A royal pain

Just a day after my rant on the uselessness of news, the lead story on Yahoo News is "Britain celebrates monarchy as Kate, William wed." It hammered home the last nail in the coffin of journalism's integrity and credibility for me. Here are a few burning tidbits gleaned from the masterful prose of the "reporter":

The sighting of Middleton's wedding gown — the biggest secret of the day — prompted swoons of admiration as she stepped out of a Rolls-Royce with her father at the abbey. Against all odds, the sun broke through steely gray skies at precisely that moment. 

Her ivory-and-white satin dress — with its plunging neckline, long lacy shoulders and sleeves and a train over 2-meters (yards) long — was designed by Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen. Middleton's hair was half-up, half-down, decorated with dramatic veil and a tiara on loan from the queen. Her dramatic diamond earrings were a gift from her parents.

I especially liked a quote from Jennie Bond, reportedly a "leading British monarchy expert and royal wedding consultant for The Associated Press": "It's a dream. It is a beautiful laced soft look, which is extremely elegant. She looked stunning." Being a British monarchy expert and royal wedding consultant for AP seems right up there with being a groundhog trainer at the Staten Island Zoo in niche occupations. At least the groundhog trainer has something to point to at the end of the day.

The only thing that would have made the article more irritating would have been if the reporter had tried to weave in the economy and gas prices. Maybe something like:

Her ivory-and-white satin dress -- with its plunging neckline reminiscent of the current global economy...

or

The royal couple smiled broadly as they were driven to Buckingham Palace in the open-topped State Landau, a carriage built in 1902, escorted by four white horses signalling the frugal couple's efforts to cut back on driving due to soaring fuel prices.

What was even more pitiful about the reporting effort to me were the interviews with the sad people who flew halfway around the world to see the royal couple kiss on big screen monitors set up in Trafalgar Square.One woman from Columbus, Georgia proudly exclaimed, "I came for Prince Charles' wedding to Diana and I came for Princess Diana's funeral. We love royalty England and London."

How very sad.

But the icing on one of the worst pieces of reporting I've ever read was this little gem:

And there is no small irony in the sight of Americans waking up before dawn (on the East Coast) or staying up all night (West Coast) after their fellow countrymen fought so fiercely centuries ago to throw off the yoke of the British monarchy and proclaim a country in which all men are created equal.

Excuse me, I need to go throw up now.

No news is good news

I mean that literally. I hate watching the news. I hate reading it almost as much. Because as impartial and detached as any journalist tries to be, they can't help but spin a story for the maximum psychological tweak of the ignorant masses' need to be afraid of the bogeyman.

I say this despite the fact that I have a degree in Journalism.

The only time I really watch television news is when I am exercising. I'll tune in the local news for five or ten minutes while I am waiting for either a rerun of Friends or the New Adventures of Old Christine to come on. And in that five or ten minutes you can bet I'll hear the phrase "soaring gas prices" or "sagging economy" several times.

Television news is the worst purveyor of fear mongering there is. I know it is over simplification to blame a down economy on how it is reported, but I firmly believe that people hear some reporter spouting doom and gloom about unemployment and housing markets (based on a few lines the reporter has gleaned from a 300-page government report on trends) and they over react, creating self-fulfilling prophesies.

If the news isn't spouting doomsday scenarios, it is spouting inane information about nothing. Yesterday one of the local news channels reported that you could buy a dozen doughnuts at QFC for $7 via a Groupon coupon. Give me a fricking break. How is that news?

I know it is ostrich like to not want to emerse yourself in worst case scenarios. But hell, ignorance really is bliss. What good does it do for the average person to know whether the Dow is up or down on any given day? And I don't need a news report to tell me the average price of gas is almost $4 a gallon. I see it when I go to the gas pump.

It makes you wonder what people did before mass media and the Internet. Would a world without a constant influx of information really be so bad?

Woodchucks don't chuck wood

"How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could
if a woodchuck could chuck wood!"

Since my post questioning whether clams are really happy seems to garner the most traffic on my blog, I decided to tackle another burning question: If woodchuck's don't really chuck wood, why are they called woodchucks? I'm not even going to delve into the hypothetical question of how much wood they could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. That's just stupid.

First of all, a woodchuck is really just a groundhog. Groundhogs are most famous for Groundhog Day, a day (February 2)  when the animal is supposed to wake up after hibernating all winter, either see its shadow and run back into its den signalling six more weeks of winter, or not see its shadow and signal the beginning spring. I'm sensing there is not a great deal of science involved in this method of predicting the beginning of spring.

Groundhogs are not really hogs any more than they are chuckers of wood. They are more closely related to a squirrel than a hog, so we are dealing with an animal that is mired in misconception and therefore constantly dealing with identity crisis issues. This could explain why groundhogs are pretty aggressive creatures. Wikipedia states, that according to Doug Schwartz, the groundhog trainer at the Staten Island Zoo, "They’re known for their aggression, so you’re starting from a hard place. [Their] natural impulse is to kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out. You have to work to produce the sweet and cuddly."

The most surprising thing I find about that is not that groundhogs are aggressive but that there is such a thing as a groundhog trainer. I imagine it is pretty much a niche market, but who am I to judge.

But back to the question of woodchucks and wood. If we take the name literally, it would mean someone or something that "chucks" or tosses wood randomly. When I was in junior high school and played basketball (extremely poorly BTW), we used to call guys who just chucked the ball at the basket every time they got it, "chuckers." This has nothing whatsoever to do with woodchucks, because I am digressing.

The name woodchuck actually comes from another misunderstanding of the Algonquian (a Native American dialect) word for the animals: wuchak. I'm sure that the Native American's were dutifully puzzled and the wuchak's equally annoyed when early settlers captured the animals and turned them lose on a newly chopped pile of wood thinking they were going to stack it.

History is so disappointing when you lift up the curtain and see who really is running Oz.

The Quantum Physics Network

Although I have a very rudimentary grasp of some of the theories of Quantum Physics, I am still fascinated by the mystical side of this branch of the sciences. It's why every now and then I write about the "many-worlds" theory that poses the possibility that there exist an infinite number of parallel universes in which every possible outcome at any given moment takes place. So reality as we know it in our universe only exists when we actualize it by observing it or participating in it.

I'm sure that this is an oversimplification, but for the purposes of a blog called Dizgraceland, I think it is adequate. Anyway, as I was standing waiting for the train the other morning I was thinking about how many channels of television I have on my FIOS network at home. When you combine the hundreds of networks offering hundreds of shows with the thousands of options available "On Demand" you have a pretty fair microcosm of the  "many-worlds" theory.

Think of it. We have created this electronic model of infinite universes that coexist constantly broadcasting scenarios that aren't really actualized in our world until we click on that channel. We become the godhead of our digital universe, clicking our way through the maze of channels, creating our reality, at least for the time we're in front of the television.

As I reflect on the many-worlds concept, I begin to understand how people can believe in the power of thinking or prayer or simply focusing on a goal. Because if all possibilities exist at any given moment, then you are highly more likely to achieve the one you want if you set your sights on it. Too often, however, we think of what we want and then start making lists of all of the possible obstacles that will prevent us from getting it. So instead of actualizing our ideal outcome, we randomize the realities, stacking the deck with many more negative outcomes than positive ones.

This model lives in my Quantum Physics television network analogy as well. If we randomly click through the channels, chances are 99 percent of what we see will suck. But if we use the channel guide and our DVRs, we can maximize our chances of watching something we like. We are "channeling" our realities into the direction we choose. It is your TV Guide to enlightenment so to speak.

Stop, I am killing me.

But semi-seriously, I like the idea that we can control some of the randomness of existence by choosing our path. And I'm not suggesting that you rigidly define from start to finish how your life should go. I personally have chosen a rather meandering path. But I do think this theory gives us the opportunity to choose positive paths and leave the negative ones to our infinite number of other selfs floundering around in the infinite number of other worlds or universes.

Endless winter

"Now is the winter of our discontent..."
--William Shakespeare

"Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it."
--Mark Twain

I do not support people raging against the weather because for the most part, we can't do anything about it. But that being said, I am pretty sick of the crappy weather we have been having.  It is April and it still feels like a harsh Pacific Northwest winter.

More than anything else, I'd just like the rain to stop for awhile. I realize that this is Seattle and we are supposed to be famous for our rain, but seriously it really doesn't rain that much here (or it didn't). Now were are deluged with what seems like non-stop rain, mud slides and flooding.

And its cold.

Yet still flowers are blooming but looking miserable. If they could speak in a manner understandable by humans, I imagine they'd be saying, "What the f**k is up with the weather?"

We did mow our meager little yard over the weekend. But yard work is crammed into brief sun breaks. And it seems like more and more we are simply trying to contain the moss more than anything else. I'd just like long enough break from the rain so that we could keep the ivy, blackberry vines and dandelions at bay.

I'm sure Al Gore is smiling his, "I told you so" grin as people wring their hands wondering what is up with the weather. I kind of understand that global warming doesn't mean everything is going to get warm and that extreme climate change is to be expected. I guess I kind of wished that Seattle would have become the next Caribbean and I could start taking steel drum lessons.

I also wish that we could do something about global warming that didn't involve carrying around your own reusable grocery bags. Our community is one of the ones that banned plastic bags at grocery stores. So now we have nothing to empty our cat litter boxes in. I miss the days of self-indulgence when we could use as much of our natural resources as possible without worrying about consequences.

Those were the good old days.

The weather was much nicer, too.

Meeting Facebook to Facebook

Although not a fan of Facebook, I'm not adverse to it either. People seem so polarized about it. They either overindulge or avoid it like the plague and then wonder obsessively about what people are doing out there in the global community while they are be obstinate about joining.

It really isn't a big deal either way. The trick to Facebook is figuring out the privacy settings so that you avoid stalkers while allowing a few people to find you so that you can save time sending out photos of your kids. Having seen the movie the Social Network, I am amazed that Facebook is considered such a programming breakthrough. Somewhere in the back end coding it may be genius, but I pretty much think the user facing interface sucks.

For one, you can't find people who swear they are on Facebook and actually want you to find them. You spend more time e-mailing them to try different things to connect than you would if you actually flew across the country to visit.

And I'm getting sick of the generational bias people seem to think applies to social networks. I got news for you, just because someone is over 50 doesn't mean they grew up listening to a Victrola and writing on parchment. We are the generation that launched personal computing. And most of us have a rudimentary grasp of technology. Don't hate us because we can still socialize face to face without over developed thumbs from texting.

I have a Facebook, Twitter, Plaxco and Linkin account. I blog. I used to do Foursquare until I got tired of broadcasting my location to the world. I'm middle ged and I am wired, so there.

Still I get tired of hearing how social media is changing the way people communicate. There is no mystery to social media and the main way people make money off from it is by bilking people into buying the secrets of social media marketing.

I have to say that Facebook type social sites do help you stay connected to people you wouldn't have otherwise had much contact with due to time and distance. This isn't to say you maintain a robust relationship, but you at least manage to stay in the periphery of people lives.

Still, I feel no urge to constantly broadcast my status. I'm content with the random comment here and there and to post digital photos of my kids. Because although I accept Facebook for a way to stay in touch, I never want it to be the only way I stay in touch (or out of touch for that matter).

Across the Universe

Sounds of laughter shades of life
are ringing through my open ears
exciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which
shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe
--John Lennon, Across the Universe

I was reading my son a small book about space the other day. Or more accurately, he handed me the book, asked me to read it to him and then proceeded to climb on my back and drive a small model car on top of my head while periodically asking me why Nemo went down the toilet. I managed to focus on a few of the paragraphs, in particular one that said scientists believe there are billions of galaxies like ours in the universe.

It reminded me of when I was a kid camping along the banks of the North Fork of the Boise River with my family, laying outside under the stars staring at the Milky Way (our galaxy, not the candy bar) and marveling at the endlessness of it all. And even then, I knew that it was impossible that with all of the billions of galaxies with the trillions of stars and the zillions of planets that we could be the only living creatures in existence.

Yet many humans still insist that we are the only "intelligent" life in the universe. How pitifully arrogant. I have questioned my entire life whether or not we can even be classified as intelligent life. At times I wonder if we are merely sea monkeys  blindly following some superior being's flashlight as they shine it from one side of our bowl to the other.

I suppose this is a very Horton Hears a Whoish way of looking at the universe. But it is definitely true in my own microcosm of it. As a young boy, I am sad to say that I often played "superior being" games with ant colonies that infested my grandmother's yard. On more than one occasion, I unleashed my wrath on the poor creatures with a magnifying glass or simply a rubber mallet. If ants reasoned in the same way as humans, I'm sure they thought they had offended the gods in some way.

But fortunately for the bulk of the creatures on earth, humans seem to be the only ones cursed with wondering why they are here and what's next. The only thing animals and insects seem to be concerned with is where the next meal is coming from and when is the next opportunity to propagate their species.

Despite my misgivings about the ultimate intelligence of humans, I am amazed at the knowledge and inventions we've managed to come up with. It is pretty impressive for a species that had its roots in cave dwellers cowering in the mud trying to make it through the night without becoming a midnight snack for less intelligent but better physically equipped creatures. The fact that we've made such great strides scientifically makes me a firm believer in the collective consciousness that supposedly helps us accumulate knowledge over generations without having to start from scratch at birth.

Though you would think that we would have learned that wars don't ultimately accomplish much and no one looks good with blue hair and a Mohawk.

We look to the universe for ultimate answers, however, because it is the ultimate mystery. Our brains can't really fathom infinity even when it stares us in the cosmic face. Stories like Carl Sagan's Contact or Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 a Space Odyssey tease us with the possibility that the answers are out there and then they leave us staring blankly like a monkey handed a calculator and a tax return. We feel like the answer is there somewhere, but we feel too stupid to grasp it and too embarrassed to admit it.

It's also kind of like going to an exhibit of modern art.

But I digress.

I get a bit impatient with scientist's fascination with what I think are pretty useless details. In the ultimate scheme of things, does it really help to know what minerals the planet Mercury is composed of? I'm sure a scientist could explain the significance to me, but I am also pretty sure I wouldn't understand the explanation (note to my nephew Richard: Please don't try and explain the significance to me).

I'm kind of banking on learning more about the meaning of the universe when I walk into the light (euphemism for die). This is why I'm really hoping I don't get overly senile. Because it would really be a bummer to achieve enlightenment and be oblivious to it while not wearing pants and wondering where I left my Hotwheels collection.

Jai guru deva om...

Escaping to the movies

There have been times when I have expected movie theaters, besieged by Netflixs and cable, to go the way of the Dodo bird. After all, for the price of a movie ticket, sodas, popcorn and some candy, you can practically buy an HD flat screen television and watch a film in the comfort of your own home. And you don't have to a man with a head the size of Rhode Island sitting in the seat in front of you (unless in your house has an overly large head and sits in front of the television in which case you can simply shout, "Hey, move your fathead").

It's not as those the suburban shopping mall theaters with 52 postage stamp sized theaters go out of their way to enhance your theater experience, either. Give me a vintage theater any day, crappy acoustics or not. At least you can capture some of the romance of the original motion picture theaters built when a movie was the next best thing available after a live performance.

When I was a kid growing up in Boise, escaping to a movie was sporadic luxury.  My favorite was theAda Theater. It had originally been called the Egyptian Theater. It was built in the mid 1920s when the discovery of King Tut's tomb inspired fashion and architecture in the US. I don't know when they changed the name to the Ada Theater, but it was beautiful (even if a bit worn). The stage and screen were framed by faux columns decorated with Egyptian hieroglyphics.

I loved that theater. Mom would drop me and my brothers off at the Skagg's Drug Store around the corner from the  Ada, and we'd buy cheap candy bars (six for a quarter) to smuggle into the theater to avoid the high theater prices (a quarter a piece for Sugar Babies, Milk Duds or Junior Mints). The Ada had a balcony as well as a sprawling main floor. And there was this huge Egyptian motif chandelier hanging in the center of the theater that slowly dimmed just before the movie started. I'd love sitting in the dark on a hot summer's day basking in the air conditioning and getting lost in the big screen.

I remember seeing 2001 a Space Odyssey there and not understanding a single thing about the movie. I also saw Planet of the Apes . I vaguely recall a movie with Dick Van Dyke called Robinson Crusoe, USN about a navy fighter pilot marooned on a desert island. Oh, and I believe I also saw a film called Robinson Crusoe on Mars there.

The Ada Theater was eventually restored as a historical building and the name was changed back to the Egyptian. I believe it is still operating in Boise, but I believe it mainly shows art films and has concerts with the old pipe organ that was originally used there during the silent movie era.

But the old theaters are a rare commodity these days.  I don't think independent  theaters can afford to operate any more. Even the chain giants seem hold on by a small margin bolstered by obscenely expensive concessions and changing movies weekly to match the ADD nature of most people these days longing for something fresh and new that hasn't already gone to DVD or cable.

We took our toddlers to our local theater on the weekend to see Johnny Depp's Rango. It was an older theater in our small downtown area in a town outside of Seattle. The theater didn't have the same grandeur of the Egyptian in Boise, but it at least looked like a theater on the inside. But as the lights dimmed and the overly loud sound system kicked in, I found my mind drifting off and I kept looking at my watch wondering when the film would be over.

It's sad, but escaping to a movie now means to me that I can turn on the big screen, scroll through on demand and watch something at my leisure, pausing the action to make my own popcorn or take a bathroom break. And I can sit in my own easy chair wearing sweats.

I do miss the hieroglyphics on the wall, though.

A half billion blogs...sigh

Blogger reports that by the end of 2010, more than a half billion people had created blogs using Blogger. So what are the odds that anyone is ever going to read your blog now? Even if you browsed a blog a minute 24/7 for a year you'd only see about 525,600 blogs. And that would be only 1/100 percent of the blogs out there. And the number keeps growing.

That sucks. It just reinforces my theory that if everyone is famous, no one is.

There should be a test you have to take before you can create a blog. And then you have to commit to maintaining it for at least a year or they come and remove your little toe or something like that. It would give us serious bloggers a  more level playing field to post on.

I remember when there were only 50 million or so blogs out there that you had to compete with. You had a snowball's chance in hell back then to be read. Now you have a snowball's chance to set up shop on the sun to be read.

Good thing I have no delusions about ever breaking away from the blogger pack and being noticed. I miss the good old days when you had to type out your prose, poetry or fiction and submit it to tons of obscure publications in order to be rejected. At least you knew that at least one person was reading your stuff. And if you were lucky, you'd get an impersonal rejection slip to prove someone had at least looked at the first page of your manuscript.

It's not like I read other people's blogs either. Oh I tried to. But every time I started following some one, they wrote a "I'm closing my blog" post and stopped posting. Because it takes a lot of energy to keep cranking out blog posts knowing the only people who read them are doing so by accident after googling topics like, "are clams really happy."

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over thinking you are going to get a different outcome. I'd say that pretty much applies to blogging.

Carrot on a stick

I am convinced that our lives are pretty much motivated by things that are happening in the future. It keeps us moving in the present. There is nothing like a vacation, holiday, big event or upcoming birthday dangling in front of you like a carrot on a stick to keep you going.

Unfortunately, vacations end, holidays fly by, and birthday cakes (or carrot cakes) are eaten and then your brain frantically darts around looking for something else to look forward to. The problem with once a year carrots like vacations, Christmas and your birthday is that they come and go once a year but they linger on your credit card statements.

You're better off putting baby carrots on a twig for things like your favorite television show, your daily downtime before going to bed or dessert. These unfortunately, are carrots fraught with obstacles such as reruns, cancellations, children with monsters in their closets and an expanding waistline from looking forward to dessert a bit too much.

To this day, I get a charge out of buying something new. It's the process I look forward to more than the having something new. I love doing Internet searches to compare products and then order them. I love tracking them online to see when they are going to be delivered. And I love finding the package on my doorstep. But when the package is opened, part of the joy is gone. Because what do I have to look forward to, now?

Buying things is another baby carrot. It is hard to live in the now, especially after years of conditioning as a child to cling to something to look forward to as your motivation. My 4-year old daughter is constantly telling me the things she will do when she grows up (which to her is when she turns five). It reminds me of how much of our youth we squander wanting to grow up. And then we squander the rest of our lives trying to find something else to look forward to or moping about the past.

Is it even possible to live totally in the now? Everything seems so geared towards the future. Clocks and calendars rule our lives. Our lives revolve around meeting some kind of schedule. Sometimes I think the only way you could possible live totally in the now would be to be stranded on a desert island. But I suppose even then, you'd be thinking about being rescued and ordering things on Amazon.com.

I'm not even sure what now is. We actually seem to be constantly moving between the past and the future with now being the Jello you are trying to pin to the wall. You can always look back on the now, the future now is always a bit fuzzy and frankly more appealing. Because you are never sure what it is going to be like and you can imagine it anyway you want.

Which leads me once again back to wondering where it all ultimately ends up. Because isn't the ultimate carrot on the stick attached to the Grim Reaper's scythe?

Happy Birthday Harry!

Google tells me it is is Harry Houdini's 137th birthday today. He has been dead, however since Halloween night in 1926, so I don't imagine he will be up for blowing out the candles on his cake. But then again, he was the escape king, so who knows.

Actually in addition to being adept at escaping from handcuffs and straight jackets, Houdini also was obsessed with debunking mediums who claimed to communicate with the spirits. Pity he's not around to take on Zack from the Ghost Adventurers.

I read a lot about Harry Houdini when I was a kid. My interest in him was sparked by watching a movie about him starring Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. Interesting enough, Tony Curtis' real name was Bernie Schwartz and Harry Houdini's real name was Ehrich Weisz. And one of Tony Curtis' first lines in a movie (a period piece about knights in armor) was, "Yonda is the castle of muh fadder." Tony Curtis grew up in Brooklyn. I think his best movie was Some Like it Hot with Marilyn Monroe.

But I digress.

Houdini died of a ruptured appendix after being punched in the stomach by a fan who heard that the escape artist had such great stomach muscles he could sustain a blow in the bread box without flinching. He failed to warn Houdini before he tested this theory, however, and Houdini didn't have time to tense up his muscles for the blow. So he didn't escape death. He died a few days later on Halloween night.

His wife, Bess, ironically held seances on Halloween for years after Houdini's death because he reportedly told her if there was an afterlife, he'd send her a message, "Rosabelle believe." It was a line from a play that his wife performed when the couple first met. Bess stopped holding seances after about ten years because she never heard from Harry. This is before EVP recorders had been invented, so that may be the reason.

Magicians throughout the world, however, continue to hold seances hoping to hear from Harry and maybe talk him out of some of the secrets to his escapes. But so far Harry is laying low. I think all of these people are trying to get in touch with him on the anniversary of his death. Maybe they should try his birthday instead.

All I'm saying is that his spirit is probably in a better mood on his birthday than his death day.

Anyway, happy birthday Harry!

The Tim Reaper

Over the years, I've posted quite a few Photoshopped images of myself that bear a striking resemblance to the Grim Reaper. Well, they bear a striking resemblance to what popular culture tells us the Grim Reaper looks like. After all, if you've seen the Grim Reaper, odds are you aren't here painting a picture of him.

If the truth were told, I don't really think the images I've posted are intended to be the Grim Reaper (more like the Tim Reaper). I just like the mysterious quality of them. So in that sense they are like the Grim Reaper. We are fascinated by the Grim Reaper. I don't think its that we are intrigued by death as much as we are intrigued by what comes after (if anything).

I know some people profess a firm belief that nothing happens. Or those with a religious bent attach a time of judgement to the after life. I think the righteous ones are engaged in wishful thinking. I believe all of the judgement is going on in this life. Hopefully after we die we leave all of that crap behind and get on with whatever we exist for.

I think it is the fascination with the afterlife that keeps crap shows like Ghost Adventurers in business. I confess to actually watching the show, more to have background noise on while I work on my computer than anything else.  And if you are lucky enough not to know anything about Ghost Adventurers, it is a reality show  featuring three self-styled paranormal investigators who lock themselves in old buildings that have a reputation for being haunted. I think the show host, Zack, is about as sharp as a river rock.

Zack is a muscle bound moron with a really bad haircut. He and his camera and sound guy walk around with night vision cameras and EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) recorders bumping into chairs and shouting for spirits to pinch and push them. Most of their evidence of the afterlife seems to be EVP that are unintelligible until Zack interprets them. Apparently most spirits have the enunciation skills of Sylvester Stallone playing Rocky.

Zack and his band of bozos also bring in experts to review their grainy footage. These experts generally resemble those fat Goth people who hung out in alleys back in high school smoking cirgarettes and plotting to overthrow student government. Zack also interviews witnesses who work in many of abandoned buildings he investigates. The witnesses are often night watchmen and caretakers who only recently been out of rehab.

If the garbage they uncover on Ghost Aventurers are truly examples of what happens after we die, I'd prefer the theory that we just end. Because mucking about in the basement of an abandoned hospital throwing pebbles at gibbering buffoons would get old for an eternity (though I wouldn't mind chucking rock at good ol' Zack's head). What would be the point? The cliche answer is that these are spirits caught between worlds because they have unfinished business, usually because they met a violent or untimely death. Tell me, what kind of unfinished business would you have in the crawlspace of an old speakeasy?

The other illogical thing about the whole ghost theory is the mathematics of it all. If dying an untimely death doomed you to hanging out where you died, the spirit world would resemble Disneyland on a weekend. Wars and natural disasters alone would keep packing the spirits in between worlds trying to figure out how to string words together in an EVP recording device.

I do hope there is something after we die. Science tells us that energy is neither created nor is it destroyed, so I'm hoping the means we continue. And I don't really want to be sucked back into the universal ether without awareness. I'm one of those selfish people who clings to his fantasy of being unique and individual even while being connected to the universe.

I guess I'll see eventually. I'm in no hurry though.

I could have been a contender

"I could have been a contender.
I could have been somebody.
Instead of a bum...
...which is what I am.
Let's face it."
--Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront

There's nothing like a middle aged man's birthday to bring on the self examination of where he's been and where he is. It's not that I feel like turning my birthday party into a pity party, but I do ponder the young man's dreams versus the old man's reality.

It is useless to regret the paths we followed to get where we are. But I sometimes feel pangs that I never wrote a best selling novel or became a successful artist or musician. If I voice these feelings I get the proverbial "it's never too late." These kinds of statements generally come from people who haven't crested 40 and come to the harsh realization that what you are when you are middle aged is generally all you ever will be.

I know there are people who achieve great things in their twilight years. Colonel Sanders was a complete failure until his mid to late 60s when KFC finally took off. He died, however, having lost the rights to his own name.

I wonder if he was cremated and if so, was he original recipe or extra crispy.

But I digress.

I really don't think I want fame like I did in my younger years. I've lived long enough to watch too many famous people take an all too public nose dive, especially when they reach middle age. And in the grand scheme of things, who gives a rip whether or not people you don't care about  recognize you in public and want a piece of your fame by demanding your autograph or having their photo taken with you.

As I reflect on where I am, the greatest role I ended up playing with my life was to become a father. Now granted I waited until an age when many people were becoming grandparents to become a father. But I truly feel like I would have been a failure if I hadn't become a father. I may not have written the great American novel, sold a painting or played guitar to a sold out audience, but sometimes, in the eyes of my young children I feel like a rock star.

So maybe I am somebody.

Fifty something

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I thought turning 52 was a non-monumental birthday. Now I discover turning 53 is in the same non-monumental ballpark. At least I'm still seven years away from turning 60. I do imagine AARP will up their onslaught to get me to join. I will continue to resist until I actually do become a retired person. And having two small children, it is safe to say that is quite a ways in the future.

AARP would have an easier time recruiting new members if they came up with a new name. I for one don't have any burning desire to be part of an association of people whose only reason for associating with each other is that they are aging rapidly. I suppose they make up for the challenges of recruiting by raking in multiple payments from the older members who forget whether they've paid or not.

Ironically, as I type this I am listening to Pandora Radio and an ad for AARP came on. Is it my music selection?

I think AARP should change their name to the WBWA -- Wise But Wrinkled Association.  Or maybe, WAAWBA -- Wise Ass And Wrinkled Butt Association. Or better yet, NDYA -- Not Dead Yet Association.

I don't mean to diss on the AARP, but I can get just as good discounts with my AAA membership and I don't have the stigma if being an old fart immediately associated with it. But enough dumping on the poor old AARP.

We will be eating at our regular Mexican restaurant tonight. I don't say our favorite Mexican restaurant because the food is really quite mediocre. We just like going there because our kids can make noise and have meltdowns with a minimum number of dirty glances being shot in our direction. I am not looking forward to the Mexican version of happy birthday being sang to me by bored servers while I wear a sombrero. But I will do it for the kid's sake. Though when we went there on my son's birthday last year he was terrified when the servers converged on him with a candle stuck in a scoop of ice cream and the sombrero. I'll try and maintain my composure.

I wonder if they give you a discount if you are a member of AARP?

Happy St. Patrick's Day

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Copycats

Just so you can't find the answer to everything by Googling it, I never could find a satisfactory explanation as to why someone who mimics someone is called a copycat. We have three cats and they don't seem to spend much time doing anything but eating, sleeping, crapping and puking. Though this being St. Patrick's Day, it opens up a debate over whether they are mimicking your average Irish wannabe.

I find it ironic someone came up with the phrase, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" likely to justify plagiarising some one's original idea. Not that I think there is an original idea. Google has burst that self-delusional bubble. Google any original idea you may think you have and you'll find someone has beat you to it.

Or they may all be copycats.

It is hard to conceive of original thought in a society where much of learning it done through rote repetition. The key to educational success is often the ability to memorize versus an affinity for abstract thought. This becomes increasingly the case as the arts are eliminated from curriculum to make way for the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.

Let's face it, if there were original thought, there would be no fashion, fads or trends. Things catch on because our herd mentality requires we go with the flow to avoid sticking out. Even the people who rebel against popular trends and fashions do so in sheep like flocks. Body piercings, tattoos and Mohawk haircuts are a perfect example.

Being a race of copycats probably has to do a great deal with survival. If you see your neighbor avoid being consumed by a saber tooth tiger by poking it with a sharp stick, you wouldn't go far by trying to be original and tickle it with a feather to avoid becoming lunch.

And I imagine most great inventions come about by building on someone else's great idea and just tweaking it a bit so that it works smoother. If this wasn't the case, we would still be watching black and white televisions.

Oh well, I need to go make some copies.

You can't cry at the happiest place on earth

I first visited Disneyland when I was 15 years old. It was part of a trip my sophomore year in high school. I was in the marching band and we were performing at half time of a then LA Rams and San Francisco 49er's game. All summer I'd sold light bulbs, washed cars and picked up garbage at the Idaho State Fair to raise money to pay for the trip.

It was my first flight on an airplane and the first time I'd stayed in a hotel without my parents. We flew into San Diego and toured the zoo and Sea World. Then we boarded a bus and drove to LA. We spent one day at Disneyland where we were supposed to march down Main Street. But it was raining so we didn't get to perform.

Disneyland had always been one of those mythical places to me. I'd grown up watching Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color on a black and white television every Sunday night. Every now and then they would feature the amazing rides at Disneyland. It was always tantalizingly out of reach for me.

Vacations for our family always consisted of packing up my father's 1940s era Chevrolet with camping gear and driving to either the Sawtooth Mountains or McCall, Idaho on the shores of Payette Lake. We never stayed in hotels or motels and we most certainly never left Idaho.  Disneyland was pretty much not in the picture.

So having the opportunity to go to Disneyland when I was 15 was pretty cool. Even in the rain, I was pretty awestruck at the time. Back then, there were still in the A, B, C, D and E ticket mode. This was 1973. E tickets were the big rides like Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion. A and B tickets were stuff like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and the tea cups.

I bring up Disneyland and my nostalgia over my band trip because I just got back from a trip to Disneyland with my family. And I have to tell you, it's a lot different going there now then it was 38-years ago. For one, I was pushing a stroller with my 4-year old daughter in it while my wife pushed another stroller with my 2-year old son in it. It is amazing how your priorities shift when you go to Disneyland with your kids. Instead of dashing as fast as I could to get in line for Space Mountain or Thunder Mountain Railroad, we maneuvered our strollers down Main Street to have breakfast with the Disney characters at the Plaza Inn.

Gone are the tickets, too. You buy one day passes or three-day park hopper passes for the price of a small car to have unlimited access to Disneyland or California Adventure and all of the rides. Unlimited access actually means unlimited access to the infamous Disney lines that deceive you into entering a ride queue thinking it is short only to discover it loops back on itself a million times through an intricate maze of chains and stanchions. We must have waited in line 45 minutes for the Dumbo ride for a 20-second flight in the flying elephants.

I have to hand it to Disney. They are geniuses at maximizing the opportunities to separate happy visitors from their life savings. After plunking down your four or five hundred dollars to get your family into the happiest place on earth, they employ their mass merchandising resources to extract out hundreds more for character dining experiences. Then they deploy photographers at strategic photogenic spots to snap your family photos and soft sell you on buying the memories online.

And, after winding your way through a beautifully landscaped maze of Pixie Hollow to have your children meet Tinker Belle (dutifully photographed by the Disney photographer), you find yourself exiting through a gift shop exploding with Tinker Belle merchandise. More than once we had to shake off our weariness and speed wheel the strollers through stacks of glittering bobbles before the protests of our children reached the critical meltdown stage.

It was hard to believe after gazing wearily at the throngs of people at Disneyland that we as a nation are still in the recovery stage of the recession. As we walked  toward Cinderella's Castle, we passed a couple comforting their daughter as she threw up a corn dog. I began to focus on the crying of other children pushed to the edge by one too many moments of happiness. And I felt remorse at the terror I instilled in my own children by taking them through the Haunted Mansion. My two-year old son and four-year old daughter weren't quite ready for what I used to think of as harmless cartoon like ghosts. As the famous stretching room just inside the mansion began descending, my son uttered a heart wrenching, "I want to go home."

It was then that the irony of crying at the happiest place on earth stuck me. You have to love mass marketing.

Better moons

The future is no place
To place your better days
--Dave Matthews, Cry Freedom

Damned moon anyway. We walk on it and slice golf balls across its craters and it still beckons to us with its desolate siren's song. So close and yet so far, it full moons us periodically and smacks its crater ridden ass, mocking us for pining away for a ball of rock and dust.

The moon is a master trickster, too. I remember when I was 19 years old, driving all night from Boise to Denver with a 25-year old lady friend who would briefly be my girlfriend before ditching me for a irritating unemployed actor from New York. We were going to Denver to pick up a goat she'd left with her ex-husband's in-laws and an antique sewing machine. It's a long story.

Anyway, we were taking turns driving her Toyota pick up. It was a stick shift which at the time I had little experience driving. But most of the driving was on the Interstate so there wasn't a lot of shifting involved. I don't remember what time it was, but my friend was sleeping in the passenger seat and I was staring at the occasional lights of oncoming truckers hauling freight. Suddenly the moon appeared on the horizon bigger than the UFO in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

It was the first time I'd seen the moon in its incredible Hulk mode framed by the horizon versus  its Herb Villachez  (the little guy from Fantasy Island) mode dwarfed by clear sky. I was freaked and awestruck. And no sooner than the moon had exploded in my face, it retreated to it's proper fifty cent piece size in the sky.

In case you are interested, we made it to Denver, loaded up the goat and the sewing machine (which my friend retrieved by climbing through the window of a house in the boonies outside of Denver) and headed back to Boise. The goat rode in the pick up bed and crapped on my sleeping bag. This proved to be prophetic for my future relationship with the girl I'd driven to Denver with.

But I digress.

I sometime feel sorry for Neil Armstrong. Having been the first man to walk on the moon (we think), there had to be this nagging feeling when he returned home that there wasn't much else he could do to top that experience. I feel even more sorry for Buzz Aldrin. It must have really sucked to follow Neil Armstrong around at parties saying, "I walked on the moon, too" and having people pat him on the head and say, "That's nice" and move on to refill their wine glass. But I feel the most sorry for Michael Collins, the astronaut who stayed in the Apollo capsule while Neil and Buzz bounced around on the moon. It must have been like driving to Grand Canyon and never getting out of the car.

Before I got off on tangents about goats, sewing machines and walking on the moon, the reason I was inspired to write this post was seeing the almost full moon in the sky the other night. It always catches me off guard. I'm not sure why it should. I always feel the full moon before I see it. This time I saw it around the same time I was listening to Dave Matthews sing Cry Freedom with the philosophical line, "The future is no place to place your better days."

I look up at the moon after hearing that lyric and realize that there is no better moon than the one that is in the sky now. And it wouldn't be any better if I was standing up their with a golf club slicing balls into the Milky Way like Alan Shepard did (he had to one up Neil Armstrong somehow).

It is such a simple concept, yet one that is so hard for most of us to grasp that we waste an awful lot of the now by living for the future. I imagine even the goat that crapped on my sleeping bag lived in the now. But then again what else does a goat have to look forward to.

Oh well, enough waxing and waning poetic on the moon.

Queen for a day

I suppose Photoshopping my face on Queen Elizabeth's body and calling this post "Queen for the Day" could be misconstrued by some people. I have never really had any burning desire to dress up in women's clothing even in the privacy of my own home...not that there is anything wrong with it even if it is a bit bizarre and not accepted by a majority of white bread society (or vanilla society if you want to dredge up old sore subjects...its a long story from another blog post).

And no the man with his face Photoshopped on a Queen's body isn't protesting too much. For some reason, it just cracks me up. Besides, using Photoshop saves me the trouble of having to wear a corset and squeezing into those shoes.

I have never really accepted the concept of royalty anyway, queen or king (and I've Photoshopped my face on my share of kings so there). With the exception of Republicans and stupid people (a redundancy, I know), I pretty much believe everyone is more or less equal if not equally well mannered.

I find it ironic that Americans, people raised in a country that rebelled against the aristocracy, gets all ga-ga about royalty. We spout rhetoric about everyone being equal yet we elevate our elected officials and celebrities to royalty status because we just can't shake our peasant ancestry.

It cracks me up that the royalty in ancient Egypt brought about their downfall by so much inbreeding to protect the royal bloodlines that they eventually could only produce royal progeny that could play banjos in Arkansas. Hollywood celebrities should pay particular attention to this lesson from history.

I suppose everyone harbors this secret (or not so secret) desire to be the one who must be obeyed. I march up and down the hallways where I work mumbling, "Make it so" and "You're fired, get the hell out of Graceland" all the time. No one pays any attention to me.

Perhaps if I came to work dressed like Queen Elizabeth, they would pay more attention.

Sticking to your guns

stick to one's gunsFig. to remain firm in one's convictions; to stand up for one's rights. (Fig. on a soldier remaining in place to fire a gun even when all appears to be lost.)

As I write this post, I am listening to a loop of The Civil Wars performing Barton Hollow and Poison and Wine. It is a byproduct of my OCD nature to obsessively listen to news songs I really like until I am sick to death of them. So far, I'm sticking to my guns that The Civil Wars are going big time.

That leads to my first digression. Since I make a living trying to pry people's hands off from those guns they stick to so stubbornly, I'll let you in on a little secret. There isn't much anyone can do to change some one's mind once they have they have it set on something. If you grew up having your father repeat over and over that there is no car like a Chevrolet and that Fords suck, chances are you will share that conviction and stubbornly stick to your guns. Unless...and here's where my job as a marketing person comes in...unless someone plays on the many psychological factors that make you hold onto the conviction that Chevy's are the only car to own.

I think the key is determining whether it really is your guns you are sticking to or someone else's guns. And I'm not trying to be Freudian here, either. Because I believe that a conviction isn't a conviction if it was drilled into you and you adhere to it by the sheer thread of rote indoctrination by an authority figure. The way to overcome pseudo convictions is to teach a person to cultivate independent thought and challenge the conventions of their fathers. If your father's conviction stands the test of your own filters of what is right or wrong than it can truly become your own conviction.

Then you can stick to your guns and no one can make you holster them.

That being said, if I am trying to target a group of people to have a conviction about a particular issue or product, I don't throw my troops charge of the light brigade style into a wall of people sticking to their guns on polarized sides of an issue. I take aim at those people staring blankly at their guns trying to figure out how to load them and which direction to point them.

Elections are decided not by hardcore Republicans or Democrats. And elections are not decided by some asshole waving a teabag. Elections are decided by tipping those people waffling in between the hardcore far left and right.

On a personal note, I have to admire people who stick to their guns as long as they are sticking to guns for things I believe in that lean more towards the left than the right. If not, they can just stick their guns.

I'm sticking to my guns on that.