The Spencer File

WE WIN!!!!

2008-10-30T01:20:00.002-05:00

I'm going to share something with all of you. Yes, I know it's been months since I last posted, but I think I need to tell you all something.

As a baseball fan, tonight, I am a golden god.

My matriculation to deity happened about 4 1/2 hours and 6 beers ago, when the Phillies won their second World Series title and first since 1980.

Brad Lidge strikes out Eric Hinske for the final out, and for a brief moment in time (at least until April) all the pain, anguish and torn hair caused by being a lifetime fan of the Philadelphia Phillies disappears under a hail of shouts, screams and a touch of alcohol.

I live in Milwaukee now, but damned if I'm not going to spread the joy, beginning with this blog post. As a fan humbled by their excellence, I'd like to personally thank every member of the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies for giving the last 28 years meaning. For all the dreams shattered, for all the almost-was-es to today's celebration, may all of you walk together forever. As a fan, when I'm 80 and soiling my underpants, I shall remember your names, and I shall smile. May the magic never wear off.

So It's Been Awhile

2008-08-13T00:30:00.002-05:00

Oh the places I've gone.

Since we last left our readers you can count on one hand, I've changed jobs, watched my beloved Penguins lose the Stanley Cup, and officially become a recording artist.

First the job. I'm now a Compliance Officer for a local medical billing firm. I love this place! Imagine starting every work day with a clean slate and finishing a daily project all the same? This may be the job I've always wanted. I know I've thought that before, but this time it may be the whole shooting match. I go to work and create, and then I return home and create. I'm not sure what I should do with myself and my creativity...

Until this past weekend. I drove the 800 miles to Marietta, Georgia for the release of To Whom, Etc., the debut album by my old friend Steve Whitworth. I contributed vocals on 5 tracks on the 9-song album. We played live, and Steve and his good friends in his band Absolute Jack killed. I would have liked to hit better notes, but I received many second-hand compliments over the 24 hours after the gig while I was either preparing for or completing the drive home. Steve and I are already talking about recording the follow-up. I look forward to my eventual return down South for just that purpose.

Meanwhile, back in the land of Beer and Sausage (and Cheese, but I hate cheese), my own collective, The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine, prepares for a show this Friday at Smokin' Joe's in West Allis, WI. That will be followed up with a show at The Chancery in Waukesha on August 30th. Busy, busy, busy.....

Ed Snider's Reign Of Terror Continues Unabated

2008-05-12T18:18:00.002-05:00

I’ll start this post with a question. What do Ed Snider and Fox News have in common?

The answer is that no intelligent person believes a word coming out of either entity, and yet both really don’t care. For you see, the people that Ed Snider and Fox News lie to on a daily basis aren’t intelligent human beings. The people they lie to are their rabid fans.

The ongoing horror that is Fox News continues uninterrupted despite over 80% of the country disagreeing with them on a daily basis in George W. Bush’s United States. I’ll let the reader find a first-tier source to document those particular atrocities. For Ed Snider and the Philadelphia Flyers, look no further.

I am now and from this day forward a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. I have been since 2001. I used to be a Flyers fan, but I got sick of flogging a dead horse.

The first hockey game I ever watched was the first game of the 1974 quarterfinals between the Atlanta Flames and the Flyers. I was 8 years old, and my family had just moved back to the greater Philadelphia area. I just happened to have turned on an old black and white TV that was showing the game. The Flyers won that game 4-1, skating and shooting rings around Tom Lysiak, Eric Vail, Phil Myre, Brian Hextall and the rest of the Flames. The Flyers went on to win the Stanley Cup that year and again in 1975. They’ve never won one since.

As a child and far too long into adulthood, I believed in another Stanley cup victory that never happened. Sure, they came close. They lost in the finals to the Islanders in 1980 due to a bad offside call by the ever-deplored Leon Stickle. They lost to Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers in 1987, and again to the Detroit Red Wings 10 years later. In reality, all three teams overachieved, and continued to miss the key elements that would put them over the top. Further, it can be argued that if the two teams that had won the Stanley Cup in the ‘70’s had had to face the Montreal Canadiens in the playoffs in either of those years, they may never have won a cup at all. They finally did run up against the Canadiens in 1976, and were swept in the finals.

And yet, the Flyers faithful continue to pay the ever-increasing ticket prices to watch a team that last won a championship in the abbreviated Gerald Ford administration. The Flyers brass, led by aging owner and perpetual excuse dispenser Ed Snider, continue on the same outdated course that has now lasted longer on this earth than Jimi Hendrix did, and falling far short of the fireworks from the solo in “All Along The Watchtower”.

As I watched my newly-beloved Penguins take a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals last night, I saw the Flyers again choose brawn over brains with the addition of Steve Downie to their lineup. On the final one of his few shifts of the evening, Downie coughed up the puck in his own zone, leading to the game-winning goal being scored by Maxime Talbot, the Penguins fourth-line center. To review, the other centers in Pittsburgh have the last names of Crosby, Malkin and Staal. All three are known for goal scoring. Max Talbot is a fourth-line center nursing a broken foot.

This type of soul-searching in the clutch has been a hallmark of the Philadelphia Flyers every time they get this deep into the playoffs over the last 20 years. While some allowances can be made for injuries on the blue line to Kimmo Timonen and, as of last night, Braydon Coburn, the Flyers continue to be the bulls in the proverbial china shop. They’re great at throwing hits and knocking things over, but the puck has to enter the other team’s net more often than your own. That is what wins hockey games.

It’s not as if the Flyers lack talent in this area, with Jeff Carter, Mike Richards and Daniel Briere in their lineup. However, the balance of their forwards are all what I like to call “Bobby Clarke types”, two way centers for whom skating is for the most part a secondary skill. This may very well be the Achilles’ Heel of the whole franchise. Every year, on draft day, when faced with the choice between a proven scorer and a plugger with an attitude, they choose the latter. They proudly assign the moniker of “a guy who plays Flyers Hockey” to whoever that poor, misguided soul might be, and they once again rise to the not-so-ethereal heights of the first circle of Hockey’s Inferno, which is forever reserved for also-rans. The irony of Daniel Briere now being a Flyer is that the Flyers could have drafted him the year he became eligible. Apparently, Briere didn’t play “Flyers Hockey” in junior, as he had the audacity to actually score points in Quebec Major Junior. The Flyers instead drafted Dainius Zubrus, a now-journeyman center and only the second Lithuanian ever to play in the NHL. Now that’s Flyers hockey.

If the ineptitude of the front office were only evident on draft day, that would be one thing. The Flyers have also been burned with free agent signings over the last decade. Veterans who were supposed to be the missing piece of the puzzle for a championship populate their recent history. People like John VanBiesbrouck, Jeremy Roenick and Sami Kapanen have all arrived in Philadelphia past their expiration dates. Others that looked good on paper, like Chris Gratton, were spoiled by a series of coaches with either little to no NHL coaching experience (Bill Barber, John Stevens) or long tenures with no championships (Terry Murray, Roger Neilsen).

The reward for continuing and stubborn mediocrity has been an economic windfall for Ed Snider and the Comcast Corporation, as the con game continues between the Flyers marketing department and the fans that populate the Wachovia Center. Ed Snider is a millionaire many times over, and as a veteran of the ownership group that hired Gary Bettman, pulls a lot of strings behind the scenes in the NHL. Is it any accident that the Comcast-owned Vs. Network, the acknowledged cable home of bull riding and sport fishing, is now the official cable network of the NHL in America? Of course ESPN is the preferred home of any sport that calls itself respectable, but respectable doesn’t line Ed Snider’s pockets quite enough apparently. It is this kind of self-serving decision making that leaves the NHL behind pro football, college football, baseball, the NBA, college basketball and NASCAR in the pecking order of American sports. More people watch the NFL Draft than the Stanley Cup Finals in the United States. That borders on treasonous.

The Flyers continue to hike their ticket prices, which does not include the money shelled out by their fans for gas, food and parking. The fans, delusional as ever, in all their best Kevin Bacon regalia, bend over, get hit by the paddle and say “Thank you sir. May I have another?” WIP, the popular local sports radio station, calls Flyers fans “Stepfords” and for good reason. The Flyers are a cult like no other in professional sports. Former players that are forever referred to as “the Flyers Family” infect the front office of the Philadelphia Flyers. There are Amish families 50 miles to the West of Philadelphia that exhibit more diversity than the Flyers’ brain trust.

It’s often said that being a fan of the New York Yankees is like rooting for the House at a blackjack table. The Flyers will continue to pay exorbitant amounts of money on big name players that are past their prime, throwing bait to their free-spending fans, deceiving them into thinking that this one new player is the one to put them over the top. The Flyers follow the Yankee model, with the only difference being a lack of success on the playing surface.

As we prepare to see signs in the crowd tomorrow night at the Wachovia Center from the Flyers fans that call Sidney Crosby a crybaby, it won’t enter the minds of those 20,000 fans in attendance that the only way they’ll ever see a guy with the skill set of a Sidney Crosby in the Flyers’ lineup is by a fat contract when he’s past his prime. The Flyers model is tired, robotic and not about to change. As long as the cattle stream to Broad Street, money in hand, accepting at face value the pronouncements from on high, it will be a case of good money after bad. A little ignorance of the way things could be goes a long way.

Hillary Clinton's Fight for Relevance

2008-04-22T13:13:00.003-05:00

Today is primary day in my former homeland of Pennsylvania. While Hillary Clinton is expected to come away as the victor in this particular contest, going forward she carries on her back the hopes and dreams of a group within the Democratic Party who with each passing day become more and more an irrelevant anachronism.

The Democratic Leadership Council was brought forth in the age of Ronald Reagan as a response to Democratic candidates whose views were seen as too far to the left of the country as a whole. Bill Clinton, Joe Lieberman and others felt it was their collective duty to lead the Democrats to the White House by staking a claim to what they believed was the middle ground that all Americans sought. In 1993, the world was their oyster. Having just taken the White House and holding a majority in both the Senate and the House, it seemed like the DLC way was destined to be the new way forward.

In actuality, the DLC way was doomed from the start. When the differences with Republicans across the aisle appeared to be semantic more than substantive, parts became interchangeable in the eyes of the independent voter. The base of the Democratic Party becomes disinterested in voting for candidates that didn’t share their views. It also didn’t help that the early 90’s saw the ascendancy of right wing talk radio and Newt Gingrich, two entities that were more interested in verbal bomb throwing than responsible governance. In eight short years, Clinton found himself impeached for something far short of a high crime, and George W. Bush, the perfect symbol of all that is wrong with the United States, became the president.

The DLC’s last stand now presents itself in the guise of Hillary Clinton. She stands seemingly as the last great believer in the right-leaning triangulation that propelled her husband to the White House 16 years ago. Facts such as Ross Perot taking 19% of the vote in 1992 and propelling Bill Clinton to the White House with far less than a 50% majority of the vote are conveniently left out of her narrative. For Clinton, she is fighting not just for the presidency, but for future relevance for herself and her brethren.

The DLC is having enough of a hard time without a Clinton loss further kicking sand in their face. The DLC’s current chairman, Harold Ford, endorsed Christopher Shays, a Republican, in his current reelection bid to the House of Representatives. When he’s not endorsing Republicans, he’s sponsoring conventions on the DLC’s behalf that feature a lot of empty chairs. Joe Lieberman, fighting his own ongoing battle with irrelevance, turned in his DLC card years ago.

For Hillary Clinton, she only needs to look across the aisle at her Senate colleague from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, for a glimpse into her future as a losing presidential candidate. Ted Kennedy says all the right things nowadays and is a reliable Democrat on a host of issues, but his speeches only serve to recall a time when his personal possibilities, based on his name and his position, seemed less limited. His relevance on a national scale is minimal at best, despite his surname and the power that once summoned.

All of this should be taken into account when you listen to Hillary Clinton trash MoveOn.org, or talk about using nuclear weapons on a sovereign nation, or having her subordinates argue that any states with fewer than 15 electoral votes that she happens to have lost are full of latte-drinking elitists. Hillary Clinton currently gazes into an abyss of future irrelevance, buffeted only by millionaire donors making veiled threats and the hope of getting enough Democratic superdelegates to ignore the popular vote. Maybe she and Ted will get together in the Senate commissary someday and discuss their twin fates, even if by Hillary Clinton’s latest words and deeds they have nothing else in common politically.

Help Me Not Be A Drain On Society

2008-04-01T13:03:00.002-05:00

"…promote the general welfare…"

I’m not a constitutional scholar, and would never pretend to be, but as an American, whenever I think about the potential of the land of my birth, I go to the preamble to our Constitution. Those 52 words ratified 221 years ago hold great promise, neatly summarizing the goals of a new country.

The first four words of this post affect me more than any other. I’m employed in the healthcare industry. No, I’m not a doctor or other specific caregiver, as that would define me as "useful". I’m on the administrative side. I represent that portion of the American healthcare system that drains much-needed resources from things such as providing timely medical care to patients and educating the public on risks to health.

Without being too specific about my daily job functions (not that I’m hiding; hell my name is right there in my ID), I am a certified medical coder. As briefly as possible, I’ll try to describe what that is. Every medical test, service, procedure and patient condition has a numeric equivalent for governmental reporting and insurance billing. I’ve been trained to determine what numbers go where on which bill for which patient for what service or condition. For this, I make a healthy wage in a recession-proof industry.

I’m going to ask something of you that may come as a shock, but I’ll do it anyway.

As quickly as you can, please put me out of a job.

Though I do not work in a doctor’s office on a daily basis, trust me when I tell you that I’m on the front lines and the American healthcare system is broken. We need single-payer healthcare yesterday.

I started on the insurance side of this industry in 1989. I was a medical claims adjuster for a little over 6 years. The time I spent on that side of the fence gave me incredible insight into the mind of the person adjudicating your medical insurance claims. Specifically, some of these people really get their rocks off denying services. I wasn’t one of them. I can remember an instance where I was forced by the terms of a patient’s insurance policy to deny a $92,000 hospital bill for a 4-year-old girl with lymphoma. I also remember the hangover I had the next morning from trying to drink my guilt away.

"…promote the general welfare…"

I’ve had my share of stops in this industry. I now find myself on the physician side attempting to educate physicians and other practitioners on documentation for services. I feel that this only slightly helps the treatment outcomes for the patients. What I really feel is that I am employed as a defense mechanism against Medicare and insurance regulations designed not to compensate physicians for the fair value of their services. Meanwhile medical mistakes are on the rise in hospital settings, much-needed treatment is being withheld due to cost to insurers and the amount of a typical healthcare dollar spent on jobs like mine keeps going up.

I realize that I can’t speak for everyone in my sphere of the healthcare industry. I can only speak for myself when I tell all of you to put me out of work. I’ll find another job. I’m reasonably intelligent and have the innate survival skills to find something else to do with the 25 years (give or take) I have left in the working world. I can even write and sing a song or two. Who knows where that might lead?

A society that cares about the fate of all of their citizens would have moved to a single-payer healthcare system years ago (some enlightened countries have already). I currently exist as a symbol of everything that’s wrong with America’s approach to its own citizens. Do the country a favor and politely send me packing.

Casey Endorsement of Obama Only a Temporary Favor

2008-03-28T13:17:00.000-05:00

As a former resident of Pennsylvania, I can tell you that when it comes to voting, the Keystone State is an odd place. There are blue areas around the state, mostly Philadelphia and other urban centers, but Pennsylvania is still a place where a good candidate, no matter what party, can rise to the top and become a force. Pennsylvanians tend to look at each individual candidate not so much for party affiliation, but for stands on individual issues.

Pennsylvania has the highest population of voters over the age of 65, mainly because the benefits of being old in Pennsylvania are many. As one example, all proceeds for the Pennsylvania lottery go to programs benefiting senior citizens. The late Republican Senator John Heinz, nicknamed "Senator Landslide", was one of the bigger advocates of issues affecting seniors during his tenure in the Senate. Pennsylvania is also roughly 30% Catholic, a great many of whom vote only based on a candidate’s stand on abortion.

Into this backdrop comes freshman senator Bob Casey, Jr., who today announced that he is endorsing Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for President. Like his namesake former governor father, Casey’s power center is mostly in Western Pennsylvania, and his name and endorsement will do nothing but help Obama in the red and purple parts of the state.

Now relocated, I haven’t had a chance to see Bob Casey Jr. enough to form an opinion on his political career, but my opinion of his father is carved in granite. I was taught not to speak ill of the dead, but in Bob Casey Sr.’s case, I’ll make an exception. He was a scumbag. The biggest reason he won his first gubernatorial campaign was because of a TV ad now referred to as "The Guru Ad". The ad was run in the western and rural parts of the state against his Republican opponent, Mark Scranton. It showed pictures of a long-haired Scranton in the early 1970’s as a threatening voice talked about his living for a short time on a commune under the leadership of some questionable cult-like figure now lost to the sands of time. The insinuation of the ad was clear. Do you trust Casey, anti-choice establishment Democrat, or some now clean-shaven hippie? The ad was considered so toxic at the time that it never ran on any station anywhere near Philadelphia, as it was thought that the ad would cut into Casey’s Democratic base of support there. Casey ended up racking up big numbers in the rural part of the state that carried him to the Governor’s mansion.

When Casey Sr. was in declining health in the mid-90’s, he was able to get a heart-lung transplant by magically appearing at the top of the transplant list. No one ever provided a reasonable explanation for how this happened.

Bob Casey Jr., much like his father, is a Democrat more for political expediency than for any other reason. The Casey family is adamantly anti-choice and they are very comfortable seeking the middle ground when the Republican wagons begin circling. It’s hard to blame them for this behavior, given the split personality of the Pennsylvania electorate. Casey will have a long career in Pennsylvania politics because the Republican Party in Pennsylvania is currently drenched with people like Curt Weldon, Joe Pitts and Pat Toomey. Arlen Specter, as silly as he is in all his camera-mugging glory, is truly the best the Republican Party in Pennsylvania has to offer in the post-John Heinz era. In any other state, a guy like Bob Casey would either never make it past the local level, or he would be a Republican in the mold of a John Danforth. I gave him my support from afar in the last Senate election because like many others I observed that Rick Santorum was a cancer on the body politic and needed to have his revolting back side booted back to Virginia, where he actually lives.

Bob Casey Jr. endorsing Obama is good for Obama in the short term, but Casey is not a guy with a lot of credibility with the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. Given Pennsylvania’s political intricacies, this endorsement is stunning. On the surface, Casey would seem to have more in common with Hillary Clinton than Barack Obama. In a state like Pennsylvania, where KKK membership is higher than any other state in the union (you truly have to see parts of Central Pennsylvania to believe it), Casey endorsing Obama won’t do him any favors in 2012 if he runs for re-election to his Senate seat. I commend Bob Casey Jr. for the courage of his endorsement of Obama, but it is with the realization that it doesn’t do Obama any favors with his core constituency in other parts of the country.

A Clinton Victory By #6 Combo

2008-03-27T13:03:00.002-05:00

It has been a week since I first put forth a proposition to the campaign of Hillary Clinton for President.

By any reasonable mathematical equation, Hillary Clinton cannot win the presidency without cajoling or making wild and unwieldy promises to the sizable swath of uncommitted superdelegates in the Democratic Party. She has currently won fewer states, has fewer pledged delegates and yes, she also trails in the popular vote, unless you apply what I call the Lieberman Theorem. This theorem posits than when you finish anywhere but where you expect to finish, it’s best to call it a tie, such as a three-way tie for third when you finish fifth in New Hampshire. There’s no such thing as a statistical dead heat when all the votes are counted. Either you finished first, or you lost. Hillary Clinton is currently in second place. The only entity that reverses the absolutes of voting mathematics is 5 extremists in black robes on the Supreme Court.

Being an Obama voter from the state of Wisconsin, I have made my voice heard in this election. I voted for Obama and hope he is the eventual nominee. In the face of the current mathematics, if he isn’t the nominee, I will immediately declare myself to be a supervoter, with carries with it all the expectations of cajoling, wild promises or perhaps bribery that the superdelegates currently hold.

As a supervoter, if Hillary Clinton wants my vote, I want a number 6 combo from Wendy’s, plain, biggie sized with a Hi-C. In addition, Bill Clinton has to sit with me as I eat it, and Eddie Vedder has to join him, as my wife is a Pearl Jam fan and she missed their last concert in Milwaukee because she was giving birth to our son.

There is no doubt in my mind that if Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, she’ll spend about 2 ½ months of time between the Democratic Convention and the general election showing up on campaign stops next to superdelegates running for re-election as a thank you for giving her the Democratic nomination. Absent that, her big money donors, (the ones currently blackmailing Nancy Pelosi Don Corleone-style by tersely worded letter), will more than likely start throwing their money around into the campaign coffers of superdelegates who back Clinton at the convention.

If a superdelegate’s vote for Clinton carries enough weight for a series of quid pro quos, so too does the vote of a supervoter. We all want something. She wants a vote. I want lunch. My wife wants to meet Eddie Vedder. Everybody’s happy, and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than a campaign stop and much friendlier than a reading from the Book of Threats.

I’m hoping that there are many more like me. I want to start a supervoter movement. Picture if you will the last scene of the movie "Billy Jack". Instead of an upraised fist, imagine that all the students of the Freedom School held a spicy chicken sandwich in their hands? Billy is driven off in the back of a police car (substitute Bill Clinton in the back of a limousine) on a road lined for miles by people holding sandwiches aloft. The slightly clouded Southwestern skies dotted not by the red painted mountains of the desert, but by God’s most perfect creation, the Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich in the united hands of humankind. It is this kind of rampant idealism that shapes me as an American. My dream of a spicy chicken sandwich has now replaced thoughts on policy as we approach the general election.

I’ll make a promise to all of you. If Obama wins the nomination, come to Milwaukee, introduce yourself by your Daily Kos ID, and we’ll celebrate with a stop at my favorite Wendy’s at the corner of Chase and Oklahoma in Milwaukee. If Clinton wins the nomination, I hereby promise that I shall not eat a beloved spicy chicken sandwich until Bill Clinton and Eddie Vedder come to Milwaukee to eat one with me. Bill’s buying, so it’s not like I need to scrape up the money.
As a supervoter, what I ask for is much less than what is being offered to superdelegates currently. This isn’t a $100 a plate dinner we’re talking about here. Throw in a chocolate frosty and we’re talking about maybe $10, plus the cost of tranportation to Milwaukee. Transportation is negligible though. If Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, someone who represents her is coming to Wisconsin, also known as "a much-needed swing state". My Wendy’s is about a ten-minute drive from the airport. Bill and Eddie could swing by, eat with the jpspencers after local drive-thru maven Ron gives us all our food perfectly matched to our order, and be done in about 45 minutes tops. Then it’s on to Marquette, or UWM or some other high value destination within the city limits where ralliers await (possibly with chicken sandwiches in hand; you never know). You can even bring a camera crew along. I’ll endorse Hillary and take a bite of my chicken sandwich, instantly creating an image for the ages (don’t worry; I weigh 196). And, what the hell, Eddie can have my fries!

A chicken sandwich is such a small price to pay for knee-capping the preferred candidate. A political hit requires a karmic price. As a supervoter, I demand my tribute. E Pluribus Pulli, Unum! GIVE ME SPICY CHICKEN OR GIVE ME DEATH!

Buckminster Fuller and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis

2008-03-24T18:59:00.002-05:00

As the effects of the banking and mortgage crisis become more apparent, it offers all of us an opportunity to look at some of the less visible reasons behind it.

The primary reasons for it are obvious at this point. We have the adjustable rate mortgage, which may very well be the greediest lending avenue ever devised by humankind, automobile leasing being a close second. Some of the percentage increases now former homeowners were faced with when ARM’s reset at higher interest rates were staggering, so much so that many homeowners have chosen to send house keys to the bank rather than pay an inflated mortgage on a home that’s losing its sales value. Add to this fact that there are many mortgage brokers rewarded not so much for minimizing risk to their lender employers, but for getting a signature on the dotted line, and the ingredients for disaster begin to congeal.

This is where we come to the less obvious reasons. We clearly have a certain percentage of borrowers living beyond their means. While it may be fashionable for someone with a good job to desire a house worth $750,000 or more, very few members of our society can reasonably afford a dwelling at this price. With each new McMansion style development that swallows open land space and existing resources, people begin to measure wealth by the square feet inside a dwelling, rather than the value and efficiency of that living space to themselves and their immediate environment.

Modern housing developers cater not to needs, but desires. Denizens of cities and their immediate suburbs dream of the great big house in the country. If we take the example of greater Atlanta, the future effects of this desire have arrived in an ugly fashion, as Lake Lanier, the water source for Atlanta and suburbs as far as 40 miles away is running dry. While lack of sustained rainfall can share some of the blame, the bigger culprit is the sprawling, overpriced cul de sacs that ring Atlanta in the far suburbs. I have a friend who lives in Marietta, GA, which is roughly 30 miles north of Atlanta. When I visited him recently, he drove around his immediate area and pointed out what used to be farms two decades ago, now gone. In their place are gated communities, with prices on individual homes behind the gates going up to 7 figures and beyond.

There are now over seven billion people on the planet. While human potential is infinite, the amount of ground available to human beings is not, and the open spaces are disappearing. With each farm that disappears under the weight of obscenely overpriced and oversized housing comes the realization that one small source of food evaporates along with it. This fact alarmed Thomas Malthus. R Buckminster Fuller saw it as an opportunity to rethink and redesign man’s immediate needs and environment with attention to design and reuse of existing resources.

With this in mind, Fuller brought forth the Dymaxion House, a four-dimensional house built around one pole with sufficient space for a family of four and all modern conveniences. The unique design would allow for a constant suitable temperature in all seasons, thereby conserving dwindling resources such as natural gas. Unfortunately, it was derided as a "tin can" and under the weight of the failure of his business, Fuller was only able to erect one temporary Dymaxion House in Kansas.

Sixty years later, Fuller’s grand designs warrant a second look. While not perfect, the though process that brought them forward had the best of intentions. This cannot be said of the modern land developer, who puts profit motive ahead of reasonable use of space. Municipalities, eager to expand the existing tax base in an American economy no longer invested in domestic manufacturing, happily sign over the land for unneeded and unnecessary new development.

With an increasing percentage of this type of housing now sitting empty and seeing stark devaluation, we have now reached a watershed moment to reassess what it means to live "comfortably". Does comfort means that each member of a family of four deserves 1,000 square feet of space under one roof? Given the direct environmental impact of an affirmative answer to that question, does a 4,000-square foot family have an obligation to break it to fellow citizens within their immediate geography that they must go without space and resources for the sake of the comfort of 4 people out of seven billion?

Comfort and affordability need not be mutually exclusive. The operative principles exist to utilize space and resources for all to live comfortably. With the number of McMansion foreclosures slowly rising, it is time to change our perception of these homes from one of overvalued vacancy to one of suburban blight. With a combination of reason and political will, we can insure that now is the time to send these developments back to the drawing board to be replaced by the kind of shelter that benefits a higher percentage of the population and the resources at all of our disposal.

The Bigger Fight behind the Sirius/XM Merger

2008-03-04T13:02:00.002-06:00

For purposes of full disclosure, I must state that I am not only a subscriber to Sirius Satellite radio and have been for two years, but I also am currently a holder of 100 shares of Sirius stock. While this is not a large amount, I can be reasonably judged to have a vested interest in what I write about. I disclose this because it’s the right thing to do.

With that out of the way, I’d like to join the chorus of those in the world who aren’t legislators and government "regulators" being bought off by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), a front group for the Republican-leaning Clear Channel Communications. There is absolutely no reason in the world why the Sirius/XM merger should not go through. Anyone who says otherwise is on the take and not arguing the point honestly.

The main thread of argument is that the combined company represents a satellite radio monopoly. This is absurd. The combined company would represent slightly more than 5% of the entire audience for all broadcast radio. This number does not include broadband streaming of FM stations, which presumably decreases the percentage for satellite radio if included. Satellite radio currently does not compete against itself. It competes against terrestrial radio, MP3 players such as the IPod and CD’s. With such a small percentage of the total listening audience, the combined company wouldn’t cease to be a fly on most windshields, but rather it would become a rubber fly that could bounce and compete on its own merits.

The NAB is paying legislators, including Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Roy Blunt (R-MO), to put forth the monopoly argument because anyone, like myself, who experiences satellite radio for 15 minutes knows that they never want to listen to terrestrial radio again. If the NAB could be honest and argue that they want to see satellite radio die because it’s cutting into their action, I could be persuaded to listen. Lying doesn’t get my attention.

Yet there is a bigger reason why everyone in this community should be fighting tooth and nail for the Sirius/XM merger to go through.

It is currently being argued by the usual suspects (such as Michael Smerconish) that talk radio leans heavily to the right due to overwhelming demand for that kind of opinion on terrestrial radio. All one needs to do is look at the ratings Al Franken drew in New York City when he was up against Bill O’Reilly to see the right wing argument for the lie that it is. Left wing talk is buried because Clear Channel wants it buried.

Air America Radio, begun with the best of intentions, is still for the most part sequestered in smaller radio markets. I live in Milwaukee and the closest Air America station is in Madison. Unless I turn up my AM radio in my car to volume 43, I’m not hearing Air America Radio.
Enter satellite radio. I can’t speak for XM not being a subscriber, but Sirius channel 146 supplies 24 hours of left wing talk radio. I realize that it is mostly a work in progress, as it’s currently populated by DLC types like Bill Press and Alex Bennett, who spend far too much time taking cheap shots at progressives to stroke their own egos. Lynn Samuels in the afternoon, while funny, is the human vocal equivalent of a horse getting a pitchfork suppository. Having said that, it’s nice to know that the channel is there and thriving. Air America Radio is currently on its third ownership group, tilting at the Clear Channel windmill on terrestrial radio while constantly downgrading the on-air talent and cutting costs.

I’m particularly annoyed with Louise Slaughter on this subject. Anybody with half their hearing notices that progressive voices are being shut out of terrestrial radio. Why empower these people further by killing one of the few national outlets for progressive talk in the country? Is $1,000 really the financial threshold for stabbing your own constituency in the back? The Pharisees would have loved Louise.

John Conyers isn’t immune from criticism on this. The people in his district have contacted him in large numbers telling him the obvious, but he appears to be in Clear Channel’s pocket as well, as he is putting forth the monopoly straw man at every opportunity. Decades of independence and fighting for progressives shot to hell. Way to go, John!

It surprises me little that Democrats constantly vote against their own beliefs. With a wide swath of broadcast media lined up firmly against them, they worry more about appearances and appeasement than standing up for what they believe in. Cowering in fear is the new bravery in the Democratic Party. This thought process gave us the rogue regime we currently have in power in the White House. The only question to be asked, as we have asked it with net neutrality, the Iraq War, telecom immunity, the Justice Department scandal and other scandals too numerous to count is "With the president at a 19% approval rating, why cave"?

If you insist on shutting down one of the few outlets to get your side heard for the convenience of a little money, why not just sever your own vocal chords and get it over with? Think of the windfall!

One last point. Sirius isn’t completely immune from criticism. Sirius 146 is called Sirius Left. The right wing equivalent (I don’t know the station number for obvious reasons) is called Sirius Patriot. I happily call bullshit on that, but at least Sirius Left is in existence. It should stay that way. It has now been over a year since the merger proposal was put forth. Sirius and XM have expanded their own deadline for the merger to go through thanks to the NAB’s money gumming up the wheels of the decision making. Enough already!

The “Stimulus Package” Still Makes Me Angry

2008-02-27T13:14:00.000-06:00

As someone who is part Italian and part Irish, I learned at a very young age that I needed to do my best to keep my genetic predisposition towards hyperanimation and anger in check. The presidency of George W. Bush has severely tested the limits of my personal patience. In most cases when I visit here, I have done my level best to be civil and to bury the more guttural speech that was part of my upbringing in Philadelphia.

Yes, the war, the constant stream of lies emanating from the White House and the eunuchs in Congress who call themselves Democrats all made me extremely angry to varying degrees, but I calmed down by telling myself that in the current climate in America, self-determination is the prevailing power. At the end of the day, I had the wherewithal to take care of myself with minimal interference. After all, fundamentally, this was still America.

Then came the "stimulus package", or as I now call it, that FUCKING stimulus package.

With this action, the powers that be in Washington, D.C. have now completed their conversion from freely elected representatives of the people to an Americanized House of Lords.

Let me start at the beginning. Whoever the person was who came up with Adjustable Rate Mortgages should go into the Legalized Grifting Hall of Fame, right next to the sonofabitch who invented auto leasing, which is basically selling the same car twice for its sticker price. Never mind the fact that the moment it gets a mile from the dealership, the car has lost 50% of its stated value. By all means, everyone needs an eternal car payment.

The mortgage industry peddled the American Dream to people who couldn’t afford it. The reason for this had nothing to do with altruism or building a better country or community. It had everything to do with bonuses to the individual mortgage brokers for getting a signature on several dotted lines.

Thanks to the changes in bankruptcy rules requested by the major banks that were fast-tracked through Congress a few years ago, the banks are now surprised to find that people are more than happy to abandon the houses that are plummeting to values below the purchase price. If you can’t afford the mortgage at an adjusted rate, the cost of that mortgage is more than the value of the home and bankruptcy protection is now off the table, why wouldn’t you abandon the house?

The fundamentals of the economy, thanks in large part to the upending of the mortgage market, are still a train wreck. The FDIC currently is making preparations for the failure of roughly 200 banks. In addition, they are making it known that they are looking for a separate entity to take care of the portion of bank failures that deals solely with mortgage losses. None of the banks are talking about the true indemnity of their mortgage debt, fearing a run. The brokerage houses that repackaged the lousy mortgages as now-worthless collateralized debt obligations are being propped up economically by China and other foreign "investors". The beginnings of the effect on credit card payments and car loans are now being realized, as the default rates for both are now climbing.

The solution of the Lords on High in Washington, D.C., after about 20 minutes of serious deliberation, is to throw money to the peasants so they can buy things they don’t need. This is apparently the panacea to all of our economic problems.

I am not a serf. I am not a person who needs to be taught how and when to spend my money for the sake of others. As an American citizen, it’s really fucking insulting that the leaders of my government now consider me as little more than an urchin in an orphanage who needs a handout. I never asked for charity, mainly because I DON’T FUCKING NEED IT!

My lack of spending is not the problem here. How about CEO pay? How about business regulations? How about the fact that whenever business leaders want a new perk or a fresh public mouthpiece, all they need to do is write a check to a legislator’s campaign fund and it’s blow jobs ahoy?

The people at the bottom of the poverty scale are getting $300, or as I like to call it nowadays (after a stop this morning on the way to work), 9 fill-ups of a compact car’s gas tank. For most people, that’s not even ½ of a month’s rent in an apartment. If it’s a mortgage you’re paying, $300 is about as potent as a fart in a football stadium.

In a previous diary about this same topic, I received many suggestions regarding what to do with the money, from charitable donations to political contributions (fat chance!) to those who agreed with me that the best way to stick it to the man is to deposit it and collect interest. My wife and I are slated to receive $1500, thanks to a combination of our wedded bliss and our 19-month-old son. In the end, my wife does the books, so odds are that she has an idea for the money that will trump any of my ideas. Wedded bliss; CATCH IT!

I do have a 4th option now though. If you can afford it, put it towards investments in other countries. Buy stock in a foreign country. My 401(k) offers me the option to invest in a mutual fund that puts 96% of the fund’s money in Canadian companies. Or better yet, invest in a social activism fund that shies away from companies that are bad for the environment or who sell things like tobacco products.

Why invest in a country that treats you as if you should be grateful that the Lords are borrowing against our collective tomorrows to throw you a few crumbs? The sweetest revenge is to send the money packing and find a way to make sure that it never ends up back in their grubby little hands.

Facts to Consider for Choosing A Running Mate

2008-02-25T13:20:00.001-06:00

While the race for the Democratic nomination for president has yet to be decided, the choice of a vice-presidential candidate will soon be upon us. Unlike other topics lately (Clinton vs. Obama, Ralph Nader, "my candidate can beat up your candidate"), the few discussions undertaken thus far in this forum regarding potential running mates have been fairly civil, with many good ideas.

The purpose of this diary is the encouragement of a brainstorming session to put forth the pros and cons of potential Vice Presidential candidates from different segments of the Democratic Party. For purposes of organization, I have tried to put the groups in three categories, starting with:

Senators – The biggest positive to considering a Senator for your running mate is safety. There’s a clear voting record on issues that can be weighed easily as a positive or a negative. There is also a long list of senatorial running mates on the Democratic side, as every running mate going back to 1988 was a Senator at the time of their initial elevation to the ticket.
The big negative these days is the dire need for 60 Democratic votes in the Senate, and how taking a Democratic senator out of the mix affects those numbers. As it stands right now, we have two Democratic senators battling for the nomination. If one of these candidates wins the presidency, that creates a seat that will more than likely need to be defended within one year of the 2008 elections (I’m unsure of the state laws of Illinois and New York pertaining to this; I’m happy to accept help in this area). If either Clinton or Obama choose a sitting senator as the running mate, that creates two seats.
One name that is brought forth from this category is Jim Webb, a Democratic senator in a state that is narrowly Republican who has been a senator for all of 14 months. If the goal is 60 Democratic senators, it doesn’t make much sense to put Virginia back in play so quickly after a tremendous victory in 2006.

Governors – The last two candidates for president coming from the Democratic side that were declared the winner of a traditional election were both governors. This time around, the Democrats will once again have a senator at the top of the ticket. This is a unique time in that the majority of our current crop of Democratic governors offers some attractive choices for the VP slot. The positives are similar to choosing a senator for a running mate. Governors have a voting record that’s easily assessed, with the added advantage of a governor having once been a chief executive of a state. The fact that governors act as executives independent of Washington, D. C. gives them a unique appeal.
The one thought that gives me pause is the timing. 2010 is a census year, meaning gerrymandering and reapportionment are right around the corner again. While this process has become convoluted in the past ten years with Tom DeLay’s shenanigans in Texas, having a Democrat in a governor’s chair goes a long way in drawing districts that are favorable to Democratic house chances for the next decade. It’s great to get better Democrats in U. S. House seats, and nothing gives them a leg up better than a district drawn in their favor post-census.
All of my personal "sleeper" candidates for VP come from this category. I like Brian Schweitzer and Janet Napolitano, but I realize that they are way down the list of possible running mates that have been discussed.

The Sympathetic Unelected – These are defined as people well known in the party who don’t currently hold elected office. The two biggest people in this category are John Edwards and Wesley Clark.
The positive aspect of choosing an outsider can’t be dismissed in a year when the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party will be a sitting senator. The element of surprise tends to rear its ugly head from this group, as every fuzzy speech recorded on video before any trade group becomes fodder for criticism. People from this category would be chosen because they are so good a compliment to the top of the ticket, they can’t be ignored. Edwards and Clark both fit that description, though Edwards didn’t fare very well in this slot 4 years ago.

Everyone here has someone in mind. As long as we don’t make the Joe Lieberman mistake again, virtually any of the names flying around for Vice-President are well qualified and will be better than anyone John McCain pulls out of his ancient head. With the damage that George W. Bush has done to this country, and the work it will take to correct these same mistakes, there are now many more reasons to choose the Vice Presidential candidate wisely.

WI Primary: One Vote for Obama Tomorrow

2008-02-18T20:08:00.001-06:00

It has been snowing off and on in Milwaukee since December 1st. Portions of the sidewalks here are now icy, thanks to a brief melt of snow yesterday. How this affects turnout for the Wisconsin presidential primary tomorrow in this area remains to be seen. I can tell you that speaking as a person who is 41 and whose polling place can be seen from his front door, I can predict one solid vote for Obama in tomorrow’s primary.

I’m a John Edwards guy. I have been ever since he announced his candidacy for Senate in North Carolina in 1998 against Lauch Faircloth, the guy who brought us Ken Starr. Edwards didn’t have traction, and thus he’s on the sidelines delaying an endorsement so as to play both sides of the fence until the voters have clearly chosen a candidate. I’m not waiting for the Edwards imprimatur. I’m now in Obama’s camp.

My wife is also voting for Obama, as is my sister-in-law, who shares the duplex we live in. Among my voting age friends who are actually registered to vote and are politically active, it appears to be a clean sweep. The balance of my voting age friends here are musicians, who either don’t care or have a philosophical objection to voting (PLEASE don’t ask me to explain that on their behalf; it makes my head hurt).

How my informal poll of the voters I know will affect the outcome in the rest of the state remains to be seen, but I feel safe in predicting at least a 5% margin of victory for Obama in Cheeseland tomorrow.

Obama was in town this past Friday at a rally downtown on one of the local college campuses. I was unable to attend due to my work schedule. Two of my friends in their early 30’s attended and reported that they seemed to be the oldest people there, which was not thoroughly unexpected given the locale. The energy level in the room was apparently inescapable. Later that night, they introduced me to the "Hope-O", which apparently consists of holding your arms above your head in the shape of an O, signifying Obama. This reminded me of a less-drunken version of the "E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!" chant from my days in Philadelphia, but it was charming nonetheless.

There are many different reasons as to why people I talk to prefer Obama, but a recurring theme is "we need someone new". Part of my initial reservations about Obama had to do with the idea of "how new is too new". Yet with Edwards out of the race, in my case, Obama was a natural second choice.

Hillary Clinton represents to me a walking and talking last hurrah for the Democratic Leadership Council and a generation of Democrats who came to power by acting like Republicans. In retrospect, who could blame them for inventing that model? Three lackluster presidential candidates in the 1980’s had all been trounced, as America (not me) embraced the senile daydreams of Ronald Reagan.

Thanks to George W. Bush, America’s view of Republicanism, to put it mildly, has changed dramatically. Despite his eternal POW status and the adulation received by him in the mainstream media, John McCain has a long legislative and quote record that flies in the face of virtually everything he delivers in his stump speeches. Add to that his advanced age and unevolved temperament and you have a recipe for a Democratic winner later this year.

Hillary Clinton now finds herself as a Democrat searching for a vision of a political moderate that no longer exists. Only the 25% that still backs Bush and Cheney want to talk about things like the evils of mass entertainment. When Clinton went after the video game industry last year, I wondered if her home in Chappaqua was actually a cave. After 12 years of South Park and about 10 years of Grand Theft Auto, the entertainment scapegoat has long since escaped from the corral. There are no Pavlovian dogs listening for that bell anymore. People now realize that those types of arguments are meant to distract from the fact that there has been a catastrophic redistribution of wealth in this country going on unchecked since Reagan took office in 1981.

If that wasn’t enough, the recent rhetoric coming out of the Clinton campaign regarding what is and what is not an important primary state is truly appalling. If I’m looking for an inclusive candidate, this is not the ideal message to be communicated.

As I slip down the icy pavement to my polling place tomorrow to retrieve a ballot from the nonagenarian poll worker sitting behind the table, I shall think of the ease of this decision. I had voted for third party candidates going back to 1984 until George W. Bush became the Republican nominee in 2000. The thought of Bush as my president was enough to vote for Al Gore, and then John Kerry 4 years later. Barack Obama is a candidate I can vote for enthusiastically, rather than the lesser of two evils. I respect those that would choose Clinton over Obama. I simply see the situation differently.

If You Can, Put It In Your Mattress

2008-02-14T13:04:00.000-06:00

So, here we are. The economy is crumbling into a recession created from a unique stew of governmental malfeasance, corporate greed and investor myopia.

George W. Bush’s all-purpose "solution" is the same play book we’ve seen since those heady early days of 2001; give businesses ridiculous tax breaks and send the poor a check equivalent to a fraction of the monthly rent.

No one in his or her right mind can actually believe that this is going to do anything worthwhile to stimulate the economy. The banks are busy cooking the books to hide their true exposure to failing mortgages. The brokerage houses are firing people they’ve already given 7-figure bonuses to for doing an abysmal job. Warren Buffett is offering to prop up the same banks and brokers by insuring their most valuable assets, because we all know that investing is no fun until one man is worth as much as 20 central African nations combined. With economic fundamentals this bad, a $300 check to a taxpayer is obviously not a panacea.

I write this knowing that I’m currently one of the lucky ones in this economy. I have a fixed-rate mortgage, no credit card debt, no outstanding medical debt and a healthy sum in a savings account. The stimulus check coming to my wife and family is welcome, for who in their right mind who’s not dressed in flowing robes would turn down a check for (I believe it’s going to be, with one child) $1500? (OK, maybe the Polyphonic Spree). Yet, we’re not hemorrhaging like so many others. Just because the government is stupid enough to bankrupt our country further by sending me a check doesn’t mean I should invest it in that same country’s economic infrastructure. I stopped buying U. S. savings bonds years ago for the same reason.

What I’m attempting to talk my wife into doing with our little slice of national economic mutilation is to put the money in our savings account. Rather than spending our money on a crappy product made in a Chinese prison, I’d rather that this check be the gift that keeps on giving. Before the banks go under due to their bad mortgage debt obligations and there’s a nationwide run, I’d like to squeeze a few dollars in interest out of the monocle-clad Monopoly guy that runs my bank. Nobody in his right mind is investing bank money in real estate ventures right now, so my bank will use that money as a tangible asset on the books until the bill comes due. When the real damage is revealed, I’ll make my withdrawal and stuff it into my mattress.

I fully realize that I am fortunate enough to do this, and that there are many people who will use the stimulus check to pay a circling creditor before they become carrion with a damaged credit rating. I would encourage those of you like me who can to hold onto the stimulus money as long as you possibly can. In this country, giving money to a consumer is equivalent to giving a junkie heroin. It’s time to go cold turkey. Ideally, I’d like to hold the money until January 20th, 2009 at 12 Noon when a Democratic President takes power. I’m not naïve to think that things change in five minutes on that date. I simply don’t want Bush to get any kind of boost whatsoever in the sunset of his mine shaft collapse of a Presidency.

If you have the economic wherewithal, think of yourself and that stimulus check in the same way as a horny but hopeful teenager with one wrinkled and aging condom in a wrapper in his wallet that has indelibly shaped an "O" into the leather. It’s been there awhile, and you don’t need it this minute, but just in case…

If Rules Are Rules, Hillary's Cheating

2008-01-30T13:02:00.000-06:00

The world woke up this morning to the knowledge that Hillary Clinton won the Florida primary for the Democratic Presidential nomination. If we are to believe the Democratic National Committee and Howard Dean, this Clinton victory, like Michigan before it, is meaningless, as the delegate slates will not be seated at the Democratic Convention. This is as a punishment to those two states for cutting into the established line of primaries set forth by the DNC, and agreed to by all the candidates for the nomination.

So why is Hillary Clinton smiling?

The first reason is obvious. Just days after Barack Obama handed her her backside in the South Carolina primary, any good news for the Clinton campaign is welcome. One year ago, it was presumed that Clinton would have solidified her hold on the nomination by this time in the primary/caucus process. Now the Clinton camp finds themselves in the fight of their lives against Obama, with every sanctioned race highly contested between the two candidates.

Securing the nomination is all about delegate counts. With a close two-way race, the unseated delegates in Florida and Michigan may very well prove to be the margin of victory. If they are seated, which the DNC is currently stating that they won’t be.

The Clinton camp is currently working very loudly behind the scenes to browbeat the DNC into seating the delegates from Michigan and Florida. Thanks to her attempted end run around the current nominating rules, Howard Dean is now placed in a no-win situation. If he seats the delegates, he risks the wrath of the large number of new voters that the combination of Barack Obama and the malfeasance of George W. Bush have brought into the nominating process. If he doesn’t seat the delegates, it will more than likely start a fresh wave of criticism from James Carville and the other DLC types who opposed him as head of the DNC in the first place, and who are now mostly in Clinton’s camp.

After polls closed in Florida, Hillary Clinton mysteriously appeared in the state. Despite the fact that all candidates had agreed not to campaign there, the Clinton camp took the strategy that since the polls were now closed in Florida, it wasn’t technically "campaigning". This is the same attorney-like parsing she uses on the campaign trail attempting to explain her vote to authorize the Iraq War. It also bears a striking resemblance to "it depends on what your definition of is is". And she criticizes John Edwards for being a trial lawyer? That’s rich.

Ever since I was a boy and engaged in contests ranging from tag and kickball to Monopoly and Battleship, there has been a word for people who attempt to change the rules in the middle of the game. The word is cheater. By attempting to amend the rules of the nominating process to which she agreed, Hillary is trying to cheat her way to victory just as much as my brother was whenever he tried to move his aircraft carrier in Battleship after the game started.

On January 20, 2009, we will have somehow survived (if we’re lucky) 8 years of this kind of behavior emanating from the current denizen of the Oval Office. Putting a Democrat in the White House shouldn’t be about subsidizing the underhanded for the sake of the Executive Branch operating under a Democratic banner. It should be about real, honest change in direction and policy for the country. Replacing one cheater for another guarantees that the only change will be on the nameplate on the door.

An Edwards Voter's "Plan B"

2008-01-23T13:11:00.000-06:00

It’s barely the end of January, and I already hate the 2008 election season.

I’m an unabashed supporter of John Edwards. I’ve been a supporter of his going back to when he originally won his Senate seat in North Carolina. Since the New Hampshire primary, I’ve had to accept the reality that he’s once again not going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States.

When one connects the dots, one realizes that a candidate like Edwards, with a pro-worker, anti-corporate message, has little chance for the White House when multinational conglomerates like GE, Viacom and Time Warner run some of the main media outlets. Given this, perhaps my endorsement of Edwards’ candidacy can be construed as naïve, but if ever there were a time in America for optimism, the final year of the Bush Administration would certainly qualify. I felt that Edwards gave America the best chance at a recovery from the bottom up. It looks increasingly like this once again isn’t his year, and that’s truly a shame.

So I’m left – stuck with? - Obama and Clinton.

The debate a few nights ago in South Carolina bluntly reminded me why I never liked Bill Clinton and voted for Perot twice back in the ‘90’s. Hillary Clinton, like her ex-president spouse, has a tendency to speak for a long time without saying anything. Based on the amount of damage George W. Bush has done to this country over the last 7 years, this election more than any other requires forceful leadership. I’m not looking for a lot of big words and amorphous ideas. While Obama and Edwards gave what sounded a lot like a plan to end the Iraq War by the end of 2009 in the last debate, Clinton hemmed and hawed and gave us all a "maybe if" scenario. In the absence of a plan, I assume that the war continues under Hillary Clinton for a long, undetermined period after January 20, 2009 if she’s elected. For a debacle as enormous as the Iraq War, any person with a conscience shouldn’t have to think twice about ending this war as immediately as possible upon taking the White House. Hillary Clinton isn’t even in the proverbial parking lot of the stadium that houses this idea.

Add to this that the Clintons still have a lot of explaining to do regarding globalization and the adoption of NATFA under their watch, and I find myself rooting against Hillary Clinton, tears and all. Too often, when the economy is explained to Americans, the first phrase coming out of someone’s mouth is "We’re in a global economy now, and to remain competitive……". This is usually followed by a twisted rationalization for why more American jobs must be sent overseas. What it really is is a war chant for more corporate greed and continued concentration of wealth in the hands of the few.

Like many Americans, I think there are better ways for the United States to stay engaged in the global economy without Americans losing their jobs and CEO’s getting 8-figure salaries and benefits packages. While the Clintons didn’t invent this behavior, they certainly enabled it when they last occupied the White House. One visit to any number of dying towns in America with an abandoned and shuttered factory tells you all you need to know about who’s losing under the current set of rules. I’m convinced that these rules won’t change under a Hillary Clinton presidency.

For Obama, my reservations about him come from the fact that he hasn’t been on the national stage very long. I also remind myself that he got on the national stage by beating Alan Keyes by 50 points in an election, which is about as difficult a task as boiling a pot of water. However, the election results thus far have forced me to listen to what he is saying. I’m not particularly happy with Obama’s idea of bringing Republicans and Democrats to the table together, as Republicans haven’t demonstrated that they can compromise on anything for the last 15 years. "Be reasonable, do it my way" is not how one reaches consensus. The best solution is to leave the Republicans out in the cold for a time based on the amount of unfettered damage they’ve done to this country. From what I’ve seen, roughly 70% of the electorate would agree with this approach. While still not as compelling a message to me as that of John Edwards, Obama goes far enough into my sphere of belief that I can be counted in his camp if Edwards drops out.

The Wisconsin primary is scheduled for long after the eventual nominee is probably decided. If Edwards is still on the ballot or has staged some kind of miracle comeback by then, he’ll get my vote. I will state that if this year’s Democratic Convention becomes brokered, I would hope that the Edwards delegates have the good sense to go with Obama, for the good of the party and for the good of the country going forward.

Mental Jambalaya For The Political Season

2008-01-10T19:18:00.000-06:00

In the last week, I’ve had several ideas for diaries, but being a part-time musician, I have so many sounds in my head at any given time that I can’t pick just one to contemplate. With that in mind, I’m just going to throw out these random thoughts for your perusal. Feel free to pick one or more to comment on, and know going in that these are mostly incomplete thoughts smashing together to make one big pot of……..something. I can’t even begin to think of what color this would look like if it took physical form and sat in a cauldron.

Campaign Financing – I recently arrived at the conclusion that politicians are going to continue to suckle at the money teat until such time as they become scared to take money from an individual or corporations. It’s obvious that corporate money and the vampiric leadership behind it doesn’t scare them, and currently, individual contributions are more than welcome. Public financing of campaigns can’t get a fair hearing in this environment. Thinking about it, I’ve decided that the only way to make politicians think twice about public financing is to out the personal and professional peccadilloes of individual donors. If you’re interested in campaign reform, go to the FEC website, pull up any candidate and their individual donors and start searching. If you know that one of the donors is having an extramarital affair or runs a floating high-stakes poker game or is a bed wetter, share that knowledge with the world. At the point where every individual check received is a potential scandal, public financing of campaigns should grow some legs. Oh, and don’t bother; I haven’t donated to a candidate in quite a few cycles, so you’ll never know about my underground porn vault….OOPS!
New Hampshire Results – The Granite State once again showed the country that if States were people, New Hampshire would be the 89-year-old man in the corner who’s full of piss and vinegar (and it used to be just vinegar; Abe Simpson said that). While he doesn’t know it yet, I think what we witnessed on Tuesday was the last hurrah of John McCain. Mike Huckabee is going to crush him in Republican strongholds in the Deep South, starting with South Carolina. As the obvious begins to show itself, ("Wait a minute….he’s 71 fucking years old!") the bloom will fall off McCain and his accompanying 100-year plan for the Middle East. I am disappointed by John Edwards’ third-place finish on the Democratic side, but I offer my congratulations to Sen. Clinton for her victory.
Demographics – Bill Richardson is dropping out of the race, if all reports are to be believed. While he had a poor showing for the Democratic presidential nod, I wish him luck in the future. Any way you slice it, this is going to be a year when the true face of America was displayed solely in the Democratic Party. An African-American, a woman and a Mexican- American vying for the same nomination is something for which we can all look to with pride. As a counterpoint, the Republicans brought forth a series of white males who proudly wore their prejudices and their contempt for the Constitution on their collective sleeves. As demographics in America shift over the next 100 years away from an Anglo-Saxon majority, the historians will look to 2008 as the year when Republicans began a slow and steady descent to the depths currently occupied by the Whig Party.
Ice Hockey – A slugger hits a home run on HGH, and it’s unbelievable. Two guys drop their gloves and beat each other senseless? DAMN! Now THAT’S reality! So far for the NHL, over 3000 tests for steroids and only one positive test in the bunch, but players have a habit of loading up on Sudafed before a game, for which there is no current testing. And you thought speed freaks with bad teeth were exclusive to Rural America? For shame!
Chris Matthews – Sexist douche bag. Need I say more after his despicable performance on MSNBC so far during the campaign season? It’s people like Matthews that make me ashamed of being from Philadelphia. However, I must admit that it’s been awhile since I had a good chicken cheese steak in Milwaukee.

This is a but a small cross-section of ideas and thoughts currently squatting in my head. The balance of its contents are mostly song fragments, bristly resignation at having to be on a diet and assorted bits of taproom trivia. These will have to wait for another appropriate time and place. Have a good evening.

Choice 1 is Edwards; Choice 1A is Every Other Democrat

2008-01-02T20:45:00.000-06:00

I tend to stay out of Three Stooges-style pie fights. For this reason, I have tried to stay away from getting into a discussion about which candidate I prefer from the Democratic field to be the presidential nominee.

The eve of the Iowa Caucuses has me feeling bold as a cold snap embraces me in Wisconsin, a state without a true say in the presidential race. For what it’s worth, I offer that as it was in the 2004 election, my primary choice to be the Democratic nominee is John Edwards.

Since he entered the national stage, Edwards’ mantra of "Two Americas" has resonated with me. Our country, through a series of governmental moves friendly to large American corporations, is coming apart at the seams. Edwards is the only candidate in my belief with a long and well-documented history of fighting for the poor and middle class. While I would have liked to have seen him fight to retain his former Senate seat in North Carolina rather than run for president in 2004, I was with him then in both his presidential and vice-presidential runs, and I have seen no reason to reverse my original decision.

I did take into consideration that fact that he voted for the authorization to use force in Iraq. I like the fact that he has come out and stated that he was flat wrong, rather than mincing words about how George W. Bush corrupted the UN Inspections process. I don’t hear politicians admitting when they make mistakes. While this was a fairly huge mistake, I like a person who sincerely admits his mistakes and learns from them. In my mind, Edwards has done that.

For me, it was also a process of elimination. Mike Gravel is an important man in the history of this country for his leadership in cutting off funding for the quagmire that was the Vietnam War, and his value system remains intact. I believe that anyone who wants to run for president should have a chance to be heard. Because of the orchestrated "debates" conducted by the various news outlets, Gravel barely got a word in. Perhaps because of that it’s pretty clear from poll numbers that he has no traction, so I wrote him off.

The same goes for Dennis Kucinich. From a policy standpoint, I agree more with Kucinich than any other candidate in the race. He didn’t have traction in 2004, and he still doesn’t today. It looks like he may disappear completely from the public eye in the next year, as he’s being primaried in his district in Ohio. So, Kucinich gets scratched off my list.

I was willing to listen to Bill Richardson up until the moment he stated that Byron White was his ideal Supreme Court justice. It’s a shame, because he has more foreign policy credentials than anyone else in the race. Next time, Bill Richardson should remember the name Harry Blackmun. Off you go, Bill!

Then there’s Joe Biden, a windbag with a great deal of useful and insightful knowledge, but a windbag nonetheless. I had my fill of Biden when I lived on the Delaware border on the Pennsylvania side. He should go back to the job of grooming his son to be his successor. Someday, he’ll be remembered as a visionary when I look at a map and see three countries where Iraq is now identified. He just won’t be remembered as a president.

Chris Dodd came close. He has done everything right in the latest congressional session. I agree with a number of his stands on important issues and, unlike his fellow Senators in the race, he’s showing real leadership on the floor of the Senate. Then he appeared on Don Imus’ new radio show on the first day that the old weather-beaten bigot was back on the air. This is an incredible lapse in personal and professional judgment. It has the smell of political calculation and has become a deal breaker for me. Dodd remains my second choice among the field behind Edwards, but I don’t think he has a chance.

Then there’s Barack Obama. I don’t have anything against Obama politically, and I do admire his purity with regard to his consistent opposition to the war in Iraq dating back to 2003. He has moments when the substance of his stump speech reaches inspiring heights.

I have three problems with Obama, two of which become one big problem. For one, Obama is very new. For people like me who have been stumbling in the dark for a long time in search of someone politically palatable, Obama’s born-on date has a lot of appeal. And yet how new is too new? As a junior Senator, I’ve yet to see him grab the saber and charge up the hill for something he believed in. This goes hand in hand with the fact that the only election Obama has won on a national stage was a 50-point drubbing of Alan Keyes to win his Senate seat. To be blunt, a trained musk ox wearing a Brooks Brothers suit could beat Alan Keyes by 50 points. The third reason is Obama’s recent embrace of right-wing talking points, such as pot shots at "trial lawyers" and the last two standard bearers of the party from 2000 & 2004. Throw in his rather alarmist view of Social Security, and I have to conclude that Obama, while new, simply isn’t ready for the new political realities that surround him.

Bringing up the rear is Hillary Clinton. I am rather unique in the world at large, as I am a two-time Perot voter. I didn’t vote for Bill Clinton. I’ve always been a left-leaning independent, but there was something about Bill Clinton that I never truly embraced. Based on who the Republican nominees were in 1992 and 1996, history has mellowed me into saying that Bill Clinton was a hell of a lot better than the Republican alternatives offered. I do feel that he has a lot of explaining to do with regard to globalization in general and NAFTA in particular.

As much as Hillary Clinton wants to be regarded as her own person, neither Bill nor Hillary has adequately explained how her presidency would be radically different from what we saw with Clinton Version 1.0. If there was nothing compelling to me about the message the first time around, what is the difference with Version 2.0? I will concede that most of the low points of the Clinton Administration were the product of manufactured right-wing outrage. Economically, with the salient exception of some segments of Silicon Valley, the economy as a whole was in incredible shape compared to now. Yet I didn’t want Bill Clinton then, and I still would rather not have Hillary Clinton now. If I want a good package deal, I’ll go to my local Wendy’s and buy a number 6 combo.

My distrust of all things Clinton is rooted in the belief that these two represent Big Business more often than the people who truly need help in America. The Clintons have always talked a big game with the "It Takes A Village" sales pitch, while at the same time putting American villages out of work as a result of globalization. If you’re looking for someone to stand up to Corporate America, Hillary Clinton isn’t the go-to general for the planned assault. For these reasons, Hillary didn’t make my cut.

Having said all of the above, I can at the very least state that in the absence of a nude picture of the nominee with a farm animal, my vote for President in November will be for the eventual Democratic nominee. Any one of the people above is miles above the unvarnished insanity that passes for the Republican Party. Although I am now a registered Democrat (thank you George W. Bush), I still value my independent streak. I value it so as to not want to sully it with a vote for Michael Bloomberg or any other stiff exhumed by the hacks in Unity ’08. The Democratic Party with all of its flaws still offers the best hope for improvement in the American Condition.

The NHL Winter Classic: Postmortem

2008-01-02T20:44:00.000-06:00

Like hundreds of other Americans, I watched the outdoor NHL game yesterday between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Buffalo Sabres. You would think that having done this once in Canada a few years ago, the NHL would have been better prepared for the game. Instead we got 6 10-minutes periods, constant maintenance to the ice surface and a game that lasted over 3 ½ hours.

If there is a next time, how about four 15-minute periods to counteract wind direction, allowing more lead time before the game for actual ice to form and two zambonis that will work for the duration of the game?

Mmmmm......Bettman. Smells just like fiasco.

Ice Hockey: The Russian Power Play

2007-12-28T13:20:00.000-06:00

Ever since the de facto defection of Evgeny Malkin to the NHL in the summer of 2006, Russian Hockey has been fuming. Miffed at what they perceive to be too little money paid by NHL franchises in transfer fees for Russia’s best players, Alexander Medvedev and Igor Larionov, two of the primary movers and shakers of Russian Hockey, have been scheming in secret for a solution.

In the past two weeks, the secret has been unleashed. Russia is now proposing a European Hockey League to be run in opposition to the NHL. European teams, similarly frustrated by the low NHL transfer fees, are signaling their interest.

As a 33-year hockey fan, to this I say "Go ahead".

While the NHL will no doubt put a brave face on this proposal, secretly they are fretting, in my opinion for no good reason. With some of the best players in the NHL coming from other countries, it’s logical to think that the NHL would indeed worry. No team ever wants to lose their stars without compensation, precisely why the Russian scheme is on the table.

Yet the mere existence of European players in the NHL flies directly in the face of Commissioner Gary Bettman’s stubborn and quixotic plans to expand NHL market share in the United States. The NHL is arguably sixth in the pecking order behind the NFL, NCAA Football, the NBA, NCAA basketball and NASCAR in the United States. It probably isn’t helping matters when certain owners are forced to market foreign-born players with non-Anglo surnames to the slack-jawed yokels in the Deep South where Bettman insists there is a fan base.

You’ll pardon me for a quick interlude. Like most true fans of the NHL, I am not a fan of Gary Bettman. In many ways, the constant clunky changes he has made to the NHL during his tenure have destroyed the game I used to watch as a boy. Bettman has given us the Glo-Puck, the abolition of the 2-line pass and the "goalies-can-only-touch-the-puck-in-the-funky-trapezoid-behind-the-net" rule. On the flip side, the owners in the NHL love him, primarily because he was able to institute a salary cap for the league during the last lockout. While I’m not thrilled with the Bettman tenure, fans of the NHL better get used to him. With the support of an ownership group more eccentric than any other in professional sports, I have a strong feeling that he’s not going anywhere for a while.

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog post. Having seen hockey games in the South firsthand, I can tell you that these people are not watching hockey for the goals. They’re watching it for the hitting and fighting. It will more than likely make the marketing jobs in places like Nashville and Dallas that much easier if North American skaters claim the jobs left behind by European players going back home to play.

With regard to Russian players in the NHL, the time has long since passed when these players need to take a hike and go home. It is interesting that Russia would want to reclaim a player base from their own country that typically only give half-hearted efforts on any given night in the NHL. Too often, unlike the rest of their Eurasian counterparts, Russian players like Alexei Yashin have been picking the pockets of NHL owners based on scouted talent rather than effort. Yashin is now picking the pocket of his own countrymen. After over a decade of needless subsidy by the NHL, Yashin has now returned to Russia to grift his own people, for which the NHL is no doubt grateful.

An interesting side headline to this whole Russian plan is the amorphous involvement of Bob Goodenow, formerly the head of the NHL players union, the NHLPA. The plan currently on the table for the proposed European League calls for a salary cap, something Goodenow fought against as a union head. Time will tell how this particular wrinkle plays out in the coming months.

Europe has provided some great hockey players to the NHL over the past 4 decades, but the day of reckoning has arrived. With the current NHL now bloated with 30 teams and struggling for an American identity, a proposed league in Europe could end up being a boon for North American hockey as more NHL roster spots open up to skaters on the home front. It could just be the tonic that Gary Bettman has been looking for to cure an ailing league on the brink of marginalization in the United States.

The Overreactive World of a Republican

2007-12-28T00:25:00.000-06:00

It’s nice to be a Leftist.

I just typed that with an inner superiority gained through serenity. My serenity is rooted in the fact that I calmly state my case in waves of rationality. When a situation presents itself, I can come to a decision free of knee-jerk reactions and invective. I’ll be the first to admit that from time to time, I pepper my language with four-letter colloquialisms common to the world of the Internet and the billiard hall, but I grew up in Philadelphia, and that kind of language is almost expected in that particular environment.

From what I’ve read in the history books, the same can’t be said of Republicans. In fact, a cursory review of Republican behavior over the past 60 years reveals a rather obvious tendency towards overreaction.

The McCarthy Era can be logically viewed as a grandstanding overreaction to the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss. From the path of this event lay the senseless destruction of lives that up until that time had been dedicated to making America a better place in the Post-Depression Era. While this televised witch-hunt was playing out, the people who actually were responsible for the transfer of atomic secrets to the Soviets went undetected. McCarthy himself became a victim of his own devices, ending his life and career twisting in the winds of shame and alcoholism. In 1954, as a parting shot to the era, an overreacting Republican forced the words "Under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance to show how much better we were than the Communists in the East Bloc. The Soviets yawned and continued unabated for 35 more years. Communists in China now prop up our crumbling economy as modern day Russia drifts back to the Soviet mindset. Which God was that anyway?

We learned some years after the actual events of May 4, 1970 that Nixon had his hand in the overreaction that was the shootings at Kent State University. The rational approach would have been to track down those who had burned down the ROTC center on the campus and deal with it appropriately via legal means. Instead, in the heat of the times, and in that special way that Nixon liked to overreact, four students were shot and killed and many more wounded.

The entire fiasco that was Watergate was something of a Rosetta Stone for all Republican overreactions to follow. Remember that the original break-in at the Watergate Hotel was meant to gain information to assure Nixon’s reelection in 1972. 22 months after that landslide reelection, Nixon caved in on himself and resigned in disgrace. The subsequent overreaction of Ford pardoning Nixon for crimes for which he had yet to be charged ended up costing Gerald Ford the 1976 election.

No cataloguing of Republican overreactions would be complete without talk of the present day. We as a country now find ourselves firmly ensconced in the mother of all Republican overreactions, that being the "War on Terror" in general and the Iraq War in particular. As the Bush Administration begins their 7th year of killing and torturing people worldwide who had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington, we must finally acknowledge that to be a Republican is to soil one’s pants on a daily basis to the lightest of stimuli. Since the tragic events of that day, Republicans have now placed all of the citizens of the United States under illegal surveillance via the Patriot Act. They have given billions of dollars to a dictator in Pakistan with no results, save for a junta now being on the brink of collapse thanks to the murder of Benazir Bhutto. They have browbeaten the United States into invading a sovereign country that had no connection to 9/11, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens in the process.

Logical perspective tells us that a bunch of Islamic rednecks got lucky one day a few Septembers back. The logical reaction would have been to eradicate Osama bin Laden and his followers from the face of the Earth by having them eat the pointy end of the nearest missile. Instead we started a "War on Drugs" for terrorists, a bottomless pit of wasted resources and pending economic collapse that accomplishes very little. As an afterthought, Bush as Commander-in-Chief let bin Laden get away.

Fast forward to the latest Republican overreaction, that being the sudden ascendancy of Mike Huckabee to the seat of Republican frontrunner for the 2008 Presidential nomination. The bill for over forty years of the Republican Party kowtowing to Christianist bigots has come due in the form of the formerly fat man from Arkansas (the one named Huckabee). The Republicans finally have the zombie they have appeared to crave for four decades. Huckabee sports a history of a personal agenda that is anti-science, anti-woman, anti-minority and highly partisan while simultaneously spouting nonsense from the Old Testament. He should be a 25-percenter’s wet dream. Instead, if current right-wing Republican opinion is to be believed, he’s the harbinger of the Apocalypse.

While past Republican overreactions have had a tendency to indiscriminately swallow everything around it in a vortex of stupidity, the reaction to Huckabee is rather compartmentalized. As a rational human being, it’s no skin off of my nose if the Republicans tear each other apart overreacting to this perfect beast of their own creation. We all laugh when monkeys throw their own feces at each other. It’s funnier to me to watch people who don’t believe in evolution overreact and do the exact same thing. The primary difference in this case is that the rational world is walled off from this particular overreaction. Unlike past knee-jerk Republican hysteria, this one is fun to watch from a distance.

The History of Howard Stern on Sirius

2007-12-28T00:20:00.000-06:00

(Disclosure: the author is a subscriber to, and an extremely minor [100 shares] stockholder of Sirius Satellite Radio)

I have to start this post off with something I don’t do often. I now admit that I was absolutely wrong from the very beginning about Howard Stern and his radio career.

I lived in Philadelphia during the 1980’s. I was a loyal listener to WMMR in Philly and their morning team, which included John DeBella, a man whose career was unceremoniously guillotined by the arrival (in syndication) of Howard Stern on WYSP in Philadelphia in the mid-‘80’s. I was a late teen/early 20’s guy who thought he knew everything there was to know about what made for good radio. Philadelphia would never embrace Howard Stern and DeBella would reign supreme. I was wrong.

I thought that the only substance to Howard Stern’s show were interviews with strippers, scatological humor and time spent with 15-minutes-of-fame types like Jessica Hahn and the lesser lights of the stand-up comedy world. I was wrong.

I figured that Howard Stern, being one of those annoying New Yorkers I sometimes ran into while living on the East Coast, would only appeal to the megalopolis along the Atlantic Seaboard. There was simply no way that a Jewish guy from New York would appeal to the heartland audience. I was wrong.

When they sliced and diced his old FM radio shows down to a 30-minute telecast for the E! Network, I figured no one would watch a litany of chromo-keyed breasts when they could be watching the evening news and a late night talk show. As the telecasts became the highest-rated show in the history of the E! Network, I once again found myself on the wrong end of the argument.

I have now been a subscriber to Sirius Satellite Radio for just short of two years. I now view satellite radio in the same way that HBO would have been viewed in 1976. It is an idea still in its infancy that has the potential to forever alter the way we listen to the radio. It took me all of five minutes of listening and scanning the music channels to realize that I had listened to AM/FM radio for the last time.

Since Howard Stern made the jump to Sirius early in 2006, their subscriber base has exploded, nearly surpassing their only rival (and potential merger partner) XM. While no usable ratings system exists currently for satellite radio, the millions of listeners added in the past two years can reasonably be considered a public stamp of approval for a now-unexpurgated Howard Stern Show.

Currently, Sirius is presenting The History of Howard Stern, a two-week special interspersed with interviews of people who are now or who have in the past found themselves in the middle of Stern’s personal and professional universe. The amount of behind-the-scenes detail in this special is astonishing, and I can’t help but recommend it to anyone with the capability to listen.
Yet the thing that is most illustrated by this special isn’t necessarily about the ascendancy of Howard Stern, but rather the continuing reaction to him by terrestrial radio. From the very beginning of his career in 1977 to the present day, Stern has encountered nothing but resistance, censorship and hostility toward his idea of how a radio show should be conducted. In his career, it can be safely stated that he made a lot of myopic people in the broadcasting industry boatloads of money despite their best efforts to cut him off at the knees. To see FM radio scramble for a new idea in his absence, coupled with technology such as the IPod slowly eroding the traditional audience for terrestrial radio, is something I find amusing.

If anything, thanks to the FCC only being worried about obscenity and not so much about rampant media consolidation, terrestrial radio is the worst it has ever been. Clear Channel, a company owned by a prominent Republican family, seems more focused on making sure that they hire DJ’s in all markets that delicately toe the Republican Party line rather than worrying about innovation. Even long-time carpet bagging losers like Mankow are turning themselves into Republicans publicly overnight in order to stay on the air under their GOP paymasters. Terrestrial radio owners force right-wing bigots like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck down the throats of America through the use of syndication, while liberal radio hosts such as Stephanie Miller and Air America Radio are forced into a nearly underground situation in miniscule markets. The big advertisers, obviously being extorted by Clear Channel and their powerful minions, won’t touch liberal talk radio with a ten-foot pole. And don’t even get me started on the doors that keep getting opened in terrestrial radio for drug-addled redneck Don Imus.

Not being a longtime diehard fan, and using The History of Howard Stern as a guide, in my opinion Howard Stern’s show is now better than ever. Free from the clutches of the FCC, his show is now no-holds-barred. In lesser hands, this kind of format would be a train wreck of can-you-top-this obscenity. Stern utilizes his 30 years of experience to operate two radio networks on Sirius, bringing compelling listening to all who tune in. His daily show, while maybe not appealing to every listener straight through for a four or five-hour period, always has one thing that appeals to someone. I tend to turn off his show when he invites strippers and porn stars into the studio. To me, the best moments on his show tend to be conversations he’s having with his staff or the random callers who get through. Underneath the fart jokes, sex chair rides and energy-draining phone calls from the ever-annoying Eric the Midget lies damned good entertainment. With the dawn of the Internet, the art of conversation is a dying one, and Stern may someday be viewed as one of the last masters of the art. With Artie Lange and Robin Quivers offering strong support in the studio and Fred Norris’ library of sounds at his disposal, Stern has taken the format of the radio talk show and turned it inside out.

Stern’s success does come with a price. Despite his newfound fortune from Sirius, you won’t see him hobnobbing with A-list celebrities. You aren’t likely to find many positive things written about him in the consolidated media. With his neurotic personality, this is not a guy that any one of his millions of fans can ever realistically dream of sharing dinner. When I think of his particular group of guests such as Elliott Offen, Bigfoot and Crazy Alice (with others, collectively called "The Whack Pack"), I'm tempted into thinking that someone in a group like this is bound to put his life in danger. Much like Valerie Solanis to Andy Warhol, I can’t help thinking that this is the kind of guy that has a crazed fan somewhere in his universe with his name on it. Longtime security chief Ronnie the Limo Driver isn’t much of a defense against someone like this who may pop up on the horizon.

The majority of Stern’s army of listeners will always admire from afar, forever dialing the show and getting a busy signal, dreaming of the 15 seconds they may someday get to talk to Howard Stern. I’ll just listen and enjoy and wish Howard Stern safe passage through the world around him, in addition to adding a heartfelt apology to him personally through the use of this blog for not having the good sense to be a fan of his for a longer period of time. When my Sirius subscription comes up for renewal in March, I’m getting the lifetime membership. I proudly state that I am now a Howard Stern fan.

The True Fallout Of The Mitchell Report

2007-12-14T20:15:00.000-06:00

Hey kids, remember how Roger Clemens pitched all those years in the American League by striking out ridiculous numbers of batters and aiming at the heads of those batters that got hits off of him? Turns out he might have been juiced and possibly suffering from ‘Roid Rage.

And remember how Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in a season and everyone except Barry and his kids said he was cheating? Chalk one up for everyone. It looks like he was cheating.

And remember that amazing season of relief pitching that Eric Gagne had a few years ago? Apparently dominant relief pitching is that much easier with a little advanced chemistry in your system. He looks to have been loaded up and cheating too.

Forget about "the names" for a minute. In addition, let’s set aside the ridiculous discussion of who gets how many votes for the Hall of Fame as a result of this report. Those arguments are for unctuous baseball writers who love to belabor points for the sake of circulation and discussion, and no one outside of themselves really cares. I’d like to get a little deeper with topics I’ve yet to hear about in to 30+ hours since the Mitchell Report hit the news.

Three things strike me about the Mitchell Report. First, virtually all of the new "evidence" presented in the report comes from clubhouse employees for the Mets and the Yankees. Mitchell spent over a year on this report, and there’s no documentation in the report that states that he talked to any other clubhouse personnel in Major League Baseball. The commissioner, who is employed by the owners, requested this report. Clubhouse employees are not members of the Players’ Union; they are employees of the individual teams. If the owners really wanted the truth about what is going on in all of baseball with performance-enhancing drugs, they would have had Mitchell’s investigators interview every clubhouse attendant in Major League Baseball. In the end, without these interviews, this report ends up looking like a McCarthy-style witch-hunt deliberately constructed to name as few current and former players as possible. Now the owners can say "it was a big problem, but we’re working on it" and almost keep a straight face due to lack of evidence.

Second, how can we trust that any major sport is the unvarnished truth anymore? I have the same feeling now about baseball as I do about the NBA and its tainted referee pool. When I turn on a TV, I like to think that what I’m watching with regard to sports is true. I gave up on the bullshit that is TV news years ago, save for the Weather Channel. Sports until very recently were my last bastion of "what you see is what you get". It’s been a bad year for that thought. With Tim Donaghy, the Mitchell Report, the Patriots Spygate scandal and the only unbeaten team in NCAA Football excluded from playing for the National Championship, what is believable and virtuous in the sports world anymore? And no, golf is not a sport.

The third impression that strikes me is the fact that the War on Drugs is now finally exposed as the absolute racist joke we all thought it was in the first place. The federal government has spent trillions of dollars since the 1930’s attempting to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States. Now if the Mitchell Report is to be believed, the two clubhouses belonging to the teams playing in one of the world’s largest cities have for years been one-stop shops for illegal drugs received through domestic sources. As we incarcerate insolvent black and brown people in large numbers in this country in a foolish attempt to convince ourselves that we’re keeping drugs out of the hands of our kids, an entire generation of the best millionaire athletes in one sport are being exposed as users of illegal drugs. I guess those Coast Guard cutters can’t patrol Shea Stadium. If you’re going to selectively fight any war, it’s not a war at all. It’s just a lot of people with guns and uniforms dicking around and wasting tax dollars.

The Mitchell Report, coupled with the trial of Barry Bonds, will probably be non-stop stories on ESPN for the rest of recorded time. Questions will be asked of Bud Selig about the integrity of the sport, which he will defend at all costs, even if ultimately it isn’t true. Why let the fact that your entire enterprise is a massive con job get in the way of selling tickets?

Random Thoughts in Honor of the Sun

2007-12-12T13:17:00.000-06:00

This just in from Milwaukee: It has finally stopped snowing.

So far in December it has snowed here four times. While the landscape is beautiful, my driveway looks like the asphalt equivalent of a man who shaved with a meat cleaver. The sun is now once again coming through my office window and I can finally see blue skies on the horizon. It helps my mood immensely that I’m currently listening to Tomorrow the Green Grass by the Jayhawks. This leads to the first question for the comment thread, which is "What album do you reach for to improve your mood?" For what it’s worth, I’ll add two other albums from my personal list: Eli & The 13th Confession by Laura Nyro and the first album by Moby Grape.

I am one of the fortunate few in the United States. Being in Milwaukee, I currently have a Democratic congresswoman (Gwen Moore; I love this woman and what she stands for), two Democratic senators (Russ Feingold and stinking rich Senator-For-Life Herb Kohl), a Democratic Governor (Jim Doyle; he could be a lot better) and a Democratic mayor (Tom Barrett; so far, not bad). In 2008, only the mayor is in a re-election battle, and it’s not much of a battle at that. Gwen Moore usually disposes of her competition at a rate of around 75%-25%. It’s a safe seat as long as she wants it. I know that some of you have Senate campaigns, and we all have the White House to think about. With that in mind, I give you Question #2: "Do you think your member of the U. S. House of Representatives deserves re-election based on his/her public stands on the issues you care about? Why or why not?"

As another day passes, and the latest Cheney Administration (who’s kidding who here?) scandal comes into view, leading Dana Peroxide to hem and haw to the press gaggle (I haven’t read any news yet today, but given his track record, he has to have screwed up something else today), my newfound optimism leads me to think of the future. I think of a future without Dick Cheney running this country with his hand up the back of a frat boy. Specifically, I think of the end of taxpayer-funded healthcare for the office of the Vice-President that is quite obviously keeping Cheney alive long past his expiration date. Between the catnaps he catches during visits with foreign dignitaries to the constant shocks from his implanted defibrillator, Cheney has become something out of a typical story from H. P. Lovecraft. The only difference is that no one ever saw anyone actually exhume his body for reanimation. Strictly by observation of the two, I would ID Lynne Cheney as the corpse in the relationship. Looks can be deceiving.

I don’t subscribe to any one religion, but I do have a strong belief in a karmic afterlife. If I go to what is commonly thought of as Hell, it will be a room full of all types of bugs with Celine Dion pumping through the loudspeakers for all eternity. This leads to Question # 3: "What is Dick Cheney’s Hell?" Use your imagination and be as descriptive as possible.

And finally, Question #4, which is asked more out of curiosity than anything else: "Are there any other diehard hockey fans in the house?" I feel lonely sometimes in Packer country.

I hope the sun is shining where you are, and if not, if you’re currently to the East of me, I can tell you that this too will pass. Have fun answering one or all of the questions above. Smile everybody!

A Brief History Of The Future

2007-12-05T20:55:00.000-06:00

(The writer begs your pardon while he briefly pretends that he is Fred Savage on an episode of "The Wonder Years").

So there I was. It was 1977. Jimmy Carter came into office with a big lovable doofus for a brother. I spent my afternoons watching my rhythmically challenged, 18-year-old sister attempt to disco dance. I spent my Friday nights with a couple of guys named Jim Rockford and Quincy (what was that guy’s first name anyway? His first initial was R., but I guess he wished he was like Liberace while solving murders as a coroner).

I was in 5th grade, well on my way to building a perfectly mediocre educational resume (with "Some College" now being used on product surveys as a euphemism for "Community College Dropout"). I went to the school library and checked out a book called 2010:Living In The Future. And what an amazing future we were all to have! I would be 44 years old, leaving my perfect round house (which looked exactly like all the other houses in my neighborhood), getting into my flying car for long trips or staying home to work. My children would be in the other room attending school via television, just like all the other kids in the neighborhood. Colonies would exist on the moon, telephones would be extinct (replaced by videophones of course) and all of the little drawings in the book featured smiling faces. I was hooked. Despite my dad being 45 years old, short and overweight, I couldn’t wait to grow up to get a round house of my very own.

By my current calendar, this is all supposed to happen over the next 757 days, 412 of which will feature George W. Bush as the President of the United States. Revisionist history is nothing. Let’s talk about revisionist futurism.

A common theme of the 20th Century that cropped up, usually at World’s Fairs, in radio serials, movies, television and books, is the absolutely ridiculous and over-optimistic view of the world of the future. Buck Rogers was supposed to be the last traveler on a deep space probe in 1987! Instead, 1987 featured the Iran-Contra Scandal. The television show Space: 1999 featured a moon colony as a backdrop. Instead, 1999 was spent picking up the pieces of the tech bust and discussing the president’s sexual peccadilloes.

We’re not sending humans into deep space to live (and no, the ISS doesn’t count as "deep space"). You can count on one hand the number of people who take their personal helicopter to get to work. School buildings built 50-70 years ago are still being utilized on a daily basis, to say nothing of the house I currently occupy that was built in 1926. Webcams are more commonly used to watch women who are 18 years old and 15 seconds perform sex acts. There are no jetpacks, George Jetson is still a cartoon and people only smile if it’s in their job description. Toto, I’m not in 5th grade anymore.

Thirty years after seeing a fanciful future in a children’s book, I’ve come to realize that the people who see a better world in the future are ridiculously marginalized and sacrificed at the altar of Big Business. Somewhere along the line, the pioneering spirit and engineering intellect inherent in people such as Preston Tucker and R. Buckminster Fuller morphed into third-rate models like Bill Gates, who made a fortune creating a con job of a product which is easily replaced that never truly works exactly as envisioned. In addition, it can be argued that Gates’ product has actually become a barrier to the evolution towards the better functioning world we’ve all envisioned.

I tend to be optimistic by nature. At 41, I still have trouble letting go of daydreams of people existing in an advanced society and getting along. I would hate to think that all of my optimism about the future was instead invested in the idea of making microwave ovens smaller and kitchen counter-friendly. With regard to that childhood vision of the better world of the future, I’ll believe that one when pigs – or cars – fly.

Dodd + Imus = Goodbye

2007-12-03T20:26:00.000-06:00

I want to start this post off by saying that I genuinely like Christopher Dodd. Of late, whenever Democrats have needed real leadership in the Senate on issues important to the country, he’s stepped up. Because of this, he has leapfrogged over many other current Democratic Presidential candidates to the number two spot behind John Edwards on my list of desired candidates.

On the surface, Dodd doesn’t stand much of a chance, but he does have the IAFF union behind him for organizing in Iowa, which could make his candidacy very interesting as the Iowa Caucuses draw closer if that can translate into numbers.

Then came this morning……

Everybody’s favorite racist radio has-been, Don Imus, debuted on WABC in New York this morning, fresh off a short-lived exile for mean-spirited remarks directed at the women’s basketball team at Rutgers University. Among his new touches (which on the surface look more like transparent attempts at insulation) are a black female co-host who’s about as funny as a picnic table, as well as a simulcast affiliation with some far-flung rural cable channel called RFD (why do I picture Ken Berry and "Goober" Lindsay when I type those letters?). Among his old touches are the many members of the Washington Establishment who find nothing wrong with Imus’ long history of racial and ethnic intolerance, as long as there’s a microphone in their face. For his first show back, today’s guests included aging DC prostitution circus act Carville and Matalin, everybody’s favorite intemperate lapdog John McCain and, unfortunately, Chris Dodd.

In a presidential election season, every move is a calculation. Chris Dodd is barely recognized during televised "debates" on cable news networks. One could make the argument that as a candidate with a visible absence of big money and debate recognition, you take your exposure wherever you can get it. Anywhere you hang you soapbox is home.

Having said that, as a Democrat, why Don Imus?

Dodd is more than likely making the calculation that appearing on a radio program that is attempting to appeal to rural America is more than likely a good thing if he wants to finish strong in Iowa. Yet based on Imus’ history and the type of guests he has on his show, the only thing rural about Don Imus is his horrible cowboy hat and his borderline KKK sense of humor.

Making a conscious decision to align oneself with Don Imus for free publicity can’t be seen as a good move in attracting primary voters from the Democratic Party. Primary voters tend to be the most motivated and dedicated to a given party. I’ll venture a guess that Don Imus doesn’t have much of a rabid following among regular readers of Daily Kos or other major players in the left wing blogosphere. I’d also venture a guess that the primary voting patterns of those same readers are heavier than the rest of the Democratic population, though I lack statistical proof to back up that argument. I leave it up to those more capable to study that hypothesis.

Don Imus trying to reinvent himself as some kind of leather-faced Paul Harvey Everyman will be interesting for about one week while the mainstream press looks in on his "rehabilitation". After that, he’ll go where all short-syndication talk radio goes; straight into the abyss of a 1.5 share. His time as any type of major mover and shaker in the radio industry passed in the early ‘80’s. For anyone to appear on or to sponsor his siesta of a radio show now, in my opinion, lends tacit approval for the kind of behavior that’s gone on before. I still think positively of Chris Dodd, but today I’m stunned at how his need for publicity in a primary season leads to horrible decision making. It’s not what I look for in a President, and he just lost a chance at getting my vote.

Saving Medicare One Wound At A Time

2007-11-25T10:28:00.000-06:00

Currently, the Senate Finance committee is attempting to put together a bill to determine payments to physicians for 2008. The current number being bandied about is a 15.1% cut in pay for physician services spread out between 2008 and 2009. The cut would start with a 10.1% cut for 2008 followed by a 5% cut for 2009.

As it stands right now, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus wants a package that avoids these cuts entirely, while Charles Grassley, the ranking minority member of the committee, wants a one-year suspension for 2008 and the entirety of the cut to come in 2009.

In the past, what has invariably happened at this time of year goes as follows. The desired cut is announced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Through a combination of AMA lobbying, book cooking and the desire to pass the buck, the desired cut doesn’t appear in the budget and gets put off another year.

At the point that payments to physicians are about to be cut by 15.1%, it can be safely stated that the day of reckoning has arrived. As expected, when a budgetary emergency presents itself, every special interest cockroach comes out of the woodwork to claim the crumbs. Already, 30 senators from both parties have signed a letter that was sent to the committee asking that no cuts be applied to radiology services.

By far, the biggest stumbling block (as if we should be surprised) is Senate Republicans.

Max Baucus has a good plan. He wants to suspend the pay cut to physicians and replace that funding by reducing the payments made to insurance carriers for administrating Medicare Advantage plans. Senate Republicans, having never met a corporate welfare plan they didn’t like, are backing Grassley’s plan instead.

A Medicare Advantage plan, sometimes called a Medicare Fee for Service plan, works somewhat like a standard commercial insurance plan. They cover (in theory if not always in practice) everything that Medicare covers, plus additional benefits like routine physicals at the administrator's discretion.

Since the introduction of the Medicare Part D drug benefit, enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans has exploded. When a Medicare recipient looks for a carrier to handle their Medicare Part D coverage, they are looking for a carrier and a plan that includes the litany of drugs the patient is taking into one formulary. The recipient does not commence this process looking to change their base Medicare coverage from traditional Medicare to a Medicare Advantage plan, but this happens frequently. The sales pitches put forward by many of these plans remind me a lot of the days of long distance phone carrier "slamming". Most recipients don’t realize that they need not switch their basic Medicare coverage to be enrolled in a Medicare Part D plan.

When Medicare Part D came into existence, the focus of the budget busting affects of the program seemed to be focused on the enormous giveaway it represented to the pharmaceutical industry with regard to "Average Sale Price" versus "Average Wholesale Price". The dollars paid to insurance carriers for the administration of Medicare Advantage plans in many instances is just as crippling. It is yet another example of the billions of dollars funneled to Corporate America under this president.

The ramifications of a 15% pay cut to physicians are already being made abundantly clear. Doctors, via the AMA, are already announcing that they may close their practices to new Medicare patients if the cuts are approved. This would be just in time for the Baby Boomers who will begin turning 65 in 2010 to be left out in the cold for primary medical care.

Republicans have made it their mission to starve Medicare and Social Security of needed funds until both can no longer function in any form, leading to what they hope will be their eventual demise. People like Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist have made this very clear publicly over the last 15 years. It is now clear that while they attempt to destroy both, they might as well perfect a form of legal embezzlement of funds to their friends in the insurance and pharmaceutical industry.

Baucus wants to stop a portion of the bleeding of funds with the next bill. While this doesn't address the big hemorrhage to the pharmaceutical industry, it can be at least viewed as a start. Whether he has enough Roach Motels at the ready remains to be seen.

Georgia Runs Out Of Water; Blue Stater Yawns

2007-11-23T09:05:00.000-06:00

So, if all the major news stories are correct, the reservoirs around Atlanta and surrounding areas in Northern Georgia will be out of water in roughly 80 days.

The current cracker Governor, Sonny Perdue, (a name that perfectly symbolizes the lack of working intellect of its holder) snapped into action immediately. He summoned his ill-informed political followers to the state capital and prayed for rain. When I think of effective government, this is not the picture that pops into my head, but I guess that’s just me.

No one should be surprised that a state rich in Republican tradition displays this kind of ineptitude on a state level. Rather than spending the last 20 years planning for the day in early 2008 when the wells run dry, Georgia spent their resources on the ’96 Olympics, the lengthy investigation of Richard Jewell for not setting off a bomb at those same Olympics, the initiation of a state lottery and the passage of Voter ID laws that are for all intents and purposes a reintroduction of the Poll Tax.

The contingency plans are now down to praying and (in the likely event that fails) diverting water from the Great Lakes.

As a resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, located semi-majestically on the banks of Lake Michigan, I proudly say "HA!" to the first idea and "Fuck you!" to the second.

As a person with a Democratic Governor, two Democratic senators and a real Democratic congresswoman, I now say to Georgia without the least bit of pity, "How’s that small, non-intrusive government theory working for you now?" By placing your state government in the hands of people who hate governmental operations, you get what you deserve. The only thing missing from the Governor and State Assembly members in Georgia to place them firmly in the Middle Ages is chain mail armor being worn to work.

Once again, for anyone who will listen: you can’t put people in charge of government whose sworn ideology is the piecemeal destruction of that government.

Sometime in early Spring (if they have any chance at all of getting attention in the middle of a Presidential race) the situation will be so dire in Northern Georgia that the proud Bible-waving governor will be screaming at FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers to immediately fix the problems created by decades of Republican neglect. He and his brethren in state government only need look to New Orleans to see what type of response they’re likely to get.

I have friends in the Atlanta area that will be directly affected by all of this to whom I’ll more than likely ship a case of water. I really wish I could sit here and state that I care about what happens to the area as a whole. Yet I wasn’t the one who elected these charlatans to the state government of Georgia year after year. If the residents of Northern Georgia want to get mad at someone for a lack of water, look to your state and local governments that allowed an overpriced McMansion-style gated community to go up in every piece of free space in the North of the state. Here’s some math for you:

One New House = One New Dwelling Needing Water

Your government created the problem. If they can’t fix it, that’s your fault for either not voting at all or voting for these idiots when you had the choice of someone else.

Lake Michigan and its contents belong to the people abutting Lake Michigan. We do our job by continually monitoring the health of the immediate Great Lakes and the effects of changes on the residents surrounding it. You can’t have it now or at crunch time. Tough shit. That’s life.

Picture for a moment that scene in the movie "The Three Amigos" where Steve Martin, Martin Short and Chevy Chase are riding through the desert. They each take turns opening their canteens. Steve Martin gets five drops of water into his mouth. Martin Short gets a canteen full of sand in the mouth. Chevy Chase dumps a canteen full of water into his mouth and onto his head as the other two look at him longingly. He then turns to the other two and offers them lip balm.

Georgia, thy name is Ned Nederlander. No worries though. I’ll be happy to send you some Chap Stick.

Why Is David Stern Still Employed?

2007-11-20T18:47:00.000-06:00

A funny thing happened to David Stern on his way back from the bank.

He was returning from depositing checks made out to the NBA by Mark Cuban. The fines had been levied by Stern against Cuban for criticizing the referees of the NBA for lackluster performance. Stern, being the commissioner of the league, scolded Cuban but good utilizing the power of the pocketbook, and strolled back to the league office with the confidence and swagger of a man confident in his decision making.

Then he passed the newsstand.

It seems that half of the referees in the NBA had violated the rules of the league by going to casinos in the off-season. One referee in particular, one Tim Donaghy, was indicted for fixing games in favor of illegal gambling interests.

David Stern acted decisively - by doing nothing.

Tim Donaghy had already resigned from the league by the time the story of his game-fixing hit the streets at large, requiring nothing more of David Stern than was required of Pontius Pilate. He washed his hands of Donaghy and let the feds take care of the execution of justice.

The other casino-hopping refs got the Scooter Libby treatment. Their punishment for breaking the rules of the NBA was for the head of the NBA to change the rules to make it OK for the refs to go to casinos in the off-season. This kind of reaction doesn’t even rise to the level of making each ref sit facing the corner wearing a dunce cap for 20 minutes. Rather than face the problem head-on, Stern saw a problem and ignored it by imperial fiat.

You have to admire the arrogance of David Stern, if nothing else. He sits on his New York throne like Queen Elizabeth II, as the head of a fading empire, TV ratings heading in a downward direction, shrinking attendance, officials with questionable ethics and a dysfunctional ownership team at the helm of the blue-chip franchise down the street at Madison Square Garden.

Through his leadership, he has done everything in his power to exclude the African-American community as fans of the sport in exchange for a well healed (read: WHITE) fan that, if we are to judge strictly by attendance figures, apparently doesn’t exist. Not to worry though, African-American fans! You can still purchase throwback jerseys at a ridiculously high price and display your pride in the NBA from a distance, where David Stern prefers you.

In a league that includes Donald Sterling among the NBA ownership group, it’s not a complete mystery as to why David Stern keeps his job. Having stated that, I appear to be the only person in the public at large who thinks that David Stern got a free pass on a problem he helped create. By constantly displaying to the world at large that he would back up the referees against all criticism, he helped form a Teflon class of official like no other in any sport. One wonders what rule the officials will break next, knowing that unless they go the full illegal route like Donaghy, Stern still has their collective backs.

The NBA has been dogged for years by criticism stating that a separate set of rules appears to exist for the star players in the league. Stern could laugh off that kind of charge based on the lack of long-term statistical evidence. Tim Donaghy throwing games and altering the results of those games for the benefit of gambling interests throws the entire product put forward by the NBA under a cloud. How can any fan of professional basketball watch the NBA and trust the product now?

As long as Stern continues to sit at the helm of the NBA, this league can’t reasonably consider itself credible. When an entity loses the public trust, the eventual destruction of that entity is spent for a short time on outrage, followed by long term indifference. I for one have now reached the latter category.

The Smart Money's On The Planet

2007-11-15T20:44:00.000-06:00

I must preface this writing by stating unequivocally that I am not a scientist. I tend to base my conclusions on what I observe and for the big scientific questions, I tend to default to the majority opinion among reputable scientists presenting research free from personal or political bias. Based on observation and majority scientific opinion, I have come to the conclusion that yes, global warming is a measurable phenomenon that is occurring and that the prevailing evidence shows that the behaviors of humans are a major factor in the warming trend.

While what happens next if the overall problem continues is still open to speculation as far as I can tell, it appears ultimately that human life in certain corners of the planet is at risk. This leads to a conclusion that humankind, by continually engaging in actions not directly related to the survival of the species, has placed its own species at imminent risk of not surviving.

This is the point where I state without hesitation that I eagerly await the planet’s final response to humankind’s existence on it.

So the reader at this point is horrified. "How utterly sick!" you think to yourself, "Are you actually arguing in favor of the natural destruction of the human race?"

In a word, yes.

If you could just take a moment, take your heart off your sleeve and tuck it back into your chest, take a deep breath, swallow the nearest industry-forced psychotropic medication at your disposal and relax, I’ll explain myself.

Isaac Newton posited that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. There are many examples of this in everyday life. If you use logic and criticize a Republican using intellect and reason, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly tell everyone within earshot that you hate America, which while hysterical and devoid of reason, can be classified in the simplest terms as a reaction to a stimulus. If you rub a sexual organ (yours or someone else’s; I’m not judgmental) at a certain angle with the necessary combination of force and energy, you stimulate a reaction (and it’s hoped for all involved that it’s not the spoken phrase "Are you done yet?").

Now consider the planet. Since the Industrial Revolution of the late-19th Century, the actions of humankind have acted as a stimulus toward the planet on which we all coexist. The planet’s well-considered reaction is becoming abundantly clear with each passing day. It is curious to the species of humankind that for every man-made emergency, we begin with soul-searching, in most cases asking ourselves "what can I do differently to change what has occurred or what is about to occur?" With the evolutionary gift of reason, it is our conceit that we believe we can come up with solutions for every problem that presents itself.

There are two problems with that conceit. The first is humankind’s lousy track record of ideas, with an overwhelming majority of what we’ve come up with thus far being worthless and not at all helpful to the overall health and survival of the species.

Don’t believe me? Below is a list of items created by the minds and hands of humankind. How many can you spot that are/were necessary to the survival of humankind as a species?

Handguns

Bombs (atomic and non-atomic)

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge

The Chevy Vega

The Ford Pinto

The 5-day deodorant pad

Tris pajamas

Lead paint

The Dalkon Shield

Thalidomide

PCB

CFC’s

Asbestos insulation

Cigarettes

Crystal methamphetamine

Plastic containers

The Maginot Line

This is the short list. I’m certain a better mind than mine can find other sterling examples of human ingenuity throughout history that led to no improvement whatsoever in the human condition or led to lives being saved. I am certain that still others can name things that have helped in the survival of the species, such as penicillin and any of a number of vaccines that argue in opposition.

The second problem with the above conceit is much more concrete. If I had to lay a wager (a uniquely human activity that does nothing to benefit humankind by the way; add that to the list above) between humankind’s capacity to save itself from extinction, and a planet that has already survived past climate shift and inundation by large land mammals and comets, I’d bet everything on the planet. While humankind has had its successes, it is still a species ruled both literally and figuratively by its vices. While homo sapiens evolved from other species that were much more primitive, one check of any given day’s disasters in the news, from Pakistan to Burma to Darfur to any given day in the life of the current occupant of our White House, proves beyond doubt that there is still much work yet to be done on the evolutionary front. We are at best a species with potential long-term viability doomed to be disconnected from that eventuality by our emotions, terrible judgment and litany of bad ideas.

Being infected with human feelings, I take no personal or emotional comfort in self-inflicted human extinction. However, I do take comfort in the knowledge that the planet’s oncoming reaction to the negative stimulus of human encroachment presents Nature with an opportunity for improvement upon previous life models. As millions of species on our planet have disappeared, millions of others have taken their place, with each exchange bringing about either subtle or significant improvement (with the salient exceptions of the duckbill platypus and Ann Coulter). This heavenly mass teeming with life that we all coexist upon is a marvelous series of experiments to behold in that way.

Many generations from now, someone or something will discover what was Washington, DC at the bottom of a 10,000-meter underwater trench and will be curious about the primitive architecture for about 30 seconds. After that they’ll continue on their way, much like we all did when the Woods Hole Institute found the Titanic. It’s not the planet as an entity that is destroyed by global warming, but merely the myriad life forms upon its surface. While I currently recycle, compost and utilize a rain barrel and an economy car, I am aware that no amount of recycling, composting, organic farming, emission limits, carbon credits or vegetable oil buses alters the truth of supremacy of planet over inhabitants.

Look at the bright side though. Pat Robertson and James Dobson will bite the biscuit like everyone else. In and of itself, that should give everyone hope for a more evolved phoenix rising from the ashes of humankind.

A Few Words Against Tiger Woods

2006-12-26T12:56:00.000-06:00

Over the holiday weekend, AP chose Tiger Woods as the Male Athlete of the Year. My vote is for Ladanian Tomlinson of the San Diego Chargers and his boatload of touchdowns, but I think I need to clarify why the choice of Woods is an absolute travesty.

The first reason should be obvious to everyone with a pulse. GOLF IS NOT A SPORT! It's a scored activity, like darts, shuffleboard and cribbage. Any activity in which a guy the size and shape of Craig Stadler can become a millionaire by taking part should never be considered a sport. The only people who ever call golf a "sport" are the well-paid sportswriters who play it in their off hours and the assorted obnoxious white guys who have country club memberships and ugly pants who never lower themselves to ask my opinion on the matter. Bo Jackson was an athlete. Deion Sanders was an athlete. Tiger Woods plays golf.

The second comes down to numbers, specifically, the number of PGA tournaments that Tiger Woods participated in in 2006. Granted, Woods' father and golf avatar, Earl Woods, was in ill health and eventually succumbed to cancer this year, and it is understood that this would be a distraction for any "athlete". Having said that, the PGA has roughly 40 events in a calendar year, which works out to 160 days competing in tournaments. No one on the PGA tour plays in every event, but having said that, you can find very few golfers who played less than the 13 events Tiger Woods took part in in 2006.

In 2006, Woods only played about 50 days worth of golf for money on the PGA Tour. In contrast, very few starting pitchers win Athlete of the Year because they only get about 25 to 35 starts per season. If a guy like Tomlinson played in only 35% of his team's games, do you think he would have a shot at Athlete of the Year? We are told that half of life is just showing up. Woods only does that 30 to 35% of the time, but he's a better athlete than Tomlinson, who gets hit on EVERY PLAY in his sport when he plays?

So Woods won over $8 million for the tournaments he took part in. Big deal. The real story here is the tournaments where he didn't even show up. Give the Male Athlete of the Year award to someone who I can get used to seeing on a daily or weekly basis.

Losing the Lottery

2006-12-22T01:28:00.000-06:00

Well, the rain is getting colder
And the sky is growing dark
There’s no one left to clean the muddy street
Down in a swollen gutter
Amidst the bottles and the trash
A lotto ticket dances without feet
On its back it bears a number
Written down in fading blue
Seven indecipherable digits and a heart
Will anyone remember
Does anybody care
About the opportunity that fell apart

Light a candle, say a prayer
They could be anywhere
A brief encounter in a convenience store
Led to a fantasy
That was never meant to be
And strangers they must be forevermore

In a café by the roadside
A girl is sipping tea
And wondering why he never calls
And somewhere in a diner
Surrounded by his smoke
A boy is lost in shadows on the walls
Sometimes he’ll think about her
And how he never got her name
Then write it off to his unlucky fate
And as he finishes his smoke
That losing lotto ticket
Spirals down beyond the sewer grate

Light a candle, say a prayer
They could be anywhere
A brief encounter in a convenience store
Led to a fantasy
That was never meant to be
And strangers they must be forevermore

The houses all look empty
As the afternoon wears on
The wind is singing Wagner to the clouds
And the worms out on the sidewalk
Drowning in unsalted tears
Are mourned by the skies in their shrouds
Lost love is nostalgia
And broken hearts will mend
And star-crossed lovers reunite in death
If life can teach you anything
It’s to always take your chance
And fight for what you love with every breath

Light a candle, say a prayer
They could be anywhere
A brief encounter in a convenience store
Led to a fantasy
That was never meant to be
And strangers they must be forevermore

Open-Heartedness

2006-11-30T12:04:00.000-06:00

Emotional availability is always a rare and beautiful thing when encountered in others. Actually being open-hearted oneself often seems to be an invitation to manipulation, abuse, and rejection. This is because the heart (as an emotional center) is a doorway to compassion, which involves delving into the Sea of Infinite Sadness that is the sum total of all life's experience from the ego's perspective.
Compassion incorporates the awareness that all we do as living creatures is only the tiniest blip on the cosmic radar, that all human achievement is temporary, and that any individual's actions may therefore feel entirely futile; in addition to which most people who recognize an empathetic person will express firstmost their misery and disappointment. The goal of compassion is to move beyond this egocentric 'poor me' point of view to an enlightened state of connection to a larger sense of self. However, not only is it easy to slide back from this heightened awareness into the depths of personal discontent; it is also just as easy to keep this illumination localized in the safety of the mind where it can exist in an Ivory Tower, disconnected from the heartache and suffering of life.
Yeshua ben Josef (a.k.a. Jesus Christ in vulgar Latin) is an example of one who struggled to use his compassion to alleviate suffering by bringing others into an enlightened state; the prolonged gore of his assassination shows how much this was appreciated at the time. Conversely, the Buddha Siddhartha Guatama managed to live and teach longer than three years, partially because he started out as a prince rather than a carpenter, but mostly because he was born on the right side of the planet. At any rate, the lessons of these and all other transcendent sages, martyred or otherwise, suggest that we as human beings have the opportunity to release this attachment to suffering, and thereby conquer the death of the ego. So what is it that keeps ordinary schmucks like you and me from bringing it all together and evolving into spiritual masters? In a word, karma.
Karma at a practical level isn't about justice, or past lives, or even the balancing of universal energies. It's about recognizing the patterns and laws by which one leads one's life and seeing their inherent falsehood and limitations. Most of us fail to comprehend just what is meant by 'attachment to suffering.' Over the course of any lifetime, when bad things happen it is normal to learn from the experience. Unfortunately, this learning process is seldom conscious, occuring as it does primarily at the level of emotions and beliefs rather than at the level of rational thought. The lesson is then incorporated, which is to say, brought into the body at a cellular level. Once this is done, reality is defined in terms of that lesson.
For instance, a child who burns his hand may be sufficiently traumatized by the experience to develop a fear of fire. Fire may become a symbol to that child of all that is evil and hurtful. As an adult, this person may be able to rationally use a lighter or a stove without flinching, but may also believe in an afterlife where the soul is burned for eternity for being evil. This fear will continue to severely limit the person's ability to accept the diversity of human experience unless the root of it is brought to light and an alternate belief is engendered.
Furthermore, this new belief must be sufficiently impactful to negate a whole lifetime of living by the previous belief. For this to occur, one needs open-heartedness. Without it, any new lessons are just flotsam and jetsam on the stream of consciousness. This doesn't necessarily mean accepting the abuse and miserable company of those that see empathy as weakness. Everyone needs to be able to retreat to a safe place, away from social manipulation. In this space, one may see how the ego's Sea of Infinite Sadness exists as a mere drop of water in the Universal Self. Gradually, this awareness may grow strong enough for the individual to invite others to share it. When this is possible, it will signify an integration of Higher Self with personal identity. Only then will loving kindness result in bringing others up without getting entangled in their suffering.

How We're Losing The War On Terror

2006-09-11T20:03:00.000-05:00

I'm not a journalist or some erudite historian. I'm a citizen of the United States who sees his country and its leadership heading down the wrong road.
We all know what happened 5 years ago today. The Islamic equivalent of rednecks got off a lucky shot with a couple of airplanes because our national leadership was worried more about clearing brush and creating an energy policy for their longtime friends at Halliburton and Enron than they were about protecting America. I remind the other citizens of this country that Spetember 11th, 2001 was a date that fell within the first term of the presidency of George W. Bush.
So, being the most powerful country on earth, did we do the right thing, that being making these Islamic rednecks eat the pointy ends of missiles in the mountains of Afghanistan until they were obliterated? Well, we were well on our way to accomplishing that goal, but we stopped and invaded Iraq instead. At the time, Iraq was a circumsized dictatorship, controlled completely by a multinational force by the use of "no-fly zones" that took up two-thirds of their airspace. We are told Saddam was an oppressive despot. How this differs from the leadership in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lybia, Jordan, Syria, Iran and Morocco has yet to be fully explained by the people currently in power in the United States.
Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction? No. Is the Iraq War, as promised, being paid for by profits from the sale of Iraqi oil? No. Was the Iraq War over, as Donald Rumsfeld predicted, within months? Again, no. Is the Iraqi insurgency, as stated by policy wunderkind Dick Cheney, really in its last throes? Um, no. Was Saddam Hussein an imminent threat? Not counting probable halitosis, no.
The way to teach the Arab world a lesson would have been to drag Osama Bin Laden's lifeless body behind a jeep before news cameras right around Christmas 2001, following the Israel model of showing the world what happens to people who attack us.
What we got was a GOP-engineered clusterfuck, where our soldiers are underequipped sitting ducks in two countries, and batshit insane states like Iran and North Korea, seeing the quagmires the United States finds themselves in, are now feeling their militant oats on the world stage. Osama Bin Laden, the architect of a mass murder, now has a more prolific recording career than Michael Jackson and our president "doesn't much care" where he is.
The great equalizer is that Novermber 7th is a midterm election day, which gives the 60%+ of America who doesn't support the war in Iraq a chance to neuter the president for the remainder of his term in office. Based on the recklessness and irresponsibility we've seen from this president, it's a neutering whose time has come. Numbers don't lie. Those who now support the Iraq War can honestly be referred to as the lunatic fringe. Think of your vote as a shot of Thorazine across the bow of the S. S. Cuckoo's Nest that is the United States.

What I Musically Believe

2006-09-08T13:16:00.000-05:00

I believe in the future of music.
I believe that the future of music lies in the hands of the individual and not in the hands of multinational conglomerate record labels.
I believe that the IPod is destroying the Long Playing album, and we're all going to be sorry when it becomes official.
I believe that synthesizers were better when they weren't manufactured to sound like other instruments.
I believe that music critics gave Dino Valenti a raw deal when he joined Quicksilver Messenger Service.
I believe that the most musically talented Beatle was Paul
I believe that the most musically talented Rolling Stone is Charlie Watts.
I believe that not enough people under the age of 30 are aware of who Mike Bloomfield was.
I believe that no rock band can recreate the power of an orchestra playing "In The Hall Of The Mountain King".
I believe that jazz could live a little longer if it embraced the avant garde.
I believe Talking Heads and Blondie were vastly overrated.
I believe that Minnie Ripperton was one of the best singers who ever lived.
I believe that Mariah Carey is a third-rate vocal acrobat.
I believe that no one will ever rule a stage again the way Tina Turner and Otis Redding did it.
I believe that MTV was the third worst invention in modern times, trailing only the atomic bomb and the 5-day deodorant pad.
I believe that terrestrial radio is dead.
I believe that Stephen Stills has less than three years to live after seeing Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young the other night in concert in Milwaukee., but I hope I'm wrong.
I believe that the Replacements were the most painfully human band I ever saw on a stage.
I believe that the best concert I ever saw was the Kinks in the pouring rain in Philadelphia.
I believe that there never should have been another Woodstock.
I believe that there should be another Monterey International Pop Festival.
I believe that Three Dog Night was one hell of an instrumental band.
I believe that John Williams deserves to be compared to Bach and Beethoven.
I believe that Republicans should be legally banned from listening to Rock and Roll and jazz, as well as telling us what they think they are.
I believe that Bono cares a little bit, but mostly I believe that he's full of shit.
I believe that REM has devolved to the point where they are now the musical equivalent of a restaurant in a good location.
I believe that given what he has survived in one lifetime, Iggy Pop is closer to God than Pat Robertson.
I believe that Eric Clapton is an adequate blues guitarist, no more, no less.
I believe that every track ever recorded that featured Nicky Hopkins on piano is to be treasured.
I believe that Bob Dylan singlehandedly changed the language of vocal music.
I believe that Tony Bennett could sing rings around Frank Sinatra.
I believe that flutes need to come back to rock and roll.
Finally, I believe that there is room for everyone in the world of music, but that doesn't mean that I have to like everyone in the world of music.

My Night As A Zombie - A Photo Journey

2006-08-04T16:54:00.000-05:00

It's very odd to regain consciousness and find yourself chained in a dungeon.

When my captor came down to check on me I prepared to fight for my freedom.

Then a delectable scent overpowered me. It was eminating from him! I used my best "come hither" look to lure him closer.

He was onto me though and tightened my shackles. I fought like a wildcat against them.

I waited for him to come closer.

He kicked a plate of dried up, mealy brains at me, but I scarcely noticed them with the scent of his fresh, pulsing brain so near.

He'll make a mistake eventually. I can wait.

What If Lamont Wins His Primary?

2006-07-18T11:17:00.000-05:00

I realize that as far as blogs go, nationally, I'm barely on the radar, if at all. Having said that, I'd thought I'd weigh in on the hottest blog issue of the moment, that being the primary challenge to Joe Lieberman's Senate seat in Connecticut by Ned Lamont.

To sum up, Ned Lamont, a telecommunications/internet millionaire, decided to challenge Joe Lieberman, an 18-year incumbent, in the Democratic primary due to Lieberman's wholehearted support of George W. Bush's Iraq policy, or lack thereof. The national blogs jumped on Lamont's bandwagon early and vocally, not only for Lieberman's war support, but for Lieberman's views on Social Security privatization, his cloture vote on the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito, his rather callous defense of Catholic hospitals' refusal to provide emergency contraception to rape victims and his support for the large bank-favored bankruptcy bill that was recently signed into law. Almost daily, any campaign move made by the Lieberman camp, either through a television attack ad or press releases and quotes from Lieberman and the incompetents running his campaign, is being debunked by the blogs with facts that Lieberman would rather not address.

A few weeks ago, Lieberman and Lamont took part in a debate. Rather than the tame Republican-enabling pussycat that faced Dick Cheney in the 2000 vice-presidential debate, Lieberman came out swinging, attempting to frame the debate in terms that defended his position of incumbency as financially beneficial to the citizens of Connecticut. Nevermind that Connecticut ranks 49th out of 50 states in bringing home the bacon from Washington in a recent study. Lieberman intimated that Connecticut couldn't afford to start over with a freshman senator. Lieberman also attempted to reestablish his Democratic credentials by trotting out freedom rides and JFK, which means virtually nothing to voters under the age of 45, except for historically significant, grainy black and white news footage of black people being firehosed down the street in Alabama and the Zapruder film.

Lieberman ended the debate with a ridiculous attempt to chide Ned Lamont for not releasing his tax records for the last five years. Ned Lamont, as previously stated, is a millionaire, and he and his family earned that money through hard work owning his own business. Ned Lamont, unlike Joe Lieberman, isn't a slave to PAC money. Therefore, the tax records issue is a non-issue, brought forth by a petulant incumbent who appears publicly to be insulted that he's being challenged to defend his record in the Senate.

Just days before the debate, Lieberman announced that he was going to petition the voters of Connecticut to appear on the fall ballot as an independent, in the event he lost the Democratic primary. Rather than defend his positions to people in his party, he's betting that the Republicans and independents in Connecticut will hold him over their heads in triumph over the Democratic nominee and the "vituperations" of his supporters in the blogosphere and throughout Connecticut. Based on the unpopularity of the Iraq War in Connecticut, this is quite a gamble. Still, based on his PAC money, Lieberman still stands as the favorite in the Democratic primary by an ever-shrinking margin, but Joe just loves his seat in the U. S. Senate. The party name he chose for his independent bid is "Connecticut For Lieberman". So much for humility.

Three weeks from today is the Connecticut primary. If Lamont wins this primary, I'd like to make an argument that he ignore Joe Lieberman from that day forward.

The usual pattern for political campaigns follows that after the primaries, debates are held between the major party challengers. The current Republican challenger is someone named Schlesinger, a guy not supported by other major Republicans in Connecticut who appears to have a compulsive gambling problem, in the Republican tradition of Bill Bennett. If Lamont wins the primary, the general election debate participants should be Ned Lamont and Schlesinger, and that's it. To invite Lieberman to such a debate is to reward vanity and lack of allegiance to established election conventions.

The way I've understood how a primary election works is this way. Two or more people of the same party fight for the nomination of the party for a selected office. The winner moves on to the general election against candidates from other parties, the loser goes home. Period. End of discussion. For Lieberman to come out and argue that he's a good Democrat (HA!) but every voter in Connecticut should have a chance to vote for him in the general election if he loses the Democratic primary is a sham.

The last time I checked, primary election losers don't get invited to the general election debates. On August 9th, if Lamont stands as the winner of the Democratic primary for U. S. Senate in Connecticut, Lieberman should be marginalized in a way that precludes him from taking part in a Senatorial debate. Lamont should treat Lieberman as one would treat a fly around a picnic table. Dismissively shoo him away as the scavenger and pest that he is, then ignore him. In addition, Lamont shouldn't even refer to Lieberman by name. He should refer to Lieberman as "the outgoing incumbent" or "the vanity independent" or some other such moniker when questions are posed to him about Lieberman's independent candidacy. He should use phrases like "desperate straw grasp to retain power" and "the Democratic voters have spoken" to make sure no one misses the point of what Lieberman is trying to do.

It is quite obvious that Joe Lieberman, by his personal actions and those of his campaign, has never received a primer from anyone in his life about accepting defeat with humility and grace. His attempt to retain his seat by ballot manipulation is insulting, and the insult should returned in full if he loses the Democratic primary.

A 10-Minute Glimpse Of The Future [In Wal-Mart]

2006-07-13T09:49:00.000-05:00

I am a Caucasian. I have been all of my life. I grew up in an extremely racist Italian-American household, so I consider the rest of my life something of an internal recovery process. Being around blatant racism for the entirety of my early development, one becomes all too comfortable around racist jokes, demeaning language and stereotypes. I consider myself far more enlightened since turning my back on that particular mindset.

Having said all that, last Thursday, I found myself in Wal-Mart. I don't usually shop there, but I was dispatched by my wife to exchange a gift (a baby wipe warmer with a malfunctioning top latch) given to us for our new baby (born on the 4th of July; my little boy patriot). As I went about taking the defective item (made in China; but of course) into the store, up to the service desk and retrieving an identical item from the appropriate store shelf, I noticed something. In the world of Wal-Mart, I, a Caucasian, am a minority.

Including myself, I counted 8 white people in Wal-Mart out of roughly 50 to 75 people that I spotted during my visit. The most amazing thing about this is that I'm including Wal-Mart employees and the number of white people I saw in the parking lot, which was zero. I actually DID see two in the parking lot, but they were an elderly white couple I spotted on the way out that I had already seen inside the store. The balance of the people I saw in Wal-Mart that day were African-American or Hispanic.

I don't shop at Wal-Mart, based on their anti-union stance, their general abuse of their employee population and their being the biggest reason for American job loss over the last quarter century. In the history of me, this was the third time I had ever set foot in a Wal-Mart. I have no clue if this represents the usual shopping pattern at Wal-Mart, and I'll never know, as I don't plan to shop there in the future. Based on what I saw during my visit, and based on what I normally see in their parking lot (the local Wal-Mart shares a parking lot with Paul's Omega, my favorite Greek "we make everything" restaurant), I'm drawing a conclusion that this is normal for any given Wal-Mart.

What strikes me is that based on demographic shifts that experts are predicting will occur in the coming century, Wal-Mart today represents the population of tomorrow's America (if America as we knew it still exists or can return to normal after our current president gets done with it). Not only is Wal-Mart making billions of dollars a quarter on the backs of today's minorities, but they are, based on my amateur observations, poised to increase in strength as time goes on if we extrapolate the sales figures using these very same demographic shifts.

It's this thought that makes the act of simple digestion an impossibility. I don't begrudge today's minorities a shot at the American dream, but I wonder what kind of country I'll live in in the sunset of my life with an irresponsible corporate citizen like Wal-Mart holding such vast retail power with tomorrow's majority. I shall continue to avoid shopping at Wal-Mart with every fiber of my being, but I'm beginning to realize that my little stand doesn't mean much now, and will mean even less going forward economically for the Walton family and their offspring.

Reinventing The Phone

2006-06-30T15:25:00.000-05:00

I just got a new cell phone. That in and of itself is not news, but man, do I ever have a phone now.

Between times when I'm not receiving phone calls, I can now take pictures and make 20-second films to my heart's content. In addition, I can download ridiculous ringtones that identify my friends. Thus far, I haven't truly taken advantage of this new toy, as it was hard enough just reprogramming all of my saved phone numbers into my new phone.

Despite the constant warnings of brain tumors and oncoming auto accidents which I'm sure to receive because of my new cell phone, I am enjoying the world without a wire. My wife and I haven't had a home phone in about three years now. We are a strictly cellular couple. Cell phones have increased my interest in talking on the phone. I hate the telephone as a rule. I always feel like the person on the other end of the phone is rolling their eyes and making masturbatory motions whenever I'm talking.

The art of conversation is one that's dying. My grandmother died at the age of 96 this past December. Now THAT was a lady who knew how to converse. There was many a time when I would sit down in her living room and talk about anything that possibly happened to pop up that day. With her unique view of the world, having lived through two World Wars, the Great Depression, the early days of aircraft and space exploration, Korea, Vietnam and virtually every important milestone of the 20th century, she could hold an audience like no one I have ever encountered before or since.

I can't find people like that anymore. With the death of conversation and letters to the birth of cell phones, text messaging and e-mail, true sharing of ideas has been abbreviated into incomplete sentences and emoticons to the point where nobody really bothers to think anymore. While I'm happy to be down to one cell phone, I do not converse via a happy face.

For now, I'm going to enjoy my new toy and think of those days when a chat on the front porch could teach you more about the human condition than can be gleaned in this world of ours nowadays. If you know me, feel free to give me a call. As long as the battery on my cell phone is charged, I'll have something to add to the conversation.

Thoughts on the NBA

2006-06-20T14:29:00.000-05:00

Today, Mark Cuban, the colorful owner of the Dallas Mavericks that several strangers have told me I resemble (I take this as a compliment; I happen to love Cubes) was fined $250,000 for telling officials who worked the Mavericks' game 5 loss to the Miami Heat what all of us already know; the officiating in the NBA sucks harder than an industrial strength vacuum cleaner!

In a posting on his blog this morning, Cuban took the Miami Herald to task for quoting him as having said that "the game is rigged". Cuban never said this, as he believes that even the thought of a conspiracy of that magnitude is an insult to the players in the NBA.

So I'LL say it. The NBA is second only to the WWE when it comes to artifice of competition. With their doctored draft "lottery", their star players never committing violations and the most basic rules of the game not being enforced, the NBA is quickly becoming a league that only Don King would be proud to operate.

A few years ago, LeBron James, an Ohio native, ended up being won in the NBA's draft lottery by the Cleveland Cavaliers. Cleveland, for those of you in the Red States, is located in Ohio. The whispers about the NBA's draft lottery being rigged were so prevalent last year that many NBA journalists predicted that the New York Knicks, currently the absolute worst team in basketball, would win the draft lottery to win back their fan base by use of a top college player. With many eyes on the draft, and the percentages of winning the lottery in their favor, the Knicks lost the draft lottery. This is in stark contrast to the 1985 draft lottery that mysteriously landed Patrick Ewing of Georgetown in the nation's biggest media market. I suspect that the weighted lottery that the National Hockey League operates under would remove the annual blanket of suspicion that cloaks the NBA's lottery. Thus far, NBA commissioner David Stern has not indicated that he would enjoy that route.

The NBA has a peculiar predilection towards protecting their star players. Unlike the NHL, which allows the players more often that not to settle things themselves on the ice, the NBA protects their marquee names by use of officials who call fouls on people who accidentally bump into/breathe in the direction of/look strangely upon the all-stars of the NBA. Pat Riley, the current coach of the Miami Heat, the team who is the latest recipient of official largesse, once referred to Michael Jordan as "His Majesty" in a press conference given after a game in which Michael Jordan wasn't whistled once for committing a foul. As we saw in Game 5, Jordan's mantle of Not-To-Be-Fouled has apparently been bequeathed to Dwayne Wade of the Heat, who had 25 free throws the other night, which is the exact number of free throws taken by the entire Dallas Mavericks team. Many voices suggest that the NBA wants to extend the finals to seven games to increase media attention and maximize revenues. What league wouldn't? And yet given that most NBA arenas are not filled to capacity on most nights, this theory can't possibly be far off the mark. If a few more million dollars can be made through creative use of the whistle in the NBA Finals, that certainly makes up for all of those empty seats at Atlanta Hawks and Philadelphia 76ers games.

When you play basketball, you are allowed to take two steps with the ball after completing your dribble before you have to shoot or pass the ball. This is the first thing I was taught as a 4-year-old child when a basketball was first placed into my age-abbreviated hands. Good luck finding this rule being applied to any player in the National Basketball Association. The basketball is in hands more than it's on the floor in any random NBA game. Now, I understand that the dunk has revolutionized the game, and that nothing gets a crowd up like the ol' Slam. Having said that, taking three steps in the lane in order to accomplish a two-second dunk highlight for that evening's SportsCenter is still illegal, according to the rules of the game. If the NBA isn't enforcing the most basic Naismith blueprint rule of the game of basketball, what sport am I watching?

It's truly a shame that the NBA has taken the sport of basketball down the theatre route. With some of the best players in the game now coming from Europe, China and Canada, basketball is on the verge of being a truly international sport in ways that American football and ice hockey can only dream about. When the most visible league on the planet representing the sport demonstrably alters the game for the worse, I've lost my reason to follow the sport. Instead of becoming a worldwide ambassador for a truly American game, the NBA follows an improvisational script that is quickly becoming the envy of Vince McMahon.

Hope

2006-06-20T02:02:00.000-05:00

Fear is an animal instinct based on glandular responses to a perceived threat. When the threat persists without actualizing into a real danger, or when the actualization of the danger creates an emotional imprint, one's behavior becomes continually influenced by fear. Habitual fear leads to paranoia, depression, and anxiety, flooding the body with chemicals which in excess become toxic. The destructive nature of this conditioned pattern is therefore an example of intoxication; like all forms of intoxication, it lends itself to distorted perception. And yet, is this not the normal human condition?
In dealing with this underlying theme of subconcious fear, it is common to overcompensate with an engorged ego that embraces the drama of one's situation, glorifying itself as the hero or martyr of a cosmic tragedy. It is therefore believed that one's suffering is either noble or unjust, and created by a vindictively hostile universe that holds a personal grudge. Even the premise that the universe is apathetic or unconscious is taken as an insult to the ego. The eternally futile drive for comfort and satiation is said to be fulfilled in either an imaginary afterlife or through winning enough prizes (material or spiritual) in this life, but neither belief ever fully quells the hidden fears and doubts inherent to humanity.
For what, then, can humanity hope? Why bother trying? The easy answer is a temporary high, acquired by seizing the day and living in the moment. But that is just a superficial fix. The deeper solution is to uncover the subconscious fears and make them conscious, acknowledge how they have shaped one's life, and confront the issue or situation that created them in the first place. This must be more than a mental exercise: the habitual patterns that rule one's emotions can only be released by being replaced, which requires disciplined reconditioning. Without this, hope is insubstantial and usually misplaced; with it, one's heart's desire can become known and eventually manifested.

Sick and Brutal

2006-05-28T02:35:00.000-05:00

Philosophers have been gassing for millennia about the meaning, purpose, and design of both humanity and the universe. Unable to face the evidence that logic, morality, and culture are human-made creations, proclamations of divine will and fate have been posited to justify our perpetually disfunctional civilizations and near-constant slaughter. The most honest, albeit still extremely flawed, explanation of our self-destructive historical cycles rely on the Darwinian proposition of survival of the fittest, which includes the concept of thinning the herd to ensure continuation of the species. Revolution, genocide, civil war, and imperial conquest are the more obvious facets of this process of "Natural Selection," granting debate points to the Napoleanic and neoconservative argument that God loves a strong military.
Leaving aside for a moment the fact that this attitude is based on the dogma of limited resources and lowered expectations, there is a more subtle and civilized form of this territorial sadomasochism that is a dominant theme in the most affluent and self-indulgent societies. The petty and frivolous beauty and popularity contests that give rise to celebrity worship are the heart and soul of the democratic process. Intelligence, pragmatism, and benign intentions will never be common among our leaders, not because there are no strong leaders with these qualities but simply because such qualities are essentially egalitarian. While the fact that equality is forever doomed to be unpopular may seem paradoxical, this is only because the vast majority of people never reach (much less acknowledge) their full potential. If we did, we would all be gods and goddesses. As it is, hero worship is much easier.
The other side of this is a devout refusal to see beyond preconceived notions of the worth of anyone else. We all exist in a soft pink fog of hormonally and environmentally defined aesthetics that severely limits both individual as well as international relationships. Who doesn't prefer a pretty face to talent? Who sees beyond their own lust to other's need for affection? Who doesn't put their own pride ahead of grace and humility? Sure, everyone has their moments. Nonetheless, the sad fact is that we carry at the level of our collective unconscious the eternal myth that nice guys finish last. It is as much a part of us as the pretense to righteousness.

Random Notes From The Sidelines

2006-05-10T12:21:00.000-05:00

As I enter the 11th day of life in my 40's, I have these observations to share:

With "conventional wisdom" putting Hillary Clinton at the top of the Democratic ticket, and our appointed president quoted today as saying his brother Jeb would make a "great president", I am struck by the fact that we had a revolution way back in the 1700's to avoid this kind of familial dynastic leadership. I am backing Russ Feingold for president. If Jesse Ventura runs, he gets my vote instead.
I hate Spring. I have seasonal allergies and a pathological fear of all things bug. If the Arctic Circle wasn't quickly becoming a freshwater ocean due to global warming, I'd gladly move there. As it stands, I am now in a holding pattern until next Autumn.
"American Idol" is nothing but Karaoke with vocal acrobatics. The best singers ever? In my opinion, Tony Bennett, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Cass Elliot, Karen Carpenter, Tim Buckley, Van Morrison, Sandy Denny, Spanky Macfarlane and Janis Joplin, and not one of them had to hit 20 different notes on one word. They were passionate and honest, the two elements that are lacking from every contestant on "American Idol". I only watch "American Idol" at the beginning of each season, when they jettison the awful singers to the netherworld of obscurity. This is a public service. The rest of the show and its contestants are completely disposable.
Keith Olbermann is the closest thing we have to a real journalist on television these days, proving my belief that all sportswriters should change places with all news writers immediately. I've never known a sportswriter who's been afraid to call someone on their bullshit. One can only hope that more sportswriters follow the lead of Olbermann and cross over to hard news.
Howard Stern has never sounded better than he does now on Sirius Satellite Radio, far away from the Puritanical witch hunters of the FCC, Clear Channel and CBS radio. We all scrathed our heads at this weird thing called Home Box Office way back in the late 1970's. Sirius is at the same point right now that HBO was back then. In 25 years, we'll have a good laugh at what is left on terrestrial radio, and I'll still be happy to pay the subscription fee.
My wife and I are now exactly two months away from the due date for our son. We finished the childbirth classes this past Monday (at last; no more talk about the cervix) and the baby's room and furniture are set up. Now, we need a baby, reliable day care and a car seat and we'll be set.
I suddenly find myself rooting for the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, now up 3 games to 0 on the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Semifinals in the NHL. This team is more balanced than I suspected, and they boast the best defenseman left in the playoffs in Scott Niedermayer. Besides all that, their coach, Randy Carlyle, played in the NHL without a helmet. I love those tough old guys.
A lot has been made about MySpace being Ground Zero for sexual predators. What the hell is the matter with parents today? Know your kid's passwords, know his/her online friends, watch over their shoulders and learn how to use a search engine to see what personal info is out there on your kids. The world is full of people who think nothing of perversion. The parents can spot these people a mile away. They should learn how to do it online as well. Still, I find it funny that Rupert Murdoch now owns MySpace. Mr. Fox News now runs a pedophile shopping mall. How ironic.
I have a show tonight in Milwaukee. I'll be sharing the stage with Craig Stoneman, one of my compatriots in the Milwaukee Area Songwriters Alliance. We'll hit the stage at The Art Bar - Riverwest at 9 PM. It should be a fun evening. Come on out if you can.

I have no other relevant observations to share at this point in time. I'm too busy trying to get my voice in shape for tonight. Let's see what happens tomorrow in this weird and wonderful world of ours.

Resolving the Problem of Evil

2006-05-02T02:00:00.000-05:00

I spent some time
Looking for the Problem of Evil,
Only to find that there was
No enemy anywhere to blame.
The belief in evil creates evil
And it exists nowhere else.
This is because All is One,
And there are no mistakes.
In fact, the universe is not only
A hologram, with each smaller
Aspect within it containing
All the intelligence
Of the whole system:
It is also fractal, which is to say
That no matter how small
The pieces get ad infinitum,
They always maintain the integrity
Of the whole system.
There is an undeniable
Universal intelligence
That contains all opposites
Including the lack of itself,
Or nothingness.
The drives for bliss, sex, power,
Love, communication, insight,
Even the drive for higher intelligence
Are all a lusting
For what we already have
And can never lose,
Not even in death.

The Birthing Class Conundrum

2006-04-24T11:57:00.000-05:00

I need to start by making this point. I am elated by the fact that my wife and I are going to have a baby (due date July 10th). Having built the last of the furniture for the baby's room this weekend (displaying what I hope to be the last outward expression of rage at an inanimate object for quite some time), I am looking forward to the day when we welcome our son to the world.
Which brings me to child birth education classes. I am in favor of this type of education, but what I thought would be an informative way to bring both partners into the birthing process is quickly becoming the Death March of the Cervix.
For six consecutive Mondays, Leslie and I are going to classes that last about 2 1/4 hours each. Tonight is week four. While I can't fault the information that is shared at these sessions, the length of time devoted to the discussion of the process of delivering a baby is roughly half a day I'll never have back.
I have a little bit of an advantage in that I used to do anesthesia billing and have a unique knowledge of pain control techniques. In addition, I have two children by my first marriage, so I've been through this before. I look forward to being there for my wife. I shall be as perfect a partner as I can possibly be, and I am of the realization that the information provided in these classes will be valuable to her. Having said that, I'm slowly getting bored.
I don't think it's the instructor's fault. She has tons of resources at her disposal, and she's presenting them as well as can be expected, but does all of this really have to last for over 13 hours of total time? The class is slowly reaching the point where it's ceasing to be informative and is slowly morphing into a review session. Three weeks of review sessions!
For Leslie's sake, I'll persevere. As for me, after the completion of this, I don't want to see another poster of an effacing cervix for as long as I live.

Member # 3

2006-04-20T16:13:00.000-05:00

It's official. There's no stopping this thing now.

I'd like to urge the internet community at large to please welcome Shaman Sam Morningstar. Sam is a philosophical hellion. Were it not for his quiet demeanor and lack of need for a spotlight, he would crush lesser minds in his path like a beer can under my size 12's. The Shaman now brings his considerable gifts for analysis to The Spencer File. Greet him warmly, but please, don't squeeze the Shaman.

Let The Games Begin

2006-04-20T15:48:00.000-05:00

I make no secret that I'm a hockey fan. Living in Wisconsin, which is, was and always will be Packer country, being a hockey fan is something of an anomaly. Granted, we have the University of Wisconsin, which pulled off an unprecedented two-fer this year by winning both the men's and women's NCAA hockey titles, but college hockey just isn't the same as the good old NHL.

I grew up in Philadelphia, which is Flyers country. I stopped rooting for the Flyers a few years ago when I finally realized that their GM, Bob Clarke ("Bobby", in his past life as a dirty hockey player) was ethically challenged on many fronts, and unapologetic about it. The Flyers haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1975, when Clarke was their captain, and they never will as long as Clarke and Ed Snider, their president-by-proxy courtesy of the Comcast Corporation, are pulling the strings.

It's been a relief being a fan of ice hockey in general, instead of being a fan of the Flyers and believing anything their marketing people spit out at their fan base. Thanks to the NHL Center Ice package, I hear a variety of announcers and see many more players play in the span of a year than the good ol' days of just watching Flyers broadcasts.

Which brings me to today, the eve of the most wonderful time of the year for a hockey fan. The NHL playoffs start tomorrow.

Due to a lockout by the NHL owners last year, I haven't seen an NHL playoff game in 22 months, when the Tampa Bay Lightning walked off the ice with the last Stanley Cup championship. The NHL is a different animal now. Once bogged down by defense-first trapping hockey that made the typical game look as slow and as painfully uninteresting as a soccer match in American Samoa, there are now two-line passes, limited handling of the puck by goalies, and a premium on skating, passing and scoring, which is what hockey ought to be in the first place.

While Tampa Bay is in the playoffs again this year, they are not a favorite to repeat. Their goaltending has changed, and they made it into the playoffs after the 81st game in an 82-game schedule. My favorite to win it all has to be the Detroit Red Wings. With new coach Mike Babcock, the Red Wings crushed just about everyone on their way to the best regular season record in the league, and they shows no signs of letting their foot off the gas. I personally will be routing for any team from Canada, a country I hope to live in one day after America gets through destroying itself under the policies of George Bush.

If you can find a bar that carries the NHL, this is the time of year where you see the best the NHL has to offer. If you can't, drop by my place and explore the magic world of commercials for Tim Horton's and Canadian Tire without ever leaving Milwaukee. If we're lucky, we'll get a quadruple-overtime game that ends at 2:30 in the morning as I'm finishing my 7th dark beer of the evening (one for each period).

The Vulture On The Cliff

2006-04-11T11:31:00.000-05:00

Eighteen days from today, I shall turn 40. Whenever a milestone like this is reached, it quite obviously begs for reflection, but in my current mental state of utter peace and prosperity, I don't want so much as to reflect, but to look at the many doors I've passed through in my life, close the ones I no longer have any use for and leave open the ones I hold most dear. The remainder of life's hallway contains doors not yet opened, the first of which has behind it my son, who's debut date is currently penciled in as July 10th. This may end up being a rather long post, and the reader will find out things about me that may be all at once surprising, disgusting and hilarious. Yet I feel the need to do this in order to go forward with a clear conscience. So here we go! I'll start with all the women I've known. Initials are used to protect the innocent:

To AB - My first love of my teenage years. I beg forgiveness for being an immature teenage boy and having no working knowledge of anatomy useful to a long-lasting relationship. You're a good person, I hope you're happy and I got better.

To AS - I dated you out of desperation, and I now laugh at our relationship. You were a hypochondriac and (if YOU are to be believed) a telekinetic. In short, you're nuts! I have written songs about how nuts you were. I heard from a mutual acquaintance that you now sell real estate in California. I think that's punishment enough. Thanks for something I can always bring up and laugh at when having conversations in a bar. I am truly stunned that I crashed two cars for you. What the hell was I on?

To SB - Sorry I couldn't converse very well with you mother. I've gotten better at that too. I hope you're happy since I last saw you in 1992. I got a song out of you too, but I never play it anymore.

To EB - What the hell was THAT all about that night after the movies? Thankfully, I hope we both got over that silliness.

To SA - Timing and my own rampant immaturity were our enemies. I apologize in the strongest possible terms for being such an insufferable prick during our relationship. Forget me! Please move on to someone who deserves you brains, your sense of humor and that heart on your sleeve.

To CS - I was nowhere near ready to settle down, and you're a great person. I think about you every February 29th (the day we first met). I miss the cats and your smile.

To SB (the other one) - The one that got away, but I realize now that that's all your fault. You enjoy the music, and I'll enjoy the memories.

To RW - Best of luck with that God thing. I've since moved on to other intellectual pursuits, but thanks for letting me see the bitter and judgmental side of Catholicism up close, so I never have to go anywhere near it again for as long as I live.

To X (the first wife) - I never really loved you. You happened to be there in a vulnerable time in my life after my grandmother died, and stupid me, I thought I saw some of her traits in you. I was WAY off!! You're an inveterate slob and carry upon you a sense of entitlement that you have not earned. That letter I left you about how I needed to leave you because I feared for everyone's safety if I stayed was true, for I have never met another person more worthy of a bludgeoning in all my life than you. I left our marriage for peace of mind, I found it, your opinion matters only to you, and God help the next sucker who finds his sorry ass in the orbit of you and your insane immediate family. OH, and uh, revenge is best served cold, and here it is, for all the world to see. In spite of you, I hope the kids are well.

To Leslie - Every day I have spent with you is better than the last. I find nothing but love, humor and peace by your side. I am honored to be your husband, and I shall be more honored to be the father of our son. Beauty is both spiritual AND physical, and my world turns all around you. My search is over. You inspire me every day to attain better heights for the two (soon to be three) of us, and I'll never get tired of doing just that. I love you.

Now, we move on to friends, past and present:

To CY - How's Florida? I hope you and your family are doing well. At least one beer I'll have over my birthday weekend will be to you, oh drinking buddy of my ever-distant past. I miss the hockey games, the Michael's Deli hoagies and Jane's Addiction through the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania. Stay well, and stop playing golf. It makes you look Republican.

To CD - The best musician I know. I hope your family (ALL of them) is doing fantastic. I miss your input when I write something ludicrous.

To TW - If JetBlue recovers, get yourself out to Milwaukee. I'll try to make it back to Pennsylvania one day in the future without throwing up. Thanks for being there in the best and worst of times. And, in memoriam, thanks to your parents and their house, the scene of more than one "February of Death". I'll talk to you soon, my friend!

To SW - Dude, pick one e-mail and stay with it! I know you're in greater Atlanta, other than that, I can't find your nomadic ass (or my waitress) with a geiger counter. Leave a comment, shoot up a flare, some goddamned thing!

To SG - Stay safe in greater Atlanta. I know you have friends over in Iraq and that you're really into GW's interpretation of America. I'm not, but I don't hold it against you. We've been through one Bowl & Driver League too many to quit now. Hope all the girls (including WG) are doing great. RAAAMMMOOONNNEE!

To PK - I never get replies from your e-mail address anymore, but thanks for opening my eyes to the secrets of true music and spirituality. You're a man of few words, but all of them carry wisdom and gravitas. Your contributions to me as a human being, as far as I am concerned, are of paramount importance, and I thank you.

To DH - I hope Vienna finds you well. It's been far too long since I signed on at the same time as you, but you're not forgotten. I hope A is doing well too.

To TH65 - Hey man! I haven't really spoken to you since we saw Robyn Hitchcock that night in Milwaukee. I hope Michigan is treating you well. I'll catch up with you soon.

To ?? - Thanks for joining the blog. The first post was just great. As soon as I turn a profit from this, I'll send you a check. Now that you have your first posting out of the way, when can I expect a gig in your town?

To MASA and all the erstwhile denizens of Club LeGrow - You people are just spectacular. You have made my stay in Milwaukee a great one so far, and with your blessings, I'll stay here for the rest of my life. I always anticipate the next get-together with great expectations, and I'm never let down.

I have no positive comments reserved for my immediate family, with the exception of my two sons. You are all a bunch of traitors and I hope you and X are happy, for you deserve each other. I live peacefully without you, and just so you know, I'm not reserving time in my afterlife for you either. I had enough of you while I've been alive, the only relatives I treasure are all dead and those of you who are still alive truly need to take a good strong healthy dose of Shut The Fuck Up, because I'm not listening anymore and no one really gives a damned about your hurtful and judgmental opinions. And you have the nerve to call yourselves "Good people"? Where the hell do you get off? The presence of you in my life literally made me physicially ill, and there's no rule book anywhere that says I have to just sit here and suffer at your hands. Please stay right where you are, which is Far Away.

To A & N - Your dad can't be there for this special time in your life. I have no clue what anyone has told you about me, but I'm not away trying to "figure things out", and I can't attempt to reenter your lives as long as your mother stands between us. Know that I am sending money to your mother every month to attend to your needs as you grow older. While I am not allowed to share all of the new and exciting things you are discovering in your life, it is hoped that you have inherited my curiosity and thirst for knowledge. It is best that you look beyond the comments about me that are thrown around by assorted members of the family and try as best as you can to see me as a human like any other; flawed, but basically decent. I never killed anyone or stole anything in my life (except for the occasional chord progression on guitar). Sometimes, people make mistakes. You can't help who your parents are, and this situation can't be easy for you, but your father knows he loves you, and at the end of the day, that is all that should matter. I'll reserve time in the afterlife to see you if the current barriers stay in place for the rest of this life.

And so ends my first half of life screed. As I pass the midway marker in the cycle of life expectancy, I wonder about the journey ahead. I think about the welfare of Leslie and my son, now 2/3 prepared to enter the physical world. I hope for the best for my two sons of the past. Most importantly, in these challenging times, I hope we all find a way back to sanity and true freedom, instead of this paranoid dictatorship in which we now find oursevles buried.

Doors have been closed, and important doors are left open. Time has marched at that one steady pace from my own debut during the Johnson Administration. I was born into a country fighting a war, in the words of Phil Ochs, "...lost before the war began". As I turn 40, what has changed? From the murders of MLK and RFK, to Kent State, to Nixon resigning, to the Energy and Iran hostage crises, to the murder of John Lennon, to ketchup as a vegetable, from the popguns of Grenada and Kuwait, to the monumental waste of Iraq, it doesn't seem like anything has truly changed since my birth. I hope the people of this land that I live in wake up soon to the horrors of our current leadership, and decide to fight back, and not just with words, but with action.

As for me, now it's time to see what else is in my hallway......

Calling All Hookers!

2006-04-10T18:02:00.000-05:00

Good evening! My, what a lovely audience we have here tonight. Let's give a big round of applause to our Master of Ceremonies, J.P.! Thanks for the fabulous introduction.

Now... for my first trick... er... blog, I will give insight to the inner workings of an Internet Whore Troller. In this scene I will be the Yahoo Messenger ID virgo_queengoddess and the Internet Whore Troller is lived by scotia_nova2000. Stop me if you've heard this one before:

scotia_nova2000: Hi, I am mark male 35 in canada, down on business for 4 days - april 18, . I was hoping to try somethign new, like meet a safe clean and hassle free female for intimate evening or maybe something a little hotter. I am clean safe respectful and very easy to be around. I am a professional and clean cut . but have a very naughty side mentally , if your interested. if you are will send your thoughtsHi, I am mark male 35 in canada, down on business for 4 days - april 18, . I was hoping to try somethign new, like meet a safe clean and hassle free female for intimate evening or maybe something a little hotter. I am clean safe respectful and very easy to be around. I am a professional and clean cut . but have a very naughty side mentally , if your interested. if you are will send your thou

Now generally I would just ignore such silliness, but today I felt compelled to answer:

virgo_queengoddess: what you seem to be looking for is a hooker. You should go that route. Less hassle.

Little did I know... this copy/paste master was paying attention:

scotia_nova2000: id rather the hassle - its safe clean and more interesting , it snot just the sex
scotia_nova2000: and i never evenr paye dof rit
scotia_nova2000: never paid for it
scotia_nova2000: and wont
scotia_nova2000: id rather have a nice diner and chat
scotia_nova2000: i cum off strong but really a nice converstion would be as fulfilling

Let me paraphrase... he's not just interested in sex. A lovely dinner companion would be equally invigorating. But I'm confused by something:

virgo_queengoddess: did you really just type "cum" instead of "come" and still expect me to believe that you'd be up for just a nice dinner?

I bet he has a good answer for that one:

scotia_nova2000: i have a naughty mind
scotia_nova2000: but i realy never get to explore it
scotia_nova2000: i am a curious soul

Ahhhh I see. His wife doesn't put out. Let's inquire about that:

virgo_queengoddess: your wife isn't into it, eh?
(Please note the "eh". He is Canadian afterall.)

scotia_nova2000: i am not married
scotia_nova2000: any more

SHOCKING! Wonder if that had anything to do with him trolling for internet whores?

I then ignored him. But he would not be so easily dissuaded:

scotia_nova2000: Hello , My name is George , I am 37 canadian and in Minneapolis april 18 -21
scotia_nova2000: how are you miss queen-goddess

Well! Lookee that! He has a new name and has matured by two years!

virgo_queengoddess: wow... and you're a split personality too? what a treasure!

scotia_nova2000: Your incredibly insiteful
scotia_nova2000: nice , woudl be refreshing having you accross a table enjoying a meal and conversation with

Damn! I'm so "insiteful"... I should, like, be a detective or something.

Let's wrap things up:

virgo_queengoddess: never gonna happen

scotia_nova2000: I am an aquarian
scotia_nova2000: does that explain it
scotia_nova2000: for u
scotia_nova2000: sorry i came across very rough
scotia_nova2000: i am actually clean cut safe and more reserved in person
scotia_nova2000: would you tellme about u

virgo_queengoddess: no

scotia_nova2000: my soul , no second chances
scotia_nova2000: hard on a man

virgo_queengoddess: listen, Mark/George... you're being utterly ridiculous, but if you do find a woman that will meet you then you will have indeed met the stupidest woman alive

scotia_nova2000: arnt vergos and aquarians a good match
scotia_nova2000: wow theres a brain in there
scotia_nova2000: it is george
scotia_nova2000: nice
scotia_nova2000: lets forget the sex crap
scotia_nova2000: i like the smart one called queen goddess
scotia_nova2000: ok you win
scotia_nova2000: no more pick ups
scotia_nova2000: but, your to appealing mentally to not continue
scotia_nova2000: may i say i am sorry
scotia_nova2000: an dbe so fortunate to start again on a more civil and appropriate path
scotia_nova2000: towards knowing you and an aquintence
scotia_nova2000: ?
scotia_nova2000: working hard here , some mercy is appreciated , my queen

virgo_queengoddess: you are relentless

scotia_nova2000:now that i sence you have a brain and a personality , its more appealing and i miss a conversation
scotia_nova2000: Yes i am when i feel somethign is worth persueing
scotia_nova2000: do u have a soft side some mercy for effort and persistance
scotia_nova2000: ?
scotia_nova2000: pls

virgo_queengoddess: not really... once a pig always a pig
virgo_queengoddess: often that works for me, but not in this case

scotia_nova2000: a queen with out mercy
scotia_nova2000: i am not a pig
scotia_nova2000: i just have a bad way at times when online
scotia_nova2000: its been a long time
scotia_nova2000: and separating gives some fredoms and and y way no excuse I am sorry , i am genuinely not a pig I do like sex alot but its been a while , I am sorry for me rudeness . will you forgive me
scotia_nova2000: ?
scotia_nova2000: Hell o

virgo_queengoddess: not enough begging in the world

scotia_nova2000: virgo are you home or work?
scotia_nova2000: what must i do for us to strat again

virgo_queengoddess: you should spend your energy elsewhere

scotia_nova2000: nope
scotia_nova2000: may i se eto hope i am being so persistant

truncated for repetitive begging and other bullshit... you get the idea

Damn... I let another one get away, didn't I?

Introducing.....

2006-04-06T16:35:00.001-05:00

In an attempt to bring forth a new and fresh perspective to The Spencer File, I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome our first team member, "lucidoll".
Because her posts will cast a net over a wide variety of topics, and due to the fact that some of her future posts will deal with contentious familial issues, lucidoll prefers to remain anonymous. Having been a fan of her sometimes erstwhile work, I am confident that the readers of The Spencer File will enjoy her observations and her humor as much as I have. Please join me in welcoming lucidoll to the team.

J. P.

Why Congress Needs Cynthia McKinney

2006-04-05T15:46:00.000-05:00

In the past two weeks, the blogs, mostly the racist, right-wing blogs, have been all afire about the detention of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of Georgia by Capitol Hill police.

The story goes something like this. Black Congresswoman in a hurry and without ID indicating she is indeed a Congresswoman, runs past a checkpoint on Capitol Hill. After being told three times to stop, the security officer grabs her by the arm. McKinney responds by identifying herself as a Congresswoman, but only after popping the guy one in the chest. Currently, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia is deciding whether or not to press charges against McKinney for assaulting a police officer.

The Republican Party, eager to redirect attention from their gross abuses of power, have jumped all over this story. Knowing that black support of the Republican party hovers around single digits (and falling), they have nothing to lose by scapegoating a black woman by introducing a measure on the House floor indicating support for the Capitol Hill Police.

McKinney is no friend of Republicans in the House. She was voted out of her seat in 2002 after spending the previous year stating for the record on the floor of the House that the Bush administration had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Two years and a gerrymandered black Georgia congressional district later, she's back, and she's out to kick some flatfoot ass. The Republicans and - by their absense at her news conference a few days ago - some Democrats would like nothing better than to see McKinney go back to Georgia permanently.

I, personally, want her to stay in Congress until her death, and here's why.

Every kingdom needs a court jester. Ever since Jim Traficant was convicted of racketeering and bribery and thrown out of the House of Representatives, there hasn't been someone you could laugh at in the halls of Congress. Oh sure, the Republican attempts to restrict lobbying are funny based on their sheer artifice at wanting to fix a problem that they happily created, but I'm talking about theatrical funny, like a Harpo Marx or a Ringling Brothers clown funny. I miss Traficant's shouts of "Beam Me Up!" whenever he took to the podium of the House regarding a topic he cared about. What he DID care about I never did get, but ah, those were the days.

Cynthia McKinney, with her wild hair, orange outfits and unchecked paranoia, fills the void I've felt since Jim Traficant and his toupee went to minimum security. Sure, she punches cops and spins wild tales, but isn't that what makes for great theatre? People need a reason to watch C-Span, because it's certainly not that entertaining or engrossing. On most days, it's the equivalent of a box of Somonex. With McKinney's penchant for uncontrolled outbursts of delusional thought, at least to this writer, Congress is interesting again.

Subpoenas, Lies & Videotape

2006-04-04T08:56:00.000-05:00

After all of the posturing and invective, it all came down to a videotape.

Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay announced via videotape this morning that he will be vacating his suburban Houston House seat and will not seek re-election in the fall. This is an election for which he has already won the Republican primary.

Was this because he is going into the private sector? No, because people under indictment usually aren't at the top of the list for private sector jobs. Did he want to spend more time with his family? No, as he will more than likely see the inside of a courtroom more often than the Delay clan in the coming months.

The reason he quit was political cowardice. Instead of suffering the indignity of losing an election based on TX-22's view of his shady dealings with Jack Abramoff and Co., he decided to take his political marbles and go home. He chose the "honorable" path of political suicide rather than see his seat, with him sitting in it, be turned over to a Democrat by the voters of the 22nd District. To demonstrate the point, he quit via videotape, thereby insuring that he never had to face the media and answer a question honestly.

For someone as haughty and arrogant as DeLay, it is indeed ironic that he chose, in the political equivalent of the 11th hour, to take the coward's way out. Apparently, the smile on his mugshot was not enough to convince the voters of his district that he has no character flaws.

I would be completely naive if I believed that Tom DeLay's PAC largesse towards the Republican Party is suddenly going to stop given this announcement. His videotaped message came very close to stating that it would be business as usual with regard to GOP fundraising, and that's a business that currently finds him squarely in Ronnie Earle's crosshairs.

In Need Of A Nice Cop In Milwaukee

2006-03-31T14:46:00.000-06:00

I personally don't have a beef with cops in general. Despite the fact that I believe that this particular profession tends to attract the power-hungry and, sometimes, the sociopathic, in general I thank the police in my city for keeping things moving at a pretty good clip.

My comments are directed to the obese moron in brown who was directing traffic this morning out on I-94.

Due to an accident, all traffic on 94 West was exiting onto Hawley Avenue (I know that to most of you who are not in Milwaukee, this probably means nothing; for that I apologize). I am of the realization that trying to block off three lanes of traffic and attempting to get different types of drivers to all suddenly take one exit is a daunting task, but would it hurt you to be nice?

I was trying to merge from the far left-hand lane over to the exit ramp. I was being cautious, as it was quite the mess. Out of nowhere, the cop directing traffic yells at me and tells me that I shouldn't be in the left lane and to, in his well-schooled vocabulary, "C'MON!!".

It is hard enough trying NOT to collide with other drivers, who were being courteous, but I have to listen to this glorified desk jockey throw a hissy fit because I'm not merging fast enough for his satisfaction.

When a cop needs to direct traffic, I look for one thing, and that would be a hand waving me towards my destination. I don't know who you are, oh Lord of the Interstate, but the next time you want to pull the Traffic Gestapo routine to feed your thirst for authority, pull it on your wife, if you're not already beating her or cheating on her with a prostitute who wants to "expunge" her recent arrest record. Absent that, pull it on someone who wants to put up with your attitude. In short, next time, wave your hand and keep your fucking mouth shut!

Boycott South Dakota!!

2006-03-07T10:58:00.000-06:00

Now that the "enlightened" citizens of South Dakota have decided to put doctors in jail for practicing medicine, I have a few suggestions to make this transition painful for the government and brainless citizens of a state known for presidents in rocks and Native American concentration camps, or "reservations", if you prefer.

First, don't go to Mount Rushmore. You can see pictures of it in virtually any respectable travel guide, and honestly, what the hell is exciting about four dead white guys on the side of a hill? If you want to see that, join the Army and go to Afghanistan. Odds are, if you play your cards right, you could be one of those dead white guys.

Second, lobby your state governments to pass legislation which states that your state will no longer do business with any company in South Dakota until this vile law is repealed. Republicans don't understand much, but they understand the dollar. If you take it away from them, they cry and whine and tell you how great things were in the 1950's, when America lynched black people for a bit of fun and women knew that their proper place was either in the home or in the alley with a coat hanger.

Next, I speak to the members of the medical profession not currently residing in South Dakota. It is imperative that you tell your colleagues in South Dakota that there are states in the union that will allow them to practice medicine freely and without threat of prison. Encourage doctors in South Dakota to leave the state. The state goverment in power in Pierre was sent there by a near-sighted electorate. It is my belief that their collective eyesight will change when they need a non-existent doctor for urgent medical care. Diabetes? Tough cookies! Your doctor left to treat people in a place where he/she is appreciated. Does Aunt Erma need a heart bypass operation? Well, too bad! I suggest your get ol' Erma a bottle of schnapps and a penknife and let her perform the operation on herself. Your daughter in Rapid City is having trouble delivering the demon spawn of the man who raped her? Bummer! Maybe if you treated OB/GYN's like dedicated health professionals instead of criminals, maybe one would be around to help her out with the delivery.

To all high school students looking for a university, look to a higher education system located in states other than South Dakota. Leave that state to the barbarians who run it and leave them out in the cold. Remember, a portion of your tuition dollar will end up in state coffers to house the incarcerated doctors South Dakota no longer respects.

To all Indian tribes currently running casinos in South Dakota, I suggest that you use the revenue to buy land in adjoining states and begin to make plans to leave. It's not bad enough that Jack Abramoff stole all your money for Tom DeLay's overseas golf outings, but now the state has okayed the rape of your daughters. Your people have been raped enough by the white man. Give 'em some of that back!

If you run into a seller on EBay from South Dakota, try to find a similar or identical piece of whatever it is you're looking for from a seller in a different state. This can be applied to any web business based in South Dakota. If the citizens of South Dakota felt so strongly about this law, then they shouldn't be surprised if I feel strongly about taking my business elsewhere.

It only takes small steps like these to starve these people out and make them see the error of their collective ways. There's only about 400,000 people in the whole state. Hell, more than twice that have died in Darfur alone and America hasn't even noticed. Since nothing of consequence ever happens in South Dakota anyway, it won't be as if camera crews will rush to take films of skeletons with skin in the Black Hills collectively starving from economic abandonment. With a little concerted energy, the new state motto of South Dakota will be "The Ignorance Of South Dakota Stays In South Dakota".

The Ten Dumbest Songs I've Ever Found Part II

2006-02-24T09:09:00.000-06:00

In part one of this post, I concentrated on deep album cuts that I had come across that I felt were so stupid that I couldn't believe anyone would spend the valuable studio time investment to save these songs for all eternity.

In part 2, I am going to be much more subjective. We have all come across songs on the radio that are musically disposable, for whatever reason. Yet in order to make my list, I wanted to focus on songs that not only are borderline terrible in the musical composition department, but contain lyrics that actually make the track worse.

Realizing that all music is subjective, there may appear on this list a song that you actually like. I wish I could say I'm sorry, but if I did I wouldn't mean it. In my humble opinion and with my well-traveled ears, these songs are dumb, and no amount of rerecording or tutoring will ever save them from the depths of stupidity in which they now languish for all measured time. So, with that in mind, let's start with an oldie, but a goodie:

"Dancing In The Street" - Various Artists - I have had discussions with people who truly like this song as a happy, celebratory song that makes them feel good. This song has been recorded by a number of artists, including Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, The Mamas & Papas (there they are again; what was John Phillips thinking?) and a particularly abysmal version by Mick Jagger & David Bowie from 1985.

I hate to break it to you, but this song is the epitome of stupid escapism and should never again be heard by human ears. The only type of event that would cause this kind of mass, communal dancing through the streets of all of the cities mentioned in the lyrics would be an oncoming nuclear bomb or chemical attack. Only we wouldn't call it "dancing". It's called a riot, and it's a BAD THING!

One last footnote: one of the cities mentioned is "Philadelphia, PA", a town where I once lived. How ridiculous is the assertion that Philadelphia would suddenly break into dancing? Well, dancing is prohibited by the Philadelphia Parking Authority in all parking lots prior to sports contests at the stadiums and arenas there. In reality, if a group of people start dancing in the streets of Philadelphia, the first reaction is to call 9-1-1 to get these idiots off the streets, or, failing that, a few sharp billy clubs to the back of the head. Philadelphia, PA indeed! This song needed a fact checker.

"Young Turks" - Rod Stewart - Ah, what would an article of musical criticism from me be without yet another pot shot at that legendary Acid-Throated Bard of All Things Mediocre?

Since 1974, we have had a LOT of musical crap from this one source. I am hoping that one day the powers that be give him a Lifetime Achievement Grammy inscribed with the words: "To Rod Stewart; ENOUGH ALREADY!". Until that day comes, his picture is on my mental dartboard.

There are a lot of truly stupid songs in the Rod Stewart "Canon", but "Young Turks" was dated, dumb and worthless a mere one day after first appearing on the radio in the early '80's. The main instrument in this song is one of those cheesy, Casio keyboards that were all the rage with New Wave bands of the time period. The story line of this song is a teenage couple who, acting on empty-headed impulse, run away from home. The song ends with the female half of the couple giving birth to a 10-pound baby boy. Way to encourage responsible behavior, Rod. Should we expect any less from someone who trades in the latest model he's nailing the moment she turns 30? If that wasn't bad enough, there's the chorus:

"Young hearts be free tonight

Time is on your side

Don't let 'em put you down

Don't let 'em push you around

Don't ever let them change your point of view"

Show me a teenager who is absolutely correct and set in his world view, and I'll show you a teenager with some form of mental disability. "Don't ever let them change your point of view"? Teenagers NEED a change in point of view. It's called pot, and they'll discover it in college. The National Institutes of Health has drawn a direct correlation between this song and a spike in teen pregnancies during the time period (well, not really, but I'd like to think so).

"Plush" - Stone Temple Pilots - My wife and I argue constantly about the merits of this band. To me, this song tells you all you need to know about how bad the results can be when a different record label is anxious to find an up-and-coming band with a similar sound to a band that has already hit it big. In this case, Pearl Jam had already made it, and Stone Temple Pilots were quickly pushed out into the world to be sound-alike pretenders to greatness.

Musically, there is just a bit too much of a similarity in sound between "Plush" and Pearl Jam's "Even Flow", from their multi-million selling debut "Ten". This song would be a bad idea if we stopped there, but then, Weiland (their lead singer; yea, like with his lack of talent and penchant for heroin, he earned the right to go by one name) put lyrics to this copycat song that may very well be the most incoherent and intelligence-insulting pile of fecal matter I have ever heard sung out of a human mouth:

"And I feel, I feel

When the dogs begin to smell her

Will she smell alone?"

Sorry to be profane, but what in the fuck does THAT mean? Stone Temple Pilots think so much of their lyrical abilities that they actually have the lyrics to this "song" currently posted on their website (Go ahead; they're there, I already checked). If I EVER write lyrics like this and show them to you, you have my permission to either bash my face in with a Louisville Slugger, send me to Bellevue or into rehab, whichever is most applicable at the time. The worst part of this song? It was a single TWICE, once electric and once acoustic, where you can actually understand the lyrics being sung. Why would a band do that with lyrics like these?

"All You Zombies" - The Hooters - Sweet Jesus, where do I begin?

I lived in Philly when The Hooters broke into the Great Beyond of airplay in the early '80's. I had to hear different incarnations of this song on local radio a full THREE YEARS before the rest of the country. Pity me. I'm still in recovery. I can barely get through "Night Of The Living Dead" without an indirect zombie flashback to this song.

After all this time, I am wondering what was so compelling about the Book of Exodus that it needed to be turned into an ersatz reggae power ballad. Worse yet, what the hell does Moses delivering his people from Egypt have to do with zombies? Note to Rob Hyman, Hooters lyricist: When attempting to write a political statement in song, draw a clear parallel between the point you're trying to make and the story you're telling. I don't get it. NO ONE gets it. Never sing about zombies again!

Footnote: My wife and I are viewers of VH1 Classic. Lately they have had a very nice program called "Pay To Play", where you can pay for a certain number of videos based on the size of your donation, with all of the proceeds going to Hurricane Katrina relief. We were watching it recently and at the top of the hour, the VJ is announcing who sent money in to see their favorite videos that were about to be played. The final name she said was "...and Eric Bazilian of Bryn Mawr, PA". I immediately recognized this name as being the guitarist for The Hooters, which was funny, because the VJ didn't seem to know who he was.What happened at the bottom of the hour? Three Hooters videos played back-to-back, beginning with "All You Zombies". It has truly come to this; The Hooters' music is so poorly regarded 20 years later that the only way you can hear it is for the members of the band to PAY to have it played. Unfortunately, Eric was a co-writer of the next song on the list, so the royalties he has earned may buy a lot of crappy music on your airwaves. Hopefully, VH1 Classic's program has been a success and can be ended as soon as possible to avoid this kind of whoring by washed-up musicians from my hometown.

"God" - Joan Osbourne - As if the madness of The Hooters in the '80's hadn't left a bad enough taste in all of our collective mouths, good ol' Rob and Eric kept writing songs together, resulting in this all-encompassing bowl of dried rhino snot disguised as a musical statement. Lyrics?

"Yea yea, God is great

yea, yea, God is good

yea, yea, yea, yea, yea

What if God was one of us?"

If you change the vocal inflections while singing these lyrics, it could very well sound like a 14-year-old boy beating off to the Bible. Was there really a need for this kind of statement?
I have never met a single person in my ever-expanding circle of acquaintances who actually likes this song, which, based on the model of the previous song on the list, leads me to believe that Rob and Eric had to have paid someone to break this compost pile of a composition to a wider audience. I truly think that this is a case where a video with a chick with a nose ring had more to do with the popularity of the song rather than any compelling merits of the song itself. I have to hand it to Rob and Eric. If you're going to write a dumb and pointless song that may not go anywhere, have a circus midget, a bearded lady or (if available) a chick with frizzy hair and a nose ring to record it. What's the old axiom? People are so scared of the Yankees because they're dazzled by the pinstripes. This song may be the most successful example of "bait and switch" ever inflicted on an unsuspecting and drooling public at large. Nice going, boys!

And thus ends my list. Add or subtract where you like, but these are the dumbest songs I've ever found. I am not so jaded as to think that dumber songs will not be created in the future. Rest assured that if it enters my ears, you and the composers will both hear about it in the strongest language possible.

The 10 Dumbest Songs I've Ever Found

2006-02-13T10:16:00.000-06:00

Before I begin to catalog songs under this posting's heading, I feel that I need to come clean; I am quickly becoming an anachronism.

I do not yet own an IPod, and I have no plans to do so. I am a firm believer in the power of the album. I believe that ANYONE can catch lightning in a bottle once in their life, and that everyone probably has one good song in them. Having said that, the elevation to musical deity only happens when someone fills an album with more than one song you want to hear over and over.

Which brings us to this list I've compiled, Because I spend a lot of time listening to full CD's (dare I ask...remember those?) by artists I have come across, I have discovered songs that are fantastic that most people have never heard. On the other hand, I have discovered a lot of what is called "Filler", as in "We only have eight songs; can you come up with two more to flesh out the whole record?"

Most filler is harmless; average musical compositions that have mass, take up space and are easily bypassed by hitting the skip button on your CD player. Beyond that first line of filler are usually tracks that are of the Ed Wood variety. These songs are so dumb that you can't believe that ANY recording studio actually was reimbursed time to commit such a laughable atrocity to all posterity.

Because of my listening habits, virtually all of these tracks will be unfamiliar to you, which - trust me on this one - is a good thing. I consider this article as part of my community service sentence; I listened to them, so you don't have to.

"Spontaneous Apple Creation" - The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown - Arthur Brown was known for another song that appeared on his first album, the psychedelic nugget "Fire" ("I am the God of Hellfire, and I bring you.....Fire"). I put this song first because as much as I revel in the music of the psychedelic era, I am of the realization that there was a lot of very silly music on a lot of full-length albums of this time period. "Spontaneous Apple Creation" is one of the more egregious examples of this. The music track features a picked upright bass intro, what sounds like a xylophone, a Hammond organ and some kind of watery flying sound in the middle of it. The lyrics? Judge for yourself:

"...what could save mankind from man
when the blind, the blind overran
down from all this confused devastation
Came the great Spontaneous Apple Creation"

OK, I've smoked grass, and I don't even get that one. The funniest part of this is that Arthur Brown's first album was co-produced by Pete Townshend and Kit Lambert, the brains behind no less a masterpiece than "Tommy". How do things like this happen?

"Love and a Muscle" - The Northern Pikes - In 1988, I was listening to WIOQ in Philadelphia, a few months before it became a white rap station and I abandoned it forever. WIOQ was what we would call an Adult Alternative station today. Back then, they hadn't even thought of a label for what they played. On their playlist at the time was a song called "Things I Do For Money" by a band from Canada, The Northern Pikes. One afternoon, they were giving the band's album, "Big Blue Sky", away to the seventh caller, and I won. Upon receiving the CD in the mail and listening to it, I soon regretted that phone call. While "Things..." was an ok track, the rest of this album was so chock full of garbage as to go down in my personal history as one of the top three worst albums I ever heard beginning to end.

You would think that with so many awful tracks on one album that picking one that was worse than all others would have been a difficult task. Unfortunately, one listen to the song "Love And A Muscle" ended all debate.

I have absolutely no idea what this song is about as far as a story line, but the unforgettable first verse is its reason for inclusion on this list:

"She has a muscle
She has a muscle
She has a muscle
Flex it, Flex it, Flex that muscle"

When I'm out of fart jokes, I quote this verse at parties in my best poetry-reading voice. Notice that it stands below fart jokes in my sliding scale of Amusing. I think that tells you all that you need to know. If it was only a matter of the lyrics being dumb, I probably wouldn't have remembered this track, but the lyrics are paired with one of the worst trainwrecks of musical song structure ever committed to CD. Thankfully, this band never recorded a follow-up. Unfortunately, I'm left with the memories.

"Twist And Shout" - The Mamas And The Papas - Part of the charm of The Mamas & The Papas was the fact that they reinterpreted songs from the early '60's in the folk rock vein. This works marvelously when they covered "Dedicated To The One I Love", and I prefer their version to the original. When they covered "Twist And Shout", the revered Isley Brothers/Beatles classic, it was an absolute failure and a stupid idea. Denny Doherty sings lead on a song that requires a quick tempo, but was recorded as a slow dirge by one of my favorite vocal bands. No amount of perfect harmonies could save a song that is a straight rock and roll song recorded as a ballad. As the Beatles and the Isleys do it, I really like this song. This stands as John Phillips' worst production idea.

"Mona Bone Jakon" - Cat Stevens - I'll freely admit that Mr Stevens (Mr. Islam?) had a number of great songs, and the album of the same title that this song comes from contains some of his best work, such as "The Wind", "Trouble" and "Katmandu". And yet, in the middle of this admittedly great album is a major hiccup. I put this song on the list remembering that Elvis Costello was once quoted as saying that he didn't like to name his albums after a song on the album because he felt it put too much pressure on that song to be the best song on the album. "Mona Bone Jakon" may be the worst song that is also the title of the album that holds it. This one is a real headscratcher, because Stevens was in his songwriting prime at this moment in time. In the midst of songs that became legendary came this lyrical mess of ersatz acoustic folk blues. The opening lines?

"I've got a Mona Bone Jakon
But it won't be lonely for long"

Not only does he set a scene of us not knowing what the hell he has, but then he turns around and tells us that whatever it is he has is lonely. Sure, it's easy to think that he's singing about his schwantz whenever someone sings about anything containing the word "bone", but I find it hard to believe that any man, even in his most drunk and primitive state, would name his penis "Mona". Just ask that dear old friend between my legs, Cousin It.

"Warrior" - Wishbone Ash - And while we're on the subject of bones, I present this relic of rock's Progressive Era. Wishbone Ash was one of those "music for your head" bands like Yes, ELP and early Genesis, only not nearly as good. When I heard this song for the first time, I figured that this had to be one of the main bands that inspired Spinal Tap. I once tried to drag my wife to see this band (yes, they still tour; scary audience) at Summerfest here in Milwaukee a few years ago. She dragged us away after five minutes to go see Ben Folds instead. She hasn't forgiven me for the lousy seats we had for Ben folds because we showed up late.

"Warrior" was part of a suite of 6-minute fantasy medieval story songs from one of Wishbone Ash's records. Progressive era bands were known for this kind of Dungeons & Dragons-type lyrical sillyness, but of all of the ridiculous songs from that era covering this subject matter, "Warrior" stands out as the most bloated and juvenile. Here's a lyrical sample, straight from what seems to be a 15-year-old males's first diary:

"I had to be a warrior
A slave I couldn't be
A soldier and a conqueror
Fighting to be free"

The music that accompanies this chorus fits these extremely silly fist-tightening lyrics to a tee, as the power chords accompany the whole band singing these words in mock-battle anger mode. "Sex Farm Woman" anyone?

This will be a blog post in two parts. Coming up in Part 2, some more visible entries from some surprising sources. Stay tuned.

The Way Of The Voice

2006-01-16T15:05:00.000-06:00

I haven't been regular at this particular sight in quite awhile, so I thought I'd just add a quick note about the human voice.
I have had discussions with people in the past about what constitutes a good voice and what constitutes a bad voice. To me, a good singing voice is one that is honest. At first listen, we may not enjoy the voices of Bob Dylan, Mark E. Smith of The Fall or Robert Smith of The Cure, but upon repeated listening, we realize that this kind of singing, while not technically perfect, has at the very least captured the spirit of what makes for good vocals.
Conversely, we have the Mariah Carey problem. Mariah Carey is the Musical Riddle of the Sphinx; suppose you had the greatest voice in the world and didn't know how to sing? Verbal gymnastics get old fast, as they are usually masking lyrics that have no metaphysical or spiritual meaning.
So bring on the Captain Beefhearts of the world, bury the Whitney Houstons deep in the ground, and just give me something honest and compelling.

Laura Nyro; now THAT was an honest singer!

So Long Gene McCarthy

2005-12-18T23:56:00.000-06:00

I like the role of iconoclast. I believe that the fundamental difference between an iconoclast and a nihilist is that an iconoclast will suggest a solution, whereas a nihilist is mostly just talk without action.
One of my favorite iconoclasts died this past week. Eugene McCarthy died at the age of 89 years old. He ran for president a total of 5 times, only two of which were serious, and one of those - 1968 - ended up toppling a president and self-immolating the Democratic Party in ways that it still struggles with today.
My role is not as a history teacher, so the story of Eugene McCarthy's ill-fated 1968 presidential campaign is better left to someone who can tell it thoroughly (if it's possible to tell the story of 1968 without a little part of the relator dying inside). In this time of supreme falsehood, where we have a president who feels it necessary to spy on his own citizens to "protect America", I am struck by how few true iconoclasts are left among us under the age of 80. In my lifetime thus far, we've lost Hyman Rickover, Buckminster Fuller, Abbie Hoffman, John Lennon, Frank Zappa and now Eugene McCarthy.
What made McCarthy unique was his penchant for taking on the system from within. As has been the case far too often in history, those that try to reform the system from within usually become political martyrs. Sadly, McCarthy was martyred to a senator from his own state. This may have been the unkindest cut of all in Eugene's political life.
They have already named buildings across the land for Hubert Humphrey. That's what happens to people who happily sacrifice their morality to the system with artifice and bombastic language that is saved in small shreds on a plaque. There will be no stadiums or government office buildings or rotundas for Gene McCarthy. The honest man who fights the good fight in the common tongue and fails never gets a monument. If they did, every bridge in America would be named for Woody Guthrie. What the honest man gets is a historical footnote. The contemporaries who outlive the iconoclast usually can be found shaking their heads in confusion, and yet finding nothing but good things to say about the iconoclast when he or she is brought up in polite conversation.
The path of the iconoclast is a brave one, and history has shown that it's usually the right one, but that is only discovered through the perfect window afforded by the passing of time. Eugene McCarthy died knowing that in the case of the Vietnam War, he had it right. Who among us knew from the very beginning that America's latest misbegotten episode in the Mesopotamian Desert was a mistake? If you know someone, like me, who had it right all along, encourage them and nurture that person. The world is coming apart at the seams. In the times we now live, consisting of such total ineptitude among those who lead, celebrate the iconoclast, for the need for such individuals grows more dire with each passing day.

SO........

2005-10-10T12:35:00.000-05:00

Anyone else notice that I've been missing for roughly 7 months?

It's not that I've been missing so much as I've been busy settling into my new life at the new house in Milwaukee.

Currently, I'm looking for a new job, with 2 interviews this week. Wish me luck.

Also, I may be shutting this blog down and starting one on MySpace. It's easier to operate and MySpace doesn't ERASE A 10,000 -WORD POST YOU JUST TYPED DUE TO SERVERS NOT COOPERATING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT (HINT HINT).

Now you know the REAL reason I haven't been back here. I do have an urgent need to begin writing again, or shall I say creating in general. And it sounds like the trash truck is blocking me in from getting back to work right now (This is a lunch hour post). Must go spend my future children's inheritance on gas money now.

2005-03-16T22:11:00.000-06:00

The time has come to tell you all of an ending and a beginning....

On March 7th, Leslie and I flew out to Las Vegas to make a good, solid week of it. I know there are people out there who like Las Vegas, but I find the whole city exhausting. The traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard ("The Strip") is horrible currently, especially in front of Steve Wynn's new 2.7 billion-dollar (yes, BILLION) hotel which isn't finished yet. The hotels are monuments to themselves, as vain and plastic as the many Californians who make a quick weekend of Las Vegas on a regular basis. Because Las Vegas is a boomtown, you can spit and hit a crane. Something is being built virtually every moment of every day. Going hand in hand with that, because this is the gambling capital of the United States, if you look hard enough, you can find something - or more to the point, someone - that is simultaneously being destroyed. It is a city of extremes like no other I've ever visited in this country.

Leslie and I journeyed there with happiness in mind. We caught a flight out of Milwaukee on Frontier Airlines, an overly cute carrier featuring adorable rabbits, bears and wild cats on their tail wings and pilots and flight attendants who go out of their way to crack jokes right before takeoff. I don't mind this approach. If an enormous jumbo jet is going to plummet into the side of any given Rocky Mountain causing widespread destruction and a fireball rivaled only by Nagasaki, go down laughing. This almost made up for the fact that the snacks they offered being subpar. I'll stop now before I pontificate on the subject of their pay TV service.

After catching a connecting flight in Denver, we landed in Las Vegas on Monday afternoon. We had decided to rent a car to get around town for the week. As my inaugural rental in the Hertz #1 Club, they "upgraded" me to a Ford Escape, a smallish SUV that boasted abysmal gas mileage and a rather irritating repeating reminder that my seat belt wasn't fastened. For the balance of the week, I fastened the seat belt to itself and twisted it behind my seat. I don't wear seat belts. When I was younger, I hit a stone wall, spun around, hit a utility pole and flew out the back windshield head first. Luckily, I was thrown from the car, because it was crushed. I haven't worn a seat belt since that night, and I won't. And THAT is how I stick it to the man!

We stayed at the Las Vegas Hilton, former home of Elvis and current home -much to our mutual horror - of Barry Manilow. The absolute worst part of our stay in the Hilton was their insistence on playing Barry Manilow's songs in every square inch of the hotel as often as humanly possible. After three days of being pummeled by Manilow's syrupy odes, I felt like a fat, gassy Yenta. Leslie and I are still recovering from the sonic onslaught. On our trips to the Hilton pool adjacent to the 3rd floor of the hotel, we sunbathed and swam in the shadow of a banner on the side of the hotel featuring an 80-foot visage of Barry Manilow, as if we could stand the 6-foot version. The hotel also featured a Barry Manilow store, where you could purchase handbags and t-shirts that proudly displayed the bearer's love of all things Barry. As I passed this store daily on the way to the parking garage, I longed for a flame thrower.

Our room was on the 26th floor, and looked out on the mountains surrounding the city. I was amazed at how these enormous land masses just disappeared every day after the sunset. It was refreshing to have something natural as a view from the window. The king size bed in the hotel room had upon it a mattress pad which did not quite fit the bed or the mattress and made a nightly sojourn up my butt crack as a result. ..

(to be continued 3/16/05 11:25 PM CST)

2005-03-03T23:43:00.000-06:00

Usually, I like to reserve this space for short stories, opinion and some of my songs, but I was inspired to write about something very special that happened to me this evening. Think of this is need be as a "male mea culpa", as I really don't know what else to call it.
As an American heterosexual male, I've always been physically attracted to women. It's hard to talk about this in anything but sexual terms, because, as any woman knows, testosterone often intercedes on behalf of true emotional connection. Having said that, I've always made the typical male mistake of mistaking physical attraction with emotional attachment. This has led me down a lot of incorrect trails in my life.
I came home from work today and fell asleep at about 5 PM. I slept for about four hours. In the interim, Leslie came home and accomplished some tasks while I was sleeping. Because of the type of work she does, she often tires early in the day, and at 9:15 tonight, she came to bed. I snuggled with her for just short of an hour as she fell asleep. Usually, when we snuggle together, the blood rushes to my waist, with obvious physical consequences. Tonight, something happened to me that has never happened before. As I held Leslie, I felt what could only be described as the purest form of love I've ever felt for another human being. As I held her in my arms, I felt my arms, hands, legs and chest melting into this beautiful human being, and I could only feel happiness. The best thing about it all, and this is the strange part, is that Leslie fell asleep, and didn't even realize how I felt.
Two Sundays from now, Leslie and I are getting married. Our journey to this point hasn't been easy by any stretch of the imagination, and we both realize that many hurdles still present themselves to us. Holding Leslie tonight gave me such an intense feeling of piece of mind and heart that I know that I'm doing the right thing. It's always been tough for me to picture my life after 40. When I think of Leslie, or hold her, or see her smile, I know that this is the person I'll grow old with, and THAT is the basis of my life going forward. I hope everyone else in the world finds that kind of happiness.

2005-02-24T16:36:00.000-06:00

CONCERT REVIEW
Paul Thorn
Jen Chapin
Shank Hall, Milwaukee, WI

Ah, another night at Shank Hall taking in the music and the Guinness with Lovely Lady Leslie.

Let me first start off by saying that it is indeed ironic that I am about to write a lengthy posting about seeing a musician that hails from the deepest of Red States whom I actually admire. Two postings ago, I ripped Red Staters a new one about the hypocrisy of their moral values argument, but I believe that the best kind of music, when used properly and with great care, should bring people together.

Which brings us to last night's Paul Thorn show at Shank Hall. Thorn, from Tupelo, Mississippi, brings the colorful journey that is his life in story and song. I first caught him with a full band at last year's edition of Summerfest here in Milwaukee, and he impressed me immediately. His between song banter, although I was hearing quite a bit of it last night for the second time, adds an engaging dimension to his songs (all of which are available on Back Porch Records). This former tent revival singer, boxer and chair factory worker brings honesty-something in short supply in the current climate of recorded music- to his audience with his songs that touch mostly on gospel and blues. Thorn was alone with his acoustic guitar last night, and his songs lost nothing without the presence of a full band. It is rare these days that I can say that. I hope that Paul Thorn comes back to Summerfest this year. He goes so well with beer. If he comes to your town, check him out. You won't be disappointed.

Opening the evening was Jen Chapin, a singer/songwriter from Long Island who blends a jazz feel with quasi-poetic lyrics under a fairly strong voice. Chapin was helped out by Stefan Crump on upright bass (I hope I spelled his name correctly) and Jamie Fox on lead guitar (no, the other one). I was impressed by the musicianship of Crump and Fox, with Fox sounding quite a bit like fellow New Yorker Bill Frisell. Some of Chapin's lyrics were somewhat painful to listen to, with many lyrics crowding out any melody that she tried to get going. Her lyrical ideas more often than not went too far afield and distracted from some fine melodies underneath. With less pretention and more focus, Chapin could be a force to be reckoned with given the lineup she's sporting. What a shame.

2005-02-21T22:43:00.000-06:00

First Warren Zevon, now this...

Hunter Thompson committed suicide today. Unfortunately, I can't say that I ever met the man. I've read almost all of his books, and caught his recent articles on espn.com.

As I read his final article last week, a typical offering about calling Bill Murray in the middle of the night about designing a new game that combined shooting and golf, I thought to myself that in this most horrible of times, in this cesspool of a country, where the will of the masses is being trampled by Bible-waving, redneck sheepfuckers in Red states, at least I can count on something. At least Hunter's still got it.

Is this the end of all hope as we know it? Did Armageddon not mention four horsemen, but rather a chemical-tinged scribe biting the dust by his own hand, that ushers in the end of the world? As the lemmings in America bumrush to the edge of that cliff like a Depression-era bank run, the wreckage of 9/11 behind them and fading in the distance, the carrion-like smell of rotting soldier's corpses from a needless war lining their path, with a cocaine-addled fratboy leading them, rattling the Ten Commandments in one hand and a tattered flag in the other, it is the duty of those people still left in America with a conscience to celebrate the pioneering spirit of the American Outlaw that Thompson represented to the literary community. Instead, all we get is an acceptance of voter theft, surveillance of our every move on highways both of information and automobiles and a blank check for big business to poison us all slowly, like an IV drip of Jonestown Kool-Aid.

Thompson represented the last of the writers influenced by the Beats, celebrating a time on America when you could jump in a car and drive the long, dusty, undeveloped highways, the wind in your hair, a drink in your hand and only the faintest notion of a destination. It was a time when only J. Edgar Hoover's FBI had you under surveillance and only then if you were a rabble-rouser, rather than every paranoid Christian freak on the street. There were no cameras at intersections, there were no Wal-Marts polluting the landscape and the signs hanging over businesses in any town were either neon or hand-painted. Hunter Thompson putting a bullet in his head is the ultimate sign that America can never hope to recapture the freewheeling spirit that it still futilely markets to the rest of the world. America is officially lost in a morass of gun violence, depravity and false gods in cheap suits. There is nothing left to conquer in this country. There is no hope for a brighter tomorrow on the other side of the hill. Manifest Destiny is just a buzzword for that cliff that the lemmings climb a little more every day. Goodbye America. It was fun while it lasted.

2005-02-13T13:11:00.000-06:00

The New Reality: Blue Props Up Red

It has been over 3 months since the semi-believable results of the 2004 Presidential elections have been foisted on the American people and one question remains:

Where's General Sherman when you need him?

We are told by the media at large that the reason the Republicans won the majority of the votes in the 2004 election was because of something they keep calling "moral values". Let us set aside for a moment the fact that the American media seemed more concerned about fair elections in the Ukraine than in the United States in the last three months, despite overwhelming evidence that Diebold fixed this election for the Republicans in at least Florida and Ohio. Let's take a closer look at this "Moral Values" argument.

Let's start this analysis with these questions. Choose either Red States or Blue States as your answer:

1) Who has the higher rate of divorce and out-of-wedlock pregnancy?

2) Who ranks lower in education?

3) Which part of the country is the home to more predatory corporations (predatory corporations being defined as companies who routinely make it a practice of abusing their employees, either through reductions in basic benefits or not paying for overtime)?

4) Which part of the country has the higher percentage of depraved guests on "The Jerry Springer Show"?

If you selected Red States for all of the above answers, you obviously live in a Blue State. Unfortunately for you, you'd also be 100% correct. I say unfortunately because the latest studies of who gets more government benefits per tax dollars spent has Red States at the top and Blue States at the bottom. The undisputable conclusion drawn from this analysis is that those of us in the educated part of the country are propping up our so-called "moral superiors" in the Red States with our hard work, educated minds and - more than anything else - our tax dollars.

How is it that Red States, with their focus on Old Testament punishment and racist symbols such as the Confederate Flag, take the moral high ground from those of us who actually lead productive lives and have the nerve not to stand on street corners and proselytize?

Red States are afflicted by an inferiority complex. The North beat the South in the Civil War, The North had to come down and teach white Southerners how to be tolerant of people who weren't white Southerners, the biggest claim to fame of Dallas, Texas is the murder of an American President in broad daylight in 1963 (which has led in time to Dallas' women wearing more makeup per capita than women in any other city), and places like our vice-president's "home state" of Wyoming have shown what kind of tolerance they have for people of different sexual orientations . With a track record like that, you'd do anything to rally the ignorant masses at your disposal and try to recapture some kind of high ground. What better way than that tried and true anesthetic that we in the reasoning Blue States call Religion?

Our current president loves playing the Bible card, and having slept with half of the women in the South while he was drinking and snorting coke in the '70's gives him a unique window into the nature of the people who vote for him blindly. The most evil of manipulators know exactly which buttons to push. Our president-and mainly his handlers- know the buttons well. Those that use moral issues love to talk a big game in terms of superiority to those of us who choose not to prop up charlatans like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. The problem, as we see by the current moral, economic and environmental decay of the Red States, is in the follow-through of all of those well-stated -if not well-practiced- beliefs.

So for those of you in Red States, you'll have to excuse those of us in the Blue States for laughing at you when you claim moral high ground. Statistics don't lie, and when it comes to hearing you pat yourselves on the back for being "better" than we are, you would do well to learn that talk is cheap.

2005-02-10T23:33:00.000-06:00

Fanatic

The crowd was only now beginning to build for the concert, but Jenna Quinn had been here all day, braving the biting January chill from just after Noon. She didn't seem to mind, as the severe cold took her mind off her left hand. Standing outside reminded her of the day she bought tickets to the show. She had arrived three days prior to tickets going on sale in order to be the first in line. On the first night she was in line, the police had actually shown up to ask what she was doing there,

"I'm waiting in line for concert tickets", she said, which was an odd statement given that she was the line at that point in time.

"Who's coming?", the cop asked, thinking it to be someone famous.

"Miles Roberts"

"Who?"

Rather than be frustrated with the cop not knowing who Miles Roberts was, it made her happy. That was one more person who wouldn't stand in the way of her someday forever being with her idol.

Jenna could still remember the first time that she heard Miles Roberts' voice singing just to her. She was up late one night. She had just finished studying for the night and a thunderstorm outside her dorm room window was not allowing for sleep. She grabbed her portable radio and looked for something to drown out the thunder. She was used to hearing the latest hits of the day, but she was looking for something a little quieter to help her sleep. She began to turn her radio dial to the left. It had almost run out of room when a voice pierced the darkness of her room. After hearing one line of Miles Roberts' song "Natural Love", a bolt of lightning lit up the walls of her room. She kept listening to his voice in front of a lovely , flowing piano accompaniment as if listening to the voice of God himself, her pupils and her heart dilating in unison as her head rested on her pillow. When the song ended, another song by someone else followed it, and then another, and yet another. She wondered if she would ever find out whose voice it was that had made her feel this way. At last she heard the DJ's voice deliver words that would change her life forever.

"...and before that we heard Miles Roberts from his debut album 'Night Songs', and that was 'Natural Love'.....".

She jumped out of bed and scrambled over to her desk. She fumbled in the darkness for the switch for the lamp on her desk, grabbed a pencil and paper and wrote down what she had just heard. She promised herself that she would find this album at all costs, which was strange for her, as she usually wasn't given to buying music on a regular basis. She somehow knew instinctively that this album would be something she needed to hear.

After classes the next day, she ran into her friend Tanya, who had a car, and convinced her to drive to the CD store in town. She asked the clerk if they had the Miles Roberts record.

"I'm not sure. It would be in 'ROCK' if we have it", the clerk said. Chain store CD clerks were always worthless when it came to information.

She went to the R's and frantically looked through the rack. She found it right in front of a reissue of Rockpile's "Seconds Of Pleasure". The cover had Miles Roberts' picture on it, with his name across the top, and the words "Night Songs" ethereally drawn at the bottom. She was immediately drawn to Miles Roberts' face on the cover. He had thick dark hair, somewhat tossled, with dark eyebrows to match. His face had a days's beard growth on his face, making him look rugged in a downtown poet-artist kind of way. He had the face of a musician. Miles Roberts did not have the face of someone you would trust with your tax return, but he'd be the first person you'd connect to the piano in the corner of the room.

Jenna turned the album cover over. The album contained 13 songs. There was another picture of Miles Roberts next to the song listings. He was leaning against a wall, a leather jacket in his left hand hanging over his left shoulder as he leaned, looking off to an imaginary point in the distance. Jenna was already happy that he didn't have a cigarette in his hand.

As she walked to the counter to purchase the CD, she held it with her left hand and gently stroked the CD case in a petting motion with her right hand, as if holding a recently-discovered buried amulet. She nearly tripped and fell over a discount cassette display because she wasn't paying attention. Tanya giggled at her as she stumbled, with Jenna soon joining her in spite of herself. They shared a capuccino at the coffee shop two doors down from the CD store and chatted after her purchase. She kept the small bag containing the CD on the table in front of her, never letting it out of her sight. As she sat at the table talking to Tanya about the upcoming end of the semester, she kept thinking to herself that she was being incredibly juvenile, but the excitement drowned out the self-reproach in her mind.

She had purchased the Miles Roberts CD on a Thursday. She went home that night, put the CD in her portable CD player, and began to listen. Every nimble piano note made her tremble inside. Every word that poured out of Miles Roberts' mouth seemed directed to her or related to her life situation. Unforced smiles beamed from her face at some moments, and at others she displayed a look of dreamy longing brought about by the feelings and moods of Miles Roberts. When the CD ended, she started it again, thankful that she had purchased an A/C adapter for her CD player. The same moods and expression enveloped Jenna again, this time going just a bit deeper. Five hours later, as Jenna listened to the record again, she did it staring at the pictures of Miles Roberts in the CD booklet. One photo of Miles Roberts showed him looking directly into the camera. Jenna pretended that Miles Roberts was looking her right in the eyes, telepathically singing and playing his songs to her. It was just the two of them, and they were completely in sync with one another. No one else in the world could disturb their moments together now. Between tracks five and six, Jenna made sure that no one would disrupt her moments with Miles Roberts by turning off her cell phone and unplugging her dorm room phone from the wall.

The weeks that followed moved like a blur. In no time at all, the posters in Jenna's dorm room had been converted from cute posters of animated unicorns and kittens with their paws playfully resting on a ball of yarn to different posters all showing the dark and mysterious visage of Miles Roberts. All of Jenna's spare time was spent researching the many wants, needs, desires and the other little wonderful ingredients that made up that one great mass of certifiable genius that was Miles Roberts. She joined internet discussion groups about Miles Roberts. She downloaded Miles Roberts wallpaper for her computer. Her computer design class web page became a tribute to the music, life and times of Miles Roberts. She learned that Miles Roberts was the son of Dale and Fred Roberts of Mission Viejo, California. She learned that Miles Roberts' favorite food was anything Italian, and that Miles Roberts' favorite restaurant was DeLucci's in his hometown of Mission Viejo. She learned that Miles Roberts' greatest influences were The Beatles, Carole King and jazz pianist Keith Jarrett. When she learned this, she decided to listen to music by these three artists, but she found that even after repeated listens, they simply didn't measure up to the groundbreaking sound that was Miles Roberts. She was a frequent visitor to Miles Roberts' official website, checking it almost hourly for any news or updates or announcements of new concerts added to Miles Roberts' already busy touring schedule.

Seemingly overnight, her grades and her focus on her studies began to slip. Suddenly it seemed that everything around her began to become less and less important. Papers were left incomplete, if commenced at all. She missed more than a few classes. She had less and less contact with friends, the better to spend her spare time listening to the increasingly-familiar sounds of Miles Roberts. Had it not been for the invention of headphones, the other people on her dorm floor would surely have gone slowly mad along with her.

She wrote home and told her parents that she wouldn't be coming home for the semester which ended a month from now. From recent visits to Miles Roberts' website, she discovered that he would soon be touring. It would be a short ten-city tour of the East Coast, but Jenna was determined to follow Miles Roberts to all of his concert dates. Her parents were distressed that she wasn't planning to come home for Christmas and the New Year. They hadn't heard from her since she left for Thanksgiving. She seemed out of it during that weekend to everyone who came across her, spending most of her time in her room with her headphones on, barely noticing the relatives around her who had come to town for the holiday. Jenna was too busy. There had been plans to make, and she wasn't going to let something as unimportant as turkey bog her down.

Jenna thought about all of this as she continued to wait outside the concert hall in Washington, D. C. It was the last stop on the tour. The tour had been through Burlington, Boston, Hartford, Providence, Albany, two spots in New York City, Trenton and Philadelphia. Miles Roberts was scheduled to take four months off after this show to work on his follow-up to the now-Grammy-nominated "Night Songs". As Jenna waited in a stiff Potomac wind for the doors to open, she smiled to herself. Tonight was the night. She had lurked in the shadows for nine shows, but tonight, in the nation's capital, this would be the place that she would finally introduce herself to Miles Roberts. She had been sending him letters for about a month now. At first, they were the usual fan letters. After her first two, she received the same autographed photograph from Miles Roberts' publicity department. Not content with that, she continued to write letters to him. She would only sign it "Love, Jenna", so as not to attract undue attention from anyone who might be reading her letters to Miles Roberts. That was not to say that anyone other than Miles Roberts was reading her letters. Of course Miles Roberts was reading her letters. And only her letters.

At the first nine concert stops, she just knew that Miles Roberts looked right at her as he sang his songs. She knew all of his songs by heart, and sang them along with Miles Roberts with her whole heart and soul. Something inside her told her that that simply wasn't enough. Miles Roberts, being generally shy by nature, never stayed after the show to sign autographs, prefering the relative safety of his tour bus and his bandmates to the group of twenty or so people who waited at the back door of his concert venues desperately wanting an autograph. Miles Roberts liked to relax and sleep after shows. Jenna knew this by reading it on his website, but she always held out hope that she would meet him after the show. After nine venues, nine misses. Her need turned slowly to desperation. Her desperation morphed almost overnight into anger. It had been three days since the show in Philadelphia. Another long wait by the stage door by Jenna had turned into yet another meaningless sighting of the back of Miles Roberts' head as he jumped onto his tour bus. She knew that there would be a brief pause beetween the last two shows, so she decided to lag behind Miles Roberts' bus by an extra day.

After the Philly show, she drove south and stopped at a hotel in Northern Maryland to rest for the night. Her anger and sadness melded into one, Why hadn't Miles Roberts acknowledged her as she followed him around on tour? He just had to know that Jenna Quinn was his biggest fan, and yet he showed no sign of even knowing of her existence after each show ended. Desperate times now called for desperate measures, as Jenna saw it.

One night before the show, she treated herself to an early dinner alone at the local steak house. She asked for a table for one in the non-smoking section as far away from the bar in the middle of the floor as possible, which at this time of the day was easier to get than at the peak of dinner hour, when the line was out the door. She ordered buffalo wings for an appetizer, and a 12-ounce sirloin for her entree. She knew that she had all night, so she asked Dave the Waiter to take his time bringing the entree. Carefully, she ate her way through her appetizer and then the rest of her dinner. She took her time with the entree, stalling as much as she could. She enjoyed watching the blood run from the medium rare steak as she carefully sawed every small bite with her steak knife. After some time, Dave the waiter brought the check and she gave him her credit card while still eating her entree. Dave the waiter brought the check and credit card back, thanked her for letting him serve her and stepped away from the table. Jenna told him that she wanted some time to finish her entree in the restaurant, as she had no place to store leftovers while traveling on the road. That much was true. She signed the credit card slip after adding a generous gratuity for Dave. Then, while no one was looking, she carefully took the bulky steak knife, placed it in her handbag and nonchalantly left the steak house. No one followed her to her car as she got in and drove back to her hotel. Desperation made theft look easy.

She saw a drug store that was still open on her way back to her hotel and stopped in to buy some isopropyl alcohol, sterile gauze, medical tape and an 8X10 padded mailing envelope. The clerk didn't bat an eye at the purchase as she paid for the items and left. She now had everything that she needed as she got back into her car.

She walked through the lobby with everything she needed. The desk clerk barely noticed her passing through to the elevators up to her room on the third floor. She reached her room, unlocked her door and threw all of her things onto the bed. She reached into her handbag for the steak knife she had taken from the restaurant. She took it into the bathroom and washed it off. As the hot water ran over it, taking with it microscopic bits of sirloin down the drain, she went across the room to the desk, where she had placed her notebooks upon checking in. She grabbed her favorite pen and wrote another letter to Miles Roberts.

Dear Miles,

Tonight is the big night. Your final stop on the tour. I've followed you all the way from Vermont to our nation's capital. It has taken me a long time to realize that you are everything I've been looking for in my life. It doesn't make any sense for us to be apart for another moment.

I have been looking into places where we can get married. We can settle on a date when I see you when I see you after your final show, but I've been thinking that Dale and Fred would want to be there, along with my parents, so I was thinking about someplace special to you in Mission Viejo. We could just go back to your place for the honeymoon. You could play your songs to me after I bring you breakfast in bed.

I only have one problem. Since I've never worn jewelry, I have no idea what my ring size is. As tradition dictates that it is the groom who chooses the ring for his wife-to-be, I have enclosed by ring finger for you to size. If I had my choice, I think white gold would be my choice, but I trust your judgment.

I'll see you after the show, my love. Our future lies ahead of us like the vast open road in your song "Sunset Desert". Someday we'll see those mountains in the distance, so beautiful. Like our love, dear Miles.

All My Love,

Jenna

She took the piece of paper, folded it in half and placed it in the mailing envelope. With a magic marker she carried among her possessions, she wrote "ATTENTION: FOR MILES ROBERTS URGENT!!!!". She underlined the word "URGENT" with three thick lines.

Taking the steak knife, she returned to the bathroom. She unscrewed the cap to the rubbing alcohol, and began to tear 3-inch strips from the small metal roll of medical tape. She stuck them to the edge of the sink in a short line, numbering ten in all. She unpacked the gauze and placed it next to the tape. She washed her hands in the sink with the hotel soap and dried her hands with a white hand towel. She placed a washcloth next to the sink and placed her left hand on top of it. she poured some alcohol onto the base of her left ring finger, and followed that by sawing off her ring finger with the steak knife. In her mania, she felt no pain as blood poured from the wound. She placed her left elbow at the edge of the sink and knelt down, putting her now-altered hand above her head. She poured more alcohol into the wound and quickly covered it with as much gauze as could fit over the wound. she then proceeded to tape it all in place.

Feeling slightly dizzy, she took her severed finger and placed it in the envelope and sealed it. It wouldn't be long now before Miles Roberts would be with her forever.

The January wind continued to blow as people waited for the doors to open. Jenna was the ninth person in line. She waited to savor every vocal note and every piano arpeggio from the great Miles Roberts. In short order, the doors opened. Her ticket was in her right pocket. Her left hand was covered with a glove and hanging at her side. Inside the glove, the gauze was completely soaked with blood from her still-bleeding hand. She stepped inside the theatre and handed the ticket to the box office attendant. They searched her and found nothing.

One minute after she arrived, an announcement was heard over the loud speaker.

"Attention please.....attention please....will Jenna Quinn...Jenna Quinn...please report to the box office.....Jenna Quinn, please report to the box office. Thank you."

Her heart and head raced as she made her way back to the box office. Maybe this would be the night that she got a front row seat. Maybe she would be escorted back stage to meet Miles Roberts after the show. All of these thoughts raced through her head as she approached the box office. She hadn't noticed the two police officers waiting by the box office.

"I'm Jenna Quinn", she said with excitement.

"Why don't you come with us tonight, Jenna. We need to take you to get some help".

Before she knew what was happening, and despite her protestations, the police had removed the glove from her left hand. They delicately handcuffed her with her hands in front of her, taking all of their might to restrain her. She began to kick and scream as they led her outside to a waiting squad car. The other concert patrons watched wide-eyed, never learning exactly what happened in front of them.

"We better get her to a hospital for her hand, Dan", one cop said to another, as they placed her in the back of the squad car with force equal to her kicking and screaming. The siren wailed as they took Jenna away from Miles Roberts for the last time.

2005-01-28T01:20:00.000-06:00

I really have to get back to this.

Thus far this week, work has been going rather smoothly. My unit is losing one person tomorrow, but I think we'll adjust nicely. We're in great shape on my side of the building.
Tomorrow night, I take part in the mid-winter talent contest. I hope I do well. I have no idea what I'll do for my first of two songs. I've chosen a song called "Undefeated" for the second song. I love playing the chords in that song. It feels right.
Leslie's wedding ring arrived by mail today. All we need now is something to wear and we're completely and totally ready to get married. I have a hard time expressing just how right this feels. I'm reaching a point of peace in my life at long last. My time is upon me. Enter The Spencer!!!
http://www.buyblue.org

2005-01-20T22:17:00.000-06:00

It's been a few weeks since I last posted, so let me bring everyone up to date with what has been happening in my life (before I take another crack at FINALLY finishing "Fanatic").
On Sunday January 9, Leslie and I went to The Coffee House, a localmusic and activism venue to experience their once-monthly "Living Activism Night" Leslie wanted to go to hear the musical act of the evening, Dorothy Scott, whom she had seen before. As a bonus, we met an extraordinary gentleman by the name of Ralph Bronner, who through the sale of soap and a touch of social responsibility is trying to make this world a better place (visit his website at http://www.drbronner.com for more information). Dorothy is a quirky singer who you can't help but like. She gives it her all on every song, which is a refreshing change from the type of product that's out there currently.
Next came January 13th, which was the big Project I Am show at Roshambo Coffee & Tea House. There were seven acts in all, and thanks to the help of a few close friends of the Project, not only were all of our sets recorded, but we were also filmed onto a DVD which should be posted shortly to the Project website. Perhaps next time, we can actually get paid.
I did my taxes, which should result in nearly paying off one of my three remaining cr4edit cards. Nice bonus.
The wedding plans have been solidified. We will spend a week in Las Vegas from March 7th to March 14th, with the big date being March 13th. Thank you God for my second wife. Hopefully I get to say that a few million more times before I die.
Today America gave a barely-reformed substance abuser the keys to the country's proverbial liquor cabinet. From all of us that didn't choose this "man" to be our leader, I ask the world to exhibit patience and a healthy dose of obstruction for the next four years until this nightmare is expunged from his seat in power.
Buy Sirius satellite radio...PLEASE! Our stock is getting killed.

2005-01-05T13:09:00.000-06:00

I'm taking time out from a not-so-busy lunch hour at my desk at work. I didn't go home for lunch today. We're expecting roughly 7 inches of snow here in the next 24 hours. I decided that I only wanted to make the trip home once today. Poor Rocky. He probably has his legs crossed right about now.
We had a really good Project I Am meeting last night. I furiously played bongos after the meeting, reducing everyone to laughter. I've now been told that I will not be able to sit in front of Jennifer next Thursday when we play the Rochambo gig. Seems she doesn't want to laugh in the middle of her songs.
I had a jalapeno and black olive pizza for lunch. I'll pay for that later. I'm very thirsty right now. I didn't have a beverage to go with my lunch and this office has tap water that is so bad it would probably result in the growth of a third eye if consumed.
For now, I must return to working. There's monitoring to be done, people to lead and virgins to sacrifice.

2005-01-03T16:01:00.000-06:00

I'd like to interrupt my usual creative posts with a vent about the credit card industry.
It seems that if you have an account with MBNA, when you pay your bill in full, you haven't REALLY paid your bill in full. Last month, I paid off the entire balance of my account (or so I thought) before the next billing period. Because I did it over two payments, they decided to charge me for every single day that I had a balance on the account. I got a bill in the mail for $8.20. Instead of help from their call center, I got condescending attitudes and two loads of crap from a call center employee and her manager. In response to this shoddy treatment, I would like to share with all of you a letter I just wrote them which will accompany my last payment to MBNA.

January 3, 2005

MBNA "America"
PO Box 15289
Wilmington, DE 19886-5289

To Whom It May Concern:

Enclosed is my last payment of $8.20 for the account referenced on the bill.
I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that MBNA is by far the absolute worst credit card company I have ever had to deal with. When I called your call center, I received, instead of help, an overly patronizing explanation and attitude from your call center employee and your account manager regarding this balance.
In the future, you should communicate clearly to your customers that even if the balance is paid in full in the span of your monthly statement, you’re still going to fuck them in the ass for every blood-red cent of interest you can squeeze out of them. I shall tell all of my friends and acquaintances, as well as the world at large with the help of a blog posting, that MBNA is nothing but a den of thieves cleverly disguised as a bank. I hope all of your jobs are outsourced to India and you all collectively end up in a welfare line in oh-so-exciting Wilmington, Delaware, whose motto should read “Speed Bump To Someplace Better”. Take your $8.20 check and stick it up your collective asses.

No Thanks,
John Paul Spencer

I feel better...........you?

2004-12-28T01:53:00.000-06:00

Another late night of typing and musical appreciation. I am challenged in my typing not only by the darkness that surrounds me, but the bandaid on my right mddle finger.My hands tend to dry out in the cold of winter.
I must apologize to the readers out there who've been waiting patiently for an ending to "Fanatic". It really is developing, but my mind is lazy and undisciplined lately.
I've reached the letter "G" in my CD collection listening project. I've hit my mini-collection of albums featuring Steve Goodman. His music makes me reflective and happy all at the same time. I'm lifting a Guinness to my mouth and taking it all in.
Leslie and I had a great Christmas. We went to her sister Cindi's house in Elgin, Illinois for what always seems like too brief a stop. On Christmas Day, we spent the day at Leslie's sister Kim's place in Woodstock, Illinois. I got a lot of music this year for Christmas, as well as two shirts, a few gift cards that I turned into music, a book on astronomy, some dark chocolate and a book light for reading. I have another day off next Monday, then nothing until March. Herein lies the intrigue....
After tearing our hair out about going to Hawaii for a wedding, we decided to go to Las Vegas instead, based more on the airline reservations than on any other factor. The magic date is Sunday, March 13th, 2005, which is the fifth anniversary of the two of us meeting online. An aura of calm fills me and everything around me just thinking about it all. We finally get to seal the deal. I'm not quite the person I want to be yet, but just having Leslie in my life makes the journey to that place quite a bit shorter. We'll spend about a week out there with assorted friends and family until the big day. It should be quite a week.
Tomorrow night (later today by now) is a meeting/practice at Studio 305 for the big Project I Am gig on January 13th. I'm looking forward to that. I must keep playing and singing to survive. For now, A Guinness and Steve Goodman will send me to bed to lay next to Leslie with every happiness. I wish the readers the same.

2004-12-19T23:50:00.000-06:00

I'd like to take this opportunity to let everyone in BlogreadingLand know that I have NOT abandoned this space. It bears noting that "Fanatic" has left me drained and a bit flummoxed. I promise to finish this story, plus another one which is in the bullpen, in short order very soon. All IS right with the world. I'm just a little mind-congested. This too will pass.
Oh yeah.......and Bush sucks balls!!! You knew that.

2004-12-08T22:49:00.000-06:00

It was right about now....
1980. I was 14 and living in Philadelphia. My mother was falling asleep in front of the CBS Late Movie. Back then they didn't have a talk show in that time slot. They would just show old reruns of old TV shows like "The Saint" and "Harry-O". I could here the television from my bedroom. I was reading or laying in bed trying to fall asleep.
A news bulletin came across the television. It was the familiar voice of Larry Kane, a long time Philly news anchor. He came on and said John Lennon had been shot outside his New York apartment building and was reportedly fighting for his life at a New York area hospital. He repeated himself and sent us back to the CBS Late Movie.
I turned on the light in my room. I looked to my wall. On it were the posters I pulled out of my copy of the White Album. I looked at the picture of John; stringy hair, the famous round-rimmed glasses, the dungaree jacket and blank expression. I pictured him months later giving his first television interview with Yoko by his side, saying that it had been a long recovery, but that he was getting better. Yoko would say that the get-well wishes keep coming. John would say that the whole experience had strengthened his resolve to fight for a better world.
About five minutes later, Larry Kane came on again. John Lennon was dead. A suspect was in custody.
In my experience, kids tend to discover The Beatles between the ages of 12 and 14. I was in full-on Beatle mode at the time. I was, and still am, devastated by the loss of one of my heroes. It happened in December. For the rest of that month, the main Christmas song that was played on all the radio stations in Philly was "Happy Xmas(War Is Over)". That song still makes me cry. Every time I hear it, all those memories come flooding back to me. My brothers and sister, not understanding my sense of hero worship, made fun of me for being so sad for so long. I don't think I ever truly forgave them for that.
John would have been 64 this year. If only the world could recapture just a little bit of the love he left behind for all of us. It's a dark time in the world right now. There's no love out there. There's no peace being given a chance. For all of you who read this out there in the world, and for all of you who create rather than destroy, I pray that we all band together as one and shine the light of truth into the hearts of the seemingly heartless. Throw down your guns, live a little, laugh a little and be tolerant of one another. Go out of your way to make this a better place.

2004-11-29T23:17:00.000-06:00

Cancel

It had been another one of those nights at the house. He and his wife had argued again. Money. It was always about money. For some reason, people who are good with money always pair off with people with no fiscal discipline. In this particular marriage, he was the one with the money sense.

This fight had been particularly bad. Jimmy was on schedule to get paid the next day, which was a good thing, as the rent was due three days from now. Doreen was between jobs, which was the way people politely tapdanced around the fact that she was unemployed. To add to the fact that Doreen was now suddenly not generating revenue into the house, any money within her reach disappeared as if scattered into the ocean like an urn full of ashes. As much as Jimmy tried to make ends meet, Doreen was foiling his every good thought with one of her own. Today, Jimmy had walked through the front door of their modest rented house and was greeted with a new television set. Doreen, unbeknownst to Jimmy, had decided to rent to own without telling him. He blew up like he had so many times before. How were they going to afford the payments on this, in addition to the payments on his truck, the rents, the utilities, the phone?

Doreen countered by telling Jimmy that as long as she was out of work, she might as well have something nice to watch. Jimmy vainly tried to explain that her energies should be focused on finding a job. Doreen began to nearly cry, following her tradition of not fighting fair to the utmost. Jimmy yelled that the television was going to be returned tomorrow. Doreen yelled twice as loud that it was staying. Jimmy stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him, the vibration on the paper-thin walls knocking one of Doreen's collecible plates off of the living room wall.

Seven hours had passed. Jimmy now found himself in front of a drive-up automatic teller machine. It was almost 1:30 in the morning. He had been here for fifteen minutes without completing a transaction. The screen welcomed him to the bank with the entreaty "PLEASE INSERT CARD" in big, green computerized letters. His wallet was in his lap, beaten and fat with business cards, photos he never looked at, his ATM card and assorted five- and one-dollar bills, which were stuffed into it in no particular order.

He sat with his truck in park, staring straight ahead, tapping his wallet on his right leg. He had been here before after midnight. He had trouble finding a place to think after he and Doreen quarreled. He had a recurring dream when he came here. He told himself that he was going to put his ATM card into the machine, take all the money out of the checking account and leave. He and Doreen had no children yet, so he would just leave and not look back. He would teach Doreen a valuable lesson about what is was like to really not have money. By the time her credit was irreparably damaged and she was living out in the street, she would beg him to come back, and he would say no. That would show her.

The plan only had one small obstacle to overcome. For her many faults and through her appalingly poor judgment, Jimmy loved Doreen. It wasn't a poetic love made of a young man and woman, full of life and happiness, running across flowery fields into each other's arms. I was a love of habit and comfort. They had been together so long that they would hardly know what to do with themselves if the other suddenly wasn't there. As much as Jimmy yearned for peace, far away from Doreen's impulsiveness and fiduciary recklessness, he knew that they were meant to be together. They had been together since they were 16, never leaving the town they grew up in, knowing each other as familiarly as their surroundings. Jimmy;s heart was out beyond the town and back in the living room with Doreen at the same time. Left to his own devices, he could never leave. Anyone who knew him would have a hard time believing that Jimmy would be in any other place.

Jimmy saw headlights in his rearview mirror. Another car would soon want to use the ATM. If he were ever to put his well-practiced fantasy into action, now was the time. He put his card into the ATM. It asked him for his PIN number. As always, he punched in 1-1-0-9. November 9th was his wedding anniversary. The gravity of entering those numbers struck him for a moment.

He pushed the button next to "RECEIVE CASH" and paused as the account choices appeared on the screen. His face turned sad and full of regret. Tonight, like so many nights before it, wouldn't be the night. He hit the button marked "CANCEL" and took back his ATM card. He rolled up his window and began the three-mile drive home. Doreen would be up and waiting when he got home. They'd both apologize, with Jimmy deferring his dreams in silence for another day.

2004-11-29T01:35:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone!!
I haven't received a word lately (AHEM! you know who you are....), but the songwriting germs are beginning to flow. I'd like to share with you a song I just finished about five minutes ago. I was inspired tonight by the story of Les Harvey, a singer with an old band called Stone The Crows. One night, he went out in front of the audience and touched a live mike, electrocuting himself. The trouble was, the audience thought it was part of the act for a minute until they realized that he wasn't getting up. For songwriting purposes, I changed the venue from concert hall to circus tent, played with the plot line a little and before you know it, I had the following magnum opus.

Burn Clown Burn

The spotlight shines down on the entrance stage left

As the happy clowns take to the floor

Some faces have smiles; some faces have frowns

And their shoes are all size twenty-four

Then Buggles the Clown runs away from them all

To a little red car in the center ring

And then a flash of light, an explosion of flame

And the crowd begins to sing

CHORUS:

“The elephants smell, and the acrobats fell

Burn Clown Burn

We paid 20 bucks, and the ringmaster sucks

Burn Clown Burn

Who’d think that a car with such little tires

Could turn all at once to a funeral pyre

And there’s nothing so funny like make-up on fire

Burn Clown Burn”

Coming to Buggles’ aid, from entrance stage right

More clowns come to do the right thing

A fireman’s truck about the size of a deer

Rushes straight out into the main ring

They spray him with seltzer until the flames die

But Buggles just lay in a heap on the floor

But the crowd doesn’t see that poor Buggles is toast

They just start to sing like before

(Chorus)

I need to write more songs like this. I definitely see improvement. I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving.

2004-11-24T23:23:00.000-06:00

Related

Sun and Moon

And all things in the heavens

And all things that circle another

Like a stalker, like a groupie

Like the halo of a saint

Or the fire of the sinner

Like your mother or your father

Or your ancestors

Or your progeny

Or a brother or a sister

Whether in immediate family

Or the group called humanity

Like the senses of Man

Seeing the horrors of War

With the stench of carrion

Hearing a blood-curdling scream

Tasting powder and Death

Touching survival of the fittest

Like the wood

And creatures living life within

And the predators hiding in the shadows

And the snapping brush beneath it

Shielding insects below

Surviving deep within the Earth

Like the sweet taste of Wind

Drawing aromas of salt from the Sea

And chilling the homeless vagabond

Tearing tall oaks from their roots

Giving power to the powerless

Taking pain afar with a gust

And like myself

Existing from moment to moment

Feet planted on the ground

Mind and soul dancing in the clouds

Floating, elated

I stand with the universe related

2004-11-23T23:05:00.000-06:00

Pardon this brief interruption from Storytime, whilst I tell of a brief sojourn into a Red state.
I spent a fun and strange weekend with Lovely Lady Leslie in Freeman, Missouri at the new and spacious home of Leslie's aunt and uncle. It is roughly a 9 1/2 hour drive to their front door. With Rocky in tow, we drove towards our destination. Needing fuel on the way down this past Friday night, we stopped in Lamoni, Iowa, home of Graceland University. I should have known that even the slightest reference to Elvis would lead to something weird, but I truly had no idea as to the extent of it.
As I'm filling the tank with cheap ethanol fuel (thanks to a federal subsidy), two pickup trucks sat in front of me. The driver of the truck on the right, which had arrived second, got out of his truck and addressed the driver of the other truck.
"I've got somethin' fer ya", the man said to the other man. He reached into the back of his truck and grabbed a large dead raccoon by the arm. He handed it to the other man, who then threw it into the back of his own truck. I looked at Leslie, who was sitting in the front seat of the car, and it was all I could do not to explode in laughter. When I got back into the car after closing the gas cap, we decided that we would avoid the local Subway sandwich shop, which was the reason why we had chosen this exit.
Saturday started off on rather unfriendly terms. Leslie's cousin's two dogs, her aunt's two dogs and Rocky were running around the property. Suddenly, Tucker, Leslie's aunt's Sharpei-Husky mix, made a beeline for the new neighbor's property. A short time later, the neightbor called to say that she had shot Tucker. After a long morning for Leslie's Uncle Mike, riding with the neighbor to the local veterinarian, Tucker was ok, his wrinkled Sharpei skin around his neck deflecting the buckshot into his leg. Leslie and I couldn't help but feel like the harbingers of bad tidings until we knew Tucker made it through his ordeal a little scathed but for the most part healthy.
For the remainder of the weekend. I just relaxed while Leslie and her cousins and aunt went shopping. Her cousins, aunt and uncle are quality people. Continued good fortune to them all.
We returned yesterday (Monday) uneventfully. I'm now listening to "Nashville Skyline" by Bob Dylan and relaxing. Sleep well, World. I have a long way yet to go tonight.

2004-11-23T23:00:00.000-06:00

Embellish

When he had gotten on the plane to come to Chicago, he had been sweating profusely until the plane took off. As soon as the plane's front wheels began to leave the ground, he let his body be absorbed by his first class airline seat. New York City, much like Paris, London, Barcelona and Toronto before it, would now be a memory.

Had he remained in New York for just a few more hours, and there's no telling what might have happened. His intelligence and his senses, sharpened by years of confidence work on two continents, told him that the walls were beginning to close in again. As much as he had enjoyed the previous eight months in New York City, it was most definitely time for him to leave. The contacts he had cultivated, both charmed and fleeced, were on to him. Armed with a credit card from his final victim from the Big Apple and a masterfully faked driver's license bearing the same name that was on the credit card, Willie Cooper, now temporarily known as Jason McCormick, boarded an early morning flight to Chicago.

The martini he now began to consume had never tasted sweeter. He twisted the vent above him to let in some cool air to help him relax. The flight attendant was currently making his entree for the morning. He had ordered Eggs Benedict. He had never quite shaken his taste for breakfast cereal, but he simply couldn't be spotted eating something so plain in public. When he was working a con, he tried to shy away from such a middle-of-the-road dish, the better to impress those who surrounded him. To this day, it was the hardest part of maintaining the many fronts he had created. It was sometimes difficult to pretend he had eaten a lifetime of upscale foods which weren't really his taste, but he persevered.

He hadn't shaved since he left New York, and he had no plans to for the immediate future. He had always been amazed by how easily it was to transform his facial features by either shaving, growing a beard or purchasing a new set of eyeglass frames. The beard was coming back on. Or maybe this time, he would just try a nice thick mustache to blend in with some of the men in Chicago. He had about a week to decide between the two.

He decided that he would put on some weight to go with it. When he circulated within the young cliques of New York, he had to be careful to maintain his thin waistline, A little weight gain would be noted by his marks, making his job that much easier.

He was still trying to figure out what went wrong in his final days in New York to blow his cover. He prided himself on being meticulous in detail when working his cons. He had learned at a very early age that a systematic lie was nothing more than a collection of interwoven truths and half-truths, melded together to produce one large legend. It wasn't enough to speak Spanish; he would have to describe, in minute detail, an Andalusian village that tourists usually missed, from the size and shape of the buildings to the names and faces of people. He had to know the location of every crack in the sidewalk in New York City. A British accent was nothing without the sardonic wit of a lord and an encyclopedic knowledge of the royal family. His French accent could not be Quebecois in Paris, and vice versa. Somewhere in New York, his lastest story, and all its accompanying embellishments, fell apart, and it annoyed him. What really bothered him is that he had to leave New York so quickly. He was just beginning to enjoy the place.

As his plane floated over Lake Michigan towards its final descent into O'Hare, he began to formulate whose identity he would link himself to next. In New York, he had linked himself to the Carnegie family. "Like the Hall?" was always the first question. He had spun a tale of his journey to New York via the suburbs of Pittsburgh, where he had said he grew up. In truth, Willie had grown up in Aberdeen, Maryland, the son of a school teacher. In that environment, he couldn't help but learn a few things about the world and its people. He used his humble roots to his advantage, living the good life at other people's expense, as one person after another was relieved of their money, thinking that making a small loan to a millionaire- or even to a millionaire's distant cousin- would reap greater rewards later on. He left silence in his wake, his marks too embarassed to admit that they had been conned. New York was his first close call. People actually found out that he wasn't who he said he was.

He planned out the next two weeks in his head. He would get a cab to a less-traveled part of town and rent a room in a hotel. He usually started his research by reading the society pages of several newspapers. He had a copy of The New York Times in his carry-on luggage. His next identity would be gleaned by reading the section carefully. The next step would be research in a local free library, finding a place for himself in the well-healed family of his choice. He was never a direct descendent or relative. He was always a cousin or a nephew. It was always more believable than way, and much less easy to be discovered. The people who believed him would be skeptical at first, until his litany of facts from his week full of research convinced them. He would add his own touches later, inventing moments he had shared with more famous members of his newly selected families. First came the set-up, then came the embellishments.

He was always careful to make the family he belonged to not be a native of the place where he was going. In Paris, he was a Kennedy. In Barcelona, he was a Rothschild. In London, he was a nephew of the Spanish royal family. In Toronto, he was the cousin of a Scottish lord. In Chicago, the possibilities lay before him. Willie's next opportunity lay on the newspaper like a shiny bead buried on the beach discovered by a metal detector. Virtually everyone knew that something was there, but it took one patient person to dig it up to make it valuable.

The plane touched down in Chicago, and Willie was barely off the plane when he ehaded for a newspaper stand. He could invest in several local and national papers with which to read, learn and expand. He could even buy a Spanish language newspaper or, if one was available, a French language paper. This was probably not going to be found in Chicago, but he could at least give it a thought with a trilingual brain. His mother always wanted him to learn another language. Never being one to displease his mother, he learned two. It was shortly after he had entered his first year of college that his parents were killed by a member of a prominent Maryland family who was driving drunk. The killer got a few months in jail, while Willie got a grave stone to visit. Without his mother's prodding, college didn't interest him anymore. It was then that he took his knowledge, his wits and a small stipend from a trust fund that would come due when he turned thirty to fly to Paris. He was having fun at other people's expense. He didn't see it as ripping off the people who believed his stories. He saw it as ripping off the rich and powerful, his small taste of revenge on the wealthy for taking the lives of his parents. He would do this for two more years until his trust fund came due. Then he would retire from the vagabond life and point his life toward a more noble purpose. Until then, his world was an open book, or more appropriately, an open newspaper.

He stopped by a pay phone in the airport that had a telephone attached and wrote down the address of a cheap motel. He grabbed his bag, walked across the terminal and stepped through the automatic doors into a sunny April day. As a stiff Chicago wind tossled his hair, he hailed a cab and headed into another new morning.

2004-11-17T13:43:00.000-06:00

Last

The first day of school was always so exciting. And why wouldn't it be? Summer was nearly over and the beaches were all closing. All of the friends he didn't get a chance to see over the summer would be at school. It was indeed an exciting time to be a ten-year-old.

There was only one problem for Danny Zembrowski. All day today, he would be last.

This was the one day of the year that he wished his last name were Adams, or Burns, or maybe, just maybe, he would let it go as far as Logan, but that was the absolute limit.

And yet, no. His name was Zembrowski, with a Z. In every class today, he would be called last, would have to take his seat last, invariably sitting in the far left hand corner of the room, behind the Watsons and the Youngs. He dreaded the time it took to get to his name.

7:15 in the morning, and homeroom was about to begin. His teacher, a lady in her early 40's, went to the front of the room to organize the children.

"OK, everyone. Settle down....settle down. My name is Mrs. Pitney and I'll be your homeroom teacher this year. When I call your name, come to the first row of chairs here and sit in the first available chair from front to back. OK? OK....Carly Adams......."

With that, Carly Adams, a freckle-face girl with curly red hair, sat in the first chair on the right side of the room. The long journey to the last chair on the left had begun.

"Marissa Block...."

He looked out the window and began to daydream. He thought about how satisfying the first kickball game would be at recess.

"Mary Bunning...."

He didn't care where in the kicking order he ended up, He just couldn't wait for that sweet moment when his foot first met the bright red rubber playground ball and sent it flying, and with it the last person in the outfield scrambling backward to try to get it. He was great at kickball.

"James Coughlin..."

"It's Jimmy..."

"OK, Jimmy...."

He didn't spare a thought for actual schoolwork. Why would he do that? He was so happy about seeing everyone again he could barely contain himself. So many desks yet to fill.

" Brian Daniels....."

Maybe a good game of freeze tag would be the thing to do today at recess instead of kickball. Hopefully, he thought to himself, he wouldn't have too much learning today. It was the first day, after all.

"Jennifer Durkin....."

Maybe today, just today they would play games in class just to waste the day. There's no telling where this day would lead. The waiting continued.

"Jane Evans...."

Hopefully he wouldn't see his brother David on the playground at recess. David often bullied him. He often wished that David had never been born.

"Miranda Fisher...."

Lunch would be fun too. He had a new lunchbox to show off in the cafeteria. His thermos was full of fruit juice. His mother would never let him have soda. She said it was bad for his teeth and his stomach. He liked fruit juice better than milk. He would drink it out of his thermos cup like his dad drinks coffee out of his mug in the morning.

"Christopher Foster...."

"Just Chris...."

"OK, Chris. Have a seat."

His mom had packed him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. they were always so good when she made them, because she would always take the crust off the bread.

"Stacy Gardner..."

There was an apple in there too. Danny liked candy bars much better than apples, but his mother always scolded him when he ate too much chocolate. The apple was a healthier snack. Danny didn't like being healthier.

"Ian Godfrey..."

Danny knew Ian. Ian had a really cool skateboard. Danny's mom and dad wouldn't let him have a skateboard. They said they were too dangerous. To compensate, they bought him a video game featuring skateboarders. Danny was only partially satisfied with that compromise.

"Susan Harrison...."

The number of kids in the back of the room was quickly thinning. Soon he would be the only one standing behind the row of desks waiting to sit down. Danny was beginning to shuffle from foot to foot, clearly wanting to be anywhere else but standing and waiting.

"Timothy Hawley...."

"Tim...."

"OK Tim...."

At least his teacher seemed nice enough. She was treating his fellow students gently, trying to get everyone's name right in her head. He thought that Mrs. Pitney was someone he could get to like.

"Linda Horvath...."

Linda rode the bus with Danny. She usually sat up near the front of the bus, never talking to anyone. She seemed smart, and shy.

"Michael Jameson...."

One thing Danny could always count on was a seat by the window. He suddenly felt sorry for Mary Bunning, who was stuck right near the sliding door to the room's supply closet. The one bad thing that Danny could see about his seat was that he would probably not be able to ever be the first one to leave the room.

"Elizabeth King...."

"It's Betsy...."

"OK Betsy. Have a seat...."

The heater was right underneath the window. That would probably come in handy in the wintertime. The windows at the school were a little drafty, so the heat near the windows would cancel that out. Danny didn't give this any thought at all. Ten-year-olds very rarely think about the weather unless either rain or snow is falling from the sky.

"Robert Marcus...."

"Bobby...."

"OK Bobby...."

Bobby Marcus was the biggest boy in the classroom. Everyone was a little afraid of Bobby, but he was really not much trouble. He was just big for his age.

"Alpa Patel...."

Alpa was easy to spot. She was the only Indian girl in the classroom. She always had her head in a book. She very rarely spoke to anyone either inside or outside of class. She always had fantastic grades.

"Greg Perkins..."

That first run at recess was always the best. It would turn out to be a race with all the other boys in his grade. Danny wasn't as fast as some of the other kids, but he held his own. He was better at longer distances, like when the kids have those fitness tests in the middle of the year. Danny liked doing the run with the blocks.

"Veronica Ralston...."

Veronica was the cute one. Danny only noticed or thought about that a little bit. He rarely talked to the girls. Veronica had long straight blonde hair. She had a nice smile for a new fifth grader. Only one row of chairs remained.

"Tyler Smith...."

Tyler always dressed impeccably. His parents drove him to school in a Land Rover. At parent-teacher conferences, his parents would always smile too much and dominate the conversation. Tyler took Ritalin and constantly had a worried look on his face.

"Michele Turley...."

Danny was getting nervous. The long wait was almost over. His brief shining moment in the spotlight of the classroom was about to happen.

"Henry Walters...."

"I go by Jimmy...."

"OK....Jimmy....Have a seat"

Henry went by his middle name. He realized at a very early age that he didn't like Henry.

"Shari Williams......"

This was the third year in a row that Danny would have to spend the rest of the year staring at the back of the head of Shari Williams. When Shari talked to Danny, it was usually some variant of "Shut UP! JERK!". Shari's voice got really loud when she got mad.

"And finally, Daniel Zembrowski...."

"Danny...."

"OK Danny, have a seat...."

The long-anticipated moment had come and gone, like so many other moments in the life of a ten-year-old boy. Danny would find himself in middle school a year from now. Would they still call the roll the same way? Would he still be last? He couldn't figure out exactly whether being last alphabetically was a good thing or a bad thing. The wait seemed like forever, but he always knew where he belonged when it came to his last name. A new school year was starting now. It only took a moment for the end to become another beginning.

2004-11-17T01:02:00.000-06:00

I must have jumped ahead...I have no words in my inbox tonight, so I think I'll just go to bed.
Or maybe I'll continue listening to Nick Drake and wish I had another beer.
The weekend approaches quickly. I'm setting myself up for an early dismissal on Friday, allowing Lovely Lady Leslie and I a chance to travel to the Kansas-Missouri border to visit a few of Leslie's relatives. Beats my relatives any day of the week.
How about a song? Here's another entry from the Writ of Common Wisdom. There's a bit of a long story behind this one.
When I was younger, I lived in Philadelphia in the Overbrook Park section. It was still a primarily Jewish neighborhoodthen. We had a Jewish couple who lived a few doors down named Mary and Sam. Mary was, by all standards, a shrew. Sam was mostly in Mary's shadow. One day, Mary Died, and Sam began to come out of his shell and revealed himself to be a really nice guy. By that time, he was so old that any good he could have brought to the world had been pulverized under Mary's heels. One wonders how happy he might have been with someone not quite so domineering as a wife. This song is for all the Sams of the world. Rise up, Sams! The world needs you!!

Good Neighbor Sam

Good neighbor Sam doesn’t drive anymore

It’s been three years or four since they took his license away

And good neighbor Sam wears Coke-bottle glasses

The smile that he flashes tells you, “Have a good day”

Good neighbor Sam will tell you “Good morning”

And he’s not even yawning; he’s barely sleeping at all

And good neighbor Sam holds a rake in his hands

In this way he will stand ‘til the end of the Fall

And when the kids come out to play, you can here them say,

“Hey Sam! Sam hey! (HEY!)

And if their football should come his way

He’ll throw it to them underhand

He’ll throw it to them underhand

He’ll throw it to them underhand

And send them on their way

Good neighbor Sam bids the postman hello

He’s just lonely, you know, since Eleanor passed last year

But good neighbor Sam is far beyond pity

He’s got friends in the city, and a ton of good cheer

And at the end of a busy day, you can hear the people say,

“Hey Sam! Sam Hey! (HEY!)

And as the sun sets and fades away

He goes inside to watch TV

He goes inside to watch TV

He goes inside to watch TV

Then maybe hits the hay

Good neighbor Sam died Saturday morning

It came without warning; his funeral was today

But good neighbor Sam filled the whole church with laughter

Then seven days after, they took his TV away

This song is kind of dumb and requires a large Beatlesque arrangement to be palatable, but my heart was in the right place when I wrote it, so you'll not receive an apology from me. And with that I bid you good night.

2004-11-16T01:15:00.000-06:00

Combust

Tom sat with his face in his hands at the end of his driveway, an almost-empty gas can next to his left knee. His eyes were wide with disbelief, as his garage lay in ruins in front of him. The neighbors had begun to gather around his property, slack-jawed at the spectacle of Tom's new truck buried under dripping, blackened lumber and roof shingles. The garage door had exploded outward, sending four panes of glass and twelve door squares in all directions. The only positive thing to take away from this was that no one had been home, either at Tom and Renee's place or at the Ferguson's house next door. The local volunteer fire department had responded very quickly and put out the fire with what could only be termed amazing speed.

A propane tank, unhooked from their gas grill and carelessly placed in front of a window in the August heat was to blame. Heat plus accelerants equals combustion, as Tom learned all too acutely today.

"She just had to have a gas grill", was all Tom said to the approaching neighbors, his face still wearing a shocked yet expressionless facade. He would end up repeating this sentence to every neighbor who came up to him in the next twenty minutes to ask him what happened, still unable to accept the fact that his garage was now so much kindling.

Since no one was hurt, the black humor began to flow in waves around Tom.

"Ah, nothing beats Ford F-150 Kabobs in summertime", came from Gil Stratten, who lived across the street.

"What the matter, Tom? Out of Match Light?", said Dan Landis, the neighbor four doors down to the left, letting out a grin that quickly lead to a nearly-soundless belly chuckle.

"Joan of Arc called. She'd like to push her martyrdom back to Thursday.", added Bob Ferguson, throwing his left arm around Tom's shoulders and letting out a loud laugh. He had a front yard full of glass and wood, but luckily no property damage from the explosion.

Through all of the jokes, Tom still shook his head in disbelief, trying to laugh, but stuck in a stunned catatonia brought on by property damage which bordered on the massive. The crowd kept growing, this being the biggest thing that happened on Great Pine Way since the development was finished six years ago. Everyone's thoughts first turned to Tom and Renee's homeowner's insurance policy. Were they covered? Tom didn't know. Renee handled those things. He didn't have the patience for it at home. Renee was due home any minute from work. She would be parking her two-year-old Volkswagen Jetta on the street for the foreseeable future.

"I love the smell of propane before dinner", chimed in Jim Bennett, the neighbor two doors down to the right. He was so deadpan most of the time that it was very hard at this moment to know whether he was kidding or not.

Larry Riegelmann from the end of the street didn't say anything for a moment, then broke into a mocking air guitar version of "Fire" by Jimi Hendrix, which quickly descended into laughter that left him doubled over.

Tom was lucky to have known virtually all of the people who now surrounded him since he moved into the neighborhood. This street was different from other suburban communities like it. Most of these neighborhoods that popped up out of nowhere contained rootless early thirtysomethings in search of something to temporarily call their own. These people had bonded almost immediately, defended each other staunchly, keeping a wary eye on each other not so much in a nosy way, but more of a protective fashion. As Tom was sitting by his driveway, those men of the neighborhood who were free that weekend made plans to help Tom and Bob clean up from the explosion. The women of the neighborhood were already offering their assorted spare bedrooms for Tom and Renee to stay. They had no children.

At the end of the street, Tom spotted Renee's black Jetta coming closer to Ground Zero. He watched as her face slowly morphed into horror as she looked for a place to park along the street. She got out of her car so fast that she didn't give a thought to her briefcase or her handbag.

"WHAT THE HELL, TOM!", was all she could say.

"I came up with a postmodern design for that deck that you wanted", Tom said, joining in the frivolity that up until now Renee had missed.

"WHAT THE HELL,TOM!!", she repeated for all within earshot to hear.

"The tank for the grill exploded."

"HOW?"

"It got hot. You're asking ME?"

An animated fact-finding mission by Renee soon gave way to a discussion of homeowner's insurance contacts and contingiency plans for the meantime between now and the reopening of the house. Renee went into the house to retrieve the insurance file from the metal filing cabinet at the back of their bedroom closet. The next hour would be spent with Renee on the cell phone and Tom packing their bags for a hotel, which would be paid by the insurance company's dime. Tom loaded their suitcases into the back of the Jetta and walked up to Renee, who was finishing up her last cell phone call.

"Comfort Inn on Claridge?", Tom asked.

"Sounds good", replied Renee, "The Adjuster will be out tomorrow between eight and ten in the morning."

They said their temporary goodbyes to the neighbors, letting them know where they would be for the night. Everybody wished them luck.

"Hey Tom?", yelled Dan Landis, as Tom was about to get in his car.

"Yea Dan?"

"Cigarette?"

2004-11-16T01:03:00.000-06:00

Fifty-two minutes ago (yes I'm counting), I returned from a really comfortable night at Studio 305 here in the Bay View area of Wisconsin. It was the first of what I hope will be many Open Stage events at the Studio. All the Project I Am cognoscenti were in attendance; Eric Kulwicki, the fearless leader of our revolutionary outfit; Jennifer Lee, who borrowed my guitar and played a song called "Thank You" (she just had to say it; I didn't need a song, but the song was great anyway); Craig Stoneman was there with a new introspective song, refusing to take center stage, preferring the comfort of the left-hand wall. Also in attendance was the banjo-playing satellite of us all, Martin Grinwald, playing flawlessly after a few drinks (how does he do that?). I'd like to take this opportunity to thank, VOCIFEROUSLY, Dominic and Linda, Keepers of the Studio, for a marvelous night, with a special thank you for the "aperitif" I was handed by Linda earlier in the night. Good times!!
Lovely Lady Leslie sleeps, attempting to kill off a developing cold. I type. I type some more. I have gastric accidents in my chair while no one's around. I sip water from my water bottle. I plot the revolution......

2004-11-14T18:15:00.000-06:00

Kismet

"I'm sorry. We only have one muffin left and it's banana walnut", the waitress said with enough contrition to make even the hardest of hearts not affect her gratuity.

"That's the one I wanted. Perfect!", Ann said, smiling brightly, her grin spreading to her mother who was seated on the other side of the table. They had arrived for breakfast in the nick of time, as a line was now forming in front of the hostess' station at the front of the restaurant.

Ann and her mother were out for breakfast on a Saturday, just the two of them. It had been awhile since Ann had been home. She had some vacation time to take and found herself not wanting to visit anywhere else but home. She had thought about exotic destinations. She had also thought about staying at home and cleaning her condo. Visiting her parents and her home town seemed like a nice way of balancing her need to get away with her internal drive for personal responsibility.

Her dad had declined to join them for breakfast. He liked to tackle his weekend chores early on a Saturday, leaving the rest of the weekend for what he called "Gary-Time". The results were usually a clean house and an aging man asleep in a chair while a college football game played itself out on the television. The family now referred to everyone's similar fits of drowsiness as "Gary-Time" in his honor.

Since Gary was having Gary Time, Ann was having her Meg Time, as she and her mother shared a breakfast. Meg always liked being with her daughter. It was strange how easy Ann's adolescense had been. Ann was that rare daughter that never did anything wrong. It wasn't for lack of prodding. Gary was always dropping hints about how she needed to get out of the house more often when she was in high school, but Ann rarely relented. In those rare times when she took the car and ventured out of the house, it was usually just to go get something to eat, then she invariably returned to her studies. The strangest thing about her behavior was that Ann wasn't homely by any definition of the word. When she went to her proms, it wasn't with an actual date, but with one of her friends from her history class who wasn't doing anything that night. Her friends in high school always wondered why she never dated, why she never seemed to wear enough makeup, why she never seemed to be interested in all the mini-dramas that make up the life of a teenage girl. Her reply was always the same; what guy around them was worth it? "And no, I'm not a lesbian", was always her coda of choice, which was true.

"What made you take your vacation here?", Meg asked Ann, as they waited for Ann's banana walnut muffin.

"I'm checking up on you and Dad", she said, adding with her trademark sense of humor "more to the point yours and Dad's money".

"We closed the Swiss bank account and wasted it all on high-risk tech stocks", Meg retorted, showing which side of the family gave Ann her humor, "Did I mention you're paying for breakfast?".

They both smiled.
"I'm glad you're home. It gives me a chance to use some of my vacation time, I have about two months saved up", Meg said. Meg worked for a law firm as a legal secretary. She had been there for 17 years. She was going to put 20 years in and that would be it. The quality of her work was impeccable, and because she was a little older, everyone trusted her and nobody dared cross her, lest they be put in their place, which was a cruel punishment for any lawyer.

"I just needed a dose of something familiar", Ann said, "Medford is running out of new discoveries".

Ann had lived in Medford for four years since her graduation from college. It was your typical suburb, not far from the downtown of the big city that was Medford's neighbor. She was accomplishing good things in her job as a corporate trainer, but the personal time was beginning to add up, making for a lot of down time with nothing interesting to do or see. She'd run the gamut of halfway intriguing co-workers and they now bored the hell out of her. She was ready for a change, but didn't have an answer. All of this was in her mind over breakfast with her mother.

The waitress brought Ann her muffin.

"Any men out there for you?", Meg asked, never truly giving up on the idea of grandchildren just yet.

"Nowhere close, Mom"

"Women then?". It was a mother's priviledge to ask.

"NO! MOM!..."

"Well, if I can't ask, then who can?"

"It's nothing like that. Most men I meet..."
"Let me guess; married, gay or damaged by the last woman?..."

"And BORING! I refuse to act interested in sports just to get a date."

"You're not going to the right places. Go to the places that interest YOU for a change."

"In Medford?"

"Oh, you're fine in Medford. There's someone out there for you."

Meg was right. There was someone out there for Ann. There was a time when Ann thought she knew who that person was, but it ended up being nothing but an adolescent dream that Ann never shared with anyone. His name was Rick Sampson. He ran the long distance races for the track team in high school. She didn't care that he was an athlete. She did care that she was once in a geometry class with him and that he actually understood the course. Athletes weren't supposed to comprehend things like geometry. They were supposed to be easily confused by pictures of intersecting triangles. While they were in high school, Rick had dated another girl in their class. They lasted all the way through high school. It was everyone's assumption that they would someday marry. A year later, when they broke up out of the view of everyone they went to school with, it barely registered the way it might have had it happened while everyone was still in school. Up until this moment, Ann had gone a long time between thoughts of Rick Sampson. Where was he now? What had fate dealt him? Was he still running? Had he gone mad trying to intersect every triangle he saw in fits of geometric madness? Was it worth all of this idle speculation?

She thought about her much-anticipated Southwestern omelette. "It's just good to see familiar faces", Ann added almost unnecessarily.

The waitress came with their breakfasts, to which Ann's muffin had been a prelude. The table fell silent briefly as they consumed their meals. They talked about how they would spend the rest of their Saturday. There were fabrics to be bought, clothes to try on, knick-knacks to add to their homes. It was going to be a really good day. The Rick Sampsons of the world would have to wait another day. Fate belonged to Ann and Meg, and was going to be very generous with the Gary Time.

2004-11-12T23:05:00.000-06:00

Morality

He knelt down to pray for the second time today, the words contained in his prayers, which were familiar from an entire lifetime of repetition, increased in intensity as he continued. His hands, still smelling of gunpowder and gasoline, were intertwined save for his thumbs, the knuckles of which providing a resting place for his forehead as he chanted to himself under his breath.

Night had fallen. He had been driving for five hours straight since the shooting, with the imprint of the steering wheel on his reddened hands. He had a tape of Christian music in the tape player that flipped itself over and replayed five times. He had stopped only once for gas, making sure to look down at the ground as he went about pumping gas, as to not appear clearly on any security cameras that may have been filming his every action. He forced himself not to think about the food that tempted him from inside the mini-mart at the gas station. His mission today was too important in his eyes to forfeit it all for physical sustenance.

As he closed in on his destination for the evening, he passed a one-car accident. An ambulance was being loaded, the car they were driving overturned. He drove through the scene slowly, taking it all in. When the scene had disappeared into his rearview mirror, he said a prayer to himself for the person involved in the accident.

He came upon a small roadside motel in the middle of nowhere that he had passed on his many travels as a door-to-door proselytizer. This was the type of place that was unaccustomed to seeing anything other than couples registering under a phony name. The desk clerk eyed him carefully, figuring he would soon be joined by a woman in waiting. When you're off the beaten path and renting out rooms for the night, adultery and prostitution come as part of the decor, like the aging wallpaper and the cheap paintings on the wall of seascapes.

And so he found himself praying, kneeling on the floor, elbows resting on the bed, the aging lamps extinguished. Every prayer in his head taking on urgency. He prayed for guidance in a troubled world. He prayed for every member of his family both living and dead, paying special attention to his sister, who was expecting her fourth child within the next 6 weeks. He also prayed for the man he had murdered earlier in the day.

With the exception of the clock reading 4:05 AM, his day had started like most others in his life of late. He started his day by kneeling down beside the bed and thanking God for seeing another day, promising that this day would bring glory to him. He showered, shaved, dressed and ate a bowl of cereal after thanking God for his meal. He lived alone now, his wife and children having now relocated to another state. He had no visitation rights, with restraining orders in two states making the very thought nothing more than a pipe dream. He always made it a point to pray for his children's souls, as well as for the soul of his ex-wife, telling himself all the while that that was what God wanted him to do.

This morning had a special purpose to it however. He was sure to make some extra time to make sure his hunting rifle was cleaned until it shined, all its parts in perfect working order. He repeated a prayer to himself as he cleaned the outside of the barrel, moving up and down until there were no fingerprints on it. After placing the rifle into a soft shoulder bag, he took out two unspent shotgun shells and wiped those down as well. He silently prayed that they would strike their target and take his life, so others could be saved. He placed the shells in a small zip-up pouch in the shoulder bag. He grabbed a suitcase he had packed the night before in his right hand and threw the rifle over his left shoulder, and walked deliberately passed his kitchen table, which had a stack of letters from the local Domestic Relations office on them. He paused before he went through the garage door and took one last silent look around the inside of the house. He asked God to protect his home and all who would later enter through its doors, knowing that he would not be included in that group.

He loaded the rifle bag and suitcase into the back seat of his car. This was to be the last trip he took in this car. He was driving to a rental car agency to rent a car for his journey. Because of his limited budget, he was going to rent the smallest car the agency had available, making sure everything would fit. He couldn't make his rifle public knowledge, however. He parked his own car a few blocks away in an inconspicuous location and grabbed only his suitcase for the short walk to the rental car agency. He would double back for the rifle after the other car was rented. Despite the fact that it was now 5:30, he knew someone would be behind the counter. He would have to be quick, as he needed to be at his destination by 6:15.

"Welcome, how can I help you today?", the rental agent said

"I believe I have a reservation. The name's Smith; Jonah Smith", he replied, trying not to look like he was in a hurry.

The agent confirmed the reservation, went over the rental agreement, to which he nodded his head in understanding, despite the fact that he was barely listening to the rental agent. He gave her his last remaining credit card that still had enough of a balance to rent the car, which was approved by a whisker, signed off on the rental contract and grabbed the keys to a Ford Focus. Such a fitting name for a car today, he thought to himself, for he felt that, at this small point in time, he had never been more single-minded on his reasons for walking the Earth. He loaded his suitcase into the trunk and began his journey.

He drove to his own car and looked around carefully as he loaded the rifle into the back seat. He then began his final journey to the other side of town. Only 10 minutes away, he thought to himself. He could be there by 6 AM, leaving fifteen minutes to set up shop.

He arrived in proximity to his destination, a women's health clinic just outside the city limits from where he lived. For the last two years of his life, this place had been his home away from home. He had been arrested several times in the past outside its doors, one of a dozen or so rotating faces who carried graphic signs and bellowed Bible verses to all who entered their doors. Of all the protesters, he had proven himself to be the worst of the bunch. He was jailed for ten days for throwing fake blood made of flour, red food coloring and water on one of the nurses who worked inside the clinic. That was 14 days ago. He had decided while he was sitting in that jail cell that if the courts and society wouldn't take the action to stop abortion, then he would have to do it. He would be protected by God for all that happened to him afterwards. He was right and the world was wrong, and it was certainly not up for discussion anymore.

His wife had left him shortly after he had begun to protest at the clinic. He refused to find a job, saying that God had given him this most high of callings to protect the lives of the unborn. They had argued. His ex-wife accused him of shirking his duties as a father to his children, calling him a headcase. He responded by slapping her across the face as the children watched. She and the children were gone the next day. The first restraining order arrived at his door two days after that.

He parked around the block from the clinic and set up shop behind a row of hedges behind the clinic. It was still dark at this time of the day in early December, which provided adequate cover for him to carry his gun from the car to the hedges. He found his line of sight to the clinic's back parking lot and began to assemble his rifle. From watching the movements of the clinic for such a long period of time, he knew the comings and goings of the doctor who worked at the clinic. While the doctor had varied his start times for the better part of a year becuase of the death threats he had received to the best of his ability, The clinic started seeing patients at 7 AM, and he would be there for the first patient of the day.

The rifle was now assembled. He loaded in the two shells, then checked the view through the infrared sight on the top of his gun. It was perfect. He was ready.

At 6:23, the doctor pulled up in an old beat-up Toyota Corolla. The doctor had abandoned his luxury car after the death threats began to come. He was told to simplify his appearance as to not stand out from the rest of the staff. The threats first came in the mail and on the phone at the clinic. One package that arrived required the intervention of the local bomb squad, which ended up being nothing more that copper wire and tiissue paper, wadded into a box to appear as if to be a bomb. He began to receive similar mail and similar phone calls at his home, to the point where he now only had a cell phone, the number of which was known only by the staff and his immediate family. He later found out that his home phone number had been posted on a domestic terrorist website devoted to abortion doctors. He sued the website and won, making him more of a target than ever before.

He readied his rifle in his hands as the doctor stepped out of his car. The doctor was locking his car with his briefcase in his hand when he fired the first shot, a direct hit to the wrist. The second shot ripped through the back of the doctor's head, his lifeless body crumpling to the ground. His assassin began to run to his car, his rifle case over his left shoulder, his rifle in his right hand as he ran. As he jumped into his car, he noticed a few people had come out of their house, not fully dressed for the morning and attempted to get his license number. He turned on his headlights only when he was far enough away that they wouldn't be able to make out any number or letters on his plate. They now knew the model of his rental car however, and this would more than likely be a problem, but he didn't care. God's will had been served. He was sure to enter the gates of Heaven now as God's avenging angel.

He continued to say his prayers now, on his knees, in the motel room many miles away from the sight of what he saw as his greatest deed. He smiled as he prayed, his belief in his own deliverance now absolute. Morality has finally won out, he thought. A thought was not saved for the doctor, his friends, his family, his patients. The doctor was merely an instrument of salvation, a key to the kingdom. He knew that lives would be saved, justifying any ends he himself had gone to to save them. He was prepared to martyr himself to the legions of devils around him who would think of him as a murderer. It was not their opinion or what he saw as their shallow ideals that he followed.

He brought himself up from the floor at the conclusion of his prayers. He reached for the lamp and turned it on. He now had a chance to get his rifle back into the case. When he left this hotel tomorrow, he would throw the rifle into a nearby lake, hoping it would never be found, but not really caring one way or the other, for he was now protected by God. He would return the rental car to an agency in the next big town along the interstate. After that, he had not had a plan. He would try to be invisible to earthly law for as long as possible until he was either caught or met some other and unpredicted end. He considered it his forty days in the desert, just as Jesus had done, fighting temptation and the evils of the world until he would someday sacrifice himself. His mother had always told him as a child, as she took him to church, that God would reveal great things to him. As he finished packing up his rifle and laying out his clothes for the morning from his briefcase, he turned off the light and put himself to bed, knowing in his heart and mind that his mother had been right, his mission on earth accomplished.

2004-11-10T23:56:00.000-06:00

Substitute

A tall 24-ounce glass of ice water.

It was usually by this time in the morning that this glass would be filled with vodka, but not today. It was the first day out of alcohol and drug rehabilitation for the glass's owner, and this glass, like all others from this point, would contain no alcohol.

It was hard to say just how many hundreds-or could it be thousands- of drinks this glass had seen over the past five years. It could somehow count itself lucky, for how many of its brethren in the fluid container community in the kitchen cabinet had been dropped, or for that matter tosseed against the wall in anger, and shattered.

It was the shape of this glass that kept the owner coming back for more. The glass was thick, and had an etched imprint of the name of the owner's favorite beer in all the world. In the old days, the glass only saw beer. The owner would frost the glass in the freezer, readying it for the weekend, for in the days before dependence, the weekend was the only time it was used. Dark beer was the drink of choice, forming a thick icy sheet inside the glass as the bottle slowly emptied into the slightly tilted glass. The head of the beer would leave a naturally-created series of descending foamy brushstrokes, which plunged to the bottom of the glass, as if each ring was a nomad completing one final Hejira to end its brief life. Though their lives were always short, every beer was consumed with a smile, every sip savored, every painted ring bringing the owner closer to an unknown secret.

Soon, beer binges on the weekend gave way to a nightly beer to unwind from a work day. Sooner than anyone anticipated, the owner was up to two, then three. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, three beers before dinner and three beers after dinner gave way to ten beers as dinner. What had once been a lucid mind attached to the mouth which fed from the glass slowly became less nimble; less quick with a joke, less fleet with a fact. The owner's hands, which had taken lovers into them with a passion and a love of life, now reached out to nothing. Nothing, of course, except the glass and its contents.

There were days when the glass suffered from neglect. In the end, as the owner bottomed out, dishes were left dirty for days, sometimes weeks. The glass, which had held mind-clouding beverages that filled the owner with dreams, nightmares and delusions of every stripe, soon found itself with a coating of mold at the bottom, neglected, temporarily unloved and unused. Drinks were consumed straight from the bottle. Such a useless thing a bottle; created as nothing more than a temporary weigh station for the soon-to-be-consumed. Recyclability is all they have going for them. Some have a very distinctive shape, but one use later, they are useless. Who would refill a bottle these days?

Twelve weeks had passed since the last beverage touched the glass. The owner returned to the house and became reacquainted with the layout and the items in the house. All remnants of beer and liquor had been removed from the house. The glass and its owner would now do their level best to go without, which was going to be no easy task. The glass would be of no help in this regard, its etched trademark staring its owner in the face, reminding the owner of days gone by. The owner had the look of someone wanting to rebuild a life from ruins. Cigarettes were now the addiction of choice, a half-smoked pack now joining the car keys on the dining room table. If smoking takes the place of alcoholism, is it only nothing more than trading short self-destruction for time-released doses of the same thing? Would the next dramatic narrative in the house center around the ashtray? Only time would tell.

For now, the glass would do the work for which it was made. It would not be so central to the story of the owner anymore, but its lifespan with the owner would be much less threatening and tenuous. More time from now on would be spent in the cabinet, resting with its surviving brethren at the end of an interior war that threatened the life of the owner. Occasionally, for the inevitable jogging of the owner's memories, the glass would be called upon, as it was at this very moment , for a victory lap. Hopefully, this would not be the last tall 24-ounce glass of ice water the glass would hold, but given the abuse it and the owner had suffered, the glass was more than happy with the substitution of water for vodka.

2004-11-10T23:38:00.000-06:00

A quick word is in order to give the readers an itinerary for the next 7 days retroactive to last night.
I saw the reformed Pixies last night at The Milwaukee Theatre.
Altenative bands since the late '80's, for the most part have had a nondescript appearance about them. Usually, they have been groups that have followed the fashion trends of the day. As I watched the Pixies go through a near-flawless set of their most known musical works, I was struck by the actual physical shape. After over ten years apart, they have roughly the same appearance as they did all those years ago as they changed the rules of alternative music for the rest of time. Frank Black (Black Francis?) was still the heavyset lead singer, Joey Santiago was still the bald lead guitar player, Kim Deal was still the tall female bass player, and David Lovering still played his drums in the same position, hunched over his drum kit, coiled and ready to strike. I highly recommend that any fan of the Pixies not miss this show. I called it "near-flawless" because they didn't play "Tony's Theme", but that's just one fan's beef, and I can't hold it against them for everyone else.
This Friday night, I'll be playing the Open Stage at The Coffee House down near Marquette. I have an idea to record a solo acoustic album there in four visits, as they record for a nominal fee down there.
Monday, I'll be playing an open mic at Studio 305 around the block. The keepers of the studio, Dominic and Linda, are just wonderful people. I'm letting them borrow the PA from me for the night. It's very exciting to be on the ground floor of a new venue. I can't wait.
The balance of my time shall be spent in creative pursuits of one kind or another. Ah, Autumn, my energy source. I am empowered by the smell of the season. Sandy Denny sings in my ear, and my thoughts turn positive, despite the many negatives of this world we now find ourselves in. May they spread to you too, dear reader!!

2004-11-09T23:51:00.000-06:00

Foreign

Frank Harkins never wore a coat, and after years of dodging the bullet that is the biting December cold of New England, today, he was paying for it. He lay in his bed, in the grips of the flu, covered with two blankets and a quilt, feverish, but still too cold to get out from under the covers. A half-consumed pitcher of water sat on the night table next to the bed to his left, an empty glass stationed in wait next to the pitcher. A bucket lay on the floor on the other side of the bed, awaiting any sudden emesis that may have appeared before Frank could reach the bathroom, which seemed like it lay one hundred yards down the hall.

He couldn't help thinking, as he lay in bed, with no energy at his immediate disposal, beads of sweat painting slow rivulets from his forehead to his temples, how much this felt like a hangover. Or did it feel like that time when he was playing basketball and he slammed the back of his skull against the concrete? Probably not, as his head didn't so much throb as feel extremely heavy.

Without the energy to accomplish anything else, he tried to think of the exact moment of where he caught the flu. Even through the fog of contagious illness, he knew the answer to that question. This past Friday; it must have been, he thought.

The party at Dave's place. Dave was a friend of his from college who happened to have settled in the same town as Frank a few years after they had both graduated. Several months ago, Dave had had another party at his place. He had invited many people to that one. It was the beginning of Spring, and everyone was getting used to going jacketless for the first time in months, New England winters being what they are. As he circulated from room to room at Dave's place, a woman caught his eye in one of those moments that all humans have.

Dave's basement had been converted into a comfortable party space, complete with full bar, pool table, dart board, a stereo system with a 100-CD changer and, as an inside joke, a portrait of those dogs playing poker. He first saw her in the basement. She was leaning up against a wall, her legs crossed one over the other, holding a drink in her left hand and playing with the ice cubes in her drink with her right index finger. She was dressed casually, with short blonde hair and what appeared to be blue eyes from across the room, but he couldn't be sure. She was talking to another woman, listening, sometimes laughing, at which point, at least to Henry, her entire face would radiate pure joy and beauty. For the rest of the night, Frank tried to be an undetected satellite of this woman, staying somewhere in her vicinity, doing his level best to avoid all eye contact, and ultimately, too shy to approach.

The following day, on the pretense of helping Dave clean up the house from the night before, he stopped by Dave's place for an after-hover scouting report. Yes, Dave knew her. Her name was Corinne. Immediately in his head, he began to pronounce her name with different overly romantic and breathy inflections, becoming his silent mantra. Corinne was a co-worker of Dave's. She had been there less than a year. She was single, but not necessarily looking. She liked to go out after work. Beyond that Dave knew only her age (twenty-six) and her obvious physical attributes.

For months, Frank asked about Corinne every time they met. He was a man obsessed. He hadn't been on a date since seeing her at the party. Every spare moment of time that his brain could muster was a chance for him to say her name to himself. As Spring turned to Summer, then Autumn, time gave way to a reality of the situation. He saw this woman once; more than likely she had to have been taken by now. The opportunity had come and gone and he was left with a positive memory.

And then, December. Dave was having a Christmas party at his house for selected guests. Dave made a point to to tell Frank that his once-and possibly future?-dream girl, Corinne, would be in attendance, and yes, she was still available. Frank's pupils dilated to the whites of his eyes with excitement and nervousness. Suddenly, on the brink of Winter, Frank had a goal.

The party at Dave's was on a Friday night, so Frank scheduled a haircut for himself after work, getting himself in the barber's chair right before closing. Next, he needed to impress his quarry with impeccable taste, so he went to the liquor store and, not knowing one wine from another, chose the most expensive white zinfandel on the shelf for purchase. Thank you Mastercard, he thought to himself. He passed by the local bakery for an impressive cookie tray. Thank you again Mastercard. When one is on the hunt, it is best to pay it forward.

Frank then went to his own home to spruce up a little with a fresh shirt and a change into casual shoes. He was now ready for sport.

He arrived at Dave's fashionably late, wearing no coat as usual, bringing with him the bottle of wine and the elaborate cookie tray. Dave thanked him for the gifts, and Frank proceeded inside. It took him all of 20 seconds to find her. Since the Spring, her hair had grown out a little. He could see her eyes now, and he had been right; blue, and an alluring blue at that, as if this beauty from beyond the pale had needed any final touches. Tonight was going to be the night. He was determined to be on the top of his social game, in case anyone-and by anyone he meant Corinne- see him falter. He decided that he would be the unofficial co-host of the party. He would greet everyone who came in with a joke, a handshake and a beaming, uplifting personality that would shoot light in all directions from him like a crystal chandelier in a ballroom.

Like a political candidate he began to work the room, conspicuously working around Corinne, in a desperate attempt to save the best for last. He made sure to leave them laughing as he went, so as to add "great sense of humor" to his dating resume.

The moment of truth had arrived. With a glass of wine in hand and his confidence restored, he approached.

"Hi. Frank Harkins", he said, smiling and knowing what was coming.

"Corinne Peters. Hiiii", drawing out the power word of greeting, "How do you know Daaave?"

A nasal, mallchick voice, he thought to himself, as he answered her question. Over the course of the next five minutes, his heart, which had risen and fallen for many months at the mere thought of who he was talking to, began to sink without chance of resurfacing. Beauty is one marker, and then comes personality. Not only did Frank and Corinne have no intersecting interests, but they actually diverged, and in some cases violently. There was absolutely no hint of compatability on any level that would make this work. For a brief second, it broke his heart that some man out there who he probably would ignore otherwise would someday land this beauty and win her heart. When the second passed, he thought about how that voice would be in someone else's ears in the future, and he was elated. He carried that elation away from Corinne and onto other conversations. He was struck as to how someone so native to the surroundings of his head for so long a period of time had suddenly become such a foreigner. He needed conversation, he needed cookies, but most of all, he needed that wine. Even the damned poker-playing dogs would be a welcome change from this.

All of this replayed in his head as he lay in his bed, sweating out the flu under a few inches of bed covers. As the foreigner that was Corinne left his head and heart for good, another foreign invader, this year's strain of flu, decided to set up shop in his body, reducing him and his bed into an island of sickness. His bed had all the telltale signs; balled up tissues stuffed underneath the pillows, a deepening dent in the mattress from his occupancy and the stain of prescribed cough syrup which he had spilled on the bed. This bedroom was now officially a sick ward.

He had shaken too many hands, been out in the world without a coat for far too long, wasted too much energy on something that produced energy in the wrong direction. Now was the time to convalesce. The myth of metaphysical perfection had claimed another victim, leaving him sweating and freezing, looking forward in time dazed and harshly repatriated into reality.

2004-11-08T22:35:00.000-06:00

Cannibal

When he first began to hatch his plan, curiously, he thought about what he would wear. He thought briefly about an altar boy's outfit, but at the age of 26, he was just too tall for a jaunt down memory lane. He then gave a thought or two to just casual clothing, the kinds of things you buy at The Gap that make you look trendy. These were the kind of clothes that one would wear if they weren't worried about the slave labor that stitched them together. This potential wardrobe wouldn't do either.

As he descended the fifteen steps of the staircase, his decision revealed itself. He had chosen a black suit, white shirt, solid black tie, black dress socks and newly-shined Florsheim shoes. Looking at him in this frozen moment, with his impeccably drab wardrobe fitting perfectly into place, one would get the impression that today was the day he would go on that job interview at the local mortuary. Yet this was not his purpose today; today, he dressed this way for dinner.

His outer appearance was unexpectedly augmented by a shave and a haircut, received earlier in the afternoon at the local unisex salon, located in a strip mall around the corner from his home. It was performed by a middle-aged Hispanic woman who wore a crucifix and a St. Christopher medal around her neck. As the stylist combed his hair for the finishing touch, he was struck by how many years it had been since he had actually cared what the hair on his head had looked. His mother would comb his hair on Sunday mornings, right before church. He had to arrive early to prepare for mass as an altar boy. He would always serve mass with Father Ryan, who was always insistent with all the parents of the parish of the Church Of The Redeemer that his altar boys ' appearance be of the highest order. Everyone loved Father Ryan for drilling into the boys a strong sense of discipline and order. The woman who gave him his haircut and shave was very gentle with the razor on his slightly acne-scarred cheeks. The stylist's name was Maria.

Hw wore on his face an expression of peace and contentment he had not know for many years, dating back to the simple days of early childhood. It was hard for him to recall the feelings and sensations of that time. With almost 20 intervening years since this contentment he was feeling, one could not blame him for feeling detached from his past. The years since had been filled with inner turmoil and restlessness, chronic truancy, alcoholism and drug addiction. When the prevailing wind blows pain, any shelter from the storm appears as an oasis on the horizon. It was when he was forced to re-enter the storm that he realized that any peace was all too fleeting and temporary, unless he finally confronted the demon that had brought him to such places of desperation.

It was with this in mind that he found himself in his home, dressed to the nines for a very special dinner. The only other person expected this evening was Father Ryan, still much beloved by the community, currently laying dead on the dining room table.

Father Ryan had been missing for four days. He was last seen leaving for his nightly stroll around the grounds of the elementary school, which shared a parking lot with the church. He was a man in very good shape for the age of sixty-seven. He attributed it to healthy eating habits, plenty of exercise and the will of God.

"And not necessarily in that order", he would say to inquisitive parishioners.

When Father Ryan didn't return after an hour, the other priests in the parish became worried. The police were summoned, but no evidence turned up. Father Ryan's face was now the most well-recognized missing person in the greater metropolitan area, thanks to the local media, who loved to lead off their broadcasts with a good tragedy to scare the hell out of the viewers. The adjective most used to describe Father Ryan was "beloved", each passing hour seemingly bringing him closer to canonization. That is, if journalists had been in charge of the beatification process.

He hadn't wanted to be an altar boy. Father Ryan had spotted him after a Sunday Mass one sunny day in May, standing next to his parents.

"Such a strong boy! He'd make a fine altar boy, Mrs. DiGregorio", he remembers Father Ryan saying to his mother.

"Oh Father, Dominic and I were just discussing that the other day", his mother said, mixing her ingratiating demeanor with a little white lie. His parents had never mentioned him being an alter boy until that very moment. Two weeks later, he was carrying the hosts to the altar at the 8:30 mass.

He was an altar boy for roughly a year, telling his parents that he wanted to sleep later on Sundays. His parents didn't fight his decision to stop, figuring that it was all temporary anyway. He always seemed so tired on Sundays after mass. Perhaps the extra sleep would do him some good after all.

At first, being an altar boy seemed easy. He would show up about ten minutes prior to the start of mass, change into his cassock, and serve mass alongside Father Ryan. After about a month, Father Ryan asked his parents if he could arrive a half-hour prior to mass, his justification being that the 8:30 mass was beginning to get progressively more crowded. Things needed to be perfect. Everything needed just that much more time to be arranged. He remembered now that his parents had never asked him directly, but simply complied with Father Ryan's wishes, never knowing or realizing the unspeakable horror this decision brought to their son.

In the moments prior to mass, in an anteroom behind the altar, Father Ryan would tell him to wash his hands in the font of holy water, take off his pants and close his eyes. For nine months, Father Ryan committed atrocities on the boy, commanding him after every episode never to speak of it to anyone, lest he face the wrath of God. During the mass, he would see the Stations of the Cross, displayed in order around the church. His eyes would always settle on "Jesus Bears The Cross". What does he know of suffering, he thought. Why won't he help me now? After he quit as an altar boy, he became more and more enraged, watching the people of the church treat Father Ryan with such reverence, such respect. His parents were deeply offended by his decision, at age twelve, to stop going to church. They thought it just a phase, thiking that he would "return to the flock" in the near future. That return never came.

His grades slipped and he skipped school more frequently as his teenage years progressed. He fell in with the crowd that always seemed to have access to a stray bottle of liquor and an endless supply of Vicodin, burying himself in a place where he could keep the pain at bay, however temporarily. Never once did he mention the burden resting on his shoulders to anyone.

Early in his senior year of high school, his parents, worried that he would flunk out of school, placed him in an inpatient psychiatric ward for treatment. He never opened up the old wounds when questioned by the doctors. When he declared two days into his stay that he wouldn't talk anymore to anyone at the facility, his doctors approached his parents with other options of treatment, one of which was "electroconvulsive therapy", a soft-pedaled phrase meaning shock treatment. He left the facility, two weeks and five shock treatments later, deadened and numb. He graduated high school with barely above a D average.

The eight intervening years brought no solace. More drinking, more and harder drugs, more psychiatry. It was three weeks ago in a group therapy session where he finally had an epiphany. The psychiatrist had spoken of never finding rest until the source of pain was isolated, confronted and put to rest. How could it be that no one had ever said this in such a way to him before?

It was in this spirit that Father Ryan found himself dead on the dining room table, his mouth gagged, his hands and feet bound tightly together, his skin a tinge of blue from suffocation, the imprint of his killer's tightened belt forming a perfect pattern around his pulseless neck. For a man so well known for being in good shape, extinguishing the life from him was rather easy. One could barely see the point of walking at all.

He stopped for a few brief moments to gaze upon the lifeless body of his childhood tormentor. Just a few preparations more and peace would finally come to him.

He thought for a moment of the many ways that this man had violated him. How, as a defenseless child, he had no other option but to close his eyes and take it. His fear was subsiding now, all trepidation and inhibition that had ruled his life slipping away a little farther with each passing second.

Silently and deliberately, he went to the kitchen to retrieve a cleaver from the a kitchen drawer. He thought about Judges 19, the Levite and His Concubine. He thought about the waste of spreading the Levite's comcubine's remains in little pieces in the desert. For Father Ryan, there would be but one vulture to pick from his bones. It would take at least 5 days to consume an entire priest, he thought to himself, as he began the preparations for dinner by undressing the body of Father Ryan.

(Writer's Note: I feel I must make the reader aware of my strong opposition to cannibalism. It also bears stating that this story is fiction)