Saturday, December 19, 2009

19 inches in Sterling, Va.

And it is still coming down. I shoveled four times today. December snowfall records have been shattered for the entire D.C.-metro area. There are no above-freezing days coming in the next week to 10 days, so the piles of snow aren't going anywhere. No telling what damage will be done to houses and other structures. As trees coated in ice and snow fall, power will be lost in certain areas. School has already been canceled in Loudoun County through Tuesday. Craziness erupted in D.C. with a massive snowball fight that ended in some sort of gun play and police action, according to local news reports. Seems appropriate for 2009 to end this way. Just a terrible year in so many ways.

Friday, December 18, 2009

D.C. region bracing for major storm

People are scurrying about like lunatics today, buying milk and bread, preparing for what some forecasters say will be a record-breaking storm for December. The forecast: Snow beginning tonight and possibly never ending. By the way, I never understood the snow-driven panic that leads to the assault on milk and bread in every grocery store within 100 miles of here. Has anyone in D.C. ever been unable to get to the grocery store for more than a day because of snow? Does milk and bread guarantee one's survival against all that falls from the sky?

Watchful eyes on an obscure blog

I wonder who is out there reading, watching, listening? My blog audience is limited, but I do appear to have a few loyal fans. They aren't official followers/subscribers, so I don't know them by name. Some folks just don't like signing up for yet another online service, I guess. Nonetheless, their site visits are appreciated. They are anonymous. The information I have on them is limited to country, city or sometimes place of business. They literally are dots on a map. Sometimes those dots are in Asia or Europe. Most of the time the hits are coming from the states, according to the free blog-traffic reports I receive.

Who is watching me in Miami? Do I know them? Are they a distant friend or just a stranger who stumbled upon my blog and became curious enough to click on it a few times a week? The only information I have is that they are somehow associated with something called Gadjraj & Sons Imports. I assume that is a business in South Florida. I would be thrilled to hear from them and to ask what it is that draws them here. I would be even more grateful to hear from them if they are a long-lost friend.

Who do I know in Manhattan, Kan., Queens, N.Y., or Potomac, Md., who checks in now and then? Of course, in my situation, I am always hoping that someone will find me through this blog and offer me a job or at least a spot in their garage band. However, that doesn't seem likely. In fact, even sites geared towards that sort of networking -- like LinkedIn.com -- produce very few tangible results for job seekers. I joined a musicians site that has yielded a grand total of one query in three months. All the hoopla about having to connect online in order to find jobs or like-minded hobbyists seems to be more myth than fact.

How often does a personal blog like this come up in a search? When I comment about President Obama does the FBI or Secret Service take note through some sort of Internet wizardry? Do I get on some agency's to-be-watched list? Doubtful. They can't even keep track of who is on the White House party list.

When I made a remark about Jerry Lee Lewis a few weeks ago my blog traffic went way up. In fact, that week's numbers were the highest I've recorded so far, leading me to think I should abandon this blog and start up a Jerry Lee Lewis site.

There are other people I don't know who come here regularly. And, unfortunately, there are some folks who visited frequently at the start of this blog but apparently lost interest, which just leads to more questions about the true value of blogging, social and professional networking.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Pearl Jam and random memories



In a musical mood this week. This is my rendition of a Pearl Jam song called "Wishlist." As usual, I am singing and playing all instruments except drums. The pictures do having meaning -- some tied to the song's lyrics and others to random memories.

Rockin' live performances for the ages

Sometimes a rock band, even one that I don't particularly like, turns in a great live performance. As I happened to see Sly and the Family Stone at Woodstock recently on television, I have to say that their medley of Dance to the Music, Music Lover and I Want To Take You Higher was fabulous and still resonates with me 40 years later. Considering that Sly did it at Woodstock, where there was no shortage of great musicians, adds to the legend.

As I think of other live recordings, I have to include Grand Funk's I'm Your Captain at Shea Stadium (1971) as amongst the best single songs played in front of an audience. I think Jimi Hendrix was also at the top of his game at the Monterey Pop Festival where he played Like a Rolling Stone.

These were all great songs, but the visuals, energy and creativity are what pushes them to the top for me. Great musicianship and stage presence. Thankfully, they were all caught on film.

Would be interested to know what live songs standout in your memory.

Cerrato takes the low road

Woke up to the news that Vinny Cerrato resigned as the Redskins' executive vice president of football operations today. For most fans in Washington, that's good news. The team has floundered under Cerrato's leadership. But a few questions remain.

First, how much was owner Dan Snyder involved in the poor decisions that the team has made in recent years? Is Cerrato truly responsible for the gridiron mess in D.C.?

What is the next move? The radio talk shows are buzzing that there will be more news later today. Possibly a new coach? Maybe a new general manager? Is Joe Gibbs coming back again?

Regardless of where the team goes from here, Cerrato made a parting statement that was less than classy: "I've had the pleasure of working with some great coaches such as Joe Gibbs, Greg Blache and Sherman Lewis, great people on the Redskins staff ..." Uh, what about the current coach who you hired, Vinny? You mentioned Blache, a coordinator, and Lewis, an adviser to the team for just a few weeks, but you don't mention the head coach, Jim Zorn?

When people at Cerrato's level fall, they generally don't fall far. They have enough money in the bank to last a lifetime. Failure in one place almost guarantees he will get a good job elsewhere in the upside down world of professional sports. He spent a lot of time doing a radio show, when some thought he should be spending that time improving the team, so maybe he will become a broadcaster.

I am sensitive to anyone losing their job these days, but Cerrato, like most top executives, will be just fine. The system is setup to protect these types of high-ranking insiders regardless of whether they have talent or not. More than anything, these guys know how to play the game (I cleaned that up because this blog is g-rated). In Cerrato's case, however, the game didn't respond to his maneuvers. And in a public arena like pro sports, it is hard to hide incompetency and failure. Fans wanted a change. The Redskins were becoming a public-relations nightmare. Snyder had to put aside his personal feelings for Cerrato and make a move. I am sure he took good care of his friend Vinny.

Update: Bruce Allen, the son of legendary Redskins' coach, George Allen, has been named Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Washington Redskins, according to ESPN980. Allen was GM for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Senior Executive with the Oakland Raiders.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Car commercials lack sensitivity

I have a profound desire to throw my shoe at the TV every time one of those luxury-car commercials comes on urging us to buy a pricey vehicle for Christmas. We're in the worst recession of our time. People are genuinely hurting and many folks can't afford to buy anything for the holidays, let alone a Lexus. If some fat cats can financially swing gifts like cars, all the more power to them. But these commercials seem to want to rub it in the faces of those who aren't doing as well ... and that's a whole lot of people these days. The tone of these commercials is insensitive at best.

Dean says kill health-reform bill

I rarely agree with Howard Dean about anything, but his opinion piece in The Washington Post makes some sense. It's astonishing that the opinion is coming from a hardcore Democrat. The current health-care reform bill doesn't seem to accomplish what was originally intended and it might be best to start over, says Dean. Read Dean's column.

Low-paying gigs hard to live on


There is little money to be made by low-end musicians. By low-end I mean the guy who plays piano in Nordstrom's department store or the dude strumming guitar on the schooner tour of some second-rate city's polluted harbor. There is even less cash to be made by musicians in small clubs who many times must guarantee a certain number of patrons otherwise they could actually lose money.

But "real" professions in offices don't seem to be any better these days. As jobs begin to trickle back, I am noticing pay is way down.

I saw a rather typical ad recently from an employer who wants to hire a journalist for a newspaper/web-site operation. The job required candidates to have a four-year degree, be experts in various software such as Photoshop, InDesign and Flash, be able to write sports and news stories, do page layout and manage a couple of part-timers. Weekends and night work was required. The ad said the salary was "competitive." When I checked to see what competitive meant, I found out it was $20,000 a year. And this isn't unusual, particularly in journalism. Makes you wonder why anyone would spend tens of thousands of dollars on a J-school education.

As employers have the upper hand in a bad job market, they are requiring a vast array of skills. This is not all that unusual in journalism jobs, but the salaries being offered are what folks could have expected 25 years ago with a degree and maybe a year or two of experience. The pay is so low that you might as well take that gig singing Van Morrison tunes at the tacky airport hotel lounge. Cubicle work certainly isn't that much more lucrative these days.

Of course, employers are like anyone else -- they tend to get what they pay for. Even though the market is flooded with fairly talented folks who would be willing to lower their salary demands, it's not always the best move to hire inexperienced folks or people with questionable work histories just to save a buck. That bargain-basement employee in the long run might not be such a good idea if your company ends up being sued for libel or some form of malpractice.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Past catching up to the present

Even in 1960 my displeasure with winter was obvious. Didn't like it in Brooklyn, where this picture of me was taken. Didn't like it when my family moved to Long Island. And didn't like it while in high school in Rockland County, N.Y. No wonder I ended up going to college in southern Virginia. Winters are milder there, but still not mild enough for me. I recall being in shock the first time it snowed. The usually green campus was pretty in white but my anxiety rose with each inch of the fallen flaky stuff.

My first choice of colleges was the University of South Florida in Tampa. However, due to not being the best of test-takers, I screwed up my SATs and ended up in Lynchburg, Va. I have no regrets. Lynchburg College was a fine liberal arts school in a very scenic area of the state. In some ways, I wish I could have settled down there after graduation. Instead, I went on journalism career-driven romp up and down the East Coast before eventually coming back to Virginia in the mid-1990s.

As I look out over the gray, northern Virginia sky today, I wonder what course life would have taken if I would have ended up in Florida in 1979 -- what relationships would have been forged, what career would I have chosen, etc. One wonders about the road not taken when the current path seems to have led to a dead end. The winter slows everything down, allowing for the past to catch up to the present.

Of course, it's impossible to say things would have been better or significantly different -- that I would have become a physical education teacher (my original career goal) if I went to Tampa, or played in a great rock 'n' roll band (my first love). I might have gotten swallowed by a shark in the Gulf of Mexico at the age of 19 or been flattened on the streets of St. Petersburg by a runaway Buick driven by an infamous "blue-hair" with over-sized sunglasses. I might have eventually ventured back north, just to test my tolerance for winter or for nostalgic reasons, only to perish in a frozen park lake.

Still, it's interesting to consider what better things might have happened with a left turn at the intersection instead of a right. Unfortunately, when you're making those life-charting decisions at 18 you really don't have enough data or a crystal ball to choose the best course. Who would have thought in 1980 that newspapers would be dying because of a thing called the Internet and that seasoned journalists, such as myself, would be scrambling for jobs in 2009? Who would admit at 20 years old that they really don't know themselves yet or that they might be forced to reinvent themselves later in life when most folks are beginning to look forward to retirement? While I do know of a few people who knew exactly what they wanted from life early on, and made their visions into reality, I think most of us just stumble around, bumping into furniture as we go. The key is to try not to fall down the stairs.

The biggest challenge for me this winter will be in dealing with the unknown for the second year in a row. I still feel disoriented from the events of last year. The cold and dark days makes navigation more difficult. There is something about sunlight and warmth that makes impossible things seem possible. Maybe it's just an illusion, but it's a good illusion.

We've already had our first significant snowfall in the D.C. area. Luckily, we don't get the amount of snowfall that places like New York and Boston do. I am keeping my fingers crossed that good things can happen in the winter months. Maybe it will change my perspective on this time of year. Maybe the apparent dead end up ahead is just a dark tunnel across the harbor's icy waters. Perhaps there is light on the other side, even in the winter.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Poll: Mental health issues on rise

Excerpts from The New York Times:

“Everything gets touched,” said Colleen Klemm, 51, of North Lake, Wis., who lost her job as a manager at a landscaping company last November. “All your relationships are touched by it. You’re never your normal happy-go-lucky person. Your countenance, your self-esteem goes. You think, ‘I’m not employable.’ ”

Joblessness has wreaked financial and emotional havoc on the lives of many of those out of work, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll of unemployed adults, causing major life changes, mental health issues and trouble maintaining even basic necessities.

Sobering thoughts about aging

This chart from the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project shows what many of my closest friends and I have to look forward to in the next 5 to 25 years. Just think, in 5 years about 1 in 10 of those who graduated from college in 1979 will have trouble using the toilet. And 13.4 percent will have difficulty simply dressing. Daily living will not be what were told it would be. The golden years aren't looking so golden. I have no desire to fight my own feet in order to put on my socks.

Of course, few things in life remain constant or improve over time. Even wine reaches a point where it gets rancid. We have to accept that inevitable decline in all things, including ourselves. But who determines when the wine is turning bad? There is also the question of whether the wine is actually worsening or whether our tastes are changing.

It seems that life involves a series of reboots and dispelling of myths that can often get frustrating as one begins to have the advantage of a seasoned perspective.

Remember when we were told to drink several glasses of whole milk each day? Well, turns out that's a sure-fire way to die before you even begin having toilet issues. But I fully expect that sooner or later, drinking milk will be fashionable again.


Remember the American dream? Get an education. Buy a small house. Work your way up to a good job in a big company. Get a bigger house. Show loyalty and collect a pension after 30 years or so. Then retire to a warm-weather place and play catch with your grandchildren. Now, a bachelor's degree doesn't guarantee you anything. A small house won't necessarily appreciate enough to ever buy a bigger home and may, depending on the economy, lead you into foreclosure. Pensions are long gone at most companies, replaced by 401k plans. And employers show little loyalty, particularly to older workers, making it almost impossible now to work for just one or two companies in a lifetime. Oh, and those 401k and other savings plans ... turns out they aren't the retirement safety nets everyone said they would be when pensions were ditched.

Aging in America is not the rewarding, respectful or peaceful time we were told it would be or just assumed. Many people who should be at the height of their careers are finding themselves on unemployment lines. What's worse is that the future for these folks looks even more dismal because personal resources are being burned just to get through the here and now. If you are one of the 24.3 percent of the people who can't walk a block when you're 65, you won't even be able to be a respectable homeless person.

Whether one's problems are career, financial or health-related, "baby boomers" were not prepared for this. We adjusted and readjusted as boomers have done since grade school when we had to hide under our desks to protect ourselves from nuclear weapons, only to find out that that was one of the dumbest things we were ever told to do. We survived divorces which became fashionable, retooled our careers as technology took off and gave up drinking whole milk. We quit smoking and kept our hands on the 10 and 2 o'clock positions on the steering wheel. Unfortunately, someone mindlessly talking on their cellphone ran right into us and obliterated everything we worked for in our lives. Guess they didn't take driver's ed.

I am not a fan of aging if on top of having a 9.5 percent chance of having difficulty getting out of bed means that once I am out of bed I have nowhere to go. What good is there in medical science increasing our life expectancy if society and our culture casts us out in our 50s and 60s? I don't want to have difficulty walking across the room, assuming I have a room to walk across, only to find that once I am across it there really isn't anything there worthy of my attention.

Because we've eaten more veggies and get prostate exams regularly, the average life expectancy of men has increased to about 75. It was 10 years less when many of us boomers were born. That's the good news. However, I wonder who is going to take us to the pharmacy after the sun goes down when 30 percent of us won't be able to drive a car at night? I wonder how many of us will even be able to afford a car because no one will give us a job?

You would think everyone would be more supportive of the aging process -- from employers to the entertainment industry to Madison Avenue -- because we all get old if we're lucky enough to avoid premature illnesses or fatal accidents.

Maybe along with prolonging life, we better figure out a way to tweak our culture in a manner that allows mid-life and older folks to be contributing members of society. When we get out of bed in the morning, we want to go to meaningful jobs, see movies we can relate to, read books and publications with something substantial to say. Most of us are capable of working well into our 60s and 70s. If given the chance, some folks are still vibrant contributors in their 80s. But our culturally mindset has to change in order to have a more just and productive society. Just because 9.7 percent of us may walk across the room a little slowly doesn't mean we don't possess knowledge and skills that should be treasured.

I am not ready for the shuffleboard courts. I feel the pressure of time being preciously limited, but fortunately I don't have any of the problems listed in the chart above. At least not yet. And while I am blessed to be relatively healthy, it would be nice to feel like there is still a place on this planet for me that doesn't involve canasta and waxing poetic about the Ed McMahon. As many of my boomer friends would agree, we might not be able to play four quarters of full-court basketball or drink until the wee hours of the morning anymore, but we can think, feel, analyze and contribute in ways we couldn't in 1979.

Yes, daily life is bound to get progressively difficult after a certain age regardless of how many hours you spend on the treadmill. But it doesn't have to be made even more difficult by what seems to be a growing list of societal, economic and cultural shifts. Not being able to properly digest a slice of pepperoni pizza doesn't have to be made worse by losing one's sense of place in the world. Ideally, I would like to go back to an America where grandparents are respected, workers can retire comfortably and I can drink a glass of milk every now and then. Yet, I know that's not the way things are trending. And with the prospect of battling my underwear on the horizon, I have to wonder if Billy Joel was right in singing, "Only the good die young."

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Sandwich shop justice

A bleach-blond woman in a sandwich shop that I visit occasionally claimed she gave the young, Latino cash register guy a $20 bill today. The cashier gave her change from $10. The older owner of the shop came over and checked the register. There was no evidence that a $20 bill was placed in the $10 slot, but the owner made good on the customer's claim anyway, seemingly to avoid further dispute. I felt bad for the young cashier because he was certain he did not make a mistake.

The woman, whose body language and attitude told me she was scamming these folks, sat down to eat her meal. Five minutes later, the owner walked over to her table and said that he checked the video in the back room and that she gave the cashier a $10 bill, not a $20 as she had claimed. He then pointed to the camera above the register, asked for his money back and calmly walked away after she ponied up the money.

As I watched this little random episode play out, it felt good to see justice served without further incident. I felt good for the young cashier who was proven to be correct. If life were only like this more often ...