The Best Quote Re: Bill Clinton That I Heard All Day.

Dave Watson, a friend of mine who teaches English at CCCC, told me “I haven’t been this excited since Bam Bam Bigelow came to the Civic Center.”

I think he meant it.

More on the Clinton visit later.

Clinton on YouTube

Just a few hours after leaving our little town, someone in Sanford already has video of President Clinton’s visit.

It’s only 15 seconds long, which leads me to believe it was taken on a cell phone, but the quality is a little better than that. Anyway, we’ll have most or all of the speech on the site soon, but I figured anyone reading might want to see this little snippet I found.

Enjoy, and I’ll be posting some more of my thoughts later.

Another Update

I’m hearing two times for the Clinton event. The campaign is saying it begins at 9:15 a.m. and the Extension Center (which is hosting the event) is saying 9:45 a.m.

Both of these seem like credible sources.

If you want to get in, I’d just show up Tuesday night.

Clinton update

Bill Clinton will be at the McSwain Extension Center at 2420 Tramway Road at 9:45 a.m. Wednesday, not 9:15, as I had previously reported in this space.

I’m just going to go out on a limb here and say that it probably wouldn’t hurt you to show up a little early, though.

Big Bill Comes to Town

Sanford is buzzing with the news that our 42st president, Democrat Bill Clinton, will be in town Wednesday to speak on behalf of his wife Hillary’s candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president. Bill Clinton is, to say the least, a somewhat polarizing figure in the America of today. Although he left office with high approval ratings, he remains a focal point of frustration for many on the political right. That said, you don’t get a chance every day to see a former president up close. I expect that half of Sanford will be there.

Here are the details, as I know them now. If this information changes, I will post updates here.

Clinton will be at the McSwain Extension Center on Tramway Road from 9:15 a.m. to 10 a.m. Wednesday. The event is open to the public.

There’s no word on what the event’s format will be, other than that the campaign has said it will highlight one stop early voting, which is available at the McSwain Center. Get there early.

More details soon.

Record Review: The Night Marchers’ “See You In Magic”

The British rock group Motorhead once wrote a song called “The Chase is Better Than the Catch,” a plodding, sludgy rager of a tune that acts as an ode to the fabled indulgent life of a rock star until long-haired, pockmarked frontman Lemmy Killmister seems to almost lament his lifestyle by closing the verses by shouting the titular line in his trademark throat-full-of-glass voice. Man, I love Motorhead.

There’s something to be said for Lemmy’s sentiment in that song — you get something and it just isn’t quite what you thought it was going to be. The image you had in your head isn’t flush with the one in front of your eyes. We should all learn to enjoy anticipation a little more.

With the Tuesday release of The Night Marchers’ “See You In Magic,” I’ve found for one of the first times in my life of music fandom that everything I learned from Lemmy is all wrong. See, I heard in the early winter of 2007 that John Reis, the musical genius behind so many of the best bands of my time, was going to be releasing an album with Gar Wood and Jason Kourkounis, alums of one of his other bands, under the name The Night Marchers. Aside from a leaked track here or there and some bootlegged live performances that surfaced back in February, there was a tight lid on the rock and roll trash can that The Night Marchers were living in, and the anticipation was murder. I couldn’t take it. With each second of each song that was made available before Tuesday’s release date, my ears piqued, trying to get an insight on what would come next from a guy who has been rocking slackers everywhere since I was in, like 6th grade. And now that the album is available, I can say that in this case, the chase was definitely not better than the catch.

For me, this might be the album of the decade.

To sum the record up in a few sentences, it’s like Reis looked back at his own musical pantheon, as well as his own influences, and make an album that reflected everything. All of it rolled up into one sticky, greasy ball of wax. There are nods to the straight-forward rocking epic-ness of his most famous band, Rocket From The Crypt, (“I Wanna Deadbeat You,” “Closed For Inventory”) and the steamroller-power-meets-sinister-riffs-that-sound-like-you’re-in-a-haunted-clown-factory side band from just a couple of years ago The Hot Snakes (“And I Keep Holding On,” “Bad Bloods”).

Along with the old familiar, there’s unexplored territory for these guys. Guitarwise, “Jump in the Fire,” sounds like it could almost have been written in the mid-80s by R.E.M. when they were still the biggest indie rock band in the world, or maybe to be more fair, their Athens, Ga. peers Love Tractor. “You’ve Got Nerve” quiets things down and channels soul music, of all things. “Panther in Crime” finds Reis flexing his pop muscles moreso than ever before.

The audio itself (Reis and company are pretty smart guys there, too) calls to mind his other side band in recent years, The Sultans. That band was known for its high end sounds, treble that filled you with anxiety, and that’s certainly in abundance on “See You In Magic.” Above the pummeling pace of the faster numbers, the sound of Reis’ Fender telecaster wobbles along like a tightrope that a guy just fell off of. It’s fantastic, if you’re into that sort of thing.

This record is, in my estimation, as near perfect as a record can get. Jump on the train while you still can.

Tuesday Mishmash

There’s a whole lot going on right now, with election season hitting the home stretch, so I’m just going to throw a few things out there today:

*The Herald’s forum for candidates to the Lee County Board of Education is tonight at 7 p.m. at the Dennis A. Wicker Civic Center. The forum will be preceded by an hour-long reception catered by Chef Paul’s. The candidates for various seats on the Lee County Board of Commissioners will also be making statements. This is possibly your last chance to hear the candidates speak about their platforms in their words prior to the May 6 primary, so come one, come all. My coverage of the event will appear in tomorrow’s Herald.

*I spoke today with state Treasurer Richard Moore, one of the three Democrats vying for the party’s nomination for governor. We mostly talked about his economic stimulus plan, which includes a $1 increase to the state’s minimum wage by 2009, freezing property taxes for seniors making less than $50,000 per year, paying for two years of community college for any North Carolinian who completes high school, and eliminating the state’s waiting list for child care subsidies. The interview should appear in tomorrow’s paper.

*I was listening to the Michael Savage show last night. I try to leave my political leanings out of what I do here at the paper, but it’s safe to say I’m no fan of Michael Savage and his ilk. I listen to shows like this sometimes to keep abreast of how the news is being reported on the radio, and maybe sometimes to get my heart racing a little bit — it’s called “infotainment” for a reason. Usually I don’t get too offended by anything Savage says, but last night he really got me going. He began with his usual claim that the Democratic Party controls the media nationally (which I disagree with, although it’s not really worth getting into that fight here) and then added that this is the reason why the media is so lousy.

“Why would anyone with better than a ‘B’ average want to be a journalist?” he asked, insinuating that only liberal uber-partisans are interested in reporting the news anymore. “Nobody would want to be a journalist anymore, other than a drug addict or a pedophile.”

Again, I know it’s entertainment and hyperbole works in that regard quite a bit, but he actually said those words. I’m not going to begin an argument here, since it’s nearly impossible to argue the details of an overall philosophy you whole-heartedly disagree with, but I will say that the reasons for lousy reporting often have more to do with institutional groupthink and unwillingness to try something new than any type of partisan leanings. The reason I bring this up, though, is that I know some of my conservative friends read this blog and I often wonder how people like Michael Savage and Ann Coulter make you feel. I refuse to believe that statements like the one Savage made last night are representative of the feelings of the many, many conservatives I know around here who are good, honest and hard-working people. I know there are flame-throwing antagonizers on the liberal side as well (they’re everywhere when it comes to politics), but the right wing variety is the most heavily represented on talk radio. What gives? People don’t really feel this way, do they?

*Last, I went and voted yesterday. It’s important to vote, especially in the local races, and you can do it early at one of the four sites designated for early voting here in Lee County. Early voting is available at the Board of Elections office at 225 S. Steele St., the Broadway Town Meeting Chambers on East Lake Drive, the McSwain Extension Center on Tramway Road, and the Pocket Fire Department on Pickard Road and runs through May 2.

I’m in a Clint Eastwood mood today…

…so I put Dirty Harry at the top of this blog.

Don’t worry, he’s protecting you, not aiming at you.

The Smallest County?

I’ve covered several elections here in Sanford/Lee County and we’re in the middle of another one. One thing I hear almost every election cycle is that Lee is “the smallest county in the state” and it certainly seems that way.

You can drive from Moncure (just north of the Lee-Chatham county line) to Cameron (just south of the Lee-Moore county line) in less than 30 minutes. Likewise, a trip from Mamers (just east of the Lee-Harnett county line) to Gulf (just northwest of the other Lee-Chatham county line) takes about the same amount of time.

And population-wise, Lee County has historically been pretty small. Sanford kind of represents small-town America to me, and Broadway residents don’t refer to their own town as Mayberry for no reason. So hearing that Lee is the smallest county in the state over and over again, not just from candidates but from every day people, makes it easy to believe.

Before moving to Sanford at 16, I lived in Kure Beach, at the southernmost tip of New Hanover County. New Hanover County is another place where I constantly heard the “smallest county in the state” mantra. Despite the wildly bigger population there, it seems like a pretty small county as well, so I’ve always wondered which one really was the smallest.

Today, at a forum for candidates seeking a seat on the Lee County Board of Commissioners, one of the office-seekers (who I’m not going to name, as I’m not out to embarrass anyone) repeated the line that Lee County is the state’s smallest. It got me to thinking that information like that is pretty easy to come by, so I looked it all up, by both population and square mileage, since a reasonable argument can be made that either of those measures has its own bearing on how “big” a place is.

And while the population numbers came from the 2000 Census and have likely changed in huge ways, they’ll have to do for now since I have no way of knowing how growth has happened in individual parts of the state.

So what did I find? Is Lee County the state’s smallest?

Not by a long shot.

At 259 square miles, Lee County is bigger than Clay County (221 square miles), Allegheny County (236 square miles), Avery County (247 square miles), Chowan County (233 square miles), Mitchell County (222 square miles), and Polk County (239 square miles).

Incidentally, however, the New Hanoverians I knew who claimed to be in the state’s smallest county were way off, as the home to Wilmington is 328 square miles across, practically dwarfing Lee and all of the other counties I just mentioned.

Going by population was even more interesting, as Lee County seems to be pretty much in the middle of the pack. The 2000 Census listed Lee County at 49,040 residents, and I know we’re bigger than that. Counties with fewer people than us in 2000 are as follows (get ready): Alexander, Allegheny, Anson, Ashe, Avery, Beaufort, Bertie, Camden, Caswell, Cherokee, Chowan, Clay, Currituck, Dare, Franklin, Gates, Graham, Granville, Greene, Hertford, Hoke, Hyde, Jackson, Jones, McDowell, Macon, Madison, Martin, Mitchell, Montgomery, Northhampton, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Pender, Perquimans, Person, Polk, Richmond, Scotland, Stokes, Swain, Transylvania, Tyrrell, Vance, Warren, Washington, Watauga, Yadkin, and Yancey.

As I said before, some of those may have grown faster than we did (Pender County, next to New Hanover, seems like a huge growth area, for example), but I have a hard time believing that the 10,667 people who were in Allegheny County in 2000 have swelled to better than 50,000 in the past eight years.

The county that seemed the most like Lee in terms of both population and size was Davie County, just west of the Winston-Salem metro area. Davie County is a little bigger than us at 267 square miles and in 2000 had virtually the same population we did at 49,063. I don’t know what that says about us or them, but it was cool to find two places in separate parts of the state that share such important defining characteristics.

Anyway, my point is that it isn’t that hard to find these things out, so we ought to put a rest to that idea that we’re smaller than everyone else and that it possibly puts us at some type of disadvantage. Instead, we should be talking about how much more we’re like most other mildly-populated places in North Carolina and what we’re doing better or worse than those places.

I couldn’t find a map of North Carolina’s counties that was small enough to fit into this blog space, but if you want to look at one, click here.

Expert Drummer

If something ever goes awry with our current skinsman, I want this drummer to be in my band: