Not the Best of Times

As I near my 60th birthday, or, technically speaking, the 59th anniversary of my first one, I return to American and World history because I believe who we are now, to a great extent, is who we were when....and America and the world of 2012, liver spots and beauty marks, is to a large extent based on what happened during and after World War II.

A war that was fought before (about) 86% of the world's population were born-waitaminit, there was just another birthday observed in Bali, continues to exert an influence over who we are, and in all likelihood who we shall be. Yesterday morning, the National Archives put on line the census from the last quiet year of American history, perhaps only in my opinion but I don't think so, from 1940.

We were a nation that was still struggling to find its way back from the brink of the abyss, financially. A wildly speculative Wall Street, an unregulated banking industry and good old fashioned greed (odd how it never goes out of style, innit?) had taken us South in 1929 and we stayed there, more or less, despite poking and prodding and sometimes prodding and poking. Bear in mind, the nanny state (as those on the right have taken to calling aspects of our social safety net they hate) did not yet exist. There was no Social Security, no Medicare or Medicaid-no food stamps, no heating assistance. Nothing but the kindness of strangers and the outreach of religious orders and charitable organizations.

How different was the United States of 1940 from the one in which we live today? More than you'd ever dream but far less than you're likely to believe. Dive in and find out for yourself. Save those sepia tinted eyeglasses for reruns of the Jersey Shore-perhaps they'll be better with age, though I doubt it. The big lesson to learn as you glance through the information trying to form a picture of life 'back then' is that we were far more worse off than we are (even) now. And we survived; actually, we triumphed. It's sadness or euphoria and we need to be all in.
-bill kenny  

With apologies to Lee

Years ago, in another life, I used to listen to a radio show that had an edit of the Jefferson Airplane live at Woodstock attempting Volunteers in the wee small hours of the morning, an offering Grace Slick claimed was 'morning maniac music.' At some point, long after he'd made a name for himself, the fellow who invented the show rotated back 'to the world' as we used to call it and I ended up in his chair, where I stayed for a number of years.

I thought about Lee, who'd hosted that show, and about Maniac Music over the weekend, after he and I had exchanged some notes on a recent release from a denizen of the swamps of Jersey whose odes to Wendy and hemi-powered drones have resonated with music fans literally around the world. I'm a lost cause, I admit; he could record the white pages from Manhattan and I'd purchase it. As a matter of fact, he may already done so.

I am a bit dismayed at how I haven't mellowed in my dotage, or near-dotage (it's not yet official but approaches). Having been a thirty and forty something year old who attempted quite often to stay the middle course and see the merit in the vitriol masquerading as debate from both ends of the lunatic fringe, I've awakened to the realization that the ideologues are ruining our country. I don't really care whether you see yourself as Tea Party Hearty or one of the 99% but if you're swallowing your own snake oil in terms of whose to bless and whose to blame, you and me, my friend, we're coming to the place where the road and sky collide.

I've been getting cranked emotionally on the way  to work on Monday mornings hurtling past the wonders in the woods of Southeastern Connecticut after a weekend off, knowing I have to get out of the car at the office with a smiley face, a song in my heart and my "A" game already in gear. This is the tune I've been using to get pumped, I'm calling it Monday maniac music (hence the apology to Lee at the top of the page). Between now and Election Day, I fear I'm gonna wear the song out reminding myself and anyone who'll listen (= you) that each of us and ALL of us are what makes this nation the last best hope of the world.

We seem to have some doubts about that at the moment and we need to remember we can never forget the sacrifices of all of those who've come before us and those that will be made by those who are to follow. "They died building the railroads, worked to bones and skin. They died in the fields and factories, names scattered in the wind. They died to get here a hundred years ago, they're still dyin' now. The hands that built the country, we're always trying to keep down."   
-bill kenny

A Parting and not a Pause

I like to think one of the things that sets us apart from the beasts and birds of the field, or a large number of them at least, is an ability to fall in love, and concomitantly, an ability to break our hearts when we fall out of love. I can remember as a kid growing up when adults in the neighborhood got a divorce, it was rare back in my day but it happened, both parents moved away. I lost more than one friend that way-which I always found unfair, as we (the kids) hadn't done anything; it was the stupid grown-ups.

Now, every thing's up to date-we have no fault divorce. 'No fault' anything may be my generation's most lasting contribution to American society and is so perfect. When you have 'no fault' we have no one needing to take responsibility-I'm okay and you're okay. We just suck really bad at whatever it was we were doing together but are unable to do anymore. No harm, no foul. Shake hands and have a really nice life.

This weekend in New York is a monument to all of this 'the least we can do is wave,' a Divorce Expo. Is this a great country, or what? Dear Forces of Evil Who Hate Us: if you leave us alone, and give us twenty years, we'll implode and you won't need to do a thing. The same country that invented sweaters for dogs and has 24/7 shopping channels on television, has figured out a way to cash in on divorce though our nearest convention center. Sponsored by Macy's. What's NOT to love? (Surprised Heublein isn't a co-sponsor.)

My wife and I have been married thirty-four years and I suspect not all of them have been as smooth as glass, despite my efforts (a small joke there, very small). We have been very fortunate and I am eternally grateful and mindful others have not been as fortunate. I think the relationship you fashion from the embers produced by the flames of passion when you first found 'the one' is at least as important as when 'what light through yonder window breaks?' becomes 'can't you remember to put the seat down when you're finished?'

You already  missed the first day-but today's schedule looks like it's chock full of great stuff (eek!). I'd think the trip to the sort-of lower West Side (Lenny says hi) is practically worth it for, if nothing else, the keynote remarks from the Hairstylist to the Stars. I wonder if there was a mixer last night? And wouldn't being a fly on the wall listening to those pick-up lines have been a delight?  I've got just the tune for the close-out singalong-it's got a terrible beat and you cannot dance to it: "In the summer, by the pool side; while the fireflies are all around me. I'll miss you when I'm lonely, I'll miss the alimony, too." Don't forget me.
-bill kenny

So Long, Sonic

I came across an item yesterday afternoon that made me sad only because I was too old when it all got started to love it the way our kids did. Sega, the creators of  Sonic the Hedgehog, is  folding up its game manufacturing operations as the corporation reaches for the clouds, marketing wise, to concentrate on digital distribution instead of wires, boxes and cartridges.

As a gaming console company, Sega is the air age equivalent of General Motors and the Too Big to Fail Big Band and we saw how that almost turned out, right? Unless you're someone who used to make or work for Oldsmobile, Pontiac or Saturn, because if you were, it really did happen to you. Looking for sympathy for the Hummer? You'll need to try in the dictionary, between $hit and syphilis, bunky.  

Anyway, who'd have thought that Mario, Mario of all people!, would be the last man standing. I guess Sega feels like Atari felt back in the 70's when the world was their oyster until everyone else showed up with a game cartridge or console that blew the doors off of theirs. I just hope Sonic invested its money wisely (notice how I avoided both the feminine and masculine pronoun? Mama didn't raise no fools) and can afford a nice spread somewhere South of Miami where it can play checkers and clip coupons, waiting for that annuity check to show up the first of the month.

"Let me tell you about the Proto Culture.
If you don't know the culture, here's the whole structure.
We've had enough of that lackluster, trust us.
We get the kind of games you can't rent at Blockbuster."
Least-wise, anymore. Word.
-bill kenny

The Best that Ever Was

Most of us go through life secretly proud of something we are or we can do. Whether or not anyone else can see how good we are at whatever it is might be a matter of debate but we tend to think of ourselves as ‘pretty good.’  Not so with Earl Scruggs who died Wednesday at the age of 88 and who lived more in those nearly nine decades than most anyone else you or I will ever know.

I love all kinds of music, some more than others and some perilously close to NOT at all (crunk, I’m talking about you). In the interests of total disclosure I will concede I am not a big country and western guy which is not very important in this context because Earl Scruggs transcended the labels so many people try to put on one another and always managed to not stay in the particular boxes that so many worked so hard to keep him in.

The obit shows the range of his musical involvement and if all you know about Bill Monroe is what you read a moment ago, go wander around the audio and video files online because he was amazing (I think of him, in his day, as the John Mayall of Appalachian Americana, in that he created a musical environment towards which talented musicians gravitated). If the only music Earl Scruggs ever made and played were with Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, his passing would still be noteworthy.

But, he played with, and for, everyone making Music, with a deliberate capital M for his enjoyment first and foremost and if the rest of us got something out of it that was fine, too. I met him, as a rock and roll kid on an early eighties Bob Dylan in Germany tour, where Dylan was born again and treating his catalog like it was someone he barely knew.

Scruggs wasn’t playing in Dylan’s band; he was friends with a pair of musicians who were and he was kibitzing with them backstage at the Mannheim Eis Stadion an outdoor arena with a cover, not unlike the Garden State Arts Center, but with concrete seats, as befitted an ice hockey arena.

He joined in an interview Dylan was kind enough to do after a sound check that had been similar to a cat dropped into a blender (electric instruments and hard surfaces make for odd bedfellows) and I was overwhelmed at the catholicity of his knowledge of various musics but also by the brilliance of his observations on any and every topic that came his way.

The interview was much more Earl than Bob which discomfited the former and didn’t faze the latter and was a huge success the late night I unspooled it on a rock radio show referred to in-house as “Diving for Dopers.” That I wore a snorkel and had Red Cross certification in CPR was, in hindsight, not the right message to be sending to management. The phones lit up to rave about the musician and the man. It was quite a time.

Earl Scruggs was a genius and a gentleman of the first order and we are all poorer today for his passing.

-bill kenny

The Revenge of James Nasium

It's still dark when I go to work-it's not a requirement or a court mandate that it be dark so that I can go to work, it just is. I mention that because it's easier to understand there's not a lot of premium on what I look like stepping out our back door at the hour that I'm stepping.

On a hanger, most, though not all, days, are my work clothes-a dress shirt, tie, trousers, belt or braces (very rarely). I'm in some form of sweats from the well-known athletic clothing firm, Grunge Funky or is it Frunge Gunky? It ain't Aeropostale, that much I do know.

I have a routine as I carry my messenger bag (I gave up on briefcases; they don't hold enough other stuff and they are unwilling to change shapes to fit into tight spaces) on my left shoulder with my work clothes in my left hand as I hang on to my 'please let me in the building' credentials that -ta-da! actually let me in the building.

There have been days when I was more asleep than I realized as I left the house and I've arrived at work to learn as I've opened the rear door and reached for the work clothes they are still on the clothes hanger mounted on the cabinet nearest the back door so that I can see them as I leave and thus, never forget them. Unless and except when I do. We have a lot of fun in that wing of the building on days when that happens. Yep, it's a laugh riot.

I have about an hour after I arrive to finish whatever project, like Banquo's Ghost, is still lingering and get started on something new before I step outside and across the tarmac that's part of a large construction project that never seems to get done, and make my way to the gym, sorry, to the fitness center. It's like no one wears sneakers anymore, they wear sports shoes. That's because they don't go to the gym, they go to the fitness center to work off all that pasta, not noodles, from the night before. We are the only species on the planet with language skills so highly developed that we invent words to obfuscate, not illuminate, and prefer it that way.    

I'm in love with the elliptical cross trainer even though I actually hate it. I go at it like a maniac for thirty one minutes (don't ask, you don't want to know) and still don't understand what the heck the 'cool down' control is supposed to do or be. No matter-as it happens I have a lot of other questions bigger than that one and I added to them Tuesday by being a wiseguy. Again.

I know. Me? A wise guy. Happens to the best of us. I've been aware for days that at the next machine over, about ten minutes after I start, a guy shows up and works out while watching the Fox News Channel (one of the reasons I avoid that device; I like the brick wall when I look up). By the time I finish my vascular vacation, I am even less physically appealing than normal, steamy and sweaty  with an aroma that would cause roadkill to get up and run as I approached it.

Fortunately I always have my scintillating wit as an ally. Sometimes, early in the morning, it seems a lot more like snarkiness than is a good idea. That's why Tuesday, the guy on the neighboring machine made it a point to tell me 'you're always here before I get here; you must get up before I do' as I was puddling on the floor standing alongside of the Cross Trainer from Hades waiting for him to get to his point after flagging me down as I was leaving.

It took me a minute to realize Captain Obvious was already there and was actually waiting for me to volley the conversation back over the net. Here's the thing: I have three minutes to get back to my building, up the stairs to the fifth floor and into the shower for four minutes of slather and rinse and then change into my Clark Kent outfit (damn Yellow Sun!) and begin my workday. Synchronize watches and welcome to Not a Moment to Lose. He who hesitates is lunch.

I peered at the fellow since I'd left my glasses (seamless bifocals, it's what all the no longer young dudes are wearing now) back in the office as they get fogged up and sweaty before finally focusing on him. I explained without a hint of what I am told is a winsome smile that I didn't get up earlier than he did, but rather, that I was homeless and the folks in the gym let me sleep there at night. He actually stopped in mid cross-train, with a look on his face I can't quite describe and then stepped off the device and left. Didn't even wipe it down. I noticed yesterday morning he was nowhere to be found. Sniff, sniff. I smell trend.

Guess I didn't know my own strength. I've got my eye on one of those shiny new spinning bicycles they just got in. I even have my own bell and two thumbs. At last count there are only four folks riding those things-I figure in two weeks I'll be making like Duna at The Pension Grillparzer. And won't Bill O'Reilly be amazed.
-bill kenny          

A Break in the Battle

We're less than a month away from the serious part of the municipal calendar-when the elected leadership of the City Council together with the City Manager and his professional department directors sit down as the Board of Education and its Superintendent of Schools have done and prioritize and finalize funding requests, analyze the costs of goods and services and calculate and create an annual municipal operating budget.

If you've lived here a year, a decade or a lifetime, you already know how this works. And across the country, perhaps there are variations in the calendar, but it's pretty much the same movie with a different cast. And speaking of movies, the plot rarely changes and the outcome, despite being known in advance is often still a struggle to accept.

We, the people, want as much as we can have from teachers through paved roads, secure bridges and tunnels to public safety professionals and equipment without having to pay any more for any of it than we already are. Ask anyone anywhere how much he/she pays in taxes and the answer (say it with me) is always 'too much.' Norwich is no exception, though we have many exceptional people.

A wag, living in a city not too unlike ours I suspect, once suggested if a fine is a tax for doing the wrong thing than a tax is a fine for doing the right thing. And if you've ever made a major improvement to your home or business, purchased new equipment or bought a new car, your property tax bill has probably made you a believer in that saying.

Where you think budget priorities should be set depends on who and where you are in the city. If you have a business, you'll want more investment for infrastructure and public safety. If you have kids in school you'll support the Board of Education's request for funding. And everywhere you go in terms of mission statements and dollars to accomplish those goals, every department across the city can make a case for why it has to have the exact number of dollars it has requested.

Our challenge as a city isn't so much our will to improve as the size of our wallet to purchase all the improvements we desire. If wanting to be successful were enough, we'd have a downtown jammed with destination stores crowded with people, generating rental income, sales taxes, utilities payments and enhancing not only our tax base but also our community's gross domestic product.

But until we have businesses willing to invest in moving to or enlarging their current Norwich address, much of the city's tax burden will be shouldered by the owners of private property-people who have been on the shortest end of the short stick of a terrible economy for too many years. Don't lose sight of a basic fact-when it was Boom Times here in the Land of the Round Door Knobs, it didn't quite boom so much in New England where all the infrastructure costs and investments were higher and larger and the good times weren't nearly as good or as long as they were elsewhere.

Drive-by slogans, bumper sticker mantras and simple solutions-whether in print from a once a week columnist or from anonymous on-line commentators at the bottom of those editorial observations aren't going to help the neighbors we chose as our representatives last fall as they sit in City Council chambers this spring and try to make the best decisions they can for the greatest number of residents.

Our representative system of government requires our participation in every budget hearing, in every workshop-don't leave it to somebody else- to both speak about our concerns and desires but also to listen to one another. Knowing the right thing to do isn't always the popular thing is of small solace when residents descend on a Council meeting with often competing demands for simultaneous increases and reductions in both services and taxes. We'd all like to lose ten pounds, but none of us like to diet. We can have both as long as we don't weigh ourselves and after we do, we have to agree to NOT blame the scale.
-bill kenny