Song of the Month or Week:

M.I.A. is a genius. I might've included "Bird Flu" here or the remix of "Paper Planes" because of the sound collage inventiveness and infectious beats, but instead here's a group of kids she must have found for this funky little bit of hip-hop.

My Life

Today is my father's 81st birthday and while I believe unhappiness has dragged at him for the better part of his adult life, despite a few triumphs of sorts, it's only this week that he's admitted to being unhappy. And scared. Jean, his partner off and on for 30 years, was diagnosed with lung cancer this past Monday. At some time today or tomorrow, she finds out if it's been invasive and, if so, how much. She's 68, and strong, and since her mother's looking at 100, we all just assumed Jean would take care of and outlive my dad. I know he's assumed it, too. But now she may pass before he does and my poor dad who's never had any practice or inclination at expressing his own turmoils doesn't know, really doesn't know what to say or how to say it if he knew.

But he's got to be scared. A cloud of confusion has been slowly settling on my father in the last year it seems. It's just another thing he won't speak to because it doesn't cloud his thinking all the time and he can take care of himself well. But that cloud is surely there. He couldn't, for example, understand the Father's Day card from my brother, Scott. On the cover of the card was a comic rendition of a golfer, but my dad kept saying to Jean, "That isn't Scott!"

He fakes comprehension with me sometimes by just saying, "Yeah" in a monotone to just about whatever I say or ask.

He just passed his driver's test. He has no friends, nothing to occupy him with other people. And though he plays golf most days, he always insists upon playing alone. He says, in front of Jean sometimes, that he misses my mother who died in 1985, about eight years after my dad left her. "We'd've gotten back together again if she'd lived," he says. He left her because he was bored. Boredom with her, he must figure, would not be as troubling as the constant tension and contentiousness with Jean.

But now Jean could die in months. And my dad would be left alone 3 hours from us.

My life could get more complicated quite soon. And that's as it should be, I suppose. I wonder, perhaps a bit selfishly, how my, how our freedom, Tina's and mine, will be inhibited by my dad's loneliness and needs. How will it effect our happiness? Because Tina and I are happy. We've been happy for a good 28 years or more. That's the care and gift I wish I could've given my dad: happiness. But it has eluded him.


Photo by tonyvel

Procrastination Animation to Animate Your Procrastination

Brilliant, riveting animation on procrastination . . . in case you got nothin' to do right now . . .

The List of Conservative Wrongheadednesses

See if you can add anything!!!

Here's the list of the ideas and efforts that Conser- vatives have gotten all wrong throughout the ages. Not in any particular order.

Heliocentric galaxy
Child labor laws
Jazz
Women's right to vote
The American Revolution (conservatives were loyal to King George)
Interracial marriage
Contraception
The Inquisition
Translating the Bible into common vernaculars
Role of women in . . . just about anything
Environmental regulations of industry
National Parks
Slavery
Ecumenicism
Seatbelts
Beethoven

. . . and these are just off the top of my head! Add to the list!

Big Breakthrough . . . "See" You at Blogocon!!!

Greg It's like a Brand now because of my big breakthrough!!!

Blogosphere demographers, "blogographers" to be precise, assure me, and other bloggers via statistical studies in Blogblog, a blog about blog demographics which I follow (it's not like I have any one-on-one access to blogographers) that for every posted "follower" there are 1,000,000 readers who for whatever reason do not wish to identify themselves as followers even though they, in fact, may be following more loyally (and I use "loyally" advisedly) than the "followers."

Now, with my blog I can be assured of followers-as-devotees insofar as I even hear of a little "Greg's blog" industry (see non-listed followers HP and KG) and competing blogs about my blog and, I daresay, speculative blogs about my life, a life I try to keep quite private if only for _________'s protection and, no, I'm not one of backup dancers in "Saturday Night Fever," just to dispel one of the more playful rumors springing up about my admittedly halcyon days of the 70s.

Anyway, with the addition of RLH to my followers, I can now be assured that I have somewhere in the vicinity of 20,000,000 readers! That's a breakthrough! Because, you know, whereas you might have thought 10,000,000 to be a breakthrough, the fact is that there are a great many prosaic blogs hovering around 10,000,000 including a blog about how to handle dust mites, a blog comparing dishwashing soaps, even a blog for Luddites which you'd think would have no followers at all, but there you go.

No, 20,000,000 is the mark of distinction, of "arrival," in the blogosphere; it's the level of readership necessary for an invitation to Blogocon, the virtual convention for bloggers (many of whom you'd think can't possibly have more than 5 million, but there's no accounting for taste, especially in the blogosphere) which I'll be "attending" next week! Hope to "see" all of you there because, after all, you need to "REPRESENT!" as the kids say.


Let's show all those blogs devoted to, I dunno, homemade crafts, self-esteem, and muscle cars that Greg's eclectic blog is "IN" THE HOUSE, so to speak, and moving up to that 30,000,000 mark before you know it. Thanks RLH for putting me over the top!

Dad's Batmobile

My father recently sold his Cadillac Eldorado. Spotless, that car, but what I most remember about it is some uncharacteristically sporty wheels. I first saw it nine years ago when he pulled into the parking lot of Francesco's restaurant near the Oakland Coliseum where we were about to see a Warrior's game. Here's what I thought at the time:

My father has always wanted a Cadillac and now, in his retirement, he has bought one and it's beautiful, if you like Cadillacs anyway. It's a dark, metallic blue with a black leather interior and the dashboard looks like something from a Star Wars cruiser. . . . but it has these really fancy wheels, wheels that look like the wheels on the Batmobile, really sporty chrome jobs that look like three big curving waves coming from the hub to the edges and that really don't seem to fit my 72 year old dad. In fact, even though my dad had told me to look for a dark blue Cadillac Eldorado, I didn't think this particular Eldorado was him because of the intensely sportorific wheels. So when he got out of the car all I could say was, "Nice ride, Dad, but what's up with the Batmobile wheels?"

He gave me "the look" (!!!!!) which he uses when he wants me to understand that he is not amused. The look looks like this: He closes his eyelids just a little while looking straight at me as if his eyes were big, black guns, and he takes a short breath and expels it forcefully while moving his tongue back and forth along and behind his bottom teeth.

"Car came with 'em, " he said. "I didn't choose 'em. They were just there. C'mon, we'll go for a ride. You drive."

So now I figure I better say something nice about the car so I put on my cheeriest smile and I say: "Wow, this is my first time in a Cadillac and it's just as comfortable as they say it would be." I had been in Cadillacs before, but I knew he'd be proud.

"Yeah, well not too many people get the opportunity to drive a Caddy" he says. Then he motioned to my left hand side by the door. "You see those controls at the edge of seat? You have 4 different settings there to make the seat exactly the way you like it."

"Really?" I enthused. So at that moment I started fooling with the controls to make the seat "exactly the way" I like it, but he says, "Hey, what're you doing there? I got it exactly the way I . . . hey, don't touch the button in front! You didn't touch the front button, did you?"

I told him I didn't know if I had touched the front button because I wasn't looking down at the buttons while I was driving, I was "just fooling around" with the buttons to make the seat more comfortable.

"I thought you said it was comfortable!" he says.

"Well, it was, but you said I could make it more comfortable," says I.

"What, by 'fooling around' with it?" he asks. And he gives me "the look" (!!!!!!).

"I wasn't really fooling around, I was 'experimenting,' trying to find the right fit."

"What do you need with the 'right fit?'" he asks. "We're just taking a little spin. I had the seat just the way I like it. If you didn't touch the front button then when I drive again I can push it and the seat will go back to the way I like it, but if you DID push the front button, then the seat will go back to some way that you had it after fooling around with it. Now I'm gonna have to readjust it again."

"Sorry," I offered. "Maybe I didn't touch the front button."

"Do you KNOW you didn't touch the front button?" he asked.

"No, I guess not."

"You just touched all the buttons you felt down there, right?"

"I suppose so," I admit.

"Well, you probably touched the front button. Hey, where are we anyway?"

At this point I was driving in downtown Oakland right around Jack London Square so my dad asked, "Do you know how to get back to the restaurant from here?" I said I did. Then he pushed a button on the dashboard and a computerized voice suddenly boomed in the car with "DESTINATION PLEASE."

My father then yelled, "FRANCESCO'S RESTAURANT, OAKLAND,CALIFORNIA, ON HEGENBERGER AVENUE!!!!"

The computer then asked, "Street address please," but I said, "Dad, I know how to get there," and the computer repeated, "Street address please," but Dad pressed the button again and the system stopped. "It's okay, Dad," I said. "I know how to get there."

"Eh, that' s not the point," he complained. "The navigation system can tell you the BEST way to get there."

"I know the best way," I said. "It's probably the only way."

"Oh yeah?," he said. He pressed the button again and again came the computer voice: "DESTINATION PLEASE."

Very quietly, Dad said to me, "give it your home address."

I whispered back, "I know how to get home, dad."

"Just give it . . . . "

"DESTINATION PLEASE."

"Just give it" . . . ( "the look." (!!!!!!!!!!) ) . . . "your address."

"Okay," I whispered and then more loudly I said, "Sixty-nine, twelve Balsam Way, Oakland."

There was a pause and then the computer said, "PLEASE REPEAT DESTINATION."

Before I could answer, my father screamed, "SIX NINE ONE TWO BALSAM WAY, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA!" Then he whispered to me, "You gotta speak up and I don't think it understands 'sixty-nine twelve' anyway."

Then the computer said, in a more moderate tone, "take the second right from present location at Martin Luther King, Jr., Drive."

My father then asked for "FULL DIRECTIONS!" and the computer gave me directions that would surely have gotten me home, but they weren't what I would consider the best directions, so I said, "Well, that's not the way I'd go home from here."

"Why not," asked Dad.

"It's not the best way," I said.

"It's the best way according to the navigational system," he said.

"It'll get me home," I conceded, "but it's not the best way."

"Oh, so you know the BEST way," my dad says.

"I should know the best way to my own home. I've been living here ten years," I say and suddenly, suddenly!!!!! I realize that -- even though I've turned and looked away from my father -- I'm giving him "the look" (!!!!!!!!!!) I've inherited THE LOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Well, let's go eat," he says.

"Okay," I say.

Silence for minute.

"Handles nicely," I say.

"Yeah, she's smooth," he says.

"Must be the batwheels," I say.

"Yeah, right," he says. "The batwheels."

On Cynicism

I work with wonderful students. A few, a very few, affect a fashionable -- tiresome -- cynicism. Others proclaim a cynicism they never really exhibit. Cynicism takes some energy and a lot of it. Here’s what I’ve written to students striving toward or trying on some cynicism in my English classes:

You are very able students. You’re imaginative, insightful, and able. Regrettably, like many in America caught up with this fashion, you can also be quite cynical, cynicism being the province of smart teens and not-so-smart, but badly embittered elders.

Cynicism offers a form of intellectual and emotional independence to teens who find themselves hankering for the complete independence that awaits after high school. The resistance to intellectual or emotional engagement on any terms other than your own may feel like it's founded in a better wisdom, but experience indicates that cynicism is a rationalization for avoiding the effort that engagement requires.

As a result, it seems that you sometimes dismiss the material not because it's difficult, but because it's unworthy of your attention. But minds less gifted than yours, and less experienced (I've taught Hamlet to the 8th graders), have dived into these texts only to dive deeply and then rise to the surface with much appreciated pearls. Your resistance is not an original approach; it is a tired, defeatist approach, too common among too many, that denies you some pretty interesting things that are within your grasp.

I think that you instinctively sense that there's a much greater depth to these texts than you're prepared to plumb. It's true, you can get lost in them trying to dive after some motif, trying to dredge the author's intent, trying to see if your interpretation can be supported by the text. Maybe you'll want to do just that someday -- get lost in Shakespeare or some other author.

For purely aesthetic reasons, you're unwilling to suspend your cynicism. But that's what you must do in order to deal with these texts. Joyce’s and Woolf’s abilities, their knowledge, their imagination will remain beyond the grasp of any imagination stifled or bum-rushed by cynicism. But it is available to anyone who reaches for them. This goes for a great many other authors you'll come across in your lifetime, too. True, most authors write on the surface and may add a teaser a little bit below, but Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Homer, Allende, Siedelman, Vonnegut, Garcia Marques, Morrison, Tan, and countless others -- these people write not just on the surface, but deeply below the surface, too.

Because it is intellectual cowardice, cynicism is unworthy of you.

Don't be afraid of the water. Dive.

Cool Video -- and Short: "I Wanna Be Your Dog"

Came across this on Vimeo. Great take on the Iggy Pop classic, "I Wanna Be Your Dog" -- a title that unfortunately seems to fit the loss of innocence that too often follows on the heels of the aspirations of would-be actors:

I Wanna Be Your Dog from LEGS on Vimeo.

For Those New to the East Coast in Fall and Winter

Bare trees, especially symmetrical ones, have a stark, monochromatic beauty, especially on overcast days. True, this beauty fades into the background of an enervating gray after a while, a gray of short-lived compromised light existing between the two poles of darkness.

You can chase the fading Fall colors by heading south.

Or . . . and you might enjoy this: Choose a branch on a bare tree near your home. Preferably the branch closest to the ground. Look at a couple of particular spots on that branch, using binoculars or a magnifying glass if you must, for one minute each day. Look closely, recalling what you saw the day, the week before. Watch the branch sprout new buds and leaves. Watch them grow green and all photosynthesisy. And then watch the tree push them away, almost literally. Start again.