danajohnhill.org

For some reason which I cannot begin to understand, a man has tried to sue the world’s worst living person, Kid Rock, not for being an incredibly misogynistic bastard, for tarnishing America’s image abroad, or even simply being a waste of precious oxygen.  No, this poor fool has attempted, and failed, to sue Mr. Rock for [shaking my head] stealing his song.

You read right - Troy Landry of Louisiana “sued Atlantic Recording Corp., Kid Rock (whose real name is Robert Ritchie) and others in 2004, claiming an 8-second portion of Kid Rock’s ‘Somebody’s Gotta Feel This,’ featured in a beer commercial, was ’strikingly or substantially similar’ to songs Landry released on a 1994 record.”  Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon ruled in favor of the defendant today.

No doubt the beer referenced was Coors, which is already on my Axis of Evil, not only for choosing Mr. Rock as their spokesbastard, but for referring to him as “an American hero” in a written response to my anti-Rock manifesto of 2002.

Still, I cannot understand why any self-respecting songwriter would debase himself by publicizing a plausible connection between his own work and that of such a feculent ass clown as Kid Rock.  It would be as if the most offensive hard core pornographic motion picture of all time contained amongst the filth some plot element that you had once thought of yourself.  Suing would only draw a permanent link between your name and the aforementioned smut.

And to lose in the end?  I pity you, Mr. Landry.

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and this one was memorable, if not quite what we all imagined it would be.

It began for me on Wednesday the 21st, when I drove down to St. Petersburg to spend the evening with my grandmother - something I always enjoy. The drive was exceedingly slow due to heavy holiday traffic, which only cleared southbound in Wildwood, where the Turnpike begins. But I arrived in St. Pete eventually, and Grandma and I chatted into the night. I slept comfortably, and, as an added bonus, my cousin Marshall–who is presently living with my grandmother–has an Arctic White Fender Stratocaster.

Grandma and I chatted away Thanksgiving morning, and eventually made our way to my Aunt Julie’s new house in Pinellas Park, which was actually quite a nice place, with a huge back yard and a garage tailor made for Thanksgiving dinners. Of course, it is a custom in my family to sing a hymn in lieu of a spoken prayer, and this year was no different. One of these days we ought to make a recording of it, so that ages hence we’ll remember what it was to spend Thanksgiving at a Hill household.

Uncle Tom, Dad and I gathered around and flipped through Connie and Charlie’s scrapbooks of their roadtrip down Route 66. Miriam would have enjoyed that. But before too long I had to make a road trip of my own, back to Gainesville to spend what was left of the holiday with Mrs. Hill, and help her organize our own Post-Thanksgiving in what ever way I could. The drive back was considerably less congested, and in the absence of traffic, I enjoyed crossing the Howard Frankland Bridge, speeding through Tampa, and passing a favorite old landmark. I even made a short detour as part of the Dana Heritage Project, which I will detail in a future post.

Our premiere Post-Thanksgiving was to have been a happy gathering of combined families, an idea Mrs. Hill had, and she pulled off something remarkable, bringing together over a dozen people whom otherwise would have had no home-cooked meal. Unfortunately, my grandmother fell ill, and my mother had to work, so their absences were felt. But the food was delicious, and Miriam’s efforts were super-human.

My father bravely drove alone in his 1983 BMW 320i, which he loves. But the sudden death of his transmission at the Newberry Road exit spelled the end of his car’s journey under its own power. After some confusion regarding his exact whereabouts–I thought he was at the Red Lobster, when, in fact, he was on the Interstate off-ramp–I met up with him, and we got his car to a safe location in the Borders parking lot and made our way home for dinner. But we had to leave early to take advantage of the little remaining daylight, and attempted an on-location repair with no success. An improvised tool proved ineffectual, and the appropriate-but-pricey Craftsman version was too large to fit in the limited space beneath the car. While I was in Ocala photographing a wedding the following day, Dad worked more on the car, only to come to the conclusion that repair was likely impossible. Sunday the 25th was spent arranging for the BMW to be transported back to Pasco County. The best solution we could find was a trailer attached to a U-Haul. It worked fine, and the fellow at the Gainesville U-Haul even gave us a deal. So, U-Haul is hereby removed from the Axis of Evil.

My father’s automotive calamity was an unexpected expense and frustration for him, I know. On the other hand, I was able to spend more time with him than I had in a decade. And you can’t put a price on that.

Some jackass in Texas is on trial this week, charged with animal cruelty after killing a cat he said was hunting the birds he was studying.  (I won’t get graphic in this post, but I am sensitive to the feelings of others, so only continue if you can bear it.)

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Cox Communications is a terrible cable company.  Compared to cable providers in Orlando or Tampa, Cox offers less value for money.  While viewers in those cities have the option of enjoying fine-arts programming, or television from overseas, Cox subscribers don’t.  I have repeatedly requested that they carry Classic Arts Showcase or Ovation.  Naturally, they just give me a typical boilerplate response.  When they added high-definition capability–which came later to Cox than other cable providers–they initially carried an HD version of NBC, which for Gainesville comes from Orlando.  One Saturday night–during SNL, no less–a message appeared on screen suddenly saying that they would no longer be carrying NBC in HD because the Orlando affiliate wanted too much money.  The tone of the message was so smarmy and childish.  And, as a customer, I don’t care if it cost Cox a lot to air NBC in HD; that’s what I am paying them for.  Still, almost two years later we still have no high-def version of NBC.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the 2008 Summer Olympic Games come and go and I’m still watching 480i.  Meanwhile, I see the HDTV options available to others, Cox is clearly way behind.

So, with all that crapulence, it was rather surprising to turn on my TV last week and see something called “On Demand”.  At first I thought it was some lame pay-per-view initiative that I would get no use out of.  It turns out, however, that it is rather convenient.  The way it works is that there is a menu with several different channels listed, including HBO, Showtime, and Starz.  When you select one of these options you get another menu listing many movies and series that these networks telecast.  Selecting any of these allows you to watch it whenever you’d like.  This is particularly handy when you want to watch, say, any of this last season’s best show, Flight of the Conchords.  It’s rather like having everything on DVR.  The most amazing thing is that there is no extra charge for this if you already subscribe to those particular premium channels.

Still, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that other markets had this technology long ago, or that theirs was better.  Cox still sucks.

Some extraordinary wanker hacked my site last night, placing malicious javascript in many of my PHP and HTML files.  Only thanks to Steve was I able to really discern what it was that had happened, and he spent an hour or so going through my directory and deleting the offending code.

I discovered the problem, coincidentally, while talking to Steve on the phone.  I had gone to log-in to my site to write a new post, when I saw some gibberish in the place of the normal log-in screen.  I tried another browser and it was the same.  Then I tried Internet Explorer, and my anti-virus program pops up, saying a virus was detected.

So, my apologies to anyone who attempted to read my posts and had trouble.  Endless thanks again to Steve for resolving what could have been an enormous headache.  Furthermore, instant Axis of Evil status for the loathsome computer vandal.