My closest friends know, and frequently lament, that I listen obsessively to country radio and rarely find a song too poppy or maudlin for my liking. I consider it a sort of melancholic identification with the normalcy I fail (sometimes beautifully, more often not) to achieve in my day-to-day life.

 So Bucky Covington’s “A Different World” would seem a fitting addition to my corny collection. Like countless other country songs, it bemoans the loss of simpler times when children frolicked outside rather than play video games–and when children accepted disappointment rather than have their egos coddled by overindulgent parents. I’ve said many times, particularly following my days of substituting in public schools, that there’s not nearly enough shame in America’s young.

But a closer listen reveals a darker side to Bucky’s utopia: “We got daddy’s belt when we misbehaved.” Okay, I can handle that; spare the rod, spoil the child, all that jazz. But then there’s this: “We were born to mothers/ who smoke and drank/ Our cribs were covered in lead-based paint.” So Bucky’s bringing back fetal alcohol syndrome and toxins that a study recently linked, once again, to violent behavior in children. Presumably Bucky feels that Daddy’s belt will effectively counteract lead’s cognitive trauma. But should we trust Bucky? Let the album cover guide us…

Only lead poisoning, I’m convinced, could make Bucky think this photo looks good. He looks like he was just cast as Jesus in a backwoods production of Godspell that far from propelling his small-town celebrity will make him a pariah after his fundamentalist brethren realize the play isn’t, well, kosher.

 ”A Different World” mocks the soccer mom generation with seatbelts and helmets, but Bucky should seriously consider giving headware a try. It protects against the sort of injures that lead to poor decision making–like dyeing one’s facial hair. Btw, Bucky, no one’s buying your downhome persona. You rose to “fame” via American Idol, on which you finished 8th, six places lower than your North Carolina compatriot, Clay Aiken. Double btw, hiring Aiken’s stylist is not the best way to replicate his closeted success. Triple btw, what does your twin Rocky have to say about all of this? Come to think of it, you do look a bit like Bullwinkle.

I know it’s been far too long since my last post. I was having difficulty logging in until Kristen–e.g. Wonder Woman–saved the day and returned me to, I hope, my loyal and patient readers. Speaking of Kristen, as my roommate she knows better than anyone how obsessed I am with health drinks and tonics. Every time Whole Foods puts a new one on the shelf, be it Acai juice or coconut water, I snap it up, whatever the cost, in the truly postmodern hope that it will save me from deadly toxins and deliver superhuman powers.

 So meet my current obsession: Dave’s Synergy Kombucha. Brimming with probiotics, amino acids, active enzymes and polyphenols–don’t ask me what these things do!–this flavored, fermented tea (used for ages in China to combat illness) tastes far too vinegary to be called delicious but purportedly cleanses the system and fends off cancer. Dave believes his mom’s use of the drink during a bout with breast cancer contributed to her recovery.

 I’ve had several friends and family members taste it, and almost all have recoiled at the junk (i.e. live cultures) floating around in it. But if you give it a good shake and don’t look too closely while drinking, you barely notice. What you might notice, however, is a slight buzz from the small amount of alcohol generated by the fermentation process.

Recently I’ve seen a lot more people, particularly people from my yoga studio, consuming these tonics in public. Dave made them kind of sexy, infusing them with exotic juices like mango and guava (the guava goddess, Kristen will confirm, makes an eye-catching accessory to a pink shirt) that really do take the edge off the vinegary tartness. If you want to be harcore, and I always support hardcore, give the green tea/algae one a try. People will think you’re drinking swamp water, little suspecting that you’ve found the fountain of youth (or an over-priced vinegary tea).

Consider this my inaugural post on old songs that merit revisiting. Driving back from Starbucks this morning, I landed upon an old Heart song, “All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You.” Obsessed with pop radio as a child, I recalled the song being somewhat scandalous and involving a pregnancy, but not until today did I appreciate fully its lyrical content. The narrative runs something like this: a woman is driving along on a rainy night, picks up a handsome hitchhiker, takes him to a hotel she “knows well,” enjoys multiple orgasms (”he brought the woman out of me, so many times, easily”), leaves only a note behind the next morning that reads “I am the flower, you are the seed / We walked in the garden, we planted a tree,” and then re-encounters him a year later, carrying HIS child. The song concludes with her explaining, “…please, please, understand / I’m in love with another man / And what he couldn’t give me / Was the one little thing that you can.”

OMG! So she scored this guy because she wanted a child and her husband is either infertile or doesn’t interest her sexually. I’m loath to label a song feminist–or to reduce feminism to sexual license–but this song seems quite bold for its time. She doesn’t “ask him his name”–appearing to find something special in ”love” made “like strangers”–uses him for an evening, and then implores him in her note not to try to find her. How delightful, I think, that this was Heart’s only Gold single (meaning it sold over 500,000 copies). And how curious that “Mutt” Lange, Shania’s husband, penned it. Whose bed have his boots been under?   

Starved for culinary delights after a week of abysmal cafeteria food, I sampled some of Louisville’s finest my final two nights. On Thursday, some veteran graders and I tried a local classic, the Hot Brown, at downtown’s Bistro 301. More of a casserole than an open-faced sandwich, which the menu advertised, the Hot Brown boasts turkey, bacon, and bread submerged in a cheesy, Mornay sauce–then baked! Rich, creamy, meaty: it was more hearty than tasty and only energized my body’s revolt against artery-clogging fare.

So on Friday night, as my tablemates and I pondered our food options after downing Manhattans and Sidecars, we settled far away from Americana–at a hole-in-the-wall Persian restaurant named Saffron. Located inauspiciously next to a Subway, it boasted favorable local reviews and a good-spirited pianist who tried, best he could, to bang out Petula Clark’s “Downtown,” this year’s AP theme song (a thousand of us chimed in on the chorus our last morning). After heightening our spirits further with tasty beers–Cathryn glowed after imbibing her first Chimay–we feasted on braised lamb, beef stew and beef and chicken kabobs grilled to perfection. The basmati dill rice and torshi (picked herb) proved surprisingly delicious (I normally despise both dill and pickled anything) and the unadvertised grilled vegetables satisfied our desperate desire for food with color (and I don’t mean green M&Ms). We topped things off with ice cream flavored with pistachio, saffron and rosewater. A surprising treat all around and the perfect sendoff for a trip whose pictures I promise to post soon.

 For those of you who feel left in the lurch by my reference to fesenjoon above–no, none of us ordered this persian stew featuring crushed walnuts, caramelized onion and pomegranate juice. But I highly recommend trying it if you haven’t done so. Speaking of pomegranates, I enjoyed and want to re-create one of the signature cocktails from another of Louisville’s finest restaurants, Proof on Main, housed in the upscale 21C Hotel whose owner wows guests by filling the hotel with items from his impressive collection of contemporary art. The Pama Negroni contains pomegranate liquer, cointreau, gin, sweet vermouth and campari. I don’t recommend following it with a Hot Brown, but you might try Proof’s rock shrimp risotto. 

After a full day of AP grading, we readers crave a stiff drink. Fortunately we’re in Kentucky, the home of bourbon (Bet you didn’t know that for a spirit to qualify as bourbon it must be distilled in Kentucky). Yesterday two of my tablemates–Kelly and Cathryn, both fab–and I strolled down Fourth Street, our nametags still dangling from our necks, soaking up warm sunshine after nine hours in a chilly and soulless convention center. Cathryn persuaded us to stop off at the Seelbach Hotel, a historic site at which F. Scott Fitzgerald resided and staged a wedding in “The Great Gatsby,” for a flight of bourbon. Our charming bartender, who impressed us all by remembering Cathryn’s name from the previous evening, presented us with four bourbons, the oldest aged 12 years. After sampling them all, celebrating the aromas of one, the smooth texture of another, we tried some blind taste-testing. Kelly impressed us by correctly by identifying her first sample, but Cathryn and I failed miserably. Typically an adept beer and wine taster, I disappointed myself.

 Our spirits warmed, we decided to try the house special, the Seelbach cocktail. Consting of bourbon, triple sec, bitters and champagne, it lit a fire beneath us (Cathryn and I had two) that left me feeling less than clear-headed this morning. Or maybe it was the wine we drank later at my friend John’s 40th b’day bash. In any case, the Seelbach made quite the impression. Feeling less fancy after today’s grading, we retired to a streetside happy hour, where we sipped light beers and snacked on queso and tortilla chips. Less than classy, to be sure, but still a step up (honestly, five steps) from the cafeteria food that has us all feeling a bit weighted-down and yet undernourished.    

Well, not exactly, but it’s where I’ll be for the next eight days grading Advance Placement English exams. Most AP students don’t realize that thousands of beleaguered high school teachers and penurious grad students descend upon convention centers and college campuses during the summer to pore over those essays they dashed off in forty minutes or less.

 In years past we English Lit graders have enjoyed the seaside breezes and tacky delights of Daytona Beach, Florida. Lacking good food, drink and culture, Daytona nonetheless boasted an ocean, shoreline happy hours and sketchy haunts like the Streamline Hotel, where one could find a cheap, filthy room, rooftop bar, karaoke, bud lite and even rough trade. Louisville conjures this scene a bit with a riverside hotel (The Galt House–it’s quite nice), Hard Rock Cafe and liquor in every shop window, but it feels more commercial than crass, more common than crazy. Unfortunately, I lack a car with which to explore other parts of the city, such as Saint Matthews, which houses my much desired Bikram Yoga studio.

Amidst the chain restaurants I found a decent lunch spot called Yaching’s East West Cuisine. It wasn’t clear what the restaurant purported to fuse, since most of the dishes were either East or West, not an innovative hybridization of the two, but its spicy asian noodles were quite tasty and complemented nicely by a Tsingtao beer (Kristen and I first drank this beer with our friend Bethany over Pad Thai–before watching Children of Men–now that’s fusion).  The nicest touch was the ginger-soaked cucumber, which cooled the palate as the heat (it really snuck up on me) intensified.

I’ll be posting updates daily from Louisville. Look for lots of bitching, since I’m accustomed neither to a 9-5 job nor to cafeteria food!

Among coffee connoisseurs and political progressives it’s practically a crime to profess a fondness for Starbucks coffee. Time and again aficionados complain of a burnt taste while do-gooders worry about the company’s aggressive expansion, environmentalist ethics and use of third-world labor.

 So it’s with some shame that I confess a new weakness for the chain’s iced coffee. But why indulge this weakness when one can find iced coffee at local coffee shops? Because Starbucks has an unflavored syrup it can use to sweeten the coffee. Sure, every shop has syrups, but most are flavored–and I don’t like the taste of vanilla or hazelnut in my chilly brew. And we all know how disappointing sugar packets and cubes prove in iced coffee. They sink to the bottom, producing final sips that taste like treacle.

 I’m feeling my defense of this corporate behemoth mounting, so I’ll make one last retort to the naysayers. Starbucks may appear on every corner, may look the same inside and might lack the local character of your favorite coffee shop, but spatial homogeneity does not mean homogeneity of experience. The people who populate these spaces contribute the most to their ambience and character, and quite frequently I find Starbucks buzzing with lively conversation, political debate and romance (the one closest to me appears a favorite for first dates).

For now, then, I’ll continue my daily excursions to Starbucks and hope I cultivate the glamour and panache of Nancy Botwin, played to perfection by Mary-Louise Parker on Showtime’s hit Weeds, who’s rarely seen without her signature iced latte and whose eclectic posse gives the lie to reductive accounts of suburban life, for which Starbucks stands an egregious exemplar, as stale and cookie-cutter (even while showing this life’s shortcoming and contradictions). Dulce et decorum est to reclaim a disparaged beverage in the name of a fictitious pot-dealer.       

I know it sounds a bit conceited to name a blog after oneself and moreover to make oneself the arbiter of “cool.” But rest assured I’m no haughty hipster, just a graduate student in English who has come to enjoy many new things of late and wants to share them with friends and interested strangers. A graduate student nonetheless, I might occasionally verge into snarkiness and negativity, but my main goal here is to convey pleasure, perhaps even some pleasure from within snarky. Welcome aboard and please, please feel free to comment–

Yours,

Ben