9/30/2002 11:46:00 AM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|Many thanks to Julz of Complex in the city, another fine Louisville weblog, for her advice regarding law school. This still is my primary goal, and I've been seeking advice on that topic from many sources. Aside from the aforementioned advice, I read a good series by Pejman Yousefzadeh over at the Pejman Pundit Part One: Getting In and Surviving Your First Year Part Two: Extracurricular Honors Part Three: The Job Hunt - aka - The Real Reason You Came To Law School I also had a nice conversation with local journalist Paul Curry at the Paul Burch / Caitlin Cary show at Headliners. Curry, who's CD and dining reviews I enjoy very much, is also one of the cheapest lawyers in town. He basically was in the same position I am in now when he decided to go to Law School. And although he took out a bunch of student loans to get through, he says it was one of the best and most intellectually rewarding times of his life. I picked his brain for details, and was rewarded generously. After that night, I was pretty much sold on the idea.|W|P|82316971|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/29/2002 08:32:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|I usually stay out of political commentary on here, because there are so many others who do it so well. But JESUS CHRIST! I was watching ABC's This Week w/Stephanopoulos when he interviewed David Bonior and Jim McDermott and just about shot my TV. I'm not sold on the war with Iraq. I'm in favor of disarming Saddam, and if it takes a war, so be it. But I'm not chomping at the bit to get it on. But damn damn damn. These two idiots were broadcasting live out of Baghdad for their interview and although I wasn't alive for Jane Fonda's trip to North Vietnam, I can imagine it came across something like this interview. And what's worse, these two are elected officials! I'm relying on memory here, but they said we should take the Iraqis at face value when they said they'll let inspectors in. Didn't Iraq just say they wouldn't? Or at least not unfettered access, which would be absolutely necessary for disarmament. And then they say we should at least let them fail to comply before going to war. But are we at war right now? Who said we won't let them fail? Even though they've essentially turned us away already. And in what shocked me almost as much as hearing those two morons, Stephanopoulos actually called them on it. He did a good job. But they squirmed and fell back on the well-debunked half a million dead Iraqi children myth. Then they start to talk about how they think Bush is willing to lie to get us into war with Iraq. RIGHT AFTER saying that we should trust the Iraqis! Unbelievable! Like I said, I'm not much of a political pundit, but I couldn't shut up about this one.|W|P|82289432|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/27/2002 02:49:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|It looks like I might have a chance to pick-up some free tickets to see Willie Nelson play at Six Flags: Kentucky Kingdom on Sunday. I tell you what, It's nice knowing people with connections. UPDATE: No tickets. No Willie. It's a damn shame, but now I can play baseball!|W|P|82203945|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/27/2002 01:11:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|I left work early yesterday, went home and slept for hours. But by bedtime I'm not tired at all. So I stay up and watch UofL slip and slide its way to a victory over Florida State. I've never liked Florida State, and it was great seeing UofL win in such dramatic fashion.|W|P|82199829|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/27/2002 01:07:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|Maybe it's just the Walgreen's brand DayQuil talking, but I feel much better today. There aren't many things better than getting over an illness. A cloudy, rainy, cool day suddenly feels like a wonderful fall day. The walk to the car and into the building at work were horrible. Every rain drop that hit my head sent shivers down my back. And sitting at my desk, blowing my nose, I thought I was in for another miserable half-day at work. But then my sinuses began to clear. And every deep, thick cough chipped away at the crud that was sitting in my lungs all week. The fever clearly broke, resulting in a moment of clarity not unlike the first sober thought after a night-long drunk. Going out for lunch, the rain had stopped and the crisp air felt great. It was the fall weather I had been anticipating for so long, but was unable to appreciate initially because of the sickness. So it was windows cracked down Dixie Highway and big breaths of cool air all the way. When the medicine wears-off I could be in for another nasty bout. But I've felt the new season, and I'm not going to let some awful virus keep me from enjoying the brisk September air.|W|P|82199670|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/26/2002 09:34:00 AM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|Sick Sick Sick. Stomach virus Monday, slight recovery Tuesday, hacking cough and fever yesterday and today. I was bordering on delirious last night, fading between sleep and feverish semi-consciousness. I downed a couple of NyQuil I found in my desk drawer, without regard for their age. They knocked me out almost immediately. But I woke several times in the night, coughing and confused, with congestion and convulsions forcing my mind to snap back into action. The NyQuil hangover made it very hard to get out of bed. And hard to walk to the bathroom. And hard to turn on the shower. And hard to step out onto the cold floor. And hard to eat a banana. And hardest of all to walk through the rain to my car, start it, and drive to work. I doubt that I'll stay all day today. Unless I can get some sort of good drugs in me to fend off this awful condition. But that means another trip outside into the rain; a thought too horrible to think.|W|P|82143778|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/22/2002 11:56:00 AM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|Jamfest Update: Rain all night Friday and almost nobody there. Ritchie Havens was good, even though the sound kept cutting out on him. There are some obvious things about this festival that need fixing, like layout. They should have put the main stage down in Waterfront park instead of in Slugger Field. It's a nice place, but it would be better to have everything all down in one place, so you don't split the crowd. Saturday was excellent. Highlights include The Derailers and Los Lobos. More details once it's all over.|W|P|81952359|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/20/2002 10:28:00 AM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|BLUE SKY JAMFEST! All weekend long. The triumphant return of a music festival to Louisville. It's about time. I'll be working the whole weekend in the Bluegrass Anonymous tent. Bring your instrument and jam in our tent. We'll have a trailer for instrument check-in, a small stage for impromptu performances, an area for open jamming, and all the Bluegrass info your tiny human brain can stand. And the Derailers are playing. So be there.|W|P|81871722|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/20/2002 09:37:00 AM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|The wide range of neighborhoods in Louisville is remarkable. From the Highlands to Shively to Old Louisville to St. Mathews to Germantown to Hikes Point, you can drive around for less than an hour and hit most of the major areas. And I do a lot of aimless driving around. So I feel like I understand our city pretty well. But there is one place, one single plot of land, which blows my mind every time I drive by. J-town, on the whole, is a fairly unremarkable place. It's a common story: small town swallowed whole by sprawling development of the nearest bigger city. But J-town has a lot of character and an unusually disparate group of neighborhoods within its limits. The Bluegrass Industrial Park is in J-town, and the revenue collected from the businesses therein puts the firemen in new trucks and makes the J-town Police the best paid in the state. Floyd's Fork Park. The train trestle. Several "deed restricted" residential neighborhoods. Then when you drive down Waterston Trail, just past Ruckreigel, you go past several oldish looking houses. They have the look of houses that were built at least 100 years ago. And just past that, there's an old graveyard. This graveyard would be interesting if just for its placement and proximity to several new subdivisions. It's moderately well kept, but the grass always looks a couple days past needing to be cut. Then comes the weirdness. There's a gravel drive heading through the middle of the graveyard. It splits the lot all the way to the back, where sits a run-down house, surrounded by what looks like a junkyard. It's not all that strange to see a run-down house in J-town with a bunch of junk in the yard. But its placement at the back end of a graveyard is a little strange. And then there's the barbeques: the completely out-of-place, inexplicable barbeques that seem to be going-on every time I drive past. There are a number of old cars parked around the house, almost indistinguishable from the junked ones that never move. Outside, surrounding the front porch, are a congregation of lawn chairs and coolers. It's impossible to see from the road, but I'd guess the people in the lawn chairs and the coolers are both accompanied by beers of varying, but entirely domestic brands. The music isn't loud enough to hear from the road, but I'd imagine it's there. Maybe Oldies, or Classic Rock, or Soul, or Country, or R&B. I don't quite know what the appropriate soundtrack might be for a barbeque in a graveyard. The people always look like they�re having a good time. They look much happier than the folks in the neighborhoods a couple of blocks down who get home late from work and spend a lot of time cutting grass. They look like they don't mind that people are buried a few yards away. They look like a cool breeze dancing across the grave stones, through the mesh nylon back of the lawn chair, pulling the humidity down onto the cold can of beer which drips onto their leg is the perfect addition to the evening. I don't know why they pick that place to gather. But maybe it's the fact that nobody will come around to bother them. The folks in the new suburbs certainly won't come by. My guess is that hardly anybody notices them sitting outside in their lawn chairs, drinking beer and raising a little hell in the graveyard. |W|P|81869648|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/19/2002 04:20:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|Caleb Brown, local journalist and reporter for WHAS radio, has a blog of his own, and one dedicated to Public Affairs in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Very good stuff.|W|P|81837057|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/14/2002 03:41:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|Hunter Thompson provides a weird interview to CBS Marketwatch. It's rough to pull any kind of coherent statement from his ramblings, but he seems to think that there's not really anything to be scared about, and that the media is causing undue terror in the public. Now, I'm not scared. I don't go through the day worrying that I'm going to be killed by a terrorist at the turn of every corner. But I do recognize that we are dealing with an enemy which has every intent of ending our nation and creating worldwide Islamic rule. So it follows that we should be paying attention, and that we should stay focused. Thompson then goes on to take a few shots across the bow at his favorite family, the Bushes. He's not senile, and he's not delusional, but he's definitely isolated from reality. It seems as if his ability to articulate the real causes for Fear and Loathing has slipped. But I still love his books, and if he does any more interviews, I'll be right there, paying attention.|W|P|81603758|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/13/2002 11:40:00 AM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|As I do frequently, I was talking to my dad on the phone last night. We were talking about getting in shape. I've been trying to get into good enough shape to enlist, and he's coming off of a knee injury, and needs to rehabilitate. So, he tells me that he'll be at my door at 5am to go running this morning. Jesus. But I need it, so I told him I'd be up and ready when he got there. And I was. I managed to go to bed at 9:30 and didn't have too much trouble rolling out of bed at 4:45. I slid out of the bed and into the bathroom, cupped my hands under the faucet and poured some cold water on my head. I popped the contacts onto my groggy eyeballs and got dressed. I did a little stretching until my dad got there. He looked like he had a hard time getting up. And after he told me he went to bed at midnight, I understood why. We did some more stretches and headed out. I live in an apartment complex, which isn't conducive to accident-free jogging. So we walked across the street to a small neighborhood with a little more room for safe passage. It was a little tough to get going, but once I gained a little momentum, I did alright. We ran down a little road lined on one side by small, featured-garage rental units and on the other by large high tension electric line towers. Somewhere around the Elk's club, my legs started to tighten. Carrying as much weight as I do puts an unhealthy stress on the muscles on the outside of my lower leg, connecting calf and ankle. These little but important muscles tied themselves into a tight knot, on each leg. So I walked around the parking lot of the Elk's club, trying to stretch the pain away. After a little walking, the pain subsided and I was ready to run again. But it wasn't long before my ankles gave in. Shooting pain leapt up the sides of my legs. Any strength that was left in my legs after the first incident was now gone. So I hobbled the rest of the way down the road and back to my apartment. A little discouraged, my dad reminded me that this was only my first day, and that "It will get easier". Then he asked if I'd be up and ready to run again Saturday. I would probably be able to get into shape on my own eventually. But having a father who has been there before, and who got himself into shape before going into the Army, makes a world of difference. He's there to push me, and to help me along. He's also there to answer questions about what it might be like in the Army, and what to expect in boot camp. So I will be up again tomorrow, ready to push myself towards my goal. But I won't be alone.|W|P|81556754|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/12/2002 09:54:00 AM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|I tried to make yesterday as normal a day as possible. I hit my snooze button a few too many times. I took a little too long in the shower, leaving barely enough time to make some toast for breakfast. I went to work and spent the first couple of hours reading blogs. I ate Arby's for lunch, and decided to head across town to get my haircut at the Bon Air barber shop, where I've been going for years. I tried to get work done. I didn't do much, really. But that was about as normal as it can get. After work I went straight to Seneca park for a little baseball in the beautiful clear September evening. Not many people showed for the game, so it was just batting/fielding practice. I didn't play well. Once it became too dark to distinguish the ball coming quickly towards my head from the trees, clouds and setting sun, I went home. There wasn't much that looked good in the fridge, but I managed to eat well. Wednesday night used to just be Bluegrass Jam night. Now it's baseball then Bluegrass Jam night. So I got a shower and thought about taking my bass up to the jam. But I turned the tv on for the first time in the day, and there was the 'wall to wall' memorial coverage. I sat down and thought about staying home to watch it. But there wasn't any news, just re-runs of old terrible stories and pictures. I haven't forgotten, and I don't need to be reminded. So the tv is off. I decide not to lug my bass out to the jam session, which is about as normal as normal can be. And I see all my Wednesday friends. And I have a couple drinks. I laugh, and listen and breathe the crisp night air.|W|P|81505491|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/11/2002 03:49:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|read Layne read Lileks|W|P|81470222|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/11/2002 03:46:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|There's not much I feel like writing today. The the date is the same, the weather is the same and the images on tv are the same. But so much has changed in a year. And so much more has changed in a year and a day.|W|P|81470121|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/05/2002 10:34:00 AM|W|P|Jackson|W|P| There was nothing special about seeing a beat-up old pickup driving down the Dixie Highway on my way to work. On the contrary, I might suspect something was wrong if there weren't dozens of these speeding down the road. And the busted-out back window wasn't a rare sight. The plastic covering the space behind the driver's head fit right in with the surroundings. Some folks just can't afford to replace those things right away. Nothing strange about that, to be sure. My first indication that something was awry was the large Fight Club poster taped to the plastic in the back window of the beat-up pickup. I thought to myself, "It was a popular movie, and had lots of violence. I guess maybe someone driving down The Dixie might have liked it so much that they were compelled to tape a poster to the heavy grade plastic separating them from the elements." But it still seemed strange. Maybe this is some young guy who has taken this movie a little too seriously. Maybe he convinced some of his South End friends that instead of this pansy-ass backyard wrestling they've been doing, they should find a basement in which they could bare-knuckle box. It's not unthinkable. As I moved to pass the truck and get my first good look at the driver, the real mind blower came. Driving this dented and rusted truck with a busted window and Fight Club poster, was a diminutive 70 year-old man.|W|P|81189112|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/04/2002 12:16:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|It's a long story, but the Bluegrass jam session moved a few weeks ago to the Bluegrass Brewing Company. The jam session at the Lighthouse is still happening, but the Lighthouse itself moved. It is now in the former Do Drop Inn. There was all sorts of trouble within the group that runs the jam when the Lighthouse moved. And now there are jams at both places, which is both good and bad. Many of the concerned parties got their feelings hurt, and many acted like little children. I have grown tired of all of it. I want to play baseball.|W|P|81144643|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/04/2002 11:18:00 AM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|Magic Sam's "Give Me Time" is one of the most soulful, touching albums I own. It was recorded by Sam's friend Bill Lindemann in Sam's living room in 1968. You can even hear Sam's kids running around at one point. The first time I heard this album was on a visit to Chicago. Several friends and I were down on Maxwell Street, our favorite destination for great cheap Polish sausages and Blues history. Next door to the sausage stand was a little blues tape shop. And I do mean tape shop. It was run by an older fellow who had apparently been there a very long time. My Chicago friends had been down there before and jammed a little in the shops with the blues players who just hang out. My buddy got this Magic Sam album on tape on that trip. We must have listened to it three or four times on the way home. That whole block has since been bulldozed. It now contains an unsightly chunk of University of Chicago dorms. You can no longer see any of the old blues clubs or clothing stores. And you can't get Magic Same tapes. But you can still get the sausages. They relocated the stand a block or two over. It's a shame they couldn't have done the same for all the history they demolished.|W|P|81142280|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/03/2002 11:53:00 AM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|I love many of Louisville Native Hunter Thompson's books. And recently, I have enjoyed many of his ESPN.com columns. But I think he's really taken the step off the deep end. All those years of drugs, alcohol and frantic living have taken a toll on his ability to think rationally. As evidence, I present this interview with Australian ABC Radio (I found this via Tim Blair. Go read his excellent response). He's got a long standing hatred of the Bush family, which for all I know is well founded. But he's clearly living in a whole new weird universe these days. I don't know of anybody who's been squashed by the big bad government for voicing discontent with the war. It's a shame, but not entirely surprising that Thompson would flip out like this.|W|P|81093803|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/03/2002 11:41:00 AM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|Jazz great and Louisville native Lionel Hampton died yesterday at the age of 94.|W|P|81093280|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/03/2002 11:07:00 AM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|There is something deeply satisfying about vomiting in the bushes of the car dealership that is about to charge you $247 for a problem that you're not entirely sure even exists. I don't know if it was the stomach bug I've had, or if I was making a preemptive strike against the bastards that were about to tell me that my car is 928 miles OUT of warranty. But either way, I unleashed a healthy purge right there in the mulch, feet from the entrance to the service bay. I don't think anyone was looking, but if they were, I'm sure they would understand.|W|P|81091839|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com9/02/2002 06:57:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|

Dear Jackson, I'm the 85 year old woman you just saw sitting at the expressway exit. You know, the one sitting on an overturned shopping cart, holding the sign that said "Only Need Bus Fair"? Well, I noticed that you didn't flow me any cash. Are you some kind of heartless bastard? What can I do next time to make sure you give me something. Thanks, Disgruntled Beggar Lady

Dear Disgruntled Beggar Lady, Sure I know who you are. You had that fashionable hat and well written sign. Let me give you a simple answer to your question. If you want me to give you some money next time, make sure that you aren't counting a fat wad of cash when I drive up. I haven't ridden the bus in a while, but I'm pretty sure it's not that expensive. So, either change your sign to something a little less specific, or hide the day's profits until you get home. It tempers my sympathy. Best of luck, Jackson

|W|P|81061053|W|P||W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com