As We Leave the Ninth Month

November was a good one for me and my family. I saw the tyrant of a congressman get his head handed to him on a platter, the president get rebuked by a country of moderate realists and I watched my son learn to talk in sentences and grow into a more beautiful young man. I grew more frightened, however, for my country and its future seeing how foreign events threaten not only its stature in the world but its security by the stupidity and ineptitude of idealistic and foolhardy leaders. I walk lighter knowing that for the first time in my adult life that the Democratic Party will be able to rein in a president but shiver when I watch the Middle East further self destruct.

When did a Honda Odyssey get so darn cool looking? I'm also contemplating the Toyota and the Hyundai but wonder if I should name my car Homer if I buy the former brand. I think this is the longest I've gone without purchasing a cd since I don't remember. It's been just about the longest I've gone without seeing a show since moving up to Brentwood, though I do have the privilege of ending that next month by catching McCoy Tyner again. I vowed to pass on his next visit to Yoshi's, but he's playing with Christian McBride, Joe Lovano on tenor and Jeff 'Tain' Watts on drums.

I'll be opening up a lemonade stand in order to save my pennies for the E Street Band Tour next year, though I really believe the gods of music will have Bruce rounding the West Coast when my wife's in labor with Sacco and Vanzetti. Figures, right?

As we enter the holidays, I'm finding a renewed sense of faith and understanding in my religious beliefs. Not blind ridiculous superstitious idiocy but a calmness about the history and tenets of my faith that bring me to question so many things and strengthen my resolve about so many others. I see my family growing; I see my brother's family doing the same. I see my friends and family love me and those hate me receive their own forms of justice. I'm watching my life reach its middle age and I'm quite comfortable in the pace I'm achieving but still seeking to better myself and hope for a better future. I love my life and thank God for each day, even those that make me drink my sorrows and anger away. Existentialism doesn't get any better than this, does it, my self-centered navel-gazing self, does it?

All Things Must Pass

Five years, George and man, I still miss your sounds.

I am shamed and scared when I read of the crisis brewing in the Middle East knowing it was done out of hubris. Shakespeare could have written this one

A son, with a past of relying on his father cleaning up his messes, ascends the throne after his father has fallen. Leading blindly, the son divides his kingdom in the name of uniting it and rules with an iron fist, condemning those who seek to see the kingdom prosper and rewarding his faithful in the greatest act of nepotism ever seen. Manipulating a national tragedy for his own political gain, the son seeks to expand the kingdom and his rule by invading a nation that had once pitted his father's rule against it in hopes of killing his father. The son wields his divine support wildly and destroys those who seek to tell the truth; the truth that holds the key to victory. While leading his kingdom to war unprepared, another national tragedy strikes the son's kingdom. The son turns a blind eye against his own people in the name of God and country only to see his war of choice fail miserably. In an act of shame and humililty, the son conjures up his father's ghost to bring about a resolution to his failed war. The ghost of the father returns to his once strong kingdom and bestows great words of wisdom to his son, who upon hearing them, gouges his eyes and ears with the tongues of synchophants. As he lay dying in a pool of his own blood, the son takes to heart what the ghost of father told him, which were, in fact, the same words he told his once great kingdom years before when he himself warred with the enemy lands:

"DON'T INVADE IRAQ, YOU STUPID ASSHOLE!!!!"

Pre-Turkey Downs

Before we declare war on poultry this week, let's take a breather and see where we are:

Bush is lambasted on a public tour overseas and his father steps in to assume the role of authority figure.

Iraq recognizes Syria for the first time since declaring war on Iran.

A high-ranking Christian government official in Lebanon is assassinated and Bush blames Syria and Iran.

Iran and Syria have been meddling in the affairs of other countries of the Middle East like they were our Latin America.

The Democrats are wondering whether to raise minimum wage, impeach Bush, condemn abortion and announce the next frontrunner for the '08 election.

Director Robert Altman died yesterday. While no one can nor should live forever, what a sad loss. Altman's filmmaking, while sporadic in quality, left this world a better place with more than a few masterpieces. M*A*S*H, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville (for crying out loud!), Short Cuts and Gosford Park, just to name a few. The Long Goodbye with Elliot Gould and even Prairie Home Companion are films that will be watched for many years to come. I learned about Altman in a film class at the beginning of the Nineties during the renaissance of the Westerns. Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven resurrected good westerns (or, for that matter, "antiwesterns") and we watched and analyzed McCabe and Mrs. Miller, not a film I had heard of, wanted to see or thought would have been worth a darn. My life was changed in those short two hours as I viewed filmmaking from a reborn experience. I understood the importance of sound editing, I came to recognize the great talent of Julie Christie and see Warren Beatty as an amazing screen presence. He was 81. The Academy Awards will be all the emptier without Altman's presence there.

Chris Lefty Brown, as silly as he often is with his mix disc on the Amendments and all (I'm dying for a copy), is not often wrong in his heroes or books on heroes. He lent me the oral history interviews of U2's Bono and this book and its subject are truly amazing. Paul Hewson is a deep-thinking intellectual, an intelligent and eloquent man, a Christian who sees the real world in real terms (including his indulgent and leisurely lifestyle) and a man who tries in all settings, to see his faith as his understanding that God is bigger than everything he attempts to grasp. While we can sit and nitpick about the frivolity of the life of a rock star and how only money and privilege has brought this man the opportunity to impact the world, we must first understand that his passions and causes were always there. Bono also is one that uses his rock star status as, to coin Teddy Roosevelt, a bully pulpit in order to intelligently show world leaders that Third World Debt, pandemic disease and hunger and global imperialism all fly in the face of a Creator that would have us humans treating each other just a tad more civilly. I admire Bono all the more after having finished this book and upon closing the back cover had to stop and think whether any of his band's music could even hold a candle to the causes Bono's fighting for or the number of lives he's positively impacted. Blessed are the peacemakers.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Hope the tryptofan (sp) doesn't get you on Thursday.

The Definition of Insanity

Repeating the same actions expecting different results, right? Maybe I'm insane. I've put up with a lot of garbage in my near-decade long career as a teacher. Every instance I wonder, "what got me here?" and "what have I done to deserve this?" Every time I've been vindicated by my administrators. And every time after, I guess I set myself up for the next hit. As of Friday afternoon, I have a parent who will be hiring a lawyer for action against me and the school based on the poor performance of her son. I will spare all the details (for the thousands of you readers out there) but here I am again, being lined up to be shot, for doing what I love the most and what I feel is the best for the students assigned to me.
I've had a hell of a last three years. In all honesty, if I could find a profession that would pay enough to keep my wife and the family home, even if it meant chewing up most of my vacation, I'd take it in a heartbeat. I'm so tired of pouring my heart and soul into a job that has become tedious and unrewarding. For every uberstudent (an unnamed former student and babysitter extraordinaire now Gaucho), I have to put up with dozens more and get abused by a select few every year. Do I hate my job? Not yet. Am I sick of the crap that I put up with? Definitely. Should I have to tolerate this abuse? Never.

I would love to hear what others have to say: I've assigned my rock and roll history students a project, which is to nominate a band from the last twenty-five years to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The students must present a brief biography and give a defense as to why their choice should be inducted. I've got a list brewing in my head myself, as I told them that I would also participate in the assignment. For those of you out there that do read this? Who should I (i.e., who would you) nominate? I'll take a couple of comments and then make known who I've been thinking about and who I'll decide on. This one's a good one. I'll also post the list of bands my students will vote upon.

Too tired to post about politics.

Don't know anything new about music to post, except that I do have a copy of Bruce's Concord show from June. Chris, your copy's coming. Any other takers? It's a doozy of a show.

Saw the twins on Thursday and they're looking good. Midichlorian count remains high. Find out the sexes next month.

Beautiful Day

I've needed a good week to digest what happened last Tuesday. For my family, Election Day was confirmation that my father's political career and campaign were what the people of our city want. My dad's been terribly gracious and exicted about the forthcoming changes to his life and the opportunities to make an impact on Brentwood, even if it's only for the length of a single two-year term.
On the national level, it truly was a great night. The American people, not just the "Bay Area liberals" in soon-to-be-gone Richard Pombo's words, spoke loudly and clearly that the status quo was sending the country in the wrong direction. "Throw the bums out" wasn't necessarily the mantra of the election but there was certainly the "enough of the bullshit" aura in the air for both sides of the aisle to realize that the electorate just didn't switch sides for the heck of it. The Democratic Party will find itself thrown the to curb just as fast as the GOP in two years if nothing happens on many levels. Iraq is not the only issue; the environment is critical as well. If one doesn't believe this statement, look to see who will be representing California's 11th district. I don't know anything about Jerry McNerney and yet people, by a 10,000 vote margin, screamed "ENOUGH" of one of the 13 most corrupt representatives. "Values voting" was a straw man label that meant nothing as well last week. That is, unless one thinks that favoritism for the wealthy, stay-the-course-to-failure in Iraq, burning through the deficit and ignoring the social ills like health care and the victims of Katrina mean nothing. What does it mean to vote values? Social justice, environmental protection, economic sustainability, international cooperation and national concensus-building are values moreso than those espoused by the current regime that has done nothing but splinter and shred every ounce of credibility in claiming to be uniting and not dividing.

Rumsfeld, Santorum, Burns, Pombo, Foley (you didn't lose, you got the boot) and the rest of the holier-than-thou Grand Ol' Party, good riddance. And to think that Bush screwed up yet again by not firing Rummy a week before! The GOP's angry and now blaming the president for costing them the election by not canning the one man who even Richard Nixon said to not give the Defense Secretary position to in the 70s and yet it allowed the president to carry out a failed policy based on chosen but poorly executed ideals. Where was the GOP when Halliburton subsidiary KBR jumped into Iraq without a competitive bid and double-billed the American taxpayers at the expense of hundreds of thousands of deaths? Where was the GOP when '08 candidate Duncan Hunter cancelled the oversight committee on Iraq contracts? Where was the GOP in stopping the president's wiretapping and torturing? Where was the GOP when the international community screamed that what's been happening in Darfur is genocide? What about global warming? Our own rural and urban poor? What about the 79,000 victims of Katrina who filed monetary claims when only 22 people have received financial payouts? What about . How many more blanks and blanket statements need to be made before people of conscience really get angry? George W. Bush is not the only failure in this picture. When the ruling party's top priority was power consolidation at the expense of the country, what other choice did voters have last week but to change course?

Chris Lefty Brown, you're right. And when you're right, you're right. Paul Hewson has become a greater hero to me more than he's ever been. The first man to show a little adolescent boy the power of music and vision and faith and conscience has raised the bar even higher for me. If I'm to keep a single label I apply to myself, I need to be more like that Dublinite than I've ever been before. It's pretty sad that a rock star and not a politician or religious leader's going to win the next Nobel Prize for trying to stop the spread of AIDS, Third World Debt, environmental destruction, and modern-day imperialism. God speed, Bono.

Bless You, Sam Cooke

Not only was November 7, 2006, my mom's 60th birthday, but

City of Brentwood Mayor
Vote For 1
(WITH 32 OF 32 PRECINCTS COUNTED)
ROBERT "BOB" TAYLOR . . . . . . . 4,659 47.71
ANNETTE BECKSTRAND . . . . . . . 2,866 29.35
ANA B. GUTIERREZ . . . . . . . . 2,208 22.61
WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . 33 .34

So, it's 2:30 in the morning and I'm a bit drunk, but we've had a good day. And, the Democrats took control of the House and are possibly poised to take the Senate. Iraq, corruption and Bush: those are the three biggest reasons why voters turned out yesterday. We can argue over the order of those three issues later. I'll pontificate when better rested later.
I'm so terribly proud of my father, my mother, their campaign crew and all of the people who turned out to vote in yesterday's election. Of course I'm giddy because of the results but if nothing else, the city of Brentwood showed me that democracy still can and does matter.

Here Goes Nothing

Blue Dogs, lefties, liberals, Bernie Sanders (first Socialist in the Senate, eh?), whatever the hell labels one wants to stick people with, please turn up and vote. We vote values; I am a leftist because I'm a Christian. I'm a liberal because I believe in protecting the rights of all people, including the down-and-out and unspoken-for. I'm an environmentalist because I believe it's our responsibility to put the needs of nature, its Creator and the healthy lives of my children over corporations' profits. I'm a progressive because I believe the wealthy and powerful have for too long dominated every aspect of the political realm and it's time for new power brokers to grace the stage. If anything else, I believe (in the words of my brother-in-law Cleveland) that it's time to be lied to by someone else. Tomorrow is a referendum not just on the governance of the GOP but the Bush administration and the arrogance that W. has governed the country with. Sanctimonious, incurious, ideological blind arrogance, which, in less than two presidential terms, has helped diminish the reputation of this great country, demoralized our armed services, pillaged its middle class, ignored its working class, favored its elite class, cowtowed to the religious right when convenient, ignored scientific evidence when not and ultimately placed the U.S. on a path of self-destruction which will take years after 2008 to fix, if possible. I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. Why is it that just about anyone named George (excepting Martha's hubby) has it out for this place?

Like This Will Do Anything, But

The on-line movie/DVD company www.moviemarz.com treated be terribly, delivered an item "in prompt fashion" a MONTH after purchase, the item arrived damaged and the company told me it was not its responsibility. Shame on them. I'm not the better business bureau but here's my way, as an unsatisfied customer, to do my job in the public market. If buying DVDs on Ebay, do not buy from this seller.

My Words of Inspiration

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

This is to have succeeded.

Attributed (incorrectly) to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Thank you, Greta and Eric, for continuing to open my world to the bigger and greater. Hang in there!