Tea With S.B.

IF A TREE FALLS IN THE FOREST...

2010-03-17T00:43:00.004-04:00

Dear Readers,

Well, it's time to bite the bullet and admit defeat. No, I'm not talking about Washington politics or the Health Care Bill, I'm talking about this blog.

Yes, like 99% of all blogs out there, this one has been almost universally ignored and will now become just another 'zombie blog'. Perhaps the only difference is that I'm saying it openly, leaving no doubt to those in future who might miraculously stumble upon my leavings, and wonder why there hasn't been any new posts in the last 2 years. I say this without bitterness, only a mild regret that I wasn't able to figure out a way of making it relevant.

I suppose that, to be a well-read, interesting or even a useful blog, there has to be a central purpose behind it, making it something that people might turn to from time to time. A particular point of view, a specialist advice forum, some real and original gossip, some inside information on the how-tos and wherewithal's, a multimedia spectacular - these and other aspects of blogging probably account for the majority of successful blogs, and often help their authors actually make money with them, to one degree or another. But not me. My freewheeling olio of humor, commentary, short stories and general complaints about society have unsurprisingly made no mark, tickled no fancies or had the least little impact on the information super-highway.

I had originally thought that feedback - should I have gotten any that was helpful - might lead me to find a unifying theme for this blog. But the miserably few comments that I accumulated from 18 months or writing came mostly from people far more disturbed than myself, some, I might say, obviously in desperate need of professional help. Having no degree in the healing arts, I could offer nothing in the way of succor.

I leave this genre of public exposure to a generation that constantly stares at it's smart phones, looking for everything and anything except this blog. If there is anybody I have hurt, offended, angered or libelled in my brief life as a blogger, I am truly sorry. But knowing that my readership habitually struggled to achieve numbers in the low single-digits, I doubt such a declaration is necessary, but I give it anyway. I promise that I will not take any revenge for this dismal failure upon myself or society, I'll just write it off as one of those great ideas that fell far short of ideal. I'll keep this zombie on-line for a while, I guess, though I doubt I will ever bother to post again. The sound of one hand clapping was just too deafening for me.

So, thank you and enjoy the rest of your lives, Dear Readers.

SMOKE ON THE WATER

2010-03-01T11:44:00.005-05:00

Dear Readers,

Does anyone else think that, with all the technology typified by Facebook, Twitter, I-Phone Stuff and billions of blogs on the Internet, we just might know a little bit too much about each other? I don't know, but it doesn't seem to be doing all that much good, IMHO.

Over the weekend, President Obama got his first physical since becoming Commander-In-Chief, and the details were widely available to the entire world a short time later. In addition to size, weight, blood-pressure, etc... we also heard about the physicians suggesting that the President might want to try and stop smoking, advice we've heard given him before. Now, I'm not a smoker, but those I know who are see it as a way to relax, reflect, and take a brief time out from the cares that beset most of us to one extent or another. In the case of Obama, I would imagine having a sneaky smoke every now and again might be a habit he might want to continue, as he's got the best/worst job in America, and more and more people seem to think he's not very good at it.

Last week's televised health care summit - that both bored and disgusted a lot of us - was a qualified failure, but it at least served to codify the ugly status of politics in the country. For the President, it was a desperate attempt to show the nation what he had to deal with in the case of the Republican opposition. And as it comes at the end of a hideous, venomous process, I was struck at how much better it would have been had it come at the beginning of the process, before a line of legislation had been set to paper. As soon as you saw the Republicans plunk a massive stack of documents, supposedly representing the Health Care Bill's bulk, you just knew that this meeting was going no place, and the ensuing posturing-thinly-disguised-as-debate as a massive waste of time. A summit like this before it got to Congress would have left the GOP with no War And Peace-sized, pork laden bill to cower behind, and perhaps the case for and against reform could have been more simply drawn.

But maybe the most squirmy moment of the 'summit' was when Obama, replying to a charge by a GOP'er that he was taking more speaking time, said "that's because I'm President". Ouch. More red meat to the disloyal opposition who already think Obama's a snob and an elitist. Also, the remark might have revealed a nagging insecurity on the President's part, having to remind his audience who's the boss here. The boss should never have to say things like that.

On one hand, I like a politician to be what he or she is, not put on some phony, corny, all-American, aw-shucks-I'm-just-one-of-y'all fake front. But on the other, nobody much likes an elitist (a somewhat hypocritical stance in this nation of varying degrees of elitism). The fact that every detail of everybody's life is potentially available to anyone else allows for a lot of pre-judgement anyway, so why not just go ahead and act like an elitist, if you are one. How much worse could that make things?

Well, things are worse and getting worser, and positions have only hardened as the dark forces of the right hold fast against the 'elitist, socialist' left. President Obama came to Warshington with a mandate for change, but he's been suckered by a bitter and twisted opposition into playing the same old political games - so much for change. But perhaps the President's smoking vice could be used to his advantage. Consider this; what if Obama found out (easily done, no doubt, by any 12-year old with a Blackberry) who in the Republican Party smoked? He could then call for a "Smoke Summit", that could take place in the back yard of Blair House (where the health care summit was held). Just imagine the President surrounded by pols of all stripes, leaning up against the wall and chatting casually about a big issue, all cupping cigs and getting things accomplished underneath a thick, nicotine fug. No elitism here, just a bunch of guys with a shared habit, getting down to business. Gotta be better than a tea party.

WELL, WE DON'T WANT TO LOSE YOU, BUT...

2010-02-23T17:55:00.007-05:00

Dear Readers,

Word has it that former US Vice-President and virulent Obama-basher, Dick "The Duck Hunter" Cheney has been taken to the hospital with a suspected heart attack. We here at Tea With SB, in a bi-partisan spirit of good will, wish Mr. Cheney a full and speedy recovery, as we will miss his Dracula-like presence, sledgehammer wit and good-natured patriotism.

It would be a serious loss if the political world were to be deprived of his witticisms, his helpful suggestions and the fact that he continues to serve as the real face of American right-wing paranoia.

So, get well real soon, Mr. Cheney!

BYE BAYH CIVILITY

2010-02-17T14:11:00.015-05:00

Dear Readers,

When politicians in Warshington D.C. start retiring with excuses like 'they want to spend more time with the family', you know there's trouble. This week, the Democrat Senator from Indiana, Evan Bayh, announced he was falling on his sword and leaving an uncivil, bitterly partisan Senate that he says is "where bills go to die".

Well, Bayh wasn't a leading light in Congress, yet I think he had enough nouse to sense that 2010 was not going to be a Democratic year. The Democrats in Congress have looked lately like just what they are: a slimy bunch of dumb, grasping, woefully out-of-touch satraps who inspire nobody and have ruined the first half of President Obama's term. And they're the good guys! The Republicans are even worse! Besides their 'just say no' approach to legislation, the GOP pols look like big lobby glove-puppets, and act like a bloated and snarling bunch of rabid rodents. And since nobody is looked up to in government these days, into this yawning breach steps the loose association of associations called The Tea Party movement.

Led by safe-within-their-glass-booth TV and radio blabbermouths, these are people who couldn't be bothered to get upset at a stolen election (2000), a phony, unwinnable war (2001), another phony-er war (2003), and a decade of letting the foxes of Wall Street guard the chickencoops of middle America, but now feel obliged to come in at the last minute and save the country.

The thought of any sane person believing a word that issues from such poisonous rictuses as Glenn Beck, Rush Limberger, or the other free-speech gangsters who have polarized the country for their own, financial benefit is depressing, to say the least. But these 'defenders of liberty' are looked up to by millions as oracles who's rants inspire the resurgence of interest in the American constitution, so willfully neglected when we most needed it to be lived up to.

Not that I am against people organizing and demanding their 'redress of grievances', but I think it's kind of suspicious that this new 'band of patriots' have emerged at the same moment that an African-American took the presidential oath of office. Goaded on by Fox News and Limberger and his imitators, we suddenly have a 'tyrant' for a president, and are being dragged towards 'socialism' (a term not one teabagger could accurately define, I promise you) by this non-citizen (got birth certificate?). No coincidence there, I'm sure.

The Teabag brigades say they don't like Republicans either, but it's a weak argument, seeing as they hang on every word of the right-wing media giants who have been little more than Republican Party flacks for years and years, and have taken on as their hope and saviour the GOP half-wit, Sarah 'I can see Russia from here' Palin. 'Taking back the government' has been a rallying cry for the Tea Party movement, but then handing it over to a puppet who will make Quisling look like an independent is sheer madness. Instead of 'The Tea Party' they might as well call themselves the 'Peyote Mushroom Party'.

So as pitchforks rise in the hinterlands, a decent and sensible adult like Evan Bayh exits the stage, probably for his own sanity and self respect as for anything else. He leaves behind a Congress looking more and more like the Roman Senate of Caligula's reign, the one where the Emperor appointed a horse to fill a vacancy. Nobody said or did anything about it, except to wonder why lately there was so much more sh*t all over the place.

WRITING ON THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU

2010-02-08T10:37:00.009-05:00

Dear Readers,

This past Saturday, amidst all the breathless hype for Super Bowl 44, a version of the Teabag Party movement held a 'convention' at a hotel in Nashville. The Teabagggers are riding high at the moment, after a successful summer of tar-and-pitchfork rallies, rages and meeting-busting, followed by elections in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts that they claimed as victories for themselves over the dark forces of state-sponsored 'socialism'. While the established parties look on with a bemused- but- nervous curiosity, the fact is that these people may have tapped into something that might eventually reconfigure the body politic. The demographic of this movement may have all the diversity of an Osmond family reunion, but it does seem to be fulfilling a perceived need, and providing a home for people who probably haven't actively participated in public issues - nay, perhaps have never even voted -in their lives.

The meeting's climax on Saturday night was the appearance of Sarah Palin, recently retired Governatrix of Alaska, flop GOP Vice-Presidential candidate and best selling author of a fictional romance book, Going Rouge. Palin, with characteristic, down-home, easy-to-understand, simple-minded rhetoric, delivered a speech to the restricted-country-club-looking crowd. With apparel, makeup, hairdo and shoes that must have easily eaten up most of the reported $100,000 appearance fee, our Sarah gave the teabags what they wanted - an aggressive, down-the-line recitation of the 'party's' manifesto, probably to avoid being lynched as much as agreeing with the intolerant organization's stated beliefs. Actual socialists could only dream of such unity that was evident in this crowd of rabid, anti- socialists.

There wasn't anything new about what Palin gassed on about, nor the predictable reaction from the Knotts-Berry-Farm-loving audience, but what was new was some crib notes our Sarah had written on her hand and was plainly picked up by the cameras as she spoke. I think this should not be interpreted in a negative way by progressives, but applauded, as she finally seems to be taking her role as president-in-waiting seriously. After all, she spent a few lines of her speech dissing President Obama for his extensive use of teleprompters (even when reading bedtime stories to his children, apparently), but avoided the pitfalls of extemporaneous remarks by giving her palm a quick peek every now and again to keep her train of thought on their rickety tracks.

My only question about the Tea Party Convention and it's associated entertainments is who's paying for all this? Even at $549 a plate for the Palin speech, the math doesn't quite work if our Sarah trousered a cool $100K for the blab. Could it be dark forces on the right, carefully planning their Manchurian Candidate for 2012? Sarah herself, is probably oblivious to the machinations going on behind the curtains, but at least somebody with advice-rights to our next President has opened up the possibilities of using one's skin as a place for cram notes. John McCain is probably kicking himself right now for not thinking of that back in 2008.

So, thanks to a sharpie and a dry palm, Sarah Palin remains the pinup gal stuck to the inside of the right-wing's gym locker. I didn't see the whole speech and Q and A with her, but has anybody commented on the possible symbolism that she kept referring to the notes on her left hand? Those were bad enough, but God only knows what she might have had scribbled on her right.

BLUE JAY WAY

2010-01-17T17:25:00.019-05:00

Dear Readers,

Does anybody really care who hosts The Tonight Show? Apparently, quite a lot of people do, as it took an earthquake of biblical proportions in Haiti to knock the story of Conan O'Brien's dis-fuelled rejection of any change to NBC's late-night lineup off of the front pages (or most of them, at least).

Just like the term 'front pages', The Tonight Show belongs to another era. A venerable late-night warhorse from the 1950's, the program has undergone several changes of hosts without changing very much. Even as the 21st century's appointee, Conan has not so much changed the format as he has revealed how worn-out it is. Sure, people still watch the 11 O'clock news and after the local 'fuzz-and-was' stories, sports (delivered by some crazed, caffeinated jock-brain) and the weather, quite a sizable audience still likes to round out their evening with some topical humor and show-biz bantering. When Conan took over, his perceived task was to put an edge-y-er type of humor on display for that audience, and also attract the lion's share of the coveted 18-30 age group, so important to advertisers. But the experiment was sputtering, constantly losing in the ratings to the 60-something (but still hipper) David Letterman, while the old incumbent, Jay Leno, was making a dog's dinner out of his 10 PM 'consolation prize' program. You know the rest - the cancelling of Jay at 10, the pushing of O'Brien's show to 12:05, Conan's refusal to be shifted, and his soon-to-be announced multi-million dollar severance pay as compensation for a job not-so-well done.

One supposes that now, Leno will return to The Tonight Show seat after a 7-month trek in the wilderness, and all will be well at NBC. Ironically, this switcheroo comes at a time when Conan's ratings are headed skyward, but will probably only prove to be akin to motorists slowing down to gawk at a traffic accident. Also ironic will be that Jay will come under pressure to maintain those numbers, as he drags the late-night format back into the 20th century, where it rightly belongs anyway.

As host of The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson regularly made the news, or at least the morning-after chat around the water cooler. Like a clever You Tube video, Carson's monologue went viral (before that word took on it's modern meaning) on a regular basis, and with no serious late-night competition for years, his was the act that America waited for after learning from the goofy weatherman how they should dress the kids the next day. For it's time, it was brilliant. Nowadays, The Tonight Show only makes news when it changes hosts -spontaneity and controversy is simply gone from the program. A future release of The Best Of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno would vie with Ironing Shirts with Bea Arthur for last place on the DVD sales charts.

While certainly a funny and intelligent guy, Conan O'Brien simply wasn't must-see TV (except for the next few weeks of tabloid-fodder-fed curiosity), either for a generation that still loves Johnny and Jay, or for the generation that drives, tweets, texts and surfs - all at the same time. It was just his bad luck to succeed to a throne that has all the rosy potential of the Romanov dynasty, circa 1917. Okay, let Jay work out the remainder of his contract at 11:35, but take some advice, NBC, after Leno goes (again) try and think of something else to do with a time slot who's formula has outlived it's usefulness.

A BLOVIATED BREW-UP

2010-01-11T15:46:00.025-05:00

Dear Readers,

Is it the Teabaggers, or The Tea Bag Party or is it called The Tea Party Party? But whatever it's called, it apparently hibernates over the winter and will almost surely return hungry (or is it thirsty?) when warmer weather comes.

I don't know who coined the term, or who's financing it or organizing it, but the chief beneficiaries (of what basically amounts to an anti- Obama movement) are the self-important, gas-bag barrage balloons of right wing talk radio. Taking their inspiration from the Boston Tea Party, a middle-of-the-night civil disobedience event back in 1763 (a fact very few of the participants could accurately cite), they've energized a mish-mash of neocons and grievance groups ranging from pro-lifers to the so-called 'birthers', or those who think President Obama is not a natural-born American citizen ("show us the certificate!"). And while many sensible people may write them off as witless cranks egged on by egomaniacal motormouths, the numbers may be growing and their influence may prevent a skittish congress from enacting any new progressive legislation in this election year.

Considering who promotes them and urges them on - regressive idiots like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck - they shouldn't seem to be much of a threat. But their stable-mates in wrong-headed rabble-rousing, such as the pro-life and anti-gay groups, have had an outsize influence on the people who we elect to make (or in the case of gay marriage, fail to make) laws and create a more humane climate in this country. I'm all for free speech, and make no appeal to silence these Flintstone-brained yokels, but I have to wonder why they are so intent on telling people - who's right to an abortion or a civil ceremony would in no way affect their lives - how they should live. The Teabag Party (...whatever...) is a new wrinkle on this wing of the body politic, and by adapting the methods of the holier-than-thou veterans of those aforementioned 'wedge' issues, they may graduate from windbag-driven odd squads into a force to be reckoned with. I, for one, am not laughing.

The Republican Party (this is a history lesson for you youngsters) used to be dominated by big-money, no-nonsense capitalist commie-haters, and used to number among it's more prominent members somewhat open-minded social moderates such as Nelson Rockefeller. Although a conservative party to be sure, vituperation and fundamentalism were slightly outside their 'tent'. Today, the so-called 'big tent' theory has long been tossed out on the elephant dung pile. The GOP 'tent' today is a smallish one, filled to the big top with mean-minded circus freaks who yearn for an all-white, all-Christian USA - no matter what they say publicly. From this fulcrum sprang the anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti big-government movements, and the high priests of the Republican Party remain at a safe distance from their foot soldiers, yet all the while, they're keeping eye contact, nodding and winking assent.

The Tea Baggers, manipulated by mean clowns like Hannity and Beck, took on the Health Care reform bill and fixed in the minds of a lot of people things like 'death panels' and free insurance for illegal immigrants ( like, Obama?). The resulting legislation, looking less like a shiny, new vehicle of change and more like a '73 Vega up on cinder blocks, is thisclose to becoming law, but may still yet fail, partially thanks to these calculated calumnies.

So as the days lengthen and the sun ratchets higher and higher in the sky, will we again see the twisted, angry faces of intolerance peeking out from under those ridiculous, teabag-festooned(what a senseless waste of tea!) hats? You betcha! Laugh at them if you will, but chuckle at your peril, I say. If the healthcare bill has become law, they will find any number of issues on which to inflict their righteous ways, you can be sure. (And Fox News will be right behind them.)

In 1763, I don't think there was such a thing as a teabag, but some people earned a living by peering into the dregs of a cup and casting predictions based on the arrangement of the used-up tea leaves. I've no talent in that direction, and I'll spare you the metaphor of trouble 'brewing', but I have a feeling it's going to be a banner year for the Lipton company.

INTO THE FIENDLY SKIES

2010-01-07T12:13:00.018-05:00

Dear Readers,

Does anybody remember when flying was fun? Was it ever fun?

Thanks to fuel prices, airline service cutbacks, fewer carrier choices and endless delays, we can now add the Christmas Day Underpants Bomber and it's resulting panic to the list that's making flying in a commercial airliner a misery for an awful lot of people.

Americans of a certain age look back wistfully at the days when airline dinners were a go-to joke for stand up comedians, but no more. Cheese-paring among airlines means that in the near-future, raffles will be conducted on long-haul flights to see who wins the 3 bags of crisps that will soon become the maximum amount of comestibles on any given aircraft. I, for one, now utterly regret turning up my snotty nose at the foil-wrapped, overheated Chicken Florentine with two veg that used to be placed on my fold-up tray by a reasonably friendly cabin crew member. The tray will probably be eliminated next, then movies, then seats, then air.

A grim reality of the 21st century is that flying has become a nerve-wracking, constitution-challenging ordeal. The perils of travelling from place to place in a commercial jet liner have increased, even as aircraft have become larger and more reliable. The quaint notion of dreading being sat next to the fattest person you've ever seen has now been replaced with the dread of sitting next to someone who decides to set fire to his shorts.

In America, the FAA no longer regulates air travel, which may comes as news to nobody but the FAA. No, the control of our skies (and that of many other nations) has devolved to Al Qaeda. From caves in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen-stan and maybe other 'stans' we've not heard of yet, terrorists pretty much determine how passengers are loaded, baggage stowed and takeoffs allowed, and it's a little worrisome that over eight years after 9/11, the handover has still not been acknowledged by our officials. And you thought it was taking a long time to build the Freedom Tower on the scar that was once the World Trade Center!

It's no good to just shrug and say that it's the problem of those who happen to fly, either. A plane that blows up in mid-air can theoretically crash down on anybody, even the most dedicated Luddite, and just because we've been reduced to strip-searching 89-year old grannies suspected of being a potential Depends Bomber doesn't mean that a disaster can't still occur. The thing about terrorists -often forgotten by comfortable and reasonable Americans - is that they may get caught 99 times out of a hundred, but that one success could be a whopper, and the terror-leaders are not concerned about getting their one, successful agent back, either.

Compared to what we're now up against, World War II looks like a polite war. When Germany and Japan surrendered and signed the documents, that was it - game over. But we can't win a war that has no stated goal - heck, we can hardly imagine how to fight it. In a war where the attackers only need an army of one guy with pyrotechnic Calvins to score a success, we're all potential walking collateral damage, no matter your religion, or lack thereof.

The people who are nominally in charge of security have got to face up to the fact that a 100% success rate in thwarting terrorists is the minimum standard, and they must work harder at analyzing data, screening dodgy people and sharing information with other nations who are similarly threatened(The Underpants bomber left a paper trail that practically outed himself as a risk, and nothing was done about it). And if you say that there's not enough people to do the job, well, a Terrorism Stimulus Program might not be a bad investment for putting the unemployed back to work - a much better idea than building pork-barrel bridges to nowhere.

What a boost for the economy it would be to have airports crawling with security staff and every flight manned (or womanned) with an agent sitting at the back with a loaded fire extinguisher at the ready.

Air travel will, sadly, never be the same as it was as recently as a decade ago, and there's no use trying to deny or ignore that fact. Once you actually get on the plane, you'll have to say goodbye to the pillows, blankets, peanuts, free drinks, free headphones, leg room, carry-on luggage and the in-flight entertainment that was once the norm for even bovine-class passengers. There is a bright spot, though, with the ban on the use of smartphones in-flight certain to be totally repealed, we can take nostalgic solace in watching You Tube clips of 80's comedians as we cruise at 30,000 feet, squashed into our seats - "Hey, what about that airline food, huh...?"

LOOKING BACK IN ANGER

2010-01-04T08:28:00.021-05:00

Dear Readers,

The second decade of the 21st century is now on the road, and as we cruise down the highway of time in our shiny, new vehicle, there's every reason to suspect that what we really have is a chimera of a ride, cobbled together from the remains of several chassis, despite the new-car aroma.

With all the best-of, most-of and worst-of lists for the 'decade with no name' out of the way, it seems to me that the years 2000 through 2009 can be summed up in four words: greed, corruption, war and technology. This quartet could describe any decade, of course, but the depressing thing is that these aspects of life seem to be intertwined in a more sinister fashion than in past ten-year chunks of history.

It's worth noting that greed and corruption have no redeeming qualities, while war and technology can be both good and evil, depending on the generally accepted righteousness of, or which side of the battle or invention you happen to be on. And while more and more ordinary people are connected to the world at large than ever before, the influence of this mass of humanity on events that shape this world seems increasingly impotent, despite all the writhing and moaning.

Take Twitter for example. This ingenious little network allows us all - potentially - to be reporters, commentators and published diarists to a (potential) worldwide audience, hard-wired for virtual social networking. Apart from the inanity of what Paris Hilton is up to, news that used to have to wait for an hourly radio bulletin, TV film at 11 or the next day's newspaper to 'go viral' can now ricochet all over the globe, almost instantly. But the value of this 'speed of information' seems dubious to me, and has yet to prove it's value. Sure, the world knew that Michael Jackson had croaked within minutes of the singer's assumption of room temperature, but was it vital information? Did it matter? It was titillating, perhaps, but could have easily waited until Eyewitness News At Six. So much of this 'vital information' falls into the category of 'it could wait'. Maybe the best example of the potential power of a 140-character burst of knowledge came during the post-bogus-election-result protests in Iran. Texting, Twittering and cell-phone photographing provided the protesters involved with instant access to each other and the world at large as they clashed with the goon squads of the state in a confused, running battle. But in the end, it did not change the outcome one bit. The repressive regime survived, intact. Score one for brute force over Blackberry, Palm Pilot and I-Phone.

As the financial and influence gap between the wealthy, powerful elite and the great mass of the rest of us widens, the paranoid in me wonders if the ruling class has somehow kept us docile by bestowing on us the gadgets of modern technology that keep us so glued to our Wiis, wide screens and smart phones that we have even less time than before to look critically at the big picture all around us. The powers that be can rest assured that there will be no protests in the streets as long as we're absorbed with our tweets.

So, while two futile wars rage on, and Wall Street's new generation robber-barons wallow in obscene, Great Recession bonuses, a sizable plurality of America's public stays firmly in debt in order to stay firmly gadgeted-up. But people have yet to truly tap into the power that's been so cynically handed them. It's still all about me and my space. We may sheepishly accept the wars and the rip-offs imposed from above, but if a reasonable request to turn off a cellphone in a theatre is made, look out, There Will Be Blood. Meanwhile, outside in the real world, big finance's dodgy products wipe out millions of jobs at a stroke. Classic Machiavellian tactics: keep the mob at each other's throats so that they don't go for the ruling elite's jugulars. Maybe a gross misreading of the situation, but it does seem like a lost opportunity so far, the chance to use the new technology to hold the guilty to account. Seems we'd much rather be the first to know that Tiger Woods has resurfaced in the Bahamas than raise an angry protest against the men who have sold us out.

In China, the ruling class keeps limits on Internet access and social networking because they know that with a population that size, with less to lose, the risk of revolution is greater than in the US, where the populace is generally comfortable enough to put up with misfeasance. Our leaders live in hope that the center will hold, and our child-like optimism about the future will last a while longer. The financial/political elite of this country must look with absolute envy upon the Chinese system, which, as the balance of power shifts from the West to the East(thanks, largely, to the cynical, short-term-gain-for-long-term-pain, financial sell-out to the Orient), seems to be evolving into a kind of 'Capitalist Dictatorship', or free-market, centrally controlled economics coupled with political repression. The Chinese squash dissent with tanks, the US must (for now) continue to squash dissent with affordable, entertaining gadgetry.

The 2000's was a decade where we raced boldly into the future without facing up to many of the fundamental problems of the past. Now, in the new year and new decade, partially blinded by the light of a billion LCD screens, it's quite easy to lose sight of the fact that we've heavily mortgaged our future for the pleasures of the present, and the latest I-Phone app won't do much to address the threats of terrorism, corporate crime, climate change or the fact that millions of people live lives right this minute that we wouldn't allow our pets to endure.

There's a great line in John Osborne's play, Look Back In Anger, that effectively(and contradictorily) describes my opinion of the 2000's. To paraphrase a character in the play comparing the older and younger generation of the time -" one is angry because everything has changed, the other is angry because nothing has changed". Happy New Year.

SEETHING WITH GOOD WILL

2009-12-27T10:42:00.007-05:00

Dear Readers,

Washington is quiet now as the politicians, exhausted from their 'workload' stagger back to their home districts for a little R&R (I had no idea that the Caribbean, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas were so well-represented). And even President Obama has headed off for the state of his birth, Hawaii, for some well-deserved down-time amongst the grass skirts and pineapples. In-between the parties and committing a solid majority of the seven deadly sins, the beltway pols can take a look at it's accomplishments and shortcomings from a position of extreme comfort and tally up the numbers. As everybody loves to keep score, there will be more scorecards for the new President's first year than returned sweaters to department stores. But I will resist the temptation to add to the pile by simply saying 'he made it'.

Whatever one says about Mr. Obama and the successes and/or failures of his first year, you gotta admit that the guy kept his cool. The people who expected the new President to wave a wand and change the D.C. culture in a instant have serious issues with the way things have gone to be sure. The left-wing Democrats, who seem to have expected him to govern to the left of Fidel Castro, and the lunatic right wing (i.e.,the leadership of the Republican Party), who were crying 'socialism' at every turn like trained circus bears, were the most vocal. Even the vast, centrist, piano majority seemed uncertain as to how to react to a President who promised change, yet wound up governing like a veteran bureaucrat, calmly surrounding himself with the Geitners', Summerses' and Clintons of the world. Yet, contrary to popular belief, things did get done, like the stimulus package, the Afghan 'surge', the auto rescue and the framework of the health care reform bill, just to name a few. Plus, the guy won a Nobel Prize for gawd's sake, without breaking a sweat. Much was left hanging though, like unemployment and banking reform (don't hold your breath), and dealing with those issues will make Finnegan's Wake seem like a beach novel. But even as tsunami after tsunami of criticism, unwanted advice and hasty judgements poured down on him, Obama maintained a calm, steady and confident demeanor, which at least gave off the impression of a man in firm control. While citizens of many stripes might have an awful lot to complain about this administration, you can't say he didn't stand up and do his job with a lot of aplomb.

Obama, who spent considerably more time as a candidate than as a senator during his two-thirds of a term in the upper body, certainly made the best use of his majority in the sense that he let congress be congress - with all it's slimy deal-making, porkbarrel ways - and got something out of it on a core issue like healthcare, a trick that no other president has been able to pull off. While other chief executives have tried to use their election victory momentum to dictate terms to the Congress, Obama just gave them a general idea of what he was after and let them churn out the sausage, using their own, traditional, unsanitary recipe. Considering that Obama was so little regarded (and little-seen) by his peers in his 4 years as a U.S. Senator, his approach borders on the brilliant in dealing with such a group of self-important, puffed-up group of insatiable grabbers.

So, while the business of governing in 2009 has had it's little successes, the coming year in the nation's capital promises to be an argy-bargy of epic proportions. The Republican rump may seem beaten and constantly outvoted, but it would be a serious mistake to take them lightly and dismiss them as a bunch of teabagged lunatics. While the left may be wary of the administration, and the center may be confused, the right-wingers are unshakable in their paranoia about Obama, and the infection can easily spread. It's worth noting that political Washington broke camp for the holidays with the 'loyal' opposition in a bitter high dudgeon over the health care bill, certain to return to work refreshed and committed to revenge. In between the presents and the parties, the Jacobins at Fox News will be banging away at Obama nonstop between the showings of "A Christmas Story" and "New Year's Rockin' Eve", and while most of the Republicans in congress are probably several time zones away from anybody resembling a constituent during this holiday break, no doubt they'll be 'hearing it', one way or another. Obama may be feeling good about how the year in Washington wound up, but it would be foolhardy to ignore an opposition that will return in 2010, tanned, rested and ready - and hell-bent on destruction.

CHRISTMAS CRACKERS

2009-12-22T10:17:00.003-05:00

Dear Readers,

Some inspirational quotes for you to help get through the required jolliness of the holiday season.

"Christmas is a holiday that persecutes the lonely, the frayed and the rejected." - Jimmy Cannon

"Christmas makes everything twice as sad." - Douglas Coupland

"Christmas to a child is the first terrible proof that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive." - Stephen Fry

"I beg to present to you as a Christmas present the city of Savannah." - William Tecumseh Sherman

SINK THE BISMARCK!

2009-12-17T10:06:00.012-05:00

Dear Readers,

The old saying about there being two things you shouldn't watch being made - sausage and legislation - is never more true in the case of this current attempt at health care reform. Except as the US Senate meat-grinder churns on, it seems like as many ingredients are being taken out as put in, and this bill looks like it's going to be quite an unappetising banger.

Gone are the better ideas like single-payer provisions, the public option, medicare buy-in and any sort of cost control which, to my way of thinking, should have been at the very heart of the legislation.

In fact, this bill has no heart. It's a freakish monster, written largely by the medical and drug lobbies and the !#$%^&! minority party, the left-for-dead GOP.

The medical lobbies and the Republicans have played this one beautifully. First, they got ahead of the curve by distilling easy-to-digest sound bite lies (like the Obama death-panels) out of complicated facts, scaring the bejesus out of and mobilizing the Republican 'base'. Then, with the help of the big medicine lobby and a handful of pusillanimous Democrats, they threatened a feckless Majority Leader of The Senate, Harry Reid, into making huge concessions in order to gain his 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority. So, not only have the Republicans gotten most everything that smacks of real reform out of the bill, but have contrived a scenario where the Democrats will get the blame when voters realize they've been had. Pure (evil) genius. Ernst Blofeld of 'James Bond' fame could not have done better.

When the Democrats watch, grinning, as President Obama inks the legislation, we'll probably have a bill - largely re-written by big medicine - that requires, under penalty of law any uninsured person or family to buy health care that basically allows insurance companies to charge what ever they want. Even the removal of the 'pre-existing condition' excuse for denying coverage is a poisoned chalice. Big insurance has to cover you, but can charge you big time for having, say, something like high blood pressure (a condition I'm acquiring as I type). No more deciding between the mortgage and paying your insurance premiums, no more choice between eating and settling your health care account, pay up or be heavily fined by the US Government. 'Death Panels' will no longer be a paranoid fiction - they'll be real and manned by big health insurance executives.

Why the Democrats decided to try and reform everything in one bill remains a mystery to me. Wouldn't it have been better to address each area of concern separately? They could have gained a sense of momentum by passing bills to remedy easy targets, then used that momentum to push through more controversial items. But no. They, like the German Kriegsmarine during World War II, just had to construct and put to sea an enormous, vulnerable, lumbering, huge-target Battleship Bismarck, heavy in firepower, but eventually doomed by a couple of well-aimed torpedos from old, slow, clapped-out, obsolete bi-planes. Surely, the Dems (who ought to act more like they run the government) would have been more successful by sending out a pack of legislative U-Boats, moving stealthily under water and picking off targets one at a time. Sadly though, unlike the original, this modern Bismarck will probably survive, severely damaged, but with it's still-powerful guns aimed squarely at the people it was designed to protect.

I'M A CELEBRITY, GET ME OUTTA HERE

2009-12-01T18:10:00.009-05:00

Dear Readers,

Fame, ain't it a b**ch.

In a week where a very weird couple apparently gate-crashed an official state dinner at the White House, another crash was taking place about 1,000 miles away. Inadvertently, golf great Tiger Woods has turned a humble fire hydrant near his Floridian gated community estate into a cultural icon merely by crashing into it at 2:30 in the morning. Woods, who may be the most world-famous sports celebrity since Muhammad Ali, is now signalling to the rest of the planet that he would like to be left alone (and probably crawl beneath that hydrant) and have everybody just forget about the whole thing. But that's not possible when you are as well-known as he is, and for those who are just dying to be celebrities, it ought to be a morality tale-like warning, easily on a par with Aesop.

The wealthy goofballs who circulated at the White House state dinner apparently had it all - money, social status (of a sort), fairly good looks, good health and the savoir faire sufficient to blend in with the invited guests. Even with all that, they were suffering from a 'disease' that more and more Americans seem to be coming down with -they weren't famous. Forget the 'swine flu', 'Fame Flu' is a condition there seems to be no vaccine for, and it's spreading.

If your stomach is still strong enough to watch TV, you must have a number of 'reality shows' on your favorites list, and they are invariably populated by completely talent-free, utterly banal human beings who somehow grabbed the public's (and the TV producers) attention and attained the ultimate accolade - a hit TV show featuring themselves. The list is too great and nauseating to review, but when nobodies like Jon & Kate (plus 8) become cable-ratings kings and wind up on the cover of every publication from People to Popular Mechanics (having watched it once, one can only imagine what the lower-rated shows must be like), then you know that the 'fame coin' is seriously debased. Yet reality-show stars are actually only useful to the media until a real star like Tiger goes and screws up and blows them off the headlines.

So Mr. Woods hides out while speculation and unsourced gossip about what caused the wee-hours accident (and why he's reluctant to explain the circumstances around it) swirl around all media from TV to Twitter. The complete ordinariness of Woods's situation stands in stark contrast to the astonishing lack of security revealed by the White House gatecrashers, and yet his story won't die. Being famous for being famous is one thing, but real celeb-juice (based on talent, mostly) is still a rare commodity. Despite this truism, I can hear it even now, in some midwestern livingroom - "Ma, call the press, I think junior's trapped in an out-of-control hot-air balloon. And don't forget to call Hollywood, too". Andy Warhol didn't know the half of it.

SOON TO BE SNAIL MAIL

2009-11-30T17:15:00.003-05:00

Dear Readers,

Here's my newest promotional postcard. Please feel free to save it and print it out for later use, as I need to cut back on stamps. I think it's rather cute, don't you?

A LINCOLN, NOT A FORD

2009-11-25T15:35:00.011-05:00

Dear Readers,

Needless to say, it's been a rough few months for Barack Obama. In a nation obsessed with apps and American Idols, change must happen with the speed of thought, and with so many bottomless problems to deal with, it seems that people are quite willing to sacrifice sense on the altar of swiftness.

Ironically, it's the speed of the progress of the health care bill that seems to have bothered the nation the most. While the President seems to dither on W's war in Afghanistan, he gets slammed for the slowness of action in that problem, and at the same time gets pilloried for pushing too hard and too fast in the massive reform of our medical system. No matter how confident an incoming President may be, the truth is, you just can't win.

Most newly-elected Chief Executives - with the possible exception of FDR - have had rough first years. Even John F. Kennedy, with far less immediate crises to deal with, was viewed by some as not up to the job because of the Bay Of Pigs disaster and his less-than-successful first meeting with the USSR leadership. But JFK didn't have a legion of radio and TV Brownshirts publicly 'hoping he would fail' and even doubting his claim to be a natural-born US citizen. Critics back then grumbled but they didn't attempt to overthrow the new government.

A more apt comparison to Obama's rookie season could be made with the first year of Abraham Lincoln's presidency (not surprisingly, our president's favorite role-model), one in which the nation went to war with itself and Abe had to watch as his poorly-led army suffered defeat after defeat on the battlefield. Lincoln also had to put up with savage attacks on his motives, his character and even how he looked. He was often compared to a simian and some of his less-clever critics referred to him as 'Ape' Lincoln (...c'mon, Rush, I dare you...). But our 16th President kept his cool and instead of pandering to the mob literally baying for his blood, he remained himself, confident (outwardly, at least) that he would eventually find the solutions.

Obama has not only had to hear it from all the media chicken-hawks on how to conduct policy as regards to Afghanistan - but he's also had to stand some fairly inappropriate public comments from his Generals running the hopeless conflict. A lesser man would have ordered wholesale firings, but I think his commitment to rationalism remains firm. While it looks like feckless inaction to some, it looks like thoughtful resolve to me. Lincoln, in the early days of the Civil War bemoaned his lack of a winning General, one who would confront the enemy and fight instead of holding back for fear of losing. Today, it's the Generals who bemoan the lack of a decisive president who won't give them 500,000 more troops to waste in a lost cause. The last president who gave the generals all that they wanted was Lyndon B. Johnson (whom I seem to remember had a fantastic first year in office). So clearly, history, with all it's parallels, is not always the best example to gauge the present by. Last November, we voted for change, and we got it. We replaced a quick-acting, slow-thinking (often no-thinking) President with an intelligent, analytical and deliberate one. Isn't that change enough?

HELLO, I MUST BE GOING

2009-11-24T16:42:00.024-05:00

Dear Readers,

In the fun house-mirror world of entertainment, nothing becomes a celebrity more than how they make an exit. Many of us have spent obscene amounts of money to attend 'farewell tour' concerts of our best-loved musicians, comedians and other circus acts, only to find out a few years later that the celeb has decided to come out of retirement. Let's face it, all people who have grabbed the brass ring of fame will only give it up when it's prised from their cold, dead fingers. Perhaps the only celebrity who has announced a farewell tour who actually kept their word was Michael Jackson, and he needed quackery and enough meds to knock out a battalion of Cossacks in order to do it.

So, in a tearful statement last week, Oprah Winfrey announced she was leaving her daytime syndicated show -her farewell tour lasting only another eighteen months - and voluntarily stepping down from the gabfest throne. Like her or not, Oprah is a phenomenon. I can't say I'm a regular viewer, but by daytime talk-show standards, she's the best there has ever been in the genre, and the best that probably ever will be. In a Rupert Murdoched media environment, no articulate, telegenic and intelligent person will ever again be allowed access to the airwaves, and we'll be left with meatballs like Dr. Phil and airheads like Tyra Banks to stare at idly while we wait for the unemployment check to arrive. Besides, with on-line playpens like Facebook, You Tube and Twitter, the daytime TV schedule is increasingly irrelevant (along with newspapers). Like Muhammad Ali with heavyweight boxing, Oprah is taking the category of daytime talk-show host with her when she goes.

But wait! While Ms. Winfrey intends to step away from her popular, high-paying gig in about 2 years, she'll almost immediately pop up on her own soon-to-be network on cable. Yes, in the 35 minutes or so between contracts, we'll have the Oprah Winfrey Network to look forward to (I can already see the revolvers, sleeping pills and razor blades emerging from the desks of ABC and CBS executives). Although nothing has been announced in detail, I would lay odds that we shall see Oprah again in a show or two not unlike the one she's giving up.

But I say, good for her. She seems a smart and level-headed lady, and her fame is nothing if not truly deserved. If you give her credit for only one thing, her talk show - and it's by-products, like the Oprah Book Club - have not only raised the national IQ a point or two, but have saved daytime TV from going totally over the Jerry Springer cliff, no mean feat. So, I wish Ms. Winfrey all success, a long life and continued good fortune, but please don't make it seem like you're leaving us. How can we miss you if you never go away?

COLORING THE TROOPS

2009-11-16T11:20:00.022-05:00

Dear Readers,

I didn't think it was possible to squeeze anymore entertainment juice out of World War Two, but the current WWII In HD series on the Discovery Channel has proved otherwise.

In this instance the said channel is living up to its name, as it has discovered new footage of the war, some taken by soldiers and individuals during the conflict that had been stored and forgotten in private collections. It's hard to believe that so many veterans had kept these films in attics and basements, thinking they were of little value. Maybe they thought there's been so many TV programs, series and re-assessments of WW2 (enough to merit it's own cable channel, at least), every moment of the conflict must have already been captured on celluloid and their contributions would be superfluous. In an age where practically every piece of junk is a 'collectible' to somebody, and nothing seems to be valueless, these newly-found artifacts are invaluable, and take us beyond the familiar and iconic images to give us a little taste of how messy and nasty this 'good war' was for the ordinary citizen who had to do all the dirty work.

During the war, a good amount of censorship was felt necessary to keep the reality of the battlefield from the public, and the most graphic material stayed under wraps - especially if it involved 'our' side. Letting people see what they might be in for if they were sent into battle was not very good for morale, obviously. But having seen the first episode of this series, I was impressed by the amount of footage of the dead and the dying that was aired, and also of field hospitals (an often forgotten ancillary of warfare), and the operations on wounded soldiers that took place within. It reminded me of a sadistic health teacher I had in grade school who showed some similar films (only to the boys) in order to 'toughen us up'. We saw reels and reels of surgery on these battlefield injuries, causing some of us to faint. I hung on, but was haunted by what I saw.

Surprisingly, a lot of the more gruesome stuff was actually filmed in color, and this in an age before digital 'colorizing' (all previous wars were in black-and-white only). So if I have any criticism of WWII In HD, its that quite a lot of the footage they used to tell the stories was obviously colorized. It's a pretty refined technique these days, but I think a lot of the people who do colorizing are techies, not artists. For instance, when there was a shot of an explosion shown, the fireball had all it's oranges and reds, but the dust-and-debris cloud remained a stubborn B&W-film grey (grey has color, too - to an artist). Also, all faces seemed to be the same tint. A minor point, but annoying all the same.

I wonder what the vets - who had put away these films and practically forgotten about them - feel about seeing their 'home' movies messed with. My guess is that, to a combat veteran of World War Two, their memories have always been in vivid, stark and unfading color, and no technology can ever mess with that - unfortunately.

McCAIN'S REVENGE

2009-11-13T11:03:00.011-05:00

Dear Readers,

Excerpts from the Sarah Palin book, Going Rouge are beginning to appear, and it looks like the man who pulled her from well-deserved obscurity is not going to come out of too well. Yes, not only are we going to be treated to a no-holds barred re-writing of the would-be Veep's disastrous 2008 campaign, but poor old John McCain will be savaged by his very own creation.

I suppose it will not only become a best-seller, trash McCain and his handlers and offer us the wit and wisdom of the moose-slaughtering, ex-governor of Alaska, but it will probably be regarded as the first serious stirrings of the 2012 presidential campaign. The very notion that Sarah would be taken seriously by anyone as a US president is offset by the sheer exasperation many Americans seem to have for Mr. Obama, perhaps our brainiest chief executive. But a quick think about the motives of the Republican Party - i.e., get the controls of government again - and you begin to see the sense of promoting Palin as the saviour of the country. The neocons have a long track record of getting 'amiable dunces' elected to the White House - just examine the list of the last 30 years or so. If you think that there's no way a half-wit could ever get his or her feet under the desk in the Oval Office, think again. You have to admire the skills of the Cheneys, Rumsfelds, and Roves of the GOP, as they've been at or near the heart of the machines that saw Ronald Reagan and a couple of George Bushes (easily the dimmest dynastic family since the Windsors) win election to the highest office in the land. The Democrats, on the other hand, have gotten extremely smart people elected in the last 30 years - Jimmy Carter (nuclear peanut baron), Bill Clinton (Rhodes scholar) and Barack Obama (earned a degree from Harvard in 6 weeks) - yet it's the Republican double-digit IQ candidates that people are beginning to look back at fondly - in spite of the fact that a fair-minded assessment of the records would have to conclude these GOP presidents have collectively wreaked the most damage on ordinary citizens.

So Palin puts out Going Rouge (I know it's really called 'Going Rogue', but let me have my little joke) and the cycle starts again. In the film Frankenstein, the torch-carrying mob corners and seems to kill the monster Victor Frankenstein has created, but it's looking like in real life, the mob wishes the monster to live, and instead, turns on itself. Meanwhile, back in the gloomy, gothic laboratory, the mad scientists of the GOP nudge and wink at each other, thinking "it's alive, it's alive"!!

YOU VET YOUR LIFE

2009-11-12T00:05:00.007-05:00

Dear Readers,

For those who's history only goes as far back as the Imac, Veteran's Day probably needs some sort of explanation. Arising out of the slaughter of World War One, so many people had been affected by the loss or maiming of a loved one, some sort of acknowledgement of the wasting of so many lives needed to take place -probably not for sentimentality's sake, but in order that the people in power could maintain that control over the mass of humanity that sustains those who seek to rule.

It's in this context that we observe another yearly recognition of those who choose to defend us.

Yet there are those of us who command the airwaves and earn huge salaries by stoking prejudices, railing against common sense and urging our country into military folly that see our brave boys and girls as (as Bob Dylan once wrote) as 'pawns in the game', and want to send even more of them into a mindless Moloch of misguided madness. Yes, Rush, Glenn, Sean and Bill, I'm talking about you.

The right-wing 'chicken-hawks' who feel it's their duty to urge young men and women to take up arms -when they did not bother to- should be ashamed of themselves, even as they pose as 'patriots', stirring up 'teabag' mobs into action against ideas which do not suit these media satraps' notions of how we should behave. Men with microphones are the bravest - as long as it's not they who are doing the dying.

Yes, this country should absolutely revere those who have taken up arms in defense of this democracy, and many have died horrible, painful deaths in fighting fields where honor and liberty was at stake - but survival was what it came down to in the end. Without realizing it, they were metaphors, and it pains me to see so many right-wing blabbermouths elevating their own status on the dead bodies of people they view as mere fuel for their own firestorms.

But life isn't fair, and the cowards who have suddenly found militarism thrive while the very audiences they pander to send their children off to hopeless, murderous wars.

I sleep uneasily thinking about the veterans who have been maimed and slaughtered in service to this country, but Glenn, Rush and Sean sleep peacefully in the confident assurance that there will always be armies willing to die for their wealth and comfort. Is this a great country, or what?

ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD

2009-11-05T19:08:00.008-05:00

Dear Readers,

The New York Yankees have won the World Series and have regained their place as the champions of Major League Baseball. The planet has regained it's equilibrium, the stars have aligned in a new 'age of Aquarius', and we can count on at least 6 months of perfect weather in all parts of the country.

There are other effects to be noticed that have been effected by this return to normalcy, like:

Osama Bin Laden has been captured and has offered -along with all the Al-Queida members he's aware of - to personally rebuild the World Trade Center buildings - for free.

Bernard Madoff has informed authorities that he has a Swiss bank account with $750 trillion dollars in it, and would like to repay all the people he ripped off plus retire the entire U.S. national debt.

Hamid Karzai has announced he will join the Green Party, quit as President, and allow Afghanistan to have free elections without him.

Rush Limbaugh has announced he's giving up his radio show to join ACORN.

Paula Abdul has promised she will never appear on TV again.

Sarah Palin has retired from politics to become a US park ranger, to be stationed in Greenland.

Iran has decided to give up it's nuclear weapons program and has applied to become the 51st US State.

And you thought sports was silly. I'll let you know of more normalcy events as they come in.

OBAMA BOMBS?

2009-11-04T00:28:00.015-05:00

Dear Readers,

In a free society like the United States, being able to elect our leaders is one of the most cherished rights we have - even if this right is only exercised by about half of the eligible voters in any given election year. If the system has a flaw, it's that every year seems to be an election year, even if - like this year - there were only a handful of contests of national interest. There just never seems to be enough time between elections to get much done before the political winds begin to shift.

So, only 10 months or so into a new Presidency, voters in Virginia and New Jersey have reversed themselves and voted Republican in states that President Obama carried only one year ago. Many will see the results as a test of Obama and of his polices, and the man who sailed through a fancy school like Harvard has scored a 'D', at best. If there's any comfort for the Democrats out of this election, it's that the weird race in New York's 23rd congressional district, where right-wing kooks pulled out all the stops to win, may turn out to be a gain for the plucky blue-staters. But it's not much comfort for most sane people to see the GOP, having been reduced to a quarrelsome rump by the unambiguous results of the elections of 2006 and 2008, suddenly feeling as if they have renewed life, especially as they have petulantly poisoned the national debate and body politic all year long.

The 'new spirit of co-operation' lasted only long enough for Republican pols to digest and eliminate the inaugural-day meals they ate (along with some humble pie) on January 20th. I give team Obama props for giving 'peace' a chance, but once it was clear that co-operation on the serious issues bequeathed to the country by the Cheney-Bush nightmare was not going to happen (this should have been understood say...about January 21st), then the Democrats should have just proceeded to ignore the 'bleating hearts' of the opposition and gotten down to business. But the cool and calm Obama (perhaps bringing the first sense of thoughtfulness to the Oval Office since JFK) didn't exactly spring into action but instead, accidentally built up an image of a dithering neophyte - a cardinal sin in a country full of five-minute attention spans, talent 'reality' shows where a new idol is created in a matter of weeks and a techno-savvy electorate who have seen 85,000 apps for the !#$%&*ing I-phone appear in a matter of months. How do you explain and re-set complex issues like the economy, health care and international terrorism to a mob like that? The worst that can be said about the administration is that it didn't seem to try.

Into this vacuum we saw the cruel simplifiers of the GOP effortlessly fill the void. From tea parties to town meeting disruptions to the Fox News Channel's endless Obama-bashing, the opinions tipped and the losers of 2008 became the winners of 2009. The ineptitude of the Democrats was excruciating to watch through the spring and summer.

Now, here in the autumn, we witness life being breathed into an ideology that looked like road-kill only twelve months ago. The architects of a system that has failed an enormous number of people for an enormous amount of time are acting like leaders again while our actual leaders look feeble and uncertain So, ladies and gentlemen, as of this moment, the 2010 election has officially begun, which means it's almost certain that nothing good is going to get done for a bad, long while. Ironically, people impatient and frustrated over a perceived lack of movement for the better have once again voted for -you guessed it - change.

TAKING THE MICHAEL

2009-10-30T12:08:00.008-04:00

Dear Readers,

This weekend marks the release of Michael Jackson's This Is It movie, and already, film industry number-crunchers are worried that it may not live up to box-office expectations. The film, culled from Jackson's rehearsal videos made in preparation for a 50-show engagement in London, was expected to have a $50 million opening weekend, but may fall short, based on the first-in overseas numbers. Michael, you just can't win, even from the grave.

While I appreciated the enormous talent Jackson possessed, I can't say I was actually a fan. But one thing I did feel was sorry for the man. I know, I know, he seemed to have gotten up to some weird things at Neverland (a paedophile's dream house if ever there was one), but I never thought he was actually guilty of any wrongdoing - bad judgement, maybe - but I don't think he did anything illegal. Any sane adult would not have left their children alone with a non-relative stranger, and the ones who did leave them in the charge of Jackson must have had sinister designs of one kind or another, and using their kids in an attempt to make themselves some money or fame was the only illegality going on at Jackson's fantasy camp, IMHO. The parts of the story I do believe are the ones that make the erstwhile King Of Pop seem a very unhappy person indeed.

Real and pseudo psychologists must be knocking themselves out trying to peddle books on what made Jackson behave as he did, but the truth will never really be known, even with all the stories and rumors that accumulated over the years about the singer's lifestyle. But let's face it, nobody will ever really know for sure, because nobody has ever been as famous - or as scrutinized - as Michael Jackson was. A little bit of fame is probably OK, but that much fame is usually lethal.

So now the undertakers of Jackson's legacy are in charge, and this film of his last performances is only the beginning - even if it doesn't live up to the industry's financial expectations. For as we've learned over the last 13 months or so, money is everything to an awful lot of people, and, one might add, fame is for suckers. 'Cash is King' and maybe this quote from Mark Twain completes that nostrum - "Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident. The only earthly certainty is oblivion". So rest in peace, Michael, while those still earthbound continue to flog your corpse.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD SPACEMEN

2009-10-27T14:01:00.016-04:00

Dear Readers,

I doubt that many people knew about today's postponed launch of the Ares 1-X rocket, NASA's latest product that was designed to take man to the moon again. In fact, most people today probably think NASA is a new cellphone company, or maybe a new Apple product that somehow escaped being called an I-NASA. Sadly, (I am a long-time fan of real space stuff) apart from the occasional Shuttle explosion, NASA has pretty much disappeared from public view and it's administrators are realizing that it's become a faded hero in search of a role.

Recent U.S. Presidents have tried to revive the coolness of space exploration by dreaming up new things for the federally-funded space agency to do - like technical genius George W. issuing a 'challenge' to fly to Mars - but have never really put the people's money where their rhetoric is, leaving NASA to work up detailed plans for missions that will never get off the ground, so to speak. The failure today (because of the weather) to launch the Ares rocket can't help much, and even if it does go up tomorrow- as now planned- the whole program is doomed to expected budget cuts that have already made it obsolete. In a world awed and increasingly run by palm-sized gadgets, the irony is that the launch of a 370-foot technical marvel attracts less interest than the latest I-Phone App.

The trouble is that, after all the great interstellar science-fiction of the 20th century, real space travel turned out to be, well.., boring. The sight of American Astronauts actually dancing around on a dry, dead and colorless orb like the moon was awesome at first, but quickly faded where it counted most -in the TV ratings. Earth-bound technology's best brains turned to creating special effects for movies, inventing the home computer (all all that flowed from that) and designing a virtual gaming universe that was far more exciting than the dull, real thing.

So all we have left from 'The Space Age' are commercial satellites (and their sinister cousins, ICBM's), an international space station that is a pointless dump, and a lot of space debris circling the earth like a restless junkyard. Oh, and a few hundred pounds of rocks from the moon that have told us the obvious - we're it in this universe. The aging group of 60's -era Astronauts must be bewildered at the neglect of space exploration that will certainly continue for the foreseeable future, but in a sense, it's their fault - their skill and courage proved that space is just not all that interesting - compared to Space Invaders.

ANOTHER UNWINNABLE WAR

2009-10-24T13:27:00.008-04:00

Dear Readers,

Freedom of speech -and by extension, freedom of the press - is perhaps our most cherished privilege, and I absolutely defend the right of the Fox News Channel to be as nasty, unfair and scathing in their non-stop criticism of the current administration as they wish to be. As their viewing figures reflect, many, many people agree with the 'fair and balanced' approach they peddle. But the Obama administration's 'war' against FNC is a futile one which they ought to know they will certainly lose, and for this group of supposedly smart people to waste even a second of the people's paid-for time on this battle is disappointing.

The struggles of the administration are already grist for the Fox mill on a daily basis, so why add a personalized feud to this feast as garnish? Like some scene from The Sopranos, White House major domo, David Axelrod and FNC overlord Roger Ailes recently had a 'sit down' at a NYC steak house to discuss ways of solving the problem, but nothing much has come of it to date. In fact, the shrillness from the Fox stable of highly-paid whiners has only increased, while bashing of the network and petty reprisals (like The President refusing to appear on Fox chat shows) has been the response from the Obama camp. And it's not like they should have expected that FNC would join in a new spirit of co-operation either, after all, the network is a barely-disguised right arm of the Republican Party - and always has been. If President Obama thinks that he's stepping into a boxing ring, expecting a fairly-refereed match, then think again; in the Fox corner is a gang pulling out switchblades, tire-irons and brass knuckles. It's the WWE, not the Marquess Of Queensbury rules, with WWE-sized ratings as well, which only FNC will reap the benefits of. The President's advisers would do well to remember who the Marquess Of Queensbury was, apart from the guy who devised boxing's basic rules. It was he that Oscar Wilde sued for slander (Queensbury accused him of 'posing as a sodomite' -strong stuff in them days), a case which Wilde lost, paving the way for his eventual arrest, conviction and imprisonment on morals charges. (One shudders as to what the Fox News Channel would have done with Wilde).

So, note to Axelrod: before your guy gets pummeled so badly that he has to end his career, please throw in the towel, there's no prize for your side in winning this bout anyway.

WAITING FOR SARAH

2009-10-22T09:28:00.009-04:00

Dear Readers,

President Obama has been in office a mere 9 months, but the impatience over his lack of progress in cleaning up the frat-party mess of the Bush regime is growing. It was to be expected that the GOP would start whining and backbiting as soon as the inaugural parade was over, but now, liberal and moderate Democrats seem to be adding to the national grumble as well. Unemployment is still about 10%, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq still grind on, Gitmo is still an operational prison, Wall Street remains largely unregulated (and their bonuses are as big as ever) and the health care-reform bill is beginning to look like a soviet-era Lada that's been hammered out of all recognition by a group of Japanese Kodo drummers (and about as useful). After years of disastrous decisiveness, we seem to have forgotten that just because decisions are taken quickly, that doesn't mean they are correct. But fear not, dear readers, for help is on the way.

Yes, we only have a few more weeks until the public re-emergence of America's new sweetheart, Sarah Palin. Her new book is already a best-seller- thanks to preorders- and soon, she'll be on every television and radio talk show (including Seasame Street, probably) in the nation, hawking the thing. I'm sure American hearts will quicken as our Sarah reduces major and complex issues to George W.- level understandability and we can all relax at being reminded of how simple it is to run the country. I'm sure she won't immediately announce her intention of running for president in 2012, but the implication will be there as she succeeds in appealing to our intellect-reductive impulses, and positioning herself as the anti-Obama. No snob, our Sarah, she's one of us.

So, those of you who miss the good old days of ignoring terrorist warnings, complete de-regulation of Wall Street, hanging out at a #$%&*ing ranch in Texas while a major US city gets wiped out by a hurricane, cooking up wars based on phony 'evidence', putting psychopaths in charge of the Defense department and other such simple solutions, don't worry, we only have about three years before Sarah puts it all right again. I imagine somewhere, Dick Cheney must be rubbing his hands and salivating.

RUSH 2 JUDGEMENT

2009-10-16T21:14:00.009-04:00

Dear Readers,

Pity poor Rush Limbaugh, as his attempt to be part of a group trying to buy the NFL's St. Louis Rams was scuppered by the football league's commissioner, many NFL players, and a general outcry of negative public opinion. Limbaugh, a shameless purveyor of racism, right-wing paranoia and general hatred of anybody who disagrees with him in the slightest, issued a bitter statement of withdrawal that whined about 'liberal-types' who prevented him from moving into the mainstream. What? This self-important windbag who could give Joseph Goebbels lessons in mind manipulation is seriously deluded if he thought anybody would consent to be an employee of his, white or black.

As right-wing Republicans continue to push our nation into a kind of Bosnia-like ethnic-cleansing fantasy, the frustration they display at their ouster from power knows no bounds, and the attempt by Limbaugh and his ilk to assuage their hurt at not being able to run the country in their own selfish manner by trying to buy into the world of sport is sad and pathetic. If only one could feel sorry for them. As Rush takes reassuring calls on his radio show from his legion of dittoheads, he must feel as if he has public opinion totally on his side, and therefore, feels as if anything he wants to do has the unquestioning popular support of the general public. But the outcry at his attempt to turn an escapist pastime such as Pro Football into a ideological playground must have dented his Goodyear-blimp-sized ego just enough to produce the whiny, self-pitying reaction that he must have been so surprised to have to issue.

I thought that the NFL had reached the bottom of self-respect when it allowed Michael Vick to return to playing, but if it had turned a blind eye to the likes of an intolerant bigot like Limbaugh to become part of the sport's fabric, well...

I can take sweet satisfaction that the NFL, at least, considers Rush Limbaugh to be lower than a dog-killer, which is just about right.

MOORE IS LESS

2009-10-12T12:28:00.007-04:00

Dear Readers,

It's not easy being a liberal these days. The exuberance and relief the country felt when it replaced George W. Bush with Barack Obama has itself been replaced with disappointment and a kind of 'buyer's remorse' over it's investment in the Democratic Party. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq remain unsettled and unchanged, the economic stimulus plan hasn't stemmed the hemorrhaging of jobs and the health care reform plan is quickly becoming a program that everybody hates in one way or another. Add to this the resurgence of the hateful and spiteful, over-simplifying GOP, and you have an atmosphere of unease and confusion in a country that had so much optimism only nine months ago.

Into this miasma, Michael Moore has dropped his latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, and it's landed with a bit of a thud.

I've not yet seen the film, but I imagine it's Mr. Moore's usual mix of facts, fictions, comedy and the absurd, led from the front by the bulky, un-shy filmmaker. Not surprisingly, a movie chiefly about the economy has only been a modest success, probably disappointing Hollywood and it's amoral bean-counters. Even with Moore enacting hilarious stunts like placing crime scene tape around the Stock Exchange, anything to do with economics is both dull and painful. Also, since Moore is a unabashed liberal, he's temporarily (at least) on the wrong side of history.

All of Moore's films manage to stir up controversy of one kind or another, but unlike taking on GM, the NRA and Big Healthcare, taking on capitalism maybe leaves him too vulnerable to right-wing charges of hypocrisy and fudging of facts (he is, like most all of us, a capitalist). The re-statement by Moore of the evil of greed in light of the latest big-banker led economic guacamole seems like old, obvious news (and still-unresolved issues) and perhaps translates into the film's soft box-office numbers. We both love and hate capitalism (depending on which side of the whip you happen to be on) but we don't necessarily want to hear anything bad about it.

So while the Republican neocons club President Obama over the head on a daily basis with charges that he's a socialist with a secret socialist agenda, we need celebrities like Michael Moore pushing in the other direction with equally overstated charges to try an achieve a rough balance. It was once said that 'in war, truth is the first casualty', an adage that Hollywood-bashers could change to 'in movies, truth is the first casualty'. But micro-fact-checking Michael Moore documentaries is a misguided endeavor, best left to those who have the most to fear from their overall verity.

NOBEL PRIZE: FIVE FOR FIGHTING

2009-10-11T10:20:00.020-04:00

Dear Readers,

The uproar over President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize win only goes to show how misunderstood this honor is in this country. The cries of 'What has he done to deserve it?' tend to obscure the sometimes subtle motivations behind the selection of a Peace Prize recipient. In addition, the frenzied, childish and hysterical reaction from the schoolyard-bully, 12-year old mentality of right wing Republicans and their shills - like Rush Limberger, Glenn 'What-The-Heck' Beck and Sean Hate-etty- only go to underline the importance placed on this most maligned of prizes even when the motives for it's presentation are unclear.

Despite the rather flimsy explanations offered by the weedy Norwegians who give out these prizes, the real reason Mr. Obama won is that the whole world is so damn relieved that George W. Bush is no longer the US President and that the current occupant does not dance to the tune of the crypto-retrograde, would-be dictators like Dickhead Cheney.

To my way of thinking, this is a perfectly sound excuse to award the prize to Obama, and I only wish that the Oslo committee had not been so feckless in avoiding saying so. The GOP and other hate groups probably realize the real reason he won, and besides, they're always going to be freaked out by any success that this President might have. They discount the fact that Obama did not lobby or campaign for the prize and despise him not only for winning, but being perceived as a man who stands for peaceful relations - an anathema to the belligerent neocons.

As a matter of fact, many other Americans have won the Peace Prize over the years, and yet a fair number of them have won the honor by fighting. Here's a partial list:

1925 - Then Vice-President Charles B. Dawes fought for the Kellogg-Briand Treaty, which renounced war as an instrument of national policy.

1931 - Settlement house movement leader Jane Addams fought for women's rights through the Women's International League for Peace And Freedom.

1945 - Secretary of State Cordell Hull fought against US isolationism before America entered World War II and started kicking Nazi butt all over the place.

1962 - Linus C. Pauling, chemist and vitamin-C freak, fought against nuclear weapons.

1997 - Jody Williams fought for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel land mines.

That's a heck of a lot of fighting in order to win a peace prize, ain't it? So ease up on President Obama already, after all, isn't this country all about winning? I never heard such a hoo-ha over somebody winning something. Sometimes winners win undeservedly, but a win's a win, yeah?

In addition to bagging the Peace Prize, Obama collects a cool $1.4 million off a guy (Alfred Nobel) who invented dynamite - plus, that geezer was a foreigner! Even Rush ought to applaud that.

JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS

2009-09-29T11:24:00.006-04:00

Dear Readers,

We're in luck! former Alaskan Governatrix Sarah Palin's memoirs will be published on November 17th!

Since her departure from the national stage this past summer, politics has gotten completely out of hand and the Republican Party has become rudderless, so it's hoped that words from our Sarah will be a steadying influence on the national debate - so needed in these complicated times.

Eschewing a ghostwriter, Palin supposedly wrote all the words in the book herself, relying only on spellcheck for assistance. Crayons will NOT be included.

CAN'T WAIT FOR THE MOVIE

2009-09-18T09:59:00.030-04:00

HAIRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BAKED LOST SYMBOL

by J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown

1,847pp - USGov Press $24.95

When he took office in January, President Obama took one look at the financial ledgers of the country and fainted. When he regained consciousness, he put into motion a scheme to try and save the country from ruin. That was the origin of the Stimulus Plan, and one of the lesser known ideas he proposed involved the world of publishing. Obama, himself a best-selling author, placed calls to two of the most successful writers in history, J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown. Between them, they owned 46% of the entire world's wealth, so, naturally, the President asked them if they could spare a little money to help get the country out of a dire situation. Both said no, but offered up a substitute - they would write a new book together and hand it over to the Government for publication. In addition, they would take no fees or royalties, thus giving the US Treasury a revenue stream that would easily surpass what was collected in income tax. The result is Hairy Potter And The Half-Baked Lost Symbol. It's an odd book- the story splits it's time between Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and a Masonic Lodge in Racine, Wisconsin- but ultimately satisfying. The plot revolves around a bowling tournament in Racine, where Hairy, Ron and Hermaphodite go up against a team of Katherine Solomon, Robert Langdon and the evil Lord Moldyvort. Strangely, the bowling alley where the contest is being held is run by The Pope, and the pin-setter is the loyal and demented cypher, Pa'Lin, who is suspected of running a secret society in the basement of the nearby Moose Lodge. Dark doings and paranoiac panoramas are endemic throughout the story, and confusingly, long stretches of the book are in Parseltongue (the language of snakes), which only Hairy Potter can understand. This is a major flaw in the book, since many chapters consist of the other main characters whispering 'what did he say?' to each other, which tends to slow down the pace rather seriously. Otherwise, it's a very good, events-driven page-turner, and overcomes some doubtful plot twists, like the one where a relationship develops between Albus Dumblebore, Ron Weasley and Katherine Solomon, which results in a pregnancy. (The child quickly grows up, becoming the head of a worldwide kegler's organization that saves the world from evil). In a swift series of events near the end of the book, the bowling alley burns down, killing Pa'Lin and Lord Moldyvort while also destroying the Lost Symbol of the title, which turned out to be only an amateurish engraving on the back of a frisbee of an experimental shoe guaranteed to add 5 points to a bowler's average that was designed by a sinister podiatrist working on a freelance basis for the Professional Bowling Association's Annual Dinner and Dance committee. OOPS! Spoiler Alert.

It may not be the strongest book from either of these fine authors, but the gift of their talent to help balance the budget of the United States is incalculable. The Government Publishing Office is so confident that the book will sell in the trillions that they have ordered every tree in the state of South Carolina to be cut down and pulped, in order to satisfy the expected demand that will keep the printers working 3 shifts for years to come. (For the record, President Obama has stated that the surprise choice of South Carolina (it originally was to be Alaska) to de-forest has nothing to do with the fact that South Carolina voted for McCain in 2008, or that the state's right wing hick-congressman Joe Wilson 'dissed' him in front of a national audience last week.) So, do your duty for your country and enjoy Hairy Potter And The Half-Baked Lost Symbol - easily the most stimulating part of this year's stimulus plan. A Tea With SB must-buy.

THE MOUTH OF THE SOUTH

2009-09-16T09:01:00.022-04:00

Dear Readers,

In a historic vote the other day, the U.S. House Of Representatives voted 778-197 to tell Rep. Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) to shut his stupid pie hole. The vote was a bit of a surprise, since there are only 435 members of the house, but it's rumored that some may have voted twice to censure the hick-state loudmouth. Yet, the whole controversy - when Rep. Wilson shouted "You Lie" at President Obama as he was giving a speech to the Congress on health care - is a result of a colossal misunderstanding.

A few days before the unfortunate incident, a reporter asked President Obama what book he was reading these days. Obama, always open and friendly to nosy reporters, answered that he had just finished H.G. Wells' War Of The Worlds and quipped that "If this country had had a decent health care system in place, the Martian aliens might have been able to get treatment for their inability to tolerate earth germs, and in spite of their illegal invasion of this planet, we might have saved them and gone on together to build a more peaceful and prosperous universe". Well, the humorless reporter took the President seriously and wrote that Obama was proposing health care for illegal aliens as part of his reform package, and the rest is history. Wilson, no fan of The President or H.G. Wells, read this bogus story, then went on to commit his faux pas by rudely interrupting (and waking up several dozing lawmakers) the President as Obama got to the point in his speech where he declared that no illegal aliens would be covered by the proposed Federal plan.

Washington D.C. acted as if it were shocked by the outburst, but a quick check of the history books shows us that this kind of interruption of Presidential addresses to Congress is far from rare. In an age before TV, lawmakers often broke into important speeches with insults and remarks. In 1929, President Herbert Hoover was droning on at Congress when Senator Marvin 'Peanuts' Anchovy (D-Ohio) shouted "Eat Me" as the hapless President came to a passage in his speech debunking the rumor that he was giving prime farmland in Nebraska to a group of bi-polar yak herders. Representative L. Gruber Kissingbottom (R-Wisconsin) was ejected from the well of the House during a 1946 speech by President Hairy Truman when he let out a 32-second belch that reeked of Limburger Cheese, momentarily distracting the bespectacled former haberdasher as he came to a critical point in his speech regarding the sale of Carpenter Ants to Yugoslavia. Even today, leaders of other great democracies suffer from a certain amount of incivility when attempting to address serious issues. In Britain, for example, President Gordon Ramsay must endure taunts, jeers and a shower of spitballs as he attempts to speak during the weekly Prime Minister's question time - plus, by tradition, he must deliver his remarks in the nude.

So, we don't need to overreact to the Tourrette's-like utterance of one dimwitted congressperson, we're a lot tougher than that, aren't we? The censure by his fellow legislators - plus the severe physical beating administered to Rep. Wilson in the House steam-room by disgusted Democrats and Republicans - ought to be enough punishment.

WORDS ON "THE STREET"

2009-09-15T09:42:00.011-04:00

Dear Readers,

One year on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers and we're all a lot sadder and wiser about the economy. Some of us are also a lot more familiar with the insider lingo of the brokers and traders who, like workers in every specialized field of endeavor, have their own unique phrases and shorthand. To me, one of the most interesting ones out of Wall Street was "Taking A Haircut", which seems to have two meanings - 1. The difference between prices at which a market maker can buy and sell a security, and 2. The percentage by which an asset's market value is reduced for the purpose of calculating capital requirement, margin and collateral levels. Even though I've heard that one a lot this past year, I'm still not exactly sure what it means, in spite of the explanation proffered here. So I wondered if there were any other Wall Street-type expressions using references to personal grooming that might be shorthand for the unexplainable, and -yes there are. And here are a few that I've discovered over the last several months:

1. Cleaning Out Belly-Button Lint - The shredding or otherwise destroying damning or compromising documents that might cause problems with a pending SEC investigation.

2. Putting On False Eyelashes - When a senior-level executive sees red flags and other inconsistencies in a dubious financial product created by his group, but ignores his instincts, and approves the scheme.

3. Irrigating An Ear Canal - When a senior executive finally 'hears' that he can no longer get away with or sustain the fiction that a financial product has any worth.

4. Lasering Off A Tattoo - This has two meanings: 1. When a brokerage realizes that the name of the firm has been discredited to the point where it must be changed. 2. When the board of directors can no longer afford to employ the founder's incompetent eldest son.

5. Using Depilatory - Dismissing an entire department of traders and brokers who can be easily blamed for the risky products and slack moral scruples that has give the company a bad name.

6. Taking A Shave - Less financially damaging than "Taking A Haircut", it involves dumping toxic assets onto the taxpayers while grudgingly accepting handouts from the Federal Government.

7. Getting A Nipple Pierced - An executive 'losing' the year-end bonus, only to have it included as part of his base-pay contract later on, often producing 'crocodile' tears when confronted with the fact by an outraged public.

WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION - PT.3

2009-09-13T20:50:00.009-04:00

Dear Readers,

As anybody who's ever been to London, England knows, there are three things you must see - Madame Tussaud's Waxworks, the Pigeons in Trafalgar Square and The Cavern Club, where The Beatles played once (I still can't find this London landmark, in spite of 12 trips to England - maybe it's been torn down). And now, as a result of my 10-day world tour this past summer, I can now add a fourth - The London Eye.

Believe it or not, there's this huge amusement park right in downtown London - with only one ride! But what a ride! The London Eye is the world's largest Ferris Wheel and to ride it will give you memories that will last several lunchtimes. It's pricey - $450.00 US - but you get your own, individual gondola, with a mini-bar, satellite TV and a full en suite toilet and bath. The 'round' (get it?) trip I took lasted a full eight hours (causing me to miss my tour bus visit to The Leering Tower of Pisa) but it was well worth it. Only a couple of glitches that I would fix if it were my ride - one, the gondolas ( or cars, as we call them in the USA) don't swing freely on their supports, so you're upside down quite a lot, and two - the glass in the gondolas are kind of smeary -probably from all the vomit ( I blame the English food more than being upside down half the time) - which resulted in all my London Eye photos being a bit blurry, like the one displayed here (It was the best of the bunch). But London is really a beautiful town, especially at night, and if you get tired of the scenery after a few hours of riding on The Eye, just buckle yourself snugly into your seat, turn on the telly, pop open a can of warm lager, and try and figure out what in the world a Cricket Match is supposed to be.

WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION - PT.2

2009-09-12T14:58:00.026-04:00

Dear Readers,

Back at you with another snap (I just printed it from the drugstore photo kiosk) documenting my fancy 10-day world tour.

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time at events where comestibles are being served, especially when you're in a foreign country (what are the rules?, etc.). Large parties, especially, are minefields for me because I'm not all that good at eating and drinking sitting down, let alone being forced to do these things on your feet. So, with that established, let me tell you how this extraordinary picture came to be. I was walking around in downtown Prague Czech Republic during our 6-hour layover there, and I just happened to bump into a woman who's missing parakeet I had found for her back in 2002 ( in my capacity as a Senior Partner In A Private Investigation Agency). We stood and texted each other for a while and then she mentioned she was going to a reception at the American Embassy in honor of the Czech Prime Minister and would I like to come along? I said OK. Well, to cut a long story short, when I got there, I made straight for the buffet and piled my plate high with Vienna Sausages, Olive Loaf roll-ups and Cheese Doodles. Just as I turned around to look for a seat (yeah, right - there were 500 people there and 3 sofas!), a waiter in Uncle Sam livery offered me a glass of champagne, so I took one. Now it's very hard to balance all this while also trying to take pictures of all the glamour and glitz, and worse still, when you accidentally find yourself in the reception line to meet the PM ( I thought it was the line to get trays)! Needless to say, as hands were thrust at me by the array of dignitaries, something had to give, and my camera fell to the floor just as I was taking a picture of the Croatian Ambassador's wife, whom I recognized from one of my job-related stakeouts at the Washington Hilton a couple of years ago. It was instinct, you know? The visit was not a total loss, though, as I was able to secure an assignment from the deputy Prime Minister's sister - to find her pet turtle, Ric.

WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION - PT. 1

2009-09-11T12:23:00.009-04:00

Dear Readers,

As you all know, this blog is not about me, per se, but I'm delighted to share with all of you not only my opinions, but carefully screened and edited tidbits about my personal life in an effort to persuade you that there is an actual person behind all this frivolity. To further that goal, I will, from time to time, share with you some of my professional-quality photos taken while on vacation, on assignment or in connection with my day job, which is senior partner in a Private Detective Agency, specializing in marital disputes and lost pets (only those whose largest dimension is 5"). Like many of you, I took time off this summer to indulge my love of travel. I signed up for a 10-day package tour which took me to England, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Croatia, China, Nepal, Sri Lanka, The Cayman Islands, Sicily, Crete, China, Austrailia, Hong Kong and Midway Island. Before leaving home, I purchased a brand new camera and took some pictures which I will be sharing with you as summer turns to fall (... and fall turns to winter, etc...). This first one, displayed above, was taken just outside a gift shop near the Great Wall Of China. Just as I was taking this snap, two humorless policemen grabbed me and took me into custody just because I made a joke about a souvenir I had just bought as 'probably made in China, like everything else'. I was released after only 3 days, but I missed my tour stops in North Korea, Iran and Zimbabwe. Probably just as well, I think, as I am such a indefatigable kidder.

MORE JOBS FOR APPLE

2009-09-10T11:29:00.015-04:00

Dear Readers,

Yesterday, the tiny, California-based computer company, Apples, announced a slew of new products, upgrades and other stuff at a multi-media stage show, held for the press at the Best Western's Tammy Wynette Auditorium in El Segundo. After battling for 45 minutes to get past a small wildfire in the parking lot, reporters were stunned to see Apples' CEO, Steve Jobs sitting on the auditorium's tiny stage, all by himself. Not only was it a surprise to see the ailing executive still alive and well after his latest series of health scares, but it was a bit of a shock watching him trying to prise open one of his fancy i-Pods with a butter knife. Eventually, Jobs rose unsteadily to his feet and began the presentation. The event had a dual purpose; to show the media that the plucky Apples frontman was back in charge, and to demonstrate many of the new items ready to hit the market this fall. Sure, there was the usual stuff, like new i-Pods (the one with the retractable toothpick was our personal favorite) and i-this-and-that, blah-blah-blah, but the star of the rollout was Apples' new line of Replacement Human Parts, or i-Organs.

Yes, those clever west-coast boffins have presented to the world the best hope yet of extended life with products such as the i-Spleen, the i-Kidney, the i-Eye, and, perhaps most crucially, the i-Liver. Mr. Jobs took it upon himself to field-test the i-Liver (seeing as he needed a new one anyway), and showed us the scar, still sealed up with a row of i-Stitches. Jobs commented that the new i-Liver was working fine and that he had opted for the one with 160GB of memory (the middle option, it seems) seeing as he doesn't drink or do drugs. He did mention that for an additional $99.95, you could have the 320GB model, which was recommended for 'social' drinkers and people who relied heavily on Tylenol.( The entry-level 80GB i-Liver Shuffle is adequate for abstainers, but has to do double duty as the i-Appendix.) The thin-but-recovering CEO also predicted that his engineers would soon perfect a 1-Terabyte model of the i-Liver which he said would be suitible for the aging rockstar, David Crosby.

All in all, it was an impressive comeback for Jobs, and as he was wheeled away on Apples' i-Handcart, he confirmed that the new line of i-Organs would not be compatable with Microsoft's founder, Bill Gates.

HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN?

2009-09-07T10:26:00.014-04:00

Dear Readers,

Ringo must need money again. In a couple of days, the people who do these sort of things will release a new video game, The Beatles Rock Band. This so-called game will join the other video shoot-em-up extravaganzas on the market, and you or your children will be able to fire bullets, rockets and missiles at The Beatles (or at least some lame animation of them) on your computer (or TV, if you have Wii). We here at Tea With S.B think this is kind of tasteless, as one of the Fab Four, John Lennon, was actually shot and killed once.

Our staff, mainly consisting of younger-type men and women (and one we're not sure of), are not against these arcade-style shooting games in principle, but this is a step too far. Why on earth would someone pay $699.95 for a game where the object is to blast the beejesus out of the lovable Liverpudlian Moptops? But there they will be, up on your screen, frolicking through the musical numbers featured in such movies as A Hard Day's Night, Help!, Yellow Submarine and Apocalypse Now while you and little Elmo and Sally aim lethal salvos at the helpless foursome. Is this any way to honor their memory? What possible thrill is there to picking off Paul McCarthy as his badly-rendered android sings I'm Down at a 3-D re-creation of the famous concert at Flushing's Shea Butter Stadium? How many points do you get for that?

Shame on you, Yorko Ono, for allowing such a violent product to hit the market. John would be spinning in his grave... err... if he hadn't already been cremated. One can only hope that this will sell only well enough to put Ringo Starkley's finances back into the black, and not a Euro more. If you must have shoot-'em-up arcade games featuring rock stars, why not use ABBA, or The Jonas Brothers? Use bands that people would love to blast away at, not the greatest band of all time. So, just Wait before you rush out and buy this travesty. Think For Yourself and say "Tell Me Why must I have this game" to it's creators. Say to them "You Can't Do That to The Beatles", and if they offer the game to you at some incredible discount, Run For Your Life. I've Got A Feeling that you will come to your senses, and the peddlers of this filth will cry "You Never Give Me Your Money". Remember, you really don't need this junk, All You Need Is Love.

THIS GOLDEN CENTURY

2009-09-02T11:55:00.006-04:00

Dear Readers,

Welcome to Tea With S.B.'s 100th blog post. For those of you who have somehow missed the other 99, I can only say that the staff here at TWSB are thrilled and delighted to have been so influential in the magical world of the Internet - and in the real world, too.

Much has changed in the world since the very first TWSB post, but let us recount some of the highlights: The bloody conflict in Scandinavia has come to an end, and a solid peace prevails amongst the Nordic countries. Raspberry Vinaigrette has been made illegal in a further 5 states, bringing the total to 33 that have banned the once-ubiquitous salad dressing choice. The Cayman Islands have still failed to develop nuclear weapons, and a promising new vaccine has been developed for the 'squirts'. Ricky Martin recordings are still embargoed, despite pressure from the EU, The Mormons and Vice President Joe Biden. In Alaska, Sarah Brightman is no longer Governor, and in California, Jean-Claude Van Damm still is. Paula Abdul has replaced Katie Couric as the anchor of the CBS Evening News, and Who Let The Dogs Out has replaced The Star Spangled Banner as the US National Anthem.

Coincidence? You do the math. All we can promise is that Tea With S.B. will continue to be the Internet touchstone of truth for at least the next 100 blog posts, and that's a promise.

THE MYTH AMERICA PAGEANT

2009-08-31T12:56:00.007-04:00

SEVEN MYTHS ABOUT HEALTH CARE REFORM

_____________________________________________________________

1. All privately-held aspirin will be confiscated by the Federal Government. -

This is a lie. The proposed bill only confiscates generic aspirin - and only aspirin past it's sell-by date.

2. Surgeons will all have to 'clock out' at the end of their shifts - even if they're caught in the middle of an operation. - Wrong. A surgeon in the middle of an operation may apply for overtime - average wait expected to be about 48 hours for federal government approval.

3. All Dentists will be ordered to quit practicing dentistry, in order to bring the US healthcare program in line with the one in Britain, where there are no dentists. - Utter nonsense. US dentists won't have to quit practicing dentistry entirely, they will be allowed to convert to dog & cat dentistry.

4. Doctors will have to see three patients at a time - in the same examination room. Rubbish. They'll only have to see two patients at a time in the same examination room.

5. If you are in a serious vehicular accident, and need immediate medical attention, you can only been seen by your own doctor - during regular office hours. Patently untrue. In the House version of the bill, if your doctor is unavailable, any member of the doctor's family over the age of twelve can see you.

6. In an attempt to provide equal coverage for the sexes, all males will be forced to see a gynecologist three times a year. - Absurd. Only males of childbearing age will be required to do so.

7. Should you live long enough to qualify for Medicare, you will have to prove that you've won a gold medal in a track & field event in order to be covered. -

According to administration spokespersons, this clause has been compromised so that you only need to have won a bronze medal.

Source: The 2009 Book Of Don't-Confuse-Me-With-The-Facts.

SO LONG, MR. VOICE OF GOD

2009-08-30T10:56:00.011-04:00

Dear Readers,

It's been a terrible summer of celebrity deaths, as we've lost such luminaries as Michael Jackson, Ted Kennedy and DJ-AM, but maybe the saddest loss was the passing of longtime CBS anchorman and reporter, Walter Cronkite.

In a 24-7 age of nonstop news, the position of TV anchorman has been seriously diluted as almost anybody with a good set of teeth and reasonably stylish hair can find themselves delivering the day's events in-between Geico commercials. But back in the early days of TV, news was a ridiculously tiny part of the broadcast schedule, and only a handful of people were allowed national access to deliver the grim realities to a attentive public, and Walter Cronkite was the business.

One only need think back to 1963, and Cronkite's breaking of the news of President Kennedy's assassination. After delivering the awful news of the President's demise, Cronkite broke down in tears and cried and wailed like the winner of the Miss America pageant for a full half-hour, live on television, before regaining his composure. Eventually, he conducted the first, live, on-air interview with the accused killer Lee Harry Oswalt, then still on the run from the Dallas Police. In 1968, Cronkite went to Vietnam to cover the then-obscure war and, with the help of his film crew, wiped out an entire battalion of North Vietnamese regulars in the Pleiku valley before going on-air with his assessment that the U.S.of A could not win, only play for a tie. This news upset President Lyndon 'Brains' Johnson so much, he hung himself. Later that year, Cronkite personally negotiated a settlement to the war, but kept the news to himself for nearly five years - now that's journalistic professionalism.

Cronkite kept reporting the news, happy or sad (or not sure) for a further few years, this latter period highlighted by the Iranian Hostage Crisis. This startling event -which, happily for the CBS stalwart, ran on for 444 days - inspired him to create an exciting new sign-off ('Goodnight, and it's day___of captivity for our hostages in that stinkin', no-good city,Tehran') that helped him beat the chicken soup out of his competition at ABC and NBC in the ratings.

Sadly, Cronkite's news-anchoring days came to an end in 1981, as he lost his chair to Dan Rather in a memorable televised cage-wrestling event. The then 65-year old Cronkite was no match for the 22 year old Rather, who, before the bout, had spiked the veteran's coffee with a date-rape drug and then proceeded to beat him senseless with his bare fists. Rather eventually clanged Walter over the head with the very chair they were battling over, and was declared the winner. After the defeat, Cronkite resigned himself to a retirement fully devoted to spreading malicious rumors about Rather, most of which have stuck.

So, the so-called 'voice of god' is gone and his kind will never be seen or heard from again. His greatness belongs to an era only the very old and insane can dimly remember - one strong, unimpeachable, respected voice of authority, giving the people the news and being paid an enormous amount of money for it. In a newsworld of pygmies, Walter Cronkite was a normal-sized person.

A NATION MOURNS IN CONFUSION

2009-08-28T08:27:00.011-04:00

Dear Readers,

I note the passing of famous U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy. He was the Democratic Party's longtime liberal leader and last survivor of the generation of Kennedys that was seemingly born to rule, but destined for tragedy. His death came at the ripe old age of 77, but many are questioning whether or not it was from so-called 'natural causes'.

Just as his brothers, John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy fell victim to assassins, a budding group of conspiracy theorists are beginning to ask: Was Ted assassinated too?

Supposedly, the veteran Massachusetts Senator died peacefully at his home at Hyannis Port, surrounded by family. But on the internet, a steady buzz of Tweets and blog posts have begun to question that theory, and some have even seen evidence of a 'first' gunman. Even as I write, conspiracy theorists are pouring over film and videotape of the Senator's last public appearances for clues to the assassin's identity. Like the endless analyses of the famous film taken by Dallas businessman Abraham Zapruder of the JFK killing in 1963, some of the finest, self-trained-and-self-appointed assassination researchers have begun to dedicate the remainder of their lives to solving this latest mystery for the chance of uncovering the truth - and securing a publishing deal. One of the first critics of the 1964 Warren Commission Report on the death of President Kennedy, author Mark Lame, has announced he also will begin researching the evidence surrounding Ted Kennedy's death for links that must exist between this latest 'murder' and the CIA, FBI, The Mafia, The Cuban Government and Michael Jackson's doctor, and write an e-book about it. Lame, who penned the 1966 best-seller Rush To Judgement, detailing the conspiracy that resulted in that dark day in Dallas, will reportedly call his new tome on the plot to kill Ted, Rush To Fudgement, a possible reference to the newest cover-up and blurring of the facts. Unfortunately, Lame will have no 'Zapruder' film to work with, despite the presence in nearby Martha's Vineyard of filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, James Cameron and Martin Scorsezzie - all who say that they 'didn't have a camera on them' at the time of the Senator's demise ( Oliver Stone was reported to be 'elsewhere'). Hollywood, too, may soon feel the heat of conspiracy speculation.

Skeptics will doubt that even veteran assassination researchers will be able to solve this latest rebus any quicker than the other Kennedy crimes, but as long as the public maintains it's unquenchable thirst for rumor and dubious facts, there will be amateur sleuths only too willing to provide them in volumes.

Editor's note: As of this writing, they still haven't buried poor Michael Jackson yet. If it's of any interest, I'd be willing to bet that Senator Kennedy will beat the 'King Of Pop' (who died, like, two months ago -p-eww!) to his place under the sod.

CHRISTMAS IN AUGUST

2009-08-27T14:37:00.010-04:00

Dear Readers,

RUMOR has it that Bob Dylan, well-known American folksinger, is planning to release his first Christmas CD this coming holiday season.

Dylan, best known for his 1965 novelty hit, I Like The Rolling Stones, hasn't officially disclosed the yuletide numbers he plans to record, but a Tea With S.B. top- secret source has forwarded to us a partial list of the songs being considered for recording. They include:

Tangled Up In Blue Wrapping Paper

Snowy Day Women # 12 & # 35

Hey, Mr. Tangerine Man

Girl From The North Pole

All I Really Want To Do For Christmas

It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A New Train Set To Cry

Bob Dylan's 115th Present

From: A Buick 6, To: Aunt Sadie, Merry Christmas

Thanks For The Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat

One More Cup Of Egg Nog

The band being assembled for the project is said to include Jack White, Ravi Shankar, Yahoo Serious, That one-armed drummer guy from Def Leppard, Yoko Ono and Conductor Zubin Mehta. The site of the recording is supposed to be secret, but we found that out too - Soldier Field, Chicago.

Oh, and by the way, Happy Birthday to our Nation's 36th President, Lyndon 'Brains' Johnson who would have been 101 years young today - had he not fallen over dead in 1973.

NEW KING OF POP

2009-06-26T15:39:00.005-04:00

Following the unexpected death of 'The King Of Pop', Michael Jackson, it has been announced that former Marine, White House Aide and unsuccessful Senate Candidate, Oliver North has been sworn in has his replacement.

The succession of North as the new 'King Of Pop' has stunned an already reeling music industry and has raised doubts as to how the Fox News commentator and bestselling author can possibly fill the late Mr. Jackson's shoes.

North took the oath of office in a private ceremony at 6:48 PM(EDT) yesterday at an undisclosed location somewhere in the Washington, D.C. area. North, 66, has no hit records or any current recording contract, but in a statement released by his office late last night, he's quoted as saying "This is a sad time for all people. I will do my best, that's all I can do. I ask for your help...and God's" . North first came to the public's attention in 1987 as the "Iran-Contra" scandal came to light and he was forced to testify at a congressional hearing. (Not much is known about the new 'King's' singing voice, but he was highly lauded by right-wing groups for not 'singing' before that fact-finding panel.) In recent years, his numerous appearances on radio and television has helped to maintain his public profile and approval ratings. It's not known what his first project will be as the new 'King Of Pop', but North is said to be a great fan of the musical style of 1970's British singer, Gilbert O'Sullivan.

WET WEEKEND PASTIME

2009-06-16T14:07:00.004-04:00

Dear Readers,

As I ponder what direction this blog shall take in future, I just wanted to share one of my little hobbies - that of making labels in Photoshop for my home-made CDs.

These are a couple of my favorites.

You have to be so careful, though, or else the hole for the CD might take out a face or something.

PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING

2009-04-30T12:14:00.003-04:00

WHAT A TWIT

2009-04-08T12:05:00.006-04:00

THE TWEETS OF TREY FUNSTON - Vol 1

RunningForCover Press

236pp $17.95

In our modern age, nothing is more interesting and important as the generation of authors who have found a vast new audience thanks to the social networking site, Twitter. Limited to 140 characters per post, millions of talented writers are carving out careers, constantly updating friends, family and a fascinated general public on their every thought and deed. Anxious to keep up with the cutting edge of technology, RunningForCover Press has taken the bold step of publishing -in book form, no less- one of the most talented and prolific of the Twitter-ers, Trey Funston, and it looks as if the risk has paid off.

Funston, a systems analyst with a major company in New York, has entertained the public for months with his energetic and informative 'Tweets', and if this first volume of his work is any indication of his talent, we can look forward to many more months of utterings from the self-styled 'Bard Of Broadway'. Funston's maximum use of the 140-character limit is almost Proustian in it's attention to detail, and positively Joycean in it's playful and incisive use of language. There are simply too many fine examples to cite, but among them are such gems as "I'm running late for work, so I think I'll start running" and "I saw Rich, the guy from I.T. buying a newspaper this morning. What's up with that?" Funston not only tweets continuously about his own fascinating life, but comments on other Tweeters he follows in his spare time. After reading a tweet from the Today show's Matt Lauer, Funston tweets "Really interesting comment by Lauer, you should read it", and catching up with the postings of Rosie O'Donnell, he wittily tweets "That Rosie, you'll never guess what she said only 15 minutes ago, what a riot!"

Funston is so confident in his tweets that he uses no abbreviations, text shorthand or misspellings, and always uses proper punctuation - even when edging perilously close to the 140 character limit. As he says in his self-penned forward to the book, "I know the limits and I get the most out of them". The publishers have given us a hint that they expect the book will be a best-seller by confidently sub-titling it 'Volume 1', so it's hoped that it won't be too long before we can get Volume 2 and continue to re-live the tweets of this budding genius.

Available in hardcover, softcover, Kindle and CD (read by James Earl Jones).

JUST LARKIN ABOUT

2009-04-08T11:36:00.005-04:00

THE TREES

The trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said;

The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again

And we grow old? No, they die too.

Their yearly trick of looking new

Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh

In fullgrown thickness every May.

Last year is dead, they seem to say,

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

-Philip Larkin

DON'T STAND SO CLOSE TO ME

2009-04-05T11:58:00.002-04:00

Dear Readers,

As per usual in a new Presidential administration, the first few weeks are marked by a flurry of activities, events, confrontations and (probably) the sobering realization that the President has one hell of a job on his(or her) hands. This is probably why new Presidents take off on a World tour as soon as they can get Air Force One fueled up.

The G20 summit gave President Obama his excuse to dig out the passport, and while it must be blessed relief from the intense politicking of Warshington, it also provides the first test of how the world sees our new leader - and by extension - us. I must say that I have been rather proud of the way the Obamas have shown the flag, especially Michelle Obama.

Being the wife of a male politician must be one of the most thankless, difficult, non-official jobs ever conceived. Not only must you behave in a subservient way, you must - at all times- look smart and stylish. This role has been changing somewhat over the last few decades, but when you really get down to it, it remains basically the same as always. There are exceptions, of course. Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy and Hillary Clinton all expanded the role in various ways, but just think back to Hillary's position during her husband's impeachment nonsense. You'd think women's lib had never happened.

Mrs. Obama seems not only to accept the incongruity of a brilliant person like herself being relegated to an accessory of her husband, but she has impressed and excelled without being impolitic or incorrect. Sadly, looks and fashion overwhelm substance on the world stage, and how you appear can have an effect on how your words and actions are perceived, and how seriously they are taken. But both Obamas are aware of and equal to the challenge, and it showed this week as they carried out their public duties on behalf of us all. The wife of the French President, Carla Sarkozy, is a former model and entertainer, so she's expected to be the perfect adornment to her husband. (Being from Italy and residing in France, anything less would make her eligible for the death penalty.) As loathe as I am to make comparisons between political wives, I have to say Michelle not only held serve, she took the match as the couples met before the cameras. I know very little about fashion (a quick look at my sartorial efforts would confirm that) but there's just something about Mrs. Obama that makes her seem invincible, no matter what outfit she's seen in. When it comes to fashion, she really knows her onions. Resistance is useless.

In a video clip that, thanks to You Tube, has become the most analyzed motion picture since the Zapruder film (The JFK Assassination, for those of you who think history began on the first season of American Idol), Mrs. Obama, at a reception at Buckingham Palace where the First Couple met the Royals, is seen to put her arm around The Queen in a graceful, yet totally honest and human gesture of friendship. And to add to the shock of someone actually touching the Queen, the sovereign herself puts a tentative arm around Michelle's waist, only to drop it away, as Elizabeth II must have suddenly remembered where she was and who she was. If nothing else, this must surely certify the personal charm and magnetism of Mrs. Obama, who surely knows the rules of protocol, but must be one of the most assured and poised public figures of our age, totally comfortable in her own skin. And it spoke well of The Queen, too, as even she must weary of the sycophantic toadys and their wives who curtsy and scrape in their hideous lampshade hats when presented at the palace. Michelle is guilty of no diplomatic faux pas, she merely - in one, small gesture- showed all that was great about America. I also got a real kick out of how tall the Obamas were in comparison to The Queen and Prince Philip. That picture, of the four of them standing together, pretty much said it all, yet everybody was smiling.

Though I've never been invited to the palace, I take no offence and continue to enjoy my English-made kettle, for somewhere, the clock approaches 4 o'clock, signalling that it's time to toast the Royal couple with a cuppa. Here's to you, HMQ!

STAR TREK: HOW ARE WE DOING?

2009-04-02T11:11:00.013-04:00

Dear Readers,

Nothing ages quite as badly as predictions of what's to come, but you have to give a lot of credit to the people who thought up the old TV series, Star Trek. Their version of life and technology in centuries to come stands up pretty well today as we approach the 40th anniversary of its cancellation by NBC.

When the series debuted in the fall of 1966, science fiction (at least on stage, screen and television) was in a transitional state. Audiences had tired of Hollywood's obsession with alien invasions, communist paranoias and atomic-era mutations gone wild (constantly destroying Tokyo) and was turning towards depicting a wider universe of exploration and encounters.

Into that cultural time slot slipped Star Trek, a series that tried to put a positive and even human face on hideous, nauseating, disgusting alien life forms. So, perhaps it's time for a critical look at this preview of life-to-be, as depicted by those creative hacks who dreamt up a galaxy of gear,garb and gizmos that took us away from our past - and forward, into the... err.. make-believe future.

THINGS STAR TREK GOT RIGHT (So Far)

1. Phasers - Yeah, I know that you're saying 'what?', but just think for a moment about the humble Taser. Small, hand-held and often lethal (have a look at your newspaper - if you still get one, that is), the Taser doesn't yet blast through rock and steel, but how many episodes of Star Trek to do you hear the phrase 'set phasers to stun'? A lot. It's only a matter of time until the Taser upgrades to phaser.

2. The Communication Device - Got a flip-top cell phone? Thank Star Trek. The version on the series still had little fiddly knobs on it, but it was small, could handle a number of tasks and had the voice-recognition feature ironed out (we're still a few months away from that). Also, I'm assuming that the crew of the USS Enterprise had a no-roaming charges plan, as I'd hate to think of what AT&T would charge for out-of-galaxy calls.

3. Wide Screen Flat TV - As far as I can tell, the Enterprise didn't have windows to look out of, so they had to rely on an all-purpose, wide-screen TV display on the Bridge. Not only could Captain Kirk see what was ahead of him, but he could also pick up incoming TV transmissions, ship-to-ship visual communications and warning videos from aliens as the Enterprise approached a planet they intended to start meddling with. Wide-screen, flat, hung on the wall, and probably Blue-Ray capable, it was Kirk's window on the Universe.

4. Blue Tooth Technology - Ever notice Uhuru's little communications device stuck in her ear? It had no wires and actually looked very stylish. So far, Lt. Uhuru is the only person who ever wore a blue tooth-type earpiece that didn't look like a real a**hole.

5. Lasik Eye Surgery - Ever see anyone on Star Trek wearing glasses?

THINGS STAR TREK GOT WRONG (So Far)

1. SPACECRAFT DESIGN - The USS Enterprise was aerodynamically impossible, but looked very sleek and stylish. Even by today's standards, it still looks futuristic, sort of like the Guggenheim Museum balanced on a guitar stand. So far, actual projects like the International Space Station are garbage by comparison. In spite of billions of dollars spent, the ISS still looks like it was designed by a 3rd-rate, Eastern European heating and cooling installation firm, s**t-faced on cheap vodka. Calling Frank Gehry!

2. THE TRANSPORTER - The phrase 'Beam Me Up, Scotty' is still largely metaphorical. Far from energizing, atomising and transporting matter, things in that department have slowed down considerably since the 1960's, as anybody who's been to an airport lately can attest to. Word is that Facebook is conducting practical experiments with matter-transport software for a projected dating service, but we don't even have the beta version available yet.

3. THREE DIMENSIONAL CHESS - The crew of The Enterprise didn't seem to have much in the way of recreational pastimes, but a multi-level version of the ancient game saw a lot of use. This version of Chess is pretty wide of the mark as far as forecasts of the future go, yet back in 1966, no sane person could have predicted a future of computer gaming being the main reason human beings exist. One would have liked to have seen Mr. Spock having a go at Grand Theft Auto XXXVI.

4. CLOTHES - Radical as the Enterprise uniform of skin-tight pants and long-sleeved t-shirts (for men) and the danskin-and-miniskirt outfits (for women) might have seemed then, fashion doesn't seem to headed in quite that direction yet. While the unencumbered, minimalist approach was useful for all weathers, atmospheres and situations that a crewperson might encounter on a five year mission, the lack of formality made it look like The Enterprise was having 'Casual Fridays' every day of the week.

5. RACE RELATIONS - Of the many things that Star Trek was notable for, the multi-racial makeup of the crew was one of the most farseeing and laudable aspects of the series. While all of mankind could not be reflected on the bridge of The Enterprise, it's odd that there was room for people from other planets, but not a trace of any 'middle-eastern' types. I'm not saying that Starfleet Command was into 'racial profiling', but surely we will have moved on from 9/11 by then.

YET ANOTHER WHEEZE

2009-03-23T13:49:00.029-04:00

RICE PUDDING

A lifestyle and technology column by our reporter, Harry L. Geeseberger

(Harry reviews the Apple I-Phone 3G)

Hello all radio operators and ships at sea!
Recently, I was in town for a week, staying with my cousin Horace, and one day, his grandson Garth came by to visit. Hearing I had to write a review of the Apple I-Phone 3G, Garth kindly lent me his Apple I-Phone 3G for a few hours, making me swear that I wouldn't read his private text messages, whatever they are. Seeing as it was almost lunchtime, I decided to go out and headed over to Chamberlain Street where I remembered there was a great old diner. I just thought I'd pay a visit and see if there were any familiar faces to be found. So I'm walking towards the diner, looking at this Apple I-Phone 3G thing - which seems to have no buttons on it, by the way - and who do I see coming straight at me? None other Morty Buell! I hadn't seen Morty in nearly 25 years, not since his retirement from the Buick dealership. "Harry, you old so-and-so", he says, how ya' been? What's that thing you're holding, a calculator?" I told him it was an Apple I-Phone 3G, but he didn't seem very interested. So I said he should join me at the diner. "What diner? C'mon, Harry, that place was torn down years ago, it's an Applebee's now". So, I said let's go there for lunch and he agreed.
After we got seated I asked him how he'd been and he said he'd had two wives and three heart attacks since we last met. These days, he was married to a woman 20 years younger than him who has a lot of money from a car-accident lawsuit. Morty said she's not bad looking, but she still likes to wear the neck brace her lawyer sold her. "I think she thinks it's some sort of fashion statement", he quipped. But by the looks of his green and brown houndstooth sports jacket and pink shirt, Morty wouldn't know a fashion statement from a squashed frog. So we got the menus and ordered. I went for the cream of potato soup and chicken salad sandwich on a kaiser roll special and Morty got the chicken-fried steak club sandwich with a double order of French Fries and a diet Coke. "Morty", I said, "You've had three heart-attacks, what the hell are you ordering that kind of meal for?" He said when his wife's around, she won't let him eat anything but lettuce with mandarin oranges in steamed goat's yogurt and whole wheat tofu-crasin bars. She says that because of the neck brace, she can't really stand over a stove too much, and that's all the food she can remember how to make - because of the accident, he says. By the time our food came, just the thought of what Morty's at-home meals must be like was giving me cramps. He looked at his lunch like he was having heartburn already, and went for the salt shaker. Just then, he opened up his mouth wide and let out this long wheeze that sounded like the air rushing out of a leaky exercise ball a fat guy just sat on. His skin lost every trace of color and he pitched forward, his face landing right in his plate. "Morty", I say, as I reached across the table and lifted up his head, thoughtfully pulling a french fry out of his nostril, "Morty, are you OK?" I shook him, but no response, so I gently placed his head on top of his sandwich and felt in my pocket for the Apple I-Phone 3G. I looked for a button to turn the thing on and call 911, but couldn't find one. (I Should have listened more carefully to Garth when he was explaning to me how to use it.) By that time, a waitress had come over to see what was the matter and immediately shouted for someone to call an ambulance. I'm still looking for a way to get the Apple I-Phone 3G going when suddenly, a string of fart noises starts coming from it, loud enough so that everybody in the restaurant could hear. So I'm standing there, everybody's staring at me, Morty's face-first in his fried food, the waitstaff has all gathered around and the Apple I-Phone 3G is farting for all it's worth. Finally, one of the 12-year-old-looking waiters takes the phone from me and somehow manages to turn the thing off. He hands it back to me with a real judgemental look on his face. Nobody says a thing.
Eventually, an EMS crew arrives and takes Morty away and I think I heard one of the paramedics whisper into his walkie-talkie -"coming in with a DOA". So I figure, that's it for Morty, the fourth time was the charm. As the ambulance slowly drives away, I start walking out of Applebee's when a waitress comes up to me, waving the check at me and demanding I pay it. "What are you talking about?", I says, "My friend just keeled over and died and you expect me to pay a lousy check? We didn't even get to eat!"" Then, a man I take to be the manager strides towards me threateningly, coming at me in a way that made me instinctively put up my dukes, just like I did when I was the all-barracks boxing runner-up back in '44. I don't exactly remember everything that happened next, but I do recall being on the floor of Applebee's, and hearing that damned Apple I-Phone 3G farting away at me again.
The policeman who made me empty my pockets before locking me in the cell explained that my Apple I-Phone 3G had a feature on it called 'I-Fart', or something like that, and it was programmed to go off if the phone thought it had been stolen. Thinking phones! What next? Too bad I didn't get a chance to tell Morty about that. It was gonna be about 4 hours before Cousin Horace could get down to the cop shop to bail me out, and I was getting really hungry, not having had a chance to even open up my package of saltines at Applebee's. The policeman said that I had missed the prisoner's lunch, and since I wasn't officially sentenced yet, wasn't entitled to one anyway, but he did take five dollars out of my wallet and went to the canteen and bought me a something to eat. It was a chicken-fried steak club sandwich, and it really wasn't too bad.

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

2009-02-23T13:02:00.007-05:00

Dear Readers,
Last night, the Academy Awards show was on TV and, as usual, I found something else to do instead of watching it. I'm not a big fan of awards shows in general, this grandaddy of 'em all in particular. I'm content to read about the winners the next morning and have a brief chuckle over the reviews by people who had to watch the doin's and how - every year - they complain about the length of the show and yadda-yadda-yadda.
I think, that for the most part, people who make films are smart and confident, so it's with some puzzlement that the actors and filmmakers who win an award invariably give a nervous, breathless, 'unprepared' and tearful acceptance speech, seeming to have been utterly taken by surprise that they actually won. Is it me or does that seem phony? I mean, these are people who live their lives in front of audiences, are used to being adored and catered for, and besides, just being nominated gives you at least a one-in-five chance of winning, so why the fragmented shock and awe? It's all an act, of course, and the irony is that an actor usually gives his or her worst performance when they pick up an award for having given the best performance. Not having seen the program, I don't know who did what and how, but I'll bet some of Hollywood's biggest names did a poor imitation of a Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes winner.
I guess the managers and publicists advise the stars to behave like that, so as to appear to be humble and not the sort of people who have perks like 'only red M&M's in my trailer' or 'no one is allowed to look me in the eye' written into their contracts. Watching stars-as-people just like us is a bit like watching WWE 'Wrestling' - you have to suspend disbelief to enjoy it properly. Perhaps it's this fiction-as-fact-as-fiction conundrum that cost Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)the Best Actor Oscar -either that or his do-it-yourself plastic surgery. Anyway, a bit of harmless escapism is welcome in this time of economic turmoil and the winners were all highly deserving, I'm sure. I just wish that, one day, an Oscar winner would bound up to the podium, grab the statuette out of the presenters hand, hold it aloft and proclaim "I'm the King Of The World". Oh, wait, that happened already. James Cameron did it in 1997, after he won it all for Titannic. And he hasn't made a movie since.
The Oscars may not be my cup of tea, but real tea is, so as the kettle boils, I sit and quietly contemplate the clock inching towards 4 o'clock, where somewhere, the award for best break from the working day is being given to me. With biscuits.

THE TWSB RESTAURANT REVIEW

2009-02-19T10:30:00.027-05:00

Striving to become a full-service blog, Tea With S.B. introduces a new feature - the restaurant review. To handle this assignment, we reached out to the United Queendom and lured noted gastro-gnome, A. Anton Grot over to the United States to sample the cuisine of one of Britain's more notable colonies. His brief will be to go to any city, region or neighborhood - incognito, of course - and order as many dishes as is required to give a fair and balanced opinion of the cooking on offer. We hope you will enjoy this vital and vicarious victual experience.
-The Editors.

"A TABLE NEAR THE TOILET" By A. Anton Grot

Le Chiot Malade ,147 Tex Ritter Highway, Thelma.

Finding good French food in France is a snap, requiring nothing more than going in to the first restaurant you see. Even cooking at a French hobo camp is superior to anything I've ever tried in the US. So it was with particular dread that I ventured out to Thelma to visit the newly-opened Le Chiot Malade, a fresh venture by the recently-exiled master chef, Gaston Merde. (It can be said of him that he never merited 4 Michelin Stars, but did begin his career on 4 Michelin Tires, as his first business was a frites wagon). After checking my eligibility for American hospital coverage, I asked an old girlfriend along to help with the review. (Not wishing to kiss-and-tell, I will refer to her as The Wench). She's very good company and will eat just about anything. Also, she makes up some wicked limericks which she'll gladly recite in a loud, faux-Norwegian accent (especially after she's had a few).

Teething troubles are nothing new for a upstart enterprise, and the look of a just-opened restaurant can be a tip-off. The decor of Le Chiot Malade is sort of high-concept-meets-low-bank account, which can sometimes work, but not here. It begins well at the front with an elegant combination of adobe and hammered copper, but about half-way towards the back, the walls suddenly shift to a 1960's-style pink flocked wallpaper, which, it must be said, goes well with the plastic patio tables and beanbag chairs. But as you reach the back of the room, you're surrounded by glued-to-the-drywall pages of The Fort Worth Star-Telegraph while sitting on filched milk crates with your plate on your lap. The lighting throughout is harsh and industrial, and makes everyone there look like an extra from David Lynch's Eraserhead. I know start-up money is tight these days, and contractors in this area usually demand cash on the nail, but blowing the decorating budget even before you get to the bar area is unforgivable. Artwork on the walls reeks of high-concept design too, with a tiny postcard of The Eiffel Tower in a huge gilt frame (as you might expect), which is supplemented by faded posters featuring The Leaning Tower Of Pisa, The Acropolis , The Kremlin and, oddly, Al Pacino as Scarface. However, we were here to eat, and we were eventually shown to our table in the half-eaten dining room, after a wait of only 1 hour. As the waitress (dressed in a green-day-glo Burka) handed us the menus, I told the Wench to order big, as this was for a review. But a quick glance at the menu revealed some difficult and disturbing choices. Chef Merde is one of those culinary anti-snobs who thinks Americans should broaden their choice of foods and branch out from the usual beef-chicken-pork-fish routine. The French eat everything that flies, crawls or swims, so I knew we were in for something of an adventure, but I didn't expect it to be Apollo 13.

For starters, I ordered the Seaside Seaweed Salad with Seahorse Croutons, a dish that self-respecting starving vultures would not go near. The Wench had the Earthworm Sashimi with Toadstool Couli, which she promptly regurgitated into her oversize handbag. (Thank goodness she decided on such a roomy purse, as I figured it was going to be a rough evening). I had the Soup de Rapport Officiel next, which tasted exactly like wallpaper paste (c'mon, you know you've tried it) and came with what I took to be a brush-shaped baguette. Later, I discovered that it was wallpaper paste with an actual wallpaper brush, as my order got mixed up with the decorator's supplies in a kitchen obviously still trying to find it's feet. The Wench skipped soup, as she was feeling a bit unwell (her greenish complexion beginning to compliment her fuchsia hair) and instead tried a glass of the house wine, which the server had decanted from what looked suspiciously like a thermos on which pour vider seulement was written in crayon. As for mains, the Fourmi Cuite was all right, but after plowing through the dense layers of puff pastry and ragweed, I was a little disappointed at the smallish ant and rather put off by it being placed in a carrot carved to look like a little coffin. The Wench mistakenly decided on Les Pis Fous de Vache, a grotesque pinwheel of cow's udders hanging from tiny meathooks, braised in what looked like a sauce made from cat's hairballs. One bite of this, and the Wench was off to the toilets, and I never saw her again for the rest of the meal. Reluctantly, I tried dessert, and plumped for La Maison le Gateau Special which turned out to be chocolate-covered burnt toast with a half-melted creamsicle (stick still in) planted in the middle, surrounded by cooking twine cut-offs marinated in what I hoped was only pickle juice. Original, I'll give them that (the French let rien go to waste), but horrific.

As the dishes were cleared away, I began dreading the bill for this gastronomic nightmare - the menu prices looked like a spreadsheet from the Wall Street Bailout plan - and wondered where the Wench had gotten to. Suddenly, I looked out the window and saw her behind the wheel of our car, pulling up to the front of the restaurant and waving for me to hurry up and jump in. Apparently, she had recovered enough to escape through a low window in the ladies' room and make her way to the parking lot. I bolted for the door and just made the car as she floored the accelerator and screeched onto Tex Ritter Highway, expertly weaving around oncoming ambulances and running a series of 'pink' lights. It was then I remembered how she was a lousy lay but a very, very good driver.

Rating: 1 Stomach Pump (out of 4)

LOVE IS...

2009-02-14T11:11:00.002-05:00

Today is Valentine's Day and Tea With S.B. is no exception. Like millions of other publications, our crack research team has come up with a number of quotes on the subject of Love. You may add any of them to the card you will give to your loved one...

"Love is just a four-letter word"
Christian Bale

"Love is $3,000 for the hour - no extras included"
Ashley 'Kristen' DuPre

"If I give this heart to you, I'll have to send Igor out for another one"
Victor Frankenstein

"Love is never having to say you're 'sorry'. Or 'thanks'. Or 'Your loan is approved".
Kenneth Lewis, CEO, Bank Of America

"There is no cure for love, except a series of painful abdominal injections"
The U.S. Surgeon-General

"Love is the drug I've been looking for"
Amy Winehouse

"My love, I compare thee to a summer's day - hot, sticky and a temperature of nearly 100 degrees"
Al Roker

"Love is like credit card debt, you never stop paying for it"
Donald Trump

"Love stinks"
Pepe LePew (retired cartoon character)

THINKIN' OF LINCOLN

2009-02-12T15:54:00.002-05:00

If Abraham Lincoln were alive today, he'd be 200 years old.
If Abraham Lincoln were alive today, no one would have ever heard of John Wilkes Booth, let alone his brother, Edwin.
If Abraham Lincoln were alive today, Rudolph Valentino would be on the penny.
If Abraham Lincoln were alive today, Ford Motor Company's luxury car would be called "The Filmore Continental".
If Abraham Lincoln were alive today, he would have collected $351,245,087.39 in social security benefits by now.
If Abraham Lincoln were alive today he would have had the time to read all of the 15,000 or so books printed about him over the years.
If Abraham Lincoln were alive today his 'Twitter' log-on name would be Abraham Lincoln.
If Abraham Lincoln were alive today, Southerners would still be PO'ed at him.
If Abraham Lincoln were alive today, his favorite TV shows would be 'The Office" and "Survivor".

'ROIDS RAGE

2009-02-09T17:16:00.003-05:00

Dear Readers,
You really have to chuckle a little bit at the people who are in such a high dudgeon over the admission by Alex Roidruguez that he took performance-enhancing drugs for several years. It's not that I ever suspected he did, or just assumed that every sports figure these days 'juices', but it just strikes me as odd that we expect professional athletes to be so doggone pure.
Listening to sports-talk radio reveals the predictable reaction; people call up and go all moral about how these sports idols are heroes and role models to their children. Hello? Does anybody out there remember what it was like to be a kid? Sure, we all were fans of all sorts of stars, but I doubt if any of us -except the more obsessively disturbed of us - were modelling our lives after these people, we just liked some of the stuff they were doing in public, and had no idea whatsoever what they were like on their off days. I know that when I was a kid, I never looked to sports stars as role models. Truth is, back in my childhood, I was a Detroit Tigers fan, and that was back in the day when most players had to get part-time jobs in the off-season to help boost the family income. Quite often, they could be seen in the Detroit area selling men's suits and used cars in November, and I don't ever recall wanting to do any of that. What happens to us when we grow up, do we forget how knowing we were, how we used to snigger and laugh at the behavior of grown-ups? If it was true in my day, it must be quadruply so in the age of computer gaming, Facebook, music file-sharing and, most of all, the revealing silliness of most of the content at You Tube. No, the real disappointment, I suspect, comes from the romanticizing adults, who seem to be the ones using sports heroes as role models. I mean, what guy wouldn't want to be a famous zillionaire with a girl or three in every major-league city? When A-Roid gets caught cheating, adults suddenly get all righteous and moral and know that they would never stoop to anything like that, no sir.
I don't really think using performance-enhancing drugs is such a great idea, but I don't know what the pressures are to get an edge in professional sports, either. I just assume it's like, say, being a big shot on Wall Street, where you just keep doing what you can for maximum profit (illegal or not) until somebody catches you at it. How anyone could seriously be surprised that rich, greedy, spoiled people(such as modern-day athletes and bankers) would jump at the opportunity to get more, is beyond me, but at least dopers in sports aren't pocketing wads of public money. And I don't exactly buy the argument that school-age athletes will be badly influenced by hearing about their heroes with syringes in their butts, after all, where better for a kid to get drugs than from another kid. Let's face it, the most powerful role-models kids have are their peers. I know it was true for me.
In 1918, eight members of the Chicago White Sox took mob money to throw the World Series, so big-time cheating is no modern phenomenon. Major League Baseball came down on them like a ton of bricks when it was discovered, banning them all from the game for life. But Baseball not only survived, it grew into the multi-billion-dollar behemoth of today that attracts all sorts of curious characters willing to help athletes get an edge. Seems to me that one might be more surprised that Britney Spears went off the rails than A-Roid did what he did. Didn't she used to be on The Disney Channel? 'Nuff said.
The great thing about pro sports is that it's such wonderful escapism, its only 'problem' being that it's populated with real people, not computer-generated androids. They're subject to display the same strengths and weaknesses as anybody, and with such enormous temptations such as money and fame, who of us can say we wouldn't behave differently? This talk about 'role models' is understandable, but not very sound. Perhaps it's time we dropped this malarkey about sports heroes as examples for the way we should live. Cut them some slack, after all, they're just like you and me, just more talented in a certain way - and maybe more driven, too. So now, when I think back to that Detroit Tiger selling shoes in the off-season to get new coats for his children, maybe he was somebody I ought to have modelled myself after....nahh, I was just a kid!
Well, there's nothing purer than the sound of a kettle boiling, and that sound can only mean one thing! Somewhere, it's four o'clock, and time for a nice, pure cup of tea.

JOKES FROM EUROPE

2009-02-06T18:20:00.004-05:00

It's been a rough week in Warshington, DofC, and I thought the movers and shakers in the Capitol who read my blog religiously might appreciate having a few, new, imported, European jokes to tell other movers and shakers on the weekend party circuit.

(These were overheard at the Economic Summit in Davos, Switzers-land.)

Two parrots are standing on a perch, one of them says "Do you smell a fish?"

Why are pirates called pirates? Because they arrrr...

(This next one makes more sense spoken out loud)

Knock, Knock. Who's there? Europe. Europe who? No, YOU'RE a poo.

What do you get from a pampered cow? Spoiled Milk.

What do you call a French man walking along the beach in sandals?
Phillipe Flop.

What's brown and sticky?
A stick.

Where do Polar Bears vote?
The North poll.

What did the ground say to the earthquake?
You crack me up.

Well, pass these gems on - when and if you've recovered from laughing - and remember, while you're losing your job, Bernard Madoff is confined to his 50-Million dollar apartment in Manhattan. Things could be worse!

DON'T GO BREAKIN' MY HEART

2009-02-05T18:11:00.004-05:00

Dear Readers,
Politics generally bum me out, but I'm really bummed over all the hoo-ha that's gone on in Warshington this week.I never could figure out the Tom Daschle thing, as even goldfish know that he's a lobbyist in all but name, and President Obama said he wasn't going to hire a bunch of lobbyists for key jobs. I'm kind of glad that Daschle got busted for non-payment of taxes, as it saves a lot of long-term grief for everybody, but it's disturbing how many tax deadbeats have been tapped to be in the new administration.
Timothy Geithner 'forgot' to pay his taxes, too, a rather disturbing oversight for the guy who's our new Treasury Secretary, but Obama just had to have him, as he's so indispensable to any hope for economic recovery. Let me be the 9 millionth guy to remind everyone of Charles DeGaulle's famous comment that "the graveyards are full of indispensable people" (he said 'l'hommes', but...), a fact that needs repeating, especially in a time when ordinary people know in their bones that there's a double standard for the rich and powerful. The Republicans could have filibustered Geithner's nomination to death, but they gave Obama a mulligan on that one, the only one he's ever likely to get from them. But allowing another indispensable to get away with cheating was too much, and I reluctantly must agree with the GOP for once.
Meanwhile, the Democrats in congress have been larding the Economic Stimulus Pill with pork, which not only imperils a worthwhile attempt to help the economy, but adds a distinct, non-kosher whiff to a bill that would look better if there was some bi-partisanness to it. I guess that's to be expected, as that's what congress always does to legislation. But what surprises me is that Obama apparently didn't see this coming. Maybe it's because he's been away from Warshington for two solid years, campaigning, and forgot what the place is actually like. He may have thought that he had at least 58 Democratic friends in Congress, who would make sure there was enough in the bill for at least some bipartisan support, but he forgets that every morning, 100 senators look in the bathroom mirror while brushing their teeth and see a potential President. And most of them probably think they deserve it more than some upstart from Illinois who was only there for a couple of years before he decided to go for it.
Look, I'm like most people, I don't really understand what goes on in the game of big-time politics, but I know there are no Jimmy Stewart characters ('Mr. Smith Goes To Warshington') to stand up for the absolute right, and those who are there, while not actually crooked, are at least aware that politics is a not-so-subtle game of power and promise. I'm sorry, Mr. President, but change hasn't come, and you haven't helped matters by nominating people who obviously think that the rules don't apply to them, while allowing the Senatorial satraps to stink the place out with business-as-usual.
So, my amateur advice to the President is; take the moral high ground - it's yours, as no one else in the nation's Capitol seems to want it, and pleeeeeeeze don't go to some @#$%*&ing school to read stories to first-graders (ala 'W' on 9/11 and Katrina) while Rome burns. After Wall Street raped and pillaged the US taxpayers and Congress acts like a bunch of drunken sailors, we desperately need someone to take charge. I know you can do it, man, 'cause you're the only guy we've ever elected who knows how to work a Blackberry.
@#$%% tea today, cause I want all this to work out. Come on, people!

NOTHING LIKE IT

2009-01-29T17:06:00.003-05:00

THEME TIME RADIO HOUR WITH BOB DYLAN - SEASON 3
#12 "NOTHING"
Broadcast January 14, 2009

Really nothing to say about this show except where on any kind of radio can you find a program that plays recordings by The Fugs, Sammy Davis Jr. and Marlene Dietrich in the space of one hour - plus, a little advice on how to deal with marital problems from none other than Bob Dylan. TTRH is the Belgian Chocolate of ear candy.

RUSH TO JUDGEMENT

2009-01-28T09:34:00.007-05:00

Dear Readers,
A week into the Obama administration, and the divisions are beginning to show. The President has indeed 'hit the ground running', signing executive orders, tidying up the confirmations of his key appointees and introducing his economic stimulus pill, but the Republican rump in Congress is starting to grumble, and any hope of a bipartisan effort to tackle the nation's financial crisis looks to be fading fast.
Like a clumsy, talkative and intrusive bellboy who won't leave the honeymoon suite, the take-no-prisoners, vitriol-spitting radio chatterbox Rush Limbaugh is in play, and instead of doing the worst thing they could do to an egomaniac of his size, ignore him, both Democrats and Republicans have made him (and his purer-than-thou opinions) central to the national debate.
The only thing worse than the GOP lawmakers letting Rush and his masculinity-challenging comments get to them is the Democrats trying to shut him up. Even the President has given credibility to the stogie-sucking, hot-air machine by urging the Republicans to 'stop listening to Rush Limbaugh', a mistake that Bill Clinton made in 1993, and lived to regret, while watching Rush's popularity soar.
Limbaugh has the ear of the right-wing in this country, and even though that philosophy has had a full and fair airing, along with control of all three branches of government for several years, the majority of Americans have seen it for what it is, a cynical cover for greed on a monumental scale. Having tried to put the theories of less government and enshrining a version of morality in every rule and reg, it remains a risible, washed-up, backward-looking view, where a few oligarchs - like Limbaugh - live like kings, while their minions' lives are squandered by the amoral financial barons' greed, a direct result of the me-first philosophy of conservatism.
But the chaos that the radio right-wingers create seldom touches their lives, so they can be as reckless in their rhetoric as they like, knowing full well that the more division they help create, the bigger their ratings, the bigger their paycheck, and bugger everyone else. Limbaugh may be like a fireman who moonlights as an arsonist, but I say just let him talk. Don't try to shut him up, don't circulate petitions to get him off the air, and for corn's sake, don't give him any credibility, Congress, by fighting over his opinions when so much more is at stake. Limbaugh doesn't have any skin in the game, he makes zillions no matter who runs the country. And while he's said openly that he wants Obama to fail, his fortune has been made because every administration fails. Discord is his life-blood and buying in to his belligerent bullying has made a mess of the GOP, driving out most all of the thoughtful, rational people with any scruples. If GOP lawmakers are afraid that Rush Limbaugh's disapproval will cost them votes, it's only because they make him out to be more important than he really is. Rush has a huge audience, no doubt, but these people's minds (what there is of them) were made up long ago, and they ought to form a support group and call it 'The American Nihilists'.
Winston Churchill once wrote 'Beneath all the party malice there is a realization of the facts. But the nation is divided into two party machines grinding away at one another with tireless vigor'. I applaud President Obama for his attempt to get bi-partisan support for his economic rescue package, but he's naive to think that he can bring together the parties to do the right thing for the country - just because it's the right thing. Only a miserable handful of times have the two parties come together for the best interests of the nation, and almost never on a huge package of spending. It's just a fact of life that oppositional politics is ugly, messy and full of contradictions, and nothing about that is new in the history of this or any other democratic society. But pleeeeezeee don't give any more importance to Rush-freakin'-Limbaugh! In the time-honored words to those who don't like what they're listening to on the radio, just tune to another station. It's a big dial out there.
These days, I tune away from the financial reports when I put the kettle on. Instead, I listen in to the BBC, wait for the time-signal pips, pour hot water over the leaves and allow 4 minutes, 18 seconds for steeping, knowing that when it's finished, it'll be 4 o'clock and time for a cup of tea.

THE SUNDAY SHORT STORY NO. 3

2009-01-25T17:37:00.006-05:00

BARTLEBY ON MARS
By Bill Mel Hurman

"Call me imprudent", said Commander Terkuy, to his daily digital journal, "but I think there's something seriously the matter with Bartleby, and I'm increasingly concerned about him". And so he had been, for the last several weeks of a voyage that was taking him and his fellow voyagers towards the distant planet Mars, Bartleby had become more distant and indifferent as the mission dragged on. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral had been flawless, and the precision of the trans-martian injection burn had exceeded the flight planners carefully calculated expectations. Terkuy was sure this first attempt to land on the red planet would go off without a hitch. The crew, consisting of himself, fellow Navy pilot Lieutenant Commander Spernip, Computer Technician and only civilian, Ishmael Bartleby, and their spacecraft computer, nicknamed 'Ginger Nut', had been working well as a team, as so they must, seeing as it would be about nine months from liftoff to man's first landing on the red planet. Bartleby had been a last-minute addition to the crew because it was felt that his expertise in helping to build and program Ginger Nut would be invaluable in case of any computer problems on such a long voyage. The delay in communications with earth in deep space required an on-board tech, and no one was more capable than Bartleby. But in spite of the computer's mainframe platform being based on a Microsoft design (the low bidder - not necessarily the best - gets the contacts at NASA), there hadn't been a single problem with either the hardware or software that was so vital to the success of the mission, and, of course, the safety of the crew.
As the weeks wore on inside their spacecraft, named the PE-QUOD (an acronym for Piloted Environment - Quality Utility Outerspace Device, as NASA had designated it), Bartleby had next to nothing to do, as the two experienced Navy-trained pilot-astronauts handled all the technical duties in guiding the ship towards their destination. At first, Bartleby had made an effort to help with meal preparation, do a little photography and keep a journal of the voyage, but he soon became aware these activities were make-work redundancies, (Ginger Nut had been programmed to do all of that) and he fell increasingly into a depressed and silent funk. Commander Terkuy had racked his brains to try and find something for Bartleby to do, but each time he was offered a task, the reply was the same - "I'd prefer not to".
Eventually, after months of incident-free space travel, Mars had been reached, and the PE-QUOD was in orbit around the planet. Landing was scheduled to occur in just a few hours, and after touchdown, the crew would exit the spacecraft for a few days of exploration of the strange new environment. Terkuy and Spernip had a long list of tasks to perform - setting up experiments, installing measuring devices, excavating samples and the like, but concerned about their task-less computer expert, they had decided to include Bartleby in the extra vehicular activities on the schedule. Instead of staying in the PE-QUOD, Bartleby would also suit up and join the astronauts on the surface, perhaps helping to ferry instrument packages from the storage bays on the Mars lander, or being on hand to pass them a needed tool. It was a risky idea, but the Commander wanted to keep a watchful eye on his moody charge, and felt it was better than leaving him alone in the spacecraft, where his feelings of alienation might get worse.
Thanks to the skill of the two pilots and the flawless performance of Ginger Nut, the PE-QUOD made a perfect landing on Mars and after contacting flight control crew in Houston with the good news, Terkuy gave the order to begin donning their pressure-suits and helmets for the journey outside the ship. Not surprisingly, Bartleby said "I'd prefer not to" when asked to prepare for the EVA. Spernip looked to Terkuy to see if he was going to enforce crew discipline, and the Commander, without hesitation, ordered his Lieutenant to "assist Mr. Bartleby to prepare for crew cabin egress". Bartleby said nothing, and without too much resistance - and no help whatsoever - allowed Spernip (and with more than a little backup from Terkuy) to dress him in his spacesuit and helmet. Terkuy almost changed his mind about allowing Bartleby to join them when asked by Spernip to switch on his life-support system - "I'd prefer not to", Bartleby said, looking down at his spacesuited feet. But Terkuy and Spernip went ahead and completed donning their own suits and helmets and then de-pressurized the spacecraft to they could open the hatch and climb down the five ladder-rungs to the Martian surface. Terkuy was first out and would have liked to have taken a moment and marvelled at the view of the yellow-clouded, rusty panorama, but as he reached the bottom of the ladder, he instead closed his eyes prayerfully and spoke calmly into his helmet-microphone system - (which allowed the three suited men to communicate with each other) - "Mr. Bartleby, you come down the ladder next". Terkuy opened one eye and waited for the dreaded answer, and it came promptly. "I'd prefer not to", said Bartleby, having been pushed to the spacecraft door by Spernip, who, standing right behind the reluctant explorer, was himself anxious to get to the surface and begin the historic work that lay before him. Terkuy put his right boot back up on the last rung of the ladder, "Spernip", he said, "help me with Mr. Bartleby". Spernip groaned but complied, and with difficulty, because of the spacesuit's boxy life-support backpack, was just able to reach under Bartleby's arms as Terkuy grabbed him by the boots and between them, they carefully levered him down the ladder to the surface of Mars. "I'm sure glad that this is not being televised", Spernip said testily. Terkuy agreed, and was thankful that, even at the speed of light, communications from their position took about thirty minutes to make it back to earth. By necessity, conversation was brief and to the point, as real-time dialogue was impossible. In more ways than one, they were on their own. No TV cameras had been carried on the PE-QUOD to save weight for vital comestibles, but Ginger Nut was digitally filming the events outside the ship, which, thankfully, could be saved and edited for later viewing. Even though they all had identical spacesuits, Bartleby was instantly distinguishable from the other two spacemen, standing stock-still in his now-familiar slouch, as Terkuy and Spernip paused to take in the amazing Martian landscape. "Bartleby, just look at all this!", Spernip said as he patted him on the shoulder. "I'd prefer not to". The Commander, seeing that Bartleby was probably, after all, going to be of little practical use, looked around for someplace to park his reluctant charge. Spotting a sofa-sized boulder a few dozen feet away, he gestured to Bartleby and asked him over the three way circuit to go over and sit down on it. "I'd prefer not to", he heard Bartleby say, remaining stationary at the foot of the spaceship ladder.
With help again from his co-pilot, Terkuy managed to half-drag, half-frogmarch Bartelby over to the boulder and, as gently as they could, sat him down on it. The dead weight winded the two Navy men. Bartleby's shoulders slumped as he bent slightly forward, his gloved hands resting on his pressure-suited knees. The two men looked sadly at one another and turned and walked back to the base of the PE-QUOD, where they set about unpacking the delicate instruments that would collect vital data and samples to bring back to earth.
Hours passed as Spernip and Terkuy performed the tasks they had spent months in rehearsing and perfecting, and all went smoothly. Every so often, Terkuy would steal a glance at Bartleby, but he barely seemed to have moved since being placed on the rock in his defeated-looking posture. Terkuy, usually an unemotional, practical man, began to feel a great sympathy for his depressed crewmate. There they all were, on the surface of another planet, the most extraordinary trek ever taken, seeing sights no human being had ever witnessed first hand, and all Bartleby would do was to fix his mournful gaze on nothing in particular in the middle distance. Terkuy felt both exhilarated - and sad.
After about six hours , A wearied Terkuy decided they should all return to the spaceship for some food and rest. Spernip reported that he was too exhausted to lift his arms, even in the lesser gravity of Mars. There were two more days of spacewalks left to complete the work, and then they would prepare to blast-off and begin the nine month return to earth. Terkuy wasn't much looking forward to that, seeing as how things were turning out, but, once back inside spacecraft, he had made the decision to leave Bartleby in the PE-QUOD for the remainder of the stay on Mars. He was very worried about him, but realized he was unlikely to do any harm left on his own inside the spaceship. It didn't look like he was going to do much of anything, anywhere, anytime soon, such was his complete apathy. Terkuy almost hoped that Ginger Nut would have some sort of crisis, feeling that it might rouse Bartleby from his melancholy, giving him a renewed sense of purpose. "Spernip, Bartleby, back to the ship", Terkuy announced, tapping the watch strapped to his spacesuit glove. "Aye-Aye, sir", Spernip came back, snappily. Then, Terkuy held his breath as he waited for Bartleby's reply. Seconds passed. The nine months of eventless space travel seemed shorter to him than the waiting for a response from the direction of the ancient, red-tinged boulder where the motionless technician sat in his frozen slouch. Then, static that breathed like an electric sigh was audible and the dreaded, expected, feared words crackled into the commander's earpiece, "I'd prefer not to...sir".

This is all the text that was sent to us by Mr. Hurman, so our editor called him yesterday to ask if he could he please send us the conclusion to this thrilling 'Sunday Short Story'. His sister, Mrs. Iris Ecclescakes, answered the phone, telling us that Mr. Hurman has written the conclusion, but would prefer not to send it to us. We're making further inquiries.

GOOD TO THE LAST DRIP

2009-01-24T11:19:00.006-05:00

Dear Readers,
Shopping in a British department store is quite a bit different from shopping in one here in the US, and I can recall three memorable experiences (among many) to illustrate my point. Two of them involved purchasing very ordinary items. One, buying a portable radio from Harrod's in London, and two, purchasing a fold-up travel clock from a Debenham's in Oxford. On both occasions, the sales assistants were courteous, professional and helpful, and treated me as if I were spending thousands of pounds on some diamond-encrusted Rolex, instead of moderately-priced, everyday items. And I'm certain it wasn't because they stood to gain a commission on the sales. To me, I felt like some extra on Are You Being Served?, minus the smarmy double-entendres.
The third memorable experience was at Liberty's Of London, where I stopped by their in-store caff for some refreshment. One of the best things about big-city, established department stores in the UK is that they all seem to have a proper, separate place to have lunch, or just a pot of tea and some cake. The weary shopper can briefly get away from the retail bustle and enjoy a repast in comfort and a certain amount of dignity. Some, like Fortnum & Mason and Selfridge's have several choices, depending on how casual or formal you want to be, or how much you're looking to spend. At Liberty's that afternoon, I went in to their dowdy-but-pleasant caff and ordered a pot of tea and some cake. Presently, the server brought it over to my snowy-white, linen-clothed table and laid it out for me. Pouring out a cup, I promptly stained the cloth, as the teapot dribbled some of it's contents down the outside of the spout. I felt awful about it, but I later discovered that it happens all the time. It's the design, you see. No matter how careful you are, a teapot dribbles, especially small ones. It's traditional. But now, I read that Debenham's have introduced a new, improved dripless teapot in their in-store caffs (see graphic above) and I just wanted to share this leap forward for humanity with you all, as you know how important a nice cup of tea is to me. Word is, that if a hit with the tea-shop crowd, a version of it may eventually go on sale to the public. (I suppose the proof of success is how many pots will get nicked)
So well done, Debenham's. Thanks for a tardy but welcome innovation!

WE CAN WORK IT OUT

2009-01-23T15:09:00.008-05:00

THEME TIME RADIO HOUR WITH BOB DYLAN - SEASON 3
#11 "WORK & JOBS"
Broadcast January 7, 2009

At a time when jobs are getting harder to find, Bob works in a lot of tunes where people are complaining about their employment situation. Seems that nobody ever writes songs about wanting a job, but perhaps among the millions who lost their jobs recently, there may be a budding songwriter who's been freed to write a few tunes about the desire for work.
The set punches in with The Burnadettes singing First You've Got To Recognize God, (which, pray tell, may or may not be a prerequisite to being hired these days). But listening to it, I was reminded of how The Beatles used to admire the sound of US girl-groups of the early sixties, and how they not only covered some of the best (Please Mr. Postman, Boys, etc.) but maybe un-self-consciously copied the structure and feel of the songs as they penned their own tunes at the start of their career. They easily could have covered this one, had it not been such a out-and-out gospel number. But I have a terrible feeling that the Fabs would have continued to write such pastiches, and might even have become the world's first 'boy-band' had Mr. Dylan not introduced them to the wacky weed. Oh, how history was changed by one doobie!
Complaining about having to go to work made great fodder for AM radio hits back in the day, and Bob gives us a right old lunchbucket full of them. The boppin' and bitchin' by T-Bone Walker, Merle Haggard and Jimmy Reed is only relieved somewhat by Sarah Vaughan's jazzy take on Nice Work If You Can Get It, as the playlist begins to take a slight metaphoric detour. We have to work through a bit more job-kvetching before getting to a very early Ray Charles platter I'll Do Anything But Work (which may or may not be a gigolo's anthem). Brother Ray is almost unrecognizable, vocally, as I guess he was still working on his style. Nice job, though.
At least one positive view of work sneaks in as we get to hear - I'm not kidding - Whistle While You Work, the version (complete with sound effects) from the Disney cartoon, Snow White, as sung by the forgotten Adriana Caselotti. Divorced from the visuals, it seems less childish and
more of a timeless standard, except towards the end, when I started seeing those damn Dwarfs in my mind's eye. As Bob tells it, the writer of the song apparently committed suicide years later, an image that will now, unfortunately, stand alongside the diminutive Disneyites in my head if I ever listen to that tune again, which I promise not to.
Toward the end, we get back to music about how crappy jobs can be, as Tom Waits grunts through one of his extremely perceptive songs about work, I Can't Wait To Get Off Work(And See My Baby On Montgomery Avenue). Did this guy really have broom-pushing jobs? He sure sounds as if he did - last week, in fact. He's great, but thank goodness there's no such thing as 45 RPM singles anymore, as Waits' paragraph-long title would leave little room on the label for anything else.
Dylan, without resorting to playing worn-out cliches like Take This Job And Shove It and Get A Job, realizes this week's theme with his familiar mix of rarer Soul, Blues, Country and Novelty sides that really work, without being too laborious. In one of his informational filler-segments between songs, he gives us a list of jobs that you can't get anymore, or soon won't be able to get anymore, like milk man, travel agent, typesetter, sewing machine operator, elevator operator and Polaroid Plant Worker. Bob could have added yet another job to that list- a person who plays the music they want to on a over-the -airwaves commercial radio station. In other words, a deejay. Stay on the satellite, Mr. D.

IT'S NOT WHERE YOU FINISH, IT'S WHERE YOU START

2009-01-20T17:11:00.016-05:00

Dear Readers,
When it comes to formal ceremonies, Americans just can't get the rebelliousness out of their systems. We're a nation of rules that resents having to have rules, so we tend not to be too formal, even when the occasion demands - It's somehow not very democratic. Just think, if we'd played by the rules during our revolutionary war, we never would have hid behind rocks and trees to shoot Redcoats while they marched towards us in a disciplined line. And vastly outgunned and outnumbered, we would have lost the rebellion that made us. So it's no surprise that today's Inauguration of President Obama adds another chapter to our informal-formality history.
I can't resist the opportunity to offer a small, constructive critique of this morning's ceremony. As political theatre, nothing in the world touches the peaceful transfer of the awesome power of the Presidency, but compared, let's say, to a British state occasion, it had all the polish of a junior high school production of Our Town. In retrospect, I would have cut a couple of items: First, there was no need for the instrumental music written by John Williams. The opening -and I assume, original -portion was dismal and better suited for a state funeral. Then, Williams drops in a huge chunk of an Aaron Copeland shaker-inspired tune. That's nice, but sticking it in Williams' funereal dirge made no sense. It was a ham-handed mashup, at best. Besides, what needed to follow Aretha Franklin's expressive take on My Country 'Tis Of Thee? (I do wish she had sung 'Natural Woman' instead, but that's a highly personal preference). Why follow the 'Queen Of Soul' with the 'Master Of Droll'? The Quartet, led by Yitzak Perlman and Yo Ma-Ma was brilliant, but wasted on such a pointless piece of music, and the positioning on the Capitol Balcony, above the inaugural platform, reminded me a little of the ascent into 'Kitchen Stadium' of one of the Japanese Iron Chefs (Iron Chef Italian, I think), the one who rises up accompanied by a string quartet. Plus, Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden had to wrench themselves around in their seats to look at the players (mostly, I suspect, out of politeness), which made them both look awkward and uncomfortable. Or maybe they couldn't believe that such A-list musicians were playing such dreck -especially since there was no way to upstage Aretha.
Second, the 'poem', written and read by some famous chick poet was awful. To my trained ears, it sounded a lot like a fifth-grade civics essay. It didn't have any sort of iamb that I could discern, and didn't even rhyme. Why do Inaugurals have to feature a poem anyway? Just because JFK had Robert Frost read out a specially-commissioned poem, every President thinks he has to have a poem, too. If poetry is sooo important to the swearing-in ceremony, why don't they just get someone like, say, James Earl Jones to read out a really good one, like 'The Charge Of The Light Brigade'? Too bad George Carlin's dead, as he would have been my choice for both poet and reader. And considering my estimation of how we conduct formal ceremonies, totally appropriate.
Joe Biden was funny as he stood up to take his oath of office. He had his hand up before he got to his feet, like he had a last minute question or something. Biden seemed over-prepared, probably because it's the same oath that a US Senator takes, and he's been in the senate for about 12 terms, so I'm sure he says it in his sleep. It looked like he wanted to go on swearing some more oaths after he had completed, but was forced to sit down for the main event.
President Obama had his hand up early, too, but maybe it's because he had no confidence in Chief Justice John Roberts' ability to do his job correctly. The Chief Justice usually asks the President if he's ready to take the oath of office (Warren Burger was the master at this), then asks him to raise his right hand, something Roberts never even attempted to do. Then, he compounded his lack of protocol by screwing up the first line of the oath! Poor Obama, hearing the mangled intonement, looked nonplussed, and seemed to want to say, you what? I wish he had. Don't they even practice all this stuff? Even the guy who plays '1st man' in some play where he walks on and off stage within 30 seconds shows up for a few rehearsals. They eventually stumbled through the swearing-in, but I wish they had just stopped and started again. (Maybe Obama got thrown off when Justice Roberts used his full middle name.) Anyway, they looked like two guys who were meeting for the first time.
When it came to his inaugural address, President Obama kept to the safe and serious tone that he's adopted since his election. His rhetoric was sensible and sound and never strayed into the hubristic. He delivered the words well, looking sure and confident, but there wasn't much poetry (it was a bad day for poetry) and at first, it seemed more like a to-do list than a call to arms. But he rallied at the end, taking on the cadences of a well-seasoned evangelist. It seemed like a speech with attainable goals and rhetoric he could back up with real action. Obama came across as a guy who would rather ditch all this ceremony pffaff, and get right down to work - a stark contrast to George W. Bush who looked like a guy who couldn't wait to get to Camp David, as soon as his inaugural speeches were finished. At the end, the Reverend Joseph Lowery, one of the last survivors of the original civil rights leadership, gave a spirited and canny closing prayer that was the best job from the podium all day - even surpassing Aretha.
If there was little drama in the President's speech, then dying Senator Ted Kennedy provided plenty when, at the post-inaugural luncheon at the Capitol, he had a seizure, scaring the bejesus out of everyone and nearly wiping Obama off tomorrow's front pages ( 'Kennedy Dies At Lunch....oh, and Obama Sworn in"). Ted's going to be OK, but it was a close one. But the rest of the day went according to plan, in spite of the delays which put much of the Inaugural Parade in the gloaming. Give Obama credit though, he earned his first Presidential bones by staying for the whole interminable pageant. I know that I wouldn't want to be forced to sit and watch 55 high-school bands blarting out marshallized versions of 'We've Only Just Begun' for hours on end while I was dying to get my feet under the desk in the Oval Orafice.
So, in spite of a few glitches, we begin a promising new chapter in American life. Obama could have just walked on the platform, taken the oath, said 'thanks' and walked off and this day would still rank among the greatest in US history. He didn't, of course, and went along with the fractured formality that passes as American ceremony. We're not royalty, we don't practice curtsying for weeks and we don't prance around in period costume when we do something important. Dude, it's America, not Luxembourg! Though some of our leaders have tried to elevate public ceremony to Asian or European levels, it usually doesn't work, and thank goodness it doesn't. We've had as many Presidents deliver their maiden speeches with soup stains on their lapels as not, yet we're still the envy of the world. The most important thing is that our leader is a guy we chose, and if we don't like him, we can dump him next time around. But I have a sneaking feeling that this guy, Obama, is going to be one of the best, and we can all take credit for that, informally.
Well, I would have been too choked up with pride to put the kettle on today, but I had a look at my 401-k and decided it's going to be rocky for a while longer, and I needed a little comfort. So brew up, America, because 4 o'clock is happening everywhere, and it's time for a cup of inaugural tea.

A BUSHED COUNTRY

2009-01-19T10:45:00.007-05:00

Dear Readers,
I hear the nation holding it's breath today, preparing to expel a huge sigh of relief, set to go off tomorrow, around noon. Yes, the George W. Bush era finally reaches the end of it's natural lifespan at that hour, expiring, in full public view, on a platform built for somebody else. I've seen a fair few of these handovers, and I'm always amazed at how flawlessly it always happens. Politicians reach the top of the pile by being willing to claw out someones innards to get ahead, and no one is immune from being 'thrown under the bus' in order to advance their power, but in this most unique of situations, the old President - still breathing - meekly, peacefully, nay happily surrenders the keys to the castle and walks away from the throne.
Perhaps the current occupant of the Oval Orafice hands over power happier-ly than most, as Bush leaves office having presided over eight years of the most gilded chaos in American history. The party of free-enterprise, less government and avoidance of hopeless foreign entanglements has left the country divided and unsure of itself. Perhaps the only uniting and certain thing about us this day is that we are all relieved to see the old government go. Hardly the outcome envisioned, I should think.
Why on earth do people want so badly to be President, anyway? Ego, I guess, is the first thing to mind, but there's got to be more. Is it merely to enrich ones friends, business associates and families? Is it all a contrived scheme to get yourself a library with your name on it? Are Presidents people who are so craven and cynical that just getting there was the whole point? Does anybody seriously believe they will implement the party's platform? Or are Presidents a magnificent malfunctioning mix of our best and worst aspirations, a jerry-rigged mess of conflicts and contradictions? The true schizoid man (or woman, someday, surely) -that's our leader.
George Bush may turn out to be the most spectacular example of this theory, as he rode into office on the backs of the ironic right-wing - a group that wants to tell everyone else how to live, but don't want government interference - and betrayed them time and time again. For their pains, he gave them (and us, the collaterally damaged others) a brace of no-win wars, a giga-bloated federal deficit and a government giveaway program that makes LBJ's Great Society legislation look like a free bowl of soup at a Salvation Army lunch-wagon. Surely, even the right must feel a little let down. Plus, Bush failed to push through constitutional amendments banning gay marriage and legal abortions -hobby-horses chosen by the right wing to impose on an unwilling nation. (Why they chose those biblical taboos to enshrine in the constitution, I'll never understand - why not some of the better of the Ten Commandments first?) By any measuring stick, the Bushies failed, succeeding only in making everybody miserable in one way or another.
In his embarrassing farewell to the nation, Bush cited his success in preventing another 9/11 as his proudest achievement, forgetting, conveniently, that he was the President when it happened in the first place. It's a crime that some 3,000 people had to die first to give Bush the theme for his dubious presidency. That crime led to countless other deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan - Bush 'gifts' that keep on taking. And while his homeland-security satraps issued a blizzard of silly color-coded alerts, his government sat on it's hands while Hurricane Katrina wiped away most of New Orleans.
I can't think of too many Presidents who left office having achieved all their goals (thank God!) but I'm still glad we have a system that functions to the degree that someone with so much sheer power gives it all up without a fight. And I'm still romantic enough to believe that, no matter how inept, wrong-headed and destructive a President was, he mostly intended to do the right thing by the country. In spite of all the divisions, hatreds and suspicions we have of one another, there is an American spirit that exists that keeps us all striving for the same goals of comfort, security, opportunity and satisfaction, a spirit that's almost impossible to upend, even by the worst of leaders. It's a weird, wonderful something in the air that keeps us hopeful, and makes us able to recognize the good and bad reflections of ourselves in those who we choose to govern us. We may crash and burn, but we never even think of quitting. It's out there and it's real. Maybe it's time the Presidential oath of office was amended to include a line from Star Wars - 'use the force, Luke', ...err, even if the guy's name isn't Luke. We'll all understand.
Sadly, I was not invited to Warshington to see the Inaugural, but I'll be watching on TV and cheering as we sweep out the old crowd for good. And I'll keep the kettle going, knowing that somewhere, all day, it'll often be 4 o'clock, and time to toast the new crew with a nice cup of tea.

WHY OH WHY OH WYETH

2009-01-18T23:42:00.005-05:00

AN APPRECIATIVE OBIT
The death of American Artist, Andrew Wyeth, the other day briefly revived the old argument as to whether he was a proper artist, or 'merely' an illustrator. In every obit I read about him, the subject seemed to be the central issue on which his whole career pivoted. I'm sure the art world elite will get a few party-miles out of slagging off the old guy anew, but I'd bet my boots they would just love to own one of his pictures, no matter how unfashionable, simply for the profit they'd make, seeing as the flow of product has been shut off, so to speak.
Art patrons - for the most part - are indistinguishable from fashonistas in the sense that it's all about image and being thought of by their peers as the last word in modernity. Standing above and apart from the prolotariat is all in that rarefied world. Nothing new there. Art critics travel in the same circles and therefore, absorb the self-absorption of the absorbed. Wyeth managed, over a long career, to give art critics fits because he was both common and extraordinary. I fantasize that he must have had a good, cosmic chuckle at the way his paintings divided opinion among the elite. They say he was calculating, crass and commercial (insert your own insidious comparison with his community of 'peers' here) and anybody who created pictures that, in endless reproductions, wallpapered many a college dorm, simply could not be credible. But the art elite are a fickle lot, and they cannot stand anyone who becomes successful without their seal of approval. I don't know a great deal about Mr. Wyeth, or what he thought, but I rather think he could have cared less. He succeeded anyway. Being critic-proof is anathema to a critic.
I liked a lot of Wyeth's work. His was a pale, stark and ponderous view, but I never considered him anything but one of America's finest painters. He had the freedom to pursue art in his own fashion and became monumentally unique operating within a rather narrow stylistic universe.
But so what? A darling of the art world, Jeff Koons is all over the place, and it's all crap. (Talk about crass!) Yet I believe Wyeth's world will endure, long after Koons' porcelain monstrosities have become worthless risible tat. (I know that currently, it's expensive risible tat, but that's a matter for the accountants.) 'Real' artists and critics will continue to piss on Wyeth from a great height, but his work was solid and real and wonderful, and his individuality, more than anything else, was mighty inspiring to a proletariat like me.

HAVEN HELP US

2009-01-17T10:30:00.008-05:00

Dear Readers,
Once the incoming President has settled into office, it seems that the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuber, will be closed. This limbo-land of terrorist suspects, safe from the precepts of the U.S. Constitution, has been a forgotten embarrassment to most Americans, falling somewhere between Abu Ghrab and the latest Tom Cruise movie, Valkerie. On one hand, I will be glad to see this shameful 'Cheney City' go, but on the other, it seems wasteful, considering how much money has been poured into it over the years.
But the money spent on 'Club Gitmo' pales in comparison with the money handed out to the mega-banks of America. It looks like a further $350 Billion dollars is going to be used to bail out the big banks, and no one bats an eyelid. I can't believe the luck of these corporate crooks, for on the very day that a congressional report comes out revealing that huge mega-muckety-muck institutions like Citigroup, Bank Of America and Morgan Stanley, among others, have billion$ in assets tucked away in tax-free ,offshore businesses, a US Air jet does a three-point belly-flop on the Hudson river, a miraculous deliverance for 155 lucky souls. So while we marvel at wall-to-wall coverage of the feel-good story of the century, corporate perfidy on an unimaginable scale is scarcely noticed.
I feel bad, though, for poor Bernard 'Super-Ponzi' Madoff, because he probably missed seeing the airplane-landing spectacular from his $7-million gilded prison. In a life full of good fortune, he probably couldn't see a thing from his penthouse, as it's on the wrong side of Manhattan Island to get much of a view of the Hudson River. He did have a good week, however, as his bail was continued - much to the chagrin of the prosecutors - with only a few, new restrictions to his house 'arrest'. Apparently, he will have to limit himself to domestic Champagne only and he'll be limited to one vote a week for the new American Idol. Hard time.
So, with all this corporate crime happening in broad daylight, we do have some good news. First, the Bush-Cheney years are nearly over, (albeit leaving the nation in a twisted wreck) and a genuinely smart good-guy is taking over. But President Obama has a mountain in front of him that makes Mohammad's look like a mole-hill built by mice.
Now I'm a near - complete boob when it comes to understanding the economy, but the situation, as I see it, is that our country is borrowing money from the Chinese, which we, as taxpayers will have to pay back eventually, so the US Government can give it to the big banks (with no strings attached) so that they can turn around and lend it back to us - at a nice profit - so we can return to our buying spree of products, mostly made in China, in order to preserve jobs and harmony in America. No wonder people shove impossible-to-fathom news aside to marvel at a jet-rescue story. You can understand that. Disaster - deliverance - hero - applause.
But maybe we could put the economic follies in a more populist light by using hard-won knowledge and existing infrastructure. Let's face it, people in banking need a stiff dose of reality, and there ought to be some kind of punishment meted out for their recklessness, wouldn't you agree? So, maybe as a condition of continuing the cash gravy-train to the banks, we rounded up, say 155 bank executives at random (in finance, everyone is guilty of something) and flew them to Guantanamo Bay, landing, not at the airstrip, but in the bay itself! After all, that US Air captain has proved it's possible, right? Then, once they've been picked up in the water by a group of freelance escapees from Cuber on rafts, they're taken to the cells at Club Gitmo for, say 30 days of contemplation. No charges would be filed - just like the detainees already there - just a precautionary detention, so they couldn't potentially wreak any further terrorism on the citizens of the US. This could be done on a rotating basis, until the economic crisis has passed, and things are back to normal again(no waterboarding, of course. heh-heh). Naturally, the guy in charge would be Mr. Madoff. He could be given a free hand to finance the 'detention center' in any way he seems appropriate - perhaps a new hedge fund financed by the bank executive-detainees, eh? We could teach these villains a lesson at no charge to the taxpayer, other than the Marine guards on Gitmo, who would be there anyway. Let the financial scoundrels have a go at the resident terrorist suspects, too. They can them teach them their slick economic schemes, then, release the terror suspects back to their home countries, and let them bring hostile governments to their knees, financially, with their newly-learned economic terror-techniques. Now that makes the prison at Guantanamo an offshore asset worth having.
I know my plan is a fantasy, but at least I still have a real kettle, an object I bought myself without government guarantees. I need it, so I can have a nice brew-up. 'Cause even at Club Gitmo, it's sometimes 4 o'clock, and I would allow plenty of time for a civilizing cup of tea.

TOOTING MY OWN HORN

2009-01-14T23:27:00.004-05:00

Have a look at my fancy new website. It puts my old website in the shade.

STUFF HAPPENS-OR DOES IT?

2009-01-13T10:22:00.017-05:00

Dear Readers,
Let's face it, we all let the economy down this past Christmas season by not shopping enough. As we've learned over the last few months, the US economy has basically come down to selling stuff - most of which we don't make in this country anymore - to each other. But I read the other day about a retiree in England who not only did more for her nation's economy by shopping so compulsively that her house was completely stuffed with stuff, but actually died as a result of all her stuff caving in on her and suffocating her. True story. I swear.
It seems that the poor lady fell victim to her addiction on Christmas Eve, as she had returned home from a shopping foray with her automobile jam-packed with clothing, appliances and other such season-appropriate purchases. She probably died as a result of trying to find a little room in her small house to put all the new items, causing years-worth of unused and unremembered buys to entomb her. She is said to have had over 100 tea-kettles - however did she make a cup of tea?
I never knew anybody that do-lally, but I did once have a friend who had a floor-to-ceiling wall of LPs. For those of you under the age of 30, LPs were long-playing records that people used to buy at record stores which were... (crumbs! I'm going to have to start footnoting these blogs, in the unlikely event that someone under 30 can tear themselves away from vlogs long enough to read this)...anyway, he had such a huge collection of LPs, arranged on - what looked to me -a really rickety-rackety steel-shelf arrangement. I wondered if someday I would hear about his being crushed to death, his shelves having collapsed, bringing a tsunami of rock, soul, folk and classical down on his head. Did that poor lady in the UK suffer, at the last, from any music abuse? I wonder.
No such worries for the modern music-collector. Nowadays, you can carry your entire music collection up your nose, practically. The ipod, the memory stick and other such devices allow you to walk the streets with the vast sweep of musical past and present at your beck and call. Forget something? No problem, just log on to the interweb and download that missing Lil' Wayne track from a free music-sharing site. And as you walk beneath that skyscraper where, on the 44th floor, a music executive quietly seethes at your action, (and the millions of others who do much the same thing) shed a small crocodile tear for the coming extinction of mega-record companies.
As a borderline luddite, which means...oh, hell...(insert link to wikipedia here), I must take a rare side with the modern music user, as I only wish that something like mass-sharing of music was available in my youth.
Sales of the LPs successor, the music CD...(look it up in wikipedia) have fallen off a cliff of late, not merely as a result of the weak economy, but also because of on-line sharing. While the sales of single songs on Itunes and the like have increased, they don't come close to making up the megabucks that CDs used to bring in. It's a double win for the consumer, as they can get the songs they want, and avoid having to pay for the self-indulgent filler that make up the content of 95% of album-length recordings. Don't worry about the artistes, as they will more than make up for royalty losses through touring and licensing fees. The free custom-hospitality suites for inflated musical egos will still be there in future, trust me.
While all this music flying around in 'the cloud' is great, something is lost - the album graphics.
LPs were the best, once. When artists began to sell so many units that they became indispensable to the record-company bottom-line, they began to have their visual-art way on the covers of LPs, which was an extra delight to record-buyers, as they had something really cool to look at while listening to the sides(often in states of mind-alteration). Today, record sleeves mean nothing to a downloader, and very little to the lesser-spotted CD buyer. As an artist, my feelings are hurt, a bit. But, I suppose in the age of multitasking, nobody just listens anyway.
So we don't buy enough music, don't buy enough cars, just plain don't buy enough stuff anymore - what is society to do? I see a future where the blackberry-texting-iphoning generation of today grumbles about their kids, who are getting the chips implanted in their skulls that allow them to listen to their favorite tunes by just thinking about what they want to hear, as they communicate telepathically with their friends. But what will today's generation of young trendies have that will fall in on their heads and kill them bizarrely, having accumulated so little in the way of possessions? Maybe some will choke on their old, free-file-share-stuffed Ipod, as the spirit of some long-dead record company executive looks down and smiles benignly.
Well, not having done my bit lately for Mother Economy, I have only the one kettle, which I will set to boiling just as soon as I finish this. For somewhere, it's 4 o'clock, and time for a cup of tea.

THANK YOU FOR NOT SPEAKING

2009-01-08T10:08:00.004-05:00

Dear Readers,
A few years ago, I saw the movie The Departed, a film which garnered high praise and many awards. The director, Martin Scorsezzie, won his first Best Director Oscar for it, though I'm fairly sure that it was a mercy win, a 'sorry-about-you-not-winning-for-Raging Bull or Goodfellas' award. I didn't think it was much of a movie, just a rather long, predictable waste of fine acting talent. But it did occur to me that the real star of the film was the cellphone. Tell the truth, the little pocket-sized bastards stole the movie, didn't they? There they are, in every scene, playing a key role in every plot twist, and the actors seemed to be saying their lines into their 'phones more than to each other. When Ray Winstone whacks Leonardo DiCappucino's broken hand to see if he's faking it, I was amazed he didn't hit him with a Motorola.
I concede cellphones are part of the very fabric of everyday life (I even have one) but the obsessive way people seem to be constantly on them seems odd to me, and often annoying. I belong to that minority of people who get irritated when having to endure someone else's private conversations in public. Most people don't seem to mind, but there have been a few 'phone rage' incidents here and there, a reaction I publicly denounce (but privately applaud).
But having been around for a good few years, I think I've seen this all before.
Since seeing The Departed and being amazed at the fawning reaction to it, I began to pay less attention to contemporary films and turned to the past, finally beginning to catch up on movies that I've always heard about, but never saw. The list is long, but thanks to my new favorite TV channel, Turner Classic Movies, I'm not only filling in the gaps in my cinematic CV, but I'm really enjoying them as well. But there's one you notice when watching old Hollywood (and foreign, for that matter) films - everybody smoked - constantly. Apart from Shirley Temple and Rin Tin Tin movies, most acting - back in the day - was performed in a haze of cigarette smoke. Studios must have had to hire extra crews to sweep up the fag ends after a hard day's filming! The Movies are usually either setting or following trends, so I guess the whole nation operated in a thick fug back then.
It's much different now. The percentage of people smoking has steadily declined over the years, and those who still indulge are feeling more and more outcast. Banned - in most places - from smoking inside any public building, bar or restaurant, they make up a stubborn, stubbing-out minority. As I see the new departed, standing just outside the doors of buildings, puffing away, more often than not, they're on a cellphone. Am I witnessing the faint beginnings of a future trend - the ostracizing of cell-phone users? Is it possible that, in years to come, those thoughtless idiots who yak-yak-yak without the slightest regard for other people will someday replace the shivering smokers exiled to designated areas? Most people used to smoke. Most people today use a cellphone in a anti-social way. Is there a parallel?
I was encouraged to read the other day that a local suburban commuter railroad is going to try an experiment by offering a 'quiet car' on one of it's lines. No cellphones, no loud ipods and conversations limited to the short and soft variety. I hope it works, just like the early, non-smoking cars on trains. Those cars soon became the norm, and pushed smokers to a single, designated car, then eventually off the train altogether. It took a while, but it happened. The anti-smoking crusade was greatly helped by heaps of sobering medical evidence, and reformed smokers were some of the fiercest crusaders, but I've yet to hear of a reformed cell-phone user.
No, the tide is still firmly against The Annoyed, as a whole generation who have had cellphones stuck to their ears their entire lives begins to reach maturity. I fear the tipping point for civility in cellphone use is still a long way off. So steel yourself, dear readers, for years of distracted drivers, interrupted concerts, plays and movies, hellish commutes and spoiled quiet moments. For the time being, when the silly, tinny ring-tone goes off, it will be us - the minority - who, for some peace and quiet, will have to depart.
Oooh, after an intense blog, I don't have to smoke or call someone, I fill up the kettle, for I know that somewhere, it's 4 o'clock, and time for a nice, quiet cup of tea.

ET IN ARCADIA BLAGO

2009-01-07T09:25:00.009-05:00

Dear Readers,
Even without the attendance of former Saturday Night Live comedian and 225-vote-margin election winner, Minnesota's Al Franken, you gotta admit that the U.S. Senate is one funny place.
Yesterday, as newly elected and appointed senators arrived in Washington for their official swearing-in ceremonies, one was refused admission to the august body. That person was someone named Roland Burris, and he was denied his seat because he was appointed to the post by Illinois Governor, Rod 'The Mod' Blagojevich, who's under suspicion of having tried to sell the Obama-vacated position to the highest bidder. Now Blagojevich may be under a cloud and may go to trial on any number of corruption charges, but he is still the rightful Governor - the only qualification he needs to legally make the appointment - and he's yet to be proven culpable of any wrongdoing. Ergo, he did his duty.
OK, I agree he's probably guilty of some sort of corruption, and I'm no fan of his eff-you brand of slimy politics, but you have to admit that the Cabbage-Patch-Kid-faced Governor has outsmarted his political opponents by naming a guy who's scandal-free, probably didn't pay a cent for the job, and is African-American to boot, making the Senate look like a bunch of southern bigots by refusing to seat Burris. Brilliant! Blago has shown the federals who's still in charge of his state.
What I find so funny is that The U.S. Senate justifies it's refusal to seat Mr. Burris on the grounds that the Governor who appointed him is under suspicion and therefore, any power he exercises is illegitimate. But wait! This is a political body that happily voted authority to start a useless war to a President who, some would say, was 'elected' illegitimately, thanks to a questionable Supreme Court decision! Then, as it turns out, there was no legitimate reason to start the war in the first place! Practically every decision that George W. Bush made that needed to approved by congress during his first term could be considered illegitimate. What do you intend to do about that, Mr. Senate tough-guy? Does the nation's fortunes stand or fall on who becomes the junior senator from Illinois? What brave people! Finally taking a principled stand!
The Senate continues to try and extract laughs from us by refusing to seat the legally rightful appointee from Illinois, but nobody finds it very funny, when on practically the same day, they vote themselves a pay increase in the teeth of the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. And that's after last fall's farce of handing over the keys of the U.S. Treasury to a handful of rich-beyond-all-imagination Wall Street Banks. I've no problem with Minnesota sending a person who once made his living as a comedian to the Senate, but let's face it, we're already laughing so much, it hurts.
Well, at least the Senate has no jurisdiction on my kettle. So, while it comes to a boil, I'll wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes and check my world-timezone gadget to see where on the planet it's four o'clock, 'cause, by my watch, it's time for some tea.

SAFETY IN NUMBERS

2009-01-06T13:44:00.006-05:00

THEME TIME RADIO HOUR WITH BOB DYLAN - SEASON 3
#10 "NUMBERS ELEVEN AND UP"
Broadcast December 17, 2008 on XM Radio

Instead of wrapping up the calendar year with the usual 'Countdown' (or Top Ten) show, Bob takes us in a different direction this time and sees off 2008 by looking at songs containing references to larger numbers. Considering the huge flurry of bad numbers the year produced (see my blog of 12-30-08), Dylan offers up a nice batch of good numbers in this hour.

A lot of the songs seem to be about human size and measurements, starting off with Bobby "Blue" Bland's 36-22-36, which I'll let you guess as to what that's about. Later on, we get to hear Ann Peebles sing about her weight in 99 Lbs. - a song subject not much explored by today's tunesmiths - followed up by Howlin' Wolf bragging about himself in 300 Pounds Of Joy. Two rather bizarre numbers round out this numerical subcategory, one, by The Snowmen (I never heard of them, but the lead singer sounds a little like Tom Jones, way before anyone ever heard of him), who croon a paean to an extreme version of female measurements, 39-21-46, and the other, by someone named Jim Ford, who decides he's a 12-inch ruler (as in measuring stick) in the remarkable 36 Inches High. It came out in 1969, which may explain it somewhat.

Money is all about numbers, and is fairly represented by Dylan favorite, Prince Buster, with his early-reggae-sounding Thirty Pieces Of Silver. The Joe Mooney Quartet cautions against greed and worrying about money in A Man With One Million Dollars, a song that recommends a treatment for ulcers (something no longer needed, thanks to government bailouts for the avaricious), and somehow works cartoon cutups Tom and Jerry into the lyrics. Country music - as usual with Bob - gets a look-in with the gleefully up-tempo 100,000 Women Can't Be Wrong by the completely un-modest Lattie Moore, and the show's number is up when Merle Haggard achingly longs for retirement in C'mon Sixty-Five. Do they still give out gold watches anymore?

The between-platters banter segments are numerous and informative. One, by frequent guest-by-cassette-tape, Tom Waits, gives us a number on how the Baker's Dozen came to be, and Mr. D. himself explains why the number 40 crops up so much in the Bible. While this show might not number among the greatest of TTRH, you can always count on the host to be endlessly entertaining as he shares his record collection - which must easily run into the millions.

START THE YEAR WITH A WHEEZE

2009-01-02T09:44:00.010-05:00

Dear Readers,
The response to last fall's guest columnist, Harry L. Geeseberger, has been enormous. So, we here at 'Tea With S.B.' have asked Harry to be a semi-regular columnist for 2009 (It's a one-year contract). We've given 'The Geeze' the 'Modern Lifestyle And Technology' portfolio, so you'll be reading Harry's reviews of new gadgetry and modern trends. Our staff couldn't think of anyone more qualified to take on the task of 'telling ourselves about ourselves'. Also, Harry has agreed to work for nothing.
So enjoy the new column, called "RICE PUDDING".

Hello all telegraph operators and ships at sea!

It's a pleasure to be back and I've been assigned to review the new video game, Grand Theft Auto IV, and I must tell you, it's a hum-dinger! I didn't actually buy the thing, but I was staying with my son, Melvin, and his wife, Judy, over the holidays, and they bought the game for their 5-year old grandson, Kyle. Kyle's parents are my grandson, Jason, and his girlfriend, (he calls her his 'partner'. What? Are they in business?) Crystal. They came over about 1 in the afternoon on Christmas. I answered the door and Crystal pushed past me without a word, talking on the phone and pushing a baby carriage with what looked like a baby that had just been born on the way over in it. Jason had Kyle under his arm in a headlock while Kyle was fiddling with what looked like a calculator, but was in fact, a hand-held computer game, something I found out later (too late, in fact, to review for this column). Jason came through the door and dumped Kyle on the carpet and said 'Hey, Gramps' and headed straight for the kitchen. I hardly recognized him, because he's shaved his head and got a new neck tattoo since I saw him last, about 2 years ago. Kyle ran past me and screamed 'where's the presents?', diving under the tree, nearly knocking it over. Jason came back into the livingroom holding a can of beer and reached under his shirt and pulled out a VHS tape and handed it to me. 'Surprise! Merry Christmas, Gramps', he said, while pulling the ring top off his beer, 'thought you'd like this'. It was a tape called "World War II's Greatest Explosions"(a tape I already have). It was unwrapped with the 99 cent price sticker still on it. I handed the professionally-wrapped, silver double-photo frame I bought for them to Crystal. "Thanks, Gramps", she said, idly tearing it open and giving me an air kiss, still on the phone with somebody. Taking the baby out of the buggy, she reached into a tote bag and drew out a disposable diaper and gave it to me. 'What's this?', I said. 'Duhhh, it's a Huggies, isn't it?, Merry Christmas'. I told her I didn't need it, but she said I eventually would and to save it for later. By then, Kyle had torn through his gifts and found Grand Theft Auto IV and had already set it up and was playing. What violence! Reminded me of Salerno in '44 - this is OK for a 5-year old? I told Crystal that Kyle shouldn't be playing a game like that but she told me to stuff my Huggie...somewhere. So I got out my new Checker Set that Judy had got me for Christmas and went over to Kyle and said ' let's play this instead'. 'What's that?', he said. So I set it up on the coffee table and showed him how to play. I went into the kitchen for a second to get a cup of java and came right back, but found Kyle had returned to Grand Theft Auto IV. I looked at the board and noticed there was a red checker missing, so I asked Kyle where it was. 'I fed it to my stupid sister', he yelled, without looking away from the screen, where a car had just blown up. Well, chaos ensued! You'd think the car that just blew up in Grand Theft Auto IV had just gone off in the livingroom. Everyone was shouting and wailing - Jason, especially, calling me several unprintable names. Crystal got off the phone and grabbed the baby and everyone - except me, Melvin and Kyle - rushed out the door, piled into Jason's SUV and headed for the hospital. 'Thanks, Dad', Melvin hissed at me as he bent down to quietly speak to Kyle about how wrong it was to feed a checker to a baby. Pretty soon, he and Kyle were happily playing Grand Theft Auto IV, ignoring me. So I decided to go for a walk and got on my hat, coat, scarf and gloves and stepped outside. It was only then I remembered I was in Florida and it was 78 degrees.

So, until next time, my friends, tell 'em kilroy was here!

BEST OF...2008

2008-12-31T10:04:00.012-05:00

2008 - THE BEST OF THE YEAR

Album : Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles

Book : Mastering The Art Of French Cooking - Julia Child

Cereal : Raisin Bran

Dog : Lassie

Earthquake : San Francisco, 1906

Fried Food : Latkes

Game : Snakes And Ladders

Head Injury : Little Bump

Itch : Lower Back

Jar : The Urn

Knick-Knack : Head Planter

Lawn Ornament : Smoochy Elves

Movie : The Godfather

Noise : The Little 'Ting' The Toaster Makes

Oval Object : Egg

Pencil : Ticonderoga # 2

Quart : 2% Milk

Reason To Stay Home : Too Cold And Rainy

Sign : 'For Sale By Owner'

TV Show : The Twilight Zone Marathon

Unfinished Manuscript : The Mystery Of Edwin Drood

Vaseline : 16 oz. Size

Word : Furtive

Xylophone Player : Lionel Hampton

Yin : Yang

Zelda : That Chick From 'Dobie Gillis'

A YEAR AIN'T NOTHIN' BUT A NUMBER

2008-12-30T09:29:00.006-05:00

Dear Readers,
As the old year winds down to it's final few hours, most people pause and take a quick look back at everything that's gone down in the last few months (No more top ten lists, pleeze). After we've tallied up our gains and losses, it's time to take the broader view and look at the events that made our world what it is on this New Years' Eve eve. To me, this year, moreso than most, has been about the sheer size of numbers. The newscasts and conversations of the nation were stuffed with numbers, numbers getting bigger or smaller, better or worse. Hardly any number remained static.
One number that remained the same was the 270 electoral votes that it takes to elect a President, and more citizens voted in a general election in history to select the first African-American (the 44th over all) as our next commander-in-chief. Wall Street, that Mount Olympus of numbers, looted the U.S. Treasury to the tune of at least 700 billion dollars, and probably one trillion dollars, once the bonuses are added in. The real number will probably never be known. Meanwhile, all the Stock Markets posted record losses (almost on a daily basis in September-October) and Americans set new records in tossing away unopened 401K statements, lest the numbers contained therein drive them to despair. While unemployment numbers haven't reached record levels yet, it's not for lack of trying. Plus, our national deficit has so many numbers in it, Apple and Microsoft working together couldn't accurately calculate it, let alone give it a name.
Some guy named Madoff made $50 billion go poof, while the 'Detroit Three' asked for $25 billion so that they could keep making 17 million cars that nobody really wants. The New York Yankees got themselves a $1.5 billion new stadium built, then went out and spent $500 million on contracts for three players! Shoppers who went to malls to buy for Christmas found themselves looking at 70% discounts on popular gift items, then were told they did not spend enough to keep dozens of retailers out of chapter 11. Oil went to $147 a barrel and gas soared to $4.00 a gallon, then went to $38 a barrel ($1.70 a gallon) and is headed back up again, making us all nauseous. The music industry struggles to sell recordings in the same numbers they used to, and good old consumer technology gave us more numbers of not-so-needed gadgets with more gigamemories - like 3G iphones, or, whatever - so we could never be alone with our thoughts ever again. Perhaps they have saved us all from contemplating the sheer weight of the numbers in 2008 (Which was also the biggest A.D. year, ever.).
Since I never bother to do any research or fact-checking on these blogs, I may have got a thing or two incorrect, but if you stop and think about it (stop twittering for a second, will you?) this year's numbers were quite staggering. If only there were some cosmic bailout available to us all as recompense for the blizzard of numbers stinging at our faces, we might feel more positive as we head in to the first day of a year with yet another big number - 2009. Calculate that.
Well, I know how many times I put the kettle on this year, because I've carefully counted the teabags (because they're from England, they cost more this year, too). And, I'm always watching the numbers on the clock, because somewhere on this planet, it's about 4 o'clock, and time for a nice cup of tea.

SAME TIME, NEXT YEAR

2008-12-26T17:34:00.002-05:00

PUT THE BLAME ON FAME, BOY

2008-12-23T11:59:00.011-05:00

THEME TIME RADIO HOUR WITH BOB DYLAN - SEASON 3, #9 "FAMOUS PEOPLE"
Broadcast December 10, 2008

In this episode, Dylan presents a theme he knows more than a little about: Being famous. I guess there are any number of songs about famous people, but judging by this collection, not very many of them are any good. The best example of this is the leadoff song, Jack Palance, by The Mighty Sparrow. I don't know if he's fallen off his twig, but a song about the resemblance between older street prostitutes(' I'm looking for youth, not experience', says he) and the fist-faced actor is not worth writing, let alone performing. Nice beat, though. Does anyone remember Janis Martin? No? Well, she was the 'Female Elvis', apparently, and her My Boy Elvis does no credit to old snakehips, in spite of the solid efforts of a great rockabilly backup band. King Stitt checks in with Lee Van Cleef, a tribute to a 60's movie hardman with the refrain ' I'm ugly, I'm ugly'. Not a great candidate to be your next ring tone.

Neurotic Belgian painter James Ensor gets an unmemorable tribute by They Might Be Giants, and flashy fifties fruitcake, Liberace, gets the country-and-western nod from Charlie Adams, a version he might have considered buying up the rights to and destroying, sparing all of us with intact hearing. One of those early-sixties 'response' songs, The Beatles Got To Go by persons named Ken Lazarus and Keith Lyn only comes alive when they parody a Beatles harmony at the end, reminding us again of how, back in the day, those lovable Liverpudlians stood out like a poppy in a field of corn. Bill Cox's The Fate Of Will Rogers And Wiley Post is my favorite track, a singin' newspaper account of the accident that claimed the lives of the stars who set the standard for celebrity plane crashes to follow. Bob wraps up the set with probably the worst song Simon & Garfunkel allowed to see the light of day, So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright, about missing the flamboyant modernist architect (missing an architect?). Simon must have wrote it after - in desperation - smoking a page torn from Jansen's History Of Art, then tripping down the aisles of Rizzoli's Books.

Artists are continually inspired by famous people, but not to write good songs about them. Once in a great while, a really good one comes along, though. As is becoming a frequent feature of TTRH lately, Dylan leaves out one of his own - Hurricane - that actually helped to get an innocent guy out of jail. Plus, it was a very good tune. Still, Bobby D. remains the most interesting and engaging deejay on the planet, in spite of turgid material, like The Clash doing their tribute to Montgomery Clift, The Right Profile. Gee, I was hoping it would be about John Barrymore, but it was just another song about a fame fatale.

CAROLINE, NO

2008-12-21T17:27:00.010-05:00

Dear Readers,
Politics is not an arena for the faint of heart and New York State politics is an arena where it's best to not have a heart. So it was with a certain amount of bemusement that I began to notice that famous nice-lady, Caroline Kennedy, was undertaking a whirlwind tour of New York State this past week to tout herself as the replacement in the U.S. Senate for the soon-to-be-kicked-upstairs incumbent, Hillary Clinton.
For people of a certain age, Caroline will be - in perpetuity - the cute little six-year old daughter of President John F. Kennedy, and all that she has done in the intervening years between 1963 and 2008 matters not a whit to the average person. Marrying Mr. Schlossberg and creating a lot of new, little Schlossbergs, plus all the charity work and fund-raising has not exactly burned itself in the public mind, as beneficial as it might all be. Chiefly, she is known by most people as the sister of People Magazine's 1988 'Hunk Of The Year', dimwit scion of the JFK mantle and editor of a now-defunct, pointless vanity magazine, the late, dead John-John, Jr.
Once known as 'America's Royal Family', the Kennedys have multiplied out of all proportion and have seen several of their members in and out of political office since the arrival on the scene of the 'three brothers', John F., Robert F., and the Shemp of the trio, Teddy. But aside from the originals, the next waves of elected family pols have been more notable for their appearances in police blotters and rehab centers than for championing any great issue or legislation. The grandchildren of the defeatist anti-Semite head of the family, Joseph P. Kennedy, have done far better outside elected office. They have been of some benefit to the nation in the private sector, running environmental and energy-assistance non-profits, while keeping up the family traditions of inebriation and adultery.
Caroline, however, has pretty much avoided the limelight, stayed free of scandal and has worked quietly behind the scenes effectively promoting her pet projects. But now, she has suddenly developed an interest in the U.S. Senate, and has begun to openly campaign for a job that only one person has the power to grant - The Governor of New York, David Patterson.
She's making it look like her selection is now a fait accompli by running around 'introducing' herself to a state she has barely seen, except for a 12-block radius around her Park Avenue apartment. Patterson, who is a dyed-in-the-wool New York political creature, was going to make some enemies no matter who he picked, but if he doesn't pick Caroline now, he's going to wish that he'd been caught out with a high-priced hooker instead of his nerdy weirdo predecessor, Eliot Schvitzer.
My question is why would Caroline even want to be a Senator? Why join that pack of gormless, fame-hunting, fortune-seeking mish-mash of scary clowns known collectively as the U.S. Senate? She's already famous, already rich and doesn't have to see her life story played out on the front pages of the newspapers every day. The seat she seeks has been used as a springboard to a try for the Presidency once or twice, but it's an office usually held by hard-core policy wonks (Moynahan, Schumer, Javits) who would rather attend a subcommittee hearing on recycled-concrete storage facilities planned for the Buffalo suburbs than fanny around with socialites and film stars. I recall a memorable photo of Hillary, during her early days in the Senate, that appeared on the front page of The New York Post. She's shown, sitting in a Senate committee hearing, looking like she was about to slip into a profound coma, she was so bored. Do you want an image like that on your resume Ms. Kennedy?
Maybe she's intending to park herself in the Senate for eight years, then take a stab at the White House in 2016. If that's her plan, she'd better hope that Hillary doesn't get wind of it. Having sweated out Sarah Palin's historic run that would have made her the first woman elected on a national ticket, she's not going to watch the next shot go to some broad who got where she was because of her last name. No siree. So, did Caroline catch 'presidential fever' while campaigning for Obama? Is this what it's all about?
My advice to Ms. Kennedy is to get out of the way and let a real New York sleazeball get the job, someone who will really work hard to get that bridge to nowhere in Schenectady funded, who will be happy to make sure a wind farm doesn't get built within 100 miles of a rich campaign donor's lakeside mansion, and who won't bat an eyelash when some lobbyist slips a fat wad of $100's under the table to insure the death of a bill to regulate upstate toxic-waste dumping. Getting into politics now, Caroline, would harm your reputation, like all those awful films Shirley Temple made after she hit puberty did hers. Your himbo brother nosedived into the Atlantic for no clear reason, (probably because he realized that you were the smart one) so please, Caroline, don't do your own nosedive. Let us remember you the way you were - a cute, bit player on the good ship Camelot.
At least I'm smart enough to know that I need a nice hot drink on this cold Winter solstice, so I am announcing that I will put the kettle on, because somewhere, it's about 4 o'clock, signalling that it's time for some tea.

YAWN OF A NEW AGE

2008-12-20T22:41:00.009-05:00

Dear Readers,
I heard something on the radio the other day about a research project that sought to figure out why it is that we yawn. Apparently, according to the conclusions reached by the scientists conducting the study, we yawn in order to get more oxygen to the brain, not because we're bored or tired. In the researchers' view, this extra oxygen helps us to become more alert and to concentrate better(like first thing in the morning), thus we gather more information. Plus, the reason that one yawn will trigger other yawns in a group of people is an atavistic trait of self (or group) protection like, ooh, he's getting more air to his brain so he can be more alert to a saber-toothed tiger attack, so I'd better get more air so I can stay alert, too. Sounds reasonable, eh?
If that theory holds any water, we all ought to be yawning like crazy. The current economic crisis threatens everybody to some degree, and being more alert to dangers is not a bad idea these days, as it seems that too many of us have been semi-dozing in a fog of insouciance and material excess. (I can feel that you're all yawning now, but perhaps that's because your mind wants to stay alert, and think this all through.)
The head of the English Anglican Church, Archbishop Rowan Williams was interviewed recently and said that the financial crisis was 'good for society' as it was time for a 'reality check' of our irresponsible spending and get-rich-quick schemes. A little preachy, (what else could he be?)yes? Trouble is, he lives quite a comfortable life, in his palace (Lambeth) where minions are available 24/7 to do his bidding, so while you have to admit that the bugger is right, he's pretty insulated from ordinary life - plus, he's got God well on his side. But maybe it is time for some sort of reality check, especially since real checks - the kind you can deposit - are getting rarer. After years of go-go, gotta-have-it, don't-know-why-exactly, don't-care-how-deep-in-debt-I-am living, it may be time for a collective yawn.
Maybe the best role model for this need of an oxygen rush is our own President Obama. Here's a guy who thrilled crowds during the campaign with his impassioned speeches, his inspirational vision and his ability to connect emotionally with our better instincts. But since his election, he's turned into a serious, sober and unflashy leader, one who is seeking to tone down the bitter partisan rhetoric and try and defuse the rancorous ideological divisions in order to seek the best solutions for our country's problems. Some people are now finding him boring. Yawn - hey, maybe he's right!
America has been and always will be a pretty kinetic place. By the world's standards, we're still a fairly young nation - a rambunctious adolescent - so that's to be expected. I'd like to think that all that's happened in the last few months - including what is to come in the next few months - has been like we're a teenager who's had a car crash caused by driving too fast and too recklessly. We're alive, but shaken, and have a day in court to(not) look forward to. But I sense there's still an arrogance there, a belief that 'what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger', and no one around with the authority to order us to grow up. I don't know that our new President is the guy who wants to tell us that, maybe the best he could do would be to create an atmosphere where we can figure it all out for ourselves. I'm hopeful, but doubtful, too.
In the endless loop of coming-of-age stories that is the USofA, there probably will be a time where growing up actually happens, and perhaps then, a new age of nation-wide responsibility will gain some traction. But it will take a working majority of people who will accept that less is more and that greed is bad, and like the beardy English Archbishop said, that 'we can't spend our way to a healthy economy'. We're nowhere near that majority at present. Yet can a collective, concentrating yawn fix things? It's a start. Hey! We're not bored, we're just needing some extra air to our brains. Stay alert, kids.
Well, I need to add some extra water to the kettle, because, even without yawning, I know that somewhere, it's 4 o'clock, and time for a nice cup of tea.

HELP IS IN THE LIMO

2008-12-19T09:58:00.005-05:00

A STATEMENT FROM THE WHITE HOUSE

In the wake of the fraud allegations in the matter of the Bernard Madoff investments scheme, I believe that it is the Federal Government's responsibility to step in and rescue those who have been hurt by this tragic situation. Therefore, this morning, I have signed an executive order to create a new government agency, called the Federal Ponzi - Scheme Assistance Program, or P-SAP.

This program will be funded by $500 billion in taxpayer dollars that can be used to compensate those who invested in Mr. Madoff's scheme and have found that they have lost enormous amounts of money, with no chance of recovery. As President, I feel it is my duty to protect the nation's billionaire investors from losses that would seriously affect their lavish lifestyles, put at risk their third and fourth homes, undermine their ungrateful children's huge trust funds and jeopardize their ability to hire the best divorce lawyers when they decide to trade up to a younger model. I would be derelict in my duty, as their President, to leave them with only 75 to 90% of their fortunes at this holiday time of the year. Defrauded investors will be able to draw from this fund immediately, with no restrictions, and restore their vast family finances to pre-Madoff levels, insuring that our nation's richest families will not have to endure additional hardships as they bravely face the coming economic difficulties. My government wants to guarantee that our nation will retain it's reserve of investors who's sound and reasoned judgement has made our country what it is today.

God Bless America, (signed) George W. Bush

NO TAPS ON MY MAPS

2008-12-17T23:02:00.009-05:00

In this Theme Time Radio Hour, broadcast the first week of December, Mr. Dylan sets out on a trip he's been on once before. "Street Map" is almost the same theme as "Map" from the first season of TTRH, but heads off on some interesting new sideroads as he broadens the journey to cover not only streets, but roads and highways as well.
I don't like to criticize such a unique and inspired deejay, but, for my taste, he could have left Laura Cantrell's soppy 14th Street in a roadside trashcan. I know what I would have replaced that ditty with, but Bob remains modest and leaves aside maybe the best 'highway' song ever, his own Highway 61.
In spite of that weak start, I can't quarrel with any of his other choices, which are uniformly classic. Roger Miller's King Of The Road was one of the first 'crossover' hits of the modern era and cemented his reputation as not only a great artist, but a fantastic wordsmith. Ray Charles' Lonely Avenue is a reminder of how edgy and wicked his early sound was -Do Not Pass. The surprise turn in the set is provided by an acapella demo rendition of Hit The Road, Jack done by Percy Mayfield. You can hear Brother Ray (and I think, a Raylette or two in the background) road-testing one of his big hits, trading verses with Mayfield.
Remember Green Day? I forgot how good they can be after a quick glance in the rear view mirror at Boulevard Of Broken Dreams tailgaiting me. And we get to hear Willin', the hopped-up, long haul trucker's anthem, first mapped out by Little Feat, a version that is streets ahead of anybody else's. The Nat Cole Trio gets on the map with - what else - (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66 and Dylan finishes up the journey with Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston and Sonny Terry driving home an earthy version of Going Down The Road Feeling Bad that makes The Grateful Dead's concert-staple version sound like The Ray Coniff Singers.
I'm still a little turned around as to why this episode was called "Street Map". Shouldn't it more properly been titled "Highway" or "Road"?. Still, you don't argue with a genius (especially one who gives tacit approval to the bootlegging of his show) and Bob fills in the gaps between songs with stories and pertinent trivia, like the origin of familiar words, such as skid row and hobo. Plus, we get rare treats like a clip of Jack Kerouac reading from On The Road and even a snippet of Kraftwerk's synth-driven Autobahn. And, in his roster of show-biz legends who have died on the highway, we discover that Tom Mix (1930's cowboy star) was killed by his luggage. I did not know that.
Thanks again, Mr. D., for the great directions.

STOP BY A LANGUAGE COP

2008-12-16T09:53:00.005-05:00

Guest Column by Sgt. Abelard Z. Webster, US Language Patrol

Can I see your license? Did you know you were using the English Language in an extremely careless way? My problem with you people today is the way you use the word 'gentleman'. Do you have any idea of what you are doing?
For instance, how many times have I heard, on TV or radio, an eyewitness to some bank robbery or some other horrific crime, talking to a reporter saying "well, the gentleman pulled out a gun and shot the teller between the eyes". Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds? The dictionary that I keep in my back pocket describes 'gentleman' thusly: 1. "A man of gentle or noble birth or superior social position" 2. " A well-mannered and considerate man with high standards of proper behavior". Does that describe any perp you can think of? In my whole history of tracking down language abusers, I can only think of one lawbreaker that might fit those descriptions: The Scarlet Pimpernel, and I think that guy was made up.
When, will we ever stop describing the guy who just killed his entire family as 'the gentleman who is accused of the crime'? I must admit, even many of my fellow brothers and sisters in law enforcement will describe the suspect in a terrorist arson as the gentleman in custody. Oh dear, how one does cringe.
I can't do anything about my superiors, but while I have you pulled over, I ought to put you in mouthcuffs, but I'll let you off with a warning this time. Just promise me if you are ever interviewed by anybody about some stabbing or abduction or drive-by shooting that you will restrain yourself from describing the miscreant as a gentleman. Use any of the following descriptions when describing, say, the unknown bank-robber : the thug, the cretin, the nasty man, the bad guy, the twinkie-eating creep, Mr. Stinky, the brute, that Republican, my ex-husband, the commie, the criminal mastermind, that Wall Street Stockbroker, the poop-for-brains, the Little Elvis, the putz, the anti-socialist, the Captain Kangaroo, the silly-billy, the loser, the naughty, naughty boy or the green booger - but pleeeeeezzzeee, NOT 'Gentleman'! Almost anything else will do.
Well, take care now, and think a little before you speak.

Tea With S.B. prints guest columns from time to time but the views expressed are not necessarily the viewpoints of this blog...err...except for this one.

WHAT'S AT THE BOTTOM OF YOUR BIRDCAGE?

2008-12-15T08:57:00.012-05:00

ODE TO A NEWSPAPER

I see you on the stands,

Your headlines make demands -

To buy you and to read you.

Your ink gets on my hands,

Yet I'm your faithful fan -

This Ode's to you, Newspaper.

You're in such troubled climes,

A-heading for lean times -

The world no longer needs you.

Your price is paid in dimes,

Your stories do not rhyme -

Yo-de-lay-de-hoo, Newspaper.

Now we read our 'pods,

See you as useless bods,

We've turned our backs on you.

The techno-savvy gods,

Have turfed you 'neath the sod -

Koo-Koo-Ka-Choo, Newspaper.

May you stagger on for years,

And even as fate nears,

I'll say my prayers for you.

But don't expect the tears,

Of modern man - oh dear!

This Ode's for you, Newspaper.

A BRILLIANT IDEA

2008-12-12T21:09:00.006-05:00

Dear Readers,
As I continue to observe the U.S. economy skidding out of control like a drunken skier, the Alice-In-Wonderland qualities of the 'rescue' and 'bailout' priorities continue to amaze me. While Wall Street gets piles of cash with no strings attached, the poor, bewildered Detroit Three have worn out several good pairs of trousers crawling on their knees to Congress - a group of sleazy dissemblers that make sex workers look noble by comparison - and still have nothing to show for their pains.
The latest auto bail-out proposal continues to flounder as southern Republican Senators keep insisting that the UAW workers voluntarily turn themselves into slave labor in order to remain 'competitive' with the foreign automakers who have installed themselves on southern U.S. soil - stealthily subsidized by unknowing southern U.S. taxpayers. Meanwhile, the Congress continues to lavishly fund military white elephants like the F-22 fighter (which nobody seems to want) because to cancel that would risk 'thousands of jobs'.
So let's recapitulate: Zillions to Wall Street - no conditions. Trillions for an airplane that no one's even sure we need - jobs saved. Is there a secret grudge against Detroit? Can you say hypocritical?
As an ex-Detroiter, I grew up surrounded by cars. Cool cars. With that in mind, I propose a solution to all autoland's problems. Ever hear of Legacy Acts in the music world? Well, they are singers and bands and groups who used to rule the record charts. Acts like The Who, The Rolling Stones and The Fugs are indulged by big music because, while they don't have blockbuster hits anymore, the sales of their back catalogues of recordings are steady and respectable, and their names on the company's roster of contracts helps the label maintain a certain legitimacy, while causing no real harm. SO, what if, as a sop to the reptilian sybarites that call themselves legislators, the auto companies announced, as a condition of a bailout deal, that they were going to suspend the creation of new vehicles and instead, return to making replicas of their greatest hits? I give you - The Legacy Line.
Just imagine, Ford dumps the homely Focus in favor of the 1964 Mustang. Chrysler announces the abandonment of the pointless Sebring to revive the spaced-out 1959 Imperial, then, General Motors checks in by scrapping the feckless Aveo to reproduce the peerless 1957 Chevy or the still radical-looking 1959 El Camino. (For you 12-year old 'know-it-alls' out there, go directly to Google Image before reading any further). Can you imagine the deafening applause from the general public? I mean, these are freakin' classics! Sure, Detroit can still make a few modern-looking pickup trucks (with gunracks) - some guys will never give up those testostero-rides. But the general public would take new pride in their home-grown products. Half of us would feel happy nostalgia and the other half would respond much like the public did when they first came out - 'I Gotta Have One!' Everything else on the road would look like leftover junk from the old East German GDR. I can't imagine one congressman who wouldn't support a plan of such brilliance. The Detroit Three could even promise to revive some old, personal Congressional favorites in order to secure support. Some Southern Senator probably has fond memories of a classic sedan where he received his first kickback. There's certainly a few Western Representatives who recall what car it was where they seduced their first intern. Their lead hearts would surely soften and they couldn't vote for the bailout fast enough!
An additional benefit would be that the automakers would be able to update the 'legacy' cars with the improvements in reliability and materials that have evolved since the original designs were manufactured. And with the Detroit Three up and running and turning out profitable popular classics again, their engineers would have the time and money to work behind the scenes to develop new electric, solar, wind, french fry fat or Diet-Coke-and-Mentos powered automobiles that would be ready for market by the time the public tired of the 'legacy' models. What true American would buy a featureless, worker-ant Honda when they could be seen cruising down the road in a brand-new, fully-finned faultless Ford Fairlane?
I offer this solution free of charge to the nation. I think the workers, the buying public and an envious world would applaud such a innovative response to these troubled times. Building and buying cars would be fun again. I'm sure the old blueprints still exist somewhere, it's just a matter of a bit of re-tooling. Bring some of the old geezers who built the originals out of retirement to help with the re-launch! India and Pakistan could have a nuclear exchange and it wouldn't knock the return of Detroit's greatest hits off the front pages! America is still the native land of the big idea, the big shot and the big scam and this way, the big three can get bigged up again.
Well, that problem's solved, so let me fill up the kettle and plug it in, because I can feel the welding sparks on my face, coming from the direction of the rust belt. If not on the assembly line, then somewhere in this auto-frenzied world, it's four o'clock, and time for some tea.

IT'S ONLY WORDS

2008-12-10T16:21:00.004-05:00

Dear Readers,
Yesterday, in the British Parliament during question time, Prime Minister Gordon 'Mr. Bean' Brown, who was giving an answer to a query by the opposition about the (what else?) state of the economic crisis, made a slight verbal blunder and said that his government had 'saved the world', when he meant to say that they had 'saved the economy'. Well, you would have thought he had just announced that he was Napoleon, or Batman's sister, the way the Conservative caucus exploded in a cacophony of hoots, hollers and farmyard noises in reaction to what was such a small slip of the tongue. (Anybody who still thinks British Politicians are all erudite and reserved should listen to some of the goings on at Westminster. If food was allowed in the chamber - one shudders...). The leader of the opposition, David Cameron, leapt on the flub, then spent the better part of a half hour lambasting the hapless PM for his gaffe while his backbenchers carried on like they had just found out they'd been granted free, unlimited drinking rights to every pub in England. Such an uproar over one little misplaced word.
I've been thinking a lot about words lately - more accurately, their modern usage - in a society where hand-sized computers allow us to do texting("OMG"), Twittering ("I'm twittering, what are U doing?") and make utterly pointless cell-phone calls ("I'm in the supermarket, where are you?") that seem to have monopolized the national conversation. It's nice, in a way, that we're all checking up on one another, but do we have anything much to say? Was the invention of all these giga-gadgets really necessary?
I find it quite ironic that in a modern world where we have the most incredible communication devices (Flash Gordon and Dick Tracy didn't know the half of it!) that compliment, confirm and cross-pollinate each other, the most popular use of all these melanges of microchips comes down to a few insipid words in a Twitter message or a 2-minute clip on You Tube. In a prophetic phrase, the late Marshall McLuhan (no, he's nothing to do with Lindsay LOhan) once famously remarked that 'the medium is the message'. Now, I gotta tell ya', I didn't know what the hell he was on about - until now. He was talking about TV a couple of generations ago, but he could have just as well been gassing on today about the IPhone or Blackberry ( if he wasn't...err.. dead). Words still deliver most of our messages,(often, a funny face or a middle finger will suffice) yet it seems as if fewer of them, over a shorter period of time, is just fine with most people these days, written or spoken - especially tailored for the new technology.
Ah, words. I think it was Adam who first lamented the death of the written word, and I guess every generation since has felt it's imminent demise as new inventions have pushed it farther out towards the margins. Yet it survives, albeit in much less challenging forms. Would James Joyce find a publisher today? (He just barely found one in 1922). He'd probably have to blog. How many times I have heard that the script of a play or a movie or a TV show is 'talky' (meaning 'wordy') and therefore uninteresting or unworthy. Take, for instance, the new movie based on the play Doubt, which was considered talky on the stage, but has apparently been 'rescued' by Hollywood - with the addition of some car chase scenes as the Nun played by Meryl Streep, in her Aston-Martin DB 5 hunts down the Priest, as played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, driving his Formula One Ferrari. Now that's dialogue relief. The ironic thing is that half the people in the movie theatre will be texting - i.e., using words (sort of) while viewing the action.
Maybe I'm too sensitive on the subject, since recently, I have become the 5 Billionth blogger in the blog-o-world. But I'm keenly aware that my ramblings must seem like La Recherche Du Temps Perdu compared with Twitter-ers and texters - and most bloggers, for that matter. But as new technology gives us less for more, old technology like the humble newspaper seems destined to join the Rosetta Stone as an object we can appreciate, but wouldn't have in the house. Newspapers have tried to save themselves by putting their content on the web, but reading a story or an article on some I-Thing just isn't the same. I mean, isn't a relief to have a dirty great huge, full-page underwear ad on the page opposite some horrific story you just read about a cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe? The same experience on a Blackberry? No can do.
Yet I'm content to let the universe unfold as it should. Thoughtful commentary and information is still widely available to those who seek it out and the current trend of reducing language to grunts and words-without-vowels will eventually lose it's cache. It's just that, as technology is making the world a lot less mysterious than it used to be, it seems to me that it's making it's inhabitants a lot less interesting.
Well, all I'm interested in at the moment is the kettle coming to a boil at last, because somewhere in this less-interesting world, it's 4 o'clock, and time for a cup of tea.

DOES ANYONE REMEMBER CARMEN MIRANDA?

2008-12-09T19:05:00.003-05:00

Dear Readers,
Finally catching up with last week's Theme Time Radio Hour, 'Fruit'. I believe this is the first time Dylan has featured an entire category of victuals, but it's a sweet mixture, to be sure. Even though Bob's corny humor sometime borders on the overripe, he manages to keep the theme colorful and fresh with his usual mix of eclectic tunes and pips of wisdom and information.
I liked the fact that he included a few evergreens from the 1920's and 30's among his ambrosia of sound. The Memphis Jug Band gets a rare airing with it's 'Peaches In The Springtime', a track that oozes with the joy of making music that seems lost on today's calculating artistes. I don't know much about Sam Montgomery, but his 'Where The Sweet Old Oranges Grow' seems to channel the spirit and sound of Robert Johnson. Who knew that 'W-P-L-J' meant a workingman's drink of white port and lemon juice? I thought it was a defunct New York City Rock N' Roll station. Props to The Four Deuces for setting me straight. The Beatles check in with Strawberry Fields Forever, a record that never fails to impress me with it's genius. And to think those guys were singing 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah' only 24 months before! The 1930's make another appearance with Crown Prince Waterford's joyful 'Eatin' Watermelon', a song that takes back the pure pleasure of devouring that particular southern fruit from the old-timey racists (who I know for a fact loved it, too). I'll skip lightly over Bob's inclusion of the hoary 'Banana Boat Song (Day-O)' to the finale of Billie Holiday's eerie 'Strange Fruit', which remains one of the most unsettling songs in musical history (after 'Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron', obviously), delivered by Lady 'Day with her unique mixture of accusation and sadness.
Dylan uses the theme to provide lists of desserts and ways of consuming fruit that would put Martha Stewart to shame, but all in all, it's a show that whets one's appetite on many different levels.