Friday, August 15, 2008

Let me say this about that...

Oh, enough about politics, huh?

How about things in life that are good?

Gas is getting high enough that people, even people in Texas, are using public transportation and driving less. It rained almost 2” in the last 24 hours. I am married to the most wonderful person I know; we’re going out for lobster tonight – Just the two of us, there may be hanky panky involved afterwards, (Does eating Lobster generate endorphins?). Baseball is still a gas. I got more guitars in my building pipeline than I can shake a stick at, and they’re all coming along fine. My hand doesn’t go numb any more. Food for the Poor is doing fantastic work in the Caribbean and South America. Nothing but Nets is handing out tens of thousands of life saving sleep nets to families all over Africa. When you re-read Mountains Beyond Mountains, it’s as amazing as the very first time. Smoked paprika is the secret to many things. A custom Strat thrown over your shoulder will make you feel like Pete Townsend. Bare feet feel great after a long day walking on concrete. Our backyard, on our little 1/6th of an acre, is like a tiny jewel; a park, an oasis in the midst of suburban kitsch. My car is covered in hail dents and I think it looks cool. My cats like each other; no, really… Baby squirrels are amazingly cute, even though they remind me of that ad from the Stupor Bowl. My family can still get together for a reunion and have too much fun, and nobody gets bent for long in the process. I have guitar making friends all over the world; I could go to England, Norway, Scotland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Bosnia, Thailand, and all over the US and hang with fellow builders. My wife is incredibly sexy, and we like the same stuff. We finish each other’s sentences; I never question the fact that we love each other madly and will be together forever: Did I mention that she’s way sexy? I can memorize my part in a 36 page script and pretty much repeat them accurately, and when I don’t, I can fake it well enough to get by. All our kids are wonderful people, as are those they are close to.

And last but not least: Some people are like slinkies; they’re not really good for anything, but you can’t help but smile when you push ‘em down the stairs…

Life is good.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Zoot Alors!!

Zoot Alors!

Is it just me? Lord, I hope not… Oh – Sorry, the question was this; anybody else totally tired of American Politics? I just want the whole mess done, so I don’t have to listen to this horseshit any more.

McCain is, in my not-so-humble-opinion, a typical say-anything-do-anything-become-anything-just-please-elect-me-I’ll-be-whatever-it-takes-to-get-the-job-egomonster bullshit artist.
I am going to vote, and do so for Obama, frankly. I hope that he is half as genuine, different, and truly interested in making things right as he claims to be. I know that the real power lies in who comes with the mouthpiece; I certainly have far more faith in whom Obama will bring than I do McCain.

Have you ever met a fighter jock? I played hockey for years with several. Most are great guys, but in general, it is safe to say that, among aviators, this genre is far and away the hugest bunch of ego monsters you’ll ever meet; wore, in fact than either cardiac or orthopedic surgeons, and that, my good friends, is sayin’ something...

Don’t get me wrong; flying a fighter in wartime is hard, dangerous, and complex, and it takes an amazing ego to stand up to that kind of sustained pressure. I admire the hell out of those who do and have done it, and I appreciate greatly the sacrifices they make. McCain was shot down and spent years in the Hanoi Hilton. I can barely imagine the incredible evil and hardship he suffered there. I am sorry that happened and happy that he survived. I don’t know if he’s the same person all these years later, but the impressions I get of him from newspaper, website, radio, and television say he most certainly is not. This man doesn’t appear honest to me, or forthright in his intentions to become President in order to form a more perfect union. He appears and sounds and reads to me as if he wants the job to complete his personal campaign for greater power and notoriety. He and his beer dynasty trophy wife do not impress me; in fact, they depress and repel me.

Perhaps first and foremost in that regard is his tone of voice; have you noticed that? He has the same damn smarmy, superior, talkin’-to-the-little-people sneer that The Shrub has. Is this a new Republican phenomenon? In any case, that alone is enough to permanently turn me off to the guy. There’s also the whole “My friends” bullshit: A former campaign manager explained it this way, “When John McCain calls you, “My friend,” it means he’s not sure about you, but he’s willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. When he calls you, “My good friend,” it means he probably does not like you; when he calls you “My very good friend,” there’s no doubt he hates your guts.” Now that sounds like what I hear when he speaks, frankly.

And after the ads he has been running, McCain has the balls to say, “I don’t think we’re running a negative campaign at all.” He told a citizen questioner at the Urban League, (A black male, by the way), that he “Didn’t understand,” the ads if he found them negative, because they were just illuminating important character issues; this was the ad where Obama is compared to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. This after McCain said several times in the spring that his campaign wouldn’t use such ads because “Negative ads don’t work.”

Do you smell bullshit?