Good times

I like to think of myself as the kind of guy who brings a party with him wherever he goes. I don't need people around me to have a good time. That said, it's true that good times are multiplied manyfold when shared with someone you love.

I'm fortunate in that I'm well-loved by many, or at least the many who live under my roof. It was with this surfeit of blessing that I faced a fine dilemma this past week. I had two tickets to Bruce Springsteen's Sunday evening PNC Bank Arts Center appearance. Two tickets and five family members, four of whom were going to be tossed over the side of the SS Good Times.

Josh was away for the weekend, Sam's really too young to fully appreciate the whole deal, and Alex has seen Bruce once before. And then there were two: my wife and my second oldest son, Christopher. Now Christopher had, in the recent past, actually procured Springsteen tickets and then couldn't come home from college to use them. He likes Springsteen and has wanted to see him perform for a long time.

Sue, on the other hand, is my wife -- which in many cases would seal the deal right there.
So I was torn, twisted in ways that King Solomon could only have guessed at. But Susan, in a move that would have made St. Francis let out a low whistle, and mutter, "Man, she's good!'' removed herself from the equation.

"Take Christopher,'' she said. "I've seen him many times and he never has.''
" No, mom,'' he said, "You should go. I'll stay.''
They went on like this for a few minutes. It was enough to make you sick. At least those of you, who, like me, are not overburdened with solicitousness.

I took Christopher, who was unjaded and unprepared for the extravaganza. The look of sheer joy on his face at times during the concert is something I'll never forget.
"I can't get my head around how good this was,'' he said at the night's end.
And because Christopher was there, I never had a better time at a Bruce Springsteen concert.
For my review of Sunday's show, go to: http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060627/ENT04/606270331/1043
For a a broader discussion of my take on the themes of the current tour, go to: http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20060430&Category=ENT04&ArtNo=604300399&SectionCat=&Template=printart

Saving my children

Warren Buffet has decided to give away 85 percent of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in part, he says, because he doesn't believe in "dynastic wealth.'' What that means is that his heirs are just going to have muddle through with a measly $6.8 billion.
I don't believe in dynastic wealth, either. Of course, I came up with a slightly different solution to the problem. I became a jounalist.
If you don't amass a fortune in the first place, you don't have to worry about what to do with it.
Thank God. I've spared my kids the bane of wild, raging wealth.

Brow beating

I often get accused of navel gazing, which is just a rank calumny. I'm far too busy staring at my left eyebrow these days. The thing seems to have taken on a life of its own, sticking out at odd angles, an angry millipede of sorts.
I'm beginning to look like one of those jowly southern politicians out of bad movies and the Senate. I've got a Sam Ervin eyebrow, and I've been relilably informed that my only options are waxing it, plucking it or having electrolysis.
There's got to be some other way to get this thing under control, isn't there?

Is it hot in here or is it just me?

I see the recent headlines, all saying something like GLOBAL WARMING REAL, A NEW BUNCH OF SCIENTISTS SAY.
Is this really news? It's like some university research lab announcing, GRAVITY STILL WORKING SWELL.
I was just out in the parking lot, and man, it's a hot one, a scorcher, a real doozy, and it's only June.
That was a joke, so don't respond by telling me that I don't know the difference between weather and climate.
What's interesting to me is that even right-wing nutbars, the sorts of people who believe that more pollution will toughen up the species, can agree that the earth is getting warmer. They just don't believe that people have anything to do with it.
The earth is a big place, they argue, really huge. And compared to the Earth, human beings are really tiny. (It's true. You can look it up. People are small.) So, they say, human beings have no effect on anything global. Cow flatulence, on the other hand, is throwing the whole planet out of whack.
The fact that the global warming trend has spiked in the last 100 years, the warming skeptics say, is nothing more than a statistical anomaly. And all those glaciers falling apart in Antarctica? Vandal penguins.
Call me crazy, but I think close to 7 billion people moving around the world, trying to get to work in the morning may be adding a little something to the mix.

The critique of pure something or other

My 24-year-old son asked me to read a short story he'd written and render my opinion on it.
If you're like me, you know this is going to be trouble. It's been my experience that when people you love ask you to render a critique on something, that person wants to be reassured that whatever it is is wonderful.
"Now be honest,'' they say, and they are lying.
I read the story, an absurdist/surrealist little story that would give Ionesco a headache, would make David Lynch scratch his head and say, "I don't get it.''
The story involves a premonition of nuclear war, actual nuclear war, a lightning strike, a coup d'etat at a greasy spoon diner and a strange little girl selling cookies door-to-door.
"So, what did you think?'' Josh asked.
Once more into the breach, I thought, and decided just to jump in, saying that people in short stories ought to act like real people, you ought to be able to identify somehow with the protagaonist and I was lost.
Turns out there's a lot of symbolism in the story, and that it's about the impatience of youth, the immatuity of young nations and a critique of both Marxism and Bush's foreign policy.
"Oh,'' I said.
But we plowed through the story together and discovered the real theme of the story seemed to be the question of the philosophical equivalence of natural disasters and manmade catastrophes, I think.
"Maybe you should have thrown in a mysterious femme fatale or puppies,'' I said. "People like puppies.''
He's working on a second draft now.
How honest are we expected to be in our criticism of stuff like this?
I learned a long time ago that if your wife asks how you like a new dish she's whipped up and you don't care for it, you should say so, lest you wind up with a steady diet of green bean and prune whip casserole.
But this seems different somehow. Is it?

Bangin' them pleasure machines

Earlier this week, I was on the Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk working on a story when a sudden shower drove me into an arcade.
Now, I've got nothing against video games....
Well, at the risk of sounding like a codger and a coot at the age of 48, I do have something against video games. They are too complicated these days with all that up/down x/y action to get the figure on the screen to do some lethal, Twyla Tharp move. Back when I was a kid it was one button to move, one button to shoot and one button to jump. I saved the universe more than once with three buttons.
But what's missing from many arcades these days are pinball machines. Now that's entertainment: extra balls, extra games, bumpers, flippers and all kinds of literal bells and whistles - a combination of luck and skill that can't be beat.
I wonder where they've gone and why.
But there were two pinball machines in this arcade, so I dumped a bunch of quarters in the Playboy pinball machine.
It was an old machine and it occurred to me that most of the women portrayed on the backdrop and playing field are probably grandmothers now, which was a little depressing.
But what was worse was the plunger used to put the silver ball in play was badly in need of whatever the pinball machine equivalent of Cialis is. It was disheartening and distracting to say the least. I didn't get a free game, a high score or even an extra ball.
Which, I suppose, is a metaphor for something.
But I don't want to think about it.

Literary lion cub

My 21-year-old, Christopher, is home from college for the summer, and just brimming with newfound knowledge. Makes me long for the days when he was stupid.
He mentioned some 19th century writer, Kate Chopin, that I'd never of.
"You kidding me, right?'' he said. "This writer is huge, important, and everybody knows her work!''
His mother hadn't heard of the writer either, but Chris was gentle with her.
On the other hand, he made it clear that the depth of my ignorance was shocking, so shocking that it seemed wrong somehow to even consider myself an educated human being.
I mentioned this to a colleague at work (who, by the way had also never heard of the writer) and she thought for a minute and said:
"I've certainly never been a father or a son, but I can imagine what it must like to be your kid. And when a son of yours finally knows something that you don't, it's got to be huge, like beating the old man at driveway basketball for the first time.''
OK. I'll let the kid have this one.

A brief history of the end of life as we know it

Dr. Stephen Hawking, or "Mr. Good News Happy Guy'' as I've come to think of him, has decided it's time for all of us to get out of Dodge while the getting's good.
The scary-smart physicist has recently declared that it's time to start thinking about colonizing space because Earth is doomed. He says there are any number of ways that Earth could kick the bucket and be unable to push up daisies: sudden global warming, nuclear war, a virus or stuff so bad we haven't even thought of it yet.
And, apparently, Earth is in a bad neighborhood.
"We won't find anywhere as nice as Earth unless we go to another star system,'' Hawking has been quoted as saying.
Well, that's really gonna mess with my commute.
Truth to tell, even if the spaceships were ready to leave tomorrow, I wouldn't be going.
And neither would you.
Let's face it. There ain't room on the lifeboat for the likes of most of us.
You and me, we're like the poor and infirm stuck in New Orleans after Katrina.
If the world is not long for this world, we should at least enjoy what time we have left and, like they say at Mardi Gras, "Let the good times roll.''
Maybe Hawking can send us a postcard from Alpha Centuri.

Does anybody really know what time it is?

I don't know about you, but every time I hear the phrase "time management,'' a chill runs up my spine. Not that I'm defensive or anything, but time management articles and training sessions make me feel like a manic chimp, a creature easily distracted by shiny objects.
Time management tricks and tips seem to raise serious questions about how I ever get anything done in this world. (I really should block out a 15-minute time period to ponder that, but it might take me a couple of hours to dig out my "Day-At-A-Glance'' calendar. )
Time management gurus insist they are looking out for our best interests.
"Work smarter, not harder,'' is their mantra.
A colleague put it in some kind of perspective for me.
Harder or smarter doesn't really matter, he said.
"What they want is more,'' he said. "They want you to work more.''
I've got no problem with that, as long as they realize that staring at a computer screen for 45 minutes trying to come up with a crackerjack metaphor is hard work.

The secret of bloggery

I think I've finally figured out the nature of bloggers. We're Eddie Haskells: faux-charming and really nasty at one and the same moment.
Our modus operandi could best be described as "let's you and him fight.''
We write a little something,opiniated and, it is to be hoped, with some degree of wit, and then watch strangers battle it out with each other. Pretty good deal, if you ask me.

Can we get an amendment to prevent idiocy?

It's not like there haven't been stupid amendments to the U.S. Constitution before. The 18th Amendment comes to mind, the one that outlawed alcohol. Because, after all, if you outlaw something, it goes away, right?
That one was so dumb they had to repeal it.
But these days, we're really going for dumb. Debate has begun on a proposed Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
You let some of these elected officials anywhere near the amendment process and not only will gay marriage be banned, and civil unions outlawed, but probably some stuff that heterosexual married couples do pretty darn frequently will be out the metaphorical window as well.
Do you really want this kind of thing enshrined in the Constitution?
Well, some say, it's not really going to pass -- it's just a bone to throw to the Christian right, which is apparently a whole lot more interested in what gays and lesbians do than is seemly.
Government shouldn't try to solve a problem that exists only in the fevered night sweats of a few zealots.

Holy Sappho, Batman!!!

Word comes that this July, DC Comics will introduce a new Batwoman character, 5 feet , 10 inches of scarlet-haired kick-butt pulchritude.
And, oh yeah, turns out she will be a lesbian.
Wow, how can they tell? You think all that spandex and latex is a clue?
Actually, I have no problem with fictional gays and lesbians fighting crime. Heck, I have no problem with real gays and lesbians being among the Finest and Bravest our society has to offer.
What I really hope, though, is that Batwoman's first case will involve fighting those Gotham City council members who would amend the municipal charter to prevent gay marriage.
Then the last page could be Batwoman and Wonder Woman flying off to their honeymoon in that Amazonian invisible plane.