Honky Tonk Grill In Nashville

We headed out for some grub before touring the town today. Before long we happened upon the Honky Tonk Grill. We walked in to the smell of sizzling burgers and the twang of a good old-fashioned crooner and 39-year local resident.



We sidled up to a table with stools and in short order a waitress brought out a one-page menu of burger-joint fare. We each ordered one, then listened with a smile as the entertainment cranked out Garth Brooks, George Jones and other audience requests. By the time we left he'd filled at least one request from everyone in the joint but us. Which is to say, he'd played four songs. But undeniably he had talent, on full display between swigs of "memory juice."



The burgers and chips hit the spot, the waitresses were friendly. What a homespun mix of song, sight and taste!

God: Human Body Not Designed To Play Football

From the Onion:

THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH—The Lord our God, Divine Creator and Ruler of the Universe, made a statement Thursday in which He condemned the practice of human beings playing football, proclaiming He had never intended the body to suffer such punishment.

"O my children, I implore you, look deeply into your hearts, your minds, your extremely fragile and complicated knees—in fact every part of your glorious but mortal bodies—and ask yourselves if I really intended you to collide with one another as hard as you possibly can," God said as He appeared simultaneously to every football fan on earth and to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, declaring that it pained Him to see the human body, the pinnacle of His creation, abused in such a fashion. "Your brief lives are already beset by suffering and pain. Why make it so much harder on yourself with the brutal sport of football?"

"Frankly, the first hint should have been that just to play this game you need to wear a second protective covering over the protective covering that I, in My infinite wisdom, placed around your brain," God added. "Does that make sense to you?"

God's statement came on the heels of a particularly brutal week in the NFL that saw half a dozen players, including Eagles star Michael Vick, suffer concussions, as well as Packers safety Nick Collins going down with a season-ending neck injury. However, God denied that His remarks were made in response to those specific incidents, saying only that He was "greatly displeased" and had "waxed wroth" upon seeing them, as humanity should simply have known better than to play football in skeletons "with all the tensile strength of cheap plywood."

According to the Almighty, the human body is ill-suited to the intense demands of football in almost every way. God noted in particular that the brain is an incredibly complex and delicate mass of sensitive neural jelly, and that because of "certain early-stage design compromises," it is vulnerable to intense tearing and twisting forces upon heavy impact, becoming damaged when it collides against the side of its bone bowl.

"That's when you get concussions, or worse," God noted. "Then there's the spine, which is a masterpiece of flexibility when you guys bother to take care of yourselves but might as well be a stack of cheap glass ashtrays when a 350-pound lineman smashes into it. And the knees? With those ACLs I gave you, you're not even supposed to run unless there's an emergency, let alone make sharp cuts on turf just as a linebacker comes in low from the side."

God also remarked that He was particularly frustrated at having to "just come right out and say this," explaining that He had provided more than enough evidence of football's destructive effects on the body through signs and portents such as Joe Theismann's famous broken leg, Bo Jackson's destroyed hip, and "whatever the hell is wrong with poor Steve Young."

"Look, I know this isn't war, or murder, or the thousands of ways you people find to make your lives more painful and shorter than they should be, but seriously, think about it," God said before His divine presence faded. "Seriously, as magnificent as football is, it won’t help you live a joyful life and celebrate the wonder of creation if all those men die drooling and soiling themselves at age 50."

Commissioner Goodell released a statement Friday morning that read, in part: "The NFL has heard God's concerns and is taking them very seriously. We value the opinions of all our fans and will consider His words very carefully as we continue to enjoy the 2011-2012 NFL season."

I Get High With A Little Help From My Friends

"Sometimes you forget the impact you have on people. Love what you do, do what you love. My calling is coaching. Thanks for reminding me!" - Darin Meinders

Few things stoke the dying embers of our passions and help us keep perspective on how very fortunate we are, like the network of friends with which we surround ourselves. We won't always see things clearly or brightly, but at those moments that we're in the valley, they may be on the hilltop.

Winning By Gambling

From Men's Health by way of Walter Kirn:

"To some guys, gambling is entertainment. They play, they lose, they grumble, but they have fun. To me, though, gambling is psychoanalysis, continually probing the weak spots in my thinking, leveling my mood swings, and reminding me that defeat is not an option in life; it's an absolute, inescapable certainty. This knowledge is freeing if you can handle it, but what's even more liberating is accepting that no one can handle it fully or all the time. We win a few, we lose a few, and our drive to win more often than we lose is what makes us both suckers and human beings.

Life is unfair,to me, the drunk laments, which leads him to drink even harder and withdraw even further from life. The gambler, however, assuming he's willing to learn, knows that life's unfairness isn't personal. It's universal. It's built into the game. Unfairness is, in Vegas terms, the house rule - and this understanding allows the gambler to play on."

Has life been fair to us? Maybe the question itself is an issue. As far as I can figure, people who are free from a sense of entitlement - that they deserve respect, or pay, or attention, or agreement, or perfection, or forgiveness - have great shock absorbers against the inevitable irregularities of the week.

Acting, But Genuine

"I went into a meeting with a director recently, and I had on flip-flops and a shirt. And they said to me, 'Well, you're looking comfortable.' And I said, 'Bro, I'm comfortable 'cause I want to come here and talk to you. I don't want to be sitting here wondering about whether I look good or not. I want you to see me at my most comfortable because at my most comfortable, that's when I'm the most creative, most open.'" - Idris Elba



How much time do we spend worrying what others think of us? We can be better. We can be ourselves.

Nashville Day

We got to hang with my cousin Donna and her husband Ryan today during our trip to Nashville for the weekend. They steered us to a classy Italian restaurant Amerigo's that was about fifty paces from our Courtyard hotel by Vanderbilt.



Then after a couples' massage at Back To Health parlor, it was time to visit the fifth floor amenities of the hotel... during which I wrote a country song (more on this later)... peace and quiet abounds when you're fifty feet above the city bustle.



Did you know that this state has no income tax and low property tax (most schools are private)? A pretty affordable deal for a childless couple in a growing, cultural city with moderate winters. Hmmm.

Taking The Storm Out Of Brainstorming

"Bringing up new ideas is one of the great ways to chase perfection."

A friend of mine was in a group of us who were thinking about ways to welcome new people to the neighborhood. One of his ideas sounded catchy at first, but within a minute or so we realized that there were a couple of practical snags with it. However, another person came up with a related idea that made even more sense. Eventually we came up with a plan that excited most everybody.

What about the first guy? He generously offered an idea when no one else had (to that point), it was picked at and discarded... and someone else got the satisfaction of coming up with the "winning" concept, right? But that's a victim's mentality, not to mention the selfish one. The big flaw in the thinking is that it wasn't "his" idea, but "an" idea or better yet, the "group's" idea. Whether it's a neighborhood meeting, a family deciding what to do for fun this weekend, or a team at the office, some of the most successful and creative ones master the ability to celebrate every new thought as a step to the best one, and forgetting their own ego.