Would Be? Might Be? Is!

"But as the president has made clear, we simply cannot afford to fail in the Middle East. Failure in Iraq at this juncture would be a calamity that would haunt our nation, impair our credibility, and endanger Americans for decades to come."

Robert Gates, US Defense Secretary, December 18, 2006


This is the most egregious lie being propagated by our leaders at this time. It is important that we reframe the issue -- get beyond this will we decide to succeed or not succeed. The decision is out of our hands. Or rather, we made poor decisions, and we failed in Iraq. Past tense. Our credibility is impaired, Americans are endangered. The failure has been accomplished. It's over and done with.

The question now is not one of success or failure -- that question has been answered. The question before our leaders and our country now is how to contain the failure to just Iraq. Humpty Dumpty has fallen...all the president's men can't put Humpty back together again.

America doesn't have to be a peacenik or Pollyanna. But it has to stand for something more than questionable invasions and quick fixes.

That's why how we got into this is still relevant. We need to decide who we are in the world again. Is America a force for good? Then let's do good in the world. Let's invest in a more peaceful world -- whether that means raising the global standard of living or exerting military force to protect ourselves and our allies.

In the end, America must stand not for a way of government but for helping the peoples of the world to live good lives -- to give voice to the voiceless, open opportunity to the poor, and ease the pain of the ailing.

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Late at night, under the covers and by flashlight, I've been re-reading Watchmen graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Gibbons.

If you haven't read it, go forth, buy it and read it.

For a story drawn from 1980s Cold War fears of imminent nuclear armageddon, the story remains remarkably relevant today. And for the conspiracy minded among you, has it been remarked that the horrible event at the climax of Watchmen and the events of 911 could be seen as eerily similar? What if 911 was "manufactured" for the sole purpose of bringing the world together, and we blew it? Or, more likely, 911 could have brought the world together, but, as Alan Moore seems to say, it really just wouldn't have worked anyway... someone would have blown the secret, changed their mind, squandered the goodwill of the nations of the world...

OK ... so it's been remarked... http://www.leanleft.com/archives/2004/01/28/2218/, and ... probably other places, too... But read it or read it again. It's that good.

A Smile for the Season

Nothing makes you smile a sweet, winter-holiday-related smile like walking into the lobby of a Minneapolis office building ... and ... and ...

...practically running smack dab into a real-live Elvis Impersonator, performing "Kentucky Rain" before a crowd of shocked downtown office workers!

Yeah, baby!










*Note: not the actual
Elvis Impersonator seen in
Minneapolis. Photo
"courtesy" of www.elvis2k.co.uk.

An Update

I'm "working hard" in a suburban Minnesota Starbucks. And don't let anyone tell you different.

So...an update:

* Thanks to all who have written to inquire about illustrating my fine comic script. I'm contacting y'all now, or will be soon. If you're interested and haven't written, check out http://domparkercomic.blogspot.com and then send your samples to kkadet@gmail.com.

* Episode X of Peter Flak, Big Time Detective is live at One Minute Stories (http://oneminutestories.blogspot.com). Our hero is confused and weak of stomach, pursuing his supposedly dead publicist to the posh Carstairs Hotel and being pursued by a dogged TV reporter with her own agenda. Will Detective Flak find the answers to his vexing questions? Will he do any detecting? Will anything ever happen in this story?

The answer is... what were the questions again? The story is steaming toward a pulse-pounding, mind-blowing, mildly amusing conclusion in the coming ... umm weeks or so. Don't forget to start at the beginning...

Star Search

I've officially finished with the first draft of my magnum opus of a comic book script, now called "Wings." Three issues and 60+ comic pages of kid-with-invisible-wings-and-his-friends related action. You can see my "pitch" and the backstory at http://domparkercomic.blogspot.com.

If you visit and have before, you'll note that the script itself is no longer there -- I've done a lot of editing and it wasn't so current anymore. The site now is officially dedicated to my efforts to recruit an illustrator who can bring this story to life.

If you are an illustrator visiting here from the many places I've posted my plaintive plea for an illustrator/collaborator, have a look at the Dom Parker/Wings project blog. You'll find the backstory to the tale I've penned, a description of Dom, the main character. I'll be adding descriptions of the other main characters over the next couple days.

My biggest challenge, of course, is finding an artist. I thought perhaps that there would be someone out there willing to do this for "experience," but so far, no one's taken a bite on
my pitch. Not surprising, I guess, given that I'm sitting what would probably end up being over 100 hours of work if it were to be pencilled, inked, colored, lettered and nitpicked over by the writer.

Again, if you're an artist, and you're good, let me know if you're interested... I'm soon going to discuss what I can invest in this project in real dollars with my Lovely Wife.

Anyone with interest, ideas, comments or questions, feel free to comment here or email me!

More on the Artistic Process

Have you ever made up a song in the car? I do this all the time. I have written about a half-a-CD's worth of songs...out loud...while driving to work in the morning.

Unfortunately, I can't remember any of them.

It gets me back to the question of "harnessing the creative process." As in, "how do you do it?"

I believe it is childish to think that you can only create 'when the inspiration strikes'. That's an excuse. The artist captures inspiration and turns it into something, not just poorly sung lyrics shouted out to silently to fellow participants in a traffic jam, but inspired words and music carefully crafted into something that...well... might well mean something.

Or at least be enjoyable.

Writers...write. Creators...create. Office workers...get out of the coffee shop and go back to the office.

For the stuff I write without much inspiration, but with, I hope, some art... check out One Minute Stories...

More later.

My First Comic Con

After a lifetime of avoiding true geekdom, I attended my first comic book convention yesterday, the FallCon put on by the fine folks at the Midwest Comic Book Association. Since I'm generally not allowed to go to such events alone (and because they're a lot of fun), I brought the family 5- and 6-year-olds along for the ride.

Brushing over the remembered anxieties of a pre-teen kid, I explained to them on the way to the Minnesota State Fairgrounds how I was always afraid to go to a comic book convention back at ages 10-16. I always thought it would be "weird" or somehow "too much."

Part of it, too, at that time, was that I'd never wanted to be a comic book "collector". I bought comics because I liked the stories. I wasn't comfortable being around people gauging the value of each comic, or buying up multiple issues of the same comic so that they could save them for resale some day -- mind you, this was in 1980-81 or so, before the I dropped out of comics and well before what I understand was the great comic boom of the late 80s and 90s, which I pretty much missed out on. This was around the time that my best friend beat me to 7-11 and bought up all the copies of the Uncanny X-Men issue where Kitty Pryde fights the demon alone in the mansion, and I had to shame him into letting me buy it off of him. Back then, you just didn't want to miss an issue of X-Men -- we thrilled to Alpha Flight, cringed at the depredations of the Hellfire Club and cried our way through the Dark Phoenix saga ... and we knew we were in on something special -- not valuable -- special.

Back to the present. To my everlasting delight, my oldest son says that he'd never feel too weird to go to a comic convention, because he loves this stuff...this and I still won't let him read a modern comic. Funny how such freedom from what others see as strange or embarrassing is available only to the very young and the very old -- or those of us who are old enough to decide for ourselves. Like me ... nearing 40 and dammit, I was going to a comic convention!

FallCon was a modest affair. Call it about 8 rows of artists and dealers. Not much of the weirdness in the aisles associated with some of the bigger cons that I've read about. My five year old was apparently cute enough to merit a couple of door prizes -- a giant bag of about 50 recent comics, a ton of licorice and assorted candies, and about 20 of dice of varying denominations (I told my wife they were "D&D dice" -- I'd given up role playing games about the time I gave up comics, so I have no idea if they're used for anything else...). Then, I'm pretty sure the guys doing the raffle ticket prizes overheard our numbers and made sure the little one was a winner -- he chose a Spawn action figure, which in a five-year-old's hands was pretty disturbing. But it was his call.

The kids made sure that we made a beeline for "The Batcave" to see the Batmobile and Bat Cycle, and where an aging, pot-bellied Batman, a wavy-haired puffy-chested Superman, and a chubby red-haired Robin milled about, along with a Wonder Woman who I admired for her confidence to be willing to don the costume. And she pulled it off pretty darn well.

Then, on to the artists. FallCon is a place for collectors to find lost issues and old toys, creators to meet and network, and fans to meet local talent and get good deals. Me? I just wanted to soak it all in, and maybe see bit of what it's like to be a creator.

What did I learn?

1. It's hard to strike up a conversation with a 6 and 5 year old in tow. No problem, because they had a great time, and so did I, but let's just say that "short attention span theater" was the order of the day.

2. The FallCon was filled with really nice people. Besides giving us free stuff, we chatted with the creator of Frontier (no link -- looks like good-comics.com has gone down the tubes), who showed my kids how to draw Spider-Man. I bought a copy of Issue #0.

Also chatted with another creator whose name escapes about "getting back into comics" and how to connect with artists, since I have a script I'm helplessly trying to finish for what will be no good reason if I don't seek an artist. He let me tell him about it, and thought I should look into a manga style for the art ... not something I'd thought of given my old school experience.

3. Even the toy guys were pretty nice -- one guy was happy to "downsell" me to a cheaper item so he could make a sale of a Spider-Man figure to my kid. I can appreciate that. By the way....

4. ...there are a lot of toys at these things. Hold onto your wallet if you bring your kids!

5. There are a lot of people out here just trying to get into the field ... and the combination of the web and on-demand printing is making it easier to get in. I'll talk about the Web in a second, but, it's heartening (and a little unnerving) that so many have such passion for a medium that they'll give over so much of their lives to drawing out their stories because they've been thinking about it and just want to get back into comics.


6. There is no reason in the world why a creator can't build a large audience via the web and make a little money at it...if they're able to deliver quality and work hard at self promotion. Moreover, I'm pretty convinced that the big guys could make some money online as well if they'd put some effort into it.

7. FallCon is really for the serious comic fan -- you almost need a plan coming in -- to see certain people, or search for certain comics and toys. If they thought about it, they could draw in a wider crowd. You could set up workshops that help kids make their own comics, or invent a character. You could have someone giving comic art lessons throughout the day. You could give people rides on the Batmobile. Do a kids/teens self-made costume contest. Put together a "readers panel" ... Hold a "new creators" or "under 18" contest -- say, for scripts and art -- and let visitors vote.

Might have to volunteer next year...

Anyway, thanks to FallCon and the MNCBA -- the kids said, enthusiastically, that they'd do this again, and a good time was had by all.

New Stories Update

I've started to get a bit more prolific on the writing front, so I thought I'd share the lastest with you, my loyal reader or two...

On my One Minute Stories blog, I've started a new series: Peter Flak, Vain Detective, the story of a good-looking homicide detective who arrives on the scene with his own press agent -- he's grossed out by dead bodies, but has a nose for the news -- being on it, that is. Here are links to Part I, Part II and Part III.

I'm also pretty fond of a recent One Minute Story called "Dreams Have Eyes," if only because I like the title.

Anyway, if you like the stories, share 'em around... and feel free to send me your own... it'd be fun to open it up a little more.

I've been working privately on my comic script -- issues 1-2 are online. I've decided to finish it as a three-part series and see if I can find someone to draw it, since my artistic abilities are confined to poorly proportioned doodles.

Meanwhile, people I've informed seem to be pleased that I'm not going to relocate myself and family to Australia, which I guess is comforting.

Finally, it might comfort you to know (it comforts me, anyway) that life feels a lot less like a chronic impending disaster these days. Perhaps I'm closer to the solutions we're after, or maybe I'm just getting better at going with the flow. But you never know what's...impending...

Fame and Fortune

It is horribly vain to admit you want to be famous. And yet there are days when I want more than anything else to shout from the rooftops.

Which, of course, leads to a different kind of fame: "Local Man Shouts From Rooftops, Taken Away in White Van."

But that's just negative thinking. Putting up barriers where there ought be none.

Fame is for obsessives. Fortune, likewise, is for those willing to sacrifice to get it. And who's got the time to make those kinds of choices, really?

One of the reasons the Web has taken off is the promise of easy money. You can reach so much, generate "network effects" so quickly, that you can get fame and fortune without the hassle of hard work. You put up a blog or a MySpace page, and you think...wish...hope...that the whole world will beat a path to your virtual doorstep.

That's the underlying weakness in the foundation of Web 2.0 and participatory communication. Most people don't have the stomach to be creators. They're not obsessed -- they're dilettantes, fascinated by the sparkling promise of easy Internet fame, convinced that if they put the silly video they made with their friends up on YouTube that the whole world will find it just as funny as they did when it was screened for 15 of their drunkest friends.

People fret that LonelyGirl15 turned out to be a fake. Of course she was. It takes work to be entertaining. It takes work simply to be found on the Internet. Real "lonely girls" don't become Internet stars because they aren't that interesting, or aren't willing or able or talented enough to be interesting. Or, if they are, aren't willing to engage in the very specialized type of self-promotion that spurs "the Internet" to choose your "performance" over all the other lonely voices on the Web, speaking to no one but a few classmates and unfeeling search agents.

I find LonelyGirl15's "outing" as an actress fed lines by a wannabe director and screenwriter to be comforting. There's no free lunch. An unknown can create something new and compelling that gets everyone talking. If they're savvy and obsessive and vain and willing to sacrifice for fame and fortune.

There's hope for us all.

Work and Play

I've been nose deep at work lately, which is a good thing. Lots to do, and lots to think about

For the past month, my job had been dangling before me an opportunity to move with my family for two years to Sydney, Australia. The Wife and I were getting pretty excited. Last week, it was cruelly snatched away. Apparently, they hadn't budgeted enough for us get there...and back.

Some key learnings from the experience: They really wanted me there. A lot. Apparently, I interview pretty well when properly motivated. And, perhaps I have a bit of entrepreneur in me, looking for an outlet.

I've decided to take all of this as motivation. To get on with my work and stop waiting for the deus ex machina to reach down and pluck me out of ... all of this. You want to change your life? Change your life. You want to be more engaged, get on top of things? Do it! You want more surprises? Surprise people...they may just surprise you back.

# # #

When Is A Vacation Not a Vacation?

When is a Vacation not a Vacation

1. When your entire office knows they can email and call you on your cell phone.

2. When you blackberry is sitting next to you on the coffee shop table.

4. When you have a to do list that includes mostly client projects.

5. When you're pretty sure you're not going to get to do any writing, except when you're waiting for Outlook to download the giant client report file so that you can start on the giant report you need to write for the client so she doesn't get asked by her boss what we're doing for all of the money they're spending and she'll have to say she doesn't know which is silly because she knows exactly what we've been doing on pretty much a day-to-day basis but even so I've procrastinated on this report so much that I shouldn't have to be doing it on vacation and yet here I am at a coffee house all ready to write my latest story and instead I'm waiting to work on this report and sometimes I think I just need to leave the country. Heh.

Talk to y'all later...

My First Illustrated Comic

I've been trying my hand at comic script writing over at a great forum for budding comic creators called PencilJack. After posting a number of scripts, a terrific illustrator in the UK looking to build his portfolio emailed me to see if he could do a script of mine. I'm ashamed to say that I presented him with a rather odd one... It serves as a vast exaggeration of what I thought was a funny situation and, perhaps, a side of me that just wants to crawl into a corner by himself...although Mrs. Chronic finds it a tad too close to the bone, you might say...


Anyway, click here to check it out at my story blog, and let me know what you think.

Home Improvement

As I aimed the garden hose at my burning face and squeezed the trigger, I found myself musing on how, when I die, the coroner might find himself marking the story of my body's life by the scars left from home improvement projects.

Yesterday, the project was refinishing the wooden front porch -- about a 12'x4' space. The project began with a belt sander, a frisky little device that bucked like a puppy on a leash, ready to take off if I didn't maintain a firm grip. Two days, seven sandpaper belts and one wide, red scrape down the inside of my left wrist later, I had a mostly sanded deck, with large areas of paint left around the edges.

Next, the Internet said to "strip" the deck, so I went out and got me some deck stripper, giggled some, wistfully fantasized about deck strippers, put on a baseball cap, latex gloves and safety goggles and went to work rolling the pungent liquid onto the deck. At some point, I decided switch from roller to stiff-bristled brush, so I lifted the safety goggles, unscrewed the roller from the pole and in doing so, spattered deck stripper on my face.

I felt what I imagine a vampire feels when splashed with holy water -- "It burns! It burns!" Thus the firing of the garden hose at my face.

Later, after a cleansing shower, I took inventory. There's the purple bruise on my toe and still-not-yet-healed scrape across my shin from dropping a large wood frame during the construction of the kids' bunk bed -- a project that involved much swearing and use of Resolve to dissolve the blood on the carpet. There are the host of little cuts on my hands and wrists, the most fresh from rolling two rocks from the woods to the garden -- the rocks must have weighed 200 pounds each.

Then there's the thin scar on my forehead, obtained 17 years ago, during a stop to see a friend in Cleveland on my way to Minnesota. My allergies were horrible that trip, the floor of my little maroon Ford Escort was covered in Kleenex, and my sneezing fits were increasingly violent. So I'm with my friend Naomi digging through the Escort for a package of Sudafed, when I feel another sneeze come on. So I stand up and sneeze hard, slamming my head into the corner of the open car door. It sounded like I'd been shot. Blood streaming through my fingers, I turn to Naomi and say, "Why did you hit me?"... Which strikes her as the funniest thing she's heard in the longest time and she laughs and laughs while I grab at wads of dried Kleenex to stop the bleeding. I saw her a couple years ago at the wedding of a mutual friend, and she still could hardly speak she was laughing so hard. Meanwhile, you can still see the scar, faintly, over my right eyebrow.

Okay, that had nothing to do with home improvement. Except to say that, in general, it's best for all concerned that I continue to hire experts for most projects and save my frequent flier miles for long summer trips.

# # #

Get Rich Quick Scheme (or, "My One Hit Wonder!")

Every so often, I have these genius type brainstorms that I'm sure would make me a ton of money if I were ever to put in the necessary work to make them happen. Or even to write them down. I don't do either, which is convenient, in that it allows me to be smugly satisfied that I would indeed be wealthy, famous and important if I were to do so, while simultaneously excusing me from said effort.

This morning I found myself dissecting the modern folk song. The local public radio morning show played a song called, "Analog Girl" by Guy Clarke (I think). The song offers a mildly contrarian nostalgic take on the kind of girl who has, if I recall the lyrics right, "a mouse in her pocket and SPAM(r) in a can."

There's a whole genre of songs like this -- the semi-humorous folk song. They take a semi-clever hook of obvious timely nature and, well, describe it. The listener thinks: "Ha ha. That's funny. He's singing about an analog girl who doesn't have a cell phone and whose web site catches the morning dew." But there's nothing really funny there, beyond that he's singing about it. The more you listen, the more you realize that it's just an awkward title and descriptive lyrics to go around it.

Then I realized that the country music industry is pretty much built on songs like this. Songs that make you feel nostalgic without giving you anything real or poetic or funny to grab onto. Then I thought: I could write one of these! I could write a one-hit-wonder novelty song!

Then I thought of one. It's a can't miss hit! I'll even give you the title, you my vast Internet audience. Are you ready? Really? Here it is:

Dancin' to Stairway

It's a nostalgic song about how we children of the 70s and 80s spent high school dances draped over one another, unable to dance a step, swaying, practically melting into one another while Stairway to Heaven seemed to play on and on and you hoped it would never end. Or wondered if it ever would. The tune would be driven by a folk-acoustic guitar but punctuated by slow Jimmy Page-esque electric riffs. The refrain would go something like:

And we clung to each other
Her head on my shoulder
On and on we swayed
Dancin' to Stairway...

This song would sell, I'm telling you. I only ask that if you steal it before I write it, let's keep the lawyers out of it. Just give me credit and pay me gobs and gobs of cash so I can quit my job and write up more of these. I got a million of 'em.

10 Years On

This year is my 10th year at my job. I never thought I'd stick with this job for 10 years. Then again, I should have known better. Per the previous story, I'll tend to keep on keeping on. I don't know much about changing direction.

Anyway, my 10th year coincides with the 10th anniversary of my agency's first client; tonight, they held a celebration, and I got to go. Much irony for me: the last time I changed jobs, it was for this client, the chance to help them launch as a brand new company. I was a fresh-faced 28 year old, ready for bigger and better things, to take my talent to an international stage. My first assignment: coordinate the planning of a launch party for some 3,000 people that would set the stage for employees that they were going to be part of something great.

Now, when I was considering "bigger and better things", that did not in any way involve event planning or employee communication. But there I was watching the CEO deliver the speech I'd written as 3,000 people rose as one in a standing ovation.

Here I was tonight, standing alone and apart among a much smaller crowd of a leaner company set for the long haul, watching a new CEO handle his own speech. Then navigating past the games and the pony rides, trying not to trip over tent stakes and picnic tables for familiar faces, and not finding many. Here I was balancing a paper plate that sagged under the weight of overcooked chicken and pasta salad, wondering what I was doing there, beyond angling for company logo swag.

They've changed. They've passed the torch to a new leader, a new team. They chose their path, made their moves. Ten years ago, the big party was meant to put a happy face on the doubts and fears of employees facing a newly uncertain future. Today, they were relaxed, happy. They know where they stand, where they're going. There's a strength there, a serenity you find, when you're in the place where you're supposed to be.

Me, I met few old clients. We talked. We reminisced about people we thought we'd forgotten. And I left, squinting into the setting sun.

Swimming for My Life

A couple of days ago, I nearly died. It seems worth admitting.

The wife and kids and I went to a local beach on Sunday. A little lake with a sandy beach, a shallow swimming area, a dock where you can rent pedal boats on one side and a fishing pier on the other. While my wife supervises the 2-year-old sleeping in the car, we set up shop on a picnic table, lay out the towels, snacks, water bottles, squirt guns, a pail full of shovels and a beach ball.

First off the kids decide that Daddy should take them on a pedal boat ride (or is it a 'paddle boat'? It does require a lot of peddling...). We boat about the lake, riding to other side and back again. After much begging, I make up a superhero story for the ride.

One thing I should mention is that I was fasting that day. It was for a medical test and it turned out negative, so no worries, but I was really hungry. Feeling kind of weak. I'd intended to take it easy that day, but there I was out on the lake with the kids, furiously peddling the boat. And, with much banging of the dock, we made it back just fine and I worked up a little sweat and decided that this was good -- I'd gotten my 30 minutes of excercise in for the day.

At this point the romping and playing in the water begins. A massive squirt gun fight erupts.
The 2-year-old awakens, and my wife brings the pail, shovels and beach ball to the edge of the water. A mound-style castle is formed and the dirt around it is excavated and filled with water. Imaginary dragons patrol the moat. While vigorously defending myself from the onslaught of SuperSoakers, I break a squirt gun.

My wife interrupts with a shout: "The beach ball!"

The beach ball, it seems, has floated unnoticed to the boat dock. Another dad has a toddler in an inner tube floating off the dock, and is gamely trying to grab the ball as well.

"Don't let him do that," my wife says. "Go get the ball."

I sigh. I go to get the ball. The dad is now fumbling between his toddler and the ball as I jog to the dock. Finally, he chooses the toddler and lets the ball go. I reach the end of the dock. The dad shrugs and I laugh. Yeah, of course you'd choose the kid!

The ball is just out of reach, so I roll my eyes and reluctantly jump into the lake.

"It's pretty shallow here," the dad says helpfully.

The ball is a good, I don't know, 10 feet ahead. No problem. I forge ahead, trudging through the brown-green water with my arms up like a GI in a Vietnam movie.

The ball is still a good 10 feet ahead. Maybe eight now.

Water's getting deeper. I'd probably get there a little faster if I swam. We'll start with a crawl. Don't want to go crazy -- I'll go heads-up style. Gotta keep my eye on the ball.

I maybe make up a foot or so. Getting kind of tired. How far have I swum?

I turn around. Whoa.

The dock looks rather small. For a moment, I recall that it actually took quite awhile to get this far ... in the boat. Hrm.

Ball's still out of reach. Maybe if I can just reach it, I can lean on it. I can float. Let's try a breast stroke. Always been my best. My form is perfect ... I can do this forever.

Wow. How far am I away now? The dock looks pretty small from here. The ball's still maybe, I don't know, 10 feet away. That's even farther than before. This might be a problem.

I strain to keep the rhythm -- sweep arms, breathe, head down, frog kick, glide, sweep arms, breathe, head down, frog kick, glide -- my heart is pounding. I'm getting tired.

But, I came out here for the ball. I'm breathing hard. I can't go back without the ball.

It's at this point that I realize that I could die, right here. In the lake. Chasing a corporate logoed beach ball we got for free at some long-forgotten summer festival.

I stop swimming. I tread water for a moment. The wind carries the ball swiftly across the lake. Soon, it looks as small as the dock behind me, back where I started. Where I have to go now.

I'm too tired. I'm not going to make it. I gulp a mouthful of lake water. Heart pounding harder. Breathing heavy. I yelp, squeal. I'm having a panic attack. I look up at the bright blue sky of a perfect Sunday afternoon, and I float.

I can float.

I can float here all day. I start in on a new rhythm: Arms out, kick, legs straight, arms sweep back, glide...repeat. Elementary back stroke. Keep going. I can keep going.

As I swim, I write the news story in my head: Area man, father of three, drowns in lake pursuing a free beach ball. Talk radio has a field day: "What kind of guy gives it all up for a beach ball? We'll miss him...not!"

I keep swimming. My six-year-old is shouting for me. "Daaaady! Daaaady!" I try to answer. Bad idea. He can wait.

I keep swimming.

The climax is anti-climactic. I live. I make it to the dock. The six-year-old meets me there on the dock. We walk together to the shore.

My wife is back at the picnic table. I catch her eye and smile weakly. She's shaking her head at me.

"What did you want?" I say to my six-year-old, casually, trying not to show how hard I'm breathing.

"I was just saying, 'Hi!'," he says. I give him a hug and rub his head.

Tethered

I work in a tall building in Minneapolis, on the top floor. Nothing special about that, it just worked out that way for my company. This morning, it's a longer wait than usual, so I take out my Blackberry wireless device and start to mess around...I check the time, check emails, and then start in on a half-hearted game of BrickBreaker.

This guy gets on board the elevator with me and hits a button two floors below mine. Out of the corner of my eye, with most of my attention focused on the tiny, bouncing pixel charged with destroying the artfully arranged bricks on BrickBreaker's 2nd level, I take note of the guy. Boring brown-grey suit, tie, about six-foot-two, brown hair, weathered face of a guy who makes a lot of money and gets outside to enjoy it once in awhile...must have been in his early 50s. He nods at me.

"We're really tethered to those things, aren't we?" he says.

"Uh...yeah, yeah we are, aren't we," I say, taking a second to realize that he's talking about the Blackberry.

"Seems like we're always tethered to work these days. Work has to go everywhere with us."

"Yeah, it does. But you know, I kind of like it. It gives me fair warning on what's waiting for me at the office." It's always a pleasure to have someone new to hear my standard line on the Blackberry. It's getting old for everyone else.

"Well, sometimes, you don't want to know, right?" I tear my eyes away from the device and hit the escape key, pausing the game. The guy has a stony look to him, gazing off in the distance ... all the way to the elevator wall somewhere above me.

"Ha," I laugh, "I guess that's right."

"We have to turn those things off sometimes, right?"

"You just have to set your limits, you know?" I say, trying to be helpful.

"We're really tethered to these things. It's like there's no line between work and home. We're always on," he says, again, with a sadness in his voice that translates itself right into that place where sadness weighs heavy on you, just around the jawline and over the eyes.

"I guess so," I say, and I look down, sharing his ... ennui, I guess.

The elevator "bongs" with the signal that it's reached his floor and the man exits.

"Well, try and have a good day," he says.

"You, too," I say.

And I realize in that moment that this is a profoundly sad man, who, despite whatever else he has going for him, feels powerless over the forces of his life, powerless to do anything to assert control over his time, unable to set boundaries. Powerless, except for his ability to reach out, over a 45-second elevator ride, to someone who might just be a kindred spirit, who might just understand. I realize all that, and the fact that he has no idea that I would soon attain a personal high score on BrickBreaker, and the resulting sense of accomplishment would carry me a good hour into this second day of the week.

# # #

Parent of the Year Award Application

So, I'm outside with my two-year-old the other day. He's great. I'm trying to do some yard work -- pullin' weeds, puttin' up flower fences so the irises don't droop, weed whackin', layin' down mulch in the garden, that sort of thing. I call him "Pig Will" from this old story by Richard Scarry about "Pig Will and "Pig Won't", where Pig Won't is the kid who won't do anything his parents say -- won't help out, won't do chores, won't go with Dad to work on the boat and just sits around and gets bored while good 'ol Pig Will does all of this, has a great time with Dad working on the boat and at the end of the day gets an ice cream treat. At the end, Pig Won't learns his lesson and becomes "Pig Me Too!"

Anyway, my two-year-old is a little Pig Will -- anything I ask he shrugs his shoulders and says "OK" and off we charge. He's a good kid and a tough one -- he rarely complains, and doesn't 'sweat the small stuff' as my Dad would say. So I'm getting ready to haul 40 lb. bags of mulch across the yard to the garden, so I plop him down on the rock bed by the side of the house by a strange toy that involves pushing boats and water and little spinning wheels and set to work.

I walk by with the first couple bags and he's playing just fine. Drop the bags, trudge back, think about how I should be using a wheel barrow, pick up two more bags and trudge along. Pig Will is still playing, but he's shifting around a bit. Wonder if he needs a diaper. Mental note -- check later. Drop bags, trudge back. Pig Will is waving his arms, but this is nothing unusual for a two-year-old. Who knows what's on his mind? I sling another bag over my shoulder and trudge back to the garden. Now Pig Will is grunting, still waving his arms. His voice is starting to sound like a kind of whimper, or something. Never heard that particular sound before, actually.

Now, my little guy is a pretty good talker, so when he grunts and whimpers and waves his arms, well ... it's time to go back to the garden and drop off another bag and see how he is when I get back. So I do, and he's still doing it -- the whimpering, the grunting, the waving of arms, the confused and possibly horrified expression. Something clicks in the parental part of my brain -- perhaps I should check this out!

I bend down and look at him, and he looks up at me sadly and says, "Ahh!". Oh, hey, there, I say, it's okay!

Then I notice an ant on his leg. Actually, a couple ants. I brush them off. "It's okay -- it's just a couple ants! Brush, brush, brush!" Then I notice the ants on his other leg. And another crawling on his foot. "Ooh...lots of ants...wow...it's okay. Brusha brusha." And I brush them off his other leg.

But I'm starting to get a feeling that there's a theme at work here, which is when I notice about a dozen ants on his overall shorts, two on his left hand, a few more on his right arm and one on his forehead. Wow, I think. That's a lot of ants. That's when I decide to pick up Pig Will and see what's going on here. And then I say it aloud: "That's a lot of ants!"

Because it was a lot of ants. Where Pig Will had been sitting were about half dozen very large little sandpiles with holes in the middle -- ant hills -- hundreds of ants swarming about, no doubt in a frenzy over the giant diapered create sitting atop their homes. It's at this point that I realize that the giant diapered creature had been mostly stoically enduring a swarm of dozens of ants crawling over his entire body -- up and down his legs and arms and even under his shirt.

"Wow, kiddo," I say. I call him kiddo sometimes. "You've got ants all over you!"

"Yeah," he says. "Ants. On my legs."

"Yeah, and on your nose...beep, beep. Let's get these ants off of you. Do you like ants on you?"

"Nooooo."

"Yeah. Daddy sat you down on an ant hill. Sorry 'bout that."

"Yeah," he says, giving me a very stern look as I peek down his diaper to be sure I haven't missed any stray ants. "I don't like ant hills."

In Search of a Rose

Where will I wander and wonder?
Nobody knows.
But wherever I'm a'going I'll go
In search of a Rose.

Whatever the will of the weather
Whether it shines or snows,
Wherever I'm a'going I'll go
In search of a Rose.

Don't know where it's found,
But I don't mind.
As long as the world spins around,
I'll take my time.

I'll savour the softness of summer;
I'll wrap up when winter blows.
Wherever I'm a'going I'll go
In search of a Rose.

--Mike Scott/The Waterboys

Idleness and depression are often the direct result of idealism. For some, the Ideal is all that is worth doing. Anything less is not. Idealists quickly find that they have two routes: They can devote their entire being to reaching the Ideal, turning life into a quest for Perfection -- excellence at their job, the perfect mate, the ideal home, model children, the perfect life. Or, they can lay their hammer down and give up the quest, knowing that the Ideal is impossible...
choosing, through inaction, the perfect path of least resistance, perhaps hoping that the Ideal will find you. Counter-intuitively, perhaps, both ways are equally effective.

The "third way" is to choose the Journey over the Ideal, knowing that Truth and Beauty can be discovered along the way. To keep searching for the Rose, not because you expect to find it, but to savor the boundless paths you'll take on the way to Wherever.

In a Curmudgeonly Spirit of Sharing...

Vacation has come and gone, and I'm back, ready to take on the world and stuff. Or at least to blog and blog again. In the spirit of sharing, here are some things that I've been thinking about...

> I hate summer. There's too much pressure. "Oh what a nice day! We can't waste such a nice day!" There's a lot of pressure in a nice day. You have to embrace it. You have to plan for it. You have to have amazing experiences during them. You have to go outside on nice days. Sometimes, I'm perfectly happy in my air conditioned family room watching the damn television. I shouldn't have to feel guilty about not meeting some artificial standard of nice day ecstasy.

Oh yeah: And it's too damn hot.

> My new-ish Blackberry email machine came pre-loaded with a game called "Brick Breaker". I've discovered it. This is a bad thing. But amid my assault on the digital bricks with my digital ball and laser blasts and what have you, I am being careful this time around. My old Palm Vx has a broken Calendar button as a result of my heavy-thumbed obsession with a handheld Asteroids game.

> My oldest son finished kindergarten yesterday. Nothing terribly remarkable here, but it brings back memories. Putting him to bed last night, he suddenly says, "Why do we have to be done with school? I like going to school." I'm glad he can say so, but feel sorry as well. Later, he'll discover, as I did, that it's not politically correct to admit that you like school and that you actually want to learn something.

> Credit the Newsarama blog for this one: Check out Alienware's Superman Notebook computer. A sign of the apocolypse? Or of the coming rapture...?

Motivate Me

Back in grad school, my friend and periodic reader Gary and I created what we called "The Intensity Sign." It was, simply, the word "INTENSITY" hastily scribbled in pencil on a sheet of yellow lined paper as a reminder to be... well... intense. Focused. Driven. You post it over your desk and it reminds you that the time has come to get the damn job done and move on.

You might guess that I'm in need of such a sign right now, plunking away these workday hours on a blog, and you'd be right. But these days I'm in need of deeper motivation than a reminder to be motivated, so to speak. I'll note a few... perhaps you, the reader, can share a few of your own.

"My family" -- yes, yes, of course. I'm working really hard because my family needs me to. OK, now that this is out of the way...

"Stickin' it to The Man" -- I have this theory that I could, if I wanted, get done most of what I have to do in any given week in about two days. This would leave me three days a week to obsessively pursue useless activities -- expounding on the media and politics, writing and reading comic books, surfing the Internet for online comic books, drinking coffee, sketching comic books -- while being paid a healthy salary. Downside: Amusing in the short term, mind numbing and self destructive in the long term.

"Becoming The Man" -- if I work really hard, I could get promoted, gain more responsibility, make more money, and buy a cute little cabin up in the woods by a lake and hide there during my infrequent vacations. I could be The Man, the guy in the office that people humor because they have to, follow because they must and fear because, well, because I'm The Man. Downside: Hating myself.

"Completion of Current Self-Loathing Cycle" -- (or, Avert My Chronic Impending Disaster). Even though my blog gets updated much more often, I don't like myself when I act like this. Usually it happens after I finish some big projects and I'm not sure what to do next. I should go on vacation. Fly a kite. Stick my feet in a river. Catch a fish. And then come back.

With Intensity!

What to Do in Cerritos, California

And now, the long-awaited review of my latest business trip. I recently spent three days and two nights in Cerritos, Calif., a non-descript town of unknown size about 30 miles south of Los Angeles. Let's get right to it!

Best Place to Stay -- Sheraton Four Points
I stayed at the luxurious Sheraton Four Points Hotel in Cerritos. It was very conveniently located. We could walk to numerous local restaurants, like Macaroni Grill and Starbucks, as well as shopping like Old Navy and Borders.

The hotel itself was well appointed. The shower left something to be desired -- while competently designed, it took a little over an hour for the tub to drain. My feet certainly got a good soaking!

However, it didn't have wireless access in any room, except the lobby. Look, Mr. Sheraton, Motel 6's and Holiday Inns have wireless -- you can spring for Wireless, too!

Best Restaurant -- Arte Cafe or something like that
On night 2, we had a late meal at this restaurant in the mall across the street. I ate the lamb chops with mashed potatoes and some vegatables. They were suitably delicious, but through the entire meal, I kept thinking about how I was eating lamb, which is, as you may know, a baby sheep. A baby!

Best Ribs -- The Wood Grill
Shout out to the Wood Grill, where I ate a full rack of baby back ribs. From the chest cavity of a pig! Why was I thinking about this all weekend?

Best Long-Form Magazine Article -- Harper's
The previous might have something to do with the article in the May issue of Harper's which discussed how the modern pork producer must engage in rather disturbing forms of artificial insemination to breed pigs, since the old-fashioned way carries high risk of disease, which, due to the lack of genetic variation among pigs selectively bred for their large size and deliciousness, would be disastrous.

Best Movie -- Mission Impossible 3
I have a colleague whose example encourages me to embrace my inner geek. His office is an ode to the tech gadget, decorated with comic book posters. So, traveling with him for the first time, I rode his wave. First, we made the pilgramage to Fry's electronics, a geek warehouse par excellence, and where he beat me out for a $60 2GB flash drive, and where, I must admit, I could have spent a lot of money of I so desired, but I didn't. But he got the flash drive, USB hub and a power strip, because, you know, you can't have too many.

Then we had dinner, indulged in three little bowls of tiramisu, and then trooped off for the 10 pm showing of MI: 3. This was a popcorn movie if there ever was one, and we each stuffed our faces with a medium popcorn and Coke.

The popcorn was stale, the Coke unnecessary, and the movie incredulous but fun. My eyes are still popping from the glare of Tom Cruise's teeth, but frankly, I went there to see unbelievable stunts, explosions, high tech gadgets, more explosions, gun fights and more explosions. Ka-Boom! Mission Accomplished!

That's about it for my trip to the Los Angeles metropolitan area. I hope you'll clip and save this advice, and you can do what I did in Cerritos!

Los Angeles Travelogue

My latest business trip takes me to Los Angeles. L-A. La la land. Yeah, baby.

On this trip, we decided to stay outside of the city in a little town called Cerritos.

Here in Cerritos, they have a Sheraton, where I'm staying, a Macaroni Grill, an Old Navy and a Borders, and palm trees, right outside my window! I can't quite see the ocean, but I'm sure it's here somewhere outside of the Sheraton. Maybe I'll go out tonight and check. Or, I might just avail myself of the various treasures in the Starwood Entertainment Network on the good 'ol television. Movies for only $12 bucks, and I don't have to go anywhere!

Tomorrow, we'll work some more and then drive the minivan back to the airport and have more adventures. Maybe we'll through Compton. By highway at least...

The Common Good: No Sacrifice At All

David Brooks again shows why he's the liberals' favorite conservative in his New York Times column this week (registration and possible payment required; free registration at the StarTribune). His theme is one I've been harping on here and in political conversations for some time now: why can't a Democrat get up and say what they stand for -- because clearly they stand for both everything and nothing today.

Brooks notes a growing consensus by liberal intellectuals around an old but forgotten theme: The common good. Citing a recent essay by writer Michael Tomasky, Brooks notes:

"Tomasky is now back with an essay in the American Prospect, in which he argues that it is time Democrats cohered around a big idea -- not diversity and not individual rights, but the idea of the common good. The Democrats' central themes, Tomasky advises, should be that we're all in this together; we are all part of a larger national project; we all need to make some shared sacrifices and look beyond our narrow self-interest. Tomasky is hoping for a candidate who will ignore the demands of the single-issue groups and argue that all Americans have a stake in reducing economic fragmentation and social division."

He notes that Democratic pollsters are saying the same thing.

"John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira, have just finished a long study that comes out in exactly the same place. Surveying mountains of polling data, they conclude that the Democrats' chief problem is that people don't think they stand for anything. Halpin and Teixeira argue that the message voters respond to best is the notion of shared sacrifice for the common good."

As a conservative, Brooks points this out a more negative light than I would. If I were writing for Democrats today, I'd talk not in terms of "shared sacrifice" but about that shared mission.

I'd point out that we are a part of all of our communities, and in America, our government is not some separate caste of elites but an expression of ourselves, what we want for our communities, our states and our nation. Our shared mission is to make them all a place where people can improve their lives, make something of themselves and take care of each other when they can't do it themselves.

You can tax me for this. It's no sacrifice at all.
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Bonus! Visit some of my other political screeds!

Criminal Ineloquence

Invest in America

Hindsight is Foresight

State of the Union Part II

State of the Union Part I

Drinks Are On Me!

An Observation:

Here's what my work life has looked like over the last eight months:

• Sincere emotional and physical burnout at work. Ability to concentrate, focus and enjoy life severely impacted.
  
• Said burnout contributes to loss of major account.
  
• Loss of major account leading to dramatic turnaround in overall mood and outlook on life. Laughing more, speaking and acting with confidence.
• Said outlook and mood improved by boss who, embarrassingly, pushes all the right buttons and sends me on a positive career course.
• Contribute mightily to many non-revenue generating but important new business projects.
• Receive raise via said boss.
• Direct supervisor recommends me for promotion.

Exactly what's going on here?

Is being happy and confident is good enough in today's work world?

Or am I just better at this than I thought?

Regardless, it's severely impacted my blogging. So, I apologize to my thre or so regular readers and those of you who land here via odd MSN searches. Thank you for your support.

And smile! Drinks are on me!

The Opposite of Humor

Or, "Snark for Snark's Sake"

I've discovered the opposite of humor and it is Newsweek. And Jay Leno. Newsweek and Jay Leno epitomize this pop culture referencin', we-all-know-what-jerks-they-are, it's funny 'cause it's cruel kind of humor that is just...not...funny.

Here's a recent Newsweek headline on Julia Roberts' appearance on Broadway: "It Sure Beats Mona Lisa Smile 2". Check out the article. No mention of the movie, no relevance. "Remember that Julia Roberts movie that sucked? Ha ha!" Basically, it's a cheap shot. The mass media equivalent of pulling on Julia's pigtails and then pointing a laughing.

This pretty much all there is to Leno's humor, and Newsweek is chock full of these. I'd offer more, but I'm late for a meeting. With a jerk. Ha ha!

Musings on Web 2.0

I wrote this little musing on communications, where the web is going, etc. I liked it, so I thought I'd share it:

In 1971, Memorex launched its audio recording products with a commercial featuring Ella Fitzgerald’s recorded voice shattering a wine glass. The tagline: “Is it live or is it Memorex?”

The ad was a sign of the times. Back then, the pinnacle of the entertainment experience was the live performance. Real, immediate, unmediated.

Today, the media is the experience. Home theaters with high definition television and stereo surround sound are seen by some as superior to going to the movies. Most sports fans will tell you that watching a football game on TV has distinct advantages over seeing it live. iPods are piping all the music you choose in high quality sound, right into our ears. TiVo let’s you watch what you want, when you want, again and again.

We’re no longer passive consumers of entertainment. We’re creators. Bloggers aren’t journalists, they’re moderators, asking questions, opining, trying to set the agenda and create more chatter, whether among a small group of friends or in the global conversation on big issues. We create iPod playlists and download songs rather than buy entire CDs. We by video cameras and make our own movies to record our lives in living, moving color … we even can edit out the sad parts. Kids take video and music from the Web and make mash-ups and viral funnies that become conversation fodder among IM buddies, message boards, email, in the coffee shop and around the water cooler. We upload our photos to Yahoo or Snapfish to share with friends. With a few clicks, we create memory books, coffee mugs and t-shirts. We publish our novels on CafePress. We play our music and bare our souls on MySpace. Even if you don’t do all of this … you know you can. Maybe you even think you should. It’s not a part of life. It’s part of living.

The truth is this: We no longer “experience”. We no longer consume: We author. We collaborate. We participate.

We are the media. We are the message.

Where do you think things are going?

Creating Online Community

Recently, the creator of the online comic "Johnny Saturn" posed a question on his forum about how one builds community online. Here is the answer I posted on his forum, slightly edited. He liked it, and I was quite proud of it myself (mainly because someone liked it). Perhaps you'll find it useful. Perhaps, someday, I'll find it useful, too:

...I follow a couple forums for humor sites that really have created community (see www.jaypinkerton.com or www.pointlesswasteoftime.com -- some of it is NSFW, if that matters to you).

Part of the community feel is that the people involved are invested in the site somehow -- their forum entries contribute to the site, they entertain and critique each other, they're creative together via humor. And they show off. I think part of it also is that people feel like they get to know these humorists on a semi-personal level -- they're part of something (Pinkerton, for example, has met a woman, taken jobs at National Lampoon and Cracked and moved from Canada to LA to New York since he started his forum). PWOT has been around long enough that there are core members of the community who meet offline once in awhile and clearly care about each other.

They seem to involve a good number of friends and fans in driving and moderating the forum and they have nurtured the community for many years. The folks who started the forums also contributed to other forums over the years, made internet friends and built a network that way.

Not an easily duplicated formula... I think it's hard to build the forum around Komikwerks because it's not a Johnny Saturn forum for Johnny Saturn fans. You might consider building a blog or community around the Johnny Saturn site and offering opportunities for fans to contribute ideas and art, letting us know where you are and how you're promoting the comic, offering sneak previews, introducing other projects, etc.

Just a thought (and I'm in PR, so I think about these things) ... I agree that vibrant message boards are the exception rather than the rule ... and I bet you'd get a pretty good readership for a blog...

What do you think?

So...

My six-year-old informed me last night that I begin all of my stories with, "So...", as in, "So, Space Knight had been flying through space for many days..." or, "So, the Awesome Eight gathered for their weekly meeting in Sky City..." or, "So, would you get in bed already...?"

So, I thought, it could be worse. Here's the thing: I've been happy lately. A little bit more productive, not a lot, but happy. I'm not used to it, and not sure what to do with the extra energy. I've been running on the basement treadmill a few mornings a week, which is cool, given my mysterious 10-pound weight gain a few weeks ago and accompanying belly. I've had great conversations and a few bits of inspired wisdom to share with colleagues, which is fun. And I've been put in charge of "Web 2.0" for our office, which will be super neato cool, as soon as I figure out what that's going to mean.

I've even got nice feedback on a bit of inspired wisdom about building online community to one of my favorite webcomic writers, which I think I'll blog here separately.

It's not like life is so perfect. I just refuse to be bothered by it.

Here I am finding nothing to write about while I'm feeling strangely happy ...

But, I've never bought into the "you need to be tortured to be an artist" thing. You're an artist if you can do art, tortured or not. Which makes me...

So.

Where to Go With Nick Kristoff

My lunchtime routine often involves a steak-guacamole-cheese-tomato burrito, a Coke and the opinion pages of the New York Times. I ignore ads, until today, when a powerful notice on the back of the Arts section caught my eye:

"Win a Trip with Nick Kristoff"

A "life changing," "incredibly grueling" experience for "one intrepid student" with the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristoff visiting the most impoverished parts of Africa.

The whole thing makes me queasy. I admire what Kristoff does -- he reports firsthand on teenage prostitution in Asia. Genocide in Darfur. The plight of women in developing nations where tribal traditions allow a woman to be punished for allowing herself to be forcibly raped.

So, yeah, hey -- why not join 'ol Nick on his tour of the underbelly of the world? It might just change your life! And, you "won't merely be Nick's traveling companion -- you might also have the opportunity to bring fresh perspective to his reporting via your very own TimesSelect Web log, or video blog on NYTimes.com ..." In other words, if your writing is good enough, and you don't piss off Nick or his editors, they'll publish your blog, and, as a budding young journalist, you'll have clips!

Here's a thought: Why doesn't "Nick" just bring Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie along and call it "The Simple Life: Africa"? Not only will the resulting press coverage shine unprecedented light on the most impoverished people in the world, but think of the ratings for that video blog!

What To Do in New York City

Another in my continuing series of firsthand reviews of big city haunts frequented by this savvy business traveler. This week, I spent two days and one night in New York City. The Big Apple! The City That Never Sleeps! Yes, that New York City.

Best Hotel: Grand Hyatt on Lexington and East 42nd Street

I stayed in the Grand Hyatt because of its location near my conference. Good plan -- I could maneuver the rotating doors and be at the office in mere minutes. I'm sure it was near many exiting places to visit -- New York is full of them. But I pretty much stuck to the hotel and my meetings. But the hotel was delightful. A grand lobby and entrance resplendent in shiny marble. Friendly reception desk and concierge service. Crowds of young people milling about in their tuxedos and shiny dresses, having hallway conversations practically outside my door at 2:30 am while I was trying to watch a movie... more on that later!

The room was small but well appointed. Wireless was T-Mobile, which means it wasn't free. I consider this a big no-no for $245-a-night hotels, but it worked well. The shower had a glass door and the towels were surprisingly plush.

Best food: Grand Hyatt Hotel

When my conference was planned weeks ago, agendas were distributed, trumpeting a "Dinner in Soho!" Mysteriously, this was not to be. Instead, we dined in a majestic room (called the Majestic Room) in the Grand Hyatt itself. How convenient! The meal began with a salad wedge and dressing. The main course consisted of some sort of cut of prime rib, or steak, drenched in a gravy that helpfully attempted to overcome the meat's chalky texture. The Cabernet Sauvignon (a red wine) was tasty and refilled often, and the plate was adorned with a potato-quiche wedge thingy and those little carrots with the green stuff still hanging on. I highly recommend the dessert, fruit in a chocoloate shell bowl and the after-dinner candies.

Best Place to See a Movie: My room at the Grand Hyatt Hotel

I chose Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on the Grand Hyatt's "On Command" pay per view movie system. Why leave the room when you don't have to? The movie was gripping. There were some technical problems -- primarily some ghosting in the TV screen. Time to invest in some upgraded tech, Hyatt!

The TV had plenty of channel choices, and I did find myself enjoying HBO that I don't get at home, catching some of the first half of Titanic. Harry Potter ended at about 1:00 am, and, amid the excitment I couldn't sleep, so I tried out HBO again, and it didn't dissappoint: AVP: Aliens versus Predator. Oh yeah.

Worst Shopping: Duane Reade Store on East 42nd Street

Let me just say that I'm extremely disappointed that the Duane Reade doesn't carry postcards. My kid wanted postcards. Why couldn't they have postcards. The staff there looked at me like I was some sort of tourist.

Well, that's about it for now. Hope you feel a little bit more ready now for your next trip to the Big Apple!
-------------------
Check out my other informative travel guides:
Things to do When You're in Philadelphia and What I Ate in Chicago. You'll be all the better for it!

News of the Day

Your Daily News Brief

> Daunte Culpepper was traded from the Minnesota Vikings to the Miami Dolphins for a 2nd round draft pick and pound of raspberry chocolate chip ice cream. Culpepper really stunk it up last year, but I'll miss my 4 year old shouting "Cuullll-pepper." All in all, my wife and I are pleased with our decision not to buy him a $50 #11 Vikings jersey.

> People have been clamoring for my personal opinion on where to have coffee in Mankato. Now that I have had a 16 oz Mocha Ice Crema at a Dunn Bros. in Mankato, I'd vote for the Dunn Bros. in Mankato. Added bonus: The place is clearly a converted Burger King, and is decorated like a furniture store. For dorm lounge furniture.

> Sadaam Hussein took the stand in his trial for the crime of being an evil dictator. With quotes that included the phrase "rivers of blood" and "I am the head of state," I'd say he did little to help his cause. I'll offer deeper analysis when I've read the rest of the article.

At the same time, have you ever imagined a more irrelevant trial than that of Sadaam Hussein? If you find him "not guilty," what are you going to do? Set him up in a two-room apartment in Baghdad and tell him to go get a job? What's he going to do? Open up a cafe? Or, do you apologize and let him run for election on the "My Enemies' Blood Will Flow Like Rivers" ticket? The guy is guilty because we blew up his army and houses and killed his sons and pulled him out of his hidey-hole. Pretending otherwise is theater.

The story I'm missing is the one that actually identifies, for real, who the bad guys are and what they want. I'll get back to you on this.

> This morning I've eaten a frozen waffle (toasted), a cup of milk (refused by my 4-year old) and a cup of coffee (Dunn Bros, Columbian, Dark Roast). If anyone out there has inside connections, please alert CNN.

Thanks.

I Would Pay for Digital Comics

My last post, on Marvel's Runaways series, got me thinking about digital comics. Namely this:

There ought to be digital comics subscriptions from Marvel and DC. I am unlikely to put money down to own copies of graphic novels or trade paperbacks or, god forbid, any new issue of an ongoing series.

But I absolutely would pay to read them online. I don't want them in my house (to add to the 1200+ comics from the 1970s and 80s already there); I just want to read them. When I want to.
And, while I'm enjoying the heck out of some free online serials, all in all, I'd rather read my old favorites as a whole story, rather than a page at a time.

Marvel recently sent out a survey asking very specific pricing questions about digital comics, what people want, what they'd expect and how much they'd pay. I hope they asked these questions to the right people. I bet that they'd find that people like me -- comics fans in their late 30s or 40s who would love to read comics but don't want to clutter up their house with them (or let their little kids read them yet) would be happy to subscribe so they can read them in the comfort of their offices, coffee shops or living rooms.

Maybe Marvel would pay me to promote this...

Edit 11:53 am: some other blogs with interesting takes:

A take on the overall business model of comics -- print at home? Others?
http://storyboard.darkora.net/?archive=2005_11_01_news_archive.php#113219286185870308

A dissecting a dissenting view..."Comics are a collector's medium..." I'd disagree, as I think the author does, too... there ought to be a place for those of us who just want to read great stories...
http://returntocomics.typepad.com/return_to_comics/2006/01/digital_comics__1.html

Apparently, Marvel is definitely heading in this direction, but the "catalog" referenced is moving a lot more slowly and the selection is a lot more random than advertised... ideally, we shouldn't have to be "tantalized" by a digital offering into looking up the full series in print -- we should be able to buy access to the full series digitally...
http://cinerati.blogspot.com/2005/12/marvel-to-offer-digital-backissues.html

Runaways

Despite the fact that I'm way too old for this, I've been reading Runaways Volume 1 at Barnes & Noble during lunch hours, which collects, well, Volume 1 of Marvel's Runaway series -- issues 1-18.

Besides gettting a really sore be-hind from sitting on the floor, this was a tremendous comic book adventure. Completely original concept, cool powers, unique characters. Fun, scary and fun.

The comic plays off the idea that every teenager thinks that their parents are evil at one time or another. The question: what if a group of good kids found out that their parents really were evil?

Great characterization, a perplexing mystery, and a complex plot where everything is far from black-and-white. Teen heroes gaining and losing confidence as they fumble with their powers, teenage angst, crushes, corrupt cops, supervillain parents and how to live with a pet velociraptor.

Most excellent.

# # #

Criminal Ineloquence

Minnesota Public Radio held a debate with the four leading Democrats seeking the party nomination for governor. These people are criminally ineloquent.

I can't give you exact quotes. But, you know, if I'm getting ready for a candidates debate, I'd surely have prepared a damn good explanation of why I'm running for governor. One said said, essentially, "I'm running for the future. Because of our children." Of course you are. But you don't have to assume that your voters are children. Another, the leading candidate, basically said that he's for doing things better. Oh good. Thanks!

I understand that there's taking the high road and there's getting specific and you've got to know your audience and split the difference. But a simple question -- why are you running for governor -- deserves a simple answer. Here's what I want to hear:

"Look, Minnesota's got a long tradition of progressive government to help folks live a better life. We used to invest in education, and our schools were the envy of the nation. We used to take of our poor and our elderly. We used to put money into roads, parks and the arts. And we were successful. Great businesses grew and thrived. New businesses flourished. People stayed here, because they knew that the good life was here in Minnesota.

"In the past decade and a half, we've gotten away from that. We've cut education funding. We've starved our social welfare system -- we're leaving people out in the cold. We haven't addressed critical transportation issues. We've cut back on arts and parks funding. If it takes taxes -- well, that's what taxes are for -- they're what we contribute to better our communities.

"We've lost sight of why we as a state have come together to form a government -- so that we can make a better life for ourselves, our families and our communities, today and into the future. Minnesota was once a special place -- it can be that way again ... let us dare to be exceptional. That's what I'm here to do."

I'll put away my soapbox now. Maybe this makes sense only to me, but I just want to see Democrats be proud of who they are, and what they've accomplished. They need to stop being cowed by the "no taxes" crowd, and tell us what they'll use our taxes for. I think there's a majority that'll be proud to get behind a Minnesota that stands for something.

Kirby Puckett: Still Smiling

"Kirby Puckett's going to be all right," he said in 1996. "Don't worry about me. I'll show up, and I'll have a smile on my face. The only thing I won't have is this uniform on. But you guys can have the memories of what I did when I did have it on."

- Kirby Puckett, on his retirement from baseball

Click here for some thoughts on Puckett from the morning of March 6.

Invest in America

I've been musing on the problem of the Democratic Party message for some time. This morning's New York Times (sign in probably required) once again highlights a Democratic party adrift:

At the Capitol in Hartford the other morning, State Senator Christopher Murphy denounced the "disastrous prescription drug benefit bill" embraced by his Republican opponent, Representative Nancy L. Johnson.

Jeff Latas, a Democratic candidate in an Arizona race, is talking about the nation's dangerous reliance on oil imports from the Middle East. Ed Perlmutter, a Colorado Democrat, says he is running against "the arrogance and cronyism" displayed by Washington Republicans.

And in New Mexico, Patricia Madrid, the state attorney general, is urging the United States to set a timetable for quitting Iraq...

These scattershot messages reflect what officials in both parties say are vulnerabilities among Republicans on Capitol Hill, as well as President Bush's weakened political condition in this election year.

But they also reflect splits within the party about what it means to be a Democrat — and what a winning Democratic formula will be — after years in which conservative ideas have dominated the national policy debate and helped win elections.

And they complicate the basic strategy being pursued by Democratic leaders in Washington to capture control of Congress: to turn this election into a national referendum on the party in power, much the way Republicans did against Democrats in 1994.

Interviews with Democratic challengers in contested districts suggest that the party is far from settling on an overarching theme that will work as well in central Connecticut as it does in central Colorado.

And while Democrats have no shortage of criticism to offer, they have so far not introduced a strategy for governing along the lines of the Republican Party's Contract With America, the 1994 initiative that some Democrats hold up as their model for this year's elections.

My question: Why should this be so hard? Campaign not on "what might work" but on what you believe. Here's my proposal:

The Democrats should run on a platform called "Invest in America". The platform: "We are Americans and we care about America. Government isn't some stranger -- it's Americans, as communities, towns, cities, states and as a nation -- who've come together for common good -- to ensure security, opportunity and a future for our people. Democrats believe that Government is an investment in America.

• Invest in Security -- by finishing up in Iraq, re-building global alliances, fighting terrorism and encouraging economic opportunity worldwide. In energy independence and conservation. In securing our country from terrorist attack
  
• Invest in Our Workers -- by investing in high-tech manufacturing, research and development, training and education -- in new markets and jobs. And in helping folks who need a hand.
  
• Invest in our Health -- with national health insurance, research into new therapies -- including stem cells -- and in ensuring that everyone has access to great health care.
• Invest in Our Children -- in ensuring access to high qualtiy education, and ensuring that we're prepapred to compete in world markets.
  
• Invest in America -- in infrastructure, in parks, and in the environment.
  

Let me know what you think...

Bitter Stroke

What can you say?

The last time I saw Kirby Puckett was on the Plaza outside of the Metrodome. He and Blyleven were going to a card signing before an afternoon game. We were standing right outside the glass door of the Twins corporate offices, when out comes Kirby. I can't remember what he was wearing, beyond the then trademark dark glasses he's worn since his glaucoma diagnosis. But I remember being shocked at his size...the man had become a whale. Even in his playing days, he was shaped like a fire hydrant -- short, thick and solid. But now...

I remember being in my downtown office when Kirby retired. We gathered around the radio for awhile. Kirby thanked God and told us not to feel sorry for him. He'd had the chance to play the game he loved ... we loved ... so long and so well, there was nothing to be sad about, no regrets. He talked and talked and I don't remember what he said after that because you listed to Kirby back then and you just laughed becasue he had this patter and he was laughing and joking and having fun and you just went along for the ride, like his famous "climb on board" boast to his teammates before Game 6 of the 1991 World Series, where he went out and backed it up as few others ever have.

And I remember telling my friends Back East about becoming a Twins fan and saying that you just had to love Kirby Puckett. Even today, knowing how tarnished his legacy has become here, how that likeability turned out to be a bit of an act, I see him suffer and remember and think, you know, whoever he was to his wife and to his girlfriends and his buddies...to a fan, that act was for us and it made us feel good. It made us proud to be a part of his team. He doesn't have to do it for us anymore.

What can you say?

Good luck, Kirby. We're with you.

The Katrina Genre

All I have to say about this is that you'd have to think some great books should come out of the Katrina disaster. When before, in the past 50 years, have we lost a city?

As far as Curtis Broussard Jr. is concerned, he is not missing. He is in Missouri City, Tex., where he plans to stay. But according to the State of Louisiana, Mr. Broussard, formerly of Cherry Street, New Orleans, has not been found.

His daughter, Antonette Murray, had not heard from him since Hurricane Katrina. In January, she finally reported him to the state, expecting to hear back that he was dead. But though he was added to the missing list, other family members had known of his whereabouts since September, and a reporter recently put Mr. Broussard back in touch with his daughter after a few telephone calls.

Despite intensive efforts to reach the scattered refugees of Hurricane Katrina, nearly 2,000 such names remain on the state's list of people still unaccounted for, out of 12,000 that had once been reported. Even now, new missing persons reports trickle in; there were 99 over the two-week period that ended Feb. 5.

But officials say the number is less a measure of the storm's lethal power, or even of the lives it upended, than of the trauma, disarray and instability that persist half a year later. Only about 300 of those on the list are believed to have died in the flooding; many of the rest are adrift in America, having failed, for a variety of reasons, to remain in touch with their own families. A call center set up by the state to reunite families has struggled to get government financing and research tools.

Many of the recent reports of missing people are from distant relatives or friends looking for news. But others are more urgent: they come from mothers looking for their children's father; from families who have just found a relative's body in New Orleans and need to register that person officially, a requirement before a body can be released by the authorities; or from people who seem only now to be able to assume any task beyond day-to-day survival.

"We get some calls that say, 'I just thought about my fiancé is missing,' " said Lenora Green, shaking her head in a mixture of sympathy and disbelief. "It's like they just click back into reality because of the shock they're going through."

I wish I could say I know anything about New Orleans, beyond two trade show visits that led to drunken stumbles about the French Quarter, one visit to a palm reader and the discovery that everyone has their own, unique take on the best food in New Orleans and each and every one of them is right.

One Minute Stories - Part II

edit - 3/3/2006

My friend reads this piece and notes that it was John Cale who co-founded the Velvet Underground, not John Cage. However, I am heartened by the fact that they knew each other, and even collaborated for a time.

In conclusion...umm...yeah.

-----------

So I'm doing these narcissistic searches for any online reference, however unlikely, to my blogs. And I discover that "One Minute Stories" is a concept that is being explored by John Cage, erstwhile founder of the Velvet Underground and all around avant artiste at his site, Indeterminacy.

While I've never been a Cage guy...in fact, the lines above pretty much sum up all I know about him, I'm still getting this huge feeling of "i'm not worthy of having the same ideas as John Cage." Which, of course, is nonsense. I'm perfectly capable of having good ideas. I just don't.

Anyway, he's a much more disciplined artist, and the ideas are fascinating. Here's what he's doing:

John Cage was an American composer, Zen buddhist, and mushroom eater. He was
also a writer: this site is about his paragraph-long stories -- anecdotes,
thoughts, and jokes. As a lecture, or as an accompaniment to a Merce Cunningham
dance, he would read them aloud, speaking quickly or slowly as the stories
required so that one story was read per minute.

This site archives 186 of those stories. Each story is spaced out, as if it were being read aloud, to fill a fixed area. If you like, you can also read them aloud at a rate of one a minute.

You can read a random story (reload or select the asterisk for another), pick one by number using the form on the main page, or choose one through one of the three indices. The index of names lists people and beings and the stories they are mentioned in, and the index of first lines lists the first line of each story alphabetically. The stories often end in punch lines; the index of
last lines (my favorite) lists these alphabetically.

The stories are taken from two of Cage’s books, Silence and A Year from Monday, and from the Folkways recording of him reading 90 of them aloud as David Tudor plays piano (among other things). The numbering is arbitrary, except that the first 90 stories are those on the Folkways recording in order. Several of them (numbers 104, 124, 138, 139, 140, and 163) were not specifically presented as stories by Cage; they were taken from various longer texts.

So there you have it. I'd never heard of this before, but I will say that my version is a bit less complicated. I'm writing short stories. It takes about a minute to read them. I think. I've never tried it. You should. It' s fun. I hope you'll visit One Minute Stories. Visit John Cage's site, too ... but don't compare, for the sake of my self esteem. Just don't.

No More Guilty Pleasures

Back in about 1992 or so, my roommate brought home a gift from his girlfriend -- the latest edition of the Rolling Stone Music Guide. A red-white-and-blue book almost twice as thick as my fist, the Guide contained written reviews and "star ratings" of almost every rock'n'roll album out there. Five stars was a classic, four among the best an artist has to offer and among the better in its genre. Three stars merely average in the grand scheme of things. Et cetera, putting each album and artist in critical and historical context of the history of popular music in the rock era.

I absconded with it almost immediately and read it nearly cover to cover, evaluating my musical tastes against those of trained critics, feeling alternately elated and disappointed in their take on my favorites.

There seems to exisit a class of people who want their tastes to be critically approved, and I, unfortunately was one of them. It was suddenly no good to like Billy Joel (** or ***), Joe Jackson (***) or Harry Chapin (**, ***). I had to feel guilty for thinking that Van Morrison's "Moondance" was overrated and dated, for feeling that John Hiatt's "Bring the Family" (***) was superior to "Slow Turning" (****), and being unmoved by any of Springsteen's five-star "classics" after "Born to Run".

The Guide ruined me. Suddenly, I was musically adrift. Some artists I'll probably never enjoy again. I turned to new music -- to alt country / rural rock to escape -- new-ish genres barely touched by the Guide at that time. But I still remember the ratings on some of my favorites, a good 13 or so years later.

Now, I'm going through my CD collection and re-discovering old music that was supposed to have sucked, but, you know, doesn't really. As I write, I'm listening to The Waterboy's "Room to Roam" (two or three stars or so -- I am doing this from memory). The Rolling Stone reviews gave four stars to anything they did before "Fisherman's Blues" and two or three after that.

I loved "Fisherman's Blues" -- still do -- I bought it on tape before I had a CD player (yeah, I'm old). Rollicking, Dylan-esque vocals melded with romantic Irish folk and emotional, universal lyrics, ending with a beautiful reading of Yeats' "The Stolen Child," the likes of which I've never heard on a rock album before or since.

"Room to Roam" was the follow up, and I grabbed it. Listened to it constantly. Lead Waterboy muse Mike Scott must have gotten happy for this album, one that dove headfirst into the Irish folk and romantic legends -- filled with stories and songs about Raggle Taggle Gypsies and a trip to Broadford Green in springtime, and heartfelt folk rock paeons to first loves and longtime romance.

There's probably a story behind all this -- I don't care what it is. There are surely more "authentic" Irish folkies -- it doesn't matter. For me, every time I hear "Room to Roam," I want to dance around the room and sing out loud.

In addition:

> I've seen Barry Manilow in concert. He was great. So were Paul Anka, Anne Murray and Judy Collins. So were James Taylor and Elton John.

> The Beach Boys sucked. Los Lobos didn't have it the night I saw them.

> Semisonic was the sexiest live band ever.

> As far as I'm concerned, no artist who became big in the Sixties and early Seventies has done an album worth listening to since 1983. That includes you, Bruce, Van, Crosby, Stills, Nash AND Young. It includes you, Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, each of the Who, any former Beatle, Byrd or Animal. And it includes, you, Bob Dylan, who's had multiple lauded comeback albums that do nothing whatsoever for me. It doesn't include John Prine, who I like, because he was never that big in the first place. I'm sure there are tons of exceptions.

In conclusion, go out and get "Room to Roam." Maybe you'll like it, too. Or maybe you won't. One thing I promise is that hereforth, I'll no more speak of "guilty pleasures." There's no good reason to feel guilty at all.

I'm going to dance around the coffee shop now.

Why Yes, I'll Have a Port

...or Coming of Age in the White House

Bush is right. The port issue was well vetted. The sale of US port management contracts is bad because it appears to be bad, not because it is. From the New York Times:

In the political collision between the White House and Congress over the $6.8 billion deal that would give a Dubai company management of six American ports, most experts seem to agree on only one major point: The gaping holes in security at American ports have little to do with the nationality of who is running them.

The deal would transfer the leases for ports in New York, Baltimore and Miami, among others, from a British-owned company to one controlled by the government of Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates. But the security of the ports is still the responsibility of Coast Guard and Customs officials. Foreign management of American ports is nothing new, as the role already played by companies from China, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan and trading partners in Europe attests.

While critics of the deal have raised the specter that it might open the way to the "infiltration" of American ports by terrorists from the Middle East, the Dubai company would in most cases inherit a work force that is mainly American, with hiring subject to the same regulations as under the current British management.

Among the many problems at American ports, said Stephen E. Flynn, a retired Coast Guard commander who is an expert on port security at the Council on Foreign Relations, "who owns the management contract ranks near the very bottom."

The real question: What's going on at the White House political office? Or the communications office? Does anyone have their eye on the ball here? I'm what we like to call a "communications professional" (in other words, a 'PR guy')... but it doesn't take a trained professional: Of course this was going to be a political firestorm. Does Bush, with no need to stand for re-election, no longer care how he looks to allies or opponents? What happened to the famous discipline of the Bush White House? Who's minding the store 'round those parts?

If there's anything worrisome about the Bush White House these days -- and there is a lot -- it's their growing apathy toward the rest of government -- and by extension, the rest of the country -- all on our behalf.

They make me feel like a teenager, fighting for a say: I'm not a kid anymore, Mister President!