Making Power

Much of the discussion of politics and policy -- on the left mostly, because the the right is just nasty -- much of the talk just seems so naive.... foolish.   The arguments that Pelosi should do this or Obama is a fake or a failure seem informed by some fantasy of what managing power is like.

So here's a story.  During the Carter Administration I ran into a friend at the White House.  Things like walking the hall at the White House were easier then and I was visiting to report a magazine piece,  she was on the National Security Council.  Said, 'hey.  How's it goin.' And this person, one of smartest and most capable I've known, she gave me a half focused look, and she said, 'It is unbelievably hard.  You would not believe how hard it is.'  Since I probably indeed can't believe how hard it all is, I've never fully digested her statement, but I think about it often.  And BTW, if it was hard then, it's surely harder now.

Dope

There was a try to legalize marijuana in California in 1972.  Voters whomped the initiative 2-1.  But it was fun.

The pro-dope campaign was run as straight as possible, all suit and tie.  Guy I dealt with there was a Brownell, grandson of Eisenhower's attorney general.   The public face of the pro-effort was intended to reassure straights that dope was not threatening.  1972.

On the other side of the straight-bent debate was my friend Keith Lampe.   Knew Keith in NY before I came out west.  Keith thought straights were never gonna vote for legal weed and that dopers had to be motivated to turn out.  Brownell and company stayed clear of him and he them.  But he mounted his own rump press conference campaign -- Mothers for Marijuana, Jocks for Joints.  Stuff like that.  Wonderful theater.

One day Keith called to say he and Arthur Okamura, a sculptor from Bolinas, were going to put on a stoned ping pong match... to prove that being high didn't interfere with judgment and reflexes or whatever, totally ridiculous in my experience, but whatever.  Anyway,  I was a TV reporter in SF and he, Keith, wanted me to be fair witness that Keith and Arthur were actually high and I was to do that by eating marijuana cookies with them half an hour before the press demonstration.  I was supposed to testify to the other reporter types that indeed, you know, the players were stoned.

I did eat the cookies, as did Keith and Arthur.  They played splendidly, I recall, very impressively, but I was way too ripped to do my part.  Could barely speak at all.  They were really good cookies.

Where's Barry?

Had a crush in highschool on a girl named Barry.   Mush have been my junior or senior year.  New girl in town.  Year younger than me.  And possessed of the kind of southern accent that can still poke a finger in my brain.  Wonderful.  Her voice alone just made me so happy and weak and stupid. 

Called her on a grocery store work break one weekend morning from the pay phone in the drug store on the corner.  When she answered with that fabulous, judgment-damaging accent, I said a lot of nice things from my heart -- nothing salacious, but, you know, personal, sweet and one hoped endearing.  Went on for a bit.

Then she said, 'that's very nice, but this is Barry's mother.'  Kind of thing you never forget.

I wonder where Barry is.

Catastrophe porn

from Bay Citizen story  today on the San Bruno gas explosion and fire that killed four and burned several dozen homes:

"Those who called Crestmoor home -- many for decades -- know that nothing here will ever be the same."

For example, from now on in Crestmoor mastodons will roam the streets and nothing will ever seem to grow.  Nights will be full of the sounds of moans and screams.  And the spoken language will probably be Hungarian.

This raises again the misuse of 'tragic'.  This awful accident wasn't tragic -- unless it turns out that, say, one of the dead people was in charge of pipeline safety for PG&E.  I would argue this might be a calamity, but tragedy needs the involvement of destiny or fate, damnit.

Other words proscribed by Tom in this coverage:
-- nightmare  
-- heartbreak

Do I have to do everything around here?

Tom's tired

Bear with me. This started when my friend Keith sent me a right-wing screed called "I'm Tired", an old fart doing an Andy Rooney number. You know, down with Obama, socialism, left-wingers, liberals, Muslims, George Soros and Michael Moore, and the main stream media; up with Fox and Tea Parties and so forth.

(One interesting thing is that Keith's version attributed the nonsense to "Robert A. Hall, the actor who plays the coroner on CSI if you watch that show." Actually, that would be actor Robert H. Hall who didn't write the piece, altho it is his picture that is attached. Never trust the provenance of anything that comes in a chain letter. Snopes is your friend. The real author's blog is linked in the first graf and he now includes a note exonerating the actor Hall.)

Anyway, I'm older than Robert A. Hall, and I'm tired too. I'm tired of a few old crotchety white guys embarrassing the rest of us with their silly, frightened, anarcho-libertarian rants.

Wasted Lives

Earlier this summer Ms. Barbara and I attended the medical school graduation of her niece, the Lovely Allison.  McGill in Montreal.  She's Canadian when she needs to be. Anyway, 140 young docs, each one smarter, better looking, and (according to the program and speeches) more committed to social justice and progress than the next.  Awesome, and really quite a bit humbling, given how I spent my life.   Anyway, in line for wine and sandwiches after the parade, I fell into conversation with the man next to me and mentioned that the ceremony made me feel that perhaps I had misused my talents.  He looked at me, horror written on his face, and said, "I'm a banker!"

Being civil

Lots of kerfuffle about President Obama dissing the Supreme Court during the State of the Union. Oh, my. but really, he fits right in. Letterman, O'Brien and Leno are being rude to each other in public; TV ads call the competition liars by name; a Reep called the President a liar right out loud during another Congressional speech. It's absolutely trendy to be impolite. Gonna get worse too.

Nails It!

Robert Redford (quoted by Ebert)

"Paris Hilton doesn't have anything to do with anything."

Those Good Old Days

I am a Good Old Days contemporary and am here to say it wasn't just no sex. I'm afraid there also wasn't any dope and and there wasn't much rock and roll. Teendom in the 50s was a sad darn thing, I'll tell you. Don't know how we made it thru. Also, no mobile phones, no freeways, no jet travel, no In-N-Out Burger, no plastic of any kind, no FM radio, essentially no TV, no painless dentistry, no acne treatments, no xerox.... I could go on. Surely there will those who think it was a better, simpler time, but it is unlikely they were there, and I know my own children had a lot more fun and are healthier for it.

(cross posted from pal Roger Ebert's blog)

Fair and Balanced

Tocqueville wrote of his own journalism: 'I never gave in to the temptation to tailor facts to ideas rather than to adapt ideas to facts.' Nice, huh? Wish I could say that myself, but truth is I don't know very many of us who really can. Sad, huh?

(for the quote and a darn good time I am indebted to Greil Marcus' A New Literary History of America)

Dope for the little ones

I'm due to attend a meeting of a non-profit next week. they think I know how to get them in the news and I like what they do. But it reminds me:

I was working for a non-profit, doing some movies, and sat in on their Board meeting to make a report or something. Group, which did good deeds in public schools, had reached a fund raising agreement with Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Mail the specially marked ice cream carton top to Ben or Jerry and my organization gets 25 cents for its work with school children. Something like that. So I'm half listening as the ExDir reports that they've decided on a name for the Ben and Jerry boxtop promotion. It will be called 'Lids for Kids'. I woke up to tell them I thought that might not be a good name for the program.

Sometimes I wish it had gone through. Just to see what happens.

New World View

We did a renovation thing on the apartment by the Bay. Hired a recommended tile guy who turned out to be Cuban. Not his parents or relatives, born there. He sent Michel to lay the stone-- and a lovely job too. Michel is from Chile. (Op. cit) The crew that moved the bearing wall so we could have a normal-sized shower was from Bulgaria. The cabinets and counters, were built by East Oakland Chinese and installed by a Thai. We bought the flooring from a Russian and it was put down by a pair of Mongolians. This is the small job non-unioin construction work force in the Bay Area in the early 21st century. How cool is that.