Heart Burn

 Here is a little background: My father died as a result of burns he suffered when the small plane he was in crashed on approach to an airport in Northern Colorado. Because my father was a hearty soul and in pretty good shape for a sixty-one year old, he survived for several days after the accident. He was kept under sedation during this time because the severity of his condition would have been far too brutal to experience if he was awake. For those days, shortly before Thanksgiving until just after, the doctors and nurses at the University of Colorado Medical Center Burn Ward did everything they could to keep him alive. During this time, I wondered what the future might be like if he survived. What would his quality of life be like once he had endured all that suffering, rehabilitation, surgeries for repair and reconstruction? 

And it boggled my mind. 

He never regained consciousness. I was grateful that I had a chance to say my goodbyes at the airport in Oakland when he left. I was glad that I had a chance for last tag on his corporeal form at his bedside before he shuffled off to the afterlife. I miss him and I adopted a bias against small aircraft after his passing. 

All of this is prelude to saying that I don't care what Max Azzarello was trying to prove last week when he set himself on fire outside of the courthouse where the former game show host with more indictments than entire crime families is on trial for misuse of funds to pay an adult film actress to stay quiet about their adulterous hook up. Mister Azzarello was seen tossing pamphlets about just before he poured flammable liquid over his head and lit himself on fire. 

Was he protesting the proceedings inside the court? Was he sharing his paranoid views about something connected to current events outside? Making a statement about global warming? 

Don't care. 

My father died as the result of an accident. Dedicated medical professionals worked to save his life. For days. This guy showed up where the TV cameras were and took full advantage of the media. First responders arrived within moments and tried to save Azzarello, and he was rushed to a New York hospital where he passed away later that night in spite of all the efforts of all those who tried to save his life. 

Good riddance. 

I miss you, dad. 

What Is It Good For?

 I know, it's hard to keep track of what is happening across the globe when things are so very tumultuous here within our own borders. The Middle East is continuing in its near eighty year run of having some sort of armed conflict going on. Currently it is Iran and Israel who are shooting at one another, with the ongoing ugly mess in Gaza has been pushed briefly to the back burner. Those folks are in a tie with the Civil War in Myanmar, where a seemingly never-ending series of insurgencies have been taking place since the end of World War II. 

Then there's the war in Ukraine. A relative newcomer to this list, but they can lay claim to an eight year conflict that began with Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity back in 2014. The full-on Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February, 2022. You may remember that just a little before that Americans learned the Latin phrase "quid pro quo" as it related to the then US "president" trying to make a deal with the President of Ukraine. "I'll give you weapons if you give me help me get some dirt on my political rival." 

Since then, aid to Ukraine has been a political hot potato here in the United States, with many in the Republican Party seemingly happy to have Russia continue on blasting its way to overwhelming the recently dignified sovereign state of Ukraine. Now, with the rock in Israel and the hard place in Ukraine coming together to create a diplomatic conundrum that sometimes seems more like a game show than a policy discussion. The previous Speaker of the House, Republican Kevin McCarthy was deemed "unsuitable to govern" by members of his own party and removed from his seat. The unsuitable part was apparently that he was actively courting Democrats to collaborate on solutions to the country's problems. Like the War in Ukraine. 

So along comes Mike Johnson, deemed to be just the right amount of god-fearing conservative to fill McCarthy's chair. With an election swarming into this mix to make things even more confounding, Speaker Johnson has suddenly found himself in quite the pickle. Honor his party's increasingly bozo demands, or work across the aisle to find actual solutions to the country's and by extension the world's problems. “I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed. I think he might go to the Balkans next. I think he might have a showdown with Poland, or one of our NATO allies.” 

What? This won't make Marge Greene happy. She's going to want to turn the Speakership over again until she lands in it. Or her favorite dictator wins the election in November. Then maybe we can look forward to the beginning of our won civil war. 

Sleep tight, America!

Youth Brigade

 Ah, youth. It gives me solace to know that the generation that is coming up now is ready to take the reins of not just this nation of ours, but of the world as we know it. Whether it is climate change or the crisis in the Middle East, these kids have the power and they know how to use it. Not content to sit idly by while their planet becomes a place where they do not want to live, they are taking to the streets.

Like the students from Mount Nebo Middle School in Payson, Utah. Were they trying to get their administration to take threats to student safety and promote gun control on and around their campus? No. Were they hoping to generate awareness about waste disposal and recycling? No. Perhaps they wanted to get more student involvement in grass roots political movements within their state? Not exactly. 

The walkout that occurred this past week at Mount Nebo was regarding the school's dress code. 

Okay. Fair enough. Let's stick it to the man. Nobody's going to tell me what to wear!

Except that wasn't the way it went down. The students who staged a walkout at the middle school were hoping that the powers that be would more strictly enforce the dress code.

To discourage furries. 

According to WebMD, a furry is someone who has an interest in animals with human qualities, and who sometimes dresses up as a cartoon-like version of an animal. According to the protesters, the school’s “furry” population is accused of biting, scratching, spraying air freshener on, barking at and chasing other students. As for the "powers that be,"  Nebo School District Public Information Officer Seth Sorensen explained the reports of students dressing as animals are “a little bit inaccurate,” saying students wearing headbands with ears are similar to students wearing bows and sports jerseys. Sorensen said dressing up is “just what students of this age do.” He insists that it's more about misinformation and rumors than real trouble. 

What do the real furries think? A local Furry named Strudel showed up to speak to the media, insisting that “School is for learning. It’s a place of education, first and foremost.”

And learning to pitch a fuss, apparently. 

Uber Alles

 The idea that a carmaker, a captain of industry, could become a leading voice for anti-Semitism in the United States is not a new one. Once upon a time there was this guy who revolutionized the creation and proliferation of automobiles across this great land of ours. He is generally considered to be one of the great American innovators. The fact that his company survives to this day and dominates the market for light duty trucks as well as sports utility vehicles and passenger cars is a testament to the tire track he put on the planet. 

Henry Ford was also considered by many to have been sympathetic if not collaborating with Nazis to produce German weapons and war machines leading up to what would become World War II. It might not be a surprise then to discover that Henry Ford, like many magnates of his era, owned a newspaper which he used to promote his world views. The Dearborn Independent, with its somewhat ironic masthead, produced such journalistic gems as "Jewish Power and America's Money Famine" and a series written by Henry himself called "International Jew." This was in the 1920s. Is it any wonder that Adolf Hitler was an admirer of Mister Ford? From Mein Kampf: “It is Jews who govern the stock exchange forces of the American Union,” Hitler wrote. “Every year makes them more and more the controlling masters of the producers in a nation of one hundred and twenty millions; only a single great man, Ford, to their fury, still maintains full independence.” In 1938Ford accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the Nazi regime’s highest honor for foreigners.

This is history. It is not a well-kept secret. And neither is the current reality of the "innovator" and "carmaker" who is currently attempting to force his ideals not just on the consumers of his "best selling car in the world," but to anyone who happens to stumble blindly into his somewhat newly acquired "newspaper," the once proud blue bird, Twitter. He is currently embroiled in a lawsuit that is bringing to light just how he goes about spreading his anti-Semitic rants through anonymous accounts while attempting to stem the tide of consumers fleeing both his newly acquired social media machine and the suddenly detestable car brand. Which may explain his eventual exit strategy of fleeing to Mars. 

But in the meantime, Americans could really use what he seems to be so very bad at selling: Electric cars and social media as a means of spreading connection rather than conspiracies. Alas, this doesn't seem to be where Mister Musk's path diverges from that of Henry Ford. Henry Ford was accepting medals from Adolf Hitler and he could still sell cars. 

Anybody want to buy a slightly used social media platform? 

Family Man

 A great man once said, "A man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.” Keeping in mind that this was a fictional character whose greatness is primarily measured by those in the film history community, not the parenting workshop folks. 

Yes, the Corleone family was a close-knit bunch, and they were big into celebrations: weddings, birthdays, and the occasional christenings. The youngest son of Don Corleone eventually took over the family business, a multi- tiered affair with dealings across the globe. And he still found time to make his son's first communion and his nephew's baptism. The latter of which coincidentally took place while all the rival gangs were being murdered across the city, but that's the kind of multi-tasking it takes to be a Godfather. 

That was, as I said, fiction. In real life, when you do bad things sometimes you have bad things happen. Like when you cheat on your wife. Repeatedly. With current and ex-wives. And you have a business that involves all manner of ongoing possibly nefarious schemes. And sometimes your family life gets in the way of your extracurriculars. Heaven forbid they should keep you from your tee time. 

Or your depositions.

Or your many and varied courtroom appearances. 

So this guy, who has previously expressed his devotion to family in varied and interesting ways, like suggesting that "if she wasn't my daughter..." or cheating on his most recent wife and his most recent offspring. With an adult film star. Whom he ended up paying an exorbitant amount of money to keep her quiet, especially when he was trying to be not only a respectable family man but the President of the United States. 

Well, as it turns out, this second fella is not fictional. Nor are his legal problems. Like the hush money thing that went to trial this week, because the way he paid the adult film actress involved falsifying business records. Because he wanted to keep it secret. Kind of the way he has periodically kept his youngest son, Barron secret. 

Now this guy is complaining because he "won't be able to attend Barron's graduation." The good news here is that he remembered his son's name. Now, if I were a betting man, I might wager a considerable amount of money that this guy cannot name his son's school. Or his grade. Or his age. 

But since I'm not a betting man, I'll just say that I don't believe that Donald Trump is much of a "family man."   

Gettysburg Address

 Crimes? You want crimes? How about crimes against history?

When I was eleven years old, my family traveled across the country to visit historical sites, eventually landing in Washington DC, where we were immersed in all that city had to offer in terms of our past and our present and what would eventually become "the good old days." 

But first, we stopped in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. For those of you who are not familiar, this was the site of the bloodiest confrontations of the American Civil War. Over fifty thousand soldiers perished over the course of the three day battle. Anxious to achieve a victory north of the Mason-Dixon line, Confederate General Robert E. Lee pushed ahead into Pennsylvania in hopes of forcing a negotiated surrender from the Union. For historical purposes, we have generally referred to the Confederacy as "the bad guys" and the "losers" not just of this battle but of the Civil War. They were the ones who wanted slavery. 

The Union was led by General George Meade, who chased Lee and his battered army south again, but failed to surround them, thereby missing the potential Union victory. The US Civil War went on for another two years after that, with the Union eventually securing that delayed victory and slavery was abolished in the United States. 

I was able to take most of this in when I was in elementary school. One might imagine that a grown man, born and raised not far from the site of that piece of history might be able to assimilate some of this information, especially in preparation for a speech to be given on those hallowed grounds. But if you're a former game show host, twice impeached and facing multiple indictments, maybe your mind isn't fully on your history lessons: “Gettysburg. Wow. I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look and to watch. And the statement of Robert E. Lee ― who’s no longer in favor, did you ever notice that? No longer in favor ― ‘Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.’ They were fighting uphill. He said, ‘Wow, that was a big mistake.’ He lost his great general, and they were fighting. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys!’ But it was too late.”

Sounds a little like the bloated sack of orange protoplasm might have missed the memo. Points for getting the city and state correct. And naming one of the major players. But this is the guy who would like to Make America Great Again, but he can't even remember what made America great in the first place. 

Maybe he should stick to selling bibles and sneakers. 

Rock On

 I don't generally do requests, but I got a text from a college friend that tweaked that nerve. That nerve that drives the word-linking process to the actual sitting down and generating sentences. He started, cleverly enough, with a link to a Bruce Springsteen performance of his song Ghost of Tom Joad. Tom Morello, guitarist for Rage Against the Machine appeared with Bruce in this clip, and it raised the question of guitars and noises made with them. From there, it was my friend's opinion that auto-tune is a "technology with great potential that has been abused horribly by subpar vocalists." 

I could not argue with that viewpoint. But I felt more inclined to discuss the noises made with electric guitars. This was the guy who introduced me to Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew and all the wonderful sounds of King Crimson. It was his passion for six strings and his understanding of the way they could be used to make music that simultaneously crushed my dreams of playing rock guitar at the same instant the furthered my passion for the music other people were making. He showed up in this blog once upon a time before. See if you can pick him out. 

There are two profound memories of this man's guitar prowess that come to the fore in my mind: Him sitting in the hallway of my apartment, straddling the front wheel of a bicycle, plucking at the spokes in a contemplative re-imagining of the way Mr. Spock played his Vulcan lute. The other vision is that of lugging his amp into the bathroom of our freshman dorm, turning it up to eleven and watching the terrified faces of the boys reacting to the power chords he slammed into that tile echo chamber. 

Ultimately, he grew up to be a physician. Not a musician. Not professionally anyway. Which brings some of the same pains I feel when people watch me make cartoons. "Why did you give it up?" 

I didn't give it up. Neither did he. Those things slipped down the ladder to avocation. The talent to make interesting sounds or shapes does not die an easy death. On the contrary. They live on in our hearts and minds while our hands are busy writing today's assignment on the board or saving the lives of those who need saving. 

And when I hear that roar of a guitar, even if it's through the speaker of my phone as I remember that time when I saw it. I heard it. I felt it. In the hallway of my apartment. In the dorm bathroom. 

Auto-tune sucks. Rock and roll is forever.