There is a station called RTV (Retro Television Network) that’ll show old family oriented, Disney-ish programs. Bachelor Dad, Daniel Boone and New Moon is the usual fare. I’ll flip to it if Matt Laurer’s show gets stuck for 5 minutes on the latest woman’s shoe fashion. This morning I’m not sure what RTV was up to, but it was not kid friendly.
Instead of Daniel Boone I saw Alberta Bear Hunting! The show had a barley polished quality of community access cable shows. The MC of the program was this beer bellied hunter who showcased a guided bear hunt in the very nether regions of Alberta, Canada.
He hired an outfitter who had “baited black bear hunts.” Here’s how it works. They bait 55 gallon drums full of pig carcasses spread out over quite a few square miles. Each bait station has a tree stand about 80 yards away. You then sit in the tree stand and wait. A black bear will come along for the freebies in the steel drum and you can take your time placing your shot.
If you know anything about today’s high powered hunting rifles, they are as easy to operate as a cigarette lighter. Also, an 80 yard shot is not a hard task at all. You can be trained hit targets 10 times out of 10 in an afternoon.
So, our MC has a camera team filming him and another camera aimed at the bear. You hear a loud CRACK as the gun goes off and I swore I saw a pink spray emanate from the bear’s chest. The bear flops around on the ground for a few seconds before coming to a very final halt.
Afterwards, the outfitter and the hunter run up to the bear and ooh and ahh over it’s paws, claws and how “cleanly the shot was made.” Clean? How can you miss from that distance? Usually a shot from a rifle like that will easily blow through a pine tree.
I found out a guided, baited hunt will cost you just $3,500 in Canadian dollars. The accommodations in backwoods Alberta include a shitty looking tent, a park picnic table and hopefully, cases of beer.
No Great Adventures of Daniel Boone with Fes Parker this morning. I guess the kids who watched this this morning got a dramatic, gory real life lesson.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
Don't Forget What They Are...Animals!
“I’d guess I would grade myself as a C+ dog owner. He’s not sick, not underweight and his coat is shiny, I’ve done my part.”
I said that about myself during a conversation about the lengths some pet owners will go for their animals.
I was surprised at the devotion some will shower upon their pets. Years ago, my brother was indisposed in the hospital and I had to drop off his cat at the vets for it’s yearly check up. The vet did the usual checks and then commented to me, thinking I was the owner, that the cat had plaque and needed dental work.
My eyes widened and in surprise I said, “What? It’s a CAT!” The vet looked at my funny and then said nothing, going on with his examination.
“Dental work for a cat? Is he kidding?” I thought to myself.
No, he wasn’t.
I knew of a woman who spent about $4,000 to save her Rotweiller from organ failure. I didn’t comment as she was visibly upset recalling that time but I still couldn’t help but think of that figure…$4,000. I also didn’t understand how anyone can become that attached to a dog, to the tune of four grand.
I began to really understand just how eager people are about their pets when I got my first dog five years ago. I used to walk my then small German Shepherd puppy through Slater Park to get him socialized with people. That’s when I met and learned about other dog walkers. I generally don’t start up conversations with strangers in that park whenever I went there but other dog owners who would pass me would stop and comment on my pup. They’d bring up all the aspects of breed, vets, animal health and everything else under the sun about pets. What I noticed from many, was that they treated their pets like their own 4 year old kids. I would wonder at them as they turned into gushing ninnies as they cooed and ahhed their little fake kid on the end of a leash.
One time, I was talking briefly to a woman walking a weird poodle/golden retriever. It looked like a genetically modified Franken-Dog. She wondered what I fed my dog when I said;
“Whatever’s on sale, whatever is the cheapest food and that’s usually those 30 pound bags.“
The look on her face changed in an instant to complete derision. She thought I was equal to the worst child abusing fuck that ever walked the Earth. How dare I feed my “child” lower shelf dog food!
Judgment. That’s what I learned about some pet owners. They’ll size you up by how slavishly devoted you are to your pet. And no, I’m not feeding my dog Iams or the latest expensive food Ralston-Purina can guilt trip me into buying.
To some pet owners, my dog needs to be rescued by a DCYF for doggies.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Taste is Optional
LargerDamn I can get serious…time to do some housekeeping, open some windows and lighten this blog up a bit.
Let me talk about the firebombing of Dresden, Germany during WWII if you will permit….Ah ha!
Anyways...
What was your first concert? Mine was Frank Zappa when I was 14. It was a hell of a choice for a first concert I can tell you.
My brother was an avid guitar player most of his life. He brought home albums just to learn the licks and riffs of various rock guitarists and I got to hear some pretty strange music. One day when I was 10 years old he brought home an album called Zoot Allures (translation from French: “Damn It”) by Zappa. The album art on it was this dark looking hippy in white slacks with an obvious hard on, with two other women band members sitting nearby. I was thinking to myself, “What the hell is this?”
My brother put the record on the player and I heard this god awful shit coming from his speakers. There was little harmony and the music went every place no notes should bother to go. I watched my brother bitching to himself trying to keep up with Zappa’s guitar work. I left to go outside.
My brother had a decent stereo system at the time and a huge pile of records to listen to. I would paw through his stacks and pull out what I wanted to listen to. Lynard Skynard, Led Zeppelin, Springsteen and the Alman Brothers were just a tiny fraction of music he owned and could choose from. I would love to play anything new he bought but that Zappa album wasn’t one of them.
If you ever came by my house in the 70’s, chances were very high you always heard music playing and my brother playing along to it. You’d either notice the music as background or you would listen to a particular song you liked. I did that with all the selections he’d play.
He kept playing that Zoot Allures album and I became used to it as background music. But, after two months or so, I started liking it. Soon I was pulling it out to play. It grew on me, this weird music. As the years went by, he bought another 10 to 20 Zappa records to learn from and I listened to them all.
One day in ’79 he had told me he had bought four tickets to a Zappa concert at the Providence Civic Center and would I want to go? Hell yes!
I never saw a collection of potheads, freaks, hippies and various other creatures collected in an area like the civic center before in my life. And to top it all off, I was probably the youngest one there as the rest of them seemed all adults to me. Too cool!
So, I will need to add to this story. I was at that time a pothead as well. My brother was the one who introduced me to it. My brother, Tom, Jack and I were sitting in the arena, smoking joint after joint when you could do that w/o the Providence detectives sneaking around the arena like they do today. By the time the lights went down I was fried.
The lights opened up and there he was, in person, the real Frank Zappa. The color of the lights and the loud music thumping off my chest was wonderful! I knew all of the songs he played in the first set and it was amazing as first concerts always are. When the first set was over, the main lights came up and I was shocked to see this pall of marijuana smoke drifting around the arena. I’m not kidding folks, it looked like fog inside that building. But again, this was 1979 when AIDS didn’t exist, cocaine wasn’t supposed to be addictive and things generally were a bit more relaxed.
After the concert, we ended up at a Sambo’s restaurant. Remember Sambo’s? It was pretty decent burger and fries place and it was the only thing open in Pawtucket at that late hour anyway. I can remember taking over and over again with my brother about what I had seen, the excitement and actually being within 50 feet of Zappa.
The next day was a school day and I told everyone what I had seen. It was met with a “Who’s Frank Zappa?” Ah well, I would’ve said that too if my brother wasn’t an ardent player trying to find the most difficult pieces to play.
God I have great long term memory, short term is another matter! I know what I was wearing at that concert too. I had a two tone denim cowboy looking collared shirt, Disco opened mind you (top two buttons remained unbuttoned), a pair of ratty Levis jeans and those Jox sneakers that were popular back then. It was a typical fashion un-statement from a young teen boy.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Knowing When To Quit
Many moons ago in a career I started right out of college, I was embroiled in a legal case that absorbed a good 18 months of my life. In a nutshell, a political war had broken out which I managed to sidestep for a good while but was eventually drawn into. It involved one group trying to employ their friends by pushing out another. One after another, the old group I belonged to was shoved out the door. I was the last one. Most of the others, who were tossed out, never fought it. There were only two of us who did. Rachael gave up after getting some cash. I kept at it because I wanted heads on a platter.
I won. I won because I was seriously pissed off and did not quit. Would I do it again the same way if I had the chance? Well, not exactly. I would’ve eased up a lot had I the chance. But that’s hindsight for you, no?
But, that’s not what I want to talk about, but rather my state of mind during those two years.
That was the time I really learned what tunnel vision was about. What revenge, anger and hate and how it consumes you. Without having the benefit of perspective because your so wrapped up in current events, your life stalls due to jealously orbiting one aspect of it. I learned later, that the way I was acting was very nearly like a hotly pissed off couple going through a bitterly contested divorce.
Week passing into week, I turned my fight into a full time job. I hired three lawyers to cover all bases. I probably looked like General Patton directing various salients blitzkrieg-ing my way into the enemy. I created a large poster board where I mapped all information and alliances of my enemy. I knew them fairly well and their personalities, so I crafted a plan on how they’d react to my moves. I ran various scenarios they may have used to defend their positions in order to preempt them. I planned for best, middle and worst case scenarios.
Christ, now that I reread that previous paragraph I astonish myself! It was a divorce!
There are only 24 hours in a day and you have only so much energy. When you pour large amounts of exertion and focus into something, other things in your life drift back. It did for me. A close friend at that time drifted away somewhat and found his future wife by doing so. My brother probably became sick and tired of my talking about the case. I created a file in the basement with all those damned court documents. I never created files before for anything! I am certain I became “less fun” a person. Jesus, talk about obsessing!
*****
The summer of ‘95 I found myself again. I was camping in the northwest of RI near Clarkville lake when I released all that crap in a summer afternoon. I really don’t know how I managed to do it, but here goes…
I went off by myself to hike around the lake when I found a large escapement of rock to climb. I scampered up it fairly quickly. It was about 40 feet above the lake and it provided a nice view to the west. The July day was quite hot and windy. I sat on a sun heated boulder and looked at water and the white pine that forested the whole area and I felt like I was the only person there. There was nothing moving in that piping midday sun but the wind.
My mind can be engrossed in calculating one idea to another, sub-referencing left and right and thinking of the past or ideas for the future. My brain can move faster than I can speak if you’ve ever spent time with me. I’ve always been like this and the past legal battle really enhanced that high speed processor in my head.
But for once, I thought of nothing as I sat on that rock.
I looked at the trees, water and the horizon towards the Connecticut border and I was calm, finally. I guess that I felt that way because nothing else existed but what I saw. “In the moment” your Zen types would say.
Again, it’s hard to explain but there it is. I dumped all that animosity at that rock. I wasn’t trying, but it let go. There are times when you decide, consciously or unconsciously, to head off in a new direction. I guess I naturally gravitated towards that new path.
In a few months, I was back to real life once again, reclaiming my old friends and met Roberta.
I won. I won because I was seriously pissed off and did not quit. Would I do it again the same way if I had the chance? Well, not exactly. I would’ve eased up a lot had I the chance. But that’s hindsight for you, no?
But, that’s not what I want to talk about, but rather my state of mind during those two years.
That was the time I really learned what tunnel vision was about. What revenge, anger and hate and how it consumes you. Without having the benefit of perspective because your so wrapped up in current events, your life stalls due to jealously orbiting one aspect of it. I learned later, that the way I was acting was very nearly like a hotly pissed off couple going through a bitterly contested divorce.
Week passing into week, I turned my fight into a full time job. I hired three lawyers to cover all bases. I probably looked like General Patton directing various salients blitzkrieg-ing my way into the enemy. I created a large poster board where I mapped all information and alliances of my enemy. I knew them fairly well and their personalities, so I crafted a plan on how they’d react to my moves. I ran various scenarios they may have used to defend their positions in order to preempt them. I planned for best, middle and worst case scenarios.
Christ, now that I reread that previous paragraph I astonish myself! It was a divorce!
There are only 24 hours in a day and you have only so much energy. When you pour large amounts of exertion and focus into something, other things in your life drift back. It did for me. A close friend at that time drifted away somewhat and found his future wife by doing so. My brother probably became sick and tired of my talking about the case. I created a file in the basement with all those damned court documents. I never created files before for anything! I am certain I became “less fun” a person. Jesus, talk about obsessing!
*****
The summer of ‘95 I found myself again. I was camping in the northwest of RI near Clarkville lake when I released all that crap in a summer afternoon. I really don’t know how I managed to do it, but here goes…
I went off by myself to hike around the lake when I found a large escapement of rock to climb. I scampered up it fairly quickly. It was about 40 feet above the lake and it provided a nice view to the west. The July day was quite hot and windy. I sat on a sun heated boulder and looked at water and the white pine that forested the whole area and I felt like I was the only person there. There was nothing moving in that piping midday sun but the wind.
My mind can be engrossed in calculating one idea to another, sub-referencing left and right and thinking of the past or ideas for the future. My brain can move faster than I can speak if you’ve ever spent time with me. I’ve always been like this and the past legal battle really enhanced that high speed processor in my head.
But for once, I thought of nothing as I sat on that rock.
I looked at the trees, water and the horizon towards the Connecticut border and I was calm, finally. I guess that I felt that way because nothing else existed but what I saw. “In the moment” your Zen types would say.
Again, it’s hard to explain but there it is. I dumped all that animosity at that rock. I wasn’t trying, but it let go. There are times when you decide, consciously or unconsciously, to head off in a new direction. I guess I naturally gravitated towards that new path.
In a few months, I was back to real life once again, reclaiming my old friends and met Roberta.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Idle, Screwy Rich
Growing up in Pawtucket doesn’t afford too many experiences to hobnob with the “rich.” By rich I don’t mean Donald Trump status. I mean making over $150k a year would qualify. In a way, that is considered the high end of middle class. But I’ll start that figure as on your way to being rich.
Seven years ago, my brother worked with a magazine whose emphasis was on RI. In order to generate a splash and revenue, the magazine would offer this deal to upscale Providence restaurants. If the magazine gave a free, color, whole page ad, would the restaurant cater a party with free liquor and food? Ten times out of ten the restaurant would say yes. Advertisers, media types from paper, radio and TV were invited to attend and all other hanger-ons too.
I managed to attend one of those parties as my brother was in need of “help.” He was being dragged down by cystic fibrosis and my attendance was more of a “just in case” need should something happen.
I hate social events where I know so few people and have little connection to. I won’t go out of my way to network or make friends there. I find it incredibly shallow, dull and usually you never see these people again. Light conversation can be had at the ER or bus terminal too and you probably won’t seen any of them again either. So what’s the difference?
I did managed to luck out as two other writers (who I did know) where at the event. We commented on the crowd and happenings to one another. All the women were under 30, svelte and were dressed in the latest fashion. The men were of two types. The business ones who “made it” and the business ones who were schmoozing their betters to gain some access or favor. It struck me as a great big suck-up party with the latest social etiquette and Mojitos.
Around 10:30, the party started to move to the back room of the restaurant. That’s when the real business deals started. I began to notice people occasionally dart their head up from some table, there and here, wiping their noses and throwing their heads back.
Peruvian Marching Powder. Nose candy. Whatever it takes to get that contract signed! This went on at a casual pace till 11pm.
Finally the restaurant was closing up and wished us gone. It was suggested by the partiers we move onto Westin’s International Yacht Club. So off we went.
I hung with the people I knew and learned some gossip about who was who. I then got to watch some of the wealthier party goers act like spoiled little brats. A couple, a business owner and shrewish wife, decided to display their awful marriage for us. She, in a drunken/coked haze, accused her husband about that “little slut” he’s been seeing. He quickly moved her to the elevator banks where they continued their “talk.“ A trophy wife I was informed about must’ve been looking for better prospects as I watched her toy, tease and flirt with a WBZ ad executive. The husband of said trophy wife was half snoozing at the bar. Another well off couple were quietly, but within earshot, haggling over their fucked up son at Moses Brown.
When Westin told us to beat it, about 1/3 of the party ended in an East Side home far too elegant for use. I was sprawled on the couch, begging for sleep while I had to listen to that couple whose husband had a “little slut” continue their bitching in the kitchen. Later on, I heard a loud THUMP come from upstairs with yelling followed by more yelling. Down the stairs comes one of the ad girls shoving her tits back into her blouse followed by either the boyfriend or some business guy she met earlier. She grabbed her coat and shot out the door to her car.
I realized I wasn’t going to get any sleep and dawn was about hour away, so I got my brother, told him we were done and bugged out.
I was driving home down Blackstone Blvd. thinking to myself how the previous night wasn’t worth it. The sun hadn’t risen above the horizon and I realized I’d shoot half of this new day sleeping. That too was going to be a waste.
My brother, who was slumped in the seat next to me, prophetically answered a question I kept in my head most of the night.
“Well, they’re not all screwed up” he says.
“No, not all, just 90% of them?” I said back.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
You Kids Get Off My Lawn!!!
On my way to work, I have to drive by Saint Raphael’s, my old high school, to reach 95 south.
I was sitting at a red light near the school the other day, marveling at how young they all are. The fact is that the kids who attend that school are always 14-18 years old and I’m the one who keeps getting older. So of course they look younger!
I find “communicating“ with them not too easy. Sometimes I wonder if it should be tried at all. There are absolute, demonstrable differences between the young and old, especially in the our ways of thinking. I sometimes think we have little in common anymore. What’s important to me means little to them and vice versa. I can’t tell you of the latest cool song on KICKS 106 but I can tell you all about why “layering” was important to 70’s music.
At an older age, you’re not amazed by much because you’ve seen it before or; you have been surprised so many times by life you become blasé to weird discoveries. The youths’ world is new and exciting, my world is older and getting more predictable. When you have done something 800,000 times, you tend to know it intimately and yawn at it. Though if you dropped me into some very strange Thailand slum, I’d be quite surprised. But how likely is that going to occur?
*****
I’ve asked others, “Am I turning into my father?” Am I just getting older and becoming what we all turn into…our parents.
A couple of years ago I had a talk with English professor at Rhode Island College who also taught within the Warwick school system. I asked him that same question and he said, “Partially you are because you’re older and we all get “old” the same, but let me tell you, these kids today are that different.”
“They grew up faster and had a very different education than you.” he reminded me.
From what I know of today’s schooling, it’s strictly more genteel than the one I remember. Sink or Swim was the only rule in my schools. I’m not advocating a return to that but I swear there were some decent life’s lessons to be learned from that point of view. You learn to focus on a goal and not give up no matter what. Yeah, it sounds like Navy SEAL training but there are some benefits to that as well. You don’t have to be a showy Drill Sergeant all day long to use it. You learn to balance that drive with your humanity and still keep that command of tenacity when needed.
At a job in healthcare, not my current one but one near Providence College I saw how “soft” some of these kids are. I saw many, who when encountering a problem, just give up. Now the answer to those daily problems didn’t require a degree in Calculus, but just some common sense and a willingness to “walk right through the fire.” But I saw from some a deep willingness to avoid, at all costs, the pain and stress from solving problems, and some of those problems were tiny.
That doesn’t assist independence or any skills towards individuality. If you rely on your peer group the whole time to help you over most obstacles, you remain vulnerable to the day when you are alone and w/o assistance. And that day does come, more than once too.
Ah, don’t mind me…I hear my Dad speaking through me again.
I was sitting at a red light near the school the other day, marveling at how young they all are. The fact is that the kids who attend that school are always 14-18 years old and I’m the one who keeps getting older. So of course they look younger!
I find “communicating“ with them not too easy. Sometimes I wonder if it should be tried at all. There are absolute, demonstrable differences between the young and old, especially in the our ways of thinking. I sometimes think we have little in common anymore. What’s important to me means little to them and vice versa. I can’t tell you of the latest cool song on KICKS 106 but I can tell you all about why “layering” was important to 70’s music.
At an older age, you’re not amazed by much because you’ve seen it before or; you have been surprised so many times by life you become blasé to weird discoveries. The youths’ world is new and exciting, my world is older and getting more predictable. When you have done something 800,000 times, you tend to know it intimately and yawn at it. Though if you dropped me into some very strange Thailand slum, I’d be quite surprised. But how likely is that going to occur?
*****
I’ve asked others, “Am I turning into my father?” Am I just getting older and becoming what we all turn into…our parents.
A couple of years ago I had a talk with English professor at Rhode Island College who also taught within the Warwick school system. I asked him that same question and he said, “Partially you are because you’re older and we all get “old” the same, but let me tell you, these kids today are that different.”
“They grew up faster and had a very different education than you.” he reminded me.
From what I know of today’s schooling, it’s strictly more genteel than the one I remember. Sink or Swim was the only rule in my schools. I’m not advocating a return to that but I swear there were some decent life’s lessons to be learned from that point of view. You learn to focus on a goal and not give up no matter what. Yeah, it sounds like Navy SEAL training but there are some benefits to that as well. You don’t have to be a showy Drill Sergeant all day long to use it. You learn to balance that drive with your humanity and still keep that command of tenacity when needed.
At a job in healthcare, not my current one but one near Providence College I saw how “soft” some of these kids are. I saw many, who when encountering a problem, just give up. Now the answer to those daily problems didn’t require a degree in Calculus, but just some common sense and a willingness to “walk right through the fire.” But I saw from some a deep willingness to avoid, at all costs, the pain and stress from solving problems, and some of those problems were tiny.
That doesn’t assist independence or any skills towards individuality. If you rely on your peer group the whole time to help you over most obstacles, you remain vulnerable to the day when you are alone and w/o assistance. And that day does come, more than once too.
Ah, don’t mind me…I hear my Dad speaking through me again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)