Presidential Quotes (2 of 16): John Tyler

Greetings to our blog readers in Baltimore, San Francisco and Denver here in America, and to those of you in India, Turkey and Germany. I'm not sure this quote from John Tyler, America's tenth president will be of universal interest, but we can hope that it is.

This quote below is actually making me reconsider getting a latte at Starbucks, though the coffee chain is one of our favorite commercial entities. Amazingly enough, there are even Starbucks locations in small towns like Front Royal, Va., and Gaffney, SC.

There is also a John Tyler High School in Tyler, Texas.

Here is his quote:

"Wealth can only be obtained by earnings of industry and the savings of frugality."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/johntyler

http://www.starbucks.com

Presidential Quotes: George Washington

Today's quote of the day is the first in our series on the first eight American presidents, quotes from the last eight can be found on our sister blog "The Daily Vampire" http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

For those interested in seeing where your dollars go, we suggest you check out: http://www.wheresgeorge.com

One time we got a 'Where's George' one dollar bill from a Starbucks in Hawaii, we have no idea where it ended up!

Here is a quote from George Washington:

"Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected."

SIDEBAR: Andy Warhol made them famous, and we learned yesterday that a can of Campbell's tomato bisque soup has 130 calories; the company is based in Camden, New Jersey.

Comic Strip Dialogue_ Work Out More in 2013

Happy New Year to those of you in Istanbul, Turkey, where it will be midnight in ten minutes. We imagine there are a few pilates studios there though one well assume they would be fewer in number than Starbucks places!

Here is comic strip dialogue from the Sunday Dec. 2, 2012,, edition of "The Washington Post":

1) "Good thing I was born with no apparent purpose in life" (from "Sherman's Lagoon").

2) "Clean your room" (from "Zits")

3) "What?" (from "Doonesbury")

4) "Nope that's prograstination" (from "Knight Life").

5) "By the way, when is dad going to call me?" (from "Judge Parker")

6) "The casin's paying him big money" (from "The Amazing Spiderman")

7) "Walk it in and rise up as you release the breath of a new start" (from "Reply All")

New Words to Live By

We just finished a gut-wrenching article in "Rolling Stone" about the life of Adam Yauch (1964-2012) who was one of the Beastie Boys; the band made it big when they were young (Yauch is in the center, he is the one without a hat). He died from cancer in May.

But, our entry tonight is meant to hopefully be a happy one, as we look at two words in "The Urban Dictionary," a web site which also has a print version, in similar fashion to "What White People Like."

We are also striving to post four entries per blog tonight, since we will not be blogging tomorrow. Thus, ironically, like Chick-fil-a, (we strongly differ with their right-wing politics) we will be closed on Sunday. The satirical publication "The Onion"wrote that the fast food chain owned by evangelicals would start serving the "Queer-hating Cordon Bleu" sandwiches soon.

Here are two recent words which may go over well with the Beastie Boys fan base:

MEDAL FATIQUE: The inability to stay awake during the day because one has stayed up late watching coverage of the Olympics......(editorial note: Would apply to anyone who had to watch Turkish women's weight-lifter Nurdan Karagoz; the mere mention of her name seems to increase our blog hits!).

COFFEEDANCE: The sudden burst of confidence, focus, or creativity one experiences after drinking coffee or a drink with caffeine (editorial note: Yay! Starbucks!).


One can also find discussions of matters pertaining to the English language through the American public radio series "A Way with Words."

We fully intend for the use of words from "The Urban Dictionary," and we sincerely hope that neither they, nor "The Onion" or Chick-fil-a sue us for billions of dollars.

http://www.urbandictionary.com

http://www.waywordradio.org

http://www.theonion.com

http://www.beastieboys.com

http://www.boycottchickfila.com

http://www.starbucks.com

Happy Thanksgiving from Charlie Brown

As is our tradition whenever there is a holiday, we like to wish it from a cartoon character, kitschy celebrity (such as Barry Manilow) or whacko politician (ie. Michele Bachmann). And, today we go with the legendary comic strip character Charlie Brown, the brainchild of Charles Schultz (1922-2000).

When I was tutoring a student taking an English class, I actually compared Charlie Brown to Willy Loman, the character at the center of Arthur Miller's stage play "Death of a Salesman," in order to get the student to grasp the play's themes and simplify them.

Charlie Brown made his debut in "Peanuts" on Oct. 2, 1950. Snoopy came into the picture two days later. The beloved pooch also made its Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade debut as a float in 1968, a full 16 years before a float for Garfield, the comic strip cat created by Jim Davis that debuted in 1978, made his way down lower Manhattan in 1986.

Today's parade also feature a reincarnation of a float for the video game character Sonic the Hedgehog and a float created by filmmaker Tim Buron, called Character B.

Charlie Brown is noted for his rivalry with Lucy van Pelt, who pulls the football away from him as she did in the very last original "Peanuts" strip on Feb. 13, 2000.

The Little Red Head Girl is the figure of Charlie Brown's infactuation, but since he represents futility across the board, he never gets to meet her_ not even for a date at Starbucks (yes, we are aware there were no Starbucks around in 1950; it was a joke). She never actually physically appears in any of the comic strips, but her face has been shown on tv specials for "Peanuts." The character usually appears in strips that were written by Schultz around Valentine's Day.

Charlie Brown is also associated with the holidays because of both the Thanksgiving special, which first aired on Nov. 20, 1973, and the Christmas special, which premiered on Dec. 9, 1965, before folks in the United States started celebrating Christmas in September!

SIDE DISH: As we reported yesterday, my alma mater Radford University played the Univeristy of Kentucky, the #2-ranked men's basketball team, in Lexington, Ky., last night. And, like Charlie Brown trying to kick the dreaded football, the Highlanders came up very short in an 88-40 loss to the Wildcats. Terrence Jones scored 17 points for the home team; Jonathan Edwards scored 10 points and grabbed eight rebounds for RU.

SIDE DISH TWO: Yes, folks started lining some time ago for the Black Friday Sale at Target which gets underway at midnight here on the East. According to a tweet from "The Charlotte Observer," some 15 customers had started lining up at the main Charlotte, NC, Target store circa 8:00 p.m., a full hours before the madness begins.

Quote of the Day- Johannes Brahms

Today, since we are quoting famous Germans throughout November, we are going to quip the great composer Johannes Brahms (1835-1897), who along with Ludwig von Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the 'three bs.'

This quote seems like one which might come from a counter-culture icon of the 1960s like Lenny Bruce or Frank Zappa:

"If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon."

I teased a young, blonde female Starbucks barista in Front Royal, Va. (not the actual Starbucks where I met this woman) whose boyfriend is into classical music that there is in fact a 24-hour classical music station in Washington, DC, (actually WETA-FM is based in the DC 'burb of Arlington, Va).

There is also a 24-hour classical musical station WCPE in Raleigh, NC, which offers simulcasts to radio stations in Hot Springs, Va., Joplin, Missouri, and Sioux City, Iowa.

WETA-FM, an NPR station, played portions of the Brahms' Piano Concerto today, circa 11:00 a.m., while WCPE-FM played portions of Brahms' Symphony #1 at around 1:15 p.m.

Of course, Germany is known for other kinds of music besides classical, as the '80s hard rock band The Scorpions ("Rock Me Like a Hurricane") and the political New Wave pop singer Nena ("99 Luft Balloons") also hailed from there.

Virtual Postcard from South Carolina

At the moment, I am not actually in South Carolina, but I was over the weekend. This image, for those of you logging from Singapore today (and, yes, I saw someone from that city nation was checking us out!), this image is from the Peach water tower in Gaffney, SC, which motorists can see as they drive on the interstate.

There is an event called the South Carolina Peach Festival in Gaffney every year.

A strange thing happend when I was in Charlotte, NC, for a sidetrip. A panhandler with a walking stick who had just given me directions to a Starbucks (keep in mind, this was when the Carolina Panthers were playing a home football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, a game which the Panthers won 16-10, and there were lots of folks flooding the downtown area) asked me for a dollar so 'he could buy a cup of coffee.'

Well, about five minutes later, I saw him at that same Starbucks with a cup of coffee. A part of me felt like I was scammed since coffee at Starbucks is more expensive than most places, but another part of me said: "Well, he said he wanted a cup of coffee."

SIDENOTE: I was actually going to take a week-long hiatus from the blog, but ultimately it is too much like going a long time without making fun of Republicans (especially Rick Perry, Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann) or some iced vanilla coffee from Starbucks. In short, all of us, to a degree, have our vices!

Speaking of Ron Paul, I gather the state of Montana has a substantially high number of UFO sightings, so perhaps he is on his way there as we speak to meet up with his fellow little green men.

Amadeus in Bethesda- The DC Trip (Entry 1 of 3)

This marks the first of three entries on this blog about a very hectic, yet very exciting trip that my mom and I took to Washignton, DC, last week. Though the trip was very brief (it lasted about 36 hours), we are actually dedicating six entries to it, with three on this blog and three more on our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time." That is also known as my B-side blog (it gets like ten percent of the traffic on this blog for some odd reason?!).

I was eagerly hoping to go to Washington, DC, to see the Paul Gaugin exhibit at the National Gallery. The fact I had missed a chance to see a heavily-publisized Pablo Picasso exhibit at the Virginia Fine Arts Museum in Richmond, Va., made me even more eager to get to DC before the Gaugins left the building on June 5th.

There were complications in getting my mom on board. I needed both to help with expenses and to actually physically get to DC. Ironically, even though I fit many cultured urbanite intellectual sterotypes with my seven magazine subscriptions and interest in films by directors like Akira Kurosawa and Jean-Luc Godard, I hate traffic! And, the I-66 exchange that starts in rural Front Royal, Va., gets very congested once a traveler comes into Manassas, Va., which is DC's southern-most suburb. Going Greyhound was not really an option, since the bus left circa 6:15 a.m. and I am not a morning person!

Initially, mom wanted to go to Florida to see her sister/my aunt, but she soon realized, the timing was not right for that trip which is considerably farther away from southwest Virginia than Washington, DC, even though it is still a five and a half hour drive if you stop to eat, get gas and have to patiently wait in traffic.

So, we did end up going to Washington, DC, on May 19. My mom had a radical notion that we could somehow see the Gaugin exhibit on that day, which was Thursday, even though there would be little time to get that in. So, we got to the National Gallery at 4:45 p.m. I had misread the museum's web page and made the assumption that they would be open until 6:00 p.m. In actuality, there were open only until 5:00 p.m., so that gave us 15 minutes to tour the museum, had we chosen to do that (we didn't). Oddly enough, the security guards checked my mom's over-sized green pocketbook anyway.

I had seen a mention of a Turkish restaurant in "The Washingtonian" magazine called Ezme on P Street in the Dupont Circle part of town. Mom decided that we should jump into a taxi and head over there. Upon arrival there, we learned that they did not start serving dinner until 5:30 p.m. Since it was 5:05 p.m., we had time to kill.

So, we headed over to a nearby Starbucks, where frappucinos are considerably more expensive than they are in places like Roanoke, Va., and Greensboro, NC. We chose to sit outside, and I overheard two men speaking Turkish, my second language (my late father Mehmet Gokbudak was from Turkey). It turns out the men were urologists who were in town for an international urology conference. Interestingly enough, both men were smoking?!

We finally got to Ezme and I ordered Manti, a meat and noodle dish that though native to Turkey can be hard to find even in Istanbul, Adana Kebab, a spicy meat dish native to the central southern Turkish city of Adana and lastly rice pudding. My mom had similar dished though she opted to have "Ayva Talisi" (the Pear Dessert) instead of rice pudding.

Then, much to our shock, we saw that the street was closed. I had seen some man who appeared to be Japanese bowing as he exited his limosine and I had presumed he was some high-ranking diplomat and that was why all the police officers were in the area.

But, we found out a short while later, that President Barack Obama was headed to P Street! The motorcade passed by us and even local DC folks were stunned by what was happening. Many took cellphone pictures even though they would probably not get anything more than the back of a Secret Service agent's head.

A college-age guy looked at his BlackBerry and told me that Twitter said Obama was eating at Pizzeria Paradisio, which is a very casual place. It was not until researching this piece today that I found out that Obama was actually meeting a donor, who may have been the Japanese man, at an office above the pizza place. But, pizza was provided for them.

Ironically enough, I asked the waitress at Ezme if anyone famous had dined there. I had even mentioned Michelle Obama. She said (in Turkish) something to the effect of: "No, not to my knowledge."

SIDEBAR: We are naming this series "Amadeus in Bethesda" because the Roundhouse Theatre in Bethesda, Md., is currently performing the acclaimed play "Amadeus" with an extended run until June 12th.

Quote of the Week- Herman Melville

The web site zazzle.com is actually offering "Moby Dick" ties, and we thought we'd dedicate some blog entries as part of our series to famous novelists today to famous writers known for writing 'doorstop books." Today's writer is Herman Melville (1819-1891), his famous book inspired the mega coffee chain Starabucks as there is a character called Starbuck, who is a shipmate of Captain Ahab's, in the novel.

At 822 pages, Melville's 1851 classic might make the perfect companion for anyone who has to go to a business conference in Topeka, Kansas, or if you have taken after "the Facebook Burglar" and robbed a home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, gotten caught, and now facing the prospect of going to the big house.

We do love this quote by the way, and it seems very timely:

"Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."

SIDEBAR: We want to give a shout out to our friends in Norway, which is perhaps my favorite country that I've never been to. According to mentalfloss.com, today is Norwegian Constitution Day. The site had a tribute to Norwegian black metal bands for the occasion. "Until the Light Takes Us," a documentary about these headbangers airs on The Sundance Channel on May 31 at 1:45 p.m., New York time.

SIDEBAR: Earlier tonight we asked Google why Donald Duck was a trending topic on Twitter today. We didn't get a response!

Status Update: I Am Alive and Well and Not in Rural Uzbekistan

Normally, we post Quotes of the Day on Mondays. And, hopefully, we will have a cool quip from a very hip person, either living or dead, at some juncture very, very soon.

But, for now, I leave with this image and the assurance that even though I was not able to communicate with the outside world for 72 hours simply because I went out of town without a cellphone or a laptop that I am doing well and I have not disappeared into a remote Uzbeki village where this gentleman presumably resides.

To think, he may very well go through life without ever having a Big Mac or a Starbucks vanilla latte.

Things We Learned on Twitter Tonight- Pot Arrests in Colorado

According to the Twitter site DenverNews (from an article originally published in "The Denver Post") six men and a woman were busted in Fountain, Colo., on felony marijuana charges today.

Police arrested the suspects, ages 18-23, after finding more than $150,000 worth of marijuana in a motor-home.

The suspects told the fuzz (Fountain Police Dept.) that trying to refine the pot into hash at the time of their arrest.

As for Cheech and Chong, the American poster-boys for cannabis, the '70s comedy duo are going to be performing in Tulsa, Houston and San Antonio next week.

SIDEBAR: Speaking of another highly addictive substance (coffee), Howard Behar, the former president of Starbucks will be speaking at Hollins University in Roanoke, Va., on Monday at 7:00 at dupont Chapel.

Silly Photo to Fill Space- Coffee Shop Employee

Today we once again focus on Lynchburg, Va, for the 12th (of 13) installment in our series within a series examining summer jobs. In the Hill City, students who have the summer off (yes, we know it's coming to an abrupt end) from E.C. Glass High School could potentially seek employment at The Muse and Roastery Coffee Company on Enterprise Drive.

I must say that I was impressed that a coffee shop located in Lynchburg, where Jerry Falwell started the Moral Majority, is open on Sunday from noon-7:00 p.m.

We should also mention that while we love E.C. Glass HS, the actual High School of the Week for this blog (well, ok, there will other high schools of the week) is the Belfast Area High School in Belfast, Maine, a place I've actually been to! (We took a trip there in the summer of 2007; it's quite a lovely place).

The Belfast Area HS' nickname is The Lions. School will begin very shortly there on Aug. 30. Butch Arthers is the school principal, and school lunch for high school students is $2.50. (That meat loaf better be worth it!).

There are of course other coffee shops within the Lynchburg region, and we don't mean Starbucks (but, yes there are several of those in Lynchburg).

Mill Mountain Coffee and Tea has four locations within the Roanoke, Va., area-which is my hometown. And, for those of you in Hokieville (Blacksburg, Va) there is The Easy Chair Coffee Shop which promotes itself on its web site as being a 'zombie free zone,' whatever that means!

Assuredly, if my Facebook friend, Shannon Wheeler, the creator of the off-beat comic book character "Too Much Coffee Man" comes to Virginia, he will now know where to get his cappuccinos now!

SIDEBAR_We want to wish a speedy recovery to Michael Poythres, 24, a soldier from Caswell County, North Carolina, near Danville, Va., who was injured by an explosion in Iraq last week. Angela Evans of "The Caswell Messenger" in Yanceyville, NC, reports that surgeries were performed to save Poythres' arm. He was flown to Germany after leaving a field hospital in Basra, Iraq. Once he is stabilized, he will be relocated to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC.

GeoQuiz- When in Rome.......

Today's GeoQuiz entry focuses on Rome. We were initially going to ask how many Starbucsk there were in the ancient capital, but as it turns out, there are no Starbucks in Italy?!

So, instead, we will ask which year Rome hosted the Summer Olympics. We will give you one hint, it was after the film "Open City" (pictured here) was made, which was in the 1940s.

Was the year?:

A) 1992
B) 1956
C) 1960
D) 1952

The answer to last week's GeoQuiz was "B."

SIDEBAR: The Irish supergroup U-2 will be performing in Istanbul, Turkey, one of our favorite cities in the world, on Sept. 6. Road trip, anyone? (Well, it would be a long flight from Greensboro, wouldn't it?!)

Special Quote of the Day- Keith Knight

Normally, we post the Quote of the Week segment on Mondays (or if I'm busy as hell, on Tuesdays). But my Facebook friend Keith Knight, 43, an extraordinary talent who is the cartoonist behind the new, hip comic strip "The Knight Life," and the cutting edge political cartoon series "The K-Chronicles" as well as a musician in a hip-hop band called The Marginal Prophets, volunteered this quip for Black History Month which I simply loved too much. So hence I am posting it now today!:

"Talk to any black person 60 or older for 10 minutes and you'll learn more about Black History than you ever learned in school."

SIDEBAR: I recently decided to follow the comic strip character Zippy the Pinhead, created by Bill Griffith, on Twitter. He sent me a message which said: "I see we are both mutual friends of Paris Hilton." While I don't know the rich media starlet personally, I also follow her on Twitter as well! I'm not sure Zippy (who I really think is Griffith) is aware of this!

SIDEBAR TWO: The Brady Network, one of the leading gun control lobbies in the country, has raised an issue with the Starbucks coffee chain, a favorite hangout for Ms. Hilton, over the fact that they apparently allow folks who want a lattee to walk into their establishments with loaded guns! Perhaps, some of these people are police officers, which I could understand, but I certainly see the Brady Network's concerns though I have not read a newspaper story detailing both sides of the issue. The Brady Networks contends that this has an intimidating effect on customers, and I can imagine that would certainly be true in rural Georgia (persuming they have Starbucks stores in rural Georgia).
My favorite Starbucks happens to be in Front Royal, Va., with the Starbucks in High Point, NC, (well there are more than one of them) being a close second. I'm not exactly sure why though........?!

My Christmas Gift Wish List 4 Next Year (Satire)

1. Zhu Zhu Hamsters
2. Che Guevara t-shirt (pictured)
3. Glock 19 gun (pictured)
4. Mister Potato Head (pictured)
5. "The Wire" box set*
6. $50 Starbucks gift certificate (s)
7. Chuck Norris' "The Delta Force" on dvd
8. The Octagon Hot Dog Converter**
9. First issue of "Hot Stuff" (pictured)***
10. Subscription to "Mother Jones"

*- I have to thank comic strip artist Keith Knight ("The Knight Life") for that idea.
**- Yes, this is an actual product
***- If anyone can look its value up in "Wizard," I'd appreciate it.


PS_ If anyone in my late father's hometown Istanbul, Turkey, is stumbling upon this blog_ yes, us Americans are insane! But, not many are as over-the-top as me.....

Silly Image to Fill Space- Ms. Spears Drinking Starbucks

Hey this works for "US" magazine............

Facebook Friend of the Week- Leigh Anne Keatts

This is NOT Leigh-Anne in the Hokie bird suit, but she does attend school at Virginia Tech.

Unlike most of my Facebook friends, Leigh-Anne is actually someone I know.

We choose her this week because she just got finished with a lot of stressful exams. I suppose knowing her as well as I do, she will spend the holidays studying textbooks at Starbucks even though there are no tests to study for!

Leigh-Anne is hoping to go to grad school in the fall. Southern Cal, the University of Illinois and UNC are among her choices.

Let's just hope she doesn't end up a professional street juggler!

UPDATE: We somehow managed to overlook mentioning Leigh Anne's favorite rock group, which is Rush...........I believe she knows the lyrics to just about every song, which is cool because to this day I frankly have no idea what "Tom Sawyer" is all about!

Quote of the Week- Britney Spears

"I know not everyone will like me, but this is who I am, so if you don't like it tough."

We highly recommend the cover story on Britney in the current issue of "Rolling Stone." I think even Republicans will like it.