Priorities

Hurray for The United States!

The Bush administration, after being embarrassed by international criticism, has increased its pledge of help for the tsunami victims to $35 million, about the amount they are burning in Iraq every four hours, and a bit less than they are planning to spend on the 2005 inauguration festivities.

No Brainer

It's raining like crazy right now in Southern California.

It started last night, continued on and off throughout the day and it's coming down anew this evening. We're getting as much as an inch per hour, the wind is gusting up to 50 miles per hour and there's a flood advisory in effect. These may not seem like scary numbers to anyone living in International Falls, Minnesota, but it's really just about the most weather we ever get here in the land of sunshine and lollipops.

.

Normally the rain hits hardest in the mountainous regions to the north and east of L.A. In the old days, before we improved the drainage, the water just ran off, down through the gullies and streams from the mountains, right through the city to the ocean, bringing with it lots of mud. The two biggest streams came to be known as The Los Angeles River and The San Gabriel River, although they were often dry for years at a time. This system had been working pretty well for centuries, a long time in a town where you're old at 29 and the Nielsens come out every morning.

But today the rivers are mostly paved aquaducts. Realizing that Nature had screwed up, the various municipalities that make up greater Los Angeles have been pouring concrete in these ditches for the past fifty years, until now they are very efficient transporters of water. Now when it rains in L.A., these rivers become raging 30-mile long torrents of angry, muddy, boiling water, filled with rocks, trees, cars and occasionally people. The water screams down through the basin at thirty miles an hour and ten feet deep. The pavement assures that nothing is absorbed into the ground, so as the river flows along it gains more and more depth and power.

I haven't turned on the television news since I've been home from work, but I am willing to bet right now that at least one local station will feature a story on someone who has fallen into the river and has to be rescued. It happens every time it rains. Some nincompoop will climb over the fence and get close to the edge. Since it's all paved now, when the nincompoop slips, there are no branches to grab onto, no uneven ground to slow his fall. He is going in to the drink, and fast, and then he is going wherever the river goes, because nobody is strong enough to fight such current.

They will have a helicopter shot of the river, and they will pan the camera around and every now and then we'll get a glimpse of the asshole in the water. Then we'll see the 50 or so firefighters, cops and paramedics on the shore, with their assortment of vehicles and lifesaving equipment. If the guy has found something in the water to grab onto, like an abandoned car, the lifesavers will be throwing ropes to him. If he's free floating they will be running ahead to the next bridge, from whence they will try to grab him as he floats by. Of course what we all hope for -- this is the most exciting -- is that they will drop a rescuer down from a chopper to grab the guy and pull him to safety. Or maybe we hope they'll drop him and he'll disappear. I'm not sure about that.

If I watched TV at work I could see this live, with running commentary from local TV announcers who are warm and dry in the studio, as well as from the reporter in the helicopter and the occasioanl telephone interview with some fire captain. But there will always be a recap on the 11 O'Clock News, in case I missed it, which I did.

So here's my advice for the rainy season in Los Angeles: stay away from the river!

This is so simple that you could call it a no-brainer: If you had no brains at all, you should still know enough not to fall in the river. I mean, there's nothing around the river that you have to get to -- no stores, no churches or schools, no government offices. Nothing. And there are bridges every few blocks, so you'd never have to ford the stream to get where you're going. So why would you even go near the river, considering that the consequences of falling in are so extreme? Well, you wouldn't, even if you had no brains at all. So don't.

It's a no-brainer.

A Christmas Tale

I was the last one out of the office on Christmas Eve, and the holiday was pissing me off.

I don't really celebrate Christmas anymore, but I have a soft spot for it -- the wish for peace, the kindness to each other, the fresh kindled hope for a better future, blah, blah, blah. It's sweet, you know? But of course we have done our best to ruin it. The buildup is so huge I am always let down by the reality, once it arrives. And I find that I don't believe anyone's holiday wishes. I think they're just platitudes. I was sick of peoples' hollow Xmas greetings, and feeling grouchy about the whole thing.

So it's around sunset, it would be totally dark in fifteen minutes and a chilly wind was starting up. I was leaving the office, not smiling, grousing my way out the back door because the front was locked, and I get half way down the outdoor steps when I see her standing in the parking lot. She's old now, and none of us knows how long she's been living in and around our parking lot, but she's been here longer than I have. Her grey and white coat is filthy and her body is impossibly scrawny. As I go down the steps, the heavy security door bangs shut behind me. She hears it and steps warily over to where she can sort of lean on the side of the building, her head cocked my way.

"Hey there, old girl," I say. She is blind, or nearly so, and she turns toward the sound of my voice. We have seen each other around for years, but she has shown me recognition only in the past month or so, and even now some days she doesn't. She hesitates, then takes a shaky step toward me. She recognizes me, and even though the office door has closed and I won't be able to get back in to wash my hands, I know that I will have to pet her, and that her fur will leave a greasy residue that I will have to wear all the way home. I put my briefcase down and sit on the bottom step.

"C'mon, sweetheart," I coax, and she walks very slowly toward me, until I can just reach out and touch her bony neck. I scratch for a moment, as she tries to make sure that I mean no harm. When she is satisfied that I am safe she comes all the way over to where I am sitting. I scratch her and amazingly, she purrs. She is so decrepit I am surprised that she can purr. My gentle petting rocks her whole body, and I can see that it is only with effort and concentration that she is able to remain standing.

"Poor old baby. It's a tough life, isn't it?" I ask in my gentlest cat-calming voice. She lifts her head and stares into my face with her blank, milky eyes.

Yes, it's tough, she says, but look at me. I've survived. Her voice is a high-pitched croak.

Her frailty is so obvious I don't want to discuss survival with her. "Well, that's great," I say, stroking her cheek. "Uh, where are you sleeping tonight?"

I'll be here as usual, she says, and a shudder runs through her. Maybe under that pickup truck over there. Delicately, she places one skinny paw on my thigh. Do you mind? she asks.

My pants will have to be cleaned. "No, of course not. Come on up." She needs my help to get into my lap, and more assistance to get comfortable, but at last she is lying there, more at less at ease. The effort has exhausted her, and she just lies there for a minute.

You know, she says at last, I've been such a fool.

"What do you mean?" I ask, surprised.

She sighs. For all these years I feared and hated you people. I hid from you, and I looked upon all of you with distrust and suspicion. She looked sheepish. I bit one of you once, a long time ago.

"Well, that's not so foolish," I say. "You're feral, and we don't have such a good reputation among your kind. It's totally understandable."

No, it was wrong. If I had known all along, that all you wanted to do was pet me and feed me... She trailed off. I mean, where did I think those bowls of food and water were coming from, right outside that back door? I was so blind -- she smiled -- I mean before I was blind, you know? I shifted a little, and we had to get rearranged. She spoke again.

My heart was closed. I couldn't see the kindness that was offered to me. I had to do everything for myself. I thought everyone who approached meant to hurt me, or take something from me. I'm ashamed to say that I taught my kids to be the same way. All of them are gone now, bless 'em, except for my youngest. I hope it's not too late for her. She's a pretty little thing, you know. Takes after her father. She coughed. You might not believe it, but I was pretty once, too.

The old gal in my lap -- and this turn of conversation -- was making me uncomfortable. "Well, I think you're still pretty..."

She coughed again, and it went on for several seconds this time. Don't kid me, sonny. I'm a foolish old hag, and I'm almost blind, but a girl knows.

I could think of no comeback for that. She wasn't allowing any flattery, any platitudes. Overhead, the wind whistled through the wires.

"Look," I say, "would you like to come over to my place tonight? It's warm, and I've got plenty of food. You could take a warm bath, if you want."

She stood up in my lap, and crept slowly back onto the asphalt at the base of the steps, stretching her arthritic limbs as she walked. That's a sweet offer, sonny. A few years ago I would have jumped at it. But now I'm afraid I'm too set in my ways. I couldn't sleep in a house. I'd be too nervous knowing I couldn't run if I had to. Besides, I've got my Little One to look out for. She's around here somewhere, and she won't come out while you're around. She still needs me, more than she knows. She doesn't pay much attention to her old mom these days -- you know how they get. She still has a chance, though. I hope I can show her that she doesn't have to make my mistakes. I have to show her... she coughed some more, and I thought there was a catch in her voice. ...I have to show her how to open her heart to the beauty and pain and love that is all around, instead of hiding in fear and suspicion. She gazed nowhere in particular and was silent for a moment. Before I go, you know?

I stood and picked up my briefcase. There would be no use inviting both of them -- we lived in different worlds, and this parking lot was nothing more than the place those worlds touched. But I was glad we had met, and touched, this night.

Thanks for listening, sonny, and for petting me. It's really what I've always wanted, if only I'd known. Crazy, isn't it? After running and hiding all those years, now I can't get enough of it. And thank you all for the food -- the Little One and I, we appreciate it.

She turned and started to make her way along the side of the building, toward the alley. "Merry Christmas!" I called, and for the first time that year, I really meant it.

She stopped and turned. Merry Christmas to you, sonny. Now scoot. Go home and be with your wife. She'll be waiting for you. Then she walked stiffly on, and around the corner of the building.

I could feel the dirt on my hands. I looked at my pants, and they were covered with her dirty fur. A perfect half-moon had risen and floated low over the buildings in the twilight. Traffic rushed by on the boulevard. I turned and walked to my car.

Doctor My Eyes

Jesus Christ some of the people on my street have lit their houses like casinos!

I feel like dropping in on some of my neighbors to shoot some craps or play a little Blackjack. Viva Las Vegas! Is this what Christmas is all about? Is this nationwide? Here in Southern California, people seem to be trying to simulate foul weather using billions of tiny clear lightbulbs, placed on their homes in such a way as to suggest icicles, dripping from the rain gutters, surrounding the window frames, hanging from the trees in their front yards. Reminiscing, I guess, about the good old days in Los Angeles, when it snowed.

Then there are the figures in the yard, Santa and his reindeer driving right over to the stable where Mary and Joseph gaze at their new baby, a twelve-foot lighted inflatable snowman on the roof, grazing animals (sheep and deer) made of wire frames covered in those same icicle lights, some of them actually moving. Life imitates Disneyland. Do people do this all around the country, or is it just a west coast aberration?

I Wish

This is the time of year when we wish for things, and the wishing is its own reward.

I remember wanting and wishing as a kid for some new toy at Christmas, whatever was on my mind that year. I was a weird kid, not like other kids, so the stuff was off-beat, but just as useless, really, as the stuff all the other kids were wishing for, only in different ways. Sometimes I got what I thought I wanted, sometimes not. In the end what I really wanted was warmth and love, my mother's touch, my father's smile, a sense of belonging...

Hey, is this getting a little sacharine? Yeah, it is. Thanks for stopping me. Now I'm grown up, I know what's important, and there's only one thing I want now: A DATE WITH GWYNETH PALTROW. I've been asking for this for quite a few years now, and so far, nothing. It would have been better to hook up with her when I first wanted to, because she wasn't as famous then, and she would have had more time for me.

But even now I believe Gwyneth and I were meant to go out to a dark coffee house together, and sit across a tiny table lit by one flickering candle and talk all night about subjects big and small, our knees bumping gently under the table, both of us super-aware of that electricity, the room vanishing around us, Gwyneth gazing shyly at me, her casual touch raising the hairs on my arm. We would be amazed at the thoughts we had in common, the feelings we shared unknowingly. We would finish each other's sentences and laugh and laugh at it all, and all the sad years we had not been together would melt away and we'd have known each other forever.

At midnight or later, much later, we would close the place and drive to the beach, where we would walk together in the moonlight, first on the boardwalk, then out onto the sand, then wading into the shallow waves, our shoes tossed aside and our pant legs getting wet, the silver moon shimmering all around us on the water. I would touch her hip and she would lean in to my body, her golden hair dusting my neck, pulling my arm around her waist, that electric touch jolting us both again, this is how it has always been and how it always will be, the shyness gone, turning in to one another, straining together, her feet off the ground now, her eager long legs curled all the way around mine and ankles locked together, her butt in my hands, our two breaths mingling, lips brushing once, brushing twice, the tip of a tongue, two open mouths, a moan in the moonlight, urgent now, I can walk with her weightless on me, each step a little bump, a little thrust, now down on the sand, unbuttoning, unbuckling, skin seeking skin, belly to belly, thigh to thigh, no way to be closer, moving together, how it always has been, how it always will be...

I am ready for this, even though I know it can't work out. We come from different worlds, and we must return to them. There might be a weekend in it, then a few awkward phone calls, maybe a final lunch date at a crowded Musso and Frank's, each of us with far away thoughts.

Still, I wait for my moment, my golden glimpse of heaven. Email me, Gwyneth...

Silent Night

My town is all lit up for Christmas.

Can we stipulate that there must be something deep within the human spirit that draws us to have a celebration in the the dead of winter? Don't make me argue about it: For so many thousands of years, so many cultures have gotten into some kind of festival of lights right around the winter solstice. In the earliest versions, people apparently thought they had to pray and offer sacrifices or else the days would just keep getting shorter until there would be no light at all. Who wouldn't do anything to forestall that?

I wonder how long that went on before somebody began to speculate what would happen if they didn't have the ceremony, if the saturnalia party did not go on as usual. Every year we go through this charade, and every year everything turns out just fine -- the days get longer, the sun gets warmer, the rains come, the rivers overflow, the earth is fertile and the crops are abundant. What the fuck? It must have happened eventually, but that guy (or girl) probably became the next sacrifice. When you're talking about the possible advent of Eternal Winter, you can't take any chances.

Ever since I learned the horrible truth about Santa when I was 17, I have had problems at this time of year. Problems with my soul, damage to my heart. I find myself out in the street at midnight, looking out at the huge blue-black sky, thinking how small I am, how small is my world, wondering what is the point of all this? In these silent nights I grow morose, the centuries invade my street and settle on me like fearsome dust. Face in my hands I cry, take away the darkness, touch my soul, heal my heart. Talk to me starless sky endless space between us touch us see us save us save me. I turn up my collar and stand in the street, and I let the night come into me, and I grow until I am the night, I fill the world, the sky is me. It's my own little saturnalian outburst. I don't know where it comes from. Maybe I need more sun, more light in my eyes, in my life.

The houses on my block, some of them, are decorated with brave bright lights and they warm the night. The people inside the houses dream of peace and salvation, of friendship and love and forgiveness. The planet will turn, the days will get longer. We will be forgiven. I shake it off and shove my hands in my pockets and walk back. I haven't heard an answer, but I'll forget that.

Day of Rest

Geez, what a week.

It's over now, but in the past five days The Corporation really got its money's worth. I did the work of three men, and I was sick the whole time. I normally don't want to be there, but this week I really should have been home in bed. Trouble is, the work won't go away just because I do, and no one else will do it while I'm gone. Sick. So whenever I come back it's all still waiting for me, along with the new work, which is always urgent. I will have to die or get fired to evade this.

As an added bonus, my cold/flu or whatever prevented me from sleeping more than three hours a night all week, so I started each day in the hole and got deeper in as the day progressed. Friday night I finally passed out and slept all night, and now today (Saturday) I feel human for the first time since last Sunday.

I'm alone in the house (just me and Molly the Cat), alternately surfing movies on the cable, finishing B's leftover chicken soup, reading random blogs and following their links to other random blogs (thank God for Firefox and tabbed browsing). I read somewhere that there are 4.8 million blogs, but that was a month ago. There must be a lot more by now, and I am amazed at how many smart, funny, drunk, isolated, depressed, introspective, social, clever, educated, frank and opinionated people there are out there doing this. Who wants to bet that university studies are not being conducted on the phenomenon right now? Stay tuned to Fresh Air on NPR -- I'm sure someone will be plugging a blogging book soon, if they haven't already.

Of course I will get nothing accomplished on this day of rest. Usually that would make me feel guilty, but since I am recovering from a near-death experience I am OK with my indolence. Tomorrow I'll have to make up for today. Then on Monday I can go back to making The Corporation rich.

Rest Area Ahead

Are You Drained by Christmas Shopping?

It's the Holiday Season! This time of year, people often say to me Larry Jones, I need a break from the hurly burly world of gift shopping, nog-drinking and carol-singing. Do you know where the toilet museums are?

Well, joyeux noel, yes, I do! You can learn perhaps more than you expected at the Sulabh International Museum of Toilets. Visit the online collection and your happy curator Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak will smile at you from every page. For detailed information regarding ancient defecation and urination rituals, check out this section.

If that's not enough for you (and it wasn't for me), you can check out The Toilet Museum, for more toilets and peripherals, including toilet sounds and a section of frequently asked questions about toilets, which will challenge what you may think you know. While at The Toilet Museum (and in the holiday spirit), don't miss the Gift Shop. For you last-minute shoppers, monogrammed toilet paper makes a great stocking stuffer...

The education continues as we move on to the great state of Texas, home to Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art Museum. I was particularly impressed by Barney's feathered creation with the Native American motif on Page 2. This site truly gives new meaning to the phrase "expose yourself to art."

OK -- back to the mall, all of you! Email me directly for my sizes and wish list.

Snot, Day 3

OK, I think I know what this is about.

I have been rendered helpless. My vision is blurred, my bones are made of glass, my throat is scratchy, my body is trying to expel all fluids from every orifice (sorry), I'm cold and sweaty at the same time, I can't eat and I can't think. Worst of all, I can't sing along with the radio in the car. My voice just won't go there. This is the universe sending me a wakeup call, right? You are wasting your life, doing nothing with your abilities. Here's how it would feel if all were taken from you. How do you like it? What if you really couldn't think or sing?

To the universe: I get it! Please stop! I want to live! Give me back the equipment, and I'll use it, I promise.

Snot, Part 2

Slept about an hour last night, so woke up stupid. Am still stupid here at the office. My blog is my only friend. See no relief, as I have a metric shitload of work to do, and must attend a party as soon as I'm done here, which I probably never will be.

Having trouble refocusing between the computer screen and the paperwork. Head throbs, but can't recall if I have taken aspirin lately. Best to take another handful.

Filled with love and longing.

I am not defeated.

Snot

Where does all this snot come from? I have blown my nose 5,000 times since last night. I must weigh five pounds less, and my nose keeps running.

And why so many symptoms? Runny nose, headache, sore throat, backache, fever. What part of God's Plan is this? God: You had me at headful of snot, OK? I got the message then, and I started to undergo treatment. Do you think I will forget? Is that why you are piling on?

Thanks for listening.

On Knowing

"Do you think it's possible to ever really know the real whole of someone?"

Because I have become enthralled by this girl, obsessively, time-wastingly poring over her blog, seeking like a smitten schoolboy to curry her favor, and because she asked and I can deny her nothing, I will herewith write my answer to the question. Of course I feel foolish jumping through this hoop. I imagine that she has a lot of guys jumping through hoops, and she probably enjoys it. Anyway, I would have a few for her to jump through if the occasion arose, so fair's fair.

The question first appeared in the comment section of her blog, and it took me by surprise because I thought that she was mainly having fun with a goofy pseudo-biography I was spinning about Popeye the Sailor, trying to entertain her. Clearly she wants more than entertainment.

But I have thought about this for days now, until I have become fevered and delerious, and I really can't answer the question with authority. So I will use the loophole contained in the question, and say only what I think.

I think it must only be possible to be in the process of getting to know someone. Whenever you hook up, you must take a crash course in Who They Seem to Be. In that first weekend you'll learn a whole big lot of superficial stuff, and it will be the most fun ever. If it happens then that you have a genuine interst in each other, a trust might develop over time, and more might be revealed, and understood.

The whole time you are learning these tidbits, though, they will be shifting like sand dunes, changing into other beliefs, attitudes, likes and dislikes. I think this is natural for people. You can't remain unchanged as Life bumps up against you, showing you its beauty, its pain, its joy and sorrow, its fear and its comfort.

If you are truly into each other, you will sense these changes and you will begin to improvise together a sort of soul jam, which embraces change and flows with it rather than trying to nail down any part of the music. The phrases will weave together more and more coherently until the song becomes so magical that it will seem that you are reading from the same chart.

You'll never know the whole of the other, because it will always be developing. But every day there will be something new to ponder and to play with. And every now and then you will hit notes together that are in such perfect harmony that you will laugh and cry in wonder.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Life on the Edge

I may not be at 100% this week, a shame, since I have an Important Issue to deal with in this blog pretty soon. Yesterday, as my weekend drew to a close, I caught a cold. Or maybe the flu, I don't know. Yet. I just know that at 6:30 PM, like a revelation, I knew I was under attack. I rarely get sick, and I'm a big crybaby when it happens, so I moped around until bedtime, then conked out hours earlier than usual.

Now, here at the office, I have many pills in me, and a big box of Kleenex Extra Soft Triple-Layer Tissue With Aloe and Vitamin E. Nos Mouchoirs les plus apaisants! These petty illnesses get me in my back. I can tell it's not an injury or a strain: My lower back is under alien attack! White corpuscles are rushing to the scene, sirens blaring, but the enemy has arrived first and there are already many casualties. Oh, the humanity!

Since I am so near death anyway, I decided to live dangerously. I pushed the "Brew" button on the office coffeemaker before I put the coffee, the filter and the basket together! You read that right. I knew I would have only eight seconds to assemble the parts and shove the basket under the dripping, scalding hot water. Failure would lead to a big, scalding mess all over the lunch room, not to mention the shame as I mopped it up. It was a tremendous risk, but, hey, that's the kind of guy I am. Delerious and delusional.

Blue Christmas

So this is Christmas. And what have you done?
Another year over. You are just begun.
So this is Christmas - I hope you have fun.
The near and the dear ones,
The old and the young.

So this is Christmas for weak and for strong,
For rich and for poor one, the road is so long.
So Happy Christmas, and a Happy New Year.
Let's hope it's a good one without any fear.

War is over
If you want it
War is over now

Listening to John Lennon's hopeful, melancholy "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" in my office, and I almost broke down when it came to the chorus. I had to close my office door and get my composure back. For the poor suckers all over the world in bunkers, in tents, in caves, it's not over. I know it never will be, so why do we keep talking about peace on earth? My Daddy told me If you don't want to get drunk, don't take a drink. I say If you don't want to have a war, don't send troops. We can't shoot our way to peace, but we seem to be doomed to keep trying.

John's hopeful, useless wish seems all the more pathetic this time of year.

It's Alive, and Stupid

I was fifty years old before I was forced to learn how to work inside a corporate environment. The Corporation slimed into my life seven years ago, by acquiring the company I work for. Suddenly, instead of working with 85 colleagues I was one of fifty thousand employees, and I had no idea for whom I was toiling (I think I am going to abandon this not ending sentences with prepositions. It's one rule of grammar up with which I cannot put.). Their line at the time was "We like the way you guys do business, which is why we want to buy your company. Obviously we wouldn't dream of changing anything."

That sounded like bullshit at the time, and -- surprise! -- it was. I can't say exactly who The Corporation is, because I have signed so many documents for them regarding the terms of my employment -- and what I now see to be my inevitable termination -- that I stopped reading them years ago. Who knows what obligations I may be under? I know some of us have cooperated with the press on a couple of investigative reports that were only marginally less sleazy than The Corporation itself, and those people were fired summarily. So I will be discreet, as that is the better part of valor (someday I'll try to figure out what that means).

The hardest lesson I have learned it that The Corporation has only one thing on it's mind: raising the price of the stock. Nominally we are a big-ticket retail operation. We sell expensive things to people who have to borrow money to purchase them. But in reality we exist solely for the economic aggrandizement of about fifty people, who own most of the stock.

So we do things like this: At the local office level, in order to demonstrate to Wall Street that we are proactively concerned about computer network security, we have stripped administrative access from everyone, and transferred it to Regional IT Managers, who generally don't know their hard drives from their floppies. This "enhances" security, hardening The Corporation against hacker attacks and loss of important secret data, thus making investors breathe easier and buy more stock. Except that when someone in a local office forgets their password (and this happens at least once a week), they discover that it takes days for the overworked regional IT manager to reset their password, so they "borrow" the password of the person in the next cubicle. Naturally, this destroys all computer security as passwords are shared and bounced around, the exact opposite effect from what was intended, but that doesn't matter -- and here's the lesson -- because the investors only know about the official policy, and not what's actually going on.

I don't know why this frustrates me. Maybe it's because all these corporate types are so smug and self-satisfied and well-paid, but they either don't know or don't care what they're doing.

I've never written this stuff down before, and my thoughts are just coalescing. There will probably be more on The Corporation, and no doubt some of it will be more incisive than this, although at this time I am not expecting to achieve Joeseph Heller-level irony.

Outsmarting Myself

I don't have the hang of being part of an "online community," which is odd because only a tiny fraction of today's internet users have been doing it longer than me, and from the very beginning I saw it as a way to connect with other people. Before American Business got on board I had a vanity site and prowled the web for other such sites, because I guess I was touched by the beautiful need in people, myself included, to touch others, to reveal our secret selves, to reach out to the world. This, I thought, will change everything.

I mostly gave up on the concept as the web turned into television on your computer, and many of us became sort of desk potatoes. Sometime around 1998 it started to seem impossible for everyman (and me) to produce anything worth looking at on the web. I mean, how could I compete with all the chat rooms, news feeds, reverse phone directories, shopping services, celebrity gossip and gardening tips on Yahoo or MSN?

Then a funny thing happened. Just when the commercial web should have put out the lights once and for all on personal expression on the internet, Blogger and other services are reviving it! This blog, like 4.8 million others, is easy to create and update. I can post to it from anywhere in the world, and no matter how fuzzy my thinking or vacuous my writing it will always have a clean professional look, and anyone who feels like it can respond to anything I write. Not having to think much about design has turned the focus back toward communicating. With each other. In ways that were just not possible ten years ago. Maybe this will change everything!

I now prowl these blogs when I need a lift, and some stranger invariably steps up and gives me one. And I hope some day someone gets a lift from my thoughts here, even if I am not always upbeat.

So you'd think, given my history and all my theorizing that I'd be a natural here in the blogosphere. But, as I say, I don't seem to have the hang of being part of things. Like I just can't say or write "blogosphere" with a straight face. And yesterday I read a terrific post on an extremely well-written blog, clever, insightful and moving. I wrote a comment which was intended to be a compliment, but judging from the blogger's answer I see that I have somehow managed to get my virtual foot into my digital mouth, a condition I am familiar with here in meatspace.

As my sainted Irish mother told me many times, "Tomorrow is another day." I hope so, Mom.

Last Flight

From March of this year:

Spring. The persimmon tree in my back yard has been getting leaves for two weeks, much earlier than usual. We expect a good harvest of persimmons this fall. I was out in the yard this morning, watching Molly the cat show off. She can climb the persimmon tree in about two seconds, and she likes to do it when someone is watching. She disappears into the bright green baby leaves and laughs at me standing on the ground. In a few weeks the foliage will be so thick she won't be able to get out onto her favorite branch.

The pigeons, a dozen or so of them, are high on the power wires above the alley. It is nesting season, and they are making that gentle, sweet cooing sound that they make, probably suggestive remarks for pigeons. They are there because they know Marilyn across the alley has a weakness for feeding animals, and at some time each day she will toss a bunch of birdseed out there, and they will have a feast. Molly turns on her perch, 20 feet below the birds, and looks up at them. She learned long ago not to try and catch them. As a young backyard tiger, she has tried, and they have effortlessly made her look silly. She has stopped risking her dignity on the fruitless pursuit. The cat and the birds live together, on their different levels, in peace.

Later, driving during morning rush hour on a wide busy street, I am a half block from my destination when I am amazed to see a pigeon standing calmly in the street in the opposing lanes. He is blue and gray and black. He is not eating anything on the road. He is just standing there, recklessly daring the speeding traffic. A red 18-wheeler blazes toward him, trying to make the light. In my rear view mirror I see that the truck is going to come very close to the little guy. Too close. I can't tell if he is hit by the truck, but the bird is moved, blown perhaps by the turbulent wake of the huge vehicle, and then I see nothing more.

A moment later I drive back the other way and I see him on the road, not standing now, but kind of sitting. As I pass within a few feet he is craning his neck around to look at his back side, confused, maybe, because that part of his body isn't working any more. He won't live very long now, injured like that on a busy street. I want to help him, but I have to go to work. It's a big day at work, the last day of the month, and sales must be closed and reported, so I drive on by. He is off a little to the side, but someone will hit him, someone blasting down the road in a big machine, someone like me who has to be somewhere else as soon as possible.

Hours later, in my office, I can't stop thinking about him. He should be up in the air, or on a wire, cooing, flying, waiting for Marilyn to toss out some birdseed, finding twigs for his nest and his lady love. But for some reason on this fine spring day he came down to our level, my level, where we have places to go and things to do, where nothing is more important than month-end sales reporting. He left his world and touched ours, and it was the last thing he did. I'm sorry I didn't find a way to stop and give him comfort in his last minutes. I'm sorry to be part of a world that cares such a great deal about making a light. When I get home I will hug my wife and tell her I love her (and I really do), and let Molly the cat sleep in my lap for as long as she wants.

Mainly I just want to say, I'm sorry, little guy.

Hello Larry

It has occurred to me that I shouldn't use my real name here. I don't imagine this will be read by a large number of people. Maybe no one will ever see it, but maybe, hypothetically let's say I mention something about someone I know, and let's further hypothesize that it's not totally flattering, and that this person's identity is readily decipherable. Possibly there is some I Love Lucy scenario in which that person might get wind of what I have written about them, and maybe they get offended. Maybe they confront me in person, or maybe they just harbor resentment about it secretly, forever. Sticky social situation. Or maybe The Corporation hears about something I have written, and I get my ass fired. Actually, now that I think of it this might not be too bad, but if it happens I want to plan it and exceute it myself, and not have them sneak up on me, the bastards.

So, not as an act of cowardice, but one of courtesy and discretion (OK, cowardice if you like), I'll go with Larry Jones, and just so you know, Larry might or might not be my real name. Jones is definitely not, although we've been together for a long time and we are feeling quite comfortable with one another. I tried to update my profile yesterday so that my posts are not signed by Spider Jones (who, it turns out, is someone else), but it didn't take, even though I was sure I had done it right. There doesn't seem to be any way to discover how this post will be auto-signed by the Blogger system without actually posting it, so here goes, and no matter what it says at the end of this, I remain...

Yours truly,
Larry Jones

Goodbye, Spider

Spider Jones is not my real name. It's my rock'n'roll name, and I started using it over twenty years ago. Some people only know me as Spider Jones, and in some circles, "Jones!" is still the preferred greeting, even among those who do remember who I really am.

The Jones part of it was partially in honor of Brian Jones, the first guitar player in the Rolling Stones to drop out, so to speak. I always felt he would have taken the band in a different, perhaps more musical, direction. If you listen to the old records, there is no doubt that the sound changed dramatically as soon as Brian was gone. The word "jones" also has at least one other meaning, which was both descriptive at the time, and prophetic. Possibly because of the side effects of this second meaning, I am unable to recall why I picked "Spider" as my first name.

And now I find out that there is a real guy named Spider Jones. What's more he has a web site, he has written a book, he seems to have been a boxer at one time, and he has an inspiring story, which he will tell to your group in the form of a motivational speech. He also has a radio program and he co-hosts a television show about boxing.

He looks older than I am, so maybe he's been Spider Jones longer than I have, although I don't believe it's his real name, either. Certainly he must be more famous than I, even if I never heard of him. Also he does not look like anybody I want to mess with. In any case, I don't want to fight over this. I'll pick a new name.