So a good number of Tuesdaynighters are in Rome right now. That’s
right… it’s time once again for Oracle Club Excellence. Kinda
strange. Oracle employees (or at least, me) use Clubs as a measure of
time. It has been almost a year since I worked for the Big O… time
flies.
At any rate, there is at least four List members running about Rome
right now. I think the best song I can think of about Rome is “When I
paint my Masterprice” by Bob Dylan and performed by The Band. Here are
the relevant verses:
Oh, the streets of Rome are filled with rubble,
Ancient footprints are everywhere.
You can almost think that you’re seein’ double
On a cold, dark night on the Spanish Stairs.
Got to hurry on back to my hotel room,
Where I’ve got me a date with Botticelli’s niece.
She promised that she’d be right there with me
When I paint my masterpiece.
Oh, the hours I’ve spent inside the Coliseum,
Dodging lions and wastin’ time.
Oh, those mighty kings of the jungle, I could hardly stand to see ’em,
Yes, it sure has been a long, hard climb.
Train wheels runnin’ through the back of my memory,
When I ran on the hilltop following a pack of wild geese.
Someday, everything is gonna be smooth like a rhapsody
When I paint my masterpiece.
I think it is a damned fine song.
I am still trudging through Bowling Alone. The book is amazing. I want
to share a quote from it which is actually attributed to T.S. Elliot:
“It [television] is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of
people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain
lonesome.” Yes, apparently TV is one of the top causes of the
atrophying social capital in this country. In fact, with the increasing
number of channels with increasingly targeted content, TV serves the
individual and not society as a whole. TV can keep us isolated, and not
bring us together.
I’m back from Montgomery. I am a little scared of that place. For
instance, the locals refer to the town either as Monkeytown or The Gump.
Yikes! Needless to say, Ken and I found a decent place to eat and
drink: The Olive Room. We almost spent more there for dinner for two
than one of us did on a hotel room for three days. Lodging is cheap…
finding somewhere to eat is impossible. Well, that’s no really true.
If you want to eat big ole cheesebuggas or waffles, you can find
hundreds of places. If you want to eat something that might, just
might, be fresh… you have a long search ahead of you.