaper than a Hannah Montana ticket, and almost as likely to sell out.

Some Mayor Update Stuff

The Bexley Democratic ward captains are apparently meeting tonight to decide on an endorsement among the three Bexley mayoral candidates who are seeking it: Minckler, Jones, and Harvey. I tried to wrangle an invite, but the meeting is an understandably private affair. On Wednesday, the Franklin County Dems* will be announcing endorsements for municipal races throughout the county. I'm not expecting high drama, but I am going to try to be there.

Speaking of Dem #3, Bill Harvey, I received a request (well, I'll take it as a request... I certainly understand the tone given the context, and there was a mix-up with some prior email, but even bloggers prefer to be asked politely. ahem.) to put up the link to the Harvey for Mayor Website, so I will do so shortly. In the meantime, every candidate seems to say that they plan to knock on every door in Bexley. Well, the race to be the first to knock on bonobo's door is over, and the winner is: John Brennan. Matt Lampke may have multiple rounds of mailings, Bill Minckler may have had more face time, and the younger candidates will probably end up with more free media, but Brennan has the teenage girls and the golden-shoe-leather award.




*I've made some snide comments about the FCDP website in the past, and even made some pretty negative inferences based upon the lack of contact/outreach I've perceived. They've got a new website, and a new executive director. Things are looking up. Here's hoping for a county party worthy of its supporters.

Navel Gazing

Although this website is primarily concerned with political and community issues, it has also served as my personal blog. I usually warn my broader audience when a post has nothing to do with politics or Bexley.

This is one of those posts. Feel free to move along.

Under the Rocks and Stones


It's not as if I'm middle-aged. I'm in my mid 30's, and given the retardation of development during my twenties, I'm even a somewhat undercooked 36. But on the recent occasion of hearing "Once in a Lifetime" by the Talking Heads, I found myself intensely reactive to the piece. It's not simply the lyrics, but the lyrics are what grab:

And you may find yourself

In a beautiful house

With a beautiful wife

And you may ask yourself:

Well, how did I get here?



Letting the days go by.

Letting the water hold me down.

I've always wondered whether or not artists that write and/or record songs about birthdays and anniversaries, holidays and Fridays, are banking on a lifetime of royalty income. Everyone has birthdays. Christmas happens every year, to everybody in Western Civilization, like it or not. "Pet Sounds" may be one of the most critically celebrated recordings of the 20th Century, but I'll bet you a dollar that the next time I hear "Run, Run, Rudolph" comes sooner than the next time I hear "God Only Knows" or "Sloop John B." So I can't help but wonder if David Byrne and Brian Eno had it in the back of their heads that a significant proportion of their listeners would, in fact, find themselves in the midst of completely inexplicable domestic beauty at some point, and would furthermore fail to merely accept the situation. That the existential dilemma plays out in entirely predictable ways for the middle class white kids who dig art-punk music.

Regardless of whether or not the reach of the song was calculated in any way, I'm now in that proportion. I'm here, and I'm not sure how or why. What's worse, I look to the song for analogical assistance, and it only makes things worse. The last two lines I quote above, from the chorus, do they describe the "how" in the last line of the verse, or the "here?" The distinction is crucial. Have I arrived here, at what is essentially a very successful intermediate outcome, by letting the days go by, by going with the invisible envelope of flows? Or have I just now completely lost momentum and control, lulled through momentary comfort into a complacency that renders me powerless against time and tide?

You may ask yourself, well, how did I get so melodramatic? That one's easy, listening to the post-punk music channels aimed squarely at my demographic. You see, now that I have a beautiful house and a beautiful wife, I'm worth marketing to, so I get digital music tailored to my tastes. And though I can certainly listen to bands like The Killers and The Rapture and Shiny Toy Guns, I generally don't. I listen to the music I listened to from ages 14-22, when everything mattered. The juxtaposition of music from my overwrought adolescence with my current generic adulthood, however, creates additional meaning that wouldn't exist otherwise. When I was 20, rock musician seemed like a pretty good career. Not a realistic career choice, I recognized that, but nice work if you could get it. But now, at that ripe old age of 36, I understand things I certainly didn't understand back then. If I'm David Byrne, or Tina Weymouth, or whatever, would I want to be 50 and be introduced as "a Talking Head?" Bands are projects, bands are brands. Talking Head is a gig, not a career. Unfortunately, however, if I'm David Byrne, or even moreso, if I'm Tina Weymouth, it's even worse when I'm 50 and being introduced as "a former Talking Head..." How did I get here???

So David Byrne became Barnum to Peter Gabriel's Bailey in barking for World Music, and Jerry Harrison went on to produce a bunch of records, and Tina and Chris Frantz are living happily ever after as far as I know (and don't tell me if I'm wrong). They knew how they got there. They stopped. They went somewhere else. Twenty years later, I'm here. I'm doing a job I never planned on doing, and my response to my unhappiness there is not to look for something else to do, but someone else to do it for (letting the water...), and a better motivation to do it. I love my beautiful wife, and I'm quite attached to my beautiful house. Am I right? Am I wrong? My God, what have I done?

My old blog was called The Inactivist. The name was meant to convey that although doing something was better than talking about doing something, perhaps talking about not doing anything was marginally better than simply not doing anything. Writing about the river doesn't stop it from running, but commiting your days to text is not equivalent to letting them go by. So same, I guess, as it ever was.