It Had To Happen Sooner Or Later...

Catching Up

Yep.  Been away a while.  Can’t say that I haven’t missed writing…just haven’t had much to say.  I’ve sat down a few times, but if I can be permitted a vulgar analogy, I’ve been afflicted with a kind of literary constipation.  

After taking a moment to arrange a bit of music to write by, I’m ready – at last – to set down a few thoughts, paced by the tapping of my toe.

As if I have any.

Thoughts, that is.

What is it with people these days?  According to an article on the news page at imdb.com, Morgan Spurlock (Oscar-nominated documentarian responsible for Super Size Me) delivered an over-the-top lecture at a Pennsylvania high school, mocking special education students and teachers.  Apparently, his talk included the use of the F-bomb.  Now, I’m a sailor, and the use of the F-bomb generally doesn’t offend me…unless I’m in the presence of someone who will be offended by it.  I’m a big fan of language, and let’s face it, fuck is a word, and pretty useful one, at that.  What offends me about this, if it’s true, is the mocking.  Spurlock later said that he couldn’t understand the unfavorable reaction on the part of the school, saying, “The greatest lesson those kids learned today was the importance of free speech.”  

Dude, it was a health fair.  You were there to talk about the risks of eating too much fast food.  How do jokes about pot-smoking teachers tie in, here?  Right.  They don’t.

And since when does spouting crap in public teach anyone about the importance of free speech?  Not to be contrary, here, but all Spurlock actually did was teach his audience that free speech exists, something they probably already knew.

If you want to teach a lesson on the importance of free speech, ditch the disrespect and start talking about Abdul Rahman, the man facing the death penalty in Afghanistan for converting to Christianity.  

I know, I got off on a tangent there.

In other news, my sister’s baby seems to be doing well.  There is still concern, and after her last ultrasound, the doctor made the decision to move her delivery to a hospital with a better-equipped NICU, in case there are complications.  (As if tumors on her heart and in her brain aren’t complications enough.)  My sister reports that the baby is very active, though she hasn’t yet turned head-down in preparation for being born…so, in yet another challenge, she’s slated for a C-section on April 7th.  I’m headed up to LA that day to join the crowd in the waiting room.

I’ll also be joining them on the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance Walk for the Cure on June 25th…they have a website set up for sponsorship donations, and if you feel inclined, check it out: http://www.firstgiving.com/clarajane.

And as one last bit…I’ll point you to one of my very early posts.  Shortly before I wrote that post, my hairdresser tut-tutted over my soft-but-thinning locks and remarked, “You know…you might consider just shaving it all off.”  I must say that over the last ten months, I’ve uncorked every excuse in the book not to shave my head, and even rebelled by not cutting my hair at all for nigh on to five months.  I let myself get – as my buddy Bear put it – scruffy-lookin’.  

Last Sunday, I took the plunge.  It actually looks pretty good.  I’ll offer a photo as soon as I have one.

Inaccessible.

I have been taking a pseudo-break from blogging.  You may have noticed.  

Actually, I’ve been taking a break from most forms of writing.  I’m not sure why.  There haven’t been many things on my mind that have seemed worthy of throwing out there for the sake of whatever flavor of posterity comes as a side dish when the entrée is Blog.

I have felt mostly like retreating from the world, of late.  I am not unhappy…far from it…but I simply have not felt like I have the energy to extend myself and deal with other people.  

Part of it stems, I’m sure, from the realization that I’m still carrying around quite a lot of anger, which manifests itself primarily as self-abuse in the form of bad eating habits.  I have also been quite a bit shorter with people than I like – also rooted in anger.  

So, fat and unpleasant to be around, I’ve taken to being a bit reclusive: I’ve ignored voice mail from friends, failed to call when I said I would, blown off e-mails, brought my noise-canceling headphones to work, retreated to the virtual world of Microsoft Flight Simulator (where lately, I have been flying a model of a World War II-era fighter plane – with its virtual guns disabled…paging Dr. Freud, Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard!), and have started to learn to swear in Mandarin.  (青蛙操的流氓) You probably don’t want to know what that means – and part of the joy of swearing in a language no one understands is…that no one understands.

The funny part of all this (and that’s not to say that learning to swear in a foreign language just for the sake being able to do so isn’t funny), is that I’m actually not depressed.  I’m quite content with my life, which is, on the whole, pretty effing good.  I am healthy (more or less – aside from my weight), I make a good living doing a job I love, and despite being solitary (a term I prefer to “single”), I’m not unmanageably lonely.  

You know that feeling you get when you’re in the midst of something, feeling in the groove, and you’re surprised to find that you’re bleeding, but you have no idea when it happened or how?  It isn’t particularly painful, or you’d have noticed the injury right away, but you need to stop and tend to it…and then you don’t quite feel safe any more, doing what you were doing.

That’s how I feel right now.

What’s bleeding?  Certainly not my heart, which you’ll know from reading my last post.  I’m not sure.  

I do know that I’ve become aware of the perception people seem to have that I am damaged.  And not just me…but the women I seem to be attracting.  Not all of the women who’ve found me attractive of late would qualify as “damaged”, but the one who is not falls squarely into a category that can only be called “inaccessible”.  

Which makes me wonder: Do I choose that?  Do I have something against being in a healthy, supportive relationship?  Have I chosen to isolate myself?  Which of the two of us is really the inaccessible one?

IA

None of the military folks I know are happy.  

Normally, these are people who greet life with ebullience neatly camouflaged behind a façade of darkly twisted humor.  

I’ll give you an example.  One morning at sea some years ago, I stood with two of my shipmates on the fo’c’sle (all the way up on the bow) of our ship, USS COWPENS (CG 63), as one of them prepared to lob two concussion grenades over the side as sound effects for our battle-readiness training.  I had another role to fulfill that morning, but wouldn’t be needed until later, so I hoped to have an opportunity to toss one of the grenades.  No particular reason, I just wanted to be able to say I’d once thrown a grenade.  As leading chief of the division we three were in, I could occasionally do things like that.

Our conversation may have been jovial, but none of us was anything less than serious about the task at hand.  A single mistake could kill all three of us.  Basically, it was a regular day in the U.S. Navy.

The sound of a rapidly clanging bell cut our conversation short, followed by an announcement on the 1MC*: Fire, fire, fire!  Class Charlie fire in After Steering.  Away the Flying Squad, Away!

We exchanged glances.

There was a moment of reflective silence, as we all shifted a little nervously from foot to foot.  A fire aboard ship can always lead to a long dip in the Deep Blue.

“Well,” I said, “if there’s got to be a fire in After Steering, I can’t think of any place I’d rather be than up here on the fo’c’sle.”

“You’re glad to be here!” said my buddy Matt.  He pointed a thumb at Dan, and chuckled, “He’s the one holding the grenades!”

In short, sailors are fun-loving and fatalistic about the dangers they’ve chosen to face.

There’s a key word in that last sentence: chosen.

Two weeks ago, our command got a message announcing its obligation to support a program called “Individual Augmentation”, which is an attempt to help the Army and Marine Corps meet their personnel rotation requirements in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, the Horn of Africa, and Guantanimo Bay by sending sailors to work in supporting roles such as communications specialists and prison guards.  Each “Individual Augmentee” serves in his or her role for a minimum of one year.

There was a list of names accompanying the message.  One of my office mates has been slated to go, and as of this morning, the rest have been put on notice that they, too, may be expected to go at any time.  At the school next door, seven people are going.

Before they are assigned to a new and exciting location, they’ll undergo three days of medical screening and be offered time to take care of any legal matters (such as the writing of a will), followed by seven days of physical fitness, weapons, and tactics training.  They’ll spend an hour or two learning about “Improvised Explosive Devices” (IEDs…booby traps), another hour or two on land navigation, a couple hours on convoy operations, and a couple on urban combat operations.  The last of the seven days will be a practical exercise offering them an opportunity to put the things they’ve learned in the classroom to good use.

This is a Bad Idea.  

First, these are people who bring a skill set that is entirely alien to the ground-pounder’s battlefield, and virtually none of what they know now will stand them in good stead when they climb aboard that first convoy.  

Second, this lack of knowledge will make them a danger to themselves and to the units they are sent to augment.

Third, the danger that these individual augmentees bring with them will undermine the esprit de corps that is essential for a unit’s ability to perform its combat function.

Finally, no one volunteered for this shit.

In the short term, more American military members will die, and the war will last longer.  In the longer term, our all-volunteer military will collapse from the inevitable wholesale departure of smart, well-trained professionals who won’t put up with such an egregious misapplication of their talents.

By now, you may be questioning the intelligence and sanity of our current leadership.  Even if you hadn’t been already.

Actually, gentle reader, this is the cost of, “Oppose the war, support the troops.”

I turned it around on you, didn’t I?  

The simple truth is that those who did choose to serve in the military are now being asked to accept the unthinkable because the average citizen couldn’t be bothered to pitch in.  If you look back at past generations…your parents and grandparents…you’ll see that they rallied to their cause in ways our generation has dismissed as quaint, ignorant, and misguided.  The members of Easy Company, 506th Battalion, 101st Airborne Division didn’t start asking about going home until the Germans capitulated.  The men who commissioned the first USS COWPENS (CVL 25) deployed to the Pacific Theater in 1943 and didn’t come home for twenty-three months.  No one told them they’d be able to go home in six months, or eight, or ten, or a year; they were shown a job, and they simply did it the best they could until they led the procession of American warships into Tokyo Bay in August 1945.  They were prepared to go longer, if necessary, and nothing short of Unconditional Surrender could have convinced them that their task was done.

For the average citizen in this country today, guts are quaint and tenacity is misguided.  Relationships are not the only things we can’t commit to.

There is a principle of strategy that was taught by the great samurai Miyamoto Musashi that went like this: Do not commit to combat until it is certain that you must.  When you do, turn neither to the left nor to the right; drive directly toward the center of your enemy, and do not stop until one of you is defeated.

Perhaps it was never truly certain that we should commit to war in Iraq.  But once committed, we should…as a nation of citizens…have pressed forward until we achieved unconditional surrender, instead of settling for what we have -- the hellishly slow descent through stalemate into self-induced defeat.  Anyone who thinks we’d simply have installed a puppet government and left it to its own efforts to rebuild needs to visit Japan or Germany…both of which are leaders on the world stage, and neither feels any particular obligation to support the US at the expense of its own interests.

Opposed to the war?  Fine.  Noted.  Like it nor not, we are there now, and if we were to leave now, we’d cause more harm than if we stayed to get the job done.  So we might as well roll up our sleeves and get it done.

Support the troops?  I have a suggestion for you, then: Become one.



* PA system aboard ship

My Work Here Isn't Done

Have you ever watched a film, or read a book that truly moved you?  One that made your heart swell in your chest, but didn’t stop there…it made your life swell?  I just watched such a film: Meet Joe Black

Granted, this film is now eight years old, so I should have seen it by now, but I hadn’t, until today.

It’s a daunting film, running just shy of three hours, with very little action…this is a film about the last days of a man’s life, a man who knows that Death could take him at any moment, and yet it lingers over tiny, exquisite details.

I had a busy week, this week, traveling for business and meeting with compatriots who mostly think of me as an oddity, a genius-cum-crackpot, a heretic.  As is the community’s habit, they dismissed months of my work out of hand, without a whole lot of discussion.  We’re not comfortable with this, they say, when they say anything at all.  It is disconcerting to propose an elegantly simple solution to a complex problem and be met with neither disdain nor acceptance, but merely…silence.

My boss reminded me that this community is famous for doing just that, and that a good many of the current practices were once met with disapprobation.  Heresy is important to progress.

After seeing a film like Meet Joe Black, I find myself taking stock of my life, wondering if I’ve done all I can, if there’s anything more I can or should be doing.  Is it enough that I helped coordinate a wish for a Make-a-Wish child?  It was just the once, after all.  Is it enough to have served as a rape crisis advocate?  Is it enough that people often rely on me when they feel they have no place else to turn?

There are times when I withdraw.  I say I’ll call, and then I don’t.  I forget a meeting or fail to come through with the help I offered.  Is it enough to simply apologize, to admit that I’m not perfect?  Isn’t there more?  I always feel I can do more.  

People have helped me so often, have sacrificed in large and small ways to bring me to this point that I feel that I should earn the things they’ve done for me, and I will always wonder if I’ve done enough.  It is a powerful drive that comes almost entirely from the uncertainty in my center.  

Perhaps that is what makes me a good man.  

Good Things

Have you ever met anyone who, without trying, or even meaning to, changes your life? Not just your life, but the way you view your life?

It’s hard to quantify, the effect we have on other people’s lives. It can be even harder to say, “Your presence in my life makes a difference.”

A couple weeks ago, someone suggested to me that we boycott Valentine’s Day, we solitary people. I responded by proposing the opposite – that she be my Valentine. I sent her flowers today…virtual flowers, actually, because I’m a dork.

See, I don’t think that Valentine’s Day ought to be just for lovers, or people who want to be lovers, or even people who simply want to encase their lovers in chocolate. I think it’s about communicating to those around us that we appreciate the changes they bring about in us.

To all of you who read this blog, a late-evening Happy Valentine’s Day. And thank you. You’ve helped me to trust in my skills as a writer, and that makes a difference.

And what happy changes have been brought about by my Virtual Valentine? That’s a question I’ll answer only for her.

All good things.

TSC

I’d like to apologize for not writing more.  I haven’t forgotten you all!  Far from it: I’ve been incredibly busy over the last couple weeks.

In the meantime, you may recall that I asked for your prayers for my unborn niece, who was diagnosed last month with Tuberous Sclerosis Complex.  

I’d like to direct your attention to this web site regarding Tuberous Sclerosis, and ask again for your prayers.

My sister and her husband are meeting with another specialist on Thursday, to discuss the results of last week’s MRI.

Because Prayer Helps

…and because Meg asked:

If you pray, pray for Ruth, Rowland, Emily, Marie, Jamie, and Loni -- for comfort, healing, and peace. It's important. And pass it onto your friends. Thanks, guys.

Tilapia Is The New Cod

In honor of completing my Five Weird Things post, I took my daughter to Red Lobster…thought it would be a fitting tribute, since Sherri loves the place so much.  For that very reason, I will not mention the vague contempt which I, a New Englander, have always held for seafood restaurant chains.  I will say that I remember very clearly how nice it was that I used to be able to get live lobsters for a buck seventy-five a pound, or a buck and a half if I happened to catch a lobsterman in the parking lot at the seafood stand.  

The service we received tonight was noteworthy, as I shall attempt to relate:

“Good evening, sir, my name is Gabe, and I’ll be taking care of you this evening.   Can I offer you something to drink?”
Heidi orders a Coke, and I order iced tea – no lemon.  
“Excellent. Would you care for an appetizer this evening?”
“No, thank you.”
“Alright.  Would you like to hear the specials?”
“No, thank you.  I think we’re ready to order.”
“Great,” says Gabe, turning his attention to Heidi.  “What can I get for you?”
“I’ll have the shrimp Caesar salad.”
“Excellent.  And for your choice of vegetables?  We have mashed potatoes, rice pilaf, steamed vegetables, or cole slaw.”
Heidi and I exchange quizzical looks.
There is a moment of bemused silence, with Gabe’s pen hovering patiently over his order pad.  I recover first, and ask the obvious question, “There’s a choice of vegetables with a salad?”
Gabe smiles benevolently at us, his apparently uber-bumpkin patrons.  “A salad comes with the shrimp, yes.”
Still bewildered, I frown slightly and ask again, “But she ordered the shrimp Caesar salad.  Doesn’t that pretty much already have vegetables?”
“Oh!” exclaims Gabe.  “Of course.”
Gabe scribbles a dozen horizontal lines on his pad, then writes furiously.  While I cannot see what he is writing, I imagine it to be, confused chick gets SHRIMP CAESAR.
He then turns to me.  “And you, sir?”
“I’ll have the Sam Adams battered fish and chips.”
“Excellent.  That comes with chips, which are actually French Fries.  You can order another side of your choice, if you like.  We have mashed potatoes, rice pilaf…”
“Another side?  Sounds great.  I’d like the cole slaw, please.”
Gabe fixes me momentarily with a glance that, in retrospect, should have seemed significant, but at the time could have meant…confusion? Disbelief? That he’ll be blogging this later?
“Great,” he says, “I’ll be right back with your drinks and cole slaw.”
And he is off before I can ask, What did you say? Did you just say that you’d be right back with our drinks and cole slaw?
I ask Heidi instead.  She agrees, that’s what he said.
Couldn’t be, I postulated.  It’s noisy here, and we must have misunderstood.
When he brought our drinks (and my dinner salad), he hesitated for a moment before asking, “Would you like me to bring your cole slaw now, or with your fish, sir?”  He fixes me with a look of concerned confusion, as though I had ordered a steak with chocolate sauce.
I see his confusion and raise him a puzzlement and a confloption.  (He doesn’t realize it at this point, but I can see that he’ll be flummoxed at the turn.)  “With my dinner will be fine,” I say.  I am in no mood to have cole slaw with my salad.  
When dinner arrives, he sets down Heidi’s Caesar salad, and then turns his attention to me.  He places the side dish of cole slaw at my left, and sets the basket of fish in front of me.

It is a large-ish basket of fish.  

There are no chips.

It is a basket containing only fish.

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” Gabe asks.  From the look on his face, it is clear that Gabe wishes to escape us and what clearly seem to him to be bizarre requests.
“Yes,” I say.  “Where are my chips?  I thought fish and chips would come with actual, you know, chips.  French Fries.  Pommes frites.”  (Okay, I made the “pommes frites” part up.)
Gabe casts his eyes about in a manner reminiscent of a garden-raiding rabbit caught snacking by a Rottweiler for whom the moment carries no real urgency.  “You ordered cole slaw instead of chips, sir.”
“I did?”
“Yes, sir.”  He wheels over a chalk board and proceeds to draw a flow chart of our initial conversation, in which it seems I did, in fact, order fish and chips, hold the chips, add a side of slaw.

At Last, Five Weird Things

Five weird habits.  Sherri wants five weird habits.  Of mine.  Actually, it’s five more weird habits, because, evidently, in Sherri’s mind, the ten weird habits I already wrote about aren’t enough.  (But I think she owed me a tag, anyway, so she’s forgiven.) (Not that she needed to be.  I’m just saying, is all.)

So here goes.

1.  I obsess about things…just not for very long.

Dennis Miller refers to this as ADDOCD: I keep changing the things I obsess about.  Work projects will do it for me.  I’ll get focused on a problem at work, then bring it home with me (in my mind, not on paper), and lay awake that night working on a solution.  The next morning, with or without a solution, I will find something else to be concerned about.  I have been known to go from losing sleep about a satellite communications issue to ranting for half a day about finding the coffee pot empty even though I was the third coffee drinker to arrive that morning.  The vast amount of energy I poured into online dating some months ago is now almost entirely devoted to flight simulation.  If I lose focus on one thing, I have to compensate by giving far too much of my attention somewhere else, as though my freaky little world is defined by some Newtonian Law of Conservation of Obsessions.

2.  I am insanely defensive about my computer.

This one has two parts, one for work and one for home.  At work, I have a system of placing files that makes sense to me and I don’t give a Yugo mechanic’s expletive whether anyone else can find one of my PowerPoint presentations or not.  If someone adds an icon to my desktop or changes the content of a database, my customary reaction is to unleash a passionate string of colorful and highly original invective.  At home, keep your grubby dick skinners off my machine.  I built it from parts, and it is unique.  No, you do not know how to fix the problem, so shut up and go back to watching TV.  That whole thing in Chaos Theory about a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon and the weather changing somewhere else?  Absolutely true.  Hurricane Katrina began shortly after I vented my…er…opinion…to the atmosphere because a friend “just checking e-mail” tried to replace my unresponsive wireless mouse with a standard PS2 mouse instead of telling me so that I could change the wireless mouse’s batteries.  Seriously, the IAEA could rid themselves of a huge problem if they quietly suggested to Iran that it should surprise me by up-clocking my motherboard.

3.  I am often stunningly creative in my expletives.

Granted, sometimes I resort to whatever fricative comes immediately to mind, but there are moments of sublime inspiration when I should really stop in mid-rant and write some of this shit down.  Anything less than fifteen syllables and I’m just doing it for laughs.  I am not at all unlike the Old Man in A Christmas Story, who, as we know, worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay.  And thanks to Erica, I have a colorful new addition to my arsenal – er – repertoire: corn-speckled dog turd.  Which leads me to the fact that…

4.  I collect colorful phrases.

I discovered a long time ago that if you’ve got an unexpectedly descriptive phrase at the ready (and these are not necessarily profane), people might actually remember a point you’re trying to make.  For example, gathering a large number of minute details for a particular project might be referred to as sweeping the marbles.  Any project that is doomed to collapse under the weight of its own ineptitude is a self-licking ice cream cone. That idiot over there doesn’t need to pull his head out of his ass, he needs a rectal craniotomy.  If I’ve just said something terminally embarrassing in a crowded and noisy room, it is inevitable that I time it so that the room will be as quiet as a mouse pissing on a Q-tip.

I actually write some of these down.

5.  I flush the toilet while I’m still peeing.

Yes.  I know.  I have no idea why I do this, but I catch myself at it at least once a day, and the mental conversation goes something like this:

No-no! No!  Awwww!
Why did I just do that?
I don’t know.  To mask the sound of my urinating?
But no one is home.  
To save time?
Yes.  That’s it.  I’m saving time by flushing twice.
Thank you.  It’s nice to know my efforts are understood.

Powerlessness By Proxy

The amazing and beautiful Lisa reminded me that it’s been a few days since I wrote anything, and her post this evening brought some thoughts to the forefront that I’d like to share with you.

A few Sundays ago, my daughter and I joined my best friend, Bear, in celebrating his sobriety.  Bear, you see, is an alcoholic.

He and I have known each other for almost twenty-five years, since we stood a very cold midwatch together as pier sentries on Pier 12 at the Naval Operating Base in Norfolk, Virginia.  We made each other laugh, and to tell you the truth, I’ve always considered him to be the funny one.  

And because he and I have been friends for so long, he wouldn’t hesitate at all to agree with me on that point.

If you’ve never been to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and you’re invited to attend one, don’t turn it down.  Don’t worry if you’re not an alcoholic, they’ll love you anyway, because that’s what they do.

All through our pre-deployment work-ups in 1981, Bear and I hung out together.  We’d keep each other laughing at General Quarters, because our stations were right next to each other.  We’d make each other laugh when he was doing that whole backwards writing thing that you can only see in old movies, now.  (He once wrote my sister a letter that way, which she thought was the coolest thing.)  And because we were always laughing, we were always getting in trouble for laughing at inappropriate times.  Think Monty Python meets “We’re No Angels”…I was the De Niro to his Penn, the Cleese to his Idle.

Being young sailors, it was inevitable that we would drink.  I’d never had so much booze.  He had more experience overseas than I did, and he suggested (wisely, as it turned out), that we take turns being reasonably sober, so that one of us would always be able to get us both back to the ship.

We had us some adventures, we did.  

Now, most guys who’ve been friends as long as we have would probably look back on their drunken youth with a degree of fondness that simply isn’t there when he and I reminisce about those days.

Not us.  When we talk about it, it’s at an AA meeting, because what it represents for us is the beginning of ten years worth of fuzzy memories for him, ten years of things he’s worked to make amends for throughout the last fifteen years.  He’s lived through a motorcycle accident and a car accident and a thousand more agonies neither you nor I will ever fully understand, and I made it easy for him to start down that path.  

To me, the divergence in the roads we took from that inebriated season is the most incomprehensible difference between us.  When he stands up at a meeting and talks about taking turns getting shit-faced, it feels like an indictment.  In that hall, I will forever be “the sober one”, the one who had control and for a time, didn’t help his best friend.

In spite of my failing, and because of it, the men and women in that meeting nod respectfully as Bear introduces me, and they accept me.  They understand what it is to let a friend down, and my fear that they will judge me for what I didn’t do is unfounded.

They understand the truth: that nothing and no one could have kept him from walking that foggy road.  Alcoholics understand powerlessness.

When I talk with the man Bear is today, I am astounded at the changes in him.  It isn’t simply the absence of alcohol in his life, it’s the depth of character that has grown out of his quest for Sobriety.  He is worthy of it.

In writing that last paragraph, it dawned on me why there is no judgment for me when Bear speaks of trading nights of drunkenness: If we are all powerless ourselves, how can we control the actions of others?

The Kind of Balance We Seek

Edit: It's been pointed out that the sign isn't really readable. It says: "Meet the Blogger, 1-3 am"

The Tribe Has Spoken

It often happens that Sherri writes something that seems worthy of contributing to on a grander scale than what can be contained in a two-inch comment box.  In this case, she wrote about the stupidity of certain television shows.  

It probably comes as no surprise that I eschew television shows that are not intelligently written.  True, I got hooked on the first season of “The Apprentice”, but that was before I learned that “reality” television shows are scripted, too.  Yes, they are.  Not in the conventional sense of actors being handed pages to read.  “Reality” shows are scripted backwards, sort of the same way that China designs airplanes: by reverse engineering.  The actors are put into situations that pose the potential for conflict, and then filmed from multiple angles simultaneously.  The writing staff then takes the raw video footage and pieces it together in a way that makes a story that can be told in 46 minutes.  The story must have incident, which is to say that there must be an event that can stand on its own without explanation.  The purpose of incident is to offer an advertising hook, to get people to watch the show, and to keep people tuned in through the commercials.  Incidents happen within a minute of each commercial break…and the Trademark Incident happens at the end of the show: “You’re fired.”  “The tribe has spoken.”

The problem with this is that it’s an unnatural act trying to pass itself off as a natural act.  There’s an old scientific principle which states that, “The observer cannot avoid changing that which is being observed.”  The presence of (multiple) cameras removes all reality from the situations being filmed for the “reality” show.  Or, as Adam Savage says on “Mythbusters”, “I reject your reality and substitute my own.”

So, basically, those shows are nothing more than badly-written fiction.  They are the Robert James Waller novels of television.  (And yes, I know, every woman on the planet swoons at the mere mention of The Bridges of Madison County.  It’s still dreck.)

I need something smart, something that engages my mind on more than one level.  Something that isn’t focused entirely on impossibly good-looking people.  (I’ll buy the idea that you can have a PhD in Marine Biology by the time you’re 26, but you won’t also have had time to make yourself look that good in a wet suit.  There has to be some evidence of all that cold pizza you habitually ate in the lab at two AM while you were working on your dissertation.  Also, am I the only one who thinks that the question of how these new marine creatures make the water warm could be answered with a trip to the nearest public pool?)

I watch “The Gilmore Girls”, because the show is about smart people who seem to be okay with the fact that they don’t have it all figured out.  The dialogue is full of cultural references both pop and not-so-pop, and often has more than one reference in a single line, as with this exchange between Lorelai and Rory discussing the new waiter at their favorite diner:

Rory: Ew!
Lorelai: He doesn’t look that bad.
Rory: He’s the boy who dissected a frog, didn’t wash his hands, and then ate a sandwich.
Lorelai: Ew!
Rory: He’s like the lost Farrelly brother.  He’s so stupid.  He watched “The Breakfast Club” and decided to tape his own butt cheeks together.

Granted, it’s not “The West Wing”, but then not much is.  “The West Wing” makes me very glad I have TiVo.  I don’t expect the show to last much longer, though – they had “A Very Special Wedding Episode” a few weeks ago, which means the bell is tolling.  It was great run while it lasted.

“Lost” is, of course, one of the best shows on television, though I’m a little disturbed about what I’ll call character churn on the show.  Character churn is when characters are written off the show and new characters replace them.  This is happening too often, I think.  And of course, it’s an island, so the only way to write characters off the show is to kill them.  It’s pretty obvious that the 2021 season on ABC will not include a Lost Reunion, nor will we ever be subjected to A Very Lost Christmas.  The other disturbing thing about the show is the morality of it: the first female character to get laid since the crash became the first female character to be killed, later in the same show.  I can set that aside, though, because it’s still great theatre.

Smart, funny, original shows often disappear too quickly.  “Sports Night” lasted a season and a half before it got kicked off the Fox island.

Thanks to my daughter, I’ve discovered another show that met a premature demise: “Firefly”.  Part space opera, part western, this show was smart, funny, and corny all at once.  The characters were stereotypes (a Hero, a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold, a preacher, a doctor, a crazy girl on the run from the law…), but the dialogue was fast-paced, witty, and exotic.  It had the two qualities that made the first three Star Wars movies (episodes IV through VI, for those of you born after 1975): witty banter and a refusal to take itself too seriously.  

Actually, I’m glad that “Firefly” didn’t last longer than it did.  Like “Buffy, The Vampire Slayer”, it might have lost its edgy wit after a few seasons, and left us with the dark shell of a once-great show.  

So what will I be watching next week?

Traveling Thoughts

There is a new quote hanging over my writing space today:

“What are we but our stories?” – James Patterson

Yes.

Okay, as I write this, it’s not hanging there yet, but it will be as soon as I can get home and fire up the printer.  And find the tape.  Because having a teenager in the house means that you can never find the tape.  Or the scissors.

At the moment, I am sitting in the Houston International Airport terminal at six in the evening.  Four hours ago, I asked for a different seat on my flight back to San Diego, and they gave me one.  On an entirely different airplane.  Leaving seven hours later than my original flight.

I’m not complaining.  They also bought me dinner and gave me a $500 travel voucher.  

So at the moment, I am feeling a little bit like Tom Hanks in “The Terminal”, except that I will probably not have time to build a fountain and I will absolutely not be romancing any flight attendants, particularly ones that look like Catherine Zeta Jones.

I did buy a book at Borders, though.

It’s an interesting experience, spending a day at the airport.  I like the atmosphere, though I have to admit that I’m not too fond of the lack of any quiet places.  Nine hours of CNN will drive anyone bonkers.  And, of course, there are those people who will sit next to you in an otherwise empty waiting area so that they can use their cell phones.  Quick shout out to the guy who keeps pacing back and forth by my chair: Thank you for finding the one thing that’s more annoying than simply sitting near me and shouting into your phone.

It’s wise to have some things lined up to do if you’re spending a day in the airport.  Now, to be fair, I spent the afternoon in the airport at Pensacola on Monday, waiting for my travel partner…and didn’t need anything to keep me busy.  There’s an observation area in the terminal, and I spent the afternoon watching airplanes take off and land…something I hadn’t done since I was a kid.  It brought back some terrific memories of weekend afternoons with my dad, pointing up into the sky and learning to recognize airplanes by their shape and sound.

This afternoon, however, I stopped by the video store (yes, they have one in the Houston airport), and purchased a copy of “Must Love Dogs”.

First, I’d like to point out that this is not a good movie for a single guy to watch.  That said, it’s still better than reading James Patterson’s Sam’s Letters to Jennifer.  Wonderful book, but not to be attempted without a box of Kleenex at the ready.  (If you can read this book without getting misty-eyed, you are made of iron.  Not just your heart.  Your entire being.)

Because the Houston airport isn’t well suited for plane-watching, I’ve been spending a bit of the afternoon people watching.  Let me paint a mental image for you:  I am seated with my back to the windows, facing the waiting area and the concourse beyond, because people are more interesting to watch than parked airplanes  To my left is an aluminum-shrouded pillar, which has the electrical outlet needed to juice my laptop.  To my right is a row of chairs, and suspended from the ceiling 10 yards away is the HDTV screen showing CNN nonstop.  Non-frigging-stop.  (How nonstop?  I am able to monitor Ariel Sharon’s condition more closely than his own doctors are.)  I am alternating moments of furious tapping at my keyboard with peering over the top of my glasses at the people around me and passing by.  Some of these people go by several times, and have been going by for hours.  I am apparently not alone; there is unquestionably a whole community of Airport Lifers here today.  Some of them I am particularly curious about: the pretty blonde in the purple sweater who has, in the last ten minutes, twice gone by on the moving walkway in both directions and just went by on the courtesy cart twice, once in each direction.  What is that about?  Perhaps she is triplets.  

While I’m thinking about it, I’d like to honor the high point of my trip today: as I passed through security in Pensacola, the TSA agent checking IDs looked at my retired military ID card and thanked me like this: “Have a great trip today, Kurt, and thank you for everything you’ve done.”

A week later: I came away from the day at the airport with an overwhelming sense of goodwill toward my fellow travelers, and people in general.  I know this is not as curmudgeonly as I’m sure most of you prefer me to be…but it is a fact; most of the people I encountered were, like me, just trying to get where they were going without too much trouble.  

That feeling was undoubtedly influenced by the fact that the seat they finally gave me was a window seat in First Class.  This was a first for me, and let me tell you...I wouldn’t mind travel at all if I could do it that way every time.  It was worth the extra seven hours in the terminal to sit where I didn’t have to ask the guy in front of me to take pity on my knees.

It was a good trip.  

Hope

Just a quick follow-up on my sister’s baby.

She could not possibly have chosen better parents.

I wrote a note to them yesterday, just to say a) I love them and b) that they’re being prayed for more than they know.  (Thank you all!)

The response they sent was hilarious, as they played off each other’s e-mails.  Yes, they’re shocked, and worried, and saddened…but they are meeting this new challenge with grace and humor and love (and six hours of Internet research).  

As my brother-in-law put it, “I love my daughter.  I love my wife.  I love this family.  We’ll get through this.”  

And apparently, we’ll laugh, while we’re doing it.

Please Pray

My sister called this morning.  While looking at the ultrasound during her monthly prenatal visit, the doctor found a number of tumors growing on her baby’s heart.  

They were not there last month.

There is no way of knowing if they are malignant, but even if they are benign, the problems they could cause include brain damage.  (As of this morning, the word benign has been redefined for me, and if I had my way, doctors would be required to deliver the news of a benign tumor with a healthy dose of sarcasm, and an exaggerated wink.  Or maybe a facial tic.)

Your prayers will help.

The Chickens Were Oblivious

Having bludgeoned classic literature beyond recognition, Hollywood is taking its cudgel to the great legends.

I do not want my King Arthur demystified, thank you.  When I was growing up, I loved the idea of having a wizard for a teacher, and I loved that there could be wizards.  I never related to Arthur, but I worshipped Merlin.  As I grew older, my understanding of Merlin’s character deepened, and I love the thought of someone so insightful that he could teach a boy (and then advise a man) how to create peace and unity that would last a thousand years, yet be so completely clueless about women.  (Now, in my forties, I find it’s a delicious piece of Truth that it’s easier to build a country than it is to understand a woman.)  The story is a good one by itself, but it loses something without its magic.

Now, Hollywood has taken the mystery out of the story of Tristan and Isolde, reducing it to a story about two young people so good looking that they couldn’t resist each other.  All the way through, I kept asking myself, “Why?”  I can understand why he’d fall for the pretty girl who nurtures him back to health with skills only she possesses.  But wouldn’t a woman so caring and talented and wise look for reasonably equal depth in the man she chooses?  The deepest conversation they had was when she read poetry to him, poetry he admitted he didn’t understand.  And then, suddenly, they’re naked.  

That was when the movie lost me.  

Now, in the legend, Tristan plays the harp, and wins Isolde’s heart with his music.  Also, he kills a dragon, proving to everyone that he’s not a harping nancy-boy.  (He has also killed Morholt, the giant, poison-blade-wielding knight, which proves that his killing the dragon was not an accident.)  I mean, there’s something a woman-of-depth can sink her metaphoric teeth into: a guy who can slay giants and knights and play the harp has got to be a keeper.

Now, as if the music and the prowess with the sword (there’s some symbolism for you, a thousand years before David Lynch), in the legend, it turns out that Isolde’s mother (also named Isolde…as is the woman Tristan eventually marries…and we think The OC is hard to follow?) is quite the whiz with a potion, and Tristan and Isolde accidentally drink some of the stuff.  They, uh, drank the kool aid.

By the time Tristan returns to his family, and they’re amazed that he’s not dead, I was ready to walk out, but the movie reeled me back in.  Here’s how it happened: There is a wide shot as Lord Marke (Rufus Sewell) greets the returning/resurrected Tristan, and in the foreground…there are a pair of chickens pecking at the ground.  Why were they in the shot, I wondered.  They didn’t add anything to the story.  Or did they?

I began to look for other hidden clues.  More symbolic poultry, perhaps.  A horse that winks knowingly at the camera.

You see, those chickens in the foreground represent us.  You and me.  Those chickens are Hollywood’s audience, pecking at the ground for bits of nutritious entertainment, because that’s what we’re reduced to.

I want my dragons back.

Oh, I'm Sorry...

This has been a damned short weekend, and I’m spending most of the rest of it getting ready to travel on business.  I hate the whole concept of traveling on business, much less the term “traveling on business”.  The implication is that I’ve somehow grown up and become one of those guys carrying a lap top case stuffed with too much crap as they shuffle down the center aisle toward a seat in Coach.

I used to travel on orders.  “On orders” made it clear that I didn’t have a choice about my travel: I was ordered to shuffle down this aircraft aisle and settle into my Coach-class seat.  I could delude myself with the thought, It’s all part of the sacrifice I’m making for the rest of you. As if that made flying in Seat 44F somehow noble.  I have friends in Falujah, making their sacrifices, and I’m here on Delta making mine.  

But now, I seem to have grown up, and I’m one of those guys with the laptop and the ass-too-wide-for-a-Coach-class seat.  My legs have always been too long for Coach, and now the discomfort extends to my hips.

Not that I had any choice about this travel, either.  My military boss felt I should go, so I go.  He’s going, too, so I can’t even complain, really.  

Last week was one of those when things just backed up and didn’t get done.  The holiday on Monday screwed it all up, and even with the short week, I managed to put in an extra day and a half of work.  

And I still left things undone.  When I left at 3 on Saturday afternoon.  

There’s an edge to this post I really didn’t intend.  I’m choosing to be unapologetic; I am tired and my back is tight and I will spend my day traveling tomorrow, beginning at 4:30 am.

Aside from all the hours I worked last week, it was a great week.  It was as though the Blue Fairy came through the window and tapped my work with her wand.  Bing!  I can see things becoming meaningful again.  

I know others also often feel as though their efforts go unnoticed, unacknowledged, unrewarded, unheeded.  We seem to have lost the ability to take pride in our own knowledge that we’ve done our best, and continually seek the recognition of others.  We want the glory we see given to others on television or in the media, even if it is on a small scale.  

You see it in the popularity of “reality” television.  It occurred to me just now that the reason so many people love those shows is that the protagonists are no different from the people watching the shows.  They want something better than the job they have, they’re not always perfectly articulate, they face situations they don’t like without unshakable calm, they have bad habits and blemishes and embarrassing secrets.  (Sort of the same things that explained Rosie O’Donnell’s popularity.)  And they are angry.  Watchably angry.

People watch because of one thought: That could be me.  And people do watch.  And they learn.

They learn that it’s okay to be angry and aggressively defensive.  

Now, there are myriad other places where we learn that behavior, so please don’t take me for one of those folks who thumps a Bible and focuses indignation on whatever happens to strike me as the Source of Society’s Decay today.  I’m just saying that those shows work because they appeal to the desire we all have to be part of something, before they turn it around and make it something no one can look away from, like a multi-car pileup or a child in a wheelchair.  

Anger is everywhere these days.  (Even in this post.)  A guy drives a car through the glass front of a restaurant.  A woman drives for miles against traffic on the freeway and finally sits ranting in her car for hours.  Another guy walks into a fast-food restaurant and shoots two dozen people.  

Where does that come from?  

When I was learning to drive, my dad taught me that if you came up behind significantly slower traffic on the freeway, you flashed your lights a couple times as a way of requesting a clear lane.  These days, that’s a good way to provoke a psychotic game of bumper tag.  (Tailgating is apparently considered acceptably less aggressive, but not by me.)

Toot your horn at someone who has just narrowly missed causing an accident, and you’re going to get the Bird at a minimum, and more if you happen to be going the same direction.  

Even while walking, people are inclined to step into your path without regard for the consequences, and then bluster at the person they cut off.  Shopping carts will only stop if they’re blocking the aisle.  (Go to any Wal-Mart or Target and you’ll see what I mean.)  Now that I think about it, strollers work the same way, especially the expensive ones.

It all adds up.  I used to be considered a very patient man, but even I spend most of my time with a good head of steam going, and one of these days, I’m going to treat some idiot who rolls his suitcase over my foot to a verbal explosion:

WHY THE FUCK DON’T YOU LOOK WHERE YOU’RE GOING?

But, then, I’d only be contributing to the problem.

It’s a nice fantasy, though, and if you happen to see me in the airport tomorrow, wearing a smile on my face, you’ll know exactly what I’m thinking.

A couple of generations ago, people dealt with disappointment and criticism better.  They accepted the blame when they were at fault, and sometimes when they weren’t.  They responded politely.  It’s a lost art, accepting responsibility.

Speaking of accepting responsibility, I’m going to take the blame for this meandering post.  Not terribly coherent tonight.

Good night, all.  I gotta go finish packing.

Please?

We hung out, completely at ease with each other.  Before we even got to dinner, she asked me to the movies this weekend.

We had dinner at Outback Steak House, followed by shopping for music and DVDs.  

I cracked her up with a story about going on Fly Safari in the basement of Farr’s Sporting Goods when I was high school.  (I was a crack shot with a rubber band, stalking the Wild Late Summer Housefly through the aisles of the Camping Goods Department.)  She regaled me with war stories from behind the counter at McDonald’s.

We shared a hot fudge sundae for dessert.

When I took her home, she hugged me, unabashedly.  

Lord, I know she’s got to grow up, but is it too much to ask that this year, the year she’s seventeen, drag its feet? Just a little?

Belated Holiday Greetings

I know that it’s been a while since I posted, but I have been on a quest of sorts, searching for just the perfect greeting for the New Year (and, in fact, the Entire Holiday Season, whatever you conceive it to be).  I cannot claim to have written this, but it’s worth putting up here, anyhow.

Here it is, my New Year’s Greeting to you all:

Dear All (not to imply that you should also hold me dear),

Please accept with no obligation, implied or expressed, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

Here’s to a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great, (not to imply that our country is necessarily greater than any other country), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting the following terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

And, as always, the above greeting is void where prohibited by law.

With Platonic Love (and Non-sexual Affection),
Kurt