You Can't Always Get What You Want

Well, the weather was so beautiful today that I decided to take the blog outside and enjoy a little sunshine. Wait a minute. Who's that over there sitting on that park bench? Why it's Barak Obama. Let's go over and find out what's happening with the Democratic frontrunner.

"Hey 'O', how's it going?"

"Good. Pretty damn good, to tell you the truth. Beautiful day, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I bought a sandwich over at the deli and, you know, it was so nice out that I figured I'd go outside and eat it. You want half?"

"What kind you got?"

"Tuna, on a french roll."

"Yeah, I'll take half of that. Have a seat."

"Thanks. Say, what are you doing in California anyway? Shouldn't you be in Wisconsin campaigning or something?"

"Man, it's 11 degrees in Milwaukee. If it's all the same to you I'd rather be out here in California, you know what I mean?"

"Got that right."

"Besides, I was hoping I'd run into you. You write that blog, don't you?"

"Yeah I've got a blog but I didn't know you read it."

"Oh yeah. I read it all the time. It's great. Sort of perceptive, penetratingly insightful, and yet incredibly stupid all at the same time. I love it."

"Well, variety is the spice of life."

"That's what they say. Hey this sandwich is good. You got anything to wash it down with?"

"Nah. I could go back to the deli and pick up a couple of soda's if you'd like."

"No, that's alright. I'm fine."

"How's the campaign going? You seem to have Hillary on the ropes."

"You think so? I'm not so sure. I'm not polling well in Texas and Ohio."

"Is that right. Hmm. No offense to Hillary, mind you, but she doesn't seem that presidential to me. She seems more like a policy wonk than a leader, you know what I mean. People want someone to follow, not just a bunch of graphs and numbers. Not that I've got anything against her, but for some reason she just doesn't inspire me."

"So does that mean you're going to vote for me?"

"You haven't got the nomination yet, 'O'. Ask me again after Denver."

"Then let's say I do get the nomination?"

"Geez, I don't know. I mean I gotta be honest and...um...let me put it this way. For a guy who talks about all the things he's gonna do, you sure don't seem to have done much. I mean it's probably a good thing that you don't have much of a record to be held accountable for, but still...well...you don't have much of a record."

"I voted against the war, didn't I?

(pause)

"Let me ask you something. Do you honestly believe that you're gonna change Washington? I hear you say it all the time, but do you seriously believe that?"

"Sure I do. I'm gonna stand up to the special interests and ..."

"Do you seriously think that the special interests, the real king makers and powerbrokers in Washington, are worried about what's gonna happen to them if Obama comes to town. Do you think they're telling themselves 'Uh-oh, Obama's in charge now. We better straighten up our act or else he's gonna run us out of town.'"

"I think they're going to find out pretty quick that the days of 'business as usual' are over."

"Right."

"We're gonna have full disclosure when I get elected. The American people deserve to know who's paying what to who, and then we'll just let the cards fall where they may."

"And you know what we're going to find out? We're going to find out that the money goes everywhere, and that everyone's got their hand in the cookie jar. What will that prove?"

"Don't be so cynical, D.C. It's time for change in America, and I'm ready for the challenge."

"Oh I see. This is sort of like 'Destry Rides Again', isn't it. Only this isn't the movies and you aren't Jimmy Stewart."

"Give me your vote and we'll see what happens."

"Nah, even if I believed you could change things I could never vote for you."

"Why not?"

"It's the war. For the life of me I can't see what we gain by abandoning Iraq, especially now that we're finally starting to turn the corner. "

"America was mislead. We have no business being in Iraq. The American people know that, and I know that. The best thing for us to do is get our troops out of there and stop making a bad situation worse."

"But it's getting better."

"Our war is with the terrorists, not the Iraqi's. Everyone knows that?"

"That's not the point. You know General Meade's war wasn't with the state of Pennsylvania, and I'm sure he would have rather fought his battle at the gates of Richmond than up in the Pennsylvania farm country. Unfortunately, at that moment the enemy happened to be at Gettysburg and so that's where the battle had to be. It seems to me the height of arrogance that Americans think we can just start and stop wars at our leisure, and then be so cavalier as to cover our defeats with the excuse that we did not lose, we just chose not to further engage."

"That's not what this is about."

"Tell me something.When this is all over, we aren't going to tun on our TV's and see Iraqis crowding the gates of the Embassy as the last Americans are helicoptered out of Baghdad, are we?"

"Our withdrawal from Iraq is not going to be the end of our commitment to defeat the terrorists and to bring their leaders to justice."

"Are we going to invade Pakistan?"

"Don't go there."

"Let's say we pull out of Iraq and the enemy then feels free to disengage and turn their attention up north, and let's say we start to see a wave of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan with thousands killed and American troops under fire. Will we then follow the pattern we established in Iraq and withdraw from Afghanistan as well? Would the enemy expect anything less of us?"

"You're overreacting to the situation, DC. I'm not going to engage in wild hypotheticals with you except to say that our commitment to the Afghan people is firm."

"Yeah, ok, but I'm sticking with McCain. I think he knows what's at stake here."

"And are you prepared to fight a hundred years war?"

"The Mideast is too volatile. Things will get resolved one way or another before that ever happens. McCain is the adult here. He knows that if you're stupid enough to get yourself into a war, then you're committed to see it all the way through. You don't get to take a Mulligan."

"Well, thank God most Americans don't feel that way. America wants out, D.C., and I do too."

"That's ok 'O'. You seem like a sincere guy. A little wet behind the ears, but sincere. And I think it'd be great if you really do change Washington, but don't give up too easily if you happen to get bloodied up a bit, huh."

"You know I won't."

"Do I?"

 

 

 

"

Carpe Diem, Dude

"Hello."

"Hello. You must be Mr. Jones. Please, have a seat."

"Thank you."

"Can I get you something to drink? A cup of coffee maybe?"

"No, no thanks. I'm fine."

"Well, Mr. Jones, what brings you in this morning?"

"I think I need a career change."

"Yes, of course. You know that's very common now days. A lot of people your age arrive at a certain point in their lives, having worked to buy a home and raise a family, and with the children gone and the mortgage almost paid they start to wonder if there isn't something more to life. Something more rewarding or personally fulfilling."

"I'm not married."

"Divorced?"

"No, nothing like that. You see I was downsized last year and..."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

"No, it's ok. I found a new job. But the thing is, I'm still doing the same thing, you know. It's a different company but it's still the same old thing, and I'm just starting to wonder if..."

"Sure, I understand. You want to know what color is your parachute."

"Huh?"

"That's just an expression. It means..."

"I didn't know parachutes came in colors."

"Well that's an interesting point. The fact is that parachutes come in all sorts of colors. We just have to find out what color yours is."

"I don't know. Red?"

"No, that's not what I...tell you what, let's start off by finding out a little bit more about yourself. When you're not working what do you like to do?"

"Sleep."

"Besides sleep, I mean. Do you like to play sports, or work on cars, or something like that, or perhaps you're more the creative type."

"I like sports, I guess."

"Oh, that's good. What sorts of sports do you play?"

"Play? No, I meant I like to watch sports. I'm too out of shape to play sports."

"Do you golf? Fish?"

"I like to eat fish, but I don't catch them. In fact, I'd really rather not watch my food squirm and die before I put it in mouth. I takes away my appetite, you know?"

"And you don't golf?"

"I hate golf."

"Ok, so what do you like to do? C'mon Mr. Jones, there must be something?"

"The truth is I already know what I want to do."

"You do? What's that?"

"I want to be a geek."

"A geek? You mean with computers and things like that?"

"Yes."

"Well, ok, that should be no problem. There are plenty of jobs out there in computers these days. Are you looking for something in IT or MIS perhaps?"

"No. not that kind of geek. Believe me, if it's 3:00 in the morning and Mary in Accounting's printer won't print, I DO NOT want to be the person she calls to get the thing working again. You know what I'm saying."

"Yes, but really Mr. Jones, you're not giving me very much to..."

"I want to be a geek. Like those ones in the movies. You know. The ones that can just walk into someone's office and type a few keys on the keyboard and suddenly have access to all of his classified documents and the schematics to secret CIA facilities in the desert, or can walk into a building and press a few keys on a keypad and disable all the alarms and open all the security doors and cut off all outside communications. I want to be one of those kind of geeks. The problme is that I don't know where you go to learn all that stuff. That's why I'm here. I was hoping you could help me."

"Tell me something Mr. Jones. Do you watch a lot of TV?"

"Not really."

"I think maybe..."

"I want a job like Chloe's. You know Chloe on '24'. I want to sit at my computer and control satellites and deploy police cars and break into government facilities and stuff like that. That would be such a cool job."

"And highly illegal, I might add."

"Well that's the whole point, isn't it. I mean who's to say where we draw the line. Maybe sometimes the ends do indeed justify the means."

"You seem like a detail oriented person, Mr. Jones. Perhaps you might like to try accounting instead."

"Can I tell you a secret?"

"No, please don't Mr. Jones. I'd rather you didn't."

"You know that Chloe - the on on TV. I think she's hot."

"Really? Well that's an interesting detail we can add to your file. But back to the business at hand. What I need from you is ..."

"You don't think I'm serious do you? Well I am. I've been to trade schools. You know like Heald and University of Phoenix, but they don't offer any courses I need. Sure, PHP and XML and things like that, but nothing about disabling building security or decrypting classified documents."

"Mr. Jones, I'm sorry but I just don't know what I can do for you. You seem to have some peculiar career goals in mind and I just..."

"You lied."

"I what?"

"You lied."

"Now wait a minute. I'm sure I never..."

"Your ad in the paper said you could help me find the path to happiness and be whatever it is I wanted to be."

"And I can, it's just that I'm not sure if...by that, I mean I don't think you really understand what...the truth is Mr. Jones, if we're going to find out your true path to happiness then you're going to have to start being a little more realistic, that's all."

"You sound just like my father. When I was a kid he used to tell me to never let anyone or anything stop me from reaching my goals, to never say never. He'd say 'Son, remember you can be anything you want to be.' So one day I told him 'Dad, I think I'd like to be Jesus Christ, the Son of God.' and then after that we stopped having our heart-to-heart talks. Then all of a sudden one day he took me to a special doctor and made me promise I'd never tell anyone I'd been there, and we never talked about being anything I want to be ever again. It was lie, what he said, wasn't it? It was all a great, big lie."

"No it's not a lie. You can be whatever you want to be, but within reason of course."

"In other words, it's true that you can be whatever it is you want to be, but realistically speaking you'll probabaly end up sitting in some cubicle just like everybody else."

"No, Mr. Jones. Please don't be discouraged. I'm sure that..."

"Look, you asked me what color my parachute was. Well, that's my parachute."

(pause)

"You're right. You're absolutely right. Ok, let's get started then. If I remember correctly you said you wanted to be a geek, but not the kind of geek that fixes people's printers. You want to be a geek of danger and mystery. Is that right?"

"Yes, exactly."

"Do you have any experience? I mean I'm not sure what sort of qualifications you need to be a geek, but what's your background. Do you have any kind of 'geek cred'?"

"Well I keep my pockets stuffed full of electronic gadgets everywhere I go, and even though my house is full of cabinets and drawers and boxes stuffed with every conceivable kind of electronic cable, connector, switch and whatever else you can possibly think of, it seems I never find the partcular cable or connector I'm looking for when I really need it."

"That's certainly a start. Anything else?"

"Well, I have poor nutrition habits, no fashion sense, and really lousy taste in art, books and music."

"Great. It certainly sounds like you're off to a solid start. Now there's just the question of where to get your training. Have you given any thought to that?"

"Yeah, well I think organized crime would probably have the sort of position I'm looking for. They always seem to need a geek or two when they commit heinous acts."

"You're right. I bet there are plenty of criminal organization's around that would be eager to take on an intern or some kind of entry-level geek."

"What kind of organizations?"

"I don't know. Latin American drug cartels, Caribbean money launderers, East Coast crime families, Congress. Have you thought about relocating to Washington DC?"

"Then you think I can really do this?"

"If that's what you want. If that's what you really want. Here, let me play this CD for you. Climb every mountain, cross every stream. Follow every rainbow, until..."

"Life is so full isn't it? Such a rich pageant."

"You see that. When you came in here you were feeling all stuck in a rut, and now look at you. How do you feel now?"

"Great. I really think I'm ready. I think I'm finally ready to let go of the past and become the geek I was always meant to be."

"You see. You just needed was a little encouragement, that's all. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, you've been a great help, and listen...if I do break into a computer someday and steal all kinds of personal information, well...I just hope it isn't yours.I wanted you to know that."

"That's sweet. Thank you. And good luck with your new career."

"No, thank you."