Friday, March 28, 2008
A Shameless Plug
Last week, for the first time in oh, about 35 years, we took in a Broadway show, a musical no less, called Passing Strange, compliments of our son Dustin. It was great! "It" as in the musical, and "it" as in being treated to an evening out by your grown child. I highly recommend both.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Kindred Spirit
As a life-long, hard-core procrastinator, I was taken by this quote from Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
My Fifteen Minutes
When we visited Dustin in New York last week, he asked if I'd do him a favor. "Sure," I said. "For you anything." (After all, as a retired guy, what else do I have to do?) He said he wanted me to do a photo shoot for Time Out New York's upcoming parents' issue (which begins with the sentence: "They fucked you up, and who needs them anyway?") He told me to show up at a certain address, bring one the tropical shirts I'd taken to St. Martin, and ask for Drew. Frankly it sounded like fun. And it was... right up 'til the moment the stylist told me I was chosen because (per Dustin) I had "no fashion sense whatsoever" and was therefore perfect makeover material. Sheeesh! In case anyone asks, my modeling career is officially over.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
My Kinda Guy
C.W. Sughrue, one of James Crumley's scruffy protagonists, speaks for me and lot of my very best boomer friends in the novel Bordersnakes:
"On the afternoon I got shot, a Saturday, I spent the heat of the day cruising the Upper Valley of the Rio Grande in Norman's classy VW van... on the comfortable curves of the back roads, the tape deck cranked all the way to the sky as Zevon, Seger, Ely, and Waits wailed rock and roll into the blind maw of the ancient sun.
"Perhaps noticing that I was staring a half-century dead in the eye, I wondered if I should regret my taste in music, wondered if it was infantile, as woman once told me, but I simply could not resist all that wonderful madness, the reckless joy and pain. Truth to tell, I wondered about a lot of things these vacation afternoons. My hair had gotten skimpy, gray streaks among the blond, but god help me I still loved the blessed mota smoke, still loved the fuzzy stoned light in the middle of the afternoon. I had been living as straight as I'd ever managed, given my life... But I simply couldn't live too straight all the time. I had to bend, crooked, occasionally.
"My other choices seemed limited: twelve-stepping like a ghost into a boring future; or becoming one of those old mutt-faced hippies, brained by smoke and cheap whiskey, marijuana and politics. Frankly, I still loved to giggle and dance, still hated the fools in charge. Even the ones who said they were on our side. They drove me to drink, too. I didn't even hate the [Vietnam] war anymore, or even all the wasted death exactly... Hell, maybe I would become one of those ancient, almost wise old men who live for slow afternoon beers balanced against a single shot of good Scotch as the baseball plays on a bad television in a cheap bar. That sounded better than a reptilian isolation in retirement."
"On the afternoon I got shot, a Saturday, I spent the heat of the day cruising the Upper Valley of the Rio Grande in Norman's classy VW van... on the comfortable curves of the back roads, the tape deck cranked all the way to the sky as Zevon, Seger, Ely, and Waits wailed rock and roll into the blind maw of the ancient sun.
"Perhaps noticing that I was staring a half-century dead in the eye, I wondered if I should regret my taste in music, wondered if it was infantile, as woman once told me, but I simply could not resist all that wonderful madness, the reckless joy and pain. Truth to tell, I wondered about a lot of things these vacation afternoons. My hair had gotten skimpy, gray streaks among the blond, but god help me I still loved the blessed mota smoke, still loved the fuzzy stoned light in the middle of the afternoon. I had been living as straight as I'd ever managed, given my life... But I simply couldn't live too straight all the time. I had to bend, crooked, occasionally.
"My other choices seemed limited: twelve-stepping like a ghost into a boring future; or becoming one of those old mutt-faced hippies, brained by smoke and cheap whiskey, marijuana and politics. Frankly, I still loved to giggle and dance, still hated the fools in charge. Even the ones who said they were on our side. They drove me to drink, too. I didn't even hate the [Vietnam] war anymore, or even all the wasted death exactly... Hell, maybe I would become one of those ancient, almost wise old men who live for slow afternoon beers balanced against a single shot of good Scotch as the baseball plays on a bad television in a cheap bar. That sounded better than a reptilian isolation in retirement."
Mexican History
I'm sure you've heard pretty much every argument -- on all sides -- relating to immigration debate. I have no intention of adding my voice to that sea of opinion. But I will tell you, it's been really interesting to learn the Mexican perspective on Mexican-American relations. In a nutshell, their version of how things went down over the past couple of centuries ain't nothin' like what I learned in sixth grade American history class. For starters, I kinda missed the fact that the U.S. invaded Mexico several times and in fact "acquired" much of our American West at the point of a gun. No small land grab, either. What is now California, Arizona, etc. represented fully half of the Mexican landmass. The attached Absolut ad, which we recently saw in Mexico City, addresses, in a tongue-in-cheek way, a very well hidden sentiment shared by many Mexican citizens, especially younger ones.And then there's the whole issue of Texas: I just discovered James Crumley. If you haven't read any of his stuff, his writing is sort of a cross between Elmore Leonard and Hunter S. Thompson. Many of his books take place in West Texas near the Mexican border. In the book I finished most recently, called Bordersnakes, he wrote:
"...I decided as the sun drifted down the western sky, to head the van up the prehistoric banks of the Rio Grande, have a beer, smoke the last joint, cry a few tears, laugh, and think of Wynona Jones... But the cooler was empty. I couldn't go to the sunset without a beer. Luckily I was just passing La Esperansa del Mundo - a tiny Mexican beer joint that seemed to capture all the horrible moments between Texas and Mexico, the wars, the lies, the naked aggression of a country led by the Protestant gods of capitalism against a country confused by the old gods and the Catholic church, a country mad with beauty and despair... Yes. La Esparansa. 'Poor Mexico,' they say. 'Too far from God and too goddamned close to Texas.'"
As a final perspective on the current immigration debate, a friend recently shared this quote with me.
“Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the
