A Seasonal Shift and Signal

Depending on when you are reading this, summer 2014 has already begun or is about to. We have scads of people who worry about the calculations required to indicate the precise moment when the transformation occurs, but I'm sort of with nature when it comes to the shifting of the seasons. It's worked out well for quite some time and I'm not all that comfortable thinking I can do better.

My brother Adam, Emperor of Central Jersey, not to be confused with our other brother, Kelly, who moonlights as the Pope, offered some brisk and somewhat brusque advice yesterday in his space in the ether about seasons change but the carping about the weather never seems to. Basically if want to kvetch or bitch, shaddup.

Not the worst advice to be offered for sure though at least in these parts today it's forecast to be especially lovely on the longest day of the year (the summer solstice) and a great way to mark the start of the season, around here if not near your house, is Norwich's 26th Annual Juneteenth Day Celebration, starting at 10 AM and lasting into the night.

We'll have enough for everybody here (not that I want you standing on my toes in Howard T. Brown Park because the Thames Harbor is even more beautiful when the skies are blue and the sun shines) but don't be surprised if there are celebrations and observances happening not too far from your house, wherever that might be. All you need to do is seek and you'll find.

As a kid growing up I always thought when you turned 11, your age should be pronounced eleventeen (not sure what I thought we should call you when you turned 12) in line with all the other 'teen' years to follow, so an inventive name like Juneteenth is right up my alley.

But underlying all the arts and crafts, music and dancing (don't worry, I am supplying none of it), exotic and down home foods is a serious cultural observance that, despite how we often and hard we smack one another around in public debate on every facet of our collective interactions, helps underscore the actual health and vibrancy of our shared history and heritage.

The farther out in space you travel the more alike we look-leading me to wonder if we're not somehow better off maintaining that perspective even when we have all returned to Earth. Look around the globe right now at the unrest in every corner that seems to come down in some way to "my flavor of different is better than yours" whether the fight is about religion, politics or pony rides(checking to see if you were still reading).

Too often the things we do speak so loudly I can't hear what we're trying to say. We are not yet the nation we should always aspire to be. But we're farther along on that path than we were yesterday and will be even better tomorrow, because of our ability to recognize, and also celebrate, our differences and use our diversity as a thread to weave the fabric of our nation and society even more closely together.
 -bill kenny

As Opposed to Shinola

I don’t do a lot of ‘reality TV’ and not because I have a problem with reality. I dislike the synthetic drama in what little of it I’ve ever watched because I know if I weren’t watching it, actually if none of us were watching it, both the drama and the show itself would be gone.

To me, reality TV is the wealthy cousin of talk radio. And I hate talk radio. It’s the cheapest form of broadcasting in terms of cost, which is partially why it’s so popular with the douche nozzles who own 500 watt day-timers. I blame sports radio for getting it started and showing by example millionaires who owned TV transmitters how to become billionaires by sticking talk radio to the inside of picture tubes.

I fell across a show not that long ago Amish Mafia that I’m still trying to sort out. At first I feared I’d dreamt I’d watched it because it was so beyond ‘out there’ it couldn’t possibly be real. But I don’t think all of us had the same dream. Who watches this crap? The same people who think pro-wrestling isn’t scripted and staged? Except that there’s less spandex, the Amish Mafia could be brought to us by a grant from the Haystacks Calhoun Foundation located just beyond the city limits of Credulity.

I just finished an article on a show set to debut tonight on Animal Planet (do NOT try to see a connection between the network and the program; your brain will cramp up) called The Pool Master. I wonder if anybody connected with Bunim-Murray who brought us “The Real World” back in the Dark Ages on MTV wondered why they couldn’t patent an idea but only a program based on an idea. If they could have, they’d have never needed to work again. I’m sorry they started.

Is there a show currently on TV on the discarded treasures that trash collectors find? Not extreme or offensive enough? How about one on what gastroenterologists bring home with them after performing colonoscopies? Both could be called “Finders, Keepers!” (I’d like the latter to have a reference somehow to innuendo for the hipsters in the audience).

What do you think? We could get the folks with clipboards and Pavlov’s dogs from research in here to see if we’d score better with 18-49 year-olds if we seeded the cast with some bi-racial, transgendered, little people who own dogs and ‘green cars’ living in an urban setting (advertisers just eat that 18-49 demographic with a spoon). Or maybe not.

By now, someone surely has developed an application that will create the cast for us once the research is done. You know, like a cooking recipe.  And if lives get ruined, well, that’s show biz, kids. Speaking of recipes, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs-just ask Pat and Bill Loud. So stay tuned!

-bill kenny   

Coisas Pequenas desde a primeira semana de Copa do Mundo

Yeah. Would I be this chipper, practically spritely, if the USA had lost to Ghana as it had in their previous two first round World Cup encounters? Let's put it this way, is a bear Catholic? Does the Pope-nevermind, it was rhetorical anyway. 

Every four years, I'm reminded that the biggest difference between living in Germany and living here remains soccer and devotion to the sport played at its highest level.

The (West and now Ganz) German Team always qualified for the World Cup-perhaps it was a FIFA by-law that they had to be there, I don't really know. But when they played, everything stopped. Everything.

And not just for Germany in Germany. Italians, Dutch, Spaniards, Brits...sing the It's a Small World song, and you've grasped the point. Funny how that soccer ball isn't much bigger than the world feels during the World Cup. Coincidence? I think not.

Here, while there are many who closely follow the tournament, I've seen published reports suggesting that upwards of 80% of those polled don't know who's playing, why or when (the where is a given). It's hard to maintain world-class momentum for a program when your potential fan base is doing the Big Yawn instead of The Wave.

And then there’s this: a fortnight or so ago, there was buzz about “our” Landon (Donovan) being ‘left off’ the national team. Nope-not what happened. Each squad can take up to 23 players. For a variety of reasons that someday he, himself, will concede are/were valid, there were at least 23 players who were better than Donovan. They got on the plane he got to wave goodbye from the departure lounge.

Soccer isn’t the NBA, with millionaires in their underwear, five at a time running up and down the hardwood court but rather ten field players and a keeper on a piece of pitch so big when you’re attacking or defending it, and often doing both within the same breath,  you think you’re in Montana. That whole it takes a village thing-give the volk short pants and cleats. Now, Go Team.

England has Rooney. Portugal has Ronaldo. Germany has Muller.

With my apologies to Lloyd Bentson scolding Dan Quayle, Landon, you’re none of those guys. So all this you’re being such a good sport about your snub, and yeah, loved the commercial, put it in your diddy bag and stay on the couch in your robe.

Before the next World Cup I’m going to learn Spanish so I can skip announcers on places like ESPN who purport to be native English speakers ruining my language. Monday night as Team USA held service so to speak against Ghana as time ticked down one of the announcers described the US back line ‘defending like banshees.’

Oh? Now I know how urban kids must feel when they see swarms of white bread suburbanites wearing FUBU and ECKO. Not sure what descriptive William Wordsworth Taylor Twellman was looking for, but Banshee ain’t it, Siouxie (or should I say Susie). 

At least if I were watching Univision this Sunday at six, I would still be able to understand that something exciting and perhaps life-altering had just happened.

-bill kenny      

The Old School Tie

Since the school is about a three minute walk from my house, this is the time of year I spend a larger amount of time thinking about the students of, and most especially the seniors graduating from, Norwich Free Academy.

The world we are entrusting to you has a more miles on it than the one we inherited and some of its dents and dings are older than either of us but are now about to become your challenge. I'd say 'good luck' but you'll need a damn sight more than that and I hope we have provided you with the tools to succeed because the alternative is unthinkable.

When we moved into our house on Lincoln Avenue in the fall of 1991, I already knew that the sprawling campus on the other side of Chelsea Parade was not a college, appearances to the contrary, as I had first assumed but rather a high school for those of age from Norwich (whose number at the time was about to be enhanced by the addition of our son, Patrick, and the following year by that of our daughter, Michelle) as well as a regional resource for neighboring communities.

This Friday is graduation day for the class of 2014 who probably cannot still believe it has finally arrived and in a matter of days will be perhaps unhappily surprised at how different life after high school can often be. As a parent of two NFA graduates, I'm well aware of all the hubbub and hullabaloo that preparing for the ceremonies entails and I hope you have the kind of weather we had Sunday for your special day.

We see a lot of NFA kids parked on my street, especially as the days grow longer during the spring semester. Perhaps it's because there are more birthdays that generate more driver's licenses, creating more cars (and pick-ups, lots of pick-up trucks) jockeying for too few spaces. For those students who have had late starts and find themselves parking closer to Oneco than to Washington and must rush to class, I suspect you came to think of that as a foreshadowing of the working world you'll eventually enter.  

There are few places more hopeful than a high school graduation. Proud parents and other family members are equal parts bursting with pride and sighing with relief that a chapter is concluding, being very careful to not talk too much about what happens after graduation because tomorrow never knows and there's that old saying about the 'the best-laid plans of mice and men.'

I like the NFA motto as it appears on the homepage of their website, "Providing Opportunities and Preparing Lives." I think it's a terrific statement of purpose and intent and some great watchwords not just for those Wildcats setting forth on the journey of life but for all those in high schools around the region, across the state and throughout our nation.

To some extent they are getting a hand me down world, as we and those before us did, that they must and will adapt and adjust to suit themselves as they live their lives. Everything they have learned from every one they have ever known will help them become whomever they were intended to be.

As Dr. Seuss offered, "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
-bill kenny

The "S" Is Silent (and often Invisible)

Taking a break at work yesterday, I checked my personal email account on gmail to discover what looked at first blush like all the incentive I’d have never needed to make yesterday’s typographical doodlings my last ones forever.

How’s this for a “grab the reader’s attention” first paragraph:

“Attention; Beneficiary,

This is to inform you that the BILL GATE FOUNDATION in collaboration with INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF) has awarded you cash payment in line with IMF economic compensations program.”

Who doesn’t love CAPITAL letters? NOT this guy! Okay, the punctuation is a bit goofy and, I will concede, an “S” is lacking on the name of the foundation (maybe the “S” stood for savings?) sending me the email.  

But what about this:

“It may interest you to know that your name and e-mail … will receive … funds in … the sum of US $2.8 Million (Two Million Eight Hundred Thousand United States Dollars)…” May interest me?  You now have my complete and undivided attention. I was getting ready to click on a new tab and search for ‘pony rides for the emotionally deprived and philosophically depraved’ (I’m speechless at the first entry found; talk about art imitating life).

Then I saw this banner on the top of the mail from the buzz-harshers at Google:

“Why is this message in Spam? It's similar to messages that were detected by our spam filters.” Oh Quicks Draw, I think we have a problem! Hold on, Bob-a-Looie, I’ll do the thinkin’ round here! Except the last time I had a thought it died of loneliness.

The Missing-an-S email went on in great detail with a large number of ‘vital payment numbers,’ code words and passwords, everything short of angry birds I think, and in the end, as is too often the case, proved to be nothing more than empty electrons not worth the paper they weren’t printed on.

I was thisclose to a Life of Leisure. If only the people who had sent me the email had really had the money and were actually going to give it to me, I’d be in the lap of luxury finishing this entry and making sure my polo ponies had a bumper crop of marsiedotes and anecdotes, or whatever it is they eat, to feast upon until it was time to cantor to the regatta (my sister, Evan, is cringing at my abuse of equestrian terms).

Grab a number, sister, and take off your thirsty boots. Welcome to the best ten seconds of my life, at least in recent weeks.

-bill kenny

I Was Bored with Grumpy Cat Anyway.....

I love the global village (as well I should since I'm a global village idiot and have the cap 'n' bells to prove it) and admit that I contribute to the logjam and hardening of the wireless arteries with pap such as this, but the potential when we speak of problem solving and conflict resolution when/if we harness the powers (for good and sometimes, even, for better) of connectivity are so tempting what else can one do but follow the white rabbit?

You'd think as we are well along into G2.5 of "The Internet" that we'd start to spend more time while expending more energy and ability to create solutions to situations that have long been a part of the human condition as we finally have the collaborative tools to put our heads and hearts together on a scale and scope never before imagined.

Hunger, poverty, illness-wiped out at the speed of a mouse click as we work beyond borders and across ideologies and belief barriers to build a better planet for all.....Or not.

Turns out, and I'm as guilty as you are (and maybe more so), we spend a lot of time sending one another knock-knock jokes, posting pictures of various "Ain't Nobody Got Time for That" somethings (I don't know what to call them) and sharing pictures of small dogs and grumpy cats. It's understandable, I guess.

After all refining and redefining capitalism to better accommodate a living wage and an equitable distribution of reasonably priced goods and services is hard work. A meme of Miley Cyrus performing We Can Twerk It Out is easy-peasy.

And while low hanging fruit is often not the best tasting, it is low-hanging and that should and does count for something. Sometimes it counts for everything.

Like this. I laughed the first time I saw it and, admit it (it's just us right now), you did, too. By the time I'd seen it for the next five hundred kabillion times, maybe not so much.

That's not the squirrel whisperer's fault my dear Brutus, but, rather, ours. A decade plus after we spent billions and sacrificed thousands of our uniformed men and women in combat to affect 'regime change' half way around the world, the crazies who flocked there to fight us are now killing one another while marching on Baghdad.

Meanwhile we're learning how to best give a squirrel mouth to mouth resuscitation (I'll save you the trouble of reviewing the clip: we don't do actual mouth to mouth, we blow air into the nose. You're welcome). It's a tough life being a 2000 Man, especially if you don't weaken. Squirrel!
-bill kenny

You Could've Been a Legend

Being my wife's spouse and our children's father are the two things I do best and most days I'm not all that good at either of them. My wife makes the former work for both of us.

As for the latter, I didn't take classes and while I yearned for an indeterminate probationary period, there was none. And nothing but on-the-job training. It's the hardest job I could ever love and despite what I believed while I was on the receiving end, Dad is the highest compliment and best descriptive in the whole world.

And today is our day. Of course, all of us who are fathers have people to thank (especially our children without whom technically....) and I won't even try to list all of the fathers whom I have had the good fortune to know, because that list would go on forever.

I have to pause for the father I shared with my brothers and sisters.

This a photo I caged from my brother Adam who got it from the school where Dad taught (and which I attended). He got the pictures, and I still get newsletters and fundraiser solicitations from them.

Our dad is a long-time gone but there have been many times I've had wistful and wishful conversations with him about our two kids (who are now themselves adults). I think in many ways, I've spoken more with my father in the three plus decades since he passed than I did in all the years we shared the planet.

I know these are fantasy conversations because had I ever asked him for advice and had he ever offered it, there would have been no place for me to put it. So full of myself was I for so many years that's it's only been in the last score and more that I've learned to appreciate how fortunate I am that those who do love me do so despite rather than because of me. I can't help but think he'd have laughed his ass off at that because of how often I've laughed knowing it was true for him as well.

Getting married to my wife made me a man. Having and loving the children that together we made and raised made me a better person. Happy Father's Day.
-bill kenny