Gamble on amber. Dead on red.

Nevada has the best roads and the worst drivers in the country. Sometimes I wish it were the other way around. Yesterday I saw the light changing from green to amber so I slowed to a stop. A car whizzed past me at 60 miles an hour just as it turned red. I see this every day. I hope his appointment was important because the next one may be in Samarra.
The ecology of the road has become ever more dangerous. It started with behemoth SUV’s and trucks and has now moved on to texting, tweeting, eating, smoking; anything to keep your hands off the wheel and your eyes off the toad.
This week a truck smashed into an Amtrak train in rural Nevada and people were killed. I still don’t know the story. It was in the middle of nowhere with no other traffic in sight and still there was a collision. I guess the poor dead driver was doing a crossword puzzle.
There was a saying about the perils of a plane crash, that was meant to be calming: “If your number comes up, it comes up”. But the rejoinder is, “What if the pilot’s number comes up?”
James Janisse, the all night DJ on KJAZ used to sign off with “I wish you green lights and blue skies,” as commuters filled the LA freeways. I would add, “And a long happy journey through life.”

What does the future hold?

For Orwell it was a boot in the face forever. For Huxley it was drugged bliss. For H.G. Welles it was science and reason. For someone like me, retired and in my mid-70’s, it’s Groundhog Day. Today was like yesterday and tomorrow will be like today.
There’s no chance of a woman winking back, no more goals or homeruns in the offing, no exciting career challenges. On the other hand no chance of a DUI, a hangover, oversleeping, being late for work, being fired.
Graham Greene said the main consolations of old age were a fine aged cheese and a nice glass of Port. Don’t sneer. It could just be television and the supermarket.
Dean Martin despaired about getting old. In Nick Toches biography of him he said,
“I get up and have a bowel movement. I have breakfast and go to the Club and play a round of golf. I have lunch and gossip. I come home and have dinner, watch television, have another bowel movement, and go to bed. That’s my day, everyday.”
My consolation is reading all the books I should have read in high school and college. The other is writing this blog and emails. Thought is action, too.
Of course we’re not dealing with eternity. In one of John Updike’s final poems he wrote:
“You don’t want it to end, but it does…You don’t want to die, but you will”
So heed the advice on a sign hanging over the bar of The Arches in Newport Beach:
“The joy of life is living it”. It sure is.

The opium of the people

In 1843 Karl Marx said, “Religion is the opium of the people”. Today it’s sports. And, since hockey is a religion in Canada, the truth was borne out in the Stanley Cup Finals this month.
Vancouver suffered a bitter defeat at the hands of the Boston Bruins. Of course the players want to win but they have their multi-million dollar contracts and endorsements. Their happiness resides in their bank accounts and summer homes. It’s the fans who suffer, at least in Vancouver. These are people who are held hostage by their naïve belief in an inevitable victory. Weren’t they the chosen team with the best record in the league only to be struck down by a Bruin defenseman as big as Goliath. When God had forsaken them they went on a rampage disputing a heartless world.
In Boston it was all Hosannas as the team displayed the Cup in a triumphal parade reputed to be the largest gathering in the city’s history.
Identification is an important part of the fan’s mental makeup. His spiritual honor and emotions ride on his team. I confess that I identify with the Detroit Red Wings and could never be a “fan” of the Canucks who have been tortured for 40 years and 40 nights of failure.
Once upon a time the players were genuinely involved in the game. Long ago the great Red Wing Captain Sid Abel was quoted as saying, “Sure we played for money, but we would have played the Toronto Maple Leafs for nothing.”
The true reality of modern sports is money. The fan’s reality is illusion, the same as religion.

Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen has paid a beautiful homage to the loveliest city in the world. Like “Manhattan”, the opening scenes are ravishing and like all his films there is a jazz score, this time Sidney Bechet, and later Django-inspired playing. The first time I saw Paris I was stunned by the beauty of the bridges, the avenues, the galleries and the whole sensual atmosphere of the place. I took my two kids there for New Years--first stop The Eiffel Tower. I worked on an advertising project there for a week and ended up drinking too much and falling asleep on the Metro. When I woke up the car was in the barn and I had to tiptoe over the live rails to get out. And there were numerous other trips, the last time with my two English pals Bob and Steve, who liked to drink and make merry till all hours. They sent me home in a cab at 3 a.m. Actually it doesn’t matter if it’s midnight or noon or any hour of the day, it’s the most marvelous place in the world. If you’ve been you know what I’m talking about and if you haven’t you must put it on your bucket list. Then, as they do in “Casablanca”, you’ll be able to say: ‘We’ll always have Paris

The gentleman is a dope.

He isn’t very smart. I’m using a title from a Broadway musical since I’m talking about a congressman from New York named Weiner Airhead. He’s the guy who posted his shortcomings in titillating tweets, then denying it and lying about it. What a twit, he’s dumber than I was in junior high.
It’s still fairly innocent stuff compared to our other “leaders’: the adulterous ex. Senator Ensign, the mentally muscle-bound Arnold and too many others on the Federal payroll.
We’re too dumb to be governed anyway. If you read the news carefully you’ll see that all politicians represent themselves first and then us if it suits them.
They’re not statesmen, they’re actors like Reagan and Arnold, B picture hacks. There was a New Yorker cartoon years ago showing their favorite middle aged, middle class matron sitting in front of her television wistfully saying, “I wish Gene Kelly would run for something.”
I’ve just been told that the New York Congressman’s name is Anthony Weiner. Weiner Airhead is the guy who started EST back in the ‘70’s.