The Curmudgeon Speaks

Jobs

2011-08-30T12:11:00.000-04:00

Here's my advice to President Obama on how to solve the unemployment problem. He can use it for free, although it'd be nice to see a little attribution:

Here's the plan: Hire the unemployed as teacher assistants in our public schools. One per classroom, maybe a few extra to help the maintenance staff. Pay them minimum wage, give them free breakfast and lunch and daycare if they have little kids. Let the principals and teachers decide how best to use them -- an extra hand to handle larger classes, extra talent to help reinstate cut programs (music, phys ed, etc.), whatever. Leave the implementation up to the schools, leave the funding to the Feds. It'll cost a little bit, but we're already so much in debt, who'll notice?

Whatever the cost, it's a great investment. Beleaguered schools and teachers get much-needed assistance. Kids get more attention and a better education. Unemployed adults get short-term employment and cash in their pockets. And maybe, just maybe, we inspire some of these short-term teaching assistants to become teachers themselves, which wouldn't be a bad thing. Everybody wins.

If you like this idea, pass it along.

Greatest

2010-09-25T18:04:00.000-04:00

VH1, the channel that used to play music videos, recently released their list of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time," as voted on by today's so-called artists. The list is a joke, of course, as by "all time" they mean "the rock era," as no one bothered to mention Frank Sinatra, George Gershwin, or J.S. Bach. Even taking the list as a rock-era list, however, there are some issues.

VH1's top 10 "greatest artists" were as follows:

1. The Beatles

2. Michael Jackson

3. Bob Dylan

4. Led Zeppelin

5. Rolling Stones

6. Jimi Hendrix

7. Prince

8. Elvis Presley

9. James Brown

10. Stevie Wonder

It's hard to argue against the Beatles heading the list, of course, but there's a lot wrong otherwise. I mean, there' no way Michael Jackson ranks over Dylan or Elvis, and there's really no justification for Prince to be in the top ten at all. It's really indefensible.

The problem, as I see it, is defining "best." It's just too subjective. My "best" isn't going to be the same as yours. Heck, my own definition of "best" will probably differ from day to day, depending on how I'm feeling about things.

So, given that most of the artists interviewed for the TV show talked about how big an influence a given artist was on them, personally, I'd like to change the criteria and suggest a list I'll call the "Top Ten Most Influential Artists of the Rock Era." Here's who I'd choose:

1. The Beatles

2. Bob Dylan

3. Elvis Presley

4. Chuck Berry

5. Berry Gordy

6. Phil Spector

7.Aretha Franklin

8. Madonna

9. Joni Mitchell

10. Rolling Stones

Note that these aren't necessarily my ten favorite artists, or even the ten I'd call the "best," however that's defined. Instead, these are the ten who I think most influenced the music of the era.

As to specifics, I'd agree that it's debatable whether Dylan was really more influential than Elvis, but that's the way I see it; Mr. Zimmerman really influenced the way songwriters wrote. As to putting Joni Mitchell on the list, while she's obviously not as talented as Dylan and the Beatles, she influenced and inspired several generations of female singer-songwriters. (Without Joni, no Jewell -- which I'll forever hold against her). Same thing for putting Aretha on the list; she inspired the creation of the female vocal diva, which rules to this day. (Without Aretha, no Celene Dion -- again, I hold this against the Queen of Soul.) And the same for Madonna -- I'm not a fan, but it's obvious that Lady Gaga and her ilk are.

I put Phil Spector and Berry Gordy on the list, even though they're not performers, because as producers they strongly influenced the sound of the music of the 60s and beyond. Gordy, of course, helped create the Motown Sound, which led to the Philly Sound, which led to just about all soul and R&B music of the past 50 years. Spector's Wall of Sound influenced everybody from Brian Wilson to Bruce Springsteen to U2, so he gets on the list easy.

The others are fairly self explanatory. The Stones, while not my personal favorites, influenced generations of bad boy rock and rollers, as well as the punk and grunge movements. Chuck Berry pretty much invented rock and roll and defined R&R guitar, so there's no way he's not on there. Dylan, as noted, changed the way songs were written, so he's a given. Then there's the Beatles, who head up any list no matter how it's defined. There was pop music before the Beatles and pop music after the Beatles, and that's just he way it is.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Taxes

2010-09-09T16:53:00.000-04:00

Everybody hates taxes. Their taxes, anyway. But we all love what our taxes buy — public schools, police and fire protection, snow removal, etc. We don’t want any of these things taken away, but we also don’t want our taxes raised. It’s a glaring inconsistency.

Frankly, I like having the snow plows clear my street in January. I like having music classes in our high school. I like having police and fire protection. I’m willing to pay for these things. Now, if those costs go up (and they have and will), then we have to pay more for them — which means increasing taxes, one way or another.

That said, I’m never happy for my own taxes to increase, but as long as everybody’s paying their fair share, I can live with it. What I can’t live with are people much wealthier than I who don’t pay their fair share. Hell yeah, raise the taxes on the wealthy — or at least remove the unwarranted tax cuts that the Bushies gave them during the last administration.

People who earn two, three, ten, twenty times more than I do can afford to pay a little more in taxes. Try raising those taxes first before you raise taxes on the rest of us. Then, if we still need increased taxes to pay for the necessities that we like and need, then by all means do so. That’s part of our public duty — paying for the services we use.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Kindle Update

2010-07-29T18:45:00.002-04:00

As if I didn't dislike the Kindle enough as-is, my brand-new Kindle broke just 24 hours into use. (The screen went all wonky.) So I not only don't like how it works, it simply doesn't work. What kind of piece of crap is that? (Or is it simply more proof that Amazon should stick to selling other people's stuff, instead of trying to make their own; they're really kind of sucky as a tech hardware company.)

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Kindle

2010-07-28T14:59:00.002-04:00

Just got a Kindle yesterday, for a project I'm doing. I am not impressed.

This thing has horrible readability in low light (why not add a backlight?), annoying reverse blink whenever you change pages, and relies too much on the small and virtually unreadable keys on the keypad. Along the same lines, the interface to the Amazon Kindle store is in extremely small, unreadable, and unresizeable text. (As you can probably tell, I'm big on the unreadability thing, especially as my eyes age -- small type doesn't work well in my apparently dark and dreary world.)

I'm not tethered to any particular container; I care more about the content than how it's delivered. But the Kindle makes reading somewhat less enjoyable, at least to me. Bah.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds (or people with better eyesight) may disagree.

Apple

2010-07-17T12:53:00.000-04:00

Here's a great example of how NOT to do great customer service.

Regarding the iPhone 4's reception problems, Steve Jobs says (1) It's a faulty design, but (2) Everybody else does it, too, and (3) Not too many customers complained, so (4) We'll give you a cheesy looking "bumper" as a quick and dirty patch, but (5) If you don't like it, we don't want to sell you one, anyway, so there.

What an arrogant S.O.B.! Combine this with the signal strength bars thing (they've been lying to us since day one -- you're okay with that, aren't you?) and the rash of iTunes Stores hacks (Got a problem? Contact your credit card company, not us), can one imagine a consumer company with a WORSE attitude towards the customer? Hey, we're Apple, love it or leave it, chump. We don't have to provide any customer service -- you'll buy our stuff just because it looks cool.

Honestly, would any other company get away with this crap? I'm having big problems justifying upgrading my current iPhone. Why should anyone buy any product from this arrogant, self-centered bunch of assholes?

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Healthcare

2009-07-08T16:58:00.002-04:00

Healthcare in America stinks. We pay more than other civilized countries, and get worse results. We wouldn't accept this when buying a car, would we? Imagine comparing your car to your neighbors -- I paid twice what you did, and have twice as many repairs! What kind of value is that?

The problems are many. Too many people don't have any health insurance. Those of us who do have insurance pay too much for it, or are forced to buy plans that don't have enough coverage. (So-called high deductible plans.) If we go to change plans (when we move, or when we change jobs), many of us are denied coverage because of "pre-existing conditions." All too often the health insurance companies deny treatments and medicines recommended by our personal doctors. It all costs too much, as well -- we spend more per capita on healthcare than any other Western nation. And, despite the costs, the results are abysmal, no matter how they're measured.

Let's look at these points one by one.

Why, some might ask, must everyone have health insurance? What right does the government have dictating whether or not we have health insurance? If a person decides to not have insurance, why should I care? This one's really simple, as explained to me by my old doctor back in Indiana. He was for national health insurance, for this reason: "I don't want the guy next to me on the bus to have pneumonia." It's a selfish reason, but a good one. When everyone has good health care -- good preventative healthcare -- there will be fewer sick people around. And the fewer sick people around, the less likely it is I'll get sick from them. Ta-da! Beyond that, there's the simple humanitarian aspect; if somebody is sick or hurt, we should help them; who's paying for that service shouldn't enter into it. Think of it this way: If your child is sick or hurt, you want him to be cared for. It's not a matter of health plans and deductible and payments, you want your kid to get better. It's no more complex than that.

Then there's the paying for it. In years past, it didn't cost that much -- especially if you got healthcare through your employer. But costs keep going up and up and up, so that not having insurance might be the only option for those with low incomes. It's even a problem for employers, who are facing increasingly substantial costs for this employee perk. In fact, it may be the employers who finally push healthcare reform this go round; even the biggest corporations are getting on the bandwagon due to increasing costs. (In addition, our system is blatantly unfair; the poorest fifth of Americans spend 18% of their income on healthcare, while the richest fifth pay only about 3% of their incomes. That's not right.)

That said, those who have insurance as part of their jobs are the lucky ones. Go out on your own -- change jobs or move or whatever -- and you're likely to be turned down for coverage. It's the old "pre-existing condition" deal; if you're taking any type of medicine, even if that medicine helps to reduce your long-term medical costs, insurance companies don't want to pay for it. It gets worse the older you get; hell, at 50 years old, I am a pre-existing condition! So just qualifying for care (at reasonable rates) is a big issue these days.

Just having insurance doesn't guarantee you can get the care you need, however. How many of us have had their insurance companies deny some sort of treatment recommended by our personal physicians? Most, I'd wager. Every time my old doctor tweaked my medications, it would automatically be denied by my insurance company. EVERY SINGLE TIME. I've heard it said by people who work for insurance companies that they're instructed to automatically deny every claim the first time; even if they end up approving a second request, a certain percentage of people immediately give up, thus saving the insurance company from paying. That's cold, folks. I really don't need some minimum wage flunky in an insurance company cubicle overruling the advice from my personal physician.

So this overly bureaucratic system works hard to deny healthcare to millions, but despite that, it costs the country as a whole much more than it should. I suppose I could live with lousy service if it came cheap, but here in America we pay Rolls Royce rates for Kia quality. That's the gold ol' U.S of A., paying more than any other civilized nation. In 2000, the United States spent 13% of its gross domestic product on health expenditures. That's 22% more than the next most expensive nation, Germany (10.6%). Why are our costs so high? It's a combination of things. First, because so many people are uninsured or underinsured, they don't get proper preventative care, and they wait longer to see a doctor -- and this later, more emergency care costs more. Second, our system is a for-profit system, most health-related companies are public companies trying to meet quarterly profit goals for their investors. Third, these companies are heavy on the expensive management, and we all know how that works. Fourth, there is really no organized pressure to keep costs down, as there is in other countries; witness the lower costs for prescription medicines across the border in Canada. Fifth, there's the simple cost of bureaucracy; the administrative costs of private insurance run 16% of the total budget, while Medicare (that's a government-run program, for those keeping score) costs run only about 3%. (Ask your doctor how many people he has employed who do nothing but deal with insurance companies; you'll be shocked.)

The worst thing is, even paying so much for our healthcare, we get worse results than countries who pay much less. The statistics are overwhelming on this point. The WHO ranks the U.S. 32nd for infant survival and 24th for life expectancy; the Commonwealth Fund ranks us 15 out of 19 with respect to preventable deaths before the age of 75, and last in terms of both infant mortality and life expectancy. We pay more and get less in return. Would you accept this for anything else you buy in life?

So what is the solution? Well, it calls for a complete overhaul of our healthcare system -- not minor tweaks, as some might suggest. That means rethinking everything. We have to reinvent what we have; simply switching from paper records to electronic ones isn't the solution.

Our options, fortunately, are many. We're not the first country in the world to embrace national healthcare; in fact, we're just about the last. So we have the luxury of observing what other countries have done -- we can see what works and what doesn't. Take one from column A and two from column B, and build the best healthcare system in the world.

There are several approaches used in various countries around the world. One approach has the government run everything; the insurance companies go away, and all doctors and hospitals are government run. Another approach keeps doctors and hospitals private, but has all costs paid for by the government; again, no insurance companies are involved. A third approach keeps the insurance companies, but they're forced to provide low-cost coverage for all citizens; in return, they can upsell fancier (and more profitable) coverage to those who want it.

Each of these approaches has its pros and cons; none is 100% perfect. But all of these approaches cost less and get better results than we have today. Changing to any of these plans would be an improvement -- for all of us.

Big change has to happen, and happen fast. Unfortunately, we can do this only if our politicians have the willpower to do so -- which they don't seem to have. Right now, even the most populist politicians are sounding like rank and file conservatives, primarily because they're well funded by the healthcare lobby. The healthcare industry pours hundreds of millions of dollars into the coffers of politicians of both Democratic and Republican persuasions, with the result that few elected representatives are willing to embrace the total change that we need. "We must preserve the status quo," they cry, even if that status quo benefits only their big money donors. Us regular folks, who overwhelmingly embrace public healthcare, are left in the lurch.

This is the time for a populist uprising. All of us need to write our congresspeople and senators and president and make known how much we need and want dramatic change. Yes, we're talking public healthcare, and that will mean some disruption (mainly in the insurance industry, those fucking leeches), but it's what we want and need and must have. The insurance agency (and their well-paid lobbyists) be damned, we must force our elected official to do what is right and what is needed. This is no time for compromise (hear that, Mr. Obama?); this is time for action. Otherwise, the United States will continue to be the laughingstock of the world community, paying more and more to become less and less healthy. It's not right.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Jackson

2009-06-27T17:10:00.003-04:00

Michael Jackson is dead, and the media is going apeshit 24/7 with Jacko coverage. Frankly, I've had enough. It's just not that important.

IMHO, Michael Jackson was never the "king of pop." His best records were his first ones, with the Jackson 5; they had a youthful exuberance and represented the next generation of the classic Motown Sound. (Due more to Barry Gordy and his producers and writers than to the performances, I'd wager.) Jackson's most famous records, as a solo artist, certainly sold well, but they weren't groundbreaking. They may have represented the logical culmination of then-current producing and recording techniques, but they didn't push the envelope in any way, shape, or form. You want groundbreaking, you listen to Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye. Jackson's stuff was entertaining, but that's it. Not an innovator at all.

Jackson's music was popular, however, for various reasons. Well, it had a good beat and you could dance to it, of course. It also helped to break genre and color lines, especially in the world of MTV and music videos; in this way, Jackson was more of a cultural phenomenon than a musical one. But the songs, the records, they just don't have any staying power. Does his stuff get played on any radio stations today? (Well, other than the 24/7 mournathon we're currently in, that is.) No, it doesn't. The earlier Jackson 5 stuff does, because it endures. "Thriller," "Billie Jean," all those songs, they're easily replaceable. They don't stand out, they're too representative of their time; they simply don't wear well over the years. That's not great music, folks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, Jackson was a captivating entertainer and dancer. So compare him (probably unfavorably) to Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, not to Elvis Presley and John Lennon and other true musical innovators. You want musical innovators, talk about Chuck Berry and Little Richard and the Beatles; don't talk the so-called "king of pop." If anything, he was the king of cloying pap. Nothing more than that.

But I don't think he was a king at all, and I'm tired of hearing Michael Jackson talked about as if he really, truly, changed the world of music as we know it. Even his so-called accomplishments were really collaborations with (and driven by) Quincy Jones. What were Jackson's contributions? A few squeaks here and there and the introduction of the moonwalk -- which was itself an appropriation of existing dance steps. I'll give him one thing; he helped to turn pop concerts into singing-and-dancing extravaganzas, complete with synchronized dance steps and a troupe of scantily clad dancers. So we have Michael Jackson to thank for Britney Spears. Oh joy.

I'm sick and tired of the cult of artificial celebrity, which has reached its zenith with the enshrinement of so-called reality show stars like Jon and Kate and all those other losers who never accomplished anything in life other than acting out their pitiful lives in front of the video cameras. Michael Jackson was a talented performer, but nothing more. Let's not treat him as a god on his passing; let's not pay any more attention than that deserved by a has-been hitmaker with some very serious personality disorders. Michael Jackson, meet Frankie Lymon; that's your comparison, right there.

Enough is enough. That's much more than I ever intended to say about Michael Jackson, dead or alive, so I'll just stop now.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

One

2009-05-10T13:49:00.002-04:00

It was just over a year ago that I moved to the Twin Cities, and shortly after that when I got married. That's two one-year anniversaries to celebrate and reflect upon, which I'll try to do here.

First, moving to the Twin Cities. I was a life-long Hoosier, not because of any great love for the place but mainly due to inertia. Central Indiana is an okay and extremely inexpensive place to live. The people are nice enough, although there's a decided lack of education and respect for intelligence among many. There's also little to no arts scene, and in Indiana, Republicans rule. So there wasn't much to miss when I moved, other than friends and family.

The Minneapolis/St. Paul area is definitely a much larger and more sophisticated metropolis than the Indianapolis area. Lots of great restaurants, a terrific music and arts scene, just a general big-city vibe that Indy aspires to but has never reached. The people up here are, perhaps, nicer than the folks in Indiana, although I suspect that what they call "Minnesota nice" is really just an advanced form of passive-aggressiveness; they're really nice to your face, but they talk a lot behind your back. Still, it's nice to be around nice people.

That passive-aggressiveness comes out in their driving, however. Nobody up here can negotiate a simple roundabout (not that there are that many up here, especially when compared to Carmel, Indiana, the roundabout capital of the U.S.). Half the time they enter the roundabout then stop halfway through to let someone from the outside in. I want to get out of my car (and I have time to, since traffic has come to a halt), pull them out of theirs, and beat their little pasty white heads against the pavement. I guess I haven't gotten into the Minnesota nice thing much, myself.

The arts scene in the Twin Cities is terrific. My wife and I have seen more music in the past year than I saw in a decade in Indy. They love and support all types of music up here, jazz especially, and the Dakota is the best jazz club I've ever seen. (Better even than Indy's Jazz Kitchen, which I still love.) In the past year we've seen Nanci Griffith, Brian Wilson, Booker T. and the MGs (twice), John Pizzarelli (also twice), James Hunter, Gordon Lightfoot, Manhattan Transfer, Irma Thomas, Ruthie Foster, Lura, and Sophie Milman. (There's so much good stuff up here, I get annoyed at the acts we have to skip because we can't fit them into our schedule.) All were good, but the very best were Brian Wilson and Nanci Griffith, both legends of their own type. Hearing Brian and his wonderful backing band do "God Only Knows" brought a tear to my eye, it was just so perfect. That moment alone made the move to Minneapolis worth it.

Of course, the real reason I moved to the Twin Cities was to get married. My wife Sherry came from Indy, originally, but has been living up here for the past twenty or so years. We've known each other since high school, but hooked up again about three years ago and did two years of very long distance dating. (I put a lot of miles on the old convertible...) I finally talked her into making an honest man of me, and so we got married a year ago April.

Married life is a bit of a change for a 50 year-old bachelor. Not only am I sharing my (new and bigger) house with my wife, I'm also sharing it with her dog, her teenaged son, and, during school breaks, her college-aged daughter. As an added bonus, her younger daughter is going through a divorce, and she and her two toddlers are also living with us. I originally thought a five-bedroom house would be overkill, but now I sometimes wish for even more room.

Room aside, I kind of like having a full house. I really like the grandkids, two year-old Collin and his one year-old sister Hayley. Collin and I are great pals, and he likes to do just about anything he sees me doing. Yeah, Sherry and I spend a lot of time babysitting that we could be spending doing newlywed-type stuff, but I wouldn't give up the time with the kids. After spending a half-century alone, I treasure every single minute with my new family. (For those interested, pics of the grandkids can be found here: Mike and Sherry's Family Pictures)

Sherry has one more child, a daughter who is married and living in Winona, about two hours away. (That's also where the other daughter goes to college, conveniently enough.) So there's one more grandkid in the mix, with a fourth on the way. I wish we could spend more time with little Alethia, but the distance precludes this. Again, I treasure the time we spend with her.

It's a big lifestyle change for me. Friends say I'm either a saint or a crazy person; I admit to the latter, but don't find anything wrong with that. It's a different life, but one I'm trying to live to the fullest. There's less private time, but a lot more love.

What do I miss about my previous life? My Indiana friends, of course. But also the little things, like Cajun food (none at all up here) and my old coffeehouse. During the month of May I tend to miss the goings on at the Speedway, but that hasn't been the same for a decade or more, anyway, so there's less to miss. I don't miss the thickheaded rednecks in my old hometown; I do appreciate the more liberal bent up here, as well as their great enthusiasm for all things social and political. (And Norm Coleman should just give it up and go home, already.)

All in all, it's been a good year. I hope to have many more with my new friends and family here in Minnesota -- and with my old ones in Indiana, too.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Paul Harvey

2009-03-29T16:33:00.003-04:00

The voice of Middle America is gone. Paul Harvey has passed away.

Like many listeners, I first heard Paul Harvey while on family vacations, interminably long trips to Florida or Colorado when I was a youngster. There is absolutely nothing good to say about the flat desolation that is Kansas, other than at twelve sharp you could turn the AM radio a few turns left or right and hear the voice of Paul Harvey. There was a dry stretch while I was in high school and college, but when I got older, I got hooked again, listening to Paul Harvey News & Comment when driving to lunch on almost every Saturday. At a still later date, Paul (along with the pre-merger XM Radio and old Bob & Ray CDs) kept me sane while I was long-distance dating my future Minnesota wife from my home in Indiana. It didn't matter where I was en route, Paul was always on some station somewhere.

I might have disagreed with his politics, but I appreciated the way he presented them. Instead of the bile and hatred that is right-wing talk radio today, Paul was decent and civil, putting his point across without viciously attacking those who disagreed with him. Rush and Sean and all the other blathering heads could learn something from Paul's honorable approach.

What I found most appealing about Paul Harvey was the same thing I appreciated about Johnny Carson. Both men had kind of a Midwestern decency about them. They may have hung out with movie stars and corporate bigwigs, but they didn't act like it or sound like it. Each of them seemed like the guy who lived next door, maybe a special uncle, someone who paid special attention to the old lady standing behind them in line at the grocery store. Paul and Johnny were just as interested in the couple celebrating their 50th anniversary or the old woman who collected potato chips as they were in the short-lived "celebrities" of the day. A true interest in everyone they met or read about, that's the common factor, and the ability to directly relate to their listeners and viewers. I miss that about both of these men.

I certainly will miss having Paul Harvey to listen to on the radio. Even though he wasn't there every day in the past few years (illness, old age, and the death of his wife cut into his schedule), noontime was always a little special when that booming voice came over my car radio speakers. I was always ready to "stand by for news," and my day wasn't good until Paul said it was -- with his trademark long pause. He may have been a product of another time, but there must have been something worthwhile about those days to produce someone as interested in and genuinely excited about human affairs as Paul Harvey.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Mortgages

2009-02-25T16:09:00.002-05:00

The whole mortgage crisis has me of multiple minds. On one hand, I'm not that hip on bailing out folks who made bad decisions and got in over their heads with overly-large mortgages. On the other hand, I'm also not that hip on forcing families out on the street and leaving large chunks of real estate to sit vacant in neighborhoods across the U.S. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't sort of situation.

Excessive rhetoric by the media doesn't help things. In particular, there's little good to be said about the inflammatory comments by CNBC ranting head Rick Santelli about the Obama administration subsidizing the mortgages of "losers" and promoting bad behavior. Except, of course, that there's more than a little truth in the content behind the blather. Forget the tone and the source, and you're faced with the reality that it's the folks who screwed up who will probably get bailed out, while those of us who didn't (or haven't yet) screwed up have to keep paying our often-excessive mortgage payments. As a guy who has dutifully paid his various mortgages on time for the past twenty years or so, that kind of burns my ass. I play by the rules and don't even get a thank you note, while the bums who skip their payments get a hand out -- subsidized by me! Thanks, Big Government, for the appreciation.

On the other hand, I have much sympathy for those folks who either got talked into ill-considered mortgage products or who've recently lost their jobs and may soon lose their homes. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and we should do something about that. I'd rather these folks get a little help than a boot out the front door.

On the other other hand, lots of folks who took out excessive mortgages really shouldn't have. They should have known they were getting in over their heads, whether we're talking lower-priced housing or a second McMansion. Sometimes it's okay to rent and most often there's little to be gained from trying to keep up with the Joneses. Some fools, rich and poor, deserve what they get.

But not all, and certainly not the folks we know, and most certainly not our neighbors. Thus the appeal of some sort of bailout for these mortgage holders.

Still, I'm left with the feeling of being royally screwed by being a good on-time payer all these years. It's not that I begrudge the help to those who need it, but what about me?

This, I think, is the difference between insensitive blowhards such as Santelli and more reasonable guys like myself. Calling all families with mortgage problems "losers" is extremely unsympathetic to those who really are the victims of misfortune. I'm sympathetic to their plight -- I'd just like a little consideration for doing what I was supposed to be doing all these years. (And I'm also aware that anyone -- me included -- could have similar misfortune and need similar assistance in the future. There but for fortune, and all that.)

What I'd like to see is some sort of plan that helps everyone, not just those in default. I'm not sure what that would be, but I'd lean towards some sort of universal principal and/or rate reduction. (I'd be real happy refinancing at 4% or so, if anyone's listening...) That sort of plan would benefit those currently underwater as well as those of us who've played by the rules all this time. Yeah, and maybe a few "losers" too, but that's what happens when you cast a wide net.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

2008

2009-01-08T16:47:00.003-05:00

The old year is past and the new year is upon us. Time to reflect briefly on the good things and bad things of 2008.

Bad things first, which include:

The economy, the continuing military excursion in Iraq, the continuing encroachment on our individual liberties, and the ongoing enfeeblement of the press. Thanks, George W!
Starbucks closing my local store. (And closing my former local store back in Indiana.) Not that I'm a big fan of corporate anything, but it's surprising how even a poorly performing Starbucks location forms its own tight community. My store is sorely missed not just by me (primarily for its convenient location) but, more importantly, by the regulars who made it their home. Home is where you find it, and dozens of people lost their home when the corporate office downsized.
The "merger" of XM and Sirius satellite radio -- more accurately, a hostile takeover of my beloved XM by the smaller and less-successful Sirius. Gone are my favorite personalities, especially those on what was formerly my favorite XM channel, Soul Street: Bobby Bennett, Dr. Nick, and Leigh Hamilton. The late lamented Soul Street was, hands down, the best-programmed channel I've heard on any radio service, period, and it was criminal for Sirius to dump it so unceremoniously. Not only do I miss the DJs' expertise and intelligent conversation, the replacement channel (Sirius' Soul Town) leans too heavily on crappy 70s funk and not enough on the sweet 50s and 60s soul (including a lot of obscure tracks) that made Soul Street so great. Other favorite channels have also bit the dust, and the survivors seem to have shortened and more frequently repeated playlists. While I did pick up a few decent new channels (Little Steven's Underground Garage, The Bridge, and the real NPR), the "new" Sirius XM sucks almost as bad as terrestrial radio. I'm just glad I'm no longer driving 1200 or so miles a month, so I'm not forced to listen to this crap.
The passing of some of my favorite public people. Chief among those these are musicians Levi Stubbs (of the Four Tops) and Isaac Hayes, actor Paul Newman, the legendary Bette Page, and author Donald E. Westlake, one of the most talented and prolific writers of any genre. They are all missed.
Way too much snow in Minnesota.

Good things about 2009 include:

The fall of the crony capitalistic dictatorship of Bush and Cheney and the election of Barack Obama. Of course, Obama inherits one of the biggest messes in history, but he's a smart guy who surrounds himself with smart guys -- a good start, at least.
With the election of Obama, the notion that it's okay if not cool to be smart. I'm tired of this country's ignorance worship; it's time we looked up to those folks who actually know what they're doing.
The Dark Knight and Iron Man -- finally, two really good comic book movies. (And I can't wait to see Watchmen when it releases later in 2009...)
My favorite albums of the year, including the charming Volume One from She and Him (Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward); Brian Wilson's latest near-masterpiece, That Lucky Old Sun; Duffy's Brit-soul Rockferry; Shelby Lynne's tribute to the great Dusty Springfield, Just a Little Lovin'; and my personal favorite, James Hunter's infectious blue-eyed soul on The Hard Way. We had the personal pleasure of seeing both Brian Wilson and James Hunter in concert this year, and both were joyous experiences.
Getting married to the love of my life and enjoying family life, including time with all my new step-grandchildren. (See my other blog for pics of us and the kids.) It was a bit of a change after 50 years of bachelorhood, but well worth it.

And that was my year, and my opinions. Reasonable minds, as always, may disagree.

Change

2008-11-10T17:24:00.003-05:00

Well, it finally happened. Barack Obama actually won the election and handily, surprising all the cynics and curmudgeons and worry-worts among us. Apparently our country isn't quite as ignorant or racist or whatnot as one sometimes is led to think. Good for us! (Although ignorance and racism and whatnot do still exist -- as evidenced by anyone eavesdropping on those old guys talking in the corner booth at Denny's on any random Tuesday morning. But I digress...)

Obama's victory is historic for any number of reasons. The first black president, the first post-baby boomer president, and so on and so forth. And whether the vote was one for hope and change or one final repudiation of the Bush/Cheney near-dictatorship, what we get is the opportunity to correct all that has gone wrong over the past eight years and set a new course into the 21st century. That's a good thing.

What pisses me off, however, are all those conservatives and Republicans and media pundits who keep insisting that Obama has to "govern to the center" and be all bi-partisan and such. These are the same people who insisted that Bush had a "mandate" with much smaller popular and electoral vote majorities in 2000 and 2004, and set about ramrodding their ultra-conservative agenda down everyone's throats. Democrats, liberals, and even moderates were marginalized in particularly ruthless fashion; the Bushies didn't even give lip service to that whole "govern to the center" and bi-partisan thing. Bush said that since he won he got to do whatever he want, the other 49.5% of the country be damned. And look what happened.

So now the same bastards who locked the Democrats away for the past eight years now want those same Democrats to play nice with them and include them in all their major decisions. Fuck that shit, I say. There is no reason at all for Obama and the Dems to give the defeated minority the time of day; why should they treat the righties any better than the righties treated them for the past eight years. What goes around comes around, my friends; karma demands retribution.

But we're a "center right" nation, the righties argue. Oh no, we're not, I reply. This supposedly "center right" nation just voted the supposedly most liberal member of the United States Senate into the presidency; the supposedly "center right" nation is also in support of supposedly liberal issues such as universal health care and against staunch conservative issues as abortion bans. No matter what the pundits might say, the facts are clear that this is a center left nation, a land of closet progressives with socialist leanings. Obama should keep this clearly in mind as he moves forward, and not be tempted to placate the whining minority.

The conservative elite have a lot of balls, I'll give them that. They take a slim win and call it a mandate, then take a major loss as a basis for co-governance with the winning side. The real winners -- Obama and the American people -- shouldn't listen to this massive spin. To the winners go the spoils, to the losers go four years (at least) in the political wilderness. Let the Republicans deal with the fact that they're the ones that are out of touch; the rest of us have more important work to do rebuilding our country. That's the real change ahead.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Obama

2008-10-30T14:47:00.003-04:00

This election cycle has been both dispiriting and inspiring. Dispiriting for the negative tone of the McCain campaign, along with the rumors and innuendo and lies and outright racism on the part of many ignorant conservatives. Inspiring for the support of Obama's uplifting message of hope and populist redemption, along with a long-needed support of the middle class.

I started this campaign with much respect for McCain, who even if he didn't align with me on all the issues, at least seemed to have an independent integrity. I've lost all that respect for McCain since then, due to his opportunistic flip-flopping on key issues, embrace of the nut-wing social conservative right, selection of the extremely under-qualified Sarah Palin as his running mate, and overall willingness to do practically anything to get elected. It's one thing to have the ambition, another to pursue that ambition in an honorable manner. The John McCain of the 2008 campaign is not an honorable man.

Then there's Palin. What was going through his mind (or his advisers' minds) with that selection? At first blush, the woman seemed like another petty small-town politician, not too far removed from the mayor of Burnsville, Minnesota, my new home town. (For whom I will not be voting next week.) But Palin's a petty small-town politician with big ambitions -- and the ability to fire up a crowd of ignorant, small-minded racist trash. She's like the cheerleader from hell, no ideas of her own beyond advancing to the next level, by whatever means necessary. It's kind of like George Bush in a skirt, but amped up a couple of levels. I would fear for our nation if she were in any position of power.

The hero of this campaign is Barack Obama. His is an inspiring story, a rags to riches climb from impoverished childhood with a single mother to editor of the Harvard Law Review to United States Senator and hopefully to President. He didn't come from a four-star military background or an Ivy League family; like his equally inspiring running mate, Obama is one of us who made good. It really pisses me off when the blathering right tries to paint him as an elitist; he's really the culmination of the American dream.

That he's done all he's done is even more remarkable when you consider his race and his name. A black man has to work twice as hard in America to achieve any level of success; having a Muslim-sounding name certainly didn't help, either. But Obama overcame all his disadvantages and is now poised to claim the highest office in the land. Remarkable.

That's assuming that he actually wins on Tuesday. The polls all say he will, but there's still a lot that can go wrong -- from a racist backlash to the Republicans outright stealing the thing via election fraud, suppressed votes, and easily tampered-with electronic voting machines. It's not over till it's over, which is why all Obama supporters must keep up their efforts until every last vote is counted.

And here's one more thing I like about Obama: He's made it cool to be smart. With the Republicans pandering to those with little education and even less ambition, and society seemingly being prejudiced against smart people, Obama's education and intelligence is a shining light. We need to admire and reward intelligence, the way other countries do, instead of celebrating ignorance and lack of accomplishment. Here's hoping that Obama can lead by example and make our country just a little bit smarter.

So make sure you get off your ass and get out and vote on November 4th. My vote will go to Obama and Biden, and I hope yours will too; I earnestly believe that they represent the voice of change this country dearly needs.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Levi

2008-10-18T17:46:00.002-04:00

Levi Stubbs passed away yesterday. A great voice has been silenced.

Levi was the lead singer for the Four Tops, one of the most successful groups of the Motown era. His voice was commanding, plaintive, soulfully emotive. You could hear pain and anguish and just a little hope when he sang; there was no more distinctive voice in his or any era.

He was my favorite male singer of the rock era. (Favorite female rock-era singer: Dusty Springfield. Favorite pre-rock singers: Mel Torme and Ella Fitzgerald.) I wanted to use the Tops' "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" as the recessional music at our wedding (it's the perfect tempo for strolling down the aisle -- plus I love the song), but my wife vetoed it; we settled on a Stevie Wonder tune instead, which was fine, but not a Tops song.

And there were so many great Tops tunes, most written by the premiere songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland, all backed up by the pitch-perfect Funk Brothers, and all featuring the gospel shout baritone of Levi Stubbs. Remember them all: "Baby, I Need Your Loving," "It's the Same Old Song," "Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've Got)," "Reach Out (I'll Be There)," "Standing in the Shadows of Love," "Bernadette" (with its ground-breaking James Jamerson bass line), and exquisite covers of "If I Were a Carpenter" and "Walk Away Renee." Plus many, many more, classics all, all songs that hold up nearly a half-century later. I can listen to the Tops all day and all night and not tire of them.

(To honor his memory, here's a clip of the Four Tops singing "Baby, I Need Your Loving" from 1965. Enjoy.)

The Tops were unique in that they stayed intact with original members for so long. Levi and Duke and Obie and Lawrence were the Four Tops from 1954 until Lawrence's passing in 1997. The Temps didn't stay intact for near that long (20+ members and still counting), nor did the Supremes. But the Tops were the Tops, musical soul mates from beginning to end.

I had the good fortune of catching the Tops in Las Vegas in the early 1990s. They were on a double-bill with the Four Seasons (Four Tops/Four Seasons -- get it?), and it looked to be a standard Vegas lounge gig. It wasn't. Oh, the Four Seasons were as lame as you can imagine (and even then Frankie Valli couldn't hit the high notes), but the Tops brought the house down. The show was super high energy, nonstop hits, everybody dancing in the aisles and on their seats. It was a joyous noise, propelled by Levi and that voice. There was nothing like it -- and there probably never will be.

It saddens me to see the great performers of my generation getting old and passing on. Isaac Hayes a month or so ago, Levi Stubbs just yesterday, who's next? I don't want to know.

Anyway, here's to Levi Stubbs. I will miss his voice.

Race

2008-10-13T16:13:00.004-04:00

By all accounts, Barack Obama should be trouncing John McCain's ass something fierce. Historically low approval ratings for the current Prez, general dislike of anything incumbent or Republican, weariness of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the economy spiraling towards a Not-So-Great Depression... anybody running as a Democrat ought to be up by 15 or 20 points by now. Yes, Obama is starting to approach a double-digit lead, but that's recent and still not as big as you might imagine. The fact that McCain is still in the running, to me, speaks to a single issue.

Race.

Yes, there are some people who prefer McCain to Obama on policy issues, and some on "leadership." There are also the die-hard Republicans who would never switch sides, those closet cases with Daddy issues who always gravitate towards the older guy, and some older voters who identify more with a pre-Baby Boomer than a post one. But there is also a disturbingly large segment of the population, both young and old, who would never vote for a black man. They may couch their opposition in terms of "character," rail about Obama's past associates, or ask vague questions about "do we know who is is?," but at the core they're voting against Obama because they're racist. There is no other explanation.

Even in our supposedly enlightened society, racism still exists, and I see evidence of it daily. Relatives who shall remain nameless persist in spreading scurrilous emails that call Obama a terrorist, a Muslim, the anti-Christ, you name it. A surprising number of people consent to be interviewed on camera to say they'd never vote for a black man (although they often use a more insulting phrase). "He's not like us" is just a euphemism for saying he's back and you're white and you hate those blacks something fierce. Far too many ignorant people in America today still feel that way, some quite strongly and perhaps violently so. I worry for Obama's safety should he actually get elected.

Ignorance breeds prejudice and racism, and there are a lot of ignorant voters out there. Witness the near-rabid crowds at Republican rallies of late, crying out "terrorist" and "kill him" and likely worse epithets that the news media is self-censoring. You don't see any dark faces at these rallies; Sarah Palin's crowds, especially, give off the aura of a lynch mob or Nazi rally. It's frightening.

Palin may be over her head in lots of ways, but in this instance she's the perfect Nazi cheerleader, inciting the crowds with whatever propaganda she's been fed; I expect no less from someone who can deliver no more. I do expect more, however, from McCain. He's always seemed an honorable if somewhat curmudgeonly sort, and he should be better than all this. Or at least the old McCain was; the new 2008-edition John McCain appears to be the lowest form of pandering politician, doing anything his advisors suggest will help him win.

Granted, McCain has belatedly started tamping down some of the worst rhetoric. At a rally this week in Lakeville, MN (just a few miles from where I now live), an old woman in the town hall crowd said she wasn't voting for Obama because he was an "Arab." (It's sad when they can't even get their racism straight...) McCain stepped in to correct her and call Obama an honorable family man, but the crowd was already heavy in its blood lust and booed him. That tells you something.

I'd have a lot more respect for McCain if, at the upcoming final debate, he looked directly into the camera and said, "My friends, Senator Obama and I have some legitimate disagreements, and I think I'd be a better President than him. But if you're voting for me only because my opponent is a black man, I don't want your vote. Feel free stay home on election day, but don't vote for me because I'm white and Senator Obama is black. I don't want your racist votes."

That would turn a few heads, help to quiet the racist uprising (a little), and bring a much welcome note of civility to this increasingly uncivil election. I don't think it'll happen, but wouldn't it be pretty to think so?

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Crisis

2008-09-24T15:48:00.005-04:00

Anyone who is surprised by the current financial crisis hasn't been paying attention. From Wall Street's financial mavens to Main Street's craven mortgage brokers, everybody's been playing a giant confidence game. It's a pyramid scheme built on a base of bad loans, a multi-level marketing plan gone one level too far. In the game of risk vs. reward, the risk got too high -- because the rewards were so large as to be irresistible. And you and I, fellow taxpayers, are expected to bail out those gamblers who bet and lost billions (if not trillions) of dollars they didn't really have.

This financial crisis was totally predictable. All bubbles burst, eventually; a house of cards inevitably falls. That the high-stakes gambling and sub-prime lending went on so long speaks as much to unbridled greed as it does to the lack of governmental oversight. Somebody should have stepped in and said "no," but nobody did. In the Bush world, big government is bad when industries need regulating -- but good when bailouts are needed.

Should we, the taxpayers, bail out those firms that gambled and lost billions dealing with various forms of financial securities? Put it another way, would a big Las Vegas casino step in and write a big check to its biggest losers? I don't think so; you place your bets and you accept the consequences. The gamblers on Wall Street should be held no less accountable than their counterparts in Sin City.

If anybody needs bailing out, it's the consumers who were flim-flammed into taking out mortgages that they didn't need or couldn't afford. How many inexperienced potential homeowners got talked into interest-only mortgages that would blow up in their faces a few years down the pike? How many naive current homeowners were tricked into taking out home equity loans for 125% of their property's value? One could argue that these people signed their own fates, but with so many snake oil salesmen masquerading as mortgage brokers, somebody should have overseeing what was going down.

Yes, it all comes down to greed. And as many have stated, you can't legislate greed. (Some have even gone so far as to say that greed is a good thing, that it drives our capitalist society; I might argue with that.) But here's the thing: Unbridled greed does great harm. So while we can't regulate greed, we can control its effects. When outsized greed affects individuals, markets, and countries to this degree, we need to put regulations into place that limits the harm this greed can do.

In doing so, however, we don't need to put even more unfettered control in the hands of the Executive Branch. Excuse me for being just a little bit paranoid, but could this whole "crisis" be just another excuse for consolidating Executive power?

Exhibit A: Section 8 of the proposed bailout plan, which says that the Secretary of the Treasury (an appointed -- not elected -- official in the Executive Branch) has total unanswerable control. Here it is in full:

Sec. 8. Review. Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Got that? The new Financial Czar can do anything he wants and nobody -- not Congress, not the Supreme Court, not nobody -- can question him. Sound familiar? It's a common refrain in the Bush presidency.

So maybe the government does need to inject some funds into the financial markets. Maybe some firms do need some sort of bailout. (Heck, some individuals need a financial helping hand, too.) And maybe (or most definitely) we do need more stringent controls over high-stakes financial gambling going forward. But we don't need to further eviscerate the Constitution to give the Executive branch unstoppable powers to deal with this real or imagined crisis. Let Congress take its time and put together a plan that helps those individuals that truly need help -- and doesn't reward the fat cat financial "wizards" who gambled too much and unwisely.

But that's just my opinion. Reasonable minds may disagree.

Rectify

2008-07-02T16:31:00.002-04:00

In my last post I noted some of the many things that have gone wrong during my move from Indianapolis to Minneapolis. One of the major things I mentioned was the demise of my prized Media Center PC, which suffered from its second power supply problem in three years -- a big enough problem to deem the entire unit virtually unrepairable, or at least unrepairable for a reasonable cost.

At the time, the folks at Niveus said that the power supply took out the motherboard, that the old motherboard was no longer available, and that that meant I'd need to replace the power supply, motherboard, video board, audio board, you name it, for a price somewhere in the $2500-$3000 range. Given the number of problems over the years (caused, I suspect, by components running too hot in the silent, fanless chassis), I decided against repair, instead opting for a new PC custom-built by my home theater firm, Connect Home Theater.

Since that post, I've been pleasantly surprised by the response from the folks at Niveus, particularly VP of Marketing Brian Paper. I've always had a good relationship with Brian and Niveus, and when he heard of my plight, he offered to upgrade the entire PC for free. That, as they say, was an offer I couldn't refuse -- a $3,000 upgrade for free. So, after making sure that the folks at Connect Home Theater wouldn't be left in the lurch, I gave Brian the okay to proceed.

The "upgrade" involved shipping me an entirely new PC -- the latest Niveus Denali model. That included a 1TB hard disk (twice as big as the old one) and 2GB of memory (twice as much as the old one), along with the requisite new motherboard, video card, audio card, power supply, and the rest. Suffice to say, the new model performs superbly, and is just as quiet as the old one.

My only concern with sticking with a Niveus model was the early component failure issue, which I surmised was caused by too much heat build up in the unit. (My old PC got hot enough to fry an egg on . That's not an exaggeration; it needed plenty of ventilation, and even then got hot to the touch.) Brian assured me that while that might have been a problem with a PC made three years ago, today's components run much cooler out of the box, plus their cooling technology has improved. Turns out he's right; the new unit runs much cooler than the old one (warm, not hot), and hasn't given me a lick of trouble in the month I've had it back.

So here's a welcome exception to all those things that turn me curmudgeonly -- a company that stands behind their products, bends over backwards for their customers, and improves their products over time. Thanks, Niveus!

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Awry

2008-05-06T17:01:00.006-04:00

With moving, marriage, and such over the past few months, there has been ample opportunity for things to go awry. These are the things that bring out my curmudgeonliness, as most derive from simple human carelessness -- which, these days, is abundant.

What follows, then, is a simple cataloging of the major mistakes that have befallen me in my recent move from Indiana to Minnesota, for your reading pleasure.

We'll start with the firm that moved me from Indiana, which did a relatively decent job -- with a few exceptions. First, they moved three halogen floor lamps as-is, without first disassembling them; the result was three very bent and twisted floor lamps. In addition, they lost/broke/misplaced the coasters underneath my dining room table, requiring a makeshift repair on our end.

The firm that moved my wife (less than a mile down the road) did a much worse job. Their mistakes included somehow breaking the mechanism on my stepson's futon bed, as well as losing all the screws and related hardware for my stepdaughter's daybed and refusing to make good on the replacement, necessitating the purchase of a new unit.

Then we have the furniture, of which we purchased a bunch. Of the two swivel chairs we purchased for our new sun room, one arrived with a broken/missing caster; the rather inefficient fix was not to replace the single caster, but to give us a completely new chair.

We also ordered a new desk for my office, which took almost two months to arrive. When it was delivered the left-facing return we ordered was actually a right-facing one packed inside a box marked for the left-facing version. It took another two weeks for the correctly labeled return to arrive.

A similar mislabeling occurred with the 125-gallon saltwater aquarium we purchased. We ordered the whole setup in black, but when the fish store owner opened up the stand marked "black," he discovered an oak-finished stand inside, instead. We're still waiting for the black replacement.

We had two home theater systems installed (upstairs and down), as well as smaller systems installed in my wife's office and our bedroom. When one of the installers went to connect the audio receiver in the bedroom to the new in-wall speakers, he discovered that his fellow installer had forgotten to actually install the speakers; the grilles were there and the speaker wire was run, but there weren't any speakers behind the grilles!

The worst situation, however, involved my beloved Media Center PC, which houses my 1300-CD music collection in digital format. It was the very last part of our main home theater system to be connected, and when we plugged it in it went "poof." (Literally, that was the sound it made: "Poof!") The home theater firm sent it back to Niveus, the manufacturer, who confirmed that the power supply had gone bad. They also told me that the power supply had taken out the mother board with it, and that the mother board was an older type no longer available, and that that meant we had to replace the audio card, video card, and so on along with the power supply and the mother board -- easily a $2500-$3000 repair. (Although they also offered to let me trade in my old model on a current one for just $5000 --what a bargain!)

Given that this was the second bad power supply (and the third problem requiring factory repairs) in three years, I decided against the repair, instead opting for the home theater firm (Connect Home Theater) to custom build me a newer and more powerful model for just $2499. While I appreciate what Niveus was trying to achieve with a fanless, totally silent living room PC (and also appreciate the help they've given me over the years), I think their model is flawed; a fanless PC simply runs too hot, resulting in premature component failure. For me, the whole situation means that I'm now two months into the move and still don't have my music system up and running -- although I will be $2500 over my initial budget.

I'm sure few of you care about my little annoyances. That said, they are annoyances, and most could have been avoided with a little bit more in the way of quality control. And that's why they're so annoying.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Moving

2008-04-25T15:45:00.005-04:00

I haven't posted in a few months, because I've been extremely busy. In addition to my normal hyperloaded writing schedule, I moved to Minnesota, got married, and went on a honeymoon. That's two months or so of solid activity, from which I'm only just now recovering.

I'll leave the marriage bit for a future post, and focus for now on the moving part of the equation. First off, know that I've lived in the same city for all of my 50 years; this was a move out of state, which made it a big deal. While I did a fair share of moving from apartment to apartment when I was younger, I've lived for the past 16 years in the same house -- which means I simply didn't have much current experience with the moving thing.

I made it easy on myself by hiring movers to do the whole thing -- packing, loading, driving, etc. That was a good thing; what might have taken me weeks took them a few days. Luckily for me, the only damage I've noted (so far) was in three halogen floor lamps, which arrived somewhat bent out of shape. No big deal; the big stuff made it through relatively unscathed.

I moved from a 1700 sq. ft. one-story house to a 4000 sq. ft. two-story with a full basement. The extra space is nice (in spite of the stairs), especially with all the other people in the house. For the first time since high school, I'm sharing my abode with others; it's not that bad, really. My new wife and I have no problem sharing space, of course, and the house is big enough that the two kids and one grandkid sharing the house with us have their own private spaces. I don't even mind that the grandkid picked my office and my music room as his two favorite spaces; it's easy enough to close the doors when I don't want him in there.

While sharing the (bigger) space has worked out well, sharing stuff has proven more problematic. Quite frankly, I'm not used to sharing. It's not that I'm selfish (although I probably am), it's just that everything in my old house was my stuff -- I knew exactly what it was and where it was and no one else touched it. Not so anymore; it seems that everybody touches everything. I have to get used to that.

An example. In my old place, my kitchen refrigerator was filled almost exclusively with liquids. (I don't cook, so why buy food?) In the new place, the kitchen refrigerator is filled with food -- everybody's food. So we have a spare refrigerator in the garage for liquids, and I get half of one very short shelf in the main refrigerator for my personal stuff (still mostly liquids). Is that too much to ask, half of one shelf? But still, half the time someone has put something on my half a shelf, typically some sort of baby food or yogurt container. Can I not have my space?

But that's a minor thing. We've spent a lot of time and money fixing up the place to be our place. It's a massive house with a great big great room, complete with 20 foot ceilings and a floor-to-ceiling custom fireplace. We ended up buying almost all new furniture for the place, and splitting my old home theater system in two to service two different floors. I like my new music room, which is enough bigger than my old one to finally let me be comfortable. We got rid of the previous owner's basement bar setup and replaced it with built-in bookshelves for a nice little library, and we're in the process of setting up a 125 gallon saltwater aquarium. Lots of money for all this, but I like to get everything out of the way at once -- if I want it done, I want it done now, not a year or two from now.

All this (plus the wedding and honeymoon) has occupied a lot of my time, hence the lack of posting. In addition, I've had to get used to living in Minnesota, the land where winter never stops. (They're talking about snow flurries tomorrow -- on April 26th!) It was nice, however, when the main snowpack melted and we finally got a chance to see the yard we purchased. It's a big half-acre, which means lots of mowing and such this summer. Fortunately, we got a riding lawnmower as part of the deal, and it has a cupholder, so that should work out okay.

In any case, I'm trying to hone my Minnesota accent and learning to drive under the speed limit (something no one in Indiana ever does). The populace is stereotypically nice up here, and they've made the move easier. So has my wife, of course -- she being the reason I moved up here in the first place. I think I like it.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Dusty

2008-02-08T09:52:00.000-05:00

There seems to be a resurgence of interest in Dusty Springfield of late, in particular her landmark 1969 album, Dusty in Memphis. This is good.

Dusty in Memphis was a great album; it's on my top five all-time album list. That's due in part to Dusty's sensual white soul vocals, of course, but also due to the choice of material. This was back in the day when singers didn't feel obligated to write their own material, which meant they chose songs from professional songwriters -- almost always of a higher caliber than that from non-trained writers. In Dusty's case, she had a knack for choosing first-rate songs from the top songwriters of the day. Or maybe the top songwriters singled her out for their best tunes. Whatever the case, one can't argue the results.

On Dusty in Memphis one finds tunes by Burt Bacharach and Hal David ("In the Land of Make Believe"), Carole King and Gerry Goffin ("So Much Love," "Don't Forget About Me," "No Easy Way Down," "I Can't Make It Alone"), Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil ("Just a Little Lovin'", Randy Newman ("Just One Smile," "I Don't Want to Hear It Anymore"), and Alan and Marilyn Bergman with Michel Legrand ("Windmills of Your Mind"). Plus the superb "Son of a Preacher Man" (by John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins) and "Breakfast in Bed" (Eddie Hinton and Donnie Fritts). Not a ringer among them.

Among all these great songs, my personal favorite is Newman's "I Don't Want to Hear It Anymore," which is just heartbreaking. Of course, Dusty delivers on the heartbreak, just as she does on the sweet seduction of "Breakfast in Bed" and the sublime Southern sexuality of "Son of a Preacher Man." For a white chick from England, she had a lot of soul.

Believe it or not, we're coming up on the 40th anniversary of Dusty in Memphis; the album was released in 1969 to much fanfare but disappointing sales. Like many of pop music's best works, Dusty in Memphis gained stature over the years, eventually being recognized for the classic that it is. I expect we can see some sort of special 40th anniversary re-release next year, complete with alternate takes, bonus tracks, and a long-lost recording of Dusty putting on her mascera. While I welcome a remastered version, I'm not all that hot on "expanded" versions of classic albums; I want to hear the album as it was originally released, not tarnished by unwanted bonus tracks. If you have bonuses, put them on a separate disc; let the original album end as it was intended.

Perhaps it's the pending anniversary which has inspired the current attention to Dusty and her landmark album. It started last year, with Breakfast in Bed, a somewhat overlooked CD by Joan Osborne that was obviously inspired by Dusty and Dusty in Memphis. I found that CD ultimately disappointing, despite the choice of material and Osborne's inspired vocals; the production and arrangements had too much of a 2000-era sheen and approach instead of the classic understated accompaniment that the collection of soul tunes required.

A much better tribute is Shelby Lynne's Just a Little Lovin', just released to much publicity and acclaim. I've been a Shelby Lynne fan since her extraordinary 2000 CD, I Am Shelby Lynne, and this new album cements her reputation as a Dusty-insprired songstress. On this album she takes several songs from Dusty in Memphis, along with a selection of other Dusty tunes, and makes them her own. The album has a Norah Jones-type vibe; the instrumentation is laid back and stripped down, which lets Lynne's sultry vocals come to the forefront. It's a worthy tribute to a great vocalist and a great album, yet more than stands on its own as a showcase for one of today's most talented artists.

As with the original Dusty in Memphis, of course, much of the appeal of Just a Little Lovin' lies in its selection of quality material; again, all the best songwriters of the 1960s are represented. Great songs sung by a great singer; that will always be a winning combination.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Archer

2007-12-28T20:50:00.000-05:00

Right now I'm a happy man. One of the reasons I'm happy is that Vintage Crime/Black Lizard has just re-released two more long-out-of-print Ross Macdonald novels, The Doomsters and The Barbarous Coast. This follows the re-release back in July of The Ivory Grin and The Way Some People Die. It's almost criminal that these and several other Macdonald novels have been out of print so long, in some cases close to twenty years. These are classic American detective fiction, but more than that; they are books that bridged the genre gap into actual literary fiction.

Ross Macdonald (real name: Kenneth Millar) was the third of the seminal Big Three writers in the hard-boiled detective genre. First came Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man), who established the form from its roots in the pulp magazines of the day. He was followed by Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely), who combined Hammett's hard-boiled nature with a not-so-subtle romanticism. But it was Macdonald, through his alter ego Lew Archer, who added a psychological dimension to the standard detective thriller and turned it into true literature.

Unlike Hammett's all-business Continental Op or Chandler's slumming angel Philip Marlowe, Macdonald's Lew Archer was as much psychologist or father confessor as he was a hard-boiled private detective. Archer was compelled to get to the reasons why the crime was committed, even if that took him back multiple generations within a family.

As a critic once noted, Macdonald's books aren't so much who-dunnits as why-dunnits. Starting with 1959's The Galton Case, Macdonald probed the psychological depths of cross-generational family sagas; the sins of the father (or mother) were often visited on or repeated by the son (or daughter). Archer wasn't necessarily out to bring the criminal to justice or to avenge the victim, but to discover the truth and perhaps bring a little peace to the current generation. As Macdonald had Archer say in one of his cases, "I have a secret passion for mercy. But justice is what keeps happening to people."

I find the Lew Archer novels to be among my favorite novels, period -- no genre qualification necessary. I'd put Sleeping Beauty, The Underground Man, or The Goodbye Look up against anything from Hemingway or Steinbeck; they have the depth and intelligence and heart of true literature. I tend to reread two or three Macdonald books every year; having some previously unread (and hard-to-find) books re-released makes for a joyous occasion, in my book.

It's a shame, however, that Macdonald hasn't stayed in the eye of the reading public the same way that Hammett and Chandler have. Perhaps it's because there hasn't really been a faithful film adaption of Macdonald's best works; the slightly off-kilter Harper and The Drowning Pool (in which Paul Newman changed Lew Archer to Lew Harper and played him in an uncharacteristic rakish fashion) don't have the visceral impact of the movie versions of The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep -- two of the best movie mysteries (and most faithful adaptions) ever. (And, I suppose, Paul Newman is no Humphrey Bogart.) Of course, Macdonald's books are so layered that it may be impossible to condense them for the screen. In any case, it's a shame that so many of Macdonald's books have been out-of-print for so long. (Fortunately, Macdonald's final book, The Blue Hammer, along with The Instant Enemy, are due to be re-released on April 8, 2008 -- place your Amazon orders now!)

(The fact that Macdonald was the logical successor to Hammett and Chandler begs the question who was the successor to Macdonald. Some have granted Robert B. Parker that honor; as much as I love Parker and Spenser, his fictional creation, I'm less convinced over time of the heritage. More likely, there is no natural successor to Hammett; with the end of the Archer books, the detective genre splintered into multiple sub-genres and authors, each worthy on their own merits but none advanced the entire genre as the Big Three had.)

All that said, having two "new" Macdonald books to read makes me very happy. I hope you share in my delight by going out and purchasing your own copies of The Doomsters and The Barbarous Coast -- as well as special ordering any other book from Macdonald's distinguished catalog.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

At War

2007-11-04T09:56:00.000-05:00

President Bush likes to justify everything he does by reminding us that America is "at war." Just this week he used that phrase to attack Democrats in Congress who are opposing both his nomination for attorney general and his requests for additional military spending:

"Politicians who deny that we are at war are either being disingenuous or naive. Either way, it is dangerous for our country. We are at war, and we cannot win this war by wishing it away or pretending it does not exist."

Those are the president's words, not mine. Because, you see, I don't think we're at war -- and I'm neither disingenuous or naive.

Yes, our troops are in a war zone in Iraq and thousands of them have been killed as a result. But just because a few hundred thousand troops have been injected into a foreign country's civil war doesn't mean that the country of America is at war with that country, or those individual factions that are warring between themselves. If we're truly at war, who do we surrender to if we lose? Who surrenders to us if we win? In fact, what does winning mean?

If America was at war, you and I here on the home front would know it. We'd have food and gasoline rationing; our factories would be converted to churning out munitions instead of Mustangs. More noticeable would be the draft; millions of our sons and daughters would be conscripted by the military. Every family in America would be affected.

But none of those things are happening. There is no rationing, there is no draft. The average American feels not one whit of hardship over this so-called "war" we're in. Our country is not being attacked; our country is not in peril. This is a military action of convenience, not a war of survival.

Perhaps the president, when he refers to us being "at war," is not referring to the action in Iraq, but rather what he has variously called the "war on terrorists," "war on terrorism," or "war on Islamofascism." These are "wars" like the "war on drugs" is a war, wars perhaps of ideas but not of realities. After all, terrorism is but a tactic, and one cannot go to war against a tactic. In addition, we're not fighting all terrorists, only those who might be targeting our country; we're not arming to defeat those using terrorist tactics in Northern Ireland, for example.

As to the so-called war on Islamofascism, I don't even know what that is or who they are. More to the point, I don't see any of these people, whoever they are, organizing to attack our country en masse. Maybe a few foot soldiers here and there, but that seems to be more of a criminal action than a military one. Where are the troops invading our shores? I don't see them.

Is America under attack? My neighborhood isn't, and neither is yours. Yes, there was the single deadly attack six years ago in New York, but that's all it was. It wasn't another country invading ours; it wasn't Hitler storming into Poland. It was an isolated action by a small group of international criminals -- whose leader, BTW, our incompetent government still hasn't caught and brought to justice.

Bottom line, America is not at war. Some of our troops may be in a war zone in Iraq, but that does not justify the sweeping powers President Bush seems to feel a "war president" is entitled to. He is no more a "war president" than I am King of All That is Right. So let's dispense with the nonsense language and view things as they are -- not as Bush and Cheney would like to pretend they might be.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Postal

2007-10-07T11:27:00.000-04:00

I live in Carmel, a suburb north of Indianapolis, and the Carmel post office is a big one and a good one. Busy sometimes, as you might expect, but even long lines move fast when they have all 4 main counter positions and the auxiliary Postal Store counter open. (Especially when Joe, the guy who looks like Radar O'Reilly, is working; he's twice as fast as the other employees.)

So I had no problems with my post office. Some people complained at the lines around Christmas, but what do you expect? It was a pretty good setup.

Emphasis on the word "was."

Last year, the post office decided to augment the normal counter workers with two automated postal machines. No big deal; just two extra ways to get the job done. People don't use the machines much, of course, because they prefer the human interaction. Plus the human beings are faster than the machines. Still, nice to have the option if you wanted it.

But that wasn't good enough for the United States Postal Service. Last month they took out two counter positions and replaced them with two more of those infernal automated postal machines. Not augmented -- replaced. So now there are two fewer human beings to deal with, and two more mostly unused postal machines.

I asked Joe if people were really using the machines, and he replied, "They'll have to." That's customer service for you -- give the customers more of what they don't want. Now the lines to the human beings will be twice as along, while a lone manager stands next to the unused machines imploring customers to use them. Which we won't, because we don't like them. We like the reassurance of dealing with a human being, as opposed to the uncertainty of dealing with a machine. Plus, as I've noted, in this particular instance a good employee is much faster than these machines. Why use something that's slower and inspires less confidence?

Because the Postal Service wants to cut costs, is why. Fuck customer service, let's cut costs! (And still increase the price of stamps, of course.) Now people will have a real reason to complain when they're waiting in the now-longer lines at Christmastime. Good job, USPS. Maybe I'll start shipping more items out via FedEx.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.

Money

2007-08-24T09:28:00.000-04:00

And here you have it, the the primary reason that our presidential elections are so screwed up, from a Reuters news story posted today:

The presidential election is 14 months away and with as many as 17 candidates now running, U.S. television and radio broadcasters are elated at the prospect of billions more in advertising dollars...

Wall Street analysts predict television stations alone could bring in a record $2 billion to $3 billion from the 2008 election cycle, up from $1.6 billion in 2006 and $900 million in 2004. Companies expected to benefit include CBS Corp., Hearst-Argyle Television Inc. and Meredith Corp., with the latter two particularly seen benefiting in the early voting states.

The candidates have to start campaigning earlier to raise enough money to compete. The earlier campaigning means they spend more money. It's a vicious circle.

Raising all that money makes the candidates beholden to their contributors, and to the ever-increasing number of lobbyists and special interests. This, in turn, taints those who win, with the lobbyists and special interests making sure to call in their favors when it's time to govern.

It's all about the money. Cut the money out of the process, and you get cleaner government, less campaigning, and shorter election cycles.

The problem is, who makes all that money? Big media companies do. And if we cut the money out of the process, they stand to lose enormous amounts of revenues and profits. So you don't see big media companies pushing for election reform. No sir, you don't. It's not in their best interests.

It is in the interests of ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and CNN to prolong the election cycle. The longer the election cycle, the more money they make. So why not drum up false stories and suspense as early as possible? There's big money in it.

A shorter election cycle would be a good thing. Elections without billions spent on television, radio, and newspaper advertising would be a good thing. Politicians who didn't have to spend all their time raising money -- and then taking orders from donors and lobbyists -- would be a good thing. But the media isn't interested in a good thing, they're interested in their own profits.

And that's why we'll never have significant election reform. Hell, you'll never even hear about any such efforts; the media simply won't report them.

But that's just my opinion; reasonable minds may disagree.