"O, ****baum!" or Here We Go Again!

Black Friday this year had no sooner come and gone -- along with Cyber Monday -- than the news stories began, as regular as clockwork: some state or city government somewhere has banned the term "Christmas tree" and instead recommends use of the meaningless "Holiday Tree". Because the very word "Christmas", as we all know, is offensive. To someone. Somewhere. I can barely bring myself to write the word, much less say it out loud. Hold on a moment...

...I was right. I just tried to say the word out loud and I choked on it.

This won't be the last such story. Soon there will be examples from all over the country of towns where nativity scenes will be banned from the lawn outside the city hall, and festive municipal celebrations that will include the lighting of the traditional "Holiday Tree". ACLU types will defend these decisions, while people with more common sense will argue against such ordinances; some places will remain unfazed and uphold the ban on the word "Christmas", while other places will give in to the public outcry and risk the end of the civilized world by referring to the big, brightly-lit fir tree in the town square as a Christmas tree. The next thing you know it's January and the focus is on some hapless Republican presidential candidate, what kind of Christmas the nation's retailers had and Lindsay Lohan going back to jail for five or ten minutes. The controversy dies away. Until next year.

The offended parties vary from year to year and locality to locality: the ACLU can always be counted on to pop up here and there in their Grinch gear, and the atheists -- that is, the capital A-Atheists -- are routinely offended by any number of references to God or Jesus. And not just at Christmas, but year-round.

My question is: if you don't believe in anything, how can you be offended by people who do? It's one thing to be ticked off when someone makes a bad joke about your religion, but if you have no religion, where's the offense? I mean, a crèche in front of city hall is hardly the same as a billboard off the Interstate that says "Atheists Are Doody-Heads!"

I think that people are less offended than insulted. While Christians (of all stripes, Protestants and Catholics, etc. and so on) are still in the majority in this country there are, of course, people of many other faiths, some of whom may feel that this whole part of the year has been highjacked by said Christians and they're tired of it and it's not fair. (Giant menorahs have been popping up in malls and on  the lawns in front of municipal buildings for some years now.) But as has often been pointed out, no one has the right not to be offended. What about the tens of millions of Christians who see their religion bashed every year about this time? (For that matter, all year long. Christians, like white males, are one of the few groups it's okay for people to make fun of who claim to prize diversity and understanding above all else.

Besides, the roots of the Christmas celebration as we know it are pagan. It was the celebration of the gods Saturn and Mithras and involved feasting and drinking and giving gifts and decorating the house with greens. In the 1600's it was outlawed in England and the Colonies altogether because of its pagan beginnings.

So there, atheists: Christmas originally was about false idols and getting drunk. Very much as it is today.

Get over it.

(Coming up: Christmas with Robert Stack)

The Safeway Girl vs Lionel Barrymore

I started to respond to this photo on Facebook, where one of my friends had posted it, clearly in support of its message, which appears to be that Safeway is raking in tens of billions of dollars in order to pay its CEO an astronomical (and probably undeserved) salary, and to keep their warehouses unsafe and dangerous places to work. I decided to write something a bit more trenchant than "Oh, balls!" but it quickly became clear I'd need a little more space to make my points, so here goes.

(Let's leave aside for the moment the appeal to our heartstrings, the sad-yet-feisty little girl with the eerie stare and the unemployed daddy, holding up the damning Safeway financials -- which I don't for a moment believe she printed -- before going out to clobber Claude Daigle and steal his penmanship medal. Oh, wait, that's "The Bad Seed"...)

First of all, while it's true Safeway made over $41 billion in 2010, it's also true that their cost of revenue -- i.e. cost of doing business, buying and shipping the food, paying for the electricity, stuff like that -- was: (the following amounts are in millions) $29,442.5 , leaving a gross profit of $11,607.5. Then there were general and administrative expenses, like salaries for the 180,000 (give or take) people Safeway employs (most of whom probably have families), which came to $10,448.1, leaving an operating income of $1,159.4, a before-tax income of $881.2 million and an after-tax income of $590.6 million. It costs money to run the business and pay all the people and pay the rent so they can sell the food and other goods at reasonable prices at their many stores, food and goods which are purchased by many millions of families and individuals considered part of the "99%".  (Figures from Money Central at MSN.com)

As for what the CEO took home, the almost $11 million Steve Burd earned in salary and benefits and bonuses and whatever, amounted to something just shy of .0027% of Safeway's gross profits in 2010, so it's not as if he's robbing them blind. They're paying him what they think he's worth, just as in the same year the LA Lakers paid Kobe Bryant over $21 million, and the New York Yankees paid Alex Rodriguez $33 million. Why don't people get all hot and bothered over the salaries of sports stars? (For that matter, Congress is chock-a-block with "fat cat" millionaires, many of whom have recently been accused of insider trading: where's the outrage over that?)

In any event, what a CEO takes home and the value of his house (or his car or his wardrobe) are immaterial. Sure, the figures may be cause for envy (I won't see that kind of money in my lifetime), but it makes no difference, unless you believe that it's all a zero-sum game: that someone's success automatically means someone else goes hungry or is otherwise impoverished. But it isn't. The truth is, like it or not, most wealthy people aren't mean, greedy, grasping fat white guys in ill-fitting three-piece suits, chomping cigars while kicking widows and orphans for sport, (think of the Lionel Barrymore character, Mr. Potter, in "It's a Wonderful Life), who just happened to fall into huge vats of unearned cash -- as suggested by those who continually refer to wealthy people as "fortunate".  Oprah Winfrey is worth about $3 billion, but it's my opinion she didn't just get lucky. She's a smart, keen businesswoman. Talented yes, but talent alone isn't enough. She's worked hard, and continues to do so and along the way she's changed peoples' lives and employed God knows how many in her various businesses.

As for the unsafe warehouse and the charge that Safeway would rather pay lawyers so they can keep their warehouses dangerous: I don't know the facts of the case, but it's safe to say that no company is going to deliberately maintain unsafe conditions, deliberately putting employees in danger of injury or worse. A sentence like "Safeway would rather pay lawyers to fight OSHA than make their warehouses safe..." is ridiculous on the face of it. It's like saying some restaurant would rather pay lawyers than serve food that isn't riddled with salmonella. If you ask me, anyone who'd make a claim like that is probably leaving something out of the story of how and why Daddy got fired.

Too much public policy and debate nowadays is based more on emotion and "feelings" than on facts. Just because a lot of people don't like capitalism doesn't make it wrong or evil, and demonizing a company because it makes a lot of money doesn't take the place of understanding -- even very generally -- how business works. It's easy to sit around and say your student loans should be forgiven and the minimum wage should be $20 or $30 and some of what "they" have should go to "them" or "us" because it's "fair". But who decides what's fair? What's fair to you might not be remotely fair to me, so I'll just take some of what you've got, okay? It isn't "fair" for you to have two cars, so I'll get the government to take one and give it to me.

No one wants to talk, discuss, engage, listen or learn. Or take a few minutes to do a simple Google search for some facts and figures. It's all anger and name-calling, or sad puppy eyes and pictures like the Facebook Safeway girl that get the attention. And I think that is at the heart of what's taking us on a long walk down an ever shorter pier. Sorry to say.

Enough!

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all! This was a different holiday, as the last few have been as the family has dwindled. In spite of there being only four of us (Chris and my brother and sister) we had a terrific meal at one of New Jersey's deservedly famous diners. In the course of things, several times today I've stopped and thought of all I have to be thankful for, including my friends, and Chris and sobriety and, of course, my health. It was a beautiful fall day here in South Jersey and tomorrow and the rest of the weekend promise to be as lovely. I have a good job where I work with terrific people and I have a raise to look forward to come the new year. I have more than enough.

That said, enough with Black Friday. E-f'ing-nuff! For weeks now we've been bombarded with those idiotic TV commercials about apparently psychotic women training like athletes for Black Friday shopping. Screaming and crying as they plot and plan their strategy to attack the local Macy's or Penney's or Sears. Or WalMart -- you know, that mythical WalMart where all the shoppers are cute-as-pie suburban moms and dads, all height-and-weight proportional, scrubbed clean and dressed real nice in outfits they haven't been stuffed into like kielbasa and that completely cover up their derrieres. Yeah, that WalMart. Stores have been trying to outdo each other in how early they're opening to offer their Doorbusters. (There's another word I wouldn't care if I never saw or heard again, Doorbusters!)

 Of course, this all makes great fodder for the evening news: nitwit news reporters interviewing people who've been camped out since two in the morning, their sale circulars marked up like top-secret D-Day maps.

Nitwit Reporter: So, what brings you out here so early?

Psychotic Shopper: Oh, the sales. You know, it's Black Fry-dee. 

Nitwit Reporter: So you're hoping to get some good deals?

Psychotic Shopper: Yeah, you know, 'cause it's Black Fry-dee...

The world is going to hell, but this is news.

This all begs the question, why do I get so exercised about all this? After all, in another day or two it'll just be the usual Christmas season saturation, but the Black Friday nonsense will have ended. I mean, apart from the fact that it really is annoying.

It's simple, really, I guess. I just don't have that big family any more and I don't need to worry about how I'll afford all the gifts I need to buy and what will I get So-and-So, she's so picky...? I think I miss it. And as the family grows smaller I'm reminded that I'm not that little kid who used to get to stay up until midnight on Christmas eve with my grandparents and my siblings and cousins, eating party food and watching "The Night Before Christmas" and "The Nativity" with the Mabel Beaton marionettes...

And of course it all seems to come so much faster now, whereas all those years ago it seemed like an eternity between the day school let out and Christmas eve. Now it's more like, "Christmas?! Again? Didn't we just have Christmas?"

Like most people I complain about it, but still manage to get a little joy out of it. And now that my own family has become smaller, maybe I can do something this year to make another family's holidays a bit brighter.

In which case I'd better get to bed: it's Black Friday tomorrow and I need my rest!

Some Things to Think About

Not new to many, I suppose, but always worth a look now and then.

Lost: Turtle

I guess I'm a writer. No matter what I do, I'm thinking about writing: going back to work on something I've started, starting something over or starting something new.

Last weekend we went to a wedding in Westchester County, NY -- Chappaqua, to be exact, where the Clintons have a house. We arrived early on Saturday and Chris indulged me by joining me on a drive over to Ossining, to see if I could find John Cheever's house on Cedar Lane. I've been working on a one-man show about Cheever, using his own words from his stories and novels, letters and journals, but it's been difficult to find the story and the structure. Still I soldier on, and I thought if I saw the house where where he had lived it might give me a jolt. Of some sort. I've seen pictures of it and fully expected to be able to find it, to pull over for a few minutes, maybe even catch a glimpse of Cheever's widow (in her 90's now) who would come down the lawn to the road and, on learning why I was there, ask us in for coffee or a drink, show us around -- "Here's where John would do most of his writing... This was his favorite chair... Those were his slippers; would you like to have them?"

Suffice to say none of that happened. But it got my mind going again, unwinding, going back, restructuring in my head the material I've put together. I'll get it one day and the whole thing will come pouring out.

Likewise I saw a production of "August: Osage County" today at the Arden Theater in Philadelphia, a gorgeous production with an array of wonderful performances in a play that's brilliantly deceptive. As I left the theater I was awed by the mastery, the humor and insight of the writing. Yup, that sure did deserve a Pulitzer Prize! But ultimately, after a few hours to think it over, and to read a dissenting review of the original Broadway production, I found it left a kind of bad taste in my mouth -- I'll be glad to share with you why another time -- and I think, ultimately, it's a bit hollow at its apparently brilliant core. And my thoughts went back to another play I've started that I now think I have a better handle on. Thank you, Tracy Letts. So I won't write the big, gay farce -- it'll be funny, for sure, but a little dark, too and it will have heft and hopefully people will come away with something to think about. Of course, I have to write it first, but at least now I have a handle.

Meantime, I might turn back to a little poetry. I pulled out a manila folder full of old poems from my days in Los Angeles, when I was part of a group of writers that took part in regular readings at A Different Light Bookstore on Santa Monica Blvd. in Silverlake. Sundays at Seven, it was called. Some of us wound up being published in a little collection of work with the same title, and when I came back east I was invited to take part in a reading at A Different Light in Manhattan. My selection: a poem entitled "Lost: Turtle". I just read it again after a long time and it is, I think, rather fine. Let me know what you think.

Lost: Turtle


Out here where houses are solid and wide
and the trees, celadon and bottle-green,
scrub the sky, on a telephone pole a sign:
Lost: turtle.


Printed in a father's hand,
exasperated father
whose promise of replacements --
puppy, kitten, neon tetra --
meet son's small voice upraised
like a little fist: No! No!
Another will not do, and so:
Lost: turtle.


Forever, I'm afraid,
plodding and unnoticed as an old waiter,
in the shrubs, in the tall grasses
fizzing with insects.
Lost. Turtle.


Yet son sleeps soundly, fists unfurled
as father, empty glass in hand
sits on the dark edge of a bed,
feeling for an instant what the boy feels.
It grips his heart and makes him shiver.
It is hope. And it is in the house.

Circadian Rhythm Disruption, or The Sunday Blues

And here it comes again: the days are shorter, I'm getting up in the dark and leaving work in the dark, and Saturday has its share of activity, and Sunday starts with a big pot of coffee and Sunday news shows and that "I'm going to get back to that (fill in the name of your) project today!" 


Then it's checking e-mail and having something to eat and the end of "The Shining" on TV, a brief nap and then... it's after 3 p.m. and the light is changing outside (where you haven't been all day), but it may not be too late to get something done. 


But it is. Yessir, it's Sunday afternoon. Again. And right on time come The Sunday Blues.


It's something I've been experiencing for years -- okay, decades -- and for the longest time I thought I was alone. Then today I decided to Google "Sunday afternoon blues" and discovered page after page about this disorder and its possible causes. (In addition to other blog entries about the malady, some poetry, even music: The Jack Rabbit Slims and even Eine Blues-Interpredation nach einem Jam-Track im Double Trouble Style, which is pretty good.) But there was also an article from the NY Times called "It's Sunday Afternoon and Here Come the Blahs", which includes a number of scientific/medical/psychological theories about the causes of TSAB, including one from as far back as 1919 by a Hungarian psychiatrist, Sandor Ferenczi, who noticed a weekly resurfacing of repressed memories among his patients.


There's also information about circadian rhythm and how the electric light bulb disrupted centuries-old human sleep patterns, and theories of seven-day rhythms in humans, internal clocks resetting, and so on.


But there are also plenty of quotes from just folks (mostly women who are reportedly the most affected by TSAB), all of whom describe exactly what I'm feeling right now. E.g. Rory Stockel who works for HBO and says "I know part of it is anxiety about the coming week... But it is also a lonely, empty, sad kind of thing that grabs me every Sunday about 3 o'clock." 


There was once a female comic, whose name I've forgotten* but whom we'll call Mary, who used to tell stories about her everyday life and then ask the audience "Have you ever felt that way?" At which she'd pause and then say "No, Mary, just you." For years when I talked to people about my Sunday blues and asked if they had ever experienced the phenomenon, they would shake their heads "No" and I'd think, "No, Fred, just you."


But it turns out that once again I find I'm not alone. Still blue, but I have company.


*In my search for the name of this female comic, I came upon the website of a woman I'd forgotten about, Maria Bamford (her website is here) who I recall being hysterical -- and the memories are correct. In one of the clips on the site she says "I never really thought of myself as depressed as much as paralyzed by hope!"


Maybe that's it...

Home again, home again...

...jiggety-jigg!

It was a wonderful week. It's over. It's going to take a while to come back to earth or "real life", whatever that is.

Meanwhile, lest I share TMI (as the kids say) look here for an album of photos from the trip.

Have a wonderful week!