Barry's Life in Napa Blog

People get all worked up over certain words, so as a general rule it's not okay to use the word "negro." I need a special dispensation for this topic, however, so go spend your indignation somewhere else. The topic here is "the magical Negro" vs. the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. If you've seen the movie The Legend of Bagger Vance (which is a terrible movie even if you like golf, so I don't know why you would have wasted two house on it like I have) you are familiar with the character of "the magical negro." As described in Wikepedia: The magical negro is typically "in some way outwardly or inwardly disabled, either by discrimination, disability or social constraint," often a janitor or prisoner. [5] He has no past; he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist. [6] He is the black stereotype, "prone to criminality and laziness." [7] To counterbalance this, he has some sort of magical power, "rather vaguely de...

The latest issue of Time magazine showed up in the mail the other day. (You'd think a modern, high-tech guy like me would have already sworn off the dead-tree version of weekly news, but I still have a weakness for reading material you can hold in your hand.) I flip through a couple of pages and come across a spread they call "Dashboard." Seems everything these days has a dashboard. When I use my Blogger account for this fine product you're reading now, I go to the dashboard. The customer relationship management software I use at work has an "executive dashboard." And my car, which apparently was way ahead of its time, also uses a dashboard. Although it seems like a thoroughly appropriate term for the software interface (and a term that is ultra American - if we can't eat it or shoot it we want to drive it) it's kind of pathetic that Time wants to work in reverse and take this computer screen term and paste it into their printed magazine. "Hey...

People who chew ice should be deported. Maybe to Iceland, where they would find all the ice they want to chew until their freaking faces freeze and break off. There are a few times and places where the chewing of ice will be allowed: (a) you are 10 years old or so, or (b) you are at a county fair and have a snowcone, or (c) it's over 90 degrees and you are in the bleachers at a ball game, or (d) you just had a nice fountain Coke with crushed ice on a hot day, or (d) you are dying of dehydration and all the water is frozen Times and places where chewing ice is NOT allowed: (a) you are in a meeting room with lots of other people, one of whom is speaking to the group and everyone is supposed to be listening quietly (b) all other cases not described in a through d above (c) in general, anywhere within 500 yards of me, or I swear I will - I mean it! Don't make me come over there!! People who know me know I have a thing - and I mean a bad thing - about noisy eating, the smacking of t...

My dad had a saying- one of a thousand or so - that he would use when he felt like he was engaged in something indulgent: "I wonder what the poor people are doing?" This was irony, don't you know, because I think he always considered himself part of the "poor people," and for the most of his life he had good reason to think so. When I grew my hair long in the 70s he didn't like it, but not because it was rebellious. To him, having shaggy hair meant you didn't have enough money to get a haircut. Daddy would say "I wonder what the poor people are doing?" when we were doing something extravagant, like ordering the fried shrimp at Burl's Drive-In. Fried shrimp was the most expensive thing on Burl's menu, maybe $2.99 back then. "I wonder what the poor people are doing?" would be asked when we had dinner at a place like Wilder's, where people drank cocktails and ate 3-course meals. Dinner at Wilder's was, at best, a once-a-y...

Just when you start to think we might have found an inspirational new American leader in B. Obama, the ugly truth comes out - he can't bowl. If you hadn't heard, BO rolled a putrid 37 while engaging in some obligatory "act like a regular guy" campaign activities in Altoona PA. If he now loses in the PA primary by about 75%, you'll know why. Them regular folks in the Keystone State probably don't have a lot of respect for a grown man who can't do better than 37 in 10 frames. I mean, really. Your average adult male could probably score better than 37 using a cantaloupe. This is not a catastrophe at the level of "Dukakis Drives a Tank," but if I were running that campaign I'd have a throbbing headache. Do you think anybody bothered to ask the Senator whether he thought he would do well on the lanes before they handed him the saddle shoes? Got to plan ahead, people. (I'll bet dollars to donuts that you'll see Barack doing something athlet...