Buckeyes

Aunt Peg is my grandfather's sister.  She has dementia or Alzheimer's...

so I was going to reflect on Townshend-ian sentiments  ("I hope I die before I get old" etc...)

however, my last two posts are regarding 1) the bad "isms" plaguing my generation

and 2) politics

thus, I've decided to keep this one light.

I like my fried eggs over-easy.

Mom would cut a circle out of a piece of italian bread and fry the egg in the hole.  She called it a Buckeye.  Mom learned the technique from Aunt Peg.

Buckeyes from Mom were always perfect.

I'm the chef now, and the finished product is generally over cooked,

or occasionally under cooked.

and each ruined breakfast makes me think about Mom and Aunt Peg

and how special their souls must be

to make perfect buckeyes every time.

Wooly Bully

I've been surrounded by bullying lately.  News reports, magazine articles, even a full blown documentary now playing at your local theatre...

I'm not "Pro-Bully" or anything like that.  However, I am certainly not Pro: Anti-Bully, either...

I always thought the bullied kids ultimately ended up with fancy jobs, lots of money, hot wives... and the "Bullies" trudged to work every day, digging ditches in hard hats and uniforms, spending their meager pay on lottery tickets, cigarettes and cheap beer, right?

The film is arguing that bullied kids are actually killing themselves, which is sad.

Director Lee Hirsch said, in an interview with a news website:

"I felt that the hardest part of being bullied was communicating," Hirsch said. "And getting help. I couldn’t enroll people’s support. People would say things like 'get over it,' even my own father and mother. They weren't with me. That was a big part of my wanting to make the film. It's cathartic on a daily basis." 

I'm too cynical to think a movie is going to change the world, which is sad.

My grandparents generation always seemed to have an excuse for being racist, sexist, homophobic... that's just "how it was back then" or whatever...

Alot of this same bad shit carried right on through my parents generation, even though these people were supposed to have existed after the barriers had been broken.  The bad shit was just finding different ways to exist obscurely instead of overtly.

I'm not sure what my generation's excuse will be.  I was hoping we'd be more informed and more tolerant and the stories about racism and sexism and kids killing themselves would stop.

I'm not going to try and save the world.  I save the world by being kind to the people in my world and hoping they do the same to everyone else. Ignoring the voice that tells me they won't.

40 Years of Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail

I was 8 years old, sleeping over Aunt Cris' house. Aunt Cris was one fun aunt, and still is. She said I could do whatever I wanted. I asked her to turn on the television and switch it to the Presidential Debate.

I never desired to be President and still don't. The Government is for people with bad intentions disguised as good intentions, which might be worse than plain old bad intentions. The left and the right are the same. So what was the attraction, then and now?

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson had an answer for me: Gambling.

"Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" is a masterpiece that chronicles George McGovern's campaign from nothing, to nearly challenging Richard Nixon, and back to ultimate failure... The book isn't just the story of a campaign. It's a legitmate look at politics from the inside. Some of these guys still exist in Washington today, FORTY YEARS LATER, and yet if you read the book, this fact isn't shocking at all.

The point I'm trying to drive at is that Thompson is gambling throughout the entire book. On primaries. On percentages. On Vice Presidents and on runners up. The gambling possiblities of an Election are only limited by one's imagination.

 President Barack Obama won the 2008 election 365 electoral votes to 173.

(Statistics needed HERE to show what a flogging that is)

Only three Incumbent Presidents have been defeated in recent history (since world war 2): Ford, Carter and Bush1. Bush2 only barely survived joining this group.

What does this all mean? I don't know exactly, but I wish I had Republican friends, because I would call them up and place bets on the 2012 election, for any amount they desire.

This doesn't mean I will vote for Obama, nor does it mean I "want" him to win. I could care less. But that's another story, for another day...

Backdated Respect

The first impression is the generally the strongest, but that does not make it correct. I was probably too young when I received my first impression of Joni Mitchell and I carried it with me for a long time, unfairly tied to horrible assumptions. When I learned about Jaco and came back to Joni I felt real sheepish, almost guilty, very quickly... The other example that comes to mind is getting a kick out of the Randy Newman skit on Family Guy. Although only "actually" being familiar with Short People (being a short guy myself) and the Toy Story theme song, I created a Wall of Conjecture around Randy Newman. I did not even realize I was preventing myself from truly discovering his music. The Lindberg Baby sang 'Louisiana 1927' at a gig a while back and I asked 'who wrote that nice number there' and he said 'Randy Newman' and my brain exploded and my eyes got wide and some even say my black grinch heart grew two sizes that day. I accepted Randy Newman into my heart and vowed to do right by him. Then, I tried to nod and play it cool so Pete couldn't tell I was in total shock.

piano feet

Abigail and I were having a piano lesson and she started playing with her feet, which were in socks.

I said, Abigail you shouldn't do that.

In hindsight, I don't think I had any good reasons for doing so, it just felt wrong.

And she replied, Willy & I played with our feet.

Generally, I do not dig namedropping, but she's too young to have been doing that intentionally.

and let me tell you a couple things about Willy Loco Alexander:

One is that when I watch him perform on the piano I generally end up mouth agape, questioning my existence and purpose in life. His playing is energetic and rhythmic and his body bends with the music like claymation and he absolutely wails on the keys and they sing for him in return and Two is that his resume makes the punk rocker inside of me tingle with delight and overflow with inspiration.

so I didn't really fight with Abby I simply tried to distract her on to the next topic like I do with most students and when I got home that night I practiced dominant scales with my feet and it felt weird & fun