Not quite Jim Morrison, though longer

To start, a happy anniversary wish to SJ and her guy, RZ. You know we're only helping him so he gets out of your way around the house, right? May you both have many more.

A friend had a valid point about yesterday's screed which was, basically, analysis of the orgy of self-flagellation among all our media partners, great and small, on the death of Michael Jackson until the man himself became the excuse for the mummery. A kind of parlor trick, an infinity of mirrors navel-gazing exercise and that's probably closer to the truth than I'd like to think. But then again as he and I both know, I don't like to think.

Important news happened that had nothing to do with the phalanx of TV crews and 'journalists' who deployed to Los Angeles, including: an effort to move the discussion on national health insurance forward by soliciting a pledge from major hospitals; too much/a surprising amount/hardly any progress on global warming as part of the G-8 meetings (depends on who you talk to and to whom you listen for your TV news); the transfer of cities from US to Iraqi forces is a bit bumpy, (so far) and that's just for starters. We more or less missed all of that with a seance that no one could figure out how to say 'enough is enough' so as to allow a family to be alone with their grief. Talk about 'Never Can Say Goodbye.'

I didn't add anything to that conversation. It was, despite protestations to the contrary, the very piling on I insisted it wasn't. I apologize for that but I'm actually sorry because I failed to make my point, in much the same way as I failed to make it when John Lennon was murdered. Lennon was shot shortly before four in the morning, Central European Time. I had hours before my air shift at American Forces Network, AFN, Europe, in Frankfurt am Main, (West) Germany. My sadness at his death was profound. My anger at his accused murderer was/is immeasurable.

As I sat in the studio and started my board shift, I knew I'd play at least one selection from the Double Fantasy album. I offered sadly that it wasn't the record he would, or should, be remembered for and left it at that. What I had no way of knowing was how the station switchboard lit up as listeners reacted. The following morning my boss attempted to explain to me why trying to step back and out of the maelstrom the evening before was in poor form. He conceded nearly everyone calling had agreed with my observations and then added 'but don't let it happen again.' I asked him what he meant by 'it'-Lennon's murder or the casual contempt with which we take one another's lives. Now, twenty-nine years too late, I realize, he meant neither.

Fast forward to the days leading up to the video pyre in LA. Who really believed Larry King gave a fried rat's hindquarters about Michael Jackson? Did you catch any of his incredible interview with Sean Coombs ('How are you handling this?' I think he says in this snippet) whom he called 'P Daddy'? I actually sat and waited for it as Larry used him as his very own 'dig how hip I am' credential. We heard from the rich and famous as if they had clue one as to what had happened or what any of it meant. But it was okay because we were grieving.

TMZ became the most important 'news agency' in the world, and let me be clear, we were NOT okay and will never again be okay. I'm watching Charles Gibson attempt to tell me about his favorite Michael Jackson song. What? But don't worry, folks at home, after the break-and stay tuned-we'll be talking with Elizabeth Taylor who'll share with us that she has nothing to share. You'll want to stick around for that. Please don't touch that dial.....

As excruciatingly garish as this all became-cue the banshees-I guess it could have been worse. I just don't know how. And in the Brave New World we've created, a critical shortage of imagination can, and will, prove fatal. You doubt me? Wait until the next time, and there will be a next time.
"The boys are all ready. They've laid out the plans. They're setting the stage for the man-made man. We've worked out the kinks in your DNA. So sayonara, kid, have a nice day."
-bill kenny

Mirror or Window

At the risk of sounding like I'm piling on, even though I'm not, how much of the coverage of the memorial service/Viking funeral for Michael Jackson did you follow? At what point, if any, did you find it garish that you and I, as members of the gawking public, were participants, witnesses if you will, to such a sad, personal and family tragedy? And yet, let's be honest with one another, we don't feel unclean at all-it was just another day watching the tube and double-clicking the mouse. And when the services ended and the last tweeter twitted and the final mini-cam was capped, we looked to what (ever) was next. That the Jackson Family lost a son, a brother, and his children lost their father is more or less obscured by the churn of events--and when one among us suffers the loss of her/his humanity, we all lose.

There was at least one live blog of the memorial service from inside the arena. I have no idea how many more there were and I won't even hazard a guess at the number of broadcast and cable news channels who provided wall to wall reports. Perhaps the last time such coverage was attempted, on a smaller scale (of course) because we didn't have the technology, was when Elvis Presley died and I'm not going to waste anyone's time rewarming all the parallels to that passing I've read in the last days.

We've become a culture, nearly world-wide, who, because we have all these channels and means of communication, feel compelled to fill them with something. There was a time, when our kids were very young, when the idea of 24/7 news operation was novel. Many of us wondered what would go on a channel like that at all hours of the day and night. At some point as convergence began to close the distances between one form and another, news devolved into noise, not that we really noticed. Now, there's not a lot of nutrition in any of what we watch-just empty calories. When the President of the United States speaks and it takes longer than one commercial break (three and half minutes) we start to twitch. We surf until we find something somewhere, even if we've seen it already, rather than attempt to stretch our attention span and focus. We have so much freedom of choice for information we yearn for freedom from choice.

Later this month, we'll mark the 40th anniversary of the First Man to Walk on the Moon. However, by the time we reach that milestone, it will be competing for our attention with the upcoming (in August) 40th anniversary of Woodstock (even National Lampoon whacked that one. And how!). Which one was history? Which one wasn't? How do you decide what is history? And what can a poor boy do, except to sing for a rock'n'roll band-'cos in this sleepy London Town there's just no place for a street fighting man.

Sorry-I was channeling Mick Jagger, whose initials just happen to be-OMG-how creepy is that? And speaking of the Strolling Bones, how amazed that he's still among us must Keith Richards be, in light of the number of musicians who've passed? But I digress. More frequently, and faster, private moments of public people, not just our national leaders, celebrities, become public spectacle. I wondered years ago if the news coverage of OJ and AC's speeding Ford Bronco was the end of an error (or era). Now I fear it was the lead car in the circus caravan."And the perverted fear of violence chokes the smile on every face. And common sense is ringing out the bell. This ain't no technological breakdown, Oh no, this is the road to hell."
-bill kenny

Memo to My Son

This is one of the four most important days in my life, every year. I am still in awe, nearly thirty-two years after she said yes, technically 'ja', that my wife is still my wife so I celebrate our anniversary as if I had anything to do with the longevity of our relationship when it's really all her. And of course, there's her birthday, which I've never forgotten (nor correctly captured with either the right gift or the correct card), but I'm getting closer.

We celebrated my daughter's birthday early in May and I realize she was being kind in putting up with her mushy old dad but that won't stop me from imposing upon her in exactly the same manner next year, because mushy dads cultivate not having very good memories.

Today is the 27th birthday of our son, Patrick Michael. I remember all of it as if it were yesterday and smile looking at his earliest photos (technically speaking the black and white Polaroids of him on ultrasound), though in this case I mean after he left the capsule, so to speak. One small step for man .... usw.

I ended up in the geburtsaal even though most of our neighbors had quietly bet I would pass out if I accompanied Sigrid into the delivery room. As it was, she almost cut my left hand in half squeezing it during the contractions as it's the hand I wear my wedding ring on. Every time I even thought about mentioning that pain to her, I'd look into her face, a lovely face filled with abject hatred for me and my having put her through the pain of childbirth, and decided that I'd be better advised mentioning my problem at another time, perhaps our Golden wedding anniversary.

The physician Sigrid had seen during her pregnancy was unimpressed with having a lallygagger hanging around the OR, especially one who looked as loopy as I did before we had children. All he wanted to know was 'warum?' (why?)-because, I said, I placed the order so I want to take delivery. Still cannot really recall the look on his face, try as I might, but I'll bet it wasn't a look of gratitude as in 'just what I needed, an American nearly-comedian'.

I've told you when Patrick was born, they placed him with Sigrid to bond and then she gave him to me as, after all, she'd carried him for the last nine months. I walked him around the operating room like I was doing a tour for Grey Line and we in lower Manhattan. As much as I love my wife, and I do, being present for the birth of my son was the single most amazing thing I have (n)ever done.

He takes off every year for his birthday and this year he went with a friend to visit her friends and family in Maine. You'd think knowing where he was going and with whom would keep me from making the scary movies I make every time one of my children is out of my sight. Especially my son who has lived under his own roof for quite a number of years. Sorry-you aren't a parent and most certainly not a dad, because that never goes away. There's always a nagging worry especially with a first-born and more especially when it's your son.

Everything you vowed when you were a kid to never do if you had a son when it was your father being the dad, rushes in to grab you by the ear and lead you down the corridor of memory when you are the dad. And all you can hope is that you don't mess up your children. Meanwhile, all those times you thought your old man was just nuts and had NO clue about what was really going on, and when you remember your son's behavior at that same age, you realize, the part of the clueless father is now being played by you.

"Wait'll you learn how to talk baby, I'll show you how smart I am." Well, one of us mastered the language, and then another one, a long time; and the other of us is still working on that smart trick. Any day now. What can I say? Nur Patrick!!! Herzlichen Gluckwunsche zum Geburtstag!

Hello In There

I took a day off yesterday to celebrate my own holiday, the 6th of July, and to actually give me a break from my routine work-a-day life. I am fortunate in that I enjoy what I do for a living (I'm not sure the people with whom I come into contact feel that way) but sometimes, probably like you, I get so caught up in the 'doing' I stop seeing the reason or I supply different reasons than the ones that brought me here in the first place (and making enough and having enough money is certainly a valid reason for working, it's just a lousy reason for excelling at work; sorry).

If you're a shift or a flex-time worker you've already discovered this, but I'm always surprised when I'm off on a 'regular' work day as to how much of life goes on within you and and without you. I went for a walk around the Norwich Free Academy track, which I try to do normally in the early evening,and there are always a considerable number of other folks out and about, but at 9:15 in the morning, I pretty much had it to myself.

This morning, because I was home, I had the luxury of being to read both morning daily newspapers at my kitchen table instead of on-line, and that means I read everything to include the obituaries. Suspect if you read them, you feel the same way sometimes: I'm always impressed with how long so many people live these days (and hope I and everyone I know and love will be in that number for quite some time to come). Yesterday's papers had folks passing who were in their nineties and all of their families were far away, if listed at all. That so many had so few made me wonder if the parents had outlived their children and suspected they had.

That got me thinking back to something from a long time ago in the third or fourth grade at Saint Peter's School in New Brunswick, New Jersey with Sister Thomas Ann. What happens to you, I asked her, when the last person on Earth who knew of you during your life dies as well after your death? I don't recall thinking I'd nailed anything to cathedral doors in Wittenburg (I'm pretty sure I didn't even know where that was at the time) but I found out when you ask questions like that you spend the afternoon in Sister Immaculata's office (she was the principal) and your mom gets a call at home and your father has to write a note, actually a letter, apologizing for your question even though, as I walked the track at NFA yesterday and thought about those obits in the newspapers, for the life of me, I couldn't understand why I was sorry or for what.

I have a smart phone-or said another way, my cell phone has a stupid owner. I can listen to music from a variety of sources while doing a task such as walking around an oval track in Southeastern Connecticut. In this case, I listen to slacker as it augments the albums I've stored on my phone's memory card (albums? I'm not sure that's what we call music anymore; but it's what old guys like me call it). Sometimes life imitates art and in this case makes me promise to return the favor, which may disconcert some of those whom I pass on the street as I walk in the late afternoons from now on. Through my headphones, came my favorite John Prine song-a song that if we could somehow adopt it as a second national anthem, or as the foundation for foreign policy, this planet might not find itself in the mess it so often seems to end up in and maybe one less person would die all alone in a world with over six billion of us stepping on one another's toes.

"So if you're walking down the street sometime, And spot some hollow ancient eyes, Please don't just pass 'em by and stare, As if you didn't care, Say "Hello in there, hello."
-bill kenny

Doesn't Seem to Be a Shadow in the City

Just me or for the last couple of days, at least around here, are we finally getting the summer weather that we'd wondered about for most of June? I'm not complaining, mind you-just reminding everyone to be very careful what you wish for, in case you do actually get it.

Those who've wished for a less than cluttered meeting week, you get your wish though the meetings going on are important (as they all should be).

Not, strictly speaking, a "Norwich" meeting though its actions and decisions do or could impact on the Rose City, is a meeting this morning at 8:30 of the Executive Committee of the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments.

Maybe my sense of humor, though I'm not feeling funny as type this, but of all the organizations who should be MOST familiar with Public Act 08-3, I would assume these folks would be in that number and yet their website does NOT contain their most recent meeting minutes as required by law. Take a quick look at that public law again and see what it talks about at the top-we'll return to that in just a moment.

Monday evening at seven there are dueling public meetings in City Hall. In Room 335 (the room with the terrible acoustics and benches bolted to the floor, the old court room I've been told) is a hearing about the Pleasant Street Bridge renovations (that's the bridge over by the old Big Y).

Across the floor, in City Council Chambers, will be a presentation by Rose City Renaissance on the Chelsea District/Waterfront Master Plan (I have NO idea what's going on in the city's website drop down window for this meeting, but it's not being held in Gales Ferry as listed).

The City Council meeting will follow at 7:30 and, as I mentioned, yesterday, on the agenda is a rewrite of the city's ethics code. It doesn't go as far as the proposals the Ethics Review Committee gave this City Council back in March of 2008 (yeah, sixteen months ago; or to put it another way, before one of the members, Chris Coutu, was a State Representative or a City Councilman) but for the longest time, it appeared that some on the City Council would be successful in ignoring an issue upon which all had campaigned in 2007. I never praise the day before the evening arrives, so let's see what happens, shall we?

And, of course and as always, there's a great deal of other items on the agenda to include one I felt so strongly about I asked the City Manager, as a sponsor, last week to make sure was in accordance with a section of state law that I sent him. I may need to write to the Attorney General (sure hope I can find my lucky pen).

Tuesday there's a pair of what I originally understood to be fun-raisers, which I think is a GREAT idea since I'm tired of looking at long, mopey, Eeyore-like faces all around me. Then, I found out, there are, in fact fund-raisers for two of the people seeking the office of Mayor. I think my idea is a vastly superior one. (There's also a fund-raiser on Friday night involving feather boas, rather than Rocky Bal, and I think there's been ads for it.)

Wednesday afternoon at 4:30 in their offices at 10 Westwood Park is a regular meeting of the Housing Authority whose page on the city's website remains totally uncontaminated by the presence of any meeting minutes, meeting notices or agenda. It's like Public Act 08-3 never happened. And here's the thing--these are volunteers and neighbors of each of us who are working very hard with constrained resources to effectively manage and maintain the available supply of public housing, and doing a good job of it. But most of us know next to nothing about their efforts, or how we can help.

Later Wednesday at six in Room 210 of City Hall is a regular meeting of the Norwich Baseball Stadium Authority whose page on the city's website isn't up to date in terms of meeting minutes of notices and who has two members whose appointments expired back in February (perhaps they were part of the deal heading to Richmond?). From what I've read in recent weeks, the outstanding payments on the stadium lease have been remitted to the city and from what I've seen, the team is kicking butt in the Eastern League Northern Division.

Thursday afternoon at 5:15 (the return of the quarter hour start time! perhaps an homage to Quarterflash, a great band from the Pacific Northwest who still have about 11 minutes left on their Warhol Wrist) is a meeting of the Mohegan Park Improvements Advisory Committee (four of whose seven members' appointments expired over two and half years ago)in the Lakeside Pavilion at the Mohegan Park. Sure hope no one is running late to make the meeting and needs to drive through the park.

At six, in the Campbell Building of Uncas on Thames campus, right off Route 32, at 401 West Thames Street is a regular meeting of the Board of Directors of the Uncas Health District who have a lovely website with a great deal of information they want you to know but know of the information, in terms of meeting minutes and notices, they are required to have posted.

And that's it for this week as we head towards the middle of the summer of '09.
"Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city."
-bill kenny

Sure Was a Good Idea

Mondays are when I preview municipal meetings in Norwich, CT (where I live) and I'm gonna cheat a little as I want to talk today about one item at one meeting this coming week even though I'll mention it, I'm sure (=positive) tomorrow as well. And if you sense a touch of anger in my tone today, yeah, you're right but some of that will evaporate this fall as the weather cools off and two of the disappointments disappear.

The City Council meets at 7:30 tomorrow night to consider a raft of resolutions and ordinances and as fate and the calendar would have it, perhaps serving as close to a capstone for this City Council will be consideration of an ordinance on a topic that was of great interest and import during the last Council election, ethics or as I like to think of it, the behavior and morality of my government.

I was on the Ethics Review Committee, as an alternate member (none of us ever really figured out as an alternate to what, exactly, and that was probably a good thing) with some very talented and patient (in putting up with me) residents who worked as hard as we could to produce a code of behavior for elected and appointed city leaders, those who work for the city and for those doing business with Norwich. I mention that as a sort-of disclaimer because I don't want anyone to think I am speaking for anybody on that committee, except myself. Okay?

We submitted our final report in March of 2008 (yes, sixteen months ago) to this City Council all of whose members (with the exception of Mr. Nystrom) ran and were elected on basically three issues: zoning, ethics and charter revision. Almost immediately after being sworn in, the footrace to see how quickly retreats could be made from promises on all three issues started. It took this City Council until last September to even hold a workshop on the report that was supposed to include the City's Corporation Counsel and the Director of Human Resources with their impressions, but 'the word' failed to get passed correctly and Council folks for the most part, showed up empty-handed and unprepared to do anything, unless NOT doing anything was the object of the exercise.

Meanwhile, on the other two legs of the three-legged campaign stool: to my knowledge and recollection there has NEVER been a discussion on zoning responsibilities in Council chambers and some of us managed to neatly finesse the rest of us (and the will of the voters), in putting the kibosh on charter reform and revision.

Thus, by default if nothing else, ethics reform could become the legacy achievement of this City Council, elected with so much hope in November of 2007. I've looked at Ordinance three, which is the ethics reform, and maybe it doesn't quite meet my ideas of what we recommended all that time ago, but it's a sight more than the City of Norwich has now and is certainly better than no action at all.

This being an election year, and three of the aldermen on this City Council being announced candidates for the Office of Mayor (Mr. Bettencourt, Mr. Nystrom and Mr. Zarnetske), there way be concerns expressed about suspicious behavior, and maybe even a contagious smile or infectious laugh (or two). If striving for open and ethical government at all levels is political, I say "bravo!" Might I suggest, if anyone on this City Council doesn't feel an imperative to keep a long-overdue campaign promise, and do the right thing, then that activity and lack of it, is far more suspicious (perhaps even 'shameful' to borrow a word from a previous Council meeting) and truly deserving of approbation and scorn.

I hope I can be forgiven for applauding the efforts of Larry, Sarah, Lois, Shiela, Tamara, Michael, Jerry, Chuck, Joe, Chris, Charles A, and Bob D, my former colleagues on the Ethics Review Committee, and hoping they are physically or spiritually present in Council chambers tomorrow night. Thank you for all of your efforts to help make our government and city a better place for all of us, albeit a little later than we might have wished.
-bill kenny

Brand New Roller Skates Are Always Trumped by Baseball Bats

This is one of these 'torn from the headlines' items that, as the pretend adult I am, I'm supposed to counsel 'don't try this at home, kids!' except...it happened at home and it was kids. Aside from that, no resemblance to reality, implied or expressed is intended.

This is sort of Bob H's fault because he sent me the original item Thursday afternoon but I was so busy, I really didn't read it and it didn't sink in until Friday about the middle of the day. When it showed up in the New York Daily News, I was impressed: Teenagers mistakenly assault woman's sex partner after they mistook her screams of passion for cries. And people despair for the next generation!

I will very probably never meet Torrington Police Lt. Bruce Whiteley, but if anyone has Joe Friday down better, I'd sure like to meet them. In describing what had happened, this is his ENTIRE summation, "Swanson and Arnold had not been fighting." Yeah, once you've read the article, that conclusion just jumps out at you. And the comments offered by readers, as ungrammatical and borderline illiterate as they are, in their own way are as funny as the story itself.

I think the young Mr. Roger Swanson should be very grateful he hadn't planned on a day-night doubleheader. And whoever said 'safe at home' has certainly never been a gentleman caller of Ms. Melanie Arnold's.
-bill kenny

PS: If you wondered why I hadn't mentioned the Connecticut Second District TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party on Norwich's Chelsea Parade today, wonder no more.