Didja miss me? I did.* I should probably make up some story about traumatic amnesia, or accidentally hiking across the border into Crimea and being taken into custody, but who has that kind of time?
In fact, I have spent most of this past year doing things. Not particular things. The focus has been more on the doing. I tend to write when I'm feeling reflective, and -- oddly enough -- not so much during creative periods. My medium of creation is source code, grant applications, project collaborations, and business lunches. My inner child is sent to his room, and the storming part of my brain is kept on a short leash. I think very little about myself during these times, and go days at a time without so much as glancing in a mirror.
Eventually I start to feel ways about things again, and the urge to put something down on paper, or whatever this is, returns. I have felt it coming for a while now. The culmination was probably the trip home for my uncle's funeral last week. He was a bit of a self-important blowhard and alienated a lot of people, including his kids, but somehow his passing seems to have washed much of that away. We had a wonderful time catching up with relatives who haven't spoken in years, and my uncle's shortcomings barely came up. Except for his toupee. We talked quite a bit about that.
There is a lot changing in my professional life right now -- turning of the academic year, new management, shifting roles all around -- and I will be shifting my priorities as well. Hopefully, I can use the uncertainty to break some bad habits, and maybe even become less habitual over all. I like being productive, but it's very hard to live in the moment going full speed.
* I never really planned to stop posting here, any more than I planned to write this post since before about five minutes ago. I may not write another one for a year, for all I know. What I do know is that I like having this outlet when I feel like writing, and for now I plan to keep it.
Showing posts with label asses (personality-wise). Show all posts
Showing posts with label asses (personality-wise). Show all posts
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Road Stories: Supertrash
In the late 1970's, the ancestors of the four companies that now own all of your music and television were young, hungry, and awash in cash and blow. In other words, they were motivated and able to try bold new things, without the judgment to wonder if they were good ideas. This smokey crucible produced the enduring cash machine of the outdoor music festival, and money pits like the ELO spaceship and the made to order supergroup.
The definition of a supergroup (often capitalized for no reason I can understand) in those days was a group composed completely or in part of people who were already famous. The desire to create them came from early more or less organic successes like Cream, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
The main problem with supergroups is that they are full of inflated egos who are all convinced that their enormous talent is the only chance the thing has for success. They never last, though a record executive who could put together another Cream would probably be okay if they only did one tour. I think the reasons that any bands ever stay together after they get famous boil down to habit and long familiarity.
I got to witness two of the less stellar attempts at this new sport. The first was the RCO All Stars, which provided the venue for my initial hiring. I was fortunate enough to call SHOWCO on the day after Randy Lawson had failed to show up for work for the next to the last time ever, so the late great Kirby Wyatt** sent me down to the RCO show in town the next day for a job interview.
Actually, Levon Helm was having health problems even then, and the show was cancelled, so my interview happened in Budrock's hotel room. Budrock would go on to become Willy Nelson's long time lighting director, and if you want a mental image of him, use Charlie Daniels. I learned a lot about Budrock over the years, but the first thing I learned was that he could not brush his teeth without gagging. This problem had cropped up suddenly after his divorce and seemed to annoy him greatly, but he had found a workaround. If he lifted one foot off the ground, he was fine. So my first exposure to this new company was watching a man in cowboy boots and a ten gallon hat brush his teeth while standing on one foot.
Anyway, I got hired and the RCO All Stars never did really get much of a tour together, though they tried one or two more times. They put out one album that didn't sell very well, and all sort of drifted away, I think. We were all quite disappointed, because the band was reported to be very good.
The second was the Dudek, Finnegan and Kreuger band, or DFK.* This was a good example of trying to make a supergroup from great musicians who were not famous enough. We all liked them. Their music had a complexity that hipsters thought was necessary at the time, but was poppy enough to be enjoyable. Sort of Genesis meets Peter Frampton, to use an analogy of the day. But they didn't really have a great songwriter or front man, so they were probably doomed from the start.
The also could bring it live, which was the real litmus test for any band. We did a three week trans-Texas tour for them to tune their road chops, which included one of the best shows I ever saw. We played in the Ritz Theater in Corpus Christi, Texas on a hot night in late Spring. The great thing about decaying theaters is that the owners tend not to be overprotective of the upholstery, and just want to fill the seats, so pretty much anything goes. They were serving beer in big plastic cups, and by the end of the night pretty much everyone was drunk. Dave Mason made a surprise appearance to close the set, and he was Hasselhof drunk, but still playing guitar better than 99% of us could even fantasize. The show ended with Dave and Les Dudek lying boot to sneaker on the front of the stage, dueling with guitars and matching each other note for note, while the band kept up like only real professional musicians can do. It was magical. And sweaty.
Alas, DFK was not to be. They made a single album, which sold less than the RCO All Stars, but the band had already split before it was released. Musicians are not the only people with egos, and in this case the rumor was that management disputes made it unhappen. The record company released the album as a one-off, and DFK faded into the CO2 fog of history.
Neither these two, nor countless other experiences can keep the music executive from trying again. I assume it won't be long before we see the American Idol All Stars form a band. Or since technology has virtually eliminated the need for real musical talent, maybe it will be Donald Trump, Nancy Grace, and Dr. Phil, with Lindsey Lohan on drums.
* I know, right? A lot of this depends on your definition of "famous." Also, it was pretty obvious it was doomed since they couldn't even agree on a real name. I'm surprised they were able to agree on alphabetical billing.
** Kirby was the best and most terrifying boss I have ever had, all at the same time. He knew everything, he saw everything, and he had an answer for every problem. On several occasions I stormed into his office intending to quit and left a half hour later feeling lucky to have a job. I have never met his equal.
The definition of a supergroup (often capitalized for no reason I can understand) in those days was a group composed completely or in part of people who were already famous. The desire to create them came from early more or less organic successes like Cream, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
The main problem with supergroups is that they are full of inflated egos who are all convinced that their enormous talent is the only chance the thing has for success. They never last, though a record executive who could put together another Cream would probably be okay if they only did one tour. I think the reasons that any bands ever stay together after they get famous boil down to habit and long familiarity.
I got to witness two of the less stellar attempts at this new sport. The first was the RCO All Stars, which provided the venue for my initial hiring. I was fortunate enough to call SHOWCO on the day after Randy Lawson had failed to show up for work for the next to the last time ever, so the late great Kirby Wyatt** sent me down to the RCO show in town the next day for a job interview.
Actually, Levon Helm was having health problems even then, and the show was cancelled, so my interview happened in Budrock's hotel room. Budrock would go on to become Willy Nelson's long time lighting director, and if you want a mental image of him, use Charlie Daniels. I learned a lot about Budrock over the years, but the first thing I learned was that he could not brush his teeth without gagging. This problem had cropped up suddenly after his divorce and seemed to annoy him greatly, but he had found a workaround. If he lifted one foot off the ground, he was fine. So my first exposure to this new company was watching a man in cowboy boots and a ten gallon hat brush his teeth while standing on one foot.
Anyway, I got hired and the RCO All Stars never did really get much of a tour together, though they tried one or two more times. They put out one album that didn't sell very well, and all sort of drifted away, I think. We were all quite disappointed, because the band was reported to be very good.
The second was the Dudek, Finnegan and Kreuger band, or DFK.* This was a good example of trying to make a supergroup from great musicians who were not famous enough. We all liked them. Their music had a complexity that hipsters thought was necessary at the time, but was poppy enough to be enjoyable. Sort of Genesis meets Peter Frampton, to use an analogy of the day. But they didn't really have a great songwriter or front man, so they were probably doomed from the start.
The also could bring it live, which was the real litmus test for any band. We did a three week trans-Texas tour for them to tune their road chops, which included one of the best shows I ever saw. We played in the Ritz Theater in Corpus Christi, Texas on a hot night in late Spring. The great thing about decaying theaters is that the owners tend not to be overprotective of the upholstery, and just want to fill the seats, so pretty much anything goes. They were serving beer in big plastic cups, and by the end of the night pretty much everyone was drunk. Dave Mason made a surprise appearance to close the set, and he was Hasselhof drunk, but still playing guitar better than 99% of us could even fantasize. The show ended with Dave and Les Dudek lying boot to sneaker on the front of the stage, dueling with guitars and matching each other note for note, while the band kept up like only real professional musicians can do. It was magical. And sweaty.
Alas, DFK was not to be. They made a single album, which sold less than the RCO All Stars, but the band had already split before it was released. Musicians are not the only people with egos, and in this case the rumor was that management disputes made it unhappen. The record company released the album as a one-off, and DFK faded into the CO2 fog of history.
Neither these two, nor countless other experiences can keep the music executive from trying again. I assume it won't be long before we see the American Idol All Stars form a band. Or since technology has virtually eliminated the need for real musical talent, maybe it will be Donald Trump, Nancy Grace, and Dr. Phil, with Lindsey Lohan on drums.
* I know, right? A lot of this depends on your definition of "famous." Also, it was pretty obvious it was doomed since they couldn't even agree on a real name. I'm surprised they were able to agree on alphabetical billing.
** Kirby was the best and most terrifying boss I have ever had, all at the same time. He knew everything, he saw everything, and he had an answer for every problem. On several occasions I stormed into his office intending to quit and left a half hour later feeling lucky to have a job. I have never met his equal.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Don't call me a "liberal"
I try not to write about politics any more than I can help, but recent events have agitated me to the point that I can't actually hold my tongue (or my fingers, I guess) anymore.
It seems that every time I get into a discussion with more rightward-leaning friends or acquaintances, or witness such a discussion secondhand, the phrase "you liberals are all the same" will eventually be fired, turning the discourse from the topic at hand to a question of ideology. Of course, in this case the ideological divide is pre-framed between patriotic, God-fearing Americans who believe people should take responsibility for their actions and live within their means, and homosexual socialist muslim-atheist abortion peddlers who want to drown us all in crack babies, taxes, and bureaucratic red tape. An extreme -- though sadly not unique -- example appeared yesterday on weather.com in the comments to an article on the Texas drought.
This is usually the point at which I disengage from the conversation. But just to be on the record, I want to state unequivocally that I am not a "liberal." Yes, it's true that I am happy that government exists, that they make sure our railroad tracks are all the same size, and that no one feeds us dog meat and calls it beef.* I believe in liberal ideals like "science" and "education," and I somehow manage to see the economy as a part of our environment, instead of the other way around. I like roads, and bridges, and schools, and I think I'm glad they are not all built and controlled by private companies. At least not yet.
Speaking of roads, bridges, and schools, people build fortunes using our public roads and bridges, the government-developed internet, and labor from our public schools, colleges, and universities. Their overseas interests are protected by our federally funded armed forces. I take some issue with those same people acting like they did it all themselves, and that any attempt to reclaim some of their profits to continue funding that infrastructure is somehow immoral.
And admittedly I find it a little difficult to blame all of our problems on the poor. True, they did trick the banks into signing them up for those subprime mortgages and ruin our economy, but I think that may have been a lucky shot. Mostly they seem to work hard and die early. Oh, that's right. They clog our emergency rooms and raise health care costs. And fill our privatized prisons. I almost forgot.
On the other hand, I'm okay living in an armed society, but I don't try to kid myself into thinking that it makes us safer. I think people should work if they can, though I also think it would be great if we could help create jobs for those on the edges.
I think government is best that happens closest to the people. I don't believe that government -- especially central government -- should regulate our personal behavior, child-rearing, morality, or religion to the extent that they do. And I'm more than willing to debate what level of social safety net we will provide, and what level of food, shelter, and medical services should be guaranteed to those who cannot afford to pay.
But what part of thinking that government should stay out of people's medical decisions advances the idea of the nanny state? Why is government subsidizing higher populations, crappier food, or overseas companies in my interest as an American? Why is it so patriotic to give away our shared resources to multinational corporations, allow them to do whatever damage they desire exploiting them, and then socialize the cost of cleaning up their mess? And what part of "small government" requires us to maintain a military presence in over 130 countries?
European social democracies -- as we know, the most evil of all forms of government -- tend to have taxes about twice as high as what we pay (or are supposed to pay) in the U.S. But every business owner knows what they are getting in exchange for that money. They don't have to pay health insurance premiums. They don't pay for retirement benefits or disability insurance. They don't pay separately for infrastructure that the government provides. They pay less for well qualified workers than comparable American companies, even though the cost of living is higher.
What do we get in return for our tax money? The biggest chunk goes to hospitals and doctors who work around the clock to help eighty-eight year olds survive to be eighty-eight and a half. It goes to pharmaceutical companies that sell drugs here for ten times what is paid in other countries for the same compound, because insurance will pay it. The prices are justified to cover their R&D costs, because no one can live without a cure for Restless Leg Syndrome, Low-T, or any of the other made-up ailments about which we are supposed to "ask our doctor." The truth is that in their rush to be the first to market, pharmaceutical companies pay for full scale trials of huge numbers of drugs that turn out to be neither safe nor effective, instead of taking the slower but massively less expensive route of small preliminary trials. It's far easier to make up ailments for drugs that make it through the process than it is to create drugs from scratch that treat something we care about.
The next biggest chunk goes to defense contractors to develop advanced weapons that will never be needed, perform studies that show we need them, build computer and communications systems to control them, and (increasingly) provide private soldiers to supplement our depleted armed forces. We burn tens -- if not hundreds -- of thousands of gallons of fuel per day to drop $20,000 bombs from $50 million dollar airplanes onto sheep herders and farmers who live mostly without electricity. Increasingly, this work is done by fighter pilots in bunkers in the U.S. flying unmanned drones a world away. The percentage of our country's defense budget that goes to soldiers and their families is pitifully small.
For that matter, why is it only about money? Surveys and studies consistently find that -- beyond a certain subsistence level -- money is not what makes people happy. It's family, and fellowship, and good health. Safe streets and good schools. Culture, nature, and a sense of belonging. Why aren't we pursuing these things as a nation, as well as economic growth?
Please ask yourself these questions. I would love to hear any answers that don't involve personal insults or vague cultural stereotypes. Just don't call me a liberal.
* I'm disgusted enough at the stuff they do let people feed us. Mechanically separated chicken anyone? I would hate to think what would happen if government were much smaller. Also, before the Civil War, every railroad company laid tracks of whatever size fit their own locomotives. It was only possible to drive to the edge of their territory without moving everything to a different train.
It seems that every time I get into a discussion with more rightward-leaning friends or acquaintances, or witness such a discussion secondhand, the phrase "you liberals are all the same" will eventually be fired, turning the discourse from the topic at hand to a question of ideology. Of course, in this case the ideological divide is pre-framed between patriotic, God-fearing Americans who believe people should take responsibility for their actions and live within their means, and homosexual socialist muslim-atheist abortion peddlers who want to drown us all in crack babies, taxes, and bureaucratic red tape. An extreme -- though sadly not unique -- example appeared yesterday on weather.com in the comments to an article on the Texas drought.
 |
| As you can see, reactionary idiotic rudeness is not limited to any single political viewpoint. |
This is usually the point at which I disengage from the conversation. But just to be on the record, I want to state unequivocally that I am not a "liberal." Yes, it's true that I am happy that government exists, that they make sure our railroad tracks are all the same size, and that no one feeds us dog meat and calls it beef.* I believe in liberal ideals like "science" and "education," and I somehow manage to see the economy as a part of our environment, instead of the other way around. I like roads, and bridges, and schools, and I think I'm glad they are not all built and controlled by private companies. At least not yet.
Speaking of roads, bridges, and schools, people build fortunes using our public roads and bridges, the government-developed internet, and labor from our public schools, colleges, and universities. Their overseas interests are protected by our federally funded armed forces. I take some issue with those same people acting like they did it all themselves, and that any attempt to reclaim some of their profits to continue funding that infrastructure is somehow immoral.
And admittedly I find it a little difficult to blame all of our problems on the poor. True, they did trick the banks into signing them up for those subprime mortgages and ruin our economy, but I think that may have been a lucky shot. Mostly they seem to work hard and die early. Oh, that's right. They clog our emergency rooms and raise health care costs. And fill our privatized prisons. I almost forgot.
On the other hand, I'm okay living in an armed society, but I don't try to kid myself into thinking that it makes us safer. I think people should work if they can, though I also think it would be great if we could help create jobs for those on the edges.
I think government is best that happens closest to the people. I don't believe that government -- especially central government -- should regulate our personal behavior, child-rearing, morality, or religion to the extent that they do. And I'm more than willing to debate what level of social safety net we will provide, and what level of food, shelter, and medical services should be guaranteed to those who cannot afford to pay.
But what part of thinking that government should stay out of people's medical decisions advances the idea of the nanny state? Why is government subsidizing higher populations, crappier food, or overseas companies in my interest as an American? Why is it so patriotic to give away our shared resources to multinational corporations, allow them to do whatever damage they desire exploiting them, and then socialize the cost of cleaning up their mess? And what part of "small government" requires us to maintain a military presence in over 130 countries?
European social democracies -- as we know, the most evil of all forms of government -- tend to have taxes about twice as high as what we pay (or are supposed to pay) in the U.S. But every business owner knows what they are getting in exchange for that money. They don't have to pay health insurance premiums. They don't pay for retirement benefits or disability insurance. They don't pay separately for infrastructure that the government provides. They pay less for well qualified workers than comparable American companies, even though the cost of living is higher.
What do we get in return for our tax money? The biggest chunk goes to hospitals and doctors who work around the clock to help eighty-eight year olds survive to be eighty-eight and a half. It goes to pharmaceutical companies that sell drugs here for ten times what is paid in other countries for the same compound, because insurance will pay it. The prices are justified to cover their R&D costs, because no one can live without a cure for Restless Leg Syndrome, Low-T, or any of the other made-up ailments about which we are supposed to "ask our doctor." The truth is that in their rush to be the first to market, pharmaceutical companies pay for full scale trials of huge numbers of drugs that turn out to be neither safe nor effective, instead of taking the slower but massively less expensive route of small preliminary trials. It's far easier to make up ailments for drugs that make it through the process than it is to create drugs from scratch that treat something we care about.
The next biggest chunk goes to defense contractors to develop advanced weapons that will never be needed, perform studies that show we need them, build computer and communications systems to control them, and (increasingly) provide private soldiers to supplement our depleted armed forces. We burn tens -- if not hundreds -- of thousands of gallons of fuel per day to drop $20,000 bombs from $50 million dollar airplanes onto sheep herders and farmers who live mostly without electricity. Increasingly, this work is done by fighter pilots in bunkers in the U.S. flying unmanned drones a world away. The percentage of our country's defense budget that goes to soldiers and their families is pitifully small.
For that matter, why is it only about money? Surveys and studies consistently find that -- beyond a certain subsistence level -- money is not what makes people happy. It's family, and fellowship, and good health. Safe streets and good schools. Culture, nature, and a sense of belonging. Why aren't we pursuing these things as a nation, as well as economic growth?
Please ask yourself these questions. I would love to hear any answers that don't involve personal insults or vague cultural stereotypes. Just don't call me a liberal.
* I'm disgusted enough at the stuff they do let people feed us. Mechanically separated chicken anyone? I would hate to think what would happen if government were much smaller. Also, before the Civil War, every railroad company laid tracks of whatever size fit their own locomotives. It was only possible to drive to the edge of their territory without moving everything to a different train.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
It's a bird; it's a plane...
A former boss and friend is a native of South Florida, West Point graduate, and child of the 70's. So of course, he's a huge Dolphins fan. T married a retired Hooter's waitress about the time he got out of the Army, earned a Master's degree, and immediately started to conquer the business world.
His marriage was what a mutual friend called "a fair fight." One of the first nights I was with him away from work was poker at a colleague's apartment. He brought a gift set of tequila -- bottle in the box with crystal classes and margarita mix -- and drank most of the fifth during the night. His wife J called around 7:30 pm, shortly after he arrived, and I heard him assure her that he would be home shortly, and would stop at the grocery store to pick up chicken to grill for dinner. He left at 1:30 am, and said she woke him the next morning by hitting him in the stomach as hard as she could. As he described it, he "folded in half like a rollaway bed." That's the only physical violence I ever knew of in their marriage. Mostly it was a blend of true tenderness, yelling, co-dependence, and farce.
The phone was a big part of their relationship. Her job seemed to consist mostly of calling him seven or twenty times a day at the office to get advice on crises large and small, inform him of her latest car accident, or offer observations on the day's events. T's role was to hang up on her repeatedly after telling her he was too busy to listen to her crap. Though on at least half of these occasions, before he could hang up he would get pulled into some conversation about a bird on the patio, or something of equal import.
One night T ordered a Dan Marino commemorative plate from the Home Shopping Network. Don't ask me why, I still don't get it. I suspect more tequila was involved. But of course the moment it arrived in it's octagonal package, J called to let him know.
"You got something in the mail. It's a hepadon!"
I was sitting in his office when this particular call came in, and when he said, "A hepadon?!," visions of some six sided pterodactyl sprang to my head. He naturally responded to her, "Funny, I don't remember ordering a dinosaur."
Alas, their marriage lasted only a dozen years or so after that episode, and the end was as messy as the rest. I hear T suffers from terrible gout, and J is likely working as a barfly somewhere. They are long gone from my life, but for some reason I really can't explain, I will always clearly and fondly remember the day I saw a hepadon.
His marriage was what a mutual friend called "a fair fight." One of the first nights I was with him away from work was poker at a colleague's apartment. He brought a gift set of tequila -- bottle in the box with crystal classes and margarita mix -- and drank most of the fifth during the night. His wife J called around 7:30 pm, shortly after he arrived, and I heard him assure her that he would be home shortly, and would stop at the grocery store to pick up chicken to grill for dinner. He left at 1:30 am, and said she woke him the next morning by hitting him in the stomach as hard as she could. As he described it, he "folded in half like a rollaway bed." That's the only physical violence I ever knew of in their marriage. Mostly it was a blend of true tenderness, yelling, co-dependence, and farce.
The phone was a big part of their relationship. Her job seemed to consist mostly of calling him seven or twenty times a day at the office to get advice on crises large and small, inform him of her latest car accident, or offer observations on the day's events. T's role was to hang up on her repeatedly after telling her he was too busy to listen to her crap. Though on at least half of these occasions, before he could hang up he would get pulled into some conversation about a bird on the patio, or something of equal import.
One night T ordered a Dan Marino commemorative plate from the Home Shopping Network. Don't ask me why, I still don't get it. I suspect more tequila was involved. But of course the moment it arrived in it's octagonal package, J called to let him know.
"You got something in the mail. It's a hepadon!"
I was sitting in his office when this particular call came in, and when he said, "A hepadon?!," visions of some six sided pterodactyl sprang to my head. He naturally responded to her, "Funny, I don't remember ordering a dinosaur."
Alas, their marriage lasted only a dozen years or so after that episode, and the end was as messy as the rest. I hear T suffers from terrible gout, and J is likely working as a barfly somewhere. They are long gone from my life, but for some reason I really can't explain, I will always clearly and fondly remember the day I saw a hepadon.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Oh, sweet mystery of life
Anyone who has been paying even a little attention knows that my life has been sweet beyond imagining. From the beginning, I have enjoyed good love, good fortune, and good health. Practically every dream I've had has come true, with opportunities to find new ones and fulfill them. What challenges and misadventures I have had were generally the type that befall most of us. And while I didn't enjoy the 80's as much as the rest, my days now are more enjoyable and fulfilling than I think they have ever been.
So why then do I seem to feel the need to find one disappointing aspect of my life and dwell on it, sometimes to the point of letting my dissatisfaction obstruct my enjoyment of all that I have? It's one of the grand mysteries of the universe. And by universe I mean the one with me at the center. To make matters worse, it is often the same issue recurring, which assures me that the fault is my own.
It's a small albatross, as such things go. A tiny pendant, really. At a time when the level of suffering that others endure is so plain before me, I am ashamed to even consider it. On good days I assume that the restlessness and mostly benign ambition that drives me to be a serial dreamer also keeps me from ever being totally contented. In less charitable moods I feel like a sort of defective, self-created Tantalus, full and surrounded by sustenance, but never satiated.
If you're getting tired of listening to an obviously over-priveliged white guy wax morose about his self-imposed misfortune, you're not alone. It was the same reaction that prompted me to write this post. But it will get better. It always does.
So why then do I seem to feel the need to find one disappointing aspect of my life and dwell on it, sometimes to the point of letting my dissatisfaction obstruct my enjoyment of all that I have? It's one of the grand mysteries of the universe. And by universe I mean the one with me at the center. To make matters worse, it is often the same issue recurring, which assures me that the fault is my own.
It's a small albatross, as such things go. A tiny pendant, really. At a time when the level of suffering that others endure is so plain before me, I am ashamed to even consider it. On good days I assume that the restlessness and mostly benign ambition that drives me to be a serial dreamer also keeps me from ever being totally contented. In less charitable moods I feel like a sort of defective, self-created Tantalus, full and surrounded by sustenance, but never satiated.
If you're getting tired of listening to an obviously over-priveliged white guy wax morose about his self-imposed misfortune, you're not alone. It was the same reaction that prompted me to write this post. But it will get better. It always does.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Road Stories: Ridin' the storm out, Part 2
This is one of the few artifacts to survive the ex-wife's great purge of 1984,
when she threw away anything that meant anything to me, in retaliation
for making her stay behind and sell the house when I got transferred.
So when we left our intrepid hero, I was screwing up the climax of REO Speedwagon's concerts and getting reamed for it every other day. I called the office after almost every show, begging them to ship me the real special effects board. But they were on some sort of cost-cutting kick, and decided that I should let Flash Gordon rewire the controller they had given me, because at least that would shut him up. I was positive this was a bad idea, but was given no choice.
Now, in their defense, the bomb cues were not coming off as planned. In my defense, this wasn't my fault. Each band member was playing to a different beat, the lighting director seemed to have no sense of timing, and the equipment was faulty. I ended up doing this sort of thing for many of the biggest acts of the day, including work for the late Kirby Wyatt, SHOWCO's own lighting director, a man whose fastidious attention to detail and standards of perfection make Tim Gunn look like a Squidbilly by comparison. This tour was the first and only time I ever had a complaint about cues.
The rewiring happened on a day off we had before REO headlined the Rockford Jam, an outdoor show at the Rockford Speedway in Rockford, IL. If you've never been to Rockford, don't sweat it. Life Magazine once said it was "as nearly typical as any city can be." It's probably best known in the rock and roll context as the home of Cheap Trick. The Rockford Jam that year featured Head East ("Never Been Any Reason"), The Cars, REO, and someone I can't remember. Since Bob was traveling on a different bus, there was no time for testing his work, but Flash wasn't concerned.
The Rockford Jam was remarkable, mostly for its lack of planning and nightmare logistics. Whoever produced this piece of shit knew nothing about outdoor shows. We had no alternate way in, so we sat in traffic for almost two hours before arriving backstage, where there was no place to park the trucks or buses. We rolled or carried the equipment piece by piece through the mud, and by the time we got the gear onstage and plugged in, it was time for the first act to start. There were no walkways cordoned off in the crowd, so every time one of us needed to go from the stage to the lighting and sound consoles at the center of the infield, we were required to walk over the crowd, trying not to step on the people, or their growing collection of fluids and other leavings. This also meant we had to run all of our cables over or around people*, and hope that no one unplugged anything. The whole day was a come-from-behind clusterfuck of epic proportions.
To make matters worse, the music was horrible. You don't take a job like this if you don't love live music, but Holy Hell this was bad. I knew by then that REO would be bad, but I assumed some of the other groups would make up for it. The first band, whose name escapes me, reminded me of the band that played my junior high dances. Head East sounded like they had all been born deaf. Worst of all, I had really been looking forward to seeing The Cars, but they were bored, wasted, off-key, and thoroughly unimpressive. Eventually, it was time for the main event.
Unfortunately, Flash Gordon wasn't even smart enough to realize that a fog curtain would be worse than useless outdoors, so I got to drag all of that crap through the mud, knowing that we would be lucky if any fog made it to the stage at all. And also knowing that it would put the band in a foul mood once again. I finally got the pyrotechnics prepped during what should have been dinner, plugged in my newly rewired pyro box, and waited for my cue.
This is the part where I have to teach you more than you ever wanted to know about concert pyrotechnics. A flashpot is generally some sort of metal container, wired with an electrical cord. The ones that are sold commercially are a couple of inches on a side, and are recommended to use up to a half teaspoon of flash powder. We used roasting pans and washtubs, and loaded between a half an ounce and a quarter pound of powder in each. An electric match or squib would be connected to the terminals on the pan, and placed in contact with the powder. When current is applied to the circuit, that's rock and roll.
Image from here.
There are any number of ways to close the circuit, from foot switches to plungers to just touching bare wires to a battery. Our board used 12 volts direct current generated by a 110 volt transformer, and had military-grade safety switches, like the setup shown in the professional grade artwork below.
Artists misconception: this isn't even right. There were
twelve switches, a push button for each, and one key
to arm the whole system. Just work with me on this.
Each flashpot had it's own circuit, with an LED, a safety switch, and a little red button. When the key was turned, the LED's for correctly wired circuits would glow green. When the rocker cover was raised and the switch was thrown, the circuit was armed, and the light changed to red. After that, pushing the button would set off the explosion. Or at least that was the plan.
Mis-wired circuits didn't light, and I always liked to turn the key a minute or two early, so that I would have time to run around and fix any connections that may have come loose during the show. This time when I turned the key, one of the pots exploded. Hmm, that was weird. The band members turned to me as one, and gave me a look that was, by now, all too familiar. All the lights were green except for the one that had just gone off, so I waited. A half minute later, when I threw the first switch to arm the first flashpot, the one at the front right corner of the stage went off. This was right in the middle of Gary Richrath's big guitar solo, so Kevin Cronin just happened to be dancing around on the right front corner of the stage, and the explosion was about three feet from him. If I close my eyes I can still see the fury in his face, his bro-fro blowing in the breeze from the big wind machines onstage, as he dropped any pretense of being involved in the music and pointed at me in the expression that universally means, "You are dead!" He remembered where he was after a second or two, and turned back to the crowd.
Flash was thoroughly panicked by now, and was yelling into the headsets, "Turn it off! Turn it off!" I flipped down the rocker switches to disarm the rest of the pots, and another bomb went off. When I turned off the key, one of the washtubs exploded. By now, the band barely knew where they were in the song, and everyone backstage was looking at me. The real bomb cues were approaching, and the best way to disarm one is to set it off, so in the end I just randomly turned things on and flipped switches until all of the remaining pots were expended. A couple were even on the beat. To this day, I can't tell you what the problem was, but it seemed like everything I touched was connected directly to some common firing circuit.
As soon as the show was over,** Kevin Cronin stormed over and gave me a cursing such as I have never heard. And I've worked retail. He cursed me, my company, my ancestry, and pretty much anything else he could think of, for probably two minutes. He was actually clenching his fists and stomping his little feet, he was so angry. It was like Richard Simmons impersonating Yosemite Sam. I may not have helped when I responded to this tirade with a cheerful-sounding, "Thanks for your feedback!" as he walked away. He turned and gave me another round, and I think he would have jumped on me if I hadn't been about twice his size.
I assumed I was fired, which was going to be the only thing that saved the day. Unfortunately, once people calmed down and things were explained, the band sent one of their minions to apologize for Kevin's outburst, and I think they even sent me a beer. Of course, not one of them was man enough to come himself, and Kevin always managed to be somewhere other than where I was after that.
By now, even the shop was convinced, and they shipped out my effects board the next day. One of our sound guys rewired the control box to bypass all of the safety circuits and interlocks to get us through the next couple of shows. I threw it in the dumpster behind whatever arena we were playing when the real board arrived.
I stayed on the tour for a few more weeks, when I was saved by Paul McCartney's tour to Japan. He was scheduled to use every special effect we owned, including bubble machines, so I was needed back in Dallas to get all that together and put it on a boat to Japan. That ended up being a fiasco of a different color, but that's a story for another time.
I'm only now getting to the point where I'm able to listen to a few REO songs all the way through. The onstage sound mixer for the tour, who has remained a good friend of mine, still can't make it past the opening synthesizer blast from "Ridin' the Storm Out" without suffering a minor panic attack.
* Typically, the control cables were run along the edges of arena floors, or along the side of the cordoned walkways for outdoor shows. This also tended to be the most convenient place for people who overindulged, or maybe suffered from hairballs, to relieve themselves of their gustatory burdens. You did not want to be the person whose job it was to roll up these cables at the end of the night, especially for a band like REO. And you could find the box those cables traveled in by smell alone.
** And I mean as soon as the show was over. He didn't even leave the stage after the song. The people in the front row were treated to an encore they did not expect.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Road Stories: Ridin' the storm out
So I've really been avoiding telling this story, but after Johnny Virgil wrote about taking his wife to see REO Speedwagon, I started having flashbacks of the tour that was largely responsible for me leaving the road. I still remember standing backstage in some arena in California, talking to the future ex on the phone, with Kevin Cronin in the background singing, "Golden country, your face is so red-uh," and hearing myself say, "I have GOT to find something different to do for a living."
REO had already been around for what seemed like forever when the 9 Lives tour kicked off. During my high school years, they rolled through town every three months or so, with Deep Purple, BTO, or Brownsville Station. One would headline a tour, and one of the others would open for them. When I heard that we had landed them as a client, and that I would be doing special effects for the tour, I discovered that I was drawing a blank on their music, so I asked one of the guys in the shop what songs they did. He said, "Oh, you know REO. They do ... uh ... umm ... let's go ask Garvey." I got exactly the same reaction from about a dozen other people over the next couple of days.* Finally, someone came up with Ridin' the Storm Out, which broke the memory block for all of us, and everyone started blurting out the names of REO songs: Golden Country, Roll With the Changes, Keep on Loving You, 157 Riverside Avenue, etc. I felt better. I knew and liked all of those songs, and midwestern rockers generally knew how to throw a tour.
The good feeling started to change as soon as we got to rehearsal. REO was nearing the height of their popularity, but they were also coming apart as a group. They suffered from the occupational hazard of terminal self-importance, facilitated by sycophants and douchebags, and intensified by impressive amounts of chemicals -- even by rock and roll standards. There were at least three gigantic egos onstage, and several more in the wings.
Gary Richrath, the lead guitarist, was undoubtedly the most talented, but he was fighting some pretty serious demons. We calculated that he was probably losing money while on the road. He tended to huff when he played (think Lamaze breathing), and by the end of the night there was a white crust encasing his microphone cover. I'm sure we could have scraped that off and gotten quite a buzz, but no one ever got that desperate. At least, not that I know of.
Kevin Cronin, the lead singer, was sure that he was the most talented, and suffered from major Napoleon syndrome. He insisted on playing guitar when he wasn't too busy prancing around in his little turquoise spandex pants, despite the fact that it sounded like someone sawing a guitar in half with a hacksaw. The sound man kept his guitar turned off in the house, so the audience couldn't really hear it, but it was loud and proud onstage, and contributed mightily to the cacophony that we endured nightly. Kevin was an amateur pharmacologist, and partially as a result, his mood swings were dramatic. One day we ran up on him sitting in the floor of a hotel lobby, pulling laundry from one bag and putting it in another, muttering to himself. We just kept walking.
The other members of the band were generally no more egotistical than your average rock star, but the environment was so toxic that they were always being pulled into one dispute or another. The road managers liked to play the band members off of each other to get whatever they wanted. The result was band members who barely spoke to each other, and a road staff that was not exactly the elite of the business. "Motor," their drum roadie was good, although he got a little weird when he went on the all-fruit diet. Most of the rest ... not so much. Oh, and the band sounded like crap most every night.
I forget exactly what effects I had to manage for the tour, but it wasn't a whole lot by my standards. We've already talked about the Spinal Tap quality fog curtain that opened the show. The other major effect was a series of fiery explosions during the last song, Ridin' the Storm Out. One of the reasons I was on the tour was that we had recently invented some giant flashpots built from #2 washtubs, and I was the only one at the time who knew how to load them, or that could be trusted not to blow up something important. We had developed them for use in the Superdome, and they created a flash and concussion in a regular arena that was hard to believe. Or justify. We had four of these that exploded together at the climax of the song (sort of a Star Wars Deathstar effect), and followed eight smaller explosions that built up to it.
The effect was really rather cool, except for two problems. The first had to do with my control board. We had two dedicated special effects boards, but one was in the shop for repairs, and the other was out with Nazareth, or Genesis or somebody. So the biggest burnout in the electronics shop soldered together a little box specifically for the first leg of this tour, until we could get back to Dallas and pick up the other board. The box was crap, and for various, mostly boring reasons, it tended to take half a beat between the time I pushed the button and the time the explosion happened. But only sometimes. While this would probably be fine in a mining operation, it was definitely not close enough for rock and roll. Bob was constantly trying to convince me that he could fix it "in a matter of minutes."
The other problem was that Bob wanted the sound of the explosion, not the flash, to match the music. Like lightning and thunder, the boomy part tends to lag behind the flashy part, especially if you are sitting a few hundred feet away. So he would call the cue a split second before the beat. I don't think he realized that the timing would be different at different points in the hall. I don't think Bob took a lot of science in school.
You know who wasn't sitting a few hundred feet away? The band. From their point of view, the bombs were going off early. Or late. Or both. And since they were already pissed about the fog curtain, and each other, and their lives, and everything else, and since this particular effect closed the show, it was the last thing they had a chance to be pissed about. So one or another of them would come over and yell at me and call me names every couple of nights. They even threatened to replace me a couple of times. I don't think they liked it when I begged them to go through with it.
So after about a month of this, we arrived at the day that would bring the worst concert I have ever seen, and convince me once and for all that this would not be my life's work. But that will have to wait for Part 2. This post is already getting very long, and I'm starting to feel like there are spiders on me. I'm going to need a whiskey float and a couple of hours of Bob Dylan before I can continue.
Updated: Part 2 is finished.
* I swear to Baby Jesus that this part is true. I never saw anything like it. We were all really familiar with the band. It was just that no one could come up with a song. And these people knew music better than any hipster you ever met.
** I grew up watching way too many westerns and WW II movies, and reading about people like Don Quixote and Robin Hood.
REO had already been around for what seemed like forever when the 9 Lives tour kicked off. During my high school years, they rolled through town every three months or so, with Deep Purple, BTO, or Brownsville Station. One would headline a tour, and one of the others would open for them. When I heard that we had landed them as a client, and that I would be doing special effects for the tour, I discovered that I was drawing a blank on their music, so I asked one of the guys in the shop what songs they did. He said, "Oh, you know REO. They do ... uh ... umm ... let's go ask Garvey." I got exactly the same reaction from about a dozen other people over the next couple of days.* Finally, someone came up with Ridin' the Storm Out, which broke the memory block for all of us, and everyone started blurting out the names of REO songs: Golden Country, Roll With the Changes, Keep on Loving You, 157 Riverside Avenue, etc. I felt better. I knew and liked all of those songs, and midwestern rockers generally knew how to throw a tour.
The good feeling started to change as soon as we got to rehearsal. REO was nearing the height of their popularity, but they were also coming apart as a group. They suffered from the occupational hazard of terminal self-importance, facilitated by sycophants and douchebags, and intensified by impressive amounts of chemicals -- even by rock and roll standards. There were at least three gigantic egos onstage, and several more in the wings.
Gary Richrath, the lead guitarist, was undoubtedly the most talented, but he was fighting some pretty serious demons. We calculated that he was probably losing money while on the road. He tended to huff when he played (think Lamaze breathing), and by the end of the night there was a white crust encasing his microphone cover. I'm sure we could have scraped that off and gotten quite a buzz, but no one ever got that desperate. At least, not that I know of.
Kevin Cronin, the lead singer, was sure that he was the most talented, and suffered from major Napoleon syndrome. He insisted on playing guitar when he wasn't too busy prancing around in his little turquoise spandex pants, despite the fact that it sounded like someone sawing a guitar in half with a hacksaw. The sound man kept his guitar turned off in the house, so the audience couldn't really hear it, but it was loud and proud onstage, and contributed mightily to the cacophony that we endured nightly. Kevin was an amateur pharmacologist, and partially as a result, his mood swings were dramatic. One day we ran up on him sitting in the floor of a hotel lobby, pulling laundry from one bag and putting it in another, muttering to himself. We just kept walking.
The other members of the band were generally no more egotistical than your average rock star, but the environment was so toxic that they were always being pulled into one dispute or another. The road managers liked to play the band members off of each other to get whatever they wanted. The result was band members who barely spoke to each other, and a road staff that was not exactly the elite of the business. "Motor," their drum roadie was good, although he got a little weird when he went on the all-fruit diet. Most of the rest ... not so much. Oh, and the band sounded like crap most every night.
Without mentioning names, the biggest pain in my particular ass was Bob "Flash" Gordon, the lighting director. I will spare you my critique of his lighting style, which wasn't really my biggest problem with him. The real issue was that he was sure he knew everything important, and most of everything else. I've worked successfully with a lot of people like him since -- mostly Army generals -- but I was younger then, and I considered his existence and success a personal affront to all that was fair and decent.** I hated him a lot.
I forget exactly what effects I had to manage for the tour, but it wasn't a whole lot by my standards. We've already talked about the Spinal Tap quality fog curtain that opened the show. The other major effect was a series of fiery explosions during the last song, Ridin' the Storm Out. One of the reasons I was on the tour was that we had recently invented some giant flashpots built from #2 washtubs, and I was the only one at the time who knew how to load them, or that could be trusted not to blow up something important. We had developed them for use in the Superdome, and they created a flash and concussion in a regular arena that was hard to believe. Or justify. We had four of these that exploded together at the climax of the song (sort of a Star Wars Deathstar effect), and followed eight smaller explosions that built up to it.
The effect was really rather cool, except for two problems. The first had to do with my control board. We had two dedicated special effects boards, but one was in the shop for repairs, and the other was out with Nazareth, or Genesis or somebody. So the biggest burnout in the electronics shop soldered together a little box specifically for the first leg of this tour, until we could get back to Dallas and pick up the other board. The box was crap, and for various, mostly boring reasons, it tended to take half a beat between the time I pushed the button and the time the explosion happened. But only sometimes. While this would probably be fine in a mining operation, it was definitely not close enough for rock and roll. Bob was constantly trying to convince me that he could fix it "in a matter of minutes."
The other problem was that Bob wanted the sound of the explosion, not the flash, to match the music. Like lightning and thunder, the boomy part tends to lag behind the flashy part, especially if you are sitting a few hundred feet away. So he would call the cue a split second before the beat. I don't think he realized that the timing would be different at different points in the hall. I don't think Bob took a lot of science in school.
So after about a month of this, we arrived at the day that would bring the worst concert I have ever seen, and convince me once and for all that this would not be my life's work. But that will have to wait for Part 2. This post is already getting very long, and I'm starting to feel like there are spiders on me. I'm going to need a whiskey float and a couple of hours of Bob Dylan before I can continue.
Updated: Part 2 is finished.
* I swear to Baby Jesus that this part is true. I never saw anything like it. We were all really familiar with the band. It was just that no one could come up with a song. And these people knew music better than any hipster you ever met.
** I grew up watching way too many westerns and WW II movies, and reading about people like Don Quixote and Robin Hood.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Good girls
A little later this summer, a hundred or so alumni from my high school will gather in the bar of the restaurant where many of us drank dinner before the prom, and marvel at how old and fat everyone else has gotten. I was discussing the event a few days ago with an old classmate who won't be able to attend.
I mentioned our senior banquet, which was one of the only times our class was together as a group, without dates from other classes or schools. The theme was the Roaring Twenties, so all the boys dressed as gangsters, and the girls mostly went as flappers. My steady girl was a year younger*, so I went to the banquet with my friend Sharon. I was half hoping that she might throw me some "we're never going to see each other again, anyway" action, but Sharon had other plans. She had hatched some sort of Lucy and Ethel scheme with our mutual friend Vi. I was apparently on Vi's high school bucket list or something, and after a short string of shenanigans, Sharon informed me that I would be taking Vi home after the banquet.
It turned out that I wasn't taking her straight home. We went skinny dipping in the Arkansas River with about a dozen other people, and I forget what happened after that. I walked in the door at 7:00 am, wearing different clothes than the night before and carrying the newspaper. My mother was walking into the kitchen and assumed I had just gotten out of bed and gone outside to fetch the paper. This was another of the incredible strokes of luck that I enjoyed during those years.
It was the mention of the skinny dipping that apparently blew my friend's mind, and led to a flurry of e-mail messages that continue still. She has always believed herself to be a borderline bad girl in high school, mostly because she drank a couple of beers and may have given up some over the sweater action to a long time boyfriend. The fact that her friends and classmates were carousing naked in groups seems to have turned her world upside down, and I think she may have felt like the only virgin in the class.
The truth is that probably half of the girls in my class graduated with their virtues intact, or only slightly dinged. That figure went down quickly during freshman year of college.** We grew up in the middle of the sexual revolution, and our generation was trying to reconcile the Puritan morals we were taught with the obviously changing reality. Girls who did it usually kept it quiet, often not even telling their closest friends. Boys were boys, but the ones who were smart knew to keep their mouths shut if they wanted to do it again.
The decisions were as individual as the people making them, but the narrative was much less diverse. Girls who weren't sexual enough were fish. Girls who gave it up were sluts. There was an exemption for long-term relationships, but only if no one spilled details or got pregnant. I still remember listening to one douche canoe telling the entire football team how his girlfriend of over a year had come across with a bj, and the whole group spent several minutes talking about how gross it was, and what a ho-bag she must be. I resolved never to hang out with any of them, and made a mental note to call her if they ever broke up.
Apparently, this inhibition is hard to shake. My friend spent the weekend with some of her sorority sisters, and since she is now obsessed with this topic, she apparently interrogated each of them. Only about half were willing to talk about their high school experiences even now, all these years later. My impression is that girls today are much more open with their friends, and that perhaps there is a little more freedom to make your own decisions. But I could be wrong. I get all of my information on modern culture from watching Glee.***
So how about it, girls? Any stories you care to share?
* Steady was a fluid concept for me in those days. Hey, don't judge. It was the 70's. I was up front about it. And I was a seventeen year old boy.
** Like your mom.
*** Just kidding. I would rather stick a needle in my eye than watch Glee.
I mentioned our senior banquet, which was one of the only times our class was together as a group, without dates from other classes or schools. The theme was the Roaring Twenties, so all the boys dressed as gangsters, and the girls mostly went as flappers. My steady girl was a year younger*, so I went to the banquet with my friend Sharon. I was half hoping that she might throw me some "we're never going to see each other again, anyway" action, but Sharon had other plans. She had hatched some sort of Lucy and Ethel scheme with our mutual friend Vi. I was apparently on Vi's high school bucket list or something, and after a short string of shenanigans, Sharon informed me that I would be taking Vi home after the banquet.
Good wholesome fun, pretending to be bootleggers and whores.
It turned out that I wasn't taking her straight home. We went skinny dipping in the Arkansas River with about a dozen other people, and I forget what happened after that. I walked in the door at 7:00 am, wearing different clothes than the night before and carrying the newspaper. My mother was walking into the kitchen and assumed I had just gotten out of bed and gone outside to fetch the paper. This was another of the incredible strokes of luck that I enjoyed during those years.
It was the mention of the skinny dipping that apparently blew my friend's mind, and led to a flurry of e-mail messages that continue still. She has always believed herself to be a borderline bad girl in high school, mostly because she drank a couple of beers and may have given up some over the sweater action to a long time boyfriend. The fact that her friends and classmates were carousing naked in groups seems to have turned her world upside down, and I think she may have felt like the only virgin in the class.
The truth is that probably half of the girls in my class graduated with their virtues intact, or only slightly dinged. That figure went down quickly during freshman year of college.** We grew up in the middle of the sexual revolution, and our generation was trying to reconcile the Puritan morals we were taught with the obviously changing reality. Girls who did it usually kept it quiet, often not even telling their closest friends. Boys were boys, but the ones who were smart knew to keep their mouths shut if they wanted to do it again.
The decisions were as individual as the people making them, but the narrative was much less diverse. Girls who weren't sexual enough were fish. Girls who gave it up were sluts. There was an exemption for long-term relationships, but only if no one spilled details or got pregnant. I still remember listening to one douche canoe telling the entire football team how his girlfriend of over a year had come across with a bj, and the whole group spent several minutes talking about how gross it was, and what a ho-bag she must be. I resolved never to hang out with any of them, and made a mental note to call her if they ever broke up.
Apparently, this inhibition is hard to shake. My friend spent the weekend with some of her sorority sisters, and since she is now obsessed with this topic, she apparently interrogated each of them. Only about half were willing to talk about their high school experiences even now, all these years later. My impression is that girls today are much more open with their friends, and that perhaps there is a little more freedom to make your own decisions. But I could be wrong. I get all of my information on modern culture from watching Glee.***
So how about it, girls? Any stories you care to share?
* Steady was a fluid concept for me in those days. Hey, don't judge. It was the 70's. I was up front about it. And I was a seventeen year old boy.
** Like your mom.
*** Just kidding. I would rather stick a needle in my eye than watch Glee.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
The K Rule
I had a co-worker once who taught me more than probably anyone else about the way American corporations work.* You probably know the type -- super-enthusiastic, thirsty for power, barely competent on a good day. He would volunteer for everything, and usually fail to do anything after that. When he did complete a task he left a trail of questionable results, indefensible liabilities, busted budgets, and disgruntled employees. Shortly after K received his first project to manage, I walked into his office late one evening to find him angrily reworking some results produced by people with considerably more expertise than he possessed in the area. "Why does this have to be so hard?" he fumed. "If people would just do what I say and not back-talk, we wouldn't have these problems." This outburst pretty much defines his management style.
Away from the office, he was pleasant and fun to be around, though he did ask my wife if she had a younger sister (presumably for him to date) when they first met. It was a nice gesture, but the "younger" part didn't go over really well, especially considering there is less than two years difference in their ages. I still see him at parties on occasion, and I will go out for a drink with him anytime. At work it's a different story. We once had to leave the office, go to his house, and drink an entire bottle of vodka just to work out our differences long enough to finish a project.
To the surprise of most around him, K moved up the corporate ranks very quickly, in spite of the fact that his egotism and lack of judgment produced near-disastrous results on several occasions. There were at least two separate times when I was sure he was going to get fired, only to see him promoted or given more responsibility within a short time. Apparently, all the corporate officers saw was a results-oriented self-starter who was not afraid to take risks to succeed. He was also a shameless self-promoter and would take credit for anything he could get away with, which didn't hurt.
But even the corporate types can get irritated, and management eventually created a rule that bore his name. When the rule was invoked, no one was allowed to use the word should unless it was immediately preceded by the word I.
I like the K rule. Since I first heard it several years ago, I have tried to live by it as much as I can. It has also made me sensitive to how often those who espouse personal responsibility believe it is always someone else who needs to change.
I really think more people should use the K rule.
* And as far as I can tell, governments and universities and just about anywhere else that bureaucracies thrive.
Away from the office, he was pleasant and fun to be around, though he did ask my wife if she had a younger sister (presumably for him to date) when they first met. It was a nice gesture, but the "younger" part didn't go over really well, especially considering there is less than two years difference in their ages. I still see him at parties on occasion, and I will go out for a drink with him anytime. At work it's a different story. We once had to leave the office, go to his house, and drink an entire bottle of vodka just to work out our differences long enough to finish a project.
To the surprise of most around him, K moved up the corporate ranks very quickly, in spite of the fact that his egotism and lack of judgment produced near-disastrous results on several occasions. There were at least two separate times when I was sure he was going to get fired, only to see him promoted or given more responsibility within a short time. Apparently, all the corporate officers saw was a results-oriented self-starter who was not afraid to take risks to succeed. He was also a shameless self-promoter and would take credit for anything he could get away with, which didn't hurt.
But even the corporate types can get irritated, and management eventually created a rule that bore his name. When the rule was invoked, no one was allowed to use the word should unless it was immediately preceded by the word I.
I like the K rule. Since I first heard it several years ago, I have tried to live by it as much as I can. It has also made me sensitive to how often those who espouse personal responsibility believe it is always someone else who needs to change.
I really think more people should use the K rule.
* And as far as I can tell, governments and universities and just about anywhere else that bureaucracies thrive.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
10 things I hate about Des Moines
Daisyfae's post showing off her Scrap Award reminded me of when I lived in Des Moines for about 18 months in the mid-80's, right before I came down here. It definitely seemed like longer than a year and a half. Almost every move I've ever made has turned out well for me in one way or another. The only good thing I can say about moving to Des Moines is that it felt really great to leave. And before people start jumping in to defend the Jewel of the Des Moines River, here are a few tidbits of my personal experience.
1. It is really, really dull there. And cold. And dark. I spent two winters and one summer there, which may have influenced my opinion. The locals used to say that there was nothing between Des Moines and the North Pole but a couple of barbed wire fences. They thought it was funny.
2. I was working as the assistant manager of a waterbed store. I almost got fired for failing to keep my manager from playing fast and loose with the store's finances, even though I had reported everything she was doing to her boss a year before and been told not to worry about it.
3. My soon to be ex-wife was unemployed and depressed almost the entire time we were there.
4. One of my employees became obsessed with me and started phone stalking me. It took almost a year to figure out who it was. She left the store a short time after the whole thing came to light and claimed she joined the Army, but that was a hoax. As far as I know, she was watching me until we left the state.
5. The place we lived in West Des Moines was small, dark and crappy. Our landlord was a total douchebag, and we ended up having to send a lawyer after him just to get out of town. The lawyer was also a douchebag, but I'm not here to make lawyer jokes.
6. Okay, maybe just one lawyer joke. This is the only one I know that most lawyers will laugh at.
Q: What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 75? A: Your Honor.
7. I had a big car accident -- my fault -- and totaled my favorite car I've ever had, a 1982 Subaru Brat. Yep, just like the one Joy drove in My Name is Earl, except mine was tan. I was a nervous driver for years afterward.
8. All my hair fell out. Well, all of the hair on my head, and a good deal of the hair elsewhere. I looked like that kid Henry from the old Saturday Evening Post cartoons. We never did find out why, though this list is giving me ideas. There are also a lot of agri-chemicals in the water, which could have done it. A dermatologist gave me some experimental apricot goo that made my head itch and turn purple and we switched to bottled water. Most -- though not all -- of the hair eventually grew back.
9. My parents divorced while we were there. The worst part of that was having to listen to my father tell me things about my parents' sex life that I still haven't been able to wash out of my brain.
10. Did I mention it was dull? I didn't get the people at all. I mean, they were decent, hardworking sorts and all, but they would watch a good time pass them by and just say, "Yup. There it went." There was only one parade the whole time I was there, and no one threw anything. I made exactly one friend the whole time I was there, and he joined AA not long after I left. True story.
It was about 10 degrees F when I left Des Moines in late January. When I got down here it was about 55, with a low expected of 27. And everyone was freaking out because it was going to be so cold. I knew I was in the right place.
1. It is really, really dull there. And cold. And dark. I spent two winters and one summer there, which may have influenced my opinion. The locals used to say that there was nothing between Des Moines and the North Pole but a couple of barbed wire fences. They thought it was funny.
2. I was working as the assistant manager of a waterbed store. I almost got fired for failing to keep my manager from playing fast and loose with the store's finances, even though I had reported everything she was doing to her boss a year before and been told not to worry about it.
3. My soon to be ex-wife was unemployed and depressed almost the entire time we were there.
4. One of my employees became obsessed with me and started phone stalking me. It took almost a year to figure out who it was. She left the store a short time after the whole thing came to light and claimed she joined the Army, but that was a hoax. As far as I know, she was watching me until we left the state.
5. The place we lived in West Des Moines was small, dark and crappy. Our landlord was a total douchebag, and we ended up having to send a lawyer after him just to get out of town. The lawyer was also a douchebag, but I'm not here to make lawyer jokes.
6. Okay, maybe just one lawyer joke. This is the only one I know that most lawyers will laugh at.
Q: What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 75? A: Your Honor.
7. I had a big car accident -- my fault -- and totaled my favorite car I've ever had, a 1982 Subaru Brat. Yep, just like the one Joy drove in My Name is Earl, except mine was tan. I was a nervous driver for years afterward.
8. All my hair fell out. Well, all of the hair on my head, and a good deal of the hair elsewhere. I looked like that kid Henry from the old Saturday Evening Post cartoons. We never did find out why, though this list is giving me ideas. There are also a lot of agri-chemicals in the water, which could have done it. A dermatologist gave me some experimental apricot goo that made my head itch and turn purple and we switched to bottled water. Most -- though not all -- of the hair eventually grew back.
9. My parents divorced while we were there. The worst part of that was having to listen to my father tell me things about my parents' sex life that I still haven't been able to wash out of my brain.
10. Did I mention it was dull? I didn't get the people at all. I mean, they were decent, hardworking sorts and all, but they would watch a good time pass them by and just say, "Yup. There it went." There was only one parade the whole time I was there, and no one threw anything. I made exactly one friend the whole time I was there, and he joined AA not long after I left. True story.
It was about 10 degrees F when I left Des Moines in late January. When I got down here it was about 55, with a low expected of 27. And everyone was freaking out because it was going to be so cold. I knew I was in the right place.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Breaking 80
Richard Nixon was possibly our least athletic president. About the only exercise he ever got was playing golf, which he took up during his stint as vice-president, reputedly as a way to spend more time with his boss, Dwight Eisenhower. Nixon's swing was awkward and his golf clothes never fit well. He never shot under 100 as vice-president, but was dogged in his efforts to improve. He played quite a bit during his first term as president, less in his second, and more after his forced retirement.
Nixon wasn't a particularly fastidious follower of the rules, but he worked hard and steadily improved. One day in 1978 he shot a 79, at a course in San Clemente he described as "relatively easy." He had always considered a score of 80 to be a sort of "personal Everest." Knowing that he could not hope to improve on that score, and probably never match it, he never picked up a golf club again.
Picture from here
I may have watched my last professional football game.
Nixon wasn't a particularly fastidious follower of the rules, but he worked hard and steadily improved. One day in 1978 he shot a 79, at a course in San Clemente he described as "relatively easy." He had always considered a score of 80 to be a sort of "personal Everest." Knowing that he could not hope to improve on that score, and probably never match it, he never picked up a golf club again.
I may have watched my last professional football game.
Friday, January 15, 2010
The Road Always Taken
Every now and then, I find myself needing to impress upon a skeptical female exactly how small the difference is between a teenage boy and a spawning salmon swimming up waterfalls and into the mouths of bears in the slim hope that there just might possibly be some sex at the end.* In these situations, I often tell this story.
The summer after my second -- and last, for a while -- year of college, I lived with two other guys in what was known that year as The Piranha House. The name came from a Monty Python sketch, and my two roommates came from other planets. I have oscillated in my life between being the most normal of my friends and being the most strange. This was definitely a case of the former. But I digress. One thing that was relevant was that Doug and Dinsdale both had steady girlfriends, and I did not.
The house was coveted by college students throughout the small town of Conway, where I was in school, and we had only gotten it because my best friend was the previous tenant. The Piranha House was situated on a tiny block by itself, and the closest neighbors were a funeral home and an old deaf lady. It had a huge front porch and a big back yard.** The three of us split $180 rent, so you know it was nice. In other words, it was a perfect party house. And we threw one perfect party after another. On any given Sunday morning you could find a person-sized pile of cans and bottles by the curb, and usually a person or two lying somewhere in the yard.
They weren't all big parties. Many were impromptu sessions where a few people would come over, consumables would be consumed, and things would just go along that way for far too long. Perhaps there was light commerce, I forget. Something seems to have affected my memory of that period. On more than one occasion, small gatherings turned into big parties, as more people showed up and no one left.
The only party that didn't really turn out that well was the one we tried to plan. And by plan, I mean we got the money and transportation together to drive all the way to Little Rock for a keg, and told people that we were having a party. I forget the details, but we had neglected to account for some real-world event happening that same night, and we only got about ten people total. Still, we were nothing if not intrepid, so we kept at it until we floated the keg. This was about midnight, and coincident to me deciding that I was "lonely."
The only girl I knew at the time who I was pretty sure would welcome me under these circumstances was going to school in Fayetteville, almost 200 miles away by mostly narrow, twisty mountain roads. (Within a few years I would know two people killed in separate incidents on this same route, in broad daylight and bright sunshine.) Did this deter me? Of course not, and I was the cautious one in the group.
My roommates, being steadfast friends concerned for my safety, made sure I was supplied for the trip, and even suggested we take tequila shots "for luck" to ensure a safe voyage. I had recently acquired a beat-up 1967 Volvo sedan that would strand me all across these United States of ours in years to come, so obviously nothing could go wrong there. Thus fortified, I set out.
Within about thirty minutes I was enveloped in the densest fog I can remember. It was also getting pretty hard to see outside the car. I drove into a wall of fog on an otherwise clear road, and never drove out of it. Visibility was about two car lengths, and steadily got worse. Eventually, I was straining to see the road directly in front of the car. I drove most of the way at 25 mph or less. For much of the last hour, I was driving about 10 mph.
I pulled into Fayetteville just before sunrise, exhausted and very much sobered up. But not exhausted enough to forget what I came for. I spent a pleasant morning and afternoon with my friend, and then made an uneventful trip back to Conway that evening. I don't recall a lot of time for sleep in there, but that didn't seem to bother me in those days.
Parts of this trip are fuzzy in my memory, but one thing I remember very clearly is that I never even considered turning back. I remember thinking that I should turn back, but it was in much the same way that I now think I should spend more time reading journals or get a colonoscopy. I can't even explain it, now that I have more or less wrestled control of my consciousness away from my junk, but in those days it wasn't even a fair fight. Actually, it was no fight at all. The whole team was on board, with laser focus on a single goal. Night and day, day in and day out, month after month and year after year.
This is not exactly behavior I am proud to admit, but I wasn't really any more of a slimy douchebag than other guys my age. (I mean, I was probably in the top third, but that's only because I could get away with it.) There were girls for whom I developed deep feelings, and I felt love's sharp sting more than once. But that was all irrelevant when it came to meeting basic needs. To a nineteen year old boy, it's like saying you can't eat on vacation because there is food at home. It just doesn't make any sense. The only reason most guys that age even have girlfriends is for regular sex.
It also never occurred to me that Vickie -- I'm pretty sure that was her name -- was a real person with feelings and motivations and some opinion about why this boy would drive all night to see her. And I mean never. occurred. to me. I will never know what she thought about the whole thing, but I would be willing to bet it was significantly different from what I thought. There were probably butterflies and unicorns involved.
Luckily, blood flow was rerouted and some semblance of sanity returned to me within a few years, though I was pushing forty before I really felt like the primary head had gained the upper hand for good. I suspect this is why men are so protective of their daughters. Because they know, and they know they will never be believed when it matters. As for any teenage girls out there who are sure their boyfriend is different, don't say I didn't warn you.
** That's what she said.
The summer after my second -- and last, for a while -- year of college, I lived with two other guys in what was known that year as The Piranha House. The name came from a Monty Python sketch, and my two roommates came from other planets. I have oscillated in my life between being the most normal of my friends and being the most strange. This was definitely a case of the former. But I digress. One thing that was relevant was that Doug and Dinsdale both had steady girlfriends, and I did not.
The house was coveted by college students throughout the small town of Conway, where I was in school, and we had only gotten it because my best friend was the previous tenant. The Piranha House was situated on a tiny block by itself, and the closest neighbors were a funeral home and an old deaf lady. It had a huge front porch and a big back yard.** The three of us split $180 rent, so you know it was nice. In other words, it was a perfect party house. And we threw one perfect party after another. On any given Sunday morning you could find a person-sized pile of cans and bottles by the curb, and usually a person or two lying somewhere in the yard.
They weren't all big parties. Many were impromptu sessions where a few people would come over, consumables would be consumed, and things would just go along that way for far too long. Perhaps there was light commerce, I forget. Something seems to have affected my memory of that period. On more than one occasion, small gatherings turned into big parties, as more people showed up and no one left.
The only party that didn't really turn out that well was the one we tried to plan. And by plan, I mean we got the money and transportation together to drive all the way to Little Rock for a keg, and told people that we were having a party. I forget the details, but we had neglected to account for some real-world event happening that same night, and we only got about ten people total. Still, we were nothing if not intrepid, so we kept at it until we floated the keg. This was about midnight, and coincident to me deciding that I was "lonely."
The only girl I knew at the time who I was pretty sure would welcome me under these circumstances was going to school in Fayetteville, almost 200 miles away by mostly narrow, twisty mountain roads. (Within a few years I would know two people killed in separate incidents on this same route, in broad daylight and bright sunshine.) Did this deter me? Of course not, and I was the cautious one in the group.
My roommates, being steadfast friends concerned for my safety, made sure I was supplied for the trip, and even suggested we take tequila shots "for luck" to ensure a safe voyage. I had recently acquired a beat-up 1967 Volvo sedan that would strand me all across these United States of ours in years to come, so obviously nothing could go wrong there. Thus fortified, I set out.
Within about thirty minutes I was enveloped in the densest fog I can remember. It was also getting pretty hard to see outside the car. I drove into a wall of fog on an otherwise clear road, and never drove out of it. Visibility was about two car lengths, and steadily got worse. Eventually, I was straining to see the road directly in front of the car. I drove most of the way at 25 mph or less. For much of the last hour, I was driving about 10 mph.
I pulled into Fayetteville just before sunrise, exhausted and very much sobered up. But not exhausted enough to forget what I came for. I spent a pleasant morning and afternoon with my friend, and then made an uneventful trip back to Conway that evening. I don't recall a lot of time for sleep in there, but that didn't seem to bother me in those days.
Parts of this trip are fuzzy in my memory, but one thing I remember very clearly is that I never even considered turning back. I remember thinking that I should turn back, but it was in much the same way that I now think I should spend more time reading journals or get a colonoscopy. I can't even explain it, now that I have more or less wrestled control of my consciousness away from my junk, but in those days it wasn't even a fair fight. Actually, it was no fight at all. The whole team was on board, with laser focus on a single goal. Night and day, day in and day out, month after month and year after year.
This is not exactly behavior I am proud to admit, but I wasn't really any more of a slimy douchebag than other guys my age. (I mean, I was probably in the top third, but that's only because I could get away with it.) There were girls for whom I developed deep feelings, and I felt love's sharp sting more than once. But that was all irrelevant when it came to meeting basic needs. To a nineteen year old boy, it's like saying you can't eat on vacation because there is food at home. It just doesn't make any sense. The only reason most guys that age even have girlfriends is for regular sex.
It also never occurred to me that Vickie -- I'm pretty sure that was her name -- was a real person with feelings and motivations and some opinion about why this boy would drive all night to see her. And I mean never. occurred. to me. I will never know what she thought about the whole thing, but I would be willing to bet it was significantly different from what I thought. There were probably butterflies and unicorns involved.
Luckily, blood flow was rerouted and some semblance of sanity returned to me within a few years, though I was pushing forty before I really felt like the primary head had gained the upper hand for good. I suspect this is why men are so protective of their daughters. Because they know, and they know they will never be believed when it matters. As for any teenage girls out there who are sure their boyfriend is different, don't say I didn't warn you.
*The reasons I find myself needing to communicate this vary, though it's most often to young women who are involved with some boy that they are positive would never do X, Y or Z just to get in their pants. In these situations, of course, they never, ever believe me.
** That's what she said.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Road Stories 3: Band of Brothers (and a Few Sisters)
If you have ever been part of a (good) team under stress, you have experienced some of the bonding (designated by Corporate weinies everywhere as "team-building") that can happen as a consequence of the experience. The ultimate case of this seems to be soldiers in combat, who will literally give up their lives for their buddies. The roadie experience was nowhere near as dangerous or intense as combat, but it beat the hell out of playing in a golf scramble or climbing a wall for building trust and mutual respect.
If you want to teach people to get along at work, jam between eight and fourteen of them into a van or bus, deprive them of sleep and basic comforts, and put them to work supervising a different set of strangers* every day from the crack of dawn to the wee hours. Keep it up for a couple of months, and then repeat the exercise with a different -- but probably overlapping -- group. And make sure it's an endeavor that cannot fail on any single day without potentially catastrophic financial impact and possible loss of life.**
The CliffsNotes version of this experience is to stick two people in a crew van and make them drive it across the country. This was often done when tours started on one coast or the other, and allowed management to avoid paying a whole crew to sit and do nothing but ride for two days or so. The speed limit was 55 mph in those days, and for several reasons which we will not discuss at this point we chose not to speed. Also, that was about as fast as the vans would go.
Enter Kenny. He and I were assigned to drive a crew van from Dallas to San Francisco. It is hard to imagine someone more different from me, who is still enough like me that we would expect to be able to relate. After all, we were two white American kids who loved rock and roll. How different could we be?
I was born and raised in Arkansas. Kenny was from New York City (I forget which borough). Before going on the road, his understanding of American geography was New York, then Pennsylvania, Ohio, some other stuff and then California. I thought the most relaxing thing in the world was taking off to the woods alone with a backpack. Kenny thought Central Park was a waste of space, and he was afraid of squirrels. He saw them as rats with furry tails.
My favorite music was Joe Cocker, James Taylor, Little Feat and Clapton. Kenny listened to the Kinks, Ramones and some Sabbath when he felt "poppy." His Facebook profile picture right now is a shot of him with Glenn Beck. My politics are somewhat unconventional, but suffice it to say I have no use for Glenn Beck, except possibly as some sort of filler material. In short, I thought Kenny was an asshole of epic proportions, and he thought less of me. So the prospect of being locked in a van with him for the better part of two days did not exactly set me all atwitter.
We left Dallas a little after lunch, so that we would be sure to hit El Paso when the Tony Lama factory outlet store was open. (I think Kenny bought a pair of ostrich boots. I didn't find anything I liked.) The first half day or so passed fairly quietly, with one of us driving and the other trying to sleep. As the desert unwound before us and the music choices got more aggressive, we started to talk. I couldn't really tell you what the conversation was about, just that it progressed like most arguments. Sniping gives way to bitching, bitching turns to accusation, the exchange grows more heated, and somewhere in there, if you're lucky and there is no way to escape, someone starts listening and some sort of understanding is reached.
By the time we were pulled over by Immigration south of Los Angeles, we were friends. I mean, it's not like I'm going to gay marry Kenny. In fact, I haven't really talked to him in many years. But I did learn to respect him as a full blown actual person with as much right to listen to crappy music and have stupid opinions as I have. I am confident that if we ever worked together again we would be respectful and effective, driving results, doing more with less, making it happen, etc.
I learned important lessons and acquired an impressive set of enduring skills during my three years on the road. For example, I can coil an extension cord better than you. Seriously, I can. Deal with it. But none have been more useful to me in my personal and professional life than learning how to understand and respect the people with whom I work, while encouraging them to do their best. After you've slept fourteen in a bus, sharing an office is really not that hard.
___________________________________
* The traveling crew usually formed about one-fourth or less of the labor required to set up a show. The rest were local stagehands, employed for the day, who had probably never seen this equipment before. They ranged from college freshman who were way too excited to be there to crusty and belligerent old union hands who were looking for maximum pay for minimum work. Most were hard-working, semi-professional*** people who did their very best to help and follow our instructions.
** While it wasn't combat or crab-fishing dangerous, people died doing this, either from falling or being crushed, or more indirect causes. We also took the risks to the audience very seriously, both from technical failures and the deaths that occurred more than once from poor crowd control.
** Not that they were at all unprofessional. It's just that this is not a full time job for most of the people who do it. They are usually cops or carpenters or wannabe somethings who work for extra cash.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Michael Moore Part 2
I have gotten mixed feedback for calling Michael Moore a douchebag earlier, both in this blog and in conversations with friends and colleagues. I have to confess that this was a bit of a social experiment. My point was supposed to be that propaganda and the people who create it are the enemies of the type of critical thinking and reasonable discourse on which democracies thrive, and frankly I thought I might get a more reasonable response if I started by picking on Michael Moore than if I titled the post something like, "Fox News is Satan".
I was mostly right about the feedback. While I have gotten some agreement from those who tend to disagree with Moore's positions, most people have responded with gentle reminders that the situation may not be quite as simple as perhaps I painted it.
Michael Moore represents to me the worst of what can happen when someone lets their agenda overtake their integrity. But he also brings several things to the table that many of his detractors lack. First, he is an indisputably talented filmmaker. Roger and Me was brilliant, especially for a first time writer/director with very little training. It also exhibited Moore's tendency to push the envelope of documentary film-making convention to maximize emotional effect. His films routinely break viewing records -- set by his earlier films -- for documentaries. My own film credentials include a seven minute vampire movie I made in high school, so I feel entirely qualified to criticize this guy.
Michael Moore represents to me the worst of what can happen when someone lets their agenda overtake their integrity. But he also brings several things to the table that many of his detractors lack. First, he is an indisputably talented filmmaker. Roger and Me was brilliant, especially for a first time writer/director with very little training. It also exhibited Moore's tendency to push the envelope of documentary film-making convention to maximize emotional effect. His films routinely break viewing records -- set by his earlier films -- for documentaries. My own film credentials include a seven minute vampire movie I made in high school, so I feel entirely qualified to criticize this guy.
Michael Moore also tells stories that need to be told. In what has become essentially a one-party political system*, he dares to question the ultimate supremacy of economic growth as the single driver of our society. (That's a topic for another post.) And what Michael Moore does for a living requires a lot more talent, vision and planning than sitting around calling people names, which seems to be all that the most popular opposition figures seem to have the talent to do.
In the end, I guess it is more fair and balanced for both sides to be telling lies and half-truths, and for us to try to listen to all of them, than to continue to fight fear-mongering with reasoning. But I still don't think it's good for us, and it really aggravates me. I definitely have to stop watching the news.
_________________________
* The Capitalist party. The two sides are more or less aligned with those who lend money (capitalists) and those who borrow it from them (industry and consumers).
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Blow me down -- I may owe Martha Connor an apology
I love to read. I don't read a lot compared to some of my more literary friends, or my wife, but I get the sense that it's a lot for general purpose 21st century America. Between all the Harry Potter and crazy food books and whatever else I stumble across, I try to read a classic every year or two. It helps me feel cultured and refined while I'm scratching my bits and grazing on old M&M's I find in the couch cushions.
I'm not apologizing to Melville. At least not yet. First off, he's dead. Second, the jury is still out on this book. So far we have ten percent brilliant writing balanced against ninety percent fishy-smelling tedium. Sort of like three weeks at a bed and breakfast in an old seaside village, watching someone inventory the whole town's possessions with their new video camera.
The last one I read was The Count of Monte Cristo, which was really cheating, because even though it's like a thousand pages, with about as many characters, it's been one of my favorite books since I saw the Mr. Magoo version on television as a kid. It has perhaps the most skillfully constructed plot of anything I have ever read, making even A Prayer for Owen Meany seem simple by comparison. Plus, if you've ever felt like you wanted revenge on pretty much everyone you know, The Count of Monte Cristo is the book for you. Also, excellent sandwich.
This time I decided to take on the leviathan. That's right, I'm reading Moby Dick. It's not my first attempt at the Great White Novel. I tried it back in high school, but I crashed early against the waves of irrelevant exposition and pointless descriptions of items of furniture, road signs and the buttons on the clothes of transient characters. I don't think I made fifty pages, and like the story's protagonist, it's a result I cannot abide. Many of the classic books simply lost my interest, or weren't my style, but I have always felt defeated by Moby Dick. So I strapped on my peg leg and took another shot.
It has not exactly been smooth sailing. I wasn't sure I was going to make it through the pages and pages of random cetacean-related quotations that open the book, but I persevered*, and before I knew it I was paddling along through a quirky -- if somewhat dull -- story of budding man-love between a grumpy sailor and his heavily inked heathen boy toy. It wasn't exactly a thrilling read, but a bit like canoeing a sluggish river. You wish there were a following current to lessen the effort required, but at least the water is deep enough, and it's more or less downstream.
Then I got to Chapter 9, "The Sermon." This chapter was not only seven pages of some of the best prose I have read**, but if I had ever heard a sermon like this one in person, I might still go to church. Melville manages to gracefully blend the fire and brimstone of old time religion with Age of Reason thinking to make the most compelling case for religion that I can recall hearing. And while a little heavily allegorical in both setting and tone, it's a compelling read. A gem like "The Sermon" will make the effort required to get through rest of the book worth it for me. The chapter seems somewhat fitted into the story, in that it doesn't really advance the plot to any significant degree, and none of our continuing characters speak a word. I suspect it was something Melville knew was too good not to work in somewhere.
So I think I may owe my twelfth grade English teacher an apology, even though she was kind of a bitch to me most of the time. I think she thought she was pushing me to excellence, but she was really just pissing me off. Oops, this is probably not how the best apologies start, but she's not going to read this anyway. Okay, here goes. Miss Connor, I'm sorry you were a bitch I told you that Moby Dick was the most tedious piece of crap I have ever had the misfortune to attempt to read. That honor now reverts to Silas Marner.
I'm not apologizing to Melville. At least not yet. First off, he's dead. Second, the jury is still out on this book. So far we have ten percent brilliant writing balanced against ninety percent fishy-smelling tedium. Sort of like three weeks at a bed and breakfast in an old seaside village, watching someone inventory the whole town's possessions with their new video camera.
So now I'm back to the long search for the next sign of life. Melville just spent almost a page telling us that we can really only feel warm when a part of us is cold, while Ishmael shares pillow talk and wrestles with his new boyfriend***. Hopefully I will be able to endure. Who knows? If I get through Moby Dick, maybe I will take another shot at A Tale of Two Cities.
____________________________
* I skimmed.
** At least old school eighteenth century type prose. I don't know that I would read Melville's blog if he had one.
*** Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Move over Taylor Swift
I've never really been what you would call a "joiner," or "social," or "a productive member of society." I tend to go my own way, praise my own cooking, laugh at my own jokes and more or less ignore everyone else. So it shouldn't be a surprise that I'm typically somewhat Scrooginesque about blog awards and memes and such, though that's probably mostly because I never win anything.
But Amy, who writes I Wonder Wye, is not only a dear and true friend, she is a professional writer and one of the best story tellers I have ever encountered, including my late Grandpa. She also has ridiculously high standards for practically everything, but don't tell her I told you that. So when she presented me with the coveted Over the Top award, I was not only truly humbled, I was for once motivated to answer questions that I did not ask myself.
I am apparently supposed to answer each of these with a single word, which makes it harder on me, but probably considerably easier on you. So, here goes:
Where is your cell phone? Pocket
Your hair? Deserting
Your mother? Sweet
Your dad? Missed
Your favorite food? Spaghetti
Dream last night? Unremembered
Favorite drink? Cabernet
Goal? Learn
What room are you in? Lab
Hobby? Hobbies
Fear? Time
Where do you want to be in 6 years? Tenured
Something you aren't? Nimble
Muffins? Blueberry
Wish List? Long
Where did you grow up? Arkansas
Last thing you did? Lunch
What were you wearing? Jeans
Your TV? Habitual
Your pets? Cats
Friends? Important
Your life? Sweet
Your mood? Comfortable
Missing someone? Usually
Vehicle? TL
Something you're not wearing? Stetson
Favorite color? Undecidable
Last time you laughed? News
Last time you cried? Friday
Best friend? Irreplaceable
Place you could go over and over? Mountains
Person who em's regularly? AGL
Favorite place to eat? Home
I'm going to pass this one on to Rassles, because I can't think of anything she will hate more, and to Daisyfae for pretty much the same reason. (Have I mentioned lately that I am an ass?) Oh, also because they are both great writers. And to The Wobbler, because he needs an excuse to post something, and because he introduced me to blogging in the first place.
But Amy, who writes I Wonder Wye, is not only a dear and true friend, she is a professional writer and one of the best story tellers I have ever encountered, including my late Grandpa. She also has ridiculously high standards for practically everything, but don't tell her I told you that. So when she presented me with the coveted Over the Top award, I was not only truly humbled, I was for once motivated to answer questions that I did not ask myself.
I am apparently supposed to answer each of these with a single word, which makes it harder on me, but probably considerably easier on you. So, here goes:
Where is your cell phone? Pocket
Your hair? Deserting
Your mother? Sweet
Your dad? Missed
Your favorite food? Spaghetti
Dream last night? Unremembered
Favorite drink? Cabernet
Goal? Learn
What room are you in? Lab
Hobby? Hobbies
Fear? Time
Where do you want to be in 6 years? Tenured
Something you aren't? Nimble
Muffins? Blueberry
Wish List? Long
Where did you grow up? Arkansas
Last thing you did? Lunch
What were you wearing? Jeans
Your TV? Habitual
Your pets? Cats
Friends? Important
Your life? Sweet
Your mood? Comfortable
Missing someone? Usually
Vehicle? TL
Something you're not wearing? Stetson
Favorite color? Undecidable
Last time you laughed? News
Last time you cried? Friday
Best friend? Irreplaceable
Place you could go over and over? Mountains
Person who em's regularly? AGL
Favorite place to eat? Home
I'm going to pass this one on to Rassles, because I can't think of anything she will hate more, and to Daisyfae for pretty much the same reason. (Have I mentioned lately that I am an ass?) Oh, also because they are both great writers. And to The Wobbler, because he needs an excuse to post something, and because he introduced me to blogging in the first place.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Michael Moore is a douchebag
In the interest of full disclosure, I have not watched any of Michael Moore's movies, and I consider Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to be bigger Dickensians than Michael Moore could ever hope to be. For me, it's not primarily Michael Moore's politics that make him a sack. He does seem to be trying to watch out for the little guy. I am descended from construction people and farmers, and many of my relatives still work with their hands in conditions that are much worse than what I enjoy, so I can respect the belief that working people need more government protection than, say, billionaires. And to some degree, I think Michael Moore came by his outrage honestly, where Limbaugh and Beck seem to have cobbled together their attitudes primarily from racism, willful ignorance, leftover teenage resentment and an overactive sense of accomplishment. Also, maybe ratings and pain medication play in there somewhere. Every time I hear someone complain about how hard it is to be a rich white guy in America, I want to stick a fork in my eye.
My main problem with Michael Moore -- as well as the Fox News crowd -- is that he is a propagandist. I will call them as goebbelers, since I haven't made up a word yet this week. My aim in politics -- to the extent that I have one -- is to view our society as a system, and to identify and address core issues that are making the system act in a way that we find undesirable. The goebbelers are intent on doing something completely different. They want to find some single aspect of a particular issue that they can cast in a popular light, and then try to make that aspect the central issue of the debate. In this way, their side wins, the other side loses, and we can all celebrate good times.
The problem is that this behavior takes us farther from a real solution to the original issue, and degrades our ability to think rationally. For example, I saw Michael Moore on a morning show this week arguing that capitalism is the opposite of democracy. I saw a sign from a Tea Party protest last week that said something about not cutting Medicare to create socialized medicine. While arguments -- however weak -- could be made for the validity of both sentiments, this kind of discourse is just making things worse. The worst thing about the Big Lie is not that it will be believed; it is that it makes future lies easier to swallow.
Take health care as an example. First, we're talking about medical care, not health care. And the question we need to answer as a society is whether we consider access to medical care to be a civil right, like due process, or whether medicine is a commodity like food, available to those who can afford it? Or is it somewhere in between, a part of the social contract, like voting? Answering this question honestly would clear up a lot of the implementation details, as well as telling us what to do about medical malpractice.
But questions like these are difficult, and require people to honestly pick a position on issues that matter. I mean, no politician wants to come out and say that poor people shouldn't get medicine, so they tell us that Americans deserve the best care, which can only be delivered by private industry working for profit. I'm not sure what makes us think we deserve the best just because we're American, but there you have it. On the other side, giving everyone access to medical care means that there will be limits to what can be provided, and we are already providing more than we can afford. Medicare does a good job containing costs and providing full service, but it's going broke at a frightening pace. If you dissect any single point that anyone is making in the current debate, you will almost certainly find it to be inaccurate, irrelevant or something that is already true.
If we continue to treat politics as a competitive sport, with sound bites used to score points, I'm afraid personal responsibility will continue to erode and our government will continue in the direction that virtually everyone agrees is not where we want it to go. On the other hand, people seem to enjoy it. Who am I to spoil their fun?
My main problem with Michael Moore -- as well as the Fox News crowd -- is that he is a propagandist. I will call them as goebbelers, since I haven't made up a word yet this week. My aim in politics -- to the extent that I have one -- is to view our society as a system, and to identify and address core issues that are making the system act in a way that we find undesirable. The goebbelers are intent on doing something completely different. They want to find some single aspect of a particular issue that they can cast in a popular light, and then try to make that aspect the central issue of the debate. In this way, their side wins, the other side loses, and we can all celebrate good times.
The problem is that this behavior takes us farther from a real solution to the original issue, and degrades our ability to think rationally. For example, I saw Michael Moore on a morning show this week arguing that capitalism is the opposite of democracy. I saw a sign from a Tea Party protest last week that said something about not cutting Medicare to create socialized medicine. While arguments -- however weak -- could be made for the validity of both sentiments, this kind of discourse is just making things worse. The worst thing about the Big Lie is not that it will be believed; it is that it makes future lies easier to swallow.
Take health care as an example. First, we're talking about medical care, not health care. And the question we need to answer as a society is whether we consider access to medical care to be a civil right, like due process, or whether medicine is a commodity like food, available to those who can afford it? Or is it somewhere in between, a part of the social contract, like voting? Answering this question honestly would clear up a lot of the implementation details, as well as telling us what to do about medical malpractice.
But questions like these are difficult, and require people to honestly pick a position on issues that matter. I mean, no politician wants to come out and say that poor people shouldn't get medicine, so they tell us that Americans deserve the best care, which can only be delivered by private industry working for profit. I'm not sure what makes us think we deserve the best just because we're American, but there you have it. On the other side, giving everyone access to medical care means that there will be limits to what can be provided, and we are already providing more than we can afford. Medicare does a good job containing costs and providing full service, but it's going broke at a frightening pace. If you dissect any single point that anyone is making in the current debate, you will almost certainly find it to be inaccurate, irrelevant or something that is already true.
If we continue to treat politics as a competitive sport, with sound bites used to score points, I'm afraid personal responsibility will continue to erode and our government will continue in the direction that virtually everyone agrees is not where we want it to go. On the other hand, people seem to enjoy it. Who am I to spoil their fun?
Saturday, August 15, 2009
I might be Jesus
So, I'm in the grocery store this afternoon, picking up a few things because we're having a couple of friends over after dinner in order that our Mii's might rain humiliation on their Mii's in tennis, golf and whatever other activities they wish to lose. (Trash-talking starts early at my house.) I won't say which grocery store, but it's large and it rhymes with Malbertson's.
I normally try to avoid the big stores for several reasons, with the frequency of experiences like this one ranking high on the list. But the neighborhood grocer where we normally shop has apparently instituted a "stop carrying anything we decide we can't live without" policy, so I'm having to wander further afield for supplies these days.
First, I went to the deli to pick up twelve (12) slices of pre-sliced bacon, typically a 30 second transaction. But before any of that could happen, I watched the single (1)(one)(uno)(1!) person working the counter fill a colonel-sized bucket with sundry bits of fried God knows what for an indecisive -- and apparently quite hungry -- young man. Then I waited while a couple ordered one pound (shaved) of pretty much every type of lunch meat I could imagine, plus a few of whose existence I had previously been blissfully unaware.
After wandering the two acre store to pick up the other nine (9) items for which I had come, including a trip to the wine section, which could only be further from everything else in the store if it were in a different dimension, I moved to check out. Of course there were only two lines open, because who would imagine that there would be people grocery shopping at 2:00 on Saturday afternoon? Apparently no one in the grocery business, that's who.
After waiting behind several families apparently stocking up for the end times, I was second in line behind a thirty-something couple and their daughter buying (I swear to God) twelve (12) half gallons of Sunny D, two pounds of coffee, six (6) or eight (8) bottles of Old Spice body wash and not much else. If they were planning a party, I am really glad I wasn't invited. As their total was rung up, the cashier asked if they would like to join the cookware savings club or some such. The wife asked about five questions and then started reading the brochure! In the checkout line! Of course the decision had to be made before their credit card could be run, and once she had read the entire three page brochure and decided she wanted to join, we got to wait until a manager could come and do whatever important things managers have to do for important transactions like this one to be completed.
By this time I can't even see the end of the line behind me, and I think the woman next after me is about to go postal. And during all of this, do you think they even tried to open another checkout lane? Oh, you've grocery shopped before? You know they didn't.
So, the miraculous part? During this whole ordeal, from bucket to bimbo, I did not so much as grit my teeth. I didn't feel like shanking anyone. I wasn't upset. I wasn't even really impatient. I was actually sort of enjoying myself. I smiled at everyone who would have it, and didn't even get upset when two separate people tried to run me down in the parking lot.
This is the second time this week I have met adversity with grace, which is really quite unlike me. Perhaps I am growing wiser in my old age, gaining perspective and understanding the importance of enjoying each day. Or maybe I have a tumor. I think I will make an appointment before the death panels get organized.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Must see TV
A friend posted this on Facebook the other day. All my instincts tell me to let you watch the clip and then shut up, but I've never really been one to follow good advice. See, the thing that makes this video so amazing is that it is 100% serious. Bill Shatner was part of a few shows I worked in 1978-79, and this is not an act. This is exactly how he was then, on and off camera. You could not find anyone who was more of an ass in the western hemisphere. You know that noise that Kif makes on Futurama whenever Zapp Brannigan asks to have his toes cleaned or whatever? We worked with Leonard Nimoy a few times that same year, and he made that noise almost every time Shatner's name came up.
Which is actually what makes present day, Boston Public Travelocity Shatner so wonderful. It's a testament to the power of continued existence and "character building" experiences to help us become better people in spite of our best efforts to do otherwise. Because I can't imagine what would transform the guy in the video into a jolly fat man with a sense of humor about the guy in the video except thirty years of perspective and a fair amount of getting your ass kicked by life. Let's face it. No one reinvents themselves until they find themselves in pieces on the floor and can't figure out how to put the old way back together.
I've got a friend from high school who could have been voted Most Likely to Have a Successful Yet Unremarkable Life, who had a seemingly successful and unremarkable life until about two years ago, when the whole thing turned to liquid shit. Since then it's been divorce, job loss, kids in trouble -- totally made for TV movie material. Maybe I will send him the link.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
I am an Ass
I attended a networking happy hour thing for tech people at a local -- let's call it a restaurant -- last night, at which I drank too many beers and stayed entirely too late, because that is what I do. So when I got home it seemed like a good idea to get on the computer and post a silly thing I had seen earlier that day as my Facebook status. It was, "Why isn't phonetic spelled the way that it sounds?"
Hilarious, right? Drink six pints of beer and try again. It gets funnier.
I have an old friend that I have known since third grade who has been teaching elementary school (like first graders or some such) since she got out of college. We'll call her Mrs. Jones, since during the few months we dated in grade ten, the Billy Paul classic was more or less our song. For those of you too young to know Me and Mrs. Jones, I can only offer my sympathy that you missed the very best time ever to be a teenager. I have hard evidence if you don't believe me. If you were too old to care about the soul revolution, like maybe Rassles' grampa, then maybe you should stop reading and start on that next angry letter to the editor.
Anyway, Mrs. Jones is like the sweetest woman you would ever want to meet. Elementary school teacher, right? Plus married to an artist, beautiful kids, loves Jesus, active in the community and beloved by friends and family alike. And a redhead, which is a thing with me. So the next morning, in what I'm sure was the spirit of playfulness and fun, and maybe a little because she remembers what an ass I was in grade ten, she commented that "ph" is always pronounced with the "f" sound, so there should really never be any confusion about words like "phonetic".
So did I "lol" or thank her for the info or point out how smart she was or even just ignore the comment? Oh. Hell. No. I fired back that she had really only shown that "phonetic" sounded like it was spelled, not the other way around. In public. Of course. Why? I suppose I can plead hangover or sleep deprivation as mitigating circumstances. But mostly it's because I'm an ass.
Hilarious, right? Drink six pints of beer and try again. It gets funnier.
I have an old friend that I have known since third grade who has been teaching elementary school (like first graders or some such) since she got out of college. We'll call her Mrs. Jones, since during the few months we dated in grade ten, the Billy Paul classic was more or less our song. For those of you too young to know Me and Mrs. Jones, I can only offer my sympathy that you missed the very best time ever to be a teenager. I have hard evidence if you don't believe me. If you were too old to care about the soul revolution, like maybe Rassles' grampa, then maybe you should stop reading and start on that next angry letter to the editor.
Anyway, Mrs. Jones is like the sweetest woman you would ever want to meet. Elementary school teacher, right? Plus married to an artist, beautiful kids, loves Jesus, active in the community and beloved by friends and family alike. And a redhead, which is a thing with me. So the next morning, in what I'm sure was the spirit of playfulness and fun, and maybe a little because she remembers what an ass I was in grade ten, she commented that "ph" is always pronounced with the "f" sound, so there should really never be any confusion about words like "phonetic".
So did I "lol" or thank her for the info or point out how smart she was or even just ignore the comment? Oh. Hell. No. I fired back that she had really only shown that "phonetic" sounded like it was spelled, not the other way around. In public. Of course. Why? I suppose I can plead hangover or sleep deprivation as mitigating circumstances. But mostly it's because I'm an ass.
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