If you’ve read him, that’s all you need to know. If you haven’t, just know that Billmon — on his old blog, The Whiskey Bar — was the best political opinion writer on the web before his self-imposed exile two years ago. Now, like Spider Jerusalem returned from the mountaintop all wild-haired and bazooka-packing, he has returned. Maybe. We’ll see if this was a one-off, or if it takes.

He’s using DailyKos now, and his first post is all about the true nature of John McCain. Which you would know if you lived in Arizona, but the “liberal media” has yet to figure this out.

We were supposed to spend tonight in Oklahoma City, but we only made it as far as Amarillo, Texas. Today was rougher than we expected. After (at least) three solid days of packing, driving, and cat-herding, we were both physically and mentally exhausted by the time we stopped for gas in Amarillo. We were erring in pretty basic and potentially harmful ways, so we declared burnout and decided to stay the night, rest up, catch up on Internet, etc.

On the upside, we get more time with my family in Illinois on Saturday, rather than a brief visit tomorrow night. Downside, we arrive in New York on Monday instead of Sunday. I have a feeling we won’t regret taking it slow and easy.

We’ll try to get to SW Missouri tomorrow (land of Branson! and hillbillies!) before a short driving day on Saturday.

Aside: the signs upon entering Texas on I-40 say “Proud home of President George W. Bush.” The fact that no one has scratched out the word “proud” reminds me just how deep we are into foreign territory.

Greetings from a roadside hotel in New Mexico. After doing final car-loading, supply-purchasing, and cleanup on our apartment, we hit the road around 2pm for what will be the shortest leg of the trip to New York.

A few miles from our Day 1 destination, the Interstate bugs were so thick that their spatters sounded like rain drops on my windshield, which is now so nearly-opaque that I’ll have to stop and clean it tomorrow morning before we get on the road again.

Also, ew.

Tonight marks our first hotel experience with the cats. Normally we don’t allow them in the bedroom, so we’ll see if they let me get any sleep. After the last few days, I’ll need it.

Our stuff is about 98% packed into Relocubes. We have some car-loading and a couple of errands to run tomorrow, but otherwise, following a farewell dinner out with friends… well, that about wraps it up for Tucson.

Can’t think of much more to say about it. Possibly too tired.

We should have internet access from hotels on the road, so I may check in here. If not, see you on the flip side (aka, the east coast).

I may be missing the Patton Oswalt-moderated MST3K panel at San Diego Comic-Con tomorrow, but at least I’ll get to see it eventually. Shout Factory is filming the event for inclusion on its MST3K 20th Anniversary DVD release, due in October.

Another upside? I’m hundreds of miles away from these idiots.

…or, maybe this NY thing isn’t so hard after all.

Seventeen hours after a 1am landing at LaGuardia airport (originally scheduled for 11pm), the ink was drying on lease for an apartment in Mamaroneck, NY. You can see the front of the place to the left, if you’re reading this on my homepage.

Downsides? It’s higher than our already-high price range (from my perspective), and it’s quite a commute for Kristie to Suffern (although she did volunteer). On the other hand, it has a dishwasher, washer/dryer, AC, basement, hardwood floors, fireplace, big kitchen, backyard grill, seemingly cool landlord, harbor view, near the train to NYC and a long row of shops and restaurants… everything we wanted plus a few extras that hadn’t occurred to us. Everything else I saw was much smaller and less equipped for not much less money.

Now I’m back in Tucson and we have one week left to pack, sell, or give away everything we own before the cross-country drive. In the meantime, I have my resume updated and polished to send to prospective employers, although I wonder when I’ll have the time or energy or sanity to conduct job searches and phone interviews. I’m tempted to bite off only one piece at a time, yet not sure I should take the chance of putting it off…

So what’s the big news?

Three weeks ago, Kristie was offered a job as a full-time college instructor, doing exactly what she wants to do with her career. It came as a surprise, not because she hadn’t been interviewing and hoping, but because the offer was from a school that had only interviewed her over the phone. They still haven’t met her face to face; she still has not set foot on the campus. And yet they offered.

We discussed it for a few days and decided to accept.

It’s official. We’re moving to…

New York City!

Well, kinda.

Kristie’s job is about an hour northwest of New York City. We’re going to try to live somewhere in between, so I can take the train into the city for work, if I want. So our actual living experience will look more like this:

Or this:

Or possibly this:

We don’t quite know where we’re going to live yet. I’m flying out this weekend to see if I can find a place, and my search spans four counties across two states I haven’t visited since I was a toddler. Not to make things overly difficult for myself or anything.

So anyway… yeah. Excited, nervous, stressed out. That’s been my July. And we’ll end it by piling everything we own into ReloCubes, stuffing two travel-phobic cats into our cars and driving 2500 miles over four days.

Two weeks to go. Wish us luck.

Via nola.com, aka the Times-Picayune:

HBO sets drama series in Treme with focus on city’s musicians

In a move that could boost the city’s psyche and pump millions into its economy, cable giant HBO is developing a new TV drama to be set in the New Orleans music community.

“Treme,” named after the iconic New Orleans neighborhood where many musicians live, will marry one of television’s most prestigious networks with creator David Simon, one of television’s hottest series masterminds.

Simon created HBO’s the “The Wire,” which just completed a five-year run.

[...]

Simon, a frequent visitor to the city and a longtime New Orleans music fan, said this week that the stories told in “Treme” would reach beyond the music scene to explore political corruption, the public housing controversy, the crippled criminal-justice system, clashes between police and Mardi Gras Indians, and the struggle to regain the tourism industry after the storm.

“It’s basically a post-Katrina history of the city. It will be rooted in events that everybody knows,” Simon said. “What it’s not going to be is a happy stroll through David Simon’s record collection. It should not be a tourism slide show. If we do it right, it (will be) about why New Orleans matters.”

Part of the reason The Wire was so great was that the principals behind the series, including David Simon, were intimate with Baltimore — they grew up there, patrolled there, reported there, taught there. Unless Simon brings in some local NOLA writers, I’m not sure Treme can achieve the same feeling of authenticity. Then again, maybe nothing ever will.

Also a reminder: Simon’s new Iraq miniseries, Generation Kill, starts this Sunday on HBO.

If I ever have a place with a garden, I would totally put this in it:

And it’s affordable!

Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. According to Patton Oswalt:

In twenty-four days, we’re doing the last ever Comedians of Comedy show.

It’s been a fun, four-year run. A feature film, two concert movies, a TV show, a set at Coachella — not bad.

Things have greater value when they have an ending. And the whole reason for doing the tour in the first place was to give all of us wider exposure. And it worked. Zach and Maria are blowing up and busy. And Brian and I can barely keep our Stork ‘n’ Stumpy’s Plum Fritters on the shelf. It’s unfair, now that all of us have benefited from the tour, to herd everyone back into a cramped van three or four times a year. The scheduling hassles are becoming un-workable. And we don’t ever want this to become a chore.

So we’re doing our farewell show Saturday, July 26th. That’s twenty four days from when this is being written. We’re doing in in San Diego, at the Spreckels Theatre, where we figure the most number of our fans will be gathered within the same zip code. And there’s going to be some monumental special guests on the show.

Yes, that’s during Comic-Con. The day after the massive MST3K panel.

Just to put this in perspective, I met Kristie at a Comedians of Comedy show. And we own two COC DVDs as well as individual releases from Oswalt, Posehn, and Galifianakis. (And David Cross, too.)

Why must you torture me so, San Diego? Now I have to go cheer myself up with funny comics.

(Actually, even if we hadn’t decided to skip SDCC this year, we still couldn’t have gone, because we’ll be doing something very, very HUGE around the same time that I can’t really talk about yet. I’ll write about it soon, though. It’s why this blog has been quiet lately. TEASE~!)