Last Post of the Year!

This is my last post of the year. Look forward to next year in which I expect to be blogging more often.

The madness War

Saw an article today about an economist who estimates the total cost of the war in Iraq, financially speaking, will probably end up somewhere around $2.2 trillion. Staggering, isn't it?

Anyways, it reminded me of a poem I wrote, back when I worked in the type of place that actually had cubicles. The Borgish feeling of just being one of many was exacerbated by me placing plastic army men around my cube around the start of the war and by the fact that at the time, my project was depression (had to write about it) and, at that time at least, I was the only person working on the subject, leaving me virtually no one to talk to about my work. So, an escalating war, immersion into the realm of depression, and no one but four gray cube walls within arms reach to speak to, and little green men pointing their weapons at me from shelves and from behind stacks of paper really put me in a state of pseudo psychosis. From whence I wrote the following:

The madness War

The military buildup
is threatening my cubedom.
The rigid charging soldiers
with their arms upraised
may break my concentration.
In green and beige
they chatter into their radios —
the static hurts my ears.
Those little green men keep
marching around in my head.
they go round and round and round and round
until I Fall Down.
I guess it’s what I deserve
for getting stuck between gears.
Why can’t I get any peace?

Year of the Dog

With all the warm weather we’ve been having lately here in the sunshine state, this Christmas holiday is really looking up. Rain is predicted for a day or two, but overall for the past few weeks, it’s just been gorgeous. That said, I’m really looking forward to the passing of the holidays and the introduction to a new year. I know it’s such an arbitrary thing, our measurement of the passage of time -- January 1st is really just another day -- but I think any kind of fresh start, even an imaginary one, would do me some good.

I read two articles in the “Business” and “Lifestyle” sections of the daily newspaper yesterday which really caught my eye. The first pointed to the increase in lavish gifts Wall Street bankers, brokers, and pork barrel traders were buying for their loved ones this year -- apparently it’s been a really good year for them. We’re talking about $50,000 diamond rings, $1 million worth of private jet travel, $7,000 mink coats, $5,000 necklaces, $20,000 facelifts, $15,000 hair, makeup and wardrobe makeovers, stuff like that. This story warmed my heart. It’s nice to know some folks really are benefiting from the economy.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a new trend is catching on. In an effort to live more environmentally friendly lives, groups of people living in or about San Francisco vowed to spend no money for the entirety of 2006 on new purchases, excepting food, the bare necessities for health and safety, and underwear. Everything else was bought used or not bought at all. Apparently, this is a movement designed, presumably, to help reduce the average American’s eco-footprint on the world. The “Compact” movement has spread around the country, eliciting both progressive delight and spite from those who see these groups as out to destroy America.

A “compact” lifestyle has such a nice ring to it. I think I’ll start using it to describe my way of life. Just think, my very way of daily living has been on the cusp of a new eco-movement, possibly a green revolution.

And all this time I’ve simply referred to it as being broke.

I can’t say for certain, but I think all of my friends, lovers, and family members would agree that it would be nice if in this new year I could quit living an enforced sub-compact lifestyle and return to something a bit more normalized. Bad enough that Benjamin, Jacob, and Ryan went without presents from Uncle Dave this year, but even my attempt at an economical Christmas card has failed. I sent out a link to an online e-card, which has apparently been removed from the server. So instead of Santa and his deer singing a cheery Christmas Song, my message to folks was:

503 Service Unavailable
Apache/ProXad Server at badaboo.free.fr Port 80.

Perhaps I can follow it up with a 403 Unable to connect to the localhost Happy New Year message.

I was born in the Year of the Dog so I hoped that this would be my year. It hasn’t been, but I’ve been feeling a lot more like myself lately than I have been in years, so maybe that old dog just took his time getting around to me. Maybe the server error is just a final note to a bad tune, and I can get on to a better life starting today. I guess that’s how I’m going to think of it, because being depressed is no fun for me and this time of year ought to be fun.

Things are going to be better from here on out. Million-dollar Christmas gifts I can do without, but a voluntary sub-compact lifestyle would be heartily welcomed. By this time next year I expect I’ll either be mailing classic children’s books to my nephews, or mailing brand new ones to publishers.

It’s time to get to work.

I Stand Corrected

In an earlier post, I claimed that the childhood nickname my parents called me by was Bumbalardee and was named after a Sesame Street cartoon that I loved, featuring a poor child’s birthday party with rats as guests. While I’m convinced that such a cartoon or puppet piece was performed, I must humbly apologize for the story of Bumbalardee itself. My mother recently wrote the following letter to me:

The name Bumbleardy (my spelling) is, indeed, from an old Sesame Street bit but it had nothing to do with rats. The number nine was the subject of the animated piece. Bumbleardy was turning nine and invited a bunch of pigs to his birthday party. They showed up early while his mother was out and behaved quite piggishly, more or less trashing the place. Bumbleardy, however, remained at ease in the midst of the commotion. We nicknamed you for him, not because of the piggish party, but because you were always so comfortable around animals. A favorite photo, from a trip to the African Safari in Hamilton, captures you at about two surrounded by taller petting zoo animals, donkeys and such, barely visible but totally relaxed.

Sure enough, when I did a Google search for the name Bumbleardy, it popped right up as Bumble Ardy. Not only was there a cartoon with the pigs and number nine, it was done by none other than Maurice Sendak, the author most well known for creating Where the Wild Things Are. Apparently, he has put the cartoon into book form this year.

So, I humbly ask for forgiveness from both my parents, Mr. Sendak and the folks over at Sesame Street for my faux pas.

Happy Christmahanukwanza!

Trying to recover my former style of writing poetry (consisting of odd subjects, humorous expressions and non-living things turned inside-out) I put pen to paper the other day and this is what came out. Not my best work, but 'tis certainly the season.

Sip a draught of beer,
Or any available cheer.
Kick back your heels and rest,
There is no cause for stress:
Is there another time of year
Like Christmas to the New Year,
Where politics are cast aside?
Or should be; this is a time to bide
Others’ faults, oddities and beliefs,
Not a time for the giving of grief.
Bad spirits, sour grapes,
Comments about old drapes,
Begone! to the rest of the year
(Where forgotten, I fear
Is Christ’s mass and Christ’s word
And Christ’s name is used as a sword).
Would it that he could rise once again
And teach us to be, year-round, civil men.

All my references are humans

I stumbled across these online and couldn't resist.

Ode to Coke

I was going to write about successfully quitting my Coke habit, which is to say, stopping my habit of drinking the corn-syrup cola called Coke, or at least stopping my habit of drinking it every day as opposed to just when I go out to eat, which, if one is aware of my financial status, is not often.

I got addicted to Coke working at the newspaper. I didn’t need it during the day. Hell, usually, I was so busy during the day I didn’t have time to drink anything, except during lunch. My newspaper days were chock full of phone calls and short drives to school events and businesses and intersections to take photos of tree-sized logs that had come off the back of those log trucks -- you know the ones, with the little red flag hanging off the back on logs that look like they could fall off at any time? -- and had crush some poor soul’s Navigator.

So I was busy busy busy all the time and didn’t even have the time to think of caffeination. But production days always went on forever. We’d finish writing and editing the copy, drive down to our production office in Fuquay-Varina (that’s actually the town’s name. Dumb, isn’t it? I lived there for about a year at one point. The difference is there they had a 24-hour open Harris Teeter. Louisburg closes at 11) to lay it all out on the computers there (with the ads already done there -- otherwise the whole operation could have been done at my desk), scan in all the relevant photos (think pre-digital cameras) and all that jazz.

Well, that whole process always took all night -- longer because due to a scheduling conflict with the actual Fuquay newspaper (whose production offices we shared since we were part of the same chain) we would have to wait until they got done with their work first. There weren’t enough computers to go around. So after working eight hours, writing and editing, and answering the damn phone, we then had to drive to Fuquay (about 15 minutes) start production at 5 p.m. or later. So, to stay awake and aware (one of my duties was to proof the whole deal -- my editor was dsylexic and couldn’t be coutned on to cacth all the mitsakes) I discovered that caffeine was my very best friend. And to get that steady flow of pep, I would sip from a can of Coke all night until we were finished. That usually meant anywhere from 3 to 6 Cokes a night.

Later, when I worked as a proofreader for an agency in Durham, I found my attention would shift as well, unless I was constantly infused with caffeine. Coffee highs were too bell curved, plus I really don’t like coffee, and it gets cold. So I did the same thing. I’d usually consume about 3 or 4 16-ounce cokes a day there. So I got in the habit of chain Coking -- pouring it into a glass with ice, and sipping it out through a straw (to save my teeth), pouring more in when the glass would get to be half-empty.

Since I left that job, I’ve been steadily drinking Coke, adding to my waistline and compounding my heartburn and probably doing no good for my overall constitution. Until about two and a half weeks ago. I just decided to quit (or at least quit drinking it daily) and so I quit. I’m back to drinking Coke only as a treat. I drink more iced tea now, but that’s not really addictive, especially since the stuff I’m drinking doesn’t taste very good. And water. I drink a lot more water. I still treat myself when we go out to eat -- which, considering we often end up in the burg of Wake Forest, which seems to be totally shut down on Sundays, the day we shop for groceries, we more than not end up at Applebee’s, which only serves Pepsi products. I drink it, but it’s just not the same thing.

So, as I was saying, I was going to write about kicking the habit, but then I realized that some fellow bloggers like this guy or this girl might not like it so much, seeing as they are both addicted to the heavier stuff -- tobacco, I mean. You do know that nicotine is as addictive as heroin or cocaine, don’t you? So I thought, since they seem to always be blogging about trying to quit or being off cigs for 3 days or 6 months now, that quitting smoking must be really hard and so writing about quitting drinking Coke, or at least, learning to drink Coke in moderation, might seem a little offensive to say the least.

So I’ve decided not to blog about it.

Instead, I’ll just post the dedication I wrote to the drink I was an addict of for so long:

Ode -- to Coke

Sugar.
Water.
Syrup.
Color.
I willingly open my arteries to your sugar rush.
Sip.
Hold --
then you slide down over my tongue,
past my cracked teeth;
pouring pure sugarcane satisfaction
into me.

No dessert can rival,
no sweetener can match
the pure-pleasure,
open-addiction,
ecstasy-driven
lust
I derive
for
that in-credible,
un-challenged,
un-equaled,
one and only,
one
of
a
kind --
Coke.

Yum.

Cool Factor 10

The AlterNet has a list of the Top 10 or so YouTube vids viewed online. There's some amazing stuff in there, much of it performed by Generation Next. A lot of talent these kids have these days that would never have gotten noticed except for on corporatized TV shows like American Idol.

The first two I'd already seen or don't care about. The Quick Change video has got a cool factor of about 9, even if you figure out the trick. The Pachelbel guitar boy is awesome, the rocker girls make you want to be back in school; and the urban ninja dude makes the mall look exciting.

The rest are just so-so. The soccer thing would be amazing if I thought it was definitely not faked. And if you haven't yet seen the movie Napoleon Dynamite -- don't watch the last one if you don't want to ruin it.

Years ago I was sitting at an outdoors table at a restaurant in Buffalo and I saw this little black kid riding his bike across the street. He was going through a parking lot and suddenly turned the handlebars the wrong way and went right over the top. He landed in a roll and came up unscathed. I was amazed. He rode off, but about 10 minutes later here he comes and does the same thing. It was a stunt move that he had taught to himself.

That's what the ninja guy and the other YouTubers remind me of. Nobody paid them to just be cool; they just are. Which reminds me of a story my pops told me once. He and his brother (my cool uncle Dave, who died a few years ago of a heart attack), who was several years younger than my dad, Jim, were always fighting when they were kids. So, after one contentious battle, when Jim got the best of my uncle, Dave hatched a plan to get his brother back that must have taken weeks to implement. Every day when he got home from school, Dave put a ladder up against the house and practiced jumping off of it, going up a rung each day or so.

He got to the point where he could jump from about the height of, say, a second-story bedroom window. Then, the next day he picked a fight with Jim, claiming he was stronger or tougher or whatnot and when my pops challenged him, Dave bet him he couldn't jump out of the bedroom window. So Jim said, sure, you first, and Dave threw open the window, climbed out and jumped, hitting the ground just right to avoid injuring himself. Not to be outdone, Jim jumped too, with the expected result of hurting his ankle in the process.

Now, my dad's a pretty cool guy -- he looks so smooth with a cigar clenched between his teeth, and he outclasses me on anything physical -- he used to get up at 5 a.m. to jog a couple miles before work every day, and he still holds his own in racquetball against anyone who isn't a total athlete. Plus, he is of the old school fixit dads who make great homeowners because there is hardly a repair job they can't handle. So he's definitely got a high coolness factor.

But nobody was as cool as my uncle Dave. Dave, with his deep, soothing and magical voice; Dave, whose childhood antics later developed into a love for garage rock; Dave, who always had the latest gagets and pinball machines for his kids (and nieces and nephews!) to play with. Dave, whose band members (that he was managing) played Amazing Grace on the sax at his funeral and whose family held up lighters in tribute.

Like the ninja dude, and definitely that guitar kid, I’d say my uncle was easily a Cool Factor 10.

Three aliens walk into a bar...

Three Petterbine aliens and a human being named Jason are sitting in a snoosis joint on the inner cusp of Saturn's rings. "What do the Kek Comet, NGC 4214 cluster, Doradus Cloud, and the Cordites on the 15th moon of Pekus Prime have in common?" one of the aliens quips.

The Petterbines are renowned galaxy-wide for their humor, so Jason pricks up his ears.

"I dunno, what?" "Yes, what?" the other two ask.

"None of them is planet earth."

The aliens break out into spasms of guffawing laughter, pounding the table and falling off their chairs. The human looks from one to another in puzzlement.

"I don't get it," he says.

Who Likes Short-Shorts?

I'm very fond of short stories. I like to read them, and when I'm feeling confident, write them as well. But there's real fun in writing limited-length short stories, which are referred to as short short stories. Or, if they're very short, they're sometimes called short short short stories. Arguably one of the best short short stories is Appointment in Samarra:

"A merchant in Baghdad sent his servant to the market. The servant returned, trembling and frightened. The servant told the merchant, 'I was jostled in the market, turned around, and saw Death.

'Death made a threatening gesture, and I fled in terror. May I please borrow your horse? I can leave Baghdad and ride to Samarra, where Death will not find me.'

The master lent his horse to the servant, who rode away, to Samarra.

Later the merchant went to the market, and saw Death in the crowd. 'Why did you threaten my servant?' He asked.

Death replied,'I did not threaten your servant. It was merely that I was surprised to see him here in Baghdad, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.'"

A bookstore whose newsletter I subscribe to recently sent me a list of 6-word-long short shorts published by Wired.com for some Sci-Fi contest. One complaint I've heard is that many are actually more like headlines or titles than stories. But there are some gems:

Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
- Margaret Atwood

Weeping, Bush misheard Cheney’s deathbed advice.
- Gregory Maguire

Leia: "Baby's yours." Luke: "Bad news…"
- Steven Meretzky

The best of the six-word short shorts -- the one that inspired all the rest -- comes from the man who only wrote a single, one-act play in his entire life (which my friends and I performed while under the influence, some years ago), the man who took it upon himself to go U-Boat hunting off the Gulf of Mexico in a fishing craft during WWII, the man whose arguably best short story is being eradicated by global warming, Ernest Hemingway, wrote this:

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Isn't that sumthin?

The reason I bring it up is I was looking for material I'd written creatively to show potential employers when I ran across a 64-word short-short I wrote for my own "Get a Life" writer's club, which has since gone defunct, been reborn, gone defunct again, and been reborn again, albeit with only a few remaining writers left to participate. These ones came from a title prompt of "The eyes have it":

Stella led her guests into the gloomy library. Shelves held jars of preserves, reminders of her husband’s glory days.
“Exquisite!” a vampire exclaimed, lifting a jar containing two withered hands.
“Yes,” Stella mused, “my husband was quite the… collector.”
“What is your favorite of Dr. Frankenstein’s collection?” another asked.
“Most people like the brains, but as for me,” she paused, “the eyes have it.”

--Angela Erwin


That sound. It hits my stomach before it hits my ears. It doesn’t register for a few minutes. But when I see the bright blood seeping into the asphalt, I know. Who could do something like that? Throw a kid into oncoming traffic. I look around for the answer, my gaze resting on two black orbs, and I find it. The eyes have it.

--Christine Gordon


The eyes have it — that heart-wrenching, pleading look. Twenty-three folk from outside town whose homes had washed away with the flood stood against the wall. Mayor Phelps had the deciding vote. Annex the community and help them rebuild? The cost might break the back of his tiny town. He stared long and hard into those eyes — then raised his hand. “The ayes have it.”

--David Leone

Fell free to deposit a 6-word or 64-word short short on the comments page.

Bumbalardee and the Tunnel Rat

I attended a moderately small college run by Jesuit priests in Buffalo NY. It was only a few blocks’ walk from the family home on Summit Ave., which was nice, as was the tuition, which, me being a son of a faculty member, was free. Anyways, even though it was located on Main Street in the middle of the city, it was still a somewhat cloistered environment. It was a largely middle class black community and the student body was largely white, suburban, or white, countryside. So there wasn’t a lot of mixing going on with the neighborhood folks. Since quite a few students were from downstate, I guess the term is, and lived on campus, and because it was kind of a catholicky place, the overall atmosphere was, well, kind of conservative.

So, I had this small fish in a small pond experience that came to mind recently after a long time. A guy named David Eliot e-mailed me about my blog, which he happened across during a “vanity search” on Google, and mentioned that he has already, at the age of 34, published two independent newspapers. Publishing my own rag is a sort of a dream of mine, though I’m not locked in on it, I would have a ball. I even recently drew up plans for an indie entertainment newsmag, but I gave up because I figured (A) it likely wouldn’t make any money and (B) that I had no seed money to get it going.

So, I was lamenting my launch pad status, when a friend reminded me that I did put out two issues of a really small independent newspaper when I was still in school. Crazy that I forgot that. It was called The Tunnel Rat, named for the system of tunnels that connected much of the Canisius College campus while I was a student. The tunnels are still there; only the campus has really grown, so “much” probably doesn’t apply any longer. Most of the student activity clubs were in those tunnels, beneath the student center, and I spent a good portion of my 5 college years living the life of a tunnel rat.

I’ve always identified with rats, inasmuch as I think they’re really cool animals, albeit frightening to find taking the lid off one’s garbage can (happened to my mother once). My father’s nickname for me as a child was Bumbalardee. This came from a Sesame Street cartoon where a really poor kid who has no friends instead invites the tenement’s rats to his birthday party. I scarcely remember it, but my folks claim that I loved it as a kid. So, naming my “underground” newspaper The Tunnel Rat had extra meaning for me.

I only put out two very short (a few pages each) issues, mainly because I couldn’t afford the printing costs. It caused a bit of a stir, this being a small, conservative pond school. How conservative, you ask? During my first senior year, I had a goatee going, not because I liked beards (I didn’t then), but because I had been too lazy to shave. A whole plethora of people and school administrators strongly suggested to me that growing a beard was wrong and that I’d better shave it. I’m serious! Try living in a small town sometime (or perhaps, Greensboro) and you’ll likely run into that same kind of attitude.

I promised them all I would shave it off, as soon as I could go a week without getting nagged about it. It took until Christmas break.

So anyways, to make a short story far too long to read to the end, I decided to publish my own paper not because I felt some kind of need to stir up trouble, but because I had just finished reading this cool book my sister Nicki had given to me (upon the promise that I not mention she did so to mom and dad) and I wanted to quote it in an op/ed piece for the Griffin, the college paper I was an editor at. But they wouldn’t let me use all the swearwords, which I thought were essential to the quote, as it knocked the press itself, so I created an entire publication so I could put the quote there.

It’s the scene in the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, in which, high on acid and other stuff, Raoul and his attorney pal are checking into a hotel when in Raoul’s eyes, everybody starts turning into reptiles and chewing each other to bits. Raoul exclaims to his attorney:

‘”But what about our room? And the golf shoes? We're right in the middle of a fucking reptile zoo! And somebody's giving booze to the goddamn things! It won't be long before they tear us to shreds. Jesus, look at the floor! Have you ever seen so much blood? How many have they killed already?’

“That’s the press table,’ he said.”

So I threw the essay with that quote, a one sentence entertainment review by my childhood friend Jeff Burnett, a nostalgic look back at record players by another friend, and a short story done up Mike Hammer-style about a campus police detective wannabe titled “Diary of a Dick.”

I played on an ongoing controversy with the English Department by doctoring up a group photo of them for the 2nd issue; I penciled-in satanic symbols and Led Zeppelin onto their shirts and books and ran it on the front to show how bad they were. I understand they got quite a kick out of it. (I’d show an image from the issues, except that I found out what is wrong with my scanner -- it’s busted. So, no scanned-in images from me until I get a new one. You know, when we have money again.)

A year later, my buddy Eric published a final issue of The Tunnel Rat on his own, causing much more strife, in part because he and I stood out on the corner and handed the issues to kids coming in, and in part because it was a lot racier and more fun and addressed ongoing controversies better than I ever did. If any student remembers The Tunnel Rat, it’s Eric’s issue that he remembers, I’m sure. For example, he played on the health ministry’s decision to excise contraception information from a campus magazine by including a dotted-line condom that students could cut-out and glue together before engaging in sex.

That one perturbed no small number of people -- self-important students and administrators alike -- who actually believed that if no mention was ever made of sexual activity, then by God the students wouldn’t engage in it! I’ve seen these kinds of attitudes persist during school board meetings, church socials, and of course, at the federal level, in just about everything Moral Majority types go on about.

So just today I was wondering if I might be able to find a reference to The Tunnel Rat, -- it being one of the few a vanity searches I’ve never conducted -- perhaps in some guy’s web page reflecting on his school days.

Nope. The only mention I found is so small as to make it a sort of a found poem. It’s mentioned, for some obscure reason, in the root directory of the campus computer mainframe. This is the whole of it:

Tunnel Rat - Lampoon
Publication – totally anonymous (Bootlegged)
File: 21/0

I guess if I want people to remember me for something unique and wonderful, I’m going to have to try something new.

Shutterbug

I miss photography.

At first I let it go because photography played such a big part of my job. I got so sick of carrying a camera around (I carried it to every assignment) that I didn’t want to be bothered with it in my off time, and moreover I didn’t want to think in frames during that time. One of my favorite movies is a piece starring Joe Pesci called “The Public Eye,” in which he plays a Weegee type of shutterbug who lives off the New York City police radio and contracts his work out to area newspapers. Two things make this film excellent, and the storyline and plot aren’t them. It’s his portrayal of the consummate newshound -- who isn’t afraid of anything -- or rather is terrified of everything, but ignores it for the sake of the picture. The scene in the Italian mob restaurant is priceless, because it is the type of event that every news photog dreams of; catching the daily violence as it happens. But what makes this movie a film is how it shows how he doesn’t just take pictures, but sees all the life around him in frames. You ever see those budding film school directors walking around with that finder thingy and putting it up to their eye all the time? It’s like that, only without the thingy. This film completely captures both the feeling and the effect it has on the photographer.

I was recruited right out of college by the yearbook rep to be a partner in his photography business; he liked my candids so much. Dave had a debilitating condition from a stroke and knew he’d need more and more help as time went on. But I turned him down. I had been a photographer for all of my 5 college years, and had only gotten into writing for the paper’s op/ed and features later, and only started news writing in my last two years. But I felt two things that made me not want to take that excellent opportunity. There was that energy of youth that made me want to take my talent and run with it: perhaps to become the consummate journalist, perhaps something else. The position would primarily have been taking group shots and portraits at local high schools and doing some of their homecoming dances and football games and such as well. But just starting out and jumping right into high school was a very distasteful concept to me at the time. Even considering my situation today, I’m still glad I turned that job down. I could see then how, 10, 20, 30 years later, I’d still be doing the same thing. It was an appalling vision. The other thing was that feeling of living photography. I made a conscious decision to go into news and not photography upon leaving school. I knew that, were I to become I professional photographer, I would have to eat, drink, and breathe photography. A photographer is never off duty, you see. If he doesn’t take his camera everywhere he goes, and misses a great shot, he’ll always rue it. And if he takes it everywhere he goes, it becomes an anchor, dragging the spirit of the moment right out of his soul.

So I got the newspaper job at The Apex Herald (and later at the Wake Weekly), in large part because of my photography skill, which as far as candids are concerned, is excellent. That, and as the publisher (his name was Biff) told me at the time, because I “could put a sentence together.” So, for about 5 years, I took photos with nearly every story, and many non-stories (kids on the playground, car wrecks, that kind of stuff). Like a maroon, I didn’t save most of them, as the film didn’t belong to me and I never had free time to make enlargements.

Today, I was raking leaves (oh, how many of them there are!), and noticed a giant grasshopper on the screen door. They’ve been really big this year, which is cool, because you can see their faces and antennae and everything. I grabbed my FM2 and my 70-210 zoom (a Vivitar Series One, one of the first lenses I ever bought; think 1988) which has a macro capability. Problem is, with the macro, the incoming light is reduced, and so you need either more light, or a slower shutter speed. Plus, at macro, the focal plane is cut down to centimeters, making staying in focus very difficult. It was getting late, and so I was forced to slow the shutter speed down to about 1/60th of a second. I was shooting T-max B&W, on which I splurged recently and bought a couple rolls. You know you’re poor when 4 rolls of film seems an outrageous expense. So I took a few shots, but on only one was I still enough, I think. Anyways, I was frustrated because I have clearly let my sedentary life weaken my arm and wrist muscles to the point where I can’t sit absolutely still for 10 minutes waiting for the perfect shot. So, I figure I’ll do two things. I’m going to start exercising more, and take more pictures. One of these days, I’d like to watch The Public Eye again. It’s an excellent film.

When I figure out what’s wrong with my scanner (currently suffering a communication breakdown with my PC), I’ll put some more of my better photos on the blog.

Insomniac Theatre

One thing about persistent unemployment is how easy it is to have one’s schedule get all messed up. I’m kind of a night person anyways, so staying up really late just gets all that much easier if one is intent on getting all the way through a good book, or stuck in the middle of a marathon game of Civilization.

The problem is it’s much easier to get stuck into an awake at night and asleep during the day routine than it is to get unstuck. I can’t force myself to sleep if I’m not tired and there’s few exertions I can do at night to make myself tired that won’t wake up the sleeping party of the house. Basement activities are heard right above in the bedroom, so I can’t just get drunk and play pool or darts all night while listening to music. And this being autumn, and our house being situated on an acre of deciduous trees, there is certainly no shortage of leaves to be raked up -- a very exhausting activity -- but one can’t rake in the pitch of night.

So I end up sitting, as I said, at the computer or the TV, or reading on the couch, and while I do eventually get tired, usually that occurs between the hours of 6 and 10 a.m. Often I’ll tell myself to simply get through the next day. Eight o'clock would do, but I rarely make it to eight. So I sleep from noon to midnight, or 4 to 2 a.m. and then start the whole beastly process all over again.

I’d have to say one of the only things that helps me pass the time so well is the preponderance of decent serials to watch on early morning TV. If I didn’t have those I’m sure I would be quite out of my mind by now. Have you ever seen the tripe that comes on early in the a.m.? It’s no good turning to CNN or other news channels; they seem intent on exhibiting the most trite and insipid casts of happy morning people talking about TomKat’s wedding -- they actually use that expression, TomKat -- and other such exciting world events.

But lucky enough for me, the folks at TNT have decided that there are just enough lost souls out there with naught better to do than watch TV all night and early in the morning to play contiguous episodes of Angel and Charmed. Buffy is on FX, I have recently discovered, but that show is a lot harder to watch. They all have a lot of soap opera elements to them, which is barely tolerable to me. But Angel, which is a show about a brooding vampire hell-bent on destroying all the elements of evil in Los Angeles (think Blade without the guns and swords), is far less soapy, or is soapy in a much more supernatural way. People’s loves are lost not because they got a better job and moved to Seattle, but because they were taken by a great horned daemon into the hell of upside down sinners. Much more dramatic and imaginative, I think.

I’ve pretty much gotten to see the entire rise and fall of the vampire called Angel. By the way, the final episode of that show -- in which he and his cohorts all go out fighting the forces of evil in a prelude to the apocalypse -- is pretty awesome. Nothing like ending on a high note.

Buffy and Charmed center around primarily female casts, which seems to lend itself to far more discussions about why their Saturday night dates never work out and far fewer about what to do when the end of the world gets here. I think Angel, a Buffy spin off, must have been created to give the male fans of Buffy a way to regain their sanity. Likewise, Charmed, which I must admit initially attracted me because I had a thing for Alyssa Milano, was cool because of the supernatural sets and effects and the writers and directors’ love of soft pedal comedy. The show incorporated the gamut of myths and legends ever envisioned and dropped them all down onto the three sisters’ heads in a San Francisco setting. One of the coolest things to happen on that show was when Milano’s character Phoebe fell in love with a daemon called the Source, i.e., the source of all evil. Any evangelical Christian who had rationalized his viewing up until that point was thereby dismissed. But the female leads themselves were really annoying. There was no end of whining about love lives and such and when they brought a baby into the mixture it was all she wrote.

Buffy was all that coupled with a high school setting. Think Saved by the Bell with the occasional human sacrifice. If it were more like the movie version -- with a Pee Wee Herman vamp that refuses to die -- or something like Idle Hands, I could have taken it better. But then, the cast would have all died early and the series couldn’t have run until its high school heroes were getting gray hair.

But criticisms aside, at least I had them to watch during my all night Insomniac Theatre. It could be a whole lot worse. Maybe I’ll get lucky and the Sci-Fi channel will drop the all night infomercials and run the entire Dr. Who series from its inception. That, or a job and a workday schedule would be nice.

Bad for Bizness

I'm actually not fond of the following type of poem because it's more a stream of conciousness bit of prose broken down and made to appear a poem. Many people write poetry this way, taking long sentences and adding a lot of returns and getting published in big name journals and winning awards and such. So, I'm not fond of it, though prosaic language does occasionally fill my mind. When it does, I feel compelled to put it to paper. Which is what I did, early last Saturday, while sitting in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel in Research Triangle Park (I was helping with the writers' network fall conference), while reading the Wall Street Journal.

As I say in the poem the writer makes barely an effort to hide his doubt that the new congress won't bring down Wall Street with regulatory legislation. There's a point to that, I guess. After all, if the poor and downtrodden start making or saving more money, that means someone else won't be posessing all that money any longer. Or, to paraphrase the economist on NPR's Marketplace: When someone gets a great deal, someone else gives it up.

So I present to you a little bit of proestry about how I was feeling after reading a very well written, and, truth-be-told, very informative indictment of the Big 'D' crowd taking the reins of our little 'd' republic for just a little while.


4 a.m. -- too hot to sleep.
Blendbuzz of a lobby waterfall/humming lights/Musak mixture
trickling into the top of my semi-consciousness.
Too tired to really read,
I slowly pore over the new day’s news.
An election.
A change of pace.
A nation has voiced a single word:
Democrats, Democrats, Democrats.

This is not an election story -- that’s three days past.
It’s a not-so-subtle lament; an ode to the old guard,
with its old crowd doing things the old way.
“Bad for Business,” the headline reads,
disguised in the language of the upper crust,
of moneyed men.

Mugs of newly guilted, “anti-trade” congressmen
line the news jump like police photos of murder suspects
topping the crime news.
The mention of “jobs” or “labor” seems an afterthought,
or a distasteful necessity,
first making mention halfway down the page.
“Views of a troubled economy”
(voiced by those who really work for a living,
or aren’t working, more to the point),
doesn’t poke its mole head out of the background
until well into the jump. Fifteen paragraphs in, to be precise.

But the writing -- oh the writing --
barely attempts to conceal
the contempt
that this new guard, this big ‘D’, will be
Bad for Bizness.
Specifically, their business, the business of getting richer
(initial richness a benchmark long since attained).

“Things are going to be bad,”
the editors and publishers of the bi-zness papers and pages
(who can’t find a layoff they can’t spin aright)
are afraid to say out loud.
So now, say it softly, if not so subtly,
pen a frustration-laden,
knock the new guys,
pouting piece
that claims, clear as this new day,
that steadfast belief that workers
-- perish the thought! --
ought have no say
in the decisions affecting
their American workplace.

Perhaps this week I’ll find a job.

The Song of You

A house for sale is a clean house
with everything in its place.
But a lived-in house is always becoming askew,
bit-by-bit
by its inhabitants.

Less by those who clean up after themselves,
more by those who let things lie where they fall.

A dropped magazine,
letters on the floor,
water filled bowls tipped or overturned,
crumbled bits of clay scattered across the floor.

You would leave things crumpled
where you stood, sat or lay on them.
Rolled up prints, someone’s clothes,
even pizza boxes weren’t spared.

You kept yourself clean, of course,
though one can be fastidious and careless all at once.
Floors and mats were in constant need of washing.

You were diminutive: four legs and a tail,
made no sound padding down halls.
Yet even when you could not be found,
disappeared into some cabinet, crook, or closet corner,
the feeling of you was evident.

Visible even when invisible,
the song of you was everywhere.

No longer.

The halls are silent.
The soundlessness of your footfalls
continues to be silent.

But whereas before the knowledge of your presence,
somewhere within these four walls,
filled every empty space with life
and love, resonating in my heart,
the now toneless silence is deafening.

Dogs with Dignity

My sister Nicki’s dog, Sugar, may be dying, news which is rough to hear so soon after the loss of our last surviving cat, Fifi, and the death of one of her other long living dogs, Woola. Sugar’s mother, Clea, is also getting up there, and has been experiencing the numerous old-age problems that occur in convalesced mammals. Fifi had a flea problem over the last couple of seasons; Beth and I were wondering if the body’s aging doesn’t also affect the inner body, slowing down the immune response and whatnot, and if so, if the fleas and other bugs (including the microscopic variety) somehow know it.

With Clea being old and kind of pitiful, it’s still easy to think of Sugar as the “young dog,” even though she was probably less than a year old herself when she gave birth to him. So it’s tough for me to see him as a dog that’s had his day.

Anyways, what’s wrong with Sugar is an enlarged kidney (or is it liver?) and he has developed a growth inside his body which may or may not be cancerous. If it’s not, they might try to remove it, so he can live on a while longer. If it is, they’ll probably just skip the procedure, and take care of him, surrounding him with love, until he dies.

I know this because my sister has taken him to the emergency animal hospital for a biopsy. He’ll need a more invasive biopsy performed with anesthesia to determine the true extent of his illness. This is not an exact science -- and Sugar could die during the biopsy operation itself. She may prefer to not go that route, and bring him home to die at his own pace, where he can get the best quality of life care an old dog can get: the love and care of his human and other animal friends and family.

Beth and I did so with Morris and Fifi (Socks died unexpectedly). Morris had a stroke and was clearly out of his head, so we put him in a basket with blankets and laid him by our bed. We gave him water until he could take it no longer, then, after a while, he died. As I wrote in an earlier blog, we did the same with Fifi. We didn’t want the sometimes frightening feeling of the veterinarian’s office to be the backdrop for their last moments.

Even in this day and age, with veterinarians treating pets for cancer and other ailments, with all night emergency rooms for dogs and cats (we took Fifi to one once -- she was in diabetic shock, the vet cured her with some sugar water), advanced food formulas, medications specialized for their body types and breeds, designer toys, etc. etc., even now, nobody bats an eye at the idea of allowing the animal to die with dignity when his time is up.

So why is it we can treat our pets this way, and not ourselves? Why do we insist on getting the last breath out of people who will never awake again to experience it? Why do we send our elderly family members away to die, instead of keeping them home with us? Why do we pass legislation to prevent the pulling of plugs? Why do loved ones go to court to refuse the rights of people to seek out their own treatments, to eschew expensive and poisonous medications, and to choose the approximate time and place of their own expiration?

Is it because we love our animals less? Because they can’t engage legal representation? Twenty, fifty, a hundred years from now, will humans treat our own deaths more sensibly? Or will we be putting our pets on life support?

I don’t have a definitive answer to any of these questions. But it’s something to think about.

Nicki, kiss Sugar on the schnozz for me.

After the Fall

Many years have I still to burn, detained,
like a candle-flame on this body; but I enclose
blue shadow within me, a presence which lives contained
in my flame of living, the invisible heart of the rose.

So through these days, while I burn on the fuel of life,
what matter the stuff I lick up in my daily flame;
Seeing the core is a shadow inviolate,
a darkness that dreams my dream for me, ever the same…

Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion.
The apples falling like great drops of dew
to bruise themselves an exit from themselves…

And it is time to go, to bid farewell
to one’s own self, find an exit
from the fallen self…

But dipped, once dipped in dark oblivion
the soul has peace, inward and lovely peace.

--from D.H. Lawrence

The most important call, ever

I just got a call from Rush Limbaugh, asking, no, imploring me to vote conservative Tuesday, to prevent liberals from taking over the government, and assumedly, ruining it. Rush called me -- David Leone! What an honor. What importance this election must be for a syndicated millionaire addict talk show host to take his valuable time to call a guy like me. I’m so honored. It’s incredible. If only I could vote for Rush for congress. What a better world it would be then!

Rush didn’t let me get a word in edgewise, which my wife suggested means it was actually a recording, but I know better -- that’s the way he always talks! Rush. What an honor! Better stay by the phone tomorrow; maybe I’ll get a call from a major TV figure who’ll convince me that liberals can’t be trusted because they make up statistics during debates or in books, and even use them again when corrected, or because liberals pad their resumes with awards they never received. So, maybe I’ll get a call from Bill O’Reilly! Or Ann Coulter! I’m giddy at the possibilities!

Hey, maybe I will vote conservative. Because if there’s one thing I don’t want, it’s to ruin a government that any totalitarian dictator, kleptomaniac, or crack-addled idiot would be proud to call his own.

Let me just run down my list of modern conservative values. I thought I knew what values were important: honesty, integrity, taking care of the elderly, hurt and destitute, respecting the liberties of others, wishing for a robust economy that raises all boats, that kind of stuff. But oh my God if Rush Limbaugh thinks those are actually evil values, I must be wrong! That’s what I get for looking to scum like George Washington and Jesus Christ for my values.

But wait, what are conservative values? If I’m going to re-elect these important candidates whose morality is above reproach, I have to know just what values to look for in a politician. Maybe I can look through the news for some examples.

Ah! Here’s one: Marriage is between a woman and a man. And his mistress. And his crank-supplying gay lover. Gotta remember those family values.

Oh, that’s right; I also have to make sure to vote for people who are pro-life. Unless they’re against executing the possibly guilty. Or saving the lives of mothers seeking abortions. Or saving the lives of muslims caught up in an indiscriminate dragnet. Or those caught in a crossfire. Or those who live within a country or two away from where the 9/11 terrorists are hiding. Or those who need a doctor but can’t afford it. Got it.

Aha! I remember -- I have to vote for people who have an undying respect and honor for the 2nd amendment to the Constitution: the right to bear arms. That one’s easy because I already believe in that. Only I have to make sure to pick the people with the properly nuanced beliefs. I absolutely cannot vote for someone who also respects the 1st amendment: the right to free speech and religion. Or really, the 5th and 6th amendments, because terrorists might be able to exploit those freedoms. I mean, c’mon, civil liberties need to be restricted to only those people that non-corrupt politicians, cops, judges, and district attorneys are certain are really innocent. It’s a good thing I’ll be voting conservative -- that will guarantee that I won’t be electing corrupt politicians, who will undoubtedly guarantee that law enforcement personnel and soldiers won’t make any mistakes or act maliciously against anyone who might not be guilty of a crime. Whew! That’s a load off my back. I don’t know why I haven’t been voting conservative all along!

Are there any more values I need to think about? Oh yes. I need to elect people who provide good American jobs by ensuring that giant filthy rich corporations make more money then ever before. Because we all know how wasteful rich people are with their money. Just think of all the lavish things they’ll buy that will need to be made by minimum wage workers. That’ll keep us all employed, no doubt. But really, I’m hoping that my conservative congressmen vote to do away with the minimum wage altogether. Just think of it, if there was no minimum wage, you could pay 5 people the same amount as one person now. For $10 ten people could be producing goods. Unemployment would be zero! Imagine all of the products that will be made, shipped and sold, all putting enormous amounts of wealth back into the pockets of the companies. And then, you know it’ll happen, a few pennies on every thousand dollars will come trickling back down into our own pockets. It’ll be a utopia. Damn liberals.

That’s all the values I can think of right now, but there must be more, so I implore readers of my blog to help me out with some others, so I can be fully prepared when I head to the polls on Tuesday. Just think of the glory that this country would be if we all regained our senses and voted conservative. The possibilities are staggering.

UPDATE: No one bothered to respond, so to punish them, I voted Democratic. So there!

Fifi Ten Blankets

My cat died today (Nov. 2).

She had been getting worse lately; she was somewhat deaf and meowed really loudly, she had some vision loss -- cataracts, I guess, and some arthritis or weakness in her legs, but otherwise she was pretty spry. She could still hop up onto things -- and when we let her out nearly every day she’d wander over our whole lot, into the neighbor’s lot and disappear. Usually she’d end up lying on the cool creek bed -- a spring that only has water when it rains. But she’d eventually make her way back to the house, by feeding time at the latest, picking her way through the tall grass and leaves. She was especially unsteady on the 31st. I figured the cool weather was making her legs stiff. Probably she was already on her way -- she’d had a fang fall out a few weeks ago from an infection in her mouth and we’d been giving her antibiotics, but I gather now that the tooth problem was likely a symptom of her overall condition and not a sole condition.

Anyway, the point is that she was a very old cat, and we knew her time would be coming soon -- this year or perhaps within a year or two more -- but we still were caught off guard a bit by the suddenness of it because we didn’t see her visibly ailing. Last night though, it was clear she was hurting, or especially stiff, or something. We sat in front of the TV and she slept on Beth’s lap for hours, got up for a little dinner, and then got on my lap (my belly, actually -- my too-large-for-my-frame stomach has been a nice resting place for her body for some time now) and went to sleep for hours. I tried to sleep with her but it became obvious to us that she was failing, maybe not for the last time (she’d scared us before, only to recover and live on again). But she was definitely sick. Then, in the middle of the night, she started losing motor control and began meowing loudly. Not sure if she was in pain or just frustrated. It took a few hours from then: we put her in a clothes basket and brought her to the bedroom and comforted her in her pangs. Then, around 7 a.m., she died.

Fifi (short for Ophelia) was about 17 years old. Which is pretty darn old for a pet. Beth rescued her and her brother Socks (Socrates) from the wild and when we got married, the two siblings and another cat she’d also rescued, Morris, became my cats too. They were my family, and while I am very aware that they got to live much longer lives than they would have if they’d stayed in the wild, it still is very sad to have lost them. Morris must have been around 18 when he died in winter of 2000 after suffering a stroke. Socks, who was pretty fat, died 4 years ago on Nov. 1, due to complications from his diabetes. Fifi also was mildly diabetic, though it never seemed to affect her until recently. She was also born feline leukemia positive, meaning she was definitely a carrier and could have developed terrible complications and died early, but she never did. The vet doctors all recommended that feline leukemia cats be put down when it’s discovered -- apparently they are all convinced that no cat would ever survive it. But Fifi never had any troubles from it.

I guess I don’t have anything especially creative to say. I just felt I needed to talk a bit about her. I loved that cat -- I loved all of them; they were as much family to me as other people’s kids. Of course, you don’t feel the same about kits as you do kids, because kits are adults that pretty much take care of themselves. But Fifi, Socks and Morris were all as much a part of my family as humans would have been. They are all three buried in the yard now. Morris is in the back, under some trees (we call it Morris’ Woods), Socks is amongst the trees to the north of the house and Fifi went under the rich soil in front of the bushes in the middle of the yard where she used lie, taking stock of things.

We gave them a nice home here, and my continual unemployment provided me some very top quality snuggling time with the Pooks (one of many nicknames for Fifi). She would lie on my belly on the couch, trapping me in front of the TV, forcing me to watch endless movies for hours at a time, much of which was spent on American Movie Classics. Clint Eastwood, I know ye well. Those sessions would often leave me too hot to sleep. I’ve got this temperature thing, if I get too hot I can’t shed the heat -- Beth has posited that this is because I’m actually some sort of reptile. Very recently, I made the comment that I didn’t need a blanket if I had Fifi on me because she was the equivalent of 10 blankets. So, in addition to Ophelia, Fifi, Pooks, Pooky, Pook de Ville, Fiferlie, Pretty Girl, Her Fifiness, and other nicknames, we can remember that cat by her American Indian-style name: Fifi Ten Blankets.

Life would be a lot cooler if we all went by Indian names, don’t you think?

life is sweet

when the air is crisp and leaves turn gold
and you’ve got the legs and luxury of going outdoors
to enjoy it
you think for a moment that life is sweet

when you’ve got your cake and cream soda and your choices
of comings, goings and in-betweens too
and you know you can complain out loud
then life seems sweet

when favor is your friend and your friends and family
like to do you favors
and the only ones to hate you really just hate people like you
you ought to know that life is sweet

when you have stress but you’ve never really been stressed
and you look in the paper and see some who have
and think: that will never be me
you say out loud ‘life is sweet’

but when you feel the heartbreak of the tens
of thousands who don’t have the loves or a life
resembling yours
you truly know that life is sweet

White Noise

I wrote the following poem when I was immersed in the machine, without focus for my creativity, without any goals for my life. These days I feel as if an entirely different white noise is sparking inside my head; it is a thousand-plus different ideas that are screaming to be put to pen: to poem, to story, to essay, to book. Whereas before it felt as all confusion, now it seems more as a fire, pulsing and spitting bits of passion. It's torturous to try to separate one thought from the next, one idea from another, but I need to try to get it down on paper, bit by bit, before I wake up one day like the old artist in O Henry's "The Last Leaf" with only an empty canvas to represent his life's work.


The space beyond my eyeballs
is fraught with random noise.

My daily trip to work,
plodding jobs,
endless encounters,
and discussions.
The end is not in reach.

The bang that began it all,
left an explosion of matter and light.
Is the Universe expanding,
or is it all just in my head?

The noise that clouds my sight,
the buzz that fills my ears.
Is there any reason to it all,
the white noise that is my life?

Ignorance is Bliss

The little town of Apexlehem has been in the news quite a bit lately, for a fire at a used chemicals transfer site, as I noted in an earlier blog. Turns out the fire probably could have been a lot worse than it was -- environmental quality experts haven’t found much contamination in the air or water -- and eventually, those folks living right next door will see their housing values climb back up again. But what has been absolutely killing me is reading the daily newspaper interviews with town officials, who have been falling over themselves dissembling that they had no knowledge, no way of knowing, no possible inclination that EQ Industrial Services had harmful chemicals within spitting distance of the residences of the good people of Apex.

As a former reporter whose coverage area consisted primarily of that town, I found their comments quite distasteful. It is possible, technically, that most of them didn’t know what was there, as EQ took over the site three years ago from a different company, EnviroChem Environmental Services, which had been conducting the same type of work since 1987. But what kind of defense is it really, to say that the people elected and appointed to be in charge of the safety of the townspeople were ignorant of what was going on just under their noses? Several also claimed ignorance of EQ’s failed inspections of just six months before.

What they certainly did know was that the area sandwiched between all those new single family homes on Ten-Ten Road, the old downtown district and U.S. 1 is and has been designated for industrial use for many years. The old Pine State milk building is there; as were several other defunct plants and warehouses. That is, until the town’s thinkers got newer, light industrial and strictly commercial companies to move in, turning what was once a kind of a miniature rust belt into a modern business district. All very commendable and very good for the heart of the town. Change is slow, you know, so, since these town leaders clearly have been doing a good job in making lemonade out of this lemonlike district, one can hardly blame them for some of the leftovers still souring parts of the town.

But one can easily blame them for being ignorant of what is doing the souring. Personally, I doubt that town officials really didn’t know what was going on at EQ. I imagine their claims of ignorance were possibly technically true: they might not have known the exact types of chemicals on the site, while still knowing what type of business it was. But it’s possible that the mayor and town board members weren’t fully aware of what was stored on site -- town council meetings tend to deal with zoning issues, and less often with business proposals. Quite possibly, the previous company was there when they all arrived, and as such, the new company, performing the same type of work, might not need to present itself to the town at all, other than for certain permits.

So, while officials might really not have known what was going on under their noses, certainly somebody did. Which is why I have an especially hard time accepting that the town manager’s office was unaware of the situation. It just seems too farfetched.

But a really good mayor, a really quality town council, and of course, any town manager worth his salt (Bill Sutton anyone?) would have known what EQ was doing, which brings me around to my central point: either they were lying about the situation, or truly ignorant. Which one is better?

And so, as all this coverage continues, and the Apex mayor gets compared to Rudy Giuliani in the press for his presence, and the town leaders hold hearings on the issue, and everyone claims they want what’s best for the town so they’ll try to stop EQ from rebuilding, which all sounds fine and dandy. But the reporter in me is thinking of two things.

One is that I am pretty sure that there used to be a business in town that acted as a temporary storage facility for low-level radioactive waste (from hospitals and labs, etc.) before it being shipped off to some dump somewhere. Perhaps my memory serves me wrong on this issue, but certainly there are other businesses inside the town limits (with residential areas within a mile’s radius) which have hazardous materials stored on site. It’s nobody’s fault -- it’s just the town was way back never expected to grow up all around these places. So why can’t anyone admit it to their constituents? Is it truly better to have people think that city life is perfectly safe even if it’s a pipe dream? Is the image of Apex more important than the reality of Apex?

And the other is that all that time we wrote about Carolina Power and Light (now Progress Energy)’s planned expansion of their high-level radioactive waste storage on the site of the nuclear power plant in the rural New Hill area south of town, town leaders (excepting former town board member Doug Meckes) gave the issue the official brush-off. So what if the storage facility was not designed to hold that much waste? So what if shipping the waste to Wake County from nuke plants in Wilmington and South Carolina increased the dangers of a train accident or sabotage resulting in a radiation leak or fire? So what if CP&L wanted to use an existing facility built decades before instead of possibly a safer, but far more expensive storage process? So what if the energy company officials refused to consider the potential danger of a terrorist attack (in 1999) in order to release the radiation into the area? So what?

The town officials seemed to regard the entire issue as an episode of “not my business,” even though the business is truly in the town’s back yard. Should, God forbid, anything bad ever occur at that nuke plant, any environmental and economic impact would affect the nearby towns of Apex and Holly Springs the greatest.

For the record, our newspaper never took the stance that the nuclear waste expansion was a bad idea, but we agreed with the NC WARN protesters that there should have been a full public accounting and review of the plans by qualified non-company experts. This was an accounting we never got, and we certainly never got any help in the asking from the officials in the town of Apex.

So, while I find it entirely possible, and even plausible, that the duly elected and salaried leaders of the pleasant town of Apex, North Carolina didn’t know what was going on under their noses, and therefore can’t possibly be held accountable for a chemical storage facility with a shaky record going up in smoke and sending 17,000 residents fleeing for their lives, maybe, just maybe, that level of ignorance is simply business as usual.

Promise for a Cure

A home away from house
in some forgotten ‘cale.

A journey to a place
beyond sight of heart and mind.

A vision of tomorrows
more interesting than today’s.

A place inside of time
where spirits roam unchecked.

A halt to endless questions.
A finish to the fear.

An arrival to the certitude
of a life worth living.

You shall get there.

Brother can you spare a second?

I don't intend to use this blog often to rant, but I figure it's okay to do so every once in a while. I've been dealing for some time with living on the edge of being broke. Sometimes I use the term "poor," but broke is more apt. We're not poor; Beth and I "own" our own home, which really means that it belongs to the bank and we're renting-to-own. But after making the monthly house payment and forking over sums for the various utilities, groceries, and credit card bills, we have nothing left. And I'm not speaking figuratively here. So when it comes to seeing the enormous costs that come with the war in Iraq, (not to mention Afghanistan -- anyone remember that war?) and threats that we may need to use military force in Iran and North Korea, I really start to lose it.

That's because these days, I think of money in terms of $10 bills. My current temp job pays about $10 an hour, and so, when I take my lunch break, I sit back and think: "After taxes, Dave, you've just pulled down a cool $25." I'm not kidding, I do that. But then, if I take the luxury of buying a newspaper to read over lunch, I invariably see some figure on the current costs of running a federal government. Or worse, grandiose initiatives are referred to without mentioning the enormous price tag that accompanies it. So it doesn't take long for me to get to thinking what I could do with even a tiniest bit of that money.

According to nationalpriorities.org, based on congressional appropriations, the current cost of war in Iraq alone is about $333 billion. That's a lot of money. According to the Web site, if we funneled a mere $24 billion of that into fighting world hunger, we could cut the number of starving families this year, by half. In fact, at that rate, we could feed half the world's hungry for more than 13 years. A mere $10 billion per year would stop the spread of AIDS, according to retiring UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Or for a paltry $3 billion a year, we could vaccinate most of the three million kids who die every year of preventable diseases. Of course, that many surviving children would create other problems, but even if we did all three for the next 5 years, we'd still have $148 billion left over to address that.

Actually, this is how I used to think, back when I just had one of the lowest paid white collar jobs in the workforce. Nowadays, I only think about how I could spend even the smallest amounts of that money myself. It's hard to keep up with the counter on the page, but it appears that we are spending about $9 billion a day in Iraq. That's about $38 million an hour, $683 thousand a minute, and $10,000 per second. That's right, I said $10,000 per second.

Now, I know that pretty much everyone visiting my blog could find an economical use for 10 Gs, but since we're pared down to the bone, I could really use it. I figure that if I had a single second's worth of what we're paying for the war in Iraq, I could live on it, tightly, for about 8 months (untaxed). On two seconds' worth, we'd get by for a year, and I could probably afford to renew my weekend newspaper subscription, and visit either the dentist or the doctor for a checkup. On three seconds -- whoo-whee, we'd be in the lap of luxury. A minute's worth, spent and invested wisely, could last the two of us the rest of our lives.

Gotta go -- time to check my Powerball ticket.

I’ll take (pictures of) Manhattan

I went to NYC for the turn of 2000-01 with two friends, and that was the year that the city was snowed in. My friend, Eric, was on the very last flight in -- the rest were cancelled -- which was fortunate, that he made it, I mean, because I hadn't bothered to copy down any of the hotel information, or his cell phone number.

I had actually for years planned on going for the '99-00 turn of the millennia, but I panicked that year figuring it was too large of a celebration not to get hit by terrorists. I always think about stuff like that, which is one reason I was miffed when after 9/11/01 people kept claiming that "nobody could have imagined the terrorists could strike in the U.S." Actually, what really bothered me were people working insipid jobs, like some Hollywood gossip columnist, saying things like "It just doesn’t seem right to report on who is dating who right now." As if somehow, in the other 51 weeks of the year, every year, writing a gossip column is a serious business necessary for the survival of humanity.

But I digress. Here we were, trapped in Manhattan in the dead of winter, and the snow would not stop falling. Transit was shut down, as were city services, like garbage trucks, and there was a blanket of white over the whole town. It was an excellent first trip to "The City" for me. I took a boatload of photos, but most of it is still unprinted. I'll get around to building that darkroom, someday, when we have the money. But I have a shot or three that I scanned some time ago, so I figured I'd post them here. When I get around to scanning some of my other better pix, I'll toss them up on the blog as well. If Eric ever emails me any of his good shots, like the one of the working women hanging out at the bar, I'll post them as well. If you haven't met Eric yet, he's the one leaning up against the wall in the 72nd street subway stop.

the floodgates of the heavens were opened

The heavy rain last night made me think of these photos I took at Kerr Lake.

What Goes Up...

The town I used to work in blew up yesterday. Well, the whole town didn’t blow up, just a hazardous materials facility in the middle of it, which sent a plume of toxic fume into the air and some 17,000 people had to be evacuated. You probably saw it on the news -- it happened in Apex, North Carolina, a once small town turned suburb of Raleigh.

The mayor was on TV, calling it the worst disaster in the town’s history, which is a pretty serious comment, considering the entire downtown burned to the ground in 1912. I recall an old man talking about how they thought they might be able to save his father’s general store, “but when that black powder caught,” it was all over.

A single burning building might not seem comparable to losing an entire downtown, but then again, this building supposedly stored toxic and dangerous chemicals that don’t react too well when exposed to the human lungs. Apparently, the release of such chemicals into the immediate environment could also be a serious concern -- what goes up must come down -- and the rain that followed on Friday will run whatever was released right back into the water table.

You know how they always tell you not to pour your used grease, motor oil, or other substances down the drain? Well that stuff eventually works its way back to the reservoir where people and fish and birds and deer get their drinking water from, or it seeps down into area wells. The release of hazardous chemicals works the same way. It gets into the air, attaching itself to dust particles and whatnot, then falls or is rained down onto the ground, settling on fences and cars and houses, and trees and people, and every where else. The rain helps keep it out of the air and out of your lungs, of course, which is very good, but it’ll probably concentrate any contamination to certain places, which could be bad as well.

It all really depends on what was being stored (the paper said industrial wastes including paints, solvents, pesticides and weed killer) at the facility and of that, what was turned into smoke. One of the biggest hazards of smoking cigarettes is not the tobacco itself -- I mean to say, tobacco is bad for you, but that’s not all that’s bad for you -- but the combustion of materials within the cigarette that the human lung was never designed to accommodate. Cigs are chock full of preservatives like formaldehyde, and agents to boost “flavor” like cyanide and the stuff they use to make battery acid. Those, and the bleached white paper that burns while you smoke it can be downright caustic.

So, any building fire can have the same immediate effect. The chemical reaction caused by the intense heat and fire releases bits of all sorts of toxic fumes into the air even in a normal building fire -- but when you add mass quantities of, say, pesticides into the mix, it could be extra dangerous. They’re not saying yet, but according to the news, nobody seemed to have been seriously hurt yet.

So anyways, the whole time I’m watching this on the news, you know what I’m thinking? That I wish I could be there. I was a reporter, you see, for the Apex Herald newspaper, a weekly covering the town and a little of the surrounding county, from 1995-1999. Leaving that job for a better one is what got me to buying a house in Louisburg. The better job didn’t work out, and eventually, after dabbling in some corporate work here and there, it got me to where I am now -- unemployed.

So I’m watching the coverage on TV, all the while my mind is racing to think of what I’d be doing if I were there. The interviews I’d conduct, the people I’d consult, the residents I’d speak to, the photos I’d take, the questions I’d ask the mayor during the press conference he gave. And then the information I’d get from the town manager, his assistant, or perhaps the planning director, that the mayor doesn’t have a clue about.

Something I’ve noticed about the daily papers -- is they always want to speak to the mayors of the towns affected during any big issue. Town blows up? Call the mayor. New business opening up? Call the mayor. When I was a reporter I never went to the mayor for information. Even a guy like Keith Weatherly who has been mayor in Apex for nigh on 10 years, and commissioner before that, and who must know a heck of a lot about his town -- it wouldn’t even have crossed my mind to go to him for anything other than a feel good comment. I mean, when you really want to learn about something, why go to a politician for information? I’ve never understood it.

It’s exciting to be a reporter, especially during times of conflict, or disaster. It’s what you live for. Plus, if you do any even decent coverage at all during such times, you’re a shoo-in for some kind of press award. It’s no secret that the trials and triumphs of the human spirit are what bring one the little recognition that you can get as a weekly newspaper journalist. But more than that, just being in the thick of it -- the tension, the apprehension, the dangers, the excitement of it, really, is like juice to the blood of the journalist. We live for those things.

So for a few moments, I get to run the investigation, beat the street with my feet, bump elbows with the daily and national press, muscling room for a better photo, call all my contacts, stand at ground zero of the blast, seeing, smelling, feeling the story seep into my bones, then spend all night and several weekend days pounding all that raw data out into a story, two stories, three, four, editing them, calling for confirmation, reviewing the pictures, choosing the ones for the most impact and poignancy, perhaps throwing them together for a picture page, perhaps spreading them all over the front page, and then watching it go to press, taking a half-day breather, and then starting all over again next week.

For a few moments, in my mind, I felt the journalist again. Then I switched off the TV.

On Monday I go back to work at a temp job.