Who Asked Me?

Spent some time feelin’ inferior – Rod Stewart / Ronnie Wood

They say that kids today are way ahead of those of my generation, and having a niece and nephew who are competent in both Japanese and English, I’m inclined to agree with them. But today’s kids are also missing something. This occurred to me the other night in the middle of watching It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. This animated show, along with the gold standard A Charlie Brown Christmas, set a realistic tone for adulthood pointedly absent from anything Zac Efron could ever deliver. (Actually, I’m too out of touch to even know if Zac Efron is a relative current example, but I do like writing his name.)

You couldn’t get away with a character like Charlie Brown today. His realistic appraisal of the world around him and repeated “I’m depressed” assertions would be seen as excessively negative and damaging. For Charlie Brown, depression was merely the by-product of an accurate assessment of his state of affairs; not a skewed view of the world and result of misfiring synapses and depleted serotonin levels. He sucked as a pitcher, couldn’t score with the Little Red Haired Girl, and was eliminated from the class spelling bee for misspelling the word “maze.” (And this only because of his singular focus on the greatest San Francisco Giant, and perhaps greatest baseball player to ever play the game.) At Halloween, his scissor skills were so poor that his ghost sheet more resembled Swiss cheese. When the kids compared their trick-or-treat haul, he always got a rock. Not just once, but at every door.

Still, I kind of liked the kid.

Which leads me to this year’s election. A basic principle of economics, as it was once explained to me, is the exchange of information. You know more about you than I do, and I know more about me. How well we come to understand or misunderstand each other is related to the exchange, accuracy and interpretation of these facts. By this standard, economics has a lot to do with words. This is likely why they’re chosen carefully when it comes time to talk about the state of economic affairs.  Both presidential campaigns reflect distorted verbal economic management. It’s absolutely intentional, misleading, and designed to attract the most votes possible. Obama associates with terrorists. There are no differences between McCain and Bush. These statements are easily challenged with even cursory examination, yet are leveled with repeated conviction. A friend much smarter than I once remarked that the problem with democracy is that everyone gets to vote. I know that I’m far from qualified, and a simple ride on the subway or flip through the channels provides ample evidence to suspect that I’m not alone. Despite this, the level of rancorous exchanges currently being tossed between those with opposing views has reached epic proportion. The weaker or more poorly-based the argument, it would seem, the stronger and more bitter the conviction.

If Charlie Brown could tell it like it is, why can’t the rest of us follow suit? Perhaps the price is too high to pay. Robert Burns wrote “O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us” which, roughly translated, means: what a gift it would be to see ourselves as others do. It would also likely lead to years of therapy. Perhaps the more relevant quote comes from Walther Matthau as delivered to his troop of lovable losers in The Bad News Bears: “Never assume. When you assume, you make an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’.” If we’re able to make some small interpersonal gains with this one, we might be ready to move on to national elections.

For some time now, my computer-savvy pal Paul Theodoropoulos has suggested that I update the format of my web site to something more modern and interactive.  I value Paul’s input in these matters, but I continued to resist. I knew my reluctance was based largely in delusion, as these disjointed posts are one of the few things I’ve hung on to as a source of “identity”.  In truth I see myself as being aligned with those folks who prefer little to no web presence. Granted, there are cranks and shut-ins out there with an aggravated form of Internet paranoia akin to rifle heiress Sarah Winchester’s aversion to being photographed. I’m not in this group and at one time did strive to be the highest-ranking Rick Monaco on Google (which led to a long and embittered feud with the better-known Canadian drummer of the same name .. but I digress.)  I do write on occasion, and without these posts my words would likely end up on discarded binder paper or in lost files on my hard drive.  The point is, Paul had a point.

And still I stuck to my delusional guns. I feared any change in my grass-roots style, unformatted, non-linked, comment-free web page would send shock waves through the populace similar to those felt when Bob Dylan went electric. This despite the fact that by my best estimate, and outside of unknown stalkers and folks who really hate me, my entire readership could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and even that of the guy who runs the “Zipper” ride at the Corte Madera Carnival. But I wanted nothing to do with blogs, blogging, bloggers or anything relating to the word. Call it snobbish, misplaced, unwarranted superiority, but it was the position I took.

But today, somewhat reluctantly, all of this changes. Maybe it was the fact that I realized none of my objections made much difference anyway and all I’d really be doing is creating more consistently formatted paragraphs. Or perhaps it was the fact that Paul worked in the wet lab at my family’s company, which was literally the heart of the operation, the same place my dad started out, and an area that remained foreign to me through my entire, guilt-ridden tenure. I can’t say exactly, and it doesn’t really matter. I’ll still be a dinosaur and social outcast, only now I’ll also have a webpage that more closely resembles that guy with the Wilco For Life blog down the street. I suppose it’s about time.

Baby, the great sadness / you’ve got to let it all go
Live in the present / live in the future, Johnny – ain’t that so
-Van Morrison (with John Lee Hooker) “Wasted Years”

Here today and expected to stay
On and on and on ..
-Elliott Smith

Been looking at bits and pieces from the last five or six years and considering how they might fit together or remain apart. Either is equally valid, but at certain junctures it all lands in curious synchronicity. At times I’m completely perplexed by the nature of my thoughts or direction of my words, and then a day later it falls in place like some preordained production. This isn’t to say it’s necessarily or typically pleasant or palatable – just undeniable. Like what I wrote below. I’ve had these discussions with a wide range of folks, from the pragmatic to the just plain loopy. Most typically arrive at a similar conclusion – who knows? – and I guess that’s a question we’ve all got to address individually or be satisfied with leaving be. My dad told me recently that I think too much, but this has nothing to do with thought, and is likely the opposite. Besides, I never made it to trigonometry and as an English major couldn’t identify Hester Prynne in a lineup. But enough of this crap.

Standing in the middle of West Fourth Street and Sixth Avenue the other day I felt a gentle October breeze, glanced upward at the sun cutting a straight path through the buildings, and took in the varied New York foot traffic, many fashioned in seasonally adjusted attire and on course to getting somewhere else. Which is curious, because at some point a good percentage of them were bent on getting here, to the corner of West Fourth and Sixth on a perfect Fall afternoon. I was going somewhere myself, but had a minute to reflect on how I’d been in a Petaluma backyard just days earlier, reclining in an easy chair and staring upward at the starry sky. And only months prior it was Scotland, amid a late night Summer sunset, standing riverside and skimming stones across the Tay. In between there were plane trips, car rides, subway connections, train travel and a number of decent meals. The good fortune with which I’ve been blessed is undeniable, despite my fair share of disappointment, disillusionment, and dilapidated discourse. For the small handful concerned, this isn’t a eulogy – merely making a point while practicing my d’s. And for the few banking on the former, well, sorry.

To back up and end it with just yesterday, I made my way down to the Broadway-Lafayette Station, then over to Great Jones Street and The Great Jones. I was planning on getting a salad or maybe even a cheeseburger, but the bar was packed so I stood and sipped a draft. Almost immediately the guy sitting in front of me turned and began to chat. It could have something to do with gruff New York hospitality, but I like to imagine that my face has evolved into something softer and more approachable as the years have passed. “Good taps here,” he commented, in curious reference to the limited selection of beers. I took it as a friendly hello and nodded in agreement. He was a house painter, making the commute from Nyack and working on interiors in some of the more bucks-up dwellings on the Upper East Side. “Doing this job for an Italian woman – the paint work alone is costing her a hundred  and seventy grand. Good-looking broad for sixty .. well-preserved if you know what I mean. Must be spending three or four million on the place. Her father big game hunted with Hemingway – polar bears and stuff like that. I never got that, personally. Take a picture if you want their head on the wall..”

His coworker and underling showed up, a short thirty-something guy who switched the conversation to throat cancer. The Nyack Commuter gave the guy his seat and shook my hand on the way out. I scanned the bar in futility, looking for a potentially vacant spot, then gave up. I finished my beer and looked around the room – I have some history with this place. Outside it wasn’t yet dark and I took a picture for my cell phone’s wallpaper of the street, facing east to west. It’s one of my favorite settings in Manhattan. Shortly after and now dark, I compromised and bought a chicken roll in my hood, eating it as I walked home alone. Another disjointed piece of the puzzle, hopefully coming together at some point down the line. (10.04.08)

I’m on the road again, pointing the old white E320 east on I80 toward the Sierras. It’s got a hundred and forty thousand miles on it, that car, but rides as solid as a chunk of accelerating granite.  Say what you will about the Germans, but they make a decent vehicle.  Somewhere past Auburn I stop at a glorified taco stand – something between a Taco Bell and tamale peddler –  and order two with chicken from the drive through window. In the ten minutes I spare for consumption, I sit in the Benz surveying the landscape and pondering who lives here in these Sierra foothills. The spread isn’t quite urban and isn’t quite country, and I tend to associate it with waitresses, gas stations, Denny’s and fast food clusters. But it’s only an hour out of Sacramento, and people do start and end their days here. A simple concept, yet one that continually eludes my grasp.

Wherever you go, there you are. Some guy thought that up, and his slightly more ambitious buddy wrote it down and cashed in on the bumper sticker. It’s kind of like “it is what it is” with either a slightly more grounding or slightly more daunting effect, depending on one’s slant. It applies equally to getting in a plane and flying across the country, driving on the interstate toward Lake Tahoe, or switching from bed to couch in the middle of the night. Manhattan’s got more distractions than Weimar, California but you can only ever take them in from your own vantage point. As John C. Spears would remark with profound intonation “The eyes only see out.” Unfortunately, Spears failed to get it on the bumper sticker too.

Tahoe is what it is, but in its particular case this is really something else. I’m no world traveler, but I’ve lived in Umbria, North Beach and New York, seen London, Madrid and Paris, and had an airport stopover in Memphis. None offers the same sensation one gets from this particular lake. And the air – well, as Sinatra might have observed, it is indeed rarified. And yet the same feeling overtakes me whenever I make the brief journey from car to inside of cabin: well, here I am. After about forty years, the place is taking on a theme prominent in all my family’s homes: multiplying televisions. For decades there was only the old Magnavox black and white, representing the sole technological advancement in a domicile that lacked even a phone line. But now there’s a Panasonic LCD in the living room, a small color set upstairs, and my brother’s old four hundred pound Sony XBR unplugged on the back bedroom floor. None, except perhaps the Panasonic, is really necessary, but you always need somewhere to stash the old one. This is what a family cabin is, in large part – a place for you and the extended clan to store the old stuff. The funny thing is, folks seem to think they’re doing you a favor by adding that third blender to the kitchen ensemble. That’s where Mom comes in, making the journey every so often to weed out the two inferior blenders.

Blenders and televisions aside, it’s an ideal setup: a small A-frame that’s all sleeping space, save a decent kitchen and two modest bathrooms. The water is superior up here, better to taste and softer to shave. Towering pines swaying in late September afternoon breeze put the unanswerable in perspective. And that body of water, well, you can see how the first indians to lay human eye on it figured themselves a foot up on the rest of civilization.  Just before sundown I hear footsteps coming up the stairs to the deck, always a slightly jarring sensation while pondering one’s own company in the woodsy off season. Darnell is a young black kid with green eyes, dressed impeccably in well starched white shirt and politely stepping back from the door as I answer. “Excuse me Sir,” he begins, “and pardon me for interrupting your privacy this evening.”

He’s a nice kid, living in Reno and going door to door looking to solidify his standing with some sort of troubled youth program by selling magazine subscriptions. At least that’s the script, and I’m torn between suspecting a scam and listening to the rest of his story. It’s a standard pitch but with believable humility and decent flare. An ex drug dealer and a father with young son at twenty-four, his simple rationale rings sincere:: “I was a knucklehead.” He notes the sign above the door “Monaco – is that you?” and asks if it’s a family cabin. “See, that’s also what I’m doing,” he explains, “trying to learn how to do it the right way from those who have attained success.” He glances at the Mercedes in the driveway and asks politely but with a dose of familiarity “How’d you make your first million?” I consider several replies including “lucky genetic draw” and telling him that the car is worth four grand, tops. But instead I self-consciously allow the assumption to sit, despite my t-shirt stained by taco sauce and a three day growth.”I guess my family’s just stuck together and hung on to the stuff that’s worked out.” It rings hollow, even as I’m in the middle of saying it.

I end up giving him twenty bucks, either out of appreciation for his slim pickings up here or residual white man’s guilt. He’s appreciative but disappointed that I’m not getting a subscription, and has me sign a sheet acknowledging his “twenty points” and rating his demeanor. “Polite and engaging” I write, seeing as there’s insufficient room to add “Overlooked my stained shirt.” I notice the various signatures under mine and subscriptions bought – either the kid’s doing OK or he’s forged an elaborate plan. Either way it’s at least a twenty buck effort. He asks if I know what time it is and I tell him five-thirty. “They get bears around here, don’t they?” he asks. I tell him they do, but on rare occasion, and that they’re more interested in uncovered garbage cans than door to door magazine salesmen. It’s about as successful a bit of advice as I can muster. “God bless you, Sir,” he tells me, and is on his way.

I sat home in Tennessee, starin’ at my screen
uneasy feelin’ in my chest, wonderin’ what it means
-Steve Earle “Christmas in Washington”

So Obama made his speech last night, and this message of “change” was prominent. Sheryl Crow even switched a few words around in one of her songs to fit the occasion and Stevie Wonder showed a lot of teeth. There were a lot of good teeth all around, for that matter. For a guy who smoked for a long while, Barack’s are coming along nicely. And that Joe Biden has one hell of a set of chompers. In fact, Biden’s are alarmingly white. I think it’s time to acknowledge that this teeth whitening technology has advanced beyond the point where it’s doing anyone any good. It’s like everything’s being shot under a black light these days, and everyone’s mother has bred with Sam Champion. Perhaps it’s our ongoing determination, particularly during the political season, to reinforce our independence from England. But I’d take Winston Churchill over any of these clowns.

This was supposed to be Obama’s moment to lay out his ideas and vision. He touched on this a bit, and also made some new references, including one to McCain’s reputation as a hot head. But the majority of his talk, despite expectations, continued to focus on this non-specific idea of change. What specifics he did address weren’t a heck of a lot different from traditionally democratic ideas of the past. In an effort to appeal to all people and avoid alienating any, he’s steadfastly refused to hammer on the most obvious change point that he represents: he’s black and he doesn’t have a name like Jefferson, Washington or Lincoln. Sure, he’s brushed up against the idea in the past and mentioned, passingly, that his name and appearance are different. The one speech he made addressing the point, when it could no longer be avoided, was by far his most eloquent and gripping of the campaign. But now any reference to this colossal and authentic version of “change” that he embodies is only touched on ever so delicately and implied in subtext. And yet there it is in every camera shot,in the faces of his wife and kids, and in the eyes of every black person in crowd.

I don’t think he’d be practicing any great injustice, playing the “race card” or implying racial prejudice on the part of anyone not voting for him were he to put it out there a bit more. The idea that he’ll seem aligned with radical ideology or appear fixed with anger on righting the many wrongs set in place by this country’s great historical shame is ridiculous. That he’s an appealing and potentially capable candidate speaks for itself in his very manner. But if we’re talking about change here, let’s get real people, and start with the most obvious and glaring example he represents. The problem with politicians is that they try to maintain a straight face while trying to be all things to all people. And in doing this they typically come off as being full of shit. It’s no secret that there are a lot of brown people, in all corners of the world, who aren’t exactly singing America’s praises. And folks of all political persuasion seem capable of acknowledging that we squandered at least a bit of the international good will that was in the air immediately following September of 2001. Historically, symbolic gestures are every bit as important as the actual practices put in place. Nixon made great strides with China, but all anyone remembers is his sweating a lot and leaving in disgrace.

I found myself paying attention to the start of Obama’s acceptance speech last night, tuning out during the middle part where he touched on solar energy and Mccain being a Bush clone, and then tuning back in at the very end. It was in closing that he mentioned Martin Luther King’s march on Washington forty-five years ago, and in measured tones his voice rose with passion. He should lose the restraint and start going with it a bit more. He’s already got the posters all printed up; might as well meet this change thing head-on.