BLOGBAT TRAVELBLOG: MEMPHIS, KIEV
World’s Best Bar-B-Que (Outside of Texas)
Well, my thanksgiving was a good one since once again it was spent in Memphis where I make the yearly pilgrimage to one of my favorite BBQ spots on the planet: Rendezvous. If you ever have the chance to eat at this restaurant and want the world’s best waiter, ask for Percy. He’s the best of the best – and has been for many, many years now. But if you plan to visit around the holidays, you’d better make your reservation a bit in advance. Think months. The line outside the restaurant the day after Thanksgiving (the day we chose to venture for our annual BBQ) was long and wound up the stairs and outside and across the street- the wait was two hours for these noble and tortured souls who could only smell what awaited them. I thought about that as we passed them all and took our appointed seats and had the sausage, ham and cheese appetizer set before us. Fortunately for us, the Memphis clan of my family is as close as teeth and gums with the owner of Rendezvous and is known there (along with most of Memphis) so we were able to walk in and be seated unannounced. And while I can sympathize with those waiting in line (and would do the same, for just a bite) I was certainly glad to get my ribs in better fashion.
We also had the pleasure of running into a recent West Point grad while we were there. The former cadet spotted the WP ’64 logo on my father’s shirt. I don’t think I’ve heard him being addressed as “sir” so much since he coached my soccer team many, many moons ago. The grad was a sharp fellow and inspired nothing but the greatest hopes and expectations for our military’s future – I think we can all rest just a little bit easier knowing that the more things change the more they stay the same, as they say, and our country is definately in good hands.
Rendezvous is by far one of the world’s finest and, were it not for Texas Bar-B-Que, would in fact be the world’s finest, even though some say the comparison isn’t quite fair since the taste buds of the two regions are really about as similar as apples and oranges. Or pigs and cows. At any rate, I have another reason to be a Texas Bovine holdout: My grandparents (from Pennsylvania, no less!) own a BBQ restaurant in Dallas which Texas Monthly dubbed one of Texas’ (ergo, the world’s) best. Cow about that?
Harold Ford Jr. for President?
Word is among those who know him some considered his work for the Kerry camp as possible grooming for a 2012(?) presidential bid. The Ford and Kerry families go back a little bit, so this was also a bit of a favor, as I understand it. Of course Harold seems to play quite a bit more the centrist than the man he was shortly ago working for and the big question is if Hillary fails in ’08, will he be poised for a shot at 1600 Penn. And then there’s Barach Obama, the popular freshman senator from Illinois, who won handily in that practically non-contested race and about whom many Democrats are quietly whispering not-so-hushed things about their promised Elisha. Certainly Either Ford or Obama have a better chance than Hitlery Clinton unless of course she henceforth plays the middle. And in fact the Dems are already trying to play the “we’re religious too” card that worked so convincingly well for Carter in 1980…
Whether Ford, Obama or Clinton become the champion candidate in ’08 or ’12, he or she will need to learn that cynically mimicking the values of the heartland (or condescendingly twisting those values to use against heartlanders) will be spotted by all but the most chemically dependent. The only way to win is to shoot straight. Well that and actually believe what the American people believe. For all of that, I believe Ford Jr. is sincere and genuine both poltically and personally, and have along with quite a few others for quite some time. But still, on many the key issues de politique he is nevertheless wrong.
Blogbat Blog Migration Update
While I did finish up my new start page for the new blog this weekend, not a lot of progress was able to be made on the actual blog because my aunt had some serious issues with her wireless router, which prevented me from getting out there.
Dial-up? Only if it’s life & death, my friend.
There is also apparently a technical issue with my host server at Hosting Matters, which appears to be eating some files and refusing to delete others, so we have an open ticket on that, but be ye patient: the new blog cometh.
Kiev – A Personal Perspective
As if to punctuate the technical isolation while in Memphis, my cell phone’s battery died shortly after I realized I left the charger on my desk at home. Believe it or not, life still continued without it— and the isolation from everything outside of Memphis was actually nice. But not before I was able to send best wishes to a good friend (and semi-twin by virtue of sharing the same birthday) in Nashville and discuss the current election controversy in Ukraine. Nate and his family are from Kiev and he had a lot to say about the current angst in his former homeland. He recently returned there (a few years ago) and keeps up with friends and family he has known long before he, his brother and both parents fled Soviet rule (in large part thanks to pressure from the Reagan administration on the Soviets to allow Jews to emigrate), originally fleeing to Israel by way of Germany and eventually coming to the United States. Nate says he believes the current Prime Minister and presidential hopeful Viktor Yanukovych to be a complete scoundrel – and implied such would be the case with anybody Moscow anoints. Many Ukrainians, he said, want nothing more than to finally be free of Russian influence after so many decades of often ruthless domination, where, in Soviet mode, the local population was forced to endure the nuclear catastrophe at Chernobyl (just outside of Kiev), not to mention being forced to learn a foreign custom and language, while forsaking their own in order to simply be the worker bees of the Kremlin elite. Indeed, the death toll among Ukrainians from both Soviet socialist occupation and German socialist (Nazi) occupation in the 20th century is one of the most tragic on record. When my good friend Nate was growing up, he would pass by a concentration camp on his way to school. A camp used first by Soviet Stalinists, then by Nazi invaders and then once again by the Stalinists to punish political and ethnic dissidents. The childhood city of Kiev, bombed out during World War II remained much in ruins (as did East Berlin) for decades after the War, as he relates, the grey rubble mingling with snow and the lost dreams of so many.
Kiev today, many say, is hardly recognizable. Nate spoke of the transformation he saw on his last visit: a city full of color, music and hope. It had appeared until recently that a solid and confident national identity was re-emerging from the old rubble, along with what some were saying was one of Europe’s most promising new economies. Now some doomsayers are saying that the Ukrainian economy is likely doomed by the election uncertainties.
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department and international observers have come out and condemned the election results as fraudulent or “severely flawed”, the U.S. siding with pro-West candidate Viktor Yushchenko and most agreeing on the need for new elections.
The question Nate is concerned about is whether this new national tension (which we in the States all remember too well from 2000) will rock the country into instability.
The question I am also concerned with is whether that will be Putin’s excuse to directly interfere, shocking many of us, to be sure.
My hopes, and those of Nate and his family are definitely with those in Ukraine who cherish and seek to preserve their new freedom.
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