After 23 years, Nashville’s oldest gay bar closed for good last Sunday Saturday at 3:00 a.m. I rarely went to The Chute any more. So, it’s closing won’t leave a hole in my social schedule. Its closing has prompted dewy eyed reminiscence by several in the local gay and lesbian community. Not surprisingly, those tears blur reality.
The Chute was pretty much a dump. Although it had undergone a couple of remodels in the last few years, the result was to make it different, not better. Whatever. Some people like dumpy bars.
What gets me the most is the dishonesty about The Chute’s importance to the Nashville community. In a farewell piece in Inside Out, owner Don Hartsfield wrote (page3):
Without the financial contributions of bars like the Chute, Nashville Pride and other local organizations would have never gotten off the ground, let alone been able to sustain a positive influence in our community.
Bullshit. In 2003, I was a board member with Nashville Pride and festival chair. In 2004, I was vice president and festival chair. In 2005, I was president and festival co-chair. During my tenure with the organization, The Chute’s level of out-of-pocket financial support for Nashville Pride was minuscule at best. I cannot say what they did before or after my participation. But, based on my conversations with others involved with Pride before 2003, I understand that The Chute did not have a history of making financial contributions to the organization in any significant way. (Allowing Pride to hold an event there does not count as financial support. Those few events brought in plenty of drink buying customers.)
[Aside: During my tenure with Pride, I was appalled at the bar owners who felt that their contribution to Pride warranted Hosannas and high holy butt-kissing. Being a Pride sponsor is marketing. All the bars are slammed the night of the festival. Despite being the biggest financial benefactors of the Pride season, the bars were the most difficult to get along with. Other businesses saw a Pride sponsorship for what it was and decided to send their check on that basis. The bars' attitude and all the extra work it created was one of the main reasons I quit volunteering my time with the organization.]
Even without this self-congratulatory revisionist history, I would not mourn The Chute’s demise. This is a free market. New competition moved in. The Chute could not or would not adapt. People went elsewhere. So did I.
The CNN lede:
Using marijuana seems to increase the chance of becoming psychotic, researchers report in an analysis of past research that reignites the issue of whether pot is dangerous.
The new review suggests that even infrequent use could raise the small but real risk of this serious mental illness by 40 percent.
Always watch out for those stories of “increases risk by x%.” You first need to know what the original risk was then calculate the new, alleged risk. But, before we get there, note:
The researchers said they couldn’t prove that marijuana use itself increases the risk of psychosis, a category of several disorders with schizophrenia being the most commonly known.
So why are we even talking about this? Oh yeah, the popular “all drugs are bad” meme needs constant feeding and watering. But, the numbers are tough to get worked up about.
The prevalence of schizophrenia is believed to be about five in 1,000 people.
In other words, you have a .5% chance of developing schizophrenia. Even though pot smoking hasn’t been shown to cause any psychosis, your post toke risk of developing schizophrenia sky rockets to .7% Dude, that’s making me nervous. I think I could use a . . .
I really want to go to this Republican fundraiser:
MANCHESTER [N.H.] – City Republicans will be packing some serious firepower at their next party fundraiser.
Tired of the usual chicken dinners, the Manchester Republican Committee is planning to arm supporters next month with Uzis, M-16 rifles and other automatic weapons for a day of target practice at a Pelham firing range.
Cue the typical liberal reaction:
The concept prompted shudders across the political aisle. Chris Pappas, the city Democratic party chairman, called the event “not just in poor taste; it is downright offensive.”
“The citizens of Manchester have lived through a deadly spike in violent crime the past year-and-a-half, despite the campaign promises of (Mayor) Frank Guinta to lower crime rates,” Pappas said. “That the mayor’s political party would seek to glorify the use of machine guns for political gain is unconscionable.”
That deadly spike in violent crime could have been slowed had more law abiding citizens been armed and properly trained.
You know that commercial where the really hot guy pulls up his jeans and the phone booth pops up through the floor? Yeah, the one that focuses on his crotch in the boxer briefs. On Logo (one of the gay channels (Bet you straights didn’t know there are two gay channels available here in Nashville.)) Logo has there is a gay version. When he pulls up his pants, the phone booth has a guy in it. Not a cute guy, but a guy none the less.
I wish we had delivery liquor stores. Right now I’m about out of vodka and pretty low on gin and it’s raining. If you’d be willing to run by the liquor store and pick some up, that’d be great. I have most all the necessary and appropriate mixers. We can then engage in sparkling conversation and rambunctious hilarity to be followed by sloppy drunkenness.
Update: I’ve decided I have enough vanilla vodka (Skyy is the best vanilla vodka. Don’t even bother arguing with me on this one. I’ve tried most all of them.) Mix it with some coke and you’re good to go. (That’s Coca-Cola, of course.)
This morning as I stood staring out the front window with my comfortably hot mug of coffee and Bailey’s in hand contemplating a beautiful summer day, I saw one of my neighbors out walking his new puppy. It was a cute little thing, white and orange with a long tail and feet too big for its body. Then while my neighbor stood with his hand down the back of his ratty gym shorts scratching his ass, the puppy did his business. From my vantage point I could see that this squat was leaving a small pile of brown poo just across the walk from my door.
What does my neighbor do? Continue scratching his ass (seriously dude, consider some ointment or something) then walk off. WTF!! You might be a new dog owner but you should know some basics. Dog manners 101 – Pick Up Your Dog’s Shit. And it’s not just good manners, it’s the law. From the Metro Code:
8.04.180 Removal of excrement.
A dog owner shall clean up and remove any excrement left by his or her dog(s) on any public property or private property not owned or lawfully possessed by the dog owner. Violations of this section shall be punishable by a fifty-dollar fine.
Sharon Cobb makes this statement on her blog:
There has always been and there will always be terrorists, but we can reduce them to what they would have been if we hadn’t invaded Iraq and united them, and that’s a blip on the radar screen.
I’m sure the thousands of people who died in terrorists attacks around the world prior to our March 20, 2003 invasion of Iraq would be surprised to learn that terrorism was just a “blip.”
In 2002, there were 199 terrorist attacks world wide with 2,738 casualties. If you start back in 1981, you get 9737 terrorist attacks, not including violence against Palestians by Palestians. For the years 1997 through 2002, total casualties from terrorist attacks were 17,920. (Casualties include dead and injured. Figures for prior years were not readily available.)
For fun, just look at some of the pre-invasion activities of Al-Qaeda. Here are some of the highlights of AQ’s blip activities:
1994: AQ plots to kill the Pope during his trip to Manila. Plot disrupted.
1995: AQ plots to kill President Clinton on trip to the Philipines and plots to blow up a dozen U.S. transatlantic airline flights. Plots disrupted.
1998: AQ bombs U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. 301 killed and over 5000 injured.
2000: AQ bombs the U.S.S. Cole. 17 killed, 39 injured.
2002: AQ bombs nightclub in Bali. 202 dead, more than 100 wounded.
2002: AQ bombs Israeli owned hotel in Kenya and tries to shoot down Israeli charter jet leaving the airport in Mombasa. 15 dead, 40 injured in the bombing.
That does not look like a blip to me. If you want to oppose the Iraq war now or argue that it was a mistake from the beginning, that’s fine. Just don’t try to rewrite history to do it.
I’m still busted up about Paul being booted from Season 3 of The Next Food Network Star. Paul was cute, funny, energetic and had a great theme for a show – entertaining on a budget. Okay, yeah, I’m really focused on the cute part. But, the more I read about him, the more he comes across as such a class act. He was gracious when he won and was gracious when he was asked to leave. Too bad I don’t live in L.A. so I could hire him to cater a party!
Al Gore is a charlatan showman pandering for cash. But, his camp handled the Chilean Sea Bass Dinnergate non-scandal just right. The fish was from “one of the world’s few well-managed, sustainable populations of toothfish, and caught and documented in compliance with Marine Stewardship Council regulations.” And rather than heap scorn on the person from the Humane Society International who had attacked them, they issued an entirely appropriate statement:
“The Gores absolutely agree with this humane society and the rest of the environmental community about illegally caught Chilean sea bass.
“The problem is huge. This is unfortunate, we have been in touch with the society today. The really important thing is that people become more aware of this issue.”
Politicians use pork barrel projects to buy votes. Doesn’t that mean their are taking our money from us so that they can use it to buy our votes? The one who just lets me keep my money will get my vote.
