Rules of Food Salvage

By the time I finish this entry, the half-pizza sitting in the breakroom will have been there for nearly three hours.
Much like the treasure salvage industry, there are certain rules of etiquette one follows when appropriating finds made in the breakroom or other public tables in the workplace. For example, the pizza did not have a not with it saying “Here! Eat me!,” which complicates the timetable for any eventual absorption into my stomach lining. In cases like this, the default measure for inheritance is the passage of time. If the box is unattended for more than three hours, chances are it is abandoned and therefore mine for the taking free from repercussions or consequence. The problem with this rule is academic; after three hours underneath the lights of the breakroom, whatever pizza remains will probably not be fit for consumption.
In the event of bringing in goods for the consumption of the entire office, a commons-area table can be used for a dispersal point. Usually, an offering like this is brought in with great fanfare, typically something along the lines of “Hey everyone! I made brownies!” At this point, all are free to consume. The line blurs when someone leaves a bag of chips on the table or a half-bag of cookies. The assumption made by foragers such as myself is that the food is to be shared; otherwise, why would it be in a public place? Of course, one runs the risk of inheriting the owner’s wrath if the foodstuffs weren’t meant for public consumption. At this point, further diplomacy kicks in; the offending party will usually apologize and offer to replace the misbegotten goods. Normal relations resume at this point.
These rules don’t stop at the workplace; they can also be enforced at the home. Take, for example, the Ben and Jerry’s Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream my wife purchased one evening and, after eating a pitifully small serving, left mostly untouched in the freezer. I fought the urge to devour it, but eventually succumbed yesterday evening. My logical deduction was that my wife, after having sole rights to the ice cream for nearly two weeks, would have eaten it if she had so chosen to do so. I was good – I awaited the passage of time like a proper scavenger. When the time came, I moved with a quick spoon, and struck down the enemy before either Ben or Jerry knew what hit them.
For now, I await the ownership of the pizza, despite the fact that it is probably inedible. Food rewards can offer distractions from the tedium and humdrum that makes a good office run smoothly. It’s the little, unexpected things that can make life interesting, be it a donut with colored sprinkles or a pizza that someone left behind. Either way, we can claim these little distractions as our own. Co-workers are not required to agree on much, but everyone can agree to smile and share joy when there is pizza for lunch in the breakroom, or donuts in the conference room. It’s these little moments of shared joy that make the everyday routine bearable.

All The News That's Fit To Ignore

After looking at it many times in many ways, I’ve concluded that the print journalism degree I earned in college might be as disposable as the newspapers it was meant to serve.
These are tough times in my industry. I think the Internet is to blame; why look at (or buy) a newspaper when you can look on cnn.com or foxnews.com and get anything you would have gotten out of the A Section of any decent newspaper? Why pay money for a classified ad when you can just go to Craig’s List or sell it on eBay? Why go about having anything to do with a medium people have to pay to access when the Internet gives you ways to do it for free?
I admit, my career has left me in the dumps lately. I love my job - it’s unlike anything else on the planet. I love going to new places and seeing new things. Even when I make mistakes, I learn something. However, it’s not my job that’s the trouble; it’s the industry in which it’s set. The newspaper has been in decline since the 1940s, but increasing population and subscriptions offset these figures to illustrate the numbers as stable, said an article on this very subject at journalism.org. A little more than half of adults read a newspaper on a daily basis. I’ll imagine the number is even lower for the people in my generation, who seems to want to watch rather than read. If they are the future audience for a newspaper, I am in trouble.
There are mixed reactions when I spread my gospel message of doom and gloom for a rather beloved institution. Some insist that there will always be a newspaper, because it’s the best source of news around. They are correct - but their wallets seem to speak differently. Advertising is a necessary evil in my line of work; it’s an unusual relationship between idealism and commerce. When it works together, as it has done with the New York Times and other venerable establishment papers, it can work wonders. However people may hunger for a newspaper, the facts seem to speak for themselves as to a general declines - fewer people reading, fewer people subsrcibing and fewer people caring.
I would be one of those fellows on the outside of the circle shaking my head at the decline of an institution, but I do not have the luxury. I’m one of the struggling breaths trying to escape the lungs of the corpse I'm employed in. We knew faintly of this issue in college, but, as college students often do, we blinded ourselves to it through work and the idealistic preaching of the people who were teaching us. Once I graduated in 2005, everything changed. The workings of the industry became perfectly clear. Even since then things have changed. The newspaper I interned with before my current job is a shell of what it was. It’s in half of the office space with half of the staff; it too seems to be dying. We all might as well have majored in zeppelin maintenance or bowler hat repair for all of the good the skill sets we’ve learned here will do us.
Of course, I’m a pessimist. It’s easy to be. As a man of faith, I offer my anxiety to God on a daily basis, but the human part of me refuses to let things go. Before I wrote this column, I had a minor anxiety attack over the state of affairs I’m currently in. To what path does the future lead when the ink runs dry?
Part of me is afraid I’ll end up going back to school to learn more skills to become more employable once this enjoyable dalliance in the field of a noble profession has ground to a halt. I really don’t like that thought; nothing against school, but when does real life start? I realize that’s a complete misnomer; “real life” is right now, as I breathe and write this entry. But the larger part of me cannot help but feel disappointed that I have to contemplate fleeing back to the same bosom I so recently matriculated from. When can I settle down and actually do something stable? I’ve had enough of these changes.
Right now, I don’t feel like an award-winning journalist; I feel like a humbled child who tried jumping for the cookie only to be told it simply didn’t exist anymore.

"Music is My Boyriend"

There was a commercial on TV this past spring featuring an annoying ditty spouting the lyrics “Music is my boyfriend/ Music is my girlfriend.” I think the commercial was for some sort of music device, probably an MP3 player, and the point was meant to emphasize how much music meant to the obscure non-U.S. or U.K. band who wrote the song. While many people I knew tolerated this song pretty well, it rankled me every time I heard it. While it’s not easy to see now, there was a time when music was my girlfriend, my best friend, and sometimes, my only friend.
My earliest memories of music having any impact on me are from when I was about five or so. The memory is of driving around in a maroon Plymouth Voyager eating Kentucky Fried Chicken with my dad. We were driving in Apple Valley, probably heading to Rosemount, and we were listening to the Door’s “Greatest Hits” album. I remember hearing the words to “Riders on the Storm,” and I was able to put together the murder scenario implied in the whispering subtexts. It was the first time in my life I really heard a song. There were other groups I remember hearing; Bob Marley and the Wailers singing “Buffalo Soldier,” Diana Ross singing “Love Hangover,” The old man had (and still has) good musical tastes, and they rubbed off on me.
The first record I ever bought was a vinyl LP of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” one of the best-selling albums of all time. I remember buying it at Burnsville Center, and my dad asking me if this was the album I really wanted. I nodded enthusiastically. I’m not sure how I even knew it existed; I think my neighbor had the single for “Beat It.” Later that day, when that same neighbor was over, we had a Michael Jackson party, and when my mom came into my bedroom to say it was time for dinner, I got so mad about my friend having to leave that I went over to the record player and swatted the needle across the record while it was playing. So, side two of my copy of “Thriller” had a deep gouge in it, and would always scratch. It served as a reminder of my impetuous temper as a child. “Thriller” got a lot of use, as did my LP of the cast of “The Dukes of Hazard” singing various cash-in songs loosely connected to the series.
As I grew older, my tastes expanded. I spent a lot of time listening to Top 40, and kept a close eye on which song was doing well and which wasn’t. As someone who wasn’t popular and had sub-par hygiene, I had to be good for something. It got to the point in seventh-grade when I would chart the rise and fall of various songs on the nightly Top 10. In 1993, I managed to get a classmate of mine to copy Dr. Dre’s album “The Chronic,” and spent the next year and a half listening to it on a daily basis. I loved that album – not so much for the music itself, but the implications that went with it. I wanted to be callous and powerful, as the muttering thugs on the songs were. I wanted to be feared – and by listening to this and letting other people know about it, I wanted to be loved. It was a strange dichotomy, and it never really worked. But “The Chronic” did something to my head. It showed me the power that anger in music could carry. I was on the bottom rung of popularity in the social hierarchy. I was bullied, and the unseen wounds of that experience carried me for years. People could never understand how I ended up being so angry at the world – but to me, it made perfect sense.
In high school, things reached their peak. I grew more and more depressed with each passing year, realizing that things hadn’t really changed. I was the same loser I’d been in grade school. Around this time, I began to tune into the rumbling underground of manicured noise. Kurt Cobain had fascinated me not because of his music, but because I sensed in him a kindred spirit. I knew the pain he felt when he sang about being misunderstood. Nirvana made some great music – but at that point, people were still too busy mourning the loss of someone they probably never really understood in the first place. I dug deeper in my search for alien music to soothe my nerves. In sophomore year, I sat near a kid named Colin Simmons in one of my math classes. Colin was a rail-thin, tall skater-type with spiky hair and a great music collection. For some reason, he took pity and actually conversed with me. One day, I asked him for some punk rock out of curiosity. I gave him a Memorex tape, and he returned a few days later with a smörgåsbord of new music. That tape had the Misfits, the Sex Pistols, some early Nirvana, and most importantly, the Germs. The Germs were and are one of my favorite bands of all time – and their influence was to have consequences on my life.
Picture a nihilistic kid who contemplates suicide on a regular basis. Match him up with some of the most negative music ever recorded (Black Flag, the Misfits, the Circle Jerks, FEAR, etc.) and you’ve got a recipe for a bad relationship. It’s like the relationship between my anxiety disorder and caffeine: just keep the two separated and things should work out fine. My life spiraled out of control. I failed out of school. My mental quirks drove away potential friends. I was angry at the world and not afraid to show it. I defined myself by my noise of choice, as teenagers have done since rock and roll was first invented. I thought people who didn't understand my music were not worth knowing. Looking back, the best thing in the world for my 19-year-old self would have been some sort of musical intervention. I can picture it now.
Group spokesperson: Joe, we love you, and all of us are here because we’re worried about you. You’re so angry. Where’s the Joe we know and love? The creative, funny guy who seems to have been buried beneath the leather and spikes? This isn’t your true self, Joe; this isn’t who you really are. And you know that.
Me: Does this mean I can’t listen to Black Flag anymore?
That could have averted potential heartache. It never happened, of course; eventually, the anger and hatred burned itself out through sheer intensity. One random Tuesday, I took $200 and went to Old Navy and never looked back. I came out prep, and the punk stuff went into a box in the attic. I'd learned about the emptiness of the gospel of punk rock. It’s not liberation; it merely replaces one set of expectations with another. Instead of wearing nice clothes, you wear darker ones. Instead of listening to all types of music and having an open mind, you close off on hardcore, or things your punk buddies might like. It’s constriction – and that’s something it took me a long time to realize.
I was left with numbness, a void that eventually filled over time. For a while, I was really lost. For so many years, the sounds in my ears had preached a seductive message of anger and hatred against an unseen oppressor, and now, there was silence. I’ve learned a lot from that experience.
I don’t blame the music I listened to. I blame myself for internalizing the negative messages within it when I knew better than to do so. I’ve learned that music is more powerful than any sort of mere entertainment. Music can be my boyfriend, music can be my girlfriend – but like any relationship, there is potential for harm. Maybe that’s why the song bothers me so much.

Ballots, Blow-Up, and Boredom

In what seems like the latest strike in a very public catfight, photos of Barack Obama in traditional African dress (this can be found at bbc.com) recently came to light. Obama's campaign blames Clinton’s for the release, an accusation “strongly denied.” The Drudge Report originally issued the photos, and claimed to have received them from a Clinton staffer.
I see this not as an attack on Obama from Clinton, but as an attack from someone who wants to see both of these candidates dragged down a bit, and perhaps tire them out a bit before November by keeping them busy fighting each other. Of course, I’ve got no proof of this, but the way I see it, the scenario could be plausible. What’s interesting is the reply Clinton’s campaign manager Maggie Williams gave in the article I found at bbc.com: “If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed," she said. “Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely." This is all well and good – but has Hillary Clinton had to dodge accusations of either being a Muslim of having Muslim affiliations? Of course Clinton has worn a variety of clothing – as has Laura Bush. It’s simply what First Ladies do when they are abroad. The reason the logic used by the campaign manager falls short is because it does not take the accusations against Obama into account.
The more I examine Obama, McCain and Clinton, the more difficult I find it to escape this conclusion: no matter who gets elected in November, I will probably be disappointed.
Obama: His rhetoric soars. He inspires like no other politician has in years. He’s getting the youth behind him. In short, he’s talking and people are listening. I admit, he’s my first choice, but honestly, I know nothing about him other than his buzzword: “change.” That’s a well-needed panacea after eight years of George W. Bush, but change is not always good. For example, when the idea of change came up while George was running in 2000, I thought change could be good. Well, how misguided was that? Things changed, all right; they got far worse. Now, this country doesn’t seem to be what it was eight years ago. We’re more fearful of the world around us, and tied down in a desert war, the reasons for which could be argued and analyzed until hell froze over. “Change,” however needed or wanted, can sometimes be bad. From Obama, I hear all sorts of nice-sounding platitudes and sayings. But let’s not be fooled. For example, in 2000, a certain candidate’s campaign buzz phrase was “Compassionate Conservative.” And we all saw how THAT turned out.
Clinton: I respect and admire Hillary Clinton. I’m reminded of a quote from the movie “Gladiator:” “If only you’d been born a man. What a Caesar you would have made.” Clinton’s ability and experience are unmatched on the Democratic ticket. Unfortunately, as often comes with traveling, she’s got baggage. She’s connected at the hip to the controversial legacy of Bill Clinton’s presidency. America is already quite familiar with her – and the public seems to love her or hate her with no middle ground in between. My fear with her running on the ticket is that it will draw votes away from the Democrats that might have been given to a candidate who wasn’t as polarizing (like Obama). My fear with Clinton running is that the Republicans, despite the ineptitude and callousness that’s marked the past eight years, will win the White House again. It’s unthinkable that such a thing would be possible with 9/11, Katrina, Abu Graib, the Patriot Act, domestic surveillance and tax cuts for the rich, but a Clinton nomination would bring such a thing one step closer. Besides, do we really want to hand power back to one of the two families that’s been in control since 1988? After all, the last fresh blood in the Oval Office came from Ronald Reagan – a man who, last time I checked, has been dead for nearly four years.
McCain: I respect John McCain, too. I admire him for being able to survive five years in captivity during the Vietnam War. He seems like a truly decent man, the kind of guy I would want leading me if push came to shove. However, John McCain is a Republican – and after the last eight years, I want no part in maintaining the strife and smugness that were hallmarks of the Bush Administration. I went to McCain's website, and tried to figure out what he stood for. He’s pro-life (or anti-choice, depending on how you look at it. I couldn’t find his views on the death penalty). He wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade, which I personally disagree with. I don’t believe in the mechanics of abortion, but I also realized I have no business telling a woman what to do with her child. It’s something between herself and whichever god she believes in. I lack the moral clout to be in a position to make such demands, and frankly, I am of the belief that many of the children who aren’t wanted in the first place end up in prison anyway. He’s for staying in Iraq and not “failing” – an attitude I grudgingly concede is prudent. His plan for health care is a basic overhaul of “the culture of our health care system.” Yeah. Good luck with that one. My bet is you won’t get very far.

I can’t help the feeling that, no matter what happens, I’ll be disappointed with whomever we get in November. Obama could show us how inexperienced he really is, Clinton could be Bill Clinton Part Two (for better or worse) and McCain could turn out to be an extension of the same ideological conservatism (in name) and narrowness that make me loath the Bush Administration. I could be wrong. I really hope I am. But part of me, and a large part I admit, is already resigned to waking up the day after Election Day 2008 and having the same mindset and attitude I had after Election Day 2004: “Oh no. Not this clown again!”

"Threads"

As somewhat of an entertainment masochist, I do some wierd things. I’ve collected (and listened to) rare bootlegs of bands I like that sound like they were taped on a micro cassette recorder stuffed down someone’s pants (and, come to think of it, probably were). I’ve sat through the extended four-hour directors cut of “Apocalypse Now” several times, having memorized the three-hour original version. I’ve watched every single bonus feature on my DVD of Pink Floyd’s movie “The Wall.” I’ve not only seen but also own the 1983 made-for-TV movie “The Day After” (starring Jason Robards), a movie about nuclear war still remembered by people who saw it when it originally aired.
Little did I know there was a British version of “The Day After.” It is called “Threads,” and, like its American counterpart, was only shown once and traumatized many who saw it. The story concerns the effect of a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia (then known as the U.S.S.R. The U.K is targeted as part of the Soviet bombardment, including Sheffield, the town “Threads” is set in. The story opens up with a young couple in the park, and during the next few minutes of the movie, it unfolds that an unplanned pregnancy has resulted in them having to get married. The families (both of whom we follow through the movie) meet under those circumstances. Meanwhile, tensions between the U.S. and the Soviets over (some things never change) Iran lead to the brink of war. As the people we are focusing on go about their daily lives, the exchanges between the superpowers grow worse and worse until finally, a limited nuclear exchange occurs in the Gulf region.
After this, emergency councils are convened, and meet in underground shelters to try to be ready for the eventual collapse of civilization. Many of these people are local government representatives who’ve only found out about their emergency roles and aren’t trained. The situation deteriorates, until the air raid sirens go off and people scatter. The girl and her parents retreat to a basement shelter with a grandmother, who, being frail, dies not long after. The boy’s (who we never see again after the bomb drops) family isn’t as lucky. Their two younger children are buried under rubble, and the parents are badly burned in a makeshift lean-to made out of a mattress.
This movie does not pull any punches. Whereas “The Day After” only IMPLIED devastation, “Threads” wallows in it. When things begin to settle down, the fallout dust begins to fall, and people start to grow very ill. The government people in the underground shelter survive, but end up doing nothing, because there is nothing to be done. All is destroyed. Their situation deteriorates until the point in the movie when they realize they cannot escape the bunker due to collapsed debris. They end up suffocating – much like the government they were serving. The girl leaves her parents in the basement, and goes searching for her boyfriend in the rubble. Along the way, she sees dead bodies everywhere, many of them burned beyond recognition. She sees a young boy running up to her yelling “Mom! Mom!” clearly thinking she is his mother. She sees a mother cradling the charred remains of her baby, not realizing it is dead. It is enough to make the viewer ill.
What makes “Threads” truly thought provoking is that it takes a look at what happens 10 years after the bomb drops. The girl had her baby, and the baby is now 10. She doesn’t speak much, using only simple words and grunts to communicate. The movie makes the point that the entire generation born after the bomb hits wouldn’t really have a need for communication. Their education consists of repeated viewings of a British children’s television show on a VCR that somehow survived the bombing. In short, life after the bomb is more like the Middle Ages, only with a little electricity and a lot more rubble. The movie ends with the daughter getting raped by a fellow scavenger. She gives birth to a baby, but it is not shown. I believe the implication is that the baby is both deformed and stillborn. The final frame of the movie is a freeze on the daughter’s face as she looks at her baby and is about to scream in horror.
Even for an entertainment masochist, this was the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen. Keep in mind, I’ve seen all of the gory World War Two footage you can imagine, I’ve seen a man commit suicide during a TV press conference (R. Budd Dwyer) and I’ve seen footage of a little girl getting hit by a train (coming apart in the process). I’ve even managed to sit through the entire Paris Hilton sex tape. But “Threads” was different. Unlike the other vicarious thrills garnered from gore, this was frighteningly plausible. The movie was so well done that it sucked me in, and I was utterly enmeshed in its terrible gears for nearly two hours. It was so much that it went over the top, and overwhelmed me.
I snapped out of my daze when my friend Scott came over and started talking to me about something work-related. I realized then that what I’d seen hadn’t happened. Our world was still there. Our power was still on. I wasn’t a medieval peasant harvesting weeds to stay alive for another day. The cliché was true – colors seemed brighter, my coffee tasted sweeter and there was joy in my heart at the prospect of another boring weekend coming up. There aren’t many things I can say this for – but this movie will make you appreciate the way things are, as unfair and soulless as they can be sometimes. After “Threads,” you’ll never take another “normal” day for granted again.

Free Speech for the Dumb

I often go to a website called TheSmokingGun.com (TSG for short). It’s a strange site that finds public documents on strange court cases, and also focuses on all sorts of celebrity-related public documents (like Anna Nicole Smith’s autopsy - apparently, there wasn’t any solid food in her stomach). Most of the time, its harmless (albeit strange) fun. It’s an acceptable substitute for the usual Hollywood garbage I like to read. Now, I’m starting to rethink that, because a recent story I saw on there has my blood boiling.
Apparently, the parents of a 13-year-od boy who was expelled from school after making a fake MySpace page for his grade school principal are now suing the school, saying the boy’s free speech rights were violated. This wasn’t a tame website - it was designed to make the principal look as disgusting as possible. Examples of the page (see them at www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0221081principal1.html) list the “principal’s” interest as molesting students and playing with himself in his office. Underneath the “heroes” section of the page profile, Michael Jackson and Adolf Hitler are listed. In short, this wasn’t tame, especially for a 13-year-old kid to put on the Internet.
The fact the kid got expelled for this doesn’t bother me; in fact, I think it’s perfectly well deserved. The fact the parents are suing over that happening makes me angry. Where’s the discipline in this situation? I’m sorry, but Little Johnny is going to lose what little right he has for free speech if he makes claims so outrageous and falsely offensive. I don’t care what planet you are from. If you are a student at a school, and you make a display as patently obvious as this, you don’t belong there, because you obviously have no respect for people running the place. Little Johnny (I’m going to call him that; as a minor, his real name isn’t included in any of the documents) and his parents seem to disagree. To quote TSG, the parents think “disrespecting teachers outside of school is an age-old tradition, and one from which teachers neither need nor deserve protection...It would be naive to think that even the most popular principal is not the subject of student ridicule and parody." The parents are seeking their son's immediate return to school and a judicial order protecting his off-campus speech, which previously included the observation that Cook had an affinity for the Purple Penetrator, a sex toy.”
So let me get this straight: your son goes out of his way to publicly humiliate the principal of his grade school. He gets expelled, and rather than acting with any sort of dignity, you make the issue an even larger one about “free speech?” This isn’t an issue about free speech - this is an issue about a child being a complete and utter fool when it comes to showing the proper and (sometimes) deserved respect towards authority figures. This isn’t about his rights being stifle; it’s about him being properly disciplined for the same kind of offense that would get him fired from any job under the sun. Students thinking unkind thoughts about their teachers are nothing new, but this isn’t the prairie school house anymore. With the Internet, everyone in the world can hear about these things. Privacy as we know it doesn’t exist anymore. In a way, putting something on the Internet is like unleashing a genie from a bottle: you can let it loose, but you can never fully take it back.
By the way, when our Founding Fathers made free speech a part of the fabric of this country, I think they had something more productive and profound than writing “I like to give anal to the little boys at my school.”

Survivalism

As I was getting my lunch prepared this morning, I loaded up on typical items: hummus, apples, bananas, Grape Nuts, and, of course, pita bread. A normal sandwich bag isn’t big enough for the typical slice – it’s about the size of a 45-RPM record (for those of you who actually remember how big one of those is) or about seven inches. As I rooted through the kitchen drawer containing all sorts of plastic bags (many re-used several times), I came across the perfect parcel for my pitas: the inner bag from a box of Mini Wheats we’d finished a day or two before. I remembered saving it, but I didn’t know why at the time. I just thought it was a good bag and I didn’t want to waste it. The box got recycled. As I slid the two slices into the thick plastic, I smiled, and was vaguely pride of myself for having found another use for something normal people would have thrown away.
Thinking about it now, many of the things in our household are either re-used or adapted. In the kitchen, many of the sandwich bags we have are the same ones we were using several months ago. We simply wash them out (if needed) instead of buying new ones. Many twist ties for plastic bags are re-used until they break, and the plastic bags from all sorts of products are saved for another day. The cereal boxes we go through in a week are recycled, as are all of the cardboard boxes we go through in a week. Next to the sink, two thrift-store Brita water pitchers (with new filters) clean up the Mississippi River water that flows through our pipes. In our silverware drawer, plastic silverware from various picnics and meals is saved in case a giant magnet comes in and swipes all the metal in our kitchen. Just kidding. Nothing really matches, but that’s not the point.
The same theme is carried through other parts of the house. The couches in the basement were free. All of our nice furniture came from my parents as a wedding gift (including two clocks that are wind-up and use no batteries). Most (actually, 98 percent or so) of our belongings come front thrift stores. Whatever is bought new is bought on clearance, and never exceeds the $10 barrier.
I’m not writing all of this down to brag or to seem cheap; if anything, I think it’s rather humble to admit one’s own economic limitations. I’m a journalist – there is little money in this profession, and I hope my children understand when Daddy isn’t able to be able to be as giving the way my parents were to me as a child. Still, there are perks to the situation – they just aren't obvious. My idol Henry Rollins once said, “The more you own, the more it owns you,” which is a simple yet elegant saying regarding the dangers of rampant materialism. The urge to collect and manifest giant collections of various nick-knacks runs strong in me. Growing up, I knew many people who owned many, many things, and I always took note of the complaints and worries surrounding those precious objects. If they were home, they'd fret about the next thing needed to complete the collection. If someone isn't happy with less, why should they be happy with more? It’s impossible to have just one thing – one always begets two, two always begets three, and so on. The point I’m trying to make is that living simply isn’t as simple as it sounds when the world outside your front door tries to hammer home the message that the things you own speak volumes about who you are as a person. Times of plenty and peace are a relative rarity in the scope of things. Just ask someone older than 70.
My grandfather has a friend named Andy. Andy, like Grandpa, grew up during the Great Depression, and I think he'll carry the lessons of that experience with him to the end. My favorite story about him is that he’ll save the appetizer bread from a restaurant meal and take it home with him. Some consider this behavior to be cheap and crass; I, on the other hand, consider it to be pragmatic, and therefore worth emulating. Like Andy, I’m not entirely convinced that another Great Depression couldn’t happen. In fact, I worry about such a thing, keeping an eye on world markets and the price of oil. Most of the news I read isn’t good. I’m thinking of starting a basement shelter stocked with food and emergency supplies in case of a horrible “other” event (terrorism, pandemic, storm, riots, etc.). If Katrina showed us anything, it's that the government can only do so much when the chips are down. So far, I’ve found a good location (underneath my basement stairs) surrounded by concrete and underground. There are no windows worth mentioning (and even those could be boarded up, should the need arise) and there is plentiful storage for food (which will be put in large Rubbermaid bins and sealed). This survival instinct is nothing new; back in 1997, when the year 2000 was fast approaching, I decided I would spend the night in my crawlspace with a flashlight and enough beef jerky to last a few days. By the time the actual event happened, I’d forgotten my plan and spent the night with friends. This time, it’s different. I’ve got a wife, and want to start a family. It’s about protecting the little we’ve been given (our lives, our dignity, etc.) and making do in a bad situation.
Many I know might call this sort of thinking crazy, but I’m a student of history. I know that times famine and chaos are the usual norms. The world around us is nothing more than a veneer held together by illusion and cheap glue. In the event part of that system fails, it will begin a domino effect. Say the power grid fails for several days. In that event, local streets would turn into snarls, food would spoil (especially in the summer) and heating (in the winter) would be flame-based. What would a city dweller do in such a case? Where would we get water? Who would defend us from the inevitable looting? Well, well-prepared, with an emergency shelter and blankets, people could hold out until such time as other action became necessary. Thinking this way isn’t a way of being a pessimist; I consider it to be a form of pragmatic realism. In short, I’ll sum it up thusly: enjoy the good life, but know it can be taken from you. Enjoy the fruits that come with easy labor, but be prepared when the crops begin to wither on the vine.
In the end, all is taken from us anyway. A few things we have will be passed on to posterity, but the majority of what we spend our lives amassing is sold off for dirt-cheap by relatives eager to dismiss and disperse any unnecessary reminders of your passing. So, with this in perspective, does it really matter that the pillowcases my wife and I sleep on don't match?

Never Promised You A Rosegarden

Walking out of the City Council Chamber last night, my laptop bag felt heavier than usual. It may have been the seven-pound laptop and the parts that go with it (power cord, mouse, etc.), but I think it was something different. I had just gotten out of a two-hour meeting and was required to have a finished story about it less than 12 hours later. Oh yeah, I also had to go home, somehow relax, fall asleep, and wake up early enough to get into the office to write said story. I don’t know about you, but I find it really difficult to come right home and go to sleep. I mean, I’d spent my entire day at work, right? The last thing on Earth I want to do is come home and close the chapter of the day on that note. On the other hand, if I don’t get sleep, what would be unpleasant to write Tuesday night would be unbearable Wednesday morning.
Shouldering my one-sided burden, I began walking through the near-empty open space connecting the outside doors to the Council Chamber. On the way out, I saw two young girls playing and coloring off in the corner. Obviously, they were waiting for someone still inside. I tried to cheer them up.
“Don’t worry, I think it’s almost over,” I lied, smiling wanly.
“Oh my gosh,” one of them, the little blonde, sputtered. “That is like the longest thing ever!”
I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or not, but I was feeling gregarious. I stopped at the door, and turned.
“Tell me about it – I have to go to every single one of those,” I said. “Sucky.”
Her eyes went wide. I kept walking out of the car. I began to think about how ugly the democratic process can be. For every single thing that actually gets voted on, there are all sorts of committees and boards that have to see it first, and pass it along. Before that, there’s usually a citizen or group that brings up an idea, and before even THAT, there is probably a lot of idle gossip and blustering thunder over dinner tables and neighborhood fences. Despite the “beauty” of this process, I’ve seen it through different eyes because I have to deal with it so much as part of my line of work. In the time of an election, I have to talk to every city and school board candidate that comes down the pike, which is frankly exhausting due to hearing the same lines over and over again.
The metaphor I came up with is that democracy is like a flower garden. People love to look at it, love to talk about how great it is, and will protect it when threatened. I’m never worried about people stepping up when the chips are down. But when it comes to tilling the soil, pulling the weeds or planting the seeds, few seem to want to get their hands dirty. How many people actually come out and vote for things during a non-election year? Using my city as an example, in a city of more than 58,000 (estimated) something like 5,000 actually came out to vote. The rest obviously had better things to do. I’m not going to turn this into a column about voting – but as someone with the dirt and grime of government under his fingernails, I find it tiring when people talk about how great the democratic system is when they don’t do anything to help it along.
If a public hearing in my city happens, it’s rare that more than five people show up. The beauty of our system of government is that people can become active within it. Yet few seem to. Why is that? Is it the human condition to react only when threatened?
I had an interesting conversation yesterday with the high school teacher who runs the student newspaper at my alma matter. We were talking about the Ken Burns series “The War,” and got to the topic of sacrifice. When it mattered, people from all walks of life made sacrifices for their country: the men went off to war, the women went into factories, and everyone contributed through scrap drives and cooperation with rationing and doing without. Now, we’re in a war, but what is being sacrificed? Not much – at least not by the average citizen, and I think the people in charge want to keep it that way. The more things are marginalized, the less interested people are in them. I think the only reason people are tolerating Iraq at the moment is because there isn’t a draft turning our college campuses into hotbeds of activism. No, sacrifice seems a bygone virtue. People are simply too comfortable today. Why go off and fight when we’ve got a soft existence here? This is one area where the enemies of democracy have us beat: they have nothing to lose, and we have everything. It’s quite a handicap to beat, and not something that can necessarily be solved entirely with high-tech bombs and pilotless airplanes.
As someone who has the dirt under his fingernails, as someone who tries to do his part to tend the garden, I really wish people would step up and do more instead of just watching the pretty flowers.

The Heart of the Meat-er

The other week, the other editors and I had to do stories about a recent recall of millions of pounds of beef that may be unfit for human consumption. According to the information we received, a video had been released showing cows too weak to move being tortured into getting up for inspection.
As I wrote this story, my stomach began to turn – how often is it we eat something without realizing where it comes from? How often has this happened before without anyone knowing it? The seeds were planted for my latest experiment – and the fodder (or is “cud” more appropriate?) for this next column: I’m thinking of becoming a vegetarian.
Oh, I’ve considered it before. During a phase when I was heavily into the Smiths and Morrissey, I debated becoming a vegetarian as a way to lose weight (as I was 220 at the time). Over the course of an afternoon shift at the Starbucks I was employed at, I steeled myself for what I knew was to come. Of course, my resolve shattered when I got home and found juicy cuts of steak waiting on the table for me; medium rare and dripping in juice, just the way I like them. This time, however, it’s different. I’ve got plenty of reasons for making this decision – but it boils down to this: I’m doing it for me, and for my future.
Reason One: Walk through any grocery meat aisle and look at what you see. Most of the products in those aisle (especially hamburger, pork, etc.) are pre-cut and wrapped in plastic. There is absolutely no indication of where they came from, what they were, etc. All of the dirty work has been taken out of them. It’s not like the old days, when a farmer would take his meat to market and have it be sold in town. No, meat like this comes from factory farms in God-only-knows where, treated God-only-knows how, and subjected to God-only-knows what. In addition to this, who even knows what gets pumped into these poor suckers before they are sent to the slaughter lines. I’ve seen footage of this – of the factory type lines where the animals are killed and processed – and you know what? I want no part in it. There are plenty of alternatives. Besides, I don’t trust the system that brings this stuff from pasture (if that even exists) to my table.
Reason Two: We live in a tainted world. As I mentioned before the meat we get these days doesn’t come from Farmer Smith’s back yard. We don’t know where it comes from, frankly. Why does this bother me? Well, a few reasons: Mad Cow, E coli and Salmonella, to name a few. Call it what you want, but I don’t hear any pinto bean or broccoli recalls going around. That says something. After we did this story, it later developed that nearly 143 million pounds of ground beef was being recalled around the country for these concerns. I’m not comfortable with that. While everything that grows takes in many of the same pollutants, I can’t help but think that higher-end creatures like bovine (who eat plants and such) absorb more of the same pollutants that some people deny even exist in the first place.
Reason Three: Studies done by the American Cancer Society indicate that in some cases, vegetarian diets may reduce the risk of cancers (http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/content/ETO_5_3x_Vegetarianism.asp). My mother had breast cancer, my father had prostate cancer, my grandfather had lung cancer, and my great-grandfather DIED of lung cancer. Who is to say I am not at risk for any of these? Frankly, if there is anything I can do to prevent seeing myself in a hospital bed drugged out of my mind after surgery (as I’ve seen many others with cancer), I am all for it.
Reason Four: Meat is expensive. I make a very entry-level wage. I don’t have money to spend on expensive grocery items like steak and salmon. I barely eat any meat as it is (at home anyway) simply because I choose not to spend the money on it. If we can reduce the meat consumption by half (as I have no intention of making my wife follow me in my decision), it will save us money in the long run.
Reason Five: I can get protein from dairy, nuts and beans. I eat plenty of those as it is. There are alternatives to getting protein from meat. The vast majority of the world eats far less per day than the average American eats during one meal, so if they can do it, so can I.
Don’t get me wrong – this isn’t going to give me any reason to turn into one of those snobby, egotistical vegan types of bawl about the animals. Nope. Not going to do that. No, I plan to be a quiet vegetarian. If someone wants to eat meat, fine, enjoy it – it’s quite tasty and I know I’ll miss it. However, I’ll choose to abstain. My plan is to avoid poultry, fish (because of how polluted the oceans have become, to mention rivers and lakes), pork (I’ve never liked pigs anyway – they disgust me. I think the Muslims and Hebrews might have been on to something in calling them “unclean”) and last but not least, red meat (as stated above). I do this not to set myself apart or make others uncomfortable, but to do what I see is the right thing. If I can avoid participating in a system I see as unhealthy and cruel, I will do that.

"Sicko" and Health Care

I watched the movie “Sicko” this weekend, and I have mixed feelings about it. For those who haven’t seen the movie, it’s a Michael Moore film about health care. His basic premise (which I agree with) is that people in other countries with socialized medicine systems seem to have better access to that care than those of us who are managed by profit-driven HMOs. My view on Moore is decidedly mixed; personally, I think he is a self-serving pontificating ass who sometimes does “Moore” harm than good in terms of advancing a liberal viewpoint. On the other hand, the man is capable of raising good points, and at least tries to address what he sees as wrong in the world.
In “Sicko,” Moore uses many interviews to talk with people who, for one reason or another, have been denied care from their HMOs. Moore juxtaposes these cases with scenes shot in England, France and Cuba showing how the health care systems there don’t seem to deny anyone. While I agree with the premise that health care access in this country needs to be improved, I disagree with the use of Cuba as an example for much of anything. Besides their health care and their literacy rate, what do they have? They have 454 years of oppression from a Communist government. I’m sure the 9/11 aid workers he was able to secure help for in Cuban hospitals were allowed to proceed in doing so because the various control mechanisms in the country realized it would be good propaganda to do so. The fact that these same 9/11 workers haven’t been cared for in the States is nothing less than a travesty – but to take them to a sworn enemy for help smacks of ideological ignorance.
Moore paints with broad brushstrokes; he takes aspects of a problem or situation and ignores the larger picture. For example, he used footage from Iraq before the invasion of kids swinging on swings and made the entire place look really peaceful and nice. The larger picture was that Saddam Hussein and his enforcers were still in power. There may have been peace in terms of no actual war going on, but try convincing someone who’d had relatives vanish in Hussein’s prisons that the land was idyllic and peaceful.
The biggest problem I have with Michael Moore is that his movies are designed to preach to the already converted. The polemic and inherently biased tone of his films is not designed to reach out to those on the other side of the fence; if anything, it’s a form of liberal porn, designed to get us off on our own righteousness. The man raises some good questions about a lot of things, but after the success of “Roger and Me,” I think his self-image as a sloppy avenger went to his head. Sometimes, the scenes in his movies aren’t about the situation as they are about Michael Moore, Social Avenger of Evils. Examples of this include “Bowling for Columbine,” when he leaves a picture of a little girl, killed by gun violence, on the doorstep of Charlton Heston, then-chairman of the NRA. Another example that comes to mind is paying the $12,000 health bill of a man who ran the biggest anti-Michael Moore website on the Internet. It’s not that he decided to do this – it’s that he did it and then filmed it for inclusion in “Sicko.”
Health care in his country isn’t the problem; the quality is unsurpassed. No, the problem is ACCESS to that quality care. I know many who get angry at the idea of any sort of socialized medicine program. Common arguments I hear include a lack of choice of doctors, waiting six months for preventative treatment, lack of quality, etc. However, I don’t see how the mightiest country in the world can keep going when 18,000 people die every year because (for one reason or another) they don’t have health insurance. Moore makes a good point about “socialized” medicine. He says in the film we already have socialized police and fire departments, socialized libraries and a socialized postal service. Plus, health care in the military is already socialized. And the same model can’t work in the rest of the country? I find that hard to believe.
I write this editorial as a man who has seen his health premiums skyrocket over the few years he’s worked. Name one other field that can get away with such a rate change as the health insurance companies. How can a 30 percent annual increase possibly be justified? This year, my deductible jumped from $1,000 to $2,700. What will it be next year?
I’m all for exploring the idea of a socialized medicine program. If other countries with less can do it, why can’t we? For example, the United State’s GDP in 2005 was nearly 12 times that of France. If a country with less can do so much more for its citizens, what is our excuse? In the end, I think it boils down to corporate health care having a monetarily cozy relationship with the people who represent us at all levers of government. No telling how much those companies forked out back in the early 90s to make sure Hillary's health plan was DOA.
As far as the arguments of choice are concerned, I think the greater concern in my mind is the relative lack of economic choice any of us have got in trying to control an industry that’s spun wildly out of control. As a taxpayer, I want to know that I will be taken care of, as I would be in ANY OTHER FIRST-WORLD COUNTRY ON THE PLANET. I don’t think that’s too much to ask, especially for a country that can afford to dump nearly $2 trillion into a desert country halfway across the world for decidedly mixed results.

A Few Minutes From A Haircut...

I'm a few minutes away from one of my weekly (sometimes bi-weekly) haircuts. I started cutting my own hair years ago during my punk rock phase. The first time I ever did it was a few minutes after my parents dropped me off at my first college. The minute my things were down on the ground and I knew my parents had hit the freeway, I lit up a cigarette, looked around the room, and shuddered with glee. My plan had been in the works for weeks, and now, it was time for brilliant execution.

I grew up watching "The A-Team," and thought Mr. T was a golden god. Between that and regular exposure to 80s pop culture, the mohawk had taken on an allure all its own. I distrinctly remember walking through the Burnsville Center circa 1984-85 and seeing a leather-clad punk rocker with a green mohawk swaggering through the mall. The effect on my brain was sheer electricity, and I remember my mom saying, "You're never going to get one of those..." Combine those memories with a high-school punk rock phase and repeated veiwings of "Taxi Driver" (where Robert DeNiro shaves a mohawk into his head before going on a shooting rampage) and the seeds were sewn.

There were small mirrors on the inside of the closet doors, and the mirror was lit up by the large window the door opened up to face. There was a small towel rack underneath that, which I used to mix the container of black hair dye that needed to get itself together (chemically) before being applied. I plugged in the shaver, and took off the guard on the end of it. The Conair needed to be tweaked before I used it, and I oiled the blades before taking the quaking, vibrating device near the front edge of my head. If there were a moment to go back, this was it.

The first pass took off clumps of hair that fell slowly to the floor like newly-minted snoflakes. I picked one of the clumps up. My hair was darker than I realized; held up to the light, it was soft, and black as coal. I'd always thought of it as more brownish than anything. Cutting the top was the easy part. I used a CD to reflect the general outline of how the back was going. Within 15 minutes, the cut hair was covering every inch of the floor near my feet. I went over to my resident advisor's door. I'd not met him yet, and the first sight he got of me was of my 210-pound self with a grin on his face and a bad mohawk cut into his head.

"Hi!" I chriped. "I need to use a vacuum. Where do I get one?"

His eyes kept flitting up to my head.
"I think you'll have to go downstairs for that."

I thanked him, and went on with my plan. I had to finish the job before I went downstairs. I took the hair dye into the bathroom, and worked it into my scalp using the rubber glove that came with the box. I was supposed to let it sit for 15 minutes or so, but got impatient, and washed it out before it had time to really do anything. Looking in the mirror, something wasn't quite right about my haircut. I decided to shave off the hair on the sides using the double-bladed Bic razors they handed out at the bookstore that morning. I popped off the safety tab on the razor, lathered up my head, and cut my head so badly that the water I used to rinse the remaining shaving cream off turned pink. To say this stung was an understatement. I was shirtless, and went back to my room to get some band-aids and get dressed. I reached for the door handle, and it wouldn't move. I was locked out of my room. I looked down. The blood was slowly running down my neck and on to my chest. To anyone passing by, I must have looked like a bleeding psychopath. I ended up going downstairs, shirtless and bleeding, to get my key. I walked past at least 200 kids and their parents waiting to check in. Come to think of it, I really shouldn't be surprised that I didn't make too many friends that year.

Now, my haircuts aren't too radical: a crew cut with a Number Four guard leaves things nice enough for my tastes. I hate paying for haircuts. By cutting my own, I save at least $20 a month, meaning the clippers have already paid for themselves. But I can't help but remember my first haircut without thinking that it was born out of the same spirit that motivates me now - the desire to do things by myself, for myself, and to fly a flag of indepenence from an ever-shrinking hairline.

Ritual Noise

No one I know would deny that gun violence is a problem in America. Just last week, I wrote an entry about how I was running out of things to say about public shooting sprees, and last night, I was reminded of that, because yet again, another black-clad youth with the stereotypical mental health issues once again took a small arsenal of weaponry to a school and once again opened fire on people who had nothing to do with the man's problems. Once again, the media (in which I am a small cog) goes through the familiar dog-and-pony show of running huge pictures of crying people on the front page with chill-inducing banner headlines like "Why Here?" It's indeed awe-inspiring to see how a news organization can scrap everything and come out with an amazingly memorable issue that takes the pulse of a community after a tragedy.
But it's been done.
There are many tragic aspects of these events - but one of the most tragic happens to be the sort of blasé I see overtaking people's mindsets when the news first breaks. I'm no better. If the body count is less than three, I don't even bother looking. When the Jonesborough middle school shootings happened in 1997, four people were killed, and the news media ruminated over every angle of the story for days. Now, it might end up on the front page. Maybe – if there were some good photos. No, the real tragedy of events like this is that massively violent cries for help don't even bother to register anymore. Whenever I hear about events like this, the armor goes right up: where was it, was anyone I know involved, and did I know anyone who might be connected with this. Thankfully, the answer has always been "no."
What do mass shooters really hope to achieve, anyway? Most of them end up taking their lives when their ammo runs low anyway, so why bother even taking someone else with you? If you were really, truly depressed, wouldn't you just kill yourself rather than take out a bunch of strangers? With so many of these types of things happening, it's getting harder and harder to even remember the faces and names of the perpetrators. Next to child molesters, I can think of no one more reviled than someone who shoots up a bunch of random civilians and then takes their own life rather than face the consequences. Maybe it's a stab at immortality, but if you want to be immortal, why don't you write a book, or cure a disease?
As a newsman, news events like this make me sick because it represents the ultimate Catch-22. In order for these stories to be covered, you have to examine the typical angles: the reasons, the shooter, the victims, and the aftermath. In doing so, the line between covering something and sensationalizing something often blurs (if not disappears altogether). People often complain about the media glamorizing events like this, but in this case, our hands are tied. What is to be done? We can't just write a story like "Today, a shooting happened, but we can't tell you where, why, or how many people died, because we don't want to glamorize it." No. If it's sensationalized, it's because blood and death, for lack of a better way to put it, clear issues out of a newsstand faster than anything else (except maybe presidential hanky-panky or hijacked airplanes flying into buildings).
So, in the end, our hands are tied. We in the media don't make up the world we see (at least not the ethical reporters), but instead serve as a mirror for what a culture values and wants to see more about. If blood and gore run on a front page and people lap it up like dogs over a spilled ice cream cone, we can be accused not of sensationalizing a tragedy but for giving into the demands of a fickle and hard-to-reach public. The sonic reverberations from the gunshots in this latest shooting faded more than 24 hours ago. The moral and human implications, however, just began to ring - and you'll see the ripples on the cover of Time, People, Newsweek, and a hundred other magazines and newspapers around the country. If you don't like coverage about the events, my advice is the same advice I would give you in the case of being the target of a real-life shooter: run away, as fast as you can. Failing that, duck, cover and hope for the best.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-chayyynges...

After a long day at work, this is the last thing I have to do before I go home and spend time with the love of my life. Valentine's Day is here again, and for the third year in a row, I've been in a relationship. This means the day is something to look forward to, which was not the case for many, many years beforehand. As I examine this, part of me is stuck by the notion that the anger is missed.
For the better part of my life, Valentine's Day was like a GAP commercial - it merely reminded me that A.) I wasn't beautiful and B.) I did not have what I wanted. It was a day where I walked around in a huff, madly jealous but pretending I was indifferent to all of the displays of love and affection around me. High school was the worst (really, when WASN'T it?), because it was probably the time in my life where my self-esteem was the lowest. Back then, the littlest validations meant a great deal, be they hugs or even little smiles from girls I didn't like. The empty neediness in me knew no bounds.
Once I got to college, it wasn't quite as bad, because I had an outlet for my anti-holiday sentiments: I had the opinion column on the student paper. The apogee of this phenomenon was in 2004, when I wrote a column that humorously bashed the holiday with all of the subtlety of a nail bomb. I was mad, I was lonely, and I wanted the whole world to know about it. The last non-relationship Valentine's Day I spent was with my friend Becky in 2005. I had just been dumped by the first serious girlfriend I had, and Becky and I spent the whole night watching movies and eating candy. I ate an entire back of Valentine's candy hearts (the kinds with the messages on them - speaking of which, do they still make the ones that day "fax me" on them? If anyone knows, fill me in!). After about halfway through the bag, I realized they tasted like chalk. I've really never liked them since.
Last year, Karla and I shared our first Valentine's Day. We'd picked up our engagement ring the weekend before, and it was hard to resist not becoming engaged the minute we walked out of the jewelry store. For some reason, it wasn't as hard to resist come Valentine's Day, because neither of us wanted to embrace what we saw as a cliché. I got her flowers, and she got me a talking Family Guy pen. It was a sweet holiday. and two days later, we were engaged. The engagement trumped the holiday; last year, it was a mere formality for what we both knew was coming.
So, as I finish writing this entry, the hatred and contempt I once felt for this holiday seem a million miles away. They are as alive now as the cold ashes in a fireplace; gray, lifeless carbon that has no chance of reigniting and becoming what it once was. In the end, the anger ended up choking and sputtering on the sweet breath coming from the love of my life as she gently whispered "I love you" into my ear.

Hope Comes From The Strangest Places

For a variety of reasons, yesterday was a tough day. Sometimes, the mental castles we make for ourselves turn out to be mere sand, susceptible to the whims of wave and tide. It's hard to keep perspective on things when it feels as though time itself has been taken from you. I'm only 28 - yet I feel as though I should have the world at my feet. One's outlook can have a huge impact on this; if I think about it too much, life can become one big game of waiting for what is next and never enjoying what one is doing in the present.
I read a book called "Samurai Zen" a few years ago, and an exercise it gave to combat the stresses of modern life was to take everything, even the most trivial experience, and look at it with new eyes, as if it were the first time it had ever been done. I tried this, and it was exhausting. It's exhausting because it's easy to become complacent with the visions one sees every day: the same route to work, the same stains in the bottom of the coffee cup, the same red light blinking on the phone indicating your attention is needed elsewhere. "Samurai Zen" had some fascinating ideas in it - but the idea of looking at things through new eyes was probably the most startling. It's easy to take things for granted, and when that happens, life becomes a waiting game.
I'm prone to grand gestures. I regularly get rid of mass amounts of thrift clothing to turn over a new fashion leaf. I commit to detailed exercise plans only to watch them fail when I realize I hate doing them. I donated two books of CDs, several hundred in all, to Goodwill when I realized I should be spending more time on music with meaning. I don't do half-measures, and never have. I'm either a complete sinner or a complete saint, completely full or completely empty, or complete sober or completely wasted. This idea of "patiently waiting while looking to the future" strikes me as anathema to my natural tendencies. This is why I have close friends and family to keep the indignant stallions from bolting the stable. Without the, I would terribly off in life, charging in fully committed on grand adventures.
My uncertainty reached its height yesterday during a school board meeting, when I watched a video of children jumping rope to bad music for nearly 15 minutes. I questioned many things during that audio-visual purgatory: is this why I went to college? To write about children jumping rope? Is there any end to the mockery of this wretched day?
To my surprise, my spirits lifted when I threw myself into my work, taking notes like a fool and typing at 120 words a minute on my laptop. Soon, voices were singing in my head, and I wrote the lyrics down. It was something close to an epiphany, and I wish I could do this song justice. It sounded like a black choir in deep-fried gospel territory - something my rhythm and expression-inept self could never convey, sang it.

I think that God's got plans for me
Greener pastures, there to see
Nearer the station, nearer to see
Building momentum, building up steam
I know my train will come

Others leaving, fare thee well
Train's still coming, here a spell
We'll dip our pens in different wells
And meet again with tales to tell
I know my train will come

I wrote my ticket, baggage stored
I just can't wait, I feel so floored
I'll wait for that sweet "all aboard!"
And then I'll stop and thank you, Lord
I know my train will come

Coming up valleys, hills and plains
Coming up strong and stoking the flames
At last to stop and call my name
And take my off to bigger game
I knew, I always knew
I always knew my train would come

Youth, Manhood and Responsibility

As an impetuous youth, I never feared the future. I never had to - because I didn't realize what it was. Then, my fears were simple: handing in my homework, getting to hang out with my friends, and keeping my parents in the dark about the fact I was smoking cigarettes. I never feared the future then - now, it's a looming harbinger of some gray nothingness, an omniscient presence in the room that lurks large yet reveals nothing. Yes, it's safe to say the future terrifies me when I look at the entire scope of it.
Part of this has to do with another turn of the wheel reminding me I am still starting out in the world, and should not expect immediate results. I am reminded of a story about the young Julius Caesar: once, as a young man in his early 30s, he looked at a statue of Alexander the Great, and bitterly wept because he, unlike Alexander, had accomplished very little. There are times when I too feel like bursting into tears. When does life stop being a waiting game?
I suppose this depends very much on the perspective one takes. Life, it could be said, can be nothing but a waiting game, provided that's the way one wants to see it. There is always an answer for the question of "What's next?" Sometimes, we just have to wait for it longer than others.
I'm listening to a book on tape of Stephen Ambrose's "The Wild Blue," about the young men who flew bombers in Europe during World War Two. It's amazing how truly YOUNG these men were - sometimes as young as 18 years old. After the training, they were no longer boys, yet men, full vested in the responsibilities and awareness of consequence that would take them home and make America once of the greatest countries in the world. I look at these men in awe - I am nearly 10 years older than the youngest, and still, I feel woefully immature by comparison. Now, we wouldn't trust an 18 year old with the keys to the family car, let alone let 10 of them fly a bomber loaded with 3,000 pounds of high explosive.
I suppose each generation, from Caesar's on down to mine, has its own particular time for greatness. I content my inner restlessness on days like today by reminding myself that my time for greatness simply hasn't arrived yet. Like Caesar, at this point in my life, I have not yet crossed the Rubicon.

Music and the damage done

I watched the movie "The Lives of Others" last night, and it was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. The story, for those of you who might not know, is set in 1984 East Berlin. A secret police investigation of an artist and his girlfriend becomes the obsession of the man chosen to watch them and record their movements. A devoted policeman at the beginning of the movie, he changes over the course of the film when he begins to empathize with the couple he is assigned to spy on.
One of the best parts of the movie comes when the artist plays something on his piano and remarks to his girlfriend and Lenin once said something along the lines of "if I listened to [a particular Beethoven piece], I would never be able to finish the Revolution." The artist, musing over this quote, wonders how anyone who felt or truly heard music that deeply could be evil. Unfortunately, I know a prime example of a person who proves this wrong: Adolf Hitler.
I've read many books on the man. I will make this full disclosure: although I have a historical interest in Nazi Germany, I in no way agree with the tenets of that party or the policies they promoted. My interest is simply about trying to understand the impetus for the greatest man-made catastrophe in history
When Hitler was a young artist living in Vienna, he spent a lot of time in the city's various opera houses. He fell in love with Wagner, and once said that "one had to understand Wagner to understand National Socialism." I've been listening to Wagner for years, and, as is the case with that particular brand of National Socialism, am no closer to understanding it. It's simply over my head. But the music speaks to me. For some reason, Wagner can capture the amazing highs and dismal lows of the human experience in musical set pieces that can be sweepingly grand one moment and achingly dark the next. In short, I am familiar with many composers - but none seem to have the brute power of Wagner (the only ones that come close are Beethoven and Holst).
Hitler understood music - and felt it deeply. Say what you want about the man, but he carried that love with him until the day he put a bullet in his brain in April 1945. For some reason, Hitler banned the playing of Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 "The Romantic," issuing a decree that it would not be played until the end was near. When they played it in early 1945, rumor has it that Hitler Youth handed out cyanide capsules in the lobby of the concert hall (I've found no concrete confirmation of this). I'm familiar with Bruckner's 4th, and it's a beautiful piece of music. However, with all tat had been built up around it, it seems ironic that Hitler would have banned it because there is no real connection with world events with it. It's not sad, and it does not mourn. It's actually quite the opposite - the piece is brimming with confidence.
So, I will have to disagree with the quote about feeling music deeply and not being evil. Hitler felt music deeper than probably anything else in his life – and, as the trail of 60 million dead would indicate, he was about as evil as people get.

Taking a Break From Cleaning

I'm spending part of my Sunday afternoon working at Karla's studio. I just got done shredding a three-inch thick stack of papers, and sooner, I'll be working on cleaning up a spill on one of the dance floors. I've found that I really, truly enjoy cleaning. This is as baffling to me as it is to most. On the surface of it, what is there to enjoy? While make everything else nice and shiny, you make yourself look like crap in the process. I don't care who you are - no one looks good after they've finished cleaning something for a few hours. I'm sure this even applies to Rosario Dawson and Ellen Page, two actresses who I could not imagine ever being anything but uncute.
It didn't used to be like this. I used to be the typical idle teenager, content to live in his filth simply because it was easier than trying to muster the effort and the time (which somehow seemed more precious then) to tidy up his situation. As I grew, this slowly changed. Even in college, at the worst point of being depressed, my apartment would be spotless. Sure, there were recently smoked cigarette butts in an ashtray and my homework wasn't done, but the pile of ironing on the floor? Oh yeah - starched and pressed, hanging in the closet for another week's duty. My rent check? Probably overdue - but my toilet was spotless. Eventually, I figured that living in a house where something always had to be done probably rubbed off on me. I simply cannot relax or sit still. Even when I'm watching a movie, I have to be doing something, or simply thinking about doing something.
The good news is that I've found a way to take this cleaning, working wanderlust and turn it into some extra income. Working at the studio gives me an outlet for the constant need to be doing something, and I come home exhausted most days I work both my regular job and then go clean for a while. In short, it's not easy being unable to sit still, but at least now my afflictions are helping me earn extra money. I can live with that - it could be far worse.

The Darker Side of Thrift

After deciding not to buy a Toyota Prius today, my wife and I decide to celebrate our utter frugality (in keeping the same car that is worth $400 and needs $700 in brake work) by going to Unique Thrift. It's an ex-Frank's Nursery and Crafts location in Burnsville that is filled to the brim with all sorts of goodness. Simply put, if someone on this planet makes it, Unique has had it at one time or another. Some examples seen today: the bottom half of a chemical warfare suit, numerous pairs of snakeskin boots, a reel-to-reel tape recorder and a very nice looking accordion. My wife found some stainless steel coffee cups, and I found a green sweater from the GAP and an exercise bike.
I paid all of $4 for the bike, and it worked like a charm when I used it in the basement while watching the movie "Hot Fuzz" with the director's commentary on. I worked up a decent sweat after 35 minutes of riding, and decided to call it a day after that. I moved the bike back into a corner, where it has sat, out of sight and out of mind until I decided to write about it on this blog. This bike must be at least 20 years old, but it seems to be rather well made, with a steel flywheel in front, and a feature that allows the user to row the handles back and forth while riding. I tried doing this a few times, and nearly tipped over. I think I will be leaving the handlebars in one place from now on.
As good as my fortune was today, I realized something about my $4 exercise bike. Someone probably bought it new with all the hopes and dreams that come with the sweat less pre-exercise/shape-up-your-life program, and found that dreams didn't amount to much over the course of day after day of working out. Eventually, the bike (judging by it's condition) got put into a corner, where it gathered dust until someone found out they could get rid of it for free by taking it to Unique.
In short, I was able to get this bike in my basement because someone gave up.
Thrift stores are full of items indicating people have given up. How many times have I seen those blue ab machines that would slide across the floor and "tone up every area of the body," as claimed on TV? How many complete sets of Billy Blanks Tai-Bo tapes have I seen on the shelves of my local Goodwill? How many bikes, Nordic Tracks and generic Nordic Track knock-offs have I seen in various states of neglect? These things didn't end up their by themselves; they ended up because whoever bought them gave up on whatever dreams motivated them to purchase the (sometimes very expensive) machines in the first place.
This phenomenon isn't limited to exercise, but it ties into it. How many of those Banana Republic pants are hanging on the men's clothing isle because someone gave up and decided not to have a 32-inch waist anymore?
Thrift stores are one of my favorite things on the planet - but if looked at too closely, they don't speak well for the motivations of the average man, and just how far someone will go to remove evidence that a once-noble experiment has come crashing down in the form of dust on a Nordic Track.

Running gun blues

This morning, as I lay in bed half-listening to the news on the radio, I came as close to consciousness as I usually get when I heard about a city council meeting that had been disrupted when a disgruntled man came in and shot five people dead. The mayor of the town, some place named Kirkwood, Mo., is in critical condition. As someone who goes to nearly every council meeting in the town he covers, one thought lingers in the back of my mind: it could have been here, and it could have been me.
Looking at a layout map of the council chamber in today's online edition of the St. Louis Dispatch, I realized that two of those killed were sitting in the same place where the journalists are invited to sit in my town's council chamber. Had it happened in my town, I would have been less than 10 feet from the shooter - and in Kirkwood, the man sitting in my place was killed.
This gave me plenty to think about. When I got to work and fired up the computer, I turned to CNN, and saw that Sports Illustrated published a story about a man who showed up to the recent Super Bowl with an AR-15 rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition. Apparently, he was mad about being denied a liquor license for the business he wanted to open (a bar called "Drunkensteins") and wanted to take it out on people who had nothing to do with it. He was far enough in his plan that he was in the parking lot with the gun in his car, but apparently changed his mind at the last minute (thank God - the last thing we need is coverage lionizing the day when the Super Bowl's innocence was forever shattered. Come to think of it, didn't Janet Jackson already take care of that?).
What both of these story make me think is that these men were somehow convinced that their issues would be solved by shooting people who in no way deserved to be shot for their troubles. In the case of the man at the Super Bowl, the people he would have shot at had NOTHING to do with not getting a liquor license. "No one destroys my dream," the shooter allegedly wrote in an 8-page manifesto later found by police. I'm sure I'll hear the old argument that these are more reasons that people shouldn't have guns in this country, but I've stopped believing that. People can cause plenty of chaos without guns. Look at what the Mongols or Vikings were able to accomplish without the slightest hint of gunpowder.
No, what this is indicative of is something far worse: a culture that seems to engender an attitude of "I'll get what I want even if you'll get in my way." I think the Super Bowl guy's quote "No one destroys my dream" sums up things rather tidily. For some reason, grievances are solved with guns instead of more productive means, and I think this is becoming more common as time goes by. For one, I'm getting tired of writing columns after mass shooting events - not because I don't find such columns interesting, but because I've written so many of them by now that I am running out of things to say.
Charles Whitman, the man who shot up the University of Texas from a clock tower one day in 1966 might have been the first, but he wouldn't be the last in a long line of men with a grievance who find no other way in their limited vision to solve their problems with bullets, drowning their misery in the blood of the innocent.

Technological Descendent

Karla and I are beginning to look for a new car. As valiantly as the 1997 Pontiac Sunfire has served me, the repairs are starting to pile up, and frankly, don't justify the cost to keep a car with a trade-in value of $450 running and functional. We're seriously looking at a hybrid car, which would serve me well in a job where I drive more than 150 miles a week just for work purposes. Each trip to the city I cover is at least 25 miles; with four or sometimes five trips in a week, the fuel costs can get pretty high. It's not as bad as having to commute 53 miles each way to an internship like I did before I worked here, but it's still not the healthiest for my wallet. So, as much as I'd love to get a Mustang or Life-Sized-Hot-Wheels-Car/Toy-SUV, a hybrid makes the most sense.
What separates a hybrid from a normal car is the use of an electric motor to power the vehicle in specific situations, like accelerating or driving speeds under 30 miles an hour. While the hybrid car is nothing new, the idea of having a hybrid power system using a conventional engine and battery power is nothing new.
Around the turn of the last century, when the submarine was starting to become a viable weapons platform, a problem was discovered. The submarine's conventional engines couldn't be used underwater because there was no way to get air into the combustion chambers without sucking it out of the same atmosphere the crew was relying on to stay alive. So, some genius in Europe came up with a good idea: have an electric motor for use when underwater. The idea made sense: an electric motor doesn't need oxygen and doesn't need an exhaust for fumes because it doesn't generate any. While the speeds were slow (typically 6 knots or so) the idea worked, and the submarine as we know it was born.
It's interesting to think that the same concept used on the U-boats that roamed up and down the East Coast of America in the early 1940s are the logical grandfather of the car my wife and I seek to buy. The arrangement has been improved somewhat since then; instead of having massive banks of conventional batteries, the car we're looking at uses compact lithium ion batteries to keep it small. The submarines and the Prius have this much in common, though: while the conventional engine is used, the batteries are recharged. The early submarines weren't so much undersea vessels as they were vessels that could go undersea for a while. They were faster on the surface of the water. The Germans tried to improve on this concept by having a snorkel (called, appropriately enough, a "schnorkel") on the conning towers of their U-boats, and they were used with some success. Unfortunately, the balance of power in the war had shifted by then, and Allied radar was good enough to pick up the small radar signature of a snorkel as the submarine tried to hide. In the end, it was a good idea too late. A decade after the war, the U.S. introduced the first atomic-powered submarines, and the old method of conventional engine/batteries slowly faded away.
The concept must have hung around in the back of someone's head, because now, instead of being used to cut through Allied convoys on their way England, it's being used to cut through morning traffic on my way to Eden Prairie.

Observations of a Caucus

Politics, while never a favorite thing of mine, has become part of my life through the newsroom I work in. Some people really enjoy the American political process; I am not one of those people, mainly because my experience with it is from the ground perspective of a young newspaper reporter who would rather be somewhere else covering something far less convoluted. The 2006 election was a real eye-opener to me, as limited as it was. At my newspaper, we divided up who got to interview who, and I interviewed nearly 20 different political figures seeking 20 different offices. What struck me was the sheer difference between the people. Some had absolutely nothing to say, and others were sharp to the point of oiliness. Where I stand politically has nothing to do with my duties on this level; as a reporter, I am afforded the luxury of sanctioned, sacred neutrality. If 2006 was a pain, 2008 will probably be worse. The fangs come out during any election season, but during a presidential season, the poison comes with them. The advice for a real snakebite is good for dealing with political venom, too, even if you aren't the target: calm the victim, remove any watches or rings that may interfere with circulation, and lower the wound to below heart level. Don't worry - help is on the way.

Here's my take on things: McCain is the only Republican candidate I would even consider voting for, so Romney winning in Minnesota doesn't please me. I dislike him; he strikes me as a good prototype for a Hollywood anti-Christ: Good looking, smooth, but somehow possessing an evil glint in the eye. This isn't to say the real Romney isn't the Anti-Christ; I have nothing personally against the man. I just like McCain more.
Clinton and Obama are still tied? Well, that's nothing new. I'm rooting for Obama. Clinton has simply been in the bed too long, and despite the nostalgia I have for the Clinton years (strictly due to forgetfulness- when he was in office, I was a depressed, angry teenager, about as politically aware as a head of cabbage) I would not want the man in any way connected with the office again. As for his wife, she bears the scent of the well-used grease used to oil the machinery of "Business As Usual" in D.C. - something I think needs to be changed.
As much as I cannot abide George W. Bush, I cannot abide another Clinton in the White House. The Democratic Party will be in trouble if she wins the nomination.

The first....of many?

I've decided to start a blog. After being involved with both FaceBook and MySpace for a little while, this seems a little more "adult." My goal with this project is to write something, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, every day. I realize I've tried to do this before, but hopefully, discipline will be with me and I'll succeed. So, without further adieu;

I wore a hat to work today for the first time in a long time. What is it about a simple black dress hat that adds several ounces of panache to any outfit sloppy me can throw together in the morning? As I adjusted it in the mirror today, I felt a bit like George Raft (an old Hollywood movie star) as he prepared for a night on the town. Of course, I wasn't George Raft; I was a humble, hard-working journalist preparing to get his brakes checked before he went into work. Unlike George, I wear mixed-fabric trousers and don't smoke. I'm a pale imitation of the 1940s' gangster look.
I've written on this subject many times before. For some reason, it keeps bouncing back like a rubber ball in the great racquetball court of interest and attention span. The more time I spend observing people, the more I wish I lived in a different time. No time is ever perfect, true, but sometimes the modern world is just too fast for me. I'm not alone in this; Garrison Keillor has made a mint pretending to live in the sort of yesteryear to which I strive. The difference is that Mr. Keillor has an audience of millions, while I have an adoring wife, a cute dog and a smug cat. Needless to say, I wouldn't trade positions.
So, scoff if you want, but I'm wearing my hat. Scoff too much, and I'll stab you with my fountain pen. Good-day, kind sir!