Et maintenant??

the anti-contraceptive people

2012-02-18T15:21:00.001-06:00

The Presidential campaign is getting more stupid by the day. As the Republican candidates try to out-conservative each other, they have become obsessed about the "evils" of birth control and family planning. To them, the part of the Obama health care law that more or less mandates health care plans to cover birth control options shows that he is anti-religion, anti-Catholic, certainly anti-family.

Never mind that, even among Catholics, polls show that 98% of sexually active Catholic women in the U.S. have used birth control methods banned by the Catholic Church -- rules made by theoretically celibate men, of course. And, if they are using the Genesis legend as their reason for such oppressive beliefs -- God telling Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply" -- consider that there were only two people then, now there are more than 7 billion. Maybe they were a little too fruitful.

Rick Santorum, somehow a serious candidate for President, has said that sexual intercourse should only be for the intent of procreation. Newt Gingrich says that Obama has declared war on the Catholic Church (I wonder if any of Gingrich's mistresses ever used birth control!). What an embarrassment for this country that such talk is not laughed off the national stage. I miss the days when phrases like "population explosion" and "zero population growth" were part of a more intelligent dialogue.

a place where you can't blame the liquor

2012-02-17T08:06:00.000-06:00

Hey there. Hard to believe, but I took a day off, maybe to re-group (this was supposed to be my cruise week, you know), and am here at Mystic Lake Casino. I used one of my free hotel nights, and it's only a half hour or so from home and a decent short getaway. Work-wise, I'll make up for it over the weekend.

Mystic Lake has become quite a sprawling complex, and I like it even though it has a lot of slot machines that are too complicated for me to understand, so I mostly avoid them, which is a probably a good thing. The hotel rooms are nice. What is weird about Mystic Lake is that it is a totally alcohol-free facility -- booze isn't even allowed in the hotel rooms. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't alcohol-free gambling not what nature intended gambling to be?

madness continues

2012-02-16T14:38:00.000-06:00

My month of seeing the Oscar nominees for Best Picture before the February 26th Academy Awards is going by quickly. Out of the nine nominated films, I have just one more to see -- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close -- and I'm just waiting for my niece Ruthie, who is currently sick as a dog, to be able to leave her sick bed long enough to go to the movies with me. If she isn't well by this weekend, she might have to wait for this movie to come out on DVD! Not sure that I want her hacking her brains out in the seat next to me anyway, now that I think about it.. j/k, Ruthie! :-)

I saw a good little film the other evening -- Beginners, starring Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer -- about a man who "comes out of the closet" at age 75. Christopher Plummer will certainly get my "vote" for Best Supporting Actor as the fun-loving late bloomer.

facebook as a weapon

2012-02-15T16:07:00.000-06:00

There are many good things about having Facebook -- hooking up with people you haven't seen in forty years, for instance -- and there are just as many bad things. You've read about the cyber-bullying and all that extreme abuse. But there is also the personal contact that Facebook replaces, the way people can use it to hurt each other, and the way bad news is often transmitted these days. People find reasons to "de-friend" each other or leave Facebook, offending in ways that didn't use to be possible. I sometimes wonder if Facebook has peaked. As soon as somebody gets pissed enough, they drop out, and, the way things are going, we will get all get pissed enough eventually.

eli's coming

2012-02-14T16:40:00.000-06:00

Jerry picked me up for lunch today, and we decided to try the new Eli's restaurant (http://elisfoodandcocktails.com/) across the river. For the past two or three years, the original Eli's, located just two blocks from the condo, has been our go-to place to eat when we can't think of anywhere else to go, and it seems to be the most popular small casual-eating place in the neighborhood.

I'm sure it was a big decision for them to open a second location, but sometimes ya gotta take a chance. The new place has a cool feel (not as cool as the original, though), same good menu and food... a fine place to hang out and chat about life...

and the oscar goes to -- #2

2012-02-13T09:25:00.000-06:00

It's April 1968, the Oscars for 1967 films. The show took place on April 10, postponed at the last minute from April 8 because of the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4. I was very into movies that year and it was just a couple weeks before I, the unwilling draftee, was inducted into the Army to be transformed into a killing machine.

In the Best Actor category, I was hoping for Dustin Hoffman to win for The Graduate, my second choice being Warren Beatty for Bonnie and Clyde. Rod Steiger was great in In the Heat of the Night, so it shouldn't have been surprising for me that he won, but I was anyway.

Audrey Hepburn is the presenter, cool as always.

[Click on YouTube, then come back to me]

events at target center

2012-02-12T12:16:00.001-06:00

Last night, Tom and I were at Target Center, a few blocks from home in downtown Minneapolis, for the Timberwolves/New York Knicks game. The sports figure of the moment (this month's Tim Tebow) is Jeremy Lin of the Knicks, and he wasn't overly impressive in this game but the Knicks won anyway as the Wolves collapsed in the fourth quarter. This is life as you know it, if you are a Wolves fan.

And this is how people communicate in 2012: I was checking out Facebook on my Blackberry occasionally during the game, and friends' posts kept popping up saying that Whitney Houston was dead. These days, rumors like that travel fast in the cyber world and are usually wrong. This one was right.

Whitney Houston's peak was in the '80s and the early '90s, and she was a superstar. After that, she became a tabloid tragedy and a lost soul.

And, as I sat there in Target Center digesting all this, I remembered that my sister Joan had brought me to a Whitney concert right there in that arena, and we sat not far from where my Wolves tickets are, just a few feet away. It was in the early '90s, the "I'm Your Baby Tonight" World Tour. I wasn't the biggest fan, but her concert was enjoyable and I recognized the power of her voice. Her style was just not my style. My style would have been more the style of Whitney's mom, singer Cissy Houston, or Whitney's cousin, Dionne Warwick -- all their '60s work.

What a sad story. How devastating it must be for her family. And for her fans, who haven't forgotten her.

number seven hundred

2012-02-11T11:34:00.000-06:00

Today I join The 700 Club. Not -- God forbid! -- Pat Robertson's 700 Club. This is my 700th blog post, and I would think that makes me part of just a very small group: those who don't give up on their blog merely because they run out of ideas! Heck, if I stopped blogging when I ran out of ideas, I wonder when that would have been?? :-)

It's a work day Saturday, and, as I work, I am listening to the '70s station on Sirius Radio's website, at the moment re-broadcasting Casey Kasem's American Top 40 Countdown from February 9, 1974. As I listen, I'm hearing some songs I never heard before (that never made it into the Top 30, probably) and some songs that should have been forgotten... and some songs that are fun to hear again. This was the era of Elton John in his prime, and I was at that moment fanatical over his album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. A month later, my son Jon was born, and my priorities, well, made an adjustment.
*****
At the end of the Countdown: #1 was "Love's Theme" by the Love Unlimited Orchestra; #2 was "The Way We Were" by Barbra Streisand.

how howard is doing

2012-02-10T15:57:00.001-06:00

I had an email from a good friend of mine this morning, saying that she reads my blog daily... "so I have a picture of WHAT you are doing, but I sure am wondering HOW things are going for you..."

For anybody else wondering the HOW, let me assure you that I'm fine. I'm hoping that the changes at home are temporary and that Jerry will be back soon and everything will be hunky-dory, but I also recognize that it might not happen.

What I'm noticing in myself these weeks is that I at times have been extremely hyper... too much coffee, too many working hours, and maybe a suppressed anxiety. I have become more productive in the office than I have been in years -- sort of an Energizer Bunny -- which is a good by-product of all this from a business perspective, as long as I don't stroke out!

My blog is my ten-minute-a-day moment away from reality, a daydream into the alternative crevices of my brain, and therefore not terribly helpful for gauging my real-life mental geography. But know I am well and grateful for those people who care about me.

meaningless get-togethers

2012-02-09T15:53:00.000-06:00

I'm amused that Mitt Romney did so poorly in the Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado caucuses this past Tuesday.

He doesn't do well in caucus states, and I think there's a reason for that. My experience with caucuses here in Minnesota is that the people who are driven by an agenda or some sort of passion are the ones that show up on caucus night. A caucus is not representative of the voting populace.

And most Romney supporters feel no passion for him. They have no reason to take two or three hours out of a winter evening to go sit in a room listening to their neighbors vent when it just leads to a non-binding straw poll where they vote for a candidate they are only lukewarm about. The Rick Santorum supporters at least feel passion, not for Santorum himself but for his message of bigotry and exclusivity.

Romney will be glad to get back to the primary-election states, where less effort will be required by his supporters, and, let's face it, he probably doesn't have many real supporters: they are just voting against the other wacko candidates.

judy, what were you thinking??

2012-02-08T14:56:00.001-06:00

To tell the truth, I wasn't particularly in the mood to go to the theater last night, but I had these tickets and, well, you know... But I was lucky enough to get my niece Ruthie to go with me, and doing something with Ruthie is always an momentary-crisis adventure that somehow ends in laughs: her losing her driver's license in the lobby, losing her debit card under the seats in front of us, that sort of thing...

But how quickly I got in the mood! The play is End of the Rainbow, and it turned out to be one of the best shows I've ever seen at the Guthrie. The Guthrie is the venue for the American premiere of the play, which started with a successful run in London. From Minneapolis, it moves on to Broadway.

End of the Rainbow is about Judy Garland in 1968, the last year of her life, when she is a drunk, drugged-up, foul-mouthed emotional disaster, when she is making an extended appearance at the Talk of the Town club in London. The set goes back and forth (very effectively) between her London hotel suite and the stage at the Talk of the Town. The most amazing part of the show, as you will also be saying afterwards if you go to this play, is Tracie Bennett as Judy. First of all, she is a convincing Judy Garland, but you will be in awe at the sheer energy it must take to play this manic role night after night. She is on stage for practically the whole two hours, and none of that time is restful. How she cannot be totally exhausted after each performance is beyond my imagination. Or maybe she is.

Highly recommended! This is a hot show, man!

After we double-checked to make sure Ruthie had all her belongings, we went back out into the chilly night.

the head stomp

2012-02-07T12:56:00.002-06:00

Oh damn. Kevin Love has been suspended for two games merely for stomping on Houston Rockets player Luis Scola's head. What's funny is that Tom and I were at that Wolves game last Saturday night and had no idea it happened. Ah, the magic of instant replay!

and the oscar goes to -- #1

2012-02-06T20:17:00.000-06:00

OK, the Oscar month thing again. Here is a flashback to a previous Academy Award program, in 1988, when Cher won Best Actress for Moonstruck, which, coincidentally, is my favorite movie. Her dress is awful and her speech is lame, but, considering that is Cher of all people (!) winning an Oscar, it was definitely a memorable moment. You also get to see Chastity in the audience still being a girl!
*****
Sorry if you get re-directed to YouTube to watch this. Please come back after that.

mid-winter sports update

2012-02-05T08:34:00.000-06:00

It's Super Bowl Sunday, and is it just me, or is everybody other than Giants and Patriots fans thinking, Who cares? You might be having a party and consuming obscene amounts of alcohol and Doritos, but for me it's going to be an evening of doing something else. You know I usually love football, but it was a dreary season, very unexciting, and I feel no remorse over it ending.

But moving onto basketball -- I am back into the Minnesota Timberwolves in a big way. The season got off to a late start because of a lockout by the team owners, but the Wolves, thanks to Ricky Rubio and Kevin Love, are so much fun to watch that I have been making the best of my season tickets. This says something about the low expectations of Timberwolves fans, but we are very excited that they are at .500 -- a 12-12 record, which might not sound that great to you, but consider that their record last year was something like 16-64, the worst in the league.

Hockey? Locally, the Minnesota Wild got off to a great start early in the season but have mostly collapsed since then.

Skiing? Snowmobiling? With no snow, it has been a bad winter for those folks. As for the rest of us, we're thinking, Hey, baseball spring training starts next month!

But, anyway, if you watch, enjoy the Super Bowl. At least you get to see Madonna at half time.

bug shows

2012-02-04T15:10:00.000-06:00

I had dinner with my son Jon last night (at Hell's Kitchen, in downtown Minneapolis), then he came over to my place.

And it's not like Jon and me to sit there and watch TV, but the TV was on and we somehow gravitated to the high-number HD cable channels, those channels that I don't really even know exist. And it was eye-opening.

There are some weird networks out there, dude. We found ourselves flipping back and forth between the Animal Planet and the Science Network -- shows with names like "Monster Bug Wars", "Killer Ants", "Animal Hoarders" and "Infested." It was strange, seeing thousands of killer bugs in High-Definition ripping apart other animals or infesting homes, yet we couldn't look away either. There's a world out there that I don't know about, and maybe thats okay!

I say to Jon, "How can there even be people who watch this stuff?" And he responds, "Hey, if there are people who watch the Kardashians, then there are people who will watch anything!"

today's decision

2012-02-03T15:51:00.000-06:00

This morning someone told me that he had once been advised by a therapist, "When you wake up in the morning, you make a decision about whether to love that person in your life." And somehow that made sense to him.

And I'm thinking, what hogwash. Where is the passion in that? Love isn't a mental decision, is it?

resisting fear of my shadow

2012-02-02T09:35:00.000-06:00

I don't know yet what happened with that groundhog in Punxsutauney, Pennsylvania this morning, but Groundhog Day here in Minneapolis, in the middle of this freakishly warm winter, is dark and foggy, in a sort of Wuthering Heights sort of way.

...Which means that I didn't get scared by my shadow and didn't go scurrying back into my burrow for another six weeks of winter.

...Which is good because I don't feel like hibernating right now. There is too much fun stuff to do here above ground.

movie madness 2012

2012-02-01T18:19:00.001-06:00

(.. or maybe it's just plain ordinary madness...)

Sorry, long-suffering blog readers of mine, but it is February once again, which means that the Academy Awards are coming up at the end of the month and I have that odd tradition of making sure I see all of the Best Picture Oscar nominees, which means that I end up cramming a bunch of films into the month of February.

This year there are nine Best Picture nominees, and I've so far seen four of them: Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen), The Artist, The Help, and Moneyball (Brad Pitt).

The five I plan on seeing before February 26: Hugo (Martin Scorcese in 3D), The Descendents (George Clooney), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, War Horse (Spielberg), The Tree of Life.

So pardon me as I make much ado about nothing, and fair warning: I might hit on one or two of you good people to see a couple of these shows with me.

pacmen doing their dirty deeds

2012-01-31T10:07:00.001-06:00

Ho hum.. Another Tuesday, another over-reporting of a Republican presidential primary, this time in Florida.

I was just reading, today is also the day that the names of the major contributors to the "Super PACs" will be released. Do you know about the Super PACs? If you don't yet, you will in the general election, if you are in the U.S. at least. They are the PACs (PAC=Political Action Committees), thanks to our right-wing Supreme Court, to which zillionaires and corporations can make unlimited contributions. Those PACs can be created to promote specific political candidates separate from the accountability of the candidates themselves, so they can be used to create TV ads, for instance, that are full of lies and slime and distortions and the candidate himself or herself can play innocent -- "I have no say in what they do. It's free speech."

One example is that Las Vegas casino owner (of the Venetian Hotel, a casino I will never walk into again) who has contributed about $10 million to a Super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich. Of course, this guy is worth $21 billion, so contributing $10 million would be like you and me handing a dollar to a panhandler.

So, as everything else in America is these days, it's all about Super Money, the big monsters gobbling up the rest of us. It will be a disgusting election year, and maybe that's the real goal of the Super PACs: to turn us off so much that we won't vote.

obama goes green

2012-01-30T11:05:00.001-06:00

It's not often that we have a President who does something cool, but President Obama did it last week at New York's Apollo Theater -- singing a line from Al Green's 1972 classic "Let's Stay Together"...

... and, just in case you forgot, here is the original --

going down with the ship

2012-01-29T17:09:00.001-06:00

Remember the February cruise I announced we were going on? It looks like the trip plan is off (and it has nothing to do with that cruise ship sinking in Italy about a day after I told you I was going on my first cruise), so maybe this won't be my first year to take a vacation during a busy season after all... OR who knows? Maybe, since everybody seems to think I should take a vacation break, something else will come up...

Yesterday's drive out of the Twin Cities turned out to be fairly directionless after all (but I do love driving my car!). I went about eighty miles north, noticed or remembered how many grossly overweight and Tea Party people there are in outstate Minnesota (coincidence?), hung out there for a while, got bored, came home. The skyline of Minneapolis welcomed me.

a good mood, revisited

2012-01-28T12:09:00.001-06:00

The blog post that over my blogging years has gotten the most hits -- by far! -- is my February 13, 2011 post "good mood food". It's mostly because lots of people over the past year have Googled that Arby's tag line, which was just about to premiere back then, but it might also be because there was a cool photo of my son Tom with three of the Minnesota Timberwolves Dance Team members.

Deja vu -- see the pic above! Last night Tom and I went to the Wolves basketball game vs. the San Antonio Spurs, and he had a chance to have his picture taken again with Dance Team members. His big smile with these nice ladies plus the Wolves winning the game put us both in a good mood -- even without Arby's mozzarella sticks!

there are times when i'd rather be in new jersey

2012-01-27T15:10:00.000-06:00

For instance:

I need to work part of tomorrow (Saturday), and I feel such an urge to get in my car after that and drive somewhere -- you know, maybe do an overnight. I still haven't given my new car a really good workout, and driving, for me, can be very therapeutic and maybe I need something therapeutic.

But there is the usual dilemma of where the heck to drive to, especially in January -- or do I just drive aimlessly? Everything is most directions from the Twin Cities is so the same!

Minnesota and the states around here are just so f-ing BIG! Hence -- a benefit of New Jersey -- it is so f-ing SMALL that within two or three hours of driving time there is so much to potentially experience -- and it's not all the same!

Sometimes the same is good. Sometimes the same is a killer.

how James is doing

2012-01-26T14:56:00.000-06:00

We are under the same roof and sometimes like ships passing in the night, but I had a chance to catch up with James last night, have a nice dinner, hear how he's doing.

Over the past seven months, I've needed some self-imposed reminders of what it's like to be 18 years old and some reality checks of what it must be like to be 18 in the year 2012. Trust me on this, I'm glad I was 18 when I was rather than now.

He seems to have settled into his life as a working college student, and I keep reminding myself how far he has come since June. He was definitely meant to be a big-city kid. His second-semester classes are off to an excellent start, and I'm proud of how he has eased into this winter semester. He takes 'most everything in stride, maybe better than I would if I were in his shoes.

mitt romney's taxes, or lack thereof

2012-01-25T16:23:00.000-06:00

This isn't about what a bad candidate Mitt Romney is, it's about what a bad tax system we have.

Much has been made of Romney finally releasing copies of his tax returns this week and what a relatively small percentage of his $21 million earnings (or whatever) went for taxes. Then he went on TV to say that he doesn't apologize for being successful.

Nobody begrudges him success, I guess. The complaint is that the bush tax cuts made unearned income (capital gains, qualifying dividends) taxed at a much lower rate than earned income. So people whose income comes from W-2s, from going to work every day, often pay a much higher rate of tax than a zillionaire who just watches his money make more money.

Romney should be saying, "Hey, that isn't fair -- I should be paying more taxes." Instead, his tax plan says that zillionaires should pay even less than they already are. He then plays to people who don't understand taxes (the majority of voters, of course) and says "Lower taxes!", and they buy into it. Hence, our economic catastrophe.

a little less evasive but not totally

2012-01-24T18:07:00.000-06:00

I was glancing at my blog statistics and noted that my "page views" the past three days have been quite a bit higher than usual. I can't help but wonder if a certain Facebook post on Sunday (I am beginning to hate Facebook, by the way) made some of my family and friends wonder what the heck is going on with me and thought that I might shed some light here.

So here's the deal in a nutshell: Jerry has moved out for a while. He needs some alone time, and everybody needs some alone time now and then. There was no fight, everything is friendly, I'm optimistic that everything will work out okay.

And that is most of what I know.

And I thank people for caring about me and about us.

beware of soft shoe shufflers

2012-01-23T11:38:00.000-06:00

The Concert for Bangladesh - 1971. Lead vocals by George Harrison and Leon Russell.

et tu, indeed!

2012-01-22T16:21:00.000-06:00

a gloomy January Sunday afternoon...
... and my mind is still on Brutus a little bit... I realize Julius Caesar is just a play, but how amazing is it that the character Brutus loved Caesar as much as he did but could still be talked into pushing that fatal dagger? Where was his higher loyalty?

praising, not burying

2012-01-21T11:53:00.000-06:00

photo by Heidi Bohnenkamp

As I lamented in my post on March 15, 2011 ("et tu, dudes?"), people aren't required to read Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in high school anymore; thus, certain phrases have been lost to recent generations: "Beware the Ides of March!", "et tu, Brute?", "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him", "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears..."

Until last night, I had just seen Julius Caesar performed once. It was back in my senior year in high school, a class trip to Princeton University. That production was a traditional staging and very well done, as I recall, and I always prefer a period staging of Shakespeare rather than an updating to more modern times.

The new Guthrie Theater production, in association with the Acting Company, updates the story to present day. It takes a little time to get used to seeing Caesar and his assassins in business suits, some rap music in the background, the protestors looking very current (even an "Occupy Rome!" sign), but somehow it all works. The acting is top-notch, of course, especially Will Sturdivant as Brutus. Brutus is always the star of this play, you know. Or maybe you didn't know.

rest in peace, Etta

2012-01-20T17:29:00.000-06:00

Etta James -- January 25, 1938 to today, January 20, 2012. Thanks for all the good music over the years.

the second mrs. gingrich

2012-01-19T17:12:00.001-06:00

... a busy day at work today, but I just took a couple minutes to look over the internet headlines and had a couple chuckles over this afternoon's Republican presidential candidate tidbits... (I only chuckled until I realized that these are the candidates of one of the two major U.S. political parties and how embarrassed we should all be by them) --

-- Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, dropped out of the race today. Oh what a loss. He was the perfect candidate for those voters who want to feel smarter than their President.
-- Newt Gingrich's second wife, who he was hooking up with when he was divorcing his cancer-stricken first wife, has been interviewed by ABC News and says that Newt wanted to have an "open marriage" with her so that he could fool around with Callista. The second wife said No and Newt divorced her when he found out she had multiple sclerosis. Then he made Callista wife #3.

First thought: Do we really need to hear all this, about Newt's philandering, insensitive ways? Second thought: Are all these joke candidates (Gingrich, Bachmann, Perry, Cain, etc.) being staged just to make Mitt Romney somehow look palatable?

somebody else's dysfunction

2012-01-18T15:05:00.001-06:00

I was going to look and see what year Tennessee Williams's play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof premiered, but the Wikipedia site is down today to protest the pending SOPA legislation in Congress, which maybe we will discuss another day. Suffice it to say that Cat premiered in the early to mid '50s and that a sanitized film version starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman came out sometime after that.

The Guthrie Theater has a new production of the play, and Jerry and I went to see it last night, thanks again to the generosity of the Guthrie Public Relations Department.

The Guthrie does Tennessee Williams well, as we found out in last year's production of A Streetcar Named Desire. A story of a neurotic Southern family, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is steamy and provocative, and this is not the sanitized version. It will keep you awake. This show features Emily Swallow (pictured above) as Maggie, Peter Christian Hansen as Brick, and David Anthony Brinkley as Big Daddy.

ready for tennessee

2012-01-17T15:59:00.000-06:00

Our visitor, James's cousin Danny, heads back to Jersey today, and we are relatively back to normal.

A busy week of entertainment is upon us, though, at a time when I probably should be working more, but oh well!! Tonight Jerry and I head back to the theater for the Guthrie's new production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams, followed by another night at the Guthrie on Friday -- Julius Caesar. But we aren't just total theater geeks -- tomorrow we're going to the Timberwolves/Pistons game.

I'm hoping that a quiet evening alone at home is somewhere on the horizon.

what cooperation looks like

2012-01-16T15:19:00.000-06:00

My friend Theresa pointed out this video to me... 23,000,000+ hits so far...

Five people on one guitar... It's a Canadian band called Walk Off The Earth. I kinda liked it.

brad and angelina are back in the audience

2012-01-15T20:05:00.000-06:00

I'm coughing a little less, which should make you happy because how many blog posts can I really get by with talking about my cough? So my cough comments are done, even if it kills me.

But I'm still mostly hunkered down on the sofa, having watched a couple of football games on TV today that I had only a marginal interest in and now having The Golden Globe Awards in front of me, as I patiently wait for Ricky Gervais to say something outrageous.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day, a holiday for bankers and government employees but not the rest of us. I'll be at my desk trying not to blog about cruise-ship sinkings.

as i continue to cough my brains out

2012-01-14T21:34:00.001-06:00

... On a cold snowy Saturday evening, I'm just trying to stay warm... It seems like I cough less when I'm warm... and, as I cling to the hope that I don't have pneumonia, I'm doing some channel-surfing...

... There on CBS, the Patriots are murdering the Broncos, so Tebow can forget the playoffs and head off into an off-season fifteen minutes of celebrity...

... There on ABC, amazingly enough, is Miss America. Wow, Miss America made it back to one of the main networks! It's really horrible, what they have done to that program. Bert Parks might be rolling over in his grave (Is he dead?). But it's easier to make sarcastic remarks about this with Jerry and Danny than the Patriots game is.

... And the 49ers beat the Saints! Yes!

(cough, cough, cough)....

'heat wave' in january

2012-01-13T11:58:00.000-06:00

This winter in Minnesota has been unbelievably kind... relatively high temps, hardly any snow.

It finally turned cold two days ago -- it feels like January, at least for a little while.

But I'm still feeling the warm afterglow of seeing Martha Reeves of the great '60s Motown girl group Martha & the Vandellas last night at the Dakota. They sang their big hits -- "Heat Wave", "Dancing in the Street", "Nowhere to Run", "Love Makes Me Do Foolish Things", etc. as well as some newer songs. Martha gets out of breath now after a couple songs -- she's 70 now -- but she gives it her all, and the crowd loved her.

I got to meet Martha after the show, chat a little, get my picture taken with her, I even got to kiss her. I kinda wish I would have brought all my Martha album covers with me to be signed by her. Maybe there will be a next time.

a month from today

2012-01-12T15:21:00.000-06:00

I have mixed feelings about all this.

You know how incredibly busy I am with work from January to April. This year, somehow, I have been talked into taking a week off during that time -- a first for me. And it's not just a week off -- Jerry, the fast-talking salesman, talked me into going on a cruise -- another first. I always thought I was too young to go on a cruise -- now I think maybe I'm too old... But we are going nonetheless.

So a month from today, we leave from Fort Lauderdale, Florida heading off into the Atlantic and the warm Caribbean for a week.

Whether I can relax knowing about the work flooding into my office back home is the big question.

Jesus loves the little broncos

2012-01-11T11:36:00.000-06:00

Wouldn't you know it? The first year in a long time that I have hardly paid any attention to football (thanks mostly to a pathetic season for the the Vikings and the Eagles) is the year that Jesus decided to become a fan of the sport. He helped an apparently otherwise mediocre Denver Broncos quarterback named Tim Tebow win games that should have been near-impossible to win -- hence, a miracle, of course. Will divine intervention lead His team to the Super Bowl, or will the momentary media hero be stopped short of the Promised Land??

the upcoming baby shortage

2012-01-10T13:22:00.001-06:00

If you're Catholic, forgive me for the following rant. I was going to go on and on today about the Tim Tebow thing, but then I read what Pope Benedict said yesterday and it overrides even the Tebow silliness.

Per the Pope: Gay marriage "threatens the future of humanity itself."

My first reaction: The Pope thinks that if gay marriage is legal that it will be so appealing and irresistible that there will be no heterosexuals anymore, thus nobody left to procreate?

My second reaction: What are all the gay Cardinals around him thinking when he is spouting this nonsense?

Tebow? Maybe tomorrow.

martha my dear

2012-01-09T10:42:00.000-06:00

It seemed fitting to have a Martha & the Vandellas video for this Monday. Who'd a thunk that back when I was a Martha Reeves fan back in the mid '60s that I would finally see her way out there in a hard-to-imagine 2012? My sister Joan and I are going to see her and the latest version of the Vandellas on Thursday at the Dakota Jazz Club, a very intimate classy club here in downtown Minneapolis. The Motown sound lives on.

speed-psychics

2012-01-08T12:34:00.000-06:00

Last night Jerry and I went to a party given by a friend/ex-neighbor who is into psychics, mediums, "the other side".... and Jerry is a bit into all that too.

She had invited a husband/wife psychic team to this party with the intention that whoever of the party guests wanted could have a reading and maybe a "visitor" from beyond.

Twenty-minute sessions each.

I don't particularly want to know my future or to speak to somebody who had passed, but I'm game for most anything so I went to a session with the husband-medium.

He tried so hard to convince me that there was a man over my left shoulder and a woman over my right shoulder, relatives from my past. I have had many many relatives who have passed, but his descriptions of these two people didn't fit any of them -- although I've sort of wondered if the woman could have been my Aunt Stella.

Their fairly general words of wisdom for me: Keep doing what I'm doing -- meaning, don't retire (which I can't do anyway) -- and take a winter vacation this year (which I never do up til now but have already planned for this winter).

But I'm wondering, if we are dealing in twenty-minute intervals, how do the spirits get in and out of the room so fast? Maybe I got stuck with the leftover spirits from the previous person!

with woody and danny

2012-01-07T18:13:00.001-06:00

I have a cold and I hardly ever have colds, so I'm finding it hard to ignore and am just giving in to it. It's Saturday, a good day to just curl up on the couch and be a potato.

James's cousin Danny, age 19, is visiting us for two weeks and James was at work, so we found a movie on Pay-Per-View to watch -- Midnight in Paris, a Woody Allen movie starring Owen Wilson as a character that normally Woody Allen would have played but too young for Woody Allen to actually play anymore. It's about an American writer in Paris who has flashbacks to the "golden years" for writers and artists in Paris, the 1920s. It' a good story, a sturdy movie for a Saturday afternoon when you're feeling a little woozy, and, who knows? maybe it will get some Oscar nominations.

january 6, 1989: atlantic city, new jersey

2012-01-06T16:29:00.000-06:00

It's my sister Joan's birthday today, and, as we usually do each year, we are taking her out for dinner tonight.

I remember my favorite of Joan's birthdays (so far): It was her 30th. She was still living in our hometown in South Jersey, and I was visiting from Minnesota. It was a Friday night, and just north of us there was a major snowstorm going on. In Millville and south of us, nothing. So Joan and I got in my rental car and headed down to Atlantic City for the evening.

Back then, the Atlantic City casinos were packed on Friday nights, but, since nobody could get down there from Philly or New York that night because of the storm, the place was dead -- which was perfect for us. We went to Trump Castle out there on the marina (this was back when I still did Trump casinos) and had dinner at a casino steakhouse restaurant named Ivana's. Ivana was Donald's wife several wives ago.

We were practically the only diners there, and we received amazing service. What I most remember was the prime rib -- absolutely the best prime rib I have ever had in my life. I can still almost taste it!

I think we even did okay in the casino that night!

I'm hoping that my little sister is having a good birthday today and that we can show her a good time tonight, but I know that she is remembering back to that 30th one too.

you're not gonna hear silence from me

2012-01-05T16:18:00.002-06:00

A warning to my daily readers: The Academy Award nominees will be announced soon, and you know how I always make myself see all of the Best Picture nominees (yeah yeah I know -- even though movies aren't nearly as good as they used to be and the whole awards system is a corporate crock, but give me a break).

Considering the potential nominees, it may turn out that the only probable nominee that I actually saw in 2011 was The Help. So I'll be seeing some movies between now and February 26, the date of the telecast, and you'll be hearing about it.

The other day, we went to see The Artist, a film that is making all of the critics' Top Tens for 2011. It's a way different movie from the usual stuff. It takes place in the late '20s, early '30s when movies were going from being silent to being "talkies". The Artist is all in black and white and mostly all silent, shot in the style of the silents. Like I say, you need to be prepared for something out of the ordinary, but it's a cool movie, it will make you feel good. Possible spoiler alert: The dog steals the show!

weaving back and forth

2012-01-04T14:15:00.000-06:00

I was driving the freeway out to the suburbs to meet a friend for breakfast this morning and finding it remarkably easy to figure out when following a vehicle whether the driver was on his or her cell phone or even texting.. There is that weaving and erratic driving that tips me off. Scary!

A couple more thoughts about the Iowa caucuses that happened last night, and then I'll try to be non-political for a few days...
-- It's funny that the conservative caucus-goers got so desperate for a non-Romney candidate that they ended up voting for Rick Santorum, one of the joke candidates.
-- This morning, Michele Bachmann dropped out of the race, and Rick Perry might drop out soon. Two joke candidates gone.
-- Newt Gingrich is pissed and is looking for some revenge against Romney. Gingrich is a jerk, but he might be fun to watch.
-- Putting it all into perspective: The Iowa caucus every four years tends to thin out the ranks, but it's all so incredibly distorted. Romney "won" by eight votes over Santorum. About 120,000 Republican voters went to the caucuses. There are about 3 million people in Iowa. There are about 300 million people in the United States. So 4% of Iowans attended, and .04% of all Americans had a disporportionate say in which clowns move on and which clowns go home. Democracy, anyone?

the other iowans

2012-01-03T14:27:00.001-06:00

This evening, finally, those Iowa Republican caucuses are taking place, and I keep thinking what a negative impression of Iowa the world by now must have of Iowa. I mean, considering the voters that the Republican candidates seem to be targeting, you'd think that Iowans are uneducated, intolerant, racist and, well, kind of stupid. And that's not true at all. Iowa is a pretty cool, progressive state. It's just the majority of tonight's caucus-goers who seem to be uneducated, intolerant, racist and, well, kind of stupid.

Pity the rest of the state's citizens. They've been bombarded with awful negative attack ads on TV and have had to put up with the disruption of their lives by obnoxious campaigners. They'll be glad to see the campaign move on to New Hampshire.

love those 3-day weekends

2012-01-02T10:19:00.000-06:00

Getting 2012 off to a good start with an '80s song...

Tom buys an iPhone

2012-01-01T23:01:00.002-06:00

My son Tom has given in to peer pressure of the world around him and today bought an Smart phone -- an iPhone. I haven't seen him this excited in years.

... and I might be right behind him. My Blackberry is falling behind.. maybe I need to go Apple....
*****
How did your New Year's Eve go last night? We stayed at home, welcomed 2012 with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin on CNN. There was a minor brouhaha later about one of the singers at the Times Square celebration who purposely messed up the lyrics to John Lennon's song "Imagine". This is how part of one of the verses goes: "Imagine there's no countries, It isn't hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too..." The dude changed that last phrase to "And all religions too..." He may have felt this was being politically correct, but it changes the meaning of the whole damn song! I wasn't the only person who noticed and objected -- Twitter was alive with protests! I say, cool, something good finally happened on Twitter!
*****
Oh no, I wonder if Tom is going to become a Tweeter.

2011: the other way

2011-12-31T17:08:00.000-06:00

I was looking back at my blog posts for the year, giving my memory a jump-start as I tried to focus on all the good things that formed my own personal 2011.. For instance --
Mostly good health...

A new car...

Spending time in my 48th, 49th and, finally, 50th state -- Oklahoma, Texas, Oregon...

Lots of good theater, my favorites of the year being True West at the Torch Theater, Neighbors at Mixed Blood Theater, God of Carnage at the Guthrie... Plus the Broadway touring productions of Les Miz and West Side Story...

Fun trips to Portland and Las Vegas...

Exceptional co-workers...

A great family reunion in New Jersey in August...

A great family, for that matter... I'm starting to realize how unusually close our family, including extended family, is... We are so lucky!...

Oh, and then there was the decision to bring my nephew James into our household to attempt to help him get a headstart in adult life. That has been mostly a good experience, I think. It at least helps me remember what it's like to be a naive eighteen-year-old. And there are some days when it helps me remember what it's like to be a naive fifteen-year old!

Then there is Jerry, who amazes me more and more as time goes by. By the way, it's our anniversary: we met 13 years ago tonight, New Years Eve 1998.

And I can't forget my loyal blog readers. Cyber-hugs to you as we each welcome 2012, a year that, like any other, will bring us all frustration and reward, tears and joy.

2011: one way to look back at it

2011-12-30T17:55:00.002-06:00

Sometimes you hear a person say, "I sure am glad to see this year end!"

I am never glad to see a year end. Life is too precious and too quick.

If a person were to look back at 2011 from that angle, I can understand it, though. 2011 was rough for a lot of people: economic hardship, illness, loss...

And if I were to think back that way, I could do it too: People that I care about are hurting... I had health problems -- something I'm not used to! -- that required surgery and landed me in a hospital for a week... And the number one personal trauma for me this year -- the death of my brother Ronnie. My family is still struggling with that one loss.

It would be easy to say, "Wow, 2011 was a crappy year..."

... But, on the other hand.........

dancing to tschaikovsky

2011-12-29T12:40:00.000-06:00

My friend and co-worker Mary O. hates The Nutcracker ballet, but that's only because she worked for a dance company once and while working there had to listen to the score for six months straight. Now, when she has to call the IRS and gets put on hold and has to listen to "The Waltz of the Flowers" hold-music over and over again for a half hour straight, she goes nuts.

Me, I haven't had such an experience, so I still love Tschaivosky music and The Nutcracker. Whether it is serious ballet is a whole 'nother discussion.

The Minnesota Dance Theater every year does a terrific Nutcracker, and it's one of my guilty pleasures, so we are taking Mary (my sister, that is -- not Mary O., who would probably have a mental breakdown!), Becky, and Tom to this afternoon's performance. This year the show is being held at the newly-restored Cowles Center, the former Shubert Theater, which just opened this fall for dance only. We attended the theater's grand opening but this will be the first actual program we'll be seeing there. The board of the Cowles Center is hoping that this venue will do locally for dance what the Guthrie has done for theater.
*****
Added later: Sometime after I wrote the above, I read my horoscope for today: "Taking in manmade beauty will be one of the most invigorating things you could do today. Art stimulates your mind and life in ways you won't be able to explain. It's one of the wonderful excitements of living."

young adults at the mall

2011-12-28T21:36:00.001-06:00

It's after 9 PM, so if I'm going to blog today, it better be now... After work this afternoon, I drove down to meet the rest of the gang at the Mall of America, where they had been shopping and watching James build bears while I was working my butt off in my office... We went to the theater at the mall and watched the new Diablo Cody-written movie Young Adult. It was okay, a bit unusual -- a mostly unlikeable lead female character. Then we met Jon for dinner at Kokomo's. I was just telling Mary that I sure do like it when she and Becky visit us, but I think I always gain weight while they're here... Hmmm, I wonder what my New Year's resolution will be in four days.

one more week in the cornfields

2011-12-27T16:24:00.000-06:00

I've been browsing the news sites this afternoon, and I keep seeing headlines about there only being one more week until the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, and I'm thinking, "Who the heck cares? -- It's only the Iowa caucuses!" The Iowa caucus is only important because the news media have made it important. Somebody will win, everybody else will lose, somebody will drop out for under-performing, and there will be a momentary "front-runner", all of which in the real world means nothing because it's only a bunch of very-much-in-the-national-minority, usually-bigoted right-wingers who happen to show up for their caucus.

What I would like to see is for Ron Paul to win the Iowa caucus, only because it would throw the Republican mainstream into a temporary tizzy, trying to figure out how to reconcile his way-out-there political positions with the possibility of him having even a remote shot of ending up as their nominee.

a cushion between holiday and ordinary stuff

2011-12-26T22:20:00.001-06:00

It's sort of cool when Christmas falls on a Sunday, then Monday becomes for most people another day off... You can recover (especially if you had 13 people for Christmas dinner) or you can continue the experience...

or you can shop, which is something you do when my niece Becky visits...

Tonight I took my sister Mary to the Timberwolves season opener... a very fun game. I've become a big fan of point guard Ricky Rubio, who is new to the Wolves this year. I've never seen a basketball player who can pass like he does. Should be a fun season if that guy can stay uninjured.

... and now it's late evening and I'm trying to prepare myself for being back in the office at eight tomorrow morning...

christmas 2011: minneapolis, minnesota

2011-12-25T18:59:00.001-06:00

Left to right: Joan, Becky, me, James, Jerry, Tom, Mary, Jon, Ryan (holding Corey), Ruthie (holding Kylie).

christmas 1963: the u.s.a.

2011-12-24T08:38:00.000-06:00

It's December 24th, and I'm up north, but it's a brown Christmas -- unusual in Minnesota, but I'm okay with that.

This "White Christmas", sung by Darlene Love, is from the album A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector. I was a major fan of music-producer Phil Spector's girl groups (the Ronettes, the Crystals) back in the early '60s, but I didn't even know about this recording until some years later. That's because, at least I think it's because, it was released on November 22, 1963, the day that President Kennedy was assassinated, and that holiday season became one of the most subdued Christmases ever in this country. This is a very upbeat album, and people weren't in the mood for upbeat.

Things changed over the years, and the songs from this album eventually became some of the most-heard every Christmas season. In my house, we always have it (now the CD version) playing as we open gifts. Phil Spector, meanwhile, sits in prison as we speak and probably doesn't care whether this Christmas is white or sky-blue pink.

Whatever music you are listening to, I wish my blog readers a Merry Christmas. I hope this is one that creates good memories for you.

christmas 1968: wildflecken, west germany

2011-12-23T10:17:00.000-06:00

It was my first Christmas away from home, away from family and friends. I was stationed at a fairly remote Army post about nine kilometers from what was then the barbed-wired East German border. The post was on a mountain overlooking snowy valleys and was a training base originally in Hitler's era and then after the war for American and West German troops.

This was before I had been appointed company clerk so I was just an infantry grunt, which meant that I was still occasionally subject to being on KP ("Kitchen Patrol"). It was my misfortune to be on KP all day on that particular Christmas in 1968. Talk about adding insult to injury -- peeling potatoes and washing dishes instead of having a day off! It was a rude awakening after always having had wonderful Christmases at home with my family (My mom, I think, was the best, most efficient Christmas shopper of all time).

Fast-forward to Christmas Day 2011, when I still might be peeling potatoes and washing dishes but doing it for family instead of for sad draftees. Jerry and I will be hosting quite a crowd this year: My sister Joan and my two sons, Jon and Tom; my sister Mary and my niece Becky, visiting us from New Jersey; my nephew James and his friend Tim; and my niece Ruthie and her family. I hope they know how much I appreciate having Christmas with them.

another turning point

2011-12-22T08:50:00.001-06:00

It's Winter Solstice, or at least I thought it was, but now I see that in the Central Time Zone, Winter Solstice actually hit us last night at 11:30. Whatever! It's a day that, if you live north of the Arctic Circle, you will see zero daylight today. For all of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it's the shortest day of the year, sun-wise, the good part of which is that it only gets better after today until Summer Solstice arrives in June, and June is too fine a month for us to be worrying about the days starting to get shorter again.

A definition of the word solstice: "a furthest or culminating point; a turning point." Turning for the better, I hope. Think of that in the bleak winter months to come.

love & war & the sea in between

2011-12-21T11:55:00.000-06:00

I haven't traveled in evangelical circles in a long time, but I do know that the magazine Christianity Today (founded in 1956 by Billy Graham) is a big deal in that community. A big deal in our family is that my niece Michelle's husband, Josh Garrels, has just had his latest CD, Love & War & The Sea In Between, named Album of the Year by that influential magazine.

Here is a link to the article about Josh and Michelle: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/music/interviews/2011/fartheralong-december20.html and here is a link to Josh's website: http://joshgarrels.com/.

Michelle is my sister Nancy's daughter. During our Oregon trip in October, we got to spend some quality time in Portland with Michelle and Josh and their two beautiful little kids, and I also got time to chat with Josh about his career and his creative direction. I wish him well in his musical journey... and congratulations.

iraq war hangover

2011-12-20T17:55:00.000-06:00

The past few days, there has been somewhat subdued news coverage about the final withdrawal of military personnel from Iraq -- the so-called end of the war -- the focus of reporting being on the troops being home for Christmas (which always makes me wonder -- If they want to be home for Christmas, why did they enlist?, but that's another topic).

To me, there has been in the recent reporting a notable lack of analysis of what an incredible mistake that war was -- or is that by now such an obvious conclusion that it never needs to be discussed again?

My thoughts remain on the families and friends of the 4,484 American troops who died there unnecessarily, not to mention the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians who were killed. Then there are those who were horribly wounded, some permanently -- the psychological scars, the resulting suicides, you name it. Meanwhile, the monsters who insisted on this war to benefit their corporate pals (hello, Halliburton!, hello, Exxon!) still walk the streets without conscience. Now they have turned Iraq into a potential ally of Iran, the country that will be the next source of corporate profits in that war to come.

'les miz' hangover

2011-12-19T13:23:00.000-06:00

Okay, okay.... Over the years, I had seen the Broadway musical Les Miserables twice before and have liked it, but this "re-imagined, re-invented" version that we saw yesterday is ten times better. J. Mark McVey as Jean Valjean is amazing, especially his rendition of "Bring Him Home". If this touring company comes to your city, don't miss it.

do you hear the people sing?

2011-12-18T10:46:00.000-06:00

Way back sometime (mid '90s?), I was staying at my brother Ronnie's house in New Jersey for a couple days, and his daughter, my niece Ruthie, was going through a Les Miserables obsession. "Les Miz", that is, the Broadway hit. Her high school choir was doing selections from the show, and she, an excellent singer by the way, was going through the house singing Les Miz songs, and that was the first time I had heard any of them.

I went on to buy the CD and eventually to see the show twice over the years -- road versions of the Broadway production when they came to the Twin Cities.

But Ruthie, who moved here to Minnesota several years ago, has still never seen it. Until today. We're taking her to today's performance. After all, I owe her.

basketball is back, among other things

2011-12-17T20:05:00.000-06:00

Gosh, a week from tonight it will be Christmas Eve, and two weeks from tonight we'll be seeing another year end. For me, it's going to be a busy couple weeks prior to the beginning of 2012, work-wise and otherwise, and I'm trying to stay on top of it.

Tonight, Saturday evening, I'm doing some office work at home, while I admit to having the Timberwolves-Bucks basketball preseason game on the TV off in the background. Jerry and Tom are at the game.

Some good things coming: My sister Mary and my niece Becky will be visiting us for Christmas, staying for a week, and we are very anxious to see them. Tomorrow: Jerry and I are taking my niece Ruthie to Les Miz at the Orpheum Theater. The Minnesota Timberwolves: They will be more fun to watch this season, maybe evcn avoiding last place. For now, though, I gotta finish this work.

more reasons to hate walmart

2011-12-16T09:09:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, a news story came out -- the U.S. Census Bureau has found nearly half of Americans to be "poor"... This is shameful, as the United States deteriorates into becoming a third-world country.

Yesterday there was also a report listing the Forbes magazine wealthiest Americans. Six members of the Walton family, the family that originally owned Walmart (descendents of Sam Walton, the founder), have a combined net worth equaling the total net worth of the least affluent 30% of the whole country. A company that produces huge profits by stomping on its employees, its vendors, its country, and its communities deserves destruction, not this kind of obscene wealth.

Last night on the Evening News, Brian Williams gave the story about half of Americans being poor, but there was no mention of the Walton/30% thing. Toward the end of the newscast, there was a Walmart commercial. Big surprise.

car story 3

2011-12-15T15:38:00.000-06:00

... and this is the final sequel to the car melodrama.

We just couldn't do it -- buy cars on the same day, that is. I mean, we didn't want to give people the impression that we can afford any of this when the opposite is true, so I got my VW last night, after a tearful farewell to the old one, and Jerry picked up his car this morning.

Today my buyer's remorse has been minimal. This car should last me until sometime after I'm dead -- or too senile to be allowed on the road.

car story 2

2011-12-14T16:18:00.000-06:00

You know I love my car, my 2006 Volkswagen GTI. It's the best car I've ever had. Hence, my dilemma.

This is the deal. My car was in the shop last week, and I ended up spending a bunch for routine maintenance as well as a few problem fixes. It made me realize that my car is no spring chicken anymore, even though it is in great shape and has relatively low mileage. It's also in high demand, so the trade-in value is good.

So, while I was at the dealership, I looked at the new GTI, the 2012. I test drove it. It has all these high-tech features that the 2006 didn't have.

They found one for me, red of course, and I can go pick it up tonight if I want it. It's basically the same car I have now, except six years newer, with cool features, and four doors instead of two. It feels really self-indulgent to buy a new car, but my friend Mary O. convinced me that, even though I will have guilt, it's actually a sacrifice I'm making for my back-seat passengers who are sick of climbing back there. And you know how self-sacrificing I am. :-)

Then, a few minutes ago, Jerry called, the BMW dealership called this afternoon: His car is ready. It looks like both of us might of us might be buying new cars tonight, doing our little bit to stimulate the economy.

Tomorrow's post might be about buyers' remorse.

car story 1

2011-12-13T13:45:00.001-06:00

If you memorize my blog posts, then you undoubtedly recall my November 27 post, "goodbye to the subaru", in which I tell you about Jerry handing back his leased Subaru and buying a BMW, in this case a used BMW, a 2011.

He dropped off the Subaru on the last day of November but still doesn't have the BMW; in fact, he hasn't even seen it. See, the car he's buying was a loaner at the BMW dealership, and the car was still on loan to a customer. The customer, however, as it turned out, was out of town for an extended time, and the car was sitting in his garage.

So the dealership loaned Jerry another car -- a Toyota Corolla! He drove that un-BMW for a couple weeks (and liked it a lot), then they finally gave him a loaner BMW, which he's now driving.

In the meantime, he has signed no papers and evidently can walk away from the deal if he chooses to (which he won't), so what's the hurry?

knee deep in the hoopla

2011-12-12T15:44:00.000-06:00

I had the '80s channel going on Sirius Radio, and they were doing the Top Ten songs from this week in 1985, which included this song, and it's been going through my head ever since.

It was one of the biggest hits of the '80s, actually. But then again, I recently saw another "Top Ten" that named "We Built This City" as the worst song of the '80s. Take your pick.

driving like a bat outta hell

2011-12-11T12:31:00.001-06:00

Jerry has a weird, mildly annoying habit of telling guests when they leave our place, "Drive like a bat outta hell, and leave your seatbelts off!", and last night was no exception.

It was card night: three teams -- Jerry & I, Tom & Ruthie, Ruthie's husband Ryan & Ruthie's mom Vickie (visiting from North Carolina); the game -- Hand &; Foot. Tom and Ruthie killed us, but let's not dwell on that.

While playing, we were indulging in red wine, Ruthie and Ryan to the point where they knew they shouldn't drive, so Vickie, who does zero indulging, offered to drive.

It was after midnight when they left, and we got a text from Ruthie about a half hour later. Vickie, who is generally a pretty conservative driver, had been pulled over by the cops for speeding. Somehow she talked herself out of getting a speeding ticket, but Ryan got a ticket for not wearing his seat belt.

I hope they weren't really listening to Jerry.

but at least he can sing

2011-12-10T09:41:00.001-06:00

It's a James holiday music weekend for us.

First, there was James's college choir concert last night, which was actually quite nice for a small choir. Then tonight and tomorrow there are the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus holiday concerts -- 150 guys in the chorus, with James being the youngest ("Jailbait James", they call him). We'll be there in force to see him in tomorrow afternoon's performance -- eight of us -- his uncles, aunts, grandmother, cousins.... Let us hear you, boy.

at eighteen

2011-12-09T13:53:00.001-06:00

I wonder how clueless I was at 18. Was I as clueless, for instance, as our 18-year-old houseguest appears to be?

Was being 18 in 1965 really all that much different than being 18 in 2011?

Thinking back, I'm pretty sure my two sons, Jon and Tom, had a better grip on life at that age than either the houseguest does or I did. Could it be partly that they grew up in the city and that James and I grew up in a small town?

Patience, Howard, patience.

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

2011-12-08T16:08:00.001-06:00

"I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test"
from that old David Bowie song, "Changes"....

site of infamy

2011-12-07T18:33:00.000-06:00

It's Pearl Harbor Day, you know. Or maybe you don't know. Seventy years ago today, the Japan bombed the heck out of the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, killing a couple thousand men and crippling the U.S. Pacific Fleet, an event that led to the United States immediately getting into World War II.

Pearl Harbor is just west of Honolulu, and we visited in 2007 when we were in Hawaii that first time.

Sorry about all the wind noise in this video, but at least you get to hear Jerry's voice at the end.

february 1968: newark, new jersey

2011-12-06T10:22:00.001-06:00

It's partly because it's a year of protest against an untrustworthy government, and it's mostly because I'm reading the book Hell No, We Won't Go: Vietnam Draft Resisters in Canada, that's causing that day to be on my mind.

It was an early morning during the winter of '68, the Selective Service Office, Bridgeton, N.J., the county seat. I didn't have any legal choice about being there: Show up for your military induction physical or risk arrest. They loaded a few dozen of us guys onto busses for the three-hour ride to the federal building in downtown Newark, a trip of total dread for most of us potential draftees. The choices were not good. Either you are just about to get snatched from your life to go fight an obscene war in Vietnam or these Army doctors are going to find something so physically wrong with you that you are unfit for service.

The process was, as intended, degrading -- people yelling at you, treating you with scorn, giving you a preview of military life -- but I came through it, much to my distress, with flying colors.

On the bus trip home, I sat next to a Vineland guy who turned out to be one of the most interesting guys I had ever met. He too had passed the physical and was ready to move on -- to Canada. He knew all his reasons for being against the war and for emigrating, and he had his escape all planned out. I knew a lot of guys were considering the Canada option, but he was the first one I knew who was actually going. He gave me a lot to think about and consider, including the possibility of moving to Canada. I came close to doing it. I've always wished I had kept in touch with him to know what happened, and I've always wondered what life would have been like if I would have had the courage to follow my conscience.

My parents met me when the bus arrived back in Bridgeton and -- I know this is weird, looking back -- were disappointed that I hadn't somehow failed the physical.

Two months later, I received my draft notice.

gonna knock you right on the head

2011-12-05T13:50:00.000-06:00

tastes like high-tech pizza

2011-12-04T12:42:00.001-06:00

Maybe that Herman Cain moment got me in the mood for pizza or maybe anything gets me in the mood for pizza, but, whatever, Tom, James and I just ordered some pizza while we watch the Vikings game.

Having pizza delivered is not what it used to be, at least at the big-name chains. They have elaborate ordering systems on line, so I sit here trying to figure it all out when it probably would have been much easier to just pick up the phone and call.

On the Domino's site, you can actually track your pizza -- the name of the person making your pizza, the name of the person who put your pizza in the oven, who takes it out, and then the name of the guy just about to knock on your front door with your pizza.

But the last pizza we got at Domino's was pretty bland, even after all that personal attention, so today we ordered from Pizza Hut -- their "big box dinner" special that we just saw advertised during the Vikings game (Corporate manipulation at its best).

The Pizza Hut site doesn't track the preparation, but it does tell us that our pizza will be delivered at 1:08. We'll see.
*****
Actual delivery time: 1:03 PM. With 9:32 left in the 2nd quarter, the Vikings are losing to the Denver Broncos, 7-5.

herman and the other munsters

2011-12-03T19:54:00.001-06:00

The Republican presidential-candidate comic reality show continues.

The candidates that have zero chance of ever being elected are the ones who are the most entertaining to us on the other side, and that's why it's kind of a shame that Herman Cain, a pizza man with roaming hands, is dropping out of the race. He was good for laughs, at least.

And then there's Ron Paul, who is scary but in a non-threatening, senile-grandfatherly sort of way. I have to give him a lot of credit today though. He is refusing to participate in a debate on 27 December that will be moderated by none other than hairstyle-gone-amuk self-proclaimed genius, Donald Trump. Rep. Paul says that such a spectacle would be "beneath the office of the presidency".

(All of these debates have been beneath the office of the presidency, but that's beside the point, I guess).

If Mitt Romney refuses the Donald Trump Show, I'll be impressed.

spending an evening with 'charley's aunt'

2011-12-02T10:48:00.001-06:00

Guthrie photo by T. Charles Erickson

Another blogger night at the Guthrie Theater last night, the play this time being Charley's Aunt, a comedy by Brandon Thomas that first premiered in London in 1892. This was the first time the Guthrie has staged this often-produced play (which I hadn't seen before), and they of course do it in superb Guthrie style: exceptional sets, costumes and actors, led by the cross-dressing John Skelley as the pretend Charley's aunt.

Sally Wingert, a local favorite and an actress that we have seen in quite a few plays, played the real Charley's aunt and was good as always, but I noticed this time in her Playbill biography that she had had a bit part in Fargo, one of my favorite films. Needless to say, this morning I had to figure out what her Fargo role was, and here it is, per http://filmsite.org/: The next scene is in Gustafson's Motors showroom (the Oldsmobile auto chain is owned by his father-in-law), where lowly, sad-faced, and sleazy Minnesota executive car sales manager Jerry browbeats and scams a customer (Gary Houston) and his wife (Sally Wingert) in his glass-enclosed cubicle (decorated with golf statues) to purchase TruCoat, and threatens that they will experience "oxidation problems" if they don't pay the extra $500 for the factory-installed finish.

Remember that scene?

Anyway, thanks again to Guthrie for the tickets and an enjoyable evening of entertainment.

burning, stress-free

2011-12-01T11:45:00.001-06:00

Apparently the word is out that I had a birthday last week and am officially old. I received some info in the mail from a company thats sells "pre-need" cremation services.... They apparently are worried sick that I don't want to burden my grieving family and friends with post-mortem cremation expenses, so I should buy now and then, well, rest in peace.

That in itself feels kinda weird, but here is the part that gave me pause: If I send back their response card, I am automatically entered into a drawing for a free pre-paid cremation. Wouldn't it be just my luck, to finally win something that I don't get to enjoy until after I'm dead?

the audience went crazy

2011-11-30T13:50:00.001-06:00

A news story: "MANAMA, Bahrain — Marine Gen. James F. Amos, the face of opposition in the military to lifting the ban on gays serving openly, now acknowledges his concern has proven unfounded that repeal would undermine the war effort. In fact, he says, Marines have embraced the change.

"In an Associated Press interview, Amos called the repeal in September 'a non-event.'"

Meanwhile, the Republican Presidential contenders in their debates are still pledging to un-do the repeal, and that pledge gets wild cheers from the rabidly right-wing crowd.

But what would "un-doing the repeal" look like? Everybody who has come out of the closet since the repeal would be kicked out of the military? Executed? Or would they be grandfathered-in? And what would that look like?

Those candidates love getting the debate audiences to cheer, but consider: These same crowds cheered the option of letting uninsured people die, and they booed the openly gay serviceman who was asking a question. If the debaters want anything more than a cheap thrill, they need to realize that the general electorate isn't quite that hateful and demented.
*****
By the way, I think it's hilarious that Rick Perry thought that the voting age was 21.
*****
P.S. Happy Birthday, Ruthie... Hugs to you!!

1961: millville high school, new jersey

2011-11-29T14:30:00.001-06:00

It's funny, the things you can't forget...

One of my Facebook friends posted something that mentioned her high school freshman algebra class causing her many problems. That prompted responses from several other Facebook friends because we were all in that same class and shared the same trauma. The problem wasn't the algebra, it was the teacher. She was by far the meanest teacher I have ever met -- a total bully. I still have nightmares about that class. The responses from the other friends: "Yes, she was scary....especially when you got called to the board to solve a problem!!!"; and "OMG me too! 1st period freshman yr. Like throwing the Christians to the lions!"

But then, as they continued to post, they said that after school, one on one, she was sweet and kind. I obviously never had a one-on-one moment with her, but I'd like to think she had that other side, that nobody is Pure Evil.

natalie back in the news

2011-11-28T15:11:00.000-06:00

Natalie Wood, a superstar at the time, played Maria in the movie version of West Side Story (Rita Morena played Anita), 1961. Twenty years later, 1981, she drowned after falling off a yacht near Catalina Island. The circumstances were mysterious -- did her husband Robert Wagner drown her? -- but eventually, after plenty of tabloid stories, somebody determined that it was just an accident.

Now, thirty years after that, fifty years after West Side Story, here in 2011, the case has been re-opened because of some so-called "new evidence." How could new evidence about a drowning turn up after 30 years? I think that story will go away again.

This particular song came back to my attention this weekend because James has been playing the Glee version of it, which isn't half bad. Natalie Wood didn't have a singing voice, she is lip-synching it. Marni Nixon, who was also the singing voice for Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, owns the voice that you hear.

goodbye to the subaru

2011-11-27T15:58:00.001-06:00

When I first met Jerry, 13 years ago, he drove a Toyota Rav 4. After that, he had a way-too-big Toyota Four Runner, followed by two beloved BMWs. Then, three years ago, in a moment he has since regretted, he went to a Subaru Outback. Not that there is anything wrong with a Subaru: it's just that a BMW is a hard act to follow.

All of the above were leased, and he turns them in every three years and never looks back. I buy a Volkswagen and keep it until it's almost dead, and even then I have a hard time saying Goodbye. He doesn't bond with his cars like I do with mine, which makes him perfect for leasing and not buying.

Until now. The lease on his Subaru expires this week, and he's not going to lease his next car. He's going to buy -- can you believe it? And he can't handle the thought of anything other than another BMW. He's buying a two-year-old BMW and plans on hanging onto it indefinitely.

So as of this week, Jerry is going to commit to a vehicle, and we are back to being an all-German car family. Ach der lieber!

meanwhile, back at the coffee shop

2011-11-26T10:03:00.001-06:00

It's a rainy but a fairly warm Saturday morning, considering that it is late November. You know I love waking up early on the weekends and doing something before the rest of the world is out and about. Jerry, though, likes to sleep in. James works at a store at the Mall of America and didn't get home from his brutal Black Friday work day until after midnight, so he, obviously, was sleeping in too.

So I went over to my coffee shop at 13th and Hennepin and hung out and found a corner to read in (currently reading a 1996 book called Hell No, We Won't Go: Vietnam Draft Resisters in Canada -- which I will maybe discuss in a future post) and drank my coffee. Why this is more satisfying than making coffee at home I don't know. Why this is more satisfying than sleeping a couple extra hours I do know.

black is black

2011-11-25T16:16:00.001-06:00

It's Black Friday, which means different things to different people: a day to enjoy fighting crowds at the mall, maybe getting pepper-sprayed at Walmart; or deliberately not shopping, hanging out at home instead. I'm one of the not-shopping people. To retailers, at least in legend, it is the day when their profits go from the red into the black. Whatever.

Thanksgiving was good for us. We and Jon and Tom and Joan all went out for dinner. I didn't want to get up early on my birthday to throw a turkey into the oven, which felt good at the time, but now I sort of regret not having any leftover turkey.

A month from today is Christmas. 'Enough said about that.

a senior moment

2011-11-24T09:16:00.001-06:00

You know how it is, or maybe you don't -- the "senior citizen discount" thing. At some places being a senior citizen means 55 and over, or 60 and over, 62 and over... or the big kahuna, 65 and over -- so you have to ask for a definition of when the discount kicks in.

As of today, I never have to ask that question again.

1976-1978: mankato, minnesota

2011-11-23T13:31:00.001-06:00

The day before Thanksgiving. In the U.S., it is maybe the busiest travel day of the year, everybody getting back to where they once belonged.

My first real-life experience with the madness of the day before Thanksgiving was back in 1976, my first winter in Minnesota. While in college, I had a part-time job at the Greyhound bus terminal, selling tickets, loading luggage onto busses, that sort of thing. On that day there were incredible lines -- mostly kids leaving the university for the long weekend -- overcrowded luggage compartments, freezing temperatures outdoors, exhaust fumes.... And then I'd be coming back the next day to work again, on Thanksgiving Day, because the bus runs 365 days a year, you know. The big difference between the days is that nobody travels on Thanksgiving. Feast and famine at the bus depot, the famine coming when everybody is elsewhere feasting.

'Hope you have a great Thanksgiving, wherever you end up.

super nothing

2011-11-22T17:23:00.001-06:00

I was telling Jerry, it's time to give up. This country is doomed, and I need to stop having moments of optimism...

...on the other hand, I already had zero optimism about the Congressional "Super Committee" that was supposed to come up with deficit-reduction answers by tomorrow, 23 November. The committee has announced it has failed, hopelessly mired in political short-sightedness, and now some unknown "automatic" cutbacks are going to happen, blah blah blah...

... I need to put my mind elsewhere. Let me know when the civil war is over.

hey there, robin...

2011-11-21T10:31:00.000-06:00

I was reading that Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees is in bad shape physically. He has liver cancer, and photos show him to be extremely thin and frail. Very sad. His twin brother Maurice died in 2003. These three Brothers Gibb wrote a lot of good and memorable music.

Seems to be a good day to post a Bee Gees video.

scrooging again

2011-11-20T12:04:00.001-06:00

Thanksgiving Week is upon us, so beware -- not that there is necessarily anything wrong with Thanksgiving, I guess.

But then suddenly Christmas season is upon us, and it falls upon us earlier every year; this year, for instance, I notice that Target stores are opening at midnight Thanksgiving night to give overly anxious shoppers a headstart on "Black Friday", that nightmare shopping day.... and then the race to 25 December begins.

James and I have another headstart to Christmas -- I was given some more "blogger" free tickets to a preview of the Guthrie's A Christmas Carol this evening. The Guthrie Theater has done A Christmas Carol for 35 straight years. It's always an extravagant production, changing a little each year. Maybe it will get us in the mood. Or maybe we'll be bah-humbugging out into the cold.

the pressure of being the one holding the remote

2011-11-19T20:26:00.001-06:00

There are three other guys in the room (Jerry, Tom, James), and I'm the one holding the TV remote. There is no way to pick the right thing to watch that will make all four of us happy. Oh the curse of modern technology!...

you need to pay attention, dude!

2011-11-18T16:25:00.001-06:00

A friend of James's was at our place last night: A good kid, about 22 years old and a college student, lives about an hour from the Twin Cities.

At some point Jerry came home, calling a small sign that said "We are the 99%". He had just been to an Occupy protest with about 400 other people over by the University of Minnesota.

James's friend: "What is that, 'We are the 99%'?" He had never heard of the Occupy movement at all.

I blame the kid for not making himself being better informed, of course. But I also blame the media for giving so little attention to the story that a college kid can exist at this moment and not even know it's going on.

back to the streets

2011-11-17T10:19:00.001-06:00

As I sit here in my office on a Thursday morning, the 17th of November, I am watching a livestream video from the Occupy Wall Street website. There are thousands of protestors there in New York this morning, trying to "shut down Wall Street", police are over-reacting, people are being arrested, etc. If you go to any of the big news websites right now, you would have no idea any of this is going on.

... and tonight, on the evening news, this story will be pushed down into a two-sentence summary following the Penn State sex scandal and other more sensational entertainment bits.

... it's the "ignore it and it will go away" strategy from big business/big media.

My current thoughts on the Occupy movement:

-- I love it. It's good to be involved in protest marches again.
-- I'm happy to see young people who are educated on the issues and who care.
-- I wonder what will be next.
-- I'm particularly interested in the Occupy Berkeley group. It was at the University of California - Berkeley that the protests of the '60s began. Anybody here know the name Mario Salvo? I remember those days well. Once that movement began, there was no stopping it.

stones wisdom

2011-11-16T17:39:00.001-06:00

"Getting old is a fascinating thing. The older you get, the older you want to get."

-- Keith Richards

mid-autumn sports update

2011-11-15T18:18:00.001-06:00

The records so far of the two NFL teams that I care about: Philadelphia Eagles have won three, lost six; Minnesota Vikings have a record of 2-7. The other teams: who cares, unless you happen to play Fantasy Football, which so far I have managed to avoid. As a result, watching football this season is not taking much of my time, which is undoubtedly a good thing.

NHL Hockey: I need to say this quick before it ends -- the Minnesota Wild are in first place in their division, and that might not last too long! The Philadelphia Flyers are in first place in their division too, so hockey is going well at least (Too bad I hardly ever watch hockey).

The big story in NBA basketball is that there is no season so far. The lockout continues, and nobody outside of the league itself understands what the issues are, other than that it's about money. The two sides -- owners and players -- are still far apart in their negotiations, so there might not be any season at all. From a personal standpoint, the good thing about that is that I will start getting refunds soon from my Timberwolves season tickets, although I do admit feeling a little sad about having no Timberwolves games to go to.

cyndi lauper singing "true colors"

2011-11-14T13:25:00.000-06:00

the burning bush speaks again

2011-11-13T20:47:00.001-06:00

Rick Perry one day, Herman Cain again the next.. I'm in a rut...

... but how can I resist? That stage of debating candidates has to be the worst ever.

Herman Cain yesterday told a crowd that God told him to run for President. In fact, Herman Cain compared himself to Moses, which maybe means that God spoke to him from a burning bush. But didn't God also tell Michele Bachmann to run for President? No, that's not right -- I forgot: He told Michele's husband that Michele should run for President. Can't God make up his mind, or did He know that Michele would bomb out anyway? Or is He just starved for bizarre entertainment?

... and, in last night's debate, the other candidates actually somehow made Ron Paul look like the voice of reason. Maybe Ron is the next one to get the Divine Call.

... one more thing: When these fools tell them that God told them to run, are there people out there in the audience who actually fall for that line?

frozen brains on stage

2011-11-12T16:42:00.001-06:00

My thoughts on Rick Perry's brain freeze during the Republican debate this week....

I have brain freezes all the time, so I guess I can't ever run for President, which of course is bad news for the country and the world.

He obviously wasn't coached well enough. Had he ever even heard of the Department of Energy before he was told (by the oil companies, of course) that he wanted to eliminate it?

Who are the Media to determine that Perry's campaign is over because of this gaffe? Why does a person have to be an all-star debater to be President?

eleven eleven eleven

2011-11-11T08:49:00.001-06:00

I need to post this while it is still November 11 in Europe. My friend and co-worker, Mary O., is in Spain for five weeks and keeps current with my blog even when she is over there meditating. She is also a numbers person and into dates that sound kind of cute (which you might remember from my posts "nine ten eleven" or "ten ten ten") and has been looking forward to the date 11.11.11 more than any of the others. I mean, 11 is kind of a lucky number for some people, plus just think of it -- all ones! -- 111111! A date like this won't ever happen again. "22.22.22" just won't cut it, since there aren't 22 months in any year (although maybe by then there will be!) and besides that's just twos!

It's also Veterans Day (formerly "Armistice Day", commemorating the signing of the armistice to end World War I, signed at 11 a.m. on 11.11 back in 1918). Some people have the day off today as a holiday, most of them not veterans. I, a veteran, am working but might go hang out with the Veterans for Peace group at OccupyMN later on. Have a good 11.11.11, all of you. We all were lucky enough to live it together.