You Don’t Need a Weatherman…

Following the mini-Woodstock of American politics – the only VP debate – the cameras and reporters began paying close attention to Gov. Sarah Palin. And not for more material for The Daily Show, but because the GOP VP candidate is a contender, even if her boss is still trying to find his footing.

Gov. Palin came out swinging. One of the weekend sound bites contained her talking about Barack Obama's alleged alliance with University of Chicago Professor William Ayers – terrorist, sorry, revolutionary. She was careful to frame the background of this man with words that have signaled modern Islamic terrorist; very clever, very politic.

In fact Bill Ayers is co-founder of one of the more notorious and violent anti-Vietnam war protest groups of the late 60's and early 70's. It was called the Weather Underground. For those too young to remember the Weathermen adopted the "by whatever means necessary" posture of the Black Panthers and other similar groups. By their own admission they plotted bombings and would have done worse if not for the FBI closing in.

Fast-forward to the most important presidential election in recent history. Ayers is a star of the Chicago far-left. It should surprise no one that the paths of these two men have crossed.

I am not much younger than Bill Ayers, so let me tell you about Charlie M. In high school he rode a Harley and he and Bob N were known for wearing the same pair of jeans an entire school year; the same unwashed pair of jeans. They went to the protests and were the first to pump fists, use the f-word and confront – spit on the police. As we got closer to draft age, the quarterback and class president joined the Marines, while Charlie and John got more radical. One day Chuck disappeared, packed up his blue Harley and did an "Easy Rider" due west.

About a year later Charlie returned to the old hang out. He had stories of mass protests and violent plots. He talked about overthrowing the government, weapons training and trusting no one. Charlie moved in shadows and spoke in slogans suitable for blood-red posters. Charlie M was comfortable between the cracks.

Here's the rub: I knew a Weatherman. Chuck was part of that underground for however long it held his interest. The quarterback and the class president came back from Vietnam with devastating heroin addictions. They lost all ambitions and one ended up in prison. The last time I heard from Charlie M he joined the police force in Detroit, of all places. He became what he once raged against.

I'm not sure of the point of this, except to show how easy it is to have unusual associations. I am not running for president and Charlie was not a founder of the Weather Underground, but he changed - dramatically. Professor Ayers changed, of that I am certain. And he is probably not the owner of the most questionable past among those supporting the liberal, anti war candidate. Should we attach all these fringe ideas, these fringe individuals to the candidate? If he is not your guy, then it really doesn't matter, now does it?

Bankruptcy? Bankruptcy!

I'm going to go out on a limb here. The country is thinking about money and the future. It seems as though that's all we are thinking about, and it's not fun.

A friend mentioned today that he lost a quarter-million dollars in one day, yesterday, not a rich person either. It was "on paper" and he'll likely regain most of the losses, but something like that is still a shock to the system.

I was in my favorite auto dealership today (yes, I have one of those) and talked briefly to the owner. He sells the vehicles that seem crisis proof, but the spring was gone from his step and there was little confidence in his words. CNN blared financially tinged stories from Hi-Def TV's and there were precious few folks slamming doors and kicking tires.

When you don't have the money to pay your bills; when the job is shaky and the pressure mounts, that's when worry becomes panic and the sun just stops shining.

This just might be one of those cases where the "good ole days" were in fact a lot better. My parents had several things they deemed unacceptable. You don't cheat, you hold your liquor, you pay your bills, you go to work every day and church every week. Failures in these basic adult responsibilities meant losing. The whispering in the kitchen contained words like divorce, unemployed, alcoholic, dead beat, prison and the over-the-top word, bankruptcy.

Here's what I know about those taboos from Mary and Al's day: I did just about everything wrong. They always wanted my world to be better than there's and in some ways it is. But among things that count I still have to learn the hard way. When the folks were alive and had savings, my hard-headed lessons often ended in dad bailing me out. Can't count how many times that happened. They didn't like it, but they still loved me.

Now some of the largest financial institutions outside of commercial banks are facing bankruptcy. When that happens to an individual or company the next step is to seek protection; that can only come from federal bankruptcy laws. That means a plan is put in place whereby the debtor can pay back the secured debts in a timely fashion, normally within five years, or sell what they cannot pay for. The non-secured debt takes a back seat. There is also the type of bankruptcy where all debts are forgiven and all real property is essentially forfeited.

Again, this is the purview of the federal courts. Of course some in government want to become daddy to these companies. It is very hard for most people to understand exactly what's happening; not when more than 30% of the homes in America don't have a mortgage - they are owned outright - and of those with mortgages more than 96% are doing fine. That leaves an ugly 4%, not a large number, but nothing to sneeze it.

When my dad bailed me out of money trouble I'm not sure I leaned anything. If the government bails out these companies what's to stop them from making the same mistakes? Remember Jaws II? The table is littered with underwater photos and the village fathers refuse to see the truth, but Police Chief Martin Brody knew better. "I've seen a shark up close, I know what one looks like and I'm not going through that hell again!"

Words to live by.

The Lessons of Ed and Ernie

I am fascinated by the recent stories of a couple of 20th century entertainment icons. Perhaps dubbing these two guys in such lofty terms might sound a little strong, but let's take a closer look.

Ernest Borgnine is someone we all know on sight, even at 91. He won an academy award for his role as Marty, one of those guys - in this case a butcher - whom the world seems to pass over. Because of his longevity he stands as the oldest living Oscar winning Best Actor. Perhaps most of us know him as Lt. Commander Quentin McHale in McHale's Navy (Borgnine was actually in the Navy before and during WWII). And if you saw his latest performance, you might applaud his staying power. At least (and you'll forgive me for this) with one hand.

The other man in this loose category is Ed McMahon at 85. We all remember him as Mr. Sidekick. He was Johnny Carson's announcer and sometime foil for a generation. He was Dick Clark's sidekick with Bloopers. He was the front man for Star Search, which is fair to call the progenitor to America's Got Talent and American idol. And he was the consummate pitchman for Insurance, magazines and other products aimed at older adults.

McMahon is broke, both literally and figuratively. He broke his neck and the lavish lifestyle, rivaling his former bosses, came crashing down all around him and his wife in tabloid headlines. The only thing keeping him out of bankruptcy is he is not qualified for bankruptcy; too old for any promise of payback under Chapter 13 and too much stuff to walk away from under Chapter 7. Ed is in a terrible fix.

Ernie, on the other hand, is literally fat and happy. He and his wife of 35 years, Tova, are stars of Home Shopping and cruises and whatever might get those older than 60 to pay attention. More importantly this group of admirers also pays a little of their significant stash to whatever Ernie and Tova have going.

This week both men were back in the news. Ed never really left as creditor after creditor files for their share of the nonexistent McMahon fortune. Donald Trump piped up, mainly to keep his name in the news, offering to bail out America's most famous participants in the housing crisis. Good for them, we should all be so lucky.

Ernest Borgnine was also in the news, the YouTube universe, by spilling the beans as to some of his more private personal habits on Fox News. Funny thing is I don't think Ernie cares one way or the other. Perhaps that's the big difference between the two; while Ed was living for the fishbowl, trying to keep up appearances, the Borgnines were just living, filling every minute with as much fun as possible.

Like everything, there's a lesson in there someplace.

Mary's Babies

Growing up the son of a couple of teachers is both a blessing and a curse. Let's deal with the curse part first.

Doing things correctly and the best you can does not come easily to a young kid. It's even harder for a teen. Thankfully those years are behind me and doing the right thing is probably a real if not rare attribute for an adult. At least so I'm told.

The blessing part, aside from being the child of two wonderful people, is that you learn something about the inner workings of someone dedicated to the education of generation after generation of young people. Mary Collins had a hand in the nurturing and bringing about good beginnings for kids from 1930 until her retirement in 1983. Fifty-three years, almost as old as I am now, she taught and loved almost every minute of it!

August was a special month for my teacher parents. The first two weeks or so we usually got in the last of the camping vacations. Dad was an outdoorsman and loved fishing and camping. I do, too. Monika, my wife, not so much, so we don't do it unless you count working passed sundown in the gardens.

After that it was school supply buying time. Al Collins had this uncanny knack for sniffing out a bargain. Many of you might remember Surplus City, or many of the store-front-off-the-truck kind of places that sold bent boxes of Cheerios for half price or less. That's where we got almost everything except clothes and Mom's Maxwell House coffee - didn't dare substitute that, unless you had a death wish. And when we did take our smelly mimeographed supply lists to the store, there was always extra things purchased. One for one, mom and dad bought extra pencils, papers, notebooks, paste and crayons.

Mom would say the extra was for, "her babies." Those were the little kids who came to school barely breathing. Later in the year she would adopt one or two of the kids, the little boy in torn pants that were too big for him, that hadn't been washed in months and the smell of urine probably meant his underwear was in the same shape. He would have dried streaks coming from his mouth, roused from whatever bed he had and rushed out to school without even a chance to splash water on his face, leaving a pitiful or even frightening situation to come to school. Calloused against juvenile ridicule by the nightmares that began with the trip home at 3 and often did not stop until the next morning. These were her babies, "Ma' poor babies need somebody to care." Mrs. Collins would say, holding back the heartache.

We didn't mind giving up some of her attention or even the small budget for back-to-school. By the time we were old enough to understand we were running through the aisles to find those special things this year's unknown babies will need to do their best in Mrs. Collins' 4th grade class. Our things could wait. We knew we would get them and so much more. We were the lucky ones, and we wanted them, Mary's other babies, to feel lucky, too.

Obonix

This past week the presidential candidate everyone likes to talk about made a speech. It was not exactly your typical stump speech. It was carefully aimed at the audience in front of him.

Everything this man does is careful. That's what makes him so successful as a candidate - historically it is also what makes men less effective as presidents.

In this speech Mr. Obama was blunt about some of the problems facing black men in the 21st Century. He talked about the long odds against making it as a pro athlete or entertainer. His message is the same message I heard from my father; the same many of these men - the older attendance to be sure - heard from their fathers. The problem is not the message, for some it is the way he spoke it.

Words mean much. And in the course of my day I may embrace several different dialects. It's not just for show, though when talking to my friend Jim Wilson there is inevitably a slide into a real street-speak of black comedians and family I have known. It's fun and there is no better way to tell a story about crazy people doing silly things. It goes back to my mother, one of the smartest people I have ever known. Mary Collins could tell a story better than anyone. And though she spent her life teaching kids in their most impressionable years the importance of knowing "the king's English," she could talk trash.

That is not what Senator Obama did. He simply let his guard down some and added emphasis in a way that was more natural and accepted among black folks than perhaps at a meeting of the Santa Barbara Camber of Commerce. There's nothing wrong with knowing your audience. Yet Jesse Jackson and others have accused the candidate of "speaking down" to young black men. Whatever.

Dr. Michael Dyson and others have embraced the music of our language, our gestures and our willing adaptation of the language. At the same time we understand when it is appropriate and when it is not. There is nothing wrong with that and should Senator Obama succeed to the Whitehouse, it will be just as real as George W. Bush's occasional fall into the homespun Midland Texas tone or the John F. Kennedy Massachusetts missing R's. If we are to make anything of Barack Obama's way of talking, let's remember the following. It might just be the most important words, the most historic words of this or the last century:

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

Nuff said.

Guilty Pleasures
There are many things we enjoy that are not front page news; those things we hide, even from our spouses.

There was a time not long ago when I enjoyed going to the shooting range and exploding a few $20's by ripping up silhouettes 30 feet away. There was no real reason for being what amounts to a gun nut. It's not like I was in the witness protection program or pursued by aliens. Besides, aliens are impervious to bullets. Aren't they?

So having come to my senses sometime in 2006, I packed up all my guns and headed to Dick's Gunroom in The Falls to sell back this self-indulgent habit. So much for the erstwhile soldier of fortune.

Lately it's been more passive pleasures, like certain reality shows. I will leave the deep, philosophical reasons why we like these experiments in human deviance to my fellow blogger Ryan Haidet. I just know what I like. These shows include "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Hell's Kitchen." No problem there. They are among the most watched shows this summer.

But something happened this Tuesday night that, frankly, is embarrassing. I watched TV. Nothing odd about that, but while I was watching I was laughing almost uncontrollably, to the point where my mother-in-law, Omi, became angry and wanted me to stop. Then Monika came in and she started laughing, too. What were we watching? "Wipeout."

If you don't know about "Wipeout" it is about as stupid a show as one could imagine. Twelve players are turned into human pinballs in one a sloppy obstacle course after another; the sloppier the better. There's mud and padded shapes just made to mess with the human body and things move, slip, swing, fall, slime, punch, roll and even poof, as in a pit filled with flour just because the contestants look funny when they climb out. It makes the humiliation that much better.

The show's hosts are the best and worst of Sports Center, including the attractive Mercury pitchwoman who somehow is not quite as charming when she's talking to a guy covered in mud as though she were interviewing LeBron. Even the contestants are fitting the model of ridiculous and sublime. The winner last night, for example, was a 6'4" surfer, I think, who took over the role of "color commentator" as his fellow competitors slid off a giant top, bounced off waterborne trampolines - not in a good way - and finally fell short of his wining time. I was in stitches.

I will probably never watch Wipeout again. It's one of those shows that you enjoy once knowing full well it will never be the same. But just like the guy who was eliminated on the "dreadmill," sitting there lost, forlorn and covered with sweat-soaked baking products, I'm ashamed. But it was great fun.

In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood

I get it, how he came to do it. It’s happened to me plenty of times. She just won’t stop talking, or doing what I tell her. All that screamin’ and cryin’ and threatening to tell my wife. I don’t know what came over me that last time, the time I had no plan, the time I got caught.

See usually I have plenty of self control, like walking away when I’m burnin’ up inside. Like at a bar. I used to drink too much and get into these fights. I’d have killed plenty more if not for my friend Ralphy. He’s bigger’n me and back then he did plenty of thinking for me, knowing I didn’t want to kill nobody in front of a barroom full ‘o witnesses. What I do is wait a day or two, ‘til the fool gets into it with a half-dozen other low-lifes that’ll look just as good for the killin’ as me. Then I watch for a day or so, get to know his habits. When there’s a good place, isolated, you know? Like a dark parking lot or street or something, that’s when I do him. I make sure he knows who he messed with and why this face is the last one he’s gonna see in this life.

I don’t use no weapons, never, just these big ‘ol hands God gave me. It’s easy to snap a neck or pop a pipe if you know what you’re doin’. It’s like this, I walk up to him, real quiet, then when I’m in position I make a noise, maybe clear my throat or even say his name. That surprises them, puts them in a small panic, then a quick pop in the middle of the face, I keep my middle knuckle raised a bit to really sting the sinuses. Nobody can deal with that. If they don’t go down they squeezes they eyes real tight and the tears flow, along with blood, usually. That’s when I get my hands around their throat and bring them down, like I said, if they ain’t already. Then I say what I’m gonna say, look ‘em in the eye the whole time and watch the fear well up, kind of come to the surface like water coming to a boil.

I get a real shiver in my chest right then, just before that moment when they know this is it for them. Now this gonna sound real bad, but I want you to know. I get this feeling in my chest, like my whole upper body is a big ‘ol penis ready to explode. My privates don’t get that, I think that’s sick, but from my throat to my waist, that what I get and there ain’t nothin’ like it. When it’s over I usually have my trunk lined in plastic and take ‘em up to this special spot I know along the lake. I got real good at knowing the rip tides and putting just the right amount of weight so they move along for a good while. OPP found one of mine up near London a few years back and pinned it on one of their own. Got a kick out of that. Canadian cop so much as said since it wasn’t a gunshot it couldn’t ‘a been from the US side. Laughed at that for days.

So when that ex-cop killed his baby momma, I 100% understand. Probably wanted her to get an abortion or move away or somethin’. More child support. You don’t mess with a man’s money. That’s what happened to me. Just got sloppy, I guess.

This is a character from one of my Mystery-Thrillers. It is not me...I don't think...