evacuation day

evacuation day makes for a great little anecdote when told to folks not from around here about how boston's first irish mayor, james michael curley, got the brahmins to accept a city holiday on st patrick's day.  and i have to imagine the rising tide of revolutionary sentiment was just as ominous to tories and their families as any hurricane in their or in our present day.  but evacuations in the old days had to always be during the storm itself, because weathermen, feckless as they so often might be proved to be today, hadn't even been invented yet.  today, truth be proved, weathermen do exist, and do sometimes get it right, not to mention sufficiently in advance that you want to ask those who ignored the warnings what they possibly could have been thinking.  after all, evacuations today can be while the sun is still shining, and long before threat to life and limb arises.

but what do we do?

at the far end of queens, ny, is the narrowest of spits of land, connected to the rest of us by two bridges and a swampy fen almost 10 miles from its furthest end.  habitually at the head of every list of evacuation locations for any storm, residents have had frequent experience being told to leave, even as recently as irene last year, without any ultimate purpose in the end.  enter sandy.

abc news reporters keturah gray and jim dubreuil deployed to breezy point to cover such "holdouts" and to bunk in with jim's family for the duration.  they timed their arrival to be among the last allowed over the marine parkway bridge before it closed, and they even took a tour of the neighborhood from a 30-year-old native who explained the compelling urge to stick with ones home, especially having "proved" through irene a year ago that warnings can be exaggerated.

you can read keturah's and jim's blog account here.

most dramatic to me was jim's observation that the receding tide enabled trudging through waist-deep water to escape around the blaze that engulfed block after block of residential homes, where even an hour or two earlier it would have been chin-high, and perhaps impossible to make it out against the current.  imagine the choice between being burned alive, or being washed out to sea during a hurricane...

it was miraculous, despite over 100 of those homes being burned to the waterline, that no casualties have been reported.  i am chilled to realize that it would be impossible to know this quickly, and that more will be learned about this grim possibility over the coming hours and days.  but i think about living as i do in the residential equivalent of breezy point (the top floor) of my downtown mill building aka deadly firetrap, and the frequency of evacuation alarms that are sounded here--the most recent being just the other day during the hurricane...

i have contemplated the home i have here, and the emotional importance of everything in it.  i have, by grim "luck" of my divorce, learned all too acutely the irreplaceable nature of family, and as important as all the "stuff" here is to me--the photographs of my children, and the other fleeting mementos of my life--i daily try to repeat the mantra of what is really important and irreplaceable here.  the truth is--absolutely nothing.

i walked downstairs during the alarm on monday as i always do, and i met all my neighbors likewise home for the day.  at least i hope i met all my neighbors likewise home for the day--it would trouble me greatly to think that the existence of our ability to warn might wear down patience to the point where warnings could become ignored.  i felt sick as a dog, and at my least eager to stand out in a driving rainstorm, but i mostly felt the pull of better habit trying to overcome stubborn and stupid laziness.  it's always a tug of war, that one, isn't it...

today, i'm looking at the photographs of the homes all lost on breezy point this week, and i am thinking only of my children and my family and all those whom i love.  when it's time to get out, it's time to get out.  nothing needs to come along.  there will always be another place to stay.  i will miss my guitars and my ukuleles and my cars.  i've worked so long and saved so hard to have them...  i will mourn the loss of the photographs and mementos most of all.  but i will always look forward to being able to hug my children and my family and all those whom i love again, and i hope that they will take as good care of the love i feel for them as i know it is my best choice to always take good care of the love they feel for me.  and get out while the getting is easy.

someday i'll tell you all about business school and "catastrophe risk".  many folks could use the refresher.

here's hoping that you and all yours are safe today and every day.  see you at the evacuation center.

fantasy hockey

yes, the nhl is still pissing away the season, so no news on that front.

but being in a fantasy hockey "keeper" league, where you draft and hang onto players for their career if you like, i'm telling you right here and right now that i'm dialed in and ready for the 2013-2014 season, if, indeed, the pinheads in toronto can get around to delivering by then.

consider this fantasy line:  20 goals and 34 assists in 52 games, including 103 PIM and a +9.  no, not a big leaguer, (yet), but that's the point in a "keeper" league--you want to buy low on a kid skating in the juniors and then ride him to the fantasy league championship year after year.  ryan nugent-hopkins?  yup.  got him last year.  gabriel landeskog?  he's mine, too.  but they're last year's news.  this year (2013) the news is gonna be a 200 pound left winger out of central alberta, but i can't tell you who he is because that's top secret pre-fantasy-draft confidential information.

oh, and the other thing?  he's a once-removed second cousin of mine.  his team travels east this year in january, and i could not be more excited about the road trip to catch his games in charleston and atlanta.  my brother and i are picking out our dive hotels along the way as we speak.  it's better than the nhl, too, because it's real.

edited to add that this season, already in 8 games, he's got 2 goals, 4 assists, and a team-high +6.   only 4 PIM, but you know that's just a matter of time and a couple drops of the gloves.

that is not news

for years i've been like a broken record (you can ask my kids--they are full sick of it) on "news" stories that chase around private citizens (even if you have a public-facing job like acting in movies you are, in fact, a private citizen) and publicize life details that, for you or me, would be nothing more than a (possibly) shameful private embarrassment.  (i got pulled over for speeding the other day--you didn't need to know about that did you?)  i ask you:  are jennifer aniston's dating habits really relevant to anyone other than jennifer aniston and her dates?

such stories are ENTERTAINMENT.  i personally don't give a rats ass who jennifer aniston dates, and i ignore the tabloid photo stories entirely, but, sure, have at it if it floats your boat while standing in the supermarket checkout line. it's certainly not getting better since "reality tv" has taken over, but the urge for gossip has bedeviled the human race since antony dated cleopatra and far far beyond.  fair enough.

but that is not news.

neither is, i am reminded today, a state official complimenting a federal official for doing a good job.  our government OUGHT to do a good job.  it's the least they can do with all the money we pay them.  perhaps if someone has some information on a job not being done well by a government official, we'd all benefit to know so as to demand some improvement.  yeah, yeah, perhaps a job SO well done deserves note so that we can reinforce the behavior via praise and exhort other government officials to copy the behavior, but, see, i'm figuring we should at least be waiting until the job is done before we conclude about its relative quality.

so why is it that the "news" headlines this morning include a "story" about chris christie, governor of new jersey, saying nice things about barack obama, president of the united states?  is it because federal fuck ups related to katrina were so bad, that an absence of "so bad" becomes newsworthy?  hardly.  it's because chris christie is a republicrat, and barry obama is a demican.  or, is it that chris cristie is a demican, and barry o is a republicrat?  i really have trouble telling the difference...

that is not news.  over 100 homes are burning in queens.  the nyc subway may not become operational again for a week.  certain coastal airports the same.  millions are without power.  and some state civil servant says that some federal civil servant has been really good on the phone?  really?

prove it.

put out the fires.  re-open the transportation hubs.  restore power to those without.  and mourn the dead, of which there have been far too many.

but spare me the stupid public interest pieces about cats laying down with dogs.  that is not news.

the math

for the "pro-life" readers, here's the math on the number of zygotes "killed" in the world.  (along with a lot of other math on the number of deaths endured by pregnant women along with it).

say you're for saving all the zygotes?  you ought to read this to find out how.  because, if you don't, or if you ignore the math here, you're a "baby killer" by your own definition.

don't be a baby killer.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/10/how-i-lost-faith-in-the-pro-life-movement.html

i'd like not to be a mother killer either, but that's just me.  good news is that, perhaps not so ironically, you can be neither at the same time.

read on, please.

darwin

this quote being attributed to the captain is reprehensible:  "bounty's current voyage is a calculated decision, not at all irresponsible or foolhardy as some have suggested.  the fact of the matter is a ship is safer at sea than in port".

bullshit.

first of all, the crew is never safer at sea than in port.  second of all, charting a course towards florida, right through the heart of the storm, is pure idiocy of the highest order.  any moron with a weather map would have pointed the boat towards iceland and been well out of harm's way even so.

this captain needs to lose his license.  for starters.  only 14 are confirmed rescued from a crew of 17.

irresponsible.

foolhardy.

criminal.

yes the decision was.

the ship is sunk, and crew members may already be dead.  pretty straightforward math if you ask me.

"god's will"

i hear the exact same phrase from the right wingnuts here in this country celebrating rape pregnancies (they're "gifts" don't you know) as i do the psychopaths trying to blow us all up.  it's convenient, i suppose, for the religious right wingnuts here in my country to tell me how to tell the difference and who to know is telling the truth, but i'll tell you the phrase "god's will" is prima facie evidence of lying, and folks uttering those words ought to be immediately prosecuted for it under fraud laws.

"god's will"?

i have it on good authority (some book i've been told is infallible) that it's beyond us to ever know.

either way, i'm no less confident that "god" didn't intend us not to educate women as i am that god didn't intend us to force one to die so that her rapist's semen might live on.  they shoot theirs, we just let ours die on the operating table.

same difference.

dehumanization, car trunks, and "life begins at conception"

rather than (further) hijack discussions on right-side-of-lowell, i'll extent a point of the discussion here for rhetorical consideration.

in several of my comments, i observed the irony that under proposed laws based on the premise that "life begins at conception", (many of which would outlaw abortion even if bearing a child would cause the death of its mother), rights of female citizens become fewer than that of a locked car trunk.  criticisms included missing the point of irony and the word "dehumanization".

even though the dehumanization of women is exactly my point. think about it:

under our laws today, if you murder a child (or any person for that matter) and you stuff their corpse in the trunk of your car and lock it, your conviction for that murder is overturned and you go free if the government (via the police or some other agency) breaks into your car trunk without either your permission or a warrant to find the body as a basis for your conviction.  this is not out of any leniency on the subject of murder and murderers, or any lack of compassion for all human life, but, rather, demonstration that our Bill of Rights is sacrosanct beyond all other laws and legal interests to guarantee our lives, liberties, and pursuits of happiness.  yet, inexplicably, when that locked car trunk becomes, rather, a woman's uterus, these new proposed laws based on "life begins at conception" would have women immediately eligible for the death penalty should she be found culpable in the termination of that pregnancy.  (ok, maybe i exaggerate and the penalties for breaking these laws will be less harsh, like, say, life or other extended imprisonment, instead...)

roe v. wade is not wrong.  it's the Bill of Rights that's at stake here, not whether or not you or i believe more strongly in the sanctity of human life.  want affirmation?  i'll agree with anyone and everyone that vast preponderance of people in this country believe that abortion is a human tragedy.  what i will not agree upon is that somehow the existence of tragedy should cause us to deny women their civil rights to privacy in the interests of life not yet even conceived.

the Bill of Rights.  doctor/patient privilege.  HIPAA laws.  you name it, the whole premise of our society is that the interests of government are secondary to the interests of citizens.  having some fanatical segment of our society ready to trash it all is beyond my patience to endure.  if you, our government, or anyone else lays a hand on my daughter to force her to act, refrain from acting, or in any other way determine how she chooses to conduct her life when her life is on the line, i will forcefully defend her.  you can call the SWAT teams now.  it will get violent.

i don't love this country because i don't have to stand up to defend its basis.  i love this country because i must stand up to defend its basis.

i fear for this country

i had a conversation last night with someone who insisted to me (INSISTED to me) that barack obama had increased the debt at a pace of 4 trillion PER YEAR during his presidency.  i attempted to correct him to say "well, actually, it's more like 4 trillion for his entire presidency", but he refused to back off his assertion.  (apologies to my fellow virgos in the audience, i accepted the order of magnitude similarity between 4 and 5 trillion in order to re-use the 4 trillion number in my correction--i do know the exact number, just the same way i knew my conversation-mate didn't really want to).

he then proceeded to "inform" me that obama had quadrupled the debt he inherited from dubya.  i attempted to correct him to say "actually, that's not true either", but he refused to back of this assertion, too.  (the debt increased from around 5 to around 10 trillion under dubya, and it's increased from 10 trillion to 15 and a half trillion under obama).

look, again, i get it why folks are dissatisfied with the performance of the sitting senior executive.  i wish more were more concerned about the eradication of our civil liberties, but i'm happy to settle for dissatisfaction over his ruinous fiscal policies.  but, see, here's the rub:

rabidly partisan pro-obama folks know the numbers, and know when you're talking shit out your ass and you don't know that part of your anatomy from your proverbial elbow.  and it only digs 'em in deeper and solidifies their resolve to support him no matter what.  and, if you talk enough stupid shit, i promise you they'll be motivated to run down and vote instead of possibly not caring enough to do so.  same way that you crazy deluded romney robots get all exercised and insistent when you hear the pro-obama nonsense, of which there is plenty, too.  (sorry, too lazy to start citing obama misstatements of fact here, though i'll suggest that counting three hundred thousand new jobs as five million as in the last debate was a pretty twisted little bullshit pill to be expected to swallow).

anyway, if you, unlike me, want to believe that obomney, i mean robama, i mean how can you tell the difference between these two parties and clowns, is somehow different and better worth electing, then you might try to at least get your facts straight before you embarrass yourself with outright lazy stupidity.


for the last half-century, entitlement spending has grown faster under republican presidents than under democrat presidents.  it's a fact.  you may want to believe that willard and paulie are gonna somehow buck trend, deny history, and be different, but i'm telling you right here and right now that there is only one party left in america, it's the "big government" party, and it has two wings, republican and democrat.  the republican wing believes in foreign wars, eradication of civil rights, and corporate welfare.  the democrat wing believes in foreign wars, eradication of civil rights, and citizen welfare.  IT'S ALL THE SAME.

i have a little over a week to go.  my new response will be "i'm sorry, i've given up indulging stupid, lazy partisans their stupid, lazy partisan bullshit.  look it up, the fact is *xyz*.  i'm done here".  i will replace *xyz* with whatever fact might be relevant to that particular piece of bullshit being spewed.  i will enforce this even-handedly between leftie loonies and the right wingnuts.  it'll be the first piece of bi-partisanship they can contribute to the next presidential administration's efforts.

irish sports pages

i'm not sure the origination of the expression, but because it's used so frequently among my irish (ex) in-laws, i'm going to claim "fair use" here, and adapt it and expand it just a little bit for myself.  (for those uninitiated, "irish sports pages" is a colloquialism for the obituary section of the daily newspaper).  i say adapt and expand because, though i did just learn of the profoundly sad, tragic and untimely passing of one of my kids' friends' parents from a newspaper obit within the last two weeks, my most frequent experience with similar are from the stories that talk more generally about people of a certain age (mine) or older.  right now, thankfully, that does not mean as often the obituaries as the general news sections of the paper, but you know time is going to work on that ratio quite a bit before i'm done, so i guess i might as well prepare myself for the eventuality...

it started for me, i think, when i first moved into my place here in downtown lowell and immediately subscribed to the local paper because that's what people do.  (you know i'm growing to regret the abuse more and more every day with each passing worthless edition, but this isn't about that, as it so often isn't with me, so let's skip that for now).  anyway, within the first week of papers here, there were not one, but TWO incidents of men within 5 years of my age run down while bicycling.  (and killed--this isn't just fun and games).  maybe that just put me on edge and made me hypersensitive, but i swear to you i had no idea how dangerous the world is for guys like me and it seems i'm reading more and more about it every day in the papers.  killed while biking.  killed while walking.  stabbed with nose hair trimmers in the right testicle while discussing female acquaintances.  (seriously--lisa redmond makes sure we have ALL the details!)

today's paper offers yet more cautionary tales from the world of middle-and-beyond-aging:  first, on a somewhat optimistic note, (irony included), did you see the one about the plane crash onto I93 in hooksett, nh?  seems a rhode island couple were killed when their single-engine beechcraft did not come to a complete and successfully safe landing on the wooded median strip between the northbound and southbound lanes of interstate highway number ninety-three in hooksett, new hampshire yesterday.  where's the optimism, you ask?  well, first of all, i should mention that my aging father (i guess "aging" could go without saying once i said "my") has had a mishap at home requiring surgical repairs to a broken arm sustained in a fall, and, second of all, that the couple, both deceased as a result of the plane crash, were 83.  dad is going to need extended rehab (aka temporary-we-hope- nursing home residency) but apparently mr. and mrs. block island are going out on their shields as we all might aspire.  food for thought regarding maintaining dangerous habits on into late adulthood.

second, and even more entertaining because it's written about by my fave reporter, lisa redmond, is about the 61-year-old retired postal worker (she NEVER misses a worthwhile detail--did i tell you my dad worked for the post office for years?) who has just been indicted for assault "after he was accused of stabbing his girlfriend because she wouldn't talk to him after she broke up with him".

i KNOW!

one particular lady friend of mine would not be able to resist cracking wise that "that's how she knows he really loves her", but i think we can all agree that the act of trying to kill someone is a good indication that the original thought to break up might have been a sound one.  either way, i'm not so far away from 61 as to read such a story without immediate reflection on my own life.  no, i'm not likely to choose knife violence in a lovers' quarrel, but it's always cause for reflection to see where but for the proverbial grace one might be going.

it does occur to me that, without lisa redmond, (ok, lisa redmond and bob mills), i would have cancelled my sun subscription weeks if not months ago, and it's likely only a matter of time, anyway.  until then, just hand me the irish sports pages.  it's always nice to read about exactly how lucky one truly might be.

(get well soon, dad)

the latest in kb vs the nhl vs the nhlpa

the nhl owners via their league commissioner, and the nhl players via their players association, have refused to even agree on how to negotiate, and the first would-have-been games of the 2012-2013 nhl season are already lost.  it can be argued without end (obviously) that approaching three and a half billion dollars is sometimes never enough for a few thousand greedy human beings to split amongst themselves.

oh well.

the comedy today is that the owners have "withdrawn" their offer, which expired last night anyway.  (any excuse to yap on in the press, i guess, about the merits of your "side"...)  rich.  (and they are).

so here's my press announcement for today, so that everybody is getting their say:

the latest offer from kad barma relating to the 2012-2013 nhl season is that he will not be attending or watching any games this season regardless of further developments.  oh, doesn't sound so much like an "offer" to you, as it does a pointlessly one-sided expression of intransigence?

exactly.

my kids aren't that old, but they've now lived through THREE nhl lockouts.  i've tried to share with them the tradition of the game, but now i'm even officially giving up on that where the nhl is concerned.  the stanley cup?  it's a pretty cool thing.  it's the oldest trophy in north american professional sports.  but it's not, believe it or not, something that is owned by the nhl.

the stanley cup was originally inscribed as the "dominion hockey challenge cup", and it was donated in 1892 by the governor general of canada, lord stanley of preston, to be awarded to canada's top-ranked amateur ice hockey club.  it was first won by montreal HC in 1893, and 22 years later, in 1922, the national hockey association and the pacific coast hockey association, the two big outfits at the time, shook hands on a gentlemen's agreement that their respective champions would play each other to determine the winner of each year's awarding of the cup.  (there's only ever been the one, and the name of every player who has ever earned it is inscribed right there upon it for all to see and remember).

a few years after that, by 1926, and after a bunch of league mergers, creations and disbandments, the cup fell by default to the relatively new nhl, and by 1947 it was the "official" trophy of the national hockey league.

but, see, the nhl doesn't own the trophy at all.  they don't even legally get to decide who wins it.  that privilege is retained only by the two trustees named to oversee the disposition of the cup.  (if anyone is counting, those two trustees are presently brian o'neill and scotty morrison).  in fact, since 1893, there have been only nine men who have ever held that responsibility and honor.  (john sweetland, PD ross, william foran, cooper smeaton, red dutton, clarence campbell, willard estey, and the two last guys named above).

so here's the proposal:

brian and scotty, please award the cup to the most deserving amateur team in north america (i won't mind even if you insist it just be among canadian candidates) in the spring of 2013.  it's the right thing to do.  and let's get back to loving hockey the way it was always meant to be loved.

zevon

when i was 15, lindsey buckingham and stevie nicks had just given fleetwood mac its critical mass, and everybody and i mean EVERYBODY was playing that eponymous fleetwood mac record that came out in july of '75.  (monday monday, warm ways, blue letter, rhiannon, over my head, crystal, say you love me, landslide, world turning, sugar daddy, i'm so afraid--and they ALL, every single track, were all over the radio).  forget rumours--i know, i know rumours sold 40 million copies and was a behemoth to dwarf almost all other behemoths before MJ--that "original" fleetwood mac record literally invented soft rock, and stands as one of the most important records ever made, and that's something that's not lost even on a fresh-faced little tween-age boy who is just discovering what music really is and can be.

at one point i added them up and did the math, and i had purchased an average of two records a week for over 10 years.  i knew every new and used record store in eastern massachusetts, and i would feed my habit incessantly.  so it was that i picked up an album, in the harvard coop i think, with a picture of a very seventies LA musician-type with long hair and a blurry cigarette in his hand on the front, and a list of musican credits on the back that was on the verge of, if not slightly over, beyond belief.

here's a few of just the harmony vocal credits in order of appearance:

phil everly
jackson browne
lindsey buckingham
glen frey
don henley
stevie nicks (credited as stephanie if you're into trivia)
bonnie raitt
carl wilson (yes, that carl wilson, of the beach boys, and he also did some of the vocal arrangements)
and billy hinsche (sang with dean martin and desi arnaz in the trio "dino, desi and billy")

musical credits include waddy wachtel on guitar (if you don't know waddy, i can't help you--he's probably created more hit records via just adding a lead line to other people's stuff than anyone in history), david lindley on banjo, fiddle and slide guitar, (i'm listening to jackson browne's running on empty right now which is as good an introduction to david lindley that exists anywhere), bobby keys on saxophone, the sid sharp strings, (THE 60's and 70's LA string session outfit), and tons of others who were all over the linda rondstadt, eagles, jackson browne, etc. etc. etc. records that were owning the charts of the day.  regardless of whatever might be thought of any one of them, finding EVERY ONE OF THEM on a single disc by some songwriter you've never heard of is a staggering discovery to a burgeoning music addict.

so i bought it and took it home sound unheard.

it's one of the greatest records i have ever known.  it primed me for buying "excitable boy" the day it was released a couple weeks after christmas, in january of 1978, which i was still listening to all through the blizzard a few weeks later, and, yeah i wore both those records out.  i was hooked.  and, no, none of warren's following 8 or 9 records could ever match that first one (we don't count "wanted dead or alive"), but they all, each and every one of them, held a gem that made their value beyond measure.  yes, warren was a concert-goer's nightmare--you never knew if he would be incoherent, or even if he would show up for a time there.  but as a songwriter, he was one of the best and most influential there's ever been.  his posthumous tribute album, "enjoy every sandwich", included homages from bob dylan.  bruce springsteen.  the pixies.  and, of course all of LA, including jackson browne and bonnie raitt and don henley and jill sobule and pete yorn and tons more.  (if you want to have some fun, find bruce playing and trading lead vocals with warren on "disorder in the house" off warren's last album, "the wind"--it's some of the best fun you'll ever hear two musicians have).  warren was the musical director for BOTH phil everly and don everly when they toured solo.  (if you know how acrimonious the everly's became, you know what that says about warren's musical talent).  warren filled in for paul schaefer and even david letterman himself on important occasion.  (david in turn contributed backing vocals to warrens "the hockey song", and the two were close friends). i can't think of many people who were as invisible while influencing so many people were were visible shaping american culture.  warren zevon was a remarkable talent.

but this isn't about that, as i so often say.

"i was in the house when the house burned down" was on short rotation throughout the aftermath of my divorce, though it still can't touch "the indifference of heaven" for capturing the emotional essence of that loss.  and though i'd be willing to bet that very few people, if any, reading this will have either known or even heard either of these songs, i'm hopeful that someone will hear one of these now and be able to remember them for that moment when they'll desperately need to get even a fraction out of them as i did and still do.  me?  i'm just learning to play them as best i can, and marveling at how simply beautiful they both are.

voter id

(see what i did there?)

i'm an optimist.  a cynical optimist, perhaps, but an optimist over and above all.  in any given situation, i sincerely feel that the base human instinct is to do right and best, and i sincerely believe that when we give people fair means to do right and best, they will try to the best of their ability, and generally succeed.  (it is for this reason, of course, that i decline to believe racism and partisan political selfishness might cause voter id proponents to be proposing those initiatives in an attempt to commit their own sort of voter fraud--by defrauding people of their rightful vote--and i do mean that sincerely).

i also know that many (most?) people are not optimists.  they may or may not be cynical, but they are nevertheless quite sure that, in any given situation, there's a base human instinct for selfishness that suggests we are all and always in need of a little gentle supervision (to put it as kindly and benignly as possible) and that we are all best advised to come up with good and fair and orderly processes that would effectively protect us against ourselves.

so it is that the subject of voter id quite emotionally divides the world between optimists and not optimists, where the optimists want to believe voters will always prefer to vote fairly and do so to a sufficient degree, and the not optimists are insistent that such belief is naive, and leaving us vulnerable to catastrophe via voter fraud.

fair enough.

so lets take the not optimists opinion as correct, and chalk up misplaced optimism to insufficient supervision, shall we?

anyone else see the inspiring photographs of the ailing world war 2 veteran, fighting for his life so he can contribute one more ballot to our great democracy this november 6th?  (made even more inspiring by his having to volunteer out of an internment camp in order to serve).  so, anyone else see the irony that a disproportionate number of elderly veterans coincidentally lack sufficient identification to pass most "voter id" initiatives' standard for eligibility to vote?  yeah, it's anecdotal and emotional, and maybe little more than evidence of more insufficient supervision, but at some point perhaps it might be useful to explore the granting of enfranchisement by the government, rather than the other way around.  (seriously--think for a moment about the possible not optimistic ramifications of that).

but let's not digress too far.  and i get it why we should all be agreed that non-citizens and others disenfranchised by law should not be able to vote.  in fact, i do believe we are all agreed on this.  so the question i have, to be posed to any and all proponents of "voter id" initiatives, is, what process currently exists to ensure full enfranchisement to all those eligible?  after all, since we know people can't be trusted to ensure everyone gets their fair and full right to vote, we should be interested in a fair process to guarantee it, shouldn't we?

ah, yes, i can hear the not optimists now.  caveat votor!  (no, i do not know latin, and my online latin translater does not know what the heck "voter" means, either).  i get it--while we're ensuring all the fraud-minded ineligibles are denied their nefarious intent, we really don't need to bother doing individual voter's work for them to ensure they are properly registered and identified to vote, as that's something they alone should be motivated to ensure.  and we're all good, right?

fair enough.

so what do not optimists think we should do when an eligible citizen properly submits registration to vote, and are nevertheless defrauded of that vote via active sabotage?  isn't the not counting of an eligible vote just as significant an assault on our democracy as the counting of an ineligible one?

i'm sure we are all equally outraged at such a possibility, right?

so, not optimists, here is your evidence that better supervision is, indeed, as you always believe, necessary.  a clear-cut case of voter fraud, complete with physical evidence and the alleged perp in custody.

i'm looking forward to the same energy and zeal otherwise devoted to disenfranchising eligible voters, like our ailing world war 2 veterans who fought but didn't die for their right to vote, to be otherwise devoted to rooting out and prosecuting and incarcerating anyone who would defraud the electoral process.

fair enough.

right?

simple pleasures

i still won't even attempt steely dan songs (donald fagen is so way over my head i cannot even begin to describe) but i have, from time to time, been lulled into a false sense of optimism by various three and four chord favorites.  sadly, as easy as it is to "learn" the chords to such, it's never as easy as it would seem.  first of all, there's the maddening difficulty of rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time, aka singing and playing simultaneously, making so many great songs absolutely impossible to get right for the misfortunately mediocre. (i could write a book).  but even more daunting is the absolute stripped-down perfection of certain recordings, and the cold hard truth that there's far less room to hide behind simplicity than there is a wall of noise.

case in point--buddy holly's "not fade away"--one of the greatest, "simplest" songs ever written.  (it's anything but simple, and just try to play it if you don't believe me).

yes, a TON of people have covered this song--some even with decent success, if by success you're counting record sales.  but none of these has yet held that proverbial candle, and tell me if you don't agree.

the most popular tactic for alternate cover song success is, of course, the misdirection of "interpretation". here's an early one of mick and the boys bo diddley'ing it up live.  but 90% of the time, even the most incredibly talented musicians you might know can just make a complete and embarrassing shambles of it and themselves in the process no matter what they try.  the worst part?  somebody's best misdirection, e.g. the bo-didley-ization of things evident in the stones' cover, so often becomes the mistake each and every succeeding wannabe inevitably makes.  (it's to the point where it's almost impossible to find a non-holly recording of this song that doesn't get the rhythm and the guitar parts wrong wrong wrong in this same exact and stupidly repetitious way).

of course, there are further atrocities many otherwise talented folks are capable to commit.  jack white, of whom i've heard a lot of people saying a lot of great things, in this one attempts to indulge inspiration by loosening things up about as far as anyone otherwise calling themselves a "professional" might dare to go. (and really?  he doesn't even get the stones' bastardization of the guitar part right).

perhaps the most profoundly offensive to me, though, is the grateful dead's disgracefully disrespectful and supremely self-indulgent trashing of the song at almost every single one of their shows.  pick one.  pick this one.  pick any other.  they all suck--stupidly not-quite three-part harmonies atop literally endless jerry-noodled guitar solos to harsh any holly fan's buzz.  why can't they just call it some other song and be merciful about it.

roger mcguinn and the byrds?  sorry.

rush?  seriously?

slightly better, but still with the pointless bo diddley thing (and a drummer who really has his difficulties), is this one by buddy's fellow texan, tanya tucker.

one that i'd LOVE to link you here, but that i only have on cassette tape from an orpheum theater show back in 1980 whatever, is jon butcher going the whole 9 rockin yards on it.  no diddleying around.  but it's still not the same song.

the one remaining way to lessen the magnitude of ultimate failure, is to make a full homage to form.  in this one, stevie nicks' drummer gets the drum part right, and her backup singers do a great job on the backing vocals too, and she even aims straight at the heart of buddy's phrasing.  but i'm thinking you'll agree it's just not quite.  (and, seriously, waddy?  is that the best you can do, with ALL the lead riffs you've pulled off in your life???)


you simply cannot and will not find anyone who gets the simple heart and soul of the song right without having to hide their embarrassment behind a wall of guilty sound.

so cue the ukulele in rank beginner's living room...

it's such a simple pleasure.  but it's never going to sound like buddy.

tools

email is a tool.  people who send spam email are tools.  they are also breaking the law.

anyone unfortunate enough to have become ensnared in the utter worthlessness that is whatdouwannado.com (i'm done ridiculing their ridiculous farce of a "calendar", and their so-20-years-ago approach to culture) is likely to be getting, as i am, spam emails from their marketing department which are nothing but rehashes of advertising for their sponsors.  but nowhere in such emails is even a pixel of "unsubscribe" linkage otherwise required by law.

the "CAN SPAM Act" covers "any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service", including email that promotes content on commercial websites.  (like my wording?  i'm plagiarizing directly from bureau of consumer protection's website, which you can visit here).  i'll continue as they continue:  "each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000"

can i apply for a finders fee?

as per the bureau, each "message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future".  they also suggest that violations can be reported via the FTC at https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en.  guess where i'm going next.

tools.

irony

the terrorists are now, apparently, offering to help us out instead--one of 'em just tried to blow up the federal reserve.  (too soon?)

how you can tell that liberals aren't getting it, part next

i could have entitled this one "how you can tell conservatives aren't getting it" just as easily, but coincidence has it that a lefty stuck his foot in it first, so he gets top billing.  so, first, the context:

the other day, a well-intended lefty linked rachel maddow's blog celebrating that our deficit has receded from its high of $1.3 TRILLION (a standard reached two years in a row) to a mere $1.1 TRILLION.  (caps for emphasis--$1.1T used to be the whole debt back before reagan got really rolling in 1980).

anyway, my comment was "i cut down my drinking from 13 beers a night to 11. that's 2 beers less! i'm not an alcoholic anymore!", and as you might expect, the original poster had a response, in this case that the D's were the last to run a surplus and coincidentally were the only ones to propose reining in defense spending, to which i couldn't help but toss back that not only had republicans freed the slaves, but that our federal budget is so far gone that the defense budget is no longer the real problem.

cue the low information voter:

this other guy, the all-too-often "brains" of the liberal grass roots, (don't worry, there are similar "brains" behind the conservative grass roots, but they weren't first to the post on this, so they'll have to wait their turn for attention), wanted me to explain why i thought defense spending wasn't the real problem.  so, like the optimist i am, i linked the wikipedia summary of the OMB figures (here) and pointed out that the entire defense budget, added to the entire budget of the entire federal government (100% of "discretionary spending") was barely $1.3T, and that "mandatory spending", by comparison and an order of magnitude greater, was a whopping $2.3T.

this isn't enough "cite" for this guy, (did you know they made "cite" a noun?), so he wants to know why the wikipedia summary shows things like a negative $8B proposal for mandatory spending for education, so, again, like an optimist, i link him the government link page behind the wikipedia summary (here), and then, because i'm helpful like that, i ALSO linked the OMB detail page for the department of education (here) AND EVEN GAVE HIM THE PAGE NUMBER TO FIND THE NEGATIVE $8B (page 6) so that he could see for himself, explaining that to get further detail behind the negative $8B he'd have to make a written request to the OMB to get it.

want to know what the "brains" responded to that?  (maybe i should have explained that "OMB" stands for the office of management and budget).

"or the next step is to find a more straightforward cite".

i kid you not.  the actual source documents, from the us government, complete with links and page numbers for the detail, and he doesn't think that's straightforward enough.

"brains".

and it hits me:  the lefties have "brains" in EXACTLY the same way that the righties have "brains".  they're swallowing their candidates' bullshit whole without murmur let alone question, and they're so far gone they don't even want to know the truth, let alone where to look it up.

"low information voter" is the new buzzword.  we all ought to learn it, because the country is overrun with them.

edited because i've calmed down, and because i was definitely mean-spirited and over the top in the original wording.  apologies to those offended, and i'll try to be better.  thanks for understanding, or at least reading this far before giving up on me.

bwahahahaha

"chess is a violent sport" --  garry kasparov.

hang on for this one, it has a rather long (understatement alert) preamble:

history's longest-reigning world chess champion, emanuel lasker, (27 years at the top from 1894 through 1920), was derided by his contemporaries and even other champions as recently as bobby fischer as a "coffeehouse player who knew nothing about openings and didn't understand positional chess".  (an insult which has been more recently thoroughly debated and roundly refuted, including a recantation by the volatile mr fischer).  the truth is that lasker's dominance of the game was so far ahead of its time that only decades and now centuries of study has confirmed the depth and breadth of his skill.  (he surely could have kicked your and my asses, to say the absolute very least).

i learned the game in time to be inspired by fischer's dramatic rise and historic undressing of the reigning plodder, i mean, champion, boris spassky in 1972.  fischer had refused to play in the 1969 us interzonal championships/qualifiers in classic fischer style, arguing about format and prize money, so he wasn't even eligible to get into the running for the world title until pal benko gave up his spot in deference to the hothead wunderkind.

here i cannot help but digress, because when you're 12 years old, you have no appreciation for this sort of thing--all you know is that some selfless american gave up his spot so that our best player could finally get a fair shot at the russkies.  the truth is that some 10 years earlier, when bobby was a mere baby-faced 19 going up against the big guns of american chess at a championship in buenos aires, one of his more sense-of-humor-enabled opponents, larry evans, introduced the virgin bobby to every nerd's both dream as well as achilles heel--the girl who thinks chess geeks are hot.  bobby's results that month in argentina were the most abysmal of his entire career, and pal benko and larry evans knew two things about that.  first of all, that bobby was indeed the best american player alive, (indeed, since morphy), and that they owed him his shot at the title for having taken advantage of him a decade before.  (and folks wonder why bobby was so paranoid as an older player!)  so benko gave up his spot, and larry evans served as fischer's second throughout the run to the title, and the game was on.

fischer eviscerated every opponent on his way to meet spassky, and there was no more insufferable asshole in the world by that time than king bobby.  his world champion arrogance clearly cost him the first game of the match, and his world champion self-absorption lost him the second via forfeit.  (imagine being so full of yourself that you'd purposefully blow off a match and lose it against the otherwise best player in the world, just because you didn't feel like playing that day).  but fischer barely broke a sweat breaking spassky down the entire rest of the way, and you'll know a player of my generation by his or her pawn-to-king-four opening.  (we hadn't learned to use the russian-preferred e2-e4 notation yet).

but its garry kasparov's 20 year reign as champion of the world from 1985 to 2005 that truly sparkles.  like fischer, kasparov could overpower and flat out beat anyone on any board anytime, which continues to be an extremely remarkable and rare ability from the moment paul morphy begged opponents to take a pawn and a move's advantage so he could at least get them to give him a game.  (morphy was perhaps the first of that kind, and for his dominance of his era, arguably the best, too).  truth is, most chess championships are like massive mental tugs of war, with the winner being the one, a lot like minnesota fats over fast eddie felson, who could remain in the game the longest without making a mistake.  (boring!)  and karpov, like spassky all those decades before, was the king of the boa constrictors.  (the "boa constrictor" style was karpov's trademark, and it's exactly what it sounds like).  but kasparov was so brilliant, and so superior in his game, that no amount of rope-a-dope resistance (it's futile!) could withstand his withering assaults.

fischer's psyche could stand only a few years at that pace, and he imploded quickly.  (so much like morphy that the parallels are all but too eerie).  but kasparov kept it up for two decades.  twenty years.  taking on and defeating all comers.  playing the game like the blood sport it truly is.  amazing.

and so it is that we get to the end of the preamble, and to the point i was thinking i might make this morning...

i've been playing a few games down at major's pub on monday nights with a sociable group of folks of varied abilities, from beginner to a bit less so.  (you should come on down).  anyway, perhaps for no greater reason than some have played a few more games in their time than others and get the benefit of that experience on the board, there's a natural misconception that any particular game result has some sort of relative significance.  (i like kasparov's take on it:  "excelling at chess has long been considered a symbol of more general intelligence. that is an incorrect assumption in my view, as pleasant as it might be".)  so, as people will do, they'll congratulate the winners, say encouraging things to everybody else, and completely read altogether too much into the coincidence of the results.

predictable as well are the inevitable blow-hards who, upon hearing that other people are playing, (they don't come down to play themselves, mind you), will  find themselves compelled to talk about that one particular guy (it's usually a guy, i'm not trying to be sexist) who thought he was so smart, until this other particular guy telling the story (again, it's usually the case he's a guy) kicked their ass as if that has proved anything about anything to anybody.  (like setting your watch to swiss time, the facebook commentary about last night's photos brought out one particularly obvious asshat which is why you're suffering through this right now, so you can take it up with him, please!)

if i've learned one thing playing this game, it's that there's always somebody who can kick your ass with ease.  when i was five until he moved away, and likely still to this day, it was my best friend peter for me.  (he wasn't the only one--my other best friend, thor, could do it, too).  in fact, right along, i've always had the advantage of frequent humiliation to remind me why i play in the first place--because it's fun to measure yourself against something without the slightest element of chance, and to live by the consequences of nothing but the output of your own mind.  very few opportunities in life can offer that, but a good game of chess surely can.

rule of thumb:  if you meet a player who says they're good, they're not.  (unless their name is anand--the latest champion--or kasparov or similar).  if you meet a player who talks about beating a player who said that they were good, they're even less so.  it's just the way it is.

i like it best when every game is an adventure.

come on down to major's on monday nights and have some of your own!

if your mother was a hamster, your name is gary bettman

i wrestled with the title for this one for quite a long time.  "fuckers" was the one i wanted most, (15 year old daughter rule), but i'm going to try to keep to the most civil side of the street i can manage while i'm growing evermore pissed off by the day.

for those of you not living by your calendars and wondering where the hockey posts are now that its october, i'll summarize by saying that the nhl team owners, via their tool, gary bettman, have decided it's necessary for players to take a more than 20% pay cut (on salaries those owners themselves decided was fair to pay them in the first place!) despite league revenues more than tripling under the previous collective bargaining agreement.  ($1 billion to $3.3 billion).  not only that, they're further insisting on a new "sharing" formula that guarantees team owners 57% of everything, IN ADDITION to the revenues that they don't even allow to be considered for sharing in the first place.

right--you've never made as much money ever before, but it's time for everyone else but you to make less.

fuckers.

so, what do you do next if you're a supreme asshole?

why, you play hard ball with the season for the third time in the last 18 years, lock out the players and refuse to allow the games to be played, while throwing thousands of additional people out of work who otherwise depend on the game to feed their families, (zamboni drivers, ticket takers, clubhouse attendants, etc.), and insist that if you can't have everything you want on top of everything else you already have, then nobody else gets anything at all.

fuckers.

ironically, the owners one remaining frustration with the unilateral nature of all of this fucking they're doing is that they're concerned that it's been making them look bad--so concerned, that they've hired the #1 bullshit outfit in the universe, luntz global, to help them bullshit their way out of it.

you can read all about it here, though i will say the one idiocy still remaining in their approach to this is that they aren't smart enough to know that #1, most hockey fans, and the vast preponderance of REAL fans, aren't americans in the first place, and, #2, among that subset of nhl fans south of the 49th parallel, almost none of them live in, let alone would voluntarily subject themselves to, the washington, dc area.  (seriously--caps fans???)

so we're going to get a lot more bullshit phrases like "shared sacrifice" and a whole lot of nothing reasonable while everyone else (players, team employees, and fans) gets screwed like never before.

fuckers.

know jack

i'm not from around here (i grew up 25 miles away, and raised my kids 15 miles from here) so i'm having to learn the local custom as i go along.  in some cases, this is pretty easy--i had my first underage bar beer here (at the old worthen) some 35 years ago, so there's a certain amount that i'll always have in common with a good number of the folks here, too.  but in other cases, as with this weekend's obsession with all things kerouac, i'm not quite sure i completely follow the thread.  (sure, go ahead--consider that a bad textile mill pun).

i'm suspecting, if you polled a lot of the people with whom i have that underage bar beer thing in common, they'd likewise find it more than a little bit silly that a dissolute drunk should be getting all this serious and straight-faced homage.  yeah, jack is the classic underage bar beer kinda guy, (and what says more "lowell" than that--didja catch the latest list of underage-serving establishments the other day?), but all this "literary" attention seems so absolutely incongruous to the  otherwise utilitarian nature of the place.  face it--lowell was built only as the engineers preferred, without any real thought towards "art" as opposed to that sort of engineering, and by waves of immigrant people who really didn't get taught a whole lot about literature let alone reading in between shovelfuls or shuttles-fuls.  even bending the celebration back over to cite the man's "roots" getting into drunken fights in bars here still sounds too much like a reach coming out of the mouths of so many oh-so-serious university professors and writers. (who seem to spend the rest of their time rhapsodizing about folks like the everywhere-else-unknown lucy larcom, blah, blah, blah...)

lowell has always been little to none of what others pretentious would pretend it is.  it's dirty and grimy and crime-y and a logical inconvenience to any and all who would go highbrow where it's generally always all about the low.  yeah, if you were gonna pick a writer to be from lowell, jack is as good as any, cuz he liked to drink too much and fight too much and he lived his entire life in a perpetual state of self-induced poverty--induced by his preferences to drink too much and fight too much.  (and who doesn't know a whole bunch of people here who fit that particular bill).  of course, it's always nice that an icon can be so iconic of the circumstances of their genesis, but, see, we're not spending a week celebrating the drinking and fighting games--this whole thing seems to be an attempt to make it all about "writing", and pretending that lowell is such a cultural place cuz someone who died from his drinking somewhere in florida, and who couldn't wait to get "on the road" from here in order to be there for his last words, which may or may not have been "stella, i'm bleeding", might have coincidentally come from this place.  (the best analogue might be bette davis, who was gone from here before she was even 2 years old, but we don't have a "bette davis weekend" to illustrate the comedy of that, so we have to make do with the circumstances of "our" "friend", jack).

but, yeah, i'm not from around here, so maybe i just don't get it, and i just don't know jack.  (there, that pun was a bit more obvious).  maybe if i drank more budweisers i'd do better.  (though it's worth noting that jack preferred malt liquor to chase his tumblers-full of whiskey, so he wasn't a bud guy, either). but this all recalls to me nothing so much as the panel discussion i once saw on the subject of miles davis, during which all the scholarly types blathered on and on about what they "knew" about the man and his music, and then one of the guys who was actually there blew them all out of the water by simply telling the story of what the man actually said and believed.  (quod erat demonstrandum).

we're painfully short on such kerouac contemporaries here these days, so i'm guessing, not from here or not, it will probably be best if i take all the blathering with an enormous grain of salt.  (something about the size of lelacheur park should do for starters).  the guy liked to write his mind.  he did it in a way that inspired many others to do the same.  that's pretty cool.

now can we please get back to our drinking?  it's what jack would have wanted.

score one for the new guy

apparently when i use the name of some of these joints i go to where they pour real beer, feature real music, and do real business, a few folks prefer to live in their past and whinge about budweiser tall boys, non-functional jukeboxes, and the essence of bars who think a business plan is trying to subsist on the daily intake of half a dozen guys who start their drinking around noon and are off their barstools by ten.  (someday someone is gonna have to publish a book of opening lines for people who like to argue...  i'm quite sure there are better than i've got).  but i will say that last night one was scored for the new guy when a lifelong lowell townie *as old as i am!!!* wanted to try to argue with me about the proper way to spell "furey's" as in "furey's cafe".  as in, they swore it was really spelled "fury's", and how would i know.

how would i know indeed...

there's a real change to downtown lowell over the past five years since i've arrived here.  there are no fewer empty storefronts, and no shortage of failed businesses taking it on the chin and in their owners' wallets for the economic engine that still couldn't that is downtown lowell, but there is a decided shift in the character of those who can, and it's a remarkable thing.

music?

when i first moved downtown here, you could get absolutely and horribly mistreated by the train wreck that still continues to be gemstones, and, if you were lucky, catch a little something at the worthen house.  i'm here to suggest the main and essentially only difference from a viability standpoint was and continues to be the quality of two things:  their beer and their music.  there was no music at life alive.  there was no music at la boniche.  there was no music because there was no fuse, back page, etc., and if you wanted something that wasn't watery swill, the worthen could give you a little something, and the old court could give you a lot more, and, what do you know, both continue to do just fine down here, but your options ran out extremely quickly.  now there is music all over downtown from wednesday through saturday, and even sometimes, believe it or not, on a SUNDAY.  hard to imagine, but it's true.  and it's awesome.

beer?

want to know where you can get a good glass of beer these days?  yup, the worthen still makes it possible.  the old court is holding up the standard of irish pubs all over the world.  fuse, the back page, ward 8, the new major's, (if you haven't checked out their new lineup of taps at their usual unbeatable prices, don't believe for a second you know major's), the smokehouse, and even la boniche(!!!) have good pours.  and, i have it on good authority, the soon to be new finn's pub on merrimack is lining up to be the next to know what the people want, and i can't wait to try it out.  i don't know from the indigestion likely being suffered by the budweiser rep in these parts, but i will point out two very important, and in one case obvious, things:  first of all, and it's absolutely all you need to know, budweiser and the plethora of bud and bud-competing products from saab miller and others, are watery, barely-buzz-inducing wastes of glass.  even at $8 for a pitcher, you really have to hate yourself to put up with it.  (if you're pouring for $8, make mine a pbr, thanks).  and, for the second point, while anheuser busch still props up the noxious sham that is the presidential debate commission which purposefully excludes all candidates beyond the big government party "bud vs. miller" shills, (ironic?  no, i would say an extremely logical correlation), there is absolutely every reason NOT to do business with their faux "working class" advertising insults.  (this bud and all the rest are for mitt and barry, yo).

so it is that folks who grew up and lived here for years want to think they know what's what around their town, and still can't remember the names of the places they don't even go, while they want to imply that folks who got their schooling elsewhere can't figure it out.

love lowell?  get out to see it.  you'd be amazed how awesome it continues to become.

OH!

and, i almost forgot.  last night i caught three quarters of the four legged faithful and they were phenomenal.  there was talk of austin (a local singer and songwriter also out last night is moving there this weekend) but i didn't need any of that.  yup, i'm sure austin has everything their reputation suggests they have, and more.  but i'm not needing to go there or worry about it because i've got, and you've got, and we've got what we have here, and it's remarkable.  (here are TFLF's upcoming show dates and venues, including a bunch in haverhill, newburyport and cambridge).  think about it--a massachusetts band getting gigs downstairs at the middle east and all over new england seeks out and plays, not once, but twice and counting, an open mic in lowell, massachusetts because they know it's where music is happening.  they're handing out their cd's like halloween candy, (free!), and loving the fact that the people who know music are loving them back in a big, big way.  sure, they were so good that a lot of extremely talented musicians were discussing strategies to knock their instruments into the canal to slow 'em down a bit, but that was so completely in jest and out of jaw-dropped respect for the quality of the music, musicianship, and experience of being treated to hearing them play live, that it went without saying.  you should have seen the faces in the room getting into what TFLF was putting down.

and it was awesome.

AND i walked home.

score one for the new guy.

accentuate the positive

my brother-in-law (i only have one these days) can always be counted upon to say the most painfully cringe-worthy things in almost every social and familial situation, and he achieved one of his certainly perverse verbal high-water marks in the days after my grandfather's first stroke in the late 1980's.  (this is the man, my brother-in-law that is, who, at his own daughter's wedding, found himself compelled AT THE LECTERN to pontificate on the subject of his daughter's sexual habits and preferences to the point where his own mother could be heard audibly repeating, over and over and over again in the front pew--"shut up, shut up, shut up, etc. etc. etc., the hearing of which i could not mistake as i rose to remove myself before i would be the one saying something far less quietly and politely...)

anyway, to his (the b-i-l's) credit on the serious occasion of his wife's grandfather's crisis of precarious health, this man (the b-i-l) found himself, out of ALL the conversations possible to have with a man facing life alone in the aftermath of a major stroke, compelled to ask the number of years since his (my grandfather's) wife's passing.

really?!?

but wait!  there's more!

not even satisfied to receive the answer to that one, (15 years if anyone wants to be counting), he followed up with the astounding "you must really miss her, don't you?" for good measure.

(yes, you could have heard the proverbial pin drop in the room).

let it never be said that germans do not have a sense of humor.  without hesitating or shying away from the discomfort of the first question, my grandfather calmly observed the decade and a half he had been living alone since his wife's untimely passing from lung cancer in the early seventies.  (further to the tragedy, and to his credit not to belabor the point by bothering to point it out, she had not ever smoked, but, as a schoolteacher, became herself the unfortunate victim of second-hand teachers-lounge smoke, and i'll digress to remind you, because i'm not as polite or reserved as my grandfather, never to be confused about the consequences of such).  he then followed up that response by just as matter-of-factly answering the second astounding-to-be-asked question:  "yes, i miss her very much".

wait for it...

"but i eat better these days".

[cue the rim shot from the percussionist]

this is a man who truly loved food.  he once told me the only dish of which he was aware in the entire world (monkey brains included) that he had not had privilege to try was finnan haddie, and i was there when he earned his opportunity to cross it off his list, and he said (against my nose's better sense for itself) that it was every bit as rewarding to taste as he had imagined.  (he had his first poached in milk for breakfast, though later "just plain").

so, in honor of the memory of a man who knew how to live, i'm chowing down today for lunch on a plate full of beyond-restaurant-quality food, ironically leftovers, and thanking providence for the opportunity.  the main course is a roast leg of lamb done to absolute perfection, effortlessly re-heated in the toast-r-oven alongside an offering of au gratin potatoes to absolutely die for.  (i ADORE potatoes, and just as much the next day).  the "side"?  an almond and artichoke heart salad with cherry tomato, feta, kalamata and pepperoncini.  (whatchoogot?)  and you know i didn't make any of this myself.

divorce is a family tragedy never to be celebrated or wished upon anyone.  i regret daily what mine has done to my family and to my children.  but, grandpa, i hear you.  i also eat better these days, and i am absolutely thankful for the blessing that is my refrigerator full of amazing leftovers, from my having been indulged all weekend long by someone who truly does love and care for me despite all my shortcomings.  (yeah, i guess that's bragging...  yet another shortcoming...)  no, i still don't care for a lot of bitter vegetable matter, and i have no idea what prompts a man to keep a vial of vinegar on the table at all times to ADD to such whenever possible.  but i understand the primal essence of it all, and i know that can never be overstated.

there's a lot to be said for being loved unconditionally.  i'm doing better these days at the plate and elsewhere.  i'm trusting that my children are learning from the example, even while they (and me, i guess) will always love their mother.

and, not for nothing, but the love in downtown lowell being plated daily by the restauranteurs down here is something more people ought to enjoy, too.  it's great!

sticking to principle

one of the more curious frustrations of "liberal" folks loyal to the democrat party (i can't say democratic, because they have bogus "voting" practices at their conventions, and don't make me link the video again 'cuz i will if i have to) is that they are (right and properly) outraged at the idiocy spewing from the mouths of so many elected republican party members (the two that have me this week are the statements that, first of all, slavery couldn't have been a real problem, since jesus and the prophets weren't all up in arms against it, and, second of all, that science is evil intended only to deny "the saviour" and needs to be eradicated) who are propped up by the complicity of those otherwise reasonable would-be representatives (e.g. scott brown) who need to be defeated at the polls lest the idiocy be given the support to take over.  i do believe elizabeth warren, if she is to win this upcoming election, will do so on this "guilt by association" card that she is currently playing, and good for her for playing it.  (scalia?  really???).  and fair is fair, is it not?

so, see, that's my point:  i've got a bone to pick with their presidential nominee, and a pretty big one at that.

the ndaa, or "national defense authorization act", is an annual exercise in appropriating the resources that will be necessary for the defense of this great nation.  and this past go-round, the incumbent to this upcoming election actually SUED to ensure that indefinite detention without trial was "authorized" as a part of it.

W
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but before we argue any more about this, and subject ourselves to yet another round of "but mitt is worse!!!", let's digress a moment to include a little history lesson, shall we?

in 1950, a democrat politician from nevada, pat mccarran, for whom the las vegas airport is named, by the way, sponsored a bill called the "internal security act", which has also been known as the "subversive activities control act", or, for brevity, kinda like "santorum" is short for "rick santorum", the "mccarran act".  it was unsuccessfully opposed by harry truman's futile veto, and required "communist organizations" to register themselves with the us attorney general so that they could be subject to immediate investigation by the newly-created "subversive activities control board".  membership in these groups, in addition, precluded citizenship, as well as passage into and out of the country.  not only that, but citizenship under this act could be REVOKED just for such association.  and, for its kicker, it introduced language that the president at his whim could arrest and indefinitely detain "each person as to whom there is a reasonable ground to believe such person probably will engage in, or probably will conspire with others to engage in, acts of espionage or sabotage".  i think we can all agree, substituting "terrorism" for "communism", we are just about where we started, aren't we.  (oh, and among other more trivial excesses, the law made picketing federal courthouses a felony...)

so, anyway, even though 1993's supreme court struck down whole sections of this "law" as being unconstitutional and contrary to our Bill of Rights, vast swaths of it serve as the foundation of our present ndaa, and our military still utilizes precedent of this bill to incorporate language like "senior commanders have specific authority to regulate privately owned weapons, explosives and ammunition" in defiance of our second amendment and into their standing doctrine.  (in a coincidence i hope real liberals can respect, it was the law that was used to go after russo and ellsberg during that "pentagon papers" thing in 1972).

so, back to the subject of guilt by association...

the incumbent president, darling of "liberals" and democrat party members everywhere, was sued earlier this year over the clearly (at least to me) unconstitutional ndaa he signed.  (props to chris hedges).  so what was the first thing done by his administration after being told indefinite detention was unconstitutional?  why, of course, they filed an appeal of the ruling and sued to have the provision put back into effect.

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yes, i know, all you warren folks, you're right--electing a republican only lends support to the dangerous lunatics currently hoping to legislate dangerous policy.  we shouldn't vote for scott brown.  but, see, this is where i have a problem--sticking to such a principle, any responsible "liberal" and democrat must vote against the sitting president because he is dangerously legislating dangerous policy as well, and, unlike the republican lunatics to whom you are so adamantly opposed, the sitting president wields nigh-on despotic power to arrest, detain and even assassinate citizens as he damn well pleases.

this is not right.

and i'm seriously concerned that you will resort to the "but romney" is worse argument to blindly sell us all out and drive us down that primrose path to the day when one of those republican loonies, with all their delusions and dangerous thinking, will be sitting in an office with the power to do whatever they want to atheists, homosexuals, and anyone else they feel is against their scripture.

and it will be YOUR FAULT.

yes, i'm voting for gary johnson.  i believe in the bill of rights, and freedom from the tyranny of my own government, and the importance of due process for ALL.  i'm all for locking 'em up--sincerely i am.  tight.  with thrown away key.  but the power to detain without limit or judicial review, not to mention torture and assassinate, does NOT belong in the hands of any government official, elected or otherwise.  we don't stand for it in other countries.  why do we let dangerously paranoid people insist upon it here?  because, as sure as someone will include reference to hitler on the internet, (doh, there, i did it myself), some politician in the US will find it convenient to avail him or herself of the power at some inopportune time in our future, and the results will not be pretty.

pay now, or pay later.

gary johnson is more to the principles of what was once the democrat party than most anyone you could name today.  that democrat lemmings (sheeple is my favorite word for this) will not wake up and see the truth staring them baldly and boldly in the face is high irony, given their sputtering spluttering outrage at what is going on across the aisle.

seriously.  it's wrong on both sides.  so pick a new one.

or it will be your fault.

because most of the time i know i go on too long...

just a picture this time:

the comedy of science

there's a running joke in my family about the attention span of any particular member at any particular point in time ("squirrel!") that spoofs on the completely human tendency, so often parodied in the portrayal of anthropomorphic cartoon animals (frequently dogs) that they can't keep their mind on anything if something small and furry runs by their peripheral vision.  to this i would add anything shiny, and submit this particular story of "science" from the mars rover. the dateline is los angeles, which is curious to me because i hadn't realized they were mission-controlling out of LA these days, and the extremely short AP blurb begins as follows, and i quote:

"nasa officials say the curiosity rover has made its first scoop of the surface of the planet mars and has detected a bright object on the ground"

first, and please, no kitty litter jokes. second, and i wonder if it strikes anyone else this way, but are we really just a bipedal, featherless race of anthropomorphic crows obsessed with the interplanetary equivalent of collecting tin buttons and sewing thimbles?  the next sentence really says it all:

"officials said in a news release monday that they suspect the object might be a part of the six-wheeled rover, but they won't sample or scoop anymore until they figure out what it is".

hahahahahahahahahaha!

is there a betting line on this one?  cuz if there is, i want in on the action.

the aged vote

i had a moment while participating in a neighborhood clean-up this past weekend to converse with a downtown resident in a wheelchair about how difficult life is for them here, and how invisible their plight remains to the rest of us.  he recounted being locked out of his building by two-leggers propping open inner doors and thus disabling the automatic opener from opening the outer ones, ironically leaving buildings inaccessible to those in chairs, and being (apparently) unable to appreciate what it is like to not be able to get in out of the rain in front of your own home when you return there.  (i sincerely hope he calls the fire department each and every time).  i shared his pique at having sidewalks blocked by "patio seating" in front of restaurants (one of my pet peeves, and i don't even need a chair yet) well shy of the 48 inches required by city ordinance for passage.  (yes, i'm looking at you, centro, and you, fuse, and i'm sure many more i've yet to count).  my eyes were opened as to the wheelchair inaccessibility of key bus stops in the downtown loop, where ramps amidst curb cuts are made with such sharp incline as to make them no more navigable than the sheer face of the curbing to either side.  (good news there is that the LRTA has suggested they can move the stop down the street to a more advantageous position).

but, most of all, i agreed that the #1 and COMPLETELY ILLEGAL issue remains the inaccessibility of the downtown polling place, and the consequent discouragement of older voters from voting to change things.

i know LOTS of "liberals" who are outraged at "voter suppression" tactics by republicans.  they're out of their seats and spitting bile and blood over it all.  and they're stepping over the disenfranchised wheelchair tracks of their neighbors without one shred of sense for the irony of it.  want to enable more people to vote?  remember tip oneill and all politics being local?  insist that the city does better.  i KNOW the election commissioners are trying.  but they're constrained by the facilities they are given in which to conduct elections.  and these facilities are NOT up to the necessary standard.

sidewalks and crosswalks are NOT accessible downtown in far too many places.  the accessible entrance to the downtown polling place is NOT made consistently available during voting hours.  political partisans are demonstrating TOO FAR INSIDE the proscribed 150-foot limit around polling entrances, and blocking passage for voters.

i've called the cops during prior elections, and i will again.  they have been responsive as far as their powers allow, but they can't magically produce navigable curb cuts and other necessary navigation accommodations.  it takes a far-broader response.

want more people to be able to vote?  look down on your walk to the polls in a few weeks.  imagine yourself in a chair, or trying to walk with a cane or walker as must so many of our elderly and otherwise handicapped downtown residents.  and then stand up and say something.  because if you're concerned about "voter suppression" but not responding to these impediments closer to home, you're a hypocrite.