Sunday, October 19, 2008

Obama, Jake, melting cakes and tears.

Hello chums, glad to see you are alive and checking in to see if I am.

Well, as Mark Twain is reputed to have said, "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Or something like that. Now if I could just Tom Sawyer someone into picking up the leaves here at the Palatial Retirement Compound things would be Jake.

I don't know, or at least can't remember, where "things would be Jake," comes from. I guess not knowing and can't remember comes out the same, except I have found that the latter becomes larger while other things become smaller and thank goodness for Google. For with it I shall soon be able to know everything that ever happened to anyone. Now, don't YOU wish you had purchased the PPV of last night's UT's beating of the mighty Bulldogs?

No? You say one swallow a summer does not make? My, my what a doubting Thomas you are.

My, my brings me to American Pie and driving Chevys to levees. Or something like that. I think that song was the start of the end for me and pop music. I can't say why. But I do know that whiskey is scotch, rye is made from rye and bourbon is made from corn except for Maker's Mark which is wheat based.

A friend once told me that for someone who loved "McArthur's Park" I had no right to complain. True, but you didn't need to listen to Donna Summer sing, just looking was enough. She can also sing, which is icing on the cake, even cakes left out in the rain.

Jake, of course, is mostly a nickname for John. I have a friend named John who was a Jake many years ago. We did some unreasonable things together as younger men, actually older boys, although both improved with age. He became a minister and I, well, let's just say I aged. As any poker player will tell you, Luck Does Count.

Which brings me to Hussein. Although I admit he is good, he had the good luck to run into a campaign by Hillary that she thought of as a coronation and now one by McCain that he can't seem to understand that there are issues that are mean and nasty and that he isn't serving the country by not bringing them forward.

So while Hussein mouths sweet nothings about the economy and attacks a plumber for asking questions McCain should have, McCain continues to claim that civility is THE issue.

No, John. Winning is the issue. The only issue.

This campaign will be remembered as the campaign ran during the middle of a war in which the war was mentioned only fleetingly, if at all.

Jake and I and John McCain have seen the beginning. We will not live to see the middle or the end. I shed tears for those that will. I pray that we will have enough of older boys who will become hard men to do the hard things that Hussein's minions run from.

4 comments:

  1. Listening to the politicians arguing taxes, and taxes, and taxes... I've been just wondering if maybe the two wars were over, and I had missed the news!!!!

    Incredibly, incredibly sad. The young men on the battlefields must be shaking their head in disbelief...

    P.S. I would want to go and help you rake the leaves, Jake. But after an hour work, I'm just about done. It's not worth the trip! Good luck with the job, friend. ;-)

    To your good health, as always!

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  2. Hey there Jim,

    Just wanted to make sure you knew that scotch, rye and bourbon are all whiskey (or whisky as they spell overseas). Scotch is made from barley. Rye is made from a mash that has to be at least 51 percent rye. Bourbon has to be made from a mash at least 51 percent corn and aged in charred, new white oak barrels. If it's aged at least two years, it qualifies as "Straight" bourbon.

    You're right that Maker's Mark has red winter wheat as part of it's mash bill, whereas most other bourbons use some percentage of rye. But Maker's Mark is still 51 percent corn whisky. Winter wheat and malt are the other grains cooked and distilled to make it.

    (Don't worry. People who work in the whisky business have a hard time keeping it all straight, too.)

    Hope that helps. I work at the ad agency that works with Maker's Mark. Honored to get a mention on Tall Cotton.

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  3. Claudia - As always you are far too kind!

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  4. Jason - Markers Mark in my whiskey drinking days was to be sipped on ice, much smoother than Jack Daniels and in the better Holiday Inn bars of the SE was ordered by saying, "Mark on ice." ;-)

    And I didn't know that it was still 51% corn. So I did learn that. Someone also told me that Canadian whiskey is 51% rye so it really is "rye whiskey." True?

    And of course my friends in the Isles always poured scotch neat whenever whiskey was ordered. If you put it on ice you weren't outwardly sneered at but your social standing was in question.

    And, as always and forever, on Rocky Top we get our corn from a jar!

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