Barry's Life in Napa Blog

I've heard that irony has gone out of style, but when I read that a weekly paper called AsianWeek had run an opinion piece titled "Why I Hate Blacks," I assumed it had to be some kind of - well, black humor. The weekly has pulled the story off their website but you can read parts of the attention-getting column here , and reportedly the paper is still on the streets. (I can't find the source today but somewhere I read this weekly was subsidized by the City of San Francisco as an "outreach" tool. That's embarrassing.) The latest is that this 22-year old deep thinker who wrote the piece has now been fired. I guess his earlier masterpieces (see titles here) did not give any indication of racist tendencies in his writing. The AP says : Kenneth Eng, who has described himself as an " Asian Supremacist," has written several columns for AsianWeek since November, including pieces titled "Proof That Whites Inherently Hate Us" and "Why I ...

A confluence of events leads to the conclusion that not only is it not safe, but it is not even necessary, for anyone to ever leave the safe confines of their home. Event 1: crime spree in Napa. In the last 3 months, there have been two armed robberies, a shooting on Main Street, and a fatal stabbing on the street just two night ago. Granted, the shooting resulted from some boozy disagreement after some kind of rap or hip hop show - and the stabbing victim appears to be a transient. And granted, this is just a typical afternoon's police log in many towns, but seems like mayhem in little ol' Napa. Is it a trend, or just a series of random events? Are there holes in the thin blue line? All this will be revealed over time, but the panic mongers locally are having a free-for-all in the Register's website . Like I always say, panic first, think it through later. Events 2 through 117: the growth of the web over the last 10 years has put more information at our fingertips that pre...

Stunningly obvious statement #1: the Academy Awards goes on too long. Stunningly obvious statement #2: the Academy Awards is sometimes boring Providing these insights that could have been written a week or a month or a year in advance is none other than Professional Critic Tom Shales of the Washington Post. And these and similar profundities, I'm sure, are being mouthed by hundreds of others this morning. (Tom comes across a little world weary in his review of the Oscars . Who peed in your Post Toasties, my friend?) This calls for my current favorite, and seemingly very popular summary statement, which is applicable to just about every situation and makes you seem wise: "It is what it is." It is also obvious to point out that winners usually have done their best work in some earlier movie, and get the award as some kind of a make up. The constant lag between the achievement and the recognition creates a backlog, so there a line a mile long of people who deserve it but won...

Without doubt the harshest comments yet on the KFTY-TV "citizen journalism" experiment can be found here . (Warning: disturbing photo included in the post. At least it gave me the willies.) These people at KFTY have taken a sound beating since they announced their ploy. But it has lots of people paying attention to the outcome. If they somehow make it work, which is not likely, there will be a lot of unprofitable TV stations giving it a go. I suppose it's a little better than infomercials. Maybe. There's something a little disturbing about being served a cocktail by someone you once coached in Little League. That happened last evening, as I was enjoying a libation with members of the local cult I belong to. Turns out the barkeep there at n.v. (which has an excellent happy hour) looked familiar for a reason. And he does a fine job with the beverages. But still, I wanted to say "Weren't you 10 years old just the other day?" A little later, we ankled on ...

Look, I'm no prude, and I defend the right of consenting adults to blah blah blah and the government does not belong in the bedroom blah blah blah and above all freedom of the press blah blah blah, ok? But all the same, how is that I turn on KGO-AM this week, one of the most respected news-talk radio stations in history, and hear Ronn Owens interviewing Ron Jeremy, the hardcore pornstar, as if he is some kind of elder statesman? Like he's some kind of hero! A role model! Since when is it that someone who makes their living by having meaningless sex on camera a person to be admired? I know that porn has become more mainstream over time. And let me repeat - watch what you want, no harm no foul. But don't bring somebody like this out into the light of day and try to tell me they belong on the talk show circuit. Is this the lasting legacy of Howard Stern, to lower standards to the point where things that were sketchy for Tom Snyder at midnight 20 years ago, are now acceptable a...

When I write the phrase "personal ads" you may be put in mind of smutty solicatations found in the back pages of the so-called alternative weeklies. But read this one. Melbourne Australia . You: Lady (sic) educated,70+, cultured, intelligent, fond of Mozart et al, country walks, books, intelligent conversation, isolated and marooned by time, lonely and unloved. Me - ALL of the above, 86. Sound in mind and body. Why should WE go through these latter years without being loved and giving love. We might just be lucky. Box no. 04/05 Kind of touching, no? It's from the London Review of Books, of all places. The January issue of Smithsonian magazine had a page of these not-what-you'd-expect personal ads. I found these samples on the LRB web site . It's taken me all year to summon the courage to place this ad. M 34. Affectionate coward. Box no. 03/02 While these ads may reveal the undeniable erudition of their authors, do they actually get anyone laid? Sciolistic fema...

Recent news stories have noted that Napa County is statistically the scam capital of the US and A. The Napa Valley Register reported on it , as did the CoCo Times , CNN Money , and countless others. Not only did we have the highest per capita rate of reported identity theft ("We're number 1! We're number 1!") but Napa was third in per capita fraud cases. The stats are from reports to the FTC. (There's a fresh fraud story in today's Register . ) Consideration #1: anytime you see a statistic, peek under the hood. With this one, keep in mind it is a tally of reports to the FTC. There may be places where more fraud occurs but people don't report it. Consideration #2: despite skepticism of statistics, I think it may in fact be possible that Napa is home to a disproportionate number of wide-eyed, slack-jawed, just-fell-off-the-turnip-truck rubes who have safe deposit boxes stuffed with deeds to swamp land in Florida and WebVan stock certificates. (By the way, d...

I watched World Trade Center over the long weekend. If you can face reliving the emotions you felt on 9/11, this film, along with United 93 , will do it. When I heard these films were being made I was unsure. There seemed to be a great potential for something really hackneyed an inappropriate to result. Knowing what cynicism exists among those who produce most of the films we see, it's encouraging to see that some sense of perspective remains. After the dramatically over-dramatic stinker Alexander , (too bad to even be linked) I was not sure Oliver Stone would ever again make a movie worth watching, but he is redeemed with this effort. Nicholas Cage has improved his karma as well (although he can't seem to shake the tendency to make really bad choices sometimes, e.g. Ghost Rider .) I believe in the power of drama to improve the human condition, to give us insight into ourselves, to provide that transcendent moment of catharsis, and World Trade Center will give you that gift. ...

It's no wonder we're all cynical about government. We get regular large-scale reminders of the underhandness and deception of some adminstrations - Watergate and Iran-Contra stand out in my mind, and I've heard some people are distrustful of the current White House occupant - and a constant drip of little outrages that wear away what little trust might remain. Case in point, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority cake contract story reported by Matier and Ross in the SF Chronicle. A typical reader shakes their head and (a) is outraged that cakes are being bought with taxpayer money and (b) can't imagine how much time and money went into writing the baroque 33-page contract the agency offered for providing $2,000 worth of cakes. As far as (a), it's a little surprising they felt the need to budget and contract for cake, and that it was an acceptable expense. In the public agency places I've worked, all the office parties are paid for by the employees. Th...

I've spent a lot of time lately pawing through all the old family photos, and a box at a time, running the best through the scanner. The picture at the left from 1920 shows the five sons of Brice Martin. That's my grandfather in the hat. I'm digitizing history for future generations, I tell myself, but sometime I wonder if I'm really doing it for myself. Every time I hit "save" I wonder if that's what I'm really trying to do - save all those faces and those memories so they can't fade, get torn, or just crumble. Most of the people in these photos are strangers to me. I know their names and see family features in their faces, but that's it. I don't know much about their lives, what they dreamed of, whether they thought they were having a good life or going through hell. On my father's side, I don't even know where they came from. You can follow their tracks from southwest Missouri back through the Cumberland Gap to the Carolinas, but...

As a kid back in Joplin MO in the 1970s, I listened to a radio call in show on Sundays. I can't remember what it was called, or even what station it was on (maybe KQYX?) but it ran for a couple of hours to fulfill the "public affairs" committment that used to be required to keep your FCC license. (Most stations now don't pay much attention to concepts of responsbility or commitment to the community anymore. Gone the way of the now unthinkably unfair Fairness Doctrine. But if you tune around early on a Sunday morning you will still hear some of these public affairs shows. Most of them are fully unlistenable.) This long-ago call in show consisted entirely of an endless tirade by conspiracy nuts, probably before they even were recognized as such. Week after week, these same two or three people would call in a rag on about the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, Council on Foreign Relations, and the coded Communist messages in Bullwinkle cartoons. (Ok, I made up th...

I am new to blogging so I am still feeling my way for another week or so, at which point I will declare myself an expert. You've got to move fast in the digital universe. Despite my newness, it's apparent to me that there are two ways consider this kind of blog a success: 1. I wrote something, I was productive, I put it out there, I expressed myself, and that's all that matters. The cheese stands alone. 2. Somebody's reading it. Being innately a performer, I prefer an audience, so I'd have to say I need somebody reading this to close the loop for me. Just writing is not enough. If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it-well, who cares? So all of that is preface to saying that I have my first link from someone else's blog. He was writing about the KFTY-TV "citizen journalism" concept that I pooh-poohed a couple weeks ago: Not surprisingly, many people think this is a dumb idea squared, including the TV critic from the Miami...

A shocking new development in the efforts to contain the localized insurgent activity: a surrender! The initial attack ("Insurgent activity in the front yard" Feb 3) was so brazen as to require my counterattack employing the tactical application of chemical weapons ("Everything is under controk" Feb 4.) This action appeared to drive the evildoer underground. Well, it was already underground, but you know what I mean. There was no sign of trouble for several days. Then, it's back. Fresh tracks. Game on. While I was preparing plans for a new assault on the entrenched position, a few days of heavy rain developed. At 0700 hours the morning after the storm, the Adjutant Commander of the domicile reported there was suspicious activity in the swimming pool. Upon investigation, it became apparent that one of the fanatics had succumbed. Delayed effects of the earlier gas attack? Suicide due to the stress of my relentless pursuit? Or perhaps too many margaritas and a na...

Two interesting developments: 1. You may recall the the groundhog did or did not see his shadow back on February second. I can never remember which behavior indicates what result. (And, just between you and me, I'm not clear on the nexus between the groundhog and the change of the seasons. Just how does that little furball dictate the weather?) But I do remember the prediction is for an early end to winter. You might as well believe. 2. Daylight Saving Time is starting three weeks earlier this year, on March 11. Despite the fact that lots of articles like this one in the Detroit Free Press are fomenting a "son of Y2K" worry, I say bring it on. There is nothing more rejuvenating that those first few days of DST. (You might make a note on your calendar for March 11. If every electronic device you own seems to be a mess all of a sudden, it might be Y2007DST.) If an early end to winter is important to this soft Californian, imagine how attractive it is to the ice covered mid...

In yesterday' post I glibly dismissed concerns over global warming, so that's behind us. Today I have been startled back into a state of vulnerability by reading J ames Fallows article in the March Atlantic Monthly about backing up your hard drive . Let's face it, the ocean could be lapping at my chin and I would be less worried than if my hard drive starts squealing. Having agonized through two or three drive failures with data intact due to divine intervention (thanks, David. Ok, my tech guru friend is not divine but probably should be considered for canonization) I got wise and bought an external HD for backup. It seems to work great, and all my photos and videos and music and stuff is safely backed up on there once a week. I should rest easy. But I read this article, and he's talking about online backup services and how "data should exist in different physical locations." Egad! He's right! What if stray cruise missile took out my entire computer room, ...

It's hardly worth getting out of bed these days. What's the point? After all, in just 93 years, the climate may warm up by 3 to 7 degrees. The oceans may rise by up to 17 inches. Oh, sure, some people are harping on the fact that 6 years ago when the last "official word" on warming came out, they were predicting a 3 foot rise in the seas and now it's 17 inches. And yes, there are people, like Al Gore in his movie, who keep saying the seas will rise 20 feet, but today the experts at the UN agree the figure is 17 inches. Can you imagine the specific impacts of a 17 inch rise in sea levels? Well, neither can I exactly, but it seems like some things might get wet. So if imminent doom (or if not doom, at least discomfort, and probably a certain amount of mildew) is only 93 years away, I don't see why I should spend half my Saturday working on my taxes. And then there's the fact that someday (in a million years? Or was it a billion? Trillion?) the sun will go s...

Some things are just plain sad. I don't see much value in flogging the story of Anna Nicole Smith (which, of course, is what will continue happening for the next few days.) Another victim of the pop culture machinery. Sell yourself as an object, get treated like an object. And the drugs, of course, always the drugs. Easy to imagine she was devastated by the death of her son and went off the deep end. Enough said, it's only sadness and I don't think there's anything to learn from it. Ditto the nutty astronaut stalker. Love, or possessiveness, makes people do weird things. This is not breaking news. She got mental, and now there's grist for the tabloid mill for a week or so - but I imagine nutty-astronaut-stalker gets bumped pretty fast when you have overdosed-playboy bunny-golddigger-dying-young. So we all get a chance to take a trip to tawdry town for a short visit. Never mind, I don't think I'll go. There has to be something today that is more deserving of ...

This may look like just a big hole in the ground, but it's really a sign of the times and a sign of the future in downtown Napa. The old Wells Fargo location is becoming "Napa Square" - offices and retail space. They're digging out for the underground parking. That's City Hall in the background. Across the street from here the Inn at Town Center hotel will get underway in the spring. Half a block east the Zeller Building project is framing up. Over by the Wine Train depot they're going full tilt on the Westin hotel project, and the Oxbow Market is moving along. The big "Riverfront" project south of Third along the river will start this spring. After a prolonged adolescence, Napa is growing up.

So I'm reading the Bill Bryson book I mentioned a few posts ago, and he tells the story of Billy James Hargis who was a kooky evangelist in the 1950s. It catches my eye that Hargis got kicked out of Ozark Bible College, which is in my hometown of Joplin these days but may have been in Bentonville, Arkansas back then. It goes on to say that Hargis spent his later years in "the flower box City" Neosho, Missouri , a quaint little town that, to me, was always populated by people who were tweaked a little. That's all just exposition. The curious part is that Hargis self-destructed by getting caught having sex with his congregation - both sides of the aisle, as it were, sopranos and basses from the choir, if you catch my drift. Even turns out he was exposed when two of his students confess on their wedding night that they are not virgins, and discover they both got it on with the Rev. Hargis. A busy man indeed. All this is ancient history, but sure seems familiar, don'...

According to the National Archives, the most requested document they have is the 1970 photo of President Richard Nixon shaking hands with Elvis Presley . One wonders why, doesn't one? Guess Nixon still has a lot of fans. The book with the wonderfully uninspired and direct title Elvis: What Happened? gives an eyewitness account of all the pills Elvis had swallowed leading up to the sudden decision to visit the White House. And this adds to the irony of Nixon making Elvis some kind of double-secret spy for the DEA during this meeting. Thought for the start of the week, from a bumpersticker I saw in Napa. "Wag more. Bark less."

It is a beautiful day in Napa, all the colors are so vivid! I did not hesitate to confront the insurgent gopher activity head on. Yesterday I did some research on anti-gopher tactics, ranging from trapping (and then what do you do with them, put on a radio collar and release them out in the wild?) to pumping propane into the burrows and lighting it (which sounded like fun but required too much equipment.) I settled for some gas bombs from Home Depot. Sulfur something and sodium something. (My computer screen is very blurrry lately, have you noticedd that?) So I excavated as instructed, lit the fuse, and - "fire in the hole!" - I think I got the little bugger. No sign of new mounds today. I did get a little snootful of the gas, however, during the procession. I thought at forst it were affecthing me in some ways negatatively, that being to have had inhaleded something os the gaasss buit now habing hadd a goob nithgththsdtdhs sleep I am for surely now for usure feeelign just fi...

Not the best way to start your morning, to discover this in your front yard. We had noticed some signs of insurgent activity in the side yard earlier, but this brazen act of provocation is obviously designed to draw us out into the open. Disarming these IEDs will require patience and skill, but it has to be done. Otherwise, the terrorists have won.

My buddy Scott in Santa Barbara contributes this delightful tale of Sasha Baron Cohen, the painfully funny man behind Ali G, Bruno, and now most famously, Borat. Got to check out Sasha at the Lobero Theatre yesterday after a screening of Borat. Two writers and a producer from the movie were there too. I'm convinced that some of the best parts of the movie were left on the cutting room floor. Sasha told about a scene where he's spooning with a bear, naked, in the back of the ice cream truck. The bear then began fondling him. They also told a great story about the first of 40 police incidents, which involved Borat leaving the hotel...with everything inside the hotel room. Borat thinks that by paying for the room, everything in it is his. He gets into a fight with a security guard and the police are called in. An actual member of the crew had to spend the night in jail because if Sasha was arrested (being a British citizen) he would have been deported. Other funny delete...

My buddy Scott tells me Ruby Rippey was the morning news anchor on KFTY-TV before she left to work in Newsom's office. He knows because he took over that job (KFTY, not Newsom's office) when she left. Too bad KFTY doesn't do news anymore, they would have a juicy angle. A guest on KNEW's Armstrong and Getty this morning suggested this affair could actually be a positive for Gavin - makes him look sexier, maybe. And for national political stature, makes him look a lot more heterosexual.

It's not some kind of best-kept secret or an insider tip, but Bill Bryson is great. Just started reading his latest, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (thanks to Tammy for the Christmas gift) and it is one of those "wish I had a cold so I could stay home and read it all day" books. He has a way of coming across warm and sentimental about growing up in Des Moines, while painting it a little demented like a chapter from A Christmas Story at the same time. You'll annoy others by reading funny stuff out loud to them over and over. I've also gotten a lot of pleasure from Bryson's books about walking the Appalachian Trail and traveling in Europe as a young man - both of these tales involve his strange friend Katz. (I had to jump over to Amazon to see which of his I had read and ended up ordering a couple more. Can't believe there are some I haven't read.) I think Bill Bryson just keeps getting better.