MUDDLE: A month or two ago I was reminded how bad it feels to be sick, to get the flu. Now I'm reminded that lack of sleep is insidious, that it can make a man crazy, and that it feeds on itself, so that when you stop getting sleep for a while it becomes all the harder to get to sleep the next day and the next day.
Meanwhile two good friends are kicking cancer's ass, so I'm also reminded how minor my challenges are, and how a little fatigue is not the end of the world.
I've gotta jump in the shower now, see if I can't blast some sense back into this brain.
NOT RIGHT WITHOUT: My wife and son are in Florida with my parents. And apparently they're all having a ball. This is great, and it makes me happy to know they're happy, all of 'em. Each of the few times my wife and son have left me for any period of time, I always find myself looking forward to their departure, imagining all the leisure time I'll have in their absence. And usually within 24 to 48 hours I'm miserable, I miss them so much. I look at my son's picture and I almost want to cry. I know this is silly, and I don't cry. But it's like I almost hunger for his return. And my wife? I don't sleep right when she's gone. I sleep, but I don't relax. I fret my way through the night, tossing and turning and kicking her side of the bed hoping to hit something.
STOP SINGING LIKE THAT: We all have little innocuous things that, for some inexplicable reason, just drive us nuts. Don't we? Okay, I do. And one of 'em seems to be gaining in popularity of late: It's that flugeling motion singers make with their fingers wrapped around the microphone, like they're playing a run on the trumpet. Man does that chap my butt when I see it. I can't like a singer who does that. I'm also no fan of syllable adding, like when a singer takes a word like "you" and makes it into "yew-eww-uh-ooo-woo-hoo-uh" or some variation thereof. Or when they turn "and the land of the free" into "and the la-hand, uh-wuh-uh-huh-uh-huv...thuh fuh-ree-hee-ee-ee-eeyee-hee!"
MISSING THE BOAT TO LAKE WOBEGON: I may have swerved rightward in the past year or so, but I'm still a Garry Trudeau fan and I think Al Franken is damn funny. So when I read that the pair had dinner with Garrison Keillor last December in a kind of lefty humorists summit conference, I found myself wondering something I've wondered often in the past: Have I completely missed the boat on Keillor? Am I too young for Keillor? Is that it? Or does he have fans under forty? Or he is just not that great, a kind of Larry King or Jay Leno in his field, wildly popular for no discernible reason? Anybody out there read him and like him? What am I missing?
KERRY/MCCAIN? My brother Eric e-mailed me a link to a story suggesting the possibility of a Kerry/McCain bipartisan ticket. My first reaction is excitement, because like my brother I have an unusual affection for McCain. I've somehow come to the conclusion, likely naive, that he is above politics, or is at the very least more in tune with my own personal politics (he's a hawk, soft on some social issues, plain-spoken, etc.). My second reaction is there's no way this ticket happens, because McCain is a Republican and we just don't have split tickets in this country in this time. My third reaction is jeez, why should a star like McCain have to play second fiddle to FrankenKerry? I don't have a fourth reaction yet, but I'll work on it.
Okay, here's my fourth reaction: I love this quote...
"It's impossible to imagine the Democratic Party seeking a pro-life, free-trading, non-protectionist, deficit hawk," the senator told ABC's "Good Morning America" during an interview about illegal steroid use. "They'd have to be taking some steroids, I think, in order to let that happen."
LONG LIVE THE EIGHTIES: Wow, a new Tears for Fears record with both the original dudes (Roland and Chris) on it. Excellent! Now if only The Smiths would get back together (which the article says ain't gonna happen).
YOUNG MC: In the winter I have a habit of wearing a ski hat around the house in the evenings. My next-door neighbor tells me I look like a schizophrenic. I prefer to think I look a bit street, like maybe I'm an underground rapper or a slacker-snowboarder. Sure, the reality is I look like a 37-year-old man who wishes he was a little cooler and a little younger. The good news is I'm my two-year-old son's hero, and so he likes to swipe the hat off my head and put it on his own dome. Here's what that looks like:
WISH YOU WERE HERE: Teenagers tell of life in the Guantanamo prison camp. (When normal day-to-day life in your country is worse than being helicoptered to a remote prison, that's pretty rough.)
INCOMING: I'm currently averaging 28 unique visits/day. (The number seems to vary between 25 and 30 from week to week.) This is not much traffic, in the grand scheme of things. Still, I know bloggers who get five visitors a day if they're lucky, so I'm not griping. How to get more traffic, and why I even care...these are big questions I should try to answer.
STERN TO SATELLITE? My brother Eric and I have been swatting e-mails back and forth about Howard Stern's impending demise. I like Eric's thinking in his last e-mail (one thing about Eric, he always sounds like he knows what he's talking about), and so I share it here with you (with his permission). Here's Eric:
I listened to Stern this morning too.. the show content is now lost in his whining (must admit though that I laughed when he realized Tom was in the studio and said (with no anger), “What are you doing in here? Go have your discussion with one of the interns. You come when I call for you.” -- Tom obeyed).
Howard was going off on the Parent Council something-or-other lady on MSNBC. But then went on a rant about stem cells, the Patriot Act, Iraq.. etc. Many things he supported Bush on and now he’s flailing away. [ed. note: Eric and I have been discussing what a wussy Stern is...as soon as his livelihood is threatened he drops Bush and starts finding all manner of things wrong with him, stuff he was willing to forgive only a month or so ago when he was a big Bush fan.)
He should take his show to XM.. they’ll pay handsomely. It’s the radio equivalent of cable right now. No regulation. People pay for it. He can do what he wants. And he will single-handedly bring about a quantum shift in over the air radio. “Free” radio needs guys like Stern. If all of ‘em went to satellite, the audience would completely splinter (just like it did with cable TV).
This is Howard’s destiny, but he’s too scared to take the step. He still thinks this is just good radio fodder (the FCC hates me.. I’m through) If you listened before his last contract renewal, he played the same cards. I don’t think this will blow over anymore.
COMMUNICATIONS HALL OF FAME: Submitted by my pal Sean Baenen:
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - U.S. Marines shot and killed a gunman during an outbreak of shooting at a weekend demonstration by Haitians celebrating the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a spokesman said Monday.
Col. Charles Gurganus said the shooting occurred near one corner of the presidential National Palace when a Marine platoon observed two gunmen. One was killed, while the troops did not know what happened to the other, he said.
Asked how he knew the man killed was a gunman, Gurganus said: "He had a gun, and he was shooting at Marines. That's what I call a gunman."
WHO'S IN YOUR SIGHTS? Not sure how you should vote in 11 months or so? Here's a helpful site, thanks to my pal Dave at just procrastinating. For the record, I'm scored as a "Typical Democrat" likely to vote for John Kerry. Could be.
BATTLE OF THE BLOGWORLD NON-STARS: You may recall I've got a fitness grudge against fellow blogger Dick Costolo. To recap: Homeboy Costolo can do 78 pushups, 44 Navy Seal situps (yes, he's improved from when I originally posted), and 18 wide-grip pullups. This morning I tested myself and came up short: 60 pushups, 40 Navy Seal situps, and 0 wide-grip pullups (no way was I gonna try any after the pushups -- will have to set this mark another day, but I know I'll max at around eight right now). Granted, I did all this after a 30-minute run, but I'll be honest. I ran really slow, and there's no way I could've done more than that even if I had just come off a massage and lots of rest. So Costolo owns me right now, I'll admit it. But his day will come.
BUSH'S ERROR OF CERTITUDE: Andrew Sullivan and my pal Bart both point to an excellent Will Saletan piece on Slate. Check it out.
BART REPLIES: A few posts ago, my pal Bart and I were trying to make sense of W.'s disdain for same-sex marriage. Anyhow, Bart has just weighed in (within the netherworld of my "Comments" feature) with some new thoughts, and I think they're sound enough to deserve a broader airing. I'm not going to bother picking through his words this time. I'll simply say he and I are more on the same page than not right now, and I respect his even tone. So...here's Bart (with extremely mild editing/formatting for easier reading):
Scott, I feel your pain. It is tremendously difficult for anyone with an intelligent, informed viewpoint to find a person or party to support. Unfortunately the apathetic response of "they all suck" inevitably leads to even greater lunacy which means that like or it not those who choose to educate ourselves must grip our nose tightly and wade deeper into the pile of shit that passes for political debate these days.
Regarding your response to my post I can't disagree with your contention that all people make decisions beased upon reasonable cost - I just dispute what the equation is actually based on. I tend to agree with you that Bush is not sitting up at night calculating political variables - like him or not, Bush is clearly a man of great principle. He decides upon a course of action and follows through regardless of the potential cost to him or others -he does what he thinks is right. This is what served him so well in the months after 9/11. However the same attribute that is so effective in war (in many ways a black or white issue - especially in Afghanistan people truly were for or against us)can be a tremendous detriment when it comes to more nuanced situations (arguably almost every other challenge that we've dealt with as a nation). Clinton, for all of his many faults, was unbelievably adept at recognizing the various sides of an issue and working to resolve them in ways that would allow all sides to claim at least partial victory. This is one of the main reasons that many hard core conservatives hated him so passionately- in their eyes America demeaned istelf whenever it adopted a position that was anything other than 100% pro-american (I am overgeneralizing, of course, but damnit this post is already too long). George Bush works much more decisively - his support for the FMA fits this pattern perfectly. In his worldview homosexuality=bad, christianity =good, therefore FMA. The fact that it is completely at odds with his expressed conservative bent never enters the equation.
In my mind the true greatness of this country lies in its long established core principles: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In my mind we went to war in Afghanistan not only to protect our borders but to protect our way of life from a group of people who would run rough-shod over all that I hold most important: men (and it is all men) who would proscribe for me my type of worship, who would tell me how, when and where I should gather, who would argue that religion trumps science (Georgia Board of Education, anyone?), who would limit the potential of my daughter or sister or wife to advance in her chosen field, who would choose to marginalize people based solely upon their choice of religion, or nationality, or skin color, or sexual orientation, who would hold back social progress because it doesn't fir into their particular world view. That is what I am willing to fight against and that is unfortunately what am I seeing happening in my own country. People who have sworn to uphold the Constitution are instead using it as a political tool and that to me is damn close to criminal. I don't agree with everything that the democrats stand for but if it's a choice between paying an extra 5% a year in taxes or having John Ashcroft decide how I should live my life well for me the answer is simple. The most important thing that I have is my self-determination and everytime I see this administration ham-handedly try to reduce it reminds me again and again why I'll do everything that I can to make certain that W is a one term president.
IPOD SAY: Still iPod crazy, so here's another "next ten songs on random" mix, followed by a fun narrative:
MAKING STORIES WITH MY MUSIC: Like I said last post, I'm lovin' my iPod, mostly because it makes the most awesome random mixes, stuff I could never come up with. I'll share more. Here are the next 10 random tracks on my iPod:
BIG APPLE: Broadcasting live and wireless from a Big Apple Starbucks, I am. A quick meeting in the city, then back out to LaGoo.
I've been iPod crazy of late, rippin' 10 GBs inside of a month. On random, here are the next ten songs that come up:
