Category: Uncategorized

Don Ho, the world famous Hawaiian singer, died in Waikiki on Saturday. The 74-year-old entertainer, who had his big hit in the 1960’s with “Tiny Bubbles”, died of heart failure. He is survived by his brothers Westward, Tally and Yoho, and by his estranged sister, NaPea-Headed.

I lost it at the Apple Store. (Well, not really, it happened by phone in my office, but I had to make the metaphor stretch a little.)

Christie Liu of Western Ontario University (home of the Fightin’ Mustangs!), specifically their grad journo program, talked with me last week about how I came to write PC Bedtime Stories, and wove it into a not-bad examination of the topic. You can find it at the link below, to Rabble Podcast Network. Associating with “rabble” must help my street cred a little, right?

Rabble Podcast Network

I’ve grown tired of this topic in recent years, as other deadly threats to the brain and health seem to emerge daily. But hey, I’m always willing to help someone on deadline. The show’s high point is an interview with Dr. Heinz Klatt, who gives the most succinct yet comprehensive definition I’ve heard of political correctness.

And for a good example of how maddeningly subjective the entire topic is, listen to the interview with Lorin McDonald, “a law student with hearing loss.” I put the description in quotes because she has very definite opinions about the proper terminology to use for those people who are hard of hearing. (Hey, I’m finally in a possibly oppressed minority! At least, I think that’s what she said.) For the life of me, I can’t follow her logic about why it’s okay to call herself “hard of hearing” but not “hearing impaired”. She says that

impaired implies that something is broken, and for those of us with a hearing loss, all it means is that we don’t have the same level of ability to hear. ..it’s not impaired, broken, needs to be fixed, it’s just that we have to approach things in a different way…

My ears are broken. Actually, I was the one to break them, specifically by decimating many of the cilia in my cochlea by constant loud music when I was young and stupid. And if there was a way I could fix them, I would walk over my mother to do it. I can’t fucking stand it, nor can I stand the ringing in my ears. And you can say I’m deef or stone-eared or have hearing nay-nays, it doesn’t effect me one crumb.

She also prefers the term “disability” to “condition…because a condition is a very negative word” and as more aging baby boomers are “acquiring this disability,” we need to treat this as just another part of life. So, a condition has more negative connotations than a disability? Do people protest for the rights of the conditioned? Jumpin’ horny toads, woman! Your hearing doesn’t work. Your ears or your nerves or your brain IS broken, as in, doesn’t function as well as it could. You should be proud that you’ve overcome it with lip-reading and hearing aids, and you don’t have to change things if you don’t want to, and you DEFINITELY should fight against discrimination, but how does the word used have any effect on the price of butter? If she “feels” the word “condition” has a negative tone, I’d say she’s imagining things and has hamhanded skills in the English language besides. Which of course, in the PC world, doesn’t disprove her argument one bit.

To listen to how quickly symptoms can morph into effects, creating a condition that might evolve into….something even more awful, listen to this clip from “Doctors Hospital of Medicine,” from the Waveland Radio Playhouse. (For a few other clips of WRP, go to this page of my website.)

From the most accomplished Gaelic poet of the past quarter century, Shane MacGowan:

The island it is silent now
But the ghosts still haunt the waves
And the torch lights up a famished man
Who fortune could not save.

Did you work upon the railroad?
Did you rid the streets of crime?
Were your dollars from the White House?
Were they from the five and dime?

Did the old songs taunt or cheer you
And did they still make you cry?
Did you count the months and years
Or did your teardrops quickly dry?

Ah, no, says he, t’was not to be
On a coffin ship I came here
And I never even got so far
That they could change my name.

Thousands are sailing
Across the western ocean
To a land of opportunity
That some of them will never see.
Fortune prevailing
Across the western ocean.
Their bellies full,
Their spirits free,
They’ll break the chains of poverty,
And they’ll dance

In Manhattan’s desert twilight,
In the death of afternoon,
We stepped hand in hand on Broadway
Like the first man on the moon,

And the blackbird broke the silence
As you whistled it so sweet,
And in Brendan Behan’s footsteps
I danced up and down the street,

Then we said goodnight to Broadway
Giving it our best regards,
Tipped our hats to Mister Cohan,
Dear old Times Square’s favorite bard

Then we raised a glass to JFK
And a dozen more besides.
When I got back to my empty room,
I suppose I must have cried.

Thousands are sailing
Again across the ocean,
Where the hand of opportunity
Draws tickets in a lottery.
Postcards were mailing
Of sky-blue skies and oceans
From rooms the daylight never sees
Where lights don’t glow on Christmas trees,
But we dance to the music
And we dance

Thousands are sailing
Across the western ocean,
Where the hand of opportunity
Draws tickets in a lottery.
Where e’er we go, we celebrate
The land that makes us refugees.
From fear of priests with empty plates
From guilt and weeping effigies
And we dance

And as captured by the BBC, at a free open air concert in Belfast three years ago,

Cheers.

For a weekend in which we had nothing pressing to do, it somehow completely exhausted me by the end. Don’t know what it was, but it might have been trying to negotiate with a daughter who was ready to scream at the drop of a hat. Is eight too early an age to worry about her hormones running amok?

Went with Number One Son to see the Ghost Rider movie at the Davis Saturday night. It wasn’t a good movie–not by a long shot–but parts of it were quite superb, and it was a very enjoyable time. Not least because we could walk to the movie and back and talk about it. It’s almost as good as being in a 70s Woody Allen movie, except we don’t have to live in Manhattan and worry about rats scurrying around our feet in the theater. And also, we can talk about Stan Lee and not Leni Reifenstahl.

Parts of the movie certainly were corny and lame. Well, when you juggle such dog-eared elements as a deal with the devil, and mystical cowboys, and demons connected with air and land and water, it’s going to take a pretty deft hand to not make the awful. But somehow, the image of a flaming skull still packs enough power to make it all watchable. The flaming bicycle was worth it too. And Johnny Blaze, the human host of the Ghost Rider, always stops his channel surfing when a video of a monkey shows up. This made me identify with him as a hero, more than the stuntriding and the loving Eva Mendes and the whole head-on-fire thing. Monkeys are the great leveler.

Anybody who’s seen my office knows that I have a hard time throwing things away, but I think I may have reached a new low. Sometime ago, someone who knows that I love board games gave me a used copy of RISK. I recently looked through the box and, right between Irkutsk and Kamchatka, I found a weird cache of papers. The game apparently had been the house copy used in a bar near Bloomington, Ind., and Indiana University. I’m pretty sure it was from a place called the Crazy Horse, “Bloomington’s Beer Authority”, since someone’s paycheck stub is inside. There’s also an unused tube of Blistex and a name tag for the Butler National Golf Course, where this bartender Gene also worked. Then, there are 30 or more small slips of paper and napkins with girls’ phone numbers written on them.

So of course, you get to thinking, should I phone up these girls and pretend that I’m Gene, you know, GENE, the bartender from the Crazy Horse, yeah, THAT Gene, and say that, y’know, I just got into town again, and if, y’know, you wanna party or somethin’, Tiffany, that maybe we could get together and have some fun. Yeah, I know it’s been ten years, but y’know, I never forgot you, you’re one crazy chick, and hey, remember about all those games of RISK I let you win….?

And then I realize I don’t have an hour to spend on a prank, and throw the little slips away. Crap. Gotta go pick up the kids from school.

Follow the link here to be christened with your very own nom de cirque. If you click on it numerous times, you’re bound to get a terrific alias with which to run away with the circus to avoid the authorities who want to question you about the mysterious death of your wife.

Movie reference, anyone?

In the course of writing my new book, I’ve had to rent a lot of old movies and double check facts and dialogue and such. So a few weeks ago, my wife and I watched “Network”, starring William Holden, Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Robert Duvall. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The movie is 30 years old now, and practically quaint in its depiction of a world dominated by four–yes, four–competing networks. In 1976, Fox wasn’t even a glint in Rupert Murdoch’s eye. Then again, maybe he saw this and said to himself, “Hey, there’s an idea.”

The premise is probably familiar to everyone–a struggling TV network puts on sensational shows with no concern for what it might do to the audience. It’s familiar, because you’ve been living it. Although today, if anyone watched Peter Finch screaming, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore,” instead of a rush to fling open the window, there’d be a shrug, a grin, and a comment on how he’s ranting to save his career. And the other elements included in the NewsHour, like Sybil the Soothsayer and the Hollywood Tattler, plus the live studio audience, aren’t shocking in the least. Like I said, we’ve been living it.

Still, it’s a terrific movie, with a punchy script by Paddy Chayefsky. Would any screenwriter today describe someone’s position on a policy as “intractable and adamantine”? It sounds even better when it’s said by a weary Robert Duvall in a tuxedo. Would anyone have an actor describe a psychotic dream as “a cleansing moment of clarity”? Equally marvelous are Finch, Holden and Dunaway, who’s 35 in this movie but looks stunning. (Things do drag when Dunaway and Holden are trying to sort out their love affair in the final third. I walked the dog during that time.)

One line in particular struck me, because it’s at the same time both accurate and inadequate:

“Right now, there is a whole generation that never knew anything that didn’t come out of this tube!”

Thirty years ago, this was true. Today, there’s a generation that doesn’t know anything that’s not from a computer, never had fewer than 200 channels at its fingertips, and doesn’t do anything without a cell phone plastered to its ear. Chayefsky might not have his technology exactly right, but about being “in the boredom-killing business,” he was as accurate as TV’s Sybil the Soothsayer.

And a few more chewy quotes (think of the raving Peter Finch while you read):

“Television is not the truth! Television is a goddamned amusement park!”

“We’ll tell you anything you want to hear. We lie like hell.”

“You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here, you’re beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal! You do! Why, whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube! This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God’s name, you people are the real thing, we are the illusion.”

Now surf over to another site, before you get bored.

It’s so cold that the hoses for our washing machine froze solid on Sunday night, inside the house! **ba-dum-dum–cheee** Of course, I only figured this out after I took the back of the washer apart and started messing with wires and solenoids and other things I can’t put back together. The manuals always tell you to check the hoses first, but I didn’t listen. I wouldn’t have guessed that the little corner of the basement, where the drywall doesn’t quite fill the gap with the exterior wall, would turn into a freezer if it’s covered and insulated by a suitcase.

Sorry Johnny, but it IS that cold.

This morning NPR broadcast some story (I wasn’t listening closely) in which the reporter interviewed an overworked sheriff, and then said he and his partner have to police an area “the size of Rhode Island.”

And it struck me that this is our default measure for any type of vast space in the news: the area is always “the size of Rhode Island,” and it’s almost always un-policeable or unmanageable somehow. “Ranger Danger has to protect against poachers in an area the size of Rhode Island.” “Sheriff Yakima has to watch for illegal aliens in an area the size of Rhode Island.”

Rhode Island now is less a state than a unit of measurement. Distance is measured in miles, weight in pounds, and area in Rhode Islands. (Huge vertical distances are still measured in Statues of Liberties.) It’s bad enough to be mocked for being the teeny-tiniest state, but why should RI be dehumanized to the point of abstraction? Why should it be implied that “an area the size of Rhode Island” is wild, lawless, and bleak? Why should the state get slapped around by a lazy, cliche-spewing reporter? (And how useful is the cliche anyway? More people have visited Disney World or Manhattan Island or the Astrodome, so why not use them as a yardstick?)

Every time this stupid cliche is used, I think Rhode Island ought to charge a royalty. Maybe they could change their state motto to “As Big As Rhode Island”, but it’s not like the journos would get the joke. And they should use their royalty money to start buying up land in Massachusetts, with an eye toward annexation.

So I’m approaching the two-month anniversary of having lungs full of oatmeal and dragging my carcass around in the cold like a character in a “Droopy” cartoon. How did I celebrate this milestone? How else? By camping out in a cave for two nights.

While some Boy Scout troops concentrate on rocketry or sports, ours has a passion for camping. This can prove to be difficult in the winter months, but there are ways around the inclement weather. One is to bury yourself deep underground in an onyx cave in Wisconsin. Many people are aware that caves can keep a constant temperature year-round. What many people DON’T know (including our troop) is that this is not universally true, especially if you get placed in the part of the cave adjacent to the vent shaft blasted into the rock quarry on the neighboring property. This tends to let the frigid air drift down the cave floor, directly into your sleeping bag like floodwater. As long as you don’t mind sleeping with all your clothes on, this wasn’t a problem. With outside temps around 0* on Sunday morning, the situation was a little less pleasant. I was curious what the temp was by our campsite, but wasn’t foolish enough to check until the final morning when we were ready to pack up. Then, I didn’t bother mentioning to anyone that it was about 38* inside our part of the cave. Next time, we’ll have to remember to tip the concierge better.

Still, it was quite a time. The boys got good and muddy from climbing down little holes and seeing where they led. I even crawled through one that went about 30 yards. That was enough for my old bones. I was worried that the whole experience would be torture for Number One Son, who has complained about claustrophobia for some time. But the only part he balked at was climbing down the tight shafts. He was fine hanging out in the cave in general, and didn’t have much more trouble sleeping than the rest of us. Which is to say, he had trouble. But hey. Stiff upper lip and all that. The staff fed us well and organized hikes, contests and Bingo games to keep things going, and our troop is a good bunch of boys in most any conditions.

There was an arcade on the property, next to the dining hall, which became a hang out and a place to warm your bones. With pool tables, video games, an air hockey table and an old Husky dog, it was a typical Wisconsin tavern without the beer and smokes. At 10 am, the jukebox began playing Zep’s “Black Dog” and I had a cosmic vision–that across the state and indeed the entire Great Lakes region, “Black Dog” was likely blaring out of the jukebox in every other tavern, road house and supper club at that very instant!! Wow, dude!!! Such an epiphany sent a chill down my spine. Very 60s. Only this time it wasn’t caused by MDA but lack of REM. The sleep thing, not the band.

In the past few weeks, I have come to the conclusion that phlegm is without a doubt the most interesting bodily fluid. I cannot name one other type of secretion that is nearly as fascinating. First off, the stuff is just so damn sticky. Even in a completely new sink basin, it resists the pull of running water and hangs on like the “Alien” hanging off the back of the escape pod. NASA could work for years to develop an adhesive so flexible yet tenacious.

Secondly, its role as lung cop couldn’t be more effective. Now, in my case, I wish it would hurry up a bit, but I certainly do enjoy the satisfying machoness of a rasping cough that requires sending a projectile into the sink or onto the sidewalk. The art of spitting well (“loogie hocking,” “Launching greenies,” whatever your local colloquialism) eluded me as a kid. And as long as the coughing isn’t a result of smoking or black lung, I can stand it as long as those around me can. Which might not be long, but who has a choice?

Now, phlegm may be one of the four bodily humors, but I really don’t have anything humorous to say about it. It is sui generis, even down to its spelling. I respect it, I even admire it, as long as it is my own. Hail thee, Sputum! Long live phlegm!

Wife induces labor so husband can go to Bears game

It might have seemed like I disappeared from the blog because of too much shenanigans surrounding our favorite simian themed holiday. Like I got kidnapped, perhaps, or had too many banana daiquiris and passed out and woke up in a bathtub full of ice with one kidney missing and a nice note on the wash basin.

But those would all be just nice tours of the imagination (and is it just me, or have we really moved out of the Golden Era of Urban Myths?). What really happened was, we switched DSL carriers from MCI to ATT, so of course we were without connectivity for almost two weeks. Now, I could’ve gone to the library or a wifi cafe to keep up with things, but my wireless connectivity has been giving me fits since Sept. And you know why? I finally figured this out yesterday: I had struck the wireless switch by accident and turned it off. Ooooh, baby, call me Mr. On Top of Things.

Then of course, we were up at the cottage for 10 days or so, thoroughly enjoying the lack of connectivity up there. (I still didn’t know I had a little switch I needed to throw to leech off someone’s wifi.) It’s so very nice to blow off everything up there and pretend you’re stuck at an Antarctic substation, one full of food and liquor and friends and family. The isolation is so enjoyable that, after my brother and I finally figured out how to fix the poor TV reception after 9 years of ownership, it felt very strange to be able to see network TV again. I almost resented it, at least when I wasn’t watching the Bears lose to the Packers, and the Wolverines lose to the Trojans. Then I was glad for the pain, because it proved I was alive.

(It’s always great to start the new year watching the Wolverines act like football offense hasn’t evolved since 1962. Just once, I’d like to see them blow out their Pac-10 opponent, just so the Trojan marching band, which tries to look so cool with their shades while wearing their little gladiator outfits, can look a little more stupid.)

Now we’re back in town, with deadlines and scout meetings and carry-out Thai and all the rest of it. It feels mighty fine. Glad to have had Christmas, glad to be doing something useful again. Whatever that might be.