Daily Blues & Views

With the testimony of Dr. Blasey Ford before Congress, I'm sure many folks are trying to remember some of the high school parties they attended.  This is all the more difficult depending on the type and amount of beverages present.  I suspect social class plays a significant role too. Some indisputable evidence that has come out of these hearings and their aftermath is that alcohol was a huge part of the equation back in the 1980s, the setting for this particular situation. Frat parties and exclusive private boys schools clubs have always been about getting drunk.  The degree to which one imbibes seems to be the significant factor here.  But, inebriation is not the topic here, high school parties are. Do you remember many high school parties you attended?  I do...at least a few.  They seem to revolve around events rather than what we drank.  Growing up in Southern California, many of those I recall revolved around a swimming pool. As a high...

A couple of weeks ago I met a wonderful young man just about to begin his career in one of the more stressful helping professions.  Robbie is a sharp, well groomed, young professional who will soon be working with folks that have been diagnosed with all manner of mental illnesses.  Like so many young folks I meet, he had education debt, but also the energy and intellectual curiosity of someone who would make a great friend. We met at a small dinner party organized around the fact that all attendees had helped one of our neighbors when he sustained an injury that left him on crutches for the better part of 6 months. Since Robbie will soon be moving about an hour away, the little get together had even more meaning.  Some of my neighbors and I had helped our injured friend without ever meeting each other.  This dinner would remedy that. The dinner went well.  We talked politics, film, art, and a smattering of neighborhood news.  Before the evening...

Last week I made my annual pilgrimage to a small lake in Central Oregon.  I've been going there for about 10 years now every September.  It's great to be in this Cascades after Labor Day because the tourist population is gone and the weather usually holds up for another month.  I had a goal.  There are some beautifully colored Brook trout in this lake and while I have no problem with catching (and releasing) a Rainbow trout, the opportunity to catch a Brookie with Fall spawning colors often eludes me.  I charged up the battery on the little digital camera that fits nicely into the pocket of my favorite fishing shirt and promptly forgot to put in in place the morning I drove the 18 miles up into the mountains from our rented guest house in Central Oregon.  The thought hit me just as I was negotiating the last mile of the horrible washboarded dirt road that dead ends at the lake.  What's the worse that could happen?  I kept asking myself.  I c...

There is a song called "Amanda" by Waylon Jennings that has a verse I've held onto for decades.  I think the song was written in the 1970s when I was in my 30s so it's easy to see the appeal because the aforementioned verse goes:                                    It's a measure of people who don't understand                                    The pleasures of life in a hillbilly band                                    I got my first guitar when I was fourteen                                    Well I finally made forty, still wearing jeans I liked the fact that at 40, I was still wearing jeans.  Levis are my jean of ...

He first appeared sometime in the mid-70s.  We thought he might be a vet with PTSD.  In retrospect, he was one of the first homeless people I recall.  Before that we had the term "shopping bag ladies" and before people used the term bum freely. In my childhood, everyone seemed to have a home.  Maybe not a house, but definitely a home.  Somewhere to go at the end of the day.  A safe place; a campsite. We didn't know what to make of him because he was silent.  We wondered.  Was he broke? Hungry? Was he well? When I picture him I see him in shades of brown and black.  He was a white guy, but living on the street can make you filthy in a hurry.  His clothing was tattered; his shoes barely had soles.  He walked...a lot. People gave him a nickname: "the victim." "I saw the victim today, " they'd say.  He was down on Telegraph and Ashby, making his way back to College Avenue.  He walked long stretches but by late aftern...

Irwin Shaw said in his famous short story, "Tip of a Dead Jockey," "...In this age there comes a time when everyone finds that he is forced to gamble--and not for money, and not only at the seller's window. And when that time comes and you are not in the habit, and it does not amuse you, you are most likely to lose." The President is a gambler. He's been forcing himself to sit at the table and go to the window more and more lately. There is no book of strategies, no Daily Racing Form for his pursuits. None is needed because this is an old tale.  The better adage might be, "A man should never gamble, more than he can stand to lose.  The President is obsessed with loyalty.  Trouble is that the concept has flipped on him.  The greater loyalty has become elevated to the Constitution and a sense of ethics.  The moral compass has turned.  Our Constitution works when tested.  Ethical people rather than the craven autocratic demigods catch more bees because ...

He is a runawy truck ramp     his face that dusty, rough, unnatural shade like the unpaved, sandy surface                    of the side road that leads up a sudden hill to nowhere. He is a RUNAWAY TRUCK RAMP,             that side option that hopefully never gets used.      It's unfinished, sudden, unlikely to stop the motion of an uncontrollable force. This ramp paints an eerie feeling,   It's impossible not to glance over when passing, It conjures images of disaster. He is a runaway truck ramp,      possessed by the possibility of function But nobody wants to travel that road.