Atomictumor

Well, I’ve been putting it off, and putting it off, but this little voice in my head kept saying “Dude, do it. Totally do it. You know you’ll hate yourself if you don’t do it…”
SO, in the spirit of the great election posts of the past, I hereby present the all-new

2007 Atomictumor Wicked Awesome Oak Ridge Election Bonanza Spectacular!!!

Now, in 2006 we had all sorts of stuff to vote for. There were pages and pages of voting goodness, so much so that somebody had to sue somebody else over it. Now, that’s an election. The only thing that would have made it better is a riot, or maybe free food. Free beer, certainly.

But, the halcyon days of 2006 are behind us, and now we’re in the grim reality of 2007. Every city council seat up for grabs has mysteriously been vacated by the incumbents, leading the oddsmakers among us to scratch their heads, and the status quo’rs to gnash their teeth and wail. Speculation as to the reason for the incumbental evacuation has ranged from mysterious markings in crop circles, to vague mutterings by online fungi spores, to radiation spawned feelings of malaise.

Frankly, it’s all a moot point this year, because the only thing that anybody in the town gives two craps about, voting wise, is this big ass Target that is supposed to get built, so that we can all go and spend money. Yes, Oak Ridge is looking for money, and this year, the election is all about the benjamins…

As far as I know, frankly, the only things showing up on the ballot are three (3) comfortable seats on the city council, two (deux) ratty, sweat stained seats on the Oak Ridge School Board, and 1 (solo) big ass clear cut hill waiting for either a glorious future as a shopping center, or a somewhat less glorious future as a toxic waste dump.

Busting out of the gate for the three city council seats are no less that six challengers, and, as to be expected, damn near the only voting point on some of them are either support or opposition to the Crestpoint deal, because naturally, why bother having a well thought out and rounded political platform when you can just base your entire campaign on public opinion of a controversial retail development, right?

The contestants for the Oak Ridge City Council are (in a particular order, but not one that might make sense to you):

• Ray Evans
• Fred Childress
• Ellen Smith
• L.C. “Charlie” Hensley
• Ella Hawkins Dubose
• Tom Hayes
• Jerry R. Marrow

The folks getting on the school board wagon are:

• Aaron Wells
• Keys Fillauer
• Angi Agle

For those of you catching on, I’ve highlighted my choices in red.

I’d be remiss not to mention the judge “race”, where they want you to go vote for the only guy running (I didn’t get my paperwork in on time)

• Robert McNees III (highlighed in purple, for that “whatever” effect)

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Got home from a hard day at the salt mines, and whats waiting on my doorstep but a special little package from my bestest buddies at wilcoworld.net.

Now, Knoxjon’s talked about it, Katie Allison Granju’s talked about it, Pitchfork panned it, Daco loved it.  I talked about it, here I am talking about it some more, cuz this is one of the damnedestly good records that come along rarely.

Something else I’ve talked about is the swag that they package with records you buy online, like stickers, and posters, and free online downloads.  This one came with its own little cd, just hanging out in the case waiting for somebody to pop it in the car.  I think its kinda scared of the record.

Got a kickass t-shirt too, but I’m not gonna show it to you.  Thats what you get, internet.

Yesterday I found myself looking forward to next Wednesday. I have a day of sick leave scheduled then…

for a root canal.

So, the Oak Ridger today is running an article about how one of the candidates for school board has a MySpace page with an allusion to being bitch-slapped, as well as just kinda generally being a myspace page.

Now, this seems to reflect an interesting generational divide that we might be seeing a bit more of in the next few years, in that the ways that folks my age (and this guy’s about 5 years younger than me, but for the sake of argument, lets just say that I’m young too, OK?) have expressed themselves.

With Myspace.

Now, the candidate, Aaron Wells, set his profile to private after it got out that he had one, bearing a mighty banner saying something about being “bitch-slapped”, but some enterprising young go getter apparently managed to cache a copy or some such technical nonsense and post it on a photo-sharing website, and some other weirdo on the forums managed to find it. Looking it over, I really don’t know what the big deal is.

I mean, who hasn’t been bitchslapped? I’ve been bitchslapped a time or two in my life, both before and after I was 24, and lemme tell ya, its something you put on your website. You tell everybody about it, because its a singular incident. Its one of those things that defines who you are.

For this reason, I don’t see any problem with the boy’s website. Its a good, solid, myspace page. Not a crappy, non-updated one like this one. No, its straight up myspace.

And therein lies the generational gap. For folks born either at the ass end of the Generation X thing, like yours truly, or folks born in the following generation, like Aaron, Myspace is a bit of an institution. Its a society, with social norms and values that may appear odd, or even boorish to the uninitiated.

The “bitch slap” area was a comment left by a friend on the front page. The section of the page that Aaron would write did not mention a penchant for bitch slapping, or anything else that would lead one to have an opinion either way on the boy’s leadership capabilities. Bad taste in music, maybe, but hell, thats never stopped a president from getting elected, right? In fact, I think the only president I’ve seen in my life with any kind of decent taste in music was Jimmy Carter, who had the Allman Bro’s rock a fundraiser for him, and had Bob Dylan as a frequent visitor to the pad. Now, thats a president I can get behind. He’s screwed if theres an oil or hostage crisis, but damn, he’ll throw down and party.

I digress.

Now, the thing with this bitchslap thing, and where I think, subconciously we’re all finding fault here, is with the poor grammar of the bitchslapper. Now, if you notice:

I think this is a lesson to all those running for school board. Remember, even if you don’t post it on your own myspace account, keep in mind that good grammar is always important. Doubly so if you are somebody’s bitch.