Tag: Random Thoughts

Super Bowl. Meh.

The Super Bowl is this afternoon – actually, this evening, so it can bleed into prime time. It’s our annual “once in a lifetime” event. A lifetime event that 30/32nds of the universe don’t really care about, because their team isn’t playing. So, why is everyone so whipped up? (Besides the ones who actually went to Vegas or online and have money riding on the outcome.)

The pre-game show is four hours long. The game itself is four hours long. This shows immediately that something is amiss. A football game is one hour in length. So, you expand that by 300% just because it’s on TV? The weekly NFL games are three hours long on TV, but this one is an hour longer. What takes that extra hour? Hmm. Perhaps the commercials are the reason to watch the Super Bowl. Why does it take four hours of pre-game to set the stage? There are only two teams. Are you going to do a biography of each player? Does it really take four hours to remind people who the team with the most points wins?

I don’t get it.

I admit, if I start watching, I will get dragged into it, because there’s just something about watching competition – it’s the same reason people (including me) watch chefs try to make something edible from a mystery basket. But at the same time, it’s a bit silly. One game. For everything. Until next year.

Maybe instead of the pre-game “banter” and “reporting”, they should just re-run last year’s Super Bowl, since nobody remembers who played in it. (Quick! Who won last year? Was it the team in your city? Did you lose money on one of them?) You know who remembers last year? 2/32nds of the universe. And half of them are still pissed.

Enjoy the game. Or the commercials.

Christmas Newsletter 2013

Editor’s Note: The physical Christmas cards are a wee bit late this year. We plead vacation. Every year, my wife demands a Christmas newsletter, because all our friends have one, and every year, I realize I just don’t have the energy or creativity to do one. So, I’ve decided to let the pets take turns. This year, Rocky the Chihuahua drew the short straw. However, he seems to think it’s a privilege, so it may become his job permanently.

Feliz Navidad!

Hola, everybody!
RockyMy name is Rockford J Gilhooly, and you can call me “Rocky.” I am the newest member of the Gilhooly clan, Galemeadow chapter, and my very wise Cocker Spaniel brother Murphy told me that the new guy receives the honor of writing the family Christmas newsletter. He was giggling after he told me that, but I’m not sure why. Dad told me I wasn’t supposed to make the newsletter all about me, so I guess I will talk about some of the other people around here, too. It’s just I’m the most important.

I have never actually been in a family where the pets write the newsletter, but I heard that Murphy’s newsletter was much better received than Dad’s.

So, this is the 2013 (semi-) annual Christmas newsletter, but the story actually begins on April 30, 2012. That morning, Mom was at the vet with one of the other guys when a lady carried me in. I had been hit by a car, and both my back legs were broken. The lady was very nice, but she technically was not a Good Samaritan, since she didn’t pay for my operation. Sparky’s Pals (and some of their very generous donors) did, and Dad took the corporate checkbook away from Mom after that. I had a femoral head ostecotemy on both legs. Dad said that my surgeon, Dr. Mountain, removed the heads of each femur and that scar tissue (hopefully) would grow up and replace the joint. (I don’t know what’s he’s talking about, either, and they’re my legs.) Dr. Mountain thought one leg would heal well enough to let me walk. He wasn’t sure about the other one.

Well, I can run and jump and climb on Mom’s head when she’s sitting in her chair or lying in bed, and I even climbed over a baby gate to say “Hola” to Uncle Stephen one day, so I guess the operation worked! Mom and Dad tried very hard to find a family that would adopt me, but eventually, I wore Mom down, so I’m staying here, with the rest of the PsychoPuppies. Dad said even if I left, I would still be here because I shed. Ha ha. So, now, I get to write the newsletter! (Dad said they named me “Rocky” since I fought a Cadillac and almost won. I don’t know what that means.)

Enough about me. For now. Let’s get on to the other news, even though there isn’t much happy to report this year.

Dad said this was probably the first Christmas newsletter that has an obituary section, but some years are like that. He said if I knew basic Latin, 2013 would be Annus horribilis. I think he was just trying to remind you, my dear readers, that he and Uncle Stephen went to prep school.

Mom’s Aunt Lucy Veccia died in December, 2012, just before Mom and Dad left on their annual vacation. They were with her the night before she passed away. On the day Aunt Lucy passed away, Mom found out that she had been appointed the executor of her estate, and she’s hoping to have all the paperwork done before the end of the year. Aunt Lucy would have liked me, because she was a dog person. Dad said her dog was named Rags. Mom and Dad created a memorial website for her at www.lucyveccia.com for her family and friends to visit.

My grandpa, John Vincent Gilhooly, died in February 2013. Mom and Dad had dinner with him the night before he passed away, so the last thing Mom did was feed him (the Italian way) and the last thing Dad did was get him a drink (the Irish way.) If I had been there, I would have climbed on his head (the Chihuahua way.) I never got to meet Grandpa, which is sad, because he would have loved me, even though he wasn’t a dog person. Everyone is a Chihuahua person! You can visit his memorial website at www.johnvgilhooly.com for more about him, including the obituaries and eulogies. Mom said that most of the people in the Church laughed during Dad’s eulogy, but they were supposed to laugh, so it was OK. I’m not sure Dad understands funerals very well. (Grandma is just glad Dad didn’t refer to all the priests and deacons as “Men In Black.”)

While Mom was starting to work on Aunt Lucy’s estate, her cousin Donna (one of the beneficiaries) passed away, so Mom got to help deal with that estate, too. So, there were three deaths in the family in about six weeks, and that was just the start of the year. Do not make Mom your executor, unless you want a very cranky one.

To summarize 2013: Mom spent all year doing estate paperwork, Dad spent all year at the office with three new managers in three months, and I spent all year working on the newsletter. I think I did the best job, don’t you?

Sparky’s Pals was pretty quiet this year, except for their stellar failed adoption of me, which started last year. Mom and Dad are hoping to get the school programs going again next year, estate paperwork willing. In the meantime, Dad did manage to get KNON to play public service announcements for Sparky’s Pals, so if they’re not in schools, at least they’re on the radio.

KNON was nice enough to play the PSAs because Dad is President of the radio station! It’s actually a non-profit, community station, and if you’re not in Dallas, you can listen online at http://www.knon.org. Dad said to remind you that you can donate online, as well. They say if you don’t like the station, just wait and they will change it for you, which is true, since most programs are only two or three hours long and then the format changes.

Dad was also Principal for a Day this year! He got to shadow the principal at Dan D Rogers Elementary school, visit all the classes, do the daily announcements, and sing “Happy Birthday” to one of the students. (Dad thinks this may have been hazing.) He also did Sparky’s Pals presentations to two of the grades so he managed to tie most of his volunteer work together. (He went back to the school for their career day and talked about IBM and KNON, so he covered everything he does at the school.) He did not take me, which was unfortunate, since I am a very good enforcer.

Mom and Dad took their annual Christmas cruise a week early this year, so they were home for Christmas. They had also taken an earlier cruise this year, in April, across the Atlantic, on the inaugural cruise of the Norwegian Breakaway. They sailed from Southampton to New York. Dad said it was on his bucket list. Mom’s friends reminded her it was about the same time of year and route as the Titanic. Luckily, they made it home. Mom said they had a cabin with a butler. She’s mad Dad won’t get her a house with a butler. I’m mad that they didn’t bring me anything. I was hoping for some British treats, even if I had to eat them on the wrong side of the couch.

Christmas this year is at Grandma Gilhooly’s house – I’ve already been there, and it’s a nice place, but there are too many closed doors – and there will be a lot of people there! J. R. and Ginger and Caleb and Carson (and a new granddaughter on the way – news if you’re not on Facebook) will be coming down for Christmas, so they will be in Dallas for almost two weeks. (Did I mention J. R. is now teaching in Ohio? No? Are you not on Facebook? J. R. is now an Instructor in Theology at Cedarville University, so the Grand Prairie gang moved from Grand Prairie to Cedarville, Ohio for the start of the school year earlier this year. Mom and Grandma are waiting for Ginger to freeze so they will move home, but considering the Icepocalypse Dallas just had, Ohio may actually be warmer.)

It will be nice to see such a large group, because it’s more likely there will be leftovers for me! I am going to start whining extra early, so Mom will take me along. I am very good at parties, and Dad said if Caleb and Carson are there, most of the doors will end up open, anyway.

Mom and Dad both said 2014 is bound to be a better year than this one, and Mom is going to kiss a stingray for good luck while she’s on vacation. This annoys me greatly, since she doesn’t like doggie kisses (they’re the best!) but she’ll kiss a big, flat fish? I don’t understand her sometimes. There is probably rum involved. (Update: Mom’s stingray trip got canceled, but she still won’t kiss me. Species predjudice, I guess.)

That must be all that’s important this year, because Murphy said the newsletter had to be three pages or less or people stopped reading it.

I’m Rocky, and I approved this newsletter.

Principal for a Day

Dallas ISD and the Dallas Chamber of Commerce with a number of business partners sponsor an annual Principal for a Day – where business people shadow a local principal for a day and see what life is like within Dallas schools. I thought it would be an interesting experience, so I volunteered. 156 or so others from the business world agreed with me, and volunteered as well.

There are actually a number of schools in DISD that I could claim a connection with – although I went to private school all my life. However, I know teachers all over the district through mentoring and IBM Summer Camps.

That said, I requested Dan D Rogers Elementary School since it was five minutes from my house, and I played football on their team when I was in third grade (I waited too long to sign up and the St Thomas Aquinas team was full. Never play against your classmates if you are on the offensive line. They tend to just knock you down and ignore the actual play).

I had a full day of activities. I met with Lisa Lovato, my Principal, before the actual day to discuss how I could assist her and what I could do during my visit.  She seemed surprised that someone had been assigned to her school, but when I explained five minutes versus the hour-long challenge that is my daily commute to Coppell, she understood. She had a long list of possible assignments for me to do – much more than a day’s worth. I was surprised to find some of my fellow Principals for a Day spent as little as a couple of hours at their school. While I understand time is tight, there didn’t seem to be much you could accomplish in two hours.

On my day as Principal, I shadowed Ms Lovato for part of the day and also managed to do lectures for a couple of classes – and do lunchroom duty! There is a lot to do in an elementary school.

The most stressful part of the day was doing the morning announcements – I was warned ahead of time, but the script was a bit longer than I expected, and I had to remember which were my lines and which belonged to the students assisting me!  Also, nobody told me the bell was going to ring in the middle of my speech. You cannot speak over the bell. Afterwards, one of the students was celebrating a birthday, and part of the announcement had been to remind him to come to the office and get his birthday pencil, so I got to sing “Happy Birthday” to him while presenting the pencil. At this point, I wondered if this was actually a Principal’s regular duty or just a wee bit of hazing.  Considering my singing, I think the student was more traumatized than I was.

One of the teachers actually called during my announcements to find out what a Dallas Principal for a Day was going to do – she had transferred from a district where students were principals for a day, so she didn’t know what to expect. It is always good to strike fear in the hearts of those working for you.

Ms Lovato and I did spot checks in a couple of classrooms – observing how the teacher was delivering the day’s lesson plans and taking notes for later discussion. We also visited the special needs pre-school classroom and visited with the kids, who were doing counting and color matching exercises. It was impressive to me how many of the students she knew by name – across all the grades.

Since I am the President of Sparky’s Pals and I do humane education as a volunteer, I did our “Be a Tree”  presentation on bite prevention to two of  the second grade classes and later to all four of the kindergarten classes. The presentations went well, and I had a lot of good questions from both classes. The only part that threw me off a bit was at the end of the kindergarten presentation I was asked “How does a dog smell?” I wasn’t sure how that was part of the presentation, but I said, “With his nose, like you do. If you don’t wash him, he smells bad.” {Ha, ha.) Next question – “How does a dog see?” Hmm. “With his eyes, just like you do.” At that point, one of the teachers mentioned they had been discussing the five senses just before they came to the lunchroom to hear me. Suddenly, the questions became clear.

I did lunch duty for the fourth and fifth grade, which is mainly reminding the students that there is a limited time to eat – but there will always be time to chat later in the day. It was also a good chance to talk to some of the students and get to know them, even though they were supposed to be eating. I was asked why I was so scared doing the morning announcements, and we had a good discussion on my lack of Spanish-speaking ability. If a student says, “I don’t speak English at all. I really don’t. Just Spanish.”, he may be fibbing.

It seemed like both a short time and a long day. I left before the parents started arriving to pick up their kids, since I could have been blocked in the parking lot. The staff was worried about my being able to leave on time, since there was a reception in Uptown for all the Principals for a Day and their “real” Principals. I reminded them I was still Principal for a Day and could just declare early dismissal. They all laughed politely.

Ms Lovato said a number of students asked if it was true I was the new principal. I guess “for a Day” was not emphasized enough.

Because of my time in the school, I’ve been asked to present at their upcoming Career Day, to be a reader at Dallas Reads (11/12/13 and 2/28/14) and I was also asked to help judge the Science Fair. So, I’ve gone from driving past Dan D Rogers on my way to work each day to being much more involved with the school. This was an added benefit.

I did see two of my IBM colleagues at the reception, so I was not the only IBMer. Hopefully, next year, we can find more volunteers.

I will be able to tell my colleagues that want to “help” in the local schools – the best way to volunteer is apparently to just show up – the principal and teachers will find something for you to do!

I will have to update my resume to include DISD Principal (for a Day) (Retired.) Well, I’m retired until next year, at least.

The Company Store

“You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store”
— “Sixteen Tons“, Merle Travis

Tennessee Ernie Ford sang those lines a long time ago, probably the famous version of a song that had been around for a while, and is still heard today. It’s a coal miner’s lament – miners were tied to a mine, living in (and paying rent for) company-owned housing, and forced to buy necessities from the company store, because miners were basically immobile – they never left the mines.

The company store is a target of hatred in story and song – a place where the mining company basically took back most of the wages it paid by selling required goods to the workers at inflated prices. Often, miners weren’t even paid cash – they were paid in scrip, fake money that could only be used at the company store.

It was an unfair practice, one that took automobiles (cheap, personal transportation) and the formation of unions to end.

Imagine a company store today. One selling low-quality products at inflated prices – and selling products that many people don’t even want. However, with this company store, you’re required to buy the products – in fact, if you don’t buy the products, you can pay a fine.

That’s Obamacare. Welcome to the coal mines.

Long Time Coming

Wow. This posting schedule (sic) has been even more sporadic than I had feared when I started this in the first place. It’s bad enough that Blind John Ellsworth has fallen off the wagon, without me wandering off into the weeds, as well.

So, my list of excuses – which is actually just a bunch of rants that I really needed to get off my chest. If you don’t know me very well, you can skip this one. It won’t make much sense to you without the backstory – and I really don’t have time for all the backstory.

  • I’m still getting asked about whether I’m coming to terms with my Dad’s death, but the sad, unfortunate reality is that his death is the least of my worries right now. Work stress and family stress is no way to fix grieving – it just postpones it. I’m pretty sure this is not healthy, but so it goes.
  • Work stress, you say? I’ve had three new managers in my chain of command in the past six months. My first line, second line and general manager are all new. Plus, they all got appointed from lower to upper, so every time someone higher up got appointed, our priorities changed. It’s very difficult to have a good year when you find out what you’re supposed to be doing in August and it has nothing to do with what you were hired to do or what you’ve been doing all along or even what you were told to do in July. Plus, a bunch of people of my approximate age and experience level were laid off in the last resource action.
  • I hate the term “resource action.” You fired people. You ruined lives. You made families suffer. Why? Usually because you’re spending money on the wrong products, or because you keep replacing senior people with people who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. Starting from scratch to save money is a really dumb-ass idea, but apparently, it’s the core of every MBA program. You can raise income or cut costs. Why does no manager ever try to raise income?
  • We did have one bright spot at work – the Summer Innovation Camp with Analytics that we jointly produced with SMU’s Richard B Johnson Center for Economic Studies. We had happy students who learned a lot and we got a lot of really good press from the event. So, to anyone who wanted to know if it really took three months to write it – yes, it freakin’ did. I did it from scratch with a very small team and it was worth it. All my bosses said so. Thank you, Dr. Fomby and staff for all your support.
  • I spent this weekend doing a round-trip to Nashville – drove out Saturday, flew home Sunday. Let me just say that 14 hours in a U-Haul makes 90 minutes in a middle seat look tolerable. My son, his wife and my two grandsons moved to Ohio which meant that all the menfolk are all glad he has a real teaching job at last (and before his PhD is technically completed) and the women are all sad they are moving. Men and women will never see the same way on a move. I know this now. So, while spending Friday afternoon keeping the kids busy so Mom and Dad could pack, I realized a good Dad would volunteer to ride shotgun to Ohio in the U-Haul. Mom and kids got to fly to Ohio on Sunday, which meant my son got to drive alone and he had to beat them there, since he had the furniture. This on top of doing the drive alone two weeks ago to start his new job. Since a good Dad would go to Ohio and help unpack, I went to Nashville, bought him dinner, got him a hotel room for the night and then flew home. I never said I was a good Dad.
  • A good Grandfather would make it to the airport to see his grandkids head off to become Yankees (sob!) A Texas grandfather knows a Texan will always be a Texan, so I’m not really fearing the Yankee part. I did manage to get the last seat on the flight before mine – being AAdvantage Gold finally got me to the top of the standby list – so I managed to arrive at gate A11 fifteen minutes before they left from A13. So, I got to carry a car seat to the gate, tell the gate agents they had a pre-board that needed to cut in line and I got to say goodbye. Again.
  • If you have kids moving away, and your wife and Mom have both lost family members in the past eight months, it will be very traumatic for them. This will make no sense to any male, since they’re just a plane flight away – they’re not deceased – but to the womenfolk, it’s the same trauma. So it goes. Be prepared. Also, you might want to start stocking up AAdvantage miles because you’re going to need them.
  • This much trauma in a very short time will take most of the joy out of life. You will start skipping things because you just don’t have the energy – but it’s really that you just can’t get up the enthusiasm to get going. This is very, very difficult to explain to those who have not had the joy knocked out of their life, mainly because I just don’t feel the need to saddle someone with all of my whining. Someday, they will understand – especially if they read all this whining.
  • Last night, we made our semi-annual trip to the emergency room. The Spousal Unit is having strange pains. So, they did a CAT scan, found nothing (which makes sense, she’s a dog person) and sent her home. WTF? The insane amount you charge for a CAT scan wasn’t enough revenue? Surely, there were other tests you could have run at great cost to the insurance company to determine more specifically what “nothing” really means. So, follow-up visits to the doctor later in the week.
  • The emergency room trip was actually the shortest hospital stay this month – my sister-in-law is undergoing chemo and our Shih-Tzu (my late mom-in-law’s dog) was at the emergency vet’s for the weekend with a severe pancreatitis attack. So, six boring hours in the ER (much like 90 minutes in a middle seat after a fourteen-hour drive) wasn’t that bad.

So far, the lesson for 2013 is “There is nothing so bad that can happen that won’t be quickly followed by something worse.” I’m really hoping that is going to change, and soon.

In one bright spot, congratulations to Dan Schmidt and the rest of the Edinburg Roadrunners on their championship run.  Two in a row for Edinburg! So, 2013 hasn’t been all bad. just mostly.

Funkytown

Just found Funkytown by Lipps, Inc. on #SoundHound for Android.
http://www.soundhound.com/?t=0379c77712baa43f313cd8cc2f139dda

I posted this more for myself than anyone else – it was playing on whatever generic radio station the dentist’s office was playing (seriously, there’s a reason KNON was voted Best Radio Station for Music two years running by the Dallas Observer), but hearing it gave me a flashback to college.  Specifically, to Fiesta San Antonio and the beer stand I was working that was right next to the carnival ride that had this as the background music. Twelve hours of Funkytown a day, for four or five days. Wow.

I always assumed Lipps, Inc. was a one-hit wonder because some carny  ran their van off a cliff after hearing Funkytown twelve hours a day at work while trying to sell hot dogs or get people to lose their life savings at the ring toss.

Baseball for Baseball’s Sake

I’m becoming an old fart. Some will say I’m already there. Specifically, I’m an old fart baseball fan. They’re the worst kind, actually.

You would think the most annoying part of a baseball game to an old fart baseball fan would be the umpires. You would be incorrect. The most annoying aspect is other fans.

Why? Because they are not fans. They are barely spectators.

I do not understand why people pay good money to purchase a ticket to something they don’t care to watch. If you don’t care about baseball, why do you go? You can find beer in other places that don’t have an eight-dollar cover charge.

Because people don’t want to watch the game, the team does all sorts of things to entertain the crowd. This includes having a blob mascot run up and down the top of the dugout to get the crowd into the game. My seats are just behind the dugout. So, I can’t see the game since the blob is right in front of me. So, I’m being punished because other people won’t watch.

Do the fans a favor. If you don’t care about the game, DON’T GO. You’re loud, you’re distracting and you’re wasting your money. Don’t take your kids to teach the teamwork. You’re teaching them ignoring the game is fine.

Baseball is the only major sport that has predictable pacing. Other than the teams changing sides at the middle or end of innings, an injury or a pitching change, the game goes on. It is easy to follow. You know where the pitcher is going to pitch. If you’re fanatical, you can keep score. You can keep yourself immersed in the game. You just have to pay attention.

This is especially true in the minors, where games aren’t usually televised. There are no TV time-outs. The game just plays.

So, I don’t think true fans need mascots. Or t-shirt guns. Or beer barrel races. They need the game to unfold in front of them, so they can enjoy it.

If you don’t understand baseball, watching the game will help you learn. Watching the mascot will not.

Can’t we go back to a time when fans watched the game? Maybe “in the old days”, people paid attention because they had to skip work to go to a game.

I miss those days, and I wasn’t even there. (That is the definition of an old fart, by the way.)

Inaugural Crossing

I must have been on a different ship than the people complaining about the Norwegian Breakaway Transatlantic crossing. I suppose part of the issue is the level of expectations.

Technically, she wasn’t even the Norwegian Breakaway until yesterday when she was christened (I know, it’s a real technicality, but nonetheless.)

The inaugural crossing was not even the “first cruise” (which I found hilarious when I discovered this.) The “first cruise” is the first trip from New York City to Bermuda with paying passengers, even though there have been two cruises with paying passengers previously.

I did not realize when I convinced my wife to switch from a Panama crossing to the Transatlantic crossing, but the inaugural cruise is a 3400-mile test drive. They knew she floats and she survived the overnight from Rotterdam to Southampton, but the Atlantic crossing was the first “real” test.

I think she passed. The staff was wonderful, after a couple of days, the weather almost cooperated and everything (for the most part) seemed functional.

It’s difficult to enjoy all the outdoor activities and amenities when it’s cold. This would have required a bit of pre-planning. It’s the North Atlantic. In April. It’s not going to be Caribbean weather. So, there were a lot of people indoors. (I went on the deck, just because I don’t mind the weather much.)

I didn’t visit the Garden Cafe because I’m too lazy to get my own food (especially when it’s probably food some other passenger picked up, sniffed and put back.) So, can’t review the buffet, but the restaurants were good.

We ate at almost all of the speciality restaurants, so many will consider us elitist. I just happen to like Le Bistro, my wife loves Italian and who could pass up Ocean Blue? It’s from an Iron Chef, who answers his Tweets.

The food service was slow, but this was the first time the staff was trying to produce the quantity of food required for a 3/4 full ship. Expectations, people.

I do think a lot of people take inaugural cruises just so they can bitch about everything that isn’t working yet (see the Norwegian Epic on her crossing or the Carnival <whatever> that had her first sailing this week.)

My wife and I were on this cruise because we wanted to cross the Atlantic like our ancestors did (well, my Grandfather didn’t have a balcony, but still.) When we saw the ship was arriving at 8am, we assumed we would be in port much earlier – based on earlier cruises. We were correct. We sailed under the Verrazano at about 3am. We were on the deck, taking photos. It was cold, the photos are a bit blurry, but it was an experience.

When we saw the level of hoopla scheduled for NYC after arrival, we assumed we wouldn’t be considered “the first” even though we were the first ones on the ship. Expectations, people.

She’s a beautiful ship. The staff was amazing. You can actually go outside on any number of decks – unlike the Norwegian Epic, which we sailed last Christmas.

Kevin Sheehan, Norwegian’s CEO,  is a very nice person (we kept running into him), and one of the better speakers I’ve heard.

We made more friends on this journey than on any of our other cruises (this was number five.) All the people we met seemed to understand the concept of “inaugural.” Maybe we were just lucky.

I was concerned about the number of staff it was going to take to pull my wife off the ship, but she was sleepy, so it wasn’t as difficult as feared.

I would take another Transatlantic crossing any time. I don’t think I can make the Getaway since we’re going on the Jewel just before Christmas, otherwise, I would have booked by now.

We will be going to Bermuda at some point, just to get back on the Breakaway.

Explorations

From June 1, 2001, originally. That was after a plane flight across the Atlantic. It still seems appropriate after sailing across the Pond – since sailing is a much more civilized way to travel than flying.

I crossed the ocean
And it crossed me.

Where am I?
I know the planet is Earth,
Since that’s what we call it.
I know the time
(As much as anyone could know)
But I’m still lost and floating
Home seems an eternity away.

Long ago, the brave crossed oceans,
To conquer and explore.
But today it doesn’t take courage,
Just an expense account,
And another meeting to attend.

Travel is no longer an adventure
(If ever it was before.)
This is just routine, almost tedium,
At five hundred miles per hour.

The oceans pass underneath,
And continents appear.
I’m in a crowded metal tube,
Trying to find a reason for it all.

I left my house to cross the globe,
But the website is still up,
And email downloads still.
Am I really gone?

True Blues

I listen to KNON a lot. Partially, because I’m the President of the Board of Directors and mostly because I like the music we play (pledge drive coming up in May – get your online pledges in early!) In fact, I’m President because I like what we play.

So, when I was coming home from my check-up this morning, I had KNON on the radio. Gregg Smith’s Blues Review, to be specific. (Every Friday, nine until noon. Heeeey.)

We play a lot of blues, and the longer you listen, the more you realize pretty much all blues is about sex, unless someone just died in the song. I was listening to someone moaning about not riding in his girl’s automobile this morning and after a couple of verses, I realized “He’s not really talking about her car.” Well, duh.

I’m sitting at a stop light, and I had just had this realization, and I thought “Blues artists can make anything into a sexual euphemism.”

There’s a basic blues premise “I don’t want to be your ——–, baby.” where the blank turns out to be the song’s specific euphemism for some sexual organ. That’s when I heard “I don’t want to be your pastrami, baby” in my head (yes, I probably should see someone about that.)

Then, a flash. Who’s ever written a blues song about a deli?

I thought, “There would have to be a verse about pastrami and rye bread. What else? A pickle. How could a pickle sound dirty?”

I know you love dill pickles.
But don’t you grab my pickle spear.
My woman said that ain’t kosher,
You better not come ’round here.

That came to me almost as it was written. Same with the verse about pastrami. Other than not being able to find a rhyme for “rugelach” or “knish”, the song almost wrote itself. Based on the quality of the final work, it did write itself, because that way, I won’t get blamed for it.

Inspiration strikes in truly bizarre ways at truly random times.