A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

"Those are the facts"

The lack of quality Sunday night HBO programming these days means, on occasion, a split in viewing habits between The Wife and myself. Once She Who Shall Not Be Named hits the sack, I'll sometimes hang out in the bedroom to catch Family Guy and the rest of the football game, while The Wife checks out whatever show tickles her fancy that week.

Tonight, it was Desperate Housewives. I caught about half of the first season for reasons I can't adequately explain, but aside from being able to name most of the cast, I couldn't tell you what the hell is going on in that show. So it was something of a surprise to walk into the living room, glance at the TV, and see one of my most enduring celebrity infatuations staring back at me.

Me: Why didn't anybody tell me Dana Delany was on Desperate Housewives?
TW: [squinting] Who?
Me: Dana Delany. Sirens. Tombstone. Exit to freaking Eden. Hell, they sang about her in the Animaniacs theme song.
TW: Are you sure that's her?
Me: Oh, I'm sure.

She may be 51 years old, but I think I'm pretty open-minded in that regard. Besides, I'm no spring chicken myself, and judging by this picture (taken five years ago) I'd still be the ugly one by a country mile.

All that's left is this final confession: Mom, it may disappoint you to hear this, but I didn't watch China Beach with you on those summers home from college because I was eager to bond. Hope you understand.

The College Game Night of Long Knives

Ouch.

Underdog campuses were fired up all over America on Insanity Saturday. They were also fired up in Auburn, Ala. And in Manhattan, Kan. And College Park, Md. And Tampa, Fla., too.

The students in those locales had reason to party after their teams upset top-10 teams this weekend. Down went No. 3 Oklahoma to Colorado, No. 4 Florida to Auburn, No. 7 Texas to Kansas State, No. 10 Rutgers to Maryland, and on Friday, No. 5 West Virginia to South Florida.

Throw in upset losses by No. 13 Clemson and No. 21 Penn State and even first-half deficits for big dogs USC and LSU against Washington and Tulane, respectively, and you have Insanity Saturday.

My momentary glee at OU losing on a last minute field goal from Colorado was quickly erased by UT's embarrassing defeat at the hands of Kansas State. Once again, the Big 12 is a joke, and the Red River Rivalry Shoot-Out is an afterthought.

We watched the last half of the Texas-KSU game at OU fan Sir Not Appearing On This Blog's house, and we realized the College Game Day bus would no longer be making a stop in Dallas, but zipping right by on I-20 on its way to Baton Rouge for LSU-Florida, itself a game that has lost some of its oomph.

At least Notre Dame is still winless.

"The Rock" - 1919 - 2007

It pains me that I have to begin this with a disclaimer, but I suppose I need to point out that this entry is not, in fact, about ex-wrestler Dwayne Johnson.

I just returned from the funeral of Alvin Joseph Vonder Haar, my paternal grandfather. It was in St. Louis, where he lived the entirety of his life (aside from a stint in the Army during WWII), and was well-attended by family and friends.

Eulogies always start the same way: the speaker goes to great length to convince the assembled of what a remarkable life the deceased led. Grandpa would've been the first to call bullshit on that, and it's emblematic of both the time and manner in which he was raised that he'd do so. I'm probably not objective in this case, but these are the facts: he was a soldier in the United States Army, an officer in the St. Louis Police Department, and a truck and armored car driver. In addition, and no less impressive, he was a husband, a father who raised six children, and a grandfather (and great-grandfather) besides.

It was obviously for this last achievement that I remember him best. We spent countless Christmases at Grandma and Grandpa's house on Sweet Gum Drive, sleeping in their finished basement next to the old potbellied stove and - for a time - my uncle's drum kit (which ultimately helped me realize my aptitude lay with the wind family of instruments). He was never less than indulgent with his grandkids, whether allowing us to shoot BB guns in the backyard, or paying us bounties for the houseflies we killed on the patio so we could go to the convenience store across the street and play Galaga (and so he could enjoy a cigar in peace). He also famously tolerated a certain 7-year old nerd's insistence on dressing like Superman to fight the menace of - no shit - "Supertoe" (Grandpa had freakishly prehensile feet).

I could tell you about his marriage to my grandmother, which lasted almost 70 years and taught me a lot about how to make one work. I could also tell you about the time he and a high school buddy decided to hop a train to South America (Grandpa's knowledge of global geography was a little lacking in his early days), culminating in his getting shot by the Missouri State Police. Maybe you'd be interested to know that he was a voracious bookworm, often reading three at once. Or how about how he earned his nickname? "A.J." was known to frequent a certain bar after a long day driving trucks, and - like so many in his family - was also known to run his mouth rather loudly after having a few. One night, some fellow he antagonized took it poorly and sucker-punched him in the jaw. Grandpa just laughed at him, and he was known as "The Rock" from that day on.

I'm a lucky man in a lot of ways, not the least of which is in getting the opportunity to know all four of my grandparents well into adulthood (The Wife, by comparison, barely knew two of hers). The only downside is how much it hurts when they're gone.

Ultimately, no one ever wins at life. You may be up for a while, but in the end, the house always collects. At the very least, I'm pretty sure Grandpa came out even. I'm pretty sure of that.

Rest in peace, pal.

The Rock and She Who Shall Not Be Named - Christmas, 2004

"Springfield A&M is a cow college."
"You're just saying that because it was founded by a cow."

That "Big and Rich" intro to ESPN's College Game Day might be the worst thing I've ever seen. It's five minutes later and my gorge only now stopped rising.

Then again, the only reason to watch this dumb ass show in the first place - aside from She Who Shall Not Be Named deciding to take a two hour playtime between 3 and 5 AM, allowing me to watch something on Saturday morning not Backyardigans or Barefoot Contessa related since the late 20th century - is to see if anybody can sneak another Lee Corso sign into camera range.

I missed Miami's 34-17 defeat of Texas A&M Thursday night cause I was at the Resident Evil: Extinction screening (review here). On one hand, I could've watched the loathsome Hurricanes manhandling the no-longer 20th ranked Aggies, on the other I had Milla Jovovich slaying zombies with Gurkha knives. I'm comfortable with my choice.

I sympathize with A&M fans, however. If there's one thing I can agree about with my Big 12 rivals, it's that Miami sucks. And they can take comfort in the fact that this defeat, potentially crippling to their conference title hopes (which, let's be honest, weren't that great to begin with), wasn't nearly as embarrassing as the pasting we suffered at Miami's hands in the 1991 Cotton Bowl, a game I was supposed to attend after driving up to Dallas for New Year's Eve. I had to work, so I stayed in Austin, getting drunk by myself and making the not-at-all regrettable decision to hook up with my neighbor. That made for a comfortable rest of my lease, let me tell you.

Anyway, I woke up after noon, turned the game on and - seeing we were behind by something like 20 points in the first quarter - turned the TV off and went back to bed.

Speaking of Miami, Oklahoma slaughtered Tulsa last night. Not having seen all their games so far won't prevent me from predicting an OU-USC (or possible OU-Rutgers) title game. It also won't stop me from taking the over on Longhorn turnovers. I'm thinking McCoy gets picked off twice and Charles fumbles at least once.

Notre Dame has been outscored 102-13 so far this season. I hope Regis helped.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention UT running back James Henry becoming the the sixth Longhorn player arrested this year. Henry was pinched for obstruction and tampering with evidence, which is pretty impressive for a freshman.

Hell must be freezing over

Because I actually think Barry Bonds is right about something:

Barry Bonds said the man who bought his 756th home run ball and announced plans to let the public decide its fate is an "idiot."

Fashion designer Marc Ecko had the winning bid Saturday in the online auction for the ball that Bonds hit last month to break Hank Aaron's record of 755 home runs. The final selling price was $752,467, well above most predictions.

Ecko, 35, has set up a Web site that lets visitors vote on three options for the ball: give it to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, brand it with an asterisk before sending it to Cooperstown or blast it into space on a rocket ship.
[...]
"All of those options don't weigh anything," Bonds told the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday night in Phoenix. "In baseball, that number (756) stands."

Bonds said Ecko could have found a better way to spend three-quarters of a million dollars.

"He's stupid. He's an idiot," Bonds said. "He spent $750,000 on the ball and that's what he's doing with it? What he's doing is stupid."

Fine, it's Ecko's money, and he can do what he wants with it. The fact that he's a fashion designer means he's not really a productive member of society to begin with.

And he certainly isn't as big an idiot as this guy.

"Where's this barge headed?"
"Garbage Island."

The third Tuesday of every month is Heavy Trash Day in my neighborhood. Everything from large tree limbs to soiled couches line our street on Monday nights, which - in addition to increasing the resale value of every home in the area - also brings out the hordes of salvage-minded citizens looking for some free stuff. Early evening finds dozens of cars cruising slowly up and down the road looking for fine antiquities. Or a relatively non-stained futon, whatever.

I'm not really bothered by any of this. Trash picking has a long and storied tradition in our culture, and far be it from me to criticize anyone for looking to profit from my castoffs (especially when I still have a few items in my own home acquired in identical fashion). My biggest complaint is that the scavengers often act in such haste they leave crap scattered across our lawns. Right now my neighbor's front yard looks like somebody upended a dumpster on it.

We fared slightly better this time around. I don't usually have a lot to contribute to the occasion, but these days you'd have trouble cramming another bicycle into my garage, much less an actual automobile. This is partly our fault - what with being feckless 21st century consumers and all - but the previous homeowners also saw fit to stash a bunch of shit they apparently were disinclined to move to their new digs up in the rafters. In addition to a battered vacuum cleaner, I moved a bunch of spare cabinet parts and an old Ozarka water dispenser that may or may not still work. Maybe that makes me wasteful, but I know how many petrified rodent droppings I've found in there (I regularly lay out poison and sometimes "accidentally" leave the garage door open so the neighborhood felines can do some housecleaning), and damned if I'm going to drink water slightly more noisome than that coming out of Houston's pipes. At least the folks who liberated them were kind enough to arrange the remaining crap in a relatively tidy pile.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to see if my neighbor's computer monitor has been snatched up yet.

EDIT: It hasn't.

"Ever seen a grown man naked?"

Cross-posted from Blog 9, so sue me...

Sure you have. We're all pretty much adults here, well-versed in human anatomy and all 17 volumes of "Truly Tasteless Jokes," right? In that case, I wish y'all had been in last night's screening of Eastern Promises, the new movie from David Cronenberg.

My review will be up at Film Threat tomorrow, but in a nutshell, Viggo Mortensen plays an up and coming Russian mobster who becomes acquainted with midwife Naomi Watts, who is trying to decipher the diary of a Russian girl who died in childbirth.

None of that is important for purposes of this entry. I'm more concerned with the climactic fight scene, in which Viggo takes on two hitmen in a bathhouse...while naked. It's a daring performance for our beloved Aragorn, especially when you consider the amount of full frontal we get. Given the number of chuckles in the audience during that sequence, however, you'd think these people had never seen male genitalia.

Male frontal nudity is still pretty rare in the movies, but not so isolated we should feel the need to titter behind our palms like 3rd graders revery time it shows up on screen. So while you're avoiding work by reading this, I thought I'd take a look at some of the more memorable instances of movie meat:

The Deer Hunter - My parents can be credited for allowing me to watch more than my fair share of R-rated movies as a youngster (or at least not noticing me hiding under the couch). The down side being, I only really recall those scenes most likely to scar me for life. To wit, I remember Christopher Walken's big send-off ("Di di mao!"), and Robert De Niro nakedly running down the streets of his hometown, the first scene of its kind I can recall seeing in a movie. In a blow to the Jack Thompsons of the world, I managed to avoid committing either act during my tempestuous youth.

Life of Brian - I was either in 8th or 9th grade when some friends and I went to see this. Sure, the scene where Brian (Graham Chapman) throws open his window and exposes himself to the assembled masses of Judea was played for laughs, but it also had the unintentional side effect of making all us junior high guys in the audience at Texas A&M's Memorial Student Center stare uncomfortably at our shoes for the next ten minutes.

Bad Lieutenant/The Piano - Harvey Keitel, bless his heart, never shied away from treating audiences to uncomfortably protracted shots of his junk. He gets bonus points for baring all in critically acclaimed films, making the instances "meaningful" instead of merely "gratuitous."

Trainspotting/Velvet Goldmine/Young Adam - And then came Ewan McGregor, the one mainstream actor who makes Keitel look positively bashful. McGregor's scenes tended to be naturalistic and/or sensitive, compared to Keitel, who usually stuck with menacing and/or menacing. Thankfully, he restrained himself in the Star Wars prequels.

Though it would've given "Look at the size of that thing" new and exciting context.

The Crying Game - I freely admit, I didn't see it coming. I saw this on a date, and she found it endlessly hilarious that I remained oblivious to Jaye Davidson's pronounced Adam's apple and man-hands until the famous "Boy howdy" scene. Director Neil Jordan took a pretty decent political story and threw us a groovy curveball to boot, and I still haven't forgiven him for ruining my chances of scoring that night.

The Silence of the Lambs - "The tuck," as performed by Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb, provoked equal measures of horror and fascination in male audience members (hur hur) across the nation. Until they got the chance to go home and try it themselves, that is. Come on, show of hands, which of you guys went home and gave it a go in front of the mirror? That's what I thought.

Freaks.

"Zeppelin rules!"

A visual representation of the Comedy = [Tragedy + Time] formula:

If only the graphs in my microeconomics course had been as concise.

"I say we call Matlock. He'll find the culprit! It's probably that evil Gavin MacLeod or George "Goober" Lindsey."

Old age is a horrible thing.

Friday night I had a dream; one of those intricately realized dreams that seemed to run the course of my sleep cycle in vivid detail. In it, I spent the equivalent of almost an entire day (in dream time) with T.J. Hooker-era Heather Locklear. And what did we do? We talked. I can't recall the subject of every conversation, but topics included home improvement(?) and how to break into television.

She's not exactly my type, but still...

The next day, still smarting from my inability to sleep-score, I met up with some guys at a local sports bar to watch college football. I got there a little before noon, and - not relishing the thought of hailing a taxi at 4 PM - elected to drink coffee at the outset. Here's the vessel it was served in:

That's a soup bowl (replete with soup spoon for stirring). This isn't some pissant little sports bar, mind. The SRO in Northwest Mall encompasses over 18.000 square feet and features 100 TVs. I find it hard to believe they weren't able to find a single coffee cup for we few, we happy few, who might like to get our java on before switching to the Miller Lite. Regardless, I had four of them.

In retrospect, it's no wonder the alcohol I switched to around 4 PM had no effect: the caffeine probably killed it.

Rugby players eat their young

But only if they're thoroughly cooked:

An Oregon rugby player remains in jail Tuesday after being arrested on charges he left his 2-year-old daughter in a vehicle in the parking lot of a Nevada brothel on a 95-degree day.

Lucien Hoffman, of Bend, Ore., is being held in the Storey County Detention Center in lieu of $40,000 bail on charges of child neglect.

Police arrested Hoffman early Sunday night at the World Famous Mustang Ranch brothel in Sparks, Nev., after a security guard found the child crying inside the car, according to Storey County Sheriff's Det./Sgt. Kenneth Quirk.

Hoffman, a wing for Bend Rugby who goes by the nicknames Luke and "Torpedo," had been attending a pool party and barbecue at the brothel, a co-sponsor of a Labor Day weekend rugby tournament in Reno organized by the Reno Zephyrs Rugby Club.
[...]
Quirk said that had the child been noticed by the brothel security guard, Hoffman's vehicle wouldn't have been allowed in. When security guards did hear her crying and couldn't locate her parents, they contacted the sheriff's office and took the child inside the brothel.

"It was 95 degrees out at that time of day, and you have to figure another 30 degrees on top of that inside a vehicle even with the windows down," Quirk said.

According to the Reno Rugby Club's Web site, the brothel pool party was an after-event for its first "Biggest Little Rugby Tournament in the World," a two-day competition drawing 14 rugby teams from around the West Coast.

Hoffman attended the tournament with his girlfriend, a woman who is not the mother of the 2-year-old toddler. Hoffman shares joint custody of the child with her biological mother.

"It was probably not a good decision to take the child [to Nevada] in the first place, but basically it was sort of like a vacation for them," [rugby club president Matt] Burke said.

Hope they had a nice time.

I hung out with a lot of rugby players in college. They were, by and large, barely domesticated apes, given to drinking near-lethal amounts of alcohol while subjecting themselves and those around them to the foulest degradations imaginable. But even so, I'm pretty sure the same guys I watched swan dive out of a third-story window into a wading pool filled with Everclear and piss would have a hard time abandoning their child in a hot car while they went to party in a fer chrissakes brothel.

Burke called Hoffman a good father who made a bad decision.

"We know Luke to be a good father," he said. "He's not a neglectful person or an irresponsible parent. It's unfortunate that he made the decision that he did to put here in the car, but I'm sure the decision wasn't arrived at in a neglectful manner or that he was intentionally being neglectful."

Pull the other one. As the father of a toddler, I freely admit to occasionally contemplating leaving She Who Shall Not Be Named in the car - with the A/C on of course - when I'd need to run in to the convenience store or the dry cleaners, just so I don't have to futz with the car seat, coaxing her out of the back, escorting her into the store, wrangling her while I complete my transaction (hoping she doesn't have to go to the bathroom all the while), then hustling her back into the car, all in 90+ degree heat. Never did it though, because that would make me a bad father. I don't know what parameters Burke is using, but leaving a kid in a car, sweltering heat or not, for two hours to go get your drunk on with a bunch of hookers doesn't qualify as good fathering by even the loosest of standards.

Unless you're Bing Crosby.

All good things...

The end is near for The Wire, which just finished filming what will be it's final season:

It was early still -- about 10 p.m. on Friday -- and somewhere in Columbia, David Simon was giving a tour of the sights: There, he said, pointing, was the Baltimore mayor's office. Over there? The city's Western District police headquarters, and there, that little closet of a room, "that can be the visiting room at Jessup." Pause. "Or the jail. Depends. We just redecorate."

As he stood on a platform, taking in his world, it was hard to ignore the irony: For the past two years, a good chunk of "The Wire," the HBO show that critics have praised for the grittiness of its inner-city vérité, has been filmed in an anonymous soundstage in the burbs -- a soundstage that reportedly will be turned into a massive Wegmans Food Market.

After five seasons, and this final episode, they would be done.

"It's time," said Clarke Peters, who plays Detective Lester Freamon, "to pull the plug on 'The Wire.' "
[...]
Simon, who once covered cops for the Baltimore Sun, always knew that "The Wire" would end at exactly this point. From the beginning when the show debuted in 2002, he saw it as a visual novel, with each season a distinct chapter exploring an aspect of inner-city life: The first season examined the drug trade; the second focused on Baltimore's longshoremen; the third grappled with politics and the notion of reform; the fourth dug into education and the lives of the city's children. This season, which begins airing Jan. 6, explores the media, featuring a morally challenged reporter played by Tom McCarthy, who wrote and directed the indie film "The Station Agent."

"The Wire" has always struggled in the ratings; last season it averaged 1.6 million viewers per episode. But it's always enjoyed the admiration of critics, who praised it as being the "most authentic epic ever on television." Notwithstanding the giant soundstage, a good 50 percent of the show was shot on location in Baltimore, with real-life characters frequently sprinkled in with the fictional ones. Like former drug kingpin Melvin Williams, whom co-producer and writer Ed Burns, an ex-Baltimore cop, once arrested in a big takedown. Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, who did time as a teenager for killing a 16-year-old girl, made her acting debut last season, playing an assassin. Even Robert Ehrlich, when he was Maryland governor, made a cameo -- as a state trooper in the governor's office last season.

I'm resigned to the fact that more people don't watch the show, though it's annoying as hell. I don't blame anyone for not wanting to shell out $15 a month for HBO, but I suspect it wouldn't matter where the show aired. You could put The Wire up against reruns of Dancing with the Stars, According to Jim, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?, and Two and a Half Men, and it would come in 5th every time. People don't necessarily like having to remember characters and plot details from earlier seasons, or - heaven forfend - paying attention to a TV show, because, well, people are apparently really stupid.

Said Wendell Pierce, who plays Detective William "Bunk" Moreland: "He told us from day one, 'It's a novel.' He had the novel in his head, and he wouldn't share with us."

It wasn't until last year that Simon told his cast that this season would be the last.

"If you get five years out of a TV show," Pierce said with a shrug, "that's pretty successful. I'm proud of it. . . . We showed the possibility of television used as an art.

"There are people who come up to me and say, 'I hate the show.' I accept that. They're still engaged. If at the end of an hour of watching 'The Wire,' if you don't feel bad, you should."

And then there's that.

It's not that long an article, go read it. And if you still haven't checked the show out, seasons 1-3 are available on Netflix and Amazon. And there's plenty of time to get caught up before the fifth season starts up in February.

"Dogs eat shit, man."

It's great to be back in Houston, where the relative humidity is always around 80% this time of year, and the ambient aroma can best be described as "moldering potato." But a scant week ago we were in the temperate climes of eastern Maine, visiting my dad in Bar Harbor. The beer was cold, the temperatures almost so (we had to retreat to the basement one afternoon when temps reached the mid-80s), and She Who Shall Not Be Named honed her cat tackling skills.

Now let's go to the photos.

The view from my dad's back deck, that's his dog Barbaloot in the left foreground. They have about six acres:

More pics in the extended entry...

Barbaloot is what they call an American "wirehaired pointing griffon," and they do a lot of pointing indeed, especially at invisible prey:

She Who Shall Not Be Named had a fine old time, climbing the treehouse and pestering my younger siblings. Here she is following Dad and the dog into the woods, untroubled by the fact her guide is carrying a beer, or wearing a silly hat:

Then again, if large cracks couldn't dissuade her from jumping on boards, her choice of woodsmen can hardly be faulted:

Barbaloot's predecessor "Roxy" is also buried on the premises. The cairn is either to keep coyotes from digging her up or to make sure she doesn't rise from the grave. This is Wendigo territory, after all:

Or it could just be because Maine is full of rocks.

The Wife demurred when asked to join me in visiting the site. When pressed, I learned that my "interactions" with Roxy were one of the only things that made her doubt her decision to marry me. Something about blowing on the dog's snout to make her cheeks to puff out in what I thought was a comical fashion. How wrong I was. Even Dad, whose tolerance of the tasteless is well-documented, reminded me that "Dogs eat shit, man." Thanks for the support.

Our travels also took us to the Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Observatory in Bucksport:

Our seemingly pastoral visit was not without its dangers, however:

I was a little surprised by this. After all, everyone knows if you just ignore white Anglo-Saxons, they probably won't bother you.

Fort Knox (no, not that one) is also strategically situated at the Narrows. It was built in the mid-1800s but never saw action during the Civil War. This is one of the ways in which they welcomed uninvited guests to the Penobscot:

So is this 10-inch Rodman cannon:

The view of Bucksport from Ft. Knox:

After you check out the fort, there's nothing for it but to go up to the observatory, situated 420 feet in the air. SWSNBN wasn't too impressed with the view:

If the observatory attendant recommends a place for lunch, listen to him. Crosby's was one of the best meals we had on the trip:

No trip to the Bar Harbor-Ellsworth-Trenton area is complete without a visit to the Great Maine Lumberjack Show. "Timber" Tina hosts nightly shows, and the one we attended pitted males against females:

The audience was almost as entertaining as the show itself, many of whom - if incomprehensible accents are a reliable gauge - were from New Jersey. I dubbed the two 13-year olds sitting in front of us the "AJs."

Whatever, here's some log rolling:

Surprisingly, there are still some trees left standing in Maine. For example, those around Witch Hole in Acadia National Park.

Our last day there we went to Bangor for the American Folk Festival, held on the banks of the Penobscot River. We arrived just as the Dixie Hummingbirds were finishing up, but sadly missed the Tibetan Monks. Luckily, there was plenty of time to settle in for the Inuit throat singers:

I also shot some video, but I'm trying to keep what few readers I have.

The festival was also the site of the reunion of the Irish traditional group, the Green Fields of America. I commemorated this momentous occasion by taking SWSNBN to the bathroom, but not before snapping a photo:

The festival winds down:

And there are few places better to kick back after a long day of yodeling and banjo picking than the Sea Dog Brewery:

Sea Dog was recently purchased by Shipyard Brewing. I was informed of this fact by the bartender, and probably made a sworn enemy when I responded, "What's a 'shipyahd?'"

Finally, no trip to Bangor is complete without annoying favorite son Stephen King by taking a picture of his house:

A successful trip, by most accounts, Our flight up was only delayed an hour, while we only had to circle aimlessly above IAH for 45 minutes on the way back. For Continental, that counts as an error-free flight. We've talked about making the American Folk Festival a yearly thing, and if it gets me out of this subtropical sauna for a week each year, I'd share a room with the throat singers.