After my friend Robert died and I wrote a heartfelt eulogy, containing thoughts and feelings that I had not bothered to share with Robert openly and completely before he died, I vowed to at least attempt to show my appreciation for the living, the people who love me, move me, kick my ass when it needs to be kicked and who, though certainly not perfect, appear to be well-centered, not just in their words, but in their actions. So far, I’ve written appreciations for a singer I don’t know and for this crazy, wonderful and wacky country that I love dearly. Now it’s time to move to a few folks I DO know.

Exception to the previous paragraph: My dad
My dad died at the RiDICuLous age of 59. I’m not that far away from that terminal year of my dad. I do not obsess about this..I don’t understand the complexity of genetics, but it does give me pause. My dad was an art teacher, and fashioned a world where respect for his Maker, love of sharing his passion about his art and his spirituality lead him to live one of the most blessed lives I’ve ever known. He was the child of the great depression and he wasn’t good at saying ‘I love you’ often. What I’ve come to learn (yeah, I got a piece of his wisdom)is that his every waking step with me though his life contained the words ‘I love you unconditionally’. He taught me that a man who understands and gives boundaries to his passion (a good number of feet from addiction), but who lives in his passion is a lucky man indeed. Ironically, this lead me to understand why Keith Richards is still alive. Watch the man when he is playing his guitar mid-song. You’ll understand.

My wife: I’ve told a few people this already, but I pulled the anti-Oedipal bit off..I married my dad. And I mean that in the highest extent of honor. My dad and wife, Lynn, were and are both incredibly hard working people. As an avid practitioner of one of the seven deadly sins (sloth), this has worked out quite well for me. I am as moved by her touch as when we were married almost 32 years ago (she may have touched me before that..) and I have come to understand, with some of that inherited wisdom, that I myself am a lucky man because of her. We’ve had some rough months, and even a rough year or two, but we both know it matters, and despite my occasional inanity, she puts up with me. Lynn, like my dad, is an artist and a true lover of the arts. When she is caught up in her painting, she glows, just like my dad in a classroom.

A few friends:
Roger Dinwiddie. I came to know Roger because my daughter is his daughter’s best friend. We spent some time together and I immediately was impressed. Sadly, when I was, in my younger years, around people who REALLY impressed me off the bat and seem to carry themselves in ways I can’t begin to attain, I often become aphasic and begin flapping and stuttering. Then I realized that the guy was way more impressive than I imagined. He’s a nationally known figure in education, the effects of bullying in education, substance abuse..and he’s the president of STARS. Look it up sometime..If I didn’t get aphasic when I met you, it’s because I’ve grown a bit, thanks to this guy!

More importantly, in my life (hey, this is still about me), he has been an incredible friend. Fierce, funny, inspirational and wise. If for no other reason than one phone call I made to him in anger (anger not directed at Roger), and he called ‘bullshit’ on my anger (I was actually totally irate with the person in the previous ’sketch’). I was throwing verbal punches and just feeling so sorry for myself, the victim, the victim, the victim, and Roger called me on it, and told me that I had to get myself (he perhaps used another word at this point) together, and then proceeded to explain how to start. And he helped me walk through the fire to the beginnings of the truth (I didn’t have myself together, and like the cliche’ goes, when you are pointing one finger there are more pointing right back at yourself). It took a friend to get me to that point, and I am honored by his friendship. Plus he has one amazingly wonderful and talented and clever wife, Suzanne!

Dennis Dumbauld: Dennis is retired military. He’s in great shape, both mentally and physically. We don’t think alike or process alike. When I was getting whiny in something I wrote, he called me on it. I didn’t necessarily like his wording, but it didn’t take me long to realize something way more important. He was being a friend, and friends who are true, will call you on the things that need to be said.

Much more importantly, for his family, Dennis and his beautiful and wonderful and generous wife Josie, have molded a family that is individualistic and as healthy (in all aspects of life) as any family I’ve ever known. His kids are not perfect (similar to most kids), but they are so together. They have certainly figured a lot of this on their own, but it came to them quickly, because of Dennis (and Josie’s) completely unconditional love for those kids. His friendship is unconditional too. We process differently, but there are not many men I admire more than Dennis.

Another father and friend: Phil Kendrick

Phil is the brother of Robert, whose passing made me want to appreciate others in a more visible way while they are still here on earth. Phil has one of the greatest blueprints I’ve ever known for being a dad (his own dad). A brilliant combination of wisdom and humor cannot be repressed. He and his also-wise and wonderful wife, Karen, have fathered 5 boys and are now grandparents. I’ve told more than one person this bit: If a space alien landed and for some reason asked me to show him what a family should look like, I’d drive him out to Phil’s and tell the alien to shut up and observe. Seriously.

Another friend:
Susan Barber. Susan is the most generous person I have ever known (and it’s not like I wasn’t parented by generous people). She is steady and smart and funny and I have eaten lunch with her more times than anyone on the face of this earth, and I’m ready to go again (she’s out of the country and I’m missing her!). She gives her time and much much more, even though she keeps long work hours and participates (and has participated) in most every sport known to (wo)man. Leg and knee surgery have slowed her pace, but they have not stopped her from marathoning, playing soccer, playing tennis, playing golf, playing ultimate frisbee, inventing other games, and so many more things that I get tired just thinking about it.

At a time in my life when my wife needed a friend to help deal with me (I have been a pill more than once), Susan gave great assurance and friendship to Lynn, and had a lot to do with the healing process. There are many more, equally impressive deeds, but that is one that I will never forget, and one for which I am eternally grateful.

There are many many more of you out there. I plan to do keep this series going. But it’s late and I’m really missing my out-of-town wife and I can’t put off sleep much longer. Also, if you are on the list, I’m not asking for a loan or a reference.

In closing, I’d like to say a word about Don Finto, the man who led Belmont church from a small smattering of folks to a wondrous group of sojourners. Don spoke at Robert’s funeral.Even if you are not nearly on the same page spiritually with this man, and I really haven’t been around him much in years, and differ greatly in places, you cannot help but be moved by this guy.

My dad taught me something with his artistic eye that many people have heard, but few understand as well as a man of his observational powers. He explained that a person gets the face they deserve in the later years of their life. We’re not talking superficial standards of beauty here, but you probably know what I’m talking about. A negative person will have lines in their face that a centered person cannot (and should not) dream about. A centered person may be disguised as someone not so beautiful, but if you keep looking, you see untold depths. The fact that I may not be in the same place as Don Finto is not the primary point. The fact is that there is not a more beautiful 79 year old person on this planet…outside, in.

Anyone who can read and/or hear in any fashion knows that we’ve been deluged with a cascade of famous people passing on..many of us have faced loss on a far more personal and poignant level. We often declare to others and to ourselves that THIS TIME we’ll treat others better, appreciate the small things, live life more fully, etc etc etc, only to find ourselves back in the rut of the day-to-day rinse lather repeat rhythm that weakens the resolve to climb higher and seek the noble.

It really is hard to change. I’ve promised myself that I will..and maybe I’ve grown (perhaps you more than I), but it’s easy to norm, and pretty natural.

After my friend Robert died, and I wrote an appreciation AFTER the fact, I have vowed to appreciate my friends more, openly and, at times, in writing. Patty Griffin isn’t really my friend, even though I wish I knew her. There are few celebrities I really want to meet. I think I’d have little to say and perhaps I’d be disappointed that they really aren’t much different than most.

Patty G is a singer and a songwriter of the highest level. I’m not sure what I’d say first, but I’d love to sit on the front porch with a coffee or some other brew and just delve into what she finds interesting. I’d love to tell her that ‘Long Walk Home’ should be taught in English classes everywhere because it’s a great short story in song, with hints that can be richly explored. I want to tell her that the first time I heard ‘Flaming Red’ in a Borders Book store listening station in Knoxville I knew I had found someone who moved me as much as Otis Redding and Sam Cooke did when I was a kid listening to WLAC on my transistor radio.

I love that Patty has such a big voice in such a small frame. I love the flaming red hair and when she croons and when she rocks. I’ve been to many of her shows, including the Ryman Aditorium concert that was later released as a concert CD (I told my wife after the show that this would make a great recording – I’m such a genius), a concert that made the audience members laugh, cry and actually shut up with the chatter. You really could have heard a pin drop. She’s that good.

‘Oh Heavely Day’ still brings chills. Nothing but ‘Blue Skies’ still elevates my spirit. I just wanted to say all this while someone I appreciate and adore is still with us…

Thank you, Patty.

I’m 12 years old and I hear ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ on the radio and I rush over to Zibart’s in Green Hills and I buy the single, and I play that sucker about 200 times in a row trying to figure out what this mad genius is talking about and then I turn the single over and it’s something called ‘Gates of Eden’ and I play that roughly the same number of times and it’s even more obscure, and somewhere in the middle of all that comes my mother’s voice asking me to PLEASE turn that awful music down and why would anyone want to listen to that, and then I turn it down a little bit, but that amazing Al Kooper organ just moves me so much and then I turn it BACK UP to 11 and the mother’s voice gets a little louder and I realize that I’m risking hearing my freakin’ father’s voice, which I do not want to hear in that context, so I turn it down, but in my heart, Dylan is ringing off the walls and peeling the paint on my closed bedroom door. The Beatles are on the hi-fi and they are twisting and shouting and I’m about to just explode because it’s that part of the song where they all go ah-ah-ah-ah in harmony each time going a little higher and I’m going a little higher even though the properties of marijuana are, as yet, unknown to me, and I’m singing my little butt off even though in no way, shape or form could my caterwauling be misconstrued as really singing, and I’m so happy I forgot that I had to go to church like 7 straight nights for a gospel meeting in which I will personally be stared at by 37 old women who are badgering me to be baptized but I’m stubborn like that and besides Bob Dylan saved me, John Lennon saved me, Chuck Berry saved me and I”m just about to start speaking in musical tongues when my mother’s voice high-pitches me upside the head: TURN IT DOWN. What’s a young skinny boy supposed to do? I can’t sing in a rock and roll band, but I’m starting to realize that I had the music in me, even if it is somebody elses music, lyrics and beat, and why do I have to turn IT DOWN? It’s my life, it’s alright ma, I’m only exceeding everything I knew before. I’m 16 and driving the Old’s wagon down the road and I”m picking up a date and I’m listening to Mick tell somebody to get off his cloud and I pick somebody up and they ask me to please turn it down and I want to say, IT”S THE STONES, but I realize that I won’t be going on many dates if I start yelling on one of my very first ‘car’ dates, so I turn it down, but I know already that this girl can’t be THE ONE because she wants me to turn down the Stones, the greatest rock n’ roll band that ever existed in 1968. I’m in love, I’m in college and her name is Gail and she appreciates the music and she grew up with the music playing loud, but she is tired of the loud and I’m trying to get her to understand that Lowell George is a freaking genius and she smiles and says yes, he’s good, but it is too loud and like a good boyfriend, I turn it down. Didn’t anyone understand that they were tearing another little piece of my heart?. My kid is about 5 months old and I’m married and it’s not my college girlfriend and I’m happy as the kid in Almost Famous and I’m arguing with my wife that if the kid is spoiled by having the music turned down low, he’ll never be used to hearing music correctly and he’ll cry at the drop of a turntable needle, and of course I lose that argument. Will I ever get to TURN IT UP? Many years later and the kids are grown (the very same damn kids who asked me to TURN the car radio down when I was driving them places) and we are not in a ‘good place’ and I feel at the end of a rope and I don’t know what to give (helpless, helpless, helpless) and I don’t know what to do, and then I hear this Patty Griffin song with tinge of gospel and a lot of soul and I sure she’ll love it and I can’t wait to play it for her when we go out on a Friday night and I’ve got it ‘cued’ up on the car CD player and I know she’s going to love it and we take off in the car and I crank it up thinking that this is my perfect gift to her, and of course she asks me to turn it down, and my heart just breaks in 15 places and I just want to turn around, go home and turn up some Stones, but you know the rest.

I’m not expecting you to answer any questions, because why would idiots answer questions (not that anyone reading this is an idiot)? They would assume, make silly-wild-ass guesses, postulate based upon nothing more they heard on talk radio or something their uncle told them when they were nine and it stuck for no other reason than the opinion came along with a stick of gum.

Do you forget to use your turn signal when you are changing lanes in heavy interstate traffic?

Do you forget to turn OFF your turn signal after you’ve driven a mile since you changed lanes?

Do you speculate on pivotal plot points OUT LOUD during the movie when others are merely content to silently contemplate those very points?

Do you repeat the same exact thing you just said three or four times, each time more loudly, when no one responds not knowing you are being ignored?

Do you yell at your computer when it’s moving too slowly for your taste?

Do you use anger to underline your point even though anger is the very thing that makes the person you are talking to quit listening?

Are you afraid to admit you like some TV show/movie/book/song/play just because the people around you are mocking that very piece of art?

Do you choose not to say I love you when it would be quite beneficial to the one you love?

Do you keep talking long past the time when it would be really good to just be quiet?

Do you avoid it hoping that maybe someone else will just up and do it?

Do you assume your friends know how much they mean to you just because you think about how much they mean to you?

Does fear stop you from doing the thing you need to do the most?

Do you really think you are in control?

Well, I’m one or more of that kind of idiot. You get to decide about yourself.

I don’t know about you, but where I work, it’s that time of year where we have a chance to donate to the United Way. If you haven’t specified your United Way donation, or haven’t decided to donate yet, I urge to consider the Magdalene House. Magdalene was started in 1977 by Becca Stevens. Becca is a hero. Listen to what they do (and consider that their success rate is over 90%):

Magdalene is a two-year residential community founded in Nashville, Tennessee in 1997 for women with a history of prostitution and drug addiction. Magdalene was founded not just to help a sub-culture of women, but to help change the culture itself. We stand in solidarity with women who are recovering from sexual abuse, violence, and life on the streets, and who have paid dearly for a culture that buys and sells women like commodities. At no cost, we offer women a safe, disciplined, and compassionate community for two years, paid for by the gifts we receive from individuals and private grants. Magdalene stands as a witness to the truth that in the end, love is more powerful than all the forces that drive women to the streets.

I can’t say it any better than that. Here’s a link to the Magdalene site (including a way to donate directly): Magdalene

Scene: A seemingly forsaken warehouse somewhere in the south side of Chicago. We see stairs leading to the basement..if we look closer, we see a sign – ‘Terrorists Entrance’. We peek inside…around a red-stained round table sit a dazed looking Barack Obama, William Ayers, the ghosts of Huey Newton and Harvey Milk sharing a bench with Angela Davis, along with a lot of other shadowy sketchy-looking leftist-types all wearing ‘Che’ t-shirts sipping on some concoction that appears to have beets as the key component…listen closely:

Obama, in a trance-like whisper: ‘Yes, William Ayers, the word ‘Allah’ will be substituted for ‘God’ on every government building and all coinage’.

Harvey Milk pours forth: ‘And, Barack, don’t forget the boy scouts..you’ve GOT to demand gay scout masters..in fact, that should be mandatory, and the military…not just don’t ask, don’t tell, but the military should be 100% gay. The fighting elan factor would never be higher..the comraderie, the themed uniforms, the life in the trenches…you’ve GOT to do this Obama’.

Obama nods his head.

Angela Davis rises, fist upraised and her heart uplifted…’and abortion..not just on demand, but as a demand, for all women who want to raise their children as Christians or as heterosexuals’.

‘Yes, Sister Davis’, Obama says without blinking, with a thousand yard stare seen more commonly in the nearby shooting galleries.

‘And Brother Obama’, a wispy Huey intones, ‘only atheists on the Supreme Court, and they really should be Muslim atheists, if you know what I mean’.

Angela raises her fist towards Huey and in a sharp voice barks, ‘They need to be female lesbian Muslim atheists Huey’, while Harvey milks his beet frappe, nodding to a Joy Division tune only he can hear.

‘Back to the Boy Scouts’, a leering Ayers rang out ..’we should only allow DWARVES instead of boys..boys should be in re-education school learning why white males are the lowest form of carbon-based life in existence’

‘Sing on bother William’, a surprisingly spry Newton spat out a fig and spoke some more, ‘And those Bush-Cheney bastards..let’s break into the archives, find all the things they did wrong and send em’ to Folsom prison. Maybe one of our pyrotechnical friends will conjure up a burning bush, if you know what i mean’.

Chuckles all around the table.

Ayers scratched his head and exclaimed..’oh yeah, those dwarf fake boy scouts..they’ve gotta be GAY’!!

Amens abounded, bouncing off of the posters lining the wall – Mao, Fidel, Ted Kennedy, Stokely Carmichael, and Dave Kopay.

‘What about gay marriage?’, chimed in Milk. ‘Don’t you think that people should sign some kind of document stating that they have had at least a gay thought before they are allowed to be married’?

‘Marriage, smcarriage’ snorted Angela D. In a free and open society, the ashes of chattle-dom should be buried along with Christian broadcasting, and Christian schools’!

Ayers aired out a hearty ‘Amen’, sista D’, before glancing over at Obama to make sure he was still under hypnosis. ‘We better hurry up, we gotta get Brother Barack over to Grant Park for the biggest speech of his life’.

‘You’re right’, Harvey Milk-ed, but one more thing: ‘All TV shows must contain at least two egregiously pornographic scenes and no violence’…

At that, Obama awoke with a smile on his face…’my dreams have come true…watch out America’.

A scant moment later, Barney Frank drove up in a black limo, and whisked Obama away to make the speech of his life..

uh, i’m kidding, you know. It’s going to be ok, really..I promise.

My friend Vic and I are martyrs. If Vanderbilt University bestowed some type of special semi-saint status on followers of their football follies, we, along with a LOT of Vanderbilt bleeders would be enshrined.

I’ve been following the Vandy football team for more years than a lot of you have been strolling this mortal coil. I’ve been disappointed pretty much every one of those years. A person would think that after a few rug-pulled-out-from-under-you-Charlie-Browned seasons in the black-gold sun, a person would come to realize that no matter how good the team looks for a half or a game or a series of games, that exact same team will sneak up behind you and just bite you in your lower expectations.

Vic called me up yesterday and suggested we attend the Vandy-Duke game. Even though I continue to hope, my hope is not so pollyann-ish that I buy season tickets anymore. I didn’t have tickets for the game already, but I was pretty sure I could score some seats out on Natchez Trace before the game. No problem there.

We had high expectations. Many of you know that Vandy started out 5-0 this season, with some pretty good wins on the road and at home. Their defense had been stalwart, and their offense, although a bit erratic, had managed to outscore the other team for five straight games to open the season, which is kind of the point of playing. The previous two games had been losses, but they were on the road and they were SEC games, so I really didn’t think that the season had come to the usual stand-still after 4 or 5 wins.

HA. I wish I had a bitter key that could emblazon that HA over there to the left with a singe of bitter HA-NESS. It was a beautiful day for football yesterday, but it was also a deja vu for Vandy fans. There was the initial interception, the missed field goals, the key fumbles, the missed blocks, the missed tackles, the cornerback who managed to cover his assigned receiver but who had no clue to look up to see that the ball was literally passing within two feet over his head, and there was so much, so much more. Seasons in the setting sun passed before me, as I lay dying in my assigned seat.

Inept play calling, inept time management, blunders of seasons passed, blunders of seasons present. It was homecoming at Vandy yesterday, and sadly, I felt right at home. A team that had given me an early bouquet of expectations, a team that had actually been ranked and looked like a contender, was little more than my usual still-beloved Vandy pretender. If there is comfort and solace in the familiar, I should be as comfortable as a worn-in pair of house slippers.

Oh Vandy…why do I still love you…why do I still believe? At least basketball is coming and that manages to be fun pretty much all season long.

Like George Costanza running for the phone with his pants down to his ankles, voting officials in six states are displaying the competence of FEMA in New Orleans in their rush to ‘help voters’ and comply with the ‘Help America Vote Act of 2002′.  According to the New York Times, officials in six states are so busy illegally purging the voter rolls that for every new voter registered in the past few months, two voters are removed.    In three states – Colorado, Louisiana and Michigan – the number of voters removed from the rolls far exceed the number of voters who died or relocated.  George Orwell would be SO proud.

Apparently, in a gust of sheer democratic frenzy, voting officials decided to use records from the Social Security Administration as a primary means of removing voters from the roles, despite an agreement that the SSN numbers were to be used ONLY as a means of LAST resort.  SSN officials are worried that many voters are going to be blocked from voting, even though voting rolls are not supposed to be pared 90 days before the election unless the voter has died, moved out of state or have been declared unfit to vote.

I don’t know what is more troubling – a confused angry mass of people who will be denied their inalienable right to vote or the fact that SSN numbers are considered somewhat inaccurate by the very administrative body that deals runs the SSN joint.

Nobody is saying that this is a ‘GOP’ or ‘Democratic party’ conspiracy, but truth be told, the Demo get out the vote push this year is supposedly harvesting a lot more votes than its Republican counterparts.  It seems pretty obvious who is gonna lose the most votes, come election day.  We are talking about hundreds of thousands of votes.  My memory is fading admittedly, but I do believe in 2000, a few THOUSAND votes made all the difference.

Bottom line, the axiom that has rung true for eight years continues to carry the day: If you appoint people to run government agencies who don’t believe government can work, their prophesies will be fulfilled.

The media has a lot of damn nerve expecting Veep candidate Sarah Palin to actually answer THEIR questions.  Palin has her answers – maverick – and she is gonna give em’ regardless of the questions.  The so-called debate last Thursday night – maverick – was little more than another chance for Palin to give her well-coached stump speech.  Her call for more ‘Joe Six-Pack’ was but a feeble chimera of faux-populism that will hopefully fall as flat as the current ‘half-of-a-six-pack’ running the country.

And now she has the you-betcha chutzpuh – maverick – to deride Obama for pal-ling around with a ‘radical’ who actually performed his radical acts when Obama was all of eight years old.  Is that all you got, Palin?  Has it come to THiS?  I know that it’s traditional for the Veep candidate to be the attack dog, but this canine doesn’t even have lipstick.  This is nothing more than blip-schtick, unworthy of even Joe McCarthy’s fabled list of the fifties.

Here’s a woman who sleeps with a man who seriously wanted Alaska to secede from the United States of America, and is running with a man who was against torturing prisoners and now is FOR torturing prisoners, who was AGAINST regulating the sub-prime lenders but who is now suddenly going to regulate the stuffing out of them – maverick -, a man who is either for or against off-shore drilling (I can’t remember where he stands NOW) and she’s gonna play the the Obama had a bad friend game?   How about Charles Keating..how about the sick people who smeared McCain back in 2000 working for Karl Rove at the time who are now working FOR McCain.  Forget all this…how in God’s name is Sarah Palin remotely qualified to run this country?  Oh yeah, she loves Israel and Jesus and Joe Six-Pack and hockey moms and can see Russia from her freaking house?

I am actually optimistic that the people of this country are tired of the anti-intellectualism neo-con,  con game stooges who have been ruining our country.  I’m optimistic that the people of this country will see though the stunt nomination of Sarah Palin and the suspension of the campaign and the flip-floppery opportunism of Senator McCain, a man – maverick – who has become little more than the re-incarnation of the current failure-in-chief.

If this is really all you got, Ms Palin – maverick – then bless your heart.