The Reluctant Leader

When someone famous dies it can have a strange effect on you.  You probably didn’t really know them.  In a lot of cases they are often old anyway so it’s hard to exactly say you were surprised to hear that they passed away.  Still, something about that particular person brings back strong memories and it causes you to take a moment to pause and reflect and remember that person.  This was my reaction when I learned of the death of President Gerald Ford. 

Ford was 93.  Even by today’s standards that’s still pretty old.  He had certainly not been in great health for the past couple of years.  When I saw him at Reagan’s funeral I made the comment that we would probably be having another one of these funerals in the near future.  I immediately pointed to Ford.  I didn’t think he looked so good.  I also pointed out that George Bush the First is in his eighties, although he still looks pretty healthy.  I also mentioned that Margaret Thatcher didn’t look very good and had apparently suffered some kind of stroke.  You had better believe Maggie’s funeral is going to be a big deal when her time finally comes. 

So, I have to say I wasn’t exactly shocked when I heard that President Ford had passed away.  Still, I had one of those moments when I realized a part of history was over.  I then had a moment to realize that it was a moment of history that I was actually alive during and had some vague memory of.  I have to say that President Ford was the first president I actually sort of remembered.  I remembered his face on television.  I remembered the men who droned on and on during the news talking about him.  I remember the WIN magnet we had on our refrigerator back then.   

Ford came into the Presidency by accident, as you have probably heard now.  But when you stop and think about it he was just the right guy at just the right time.  Imagine if someone more like the president he was replacing had stepped in.  Nixon was an Imperialist.  He ran a very tight ship and considered himself rightfully in absolute control of everything.  Of course his obsession with power and keeping that power was ultimately his undoing.  Ford, of course, had found himself a heartbeat away from the Presidency almost by accident. 

Ford was a senator.  By all accounts he was a damn good one.  Spiro Agnew was the Vice President under Nixon but was forced to resign due to a scandal.  Seems Nixon just managed to surround himself with scandals and some were of his making and some were not.  Ford had ambitions of making it to Speaker of House, a position of great power as well.  He was picked by Nixon to replace Agnew.  Then, lo and behold, Nixon had to follow Agnew in resignation.  Ford, without ever running for either high office, was now President of the
United States. 

Can you imagine how that must have felt?  When Harry Truman took office after
Roosevelt died he reportedly told Eleanor Roosevelt that he felt like the sky, sun, moon and all of the stars had fallen on his shoulders.  Considering there was an unpopular war still being fought (sound familiar) and the country was reeling from the corruption that had been uncovered in what was the face of the nation to the rest of the world the whole mess must have seemed like something we would never get out of to Gerald Ford.  Had he wanted to, without having been chosen by the public, he could have made himself a kind of Emperor.  He originally said he had no ambitions to run in the next election.  Had he kept that idea he would have had no one to answer to.  He could have at least attempted to do almost anything. 

Instead, as I said, he was the right man at the right time.  He was more accessible to the public and the media that Nixon.  He was more willing to talk to people as regular people.  He was also, without a doubt, a man who loved his country and the ideals set-forth in the Constitution.  In short, he was a good guy and, for a politician, and honest guy.  I haven’t reviewed every moment of the man’s life but he sure seems to have been, on the whole, an honest man.   

Of course we all know the trouble he found himself in when he pardoned Nixon.  At the time the country was still a mass of open wounds.  People were crying for blood. 
Vietnam had just ended.  Thousands of wounded, mentally and physically, soldiers were coming home with haunted eyes and terrible stories.  Watergate had shattered the public’s faith in government.  People wanted to hang Nixon from the highest rafter they could find.  Ford, again, playing the right man a the right time, somehow managed to see past that and do what was, ultimately, right for the country.  He pardoned the man. 

Think about the guts that must have taken.  Everyone in the country wanted Nixon to go on trial, or so it seemed.  They wanted him tarred and feathered.  They wanted him in prison.  What would that have solved?  What good would have come from putting a former president in prison?  It would have done no good to watch a protracted and long trial played out on television.  It would have caused further harm and deeper wounds to see Nixon sitting there answering questions and attempting to defend himself.  Ford was able to see past the bloodlust and see what was good for everyone and make the right decision.  Even those who criticized him severely at the time have since changed their views and admitted it was the right thing to have done.  It takes some kind of mind to see two or three decades into the future and know that eventually the country would come around to your way of thinking. 

Ford did it knowing it would probably cost him.  He must have known that voters would hold it against him if he did decide to run in the next election.  He did it anyway.  It’s hard to imagine any president since then doing something like that knowing it would probably cost them the next election.  These days CYA seems to be the norm in
Washington.  See what I mean, he was a good guy.  It’s too bad there haven’t been more of those in that seat of power since him.   

We all know what happened.  Ford lost to Carter.  It’s hard to imagine that Ford was only president for around two years.  When I think back to my vague childhood memories of him it seems like he was president much longer.  I think that was because he was always on television.  He was always letting us in on what he was doing.  Again, this is something administrations could learn from in the future. 

So, yes, Ford was old and he was sick.  His death was not a shock, at least to me.  Still, I think it’s nice to pause and remember a guy who didn’t want the reigns of power but seemed extraordinarily suited for them once he got them.  He did good for this country and he was a decent guy.  Not a bad record, if you ask me. 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook format at www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.

Looking at Weather

I am continually amazed at Midwesterners and how they react to the weather in the winter.  This is the
Midwest.  Every year the weather gets cold and we have snow.  In fact, this year it has been surprisingly, almost distressingly, mild so far.  Still, people complain and whine and moan as soon as  you get a couple of cloudy days strung together or, here in
Chicago, the weather turns off of the lake and we get brisk winds.   

I have written before about my love for winter.  I enjoy the cooler months.  There is a simple reason for that and that is because I am more comfortable with the idea of freezing to death as opposed to dying from heat-related issues.  When you freeze to death you just kind of slow down and go to sleep.  When you die from heat you sweat and your skin dries out and your lips crack and bleed and your tongue swells and you experience dementia and you burn up.   

Also there is the fashion issue.  I am certain you have seen some people out and about during the warmer months wearing clothes that have to make you wonder if they own mirrors or, perhaps, if the mirrors they are using are made in such a way that they do not actually see themselves as they really are.  Look at Anna Nicole Smith back when she weighed roughly the same as a full-grown beluga whale.  She would wear clothes that seemed only to accentuate the fact she was now roughly the same weight of a full-grown beluga whale and eyeing full-grown sperm whale status.   

I, personally, hate my legs.  I enjoy the fact that they still work and that I can stand up and walk but I hate how they look.  They are white and flabby and hairy and, generally speaking, are not fit for human sight.  I don’t enjoy looking at them and figure no one else really would either.  Rather than find out after I have left the house without the possibility of changing I just wear jeans all of the time and that saves a lot of worry and concern.  There’s too much to worry about these days than having to worry about my flab scaring small children. 

You see some of these people, often at malls, walking around.  They are often wearing jeans so tight you have to wonder how someone was able to get into them without Crisco and some sort of machinery.  They are also wearing shoes, mostly open-toed, that also appear three sizes too small.  Their cankles merge with the shoes with bulges that fall over the top straps and pudgy toes screaming from behind more straps like fugitives screaming from behind prison bars.  On top they often wear something that might as well point directly to their rolls of fat with big shiny neon.  You wonder of that shirt is really supposed to bare the midriff or if perhaps the shirt is normal sized but on Fattie Hoochie Mama it just turns out to be a midriff-baring shirt.  They often walk around with purses and jewelry of the gaudiest type, often with gold, and bring as much undeserved attention to themselves as possible. 

I firmly believe some kind of body perspective is needed.  We no longer live in the times where the fattest people are the richest people and, therefore, the fattest people are admired.  While the female form can certainly be fuller for my tastes, there has to be a point where reason takes over.  I don’t mind a woman with extra pounds as long as she is aware of the fact she has them and that not everyone in the world really wants to look at them bulging out from ill-fitting clothes. 

You don’t run across this quite as much in the winter.  This means everyone looks relatively pleasant.  The rolls are hidden beneath sweaters and sweatshirts and long sleeves.  This means the parts of the female anatomy most of us males like to look at are accentuated such as the breasts.  Of course, the sweaters should be reasonable as well.  If your sweater makes you look like some kind of billboard or perhaps a circus tent you should be aware of that as well. 

I like having to wear my leather jacket.  You just can’t get away with wearing cool jackets in the summer time unless you just happen to be in a western movie.  You know the ones I am talking about.  Mostly they are directed by Sergio Leone or Sam Peckinpah.  You just see whole armies of guys standing in what is obviously the desert and surrounded by sweaty people who look like Mexicans and they are all wearing floor-length duster coats.  At least most of the time the movies allow them to wear light-colored dusters which would make them about half a degree cooler, but sometimes they are even there in the dark or black dusters.  You just have to wonder about that.  Did cowboys really wear long coats like that in the middle of the desert?  Did a lot of cowboys die from heat exhaustion? 

For me there is nothing better than a snow storm.  Snow makes everything look sparkling and clean and white, at least for the first few hours after the snow falls.  Eventually the snow turns gunky and black and nasty and slushy but for a while everything looks new.  There is nothing more beautiful than a schoolyard filled with white snow untouched by anyone.  You can then leave your own footprints as you walk through and leave your own mark.  You can also make snowballs and snowmen.  You really can’t do that when it rains. 

Of course you always hear the weathermen talk about the late-winter rainstorms.  They all speak with relief about the fact that the precipitation is rain rather than snow.  To me, this is not good news.  Rain could mean flooding.  Rain could mean soggy wet leather jackets.  Rain means ruined shoes and huge puddles.  Rain can also mean thunderstorms and thunderstorms can lead to tornadoes and tornadoes do not make the world look sparkling and bright and clean.  Tornadoes have this tendency to make people look dead and houses look like tiny sticks.  A neighborhood scoured to the ground by a tornado is not the same as a neighborhood covered with beautiful crystalline snow. 

So, for me, winter will always be better than summer.  Fall will always be better than spring.  Too many people dwell on the dark parts of both of those seasons and forget to admire the beauty and look for the positives.  Sure the leaves are falling and the plants are closing up but they are just making room for the sledding and snow-shoeing and skiing.  Also you are missing the stunning beauty of the leaves changing color which I will gladly take over a humid, miserable, hot July day any day of the week and twice on Sunday.  I will also gladly take a blizzard over a thunderstorm with those same odds. 

So, you go one and keep whining.  I will be the one going for the pleasant walk in my hat and leather jacket, looking cool, while you sit inside your house and moan. 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook format at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.

Holiday People and Those Who are Not

I am starting to believe there are two types of people in the world: those who enjoy and really get into holidays and those who do not.  I am also starting to believe I am second type.  I know plenty of people who are the first type, however, and they continue to be a bit of a puzzlement to me.  Yes, I enjoy Christmas and I enjoy parties and I kind of see where the fun in holidays can be but what I cannot see is why people get so involved in holidays. 

I was married to a woman who was very into holidays.  She was particularly fond of Christmas.  I have always had a soft-spot for Christmas.  How can you not like a holiday that involves presents?  I even used to enjoy decorating when I was a kid.  My ex-wife was very into decorating.  As I grew older the desire to spend hours and hours hanging up lights and dragging tree parts or entire trees into my living room and putting up ornaments just seemed like a lot of work for just one day.
I think the same thing can be said for weddings.  I am guessing there are two types of people here and they are people who love weddings and people who do not.  While I certainly went through one I wonder about going through a second one at times.  Again it seems like a huge amount of money and planning and setting up for things only for it all to be over so fast you are left with your head spinning and your stomach in knots.  All anyone really wants to do is get to the party and the couple is more worried about the wedding night then the wedding day and that’s the way things really are and if someone tells you different then you know that’s a couple that may have problems. 

I think the holiday that has the least fun attached to it would be New Years Eve.  I have never, even as a kid, been a fan of New Years Eve.  When you are younger you can’t really participate in parties.  If your parents were like mine you could maybe make it until midnight before being immediately shuffled off to bed or you were sent to bed around 10 and really the entire point was lost.  If you are like my parents then you can barely make it to ten o’clock now on a regular night even when there isn’t some kind of holiday attached to it. 

For the past several years my New Years Eve was spent working at a radio station.  I loved doing that.  You pretty much had to the place to yourself and you had an entire radio station at your fingertips.  I usually was asked to do some kind of countdown and request show.  One of the best times was when a caller called to tell me he felt the city of
Rockford should institute some kind of cheap public transportation for the night of New Years Even program.  You know, like some of the larger cities do.  I had to inform him that while I was on the radio I didn’t have the mayor in the studio with me and he might as well start some kind of letter-writing campaign. 

It just seems to me that New Years Eve is a holiday where the entire purpose is to get drunk and then wear funny hats.  If that’s the kind of thing that you are into I guess I have no right to stop you but it really doesn’t do much for me.  I am the one who sits there looking at the throngs in New York and wonders how anyone could really have a good time while smashed in so close to a billion other people.  I also don’t understand why watching a round object slowly descend down a pole is fun.   

For me New Years Eve was always about hanging out with a few friends.  When I look back at the parties and gatherings I have attended I always end up remembering the quiet dinners I had with friends in
St. Louis rather than the large parties where no one could hear anyone and it was so hot you thought you might burst into flames.  Of course if that happened most people would probably assume it was part of the celebration and just cheer and wonder why you weren’t descending a pole.  I also greatly enjoyed the two New Years Even concerts I attended so far where a group called The Flaming Lips played. 

This year I actually look forward to spending the night here at home, probably alone and probably one where I will be asleep by 11.  Really I could stay up and celebrate with
New York and then go to sleep.  What’s one hour?  Is it really that  big of a deal that it hasn’t technically become midnight here in
Chicago? 

Again, it all seems like a big deal for something that is over with so quickly that it makes little sense to me.  There is a lot of decorating for other holidays.  I have yet to see any New Years Eve lights or trees or bags that you fill with leaves.  I am guessing that the decorations makers and the card makers have not gotten around to the idea of commercial possibilities when it comes to New Years Eve.  I am guessing if you want to make a fortune you should find a way to start your own line of New Years Eve decorations and market them so soon everyone will have New Years Eve lights and lawn bags. 

I guess I am not a holiday guy.  I am willing to bet you there are a lot of people out there who are not holiday people.  I am particularly angry with the holidays that seem to be entirely invented by card people those people who make candy and such.  I am talking about holidays like Valentine’s Day which is a holiday I despise with such a passion that others have been frightened when I have talked about it.  Of course there is also Sweetest Day which is the most ridiculous and obviously fake holiday in the creation of holidays. 

I think there should be holidays that would make the world more fun.  There should be a holiday where you are allowed to tell your boss to go screw him or herself without there being a risk of being fired.  I wonder about a day where nudity is not only allowed but encouraged but afraid too many people who should not be naked, including myself, will end up walking around instead of gorgeous people which is what you would really want to see.  How about a day just for sitting at home watching movies or another one for sitting at home and reading?  I would suggest a day where people are required to attend their own private film festivals or watch movies created before 1964.  I would also like a day when comic book geeks are allowed to rule the world and not be mocked but that may be too much to ask for. 

Mostly I think New Years Eve should be a little bit about reflection.  It should be a look back at the world that was and a look ahead to ways to make the upcoming world better.  Instead too many people will drink themselves into oblivion and forget everything that went before and uncaring about what is coming up next.  Then again, what do I know?  I’m just a crank. 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is a great book to put in your new year reading list and can be found in print and eBook format at www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.

2006: A Look Back

2006 was quite a year.  Yes, quite a year.  If you are anything like me then you are probably standing here at the end of the year and looking back and saying, “When the hell did this happen?  How the hell did I get here?  What the hell happened?”  Christmas has just passed and that means New Years is right in the viewfinder.  I am not a fan of New Years Eve.  I have no plans this year after spending the last couple of years working at a radio station on New Years Eve.  I loved working New Years Eve at the radio station.  It was more fun than being in a crowd somewhere celebrating the descent of some usually-round-shaped-object. 

But it is now the time to look back at the year that was.  Being one who loves to make lists, I thought this would be a great way to make yet another one. 

January started out full of hope but is probably best remembered by those who follow world events as the month that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had a massive stroke.  To those who don’t follow world politics and just like to panic about things there was still the world-wide one going on about bird flu.  It was also the month where a South Korean scientist was shown to have lied about cloning a human.  Meanwhile in
Iraq things continued as normal which, of course, means things kept exploding and far too many soldiers and citizens continued to die because of it. 

February arrived and the
United States followed its tradition of forgetting what is going on in the rest of the world and focused on what’s really important: The Super Bowl.  The Steelers of Pittsburgh manage to beat the Seahawks of Seattle 21-10 in a very boring game that does little to make anyone look forward the game the following year.  Meanwhile a passenger ferry in Egypt sank in the
Red Sea taking a lot of people right down with it.  The Grammy Awards are held and U2 manages to win “Most Smug and Superior Lead Singer” of the year awards along with several others.  Also, the Winter Olympics starts and my house gets excited but Bryant Gumbel makes stupid comments about how boring these events are compared the infinitely more-boring “March Madness” of the following month. 

In March the first World Baseball Classic starts and proves that you can take America’s past-time, make it global and the
U.S. will immediately lose interest in it.  The
U.S. team is eliminated rather quickly but other parts of the world actually do seem to care about this contest.  Japan ends up beating
Cuba in the Championship and winning the thing.  The Academy Awards are held and there is much buzz and uncomfortable conversation among men about the movie “

Brokeback
Mountain.”  It wins best picture despite every male saying he has never seen, nor will be ever see, this particular movie event though there’s nothing wrong with it, really.   

Come April Ariel Sharon, despite being in a coma for four months, is finally officially removed from office.  Many in the
United States wonder when George Bush, obviously in some kind of stupor at the very least, will follow suit.  The President of Iran announces to the world that
Iran has produced enriched uranium.  He then goes on to declare that the sun is actually the moon and that the color blue is actually a more-pleasant shade of pink.  Zacarias Moussaoui is sentenced to life in prison and this greatly reduces the value of his martyr trading cards.  Also, little-known writer Bryan W. Alaspa decides he might like to start freelance writing in his spare time and starts blogging. 

May dawned and people continued to protest immigration laws by staging something called The Great American Boycott.  Considering no one can remember exactly what this was its effect is obviously staggering.  A number of miners are trapped in
Australia.  After 14 torturous days underground two miners of the fourteen trapped, Todd Russell and Brant Webb are rescued.  A huge earthquake hits Java in
Indonesia and 6,000 people are estimated to have been killed. 

June started with the revelation of a terrorist ring being broken up in Toronto with allegations the group was planning to blow up targets in and around
Toronto.  The United States is once again forced to admit that
Canada exists.  Notorious terrorist Abu Masab al-Zarqawi and seven of his helpers are killed in an air-raid in
Iraq.  The World Cup starts.  Most of the
United States yawns and wonders what else is on television.  The Miami Heat wins the NBA Championship and people like me who hate the NBA continue to watch baseball.  Also, the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Edmonton Oilers to win the Stanley Cup and three people notice.  Two of them are Canadian and one is my friend in
St. Louis.  Even the players on both teams are disinterested and when asked why they are celebrating they reply “we were just told this was, finally, the last damn game of the season!”  This happens on June 19.  June 20^th, the next season of the NHL starts. 

In July Kim Jong Il steps up and shocks much of the world by launching 7 missiles including a long-range missile that is called the Taepodong-2.  Everyone in the world immediately laughs at the name of the missile. 
Italy wins the FIFA World Cup in overtime on penalty kicks.  Something finally interesting happens during a match when French Team player Zinedine Zidane head-butts Italian player Materazzi.  This immediately goes up on YouTube and played countlessly even by people who have no idea what the World Cup is. 
St. Louis gets hit by two huge derechos (fancy meteorologist-speak for “windstorm”) within three days.  Friends immediately send e-mails and pictures to Bryan W. Alaspa who is terrified of bad weather and storms to further add to his collection of weather-related nightmares.  Floyd Landis wins the Tour De France and almost immediately is accuse of doping when he fails, appropriately enough, a doping test.   

August starts off with the comforting news of massive arrests in
England of potential terrorists who have binary compounds disguised as sports drinks that they plan to use to blow up dozens of aircraft at once.  All liquids are immediately banned on flights everywhere.  August is also the month where the Milky Way Galaxy loses a planet when the parameters of what constitutes a planet are changed by something called the International Astronomical Union.  While also winning an award for “Most Pretentious Sounding Organizational Name” it makes Pluto essentially a large snowball and demotes it from planet.   

In September Andre Agassi, and his hair (or lack thereof these days), retires from tennis.  Pope Benedict makes a speech in
Germany where he states that Islam is a religion that promotes violence.  Islam immediately responds that this is not true by violently protesting and making threats of violence as proof that they are not, in fact, violent.  The Pope attempts to hold up a dictionary to point out the word “irony” to the Islamic world but it is largely ignored due to the violence.  Spinach was found contaminated with E. Coli which prompts many children to collectively yell “See!” to their parents.  The Superdome in
New Orleans reopens after the disaster of Hurricane Katrina when the Saints play.  Also, Representative Mark Foley is forced to resign when explicit e-mails are found wherein he sexually harasses an underage male page.  The Republicans do all they can to disavow Foley and try to plant incriminating Democratic evidence in his home. 

October opens sadly when tragedy strikes in the Amish community in
Pennsylvania when five young women are killed in a one-room schoolhouse.  Charles Carl Roberts is the gunman and the reasons for his rampage are confusing and profoundly sad.   Meanwhile just to add comfort to the world who thought the Cold War was over
North Korea announces it has successfully conducted its first-ever nuclear test.  Google buys YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars which causes the rest of the world to wonder exactly when the world is going to end because this HAS to be a sign of the Apocalypse.  The
St. Louis Cardinals manage to win the World Series despite winning under 100 games during the regular season.  Even diehard sports fans such as myself collectively yawn.  Bob Barker announces he will retire from The Price is Right which has been running successfully in one form or another since Ancient Egypt.  John Kerry makes a stupid joke (he says) that manages to tick off everyone who is currently wearing or had once worn a military uniform.  The Democrats wonder if they can box Kerry up and store him somewhere until after the mid-term elections. 

November opens with the announcement from the magazine “Science” that 90% of marine life will be extinct by 2048.  By November 3 Saddam Hussein and two if his senior aides are sentenced to death by hanging under the charge of crimes against humanity and having a poorly groomed beard.  The mid-term elections are held and the Democrats win back both the House and Senate.  George Bush announces he was just kidding all along about Donald Rumsfeld and he “resigns” almost immediately.  Al Jazeera launches and English-language counterpart.  Many protest but some just want to go to the website and watch the thing to see what the hubbub is since you can’t see it on cable anywhere just yet.  Michael Richards launches a racist tirade at a comedy club causing many to wonder exactly when Michael Richards suddenly decided he was a stand-up comic.   

Finally, December comes and the year finally comes to an end.  The President continues to ignore the special study about
Iraq.  Rush Limbaugh continues to bluster and blather and other conservatives attempt to pretend everything is going great over there if the media would just stop showing the hundreds of dead people being blown to bits while trying to get to work or the market.  By December 13 the Chinese River Dolphin is officially declared extinct.  U.S. Senator Tim Johnson suffers a stroke and undergoes emergency surgery causing worries about the balance of power in the Senate.  A Libyan court sentences give Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death for knowingly infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV.  Fighting breaks out between Palestinian groups within
Palestine. 
Israel sighs and watches waiting to see if the two sides will, essentially, destroy each other.  On Christmas the Godfather of Soul and the Hardest Working Man in showbiz, James Brown, dies of heart failure due to complications with pneumonia.   

Thus was the year that was.  In there somewhere were also things like the death of the Crocodile Hunter and the release of the
Iraq study that George W. continues to ignore.  Things got worse in a place known as Darfur in Africa and in
Iraq.  All in all, it was a year most would probably agree it’s best that it just ends.  So, now we look forward to 2007.  Hopefully little-known writer Bryan W. Alaspa will finally get an offer from a newspaper or magazine either online or in print to write these columns for them and get paid so-as to make all of the effort a little more worthwhile. 

If you want to start 2007 out right you can buy Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust which is available in print and eBook form at www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.

Attack of the Big Giant Head

I feel I need to do a lot of qualifying in this particular rant.  There are a few things I think need to be gotten straight and kept straight in everyone’s head before I can proceed.  There are some things going on in the media and on television over the past few days and, to be honest with you, it’s really hard to pick a villain in this scenario.  Yet, despite this fact and despite the rather obnoxious and potentially villainous demeanor and manner of other key elements of this story one giant enormous head has come screeching to an ear-splitting pitch and made me want to stab myself in the eyes with a letter-opener. 

FACT:  I think Donald Trump is a self-aggrandizing, no-talent, no-taste moron with the worst hairstyle of this or any century and I am including the ones back in Medieval times when there were no hairstylists.  He is constantly broke and yet always coming back.  When you dig you find he really does nothing more than lend his name to things and then self-promote the hell out of them.  He really has little controlling interest in the things he runs around acting like he runs.  Everything he has he claims is the best and the most fantastic and most wonderful.  However, having seen what passes for his home on one episode of that dismal show “The Apprentice” I can say that you would feel more homey sleeping on the marble floor of the
Field
Museum in
Chicago.  Still, he is not the villain in this tale. 

FACT:  The Miss USA pageant somehow manages to be less-classy than the Miss America pageant.  It is a pageant that at least had the decency to act like what a pageant should be and that is females parading around in skimpy outfits and looking sexy.  Miss
America wants to pass itself off as somehow more-classy by offering scholarships and changing the swimsuit competition and whether or not the women are barefoot of wear heels.  As if bare feet or heels makes a difference.  Still, it was almost laughable how the world and the entertainment “media” acted like it was the end of the world or a scandal on par with Watergate when the current Miss USA was nearly “dethroned” because of her partying.  Most men were probably like me and just wanted to see the pictures of her kissing Miss Teen USA which she was supposedly accused of doing.  Still, even this pageant, the notion of entertainment “media” or the fact that “The Donald” had to bend down like some self-appointed king and offer her clemency is the villain in this piece.  Of course, now, once some of the pictures were seen, Donald then REVERSED his decision and “terminated” her.  I have no idea what this means about her rehab 

FACT:  Rosie O’Donnell has a big giant fat head with a big giant flapping mouth and big giant flapping lips flapping over big giant scary teeth and a big giant annoying voice to top it all of in one big giant, flapping, scary, annoying package. 

I was so glad when Rosie stopped her show.  I hated her voice and the fact that everyone seemed to be laughing themselves into fits over jokes that were stale five years before she said them.  I hated her attempt to turn that one magazine into her own version of the Oprah magazine.  I was glad when that didn’t work either.  I, for one, hoped she might just retire somewhere and never be seen again except maybe on occasional attempts to revive “The Hollywood Squares.” 

Who the hell made her the one who could suddenly pass judgment on the morals and values of everyone else in
Hollywood?  Why does she suddenly feel she needs to step in and decide that whatever Donald does is beneath contempt but whatever she says and does somehow smells perfect and turns lead into gold?  Why does she get to tell people like Britney and Lindsay that they should come to her for help? 

Rosie seems to be a bit pent up these days.  It is as if the time off she took between when her self-titled show ended and her time on The View started she has just had to bite her tongue.  She apparently has bit it so much that everything behind her vocal chords has caused some kind of verbal constipation and The View has become some kind of laxative that has now allowed her to shoot verbal diarrhea all over the airwaves.  She used to criticize Howard Stern for his brand of broadcasting but I find everything Rosie has done lately infinitely more offensive, obnoxious and annoying that anything Howard ever did. 

First she had the nerve to attack Kelly Ripa for the strange events that transpired between her and Clay Aiken.  I forget the exact nature of the argument but Rosie somehow felt that something Kelly said (oh, right, about not knowing where Clay’s hand had been when he clamped it over her mouth, rather rudely) was homophobic.  As if on planet Rosie anything about hygiene directed at anyone who may or may not be homosexual is a direct attack on that community.  What about the fact that clamping your hands over someone’s mouth is rude and annoying?  Such things do not matter to Madam Rosie the giant flapping head when she perceives that maybe someone might have said something that may be misconstrued as homophobic as long as you also happen to be clinically insane.  What planet is she from? 

She amazes me.  She is a miracle of nature.  She has the nerve to make fun of Donald’s hair.  Of course, Donald’s hair is also a miracle of nature and hairspray but, really Rosie, heal thine own tresses before thou cast stones ‘pon the tresses of others.  You who once went so butch that you made others who are proudly butch want to wear long-haired wigs.  Right now your hair looks like a slightly-longer version of Mike Ditka.  It is obvious you take tips from him because you just pretty much brush it back of your giant enormous flapping forehead. 

So, exactly why she felt that this was an area where she should step in and comment and declare what she feels should be the way things should go.  I sort of feel sorry for the rest of the cackling hens on that show she is on.  It must be hard to get a word in edgewise when you have someone as giant and flapping and annoying and used to getting her own way on things.  Not that the rest of them have ever really had anything to say.  Apparently Star Jones was so intimidated by the other giant flapping head moving in she felt she needed to get out of there. 

So, I don’t really know what happened with Miss
USA.  I think she probably partied like a lot of young women do.  They see Britney and they see Lindsay and they think that maybe it’s OK.  I already talked about dumb stars being poor role models.  At the same time large, flapping-headed, fat-lipped, bad-haired women flapping their fat flapping gums in screeching annoying voices as if they were intelligent or possessed a shred of actual talent are also very bad role models.  In fact, it would be my assertion no one you see on television should be anyone’s role model.
Writers, on the other hand, I am sure they make fantastic role models. 

 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook format on his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.

Maintaining Neutrality

Being a cynic and, therefore, a natural skeptic is tough at times.  Essentially you are stuck in a perpetual Catch-22 scenario.  This is especially true when it comes to conspiracy theories.  Sometimes you hear one and say to yourself, “hmm, that sounds like it could be valid.”  Much of them involve large corporations doing things just for themselves to the detriment of everyone else.  As a cynics you may think to yourself, “this sound valid.  Sure, corporation would only think about themselves and just think about the bottom line and I bet they would sacrifice their own grandmother if it would improve their bottom line.”  You may even have first hand experience with this concept.  However, just as you think that you have to think, “at the same time the conspiracy theorists are wanting to get everyone on their side to justify their existence and so, of course, they are must present a compelling argument to do so.  Therefore, their evidence must be suspect.”  In general this creates a kind of situation where you are perpetually stuck between two opposing forces convinced everyone is a jerk and no one wants to do anything good for anyone. 

So, it is with this in mind that I came across this idea of “Internet Neutrality.”  As it turns out, it’s something that has been brought up on shows like “The Daily Show.”  Of course “The Daily Show” also has a pronounced liberal/libertarian bent so you have to keep that in mind as well.  I will attempt to explain what this in case you are like me and coming a little late to this particular party. 

Apparently the best way to explain it is to think of the internet like a pipeline between the computer and the Net.  Supposedly, the way things are arranged now every website has the same chance as any other website to become popular or not become popular because they should, in theory, be able to get to your computer when you go there as fast as any other website.  This, to me, seems like a over-simplification and patently untrue, but this seems to be the argument those who are pro-neutrality are trying to use in their favor.  Because each website can use the same tools as any other and can be downloaded at the same rate as any other this achieves some kind of internet utopia.  It creates “Net Neutrality.”   

According to those who are pro-neutrality the big internet service providers are trying to set up a second pipeline.  Essentially this second pipeline will be for various partner who would pay the internet service providers large amounts of money for their sites to show up more and download faster than the regular schlubs out there who don’t pay those fees.  As you might imagine this creates a caste system on the internet with the wealthy on the surface and the lower-end folks slaving away in the mines and the machines beneath the city (for a clearer idea of this analogy please see the silent film “Metropolis.”) 

Now, here is where the cynic in me starts to debate.  OK, it seems perfectly logical to me that huge, unthinking and uncaring corporations who are always looking for a way to screw someone over to make an extra dime would want to find a way to charge huge fees for people to use their services and make their websites more noticeable or to download faster.  On the other hand, I also believe in free enterprise and have an idea that there are a lot of people out there who truly do believe every corporation really is truly evil and has no place in the world.  I believe that corporations, as a whole, are usually evil but I do know that they tend to have some caring and compassionate people working for them. 

I also use the internet.  I have a website.  I try to sell my books on this thing.  I certainly want to have the same chance as someone who has a ton of money and a major publisher behind him or her to market their books.  I can currently delude myself into believing that the only reason I have not started a groundswell of support for my books is because I just haven’t spent enough time marketing and not because my website has anything wrong with it. 

So, in the end, I guess I support the idea of Net Neutrality.  I like the free-wheeling feel of the internet as it stands these days.  In a lot of ways the internet is like the ole west.  You have to be tough to walk the streets of the net.  You have to be able and willing to defend yourself at a moment’s notice.   Yes, I am being overly melodramatic but I also feel there is some truth to the idea.  It is a true open marketplace.  I have to wonder, though, are the big internet service providers really ganging up on the little guys?  According to some websites there have been measures defeated in Congress to try to create that second pipeline.  Of course, just because it was defeated in the
U.S. what would stop some company from doing the same thing in another country? 

If you have an interest in this you might want to check out www.savetheinternet.com.  Of course, this is the site that is pro-neutrality and has that liberal spin to it.  While I am a cynic I am also, generally speaking, liberal about a lot of things so my tendency is to take the liberal stance over the conservative one.  I am also on record here many times talking about how heartless and soulless big companies are.   

I think the internet should just sort itself out.  Those who are determined and want to sick with it will, I think, eventually find some success.  That bubble that burst in the 90s sorted out a lot of the useless junk and people who didn’t have a clear plan.  I know because I worked for a large number of them at the time.  In each case I entered an office full of hope and excitement but no clear idea of how to make money or how to move forward.  So, what you had was a company running all over the country and spending thousands and thousands of dollars in travel expenses alone with no clear idea how more money was going to come in.  I even worked for one company that had big ideas about stock options that ended up being worth a few pennies when things went sour.   

Such things are destined to happen when you set out in a new frontier.  The people who ran out into the west looking for gold most of the time came back empty-handed.  Those who had an actual plan and did some research and had just a little bit of luck and determination usually found a way to make it.  Maybe they didn’t find gold but they found out you could make a lot of money selling gold mining supplies to nuts looking for gold. 

In short, I think internet neutrality is a good thing.  You can send off an e-mail to your congress-persons on that website.  It doesn’t take long to do.  It’s nice to say hello to those people anyway.  Sometimes they need a reminder of who they really look for.  Of course, I am rather cynical about all of that anyway. 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook format on his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.

Man’s Greatest Invention

In all of the history of the world mankind has developed some truly fantastic inventions.  Of course many people will talk about the wheel.  Others will talk about the internal combustion engine.  Arguments can be made that the telephone was an invention that truly changed the world or perhaps the Marconi Wireless which lead to radio.  Of course radio lead to television and that is certainly an invention that has greatly changed the world.  Finally, of course the computer has probably revolutionized the world more than anything else and the computer led to the invention of the Internet although we may have Al Gore to thank for that. 

Throughout history there are minor inventions that I think we all take for granted that would make life so much more difficult if they hadn’t been invented.  Look at the lowly ballpoint pen.  What if we were still dipping quills into ink and writing that way?  No one would ever be able to read a single thing I would write.  I can barely make ballpoint pen writing legible.  God forbid if I had to take calligraphy in school when I could barely pass handwriting.  So, the ballpoint pen has to be a great invention when you consider it. 

There are those who believe more recent inventions are such that people should not be allowed to live without them.  I have boisterous disagreements with friends who think no one should live without a TiVo.  Personally I cannot imagine having that much to do that I can’t watch a television show when it’s actually supposed to be on.  Should I go sit out on the porch when “Heroes” is on just so I can watch it on TiVO later?  Weren’t commercials made for flipping from one show to another?  My father and I have mastered this art and we are quite proud of it, dammit.  There are friends who also feel it is impossible to live without a GPS device.  Of course considering how expensive the damn things on I’d rather just have an atlas or maybe hire a hooker to sit next to me with a map and to whisper directions sexily in my ear. 

I have even been told by an old college friend of mine that he had a friend who once wrote a very funny essay about how the greatest invention of the modern time is the spatula.  Quite honestly I don’t know what I would do without mine.  Perhaps just reach into the hot pan and flip the meat over with my hands?  I am guessing roasting and using a spit might be more popular in day-to-day life than frying things without the invention of the spatula. 

However, none of those things are what I think are the greatest inventions of the modern century.  My favorite thing falls under the medicinal field.  Once again here is a field that has a lot of fans when they are looking for a great invention.  Penicillin is probably up there with one of the greatest discoveries of all time.  Personally I always thought it tasted like the most horrible thing in the world when I was forced to take the liquid version when I was a child.  There are those who would argue for the polio vaccine being one of the greatest discoveries and inventions in the medicinal field.  I cannot argue with that except to point to the possibility that experiments with that vaccine could have lead to the AIDS virus.  Of course, I have yet to see absolute proof of that so, until that arrives, I cannot really argue with this being a great invention. 

For me, though, the greatest invention of modern times comes in the form of a greenish liquid.  You can take it like a shot in a bar and you can take it as a capsule.  Regardless of how you take it this drug will knock you flat and make you feel like a million bucks more than any alcohol.  I speak, of course, of NyQuil. 

If you have a cold and do not take NyQuil I have to wonder about you.  Of course you may also have to worry about drug interactions and heart conditions and such, but for me, I would do anything to take this stuff.  You know what it’s like when you have the cold or flu.  Just moving takes supreme effort.  You can barely breathe.  You cough so much the entire house seems to vibrate.  Once sip of this stuff though it like a hammer blow to the head.  The world begins to spin around.  You can lay down and slip into a kind of coma and it lasts an entire eight hours.  It tells you what it does and then it does it and it does it in a way that brings sleep and, to me, there is nothing better than sleep.  I love sleep.  If there was a job that required the person performing the job to sleep then I would be the greatest employee that company had ever seen. 

NyQuil of course has DayQuil and that stuff is pretty good too.  However, I tend to like things that are green rather than a bright orange.  Also you have to take more of these capsules throughout the day than the ones you take at night.  It brings beautiful, blissful sleep when you may have a difficult time getting any sleep.   

I don’t drink until I get drunk.  For example I have never been drunk.  I have never been high.  I have never taken anything illegal to alter my mood.  The most I have gotten is a tad buzzed from too much wine.  I have never had so much to drink I vomited.  I never saw the need for it.  I never had any use for it.  I saw other people doing it and thought they looked like idiots and decided it wasn’t for me.  The closest I get to being high or drunk is when I take NyQuil. 

There has never been a cure for the cold.  There really isn’t a cure for the flu.  You can take flu shots, sure, but if you get the wrong virus compared to the flu shot you got then you can still end up with it.  Viruses suck.  The closest any of us can get is this wonder drug.  It stops the coughing.  It makes you sleepy.  It puts you out like something an anesthesiologist might give you.  It’s blissfully wonderful.  It provides some of the deepest sleep you are likely to find. 

I have never taken a drug like Ambien or one of those prescription sleep aides as they like to call them.  Why should I when I can take this stuff over-the-counter and sleep like the dead.  Sure it may take a little while to get going the next morning, but I don’t care. 

So, you can have your computers and you can have your radios.  You can have your wheels and spatulas.  You can have your TiVos and your GPS devices.  Just give me my NyQuil when I have a cold or the flu or just some problems getting to sleep and I am a happy man.  I’d rather sleep than know an alternate route to the grocery store any day of the week and twice on Sunday. 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is now available in print and eBook format at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.  If you order now you still might be able to get a copy for someone for Christmas. 

Athletes Behaving Badly

Right now the city of
Chicago is caught up in Bears-fever.  People are somehow convinced that they will be playing in the Super Bowl in February.  Of course, given the most-recent performance they will be lucky to be in the lead at any point during their first playoff game.  Still, hope springs eternal, as they say.  The thing is that the team is just a tad distracted.  You see one of their key defensive players is a moron of galactic proportions. 

Tank Johnson is a very big man.  He is a big scary looking man and he is on the defense of the Bears.  The defensive side of the team is the strong part of the team, or so they say.  He is an intimidating man.  Much like the character of Lenny from “Of Mice and Men” he is also apparently as dumb as a stump and that is quite and insult to a few stumps I have met in my time.   

Mr. Johnson is already on probation for being caught outside a
Chicago nightclub with his Ruger 9mm.  Of course everyone knows that you cannot visit a
Chicago nightclub without your 9mm automatic pistol.  I mean, come on, if you don’t have one when you arrive at some of the more popular nightclubs around her they issue you one.  Anyway, apparently the police don’t take to kindly to the idea of large, potentially violent men who may have been drinking walking around the streets with loaded pistols.  So, Tank got himself arrested and he is currently on probation. 

Tank got himself into trouble again back in February of this year by being at another nightclub and disrupting traffic with a limo he had hired.  The genius then insulted police officers and got into a scuffle with them.  The police ended up macing him.   

This past Thursday morning the police in the northern suburb of Gurnee issues a warrant to search Tank’s home.  Once again Tank was found possessing firearms without a license.  In fact six misdemeanor counts of possession of a firearm without a license were issued against Tank.  Why exactly this man feels the need to carry so many firearms is unclear.  Like I said, he isn’t exactly a genius. 

What happened next has to qualify Tank for the Moron Hall of Fame.  Instead of staying home and learning from the fact that he and nightclubs do not mix he decided to go out to another nightclub.  The details of what happened are not really clear.  He got into some kind of trouble.  Shots were fired.  A man who is a close friend to Tank and his supposed bodyguard was killed in the shooting.  Needless to say Tank was not in the game this past Sunday and most of
Chicago is saying it’s time to cut their losses and let him go. 

As of the end of the

Tampa
Bay and Chicago Bears game Bears coach Lovie Smith was reported as saying Tank was still part of the team.  I predict this will last until sometime on Monday and then we shall see who is still on the Bears.  Regardless of how I think they will do in the post-season the Bears are in the playoff hunt and the very last thing they need is such a distraction. 

You have to wonder about football players.  I wonder if maybe something akin to post-traumatic stress syndrome happens to them.  They play a violent game and for three hours or more every week they are expected to pound the hell out of other men using their bare hands.  It takes a certain type of person to do that and they are the type of persons who might be a little prone to violence.  We just throw them back into civilization on Monday and expect them to be model citizens.  Maybe that’s a tad unrealistic. 

There is no excuse, however, for basketball players.  The NBA is rapidly becoming about as safe to watch as a gangland shootout.  A recent game between the New York Nicks and Denver Nuggets descended into chaos and fighting.  Exactly why this happened isn’t clear.  The New York Nicks pretty much suck like a
Hoover vacuum cleaner.  One of the players on the
New York team grabbed one of the Nuggets around the neck and threw him to the ground.  In hockey this would be acceptable.  In basketball this is frowned upon.  

However, before you knew it one of the Nuggets players came over and cold-cocked one of the
New York players and then bravely backed up rapidly and ran away.  You have to admire the sportsmanship in the NBA.  What exactly happened to this particular sport?  Michael Jordan may have had an issue with gambling and Scottie Pippen may have been a big baby at least more than once but they never ran around punching other people.  Dennis Rodman may have, but the big guys didn’t.  Now you never know when a fight is going to break out when you are watching and NBA game. 

What is amazing is that the NFL players don’t get into fights on the field nearly as much.  You see some pushing and shoving but rarely is there a fight that breaks out and clears both benches.  I don’t know if this is because the refs are better in that particular sport and get them to stop faster than others or what.  Maybe it’s the fact that about two minutes after the supposed violation or insult you get another chance to try and pound that other person into hamburger meat.   

Then again you look at a sport like hockey where fighting is almost encouraged.  People gleefully smash other player’s faces into the boards and glass.  Blood can easily be found on most ice rinks.  Yet they hardly ever seem to get into trouble outside of the rink.  There have been exceptions, of course, you have to admit that that as a whole the hockey players are very well-behaved.  They also tend not to get involved in shooting each other in the behinds with steroids.  Of course, the trade-off is that they play in a sport that no one cares about except for a bunch of Canadians and my friend Scott.   

There’s something wrong in sports.  I don’t know if it’s the money and the fact that athletes seem to be getting younger or younger.  I don’t know if it’s the type of people who get offered huge contracts.  I don’t know if it’s the fact that these people get surrounded by sickening sycophants who cater to their every whim no matter how ridiculous.  I just know that too many athletes seem to think it’s all right to treat everyone else like garbage, that it’s ok to resort to violence, and that you really need to be walking around carrying weapons. 

I just know that Tank Johnson needs to get off of the Bears.  He is a distraction they don’t need.  He is also apparently unnecessary.  Finally, apparently he is an idiot and really football has enough of those to go around.  Yes, I am talking about you Terrell Owens. 

 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is now available in print and eBook format at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.  Once again, it would make a great Christmas present.

Closer than We Thought

I was watching television not very long ago and I happened to stumble across the show “Primetime Live.”  It’s tough to keep the news magazine shows separate, and I will acknowledge that.  They all seem to tell the same stories with the same dramatic flair and they like to repeat the same stories over and over and over again.  At this point if there is a creep looking for underage children on the internet and who gets invited anywhere and DOESN’T expect Christ Hansen to step out of the kitchen then that person not only deserved to be arrested and locked away forever for being a pervert but he deserves to be tackled by police and locked away from the light for being stupid. 

This show was not about anything to do with the internet.  You may have seen this story.  It really made me think and it made me wonder.  Of course, I also wondered for selfish reasons, but it also just made me curious.  It studied a fairly common phrase among most people and that is the idea that every person is only “six degrees” away from anyone else. 

You are probably aware of this idea even if you are not aware of the fact that it was a concept even before they applied it to the actor Kevin Bacon.  The idea is that anyone in the world is six people away from you and if you just make a phone call to a friend that friend will, in turn, know someone else and that person will know someone else and, eventually, you will find yourself face-to-face with that person in only about six people. 

On this particular episode they put it to the test.  They found a man who is a boxer and lives in a very poor area of
Brooklyn.  They then found two people who lived on the upper-east and –west sides of
New York and showed them a picture of the boxer.  They gave a name and who he was and where he was and told them to go find him.  The thing they could not do was just look up the gym where he worked out and call over there.  They had to reach out, as the first step, to someone they already knew. 

What was amazing to watch was that each of them reached out to someone they knew and took vastly different approaches to it but each of them managed to get to the boxer.  The guy they found actually managed to get to the boxer in five steps and he got there first.  The woman who owned a magazine in the
Hamptons managed to make it in exactly six links but she managed to find an entirely different route. 

It was pretty cool but then the idea came to the producers to try and reverse it.  Sure, when you went to people who were relatively wealthy and moved in large circles of power and had potentially hundreds of acquaintances and contacts it might be relatively easy to find someone.  The question was, is it easier to go downhill then to look back uphill.  So, they gave the boxer a picture of a pretty young woman who is a dancer on Broadway and had just landed a part in a revival of “A Chorus Line” and told him to do the same thing.  Now, how could a guy who lived in a poor part of town, had never been to a Broadway musical, and mostly knew other boxers find his way there?  Surprisingly he did it and he did it pretty easily. 

It really made me think.  It turns out there is a university that has been doing a study on an even wider scale for some time now.  They have people in the U.S. and other countries and assign them someone to find in
Australia or other parts of the world.  What the study has found is that even with an entire planet between the connections it was still possible to make the connection and do it, usually, in about six links.  This study is done mostly through e-mails. 

So, I had to wonder, if this is the case then it raises a few questions.  For example, does that mean I am only six links away from talking face-to-face with Stephen King?  The one man I would love to meet and talk with might only be six people away, if based upon this theory.  However, wouldn’t it be vastly difficult to do?  Wouldn’t I run into people in the publishing world who would not want to give up his name?  Wouldn’t it be easier to do if I had a television camera crew and producers who would let Mr. King know that some nut-job in Chicago who fancied himself a writer was going to see if he could get to him?  I am thinking doing the search through a television show may make things a little bit easier than trying to do this on your own.  Everyone wants to be on television, right? 

If everyone around the world is really only six links away from everyone else then why is it so damn hard to find Osama?  Couldn’t Bush actually do it himself?  Given this theory shouldn’t he be able to pick up a phone and make a call?  Aren’t the rest of Osama’s family rather wealthy oil-type people who actually hang out in fancy rich circles and attend school here in the
U.S.?  Seems to me the CIA should be picking up a phone call and making a few phone calls.  A boxer found a dancer so a CIA guy should be able to find a guy in a cave, I think. 

Technically, would we even need a CIA?  What about an FBI?  Why was it so darn hard to find the Unabomber?  Maybe the whole thing is that people still feel like they are isolated and alone and don’t realize that they may be closer to that guy across the street or that pretty woman standing on the corner than they actually realized.  Maybe it’s an idea whose time as come and maybe, just maybe, the entire theory needs to be looked at and a major change in the way we think should take place.  If we really are that close to each other, maybe the things you do and say have more of an effect than you realize.  Turns out that you may be closer to that person standing next to you than you realize.  Maybe that means you shouldn’t be so rude to that person when standing in line to by your venti whatever. 

The planet, relatively speaking, is a very large object.  In the vast scheme of the universe, it’s actually really tiny.  While you may believe in a god or God or deity the fact is, down here, every day, we are on our own to get through it.  That means we should start finding a way to rely on each other more.  Maybe people need to realize they are not just in this for themselves but that what they do has a potential ripple effect that could touch all of us.   

Then again, I am supposed to be a cynic and this whole article is starting to sound very optimistic.  It must be the Christmas music or something.   

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook format on his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.  Buy it and encourage a friend to do so. 

The Question of Christmas Gifts

If you believe the commercials and ads running these days every single thing that a company sells would make an excellent Christmas present.  As for me, I am giving out my equivalent of a homemade gift.  I am giving what I am calling special editions of a novel I hope to sell to a publisher.  To those of you who are my family and not aware of what I am giving you, I apologize in advance.  I have this delusion that eventually, when I do become a hugely successful writer, the special editions will be worth a lot of money.  Yes, I stole this idea from Stephen King. 

If you watch Martha Stewart at all you know that whatever you are giving, no matter how expensive, it really isn’t worth a pile of wet snot compared to the thoughtful, time-consuming, ridiculously complicated things she wants you to make for people.  I saw something on television with Die Stewart-frauen and she was making homemade pillows.  Who the hell makes homemade pillows?  If you have enough time to make homemade pillows for everyone on your Christmas list you need to go out and start volunteering or start a dog-walking business or something before you start paper-mache-ing things or dipping candles. 

There are a lot of gifts that various advertising people are trying to convince you that you should buy for your friends and relatives that should never ever be bought without serious consideration of the ramifications.  For example: lottery tickets.  You hear the commercials and see them on television, perhaps, as I do.  I don’t know what kind of lottery your state has but I am betting whatever is there you see some kind of equivalent of these lottery commercials they run now.  These commercials always show some guy frantically trying to figure out what to buy his wife.  He is shopping last minute and everything is closed.  What on earth can he do?  Why buy a bunch of $1 scratch-off lottery tickets, of course! 

To those of you who might still be laboring under the delusion that buying lottery tickets for your spouse or girlfriend is a good idea let me dispel those beliefs for you.  They are terrible gifts.  They suck.  In the commercials, because they have writers writing them, each of those tickets ends up being a winner.  In real life you are more than likely to end up winning another lottery ticket or, perhaps, a dollar.  Unless you buy a lot of lottery tickets and use them to stick all over a large white box and inside that box is something very expensive and in the same class as jewelry if you are walking into your house on Christmas with nothing for your life but lottery tickets you should expect to be sleeping on the couch.  Also, you should expect to be sleeping there for a very, very, very, VERY long time. 

There is another branch of gift-giving that is somewhat endearing in its persistence that it is a good thing to give out to people you love and that would be the fast-food industry.  Is there anyone in your life who would really like to receive a gift certificate for some kind of heart-clogging, heart-attack-inducing fast food thing?  I remember getting McDonald’s gift certificates when I was a kid and thinking it was all right but hardly fun to play with.  I also remember their commercials that they would run during this time of year and everyone would be smiling and acting like an idiot when they pulled out a piece of paper entitling them to a cheeseburger.   

Once again if you were laboring under the delusion that someone you love and who means something to you would prefer to receive one of these rather than something else, anything else, then let me dispel those ideas right now.  No one wants to receive a gift certificate for food.  Some people seem to think that gift cards or certificates are impersonal.  Not me.  I love them.  I like taking the time to buy my own things rather than risk ending up with something I will not like and I think it is considerate of someone to think of me that way.  However, it would be galactically rude for someone to buy me a certificate for food!  Fast food! 

The beer companies have joined the fray over the past few years.  I think that this year the commercials I have heard at least suggest the idea that it might be best to buy beer for people who are throwing a holiday party.  To me, that makes sense.  It is polite to bring something when you are invited to someone’s home for a party.  However, I really doubt anyone in your family would like beer for the holidays.  As much as Budweiser would like to believe that there are scores of people out there buying cases of Bud for consumption on Christmas day I am doubting this is a gift that will make anyone’s face light up.  I would like to, for the record, separate the idea of buying someone a six-pack from signing someone up to some mail-delivered micro-brewery service for a year.  At least that would be unique and interesting.  Going down to the liquor store for a six-pack of Miller High Life, on the other hand, is not cool.  Of course you can probably also buy your lottery tickets there so if you are already going down this route you might as well go the rest of the way and pick up a handful of those as well. 

I understand how hard it can be to buy people gifts.  It is exhausting.  Right now there are probably thousands of husbands wandering aimlessly through malls.  They are the ones who look pale and haggard.  Their jackets are hanging open much like their mouths and they are probably wearing some kind of stocking cap on their hands.  They shuffle aimlessly, look dreadfully pale and, in all senses, look very much like a zombie out of a George A. Romero movie.  Many of them probably cling to the hopes that they can stop at a 7-Eleven on the way home and pick up a few lottery tickets and a few air fresheners and that will due.  These are the ones clinging to one last shred of sanity. 

A while ago I discovered that the internet was a great place to shop.  You can stay home.  You don’t even need to be dressed.  You don’t have to hunt for parking spaces.  You don’t have to fight off the crowds of people who are rioting near the toy store for a scrap of some sort of Elmo-shaped doll that does something like pass wind as it laughs.  You can have everything delivered at your home and some of the places even wrap the stuff for you and stick on a name tag.  For those of you unaware, the internet is actually full of more things that just porn. 

Of course you can actually make some homemade gifts.  These are very thoughtful and, really, should mean a lot more than anything store-bought.  It takes time and effort and thought.  If you are like me, it will also leave you weeping with glue on your fingers and wanting to stab yourself with a pair of scissors.  Merry Christmas. 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is now available in print and eBook format at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.  It would make an EXCELLENT Christmas gift for the reader in your family.