Benn Diagram

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Enough of the Pleasantries

I've been invited to travel to Hong Kong on business.

I'm wondering if the trip is absolutely necessary. There is also an ethics issue. I would be writing a story or maybe even several stories based on this trip, but I don't have to lay down dollar one for this experience (and neither does my company, for that matter).

I'm also curious to know if anywhere in Hong Kong takes American Express.

How much English is spoken over there, as I don't have time to brush up on my Chinese linguistics.

If I get mugged and someone hits me over the head and I lose my memory and end up traveling the country, learning the mystic art of kung fu and getting into strange adventures for years and years, will I finally lose some weight?

When a craving for Chinese food hits, do I really have a craving for Chinese food, or is it just "food" over there?

These are the thoughts that keep me from going.

Signs

My contribution is in red.

Absolution, Thy Name is Biscuit

The couple emerged from their Buick as I approached. She was a pepper-haired intellectual, unattractive and meek; he was a captain of industry, stocky, gin blossomed face, dressed in casual lunch meeting attire and boisterous. Stepping out of his car, he announced, “I’m not taking a vacation. I have to work. People’ve got to work, y’know.” She, most expectedly, said nothing. In retrospect, I can only imagine the years of neglect this woman has endured being married to this guy.

We were, all three, walking toward the Borders entrance. Were you a casual observer and had just glanced at our trio, you could guess that we made up a family; I the anxious son two steps ahead and poised to scan the periodicals while mom and dad perused women’s studies and military histories, respectively.

The captain of industry said something else of work but in a more hushed voice, “It’s amazing how few people work anymore these days. Case in point.”

I could see, in the reflection of the store, as the captain of industry spoke his last word, he was glancing at me. In fact he’d even raised his arm in my direction as he said, “Case in point.”

What an asshole.

Sure I was in a t-shirt and shorts and, yeah, I probably could have used a shave, so I can understand how someone could think I’m not the most productive person in the world, but what disdain!

I turned in his direction and said, “What are you insinuating sir?”

“Pardon me?” said cappy.

“I heard what you’d said and I noticed your flagrant little gesture in the reflection of the store window,” I said. “Couple things. A) That wasn’t very nice; and B) You’re a dick. Next time keep your comments to yourself.”

He and his wife were rather taken aback. Shocked would be a more appropriate term. Perhaps they thought his words tripped my trigger and I’d go all apey and wreck their lives. But no, I walked away a justified and rational thinker.

Smiling.

Sometimes putting people in their place can brighten up a guy’s day.

Passengers

The girls are napping, Amanda is out at Subway picking up the two platters of sandwiches and I'm using the facilities.

We have 20 minutes. Time enough to finish packing up the fan, wake up the girls, make sure they have their socks and shoes on and shove off to Tumbleweed Park for Olivia's 3rd birthday extravaganza. Two months ago we rented one of the gazebos between the hours of 3 and 6 p.m. on Sunday, November 9 for this shindig.

The weather is finally cool - 72 degrees, but there's unfortunate cloud cover and a nasty bit of wind that seems to be getting nastier with every gust.

I'm now watching the Packers blow it when Amanda comes in saying, "The sandwiches aren't ready yet. I have to go back."

"Great," says I.

The girls awaken. It is now 10 minutes to go time. All of a sudden 10 minutes doesn't seem like a whole lot of time. Amanda takes on Olivia, I handle Sydney. Sydney's been fighting a little cold for the past few days and isn't too thrilled to be up.

We head downstairs, get together the last-minute items (including the green balloon Olivia insists must come along), get in the car and go. I follow Amanda to Subway in the mini-van.

The ominous clouds - those gray fluffy bastards that have been threatening rain drops all damn day - are pissing all over Chandler, Arizona.

"Are you serious," I say.

"AH YOUUU SERIOUS! AH YOUUUU SERIOUS!" mocks Olivia. A true three-year-old.

"Quiet down back there," I say.

"K, Daddy."

We pull up to Subway. Amanda gets out. She puts out her hands and shoots me a look. It's still raining. She's not happy.

While we wait for Mommy, Olivia has a fit, no, not just a fit, a skin melting conniption. Her balloon string is caught in her seatbelt and she wants it free. Mommy emerges from Subway with two giant platters and a bunch of other stuff - napkins, condiments, utensils, etc.

Olivia's still screaming.

Tumbleweeds Park is five minutes away. We get there in two.

I turn the mini-van off, Olivia stops screaming. Sydney is all smiles.

I open the car door and the wind nearly tears the fucker off its hinges. Marvelous. I stare out into the park. One of the pavilions has some sort of Mormon revival going on with guitars and speakers and cheering and grilled food. Two of the gazebos near ours are housing birthday parties that are just finishing up - you can tell by the obscene amount of litter and irritated partygoers scattered about.

Amanda strolls over to the mini-van. She'll take the girls if I start hauling stuff over to the gazebo. Absolutely.

Two of the three big-ass balloons we purchased earlier in the day are tied to the cooler, which I pull out of the van. The wind tugs at the balloons like a thief. The balloons dance and whip around. One of the balloons, a two-foot-tall Dora the Explorer bops me in the head as if to say, "Get me back in the van, dickhead. I'm not built for this kind of shit."

Two more steps and Dora tears away.

The wind carries her over the head of a family having a picnic, who seconds earlier expressed total admiration of the awesomeness of the Dora balloon to their toddler. I'm not fast enough to catch her. Knowing this, I just stand there and watch her fly away. In this wind she'll be to Queen Creek in less than 10 minutes. In this wind she'll be to New Mexico by morning. A part of me feels bad for the small animal that is sure to come across this balloon and die while trying to ingest it.

I press on.

I might have lost Dora, but I've still got the big-ass "3" balloon in tow. It might be bouncing around, but this fucker isn't escaping me, no sir. I've got a wicked ninja death grip on its string and it's staying with...

...that kid on the bike is coming pretty fast.

Anyhow, the "3" balloon is going to surv...

"Move! Move outta the way!" says the kid on the bike steering directly at me. He's got miles of bike path on either side of me, but this 10-year-old is coming right at me.

"MOVE!"

PAOOOOOWWWW!!!

It happens in slow motion. The wind pulls my beautiful "3" balloon into the path of this reckless child, who tears through it like a high school football team bursting through the homecoming banner.

I am dejected. I am distraught. I am a failure to my wife and my daughters. I couldn't protect $30.00 worth of bad-ass balloons. They're gone.

Before she even acknowleges the missing mylar, I confess that they are no more. Between the weather and this new development, Amanda doesn't want to hear anymore. I don't blame her. This was supposed to be a special day and it's already way less than stellar.

I tell Amanda I'm moving the cars closer. I'll get the small car first and haul all of the food over, then I'll get the van and drag over the rest of the goods. Olivia is running around and not listening (already). Sydney is not a happy camper in this wind.

I look in the direction from which the wind is coming. Sure enough, there's the haboub. Particulates so massive in quantity they're close to blocking out the sun.

A dust storm is eminent.

I move the small car and haul the sandwiches out to the gazebo. Amanda is laughing.

She can't stop laughing. She's almost in tears she's laughing so hard.

"What?" I say.

"Just put that stuff down. I'm not going to tell you until you put that stuff down. You're gonna get really mad," she says through the laughter.

I set down the sandwich trays. "OK, what?"

"Look at Sydney," she says.

I look at my youngest. Nothing strange. She's hanging out in the playpen shoving her hands in her mouth and smiling as usual... wait... her pants are wet.

"Her pants are wet," I say.

"Yeah, and look at her plumber's crack."

I put two and two together as soon as Amanda says, "You forgot to put a diaper on the baby." She cracks up some more. I'm not sure if I can laugh.

I have to go home and get poor little Sydney another pair of pants, so I go home and get poor little Sydney another pair of pants.

When I return, some guests have arrived - a shocker to us because the wind has now taken a turn for the worse and we're now chewing on bits of the haboub. Dust is everywhere. It's in my eyes, it's in my mouth, it's in my daughters' eyes and mouths. We're trying to keep the food covered up. We're trying to keep an eye on the kids. We're trying to have a good time. We're trying not to shiver.

We're trying.

Everyone whom we invited shows up. These are good people. These are people, who if they now ask me to kill someone for them, I'll consider it, because they showed up to my daughter's birthday party in some of the most ridiculous weather Arizona has seen in months.

Nobody anticipated this, so nobody brought jackets or hats or thermoses full of hot chocolate to keep warm. We speed things along. Not much chance for the kids to screw around on the playground equipment, but that's OK.

With extreme precision and a little elbow grease, Olivia tears through her presents and emerges with a massive haul - some DVDs, plush toys, a Snow White doll, girly playclothes accessories and whatnot.

Then it's cake time.

Frosting everywhere. Dust everywhere. Chattering teeth. Exaggerated speech. Kids running off. Frustrations galore.

All I can do anymore is laugh to myself.

The sun goes down and the wind subsides. The lights go on. It's about an hour before we needed to leave, but we're all saying our goodbyes. We can't thank our guests for hanging in there with us. They're all happy to be here.

These folks are gems. I should get to know them better. I should babysit their kids so they can go out for a nice evening. Good people, through and through.

Just about everything we hauled out of the car and the van, we've got to haul back in.

The father of the little girl whose birthday party was going on at the adjacent gazebo walks back to the parking lot with me. He's exasperated. He's so angry about the weather.

"Yeah, but it's a birthday you'll never forget, right?" I say.

He thinks about it and hrumphs out a little laugh, "You're right."

We're tired. We're hungry. It's been a long afternoon. The cars are packed up and we're ready to go back home - where we can once again unload the cars.

On the way home I ask Olivia if she had a good day.

She says, "Yeah."

I ask her if she had fun.

She says, "Yeah."

I tell her I love her.

She says, "I love you too, Daddy."

"You love your Mommy and Sydney too?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, Daddy."

Yeah.

The Unscratchable Itch

The elections are over, but I’m still in presidential mode. I’ve always carried somewhat of a fondness of the history of the highest governmental office in the United States. Every four years I get so dialed into the election process, I feel more inclined to digest books and movies about American politics.

During the waning days of the 2008 race for the White House:
• I tore through Manhunt – The 12 Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer by James L. Swanson (an absolutely wonderful, accurate and suspenseful read… I recommend it to ANYONE!).
• For the second time, I paged through Garfield by Allan Peskin (James Garfield is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated presidents ever studied, due mostly to his untimely assassination by the nutjob Charles Guiteau and, subsequently, the poor medical care he received).
• I’m currently tackling FDR by Jean Edward Smith (so far, so good).
• Next up is President-elect Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope.

Even my Christmas list reflects the current mode I’m in. I’m asking Santy Claus for more presidential bios, and my DVD requests include Oliver Stone’s Nixon and JFK.

Looking over the movies I slapped on my Xmas list I started thinking about other movie moments involving the presidency and politics, and in doing so I developed my own list of favorite political movies (do keep in mind that I’ve yet to see the movies W. or Frost/Nixon, the latter of which I’m anxiously awaiting):

• The American President: In answering the apparent disarray of his personal life President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) confronts the jabs of his election opponent Senator Bob Rumson (Richard Dreyfus) in a press conference. All of Rumson’s previous televised diatribes end with him saying “My name is Bob Rumson, and I’m running for President of the United States,” and Shepherd puts the exclamation point on the end of his pushback when he states, “My name is Andy Shepherd and I AM the President of the United States.” Man, that’s cool.

• X2: X-Men United: This movie really shouldn’t count, but it does, at least in my book. That opening scene with Nightcrawler BAMFing all over the White House just to deliver an evil message to the president is effing BAD ASS!! Yeah, the prez is simply a victim, but holy crap is that a rad scene! And that scene at the end when the X-Men confront the president in the oval office made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Mutants have rights too, y’know.

• Independence Day: TOTAL CHEESE. Bill Pullman as President Thomas Whitmore is so non-believable it actually works (well… for the movie, perhaps). When he stands out in the middle of the airfield and gives his “We will not go quietly into the night” speech and then dons a jumpsuit and goes up to fight the aliens himself – my god, how ridiculously ridiculous. Not really a political movie, per se, but it’s got the president shooting down aliens!

• The Candidate: Here you’ve got Robert Redford as Bill McKay, the unlikely Democratic candidate battling for one of the California seats in the U.S. Senate. He knows he’s not going to win, so he campaigns on the basis of bringing to the forefront new ideas and issues that have been swept aside. Pretty soon momentum starts moving in his favor and he finds himself running for an office he’s not sure he really wants. The entire movie is a gem and even though it takes place in the early 70s, its themes and emotions ring true today (I wonder if this flick is on Barack Obama’s fave list).

• Dave: The scene toward the end, when presidential interloper Dave Kovic, preserving the presidency of the dying Bill Mitchell, feigns a fainting spell and sets things right again is brilliant. At the hospital, as they wheel the real Bill Mitchell into the hospital, Dave, dressed in paramedic duds, strolls off into the nighttime and goes back to his old life. The ruse works, Bill Mitchell dies and Dave goes back home, runs for local office and makes out with the former first lady while Ving Rhames stands guard. Just a cool movie through and through.

• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: Two words: Filibuster scene.

You got any faves? List ‘em!

Working the Afternoon Shift

It is election day +1, 2008. The mood in AZ is a mixed bag. Those who supported McCain are, for the most part, morose and a bit vocal (while I waited in line at Safeway this morning to purchase my bagel, the septuagenarian ahead of me said to the cashier, “Country’s going to Hell”). Those who supported Obama are going about their business with maybe a little spring in their step. AZ went red (again), so there’s your compromise – at least McCain won his home turf. It might not have been the overall victory they were hoping for, but keeping AZ crimson is certainly something conservative desert dwellers can hold onto.

Concessions
I have to agree with my friend, Queleen, who writes, “Given the classiness of [McCain’s] concession speech last night, I was glad he wasn’t at least humiliated by losing his home state.” McCain’s final speech in his almost two-year campaign was sincere, graceful, dignified and, I thought, heartfelt. I really believe he meant what he said. He didn’t come off like the snarky stumping politician anymore. His words weren’t forced or edgy or slighting in any way – like his entire campaign. Yes, he looked like a man defeated, but he also showed that he will move forward and will support our new president. It’s obvious how much he loves his country and if anyone needed any further proof to that effect, last night’s concession speech sealed the deal. Were he to lose AZ, I might have felt bad for him. Here’s to McCain and his crew for a battle well fought.

Highways
Driving into work, I slid in behind a yellow Toyota FJ Cruiser sporting an NRA bumper sticker, a license plate reading “2NDAMNDT” and a piece of 8 x 11 paper with tiny red words on it. It was hard to make out anything past the first line, which read, “Obama = crap!!!!” I could at least tell whom he did NOT vote for. His driving was too slow for my likes, so I pulled past him. Inside the FJ was a corpulent gent in his mid-to-late 40s, sucking on the edge of his insulated coffee cup. He looked cool and calm until he noticed me and shot me the dirtiest look. Fully comprehending this chap’s affinity for firearms, I gunned it and left him and his bad day somewhere behind me on the 202. I had a thought as I left him in the dust: were I the type to slap political bumper stickers on my vehicle, would I be dodging that guy’s lead spray? Frightening.

And so it goes.

B.O.?
I have to wonder, especially in this culture of acronyms, and seeing as we tend to acronymize or shorten our leaders’ names (FDR, LBJ, JFK, Ike, W., etc…) primarily because it saves the media a few letters when they’re writing headlines – how do we handle President-elect Obama’s “acroname?” Are we now allowed to acknowledge his middle name, Hussein? Because otherwise we’re left with “B.O.,” evoking poor hygiene status. I don’t think that’s a great idea, and it’s certainly not befitting a man of Obama’s new stature. So maybe we could stick with “BHO?”

GOP’s Future
As they replayed the moment she walked off the stage, smiling but deflated, a local TV commentator noted that Sarah Palin is the new face of the GOP. Seriously? I mean, I really enjoyed SNL’s portayal of her (solid humor, Tina, solid), but Palin (vast inexperience and all) seems to have had a rather deleterious effect on McCain’s campaign. However, it also seems like she wants to run in 2012. If it’s true that she’s the new face of the GOP, I really hope they start teaching her about the position she’s gunning for (The account of her telling eight-year-olds that as Veep, she’d be in charge of the Senate is classically laughable). If they can’t teach her, maybe they can find a better candidate. Right… and maybe in the next four years Palin will find the time to read up on the Bush Doctrine too. It’ll be interesting to see what she does, but in four years, if she aims to do what we all think she’s gonna do, the jokes on SNL won’t be as cute. By that time they’ll just be sad.

Propositions
When my wife and I went to the polls, we had to bring a cheat sheet with us. I even found myself tapping her on the shoulder to ask, “WTF was this prop all about again?” I understand the formality of politics and the necessity of certain legal terminology, but for crying out loud, I’m a really intelligent guy but even I couldn’t understand the wording of more than half of the propositions I was to vote on! “A ‘yes’ vote means you support that which does not support supporting supporters in an area which supports supporting those who support supporters who support supporting supporters who supported that which was supported in court of June 2007.” WHAT?! The cheat sheet came in handy, but maybe, for future elections, we could turn the jargon down a bit?

Ads
I always feel a little empty the day after an election when I turn on the TV and the only advertisements I see are for cars or beer or erectile dysfunction pills. I kinda miss the pandering, mudslinging ads that rape the airwaves during election season. I enjoy them because they’re asking me to take part in something that really doesn’t cost me anything (directly). I don’t have to buy their product to vote for them, I just have to agree or disagree with their messages… and that’s EASY! All they want is my vote given freely. Granted, I have my own thoughts and utopian ideals, and, for the most part, no advertisement is going to sway my vote… but the entertainment value of these ad spots, which help force me to see through the bullshit is priceless.

Oh, by the way... I approve this message.