Gnaw the Bone

Where Have I Been?

2010-04-08T22:10:00.000-07:00

Many of you have contacted me in one way or another and asked, "why aren't you posting stuff anymore?" First of all, thanks for noticing I haven't been as prolific as I had been. Second, how dare you put that kind of pressure on me?

Since I read a ton of articles everyday (and then talk about them in no particular order), I noticed that there have been a spurt of articles announcing the death of blogging. Blogging is "passe," one article said. "People are not blogging as much as they used to a couple of years ago," read another. So I started investigating for myself, and yes, it's true. People are not writing as much. The casual internet user is still using and browsing a lot of content, but they are not digging in and really reading more than two paragraphs of a blog, review, article, etc. Call it the Twitter Effect.

Twitter is the Haiku of social media. If you can't distill your thoughts or what you're doing (and most are freaking boring, I must concede. In fact, I have stopped following major celebs and journalists because they are so inane.) in 140 characters, it's too long and involved to bother with. I love the brevity in theory. But it's sad how much people don't want to delve in-depth into anything anymore. This is really not the time in our history to be intellectually superficial or having the attention span of goldfish.

But as much as I have loved "tweeting" and sharing things with shorter URLs, I have missed writing, pondering, and opining about things as mundane as why I love watching the documentaries on CNBC about business, to how wonderful the Phoenix Symphony is, or what the Health Care bill can and will do to this country.

So, I am left to ask this rhetorically philosophical question: If I write something in the middle of the forest and put it on blogspot, does it make a sound?

Ponder on this and let me know if blogging is the future of the Net or the technological equivalent of the pet rock.

Tea Party, Anyone?

2010-02-07T15:04:00.000-08:00

The Tea Party movement, which has been virtually ignored and sometimes outright mocked by the mainstream media, gathered last weekend from across America in Nashville to rally, share ideas, get information and basically share a camaraderie that they feel is missing from the mainstream Republican party.

Whether you agree or not, the Tea Party movement is about lowering taxes, less government, state’s rights and national security. If you think that’s the definition of the Republican Party, you’d be wrong according to the national spokesman for the National Tea Party Convention, Mark Skoda. He told Fox News that “in the sense that we [fellow Tea Baggers] believe in our freedom and liberty, lower taxes and fiscal responsibility, unfortunately up until recently, the Republican party hasn’t embraced that fully in their actions…”

The convention looked nothing like a GOP or Democratic convention. In fact, that was the goal, according to Skoda. He said it was more of a grass roots effort to bring like-minded people together, get people elected to represent them in Washington DC; not create a third party or a new wing or a splintering, schismatic change in the GOP.

While I get that, one thing that I do not understand is whom the Tea Baggers invited to give the keynote address.

While watching Sarah Palin speak about what “the party of Ronald Reagan used to be,” railing against president Obama, politicos and cogs in Washington, and ratcheting up the disenfranchised on the right, I couldn’t help ask: Why her?

Palin’s speech, full of her usual folksy style, actually reminded me of President Obama’s style of much enthusiasm with little details. The speech made it seem that she is an “outsider;” someone who is not connected to status quo in the political sense.

Look, just because she’s not going to parties inside the beltway or currently holding political office, don’t kid yourself – she’s still more than connected.

Did the Tea Baggers forget Palin was the vice presidential nominee…on the GOP ticket? She is more connected and less of an “outsider” than people realize. She was a governor of a state, groomed (poorly) by John McCain’s staff, and now a contributor for Fox News. The same network who has hired another GOP stalwart – Mike Huckabee.

The whole notion of her going rogue is preposterous. She didn’t change, the GOP saw what a liability and non-factor she had become and quickly scuttled her as a viable candidate for any major office, so now she has become her own attraction, her own circus side show. Scott Brown has gained more relevance than she does in a shorter amount of time.

The Tea Party thinking Sarah Palin as the “outsider” is a mistake. This grass roots movement, or as Palin referred to them in her speech, “young, fresh and fragile” group is not doing itself any political favor or increasing their viability by hitching their collective wagon to her fading political star. That’s like calling John McCain a “maverick.”

The next question the Tea Party people should ask themselves is, “one lump or two?”

Kurt Warner's Legacy

2010-01-29T12:08:00.000-08:00

When Kurt Warner announced his retirement, I was sad. Not only because he, along with Coach Whisenhunt, changed the culture of a perennially sad and woeful team named the Cardinals, but because Kurt Warner is the embodiment of what life is all about: grinding toward you goal while never giving up service to others.

Sadly, sports is replete with stories of selfish, solipsistic behavior or a sense of entitlement. Very rarely does someone come into sports do something that is Herculean in nature: Kurt Warner made his team better; better players and better people.

Kurt Warner is more than just a football player, more than just a great quarterback. He is a transcendent inspiration on the field and off.

Think about it, if I were to tell you about a man who was invited to try out and cut by the Packers, missed his appointment with the Bears because of a spider bite, stocked groceries, played in the Arena League and landed as a backup in St. Louis, and won a Super Bowl, you would say that that's a stellar career. A career any player would want.

But if I told you how Kurt was cut by St. Louis, mentored Eli Manning of the Giants, wound up in the NFL trash pile called the Arizona Cardinals to mentor another young quarterback, but got the starting job and carried the team on his shoulders, taking the Cardinals to their first Super Bowl in their long history, you wouldn't believe it.

Plus, he's happily married with kids and a foundation that really gives back to the community.

That kind of career is a movie script. It's like a mythical, biblical parable - part true, part fable, and part tall tale with a wonderful didactic ending. Warner's NFL career makes Job look like a whiner.

But that's been the hallmark of Kurt Warner. From the time he was in college, he handled himself in a quiet, unassuming manner, stoking that competitive fire to do his best for himself, his family, holding steadfast to his beliefs and most importantly, others.

And when life was not kind, he never gave in to cynicism or bad-mouthing his team or other players. He kept his values, faith and principles in check, always keeping football important, but serving others a top priority.

Kurt Warner is a grinder, someone who keeps head down, works hard and when life threw obstacles in his way, he didn't quit - he kept grinding. I have a ton of respect for people like that and Warner is atop that list.

After the loss to the Saints, Kurt said he wanted God to take the desire to play football from him. I understand what he meant by that.

Kurt has been grinding so long and hard, not for a paycheck, not for the notoriety, but for the love of grinding it out, working hard and grinding toward his goals.

I will remember Kurt Warner as a great football player, but more importantly, a better human being.

Thanks, Kurt. The Cardinals, the NFL, and every city you've played in is a better place because of you and the lives you've touched.

POTUS: SOTU

2010-01-27T21:00:00.000-08:00

Declaring that he “won’t quit,” President Obama’s first State of the Union speech was a 70-minute patchwork quilt of regurgitated reiteration that he made to Congress a year before.

I wanted an apology. What I got was a do-over.

Last year, after his inauguration, the president went before Congress and spoke of his lofty, laudible goals for the country. Goals that included changes and/or reform concerning health care, energy, education, and the stimulus package.

This time, he added a few more goals while talking about America’s resiliency, taking shots at the Supreme Court and trying to sound like an political outsider and chastising his own party.

But the one line that stood out, the one sentence that made me actually shout “Ya’ think?” during his speech was when the president said, “No wonder there’s so much cynicism. No wonder there’s so much disappointment.” He was talking about American’s reaction to Washington D.C., but he should have shouldered the onus upon his slender shoulders because that’s where the blame surely and soundly sets.

I wanted an apology from the president for not listening, not hearing what Americans have been saying for the past year and wasting that year on his agenda, not the people’s.

We need a president to not only lead, but also have a vision for this country.

Instead of leading, Barack Obama has handled our current state of economic and unemployment affairs as a minor distraction in the grand scheme of what he wanted to accomplish. That goal of Health Care Reform died with the election of a Republican to Ted Kennedy’s seat two weeks ago.

In the SOTU speech, once again we see the president not focusing on what is important, but trying to please everyone by regurgitating his entire agenda that got him elected.

The president didn’t sound conciliatory because he truly believes he’s done nothing wrong. By chastising his own party and attacking a branch of government he has proven once again, he is not a leader.

Leaders take responsibility for their mistakes. Instead, all I heard was the same promises and a vow to “not quit.”

I guess that’s better than “hope and change.”

Conan: A Lesson in Kindness

2010-01-24T17:33:00.000-08:00

After all the drama, the forced angst, and the blind stupidity of choosing sides, Conan O’Brien’s last time hosting the Tonight Show on NBC uneventfully aired last Friday.

Full of tepid, awkward, and surreal irrelevant moments, (Neil Young as your last musical guest? Really? And Will Ferrell is getting close to becoming the comedic house guest who has outstayed his welcome), Conan actually gave a heartfelt and emotional “thank you” for the outpouring of creative and raucously loud support for him to continue to host the Tonight Show.

But it was in the middle of his farewell show that O’Brien delivered the most poignant and brilliant piece of advice I’ve ever heard from someone whose job it was to take shots, make fun of and laugh at other people’s expense. If you missed it, here’s his effulgent quote: “Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought there were going to get, but if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen…” He then went on to speak about his hate of cynicism, saying it’s the worst trait someone can possess.

Now I think a certain amount of cynicism isn’t a bad thing, but Conan is dead-on correct about being kind in your daily life.

Conan wasn’t taking jabs, wasn’t sticking it one more time to NBC pinhead Jeff Zucker, or even the golden boy, Jay Leno. He was speaking from the heart and I wish he had spoken more to this than making bad jokes about stealing office supplies and sticking NBC with the bill.

Being kind is something I’ve had to learn as an adult. Not because it wasn’t ingrained in my from my family; my mother made me volunteer at a nursing home when I was a kid instead of sitting at home all summer long. But between leaving college and being enveloped by the real world, those lessons are overshadowed and often counter-intuitive to becoming successful.

I am not making excuses, but when I saw successful people, I saw people who were ruthless, cunning and diabolical not only getting ahead, but being wildly successful. They were titans of industry, heads of state, made of Teflon, and having veins of ice water.

People like that are called sharks, cutthroat, corporate raiders, and rouges. In the broadcasting industry, they are called geniuses, talent with a capital “T,” divas and more importantly, they commanded a lot of money and are feared. Back in the late ‘80’s, I would listen to Glenn Beck when he was a morning DJ and still a raging alcoholic. One of the more infamous stories of his tenure in Charm City was when he fired someone for handing him the wrong kind of pen. It wasn’t long after that incident where Beck found himself without a job, without friends, and hitting rock bottom.

People like Glenn (who has done an amazing job in rescuing his life and career and is one of the kindest people I’ve ever met) and others who have faded into radio infamy or white-knuckling their jobs, were whom I aspired to be like (without the drug and alcohol addiction). But what I didn’t know or understand was that for all their outward success, they were also the first to be let go when ratings went down and miserable people.

Realizing that being kind is not a show of weakness, but actually a source of strength and maturity was a real awakening for me. Like Conan pointed out: nothing is guaranteed, but along the way kindness is invaluable in managing the vicissitudes and vagaries of life. Call it karma or the Golden Rule but so much opportunity has come my way after I decided to be kind and give back in my own life.

Remember the cliché, “Kill ‘em with kindness?” That’s exactly what Conan did.

Francene Cucinello -- RIP

2010-01-20T09:01:00.001-08:00

Radio is an incestually small, uber-ego driven, and severely cutthroat business. That’s why when someone goes against the grain, a talented broadcaster who is also a wonderful person, they always stand out.

And it’s that much sadder when they are no longer with us.

A wonderfully talented, vivacious woman left us last week. And unless you live in Louisville, KY, you’ve probably never heard of her.

Francene Cucinello, according to the AP, died after suffering a heart attack and brain aneurysm last week. She was 43.

I never met Francene, but I remember her television days in Baltimore on WMAR. She was a bright, hard-working, compassionate reporter who made everyone feel immediately comfortable with a gleaming smile and inquisitive personality.

In 2003, I had the opportunity to audition at WHAS in Louisville, which is an outstanding station with a long and proud broadcasting heritage. My audition went well and afterward I talked to the program director Kelly Carls about the position. He said he was interviewing a couple of people but I was in the top tier, so I assumed had the job.

A couple of days later, Kelly called me to tell me that I wasn’t going to be the new midday host on WHAS. I was crushed, but when he told me whom he had hired, I totally understood.

Francene had switched from television to radio and was working in St. Louis, doing well, but wanted a better time slot. Kelly spoke glowingly of her talent and I could not argue with his decision. I reached out and emailed Francene, writing I remembered her from Baltimore, and congratulating her on getting the gig at WHAS. She couldn’t have been more gracious and friendly in her reply. We sporadically emailed each other the years went on, but I lost touch since I moved to KTAR in Phoenix.

I regret not keeping in touch. 43 years young is way too soon to be dispatched from this earth; especially as a talk host. Most radio hosts don’t hit their stride until their 40’s. Francene had become a great fit at WHAS and Louisville. Her ratings were strong, but more importantly, she connected with her audience and her audience grew to love her.

Woman talk show hosts are few and far between. Since it’s primarily a “boys club,” I applaud Kelly Carls and WHAS on taking a chance in hiring a woman to hold a prime spot on a great station. This morning I received a reply from Kelly after I emailed him my sympathies. He said that at the memorial one of Francene’s friend summed up her life this way saying Francene packed 100 years of living into 43 years of life.

We should all aspire to live like Francene Cucinello. You will be missed. RIP.

Security Is an Illusion

2010-01-11T09:01:00.001-08:00

Since the Boxer/Brief Bomber terrorism scare on Christmas day, there’s been a lot of talk about “security.”

At first, Homeland Security Director, Janet Napolitano said that the system worked. She recanted two days later and the Obama Administration has been furiously trying to figure out what went wrong and how the major agencies can stop someone trying to execute a “man-made disaster,” which used to be known as a “terrorist attack.”

Good luck.

As a society, for the most part, we strive for, pay for, and crave something that is elusive, mercurial and ephemeral. “Security” is just an illusion.

Any psychologist, poet or philosopher will tell you that the sooner you give up on this idea of being “safe” or “secure,” life becomes easier; it’s not fraught with Henny Penny anxiety or hand-wringing over “what if’s.” But that’s not what the American people want from this president or the Department of Homeland Security.

Charles Schulz’s Peanuts cartoon always had a character who never went anywhere without his blanket. Linus represents all of us who hang on to this illogical notion that if we have a blanket, a lucky rabbit’s foot, anything that makes us feel safe, we will be okay.

The notion of being safe is just that – an idea, not a concrete fact.

Take the economy. There are many people who did the “safe” thing. They had good credit, bought a house they could afford, got a good loan. But are they “safe” from this recession? Probably not. The house is probably be worth less that what they paid for it. And yet, they did everything to be “secure.”

You can work out, watch what you eat, and not smoke and still be stricken with cancer or hit by a gasoline truck on your way to work driving on Camelback.

Don’t get me wrong, this administration doesn’t understand what terrorism truly is and what needs to be done to monitor and thwart attacks in the future. But when the president announced new measures to make sure our country would be “more secure”, all I kept thinking was what a waste of time. Just because this administration implements a new piece of technology to screen someone at an airport doesn’t mean we are any “safer.” Security isn’t about spending billions of dollars on new technology; it’s not about creating another layer of paperwork from the major agencies that will report to the president. It’s not even about accountability. Security is realizing that no matter how much you prepare, train, pray, pay or kvetch, stuff still happens in this randomly chaotic universe.

Janis Joplin sang it best: “Freedom’s just another word, for nothing left to lose.”

Resolutions for 2010

2009-12-28T11:15:00.000-08:00

I’ve never been one to make resolutions at the end of the year. To wait until the year clicks on your calendar to me is a sign that you don’t want to (fill in your resolution here) in the first place. If you want to lose weight, start writing a novel, learn Chinese, etc., just do it -- no matter what the day, month or year.

But this year was different for me.

As I reflect back on a tumultuous year for me personally and professionally, I think we should take an honest look at ourselves, our city, state and country and make some resolutions. Because I am not afraid that we will repeat history and keep doing bad things or making wrong decisions, I think it is time to take stock and figure out we need for a clear and purposeful path if we want positive changes.

For Phoenix and Arizona:

We need to resolve to find some key people in on beyond the state and divine a mutually beneficial relationship for our collective future. It is abundantly clear that this state is bankrupt -- literally and figuratively -- and we need much better leadership for this state to not only survive, but thrive. We need ideas, plans, and a definite execution of these plans for this state to succeed. State Treasurer Dean Martin says that we are out of money. There is no more. The state doesn’t have a budget. Governor Woo Hoo has dithered with the future of this state to the point of embarrassment. Forget the almost $3 Billion shortfall, if there isn’t money for the state, people will start getting IOU’s in their state paychecks. You may get one for you state income tax return. This should have never gotten to this point.

Which brings me to my next resolution:

We need to resolve not to let Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon or any other elected political hero to go to Washington with a tin cup and beg for money. We are better than that and could be the example of how to stay fiscally viable as a state instead of a handout state if Mayor Gordon would stop racking up the frequent flyer miles and actually make some tough decisions on how to keep the City of Phoenix viable. Instead of a state that relies too heavily on the old standbys (citrus, copper, tourism, construction, etc.) why not become the leader in solar and water technology? Why can’t we become the next Silicon Valley? Why can’t we become the next Hollywood? We can do these things as well as promote and encourage small business. But this state’s political heroes have become lazy and addicted to tax money. Good luck taxing people who move outside of Arizona as California and New York are finding out.

Nationally, let’s resolve to stop government bailouts and allowing government to dictate to you how to live your life through taxes, healthcare and benefits. We have become a nation of slack-jawed wimps who allow others to dictate the rules.

Speaking of rules, can we please resolve to keep our focus on terrorism? As the Christmas Day Almost Attack clearly illustrated, Janet Napolitano needs to quit with the Politically Correct excuses and crack down on people who want to harm Americans who are trying to live their daily lives. But not calling the Fort Hood Massacre what it was, a terrorist attack, and by not catching an extremist on the watch list, it’s clear that this administration wants to handle terrorism like a hobby.

I could go on and bore you with my own resolutions, but I won’t -- except for one: I resolve to keep Gaydos in check, while keeping you entertained and informed 3 - 7 every weekday on KTAR.

Have a safe and prosperous 2010!

Xmas or Christmas?

2009-12-15T21:18:00.000-08:00

‘Tis the Season! No, it’s not the time for holiday cheery and goodwill towards men. Battle lines have been drawn once again for what I like to call the “Xmas Controversy.” And this time, I almost fell for it.

Each year I wait with giddy anticipation for news stories about people who get their sticking all bunched in a wad, trying to take the “Christ” out of Christmas because it may make people “uncomfortable” or may be “offensive” to some people. I usually chuckle when reading these stories and count how many cards I get from people who send me warm tidings of comfort and joy with the most banal, meaningless greeting on them.

Well, this year I caught myself giving into the fraud and naiveté that has encircled and emasculated our culture called “political correctness,” almost becoming what I hate the most – a sheep, a lemming, a “xmas” conformist.

While shopping for Christmas cards at a huge box store with its bright fluorescent lighting and mesmerizing holiday music playing through loud speaking in the ceiling, I caught myself deciding between two all-inclusive, pedestrian “xmas” slogans that didn’t reflect me. In fact, I was heretically trying not to be offensive to Jews, Muslims, Pagans, Hindus, Atheists, Satanists, Agnostics and anyone else who wasn’t Christian or “Xian.”

In the momentary lapse of judgment I caught myself holding two sets of cards in my hands, trying to decide if I wanted to send my family, friends and co-workers a winter wonderland scene replete with a corn-cobbed pipe-and-button-nosed snowman and antique sled or a giant textured retro snowflake. Inside the snowman card read, “Happy Holidays!” When you opened the super-sized snowflake, your retinas were singed by huge red letters that screamed, “SEASON’S GREETINGS!”

I had fallen into the “xmas” trap, not picking a card that reflect my beliefs, my ideals, and what I think this season means to me.

Instead, I was trying to play it safe, go the easy route, not making any holiday waves for people celebrating Chanukah, Kwanzaa, or non-religious people who just wanted to bask in the warm glow of Rudolph’s bright red nose. I was so disgusted at myself; I threw both sets of holiday greeting bards on the ground. But feeling guilty, I picked up both packages and put them back in their respective places. (Hey, I worked retail when I was younger – I remember cleaning up after someone trashed the greeting card aisle.)

We are idly allowing the misguided and self-haters to win. Once again, this holiday season people are trying to take the “Christ” out of Christmas because it causes some to be “uncomfortable” or “offended.” Now I am no Chucky Churchgoer, but I am terrible and increasingly “offended” by this year’s example of the “Xmas Controversy.”

So I give Governor Jan Brewer a lot of credit this year for calling the tree adorned at the capitol a “Christmas” tree instead of a Holiday tree. And if you’re a state employee offended by this blatant reference to Christianity, then I suggest you show up to work December 25th because for you to take a “holiday” on taxpayer dollars in something you are “offended” by, “offends” me.

Now who’s being naughty and who’s being nice? Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king, “do you hear what I hear?” It’s the state employees screaming their lungs out because they don’t get another paid holiday.

We go through this needless exercise every year of banning Nativity Scenes or Menorahs across the country. Maybe some knuckleheaded elected political hero should get a piece of legislation passed that officially changes the word “Christmas” to “Xmas” so it wouldn’t be so offensive.

Which would be unbelievably offensive to me.

President Obama Doesn't Get It

2009-12-13T12:47:00.000-08:00

President Obama has lashed out at financial institutions, as the Wall Street Journal reported, “Fat cats” who “don’t get it" and will demand they start lending money when he meets with top banking executives this week.

The president needs to turn his accusatory finger back on himself. It’s not Wall Street, it’s not the banks, it’s not the American people – it’s the president who doesn’t "get it." And if he’s is not careful, his meeting with the so-called “fat cats” on Monday could have the opposite effect the president wants for the American people.

Already having a frosty relationship with the banking industry, the president says he wants to meet with the top bank officials to get them to loosen their collective purse strings and start lending money to more Americans.

As the president likes to say, let me be perfectly clear – this is exactly the WRONG thing to do right now in this economy. After the mortgage meltdown and the collapse of Wall Street, the banks shuddered and then shuttered much of their lending for a reason. They want to remain solvent and hang on to their equity to stay in business.

President Bush thought (incorrectly) that by infusing money into our financial system, it would help the banks to stay solvent and keep money flowing into the economy. It didn’t and most banks held onto the TARP money only to pay it back (with interest) once the Government started dictating terms and conditions of using the money.

Now the president thinks he can invite these CEOs, these Capitalists to the White House and strong-arm them into lending again?

If we are to give money to people who don’t have the means to pay back these loans, or if the bank wants to take on more debt by risking more lending, aren’t we back where we started from about 15 months ago? Wasn’t the entire collapse of our economy because of giving someone money for something they couldn’t pay back when the note was due and they defaulted?

Barack Obama can’t have it both ways. He can’t keep giving TARP money with strings attached and he cannot influence the banking system to go back on hundreds of years of conventional wisdom on how and when to lend money, (influencing an-already unstable, tenuous market) to people and companies.

If the banking system actually listens to Barack and lends money to people and businesses who cannot pay the money back, then we are right back on the financial precipice that Hank Paulson and Nancy Pelosi warned us we were teetering on last year.

Except this time when we fall into the abyss, we can’t blame faceless Wall Street “fat cats,” we can blame one person – one man. President Obama.

Christmas Specials Are Still Cool!

2009-12-11T11:57:00.001-08:00

You can have the pathetic tree, Vince Guaraldi’s jazz piano-ladened soundtrack, and the Linus soliloquy. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” may be a true slice of Holiday Season Americana, but give me the cheesiest, low-rent, stop-motion animation full of characters with names like Winter Warlock, Burger Meister Meister Burger, Special Delivery Kruger, and Yukon Cornelius.

Call me immature, but don’t talk to me when I am engrossed in a Rankin-Bass Christmas special. This time of year when people are rushing around buying trees, wrapping presents and generally boosting our economy by purchasing gifts for friends, family and co-workers, I am setting my DVR for the best this season has to offer.

The unparalleled producers of what some call “Xmas Special Schlock,” were Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass. During the 1960’s and 1970’s their production company cranked out some of the best (or worst, depending on you bah-humbug quotient) animated stories, which they called “animagic.”

These wonderfully sappy Holiday specials cover every myth associated with Christmas and even invent a few new ones, such as the Island of Misfit Toys. Titles include “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” narrated by Fred Astaire, to “The Year Without a Santa Claus” with such memorable characters as Snow Miser and Heat Miser.

So why waste so much valuable shopping time on Christmas Specials that I have watched every single year since the Johnson Administration? Because underneath the paper-thin plots, ubiquitous sugar-powdery snow, and ridiculously decorated characters with oblong bodies and construction paper eyes, is a theme that resonates every Christmas Season.

Christmas is a time to spend with family and friends, a time to share special memories and create fresh ones with new family members, new friends, and new experiences. It’s also a time to exchange gifts – symbols of love and expressions of selflessness that we may not have the opportunity to give any other time of year.

Since Christmas falls at the end of the month at the end of the calendar year, it makes sense to reflect on the past year and maybe a bit farther back. If time heals all wounds, Christmas makes us more open to forgiveness and with that, redemption.

The reason I love these cheesy Rankin-Bass productions is that they all deal with the theme of redemption. In “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” the Winter Warlock, who is frigid from the inside out, gets to redeem himself after Kris Kringle melts his heart by giving him, as Winter calls it, “a choo-choo!” When the Burger Meister jails the whole Claus clan, Winter feeds his last few pellets of magic feed corn to the reindeer, this allowing them to fly Santa and the gang out of prison.

In the classic “Rudolph’s Shiny New Year,” the villainous Eon, the vulture who want to stop the New Year from coming, because when it does, he turns into ice and snow at the stroke of midnight. So he captures Baby New Year who has been hiding in the Archipelagos of Last Years due to his embarrassment over his big ears. Eon tricks the baby into his being his friend until Rudolph finds him and uses Happy’s cab door ears to make Eon laugh.

Well, Eon laughs so hard he falls right out of his nest and down the side of the treacherous mountain. Happy is saved, but Eon isn’t dead. When the New Year does come on January 1, Eon doesn’t turn into a wintery mix because as Rudolph says, “He’s laughed so hard, he’s filled up with warmth inside.”

Yes, I realize I should get a life. Still, the irresistible theme of redemption is the underpinning of every Rankin-Bass production.

Good more than triumphs over evil – evil is redeemed.

I know it’s insipid, saccharine and so syrupy sweet you want to shout “Humbug!” just to feel human, but every time I watch one of those Rankin-Bass Christmas specials, it warms me from the inside.

Thanks to the ABC Family channel and the 25 Days of Christmas, I am redeemed every year. Without fail I am transformed from a jaded, cynical, curmudgeon-cuss of an adult into a wide-eyed seven year-old. I am once again sitting in front of my parent’s RCA with one knob missing, turning the channel knob with an old pair of my grandfather’s needle-nose pliers, waiting to be redeemed all over again.

Redemption is a powerful and inspirational thing, no matter under which marshmallow snow pile you find it.

Tuesday Night

2009-11-29T20:10:00.001-08:00

Tuesday night is when the president will outline his plan for future action in Afghanistan. The president is caught between a rock, a war and a hard place for his re-election so his speech has to be carefully crafted and worded in way that is palatable to all sides.

If recent polls are any indication, America has lost her interest in ferreting out terrorists in the Af-Pak war. When we decided to go after Uber-terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden many years ago, it was out of revenge, fueled by the savage attacks on our own soil September 11, 2001.

But the palpable fury has been replaced by grim pessimism. Not because of our lack of will power and determination in our military, but because people are worried about losing their home, their job and the piece of mind that comes with a stable economy. We could stomach two wars a couple years ago. Now people are more concerned about how to get through the week being un- or underemployed.

Also, polls show that people are getting weary of the president’s lack of accomplishment. For the first time in his first term, the president’s approval rating has slipped below 50 percent. Tuesday night he can re-affirm and re-energize the American people and tell the world what his plan has to be, not what he wants it to be.

There is a huge distinction. “Having” is a commitment, a passion and a metaphysical certitude for something to be achieved. “Wanting” leaves room for doubt and distraction. And worst of all, settling. We can’t settle for another long, drawn out conflict in Afghanistan. Nor can the world. Decisive action must happen.

Here is what Barack Obama needs to say to the American people: He needs to be succinct and his conviction must be resolute if he is sending in more troops. For the people who elected him into office, he must steadfastly remind them of why we are fighting and why committing enough of our brave men and women is necessary.

For those who haven’t forgotten why we are in Afghanistan and want more troops, Obama needs to show that he understands the task at hand and has to demonstrate a willingness to win. There is nothing more disheartening than watching a man try to be passionate about something he doesn’t believe in. Look at LBJ during his term during the Viet Nam war. It literally drained him and he didn’t seek a second term.

Obama has to get this speech right if he wants to succeed in Afghanistan. If he doesn’t, the world will know immediately.

It's Not About You, Lou

2009-11-15T12:10:00.001-08:00

After meeting Lou Dobbs at the Economic Summit at Baylor University in 2003, I couldn’t help but notice his ego matched his physical stature and girth. He was outside on a break from anchoring on CNN, smoking a cigarette, when I approached him and asked what he thought of the summit. He couldn’t be bothered. He was on his way to marginalizing himself in an industry where you need an ego, but can’t be consumed by it.

So last Wednesday night when Dobbs suddenly announced on his cable news show that it would be his last broadcast on that network, I wasn’t surprised. Lou, like so many who have come before him, made the easily attractive but fatal mistake of believing he was bigger than the network, and more importantly, thought he was bigger than his audience. Here was a man who thought he was a blowtorch, only to realize he was a disposal lighter in the conflagration that is broadcast cable.

Dobbs and CNN president Jon Klein reportedly had been butting heads about the direction Dobbs was taking on his show. It doesn’t matter what the subject matter was; it could have been anything. But Dobbs’ massive ego felt that he knew better than the audience, and even more ludicrous, he knew better than the bosses at CNN.

I’ve been broadcasting for over 15 years and have seen too many times this cautionary tale play itself out. When someone thinks they are bigger than the station, they are doomed to fall.

When I played Top 40 music as a DJ, did I like every song? No. Did I stick to the play list that management created for the station every day? Yes. Why? Because it wasn’t about me – it was about playing the songs that people wanted to hear to maximize the ratings for the station.

If Gaydos and I only myopically talked about stuff that interested us, you’d be listening to four hours of NASCAR, the Yankees, why Gaydos hates parades, why Michael Buble makes my skin crawl, or how I want Regis Philbin’s gig. Actually, you wouldn’t be listening and management would have a serious Stop N Chat about our show.

The show ain’t about us; it’s about ratings. The show is what you, as an audience, want to hear going on in the Valley and the nation.

Lou Dobbs was perennially third in his time slot on CNN. That’s not ratings success. Heck, that’s not even being in the ratings game.

Much research and strategizing go into how to make KTAR or CNN or FOX or NBC 12 successful. Broadcasting is like taming a cobra. It’s always a dance between snake and snake charmer and if the charmer starts believing that he truly he has control, the snake will fatally remind him with one strike.

Once a host thinks they’re bigger than the network or station that gives them a paycheck, it’s over. Ask Imus, ask Stern, ask Dan Rather how it feels to marginalize one’s self in an industry called Broadcasting. Not Ego casting.

Last Wednesday, Lou Dobbs corpulent corpse was thrown on the bone yard of previous hosts and talents who are now vague and irrelevant afterthoughts because their own ego ultimately undid their successful careers.

Tragedy Strikes HOT...Again

2009-11-08T19:13:00.000-08:00

When the tragic events happened last week at Fort Hood, I watched intently on what was unfolding. Not only because of the horrific nature of a lone serviceman shooting his brothers in arms, but also because I lived and worked in Central Texas (also called the Heart of Texas) for six years.

Fort Hood is an Army post that borders small, close-knit towns in Texas you’ve probably never heard of: Harker Heights, Copperas Cove, Belton. Like so many small towns in Texas, they are filled with good people just trying to make a living and raise their kids the best they can.

But last week, I was reminded of small towns I lived and worked in that have suffered through horrendous tragedies just like what happened at Fort Hood.

Killeen, Texas, is due west next to Fort Hood and was the scene of the largest mass-shooting rampage in United States history until the Virginia Tech shootings. In 1991, George Jo Hennard, took his pickup and slammed it into the front of a Luby’s Restaurant. He then proceeded to shoot 43 people, 23 of whom died, before committing suicide.

Waco, Texas, is 30 miles to the north of Fort Hood, and now synonymous with a man named David Koresh. In 1993, Waco suffered through the events that unfolded between the Branch Davidians and the FBI. It doesn’t matter whose side you’re on, people died under tragic circumstances.

If you also count the tower shooting on the University of Texas campus back in 1966 where 13 people were shot dead, you quickly realize that Central Texas has seen it’s share of tragic shootings.

What is so ironic is that after living there for so many years, it’s the last place where such horrific crimes should happen. It’s beyond comprehension how this small, simple, bucolic area of our country has witnessed so much catastrophic, murderous rampage.

The people in these towns that dot the flat, green patchwork landscape along I-35 are good, honest, and God-fearing. Last week we were unfortunately and lugubriously brought back to Central Texas to witness another tragedy.

As we learn more about the disconsolate circumstances surrounding the Fort Hood Massacre, I feel fortunate to have so many good memories of that part of the country, even when tragedy invades.

One Year Later

2009-11-05T09:38:00.001-08:00

Last year this month, this country made history. We elected an African American to the highest office in the land.

Already the word “failure” has seeped into the media about this president. Failure? Even college coaches get more time be a total and complete “failure.”

Barack Obama was ushered into the White House on a momentous wave of a simple, audacious, and ephemeral mantra: “Hope and Change.”

“Hope” has given way to pragmatism. “Change” has stagnated to political gridlock. The recession has shown signs of abatement, but consumer confidence is still lower than the APR on a regular savings account.

When Barack inherited the crushing economic recession, the housing market avalanche, as well as two long and entrenched wars, his approval ratings were above 70 percent.

A year later the president’s approval ratings have precipitously fallen. Obama’s approval rating has fallen farther and fast than his predecessor in the same time frame of GWB’s first year in office.

But has Barack Obama’s first year as president been a failure? Political hacks that get paid to yammer on cable news shows will say yes. They’re idiots. Plain and simple.

There is no way any person, man or woman, could have changed the course of our economic downturn. It wouldn’t have mattered if John McCain were elected president. Ronald Reagan inherited a worse recession, stagflation, gas lines, a long-standing Cold War as well as the Iranian Hostage Crisis. His approval numbers didn’t start to tick up until his second year in office. And we were still in a recession.

The economy is its own entity, a juggernaut of prosperity in good times, the grim reaper of jobs, GDP and investments in a downturn. No one man can control it; even the Fed Chairman has a Herculean task, trying to change its direction, sometimes with catastrophic results.

Now I do not agree with Obama’s politics, and I have been outspoken about his positions, decisions and issues like reforming health care. I have denigrated his Czar appointments, his repetitive and unnecessary press conferences as well as his style-without-substance speeches.

But has he failed? Even I won’t go there.

Meghan, Please Stop!

2009-10-21T22:41:00.000-07:00

Ok. Seriously. You need to stop.

Meghan, I kept my mouth shut when you appeared on The View with all the other cackling hens. I didn’t say anything about the Twitpic controversy (see above), but after last night, Meghan, someone needs to pull you over for a "stop-n-chat."

I guess that has to be me because no one else has or no one cares.

Meghan, you don’t need to do the Leno Show, you don’t need to be hanging with D celebs like the faux-liberal Arianna Huffington, the least popular Baldwin brother (Stephen, or as he likes to be called, “Stevie B.”) and a comedian who can only make pedophile jokes to get a laugh.

Even though your father is a senior senator from Arizona, a former POW, and a graduate of the Naval Academy, you need to learn a lesson from dad and know how to do damage control. Instead of posting pouty, petulant pieces on Twitter, or throwing tempest-on-a-Twitter retorts to people who take pot shots at you, pull back. Even your father knew when to bail out instead of going down in flames.

You’ve chosen this life, this mock mash-up of pop culture and serious politics. But it’s become like a cheap ride at the Arizona State Fair and the only thing that separates you from careening is the toothless carnie whose fingers are too sticky from eating cotton candy to stop the ride in time.

Just because you grew up in the “Valley” doesn’t mean you have to be that “Girl.”

You’ve decided that you want it all and when people call you out, you lash out like a reality star claiming you didn’t bring this on yourself. That’s total horse-spit and you know it.

You are the best and worst of your parents combined. You’ve got your father’s quick temper, steadfast resolve, and passion for politics. But you also possess your mom’s insight, intelligence and sophisticated visage.

But you have to learn to harness both and stop this precipitous descent into a has-been, washed-up celeb-utante by the time you’re 30. Hello, Paris Hilton anyone?

Personally, I want you to succeed. I want people to know the person who has wonderfully insightfully, challenging ideas for the GOP. I want you to invigorate and rally young people to be more politically active and invest in the future of this country. I love the Meghan McCain that I read, not the ditz on television or the petulant child that erupts with venomous, sophomoric tweets.

Leave that to Perez Hilton or Bill Maher.

More Promises From Obama

2009-10-12T22:21:00.001-07:00

Barack Obama can’t win.

In the past few months of his new administration, the president’s health care reform bill has stalled, the closing of Gitmo has been as mired as his plans for what to do in Afghanistan, and he went to Denmark thinking he was the lynch-pin in securing Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics. America (and thusly, the Obama Administration) was slapped across the face by the IOC with a first round dismissal.

And I won’t even get into the whole Nobel Peace Prize award, contending it was not his doing and he was going to be criticized for taking or declining the award.

But when the president accepted the Nobel Peace prize, he said it was a “call to action.”

That quote got me thinking. Barack has called all of us to higher action, more involvement in our communities, etc., but we’ve really not seen any action since his historic election last year.

Saturday was another example. Speaking at the Human Rights Campaign annual dinner in DC, the president received a standing ovation when he reasserted his campaign promise to revoke the gutless and shameful military policy that Bill Clinton initiated in 1993 of homosexuals’ service in our military.

Obama, eloquent as usual, stated that he will, “end ‘don’t ask-don’t tell. I appreciate that many of you don’t believe progress has come fast enough. Do not doubt the direction we are heading and the destination we will reach.”

Once again, the president made no clear, decisive remarks on a timetable and never stated a goal of when the ban would be lifted on gays who proudly serve in the military. This is just another example of what the president’s term has been about: great ideas, no real sense of urgency or direction, and no end date. One gay activist said that although the speech was brilliant, “it lacked the answer to our most pressing question, which is when.”

Stand in line, sir. That has been a major complaint of not only partisan hacks who want this administration to fail, but also of key Dems who are tired of sitting on their hands and waiting for a timeline…for anything.

Obama’s Achilles heel in his administration has been his unwillingness or vague realization that anyone can have ideas; it’s the decisive execution that counts. If Thomas Edison, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Bill Gates, Thomas Jefferson or even Jesse James had all these ideas and never took action and made them realities, they would not be famous (or in James’ case, infamous).

The time for pretty prose and inspirational oratory is over. Barack Obama has got to roll his shirt sleeves up, get his hands dirty, and take decisive action.

Joe Solmonese, president of Human Rights Campaign, says that his group has, “never had a stronger ally in the White House.” Careful what you wish for. Sometimes allies can make you stronger, helping you to reach your goal, (e.g., the Brits in WWII) or they bring inaction and ultimately become your enemy (e.g., the Soviet Union during and post WWII).

Barack Obama was ushered into the White House on a message of Hope and Change.

Hope is theoretical construct with no onus, no accountability. It’s all based on “if.” Change is a hard, steady grind that doesn’t come easy. Let’s hope Obama learns how to grind out some victories for this country instead of wishing for “ifs.”

Hot Doc

2009-10-10T13:08:00.000-07:00

Some listeners have asked me to re-tell the story of my hot doctor story. Here it is:

For the past twenty-some years, I’ve had a lump in my leg right near my groin. I went to the doctor when I when I first noticed it and he told me to not worry about it, it was something called a lipoma. It wasn’t cancerous, it wasn’t going to hurt, but if I wanted to have it cut out, he could do it. I declined and haven’t thought about until I visited my primary care doctor about a month ago and he said that I should have it removed before it actually started to interstitially grow into the muscle.

So, on his recommendation, I made an appointment to see a specialist who could take care of my lump that has grown from a pea-sized annoyance to a golf-ball sized distraction. And that’s all I am going to say about my nasty lump since HIPPA laws preclude me from divulging any more information – and I’ve already gone into the realm of “TMI.”

Now I have never really been keen on doctors. Ever-so-lucky, i've inherited all the weak, recessive genes in my family tree. As a three year old, I was diagnosed with asthma/allergies to anything with fur, pollen or spores. For the next 11 years, instead of watching Captain Caveman, School House Rock, Jabberjaw or Scooby Doo cartoons, I spent every Saturday morning going to different doctors, getting numerous allergy shots to build up my immunity.

So anytime I see a person in a white coat with a stethoscope, my eye starts to twitch as I break out in a sweat. I’ve gotten better in my old age, but nothing prepared me for what happened when I visited the specialist for a consultation on my lipoma.

As you get older, you learn what to expect in professional situations. When you go onto a car lot, you’re ready for the car shark; when you go to church, you speak in low, whispered tones out of respect.

Before I go to the doctor, I make a list of questions, trying not to remember the trauma of being held down when i was three years old on an examination table, getting poked by dozens of needles as the allergist tried to determine what I was allergic to and the severity of my reacion. My mother said it took two nurses and my father to keep me down. I guess that makes me a fighter.

Doctors are usually plain, medically neat people who come in with prescription pad and lollipop handy.

Not this doctor. As I was sitting in the chair, reading my magazine, a woman came into the room and introduced herself as my doctor. I looked up from my Sports Illustrated to see a tall, statuesque woman in a tight black dress instead of a white lab coat. Instead of running shoes or those ugly crocs which are de rigueur in most doctor’s office and hospitals, she had black stiletto heels. Her long, blonde hair was perfect, not pulled back with a pragmatic, solid-colored scrunchee. She wore pearls instead of stethoscope around her neck.

So when she opened my folder and asked how she could help me, I did something I’ve never done to a doctor before. I couldn’t remember why I was in the doctor’s office in the first place.

When I finally fumbled and stumbled for the words to describe that I had a bump on my leg, she looked in my folder again and said something that made me forgot my lump, my list and my name. Smiling with perfect, white teeth, she told me that I needed to show her where the lump was located.

Gulp.

Unlike my radio persona, I am very self conscious and rather shy. I hate pulling my pants down for any reason, but especially an exam, whether it be for a man doctor or a female nurse or vice versa. But she insisted, saying “I need to see the diameter and location so we can proceed.”

Gulp.

She smelled my fear which had overtaken her fragrant, scent; sweat beaded on my forehead. All I kept thinking was, “Where is the androgynous white coat, the loose, billowy scrubs that hide any kind of sexiness? I’ve watched ER and Grey’s Anatomy and those TV doctors don’t dress like this! What kind of doctor wears stilettos in the office?”

She does. And it was killing me.

Finally, I gathered enough courage to pull my pants down, showing her exactly where the location of the benign growth. She examined it, touched it with her manicured fingers, made some notes in my folder, and said that I needed to schedule another appointment to get it removed.

I wonder what she wears for surgery?

Thank goodness she didn’t ask me to turn my head and cough, I would’ve passed out.

Don't Blame Us

2009-10-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

Last week when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebilius held a press conference, telling the American people to “step up” and get the H1N1 or Swine Flu vaccine, I had a sneaking suspicion that we, in the media, would be blamed for people not getting immunized against the Swine flu.

Not surprisingly, I was right. A report has come out that doctors and health care providers across the country have growing concerns that the way the media is covering the Swine Flu “umbrella,” (i.e., the vaccines, controversy, deaths and infectious outbreaks), is contributing to low vaccination rates in parts of the country, especially in major population centers like New York City.

Because there has been an almost non-stop deluge of news about the possibilities of the Swine Flu pandemic, the public may be at greater risk because they’ve stopped listening or paying attention.

Reporting science is a tricky, mercurial venture. If something is cool, like NASA bombing the moon, people will watch because of great computer graphics and pictures simulating blowing a crater out of the lunar surface.

Not so with something as opaque and ephemeral as the flu. News organizations have a hard time finding the right balance of information without turning into a “Science Guy” special or a catastrophic infomercial. If the news tries to explain a concept that takes more than two minutes, people tune it out. When there isn’t enough reporting, whether that perception is accurate or not, health care officials cry foul that they are trying to educate and warn the public about a national health problem and their message is not being broadcasted.

So how are we doing?

I may be biased, but I think our show (Mac and Gaydos on 92.3 KTAR in the afternoon. If you're not in the Phoenix area, got to KTAR.com for more information) does a better-than-average job when it comes to reporting, disseminating and then opining about this would/could-be pandemic known as H1N1.

Because of our own personal biases and natural curiosity, Gaydos and I have made a concerted effort to analyze, but not spew bombast. Since we are not educated as doctors or immunologists, we bring a more populist perspective. Sorting through information, we tell you what we know without the lexicon of a JAMA article.

Gaydos, who is a certifiable hypochondriac, scours the Internet and television for information on the flu, seasonal or Swine, talks to people at the Health Department and calls his doctor brother almost on a daily basis culling the latest information. I, on the other hand, read as much as I can but I don’t panic.

Being superstitious and cautious, I don’t get a flu shot. The only time I got a flu shot was the year I actually got the flu. In my opinion, since getting the shot isn’t a panacea or magic bullet, so I will take my chances.

It’s that type of balanced perspective, our Everyman approach, based on our different personalities, that our show, in my humble opinion, shouldn’t be lumped into the rest of the media who are postulating and speculating on the benefits or the catastrophe of getting a Swine flu vaccination.

We give you information without panic or hyperbole; and we always tell you to seek the advice and opinion of your doctor.

Not many other talk shows or news organizations can say that.

High Speed Boondoggle

2009-10-08T14:46:00.001-07:00

When was the last time you took a train? If you said "never," you wouldn't be alone by a long shot. Train ridership has precipitously plummeted since the early 1950's with the advent of the interstate highway system and the burgeoning airline industry.

But that hasn't stopped some from trying to revive a rail system that would include Phoenix and other southwestern cities.

The Western High Speed Rail Alliance is a recently created group wanting to use stimulus money and get Phoenix on the high speed rail line "train," if you will, with service to Los Angeles in less than two hours and other cities like Las Vegas and Salt Lake City.

They would have more success and spend less money in making better buggy whips.

Let's make one thing blindingly clear: We already have something that will take you to these cities faster, with more departures and a better business model. It's called the airline industry. Sure, the airline industry is flailing, some airlines are in their death throes and some have been bailed out since Sept. 11, 2001. But it has not been government supported -- it is a viable private business venture. Unlike our passenger railway system.

But consider our passenger rail system that was consolidated back in the 1970's when the train industry was ready to go under. The government decided that the passenger train industry was "too big to fail" and monopolized the small train companies like the B&O, Burlington Northern, Union Pacific, leaving them to haul goods but not people.

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (the Federal Government) launched it to much fanfare, dubbing it "Amtrak" on May 1, 1971.

With its sleek silver cars and locomotives and red white and blue logo, Amtrak services over 21,000 miles of track across the United States.

And it's never made a profit. In fact, as a nation, we still have one of the lowest inter-city rail usages of all the developed nations.

Why does the government keep insisting on using tax-payer money to re-invent the train wheel, with the same, tired argument that if we update technology, more people will use it? With the exception of the Northeast (the Boston to DC corridor, as it's called), using a train instead of a plane doesn't make sense for commuters or people wanting to get from one place to another.

Yet every decade or so, there is a push to modernize and make high speed rail a reality like Japan or Germany. What the eggheads in Washington fail to realize since they never venture outside of the beltway, is that our country has triple or quintuple the real estate and people than smaller countries that utilize and favor high speed rail.

Until gas prices soar to European standards and sprawl creates endless strip malls from here to LA, high speed rail for the Southwest will not only be a waste of our tax money, it'll be a colossal waste of time.

Birthday Letdown

2009-09-30T21:12:00.000-07:00

I turn 41 this week and so far, the anticipation has been anticlimactic. It’s not that I dread getting more lines on my face and more gray in my hair. To the contrary; my life has gotten better every year since graduating college. I am in the best shape of my life, more successful than I could imagine, and live in a terrific town. And while I’ve achieved a lot at this point in my life, I look forward to accomplishing much more.

When I was 30, I wrote some goals down for myself. Still a young man, I found that by fixating what I wanted to accomplish on paper, my goals became more real, giving me a sense of urgency. Some goals were simplistic but important to me, others were close to unattainable but I figured that if I didn’t at least try, why bother having goals in the first place. I wanted to be more successful in radio, although I didn’t know talk radio in my future and my true passion. I also wanted to lead a healthier life, since I had gained 30 pounds. Other goals, like traveling to Europe and touring the great museums, have not come to fruition, but I am working on them.

Turning 40 was a scary, wonderfully rewarding experience. People made a big deal, sending cards and calling me to share their birthday wishes and good will. Since the big 4-0 is the midpoint of an average man’s lifespan, you can really gauge how you’ve done in your career and personal life, what goals have been accomplished, and what lies ahead.

So far, my 41st birthday feels like catching leprosy. People acknowledge it, but they would rather leave me on the island and just move on to something else, like looking at baby pictures or winning American Idol.

Turning 41 is like a vast, lost, wasteland for birthdays. It’s like turning 26 or 72. I’ve never heard someone say, “You know, when I turned 41, my whole life changed!” Or, “When I was 41? Now that was a great year!” No one asks, “So what’s it like turning 41?” Why? Because it doesn’t feel like anything. It’s just another day in the week of October, as the days get cooler and shorter, and the football season finds itself in mid-season.

I wish I had more to look forward to as I turn 41, but my goals have been laid out for over a decade. Some I have accomplished (like not killing Gaydos; that is still a hard one to keep) and others are still down the path for me. But for now turning 41 feels as important as being on time for work. You know when to expect it and that it’s coming, but what’s there to be excited about?

So if you want to wish me a happy birthday, I have an idea. Save it. Wish me a happy birthday when I turn 42. Maybe that’s the birthday I should be looking forward to. After all, I have a whole year to think about it.

SNL Bomb

2009-09-28T10:28:00.001-07:00

A bomb was dropped on the season premiere of Saturday Night Live this past weekend and I am not talking about guest host Meghan Fox’s performance.

During a sketch between two “biker chicks,” newbie cast member Jenny Slate dropped the F word with veteran Kristen Wiig. Censors on the East Coast missed the fleeting F word when it flew, but did bleep it for the West Coast feed. I don’t know if new cast member Slate wanted to make a controversial impression and decided to boldly go where not many cast members have gone before in a performance, but I am always shocked and a little disheartened when people overreact to using a word that has been in the English vernacular since the Middle Ages.

The blogosphere is rife with opinions, some bloggers using the same word Slate dropped on NBC Saturday night, which I find highly ironic. Viewers want NBC and Saturday Night Live to take a strong stand and punish Jenny Slate. Some even say she should be fired for dropping the F word, writing in their screeds that she should be professional enough to know when and how to use coarse language on free television.

I have always had a problem with the perception of the use of curse words. Not because I agree with our collective Puritanical roots. On the contrary – I love curse words; all forms, all functions. Now if you’re one of those sanctimonious, high-horse people who feel that cursing has no place in polite society, this opinion piece is not for you, and I hope you don’t break your neck when you fall off that horse.

No word in the English language can be used so many different ways and for so many situations. You can use the F word as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, even a gerund! It is one of the most widely used words in social circles, yet we deny its monumental impact in broadcasting.

As a society, we are nowhere near eradicating a word that was used as an insult when the Normans invaded the Anglo Saxons in 1066. In fact, the reason we use the same curse words today goes back to the Anglo pride of keeping the most debased, guttural insult(proudly saved), and defiantly hurled back on their Norman conquers. (And notice who had the last laugh in the First and Second World Wars – take that, France, and your polite, sissified language!)

I think in certain situations and circumstances they are not only funny, but useful and in some instances, cathartic. There is nothing like letter a few F words fly when you’re upset, angry or frustrated. A recent study even suggests that cursing is good for a person's mental state because there is not only a verbal but physical release when someone vents their frustration in a curse-ladened tirade.

I am not endorsing using the F word during children’s programming or during a church picnic. Did Jenny Slate gratuitously use the F word repeatedly during an episode of Hannah Montana, turning it into a Tarentino script? No. Does SNL always like to push the envelope? Yes, since it’s inception in 1975. So I don’t have a problem with the F word at 10:30 at night. Because I know the dirty little secret that many people use that word during the morning, noon and night as well.

As the bumper sticker says, sometimes S*@# Happens.

Don't Call It a Comeback

2009-09-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

The American people secretly enjoy two things, especially in politics: Power and Scandal.

John Edwards’ political career has all the trappings and context of a Shakespearean tragedy with a healthy dose of TMZ.

So when word came out this week that John Edwards is staging a comeback to the political landscape, I scoffed. This isn’t a comeback; it’s a reintroduction.

Think of it as John Edwards 2.0.

John Edwards’ rise was too good to be true: a small town trial lawyer, who came from nothing, married his college sweetheart and celebrated every anniversary at a fast food restaurant. This small town trial lawyer went into politics and had a meteoric rise that eventually saw him tapped by John Kerry as his Vice Presidential nominee in 2004.

But his fall has been just as fast as allegations that he fathered a child out of wedlock as his wife was dying of cancer splashed across news crawls and headlines in 2008.

But just this week, John Edwards has engaged in a new low in his political career; there are rumblings of a comeback. But wait. Even if Edwards is going to do more of a mea culpa than he did on ABC’s Nightline the first time when he admitted, “in 2006 … I made a very serious mistake. A mistake that I am responsible for and one else,” crying crocodile tears on camera, he still has to face the grand jury.

A federal grand jury in North Carolina is investigating whether or not Edwards or his staff used campaign contributions to pay his mistress hush money or paid her a salary. The New York Times reported that people familiar with the grand jury investigation as trying to untangle the legal morass of “whether payments to a candidate’s mistress to ensure her silence (thus maintaining a candidate’s viability) should be considered campaign donation and thus whether they should be reported.” Two of Edward’s main backers provided the mistress with large sums of money, including a new BMW and a house that was used to keep her out of public view.

That’s not a good thing for any politician – even a Kennedy wouldn’t be able to survive this kind of infidelity mess. Or could they?

Today, not many pesky problems, perverted peccadilloes, or salacious scandals survive in America’s Collective Conscience.

In recent months, Senator David Vitter R-LA, is seeking re-election after a prostitution scandal. Senator John Ensign, R-NV is still in office after having an affair with a staffer’s wife. And who can forget Mark Sanford, the married governor of South Carolina, whose lusty emails and covert trip to Argentina to see his Buenos Aires baby doll didn’t get him kicked out of office.

John Edwards wants to come back. He wants to, again, be in the spotlight and be in politics even though he has fallen out of favor in his own state of North Carolina.

But we have seen other elected political heroes survive scandals and maintain their political toehold in Congress. Why should John Edwards be any different?

Americans’ memories are short. John Edwards cheated on his dying wife, fathered a child out of wedlock and, allegedly, misappropriated campaign funds to keep his mistress hidden and his run for president viable.

John Edwards will be back – maybe not representing the good people in North Carolina – but he’ll find constituents that will fall for his narcissistic charm and forgive him enough to get him re-elected.

But don't call it a comeback.

Jay Leno's New Show Is An Old Shoe

2009-09-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

I was expecting more last night. A lot more.

Jay Leno’s new show on NBC debuted last night to a lot of hype, a lot of expectations and a lot of hand wringing about the future of late night talk shows as well as the fate of primetime shows. All of this based on a man who people thought wouldn’t last a year into his stint as the replacement for Johnny Carson. Those doubts have been erased and now Jay Leno is an iconic television fixture.

But last night I was expecting something more, something different than just a Late Night Redo.

I was shocked when I tuned in that everything was basically the same. Same monologue, same interviews, same bits. The only thing that was different was the set. And by the way, did anyone catch how reminiscent Jay’s new set looks like the set from Later with Bob Costas when he was on late night?

Jay deserves the mammoth, expansive and creative set that Conan now enjoys. It looks like Leno got an Ikea afterthought. Just horrible.

The actual show was too comfortable. I didn’t expect jitters or flop sweat like Conan and Jimmy Fallon had when they debuted, but there should have been some kind of nervous excitement – something to be giddy about whether it’s the new time slot or even if it’s to show off the new set they built Jay. Oh, that’s right…no one could get mildly or feign glee over the new set.

As far as the guest for Jay’s inaugural foray into primetime, Oprah was forced and felt out of place, Jerry Seinfeld was great as always, and Kanye West really proved what an absolute douche bag he is with his lame, inarticulate apology to Taylor Swift and the debacle that was the VMA’s. I understand why Jay decided to bring him to the comfy chair, sitting down and talking a bit, but if there is one skill Jay sorely lacks, it’s how to handle a tough interview. When the giggles and fluff are flying, he’s fine. But when there needs to be some gravity to his interview, Jay turns chicken. And asking about how your late mother would feel about your behavior is just stilted and unnecessary. I would expect that out of Oprah, not Jay Leno.

Jay Leno is a talented guy, but he’s also reached a comfortable place in his career and in his new time slot. Maybe too comfortable.

Obama Overexposure

2009-09-14T22:49:00.000-07:00

What do Jon and Kate, Speidi, Nickelback and Ann Coulter have in common? They suffer from a cultural phenomenon that is akin to having an itchy skin rash.

It’s called being overexposed and no one in the public spotlight wants to suffer from its debilitating effects.

Come this Sunday, the president may need some Calamine lotion.

Since President Obama’s Health Care Plan has not been greeted with accolades but with resistance, (which quickly turned into downright skepticism) Barack has been on the offensive. He spoke in front of both Houses of Congress last week to push for Health Care Reform, even invoking Teddy Kennedy's name to punctuate the immediacy and urgency of his plan.

But the president’s eloquent speech has not translated into a huge bump in the polls. Almost half of the American public is not sold on Health Care Reform. So what is Obama to do? The White House announced yesterday that Obama would take his message to the American people…again…by going on television.

Be ready to start applying the cortisone cream.

This Sunday, unless you’re watching HGTV or ESPN, it will be hard to miss the president. He will appear on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, Meet the Press on NBC, as well as Face the Nation on CBS. In between the major networks, he will do interviews with CNN and Univision.

That’s a lot of TV. That’s a lot of exposure. Too much, in my opinion. Barack’s message is getting lost in his own limelight. What this administration has to learn is how to handle the magnitude and his rock star quality that got him to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. So far, they’ve overexposed a man that should not have to go on every major network to get his message across.

Most presidents since the television era began have had all the presence and stiffness of a cardboard cut out – or worse. Comedians, late night talk shows and regular people mock them because they are utterly inept at connecting with the public. Not this president. Not since JFK have we seen someone who electrifies the podium.

But like chocolate or fantasy football, too much is not a good thing.

For the record, President Obama has done 114 interviews in his first seven months in office compared to 37 interviews by former president George W. Bush and 41 by Bill Clinton. I was no math major, but Obama has been on almost four times than Dubya.

Barack Obama is a Hollywood casting agent’s dream for a calm, assured presence on camera. (As long as there is a teleprompter.) But the main rule of Hollywood success, and to a lesser degree, political success, is not to be overexposed. People tire of you then turn a deaf ear to your message

Sunday, Barack will reach that level and the America public will be itching for a new message.

Ellen Judges AI

2009-09-14T22:39:00.000-07:00

Pardon the drool, as I have spent all weekend trying to pick my jaw off the floor.

Now I am a pretty jaded person and nothing really makes my jaw get so slack that my lower mandible finds itself, teeth and all, in a jumble on the tile.

But last week, the announcement that Ellen DeGeneres would replace Paula Abdul on American Idol stunned me more than the news that Michael Jackson’s death was ruled a homicide.

The conventional wisdom behind Ellen joining the Island of Misfit Judges is simple. Ellen is huge with women (no lesbian joke intended). Her daytime talk show has had steady female numbers and Idol producers have noticed a lack of female eyeballs watching would be singers turn into starts for the past couple of seasons.

Also, Ellen is likable and funny without being too saccharine or insipid like Paula. As a side note, I have to admit, one of the reasons I enjoyed AI the last couple of seasons was because you never knew what kind of verbal train wreck would chug forth from Paula’s pert little mouth. Her slurry, confusing non-sequitors were something that drinking games were borne out of. “Take a shot if Paula says anything with the word ‘beautiful!’”

Sure, she was a lighthearted distraction, like a funny Aunt at a reunion that makes you shake you’re head and thank God she doesn’t live with you. That was, for good or bad, Paula Abdul and I, for one, will miss her drug-addled ramblings.

But the main reason that I cannot believe Ellen DeGeneres was picked to be the new judge on AI is that she (and this is tantamount) has no musical background whatsoever.

None. Zip. Nada.

Sure, Ellen can dance as she’s proven on her successful talk show when she moves her hips like some stuffy tart at a Junior League function, but does she know what pitch is? Can she pick out a warbler versus an actual singer?

Simon and Randy have actually produced world-class singers who have smash hits and gold records. Ellen? We don’t even know if she sings in the shower.

Ellen has that Everyperson quality to her that AI producers are looking for. She says she loves music, but without the one-hit wonder factor or the rehab stints. DeGeneres reminds you of a someone who goes to your church, but without the fashion sense.

Her likeability may have been the “it” factor for Ellen, being huge for test audiences, but remember this cautionary tale. A couple of years back – forever in TV time – Monday Night Football was looking to shake things up in the booth and found someone who they thought would reflect the Everyperson, sitting between the football guy and the announcer guy. He was smart, quick and was a self-avowed “football fanatic.” His name was Dennis Miller. And he sucked so bad, he was replaced after two seasons…by a man who knew a lot about football. His name was John Madden.

Ellen, you ain’t John Madden; you’re Dennis Miller. And that’s not a compliment.

Too Little, Too Late

2009-09-10T11:33:00.000-07:00

Finally.

Speaking to both Houses of Congress, and to the nation, President Obama finally gave details of how his Healthcare Reform Bill would help millions of uninsured Americans.

Too bad it’s too little, too late.

Last night his speech (by my notes) had eight separate parts. But what political heroes, cable and radio talk show hosts, and many Americans have been clamoring for are details in how the president’s magnanimous plan will directly affect the American health care system and medically and monetarily impact citizens.

Last night some details emerged.

The president said that if you already have health insurance, are covered by Medicare/Medicaid, your status will not change. For the rest of Americans who don’t fall into those categories, he outlined a comprehensive, detailed plan that sounded good, but really failed to live up to the “game changer” he needed to push those opposed to the plan into supporting it.

Under Barack’s proposed plan, the government would:

• Offer an affordable plan for those who don’t have medical insurance.
• Create a new insurance exchange where companies will be competitive.
• Provide tax credits based on your needs.

The president also took on those who were putting forth lies, untruths and misrepresentations of his plan. Calling Death Panels a “lie, plain and simple,” the president also said that the plan would not cover illegal immigrants. Then Barack Obama took a swipe at those who dared question his plan by saying that anyone who misrepresents what’s in his plan, he and the administration will “call you out.”

These are bold, confrontational words (almost a thinly-veiled threat; maybe he’s channeling the “Chicago Way”) from the president. But they are also understandable because the president was on the defensive after letting his own plan and bill get mired and tarnished by his own inaction. When he proposed the plan needed to be ratified and voted on in three weeks last July, people scoffed, questioned and jeered his timeline. Moderate Democrats even started to raise objections saying that that kind of sweeping comprehensive reform was too much, too soon, too fast. But the president believed the American people truly wanted this and since he needed a solid victory before Congress went on vacation, he did something utterly baffling: he went on vacation, thinking it would be passed because he wanted it. Big mistake.

And that’s when he lost control of the narrative on health care, even with the death of Ted Kennedy and the rallying cry from people like Nancy Pelosi that we needed to pass health care reform because of Kennedy’s commitment to reform. The debate shifted and was changed by those who were strongly opposed to government-controlled health care.

The proof is in the latest poll numbers where over 52 percent of Americans are now against President Obama’s plan, while his overall approval numbers continue to plummet below 50 percent.

So last night was a good speech – a solid, passionate performance from a man whose oratory ability cannot be questioned.

But the timing was too late. He should have made this speech a month ago.

What Obama Needs To Say

2009-09-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

Tonight, President Barack Obama will address both houses of Congress, trying to garner support from those elected political heroes, but also from the American people.

(We will carry the speech live at 5pm on Mac & Gaydos on News Talk 92.3 KTAR and then have live reaction.)

With his poll numbers precipitously falling below the important 50 percent approval rating, the president needs to say three things for the Congress as well as the people to rally behind his bold, almost radical, plan to offer health care to everyone through the government.

1. Barack Obama needs to tone down the rhetoric about the have’s versus the have not’s. We all understand that there are people who do not have health care. But we also need to remember that this isn’t the 19th century and people are not dying in the streets because of pestilence, lack of caring or crisis. Don’t scare us into your plan, Mr. President.
2. The president needs to give more details and less oratory. Don’t finger point. Let’s not get caught up in politics as usual casting shame and pointing an accusing finger at people (who have every right) who are skeptical and want more details on what your “public option” truly contains. The president is a wonderful, inspirational speaker. But when someone tries to radically shift the way we get and receive health care, which is a truly personal decision, the public needs more information.
3. And, finally, Mr. President, please shift your focus from the government or “public” option to making our health care conversation about the patient first. Let’s make sure the insurance companies can stay in business, but let’s stop treating people on the defensive. Let’s have doctors treat people, not live with the fear of being sued. It’s a simple, almost elementary cliché: When you put people first, people respond.

So let’s hope President Obama has seen the error of his ways. By trying to shove something down the American people’s throats, his poll numbers have plummeted. By including the American people in the debate about national health care, Barack may not get exactly what his agenda set out earlier this year, but he won’t suffer from Americans losing confidence in the man who is all about Hope and Change.

Economic Recovery Equals Babies

2009-08-11T20:52:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama said last week that the worst may be over for this country and the recession. He said this after new unemployment figures revealed that the nation’s loss actually went down from 9.5 percent to 9.4 percent. Not exactly a precipitous fall, but the president was optimistic nonetheless.

The Obama Administration, economic experts and everyday citizens all want to know when our economic prosperity will not just return, but will it last? Jobs are a lagging indicator of an economic recovery, consumer confidence is an inexact science; but one factor that can be counted as an economic downturn or recovery has nothing to do with pie charts, GDP results or a stimulus package.

It’s a simple as procreation.

The correlation between United States’ economic prosperity and recovery comes down to babies – whether we have a baby boom or baby bust.

Since we began our downward spiral into a recession in 2007, it’s impacted many different aspects of our lives. Obviously, the job sector has been steadily eroded to the tune of 7 million jobs lost – so far. That, along with a loss in consumer confidence, has had a trickle down effect on spending, savings, retirement, business, travel, recreation, as well as one part of our lives you wouldn’t expect: babies.

Since this recession is more than a year old, a new report says we are having less children. This is the first annual drop in births, since the beginning of the 21st century.

According to the National Center for Health, births were down about 68,000 babies to 4,247,000 after climbing steadily from 2002. But can the economy be blamed on people planning to postpone maternity? Experts have varying opinions but if you look at birthrates from the Great Depression in the ‘30s as well as every recession since the Post War era in our country, one thing is for sure. Birthrates go down as we pull back on our purse strings, weathering economic recessions and depressions.

So when the president comes out in a press conference with a tepid statement about how we may be back on the road to recovery, I remain skeptical.

I will be paying attention to the maternity ward at Valley hospitals to tell me when our long national economic nightmare is over.

AZ Cardinals: Why Not?

2009-08-04T20:12:00.000-07:00

I don’t care what the naysayers loudly proclaim on sports talk radio or the constant blathering on their blogs, I am excited for this upcoming football season.

I am aware of the devastating statistic that the last 8 out of 9 teams who went to the Super Bowl didn’t even make it into next year’s playoffs. I am not delusional.

But there is an undeniable quality to last year’s dream season for the Arizona Cardinals that cannot be denied: why not?

Why not again this year? Why can’t Coach Wiz and the crew get it done a second year in a row? Sure, I understand that the NFL has parity and that there really hasn’t been a dynasty of sorts since Jerry Jones’ Cowboys in the 90’s, or maybe you’d like to include the Pats in the 21st Century.

But not a lot was expected last year of the Cardinals. In fact, there was a caustic, almost snide arrogance that the Cardinals would find interesting ways to LOSE games, so that’s why you rooted for them. Not because they had a chance, but because they would find the most interesting, sometimes baffling ways to let a lead slip out of the jaws of victory.

But not last year. Last year we went to the Super Bowl. Last year we took all the Doubting Thomases under Big Red’s Wings and said, “Let’s show you how we win.” And slowly, but surely, we kept winning, beating teams that surely should have pounded into the ground the year before. We made teams look like they were JuCo football programs that had been to the playoffs the year before.

Last year, we turned the NFL on its head and defied all logic and convention.

So this year, I am not going to side with people who are already tempering expectation when they report from Flagstaff about training camp. I am going to say it loud and proud: “Why not?”

After all, we weren’t expecting to go to the super Bowl last year, WHY NOT this year?

Vick's Comeback Story Shouldn't Happen

2009-07-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

America loves a comeback story. But Michael Vick's comeback story should not happen.

Yesterday, Vick got his dispensation from the Pope of the National Football League. Roger Goodell re-instated Vick to play in the NFL. After being released from prison, he served out the rest of his prison sentence for operating an illegal dog-fighting ring back home in Hampton Roads, Virginia under house arrest and working a construction job for 10 bucks an hour.

But Roger Goodell wants everyone to know that he will not be a pushover commissioner.

Vick can begin training and taking part in training camp immediately, and he could be allowed to play by week six. Goodell says he will rule again, giving Michael a chance to transition back into the NFL.

Vick is happy to be given a second chance to play in the league saying through his agent, “I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to commissioner Goodell for allowing me to be readmitted to the National Football League. I fully understand that playing football in the NFL is a privilege, not a right, and I am truly thankful for the opportunity I have been given.

So far, and surprisingly, there haven’t been any teams interested in having Vick even be a third string QB on their team.

I am shocked that not one team would be so desperate to take (another) a chance on an agile, scrambling quarterback who can make plays on the run.

But if there is a general manager or coach wanting to give Vick a spot on their roster, I offer you some free advice: don’t take him. In fact, don’t even talk to his agent. Vick comes with not only enough baggage to get a Samsonite endorsement, he will also come with an unlikely entourage.

Back when we first started learning about what an inhumane and cruel operation Bad Newz Kennels was, and read the news reports of how many dead dogs were buried on Vick’s Surry County, Virginia property, (the rape stands, the dog pits, and the thousands of dollars that were bet on this senseless sport), People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals made a promise.

It’s a promise they are still more than willing to keep and your franchise doesn’t need the head ache and the angry and offended fan base.

If any team decides to pay Michael Vick to play, PETA has vowed to show up and protest. In a day when people protest everything and anything, when television news outlets have their pick of what group is protesting where, this may just sound like an empty threat or cacophonous din and nothing more.

But PETA will not just protesting outside of the stadium of the team Vick plays for on any given Sunday. They have vowed to go on the road and protest at the opposing teams stadiums. PETA has vowed to show up at any camp, appearance or event that is directly or indirectly involved with Vick or the team.

They say that the NFL has a short memory when it comes to talent. Just ask the Dallas Cowboys last year when they hired Adam “Pac Mac” Jones, as well as a host of other teams.

But if you’re an NFL owner, do you really want that kind of entourage following your team around? Just because you’ve “conveniently” forgotten what Michael Vick did?

This is one comeback story that should never have been.

Summer Television Disappointment

2009-07-26T10:18:00.001-07:00

The summer television season is here. And it stinks.

Every fall when the network television season starts, it’s a frenzied thrill ride of plotline twists and turns, great characters and stellar shows. Whether it’s who is going to win the Amazing Race on CBS, or will Liz Lemon find true love (or something close to it without stalkers being involved) on 30 Rock on NBC, or can Mike and Susan every really stay together on Desperate Housewives on ABC? One thing is an assured constant: each week brings a steady stream of good, and sometimes great, television.

Spring is when the television schedule starts to sputter. Some shows take two weeks off, which the networks coyly call a “hiatus” starting in February, or the networks aggravatingly space the rest of the season schedule in between insipid and pedestrian specials, or pompous, navel-gazing awards shows. And before you know it, season finales come way too soon in mid-April, or, (if a series can pace itself longer than 13 original eps) the show wraps up in May leaving a TV addict like myself to wander the desolate arid wasteland that is network and basic cable throughout the summer.

But this particular summer has been brutal. Not just because I live in Phoenix and the temperatures like to hover around 100 degrees at night, (see my Five Stages of Summer Heat blog posted on 7/21/09) but the shows that the networks have held off because of last year’s writer strike and waited to dump them on the airwaves over the summer, (a pathetic link to what was great in the spring and an optimistically looking fall) have been poor. Really poor.

Rescue Me has been on a roller coaster ride of late. The show that has been critically acclaimed and well received by the public has fallen on hard times lately. Denis Leary has been the creator, the driving force and the main character since its debut on F/X five seasons ago, but it lost its way last year, ultimately ending up with a WTF ending that left you scratching your head and questioning why you were watching the show in the first place. This season has been like the monsoon season here in the Valley: hailed as one of the biggest and the best, but actually being spotty, all wind and dust, no lightning and thunder, no torrential downpours flooding viewers with great plot lines and emotionally sweeping viewers like myself away, looking forward to next week.

Entourage is all about fluff. But it’s good, not always clean, fluff on HBO. Unfortunately this season, we are left without any kind of compelling story lines because the show has become formulaic, grinding itself into a predictable story arc every episode. E.g.: The boys get into some kind of trouble, Ari yells, Vinnie sleeps with a gorgeous woman, Drama kvetches, Turtle is…Turtle, and E desperately wants to be taken seriously. At the end, trouble is averted and all is good in Hollywood. Yawn. Roll credits.

Because of my utterly crippling disappointment and strained relationships with the new but uninspired summer season of shows, I have been put in an awkward position. I have been looking elsewhere for summer escapes. That’s right, I’ve been cheating on my TV shows. And I am not proud.

I have been watching Next Food Network Star on Food Network and ashamed to admit that it’s got more drama and more unexpected twists and turns than Entourage, while packing more passion and hubris (without the alcoholism) than Rescue Me. I have also been absolutely hooked (no pun intended) on Deadliest Catch on Discovery Channel. Watching one episode of these fishermen makes any guy with a desk job and an expensive car look like a teat-sucking, sissy-Mary.

I’ve also rekindled my interest in Major League Baseball, watching games on ESPN and Fox Sports. Too bad the Diamondbacks are finding ways to lose instead of winning games. Note to Arizona Diamondback President Derrick Hall: this makes it incredibly hard to root for the home team. Enough said.

So where does that leave me for this summer? I have been patiently, almost forbearingly waiting for one of the best dramas on television to start on August 16th on AMC. Mad Men is on its third season with Don Draper at a crossroads. Season two was one of the best culminations of style, substance, and plot I’ve seen since The Wire.

Unfortunately, the way my summer’s been going, I am hesitant to get overly excited. The summer malaise has hit so many of the shows I used to watch. But something tells me that creator and producer Matt Weiner isn’t going to rest on his laurels and shouldn’t let Don or anyone at Sterling Cooper coast on their retro good looks and suave (and sometimes lurid) behavior.

I just want my summer malaise to be washed away like a good monsoon storm in the middle of a hot summer in Phoenix. So, I am putting my trust into a guy who drinks like a fish, smokes like a fiend, recklessly cheats on his wife while always looks dashingly dapper in a grey flannel suit. I guess there’s a first time for everything.

I hope it’s not too much pressure.

Shine Comes Off the Penny

2009-07-25T11:28:00.001-07:00

Last week the president realized that his Health Care Reform bill was stalling in Congress. Not only were Republicans balking over nationalized health care, but Blue Dog Democrats were expressing hesitation and concern about cost as well as feasibility; just how could we pay to insure every America while our national deficit just topped a trillion dollars the week before?

As he has done in the past, the president took his case to the airwaves, before the American people holding his fourth (fourth!) press conference since taking office in just over six months. Obama was emphatic and stridently determined; laying out a plan to make sure that not only would 47 million uninsured Americans (a “fuzzy math” stat, by the way) be covered, but also all Americans would have a choice under the government’s plan.

As usual, the president was long on rhetoric and short on specifics, with reporters tossing softball questions for him to expound upon. It was the lowest rated press conference so far. In fact, NBC had to be talked into carry his address; the Fox network completely passed.

Then, toward the end of the press conference, a reporter asked President Obama about the arrest by the Cambridge, Massachusetts police of his long-time friend, Harvard professor Henry Lewis Gates, Jr. The president said the police, “acted stupidly.”

With that one comment, the president inserted himself into a story that was about race and law enforcement in a city that has had a long history of strained race relations. Forget the particulars, the president became part of the story and suddenly, his message about health care and insuring every American faded into the back pages of newspapers and television coverage. Now the story was about the president calling into question the integrity and responsibility of the Cambridge Police Department.

When you step into the cow pasture, you are bound to step into a cow patty. I can only imagine as soon as the president walked back into the Oval Office after the press conference, his staff was not pleased. Now he would have to do something that presidents loathe to do: damage control and try to get the self-inflicted stink off of his shoe.

For the latter part of the week, the president has come close to apologizing about his remarks, but will not fully give a mea culpa for his stinging, personal words about a local matter that has ballooned into a national debate.

Barack Obama had been the master of the media. His oratory ability and calm assurance not only in front of the camera but the American people as well got him elected. Not this time. Not this past week.

A new Rasmussen poll indicates the president’s approval rating has dipped below 50 percent. This is lower than Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush’s poll numbers in their first six months of office.

I thought that Barack Obama’s first real enemy would be from an outside threat: North Korea, the ecomony cratering, or a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina. Instead, this past week Barack Obama has had to deal with another kind of enemy: himself.

Five Stages of Heat

2009-07-21T08:18:00.000-07:00

This is my second summer in Phoenix and I’ve noticed a pattern of behavior that I don’t understand. Starting in April, the temperature, without exception, starts its slow, steady climb into the triple digits.

We laugh at people back East and the Midwest who are still digging their way out of another frigid winter. We scoff at the inevitable sun and heat. That’s why we live here…in the desert, we delusionally proclaim.

Then July comes and the temperature (like every July) climbs past 110 and we suddenly are outraged, insulted. We go through what I call the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Summer Grief.

First, we are in denial. June was unseasonably cool this year. So by June 20th, we absolutely convinced that there was no freaking way we could see 110 degrees this summer.

Second, we get angry. This happened last week as the temps shot past 110 for more than two consecutive days. It was as if Mother Nature punked us, played us for a sucker, took us for a mark. Yes, our anger was righteously deserved, we thought. How DARE she trick us and invite the Heat Miser to stay in our town and burn everything under the sun to a crisp. Our anger was palpable.

The third stage happened on Sunday. We start bargaining with God. We sit in our house or apartment and as we wipe the dripping sweat off the back of our neck as we sit three inches from an industrial fan used in hog barns, frantically trying to get cool, trying to get God to turn down the sun. We make deals with the Almighty that are ignored and unheeded. We promise to stop nefarious habits or give copious amounts of money to a religious charity, swearing up and down that if only God would talk to Mother Nature and stop this ridiculous heat wave, we would all be better people. Bargaining never works. The sun rises in the east, roasts the Sonoran desert for about 14 hours and then sets near Tonopah around 7:30PM.

The fourth stage of our collective Summer Grief is settling in the Valley now. It’s depression. In the morning you hesitate opening the front door to the oven that is the outside. You dread getting into the car and having your back instantly turn wet with sweat as you wait for the AC in your car to move enough air around to promote a stale breeze. You have no energy; you don’t want to go to Starbucks or Taco Bell because you’ve seen birds burst into flame in mid-air and snakes sweating because it’s so hot.

And this depresses the Hades out of you. In fact, you imagine Hell is a nice place this time of year compared to the Valley of the Sun as the temperature hovers around 118 degrees during the day and doesn’t go below 100 at night.

You pray for death, but even Death doesn’t come to the Valley this time of year. That robe he wears is too heavy and that scythe he carries is just too heavy when lugging it down Van Buren in the concrete inferno.

The final stage comes late; too late for you to realize that summer and Summer Grief is almost over. It’s the most interesting stage because you don’t realize you’ve reached it until it’s too late.

It’s Acceptance.

By the time late August sluggishly arrives, you’ve adjusted to the blazing cauldron that is the Valley. You’re mind is so numb that you forget to sweat. You’ve become quasi-Saharan. You enjoy taking three showers a day just to feel mildly fresh. You have finally figured out a system to get your Starbucks, get back in the car and not look like a bad comedian on stage in the midst of being soaked in flop sweat.

And it’s around this time that September comes and the temperature only (ONLY!!!) hits 100 degrees. You feel like Prometheus finally capturing and taming fire. You regale your friends with “it wasn’t that hot” stories and how you survived a 118 day with nothing more than a pair of khaki shorts and an old ASU t-shirt, your only liquid refreshment being a warm bottle of Yoo-Hoo.

Then it hits you – summer is over. The heat wave has broken and Mother Nature has moved back north because she doesn’t like the snow birds either.

And we’ll go through the Five Stages of Summer Grief all over again next year.

Most Selfish Mom

2009-07-16T09:07:00.001-07:00

Maria del Carmen Bousada decided to become a mom after caring for her own mother who died at the ripe old age of 101.

But Maria wasn’t in her 30’s or 40’s. Instead of a selfless decision to bring another life into the world, she made a selfish decision to have a child at 66.

Yes, she decided to have a baby a year after she could receive a Social Security check.

Modern medicine has provided some great and fantastic procedures to not only lengthen but also improve the quality of our lives. But to have a child at the age of 66 is not only irresponsible – it’s inherently reckless. Maria thought that she would live well into her 90’s, being able to enjoy a good 20-25 years of being a mom.

Unfortunately, she died at the age of 69 from stomach cancer. I guess that’s relatively young for her family. She was a mom for three years to twins. Upon receiving the news she had the deadly disease, she said she didn’t regret giving birth to twin babies. And no matter what, they would be cared for by her extended family.

What I cannot comprehend is why someone would try to push the bounds of medicine but could not see the folly of that decision, nor have the foresight to realize that what she did was unfair and terribly selfish to those two babies. Maria wanted the immediate gratification of being a mom, without realize a mom is a life-long job.

Maria lied to her doctors claiming she was 55, which is the cutoff age for being inseminated. When she gave birth to her sons, she was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest woman to give birth.

Congrats, Maria. I hope your record is never broken. But you were a terribly selfish mother. You sons deserve better.

Still Scratching My Head

2009-07-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

After John McCain “went maverick” and picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate, I was left scratching my head. And, unfortunately, I still am over her latest (and not so greatest) move.

Last week, Sarah Palin announced, rather abruptly, that she is stepping down from being governor of the state of Alaska to pursue something, to do something. The blogosphere and talk radio has been swirling with punditry and prognostications about what Sarah is going to do.

Some of the theories that have been floated, flummoxed and tweeted are, in no particular order that she will run for the Alaskan Senate seat in 2010. She’s getting her own tv show on Fox. She is being investigated by the FBI, which has already been shot down by the Bureau. She is sick of being criticized so she’s going rogue once again and will start up her own consulting business, and, of course, that she is preparing for a 2012 challenge of Barack Obama.

On Sunday, she came out and threw the media another curve ball. She told the Washington Times something that left me scratching my head – again. She stated, “I will go around the country on behalf of candidates who believe in the right things, regardless of their party label or affiliation.”

Okay.

Some people are still hanging on to Sarah with these delusional last vestiges of saving the GOP.

Far from it.

This woman isn’t a savvy politician. She’s become a low-rent media hound. Obviously, quitting being Governor to start campaigning goes against her “I am no quitter” stance she railed on during her oft-missed opportunity campaign. We saw how badly she handled the media and yet, she keeps popping up. Whether it’s by her own press conference or late night talk show feud, Palin hasn’t gone away to re-tool, refresh and gone back to run Alaska, she’s kept a slow burn relationship with the media; to the point where many Americans are burnt out on Palin-mania.

This also opens her up to more and strongly worded criticism. This is a page from Al Gore’s playbook after her lost in 2000. Instead of going quietly, he insisted on reforming and remaking his image and placed all his chips on saving the planet. If Sarah is to be believed, never mind her abrupt quitting, and her secrecy) saying it’s not about ideology but about the “right things” just leaves me where I was when John McCain announced her as his running mate.

So where does this leave Sarah Palin? Who knows. She told the Washington Times that her goal is to keep going, to make some kind of difference. “I’m not ruling out anything — it is the way I have lived my life from the youngest age,” she said. “Let me peek out there and see if there’s an open door somewhere. And if there’s even a little crack of light, I’ll hope to plow through it.”

Even the bull doesn’t hit destroy every piece of fine China in the shop…Palin may just take down the whole building.

Which leaves me still scratching my head.

Steve McNair, RIP

2009-07-05T11:47:00.000-07:00

When the crawl at the bottom of the screen read, “Former Titans QB Steve McNair found dead of multiple gun shot wounds in Nashville apartment,” I was in absolute denial. Steve McNair wasn’t that guy. He couldn’t be THAT guy.

McNair’s story is as American as they come: a small college guy, with an incredible arm and toughness and determination not seen on the gridiron since Johnny Unitas, Bobby Lane or Joe Montana. Most people don’t even know where McNair played ball (it was Alcorn State in Mississippi) or that he was a Heisman Trophy candidate. Players and coaches respected him, communities and towns embraced him. He had poise and a natural likeability factor that many players in the NFL lack or simple don’t care about.

Steve McNair had poise and control on the field as well, taking the Tennessee Titans on an 87-yard march down the field to almost beat the St. Louis Rams in 2000. If only the field were 98 yards instead of 100, we would be talking about a Super Bowl champ cut down at the age of 36.

We have heard repeatedly of how people like Plaxico Burris and other NFL players (and even coaches) have been charged with illegal firearm possession, illegal weapon discharge, illegal sale of firearms, etc. Players will say it’s a necessity to be armed in the NFL, fearing for their and their families' safety. Players fear being robbed, and arming themselves is a necessary evil of the seedy underbelly of making guaranteed millions in the NFL. Players recall how Sean Taylor of the Redskins was fatally shot during a robbery attempt at his home in 2007.

But Steve McNair didn’t fit the mold of someone who hung out in questionable company, didn’t go clubbing and get into brushes with the law like Pacman Jones, Tank Johnson or Dante Stallworth. But as the investigation into his death deepens and more is learned about Steve McNair’s death, questions bubble up about his character.

The Associated Press reported that, “the death of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair raised questions Sunday about his relationship with the 20-year-old woman whose body was found alongside him in his downtown condominium.

McNair…who was married with four children, was found Saturday with multiple gunshot wounds on a sofa in his living room. The woman was killed by a single gunshot wound and a pistol was discovered near her, police said.
Authorities didn't immediately say who was to blame for the killings, but they weren't looking for any suspects.”

Steve McNair was an all-American story, tragically cut down on an all-American holiday – July 4th, 2009.

May he rest in peace as authorities search for answers that many of us have surrounding his tragic death.

July 4th

2009-07-04T10:18:00.001-07:00

In a recent study done by the Goldwater Institute, students were asked sample questions from the U.S. Citizens and Immigration exam. Sadly, not many students passed.

One question hit home with me, as this weekend is the day we celebrate the founding of this country. The question was, “Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?”

Thomas Jefferson had the unenviable task of drafting a letter, an epistle, and a grand and bold statement to England that stated succinctly and effectively that tyrannical rule wasn’t acceptable. It’s because of Jefferson’s writing ability and the foresight of brilliant minds in the Second Continental Congress, that we celebrate this Saturday.

This weekend, do me a favor. In between having another burger, before you get into the pool or watch a spectacular fireworks display, remember what July 4th is really about.

This bold and grand experiment (called the United States of America) has succeeded, (no matter what other countries say) for better or worse for over 200 years. There is no denying that what happened in Independence Hall in Philadelphia was the work of great people, brilliant minds and divine intervention.

Think about it: words on a page. A short, but direct document, written by one man and generally agreed on by a group of people has gotten us to where we are today. I think Thomas Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton or Ben Franklin would be more than proud to see the way America has evolved, transformed and inspired not only its own people, but people around the world – based on one simple truth – that all men are created equal.

More importantly, on Saturday remember that from this document one of the most memorable lines ever written still resonates today: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Think about that when you’re downing another burger off the grill or enjoying friends and family. Think about how you have been pursuing your life, your liberty and have pursued your happiness. Then think of the impact of how one simple yet instrumental document has affected your life.

Have a Happy Fourth of July weekend.

Cowboy Culture Needs to Stay

2009-07-01T20:43:00.000-07:00

Richard Wayde Hamar of Colorado was competing in the Little Britches Rodeo when he was thrown, then stepped on by a bull that weighed 2,000 pounds. He tragically died of a ruptured heart.

Wayde was 12. His parents said he died doing something he loved. Others disagree.

There are many people in the blogosphere who are outraged that a young man would even be allowed to stand next to an animal that big, but then to get on it and ride it for 6 seconds is just plain crazy.

There is a real disconnect in this country of people who think that a parent who doesn’t do everything in their power to protect their child is tantamount to abuse and those who celebrate what I call the Cowboy Culture

Wayde Hamar wasn’t abused. Far from it.

Under his parents watchful eyes, he started riding six years ago and was fully padded and wearing a helmet when the freak accident happened. But for some, this is an inevitable event, an accident just waiting to happen.

Tell that to the parents who allow their children play soccer, football or baseball and have a ball hit their child in the chest and suffer a heart attack. Again, that’s another example of a freak accident. But if it’s a mainstream sport, then there’s no outcry. It’s a tragedy, but more acceptable because we are a sport-centered culture. Our cowboy culture has dwindled to the outskirts of cities, away from the bright lights and our modern towns. The idea of a lone person, wandering the plains with nothing but a horse, his wits and using tools like knives and guns is anathema to our modern society.

But we should remember and celebrate the Cowboy Culture, as it is our culture. It’s as American as baseball or apple pie. So let’s keep the rodeos, roping and yes, even riding bulls.

Life is dangerous and no one wants to see a child die of a careless act. But what Wayde Hamar was doing wasn’t careless. It’s homage to out cowboy past. And something I wouldn’t want to see stopped or legislated out of existence.

AZ Needs Leadership

2009-06-25T07:33:00.000-07:00

When the Arizona Supreme Court decided to punt Governor Jan Brewer’s suit to have her party surrender the passed budget, a red flag went up in my mind.

This state is in real trouble. Not because we are in a 2 billion dollar budget hole, but because Jan Brewer lost all of her political leverage with that ridiculous lawsuit. What’s worse is that she has to go back to the bargaining table with the stain of being an ineffectual leader.

This state can’t afford to have a bunch of wannabe Barry Goldwaters or Janet Napolitanos to guide us into the future. A new person must take the mantle and the onus of leading this state with clear and definitive goals that make Arizona financially stronger, economically stable, and with a strong and active business community rallied behind that person.

But don’t hold your breath.

The time is now for someone to step up and have a vision for Arizona. As a state, we cannot continue down a current path of electing political heroes that have only live on their mediocre deeds of the past, talk about what needs to be done today and not have any plan for the future.

It’s down right pathetic that renewable energy companies have passed over Arizona time after time. We should be the leader in solar and renewable energy business and yet, places like Canada and Oregon are luring more business than we are. And they think that glowing orange orb in the sky is a UFO, not the sun.

We keep electing people who want to lead by committee, leaving the tough decision up to someone else. As an electorate we have settled, and no one cares. It is more than troubling when our own governor can’t get along with her own party. Political party in-fighting, partisan hackery, whether on the Left or the Right, is kryptonite to the well-being of any party and that toxicity and lack of clear leadership trickles down to us, the voters who care more about the future of this state than our own elected political heroes.

Time is running out for Jan Brewer. I hope she doesn’t run in 2010 because even her own party doesn’t support her – or she doesn’t know how to gather people on the steps of the Capitol, hold a press conference and actually show the people who think her plan for the future of Arizona and the budget is a solid, productive plan.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Let’s hope there is someone who emerges from the political thicket to take Arizona where it needs to be – into a bright and sunny future, not just sticking fingers in the wind and guessing which way the wind blows.

This Isn't About Chris Brown

2009-06-22T21:58:00.001-07:00

Singer Chris Brown, who was accused of assaulting fellow singer Rihanna, pled guilty and was sentenced in Los Angeles Criminal Court yesterday.

Good.

Under the terms, Brown will serve five years probation and must serve 180 days in jail or the equivalent – which is about 1,400 house of community, labor-intensive service. He must also attend domestic violence classes for a year.

Even better.

But this isn’t about Brown, this is about Rihanna and women like her who think that this kind of relationship won’t and can’t happen to them again. Unfortunately that’s just not the case.

Brown previously pleaded not guilty to one count of assault with intent to harm when he and Rihanna argued in a car in February in Hollywood and we saw the horrific pictures of Rihanna’s battered and bruised face on Internet sites and gossip shows.

Yesterday, Rihanna was in the courtroom, but only after Chris Brown had left. She listened to the judge’s issuance of the “stay away” order that Brown must follow. Shockingly, through her attorney, Rihanna had requested that no such order be put in place.

And that’s the truly sad part of this story. The judge did the right thing in sentencing Chris Brown, but Judge Patricia Schnegg should’ve sentenced Rihanna to court-appointed counseling for her own well-being.

Too many times we have seen victims of physical and verbal abuse repeat the same pattern of behavior. We have seen women fall into bad, abusive relationships with men who are violent and verbally abusive. Countless women, who are victims of abuse, will say that they don’t see the signs until it’s too late or can’t figure out why they can’t find a healthy relationship. It’s not about finding the right person, it’s recognizing why you choose to be with someone who doesn’t respect you and thinks that abuse is acceptable.

If Rihanna doesn’t get the counseling she needs, she will wind up in another abusive relationship and worse; another statistic of violence against women.

What Chris Brown did was horrific and should not be tolerated. He needs mandatory counseling to not only understand, but also un-learn what he thinks is acceptable behavior.

Rihanna needs to un-learn what an unhealthy relationship is before it’s too late.

Retirement? For Many Not Likely

2009-06-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

Father’s Day is this Sunday and I was thinking of some advice my father gave me that, sadly, has come to pass.

When I was 23, my father and I had a deep, philosophical discussion about the rest of my life. While we raked leaves into piles in the backyard, I declared that I wanted a career in radio but was unsure of my decision because radio was this wild, untamed business that had huge pitfalls, no guarantee of success, and little job security.

My parents are from the generation that believed security trumped everything else. They raised two children based on the financial mantra of “slow and steady wins the financial race.”

So my declaration of wanting to go into the media circus sideshow that is radio was a major departure from what had been instilled in me.

But my father is an understanding man, so he gave me some prescient advice. He told me to do something that I was passionate about, making sure that I wasn’t being reckless in my choice of careers. “Find what you love,” he said, “and the money will follow.”

Then he said something that I dismissed, didn’t want to think about, but his prediction came true. Before we ended our discussion and went into the house for dinner, he made the comment that, “I think your generation will be the first to not retire.”

Ironically and sadly, it’s looking like that his casual, obtuse prediction will come to pass.

In the past couple of years, and especially in this economy and watching my IRA and 401K both nosedive, I have fully and quietly resigned myself to the fact that I will work for the rest of my life.

Now I am different than most people. I’ve never fully embraced the idea of not working. I don’t picture myself owning a golf cart, puttering around Sun City in a loud Hawaiian shirt, black socks and sandals. I don’t golf and have no plans on making it my hobby when I am older. I want to work – I like to work. I am lucky in that way; I haven’t shunned or dismissed my Puritanical upbringing.

But for many people, retirement was the finish line that you sprinted for, getting there early was the goal, living better than the rest of your peers was the prized gauntlet. That won’t be the case in the next couple of years for many.

For 77 million Boomers, it may be too late. More and more Baby Boomers are putting off retirement with the latest news from Wall Street. According to AARP stats, 24 percent of Boomers are putting off retirement indefinitely.

My father could have retired, but hasn’t. He still works; in fact he has the luxury of only taking jobs he wants and makes good money. You won’t find him on the golf course, or tying flies in the garage. Or fulfilling a life long dream of attending baseball games in every Major League ballpark in America.

I get my work ethic from him. But I am also a realist, fully recognizing that Gen X, as a group, may be the first generation since the Depression to not do as well as their parents. Also, I realized about 10 years ago that Social Security should be utterly bankrupt and completely drained by the time I am 65. Combine that with life expectancies getting longer, along with quality of life, and I’ve decided that there’s no reason to stop working. Period.

Do I want to point an accusatory finger at our elected political twits and say thanks for wasting my (our) money? Sure. But that isn’t in my plans. I am lucky. I have time to watch my nest egg rebuild itself, and I will add to it over the next 20 years.

As I am fortunate, so is my father. He will always be in demand. He has gone from the corporate world to home improvements and repair. As he says, “everyone needs a door hung or a light fixture installed.” So he will be fine.

But for many who find themselves in the eye of our current economic storm, they will have to find new jobs and new ways to earn money, not having the once-guaranteed dream of retirement.

I am lucky, I found something I love and that allows me to earn enough money to put away. But I hate the fact my dad was right about my (and other) generations.

I would’ve liked to visit every major ballpark in the United States. But I will be too busy working.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad; I always appreciate the advice, even when it comes true.

Barack's Unchosen Legacy

2009-06-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

If George W. Bush’s legacy is stirring up an international hornets nest after 9/11/01 by starting two wars, Barack Obama’s legacy could be on the same track, but with some subtle differences.

By going to war with Iraq, deposing a dictator, and dividing the country (and the world) on what is a “just” war, there’s no doubt that Dubya made a decision, consciously choosing to take our troops and plant them in a region of the world that has been chaotic and unstable for generations.

But Barack Obama, who has repeatedly stated that his is willing to talk to regimes that have been hostile to us, compromise with nations who threaten nuclear violence and deal with third world punks, cannot avoid the fact that in the next couple of months he will have to make some unpopular decisions.

The first one will be how to deal with a dictator who is hell bent on making sure everyone remembers him when he is gone. Kim Jong Il is not long for this world and when he shuffles off his mortal coil and his son takes over, his decisions on how to leave this world could have dire consequences. He has been saber rattling for years, going all the way back to Bill Clinton’s Administration when he totally pulled the wool over Madelaine Albright’s eyes as they looked eye-to-eye (they’re the same height and both wear heels) and she came back to DC with glowing reviews of a nice man who didn’t want to do anyone or nation harm.

Now he is building a nuclear program and testing short and long-range missiles. Obama has to deal with this. Whether the president decides to embargo goods from the already poor country or take direct action for Il’s constant testing of missiles, action needs to be taken. Ignoring the problem will only embolden Lil’ Kim and his son.

The second hot spot that the president has to deal with is Iran. Elections over the past weekend were a joke, but what do you expect from a leader who comes out and spews hate for Israel, the United States and anyone else that is on his mind that day in a Members Only jacket? Iran’s young people love the West and we should embrace them. But the currently elected (ahem) officials want to wipe Israel off the map and encourage any kind of act of violence against the US of A.

Barack Obama was warmly greeted in the Middle East on his recent visit. He should use this advantage to take down the power of Iran and let the people truly decide what direction they want their country should follow in the 21st century.

The third problem Barack Obama has to face is our increasing division between what to do between the Israelis and the Palestinian settlements. Former President Jimmy Carter, who I wish would just got back to Plains, GA and sit on his front porch and count how many red cars pass by in the afternoon, said something over the weekend that actually made sense to me. Asked by the liberal Haaretz newspaper whether the Jewish state was looking at a "head-on collision" with the United States if it doesn't comply with Washington's demands, Carter said, "Yes."

The Obama Administration has been trying to ease the Muslim world while rankling the Israelis. This could have severe consequences for not only the Obama Administration, but other presidents down the road. Israel has been an important ally for us in the Middle East. If Barack shows too much favoritism to the Muslim world, he will not only make up for the “failed policy of the last eight years,” he could create some new problems that will define and tarnish his legacy.

And I haven’t even gotten to the Pakistan and Taliban problem.

Barack Obama wants to be the International President, but he needs to make sure he prioritizes his objectives and how he deals with certain leaders.

If George W. Bush was vilified for making a decision to go to war, let’s hope Obama isn’t blamed for doing nothing or being ineffectual. That could be substantially direr than what the GWBA ever did.

It's Called Kharma

2009-06-08T21:47:00.001-07:00

After watching Bret Michaels of Poison get clothes-lined by a piece of scenery on Youtube for more than a dozen times, only one thing keeps running through my head.

Now I understand two polar opposite but interconnecting things: Schadenfreude and Karma.

Schadenfreude is German, loosely translated into "Taking joy is others pain."

Whereas Karma is the force generated by a person's actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person's next existence.

They may sound like mutually exclusive ideas that cannot and should not be linked, but this notion was proven false during the Tony Awards on Sunday night.

How else do you explain the confounding popularity of Poison back in the 80's, the train wreck of reality television that is Rock of Love show on VH1, and the utterly unfathomable reunion of Poison that performs at the Tony Awards?

You can't. It's a philosophical dilemma wrapped in a syllogism that defies explanation, until at the very end of the video clip, when the band has gathered on that tiny stage and Bret is still on the floor, swaggering in the spotlight, lingering a bit too long, and BAM! You see him get smacked by a cosmic bitch slap.

I am still laughing.

Bret suffered a broken nose and a bruised ego, but for the majority of us who have had to endure Poison, Rock of Love and other annoying projects by Bret, this was God standing up for the little man and saying, "Enough!"

Like the little boy in the scene from the seminal movie Animal House when a Playboy Bunny flies through his window and lands on his bed, I kept looking skyward and repeating, "THANK YOU, GOD!"

The Rest Of Us

2009-06-04T09:13:00.000-07:00

Did you ever wonder why there are mall cops? Why are there holding tanks in arenas and stadiums? Why does the IRS have auditors or why do banks chain their pens to the service desk?

When I was 12, I went to my first concert. It was a life altering experience. But not because of the band’s performance or the transformative power of music.

I quickly learned a valuable life lesson after witnessing an entire section of fellow concertgoers get escorted out of their seats because security couldn’t figure out who had a stash of drugs. So instead of ferreting out the nefarious person, or persons, security decided to take everyone out, frisk them, and when they found the person with the stash of pot down his pants, they let everyone else return to their seats.

But it was too late. They missed the drum solo.

It was on that fateful night I came up with a tenant that hasn’t failed me yet. It’s a simple fact that is so pure in it’s form; it’s almost a metaphysical certitude. It goes something like this: five percent of the population ruins it for the rest of us.

Now I know that sounds misanthropic, but hear me out.

The news is full of stupid people who have nothing better to do than ruin it for the rest of us who do the right thing, remain law-abiding, act with some kind of grace and civility, not trying to flip off society with their acts of cretin ignorance, insipid rebellion or alcohol-induced courage (or all of the above), they make it incredibly difficult for the rest of us to just get along.

Case in point: a homeless man got on the Valley Metro light rail the other day with a box of fecal matter. In and of itself, this is a disgusting display, a total violation of all things civil in society. You can carry many things onto a mass transit vehicle, but no reasonable person should be caught carrying a box, bag or any type of container or waste, human or animal. But for some reason this five percenter decided that he would use it as some kind of finger paint, flicking and smearing poop on the floor of the light rail car.

This continued for a couple of stops until police at Washington and 38th Street escorted the demented Jackson Pollack wannabe along with his box of feces off of the light rail.

Luckily, Valley Metro said they have been prepared for a biohazard emergency. Although I don’t think anyone could have come up with this doozy of a crappy situation.

Light Rail spokesperson Hillary Foose commented on the excrement experience by saying, “The comfort and security of our passengers always comes first.” That may be true. But this homeless guy just ruined light rail for the rest of us.

Even though Valley Metro took the car out of service and scrubbed, hosed and sanitized the violated vehicle, the next time anyone steps onto the light rail line, this is the thought that will continuously run through the passenger’s mind. “Am I sitting in the crap car, am I riding the excrement express? Am I on the turd train or poo-poo choo-choo?”

Light rail has forever been tainted by one homeless guy’s penchant for poop. Way to go, homeless guy – you’ve ruined light rail for the rest of us.

Couldn’t you have just performed an air drum solo?

Jay's Last Tonight Show

2009-05-31T16:25:00.000-07:00

Last Friday Night was Jay Leno’s last show as host of the Tonight Show. He is leaving the show, but not leaving television.

He will host his own talk show in the fall on NBC as part of their prime time lineup.

For most of the show, it was his usual tepid, but funny performance. It didn’t have anywhere near the sadness and poignancy like Johnny Carson’s last show. It was a faux goodbye and that made the show underwhelming to me. Jay reminisced, had some jokes that missed and did a total suck up job to Conan O’Brien who will replace Jay on Monday night.

The Tonight Show has long been a staple of television going all the way back to the first host, Steve Allen. Steve and Conan have a lot in common. That’s why I don’t think Conan will do a stellar job with the franchise. Cue the Letterman music: Dave, you’re kharma prayers have been answered since they passed you up, picking Conan to succeed you.

Steve Allen was an intellectual, a musician and a brilliantly funny person. But he wasn’t an Everyman. Conan O’Brien is Harvard educated, got his start as a comedy writer and ultimately produced the Simpson’s cartoon show before being thrown on NBC as Letterman’s replacement. He has done well, but Jay Leno has consistently beaten Letterman because of an innate quality that regular people, Middle America relates to.

Jay Leno is real. He’s a real person, not an intellectual, not upper-crust. He likes collecting cars. Not just old cars but muscle cars. He loves to tinker with mechanical things.

He’s got a blue-collar work ethic that is legendary. He loves working and writing, trying out material in front of an audience at a comedy club BEFORE the next Tonight Show.

Plus he was recently hospitalized for an undisclosed illness. The reason he was in the hospital is because he doesn’t have a doctor. The man is a machine and just works. He’s never in the tabloids; he’s not fodder for the gossip sites, he’s just Jay.

Letterman is a dork-who-made good and his sarcasm has a petulant and pretentious tone. O’Brien uses obscure references and is willing to go highbrow more often than not.

Here’s the dirty little secret about late night talk shows. Johnny made it look easy. And it ain’t about being funny… it’s about being the most relatable.

Jay is just Jay, and people like that.

And that’s why he will do well in his new time slot on NBC.

Reggie Jackson Is a Jackass

2009-05-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

I told the story of how I ran into baseball legend Reggie Jackson on my radio show and have gotten some email for me to retell the story on my blog. Here it is:

I flew back to Baltimore to watch my sister walk across the stage and receive her master’s degree. The ceremony was long and the school invited the ambassador from Hungary who had all the stage presence of an old brown shoe to give the address. So my dad turned to me, and said, “Let’s get out of here.” Which is his code for “I can't sit still and need a cigar.” So while the ambassador droned on about something in his country, dad and I walked out in the bright, warm sunshine of Memorial Day weekend.

In the quad, under the shade of trees, the school cafeteria staff was setting out cookies and pink lemonade so newly tasseled graduates and their family could meet up outside of the auditorium, take photos, and bask in the warm sun of their accomplishments.

As dad and I are eating some cookies, I see a man walk over to the table and ask if her could have some lemonade. It’s Reggie. Reggie Freakin’ Jackson is off to my right in the middle of Westminster, Maryland, at this small private college.

I grab my father and point out Mr. October. Dad says there’s no way that’s him. He’s still bitter that Reggie came from the A’s to the Orioles and then left after one season to join the hated bums in pinstripes, sealing his legend with Billy Martin and company. So I casually walk over and listen to him make small talk with the woman behind the table. I know his voice and that’s definitely the guy who had a semi-successful candy bar named for him.

Now I usually don’t get star-struck. It’s only happened twice in my career. (Another story for another time, and yes, both stories are completely embarrasing). So I decided to follow Reggie back into the auditorium and shake his hand. As he is looking at some plaques on the wall, I sidle up beside him and just above a whisper say, “Mr. Jackson, I just wanted you to know I am big fan.”

Notice I didn’t scream it, didn’t act goofy and get all flustered, I didn’t ask him for an autograph. I was respectful.

Reggie Jackson acted like I had thrown a turd in his lemonade.

In retrospect, I should have defiled his drink. His face went stone cold. He wouldn’t look me in the eye and actually turned away in the most dismissive, condescending way. But not before offering his hand in a half-hearted attempt to make amends. As if the baseball gods would allow me to shake his hand, just this once. I gripped the hand of a man who almost got into a fist fight with Billy Martin during a game, immediately noticing it was the lamest attempt at giving a fan some respect I’ve ever experienced.

When I went back to my father and told him what had happened, he just took the cigar out of his mouth and said, “Doesn’t surprise me.”

Look, I’ve been yelled at by rock stars and been dismissed by Hollywood people. I know my rank in the Fan v. Celebrity food chain, but this was just a jerk move by a guy who could’ve just smiled and said, “thanks.” Instead, I now wish Billy Martin had cold-cocked him in the dugout confrontation.

I have gotten email from people regaling me of their own experiences with Reggie who played at ASU and the theme seems to be the same.

Reggie should do us all one last favor and change his name from Jackson to Jackass so no one makes the same mistake I did.

Lil' Kim Jong Illin'

2009-05-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

Forget about Iraq or Afghanistan. Who cares about Iran?

Don’t worry about China or Darfur. And skip the Palestinians versus Israelis.

The first major foreign policy challenge of Barack Obama’s presidency concerns a small man (5'3"), who has the largest porn collection in the world, enjoys keeping tabs on Hollywood celebrities, and letting his own people starve while he proudly shows his pendulous belly.

Oh, and he wants his own nuclear arsenal.

Earlier this week, Kim Jong Il, the totalitarian dictator of North Korea, decided that he wasn’t getting enough attention and launched a couple of short range missiles. Not only do these tests directly impact surrounding countries like South Korea, China and Japan, it also can affect other countries like the United States. These missiles could possibly be fitted with nuclear weapons and could start a world conflagration – if North Korea is allowed enough time to pass their technological baby steps.

South Korea has joined the United Nations in condemning the tests, but what needs to happen is a swift, defining move to make sure that North Korea has no chance of testing anything in the near future.

As of Wednesday, Pyongyang threatened war against South Korea and the United States because of their alliance to intercept any ship they feel may be delivering nuclear materials to North Korea.

Enough writing is on the wall: Kim Jong Il wants to sit with the Big Boys and have nuclear capablities. The United States, as well as the world, cannot allow that to happen.

Our president should have taken immediate action and with the Chinese, launched weapons to take out the launch pads of the missiles that were launched over Memorial Day weekend. Instead, Barack Obama will continue to want dialogue, consensus, while Lil’ Kim grows stronger and has more time to build, test, and implement his nuclear program.

South Korea says it is prepared to “respond sternly” to any kind of aggression, while five ambassadors (including the United States) are drawing up a new resolution for North Korea; a resolution, like many others, Kim Jong Il will dismiss and continue his nuclear program.

Kim Jong Il has made it abundantly clear that he has a Napoleon complex, wanting to be taken seriously as a modern day leader, but there is no room at the Big Boys table for an unstable, egomaniacal dictator.

But President Obama won’t do what’s necessary, and by doing so he will allow history to repeat itself.

Constantly blaming the “failed policies of the last eight years,” Obama has hamstrung himself into not being able to take swift, decisive action on the world stage when necessary. This president cannot do what needs to be done to a despot who loves to saber rattle, and with every puff-up gesture and temper tantrum Kim Jong Il takes, he and his country gets that much closer to having the potential of using nuclear and long range weapons against other countries.

Kim Jong Il has repeatedly ignored the UN. Here is a brief timeline:

Oct 2006 - NKorea conducts an underground nuclear test. (A major no-no)
Feb 2007 - NKorea agrees to close its main nuclear reactor in exchange for fuel aid. (They didn’t)
June 2007 - NKorea shuts its main Yongbyon reactor. (For a short time)
June 2008 - NKorea makes its long-awaited declaration of nuclear assets. (Lil’ Kim delayed the results)
Oct 2008 - The US removes NKorea from its list of countries that sponsor terrorism. (BIG Mistake)
Dec 2008 - NKorea slows work to dismantle its nuclear program after a US decision to suspend energy aid. (Kim loves playing this game)
Jan 2009 - The NKorea says it is scrapping all military and political deals with the South, accusing it of "hostile intent." (Kim gets more attention from the world)
April 2009 - NKorea launches a rocket carrying what it says is a “communications” satellite. (Another resolution broken)
May 25, 2009 - North Korea conducts a second nuclear test. (I sense a pattern here)

Lil’ Kim has enslaved his people in a totalitarian state and has aggressively sought out scientists and materials to make Weapons of Mass Destruction. Yet the United States, and the world, just sits by, forms committees, enacts resolutions and wrings its collective hands, acting like a paper tiger.

This is reminiscent of a former totalitarian dictator who enslaved his own people, used WMD against his own people and violated over 42 United Nations resolutions and the world decided to do nothing. (See above infractions.)

His name was Saddam Hussein. And (whether you agree or not with the reasons and the fallout) we know who finally took him out.

Slighting Out Kids

2009-05-20T21:17:00.000-07:00

An article in the Republic caught my attention the other day when Pat Kossan wrote, “Arizona classrooms are the third-most crowded in the nation, and they're about to get squeezed further.”

In the Republic article, it said that state administrators would have to come up with some kind of plan. Because of the economy, states slashing budgets, and stimulus money being siphoned off, your kid may be in a larger classroom.

But there is a debate among educators and academics on whether or not the size of the class is proportionate to the level of education your child receives.

Arizona has the dubious distinction of having a higher average of teacher-to-student ratios.

“Arizona had 20.2 students for each teacher in 2006-07, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Education. Only Utah at 22.1 and California at 20.9 had more. The national average was 15.5 students.”

It doesn’t matter what school system you’re in, or whether you choose to send your kid to a private or public institution. Class size does matter.

I am wrapping up my first year working with a sixth grade class here in the Valley, and although I am not a teacher, (and not receiving a degree in education) I have noticed that the less kids there are in the classroom, the more engaged they become.

About once a week I teach public speaking to these kids who, for the most part, are from another part of the world or their parents do not speak English. They are from Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Russia. So to get these kids all on the same speaking page is tough.

I can’t imagine the challenge that I, let alone every teacher, face if the class size swells next year. Many times I will have to work one-on-one with these kids and when you’re focused one particular child there is a better chance for that child to learn. In my experience it also helps me to learn what the child is capable of so I can tailor my visits and help those who need a bit more time learning.

I know that budgets are being drastically cut and that people are looking for money in almost every nook and cranny of state and federal coffers. But I also know that just because you throw money at a problem, it doesn’t guarantee that the problem will be amended or quickly fixed. We have seen how government is all too ready to throw money at programs that, frankly, are just wasteful spending.

But not education.

I agree with Kossan’s assessment, “Arizona schools must find a balance among the number of teachers hired, the number of students each teacher will have, and how much each teacher will be paid.”

Just because Arizona is suffering in budget woes doesn’t mean our kids should.

Unfortunately, I don’t see our state political heroes making the sacrifices or coming with better ideas to lower the teacher-to-student ratio next year.

Caveat Emptor: Michael Vick

2009-05-19T08:55:00.000-07:00

When released from a federal prison on May 20th, Michael Vick will go to a half way house and use his body to earn a living, but it won’t be as an athlete; he will finish out the rest of his prison sentence for operating an illegal dog fighting ring back home in Hampton Roads, Virginia working a construction job for 10 bucks an hour.

There will be no one to cheer him when he drives a nail straight, no accolades for safely using a circular saw, no one asking him how he will handle next week’s game plan of pouring concrete.

Vick will be an average guy; a far cry from someone who was paid millions of dollars because of his unbelievable preternatural ability for throwing a football.

Vick wants badly to come back to the NFL. He will be relatively young; a little out of shape and will need some time to flex the rust off of his arm.

And if you’re an owner even mildly entertaining the idea of asking him to play for you, I offer you some free advice: Don’t do it.

Not because Michael Vick isn’t talented or will be too old to play.

If Roger Goodell thinks he is contrite and sincere about truly learning from his previous mistakes, then he will allow Vick back into the league as soon as this season.

But if you are a desperate team looking for an agile, scrambling quarterback who can make plays on the run, I offer you some free advice: don’t take him. In fact, don’t even talk to his agent. Vick comes with not only enough baggage to get a Samsonite endorsement, he will also come with an unlikely entourage.

Back when we first started learning about what an inhumane and cruel operation Bad Newz Kennels was, and read the news reports of how many dead dogs were buried on Vick’s Surry County, Virginia property, (the rape stands, the dog pits, and the thousands of dollars that were bet on this senseless sport), People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals made a promise.

It’s a promise they are still more than willing to keep and your franchise doesn’t need the head ache and the ticked off fan base.

If any team decides to pay Michael Vick to play, PETA has vowed to show up and protest. In a day when people protest everything and anything, when television news outlets have their pick of what group is protesting where, this may just sound like an empty threat or cacophonous din and nothing more.

But PETA will not just protesting outside of the stadium of the team Vick plays for on any given Sunday. They have vowed to go on the road and protest at the opposing teams stadiums. PETA has vowed to show up at any camp, appearance or event that is directly or indirectly involved with Vick or the team.

They say that the NFL has a short memory when it comes to talent. Just ask the Dallas Cowboys last year when they hired Adam “Pac Mac” Jones, as well as a host of other teams.

But if you’re an NFL owner, do you really want that kind of entourage following your team around? Just because you’ve “conveniently” forgotten what Michael Vick did?

It’s just not worth the headache.

Obama Speaks At ASU

2009-05-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

I Would Have Preferred Oprah.

When addressing the graduating class of 2009 at Sun Devil Stadium, President Barack Obama had the opportunity to inspire, lifting the spirits and motivating students to reach for their dreams and realize their goals. And he did that, while bashing what most grads worry about the most when on the precipice of springing into the work force: making money.

Oprah, who gave the commencement address at Duke University earlier in the week, said that she loves living in a mansion and “it is really fantastic to have your own jet, and anybody who says it isn’t is lying to you. That jet thing is really good.”

Now that’s honesty you can take to the bank, no pun intended.

Using a clever euphemism for making money, calling it “the old approach,” the president denigrated those living in a higher tax bracket saying, “It was in pursuit of gaudy short-term profits, and the bonuses that come with them, that so many folks lost their way on Wall Street.”

Wow. How disappointing and hypocritical.

Addressing over 71 thousand people in Tempe, Barack said that “formulas for success that have dominated these recent years,” should not be the brass ring to shoot for, adding, “how much money you make and how big your corner office is; whether you have a fancy enough title or a nice enough car” isn’t what graduates should concentrate on.

Sorry, but that’s not a goal for many. The corner office, the nice car is also a sign of success; it shouldn’t be a symbol of shame or arrogance or greed as President Obama (and others) have suggested.

Speaking of arrogant, what I find particularly galling and offensive is how people who have attained a level of financial success, (ahem, Mr. President) feel it is their right to lecture and chastise people on the evils of making money; or wanting to attain wealth. Or simply working selfishly to be successful. That somehow wanting to be successful and have that success be rewarded by financial gain is inherently corrupt and goes against what this country stands for.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Does that mean Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, JP Morgan, Bill Gates, Steven Jobs, Mark Cuban and the Jonas Brothers are corrupt and evil because they worked with a single determination and became wildly successful, i.e, wealthy? I think they are something to aspire to, not denigrate. Well, maybe the Jonas Brothers.

Blind greed is evil; avarice is a sin, but what of our elected politicians who have made plenty of money in their lifetimes before, during and after they are elected political heroes? Should we mock Bill Clinton for commanding a million dollars for a speech? Should we insult Bill Frist for being a good doctor and had a thriving practice before being elected to Congress from Tennessee? I would feel better being lectured by Mother Theresa who actually lived in abject poverty than John Kerry or John McCain who married women of wealth.

But the president did say something that I agree with wholeheartedly: “no matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, more to learn, more to achieve.”

And if that monetarily rewards you, don’t feel shamed.

I think Oprah would agree with me.

Peer Pressure May Help

2009-05-11T21:53:00.000-07:00

A quick disclaimer: I have never used illegal drugs, (e.g., pot, cocaine, meth, heroin or any number of illicit substances) finding them to be a ludicrous waste of time and money as well as not having any social or conventional value. That being said, I am sick of our country using valuable resources, i.e, our tax money, to fight a senseless and hypocritical War On Drugs.

Remember back in high school when your friends got you to do stuff by pressuring you with ridiculous and empty phrases like, “everyone else is doing it, why won’t you?” And my favorite, “Don’t you want to be cool?”

Even though I never fell for those ridiculous and insipid siren songs of hip “coolness,” I think it’s time channel our inner high school, using it to pressure the state of California to decriminalize marijuana.

Always wanting to be the coolest place in the country, if not the world, the Golden State with its perpetual tan and beautiful people, is flat broke and has been for awhile. There is no end in sight as the land of fruits, nuts and flakes sinks deeper into debt to the tune of $15.6 billion.

So when Governor Arh-nuld suggested that his state look into legalizing marijuana for recreational use and thusly, tax purposes, I immediately think back to high school and the irony of goading Cali into being the first state in the country to pass major legislation, making the possession and use of marijuana not only legal, but a taxable commodity.

And it would make them “cool.” What’s not to like?

Unfortunately, the Governor is being a buzzkill by not fully endorsing the prospective change in the laws. He endorses studying how much money could be derived from taxing pot. “Well, I think it’s not time for (legalization), but I think it’s time for a debate.”

Dude, that’s so lame! Don’t you want your state to be so “rad” and “cool” to be the first place to legalize the mary jane? How awesome would that be, dude?

Let’s be honest with ourselves. The so-called farce called the “War On Drugs” hasn’t accomplished anything. We are siphoning off billions of dollars to fight a crop that was demonized by the government back in the 1930’s because African-American musicians were the primary users of “reefer” and lawmakers in a Jim Crow era didn’t want their white children to be exposed to that drug (or the music) at that time. So elected political heroes not only demonized cannabis with propaganda pieces that were shown in movie theaters across the country, (check out the earnestly hilarious “Reefer Madness”) they made it illegal.

Yet tobacco products (which like hemp, was grown by our forefathers) are legal and kill more people every year than pot.

According to a study by the California Board of Equalization, legalizing marijuana and taxing it like cigarettes and alcohol would bring in an additional $1.34 BILLION dollars to California’s coffers. Also, the state would save money on law enforcement because the War On Drugs would only apply to hard-core stuff like heroin, cocaine, meth, etc. Local jails would be emptied of people serving sentences for pot possession, saving money on incarceration expenses like jail upkeep, maintenance, staffing and feeding prisoners.

Still not convinced, Governor? Go back to your native Europe and look at Portugal. In 2001, the country became the first on the continent to abolish any and all criminal penalties for personal possession of not exclusively cannabis but cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine as well.

The biggest fear among Portuguese lawmakers was that their country would be a tourist destination for total stoners, turning Portugal into some kind of Spaniard Holland. (Holland, by the way, has never legalized possession of marijuana; they just don’t enforce their own laws).

So has Portugal become a pit of open-air drug use? Has crime and debauchery increased, flooding their courts and jails with collateral crimes in the wake of decriminalization? According to the American Cato Institute, a Libertarian-leaning think tank, their answer is after five years of decriminalization, drug use among teens has declined. The rate of HIV cases caused by sharing dirty needles has also declined. And Portugal has the lowest rate of personal marijuana use of any other country in Europe.

So, like, Governor Arnold, dude, it’s time for you to stop talking and take some action. If you continue to believe the fallacious and tired argument that banning marijuana is good for your state, then it’s time we resort to Beverly Hills 90210 tactics and just say, “don’t you want to be the coolest guv, ever, dude?”

And if you are not a 90210 fan, Jeff Spicoli would think you’re “totally awesome” if you signed into law the decriminalization of marijuana. But you won’t do it, because deep down we know you’re a total narc.

Chuck Daly, R.I.P.

2009-05-10T19:57:00.000-07:00

NBA basketball coach Chuck Daly passed away on Saturday (May 9, 2009) of pancreatic cancer at the age of 78.

Daly coached the Detroit Pistons to two championships in 1989 and 1990, as well as leading the original Olympic “Dream Team” to gold in 1992.

In the modern NBA, players as well as coaches are bestowed certain titles, like LA Lakers coach, Phil Jackson, whose management style is cerebral and new-age, thus he’s labeled “the Zen Master.”

Daly was a rare person who could assemble varied and different personalities, but didn’t need to coach with an iron fist or new age mantras. He recognized what each player had and let them play; leading to fierce loyalty amongst the young men who played for him on the Piston, Nets, Cavaliers and Magic.

When opposing teams played against the “Bad Boys” during their heyday, they couldn’t figure out schemes or plays, because Daly let his Pistons scrap, scrape and (in some cases) bludgeon the opposing team with their athletic talents, indomitable will and street thug physical play. (Which most of the “Boys” would take as a compliment, by the way).

When asked about how he managed to coach the always difficult and mercurial Dennis Rodman, Daly smiled and said, “I just let him play every minute of every game. Dennis just wanted to play, so I let him play.” Rodman demanded to be traded after Daly left the Pistons, referring to the coach as a surrogate father.

It’s a simple, but hard-to-master concept with not only NBA players, but people in the job arena as well. The best managers I’ve ever had didn’t have to yell, cajole or beat me down. They recognized what my strengths and weaknesses were and let me do my job.

I think the world of business management (which like sports, breaks people, personalities and progress down to formulas and charts) can learn a lot from Chuck Daly’s style of coaching.

Coach Daly’s simple but effective means to winning was “Let the players play.”

Ben Smiled

2009-05-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke appeared before Congress and, for a moment, smiled.

Yes, the man who’s job it is to interpret the vagaries and vicissitudes of all things financial in our country spoke to our elected political heroes on Capitol Hill, actually lacing his economic forecast with positives words.

Saying that the housing market has “hit bottom,” he was described as guardedly optimistic about the Recession being over by the end of this year and the road to economic recovery being less treacherous in 2010.

I can’t buy it.

Calling Chairman Bernanke a liar would be misguided and slanderous, but I am keenly aware of what his job is (and, more importantly, isn’t) all about. The Fed Chairman has the incredibly unenviable task of constantly walking a high wire. Part prognosticator, part huckster, wrapped up in a song-and-dance man as well as trying to remain a straight shooter, Bernanke must sound somewhat if not cautiously “optimistic” in the midst of this crisis. What other choice does he have; tell the blatant and naked truth?

No, that’s the media’s job.

He must carefully interpret the documents, data and disseminations that his office receives and carefully formulate, massage and parse words and phrases, redefining what the word “is” is so many times, that it would make the Clinton Administration pull their hair out.

Imagine the responsibility, the burdensome gravitas of one person who can make the stock market plummet like a lead balloon with one sharp, caustic sentence by being too “negative.” Or, conversely, artificially inflate a forecast only to be ridiculed and castigated by the President of the United States for being too “positive.”

Such is Ben Bernanke’s life; wedged right there between that economic rock and financial hard place.

It is a balancing act that has the fate of President Obama’s re-election, global economics and consumer confidence hanging on his every word. Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan was the master of speaking in front of Congress and saying absolutely nothing and making it sound as if we were fine. He was the master, not of spin, but of deception. In hindsight, some cable pundit should have barked in 2006 as the curtain was pulled back in the fray of a hot housing market, “Pay no attention to that man married to NBC’s Andrea Mitchell as our toxic mortgages balloon and our financial bubble ready to burst.”

Forgive me as I revert back to my Doubting Thomas ways; I remain utterly skeptical.

Remember, that back in October, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson called a late night meeting on Capitol Hill and said that we were “staring in the financial abyss,” only to have Ben Bernanke tell Congress that he thinks the Recession will be over by the end of this year.

When did that financial abyss turn into a fiduciary pothole?

It took a war to get us out of the Depression, almost four years of Reagan-o-mics to beat stagflation. Ben Bernanke is suggesting we could be out of this Recession in less than a year? No way.

All I know is that economic cycles are like what Tip O’Neill said about politics: “It’s all local.”

If you still own your house, have a job and money in your pocket, you may believe the Fed Chairman. If you’ve lost your house, or looking for work and/or can’t pay your off credit cards, you don’t believe a word out of Ben Bernanke’s mouth.

No matter how “optimistic” this Fed Chairman sounds.

This Film Will Live Long And Prosper

2009-05-06T11:18:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have long been a Star Trek fan. I would not go so far as to label myself as a “trekkie” (what people on the outside call rabid fans) or “trekker” (what rabid fans call themselves when not in the company of bullies).

I have never dressed up as a Star Trek character and I thought the Star Trek movies were a lame attempt to breathe life into a by-gone franchise. Ricardo Montalban rocking the mullet and William Shatner yelling “KHAN!!!!!” was, for my money, the apex of the Trek movies. But then they just got silly and insipid, finally being put to rest with the abysmal Nemesis.

On television, Star Trek was reinvented and the franchise was reinvigorated with The Next Generation, with Captain Picard as Super Ego juxtaposing James T. Kirk’s Id.

Star Trek: Voyager even had a politically correct, and for some fans, the best commander on the con, in Captain Janeway.

But then there was a lull in the franchise; sure the conventions still happened and rumors of other movies and TV shows percolated on blogs and chat sites. But where to you take a franchise that has boldly gone where no sci-fi drama had gone before?

J.J. Abrams had a simple, yet profound idea. He believed Star Trek had to go back to go forward.

But what J.J. Abrams has done for the Star Trek mythology is just plain sick. And by sick, I mean awesome.

The new Star Trek movie hits theaters this weekend and if you’re a casual fan or have no clue what a Romulan is, you will not be disappointed with action sequences and special effects that are riveting but not the focus of the movie.

Speaking to the hard-core, convention-going, stalking William Shatner to ask him if Captain Kirk slept with that woman from Omicron Ceti III, you must let a little of the past go to be fully enveloped by this movie.

There are a few surprises that Abrams brings to the screen that may conflict with what hard-core fans hold sacrosanct to the mythology, but here’s some advice: if you are willing to suspend a little bit of belief, you will be rewarded in the long run.

The casting is superb. From Spock to Kirk to Chekhov to Scotty and especially Bones; everyone captures the essence of Gene Roddenberry’s characters without crossing the line and becoming caricatures.

Chris Pine, who plays the young James Tiberius Kirk, has the swagger and charisma but doesn’t get so caught up in trying to play William Shatner that it comes off as a Priceline.com commercial. We see James T. but cock-sure with everyone and still be a playa with the ladies. (And yes, just like the television series, there are woman of all different shades of the rainbow he gets to be “friendly” with).

If you’re a fan of Spock, you’ll be more than pleased. This movie isn’t just about James T. Kirk and how he managed to be the youngest Star Fleet captain in Federation history. Zachary Quinto does a brilliant job as a young Spock who constantly struggles between his Vulcan upbringing and the deep emotional connection to his human mother played by Winona Ryder. To put on Spock’s ears would be an intimidating role for any actor. Quinto brings a new, but fuller persona to this role that will please the most strident Nimoy fan.

I am usually not a far of “pre-quels,” but this one not only gets it right, it surpasses expectations as a story, and as an action movie. Simply, I want see more.

Space may be the final frontier, but J.J. Abrams has gone where no one has gone before, and I hope he goes back.

Doesn't Get More American Than This

2009-05-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

For reasons that still aren’t clear, Wyatt Edward McLaughlin just didn’t want to be in Amelia County, Virginia anymore. So he packed up some horses, his dog and some supplies and left, by himself, for Weatherford, Texas, which is about 20 miles outside of Fort Worth.

He arrived safely in Texas after driving two days and logging almost 1,200 miles. Having performed at the rodeo before, it was natural for the police to find him there; uninjured, his horses well kept, his dog wagging its tail.

After all, it was his parents who, on a hunch, told the police that the boy might wind up there.

Wyatt McLaughlin is just 13. And I have all the respect in the world for him. In this hyper-protective, helicopter-hovering- parenting society we live in, the first instinct is outrage, pointing accusatory fingers at the parents for letting this happen and law enforcement for not being able to catch Wyatt before he got to the Lone Star State.

But after reading this story last week, I smiled.

Think about it; this kid loaded up his parent’s 2002 F350 pickup, took a four-horse trailer with two horses inside, his pet dog and had enough forethought to pack enough money and clothes to last a week. He also brought propane tanks to cook with as well as a tent.

Now you’re probably thinking that I am crazy for supporting a kid for running away. But there’s where you’re wrong. I am not supporting the actual act of running away, but I admire a child who can pack, plan his route, and have the forethought and rational thinking skills to take care of animals, not to mention he got to Texas without a single accident or traffic stop. He knew the rules of road well enough not stand out but also responsible enough not to get into an accident. There are plenty of adults who couldn’t make that cross-country trip without being pulled over for some traffic violation, wrecking or running out of food.

When cops were tipped by Wyatt’s parents as to where he could be, they got a tip from someone who had seen a truck and trailer with Virginia plates at the rodeo grounds. They searched video surveillance at a gas station in Mount Pleasant, Texas. Sure enough, there was Wyatt on the tape, pumping his own gas; buying some stuff for the road. In fact, the manager who waited on Wyatt described him as someone who was in no hurry when he pulled in. “He was just calmed and relaxed.” When the manager was asked why he didn’t think it was odd for a kid to purchase $40 worth of diesel fuel, the manager was stunned to find out he was just 13. To the manager’s defense, even though Wyatt is only 13, he’s 6 feet tall and 160 pounds and can pass for 18 or 19 easily.

I don’t pretend to know what Wyatt’s home life is, but I do know that Amelia County, Virginia is a beautiful place with its rolling hills, miles of fencing and acres of farmland. I just hope this is a kid who is a little too independent for his own good and not a sign of something worse.

I have made that same trip three times before, without the horses, trailer, or a dog. Once from Maryland to Texas, twice from Texas to Virginia and it’s not easy, no matter how many times you’ve done it. Driving by yourself on roads that you’re unfamiliar with, through states that don’t like “Yankees” can be treacherous and downright dangerous.

But I also remember how exhilarating it can be. On a long stretch of highway in Arkansas, two truckers who were driving extremely close to a camper with plates from Mississippi boxed me in. I realized what their fascination was with this particular camper when every time they blew their horns, a different woman would appear in the back window of the camper, flashing everyone rolling down the highway at 75 MPH. They must’ve blasted their horns for the next 50 miles, until the camper turned off an exit to go to Mississippi and I turned off to go to Texas. I can only imagine what the CB chatter was like.

Wyatt Edward McLaughlin defines what America has always been about: self-sufficiency, a sense of adventure, with a little bit of wanderlust mixed in for good measure.

Sure, it’s a bit premature and reckless to let a 13 year-old drive across the country by himself, but I wish I had his confidence and calm assurance at that age.

I don’t know many adults who do.

Swine Flu Hits PHX! Do You Care?

2009-04-29T21:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, it was announced that an 8-year-old boy had been (past tense) infected with the Swine Flu. He has since recovered, but the rest of the Valley has not.

With that positive confirmation, Moon Mountain Elementary School in the Washington School District announced that the school would be closed until May 7th unless there were more children who presented signs for the virus.

One school shut down is one school too many.

I have said before that this Swine Flu panic/concern/scare/pandemic is much ado about nothing. And your elected political heroes are playing you for a fool.

The main reason given in shutting that one school down was for “containment” purposes. That kite has enough string, but I don’t think it will fly.

State School Superintendent Tom Horne announced on Monday (and Governor Jan Brewer reiterated in a press conference yesterday) that any school who has students test positive for the Swine Flu would be shut down. That’s a great CYA move.

Government is very good at pointing out problems. Government is not good at solving them.

If the government were serious, truly thinking that this Swine Flu could have demonstrably, imminently mortal consequences for Phoenix, or any other part of the country, they would announce a full-scale shutdown of our daily lives.

But that hasn’t happened and that’s why I think yesterday’s announcement was a joke.

So far, one child has tested positive for Swine Flu. But it didn’t start with him. He’s not the Alpha case. Swine Flu has been in the Valley for weeks and we are just starting to unravel the trail. But that infectious trail didn’t start with an 8-year-old boy from the north valley.

What I want to know is: where did the kid get the virus? A fair and reasonable assumption would be the child was infected with the Swine Flu from an adult. Why, if logic dictates, doesn’t the government close post offices, grocery stores and restaurants? Why don’t they encourage you to telecommute or (ironically) call in sick to your employer?

Kids aren’t the only ones who catch viruses. Anyone could be a Swine Flu carrier; anyone could infect you, the entire Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, or me. But we are told to carry on with our daily lives.

Except if your child attends Moon Mountain Elementary. Then only you should be concerned.

Don't Buy the Swine Hype

2009-04-27T22:12:00.000-07:00

If you’ve been watching the news, you would think that this new strain of the “Swine Flu” has caused millions of people to die, decimating whole towns and countries like the Black Plague from the Middle Ages.

But in reality, that's just not accurate.

As of Monday, 149 people have died from this virulent strain in Mexico. The United States had 40 confirmed cases in five states and the Director Of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, was on every cable news outlet pleading for people to not sneeze on anyone. Great advice, even if you’re not sick. It’s just disgusting and rude.

Outbreaks of diseases and biological agents are the stuff of great novels (The Stand by Stephen King) and movies (The Andromeda Strain, and Outbreak, to name two) but to start wearing one of those masks you see in an ER is ridiculous.

Pharmacies in some states are seeing a run on flu medicines and cold remedies. People are stocking up, in some cases hording, waiting to see how bad this new strain of “Swine Flu” could potentially be.

Some people who have gotten the strain of the virus and have recovered quickly; others say it’s not as bad as the “normal” flu, whatever that means. The most alarming piece to this new influenza puzzle is that it seems to attack and infect those with the strongest immune systems: 15-55 year old people.

Every year, people get the “flu” or “influenza.” According to the Center For Disease Control in Atlanta, last year over almost 26 thousand people were diagnosed with the virus. Don’t get me wrong; it’s serious, as people die every year from the flu.

But I am not ready to push the panic button yet like they did back in the mid-seventies.

Back in 1976, Gerald Ford made a decision that is still hotly debated today. When an Army Recruit at Fort Dix became sick and died from a strain of the “Swine Flu,” people panicked, gravely concerned about a plague that killed over a half a million people back in 1918. Could the same type of influenza cover the world, killing innocent people?

Gerald Ford imposed a mandatory inoculation of (at that time) all 220 million Americans, with a program that cost 135 million dollars.

To some, it was the pinnacle of the health and medical fields in United States history. The federal government made a series of public service announcements to alert people that the “swine flu” was not to be taken lightly and everyone needed to line up in an orderly fashion, receive their vaccination, and in doing so, save humanity.

But thousands of people didn’t die; whole towns weren’t wiped out. Some thought it was the greatest government infringement on their personal freedom. Some were killed from the rushed vaccines; others were severely crippled or paralyzed.

The Ford Administration said they erred on the side of caution.

I just remember it being called, “The Epidemic That Never Was.”

Perez Missed the Point

2009-04-23T09:47:00.001-07:00

When openly gay Internet blogger and solipsist Perez Hilton asked Miss California that loaded question during the Miss USA Pageant, he missed the point of her answer.

Hilton's question was direct, but not simple like, “Can you wear white after Labor Day?” It was political; it was ideological and had the potential to be inflammatory. And there’s no one that likes everything flaming than Perez. Here was the question he posed to Carrie Prejean: “Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?”

Although the question is totally appropriate for the telecast, the potential for her answer to overshadow the Miss USA contest was undeniable.

And it did just that.

Prejean had a decision to make immediately. Did she compromise her morals and lie with a very PC answer or did she tell the truth without being confrontational and mean-spirited? She chose the latter and I have more respect for her today because of it.

I don’t agree with her on the issue of gay marriage, but I respect her for at least acknowledging that her answer wasn’t going to be popular. It was not a debate on Fox News or CNN; it was a beauty pageant for the love of Bert Parks. (Yes, I know he hosted the Miss America pageant, not Miss USA, but let me make my obscure, pop culture references).

Perez gave her 0 points, a goose egg, zilch for her answer and she plummeted in the contest scoring from being a lock to win the pageant to not even in the Top 5.

But what’s even more egregious to me is that Perez totally missed the point concerning her answer. Sadly, he’s not the only one as beauty contestants from the four states that do allow gay marriage have spoken up saying Miss California should have given more politically correct answer.

Are they serious?

I am tired of a small group of people dictating the rules of engagement. It physically drains me to live in a society where every word, sound bite or press release is packaged, processed and poised so conversations are vapid, opinions are scarce and people do express an opinion; it is (ironically) tantamount to violating someone else's rights.

Perez Hilton is a bully and ironically, the same thing he called Miss California on his web site.

If he doesn’t appreciate the fact that we should stand for what we believe (as he does with the issue of gay marriage and blogs incessantly on his site) then I guess he should just point the finger back at himself with the big fat label DUMB B%^&* on his forehead. Don’t worry, it would fit... with room to spare.

America's Little (Big) Secret

2009-04-22T21:44:00.000-07:00

Here’s a little secret that many people don’t know. But don’t tell too many people because it will throw the media into a tizzy! Most Americans surveyed say they don’t want government intruding on their lives.

Last week when I read that a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll revealed that most Americans “approve of President Obama and the government’s latest assertiveness” in dealing with our soured economy. But they don’t want government’s intrusion to last too long. I hate to tell you this, Sally, but that horse has been out of the barn for years.

The poll stated that, “3-to-1 people surveyed say government’s expansion should be cut back when the economic crisis is over.” Excuse me, but does anyone realize that Big Government’s been intruding, inserting, injecting, insinuating, interjecting, interpolating, interposing, and introducing itself to the American people almost a complete century?

According to Big Government, the crisis is never over.

*When the Great Depression hit and the banks failed, Big Government decided to introduce a novel idea called The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation so people would have faith and deposit money back in the banking system. We still have that program today. In fact, he government recently doubled the guarantee on your account from $100,000 thousand dollars to $250,000.

*When Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law social programs that were titled, The Great Society, it was supposed to wipe out poverty. These programs were expanded under the Nixon and Ford Administrations and we have actually spent more money trying to expunge poverty from America and yet more people are living below the poverty line than when LBJ signed the bill into law.

*Speaking of Nixon, it was on his watch that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were created. These agencies were supposed to last 10 years and then dismantled.

*After 9/11, George W. Bush decided that all agencies that dealt with security (CIA, FBI, ATF, NSA, etc) in the United States needed to be brought together under an umbrella of one department that would report to the president. Not since the Truman Administration had a layer of bureaucracy been added to that size and magnitude and so quickly. You know it today as the Department of Homeland Security.

From spending trillions of dollars to prop up the economy, to absorbing toxic assets with tax payer money, to firing CEO’s from the private sector, Barack Obama is redefining Big Government’s role in taking control of our current economic crisis. Obama says he inherited the mess created by “the last eight years of failed economic policies.” His solution? Do what many other presidents have done before him. Insert Big Government programs.

The president said at Georgetown University last week, “we’ve been called to govern in extraordinary times.”

Can’t any time in American history be called “extraordinary” if the government feels the need to insert itself into the private lives of Americans?

FDR would be proud.

Jet Packs and Tang

2009-04-20T21:54:00.000-07:00

After JFK said we would make it “to the moon within this decade,” (and we did) the Space Race permeated every facet of American culture. Television shows like Lost In Space and Star Trek gave us an inaccurate, but optimistic look at what we could do after taking “one small step for man.”

America was fascinated with anything about space, the stars, and life on other planets. Astronauts were treated like rock stars. Every space launch was covered with reporters and viewers holding their breath as that long tube blasted upward higher and higher with a loud, deafening roar and explosive fireball into space.

Back then, when people and experts talked about the “future,” we were all supposed to be wearing unitards, food would be reduced to a tablet and we would go everywhere in air cars (like George Jetson) or by jet pack.

And we would be free from the smelly, dirty viscous fossil fuels that we had to dig out of the ground. We would look upward to the skies and find a new source of energy.

Sadly, that day and that dream haven’t come to fruition. We don’t dress in unitards (thank goodness) or take pills for nourishment, but we have white-knuckled a technology that really hasn’t changed since Karl Benz received a patent for a two-stroke gasoline engine in 1879.

Sure, certain car producers have made hybrids. But for the most part, the dreams of clean, renewable energy hasn’t been realized and people finger point and make excuses as to why we can’t seem to drive something that’s not dependent on 87 or 91 grades unleaded gasoline.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon wants to implement EV Car charging stations at ballparks, malls and city garages. He also announced this week that he wants to see the city fleet as go with electric cars as soon as it's feasible.

Good luck.

Here’s the dirty little oily secret that people don’t want to talk about: our dependency on oil and gasoline is not about the car or the fuel; it’s about behavior.

Inventors, politicians, soothsayers and talk show hosts alike can say, scream, and demand until they are red in the face about getting off oil dependence, or going green, but until there is a seismic shift and conscientiously alter their behavior to make going green a habit, then all the talk and good intentions are for nothing.

We all need to look upward again, be inspired, alter our behavior, or else we still be stuck back in the 60’s talking about wearing unitards and wishing we had jet packs.

And when was the last time you had a glass of Tang? They don’t even drink that stuff on the Space Shuttle.

Economic Downturn Has People Scaling Way Back

2009-04-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

This economic downturn has spawned a new phenomenon among some Americans.

Instead of taking advantage of cellar-low mortgage rates and refinancing their house, buying foreclosed homes to sell when the housing market comes back, stockpiling money in anticipation of a bullish stock market, or just simply weathering this doom and gloomy storm of a recession, some have decided to just simply drop out. Their mantra? “Start over.” Scale Back. Less (a lot less) is more.”

They’re called Economic Survivalists, their goal is to make the least amount of money, surviving on skills not needed or used since Manifest Destiny took hold of the American Spirit back in the mid-nineteenth century.

Their cable’s been cut, their cell phones thrown in the garbage or donated to charity. The expensive SUV’s traded in for a used pickup truck; golf clubs are being sold to buy farming equipment.

Folks have had enough – and their ranks are growing. People are stockpiling food in numbers not seen since the Great Depression. Seed packets and transplants have seen a 30 percent rise in sales. The National Gardening Association released a stat that was staggering: 7 million more households are growing their own food compared to just last year.

But it goes beyond just having a green thumb or wanting to go out in the back yard and pick your supper. Economic Survivalists are serious about being off the main “grid” of society. Canning supplies have seen a 30 percent rise since last year, more people are researching and learning how to sew to mend or make their own clothes, blankets and other home items.

In extreme cases, people are just moving to live in a smaller, simpler place.

The goal? People want to feel more in control of their lives. There is a need, a desire for people to get back in control of what they have, redefining what they need and radically changing their lives. It sounds like an oxymoron, but there’s much validity to this “radical” way of living.

We have evolved so far from an agrarian society – where if you didn’t make it, grow or farm it, you didn’t need to it – to a consumption society where you can’t walk a block without seeing two Starbucks facing each other on opposite sides of the street.

Coming from a farming community, one thing I learned early on was self-sufficiency. The earth took care of you, if you took care of the earth and hardly anything went to waste. You learned to sew a button back on a shirt, not go to the mall and buy a new one. If the tractor stalled, you learned quickly how to get it running again before the sun went down. And you never took for granted that you could just rely on someone else to take care of things.

Now I don’t know if I want to throw away my iPod and cut my cable off just yet, but I do know that I feel a kindred spirit towards these people, these Economic Survivalists, who actually decide to take more control of their lives.

Self-reliance is a beautiful (and simple) thing.

Which Is the Bigger Insult?

2009-04-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

Last week, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said something rather shocking that went under the radar of most news organizations. As he was visiting a middle school in Denver he said to the gathered students, “Go ahead and boo me” when he made an insulting accusation about our nation’s schools.

Secretary Duncan frankly told the students, “I fundamentally think that our school day is too short, our school week is too short and our school year is too short.” If Secretary Duncan has his way, your child will be required to attend school for 6 days a week and go for 11 months out of the year, saying it’s a necessary change in order for our kids to compete with other countries. “[American students are] competing for jobs with kids from India and China. I think schools should be open six, seven days a week; eleven, twelve months a year.”

He wasn’t met with boos. Just stares.

I don’t know which is more stunning: the fact that Secretary Duncan just basically, in two sentences, indicted our national school system and basically admitted we as a nation have failed our children. Or, that in these economic times, how in the world would the Obama Administration actually find the money to keep your kids in a classroom six days a week, 11 months out of the year when school systems across the Valley and the country are laying off teachers, trying to keep schools open and operating in a tough economy.

Some school systems are so broke they are limiting school days to four a week, combining classrooms and shutting down after school activities. Yet Secretary Duncan has the bright idea to tell a bunch of middle schoolers that their educational system has already failed them.

If that is the case, why do so many students apply and come from around the world to attend our colleges and universities? Why is it that America is still looked at as the leader in innovation as well as the scientific and research giant in the private sector?

I don’t think Secretary Duncan realizes any these things. And maybe that’s the biggest insult to our children.

Rush: To The Movies!

2009-04-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

Once is a fluke, twice a pattern. Three times is just sick. Since when did three guys from Toronto who’ve cranked out quality music since the early 70’s become the “hot” band to include in movies?

Rush has arrived. At least in the cinema world, that is. Just this year, the trio with one of the most loyal fan bases, who admittedly and proudly were never an “image” band, has been highlighted in three quality movies.

In I Love You Man with Paul Ruud, their most recognizable and highest charting hit Tom Sawyer is used more than just one of the band’s most recognizable songs, it is an anthem used for guy bonding, and remembering the adolescent catharsis even after you’ve bought into the myth of suburbia and all of its pedantic trappings. The band even has a cameo in the end of the movie playing Limelight.

Adventures of Power, which I saw at the Phoenix Film Festival, showcases the drumming of Neil Peart at the heart of the film. As the main character Power wins a tournament air thumping Tom Sawyer, Neil himself has a cameo, handing out the top prize, and as always, handles himself with class and dignity while keeping the tongue-in-cheek attitude.

And just when you thought that a band that has outlasted many of their prog- and arena-rock brethren couldn’t be used again in a flick this year, a character in Adventureland skillfully uses Limelight in a pivotal scene (including skillful air drumming).

I don’t know if it’s kismet, serendipity or Cygnus X-1 (sorry, couldn’t resist) is in full phase, but just why in 2009, three different films with three different directors have decided to mine the seminal work of the Moving Pictures album is anyone’s guess. But, as an admitted and unabashed Rush fan since second grade, I am geeked to finally see directors declining to use bands who are the flavors of the month and use a band that spoke to many of us as kids and still speak to us as men.

Now when are we going to see 2112 on the silver screen?

Send In The Clowns

2009-04-10T09:49:00.001-07:00

Once again, Sheriff Joe Arpaio is under intense scrutiny for the way he allegedly conducts the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in what he calls “crime suppression sweeps.” Others call it racial profiling, comparing Arpaio to Bull Connor.

This isn’t the first time that Sheriff Joe has been in the thick of controversy. The Mayor of Phoenix, Phil Gordon, who has repeatedly proven that he’s intellectually bankrupt and has the spine of a well-cooked shrimp, wrote the U.S. Attorney General, begging for help after the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency came from DC to MCSO execute their crime suppression sweeps and dig deep into its records.

ICE found nothing improper or illegal about what the Sheriff was doing. Neither did the Attorney General.

Before she fled from the Copper State to work for the Obama Administration, our own governor, Janet Napolitano, teamed up with the Mayor and basically took Sheriff Joes’s check book away, thinking that would stop him from, as he put it, “enforcing the law.”

That didn’t work either.

So, in a curious and maybe fortuitous, turn of events just this week the Reverend Al Sharpton decided he would join Bertha Lewis, CEO and chief organizer for ACORN, and loudly called for the resignation of Sheriff Joe – all the way from New York City.

And, the Rev blustered, if Sheriff Joe didn’t step down, he vowed to come to Phoenix next month, organize activists, protestors and gadflies alike, and march in the streets.

The sheriff responded in his usual way when asked about Al Sharpton coming to town, he was more than inviting, “If they want to come down here, be my guest.” But he did offer this little nugget of advice when Gaydos and I interviewed him on KTAR. Arpaio reminded Al Sharpton that he’d better brush up on Arizona law. Sheriff Joe wouldn’t want Revered Al or anyone else from New York City violating our laws and taking a detour to Tent City.

The Reverend Al Sharpton has been a polemic and divisive and instigating figure for over 20 years now. He and other so-called “activists” like to parachute in to a community, not because of social injustice, not because of oppression of a certain ethnicities, but for one thing: publicity.

But Reverend Al Sharpton hasn’t seen Joe Arpaio at work. The Sheriff is also a master manipulator of the media, never shying away from a microphone or television camera.

If Al Sharpton brings his posse of do-gooders here to Phoenix, he will only help Sheriff Joe stay in office.

Even Sheriff Joe recognizes that. “My approval ratings are in the 80’s (percentile), if he [Sharpton] comes, it’ll go up to 99 percent,” he boasted on KTAR. Arpaio is absolutely correct when he made that assertion.

What Phil Gordon, Elias Bermudez, Rev. Al, etc., don’t realize is that the sheriff is an elected official. If people didn’t like the job he was doing, he wouldn’t continual be voted back into office. He’s appointed, not by an elected political hero, but by the people. And the people have spoken. They like Sheriff Joe, they like pink underwear and Tent City and they like a guy who doesn’t shy away from controversy.

So when the circus comes to town next month, and Al Sharpton is marching down Central Avenue, Sheriff Joe will be there and there will be a fight. Not a riot between protestors and police, but a fight for TV time. Reverend Al will talk of hate crime, racial profiling and injustice. Meanwhile the Sheriff will spout off the same, tired line that has gotten him re-elected, “I’m just enforcing the law.”

Let Al Sharpton come. Let him organize. Let people march in the streets with their signs, screaming that the MCSO is racist, engages in racial profiling, and harasses only certain ethnic groups. Sheriff Joe’s approval ratings will ascend like the main tent in the Big Top.

And then remember, Reverend Al Sharpton, it was P.T. Barnum who once said, there’s a sucker born every minute.

Like A Good Neighbor, Next Time I Won't

2009-04-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

Here’s the story of how my civic responsibility almost turned into civil unrest.

I was shopping at the grocery store this week when a homeless man approached me asking for his own stimulus package. Not only was he asking for money, but he was walking in between cars and not paying attention around him. He could’ve been hit by a car.

People may think it, but not everyone will say it, so I will. I want to believe this guy was really down on his luck, I want to believe that me giving him some money would help him out of his bad situation.

But we’ve seen so many stories about people who take advantage of and play on the sympathies of kind-hearted people. In other words, my skepticism got the better of me.

I decided to tell the store about the panhandler.

So imagine my surprise when I was accosted, not by the homeless man in the parking lot, not by the store manager, but by a woman standing in line who overheard me tattling on the panhandler.

I was in such shock that this woman was blocking me with her cart, yelling at me while shaking an accusatory finger, that I only remember a couple of phrases she spit out during her tantrum. “I can’t believe you won’t leave people alone.” “Who do you think you are?” And at the end of her tirade she gave me the classic, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

I’m Irish Catholic by culture, not by choice. I’ve already got a lot to be ashamed of and guilty about starting at conception. Complaining about a panhandler is not sending me scrambling to confession.

So I shrugged my shoulder and summarily replied, “meh…” and walked out of the store.

Look, I only expect three things out of you as a citizen living in these United States of America.

1. Finish high school. Take advantage of a free education.
2. Don’t go to prison. It really screws up your civic duty.
3. Don’t bring children into the world you cannot afford.

In other words, take responsibility for yourself. That’s all I ask.

Harry Truman and Jesus both said the same thing when it came to the poor: they will always be among us. There will always be lost souls who can’t find their way in this world. There are places for this person to get a hot meal and a hand up. I’ve seen the good work the Phoenix Rescue Mission has done to get people’s lives back on track.

But I guess to that woman at the grocery store, because I asked management to remove a panhandler, well, that makes me a Class A Jerk.

Yeah, I’ve got a lot to be ashamed about, but this episode isn’t one of them.

Shoshanna Stern Interview

2009-04-08T22:12:00.000-07:00

In a previous blog, I told you how I went to the Phoenix Film Festival and saw a great movie entitled, “Adventures of Power.”

Shoshanna Stern plays the character of Annie in the movie and is a tremendously gifted actress. She’s been in a number of television shows like “Jericho” and “Weeds” and has a radiant presence on the small and silver screen.

I had only seen her in serious roles until “Adventures” where she’s a very funny love interest for the main character. In real life Shoshanna is hearing impaired, so I was curious to find out what challenges she faced acting in a comedy.

When she agreed to answer some questions via email (she’s already back in LA working on another project), I was elated. Below is our interview:

You’ve been in a number of TV shows; is it harder for you to do films because of the style and pace of a film rather than a half hour episode of a TV show? Which do you prefer?

I wouldn't say harder, they're just different. With television, you have a lot of arcs that happen in every episode, and then you have one big arc for your character that happens in the entire season, and you don't necessarily know what that is when you're starting out. It's hard to guess when you should hold back and when you should give it your all, especially when you're on an ensemble show. I remember I got one episode where I thought, "Okay, so this is my big one," and I did the trembly lip thing, eyes welling up, and then a few weeks later I got something even bigger, and looking back, I wished that I'd held back a little then. With film, you know exactly what is going to happen and you have a bit more time to get to know your character. I think there is something about film that is really satisfying, but I don't have enough experience with that to say that there's one I prefer yet.

As an actress who is also hearing impaired, how difficult or easy is it to do comedy? In your role as Annie in “Adventures of Power,” you do a fantastic job and have some really funny lines that you deliver with perfect timing and a brilliant personality. Does that come naturally?

I don't know if my hearing loss has anything to do with my comedic ability. But I know that all my deaf friends are funny, especially my girlfriends. I think there might be something about the experience of being deaf that just makes you cynical and more prone to making fun of yourself. You don't take yourself as seriously. At first with Annie, I was thinking really hard about how to be funny, but I think with comedy, you can't really try to make people laugh. So I decided not to over think it. I'm still not sure if it is the character of Annie that makes people laugh or if it's actually Power's reactions to her, but I don't think that really matters as long as people are laughing.

How hard/easy was it to work with Ari Gold (the director) (or any director who haven’t worked with hearing impaired actors) and how were you picked for the role of Annie?

Ari was great. He has so much patience with the whole process and he really put so much thought in everything. Every time I see the movie, I notice something different. The only time I have issue with directors is when they think they know how deaf people are or how they should be and then I feel really compartmentalized. Everyone handles the experience of being deaf differently because it is such an individual thing. There's also something about sign language and the deaf experience that allows people to assume that what they think or know is factual. There are so many people that say that they're fluent in sign when they can barely fingerspell, and writers that don't do enough research when they write about deaf characters because they think plugging their fingers in their ears for a couple minutes is experience enough. As long as you let me show you who I am, rather than trying to make me into someone you think I should be, we're good.

I only know this story because Ari told it to me. He was given a list of “names” for the role of Annie by his casting directors because they thought trying to cast Annie would have been a doozy because she was so specific. Ari was really good about staying true to the origins of almost all of the characters in the movie, and there is so much diversity there. But he was starting to think that he might not be able to do it with Annie. The story goes that one of his friends was watching “Weeds,” saw me on it, called Ari in the middle of the night, and said, I found your Annie! Or something like that, I might be making some of that up. The end result was that I got sent the script, met him for coffee, don't think I handled it appropriately because I was just like, okay, so do you want to hire me? Good thing he said yes. So we just went from there.

I’ve seen you in the TV show “Jericho” and loved the depth and gravitas you brought to that character. Do the characters you choose closely resemble your own personality or do you try to take parts that aren’t reflections of you? Would you ever play a “bad girl” or a villain?

I would definitely play a bad girl, and I'd definitely love to be the villain. I've been a bad girl a few times, but on television, I think writers get inspired by the actors themselves and what they see on a daily basis. I think Megan on “Weeds” started out a bad girl but she didn't necessarily end up that way. I think everyone has a degree of darkness in them that we just don't see because circumstances might not have made it necessary for them to show that side of their personalities yet. I think anyone could commit evil acts or do bad things if the situation forced them to, and I'm kind of morbidly fascinated by that.

What role have you always wanted to play but haven’t had the opportunity yet?

Dana Halter in T.C. Boyle's “Talk Talk.” He's an amazing writer and his words are so visual that I would love to play her in the film version. The rights have been optioned, and they have no idea when they will begin production, and to be honest, when they do, it will probably be on such a large scale that I probably won't even be considered. But I think about it all the time, because Dana is so whole and flawed that it would just be a dream come true to be able to, and I think we all have to have dreams because it keeps us hungry.

Any word if your movie, “Adventures of Power,” has been picked up by a distributor?

No word. That's really Ari's thing, not mine, I'm just a measly actor, so I try to stay out of those things. But I think we'd all naturally love to see the movie get out there!

Not Like the Shampoo

2009-04-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of attending the 9th annual Phoenix Film Festival over the weekend and saw a lot of great movies.

One movie in particular named “Adventures of Power” caught my attention when I read the description: In the toughest of times, a small-town mineworker Power only wished he played drums. So after his father calls for a strike at the mine, Power heads out across America, discovering an underground subculture of “air-drummers” who just might hold the key to changing the world. Run time 89 minutes.

Plus I found out the movie had a cameo from one of the best drummers ever from my favorite-all-time, until-rock-is-dead-and-buried-beside-the-rotting-corpses-of-Hip Hop-and-Tejano. Forever and-ever,-Amen bands…Neil Peart of Rush.

So while watching the film, I kept noticing that some characters in the movie repeatedly mis-pronounced Neil’s last name. Every time one of the characters made this serious verbal flub, it was like picking a scab or rubbing vinegar into your eyes. It’s a simple mistake, many people make it, and that’s the difference between a casual Rush fan. At first glance, Neil’s last name looks simple enough to pronounce. Casual fans, or the ill-informed pronounce his last name PERT, like the shampoo. That’s incorrect. It’s pronounced PEER-T.

After the third time in the film, I was determined to find out how in the world could have someone, anyone allowed such a grievous error to remain in the film. I was going to demand overdubs and an apology to Mr. PEER-T, himself.

It never escalated to that point, since I made the embarrassing mistake in the Q&A after the movie of asking a wonderful actress who just happens to be deaf, Shoshanna Stern, was she or the director aware that characters in the movie kept butchering the pronunciation of Neil’s last name? She had no idea, and of course, I looked like a complete and total jackass for asking the hearing impaired girl about a man’s name who she’s probably never heard of, or would even need to know.

But, like the true pro she is, Shoshanna said through her interpreter that I was more than welcome to email the director who couldn’t be at the film festival since he was in Serbia showing his film at a festival there. I didn’t know Serbia even had electricity since the war, let alone a DVD player that was hooked up to a projection screen.

So I took her advice and asked for a business card for Ari Gold (no lie, that’s his real name. It’s even printed on the back of his card in yellow: yes real name thanks).

I emailed him that I loved the film, but how could you not get the last name of the guy who agrees to do a cameo in your film? I mean, really! During the hours and hours of intense editing of your film that took you three years to make, did you or no one casually listening to the dialogue, catch that you were sullying the good name of the guy who is responsible for the drum beats and lyrics to such classic tunes as Limelight, Spirit of Radio, 2112 and Rush’s seminal hit, Tom Sawyer?

Of course I was not that rude or direct, but I made darn sure he knew that I wanted an answer. And I hit the send button, expecting nothing. After all, this guy’s made a movie. He’s gotten some pretty cool actors to be in a good film about air drumming. He’s in Serbia, for gosh sake, showing his movie, for the love of sweet and sour! And he scored a cameo of Neil Peart. Why would he need to answer me?

Well, he did answer me in pretty short order. Below is what he said:

Hi Mac,

I actually know it's "peert" but I figured the character of Power, without access to Internet or TV and "in his own world", wouldn't know that! After I shot it the way I thought Power would say it, I thought about dubbing it "peert" because fans would be miffed by the multiple pronunciations, but decided it was realistic this way... who knows, Neil didn't seem to mind...!

All the best. Let me know if you ever want me to do a call-in!

Ari

After reading his response it made total sense. See, that’s why I do a little rinky-dink show in KTAR with Gaydos and this guy directs movies. He knows what he’s doing. Maybe, just one day, someday I will too….

The Best Show You're Not Watching

2009-04-08T10:05:00.001-07:00

If you’re not familiar with Coach, Coach’s wife, Riggins, Street, Tyra or even a guy named Landry, then you’re not watching the best show on television.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

Friday Night Lights is one of, if not the best, show that has hardly been watched by TV audiences for three struggling, confounding seasons. NBC had strong hopes for the series that is about football in a small Texas town. Critics have been lauding the show since it was first aired and it’s developed a core group of rabid viewers even when NBC shifted time slots and days.

But this was supposed to be the last season since DirecTV struck a deal with NBC. The show would air first on DirecTV and then NBC would run the episodes in January on (ironically) Friday nights. Never before had a series been aired like this and TV people were skeptical if this marriage between network and satellite would work.

Last week the announcement that NBC and DirecTV had hammered out a deal to keep the show on for two more seasons. Even Lazarus didn’t get this many shots at rising from the dead.

I am not going to apologize for the confusion of the title and the day the showed first aired not being congruous. So the show wasn’t on Friday nights, like the title suggested.

And I won’t apologize for understanding how high school football is like religion in Texas; where high school kids are lionized as conquering heroes when they win, and chastised as despicable and worthless when they lose.

Friday Night Lights is more than glorifying the high school gridiron. The show’s writers have carefully constructed characters and plot lines that make Gossip Girl and 90210 (both old school and the remake) look arrogant and insipid.

Maybe I love this show because I lived in a small town in Texas whereupon my first week in town I wasn’t asked where I was from, or what college I went to, but what church did I attend? Followed immediately by the second question “what football team do you follow?” I thought the correct answer would be the Texas Longhorns.

Wrong.

What the gentleman asked was what high school team did I follow? Was it Robinson, Hewitt, Midway or University High School? It was culture shock, to say the least.

When you live in a small town you soak up the culture, accept the foibles, extol the virtues and turn a blind eye to the scandals. But most of all, you learn and quickly accept who people are and what they stand for.

That’s why I love Friday Night Lights. It’s more than just a show about dumb jocks playing high school football. The show is written with a brutal honesty and subtle grittiness that steadfastly champions the underdog on and off the field without being saccharine or crass.

Friday Night Lights reflects what happens in many towns across America on Friday nights in the fall. It’s more than awkward teens transformed into gridiron gladiators, if only for four quarters. It’s about what makes a small town great, even if you’ve never lived in a small town.

If only you would watch.

Do yourself a favor and stop watching Lost; it’s so confusing that no one in Hollywood has a clue what’s going on, or how to end the show. ER is (finally) going away. Grey’s Anatomy jumped the shark when Meredith drowned and came back to life. Stop with the reality shows. Idol is fixed. The Biggest Loser isn’t about fat people losing weight. Get a copy of the book Friday Night Lights and read it. Or, rent the first two seasons of FNL and catch up on the episodes on NBC from this season.

By next fall, I am sure you’ll be watching anxiously waiting to see Kyle Chandler (Coach Taylor) Connie Britton (Coach Taylor’s wife), Taylor Kitsch (Riggins), et. al., enter a new season with the Dillon Panthers.