Think_a_Minute

I see that it's been nearly two years since my last post on this weblog. Funny how life can take you over sometimes.

It hasn't been a pleasant two years for me, and I continue to struggle. But there have been some good moments, including a visit to Alaska a few weeks ago. It was spectacular as only something like Alaska can be. Photos and video can't possibly show how magical a place it is, but the photos are still pretty good (if I do say so myself).

Photos are here: http://tinyurl.com/6m7rvf

Some videos: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=srlucado&search_type=&aq=f

I'll have more later, I hope.

Scott

Labels: Alaska bears Lucado

I gotta tell you, I’ve been reading a great book. It’s called “In Search of the Pleasure Palace”, by Marc Almond, better known to Americans as half of the 80’s group Soft Cell, whose one hit in the States was “Tainted Love”.

I picked up the book as a lark; found it for a buck on a closeout table in a bookstore.

It’s simply tremendous. As Almond hits his mid-life crisis, he revisits places he’d been earlier, and offers his insights into life and love, now seen through none-too-nostalgic eyes. One of the things I find most enjoyable is how I can understand how he feels—being at a kind of mid-life crisis myself, I share his sense of emptiness and disappointment. (But at least I’m happily married, not a gay fading recovered drug-addict pop star.)

Some parts of the book I can’t relate to at all, especially his comments about gay-sex clubs, but I was a bachelor a long time, and I certainly had more than my share of empty experiences; when he writes in a what-was-I-thinking-then-and-what-are-these-people-thining-now mode, boy, do I know what he’s talking about. And when it comes to the tedium and mediocrity all around us, well, the less said the better. I have laughed myself silly at some of the passages, winced at others, and overall found the book hypnotic; I can’t put it down.

Anyway, it’s funny, sad (when talking about sex in the media, he uses the phrase that “explicit has replaced erotic,” which sums it up), and insightful. Most amazingly, it’s never dull. I can’t remember the last time I thought that about any book (except my own, of course).

Compared to the other stuff I’ve been reading—second-rate thrillers and sci-fi, all of which seem like they’re written by a computer program, and I forget the instant I put them down—this is like Tolstoy.

Well, okay, not that good. But pretty damn good.

This week has reminded me a lot of being a teenager--it's bitterly frustrating and disappointing.

Haven't I learned anything in the 30 years since I graduated high school?

Last night at my writer's club meeting, one of the women asked me if I'd lost weight.

Finally, someone noticed! I've lost 40 pounds this year, and she's the first person (besides my wife, of course) to comment.

How depressing is that? I lose 40 pounds, and I don't look any different?

Anyway, then this woman goes on to mention that I look pretty cute (not her exact words, but out of decency I'll spare you her actual remark).

That should be flattering, eh?

Maybe, but this woman is about 80 years old.

So, why can't a woman half my age make a flattering remark, instead of one who's twice my age?
I thought when a guy got to his 40's, his mid-life crisis would involve young bimbos, not great-grandmothers.

Jeez, what a bummer.

I've read some commentary about the deal between Carnival Cruises and the government, which leased cruise ships to be used as temporary housing along the Gulf Coast. A couple of people have said that to get this deal, Carnival must've donated a lot of money to the Bush campaign.

Yeah, I'm sure they did.

Let's follow the trail...Bush doesn't sign the Kyoto Treaty, which causes instant global warming. (It's true! Just ask Barbra Streisand!)

Knowing this will lead to massive hurricanes, Bush solicits campaign contributions from cruise lines, knowing that New Orleans will be devastated and naturally, the obvious place to put people will be on cruise ships. (After all, it's not like the cruise lines have any passengers or anything on their ships.)

Other lines are skeptical, but Carnival sees an opportunity, so they donate a zillion dollars to get Bush elected. (Remember all those "Vote for Bush and get a free cruise" bumper stickers? No?)

Months pass. Years, even. An entire election cycle! But no hurricane. Alas.

Then, when all seems lost, the long-promised hurricane arrives, all those nasty Democrats are flooded out...and it's jackpot time for Carnival!

I wonder how much Carnival will donate in 2008.

Excuse me, I have to go re-fold my tinfoil hat. The CIA satellites will be passing overhead in two minutes.

It's been a few years now, but Dad's passing is something I don't think I'll ever get over.

My Dad and I were always close. Even to this day, I have the occasional impulse to pick up the phone and call him; he had a lot of experience, wisdom, and knowledge of things that I'll never have (for example, he was a combat infantryman--there's one experience I'm not likely to have), and I learned a lot from him. I didn't always agree with him, but I always respected his opinions; for one thing, he was the best judge of character of anyone I ever met (though it took me a while to realize it).

Dad started out poor, and was shuttled from one parent to the other after his parents' divorce. I really don't know much about the details of his childhood, except that it was very rough. He lived on Chicago's South Side, one of the toughest places on earth. One summer he came back to Chicago after spending the summer with his father, only to discover that his mother and step-father had moved, and he didn't know where they were. It took him a couple of weeks to track them down. Dad was about 13 then.

He never, ever let misfortune slow him down, though. He went to work for a good company and rose through the ranks to become a senior executive--by means of brains, dedication, guts, and sheer hard work. He might've risen further if he'd been a better politician, but my Dad could no more compromise his principles than he could sing opera.

Dad wasn't perfect by any means--he was opinionated, impatient, a smart-aleck, grouchy, smoked incessantly, spent too much time at work, and had a fondness for women that didn't do his marriage any favors. Yet he was also loving, sentimental, supportive, the best father he knew how to be, brave, smart, and always his own man.

Even though it's been years since he died, I miss him every single day. If I have one consolation, it's that in his last years I did take the time to tell him how much he meant to me and how much I loved him. (And now I'm telling you.)

And he felt the same way about me, though he couldn't really express it verbally; he just wasn't that kind of guy. But to give you an example, the year before he died, there was a little story about me in the Wall Street Journal. Dad was so pleased (and impressed) that I think he told everyone he'd ever met. That meant more to me than any of the other comments I received about that story.

One of the last things I said to him was, "I have always been so proud to be your son." I never spoke truer words. As I get older and can better appreciate the pressures he had to endure, I'm more proud of him than ever.

If I'm half the man my father was, I'm doing okay.

Revolutions and rebellions aren't unusual. In fact, one amazing thing about the US is that we haven't had one since 1861. (Can you think of a country besides the US and England that has had the same form of government since the US Constitution was ratified in 1787?)

Successful political revolution isn't easy. A group of people have to get together and be willing to "hang together or hang separately" in order to defeat the existing government. Since no single group usually has enough power, revolutions are typically conducted by coalitions of the unhappy, the disenfranchised, the extreme, and the violent.

What then happens when revolutions are successful is that these coalitions fall apart, and begin fighting among themselves, splintering into a violent chaos.

France in 1789 is the classic example. The royalty was seen as the root of all evil, and the nobility, merchants, and peasants all rose up against it. Once King Louis XVI was beheaded, though--what then? Might made right, and the Reign of Terror ensued, leading to a national paranoia and the murder of thousands of innocent people. It wasn't until Napoleon Bonaparte came along and established military order that things quieted down internally--and mainly he pushed the violence outside of France's borders.

The Democratic Party, with its revolutionary rhetoric and impulses, has undergone the internal splintering--but without winning first.

They're fracturing into several elements: traditional intellectual liberals, radicals, conservative Democrats (there are some)...and those who've become so disgusted with the whole mess that they're leaving. Instead of uniting their efforts they're scattering them, and the results are predictable.

Now, if only the Republicans would realize this, and run the Senate like the majority they are, and start enacting legislation to support their voters, instead of pandering to groups who'll never vote Republican...

But that's a topic for another post.