TV’s Existential Crisis

Over the years I’ve watched a lot of sitcoms. They are, in my opinion, a great American art form. There are many aspects of my life in which my tastes are not exactly mainstream, but when it comes to sitcoms, I tend to hit the big part of the bell curve. Some of the better sitcoms have died out without a chance to really make an impact on popular culture. Others have lingered on and on and on and on way past their ability to contribute to the cultural landscape. I don’t miss “Friends.” I do miss “The Loop.”

There is a show on Fox now called “‘Til Death.” It stars Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher. Currently in its third season, there is something about this show that grabs me. I appreciate that Garrett has stepped completely away from his character in “Everybody Loves Raymond” and the chemistry between him and Fisher is really great. The show has had some difficulties – retooling, moving around the schedule, the writer’s strike. But what we have on the other side is a distillation of the sitcom experience.

The show began as a typical relationship comedy in which Garrett and Fisher play Eddie and Joy Stark a couple married for two decades and comfortable with each other. The new neighbors are newlyweds and the husband is the assistant principal at the high school where Eddie teaches history. Antics ensue.

During the second season JB Smoove was added to the cast as Eddie’s friend. They meet because Eddie joins the Big Brother program and was given a grown man to mentor. Antics ensue.

But now we’re at season three. The neighbors are gone. JB is gone. The daughter and her crunchy husband have moved back home and are living in a trailer behind the Stark’s house. The new principal at the high school is a cute young woman who used to be Eddie’s student and (because of the teasing she received in his class) has sworn revenge on Eddie.

But what has prompted me to write about this show is an interesting b-story that has carried over into a couple of episodes now. The Stark’s son-in-law, Doug, is a tree-hugging, organic fair-trade humus eating wag. Recently, he has gone through an existential crisis – unsure if he is real or part of someone’s dream.

He convinces himself that he is a character in a sitcom because of little things like how no one does or says anything while facing upstage. He claims to  hear the laughter of the live studio audience. In one scene, he walks into the kitchen from the back yard and the boom mic is barely in the frame. He reacts to it and panics a little when it disappears out of sight.

When his wife wants to make him an appointment with the doctor, he tells her it won’t do any good because “He’ll just make jokes and his office will only have three walls.” In the most recent episode, he’s practicing different catch phrases to utter while entering the scene. At the end of the show, he tells no one in particular that it’s a wrap and time for lunch before exiting the room.

While it isn’t brilliant writing, per se, it is smart writing. It dances around our expectations of what a sitcom is. It becomes meta. “’til Death” has suffered in its three short seasons plagues visited upon sitcoms with much more success and vintage. We’ve seen actors recast before. When Jeff Foxworthy’s show moved networks, there was even a promo in which Foxworthy and Haley Joel Osment discussed the fact that the mother had been recast. We’ve seen characters disappear before, from “Happy Days” to “King of Queens.” “Ellen” completely changed from one season to the next – half her friends went away and suddenly she owned a bookstore.

We’ve seen characters break the fourth wall before, to address the audience directly or to glance at us to say “You get it, right?” In “Better Off , talks to the audience all the time and only he seems to be able to do it. In “Scrubs” it’s an internal dialog that gets passed from character to character without addressing the fourth wall directly.

This isn’t like that. Doug never looks directly into the camera. He doesn’t talk to us. He believes in us. And if you can get around some of the cheesy jokes (“Doug thinks he’s in a sitcom” “If this were a TV show, it would have been canceled a long time ago”) it’s really kind of cool. Doug is working from the same frame of reference we are. He regularly comments on the threadbare tropes employed by sitcom writers and his frustration at the family’s lack of belief mirrors my own when I encounter people who don’t “get it.”

I don’t know how long “’til Death” has until it is shelved for good, but I’m going to keep watching them. It practically dares me to.

–

In sadder news, I found out today that a guy I went to college with was killed in the Haiti earthquake. We didn’t talk much back then, he was on the broadcast journalism side and I was print. But I knew who he was and found him to be a nice enough fellow. Keep his family in your thoughts.

–

About three weeks ago, I went to Greeneville to see the wife and kids. I was greeted at the door by Rozzy who was excited to show me a flyer she had gotten at school. It announced the annual “Daddy/Daughter” dance. I knew there was no way I wasn’t going, so I decided to embrace it. I told Dollie I’d be sure and bring my suit.

“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” she said. “I’m sure a nice shirt and tie will be fine.” I asked Rozzy what I should wear – a suit.

We stood in line and got our photos made, had some cookies and lemonade and waited for things to get rolling. The DJ played a nice mix of music, but seemed to think we dads were much older than we were. I was looking around at a bunch of hunched over dancing 30-40 year olds. The DJ was playing the play list from the Oldies station.

It was fun, though. We sat and talked. Rozzy saw some of her friends and they compared dresses and shoes. When a song came on that she knew, her eyes lit up and she pulled me to the dance floor where she danced and looked to see what everyone else was doing while I tried not to stumble over some big dude’s princess.

It was a great time and I hope whoever is keeping score was watching because I earned some points that night.

–

Being in Greeneville for the Daddy/Daughter dance meant I was going to have to haul it back to Murfreesboro to make Badger’s annual SuperBowl party. I’ve been to a bunch of these. Some were more successful than others. I figured that this year the attendance would be light due to our friends getting big TVs and wanting to watch the game in comfort. But I don’t much care about football, so I made it to the party and had a good time.

I’m glad I was there, too. Badger is from New Orleans and to be there when the Saints won the SuperBowl in their first appearance there was pretty special.

Max got into the game this year. He was walking around all weekend saying “WhoDat?” Dollie sent me photos of his victory dance when the Saints scored. He told me the kids in his school were giving him a hard time about rooting for the Saints. I hope he yelled “WhoDat” at them on Monday morning.

Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring Banana Phone!

Like many people, I gave up my landline a few months ago. No phones are plugged into any wall jacks in the house. However, there is a bell on the outside of the house connected to the landline that was installed by the original owner, so he could hear the phone ring in the back yard.

Last night, it rang.

I wasn’t sure I’d heard it, so I listened.

It rang again.

What the?

It rang a third time.

I opened the back door to take a look and didn’t see anyone back there. I called my old number to see if it would ring through and it wouldn’t. Creepy.

Two nights later, it did the same thing – three rings and nothing.

–

I have an abrasion on my scalp. Last weekend we took the kids to the Hands On Regional Museum in Johnson City. On the bottom floor, there is an exhibit which simulates a coal mine. I followed Max into the mine. Most of the tunnels weren’t tall enough for me to stand upright, so I stooped and followed. On my way out, I stood up too quickly and scraped the top of my head on the mine.

So when people ask how I hurt my head I say “coal mine accident” which sounds better than “old guy stumbling around children’s museum accident.”

–

I love Facebook. I didn’t think I would because of my inherent distrust of anything too popular, but I love it. One of the reasons I love it is because I now get the many of the jokes I see in pop culture that are based on that experience. References to status updates, vampire requests, Farmville . . . it makes sense to me now.

Another reason is the same as why everyone else likes it – I’m reconnecting with people I haven’t seen or heard from in years. There are people from my high school with whom I’ve had longer and more interesting conversations on Facebook than I ever had in real life.

Facebook is also, apparently, the place where bygones become bygones. People I disliked throughout my life are suddenly my best buddy. That’s cool. I’m a peaceful and forgiving man and never one to hold grudges to too long.

I also hate Facebook. There is plenty about the site to be annoyed at – the seemingly constant redesigns, the Farmville/Vampire/Mobster/Pillowfight stuff and the uncertainty about who really owns the information we post. But that’s not what really gets to me.

I’m learning too much about my friends’ and family’s politics. That may sound weird coming from someone who has been spewing his own politics all over the web for more than ten years, but there is a difference. Let me see if I can explain.

I write a lot about politics (more so in the old days than now) and I do research and I try to back up my opinions with some good information, cite my sources and do everything to maintain my credibility. That’s not something you can do easily in a Facebook status update. Instead, you get snarky comments without any sort of context. It leaves the reader thinking 1) this person is an idiot and 2) well . . . there is no No. 2.

I’ll give you an example. I have a relative who I see at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Until we became Facebook friends, I had no idea of his politics. We never discussed it (or much else). The day of the Senate special election in Massachusetts, he posted this as his Facebook status:

I would like to say thank you. Thank you to the voters of Massachusetts. Thank you for punching the democrats/liberals square in the mouth. Maybe the next punch will knock that stupid smirk right off Nancy Pelosi’s face, actually knock some common sense into that errant boy Henry Ried, and bring the dali bama off his high horse.

Leaving aside my usual snarks about the spelling/punctuation errors or the fact that I think the word he was looking for was “errand” boy or that the Senate Majority Leader is Harry Reid; there is nothing of substance in that at all. It comes from a place of hate and it’s hard to believe a guy I’ve known as long as I’ve known him, has this much bile in his heart.

My first instinct is to engage:

Hey, I hope you realize that the voters in Massachusetts elected a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, liberal Republican who supported health care reform in Massachusetts. I’ll take all of them I can get. Also, the polling shows that one major reason the Massachusetts voters were unhappy was that health care reform wasn’t going far enough to help people who need it. I’m all for giving Scott Brown his due, but he’s got 13 months to make something happen and his party doesn’t seem to want to do much of anything.

But too quickly the comments filled up with more hateful, violent rhetoric from his friends like some weird right-wing echo chamber.  And while I’m not one to shy away from a political squabble in which I am outnumbered, every rebuttal triggers a notification and an email to my account and I don’t want to deal with that end of it.

Dollie just hides his updates so she doesn’t have to see them. I’m tempted, but I’d rather go into these things with my eyes open.

So I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I encourage everyone I know, both friends and clients, to get on board, but I’m not going to be all that sad to see whatever will be next to come down the pike.

The vagaries of the Internets . . .

I’ve had the same email address for many years. I’ve kept it through several different service providers and at least three physical addresses. I like it. It is easy to remember for both me and the person I’m telling. The one real drawback is that because I’ve had it so long, it shows up in a lot of databases and lists, so I get an unholy amount of spam on it.

Usually, I ignore it. I like to think I can recognize a phony email when I see one and for the most part that’s true. Lately, a few have been sneaking past my brain-based filter and I’ve ended up wasting precious seconds of my life that I’ll never get back. Today, however, I came across one that was just odd.

Here is what it said:

Subject re:
From: Pat Hooper <a7cygrenee@osakawtc.co.jp>
Date: Jan 22, 2010 8:06 AM
To: MISSING_MAILBOX@SYNTAX_ERROR

Hello, Steve, I’ve heard that your wife is about to give birth to your firstling and you’re going to be present at the childbirth. You know, two years ago I became a father too, but after I had seen my young wife in labor I couldn’t bring myself to make love to her for several months. So there are a few tips on how to avoid my sad experience.

And that’s it. No link to click, no attachment, no pitch for pregnancy porn, nothing. Looking at the metadata, it seems that, rather than coming from Japan as the “from” email suggests, it was actually routed through Serbia (mccannclipping.co.rs).  I’ll never understand the Internets.

–

I spent an enjoyable evening among my friends last night. We networked a couple of Xboxes and played “Left For Dead 2.” It was a zombie-killing extravaganza, plus pizza. One would think that, at 41, I might be over video games, but I grew up with them. That’s not entirely accurate. I grew up near them. I have a long history of having friends who had the latest video games.

My neighbor TJ had an Odyssey2 and then the Atari 2600. My friend Steve had the Intellivision. While the stereotype may be of a loner in his mom’s basement playing videogames, I’ve always found them to be a social activity – in someone’s mom’s basement.

–

The rain has put a slump on my running program. I’m on week 2 of the C25K, but I’ve been unable to run enough this week for it to count. I think I’m going to have to do the week two program again next week. From what I understand from those who have done this before me, slow going is good going. I’m all over being slow.

Lots to talk about, but so little to say

The fam has been successfully released into the wilds of East Tennessee while I hold down the fort here in Murfreesboro. Their departure was delayed a week by the death of Dollie’s grandmother, Catherine Copeland. I’ve known her for about 20 years and she has always been one of the sweetest, most generous women I’ve ever met. She influenced my life in ways she could never know. But here are a couple of examples.

My marriage: Dollie and I have been married for 15 years. We dated for five years before that. As I am 41, the math says we started dating when we were young and relatively stupid. As I was a dumb guy, I never gave too much thought to marriage.  We might have gone on like that a while longer, but word got back to me that Grandma Copeland was wondering aloud “Is he just going to be Dollie’s boyfriend forever?” That was a big kick in the head for me and I proposed soon after. Later, I found out Dollie had me on a clock and I made it just under the wire.

Our home: When Dollie and I were starting our family, we decided to buy a house. We both had good jobs and the timing seemed right, but as we were still just starting out, we didn’t have a lot of savings. Grandma Copeland helped us out and later insisted that we never pay it back. We kept that promise.

But here is my favorite Grandma Copeland story. Her birthday is just after Christmas, so when we gather at her home each year, folks tend to give her additional gifts outside of the traditional gift-giving ceremonies we’ve come to enjoy. A few years ago, one of her relatives gave her a hanging plant. It was big and full and not the sort of thing you can set down on a counter or the floor because of the overspilling vines. Grandma Copeland handed the plant back, went to the utility room and got a hammer and a huge nail. She came back to the den and hammered this railroad spike of a nail directly into the center of her wooden mantel. She then hung the plant there.

A very practical woman.

–

I mentioned to Dollie back in December that I was thinking of starting the Couch to 5K running program. I’d downloaded some information and read some testimonials and it looked like a good plan to follow. Evidently, she told some of her family about it because I got a lot of running gear for Christmas. This makes it more difficult for me not to do it.

So, two days ago I started the program. I ran my first run and everything seemed fine yesterday. Today, however, I’m a little stiff. We’ll see how tonight’s run goes. The problem isn’t motivation. I’m getting old and fat and so I’m determined to fix what I can. Since I can’t be younger, at least I can be in better shape. The problem is that it is freaking cold outside. But I am a tower of iron will.

–

And now a media report:

Watched “Up in the Air” and “A Serious Man” this week. I’m glad to see the return of “Better Off Ted” to ABC and have even enjoyed the reboot of “Scrubs.” I’ve got “Big Fan” in the hopper and “It’s Complicated.” “Leverage” returns tonight. I’m looking forward to “The Human Target.”

I was disappointed with Spurlock’s Simpson’s 20th anniversary special. I wanted more stuff about how the Simpsons is made and less about super fans who have Homer tattooed on their backsides. Plus, where was Harry Shearer? How can you have a Simpsons special and not talk to Harry Shearer?

Sad.

–

An update on the break-in. There really is no update and I’m guessing there won’t be one. Whomever did it will probably never be found. However, I believe we discovered a parting shot from the scumbags. About two weeks after the break in, Badger came over to the house to visit. When he went onto the back deck to smoke, I went with him to keep him company. I heard rushing water. Someone had turned on the garden hose in the back yard full blast. I turned it off and braced for the fallout.

a week or so later I got a postcard from the water company saying I’d used waaaaaay more water than I normally do and that I may have a leak. I called the water department and they said “Your bill is $996.”

I dropped the phone.

Then I printed out a form reporting that I did, indeed, have a leak, that it was okay now and that I would like them to adjust my bill, pretty please. We’ll see what happens.

Just my luck, I get hit by the Wet Bandits.

–

Replaced my Xbox 360 and got back up and gaming, which is great. Unfortunately, all my saved games were on the console that was stolen. Not a big deal, you say? Well, yes, it is a big deal. I tend to play the long-winded games – role-playing games that take months to work through the story. Character-building games that allow for painstaking customization. Mass Effect, for example, was four months out of my life. The sequel comes out in two weeks and I can’t import any of that character into the new game. I was in the final stages of Fallout 3, which I had been playing for the better part of a year. My files from Elder Scrolls III: Oblivion have taken years to build. All gone.

I know. I know. In the grand scheme of thing whether or not I can import my version of Sheppard into Mass Effect 2 is not at all important. But my blog, my prerogative to whine about whatever I want.

–

Okay fair warning. This next part is going to be a little scatalogical and if you know me (or even if you don’t) and have no interest in a story about  . . . well . . . poop . . .  then just go back to your Facebook page. I’m being totally serious here. What has been read cannot be unread. I don’t want to hear any complaints. I mean it. Just stop reading now.

Like many people, I tend to eat more on the weekends than during the week. It probably has to do with having more time and access to food when I’m home all day. Regardless, come Monday morning I’ve got a long drive to work and, like clockwork, when I get to the office, the first thing that needs to happen is a purge of my weekend overindulgence. I’m trying to be as genteel as possible here. Bottom line, I have a regularly scheduled massive bowel movement every Monday morning when I get to work.

I find it is a great way to start off the work week.

Okay, so the other thing you need to know about me is that, while I am a voracious consumer of news media during the week, I cut myself off from it on the weekends. So, if something big happens on a Saturday, it may very well be Monday afternoon before I know anything about it.

So, last Monday I get to work and notice that the streets and sidewalks around my building have that white, powdery appearance that comes with having been covered with salt. On the front door of the building was a notice of a public meeting about some issue with the water department, which I glanced at, figured it had nothing to do with me and went on.

At this point I realize that my regularly schedule massive bowel movement is coming a little early. So I quickly drop my things off at my office and hit the head for what can only be described as a “major transaction.” The kind of poop that Ron White is describing when he says that afterwards your pants fit better.

Are we clear? Are you sorry you’ve read this far?

Anyhoo, I finish up and as I get ready to return to work I flush the toilet.

Nothing.

Uh-oh. I check the bathroom sink. No water. As it turns out, the winter cold burst several water mains in the blocks surrounding my building. It was all over the news on Saturday. I’d be interested to know what you’d do in that situation. As for me, I abandoned the kids at the pool and pretended it never happened.

Now here’s the thing. This was a major water break. We are looking at a best-case scenario of 48 hours before the building will have water. It sat there for more than two days before it was flushed. As soon as the water came back on, I went to finish what I’d started, but someone had beaten me to it.

I can only offer this public apology and say, with as much sincerity as I can muster, I’m sorry and I’m not really a bad person.

D’oh!

Recently, I read an article with the thesis statement that “The Simpsons” no longer matters. Granted, I’m a fan and have been since the beginning. And while I’ve seen a few clunkers in the mix, for 20 years, they have been consistently entertaining. But more than that, they have established a cultural shorthand that is undeniable.

The article talks about how it has lost its edge to shows like “Family Guy” and “American Dad.” That may be so, but that doesn’t diminish the relevance of the Simpsons. I’ll give you an example.

Max was looking at some Minimates online. For those that don’t know, Minimates are little Lego-like figures modeled after popular film and TV shows. He collects the comic book versions and was looking for news on when the new sets would be out. He came across a Minimate he couldn’t identify. It was a T-1000 terminator from the second movie (the one that was made of liquid metal). The figure was from the scene where the terminator had long hooks for hands and got his head split open by a shotgun blast.

“What’s that?”

Now, Max, hasn’t seen the film and really isn’t familiar with the Terminator franchise. So, rather than explaining to him about Sarah Connor and Skynet, I made reference to something he would know.

“You know that episode of the Simpsons where Homer decides he likes Ned Flanders and then begins spending so much time with him that Ned starts to dislike Homer?”

“Yes.”

“There is that scene where Homer melts out of the shrubbery to talk to Ned and then, holding two golf clubs, chases Ned’s car down the street.”

“Right. Then he catches the car and uses the clubs to drag himself up on the back of it.”

“Right. That was a reference to the second Terminator film in which that character uses those hook hands the same way.”

And that’s why the Simpsons will remain relevant even after the show stops airing. It has reflected our society and culture for so long, I can use it as shorthand when talking about various aspects of current culture. In fact, I reference the Simpsons so often that I can feel my friends’ eyes roll whenever I mention it.

–

I’ve finished my dealings with the insurance company and am expecting a check any time now to replace my stolen property and fix my “dwelling.”

[Simpsons reference: Marge Simpson studies to get her real estate license and gets discouraged because of the complicated rules and regulations she has to memorize. "What's a 'dwelling?'"]

It has been a relatively painless process. Rosie, my claims adjuster, was great and worked quickly to get my paperwork shuffled through so I could get a check in time for Christmas. My hat’s off to her.

–

One interesting thing that’s come out of all this is that I’ve gotten to know one of my neighbors. He is a photographer and musician. While he was talking to the police about what he saw on the day of my robbery, he noticed one of my cats lurking about.

“That’s the neighborhood cat,” he said.

“He is that,” I replied. “That’s Speedy.”

“So he’s your cat?”

“Yes. We’ve had him since he was a kitten.”

“That cat comes over to my house all the time. I’ve got photos of that cat. I’ve been calling him Gnee. He likes to sleep in the bed of an abandoned pick up truck behind the auto shop.”

I asked him to send me some photos of my cat.

There have been plenty of stories (and at least one Simpsons plot) dedicated to our pets living secret lives. My neighbor told me that he has a group of friends over once a week to play music and that Speedy shows up there without fail. He sent me links to videos he created and in them, Speedy is hanging out on his friends’ laps or on the couch.

That amuses me no end. Max has taken to calling Speedy a “two-timing jerk” or, alternately, claiming Speedy isn’t his cat, but some “mystery cat” that looks a lot like Speedy, but isn’t him.

I’m thinking of buying one of those collar cameras and putting it on Speedy to see what he gets up to when he’s wandering the neighborhood.

–

My brother wrote a very sweet and poignant account of Christmas morning at my grandparent’s house and what it meant to him that everyone was there. He has been a little frustrated that the tradition of going to my grandparent’s house for Christmas breakfast has been changed. It was a family tradition for many years, but it has never been a tradition that was etched in stone. Before they had grandchildren, my grandparents would spend Christmas day with their kids. When I was young and everyone could fit around my grandmother’s giant dining room table we had dinner on Christmas Eve. It was exciting because it meant Christmas was that much closer.

Eventually, there were just too many of us. So, we stopped eating around that table and started spreading around the house, gathering around card tables and other furniture, mixing it up with cousins all of which had families of their own. There were too many to get gifts for everyone, so we started drawing names and having a secret Santa. We moved it to breakfast on Christmas morning and, since my grandmother died, moved the gathering to my grandfather’s church.

Each year it becomes more difficult to organize and easier to hurt someone’s feelings in the process of trying. My hope is that my family understands that while traditions are great, they should be a means to an end. Getting everyone together to celebrate Christmas however it can be managed should be the goal. I think everyone understands this and while letting go of tradition is hard to do, we’ve all done it before and we’ll continue to do it every year.

An open letter to the scumbag(s) who broke into my house.

Dear scumbag(s),

You kicked in my back door, dumped my family’s clothes and personal items all over the floors, stole my Xbox 360, my son’s Wii, my kids’ laptop, all our video games and DVDs. Oh, and you managed to break my television and web cam. I discovered this incredible invasion of my privacy and property after working a long, hard day at my JOB. See, I have these things because I work and pay for them. I’m not a scumbag like you.

I don’t have the luxury of a moral code that allows me to steal from others, destroy property and forget about consequences. No, my job is to assure my children that I’ll take steps to 1) find out who you are and see that you pay for your criminal acts and 2) that you won’t be back. See, I came home with my young son in tow. He walked with me through the house and saw how you’d dragged all the boxes from under the beds and dumped them. I hugged him and reassured him as he saw the game cabinet standing open and all his games gone. I did my best to dry his tears as the police officer took down the serial numbers of all the electronics you stole, thief.

Oh yeah. I have the numbers. If you pawn this stuff, I’ll get it back and you’ll be caught. Max handled it as well as any 11-year-old child could, having discovered that someone had been rifling through his things and helped themselves to ALL THE CHANGE IN HIS BANK. You really are worthless, you know that, scumbag? You must know that because if you had any sense of self worth, you would shower.

That’s right. You stink. You must stink pretty badly because I could still smell your body odor in my house the next day. I sprayed air freshener and installed plug ins, but your stink still permeates. I’m wondering if you acted alone because who could stand close enough to you to help you carry out our stuff? If you do manage to sell my things and get a little money, don’t blow it all on meth and wine coolers. Buy some soap and have someone teach you how to use it.

Oh, and thanks, by the way, for breaking my TV in the process. Wasn’t the Xbox 360, the Wii, the laptop and all my games and movies enough? I assume this was the result of yanking all the wires out of my television. You must think you’re pretty smart, you know, for a scumbag thief.

As of this writing there is just over two weeks until Christmas. While I’m working hard to fill out all the forms for my insurance claim, it is unlikely that this will be settled by then. Even if I get a check tomorrow covering the full losses (which is unlikely) it won’t be settled. You see, I’ve always tried to be a good neighbor and a good person. I’ve spent my life believing, despite all evidence to the contrary, that people are basically good, too. You’ve successfully narrowed my eyes. Congratulations.

I spent the next day at home (rather than at my job where I earn the money to pay for the things you stole) cleaning up your mess and trying to get your stink (both literal and figurative) out of my house. I fixed the back door, refolded my family’s clothes, repacked the boxes and trunks that held our keepsakes, filed an insurance claim and tried to be philosophical about the whole thing. Through it all, I have one fear: that if you are caught, the punishment will not be severe enough to discourage you from doing it again.

In the end, it is all just stuff and I’m not hung up on stuff. I am, however, hung up on the violation of my property. If you’ll do it to me, you’ll do it to others because, until you get caught or wise up, you’re just a scumbag thief who believes you are entitled to whatever you can take.

In a few short weeks, my life will be back to normal. Hopefully, I’ll have replaced the things you stole from my family (thief) and I’ll move on, a bit wiser and a bit less open to the world. You, being a lowlife scumbag thief, will be right where you are now – clutching your ill-gotten loot and stinking up the place.

One bright side to all this is that I got to meet a neighbor that I hadn’t had a chance to speak with before. He is a friend of a friend and, as it turns out, a good guy. He might have even seen you. He thinks so, anyway and he gave the police a description. Maybe that knowledge will cause you to lose as much sleep as I have the last few days.

–

By the way, I reported the Xbox stolen to Microsoft. So, whomever finds it under their tree won’t be able to sign into the service. That means no online gaming, no software updates and you still stink.

Heath Care. Yes, again.

William Shatner has an interview show called “Raw Nerve.” When I was at DragonCon last September, he and Leonard Nimoy talked briefly about this show and Shatner mentioned that he’d gotten to interview Rush Limbaugh.

A clip from that interview has been release in which the two talk about health care. I have a personal issue with linking to anything that propagates Rush to a larger audience, so I’ll just give you a transcription of what I believe to be the money quotes.

SHATNER:
If you have money, you’re going to get health care. If you don’t have money it’s more difficult.

LIMBAUGH:
If you have money you’re going to get a house on the beach. If you don’t have money you’re going to live in a bungalow somewhere.

SHATNER:
But we’re talking about health care.

LIMBAUGH:
What’s the difference?

And there it is. That’s the source of all the conflict laid bare. The conservatives do not believe there is a difference between health care and anything else one might buy or own. And trying to explain it the difference is like banging your head against a wall made of stupid.

The difference is that if you don’t have access to health care, you can die. The difference is that, while conservatives are all about the free market and competition, the health insurance industry is exempted from antitrust laws – meaning they are a cartel, allowed to fix prices and therefore work outside of the free market. They buy congressmen in wholesale lots so despite polls that show a public option has widespread popularity, you get “independent” senators like Joe Lieberman who will vote against any bill that includes anything that might change the status quo.

Our congressmen work for the health insurance industry, not for us.

I am so sick and tired of hearing conservative pundits say we have the best health care system in the world. I’m tired of hearing people tell me that no one is turned away for lack of ability to pay. That’s just not the case.

If I go to the emergency room today with something serious, like a tumor. They have no obligation to remove it. They are obliged to get me stable enough to go home.

I am tired of conservatives complaining that they don’t want to have to pay for someone else’s health care. We do not get to pick and choose what our tax dollars are spent on. If we could, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been defunded years ago. I have news for you. You’re already paying for other people’s health care. Every time someone goes to the emergency room and can’t pay, you pay.

So, would you rather pay on the front end – preventative care that is cheaper and ultimately more successful – or on the back end – emergency room care that is the most expensive way to get care.

They scream about “rationing health care” but our health care is already rationed. If I were to go to the largest medical partnership in my town as a new patient and ask to see a doctor for a physical check up, the earliest I could get an appointment is March. MARCH! They might could get me in next month if I’m willing to see a nurse, instead. I can go the walk-in clinic, but they don’t do physicals or well visits. And if I can’t pay, I’ll be banned.

The current model cannot hold because it is bankrupting people. Insurance companies are cherry picking healthy people and dropping the sick ones so even if you can afford insurance and make your payments, as soon as you need their help, they will drop you. Once that happens, you cannot get insurance because of your “pre-existing condition.”

I was making this point with a conservative friend recently. As soon as I mentioned health care reform, she said “Meaning everyone has the same health care.”

“No,” I said. “Meaning everyone can afford health care insurance.”

“Meaning the government gets involved.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to have this conversation with you.”

The government is not our enemy. I don’t understand why, with the success and popularity of Medicare and Medicaid, that conservatives believe the government is incapable of running a health care system. They say they don’t want a government bureaucrat to get between a patient and doctor. But we currently have a corporate bureaucrat doing that very thing.

I don’t understand why small business owners aren’t on the steps of the capital demanding a single-payer government health care system like Medicare for everyone. Wouldn’t not having to provide health insurance for your employees help your bottom line?

Let’s be clear about our terms:

Socialized Medicine: that’s where all the hospitals are owned by the government and all the doctors, nurses and staff work for the government.

Single payer: that’s like Medicare, where hospitals and doctors work pretty much as they do now, but they bill the government for services and everyone is covered.

Public option: who the hell knows?

Downtown

I’ve worked in downtown Nashville for coming up on two years now. It is lively and entertaining and, despite the commute, I really like it. One of the reasons for that is the cast of characters you see on the streets. Right outside my office, there are at least two barkers trying to lure the tourists into either B.B. Kings or Coyote Ugly. On slow days, the Hooters girls will hula hoop on the sidewalk to bring the folks in for bad food served with a side of cleavage.

There is this one guy who I see occasionally. He’s old, in a wheelchair, and plays an acoustic guitar for change. He’s pretty good, too. He’s been down here forever, as far as I can tell. I have stopped to listen and throw a few coins in his bucket. When my friend Mitch came downtown for lunch (having recently moved back to Nashville from points north) he mentioned that this guy was down here playing back when Mitch was haunting 2nd Avenue the first time.

I haven’t seen him in a few weeks and it turns out there’s a reason. The Tennessean ran his obituary today. It seems he’s been performing on 2nd for change for 30 years. A rash of robberies (including his van he used to sleep in) prompted a police officer to help him get into housing and get some health care. I was glad to read he didn’t die alone on some street corner.

I was also glad to see that he was deemed newsworthy enough for a profile in the paper.

–

I have withdrawn from the media coverage of the healthcare bill. We’re getting to the point where it just makes me angry and I’ve come to terms with the notion that whatever passes will be awful and that the Democrats are stupid and unable to effectively use their majority status, which still makes them only slightly better than Republicans who have truly become the party of “No!”

Maybe it would have gone better if we’d declared war on something – the war on illness, the war on medical bankruptcy, the war on pre-existing conditions – I’m just spitballing here. The right never seems to question war funding and Republican presidents have a history of declaring war on things that don’t have an army to fight.

–

Started a new video game over the weekend. DragonAge Origins is Bioware’s new “Dark Epic Fantasy.” I’ve bought nearly every console game that Bioware has produced. I babbled at my friends about how cool Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was. Jade Empire was equally fun (if short). Elder Scrolls: Oblivion took several years before I’d completed it. I’ve played through Mass Effect three times, including exploring all the planets.

So I have high hopes for this one. I don’t buy a lot of games, so anything I buy has to have replayability. Otherwise I’ll rent it or borrow it. DragonAge looks to have that quality. So far, the story has been engaging, but the fight mechanics are a little hard to get used to. I get this feeling that I’m going to run across some shortcut command once I’m 20 or more hours into the story that’s going to be a facepalm moment as I realize how much easier it would have made the earlier chapters.

This happened in Mass Effect twice. Once when I realized the vehicle they give you to explore the surface of planets had a big cannon on it (I’d been making do with the machine guns) and the second was when I figured out that the same vehicle had a sniper scope on the cannon (meaning I could get better shots on enemy positions).

DragonAge represents (at least for me, anyway) another step in videogame delivery. Buying the disc new meant you got a code good for unlocking a character that those who rent the game will not see. It also came with a code that will give you a set of armor to use in Mass Effect 2, which is due next year. Finally, certain quests that pop up during conversations will have a response option that includes downloading additional content (for additional money).

I like the downloadable content model being used by a lot of games lately. It keeps the cost of the initial game down somewhat and offers the designers a chance to have users provide feedback about what they want to see. If you like the game, you can extend it by a few hours for another ten bucks. If you don’t like the game, then you aren’t saddled with paying for content you have no interest in.

It’s a good system.

What I don’t get are the people who play sports titles and buy what is essentially the same game every year with only minor changes. Is Madden 09 that much different from Madden 08? Wouldn’t a downloadable roster update make more sense? For the player, yes. For EA Sports, not so much, I guess.

–

This morning on the way to work I kept hearing someone blowing their horn. I checked each time to make sure it wasn’t me doing something wrong. Then I caught a glimpse of what was going on. It was a sedan in the HOV lane. The driver was blowing his horn at the drivers in front of him who weren’t supposed to be in the lane because they were alone in the vehicle.

He blew his horn at one SUV which moved over into the next lane just in time to keep from being spotted by a State Trooper parked in the median looking for HOV violators.

In Nashville, they don’t patrol the HOV lanes all that often, but when they do, they usually patrol in pairs. Once you spot the first patrol car, you might manage to get into the correct lane before being seen and then move back into the HOV lane once you’re out of sight. That’s when the second patrol car pulls you over.

But this is the first vigilante approach to HOV enforcement. I liked it.

An Open Letter to Congressman Bart Gordon

Dear Congressman Gordon,

I moved to your district in 1986 while you were still in your second term. I have been a supporter of you and the Democratic Party for just about as long. My family worked for your campaign when you had a close call against Steve Gill. For the 10+ years I’ve had this blog, I’ve publicly ridiculed your opponents and defended your record.

Your district has grown more and more Republican, yet you manage to hold onto your seat. Tennessee 6 voted for McCain by 62 percent in the last election. Around Murfreesboro, people put up signs for McCain and Gordon in the same yard.

Your voting record has grown more conservative as well. Your vote to authorize torture made me incredibly angry. Your record is a string of votes along party lines until something comes up that really matters. But I continued to support you, because the alternative was going to be some anti-abortion, corporatist stooge.

Last Saturday, you voted against the House health insurance reform bill, citing that it would not reduce the cost of health care. But the Congressional Budget Office scored the bill and said it would save money and eventually create a surplus.

It seems like you’re listening to the vocal minority – the teabaggers and birthers – who don’t believe the government is capable of doing anything well. These are a loud crowd of Glenn Beck followers who strive to defend the downtrodden insurance companies. I’m amazed at how many people not only vote against their own economic self interests, but go out and protest against them.

I’ve seen estimates that say there are 54,000 people in your district without health insurance. How many of them will have to declare bankruptcy because you don’t trust CBO numbers?

The thing is, it isn’t even about that. It isn’t about the yelling crowds or the phone calls to the field office or the growing conservative nature of your district or even your proffered reasons regarding the bill’s cost. The real reason you voted against health insurance reform is that over the course of your 13 terms in Congress, you have received more than $1.4 million in campaign cash from the health care industry.

That says to me that the teabaggers could have stayed home because you never had any intention of voting any other way.

But putting that aside for a moment, I want to know why you voted to include the Stupak-Pitts Amendment to the bill? You have proclaimed yourself pro-choice on many occasions, but this amendment limits the ability of women to buy health insurance that covers abortion. Hell, I want to know why you voted to include any amendments to a bill you had no intention of voting for. All you did was make the bill worse before voting against it anyway.

You know how I know your vote was based on campaign contributions? Because you had to know that even voting for the Stupak-Pitts Amendment and against the bill it was attached to wouldn’t cut any ice with the teabaggers and birthers who will back the Republican candidate against you next year anyway.

In fact, Politico reported that your seat has been targeted and it looks like you’re in for a tough race next year. In the past, you could have counted on my support. Not any more. I’ve written too many of these letters over the last few years only to see you sell me out again and again.

Maybe 13 terms is enough. Do you have any other skills?

Mike Reed
Resident of Murfreesboro, Tenn.

–

Just so we’re clear, the Stupak-Pitts Amendment was an 11th hour inclusion in the bill to try and bring the Blue Dog Caucus around. Last summer, when all the astroturf groups were storming the town hall meetings, an agreement was struck in the form of the Capps Amendment.

The Capps Amendment says that private plans offered through an insurance exchange cannot use federal funds to cover abortion services, but premiums paid by the individual could be used. The agreement also said that at least one plan from every region would offer abortion coverage and at least one plan would not.

The Stupak-Pitts Amendment states that insurance companies aren’t allowed to offer plans that cover abortion services to anyone who receives a government subsidy, even if the premiums are paid with private funds. The public option will not cover abortion and no one who participates in the public option is allowed to buy abortion coverage. Insurance companies are allowed to offer abortion coverage as part of the public plan, but only those who pay for the public plan without any government subsidy are allowed to buy it.

What is boils down to is that wealthy women will  have access to insurance plans that cover all aspects of their reproductive health, but the poor and middle class women will not.

Rep. Stupak suggested that women could buy an “abortion rider” on top of their existing plan. This is stupid on the surface because it would require women to plan to have an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy. Plus, since 85 percent of current employer-based plans, already offer abortion coverage, such riders do not exist. The legislation doesn’t call for their creation and it is unlikely that insurance companies will offer them.

It is unfortunate that a bill designed to offer better health insurance options to people has gotten tangled in the abortion debate.

–

This weekend the family and I were in Nashville tooling around. Dollie needed to do some research at the state library and archive, which is next to the capitol building. The kids and I went to the Adventure Science Center before driving back to pick her up.

We took a little walk around the capitol and listened to the protesters. They didn’t really seem to have a common theme. You got the usual crazies who don’t believe the Constitution allows an income tax, the people who believe President Obama is a Marxist/Leninist/Socialist/Communist/Muslim and the people who believe the country has gone to hell since Reagan left office. A shrill woman on a bullhorn told the crowd that the off-year elections (in which the Dems won all the national offices and the Republicans won two governors seats) was proof that the Democrats (and even moderate Republicans) were in trouble.

She specifically cited New York 23, which has been a Republican district since the Civil War, but was taken by the Democrats when the teabaggers forced the Republican candidate out of the race in favor of a Conservative Party candidate. I love how they think forcing out a moderate Republican in favor of a moderate Democrat is a “win.”

But I believe Max hit the nail on the head as we left the capitol:

“I don’t think this was about health care at all,” he said. “It seems like they just don’t like Obama and are looking for something to complain about.”

–

Attended my first meeting of the Metro Nashville Domestic Violence Death Review Panel. I signed a confidentiality agreement not to talk about what is discussed in the meeting. I will say this, though. I got to meet Dr. Henry Foster, who also serves on the committee.

He was President Clinton’s nominee to replace Dr. Jocelyn Elders as Surgeon General, but his nomination was sandbagged by Sen Phil Gramm who was grandstanding as he sought the 1996 Republican presidential nomination. It was a pleasure to meet him and I told him so.

An update on my new phone

So, I found out who used to own the phone number I now have. I got a call today for Cary Williams. This was the first time that anyone had asked for him by his full name. So, I Googled him. Turns out, he’s a rookie cornerback with the Tennessee Titans.

I called the guy back who’d phoned to ask if he was looking for the Cary Williams with the Titans and he said he was. I then texted the model who sent me the Halloween pic and she confirmed.

I just finished writing Mr. Williams a letter, letting him know how much I’ve enjoyed this experience and to see if he’d like me to give anyone his new contact info. I’ll keep you posted.