This Time, For Real

I weigh more than I've ever weighed in my life. I can no longer accept this. I've got to get serious about losing weight.

I've made some half-hearted, haphazard attempts to lose weight in the past. I've never taken it seriously before. Not really.

I exercise, when I think of it. We own an elliptical machine, so I don't even to go down to a health club to exercise. But I only use it about once a week. Twice a week, on a good week. When I feel like it. When it doesn't feel like too much of a hassle to get up off the couch.

I've pretended to watch my portions before, but not really. I'll skimp at lunch, only to serve myself an extra scoop of ice cream on dessert. I'll open a bag of tortilla chips and just eat handful after handful, not even thinking about how many calories I'm cramming in my mouth. One handful just leads to another, and then another.

I eat seconds for dinner, just about every night. I finish the leftovers on Oliver's plate. If there's an extra spoonful of mashed potatoes in the pan, I'll finish it off.

I went to the doctor last week for a freak injury. They took my weight, and I discovered I'm twenty pounds heavier than what's listed on my driver's license.

I don't know what I expected, but I didn't expect that. I thought I'd been watching what I eat. I thought I was doing all right. I was wrong.

And the thing is, I knew it. I'd been denying the truth even as it stared me straight in the face. I've gained weight around my waist. A noticeable amount of weight. I can't fit into pants I wore a year ago. I had to buy new pants in a larger size when I went back to work in August. There are few things more humiliating than realizing, while buying pants, that you are no longer the size that you thought you were.

I have more asthma flareups now. There's a connection. I'm carrying too much weight. I'm having pain in my feet now. There might be a connection there, too.

I can't chase Oliver around the park for ten minutes without getting winded. I HATE that.

So I'm getting serious now. I'm using a program on my iPod touch called LoseIt! to track my daily calories and what I'm burning from exercise. (That has been a fascinating and humbling experience. More on that soon.)

I've worked out on the elliptical twice in the last three days. I started a small additional exercise routine - situps and pushups every morning. Right now, it's only ten of each, and I'm sure that I look awful doing them. But it's something. It's a start.

I want to lose thirty pounds by next summer. I'm not going to post my weight here, in order to preserve a bit of my dignity. But that's my goal. Thirty pounds, a pound a week. (And no, I don't own a scale. I'll take care of that soon.)

I'll keep you posted as to my progress on this blog. If I go more than a week without talking about it, remind me. This is serious this time. I have to get myself down to a dignified weight. I have to do this, for my sake, for my health, for Oliver and for Mrs. B. I have to do this.

The Smoking Gun

Guy shoots up Fort Hood in Texas. Kills 13, wounds 30 more. How could we have possibly prevented this? Was it caused by depression? Anti-military fervor? He's a Muslim - was he a terrorist? (You know how those people are.)

How could we have stopped this?

The next day, a shooting in Florida. One dead, five injured in a highrise building. Oh, but this is totally unrelated to the Texas shootings. That was a military base, this was in a place of business. No connection whatsoever.

Last week, a police officer was shot and killed here in Seattle, shot in his own police car. But undoubtedly, it was unrelated to the other shootings. Different place, different motive. No connection whatsoever.

Yesterday, there was a shooting in the town where my wife works. Attempted murder-suicide, according to news reports. But of course, that had nothing at all to with the other shootings. No connection whatsoever.

Tonight, a man will be executed for committing a series of high-profile shootings in the Washington D.C. area. Any connection to the other crimes? Oh no, of course not. This was a serial killer, a psychopath, totally unpredictable. His crime was an aberration.

There's no connection at all.

Bullshit.

Here's the pattern that I see. Shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting, and another shooting. The connection is guns. The connection is unmistakeable, unavoidable, and undeniable.

On the day that the Fort Hood shooting occurred, dozens of other shootings also happened and most of them never even made the news. Shootings in this country are an epidemic, and we're so inured to them that all we do is shake our heads when another one happens. What a shame, we say. Another senseless crime. Another unstoppable crime. We throw up our hands - what can you do?

Here's what you can do. You can call your member of Congress, call your city council, call your town's mayor. Ask them what they're doing to reduce gun violence, and make them get specific. Call the president and tell him to make gun violence a priority.

What can we do about it? Support sensible gun laws in your state and in federal law, like closing the gun show loophole.

What can we do? Support local organizations that are fighting the scourge of guns (we have a great local organization called Washington Ceasefire), or support the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Don't just turn your head. One hundred thousand people are shot in this country each year, and over ten thousand people every year die from gun violence. Our children, our neighbors, our families are all suffering from this plague. According to the Center for Disease Control's Leading Causes of Death Reports, from age birth until age 65 firearms are consistently among the top ten leading causes of death in our communities. And among our young people aged 15-24 firearms rank in the top three leading causes of death. Firearms take twice as many lives as AIDS does each year. (Thanks to the Brady Campaign and Washington CeaseFire for the statistics.)

These are preventable crimes, but we have to be brave enough to fight in order to prevent them.

ACORN Falls

“This is an investigation of everything — Acorn, the national organization, the local organization and all of its affiliated entities,” said David Caldwell, an assistant attorney general.

ACORN's offices in Louisiana are being raided as I write this. ACORN is going up in flames, and this time, it's for the right reason.

No, I'm not talking about Encyclopedia Brown the pimp and his sorry-ass Saved by the Bell reject wannabe hooker buddy.

The videotapes are bullshit, and you can quote me on that. They're preposterous, hucksterism, pointless, juvenile. This investigation is about the epic mismanagement of a national organization. And I believe it's the right investigation, for the right reasons.

They're targeting the embezzlement of around $1 million - maybe as high as $5 million, according to reports I've read - by the brother of ACORN's founder, Wade Rathke. ACORN has had a problem for a while, apparently, and only the publicizing of the crime made it clear how completely screwed up the organization was.

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that having one guy with as much power as Wade Rathke had was a situation bound to lead to disaster. He was clearly getting involved in things without the knowledge of the board. (Why do I say that? Most of the board's members didn't even know about the embezzlement - or the secret "settlement" - until years after the fact. Years.) When all power is consolidated in the hands of one person, and when that person stops believing he has to be accountable to anyone - funders, board members, other officers - then trouble is bound to happen.

Then, just think about the fact that his brother was working high up in the organization as well, and had access to the organization's bank accounts. Recipe for disaster, I'm telling you.

ACORN's trying to set its house in order, but there have been years and years of damage that they have to undo. The embezzlement happened in 1999 and 2000. This was hidden for eight years. Now they're being investigated for tax fraud, and the investigators are also trying to determine how much money was actually embezzled. Remember, ACORN was a tax-exempt organization, run largely on individual contributions and foundation support. They were operating for the public's benefit. When you steal from a nonprofit, you are stealing from the public. In ACORN's case, Dale Rathke was effectively stealing from the very low-income families that they were trying to help.

ACORN's funding is drying up. Foundations don't want to touch them with a ten-foot pole until they can be absolutely certain that their money is going to be handled correctly. This is what should happen. This is the natural repercussion of their poor management.

And now they're being investigated by the state of Louisiana - again, not because of the pimptastic videotapes, but because of their outrageous financial mismanagement. Maybe the organization will be able to answer all of the questions and sever themselves of the taint of Rathke's leadership. Maybe they'll survive this, maybe they won't. But at least this time, the questions that are being asked are the right questions.

Don't Hit!

Parenting is hard.  

There's so much I want to be excited about.  So much I want to talk about here.  His speech has taken remarkable leaps in the last few months.  His focus is amazing.  We can sit down and read twenty, thirty, forty pages of a book and he just sits, enraptured.  And his dexterity, his confidence in his body, are growing every day.  

But I need to get this out of my system.  

Yesterday, Oliver hit Mrs. B today in the face. Not bad enough to leave a mark or draw blood, but still - he hit her in the face.

He had already done something else that was not allowed, and she was trying to bring him into his bedroom for a time-out.  And that's when he smacked her in the face.  

Earlier in the day, he also threw a shoe at her. 

This isn't the first time he's hit one of us, and it's getting more and more frequent. He's getting more physical with his displeasure about things - kicking at us, throwing things, hitting. I see a glint of pleasure in his eyes sometimes when he's trying to hit me and I'm telling him to stop. 

When he's angry, I've talked to him about throwing stuffed animals or hitting pillows, like you're supposed to, but he always seems to end up throwing something hard and usually in the direction of one of us. 

Time outs don't seem especially effective, mostly because it's so damn hard to get him into his bedroom for a time out and usually he tries to hit or kick again.  We're trying to adjust things a little bit.  Our previous routine was that with time outs, we'd just put him in his room until he calmed down, give him a chance to apologize, and then let him come out.  We've been looking at one of the Love and Logic books and changing our routine a bit. Following the book's suggestion, we're going to start having him sit for a few extra minutes in his room just to make sure he's completely calmed down before he comes out. It also seems like it's in the spirit of what I understand time outs to be: a change in the energy of the situation.  

I hope this is just one of those things he has to go through, because right now, this sucks.  

The Things He Says: Getting Runny-Aroundy with It

The boy has been coming up with some hilarious turns of phrase lately.  None of this will be interesting to anyone who has a kid, and then it will only be entertaining once you realize the kid is only four.  Or hell, maybe it's not entertaining to anyone but me.  Tough cookies.  

Here's a few examples of his verbage:

~~~~~

I was at home with Oliver one day, and I was playing Living Colour. (What?) 

Oliver loved it.  He started dancing and running around the living room like a maniac. I commented: "I forgot what great dancing music this is. Do you think it's good dancey music, Oliver?" 

Oliver: "Uh huh. And runny-aroundy music, too."

And then he commenced to run around the place some more.

~~~~~

He was describing a story that someone was reading at his school.  I asked innocently, "Oh, was one of your teachers reading the story?"

"No, someone interesting."

~~~~~

This morning, he was trying carefully to craft a prepositional phrase.  You could practically hear him diagramming the sentence in his head.  

"By watching you guys..."

Long pause.  Then he tried again.

"By watching you guys do it, I think I know how to button my buttons." 

It seems like such a small phrase, but it was just so great to see him carefully put the sentence together in his head, and then try and recite what was in his head.  He really wanted to say it exactly right.  

The Roman Polanski Purge

In which I vomit out all of my feelings about Roman Polanski, in hopes that I never have to think about him again.

I don't give a rat's ass about Roman Polanski. I have no stake in this battle. I've seen one or two of his movies, yeah yeah. He's done some stuff.

But this is about a crime that he committed. I'm not going to go into detail about what he did, because there are extremely graphic details about it all over the internet. You can find the details if you want them.

My problem with the whole Roman Polanski discussion is that there's a couple of points that are being completely ignored. So here's my attempt to correct the record.

Point #1 - This is not about whether Polanski is guilty. It's about him fleeing the country.

There is no question about whether Polanski is guilty of a crime, so quit with all the cute dithering about how it wasn't rape-rape and the age of consent in California. Polanski pled guilty in a court to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. By his own words, he is guilty.

Because of some stuff that happened between the judge and the prosecuting attorney, Polanski thought his plea bargain might not hold up, and so he fled the country. Let me say that again. He left the goddamn country because he thought that the judge might not give him a fair shake. He is a fugitive from justice. The whole legal discussion underway right now is about whether he should be brought back to the United States to face justice. It is not appropriate to be rearguing the merits of the case, because the case is not the issue. Polanski's flight from justice is the issue.

And that brings me to my second point -

Point #2 - The Roman Polanski discussion is all about class privilege.

Think about the case itself. Why was the victim anywhere near Polanski? He was a successful director, a rich man, a famous man who traveled in posh circles. He had been asked to guest-edit the French edition of Vogue, and he was taking pictures of "women" - ostensibly for the magazine. The victim - a "woman" who was only thirteen years old at the time - hoped to be featured in the magazine.

The private photo session that led to the rape happened at the home of his buddy Jack Nicholson, who left him the keys while he went out of town.

I don't know what Polanski was thinking at the time, whether he thought he could get away with it because of his fame, his connections. But the whole scenario happened because he was a rich man, a powerful man, and that was probably the reason why the victim's mother trusted her with Polanski. That was why the two were in the same room at the same time.

And then he was arrested, and then he pled guilty, and he was offered a plea bargain. Circumstances changed, the plea bargain appeared to be crumbling, and he made a decision. Did he ask for a new judge? Did he go public with his charges that the prosecutor was up to no good? No. He left the country.

Most of us do not have the option of leaving the country when it suits us. We have to face our crimes, our mistakes, our failures. Not so for Polanski. He could start over again. He could use his wealth and his good friends in Hollywood to continue in his chosen career.

Who are his defenders now? Harrison Ford. Woody Allen. Harvey Weinstein. Martin Scorsese. Debra Winger. There are more. Some see it as artists defending a fellow artist. Or you could see it as the rich and comfortable, defending the rich and comfortable.

Think about it. Think about what's not being said in the news stories. Now think about your average poor defendant. Would he have the choice to flee the country, set up a comfortable home in Europe, continue to practice his trade in a very public way for three decades? Not on your life.

Judges change their minds frequently. Miscarriages of justice occur. There are people who die in prison after being convicted falsely. People are identified by mistaken witnesses. People cry for DNA tests and are denied them. This happens in our country. It is not a perfect system, but it is our system. It needs to improve. This is a true statement.

The phrase "throwing yourself on the mercy of the court" is for the poor. For the rich, like Polanski, there are other options. If you don't like what the judge has to say, just skip the country and set up shop somewhere else. Those who can afford to ignore justice will ignore it.

Those who will defend Polanski need to think about this. If you believe in the justice system of our country, you believe that no one is above the law. If you support Polanski in this, you believe that the justice system is only for the poor unwashed masses, and that the rich are not obligated to accept justice when they can simply find another country who will treat them better, somewhere else where they can wipe their slate clean, where they can start over as an artist instead of a felon.

Dragging ACORN Through the Mud

It's a damn shame what's being done to ACORN.

Disclosures:  Most of you know that I'm a former community organizer.  I have never worked for ACORN, but I have worked for organizations that worked with ACORN.  I worked along the same territory as them - fighting for the rights of low-income, disenfranchised people.  

I have written pretty bluntly about ACORN's failures in the past, so you know I'm not a cheerleader for them.  They have screwed up massively in the past, and like most large organizations or companies, they will probably screw up again sometime in the future.

Having said that, they don't deserve what's happening.

For those who haven't been following the stories, there have been a series of videos supposedly showing ACORN workers giving two individuals - a "pimp" and a "prostitute" - advice on setting up a brothel.  The videos have been shown repeatedly on Fox News and have been picked up to a lesser degree by other media.  The "pimp" was O'Keefe, wearing a completely ridiculous outfit.  The "prostitute" was Giles, masquerading as a prostitute who apparently favored the name Kenya.  (There's nothing racist at all in her using that name, I'm sure.)  

This is character assassination, plain and simple.  Two people with a hidden camera are targeting ACORN offices, recording embarrassing videos of staff members.  Both of the participants, Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, have admitted to having a political agenda.  They're not out to find the truth.  They're out to get ACORN.   They're out to get ACORN, because in the feverish minds of some conservative activists and writers, ACORN is at the heart of Obama's election and bringing down ACORN will inevitably lead to Obama's collapse.

Look, I've worked as a door-to-door canvasser and I've worked as a community organizer.  I've walked into some situations I thought were a little sketchy.  I'm pretty sure that if someone wanted to catch me on video saying something embarassing, and they followed me around for long enough and caught me off-guard, they might be able to do it.  It might happen.  And so it's gone with ACORN that they've caught some workers saying some fairly embarrassing things. 

Do the videos show the truth?  Well, some staffers probably said some things they shouldn't have.  But we don't know the whole story, because the full unedited videos haven't been released and probably never will.  They could be edited.  They could have manipulated the audio, or the video, or both.   We don't know what actually happened in those rooms, and we will almost certainly never know.

Is the behavior of the ACORN workers criminal behavior? There have been no criminal charges filed in any state in connection with these videos.  Why?  Well, O'Keefe and Giles aren't police officers, they're private citizens.  They have no legal authority to conduct "sting" operations.  They aren't out to find criminal behavior - they're purely interested in embarrassing ACORN, and they have.

What criminal activity?  All of the criminal ideas came from O'Keefe and Giles.  They posed as a pimp and a prostitute and talked about setting up brothels.  They talked about bringing in underage immigrant women to work illegally as prostitutes.  All the criminal activity came from their own twisted minds.

As it turns out, there has been one lawsuit filed in Maryland in connection with these videos.  ACORN filed it.  Turns out that it's illegal in Maryland to record audio of another person without their permission.  Guess our cutting-edge filmmaker didn't take the time to check out wiretapping laws before swooping in with his super-fantastic sting operation.  

One ACORN worker, after giving them advice on setting up their house of ill imagination, allegedly confessed to having murdered her husband.  That got her a call from homicide detectives and the local newspapers, where she admitted that she made up the whole story because she know that they were trying to set her up.  (She also mentions conversations she had with O'Keefe and Giles that never made the video tape that ran on Fox.  Big surprise.)

Another worker called the police after the clowns/filmmakers came to them with a story about smuggling underage immigrants for sex work. 

Think about this:

• We know that one of the videotaped workers lied to the filmmakers/clowns deliberately. We don't know how many others may have made up stories, or deliberately given false advice, because they knew they were being had.
• We know that one worker called the police on them after his visit.  We don't know how many others called the police.
• We don't know how many offices the filmmakers/clowns visited in order to get their supposedly incriminating videos.
• We don't know how many offices threw them out without a second glance.
• We don't know how many staff members they actually talked to.
• We don't know what actually happened on the tapes, because no one except O'Keefe and Giles has apparently seen the unedited videos.

And over all this, Congress has seen fit to withdraw all federal funding going to ACORN, an organization which has been helping people of color low-income people in this country for thirty years.   Over all this, people have been declaring ACORN to be a criminal enterprise.  Over all this, ACORN has been denounced by left and right and in the halls of our Congress.  

President Obama was right.  There needs to be an investigation into these videos.  There needs to be an investigation into these malicious filmmakers and their gutter tactics of manipulation, distortion, and character assassination.  

ACORN has made mistakes in the past.  That is different that what's going on here.  What's happening now is that someone with great friends in the media has gone on a personal crusade to destroy a social justice organization.  He's doing it for ratings, for personal glory, to raise his own profile as an "activist" and as a "cutting-edge filmmaker."   Well, he can call himself anything he wants.  What he's doing is shameful, despicable behavior. 

Sights Not Meant to Be Seen

(Photo taken by swift447)

It was the strangest thing.

The mornings are getting later, and so this morning as I was driving to work, I saw the sun coming up. I could just see it peeking over the clouds, and it was the most startling blood-red sun I had ever seen. It was astonishing, almost unearthly.

See that picture above? (That's not today's sunrise, for the record, and it's not even Seattle.) It was weirder than that. The color was darker, more viscous. You could practically see it dripping.

I tried to find a spot to pull over. The sun rose in seconds, the blood-red crown rising into a full scarlet sun burning the sky, menacing all of us down below. And suddenly, before I could snap a picture with my cell phone, the otherworldly color was gone. It had transformed.

And then the sun was its normal color - that lovely friendly goldenrod yellow that we all think of as the sun's true color. But for a moment, it was the color of nightmare, warning, fear. I felt the way you'd feel if you caught a glimpse of a werewolf changing back into its human form. I had seen something I wasn't meant to see - the sun in its true diabolical form. The sun as a wild snarling beast of nature, warming us not for our pleasure but for its own amusement.

TBTL - a New Beginning? Or the Beginning of the End? (Part 1)

The show was, indeed, too beautiful to live.

One of the greatest radio shows ever (ever!), TBTL (short for Too Beautiful to Live) has been cancelled as an on-air broadcast. The show will be turned into a web-based podcast. So it's losing the regular built-in audience of a major talk radio station in Seattle, and throwing itself on the mercy of the notoriously fickle internet audience. The website, the community, and at least two of the three major players will remain. The new show, such as it is, will be broadcast not from a radio studio, but from a room in the home of host Luke Burbank.

So this is the end of the world. Right?

Or is this really a new beginning? Is it possible that TBTL is going to be one of the new faces of the transformation of the medium of radio?

Here's the thing, friends and neighbors. Radio is changing. Example 1: me. I hardly ever listen to terrestrial radio anymore. I listen most Saturday mornings. I listen to NPR sometimes in the morning, and for about ten minutes while I drive to my job. Sometimes. Sometimes I just plug in a podcast and listen to that instead.

But am I missing NPR? Am I missing key stories? I doubt it. I listen to no less than eight NPR podcasts. I listen regularly to the NPR Story of the Day podcast, the NPR Shuffle podcast and the NPR Music podcast, and that captures most of the content that interests me.

I podcast Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, On the Media, and the magnificent WNYC show Radio Lab, and I never miss an episode of the latter two. Oh, and of course I podcast This American Life, because all of us radio geeks do. It's a rule.

But wait, there's more! There are two NPR podcasts that only exist in podcast form, and they are my favorite NPR productions: All Songs Considered and It's All Politics. Bob Boilen worked for years as a producer for NPR programs over the air, and on the side, produced a music podcast called All Songs Considered. It's eccentric, very personal, and absolutely fascinating, and I have picked up so many new favorite artists from it.

It's All Politics, fairly obviously, is a political podcast produced by NPR's Senior Washington Editor Ron Elving and Political Editor Ken Rudin, who both know entirely too much about the Beltway and are always happy to show off all the maddening Washington insider trivia stuck in their craniums. It's weekly, it's funny, the analysis is always sharp and often brilliant. I learn something every time I listen.

So that's my NPR listenership.

So am I an NPR listener?

I don't think I show up on the Arbitron ratings, because I'm not an over-the-air listener. Even though I listen to 15-20 hours of NPR content every week, I don't count as a listener.

And also, significantly, I don't count for their standard advertisers. I don't listen to the pre-broadcast sponsorship messages. I am not their audience in the traditional way. I'm still inflicted with lots of advertising on the podcasts, but not over the air.

I do still pay for my membership. And once I'm solvent again, I plan to send something into Chicago Public Radio and WNYC for all the great content they're producing.

Can TBTL still exist as a radio show without being an over-the-air radio show? Sure. Why not? There are plenty of podcasts that make a good go of it. Brian Ibbott somehow manages to eke out a living producing Coverville, by selling ads on his website and doing testimonial ad pitches doing every podcast. The Moth has only recently become a radio broadcast, but has existed for years as a brilliant podcast. Other examples come to mine - the Sound of Young America, Ask a Ninja, Rocketboom, This Week in Tech. There are lots of free-standing podcasts. It's a tried and true medium.

But TBTL is the first show I know that has made the jump from on-air to podcast exclusively. (The only parallel I can think of is Howard Stern, jumping from terrestrial radio to satellite, and that is such an apples-to-kumquats comparison that it's hardly worth the effort.)

The jump could spell trouble. They somehow have to hold onto their loyal audience as they make the switch. Luckily (or not so luckily), the overwhelming majority of their audience was listening to the podcast and not the over-their-air broadcast. Most of their listeners are Time Bandits, in the language of the show. They didn't listen the same day, or even the same week. Sometimes, Time Bandits reported falling months behind and catching up in a mind-melting glut of shows.

In other words, the audience of TBTL is already used to downloading the show, not tuning it in. We listen on iPods and on our computer and in streams. We are already an online audience. As Luke Burbank said, this latest move by KIRO's management might be stripping away the worst weaknesses of the show - its on-air audience - and playing to its greatest strengths.

TBTL has always been a show that relies feverishly on its audience. Audience members are often guests on the show, bringing great ideas or unusual perspectives on news shows or just serving as available talent and the in-studio voice of the audience. Some of the greatest ideas on the show have come from its listeners. The blog is ferociously active, and the TBTL audience - the Tens - are a passionate lot, showing up for roller-skating events, baseball games, karaoke nights, concerts held in the back of Mexican restaurants, and other seemingly preposterous gatherings. There are at least 18 groups on Facebook dedicated to TBTL.

On its last night on the air, over 1300 viewers tuned into the webcam to see - what? The hosts singing karaoke and Luke Burbank heroically dancing in his underwear, fulfilling a promise to the audience. This was the essence of the show. No matter how ridiculous, how absurd, the show kept its promises to its audience. The love between show and audience is more pure and heartfelt than I have ever seen for a radio show. It is a beautiful thing. It was clearly not planned, but the love affair between TBTL's audience and its makers is the true center of the show.

The show was not killed. Let us all remember that. KIRO is still putting money behind the show in its new form. As Jen Andrews pointed out, the typical procedure when a radio show is cancelled is that it's pulled off the air immediately, the hosts not allowed to broadcast a final show for fear they'll say something reprehensible on the air about their former employers. With any other show, the hosts would have been ushered out the door by security guards, not allowed on the air. In this case, the TBTL hosts were given six solid hours of airtime to say a proper farewell to their audience. It was a remarkable statement of confidence, definitely not the sort of thing you do for people who you want to boot out the door as quickly as possible.

Let's hope the new format of the show proves that TBTL does not need to be on the FM or AM dial to drew listeners. Maybe it will take its new wings and soar. We can make it happen. We, the TBTL audience, need to prove ourselves worthy.

If you ever listened to TBTL, you owe it to the show to listen on the first day and tell your friends. Post it on Facebook. Send messages on Twitter proclaiming your loyalty. They need an audience that is there from day one and announces themselves loudly. They - we - need to be there for the show. The ratings will not be measured by the standard numbers. It'll be tabulated by downloads of the podcast, comments on the blog, tweets mentioning TBTL, web traffic.

This is a new experiment in radio and it will succeed if the Tens stay faithful and give KIRO a reason to keep funding it. Radio can survive without the ties to an AM or FM frequency. With a strong audience, an active online presence, talented hosts, and enough moxie, this show could become a completely new example of the new face of radio. Let's make it happen.

R.I.P. Senator Ted Kennedy

Note: this comic isn't coming out right for the way my blog is formatted. Please click on it to see the full image. It brought tears to my eyes.

As Joe Biden said, he was a man who restored our sense of idealism. He was one of the greatest politicians I ever saw, a true public servant. Vision. Persistence. Passion. He was one of the greats. Rest in peace, Senator. You've earned it.

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince; and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

I Got a Job!!!!!

It's over.  At long last, it's over.  

I filed for unemployment for 27 weeks.

I submitted applications for 94 different jobs.

I was invited to interviews with no less than sixteen different organizations.  

Seven second interviews.  I made the final cut in seven different job searches.  Seven times, I got close enough that they called my references, asked me questions like whether I would commute or drive, what days I'd prefer to work, whether I could start right away or if I need a week or two.

And six times - six stomach-churning times - I had to get the "sorry, we've decided to go in another direction" phone calls.  I told you about one particularly crappy rejection in an earlier post.

No, wait, change that.  I only got the call five times.  One organization didn't even have the guts to call me to say they hired somebody else.  They just politely forgot about me, didn't return my calls, discreetly took the job posting off their website.  

But it's over.  A few weeks ago, someone said yes.  I am officially employed again. 

We did the dance, just like with other companies.   They asked me if I'd do a phone interview and I said yes.  I did the phone interview on my cell phone, standing in my kitchen, a cup of coffee nearby.  My resume, cover letter, and some hastily scribbled notes were spread out on a counter where I could glance at them easily.  

The phone interview went very well.  They called me back in a couple of days and asked me if I'd come for an in-person interview, and I said yes.  I dusted off my suit, ironed a crease into my pants, asked Mrs. B to iron a shirt.  (She does a better job on shirts than I do, and we both know it.)   I picked out a tie and spent entirely much time thinking about it.  

The interview went well, sure, but I'd had other interviews that went well before.  They asked me for references, and I emailed them to the person in charge.  And waited.  

Two days letter, my references reported that they had been called.  And that the person seemed to really like me.

And a few days later, I got the call.  

I took a day to think about it.  Mrs. B and I sat down to talk it over.  The pay scale wasn't ideal, but the hours are great.  I liked the people I met.  I thought the job would be a good next job for my career ladder.  (Thank goodness for that - I'd applied to several jobs that would have been a step backward, and would have gladly taken them if the price was right.)  

I called them back and told them I'd accept the job.

The person on the other phone went "Yayyyyyyy!"  It was the sound you make when you're ten, and your dad just told you that you're going out for ice cream.

It was the perfect sound to end this soul-crushing, never-ending, gut-wrenching job search.  I was not only the best candidate, but they wanted me.  They wanted ME.   

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going back to work.  

Skinny Jeans

I had a skinny-jeans moment the other day.

I have this pair of Levi's. I bought them, thought they looked good in the store, and then realized that there was an unfortunate reason that I couldn't wear them. My spare tire, um, was pushing the jeans down my body so they hung at around my hip bones. The result of which was that they were too long. I was mortified.

So they've lived in our basement for a couple of years. They lived the life of skinny jeans: designated to be forgotten until the wearer decides to challenge their self-esteem by trying them on. If they fit, joy and fireworks. If they don't, they go away again.

So I tried on my skinny jeans, not thinking of them in those terms at all. They were just those jeans that didn't fit. I was cleaning out the basement and came across them and thought, oh what the hell. And I tried them on and they fit like a glove.

I told Mrs. B about it. "Why did I think these pants didn't fit before? They look great now."

And she reminded me of the previous indignity. Apparently, my spare tire had shrunk - not disappeared, just shrunk - to the point where they sat properly on my waist. They fit now. I'm wearing them at this very moment. It's a small victory, but it's a victory.

The End of the Argument

Credit to Daily Kos' Suburban Blue for finding this golden nugget.

So some of you know that John Mackey, the CEO of WholeFoods, is getting the arugala kicked out of him because of a smarmy editorial he published in the Wall Street Journal about "ObamaCare" (his term of choice). Here's the editorial, if you haven't read it.

So in my opinion, it's disgusting. He starts off with a quote from Margaret Thatcher. He touts many favorite bumper-sticker conservative points: Health Savings Accounts as a solution to insurance, ending regulation of insurance companies, tort reform, blah bla blah dittohead blah. And the kicker of all kickers - he essentially suggests that anyone who gets sick only has themselves to blame, and that the secret to long life is, well, eating at WholeFoods.

Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.

Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.

It's become a sensation. There's a new Facebook group dedicated to boycotting WholeFoods because of Mackey's comments (I joined - it's over 5,700 members in less than two days.)

Now, as an attempted response, there's a new thread on the WholeFoods website forum wherein conservatives have apparently proclaimed Mackey their new anti-government savior. The dittohead Glenn Beck-worshiping lot are spouting the usual crap about government being evil, nothing good has ever come from government, etc.

In response to one of the pinheads, forum user MB Shopper posted this. The entire thing can be read here on the forum. I don't know if he is the original writer or if he just reposted it, but this is sheer brilliance.

I AM AN AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE SHITHEEL

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issed by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to ny house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

The only reason government doesn't work is because conservative Republican administrations defunded and/or patronage staffed them with people with ties to special business interests: to wit the last FDA, Dept of Interior and Agriculture under Bush. No one seems to have a problem with pumping over $500Bil to the Defense Department which last I hear is a socialized entity.

The Key to Unlocking Death Cab for Cutie

I've been watching Death Cab for Cutie on Soundstage. I was about to write a different post about the band, and then they began performing a song that completely changed my opinion of them.

I like Death Cab. I've seen them live here in town. I own one of their albums and would probably own more if I could just remember to buy them. They do the kind of songs that you always like when you hear them, but you never get crazy passionate about them. With one exception, I've never thought to myself, "boy, I've just gotta play that Death Cab song over and over again until it seeps into my bones."

I like several of their songs. Soul Meets Body. The New Year. The Sound of Settling. Crooked Teeth or whatever that song is called. I love their lyrics. They do a lot of great stuff. But their songs are always - again, with only one exception that I know of - a bit antiseptic, a bit distant. Ben Gibbard never screams. The guitars never wail. The drummer never goes wild and starts flailing like Keith Moon. They are a very literate, very restrained band of great precision. They don't rock out so much as they perform songs in the rock style, if you get my meaning.

I will say this, though - what an odd band to watch live. Most bands ramp up their energy for the live show. Their soft songs become a little more passionate, the harder songs get edgier. The guitars get louder. Not Death Cab. If anything, they get less edgy at their live show. They look awkward on stage. Ben Gibbard shakes his head back and forth in front of the microphone like he's trying to convince himself he has rhythm. Chris Walla bounces back and forth between keys and guitar, playing both without fanfare or showiness. He is an exacting artist. He does what is needed. At one point, they showed him sitting at the keyboard, cracking his knuckles, wating nervously for his part to begin. The drummer (Jason McGerr - I had to look it up) looks like he's teaching a class sometimes.

The bass player (Nick Harmer - had to look that up, too) is the only guy who looks like he plays in a rock band. Granted, he looks like he belongs in Journey circa 1984, but at least he's rocking out.

So I was watching the band, surfing the internet, halfway paying attention, thinking that this was one of the least dynamic performances I had ever seen. And then they started playing that song that I've made reference to several times. The song is a tidal wave called "I Will Possess Your Heart."

I love this song with an absolute fiery passion. It's terrifying, dark, and doesn't sound very much like anything they've done in the past. As soon as those first rumbling bass notes hit, you know that you're in a different world. The long version of this song - over eight minutes long - starts with three minutes of churning, driving instrumental music, during which the band locks into an enormous groove. It's their own type of groove, not the kind that a hard-rock band like Pearl Jam would unleash. There's some feedback, but it's whispering feedback, not roaring or screeching. The instruments are all precise, par usual, but this time, they're a little obsessively precise. The same piano melody plays over and over, nervously, as though it's trying to find something different every time. The sound of the bass guitar is huge. The drums are louder, and even though he's not doing much dramatically, he's playing his heart out. The entire sound is the sound of an obsessive going over the edge.

And then the lyrics start. In the album version, and on the Soundstage version, the music drops out almost completely when the vocals begin, and it's a stunning effect. Just a few seconds of nothing but Ben's voice, speaking the first words - "how I wish you could see the potential, the potential of you and me..." It gives you shivers.

And then the beat comes back in, and we're off galloping along with the lead character's crazy obsession, charging toward disaster, locked in that maniacally precise groove. It is the best thing this band has ever put to record, because it's so unlike them.

If Death Cab came out with some squealing guitar jam or some distortion-soaked freakout music, people wouldn't recognize them. This song is so great because it contains all the parts of the essential band - great musicianship, an eye toward perfection, carefully written and enunciated lyrics - turned up to the max. The precision turned to obsession, the enunciation turned into a crazy person shaking you by the lapels and whispering "you must listen to me, because what I have to say is very very important!" It is as if the band discovered another version of themselves, the funhouse mirror version.

Something happened to the band while they played this song. Ben Gibbard started shaking his head around, as though trying to break a spell, and sweat began to form on his brow. The guys seemed to lock into each other for the first time in the show, really following each other intently. And the music was stronger, because it was looser, edgier. They did the full instrumental lead-in for the song, and they tore into it with genuine fury. It's not a song that can be played gently, because there's so much fury in the music and so much underlying rage in the lyrics. It's an angry and a desperate song that has to be played all the way or not at all, the same way that I have to either turn up the radio when the song comes on or turn it off.

After that song, it was a different show. There was some feedback deployed. They got a little looser, a little bouncier. Ben's voice got a little louder and shakier. He sonded less constrained. They used some odd samples on the last song. Suddenly, the band seemed less like a dissertation and more like a rock band, playing for the joy of performing together on a stage.

You Use the Tools That Are Available to You

We did the "three questions" thing again tonight, and he's still asking bizarrely eclectic questions.

Tonight's list:

1) Why are you and mommy married?

2) Why do we have a fan in our room?  

3) Why do we sleep on pillows?

Seriously, this kid makes me think.  I mean, think about it.  Why do humans sleep on pillows? He won't take an answer like "just because."  He wants a real actual reason.  I told him it was easier on your neck to sleep on a pillow, but fuck if I know.  

Later, he was telling me that there were monsters everywhere.  Monsters in the ceiling - "and they have really long arms, and they can touch the door and touch the fan at the same time! And even your guitar, too!"   Monsters were in our bedsheets.  They were living inside the fan.  "And they even set up a house next door to the fan where they live!"  Suddenly, inexplicably, our bedroom was lousy with monsters.

When he presents a problem like this (i.e. sudden monster eruption), I don't bother trying to solve it anymore.  When he was younger, I had a can of air freshener that I relabeled as "Monster Spray" that I'd spritz around the room to scare away the monsters.  Or I'd dutifully look under the bed, in the closet, under his pillow, and shout to scare away all the monsters.   Now, I just make him deal with it.

"So, Oliver," I ask, "what should we do about the monsters?"

"I don't know," he shrugs. 

I tried to guide him to a solution.  "Will your friends -" the various stuffed animals on the bed with him - "help get rid of the monsters?"

"No," Oliver shrugs," they don't have power like me."

"Oh, well then, how are you going to get rid of them?" I ask.  "What kind of power do you have?"

"I can shoot fireballs out of my penis!"  he shouts gleefully.

He gestures toward his crotch region, imagining a giant flamethrower rising out of his pull-up.  And makes fireball-shooting noises.  Pew pew pew!  He does this for a minute or two.  Shortly after that, he drifts off to sleep.  

I wonder if he does this with Mrs. B.  

Three Questions

For the last couple of months, Oliver has insisted on us telling him a story every night. It's exhausting. Usually, we're exhausted by the time we get to putting him to bed, and the sheer brainpower to come up with a new story is painful. Usually, I resort to telling him fables or new versions of old stories: "Once upon a time, there were three bears, and they lived in a third-floor walkup apartment..."

So I tried something new last night. A friend gave me the idea: he can ask me three questions, about anything he wants. And then I struggle to answer. Easy, I thought.

So these were his three questions last night:

1) Why does the world spin around and around?

2) Why does Chloe have a tail?

3) Why do they put that floaty stuff (helium) in balloons?

Easy. No problem. I just had to explain planetary rotation, the basic principles of evolution, and the elemental properties of helium. That's it.

I just looked on Google to try and find a simple answer for 1), and this is the best I found. It's mind-boggling.

I think he's going to be a scientist, and a brilliant one at that.

Workout Playlist - July 14, 2009

Still doing the 30-minute workouts, although I'm debating upping the time a little bit.

You Know You're Right - Nirvana

Night of the Living Baseheads - Public Enemy

Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle - Nirvana

Huddle Formation - Go! Team

Great DJ - Ting Tings

A Shot in the Arm - Wilco

The Bends - Radiohead

All Because Of You - U2

Notes:

The right Nirvana song can turn a casual workout into a full-throttle berzerker throwdown.

"Julie and Julia" and Me

This is going to be a little bit self-indulgent, so bear with me. I just saw a preview for Julie & Julia and I got unexpectly choked up.

I'll explain. Julie Powell started her Julie/Julia project as a Salon blog, around the same time I was starting up my original blog. I feel a kinship to her, even though we've never met and for all I know, she's never even looked at my blog. She was one of us, along with Meg and Patia and the Grumpy Girl and Phil and Nancy and the guy who did Fried Green Al-Qaedas Virtual Occoquan.

And then Julie exploded into a huge phenomenon. I don't think I knew at the time how big it had gotten, but I knew she had gotten to a level that most of us hadn't and probably weren't.

But that's was cool. I'm proud of her, even though, again, nothing whatsoever at all to do with her success. I can't wait to see the movie. And when in the trailer, they showed a quick shot of her computer with the old blog banner (albeit a completely different blogging service), I got a bit verklempt.

So congrats, Julie. I feel a little like the kid who used to play playground basketball with Michael Jordan before he became Michael Jordan. But I'm thrilled that it's come this far, and hope you're having all kinds of success and wish you nothing but more.

P.S. Oddly enough, I just looked up the old blog, and stumbled across this article about the movie. Apparently, there's a bit of controversy about the way her blog is depicted in the movie. Salon's Kerry Lauerman is quoted.

Workout Playlist - July 8, 2009

Hmm, let's see if this works. This was my workout playlist from yesterday's workout.

Get 'em High - Kanye West (feat. Common & Talib Kweli)
Date with the Night - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Inside a Boy (Son Lux remix) - My Brightest Diamond
Scenario- A Tribe Called Quest
(I've talked before about how this isn't the best workout song. I skipped it this time.)
Thought @ Work - the Roots
It Takes Two - Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock
Baba O'Riley - the Who

I'll keep this post short, since I'm posting it from my iPod touch. How's it look?

Workout Playlist - July 2, 2009

Crap, I said I was gonna do this, didn't I?

Oh well. Assume that I've been doing a hell of a lot of exercise besides just using the ol' elliptical in the last week. So here's my latest playlist for a 30-minute workout. I burned, I dunno, 225 calories.

I actually listened to nine minutes of a NPR podcast to start. Bjork playing guest DJ, playing choral music by Stravinsky and weird indie artists you've never heard of. So when my actual workout music started, it went like this:

There There - Radiohead
Ch-Check It Out - Beastie Boys
American Idiot - Green Day
All Because of You - U2
Scenario - A Tribe Called Quest
Deceptacon - Le Tigre

Because the last song was "Deceptacon," I heard "See you later!" as I stepped off the elliptical. That was pretty cool.

And then it launched into "Tie Your Mother Down" by Queen, which is a fucking amazing workout song. But my 30 minutes were up.

My one thought on this playlist is that "Scenario" doesn't actually work. The beat is a bit too slow, and the song drags a bit until Charlie Brown's verse starts. I just love the different styles here, and especially that Busta Rhymes verse - he's so dynamic and flows so ferociously here. So I'll keep it on the list.

My Michael Jackson Anecdote

Here's the best anecdote I have about the impact of Michael Jackson in my life.

I went to high school in northern Colorado. For those who don't know the area, imagine Wyoming or Montana. Very rural, mostly small towns and long dusty roads that connected them. Most of the kids from the area were the children of farmers and ranchers. It was the kind of school where kids wore cowboy boots casually and drove pickup trucks. There was one black student in my entire high school.

In 1984, during my freshman year, the Jackson Victory tour was coming through Denver. I remember that there was a raffle to raise money for something or another, and the top prize was tickets to the concert. "Thriller" had been out since November of 1982 and Michael Jackson was still the biggest thing in music. Everyone in the school was dying to see that show. The tickets were won by a kid who just happened to be the son of the principal. I think he won them fair and square, but everyone at the time thought it was a robbery.

Michael Jackson in 1984 was pop music. Everyone listened to him, even in our little cowtown. Everyone wanted to see him perform, see him do that moonwalk and do that crazy-legged shimmying jittering dancing. There was nothing ironic about loving Michael Jackson back then. It was just what you did. That year, if you had ears, they were hearing the Thriller album.

Almost twenty years later, I was a community organizer in Seattle. I was sent to Boise, Idaho for a week to a cross-train with our sister organization, and I was driving a colleague's pickup truck to visit their members. I turned on the cassette player in the truck, and I heard "Wanna Be Startin' Something" come charging out of the speakers.

And it sounded fantastic.

Workout Playlist - June 24, 2009

I think I'll start posting the songs I listen to during my workouts. It might be of interest to me more than anyone, but it might help give some of you ideas for new music for your various workouts/walks/runs/unannounced trips to South America.

Anyway, I worked out on the elliptical for 30 minutes today. Burned 228 calories. (Not sure if I'll always post that stuff, but there it is.)

Songs:

Don't You Evah (Matthew Dear Mix) - Spoon
Ch-Check It Out - Beastie Boys
Hypnotize - Audioslave
Voidy Numbness - the The
Elevation - U2
A Shot in the Arm - Wilco
One Vision - Queen
Chasing Heather Crazy - Guided by Voices

Our elliptical machine is in the same room as our mini Mac, which is handy because I can either play music or watch a DVD while working out. Today, I remembered that I can control iTunes using the Remote app on my iPod touch, which was just delightful. I could select and skip songs and even control the volume without getting off the machine. Speakers aren't the greatest, but it's better than wearing earphones while alone in the house. There's just something satisfying about playing loud music out loud.

Job Fair

I just got back from a job fair. There were about fifteen employers in the room, and just about everybody who attended looked desperate, depressed, and willing to try anything. That includes me.

I don't know why I bother going to these things.

No, that's not true. Of course I know why I go to job fairs. It's because I don't have a job, and it's been over five months, and going to these things makes me feel like I'm doing as much as I can to find a new job. Leave no stone unturned, etc.

Except that there's nothing there for me. It's all companies that a) I'd never want to work for, b) are offering pure commission jobs, or c) aren't hiring for someone with my background. It's insurance companies and Avon and skilled labor jobs and sales jobs and the National Guard and the Border Patrol and temp agencies and Comcast's sales division.

I don't think I want to do sales, particularly for a big obnoxious company like Comcast. I'm not sure I want to sell insurance, particularly if my income depends on sales. I might consider a job if there was a base salary, but I need something stable.

I sure as hell don't want to be doing home parties for something like Avon or kitchen supplies or desserts. These companies are always at the job fairs, dangling the promise of fun and hoping people don't notice that in order to make a decent living, you have to sell a lot of crap to your own friends and family. And that's fine, but it's not for me.

And then there's the other employers, most of whom are offering entry-level jobs or management jobs that require skills I don't have. I don't think I do, anyway, and they don't seem to know what to do with me when I chat with them.

It's good to see that some employers are hiring, but there ain't a lot of them. There are always so many people waiting to get in the doors, and the reward always seems so small once you get inside. But you do what you can. You chat with people about careers you never thought you'd consider. You shake hands, give out resumes, chat with the other people about what they used to do. You try to be hopeful. You look for an opening, a chance, anything.

I remember going to job fairs for nonprofits, and there were ninety organizations in the room. Nonprofits! Now you can't even get twenty private employers in the same room at the same time. It's pretty stunning. It's literally stunning, every time I walk away from one of these things. I always feel somehow less hopeful instead of more hopeful.

The Little Man

I'm learning. On-the-job training, I guess.

I was a bad helicopter dad for a long time, hovering over Oliver at playgrounds and in the backyard, ready to leap if he did something dangerous or needed some help. Or even if he just took a misstep. I'm better now. There are a lot of times when I grit my teeth and ignore him while he's in the backyard, climbing up his slide backwards with a garden hose in one hand. Sometimes I don't even bother to come outside.

Here's what I do. I shout into the backyard. "Oliver, I'm trusting you to make good decisions out there and not to do anything reckless. Can I trust you?"

If he says yes, I leave him alone.

At playgrounds, I force myself to stand on the sidelines, not next to him. I want him to be safe, but more than that, I want him to be responsible. I want him to know that he's in charge of his own safety, not me. If he's slipping, he's got to catch himself. It's his job, not mine.

I want him to be safe, but more than that, I want him to be in charge of his own life. I don't want other kids to pick on him, but if they do, I want him to settle the issue himself, not wait for his dad to fix it for him. Whether that means slugging the other kid or yelling for a teacher, he's going to have to learn how to solve his own problems.

I'm trying to do the same thing with discipline issues and those other little domestic issues. For a long time, I tried furiously to figure out how to solve those little earthquake moments of the day. Oh, no, he won't put his shoes on! Oh no, he won't eat his lunch because it's on the wrong plate! Oh, no, he's throwing a tantrum because I wouldn't let him turn on the water fountain!

I used so much mental energy trying to figure out how to cajole/charm/threaten him out of the crisis of the moment, and now I'm just trying to let him resolve it. You won't put your shoes on? Oh, well, we'll just stay here then, instead of going to the zoo. Let me know when you're ready to leave.

You won't eat lunch? Okay, well, it's going to be a long time until dinner. I guess you'd better figure out what you want to do. I'll be over here, eating my lunch.

When he grows up, nobody's going to be scrambling to offer him a different choice for lunch or a different place to set up his office or a different door to walk through. He's going to have to learn sooner or later that he's in charge of his own life, and maybe by giving him a head start, he'll be a little more prepared to deal with other kids and with the outside world. Maybe it'll make a difference. That's all we can do as fathers. We decide the best way to raise our kids, and we do the best we can, and we see what happens.

I can't turn him into a major league shortstop or a Congressman or a successful writer. But I can raise him the best way I know how. I can show him what it means to be a good man by how I live my life. I can work at being a better dad. That's really all I can do. If I do all that, whatever happens, I know that I did the right thing.

But if I don't care - if I don't think about how I'm raising him - if I don't care whether it's a slap or a request that gets him into the car - then I'm a failure as a father.

It doesn't take much to be a good dad. Pay attention. Talk to them when they talk to you. Remember that your kid is always watching you. Read to them.

And care. Above everything else, care about your kids. Just care. They're going to be adults someday, and those little decisions you make now are going to stay with them for the rest of their life. Give a damn about the impression you make in their lives.


Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.

A Manly Day

If you saw some crazy guy walking a push lawnmower down the street yesterday, that was me.

I had a very manly day yesterday. In the morning, I took my lawnmower to get the blades sharpened. There's a guy in the neighborhood who does lawnmower repair out of his backyard. (And it was easier to walk the mower six blocks to his house than to load it into my car.)

So I got to hang out in his very swanky shed while he banged on my mower with a hammer (it needed a bit of an adjustment) and then sharpened the blades with a power sander. Somehow, I thought there would be some kind of sophisticated tool to sharpen them, but he just leaned over the mower and carefully touched up each blade while sparks went flying off.

(The mower is now awesome, a grass-cutting juggernaut. I might take it out today, but I'd better do it early since it's going to get up to 90 degrees today.)

I thought a lot about my days as a machinist, back before I discovered the nonprofit world. I worked for two years making machined parts - screws, bolts, bearings - for a shop that mostly supplied to Boeing. I had my own toolbox - two of them, actually. I perpetually came home with grease on my hands, not to mention nicks and cuts that I usually didn't remember getting. I had to shake the metal shavings out of my shirts before I put them in the wash.

There's a part of me that romanticizes that period, my hard work phase, the blue collar phase. But it wasn't romantic. It was hard work, detailed work. High demand, high pressure, long hours, less-than-thrilling pay. Because I had to program the CNC lathes, I usually had to use my brain as much as my hands. It was a great learning experience, but I didn't see it then as a learning experience. I saw it as the only job I could hold down, even though deep down I always knew that it wasn't going to be a career for me.

In the afternoon, I had to go to Home Depot to replace the propane for my grill. It's amazing the effect that walking into Home Depot has on most men. You become less verbal, start answering questions with one-word answers or grunts. You start looking at tools that you'd never use in a million years, just because they look cool. You begin speculating what you could get done if you just had a radial saw and a router.

When I got back, I hooked up the propane tank and tested the connections carefully, making sure that I didn't blow up the yard accidentally. Then I grilled dinner, making sure I had all the essential tools of grilling wth me - tongs, heatproof mitts, and a bottle of beer. I made chicken and veggies grilled in a shaker basket. Pretty tasty stuff.

One of Those Birthdays

(Photo by Flickr user elston, and used under Creative Commons license.)

Let me tell you a story.

Ten years ago, I turned thirty. My life was in tatters. I was ending a chaotic and soul-draining relationship, and it was not ending in that clean surgical way in which relationships should end. It was like pulling away ivy that had been growing for years - pull out a huge chunk, find the next tendril, pull hard, try not to uproot something valuable, find the next tendril...

I had been fired three months before from a job that I hated. I despised the job, and yet to be fired seemed like the ultimate humiliation. I didn't want to be there, but I was furious that they were claiming I wasn't doing good enough work to be doing that job. I pursued legal action, based on firing without just cause, and quickly found out that it was impossible given my state's employment laws.

Because I was living paycheck to paycheck, my firing set in motion a series of events that eventually led to bankruptcy. Eventually, I left my home, ended up living with my brother for several years because I had nowhere else to go and couldn't afford my own place. (Thank you, by the way, to my brother for opening his door to me.)

At the time, I was living in a house that I hated with roommates that I couldn't stand. I had no privacy. I had no social life. I was working in a job that felt tenuous and temporary, and I didn't really know anybody there well enough to call a friend.

I was alone.

I remember that, for my thirtieth birthday, I wanted to get away. I drove to Bellingham, which was as far as I could manage to escape for a night. I drove sixty miles north to Bellingham, got a burger and fries from a highway burger stand, and parked by the waterfront. And I remember watching the sun slowly setting over the water, being alone, gratified for the privacy but aching from my loneliness and sadness. I cried several times that night. It was one of the saddest days of my life.

And then I drove home to my house that I hated, and went to sleep without talking to anyone. No presents, no cards, no cake. That was it.

That was a long time ago, and it was one of the worst birthdays or days that I have ever experienced in my life. I look back at that time now and it seems like a lifetime ago.

Tomorrow I will turn forty, and I've felt on the verge of tears for most of the day. My wife wants to know what I want for my birthday, and I don't know. I have no ideas. I don't want any presents. I don't know how to celebrate this birthday.

I have been out of work for nearly five months. Looking for a job is very much like dating, in the sense that it feels like rejection after rejection after rejection. The momentary bursts of joy are quickly washed away by the repeated slaps in the face. The thrill of the chase is replaced by the desperation of the chase, the fervent need to be exactly what someone (a company) is looking for, and the repeated discovery that you're not the guy. You're not the one they've been looking for, but you're very very close, and maybe someday you'll find the right match for you.

So I have been out of work for nearly five months, and our finances are a bit tight. And my sense of self-worth is pretty low these days. And I'm turning forty, which is supposed to be a pivotal age in my life, a watershed moment, a moment that means something. Some birthdays are just a birthday, and some birthdays are supposed to mean something. 18, 21, 30, 40, 50, 65. Some birthdays matter, and you take note of where you are in your life.

I have a beautiful wife who loves me. I have a son who lights up my life on a daily basis. I have a close circle of friends, friends real and virtual. I have a decent home, music to play, food to eat. We drive good cars. We eat well. I am happy.

But I'm out of work. And that's eating me alive. It is such a small thing, with all the great things happening in my life. But it matters, and it's painful and frustrating and infuriating. And it makes this birthday something that I just want to be over.

It was just over ten years ago that I took my first job in the nonprofit world, and I immediately knew what I would be doing for the rest of my working days. I never realized that I could make money and generate social change at the same time. As many regrets as I have about the misdeeds and failings and imperfections of nonprofit organizations, they are driven by missions that seek to make the world a better place. That might mean cleaning up the air and water, or it might mean fighting social injustices, or it might mean creating jobs for the jobless, finding food for the hungry, finding homes for the homeless. But every organization for which I've worked in the last ten years is trying to make the world a better place, and I have been fortunate to work in this field.

I want to get back to work. It's been ten years since I joined this field, this vocation, the change-the-world career ladder. I'm looking for a way back into that career ladder, back into the movement, back on the horse.

It seems somehow portentous that I find myself back in this position. Ten years ago, I had the rug pulled out from under me, and I made a seemingly small decision that changed my life. Ten years later, the rug has been pulled out again, and I find myself scrambling for footing. Once again, I'm left unsure of myself, questioning my own talents and abilities. Once again, I'm facing one of those birthdays, one that signals a change of life. Once again, so it seems, it's time for another great transition in my life.

I want this period to be over. I hate the waiting. I know that soon, I will find a job that will change my life. I want the waiting to be over so the next change can begin happening. The waiting is what's killing me.

So tomorrow, I will celebrate my birthday that I have been dreading for so long. The next day, I have an interview for a job. It might not be the next great job, but it's the next interview, and that's something. It could lead to the next great job, and it is that promise that keeps me going.

Happy birthday to me.

A Danger to Himself and Others

I do not know what is going on with this kid.

Twice in the last month, I've found myself walking around, whispering to myself, "He's okay. He's okay."

~~~

A dresser fell on him. He was okay, but a dresser fell on him. I left Oliver alone in his room for a minute. I've done this a hundred times before. He had the top drawer of my dresser open and he had a Lego block he was pressing on the side of it, like playing Tetris, trying to fit the block into the crack. I left for a minute to get something, and as I walked away, I saw in my head the dresser falling over, him pinned underneath.

I see images like this all the time. I'm constantly afraid of what he might do to himself, but I've tried to keep those visions batted down because otherwise I'll just make myself crazy. 99% of the time, I'm just being paranoid, imagining the worst possible thing that could happen to him.

But a minute later, I heard a crash. And I heard him say, "Ow. Daddy." He said it once, like a request, and then he hollered, "DADDY!!"

We both ran down the hall.

The dresser was tipped over at a 45-degree angle, every drawer popped out. Everything on top had fallen off, somehow missing him. One of the drawers was on top of his leg, and he was calling for help. I moved the dresser, Mrs. B pulled him out and inspected him for damage. Miraculously - and I mean that truly - he was not hurt. No bones were broken, not even a bump on the head. He got some splinters in one of his hands from trying to catch the dresser, but that's all.

(We found out that he was reaching for a box of pictures that we keep on top of the dresser. That's what tipped it over. )

~~~

Just last week, he poked himself in the eye with a broom. He's okay, but he popped himself right in the eye, hard. And no, it wasn't the bristle end of the broom, it was the stick end.

I don't know what he was doing, but it didn't surprise me he was playing with the broom. He has loved playing with our broom for years now. It's one of his favorite toys. Occasionally, for a lark, he tries to actually sweep with it. But it serves so many other purposes: as a bridge between footstools, as a stick that he can jump over, as a club that he can wave around and look menacing, as a poker that he can use to tip blocks over, and so many more purposes. It's a broom! It's like the supertoy for the 21st generation!

I think that he had it sticking horizontally out of the footstool. I don't know why, but it was there, about two feet off the ground, sticking out like an invitation. And of course, he tripped, and of course, he fell with his face hurtling toward the footstool, and of course, he pushed the end of the broom right into his left eye.

He cried forever, both eyes wedged shut, tears flooding out, his face red as a beet. Eventually, he opened his left eye again, and we checked for damage. No bleeding, no bruises. His pupil wasn't dilated. We asked him if he could see out of it, and he could. But we were both spooked, and so we called the triage nurse at the hospital. She told me about the basic symptoms to watch out, had me do a couple of basic checks to make sure he hadn't broken the orbital bone that surrounds his eye. (Thank goodness, he hadn't.) He got lucky. Didn't even end up with a black eye.

~~~

There's more that he's done. He trips constantly, stumbles over the flotsam and jetsam that covers our floor. He climbs onto stools that he should. not. be. on. and then tries to reach for things way above his head. We were going to catch the water taxi last week - it was a bit of a rainy day - and he slipped walking down the ramp. He slipped and fell twice. And if I hadn't been holding his hand, he would have gone flying down the ramp right into Puget Sound.

He tries to stand with both feet in his wagon, which is just a recipe for a broken nose.

Once, he tried to put our big red balance ball on the bed and then climb on top of it. I stopped him, frantically.

Here's what I think is going on. First of all, I'm going to say that there is a four-year-old developmental step that is massive and monumental, because he always goes to hell right before a developmental step. He's also very emotional and very clingy and melts down at the drop of a hat, which also seem like indicators of a massive development step about to happen.

The second thing is that he's physically growing. One of my friends put it well - it's the physical version of stuttering right before he takes a big leap in his verbal skills. His body is stuttering. He's clumsy right now because he's trying to get used to his new size and his new strength.

That's the best I can guess. I don't know. Really, it's exhausting right now trying to keep him safe, because it feels like he's trying so hard to keep himself unsafe.