Detox Mansion

Charlie Sheen went back to rehab on Friday. I suspect they probably had a room waiting. He may be the first to land there because of hilarity, but to hear him tell it, that's why he's currently in recovery. One of the highest paid actors on television was originally in need of medical attention because of a night of TV viewing that left him sore and out of sorts. It wasn't an overdose this time. It was a hernia. He literally busted a gut. Whether he was watching reruns of his own show was not readily apparent, but it did bring to mind something my father used to say: "The difference between drunks and alcoholics is that drunks don't have to go to all those meetings."
And so it goes with the rich and famous when they get a snoot full of this or that. There's always a spot in Doctor Drew's Sober House. If you're not making nearly a million dollars per half-hour episode, you might not be as lucky. As a matter of fact, you probably won't even have your 911 calls played on "Entertainment Tonight." You'll probably lose your job, too, though finding a way to latch onto the rehab clause of your company's medical coverage might not be such a bad way to go out if you were predisposed to such behavior.
No, Charlie will probably be allowed to bounce back, much in the same way that Lindsay Lohan has kept us all on the edge of our seats for the latest installment of her tawdry life. It was just this past Christmas Eve that Mister Sheen was celebrating with his wife by engaging in a little second-degree assault, menacing and criminal mischief. Christmas Day was spent in Aspen, but in jail.
Because he's a celebrity, he has his fans and his detractors. There are plenty of people who wish him well and hope that he can get his life squared away. There are an equal number on the other side, eagerly anticipating the next lurid headline. Real life doesn't offer those kind of cheering sections. If you're strung out and poor, you're a bum. If you're strung out and famous, you're on reality TV. We can all learn a few things from the odyssey of Charlie Sheen. Excess, after all, isn't much of a lifestyle. Binges have a nasty way of coming to an end. David Lee Roth liked to tell people that he "used to have a drug problem. Now I've got enough money." When the money runs out, so does the amusing portion of that statement. It is one of the unique challenges of our modern society: Back in the day, Edgar Allan Poe died from his addictions. So did Jimi and Janis and John. Their legends were exacerbated by their excesses. Now, in order to prevent such tragedies, we get our celebrities sober so they can go out and disappoint us again as soon as possible. I suspect that if the consequences that Charlie Sheen were facing were more like life and death instead of missing a few days' taping, his attitude might be a little less cavalier. This next little bit is for Charlie: Hey, Chuck. You're forty-five. You're the father of four. Grow up. Thank you.

My My, Hey Hey

"Rock and roll is here to stay. It's better to burn out than to fade away." Who would have guessed that Neil Young was such a fan of the Fantastic Four? Last week the comics world lost one of its most enduring stars: The Human Torch, Johnny Storm. He went out in the most noble and heroic fashion, saving his young niece and nephew from an army of insect creatures. The initial response to such events are sorrow and then almost immediate relief. Certainly Marvel Comics could not afford to simply kill off one of their original characters. Like Captain America before him, there must be some back-room corporate plot to drum up sales and then, a few issues later, resurrect him. It works for soap operas. It works for comic books.
But I had another layer of reaction: smug satisfaction. I never related to Johnny Storm. He and his cosmopolitan Fantastic Four, ensconced in their ivory tower of a headquarters, I could never connect with their troubles. This was never more apparent to me than the Team-Up stories that paired the Amazing Spider-Man with the Human Torch. I remember how crisis always seemed to find Johnny in the middle of repairing his hot rod, surrounded by chicks. Meanwhile, Peter Parker was still living at home with his aunt, living a suburban geek lifestyle that mirrored my own in many ways, but without the Spider-sense.
Johnny Storm was far too cool for school. Peter Parker slogged his way through high school and eventually college where he constantly ran afoul of deadlines and due dated that conflicted with his super-hero-ing. Johnny's chief concern seemed to be his image and, alternately, annoying his fellow teammate, Ben Grimm. For Peter, great power brought great responsibility. Johnny was put off by such talk. He was, first and foremost, a celebrity.
In the end, that's what makes his passing all the more surprising. The fact that years after I flipped the pages of a Fantastic Four comic I can still work up a lather about Johnny Storm's character suggests that it must have been drawn in fairly solid, indelible strokes. Kudos to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for creating him in the first place, and congratulations to the current writers and artists who found a way to reconcile his bad-boy past with grown-up sacrifice. In the meantime we wait, like a trick birthday candle, for the Human Torch to flicker back to life. Until then, rest in peace Johnny Storm. At least we've still got rock and roll.

Sputnik Moment

Those were the words that our president used to describe the crossroads at which we now find ourselves. To paraphrase: We should all be feeling a little Sputnik right now. In his speech he used words like Internet and clean energy, and you could just feel the italics and quotation marks around them. After all, those are ideas that have already flown. They are in the books. We have to start looking for new ways to break ground and/or shoot for the stars. Of course, those two metaphors are already pretty well spent, so we're going to have to work on those as well.
This was the frame of mind I was in as I looked out over the rooftops of our neighborhood and noticed, as if it were the first time, all of the satellite dishes staring up into the morning sky. Why, I wondered, am I so opposed to getting my television from outer space? Am I so afraid of a strong wind or a heavy rain that could possibly interfere with my ability to watch reruns of "The Cosby Show?" Shouldn't I have more confidence in the technology of the future? After all, I have been watching cable television for nearly thirty years, since before there was such a thing as Conan O'Brien.
But deep in my heart, I knew the answer. I am far too connected, literally, to cable TV. Knowing that there is a wire, nay a pipeline, pouring an endless stream of information and entertainment in to my living room gives me quiet comfort. I can relax on my couch and check out what is happening on the SyFy channel without having to worry what galactic interruptions might block the signal. There is a cable that connects me.
I am stuck in the past. I live in a house with a computer to human ratio that is approximately two to one, and yet I refuse to let a beam of extraterrestrial infotainment bring me the same viewing satisfaction I have received for years via miles of coaxial cable. I could tell you that it's all about the price, but the truth is the cost is always negotiable. Which leaves me with yet another alternative: going all the way back to a pair of rabbit ears and trying to tune in whatever frequencies I can manage. Now that sounds like science fiction.

Built For Comfort, Not For Speed

When I roll into the playground on my bike before there are any kids around, I don't think much about my appearance. I am primarily concerned with the day ahead of me: whose classes will be paraded in front of me, what if any special tools or materials will be needed, and are there any special adult or child interactions that are on the schedule. I am not thinking about my sartorial splendor. It's only on those rare occasions that I have to stop and chat with a student or custodian who happened to cross my path before I was ready to emerge from the cave that is my room. Standing there, astride my bike, with my helmet squashed down securely over my sweat coat hood and my gloves pulled on tight, I suddenly feel better prepared for Extra Vehicular Activity than discussing what's for lunch that day.
That's when the snickers begin. Not the candy bar. The derisive laughter. The fact that I have just ridden over two miles to come and share my knowledge with the youth of my community is sometimes obscured by the fact that I look more like a homeless scuba diver than a teacher. I know that the last thing I should do is be defensive about my appearance. I am, after all, the one who regularly counsels our kids that it doesn't matter how you look, it's what is inside that matters. I know that. But I can't help wondering what their reaction might be if I showed up in my Coolmax performance enhancing bike tights and thermal Gore-Tex outer shell and wraparound cycling goggles. Then again, maybe I can.

Duty Now For The Future

I have seen the future, and it comes from the end of a hot glue gun.
Perhaps I should start at the beginning. My son has been trying to figure out how things work since I can remember. Like the time he turned his stroller over so that he could investigate the wheels: What makes it go? For all those years in between, he has dragged home various bits of cars, machines, and electronics with the hope of figuring out how those things work. Maybe if he understood them, he could use the parts to make something better, or at the very least, more interesting.
This fascination has lead to the warehousing of lots of little bits of things that I might mistake for trash. "Don't throw that away, dad." I hear the voice in my head now when I pick up this plastic shard or that light emitting diode. I now tend to make piles and wait for them to become part of something larger. And wait.
This past weekend, I watched him turn a pair of his remote control helicopters into the engine that would run his prototype hover car. He and a friend were working on their school assignment to create a product they would design, market, and sell. I watched them go through a number of failed attempts at getting their dual-rotor system to stay aloft. I knew that all my comments were filtered through the "wah-wah Charlie Brown adult filter," but I tried to get them to recognize that they weren't going to be able to fly their car. They just needed to make it hover. Hence the name: Hover Car.
Working alone on Saturday afternoon, he had his eureka moment. A snapped piece of wooden skewer set at a right angle from the rod that bound the two helicopters was glued into place. Now he had a stabilizer. He was as happy as I had seen him in months. I stopped seeing the pile of scraps and started savoring my son's triumph. Someday he may be designing hover cars for GM or Toyota. Maybe he'll have his own company, supervising a team of engineers. I just hope I will be able to resist the impulse to stop by his office and pick up after him.

Bed, Bath, And Beyond

I have a very distinct memory of the moment that drug abuse first entered my consciousness: Magic Markers. It would have taken a whole lot of them, but that vaguely medicinal aroma of red or black had a bunch of us second graders leaving the cap off for one more lingering whiff. I remember when the model glue started smelling like Lemon Pledge, though that seemed kind of counterproductive. I had a cousin who used to get high on Liquid Paper. These weren't drugs. They were office products, and yet, they were the ultimate gateway drug. Creepy and sad, but drugs nonetheless.
Over the years, there have been plenty of household items that have found their way into the noses, mouths and brainpans of our youth. I suspect that there may have been some special inhalant in the whitewash that Tom Sawyer offered up to his friends to paint his Aunt Polly's fence. It's an American tradition, and now it includes your mom's bath salts.
Sold under such names as Ivory Wave, Bliss, White Lightning and Hurricane Charlie, the chemicals can cause hallucinations, paranoia, rapid heart rates and suicidal thoughts. With those kind of effects, who wouldn't want to stick their face in a big pile of the stuff? Why bother diluting that "invigorating bath experience" with all that water? You can have a stimulating binge without ever filling up the tub. It certainly makes winning the war on drugs much more difficult. And shopping for Mother's Day just got a little more difficult.

Healthy Debate

On the day that courageous Republicans lead the charge to repeal the onerous and oppressive social experiment that is "Obamacare," I read of another threat to our American way of life. True to their campaign promise, the newly minted GOP-stoppers voted down the health care reform that was signed into law just one year ago. More than half the states in the union have filed suits against the plan, leaving the question of how we pay for our tired and poor huddled masses to become strong and productive members of society.
And there was that other matter: Two members of Colorado's state legislature proposed that anyone with a Colorado driver’s license or ID card is presumed to be an organ donor unless the person initials a statement opting out of the program. Currently, a person must initial their ID card to be considered a donor. It's one of those "opt out" deals where you have to sign something or click here if you don't want an additional twelve issues of "Budget Travel" delivered to your house, or the Google toolbar hanging over your web browser. Wait until the Republicans get wind of this one. People will be longing for those days of enforced insurance and death camps for grandma. Instead they will be sleeping with one eye open, clutching the parts of their bodies that they aren't quite ready to give up. At any moment, poorly trained government employees will crash through the door, demanding you liver. Also, there was some concern that making organ donor the default might actually limit the number of people signing up for the program.
But that's the problem, isn't it? The dance that needs to be done to keep the net out there so that government can catch us when we fall, and becoming ensnared in bureaucracy. We want the states to build us highways but don't tell us how fast we can drive on them. We want the government to bail out our free market system, but please don't ask for that money back. We want our health, but we don't want to pay for it in blood. Or soft tissue.