Author: jbenton

Large office equipment. Plus the dreaded pencil-sharpener imposter.

Had another Wilmer-Hutchins story in today’s paper.

Not to brag — okay, to brag — but my fantasy football team has the makings of a Soviet-style empire, complete with its own sphere of influence.
Okay, that metaphor makes no sense. Must not really be awake yet.
In any event, at the end of week 4, The Bum Phillippi stand in first place in its league of 10, an undefeated 4-0. Among the keys to victory: expected strong performances from Donovan McNabb and LaDainian Tomlinson; surprising strength from the veteran Isaac Bruce and the rookie Roy Williams; Thomas Jones coming out of nowhere to dominate (er, until week 4, that is); and strong defensive showings by Charles Grant and Patrick Kearney.
Back to your regularly scheduled crabwalk.com.

Just for the hell of it (and because I post photos here roughly once per sunspot cycle), here’s the 10th-grade version of me. (On the left, silly.)
Careful readers remember Renya, the old high school friend I lost touch with for 14 years before a brief reunion in NYC in July. Well, Renya and I met at this French-language film festival in Quebec in 1990. Today, she mailed me photographic proof.

That’s me on the left, looking stylish as ever. Not sure what’s up with the pants. Or the sour look. Or what appears to be my problem with normal human contact. I was a problematic child.
On the right is Guillaume, a Rimouski native. He was significantly cooler than I was. Good guy, if memory serves. I kept calling him Guillaume le Conquerant. I thought that was very funny at the time.
In the middle are two fellow Louisianans. One of them is named Tatman; one is named Paige. For the life of me, I can’t remember which is which. I have vague memories of one of them being fun and the other being a pain. Again, can’t remember which is which.
As it happens, when I was in Louisiana weekend before last, I pulled out a few of the post-festival letters we all exchanged before losing touch for a decade (or forever). I hope I’m not breaking any seal of confidentiality by posting brief excerpts here:
From Tatman: “Well, now I’ll tell you what I did over Thanksgiving…I went to the M.C. Hammer concert with all my friends, I shopped and shopped and shopped in Houston, and I relaxed. Fun, huh?”
From Guillaume: “Thank you for your lessons of pool and English!!!” (Guillaume’s English was much better than my French, which remains an embarrassment to my culture.)
From Tatman: “I would ask you how you were or what you did over Thanksgiving — but you would just criticize me in your next letter.” (Apparently, I was an asshole even then. That said, she did spell criticize “critize.”)
From Guillaume: “One of my great dreams would be to visit all U.S.A. by hitchhiking. And there’s many cities I would like to see: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles (Hollywood), and also New Orleans. I like very much jazz, and New Orleans is the city of jazz.”
Finally, this one from a French girl I’ll call L. (in case she ever goes self-Googling):
“Hi, honey! I really miss you. Do you ever think about me? Do you love me? Kiss kiss kiss kiss love love love kiss. Can I have a photograph of you? Have you got a girlfriend?”
Along with lots of little hearts and stickers marked “Kiss!” And — to add a layer of strangeness — a Rimbaud poem and an Amnesty International postcard.
The thing is: I have no memory of this girl at all. And as love-starved as the 14-year-old version of me was — my first kiss was still some time away — I can’t imagine I’d have forgotten about a fling with L. I have very distinct memories of flirting (awkwardly, unproductively) with a girl from Manitoba, for instance. But not a single neuron dedicated to L.
Things cleared up, though, when I reread one of Guillaume’s letters. He writes about the possibility he may get to go to France soon, for another film festival. “I hope to see, if I have the chance to go, Sylvie and Linda, but not L.! (I think this girl is a bit crazy, she wants to go out with everyone she sees…)” I guess I wasn’t the only one receiving her letters.

Congrats to crabwalk.com reader Jonny the Friendly Lawyer for being described in LA Weekly as a “visibly hip late-30s dad” bringing his son to a Pixies show. (JTFL had already expressed his thoughts on childhood indie rock here, in the comments to this June post.)
Jessa links to a great, Nigerian-inspired short film with Shakespearean overtones.
Had another Wilmer-Hutchins story in Saturday’s paper.
A rousing defense of prostitution: “I remember the first time I had sex — I still have the receipt.” (This seems as good a time as any to remind readers that the proprietor of this web site does not, in linking to an article, necessarily endorse said article’s positions.)
“Bashing the McMasses: The real target of the anti-McDonald’s film Super Size Me is the people who eat there.” So true. I think about 80 percent of the anti-Wal-Mart, anti-McDonald’s sentiment out there is a classist, cultural argument — not economics.
I was all ready to hate this NY Times piece on the start of squirrel season in south Louisiana. I expected the same rickbraggian string of stereotypes and Mystical Swamp Cajuns I’ve come to expect from The Paper of Record’s occasional jaunts into my home state. But to give credit where it’s due, Jere Longman did a nice job, I thought.
That said, playing this fairly slight story on page 1 continues the Times’ tradition of treating the American South as some bizarro world that must be explained to Manhattan readers National Geographic style. The fact the Times treats southern men hunting as a cultural “other” on par with Chinese foot binding still says something, I think.

Here’s my story from today’s front page, on the gloom descending on Texas’ suburbs as new (lower) school ratings are released.

I’ll be on TXCN tonight, talking about test scores, and on the front page tomorrow.

David Brooks also eats cereal. (For Molly W., this site’s Brooksian.)
I’m not the world’s biggest Jay Rosen fan, but this column hits at a lot of problems with press think in the Gang of 500.
More good media analysis. (Philadelphia has one of the smarter city mags around.)
Best computer error ever.

That slurpy sound you hear coming from the West Coast is Adam Baer kissing Conan O’Brian’s ass.
Jay Leno: closet Democrat? Q: You make a lot of money from the corporate gigs? A: Oh yeah. Some interesting dimestore psychoanalysis in there, too.
For all the football fans in the viewing audience: Video of 2003’s River City Relay, perhaps the greatest play in New Orleans Saints history. It was, of course, followed by the most tragic play in Saints history: Kicker John Carney’s inexcusable missed extra point that would have tied the game and sent it into overtime.

Sorry for the temporary crabwalk.com outage. I should have mentioned something ahead of time, at least judging by the four “are you dead?” emails I’ve gotten in the last 48 hours. (For the record: I am not dead. Although my belief system is such that, when I do shuffle off this mortal coil, I’ll still be able to check email.)
I was in Louisiana for a long weekend. Among the highlights: seeing a store in Eunice, La., named “Eel Skin & More & Kids.” I can imagine the thought process there:
1996: “Hey, hon, you know how much I love eel skin. Maybe others will share my interest. We should open a store and call it ‘Eel Skin.'”
1999: “Dear, the eel-skin market appears to be struggling through tough times. Those Chinese imports of imitation eel-pleather are killing us. Maybe it’s time to diversify. Maybe it’s time to add other options for Eunice’s skin needs. Maybe we should change the name to ‘Eel Skin & More.'”
2003: “Honey, I know things have been tough since the divorce. I appreciate you letting me see little Jordan and Brittany two weekends a month. But perhaps I could see them more often if I integrated children more firmly into my life? Maybe they could drop by the store some afternoons and help with the eel-skinning and lye-dousing. I could add a swing out front. Maybe a trampoline out back. I could change the name, too. Maybe ‘Eel Skin & More & Kids.'”
In other news: The Pernice Brothers, one of this web site’s favorite bands, has a strange new song available for download. It’s an ode to Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez called “Moonshot Manny.”
Speaking of “Are you dead?”: Belo announces 150 layoffs at The Dallas Morning News.