Shutdown and Shut Up

I think a very telling aspect of this “partial” shutdown of government is that all those wonderful folks in Congress are still getting paid. The 800,000 people who are not, apparently, don’t matter. The Tea Party folks call themselves “patriots.” I wonder if they know what that means. They are extorting the American people, they say, for our own good. The health care reform act was passed by both houses and signed into law. Now, guys like Ted Cruz are attempting to hold it hostage because they don’t like it. I’m not sure I like it either, but if I follow their example, I can pick and choose the laws I want to obey.

Well, I kind of do that already, so who am I to talk?

I’m not a Democrat and I’m not a Republican. I think both parties have damaged themselves with this gamesmanship. We (the American people) are mostly annoyed by the situation. This is kind of dangerous and can give rise to other interests gaining listeners (and votes). While that might be a breath of healthy clean air, it also bears watching very closely. People should study the politics of Europe in the late Twenties and Thirties of the last century. Peoples’ disenchantment with the regimes in power had disastrous results.

The only good thing, I think, to come out of this congressional ineptitude is that it is providing a rich, albeit squirmy, wealth of material for cartoonists and humorists. I really wish Mark Twain were alive and writing and Molly Ivins would be having a ball skewering Mr. Cruz.

It would be interesting to discover who the big insurance lobby is supporting during this whacko situation.

Hippy New Year

I’m sitting in the small community of River Meadows, between Sunriver and La Pine, Oregon, on the last evening of 2012. It’s been a hell of a year. Lots of good stuff, to be sure, but I have experienced more death this year than in any other year in my memory. I may look back on this year as The Year of Dying. I lost people very close to me and there were the very public deaths in the News. Wow. I could embark, here, upon a real downer of a story to post. Part of the situation, I’m sure, is my age. I’m currently sixty-two. People start dying right where I’m at. So, it goes with the territory. But still, I’m kind of a rookie at the personal part of it. The public part of it, mass shootings, stabbings, rapes, species destruction, genetic modification extinctions, all that stuff that drives us all nuts, well, it’s pervasive and has put an ironclad protective shield of dangerous cynicism around my normally airy sense of irony. It’s the Way of the World. It’s Nature. It’s Darwin at Work. It’s not about guns, it’s not about knives, it’s not about video games. It’s about people. If you want to stop the bleeding, heal the culture. Heal the people who are so marginalized and disconnected that they pick up a weapon and scream “Look At Me!”

But life is about choices. For this evening, I choose to leave that stuff under the rug. At least, for now and for the rest of this piece. Okay, so it’s a short piece. Bless all you readers. Bless your families and your loved ones. Bless us all. May the coming year be better than you hope and more than you dream. We all deserve it.

Ode to a Freezer

I’ve had an odd relationship with a Hotpoint freezer over the course of my entire life. I think it’s older than I am. That’s pretty good for a freezer. (All together now:) they sure don’t make ‘em like they used to. People are still made, pretty much, the same way we’ve always been made, but if practice really makes perfect, shouldn’t we be farther along as a species? Shouldn’t we know not to make so many people? Every problem we’re facing now as a species can be directly attributed to our overabundance of population. And not one of us is perfect, no matter how much practice has been going on.

But I digress…The freezer has been doing its thing, freezing things and keeping them frozen for over sixty years. My first real memories are of Buffalo, NY. The big ol’ white horizontal thing lived in the utility room just inside the back door because I’m sure that nobody was willing to wrestle it down to the basement. When I lived with my parents for all those years, it was mostly in the garage. It’s horizontal bulk has always been impressive. When I was big enough to peek over its edge I still wasn’t strong enough to release the latch, let alone lift the lid.

When I got bigger, I used to sneak things in there, just to see what would happen: worms, grasshoppers, lightning bugs…I was the perfect (?) little savage. It slowly dawned on me that the results were always strikingly similar and that the spark of life does not survive the interior of a Hotpoint freezer. It was a sobering realization and I stopped sacrificing invertibrate and insect creatures for the sake of my own personal curiosity. But when I caught my first trout, which I had to clean myself, it dawned on me that I could keep the head looking like a head by keeping it in the freezer. My mother resisted this, but I was persistent and eventually got my way. I’m not sure how long that fish head stayed in the freezer where I could look at it. I'm thinking at least two years. I'll bet my mom was glad to see it go when I finally lost interest.

My mother prepared food en masse and froze it so that she could, when she didn't feel like cooking or if we were in a hurry, feed us throughout the week by simply reheating the chunks of ice that came out of the big white box. This was way before the microwave revolution, so it can be firmly avowed that she was always way ahead of her time. The cycle of cooking and freezing continued to the very end. She was careful to instruct the rest of us, particularly my wife Laura, in the freezer’s proper care and use. I still find it odd that a reliable and steady freezing machine would have the name Hotpoint on it. Perhaps realizing that was my introduction to irony.

Today, my mother is gone, but, down in California, the freezer is still freezing to its little heart’s content. Mom and I joked many times that we should just bury her in the thing and be done with it. (I mean, you really could.) When it finally does, as it must, give up its electrical ghost, the true passing of an era will be complete. I'm hoping it will last a good long time yet.

Oh. Forgive me a shameless plug for my new website: www.jamesrichardstewart.com

A year? What happened?

Yikes. It’s been a year and 12 days since I last posted here. As I attempt to figure that out I can’t come up with a reason. I’ve been writing in fits and spurts, finished a poem, a couple of songs, have been performing (not as much as in the past—see the previous blog entry). Here it is September 16, in the year of our lard 2010. This has been the fastest year on record for me. When I realized that a year had passed since the last blog bit, I was stunned. I remember the night I went through what I wrote about like it was yesterday. And perhaps it was. Time is such a strange invention. It’s like color in that if there is no brain to perceive it, it really doesn’t exist.

This is shaping up to be a very interesting mid-term election year. The Nut Job party is making news. Apparently, people are jumping on the “Masturbation is a Sin” bandwagon. New York will probably ban smoking in Times Square, Central Park, and all the heavily-used public outside areas. I’m just a little confused about that. I quit smoking cigarettes nearly five years ago, but have no beef with people that are still addicted. That’s their business. I just don’t get the ban on smoking outside. Second hand smoke is dangerous, says the Mayor and his council. Say what? Outside? I thought this was a free country. But then I realize that masturbating in public is illegal. I guess smoking is a sin as well. And the Nut Jobs continue, so maybe it is still a free country. It's just getting really weird and I don't mean that in a good Portland way.

Here in Portland it’s raining. “Oh surprise,” you say. I’ve heard a lot of people complaining that we didn’t have a summer this year. Poppycock, I say. We’ve had a lovely summer. It just never showed up until mid-July. We had a few days in the 90s and two, I think, days where it cracked 100. This is the second rainy week we’ve had since July. I think that’s pretty darn good. Maybe people are whining because everything has gone by at such a breakneck pace.

My parents arrive today for a visit. My mom will be 90 in November and my dad turned 93 last month. It will be great to have them here. This trip is part of my mom’s “bucket list,” something she wanted to do “one more time.” She wanted to come to Oregon and see all of the friends we have here. It’s been great helping to make this happen. There are also mystery guests who have come from as far away as Connecticut and Texas to see her. She will be very surprised and pleased, I think. For this event we also went out and got a big-screen HD-capable TV so my dad would have something to do. I’ll get him out to the Flight Museum in McMinnville on one of the days they’re here. He hasn’t seen the space side yet and I’ve only seen it once, so that will be a treat.

A year? Wow. I’ve been quite the slacker. I’m hopeful that I can step it up a little. Check back next week and see if I’m still awake.

Changing My Focus

I have decided that I will no longer write about Wall Street, or Banking, or the Economic Downturn. When I think about the unbelievable untrustworthiness and glorified greed that has been evident in those circles I just want to go stand in the shower and scrub myself until I’m raw. I’m going to avoid politics too. I’m pretty sick of that after a two-year campaign, a contentious election, and a fat bi-polar misogynistic pill freak selling advertising. There have been stirring moments of hope, yes. Those moments have buoyed the moments of fear and despair nicely. But now we’re back to day-to-day spin management, obfuscation, and bluster. Business as usual, I reckon.

Will I continue to pay attention? Yes, it’s my nature. I will monitor my perceptions, seek counsel when I’m confused, and if something egregious happens I’ll have to break with my intent and write about it. I suppose something really good could inspire me too, like Cheney shooting his lawyer. So, until it becomes necessary to regress, I will write about fun and interesting stuff, like colonoscopies, bags under my eyes, golf, baseball, maybe hockey, managing my girth, and maybe even sex. That would really creep out my kids.

I feel terrible for Michael Phelps and his family. I think all of the people who have written diatribes about how he’s “defiled” America should go stand under the next booster that launches a space shuttle. Come on, people. Were you ever twenty-three? The same people who wrote despicable things about Michael probably went home and muttered into their cocktails about their kids being on Ritalin. That is the epitome of hypocrisy. For those of you so inclined, go read Terry Southern’s “Red Dirt Marijuana” to get an idea of why powerful elements in our society are dead-set against smoking the weed. It has nothing to do with taxes, morals, or health.

A really bright (or as a good friend would say, “shiny”) spot during the past month is the seemingly miraculous ditching of US Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson River. I’m glad the media have picked this up and run with it, but I feel for the crew who would love to just fade back into the mainstream and get on with their lives. They were, in fact, just “doing their jobs to the best of their abilities” and I salute them for their professionalism, their bravery under duress, and their quiet acknowledgment of the outpouring of interest and affection by a grateful world population. They are truly role models. We’ve had little to cheer about that isn’t partisan and this story has been a blessing. But, as usual, the media will beat this horse long after it has ceased to breathe.

Time to get on with the rest of my day. I’ll be back.

Happy New Fear

I’ve had blank-page syndrome for weeks now. I sit down to write for this blog and all I find are excuses to do something else. Apparently, I haven’t been willing to do the work so that the voice shakes off its shackles. There’s been a lot going on too, it’s not like there is nothing to opine about. All sorts of amazing things have happened since October 17, the date of the last entry.

We have a new President-elect and he has potential. He certainly knows how to say the right things, the things that a huge audience wants to hear. He offers hope and a willingness to talk and work together with people of all faiths and of all nations. But is he for real? We shall see. His opponents are already making fun of him and the muckrakers are in full swing, attempting to link him to the sordid details of the Illinois Governor scandal. It always amazes me that we are so amazed when a politician is caught with his hand in the till. C’mon people, don’t be surprised. Wake up and smell the grifters. You should be more amazed when a politician turns out to be a caring humanitarian and who thinks first of service to constituency and to country. Now, THAT would be news.

Let’s see … what else? Oh yeah, the ten murderers who descended upon Mumbai and slaughtered almost two hundred people, ostensibly in the name of god or some other absolutely absurd notion. How easy was that to pull off? Pretty easy, I reckon. One of the most disgusting terms made popular in the last ten years is “soft targets.” I can’t quite wrap my head around the notion that exercising the will of some tinpot god involves automatic weapons and defenseless people. In my opinion, any fool who even gives a moment’s credence to any such act needs to completely reevaluate his or her concept of what it means to be fully human. Yeah, I know … humans are a cruel bunch and self-defense is a movable concept … but at some point don’t you have to put your foot down and just stop accepting that kind of behavior as a “fact of life?” The police can’t stop it, the government can’t stop it, so what it comes down to is that it is up to us, the every day citizens. It doesn’t matter if we’re Indian, Pakistani, Egyptian, American, or Armenian. It is up to us. It is the responsibility of each individual to stand up and say no. Vengeance does not work, it just escalates violence and anger. Any time fear is slathered on to the great toast of humanity, anger soon follows. They are inextricably related.

Here we are back to that righteous thing. Unfettered righteousness is like unfettered capitalism in that given free rein, it will gallop all over most everyone to the delight of a very few. I don’t want hoof prints up my back.

The holidays are almost over. The Christians celebrate the birth of The Holy Kid. My understanding of this timing is that the early faithful chose this time of year to celebrate the Virgin Birth because there were lots of other pagan celebrations going on and they wouldn’t stand out. Apparently, if you reconstruct all of the clues, Jesus (or Joshua, if you will) was born in the Spring, not the beginning of Winter. So the whole thing is kind of a sham. But I’m all for it, actually. People do set aside differences and offer themselves as beacons of hope, tolerance, and buy all kinds of stuff to give away. Not a bad set of sentiments.

Another new word has entered the lexicon of the last couple of months: BAILOUT.

I mean, jeez. This is another fabulous money-laundering scheme brought to us by The Guys with the Big Purse. What a great time to be a professional money person. The government gives you so much money that just trying to comprehend how much makes me dizzy and, because it’s Christmas, I guess, they don’t require any oversight concerning how you spend it. So guess what? It goes to nice hefty bonuses for the guys who created the crisis in the first place. Is anybody outraged about this? Well, yes, but we are not outraged enough. We are passively sitting around worrying about Other Stuff brought on by the crisis. Doesn’t anybody get it?

Thomas Jefferson must be choking on his own moldering face. This is another point that we citizens must stand up and make. But … but … but …

All these buts. Man. We should be ashamed. I don’t know what to do any more than anybody else does. If everyone in this country … and I mean ALL OF US … just didn’t pay taxes next April 15 … would all of us be thrown in jail? I believe in taxes, just as I believe in Fire Departments, Police, and city/county infrastructure. We need that stuff. I don’t mind paying for it. It is my duty and my honor to help pay for it. But I’m also paying for some incompetent bozo to fly in to Dana Point and sit in a luxury suite hot tub and laugh at me. Why is that? What can we do to wake people up?

And the car guys. Hokey Smoke, Bullwinkle. You drove your own business into the ground, misled everyone, and now want, yes, another bailout. GMAC has declared itself a bank so that it can cash in on the financial-sector bailout. It just goes on and on.

How stupid are we? Evidently, pretty stupid. And we're also deathly afraid of something, so afraid that we're, pretty much, paralyzed.

I don’t think I’m done for the week, but I’m done for now. I’m going to go try to wake myself up. Wish me luck.

Politics, Palin, and Planning,

I'm not a political guy. Can't stand it. But sometimes a guy's gotta write what a guy's gotta write.

Sarah Palin is an interesting American phenomenon. She is sharp enough to shave with and is as ambitious as anyone has ever been. She has risen from nowhere in American politics to become the lead attack dog in a very contentious and controversial election. She is a very good-looking human and uses that to her advantage, as she should because in our society women are still immediately and irreversibly judged on how they look. Men are too, but not to the extent that women are.

So why does my skin crawl when I see her or hear her voice? Is it that she is an obvious phony, that she has studied disingenuousness and is perfectly capable of writing the definitive treatise on it, that she can't pronounce Iraq, Iran, or nuclear?

Well, yes. But there's more.

She talks down to me. She calls me "Joe Six-pack" and she's not talking about my abs. Palin has an act that was worn thin twenty-five years ago. She's like Don Rickles but better looking and not as funny. I keep waiting to hear the phrase "doncha know" come out of her but have been, thus far, disappointed. But there have been enough "by gollys" and "darn its" and "you betchas" to last me until the end of my days. This is a person who wants desperately to be one heartbeat away from becoming the most powerful Commander-in-Chief in the history of the world. She will say anything to cajole, mislead, or smear anybody. Her handling of the firing of her ex brother-in-law is being investigated in her home state. We will see if her vindictiveness is justified or if she is truly a good-ol' girl with a misguided sense of her own power.

All that being said, she is formidable and is certainly worthy of some respect. She's tough. But I don't care. So was G. Gordon Liddy. Craig Ryan, a good friend and wonderful writer (do a search on him at www.amazon.com) noted that her name can be used to form the acronym "I Plan." With her in the Presidential race and, at this point in October, it's still anybody's guess who will come out ahead, I think that is very apropos. Those of us in Middle Ground should do some very serious planning on how to live with ourselves should a "pit-bull in lipstick" become Vice President of our country when her president is older than Ronald Reagan was. Right now, she's doing her darndest to be nice and well-liked. My six-pack gut is telling me that is just an artifice, a sham. Ask her ex brother-in-law.

We'll see, by golly. We sure will, doncha know.

Come back soon. The next installment will examine my tortured thoughts and opinions regarding John McCain, a man whose history is disturbingly dichotomous. Ten years ago I would have followed him into Hell because I trusted his vision. Today I wouldn't follow him into a 7-11.

That's Righteous, Brother ...

Went out this evening and walked two miles, mostly in the rain. This was a very good thing. I enjoy walking and my neighborhood is a great mix of flat and hills. I haven’t been walking like I wish I would. This shirkage is probably a function of laziness, but it’s all tied up in my seeming inability to properly manage my time. I like the physicality of walking and I like the results of walking. Since I quit smoking, my wind, even when nonexistent (like tonight), isn’t terribly painful like it used to be. I motored up the steep hill, Broadleaf, and was pretty winded when I got to the top. But if I keep it together and walk again tomorrow, it will be a little better and will keep improving so that I’m barely breathing hard after a couple weeks of it. Without the consistent destruction of smoking cigarettes, gaining a measure of aerobic fitness isn’t really that difficult. It just takes some diligence.

So if all these good things come of walking, why do I get into these periods where I don’t do it? Hmm. An answer might be some kind of depression. I’ve read that a common symptom of depression is the avoidance of things enjoyed. That might have something to do with it. But somehow, for me, not walking regularly is a function of working full time. I haven’t really figured it out yet. I seem to simply forget that I should go out and work up a sweat. Tonight I remembered and am glad of it.
One of the things I love about walking is that it occupies my body so that my imagination can fly out of the ruts that everyday creates. Tonight I got to thinking about righteousness and how addictive it is to feel righteous anger. Oh yeah. We all do it.

But what is being righteous? Is the story of the Christ throwing the moneygrubbers out of the temple righteous? Almost certainly. Is the history of the world coming together to dismantle Adolf Hitler’s outrageous designs righteous? Definitely. Is Pat Robertson saying that New Orleans somehow deserved Katrina righteous? Certainly not. Is anything having to do with this Great American Farce Administration righteous? Emphatically no. Are our military citizens who are dying every week righteous? Now, there’s a sticky question. Any time there are people dying for a cause … and this current conflict has people on all sides giving their full measure … the notion of righteousness becomes almost completely subjective. It depends on which view you assume.

This righteous anger that is leading all manner of humanity to bloody mayhem and death does not seem to have common roots. On one side it is a war of duty and a war of liberation. It is a war to protect the homeland. It is a war to secure a continuous flow of petrochemical goo for some already very rich men. Righteousness doesn’t seem to fit everywhere. On the other side we would be led to believe that it is a holy war and that the god du jour is directing the violence.

Pardon me, but does anybody see a decided lack of righteousness in any of this? But the emotions behind it all and the emotions perpetuating the conflict are more addictive than any opiate, any crystal meth, or any nicotine. People have been addicted to the rush of righteousness since the dawn of human thought.

Personally, I think that the whole notion of finding god, the great separation that the religions of the world would have us close and defend with our lives is simply a longing brought on by the physical act of being born. But that is a can of worms for another day.

Miles of Smiles

As I watched the opening Olympic ceremonies from Beijing last night I was struck by a comment either Costas or Lauer made about the participants being reminded to smile because it made the experience "less intimidating" to the world-wide audience. While it's true that most smiles are less intimidating than scowls and leers, I have personally experienced smiles that were darn near terrifying in their intimidation. For example, when I was a kid I was up in an apple tree eating an apple. Okay, the apple wasn't "mine" and it was, I suppose, stealing. I was really enjoying the apple and heard a sound that I came to identify later as the cocking of the hammers on a double-barreled shotgun. I turned to look into the eyes of Mr. Rogers, the owner of the apple tree and the apple. He was smiling. It was intimidating. So was the rock salt he blasted in my direction. (I don't think he tried very hard to hit me.) Over the next few years we developed an interesting friendship after that decidedly inauspicious beginning.

But I digress. Smiles are, indeed, magical. I have smiled at myself in the mirror and felt a load lifted from my psyche. I have smiled at my kids and watched their behavior and attitudes change in an instant from sullen and withdrawn to attentive and curious. I've smiled at strangers and seen their blank stares become smiles in milliseconds. It's almost automatic.

So when the drummers and the dancers and the Tai Chi people smiled as they performed in Beijing last night I was transported by the joy in their faces and in their actions and in the way they carried themselves. They weren't acting. They were truly having the times of their lives. It was cathartic in a most fundamental way. I felt connected to the people of China in a way I'd never before experienced. Isn't that the point of having an Olympics? No matter what happens now, no matter what the competition brings, these 2008 Olympics are already a success for me.

What is it in a smile that does that for us? If you smile at a dog, the dog worries a little because you are baring your teeth. Smile at a cat and the cat yawns and pays no attention. Smile at a cop and you may be asking for trouble because he or she may wonder how many whacks on the pipe or bottle you've had. But smile without an agenda at another person, even if it's at yourself in a mirror, a strange chemistry ensues. Your mood lightens and your heart relaxes. I'm fairly certain endorphins are involved in some way, but don't ask me any specifics. If you are interested in the whole phenomonae of smiling and what it means to us humans, you can access the following, which might lead you on a wonderful wild goose chase.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_66660.html

The next time you find yourself grumpy, out-of-sorts, or just generally listless, go find a mirror and smile at yourself. It can be a cynical this-is-silly smile. That's okay. But keep it up. I'd be willing to bet that if you persist the real response will wind up being a genuine smile and you'll be in a better place within seconds of looking in the mirror.

Try it. If it works or not, I'd be interested in your reaction. Just drop me a line via this blog.

Scary Business ...

I saw a photograph the other day of one of my favorite musicians. He looked like a bloated caricature of a cartoon monster. He’s a few years older than me, but has been a music icon in this country for forty-plus years. We kind of grew up together, he in the public eye and me in total obscurity. We’ve never really met, but have rubbed elbows a couple times. After looking at the picture I just want to go slap him and yell “What’re you doing? Is this what forty million dollars does for a guy? Go look in a mirror! Have some respect for yourself.”

Okay, so it’s one picture and it could’ve been a bad angle and my reaction might be over the top. But I am horrified and I wonder why. After examining my reaction I realize that what the picture really does is scare the hell out of me. That could be me looking like a melted meat-and-cheese sandwich. I don’t ever want to look like that and any notion that it might be inevitable is terrifying. The notion of aging gracefully and the photograph of my clay-footed hero are diametrically opposed.

What I’ve taken from this little experience is some very strong motivation to slow down on my bad habits and put some more oomph into the few good ones that I’ve managed to develop over the years. In that sense, the cartoon guy is still working as a role model. Sure, it’s a reverse kind of role model, but he’s still doing some good, in my life anyway. Maybe I should tell him that instead of yelling at him. Just because he’s got forty million bucks doesn’t mean he’s a really happy kind of guy.

That’s a fundamental truth, I think. Developing and maintaining a positive attitude about most everything really works to ensure a clear head and a healthy outlook. Think healthy, be healthy. Or something like that. It seems very simplistic, but maybe that’s part of the life lesson we should all pay attention to and learn from. Simple doesn’t necessarily mean limited. It also doesn’t always mean easy.

I think what I’ll do this evening is go find a recording my reverse role model made years ago, put it on, and listen carefully. I’ll contemplate the vagaries brought on by time on the planet and how they manifest differently for different people. Fate, whether real or not, is an interesting concept. Where were we when this music was recorded and how different are our lives now? Who’s to say if there’s a “better” to be understood? All I know is that I really don’t want to end up looking like that photograph. My ego won’t stand for it and has fueled a positive response that might serve me well for years to come. Wisdom is learned and, more importantly, invariably earned.

Life of Wryly

A wry smile has come to live on my face over the past couple days. Some buddies and I split and moved somewhere in the neighborhood of three cords of wood last Sunday. The wry smile came because without ibuprofen, I’d probably be a crippled wreck. Even with a bloodstream full of anti-inflammatory drug I can feel the lactic acid begging for release in my tight hamstrings. I can feel the tight pain along both triceps and my goofy left elbow burns white-hot if I move just wrong.

And speaking of neighborhood, I’m guessing my neighbors weren’t too pleased with the constant roar of the hydraulic splitter going on from ten until three-thirty or so. None of us intrepid workmen even wanted to consider what it might have been like had we not had the modern marvel of that splitter with a Honda engine. These were big rounds of Doug Fir and a splitting maul just bounced off. It would’ve been a half-hour’s work to split just one of the rounds, and brutal work at that. Well, at least for us city boys. Okay. At least for me. Even twenty years ago I might have been more inclined to swing the maul. But this time. No way, Jose. If you figure the cost of renting the splitter and the gas it took to run it, we still came out ahead on the firewood.

Now I get to remember what it is like to be physically sore from exertion. I, as do (I assume) many men my age, like to think that I am still at least mildly athletic, with some muscle memory of past prowess. Is it true, or am I in absolute denial? And do I really want that question answered?

I don’t know. I’m beginning to recognize myself in those advertisements about the typical American gut. You know the ones, some faceless tummy waddles by and a serious voice intones something about how Americans are hopelessly obese. Shocking! Hey, I might be one of the poster boys. But I’ve never thought of myself as obese. Am I a fat guy? Yeah. I gained thirty pounds when I quit smoking and haven’t jettisoned it yet (two years later). I keep talking about it, but , so far, I’ve left it where it is. I’m probably waiting for somebody to lose if for me. What an interesting delusion.

Americans use 25% of the current fuel resources on this planet. That’s where we’re truly obese. The bellies are just a symptom (mine included). If you haven’t yet, go Google T. Boone Pickens, or check out http://www.pickensplan.com/. The guy’s a pretty smart guy and he’s got a bee in his bonnet about how we can make a difference. If we just sit on our fat asses and keep the denial working overtime, we will deserve whatever ignominious fate that comes. I believe it’s high time we all started paying a little more attention to ourselves and our immediate environment. As good things happen, one will rub off on the other.

See you next time.

Recovery Time

In the dim and misty past I was something of an athlete and party animal. Both of these activities placed large amounts of stress on my physical person, the protoplasmic envelope in which I exist. I like this envelope. It is certainly limiting and slow compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, but I derive a great deal of pleasure from simply living inside it. I am blessed with a strong and decent machine. I don’t have movie-star looks, but I pass muster and have also been blessed with a confident nature that helps others look past my obvious faults. When I was a young man I was fairly invincible and enjoyed working out with weights and walking long distances. My knees have thanked me to this very day for nurturing an intense loathing of any kind of distance running. I prided myself on being darn near unbeatable in a fifteen yard sprint. At sixteen yards I went from first to last. So I learned to stay with what I was good at.

I remember all of this very well. My wife thinks that I use my prodigious creative talent to enhance my memory, but that’s a story for another day. I went along gracefully through life, thinking that it was perfectly normal to work all day and party all night and then get up and do it again. What’s the big deal? Sure, I might feel a little tiredness as day after a short nap began, but that passed and I grew stronger as the time went on. Serious hangovers were a different matter, of course, but again, those stories are for a different day.

This was life. It went on for years. The future was forever and the past was just the past. No thoughts of old Glory Days came up because I was living the Glory Days and I knew it. Money was scarce, but so what. We were having fun and the future was a bright glow at the start of each day.

Then something strange happened. Intense physical activity had always brought stiffness and the ache of lactic acid in the large muscles, but all you needed to do was stretch, get some blood flowing to those sore muscles and it went away. Nothing to it. But one morning, I don’t remember which one, exactly, but it was there ... yes, one morning the stretching didn’t work. The second stretch didn’t work either. It wasn’t until the third or fourth stretch that things went back to fluid normal. I would imagine that I just shrugged and paid this anomaly no more heed.
Until, of course, this anomaly became a regular occurrence. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I needed to limp a little bit even AFTER a shower. All of a sudden I had to pay attention (always a challenge for me). I started to ask the real athletes I knew about this. Those my age all nodded and shared my puzzlement. Those older just sighed. “Welcome to the real world, kid,” they’d say.

Hmm. Real world? What the hell were they talking about?

It became apparent all too soon. I began to learn about something called Recovery Time. I was a Pitcher on the baseball team in school, a reliever mostly. I threw hard every day. I kept playing Ball after school. My arm was made of steel. Recovery time meant a good night’s sleep. Now, like the professional players, it meant four days of resting it. That made sense because of the enormous stress put on it. But the rest of me was good to go. Wasn’t it? Suddenly, it wasn’t. I started noticing soreness that lasted a full day. Then it became two days. I actually had to work out more carefully and move the target group of muscles around each day. Hell. Nowadays my body goes into shock and I don’t even GET sore for two days and it lasts a week.

Welcome to the real world, kid. This decline leveled off to a plateau that slowly descended as I gained weight and lost muscle mass. I became a working writer, which put my expanding butt in a chair for hours every day and I lost my wind and, slowly, my desire to compete. I “retired” from playing Ball at what is now the frisky age of forty-eight. Things kept popping and straining and ripping loose. These were actual injuries that required medical attention and extended healing periods. My machine had become an adversary instead of a trusted friend. I even had to quit smoking, which is something I will write about in the future.

Waitaminnit! The realization hit me like the hot slap of a flabby forearm. I was getting OLD! How could this be?

Stay tuned for more on this insane revelation.

The Eyes Have It. Or Not.

The eyes have it. Or not, in my case. Of all the issues I’ve had to learn to deal with as I experience this aging thing, losing my ability to see things clearly, close up, has caused me the most grief. It started out innocently enough. I’d be at a restaurant and suddenly the light would be insufficient and my arms were just not long enough for me to comfortably read the menu. And the typeset … why was the type so small? Unbelievable.

It slowly dawned on me, much to my wife’s delight, that I needed reading glasses, that I was succumbing to the condition called presbyopia, which is a Latin word meaning What Does That Say? At first, I liked the fact that I needed to fish glasses out of my pocket to read what was in my hand. It made me feel studious and smart. It advertised that I knew how to read. Hey look! This stuff is so important that I need to apply extra effort just to read it. Wow. It must be important. It made me feel like I’d joined some exclusive club. Yeah. The Can’t See Shit club is always groping for new members.

In some cases, it is very important to read things, operating instructions on a nuclear submarine, for example. Your restaurant bill too, because what you point to on the menu might be poisonous or worse, like cost over thirty dollars. I mean, how would you know? If you’ve ever been to a fancy joint that publishes no prices on the menu, you know what I’m talking about. If you can’t read the price, it might as well not be there. So I am relieved to fumble for the glasses, put them on, and knowingly study. You can’t be pulling a fast one on me. Nope. I know stuff.

Without the need for glasses to defeat this presbyopia thing, none of this entertaining drama happens. But I tire of drama. Reading isn’t the only thing that goes away with aging eyes. I love working on my motorcycle. I like to feel connected to my Flaming Engine of Death and when I’m trying to ascertain if, say, a gasket is properly aligned, I need to be able to see the sharp edges of the surfaces involved. If I’m in the electrical system, I need to see connections and deal with small screws. Without my glasses I’m helpless.

Okay. Now, I’m starting to lose my patience. It’s one thing to look studious and engage those fantasies of brilliant professorship. It’s entirely another to be completely at a loss while looking sideways at a tiny screw hole as your glasses slip down your nose and you Can’t See Shit. That damn club keeps demanding dues.

I'm learning to compensate. I have glasses in every room in the house, including the bathrooms. I have glasses in my tool chest. I have glasses in my saddlebags, my jackets, all of my vehicles. I’m starting to feel pretty smug. But that only lasts until I experience the unthinkable. I put on my pair of glasses and I slowly realize that I still Can’t See Shit. How can this be? What happened to my glasses? They worked great yesterday. Dread clutches at my heart as I slowly realize that my eyes have decayed beyond the capabilities of the glasses I’ve so meticulously stocked everywhere. What? I need NEW glasses? Sometimes, irony is not pretty or even particularly entertaining. Off to the store I go, looking for glasses that advertise a bigger number. +1.25 just doesn't cut it anymore. Fortunately, I've discovered that there is a great way to recycle glasses that don't work anymore. Just leave them in restaurants, or the library, or the counter at the supermarket. Believe me, some aging boomer will really appreciate it when he or she discovers that their own glasses have mysteriously vanished.

More dues to pay. This Can’t See Shit club is really getting on my nerves now. This impatience with my condition ebbs and flows. Sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s just a pain. Light is certainly a key factor. If I can shine enough light on what I’m trying to see, I almost don’t need the glasses. Some days are better than others. But the bottom line is that I have resigned myself to this dance of augmenting the ability of my meat machine to function at peak performance. So far, as I creep toward sixty, my eyes are the friction point of my aging process. I have yet to experience much of what is supposed to come as I slide out to pasture. My parents, who are vastly amused when they hear me whine about this stuff, have assured me, with no small measure of satisfaction, that my "time is coming." My mother says: "Getting old is not for the squeamish." Oh boy. I wish this felt like Christmas did when I was little.

Next time, I’ll bring up physical recovery time and see what happens. Stay tuned.

George Carlin Died Yesterday

George Carlin died yesterday. He was not a baby-boomer, but I think he spoke for a lot of boomers. He came of professional age in the Sixties, when things pretended to be wide-open and ripe for change. I think he bagged quite a few of his early riffs from Lenny Bruce, but I don't see that as a bad thing. I see it as standard artistic behavior. Find me a guitar player who says he doesn't steal from everybody and I'll show you a liar, or at the very least, an airhead in denial.

All artists borrow. They (we) can't help it. It's the nature of learning and knowing. Instincts are true and original, usually, but we are all influenced by what we see, hear, and feel. It can be something we want to emulate or something we want to avoid like cats avoid baths. So, George learned from Lenny Bruce and all the other comics of his early times and he applied that knowledge to his own work, his schtick, his life that was all there for his audience to see. Stand-up, more than any other artform, is being naked on stage. It's the ultimate in wanting to be liked and being nearly psychotic to make it happen. This is why comics "kill" and why they "die."

Carlin made me laugh at myself and that is a rare gift. His humor pointed out the weaknesses and the foibles of a broad range of people, but he managed to direct that clarity of view to each individual in his audience. We didn't laugh at another person, we laughed at our own blunders and recognized those same blunders in others. If we paid attention, we learned something.

I'm sad that George Carlin died at 71. He was going to teach me a lot about aging. He was a generation, or so, ahead of me and I was going to pay attention as he developed material that depreciated his own slow falling-apart. I'm really sorry that it fell apart for him too soon. Well, too soon for my taste, anyway. Maybe he welcomed it. I don’t know. I wonder if he passed with that wry, knowing smile on his face.

I guess this means that I'll have to start writing more in this space and attempt to chronicle my own slow entropy into dotage. Stay tuned. Perhaps I will learn something myself. If I do, I’ll be sure to share.