The Chauffeur's Dilemma

I was reading Michael Lally's latest post on his blog concerning the absence of any significant working class/middle class outrage at the widening disparity between the rich and poor in this country. It reminded me of one of the most perceptive and accessible essays I have ever read on the subject: The Chauffeur's Dilemma by Arlie Hochschild.

Here are the first two paragraphs of the essay:

Let's consider our political moment through a story. Suppose a chauffeur drives a sleek limousine through the streets of New York, a millionaire in the backseat. Through the window, the millionaire spots a homeless woman and her two children huddling in the cold, sharing a loaf of bread. He orders the chauffeur to stop the car. The chauffeur opens the passenger door for the millionaire, who walks over to the mother and snatches the loaf. He slips back into the car and they drive on, leaving behind an even poorer family and a baffled crowd of sidewalk witnesses. For his part, the chauffeur feels real qualms about what his master has done, because unlike his employer, he has recently known hard times himself. But he drives on nonetheless. Let's call this the Chauffeur's Dilemma.

Absurd as it seems, we are actually witnessing this scene right now. At first blush, we might imagine that this story exaggerates our situation, but let us take a moment to count the loaves of bread that have recently changed hands and those that soon will. Then, let's ask why so many people are letting this happen.

Tom says read the whole article, especially in this "holiday" season.

The Best of Youth

Yesterday I finished watching "The Best of Youth" a six-hour saga produced for Italian television. I recommend it highly. I learned of its existence about a year ago when I started seeing it on virtually all of the "top ten" lists, which is rare for a subtitled foreign film. I ordered the first disk from Netflix way back in June, but never had the time or inclination to sit down and watch it. Time and inclination finally crossed paths and I was able to see it at last. This has got to be one of those "trust me" reviews, because the story spans 37 years from 1966 to 2003, with oodles of rich, complex characters and deep dialog (even though conveyed by subtitle), which would take me pages and pages to cover. It's got everything: family, love, sex, radical politics, mafia assassinations, flawless film making, stunning location shots in Italy, Sicily, and Norway, and so on. Suffice it to say, when it was all over, I was sad to leave the characters and their milieu behind. Tom says five out of five stars. Check it out.

Cool, very esoteric tee shirts

Oh, I just have to hip you all to a great tee shirt site. The deal here is that artists submit designs and the people using the site vote on the designs. The top vote-getters are then commercially produced and sold in limited runs. I have bought about 5 or 6 for myself and a couple as gifts. One of my favorites is a guy in a chicken suit holding the chicken head of the suit on his arm. But the hook is that the being inside the chicken suit is a chicken! In other words, where a human head should be sticking out of the suit, it's a chicken. Never ceases to crack me up, and I get lots of positive feedback from people when I wear it.

They have new releases every couple of weeks so you're sure to find something that strikes your fancy eventually. And, sometimes they will do a second run on really popular designs.

~~ Tom

Disposable Email Address

I was using Stumble Upon to surf the Web and found out about disposable email addresses. The idea here is that when you are requested to provide your email address you can create one that is disposable. Thus, your real email address is protected from spammers. The simplest but most efficient one I found was Mailinator. It allows you to create a disposable address "on the fly," which is good for a "few hours." I tried this out and it works like a charm. It does have some limitations, which are well described in the FAQ.

Something equally cool is Spamex. For a measly $9.95 a year you can sign up and create up to 500 separate email addresses. When someone sends email to one of the addresses, Spamex forwards it to your real email. What's cool is that by giving a different email address to different senders, you can find out who is giving out your email address to spammers and still never have to reveal your real address. Then, you can literally turn off that particular address. Very slick. Just to give it a test, if you want to send me an email, try DoubtingTom@spamex.com.

Gratitude

Yesterday, I held my new-born Grandson. The joy I felt was so intense I could not help but well up with tears.

Today I opened my newspaper to be greeted with a picture of an Iraqi father holding his dead baby who had been killed in a suicide bombing. The immense sadness and anger I felt was so intense I could not help but well up with tears.

I have so much to be grateful for.

~~ Tom

Waiting for snow at Squaw Valley

Hey, Eileen and I are waiting for snow! We usually get in 30 - 40 days a year of skiing in, mostly at Squaw Valley where we have season passes. At present, there is not enough snow for quality skiing, but I thought that posting some ski photos might help bring on some serious snow. Also, this is my first attempt posting photos. I haven't figured out how to move the photos around (if that is even possible) or how to order them but I'll keep working on it. In the meantime, I'll just annotate them as they appear.

Top: Eileen, my cousin Paul, and his sons, David and Matt, standing at the top of the Siberia run at Squaw Valley, March 2004. Look to the right of Matt's left shoulder and you can see Lake Tahoe below the far ridge line.

Next: That's me at Park City, Utah, last year.

Next: A shot of a portion of the Squaw Valley ski area taken from the Palisades during the summer of 2003. My son-in-law and I hiked up there on a gorgeous July day. Fools actually jump off these cliffs in the winter!

Bottom: Eileen at Park City, last year

Curdling your cream

The following is a republication of a comment I left on Michael Lally's blog in response to his very interesting trilogy of posts wherein he explores the premise that in the arts, the "cream" does not rise to the top.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The three "cream" posts got me thinking about another angle that the Lal did not cover -- curdling some of the legitimate cream that rises to the top.

Let me explain. Especially when I was in my twenties, I thought I was the coolest, hippest cat around. I was all too ready to dump on anything that I perceived as "mainstream" or an example of what I deemed to be "selling out." In looking back now, I am embarrassed over how I put down some souls who had risen to the top, but deserved to be there. In other words, I curdled my cream! I just started thinking about this today, so I don't have a huge list at this point, but here are five examples that painfully spring to mind:

1. Louis Armstrong: I, the ultra-hip jazz fan was always pooh-poohing Satch. I think a lot of it was because he was on the Sullivan show and did do some pretty pitiful stuff in those appearances. Later, a friend pulled my coat to the real Satch and I had to spend a year just listening to his old shit and wondering how I could have been such a fool. One day, about a year ago, I was driving around on a beautiful sunny day and the FM jazz station played the Ella-Louie version of "Dancing Cheek to Cheek" and I couldn't stop smiling for days.

2. Lionel Hampton: Same deal. Some pretty awful appearances on the Sullivan show. Years later, I was listening to FM jazz and heard Lionel's version of "On the Sunny Side of the Street." Literally blew me away! Again, a year spent listening to his older, and surprisingly some newer material, and realizing how totally cool that cat was.

3. David Bowie: I don't know what the hell I was thinking on this one. I used to rail about Bowie and how he wasn't really a musician, etc. Duh. Now I can't get enough of the double CD set "Best of Bowie." Now, I realize he was way ahead of me. For doubters, one of my favorite things is to play Bowie's smoldering, incredible take on the old Johnny Mathis hit "Wild is the Wind." But all the rest of it is pretty glorious too.

4. Steely Dan. Ouch. I came back from three years in Germany in 1973, and a guy at work was telling everyone how great Steely Dan was. I had heard a few things of theirs, but of course I dismissed them as being "too slick," "too commercial." Only after I hooked up with my wife in 1991 did I get hipped to how truly innovative and pioneering these guys were. Nuff said. I am REALLY embarrassed about that one.

5. James Taylor. I remember being in Europe for three years and hanging out with a guy whom I really dug, who in turn dug Baby James. I would argue with him about whether Taylor was really that good. Like everyone at that time even I recognized Carole King as irrefutable "cream," but I was just too cool to accept Taylor whom I deemed too slick, too commercial, and in addition, getting famous on Carole's coattails. The revelation in this case was gradual. I would hear one of James' great songs, with those invariably impeccable musicians and backup singers, and realize I dug it immensely, and more weird, it would flash me back to happy times in the past. Pretty soon I realized I was having that experience with pretty much everything of his that I was hearing, so I went out and bought that great double CD of his live performances, which was one of the first all-digital live recordings ever made. I still listen to it all the time.

Stumble Upon

This is a very cool service I discovered. It's free and a great way to "stumble" upon new web sites.

Why can't we find another FDR?

The other day, I was listening to Thom Hartman on the Air America affiliate here in the Bay Area. He played an audio archive of FDR's acceptance speech given to the Democratic convention in June 1936. FDR goes off on what he terms "economic royalists," taking them to task on every level. I cannot imagine a sitting President of today giving anything remotely resembling this speech.

Here is a full transcript of the speech.

Every American should read this speech.

I'm currently trying to find a link to the actual audio somewhere on the Net. If anyone knows where one can be found, please leave a comment.

Hud Rules

I had a blog on another site that eventually went fallow. Here's an entry from the defunct blog, which will hip you to a truly great movie.

December 19, 2004:Last night, I got around to watching "Hud," which I had recorded a couple of months ago in our TIVO. What an experience! The movie was made in 1963 and I saw it around that time, being all of 19 or 20 years old. For one reason or another, I had not seen it since. Last night I realized that at 19 or 20 I had not experienced the pain, loss, and disappointment necessary to understand and feel the power and depth of "Hud."

I'm guessing that many of you have not seen the movie since the 60's because it is rarely shown on TV -- black & white, perceived "downer" plot, etc. Hence, I will resist the temptation to comment on this or that scene because that would detract from the full impact of your revisiting this truly great movie. I will remind you that Patricia Neal won the Oscar for best actress, and Melvyn Douglas won the Oscar for best supporting actor. And seeing Paul Newman as Hud leaves little doubt as to why my mother and her friends thought he was the sexiest actor of the time. In that regard, I wondered why Newman did not win the Oscar (of course he was nominated). I checked and found that the award went to Sidney Poitier for "Lilies of the Field." Hmmmm.

Do yourself a huge favor. Rent the DVD and enjoy one of the great movies of all time. Trust me!

Lally's Alley

Welcome everyone. Here's my first obscure post to something cool. My dear friend Michael Lally's new blog. Dig it. Lally's Alley