Thanks

It is Thanksgiving morning, and as such the tradition – besides the ingestion of unhealthy amounts of calories – is to reflect and give thanks; to count our blessings.

Okay, I’ll play.

To start, I am just not the type to wax on about how good (or bad) things are. I have adopted a somewhat fatalistic view of things; that everything is going to unfold as it is supposed to, and blessings or lack thereof in my life are happenstance flows in the river of life. However, that does not – nor should not – stop me for taking a pause to reflect.

I am thankful for my son. I love Nick. He is turning into a fine young man, and I realize just how fortunate his mom and I are for that. His mom told me last night of a close friend of Nick’s who got a hold of a loaded gun that his mom had in their house, horsed around with it, and shot his friend in the head with it. That friend has a less than one percent chance to live, and the boy may be charged with homicide/murder. Two teenager’s lives irrevocably changed through one tragic event. It could have been Nick. I am eternally thankful it wasn’t.

I am thankful for my mom. I just called her. She is 84 now, and is suffering from dementia. Her life has been one well lived, and it is a blessing to be able to call and talk to her; to hear that calm, yet frail, reassuring voice that everything will be okay…even when it isn’t.

I am thankful for my job. It has been a trying year, as the default stress of my responsibilities has been added to in the form of unrealistic directives and personality clashes. Last month I was docked a day off without pay over trumped-up charges which were designed to wake me up. Well it did. I now slap a smile on my face, check the attitude at the door, and strive every day to give the company a return on their investment in me. And I just checked my checking account and my paycheck was deposited a day early. So despite the recent trying times, I am grateful to be gainfully employed.

I am thankful to my yoga instructor. She is a wonderful new friend that inspires and encourages me. I wish I had a hundred people like her in my life.

I am thankful for my health. Everything on the body still works.

I am thankful for my new group of friends gained though attending 12-step recovery meetings. We watch out for each other. Consider this a gratitude list.

I am thankful for the few close friends I have. Like my best friend Dawn. My day's not complete until we check in with each other. And My Man Mike - golf buddy and dear friend. Hit 'em straight Mike.

I am thankful to my siblings & nephews. We can at times be a dysfunctional bunch but there is always an undercurrent of love. Barb, Ken, Patty, Tony, Brian & Terry – I love you.

I am thankful that Jimmy Donovan is still calling the Browns games despite recovering from bone marrow surgery - 

I am thankful to live in an area that allows me to pursue my favorite pastime – golf – year-round. In fact, I think I will go hit the driving range as soon as I finish this story and hit a bucket of balls before I gorge myself. I will then return to my apartment and turn on my HD television, lay on my sofa and watch football. Thank you Vizio, thank you NFL, thank you futon.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Namaste

A while back I signed up for this Groupon thing, which I highly recommend (www.groupon.com). Each day some kind of deal comes to my inbox for food deals, entertainment, whatever. I especially like the golf deals.

Anyway, a couple of weeks back I got a Groupon deal for yoga classes. Now, six months ago that would have been an instant banishment to the trash folder. But this time it was different. I clicked on the deal and saw it was ten yoga sessions for $29. I was intrigued. I pondered it then thought what the hell. Let’s give it a try. It had been years since I tried anything new, and part of my latest life journey is to meditate more, slow down, and just be happy in being me.

I clicked, submitted my card number and presto – new yoga student.

Last Monday was my first session – ‘Gentle Beginner Yoga’ it was titled. The instructor, Lee, was fantastic. So upbeat, so positive. My classmates were equally ebullient. They had, as I was to find out, strong auras. The whole place has a serene feel to it – soft, warm colors, soothing music, calm, inviting.

So I grabbed my mat, shucked my shoes, and waited for the session to start. Lee comes in and in her always-positive way, got us loosened up. Here was the first indicator that this was going to be tougher than I thought – I was as tight as a banjo string. Then she started to guide us through the various classic yoga poses – downward dog, table top, cobra, cat. She emphasized the breathing – in and out through the nose. Feel your center. Open your heart. Hands to the sky.

Next came positions for balance. Stand on one leg. Simple, right? Uh, no. I was a quaking, quivering bag of unbalanced nerves and institutionalized stress and tightness. Lee was flowing through the motions with swan-like grace. I looked like an old woman trying to beat a mugger off with a purse.

Thirty minutes into this ‘Gentle Beginner’ session and I was sweating like a whore in church. If this was ‘Gentle Beginner’ I shuddered to think what ‘Rigorous Advanced’ would consist of. I was hyperventilating and shaking.

A couple of the moves I simply could not do. My body was just not ready for that type of movement. I looked at Lee and mouthed an ‘I’m sorry’ and she just smiled, then said to the class in her calming way, ‘Yoga is about you. You decide what you can do and what you can’t. You are not judged here.’

That made me smile. And relaxed.

The session ended with 15 minutes of lying on the mat while soft, chakra-tinged music played and the lights off. I smelled incense. It was lovely. About ten minutes in and I felt someone massaging my lower legs. It was Lee. It felt wonderful.

We then got up and did a final shake-off of our muscles. Lee then said that, whenever yoga masters end their sessions they put their hands together and, as an acknowledgement of the inner spirit in me honoring the inner spirit in you, we turn, bow and say, ‘Namaste’.

When it was over, Lee could not wait to ask what I thought. I said it was very positive and that I would be back. She said wonderful, and to not give up. I went back last Thursday for my second session. This one was titled ‘Hot Vinyasa Yoga’ – which was similar to Monday’s session, but with space heaters. I lasted a half hour. I could not finish the session, but I am taking Lee’s advice. I’m not quitting. I just registered for Monday night’s class. I am motivated and inspired.

My flagging but growing spirit in me is in awe of the strength of yours, Lee.

Namaste.

http://serenitynowyogacorp.com/

Left Out

(For Andy - http://zipsclips.blogspot.com/2011/11/influence-silenced.html)

"I'm a lefty," Barack Obama joked  as he signed official papers as U.S. President.

"Get used to it."

Our country has a long, ugly history of discrimination aimed at certain groups – blacks, immigrants, gays. Religious persecution. Haves versus have-nots. It seems like we thrive on conflict; we have to have some group to demonize to feel superior. Well, this rant is not quite to that level, but there is a group of individuals that have quietly suffered in a world not designed for them…a world that specifically tries to make their experience trying.

I am speaking about left-handers.

I am a lefty. I am not ambidextrous. There is nothing I do right-handed, save one activity which I will not mention here due to decorum. Anything done with my right hand feels awkward, unnatural. Trust me – I have tried. When I was ten years old I tried to play golf with my dad’s right-handed clubs and ended up flipping the club upside-down with the toe on the ground so I could swing lefty. That worked. Years ago my then-wife (and fellow lefty) bought me a guitar. And since I had never even tried to play a guitar before, I figured I would learn right-handed. It just never worked. The rhythm hand for a righty is the right hand and I had no rhythm in that hand – my rhythm hand was busy pressing down strings to make chords. My brain rebelled. The guitar went into the closet. I should have just done what Jimi did - flip it over and play it left-handed.

There is a school of thought that says lefties are creative due to using their right brains. Half correct. We are very creative, but it has nothing to do with which side of the brain we tap into. It has everything to do with trying to deal with a world not created with us in mind. Case in point – a manual can-opener. You hold it with your left hand and turn the crank with the right hand – it is designed for righties. Watch a lefty try to use a manual can opener and you will understand what I am talking about. You start a car by turning a key with your right hand. And this is after you open the car door from the right side.

I am passive aggressive by nature so I’ve done a couple of things just to show righties what we have to deal with. For example, my home and office computers are set up lefty, meaning that the mouse has the buttons reversed and resides to the left of the monitor. I love to watch righties struggle with it as they hit a button and get that annoying ‘What’s this?’ popup on the screen….they think something’s wrong with my computer and they will look at me. I just say ‘Left-handed’ and smile.

When I bought my house nine years ago, which I designed from scratch, I designed the kitchen to be left-handed. I am sure the ninety percent of the population that are right-handed are doing a collective ‘WTF are you talking about’ at that statement, but trust me. I thought this through. Righties don't have to.

I have renters in that house now, and I have no idea if they’re right or left-handed, but there is a part of me that hopes they’re righties and are wondering at this moment, as mom is preparing Sunday breakfast, why she seems to have to make awkward moves to get around that kitchen. Because the owner meant it to be that way. When I go through a buffet line, and if righties preceded me, the vats of food show their marks – spoon on the right, the right side of the vat empty. I scoop my food up lefty and leave the spoon on the left, marking my presence.

 

A task as simple as writing is even a chore for lefties. Ever wonder why many lefties have that crook in their wrists when they write? It is because our hand is going over what we just wrote. If we are using a pen, that is why you see smudged writing. That is where the crook came from – we are trying to get our hand out of the way; doing whatever we can to adapt to your world. I choose not to conform. I hold my hand like anyone else would. Deal with my smudges. If it is some kind of official document, I put a napkin under my hand. 

I noticed there seems to be more lefties than there used to be. Thank goodness. I believe the statistic when I was young was that three percent of the world was lefty. Now it is up to about ten percent. And I believe that if there wasn’t religious persecution of us centuries ago (We were considered witches and burned at the stake. The Latin word for Left is Sinistra, or Sinister. The French word is Gauche, meaning clumsy or unrefined), and had teachers in the last century not forced lefties to write with their right hands and turned them into stutterers in the process, that percentage would be much higher. I would imagine it would be close to where it is supposed to me, which in theory would be half of the world.

And speaking of schools, look at a student desk. Righties get a nice extension to rest their right arm on. Lefties have to let their arm hang out with no support. Bastards.

So lefties of the world unite! Change your mouse buttons so you have to ‘left-click’ to open the menu. It is a small step but a good one to show these righties what we have to deal with. Don’t adapt - we've done that for long enough. 

Solidarity, my sinister brothers and sisters.

Lobster Boy

I remember when I was a teenager and the carnival came to town…I was maybe 18 at the time. Me and my girlfriend went and rode the rides, ate the carnival food and generally had a good time. Then our eyes caught a sign on the side of a tent - SEE THE AMAZING LOBSTER BOY - HALF MAN HALF LOBSTER! ONLY ONE DOLLAR!

Well, our curiosity got the best of us. I plunked down two bucks and we went inside the tent. And there sat a pitiable creature - a middle aged man who was born with a deformity. Instead of having a full set of fingers and toes, his hands and feet consisted of fused-together fingers and toes that, well, resembled a lobster. Thus the promotion. This poor man that life kicked in the teeth gave his canned speech about how he was born that way, that he is married and has three healthy kids. We were transfixed for about 30 seconds and then we had to get the hell out of there. He was, literally, a circus sideshow freak.

John Daly is the PGA Tour’s version of Lobster Boy.

Not that he was born with a deformity or had a raw deal tossed at him by life. But rather, because of what he has become on the tour. Big John burst on the golfing scene in 1991 when, as the ninth alternate, drove all night from Arkansas to Indiana to tee it up in the PGA Championship. Never having seen the course before, he relied on his caddy to give him yardages, bombed his prodigious drives past all the trouble, and ended up winning by three shots. A folk hero was born. Four years later he repeated the feat at the British Open, defeating Costantino Rocca in a playoff at, of all places, St. Andrews. Four years on the tour and he had already secured two major championships. He was a freak - far longer off the tee than anyone on the tour but also with a velvety putting stroke and solid short game. He added three other wins on tour to validate the major wins. He had talent.

But John was also a train wreck - four marriages, wrecked hotel rooms, alcoholism, domestic scuffles, suspensions from the tour, compulsive gambling, inexplicable blow-ups on the course, disqualifications, a reality show on the Golf Channel, weight issues, chain-smoking, lap-band surgery, hideous pants, hitting balls off of beer cans, hitting shots over horrified spectator's heads. Ironically, this just more endeared him to his legion of fans that saw him as the anti-establishment rebel that just grips it and rips it, finds it and rips it again. He brought the ‘Bubba Element’ to tour galleries - fans that couldn’t give a rip about whether he won…let alone compete. They just wanted to see him take out driver on every tee and bomb it. And he did. He would then shoot 77-81 and miss the cut by a mile…if he didn’t walk off the course first after purposely violating some rule or by pumping five balls into a lake.

Which is exactly what he did last week at the Australian Open. Five consecutive shots into a lake, trying to reach a par-5 in two. At last count he was hitting twelve when he decided that he could not finish, and walked off the course. He said it was because he ran out of golf balls. Well no shit if you're going Tin Cup on the twelfth hole when you know you have six more holes to play. It was a lame excuse that reflect lame behavior.

When the PGA Tour holds an event, the field of players is filled through a number of methods: Certain players are exempt, in other words, they are automatically invited, via their recent performances. This would include winners of recent tour events, the defending champion, the top 50 on the money list and so on. Then there are the ones that have to play their way in - these are called Monday Qualifiers - players that show up on Monday morning with maybe 4 slots to play for. The last group is what are called Sponsor’s Exemptions. This is a small group of freebie invitations doled out at the discretion of the sponsor of the event - they are usually used for local phenoms, maybe the head club pro at the host course. Anyone who can increase the paid attendance thus boosting the gate.

It is these Sponsor’s Exemptions that Daly lives off of. Daly last won a tour event in 2004. Once in a blue moon his name appears on the leader board, only to quickly vanish when the obligatory blowup occurs. He is not exempt from anything anymore, as he is ranked 666th in the world.

But sponsors love him. He increases the gate. He brings the Bubbas in.

In 2007 I served as a volunteer at the Ginn Sur Mer Classic in Port St. Lucie, Florida. A fringe PGA Tour event held in October, after the Tour Championship and thus after the ‘serious’ golf is done for the year. My job at that event was as a Marshal at the 16th tee - to keep the crowds quiet while a player was teeing off, and so on. The galleries were small; even the leaders couldn’t draw more than perhaps a hundred spectators. Then Daly’s group arrived. Five times the size of anyone else’s gallery. Fortified with, ahem, beverages, they whooped it up for their man…even though their man was on his way to missing the cut.

So why is this so bad? What’s wrong with letting a sponsor toss Daly an exemption so people can get excited about him being in the field?

Well, nothing, other than integrity and professionalism. Every other golfer on the planet has to earn their way into events. Every other player has to perform to maintain their exempt status. Thousands of players that were once good have seen their skills erode to the point that they can no longer compete on the PGA Tour, thus you no longer see them there. Not John. He gets a pass on his behavior and on the state of his game. He is doled out sponsors exemptions when other far more deserving players are Monday Qualifying.

His role has been marginalized down to suiting just one element - the morbidly curious. A two-time major winner, whose only redeeming value left to golf is to slake the thirst of those that cheer wrecks in NASCAR.

He is Lobster Boy.

The Republic Party

This happens every time. Whenever I post a political story, I vow that it will be the last one, usually because I am able to vent my spleen and be done with it. And politics, like religion, are very polarizing subjects; subjects that people take hard stances on and these stances can erode friendships. And frankly, I value my friendships more than being right.

But dammit, there they go again.

The ‘they’ I am referring to is the Republican Party. And specifically, certain members of it that have ingrained such an abject rejection of anything not fitting their paradigm, that they do not even call the Democratic Party by its proper name - which is, the Democratic Party. Instead they have gone shorthand and now refer to it as the ‘Democrat Party.’

Really? This is how you have to get your point across, by purposely butchering the name of the opposing party?

His Rushness does this all the time - “The Democrat Party’ did this or that. And now there is a new offender - the Republican’s newest Flavor of the Month, Herman Cain. Saddled with accusations by four different women of sexual misconduct, Cain has, not surprisingly, rejected their accusations. Fair enough. He is trying to win a nomination, and the modus operandi in that environment is to deny deny deny. Make the accusers prove their case, innocent until proven guilty and all that. He is entitled to that. However, in the process of denying any wrongdoing, he, of course, has to throw in the following:

Cain said there was a "machine" trying to keep a businessman out of the White House, and said Sharon Bialek was a "troubled woman" put forward by "the Democrat machine."

http://news.yahoo.com/herman-cain-says-democrat-machine-him-200328060.html

The Democrat machine.

So in Cain’s reasoning, not only are the charges false, but they are part of an overall conspiracy by some concocted ‘machine’ and that further, said ‘machine’ is of the ‘Democrat’ variety. Never mind the fact that most believe the initial story was leaked from the Rick Perry camp, which can hardly be categorized as having anything to do with Democrats. But it is quite a machine if the results of his Texas gubernatorial elections are any indicator.

The point here is the total absence of professionalism replaced by opportunism - if something’s wrong with a candidate’s past, why, it’s the Democrats fault. Cain allegedly slid his hand up some woman’s dress and tried to force her head down to his junk - the Democrats did it! Please.

Want to know what the Democrats are doing while this all unfolds? They are patiently sitting back being entertained by the immolation of Republican candidates. Herman Cain is not even on the Democrat’s radar yet - he’s just the latest of a series of flawed candidates the Republicans have trotted out and tried to prop us as the Answer To Obama. In other words, there’s no need for the Democrats to fire up any kind of ‘machine’ against him - he hasn’t even made it out of the intramural scrum yet.

Write this down - Barack Obama will be re-elected. And the reason is the Republicans cannot get their collective act together. They are disenfranchised with Romney, they have been hijacked by the fringe elements of their (Tea) party, and as such they are trotting out each candidate on a circadian rhythm as the one who will take Obama down. This is just Cain’s month in the barrel. I predict next month it will be Huntsman’s turn. And these two already follow the implosion of Gingrich, Bachmann and Perry. Christie and Palin won’t run. So if the Republicans think “anyone” can beat Obama, then by God, get ‘Anyone’ out there and have at it. If they think Obama is such a disaster of a president, then why can’t they coalesce around one candidate and be done with it?

I will tell you why. Because they know they cannot defeat Obama. 2012 is a lost cause. The candidates know it, especially the smart ones like Christie who have chosen not to be part of the mosh pit. Romney has to run because it's his second and likely last attempt at it. 2012 is his last hurrah...which is exactly what it will be.

Yes, Obama is vulnerable, but his vulnerability will be pitted against disarray. And that disarray will be represented by either a candidate they really do not want (Romney), or whatever other candidate emerges from the scrum unscathed. Well, good luck with that. The Republicans have a habit of either eating their young or running candidates one election (or two) too late.

But I will tell you that there is a scintilla of truth to Cain’s claim of a ‘Democrat Machine’. There indeed is one, but it is presently on idle. It will be fired up once the Republicans finally settle on a candidate. There's no need to engage it now. But just to be clear, it is the same type of machine that Obama has been battling (birth certificate ring a bell?) since the day to took office.

And sorry, Pizza Man, but the Republican candidate ain’t going to be you. The Republicans cannot trot out an alleged sexual offender as a candidate, whether the allegations are true or not. The stink has already stuck. And further, it is hard for me to believe that four different women are out to get you. This isn’t one disgruntled former employee that may have a history of emotional problems - it is four different ones. One accuser you can discredit. Lotsa luck with four (and counting, I am sure).

Oh wait I forgot - it’s the Democrat Machine causing this, not Cain's inability to keep his Jimmy in his pants. My bad. 

But anyway. Back to why I started this rant. These people cannot even call the Democratic Party by its given name, but instead truncate it to try to make it irrelevant. It fits with their all sizzle no substance approach to campaigning…and governing. Why, the problem is not us - it’s that other party who we have decided to change the name of.

At the end of the day, I have an implicit trust of the American people to see thought this and reject the abject pandering of…

The Republic Party.

The Riff That Saved Rock

I love rock and roll. It is the soundtrack of, well, my life basically. Long as I can remember there was some kind of rock, whether it was bubblegum as a pre-pubescent teen, Elton John singing Rocket Man at the roller rink, or Black Sabbath groaning from my brother’s room. When I hear Maggie May I think of hitting puberty. If it's Boston's More Than A Feeling, it's copping more than a feeling from Marci Bartlett in an Ohio cornfield.

For my generation, rock was rebellion. It was a drastic left-turn away from the sound of our parent’s generation, which consisted of Sinatra and Streisand. It was mandatorily cool to rock. The fact that it got under our parent’s collective skin made it all that much better - “Turn that crap down!” was my dad’s favorite phrase when I was between 16 and 19 years of age. I sported tee shirts of all the concerts I attended - Blue Oyster Cult, Golden Earring, Deep Purple to name but a very few. It was a new, exciting sound.

I also realized that it had been around for about twenty years, having essentially started when Elvis stole the black man’s Delta Blues, swung his hips and made teenage girls cream their collective undergarments. But by the mid-seventies, it was still a fresh sound because it had regenerated itself a few times over - the British Invasion snatched the mantle from Elvis, who by then was busy making bad movies. Then the psychedelic sound reconstituted the 60s pop sound into a mind-expanding experience. The Vietnam War brought us the protest sounds of Crosby, Stills Nash & Young. And when I was in high school, Bruce Springsteen and his street troubadour style of gassing up the Chevy and getting the hell out of this dump of a town resonated with us teenagers wanting to tell our parents to shove it. Rock had a way of reinventing itself when it was necessary. 

The 1980s came and with it some new sounds - the punk scene gave us The Clash and U2, two very relevant bands that kept things tight. Then there was the synth-tinged, dancy stuff of bands like Psychedelic Furs, The Smiths and Depeche Mode. Not my cuppa tea, but still, interesting new sounds. But these sounds, in my mind, were fringe efforts. The mainstream of rock and roll was, unfortunately, starting to fall under its own collective excess. Pseudo-metal junk bands like Warrant, Cinderella and Poison were taking over the airwaves. These bands brought nothing new - they were a rehash of what was already done filled with vacuous lyrics. Springsteen talked about busting out - Warrant talked about busting cherries. Hairspray and spandex took over. It was a wasteland of cheesy music videos. Something had to give, lest the soundtrack of our lives turned into Driving & Crying or Stryper. There wasn't a decent rock song from 1987 through the end of that decade, save Guns 'N Roses. By 1990, rock was dying, being choked of all relevance and integrity.

Then, in 1991, a group of surly slackers from Seattle gave us the following riff -

Four power chords. F–B–A–D. Simple. Revolutionary.

And rock was saved. 

Suddenly spandex was out, flannel was in. Big hair was replaced by unwashed hair. Mosh pits were created. It was no longer about production; it was about plugging in the Gibson and letting it fly. Don’t need no mixing boards, don’t need no producer. Just let it rip. Keep it underproduced. Keep it raw. Keep the hairspray.

The Grunge Sound was born. Mother Love Bone begat Nirvana which begat Soundgarden which begat Pearl Jam which begat Alice In Chains. The sound spread from the epicenter of Seattle and bands like The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Stone Temple Pilots built upon its new relevance. And it was a sound that was true to the roots of rock. It was in your face without making you wince at its silliness. It had the same punch as Elvis had in 1956 when he told people not to step on his Blue Suede Shoes.

Now, I understand that many may not like Grunge. That’s cool. It is a somewhat dense, depressing sound, not conducive to dancing or picking up chicks. But it saved rock. I shudder to think what would have happened had Kurt Cobain, despite all his eccentricities, had chosen not to say ‘Fuck this shit’ and didn’t try to keep rock from careening over the cliff under the weight of its own ever-increasing irrelevance. The lyrics of Smells Like Teen Spirit may have a certain amount of WTF-ness to them, but that didn’t matter. It was the sound that mattered.

A mulatto. An albino. A mosquito. My libido.

Yeah.

How time flies. That was twenty years ago. Thus I sense that rock may be ready for another seismic shift. The novelty of Cobain’s indulgent self-pity has long worn off and has been cloned so many times that it is now just a caricature of his original. I’m sorry, but Buckcherry just doesn’t do it for me. So the time may be ripe for another guy (or gal) to take the mantle and shake us out of our complacency. It’s time for rock to reinvent again.

Kurt said it back in 1991 - Here we are now. Entertain us.

An Influence Silenced

“A writer’s job is to tell the truth”

I was sitting here on a Saturday morning doing the enjoyable slow wake-up that a weekend morning affords. No job to rush to, no clock telling me where I am supposed to be or when. Cuppa coffee, check emails, get updated on the internet news.

 

And there it was –

Andy Rooney passed away.

92 years old, and only a month after his last installment of life inside his brain at his usual place at the end of the weekly 60 Minutes program. At that goodbye segment, Andy said he wanted to work until he died. Well darned if he didn’t. A career that began as a World War II correspondent ended over 60 years later, and then only a month after that, gone.

Awesome. What a life.

When I started my little free-lance writing gig for my personal pleasure that has manifested itself in this blog and a published book, I tried to tap into my own ‘style’ of writing. While I had/have numerous thoughts rattling around my brain, I had to find a style that expressed such thoughts in an entertaining, cogent style. Like many undertaking such a task, I fell back on my influences, and I developed one that was an amalgam of them – Hunter S. Thompson’s edgy first-person method of expression, Terry Pluto’s conversational style that feels more like a chat than a read…and Andy Rooney’s method of saying what everyone thought.

That quote at the top of this story is Andy’s. And while many would argue – rightfully so – that Andy did not always tell the truth but instead told his opinion, understand - he told the truth as he believed it. And he did it in such a way that, even if you disagreed with it, you still had to either ponder it or laugh at it, but never ignore it. He had a folksy style of looking straight into the camera and talking to you, and then would deliver his opinion in a style that would sometimes make people gasp. But it commanded your attention. It made you think. And it forced people decide, is Andy’s truth my truth?

Reporters state facts. My ex-wife was a reporter and she once told me her job was to state the who, what, where, when of a story then end it. But a writer? Writers seek truth. And truth is a moving target that is viewed through whatever prism the writer or the reader sees through. Case in point – last month I wrote a story titled ‘Common Sense’ where I made four declarative statements. These statements were the truth…as I believe it to be. Statements like, if abortions were illegal there would still be abortions, or less guns would mean less gun deaths.

These are statements that can – and are – debated, but the point here is they reflect what I learned from Andy. State your truth, explain it, then let people decide where they fall and let them decide if it is their truth as well. This is why I sometimes hear from people that I am way off-base in my thinking. I’m not. I’m just stating my truth.

And so did Andy. Perhaps better than anyone in our time.

And he did it in such an entertaining way that – ponder this for a moment – he was given three minutes at the end of the highest-rated news show on television for over three decades. His was the last word after everyone else had theirs. There were the stories for the week, and then there was Andy, and then the ticking clock of the 60 Minutes sign-off. That stalwart show that has stood the test of time ended it every week with this disheveled curmudgeon character telling us ‘Didja ever wonder…?’

For a writer seeking the truth, it does not get any better than that.

Goodbye Andy. And thank you.

Hijo

Parents love their children. No real news flash there. Many do because of the inseparable bond, others because they feel obligated to do so. Some are proud, some can't wait until they turn 18 so they can boot them out of the house.

I just love my son.

I was a reluctant father-to-be, as Nick, my only child, was not a ‘planned’ event; I got my girlfriend pregnant in 1993. There was a lot of fear on my part over becoming a father, as I imagined my life forever changing. Well, it did. For the better.

When Nick was born, the bond crystallized the moment I saw that schlock of brown hair as he was placed in my arms, at about two minutes old. Suddenly, all the things fathers told me permanently embedded. I was now a father, and I will protect this little entity with my life. It was an immediate, chemical reaction.

I missed the first few years of his life, as I relocated to Ohio. In early 2001 I returned to Florida, when Nick was 6 years old, and re-entered it. And that began my foray into real fatherhood. I learned to like Spongebob Squarepants, Ed Edd and Eddie, and getting slimed. I learned to be interested in whatever interested him, and adapted when those interests changed. In other words, Squidward was pretty cool when he was ten, not so much now. I used him to pick up girls at the mall because he was so damn adorable. I have a box of about 100 Happy Meal toys collected through the years from our dinners...and I am keeping every one of them. We would sit on the beach and talk. One night we were inundated by hundreds of hatching sea turtles during one of our beach talks.

I tried to teach him golf. He didn’t want to learn it. I took him to football and baseball games, but he would rather sit at home and draw. And draw. And draw. It was this proclivity that both his mom and I picked up on and realized that we may have a mini Michelangelo on our hands, so we enrolled him into summer art schools. Gifts from relatives were of the creative variety – sketchbooks, crayons, magic markers and the like. And Nick kept drawing.

When it was time for Middle School, Nick got accepted into a magnet arts school.  He is now in a magnet high school, the Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach. He is in the eleventh grade now, and his work is absolutely amazing. Scholarships await.

I have had friends of mine ask if I am disappointed that Nick doesn’t play golf. Not at all. Not even for a moment. He is a talented kid, and I just want him to go with wherever that talent takes him. Like any parent, I just want him to be happy.

Nick is quiet, introspective, highly intelligent, and bit of a wiseass. He is respectful and courteous, but there is mischief in those eyes. In other words, he is just like me. He doesn’t call me Dad – he calls me Padre. He loves classic rock and boasts every Beatles song in his ipod. We don’t so much talk these days as much as we telepathically communicate – we know what each is thinking. I could not be prouder of him if I tried.

I remember being in a time management seminar at work when Nick was maybe three years old. The facilitator asked who had a small child. I raised my hand. She said to me, ‘Jerry, there is a high wire connecting two skyscrapers, 100 stories high. I’ll give you $100 to walk across it. Will you do it?’ Of course, I said no. She said ‘What about a thousand dollars?’ Nope. ‘One MILLION dollars?’ hmmmm…nope. ‘Okay. Your son just got loose and he’s going across the wire. Now what do you do?’

My immediate answer, without hesitation - ‘I go and get him.’

And that’s what being a parent is all about.

Common Sense

Lately I have found myself defending my liberalism, which is fine. I understand that we are a nation of divergent opinions. What irks me are people that have stances that simply fly in the face of logic.

So in this spirit, below I will make four statements that, I believe, cannot be disputed, yet I know they will be. Because many (if not all) have been nuanced to death by those that would attempt to make people see what does not exist.

And you can take these four statements, add them up, and you get a pretty good barometer of where my mind is at. The sad truth is, in this day and age it would paint me as a fringe left-wing wacko. But to me, they’re simply common sense:

If there were fewer guns, there would be fewer gun deaths. Yep, I started off with the one issue that will likely have the most blowback. The initial reaction will be, ‘if you take away my guns only the criminals will have them.’ Well, possibly. But note how I worded it – if there were fewer guns. I am not advocating taking your gun away. The problem is, many do not have a gun...they have guns, plural, and does anyone really need ten of them?

We are armed to the teeth in this country. Sadly, Columbine-like events are becoming pretty common. In fact, I'll predict it right now: Within the next two weeks there will be a story of multiple killings by someone at a convenience store, bowling alley...or a school.

So I am sure that if we had, say, 30% less guns there would still be plenty to go around and we would be a safer country. Those that disagree will say the exact opposite – they would have us believe that more guns means a safer world, and fewer guns would make for a more dangerous world. Well, go ahead and believe that is you wish, but rationale and reason dictate that stance makes no sense. When it comes to guns, less doesn’t mean more. Less means less. It is arithmetic certainty.

If abortions were illegal, there would still be abortions. This seems to be the unacknowledged fact by those that are Pro-Life. In their mind it is a moral issue that would be fully addressed by passing a law. This is ridiculously over-simplistic. It assumes that a pregnant teenager possesses moral equivalency, and further that she would have that baby if she could not legally get an abortion. Doubtful. Improbable. She’s scared. And no amount of pleading or waiting time will convince her otherwise – you can try to fill her heart with whatever religious mores you possess, but she is pregnant. She’s not going to find God. She’s going to get an abortion.

Anyone that does not acknowledge that fact cannot see the world beyond his or her religious-tinted prism. So the difference between legal and illegal should be replaced with the difference between safe and unsafe. Again, that scared teenager is having an abortion. So the question becomes, do we endanger her health as well? I get that Pro-Lifers consider it morally wrong. But this isn’t about morality – it’s about making a medical procedure that will occur regardless as safe as possible.

Whenever I hear Pro-Lifers state that abortions should be illegal, the only question I have, which has never been adequately answered is, how much jail time should the woman get for having one? And don't cop-out and say that only the doctor would get sentenced - that's like saying only the drug dealer should get the sentence and not the drug user. You make abortion illegal and you have created a new, large group of offenders. Better keep building those jails, because they will quickly be filled with this new class of criminals.

Government creates jobs. Here it comes. I can feel it – ‘Government creates work, only the private sector creates jobs!’ Well, I am sure that policemen, firefighters, code enforcers, urban planners, teachers and social workers are thrilled to know that their careers that they went to college for or were stringently trained for aren’t really careers – they are governmental constructs.

To be sure, the country needs a robust private sector in order to push the needle and reduce unemployment – of that I totally agree. But ‘government’ jobs should not be vilified in the process. If Tea Partiers got their wish and “government” was removed from their lives, so would their safety, education, the roads they drive on and bridges their drive over. They may be free from the so-called shackles of government taxation, but the landscape they would preside over would look like Mad Max’s Thunderdome.

The free market needs regulated. Two letters: BP. Many on the right want us to believe that the reason the private sector is not flourishing is due to crushing regulation imposed by an overzealous government. Red herring. Not true. First off, the reason the private sector is not flourishing is demand is down because we are in a recession. Therefore, reducing (or eliminating) regulation will not increase demand. It will just truncate the process of getting goods that aren't being bought to the marketplace; a truncation that could possibly have disastrous results. Do we really want the FDA abolished so that prescription drugs with dubious claims can flood the market? Do we want the EPA done away with so we can return to the day when rivers caught fire? Regulations are there for a reason, very good reasons. And it is primarily this – the private sector is not interested in the public good.  It is interested in making money.

Okay. Fire away. The only ground rule is, fight logic with logic. I used it. You do the same.

Know-It-All

I have been doing quite a bit of introspection lately. This is due to a number of reasons, but chief among them is the desire to live the rest of my life happy, joyous and free. And it has become very apparent that one of the main roadblocks to that is how I interact with others.

People piss me off.

That phrase – right there – is the crux of my issue. I am arrogant. I flaunt superiority at the expense of others. I build myself up at the expense of others. This makes them upset at me which makes me upset at them. And when they express it I redouble my efforts to show them how wrong they are. In other words, my initial premise is ‘I am right and you are wrong’, and when you challenge me on that, it becomes a contest that I must win. And when you try to explain that it is no longer about the argument but rather how I am arguing it (arrogantly), I will try to win that debate. In other words, if you say I am being arrogant, I will argue arrogantly that I’m not being arrogant.

This helps explain why I am 53 and alone.

Who wants to be around that? Gawd, if I were dealing with someone like that I would tell such a person to go fuck themselves. Which, by the way, is quite an arrogant statement.

Where did this all start? Well, like most of our personality traits, as a child. Being the youngest, I felt I had to ‘earn’ airtime in our family. And to do so required (so I thought) outrageous behavior or statements. I thought my older brother was very smart and cool so I emulated that behavior. And finally, knowledge was highly valued in our tribe, so I embarked on obtaining two college degrees. Add all this up, and I became cocooned in my own smugness. Arrogant behavior became my subconscious and automatic response to most everything. I worshipped at the altar of ego, and equated happiness with being right. So I reveled in the win of the argument.

Well you know what? Oftentimes I did “win”. And then I was alone.

To the victor goes the isolation.

As I got older, I started to recognize that people didn’t like a know-it-all, but I was unable to put the brakes on my arrogance, so I developed a counter-balancing personality trait. Charm. My thinking was, yes, I have this negative aspect of my personality, but if I couched it in a pleasant, flattering persona, it would at least be tolerated. Take the good with the bad, right? I thought I could still be loved with this construct. Well, I was loved. Briefly. The ‘Charm Offensive’ worked for a while until girlfriends figured out it was a façade that hid my true essence.

But what really is my ‘true essence’? If arrogance was a learned trait in childhood and adolescence, that’s not my true essence. So what is the real me? Gosh, I just don't know. I do know I want to be liked by everyone, so the foundation for my behavior is unrealistic to begin with. So, basing my behavior on a ridiculous premise is a sure recipe for unhappiness.

I now recognize that arrogance and flattery were things I picked up along the way, so if those were stripped away, what’s left? Here’s where I am with that. I am human. Sometimes I am right, sometimes I am wrong, but more importantly, who really cares? I am just another bozo on the bus, trying to get through life like everyone else. And one thing I have learned is, I can’t do this gig alone. I need help. And that phrase right there – I need help – is, I believe, the key to breaking through the icy shell of arrogance that I have constructed. I don’t have the answers.

So here I am, and here’s what I have deduced so far. Arrogance was a learned behavior just like charm was. I piled crap on top of crap hoping the sweet smell of one would offset the acrid smell of the other. 

So if you were to conclude that I am full of crap, grab a prize.

So who am I, really?

My gawd. Stay tuned. As soon as I figure that out I will let you know.

And I don’t mean that arrogantly.

Deja Vu

“These students have to learn what law and order is all about” - President Richard Nixon, to General Robert Canterbury, Ohio National Guard, at Kent State University, May 4, 1970

“I, for one, am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country.” - Rep. Eric Cantor, describing the Occupy Wall Street movement, October 7, 2011

Quick question. Describe the most important  American value, the most inalienable right that we as Americans have. Life? Liberty? Pursuit of happiness? Yes, those are all guaranteed in our Constitution and are pretty damn important. But I am going to offer up what I think the most important right we as citizens have -

The right to dissent.

Dissent. The right to freely express disagreement with a person, an institution or a government without fear of reprisal; without fear of your life, liberty or pursuit of happiness  being infringed upon. The right to protest perceived injustices. This, to me, is what makes us unique in the world. We not only allow dissent, we embrace it.

That is, until someone in power does not like it.

I placed two quotes at the top of this story to illuminate. The first was how then-president Nixon described the student protests at Kent State University. For context, Nixon had chosen to invade Cambodia five days earlier as part of the expansion of the Vietnam War. This touched off protests around college campuses, and in the instance of Kent State, to students holding rallies on campus that included the burying of the Constitution since, it was concluded, Nixon chose to ignore it by invading a country without seeking Congressional approval first. To be fair, there was some violence - students trashed downtown Kent and set fire to the ROTC building on campus.

Five days later, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on the protesters who were peaceably assembling on campus, killing four and wounding nine.

Fast-forward to 2011 and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Now this movement does not have the same level of starkness as Kent State; in other words, the OWS movement seems more concerned about economic unfairness rather than escalation of a war that students soon saw themselves forced to fight - and possibly die - in. But that does not make their cause any less just. It is dissent over injustice. And it is spreading.

Now, read Eric Cantor’s quote again. Note the use of the word ‘mob’. I do not know about you, but that one word sends a chill up my spine. These are people that, to date, have been nonviolent young people dissenting. They are practicing an inalienable right of all Americans. They are, in essence, patriots. Our country was founded on dissent. They are simply mimicking the behavior we revere when we read about Revere.

The chilling aspect of Cantor’s quote is this is how the table gets set for violence. We have seen it before at Kent State - first you vilify the protesters, then you shoot them. As an aside, there were a number of things the Kent State protesters were being called - “Brown shirts”…”The worst kind of humans”…and this was by the governor of Ohio at the time, James Rhodes. It was no wonder that armed soldiers were placed on the campus at his order. They had to, as Nixon’s quote said ‘learn what law and order was all about’.

Well they did.

So I now have a familiar fear about these OWS protesters. The political propaganda machine, at least on the Republican side, is being geared up. They are not dissenting Americans, they are now ‘mobs’ according to Cantor.

The slippery slope to violence has started. Touched off, not by those exercising their rights, but by those who take exception to their use of them. I fully expect in the coming days of a “report” of these dissenters vandalizing property or endangering the lives of regular folks. Because that will give Cantor and his ilk the ammunition needed to, well, show them what law and order is all about.

And we will have to bury more young people killed at the hands of their government.

It Ain’t Easy Being Brown

It is October, and we are smack in the middle of the football season. I love October – the weather cools, Friday nights belong to High School football, Saturdays are the domain of the colleges, and Sunday belongs to the pros.

The pros. Ugh.

This is not an indictment of the professional game. Instead I just got that uncontrollable chill go up my spine. It happens when I think about my beloved team, the Cleveland Browns.

Ugh. It just happened again.

I grew up in northeast Ohio, about 35 miles south of Cleveland and about 15 miles from the pro football hall of fame in Canton. The roots of the professional game were planted there. The league was formed in 1921 in a car dealership in Akron, my hometown. As a child in the 1960’s, Sunday afternoons in the fall had the same ritual – my mom would cook a vat of spaghetti sauce and all the relatives would come over to watch the Browns lay waste to their opponent week after week. Like clockwork.

Because, this may be difficult for anyone under 40 to imagine, but the Browns used to be really good. Consistently good. Not catch lightning in a bottle for one season good, but year in and year out in the playoffs good. The saying back then was, there are two things you can count on in December – snow and the Cleveland Browns. They were called the New York Yankees of pro football.

So that was the environment I was raised in, and I fully expected my adult life to be one of glowing pride of celebration of multiple NFL championships. In 1970, when I was 12, the NFL and AFL merged, and three teams from the NFL moved to the AFL – the Colts, the Steelers and the Browns. The reconstituted AFC Central was formed consisting of the Browns and three shitball teams – the expansion Cincinnati Bengals, the AFL-doormat Houston Oilers, and our perennial whipping boys, the Pittsburgh Steelers. At that moment in time, the Browns’ all-time record against the Steelers was 52-9. I kid you not. This was not going to be pretty, I thought – we would own that division for years on end.

Then in 1972 Franco Harris scooped a ball off the turf and the Steeler dynasty was born.

Ugh. It just happened again.

The 70’s and early 80’s featured glimpses of glories past, such as the upstart Kardiac Kids of Sam Rutigliano and Brian Sipe, but hopes were dashed on a ridiculously cold January day in 1981 when the first chink in our psyche, Red Right 88, was planted. The late 80’s brought a string of dominating teams led by Bernie Kosar that could not get past one person – John Elway. The Drive and The Fumble got added to the list of acrid memories.

The 1990’s brought turmoil. We hired a coach you may have heard of. Bill Belichick. But this wasn’t the hoodie-wearing genius Bill Belichick. This was the arrogant young punk version who had the nerve to cut Bernie Kosar. In mid-season. With the team in first place and the starting Quarterback, Vinny Testaverde, injured. That day made Belichick a vilified assbag in the minds of the fans. A 11-5 record in 1994 did not matter – Bill Must Go was the chant.

Well, he did, but unfortunately, so did the rest of the team. After the 1995 season Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore. And all those previous disappointments paled in comparison to having the Cleveland Browns….are you effin’ kidding me? taken away. Three years later, through incessant demands from the fan base, the NFL gave us a new team.

I use the word ‘team’ very loosely in this instance.

It was a team in name only. What it was, was the most horrid collection of truck drivers in football uniforms ever assembled. Just God-awful. 2-14, 3-13…records that we never dreamed of happening to the Cleveland Browns became regular occurrences. We changed coaches and general managers the way people change their underwear. Bust draft picks, overpriced free agents and snake-oil salesman general managers all conspired to turn the New York Yankees of pro football into the Washington Generals – the patsy team that every other team circled on their schedule as an easy win.

The newest incarnation of the Browns appears to be heading in the right direction, but I just don’t know. Not that I do not trust the people in charge, it’s that I cannot believe this team can ever be consistent winners. Somewhere along the way we apparently pissed off the Football Gods and they are making us suffer. As a result, our fan base is probably the most neurotic in professional sport - the only other team/fans I can compare to are Chicago Cub fans. We always assume the worst is going to happen, and often it does. LeCharles Bentley, Brady Quinn, Derek Anderson, Butch Davis, Willie Green, Bottlegate...and that's just the new incarnation of this team - we already carried Red Right 88, The Drive, The Fumble & The Move in our psyche before we got the new team.

So we assume the worst. And until 'the worst' stops happening to us, we will continue to go there. Sucks, but that's just how it is. We are like a beaten, abused dog - whenever we hear a newspaper being rolled up, we cower...even though we still love our 'owner' unconditionally. He can beat us and we still love him. Even when he just may be rolling up that newspaper to swat a fly - we think it's coming for us.

This helps to explain our collective psyche. You think Steeler fans think like this? Hell no. They're dogs that have been fed Filet Mignon and sleep on a feather bed. They got 6 Lombardis to ogle at. We get a glimmer of hope, and we think, 'How are we gonna eff this up?'

Here comes another ugh.

Often I am asked, ‘Why are you a Browns fan?’ Great question, and one I have pondered often, usually on the heels of a blowout loss. And I have come to this conclusion:

I blame my parents. They could have conceived and raised me anywhere else but northeast Ohio, and I would have been none the wiser. I could have grown up a Dolphin fan and at least have had two Super Bowl victories in my youth to point to.

But no. Cleveland it is.

And you know what? One day when the Browns win that Super Bowl, which will hopefully happen before I lose my marbles and being fed through a straw and am wearing a diaper, it will be a wonderful day. It will make all those years of mind-numbing catastrophes all worth it.

Go Browns.

Transcending Transience

Frequent visitors to my blog know a couple things about me. One, I was born and raised in northeast Ohio – I have burned a lot of bandwidth writing about my upbringing there. Secondly, I now live, and have for about 25 years, in Florida. From Boca Raton to Orlando, and most places in between. I presently reside in Altamonte Springs, a suburb of Orlando.

When I first moved to Florida in the early 80’s, one of the large knocks on the Sunshine State was its transience-ness. Many lamented over the fact that the state was loaded people from everywhere else and as a result the place had no sense of community – nobody knew their neighbors, and even if you took the time to know them, they’d be gone in six months anyway. That trendy new restaurant down the street? Better hit it fast, because it will be gone this time next year.

My dad used to call Florida ‘The Land of the Hustle’, and he wasn’t referring to disco. He meant it was a place to make a quick buck then get the hell out before the authorities caught up with you. Trying to find a reputable person to tile your roof or remodel your bathroom was like playing Russian roulette insofar as getting someone to actually commit to finishing the job. The shores were teeming with bales of washed-up drugs and Haitians. The growth rate was around 20 percent annually, and with it came anyone that ever swung a hammer, even if they couldn’t pass a background check or a drug test. People were on edge, scared. Looking over their shoulders. Nobody trusted anyone.

But something has happened over the past 30 years. For sure, I got older, so perhaps I view things differently now – it’s one thing to be 24, drinking beer and smoking pot on the beach with my buddy Gary while we took running starts from the road and tried to jump as far as we could off sand-duned cliffs to the beach below, risking broken bones and concussions, to being a homeowner with a good job and a teenage son. Perhaps time has mellowed me.

But I don’t think so. Rather, I think time has mellowed Florida. Things have settled. Tracts of homes became neighborhoods. People got nicer. They stayed. They grew roots here. Schools have dramatically improved, or at least they are on a par with the rest of the country – there was a time that wasn’t so. For example my son is in a magnet arts high school in West Palm Beach. 85% of their graduates receive college scholarships. Palm Beach County boasts two of the top-ten public high schools in the country. Read that again – in the country. There is a lot to be proud of here, and it has nothing to do with Mickey or Mojitos.

This is not to say we do not have our problems, but now they are universal in nature. In other words, problems all areas have – unemployment, scarce jobs and the like. But nothing endemic to just Florida anymore. This stabilization can be felt and touched. Restaurants have endured. My neighbors on the street that my house is on are still there – Rufus and Jocelyn from Miami live on one side, and Butch and Deena from Metairie, Louisiana on the other. People smile now. They ask how you are and mean it. When Hurricane Jeanne hit my neighborhood in 2005 and power went out for days, Rufus had everyone over for a cookout. We helped each other out. In other words, we became a community – one of the main things that we lamented was missing from our until-then dysfunctional slice of paradise.

See, we are all still from somewhere else, but we have all made Florida our home. Not for a summer, not until our parent’s money runs out, and not until the authorities from up north catch up to us. This is our home. And I love it here. I am proud of my Ohio roots, but I am equally proud of my adopted home.

All Floridians should feel the same.