Mailbag (originally posted 11/5/2010)

From John J Odbody, New Jersey:


I noticed your blog on It's a Wonderful Life, and since I have a rather unhealthy obsession with that film, I had to read it, and share my thoughts.

I well remember when it was on non-stop on multiple channels every December; having more to do with something about the copyright running out and being a cheap show for the independent stations to run, than with the quality of the story. It also became an in-joke for recent Christmas movies to show somebody watching Wonderful Life on TV (Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Gremlins, and the first Home Alone). Then, NBC bought exclusive rights, and now they show it 2 or 3 times between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Watching it multiple times, I picked up on things that a dense person like myself missed on preliminary viewings, like the fact that the people George knows as adults are in the scenes with him as a kid: Sammy (Wainwright) at the frozen pond, Mary & Vi at the drugstore. Like I said, pretty obvious stuff, but I didn't get it until multiple viewings. And, yes, it takes George a little too long to catch on to what Clarence is doing, but if he figured it out right away, the movie would have been a lot shorter. One of my favorite parts is when Clarence tells George "I shouldn't tell you this, but Mary's about to close up the library!” in a tone of voice that would be more appropriate for, "I shouldn't tell you this, but she's downtown peddling pussy and pushing crack!" I also like that fact that in the alternative universe, when Mary is a spinster librarian, she needs glasses, but she doesn't need them when she's married. I guess sex is good for your eyesight.

Other than the "science fiction" element, the moral of "you've accomplished more than you realize" carries through to Mr. Holland's Opus, about a teacher, and the Fred McMurry movie about a Boy Scout leader, Follow Me, Boys. The conclusion of all three movies is strikingly similar.

Following the Science Fiction theme, you also see how changing the past can really alter the present & future (the Back to the Future franchise, Frequency). I also like Nicholas Cage in The Family Man, which, if not George Bailey in reverse, is George Bailey sideways.

Also, as a analyst, I find it interesting that George wanted to end it all over $8,000, which is less than the average American is carrying on his credit card in 2009 (I know, I know, inflation. . .)

I also like the Saturday Night Live "lost ending" with Dana Carvey, but we'll save that story.

However, for your consideration, here is the biggest hole in the Wonderful Life plot:
remember how Harry wasn't there to be a war hero because George wasn't there to save Harry at the ice pond? Didn't anybody notice it was George who took Harry to the pond that day, and dared his younger brother to slide on the ice?
In other words, if George wasn't there, Harry wouldn't have been there either, and the whole thing wouldn't have happened!!

And I can't wrap up without a question:
Who turned the key to open the gymnasium floor over the pool;
and what other Christmas movie did he make a very brief appearance in?


In the words of Sam Wainwright, Hee Haw and Merry Christmas.



Dear Mr. Odbody:


Thank you very much for a well-thought out letter. Your take on Clarence revealing Mary's fate without George Bailey in her life still cracks me up to this day. For fans of It's a Wonderful Life, I can wholeheartedly recommend the Beavis and Butthead parody of the movie. (BTW, as I found out on Google, the person who turned the key to open the gymnasium floor over the pool was the same actor who played Alfalfa in the Little Rascals series.)





Apparently, some people could relate to my hatred of the Uncle Billy character. Louise May, Rockford, WA writes (grammar tidied up):




Uncle Billy is an idiot. The only reason he could survive and live is because of George. The bumbling fool would have no job and nothing to do but waste away if it wasn't for good ol' George. And that's the thanks he gives him-- taking his eyes off the money?! I get angry all over again every time I watch.



Dear Ms. May:




I totally agree with what you say on Uncle Billy. Even during the climactic scene of It's a Wonderful Life, when I am in the throes of tears, I turn a rage of red when I see Uncle Billy count the money the townsfolk of Bedford Falls are dumping on the table- the useless jerk would probably lose THAT money as well, leading to It's a Wonderful Life II- the Sequel: George Bailey Mass Murderer. Even as I am typing this, I am becoming enraged.



My blog, the Greatest Country on Earth, touched a nerve with several people. It was even whispered to me that one reader got so riled up that she and her fiancée were contemplating leaving the country! A more rational response is presented for your consideration:



DAISY CAT, Newark, DE writes:



My stupid owner received a solicitation from a group named AAAS (Advancing Science. Serving Society), which alluded to several published reports stating the United States ranked 25th in math and 21st in science out of 30 industrialized nations. Clearly, the nation is declining at a cancerous rate. What we need are less Americans wasting their time on social network sites and writing blogs and more Americans studying real disciplines, as you pointed out. Cats are so much smarter than humans. I'll bet my stupid owner sent some money to this group- he is such a suckerfish.



Dear Daisy Cat:




Of course, the statistic you referenced would have fit quite snugly into that blog. That said, did you know that American domesticated cats only ranked 14th out of 30 industrialized nations based upon the criteria of self-reliance, intelligence, and alertness?



My various blogs on 60's music apparently inspired this letter.



MIKE HAWKE, Lawton, OK:



I read in all of your profiles that you are a Monkees fan. What are some of the lesser-known Monkees songs that you like?




Dear Mike Hawke:




Oh, my goodness, I could write an entire blog on Monkees music! In fact, I probably will. As a sampler, here are some classic Monkees songs that the casual fan will not know: "Someday Man," the B-side to "Listen to the Band," one of Davy's strongest vocals; "Good Clean Fun," Nesmith's final great Monkees tune, and a personal favorite of the aforementioned Mr. Odbody; "Love to Love"- first released on the invaluable Rhino 1982 compilation Monkee Business, the song has since been released as "remastered" on many collections since, but the version released in 1982 is the best. “What Am I Doin’ Hangin’ ‘Round?”, perhaps Nesmith’s finest hour as a Monkee, and “Love Is Only Sleeping”, both on their fourth album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Jones, Ltd, are fantastic songs.



My travelogue blogs tend to get the most positive reactions. Here is an out-of-the blue, dissenting opinion:



I am annoyed by the arrogant tone of your Maine 2010 blog, especially the section where you say the following: “One discussion revolved around someone (not me!) who said that people in Maine do not know what the “real world” is like, a very arrogant opinion, to say the least. Pete (my cousin-editor’s note) agrees with my assertion that the “real world” is not so much where you live, but whether you can survive on your own.” You sound just like those conservative jerks on radio who tell every poor person that we can get out of poverty by just pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and be self-reliant and get a job. What you and those jerks don’t get is that not everybody can just go out and do that. What about the single mother who cannot hold down a full-time job because one of their kids is constantly sick, or has to stay at home because their youngest child has school off on days when his siblings have school? What do you propose that mother do? It’s not easy for everyone just to go out and get a job.

And how dare you flaunt your vacation to those who cannot afford to go on those jaunts? That trip must have cost a fortune on food and gas alone! How thoughtless! 90% of the people in the real world do not worry only about planning trips, or on what overpriced food to buy at a health food store. Those people in the real world worry about surviving, not about what you occupy your mind with.

Off the Bandwagon, MacArthur, TX

Dear Off the Bandwagon:


I must apologize for the very poor wording of this anecdote, but am still surprised that you attributed conservative leanings to me in this arena of thought, given the slant of some of my blogs. The original context of the discussion was someone stating that, in essence, location alone determines who lives and does not live in the so-called Real World. My attitude then, as it is now, is that you do not reside in the Real World until you try (my italics) to survive on your own. Whether you succeed in this effort is, of course, subjective, but the struggle itself makes one discover what life is all about. However, just as location should not determine whether you reside in the Real World, so, too, how easy or difficult it is making it on your own should also not determine this. I mean, should people purposely live from paycheck-to-paycheck if they do not have to or purposely deprive themselves of the fruits of hard work and making responsible choices in life just to live in the real world? I think not. Also, isn’t a primary concept of being a good parent (and I’m assuming by your letter that you are a parent) is to want your kids to have a better life than yourself? The people I admire most in this regard are those who try to make it on their own without using people by lying or stealing.

With regards to “flaunting my vacation,” travelogues have been a regular feature on my MySpace profile for several years, and people belonging to all social strata have responded favorably to them. No flaunting intended. BTW, the trip was fairly low-budget. It’s not as if I went on an expensive trip to Hawaii or something. Smile.


The negative reactions do not end. Here’s reader Jenny Till, from Lawton, OK:

Your blogs have gotten very lazy, and they are on the same ponderous topics. You write about wrestling, music, and wrestling and music again. One blog even “featured” you copying and pasting something you had written five years ago. The one time you write about something even marginally interesting, such as your Invoking Hitler blog, you shy away from real analysis and, instead, make it into a comedy bit (although I appreciate the irony of a blog titled Invoking Hitler having comedy). Your travelogues are WAY too long. You should write something with substance. You do have some talent. USE IT!!!!!

Invoking Hitler (originally posted 10/29/2010)

(Some blogs I write take a while to reach my MySpace profile, either because I do not think what flowed from my pen was all that good, or a nagging feeling that I left an important point out. The following, inspired by a political flier that hit my mailbox, travelled from my mind to "the presses" almost instantly. Funnily enough, most of my blogs that were the most well-received were those that were written the fastest. The absolute idiocy of what inspired this one made spontaneity quite achievable.)


Glen Urquhart is the Republican candidate for Congress in Delaware this November, a candidate with appeal to the baser elements of society, that outraged "We Want Our Country Back!" demographic who are no threat to answer any questions on Jeopardy! that are not on the top row. Simple solutions for simple problems for simple folk who believe that agreeing with (insert conservative commentator here) represents independent thought.


During an appearance earlier this year (you can see this on YouTube), Urquhart rhetorically asked his Republican audience, "Where does the term 'Separation of Church and State' come from?"


In response, someone in the audience (obviously a plant from the Democratic party side) tried to say, "Jefferson."


Urquhart responded, "Actually, that was not in Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists..."


All in the crowd besides the plant thought to themselves, "Who are the Danbury Baptists?"


Urquhart continued, "...No, the exact phrase 'Separation of Church and State' came out of Adolf Hitler's mouth."


The crowd responded with stunned silence. The odds of anyone in the audience questioning this is not good. The odds of anyone in the audience conducting rudimentary research online afterwards to validate the veracity of this claim are even slimmer.


Urquhart puts an exclamation point on his line-of-thought: "So, the next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of Church and State, ask them why they're Nazis." (The odds of audience members repeating this to liberal acquaintances are quite good.)


Now, I could attempt to discuss exactly what Jefferson said and meant about "a wall of separation between Church & State," or analyze the intent of the Founding Fathers in formulating the 1st Amendment. Or, I could allude to the many positive allusions to the Judeo-Christian God Hitler makes in Mein Kampf and the exact role Hitler viewed religion as having. However, it would be much more fun to fill in the blanks:


"What 20th century leader persecuted homosexuals?...The answer is Adolf Hitler. So, the next time your conservative friends state homosexuals do not deserve the same rights as others, or AIDS is a just retribution from the Almighty God, ask them why they're Nazis."


Or...


"What 20th century leader expanded their military more prolifically than anyone?...The answer is Adolf Hitler. So, the next time your conservative friends say they favor military spending over spending on health care or education, ask them why they're Nazis."


Yes, these alternate scenarios are a bit of a stretch (as was Urquhart's), and conservatives can fill in the blanks as well to attack liberals on subjects as diverse as abortion, vegetarianism and love of animals, or supporting the arts. Libertarians could also point to Hitler, who banned smoking, as a justification to puff away.


The point is that positions are good or evil based only on their own merits, not on the people who espouse them, and comparing any U.S. politician, left- or right-winger, to Hitler highlights a lack of sophistication and depth.


(Postscript: During my most recent Toastmasters meeting, I gave a last-minute speech on this topic and the evaluator of my effort, a very smart man and captivating speaker named Michael Waters, jokingly told our club of a facetious scenario where the genesis of my speech came from an incident when he said "Hello!", I waved back with my right arm extended out (which he demonstrated), and he said, "Ah, Hitler." Cute. Afterwards, in private, I told him I'm glad my speech was not about Pee Wee Herman.)

Gentleman Chris Adams- A Reflection of a Fan (originally posted 10/12/10)

PART ONE:

In the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, the best book ever written about the history of baseball, the author recounts an anecdote of Paul Izzo asking an octogenarian he was sitting next to at Fenway Park, who had been watching baseball since the 1910's, who the greatest player he ever saw was and the man said, without hesitation, "Fred Lynn." 'Fred Lynn? Not Ruth? Not Speaker? Not Teddy?' "Fred Lynn. Don't think much of him now, but for a few years there he was the best." And so, too, it was with my all-time favorite professional wrestler, England's "Gentleman" Chris Adams. Although poor personal and career choices prevented him from exploiting his vast potential to its fullest, for a few years (1984-87), Adams was as good as anyone. Mickey Grant's Gentleman's Choice (2008), a straight-to-DVD documentary, does not even come close to reaching its potential by not adequately explaining why its subject ended up penniless and murdered by his so-called best friend at the age of 46 after a life that started so gloriously. 

Any issues involving a broken family were certainly not the reason for Chris' decline and fall. The DVD introduces us to loving, supportive parents still married, and to Chris' younger brother Neil, who appears as down-to-earth and sincere (Neil was given the nickname Happo Bigin in Japan, which means "everyone's friend"). Both Chris and Neil were very successful in the discipline of Judo (Chris was a British National judo champion), with Neil eventually winning a silver medal for England in both the 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics. Chris was also a trained architect, but decided to use his judo skills and natural athletic ability to embark on a professional wrestling career. Chris' career started off promisingly in his native land. Ever ambitious, he accepted an offer to wrestle in the United States in the now-defunct Los Angeles territory, which worried his wrestling teacher, Tony Walsh, who said "I was very sad...Every one of my friends that has gone to America in our profession has either come back in a box, in a wheelchair, or they've come back drug addicts." He also wrestled in Mexico (where he won the WWF Light-Heavyweight Championship) and in Japan, where he may have been inspired to develop an awesome martial arts leg thrust that became his trademark, the Superkick (the antecedent of Sean Michaels' markedly inferior "Sweet Chin Music," for which Michaels, a native Texan and former World Class Championship Wrestling alum, never gave Chris proper credit- not the only time a WWF star failed to do so...). He moved to the Portland territory, grew a beard, and, in a little-known fact to even many hardcore Adams fans, lost a loser-leaves-town hair match to Rip Oliver. 

The Gentleman joined the rapidly growing World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) promotion in Dallas in the spring of 1983 and his career skyrocketed. He feuded with Jimmy Garvin and, with his unique and entertaining ring style and handsome features, quickly moved into the fan favorite slot right below the Von Erichs, the homegrown babyfaces solidly entrenched in the top spot. Ever ambitious AND savvy, Adams (with the help of manager and booker Gary Hart) turned heel to garner a top spot on cards in the territory. He first feuded with Kevin Von Erich, then with Kerry Von Erich, and later formed a short-lived yet legendary tag team with Gorgeous Gino Hernandez called the Dynamic Duo. Chris and Gino's in-ring feud with the Von Erichs culminated in a loss in an infamous tag team Hair-vs-Hair match at the Cotton Bowl in October 1985. Chris left for an extended vacation in the beginning of 1986. While in England, Chris learned of the shocking death of his good friend Gino Hernandez of an apparent cocaine overdose shrouded in mystery. I believe this began Chris' decline and fall; although this was not even mentioned in the Grant DVD, the first chinks in Chris' armor began to appear at this time. He rejoined World Class in late April 1986, became a babyface again, and won the World Class Heavyweight Title from Rick Rude in Dallas in July 1986. However, earlier that summer, on a flight back from Puerto Rico, Chris was arrested after assaulting a pilot who tried to assist a stewardess verbally abused by a drunken Adams after trying to cut his alcohol off. Adams went to prison for a few months. 

At the end of 1986, Adams joined the UWF, a then-thriving promotion in the Louisiana-Oklahoma territory, and was popular with the fans there, feuding in-ring with Terry Taylor (they were friends in real life). The UWF had lots of talent, but this promotion suffered severe financial difficulties (as did WCCW) due to an economic crisis that hit the region during that time. The UWF was purchased by WCW, the second-most popular wrestling promotion, who was interested in three wrestlers from the UWF, promising youngsters named Sting and Rick Steiner, who would go on to become big stars in WCW, and Adams, whose style and persona, in both mine and Gary Hart's opinion, would have been perfect for the Mid-Atlantic territory in that era. Chris, however, made the disastrous decision to return to World Class, a choice that, while indirectly having an enormous impact on the wrestling industry, would begin a downward spiral for Chris that led to career obscurity and, ultimately, to his death. 

PART TWO:

In late 1987, Chris rejoined WCCW, the once-thriving promotion in the throes of an irreversible decline. Chris' in-ring work, though still solid and imbued with ring psychology, was becoming a bit stagnant. He opened up a professional wrestling school, saw the awesome potential in one of his students, Steve Austin (nee Steve Williams), and broke the future Texas Rattlesnake into the business. Professional and personal lives crossed as Chris and his wife Toni (who recently died) battled Steve and Chris' ex-fiancée Jeannie (Steve and Jeannie ultimately married) in an exciting feud. Adams and Austin had a falling out regarding a payoff on a card Chris promoted independently, an indefensible tendency confirmed by Kevin Von Erich in a story about Chris attempting to leave without paying the talent on a card he promoted in Africa. The Adams-Austin feud was the last real highlight in Chris' wrestling career. He floundered in the USWA, the promotion that bought WCCW, and also appeared in the AWF, a fly-by-night promotion that harkened back to Adams' early days of World of Sport wrestling in England by observing the rounds system ala boxing. A brief glimmer of hope surfaced when Chris was signed by WCW in 1997. However, Chris played a one-dimensional English good guy and did not catch on with the fans during the NWO era. He could still work in the ring. The one time I recall Chris playing the heel role in WCW was in a match with Booker T. As the heel, Adams called the match and showed flashes of his earlier brilliance. To contradict Chris' opinion, I always felt he was better as a heel. Meanwhile, his former student Steve Austin became the most popular wrestler in the world, which made Chris bitter. 

Chris left WCW in 1999, and his life continued to unravel. Unsuccessful business ventures (one idea was to sell wrestling rings), mounting debt and tax problems, failed relationships, and drug and alcohol abuse deflated him, as he associated with an ever-increasing array of dubious characters, even as family and true friends tried to help. He was wrongly indicted on manslaughter charges in 2001 in an unseemly incident a year earlier involving the overdose death of a girlfriend, and was murdered during a drunken fight by his nominal best friend on October 7, 2001. 

How good was Chris Adams? Jim Ross, on the short list of the greatest announcers in wrestling history, wrote that Chris was a "solid in-ring performer" in Steve Austin's autobiography The Stone Cold Truth (as opposed to the actual truth). Later, on his own jrsbarbq blog page, probably after realizing how embarrassing it was to have such a stupidly understated opinion preserved in print for posterity (also, I and other Adams fans sent e-mails to the blog page presenting a more realistic assessment of Adams' career), Ross admitted to being an admirer of Chris' work in WCCW. Gary Hart, longtime friend and wrestling legend, was closer to the truth in saying Chris' style was "very unique" and called the Gentleman "truly one of the greats." He could wrestle scientifically or as a convincing heel, and execute high-risk maneuvers such as a Tiger Mask dive between the first and second ropes onto the floor. Chris was an innovator, bringing an acrobatic style full of agility that had to be seen to be believed, and introduced the Superkick to American wrestling. He could sell in the ring, was good on the mic, and knew ring psychology very well (both Mick Foley, in his first book, and the Ultimate Warrior, in a shoot interview, put Chris over in talking about having learned a lot from wrestling in the ring with him). He was handsome and had a natural charisma and, along with Gino Hernandez, was really one of the first heels who remained popular with many female fans and broke the stereotype of the typical heel as a foreigner, platinum blonde, or brute. (Gino, to be accurate, was far ahead of Chris on this account). Chris knew the business very well, and always tried to increase the importance of the promotions he was in during in-ring promos (make it a point to notice how many times he refers to the thousands or millions of viewers watching). Chris should have made it much bigger than he did, but personal demons and poor career choices turned a promising future into a sad demise where he became better-known to the general public as Steve Austin's teacher, a fact that embittered him, rather than the accomplished wrestler he was in his own right. I thought he was amazing. I wish I had a chance to have met him, and would have loved to tell him how much he meant to me and to many other fans. After all, I nicknamed myself after him. (No part of this blog, especially my own opinions, may be reproduced or even quoted without first obtaining permission from me.)

The Greatest Country On Earth (originally posted 11/28/09)

"Like a Catholic articulating his religious beliefs by reciting the Nicene Creed, we as patriotic Americans should from time-to-time delineate the reasons why we believe that the United States is, as my prophet Sean Hannity proudly proclaims, "the Greatest Country on Earth!" The reasons may be, to quote a famous American philosopher of the 18th century, self-evident, but I still believe it helpful to put them down on paper. I, Gentleman Tony, encourage my handful of readers to do the same. It is not enough to say we have freedom to be what we want to be in the USA. Other countries offer that same freedom. It is not enough to say our country is beautiful. Other countries are also beautiful. What makes the USA the greatest country on earth?


Some may believe the United States, as a whole, to be an unsafe country, what with the proliferation of guns and statistics showing a continual epidemic of violent crimes (murder, robbery, rape, etc.), but I look at my glorious country as a playground of a battle of a Survival of the Fittest. It is this attitude that makes us the strongest nation in the world, hardening us up to make the necessary decisions that advance our nation's cause without being swayed by moral arguments. A lesser country would not have had the mettle or the might to wipe out an entire race (Native Americans) in the glorious cause of Manifest Destiny, overthrow governments (Chile 1973, which featured the subsequent torture of a large population) to win the Cold War, intern an entire population of American citizens during a war (Japanese-Americans in World War II) JUST IN CASE, or use an Atomic Bomb, all choices we made to make us the world's only superpower (don't even bring up China, puh-leeze!)."


As I started to write about the greed and ego that proliferates the American economy today, I found it too cumbersome to continue writing in an ironic vein. In 1992, during my days attending Stony Brook University, a statistic brandied about was that 1% of the American population controlled over 50% of the wealth, which was alarming enough. Today, supposedly, that percentage is closer to 95%, which is more of a celebration of feudal times and Darwinsim than the Judeo-Christian principles conservatives love to point out on which this country was supposedly founded. CEO pay is, according to various sources, 187 to 400 times the pay of the average worker. No other industrial nation even comes close to this. CEOs and other important players in the finance industry routinely receive large bonuses and obscene so-called golden parachutes (as opposed to golden showers) after destroying the American economy. Meanwhile, American family life is being undermined by economic pressures. Nowadays, in a two-income household, the mother works not as an expression of Women's Liberation or to "keep up with the Joneses," but because they HAVE to. Unions are being destroyed and workers are being laid off, not for the survival of a company, but because a company is not making obscene-enough profits. The American worker has, on average, 8.2 days of vacation time per year. Banks are allocated billions of taxpayer dollars (the TARP funds) after creating a climate of deregulation, monopolies, loopholes such as tax shelters and derivatives, deceptive "fine print" (it is commonly accepted, almost celebrated in America, that one will get screwed without exactly knowing how at the onset), and falsely-inflated balance sheets that caused themselves to fail and led to tens of millions of workers losing their jobs and millions being foreclosed on. This was all for the benefit of a few increasing their already-vast wealth (how much is enough?). I consider these men criminals for what they have done.


Greed has also extended even to health care, where entire multi billion-dollar industries (Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies) were created in the USA from people being sick. No other country is obscene in this respect as we are, where you need sick people for an industry to be profitable. It is one of the great shames of the United States that free enterprise is allowed to even permeate hospitals, but rising health care costs oblige us to either deal with the whims of insurance companies or just 'make do.' Pharmaceutical companies create suspect drugs causing lasting side effects, but can hide from personal responsibility under the guise of incorporation. Compare this to China's attitude, where in January 2009 two men were sentenced to death for producing melamine-tainted milk that killed six and made 300,000 kids ill. Could you conceive of something like this happening in America? No, I'm not talking about producing something tainted- we can all conceive that. I mean, the death sentences.


The USA also causes great damage to the environment, relative to population. Despite having only 4-5% of the world's population, the USA contributes 20.2% of the CO2 emissions (see http://www.iea.org/co2highlights), which is depleting the ozone layer and causing climate change that is reducing the surface area of the polar caps as we speak. All in the name of industrial progress. Of course, we do not care- with the haze in the air of our major cities and industrial towns and the polluted bodies of water that surround them, plus the litter and noise pollution and our non-attitude towards animal preservation, one cannot say that we are hypocritical in this respect.


The two most telling events that define the current American psyche of apathy is 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. The horrors of the terrorism of 9/11, allowed in no small part by apathy within the highest levels of government, initially brought this country together. Platitudes offered to soliders, policemen, and firefighters by the famous and by ordinary folk reassured these brave men that their services would never be forgotten and always kept in its proper perspective. The first anniversary of 9/11 was recognized with great fanfare. Fast forward to today, when people post platitudes taking one minute to write on Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace about remembering our veterans but cannot be bothered to attend a Memorial Day or Veterans Day parade or attend a local New York City remembrance of the victims of 9/11. Men and women serving multiple tours of duty in Iraq and in Afghanistan are coming home dead, wounded, and mentally affected without the proper medical and financial support for them and their families (How many people are even aware of the Walter Reed Hospital scandal?). Where are the cries to rectify this situation? And, why, after 9/11, are we still as dependent on foreign oil as ever?


There are also few cries from the public en masse to voice their outrage over the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster on American soil in most of our lifetimes. Another disaster exacerbated by lack of governmental preparedness and hack bureaucracy, images of desperate African-American people clinging to their children and to their lives on rooftops still haunt some of us today. I make a point of saying "African-American" because the slow government rescue response would not have occured if this had happened in, say, Boston. Four years later, despite the heroic efforts of a few in the private sector, thousands of displaced economically-disadvantged Katrina victims still live in trailers. Of course, the fact that the generous donations of many were so grossly and corruptly misallocated largely went unpunished, just as consumption of tax dollars by war profiteers such as Halliburton continues unabated with barely a whimper from the public.


(However, we did for a time try to change the name of french fries to freedom fries, so Americans are not totally apathetic. However, I do not recall a similar movement to change the name of French kissing, taking the idea to its logical conclusion.)


One consistent facet of American history is how anti-Christian a nation that depicts itself as One Nation Under God (you know, THAT God) really is. God has always been invoked in America as an excuse to justify some un-Godly behavior (slavery and the subsequent lynching and discrimination of African-Americans and the current discrimination of gays based on fear and ignorance). Of course, more Americans go to Mass than in any other European nation, as many like to point out (nations below Texas do not count, unless one is planning a vacation), but are they paying attention to the Gospel readings as they fumble for their wallets to contribute to the Rolex Watch/Molestation Defense Fund? Most Christian-Americans arrogantly believe God favors the USA over every other nation, but one of the primary themes of the Gospels is how Jesus believes all are equal before the eyes of God, so it is antithetical for a true Christian to believe that God favors one over another. A true Christian would believe that a Muslim baby orphaned as a result of an indiscriminate American bombing raid has just as much value as, say, the star quarterback of the local high school football team, but do the majority of Americans in their heart of hearts really believe that?


Most alarming is how the American Dream is being corrupted by popular culture and by political hypocrisy. We are fascinated by so-called Reality TV and by talk shows, venues where Americans can enjoy varying degrees of celebrity for accomplishing nothing (I need not list examples of celebrities and programs at the risk of dating my blog- new non-entities will soon replace the current non-entities). We are seduced to being reduced to whining on television and on radio about our failed relationships, our drug addictions, and other personal shortcomings "so others can learn from my mistakes"- not, of course, for attention and for profit. Wanting to be President or some other politician is no longer an idealistic dream; it merely implies wanting to have an election bought in order for you to be a figurehead for powerful interests. The lack of creative ambition and heightened focus on superficiality in today's music scene is startling- just perk up your ears in a shopping mall or turn on the television for proof. We are too lazy to pursue relevant academic disciplines, and hard-working foreign students majoring in math, engineering, and science enroll in our institutions of higher learning to participate in what the American Dream should actually be.


Apathy, apathy, apathy. We are fat, on drugs (many of them legal), distracted by I-pods and cellphones, unaware of our country's history, and hold no one accountable in government and in business. We say we are disabled when we aren't and take advantage of a hopelessly understaffed social system, and feel entitled without really working hard for our desires. We keep an economic embargo on Cuba while posing for pictures with the worst kind of Third World thugs. We still treat vehicular manslaughter as a joke. We are the only nation wretched enough to constantly pause to reflect on how far we have come on the subject of Racism. Other nations (even Germany, which knows a thing or two about a racist past), just integrates and gets on with it without making a big deal of it. We are hypocritical, from liberal and conservative politicians on down.


You say the United States is the Greatest Country on Earth. Your move.

My Pacific Northwest Vacation (originally posted 9/26/09)

9/5-9/6 On Sunday, I undertook my first plane trip in almost five years, an American Airlines flight from Philadelphia to Portland, Oregon, via Dallas-Ft Worth. The day before, I packed my belongings and, as it later transpired, forgot a few important items. I also shot a video segment in preparation for an unscripted skit I would shoot with my best friend John in Oregon, who I was visiting along with his fiancée Melissa. What was ominous was a toothache I was developing on the remaining molar I had on the lower left part of my mouth. I woke up at 3:30 AM Sunday morning and traveled to the airport. For some reason, I was ruminating on the quality of good relationships on the way, a typical gesture from me as I usually get philosophical before undertaking any long voyage. Why, I do not know. I dropped my one luggage at the curbside pick-up, and waited a bit in the car on the side of a road at the airport before being dropped off. Miraculously, I saw a wild rabbit in Philadelphia. Go figure. I took a swig of Children’s Motrin (I do not swallow capsules or pills), which would be all the fortification I would have for my developing toothache until I arrived in Portland.  I was seen off, and I committed the cardinal sin of cutting the TSA line ahead of a family taking an interminable amount of time to do God-Knows-What. I was corrected. After taking off my flip-flops and receiving clearance, I had a very successful bathroom trip before boarding, which I considered a good sign. I then said a brief prayer before boarding. The plane ride to Dallas-Ft Worth, the first leg of my flight, was uneventful. There was plenty of room on board. After politely listening to the perfunctory directions given by the stewardess on what to do on the plane and in case of an emergency (see, it’s important to wear a seat belt to lessen the impact when you smash headfirst into the mountain). I read a bit from a chess book I had brought and also wrote a song in preparation for a possible music video John and I would shoot in Portland (sample lines: “You wave the Bible and praise your God/to attack what you fear/Gays right now/Negroes and Indians and others throughout the years,” a line about my fellow Christians in general, and “Give lip service, sing, and pray with others/But you’re such a phony fool/Why think you’re with Jesus/when you forget the Golden Rule?,” written with a more specific person in mind). However, I soon realized this effort to be Phil Ochs was found wanting, to be charitable, and instead asked the tall and gorgeous blonde stewardess who was not handling our section of the plane a question about switching planes in Dallas and, I forget why, but we started talking about food and I mentioned that I had brought some vegan bars on the plane. I felt very confident having a conversation with a woman whose attractiveness would have made me hem and haw years ago. I considered this progress. The tooth held up just nicely. We landed early in Dallas, and things were going too well. Of course, a one-hour delay for the final leg of my trip was soon announced and, as it turned out, the plane I was on, which was also the plane slated to head to Portland, had a light indicating a door was ajar, and a replacement plane needed to be found. I walked around the airport and did notice that Texas women did not necessarily wear more make-up, but sure knew how to use it. The souvenir stores had Dallas Cowboys, Texas Longhorns, and Willie Nelson items- you do not really realize, even with the accents, that you are in a different part of the country until you see this type of merchandise. I was a bit hungry, not having had much of a breakfast, but the $8.79 Pizza Hut personal pan pizza was a bit too steep in price for me. Naturally, the airport was air-conditioned, and my tooth started hurting. I sat in a chair with the sun beating down on it, and felt much better. The plane ride was much more uncomfortable on the Dallas-Portland leg. All the seats were filled- thankfully, I had a right aisle seat. A friendly-enough college girl sat to the right of me. She first offered the person in the window seat a piece of gum, and then me. I joked that if she offered me a piece a few more times in the next half-hour, I’d know that my breath wasn’t up-to-par. Seated directly in front of me and to the immediate right in front of me were two heavier people who 1) leaned back their seats and 2) blasted the a/c, which did wonders for my tooth. I propped my knees in the chair in front of me to prevent further penetration into my space. I really could not ask the guy in front of me to move, since the person in front of him, an attractive yet smaller woman had HER seat leaning back as well. I did not want to penalize the person behind me, so I suffered. My tooth was hurting, so I tried to distract myself by copying an entire chapter of a chess book by hand. It worked, and the ride ended before I knew it. After landing, I headed to the luggage claim area. I spied a pretty brunette who I noticed on the first leg of my journey and joked that, given the plane switch, this would be the test to see if our luggage changed along with it. No shyness. I got my bag and called Melissa, who picked me up. We headed to the Target and Trader Joes stores in Beaverton to pick up some items for me- I am both a seafood-eating vegetarian and a picky eater. At Target, I bought Boca Patties and the cashier, a pretty brunette with the same first name and last initial as someone I used to speak with, started asking me about whether or not they tasted good and we started chatting it up, and Melissa later said the cashier and I really started hitting it off. Alas. At Trader Joe’s, I immediately headed to the dairy section. “Where’s my organic chocolate milk?,” I panicked. What I saw instead was this local brand of 2% chocolate milk produced by a Portland company named Sunshine Dairies, which turned out to be the most delicious chocolate milk I've had in a while. Score one for Portland. We picked John up at his place of work- he’s a massage therapist, and allegedly quite a good one. We hugged when we saw each other, but not, ahem, as warmly as Western Europeans. It really had been a long time. We picked apart the crappy song I wrote, and then undertook our first adventure. Sight-seeing? Nope, a ride on Mongoose bikes I had proposed to a pizzeria named Pizza Schmizza near the stores I had just been to. We rode our bikes like kids, and I had a blast wearing my 2006 Italian National Team soccer uniform. This journey reminded me of the only time in my school life that I ever cut class, which was 8th grade lunch (sorry, Mom and Dad. Please do not disown me. John put me up to it). We ordered our slices and the cashier asked us how we were doing. We answered and asked the cashier, an attractive and tall college-age blonde with brown glasses and two rings pierced in her upper lip, the same. “Living the dream” was the reply. I just heard my newest catchphrase, perfect for a person in a soul-crushing job. After eating an acceptable slice of pizza, we headed back to Melissa's house. Of course, it started to pour and the ride was marked by me falling behind John, uncomfortable with the terrain, and then peddling like mad on the straight-aways to catch up. Back in my day, I used to undertake 50-mile bike rides without stopping. Sadly, it is no longer "my day." We got back and Melissa made us a nice salmon dinner, with the brown rice being much more tender than when I try. “But if crying and holding on/And flying on the ground is wrong” (“Flying on the Ground Is Wrong” Buffalo Springfield) 9/7 After taping our first skit of the week, a parody of a 1985 Von Erich t-shirt commercial (when I discovered that I had neglected to pack a dress shirt that would have been so appropriate for the shoot), John and I headed to Portland. Since I learned ahead of time that Portland does not have too many tourist attractions per se, my goal was to hit the most popular spots and immerse myself in the spirit of the town. This I achieved. We took the MAX, a monorail clean in appearance, to the base of a hill near Washington Park. We walked up some steep, San Francisco-like hills and entered the park via its so-called International Test Rose Garden (Portland is called the Rose City). The garden, logically, had nothing but roses, a perfect place to spend time with your equally-straight male best friend. The day was overcast in the lower 60’s, and the walk up the hills was not exhausting, and I was wondering why I was cascading with sweat wearing only a short-sleeved polo shirt and shorts. I could not get over that. Pleased that I was doing something touristy, we then headed to the Portland Japanese Garden, described by tourist guidebooks as the most realistic replica of a Japanese garden in the USA. John explained the significance of various stops in the garden, none of which I committed to memory. The visit to the Garden was pleasant enough and, upon leaving, John bought a gift membership for Melissa, who loves the place and most things Asian. John and I took a train downtown, first walking past PGE Park, home of the minor-league Portland Beavers, and headed to the Pioneer Courthouse Square, the center of downtown Portland. I ordered what I had anticipated being cheese pizza at a murky dive misleadingly named Rocco’s Pizza, my critique of which has been preserved for posterity on a YouTube clip. It was BY FAR the worst slice of pizza I have ever had. We walked across the street to the famous Powell’s Books, easily the best bookstore I have ever been to. New books sit side-by-side with used books, and I was awed at the chess book section as well as the music section. My molar was starting to hurt, but I was mollified by looking at the clientele at the store. There were many attractive, smart-looking women (and sophisticated-looking men for you ladies out there). Also on tap were people from all walks of life, hair colors, tattoos, and piercings embracing various cultural groups- truly a cosmopolitan experience. After leaving the store, I espied a beautiful blonde in a hippie dress walking with a female friend, one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen (and, normally, as people who know me well can attest, I normally do not gravitate towards blondes). John and I headed back to the train to connect us to the train to take us back to Beaverton. Melissa made some homemade pizza out of crust she was disappointed with, but I liked it. “Goodnite, my love/Pleasant dreams and sleep tight, my love/May tomorrow be sunny and bright/and bring you closer to me/Goodnite.” (“Goodnite My Love” Jesse Belvin) 9/8 Melissa was a bit hesitant to let us drive her Ford Explorer to Seattle, an understandable notion given the 2.5 hour time frame it takes to get there and the 115,000+ miles already on it. So, I scrambled to rent a car and chose a local Enterprise which, for a weekday, had an interminable wait, even though cars were available and I booked my car online before arriving there. Eventually, we got into our rental, a Nissan something, and headed towards Seattle, crossing a bridge on Rte 5 into Washington. Another state I can check off my list of states visited. On our way north, I saw Mount St. Helens to my right for a bit. I stopped in Olympia just to take a photo of the state capitol (I also have one of Montpelier, VT, if interested), and we then drove into Seattle. The ride seemed quick to me. This feeling of briskness was replaced by frustration, as it took forever to finally find an appropriate parking garage that would take cash. None of the other garages had read my credit card (don’t worry, I’m not maxed out- just a problem with the strip on the back), and the fuel light was on. To find the garage later, I took a cell phone photo of the intersection by the parking garage, an extremely useful travel tip I came up with. Another useful idea is to take a picture of the number of your parking spot. John warned me ahead of time that the attitude of Seattle as a bit harsh and impersonal. As someone based on the east coast, I was curious to see this for myself. Our first stop, and my primary reason for coming to Seattle, was to see Microsoft’s co-founder Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project (EMP) museum, created primarily due to his love for Jimi Hendrix. I could never get into Hendrix, but I was there to see a wing of the museum titled the Northwest Passage, which briefly touched upon the history of Pacific Northwest Rock and Roll. I marked out after seeing the Paul Revere and the Raiders display, as well as an original LP of Don and the Goodtimes, a local NW unit. There were plenty of Hendrix artifacts, as well as Kingsmen artifacts. A pleasant surprise was seeing on display an old dress belonging to the lovely Gretchen Christopher, a member of a vocal trio named the Fleetwoods (Come Softly to Me, Mr. Blue). Of course, I took videos and pictures of everything I was allowed to. Also on display was Michael Jackson’s glove and outfit from the Motown 25th anniversary special but, despite this, I found the museum objectively a bit overpriced at $15.00, although worth it for me. John and I then visited the adjacent, so-called Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, which came with the ticket. This "Hall of Fame" only had a few rooms, but did have artifacts from Star Trek, ET, Blade Runner, Planet of the Apes, etc. John bemoaned the lack of recognition for Doctor Who. Our next stop was the Space Needle, the most famous tourist attraction in Seattle. It was created for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, which inspired a very bad Elvis movie. The Space Needle, along with the EMP, is located in Seattle Center, the touristy part of Seattle. We went up the Space Needle, which takes only 41 seconds. It was a clear day, and I got some great views of Seattle and the lovely Mt. Rainier, off in the distance. We spent an hour up there, absorbing it all and taking pictures that did not do the views justice- a constant theme of this trip. After leaving the Space Needle, we took a monorail from the Center to a vantage point six blocks from our next destination, the Pike Place Market. The Pike Place Market is also world-famous, most notably for the fish market where the employees serve customers in a boisterously outgoing way. John and I got to the market around 6 PM and I saw delicious dried strawberries that I wanted at one stand, but John kept walking. I made a mental note to return to buy them. We explored the market, saw the fish market, and saw that many stores were closed for the day. Of course, when I got back, the store that had the dried strawberries was closed. My tooth really started acting up, and I searched for a place in the market that would sell hot chocolate and could not. John eventually suggested the Starbucks across the street from the market and, after I ordered a medium hot chocolate, mentioned en passant that this was the very first Starbucks. Like, as a tourist, I wouldn't have minded this being brought up even without my patronage of the store. I had my beverage and felt better. John and I headed to the Seattle Waterfront, and I took in the Puget Sound. At one pier, we saw a reddish-brown long-haired woman dressed very much like a street worker talking to a man in business attire. Until I started typing this, I did not even think of the Pretty Woman movie. Suddenly, John and I were accosted by a man asking for change. We demurred, and I revealed to John that the man was Karl Cobain, Kurt's brother. We then walked past the Seattle Aquarium, a place whose description I read afterwards makes me want to visit there when I head back to the Pacific Northwest in 2011 for John's and Melissa's wedding. The day was getting late, and we walked back to downtown Seattle and, after a brief stop at a Seattle Mariners store, took the train back to the Seattle Center. I took a picture of the Space Needle at night, and we headed back to the parking garage. Oh, yes, that pesky fuel light was still on. Being unfamiliar with Seattle, we asked a cashier for the location of the nearest gas station. However, we drove right past the turn for it, and I uneasily trekked onto Rte 5, nonetheless fairly sure I would find a gas station. I took the first exit that felt as if it would have a gas station, and found one. The gas was expensive, and I wanted to put only $10 in the tank to get us back. John said, "Humor me," and put $5.00 extra towards the fuel. After an interminable trip back, where John's posture as a passenger never once slumped (an amazing feat), we got back, and I enjoyed my Sunshine Dairy chocolate milk. “Gotta hear me, you can’t please them all, should you try/They don’t care if you live or die/’Cause their losers/What a shame (cryin’ shame)/I’m gonna show you to a brand new game.” (“Good Thing” Paul Revere and the Raiders.) 9/9 Yeah, today is 9/9/09. Whatever. John and I completed our Tony Little skit, introducing the Jizzelle as our long-awaited follow-up to our previous smash, the Penis Isolator. John got ready for work and I prepared to take my first solo voyage, an exploration of the Columbia Gorge and Mt. Hood. I went to a gas station and an associate approached me, my way of discovering that the State of Oregon does not have self-serve gas stations. I hit a traffic jam in Portland on the way to Rte 84 and did not panic, even with the clock ticking. Eventually, I freed myself and headed east. I took the Historic Columbia River Highway, which turned out to be the most scenic road I have ever been on. I first stopped at the Vista House and got some great mental and photographic snapshots of the Columbia Gorge, and then stopped at various falls on the way to my ultimate destination on this road, Multnomah Falls. I first stopped at Latourell Falls because I saw other cars stopped there. I walked a short distance on a paved path flanked by huge rocks, trees, and hills and then saw a 249-ft fall that took my breath away. It was so beautiful, so romantic, so pristine, and I was in awe. Excitedly, I called my wife and described it. It was one of the most beautiful scenes of nature I have ever seen. After taking this in, I explored Bridal Veil Falls, which was smaller in height but equally beautiful, nestled in the dark green woods. Then, on my last stop prior to the main event, I walked up Wahkeena Falls, and just had to shake my head in awe over how amazing this road of falls was. What makes all these falls recommendable is that they receive about 1/50 of the attention Multnomah Falls gets, but are beautiful. That said, the 620-ft Multnomah Falls, most popular natural attraction in Oregon and the 4th largest fall in the US, was amazing. An arched bridge directly in front of the falls where one can get some great pictures and just soak it all in leads to a hilly paved path with many turns that leads you to the top of the Falls. It is a steep, challenging walk. Of course, I decided to walk it without first hydrating. I completed the walk without too much difficulty. Surprisingly, I was underwhelmed at the site from the top of the Falls. I was nervous about dropping my camera taking pictures. I walked back down the hill and, all of a sudden, had a wistfully sad song I was creating on the fly humming in my head with a melody I created that matched the solitude I felt at that moment. Unfortunately, I forgot the lyrics, but I imagined myself on Oprah singing it for the 30-50 year-old moms in her audience. At the gift shop, I bought a small bottle of marionberry jam I have no intention of eating and Wild Huckleberry Gummi Bears which, despite, my tooth, munched on. The day was getting late, and I wanted to see Mt. Hood before dark. I got back on the I-84 heading east. I stopped at a convenience store, and was told the best exit to see Mt. Hood. Once I got off at the directed exit, I saw Mt. Hood in the distance, the first time I had ever seen a real mountain. I excitedly rushed to take a picture from the first clear vantage point I had and then, as I drove south towards the mountain, kept on repeating the process. I was really moved and almost in tears as I got closer and closer to the mountain. It was a weekday, and I was virtually alone on this beautiful road. A spring spewing from a rocky roadside would appear unannounced a few times. I really felt close to God. I thought, although my relationships with humans have left me wanting, there was so much natural beauty on earth that a true relationship with God should never leave one wanting, which reminds me of the Parable of the Mustard Seed. What I wrote later that night on Facebook still seems valid at this later date: “Appreciating the natural gifts God has bestowed helps one to absorb the ‘blows of fate.’ Sometimes, one must take two steps backwards to move one step forward.” “Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain/Telling me just what a fool I’ve been/I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain/And let me be alone again. Oh, listen to the falling rain/Pitter patter, pitter patter.” (“Rhythm of the Rain” the Cascades.) 9/10 My plan today was to see Mt St Helens and then drive southeast towards Mt Hood again. I drove up the I-5 in Washington and reached Exit 21, the first of two exits for Mt St Helens. I stopped at a trailer which represented a visitor information center and an old woman there gave me some papers, brochures, and maps for my journey. She mentioned that another woman working with her knew more about the area, but was out to lunch. She eventually started talking to me, and I feared being trapped there for a long time and then having the other woman show up and being trapped there even longer. Well, the other woman did arrive with a bag from McDonalds and started mapping out Route 504 off of Exit 49, the exit a half-hour away and was strongly recommending taking that route. I asked about taking Rte 503, the road I was on, and she acknowledged that this would take you to the southern end of the mountain, but I really needed to go to Route 504. They also mentioned the trip from the I-5 to Helens would take 2.5 hours. Uh-oh. Ditch the return to Mt. Hood. I thanked them for their time and left. Instinctively, I decided to drive the extra half-hour to the more northern exit for Helens. I got off on the exit and, after a ½ mile of stores and fast food restaurants, drove down a road that became more and more rural. Driving east on a bright, sunny day, the landscape became prettier and prettier. The trees and hills became more apparent, the houses and buildings started to disappear. My cell phone lost reception as I drove further east on the 504, which really made me feel closer to nature! As the pastoral drive became even more wonderful, I was extremely grateful that I stopped at the visitor center I had earlier tried to flee prematurely. The ride on Rte 504 increases in elevation as you approach Mount St. Helens. There are several lookouts with gift shops along the way, first at Hoffstadt Bluffs (elevation 1,400’) and then at the Forest Learning Center (elevation 2,650’). Both places are ideal for pictures with Mount St. Helens in the distance. Finally, you reach the Johnston Ridge Observatory (elevation 4,200’), which is right at the northwest end of Mt. St. Helens and allows you to stare directly at the crater of Helens from the vantage point where the magma (not lava) from the volcano travelled towards. I would definitely recommend watching the 16-minute film that plays in the visitor center there to understand the events and the magnitude of what happened there. For the record, as a brochure I picked up at the Exit 21 visitor center stated, “At 8:32 a.m., May 18, 1980, a 5.1 magnitude earthquake shook Mount St. Helens, triggering a massive explosion. The release of gases trapped inside the volcano sent 1,300 vertical feet of mountaintop rocketing outward to the north. Super-heated ash roared 60,000 feet into a cloudless blue sky. The cataclysmic blast- carrying winds that reached 670 miles per hour and temperatures of 800 degrees Fahrenheit- flatted 230 square miles of forest. Elk, deer, and wildlife were obliterated. 57 people were killed…..the largest landslide in recorded history swept through the Toutle River Valley, choking pristine rivers and lakes with mud, ash, and shattered timber, eradicating trout and salmon.” More hilariously, a travel guide book I picked up from the library on Seattle informed me that our former 33rd president Harry Truman, “who had lived near the mountain for more than 50 years,” also died after refusing to leave before the predicted devastation. Viewing and exploring Mt. St. Helens was a very moving experience for me. I decided to walk on a trail towards the crater of Helens. Despite being a mountain, the sun beating down, the arid air, the hissing sounds of insect life, and the modest vegetation made the atmosphere almost desert-like. Of course, I did not hydrate before my sojourn. I explored the dusty trail and drifted further and further from the Observatory. I was forty minutes into my walk when, suddenly, I tripped on either a rock or a divot. I twisted my right ankle again! Fortunately, I felt better after tightening my running shoes and walked it off. More fortunately, as I continued, a couple was walking towards me on the way back from their hike. I took a picture of them, and they took one of me, a picture I will always cherish. Even more fortunately, they told me they had been walking for four hours. I summed up the situation: getting close to 5 PM, no water, just twisted my ankle, a sign warning me about wildlife, being alone, more places to see, etc. I walked for ten more minutes and then headed back at a quicker pace. I listened to a well-informed park ranger, saw the exhibits inside the visitor center, and headed back west. Driving back, I stopped at Coldwater Lake, a large and beautiful lake formed naturally after the Helens disaster. I thought nothing could top the ride I had yesterday, but this day moved me just as much. Sadly, unlike the previous day, I did not videotape anything, for I had neglected to bring my camcorder battery charger on my flight. Damn! Seymour loved feasting on the insects. “You see they never roll the streets up ‘cause there’s always somethin’ goin’/Surf City, here we come!” (“Surf City” Jan and Dean) 9/11 Today’s mission was to explore the Pacific Ocean. I imagined a stroll in my rental car down a Pacific Coast highway affording great views of the ocean, much like the ride my wife and I took on our honeymoon from San Simeon to San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles. Unfortunately, Route 101 did not quite skirt the ocean. However, although I really did not see a rocky coastline similar to those of Maine or California, I was not disappointed with my final solo day. I first visited Cannon Beach. Despite this being a Friday, I was able to find parking. I walked onto the beach with my camera, some water, a book, and a towel, while wearing a blue polo shirt and shorts. Then, it hit me. I AM ON A BEACH ON THE PAFICIC OCEAN!!! I walked right back to my rental car, took my clothes off, and put on a sleeveless cool max shirt and my running shorts. I found an appropriate place on the beach, lay down, relaxed, and got a nice tan. I took lovely pictures of some huge waves crashing on Haystack Rock, a rock in the ocean rising 236 feet above the water’s surface. After enjoying a soft-serve chocolate ice cream, keeping the food in the right side of my mouth, I headed north towards Astoria and reached Ft. Stevens State Park, a nice recreational area that allows you to enjoy the Pacific Ocean to the west and the historically famous Columbia River (Lewis and Clark), the second largest river in the U.S., to the north. The sand on the beach at the park was much less soft than on Cannon Beach. An interesting artifact on the beach was the wooden remnants of the Peter Iredale, a ship that crashed ashore. Nearby is Ft. Stevens itself, the only mainland military institution to be fired upon by the Japanese during World War II. Later, I walked to the Columbia River. I saw two older fishermen on the shore catch a fish, and had a thrill having my picture taken with my bare feet immersed in the water. I travelled back south and made a spontaneous visit to Seaside, the beach between Astoria and Cannon Beach and saw the most beautiful sunset ever. As I took some great photos of a sunset, I heard an old woman in a wheelchair sincerely exclaim “My God is an awesome God!” Whether you believe in God or not (and I do), it added to the spirituality of a beautiful moment. Seaside features restaurants, hotels, and shopping stores, plus a two-mile cemented promenade divided into the North Prom and the South Prom, ideal for a romantic walk. The beach has miles of white sand and plenty of distance between the town and the water. At night, people were making campfires. At the center of the beach is a bronze statute of Lewis and Clark, the official spot of the end of the Lewis and Clark expeditions. I headed back to Melissa’s and John’s. Over dinner, we had a fun time talking. John came up with a skit Melissa and I thought we talked him out of, only to see it sneakily resurface as a solo performance on YouTube. John and I also developed our latest in-joke, Rickrolling, to replace our fascination with heisting desks. John, thinking aloud, even thought about Rickrolling Melissa for their wedding, having a Rick Astley sing “Never Gonna Give You Up” in John’s place as Melissa walked down the aisle. I do not think that this is a good idea. 9/12 Happy 61st Birthday, Mom!!!!! My toothache became almost unbearable today. Melissa took me to Enterprise to return my rental, which took forever once I got there. Melissa was a real good sport in waiting for me. Melissa and I drove to an outdoor Farmer’s Market in Beaverton, which was nice. Plenty of fruits and breads I could not enjoy with my now-infected tooth. Melissa drove me to the Hollywood District on Sandy Blvd, ostensibly the home of Mark Lindsay’s (lead singer of Paul Revere and the Raiders) Rock and Roll Café, which featured loads of Raider memorabilia. Unfortunately, as I later found out on louielouie.net, the café closed. As a consolation, Melissa gave me a tour of downtown Portland and, after buying some pain medication, headed back to the house. I took a nap. John came home. For supper, I sucked on some whole wheat pasta with Trader Joe’s Organic Tomato & Basil sauce. Later that night, John and I did our final taped skit, an interview where I portrayed a children’s author of, shall we say, some eclectic titles. 9/13 In the morning, I took all the medication I could to fortify myself for the impending toothache for my return flight. Melissa and John dropped me off at the curbside of Southwest. Awaiting me was a long line of passengers waiting to be checked in that did not seem to be moving. I was a bit worried that I would not make my flight. Also, I had to use the bathroom. Eventually, I checked my luggage in and passed security, then went to the bathroom. I boarded my plane, which had a layover in Kansas City. Earlier, I had been chastised  for not getting online earlier on Saturday to print my tickets. The earlier you print your tickets, the better the seat you can choose, since on Southwest you reserve not a specific seat but your place in an order to choose a seat after you board the plane. As I discovered, choosing a number in the B list and not the A list may not allow you to choose your exact seat, but does allow you to choose who you wish to sit next to, which worked out better. On the first leg, I chose to sit next to a 50-ish looking couple from North Carolina. Immediately next to me was a female with a southern accent. This, I could handle. I focused on a challenging Sudoku puzzle and on my chess book. I landed in Kansas City without any tooth pain. The two-hour layover went quickly by, as I read a book and watched the Redskins on TV in the lounge doing nothing against the Giants. Boarding my flight to Baltimore, I pursued the same strategy and sat next to an old couple occupying the first two seats in a row of three. I was looking forward to coming home. I had a feeling of exhilaration over the trip. However, this was replaced by feelings of a severe emotional letdown over the next two days, as the anticlimactic nature of my life hit me. “The farther one travels/The less one knows/The less one really knows.” (“The Inner Light” the Beatles)

The Beatles' White Album (originally posted 7/9/09)

Many Beatles fans echo the thoughts of Beatles producer Sir George Martin in believing that a great single-disc album would have resulted from culling the best tracks from the two-disc "White Album" and eliminating the weaker tunes. Says Martin, "I thought we should probably have made a very, very good single album rather than a double. But they insisted. I think it could have been made fantastically good if it had been compressed a bit and condensed." What songs to keep and which ones to cut ("I was underwhelmed because some of (the songs) weren't great" - Martin) was a question a friend of mine, Ed "Terminator" Thrane, and I grappled with almost a decade ago. Ed's list was heavy on the Lennon, for he was a huge Beatle John mark. Ed preferred my list, based not so much on my selections as in the order I listed the songs. Both lists have been lost to posterity; here, I try to recreate my list.


SIDE ONE


1. Back in the USSR: Just as on the White Album, I feel this Paul McCartney homage to the Beach Boys makes an ideal opening track. For the record, Paul was the drummer on this track.


2. Yer Blues: Song placement on a Beatles album was always premeditated, as opposed to tracks just being haphazardly organized onto two sides of an LP. One great thing about listening to a Beatles album was after hearing, say, an endearing children's song (Yellow Submarine), you immediately get socked with the psychedelic, LSD-influenced She Said, She Said. Their albums just flowed eclecticaly but naturally from track-to-track, especially on their greatest works, which would be A Hard Day's Night, Rubber Soul, Revolver (the greatest album of all-time), and Abbey Road.
Here, following the light-hearted opening track, I follow it with John's blues parody, and it was this roller-coaster of emotions from track-to-track that my friend Ed responded so favorably towards.


3. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da: Not the favorite track of, say, John or George Harrison, and I include this upbeat, whimsical (and I am being charitable here) song because it is one of the most well-known tracks on the album and to avoid making my single disc too loaded with Lennon tracks.


4. Julia: Certain lines in John's pensive ballad to his deceased mother have always touched me.


5. Birthday: Another of the more renowned songs on the album. Placing a party song right after a maudlin ballad has a certain hilarity about it. And, Paul's song also rocks!


6. I'm So Tired: One of John's greatest songs as a Beatle.


7. Why Don't We Do it In the Road?: From their first release, Please Please Me, up through Revolver, each Beatles British LP had exactly fourteen tracks, seven on each side. Here, I take artistic license by adding an eighth song to my Side One, and this brief song is the extra track. I love the ominous organ and Paul's gritty vocals. (The history of how Beatles British LPs became corrupted with different tracks and/or different album titles when released in America is well-known, and I see no point in recounting it here.)


8. While My Guitar Gently Weeps: Early Beatles albums contained either Lennon-McCartney songs or covers, save for George Harrison's Don't Bother Me on the second LP With the Beatles. This pattern started to change on the Help! LP, which featured two slight Harrison tracks (I Need You, You Like Me Too Much). Harrison's contributions to Rubber Soul and to Revolver showed his blossoming songwriting skills. On the last song of my Side One, George (with Eric Clapton on guitar) gives us a future Classic Rock standard.


SIDE TWO


1. Martha My Dear: Paul's ode to his dog, a theme he would return to later in life with equally good results (Jet-1973).


2. Glass Onion: Lennon's witty song addressed to the Beatles fans who read too much into his songs. I like the version of Glass Onion on Beatles Anthology 3 even better, with the shattered glass special effects. The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill would also fit nicely in this slot.


3. Mother Nature's Son: This song of Paul's has some beautiful parts to it, and is better than Paul's Blackbird, also on the album.


4. Savoy Truffle: George stated that this song was inspired by a toothache of Eric Clapton's. Without this song and Cry, Baby, Cry, side four of the White Album would barely exist.


5. Good Night: On each Beatles album, from the Shirelles cover Boys on the first album Please, Please Me through Abbey Road (excluding A Hard Day's Night) drummer Ringo Starr would sing lead on one song. Here, I bypass the first song he ever wrote alone for a Beatles album, Don't Pass Me By (on Side Two of the White Album) for the Side Four album closer written by John and Paul and sung by Ringo. Everyone loves Ringo, but Don't Pass Me By is really, really bad. If I break the Ringo Rule, then The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill would be here.


6. Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey: Another great rocker from John, and he gets really esoteric with the lyrics here.


7. Cry, Baby, Cry: A beautiful song from John, this would make a perfect closing track because of the snippet of an unfinished Paul song added to the end with the poignant lyric "Can you take me back/Where I Came From/Can You Take Me Back..."

Obviously, there were some tough cuts, but some could be excluded immediately. Revolution 1 and Revolution 9, Don't Pass Me By, Honey Pie, Wild Honey Pie are the most obvious cuts. What about the other songs?


The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill: In case you could not tell from the notes above, this was the hardest song to leave out. In fact, the song probably should replace Good Night.


Helter Skelter: The most notorious song on the album, which supposedly influenced Charles Manson during the Tate-LaBianca murders. This song of Paul's, a rocking tune about an English fairground, "still sucks anyway" according to the 4th edition of the New Rolling Stone Album Guide, a book with many execrable opinions and "facts" (Relax, I'll get to my scathing review of this book a few blogs from now.) The song does not suck.


Sexy Sadie: I feel this thinly-veiled Lennon reference to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is the most overrated song on the album, and it is because I just do not dig the lyrics.


Happiness is a Warm Gun: The first minute or so of this Lennon song is one of my favorite moments of the album, but I am just not a huge fan of the chorus.


Dear Prudence: There are many fans of this Lennon song imploring Mia Farrow's sister to come out from her chalet (Ed, the aforementioned Rolling Stone book), but it is not a favorite of mine.


Blackbird: Another favorite of the Rolling Stone book, I still like Mother Nature's Son more, despite some very sensitive lyrics from Paul.


I Will: A little too endearing and syrupy a serving of Paul for me, this song inexplicably made Ed's list.


Long, Long, Long: I felt this song, loved by many (Pete Shotton- John's friend from his Liverpool days, the Rolling Stone book), is the most overrated Harrison song in the Beatles' oeuvre.


Piggies: Another notorious song from the album because of its link to the Manson storyline, this Harrison song has always been charming for me. A worthy song that could easily make the cut on other Beatles albums.


Rocky Raccoon: An utterly ridiculous song of Paul's, delievered with moxie by the cute Beatle. I have never seen or heard this opinion anywhere before, but I wonder, given Paul's excellent performance of this asinine song, how he would do singing bad songs from an Elvis soundtrack? Probably much better than Elvis, since, unlike Paul, Elvis had an internal B.S. detector that recognized the crap just wasn't worth the effort. Paul, as judging by his work on Red Rose Speedway and Wild Life, plus his duet with Michael Jackson on The Girl is Mine, had no such subconscious roadblocks and would have probably delivered tour-de-force performances on The Song of the Shrimp, Yoga Is As Yoga Does, Poison Ivy League, Barefoot Ballad, Do the Clam, and so forth.

The Heist of the Desks (originally posted 6/14/09)

An annoying by-product of the technological age are the forwards you receive that usually tell a story and, at the end, feature the wise person using a didactic tone to state a moral for us to go about living our lives. An example forwarded by my good friend John to myself and to the rest of his Weekend Update distribution list has led to a recurring in-joke. Obviously, the poignancy of this particular story did not resonate with us.


Our fable begins opening day in school in September 2005. Our protagonist/antagonist is Martha Cothren, a social studies teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, who came up with a brainstorm and, with the support of school officials, had all of the desks from her classroom removed before the first period students arrived on the first day.


School bell rings. The first period students arrive. "Ms. Cothren, where're our desks?"


"You can't have a desk until you've told me what you have done to earn the right to sit at a desk."


"Well, maybe it's our grades," the students reasonably replied.


"No."


"Maybe it's our behavior," the students replied, again reasonably.


"No, it's not even your behavior."


(I would have walked out of the classroom by now.)


Other classes came in during their assigned periods and could not correctly guess the deep answer, and TV crews started gathering in the classroom to report on the attention-seeking teacher.


Finally, during the last period, the useless teacher declared, "Throughout the day, no one has been able to tell me just what he/she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now, I am going to tell you." I can believe that no one would have gotten the answer. I did not know the answer. The combined forces of Einstein, Da Vinci, Edison, and Steven Hawking wouldn't have gotten the stupid answer, either, so I would not have much faith that an Arkansas high school student, residing in a state notorious for having among the lowest educational scores in a country ranked in the high thirties (30's) in the world in education (if memory serves), would have figured it out.


The teacher opened the classroom door. "Twenty-seven (27) U.S. Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each carrying a school desk." (I know I could have condensed this last sentence without having to quote the line directly, but I found the writer's need to put the number 27 in parenthesis hilarious.) The veterans put the desks back where they should have been to begin with and then stood against the wall.


Bring it home for us, Ms. Cothren: "You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you (huh?). Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so you could have the freedom (huh? huh?) to get an education. Don't ever forget it."


Where do I begin? First, all of the nations that have had the military might to conquer us placed a higher premium on education than we do nowadays, if results and our fascination with Reality TV are any indication. Therefore, if we were conquered by the former Soviet Union, or Nazi Germany, or Imperial Japan, I am sure we would still receive an education and even have desks to sit in. Does anyone recall the black-and-white propaganda films from these warmongering nations showing attentive students paying attention to the stern teacher? We would no longer be learning how to put a condom on, and the education may have been streamlined and jingoistic, but at least we would have been educated. Probably more effectively, too.


Also, I hope one of the students was not on crutches. Remember, this was the first day of school, and who would have known if any student had a medical issue? Would a desk have been provided for the student, or would the bitch have insisted on continuing with her little stunt and let the student lean against a wall? What about any obese students who cannot stand for long periods of time?


You can see the story that inspired this blog by visiting www.veteransforachange.org/, which also features more appropriate ways to honor veterans. If you really want to honor veterans, attend a Memorial Day parade ON MEMORIAL DAY or volunteer at a V.A. hospital. If you want others to empathize with the sacrifices made to protect our country, have a widow speak on how devastating it was losing her husband to war, or show a movie such as Gettysburg or the Battle of the Bulge or a documentary, or have a disabled veteran speak about the horrors of war. (However, if you do the latter, please provide a seat for the veteran.)


As of 2007, Arkansas still ranks below the national average in NAEP scores in math, reading, science, and writing.

Elvis Presley is the King (originally posted 6/6/09)

(At this opportunity, I would like to thank my father and mother for instilling in me a love for Elvis Presley. My father owned only three Elvis albums, Elvis's Golden Records Volumes 1 & 3, and the GI Blues soundtrack, and I would listen to these albums constantly during my middle school years. I would watch Elvis movies on television, and I distinctly remember waiting for Elvis to improbably break into another song during the picture so I could locate the song title on the record sleeve detailing the song lists of many Elvis albums inside the original RCA album cover. Later, when my mom and I would go to the Centereach Mall, she would buy for me the LP for the soundtrack I had seen at the now-defunct Record World (price usually between $3.99-$7.99). 33 CDs, 26 LPs, numerous souvenirs, and two trips to Graceland and to Sun Studios later, Elvis is still the King.)

Here are the five Elvis moments I would have most like to have witnessed:

1) Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, Tupelo, Mississippi, October 3, 1945.
Elvis, dressed in a cowboy outfit, stands on a chair to reach the microphone and sings Old Shep in a talent-show, coming in second or fifth, depending on which version you read. I would have used whatever technology was available at the time to record this moment.

2) Monday, Sun Studios, Memphis, July 5, 1954.
One of the annoying memories of my days at the State University of New York at Stony Brook was during a 300-level class titled Foundations of Education. An African-American student was talking about high school and stated that she was never taught that various tribes from Africa may have arrived on the shores of the Americas before Columbus. Her voice betrayed a mixture of surprise and pride from absorbing this revelation.
Of course, this insight has absolutely zero relevance. For, although Africans and Vikings may have previously visited the Americas, it was Christopher Columbus who provided the impetus for other Europeans to explore the New World, leading to its settlement and ultimately, for better or worse, to the country we have today. Therefore, the Genoese explorer is no less important a figure in American history than Washington and Lincoln, and it is for this reason that we do not celebrate Leif Erickson Day.
And so, too, it is with Elvis Presley and rock-and-roll. For, although there were definitely antecedents in music that hinted at rock-and-roll (Jackie Breston's Rocket 88 is the usual proffered example), it was Elvis Presley who started the revolution, and the revolution started on a hot July day in 1954 at Sun Studios, with Elvis, guitarist Scotty Moore, and bassist Bill Black fooling around during a break from a rehearsal. After sipping cokes, Elvis took his guitar and, according to Scotty, "started singing this song and acting the fool, and then Bill picked up his bass and he started acting the fool, too, and I started playing with them." The song was a sped-up version of an old Arthur Cruddup blues tune That's All Right and, when Sun Studios head Sam Phillips asked them to do it again, Rock-n-Roll for practical purposes was invented.

3) Monday, RCA Studios, New York, July 2, 1956.
For those who believe that Elvis artistically was no more than a singer who followed orders, this legendary studio session that resulted in Hound Dog, Don't Be Cruel, and Any Way You Want Me (That's How I Will Be) will be a revelation.
The session took place on a hot July day at RCA Studios. Outside the studio, fans were yelling “We want the real Elvis!” in response to Elvis’s tuxedo-clad monstrosity on the Steve Allen Show the night before. Inside the studio were Elvis, Scotty Moore, Bill Black, drummer D.J. Fontana, and the Jordanaires, plus RCA executive Steve Sholes. Also in the studio was photographer Alfred Wertheimer, who would snap some iconic photos that day.
First on the agenda was Hound Dog, the Leiber-Stoller song Elvis performed live to raucous reactions after seeing Freddie Bell and the Bellboys perform it in Las Vegas. The song metamorphosed from the bump-and-grind in half-time version Elvis gave it on the Milton Berle Show to the faster, tighter arrangement we are familiar with today. Elvis’s band never cooked quite like this before. Scotty fired off some great lead lines, and the rhythm section fell right in. With each take, the song “(grew) tougher and sharper.” Sholes thought several takes were perfect, but Elvis refused to quit until he got the sound he wanted, which was on take 31.
After this, music publisher Freddy Bienstock met Elvis for the first time, with a new song in tow from a blues artist Elvis admired, Otis Blackwell’s Don’t Be Cruel. Elvis took an immediate liking to the song, and began to record it. Scotty delivered one of the most recognizable guitar intros in rock-and-roll history, and the others again fell in. Elvis slapped the back of his guitar to provide additional percussion. After more than two dozen takes, a second masterpiece was waxed that day, its pairing with the first resulted in the greatest double-sided single in rock-and-roll history.
At this point, the air conditioning was off, and an already-hot studio became sweltering. However, Elvis still found time to deliver a stunning performance on the ballad Any Way You Want Me (That’s How I Will Be), putting a cap on a remarkable day of recording which fully revealed Elvis’s quest for perfection, a trait that dissipated as the material got weaker after the Army years.

4) Saturday, Sicks Stadium, Seattle, September 1, 1957.
Most recollections of Elvis performing live stem from variety shows of the 50's (Dorsey Bros., Milton Berle, Steve Allen, and the Ed Sullivan Show), from the '68 Comeback, from the That's the Way it Is movie, or from the Aloha From Hawaii spectacle. I would have loved to have seen Elvis at the height of his powers, before his incarceration in the Army, and the concert I would have most wanted to see in person was his show on September 1st, 1957, at Seattle's Sicks Stadium.
Elvis performed concerts in two cities on that day. After leaving by train from Vancouver, B.C., where he had performed the night before (he had also performed earlier the day before in Spokane, WA), Elvis arrived at the King Street Station in Seattle at noon and checked into the Olympic Hotel. Elvis then travelled by limousine 35 miles along Interstate 5 to Tacoma for a 2 PM press conference and concert, and headed back to Seattle at 4:30 PM. He relaxed in his hotel room for a brief spell before his 8 PM show. What happened at the end of that legendary concert is the very essence of rock and roll; the tale seems apocryphal, but really happened. I think.
Tickets for Elvis Presley and "His All-Star Stage Show" on that Sunday night during Labor Day weekend were $1.50, $2.50, and $3.50(!). Over 15,000 delirious fans attended, with 90% of the crowd allegedly being teenage girls. The show began late, sometime around 8:30 PM. The "All-Star Stage Show" included singers, dancers, comedians, jugglers, and marimba players- a reasonable snapshot of the vapidity masquerading as entertainment that made the musical and cultural revolution spearheaded by Elvis so necessary. During the preliminaries, a fan would shout, "There he is!!!," but it was just a mirage.
Finally, after 10 PM, a cordon of policemen surrounded the stage, and Elvis appeared in a dark shirt and slacks, donning his trademark gold lame suit. Girls fainted. When the King approached the microphone, "the tsunami of noise from the audience reached a shrieking crescendo." Attendance included Dennis Lunde and Merrilee Gunst, who as Merrilee Rush had the 1968 hit Angel of the Morning. Elvis opened with Heartbreak Hotel and then "shook, shivered, slumped, slouched, and staggered" through a 45-minute set that included, in order, All Shook Up, I Got a Woman, That's When Your Heartaches Begin, I Was the One, Teddy Bear, Don't Be Cruel, Love Me, Fools Hall of Fame, Blue Suede Shoes, Blueberry Hill (with Elvis on piano), and Mean Woman Blues. Myrna Crafoot, a fan in attendance, jotted this list in order in her diary. Another Seattle fan, James Marshall (Jimi) Hendrix, also took notes of the set and later made a color drawing of Elvis accompanied by notes from that concert.
What happened next is recounted in Greil Marcus's 1975 book Mystery Train, from a February 1970 Seattle magazine article titled "Rock!" written by Gordon Bowker, who would go on to co-found Starbucks: "The noise from the 15,000 people was immense. Finally, the crowd grew quiet. 'I alluz like to end muh concerts with the National Anthem,' the King said, into the mike. 'Will y'all please rise?' (Everyone stood). Elvis picked up his guitar, twitched once more, took a breath, and groaned, "YOU AIN'T NUTHIN' BUT A HOUND DOG!" The crowd was stunned. Then it erupted in a frenzy that dwarfed the one a few minutes earlier. The grandstands swayed back and forth like a huge sea anemone. Not even Elvis could be heard above the roar." A local reporter compared the wailing to 12,000 girls all having their heads shaved at once. It must have been quite a moment. It was this type of hip humor that made Elvis the coolest cat ever.

5) International Hotel, Las Vegas, July 31, 1969.
The first Elvis live performance since 1961 featured in the audience such luminaries as Paul Anka, Shirley Bassey, Pat Boone, Carol Channing, Dick Clark, and Cary Grant. Sam Phillips was also invited, but I would have loved to have been at this concert just to observe Phil Ochs, a huge Elvis fan also in attendance, react to the King. The show, which featured Blue Suede Shoes (the opener), I Got a Woman, All Shook Up, Love Me Tender, Jailhouse Rock, and Don't Be Cruel, later inspired Phil Ochs to don a gold lame suit and to perform concerts singing Elvis songs under the theory that, for the anti-war movement to succeed, Elvis Presley must become Che Guevara. THAT did not go over too well with the Ochs fan base, although Phil was, of course, correct. The night also inspired Ochs’ brilliant song One-Way Ticket Home, which contains the lyric “Elvis Presley is the King/I was at his crowning/My life just flashed before my eyes/I must be drowning.”

It's a Wonderful Life (originally posted 04/17/2009)

If I were taking method acting lessons, and my drama coach asked me to cry, I would turn for motivation to the climactic scene in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life when Harry Bailey raises a toast, "To my big brother George, the richest man in town!," to get the salt water gushing. This scene never fails to penetrate me deeply and, for its warm, life-affirming depiction of the basic goodness of both the human and Holy Spirit, It's a Wonderful Life rightfully takes its place in the Top 100 of the American Film Institute's best American films ever made and the number one position on the AFI's list of the most inspirational American films of all-time. It's a Wonderful Movie. 

That said, I have a basic problem with the movie (and not just the mistake with Harry Bailey's tombstone engraved with the years 1911-1918, despite supposedly being nine years old when George lost his hearing saving his younger brother from falling through the ice.) In short, George Bailey is kind of dumb. Don't buy it? Well, on the positive side of the ledger, he was savvy enough to fall not for the vivacious Violet (played by the scrumptious Gloria Grahame) but for the more even-keeled Mary (played by the delectable Donna Reed), and he was able to keep the Bailey Building and Loan business running despite selling affordable homes to the downtrodden while competing with Mr. Potter. 

However, on the negative side, George takes FAR TOO LONG to pick up on the fact that he's "been given a great gift... A chance to see what the world would be like without" him having been born, despite many not-so-subtle clues: a total stranger (Clarence) knows him by name, his hearing is fine in both ears, his lip is no longer bleeding, it is not snowing, his clothes are dry, even after diving off of a bridge into frigid water, his car is no longer smashed up against an old tree, signs say Pottersville and not Bedford Falls, Nick is the boss of Martini's and is not the nice guy George knows. The town pharmacist Mr. Gower is now a panhandler, since George was not there to prevent him from mixing drugs dangerously. George has neither any personal I.D. nor petals from his annoying younger daughter in his pocket. His panicky romp through Pottersville shows a town much less charming and much more risque than the Bedford Falls he was familiar with. One would think the multitude of clues above would suffice, but......George learns the Bailey Building and Loan went out-of-business years ago, the cab driver Ernie does not recognize George, says he got divorced years ago, and lives not in the non-existent Bailey Park but in Potter's Field. Ernie also tells him that 320 Sycamore, George's home, has not been lived in for twenty years. There are other hints that George is seeing life as if he had never been born, but he finally starts to get it only when he discovers the location of his baby, Bailey Park, is actually a cemetery housing the remains of his brother Harry, who died because George was not there to save him from falling through the ice. The clincher is seeing his beloved Mary, an unwed old maid librarian who does not recognize him. Finally, he gets it, and wants to re-embrace his life. After all, there are worse things in life than sharing a bed with Donna Reed. 

It's a Wonderful Life was based loosely on a short story titled "the Greatest Gift." The movie was considered a relative flop when first released, not recouping its costs in an environment of stiff competition from other classic films, and insiders of the day stated that Capra had lost the populist touch displayed in other films of his such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Repeated television airings during the Christmas season thankfully lifted the movie from obscurity and have made it a beloved holiday classic. (Two questions which did not fit into the body of this essay: 1) Besides It's a Wonderful Life, can you think of other movies that were rediscovered after drifting into obscurity? I can think of two right away- Citizen Kane and Head. 2) Does anyone despise the character Uncle Billy as much as I do?)

Fears (original post 3/15/09)

Brownstainaphobia: fear of being in a public restroom, doing a #2, and then realizing there's no toilet paper in your stall.

Snipaphobia: fear of having a vasectomy or circumcision performed on you against your will.

Ohotaphobia: fear of eating an extremely spicy food and then realizing there's nothing to drink.

Legtuckaphobia: fear of having your legs eaten while asleep after watching Jaws or an Animal Planet documentary on crocodiles or sharks.

When Will I Get my Break? (originally posted 1/24/09)

A former MySpace friend, Bryan Foxx, once echoed the sentiments of my best friend John that people should pay to read my writing since, ostensibly, I write so well....well, it's not as though I haven't thought of that myself. Unbeknownest to family and friends, I have knocked on doors of publishing firms and motion picture studios, pressed palms, and done other traditional and non-traditional things to advertise my work, but, as of this post, I'm still ossifying at Bank of America. Maybe, I just don't know how to sell myself.

Or, maybe there is something inherently wrong with the samples of my work I have submitted. I've fancied myself a Hollywood screenwriter, and during a recent sojourn to California I submitted samples of my scripts to over 100 producers. I don't want to make a living penning typical Hollywood fare- no love stories involving someone from the wrong side of the tracks, no comic books, cartoon characters, or television shows brought to life, no biodramas starring someone who does not even look anything like the famous person depicted, no orgies of special effects or gratuitous car chases, nor movies concerning organized crime and, despite my huge popularity with the French, no stories of effeminate young boys with a sheepdog haircut riding a bike with a basket on it through the fields of the countryside for no apparent reason, befriending an ethnic, jolly street grocer named Peppino. Instead, my scripts have something interesting and different to say and, yet, I've not gotten one phone call from anyone with a California area code.

Here are the plots of the scripts I've written. They seem like winners to me. Don't you agree?

PLOT 1: A successful 40 year-old account executive named Bill alienates his wife, family, and friends after undergoing a mid-life crisis when he decides to quit his prestigious, high-paying job to fulfill a lifelong dream of a career giving circumcisions to adult men who have converted to the Jewish faith.

PLOT 2: In his clever little five-year old mind, Little Timmy conjures a great idea on how to get rich by the time he grows up. Every Christmas morning, Little Timmy will take the glasses that Santa Claus drank his milk from, store them in a secret compartment in his closet, and sell them as a set as he gets older. The movie deals with the themes of disappointment, disillusionment, and despair as Timmy grows up and finds that the glasses are worthless and, maybe just maybe, he should have tried harder in school. The end to this movie is not pretty.

PLOT 3: Another entrepenurial plot as George runs his successful architectural company into the ground due to his obsession with a product he believes will have an even greater revolutionary impact on the health food industry than soy, Sperm Bars. George finds there are no takers and goes insane, accusing executives of major companies of conspiring to steal his idea. The end to this movie takes place on top of a school tower and is not pretty.

PLOT 4: More conspiracy themes abound when Shelby, a paranoid female protagonist with a drinking problem, notices that a lot of goods and services have prices with .99 at the end. Hotel rooms are priced at $73.99 and up, gas prices are $1.73 & 99/100 cents per gallon, a box of Wheaties cereal costs $2.99, that dress over there costs $59.99, and the flat-screen TV costs $1,099. Obviously, the real prices are $74, $1.74, $3.00, $60, and $1,100. Who decided that prices should end with 99 cents? Shelby decides there is a conspiracy and is fascinated to find out who is behind it. Predictably, the end of this story involves playing a violin for patrons at a nightclub in New Mexico.

PLOT 5: Inspired by the Atticus Finch character in To Kill a Mockingbird, Tony takes night classes at Columbia Law School to earn his law degree. What is his cause celebre? He plans to file a lawsuit against the City of New York, claiming that the plethora of New York Yankees posters, signs, and banners in the city is discriminatory to all Red Sox fans, demanding $32 million in damages and an equal amount of Red Sox paraphenalia to be publicly displayed. Predictably, the movie ends with a touching scene of ice fishing in Iceland.

PLOT 6: A mechanic named Rob wakes up from a drunken stupor in an inner-city hip-hop club wearing a shirt with a Confederate flag emblazoned on the front with the words "Why can't I use the N word...." underneath it and the words "....if you call me Cracker?" on the back and has no idea how he got there or why he has this stupid shirt on. Like the Henry Fonda classic Twelve Angry Men, the entire movie takes place in one room. However, the end of the movie is not as life-affirming.

(Please e-mail me with any thoughts or suggestions on what I need to do to get my big break!)