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."
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
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.
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.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
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.
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.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
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.
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.
Monday, January 03, 2005
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.
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.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
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.
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.
Monday, December 27, 2004
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.
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.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
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.
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.
----------------cut here-------------------------
--------------cut here----------------------------
Oh, and if I happen to forget, Merii Kurisumasu everybody.
Monday, December 13, 2004
And Now For The Technology News...
The TIVO is a wonderful thing. You watch the shows you want to watch when you want to watch them and you can pause and fast-forward through commercials and all that other good stuff. I've had my TIVO for about 3 years now and it's certainly one of those technologies that once you have it you never want to give it up.
But that's old news and I certainly didn't come here tonight to talk about TIVO. What I do want to talk about, though, is Audiofeast. Sure Audiofeast has been around a while, but even though it's not anything new it's still not nearly as well known as its TIVO brethren. If you don't know what Audiofeast is let me briefly explain. It's an internet service (website, if you will) that allows members to download pre-recorded audio to their PC's and MP3 players. They offer such things as music channels and shows from NPR, PRI and a similar content providers. They have a free client that you download and install on your PC and a free 'basic service' subscription that you can use to sample their content. If you want content beyond the basics then they charge a subscription of around $3.00 to $5.00 dollars per month.
That's Audiofeast in a nutshell, and as I see it there are 2 major problems with the service as it currently exists. The first is that their music channels support only 2 MP3 players. That means that out of the dozens of MP3 players available right now, only 2 will work with their music service. Now, these happen to be fine players but neither one is exactly a market leader, and the vast majority of people who don't own either of these players are just plain out of luck, particularly the millions of IPod owners out there. Clearly there needs to be more player support here.
The second and more serious problem, however, is the lack of content. Sure, they've got most of the music genres covered but their NPR and other offerings are pretty slim. I can get Marketplace (a good thing) but no Car Talk or Terri Gross (a very bad thing), and the offerings beyond NPR and PRI are pretty spotty. I've got to admit I've never really felt it worth my while to pony up the subscription price just to get access to the 'Haunted History' show from the History Channel or 'American Chopper' from the Discovery Channel.
But despite the problems and the dubious prospects for it's long term survival, Audiofeast is very interesting because it offers a real glimpse into what I think is the future of radio - a future so obvious that I can't think why none of the great technological brains out there haven't hashed it out. After all, the promise of Audiofeast is audio content you want when you want it. You don't have to be at your radio at 3:00 in the afternoon to catch your favorite show, you don't have to buy a subscription or specialized equipment to listen to your favorite satellite station, all you have to do is tell Audiofeast (or a company like Audiofeast) what programs you want to record or what kind of music you want to listen to, and the software and the servers and the hi-speed connections do the rest. Now, if you could do that easily and inexpensively then who wouldn't want that?
The problem, of course, is that most people listen to the radio in their cars, and before any kind of audio revolution could happen there would have to be some way to get that content onto the car radio. But then, there already is, isn't there? In fact if you stop to think about it there are multiple ways to get the content onto the car radio. All you need are the kinds of car radios that can read, store and playback digital music.
The most obvious solution and the one that has already been tried is to build radios that can play back both regular audio CD's as well as data CD's full of MP3 files. Unfortuantely this requires a person to download the audio and then burn it to a CD, which is more work than most people want to do on a daily basis.
Another approach is to combine the car radio and the MP3 player into a sort of hybrid device that is like a radio with a hard drive. With such a device all you need to do is remove a cartridge-like hard drive from your car stereo, connect it to your PC via the USB port and then copy the content directly to the hard drive from your PC. When you are through you merely pop the hard drive back into your car stereo and you're set to go. The problem here, however, is that hard drives are not well-suited to the conditions found in most moving vehicles, particularly the shakes and bumps of the road and the extreme heat that can build up inside during the summertime.
A far better and simpler approach and the one no one has thought of as far as I can tell would be to build a memory card reader into the car stereo instead of a hard drive. As you know memory cards are far sturdier than hard drives and would be much better suited to the demands of a car-based system. Furthermore, thanks to the digital photography revolution most people are probably more comfortable working with memory cards than they would be with swapping hard drives in and out. Memory card readers are also small and compact, and the memory cards themselves are widely available in stores and on the internet.
The d0wnside to using memory cards is that they could not hold as much content as a hard drive, but I wonder how much content you really need to carry around with you in your car. I saw a gigabyte Compactflash card advertised for under $100 today, and a card like that should give a person at least 10 hours worth of audio content. More than enough to get most people through the day.
One other approach to getting the content into the car is add networking capabilities (most likely wireless) to the car stereo, making the car just another location on your home network. That would work but I think would still be beyond the capabilites of a lot of people out there. Maybe not, but the memory card seems much easier and is a technology that most people already know how to use.
However it's done, though, I think the combination of something like Audiofeast with the car stero would fundamentally change the entire radio business. Why wouldn't it? Like I said before, why wouldn't you want to be able to choose what you listen to on the radio if it could be cheaply and easily done? In fact if I was Clear Channel or Sirius or XM Radio I might be more than a little concerned. Just because Audiofeast hasn't been able to execute on this idea doesn't mean someone else won't come along and make it work. In fact I'd count it because it just makes so much sense.
But then, my predictions are usually wrong, or at least premature. I gotta tell ya' though, this isn't some future technology, and all that's needed is for someone to come along and put together the pieces.
And it would change everything.
The TIVO is a wonderful thing. You watch the shows you want to watch when you want to watch them and you can pause and fast-forward through commercials and all that other good stuff. I've had my TIVO for about 3 years now and it's certainly one of those technologies that once you have it you never want to give it up.
But that's old news and I certainly didn't come here tonight to talk about TIVO. What I do want to talk about, though, is Audiofeast. Sure Audiofeast has been around a while, but even though it's not anything new it's still not nearly as well known as its TIVO brethren. If you don't know what Audiofeast is let me briefly explain. It's an internet service (website, if you will) that allows members to download pre-recorded audio to their PC's and MP3 players. They offer such things as music channels and shows from NPR, PRI and a similar content providers. They have a free client that you download and install on your PC and a free 'basic service' subscription that you can use to sample their content. If you want content beyond the basics then they charge a subscription of around $3.00 to $5.00 dollars per month.
That's Audiofeast in a nutshell, and as I see it there are 2 major problems with the service as it currently exists. The first is that their music channels support only 2 MP3 players. That means that out of the dozens of MP3 players available right now, only 2 will work with their music service. Now, these happen to be fine players but neither one is exactly a market leader, and the vast majority of people who don't own either of these players are just plain out of luck, particularly the millions of IPod owners out there. Clearly there needs to be more player support here.
The second and more serious problem, however, is the lack of content. Sure, they've got most of the music genres covered but their NPR and other offerings are pretty slim. I can get Marketplace (a good thing) but no Car Talk or Terri Gross (a very bad thing), and the offerings beyond NPR and PRI are pretty spotty. I've got to admit I've never really felt it worth my while to pony up the subscription price just to get access to the 'Haunted History' show from the History Channel or 'American Chopper' from the Discovery Channel.
But despite the problems and the dubious prospects for it's long term survival, Audiofeast is very interesting because it offers a real glimpse into what I think is the future of radio - a future so obvious that I can't think why none of the great technological brains out there haven't hashed it out. After all, the promise of Audiofeast is audio content you want when you want it. You don't have to be at your radio at 3:00 in the afternoon to catch your favorite show, you don't have to buy a subscription or specialized equipment to listen to your favorite satellite station, all you have to do is tell Audiofeast (or a company like Audiofeast) what programs you want to record or what kind of music you want to listen to, and the software and the servers and the hi-speed connections do the rest. Now, if you could do that easily and inexpensively then who wouldn't want that?
The problem, of course, is that most people listen to the radio in their cars, and before any kind of audio revolution could happen there would have to be some way to get that content onto the car radio. But then, there already is, isn't there? In fact if you stop to think about it there are multiple ways to get the content onto the car radio. All you need are the kinds of car radios that can read, store and playback digital music.
The most obvious solution and the one that has already been tried is to build radios that can play back both regular audio CD's as well as data CD's full of MP3 files. Unfortuantely this requires a person to download the audio and then burn it to a CD, which is more work than most people want to do on a daily basis.
Another approach is to combine the car radio and the MP3 player into a sort of hybrid device that is like a radio with a hard drive. With such a device all you need to do is remove a cartridge-like hard drive from your car stereo, connect it to your PC via the USB port and then copy the content directly to the hard drive from your PC. When you are through you merely pop the hard drive back into your car stereo and you're set to go. The problem here, however, is that hard drives are not well-suited to the conditions found in most moving vehicles, particularly the shakes and bumps of the road and the extreme heat that can build up inside during the summertime.
A far better and simpler approach and the one no one has thought of as far as I can tell would be to build a memory card reader into the car stereo instead of a hard drive. As you know memory cards are far sturdier than hard drives and would be much better suited to the demands of a car-based system. Furthermore, thanks to the digital photography revolution most people are probably more comfortable working with memory cards than they would be with swapping hard drives in and out. Memory card readers are also small and compact, and the memory cards themselves are widely available in stores and on the internet.
The d0wnside to using memory cards is that they could not hold as much content as a hard drive, but I wonder how much content you really need to carry around with you in your car. I saw a gigabyte Compactflash card advertised for under $100 today, and a card like that should give a person at least 10 hours worth of audio content. More than enough to get most people through the day.
One other approach to getting the content into the car is add networking capabilities (most likely wireless) to the car stereo, making the car just another location on your home network. That would work but I think would still be beyond the capabilites of a lot of people out there. Maybe not, but the memory card seems much easier and is a technology that most people already know how to use.
However it's done, though, I think the combination of something like Audiofeast with the car stero would fundamentally change the entire radio business. Why wouldn't it? Like I said before, why wouldn't you want to be able to choose what you listen to on the radio if it could be cheaply and easily done? In fact if I was Clear Channel or Sirius or XM Radio I might be more than a little concerned. Just because Audiofeast hasn't been able to execute on this idea doesn't mean someone else won't come along and make it work. In fact I'd count it because it just makes so much sense.
But then, my predictions are usually wrong, or at least premature. I gotta tell ya' though, this isn't some future technology, and all that's needed is for someone to come along and put together the pieces.
And it would change everything.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
The Secret Life of a News Junkie
"Don't go, Kimberly. Stay here with me. "
"No, no, I can't...It's too dangerous. If the insurgents find us there's no telling what they might do. We must go now."
"No one will find us. No one will hurt us as long as we have each other. Don't you know that? Can't you feel the passion burning inside? We'll be safe here. No one will come. It's just you and me."
"Oh, I want to stay. Really I do. If this were some other time, some other place...just hold me...hold me and tell me it'll be alright."
"I'll never let them hurt you. You know that. You'll be safe with me."
"I feel safe with you. I ..."
(BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!)
Alright, alright, shut up already. Damn alarm clock! Oh man, and I was having a great dream too. Me and Kimberly Dozier...I've had that dream before , but this time I almost...oh, nevermind. Something about a beautiful woman in a flak jacket, in a hostile land, surrounded by danger, that just gets inside a man and stirs him all up. Oh well, time to get blogging.
(Why couldn't I have slept just 10 more minutes longer? Damn, that dream was getting good.)
So what about these kids today, huh? That's always a good topic for a blog. I mean, where do they get their money? Designer clothes, fancy cellphones, $500.00 Ipods, where do they get the cash to pay for all this stuff? I tell ya', when I was a kid we had hand-me-downs, and transistor radios, and if you wanted to SMS someone you went over to them and tapped them on the shoulder. But these kids today, geez, they think that money just grows on trees.
Actually, they don't think money grows on trees, they just think that buying something isn't the same thing as paying for it. Not when you have credit cards, at least. I wonder whoever gave them that crazy idea? Yeah, you're right, I know who gave them that idea - George W. Bush. Just today I saw him on TV telling the nation how we're going reform Social Security and we're not going to pay for it. That's what I like about ol' dubya, just keep things simple. I like some of his other policies too, like "We're going to fight a war and we're not going to pay for it" or "We're going to protect the homeland but we're not going to pay for it". Consistency is the key, and he sure is consistent.
"Perhaps you could meet me in the bar later for a drink."
"Sorry, I don't date weird men. "
"No, you don't understand. I'm not weird...not really. The weirdness is just a mask I use to disguise my despondency and antipathy for all that is base and corrupt, all that is malevolent and lying, all that is venal, villanous and wicked in this wanton and depraved gutter of perversity and turpitude that we call planet earth."
"Then you're really a reporter? Like me?"
"No. Wretched, yes...cynical, yes...but not a reporter."
"Oh, I see. "
"Kimberly, don't be frightened. Here among all this death and ruin, if it's still possible to hope, if it's still possible to believe in anything, believe in me now. Believe in this moment, this one true thing, the only true thing that has any meaning in this faithless, godless world."
"No, it's useless, and yet I feel..."
So I was looking at the car ads in the classifieds today for no particular reason, and it sort of dawned on me as I was looking at the price of one of those German luxury models that, y0u know, I could afford that. I mean, I'm not rich or anything, but if I was to sell off some of my mutual funds I could go down to the dealership and hand over that kind of cash for some fancy-shmancy car with automatic this and leather that and all the other doodads they're putting into cars these days.
But why?
I live in Silicon Valley and believe me I see plenty of people driving around in their 60, 70, 80 thousand dollar cars and I always wonder " Can they really afford that or are they just trying to impress me?", and if they're trying to impress me, why? Just once I'd like to see them up there on the Suze Orman show and see if they really have it all together like they pretend they do. Believe me, Suze would get to the bottom of it.
"Hello, Suze, my name is Penny. I'm a 36 year old woman making $50,000 a year with $2,345,000 in auto loans and credit card debt. My question is should I be paying off the debt or starting a savings account instead?"
"Well, Penny, Ive got to tell you. If I were you I'd got out in the backyard and hang myself."
(No, no, no, I'm just kidding. Suze Orman would never say that. Sylvia Plath might, but not Suze Orman. Actually, Suze would start psychoanalyzing. )
"Tell me Penny, why do you think you have all this debt? Isn't it true that you have all this debt because you're foster parents sold you to a Mexican prostitution ring when you were 4 years old, and now you're trying to make up for your feelings of abandonment by buying things you can't afford?"
"Yes, it's true. Oh Suze, I just feel like I'm sinking further and further and there's no way to get out."
Yeah, get some of these Silicon Valley hotshots up there with Suze and she'd sniff them out.
"You're leaving tomorrow, aren't you Kimberly?"
"Don't try to cling to something that could never last. We both know that we love our freedom too much to ever be tied down."
"Yes, I suppose you're right. Will I ever see you again?"
"Who knows. Who can tell what the future holds."
"Where are you going?"
"Wherever there are people struggling, I'll be there. Wherever there is deceit, treachery, and hypocrisy, I'll be there. Wherever there are people crying out for honesty and integrity and principle, I'll be there."
"You mean you're going to Washington?"
"Goodbye, Tony. "
"But wait-"
"Shhh...don't say anything. I don't know what I'd do if you did, and I must go. You understand, don't you, I must."
And with that she was gone. Was it something I did, or said? No, it just wasn't meant to be. Maybe if I drove a nicer car...
"Don't go, Kimberly. Stay here with me. "
"No, no, I can't...It's too dangerous. If the insurgents find us there's no telling what they might do. We must go now."
"No one will find us. No one will hurt us as long as we have each other. Don't you know that? Can't you feel the passion burning inside? We'll be safe here. No one will come. It's just you and me."
"Oh, I want to stay. Really I do. If this were some other time, some other place...just hold me...hold me and tell me it'll be alright."
"I'll never let them hurt you. You know that. You'll be safe with me."
"I feel safe with you. I ..."
(BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!)
Alright, alright, shut up already. Damn alarm clock! Oh man, and I was having a great dream too. Me and Kimberly Dozier...I've had that dream before , but this time I almost...oh, nevermind. Something about a beautiful woman in a flak jacket, in a hostile land, surrounded by danger, that just gets inside a man and stirs him all up. Oh well, time to get blogging.
(Why couldn't I have slept just 10 more minutes longer? Damn, that dream was getting good.)
So what about these kids today, huh? That's always a good topic for a blog. I mean, where do they get their money? Designer clothes, fancy cellphones, $500.00 Ipods, where do they get the cash to pay for all this stuff? I tell ya', when I was a kid we had hand-me-downs, and transistor radios, and if you wanted to SMS someone you went over to them and tapped them on the shoulder. But these kids today, geez, they think that money just grows on trees.
Actually, they don't think money grows on trees, they just think that buying something isn't the same thing as paying for it. Not when you have credit cards, at least. I wonder whoever gave them that crazy idea? Yeah, you're right, I know who gave them that idea - George W. Bush. Just today I saw him on TV telling the nation how we're going reform Social Security and we're not going to pay for it. That's what I like about ol' dubya, just keep things simple. I like some of his other policies too, like "We're going to fight a war and we're not going to pay for it" or "We're going to protect the homeland but we're not going to pay for it". Consistency is the key, and he sure is consistent.
"Perhaps you could meet me in the bar later for a drink."
"Sorry, I don't date weird men. "
"No, you don't understand. I'm not weird...not really. The weirdness is just a mask I use to disguise my despondency and antipathy for all that is base and corrupt, all that is malevolent and lying, all that is venal, villanous and wicked in this wanton and depraved gutter of perversity and turpitude that we call planet earth."
"Then you're really a reporter? Like me?"
"No. Wretched, yes...cynical, yes...but not a reporter."
"Oh, I see. "
"Kimberly, don't be frightened. Here among all this death and ruin, if it's still possible to hope, if it's still possible to believe in anything, believe in me now. Believe in this moment, this one true thing, the only true thing that has any meaning in this faithless, godless world."
"No, it's useless, and yet I feel..."
So I was looking at the car ads in the classifieds today for no particular reason, and it sort of dawned on me as I was looking at the price of one of those German luxury models that, y0u know, I could afford that. I mean, I'm not rich or anything, but if I was to sell off some of my mutual funds I could go down to the dealership and hand over that kind of cash for some fancy-shmancy car with automatic this and leather that and all the other doodads they're putting into cars these days.
But why?
I live in Silicon Valley and believe me I see plenty of people driving around in their 60, 70, 80 thousand dollar cars and I always wonder " Can they really afford that or are they just trying to impress me?", and if they're trying to impress me, why? Just once I'd like to see them up there on the Suze Orman show and see if they really have it all together like they pretend they do. Believe me, Suze would get to the bottom of it.
"Hello, Suze, my name is Penny. I'm a 36 year old woman making $50,000 a year with $2,345,000 in auto loans and credit card debt. My question is should I be paying off the debt or starting a savings account instead?"
"Well, Penny, Ive got to tell you. If I were you I'd got out in the backyard and hang myself."
(No, no, no, I'm just kidding. Suze Orman would never say that. Sylvia Plath might, but not Suze Orman. Actually, Suze would start psychoanalyzing. )
"Tell me Penny, why do you think you have all this debt? Isn't it true that you have all this debt because you're foster parents sold you to a Mexican prostitution ring when you were 4 years old, and now you're trying to make up for your feelings of abandonment by buying things you can't afford?"
"Yes, it's true. Oh Suze, I just feel like I'm sinking further and further and there's no way to get out."
Yeah, get some of these Silicon Valley hotshots up there with Suze and she'd sniff them out.
"You're leaving tomorrow, aren't you Kimberly?"
"Don't try to cling to something that could never last. We both know that we love our freedom too much to ever be tied down."
"Yes, I suppose you're right. Will I ever see you again?"
"Who knows. Who can tell what the future holds."
"Where are you going?"
"Wherever there are people struggling, I'll be there. Wherever there is deceit, treachery, and hypocrisy, I'll be there. Wherever there are people crying out for honesty and integrity and principle, I'll be there."
"You mean you're going to Washington?"
"Goodbye, Tony. "
"But wait-"
"Shhh...don't say anything. I don't know what I'd do if you did, and I must go. You understand, don't you, I must."
And with that she was gone. Was it something I did, or said? No, it just wasn't meant to be. Maybe if I drove a nicer car...
Monday, December 06, 2004
Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants
I met the young boy at the mall as he was fishing through the selection of $150.00 starter jackets.
"Are you Terence?" I asked.
"Yeah, that's me. They said I'm s'posed to talk to you."
"Well that's right, Terence. As you know Senator McCain thought you and I should talk about steroids...that is, you know, about just saying no to performance enhancing drugs."
"You know anything about steroids?"
"Well I know they're dangerous."
"Says who?"
"Well, doctors and scientists and people like that."
"You ever used steroids?"
"Well, no, but-"
"Yeah, that's what I thought. You probably don't know nothin' about steroids 'cept what you read in the paper, do you."
"Look, Terence, Senator McCain feels it's important that I educate you about-"
"Senator McCain? Has he ever used steroids? I mean, if I give him some money can he go score me some?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Terence. Just because you've never used steroids doesn't mean that you don't know how dangerous they are. You don't have to drink poison to know it'll kill you, right? You take these steroids and they make you big and strong, until 'BOOM' - one day your heart just stops beating."
"The governor of California took steroids and he ain't dead. He's the governor, man, with money and Hummers and a big house in Hollywood and all that. If steroids are so bad for you how come he's not dead?"
"You're missing the point here, Terence. -"
"No, man, you're missing the point. I know what you're trying to tell me. We have these guys coming around school all the time talking to us about how bad it is to be doing what we're doing. You ask me they're just wasting their breath. What they ought to do is just send around an undertaker and say 'You know kids, someday you're all gonna die' and I could say "Yeah, that's right Mr. Undertaker, someday I'm gonna be dead, but I plan on having a whole lot of fun before I go'. You know what I'm saying?"
"It's not that simple, Terence. There's a lot more to life than birth and dying. "
"I know that."
"No you don't. It takes time to learn that. It takes time to learn how to live with yourself, and accept yourself, and be truthful with yourself."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about Barry Bonds. How do you think he must feel living a lie like that? Having to lie all the time, and then having to lie about his lies and think up new lies to cover the holes in the lies he's already told. How do you think he feels inside?"
"I think he feels great. He's rich and famous and they got a great big room in Cooperstown all waiting and ready for him to move into."
"But it's a lie, Terence?"
"No, it's not a lie. Everybody knows he's using steroids. You honestly think anyone was suprised when he got up in front of a grand jury and admitted it. C'mon, people got eyes and they know when they're looking at something ain't natural. How can it be a lie when everyone knows you're doing it?"
"Because he said he didn't use steroids. He was lying."
"Yeah, whatever. It don't bother me none if he was lying or using steroids. You know why? 'Cause it don't matter. When you turn on ESPN or Fox Sports or whatever, do you see those guys getting up there and delivering sermons about truth and honesty and athletic purity? Hell no, they've only got one thing to sell and that's who won the game and who lost. That's what the audience is tuning in for, that's what the sponsors are paying for, and that's what the sportcasters give 'em. Nobody cares about how pure a victory it was, or how virtuous the athletes were. You buy the winners and sell the losers - that's how it is on Wall Street, that's how it is in sports, and that's how it is in life."
"There used to be a thing called sportsmanship, you know. I don't suppose you ever heard of that."
"Yeah, 2,4,6,8, who do we appreciate...I know all about that. So what. Maybe it used to be about sportsmanship, but now it's about the money. And I don't know about you, but I'll take the money. Heh, heh, heh, 'Show me the money!'. You know what I'm saying."
"No I don't. Does that mean you risk your life and your health for a little cash in your pocket? What good is money going to do you when you're dead?"
"It won't do me any good when I'm dead, but I'll sure have a lot more fun along the way. Besides, what do you know about steroids anyways? There's a guy I know down at the gym can benchpress 400 pounds. Can you benchpress 400 pounds?"
"I don't know, but I doubt it."
"Then what do you know about steroids, huh? The technology's here, man, and you can't make it go away. You can't put that genie back in the bottle, so don't talk to me about what to do. It's a new world full of new p0ssiblities, and I plan to take full advantage of all of my opportunities."
"And if you get caught, what happens then. What happens when they take all those opportunites away."
"How they gonna catch me, man? Huh? How they gonna test for something when they don't even know what it is they're testing for. And you know what, even if they do catch me what can they do? What they can really do to Barry Bonds anyways? No, you go tell your Senator McCain that we don't need no educating about steroids. The guys down at the gym know a lot more about it than he ever will."
And with that the boy walked away.
I met the young boy at the mall as he was fishing through the selection of $150.00 starter jackets.
"Are you Terence?" I asked.
"Yeah, that's me. They said I'm s'posed to talk to you."
"Well that's right, Terence. As you know Senator McCain thought you and I should talk about steroids...that is, you know, about just saying no to performance enhancing drugs."
"You know anything about steroids?"
"Well I know they're dangerous."
"Says who?"
"Well, doctors and scientists and people like that."
"You ever used steroids?"
"Well, no, but-"
"Yeah, that's what I thought. You probably don't know nothin' about steroids 'cept what you read in the paper, do you."
"Look, Terence, Senator McCain feels it's important that I educate you about-"
"Senator McCain? Has he ever used steroids? I mean, if I give him some money can he go score me some?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Terence. Just because you've never used steroids doesn't mean that you don't know how dangerous they are. You don't have to drink poison to know it'll kill you, right? You take these steroids and they make you big and strong, until 'BOOM' - one day your heart just stops beating."
"The governor of California took steroids and he ain't dead. He's the governor, man, with money and Hummers and a big house in Hollywood and all that. If steroids are so bad for you how come he's not dead?"
"You're missing the point here, Terence. -"
"No, man, you're missing the point. I know what you're trying to tell me. We have these guys coming around school all the time talking to us about how bad it is to be doing what we're doing. You ask me they're just wasting their breath. What they ought to do is just send around an undertaker and say 'You know kids, someday you're all gonna die' and I could say "Yeah, that's right Mr. Undertaker, someday I'm gonna be dead, but I plan on having a whole lot of fun before I go'. You know what I'm saying?"
"It's not that simple, Terence. There's a lot more to life than birth and dying. "
"I know that."
"No you don't. It takes time to learn that. It takes time to learn how to live with yourself, and accept yourself, and be truthful with yourself."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about Barry Bonds. How do you think he must feel living a lie like that? Having to lie all the time, and then having to lie about his lies and think up new lies to cover the holes in the lies he's already told. How do you think he feels inside?"
"I think he feels great. He's rich and famous and they got a great big room in Cooperstown all waiting and ready for him to move into."
"But it's a lie, Terence?"
"No, it's not a lie. Everybody knows he's using steroids. You honestly think anyone was suprised when he got up in front of a grand jury and admitted it. C'mon, people got eyes and they know when they're looking at something ain't natural. How can it be a lie when everyone knows you're doing it?"
"Because he said he didn't use steroids. He was lying."
"Yeah, whatever. It don't bother me none if he was lying or using steroids. You know why? 'Cause it don't matter. When you turn on ESPN or Fox Sports or whatever, do you see those guys getting up there and delivering sermons about truth and honesty and athletic purity? Hell no, they've only got one thing to sell and that's who won the game and who lost. That's what the audience is tuning in for, that's what the sponsors are paying for, and that's what the sportcasters give 'em. Nobody cares about how pure a victory it was, or how virtuous the athletes were. You buy the winners and sell the losers - that's how it is on Wall Street, that's how it is in sports, and that's how it is in life."
"There used to be a thing called sportsmanship, you know. I don't suppose you ever heard of that."
"Yeah, 2,4,6,8, who do we appreciate...I know all about that. So what. Maybe it used to be about sportsmanship, but now it's about the money. And I don't know about you, but I'll take the money. Heh, heh, heh, 'Show me the money!'. You know what I'm saying."
"No I don't. Does that mean you risk your life and your health for a little cash in your pocket? What good is money going to do you when you're dead?"
"It won't do me any good when I'm dead, but I'll sure have a lot more fun along the way. Besides, what do you know about steroids anyways? There's a guy I know down at the gym can benchpress 400 pounds. Can you benchpress 400 pounds?"
"I don't know, but I doubt it."
"Then what do you know about steroids, huh? The technology's here, man, and you can't make it go away. You can't put that genie back in the bottle, so don't talk to me about what to do. It's a new world full of new p0ssiblities, and I plan to take full advantage of all of my opportunities."
"And if you get caught, what happens then. What happens when they take all those opportunites away."
"How they gonna catch me, man? Huh? How they gonna test for something when they don't even know what it is they're testing for. And you know what, even if they do catch me what can they do? What they can really do to Barry Bonds anyways? No, you go tell your Senator McCain that we don't need no educating about steroids. The guys down at the gym know a lot more about it than he ever will."
And with that the boy walked away.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
From The Ol' Grab Bag
The fun of watching Jeopardy comes when you know an answer that none of the contestants on the show do. You know, when you're sitting on the couch saying to yourself "What a bunch of dummies. They don't know that? Everybody knows that. I can't believe they don't know that. I should be on that show. Geez, what a bunch of maroons."
(What can I say, Jeopardy just brings out the worst in me)
Lately, though, Jeopardy has been no fun because of that Ken Jennings guy. I don't know if you caught any of the shows these past few months, but that guy was really irritating. I mean, he knew everything, and he knew it so fast that you didn't even get a chance to hear the question before he was buzzing in with the answer. And that's why I'm so glad that after winning his 2.5 million dollars, Ken Jennings finally lost! Yeah, so long Ken, can't say it's been fun because I was getting pretty sick of you.
But if you watched the show on Tuesday night, you just had to notice that something seemed a little wrong. I don't want to say the fix was on, but it was a little fishy. He was getting beat to the buzzer and missing questions, and in particular he missed a Daily Double question about the name of the town in France that Patton's Third Army liberated at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. I mean, that's a pretty simple question and I'm sure that most people know the answer, but for some reason the 2.5 million dollar man couldn't come up with it. Even though I've got no solid evidence and I doubt that the producers or anyone on the show was involved, I'd say KJ took a dive.
That's my theory, anyways, and if there was some hanky-panky going on, well, who cares? At least he's off the show and I can get back to hurling insults at the half-wit contestants again.
(No, I'm just kidding)
(No I'm not)
Well, here's one of those nights where I feel like blogging but don't have anything to blog about. That would stop a lesser man, but not I. Let's see, what can I blog on.
Unfortunately I don't do book reviews or I'd talk about this great little mystery I just read, but like I said I don't do book reviews. A lot of blogs do, but not this one. It was pretty good, though, called "The Cabinet of Curiosities " by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It's the second book I've read by those two and I've really liked 'em both.
Oh, I know, I can talk about E-books. For some reason E-books never seemed to catch on and I can't figure out why. They're superior to regular paperbacks in so many ways, but I guess people tend to lean on the old and familiar. However, E-books do have their advantages, with the biggest being that you can read them in the dark (particularly good for mysteries). It's just a different experience reading an book in a dark room with the glow of your PDA casting ominous shadows all around, and I think once you get used to it it's hard to go back to turning on a reading light to read. Too much glare, too much reality intruding on your little imaginary world for my taste.
E-books also allow you to do other neat things like adjust the text size and the background color (I prefer large black text against a light gray background) and they also integrate well with electronic dictionaries so that you can look up unfamiliar words on the fly with just a tap or two of your stylus. Best of all, you don't have to deal with the bulkiness of paperbooks when you have an E-book - everything is stored electronically on your memory card or hard drive.
But E-books never caught on, and though they'll probably never disappear entirely, I doubt that we'll ever as extensive a selection of E-books as we do their paperback brethren. Oh well, it's a good idea that never found an audience.
Anything else I can talk about...hmmm, well Bush just got back from a fence-mending trip to Canada. Not that there' much to say about that but it does raise that age old question that we Americans have to deal with from time to time. Namely,
Does Canada Matter?
The answer, of course, is "hell, no" - Americans don't care about Canada, and I've raised the point before, but not in this blog. So I'll raise it again. I bet if you took a random sample of everyday Americans and asked them "What is the capital of Canada?" probably only 6 in 10 could tell you (It's Ottawa, by the way). If you then asked that same sample of Americans "Who is the Prime Minister of Canada?" I doubt if even 1 in 10 could tell you (give up? It's Paul Martin. Yeah, I never heard of him either). But to go even further, if you asked that same sample of Americans "Where is Canada?" I bet you not a single one of them could even find Canada on a map if it didn't have a little arrow pointing north.
That's just the plain and simple truth.
But I love Canada, sort of. I've visited it many times and even drove the Trans-Canada Highway a couple of times in my younger days. It's a great big beautiful country, and beyond that I can't say very much.
No, I must have some impressions of Canada that I can impart.
Well, let's think. Like I said it's big, temperate in the summer and colder than #&*$ in the winter. Uh, let's see, oh yeah you can drive 110 in Canada, only problem is they're on the metric system up there so 110 isn't nearly as fast as you might think. At least I didn't think so, and I think most Canadians agreed because when I drove through there they were all seemed to be doing 130 or 140. They like to drive fast, I guess, but then it's a big country.
What else, what else...oh yeah, they have mounties in Canada. Unfortunately, they don't wear Dudley Do-Right costumes or anything like that, just regular old uniforms like everyone else. That was kind of disappointing.
They have lots of Tim Horton's in Canada. In fact, you can't drive 10 miles (oops, sorry, I meant kilometers) without running into one. They're kind of like the McDonalds of Canada except they sell donuts instead of burgers. I even tried one once, but, and no offense Canada, I didn't think they lived up to the billing.
You know what's strange about driving across Canada, though. You can be driving along just minding your business when all of a sudden you get east of Ottawa and everything starts turning weird. And by weird, I mean french. Suddenly the stop signs all say "arrete", the street names become "rue this" or "chemin de la that", the bridges become "ponts" and some signs just don't make any sense at all. I never did figure out what that "a droite" or "garde de droite" or whatever it was meant, but it must not have been important.
Anyways, they just start changing things on you without any warning. I always thought it would be more "tourist friendly" if they would provide us language-deprived Americans with little information centers where they could sort of brush up on some of that french we haven't had to use since high school. It would be helpful but instead they just pick you up and throw you in the deep end, so to speak, and there you are left to fend for yourself in some weird foreign country.
Only it's not really a foreign country...it's Canada.
Luckily, if you keep driving east or just detour south back to the States things return to normal after a while, but you need to keep your wits about you at all times when you drive up there, because I tell ya' things can change at any time.
And that's about all I can say about Canada at the moment. I didn't mention the prices but when I was there they were obscene. Especially the gas, and Canadian gas stations are the only ones I've ever visited where they had actual loan officers on the premises to arrange that long term loan you're gonna need to finance your next tank of gas. Something to keep in mind, anyways.
Not much of a blog tonight, huh? Well considering what you paid I guess a media report, a book review and a travelogue are worth the cost of the subscription. Still it's amazing how a person can drone on and on and still have nothing to talk about. Reminds me of a girl I knew in high school, but let's not go there right now.
The fun of watching Jeopardy comes when you know an answer that none of the contestants on the show do. You know, when you're sitting on the couch saying to yourself "What a bunch of dummies. They don't know that? Everybody knows that. I can't believe they don't know that. I should be on that show. Geez, what a bunch of maroons."
(What can I say, Jeopardy just brings out the worst in me)
Lately, though, Jeopardy has been no fun because of that Ken Jennings guy. I don't know if you caught any of the shows these past few months, but that guy was really irritating. I mean, he knew everything, and he knew it so fast that you didn't even get a chance to hear the question before he was buzzing in with the answer. And that's why I'm so glad that after winning his 2.5 million dollars, Ken Jennings finally lost! Yeah, so long Ken, can't say it's been fun because I was getting pretty sick of you.
But if you watched the show on Tuesday night, you just had to notice that something seemed a little wrong. I don't want to say the fix was on, but it was a little fishy. He was getting beat to the buzzer and missing questions, and in particular he missed a Daily Double question about the name of the town in France that Patton's Third Army liberated at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. I mean, that's a pretty simple question and I'm sure that most people know the answer, but for some reason the 2.5 million dollar man couldn't come up with it. Even though I've got no solid evidence and I doubt that the producers or anyone on the show was involved, I'd say KJ took a dive.
That's my theory, anyways, and if there was some hanky-panky going on, well, who cares? At least he's off the show and I can get back to hurling insults at the half-wit contestants again.
(No, I'm just kidding)
(No I'm not)
Well, here's one of those nights where I feel like blogging but don't have anything to blog about. That would stop a lesser man, but not I. Let's see, what can I blog on.
Unfortunately I don't do book reviews or I'd talk about this great little mystery I just read, but like I said I don't do book reviews. A lot of blogs do, but not this one. It was pretty good, though, called "The Cabinet of Curiosities " by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It's the second book I've read by those two and I've really liked 'em both.
Oh, I know, I can talk about E-books. For some reason E-books never seemed to catch on and I can't figure out why. They're superior to regular paperbacks in so many ways, but I guess people tend to lean on the old and familiar. However, E-books do have their advantages, with the biggest being that you can read them in the dark (particularly good for mysteries). It's just a different experience reading an book in a dark room with the glow of your PDA casting ominous shadows all around, and I think once you get used to it it's hard to go back to turning on a reading light to read. Too much glare, too much reality intruding on your little imaginary world for my taste.
E-books also allow you to do other neat things like adjust the text size and the background color (I prefer large black text against a light gray background) and they also integrate well with electronic dictionaries so that you can look up unfamiliar words on the fly with just a tap or two of your stylus. Best of all, you don't have to deal with the bulkiness of paperbooks when you have an E-book - everything is stored electronically on your memory card or hard drive.
But E-books never caught on, and though they'll probably never disappear entirely, I doubt that we'll ever as extensive a selection of E-books as we do their paperback brethren. Oh well, it's a good idea that never found an audience.
Anything else I can talk about...hmmm, well Bush just got back from a fence-mending trip to Canada. Not that there' much to say about that but it does raise that age old question that we Americans have to deal with from time to time. Namely,
Does Canada Matter?
The answer, of course, is "hell, no" - Americans don't care about Canada, and I've raised the point before, but not in this blog. So I'll raise it again. I bet if you took a random sample of everyday Americans and asked them "What is the capital of Canada?" probably only 6 in 10 could tell you (It's Ottawa, by the way). If you then asked that same sample of Americans "Who is the Prime Minister of Canada?" I doubt if even 1 in 10 could tell you (give up? It's Paul Martin. Yeah, I never heard of him either). But to go even further, if you asked that same sample of Americans "Where is Canada?" I bet you not a single one of them could even find Canada on a map if it didn't have a little arrow pointing north.
That's just the plain and simple truth.
But I love Canada, sort of. I've visited it many times and even drove the Trans-Canada Highway a couple of times in my younger days. It's a great big beautiful country, and beyond that I can't say very much.
No, I must have some impressions of Canada that I can impart.
Well, let's think. Like I said it's big, temperate in the summer and colder than #&*$ in the winter. Uh, let's see, oh yeah you can drive 110 in Canada, only problem is they're on the metric system up there so 110 isn't nearly as fast as you might think. At least I didn't think so, and I think most Canadians agreed because when I drove through there they were all seemed to be doing 130 or 140. They like to drive fast, I guess, but then it's a big country.
What else, what else...oh yeah, they have mounties in Canada. Unfortunately, they don't wear Dudley Do-Right costumes or anything like that, just regular old uniforms like everyone else. That was kind of disappointing.
They have lots of Tim Horton's in Canada. In fact, you can't drive 10 miles (oops, sorry, I meant kilometers) without running into one. They're kind of like the McDonalds of Canada except they sell donuts instead of burgers. I even tried one once, but, and no offense Canada, I didn't think they lived up to the billing.
You know what's strange about driving across Canada, though. You can be driving along just minding your business when all of a sudden you get east of Ottawa and everything starts turning weird. And by weird, I mean french. Suddenly the stop signs all say "arrete", the street names become "rue this" or "chemin de la that", the bridges become "ponts" and some signs just don't make any sense at all. I never did figure out what that "a droite" or "garde de droite" or whatever it was meant, but it must not have been important.
Anyways, they just start changing things on you without any warning. I always thought it would be more "tourist friendly" if they would provide us language-deprived Americans with little information centers where they could sort of brush up on some of that french we haven't had to use since high school. It would be helpful but instead they just pick you up and throw you in the deep end, so to speak, and there you are left to fend for yourself in some weird foreign country.
Only it's not really a foreign country...it's Canada.
Luckily, if you keep driving east or just detour south back to the States things return to normal after a while, but you need to keep your wits about you at all times when you drive up there, because I tell ya' things can change at any time.
And that's about all I can say about Canada at the moment. I didn't mention the prices but when I was there they were obscene. Especially the gas, and Canadian gas stations are the only ones I've ever visited where they had actual loan officers on the premises to arrange that long term loan you're gonna need to finance your next tank of gas. Something to keep in mind, anyways.
Not much of a blog tonight, huh? Well considering what you paid I guess a media report, a book review and a travelogue are worth the cost of the subscription. Still it's amazing how a person can drone on and on and still have nothing to talk about. Reminds me of a girl I knew in high school, but let's not go there right now.
Monday, November 29, 2004
Sixteen Tons (or Please Pass the Gravy)
Isn't it great to get all that eating and relaxing behind you and settle back into the work week. Yeah, nothing like it. Somehow I feel a poem coming on.
There was a struggling man who asked
For a day free from trying
There was a suffering man who asked
For just one day of dying
There was a weeping man who asked
For just one day of living
But never was the man who asked
For a Monday to follow Thanksgiving
I think Emily Dickinson wrote that. OK, maybe that was my pen at work, but seriously, as we pause to remember the food shouldn't we also take a little time to pause and reflect a little on friends and family and all that togetherness. Of course we should, and it brings to my mind a great old saying from some guy whose name I can't remember right now, but that just seems to sum it all up -
A hotel may not be a home, he said,
but it's better than being a houseguest.
How true, how true. Here's hoping you had a great Thanksgiving, and for God's sake I hope you didn't wash your hands using the "good" towels.
The Old Man And The Sea
They had a story about some 12 year old composer on 60 minutes last night, and I got to tell you it really creeped me out. According to the story, he started composing when he was 2 and now he walks around all the time waiving his hands and hearing this music in his head. In fact it's so bad he feels like he'll go crazy if he doesnt' get the music out of his head and write it down on paper. Now is it just me or doesn't that remind you of that old Edgar Allen Poe story, you know The Tell Tale Heart where this guy keeps hearing this beating heart until it slowly drives him mad. Eeewww, creepy.
Unfortunately, they didn't really air much of his music so it's hard to tell if it's any good or not, but even if it's not it doesn't matter much because, well, he's only 12. Of course it'll be a different story 10 years from now when he's no longer a precocious little boy. When that happens people will be judging him more by his music than his prodigious gift and he'll need to deliver. Hopefully he won't turn into another Bobby Fischer or something like that. You know, gifted child that grows into a completely wacko adult. I wish him well, though.
And speaking of prodigies, whatever happened to Sarah Chang? Oh, I know she's still recording and playing and she is still immensly talented, but it just seems that she's one of those prodigies that has never really had that big breakthrough CD that everyone expected. I've got a couple of her CD's and I like her playing, but neither of them are what I would call "breakthroughs". They're just too traditional, too much like everyone else to stand out from the crowd. Sure, traditional will get you played on the local radio station, but are there a lot of people who feel an urgent need to get the new Sarah Chang CD when it comes out? There may be some, but for the most part it's just good, solid, polished work that is almost too ordinary in it's goodness to get really excited about (if that makes any sense).
Her rival, or so they say, is my personal favorite, and even though I think this rivalry stuff is a lot of B.S., I do think that Ms. H.H. has already established a more distinctive body of work than Ms. S.C. It's all subjective, of course, and many people prefer the traditional, down-the-middle approach, but c'mon, it's not breakthrough, and I'm afraid that I'm still waiting for the Sarah Chang CD that really knocks my socks off. Maybe someone should tell her she's not a prodigy anymore and it's time for her to do some stretching and growing.
And speaking of H.H., I see that her latest CD is selling rather well. It was number 10 on Tower Records top selling list and in the top 50 over at Itunes. Pretty good for a CD that I'd characterize as being a little on the difficult side. At least it was for me, although I think I finally I understand it, or misunderstand it, as the case may be. Who can tell a correct interpretation from an incorrect one anyways. Just as long as you get some meaning from it, who cares? Of course you want to know what meaning I found, so I'll tell you, but first I should explain it took quite a bit of wandering before I finally found it.
My first wandering was back down to the record store to find another recording of the Elgar Concerto besides H.H's. They only had one other, but it just happened to be by one of my other favorite violinists so I bought the Nigel Kennedy version and brought it home. To say it was a different from H.H.'s would be a gross understatement, but then anyone with even a passing acquaintance with classical music knows that Kennedy (or is it Nigel Kennedy? I can't keep it straight. Let's just call him Nigel) is a very different violinist than H.H. Where H.H. is still and precise, Nigel is fanciful and flamboyant, and let me tell you he really takes that Elgar concerto for a ride. And yes, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
So that got me thinking that maybe H.H. has taken a serious misstep with her recording and gotten in a little over her head. I mean by the time I finished playing the Nigel CD my ears were burning and I didn't hear any of that fire anywhere on H.H.'s CD - just an odd sense of incompleteness. Well, I thought, even the great ones produce a dud every now and then, and Ms. H is certainly no different. At least she tried to find her own way with the piece and that always counts for something.
Then I got another CD. This time it was not the violin concerto but rather a well-known and highly regarded recording of Elgar's cello concerto by Jacqueline du Pre, and it is a wonderful CD by the way and certainly worthy of the praise it receives. In fact, Jacqueline du Pre and H.H. are a little similar, in a way, in that they both seem to want to get out of the way of the performance and let the music have it's own voice, rather than say a Nigel Kennedy who wants to stand out in front and be the center of attention. Not that one approach is better than the other, but listeners will have their preferences.
Anyways, on the same CD with the cello concerto were recordings of Janet Baker singing 5 Sea Songs also by Elgar, and it was hearing those songs that gave me first real insight into the violin concerto. You see, the violin concerto is widely known to have been dedicated as some kind of remembrance or eulogy, perhaps, for an acquaintance of Elgar's named Alice Stuart-Wortley, and that's how I kept trying to hear the piece, as sort of an elegaic or spiritual composition, but it just didn't seem to work that way. Later I read an interview that H.H. had given and she described the piece as lyrical, which it certainly is, and said she had made the recording as sort of a gift or dedication to her father. That was interesting but not very useful, and I was still more drawn to Nigel's interpretation than H.H.'s.
Finally, though, after hearing Janet Baker sing the Sea Songs I had my epiphany, if it can be called an epiphany. The movement of the piece is what seems so strange. When Nigel plays it you don't really notice the movement because you are so overwhelmed by the pyrotechnics, but when H.H. plays it you become aware that this piece doesn't march, it doesn't dance, it doesn't sing dirges or stroll through the woods - it swells, like the tides. It rises and falls, and rises and falls, and sometimes as it recedes it leaves behind little tide pools, or should I say "tone" pools, that glisten for a while until the music rises up to swallow them again. Instead of thinkng in linear terms I began to think in cyclical terms, I began to think of the ocean when I listened to H.H. play, and the suddenly the whole thing fell into place. I tell you, if you can clear your mind and just listen for the tides, this becomes an incredibly beautiful piece. I think that rather than being a miss this may be H.H.'s best CD to date. It gets my vote for best CD of 2004, although I don't think the critics like it nearly as much as I do. Still, a real breakthrough that I just keep listening to over and over.
I wonder if H.H. would agree with me on this. Hmmm, probably not. "You ignorant dunce", she'd say, "that's not what I had in mind at all." Well, it's all in the ear of the beholder.
Isn't it great to get all that eating and relaxing behind you and settle back into the work week. Yeah, nothing like it. Somehow I feel a poem coming on.
There was a struggling man who asked
For a day free from trying
There was a suffering man who asked
For just one day of dying
There was a weeping man who asked
For just one day of living
But never was the man who asked
For a Monday to follow Thanksgiving
I think Emily Dickinson wrote that. OK, maybe that was my pen at work, but seriously, as we pause to remember the food shouldn't we also take a little time to pause and reflect a little on friends and family and all that togetherness. Of course we should, and it brings to my mind a great old saying from some guy whose name I can't remember right now, but that just seems to sum it all up -
A hotel may not be a home, he said,
but it's better than being a houseguest.
How true, how true. Here's hoping you had a great Thanksgiving, and for God's sake I hope you didn't wash your hands using the "good" towels.
The Old Man And The Sea
They had a story about some 12 year old composer on 60 minutes last night, and I got to tell you it really creeped me out. According to the story, he started composing when he was 2 and now he walks around all the time waiving his hands and hearing this music in his head. In fact it's so bad he feels like he'll go crazy if he doesnt' get the music out of his head and write it down on paper. Now is it just me or doesn't that remind you of that old Edgar Allen Poe story, you know The Tell Tale Heart where this guy keeps hearing this beating heart until it slowly drives him mad. Eeewww, creepy.
Unfortunately, they didn't really air much of his music so it's hard to tell if it's any good or not, but even if it's not it doesn't matter much because, well, he's only 12. Of course it'll be a different story 10 years from now when he's no longer a precocious little boy. When that happens people will be judging him more by his music than his prodigious gift and he'll need to deliver. Hopefully he won't turn into another Bobby Fischer or something like that. You know, gifted child that grows into a completely wacko adult. I wish him well, though.
And speaking of prodigies, whatever happened to Sarah Chang? Oh, I know she's still recording and playing and she is still immensly talented, but it just seems that she's one of those prodigies that has never really had that big breakthrough CD that everyone expected. I've got a couple of her CD's and I like her playing, but neither of them are what I would call "breakthroughs". They're just too traditional, too much like everyone else to stand out from the crowd. Sure, traditional will get you played on the local radio station, but are there a lot of people who feel an urgent need to get the new Sarah Chang CD when it comes out? There may be some, but for the most part it's just good, solid, polished work that is almost too ordinary in it's goodness to get really excited about (if that makes any sense).
Her rival, or so they say, is my personal favorite, and even though I think this rivalry stuff is a lot of B.S., I do think that Ms. H.H. has already established a more distinctive body of work than Ms. S.C. It's all subjective, of course, and many people prefer the traditional, down-the-middle approach, but c'mon, it's not breakthrough, and I'm afraid that I'm still waiting for the Sarah Chang CD that really knocks my socks off. Maybe someone should tell her she's not a prodigy anymore and it's time for her to do some stretching and growing.
And speaking of H.H., I see that her latest CD is selling rather well. It was number 10 on Tower Records top selling list and in the top 50 over at Itunes. Pretty good for a CD that I'd characterize as being a little on the difficult side. At least it was for me, although I think I finally I understand it, or misunderstand it, as the case may be. Who can tell a correct interpretation from an incorrect one anyways. Just as long as you get some meaning from it, who cares? Of course you want to know what meaning I found, so I'll tell you, but first I should explain it took quite a bit of wandering before I finally found it.
My first wandering was back down to the record store to find another recording of the Elgar Concerto besides H.H's. They only had one other, but it just happened to be by one of my other favorite violinists so I bought the Nigel Kennedy version and brought it home. To say it was a different from H.H.'s would be a gross understatement, but then anyone with even a passing acquaintance with classical music knows that Kennedy (or is it Nigel Kennedy? I can't keep it straight. Let's just call him Nigel) is a very different violinist than H.H. Where H.H. is still and precise, Nigel is fanciful and flamboyant, and let me tell you he really takes that Elgar concerto for a ride. And yes, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
So that got me thinking that maybe H.H. has taken a serious misstep with her recording and gotten in a little over her head. I mean by the time I finished playing the Nigel CD my ears were burning and I didn't hear any of that fire anywhere on H.H.'s CD - just an odd sense of incompleteness. Well, I thought, even the great ones produce a dud every now and then, and Ms. H is certainly no different. At least she tried to find her own way with the piece and that always counts for something.
Then I got another CD. This time it was not the violin concerto but rather a well-known and highly regarded recording of Elgar's cello concerto by Jacqueline du Pre, and it is a wonderful CD by the way and certainly worthy of the praise it receives. In fact, Jacqueline du Pre and H.H. are a little similar, in a way, in that they both seem to want to get out of the way of the performance and let the music have it's own voice, rather than say a Nigel Kennedy who wants to stand out in front and be the center of attention. Not that one approach is better than the other, but listeners will have their preferences.
Anyways, on the same CD with the cello concerto were recordings of Janet Baker singing 5 Sea Songs also by Elgar, and it was hearing those songs that gave me first real insight into the violin concerto. You see, the violin concerto is widely known to have been dedicated as some kind of remembrance or eulogy, perhaps, for an acquaintance of Elgar's named Alice Stuart-Wortley, and that's how I kept trying to hear the piece, as sort of an elegaic or spiritual composition, but it just didn't seem to work that way. Later I read an interview that H.H. had given and she described the piece as lyrical, which it certainly is, and said she had made the recording as sort of a gift or dedication to her father. That was interesting but not very useful, and I was still more drawn to Nigel's interpretation than H.H.'s.
Finally, though, after hearing Janet Baker sing the Sea Songs I had my epiphany, if it can be called an epiphany. The movement of the piece is what seems so strange. When Nigel plays it you don't really notice the movement because you are so overwhelmed by the pyrotechnics, but when H.H. plays it you become aware that this piece doesn't march, it doesn't dance, it doesn't sing dirges or stroll through the woods - it swells, like the tides. It rises and falls, and rises and falls, and sometimes as it recedes it leaves behind little tide pools, or should I say "tone" pools, that glisten for a while until the music rises up to swallow them again. Instead of thinkng in linear terms I began to think in cyclical terms, I began to think of the ocean when I listened to H.H. play, and the suddenly the whole thing fell into place. I tell you, if you can clear your mind and just listen for the tides, this becomes an incredibly beautiful piece. I think that rather than being a miss this may be H.H.'s best CD to date. It gets my vote for best CD of 2004, although I don't think the critics like it nearly as much as I do. Still, a real breakthrough that I just keep listening to over and over.
I wonder if H.H. would agree with me on this. Hmmm, probably not. "You ignorant dunce", she'd say, "that's not what I had in mind at all." Well, it's all in the ear of the beholder.
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
It's My Ball So I Get To Be Quarterback
The Holidays. Bah Humbug! Yeah I know that's not what Christmas is all about, at least not the Christmas they advertise on TV. Christmas is supposed to be about family, and giving, and crowds, and calories, and overlimit credit card balances, and... Ah, enough already. I'm sorry if I'm not in the proper holiday spirit but I'm getting tired, and each year it seems more and more like a chore just to make it through the season. In fact I can see it coming already.
How long will it be, you think, before we start seeing those "news" stories about how we're doing this holiday season? You know the ones I mean.
"Retailers report a slow start to the Christmas shopping season, with sales volume 6% behind what they were this time last year. With Christmas accounting for as much as 60% of total yearly sales, many analysts predict that retailers may see revenue shortfalls of up to a gazillion dollars unless consumers get out those credit cards and start running up the balances. Many consumers, however, continue to watch prices closely and wait for discounts to arrive before they start shelling out the dough."
Geez, they always try to make you feel so guilty about not doing your part to add even more heft to the national debt. But I don't care about that, and I don't mind spending the money either, but I do resent it when the news shows and the commercials and even the politicians sometimes start turning the screws and pressuring already overextended consumers to go out there and spend.
Anyways, that's not what I wanted to talk about. What I really want to talk about is charity. Now I know everyone of us tries to do our part, especially at this time of year, and I guess the one thing that I always feel good about at Christmas time is my annual donation to Toys for Tots. I've been doing it for the past 15 or 20 years or so, but it seems like every year I end up donating the same thing. And that bugs me.
You see, I know that kids want to get the hottest, latest, coolest thing for Christmas, but I never know what the latest, hottest, coolest thing is. I imagine it's probably something electronic, or at least something that needs a battery, or maybe something radio controlled, or something that moves or makes some kind of noise, but I never donate those types of things. I could just donate money, but instead each year I give the same old dull, boring, been-there done-that kind of toy you can imagine.
I donate a ball.
It used to be I'd donate a softball or a football but I noticed that kids today don't seem to be playing much baseball or football anymore, so I usually give a soccer ball or a basketball instead. I know, I know, how b-o-o-o-o-r-i-n-g. But wait a second, I can explain, and it all goes back to (are you ready for this?) "WHEN I WAS A KID." You see, when I was a kid I used to get lots of those cool, fad kind of toys too, and I'd play with them intensely for about a week or two before I'd toss them into the closet and beg my parents for the next cool thing. But a ball was different.
My brother got a football for Christmas once and I swear that thing got regular use for at least the next 6 or 7 years. And not just by my brother, either. Every kid in the neighborhood knew who had the football and whenever it was time to get a game together you could be sure someone would come knocking on our door. I don't know whatever happened to that thing, but after a few years the strings were all broken and tied together in knots, and one of the seams had split open a little so that there was a big black bubble on one side where the rubber innertube used to stick out, and the surface had become so worn and smooth that we used to have to throw it shotput style to keep it from slipping out of our hands. But let me tell you, it got used and never sat around in the back of anyone's closet waiting to be thrown out.
So that's why I give a ball every year. You see, in my mind I have this idealized vision of some kid getting this ball for Christmas and getting all the neighborhood kids together and having a game just like we used to do. Realistically, of course, I also know it's far more likely that some poor kid is going to be looking around at all the really cool toys that everyone else got for Christmas and w0ndering why he or she just got this crummy ball.
And I feel bad about that.
Yep, I should donate something else this Christmas. But I keep thinking wouldn't it be great if some kid got a ball for Christmas, and him and his dad went down to the park and started throwing it around, or kicking it around, or shooting a few baskets. Wouldn't any kid get more out of that than some batteries not included gizmo, or some TV show movie deal action figure promo tie-in? Ok, probably not, but then, like I said, I'm an idealist.
That's why I think I'll donate a football this year. Kids don't seem to play much football anymore, and you know, that's too bad because if they did they'd find out that the game is a lot of fun. On a crisp winter day, when there's a bit of a chill in the air, after you've been cooped up inside all day, a football game is...well, if only I could be a kid again. Unfortunately, I'm not a kid and if I went out and played football now I'd probably break every bone in my body, but when you're young it's just about the most fun you can have. My favorite positions were receiver and cornerback, and let me tell you it wasn't like the NFL where all a corner has to do is brush the receiver a little or just look at him funny for a flag to come flying. By our rules, when going for the ball anything short of first degree murder was a-ok by us, and we had some crazy fun. At least it was for me.
Yeah, I'm going to donate a football and who knows, maybe someone will get a game going. Then after I've done my good deed for humanity and dropped it in the barrel I can get back to this business of Christmas. I heard an ad on the radio today where they were seriously suggesting that a Mercedes would make a great gift this holiday season. No kidding. Why not surprise that special someone with a new Mercedes this year.
We've certainly come a long way from frankincense and myrrh.
The Holidays. Bah Humbug! Yeah I know that's not what Christmas is all about, at least not the Christmas they advertise on TV. Christmas is supposed to be about family, and giving, and crowds, and calories, and overlimit credit card balances, and... Ah, enough already. I'm sorry if I'm not in the proper holiday spirit but I'm getting tired, and each year it seems more and more like a chore just to make it through the season. In fact I can see it coming already.
How long will it be, you think, before we start seeing those "news" stories about how we're doing this holiday season? You know the ones I mean.
"Retailers report a slow start to the Christmas shopping season, with sales volume 6% behind what they were this time last year. With Christmas accounting for as much as 60% of total yearly sales, many analysts predict that retailers may see revenue shortfalls of up to a gazillion dollars unless consumers get out those credit cards and start running up the balances. Many consumers, however, continue to watch prices closely and wait for discounts to arrive before they start shelling out the dough."
Geez, they always try to make you feel so guilty about not doing your part to add even more heft to the national debt. But I don't care about that, and I don't mind spending the money either, but I do resent it when the news shows and the commercials and even the politicians sometimes start turning the screws and pressuring already overextended consumers to go out there and spend.
Anyways, that's not what I wanted to talk about. What I really want to talk about is charity. Now I know everyone of us tries to do our part, especially at this time of year, and I guess the one thing that I always feel good about at Christmas time is my annual donation to Toys for Tots. I've been doing it for the past 15 or 20 years or so, but it seems like every year I end up donating the same thing. And that bugs me.
You see, I know that kids want to get the hottest, latest, coolest thing for Christmas, but I never know what the latest, hottest, coolest thing is. I imagine it's probably something electronic, or at least something that needs a battery, or maybe something radio controlled, or something that moves or makes some kind of noise, but I never donate those types of things. I could just donate money, but instead each year I give the same old dull, boring, been-there done-that kind of toy you can imagine.
I donate a ball.
It used to be I'd donate a softball or a football but I noticed that kids today don't seem to be playing much baseball or football anymore, so I usually give a soccer ball or a basketball instead. I know, I know, how b-o-o-o-o-r-i-n-g. But wait a second, I can explain, and it all goes back to (are you ready for this?) "WHEN I WAS A KID." You see, when I was a kid I used to get lots of those cool, fad kind of toys too, and I'd play with them intensely for about a week or two before I'd toss them into the closet and beg my parents for the next cool thing. But a ball was different.
My brother got a football for Christmas once and I swear that thing got regular use for at least the next 6 or 7 years. And not just by my brother, either. Every kid in the neighborhood knew who had the football and whenever it was time to get a game together you could be sure someone would come knocking on our door. I don't know whatever happened to that thing, but after a few years the strings were all broken and tied together in knots, and one of the seams had split open a little so that there was a big black bubble on one side where the rubber innertube used to stick out, and the surface had become so worn and smooth that we used to have to throw it shotput style to keep it from slipping out of our hands. But let me tell you, it got used and never sat around in the back of anyone's closet waiting to be thrown out.
So that's why I give a ball every year. You see, in my mind I have this idealized vision of some kid getting this ball for Christmas and getting all the neighborhood kids together and having a game just like we used to do. Realistically, of course, I also know it's far more likely that some poor kid is going to be looking around at all the really cool toys that everyone else got for Christmas and w0ndering why he or she just got this crummy ball.
And I feel bad about that.
Yep, I should donate something else this Christmas. But I keep thinking wouldn't it be great if some kid got a ball for Christmas, and him and his dad went down to the park and started throwing it around, or kicking it around, or shooting a few baskets. Wouldn't any kid get more out of that than some batteries not included gizmo, or some TV show movie deal action figure promo tie-in? Ok, probably not, but then, like I said, I'm an idealist.
That's why I think I'll donate a football this year. Kids don't seem to play much football anymore, and you know, that's too bad because if they did they'd find out that the game is a lot of fun. On a crisp winter day, when there's a bit of a chill in the air, after you've been cooped up inside all day, a football game is...well, if only I could be a kid again. Unfortunately, I'm not a kid and if I went out and played football now I'd probably break every bone in my body, but when you're young it's just about the most fun you can have. My favorite positions were receiver and cornerback, and let me tell you it wasn't like the NFL where all a corner has to do is brush the receiver a little or just look at him funny for a flag to come flying. By our rules, when going for the ball anything short of first degree murder was a-ok by us, and we had some crazy fun. At least it was for me.
Yeah, I'm going to donate a football and who knows, maybe someone will get a game going. Then after I've done my good deed for humanity and dropped it in the barrel I can get back to this business of Christmas. I heard an ad on the radio today where they were seriously suggesting that a Mercedes would make a great gift this holiday season. No kidding. Why not surprise that special someone with a new Mercedes this year.
We've certainly come a long way from frankincense and myrrh.
Thursday, November 18, 2004
Everything Old - Just Keeps Getting Older
The death embrace, er merger, of Sears and Kmart has inspired me once again to indulge my predilection for all things fleeting and nostaligic by wallowing in sentimental remembrance of things gone by. I don't why it's so, but the mere idea that the mighty Sears Roebuck and Co. could someday fade into the history books...well, I never imagined it could ever be so.
Yes, with Sears on the ropes I can't help but reflect on how many of the big names from my childhood have gone the way of the Dodo. I really can't count them all. Montgomery Wards, The Emporium, Woolworths, White Front, and Gemco, or lesser names like W.F. Grant & Co, Newberry's, Payless Drugs and Rexall Drugs (not officially dead but a mere shadow of its former self). Hell, I'm even old enough to remember my mother redeeming her books of blue chip stamps down at the blue chip stamp store. It was all such a long time ago.
Of course, many of the old stores didn't expire but merely changed their names or merged and morphed into the big mega institutions we have today. Gas stations, in particular, seemed to follow this pattern. When I was in high school we had 3 gas stations on the main intersection down the street and all of them have disappeared. Let's see, there was a Mobile station, and across the street a Standard station, and on the opposite corner sat a Humble station. They were all what we called service stations back then which meant that they fixed cars as well as pumped gas, and by pumped gas I mean some guy in a greasy blue shirt with a little oval name tag sewed on the fron would pump your gas while you sat in the car. Folks in Oregon or Quebec will know what I'm talking about.
Anyways, Humble Oil became Esso which merged with Mobile and became Exxon Mobile which calls itself Valero, and Standard changed their name to Chevron just like Richfield changed it's name to Arco. Gas stations like to confuse things, don't they. Route 66 stations merge with Phillips and become Phillips 66 which merges with Conoco and becomes Conocophillips, or Mohawk is swallowed by Getty which in turned gets swallowed and is now a part of Texaco, and Gulf Oil...hmmm...whatever happened to Gulf Oil?
Well, everything changes and I'm sure that when I finally shuffle off this mortal coil the world will be nothing like it is today. That's just one of those things that ages a person and makes him wonder "geez, how old am I, anyways?" I know the number but the number doesn't seem right. In fact I read a survey once where they asked people how old would they say they were if they didn't know how old they were. The top answer was around 19 years old, and that sounds about right to me even though I'm sure I can look over my youth and recall daily events from the past that would seem ancient indeed to today's 19 year olds.
I mean, how many contemporary 19 year olds can still remember milk trucks and milkmen? Not many, I bet, but I can still remember the Carnation trucks and Edelweiss Dairy trucks that used to cruise the streets of my neighborhood. Wasn't that a long time ago. A lot of our neighbors used to have their milk delivered, but we always went straight to the dairy to pick ours up. Saved money that way, I guess, and I can still remember going down to Bab's Dairy with my father to buy those big half-gallon bottles (as in glass) of milk. That used to be one of my favorite trips because my Dad would always buy us all Eskimo Pies whenever we were lucky enough to tag along.
Whoa, I'll tell you how old I am. I can even remember when the bakery truck used to come around to our house in Covina to deliver fresh bread and donuts. Man, that goes way back. Big yellow bakery trucks (vans, really) with great big brown donuts painted on the side. Can you imagine that happening today? Or can you imagine buying your fruits and vegetables fresh from the little stalls and open-air markets along the road. Well, they still do that today, I guess, with farmer's markets and such, but when I was a kid no one bought produce at the supermarket when there was so much abundance for sale in the roadside stands. Corn, cherries, watermelon, you name it, and best of all were the strawberries. I remember we always got our strawberries from a bent-backed old japanese woman who ran a little stand down on Berryessa Road. She was about 200 years old, I guess, and not much for conversation, and she used to sell these fresh, juicy strawberries for a quarter a basket. I know, I know, I'm wallowing, but those were the days.
And nowadays, well you get in your car and drive to the local megastore or local megacenter and fill your basket with pre-wrapped, pre-measured, pre-processed, corporate food products that have all been carefully inventoried and barcoded for your convenience. The youngun's take it all for granted of course, but us old crotchety types know that new isn't always better and even if it is, well, it just isn't the same. Heed my words, you new generation, for someday it will be your turn to remember for your children and grandchildren when there used to be a Sears.
The death embrace, er merger, of Sears and Kmart has inspired me once again to indulge my predilection for all things fleeting and nostaligic by wallowing in sentimental remembrance of things gone by. I don't why it's so, but the mere idea that the mighty Sears Roebuck and Co. could someday fade into the history books...well, I never imagined it could ever be so.
Yes, with Sears on the ropes I can't help but reflect on how many of the big names from my childhood have gone the way of the Dodo. I really can't count them all. Montgomery Wards, The Emporium, Woolworths, White Front, and Gemco, or lesser names like W.F. Grant & Co, Newberry's, Payless Drugs and Rexall Drugs (not officially dead but a mere shadow of its former self). Hell, I'm even old enough to remember my mother redeeming her books of blue chip stamps down at the blue chip stamp store. It was all such a long time ago.
Of course, many of the old stores didn't expire but merely changed their names or merged and morphed into the big mega institutions we have today. Gas stations, in particular, seemed to follow this pattern. When I was in high school we had 3 gas stations on the main intersection down the street and all of them have disappeared. Let's see, there was a Mobile station, and across the street a Standard station, and on the opposite corner sat a Humble station. They were all what we called service stations back then which meant that they fixed cars as well as pumped gas, and by pumped gas I mean some guy in a greasy blue shirt with a little oval name tag sewed on the fron would pump your gas while you sat in the car. Folks in Oregon or Quebec will know what I'm talking about.
Anyways, Humble Oil became Esso which merged with Mobile and became Exxon Mobile which calls itself Valero, and Standard changed their name to Chevron just like Richfield changed it's name to Arco. Gas stations like to confuse things, don't they. Route 66 stations merge with Phillips and become Phillips 66 which merges with Conoco and becomes Conocophillips, or Mohawk is swallowed by Getty which in turned gets swallowed and is now a part of Texaco, and Gulf Oil...hmmm...whatever happened to Gulf Oil?
Well, everything changes and I'm sure that when I finally shuffle off this mortal coil the world will be nothing like it is today. That's just one of those things that ages a person and makes him wonder "geez, how old am I, anyways?" I know the number but the number doesn't seem right. In fact I read a survey once where they asked people how old would they say they were if they didn't know how old they were. The top answer was around 19 years old, and that sounds about right to me even though I'm sure I can look over my youth and recall daily events from the past that would seem ancient indeed to today's 19 year olds.
I mean, how many contemporary 19 year olds can still remember milk trucks and milkmen? Not many, I bet, but I can still remember the Carnation trucks and Edelweiss Dairy trucks that used to cruise the streets of my neighborhood. Wasn't that a long time ago. A lot of our neighbors used to have their milk delivered, but we always went straight to the dairy to pick ours up. Saved money that way, I guess, and I can still remember going down to Bab's Dairy with my father to buy those big half-gallon bottles (as in glass) of milk. That used to be one of my favorite trips because my Dad would always buy us all Eskimo Pies whenever we were lucky enough to tag along.
Whoa, I'll tell you how old I am. I can even remember when the bakery truck used to come around to our house in Covina to deliver fresh bread and donuts. Man, that goes way back. Big yellow bakery trucks (vans, really) with great big brown donuts painted on the side. Can you imagine that happening today? Or can you imagine buying your fruits and vegetables fresh from the little stalls and open-air markets along the road. Well, they still do that today, I guess, with farmer's markets and such, but when I was a kid no one bought produce at the supermarket when there was so much abundance for sale in the roadside stands. Corn, cherries, watermelon, you name it, and best of all were the strawberries. I remember we always got our strawberries from a bent-backed old japanese woman who ran a little stand down on Berryessa Road. She was about 200 years old, I guess, and not much for conversation, and she used to sell these fresh, juicy strawberries for a quarter a basket. I know, I know, I'm wallowing, but those were the days.
And nowadays, well you get in your car and drive to the local megastore or local megacenter and fill your basket with pre-wrapped, pre-measured, pre-processed, corporate food products that have all been carefully inventoried and barcoded for your convenience. The youngun's take it all for granted of course, but us old crotchety types know that new isn't always better and even if it is, well, it just isn't the same. Heed my words, you new generation, for someday it will be your turn to remember for your children and grandchildren when there used to be a Sears.
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