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The Happiest Place on Earth

Took the kids to Disneyland on Monday. Went camping last night. Watching The Empire Strikes Back tonight.

The boys are on break (year round schools = 9 weeks on, 3 weeks off) and I'm taking a week off from work. Nothing better than this.

Yoda is waaaaay more muppety in this one than I'd remembered. He's just sort of a green Miss Piggy with a chest cold in his 1980 version.

Bonaduce, et al.

Our fair Betsy mentioned the VH1 Bonaduce show to me the other day, and at the time I had only read a few articles about it and seen some commercials. I had also heard Bonaduce on Howard Stern talking about the show. Through all of that, I had a pretty good idea what the show was about...after all, the press and his interviews are not hiding his substance abuse, suicide attempt, out-of-control behavior, etc. Not only are they not hiding it, they are publicizing it.

That said, they don't seem to be exploiting him or his wife. Heck, they are the executive producers. So it is what it is. If they want to exploit themselves, I guess I can't blame VH1. The story goes that VH1 tried to pull out when things got dangerous, so I think they are in the clear (mostly) on this.

Anyway, I saw an episode tonight, and obviously, we're talking about one messed up dude who is in tremendous, tremendous pain. Pretty much unquantifiable pain. And it's on TV. I think I mentioned on Betsy's blog that I tend to root for the guy. I think he means well. I think he cares. I think he's smart and entertaining. He's also as troubled as a person can get, and I have sympathy/empathy for his pathology, of which there is plenty.

My comment (read: problem) is geared towards the publicity of the therapy itself. I'm sure...sure...that the psychologist on the show completely cleared himself legally of all liability. Bonaduce obviously consented to the intrusive break of confidentialtiy. Heck, he sold this idea. So I don't think the therapist did anything wrong legally.

But I don't like it ethically. Therapy is private for a reason. Therapy is complicated and intimate. Therapy chopped up for television is confusing and misleading. The guy could be the best therapist in the world and edit the show himself, and it still would look and feel wrong. I don't like the message it sends to the folks out there that still hold a stigma/prejudice against therapy.

Therapy involves complicated, intricate bits of technique. But make no mistake, it also in involves lots of corny sounding bits like "How does that make you feel?" Any therapist in the world would sound like an idiot if the session were chopped up. Therapy has a flow from session to session, from beginning to end, and before and after. It just can't be captured adequately as a fraction of a 30-minute realitiy show. I think it makes therapy look trivial, biased, corny, ineffective, and like a side-show.

That said, maybe I'm defensive about this. It's likely, even.

But I had the same feeling watching Metallica's movie. I totally knew what the guy was doing, and couldn't blame him for what he did. But it looked stupid to be counseling those bozos in therapy. And that's the point: if I were in his shoes, they aren't bozos. They're just dudes that need help.

Therapy...and the need for therapy...knows no income stratus or type of person. People find pain sometimes, and pain can find people. People need help to find their way out of it. Doesn't matter who you are.

And if Danny Bonaduce can find salvation (what he wants) and health (the minimum I can hope for) on TV, then good for him.

But what about the person on the verge of making his or her first appointment?

The Goods

I know I'm not being original here, but the blog needs a fresh post, and here's a surprise, the Sunday New York Times remains a more reliable source of interesting information than I can currently provide. So, just as the paper eagerly waits outside of my door every Sunday, by the afternoon I've found an article I want to pass along to Tres Hombres.

The Sunday magazine (as good as any magazine on any newsstand) has a column called The Way We Live Now. The column is devoted to a salient issue of the day, and the topic is generally given a close look by an expert. Not quite editorial, not quite a reporting of pure facts. It's a rotating essay column that has an opinion, but the opinion can vary and it usually tries to be the voice of information and reason.

This week, it's scathing. It's called The Broken Contract, and it is the most powerful account of the failures post-Katrina that I've read. This article presents a deeper look...way past race, way past class...and goes to the heart of citizenship. It's a wonderful essay. It's also frightening, discouraging, enraging, and maddening. But he gets it. He totally gets it right.

(Also, it seems as though this piece is not part of the "Times Select" pay service. I think that's for the regular columnists. No more Tom Friedman links, but all NYTimes links are not dead. Thankfully, of course, for Tres Hombres.)

Eugenia Charles

I read this very interesting obituary for Eugenia Charles, who was for fifteen years the prime minister of Dominica, a not-very-big country in the Caribbean. I will admit that I knew little of Dominica and virtually nothing of Ms. Charles before I read this obituary, but something about her story struck me as being quite remarkable. She was obviously something of a powerhouse and her mantra of “concrete and current" - restoring roads and power after Hurricane David struck in 1979 - seems quite refreshing in light of recent events.

College Dinner

- Leave home at 7.
- Work.
- Study.
- Swim. (yes!)
- Arrive back at home at 6:30.
- WAY hungry. Gotta eat before I do my homework. And before I faint.
- Nothing here.
- Old pasta!
- Sauce!
- Boil water.
- Simmer sauce. (I was in a band once called....)
- Not a vegetable in sight.
- Two old pepperocini peppers. Yes!
- Crumble up a slice of sandwich-type Lacy Swiss cheese. (This is not that old.)
- Mix it all together.
- Dinner, with the bowl right up under my chin while I watch TV. Paper towel as napkin. Didn't use it.

You know, it wasn't all that bad. Really.

Made me think of college, though, which really is kind of appropriate, since that's kind of where I am, even though I'm far too old to really play the part, but it just feels that way tonight.

I've had worse nights and dinners.

Powerless Insurance Rage

- I had a kidney stone in March. It sucked as much as sucking can suck.
- ER price: tons. Insurance: 50%, Me: 50%. Lots.
- I switched insurance companies after that. Coincidental timing.
- I accepted the pre-existing condition for more kidney stones. Can't be covered for that for a year. Fine. I drink lots of water now.
- I went to work at the VA, which required a physical.
- Blood test: positive liver enzyme. Which was scary and didn't make sense.
- Went to my doctor for a follow up and a better test.
- I'm healthy as a horse. My doc says "don't know what happened, but your liver is perfect."
- That visit went through the new insurance.
- The new insurance flags me for submitting a claim after 2 months as a policy holder.
- The claim goes into "review" which is a legal term for "fucked".
- The claim goes unpaid for 5 months.
- The insurance company asks for detailed info on everything that has happened to me in the last 5 years.
- I supply that info.
- Rather than look into the records of the VA and the new doctor info, they want info from the hospital where I peeed a rock. Which has nothing to do with the faulty screening from the VA.
- The new insurance company takes money out of my account every month.
- They will not pay the claim.
- Nor will they pay any new claims.
- The hospital is not supplying the insurance co. with the records requested.
- Talking with the insurance company is fuitless.
- Talking with the hospital is worthless.
- They take my money, every month.
- They say that I'm insured, but that I'm just in review.
- But they don't pay the claims.
- The only reason I don't jump out the window is that I'm unsure of whether or not I'm covered for a 14 floor drop, because they'd have to review it for a pre-existing condition.

Sunny Sundays, Craving a Cloud

Is there anyone else out there besides me that appreciates a good, non-precipitating cloudy day? Yes, we all need the sun for our health and our well-being. Of course. But I'm at the point where the sun is physically wearing me out. Here in Chicago we haven't seen a cloud since April. The problem here is that once the clouds come, they stay for a good six months.

But I'm serious here. The sun wears me out. It's so bright it's physically painful sometimes. I can't cool off. I can't sleep. I can't rest. I can't look west. I have literally decided not to drive places because I want to avoid heading west at the end of the day. I avoid two entire rooms in my apartment because I have to escape the sun's laser beam.

I'm happy to forego all precipitation usually associated with clouds. And I'm happy to have the sun come back, and quickly.

But please, just one day with a cloud. One.

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Frank Rich goes after it, here. He's a Sunday staple, but this column is especially zesty. And is there any other way to have a Frank Rich?

A very long, excellent article on Bono in the NYTimes magazine. We talked about this sort of thing a few weeks ago, and I think it's tough to find a better example of using celebrity in an incredibly, unbelievably, phenomenally powerful fashion. That's one smart, compassionate, talented dude. This is not news. But this is an impressive place to understand a little more about why.

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The Emmys are on, and it's kinda giving me a headache. I'm a TV fan, but I'm not so sure I like TV congratulating itself. A bit much. Make it stop.

Another Religion vs Science Link

A Good NPR audio clip

I still can't figure out how to post links properly! I must be too religious...rats!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4848808

As a bee

Real busy. Too busy to be clever or post much beyond this, although I'm often far from busy and yet still not clever.

Everyone busy?

Faith and the Street Mango

So I'm walking home, 13 hours after I last left, and I'm dying for some food. Any kind of food. I don't want to eat terrible food, but I do want something fast.

...and there's the guy on my corner who sells mangos and corn from a cart. He's a Mexican guy, and speaks little or no English. His sign is hand-drawn in bad, crooked block letters. But I know what he sells, so this isn't rocket science. You say "mango" or "corn", and you'll pretty much get what you ask for.

I ask for mango.

He slices and dices. It's looking good. He's a pro. It looks like his hands are pretty dirty, and he's definitely touching the fruit that I'm about to eat. But I decide to have some faith and go with it. On some level, that's part of the experience when you buy from a street vendor. Also, I'm just going to assume that he's been cutting fruit and vegetables all day, and these are fresh products...I do actually see the pile of fruit and vegetables, so how bad could they be? What's a little finger dirt? (That is rhetorical. I do not want answers to that question.)

He cuts the fruit (no small feat with a mango. have you tried?) and says, decipherably, "evretin?" I say yes. He piles on the salt. Then he piles on the cayenne pepper. He pours it all into a big cup. He then cuts a whole lime in half. Squeezes one half until it's done...squeezes the other half. Two fifty. Done. I have my snack.

It's delicious. Miraculous.

And then, about 25 yards later, I start to think of Pierce Brosnan in Mrs. Doubtfire, who choked on cayenne pepper to the point of screwing up Robin William's entire plan to win back his family and teach about dinosaurs at the same time. The important part of this memory for me is that Pierce Brosnan was allergic to cayenne pepper (but he ordered the shrimp jambalaya, fucking moron).

I digress.

I start to really wonder if I might die. 25 yards after that, I'm still shoveling the fruit that is clearly a gift from the gods into my mouth, which is quickly becoming incapeable of receiving food due to some sort of pepper overload.

Anyway, I made it. It wasn't an allergic reaction. Just a normal reaction to a vastly abnormal amount of pepper.

But I was going on faith there for a while.

Can I just say it?

There’s an elephant on the couch. This elephant is good. This blog rocks. This little community – this little body of people. I’m sorry to be so outwardly sappy – but I love you guys!

Pushing Phlegm

Allergies

Hakuna Matata

The lovely Mrs. Pinata and I went with some friends to see Miss Saigon at the Starlight Theatre in downtown San Diego last night.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE WRITERS AND PRODUCERS OF MISS SAIGON:

Hi,

I'd just like to thank you for completely wrecking my weekend with the most depressing dramatic work I've ever seen in my life. Thanks a bunch.

Sincerely,

Kevlar Pinata

Bad Album Cover Art

Thanks to Leslie for this site. Good stuff.

Madness Ensues

The insanity of the next 7, 12, and 15 weeks begins today. I already feel swamped, and my schedule is about to triple.

Any suggestions?

Pushing Fall

We can feel it coming way before the arrival of the autumnal equinox (Sept. 22, 2005, 6:23 P.M. EDT).

Ahh…it’s coming.

Change.

Can we agree on this?

If you have a cable talk show in prime time or a nationally syndicated radio show, you are hereby excluded from having any credibility whatsoever the first moment you complain about media coverage of an event. Republican. Democrat. Fox. MSNBC. O'Reilly. Scarborough. Hannity/Colmes. Limbaugh.

You ARE the media. Don't like it? Stand on a street corner.

Same goes for people who get interviewed whose only argument when the light goes on is: "The media coverage is biased." Well. The media is now interviewing you, and you have the opportunity to say something. So do it. About what you are being interviewed about.

Pablum.

The Deal With Music And Benefits

I've struggled with this.

It has been easy to watch some benefits over the years and think (or say): Stop. Please stop the madness. Enough. Go away.

Then again, some benefits have been inspiring, unique, and unbelievable. Most are probably in the middle...which by the way, is still better than nothing (even the worst of these benefits are better than nothing).

My recent cynicism can be directly traced to a Tsunami benefit concert, which featured, as the last-song grand finale, a huge group of completely mis-matched artists singing an absolutely horribly unprepared version of Lennon's "Across The Universe." It was painfully obvious that the musicians in tow did not know the song. Also...the song is arguably inappropriate and was thereby misappropriated. The original lyrics contain the refrain "nothing's gonna change my world", which by the end of the televised performance was changed to "something's gonna change my world" or some shit. If you read the lyrics in the first place, they are psychadelic and abstract. I think they are beautiful and genius, by the way, but if you can tell me how they make me feel better about the Tsunami or motivate me to give money, well, I'd love to hear it. And, by the way, watching freaking Duff McKagan sloth his way through an unrehearsed version of a very difficult song is not my idea of inspiration.

I think the other reason I've become cynical is that the end-of-show jam sessions at these events get confused with the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame jam sessions (do we need to see Paul Schaefer and Anton Fig and Eric Clapton do another jam session? no.) and other self-congratulatory industry events. That, plus I want to hear honest music and musicians, and not see commercials (be they televised ones or simply artists doing their new songs). I want inspiration and message. Not Velvet Revolver. (Nothing against Velvet Revolver. They seem like good guys that can rock just fine and I'm sure they care about these things. But do I look for them for "message?" No. I look to them to vicariously have sex, take drugs, and be a rock star. You know? I mean, not really. But that's what they're there for. I think. I digress.)

Anyway, I won't give Bono any shit for being a humanitarian, nor Sting for being intellectual, nor Dylan for being weird, and I guess I'll not give Clapton for being there...again. Just keep it real and honest. And bring out Neil Young and I wanna see Aretha and let Bruce do a song from the heart and keep Bob Geldof around to be nice to him. Bring out Stevie. Keep your finger off the censor button. Not sure that we need Richard Gere again, but he's a good looking guy and he probably has his heart in the right place, so okay. And if Clapton has to be there at the end, well, I'll just have to live with that.

This is what I do.

How many more times in my life do you think I will put a half-full glass of water into the top rack of the dishwasher, thereby spilling the water violently onto the floor?

Weekend Thoughts

If you aren't hip to Harry Shearer's Le Show, you should be. He's been producing his own one-hour public radio show...for which he has never been paid...for twenty or twenty-five years. The show is based in LA, but is broadcast nationally on whatever public stations want to pick it up (he literally gives the show away so that he can do whatever he wants). Anyway, the show is a guaranteed laugh and one can count on the show for some razor sharp political news, satire, wit, and parodies. It's a real, real enjoyable listen. By the way, his musical taste is impeccable, and he plays a number of fantastic songs every week. His Bush 41-talks-with-Bush 43 skits are a riot. Apologies of the week are always great.

His second home (I assume) is/was in the French Quarter, and sometimes he produces the show while he is on vacation in Louisiana. He dedicated his show this week to talking about his life and love for New Orleans. The link above should have a download for this week's show (it's not up as I type this, but he posts them weekly). Listen and enjoy. Podcasts of the show are available here.

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Tim Russert beat the heck out of Michael Chertoff on Meet the Press this week. If you didn't see it, you missed the total and complete pantsing of the director of Homeland Security. The transcript is here. The video clip on MSNBC is worth it. They only offer about 4 1/2 minutes of the 15 minute humiliation, but if you watch it you'll see that Russert really hammers the guy, and if you read the transcript you'll be a Russert fan for life. Way to go, Big Tim. It's so refreshing to see someone ask hard questions and demand more of his interviewees, rather than softball questions and gladhanding. Some will accuse Russert of going over the line this morning, but I won't. Hey look at that! Another podcast.

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The NBC concert on Friday was A-OK with me. Nothing cynical to be said about it. I owe apologies to Marcia Gay Harden, who I had mocked because she was listed twice I and found that funny, but who was, of course, completely fine in her role asking for money.

- I think Harry Connick, Jr. should be commended...he was in New Orleans helping out the day after the storm, and it looked like he hadn't slept a wink by Friday on the concert. I've always thought he was an average vocalist trapped in a ridiculously musically talented body. He got in there and got his hands dirty, kept working hard throughout the week, and then did what he does. Played some music.
- Same with Wynton. I got no problem with Wynton. Many people have had problems with Wynton, but not me...he's super talented, super smart, and super earnest. Points.
- Tim McGraw & Faith Hill? Eh. Fine. Whatever.
- Aaron Neville. I can't listen to an album. I just get tired. But his version of "Amazing Grace" was spectacular, moving, and as good as it gets. I can't seem to find a podcast for it, but I'm sure it's out there. And they keep replaying the concert on cable, so look for it.

Points to all of them for a fine, classy effort, including Kanye West, who was not the only person to freak out on live television this week. I saw that a lot. I've got no problem with venting some crazy-ass frustration and him speaking his mind. Raw emotions? Go with 'em. Really. Kanye gets points. Just for being human.

Maybe I don't get it...

...but where is the help?