The Big Broadcast Of 2005

As much as I'd like to say that I've got the new religion, that I've caught the podcasting fever, I'm afraid I'm beginning to have my doubts. Yes there are some shows I like and yes I like the convenience of being able to time shift the content to fit my schedule, but more and more I just get this feeling that podcasting will never be the next big thing.

Maybe I should backup first and explain what I'm talking about.

Podcasting, for those of you who may not be familiar with the term, is a means of distributing radio over the internet. Unlike the streams which are typical of traditional internet radio, podcasts are distributed as simple mp3 files. This means that instead of tuning in to a station at a particular time to hear a broadcast, a podcast listener can store the audio file on his computer or device and play back or "time shift" the content at his or her convenience. Strictly speaking this is not a new concept and companies such as Audible.com have long offered radio shows and audiobooks for download at their sites, however podcasting offers some important differences.

The first is that podcasts are free. Sites such as Audible.com charge for their content and encrypt their downloads to prevent unauthorized copying and distributi0n. Podcasts have no such restrictions and do not charge for their content. Their files are in the common mp3 format, the lingua franca of the digital audio world, and playable on just about every conceivable computer and device currently in existence. Audible's content will only play on machines authorized to receive Audible content and licensed to receive the specific show or book being downloaded. This all relates to a concept called DRM (Digital Rights Management) that I will talk about later.

The second important difference is the means of distribution. Podcasts are not distributed through a central server or website like Audible.com but rather through a method known as syndication. To put it in very simple terms, to receive podcasts a listener needs to subscribe to a providers "feed" (commonly called an RSS feed) which will deliver the content to his computer as it becomes available, much like a magazine that arrives in the mail each month. That subscription, in turn, is handled separately by a free program such as Ipodder or Doppler which the user downloads and installs on his computer. It is this software which manages the subcription(s) and keeps the downloaded podcasts up to date and organized. If this sounds complicated, it's not. The software does most of the dirty work.

Of course what this all means to the user is portablility. As I mentioned before podcasts are simply mp3 files which are playable on just about any portable device. This means that rather than being tied to a computer to listen to your internet radio, you can download the shows to your mp3 player or similar device and take the show with you. Podcasting isn't unique in this and sites such Audible.com and Napster also allow you to download their content to portable devices, but with restrictions and for a fee. There are no restrictions on podcasts and everyone is free to create, listen to and distribute them as they wish.

So what's the problem? Podcasting sounds great, doesn't it?

Actually, there is no problem. Podcasting is great, and it really exploits this whole idea "narrowcasting" or niche programming. That is, because it's free and often a labor of love, podcasting encourages all sorts of enthusiasts and hobbyists and assorted oddballs to offer programs that would never be aired over conventional radio. One of my favorite's is a half-hour show called Dave's Ipaq dedicated solely to Hewlett Packard PDA's. It's done by guy named Dave Ciccone who also runs a website of the same name, and although the show is very well done it's probably not of much interest to anyone who doesn't own an Ipaq or other Pocket PC. Another favorite of mine is EarlySound which features music of the Renaissance and Early Baroque. It is hosted by a robot named Mr. Sauterne (yes, like the wine) and is a concept so imaginative and weird that no professional media company would ever consider doing it. Unfortunately only one show has been done so far, although I'm hoping there are more to come.

Of course, amateur radio being amateur radio there are also plenty of shows that are a complete waste of time. Take for instance a show I once downloaded that started off with some high school or junior high school kid making fart noises into his microphone (a concept that was probably funnier on paper than it was on the air). I'm sure his friends got a kick out of it but I didn't stick around to hear the rest of the hilarious goings-on. Or how about the show where the guy just kept banging the microphone on his desk. That was a good one. I guess he was having sound troubles because he sounded like he was about a mile and half away. You couldn't hear a word he was saying and that would have been bad enough, but all the time he was recording he kept fiddling with things and making these really irritating banging and rubbing sounds as he moved the microphone back and forth across his desk. Sheesh. Thirty seconds of that and I filed it straight into the recycle bin.

Yeah, this podcasting is a new frontier all right, it's unpredictable and it's fun but I don't think it will ever go mainstream. I didn't used to think that. I mean I was seduced at first like all the others, but as I listen to more and more of these things I realize it's strictly a sideshow. Why? Because although it might be new and exciting right now, eventually most of these amateurs are going to tire of podcasting and move on to something else. They're going to run out of ideas and begin to repeat themselves, and they're going to wonder if it's worth all the work involved. Especially if there's no money to be made.

And money's the big reason podcasting will never go big time.

There's simply no way to make a profit from it. What are these podcaster's going to do - find sponsor's and sell ads? How? Unless Congress makes the fast-forward button illegal (and I wouldn't put it past 'em) then ad's aren't going to work. It simply too easy to skip them. What will the podcasters do then? Are they going to start charging for their subscriptions? How can they do that without some kind of DRM. If they can't control the distribution of their content then how can they charge for subscriptions? And if they do start DRM'ing their content then they're not podcasting anymore - they''re just the same as Audible or Napster.

Nope. Without a path to profitabilty (I think that's what the business geeks call it) the big guys are never going to buy the podcasting concept and the little guys are just going to get tired and fade away. Sure, some of the more successful websites will maintain podcasts as an adjunct to their core content and there will be radio stations offering bits and pieces of their programming as a way to reach a larger audience, but the idea of a little guy starting with nothing more than a microphone and a computer and building a media empire is just childish fantasy.

At least at this point it is.

Anywhere You Go It's The Same Thing
(Money Worries, Money Troubles)

According to the Murky News (that would be the San Jose Mercury News for all the non-locals out there) it turns out that I am living in the most affluent community in America. As they reported earlier this week, the median household income for Santa Clara County (that would be the Silicon Valley for all the non-locals out there) is somewhere around $70,000, a good $11,000 more than our nearest rivals. So how does it feel to be so affluent, you might ask, well I'll tell 'ya.

For starters the houses are a little cramped and the yards are a little small, but then who can afford one anyways. Some people can, but at a median Bay Area price of $666,000 most are left out in the cold. Just do the math. A $600,000 mortgage with a 5.75% interest rate for a 30 year term leaves you paying a mere $3,484.74 a month. That's around $42,000 a year or about 2/3 of the median households $70,000 yearly gross income. But wait, we're the most affluent people in America, the Murky News said so, so you know that can't be right. Especially since that 2/3 doesn't even include property taxes and insurance. I must have multiplied somewhere when I should have divided.

That's ok because everything else is cheap. Take gas, for example. Well, on second thought that's not a very good example. Hmmm, well take utilities then. No, that's not a very good example either. Insurance? Health Care? Transportation? College for the kids? Geez, there must be something that we can buy with all this affluence (besides 60 rolls of toilet paper at Costco).

I'll think of something.

You know, when you get right down to it $70,000 a year won't buy you a whole lot in the Santa Clara Valley. It'll put a roof over your head and a little food in your belly, but if you want to own anything around here you better be making double that, and even then you'll still standing in line at Costco along with the rest of us. If you're thinking about moving here and joining in on all this affluence - don't say I didn't warn you.

But enough of that. Let's talk about who'll replace Dan Rather instead.

Have they made an announcement yet? I haven't heard anything although there have been rumors on the internet. But, I mean really, c'mon. Donald Trump? Paris Hilton? Kofi Annan? I'll believe it when I see it.

If it was up to me to choose (which of course it isn't) I think I'd go for a urban anchor. I say that because I was listening to Terry Gross do an interview with the RZA the other day and I think he'd be a great choice for the Evening News, and I mean I'm dead serious about this. We've got plenty of white males doing the national news these days so why not give a person with a different perspective a chance. It would certainly give a whole new meaning to the nightly "rap"-up, I can tell you that, and probably wouldn't be bad for the ratings either.

(This should be the point in my blog where I write some kind of news "rap" to illustrate my point but I'm not going to do that. Look, I'm old, I'm half-japanese, and old japanese guys don't rap. Sorry, but I'm sure you can see my point. Anyways, it's been a long week)

They'll never let an urban black guy do the news, though, so we're probably just gonna get another white guy. Why is that? They could at least give the job to a woman or an old japanese guy instead. I know I'd like to see that, and there are certainly a lot of qualified people who aren't white and male who could do the job. Susie Gharib, Gwen Ifill, or how about Terry Gross? TV is just radio with a camera sticking in your face.

Take a chance, CBS, and do something different.

Oh well, plus ca change...

Is It Just Me Or Do I Feel A Draft

Isn't it great that baseball has finally put to rest all those steroid rumors that have been hounding it all winter. Now, at last, we can get the crime news out of the sports pages and back into the business section where it belongs. And speaking of Worldcom, doesn't it just confirm what hundreds of millions of working people have been secretly wondering ever since the dawn of the modern megacorporation began. Namely, just what exactly does the boss really do all day?

At Worldcom, apparently, not a whole heck of a lot. Let's face it, the night janitor probably knew more about what was happening inside that company than poor old Bernie Ebbers. The guy was just an innocent dupe. It was hard work keeping track of all the millions and millions of salary and stock options he was raking in year after year- you can't expect him to spend time actually running the company or staying on top of a billion or so dollars worth of fraud can you? Let's be reasonable here.

Yeah, poor Bernie. I feel for the guy, but that's not what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about naked opera singers. Yeah, I know, I know, you're probably sick of it. Seems every other blog you read nowdays just wants to go on and on about some naked tenor or mezzo or something like that, and it's not like I can really add anything new, but you know this is an important topic. It deserves it's place on the internet.

So what I'm thinking is that it's really hard to ignore a naked opera singer. Think about it. There you are watching an opera and the drama is intense, the music is inspired, and the singing is breathtakingly beautiful, and then all of a sudden one of the singers takes her clothes off. How are you supposed to react to something like that? Do you hoot and holler? Do you modestly avert your gaze? No, of course not. If you're truly the refined and cultured patron of the arts you think you are then the obvious thing to do is simply pretend you don't see it. But that's hard to do.

"Enjoying the opera?"

"Why yes, it's wonderful. But I was wondering, why is the soprano naked?"

"The soprano?"

"Yes, up there on the stage."

"Naked?"

"Yes, don't you see her. She doesn't have any clothes on."

"Oh, wait a minute, hold on here, I think you're right. By George she is naked isn't she."

"You mean you didn't notice."

"Me? No. You see I find the whole experience of the opera so ennobling and enriching, so elegant and refined, that I don't even notice such frivolous things. After all, what's a pretty young girl to me when there is Strauss in the air, even if she is naked? No, for a truly enlightened man such bawdiness is merely primitive and base and of no more interest than a speck on a wall."

"Oh, you are good and just and true."

"There there, my dear, there there."

Yes, I suppose that's how I should react, but I seem be made of coarser stuff. I want to be noble - really I do. It's just that when I'm watching the DVD and I see the soprano get naked those noble thoughts don't come to mind. Instead I start thinking "Wow -look at that!!", and for some reason I don't care about the music or the singing or the drama anymore - I just want the camera to shift a little to the left so I can get a better look. Call me crass, call me crude, but that's the way it is.

And that's why I think maybe it would be better for all involved if the singers just kept their clothes on. Not that I'm a prude mind you, but it makes for a less of a distraction if you're not sitting there in the audience or in front of the TV with your tongue wagging and your eyes bugging out. You kind of lose track of things when that happens.

If you don't believe me then go watch soprano Maria Ewing starring in Strauss' Salome. It's on DVD and after you've seen it tell me how much of the opera you remember after she does her Dance of the Seven Veils.

Yeah, uh-huh...liar!

I Love You California

March is here, the sun is shining, and spring is just around the corner- all in all it's not so bad living in California. Especially when you look at the news and see those poor folks back east suffering through the wind and cold and ice and snow - it must be tough for them. And I know they resent people like me who live out here in the Bay Area where it's sunny and warm. I know they call us shallow and narcissistic and pampered and all sorts of nasty things. Yeah, it hurts. Yeah, I feel guilty, but it doesn't last long. After a while I get used to it and do what all Californians do. I just say "Who cares - I'm going to the beach."

But listen if it will make any of those New Yorkers or Bostonians out there feel any better then at least you can get a little satisfaction from knowing that here in California we're expecting a little storm of our own tonight. No snow or ice, mind you, but the weatherman says we could get a quarter of inch of rain and the temperatures could drop all the way down into the lower fifties.

You see we have our hard winters too.

Speaking of California, have I talked about the great rise and fall of the man they called the "governator" yet? I d0n't think the national press had got hold of the story so in case you haven't heard let me fill you in. Let's see, where was I? Oh yeah, if I remember correctly when last we left Arnold he was riding the crest of a wave, a sort of 'Mr. Schwarzenegger Goes to Washington, er Sacramento' figure who had entered politics to reform the system and loosen the stranglehold of party politics and special interests over state government. Remember? Well, that's all different now.

If you've read this blog in the past (and I can't imagine y0u have but, who knows, I may have one lonely reader out there) then you'll remember I was enthusiastic about the new governor's ambitions to energize state government back then but also admonished him to leave the public schools alone. No one, I felt, not even Arnold Schwarzenegger would be foolhardy enough to commit political suicide by taking on the state's education establishment, particularly the formidable 9000 pound gorilla of California politics, the California Teachers Association.

Well, sorry to say, Arnold didn't listen.

I don't know why he didn't listen to me. I figure it's probably because he read that editorial in Barron's a while back that pointed out how the U.S. leads all the other industrialized nations in per capita spending on education and yet seems to have the least to show for it. In fact, the editorial pointed out we don't just spend a little more, we spend a lot more per capita. Why is it, they asked, that we spend so much to attain such meager results? I guess after reading the article the governor probably got ambitious and decided it was time for Californians to start asking questions ourselves.

So off he went on his little crusade to try to find out what is really wrong with California schools, to find out if the problem wasn't just a matter of spending more money but also a matter of how the money is spent. It was a brave thing to do, I'll admit, and yet incredibly naive at the same time. For someone who is supposed to have some political savvy and be surrounded by some of the savviest people in the business, it just seemed a peculiar thing to do.

The first news of the governors education reforms that most Californians got was from the local newscasts. You knew he was in trouble when you listened to the broadcasts and they all announced it like "The governor began his assault on California's children today by unveiling his...". Of course when the state's democrats heard this they felt like they just found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Up till then Arnold had been riding high in the polls and winning the support of both Republicans and Democrats, but after he decided to take on the schools he wasn't nearly so bulletproof anymore.

The plan mainly consisted of smaller than expected increases in education spending coupled with reforms to base teacher pay on merit rather than tenure. The public's reaction to the meager increases in spending was a predictable "Just because we're broke doesn't mean we shouldn't spend more money", while the CTA's reaction to the merit pay proposal was "This governor is trying to demonize teachers." Soon everyone huddled together in a kind of "we've got to protect our children" formation and the governor's goose was pretty much cooked.

Meanwhile, back at the statehouse, there wasn't a Democrat to be found. Before the governors proposal came out you couldn't walk ten feet without tripping over a Democrat trying to get his face on TV and shoot a few holes in the 'governator', but after the proposal they all just seemed to disappear. Where did they all go, we wondered, even though we knew they were just laying back and enjoying the sight of the once high and mighty reformer being eaten alive by his own political ineptitude. "Yes, yes, yes", you could hear them chuckling to themselves, "how could he be so stupid?"

And so Arnold started to sink in the polls. His approval ratings are still good, but not what they were, and if he continues to push the voters towards a decision between their children and Conan The Barbarian, well, all I can say is it will be a sad end for a once promising political career. Of course if he has any brains at all he'll walk away from this school thing and try to get some of his other reforms through. Whatever happens, though, let this just be a lesson for all those who seek higher office in California-

Don't mess with the schools.

If you've got to shut down the prisons, close the hospitals, and lay off every policeman and fireman in California, just do it. If you've got to sell the state parks, close the freeways, and leave every widow and orphan to go begging, just do it. If you've got to borrow from your parents, your children, your brothers, your sisters, and every aunt, uncle, nephew and cousin you can find, just do it.

Just don't mess with the schools.

And so that's the news from sunny California where the coffers are empty, the mortgage is past due, and governor hates children.

Deal Me In George

Haven't talked much about Social Security lately but Lord knows everyone else has. Which is a bit strange don't you think? I mean the whole Social Security debate is really like a bunch of people on Let's Make A Deal all arguing about what's behind door number 3. Who knows? Everyone's got an opinion but no one seems to know the details. Well I figure the only way I'm ever going to get a clear explanation is by going straight to the top.

"Hello Mr. President. Can you please explain to the American people just what your plan for Social Security is?"

"It's all about ownership and people taking responsibilty for their own futures."

"Yes I see but what will it cost?"

"What's the cost of doing nothing?"

"You see that's my point. What IS the cost of doing nothing?"

"The cost is a Social Security system that's bankrupt and unable to meet it's obligations."

"Do you mean that at some point Social Security is going to stop paying benefits?"

"We will not break our trust with the American people."

"Huh? Does that mean you are going to reduce benefits?"

"Young workers will do far better with Personal Savings Accounts than they would under the current system."

"How much are you going to reduce benefits?"

"Personal Savings Account will give many young workers a real opportunity for wealth creation."

"Yes, but by how much are you going to reduce benefits?"

"Under our plan all the money you earn in your Personal Saving Account is yours. You own it and the government cannot touch it."

"Yes, but the benefits. How much will they be cut....Oh, never mind."

"We need to move to an ownership society."

"As opposed to a leasehold society, I suppose. Well let's pretend for a moment that I know what you mean by that. Some say that under your plan benefits will need to be cut by about 55% in order to balance the books, and others say that the real purpose behind your reforms is to gradually abolish the Social Security System all together. Would you care to comment on that?"

"No one over the age of 55 will be affected by my proposal nor see any changes to the benefits they are receiving now or plan to receive in the future."

"Thank you for your clarification Mr. President, and let me just say that I happen to agree with you that younger workers need to save more for their retirements. I'm not sure if gutting Social Security is the best way to achieve that goal, but if I were a twenty-something just starting out I'd certainly be in favor of Personal Savings Accounts. What we don't know, of course, and what you won't tell us, is how much safety net will be left forty years down the road or even if our PSA's will be all the net we get.

On the other hand maybe it doesn't matter because unless these twenty-somethings don't plan on getting sick or old when they retire, their medical costs are going to eat up any money they may have managed to set aside. Let's face it, with costs rising the way they are now that 50, 60 or 70 thousand dollar hospital bill you might get today will seem pretty cheap forty years from now when that same stay could run into the tens of millions. And that's not even accounting for the monthly drug bills, lab bills, long term care, it just goes on and on."

"Which is why we passed our Health Savings Accounts legislation back in 2003."

"You think the HSA's will cover it?"

"The important thing is that workers will have a choice. They can either choose to get the drugs and other treatments, or they can choose to drop dead. That's not a decision the government should make."

"Well thanks again, Mr. President. It's been terrible talking to you."

"Anytime."

Diogenes Calls It A Day

And so it came to pass that I grew tired of this life - tired of the hypocrisy, the money grubbing, the sycophants and ass-kissers - and became a wanderer and seeker of truth. Through countless towns and villages I travelled, through cities and farms, across oceans and continents, everywhere asking "where is meaning, where is truth" and finding none. Till one day I came to rest beside a small stream and spied a small water nymph.

"Oh water nymph", I cried in desperation, "where is the truth? I've searched everywhere but all I've found is obfuscation and lies. Is there no truth to be found in this world?"

Crushed and disheartened I lay my head down in the tall grass and began to sob. To my amazement a voice spoke to me.

"If you seek the truth, o' wanderer, then you must travel far from here and find the 'true path'. Only the 'true path' that can lead you to the land of enlightenment and self-knowledge."

Stunned, I looked around to find the speaker of these words, but there was no one. I looked upstream and downstream, I searched the trees and bushes and scanned the horizon as far as the eye could see, and yet not a soul could I find. Finally, looking down into the water I saw it was none other than the water nymph who addressed me.

"Water nymph", I cried, "is it you who has spoken so wisely just now?"

"Yes", said the water nymph. "Leave this place and find the 'true path'. It is there to the east, beyond the river and the sea. Find the 'true path' my son and all your wanderings will be over."

Full of promise and hope I thanked the water nymph and began my journey to find the 'true path'. And it was there in the east, just as he had said. Eagerly I began to walk down the path of enlightenment, and so it was that after several days journey the path ended and I found myself in front of a great iron gate. Nearby, a small hut stood in a clearing and anxiously I entered. Inside it was dark and musty and I spied a bearded old man smoking a pipe beside a fire.

"Are you the source of all truth?" I asked him.

"Oh, ho, ho, heavens no my son. I am merely a poor gatekeeper. Is it the truth you are looking for?"

"Yes, Mr. Gatekeeper, and I've travelled so very far. Tell me, how much farther is it till I find the real, honest, everlasting truth?"

"Oh, you are very close my son. I can see you have travelled very far and now I will tell you your wandering is almost over. Hear these words. Past this gate you will find the 'Mountain of Lies ', and know this - before you can enter the realm of truth you must ascend this mountain, and the climb is perilous and slippery and full of danger and deceit. "

"I will climb this mountain" I cried. "I am not afraid."

"You are very brave, my son", said the old man, "and know this - at the top of the mountain you will find an altar. And within the altar you will find the Oracle. Ask the Oracle for guidance and he will answer you with the truth for which you seek."

Excited and confused I thanked the old man and passed through the gate to begin my climb up the 'Mountain of Lies'. Though my hands were cut and bruised, though my eyes were stung from wind and sand, though my toes were frozen with frosbite, still I climbed, higher and higher, till at last I dragged my beaten and broken body up to the very peak of the mountain. And there I saw it. Bright and golden, gleaming in the distance, stood the altar of the Oracle of Truth. Numbed from exhaustion I gathered all my remaining strength and walked down the gentle slope towards the golden light. As I approached I could see inside the altar, with his back to me, the form and figure of the Oracle. In white robes he sat, a halo of light circling his head, and as I approached I tingled with excitement for finally my search for the truth had ended. I circled in front of him and slowly his face came into view. So this was the face of truth, I thought, so this is face of all that is honest and pure, so this is...

"Jose Canseco?"

"Can I help you my son?"

"Jose Canseco! You're the Oracle of Truth?"

"Yes, let there be no more lies. Did you come seeking the Truth?"

"B...b...b...but Jose, you can't be the Oracle of Truth. I know you. I grew up in the Bay Area. You were always a lying, greedy, self-aggrandizing jerk. How can you now be the Oracle of Truth?"

"Easy - I wrote a book. Now is there something you wanted to ask me? Is there some truth you want revealed?"

"Uh, yeah. Um, I guess so. Let me see. Ok, I got one. Tell me oh great Oracle of Truth, what is the true secret to happiness?"

"Do you have a major credit card?"

"Excuse me."

"A major credit card. I'll need your credit card before I can answer that. I take VISA, Mastercard, or American Express."

"But I don't have a credit card. I left behind all worldly things and material goods when I climbed up this mountain."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that", said the Oracle. "Maybe you can come back later."

"But you said you'd answer my question."

"Well, things are different now, aren't they? Please, why don't you go back and get your wallet and then we'll talk about this later."

"But..."

"Please, you're holding up the line. Please. Step aside and let someone else have a turn."

And so I left, my poor heart full of sorrow and regret. To come so close and not bring a major credit card. How could I be so stupid. But at least I got to see the truth, to almost touch it even. Imagine that. Jose Canseco, the great Oracle of Truth. Who'd have figured.

Wake Me When Supper's Ready

Burt Bacharach was wrong, of course. Very wrong. The world doesn't need any more love, we got plenty of that. If you ask me what the world needs now is sleep.

That's truly the only thing that there's just too little of.

Take me, for example. Every morning when that alarm clock goes off it's obvious that I haven't slept long enough. It's obvious that I'm in no condition to get out of bed and face the world. And yet off I go, groggy, sleep deprived, wondering why it is that just once I couldn't forget all my cares and spend an entire week sleeping in bed. You know, just once wouldn't it be nice to really get some sleeping done. Real sleep. Not just enough sleep to make it through the day, but sleep that would get all the tired right out of me, sleep that would just get down there and drain every little pool of weariness from my body. Ah, that would be nice - an entire week of nothing but sleep. 168 hours straight, and when I finally got up I'd feel new and refreshed and...

go right back to bed and sleep some more.

It would be nice and also provide invaluable data for my sleep theory (in case you were wondering if there was a point to all this). My research is still in the early stages, mind you, so I don't have anything definitive to say at present, however I will be publishing an important scientific paper about it one day (after I finish my great libretto) so I might as well share what I have so far.

It seems to me that we have this sleep thing all backwards. That is, the science so far has all been based on this notion of "why do we sleep?" That's the way most lay people look at it too, and I say that's all wrong. We should not ask "why do we sleep?" but rather "why do we wake?". Think about it. When you were born what's the first thing you did after you had yourself a good cry? Right! You went to sleep. Babies are no fools. They know that if there's no good reason to be awake then they should have themselves a good sleep. It's just the natural and healthy thing to do.

But as we grow and mature into adulthood we begin to forget all that. We lose that inner child. Face it, there are really only 3 good reasons to be awake anyways - defense, nutrition and fornication. Other than those 3 things, there's no need for us to be up and moving about, fighting traffic, talking on the phone, watching TV or whatever. A person could live quite well by just avoiding danger, getting something to eat, fornicating and sleeping. That's what my theory would call the Ideal State of Man.

But we humans, being the higher order creatures we are, like to complicate things. We let our egos get the better of us and all of a sudden we have all these things to do and places to go and people to meet and schedules and timetables and appointments and clocks and alarms and cell phones and blackberries all hammering at us to keep going all the time, just go, go, go all day, everyday, until finally we are beaten into submission and drop dead of a high cholesterol and a heart attack. Don't you see. We don't have sleep disorders, we have wake disorders. In fact some people's lives are nothing more than wake disorders, one right after the other.

And that's why I believe that it's time for all of us to just go back to sleep. It's time for us to reconnect with our inner child. It's time to turn off our alarm clock and not show up to work or school until we're good and rested. It's time for us to be what nature intended us to be. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. C'mon them, sing it with me

Lord, we don't need another mountain
There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb.
There are oceans and rivers enough to cross,
Enough to last
'Til the end of time.

What the world needs now is ....

On The Beach

I was watching the Travel Channel and this show about Australia comes on, and it was simply amazing. Did you know that Australia was just one long series of empty, tropical beaches populated with nothing but golden-skinned goddesses in string bikinis? I didn't know that, but that's what the TV show said, so I asked my email buddy Sandy about it. She lives down near Melbourne and first I told her about the show and how there were all these empty beaches with golden-skinned goddesses and then I asked her if all of Australia was like that and she said

Yeah, sure. It's an entire continent of nothing but empty beaches and golden-skinned goddesses.

Well you could have knocked me over with a feather, but then as I was about to book my flight it occurred to me that maybe Sandy wasn't being totally honest. I mean she's a great person and I had no reason to doubt her word, but they must be a few blokes around down there, don't you think? I mean they play that weird kind of football and Rod Laver was Australian, wasn't he? It can't all be bronze goddesses. And then I started thinking if they do have blokes down there, then fat chance they're gonna help me find those beaches.

"Uh, g'day there mate. You wouldn't happen to know where I can find an empty beach with golden-skinned goddesses in string bikinis like I saw on the Travel Channel would you?"

"Eh, bugger off. Those beaches are for Aussies, not the likes of you."

"No, you don't understand. I saw it on TV. Apparently these girls stand around in skimpy swimwear all day just hoping to meet friendly American tourists on winter holiday. If you could just point me in the right direction I'd really apprecia-"

"How about I point my fist into your ugly little face."

"Well you don't have to be rude. I was only asking because I saw it on the Travel Channel and I came all the way down here from America to... Look, I even brought scented body oils in case, you know, one of them needed a little rubdown."

"We ain't got no beaches."

"No beaches?"

"No."

And that would be that. Nothing to do but go home if they're gonna cop that kind of an attitude. Damn Aussies. I wouldn't even have bothered if I knew they were gonna be like that. Whole continent full of golden goddesses in string bikinis and they won't even point a stranger in the right direction. No use in going if they're gonna be like that.

So I stayed home.

And I'm not watching the Travel Channel anymore.

It Ain't Too Hard To Live With Somebody Else's Troubles
(They don't make you lose any sleep at night)

Scientists call them "conversations you don't want to have" and everyone knows how unpredictable they can be. You can be having the most pleasant little chat with someone then all of a sudden - BLAM! - the whole thing starts to turn. I ran into an old co-worker of mine today.

"Hey D. , is that you. Man I haven't seen you in years."

"Tony? How are you? I haven't talked to you in ages."

"Yeah, how long has it been? Must be at least 6 or 7 years."

"You're looking great - haven't changed a bit."

(So far, so good)

"Thanks, you're looking pretty good yourself. Say are you still working for ..."

"No, I got laid off."

(BLAM!)

"Laid off? Are you kidding. Why?"

"I don't know. I've been out of work for over a year and there's just nothing out there."

(Over a year! Oh geez, I do not want to have this conversation)

"Things are that bad?"

"Worse. Thirty years in the business and then suddenly no one wants you anymore."

(You're making me nervous here D. You know I've got over 20 years in the business myself...can we please end this conversation)

"Geez, I'm sorry to hear that. How are you doing? Are you getting by ok?"

"Yeah. I'm getting by. How are things around here? Are you guys pretty busy?"

"No, it's been slow. "

"Yeah, that's what I heard. I've been putting in my applications but no one's hiring. I've got all this experience, you know, but what are you going to do?"

(Tell me about it. All I can say is there but for the grace of God go...no, I don't want to deal with this right now. Please, don't make me deal with this)

"Yeah, it's pretty tough. "

So anyways, for some reason that got me thinking about Siegfried. (Yeah, I know it's weird). I started thinking about the part where he drinks the dragon's blood and the songbird explains to him that now he has the power to hear what is truly in people's hearts. For some reason the whole conversation just started me wondering what would happen if I drank some of that dragon's blood and instead of hearing what is truly in other people's hearts, they could hear what is truly in my heart. If instead of trying to say something kind I just said what was really on my mind. I know it would never work in real life but it just might work in a blog.

"Hey D., how are you?"

"Not too good. I got laid off."

"Oh really. Well, it was just a matter of time."

"What?"

"No, I didn't mean it like that. I just meant that when you start getting old, you know, they want to push you out the door. At least nowadays they do."

"I had thirty years in the business."

"So?"

"So, that ought to count for something."

"Says who? Face facts, D. After thirty years all you are is a great big drag on the balance sheet, you know what I mean? The world's changing. All an employer wants these days is some drone who'll push keys on a computer for a dollar a day. And who can blame them. I mean you can't blame the lion for devouring the sheep, can you? That's the way he makes his living."

"Well thanks. That makes me feel completely worthless. Got any more good cheer you want to spread?"

"Ah, I'm sorry. I don't know what's got into me. I got some dragon blood on my hand and took a little taste and all of sudden I'm saying all these crazy things."

"No, forget about it. You're right. It's all numbers and computers now."

"Yeah, I'm just counting the days myself. So far I've been lucky, but someday my luck's gonna change, you know? I mean it's been nice working in a department that doesn't really have any tech-savvy people in it, after all a technological backwater does have it's advantages, jobwise, but I know that someday some corporate tech-head is gonna come walking through that door and figure things out. You know?"

"Like what?"

"Like the whole outsourcing thing. It's all electronic now, D. It's all online. Sooner or later someone's gonna figure out that there are college grads in Bombay making 10 dollars a week who could do a lot of this work just as well as we can sitting here in this office. And when they do... well, I hope you'll save me a spot in the unemployment line."

"Thirty years in the business and... "

"I hear ya."

"And when that day comes what do you think you'll do?"

"Well I hear there's this blond sleeping on a rock."

"Huh?"

"Forget it. Bad joke."

So that was my day. Pretty depressing, if I do say so myself. After all these years it's back to the same old question of what do you want to do when you grow up. Problem is I still haven't figured that one out.

I think maybe I'd like to be a concert violinist. I say that because I was over at Hilaryhahn.com the other day catching up on all the latest Hilary news, and I tell ya' being a violin soloist looks like it would be a pretty nice job to have. Lots of travel, lots of food, stay at the best hotels - not a bad way to make a living. Probably a lot of partying and hellraising and groupies and all that too, although I'm not really sure if female concert violinists have groupies. Hmmm, not likely come to think of it. I think they just have rich, sculpted boyfriends with gel in their hair and manicured nails.

Maybe that's what I'll do when I grow up. I'll be Hilary's rich, sculpted boyfriend and follow her around to Paris and Berlin and drive expensive cars and drink expensive champagne and strike elegant poses and flirt shamelessly in nightclubs and create gossip and scandal and... oops, I almost forgot.

I'll need some money first. And I'm gonna need some sculpting too. No, I take that back. I'm gonna need lots of sculpting. Which makes me too old to start the violin and too fat and poor to be a gigolo.

I tell ya', this has been a depressing day.

Got A Rocket In My Pocket

The Consumer Electronics Show came and went this year and the big news was that there really was no big news. The TV's are getting bigger, the music players are getting smaller, the computers are getting faster, everything's becoming connected, and yet the fact remains that the world needs a new technology. I never thought I'd say this but tech is starting to get boring.

I think part of the problem can be illustrated with this new PDA I have sitting here in front of me. It's a Dell Axim X30 that I picked up for around $300.00 last Christmas. If you're not familiar with PDA's those are those little Palm Pilot devices that used to be popular about 5 years ago which some people still use for calendaring and contact management. Nice little devices that I've owned in one form or another since I bought my original Palm III back in the late 90's, I guess.

Well, needless to say things have changed over the past decade and my new PDA is nothing like that old Palm III. In fact I've bought PC's that didn't have the hardware specs that my new PDA has - 624MHz processor, 64 MB Ram, 64MB Rom, built-in wireless networking with Bluetooth, etc... Man, we're way beyond calendaring and contact management now.

And that's the big tech problem.

Just think about it. I now carry around in my pocket a slender, lightweight device which can not only keep track of my information but can also play music, play videos, store and display ebooks, store and display audio books, fetch email, surf the web (sort of), download news and rss feeds, store and play radio shows, and, well, just about anything else you could ever imagine or want a computer to do. And that's just the basics. If I wanted to spend a few extra bucks it could also be my gps device, my home theater remote, my digital camera, or any of a dozen or more other uses which have been developed for it. What's even more impressive is that this isn't even a top of the line PDA. In fact, if you've got the cash there are some PDA's and Smartphones for sale that'll blow the lid off of this one.

So what's my point. My point is that I don't need any more technology than this. Other than cleaning the gutters and taking out the garbage, this little device does just about everything I need a device to do. That's why I think the Tech world has hit this little rut it's in - there simply isn't a big enough need out there to lead tech to the next big step. I've already got a desktop PC that's got more power than I can use. I've got a 2 year old laptop that still has plenty of juice to do the things I need a laptop to do (which is less and less since I got the new PDA), and, like I said, I've got this new Dell Axim which is probably the last PDA I'll be buying for quite a while.

Face it all you techies out there, we need a new frontier. HDTV's? Nah, not right now. I can wait a few years for the prices to come down. New music players? I still haven't used up the 60 gigs I've got already. Satellite Radio? Nah, no thanks. I'm lucky to have a great over the air radio station where I live, and even if I didn't I'd rather listen to my own playlist than somebody else's. Mac Mini? Pleeeeeze, I've got more computers and more computing power than I know what to do with.

No, if there's going to be a next step then it's going to be in the direction of better utilizing the technology we already have. That means the future, at least in the short term, is going to belong to the content people like Itunes or Audible.com, or the Podcasters, or maybe even a Movielink or Cinemanow.com. Whoever it is, it won't belong to the Intels or Sony's or other big names we've gotten so used to in the past.

At least that's what my crystal ball is telling me, and, as I've said before, my crystal ball has always been wrong.

PS. Almost forgot, there's is one thing my Axim won't do. One of the first applications I tried was a trial version of 'DVD to Pocket PC' which promised it could rip any DVD and reformat it to play on my PDA. Just to test it out I ripped a DVD of Madama Butterfly (which I happen to own, Mr. MPAA), copied it onto the the storage card, and played it using Windows Media Player for Pocket PC. The results were unbelievable. The video was rock solid, the picture was so clear I could even read the subtitles, and the digital stereo coming through the headphones was sweet and pure and totally in sync with the video. No stutter, no stammer, no nothing, but there was one little problem - no Dolby Digital Surround Sound. Come on Dell. Are you telling me that with everything else you packed into that device you c0uldn't fit 5 speakers and subwoofer in there too? Geez, what a rip-off.

Water, Water Everywhere, Nor Any Drop To Drink

It's possible to plumb without swearing an oath, I suppose, but I've never been able to do it. Swearing and plumbing just seem to go hand-in-hand, and if you want to know how I spent my pleasant evening at home, well, let's just say that I spent it with a wrench and it's possible that an impolite word or two may have escaped my lips.

Not that I'm a lousy plumber, mind you - I'm way beyond lousy. But a fella ought to be at least a little handy around the house, don't you think? When something minor like a kitchen faucet starts exploding water all over the floors, cabinets and counters he ought to be able to look the situation over and come up with a plan of repair. That's the way I look at it, anyways, and so when some minor disaster strikes the house I'm always game to see what I can do. And true to form I always start each new home repair project the same way by making the same mistake.

"Looks easy," I say.

And this one did look easy. All that was needed was a new hose to connect the faucet to the spray nozzle. Sheesh, turn a couple of nuts, pull the old hose out and put the new one in. Piece of cake, I thought, and it would have been had it not been for the first rule of home plumbing projects.

Rule No. 1.: The part needing repair will always be in the darkest, most cramped and inaccessible spot possible.

Which brings me to the part about swearing oaths.

There I was, lying on my back under the kitchen sink, flashlight in my teeth, with my right arm stretched around the garbage disposal and under the tubes for the dishwasher and my left arm doubled back under my shoulder so I could reach behind the hot and cold water lines and try to get a wrench on the fitting holding the hose to the faucet, and I tell you I wanted to be good but somehow the oaths just started coming.

"If I can just get this wrench on there and turn it a little. Eeuuggghhhh! Yeah, that's it. Got it! Now just hold on there and turn it..."

(CLUNK!)

"Ow! God #@%& it!!! %$##ing wrench!!! That god#$%# son of a &%#$*! How am I supposed to get it when it's way the #%$& up there!?"

"Maybe you should call a plumber."

(Did I mention I had a kibbitzer)

"We don't need a plumber."

(Why do people make comments like that anyways? Don't they know how insulting it is. That's like saying "Why don't you ask for directions?" Geez, no man worth his salt is ever going to take something like that laying down. )

" It's simple. All I need to do is get this fitting loose and the hose will pop right off ."

(In other words, go away and leave me alone. I don't care if I gotta break every knuckle in my hand, we ain't gonna call a plumber. Not after a comment like that)

"Okay, let's try again. Where's that wrench? Oh there it is, under my ribcage. Okay, right arm around the garbage disposal and under the dishwasher tubes, left hand behind the pipes, now just get the wrench around the fitting and..."

(CLANK! CLUNK! CLING!)

"Oooowwww! GOD $#%& IT! "

"Are you sure we don't need a plumber?"

"No, I told ya'. We don't need a plumber."

(Hmmm, there's gotta be another way to do this. Maybe if I took the sink out and knocked out the front wall I could get some room to work in)

"I just need a smaller wrench or something. I can fix this, okay?"

And so, to make a long story short, after much knuckle scraping and oath swearing I finally got the fitting off and the hose pulled out. Now all I had to do was put the new hose in and before you know it the old faucet would be good as new. Which brings me to the 2nd rule of home plumbing repair.

Rule No. 2: 95% of any home plumbing repair is being able to find the right parts.

This is true of any repair project, of course, but where plumbing repair differs from say car repair is that when you need a part for your car you just call up the car parts guy and tell him "I need a conbabulator for a 74 Pinto" and if he's got it, you're all set. With plumbing, however, that's a lot harder to do. Don't believe me, ok quick - tell me the make and model number of your kitchen faucet? Aha, that's what I thought, and unless you've got it written down or make a habit of studying your pipes and fittings, you're probably not gonna know anything beyond "Um, I think it's a Moen, but I don't know the model number."

Luckily, the plumbing industry is aware of this and that's why hardware stores across America stock these universal type things which are supposed to work with any make and model of plumbing apparatus ever manufactured and sold (except for your make and model, of course). I made a quick trip to the hardware store over my lunch break and soon I was all fixed up with just the right part - a universal kitchen faucet spray hose kit with instructions and adaptors included. Man, this was going to be easy.

First thing to do is look at the instructions. Instruction 1 looked pretty good, instruction 2 - I can do that, instruction 3 - "What the hell are they talking about. What parts 1 and 4? That picture doesn't look like what's in the kit." So I decided to skip the rest of the instructions and just get to the job at hand. After all, you hook one end up to the faucet and the other to the spray head, turn and the water and you're set to go. You don't need instructions for that.

And so that's just what I did. I hooked up the one end to the faucet (after much knuckle scraping and oath swearing) and the other end to the spray head, opened the valves and then just stood back and enjoyed the shower of water that came shooting out from both ends of my newly installed home plumbing repair. Man, It was great. Under the sink you had jets of water scrubbing the cabinet floor clean and above the sink you had great geysers shooting high into the air and raining drops all over the counters and floors. I tell you it was like having the Trevi Fountain right there in the middle of the kitchen.

But I knew it wasn't right so it was back to the drawing board. I shut the valves off and then I remembered

"Adaptors!"

Oh yeah, the adaptors, I was wondering what they were for. I looked back over the instructions and still couldn't make heads or tails of 'em, so I decided to just started playing with the different combinations. This with that, that with this, washer here, washer there, and though I never did figure out how they were intended to work I did find combinations that were close enough, so I decided to just hook 'em up and if they didn't work I'd just force 'em to work. I connected this adaptor to the faucet, that one to the spray head, turned the valves and....

It worked.

What do you know, I fixed it. My knuckles were scraped raw, I had cuts and bruises all up and down my arms, my clothes were soaking wet, and the floors, cabinets and counters were all drenched with water, but how about that - I fixed it.

Then I gathered my tools and got some towels to soak up the water, and as I stood there basking in the glow of my accomplishment a smile of satisfaction shot across my face, an inner smile that only comes when you have given your all to a great cause and walked away victorious. I felt tested and proud, battered but not broken, and deeply moved as I quietly thought to myself

"Next time, I'm calling a plumber."

Economic Outlook 2005


The old adage goes "It is when a man is well honored and well fed that he is at his most agreeable". Yes, it's true, and I might add "most "corruptible" too. That's why I've thought it's always best to be wary of those who honor and feed you. Unless the honor and the food are sincere, you may find yourself being led down a path that prudence and sound judgement would dispute.

Which brings me to the inaugural.

No, on second thought, maybe it doesn't. After all, what more can be said about the corruption of money that hasn't been said before. It's a Washington tradition, for Pete's sake. The big shots give, the politicians take, and the people are left wondering what hit them. I do wish they could be a little more discreet about it though. It's bad enough to be corrupt, but to be openly corrupt just adds insult to injury. I say let's bring back the smoke-filled rooms and put all this influence peddling and deceit behind the curtains where it belongs.

And that, my fellow citizens, is my plan for America.

So, enough of that. Let's change gears and talk about the economy. This is my favorite time of the year for talking about the economy because it's when all the investment guru's and money managers come out with their predictions for the coming year. Are they bullish or bearish, we ask, and then wait anxiously for the answer as if some Harvard MBA is going to be any better at predicting the future than the local astrologer or palm reader. Still, it's fun because nothing makes a person feel quite so much an insider as talking about the stock market. Well, except for sports, perhaps, and since I don't follow sports much, I'll just stick with the stock market.

Am I a bull? Am I a bear? Is there a reason why someone should care? Of course not. Still, if anyone should ask I would have to tell them - I'm neither. You see I'm what I like to call a squirrel. That is, I'm the lowest, dullest, dreariest form of investor there is. My name is Tony Myers, and I'm a dollar cost averager.

Yes it's true. Now any reasonable person knows that a real investor doesn't dollar cost average, he's a timer. He's in and out of all the hottest stocks, he buys at the bottom and sells at the top, he's got the inside poop and he's miles ahead of everyone else. He's a wheelin', dealin', gamblin' man who knows all the insider acronyms and all the insider jargon and even though he doesn't understand a word of it he lays it on thick just the same. That's a real investor, and I've come across more than a few, especially on the internet.

But me, I'm not like that. I'm like my friend Fred. Poor old Fred, he never has the inside poop. He never knows what the hot stocks are. He never knows where the markets are heading. Yeah, dumb ol' Fred just buys mutual funds. And not the flashy sector kind either, but just the solid boring ones with proven market beating track records. Month after month there's feeble ol' Fred setting aside a portion of his paycheck and buying a few more shares to add to his pile. (Yawn) Geez, that's not real investing - that's like having a savings account.

And yet, as the years go by and Fred keeps adding little by little, month by month, a funny thing starts to happen. The pile starts to grow, and get bigger, and bigger, and as it gets bigger compounding makes it grow even bigger and faster than before, and before you know it Fred has amassed himself one nice little pile of money. But this takes years, of course, and no real investor would ever wait years for his pile to grow. It's got to grow right now! He's looking for the next Microsoft (aren't we all) and he's not gonna sit around and wait for compounding to start kicking in. Poor Fred, he just doesn't get it.

Like I said, I'm a lot like Fred. I dollar cost average and don't worry too much about what the market's going to do this year. If I had to take a guess, though, I'd say it's probably gonna be down some if only because all the analysts and guru's seem to think it's going to do just the opposite. Guess that means I'll be accumulating shares this year, and hopefully treading water till the next upturn comes along. It's not a bad way to invest, really, just kind of dull.

So that's my market outlook for 2005. Stay the course and as long as the economy doesn't fall off a cliff I should be okay. Which doesn't mean I'm complacent.

That's because there's more economic news. For instance I read that some Credit Unions are starting to offer 40 year mortgages. Problem is that extending the term of the loan doesn't really do much to lower the payment, so they aren't garnering much attention. I mean the whole point of a mortgage is to get you into more house than you can afford, so what good is extending the term if it's only going to get you into a house a little beyond your means. We want houses way beyond our means.

So then I read that some lenders are starting to offer minimum payment loans. These are adjustable rate loans that let people just make just the payment they can afford. Sheesh, forget interest-only, we're way past that. Just tell me what you can afford to pay and we'll add the unpaid interest back into the principal. Then, later, when you're making more money (or sobered up, whichever comes first) you can worry about paying us what you owe. And you will owe, believe me. Boy, will you owe. Of course, if the housing market should cool in the meantime and prices start to drop a little, you won't just be underwater - you'll be subterranean.

Which brings me to my point. As we look forward to 2005 and beyond could it be possible that America could be the first country to ever spend their way to prosperity. I mean, it looks like we're certainly going to try. Retail now accounts for almost as much of our economy as industrial, which means buying things is now almost as important as making things. The great experiment were engaged in is to see if through sheer indebetedness we can continue to inflate asset prices and prosper in the years to come. When I look at that and see people doing things like mortgaging their houses to invest in the stock market, well, it's not time to panic yet but, you know, we just may fall off that cliff after all.

I Thought It Was Just Fish Sauce

January 13, 2005. Mark that date down because it is destined to go down in history as the day that Bud Selig and the Players Union cleaned up baseball. Woohoo! Glad we got that whole scandal behind us. Now we can get back to the business of watching second basemen and shortstops muscle fastballs into the upper deck and be satisfied that it's all good clean american fun.

Oh okay, maybe I'm being a little too cynical here. I'm sure that this new anti-drug effort will be a rousing success and no baseball player will dare risk a 10 day suspension for the tens of millions he can earn with a visit to his friendly neighborhood chemist. I mean, why would he chance such a thing when the stakes are so high? Yes, I think both management and players should be commended for this effort and I'm sure the fans will...will...

will care less.

After all, when this story first broke it was news for all of about 2 weeks before dropping completely off the radar screen. Now that a new drug policy has been anounced, I predict it will be news for about 5 days, tops, and then disappear again until spring training. And it's not that people don't care - it's just that they've got more important things to worry about. Let's face it when people go to a ballgame, well dammit, they want to see the ball leave the yard. That's just the way it is ; after you've paid a hundred or 2 hundred dollars to take the family to the ballpark, you want to see something spectacular.

(Did you notice the semicolon in the last sentence - a semicolon is always the mark of a sophisticated writer).

Which brings us to Barry Bonds - a local favorite. I guess people who don't live in the Bay Area don't know how popular he is around here, but believe me, he is very popular. And yes, we all know about the steroids and frankly, outside of the press which never cared for Barry anyways, no one thinks too much about it. He's big and bad, he hits the ball into Bay, and people usually come away thinking they got their money's worth. That's all that matters, really, and as far as management and players are concerned, just as long as the fans keep ponying up the money there's no real reason to overreact on this steroid thing. Sure, the players and owners may express their concern in public, but believe me behind closed doors they are being very careful not to do anything that could derail this gravy train.

So, you might ask, how is baseball going to handle it when Barry enters the Hall of Fame? Are they going to just ignore the drugs, or are they going to acknowledge that he might have taken some things he shouldn't have but only because his trainer decieved him into taking them and he was too dumb to ask what they were. I tell ya', I don't know what baseball is going to do (but I bet it'll be lame).

Here's what I'd do. I'd go ahead an induct him into the Hall of Fame with all the brass bands and honors and other falderal that goes with it. I'd speechify and venerate and glorify him to heaven, and I'd build him a great exhibit full of all the remembrances and tokens of esteem that go with being the greatest player in the history of baseball. The record breaking bats, the history making balls, the uniforms, the photographs and press clippings that praised him on high; and then down in the dark shadowy corners of the display, I'd also display the syringes, the pills and liquids, the stimulants and growth hormones, and pictures of all the unsavory acquaintances and advisors and trainers that found their way into his entourage. I'd show the fans the whole story and let them come to their own final judgements.

And then, as a final tribute to the great man, I would place Barry Bond's display right next to the Jackie Robinson display. Just imagine, just by standing in one spot a person could look at everything that made baseball great, and then without even turning his head he could see everything that baseball has become.

And then, if he had any sense at all, he could just walk out the door.

When The Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob Bobbin' Along


Back in the 1920's and 30's she was known as America's Sweetheart of Song and the Sweetheart of Columbia Records, she sang for the Ziegfield Follies and starred on Broadway alongside Eddie Cantor and Ed Wynn, she sang the top songs of all the top composers - Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, DeSylva and Brown and Henderson, she even made a few movies out in Hollywood, and although it's hard to be absolutely certain it's estimated that she probably had 60 hit records before she retired from show business in the late 1930's. Quite a career and if it were possible to measure her success by the media saturated standards of today, she might possibly be compared to Elvis or the Beatles.

And yet, you probably never heard of Ruth Etting. That's a shame, and that's why I'm blogging on her tonight.

According to her bio, Ruth Etting was a small town girl who left her home in David City, Nebraska at the age of 17 to study art in Chicago. She got a job designing costumes for the chorus at a local nightclub, and as one thing led to another she rose to become a featured singer at some of the hotels and speakeasies in town. She met and married a gangster named Martin "Moe the Gimp" Snyder who took over the management of her career. He got her a job with a local orchestra and eventually a record company executive heard her and signed her to a contract with Columbia Records.

So she left Chicago for New York City and started making records. A composer named Irving Berlin heard her and recommended her to his friend Florence Ziegfeld who promptly signed her up for his show "Making Whoopee" with Eddie Cantor. With a string of top selling records and a hit show on Broadway, Ruth Etting was a bona fide superstar. She dressed well, ate well, hobnobbed with the rich and famous and appeared on the covers of magazines.

Meanwhile her marriage to the Gimp was on the rocks. He was controlling and suffocating and eventually she divorced him and left New York for Hollywood to be with her new love Myrl Alderman. All would end disastrously when the jealous Gimp came 0ut to California seeking revenge against the new boyfriend. He had brought a pistol and one night he found Alderman and shot him. The wound was not fatal but the scandal that followed along with the changing musical taste of a swing-crazy America effectively ended the career of Ruth Etting.

Quite a story, huh, and if it all seems like something out of a Hollywood movie, you're right - sort of. A biopic called "Love Me or Leave Me" starring Doris Day and James Cagney was made in 1955 that was loosely based on the events of Ruth Etting's life. Rumor has it that Ruth herself wasn't too happy with the result, but the movie won an oscar and can still be seen from time to time on some of the old movie channels and local TV stations. But after the movie and a brief rekindling of interest in her work, Ruth Etting just faded into history.

It's hard to tell why. Maybe it was because she never achieved the kind of movie stardom that Bing Crosby or Al Jolson or other Jazz Age singers did. She came to Hollywood late in her career and, with the exception of "Roman Scandals" in which she had a brief singing role, she never had what can be called blockbuster success. Her movies have mostly disappeared and without the big screen to immortalize her, history just passed her by. Lucky for us, though, many of her records have not met a similar fate. They have been preserved by archivists and historians and still sound as fresh to my untrained ear as the did 75 years ago.

But rather than drone on and on I thought I'd offer a little sample of her work instead. These songs are all from the height of her career and I bet most people will recognize them (even if they don't know who sang them). If they pique your interest and you're just dying to know more, the web is always a good source of information (try Ruthetting.com for starters).

So, with that out of he way let's wind up the old Victrola and take a little trip back to the age of flappers, rumble seats, speakeasies and bathtub gin. It's the Jazz Age, my friends, and we have Ruth Etting ready to sing you a few of her popular hits.

First, this great old song recorded November 3, 1929.
Button Up Your Overcoat

Now another one from January 3, 1927. Judy Garland would have some later success with this number, but Ruth Etting sang it first.
I'm Nobody's Baby

Of course no Ruth Etting sampler would be complete without a torch song. This one's from November of 1929 and is one of the better ones.
More Than You Know

From the Rodger and Hart show Simple Simon and recorded April 3, 1930, one of Ruth's biggest hits.
Ten Cents A Dance

And so many, many others.

I Love You California

Well, the holidays are over, a new year has begun, and once again Californians up and down the state can rest easier tonight knowing the the State Legislature is once again in session. May God have mercy on our souls.

For those of you who haven't been following the story of the great California budget debacle, here's a recap:

1) We're in the hole

2) The hole is getting bigger

3) Last year we had to borrow $15 billion dollars in the form of deficit-relief bonds to keep our heads above water

4) Looks like we're going to be another $7 billion or so in the red again this year

5) Everyone in Sacramento is committed to balancing the budget so that we won't have to borrow our way out of trouble again this year, which means...

6) Look for California to float another $7 billion in deficit-relief bonds again this year.

Not that I'm being cynical, mind you, but what else can you think when you turn on the TV and see the legislators arriving in Sacramento and the first thing out of the democrats mouths is "We're not going to let ourselves be steamrolled by the Republicans", and the first thing out of the Republicans mouth is " We've already made our position clear to the Democrats and we have no intention of backing down." Ah yes, it's politics as usual in California.

Oh well, what did we expect. That's the problem with the "polarization of America" isn't it; the really big problems seem to get shoved to the side while we argue and bicker over the fringe issues. After all, who has to time to worry about things like roads or housing or Medicaid when weightier matters such as gay marriage or school prayer are pressing upon us. It's a national disease that I think Americans largely bring upon themselves, but whatever the reason there seem to be precious few politicians these days who have shown themselves immune.

So back to California. The democrats have made it clear that they are going solve this budget crisis by raising taxes, and apparently giddy from the recent election where "blue" California showed itself to be one of the few states that backed John Kerry for president, the democrats feel that the voters will be solidly behind them. Unfortunately for the democrats, while California may be "blue" it also has one of the highest state income taxes, one of the highest state sales taxes, and one of the highest corporate income taxes in the country. State tax advocates like to point out that even with our high tax rates we still rank about the middle of the pack when taxes are measured as a percentage of income, however advocates don't seem to realize that incomes in California are highly skewed between homeowners who have grown filthy rich off of the state's housing boom and non-homeowners who are struggling just to make the monthly rent payment (I don't have any facts to back that up but anecdotally I know it to be true.) Don't be suprised if the dems have a harder fight on their hands than they imagine.

The Republicans, on the other hand, have Arnold, and he is worth a dozen John Kerrys. Arnold has made a vow that he won't raise taxes and so far he has made good on that pledge. In fact, he recently created quite a stir here in the Bay Area when he nixed plans for a Bay Bridge retrofit that threatened to run about $2 billion over budget. Now let me tell you, cost overruns are derigeur in California and politicians around these parts routinely expect a rubberstamp from Sacramento when things get over budget, so when Arnold said no there were a lot of people who were more than a little steamed. It was like "What do you mean NO? You can't say NO. That's not in the script." But Arnold said no and stuck with it and now it looks like we're going to have to come up with a Plan B. Geez, such a big fuss over a lousy billion dollars or two.

If the Republicans are going to make good on their no new taxes pledge, though, then one way or another their going to have to cut way past the fat and get into a little meat and bone. That's going to be tough and when push comes to shove don't be suprised if they come up short. And the big problem, as I see it, is the California public school system.

Somehow we have created this monster of a public school system in California that not only manages to suck up every dollar we send it but then has the temerity to come back looking neglected and half-starved and demanding more. We enacted a State Lotto to fund it and that wasn't enough. We passed Prop. 98 which guaranteed it 40% of the State General Fund and that wasn't enough. Each election year we pass billions and billions of dollars in new bond measures to try to make up the shortfall and still the schools are underfunded and closing down. You would think by now that people would stop and take a look at what is happening and ask why it is that no amount of money seems to be enough, but instead just the opposite happens. For California it has almost become a mantra - "money for schools, money for schools, money for schools" - and no one can break the spell or question the logic, and no politician dares to break the cycle for fear the voters would run him out of town on a rail. Not even Arnold.

But maybe someone should ask questions. After all, when you think about it there are lots of kids getting good educations in California. Not all of them by any means, but families who put the effort into getting a good education for their kids seem to be able to get them graduated and into some of the better colleges and universities. I may be over generalizing on this, but you know maybe the educational problems we're having aren't internal to the schools as much as they are external to the culture around them. It seems to me that any educational system is going to struggle in a society that devalues education, where learning is equated with nerdiness and where "street cred" is more important than academic achievement. That may or may not be true, but I do think that there are good schools in California and that there are kids who are making the effort and getting good educations in California, and that maybe the school system is as broken as people claim it is. Garbage-in, garbage-out, that's how the saying goes.

Oh well, that's the subject for another blog.

Meanwhile, back at the budget, the dems won't consider a budget that doesn't raises taxes and the governor won't consider a budget that does. Where does that leave the state? Same as always. We'll get a budget thats late and out of balance and we'll be floating some more bonds to paper it over till next year.

And that, my friends, is the news from California. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Happy New Year

My resolution for the New Year is to get myself a crew. It's something I've been meaning to do for a while now, and it really started to hit home last week as I reminisced about my mother and her obsession with spending the week after Christmas scrubbing and cleaning the house to get it ready for the New Year. I don't know if it was a Japanese thing or just my mother's own personal thing, but she considered it bad luck to start the New Year off with a dirty house, and unfortunately for me and my brothers, little boys who would have much rather spent their Christmas vacations playing with their new Christmas toys than doing chores, she had no compunctions about dragging us away from pleasanter pursuits and setting us to the dreary task of cleaning out the garage or washing the windows.

So I was thinking about the old days and it came to me that life would be so much better if I had a crew. You know, a bunch of people that would do my washing and do my cleaning and cook my meals and go down to the store and get my groceries and take care of all those day-to-day things that are just such a bother for a man of refinement and leisure like myself. When there was work to be done around the house or out in the yard they could take care of it, when there were things that needed fixing or errands to be run they could take care of it, and when there were social obligations to be dodged they could make the phone calls and offer my sincere apologies as well. Ah yes, wouldn't that be nice, and just maybe if it was a good crew they could proofread my blogs for me and even get them into a form more closely resembling the english language.

But, I have no crew nor the wherewithal to get one, so I guess I'm stuck. Of course it used to be that a man (and by that I mean a male) could find himself a good wife who would look after all his needs, but those days are gone. True, there are still some guys who can get away with it, but for the most part husbands who sit in front of the TV and snap open a beer while their wives do all the cooking and cleaning and washing are a vanishing breed. In fact I think there's even a word for those type of men in the modern lexicon - they call them "ex-husbands".

No, if you're gonna make it in today's world you've gotta get a crew.

Other than that I don't have any real resolutions going into 2005, although I was thinking it would be nice to learn a new language. In fact I was considering getting some language software and trying to learn Italian. It seems with all the operas I watch it would be a good thing to learn, but I don't know. French was the last foreign language I tried to learn and I didn't do too well with that one. I mean I could learn the words - a chien was a dog and a chat was a cat, for example - but it was all those tenses and genders and things that used to trip me up. Hmmm, is it past imperfect or future conditional, masculine or feminine, active or passive - geez, who can keep all this stuff straight in their heads.

"La crayon, s'il vous plait."

"Oh, ho, ho, monsieur. Ce n'est pas 'la crayon', c'est 'le crayon'. "

"Le crayon?"

"Oui, monsieur. Je pense que votre francais n'est pas trop bon"

"N'est trop bon, huh. Well look Pierre, Je suis l'Americaine, ok? Nous disons 'the crayon' so donnez-moi une break, will 'ya? How about you skip the commentary and just let me have 'the' crayon por favor. "

"Oh, je vois. Vous etes un americain...(mais naturellement). Je comprends, monsieur. Pardonnez-mois, monsieur. Voici le crayon."

"Danka, Pierre. La papier, s'il vous plait."

"Oh, ho, ho, monsieur. Ce n'est pas 'la' papier, c'est ..."

"C'est what? Le papier? Is that what you were going to say? Were you going to tell me I screwed up again? Is that what you're going to tell me, Pierre?"

"Uh, ce n'est pas important, monsieur. (Les Americains sont des idiots)"

"(Les Francais sont des idiots.)"

So, instead of French I thought I'd try Italian, but then I was looking through an Italian phrasebook at the bookstore and it looks like they've got masculine and feminine words too. Man, I don't think I'm up for this.

Of course there's always Chinese.

Don't Want To Be An American Idiot

Well, for years and years we've been hearing about how American students score down around the bottom of the international barrel in math and science, and it looks like the chickens have finally come home to roost. No wait, before you start labeling me an anti-american reactionary just let me explain myself and what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Social Security reform.

Yeah, I know, I know, just reading the words 'Social Security' is enough to make most people hit that back button and look for another blog to browse, but I think it's worth talking about if only to illustrate just how math deficient we've become in this country today.

Here's what I mean.

As I understand it, we've currently got a Social Security program where working people contribute a portion of their earnings into a large pool of money that retired and disabled people can draw benefits out of it. Then, when those working people get ready to retire they will take their turn and draw benefits funded by the contributions of younger workers, just as those younger workers will someday live off the contributions made by the even younger workers that follow, and so forth and so forth, etc..., etc..., etc...

Now that's a great system so long as there are enough workers entering and contributing to the system to support those leaving and drawing their benefit. Trouble is that's not happening today, and it looks like the poor old Social Security system is going to run out of money around the year 2042. So, with that in mind, here comes the president's plan - The PSA, or Personal Savings Account.

The PSA is also called a privatization plan because under the proposal workers will contribute 10% less into the Social Security pool, and take that 10% they are saving and give it to high-commission, high-fee financial advisors who will then invest that money for them and earn far better returns on that money (before commissions, fees and expenses, of course) than they could have gotten had they let it to rot away in the current broken down Social Security system. That sounds pretty good but I think there's something wrong with the math.

Let's review, shall we?

We have a pile of money. The pile of money is shrinking because there isn't enough money coming into the pool to cover the money going out of the pool. So, according to the president, to fix the situation you simply reduce the amount of money going into the pool by 10%. Now I was educated in America so you'll please excuse me if my math skills aren't quite up to world standards, but if the pile is shrinking because not enough money is coming in and you decrease the amount of money coming in, won't the pile get even smaller? I know that can't be right because the president wouldn't propose something so mathematically 'challenged', but it seems to me if you want to save the pile then you have to decrease the amount of money going out, not coming in. But then I've never been very good at math.

Or could it be, might it be, say, wait a minute, you don't think this is some kind of political smoke screen, do you? You don't think the president is trying to dazzle us with visions of stock market riches just to conceal the fact that he's really just setting us up for drastic cuts in benefits? No, why would he do that? Just so he could deliver some fresh meat to those fat-cats over on Wall Street, a few tens of millions more fish to fry. No, that can't be right.

No, of course not. He's doing it because he knows that we the people are much savier, much more prudent when it comes to our money than those bureaucrats over in Washington. At least that's what he's said, and you know it's true. Why just think about it. I can't remember all the times Grandma Jean, Aunt Velma and I sat down on the porch discussing the best strategies for optimizing our portfolios, can you?

"Long term corporates" I remember Grandma saying.

"Oh, heavens no" Aunt Velma would reply, "not in this interest rate environment. I'd be hedging if I were you. Buy some puts and short the financials."

Then Uncle Barney would walk by.

"Honey bees", Uncle Barney would butt in, "that's the future. I heard this fella on the radio say in a couple of years the world's gonna run out of honey. Said 'buy honey bees' and in a few years you'll just watch that money roll in."

"Oh for goodness sake Barney, the world ain't gonna run out of honey. Who ever heard of such a thing?"

"Fella on the radio said so. Said that terrorists were secretly targeting beehives and killing off all the bees. Said in another couple of years there wouldn't be any of 'em left. Said now was the time to start buying bees cause they're cheap and in another couple of years they were gonna be worth their weight in gold."

"And how do you know" Aunt Velma would ask "if you bought those bees that the terrorists wouldn't come and kill you?"

"Hmmm, didn't think of that" he'd say." Still got my old 12 gauge, though. Yes sir, still got that. Guess if any terrorists come around a couple of blasts of buckshot ought to make 'em think twice. Guess they won't be wantin' to mess with my bees anymore. No I guess they won't want to do that, will they?"

"Ok, Barney, whatever you say. Why don't you go back in the house now and get ready for them terrorists. Me and Grandma Jean got to get back to our discounted cash-flow projections."

Anyways, that's how the president's going to save Social Security. Now it's up to Congress to do the math and contrast it with the democrats plan which I call "Problem? What problem? I don't see a problem here. Why are you trying to scare everybody." Unfortunately the democrats aren't any better at math than any of the rest of us, at least not on figuring out how the system is going to remain solvent when we reach the point where we have 2 workers contributing for every 1 retiree drawing benefits. Hey, no problem.

But rather than just criticize I think it's high-time I offered a few solutions of my own, don't you? Well it just so happens that I have some.

The first thing to do, as I see it, is attack the revenue portion of the equation. In other words, get more money flowing into the system. To achieve that I propose of a 'lobby' tax. In other words, a simple flat tax on all the campaign contributions and perks that Washington lobbyists so generously lavish on our representatives in Congress. I mean if we can't get rid of them then we might as well tax them, right? Of course we should and I think something like a 50% tax going directly into the Social Security fund ought to raise a couple of trillion dollars, at least. That in itself would be enough to pay for the president's reform.

However, I'm not naive enought to think that just increasing the revenue stream will be enough to save Social Security. No, to go along with the tax I'm also proposing cuts to the expense side of the ledger as well - what I call the 'Celebrex' plan. Again, a simple proposal to give massive dosages of 'Celebrex' to all our seniors over the age of 62 and then sort of let Darwinism take care of the rest. A brilliant idea if I do say so myself that would have the twofold benefit of reducing the size of the outlays from the system as well as answering the question, once and for all, if Celebrex is really as safe to use as Pfizer says it is.

Yep, increase revenues, cut expenses and Social Security will be solvent. At least I think so. You do the math.

Are You Experienced?

Have you ever heard of Rod Blagojevich? He's the governor who's trying to criminalize the sale of violent and sexually explicit videogames to minors in the state of Illinois. A noble cause, no doubt, but unfortunately a noble cause which makes it abundantly clear that we have a serious digital divide in this country today. And by digital divide I am not talking about the economic gap between the haves and the have-nots, but rather the divide between the clued and the totally clueless.

Not that it's a bad idea, mind you. I certainly don't subscribe to the idea that kids should decide what is and what isn't appropriate for them to have. It's just that the governor seems to belong to that select and rapidly aging population of people (or should I say generation of people?) who just don't seem to realize how much the world has changed and how far the technology has come. Digital content, all those little bits and bytes that encode so much of the data that people consume these days, doesn't know anything about state boundaries, or municipal boundaries, or county lines or even national borders. Digital content just flows naturally. It courses over the internet, nests cozily on CD's and flash memory cards, and is quite happy to make its home without regard to age, race or religion on any computer that happens to offer a friendly operating environment.

Doesn't the governor realize that? Don't any of the legislators or any of the corresp0ndents who reported this story realize that you can't ban bits? I wonder, for instance, if the governor has ever been to suprnova.org and downloaded a bitTorrent file? I'd say the odds are pretty slim. The odds that anyone in the Illinois state legislature has ever installed the eDonkey client and done any p-to-p sharing are equally slim, and the odds are positively microscopic that Brian or Dan or Peter (or Jim or Margaret or Ray, for that matter) has ever traded any warez over IRC or browsed through a Usenet group looking to violate someone's copyright.

Too bad, because if they had then they would realize the files they seek to ban are readily available through a number of different channels. Just go to suprnova.org and look through the hundreds and hundreds of games, movies, cd's and more that are listed in its directories. It's almost funny because if the governor did happen to browse through the listings he might be shocked to find that a cracked version of 'JFK Reloaded' (the game he says inspired him to institute this ban) is there for the taking by any 10, 11 or 12 year old curious enough to make the effort to download it. No parental consent or even money necessary.

What this legislation really shows, I think, is the enormous knowledge gap that exists between ignorant, serious-minded adults and their digitally savvy kids. You just have to wonder how any group of people can ever hope to be effective role models and leaders on technology when they are so far behind. I mean it's not like Napster or Morpheus or any of the other digital avenues that have opened up are anything new.

No, to be so ignorant you have to want to be ignorant. You have to want to bury your head in the sand and only be dimly aware of the changes that are happening all around you. And I can understand that, in a way. I know I tend to be a little old-fashioned myself. Sure, River City was backward and ignorant, but it was also wholesome and pure and the type of place where a fella' and his sweetheart could go down by the footbridge on a hot summer night for a little moonlight romance. But we all know that if the world was ever like that, it's not like that anymore.

So what do we do about these videogames? Well I'll tell ya', I don't know. I used to be a very avid videogamer in my younger days and all I can say is that the games have changed a lot since then. Now all I can do is look down from my ivory tower on these misshapen youth and wonder, just like everybody else, what the hell is going on. I do have this theory, though, and that is that there is just too much media these days. Too much TV, too much radio, too much videogaming - and these kids are getting pretty bored with it all. As a result the media moguls and content providers find that they have to go further and further over the edge to get the same response. I think they call it 'Extreme' and you see it in everything from 'Extreme Sports' to 'Extreme' TV to 'Extreme' Videogames.

How else are you going to be heard over all the noise?

What I do know is that a ban will never work. Everyone likes to say that better parenting is the answer, but how can that happen when the parents are just as clueless as the politicians and the nightly newscasters and all the others who seem so hopelessly out of step. No, I think first you've got to understand what you're dealing with, then you've got to decide if it's really a problem, and only when you've done all that can you begin to think about an answer. In the meantime, I'd say there are some people out there who have some catching up to do.

And that means you, Governor Blagojevich.

Ode On A Japanese Rice Cracker

It's a strange and wonderful world, and in all the world I don't think you'll find anyone stranger than the japanese. I know, I know, many will not agree and insist that their family and their ancestors are the strangest, but being half-japanese myself I can testify right here and now that no one does weird like the japanese do weird.

Take, for instance, the japanese rice cracker. There is nothing remarkable about this little treat and I'm sure you've seen them before. They are small and crunchy, usually with some kind of soy flavoring and often with little belts of dried seaweed wrapped around their bellies (what we call norimake arare). I admit to eating more than my share of them over the years and so it was only natural that I should pick up a box today while I was down at the local japanese grocery store.

Nothing unusual in that, certainly nothing worth blogging about, but then the strangeness appeared as I was looking at one particularly attractive tin of crackers all packaged and ready for the holidays, and spied these immortal words inscribed on the front panel:

"Women's History Never Ceases to Yearn for Beauty" it said for no apparent reason, and then said nothing more.

How deeply heartfelt, I thought, and not the sort of sentiment you usually find on a box of crackers, but why anyone would put such poetry on their holiday tins? Well, I couldn't tell you, but for a people who seem to make an art of everything from raw fish to flower arranging it seemed only natural and, well, japanese.

So all day today I've had this expression rattling around in my head. "Women's History Never Ceases to Yearn for Beauty" it echoes, like a bad dream or some stupid little jingle you can't stop humming. But at the same time I felt inspired - instead of the same old 'Happy Holiday' or 'Best Wishes And A Happy New Year' this company tried to say something different, even if I'm not exactly sure what they said.

And then I thought "What a great idea for a Christmas card". You know, don't send out of one of those family histories that people are always sending and no one gives a damn about. Give out a card that not only speaks of the holidays, but of rice crackers and women's history as well. To show you what I mean I've included a sample template to get you started. Simply cut and paste it into your favorite desktop publishing application and add your own little message inside, and then just wait for the hugs and kisses from that special little sweetheart of yours when he/she opens this card on Christmas Day.

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Oh, and if I happen to forget, Merii Kurisumasu everybody.