A Sunday morning ON THE AVENUES encore: "Upscale residency at down-low prices."

The ON THE AVENUES column from 2015 reprinted here came to mind as I was reading about grassroots initiatives in Akron.

In Akron: "City hall is listening to small businesses, neighborhood groups and outside experts."

Here in New Albany, "business of residency" was an upscale Gahanesque buzz phrases for roughly ten minutes during an election year, soon to be discarded by anchor tattoos and supplanted by the mayor's hostile takeover of public housing, or, "the business of non-residency," at least for those stubbornly resisting Dear Leader's vision of upscale living for those capable of regular campaign finance installments.

Nature abhors a moron ...
-- HL Mencken

... except in New Albany.
-- Roger A. Baylor

---

February 19, 2015

ON THE AVENUES: Upscale residency at down-low prices.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

“I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book's autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books."
– Kanye West, seeking a position in the New Albany economic development hierarchy

Previously in this space, we’ve examined the Gahan administration’s recurring vocabulary malfunction.

Who even knew that Dr. Pavlov had an office in the Elsby Building?

Obviously desperate to avoid revisiting uncomfortable days of yore in junior high, when the former Marine Corps drill instructor Mr. Buzzkilljoy required they memorize the precise meaning of words in the English language and regurgitate these definitions on demand, city officials in New Albany now delight in the deployment of banal and indeterminate code phrases suitable only for the approbation of the ever-eager stenographer cadre.

Quality of life, public safety and better access have been the most consistently overused of these meaningless bromides, and we await the inevitable resurrection of classic Orwellian gems of doublethink as local Democratic Party campaign slogans:

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
When You Wish Upon A Star/Makes No Difference Who You Are

Oops – sorry.

That last one obviously serves as the credo of the Redevelopment Commission, and any connection with the DemoDisneyDixiecrats is purely Dickeyensian.

---

Make a wish, blow out the candles, and welcome a new addition to the Gahan team’s tired lexicon.

Upscale.

Exactly what is meant by the word “upscale”? It might depend on one’s socioeconomic vantage point (rats, a penalty is assessed to me for using a seven syllable word within the city limits), but here is the dictionary’s point of view.

up•scale
ˌəpˈskāl/
adjective & adverb

NORTH AMERICAN

adjective: upscale; adverb: upscale

toward or relating to the more expensive or affluent sector of the market.

"Hawaii's upscale boutique hotels"

synonyms: deluxe, posh, ritzy, upper-class, classy, chi-chi; high-end, expensive, high-priced

Upscale is trending because just last week, in a grudgingly reluctant process akin to tapping maple trees and collecting sap, information about the proposed Coyle site development began seeping ever so slowly from City Hall’s propaganda directorate, located deep within the bowels of the Down Low Bunker.

But first, kindly note the irony.

Among other Gahan initiatives, some randomly sensible and others fully befitting the sort of vision generally experienced in the tuneless strumming of a Jimmy Buffett cover band, only the dormant-by-design Speck Downtown Street Network Plan both contextualizes and (perhaps, maybe, possibly) justifies the city’s involvement in the Coyle infill apartment project.

Naturally, while Gahan and his vacuous minions continue to treat the Speck proposals as though they were paper envelopes filled with free-range ricin, the announcement of “upscale” apartments was owned and groomed and feted by them like a Saudi sheik's first-born thoroughbred, proving yet again that they are the very worst civic actors in recent memory.

John Mattingly was positively Shakespearean by comparison ... or maybe it was Sicilian.

---

To reiterate, the major selling point of the Coyle site proposal thus far seems to rest on the undefined shoulders of that magic word.

Upscale.

The usage is intended to animate the extension of the pinky at a right angle from one’s grip of the ice-cold Bud Light longneck, to be wiggled while purring like a socialite:

“Not like those low-income housing credits, honey buns.”

Conceding that detailed plans haven’t yet found their way to NA Confidential, the problem is that early indicators like last week’s project drawings simply don’t speak to “upscale” at all, at least when the accepted meaning of words is respected. In fact, the proposed buildings don’t look appreciably different than ordinary blocks of middle class flats I’ve seen in dozens of European cities and more than a few American ones, too.

Regular reader W was specific.

When I think upscale, I think apartment balconies and patios should be deeper than the windows are wide. Just room enough for an 8" hibachi grill, maybe? The upscale apartment dwellers won't be able to sit in a lawn chair and enjoy the traffic zooming by on such a tiny sliver of concrete. That's quality of life?

Ah, but we’re still waiting on that particular definition, aren’t we?

The stacked, multi-story exterior staircases look deadly as well - "upscale" doesn't include secure elevators? Look at the end of the building, with the lovely, open air staircases.

"Hello, ‘upscale’ apartment tenant, climb the stairs with your bags of groceries that you had to drive somewhere to buy because there are no grocery stores near your ‘upscale’ apartments."

Oh, I know, all of these "upscale" tenants will eat out every night, because the tenants are just "better" - after all, they live in "upscale" apartments.

Walk up, multi-story flats aren't exactly upscale. Do you want people from the street to able to climb the stairs up to your front door and wait for you to come home when you're paying high end, "upscale" rent? What we're being told and what we're seeing doesn't add up.

Regrettably, math class posed its own grave difficulties, especially when all you wanted to do was go outside and play baseball.

The many differences between wishful-star-related thinking and hard reality also were sadly prominent the last time the city struck up a full-Sousa soundtrack and pledged fealty to a private, for-profit construction entity, this being Mainland’s ill-fated Riverview project, circa 2011-12.

Since then, there have been two major themes in what the mayor enjoys tidily euphemizing as “the business of residency” – and no, this phrase hasn’t been defined yet, either.

First, council creatures Bob Caesar and Kevin Zurschmiede would rather see a building collapse of its own neglect and/or grandiosely self-immolate than acquiesce in the consideration of low-income housing tax credits in its refurbishment.

Second, private developers like Matt Chalfant are pursuing living space rehabs without substantive financial incentivization based on a profit vs. loss instinct that looks disturbingly like capitalism.

What of City Hall's "business of residency"? Let’s go to Bluegill for the coda.

The only thing the Gahan/Duggins administration has proven particularly adept at so far is giving away massive amounts of public money to developers and corporations. This is just part and parcel.

If (developers) want to take on the risk and build within the existing rules that locals have to follow, they can build. We shouldn't be subsidizing them, especially given the many, more productive uses for local money. Honestly, we need to get over the whole upscale, raising property values gambit and all the trickle down approaches to it. You know who most cares if property values rise? People planning on taking money from the community and/or borrowing against it to go into more debt. It's just repeating the same cycle.

The only way to stop the concession extraction is to say no to concessions. Unfortunately, our current ED has spent his career doing little except for offering concessions. That's true, though, of the entire Democratic Party hereabouts. It's going to be especially funny if the Gahan administration tries to use a big handout as justification for better streets, making it about the developer rather than residents.

Is it time for an addition to A New Albanist’s Dictionary?*

Upscale
An imported construction project pursued with our own municipal funds, as opposed to state and federal low income housing tax credits, as standing in sharp contrast with the dilapidated condition of surrounding neighborhoods, which have been down so long that it looks like up to them.

Not that they'll ever read one.

---

* Volume One and Volume Two

ON THE AVENUES: Upscale residency at down-low prices.

ON THE AVENUES: Upscale residency at down-low prices.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

“I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book's autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books."
– Kanye West, seeking a position in the New Albany economic development hierarchy

Previously in this space, we’ve examined the Gahan administration’s recurring vocabulary malfunction.

Who even knew that Dr. Pavlov had an office in the Elsby Building?

Obviously desperate to avoid revisiting uncomfortable days of yore in junior high, when the former Marine Corps drill instructor Mr. Buzzkilljoy required they memorize the precise meaning of words in the English language and regurgitate these definitions on demand, city officials in New Albany now delight in the deployment of banal and indeterminate code phrases suitable only for the approbation of the ever-eager stenographer cadre.

Quality of life, public safety and better access have been the most consistently overused of these meaningless bromides, and we await the inevitable resurrection of classic Orwellian gems of doublethink as local Democratic Party campaign slogans:

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
When You Wish Upon A Star/Makes No Difference Who You Are

Oops – sorry.

That last one obviously serves as the credo of the Redevelopment Commission, and any connection with the DemoDisneyDixiecrats is purely Dickeyensian.

---

Make a wish, blow out the candles, and welcome a new addition to the Gahan team’s tired lexicon.

Upscale.

Exactly what is meant by the word “upscale”? It might depend on one’s socioeconomic vantage point (rats, a penalty is assessed to me for using a seven syllable word within the city limits), but here is the dictionary’s point of view.

up•scale
ˌəpˈskāl/
adjective & adverb

NORTH AMERICAN

adjective: upscale; adverb: upscale

toward or relating to the more expensive or affluent sector of the market.

"Hawaii's upscale boutique hotels"

synonyms: deluxe, posh, ritzy, upper-class, classy, chi-chi; high-end, expensive, high-priced

Upscale is trending because just last week, in a grudgingly reluctant process akin to tapping maple trees and collecting sap, information about the proposed Coyle site development began seeping ever so slowly from City Hall’s propaganda directorate, located deep within the bowels of the Down Low Bunker.

But first, kindly note the irony.

Among other Gahan initiatives, some randomly sensible and others fully befitting the sort of vision generally experienced in the tuneless strumming of a Jimmy Buffett cover band, only the dormant-by-design Speck Downtown Street Network Plan both contextualizes and (perhaps, maybe, possibly) justifies the city’s involvement in the Coyle infill apartment project.

Naturally, while Gahan and his vacuous minions continue to treat the Speck proposals as though they were paper envelopes filled with free-range ricin, the announcement of “upscale” apartments was owned and groomed and feted by them like a Saudi sheik's first-born thoroughbred, proving yet again that they are the very worst civic actors in recent memory.

John Mattingly was positively Shakespearean by comparison ... or maybe it was Sicilian.

---

To reiterate, the major selling point of the Coyle site proposal thus far seems to rest on the undefined shoulders of that magic word.

Upscale.

The usage is intended to animate the extension of the pinky at a right angle from one’s grip of the ice-cold Bud Light longneck, to be wiggled while purring like a socialite:

“Not like those low-income housing credits, honey buns.”

Conceding that detailed plans haven’t yet found their way to NA Confidential, the problem is that early indicators like last week’s project drawings simply don’t speak to “upscale” at all, at least when the accepted meaning of words is respected. In fact, the proposed buildings don’t look appreciably different than ordinary blocks of middle class flats I’ve seen in dozens of European cities and more than a few American ones, too.

Regular reader W was specific.

When I think upscale, I think apartment balconies and patios should be deeper than the windows are wide. Just room enough for an 8" hibachi grill, maybe? The upscale apartment dwellers won't be able to sit in a lawn chair and enjoy the traffic zooming by on such a tiny sliver of concrete. That's quality of life?

Ah, but we’re still waiting on that particular definition, aren’t we?

The stacked, multi-story exterior staircases look deadly as well - "upscale" doesn't include secure elevators? Look at the end of the building, with the lovely, open air staircases.

"Hello, ‘upscale’ apartment tenant, climb the stairs with your bags of groceries that you had to drive somewhere to buy because there are no grocery stores near your ‘upscale’ apartments."

Oh, I know, all of these "upscale" tenants will eat out every night, because the tenants are just "better" - after all, they live in "upscale" apartments.

Walk up, multi-story flats aren't exactly upscale. Do you want people from the street to able to climb the stairs up to your front door and wait for you to come home when you're paying high end, "upscale" rent? What we're being told and what we're seeing doesn't add up.

Regrettably, math class posed its own grave difficulties, especially when all you wanted to do was go outside and play baseball.

The many differences between wishful-star-related thinking and hard reality also were sadly prominent the last time the city struck up a full-Sousa soundtrack and pledged fealty to a private, for-profit construction entity, this being Mainland’s ill-fated Riverview project, circa 2011-12.

Since then, there have been two major themes in what the mayor enjoys tidily euphemizing as “the business of residency” – and no, this phrase hasn’t been defined yet, either.

First, council creatures Bob Caesar and Kevin Zurschmiede would rather see a building collapse of its own neglect and/or grandiosely self-immolate than acquiesce in the consideration of low-income housing tax credits in its refurbishment.

Second, private developers like Matt Chalfant are pursuing living space rehabs without substantive financial incentivization based on a profit vs. loss instinct that looks disturbingly like capitalism.

What of City Hall's "business of residency"? Let’s go to Bluegill for the coda.

The only thing the Gahan/Duggins administration has proven particularly adept at so far is giving away massive amounts of public money to developers and corporations. This is just part and parcel.

If (developers) want to take on the risk and build within the existing rules that locals have to follow, they can build. We shouldn't be subsidizing them, especially given the many, more productive uses for local money. Honestly, we need to get over the whole upscale, raising property values gambit and all the trickle down approaches to it. You know who most cares if property values rise? People planning on taking money from the community and/or borrowing against it to go into more debt. It's just repeating the same cycle.

The only way to stop the concession extraction is to say no to concessions. Unfortunately, our current ED has spent his career doing little except for offering concessions. That's true, though, of the entire Democratic Party hereabouts. It's going to be especially funny if the Gahan administration tries to use a big handout as justification for better streets, making it about the developer rather than residents.

Is it time for an addition to A New Albanist’s Dictionary?*

Upscale
An imported construction project pursued with our own municipal funds, as opposed to state and federal low income housing tax credits, as standing in sharp contrast with the dilapidated condition of surrounding neighborhoods, which have been down so long that it looks like up to them.

Not that they'll ever read one.

---

* Volume One and Volume Two

ON THE AVENUES: Better access, quality of life, public safety, and various other Orwellian aspects of the New Albanist’s experience.

ON THE AVENUES: Better access, quality of life, public safety, and various other Orwellian aspects of the New Albanist’s experience.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Author's note: The bountiful holiday harvest of sheer and unrequited bile brings you today's early edition of ON THE AVENUES, including links to previous editions of our New Albanist's Dictionary (see below), as well as the annual Thanksgiving column tomorrow. 

---

If you do not speak up when it matters, when would it matter that you speak? The opposite of courage is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.
-- Jim Hightower

Last week, New Albany’s Board of Public Works acted with unaccustomed principle and bold decisiveness to address the perennial dysfunction of New Albany’s one-way arterial street grid, courageously braving the wrath of almost one potential voter in unanimously approving the reconversion of East 5th Street to two-way traffic.

In doing so, the board and its chairman, former mayor Warren Nash, heeded the testimony of city engineer Larry Summers, who described the action as necessary because it would result in “better access.”

Before assuming “better access” to signify a universal concept, it might be informative to ask: Better access to what?

Primarily, to VFW Post 3281, which in itself would be a matter of supreme irony to city officials if they actually paid attention to the real world outside, given that last winter the very same VFW post didn’t give a nanosecond of a tinker’s damn about “better” pedestrian “access” to sidewalks, which were piled high with snow removed from its vast and largely unused parking lot by clueless flunkies.

Of course, back then a typically somnolent Board of Works was unable to muster a coherent response when “better access” meant walkers and their sidewalks stupidly blocked with someone else’s snow, but in the aftermath of the Main Street Disprovement, Deforestation and Semi Trailer Non-Diversion Project’s installation of a median directly in front of the VFW’s traditional Main Street entrance, and with 5th Street forever inaccessible via Main by virtue of it being pointed one-way south … well, then the wheels turned with lightning speed, and the pieties and hypocrisies dutifully were glue-stuck into place.

It is either amusing or tragic that the Main Street project’s $2 million or more in largesse was completely spread among its various intended political orifices before anyone stopped to consider the VFW’s driveway, and now we’re left with “better access” as a selective imperative for the VFW’s aging membership, probably since these same folks have been observed periodically to cast ballots.

Thus, the city acts with unprecedented haste to preclude one wastage of time and gasoline caused by driving unnecessarily around the block, while staring dully at passing tumbleweeds as other examples of precisely the same phenomenon are never addressed.

For instance, there’s the notion of “better access” from Elm Street to Dragon King’s Daughter, Larry Ricke’s firm, Uptown Arts, the Carnegie Center, Fox Law Office and Bank Street Brewhouse. Why should visitors to these establishments be forced to drive all the way around the block?

Here’s a hint, Warren: Reconfigure Bank Street to two-way traffic.

Or am I being too technical for you?

---

Hence, the recurring problem with city officials delightedly settling on the repeated deployment of cute little buzz phrases they’ve spent all of 35 seconds considering in terms of their potential implications, and also why the pesky meaning of words in the English language bedevils them so.

Consequently, “better access” now takes it rightful place alongside “quality of life” and “public safety” as trite hack phrases rendered utterly nonsensical by the Gahan administration. It’s only a matter of time until classic Orwellian doublethink gems are resurrected as local Democratic Party campaign slogans:

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength.

I’m sure all former Democratic mayors can endorse these solid administrative dictums, if not their irony.

---

Mayor Jeff Gahan apparently considers Nash to be a grandfatherly guiding light and party elder worth heeding, hence Nash’s position of weekly civic obfuscation at the Board of Works, where he does quite little save running interference for the ever-deepening conceptual muddle that has characterized Gahan’s disappointing term in office.

What’s interesting about this symbiotic attachment between Gahan and Nash is that they share a distinction as the only two Democratic mayoral candidates in a half-century (or more) to capture 60% of the vote in winning office. Gahan took 64% against a split Republican effort in 2011, and Nash scored 60% in 1971 in deposing the “All-American” Tuffy Inman.

Ah, but it gets even better.

When Nash ran for re-election in 1975, he became perhaps the only Democratic mayor in the history of New Albany to see a 60%-plus share for a second time. Unfortunately for Nash, it was his opponent Bob Real’s victorious tally, not his own.

1975: Republican challenger Robert Real defeats Nash, 9,264 to 4,763.
Total votes: 14,027
Percentage: 66 - 34

Whoa! And to think we regarded the election results of November 4, 2014 as an epic beat down. Even Mark Seabrook didn’t win this year by a 66-34 percentage -- although he came tantalizingly close.

Note that as a political insurgent, I’m not complaining at all. The Board of Works may do little or nothing to address real infrastructure issues, and city officials can continue to merrily butcher the beauty of the English language – just so long as Gahan continues to model his political career on Nash’s.

---

Several years back, in the newspaper, when it still covered New Albany, I published two installments of the New Albanist’s Dictionary.

A New Albanist’s Dictionary (Oct. 15, 2009).

A New Albanist’s Dictionary, Volume 2 (Jan. 6, 2011).

Granted, almost four years have passed, and certain of the topical references are quite dated. It may be time for an update, and the three favored civic bullshit phrases considered here today occupy the top of the list.

Better access
Quality of life
Public safety

Readers, any thoughts on simple definitions for these?

You needn’t over-think them; after all, the current occupants aren’t, either.

From the Beer Money files: A New Albanist’s Dictionary, Volume 2 (Jan. 6, 2011).

Author's note: The bountiful holiday harvest of sheer and unrequited bile brings you an early edition of ON THE AVENUES as well as reprintings of two previous editions of the New Albanist's Dictionary. The annual Thanksgiving column appears tomorrow. 

ON THE AVENUES: Better access, quality of life, public safety, and various other Orwellian aspects of the New Albanist’s experience.

From the "Beer Money" files: A New Albanist’s Dictionary (Oct. 15, 2009).

---

BEER MONEY: A New Albanist’s Dictionary, Volume 2.

Originally published on January 6, 2011

Let’s begin the year with another revolving and evolving list of words, terms and concepts that provide a specialized vocabulary of life in the Open Air Museum. The first collection appeared on October 15, 2009.

It is my earnest goal to periodically refresh and expand this list, and your assistance is requested in doing so. Please send corrections, additions and comments to istanbul85(at)yahoo(dot)com, and help define the forever stunning depths of the New Albanian zeitgeist.

Annexation
A wonderful thing to do, so long as you neither complete nor use it until long after the current council’s sell-by date.

Axis of Banal
The Price/Coffey conjoined council obstruction club, usually with anywhere from one to seven other members quite eager to make it into a risqué threesome.

Bike boy
Term of affection used by anonymous troglodytes to describe anyone who rides more miles on a bicycle in a given day than they’re capable of doing in a year.

Blue Laws
Sunday retail sales restrictions lovingly fetishized by Councilman Cappuccino, implying the restoration of rotary dial telephones, one-piece bathing suits, asbestos insulation and mail delivered by Pony Express.

Buy Local
Saving gas by shopping at the mega-chain retailer nearest one’s house.

Caucus
A city council meeting that isn’t, as attended only by those council members who won’t admit aloud to being Republican, as opposed to the single one who will. Quorum due to expire in November, 2011.

Citizens Faux Accountability
Hilary Clinton fan club, run by a chain smoker from a post office box near a Gucci outlet somewhere in Italy.

City Council
Place where the high school civics class kids are obliged to go ... for detention. (DS)

Clere Channel Network
Where communication is a one-way street, and the street has no name.

Conservatism
Political trait that Floyd County Democrats typically claim to possess to a greater degree than their Republican rivals, who themselves are somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun, leaving the remainder of us stuck inside of Weimar with the Birdseye blues again.

Controversy
The insertion of rationality, usually unintentional, into a given political discussion during city council meetings.

Discussion
At city council, any stray verbiage randomly issued as a means to avoid contemplation of the actual issue(s) at hand.

Cracker Barrel
Long-awaited Nirvana for downtown revitalization advocates who really don’t understand downtown revitalization at all.

EDIT
Crucial economic development monies designed to remain inert until needed by office holders as penny-wise, pound-foolish subsidies, rather than economic development monies.

Freedom of Speech
1. Local blog that does not allow reader comments

2. Condition that applies to you but not the person with whom you disagree.

Handicapping
A New Albany voter’s perpetual calculation: Is an incorruptible politician who is wrong 100% of the time better or worse than a corruptible politician who is right half the time?

Happy Hour
60 affectionate minutes with your hip flask before the council meeting starts.

Historical Preservation Commission
Power-hungry zealots who refuse to admit that the rental property you’ve chronically neglected for decades merely is a dilapidated building suitable only for tenants.

Infinite Monkey Theorem
Expression of mathematical probability suggesting that if given enough time, an ape typing at random would eventually write Shakespeare's “Hamlet” -- or an ordinance outlawing the Historical Preservation Commission.

Leotards
Skin-tight leg wraps that threaten the fragile masculinity of a former Gang of Four council stalwart; also called “tights,” as in, “Let’s all get tights, and vote in my garage for a change.”

New Albany Bicentennial
A time for remembering what it was like in 1813, and for accepting that we’re mostly still there.

New Albany Bicentennial Public Art Project
Placements of art intended for the edification of the common man, consequently eluding the comprehension of the council members whose downtown districts house them.

Open Air Museum of Ignorance, Superstition and Backwardness

• 1. City-wide folkways theme park devoted to the reality of life in New Albany: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
• 2. "Give us more fish. Don't you dare teach us how to fish."
• 3. Place where tolls (in squandered modernity) already are being collected.

Neighborhood Parking Permit
A plan to surrender public street space for private use, to appease private property owners who are unwilling to give up their own privately held property for the exact same purpose (JG).

One Southern Indiana

• 1. Organization dedicated to preserving the wealth of its highest-standing members by erecting a wall running the length of the Ohio River.
• 2. Synonym for “blatant hypocrisy.”

Post-Partum Depression
Your empty flask AFTER the council meeting.

Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK)
Group suffering from a chronic allergy to 2010 calendars, and seeking the curative measure of “reclaiming” things they cannot define, because those things never existed. See also: Torquemada Twist, Wickensianism.

Saint Daniels
The reason why we have incense, prayer, One Southern Indiana, charter schools and bridge tolls.

School closings

• 1. Rituals of solemn necessity preceding a pay increase for an impoverished superintendent.
• 2. A heaven-sent occasion for conniving school board members, often Republicans, to plot their next political campaigns.
• 3. An atrocity that Superman (R-72) curiously missed.

Sewergeddon
The Potty Police’s plan to employ diggers and reclaim the city’s culture by flushing raw sewage through street-side ditches past the mayor’s house, at a fraction of the cost of conventional sewage treatment.

Steve Price
Synonym for “no,” spoken in Dewey Heights dialect.

From the "Beer Money" files: A New Albanist’s Dictionary (Oct. 15, 2009).

Author's note: The bountiful holiday harvest of sheer and unrequited bile brings you an early edition of ON THE AVENUES as well as reprintings of two previous editions of the New Albanist's Dictionary. The annual Thanksgiving column appears tomorrow. 

ON THE AVENUES: Better access, quality of life, public safety, and various other Orwellian aspects of the New Albanist’s experience.

From the Beer Money files: A New Albanist’s Dictionary, Volume 2 (Jan. 6, 2011).

---

BEER MONEY: A New Albanist’s Dictionary.

Originally published on October 15, 2009

“A person's vocabulary is the set of words they are familiar with in a language. A vocabulary usually grows and evolves with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge.”
--cribbed from the Internet

Building vocabulary is a vital step toward mastering any language. As one’s vocabulary grows, his or her reading, writing, speaking and listening skills are enhanced, and there are direct correlations between these improvements and greater academic attainment and social confidence.

While writing this column, and during my other sideline as blogger, I’ve referred to words, terms and concepts that provide a specialized vocabulary of life in the Open Air Museum (see below).

Following is an evolving, alphabetical list of some of these. It is my earnest goal to periodically refresh and expand this list, and your assistance is requested in doing so. Please send corrections, additions and comments to istanbul85(at)yahoo(dot)com, and help define the New Albanian zeitgeist.

---

About Schmidt

• 1. 2002 movie starring Jack Nicholson
• 2. Propaganda in the form of generally fallacious, encrypted numerology, as in: “These budget numbers are About Schmidt.”

Barbecued bologna

• 1. Twice-butchered meat by-product.
• 2. Councilman Cappuccino’s self-serving spasms, speeches and sidewinding.

Bazooka Joe U
Councilman Cappuccino’s gum-encrusted alma mater.

Councilman Ceesaw
Diamond-studded Roman Centurion who deposed the councilwoman’s husband, then fell down the same rabbit hole.

Birdseye
Indiana Utopian community valued by Councilman Cappuccino for its bucolic nothingness and/or septic tanks.

Boiling the bitter Coffey
Demagogic practice wherein grandstanding politicians attack the source of ideas, innovations and hope as a means of staving off progress.

Civil society
Severe allergy afflicting little people, but curable by frequent tea parties, town hall meetings and tax cuts.

Conjoined councilmen
Elected officials joined in the pits.

Councilman Cappuccino (CC)
Copperheaded “Wizard of Westside.” Currently about a dozen votes away from the electoral abyss.

Democrats
Not really.

Full audit
Millennial Holy Grail for the little people and potty police, to be facilitated by Grover Norquist, Their Man Mitch, the g-man in the great sewage submarine, or all three simultaneously.

Gang of Four
Quartet of inveterate obstructionists in the city council, 2003-2007. King Larry retired and About Schmidt was defeated, meaning that the Gang of Four is now the Gang of Six, Seven or perhaps even Nine, the latter coalescing only if the proposal at hand comes from the mayor.

Gestapo
Word in rental propertyese that means “ordinance enforcement officer.”

Golf cart
Conveyance to facilitate stealth mayoral campaigns, powered by Falangist flatulence and regressive swill.

Harvest Homecoming
Festive week when New Albany’s best and brightest return home to be reminded of why they left.

Information
Object so highly desired by Councilman Cappuccino that he typically refuses to acknowledge its existence right up to the point of misstating it.

King Larry
Ward-heeling, caterwauling wannabeen whose most famous political axiom is: “Each ordinance enforced is a vote lost.”

Li’l Stevie
Ventriloquist’s dummy, but in the end, just a puppet.

Little people

• 1. Certain cast members in “The Wizard of Oz.”
• 2. Self-reverential, irony-free way of describing one’s political and temperamental marginalization so as to elevate futility to oddball status as social class.

Luddite Bar & Grill
Place where the little people go to lament all human progress -- and to denounce all others who favor it.

Mad as hell
What the little people become after drinking regressive swill at the Luddite Bar & Grill.

New Albany Syndrome
Waterborne malady manifested in symptoms like mistrust, inertia, secrecy and contempt. Sufferers fear the future, venerate the past, and regard any sign of communication and cooperation with others as weakness.

Nickels and dimes

• 1. Li’l Stevie’s council pay packet.
• 2. Contents of grandmaw’s cookie jar.
• 3. Sum of how the 3rd council district has benefitted from Li’L Stevie’s council tenure.

Novelty cigarette lighters
Items banned by the current sitting city council, and still openly sold throughout the city (see “ordinance enforcement”).

Open Air Museum of Ignorance, Superstition and Backwardness
City-wide folkways theme park devoted to the reality of life in New Albany: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Ordinance enforcement
Condition permitted by city residents only so long as it doesn’t apply to them.

Ordinance enforcement officer
Grudgingly tolerated and endangered species, traditionally denied the tools to succeed by city council persons utterly disinterested in success.

Political courage
Elusive quality, now extinct in New Albany.

Potty police
Self-deputized sewer enforcement officials with a localized Freudian twist who await the arrival of the g-man in the sewer submarine, who’ll come up from below and require a full audit.

Progressives
See “them people.”

Progressive pints
Antidote to regressive swill.

Redistricting
Method of forcible tooth extraction to be avoided by council persons at all costs.

Regressive swill
Why progressive pints are necessary.

Rental propertyese
Language radically inverting ethical values associated with home ownership, thus rendering them into barbecued bologna.

Republicans
See “Democrats.”

Robert’s Rules of Order
Just another book Dan Coffey hasn’t read lately.

Slumlord
Synonym for “misunderstood victim.”

Them people
Mortal enemies of Councilman Cappuccino, whose literacy, education, achievement and ability cannot be permitted to proliferate.

Troglodyte
Cave dweller; variously, troglobyte: Internet cave dweller.

Trinkle Dome
Formerly, the canvas-topped riverfront amphitheater protected from public use by its overseeing namesake.

Voice of the People

• 1. Condition of chronic laryngitis.
• 2. Malicious graffiti that keeps appearing on a nice lady’s whitewashed wall.

Kitchen Fable Tissues: Whatever happened to reefer madness, communism, little people, high kites and ego maniacs?

The Kitchen Table Issues blog was born on May 12, 2010 and went into suspended animation (above) in January of 2013. Usually I'd get a nice contact buzz just from clicking on it, and I miss that.

I only ask you to try and stick to the issues or topics at hand; keep an even tempered keel; try not to cuss; and don't worry about who set this blog up. This blog is the peoples' blog and enables them to have a voice without fear of retaliation. It should work better than the other blogs where people do know who is publishing, I feel.

How the "peoples' blog" functioned in practice was that anonymous commenters retaliated against me, a known entity, and this has been a continuing feature of Roger's Life on the Internet since NA Confidential first appeared in 2004.

Surely the following post represents the apogee of Kitchen Table Issues, at least as it sought to be the chronicle of the Anti-Baylor: 3,805 excruciating words in the form of a veritable Summa Troglogica taking issue in great detail with one of my pre-merger Tribune columns ("A New Albanist’s Dictionary, Volume 2").

The comments were awesome, too, but more on that later, in a subsequent post. First, let's relive the Ascendency of Chipped Formica ... the chopped liver ... and a meandering river of sadness, gone up in smoke.

---

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2011

THIS ARTICLE IS DEDICATED TO THE CITIZENS OF NEW ALBANY.  WE WANT PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND THE TRUE GIST OF WHAT OUR LOCAL COMMUNIST, ROGER BAYLOR, IS SAYING ABOUT ALL OF US WHO DO NOT AGREE WITH HIM AND DON'T RISE TO THE HEIGHTS OF GRANDEUR WHERE HE PLACES HIMSELF.


FIRST OFF, WHAT IS AN OPEN AIR MUSEUM:  ACCORDING TO THE DICTIONARY AN OPEN AIR MUSEUM IS A DISTINCT TYPE OF MUSEUM EXHIBITING ITS COLLECTION OUT OF DOORS.  WE CAN ONLY ASSUME THESE WORDS GRAVITATE TO HIS BRAIN WHEN HE IS ABLE TO BICYCLE AND CRUISE PAST LARRY KOCHERT'S HOUSE, STEVE PRICE'S HOUSE AND VICKI DENHART'S HOUSE.  I'M NOT SURE WHY YOU WOULD BICYCLE THESE AREAS EXCEPT TO TRY AND GET ON THEIR NERVES OR AS AN INTIMIDATION FACTOR.  (These are his words:   Let’s begin the year with another revolving and evolving list of words, terms and concepts that provide a specialized vocabulary of life in the Open Air Museum. The first collection appeared Oct. 15, 2009.)


WHILE WE DO NOT BELIEVE MR. BAYLOR'S INTENTIONS ARE MEANT TO HONESTLY EDUCATE THE PEOPLE OF NEW ALBANY BUT RATHER TO CRITICIZE, MAKE FUN OF (AND I DO THINK HE THINKS HE IS HYSTERICALLY FUNNY), THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT  HELPS DEFINE THE STUNNING DEPTHS OF THE NEW ALBANIAN ZEITGEIST (ZEIGEIST SIMPLY MEANS THE GENERAL INTELLECTUAL, MORAL, AND CULTURAL CLIMATE OF A GENERATION).  I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU BUT HE IN NO WAY DEFINES MY INTELLECTUAL CAPACITIES, NOR MY MORALS, NOR DOES HE HAVE RIGHT TO PASS JUDGEMENT ON ANY ONE'S CULTURAL APTITUDES.  THE BAD THING IS HE THINKS HE HAS EVERY RIGHT.  (These are Baylor's words:  It is my earnest goal to periodically refresh and expand this list, and your assistance is requested in doing so. Please send corrections, additions and comments to istanbul85@yahoo.com, and help define the forever stunning depths of the New Albanian zeitgeist.)


A MAJORITY OF CITIZENS TRULY FEEL NEW ALBANY DOES NOT HAVE CONTROL OVER OUR BUDGET MONIES AND THE ENGLAND ADMINISTRATION IS CONSTANTLY THREATENING THE CITIZENS BY THE FOLLOWING SOUND BITES:  "Turn your cable off so you can pay your new increased sewer bills."  "I'm going to cut back on cleaning snow and ice from the street rather than renegotiate the police and fire contracts who are taking 83% of our budget."  IF WE CAN NOT TAKE CARE OF WHAT WE HAVE NOW WHY IN THE HEY WOULD WE WANT TO ANNEX ANYMORE PROPERTIES OR LAND UNLESS THE PLAN IS TO TRY AND RAISE OUR TAX LEVY AS JEFFERSONVILLE TRIED.  UNFORTUNATELY, ANNEXATION DID PASS BUT NO ONE CRIED.  (Here are Baylor's words:   Annexation  A wonderful thing to do, so long as you neither complete nor use it until long after the current council’s sell-by date.)  ARE WE USING IT YET MR. BAYLOR?


THE NEXT WORD BAYLOR USES IS THE AXIS OF BANAL.  ANY DEFINITION I FOUND REFERS TO THE AXIS OF BANAL BEING THE SAME AS THE AXIS OF EVIL.  REGULARLY HE TORE THE FORMER COUNCIL MEMBERS UP, I.E., KOCHERT, SCHMIDT ETC., (EVEN BURNING EFFIGIES OF THEM BEFORE A MEETING ONE NIGHT), BUT THESE ARE HIS WORDS (THOUGH I CAN'T DECIDE IF HE MEANS CAESAR, ZURSCHMEIDE, MCGLAUGHLIN, MESSER, OR BENEDETTI, OR JUST WHO CONJOINS WITH PRICE AND COFFEE).  (Here are Baylor's words:  Axis of Banal  The Steve Price/Dan Coffey conjoined city council obstruction club, usually with anywhere from one to seven other members quite eager to make it into a threesome.)


OF COURSE, BAYLOR'S LIST WOULDN'T BE COMPLETE WITHOUT A PAT ON HIS BACK ABOUT HE BEING ABLE TO BICYCLE AND I GUESS HE FEELS THIS MAY BE THE NAME ATTRIBUTED BY US NEW ALBANIANS BECAUSE OF HIS EXERCISE.  THE TROGLODYTES HE LABELS  ALL NEW ALBANIANS BY DEFINITION MEANS CAVEMAN, MEMBERS OF A PRIMITIVE RACE OR PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN CAVES.  I MOST CERTAINLY AM NOT ONE OF THOSE AND EVERYONE IN NEW ALBANY WOULD AGREE WITH ME ON THIS ISSUE, BUT...  (Here are Baylor's words:  Bike boy  Term of affection used by anonymous troglodytes to describe anyone who rides more miles on a bicycle in a given day than they’re capable of doing in a year). HE DOTH THINK SO HIGHLY OF HIMSELF AND SO LITTLE OF THE REST OF THE CITIZENS IN OUR FAIR TOWN.


BLUE LAWS WERE PUT INTO LEGISLATION BY THE STATE OF INDIANA.  I, FOR THE LIFE OF ME, CAN NOT FIGURE OUT (WHETHER I LIKE COFFEY OR NOT, HOW HE CAN LAY HIS WANTING TO SELL CARRY OUT BEER ON SUNDAY AT COFFEY'S FEET), BUT HERE ARE HIS WORDS:  (Here are Baylor's words:  Blue Laws  Sunday retail sales restrictions lovingly fetishized (no such word) by Councilman Cappuccino, implying the restoration of rotary dial telephones, one-piece bathing suits, asbestos insulation and mail delivered by Pony Express.)  I WOULD GUESS HE REALLY HATES BOSTON WHERE BLUE LAWS ARE STILL IN EFFECT AND YOU CAN NOT EVEN SHOP ON SUNDAY.  BUT THEN AGAIN, HE DOES HAVE A HANGUP WITH RELIGION.


RATHER THAN USING HIS WIDE BRUSH STROKE TO PAINT ALL CITIZENS NOT DOING RIGHT BY NOT BUYING LOCAL (WHICH A LOT OF US DO) HE HAS TO TAKE A SWIPE EVEN WHERE PEOPLE GAS UP THEIR CARS.  WHAT HE FAILS TO DO IN HIS ARTICLE IS TO  LIST THE GAS STATIONS WHO ARE LOCAL.  TO ME, THAT WOULD HAVE REQUIRED TOO MUCH WORK ON HIS PART.  (Here are Baylor's words:  Buy Local  Saving gas by shopping at the mega-chain retailer nearest one’s house.)  CAN WE GET SOME ONE TO TELL US WHERE HE GASES UP?


THE DEFINITION OF A CAUCUS MEANS A GROUP OF POLITICIANS WHO GET TOGETHER AND SELECT THEIR CANDIDATES.  THERE WAS ONE ILLEGAL MEETING WHERE A MAJORITY OF COUNCIL GOT TOGETHER IN A BAR BUT NOTHING EVER CAME FROM IT.  WE CAN ONLY ASSUME THIS SITUATION IS WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT BUT AT THE SAME TIME, THEY WERE ALL HIS BUDDIES:  (Here are Baylor's words:  Caucus  A city council meeting that isn’t, as attended only by those council members who won’t admit aloud to being Republican, as opposed to the single one who will. Quorum due to expire in November, 2011.)  DO YOU KNOW, AS I DO, WHO IS A DEMOCRAT ON THE CURRENT COUNCIL, WHO IS A REPUBLICAN AND WHO WAFFLES BETWEEN?  I DO BUT I GUESS HE DOES NOT.


THERE HAS BEEN A POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE FORMED IN NEW ALBANY, JOINED BY HUNDREDS, BOTH DEMOCRAT AND REPUBLICAN.  LEGAL PAPERS AND MONIES AND REPORTING RECORDS ARE FILED IN THE FLOYD COUNTY CLERK'S OFFICE.  THE PAC IS CALLED CITIZENS FOR ACCOUNTABILITY.  A VOTE WAS HELD BY MEMBERS (I WAS THERE) AND MS. VICKI DENHART WAS ELECTED THE PRESIDENT.  IF YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT SOMETHING WHICH SETS MR. BAYLOR'S BLOOD BOILING BECAUSE HE CANNOT FIND OUT WHO BELONGS TO THIS PAC, JUST MENTION CITIZENS FOR ACCOUNTABILITY.  I HAVE A FEELING; NO, I KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE; WHEN HE DOES FIND OUT IT WILL BE TOO LATE FOR HIM AND HE AND THE POWERS TO BE WHO DON'T WANT TO DO THE RIGHT THING AND THEY WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT HIT THEM COME ELECTION TIME!  (Here are Baylor's words:  Citizens Faux Accountability  Hillary Clinton fan club, run by a chain smoker from a post office box near a Gucci outlet somewhere in Italy.)  I BET HE WISHES THAT WAS/IS THE CASE.


THEN, HE TAKES A SWIPE AT TEACHERS TRYING TO BRING STUDENTS IN TO COUNCIL MEETINGS FOR A LESSON IN CIVICS.  AS A TEACHER WHO HAVE BROUGHT MY OWN STUDENTS IN FOR COUNCIL MEETINGS I NEVER EXPECTED THEM TO UNDERSTAND THE SUBJECTS AT HAND, SIMPLY TO GRASP A FEELING OF HOW, IN GENERAL, PEOPLE GATHER AND VOTE.  (Here are Baylor's words:  City Council  Place where the high school civics class kids are obliged to go ... for detention. (DS))  HE LEFT OUT THE BOY SCOUTS AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS WHO ATTEND.  MUST HAVE BEEN SHORT ON COLUMN SPACE THAT DAY.


AND, A LIFE IN THE DAY OF BAYLOR WOULD NO BE COMPLETE WITHOUT WHAT I CONSIDER HIS ASININE RAVINGS ABOUT ED CLERE.  BAYLOR DOES NOT HAVE THE NERVE, THE MONEY, NOR THE WHEREWITHAL TO EVEN CONSIDER RUNNING FOR PUBLIC OFFICE.   BUT BY GOSH, IF YOU ARE AND DO AND WIN, YOU HAD BEST DROP EVERYTHING YOU ARE DOING FOR ALL THE PEOPLE AND ANSWER TO HIS WHIM, IMMEDIATELY!  OR, YOU TOO, WILL BE SUBJECT TO THE RIDICULE THE ENTIRE TOWN CAN NOT ESCAPE.  (Here are Baylor's words:  Clere Channel Network  Where communication is a one-way street, and the street has no name.)


BEING A CONSERVATIVE DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN YOU ARE A DEMOCRAT OR A REPUBLICAN IN MY EYES.  I KNOW LIBERAL PUBS AND LIBERAL DEMS AND CONSERVATIVE PUBS AND CONSERVATIVE DEMS.  THE ENTIRE COUNTRY IS IN DIRE NEED OF THE CONSERVATION OF OUR MONIES AS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PUBLIC SERVANTS AND ENTIRE GOVERNMENTS ARE LOSING THEIR JOBS.  MR. BAYLOR DOES NOT BELIEVE IN BEING CONSERVATIVE WHEN IT COMES TO OUR MONEY.  NO ONE CAN FIGURE OUT HIS RHYME OR REASON FOR WANTING TO SPEND, SPEND, SPEND.  IN HIS WORDS WHICH FOLLOW, PLEASE ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN WHAT HE MEANS BY ATTILA THE HUN.  HE WAS THE MOST SUCCESSFUL BARBARIAN INVADER AND ALSO CONSIDERED UNGODLY.  (NO SURPRISE THERE.)  THE WEIMAR PART IS WHERE GERMANY ESTABLISHED AN IMPERIAL FORM OF GOVERNMENT WHICH EVENTUALLY LED TO THE RISE OF ADOLPH HITLER (NO SURPRISE THERE, EITHER).  THE BIRDSEYE BLUES MEANS TO THINK FROM AN ELEVATED STATE HIGH ABOVE THE REST OF THE CITIZENS OF NEW ALBANY.  (Here are Baylor's words:  Conservatism   Political trait that Floyd County Democrats typically claim to possess to a greater degree than their Republican rivals, who themselves are somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun, leaving the remainder of us stuck inside of Weimar with the Birdseye blues again.)


THE NEXT PARAGRAPH HE WRITES WRAPS A BLANKET AROUND ANY DISCUSSIONS, ANY DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW, AND OR OPPOSITION OCCURRING DURING CITY COUNCIL MEETINGS AND ARE SELF-EXPLANATORY (BELIEVE IT OR NOT).  (These are Baylor's words:  Controversy  The insertion of rationality, usually unintentional, into a given political discussion during city council meetings.)  OBVIOUSLY NONE OF THE AFOREMENTIONED ACTIONS ARE ALLOWED UNDER HIS COMMUNISTIC OUTLOOK.


HIS NEXT STATEMENT IS ALSO HIS ATTEMPT TO BE CUTE AND TO CONTINUE HIS RIDICULE OF ANYTHING OR ANYONE WHO STRIKES HIS FANCY.  (These are Baylor's words:  Discussion  At city council, any stray verbiage randomly issued as a means to avoid contemplation of the actual issue(s) at hand.)  I FEEL BAYLOR WANTS AND NEEDS TOTALITARIAN RULE OR NO RULE AT ALL (PART OF THAT COMMUNIST THING/IDEALS).


THERE HAVE BEEN A LOT OF NEW BUSINESSES LOCATING DOWNTOWN AND A LARGE GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE TIME, ENERGY, AND MONEY INVESTED.  THIS NEXT STATEMENT IS HOW HE FEELS THE CITIZENS OF NEW ALBANY THINK ABOUT THESE EFFORTS.  (These are Baylor's words:  Cracker Barrel  Long-awaited Nirvana for downtown revitalization advocates who really don’t understand downtown revitalization at all.)  DOES IT INFURIATE YOU AS MUCH AS ME AND MINE HOW SHORT HE SELLS THE CITIZENS OF NEW ALBANY WHO ARE TRYING THEIR DARNDEST TO SUCCEED?  


MR. BAYLOR TRIES TO MISLEAD THE PUBLIC IN HIS NEXT STATEMENT ABOUT EDIT.  THE MAYOR DECIDES WHERE HE WANTS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT TO OCCUR AND THEN COMES TO THE COUNCIL FOR THE MONIES.  UNFORTUNATELY FOR CITIZENS OF NEW ALBANY, THE MAYOR AT ONE TIME WAS FOUND TO HAVE BOUGHT PERSONAL SUITS OUT OF EDIT.  THERE HAS RECENTLY BEEN LEGISLATION TRYING TO GET FUNDS, EVEN IF THEY ARE FROM EDIT, TO GET OUR CITY OUT OF THE HOLE.  NO, BAYLOR DOESN'T SEE IT THIS WAY (NOR THAT WAY) AND HAS MORE TO GRIPE ABOUT.  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  EDIT  Crucial economic development monies designed to remain inert until needed by office holders as penny-wise, pound-foolish subsidies, rather than economic development monies.)  DIDN'T HIS PATIO COME OUT OF EDIT?  MAYBE I'M GENERALIZING LIKE HIM.  HEAVEN FORBID.


MR. BAYLOR ALSO TRIES TO RIDE HERD ON ALL BLOGS MAINTAINING YOU MAY BE THE WORST OF THE WORST IF YOU DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME TO OPINIONS YOU MAY HAVE.  TO A LOT OF PEOPLE IT IS SIMPLY HIS DESIRE TO CONTROL SPEECH AND TO LAMBASTE ANYONE WHO DOES NOT AGREE WITH HIS THOUGHTS.  AS LEGAL BEAGLE PUTS IT, HE IS A COWARD BEHIND A KEYBOARD AND A CYBER BULLY.  I AGREE.  THERE ARE FOUR BLOGS IN NEW ALBANY.  NEW VOICE OF THE PEOPLE (WHO REVIEW COMMENTS BEFORE BEING PUBLISHED); CITY OF NEW ALBANY (WHO DEMANDS YOUR NAME); FREEDOMOFSPEECH (WHICH DOES NOT ALLOW COMMENTS OF ANY KIND); AND KITCHENTABLEISSUES (WHERE YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LEAVE YOUR NAME).  WELL, IF YOU GO ANONYMOUS ON TWO OF THE BLOGS WHO ALLOW SAME YOU ARE A NO GOOD ROTTEN SO AND SO.  JUST ASK MR. BAYLOR.  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  Freedom of Speech  1. Local blog that does not allow reader comments  2. Condition that applies to you but not the person with whom you disagree.)  NO ONE AGREES WITH EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME, DUH.


THIS NEXT DEFINITION, AS BAYLOR CALLS IT, IS HANDICAPPING.  THIS SEEMS TO BE ANOTHER ATTEMPT ON HIS PART TO SIMPLY BE CUTE:  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  Handicapping  A New Albany voter’s perpetual calculation: Is an incorruptible politician who is wrong 100 percent of the time better or worse than a corruptible politician who is right half the time?)  YEAH, I THINK I WANT INCORRUPTIBLE POLITICIANS THOUGH THE GOOD LORD KNOWS THEY ARE HARD TO FIND.


WE ALL KNOW WHAT HAPPY HOUR IS (WHOOPPEE).  BUT, THIS SENTENCE SHOULD SERVE TO REMIND ALL READERS HOW MR. BAYLOR DOES BRING HIS FLASK  IN AND IS USUALLY SLAP HAPPY WHILE OBSERVING COUNCIL MEETINGS (ALONG WITH HIS BUDDIES).  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  Happy Hour  60 affectionate minutes with your hip flask before the council meeting starts.)


THE HISTORICAL PRESERVATION COMMISSION IS SOMETHING MOST OF US AGREE ON.  WHERE WE MAY DISAGREE IS THE FACT SOME HOUSES ARE PAST BEING PRESERVED AND A WASTE OF TIME AND GOOD MONEY.  RATHER THAN GOING AFTER THE ADMINISTRATION WHO ALLOWED THESE PROPERTIES TO FALL DOWN INTO DISREPAIR AND DID NOTHING UNTIL PRIVATE CITIZENS HELPED FORM THIS GROUP BAYLOR TENDS TO SIMPLY LAMBASTE CITIZENS WITH NO CREDIT GIVEN TO THE ONES WHO HAVE FOUGHT FOR CODE ENFORCEMENT FOR OVER 20 YEARS.  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  Historical Preservation Commission  Power-hungry zealots who refuse to admit that the rental property you’ve chronically neglected for decades merely is a dilapidated building suitable only for tenants.)


SOME PEOPLE FEEL THE HISTORICAL PRESERVATION COMMITTEE SHOULD CONSIST OF ELECTED OFFICIALS (NOT POLITICAL APPOINTEES ON POWER TRIPS) HAS BAYLOR FEELING AND WRITING THE FOLLOWING (WHAT I ASSUME AGAIN HE CONSIDERS CUTE) WORDS:  (This is Mr. Baylor's words:  Infinite Monkey Theorem  Expression of mathematical probability suggesting that if given enough time, an ape typing at random would eventually write Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” — or an ordinance outlawing the Historical Preservation Commission.)


I WOULD GUESS THE WHOLE TOWN KNOWS OF MR. BAYLOR'S AVERSION TO LARRY KOCHERT.  AND, I WOULD ASSUME THE WHOLE TOWN KNOWS OF MR. KOCHERT'S AVERSION TO MR. BAYLOR.  TO THIS DAY, AFTER FOUR YEARS, MR. BAYLOR STILL FEELS THE NEED TO RUN MR. KOCHERT DOWN ANY CHANCE HE GETS.  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  Leotards  Skin-tight leg wraps that threaten the fragile masculinity of a former Gang of Four council stalwart; also called “tights,” as in, “Let’s all get tights, and vote in my garage for a change.”)  WHAT MR. BAYLOR MAY NOT UNDERSTAND IS WHAT THE REST OF THE PEOPLE THINK ABOUT HIM, HA HA HA.


SINCE MR. BAYLOR CONSIDERS HIMSELF A FLOYD COUNTY SNOB AND THE CITY OF NEW ALBANY IS BENEATH HIM (WHILE FOR THE LIFE OF ME I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY HE WANTS OUR MONEY AND THINK WE CARE WHAT HE THINKS -- HERE ARE HIS WORDS SUMMING UP THE TRUE MEANING OF A FLOYD COUNTY SNOB:  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  New Albany Bicentennial  A time for remembering what it was like in 1813, and for accepting that we’re mostly still there.)  NEW ALBANY HAS COME A LONG WAY BABY, WITHOUT YOUR HELP, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.


THE NEXT SHOT IS AGAIN AIMED AT THE CITIZENS AND THEIR ELECTED COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVES AND HOW WE CAN NEVER EVER POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND WHY THE OLD NEW ALBANY BREAD STORE GOT A BEER MONUMENT PLACED IN FRONT OF BAYLOR'S BUSINESS.  MOST OF US FEEL THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A LOAF OF BREAD PUT THERE.  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  New Albany Bicentennial Public Art Project  Placements of art intended for the edification of the common man, consequently eluding the comprehension of the council members whose downtown districts house them.)


THESE NEXT WORDS, AGAIN, INSINUATE HOW ALL CITIZENS OF NEW ALBANY ARE IGNORANT, SUPERSTITIOUS AND BACKWARDS.  HOW LONG DOES HE THINK HE CAN KEEP INSULTING THE GOOD PEOPLE OF NEW ALBANY?  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  
Open Air Museum of Ignorance, Superstition and Backwardness   1. Citywide folkways theme park devoted to the reality of life in New Albany: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”  2. “Give us more fish. Don’t you dare teach us how to fish.”  3. Place where tolls (in squandered modernity) already are being collected.)


THE NEIGHBORHOOD PARKING PERMIT ISSUE WAS BROUGHT BY A CITIZEN IN NEW ALBANY (DOES MR. BULLEIT KNOW ABOUT THIS) AND THESE WORDS ARE SIMPLY A MOCKERY OF SAME, WHETHER ANY OF US AGREED OR DISAGREED WITH THE LEGISLATION (WHICH I DIDN'T).  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  Neighborhood Parking Permit
A plan to surrender public street space for private use, to appease private property owners who are unwilling to give up their own privately held property for the exact same purpose (JG).)


ANOTHER BURR UNDER BAYLOR'S SADDLE IS ONE SOUTHERN INDIANA.  WE DON'T LIKE THIS GROUP OF PEOPLE NOR APPROVE OF THEIR METHODS AND THEIR INTENT ON GETTING TOLLS, BUT WE ARE SO TIRED OF HIM GOING ON AND ON ABOUT 1SI, CLERE, ETC.  DO YOU THINK HE WILL EVER UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH HE REPEATS AND HOW TIRESOME IT BECOMES?  I DON'T THINK SO.  ANYWAY.  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  One Southern Indiana  1. Organization dedicated to preserving the wealth of its highest-standing members by erecting a wall running the length of the Ohio River.  2. Synonym for “blatant hypocrisy.”)


THE NEXT DESCRIPTION OF WORDS REFLECTS HOW MUCH HE DOES DRINK AND HOW MUCH HE HATES IT WHEN HE RUNS OUT OF LIQUOR AT COUNCIL MEETINGS:  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  Post-Partum Depression  Your empty flask after the council meeting.)  SEEING IT IS STILL IMPOSSIBLE FOR A MAN TO HAVE A BABY, I GUESS HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT A SERIOUS ILLNESS POST-PARTUM DEPRESSION IS NOR HOW MANY PEOPLE HE MAY HAVE OFFENDED COMPARING THIS ILLNESS TO AN EMPTY FLASK OF LIQUOR.


THERE ARE NUMEROUS CITIZENS AND CHRISTIANS WHO DECRIED AN OPENING OF A PORN SHOP ACROSS FROM A CHURCH AND AT A SCHOOL BUS STOP.  BUT, WITH MR. BAYLOR'S SELF PROCLAIMED HEDONISTIC WAYS WE CAN UNDERSTAND HIS FEELINGS ON THE FOLLOWING.  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK)  Group suffering from a chronic allergy to 2010 calendars, and seeking the curative measure of “reclaiming” things they cannot define, because those things never existed. See also: Torquemada Twist, Wickensianism (no such word).)


AGAIN, WE ALL KNOW HOW MR. BAYLOR FEELS ABOUT GOVERNOR DANIELS.  WE MAY OR MAY NOT LIKE HIM EITHER, OR MAY NOT LIKE SOME LEGISLATION, BUT BAYLOR DOES GO ON AND ON.  THERE HAVE BEEN A LOT OF ISSUES OR PEOPLE I HAVE VOTED FOR TO NO AVAIL BUT BY GOSH I AM ABLE TO MOVE ON.  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  Saint Daniels The reason why we have incense, prayer, One Southern Indiana, charter schools and bridge tolls.)


WHEN THE LOCAL SCHOOL SYSTEM ROLLED OUT THE 60 MILLION DOLLAR BOND ISSUES A LOT OF GOOD CITIZENS FOUGHT THIS ISSUE ESPECIALLY WHEN IT WAS PUT ON OUR BACKS WITH PROPERTY TAXES.  SOME OF US STILL MAINTAIN THIS IS WHY LOCAL SCHOOLS WERE CLOSED AND WAS NOT DUE TO MR. CLERE BUT LIES ON THE BACK OF OUR THEN UNELECTED SCHOOL BOARD.  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  School closings  1. Rituals of solemn necessity preceding a pay increase for an impoverished superintendent.
2. A heaven-sent occasion for conniving school board members, often Republicans, to plot their next political campaigns.  3. An atrocity that Superman (R-72) curiously missed.)


THE ONGOING SEWER FIASCO IN NEW ALBANY WHERE HOUSES AND BUSINESSES ARE STILL NOT BEING SERVED HAD TWO PEOPLE WHO ATTENDED EVERY SEWER BOARD MEETING AND SPENT UNTOLD HOURS TRYING TO BRING NEW ALBANY INTO A CLEAN ENVIRONMENT.  THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT SENDING SEWAGE DOWN PAST THE MAYOR'S HOUSE AS THE SEWERS LITERALLY WERE/ARE STILL GOING INTO THE OHIO RIVER.  BUT, MR. BAYLOR'S WORDS ARE SIMPLY SELF-SERVING AND SHOWS HIS LACK OF RESPECT FOR OUR NATURAL RESOURCES AND THE POLLUTION THIS CITY ADDS TO THE OHIO RIVER.  SIMPLY ANOTHER WAY TO GET HIS ROCKS OFF AT OTHER PEOPLE'S EXPENSE.  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  Sewergeddon  The Potty Police’s plan to employ diggers and reclaim the city’s culture by flushing raw sewage through street-side ditches past the mayor’s house, at a fraction of the cost of conventional sewage treatment.)  HE MUST NOT HAVE BEEN AROUND WHEN THE SEWAGE WAS RUNNING PAST RESIDENTS HOMES AND  ALL OF THE HOUSES ON MAIN STREET WENT DIRECTLY INTO THE OHIO RIVER AFTER RESIDENTS RECEIVED SEWER BILLS FOR TWENTY YEARS.  ISN'T THAT MAIL FRAUD - RECEIVING A BILL FOR SERVICES NOT RENDERED?  DOES HE CARE?  DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH.  HE'S THE JOKE.


AND, LAST BUT NOT LEAST, STEVE PRICE.  MR. BAYLOR WILL BE GLAD TO HEAR THERE ARE NO REPUBLICANS WHO WANT TO RUN AGAINST MR. PRICE IN THE UPCOMING ELECTION BECAUSE THEY LIKE HIM.  IF I COULD THINK OF ONE THING MR. PRICE VOTED NO ON THAT IMPEDED MR. BAYLOR'S AGENDA MAYBE I COULD GO THERE.  BUT, THE ADMINISTRATION'S AGENDA (ENGLAND'S) HAS ALWAYS TRIUMPHED AND TO HELL WITH THE BUDGETS, OVER STAFFING, WASTE OF THE MONEY, ETC.  JUST KEEP SAYING NO, STEVE.  WE STAND BEHIND YOU.  (These are Mr. Baylor's words:  Steve Price  Synonym for “no,” spoken in Dewey Heights dialect. )  BY THE WAY, A LOT OF GOOD PEOPLE WERE BORN AND RAISED IN THE DEWEY HEIGHTS DISTRICT AND YOU REALLY DO ALL A DISSERVICE.

NEXT????  SORRY FOR THE LONG POST, BUT YOU KNOW HOW IT IS WHEN YOU HAVE TO DEAL WITH AN EGO MANIAC (MY DESCRIPTION).

I WOULD GO TO GREAT LENGTHS TO FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO NOT BELIEVE IN OUR GOOD LORD AND RELIGION, BUT TO HAVE YOU POST IN AN ARTICLE YOU WANTED US ALL TO PRAY FOR THE PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR YOU TO BE ABLE TO LIFT THOSE KEGS SO YOU CAN MAKE MONEY REALLY TICKED ME OFF.  BUT, THIS SIMPLY MADE ME PRAY HARDER FOR YOU, NOT THEM.

Y A W N

Today's Tribune column: "A New Albanist’s Dictionary, Vol. 2."

Next week, it's the long awaited return of Councilman Cappuccino and Li'l Stevie. But now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Tolling Authorityberg Rally to catch.

BAYLOR: A New Albanist’s Dictionary, Vol. 2

Let’s begin the year with another revolving and evolving list of words, terms and concepts that provide a specialized vocabulary of life in the Open Air Museum. The first collection appeared Oct. 15, 2009.

It's time for more New Albanisms, and you, too, can contribute.

It's been more than a year since the first installment.

Today's Tribune column: "A New Albanist’s Dictionary."

Now it's time for Volume 2, coming soon, or as soon as I complete it.

Examples of the genre:

Infinite Monkey Theorem
Expression of mathematical probability suggesting that if given enough time, an ape typing at random would eventually write Shakespeare's “Hamlet,” or an ordinance outlawing the Historical Preservation Commission.

Leotards
Skin-tight leg wraps that viscerally threaten the fragile masculinity of a former Gang of Four council stalwart; also called “tights,” as in, “Let’s get all tights and vote in my garage for a change.”

Get to thinking, people, and add your New Albanisms to the comments here, or e-mail them to me. Your contribution will be attributed.

Today's Tribune column: "A New Albanist’s Dictionary."

You must read the column for the complete listing, but here are two teasers:

Civil society
Severe allergy afflicting little people, but curable by frequent tea parties, town hall meetings and tax cuts.

Information
Object so highly desired by Councilman Cappuccino that he typically refuses to acknowledge its existence right up to the point of misstating it.