Saloonkeeper, philosopher, provocateur, bourgeoisie. 21st Century Whig. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Whisky! We could use a man like Daniel Webster. SPQR.
@GridDigest The '73 Broncos will always be in my top five squads. First winning season for the franchise, going down to the last game of the season with playoffs in site. John Ralston was name COY.
@CharlotteA15906@jpodhoretz@rkylesmith Not sure why Spielberg just didn't make Disclosure Day a sequel to Close Encounters. The government could have been sitting on events from the first movie - which included a religious service - for the past 50 years. Let Dreyfuss and Balaban drop in at the finish.
@shaunvlog_ If you are in New England, you will want to have some seafood (and you should). But Providence and Boston both have the best Italian food in the US. If you are in Boston, head the north end - the restaurants are a five minute walk from Paul Revere's statue.
First we had Germans singing the praises of Buc-ees and then Brit expounding upon ranch dressing. Now we have a Japanese blogger writing about the wonders of free chips and salsa. It's like a thousand deToquevilles have been dropped in the US for the World Cup.
USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.
Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.
I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."
"They just come with the table, man."
They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.
This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.
I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then โ I must report this calmly โ the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.
"Did weโฆ?"
"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."
Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.
My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."
Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished โ an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.
I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.
Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.
I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.
Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.
@SkylarSkye3 Are you based in KC with the Lions? I would drive west and see the Rocky Mountains: Pikes Peak, Vail (great this time of year), RMNP. Go see the Badlands of western Neb and SD.