The Paris Hilton Diaries

The Paris Hilton Diaries
by John Kenney

DAY 1: Arrived late Sunday night. So tired. Asked if I could check into my room immediately. Quite possibly the rudest concierge I have ever met. I told him he was fired. Not the effect I'd hoped for. And no, I did not register under the name "Little Miss Whore." What kind of hotel forces you to strip and delouse (maybe Marriott?). Although instead of a robe I got a fabulous orange jumpsuit with a cute number on it. Nothing to do at night. I'm told (as there was, like, no information in my room) that there is no bar or lounge area. ... more>>

Bits and Pieces (as my dad would say)

It's 1:00 AM and I'm out of my work uniform and into my sitting-at-home-listening-to-music duds.

Khaki shorts? Check.

Black Van Halen shirt? Check.

Tall, green bottle of Heineken? Oh yeah.

Home from work and listening to Tom Waits sing "Bend Down The Branches." It's the sweetest little lullabye. I sing it to my daughter from time to time, but I think I get more out of it than she does.

I started reading the most wonderful piece on Paul McCartney in the New Yorker last night and I finished it tonight. A few paragraphs are here, but you'll have to buy the issue to read it in its entirety. My dad often says that my youngest son has Paul McCartney's eyes. I see my mom and my dad's whole generation in Paul's eyes. As well as I know my parents and as well as I've always related to them, I often feel that I'm looking for and finding bits of them when I listen to Beatles songs or read interviews with members of the Beatles.

I'm nocturnal and nostalgic, but for days that preceded my 1969 birth. As my parents like to say, I was a child of the sixties -- born in December of '69, with two weeks to spare. I hope that I am to my children what my parents were (and are) to me. It'd be nice to think that at 37 years of age, they'll think of me with the same curiosities and respect that I hold for Granddad and Grandma Foxy (named by my oldest in reference to her dog whose name was Foxy).

I hope I'm not working 40+ hours a week away from their at-home routines just to be an absent father. It's for them and yet it takes me away from them. One is fast approaching adulthood with a lot of my own bad habits at hand. I'm so far away from him, both geographically and emotionally. I'm the weekend dad, but I work most weekends and lately he does as well. I should make more time to at least call him during the week, but my second shift hotel work makes it difficult. Not impossible, just difficult.

At the very least, these quiet nighttime hours find me at peace as I reflect and hope. Scarlett Johansson will finish her album of Tom Waits covers soon I trust. I am as anxious to hear her spin on his songs as I am to learn which songs she has chosen for the project. And then Southside Johnny is doing an album of Waits covers in a big band style. While I wait for those releases, I type and ponder while listening to Tom sing "Goodnight Irene."

By the way, if tonight's lottery ticket is The One, drinks are on me at East Nashville's Lipstick Lounge. Here's hoping.

(I'm missing a Finn. Be well, sweet Milla. Thanks for being my friend. I'd rather be...well, you know.)

Bend Down The Branches

The sky's as deep as it can be
Bend down the branches
Close your eyes and you will see
Bend down the branches

You're like a willow
Once you were gold
We're made for bending
Even beauty gets old
Climb the stairs they're not so steep
Bend down the branches

Close your eyes and go to sleep
Bend down the branches

Written by: Tom Waits and Kathleen Waits-Brennan
Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), © 1998/ 2006
Recorded at Prairie Sun Recording studios. Cotati, CA/ USA, 1998

The Songs of Insects

Heard on NPR:

Tuning out the chirps, peeps, and trills that make up summer's insect orchestra is easy to do.

But behind this musical melange is a world of distinctive insect personalities. For nature authors Lang Elliott and Wil Hershberger, capturing those personalities took six years and endless patience.

Their new book, Songs of Insects, brings 77 species of crickets, katydids, grasshoppers and cicadas to life. A companion CD invites you to listen in. ... more>>

This brings to mind Pink Floyd's "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict" from 1969's Ummagumma.

Love Quote

“Knowing love, I shall allow all things to come and go, to be as supple as the wind and take everything that comes with great courage. My heart is as open as the sky.” -Kama Sutra

iPod, iRisen?

Good news. I reached for my iPod today and found the problem with the click wheel no longer a problem. Not quite sure how that happened, but I'm happily thanking the iPod fairies for giving me back my music.

Still contemplating a 30 GB model with a video screen. Summer is here, and we get a break from daycare costs for the next seven weeks. Here's hoping we can make that happen.

"I was full of wonder when I left Murfreesboro"

At least in song, Tom Waits has traveled to quite the vast array of locales. In Tennessee alone, he's been to Mayor's Income ("What's He Building In There?"), Murfreesboro ("Pony"), and Baxter ("Putnam County").

Methinks Tom would be quite the tour guide if you really wanted to know a place in a way that the brochures never really show you.

Go to the Tom Waits Library to see where else Tom's been.

The Mark of a Great Writer

ESPN.com writer, Bill Simmons just made me forget that I don't care about basketball. I was two paragraphs into his piece on LeBron's captivating performance against the Celtics in Game 5, he had me wondering why in the world I didn't watch the most unforgettable performance in the NBA this year. I had to keep reminding myself that it's because I've never really been a fan anyway.

Ducks So Close

Sometimes the leader,

sometimes the follower,

always the protector.

Fix Or Go Refurbished?

A phone call to MacAuthority puts this 4 GB iPod mini's click wheel fix at a ballpark price of $75 or so. I'd like to own the larger 30+ GB iPod with a video screen by year's end, so I don't know if I want to drop substantial bucks on fixing what I've got right now.

I may decide to just go without while keeping a lookout for a refurbished model. Or I'll just buy a lottery ticket tomorrow and see what happens.

What to take when the kid's being a pill?

I wish there was a pill I could take that would make me as good and patient a parent to my kids as my parents were to me. The three year old is all joyful defiance and is completely unaffected by parental interference.

Time out? Pop on the butt? My head in a vice?

Man punished for using open Wi-Fi network

Found this at Boing Boing:

A Michigan man was arrested by police for accessing a coffee shop's public Wi-Fi hotspot. He was charged with a felony and faced up to 5 years in jail, but he took an offer of "paying a $400 fine, doing 40 hours of community service and staying on probation for six months." ... more>>

They Love, Cherish, And Cancel Each Other Out At The Polls

Fred Thompson may run. Mary Matalin, a former Bush advisor, is expected to play a role in his campaign if he does. I'm reminded that I'm always intrigued by the dynamic of Matalin's marriage to Democratic party strategist, James Carville.

I never watched MTV's Newlyweds, a reality show about Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson's young and short-lived marriage. I would, however, avidly watch the same type of show about these two political professionals. Married since 1993, and passionately opposed to one another politically, while sharing a life and home together, it would seem to me that their marriage was much more likely doomed from the start than that of Jessica and Nick's.

Personally, I'd love to hear them go back and forth about why one's candidate is the country's savior and the other one is simply a lying idiot, all the while, they are making domestic decisions together about the kids and whose turn it is to clear the dishes. If not a reality show, they could at least retire from politics and give couples' counseling to MTV generation newlyweds ("You think you two have disagreements? Listen to my husband's thoughts on health care reform. And I still love him.")

Of course, it's fun to think of Carville and Matalin as being polar opposites, but for them, I think it's more about the game of politics than the political ideology itself. Still, fourteen years of marriage is fourteen years of marriage. That's twice the sum of two Britney marriages (2 yrs, 55 hrs), one Jessica-Nick marriage (3 yrs), Billy Bob-Angelina (2 yrs), and Zellweger-Chesney (5 mos).

Good run, guys. Congrats on finding the love.

iDreamed it?

I woke up kind of hoping against hope that the whole broken iPod thing was just a dream.

No such luck.

[Edit to add: Good news. After looking around online at replacement part prices, I see no reason why getting someone to fix this shouldn't cost more than $50 or so. Does anyone have a recommendation as to where one would go for local repair? Thanks.]

I Vote Red

Admittedly, I'm a sucker for redheads.

But if today were election day, I'd vote Kucinich. His wife, Elizabeth, has me utterly smitten. All of that beauty and that accent as well? In the movie of her life, I see Nicole Kidman playing the role of First Lady Kucinich. Kidman's got the beauty, the red hair, and she certainly has experience acting alongside someone much shorter than herself. (Oooh, snarky!)

If I end up voting for Kucinich mainly because I find his wife to be fantastically beautiful, I won't find myself any worse of a voter than all of the people who voted for Bush because he seemed like the kind of guy they'd like to share a beer with. Please.

I promise to watch a lot of C-Span, read up on all of the candidates, and vote for the candidate who I believe speaks most honestly and expertly on the issues I value most. But right this minute, it's Kucinich by a landslide.

my iPod's click wheel must have run over a nail

My second favorite* material possession, my iPod, is more than likely on the fritz. Its wheel is slightly stuck inward and won't respond to my music and podcast loving commands. I somehow got it to work after much fidgeting, but I suspect that I can't rely on such fidgeting to work each and every time I need it to.

And so, Friday morning will find me seeking out local iPod repair shops and seeing how inexpensively I can get this electronic love of my life to work again. Surely, I can't afford a proper replacement, and I hate to think of a life without iPod for the unforeseeable future. I'm not above a life of crime though if that's what it takes to get Tom Waits and his peers singing through my earbuds once again.

I'm a wannabe minimalist without his much loved iPod mini.

*I wear my first favorite material possession on my left hand's ring finger.