Friday Night Column-Emptying the Notebook

Well, here I sit at Starbucks on Friday night for the sixth or seventh consecutive night, hanging out while my daughter Chloe is at rehearsal for her show which will be running next weekend. I'll miss this spot, although she will be starting rehearsal for the next show in a few weeks so I won't be away too long. It's interesting how quickly we get into and then out of routines, this has become my home away from home on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons, it is a comfortable spot to write, read, and grade papers, and the coffee is pretty darn good as well. I've been busy with school and life and haven't been able to write as much as I like to, but I have made a decision recently to slow down and stop working so hard because life is too short, and they just don't pay me enough to bury myself in work. Don't get me wrong, I will continue to pour my heart and soul into my work as it truly is a labor of love, but I believe strongly in balance, in keeping work in perspective, and in taking the time for my family, for my personal relationships, and for myself. Whatever work doesn't get done today will still be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. Spending precious time worrying about the load won't make it any smaller, and there are too many other important things in life to spend time and energy on. My goal for my writing is to get into a routine, I seem to work best when I set myself a schedule and adhere to it come rain or come shine, as I do with my exercise routine, and as I have been doing recently with my reading routine. So I am planning on writing a Friday night column, a Sunday morning column, and a Monday night sports column, and work will just have to fit into my schedule, not the other way around.

So let the games begin...The presidential campaign is entering new levels of silliness, my hope is that it is darkest before the dawn, the light being represented by the upcoming debates which bring with them the hope that this will turn into a discussion and debate on the issues. You know, those little things like economic and tax policy, the federal budget and spending, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the environment, health care, that kind of stuff. Instead we have been treated to a steady dose of Sarah Palin and more information on Alaskan state politics and geography than anyone should have to be exposed to in one lifetime. If she decides to recreate the famous land bridge trek across the Bering Strait to meet with Putin and Medvedev on the other side with her husband tagging along for the journey then let me know, otherwise enough already. It's something how someone nobody had ever heard of a month ago is all of a sudden the number one news maker. I saw on the TV at the gym the other night that Dr. Phil was on one of the bobble head cable shows discussing the Palin effect and the thought occurred to me that this probably isn't what the ancient Greeks did on the acropolis in Athens. But then again, they didn't have cable so maybe that's not a fair comparison to make.

Not to be outdone, the two actual candidates, Obama and McCain, you remember them, are engaged in a back and forth shouting match that makes you think if they made a movie based on this campaign, Michael Douglass and Kathleen Turner could play the lead roles. So much for a new kind of politics and a campaign that stayed out of the mud, we are being treated to a tit for tat, charge-counter charge that rivals the best of 'em. I know that many say that Obama needs to take off the gloves and he certainly has, unfortunately he also runs the risk of alienating many of his supporters who are losing faith and interest in his message as he continues to relentlessly pound on John McCain. There are also those who say that the media only covers the mudslinging and that is very true, but don't they pay suits crazy money to manage the media message, and why are those advisers not doing a better job of getting the positive, inspiring, hopeful, and issues oriented message out there? Last time I checked, the Obama camp was on the right side on all of the major issues, the economy, the war in Iraq, the environment, health care, taxes, and the list goes on. So why would you allow yourself to get bogged down in a schoolyard shoving match with an obviously inferior candidate. Memo to Obama, we know McCain is basically a joke as a candidate, and the people that don't realize that by now probably aren't gonna catch the train before it leaves the station, they're either died in the wool conservatives who are voting on principle, which I respect by the way even though I disagree with many of their assertions and beliefs, or they are just too simple or lazy or in some cases racist to see what time it really is, and in that case you're fighting a losing battle. I've said it before and I'll say it again, dance with who brung ya' and stay on message and this election should be a cakewalk. Keep up with the anti-McCain rant and you can start planning for your next Senate election in two years while the rest of us get treated to more trickle-down economics and rah rah America first nonsense and an inane foreign policy that weakens our standing in the world and further bankrupts our treasury, not to mention getting more of our soldiers killed for no particularly good reason.

The other big issue of course is the stock market crash, the sky falling on Wall Street. I have to admit that I really don't care too much about all of this, and I must also admit that I even take a perverse pleasure in seeing it happen. Not that I want to see people hurting, but when most of them are rich, greedy, soulless corporate types and financial tycoons I can't say I'm losing any sleep at night. If it does trickle down to the common man I suppose I'll pay attention, but that is still many steps away and I'm too old and life is too short to worry about what may or may not come down the pike, especially when I don't have a lick of control over it one way or another. I made the brash prediction back when the market was approaching 14K around this time last year that it was bound to come crashing down, I set the number at 12K by the Super Bowl, or February of 2008. We are well past that date but also well past that number, in fact I would think that 12K on the Dow would be looking as good to many as $3 a gallon gas right about now. Too many people have been getting too rich off of doing nothing more than shuffling paper around for way too long, and if those same people are taking a bath now so be it. My sympathies lie with the peasant who struggles to pay his bills on time and keep his family afloat, not with the elites who benefit off the toil of others without contributing anything to the betterment of our society. For all I care, the whole thing can burn to the ground, I stopped believing in the stock market and unfettered capitalism awhile ago, and the financial industry, along with the mortgage industry are simply unnecessary layers that produce nothing of real value to our economy, while the insane amounts of money that these people make only contributes to price inflation that is felt most by the majority of us that are in the middle and bottom of the pyramid whose labor keeps the whole thing propped up.

Lest I end this on a bitter note, and since I'm not religious nor do I own a gun so I have nothing to cling to, I'll bring the focus back to things that matter so much more than politics and stock indexes. My daughter is about to perform in her first school concert playing her bass, and then will be singing and performing in the musical revue "100 years of Broadway" next weekend with her musical theatre group. My mom will coming out for the shows and so I will get to spend time with my three favorite women, my daughter, my wife, and my mom. My son Jake is on an undefeated freshman football team at O'Connor High, they just defeated perennial powerhouse Peoria in a nail biter, 15-14 to get to 3-0. Jake is excelling on both sides of the ball, as an offensive guard and as a defensive tackle, and he is also pulling straight A's at the mid-quarter which includes two honors classes. My wife is as charming and beautiful as ever, and continues to put up with me despite all of my quirks and idiosyncrasies. I have gotten my 5 mile run under 8 minute pace, which is a big deal for me, and the weather here in the desert is showing some ever so slight signs of finally cooling down, which is a good thing because the a/c in my classroom has been out for the past two days. The baseball playoffs are almost here, the football season is in full swing, and the weekend is upon us, so all in all I'd have to say that life is good. No matter who gets elected president and what happens to the stock market, or for that matter to the price of tea in China, I'll continue to enjoy every day and to be thankful for the opportunity to do what I do and to be around the people that I am blessed to have in my life. If I can work a little smack talk into the equation, all the better, so I'm signing off until Sunday morning and we chat again.