Downhill Part 2

I don't want this to devolve into a lot of finger pointing. If we are going to get to the bottom of why America is declining we can't be always be playing the blame game. I am going to , by the process of elimination, whittle down the list of possible culprits by identifying the innocent until only the guilty remain. That way we can avoid...

The discussion about the  Endowment for the Arts got pretty heated.

Lets start with the conservative side. Conservatives get pretty angry that the "producers" in our society are not properly rewarded. Me to. I think that people that put in a hards day... wait... That's not who conservatives are talking about when they talk about "producers". Conservatives are talking about Ann Rand and Atlas Shrugged ( you might have bumped into her in 9th grade when some english teacher tried to slide in We the Living or Anthem. The former her own Diary of Ann Frank only with the Soviets playing the Nazis and her not dying. The later Childhoods End for dummies.) When they talk about "producers" they are talking about the rugged individuals that create businesses through hard work, self reliance, and no government hand-outs. OK, I like those people too so we'll take them off our list.

Now of coarse the conservatives like to bandy that term around to include pretty much everybody filing a 1099 form at tax time. Not going to cut it my friends. Rand, and real conservatives, were talking about real producers only. No sucking off of the government tit. No mortgage tax credit. No medicare. No public parks. No public schools. No redistribution of wealth from one persons labor to you. Alright, maybe there are 8 or 9 people like that currently living in the United States, and my hats off to them. They might even all be Republicans. Still 8 or 9 people leave several hundred million still on our suspect list. Hmm? What to do? What to do?

Not a vegetable anymore.

Well, we can check with the main stream media. They must know who the good folks are. It's a shame about the conservatives. Those rascals  are so loud about who sucks I figured there would also be more about who the good folks are. Oh well, at least we eliminated 8 people from possible guilt. This new angle might take some time though, so until I can get my research done maybe it's time to knock off a side dish for Easter dinner.

Downhill Part 1

So I started writing this blog when I lost my last job. I felt like the world was closing in and at my age I was all done. Well surprise surprise, unemployment kicked in, I had money for my bills, people sent me job leads, I didn't get sick but even if I did government mandated COBRA insurance was there for me, I was still worried about the future, but hey, doesn't everybody worry about the future, then I got a new job... So where is the downhill part? That wasn't downhill. That was a rough patch. Right? But?... while doing this blog and watching the news and talking to all of you and just getting my citizen on it became pretty clear to me that everyone thought we, and by "we" I mean America, were in trouble.

Oh no! The Taliban army has taken Disneyland

It seems that everyone across the entire political spectrum seems to think so. The current budget head butting just magnified the feeling. It was time for me to spring into action. Shaking the lethargy that had fallen upon me after an over dose of spring I decided to finally root out the destroyers of America. I knew this was going to be a difficult task. I didn't want to be like the pun-dents that cast wildly aggressive and only quasi accurate accusations at each other. No red state/ blue state war for this blogger. I didn't want to be a sissy either though. After all, someone was destroying America and it has to stop. So no Sunday service and breakfast today. Last week was sentimentality, the week before was both religious manipulation and saccharin secular up lift. My new hard investigative self decided to cancel todays original clip "Wing beneath my Wings" by Bette Midler ( sorry Bette Midler fans) followed by a danceable gospel tune from the 50's ( sorry danceable gospel fans) in favor of facing Sunday with...

Writers Block

Sorry about the writers block.

It amazes me how many great people there have been on this earth. They create medicine, fight injustice, build towers to the sun. Me? Yesterday was cold and wet. I was all done. Today was a perfect spring day. I was all done. I'm so all done that I am writing this post even though I am all done. Call it writers block, but today I am all done. Did I tell you I was all done?

I mean how does any body ever get any work accomplished when there is some spring outside. I need me a full fix of spring. I need to open the windows and smell that scent of the world coming alive at last. I need to be both out doors and warm at the same time. I need the powers that be to stop screwing with me like they did yesterday. 35 degrees and pouring out, really Powers That Be? I need to get out there and do some serious frolicking. You have seen nothing in this world until you see me frolic.

So I'm supposed to work when that's outside the window?

My yearning to screw off makes me feel guilty too. Did I mention that there are people out there right now curing cancer, writing great novels, running businesses, building skyscrapers, fighting wars, putting everything on the line and all I want is...

As if!

By the way this whole post is a complete rip-off. There isn't even a recipe. Of coarse there is an Easter meal coming up, followed by Cinco de Mayo, so plenty of recipes are coming. I know, you can't wait. I'm signing off now, but take a second for the video. See what a real guy can do with his spring fever. It's why Vivaldi is still famous. Alright, alright maybe famous is the wrong word... important then. Me? I am about 20 years away from being worm food. Hey, that'll help somebody go fishing.

Classical music, keeping Bugs Bunny in soundtrack music for generations.

Until next time.

Sometimes I try too hard.

I was going to write a big post today about Kierkegarrd, the uncertainty principle, ethics, and the soul crushing nature of office work. Lucky for you I struggled with it for about three hours then gave up because I was hungry. So instead you get my dinner. While I was wrestling with the big questions I was also roasting chicken. It may not be my death row meal, but it is easily one of the most soul satisfying meals you can eat. Sorry about the Kierkegarrd. I know you are disappointed, but my brain just isn't up to it today.

The beauty of roasting chickens is amounts are only limited to the size of your oven and the size of your pans. Now I like to get a couple of Belle and Evens organic chickens from the Butcher Boy because while I haven't given up meat those factory farms do push my ethical boundaries... must... not... discuss... Kierkegarrd... and  I think the organic chickens taste better.

You will need a chicken, 3 or 4 good sized potatoes, a bag of those baby carrots (saves knife work, but by all means get regular carrots if you can't afford the extra buck) a lemon, an onion, sprigs of thyme if you have fresh ( a window box will save you enough money to buy the baby carrots) and melted butter. Mmmm butter!

1. Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the bird.
2. Cut the lemon in half, squeeze the juice into the cavity, then stuff the lemons in after.
3. Peel the onion. Cut it into quarters. Stuff it in the bird.
4. Stuff the thyme in there too.
5. Truss the drumsticks together with kitchen twine.
6. Smear the bird with the melted butter. Mmm butter!
7. Liberally salt and pepper the outside of the bird.
8. Grease a roasting pan with melted butter. Mmm butter!
9. Heat the oven to 425 degrees.
10. Cut the potatoes into chunks roughly the same size as the baby carrots.
11. Spread them in the roasting pan. Spread more sprigs of thyme over the vegetables. 
12. Place a cooling rack over the roasting pan.
13. Place the chicken on the rack. Fold the wings under the body so they don't burn.
14. Roast for an hour and a half until the juices run clear.
15. Place the chicken under some foil.
16. Give the vegetables a stir. Cover them with that lemony greasy goodness. Then give them another 20 minutes in the oven.

The amounts can be doubled until the pan or the oven gets too small. Figure 3 people per chicken, or a whole chicken if you are a tubbo like me. If you have a big enough roasting pan you could get 3 going at once. You can also skip the cooling rack, but if you do you will have to move the chickens around of the middle one will stew. Check that, use the cooling rack.

It was a long week.

So the teabaggers get a win. Saving America by destroying the poor and the defenseless.  They must be so proud.  For example, Planned Parenthood has a operating budget of just over a billion dollars a year which they use to provide  birth control, abortions, cancer screens, medical advise, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases ... for over 3,000,000 poor and moderate income women. That is an appalling 300 per person.

Taxpayers, behold the face of your enemy.

 We can't afford that kind of largesse anymore. Not when we need to take care of... Well poor Goldman Sachs for example. They ended up with 2.9 billion dollars in bailout money taking up space in their private reserve. Of coarse the Goldman money helped save the economy. It wasn't wasted on frivolities like medical care. Why 5 million of it was wasted on...

I helped crash the economy and all I got was $5,000,000.

Lloyd Blankfine, CEO, of Goldman Sachs, Land of the credit default swap. Look at the 2 pictures. Now I just posted 2 days ago that we were evolving, so I ask which person is more likely to destroy the middle-class and turn this country into a kleptocracy and which person is likely to die of malnutrition. I know the pictures aren't in context, I know I'm rigging the story, just roll with it. Stupid, stupid teabaggers, or is it evil, evil teabaggers.

I know, I'm mean to the rich. I'm a proud class warrior. I better stop though or Blankfine and friends might go all Gault on our asses. Check your Ayn Rand for a full explanation.

Still it was a beautiful spring day yesterday and I'm making a pilgrimage to the end of Plum Island this morning to greet the sunrise. Despite the budget setback this week had it's positive moments. I found evidence that at least some humans are getting better, I scored points at work completely by accident, there were no zeppelin crashes and I'm headed to Mad Martha's for breakfast. Mmmm smoked salmon hash!

As usual I don't know about God, but I know we can make thinks better if we just smarten up and stick together. So I'm going uplifting without a side of religion today. Got to save some room for waffles.

Work Part 2

So it has been a month now at the new job. It's weird, no one has ever left me in charge of anything before. On top of that I finally found out why they hired me. It seems that my predecessor was both a criminal and a thug. ( Harvard business school, defining the American work place for generations. Even the mafia is afraid.) Sweet! Seems my reputation for being a calming influence got me the job. That and my willingness to work for short money. That, that, and my ability to take serious body shots and remain upright. That, that, that, and the fact that other workers are willing to follow me to a new place because they think " If the fat man works there the place must be on the up and up."( It's the moving business, got to stock up on help for the summer, help that will be cast off like a used kleenex in the fall. My honor for a paycheck. Seems fair.) Sort of true, definitely true, proudly true, not true. So now my mission is to team build, control costs, and do my own work too. Sweet!

I promised them no motivational posters.

Now as I said I work at a moving company so everyone on the yard side of the wall is male, and everyone on the office side off the wall is female. Well actually there are also sales people, gender neutral creatures that are controllable  as long as they get exactly their own way, or are distracted by frequent flyer miles and golf. Fortunately there is a sales manager so they are only tangentially my problem.  I figured I'd tackle the male/yard side of the equation first.

Men are easy. They will kill each other over shiny stones, do not like to be told what to do, will not listen to what you tell them, will do exactly as you order as long as what you order is exactly what they want to do, and will club you over the head then consume your still beating heart if they think it will gain them some advantage in their race to die with the most things in their possession. Piece of cake.

It is a little known fact in management circles that if you have good people they will manage themselves. If you have bad people you should fire them and hire good people. After a week I gathered the team together, told them that I knew they were good at their jobs (probably not completely true, but the summer is coming so firing and rehiring will have to wait), explained what needed to be accomplished, "Hey guys, its the transportation business. Transport stuff." and turned them loose. What could go wrong?

I was pretty sure that we wouldn't end up in a shooting war with the VFW across the street so I turned my attention to the office. Now anyone that knows me knows I am clueless about woman. I always want to go in with the "We are all just people here" approach. They know what they are doing, let them do it. So I tried the same approach as with the guys " You know what work has to be done, officey things right? so just do it." Stunned silence.

"... but what should we do?"
"I'm an operations guy. You know finance, customer service, and office procedures better than I do. Just get the work done."
"... but what should we do?"
"Well... what you have been doing right along only better. I know you can do it."
"... but what should we do?"
"There's a ton of talent here, I've been watching for days now. Show the other branches that we have skills."
"... but what should we do?"

It went  that way for a week. Stalemate. I finally blinked. Wasting one of my precious  Saturdays, I reviewed all the computer programs, outlined a flow chart mapping the job paperwork from booking to payment, then divided up the work in a way that seemed to keep everyone in the same position while consolidating chores. I unveiled my master-work on a Monday afternoon to stunned silence.

"... does___ have to do the calls? That's not going to work."
"I thought it would eliminate a step."
"... well we can do that but then ___ won't have the ___"
"Fine, let's just switch it back."
" We can give it a try..."
"No, no that's alright. Is there anything else?"
"... well..."

It took 2 days but all my ideas (and work) were sacked. Turns out they had a pretty good idea on how to run the office. So my office team-building took a total of 3 weeks to get going at the end of which we were doing everything exactly the same way as before only better. At least that's what my boss told me me Friday. I tried to take no credit for this as it was a complete accident, but the boss seemed to think otherwise. The best part is every once and awhile I'll hear one of the ladies giggle about,  "Would I like to shake everything up again."I guess I'm an adorable dunderhead, hey whatever works right? It's like being in a marriage only with no sex. Actually it's just like being in a marriage.

Meanwhile out in the yard the boys had built a fleet of hydrogen powered zeppelins out of tarps and the wood from overseas crates. Sweet. When I suggested to them that zeppelins were an inefficient way to move furniture they told me I was wrong and could they at least try to move things in zeppelins. After all, "You told us to fix things so we fixed them." I told them "No zeppelins", but they insisted on using them. Initially it sort of worked, but then we lost 3 of them from the hydrogen igniting when one of them lit  up a cigarette in front of a shippers house. They were finally willing to go back to using trucks after all their lunches floated away because the mailbox they were tethered to pulled out of the ground. Try filling out the paperwork for that.

This all actually happened except for the Zeppelins.

So, the work place. It's men doing man things. It's women doing women things. It's me taking a lot of aspirin and drinking well into the night. Maybe I should become a sales person?

Things aren't that bad.

A lot of the pundit class are always saying "It's not that bad." George Will and David Brooks love to swing that way. It usually means some vareation on "Shut-up and be glad you have a job." Now when I say it it's because while the fight goes on things do get better once and awhile. I just stumbled across this video by accident, but give it a watch. I don't care about Hunter Thompson grizzled hack writer and faux tough guy nor do I care about the hells angel hack humane being and faux tough guy. What facinates me about this is the studio audience. The last 2 minutes are amazing.



If you still don't know what I am talking about you might want to give yourself a gut check. Since when is it hilarious to talk about beating your wife, ecspecially when your buddy actually did the deed. Since when would a television host allow that to go unchallanged? Plus he cuts off the one person, Thompson, who seems to find the "beat women" thing offensive. That tape is only 40 years old. Where's Oprah when you need her?

So we are evolving. We may be trigger happy apes with narsistic personality disorder that write women tweaking blogs, but we are light years ahead of that studio audience. Not being a wife beater is no reason to pat yourself on the back, but it is an improvement over actually doing it then thinking it is perfct audience entertainment. To PC? I don't think so. So here's to us evolving even if we have to keep trying. Makes me want some cold beer and some grown-up food.

Mmmm! processed meat!

Don't you get tired of the usual beer food? I do. So today we are going to make pate. There is an accent mark over the e, but I am keyboard illiterate. There are several kinds but we are going for a classic silky pate which is really a dip that will stop you heart. Then because Erin asked nicely and I am feeling good about everyone being so evolved we'll do a country style tureen.