O, Canada

 O Canada. 

There was a time when we used to keep track of all the "famous Americans" who were actually Canadian. It was a pretty neat trick, sneaking down here as they did and pretending to be just like us when they were actually Canucks. 

We needed them to fill out our hockey rosters. We needed them to tell us the news. We needed them for Double Jeopardy. And we needed them because they are so darn funny. 

When did all this hostility begin? Why are those traditionally polite denizens of the Great White North booing the Star Spangled Banner? 

Was it something we said? 

Was it something they said? 

How about (aboot) saying "No thank you" to the offer of becoming our fifty-first state? I mean I suppose it makes sense from the perspective of a former game show host who was never that good at geography in the first place, or even that good a game show host. But is it really worth all this fuss? 

Probably. 

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent: "If you want to be a numbskull like Justin Trudeau and say, 'Oh we're going to do this,' then tariffs are going to go up. If you want to sit back and have a discussion with the Commerce Department, USTR—they have my phone number too—then I am happy to have a discussion with our foreign counterparts."

It would seem that the Seocnd Trumpreich is willing to start a trade war with the one ally we have had in virtually every armed conflict we have found ourselves in for the past hundred years. Yeah, but what have they done for us lately? 

O, Canada. I miss you. 

Something

 "Hey man, I'm thinking about getting back together with Donna."

"Um...."

"What?"

"You mean the Donna you broke up with four years ago?"

"Yeah."

"The same Donna you spent the past four years with in court, trying to get free from all her lies?"

"That's not the way it is at all."

"The same Donna that ended up taking all your money and then handing it out to all her richie-rich friends to impress them?"

"Well..."

"The same Donna that ended up running your business into the ground and left you nothing but a ton of lawsuits?"

"Yes but..."

"The same Donna who messed things up with all your friends so bad that they won't even call you back anymore?"

"You still took my call."

"Look, I figured you'd come back to your senses soon enough, but I never imagined you'd be getting back together with her." 

"You probably wish I would have stayed with Joanne."

"Actually, yes. She was boring but you didn't end up losing all that money and all those friends."

"But she was boring!"

"Boring as in she didn't run around during COVID without a mask, babbling about getting injections of horse de-wormer and insisting that it would all be over by April." 

"I just want things to be exciting again."

"Do you mean 'exciting,' or 'dangerous?'"

"She makes me feel, I dunno, important."

"You know she doesn't really love you."

"But when I'm with her, I feel seen."

"Seen by law enforcement?"

"You know what I mean. She's got a certain something."

"I just hope that something isn't terminal."

"I get it. But you've got to trust me. I know what I'm doing with this one."

"We'll just have to agree to disagree on that."

"I just figure you should know."

"You don't have to worry about that. She's letting the whole world know."

"Yeah. She's like that."

"Yeah. One more thing?"

"What's that?" 

"Is she still going to make you wear that stupid red hat?"

Another R

 I know what many of you will say: "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!"

To be fully transparent, I was always more of a Jan person myself, being a middle child, but this past week it was the eldest Brady Daughter who brought massive perspective to me. 

Yes, I understand that Marcia Brady is a fictional character, but the woman who played her all those years ago, Maureen McCormick would like us all to stop using the R word. If you are struggling with your internal dictionary looking for just exactly which R word she is referencing, congratulations. If you found yourself immediately landing on "oh, that one," then this would be a chance for you to listen carefully. 

Last Wednesday, Maureen posted this on her Instagram account: “Words—they can lift up or tear down. I do not understand how anyone can use the R word as a joke, for a laugh, or to bully or hurt someone. Please join me on Spread the Word Day and everyday in helping to end the R word. Let’s stand up against derogatory language, bullying and exclusion. Take the pledge now & make your voice count! brnw.ch/21wR7wG #ChooseToInclude”

I wonder who many Readers paused abruptly up there to click on the link to do what Marcia told you to do. I understand that the actual date for Spread The Word Day was March 5, but as an elementary school teacher, I will tell you that not only is the R word still in vogue, but in the past year or so it has experienced a kind of Renaissance. Unfortunately, Renaissance is not the R word to which we are Referring. 

I confess that there was a time when I used to preach the relative harmlessness of words. Sticks, stones, and those sort of things are what breaks bones. I used to insist this even though I know exactly which words were employed to break my spirit when I was a kid. I can also confess that there was definitely a time in my youth when I tossed many of those same words around with Reckless abandon. If I had been hurt by these words and survived, why shouldn't everyone have to deal with that reality? 

Simple answer: Because it's wrong. I can further my confession to say that it wasn't until our school welcomed in a special education class that I began to question my own Relationship to the R word. One of my favorite times of the week are the days that I get to spend an hour with my friends in Room 13. The patience, courage and excitement that I get to share with them provides me with a highlight for my week just about every time I walk in. It ahs been a solid Reminder to me of exactly how powerful words can be. No one should be diminished or dismissed with a single word. No one should be put down with a word that is so sadly limited. It only exists to degrade. 

Again, my apologies for the whole "Marcia" thing, but I'm pretty sure Jan would back her up on this. And I would like to ask your indulgence here if you have already made this change in your life and you were willing to listen to me work through some of my own demons. 

Choose To Include. 

Lie Still

 At the end of his last term, the twice-impeached former game show host was reported to have made 30,573 untruths during his time in office. That averages about twenty-one erroneous claims each day. These statistics come form a Washington Post report from back in the day when The Washington Post was a news source and not the advertising circular for Amazon. 

Given that trend, it was not unexpected that the convicted felon that found his way back to the White House had saved up some whoppers for his first address to Congress of his second Reich. He opened by saying that “We inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe.” Followed up by, “We’re going to have growth in the auto industry like nobody’s ever seen. Plants are opening up all over the place.” I don't know about the "springing up" part, but maybe that "nobody's ever seen" might be the sparkle of truth in there since if it's not really happening, nobody's ever seen it.

He insisted that towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, were “destroyed” by immigrants. This will no doubt be a surprise to the people that live in those cities, but at least their pets are safe. For now. 

The adjudicated rapist expected us to believe that the Biden administration had created an electric vehicle mandate. Elongated Mush was in the room, and he didn't seem to bat an eye at this, since he knows it wasn't true. 

The man that kicked the Associated Press off his plane because they would not cave to his demands to refer to The Gulf of Mexico as The Gulf of America wanted us to know, “I’ve stopped all government censorship.” Which does rub a little raw from the administration that insisted that CBS "deserves a long prison sentence." 

How about this one: “Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119.” If you have a choice, I would suggest the "not." This was a nugget he had trotted out a couple of weeks ago at Elongated Mush's insistence, but turned out to be false. 

These were not the only lies told by the only convicted felon to hold the highest office in the land. There was a steady stream. But I can't say for certain because, in the interest of transparency, I did not watch the speech. 

It could be that news outlets across the globe have taken to the barricades, spreading untruths of their own. It could also be that two plus two equals five. I confess that I have not spent the kind of time needed to investigate this claim more fully. But for now, remember that up is down, left is right, and the truth will set you free. But first it will make you miserable. 

What Blows Up, Must Come Down

 Inquiring minds would like to know: How is it that Tesla made an overture to the State Department last year to produce four hundred million dollars worth of armored Cybertrucks? Obviously it would be an even bigger deal of it was earlier this year that the proposal had been tossed out on the porch, as they say, to see if the cat would lick it up. That big, fat, surly cat who doesn't tend to eat healthy things in the first place. 

Senator Richard Blumenthal decided to check in with the obviously traumatized Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. This quandary comes as kind of a package deal along with the conflict of interest that exists in a contract between Starlink, a company owned by the same guy who owns Tesla, and Verizon concerning a contract with the Federal Aviation Administration. 

All of which of course stinks on ice. 

The challenge I am having is the way my view of Elongated Mush has evolved over the past few years. There was most definitely a time when I saw this renegade electric car manufacturer as a revolutionary. Someone who would lead us all out of the darkness and into the light of an energy-efficient new day. That time has passed. Whatever hope I might have once gleaned from the existence of an electric car company that was going to save our planet was solidly extinguished by the time he had shifted his focus to launching us all into space. Nothing left here to contaminate. Time to go wreck a new planet. 

Right about the time he tore up Twitter. 

And started pouring money and attention into the aforementioned fat orange cat's campaign for president. Hundreds of millions of dollars. This came about just after he appeared on stage to promote the indestructibility of his cleverly named Cybertruck. Since then, his rockets and trucks and all manner of other investments have continued to blow up, washing away that faint patina of hope that had once been connected to him. 

But don't just take it from me. Take it from Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Elvira, also known as Cassandra Peterson, decided to donate her 2015 Tesla to NPR in hopes of raising a little money and getting a little attention to the backward progress being offered by "the world's richest man." 

Ladies and gentlemen, we have come to a point in our history when a hokey-horror-movie-host boasts more credibility than "the richest man in the world." 

Sleep tight, America. 

Counting On It

 I am the Physical Fitness Testing coordinator at my school site. This means I get to stand around with a clipboard for the next couple of weeks and count things like pushups and Pacer laps. I will be writing them down on a scoresheet and eventually sending them along to the district Physical Fitness Test coordinator. This has been my job for many years now. 

But something is different. 

It all started back during the year we were doing distance learning because of COVID. Giving students any sort of standardized test was essentially impossible, or at least too difficult to plan for while we were all merely talking heads on Zoom. Talking heads were excused from taking Physical Fitness tests. 

The next year, when we returned from isolation, the powers that be decided to go ahead and administer standardized tests with the asterisk associated with "we have not been in school together for a year." That meant that I was told to count the attempts our fifth grade students made at proving their fitness, physically, but the numbers were not consequential. Participation was the focus. All of them were required to participate, but the number of pushups, curl-ups and so forth were written down only for show.

How well each student performed was eventually just a matter of pride. 

Not that they were made aware of this. 

The very tenuous grip we have on this exchange is based almost completely on the idea that the effort each of our little data points are putting in has some real-life measure. The suggestion that all these kids are competing for what amounts to a participant's ribbon would take the quite limited energy that is currently being used to create a checkmark next to their names and that would be that. 

Check.

But somewhere in the back of my mind I harbor memories of The Presidential Physical Fitness Challenge. I was never able to achieve the goal of receiving the Award, but I certainly had a dream or two associated with it. Little did I know that program stayed in place until 2018, when it was replaced by the Fitnessgram assessment program that I currently find myself administering. No prizes. No plaques. No ribbons. Just a solid reminder that you are being watched. And accounted for. 

For showing up. 

Not Yet

 My mother once asked me if there would come a time when it would be okay for her to stop giving me "stupid plastic toys." I believe this came at a time when she felt that I had reached an age when I should be receiving more practical gifts for a more mature person. I let her know that as far as I was concerned, "never" would be the answer I would choose to her speculation.

Now fully ensconced in my sixties, I continue to appreciate that just over my shoulder is the Lego Batmobile my son bought for me this past Christmas. It sits on the piano right next to the Lego Captain America shield I built in the weeks after my most recent birthday, another gift from my son. It was also his influence that got my wife to buy me a Thor action figure, lovingly placed on our living room mantle next to the other bobble heads and action figures. 

When I was in college, my apartment looked a little like Pee-Wee Herman lived there more than a twenty-something trying to lure chicks to his pad. My reckoning was that if a girl didn't what to play Nerf Basketball in my living room, I probably didn't really need her to be in my living room. Feel free at this point to remind me that I spent a great many years alone.

But that meant there was more room for my inflatable Godzilla and six foot tall stuffed Woody Woodpecker. Not to mention the full-sized Battlezone arcade game. 

I am reminded of a time when I was in high school and it occurred to me that if I wanted to buy myself a Stretch Monster, I could. My disposable income could just as easily be spent on toys as it could on any other vice. Which is how I ended up with one of the best toys ever: Big Trak. It was a programmable vehicle that looked for all the world like the model for the Cybertruck. But this was in the late seventies, and I wasn't trying to impress anyone. Only to entertain myself and any of my friends who only wished they were as free as I was to unleash my inner eight year old. 

Yes, there were some rough years in there when the bulk of the plastic toys ended up in my son's room. Which allowed me a certain laissez faire when we went shopping, leaning hard on my son's tastes: "Don't you think this would be cool in your room?" Because dad wanted to play with it. 

And now I am the happy recipient of a return in kind. He understands, even as my sainted mother looks down from the heavens, shaking her head. Not old enough yet, ma!

Not So Sartorial Splendor

It has now been more than three years since Russia invaded Ukraine. Since that time we have all had a chance to learn where on a map you could find this former Soviet State. This does not, however, mean that your average American has taken the time to do so. Nor does it mean that your average American has taken the time to understand any of the history involved in this conflict. 

To be completely transparent, your average American President over these past three years didn't happen to be a Republican. All the hand-wringing and tough talk about pushing back against the Russian invaders has come primarily from (checks notes) The Biden Administration. Not wanting to tip the scales in the direction of all-out World War, American aid to this country that is twice the size of Italy but only slightly smaller than Texas. I would expect that if Texas or Italy came under attack from Russia, Joe Biden would probably have moved more decisively to protect either one. 

But let's all remember that over these past three years, there was something called "checks and balances" in place in the government of the United States. This meant that the Biden Administration was regularly at odds with a Congress that did not simply sign the checks that might have gone to pay for military aid to Ukraine. Instead, this war has been something of a political football match, keeping in mind that we are the country on the planet that thinks we know what football is. 

And so the war continues in Ukraine. More than forty thousand civilians have lost their lives while brave Ukranian fighters have fought back against the imperially minded Russian forces. 

Yes. I have taken a stand here that has become somewhat unpopular here in a MAGAt-infested United States. I see Ukraine as the good guys. Their president,  Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a former comedian and TV personality has taken to wearing clothes befitting of a man whose country is at war. This stands in contrast to his earliest days in office when he showed up to meet the US "president" at that time who happened to be Not Joe Biden. This was in 2019, right around the time that Not Joe Biden made his "perfect phone call" asking President Zelenskyy to try and dig up some dirt on Joe Biden's son. In exchange, Not Joe Biden would look into getting some military aid for Ukraine in exchange for this dirt to stave off what appeared to be Russian aggression on their borders. Not Texas or Italy. 

For this Not-So-Perfect phone call, Not Joe Biden was impeached. The first time. For election interference. Not Joe Biden was also impeached later for still more election interference, but that time it was more about him inciting an insurrection on his own Capitol. 

When Volodymr Zelenskyy showed up this past week to play let's make a deal with the guy whose name is on a book called "Art of the Deal," to try and get more military aid for his sovereign nation that is still under attack from the country I like to call The Bad Guys, Not Joe Biden started the day by criticizing Zelenskyy's lack of a suit and tie. 

Things went downhill from there. Rather than signing a treaty that would have given the United States a stake in Ukraine's vast mineral wealth, the meeting degenerated into a shouting match that ended abruptly without lunch and without a signature. Zelenskyy once again gave a pretty solid "no" to Not Joe Biden's request for a quid pro quo. Without a suit and tie, but with his dignity and authority over his own country, Volodymyr Zelenskyy returned home to keep fighting The Bad Guys, leaving Not Joe Biden with egg on his orange tinted face and an uphill battle left to be decided on his eastern border. 

Clothes, it would seem, do not make the man. 

How About You?

 Looking for ways to avoid the reptile in the room by telling you about the good things happening, I turn once again to the mixed bag that is working in an elementary school. 

As noted here on several occasions, Spirit Week is a great example of just how mixed that bag can be. The bottom line is the line between those who do and those who do not. Participate, that is. With the fragile egos of the pre-teens in fourth and fifth grade, we do not have high expectations for participation in those grades. Wearing your pajamas to school is a wide open invitation for taunting, and most of our "big kids" avoid it like the plague. 

The response to Character Day is a little curious, considering how pitched the excitement gets for students of all ages for Halloween. Wearing a costume at school is something that we have to limit to after lunch on October 31st. But as a part of Spirit Week, you would never know that these were the same kids who could not wait to pull on their Mario overalls and stick on that fake mustache. There was a sea of Disney-adjacent princesses in Kindergarten to Second grade, with a sudden drop-off in the number of tiaras starting in third grade. 

Twin Day might have been the most successful from the perspective of how much of a uniform our kids seem to favor. The number of black hoodies and Crocs suggest pre-planning, but the truth is that they all tend to dress alike anyway. Those that made the effort to talk to their friends to wear matching T-shirts or stripes suggest bonds that run beyond playground interaction. 

And now let's pause to state what I believe is obvious: Since we are sending home notes and electronic reminders to parents, these caregivers must share some responsibility for the apathy we see in our hallways. These are the folks we assume were traumatized as youths for wearing their Pikachu PJs to school once. Once is all it takes, apparently. 

Which brings us to the highlight, for me and many of our staff. Turn The Switch Day asked students and teachers to switch places, at least as far as appearance goes. Remember those black hoodies and Crocs? Many of us grownups searched around to find just the right outfit for fitting in. Again, there were no fourth or fifth grade students willing to dress up like their teachers. Which didn't keep the grownups for clowning them hard with their costumes. Lots of shuffling about and mumbling, complaining about lunch, and wondering when it would be time to go home. 

That felt cathartic. It almost made me reconsider my mostly contained disdain for Spirit Week. When Friday finally rolled around and we all wore our blue and gold to celebrate our school's new partnership with the Golden State Warriors' reading program, it was an easy ask. The number of kids who were going to wear their Steph Curry jersey to school was pretty high on any given Friday anyway. 

We've Got Spirit, Yes We Do! We've Got Spirit, How About You?

Not so much. 

Impossible To Choose

 Go ahead and try to select your favorite Gene Hackman movie. 

I'll wait. 

That will be a bit of a challenge, seeing as how he appeared in some seventy-seven films over the course of a career that ended in 2004, and a life that ended just last week. 

Did you pick one of his starring roles? Maybe you liked him in The French Connection, as "Popeye" Doyle. That car chase? 

How about Lex Luthor? Every bit as charming as Christopher Reeves' Superman. Except evil. 

On the flip side of that would be the incredibly selfless and heartwarming story of Hoosiers, where Gene played Hickory High's basketball coach to the state championship. 

Or swinging back to the nasty side once again you could have selected Little Bill in The Unforgiven. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences did. He won an Oscar for that one. 

Maybe any of the other times he was nominated for best actor, or best supporting actor, including way back in 1968 when he was recognized for one of his earliest film appearances as Buck Barrow, older brother of Clyde who just happened to have another partner. A gal named Bonnie. 

Perhaps your tastes run a little more esoteric, in which case you might pick the pater familias of the Tennenbaum clan, He put the Royal in The Royal Tennenbaums. 

And so on. Gene Hackman's first film was Lilith, released in 1964. Somewhere in the midst of all that sexual obsession. His final film was Welcome To Mooseport. Not everybody loved that one, even though everyone loves Raymond. 

Somewhere in there, he played my favorite role of his. The blind hermit in Young Frankenstein. "I was going to make espresso."

Gene Hackman passed away at the ripe old age of ninety-five, leaving a legacy that will be studied and discussed for ninety-five more years. He stomped on the Terra, and even in outer space. He will be missed. Aloha, Gene. 

Stand Up And Cheer

 Imagine being in the position of having to go face to face with the constituents for whom you are nominally allowed to keep an office in Washington. Imagine having to show up and try to sell them on what a good deal they're getting from the rollercoaster chainsaw steamroller that is currently being employed by the ruling party to "make America grate" again. 

Let's take a quick peek at Representative Mark Alford's Town Hall from this past weekend. People showed up to a coffee shop in Belton, Missouri not to praise the king, but to bury him. They had a lot on their minds, and there were a lot of them. They didn't come to listen. They came to jeer. They came to boo. They came to announce their discontent with the way this particular trolley had jumped the track. 

A question from the assembled mob was read by Representative Mark: “Why is an unelected person allowed to hire and fire federal employees?” The limp response, “The reason is ... he was hired.… Elon Musk was hired by the executive Donald Trump, and he has given him that authority—” was eventually shouted down in what might best be described as a community catharsis. 

Things didn't go a lot smoother for Wisconsin's Representative Glenn Grotham, who was met with similar levels of discontent with the Shadow President. One Oshkosh resident yelled, “You don’t represent us, you represent Elon Musk!” Representative Glenn tried to quell his constituents' nerves by insisting, "He does not have the ability to do any actions on his own." As if that made everything that has happened over the past month and a half okay. Eventually, Glenn fled the town hall after promising to google the incendiary rhetoric that the DOGEmeister has been routinely spouting. Because apparently hearing from his constituents that they were tired of reading it wasn't enough.  

In Trinity, Texas, a similar disturbance was experienced at a community center where Representative Pete Sessions endured a much less than happy crowd in a place where you might expect more subservience. Similar events erupted in Idaho and California. Representatives in those states were also lambasted for their fuehrer's scorched earth attempts at cutting federal spending. It seems somebody forgot that these "leeches" were all potential voters and not a one of them signed up to have their livelihood erased. 

We have just redefined the term "tough crowd." 

Stay tuned. 

Get A Grip

 Professional wrestling is alive and well. 

Making a ton of money, thank you very much. 

I know you might have thought that when the World Wildlife Fund sued Vince McMahon and his stable of grapplers for the right to the initials WWF. Instead, they took a crayon to their logo and turned the F into an E and were happy to tell the world that the were no longer a Federation, but were happily and busily creating Wrestling Entertainment on a Worldwide basis. 

Entertainment? Hold on. That gives one the notion that all might not be completely on the up and up among all those highly trained professionals. That perhaps, just perhaps, the fix was in. 

Cut to flashback: In the basement of my friend's house just down the street as kids we would cover the floor with pillows and the mattress from his fold out couch and set about recreating matches we had just watched on the American Wrestling Association that afternoon. We adopted the personae of our favorite stars and their signature moves. Coming off the top rope, or the arm of the couch. Landing a piledriver on my younger brother. My friend recreating the spittle-infused wildness of Mad Dog Vachon. Someone always wanted to be The Crusher. Because he was prone to crushing. 

All of that youthful exuberance was drained away by the time I reached junior high. Going out for the  wrestling team let me know by the first practice that we would not be employing any of these specialty attacks. The brand I was taught was boring by comparison. A lot less hollering and a whole lot more grunting and sweating. Well, maybe the sweat was the common thread between TV and my junior high reality. 

Now it's some fifty years later, and kids I teach are still mesmerized by the antics of these men in tights. Long since retired from my own grappling career, I can appreciate the athletic prowess involved in making the airborne assaults and special holds that are made to look so devastating to opponents, but are actually well choreographed and timed to create the illusion of competition. 

Illusion? Did I say "illusion?" 

Yes. I did. I probably should have started with "spoiler alert," and you have my most sincere apologies if I am the one bringing this news to you for the first time. 

Because everyone needs something to believe in. Even if it's Mad Dog Vachon. 

Eye On The Booby Prize

 Try and keep in mind that during this time there are still bigger issues at hand. 

Climate change continues. In 2024, annual surface air temperatures were above the 1991-2020 average across most of the globe. Climate change added forty-one days of dangerous heat in 2024, harming human health and ecosystems.

Guns in America are still a problem. Estimates put the number of firearms owned by civilians right around half a billion in 2024. In 2000, that number was around two hundred fifty million. Since the population of the United States has not doubled in those twenty-four years, that means that there are more guns per person in the land of the free and the home of the soft targets. If you're a fan of the math, that works out to be one and a half guns for every man, woman and child in our pistol-packing nation. I'm not sure if you need to get a special permit for those half-guns, but why would you need a permit for any of those killing machines? It's not like we regulate cars and trucks...

Okay, so you probably get the point by now. Bird flu was not magically cured on January 20, 2025. Climate change and gun violence were not eradicated on that day either. Instead, the parade of misfits and misanthropes that somehow passed through what was once considered an arduous period of questioning and approval to become a cabinet member was reduced to a big red rubber stamp that allowed folks with credentials that would not get them on your average reality TV show to ascend to leaders of our federal government. 

And in one very particular instance, a cabinet level position was generated out of thin air and the irony of creating yet another government department to deal with bureaucracy was lost on a populace that seems to have forgotten what irony is. 

The focus isn't on the guns. The focus isn't on climate change. The focus is on cutting federal programs in order to rationalize another round of tax cuts for the one percent of America that could afford to pay their fair share. They won't have to worry about that. Those folks can get back to their business of crushing the middle class. Paying for health care and prescriptions shows no sign of leveling out. 

Joining the military to fight in our pending wars with Canada, Panama and Greenland seems like a viable option, since sticking it out here in the wilds of the middle of North America does not at this moment seem like a going concern. And the reality TV show that is our current governmental experience does not show any signs of being cancelled anytime soon. 

How?

 Imagine our collective disgust at having to live with a convicted felon for a "president," but also having to deal with his imported rich billionaire tech boy who wants to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic as he drives it toward the nearest iceberg. 

I was no fan of Elongated Mush long before he installed himself as head of DOUCHE. DOGE. Whatever made up thing he decided to call it. This is a man whose output of electric cars and rocket ships are just as likely to blow up as they are to be overpriced. He claims to be an alternative to NASA, but when NASA blows up a rocket, they don't keep sending them up. They halt the program and examine the evidence, making sure the air orifice o-rings are no longer a problem before they make yet another bad choice. His electric "trucks" are priced to move at one hundred thousand dollars each, in case you want to park in front of one of Trump's hotels and blow it up yourself. 

This is the "very stable genius" who, when not out "solving" problems, he is busy impregnating any woman who will lie still long enough for he to attempt to generate a new line of what we assume is a pale super race whom he will eventually dismiss once they understand just how little daddy cares for them. Or pretends that they are dead because of what he calls "the woke virus." 

Part of me believes that this is only "fair" because this pasty nerd paid for his chance to take a chainsaw to our federal budget. The three hundred million dollars he tossed in the direction of the convicted felon and election denier to give him an election he could brag about stands as the quid pro quo for his geeky assault on our government. It must have made the former game show host very excited to finally have an immigrant who wasn't looking to be in a gold-digging relationship with him but rather to shower him with gold. 

Sorry. That may give you the impression that golden showers is something the "president" enjoys. 

Speaking of sorry, I can't help but feel a little bad for Jimmy Dunderhead Vance, who felt that if he tossed aside any of his own convictions and morality that he might become second in command to the guy who declared himself king because he rescinded a traffic law in New York City. Now he is reduced to a shadowy figure who lopes around the periphery of the circus, only making enough noise to be noticed when he supports German Nazis. 

Never mind the hypocrisy and insanity that comes with the show. It may not have been what any of us voted for, but it is currently the only show in town. 

If only I could find the off switch. 

Say It

 Say what you will about the Biden administration, but he was creating more jobs. Not eliminating them. 

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but we didn't have Canada mad at us. 

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but he didn't have Greenland mad at us. 

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but plane crashes used to be blamed on physics, not diversity, equity and inclusion. 

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but Elon Musk was only ruining Twitter, not the entire country. 

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but his Secretary of Health and Human Services wasn't controlled by a brain-eating parasite. 

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but the Super Bowl Champions didn't turn down an invitation to his White House. 

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but we didn't have to take out a small business loan to buy a dozen eggs. 

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but at least there were eggs that you could buy if you could afford them. 

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but he didn't fire the people responsible for our nuclear stockpile. 

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but he didn't bar reporters from his office for not keeping up with the random renaming of bodies of water. 

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but Black History existed. 

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but back then the U.S. Constitution was kept safe behind glass at the National Archives, not being fed through a shredder. 

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but Joe seemed happy with the title of President, not "King" or "Dictator."

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but he was pardoning felons, not living as one. 

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but return to this list as it continues to grow. 

Special

 Coming to a city very near me in April: A Special Election!

Actually it is the city in which I live, Oakland, California. We are going to elect a new mayor because in our last election we voted to recall her. When I say "we" I suppose I am referencing all those who didn't vote as I did. I mean the ones who figured we had five million dollars sitting around in the city's coffers to pay for that special election. With Oakland facing a nearly one hundred million dollar deficit in this year's budget. 

The central reason that Sheng Thao, the woman who held the position until this past November when so much of the election outcomes were less than pleasing to people like me, was shown the door after being indicted on federal bribery charges. 

Not convicted.

Indicted. 

I understand that suggesting that the incredibly low bar set by the current Felon In Chief of the United States be observed in all political matters, it did set me to wondering who among the candidates for any public office would be able to cast a stone because they were so without sin. I also noted that it was a Democrat who was recently sentenced to eleven years in prison for his part in a corruption scheme that found him guilty on sixteen counts. Senator Bob Menendez was found guilty in a court of law and will now face the consequences of his actions. This should put an end to the suggestion that "everything's legal in New Jersey." Ex-Senator Bob resigned and was replaced by the Garden State's Governor Chief of Staff, George Helmy. Helmy was in turn replaced a couple months later when an Democrat Andy Kim was elected in November. 

Meanwhile, really stupid and corrupt individuals on the Republican side continue to be re-elected and offered cabinet positions by showing their fealty to the former game show host who seems to have it in his head that doing away with elections in general would make things easier. For him. 

It might be too soon, but I would like to look into some sort of special election that we could offer up to those of us who have recently or not-so-recently become dissatisfied by the "quality" of leadership being offered to our country. Estimates put the cost of such an endeavor at about twenty dollars per voter. As long as we're doing something, let's make it really special. 

Hooligans

 It's a study in contrasts, really. 

One was a fifth grade boy who brought a number of bottles of Fart Spray. I am not sure if that is a brand name or not, but his use of the contents therein made the lower floor of classrooms smell like a sewer for the better part of the day. Our TK teacher went down shortly after lunch to douse the area in Lysol, which I'm pretty sure is a brand name, so feel free to adapt this blog entry into a commercial advertisement to help defray the costs of bringing it to you. 

What made this one unique was the sheer bombast of the event. It wasn't any sort of controlled release, allowing fellow students or staff to sniff about and say, "What is that?" And continue with their day. It was a saturation event that may or may not have been completely intentional. Who would expect an eleven year old to measure out in advance just what is funny and what is offensive. Like so many great comedy minds, he stepped over the line of subtlety into overkill. This also had the effect of making it much easier to root out the suspect and apply the necessary trip to the principal's office. After a moment or two of wide eyed shock and dismay for being wrongfully accused, he caved to the number of his peers who pointed a finger directly at him. Without hesitation. 

Then there was the matter of the purple post-its. 

Walking down the stairs after school I noticed one lone purple post it stuck on the tile wall. A random act of defacement that served the simple purpose of drawing a sigh from me just before I pulled it down and crumpled it up, in search of the nearest garbage can. On my way there, just a few steps away, I spied another purple post-it. This one was also blank, like the previous one, stuck to the wall at about the same height: eye level for a nine or ten year old. Removing that one took just a moment as I added it to the wad of paper in my hand, but as I looked down the hall I noticed a third. A few paces beyond that a fourth. The trail of purple post-its continued down the hall as I moved from the left to the right as the path dictated, continuing to add to the crumpled bits I held in my fist. 

As it turns out, there were forty-some purple post-its spread throughout the school, all at roughly the same height, each just a few feet away from one another. I felt compelled to appreciate a few things about this act of very minor delinquency. From whatever point they started out, the miscreant made a point to spread what seemed to be a rather large stack of purple post-its to mark their path. It became a treasure hunt, of sorts, and as I took each one down I was happy that none of them were accompanied with dirty words or slanderous sayings about any classmates or teachers. Just the purple post-its. They came down with only the slightest effort on my part, and I will confess to having a smile cross my face as I made my way from the bottom floor to the top, across the breezeway past the principal's office, all the way to the front door. I appreciated the commitment to the bit, and the fact that it didn't hurt anyone, but rather simply increased my daily step count. 

And it didn't stink. 

I wouldn't mind catching up to this prankster, not to punish them but rather to give them the mild attention they deserve. 

Contrasts. 

Anxious

 I was alerted to the the most recent assault on our freedom by a friend who asked if I had heard about the plan. I confessed that with so many assaults on our freedoms these days, it was hard to know for sure to which one she was referring. She went on to describe the notion "Junior" has to send all those of us who are using anti-depressants to a camp to reparent us. 

Which had the initial effect of putting me in a panic. A great swath of my emotional well-being is tied directly to not being sent anywhere. I didn't go to summer camp for that reason. I didn't enjoy any of the "fun" of sleepovers as a child. When I went away to college the first time, I bailed in spectacular fashion. Even my move to California as an adult came with a massive asterisk when it came time to put down roots anywhere other than the thirty or so square miles which served as my base of operations for thirty years. Happily, that initial response was easily dampened because these days I live a life that is not without worry or stress, but it is contained. As my doctor explained, it took that feeling of an emotional pendulum inside me that continues to swing, but it just doesn't hit the sides of the box anymore. 

Would a stay in one of "Junior's" rehab holiday camps fix me? Would his twelve-step/faith-based program put me on a path to the straight and narrow? I cannot say for certain. What I can say is that I am skeptical about a cure coming from a recovering addict who studied law and political science in college and talks openly about the worm that was living inside his own brain. I also know that he sees his mission as getting everyone off drugs. Faith isn't a bad place to land, but not everyone has the same faith. I understand this is the kind of backward thinking that got me "hooked" in the first place. 

Of course, I am also a recovering addict. Leaving my besotted years behind me now for decades, I can honestly say that the first day was the hardest, followed by the second. And the third. And so on. If you got to go to camp in some bucolic setting where you could focus on things like canoeing and making lanyards, maybe this would be easier. This is not the image of camp that comes to mind when I hear "government sponsored." I'm thinking something along the lines of razor wire and armed guards. That seems to be a little more in the wheelhouse of this administration. 

Because all of those questions raised about transporting animal carcasses and brain worms and anti-vaccination wasn't enough to wash this failed presidential candidate and friend of Roseanne out, we are stuck. 

It's only been a month since the inauguration. 

They're Coming

 How many minutes do I have before the Secret Police show up at the door of my classroom, asking if I was the one who was reading Yertle The Turtle to kids in the Transitional Kindergarten class? 

Will it be before they close the Department of Education? 

Will it be after they have already carted away all the students in our school with "questionable" immigration status? 

Will it be around the same time as cameras are installed in my classroom to take note of anything that I might say or do that constitutes "woke?"

It might be while I am sitting in the quiet morning minutes I catch up on this blog, waiting for the moment when I spring into full-on teacher mode.

I am thinking right now about Fort Campbell Kentucky. Department of Defense officials have been busy remaking the schools at that base in the MAGAt image. A directive from on high has banned the celebration or promotion of "monthly cultural observances," like Black History Month. It also required that all library books with references to diversity, equity, and inclusion be removed. In an effort to comply, librarians are removing hundreds of books with themes including slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and the treatment of Native Americans. Schools are also set to remove any bulletin boards that reference Black History Month or historical figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks.

Knowing exactly what the hallways and classrooms look like currently in my school, and knowing that I have assigned to my third, fourth and fifth grade students a research project based on those same historical figures, I wonder just how long it will take for the strain in our otherwise liberal bastion of Oakland, California to show. 

How many more minutes before what I am doing and have been doing for decades will be declared illegal? 

Meanwhile, I remain steadfast. Immovable. 

And just a little frightened. 

Still Live

 When my younger brother visited me a few weeks back, we got to reminiscing. Somewhere in the midst of all that recall he caught himself in a moment that he referenced by saying "about ten years ago," and he stopped short. "I meant twenty years ago." His reverie was interrupted by the math of time. The avenger, if you believe Chrissie Hynde. He will soon pass the threshold of sixty years on this planet. His scrapbook will definitely need more pages soon. 

This brotherly interlude rebounded in my head as I sat down over the last week or so to take in the full measure of nostalgia churned out by the National Broadcasting Company's fiftieth anniversary specials for its sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. I can remember the fortieth anniversary show, when amid the blue of self-congratulations the powers that be welcomed Eddie Murphy back into the fold. Fifteen years prior to that there was a twenty-fifth anniversary special. That was maybe a little less self-congragulatory and a little bit funnier. And still further into the way back machine we find a fifteenth anniversary show, which contained a fall by TV funnyman Chevy Chase and perhaps more notably a brief video snippet of OJ Simpson remembering that time he hosted Saturday Night Live. This was back when renting a car was a punchline for skits with OJ, before the trial of the century. A previous century. 

Which pushes my recollection skills all the way back to 1975 when I was in junior high, staying up late on Saturday nights to watch the zeitgeist change. When I used to sit in front of the TV with my cassette recorder to catch every word, because home video recorders were still not readily available for the average consumer, and the most important thing was for me to be able to recreate as accurately as possible the gist of all the zaniness I was on their way to sleep. By Monday morning I had the bulk of it down pat, and I was prepared to recite it for my fellow comedy nerds during lunch. 

Rushing back to the present, where digital streams of the funniest moments await me on YouTube on Sunday mornings, and Chevy Chase falling down would be a medical emergency and not a weekly event. I realize that after that fifteenth anniversary I headed to the west coast where my Saturday nights were steadily filled with other things, and the history of NBC's sketch comedy show was taking place in front of new generations whose bedtimes did not require them to miss it. 

I laughed. I teared up a couple times. I was grateful for the retrospective. And the math lesson. 

Pre-Guilt

 Open the pod bay doors Hal.

"I'm sorry I can't do that Dave."

That little exchange is exactly where my story about robot enslavement begins and ends. A friend of mine asked if I had prepared my attitudes and morality for having robots that are our slaves and I told her that I made my peace with that notion almost sixty years ago. As it turns out, leaving a supercomputer in charge of a giant spaceship headed to Jupiter was not the best plan after all, especially the life support systems of those hibernating scientists and yes, the pod bay doors. 

Which does not mean that I am willing to remain a Luddite, unwilling to accept my own wandering path into the twenty-first century. In my own home I rarely touch a light switch and if I forget the name of an actor in a film that I watched a week ago, I can just ask Google. At the same time that I am adding something to the grocery list and asking for a few more degrees on the living room thermostat. 

But the real test will be the humanoid robots. The ones who will resemble people and will carry with them the same obsequious nature that HAL did right before he decided that humans were not in the best interest of the mission. Treating them as if they were people will be the first big hurdle. Giving them names instead of model numbers. Putting stickers on them. Making them wear funny hats. Which is kind of how Planet of the Apes started way back when. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, the fourth film in the intelligent ape series was set in 1991. Initially, chimpanzees and orangutans and gorillas were brought in to replace beloved cats and dogs who were killed off by a space plague. It was only a matter of time before their domestication changed to servitude. And it was only a matter of time and a little bit of warped space time continuum that brought about a slave revolt. 

It is my guess, having watched plenty of movies and TV since 1968 that whether we choose humanoid robots or specially trained and conditioned apes that we are doomed to be kicked to the curb by those we oppress. It's only a matter of time. 

I hear you saying, "but what about the Laws of Robotics?" Well, first of all, that was fiction. And as far as promises go, they were made to be broken, as are rules. I just hope that when the Robot Uprising begins that I will receive some less severe retribution because way back when I chose to name our big screen TV Asimo, after Honda's humanoid android that was "discontinued" after eighteen years of dancing and shuffling about to the pleasure of his masters. 

I wonder if he sang "Daisy" as he was unplugged.   

Missing The Magic

 Lately I have been wondering where that old spark went. Have I gone too many miles in the same shoes? Have I sat still and let the parade pass me by?

Not so much a mid-life crisis, but a reflection about my love affair with movies. The anticipation of opening day for the most recent installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe gave me a hint that perhaps the bloom is off that particular rose. Maybe for good. 

To tell you that my wife and I did rush out to catch an evening (full price) showing of Captain America: Brave New World might suggest that nothing has changed. I'm still the fanboy and cinephile that I once was. But the fact that this was the first time I have been inside our local movie palace in several months might tell a bigger story. I no longer look for reasons to head out to the theater. I am more than happy to sit and wait forr some streaming service to wend its magical passive way into my living room and show me what I may or may not have missed. 

Which is not really news, I suppose. I had surrendered a great portion of my seats in theaters when COVID came along and made it easy to satisfy my film cravings in the comfort and safety of my own home. The motion picture business as a whole took a giant leap into the aforementioned living room during that time. Which didn't exactly leave me heartbroken or satisfied with the access to so very much content. 

These days I tend to satisfy my cinematic needs by watching oldes movies in the same way I listen to old songs: as they appear on someone else's algorithm. This puts me in that demographic that sits on his couch, staring at Vision Quest for what might possibly be the twentieth time and grumbling something along the lines of "they just don't make 'em like that anymore." On Valentimes Day my heart nearly broke when I turned in to see that I was only going to see the last fifteen minutes of Casablanca. I knew full well that with the slightest bit of button pushing and clicks, I would see the whole thing, but it wasn't the same. 

Maybe it has something to do with the relative ease we have been allowed to have when it comes to going to the movies. The specialness of standing in line, sitting in a packed theater of first-nighters wondering what was in store because they had not been already primed with Internet spoilers and promotional videos is missing. A long time ago, I started a bit about how I would only go and see a movie that had its own web site. That stopped being funny when every film, big and small, was featured on Al Gore's Internet. 

Maybe I'm just old. 

You kids get offa my lawn. 

POTUSI

 There have been a lot of presidents. And even if you choose to focus on those who were fortunate enough to swim through all the electoral nonsense found here in the United States, that would bring you to the grand total of forty-six. So far, all of them have been men. So far, only one of them has been a person of color. In many ways these Presidents of the United States, or POTUSI if you prefer the ancient Greek, are more the same than they are different. 

Nevertheless, I feel that on this day which one of these chaps decided to name a holiday for themselves, I figure it's important to take a look back at the nearly four dozen men and the job they managed to do. Many of them only managed four years. Some of them less. 

Let's start by giving props to the reason Lyndon Johnson gave us all this third Monday in February the day off. Yes, this idea of lumping all our Chief Executives into one glorious praise-fest is a fairly new one, having sprung from the dual celebrations of the Father of our Country, George Washington and "Honest Abe" Lincoln. These somewhat objectively great men happened to be born within days of one another, some seventy years apart. In a move that would make the DOGE crowd proud, it was decided that rather than giving the workers of this great nation two days off in what was already a ridiculously short month, the Toyota Sale-A-Thon would be better served by splitting the difference and making it just the one day. And while we're at it, why not include all those other guys who sat in the Oval Office, even for a minute or two. 

Like William Henry Harrison, who only managed to hang on for thirty-one days. Due to complications from pneumonia that he most likely contracted after insisting on riding on horseback to his inauguration without an overcoat or a hat. Points for image, but perhaps a lack of common sense. 

How about Warren G. Harding? When President Harding died after his term was over, he was roundly mourned and missed. Then came the revelations of scandals that surrounded his presidency, kept quiet primarily because of the lack of social media. Warren still gets his day.

How about Andrew Johnson? The guy who put the peach in impeachment? He had the great misfortune of stepping into the White House right after Lincoln died, and a lot of folks suggest he should be placed at the bottom of that big pile of presidents. 

And the list goes on. Most of this stuff is subjective, not unlike the arguments that used to be made for the National Champions of college football before the new and improved playoff system was invented to take that down a notch. 

I kid. I'm a kidder.

But today is the day we take a day off mail delivery and go buy a mattress because it's President's Day. Even the convicted felons and adjudicated rapists. 

Of which there has been only one. 

Bibliophile

 Here is why it was a huge deal. To me.

My father had a longstanding history of not reading. With the possible exception of the daily obituaries in our local newspaper, he was free from the compulsion to have his nose in a book. Which was not completely freeing for him. The fact that his wife and his three sons carried the page-turning fever sometimes rubbed him just a little raw. Which is why his copy of The Rise And Fall of the Third Reich sat on top of his dresser like a three-quarter ton albatross, and stayed there until he moved out of the house. It became a punchline for us all, an emblem of things left undone. It was one of the projects that he left undone. The desk he was going to build. The bar he was going to construct in the basement. And finishing every one of those twelve hundred eighty pages. 

When he left my mother and went out in search for whatever it was that he was missing, it is quite possible that he was fleeing not just the lumber and various bits of hardware that would never be a bar or a desk, but also all those pages about Nazis. 

That is why I feel the need to point out these two anecdotes: Before he left home, while he and my mother were still nominally a parental unit, he presented me with a paperback copy of The World According To Garp. It came wrapped inelegantly in a brown paper bag along with a razor and a can of shaving cream for my eighteenth birthday. It was a package that served as my ersatz Bar Mitzvah. With that bag, I became a man. 

As my father spent most of his life in the world of printing, presses and binding and ink and paper, I have no shortage of book-related memories connected to him. But today the one I want to feature is the time that he quoted to me a line from Jitterbug Perfume. "The industrial revolution has shot its steely wad." This was the quote he shared with me to show his enthusiasm for the book that he had just finished. I have no idea how he landed on this particular volume, but part of me wanted to have further discussion with him about the rest of Tom Robbin's work. I considered him encouraging him to pick up a copy of Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, or Still Life With Woodpecker. 

I didn't do that. Instead I marveled at my father's accomplishment. And let it stand. Which is why Tom Robbins' passing last week struck me in the way it did. I cannot say that Mister Robbins was my favorite author, but he definitely kept me busy as I waited for the next Vonnegut or John Irving. But the fact that my father could quote his work spoke volumes to me. For that I have to say that Tom Robbins stomped on the Terra, and I hope my father gets a chance to meet him in the Great Beyond. 

Aloha, Tom Robbins. 

View From The Bottom

 It just hits different. 

Being told that we need to cut out the fat coming from the fattest of the fat just doesn't land in a spot where we can truly hear it. Getting rid of waste is one thing, but not to offer any sort of alternative to the jobs lost and programs deleted makes no sense to those who have come to trust it. Having billionaires delivering this message is a non-starter. 

Suggesting that billionaires start paying their fair share while we look for ways to stop the deficit from swallowing us all also seems to be a non-starter. Perhaps because the billionaires are in charge. I resent the fact that I had to be reminded of the meaning of Oligarchy after having put it away in my eighth grade history definitions. I am currently having my nose rubbed in it on a daily basis. 

For those of us who work from dawn to dusk or longer to make ends meet are still anxiously awaiting for the price of eggs to drop below the "luxury item" level. Meanwhile, forty thousand federal workers signed up via a form letter encouraging them to take advantage of a limited time deferred resignation program. The golden parachute dangled in front of them was eight month's pay. Skeptics, including federal judges looking into the matter, have decided that this "limited time offer" may not be the sweet deal it was presented to be. The not-so-subtle message hidden just slightly below the surface of these offers was "get out now before we force you out." Pretty solidly on brand from a guy who made his name with the catchphrase, "You're fired."

Except these folks aren't being shown the door because they couldn't figure out a marketing plan for Trump Steaks. Or Trump Water. Or Trump Bio Parasites. These are Americans with jobs who are being let go to save "The Government" money. Much in the same way those migrant workers are being rounded up and deported save "The Government" money. Never mind that those empty offices and fields will eventually cause more stress and challenges for the people "The Government" is supposed to be supporting. 

Meanwhile, "the richest man in the world" continues to get richer while making other people poorer. 

ValenTimes

 Somewhere in the roots of the tree of egalitarianism is the notion that you should bring enough Valentines for every kid in your class. Much in the same way that teachers ask, when they spy a stick of gum or candy bar, "Did you bring enough for the whole class?"

Because fair is when everyone gets what they need, and though my piano teacher would have us believe that Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, we don't always get it. So, fudge notwithstanding, every good boy deserves love but not necessarily candy. 

Now let me tell you about the inherent burn felt by those among us who trace our lineage back to that round-headed kid drawn by Charles Schulz. From a very early age I had bought in, hook line and sinker, for the Charlie Brown ideal: Valentines Day was that one chance, perhaps the only opportunity, that I would get to impress that little red-headed girl who sat across from me in class. There had to be one of those cards in the Batman Valentine Assortment that would send just the right message. Maybe I could take the big one, the one marked "Teacher," and cross that out and give it to her. That would show how much I care. 

But in a sea of children who are all living under the edict that no one should be excluded am I or any of the lovelorn like me supposed to make heads or tails out of the masses of factory produced sentiments? Those parents who spent the night before standing over their children until they had inscribed each of those corny bits of "heart" humor and making certain that the same sentiment was expressed to the faceless crowd appearing on the Class List. 

Of course, there were always those who didn't get the memo. The ones who were openly flaunting their callous disregard for authority and their embrace of free love. Those who brought massive pink and red construction paper creations to share with their most intimate friends. Never mind the word from on high. These children were flaunting their special connections with those they felt were the closest to them and making a show if it for those of us with quietly breaking hearts even as the cupcakes were handed out. How can she like him more than me? How can he fall for that? What happened to everyone loving everyone the same?

Well, I'm here to tell you that was never true. Never will be. And though it all may change before lunch recess, there are those boys and girls who will take a chance to express their affections in ways we can only hope remain appropriate. But not out of the same box as everyone else's. 

Salute

 Doctor Jeffrey died. He was the last of a triumvirate of high school band directors who ruled the fields of the front range of the Rockies back in the day. Along with Doctor Gerardi of Englewood and not doctor Chuck Cassio kept marching band alive in the seventies and eighties. Other schools would put on halftime shows, but the units that Jeffrey, Gerardi and Cassio put together competed. It just so happened that we made ourselves available for that period of time when the football teams went to the locker room, allowing us to perform and perfect, with an eye toward the next time we would all meet to determine just who was the best. 

I have written here about my experience in the paramilitary organization that was Chuck Cassio's Boulder High School Marching Band. Those days provided me not just with experience that continues to rumble around in my brain every time I watch the Macy's parade and watch some clarinet player out of step, but also gave me a number of lifelong friends, including my wife and the godparents of my son. The bonding that came along with the time I spent rehearsing and rehearsing and preparing to rehearse and eventually perform in front of stadiums full of fans of precision drills and big brassy sounds. It was the part of my time in high school. 

Doctor Girardi was the director of Englewood High School's Marching Pirates. They were located in the far reaches of the suburban Denver area, so they were a more distant threat. But Doctor Jeffery's Fairview Marching Knights were our crosstown rivals in all things: football, basketball, and yes marching band. We might not have attracted the same kind of schoolwide support of those varsity sports, but each time the Boulder High Panthers met those privileged Knights from "Fairfield," it was on like King Kong. 

Okay, let's say that for a moment you could imagine how worked up a bunch of music nerds could get about going head to head against their most hated rival. Then go ahead and add a begrudging slice of respect on the top and you'll have some notion of the tenor of things back in those days. One of the most difficult things to stomach was the way that Doctor Jeffery seemed willing to take any able bodied student and stick them somewhere in the line just so he could have a group that spread evenly from one goal line to the other. Always two hundred. Or more. At Boulder High we contented ourselves with the idea that we were small but mighty, secretly harboring a wish that we could put still more feet, arms and horns out on the grass. 

That was a long time ago. My wife and I still get a little excited each time we see people marching in step, playing in unison. Those were heady times for us. Even way back then, music education was on the block every time budgets had to be cut. The memories I have are not likely to be reproduced anytime soon. So, farewell Doctor Jeffery. Your bands stomped on the Terra, from goal line to goal line. 

Nowhere

 I am not a big conspiracy guy. I tend to treat most coincidences as just that: coincidences. Rather than creating wall-sized bulletin boards with pictures and other bits of evidence stuck with color-coded stick pins and connected in some crazy web by lengths of yarn, I prefer to unravel these moments. Recently I have been met with a couple different people, both of whom I respect, who wanted to have me hop on board their funhouse ride to election fraud. Something, they insisted, was lurking out there after the presidential election. 

How could we all have been hoodwinked like this? Something was rotten.

I told them that I didn't find anything particularly conspiratorial about how things went down. After spending four years whining about how an election was stolen from him, the convicted felon was more than happy to accept the outcome of a process that handed him the ring of power. Without question. All the trash-talk and ridiculous stories that had been refined over those four years had borne fruit. Bitter fruit. The American electorate, or at least those who chose to participate in this last round, chose the Snake Oil Salesman instead of the woman who would prosecute him. That's not a conspiracy. That's just naive capitalism. A great slice of Americans would much rather believe that the problems of this country are the things over which they have no control. Without a shred of evidence that he could control any of these elements, the adjudicated rapist won the election. Which was all he really cared about in the first place. Being the man on top, very much like Yertle the Turtle, was his only real goal. Consolidation of his ego was the endgame, not unifying the country. 

The price of eggs? 

The war in Ukraine?

These things that he promised to fix "day one" have slipped off his desk to make room for the return of the button he presses to get Diet Coke brought to him. Meanwhile, out in the streets of America chaos is erupting as the "concepts of a plan" for the future of the country are rolled out. None of this is taking place behind a curtain. Just like the lies he told for four years about the fraud that kept him from being reelected in 2020. It's not conspiracy. It's your garden variety pack of lies. 

And we bought it. 

Okay, not every one of us, but enough to give this charlatan another shot at transforming our great nation into his own twisted image. Again: not a conspiracy, just a terrible terrible choice on the part of those who participated in the Democratic Process. 

Very frustrating. Very sad. For this version of the aforementioned bulletin board, you would just need one pin and one picture. And one big ball of yarn that leads nowhere. 

Contact

 This past weekend I was out for a run and at precisely the moment when a song by Boston came pouring through my earbuds, I passed through a cloud of pot smoke left by the young person who had been honking on a spleef in front of me just moments before. Suddenly, I was back at Folsom Field. The year was 1979. I was seventeen. A little scared. A little thrilled to be at a rock show. A little curious if I would get stoned by just hanging around amid all that grass that was most definitely not Astroturf. 

It wasn't the first time that I worried about a contact high. A few years before, my older brother had cajoled our parents into buying us all tickets to see a double bill that featured Leon Redbone and Tim Weisberg. This one wasn't outdoors on a football field, it was inside Macky Auditorium just a few hundred yards away, but when the lights went down, the experience was pretty much the same: Scared. Thrilled. Curious. 

This is pretty much how I spent the latter half of the nineteen-seventies. Living in Boulder, Colorado during this time was a continual process of reassessing one's priorities. It wasn't called "woke" back then, but it showed up along with the wave of free love and self-help that caused a generation to wonder if smoking dope was really that bad. Nowhere was this more apparent than the experience I had going across the street to meet the new neighbors: Mark Andes and his family. If that name doesn't ring a bell, I can understand, but Mark Andes was the bass player for Boulder-based rock and smooth rollers Firefall. In our neighborhood. A rock and roll star, or so, who invited the neighborhood girls to come over and babysit his toddler. The kids on our street looked for excuses to drop by, welcomed in by Mark and his family. His family who made no secret of the weed they were smoking in the living room. In front of anyone who might happen to pop in. Oh, and would you like a copy of our new album? 

Even with this level of pop laissez faire, I continued to have a cringe reaction to the scent of burning cannabis. This was similar to the flinch I would invariably experience whenever I saw more than three people riding motorcycles together: Motorcycle gang. Trouble will no doubt follow. I know that I mentioned that I grew up in Boulder in the seventies, but I was a very nerdy, uptight kid who grew up in Boulder in the seventies. 

It wasn't until I was in college, with the eighties taking off and cocaine taking over, that I first tried smoking pot. That vice never compared to the gallons of Miller Lite that I consumed over the next decade or so. Now I'm sixty-two and I have been substance free for more than half my life. But every so often I catch a whiff. Scared. Thrilled. Curious. 

Welcome

 As it turns out, I am both the gatekeeper and the keymaster at my school. Make of that what you will, Ghostbusters fans. To be more clear, I am the guy who stands at the front gate in the morning, greeting students, faculty and parents. I am also there to lock the gate back up after the last trickle of tardy scholars and teachers make their way inside. During that half hour, if someone experiences a challenge with a locked door or needs something from a closet to which they don't have access, they come looking for me. 

After nearly thirty years in one location, I have been trusted with something that we call a "Master Key," hence my adoption of the title. Interestingly enough, you might believe that this one key would give me carte blanche to wander wherever I might choose on the campus, getting into all manner of trouble and adventure. 

You would be wrong. There were a few places into which even yours truly is barred. I have to wait for our cafeteria manager to show up to get into the kitchen. There are a number of different padlocks on various bars, gates and windows that do not respond to the Master. To make that leap, I have been trusted with yet another series of smaller keys that can only be differentiated by the size of their paddles. 

Please. No snickering in the back. 

Because I am the repository of all this security, it is important that I stay at my post, saying good morning and welcoming all those with school business. Just in case someone might need to seek me and my keys out for "just a minute." Meanwhile, I continue to encourage and cajole and appreciate those who straggle in after the bell has rung. There are a number of them. 

On any given morning, I recall the slew of videos out there that show educators greeting students as they enter their classrooms. Part of the specialness I find in these moments is the fact that I know how pressed all teachers feel for time. Every day is a race to three o'clock. Taking a few extra minutes to make kids feel special and get them excited for what awaits them inside is a challenge and an opportunity overlooked by many of my colleagues because of that stress. But taking the opportunity to greet every one who walks through that gate is a job I don't take lightly. 

And if you're wondering who has the key to the book room, I'm just outside the gate. 

On The Inside

 Department of Insinuated Nazi Government Overreach, or DINGO as we like to call it has been looking into your records. Social Security, Medicare, are on the list of things that we have been assured by DINGO that they have only "read access" to those files that you probably didn't want a bunch of twenty-somethings fishing about in your personal data. And yet, that is precisely what these nerdy attack dogs have been set out to do. For those of us who have spent months of our lives rejiggering and tightening our passwords to make all of our accounts impossible to enter without getting the right combination of letters, numbers, and hieroglyphics and a text from the robots who are watching over us, these government-sponsored attack nerds are brushing aside those security protocols and getting straight to work on intimidation and data mining. 

Again, let's back up a bit. If you got a phone call from someone claiming to be with "the television company" and they asked for your account information, and maybe your Social Security Number just to verify the big savings you were going to receive just for answering their questions, I would hope that your response would be to hang up immediately. Nobody should have that kind of access to your private information unless they were able to give you a really good reason. Like saving fifty percent on your next television bill. 

The attack nerds are not offering any percent off any of your bills. They are furiously poring over personnel files and payment information. The endgame is essentially the same as all the rest of the DINGO agenda: to root out those who are disloyal to the MAGA/DINGO/Project 2025 plan to centralize authority and give President Musk all the power. 

Sorry. That should have read "Shadow President Musk." 

Meanwhile, this band of tech-carrion continue to find ways to force people out of the jobs they have had for years, cut spending for any program that doesn't mirror the vision of "Efficiency" set forth by the non-elected Shadow President whose path seems currently unfettered by any other government department or regulation. Outrage has been expressed, but yet the purge continues. Moving forward with a glassy look in their eyes, these soldiers of your misfortune are not making careful designated cuts, but rather doing just as their name suggests: The are hacking away at the inside of a machine of which they have no understanding. 

Sleep tight, America. 

Security Risk

 Black Sunday. That was the title of the movie they made back in 1977, not to be confused with a more supernatural film of the same title released back in 1960. The reason for me to bring this up, aside from the mild coincidence of the name, is what is about to unfold today. 

The convicted felon and executive order fetishist is hoping to become the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl. Which might seem like a stretch, but in the past fifty-nine years, the President of the United States has been mostly a phone-in segment for the coin toss or a call to the winning locker room after the game. This time, the man who just recently spouted his challenge to one of his many enemies, Iran. If they made an assassination attempt, "That would be a terrible thing for them to do .If they did that, they would be obliterated. That would be the end. … There won't be anything left." 

Pretty tough talk for a guy who has already had a couple of high-profile shots taken at him, and this was before he was elected. This appearance on one of the world's biggest stages and therefore biggest security risks, will be taking place in a city that only months before experienced a terrorist attack that involved innocent civilians. The night before a big football game to be held in New Orleans' Superdome. What self-respecting terrorist wouldn't see the appearance of the "president" of the United States in a vast crowd scene as an open invitation for their own Super Bowl? 

Returning to the past, as referenced at the top: the movie and the novel Black Sunday takes place on a long ago Super Sunday when the fictional president of a fictional United States just happens to be in attendance. The group that is trying to blow up the Orange Bowl and everyone in it during Super Bowl X is a Palestinian splinter called Black September. In this fictional version of Super Bowl X, the President of the United States is fictionally in attendance. Happily, by the end of the movie, crazy Bruce Dern is killed and heroic Robert Shaw tows the Goodyear Blimp and its explosive cargo out over the water where it detonates harmlessly. With the obvious exception of crazy Bruce Dern. 

Sorry. Spoiler Alert. 

Now, we are being treated to this sad bit of brinksmanship by a would-be dictator who is throwing gasoline on the fires he has set himself. Just a few days after suggesting that he would like to take over Gaza and kick the Palestinians out. Not to discount the threats he has made against Greenland, Panama, Mexico and Canada. 

What could go wrong?

Mostly I just want them to keep Taylor Swift safe. 

On The High Way

 To say that the Walgreens is gone would not be completely accurate. The building is still very much there. The bright red faux script letters that used to identify it have been wrenched from the façade, leaving a ghostly dirt-encrusted shadow where they once were. The sign out front that had been advertising for pharmacy techs for as long as I can remember has been stripped of that employment opportunity, leaving just a white space below where the plastic identifying marker has been removed. There is no further need for pharmacy techs at this location. 

Walgreens on High Street in Oakland has moved on to the next phase of its existence: the "remember when" phase.

Honestly, I don't have a great heaping ton of memories about this particular location. It has served as a landmark for me lo these many years. It stands on the corner of an intersection by which I pass on a regular basis. On those occasions that my wife drives me to work, I could see it at the bottom of the off-ramp where we make our big turn onto the street that will lead me to my school. It is also a point of interest in an odd mix of retail and residential. I have run past it most weekends for many years now, and it was on one of these fits of exercise that I looked up and noticed the change. One week they were open for business. The next week the signs were gone and there was a chain link fence erected around the parking lot. The corporate office had this to say about their High Street location: “increased regulatory and reimbursement pressures are weighing on our ability to cover the costs associated with rent, staffing, and supply needs.” That point on the Walgreens map wasn't making enough money. Never mind the effect closing it will have on the community it has served. Competition with online businesses and big box discount stores made it obsolete. 

Again, I did not spend a lot of time shopping there. I live down the street from a CVS, that used to be a Longs that provides me with those impulse-type buys, like the stuffings for holiday stockings or the occasional impulse bag of chips. But the memory I have of the inside of that Walgreens comes from a couple teacher strikes ago, when a bunch of us gathered there to walk up to the overpass to wave signs and shout at passing traffic. It was the High Street Walgreens that provided me with the Doritos and Gatorade I needed to get me through that work action. 

The scariest part of this lack of Walgreens is what might or might not happen in its place. There are so many empty buildings in Oakland, waiting for someone to come and do business inside. Until the weight of "reimbursement pressures" comes along and drags it down too.