Random

-The Colts won an ugly game today but with the team in the state it is in this year I'll take any win and be happy about it. They have very quietly strung together 5 impressive wins are in great shape to make the playoffs. It has been a great turnaround from a terrible start.

-The new Guns n' Roses album is good. Seriously. I'm not even joking. Considering the record was supposed to be ready in 1999, I expected the worst. But its good. For real.

-I miss True Blood and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

-The Lakers look unstoppable. I went to a game last weekend. Wow.

-Looks like Obama is going to name Hilary as Secretary of State. Good call. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. HA!

-This week's poll of "favorite Thanksgiving dish" has wrapped up and Pie totally kicked ass with 5 votes, stuffing and Yams both had three and Cranberry Sauce had one (I'm expecting it came from the wife). Turkey was putting up a total blank and looked to get shut out but rallied with one late vote. Check out the new poll.

-Ball State has crept up to #12 in the BCS Standings. Maybe they crack the Top 10 after a win next week but there's no way they get in to a BCS Bowl unfortunately.

-I played volleyball again today for the first time in a long time. My body is sore. Ouch.

Art

During my trip to NYC I hit up a couple of art museums as I usually do the first being the New Museum in the West Village. I'd never been to to the New Museum before, it is a nice place with a great, modern look. The exhibition that was recommended to me to see was of portraitist Elizabeth Peyton. She is a rather popular contemporary painter who first received notoriety for painting pop culture icons from photos including a great series on Kurt Cobain. She is fantastic and brings a real innocence and beauty to all of her subjects. This self-portrait stood out to me:


I also checked out MOMA which was a mere three blocks from where I was staying. There were big Miro and Van Gogh exhibitions but I had to skip them because of time and instead hit the contemporary floors (see a trend? I tend only to want to see contemporary art for some reason). There was a wonderful exhibit on art in the last four decades that I really dug. There was video, painting, sculpture, everything. I really liked this two part piece by Matthew Barney. The first photo tells the story of two lovers, their narrative is interrupted by this lubricating plastic that is filling the room. The second sculpture is actually of that same plastic as it filled the room and toppled over one of the walls:



There was also a photo exhibit of Michael Subotsky's. The photographs were of a poverty-stricken town in South Africa. Moving stuff.


Before you go thinking I'm this smart art aficionado I should say that audio guides are a wonderful thing (the audio guides at the New Museum were actually iPod minis, what a great idea) and I highly recommend them any time you visit a museum.

I'm Curious

Has there ever been a Thanksgiving turkey dinner that actually started on time in the history of our country? Think about it, when was the last time the Thanksgiving turkey was done early? I'm convinced that everybody's food coma comes not necessarily from eating too much but from being so incredibly famished by the time the food finally is served that their metabolism is super low and their bodies can't take it. And that's not to mention how drunk you are from drinking a couple glasses of wine or beers on an empty stomach waiting for the bird to be cooked. The good part is that Thanksgiving is the only meal where the food arrives on the table two hours late and nobody complains or says a word about it.

Late dinner or no, Carrie, Milo and I had a fantastic Thanksgiving. Here's the dessert I made; Cranberry-Charged Pumpkin Pie topped with a Ginger Cookie, Almond, Walnut, and Cranberry Crumble:




I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well. I'm thankful for all of my family and friends who have enough interest in my little life to stop by my blog and listen to what I have to say.

Now go make a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce and mayo. That's a meal that can be prepared in no time.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Chez Lyman

I have a good buddy named Pasta (seriously) that is a fantastic cook. He, along with countless hours of Food Network, sparked my interest in cooking and taught me everything I know about it. Pasta has recently been working Craft Services on a couple of film sets making and serving food for the cast and crew. He had two gigs that overlapped each other so he needed somebody to make food for him one day, thus began my first gig as a professional chef.

For lunch; chicken cacciatore, penne pesto, and a big sald, for dinner; beef roast, baked beans, cornbread, and potato salad. I had to cook in Pasta's kitchen as his house was closer to the set meaning the food wouldn't have to travel as far so I didn't have all of my weapons which I would have preferred, but besides that I had a real blast cooking. The reviews from the cast and crew were great and the director said it was some of the best beef she had ever had.

If this music thing doesn't work out, I have something to fall back on ...

"Welcome back ...

... to that same old place you laughed about"

The Backbeat has returned. The hiatus has been good, it was nice not having to 'worry' about the blog, but after a while I started feeling the urge to publicly vent and share once again. There are some obvious changes; we are starting with a clean slate with a brand new URL and Layout (the old blog will remain only for the archives), I hope you like the new format I might still be tinkering with it for a while. Also, comments about "hot-button issues" will be moderated from now on (if ya don't know, this means if you leave a comment it won't appear on the post until I approve it), this is a drag because of my travels I can go days without being online and the conversation won't resume without me, but its worth it for my peace of mind. I'm going to rule with an iron fist! If you don't like it, drum up traffic to your own blog! Besides that, not much will be different. My "whatever is on my mind/where I am travelling" posts will remain.

So who won the election? I haven't heard. I kid, I kid. Of course I know Obama won (go Indiana!) and let me tell you, I am so happy my secretly Muslim candidate got elected so he can single-handedly turn our great Democracy into a Socialist state with the help of his many, many terrorist friends. Oh! Kidding again!

In all honesty, I've done a lot of cool things over the past few weeks and we have a lot of things to catch up on. #1 on that list was the night of November 4. I had a really amazing experience when I was in New York the night of the election. I hurriedly posted this note on Facebook the next morning:

I'm in NYC on tour at the moment and on Election Night I had a gig with the boss and the boys. Before our set I was anxiously watching the television and saw Pennsylvania turn blue--after the show I saw Ohio turn blue and knew that an Obama victory was a very real possibility so I hurried down to Rockefeller Center (by myself as the other guys in the band were still hungover from the night before, lame!).

If you watched NBC then you know that Rock Center was decked out for their election coverage. Flags, enormous TVs, lights, cameras ... I thought there would be a real mix of political supporters and that it might resemble a sporting event with McCain voters cheering and Obama voters cheering, but the crowd was for Obama all the way. Not long after arriving NBC projected Obama the winner and everybody went crazy; couples embracing, people jumping and cheering, the crowds chanting "YES WE DID! YES WE DID!" I tooled around watching everyone so happy and experiencing the same overwhelming emotions, I met two girls from England who were just as happy as anyone else. When Obama gave his acceptance speech the crowd of hundreds (thousands?) was absolutely silent as tears streamed down so many faces.

The crowd dispersed not long afterward but I wasn't finished celebrating so walked down to Times Square, talk about a celebration. There were folks dancing in the streets, hanging out of car windows screaming and honking their horns, mass cheering and chanting, and an overwhelming sense of relief, hope, and optimism. A few years ago I had the unique experience of being in downtown Milan when Italy won the World Cup this is the only thing I've seen in our country that has come close to that.

But I still wasn't done celebrating so I headed to a favorite Scottish Pub and had one of my favorite Scotches and slowly watched more red states turn blue on the electoral map.

What a night.

And to think, there are some Obama detractors who think all of this enthusiasm is a bad thing. We have become so jaded to our political process that showing emotion and hope for a candidate brands them as "style with no substance" or simply a "celebrity". Well record numbers of voters showed up and Obama won in a landslide, that type of change does not happen because of personality alone.

We've taken our future in to our own hands folks, today is a new day in history.