Sunday, January 29, 2017

Back From PV

The last two days have taken me through an emotional ringer.  There were memorable breakfasts on the beach in Zona Romantica, a terrific dinner with friends at Barrio Bistro, a pleasant encounter with Trump haters from Canada which was immediately followed by an equally unpleasant encounter with Trump lovers from the good old U. S. of A., a 45 minute delay at DIA waiting for a gate, the news of the detainees and protests at airports across the nation, and an email from a former student wanting to make amends.  Bear with me.

Friday morning started with breakfast at La Palapa, a relatively upscale place on the beach with linen table cloths, one of those little coat rack-like stands for Katherine to hang her purse, uniformed servers carrying baskets of amazing pastries, perfect bloody marys, and the kind of unfailingly friendly service you always get in Mexico.  We floated away from there and took a cab (100 pesos, about five bucks) back to Villa del Pal Mar where we headed to the pool to read and catch a few final rays.

It might sound surprising, but I try quite hard not to discuss politics, even if someone else starts.  I am helped toward that end by my tinnitus.  In a crowd, or around a lot of competing noise, I can only make out what someone is saying if I focus in and read lips.  This comes in especially handy at the locker room at the Y where I find myself surrounded by FoxNews Republicans (read: major assholes).  They talk politics non-stop and all I can hear is this unpleasant murmuring that I can conveniently ignore (Our friend Terry calls this White Noise).  On those few times when I focused in and tried to hear and respond, I only ended up making enemies.

The same holds true at places like swimming pools filled with fat white men in baseball caps with various and sundry slogans emblazoned across the brims.  We were sitting there, me engrossed (kinda) in THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, when two couples sitting on the other side of Kathie started talking loudly.  I could hear the name Trump floating like a balloon over the conversation.  Much to my surprise, they were Trump bashers from Canada and we had a lovely forty-five minutes helping one another reach some kind of catharsis over all the shit that has been going down since his inauguration.  They had to leave and were promptly replaced with a family who substituted the lounge chairs with a table which they gathered around to discuss the previous evening's fun and games.  The father, bleary eyed after a long night and downing an alarming number of beers, held court.  The mother looked away.  The two boys, somewhere between 18 and 21, were busily matching dad beer for beer.

Hey, I have no problem with this.  But then the T word started floating above their conversation and it was clear, even to my deaf ears, that they were ecstatic about everything Donald.  In between ordering beers from the pool waiters, who did a nice job of acting like they enjoyed the loud and obnoxious revery, they talked about how they couldn't wait for the wall to be built and were looking forward to keeping all those Mexicans the hell out of our country.  They finally changed the subject and the dad proudly proclaimed that he had been coming to PV for eleven years and went to the same strip club each of those years, but this year was special.  This was the first time he was able to take his son and his friend along with him!  He was so proud.  Kathie and I beat a fast retreat to our room.

With that lovely father/son bonding moment (I'm still trying to picture it like a Norman Rockwell painting) still bouncing around in our heads, our friends Eric and Terry picked us up and we went to dinner at Barrio Bistro, one of those ramshackle looking joints where the food is totally surprising.  We had a wonderful time.  We always have a wonderful time with those two.  That, and the fact that their name for me is Hyacinth (a long story that I will only tell in person), was a perfect way to spend our last night.

The next morning we had breakfast at La Palapa again, went back to the hotel, checked out, and got to the airport about an hour and a half before boarding.  We were in row 11.  Across the aisle in row 9 (United planes don't have a row 10) sat the strip joint dad and his sons.  They must have gone back to the club because they looked even more hung over than the day before.  I watched them from time to time during the 3 1/2 hour flight.  The dad kept ordering drinks and looking straight ahead.  The sons followed suit.  For three full hours, they just sat there sipping drinks, looking vacantly into space, and being bored.  I'm an English teacher!  That kind of behavior drives me nuts.  I wanted to reach across the aisle and slap them around.  When the plane landed and we were stuck on the runway for 45 minutes, they altered their behavior a little to alleviate the ennui.  One of the boys reached over and  flicked open the little latch that holds the tray in place in front of his friend, causing it to fall down.  They both laughed uproariously over their joke.  These, I thought, are Trump voters.  These are the people who we liberal elite types need to reach out to.  Like I said before, I'd like to reach out to folks like that with the back of my hand.  The only good news is that when we finally deplaned, they had to rush to catch another flight.  Thank God.  At least they weren't from Denver.

When we turned on our phones, we discovered that while we were in the air all hell was breaking out at airports across the land.  We heard about the children being detained along with their parents and we cried.  When we got home to discover that a judge in Brooklyn issued a stay, we were cheered, but only a little.  When the news on MSNBC degenerated from actual news to commentary, we switched to the Nuggets.

Then Kathie showed me an email from a former student.  He was someone I remembered as being a slight pain in the ass from time to time, but basically an okay kid.  He was writing to tell me that after getting out of prison he had been trying to contact those people he thought he had short changed over the years in order to apologize.  Needless to say, I was taken aback.  It was the first one of those I had ever received.  But I think we had a pleasant exchange and I wish him well.

Now it is Sunday morning and I'm recovering from all the drama.  All I want to do is go upstairs and look at the art on our walls and listen to jazz.


Thursday, January 19, 2017

The Art of the Compromise

If you aren't willing to compromise, how will we ever get anything to eat?

Eric Cantor wrote an op-ed in the Times that I have been stewing about since last Sunday.  His piece, entitled something like Obama Viewed From Other Side, asserted that Cantor was optimistic on Inauguration Day that Obama would deliver on his bi-partisan message of hope.  Alas, Cantor was disappointed from the beginning.  Obama offered his plans for a bail out, but when offered Republican alternative plans, ignored them.  Same thing with health care.  Obama, Pelosi, and Reid (that would make a nifty sounding law firm) set out the plan.  Republicans countered and were ignored.  The poor, disillusioned Republican caucus, deciding it was futile to even try to come to terms, stopped trying.  The resultant partisan divide, from Cantor's point of view, was completely Obama's fault for not being willing to compromise.

Now, I'm not a rabidly partisan person.  For instance, even though he holds most of the same views, I find Bill Maher's rantings shrill and largely unfair.  And even though I agree with most of his conclusions and admire his craftsmanship, I think Michael Moore is an obnoxious boor.  I even think W. is a good, well-intentioned man.  I'm still hoping it is possible that our new president will go against type and do some good things.  You can see to what ridiculous extents my bi-partisanship goes; however, Cantor's version of the truth doesn't jive with mine.

Back in 2008, I read everything I could get my hands on about politics, and not just the pages of "The Huffington Post."  I checked Mike Allen's Playbook every morning.  After that, I looked at The Daily Kos.  I sat down with the Post, Morning Joe on the television, and read the news.  Of course, there was, and continues to be, The Daily Beast, and Politico, and Politifact.  I even forced myself to look at The Drudge Report, the most dreary looking "news" gathering site around.  The point is that none of those outlets seemed to offer facts to support Cantor's assertions.

The idea that Republicans were chomping at the bit to work with Obama is laughable.  Before the start of every session, new Republican congressmen sign a pledge to not raise taxes in any form.  They sign that pledge or they suffer the electoral consequences.  They voted as a bloc against anything with Obama's name on it.  They hoped he would fail.  They called him a liar at a State of the Union address.  They still think he was born in Kenya.

Let me use a restaurant metaphor to explain what really happened.  Instead of negotiating health care, let us say that Obama and Cantor are negotiating where to go for lunch in Denver.  Makes sense to me.

Obama:  Let's go to Park Burger.  It's close to Denver University.  I've heard it's affordable.  What's more, they have great fries.

Cantor:  I'm interested in lunch.  It would be good for the small business man.  However, Park Burger doesn't sound good.  Too close to a snooty graduate school.  I would like to go to Denny's.

Obama:  Denny's?  Well, the thing is that I was really hungry for some good fries.  I've had Denny's fries before.  They're okay, but not really what I had in mind.  How about Elway's?  Their fries are great and we could all order S'mores for dessert.

Cantor:  S'mores are way too rich.  I want to go to Denny's.

Obama:  Lou's?  How about Lou's.  Good burgers.  Great fries.  Used to be Denny's or Perkins or something before they got bought out.  Bought out by a small businessman, I might add.

Cantor:  Look, I thought you wanted to go to lunch.  If I can't go to Denny's, I'm gonna stay home.

Obama:  Okay.  I guess I'll go to lunch by myself.  Let me know if I can bring you anything back from Park Burger.

Cantor:  Look, if you aren't willing to compromise, how will we ever get anything to eat?


  

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Evil Streaming

I'm thinking about all the romantic crap I laid out the last time I posted something.  "Streaming?  I don't need no stinking streaming!"  Well, forget all that.  I am going to leave the spinning of vinyl to people like my son Nate.  He likes being elemental, going back to the classics.  That's one of my favorite things about him.  I even agree with all those purist vinyl spinners out there, that listening to, say, the Sergeant Pepper album the way it was originally created--vinyl--and on the equipment it was created for--cool stereo systems with belt driven turntables and 12 inch woofers--is a fundamentally different experience than listening to it on a CD, or through the air via Spotify.  Is it better?  I don't know.  I have tinnitus and can't really tell any more, but I do believe that in some sense vinyl spinning is closer to the artist's intent.

I'm forgetting all that romantic crap because we just purchased a Bose Sound Touch 30 wireless music system.  You don't call them stereos any more; they are music delivery systems.  The contraption is smaller than one of the speakers on my old stereo and produces twice the sound, or seems to.  Katherine hooked everything up because she has managed to stay current, technologically speaking.  It is sitting on the low brick ledge of the fireplace at one end of our main floor, the main floor with, in a late life stab at being avant garde, hickory floors and drape free windows.  The resulting echo effect amplifies the music machine's sound and absolutely fills the room.

But the best thing about our new music delivery system is Spotify.  In the last few days, I have listened to all the music from "Hamilton", an ancient jazz album with Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong, "The Well Tempered Clavier", "Julian Bream Plays Bach" and "Tapestry."  I have access to recordings I thought impossible to find.  I'm planning on listening to Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney duets the first chance I get.  Okay, okay.  A Crosby/Clooney duet might not be everyone's first choice.  It's just that at my age I tend to wallow in nostalgia a little more than I used to.

I do have a big problem with our new music delivery system.  I think it is kind of evil.  Evil in the same sense that sleep number beds, and dual controls on automobile heaters and air conditioners is evil.  Evil like gated communities, charter schools, and Facebook.  Evil the way headphones are evil.

I think everything works better if we make love to the idea that we are communal creatures.  We need things to bring us together, not further isolate us.  Back in the good old days where we only had three channels, news events, rather than being vehicles for division, brought us together:  Kennedy assasination,  political conventions, space walks, freedom walks, etc.  We could talk to each other about the news program we all saw, or the new episode of Hill Street Blues, or the white album around the coffee pot.

It's bad enough that the partisan nature of media news and talk radio and internet rumors manage to separate us, but we take all that manufactured isolation into the bedroom and set our own temperatures and firmness and end up sleeping differently.  The passenger side on my car has its own temperature controls, so Kathie and I end up riding differently.  I, as is my nature, get competitive.  "Christ.  She has her temp all the way up to seventy-five!  What's her problem?"

Now, my music delivery system has compounded the problem.  It'll be okay for me.  I'm old and set in my ways.  But what about my grandson Sage, or Brooklyn, Sammi, Willa, or Jaydee?  When I go on Spotify to get some music, I always choose to play an album.  I think that is the literaturist in me at work.  Albums are meant to hold together, like a novel, or a play.  So, even though the listening experience might be a little different, the whole structural approach stays in tact and by listening to the album as released, I am sharing in a communal experience.

Not so those people who make their own play lists.  These are the same people who cannot manage to get from their car to their destination without wearing headphones.  I'm afraid my children might do that already and I'm convinced that my grandchildren--all of our grandchildren--will most certainly be headphone dependent any day now.  The problem isn't just the headphones; it is that they are listening to something designed just for them.  They are immersed in a world of their own making that has precious little connection to the community.

So what do we have?  We have a "community" comprised of individuals who surround themselves with Facebook friends who feel and think the same way, with information feeds that only give them what they want to hear, with creature comforts that ignore others, and with a steady stream of music that cuts them sonically out of their surroundings, in their own ego driven gated communities.  I think that kind of separateness from the world is bad.

In "My Dinner With Andre", Andre tells Wally about the wealthy woman who dies of malnutrition because she will only eat what she wants to eat, in this case, chicken.

Spotify and the like make me worry about being that woman.  I wonder.  If I only choose to listen to Bing Crosby recordings from now on, will I die of some sort of spiritual malnutrition.  Maybe I should throw in some Beastie Boys for balance.