So what did we learn from President Obama's State Of The Union Address last night?  Well, we learned that Obama is a lone wolf who still doesn't understand the concept of reaching across the aisle to end the morass of partisan gridlock that has become an all too familiar hallmark of his administration.  Watching the state of the union address last night, President Obama reminded me of just another slick politician spewing some gee golly Capraesque rhetoric that probably would've made George Bailey throw his hands up and yell cut at the top of his lungs.  Via his own rhetoric about doing things with or without congresses help and or support, Obama came across all Wyatt Earp like.   Hell is coming and Obama is bring the thunder apparently.  Not since Kurt Russell in the film Tombstone has the American public been treated to such bravado. 
  
  After five years, my impression of Barrack Obama is this.  He's a preacher in a nice suit who can charm your pants off if your bull shit detector has taken a holiday.  Like Bill Clinton, you have to admire Obama's skill at being charming even when you know that he's feeding you the same line that every other politician has fed you during every whistle stop stump or every state of the union address.  The more I see of Obama, the more of a true politician he becomes.  IE, the Wag The Dog like moment where our fair president put on his every man pants and spun a yarn about the soldier he became "pals" with."  The very same soldier that both Obama and the cameras quickly zeroed in on after Obama convienently told the world a tale about how said soldier nearly lost his life after a road side bomb left a piece of shrapnel lodged in his brain.  When the economy is stuck in neutral and millions of Americans are left without much needed unemployment benefits, why not use a wounded soldier as a path to selective amnesia?  It certain worked for Dubya, seeing as how he used the aftermath of 9-11 to make the worries about a slumping economy magically fade away.  Edwin Starr once asked about war and what it was good for?  Apparently, it's good for profit and it's good for the commander in chief when he wants to play politics in the name of diversion and or distraction.  God bless America.

The city that never changes....

  The headlines in Chicago are ripe with stories about innocent people being shot and killed day after day.  Every week or so, there's another story about a mob attacking people on the Magnificent Mile.  Last week, a young man was shot in the head after he complied with a group of thugs who were attempting to rob him.  In all this, you'd think that Mayor Emmanuel's priority would be the safety and protection of ordinary citizens in the great city of Chicago.  But no.  Mayor Emmanuel's newest pet project doesn't involve finding the necessary funding to increase police manpower in crime ridden areas of the city.  Instead, Mayor Emmanuel is devoting his energy to the task of out biding New York City for the right to host the presidential library for his pal Barack Obama.   

  Chicagoans are once again being subjected to another self serving political initiative that serves neither the interest of the city or its constituents.  Let's be real here, this act of political hubris is all about Rahm Emmanuel's Washington based aspirations.  It's not about history or recognition or status or anything else.  What would the city of Chicago actually lose if Obama's presidential library went elsewhere?  Instead of diverting precious city resources to a presidential library, maybe Mister Emmanuel should devote his energy to the infrastructure of the city he currently reigns over.  I'd rather have a modernized train system free of antiquated technical gaffes than yet another piece of property built for the ego of a political demi gog.  This is all about Rahm Emmanuel currying favor with his political pals in Washington; the place where his true political heart and soul lies.   Apparently, there's no money available in the budget for new schools to be built and there's no money for teachers to be paid what they're worth.  Chicago schools are being consolidated in poor areas ands children are becoming targets because they have to trek through gang and crime ridden areas just to get to their designated school.  There's no money to keep our citizens and our children safe but there IS money in the coffers for Mayor Emmanuel to bid for a glass and steel monstrosity to celebrate the great former senator from Illinois.  The more things change in Chicago, the more they stay the same.

When Babylon fell.....

  Let me ask you a question.  What was the one period in time that makes you shake your head in wonder and or disgust?   For me, it was the uncertain time that centered around the early years of the AIDS epidemic.  One of the best films of the year, Dallas Buyers Club, perfectly defines this particular era.  This was a time when the ground opened up and people were suddenly swallowed whole.  And as Babylon fell away,  the most over rated of our presidents, Ronald Regan, did absolutely nothing.  When Regan finally DID awaken from his slumber and when he finally did acknowledge the epidemic before him, 25,000 lives had already been lost.  The nation needed a leader during that time, we needed a strong figure to calm the fears of a nation that was threatening to divide against itself.  Instead, Regan's apathy allowed panic and fear and almost chaos to fester into a state of narrow minded ignorance that would ultimately prove fatal as the years wore on and the disease known as AIDS preyed on not only homosexuals but heterosexual men and women and babies and intravenous drug users.  I can still hear the words of a fellow I once knew.  "I thought it was a fags disease" he said, shrugging indifferently as his life quickly ticked away.  My friend, god rest his soul, became the symbol of blind indifference; an indifference that would cost not only his life but the lives of millions more.  There were preachers spewing hate and there were profit seekers and bureaucrats and scientist fighting the Regan era red tape in a futile attempt to stop the old butchers bill from growing ever larger.

   There's a moment in Dallas Buyers Club where a judge stands before Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaghey) and declares sympathy for his plight; IE, the fact that he's dying from AIDS and is being denied the right to access the drugs needed to prolong his life.  This same judge then spits out a litany of terms such as "regulations" "studies" "protocols" and "side effects."  People like Ron Woodruff were fighting to survive and we basically told to fill out paperwork and express their feelings while a time bomb was set to go off inside their bodies.  In sickness there was profit and god bless the FDA for living up to this mantra as they partnered with doctors and various hospitals to give their patients sugar pills and a treatment known as AZT that proved ineffective in the treatment of AIDS.  According to the FDA, thinking outside the box to save one's life just wasn't attractive to the bottom line of the pharmaceutical companies who interests they ultimately protected.

Letter to my unborn offspring....

  Well, here's the thing.  You're never going to be born because I'm a cynic who will never get married.  I know what you're thinking.  What the fuck are you writing this letter for if you're not planning on or aren't inclined to have any offspring?  Well, I'm probably writing this because it's a frigid winter night and I'm heading home on the subway from a job that I hate.  Or perhaps it's the onset of clinical depression.  Or maybe I'm just in one of those black Hemmingwayesque moods where I'm feeling writerly because I feel like I really don't give a shit.  Sadly, your dad is a tormented soul who wrestles with something known as angst.  What I'm hoping for is that you enjoy the world as I never could.  My hope is that you don't reach a point in your life where the garden of possibility turns into a vast acre of tumble weeds.

  I'm writing this letter in the hope that the cycle of life will always keep us connected.  Not at the end when I'm on the way out and your journey has just begun , but all throughout the first act and right up until the very end of the picture.  Don't worry I'm not going to preach to you about better living through chemistry.  Blow up the lab, get it out of your system.  Do all the self indulgent and or stupid things in one shot.  Trust me, you'll be better for it later.


  My hope is that you have, at some point, a great love story like your dad had once upon a time.  Hopefully it's a love story that lasts through the last act and has a happy ending.  Nothing contrived, just heartfelt.  Hopefully this woman, whoever she is, will make you better and hopefully she'll make you feel like anything is possible.  Take a lesson from your old man, nothing is trivial.  Not to her anyway.  Be a good listener and be a pip and get her coffee in the morning; even if you have to go out in the freezing cold.  Be proactive, be open, be sweet, don't ever take this woman, whoever she may be, for granted. 
 

   See the world, be impulsive, never over think things.  Just.... be the man I aspired to be once upon a time.  Lastly, if you root for the Cubs.... keep your sense of humor and an extra supply of faith.  Even if all seems hopeless, even if you feel your loyalty wavering; have faith.  Have faith and then have a big old cry,  it's OK, when you're sitting there at Wrigley on a frigid October night and the Cubs break finally break through and do the unimaginable.  Soak it all in.  And when it's time to settle back into reality, be sure to tell that woman in your life that you love her.  Say it often, don't be a "guy."  Why?  Because you never know.  Life is funny that way.

                                                    Yours,
                                                    Dad

Amfar's cinematic victory lap....

  Every once in awhile, I'll be sitting there watching something on HBO and I'll get so flustered by the the obvious political pandering of the content that I'll have to control my urge to launch my shiny HD TV into oblivion.  HBO'S latest entry into the political self congratulation archives was a short mini documentary on AMFAR or The American Foundation For Aids Research.  If you watched this special, you'd think that AMFAR had rendered the AIDS disease to nothing more than a tragic footnote in the annuals of medical history.  While the upper crust ate champagne and dined on their self delusions, actress Sharon Stone was see in one segment touting AMFAR'S horn as if they had plowed the road towards a cure.  Last time I checked, a cure for AIDS was nowhere in sight and people were still dying of this dreaded disease.  To hear the subjects in the documentary tell it, AMFAR has somehow unlocked scientific doors to the very nature of AIDS and how to attack it.  Last I heard scientists had been struggling with another strain of AIDS.  A strain that had become resistant to the very HIV/AIDS drugs that AMFAR says they had a hand in developing.  Is this where we're at in terms of the outlook on AIDS; people promising better tomorrows while they hand out so called wonder pills and don't worry be happy buttons?  This isn't the time for self congratulations.  The war against HIV/AIDS isn't over and if organizations like AMFAR think there's nothing left to fight for on this front, then they're simply delusional or too in love with their own press clippings to know better. 

  Still, that's not even what put the proverbial bee in my bonnet.   It's the fact that the film makers, predictably, drudge up the name of Ryan White to prop up AMFAR as some sort of do gooding organization for AIDS research.  As we all know, we can never let facts get in the way of a mutual admiration society.  Those facts being that Ryan White only became a poster boy for the AIDS movement because he was the victim of blatant bean counting by the blood industry.  The blood industry, god bless them, felt that cost was more prevalent than prevention and or public safety when AIDS was in its embryo stages and victims like Ryan White were being infected by the very blood that was supposed to save their lives.  Yet, there is AMFAR and their minions taking credit for the HIV blood testing system that is currently in place.  The very system that was begrudgingly put into action after organizations like the Red Cross knew they had to deal with the shit storm that would soon follow.  But again, let's not let the facts of a brutal epidemic with no end in sight get in the way of an AIDS organization and its need for a victory lap.  Make it a quick one AMFAR, there's till work to be done.  There are still lives being lost.  There are still stigmas that need to be tackled and there are still lives to be saved.

And Perez hilton shall lead us.....

    I shouldn't get all indignant when I hear about someone snapping photos of a celebrity in the throes of a rather unseemly demise.  For all of the advances in technology, it has only served to placate the bottom feeding opportunist looking to make a few quick bucks with some taboo footage.  I wonder how anyone can stand there with their cell phone and snap a picture of someone's life slipping away beneath a ton of crushed, smoldering steel.  It seems incomprehensible.  I don't know if that's as horrible as the report that the amateur shutter bug kept filming even as a friend of Paul Walker's raced to the scene to try and perform some type of miracle rescue.  I don't know what makes me sicker, this act of blatantly insensitive voyeurism or the sanctimonious odor of quasi journalism coming from the site of Perez Hilton.  I guess it's true what they say, everyone thinks that they're a journalist these days.  I fear that the line between bottom feeding media vultures and actual journalists is becoming increasingly murkier by the minute.  I think I would respect a guy like Perez Hilton more if he dropped the act.  If he truly had a soul or any semblance of integrity, he'd realize that his plastic sense of empathy for Paul Walker's demise is obviously tempered by his need to feed the hunger of the bottom feeders who keep him in business; bottom feeders like the amateur shutter bug who couldn't bring himself to put his cell phone down for one second.  Can you imagine if a guy like Perez Hilton was around when say, JFK was gunned down.  I imagine Hilton spewing some pre written spiel about the nation's great loss before directing the visitors to his site to a multitude of photos of JFK'S skull being blown into a thousand pieces.  But true to Hilton's slimy nature, he'd cloak his carnival barking need for blood and guts in the guise of patriotism.   Just like he's wrapping himself up in the guise of journalism when he proudly features multi angle shots of the crash that killed Paul Walker. 

  A person gets thrown in front of train and our fellow citizens snap photos of said locomotive bearing down on the victim.  An actor in the prime of his career lies dead in a mangled heap of foreign steel and some guy zooms in for a pay day shot.  We're de evolving as a society and it's extremely unsettling to me.  Maybe it's the reality television culture that has led to this perceived sense of moral decay.   Today, the opportunity for someone to get their fifteen minutes of fame isn't as daunting as it used to be.  You don't need talent, you need only a puppet master.  You don't need purpose, you simply need a camera and a tragedy and a knack for being an opportunist.  To the amateur shutter bug, I say this.  Those photos you took are going to be seen by a fifteen year old who doesn't have a father anymore.  Thanks to your voyeurism, that fifteen year old gets a first hand lesson in both selfishness and callousness.  Good night and good luck.

The Hunger Games... in technicolor

    A friend and I were having a debate on whether the events of the blockbuster film "The Hunger Games" could possibly occur in real life.  My friend argued that we are too civilized of a society to actually engage in something as barbaric.  I countered her faith in humanity by pointing out that our society is seemingly decaying by the minute.    Nothing is more true of this than the report of a shopper pepper spraying her fellow bargain hunters in a Best Buy in order to rightfully claim a fancy gadget on markdown.  If someone in this society is willing to pepper spray someone to get their hands on a discounted piece of technological utopia, imagine what would happen if said person was forced to fight for their very survival on this planet.  You can say that you wouldn't watch your fellow humans doing battle for their right to remain on this planet but you know you would.  You know you would watch and you know you would be on the phone voting for your favorite combatant to give you your requisite hunk of flesh.  And don't tell me there isn't some corporate giant who wouldn't be willing to write a huge check in order to profit from all the blood shed and chaos.  I can see it now.... Ryan Seacrest playing Edward R Murrow in a Brooks Brother special; the cool hipster putting the de evolution of society into a marketing friendly package of ad dollars and outright voyeurism. 
 

   If the Hunger Games were indeed real would they end up being cloaked in some semblance of partisan politics?  I imagine if the Hunger Games were held for real under a Democratic administration, the GOP would be threatening a filibuster to keep down the number of well to do tax payers competing for their lives.   And I imagine if the Hunger Games commenced under a Republican administration, the Democrats would be screaming into the heavens about how the middle class are taking on a higher casualty rate than their upper class brethren.  I imagine if the Hunger Games commenced for real, that the landscape, post blood shed, would be something akin to Cormac McCarthy's "The Road."  I'm not talking about a world devoid of resources and I'm not talking about a world void of self restraint and society based etiquette.  I forsee a world post Hunger Games filled with opportunist.  A world where the power brokers sift through the casualties in an attempt to try and create a utopia in their own image. 

Those darn hobbits.....

  There's something about mystical works of fiction that just don't strike my fancy.  In other words, I don't give a rat's ass about the Harry Potter film library and I don't give a rat's ass about the multi billion dollar Hobbit film that is soon to hit theaters.  Where is Smaug and why is it being desolated?  And what exactly is a friggin Hobbit any way?  I've tried reading Tolkien and it didn't go well.  I got through a few pages and I surrendered.  But then again, the Lord Of The Rings franchise made a half a billion dollars in total receipts without any of my money going into the LOTR kitty so I guess that Hollywood doesn't give a rat's ass if I give a rat's ass about this particular franchise or its Hobbit franchise off spring. 

  Maybe someday I'll be sitting on my ass at home wrestling with my angst when the LOTR and Hobbit films will magically strike a chord with me.  It happened with Star Wars.  Once upon a time I didn't give a rat's ass about Star Wars and now I have one of the combo anniversary limited edition blue ray packs that George Lucas dangles in front of people like water in the desert.  Maybe I'm destined to be on the outside looking in when it comes to certain aspects of pop culture.  I don't want to see amateurs making fools of themselves on American Idol and I have no interest in hearing the kids on Glee singing other people's tunes.  I want the simple things in my life.  I want dark indie films that don't compromise and directors that don't butcher the books I love when they become films.  I want a woman who is uncomplicated and I want to not act out of need.  I don't want hobbits and midgets and British thespians in full beards being tied into a Denny's grand slam meal.  I just want to watch dark indie films and write the great American novel so I can make lots of money.  Then eventually I'll turn into an even more insufferable sack of crap and some woman will come along and steal all of my wealth.  And then maybe I'll spend my last ten bucks on a Netflix subscription and maybe, just maybe, I'll finally understand why people stand in line for two weeks in full Gandolph regalia to watch an overblown CGI fest like The Hobbit.  Right before I have my grabber or I get a hit by a bus or my potential wife to be slips a foreign toxin into my coffee, I'll finish one book in JRR Tolkiens epic medieval opera.  Then I'll travel to this mystical land of Smaug and one of the liberals will bring their row boat and their film crew along as we try to rebuild the joint.  I will install Wi Fi throughout this land known as Smaug and I will teach the hobbits how to get health care through the Obama backed insurance site.  And then the Hobbits will find out that there existing insurance has been canceled and I'll be exiled back to the states.  Resist Tyranny!!! Toot!!!  Toot!!!

What would the pilgrims say?

  I wonder what the pilgrims would say about the way their sacrifices would be celebrated.  On this day of Thankfulness, there are people camped outside various department stores across the United States in a battle for marked down bargains.  Imagine what the pilgrims would say if they heard about two strangers beating the crap out of one another for a marked down LCD television or a X Box One or whatever the else the department stores dangle in front of us bargain hungry vultures these days.  I've never gotten the whole concept of Black Friday myself.  Maybe it's because I don't have the people skills to tolerate a bunch of ill mannered cretins pushing and shoving their way towards a materialistic utopia of some kind.  But on this holiday of thanks, it's nice to turn on my television and be bombarded by a handsomely paid actor telling everyone that an employment dictatorship like Wal Mart is a place where employees bloom and prosper.  I wonder if the person who has to put up with the animals on a Black Friday at Wal Mart for nine bucks an hour would sing the praises of the afore mentioned corporate entity.  In one commercial the same handsomely paid actor says with pride how he started at Wal Mart as a cashier and then became a manager; a manager at the next Wal Mart opened up after the union busting giant squeezed another small business into submission more than likely.  So this is Thanksgiving.  Wal Mart propaganda running in a loop, people working for peanuts slinging burgers at McDonalds, and super stores dangling the karat of Black Friday OT in front of workers that aren't paid enough to begin with.

  I imagine I'll be making this same post on Christmas.  Christmas, the day that the entity hovering above us celebrates his or her birth day and people across the land spend the day bitching about what they didn't get while the interest on their credit cards accounts accumulate at light  speed.  But for me the most unbearable of the holidays is probably new years.  See I can avoid the materialism of Christmas and the inhumanity of Thanksgiving day shoppers but New Years is another matter entirely.  I am currently a singleton and a recovering...... well I'm recovering..... It's a long and complicated story for another time.  It's a quandary I think.  What does a middle aged singleton do on New Years eve if they are a solo, booze free entity?  There's always the cine plex.  Perhaps I'll buy a ticket for the Hunger Games and swoon over the lovely Jennifer Lawrence while I'll digest some popcorn and ponder how my life jumped the tracks at some point.  Bottoms up everyone and happy shopping!!!!

Everything Kennedy......

  Suddenly, my cable universe is wall to wall with various films offering their takes on the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy and what allegedly happened on that fateful day in Dallas in 1963.  I have to admit, my guy Greg Kinnear handled the Boston accent well and functioned rather smoothly as a Hollywood JFK doppelganger of sorts.  It's amazing how poor Oswald gets treated in Hollywood move of the week circles though.  In the Kinnear led film, he's an emaciated, sweaty, Woody Allen esque assassin with a slight paunch and a flat Texas/Brooklyn accent.  In the other Kennedy film of the week, Oswald is seen as a gangly killer with piercing blue eyes with a hint of the speech pattern from Latka on Taxi.  I'm guess what I'm saying is, let's stop asking the question about why Kennedy died.  I say that because I'm a cynic and we're never going to get a definitive answer about what went down in Dallas that fateful November day.   All of these movies of the week about Kennedy are just repetitive tabloid fodder that stir the conspiracy theorists into an un necessary frenzy.  That's not to say that I don't dismiss the notion that our government, namely the CIA, would be calculated enough to arrange the Caesar like execution of its presidential field general.  What I do believe is that Oswald wasn't some loon who just picked up a rifle and took aim on a president for some unknown reason.  If you believe the stories, Oswald was a trained merc with a nice pedigree in weapons training.  The story I believe is that Oswald was a merc given a task (Kennedy) by whoever his master was and he carried out it.  And after Oswald carried out his assignment, he was subsequently served up to the world as a nut with a rifle and a grudge that reared its ugly head in Dallas.   While I admit there is some smoke to the theory that JFK was the victim of a conspiracy of some sort. one question remains.  If this was some covert plan within the halls of the very government Kennedy was the leader of, then why hasn't it happened again?  For every recorded tidbit about Kennedy's death that keeps you from over reaching, there are always certain elements that make you wonder. According to the history books, Kennedy's parade route was a turkey shoot; tall buildings with open windows and inviting sight lines.  Plus, it has been put on record that Kennedy's security detail was scaled back.  People in Chicago can't even use the expressway when Obama is in town, yet Oswald was supposedly allowed free reign to pull out a bolt action rifle and take aim at a president from a book suppository high above.  These are gross security miscalculations that either spell out incompetence or a grossly obviously betrayal by the secret service on some level.  Makes you wonder, doesn't it?  No no no.  Oswald acted alone and that's that.  I will not get caught up in the JFK conspiracy hoopla.... I will not get caught up in the JFK conspiracy hoopla.   Now if you'll excuse me, Reelz channel is running a special that examines the Zapruder film from a different angle.

If only kids were returnable with a receipt....

  I see these crime stories on the news all the time.  You know the ones.  They usually feature the parent who is trying to explain how the life that they led into the world turned out to be a sociopathic killer with bad wiring.   Maybe that's the reason I can't see myself ever being a father; the idea that I'll take a long look at my potential offspring one day and realize that I gave life to something broken.  And it's not like I can take my potential offspring back to Sears if they're defective.  If only there was a system where you can run your offspring back to the store and have the option of getting a store credit or a gift card upon their return.  Here mister or misses sales clerk, I'm here to return junior because he's a hopelessly fucked up idiot.  Store credit is fine since I don't have my receipt.

  I know for certain that if I ever did have a kid, I'd raise them with the same values that my mom did.  One of those values was honesty.  My mother's parenting style was based on improv but the fact that she spoke from the hip grounded me going forward.  My mother's favorite saying was "if I have it, you'll have it.  If I don't have it...."  She didn't even have to finish the sentence after awhile, I knew exactly where she was coming from.  Her most famous act of parenting was on bill day.  There'd always be two piles, one for the bills and one for the income she had just received. She'd point at the bill pile and tell us in a matter of fact manner that it was either going to be a good month or a tight month.
 
  The point is, I know I don't have the patience to raise a kid.  That fact I don't dispute in the slightest.  Although, strangely enough, I've managed to have a dog and a few cats and they've lived semi long lives.  My latest cat just got a clean bill of health from the vet and seems to be doing OK under my watch.  No no, raising animals and kids aren't the same.  I'm trying to toot my own non parental parental horn.   In all honest, if my ex,AKA my one true love, were still in the picture, I'd at least kick the tires on being a father.  Maybe that's the answer.  Maybe I'll be more reticent to have a kid when I meet up with some nurturing woman who balances out my need to grab a bottle of aspirin and ear plugs every time a kid comes in my general direction.  My ex had a gift with children, she seemed to speak their language.  She was the proverbial kid whisperer I guess.  Nah, I can't have a kid.  I'd blame myself if the kid was fucked up and I spend hours and hours analyzing what the hell went wrong.  Nah, my greatest fear is becoming everything, parent wise, that my father was.  I still remember the day I graduated college.  I thought, this is the moment; the moment when even this emotionally unavailable sack of crap can't possibly shoot daggers at me on one of my more prouder days.  Dad looked at me and said "good, now take that paper they gave you and try to get a job earning more than minimum wage."  Thank you dad.  I'm afraid to fail and I surround myself in walls and I over analyze things to the point of distraction but thankfully, I'm nothing like you.

Left is right and right is left

  Have you noticed something, mister and misses cable news watcher?  Though their political ideology differs, CNN has suddenly adapted the look and feel of its main competitor the Fox News Channel.   The Fox News Channel and its morning show have a three person hosting team with that talk showesque couch and now Jeff Zucker revamps CNN and suddenly the CNN morning show has a three person crew and the couch and the requisite blond anchor from central casting. Even the CNN afternoon show and the FNC afternoon show are almost indistinguishable.  Same interview on the plaza with the same rabble rousing news maker sounding the political trumpet for their respective political party.

   So let me get this straight?  CNN wants to be taken seriously again as a legitimate news outlet for the liberals and yet, it hires Jeff Zucker.  Jeff Zucker, the man who turned a once proud beacon of journalism known as the Today show into a banal exercise of fluff and irrelevancy.  I mean, Zucker was the man who thought it would be a prudent move to inflict Kathy Lee Gifford on the public again when Today was expanded to four hours.  But GMA actually started beating Today when they took Zuckers formula for dumb down and used it to take over the top spot in morning news.


  So I guess you could say that CNN is simply being proactive by attempting to beat Fox News Channel, their rival, by mimicking their format at every turn.  Or maybe this was the CNN game plan when Piers Morgan was hired to replace Larry King since Piers Morgan is the UK'S version of Geraldo Rivera with the sound and bombast turned down a few decibels.  Like good old Geraldo, Piers Morgan seems adept at making the story all about him. So with this being said, I wonder what's the next step for CNN under Jeff Zucker?  Well, Jeff Zucker can't counter the Kathy Lee Gifford move by hiring Regis because Regis is working for Fox Sports One at the moment.  So I guess Jeff Zucker will have to find another quasi celebrity who makes you yearn for the virtue of silence and or euthanasia.  If Jeff Zucker is going to go all single white female and morph into a clone of FNC, he'll have to start finding doppleganger's for FNC sacred cows like Shephard Smith. Surely, he can find the liberal version of old Shep, as they call em.  I'm sure it'll be easy for Jeff Zucker to find an elitist talking head with a twang and a liberal slant.  Or maybe CNN already has their Shephard Smith in their very own Anderson Cooper;  or, AC, as they say in the business. Maybe this is a trend.  Maybe the liberals will start pumping out their own politically slanted Limbaugh clones to take the airwaves back from the Conservatives. The left will try to look and sound like the right and the right will try and look and sound like the left.


  So what have we learned here, ladies and gentlemen?  Well, we learned that people like to bitch and moan about fluff, yet gobble it up every morning when they watch the Today show and GMA cross promote their respective mother nipples into oblivion.  And we've learned that CNN wants to be the Fox News Channel but they want to lean forward like MSNBC does while they do it.  And we've learned that CBS WANTS to be credible but can't seem to get out of its own way.  Only CBS could pledge its dedication to heard news in the morning and then hire a friend of Oprah's to hijack the last hour of their respective morning program with the same fluff that people are watching on NBC and ABC in record numbers.  Well, at least CNN doesn't have anchors on the payroll that want to be country singers.  There's hope yet.

Rebuild the shore!!!!

  If you've watched the news, you know that the boardwalk in Jersey is nothing but a pile of rubble right now.  I feel for the business owners who have been impacted by this tragedy but maybe the fire in Jersey was biblical in nature.  Maybe the fates or whatever wanted to purge the land that served as the back drop for that IQ sucking exercise known as Jersey Shore.  My question is this. You saw Sean Penn and Brad Pitt flying down during the Katrina disaster and what not.  So where are the kids from the Jersey shore when their Guido homeland needs them the most?  Heck, isn't Springsteen from Jersey?  Where is he at?  I say, he and Snooki and every tanned Guido should be shifting through the rubble and assisting in the rebuilding effort.  America needs its home of bare chested Guido's starting fights on the boardwalk.  Where will the next Jersey Shore hopefuls learn the values of GTF if the boardwalk in Jersey remains a Terninatoresque pile of smoldering rubble?
  Forgot Syria Mister Obama, the Jersey shore needs your support.  Forgot the masses who were bombarded with nerve gas, Jersey needs your guiding hand.  We need that Obama charm and we need Springsteen to sing about the night that the Boardwalk turned to rubble.  Keep it non Parisian Bruce, Dubya had nothing to do with this calamity.

  Wouldn't it be great entertainment to see little Snooki and J Wow or whatever the hell her name is doing half ass work trying to rebuild the boardwalk.  I can see Ron and Sammi throwing charred pieces of plywood at one another as they fight over some guy Sammi texted before the tragic fire in their homeland.  I can see the Situation standing guard for enemy grenades while someone goes to confessional and bitches about what little work he's doing to help rebuild the Mothership.   I know you're feeling me on this MTV.

  We can have Springsteen and other Jersey based celebs manning the phone lines in the fight to rebuild the boardwalk.  There will be shots of some poor disenfranchised T shirt shop owner and the sound of a sad movie soundtrack as he talks about all the shirts he never got to sell.  And then Kayne will but in and tell the world that Jersey doesn't care about black people.  Call Fema, call the National Guard, call a Carpenter.  We rebuilt the towers, now we must rebuild the boardwalk. Guido tested, Guido strong, the boardwalk must be rebuilt!!!!

Sundays with Joel.....

  A pal of mine has seen great things in Joel Osteen so here I am, a known atheist, trying to observe the Joel Osteen experience on a rainy Sunday Morning.   Now I have to admit; I look at Joel and I see a nattily attired salesman.  This is probably due to the fact that every five minutes, there's an ad asking the flock or whoever the demo is to buy Joel's newest book.  Yes, there are the ad's for Mister Osteen's book and then the constant flashing of a PO Box in which to send dough to the Osteen crusade.  So this is the man that is telling me to put my life into God's hands; a man with an 800 number full of tele marketers and a PO Box where the checks go.  So if I put my life into God's hands by giving Joel my rent money and nothing happens, is the plan for God to have me live in a box until something miraculously happens.  I find it funny that Joel Osteen preaches about relieving your mind of all things monetary when he preaches out of a church the size of three football fields.  So let me get this straight.  I'm supposed to put my fate into something I can't see.

  So let me get this straight.  I'm supposed to eschew all thoughts of what I don't have from a guy whose has no worries when it comes to all things monetary.  Maybe I'd trust Mister Osteen a bit more if he ended his sermon and simply went to black.  But no, the sermon ends and then there's an infomercial for Joel's book and the shot of Joel with two schumcks who are promoting their own religious empire.   Maybe I'm just to cynical and un-trusting to actually believe in anything religious.  I laughed when Joel mentioned God breathing on you and Moses with a mighty stick of fury ala Steven Seagal.   I'm sorry, I just can't open up my mind to a preacher with an 800 number.  For me, there has to be separation between religion and commercialism somehow.  But hey, Joel does put on a good show.  The flock was engaged and one woman was spotted taking notes.  I guess God breathed on her and she found out that she was going to be tested on all the dogma being thrown about.  Or maybe Moses threatened her with his mighty stick of justice if she didn't come back with a score of at least ninety percent.  Actually I was considering give Joel's empire twenty bucks out of curiosity.  But then I thought to myself; you get what you pay for.  You can't get a total life transformation for a mere twenty bucks.  I wonder if Joel supplies a Flo chart for the donations.  For twenty bucks and a little belief, God or whatever gives you this.  I'm thinking, the higher the donation the higher the results.  I wonder if God takes money orders?

the de evolution of the Peacock network

  NBC.... we have to talk.  I know you guys have been struggling to recapture the glory days since Seinfeld left the throne and his steady ratings behind on Thursday nights.  I had high hopes when I heard that Robert Greenblatt was hired to be the chairman for NBC entertainment.  After all, this was the man who gave us gems like Dexter and Nurse Jackie and Californication when he was the head of programming at Showtime.  So what's the deal with bringing Michael J Fox back into the fold as a mere punch line?  He has Parkinson's I get it.  The main thrust of the marketing campaign for Fox's new NBC show seems intent on using his physical ailments to get cheap laughs.  First it was Fox standing there shaking like a leaf while trying to conduct a breakfast gathering with his latest TV family.  Yuck yuck.  This morning, another long promo surfaced.  This one involves Fox  trying to conduct a welcoming party for his NBC line up mate Sean Hayes.  Hayes is seen standing there waiting for Fox to try put some sort of entree into his mouth.  The promo ends with Hayes opining that he has more food on his face than in his mouth.  Is this what NBC has come to?  Is NBC so devoid of ideas that they have to green light a lazily written series that just wants to exploit someone's obvious disability?  Is the new regime at NBC intent on pumping out comedies that are nothing but exploitive?
 
  Maybe someone at NBC creative can develop another howler about a former Hollywood star trying to come back from a traumatic brain injury?  Maybe the promos can center around this former star trying desperately to remember where they live?  I know, maybe one of the promo's can play up the fact that this star with the brain injury can't find the NBC studio where the pitch is.  Now that's just plain hilarious.   ABC.  CBS.  FOX.  You're.  On.  Notice.

  It's not even the promos for Mister Fox's new show that bother me.  It's the fact that NBC creative seems be to taking glee in using someone's disability as a punch line.  Do we really need to shine a flashing light on the fact that Michael J Fox is being ravaged by Parkinson's disease?  The first promo should've been enough.  You got your laugh, move on.  But hey, maybe NBC creative is onto something.  Amanda Bynes is fair game, why doesn't NBC creative develop a show that makes light of the fact that she's quickly losing her mind?  I see a promo ala Twelve Monkeys; Bynes walking around LA screaming at inanimate objects while flashing each passerby.  Cue the NBC jingle and flash that peacock proudly, we have a winner.   NBC equals genius.

Growing up all over again......

  So it's just another typical day in my head.  I'm getting that "look" from one of the managers at my new job and I'm hearing the echoes of my dad as he opines that I have the worth of a wilted prune.   Then I think about the words of a good friend; the ones who tells me to smile and think positive.   I think of my friend, who is younger than me by a few years, and I wonder what the hell he's doing hanging around such a cynical sort like me.  Actually, I wonder why the other people in my life are subjecting themselves to the agony of hanging around someone like me.  I don't mean this it in a suicide hot line kind of way.  I mean it in a funny ha ha, I'm trying to be an ironical son of a bitch kind of way.   My younger friend, the one I mentioned before,  is a ball of possibility and positivity, he makes me smile with his sense of youthful romanticism.  The other one of my friends is a success in every sense of the word and she's beautiful and rolling in dough with a job most people would kill for three thousand miles away on the opposite coast.  I do the math in my head and it doesn't compute I guess.  I'd like to say that those Joel Osteen tapes have allowed me to embrace the idea of God and a plan and.... fuck I still can't even say it without calling bullshit on myself.  Maybe it's just me, maybe it's that voice in my head; the one that guffaws when people say I'm intelligent.  Maybe it's that little voice in my head that makes me wonder why a beautiful woman with so much to offer would actually sleep with me in the first place.  Hell, she not only slept with me, she stuck around.  Maybe it's that little voice that makes me wonder what a guy with the world at his feet would be doing hanging around me.  Who would've ever thought I'd be riding in  a car listening to Joel Osteen tapes?  Who ever thought I'd ever consider possibly making a truce with God or whatever else is up there?  Maybe I'm evolving somehow and I don't know it.  Maybe I'm learning about the wonders of change.  Maybe I'm growing up all over again at age 36.  Maybe I'm finally surrounded by people who won't make me regret going all in.  Maybe the secret is in the details of clearing out the crap in my head.  Maybe the secret is to smile and think positive.  Maybe it's all about flipping my father the bird every time I hear him saying that I can't do anything.

  Maybe it's a new chapter of a new me; positive dogma and plenty of teeth and the inspiring fire and brimstone of a preacher who makes more than I make it in a lifetime.  Maybe it's like riding a roller coaster.  I should just sit down and enjoy the ride and embrace the drop.  I guess if the last few years have taught me anything, it's that you're never to old to learn and you're never to old to grow.

Boxes....

  Let's face it, we're a live in the now kind of nation.  We mourn and we grieve as a collective and then we all take a pause and everyone moves on to the next incident designed to inspire a detached sort of melancholic solidarity in that fast food way that our world functions in.  It's happening with 9-11 I fear.  The bad guys have receded to the shadows in our minds.  The site where the towers once were are trying to flourish under the guise of something oh so corporate and oh so New York.

  I guess it's the cycle of life taking precedence.  In death their is grief but the social contract seems to limit the shelf life on mourning.  We, as humans of the planet, we live by a contract in which the healing process requires the survivors to pack up the life of the person that they loved into a box in the storage of their hearts and or their sub conscious.  I didn't lose a brother or a lover on 9-11.  I didn't experience the pain of losing someone and having to deal with the realization that a proper good bye will never be possible.  But, having lost someone very close and very special to me, I know about the contract and that clause about moving on.  I'm betting that someone woke up today and asked why the loved ones of the 9-11 victims haven't moved on.  I bet someone read up the paper or watched the news and commented that it's been twelve years.  Twelve years, why ring bells and call out names?   I know that someone thought it if they didn't say it out loud.  In grief, there is no statute of limitations.  After all of the pomp and circumstance fades and after all of the partisan posturing stops and after Hollywood gets through using one of America's darkest days as a marketing prop for some A listers political idealism, it's just the survivors left standing.  Contrary to the old saying, time doesn't all heal wounds.  It''s not like the movies, where everyone reaches the key point of the plot and the emotional epiphany leads to the clarity that leads to the happy ending. For most of the 9-11 survivors who lost loved ones on that fateful day, they've packed up the boxes and they've taken that trip to the addict or wherever we put our grief so can we move on or move forward or whatever the fucking cliche is these days.   I guess what I'm saying is, don't be so hard on the ones that need to remember.  Don't be so hard on the ones that haven't done their required packing job yet.  Some people need to relive the shittiest days of their lives just to prove that they can feel.  I know because I'm one of em.  I guess it goes for all creatures that are grieving a loss of some kind.  Give them their space.  Let them ring bells, let them remember.  Don't bury them in cliches or self help scripture.  Most importantly, don't talk to someone whose grieving in generalities like time.  Time doesn't apply to the families who lost loved ones on 9-11 or anyone else for that matter.  Hopefully no whose reading this will have to experience the shitty deal that comes with losing someone.  You give your heart to someone, you come to know them as a part of your orbit and then you're simply supposed to paint over that portion of your life for the sake of normalcy, whatever the fuck that is.

Get ready for another bar fight.... Obama style....

   So I'm getting ready to clean up the old hacienda and as I'm wiping the sleep from my eyes I hear the dear old pres pleading his case for attacking Syria.  According to Obama, the intervention in Syria is not going to necessitate the deployment of American troops.  Obama also acknowledged the fact that America is weary after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  If you listened carefully, you could hear the little voice in Obama's head whispering "I'm not Dubya."  Well.... yeah..... Mister Obama.... you may not be Dubya but you're certainly letting your bravado get you into a potential pickle the way Dubya did with Iraq.  Didn't Dubya tell the American people that we were simply going into Iraq to be a force for change; to be an agent of democracy for an oppressed people.  And then somehow the quest for Democracy turned into a modern day John Wayne flick.  I take that back, Dubya became a modern day John Rambo.  Now here comes Obama with his latest quest for peace without any grunt work and or bloodshed.

  See, I'm a cynical sort and I don't trust my government as far as I can throw it.  When the president's mouth is moving, it's a good bet that he is usually lying.  I'm not talking about Obama in general, I'm referring to most every cut of politician that has taken the mantle of president at some point in time.  It's part of the gig, being a salesman without the American people seeing through the con.  No one was better at the con that Bill Clinton, god bless his amorous southern friend heart.   If Obama doesn't need the threat of force and or the guiding hand of the American military to stop what's going on in Syria then I'm Abe Lincoln.  Or does Obama simply expect to dialogue with the despot responsible for inflicting nerve gas on his own people.  Odds are, ASKING a despot to stop doing something requires more than diplomacy or the power of Obama speak.  Unless Obama is going to slip the latest baddie an envelope like they do in good old Chicago. we're going to war with Syria.  I say, it'll go like this.  Obama will talk and Syria will listen and Obama will board air force one thinking everything is OK.  And then, when dad is half way to Washington, that pesky despot in Syria will continue to commit atrocities.  And like some frustrated parental unit who was disobeyed, Obama will go back to Syria and shake his fist in frustration while the Syrian government hides whatever chemical agent it uses against its people.  And after all of the posturing and all of grand standing and after months go by and Obama's hair grows whiter we'll get that press conference.  You know the one.  It's where Obama sighs like the maytag repair man before he gives us those hound dog eyes.  And then..... drumroll..... Obama will announce to the world that he has to spank Syria because they threw spit balls at him.  And then we'll enter another war.

Late night with da Mayor.....

  So this is the alternative to Mayor Daley?  To me, Rahm Emanuel looks like Daley with a much smaller waistline and a much tighter grasp of the English language as a whole.  Like Daley, Rahm Emanuel has taken to disappearing when the city of Chicago seems to be reeling and or in need if some semblance of leadership.  Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy  is out gunned and out numbered by thugs and deviants of all kinds with a never ending cache of weapons and his boss is on Letterman.  Chicago is becoming a wasteland of senseless violence ala one of those Death Wish films and the leader of the city is out playing quasi celebrity.  To paraphrase a line from Joseph Gordon Leavitt in The Dark Knight Rises; "pay attention to the details Mister Emanuel because some of those details need your attention."  I understand if being the mayor of Chicago is a stop gap position for Rahm Emanuel until the political winds of Washington lead him to bigger and better political endeavors down the road.  But right now, Mister Emanuel, your job is to be the mayor of Chicago.  And as the Mayor of Chicago, your city needs you.  We need you to help figure out how to stop innocent kids from being gunned down left and right for no apparent reason.  Your city needs you, Mister Emmanuel, to stop with the shell games that have left the CPD unable to adequately tackle crime in this city.  I don't know about you Mister Emmanuel, but it alarms me when criminals feel brazen enough to carjack a police Sargent near his home.  It alarms me when someone shows little respect for law and order in our great city by trying to sexually assault an off duty police officer.  It's time to stop being a celebrity Rahm.  It's time to come home to the job you agreed to take, however taxing and or politically stagnant a position it may be for a former Washington power player with dreams as big as his ego.  It's time, Mister Emmanuel, to live up to the promise you made to NOT to be your predecessor.  Right now Mister Emmanuel, from where I'm sitting, it's hard to gage where Rich Daley ends and you actually begin.  The city of Chicago is crumbling and it needs leadership.  And where is the mayor?  He's on Letterman.

I used to work for Treadstone.....

  Naturally, I was mad when I heard through the grapevine that my old company had banished me from the property I used to work at.  I kind of wanted to come back and chew the fat with the fellas I used to work with.  I liked the crew I used to work with.  I learned alot from the crew I used to work with.  I learned about things like patience and professionalism.   I kind of wanted to see the old crew again and let em know that I was OK after my divorce from the company who used to write my paychecks.  The very company that saw me as the Simple Jack of their employment family.  All and all, I wish I hadn't loaded the pistol that was eventually used to whack me but sometimes I just do dumb things that defy any and all sense of belief.
 
  At first I thought I was absolutely going to go on a flame fest on my former employer on Facebook.  Then I remembered that it was my writing that had gotten me thrown out of the employment fraternity I was once a member of.  So rather than pissing in someone else's pool yet again I'm going to have a chuckle about the absurdity of what my former bosses are doing to not only me but to other people who left, without drama, to seek greener employment pastures.  I'm not sure, but I think one of former Co workers was labeled a security risk in regards to company files.   This makes me wonder if my former bosses have been reading one to many John LeCarre novels.  I guess my former bosses envision me coming back to my old place of work and in sighting the employees who are still there to bust the union ala Jimmy Hoffa.  I don't have Hoffa like prowess and I'm not a leader of the working man.  I was told my interpersonal skills weren't good enough to keep me in my last position but how in the world did Co mingling art and work on the company server get me labeled  a rabble rouser?  Oh well, I guess the best thing is to tip my cap and accept the fact my former company is something akin to the Treadstone project.  I wonder if they have an action shot of me blown to full life size length in the entrances of both buildings.   I just hope, in a purely vain way, that they have a photo of me that captures my good side.  I hope that my mug shot doesn't cast me, photogenically, as an awkward looking dufus.  So rewrite history, oh former company.  Throw mud if you must.  Plaster wanted posters of me all over River North; drop them from the sky like some sort of blitzkrieg.  I have moved on and I hope you will too.  This is the new me.  No more pissing in the pool, no more needless fires.  I'm taking the high road ladies and germs.