Love, Dad The Geek (NG)

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2010 (originally published)

For those of you who don’t believe that that mythical corner of mine where I do my street writing really exists, I decided it was safe to publish a picture of the location and that it would present no security threat to our country…or any other country for that matter. This shot was partially accidental since I was taking pics of the Historic Route 66 sign (just getting my kicks for the day – if you know the song) and captured the street signs coincidentally.

(My corner in the blogosphere where I street write.
No photoshop was used, honest!)

(Route 66 was written by Bobby Troup – playing here- for his wife Julie London while they were driving from Chicago to L.A.- enjoy… this is great!)

I think that my heart rate must have been up to 90% of max and the oxygen supply to my brain suddenly dropped on today’s 45 minute early morning walk to Heaven because I started considering the holiday season…in mid-September! Aside from the stores marketing Halloween stuff since July 5th, I heard “Proud Mary” on Pandora and Thanksgiving came to mind? Don’t get the connection? Not to worry, I’ll make it all work after a few hundred words and a song and a video clip. History and politics can be fun (oops, did I just telegraph a blow?). I promise to try not to be too pedantic even if using the word pedantic is, in and of itself, pedantic. But I digress…

In 1972 while attending lectures by Andrew J. Galambos at his Free Enterprise Institute, he related to us an important piece of historical analysis about the Plymouth Colony experience. It is very relevant to the challenges that we, as a country face today (for you folks who live outside of the USA – and there are a few of you- please don’t stop reading because this is an important historical lesson for you as well, I believe). Nearly every Thanksgiving since 1972 I have retold the story of the first Thanksgiving at our family dinner; so even though I’m a little ahead of the season, current events of the day demand that that story be retold now- before the fall elections.

In March of 1623 the Plymouth Pilgrims lead by Governor William Bradford were in desperate trouble. They had nearly starved to death during that cold, long winter. When they arrived in 1620, they had agreed to operating the colony as a commune in which the land they were farming was owned by the “collective” (in other words no private ownership) and all that was produced was placed in a central storehouse. Any money made from selling the fruits of their labor was also held in a communal account. In turn all the Pilgrims needs were provided for from the central storehouse according to each colonist’s “need” including food, clothing, housing, tools and other provisions. They limped along under that system through the winters of 1620, 1621, and 1622, but by the spring of 1623 they were nearly out of provisions and money because production had fallen to between little and none. The attitude of the colonists had progressively deteriorated over the three years from co-operative and energetic to weak, depressed, and unmotivated to work resulting in ever decreasing production of crops and manufactured goods and services such as carpentry, clothing and other small commodities of life. The colonists were demoralized and unmotivated. It was a disaster waiting to happen…soon!

Governor William Bradford kept a record this whole dismal situation during those years. He observed that the women had become unwilling to work in the fields because, they complained, they were weak, sick, and unable to do the work and to have forced them do so would have been oppressive and tyrannical. He observed that younger men who were very capable of doing the hard physical work of farming, were also unmotivated. They complained that, while other older men were feigning sickness and hung out in the town to avoid work along with the “weak and sick” women, they would have to do their work for them in the fields for no compensation. There was no compensation for anyone. Everyone worked as they were able and took what they “needed” from the storehouse. The younger men didn’t believe toiling in the fields while slackers pretended illness and were waited on by the women instead of working was particularly fair. It sucked.

Bradford, after carefully considering the whole situation hoped they might increase their production of crops before the next winter (and starvation of all the colonists if no action was taken to correct the problem), decided to make a change in how they organized the colony. He wanted to end to “their languishing in misery”; so he announced that the commune would be disbanded and from that point forward every family would have its own parcel of land to farm and they would keep (or trade) whatever they produced and the money they might receive from the sale of that crop. What happened next is one for the books, so to speak.

Bradford recounted that this (i.e. Free Enterprise and Private Ownership) brought immediate success because everyone had become “very industrious”. The women now went willingly in the fields schlepping their kids with them to help plant corn. Bradford noted that this type of socialist experiment (i.e. the socialist commune) had failed before (this was the first time in America, of course) and that Plato (who had been applauded for these views in earlier times) had been wrong in his belief that if you take away private property and place it in the hands of a central planning committee that the community will be happy and flourish. In practice, observed Bradford, such a socialist community (as the colonists were operating) was found to “breed confusion and discontent and retard much employment”. He noted that the younger men had not wanted to invest their time and energy doing work for other men’s wives and children without compensation or proprietary interest willing went to work in their own fields.

And so, after establishing a free enterprise system in the colony in the spring of 1623, the harvest, that fall, was so plentiful that the Pilgrims were able to thank the Massasoit Indians for all of their help and advice by having a great feast. This was the real first Thanksgiving celebration: celebrating the victory of Free Enterprise over Socialism. This is no fairy tale nor is it a legend. It is from a factual account of what happens when people have been reduced to poverty and starvation by a failed ideology and react by making a real, positive change for their own survival. They did what works and that was the right thing to do just as is will be in Cuba…and in the USA when we resurrect the Free Enterprise system starting with the November elections.

So, what’s the deal with Cuba? I thought , according to our liberals, that it was a shining example of how a collective, socialist, commune should work and that we should be following their model starting with universal health care and then jobs for all as government employees (at least that’s the dream, but oh wait, aren’t we livin’ the dream these days?). Apparently there’s trouble in the Cuban socialist paradise because Fidel Castro told the AP last Wednesday that “The Cuban (economic) model doesn’t even work for us anymore.” Then, after the Talkosphere made the whole world aware of the Cuban experiments failure, Fidel did an Olympics qualifying back- stroke and tried to say that he had been “misinterpreted” (does that mean we didn’t understand what he meant to say or that the Spanish interpreter was incompetent?).

Oh really? Then why did Brother Raul announce a couple of days later that Cuba (i.e. Socialist Paradise) would be laying off 500,000 state workers by 2011 and up to 1,000,000 somewhat later? Furthermore, Brother Raul said that these people were being released to find jobs in the non-existent private sector (now that’s desperation on the hoof). Did Socialism fail yet again? Bingo! Maybe Hollywood could give Brother Raul a part as William Bradford in a movie about the Plymouth Colony. His big line will be, “Every man for himself!” If Cuba has a bountiful harvest next fall maybe they could celebrate their own Thanksgiving Day: the day they threw Socialism off the island (just like the colonists did in 1623) and we need to do in November of 2010.

And then there’s our current liberal Congress and President racing at warp speed toward the Cuban Socialist Economic Model. They are Hell bent for election… or maybe not being reelected, as the case may be… which brings me to this November and the reselection of our Free Enterprise economic system (I know, chill, there is no such word. I made it up. It’s contraction of “resurrection” and “election” and I thought you’d like it better than “elecercetion”). Our economy in the tank, our spending is over the top, and our taxes are on the verge of being confiscatory. Our auto, banking, and Insurance, and health care industries have been nearly nationalized. Our freedom of speech and right to bear arms have been weakened and the Constitution as a whole is under assault, the value of our money has been reduced and government employment is expanding rapidly into massive government. It’s the winter of 1623 all over again for the United States of America (or the summer of 2010 in Cuba) and we must choose.

Okay, time for a break. This is pretty heavy (i.e. pedantic) stuff and I haven’t explained “Proud Mary” yet. I realized about half way through the song that it could be a metaphor for the resurrection of the Free Enterprise economic system in the USA. It speaks to the near slavery of socialism and the proud, freedom of Free Enterprise “rollin’ on the river”. I know that’s not what it was originally written about…but the connection was, for me, still there. The “Proud Mary” of Free Enterprise is, as we speak, moored tightly to the dock of government control and interference and soon will be completely dismantled. She needs to be cut loose again to ply the river waters of true freedom…Free Enterprise needs to keep on rollin’ on the river…

Breaks over…

We must choose between a government that will continue to herd us, mostly against our will, into a giant failing commune where we become demoralized, unproductive, poverty stricken, miserable, and starving to death (actually probably literally given enough time)…

or…

We can choose to hit the restart button for our government and resurrect Free Enterprise by rebooting Free Enterprise 2.0. We do that by electing a congress in November (and President in two years) who will say, as did William Bradford (or, gulp, Raul Castro, if you can believe it), “Every man (or woman) for themselves”. In other words, we need to stop looking to government (i.e. the central storehouse) for all of our needs. We need to stop looking for something for nothing and get out there and produce enough for our own needs. “To each by his needs; from each by his ability” is the Socialist motto. It should be: “From our own abilities; provide for our needs”. So how do we do this? How do we get there from here?

The answer is: Just one thing!

Jack Palance in the movie City Slickers had it right when he softly said, “Just one thing…,”and here it is: the mid-term elections are in two months and with them comes the season of conservatives cannibalizing each other and confusing the heck out of all of us. When the candidates get done shredding each other over ideological differences we end up scratching our heads in dismay and the liberal opposition has a cargo ship full of ammunition. Worse yet, we read all the flyers, OP-EDs, and listen to debates and analysis and discover that there is no candidate who will represent us the way we want on all the issues that we are passionate about. I guarantee that every single candidate will fail you in some way; sooner or later. If it’s not abortion; it will be oil drilling. If it’s not gun control; it will be freedom of speech. If it’s not health care; it will be same sex marriage. If it’s not immigration then it will be global warming … and on and on. All of these issues are important and even critical to the future of our country, but there is one issue that supersedes all of these. There is one issue that must be addressed if we are to have any opportunity at all to even discuss these other critical topics, let alone fix them.

Drum roll please …

It is absolutely critical that we resurrect Free Enterprise in the United States of America. Without an underlying economic foundation built on Free Enterprise we will not even have a chance to debate the many important issues that are currently on the table.

Why is that? It is because if we allow our Free Enterprise system is be destroyed by the forces of Socialism (or any other derivative of generic “Collectivism” such as Communism or Fascism- let’s not quibble over this point) we will be forfeiting our right to vote first in the market place and then in the voting booth. The Market Vote is, in many ways more powerful than the Political Vote. In the market we vote for the businesses and goods that we think are best for us, but when Socialism is fully empowered (and make no mistake – a little Socialism always becomes 100% Socialism in time) we have given up that right and let the “State” determine what businesses and goods are best for us. Once we let that happen (as it is trying to happen as we speak) we lose the most powerful vote that we have and then our political vote becomes nothing more than Kabuki for a Strongman or Oligarchy type government.

Then we become Venezuela or Russia or China where they make a show of how much the people have to say about any key issue and political voting, but it’s just theater to justify a small group of self appointed thugs telling you how you will run every aspect of your life while they live theirs in opulence and abundance.

Our political vote only has real meaning and value if it is securely bolted down to a foundation of Free Enterprise and the Capitalist method of governing the economy by voting every day in the market place of goods and services.

So what does this mean for upcoming elections? It means that our first priority in our political voting must be to vote for those candidates who will insist that we, as a county, state, or city, support legislation that helps to rebuild our Free enterprise system and allow us to continue to market vote.

That is mission number one if we want to even have the right and chance to debate and argue over all the other social issues and find a workable solution as opposed to having some self serving, non-productive, coercive Socialist solution crammed down our collective throats.

If a candidate supports Free Enterprise then we must, for a brief time, set aside our passions for our pet social issue and combine forces to resurrect Free Enterprise first. We must realize that we have this one goal in common: Free enterprise will allow us to keep our country free to be fallen, free to disagree, and free to work out workable solutions (as opposed to “perfect solutions” from all knowing government leaders). We must cut through the maze of accusations and social issue fog to find out just one thing about each candidate: do they support Free Enterprise? That’s it! One thing…just one thing!

Okay, here are a few things to look for to determine if a candidate is a Conservative who supports Free Enterprise (Beware: Liberals- which includes a number of Conservatives/Republicans in name only- worship the central storehouse approach except when they lie about it and say they support Free Enterprise; mostly at election time):

• Do they want to reduce taxes of all type?

• Do they want to reduce red tape regulations that inhibit business growth?

• Do they believe that businesses should be allowed to fail if they screw-up rather than bailing them out?

• Do they support Tort Reform?

• Do they want smaller government?

• Do they believe that government should get out of the car, insurance, oil, medical, and banking business.

• Do they believe in balanced budgets?

• If they demonize businesses for profit, big corporations or insurance companies they are not a Free Enterprisers.

• If they say that we need bigger government and more power for our leaders then they are not a Free Enterprisers.

• If they they say , “I believe in Capitalism, but…,” then they not a Capitalist: they are a ”Capibut” which is a Socialist trying to make you think they are a Free Enterpriser. Remember, being a little bit Socialist is like being a little bit pregnant: eventually you give birth to the full blown Frankenstein monster. Once a Socialist starts to take control of a small part of the economy they must, eventually, control it all because the market place begins to knock itself down like dominoes.

Please help save our country from “languishing in misery” like the Plymouth colonists by joining the effort to elect Free Enterpriser, Conservatives to office this fall and in 2012. Vote for them and send them a dollar or two no matter where they are in the country. Tea Party Express http://www.teapartyexpress.org/ is a website that publishes a list of conservative candidates in need.

It is imperative that we focus on this issue first. If, in our mind, we disqualify a Free Enterpriser candidate because they disagree with us on one of the numerous social issues then we are positioning ourselves to forfeit our right to address these issues in the future. Elect a Free Enterpriser and keep us free to screw-up or succeed, free to make wrong decisions as well as correct ones, free be fat or thin, free to drive cars or ride bikes, free to eat beef or veggies, and most of all: free to be fallen or saved.

LDTG

Remember…focus on just one thing!

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2010 (originally published)

I’m a big guy: six-four and 225 pounds (give or take five on any given day based on how much Pinot I drank the night before). I walk for 45 minutes six days a week and work out like crazy for another couple of hours a week in the gym; so that makes me pretty much the same (size) as Phillip Rivers, San Diego Charger Quarterback. Stop laughing. At 66 I may not be an NFL QB, but I’m in pretty good shape; so putting on a cute little red dress and a red hoodie and playing the role of Little Red Riding Hood just isn’t me, but it seems that’s how it has been several times in my life. The Big Bad Wolf knows about more than one kind of rape (metaphorically speaking that’s what the tale is really about, isn’t it?). Besides sexual, he specializes in personal space rape (called breaking and entering), telephone rape (called unsolicited, threatening calls), and cyber-rape (called identity theft and email hacking).

(Pic of me last week- not bad for an old guy! It’s that San Diego lifestyle…Vitamins, sunshine, whole wheat, fish tacos, and photoshop.)

Yesterday my Pandora station offered up that wicked oldie: Sam the Sham (and the Pharaohs) howling his way through Little Red Riding Hood. Good or bad song, it stirred up memories ranging from 1974, when our house was broken into, to a couple of days ago when my email account got hacked and wacked and in between, too. In about 1983, we got harassed by a threatening phone caller.

Am I wearing a little red, hooded dress with a target painted on it?

I don’t have a victim mentality and have never seen myself as a victim of much of anything in life. However, my family and I have had moments that felt an awful lot like being violated. The first time this happened was in 1976 on a quiet Sunday morning while my family (then just the three of us: Mama Bear, Papa Bear, and Baby Bear) and I we were out to breakfast ( I know this is beginning to sound like Goldilocks and the Three Bears but I promise there is no porridge or beds involved). When we returned home I found the front door ajar and our normally inside cats were outside. This was a definite red flag that something was wrong. We found that someone had used a rock to break a patio door to our bedroom (oops, I lied there is a bed involved) and had ripped through our house and taken gold coins that were temporarily stored in our closet, a stereo system from our living room (which proved to be their undoing), medication from our bathroom, and chocolate candy from our refrigerator (which may also have proven to “undo” them because they were actually laxatives –enjoy!).

Laxatives or not it still felt like we were raped. In fact it was a major contributing factor to our buying another house and moving a year later. We just didn’t feel safe there anymore, but that’s wasn’t the end of it. A couple of weeks later a detective from the juvenile department added things up after they arrested a runaway boy (age 13) from New York who had been living a real life version of The Artful Dodger (Oliver Twist) and his “Fagin”, who he had been living with. “Fagin” had organized the whole break in. When they took our “Dodger” back to his mentor’s apartment they found our stereo that we had reported stolen. The gold coins were, of course, gone as were the “chocolates” (Yes!). Upon identifying the stereo I was thanked by the detectives for helping catch Fagin and then told I could not have the stereo back because it was evidence. What the….? It seemed to me that thieves were just transferring the goods to the cops…or city…or whomever.

Well, a little influence peddling fixed everything. My cousin, at the time, was an assistant district attorney and had the authority to get the stereo released to my custody pending the trial as long as I would guarantee that it would not leave the house, break any laws, or become drunk and disorderly. I never heard anything again until a couple of years later when I was contacted by the Victim Support and Reassurance League (or some such supportive and reassuring name like that) to see if I needed any help…or counseling…or coffee and doughnuts, I guess. I really didn’t feel like a victim at that point, but maybe I should have if I was making big decisions, like moving to another house. At least we caught the perp.

Okay, at this point I think it’s time to listen to Sam the Sham’s song…

This road trip down Memory Lane (or Back Alley as the case may be) next took me seven years down the road to 1983 and the house we acquired after the break-in. My oldest daughter was now about as old as that runaway kid (Junior High Schoolers..ugh!) and into the social networking of her time: hot line telephone calls. Maybe it wasn’t Twitter or Facebook, but it generated just about as much malicious mischief. The way it worked was they called a “secret” number that was like a giant “chat room”.

Unfortunately there were predators that called in (just like chat rooms and email today) and they would try to get “dates” with the girls (and I suppose guys to, but it was really don’t ask and telling was taboo in the day). There were also social “hitcallers” for hire. The kids could arrange to meet them on the hot line and these guys would make harassing calls to a victim which was usually a Junior High Schooler.

In our incident our daughter had had a falling out with a girl friend who had in turn “hired” (they didn’t exchange money; it was mainly just for the sadistic fun) a creep on the hotline to call our house, ask for our daughter, and then hit her with a barrage of foul language and insults. The first time it happened (oh yes…there were many more calls) she was frightened and scared and I was angry and worried about her. The second time he called, about 15 minutes later, I answered, turned on the recorder, and told him what I thought of him then listened to (and recorded) his stream of profanity. A lot of good that did! Now he started calling immediately after I hung up the phone and wouldn’t stop; so I disconnected the phone. That was a great short term plan, but wouldn’t do for very long.

The next day the calls seemed to have stopped (kids at school?). After discussing the issue with my daughter she felt she knew who had solicited the calls and was determined to find out who the friend had “hired”. She did and his call name was “Wolfman” (I made the name up to protect the guilty. He turned out to be 19; not in Junior High). Wolfman could, apparently, be found on the hot line most days at around noon (that would be lunch hour at Junior High School); so I stayed home the next day and called in on the hotline right after I flipped on the recorder on my phone system (trust me, I didn’t inform them that they were being recorded or ask them if it was okay with them). When the line went active it sounded like a thousand voices all talking at once; some close and some far. I tried to do my best impression of a Junior High School kid with a high voice, “Hey man (they used “man” in those days; not “dude”),” I squeaked, “anybody know Wolfman?”

“Yeh, man, I do…he’s definitely cool,” said another obviously teenage boy, “he lives real close to me…he’s really bad, man,” Bad meant good in those days and I pressed on.

“How close?” I asked

“He lives right next door to me,” he proudly offered (teenage boys would never last through two minutes of water boarding, dude!)

“Hey, I live on Orchard Street in Point Loma, where do you live?” I inquired and held my breath.

He said, “Wow, not far from you, I live on the corner of Poet Lane and Magnolia, you know where it is?”

“Sure I do. You live on the south-east corner in the white house?”

“No, man, the north-west corner in a beige colored house,” He said

“So does Wolfman live up Poets or Magnolia?” I asked.

“Poets,” he said… Gotcha!

“Can you do me a favor, man, and tell Wolfman that I’d like to hire him to make a call for me?” I asked.

“No sweat, man. Call tomorrow and I’ll have him on the line.”

“Cool, thanks,” and I hung up.

The creep was on the line at noon the next day as promised. I asked him if he would make a hit call for me and he agreed. All this was, of course, recorded and that was the main objective. That being accomplished, I probably did something that I should not have done, but was compelled to do out of real palpable anger for the pain he had caused my daughter. I decided to make his life a little uncomfortable.

“Don’t you recognize my voice, asshole?” I asked.

“No,” he said nervously.

“I’m the call you made a few days ago. Remember?”

“Oh yeah, well F…. you !” he yelled at the phone. “What the hell can you do about it anyway? You don’t know who I am or where I am; so screw off!” said the arrogant bastard.

“Now, that’s where you’re wrong, Wolf Creep!. I know who you are and your address and I’m fully cocked and in a pissed off position; so you’d better not sleep at night and watch your windows and doors because when you least expect it I’m coming right into your house and get your ass for what you did! Got that smartass?” He slammed the phone down.

Later that day I went to the cops with the info and the tape and they said to take it to the Headmaster at the private school my daughter attended who identified the voice has a former student who’s address matched the house that I had identified on the hotline. The detectives arrested him. I had caught the Big Bad Wolf again. At that point, after kicking some Big Bad Wolf butt, I was feeling like Little Red Riding Hood on steroids. However, once again that old violated feeling was creeping back into my gut. This time we moved in about three years, but not because of the mad caller. We moved because the house was too small for our family of six plus one dog and three cats.

The Big Bad Wolf’s was not done by any means with his rape scheming in my life. Fast forward to last Monday, Labor Day. We are having a leisurely breakfast (I won’t go into details about the food because my daughters are foodies and blog endlessly about omelets and truffles and wine) when the phone rang. It was a friend from Colorado who I haven’t talked to in maybe 10 years; so it’s really unexpected and she says without delay, “Are you okay? Because I just got an email from you at your email address saying, “Help!!” and that you are in London and were mugged and all your credit cards were stolen and you need money for airfare home and…. ”

“What the heck are you talking about?” I interjected, “I’m right here in San Diego and I’m okay.” And then the realization of the minor horror that had been unleashed hit us both and we said simultaneously, “Phishing!” And then I felt like I was slipping into that little red, hooded dress yet again… and then the phone started ringing off the hook.

No, I wasn’t in London

No, I hadn’t been mugged

No, I didn’t need money….ahh, wait a sec- that one is mostly true. My youngest daughter was visiting and planning her wedding next year and having breakfast when this all broke and oddly enough the word “broke” was already resonating painfully in my head; when the next call came in I couldn’t resist the temptation and teased another very good friend, “You know, if I had actually sent that email for help it would have read more like this:

Help!!!

I was just mugged by a wedding planner and my credit cards are all maxed.

Please send $40,000 immediately so I can stop spinning the words “What Would Noah Do?”

in my head over and over.

(See my Post Ark Pinot Blog if that doesn’t make sense. In fact I’ll make more sense period if you read them all.)

Interestingly I don’t find myself thinking “What would Obama do?” I guess that’s because I don’t think much of what Obama does. Think about it.

Anyway, back to the Big, Bad Cyber-wolf (that’s kind of like “uber-wolf, but electronic). I raced to my computer, the geek’s holy shrine, and found my Yahoo email account had been raped and left for dead. For those of you who are smugly grinning with satisfaction because you use Gmail and don’t think you are susceptible to this cyber-evil, I’m sorry you’re wrong. My Gmail account had also been raped and pillaged. It was like someone (actually someone in Nigeria I discovered later) had desecrated a kind of house of worship. They had decoded the password, entered both email accounts, arrogantly left the draft of their letter in the Draft file, changed the settings to forward all emails to their own bogus email address, and sent out their fraudulent request for money to my whole contacts list… on my email letterhead.

And then the coup d’grace: the cypher-wolf deleted my whole contact list on both accounts. Why? Because the best defense is a good offense and the longer it took me to notify everyone; the more likely someone would send them the $2,800 they were asking to be sent to Western Union in London. Just as an aside, it was very heartwarming to have so many friends call and that they would have sent the money if I really needed it. I guess that sometimes a good thing comes from a bad situation. While I was running in circles in an uncharacteristically geek fashion mumbling, “What’ll I do. What’ll I do?” My also geeky daughter (the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree) got to researching the problem on her laptop. She found the technical issues and answers and I quickly started to fix things. Fortunately for me and not so for the cyber-wolf, I had synced my contact list with my Blackberry and was able to quickly put the list back in my email account and notify everyone of the fraud (see I really am a geek).

But the cybe-rwolf was not done. To add insult to injury he had taken over my Facebook account and used it to publish some bad stuff, I guess, because I received an email from the Facebook team saying they had shut down the account permanently (no appeal – forget it buddy they said) because of porn or hate stuff being posted on the my Facebook page. I replied to their email saying I didn’t do it, but that didn’t change a thing. Big Red Riding Hood gets raped again, but, unfortunately this time the wolf goes free. I guess catching two out of three Wolfs is not a bad lifetime score…at least in baseball it’s not bad and I was able to open a new Facebook account by using a different email account that it’s attached to.

So here’s the public service portion of my blog. Here’s what you need to do to fix this if it happens to you:

-Change all passwords on email account and other social contact sites to something that is not a word in the dictionary (maybe an acronym like WWND or maybe for you it would be WWOD).

-Use a different password for each account

-Check in the account setting for email forwarding and make sure it’s either set for POP or being forwarded to an account that you chose.

On the outside chance that you think this won’t happen to you, I just received an email from my middle daughter saying that Gmail has shut down her email and blog account because of phishing activity and it cannot be used until she changes the password. The cyberwolf strikes again.

My computer world is back in order now, but the sting of cyber-violation still hurts. This time I won’t be moving anywhere. I plan on staying on this corner of the internet neighborhood, doing my street writing, and putting out my cyber-dish (see my blog Life’s a Short Sale). Hopefully that cyber-wolf won’t get his paws on it.

Next blog maybe I’ll deal with earthquakes, floods and fires that rattled, soaked and heated up my life.(you think I’m kidding?)…or maybe not. It depends on if Pandora plays Light My Fire by the Doors while I’m walking or at the gym. What are the odds?

LDTG

P.S. Here’s a Monty Python video that pretty much feels like my version of Little Red. It made me laugh.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010 (originally published)

Usually I go to the gym twice a week at the butt-crack of dawn for my 45 minute mechanized walk, but yesterday I was lazier than my black schnauzer on a hot day sleeping in the shade; so I went late in the morning. One reason for going early is so that I don’t run into anyone I know from our upper- middle class neighborhood while I’m doing my secret research for this blog.

Well, our neighborhood used to be upper -middle class before the Great Repression of 2009 (“Repression” because it is really all about our Congress repressing the truth about how it all got started and was actually avoidable if they had listened to W when he warned them several times about the problems with Freddie and Fannie); so now our neighborhood has been downgraded from “upper-middle class” to just… “middle class”. Anyway, I walked into the gym and saw a long time friend on the stair- step machine and before he could spot me I bolted back to my car and grabbed my Groucho Marx disguise. It worked pretty well; here’s a picture that I asked the annoyingly perky, young attendant at the entrance to take for me (just respectful and pleasant would have done).

For those of you who are too young to know who Groucho Marx was: he was the Secretary of Homeland Security under President Carter (that is wrong in so many ways, but I couldn’t resist; don’t worry folks they’ll never get that question on a test). Anyway, I walked past my friend who says, “Hey, how are ya, , ’Dad’, did I catch you doing undercover work for your blog?”

“Whatever it takes for a street writer like me to find some material,” I said.

“What the hell is a street writer?” he asked through his panting for breath.

“It’s what upper-middle class people do when they get downgraded to middle class,” I replied as I sort of saluted him and headed across the gym to the treadmills.

Actually “street writer” is a term I coined to describe my blogging. It’s sort of like being a street musician who puts out a plate and passersby toss a coin or two his way. With blogging we sing and play our textual tune because we just like doing it and hope that our readers will check out one of the ads that appear alongside the text. This is more or less the same as tossing coins into the dish (didn’t know that about those irritating ads did you [it’s better than an annoying monkey clanking his cymbals]…but we do get paid for ad responses – not much, but it’s something now and then).

Which brings me to another version of the street singer: the piano player in a bar often called the piano man. That’s the song that was fed to me yesterday on the treadmill by Pandora. Billy Joel took me to a very murky dive in my mind that all of us have been to at one time or another called The Piano Bar of Life where we find ourselves hanging out, hoping for salvation from our fears and troubles, and praying that the Piano Man will sing us a song that will make us forget for a while. Some of us eventually hear the song and some of us don’t. How about you…

Failed dreams, not our day to day troubles, are the real thief that steals our happiness. For the very focused and successful person the failed dream is often the dream of having a spouse and a functioning family (as opposed to a dysfunctional family as is often the case). For the modestly successful person who focused early in life on having a marriage and successful family the failed dream is often fame and/or fortune. Either way they both end up in that lonely emotional place called the Piano Bar of life trying for just a moment or two to push away their unhappiness of the failed or failing dream. Billy Joel touches us with his song because it hits home in a kind of primordial way and makes us face the misery that accompanies the pain of our failed dreams.

So if filling the void with a “song” like booze, over eating, illicit sex, drugs, or the sloth of depression doesn’t relieve us of the pain then what does? Who is the Piano Man, really? Who can sing us a song that will make us whole again and forget the pain of failure that many of us harbor in some degree or other? How do we deal with this kind of “short sale” called life?

For anyone who doesn’t deal with the inner workings of real estate, a short sale is where a house is worth less than the loan balance and a deal is made with the lender to allow the house to be sold to a third party and the lender will forgive the difference between the sale price and the loan payoff. In other words, the seller gives the lender whatever he receives from the buyer and the lender accepts that as payment in full even though it is “short” of the balance due: thus a “short sale”.

Well, my friend, life is basically a short sale. We always seem to emotionally come up short in some domain or the other and we can’t figure out how to negotiate a payoff with what we have. We are left with a kind of emotional Damocles’ Sword hovering over our neck that’s ready to drop with Guillotine swiftness if we fail to make a suppression payment by hiding it behind our “indulgences” however minor or major they may be. How do we make that “short sale” of life and find real, enduring happiness? Where is that spiritual “realtor” that can make the lopsided deal for us?

At about this point in my 45 minutes on the treadmill my friend stopped by to say goodbye on his way out. He said, “Man, the wheels are really turning and burning in there- and I don’t mean the treadmill! You look really lost in thought.”

“I’ve been listening to Miles Davis on the real jazz station,” I lied, “Undercover work for my next blog.”

He laughed and left me to The Piano Man.

The Piano Man is Jesus.

Jesus is the one who can make the deal for you with God and allow you to accept life exactly as it is, no more; no less. He is The Piano Man who can play you a song that will not only pay off your debt of failure and mistakes with God, but resonate with unparalleled beauty in your head for the rest of your life and then Eternity. This is a short sale that will make your day instead of destroying it.

Enough preaching, I think my undercover days are over, but my street writing days will go on even in the midst of our current Repression (both economic and emotional). I’ll keep haunting this Internet corner like Stephen King’s beggar-on-the-corner in Hearts In Atlantis hoping I didn’t drive you away with my Piano Man sermon. Tomorrow is Sunday and my Pastor expects me to listen to his sermon and laugh, and pray, and throw a few coins in his dish, too, right Jack?

I guess we all should find our corner in life, play our song, put out our dish and see what happens. It’s never too late. Go find a song and start singing…and don’t forget to find Jesus at His corner too.

“It’s a pretty good crowd for a Saturday… he knows it’s me they’ve been coming to see to forget about life for awhile.” – Billy Joel, The Piano Man

Jesus is the Piano Man and He’s playing what you need to hear! (John 14:6)

LDTG

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2010 (originally published)

I have not experienced 40 days and forty nights of flooding as did Noah (but my family and I were trapped in the Yosemite Valley during the Great Flood of 1997.That’s definitely anothervery long story!). However, I just finished 60 days and 60 nights (nightmares included no charge) of jury duty. It was not exactly my idea of a fun summer vacation, but it was an interesting experience. The San Diego County Courthouse is not exactly a four star resort. The building was build in 1961 and I think that was the first and last time that the painted it or that the plumbing or AC actually worked correctly. Fortunately, summer is always mild and dry in Paradise; so the fact that the AC was completely unpredictable in our court room with no windows was only a little problematic. At least the chairs swiveled and rocked and were comfortable because we were stuck in them for two months. The Judge was considerate and worked hard to stay awake in the afternoon like most of us jury folk. In fact, every day when we returned from lunch he had the bailiff bring in a half dozen buckets of candy for us (and, in truth for him too because he always took the Baby Ruths before we could get them). He said he put out the candy so we would have some reason to return every day.

See, it was more like a four star resort then you thought….and it even had a sweat lodge , called a Deliberation Room for group bonding and communion with the almighty (i.e. The Law). But before I take you on an insider tour of the Sanctum Sanctorum of our legal system, I think I should fill you in about our case that took up two months of the jury’s time and maybe $1,000,000 in court costs to put on this no frills party (candy and erratic AC not included).

A month before our trial one Mr. Big (I’ll skip the real names even though it’s public record), a local two-bit C.P.A. had been convicted of Conspiracy to Commit Fraud and other assorted crimes for organizing and implementing a fascinating, complicated and seductive scam. It went like this: if home owners had received their Notice of Default and were near foreclosure by the lender then Mr. Big and Associates would tell them they could stop the foreclosure, avoid eviction and permanently eliminate the loan. All they had to do to reap these awesome benefits was to sign over the deed to their house to Mr. Big’s LLC and pay “reasonable” rent to him while they waited for the lender to capitulate and write off the loan. Desperate people make desperate choices when full on panic sets in and many folks did, if you can believe it!

Why? Well, it’s complicated, but I’ll try to explain the inexplicable. With all f his CPA golden crown of authority, Mr. Big would give seminars to 50 or 60 victims that had to bring their NOD and deed with to be admitted and proceed to snow them with a blizzard of inscrutable concepts starting with the idea that the land under their house actually belonged to the Federal Government based on original land grants. He let them in on this little known secret (which, of course, was pure bullshit) so that they could have him apply to the Bureau of Land Management for a transfer of ownership. The Bureau of Land Management doesn’t have anything to do with ownership transfer. They handle records, take care of Federal Property, and put up signs along Interstate I8 in Arizona telling us it’s mortally dangerous to travel there and there’s nothing we or Arizona can do about it or the Feds will do about it.

Next, he told them that if they deeded their property over to him that he would apply for a “Land Patent” and they couldn’t be evicted because they were not the owners, just renters, and he and his team of experts attorneys (of which there were none) would take care of the lenders, police, and courts if need be in the deal (what a guy…and for $19.99 ……! Shipping included) . Best of all when the bank tried to foreclose, he said, his team would inform the bank that they didn’t own the land and could only sell the house causing the bank to throw up (maybe literally) their arms in frustration and just write off the loan and that it was a good thing. Didn’t they all want to screw those evil banks anyway? Bottom line was Mr. Big went to Folsum for 49 years where he had his own “Land Patent” on a 8 x 10 cell, land not included, but utilities and food were covered (The California Plan).

Aside from the irony that Mr. Big used to live across the street from us and that as foreman I got to deliver the sentence in our trial, we, the jury, had the dubious honor of having the Prosecution completely retry Mr. Big for our benefit to make a case for two of his helpers otherwise known as “Aiders and Abettors”. We had two perps accused of four crimes and about twenty charges each, in other words, it was like deciding on forty different cases each with its own unique evidence…a jury’s worst nightmare. There were 80 witnesses on the docket and at two per day it became SSDW (same shit different witness). Every morning we would look at each other, shrug our shoulders and moan, “It’s Ground Hog Day all over again” and then try to stay awake for another poor soul that tearfully retold their story for about the fourth time. First they told it to the investigators for the State Prosecutor’s office, then they told it to the Grand Jury, next they retold it for the jury at Mr. Big’s trial and lastly (or maybe not) they told it at our trial. To make it even more difficult to stay awake, most of the victims said they only spoke Spanish; so every word required a translator (the tears needed no translation). Although all of these folks were truly victims I felt we were getting worked pretty good with some croc tears in hopes that a civil suit might get them some of their money back (best of luck with that).

Be that as it may, all twelve of us were ready to lock them up and throw the key away after the series of academy award winning performances we watched and after two months of this we were finally escorted to our personal prison d’jour – the Deliberation Room.

I was handed the charges and instructions (voluminous) and we were told that we had to stay in there with an armed guard at the door until we had made a decision. As we heard there door clank shut, we all realized that this was going to take quite a while to decide if our two perps (a loan broker and a pastor) were Daddy’s little helpers or just innocent bystanders pleading they didn’t do …it was the one-armed man! Having the buckets of candy on the table helped. What didn’t help was Marnie, our twenty something mom, having a bad case of claustrophobia in a 10 x 20 room with no windows, poor AC, and boxes of evidence. The first day was spend arguing about the definition of “acquired interest” and watching Marnie bolt for the bathroom to puke. I asked her if she wanted me to call for an alternate juror and have her excused, but, after two months of slogging our way there, she wanted to stick it out. She had guts!

As for Arnie, the bike shop owner on his early fifties, he just couldn’t separate his feelings from the deductive logic that was required to comply with the complex instructions we had been told to follow exactly. For five hours we debated one definition for one charge involving one crime and one perp. We were going to be there until Christmas if we didn’t do something! Those of us on the jury who had experience with corporations, accounting and real estate tried to explain to Arnie that “acquired interest” in this context means to take ownership in some fashion (i.e. direct title or own shares in the LLC that had taken title to the houses). Arnie, however, felt (and that’s the exact word to use) that it could also mean the kind of interest that we have in art or sports (acquired an interest in football?) or it could mean receiving interest on your bank deposits. Since one of our perps was paid some money by Mr. Big, Arnie thought that meant he was getting “interest” from the LLC and therefore had “acquired interest”. I mean folks, this is flat wrong, but there was no convincing Arnie.

And so it went for five days. I started two files: one for guilty votes and one for undecided (hung votes). In a criminal trail like this we had to have a unanimous vote to find them guilty or acquit. We continued to cringe every time Marnie gulped for breath. Finally we had a preliminary vote on all forty charges and this is where we were: One charge of guilty for one perp and all the rest were hung 11 to 1! You guessed it, eleven of us found them not guilty on 39 counts because of insufficient evidence and one irrational, feelings oriented juror (Arnie of course) felt the evidence be damned, his gut told him they were both guilty of every crime on all counts. And that’s the way it stayed on a revote. Marnie puked and so did the other ten of us in spirit. What an odd outcome when we still all agreed with Arnie that both these perps were really guilty, but eleven of us could not justify convicting them without evidence.

So that meant that the prosecutor could retry them if they wished and drag all those poor victims in to tell their tale yet another time. It was not so much that the defense presented a great case as the prosecution didn’t do a very good job of gathering and presenting pertinent evidence and they really wasted our time with their victim parade – could have been done with four or five and we could have skipped Ground Hog Day.

It was interesting that few of the victims sought out other advice. No one told them that a Bankruptcy attorney can stop a foreclosure at least long enough to work things out with the lender or arrange a short sale or even a regular sale. If you know anyone facing foreclosure don’t let them fall for a scam like this one when there are many competent attorneys that can actually help them.
By the way, I think that we succeeded in our deliberations and I told the other jurors so…even Arnie! The American legal system is requires that we are innocent until proven guilty and that twelve people must agree: not an easy thing to do and that’s to protect us in favor of our innocence. Believe me, the longer you sit in judgment in a court room the more you appreciate how important this is. Our system is messy and inconvenient for us as citizens and jurors. We constantly look for ways to avoid jury duty, but we shouldn’t because the alternative is far worse. The alternative is a banana republic dictator who says that they found seditious material on the defendant’s computer; take him out on back and shot him!

So after it was all over we all went to a sports bar nearby and had too many pitchers of beer and agreed that the darn system actually works. Cheers. And Marnie puked.

LDTG

MONDAY, AUGUST 30, 2010 (original publish date)

My 45 minutes of walking to Heaven today was on “ such a summer’s day”, but since it was cool for San Diego (63 degrees) I guess The Mamas and the Papas singing California Dreamin on “such a winter’s day” still worked; so I zipped up my fleece vest at a little after 7 am and I kicked it into gear. I was listening to The Mamas and the Papas and as I was registering my approval of the song (i.e. thumbs up icon) on Pandora I looked up from my Blackberry just as the hood of a parked, 1996 Mercedes was puckered up to kiss me hello ( I walk against the traffic- it’s safer that way). Fortunately, I saw it in time, patted it on the fender like an adoring dog, and slipped around it without injury.

(It’s okay, you can listen to the Mamas and the Papas while you read the rest of this diatribe)

Well, that’s California Dreamin for you. Take your focus off life for even a second or two and it throws something threatening at you. The state of affairs in our country (and State!) today is pretty much like that: seemingly one crisis after another. It’s depressing at times. No, It’s really depressing at times! So where do we go for strength to survive it all? My first thought was Dewars White Label ( three fingers) or better yet a couple of glasses of Mac Murray Russian River Pinot Noir.

We have to remember the acronym WWND: What Would Noah Do?

What did Noah do? He was definitely over worked and had his share of crisis and catastrophe. He had a lot on his plate. How would you have responded if God had told you that it’s all over and the end of the human race? And you thought 9-11 changed everything! What’s more he had a bad day nearly every day for 600 years (I guess my 135 is no big deal) before God flooded the Earth. I don’t care what you say; the Great Flood was not George Bush’s fault. After 600 year plus forty days and nights of terror at sea, WWND? Noah did the right thing. He set an example for his children and all generations to come. He grew some grape vines, made wine from the grapes, put up a tent, got naked and drunk and passed out in the tent!

Hey, I’d do the same thing after 600 plus years of putting up with God ‘s demands, family squabbling, debauchery and lying by the local powers that be, dealing with animals that want to eat you for dinner, and a boat with no toilet facilities or a wine bar.

So are we in the same boat, so to speak, today in the USSA (United Socialist States of America)? In a sense we are. Noah represented a new covenant with God and the flood washed away all those who had failed to live up to God’s original covenant. We seem to be allowing our covenant with each other, the Constitution, to slowly be destroyed by those who think it just gets in the way of them living their lives without God and his word as their foundation. We need to reestablish that precious covenant with each other called the Constitution and live by its brilliantly conceived structure. It’s a very special social contract that we have with each other in this country and we need to resurrect it without reservation and we need to do it now or we will drown in the anti-Constitutional flood of a Socialist Regime. The Constitution is our Ark and we need to repair it and make it seaworthy again because the Flood is near- very near.

Having said that, I’m ready and waiting for that Noah inspired celebration when we get by our flood where the Pinot Noir flows freely. Here’s an idea: how about starting a small winery called Post-Ark Vineyards. You know, the label would be a picture of the Ark with, maybe a lightning bolt coming out of the sky and a few caricatures of animals sticking their head out the port holes, and Noah himself toasting us with a glass of wine and a smile on his face and clothes on his body! Post Ark Pinot has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Now, personally I can skip the naked part unless by naked you mean a pair of swimming trunks and flip-flops on Maui? Actually, San Diego is just about as much paradise as Maui, but that’s a topic for a different 45 minute walk to Heaven. Grab an oar and start rowing…

LDTG