That is all. Back to work now.

“That’s good, beacause I work three jobs, and I feel like I contribute.” — Woman speaking to President Bush in Omaha, 4 Feb, 2005

It seems as the idea of town hall meetings gains popularity in today’s politics, a product of our political leaders attempting to convey that they are connected with and are listening to the constituents of our great country, that there is always at least one single mother, struggling to make ends meet and feed her family, who steps in front of the mic and proclaims to the world that she is working two jobs. Generally she is lauded and declared a shining example of the American spirit: to always strive and persevere in the face of adversity.

It makes me sick.

Controversy swirls day after day about the sagging economy and the high unemployment rate. People are still losing their jobs and continue to be unable to find work. Fingers are pointed. We are losing jobs because large businesses are taking advantage of cheap labor in India. Illegals are crossing the border and stealing jobs from rightful U.S. citizens. But perhaps the problem isn’t so far away from home as we initially thought.

Let’s look at the numbers. The unemployment rate currently sits at 9.2%. Meanwhile, 5.2% of Americans are currently working more than one job. So, to be on the generous side by assuming each of those Americans is working just two jobs, if we were to take their second job and give it to the unemployed, it would immediately slash the unemployment rate to 4%, which, according to most economic models, is an acceptable rate of unemployment.

To look at it another way, about 1/20 of Americans are currently bogarting nearly 1/5 of the jobs. Does this seem fair to you? I think it exposes a serious problem with the distribution of jobs in this country.

I think what we should do is turn our focus from the logistically complex issues of illegal immigration and business regulation, and go after the issue of limiting the selfish among us to only one job. Comparatively, it would be a much simpler issue to tackle, and would have a appreciable effect on the economy.

That’s right, single mother of four. That’s right, father who is trying to support his ailing wife and two children. We are coming for your extra jobs. Time to stop hogging and share for the good of America.

Last year, though, was incredible. For me. It was interesting to go back and read some of my old posts while the Red Sox were winning their first (recent) championship. I think it’s pretty clear that my pleasure was mostly vicarious. Hell yeah I had a great time, but it was mostly derived from being amidst so many tortured Boston fans who were going nuts. The Sox were never “my team.” I’m a Colorado sports fan through and through. But the Rockies sucked goat nards at that point.

That’s why last baseball season was so special. No, the Rox didn’t go all the way, but they did vastly outstrip everyone’s expectations. And they gave us something to cheer about into October. Beards were grown; beer was consumed; voodoo dolls were stabbed. And, being one of the Rockies faithful, I got to be one of the genuinely exuberant fans this time around, while others got to ride my wave. I like to think me and a few other Rox diehards put on a good show.

The best part of the whole experience was going to game 4 of the NLCS at Coors Field, you know, the one where they clinched the pennant. I’ve often, in conversation, characterized it in one or both of the following ways: “the best night of my life,” or “like winning the lotto 5 times in a row.” Let me break it down for you. We bought the tickets for a modest playoff-ticket price, without knowing what the circumstances of the series would be at that point. Game 4 seemed like a logical choice, since the fourth game is almost always pivotal in some way. Little did we know that the Rox would complete the sweep in this game and clinch the NL pennant. Even more little did we know, we had been assigned the best seats ever. Or at least, the best playoff seats I could ever hope to afford on my starving-artist budget.

Best. Seats. Ever.

We arrived at the game early to catch some b.p. and get settled. We were assigned row 6, so we figured we would be pretty close to the field. As it turned out.. well I like to call them “Bartman seats.” If there had been a pop foul hit to right field, we could have snatched it right out of Moises Alou’s glove. If he were playing in that game. Which he wasn’t. But you get the idea. One of our great pleasures that evening was watching the people around us file in, see their seats right on the field, and shout, “No effing way!” just as we had done when we first came in.

When the game began, the left fielder and player nearest to us on the visiting team was Eric Byrnes, a former Rockie who had recently earned the title of most hated Diamondback in Denver by saying things in a press conference like, “I also don’t think the Rockies have outplayed us, because they haven’t. Not even close. They’ve had a little luck go their way.” My favorite part about the whole ordeal was that he was completely right. But just because something is true doesn’t mean you should say it. (“You’re fat!” “Did you know that your head isn’t perfectly round?” “You spent three years on that? It sounds like the Olympic hockey team skating around on a giant chalkboard!” etc.) Basically all he accomplished was to give us some great fodder for screaming and heckling him the whole game. A couple of my favorites: “They’re not booing you, they’re saying Boo-yrnes!” and, from my brother, “Hey Byrnes, your show is worse than Frank TV!” (if you watched any of the NL playoffs on TBS you would know why this is funny). About a week later when, as a member of the broadcast team during the pregame of the first World Series game in Boston, Eric Byrnes said “I don’t want to get booed out of another city,” we laughed; we like to think we had a little something to do with that.

When the Rockies were out in the field, the player nearest us was Matt Holliday, one of the most beloved figures of the playoff run in Denver, and an NL MVP candidate. Holliday would go on to hit two bombs in the game and be chosen the MVP of the series. We had plenty of stuff to shout at him too, including (being the practical-minded fans that we are) chants of “Sign-with-us!” And, of course, Matty signed with the Rox again in the offseason, so we like to think we had a little something to do with that, too.

The crucial inning turned out to be the fourth. The Rox were down 0-1 at that point, with two out and runners at second and third. Rookie Franklin Morales had pitched a very solid 4 innings to that point, but Clint Hurdle decided they needed to get those runs in, so he sent recent call-up Seth Smith to the plate, who, since he had been added to the roster, didn’t seem to know how not to get a hit. The guy that was seated in front of us didn’t seem to think this was such a hot idea. We reassured his that Smith would come through, but the guy still didn’t seem convinced. Well, a bloop double, an error, a hit and a Matt Holliday 3-run home run later, the Rox had put a 6-spot up on the board, and our new friend turned around to us and said, “I owe you guys some beers.” Hell yeah.

Basically from that point forward, the D-Backs (or D-Bags as we called them all night, affectionately) were all but buried, and so we just yelled ourselves hoarse and enjoyed every moment as the historic evening played itself out, and the Rox captured the first ever Major League pennant in Colorado baseball history.

When the game ended, a large mass of people came out of the left field tunnel for the ensuing celebration. A few network cameramen rushed out of the tunnel and proceeded to train their news cameras directly on us in the stands! We gave them what they wanted by shouting into the lens for about 30 seconds. When they finally averted the cameras and walked away, my brother looked at me and said, “Dude, we were so just on television.” This was later confirmed by a few people who had been watching the game at home.

Jarodd Belton the Mighty

The night continued with running down the streets of Denver pounding on the hoods of cars, and then poking our heads into a few bars. I should mention that with my disgusting Todd Helton goatee that had been growing since the beginning of the streak, and my worn Rockies cap that I have had since their 1993 inaugural season, there may actually have been a few people in Denver that night who were drunk enough to mistake me for the real Todd Helton. Hard to say really. Nonetheless, it was a great time. It’s hard to top the unity that arises in a city from a big sports victory.

Anyway, the proverbial lottery winning would wrap up a few days later with the Boston Red Sox rounding out the other half of the World Series matchup. That is basically the matchup that I had been proclaiming would be my dream World Series, and it, too, came to pass. However, to truly have been my dream series, it would have needed to at least go five or six games. We knew the Sox had the better team, but we stuck by our Rox, because stranger things have happened (*cough*NYGiants*cough*). They just couldn’t muster a single victory in the Fall Classic, and the glorious 4th game of the NLCS that we had attended would prove to be the last game they won last season. Still, after the initial disappointment in their World Series showing wore off, it was hard to be too upset by a season that had shattered all our expectations, and given us so much excitement.

So that’s the story of my NLCS experience, recorded for posterity. Definitely one to tell the grandkids someday. It seems that there are so few days like that, where for an instant, it seems like all the stars align to truly give you a moment to remember and cherish forever. This was definitely one of those times. For me.

I had a whole different point that I wanted to make about baseball that I never got to, because I got sidetracked and now this post is too long. But I will type that one up soon, so stay tuned!

To me, our president’s main job is as a symbol of the American populace. He has a bunch of advisors to tell him or her what to do regarding policy. So basically, I’d just like to have a president who represents the American people well. I’d like him or her to be charismatic and sound intelligent. And I’d like it if he or she didn’t piss a lot of people off when they said things.

We have a lot of work to do to repair our image in the eyes of the rest of the world. It seems like they regard us as lazy, fat, and stupid by comparison. Well never fear, because today I was squeezing into a pair of jeans, and I thought of the easiest, simplest way to fix this problem.

See, the problem isn’t me, and the fact that I’ve gotten fatter. The problem is the pants. I could totally still fit in the same size pants I wore in high school if those size pants were just a little bigger!

Let me be a little more specific. The problem lies at the Bureau of Standards, where we need to think about updating our units to the 21st century. The trouble isn’t that Americans are fat, it’s that our inch is too short. We take inflation into account when it comes to things like the economy, why shouldn’t this principle apply also to our measurements?

And here’s the beauty part: nobody has to know! We’ve been refusing to adopt the metric system for a reason, people. We can make our inch just a little bit longer, our pound a little heavier, but keep all the conversions the same. This way, by our English System units, we will slim down, while the rest of the world stays exactly the same. This means an immediate boost to our national reputation! And without any extra effort on the part of our people.

Well hopefully our next president and his or her advisors will take this idea into consideration. Because really there are very few drawbacks that I can think of. Just guys, when you’re measuring your “length” use the centimeter side.

One such logical fallacy that I found interesting is the “slippery slope” argument. A classic and recent example of just such an argument has been applied to the concept of gay marriage. “If we allow people of the same sex to get married,” the reasoning goes, “then we are relaxing our moral standards and our definitions of marriage. Before long, our standards will continue to lapse to the point where people will be marrying the duck from the pond down the street, or their shiny new plasma TV, or the abstract concept of whimsy.”

When I first heard this concept, I must say I was rather convinced. I mean, it is only natural that, if everyone knew that gay people were being allowed to marry, they would want to marry their favorite dog or tree or chair. I know I would marry all kinds of stuff if it were legal and would earn me a tax break. Provided of course that there was love.

However, today I am wiser for having read about the holes in this logic. The explanation was pretty technical, but here is the way I understand it.

Say, for the sake of argument, that you allow yourself to be convinced by this “slippery” argument that same-sex marriage is bad for our society, and you go ahead and allow them to ban it. That’s fine; it doesn’t really affect you, whatever. A few months pass. Now they come out with a new, similar argument, for why they should also ban man-woman marriages. This seems a little weird, and it means that you can’t get married, but the logic seems sound, so ok. Let’s ban it. Next they go after sex. And then what? Hugs? Handshakes? Friendship? Pretty soon you can’t talk to people on the street! A little while after that, you’re not allowed to even look at another person! Can you imagine trying to buy groceries without looking at anybody? I sure can’t!

So when you think about it in these terms, slippery slope arguments are a pretty severe problem. In fact, if you’re allowing yourself to be persuaded by this sort of reasoning, you’re actually contributing to the extinction of the American populace. We need sex in order to procreate and sustain our citizenry! Do you want that on your conscience? I know I don’t! And that’s only one example of what you’re contributing to.

Hopefully I’ve impressed upon you the importance of being able to identify these problematic arguments, and that next time you hear such an argument, you’ll be able to identify it and further, understand how it is trying to destroy the fabric of our society by snowballing out of control. Thank you for reading.

Oh yes, and for those who are wondering what tautology means, well, every single statement is tautological, unless it’s not.

At McDonald’s, you can buy a hamburger for 89¢, a cheeseburger for 99¢, and a double cheeseburger for $1.

Using some serious math that I’m not going to explain because you won’t understand it, this works out to 10¢ for a slice of cheese, 88¢ for a bun + ketchup + 2 soggy pickle slices and some minced onion, and 1¢ for a beef patty.

This should make you wonder about some things.

EDIT (3/13/06): Never mind. This educational game pretty well explained everything to me that I wanted to know.

Interestingly, I felt like I should add a disclaimer after that paragraph about how I’m not a generally morbid person. It just makes you wonder about living in a culture where stuff like dying and pooping— that everybody does, mind you— isn’t supposed to be talked about for whatever reason. I think there is, in fact, a great deal to be learned by examining these topics.

Anyhow, rather than discussing my beliefs and what weird metaphysical awesome place you end up to make you feel better about dying and all that philosophical junk that just leads to religions and arguments, I’d like to talk about what happens to you after you die here on Earth. Besides rotting. I don’t really feel like talking about rotting because there’s plenty of that going on in my refrigerator and it’s frankly sort of disgusting.

I have been rather fortunate in my dealings with people to have not lost anyone to whom I was very close over the first long portion of my life. I find it rather understandable that the people who lose family members and best friends when they’re in the process of growing up would have a lot of very sticky psychological issues to resolve. I think I can definitively say that even as recently as 2 or 3 years ago I was in no shape so deal with such a life-altering occurrence. Fortunately, I never had to find out just what a difficult process it would have been.

This said, in the last year I did lose two persons, with whom I was fairly close for rather disparate reasons. In the interest of preserving their memory in the way that is most meaningful to me, I will talk about their respective legacies, now that I am at least a few months removed from their passing and I can level-headedly compare and contrast my own memories with the newspaper clippings and memorial services.

Shadows of Samantha Spady

Not too long ago, a very smart man wrote a very smart book. The name of the man is Orson Scott Card, and the name of the book is Speaker For The Dead. The idea that inspired Card to write the book was that of speakers who travelled about and spoke about people after they died. The speaker’s job, however, was not to eulogize, but instead to discover and tell the truth to the best of their ability, no matter how painful. Now I first read this book when I was in middle school I believe, so I found it mostly boring. However, I’m quite glad that I did, because given the events of the last year, it’s nice to know that someone else thought of this before I ever did.

As I said before, Samantha Spady’s death was college-related. For those of you who have been to college recently, you may have surmised what this implies. She died of alcohol poisoning after a long night of partying, at the age of 19.

For the uninitiated, here is the way that college works these days. Parents send their kids off to live in a place (where parents aren’t) for rather extended periods of time. For many of these kids, this is the first time that this has ever really happened; so, as you may expect, they don’t really know how to deal with it. What ensues is a several year period where the kids act in a very kid-like fashion. I don’t want to say “stupid” … well ok, I do. They act stupid. Now as a parent or friend of such a person, more or less all you can do is be a good influence and hope that they make it out okay on the other side. Understand that for every you there are several hundred stupid-acting kids telling them to do exactly the opposite of whatever you tell them. So you don’t give up giving them advice, you just realize that it’s going to take them a little while to sort out the good advice from the bad, and stabilize themselves. In any case, most of the kids come out of this little phase and make it to adulthood just fine. Unfortunately, a few don’t. Sam happened to be one of the unlucky ones.

Any student death tends to be highly publicized, and even more so with someone as popular and well-liked as Sam. It’s probably not difficult to imagine, based on what I have said so far, that there was quite the media blitzkrieg after her death. I actually didn’t find out about it until about a week later, because I was in the process of moving to Boston at the time, and had no internet access or TV. Much had been written by the time I sat in Berklee’s media center those long hours, wading through article after article, trying to piece together what exactly had happened.

It is a surreal, surreal experience reading about someone you knew in the news like that. It’s weird seeing their life encapsulated in a few short paragraphs. I think the thing that makes it the most weird is that the person about whom is being written is not the person you knew. Or I should say, it is about the person you knew, but it has been heavily edited and carefully worded to the point that it no longer resembles them that much. And as I was reading all that stuff I knew that to the majority of people, this is Sam’s legacy. This is what they know about her; in fact, all they know about her. And it’s not her.

The first wave of press about the event included all of the positive things people had to say about what a wonderful person she was. “Almost perfect.” “Never made a mistake.” Typical responses to any sort of personal tragedy. The next thing that happened were that some investigative reporters got turned loose to try and do a bit of dragging her name through the mud. Trying to make her look like a wild party girl and get a different and more interesting angle on the story. Then came the rush of anger from the first-wave people, tempers flared, letters were written, and it got ugly.

I think it ends up this way with a lot of problems when you get a lot of people involved. You get people on one side, and you get people on the other side, and they’re too busy fighting to see that the solution is somewhere in the middle. The first-wave people weren’t talking about Sam, and the second-wave people definitely weren’t talking about Sam, the real Sam was somewhere in the middle. And interestingly, the people who realized this weren’t really part of any waves, most likely because their story wasn’t nearly as interesting to people who, without the help of waves to tell them what to think, probably wouldn’t have cared that much.

In any case, in the time that has passed, Sam has become an acronym, a week, a foundation, and a concert, among other things. In short she’s been sainted, turned into a sort of martyr for the cause of student alcohol education and awareness. Not that I don’t think that this is a worthy cause. I’m just not sure that if you had asked her, she would have told you that she wanted to be remembered for the way she died. It’s probably much more use to everyone who knew her to remember who she really was and how she lived.

This is what Orson Scott Card knew that I didn’t in middle school. The eulogies and newspaper clippings and concerts and foundations are not the person. It is wholly unsatisfying to remember them as these shadows of the person you once knew. It is much more useful to have someone try to capture the essence of what that person was. It’s more important to know the truth, so you aren’t left to wonder. It’s more important for someone to try to replicate the Samness of Sam, so that you can say, yes, that is her. Now people can know.

A bit longer ago, there was another very talented man, who made a very interesting painting…

[I've decided to split this up in at least 3 parts, since it has gotten very long and is taking me a while to finish writing the subsequent chunks. Part 2 should be done in a couple weeks. Maybe.]

X: Oh my… *sigh* Well, we’ll just have to flush him.

K: I miss him mommy!

X: I know, sweetie. Luckily, they’re ridiculously common, and they spawn uncontrollably, so we shouldn’t have any problems getting you a new one!

K: Hooray!!!

It’s not too late.

Sorry guys, it’s just that I had a little bit of a freak-out moment there. I thought that maybe I had accidentally slept for about 50 hours and missed a couple of entire days. I have stuff to do this weekend, too: I’m supposed to be going up to Vail tomorrow to spend the weekend there with my mom and brother, and so missing a few days would have obviously thrown a big fat old wrench into those plans, grinding them to a rusty halt so that I’d have to call a mechanic just to get them working again, and yes, he would eventually find that it was just a wrench in the works, but by that time it would of course be too late. The damage has already been done, we are thousands of units behind, and it’s all your fault, you lousy wrench thrower, you!

In any case, I’ve now confirmed that it is indeed still only the 2nd day of July. If you must know what it is that confused me, well then I’ll tell you right now. There have been fireworks going off around my house all day long. Now see, it is my understanding that in America, the custom is to celebrate our Independence Day by blowing crap up. Just so we’re clear, I’m not claiming to understand why this is the custom, but it is. The thing that caused me problems is that our Independence Day falls on the 4th of July, and not a day earlier. The reason I’m sure I’m remembering the correct day is that a majority of Americans can’t be bothered to remember all the syllables in the word “Independence,” and so instead refer to the holiday itself as the “4th of July.”

So I guess what I’m wondering now is, why are there fireworks going off now if it’s not even the right day? My first thought is that maybe my neighbors have just forgotten which day that they were meant to be set off; but as I mentioned before, if they are true Americans they’d probably sooner forget the day on which the Anniversary of September 11th falls. My next thought is that maybe they’re foreign; but no, the greater Boulder area is about as ethnically diverse as a yodeling festival. Maybe they are in fact so patriotic that one day just isn’t enough time to express just how much they love their country? Maybe. Or maybe fireworks are just so mind-bendingly awesome that they don’t care that it isn’t the right day yet.

Ah the firework. Nothing more embodies the greatness that is America. What other country could boast consumers that would drive miles and miles across desert wasteland to a place like Wisconsin just to spend hundreds of dollars on something so utterly, utterly useless? I mean let’s really examine what a firework does. You light it, and then it blows up. Once. That’s all. Don’t get me wrong now, I suffer from the same innate pyromania as does the next person, but come on. They’re seriously not that cool, you guys. And guess what? If you really really must see something blowing up on the 4th then there are countless free shows all over the country where they blow up things that are infinitely cooler-looking than anything you could possibly get your hands on, no matter how much you’re willing to spend. And if that’s not enough to satiate your hunger for pyrotechnics, then you can always put CDs and coffee-stirrers in your microwave when you get home to save some money.

All I’m asking for, in these times of instant gratification, is a little patience. People are forgetting that anticipation is an important part of the holiday dynamic. If fireworks are really enough to cause you and your ritalin-blooded monsterettes to cream your collective pants, then just think about how much more your family will enjoy them if you all wait just a few more days until such time as you are meant to see and enjoy them. This is how you create events, one-time experiences that live on in memory. This is how your holidays can be special.

Oh yeah also, fireworks were invented by the Chinese. So if you buy them, you’re a damn Communist and you’re helping them buy up our oil companies. The Red Menace lives again! Calibrate your nukes! Wanna see a REALLY big explosion??? Go America!!!!!!

Having lived in the city for the last two years, I’ve come to realize that a large body of the American people spends a great deal of time under stress. A few weeks ago I was actually early for class, so I stopped to talk to a guy on the street who was asking for donations for some charity walk that may or may not have existed. I ended up giving him the only dollar I had left, because hey, at least he made an effort instead of just asking for a handout. He even had fliers and everything.

Anyway one comment that he made while we were talking was that people in Boston are always in too big a hurry to give a moment of their time. Which, when I thought about it, is true for me most of the time too. You’re always running late for something, be it class or an appointment or lunch or whatever. Events are tightly scheduled in our solitary worlds.

That said, it seems like people can always use a psychological break from the tension, and a lot of times these come in the form of time savers. Anything that saves time, or even appears to save time is a wonderful thing.

Which brings me to my point. Life needs more buttons. Allow me to elaborate. Have you ever been in an elevator pumping the “Door Close” button, and stop to think about how the elevator doesn’t actually operate any faster while you’re pushing it? My theory is that the button isn’t even connected to anything, it’s just there so people can push it and feel better about themselves.

One can’t deny though, even if it doesn’t in fact do anything, that it does feel rather soothing to have a time-saving button that you can lean on. I think many of the buttons at intersections, you know for pedestrians, operate on the same principle.

So ultimately this begs the question, why not more buttons on everything? Why shouldn’t subways and buses have “Go Faster” buttons all over them? Or maybe clocks could start having “Slow Down Time” buttons that you can just push when you’ve got fast-approaching deadlines. I could go on.

But the fact is, most people don’t understand enough about anything to ever question whether the buttons do anything or not. Heck, I don’t know anything about elevators, so how can I know what the buttons actually do? So why not give people more buttons to press? In the end, I think it would lead to an overall healthier and slightly more stress-free existence.