Music for Inauguration Day

 This is the only thing I could think of when faced with today's events. 



Steve Earle wrote this song around the time of the 2004 elections, when we were in the throes of the Iraq invasion and staring down a second  Bush term.  It's still pretty applicable today.

Reading for MLK Day

No ramble today.  Instead, I want to point you to a post over at my friend (and better blogger than I will ever be) Roger Green's blog, where he looks at King's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, which is still as moving and thought-provoking as it was all those years ago.

All those years ago.  Heh.  All those years ago, and yet here we are, in the middle of the same goddam struggle, which is heating up yet again.

Today of all days, with Friday's cannon staring us in the face, we need to remember who King really was--not the easy to swallow postage stamp version--but the real King, the man who consistently grounded his actions in an all-consuming, radical belief that we could be better than we are, as long as we grounded our movements for change in unconditional love.

I'm struggling with that last part right now.

We as a country are standing on the precipice of a huge, dark ugliness that must be fought.  We must also take care that we do not become that ugliness in the process.

Monday Rambles (Post-Apocalyptic Edition)

Okay.  I'm back.

This has been a rough year for blogging for me, apparently.

I did have a good birthday.  Thanks very much for your well-wishes.  I went to three vendor malls I don't normally get to, plus a church sale that turned out to be really great.  This guy at the church sale had a tub of Batman comics, but the sign with the price was turned over.  I went to flip it back, expecting it to say they were a dollar each or something.

Instead, they were 25 cents each.  I heard Keith say:  "I know that look."  And the next thing you know, they guy and I have negotiated a price of 20 bucks for all of them.  I counted them later and it worked out that I paid about a dime each for them.  Score!

Here they are all waiting for to have a chance to pop in a cheesy movie and bag and price them.

Some other guy at the sale offered to run home and get his "brand new" Batmen comics for me.  He had been asking five apiece for them, but would take a buck each from me.  I told him I was too cheap for that and walked away.  Seriously, you just saw me pay less than 25 cents each and you think that's a strategy that will work with me?

It ended up being a good comic weekend.  Two of the malls I went to had some great comics for good prices available as well. 

Just a small representative sample.  Lots of Silver Age Harveys and Archies in this batch.  I have a couple of buyers that look for these, along with Dell, Gold Key and Disney stuff.  It's honestly a niche that the other guys with comics in our mall don't bother with, not even they one other guy who actually knows comics.

Since the previous weekend, I had struck out on comics at the big flea and at a comic shop sale, I was kind of glad to find so many.  I told Keith that the comics I expected to find the last weekend were actually hiding in the next weekend!

I did find some fun DVD's at the big flea, even if there were no good comics.

And then the world ended.

I've spoken and will continue to speak my piece on the election over on the Book of Faces, so I won't repeat it all here.  I will say that I am sad over the election results and scared as hell for so many reasons.  The racist attacks we've seen so far are only the tip of the iceberg.

I am still trying to wrap my head around it all. I may end up yet having to do some posts here as well.

I will share this though.  I stayed up until 2:30 on election night,  Keith went to bed, but I had to know.  I stayed up until the electoral votes hit 270 and it was called for Trump.  At that moment, the tears I had been just barely holding back let loose.  Chiquito was asleep in my lap, and he sat up and looked at me and started rubbing against me.

I got up and laid down next to Keith.  I woke him up and told him what had happened.  We held each other and I cried some more.  Chiquito came and laid on top of us and it was just us, alone in the dark. Together against what had just become world.

The next day, I cried myself out.  I posted about my sorrow on the Book of Faces, which has caused people I thought were my friends to mock me.

We have got to be better than this.

I am finally almost done with the booth re-do.  Keith went and helped me for several hours on my birthday.  (Best present ever!) And now things are looking good again.  I still have a bit to do, plus I sold a shelf last night, so I've got some extra work to do today.  I'll have pics tomorrow.

Sales are slowly picking up again.  Election day was the first hundred dollar day I'd had in over a month.  Since then, things have been a lot stronger, with several big pieces selling. Looks likes Melissa was right.

This past weekend, I house sat for my sweet friend Laci.

She likes my orange backpack and sleeps on it every time I'm over at her house.

I had a mishap at Goodwill last night, when I picked the wrong size cart.

Oops!

 But that wasn't as bad as missing out on three boxes of Shiny Brites when some kid cut in front of me and grabbed them.  ACK!

I have sooooooo much to do this week!  Treatment tomorrow.  Finish the booth.  Get the Christmas out.  Laundry. Pack.  Plus, there's a John Prine show on Friday that we have tickets too.

Thanksgiving is a week from Thursday.  Ack!  How does it sneak up like that every year?  We leave for Arkansas this Saturday.  (Shara email me!)

The sorrow that began with the election results last week continued with the death of musical genius Leonard Cohen.  (My beloved Emmylou Harris had stated that he was the one artist she always wanted to work with.  Now she'll never get the chance.) 

In light of everything that happened last week, there's only one choice for Music for Monday.



Take care of yourself.  Take care of each other.  Be loving and kind.

I love you.

Retro Y'all (Current Events Edition)

In light of everything that has happened over the past week, this was the only thing fit to share today.  My heart is breaking right now.



We've got to find a way.

Retro Y'all (Orlando Edition)

I came out at the height of the AIDS crisis.  A good friend had passed away from the disease several weeks earlier.  It was a scary and uncertain time to be gay, but (for me) it was even more scary and uncertain to keep denying it. 

I don't want to talk about my coming out here, except to say that it was difficult and scary.  Also, it was not something that I really chose to do at the time it happened.  There were outside forces at play--malevolent ones.

If it hadn't been for my mother and Keith, I would not have made it.  There were times that I contemplated not going on.  It was just too rough and I was not sure at the time I could do it.  Coming out cost me something that was really important to me at the time, and that something had given me a sense of purpose and direction for several years.  Without it, I was nearly completely lost.

A few years later, Keith and I were on a Halloween cruise on the Ohio River, sponsored by a local gay group.  We were on the top deck, watching the river, listening to the music play below us.  Suddenly, the music switched to old school disco--Donna Summer, the Village People, and of course the ever-playful, subversive Sylvester. 

I made a remark to Keith that it was kind of funny, but in the face of everything, we as a community kept finding ways to go on.  Ways to endure.  Ways to dance and sing and celebrate instead of closing in on ourselves.  Ways to live without fear.  Somehow, without even realizing it, I had learned how to it too.  Those dark, ugly, early days seemed very far away.

This was still years before the medical breakthroughs with AIDS treatments.  Years before the passage of anti-discrimination laws in Louisville and many other places.  Years before presidential candidates even spoke the words "gay" or "lesbian." 

A lot has changed since then.  The world is completely different.  We as a community have become a lot more inclusive in our understanding of ourselves.  We speak of "LGBT people" as opposed to "the gay community."  We've grown.

So had society around us.  Same sex marriage is a reality.  So is anti-discrimination protection in many places.  The broader culture sees us as a part of the world--a vital, contributing part.  This is a world that I could never have imagined all those years ago.  Ever.

The old world still finds ways to rear its ugly head, however.  I'm not just talking about the tragedy in Orlando with so many dead or wounded.  I'm talking about what has gone on since the shooting.  What still goes on.  There is a real concerted effort to focus solely on the identity of the shooter to the expense of that of the victims.  This crime has to fit in the box that is being designed for it, and to do that anything that doesn't fit is being left out.  Like the LGBT identities of the victims.  There seems to be this thought that this is a terrorist attack, but not a hate crime, as if it cannot be both.

The problem is the extra messages this attack carries with it--that our identities don't matter.  Our lives don't matter.  The prejudices that are still directed at LGBT people don't matter.  The hurt we are feeling right now doesn't matter.  Neither does the fear.  Or the anger. Or our loss.

If there's one thing that the AIDS years taught us, it was to never take anything lying down.  We don't have to be crammed into those "official" boxes.  We don't have to let our truths be covered over to fit convenient theories.  We can and we will make sure our stories, our voices, get heard.

We will go on.  We will live without fear.  We will find ways to live, laugh, dance and celebrate.

It's what we do.

Frustrations

It's legislative session time again here in Kentucky.  Actually, the session is wrapping up pretty soon.  I dread this time of year, because inevitably some numbskull will do something like this and it ends up making national news.  Way to go for home state pride.  Woo hoo!  (There are a lot of details missing from the linked story that help make the whole issue that much more frustrating.)  Seriously, sometimes I am embarrassed to be from this state.  And I have lived here pretty much my whole freaking life!!

These are the times when I have to remind myself of something cool about Kentucky to calm down. Like...  Like...  Like...

My Morning Jacket is from Louisville!



(They're even playing in Louisville in that clip.)









So, yeah, I gotta be better at taking the good with the bad when it comes to these parts.  But that bill is still horrible and needs to be stopped.

If you'll excuse me, I need to go make some phone calls and send some emails.

Monday Rambles

I'll warn you in advance, this is one of the rambliest rambles I've put down in digital ink in ages.  Get ready for a wild ride!

Another chemo week is down the pike and I'm slowly crawling out of the pit.  I've figured out that part of the problem during chemo weeks is the extra pills I have to take to accommodate my shots and stuff.  The Benadryl beforehand makes me so sleepy I can't stand it, so I end up going home after my shots and going to bed.  By the time I wake up, the chills from the shot are setting in, so I have to take more pills.  I think all the extra meds contribute to my nausea problems.  I know I start feeling better by Sunday, when all of the extra stuff has filtered out of my system.  Then I can start dealing with the bricks.

One more to go!  One more to go!  I'm filled with an equal measure of anticipation and dread.  Sometimes, just thinking about going back to the cancer center makes me reflexively retch.

My grandfather passed away Saturday morning.  They said he had a really rough couple of days and then passed on.  I'm really glad that we went to see him week before last.  He was alert and talkative then, and that's a good final memory to have.  He was 94, and kind of just gave out.  The last few years were pretty rough on him.  Besides his own declining health, one of my uncles passed away in 2009 and then Mom died in 2010.  I cannot imagine being in your 90's and yet having to bury your kids.  No one expects that.

His funeral will be Tuesday, which is going to make for an odd sort of week.  The Fourth was already throwing an extra day off in there, and I'm still trying to recover from missing a day of work last week due to chemo.  It's going to be a short week, but one with lots of commotion, apparently.

For some reason, my sales decided to pick up over the last week and a half.  That was a bright spot during the week of chemo blight.  All of a sudden, I started selling large items again and making my sales targets.  I finally made rent, and now I'll be getting a (very small) check.  But it will be a check.  Now I've got to get busy and replenish my stash of larger items.  About half my floor stock of small furniture is gone.  Luckily, I kind of made up for that with some weekend shopping.

I did get out to one church sale over the weekend.  We actually went to two, but the second one wasn't happening until Sunday. What kind of church does that?  I mean, besides the Adventists?  We did end up going back on Sunday, but it was a bust.  We found enough stuff at another Sunday stop to more than make up for that minor irritant.  More details on that tomorrow.

Speaking of church stuff, week before last when I was working my booth, there was a woman there seated on the floor in front of my religious wall.  She was going through all the pamphlets and booklets very carefully, like she was looking for certain particulars.  At one point, she asked me where I found all the older Catholic resources.  I kind of gave my usual hem and haw answer (junkers don't reveal their sources easily), so she asked if I was Catholic.  My answer to that is always "I'm not, but my father was."  She asked if I was raised Catholic.  I told her that I was raised Southern Baptist.  (The "Southern" part is very important--even all these years later.)  I didn't mention my conscious lack of a religious affiliation these days.  That seems a bit too personal for a casual conversation with a stranger.

Anyway, in the middle of all this, she says"  Well, you know those guys in Rome right now aren't the Catholic Church.  It's been nothing but anti-popes since 1958."  OMG!  I have a real-life sedevacantist on my hands!  I knew that Louisville had an SSPX chapel, because I had been to an awesome yard sale there one time, but I had no idea that there was anyone in town who was so anti-Vatican II that they went to the extreme positions.  Wow!  Now I realize why she was looking through everything so carefully.  She was checking for publication dates and imprimaturs!

She told me that she appreciated the stuff I had for sale and that it was a great resource for her and others, then left.  Wow!  I'm supplying goods for extreme traditionalist Catholics!  Who knew?  For the record, I find church politics almost as fascinating as church articles.

Day by Days:  It was another solid week, for the most part, but not a spectacular one.  The show was more about laying groundwork for some of the bigger action to come, as Sami prepares for trial and EJ moves ahead with his plot to take down Stefano.  I'm beginning to wonder if Kate wasn't the one who swiped the razor from Rafe's room, to bog down Sami's defense.  Judi Evans was excellent this week as Adrienne tried to keep her fears in check and keep from alienating her family.  Sonny and Will and the baby are so cute together.  Nice little moments with Nick/Will, Gabi/Nick, Kate/Sami (loved how Sami's hand kept hovering over Kate's shoulder, inches away from giving a little comfort, yet totally unable to reach out to her worst enemy), EJ/Chad and Adrienne/Jennifer.  JJ continues to annoy me.  The Cameron/Abby/Chad triangle looks to be boring as grass growing.  Who is the rooting couple supposed to be?  Durned if I know.  And, we got a Lucas scene!  Not enough of those these days.

Kim Thompson died recently.  I was going to mention here it last week, but I forgot.  He was co-publisher of Fantagraphics, which was one of my favorite comic book companies.  Towards the end of my comic book days, most of what I was reading were Fanta titles.  He was responsible for, among other things, bringing the works of Lewis Trondheim and Swedish artist Jason into print in English.  He brought wonderful things to an impoverished American comics market, and had a tremendous impact on my own reading habits.  He will be missed.

Finally a political note.  (Those of you who don't really want to read this sort of thing can skip the next two paragraphs.  I probably should have said that about my Days paragraph too.)

Like a lot of folks, I am celebrating the Supreme Court decision last week in the DOMA/Prop 8 cases.  At the same time, I am only cautiously optimistic about the eventual results of the decision.  For one thing, Keith and I still cannot get married under the laws of this state.  The decision changed nothing about that.  We cannot go to a state where same-sex marriage is legal, get married, and have that marriage recognized here.  That part of DOMA was not in the challenge.  My parents were married sixteen yers before they split.  Keith and I have been together 23.  My mother was able to get an increase in her Social Security when my dad died, and they weren't even married then!  Me?  It's not totally clear yet.  That's what I get out of the decision.  Not entirely clear yet.

I'm not downing the decision.  It was the right one.  It was a strong challenge to an unjust law.  All I'm saying is that looking at the aftermath and the meaning has to be done with a careful eye.  To go further, there is no federal law protecting LGBT folks from discrimination in housing or employment.  Unless someone lives in one of the cities or states that offers such protection, then they can be fired or evicted simply for being gay.  It's 2013, and this is still reality.  It's unconscionable.  We won a big deal last week.  There's no doubt about that.  We also still have a long ways to go.

From chemo to yard sales to soaps to Catholics to comics!  From the personal to the political!  I've hit the rambling gamut today, haven't I?  How about that?  About the only thing that didn't make it in was an Emmylou Harris mention.  And now you have that.

Despite everything that's gone on this year, I have managed to stay on track with my posting goals.  We are halfway through the year, and I am just a little over halfway to my posting goal of 200 posts for 2013.  Blogging has helped me cope with the stress of chemo, and I appreciate your reading along with me.  This week is already plotted out and pre-published, so keep checking in.

Thoughts on Black Friday

That title is a bit of a double entendre, actually.  These are both thoughts about Black Friday and thoughts that I am having/writing during the morning of Black Friday.  It works for me.

My relationship to Black Friday has changed a bit over the years, due to a couple of reasons.  One is the change in my income/status caused by the loss of my last full-time employment a couple of years ago.  Even now, when I'm in better economic shape thanks to a good part-time job, I'm not nearly as up on BF as I used to be.  There's also my realization that I simply have way too much stuff.  I really don't need any more.  Really.  That's one of the reasons that I started re-selling.

On the other hand, as a re-seller, I have a bit of a vested interest in any day where people go out and buy stuff.  I just want them to buy it from me.

We used to be dedicated BF folks.  We'd plan our day, get up early, wait in line, etc. I do need to make it clear, however, that we never lined up the night before, never shopped on Thanksgiving, and never, ever got into the madness at Wal-Mart.  We may have been dedicated, but we weren't fanatic.

The past couple of years, I've gotten up early for the Half-Price Books gift card giveaway, shopped there, and then gone home and gone to bed.  This year, I'm going to go for their sale, but I've kind of given up the idea of getting that 100 dollar gift card.  It just ain't gonna happen.  We will be heading over there later, as it's kind of my one-stop shopping for holiday gifts these days, but not until a more reasonable hour.  

There's a lot to Black Friday that can be seen as unsavory, or at the very least should give one pause for thought:

• It's out of control.  It's not just the insanity at Wal-Mart, either.  Wednesday evening, we stopped at the grocery to pick up a couple of things for Thanksgiving dinner.  There were folks already lined up at the K-Mart next door.  That's out of control.
• It encourages excess, whether it's greed, consumerism, or bad behavior.
• Where does the money go?  Who truly benefits from this frenzy?
• What about the workers?

Given all this, is there another way to "do" Black Friday?  One alternative is an outgrowth of the Occupy Movement called Buy Nothing Day.  It's an extremist kind of reaction, and, like all such reactions, it's got a few problems.

For one thing, it's indiscriminate.  The organizers make no distinction between corporate big boxes and small, locally-owned businesses.  The smaller you are, the less able you are to take the hit of no one buying anything from you.  I fully admit to the inherent self-interest in this comment.

It's also overly simplistic and idealistic.  A couple of pages about BND postulate that it will lead to the decline of the capitalist system.  Really?  While I do think we all should approach our interactions with the system carefully and thoughtfully, I think we do so in order to make those interactions as ethical and decent as possible.  It might in the end lead to societal change, but that's more of a happy, unintentional result, rather than a goal.

It's limited in scope.  I know that BF is an easy, bloated target of consumerist madness, but there are 364 other days of the year where we exist as economic beings.  If you're actually going for societal change, then your efforts need to be made on more than just one day a year.

Finally, it's not always practical.  Food.  Medicine.  Gas to get to work.  There are things that have to be purchased on any given day, including this one. 

I've kind of been thinking about this ever since I heard a news story about BND last year.  Unfortunately, I didn't get around to writing anything at that time, so now is that chance to get it off my chest.  What I'd like to see is a spectrum of "days" developed to counter not only the frenzy of BF, but the whole holiday season.  This is an approach that can also be carried on throughout the year, if someone chooses.  Here are some ideas:

Buy as Little as Possible Day:  A retooling of BND that takes into account necessary shopping.  It could also be called Necessities Only Day.

Buy Local Day:  Make a point of doing the bulk of your shopping at locally-owned businesses.  Keep more of your money in your hometown.

Shop Small Day:  This one already exists.

Shop Secondhand Day:  Yard sales, thrifts, flea markets, etc. would be the focus on this day.  Extending the life of items, putting them back into use, and keeping them out of the landfills are concrete ways to counter the "must have more" consumerist mentality that pervades BF.

Make it Yourself Day.  Use What You Have Day. Give Back to the Community Day. Shed Your Excess Stuff Day.  Buy American Made Day.  There are all kinds of ways to extend this model throughout the year.  You could sit down with your 2013 calendar and identify several of these deliberate days throughout the year, maybe even several a month.  This is a way to make conscious economic decision-making a regular part of your life.

Once again, I acknowledge that there is a lot of economic self-interest in several of these suggestions.  What do you think?  

Belated Rambles

Okay, so how about some belated rambling?  Sound good?  Here we go!

Like I said on Monday, I spent most of last week sick with a bad cold.  My whole routine was: stagger out of bed, take Dayquil, go to work, stagger home, take Nyquil, go to bed, repeat.  If I hadn't planned out those birthday posts weeks ago, then I wouldn't have had anything on the blog at all.  There really wasn't a lot to write about.

Thankfully, I was starting to get better by the time of the birthday celebration.  As usual, the birthday weekend was devoted to my favorite activities:  eating out and second-hand shopping.  In the days before I had a booth, I was looking for stuff for my collections and such.  Nowadays, it's a merch hunt, although I did find a cool stash of old comics for myself.  Since the yard sale season has pretty much died (more on that later), the birthday event is kind of like my really big push to make sure that I'm stocked enough for winter.

As I get older, it's surprising to me how tired I am at the end of the weekend.  Wheeling a cart around a bunch of vendor malls is a lot more tiring than you would think!  It's also surprising to me how the secondhand retail scene has grown in this town.  I used to be able to hit just about every thrift and flea market in town in one weekend.  Now, it's just not possible.  In fact, there are a couple of stores that have been open for a couple of years now that I have not been able to make even one visit to yet!  I keep worrying that we've reached or exceeded our carrying capacity and that there's going to be some contraction in the market, but it doesn't seem to be happening yet.

As usual, it was a lot of fun and I got a lot of cool stuff.  I feel better prepared for the colder months now.  In fact, I might be able to get by for both booths without having to make too many merch runs during the cold months, except possibly for furniture.  Seems like a good deal to me.

We did hit one yard sale (actually a church sale) over the weekend.  There weren't many listed, and most of them seemed to be scraping the bottom of the barrel.  This particular sale has been one of my favorites, but it usually happens much earlier in the year--February, to be exact.  Going from being one of the first sales of the year to one of the last really hurt it, I think.  This is the kind of church sale that allows a bunch of people to set up, but also has a large area of stuff that the church is selling.  I think the date switch put the sale so late that most church members had already had their own sales, so they only had their leftovers.

I did buy a few things, but nothing really special enough to post about.  A couple of oddball things happened, though, that are worth mentioning.  I asked a lady how much this cubby organizer thing for a kid's room was.  None of her stuff was priced.  She responded with the old "How much will you give me?" b.s.  I said, "Three dollars."  Then she said (and I quote verbatim here):

"How about four dollars? No, make it $3.50, then meet me in the middle at $3.25.  No, let's just go with three, like you said."

In other words, she countered her own counter-offer and did my negotiating for me and came out at my price!  I've never seen anything like it before.  Ever.  I resisted the urge to ask if she had sold much that day.

There was another lady with a bunch of electronic stuff that was not priced.  If someone asked about something, she would look it up on Amazon using her iPad.  Whatever someone had a used one listed for on Amazon was the price she quoted and she refused to negotiate because "I could get more for it on Amazon!"  I wasn't even interested in her stuff, yet I really had to suppress the urge to go over and tell her to put the damn stuff on Amazon, then wait six months or more for it to sell (if ever).  Seriously, you're going to turn down someone standing in front of you with cash in hand for a mythical 20 bucks more you could make on a website where you will never, ever actually list the item?  Someone needs lessons.

I spent the actual birthday day working my booth at the Peddlers Mall.  Last Monday, I had started rearranging to prep for the post-Halloween merch shift, but didn't get done because I wasn't feeling well.  I kind of left everything half done and then had not been back due to my cold.  In other words, I had a lot of work to do to get back on schedule.  Interestingly enough, I sold several more Halloween items in the days after Halloween, including the last of those damn skulls.

I pulled the Halloween stuff, rearranged the booth, tidied, and put out a ton of new stuff, including the start of Christmas.  I made a new Thanksgiving display, since my other one was getting a little tired.  The first round of my holiday gift idea items are out, with more still to come.  It all cleaned up rather well.  I forgot my camera, so you'll just have to take my word for it.  Keith commented on my working on my birthday, but the booth recognizes no such special occasions.  Afterwards, I started making my rounds of Halloween clearance to stock up for next year.  More about that in my sales analysis post.

I'm betting I'm not the only one who stayed up too late last night watching that nail-biter of an election.  Now, it's time to pull together and get things done.  I'm in.  Are you?

DFTVA!

Image courtesy of the vlogbrothers

I'm off today, due to the election.  I've been working on some things online most of the day, but I'm getting ready to stroll over to my polling place and vote.  I'm hoping I won't be alone over there.  Sometimes, the place is practically empty.  I'm also hoping that many of you have either already voted or will do so this afternoon.  This one is important, folks.

Honestly, I fear for my country.  Not because of who might win the election, although I do have a pretty definite preference there, and I do think that the other guy will do some pretty crappy things if he's elected.  I also know that my guy will not be able to do everything that he would like to do should he win. He'll even up doing some things that I do not approve of.  But none of that is what I am afraid of.

No, I am afraid because of the nature and tone of political discourse over the last two decades.  You don't have to be up on current events to realize how nasty and polarized things have gotten.  It used to be that the rhetoric would ratchet down after the election as officeholders had to turn to try and work together.  Now, however, it continues 24-7 through the entire year.  As a result, we see how little is being done.

Never would I have imagined that one party would simply declare itself the "party of no" to everything a President proposed, even if it were beneficial or even if the idea started from them.  No President has had to suffer as many indignities over stupid issues as this one has.  And you know it will be worse in the future, no matter which one is chosen.

I fear because we are losing the ability to be civil over differences, to agree to disagree when needed, to find ways to compromise and work together.  Compromise means creating a solution that neither side is completely happy with, because both sides have had to make concessions.  It means moving forward with solutions that may not be totally ideal, but that will make improvements.  Compromise used to be what made politics function and prevented gridlock.  Now we've got too many players who refuse make any concessions whatsoever and demand that those around them do the same.

Never before have we had a climate of such increasing ferocity, rigid definitions, and litmus tests.  it seems that to identify yourself one way or another means that you have to totally embrace a list of positions or be called a traitor to the cause.  Thinking for oneself is not allowed, nor is asking questions.  Worse yet, this climate has allowed us to start defining people on the other side, without listening to individuals, by lumping them in huge categories and insisting that this is what they are like.  Further, since they are like that we should not have to listen to them, work with them, associate with them, or even be related to them.  Polarization creates stereotypes.  Stereotypes create further division.

Perhaps saddest of all, so many of these shrill polarizing voices come from outside the political arena itself.  Personalities and commentators have so much influence over the public discourse.  Outside interest groups can pour so much money into campaign ads that do nothing but further their own interests, not the common good.

Please, vote today as you see fit.  Vote your own reasons.  Vote your conscience.  But then remember,  after the polls have closed and the votes have been tallied, no matter who wins or who loses, we are all Americans.  We all want what is best for our country.  To get there, we have to work together.  We have to listen to each other.  We don't have to totally agree, but we can recognize good arguments from the other side.  We can be open to each other.

If we can't, I fear for my country. 

Monday Rambles

Spoke too soon, I did.  No sooner had I posted about my sales streak at YesterNook last week, than it came to an end that very day.  Ah, well!  Them's the breaks, I guess.  And it was the longest sales run I've had there, so I'll take it and be grateful.

Monday actually ended up being the first (and hopefully last) time I had no sales at either venue!  Discovered I don't really like that felling.  Not one little bit.  No siree!

I entered the triple digits in my post totals for 2012 last week.  That record will be mine!  This I swear!

THOUGHT/REQUEST:  Can we please maybe try to have Summer without melting any more than we already have????  We're in the midst of 100+ degree heat (like lots of you are right now) and it's flat out killing us!  Poor, little, covered-in-black-fur Kosh is miserable!

The heat impacts the booths, too, in some obvious and not-so-obvious ways.  Obviously, in this heat fewer people want to get out and shop and fewer sellers want to get out and hunt junk, but that's kind of obvious.  I got hit with some things I didn't expect the other day though, when some candles I had in tubs of merchandise melted in the car!  And I'm not talking about "getting a little soft" melting, either.  I'm talking about "turned into a pool of wax" melting!

On booth stock days, I load the car in the morning and then Keith takes it to work.  I go do my own things and then bus to the mall.  I spend the afternoon tidying and rearranging the spaces and Keith runs the tubs of stuff by when he gets off work.  I can then put things out pretty quickly, since I've spent the day making space for them.

So, anyway, I was loading the car the other day, when I saw a candle in the top of the box.  Thinking the the heat would not be good for it, I placed it inside a large bowl, in case it melted.  Which it did, filling the bowl with a pool of wax.

Now, you're probably asking why I just didn't take the candle out and take it to the booth another time?  Well, because I'm an idiot, that's why!!!  I can't explain the dumb things I do.  I just do them!

Like most of the rest of the country, I was surprised by the Supreme Court decision on the Health Care law last week.  Unlike many, though, I was pleasantly surprised.  There is so much in that law that is very, very good that it would have been a tragedy had it been overturned.  I will admit that I don't think it goes far enough, but it's a step in the right direction.

Naive fool that I am, I honestly entertained for the briefest of moments the thought that, because Roberts was in effect the swing vote on this decision, maybe (just maybe) we might start to see a lessening of this poisonous political polarization that is tearing the country apart.  And then, I got smacked back to reality.  Sigh.  For all the fuss these damn Tea Partiers make about the constitution, they sure don't seem to know what it says.

However, perhaps the biggest surprise for Keith and I personally was finding this on the front page of the CNN web page the day before:

 That sweet little lady is Keith's aunt!  And, yes, she really is as sweet as she appears to be.  We've not yet been able to fond out how CNN got the pic.  Even more awesome than seeing her on CNN was seeing her share the front page with the Queen:

Screencaps from CNN.com.

 Finally, a sad note.  Susanna Clark passed away last week.  For those who don't know, she was the wife of legendary singer/songwriter Guy Clark and a fine songwriter in her own right.  She co-wrote one of Emmylou Harris' most lovely songs:



That song comes from one of my favorite Emmylou albums, Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town.  The album title comes from the line in the song.  So many good lines in that song.  Susanna Clark also painted the image on the cover of the album:

Her death has got me to thinking about one of her husband's most beautiful songs, "Magnolia Wind," in which a man sings about living without his sweetheart. This version features John Prine and Emmylou and comes from a recent tribute album to Clark.  That's Guy and Susanna on the cover.



Sadly, he's living that song now.

It's gonna be a busy, weird, hot week.  I'm going camping for part of it, plus there's the holiday.  Not sure what posting will be like, but I'll try.  Take care and stay cool!

Once Again, The Incomparable Roy Zimmerman!

In costume and make up, yet!

Here we go again!

I'm running the risk of overusing his vids, but I'm really taken with Roy Zimmerman right now.  His music is one of the few antidotes to the current toxic political climate.  Plus, I love that he doesn't take himself too seriously.  (And he plays a banjo!  How can you not love that?)



This song is, of course, a tribute to Woody Guthrie and his guitar.

It may be funny as hell...

...but it's also scarily accurate!



The amazing Roy Zimmerman, everybody!

It's Small Business Saturday!

I think the idea, encouraging folks to remember the little guys during this busy shopping time, is a good one, although seeing the Amex logo plastered all over everything does make me a little queasy.  While it is good to see one of the big corporations realizing that small businesses do have something to contribute to the overall economic health of the country, it also seems to me that if anything should be a grassroots movement, Small Business Saturday should.

 

I've been having some thoughts about consumption lately, thanks to Black Friday, Buy Nothing Day, the Occupy movement and the like.  Small Business Saturday plays into that as well, but now is not the time to share anything.  It needs to gestate a bit more first.

So, in the meantime, while you're out there looking for stuff:  remember the little guys!  I'm a part of two different small business shops, you know.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was going to do one of those traditional "what I'm thankful for" essays here. but I'm not really that kind of guy.  Nothing against doing that, but it comes off as forced when I try it.  I honestly believe that, if you read my blog posts throughout the year, you pretty much know who and what I'm thankful for.

So, anyway, we're off not eating turkey, but still feasting nonetheless.  Go green bean casserole!

 

So let me leave you with a thought to ponder this fine day:

Why does this pic of Eric Bana come up in a Google image search for funny turkey pictures?

 

I mean, really?  Just look at the man.  "Funny turkey" is the last thing that comes to my mind, let me tell you!  At least I can understand why this one pops up!

See you all tomorrow!  Don't eat too much!  (Yeah, right!) Travel safely!  And may your teams win the games!

A political thought...

This past Tuesday, for the first time in my adult life, I abstained from voting in a major race.  I just could not in good conscience bring myself to vote for the Democratic candidate, and the Republican was simply not an acceptable choice.  (But, then again, they usually aren't.)

Now, I've had cases where the Dem was not at all who I wanted as the party candidate, but I've been able to hold my nose and vote anyway.  Not this time.  Just. Could. Not. Do. It.  No way. No shape. No form. No how.

Even the old "You have to vote to keep the other guy out" argument couldn't work with me this time.  And given the nature of the other guy, that's saying something!  The polls were lopsided enough against him that I felt I had some cover this time, but I'm still not sure I could have voted, even if it had been neck and neck.  Yes, it was just that bad.

So I took my ballot and wrote "Abstain" as a write-in for that particular race.  I hope to never have to do it again.

Speaking of politics, someone on a non-political forum the other day made the comment that next year's election was going to be the "most important in our lives."  Now, I tend to agree with that, though not for the same reasons.

Still, it got me to thinking....

Shouldn't every election be considered the "most important in our lives"?

Or coming at it from another angle, given the number of recent elections that have been declared to be the "most important in our lives," why does it seem that when elections were about actually governing--you know working together, achieving compromise, finding solutions--we had fewer of these "most important" elections.

It's only with the advent of the deeply-entrenched partisan mindset on one side of the aisle when everything became about taking the whole battlefield that all of a sudden every election is the "most important" one.

It's something to think about.

And, on a different note, the church where I vote hosts wrestling matches for one of the small-time conferences.  There was a match scheduled for Wednesday night, so the ring was already set up in the gym where the voting booths are on Tuesday.   I never voted with a wrestling ring before.  Interesting.

And we wonder why they consider us backward!

Kentucky's governor has given the rest of the world yet another reason to make fun of Kentucky.

It was bad enough the year (2004) the state legislature couldn't get its act together long enough to pass a budget, but could see to it that an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution made it on the ballot.

And then, last month, the people of this state decided that this guy was the one they wanted to represent them in the Senate.

Now this.  Honestly, we've already got one of those crackpot museums in the state already, do we need to build another one using state tax incentives?

Geez....