Somebody tell them they lost

Isn’t it strange how long it takes to create anything
compared to the time it takes to destroy it? You can
take a lifetime building a home, for example, and come
back from a weekend at grandma’s to find it all reduced
to a pile of ashes. Just like that.

One of the very few things you can be sure of in this
world is that everything comes to an end. Everything.

Now, it appears that all of the economic prosperity the
good ol’ US of A built up during those eight wonderful
Bush years has, in a period of under two months, been destroyed by that evil Barack Obama. I mean, that’s the way it sounds, listening to the Republican’s talk. They’re not arguing that everything wrong with this country is his fault – just the stuff that wasn’t screwed up by Bill Clinton and, before him, Jimmy Carter. Apparently, the economy was plumb rosy before November ’08, but now it’s swirling around, counter-clockwise in the bowl under the porcelain throne.

Big Business is blowing gaskets, laying people off, slashing wages, closing facilities. Wall Street looks more like downtown Saigon in the days of the evacuation. Sean Hannity, self-appointed leader of the “conservative underground”, is preaching the end. Woah is us.

Saturday, Rush Limbaugh spoke to nine thousand rabid “conservatives” at the “Conservative Political Action Conference”. That one speech alone will have a profound influence on repairing the broken economy, because, most likely, all of those people will have to undergo knee surgery from jumping to their feet, screaming & clapping, every time their guru made some nasty insulting remark about liberals, in general – or about the “liberal media”, which the Bloated One refers to as the “drive-by media”. That should generate a lot of money for doctors & hospitals.

The top dog in that drive-by media, CNN, carried the hour and twenty minute speech live, without commercial interruption. How one-sided of them.

Anybody, such as myself, who put themselves through the torturous ordeal of watching the entire spectacle (I had my wife tie me to a chair, facing the TV, and tape my eyelids open) can take away from it that the reason the conservatives lost the presidential election was that they have not behaved “conservatively” enough. That might be an astounding revelation to some, but I spend a lot of time listening to this guy on the radio, so I already knew that.


Limbaugh defended and re-asserted this hope that President Obama “fails”. That, you see, is how conservatives show their patriotism – declaring (in a time of war!) that they want the president of the United States of America to fail. So, the president’s attempts to straighten out this terrible economic mess (the one he single-handedly created since January 20) needs to crash & burn. More businesses can shut down. More people can lose their jobs and their homes. Maybe some of them can even starve to death. Wouldn’t that be swell? After all, people deserve to suffer for allowing this country to elect somebody who doesn’t agree with Limbaugh and the rabid Neocons. That’ll show us, by golly.

It is more than a hope, however. They know that Obama’s stimulus package won’t work. Somehow, they have been imparted with this knowledge, either by their Creator, or by His representatives here on Earth – Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter - the Republican Trinity. The answer, they proclaim, is to do exactly what GWB did during his terms….only more. Those of us who were under the false impression that Bush’s policies are what brought us to this edge of depression, were blindly led here by the media. Everything was fine all along, until now. What fools we were to believe what we read in the papers and saw on TV; what we saw with our own eyes and felt in our own stomachs. There is no truth other than what is preached on talk radio. Obviously. Even CNN must have come to that realization just prior to airing that loveable little fuzzball’s sermon to the choir. Conservatives are the chosen ones. The master race. They will prevail!

Makes sense. Most of the individuals who control big business are, by definition, conservatives. If you’re the top dawg, raking in all the money, why would you want anything to change? If you’re the top dawg, you have some control over that. You can lay off people, cut wages, and shut down facilities to help bring about an expeditious end to this foolishness and get somebody back in office who’ll look out for the big guy. Big guys need friends too. Even if your business isn’t hurting, it is your duty as a fat cat to help out your fat cat brethren. Do this now, for the cause, and you will be rewarded when things return to “normal”. Rush said he just wanted it to be like it was when he was a kid. You know, back when black folk weren’t allowed to vote.

Sorry about the mixed animal metaphors. I couldn’t decide which one I liked better.

Liberals have many enemies: hunger, homelessness, despair, inequality, ignorance and greed, to name a few. Conservatives have but one: liberals. So who has the easier fight ahead of them?


(c) 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/

Boom Boom. Out go the lights.

This is what I always imagined it would look like at the
end of the world – strangely beautiful from a respectable
distance, but really no place you want to be.

If any tree in northwest Arkansas survives this ice
storm, I think it will be my big Spruce out there by the
street. Rather than snapping and collapsing to the
ground with terrifying sounds resembling those of
an avalanche, it just dropped it’s many arms and is
standing there, slumped, like some dejected, frozen
child who didn’t get the toy he expected for Christmas.

It was Christmas, or just after, in 1993 when I removed the lights and decorations from the tree and carried it out there to plant it by the sidewalk. Just a five-foot tall baby then, and I never really expected it to get this huge. I hope it makes it.

Three days after the frozen rains started here, I understand there are still something like 50,000 people without power. The hotels are full (some have folks sleeping in their lobbies) and, according to what I have heard from people staying in them, some have doubled their room rates. What a lovely humanitarian thing to do when so many people are displaced from their homes, freezing. There’s a conspicuous absence of public shelters, as if the few short years since have erased everyone’s memories of Hurricane Katrina. Not that I would compare our little disaster with that one, but the concept is the same.

We decided to ride this one out at home. Our power flickered a few times before going out for most of the day following the storm, but then came on for a few hours before going out again, then back again staying on all night, and so far this morning. Survival instincts kicked in while it was out, and we turned our living room into a big tent by putting up curtains and photography backdrops over the openings to the dining room, foyer and hall. This left us with just the living room to heat with the fireplace when it was supposed to drop to 6 degrees that first powerless night. The only problem with that was…. we had no firewood.

Rather than burn the furniture, (*mark this spot) we heated with the gas log lighter. I found a piece of sheet metal in the garage and bent it into an “S” shape so that the flame was hidden, under the metal. The little fire heated the sheet metal and the top of the “S” forced the heat out into the room, rather than letting it all go up the flue. Pretty clever, if you ask me.

Then we dug out the old tailgate propane cooker, left over from our son’s college football days, and made bologna melts for lunch. Odd as it seems, we were rather looking forward to “camping out” in the house.

Then the power came back on. Our disappointment didn’t last long, because it was soon off again. Then, into the night, it came on again for good – or so we thought – and we slept warmly in our own bed, in much better shape than thousands of other folks out there.

Three paragraphs up, you’ll see (*mark this spot). That’s how far I had gotten with this column before the electricity went off again, at about noon Thursday. It’s 5:23pm now and I have had just time enough since the lights came on to power up my computer and get this much more written. I wonder how columnists did this stuff back in the cowboy days when they couldn’t use their computers.

We found two restaurants open today and had Mexican food for lunch. Most of the people in that place were talking about their power still being off, and wondering aloud when they might have it back.

The sun was out, heating it up slightly above freezing today, and a lot of folks think this thing has passed. Not so. The thawing itself will release more tree limbs that will fall into more power lines, and more people will find themselves in the dark. By about Sunday, when the frozen pipes in the dark houses finally thaw out, water leaks will occur all over the place, flooding houses, ruining floors, and sending lots of already frustrated people back to hotels. Most will have insurance to cover those repairs and additional living expense, but many of those staying out now, because the power is out, mistakenly think their homeowners policies will reimburse them for the expense. That won’t happen unless a tree fell across the electrical service line on their property. There’s no coverage for such things during area-wide power outages. And guys like me have to be the ones to tell them.

That won’t be fun, and I’m not looking forward to doing it.

But the worst part of this whole thing for me is this: I came up with this scheme to win the Powerball by playing the same red ball numbers every time, until it hits. A whole bunch of white ball numbers, all with the same red ball. Of course, the odds are greatly against me on this, but I figured sooner or later “4” would hit.

Wednesday night, after all the weather problems, and the first time in forever I didn’t buy my tickets, guess what?

This year isn’t starting off so great.


© 2009, Rick Baberhttp://www.rickbaber.com

Day One

As I write this, we’re passing the 24 hour mark since
Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United
States.

The sun came up today, at least here in northwest
Arkansas. In fact, at the moment, I’m gazing out the
window at a beautiful blue sky. A couple of finches are
playing on the huge holly bush outside my home office.

Quite to the surprise of many of my white brethren,
there was no knocking on the door (at least, not on mine)
early this morning by some new African-American Gestapo intending to shackle me and my wife and drag us off to work in some cotton field. I haven’t seen anything like that happening to anybody else on CNN, but, then again, that’s one of those liberal-biased networks that probably wouldn’t tell us about it until it was too late anyway. Due diligence would require me to check Fox News before writing this. Call me lazy.

It seems, at least here on this first day, that all is well with our first black president, and maybe we white folk won’t suffer the “payback” that has been talked about only in the presence of our own kind, probably ever since Lincoln emancipated the slaves. Oh, how many whites have dreaded the day that has passed without such incident!

Did we really think that day would never come? Through all the social evolution of America, and the rest of the world, did we honestly believe that only a white man could lead the land of the free and the home of the brave? Did any one of us, really, not want to live to see it happen?

Don’t answer that. I know there are still white people who will live out the rest of their lives looking back on January 20, 2009 with disgust and hate. People who really did believe that God gave America to the white man, and the white man should hang his head in shame for not being strong enough to keep it. I just, really, don’t want to know who those people are. If it helps, they can take solace in the fact that Obama is half white.

Try as I might, I am completely incapable of feeling the magnificence of the moment that had to be overwhelming to many older black Americans. I still feel pretty young, and I can clearly remember a time when black folk had to sit in the balcony at the movie theater because, apparently, they weren’t good enough to sit downstairs with us.

I remember the first black man I ever saw, in person. He was a policeman in Fort Smith, and I was a four or five year-old redneck in the making – a product of my neighborhood surroundings and of the times. I walked right up to him and, for whatever reason, just up and called him something I wasn’t supposed to call him. Embarrassed my mother half to death.

I remember the way I treated our black housekeeper in Little Rock in 1963, and how I continually ignored my mom telling me she was one of the sweetest people she had ever met. She never did anything to deserve the treatment she got from me. She didn’t have to. She was black, and I must have been better than her.

I remember my first and only black teacher, Mrs. Mathis, in the fourth or fifth grade at Fairview Elementary School in Blytheville. 1964-65. We kids didn’t know what to think at first, but she turned out to be pretty cool, and, surprisingly, she sure knew a lot about math.

I remember moving to Batesville in 1967, after the closing of Ethel O. Miller School, and sitting in class, for the first time, alongside black students. Their school was all but abandoned, and we used to take the bus over there to use the gym for off-season football practice in Jr. High.

I remember my first “black friend”, Beaver McCoy, who showed me it was OK to hang out and have fun with people that, only a few years before, I never even knew existed, except in stories told by the older kids on my block. Not good stories. Scary stories.

It’s 40 years later, and stories like that are still being told. They come as forwards to my e-mail account and sometimes as text messages to my phone. They warn the white man, me, of the perils that will befall our race now that we have given up the throne of power. And even as I read them, with a smirk on my face, I look up at the TV here in my office and see another old black man or woman, recalling the moment, with tears streaming down their face. And I try to imagine what it would be like to feel what they are feeling.

Of course, it is only day one. But I haven’t feared that knock on the door for many years.

© 2009, Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com

The Last Presidential Ticket

There are still a few days left before President Obama
takes office and it looks as if the 2012 GOP ticket is
already taking form.

Let me be the first to predict the ticket – Sarah Palin and
Joe the Plumber. Literally. I mean, I think Joe
Whathisface will actually change his last name to
“ThePlumber”, for, you know, name recognition.

Right now, he’s come out with a new book and, as I
understand it, has been appointed as the US Ambassador
to Gaza – or maybe that’s “reporter”, for a web site called PJTV. Perhaps that stands for
“Plumber Joe Television”?

Joe told somebody on the news that he believes he will be safe in Gaza – God will protect him - because he is a Christian. The rationale behind that statement, when one considers he’s going to a place filled with battling Arabs & Jews, escapes me, but, hey, maybe that’s why I’m not in consideration for a cabinet position in the Palin/Plumber Administration.

In ThePlumber’s new book, it is said, he takes shots at John McCain (figuratively, of course) for supporting the economic bailout. In one interview he said, five or six times, that he wasn’t throwing McCain under the bus. While somewhat presumptive, that may be the smartest thing he has said. Throwing war heroes under a bus does not generally work well for political candidates, unless those war heroes are (how do you say?) Democrats, like John Kerry or Max Cleland.

Personally, I wish Joe all the best in his newfound career. I don’t blame him one bit for trying to take his 15 minutes and ride it for all he can. And I wonder if maybe there’s a politician somewhere I could get to come fix the float valve in my toilet. Getting tired of jiggling the handle.

Not to be outdone by all the attention Joe is getting from the press, Sarah Palin is also taking some shots at McCain and his failed campaign, as well as Katie Couric and Tina Fey. Everybody knows you’re not a serious presidential contender until you get into a real tussle with Tina Fey.

Sister Sarah was mortified when Saturday Night Live did the Tina Fey skit wherein Tina’s Palin character said she believed marriage should be “between two unwilling teenagers”. Pretty funny, everyone agrees, but nobody cleared that skit with Palin before running it. How dare they! It’s just another example of the media’s unfair treatment of Caribou Barbie. That incident may be the only time in the show’s long history that they didn’t get permission from a politician before doing a skit that made fun of her, or him. If this weren’t true, we certainly would have heard from Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or even Dan Quayle – surely Dan Quayle – by now. Palin, it seems, expects SNL to be fair & balanced, like Fox News.

Or maybe not. Could be she just wants to keep her name in the newspapers and on television for another three years, until the next presidential campaign begins. And, again, who can blame her? She was vaulted into the national light by John McCain, but everybody knows he’s washed up now. There’s nothing more he can do for her, but allow her to trash talk him and his campaign in order to keep her name, and her dream, alive. I’m doing my part.

Now comes the touchy little end-of-the-world issue, however. According to a whole bunch of prognosticators, who apparently didn’t read Larry Stroud’s fine article about the Mayan Calendar in the Batesville Guard, it’s curtains for civilization on December 21, 2012. So, while the next (and last?) election will be over by then, whoever is elected President wouldn’t take office until January 20 of 2013. So, what’s going to be the campaign platform of the Palin/Plumber ticket? Lower taxes? I don’t know about the rest of you, and please don’t leak this to the IRS, but in the event of a cataclysmic polar shift of the planet and total breakdown of world civilization and all the “important” people zipping off in a spaceship to form a new world, I’m probably going to just forego the whole income tax thing and take my chances, there in my cave.

Truth be told, I can’t think of a finer couple to preside over the good ol’ US of A in those coming hard times. Palin could teach those of us not familiar with the art how to hunt and prepare wild animals for tasty and inexpensive meals, even if we don’t have helicopters from which to shoot them. And Big Joe could, maybe, rig up some pipes in the caves so guys like me aren’t always annoyed with having to jiggle that handle.

Consider this, if you will, the first newspaper endorsement of the Palin/Plumber ticket.

© 2009, Rick Baber

Somebody Say “Geronimo”?

A while back, some brainiac with time enough to play
with numbers sent out one of those e-mails that got
picked up & forwarded by just about everybody – as
a joke, or rather, some trivial thing people could read
and agree with, and then forget because it was never
going to happen. The premise was that, instead of
“bailing out” big business, Uncle Sam could just send
that money direct to the people. According to the e-mail,
each of us would receive some ridiculous amount of
money – into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That would be way cool, but the numbers were off.
Calculators aren’t built to deal with figures above 10 billion, it seems, and people sometimes get confused with decimals.

According to the economic geniuses (and aren’t they all?) on talk radio, the combined total dollar figure for the bailouts of the auto & financial industries will end up being around $1 trillion. For you poor folks who aren’t accustomed to seeing numbers like this on your paychecks, that’s a one, followed by twelve zeroes, before the decimal point.

To put that figure into Reaganomics: if you got that much money in $100 bills, and laid them end-to-end, they’d stretch about 947,000 miles. If you could lay those bills down at the rate of one per second, assuming you were going the right direction and could hold your breath long enough, a man could be on the moon in about 9 years and two months, and it would only take about ¼ of the money to get there. A woman, of course, would take considerably longer, due to bathroom breaks, and might spend a few extra bucks along the way.

If the traveling man took only the money he needed to get to the moon, and invested the remaining ¾ at 2% compounded interest, he could pick up about $146 billion while he was on his way, making that trip a real bargain. He could have that interest wired to him and catch a ride back on the space shuttle for a paltry million or so.

Reaganomics is confusing. Why would anybody want to spend over 9 years on his hands and knees in space? Besides, I’m not good with decimals either, and this could all be a crock as far as you know. Let’s go back to splitting that money up between the taxpayers.

There are about 138 million taxpayers in the United States. If each of those people received an equal share of the $1 Trillion bailout money, they’d get $7246.38 each. That’s roughly $14,500 for a working couple.



If the Treasury sent each person their equal cut, with the stipulation that it would have to be paid, first, toward any mortgage(s) they had, then, viola, the mortgage companies are out of hock. Even those individuals who had mortgages to pay on would then have that much more disposable income, with which they could buy (guess what?) cars. And, suddenly, the car companies are back in business. The factories are producing again. People are working. All is well.

Those fortunate few who don’t have mortgages, and already have all the cars they want or need could invest their money into the new booming economy. Wall Street soars, and again, all is well.

So, as ridiculous as the “people bail-out” sounds on the surface, really, where’s the down side? Some may say that the government having to print a trillion extra dollars to do this would be inflationary. Sure it will. But, they’ve got to print it anyway, in theory. So, giving it to Big Business hurts the little guy even more, because now the wee bit of money he has is worth even less than before. Then he can afford to buy less. So the economy, overall, suffers. More businesses lose revenue, have to shut down, lay off employees. More people out of work who can’t afford to buy goods and services, and even more businesses shut down. And so it goes.

Where does that end?

Near Rogers, Arkansas, submerged under Beaver Lake, hides the remains of a once-thriving resort known as Monte Ne. It was built by a man named Coin Harvey, around 1901, died in the hard times of the ‘30’s, and buried with water when the lake was formed in 1964. Harvey was, among other things, an economist who proposed a law mandating the forgiveness of all debt and the abolishment of credit. In other words, in an instant, you don’t owe anybody anything, and nobody owes you. What you have is yours, outright. It is an interesting concept, if you think about it. But it didn’t get very far because then, as now, the entities that hold the debt are the ones in control of the entities that make the laws. They really have nothing to gain by helping out the little guy.

Don’t expect these government bailouts to do that either.

© 2009, Rick Baber

The Shoe's on the Other Face Now

Who throws a shoe? Honestly! (Apologies to Austin Powers.)

The Presidency is a dangerous business. Almost 10% of everybody who has ever held that office has been assassinated. Others have had close calls. Others still have simply died in office. Compare that to your line of work. Doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?

Consider that, during his “farewell tour” of Iraq, President Bush narrowly escaped full facial impact with not one, but two, Rockport walking shoes. Appeared to be about a 10 ½ D, traveling at somewhere around 40 mph. And he wasn’t even wearing a helmet.

Now, some have found the violent assault on the American President amusing. In fact, one lady being interviewed by a TV reporter, laughing, said “He threw one for the world”. Another person suggested the shoes be immortalized by having them bronzed.

CNN’s Michael Ware, reported “Opinion is divided – in support and in condemnation of this action”.

David Letterman, speaking of the President’s impressive lightning-quick reaction that kept him from being nailed in the face, said “I don’t think Bush has dodged anything like that since the Viet Nam war”. Later in the show, somebody chucked a pair at Dave.

Watching the video of this historic moment, I too was impressed with Bush’s agility. He may be the only president we’ve had in my lifetime that was capable of making those effectively thrown missiles miss their intended mark. I imagined what would have happened if previous presidents had been in his place.

Clinton, of course, was accustomed to having articles of clothing thrown at him. But he was never very nimble, and would likely have been carried out with at least one stiletto stuck in his forehead. Hillary would probably have removed the other one and walked barefoot to ride with him in the ambulance.

Bush 41 would have had a coalition of support that would have never allowed this to happen. Matter of fact, that reporter would likely have surrendered his shoes when he walked in the door.

Reagan. He took a bullet! Even a pair of Shaq’s shoes wouldn’t have awakened him from his nap.

Jimmy Carter? Nobody would throw a shoe at Jimmy Carter.

Gerald Ford, I’m afraid, would have been the first POTUS we lost to footwear. Sadly, the culprit might not have even had to remove them. Ford would have just tripped when he walked into the room and strangled himself on the laces.

It is accurate to say that I have not been among President Bush’s greatest fans, but I do want to go on record, right here, right now, condemning this atrocity. I mean, you just can’t go ‘round tossing brogans at the President of the US of A. I like to think that, had I been there, I would have stepped up and taken those shoes up-side the head for my country. Which leads me to wonder “Where was the Secret Service?”

Those dudes are supposed to be ready & able to take a bullet for their boss, and here the poor guy had to artfully dodge two articles of footgear on his own? Those things could have caused mass destruction right there in Iraq. And some of you doubted the weapons were there. The whole thing reeks of conspiracy if you ask me.

I understand the shoes have been confiscated by federal authorities and will be held as evidence. Rest assured that all “foot-age” of this event will be reviewed and studied for decades. A commission will be established, but the findings will probably not be released in our lifetimes. Books will be written. Movies will be made. Songs will be sung. An American legend was born this weekend.

Laugh if you will, but this was George W. Bush’s finest hour. Years from now, we all will remember where we were and what we were doing on the day those fateful shoes were hurled at the head of our very own head of state. And, great president that he is (was), he made ‘em miss.

By far, the smartest, and coolest, thing GWB has done in his eight years in office.

© 2008 Rick Baber

Rock 'n Roll Never Forgets

NOTE: If you're not from Batesville, Arkansas, this will mean very little to you. Just a word of warning....

Old rockers never die.

With too many irons in the fire, I’ve been out of the loop longer than I like to think about. But then, there are only so many hours in a day, and spending a good portion of them sleeping has always been one of my life’s passions.

Occasionally though, mama will drag me away from the computer to someplace other than our local Native American gaming establishments, and usually I end up glad she did.

Such was the case this past Saturday night when I was (apparently) the last usta-be rock singer in Arkansas to discover the remarkable talent of a guy named Darren Ray. Well, that’s not entirely true. Only a week before, I’d heard him at Cherokee Casino (West Siloam Springs) with his other band, “Big Bad Bubba”, but I was, let’s say, too distracted then to pay much attention. At this private party though, Darren was performing with his other band, “Big’Uns”, in a small venue. People, let me tell you, this old crooner was blown away. That guy had a set of pipes like I haven’t heard anywhere in a very long time, and the band itself was tight as a jug. They covered everything from Delbert McClinton’s “Every Time I Roll the Dice” to Michael McDonald’s “Takin’ it to the Streets”, and everybody involved hit every note. Then they ended up with a Beatles set, culminating with “Hey Jude”, that even had Republicans swaying and singing along. And here in Northwest Arkansas, there’s a lot of those.

So, as they were loading out, doofus that I am, I had to go up and tell ‘em how good I thought they were – keeping them from getting their work done and getting home for just a while longer. Turns out Darren also performs with my ex-brother-in-law, Travis Kidd (Tulsa, OK). That was pretty cool. But the lead guitarist looked somewhat familiar, so I also bothered him to discuss the glory days and found out that the six degrees of separation thing really does exist. His name was Ed Nicholson, and he had been playing around, basically, forever. I quickly discovered that he was from Harrison, Arkansas. When I told him I was from Batesville, the names of musicians from the area he had played with came rolling out: Andy Buschman, Gib Ponder, Mary Henry, Danny Dozier…just the ones we had time to talk about before I finally recalled through my party-fuzzed haze what it’s like to try to load out with people bugging you, and started backing across the empty room toward the door. Ed told me he had only recently spoken with Andy on the phone – and I wondered how Andy had enough wind to do that while he was running. Always running. He must use a cell phone.

The meeting gave rebirth to a longtime fantasy I have had about getting all the old musicians from the Batesville area (and the new ones, too) together for some kind of big rock ‘n roll reunion concert. Would that be cool, or am I the only one that’s interested? Maybe some charity could use a few bucks that could be raised from such an event. Or, maybe that’s already happened at some point and nobody told me about it….?

I have always maintained that there is no place on the planet that has produced as much musical talent, per-capita, as Batesville (and the surrounding area). I could list all of them I remember here, in bold print, but I’d surely embarrass myself by leaving too many out. Surely, such an event would draw a respectable crowd, even if you only consider the families produced by the musicians involved. Kids. Grandkids. Oh my God, some of you are OLD! How much extra would it cost to have an elevator installed to get up to the stage? Maybe a few ambulances standing by, just in case?

When I recall the time we worked like dogs cleaning out the old, practically abandoned AC Gym to do a show, and all the people that showed up there; the crowds that used to come up the hill on Saturday night to the Salado Community Building or to Cave City or to the Jaycee building down by the bayou; and the way we used to curse the fact that there was just not much to do (anything changed?) – I can’t help but think my little rock ‘n roll fantasy isn’t such a bad idea.

Living two hundred miles away, and being the most disorganized person in the world, I would not be able to put such a thing together myself. I’m hoping there’s some other old timer reading this, with a lot of time on his/her hands, thinking he or she might just be the one for the job.

Who knows? Maybe it could turn into a yearly tradition. “The Batesville Whitewater Revival”?

Your thoughts?

© 2008 Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/

Rick the Writer

Hello. It’s me, again — Rick the Writer. We don’t use last names around this presidential campaign anymore. Just a first name, followed by professional pursuit, because apparently, it is important that people know what you do if you are going to speak out on behalf of a candidate. Or not.

The thing is, now, the candidates want people to know that those who support them are “hard working people,” because, apparently, if you’re not “hard-working,” you’re not worth the air you’re breathing.

You can tell this because every time one of them talks they say something about “hard-working Americans.”

Writing isn’t an occupation that is generally accepted by folks as one that qualifies, so heretofore, I didn’t use it. I started to go with “artist,” but that doesn’t really bring up an image of sweat amd toil in people’s minds either. Rick the Insurance Adjuster is just too long to say and it doesn’t roll off the tongue. And, by the standards of some of my friends, “that ain’t workin.’”

Not like their jobs.

I think that’s how the whole last name thing started out, way back around the time John McCain was born. Folks would just take their profession or their locale, and make that their last name. Blacksmiths became “Smith” — “Bakers” made pies and bread. People who blew flutes or something became “Piper.” Let’s not go there with how people named Johnson came about.

“McCain,” though, came from “the son of Eoin” — the Irish form of “John.” So “John McCain” actually means “John John,” or “John, son of John.” But we can just call him John the Hero. I assume you heard about that, somewhere. Heroing is hard work, I’m sure. So John John is OK by that standard.

Caribou Barbie’s maiden name was Sarah Heath. “Heath,” means “one who came from Heath” — which is a wasteland with low shrubs.

Uh. OK.

“Palin,” by the way, means “one who came from Paliler.” Now, I’m not sure about this kids, because you know how research hurts my head, but I think Paliler is in ... France! Neither one of those tell us whether or not those folks are hard-working, so let’s just call her Caribou Barbie. Huntin’s hard work. You betcha!

I couldn’t find anything on “Obama.” So I guess there’s another reason to be suspicious of the black guy. We’ll call him “Barack the Muslim” – which means “He who definitely won’t get a rednecks vote now.”

“Biden.”

Whattaya think? Correctomondo! Not in there either! Is there a pattern here? But we have to call him something — how about “Joe the Puppy Kicker?”

No. Puppy kicking is hard work. Better use “Joe the Gun Seizer.” That should work.

Just for fun, let’s do “Bush” — dweller at sign of the bush (usually a wine merchant); one who dwelt near a bush; and “Cheney” — one who came from Quesney, Cheney or Chenay (oak grove), in FRANCE; dweller near the chain or barrier used to close a street at night. Oddly, that makes sense. We don’t care whether or not these guys are “hard-working” anymore, because by the grace of God, they’re outta here come January 20.

Joe the Plumber’s last name is Wurzelbacher. Like Obama and Biden, that one apparently doesn’t have a meaning or known origin, but it sounds just as foreign. It is unfortunate that Joe’s real last name isn’t “Plumber,” and that may well be the reason McPalin changed it. What if “Wurzelbacher” was discovered to mean “he who bets on the dark horse?”

Safer to just stick with “the plumber.”

I just wonder, when one of these two candidates gets elected, is he going to be president of the slackers too?

You know, guys who just sit behind a keyboard, making up sentences or digital images after a dozen hours or so every day giving away somebody else’s money?

What about professional golfers? Does that qualify as hard-working? Or professional bass fishermen ... or NASCAR drivers ... or Talk Radio hosts?

What about movie stars like ... I don’t know ... Ronald Reagan (descendant of Riagan -little king)? Do Joe the Plumber or Bob the Builder or Fred the Fireman or Doug the Ditch Digger allow lazy millionaires, or people who married them, into their club?

I have this plan to win the lotto, after which I’ll probably become a world famous international playboy, like Jethro the Bodine. Jethro doesn’t do much work if you don’t count hooking up two record players to the truck so he’ll have stereo. Is he going to have a president?

For some reason, the candidates, and lots of other folk, like to pat people on the back if they get up early and go to work and keep working until late into the night and then get up and do it again. Amen.

Those who never see their own kids, because the pursuit of legal tender is the definition of being a good American.

And we all want to be good Americans. Or “great Americans,” like Sean Hannity. That’s what we’ve all had drilled into our heads for as long as I can remember. Give ’em a gold star or something, but just make sure they keep working, “like a workin’ man do.”

I’m questioning that now. Could it be that if you’re too dog-tired to do anything but work, you’re easier to control?

Just askin’.

It seems that, if a guy figures out how to survive without breaking his back and ignoring his family, he better not plant a flag in his yard. He might as well move to the wasteland with low shrubs. Or, better yet, to France.

Barack 'n Roll Revolution

I tried to copyright (ala Stephen Colbert) that phrase, “Barack ‘n Roll”, on the Arkansas Times blog, but some smartypants pointed out to me that there’s a whole website by that name, so I was too late. Story of my life, I guess.

Here we go. Hillary has stepped aside and now the formal Republican trashing of Barack Obama begins in earnest. He’s best friends with some of the most radical leftists in the country - guys who condoned the blowing up of things in the ‘60’s. He’s a Muslim. Doesn’t wear a flag pin on his lapel. Refuses to eat apple pie. His wife hates Caucasians. His preacher’s a loudmouth. He’s going to put all the white people in chains. And the best one: He’s the AntiChrist.

I’ve received about 20 of those “antichrist” e-mails from various people who either actually believe it and are trying hard to save the world via the Internet, or they just have too much time on their hands. Considering the gems I have received from most of the same people in the past, I suspect the latter. But I won’t waste time and exacerbation of my already-arthritic fingers here trying to persuade any of you who might seriously entertain that thought of the likelihood that you are wrong. If you believe it, go ahead and send me all your good stuff, because the end is neigh and you won’t need money, cool cars, motorcycles, boats, rare coins, Cognac or artwork where you’re going. I could also use a couple of new computers. If my understanding of The Rapture – as learned from talk radio, bumper stickers on SUV’s, & TV preachers – is correct, only flag-pin-wearing Republicans will be sucked up into the sky. Guys like me, and all those poor jerks who live in other countries and/or subscribe to phony religions, will be left down here, scurrying around, siphoning what little gas is left in those abandoned vehicles, and apologizing daily to our Darth Cheney dartboards.

Of course, if Obama is indeed the boogieman, it is part of the Divine Plan that he comes to power, so all of ya’ll who are planning on voting against him for that reason might as well forget that, and get ready for the carnival ride of your lives.

It’s hard to understand how anybody could win a primary based on “change” – what with everything going so well and all. And, in case you didn’t know this, my preference for the office of President was Hillary Clinton. Not only because I thought she would make the best president, but also because I thought she would be more difficult for the right wing machine to discredit. They’ve been trying for about 16 years, and she’s still standing. It was so painfully obvious, listening to them as I do, that Obama was the preferred Democrat by Republicans, because they knew they’d have a better chance of waging a successful smear campaign against him. Little jabs, here & there, but no big punches until now. They were either waiting for Hillary to do that, or waiting for him to secure the nomination. Well, she didn’t. He did. Now it’s on, brother.

Republicans will try to cite Obama’s lack of governmental experience as a reason he shouldn’t be President. It just so happens that’s the same reason they can’t discredit him based upon what he actually did in government. (Like they can be discredited themselves.) That won’t work. People who are smart enough to figure out how to find a voting machine will realize that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had more experience in government than any two white men in modern history, and their counsel, whispered into the ear of that cool cat dancing badly behind the big desk in the oval office has brought us to this point in the nation’s history where, if you’re really rich, everything is hunky-dory. If you’re not, you’re actually considering the prospect that everything is so bad, the end might be just around the corner. So that is the fire they will pour the fuel upon.

It’s a frenzy. A movement. A revolution! Them youngins and black folk and homos are even voting. That can’t be right. It must be the end of the world!

From the opposite perspective, I don’t believe another four years of George W. Bush (via McCain) would bring about the end of the world. Maybe just the end of the United States as a so-called “world power”. But don’t look for prophetic doomsday e-mails from me explaining how McCain fits into the boogieman role better than Barack does. I could make the case, but I don’t have time. Busy working to get money to pay $5 a gallon for gasoline, so I can keep working to buy gasoline, so oil executives and other friends of the president can retire very, very rich in November.

Expect to hear, in the next four months, some of the wildest stories you have ever heard. Clean out your e-mail boxes to make room for the incoming revelations. Like I said, believe them, if you will. I need the stuff.



© 2008 Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/

OBX Jumping Turtles

There’s something about the persistence of the ocean that’s inspirational. Maybe that’s why so many famous people come from or live on one coast or another.

The Outer Banks of North Carolina is kind of a different place. Me ‘n Mama took a few days to travel down to that part of Dixie, shoot a beach wedding at Nag’s Head, and seek out some light house photos for our art prints. I don’t want to jinx anything – writing this from the beginning of the trip home at the Norfolk, Virginia airport – but the journey down here went about as well as one who hates to fly could expect.

We handed off our rental car to our gracious host, who’s going on to Williamsburg for a graduation, so we’ve got about five hours to kill here in the airport. Perfect for telling ya’ll about some of the oddities of the narrow strip of land we spent the last three days on.

Down here, being in the heart of tobacco country, you can smoke pretty much everywhere – bars, restaurants, grade school, church…. But the “drinking” thing is really screwed up.

Beer & wine, you can buy anywhere. K-Mart has a nice selection. Mixed drinks & liquor is a situation about as complicated as the Democratic primary process. Down the Outer Banks, toward Cape Hatteras, you just can’t get them. If you order a mixed drink, it’s made with champagne. Yummy, I bet…

Back up around Nag’s Head and Kitty Hawk you can buy liquor, but only from the ABC stores that keep, pretty much, banker’s hours. These stores are owned by the county and regulated by the State of North Carolina. The guy behind the counter is actually an employee of the county. Bars & restaurants also have to purchase liquor from these stores, and, instead of getting a discount or wholesale price, they pay the same thing a retail customer does, plus a tax of about $4 a bottle. So mixed drinks in a bar are way expensive.

The “drive-thru” beer & wine stores are literally that. You actually drive your car through the building – like a “quick lube” or something. You just point out what you want and they hand it through the car window to you.

But, it ain’t like my only interest is in the local drinking and smoking customs. As many of you know, I also have a borderline-unnatural affection for turtles. And they’ve got some weird ones in Carolina.



We’re driving down Highway 12 toward Bodie Island, and I have to swerve to miss what I first thought was a dead Rottweiler in the road. As I passed it, I could tell it was what we call an alligator snapper – the biggest turtle I’ve ever seen outside a zoo. It didn’t appear to have been hit, so I pulled the car over and got out to go move it out of the road. The closer I got, the bigger that rascal appeared. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it had a head about the same size as that of a Boston Terrier.

My vast experience with turtles has taught me better than to try to pick this big fella up, but I wanted to get a picture before I did anything. As I walked up to it, a local schoolboy, maybe 12, came up behind me with a sucker in his mouth.

“I wouldn’t get too close to him if I was you.” He warned.

“No.” I said. “I’m gonna get him to bite this stick and I’ll drag him out of the road.

“You better get a bigger stick”, he said.

A school bus already had traffic backed up southbound, and a van had the northbound traffic stopped.

“Be careful”, he said, “these ones can jump.”

OK. I was glad the kid was trying to help, but what does some youngster know about turtles that I haven’t learned in a half century of intense study?

“Yeah. Thanks, kid”, I said, “I think this’ll do fine.”

So I stuck the stick down by the turtle’s head and he lunged at it, coming up about three feet off the ground. That was about two feet short of how high I jumped, screeching like a girl.

“These ones right here, you gotta get ‘em by the tail and drag ‘em.” The boy continued, without even saying “I told you so”.

Both of those lines of traffic, including that busload of impressionable children, were sitting there, watching, patiently waiting for me to move this monster from the road. I didn’t want to disappoint them, but, after seeing that thing jump, I was … (what’s the word?)….scared!

So I hauled off and kicked him (the turtle, not the kid) in the butt. Then he pushed himself up, like a dog, and slowly walked off the road. I was off the hook.

We got our lighthouse pictures – two of four, anyway. But we were very careful walking around the marshlands to do it. You never know when a giant snapping turtle is gonna jump out of the weeds and take your head off.


© 2008 Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/

STRANGE HOLIDAY

I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt. For some strange reason I couldn’t quit thinking about Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash.
But it was Easter, and I could smell bacon frying, so I thought I’d get up and give it a try.

“What’s for breakfast?” I asked the little woman as I stumbled into the bathroom.

“Bacon & eggs”, she said, disappearing back down the hall with an armload of dirty clothes.

When I caught up to her in the kitchen there was bacon…and biscuits… on the counter, but that’s all.

“Where’s the eggs?” I grumbled.

She looked up from the paper for a moment and said “Outside. You gotta find them.”

Not being one to be contrary, I took the little wicker basket she handed me, grabbed a piece of bacon for the trip, and sauntered out the back door to gather up my morning meal. There were some in the half whiskey barrel. Some in the opening to the pool skimmer. Some more under the lid to the grill.

I brought in my booty and tossed it into the trash, washed my hands and made a bacon and cheese sandwich.

“Not gonna eat ‘em?” she asked.

Funny. They were blue and green and red, with little stripes across them in various other colors. And they were dirty.

“You’re not s’posed to do that with scrambled eggs.” I told her, as something out the kitchen window caught my eye.

I walked out the front door, then around to the side yard, and there was a rabbit, just sitting there. As I got within 10 feet or so, it scampered off under the neighbor’s outbuilding. But, it left behind something there where it had been sitting. A white, spherical object there in the grass I mowed yesterday.

“No way.” I said out loud, walking toward it.

Nope. Don’t tell the youngins, but rabbits don’t lay eggs. Even on Easter.

It was a ping pong ball one of the kids down the street had been playing with yesterday. No chocolate inside or nuthin’. I guess the rabbit just stopped there by chance. What are the odds? Ruined my whole morning.

Later, surfing through the TV channels from my favorite prone position on the couch, I came across a special holiday presentation of “The Ten Commandments”.

On Easter? Really?

That didn’t make much sense to me. Do you think the program director for that channel had any idea what he was doing? I wondered if the special holiday presentation of “The Odyssey” was coming on next.

That Charlton Heston sure made a good looking Moses, though, didn’t he? I noticed that, all through the movie, there were no guns hanging from his warm, live fingers. If he would have had one then, he could have done a number on that Pharo and his boys. They really must not have known who they were messing with – kind of like the program director, I guess.

It got me to thinking that holidays sure are strange times. And that brought my headache back. So I went back to bed.

Monday, I got fried eggs at Waffle Hut. They were white and yellow, just like eggs are supposed to be.

JAILHOUSE ROCK

Last week I saw on the TV news that, for the first time in American history, one out of every 100 of us are presently incarcerated. A full one percent. And, further, the rate of incarceration is growing faster than the population. Right now, we have a higher percentage of people in prison than any other country in the world. 2.3 million of them.
And there’s another four million or so currently on parole or probation.

Understand, this includes all Americans. So, if you were to factor out, say, everybody under the age of, I dunno, ten, and assume that none of those were in jail (with the possible exception of a few in Texas & Florida where they consider those kids to be “adults”), then that takes that percentage even higher. And growing.

If this trend continues, sooner or later, everybody will be in jail. I gotta wonder: When that happens, who’s gonna feed the prisoners? Furthermore, that just shoots the heck out of your chance for a parole or early release, because there won’t be anybody outside the bars to let you out. A week, tops, and everybody’s going to starve to death. That’s cold, man.

Say we get down to a dozen un-imprisoned people in the country. How are they going to make up a judge, jury, prosecutor and defense attorney for those last folks? Then, you’ve got to have somebody to take them down to the jail and lock ‘em up. I just don’t see how this could work.

Wha’d they do?

In 2004 – the last year for which I could find statistics – only about 52% of those folks in the orange jumpsuits were there for violent crimes. 21% were there for property crimes, and 20% were there for drugs. I have to assume, since they list them separately, that those “druggies” were there for non-violent drug offenses. If that 20% figure is current, we’re talking about 460,000 people in the slammer for buying, selling, or doing them. A big chunk of those (I couldn’t find the stats, because, frankly, I’m too lazy to look too hard for them.) includes folks involved with a recreational weed that is purported by many to be less dangerous than tobacco or alcohol. But those are legal. Go figure.

Seems like we’ve just got a thing about locking people up. You know, to rehabilitate them. Because everybody knows those people who finally get out of prison become model citizens. Prison fixes them. This may be why the town of Brattleboro, Vermont has passed a resolution to arrest George W. Bush and/or Dick Cheney, should they ever show their faces in town – for war crimes. Personally, I don’t have a problem with that one, but I really don’t see how it’s doable either. The town has something over 12,000 population (meaning, I guess, that about 120 of them are in jail), so how many cops could they have? Can you see Barney walking up to the Secret Service dudes in the dark glasses, telling them to step aside so they can snag the Dubyuh and cart him off to the pokey? But, say he prevails. GWB goes to jail, court, and then to the Big House. Cheney comes to town to rescue him and they grab him too. Now they’re both making license plates. Eventually, by the numbers, the rest of us join them.

Would they still be President and Vice President? Couldn’t they just pardon themselves? Who’s going to use those license plates? This is so confusing.

My goal, at this point, is to hold out and be the guy who slams the door on the next-to-last guy. Then, when everybody else is in there banging on the bars with tin cups, I’m going to go to all your houses and steal your stuff. What are you going to do about it?
Once I’ve got it – having nobody to sell it to – I’m going to let everybody out again.
Except Bush & Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, one little fat guy I used to work for, and that puppy-chucking soldier from YouTube. And maybe, out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll leave a few of those really mean violent bad guys in there to keep them company.

It’s good to be king.


© 2008 Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/

REPTILE DYSFUNCTION

Although my short term memory is somewhat akin to that of a goldfish, I still have rather vivid recollections of growing up in Batesville in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s. It was a fun time, and nostalgia from fun times just seems to burn deeper into whatever part of the brain that stores those things, I guess. Biology wasn’t that much fun for me, so maybe that’s why I can’t remember those brain parts.

After all these years, I’m quite sure I could recognize the faces of most everybody from the BHS classes of 1971 through ‘74. That might not be all that unusual, given that it wasn’t an exceptionally large school, but, oddly enough, I can still remember a lot of their pets as well. To wit:

When we first moved to Batesville, and were temporarily staying at The American Motor Inn, I had a Piranha named Freddy that I brought with me from Blytheville. One night we had returned from dinner at Kelly’s, and found that Freddy had jumped from his coffee can into the dry sink, committing fishicide. I guess the move was just too much for him. No police report was ever filed.

Desha Byrd had a cat that was reincarnated from Satan. I don’t remember his name, but I do know that years later he was re-reincarnated into a big white monster named B.C, who lived with my brother-in-law, Larry Price. He remembered all the harassment I dished out to him in the previous life, and every time I’d walk within twenty feet of him, he’d latch onto my leg, digging teeth and claws in as deep as he could.

Mae & Sylvia Strickland had a cat that, although they might not have known, drank like a sailor. And Randy Tovey had a Spider Monkey, said to have been snatched from the jungles of Viet Nam.

Karla Reynolds had horses, on a lot right beside her house there in town. They were large, frightening animals that I never got to know very well, but one of them once woke me up chewing on my foot as I slept in my car one night in that field. Don’t ask me what I was doing there. Like I said, I have a terrible memory.

Over on west side, Mike Roper had a little short-legged canine named Otto, and on Main Street, Curtis Wainwright had Blue, one of those cattle herding dogs.

On the east side, we had two “neighborhood dogs”. Sid was a rowdy, snarling Boston Terrier who was supposed to belong to Ginger St. John’s family, but he spent all his time running around from place to place, keeping in touch with his buddies. One of his favorite things to do was chase the swings on the schoolyards, and actually jump up and catch them with his mouth. At some point, I lost contact with Sid. Over the years, I have wondered how many teeth he had left when he went on to the big doggy swing set in the sky.

Diane May’s German Shepherd, Socks, had a compulsion for chasing vehicles. Cars, motorcycles, bicycles – anything that moved. Sitting around at Tommy’s Kingburger or the bowling alley with not much else to do, ultimately, somebody would say “Hey! Let’s go let Socks chase us!” Then, one at a time, we’d zip our motorcycles down the street in front of Dr. May’s house, just to see who would come out alive. Most of us made it, but one day forensic investigators will discover several bikes and Volkswagens buried in that back yard, and CNN will have a field day speculating on what happened. Nancy Grace will, no doubt, blame it on some man who had it out for his ex-wife, and Paula Zahn will try her best to make it a racial thing. In reality, it was just a big, big, dog, who didn’t like things moving up and down his street.

Although he was really only a fictional character, designed to get us out of typing class to go feed him, Larry Guenzel’s pet buffalo, Sid (perhaps named after the Boston Terrier), once got him into serious trouble with Mrs. Moore at school.

One day, Eddie Runyun turned up with a pet dinosaur – a huge Iguana named Boris, as I recall. Thinking that was about the coolest thing ever saw, I had to get one for myself. Strangely, I can’t remember his name, but he as a good boy. When he was still relatively small, I’d let him hang onto the inside of my army jacket and take him to school with me. Then, when he got a little too big to do that, I put him on a leash in my back yard during the day. Somehow, during warm weather, while I was away, my mom “accidentally” dropped a log on his head out there in the back yard. I really don’t recall us having a fireplace in that house on Boswell Street. But my mom is still sticking to that story.

Years passed, and my affection for reptiles remained. I had a troublesome turtle named W.T., who became the title character in my first book. When my son was a young teen, I had to get him a couple of Iguanas of his own. Cheech & Chong were with us for a number of years. Then, one cold winter night, the ground-fault tripped in the garage and they became lizardsickles. We tried really hard to thaw them out by the fireplace when we found them, but it was to no avail.

Thinking back on it, most of my reptilian pets have met with untimely endings. Perhaps it wasn’t meant for man and lizard to coexist, peacefully (as the President would say).
My wife will be glad I’ve come to this realization.

Dealing With It

You know what’s annoying? I mean, other than getting lemon juice squirted in your eyes by an angry waitress? People who don’t look at the camera when they’re being interviewed on TV.

I think that all started with those local “news teams”, doing their commercials. You’d be watching them, talking to some camera, from the side. As if, you were just some bystander in a room where they were being interviewed. But, in fact, they were talking to you, weren’t they? OK. I admit it. It was kinda cute when it first started out. But now it has spread like “reality shows” and the flu. Now, I’m seeing TV commercials with people talking about all kinds of stuff – looking off in some other direction.

It’s like some prodigy TV director somewhere said “Well, that’s just fine, but next time let’s film it from over there, and you pretend we’re still here. That way the viewer will think they surfed into a channel where they’re seeing something they’re not supposed to see, and that will cause us to sell more of our merchandise.”

People imitate what they see on TV. That’s got to be obvious to purt’near everybody. So now I find myself trying to do group portraits of people at various events, and inevitably, there’s some goofus staring off into space as I count to three. That lady either thinks she’s on one of those stupid TV commercials, or she doesn’t understand the significance of a photographer counting to three. Like, “What’s he counting, birds? Let’s look up and see!”

You know what else is annoying? Of course you don’t. That’s why I’m telling you. No, I’m not talking about that guy with a heavily-pierced, tattooed face and flaming orange, spiked hair, handing you your breakfast at a fast food drive-thru as you come home from the casino at 4 am with just enough money left for the dollar menu. It’s too dark to examine that food for foreign objects while you drive and, more than likely, you’d probably eat it anyway after you took that off. (Who’s gonna know?) It’s those recordings you get when you dial a phone number, thinking it’s a long-distance call and it really isn’t a long distance call. “We’re sorry. It is not necessary to dial a one or a zero when calling this number. Will you please hang up and try again?”

Well, here’s my question: If that machine is smart enough to recognize that is a local call and I don’t need to dial a one or the area code, or whatever, why doesn’t the thing just go ahead and put the call through? What’s that gonna hurt?

I’ve tried to convince myself that there are just some things put here on this Earth that serve no purpose other than making folks lives a little more miserable. Ants, meth, and Ann Coulter come to mind. And software technical support, of course. But, try as I might to just go with it, understanding that everybody else has to deal with the same crap, sometimes it just gets to me, you know?

So I put my TV way over in the corner of the room, facing right along the wall, and left my easy chair there where it was. And, sure enough, this Ann Coulter interview came on and she was looking away from the camera, but it was as if she was looking right at me. I had outsmarted the director. I called the network to tell them about it, but forgot to dial one and the area code, and a recording came on, telling me that I had to dial one, plus the area code. Then I went to the refrigerator and got that plastic lemon and squirted myself in the eye.

That’ll show ‘em.

FIVE THINGS I LEARNED OVER THE HOLIDAYS

#5. Cats are flammable. Who knew? I told Skinnykitty to stay out of my lap when I’m working on the computer, but it’s like he doesn’t listen or something. I know it’s a bad habit, but I like to have the occasional cigarette while at my desk. (You can do that when you work from your house….for now, anyway.) He doesn’t smoke, as a rule. A little spark fell off as I reached around him to get to the keyboard, and, next thing I knew there was that same smell as when Sheila sat Terry Horn’s hair on fire in the back seat of my Mustang in front of Ray’s Corner on Main Street. Skinnykitty got a little more excited than Terry did, but I got him put out OK before he bolted out of the room.

#4. That Oprah Winfrey must have some stroke. I don’t watch daytime TV since Bo & Hope sailed off to parts unknown with a newborn baby around 1980. It just made that whole show seem somewhat unbelievable. I do keep CNN on while I’m in my office, but I don’t consider that TV. Anyway, I guess I just wasn’t aware of the power a “personality” like Oprah could wield. Snatched a for-sure Iowa victory away from Hillary and gave it to a black guy with a Muslim middle name – in IOWA, of all places. Iowa folk are different, Ms. Gump. Has anybody noticed whether or not they’re all driving new Pontiacs? Personally, I have no problem with Obama, and I’m sure he’ll get my vote if he gets the nomination. But, did I mention that he won in Iowa? Iowa? Isn’t that the same place where the Huckinator won for the bad guys? Seems odd, that’s all.

#3. Red Bull doesn’t really give you wings. But it’ll sure keep a whole bunch of obnoxious drunks awake a lot longer than anybody else wants them to be. Seems this is the new thing – mixing alcohol with energy drinks. In the old days, it was sort of rule-of-thumb that when somebody got slobbering stupid, you just kept giving them drinks until they finally passed out and quit annoying people. Now, with our wonderful advances in science, we can look forward to hours of enjoyment from these hardcore partiers with amazingly bad taste buds. Thanks, food science people. Next New Years, is there anybody with your organization I can call to drive these folks home? My upholstery can’t take it again. Is that Red Bull thing, by chance, a trend in Iowa as well?

#2. If God intended for lights and decorations to be on trees and houses, they’d come that way. It might be different for you, but I don’t put those stupid things up because I’m overwhelmed with “holiday spirit”, or because I’m just plain fascinated with colored lights. As I’ve gotten older, it takes a little more than that to retain my attention. The only reason I do it is because the kids get ticked if I’m the only one on the block who doesn’t light up. And they don’t even live here. Putting them up is bad enough, but then – unless you’re a redneck girl – you have to take them down. Then, you’ve gotta box ‘em up and carry them back up to the attic on Sunday when you should be in your office, working on art prints and writing columns, trying to keep from setting the cat on fire.

And, the number 1 thing I learned over the holiday season? Global Warming is going to kill us all. I don’t necessarily believe that, but if I have to listen to some redneck Republican mocking Al Gore every time it gets cold outside, I can sure as hell give it back when I have sweat dripping down my nose as I take down the Christmas lights, in a tee-shirt, on January 6. Whatever it is – whether it’s caused by cows passing gas, or volcanoes, or burning cats – this just ain’t right. I mean, I dig it, but it’s strange. If it would stay 70 degrees until Spring, then turn off pretty, that would be fine with me. But they say storms are coming tomorrow. That means I’ll have to shut the windows and let the cats back in.

Happy New Year, ya’ll.


© 2008 Rick Baber

Don't be like Mike

Mike Huckabee? Really?

Seems like only a couple of years ago….in fact, it was only a couple of years ago, when some conservative Arkies at a local watering hole were complaining to me (that’s easy when me ‘n mama are the only libs in the room….or, the county, as far as I know) how the Huckster was more of a liberal than Bill Clinton ever pretended to be. Now, lookie here. He’s the darling of that loveable far right constituency of the Republican party. Numero Uno in some polls. As far down as number two in others.

Of course, “liberal” is only what the indigenous Neocons call anybody who doesn’t do everything exactly like they want it done. If a guy doesn’t drive an American-made pickup truck with a rebel flag front license plate; a “God, Guns & Glory” bumper sticker on the left rear; some anti-Hillary sticker on the other side; and a little plastic Jesus on the dashboard…well, that guy is a liberal. Even if he did start his career as Guv’ner in an American-made double-wide. I don’t know what Huck did to get tagged with such a nasty label, but he can take solace in the fact that the same guys slapped that moniker on the Duhbyuh himself. And look what a bang-up job he’s done for us.

See, what we have here, in our second-coming of “the man from Hope”, is a bona fide, honest-to-goodness Baptist preacher. And a funny one, at that. Not only funny with his little one liners, but kind of funny (given his calling, and all) with the way he takes liberties with the truth when addressing all these folks around the country who, through no fault of their own, think the same thing I used to think: that a preacher wouldn’t tell lies like your typical politician. Well, actually, the Huckster doesn’t lie like the typical politician. He takes the art to a whole ‘nuther level.

Take, for example, his denial that he was responsible for the parole of rapist-murderer, Wayne Dumond. That, according to the Huckinator, was the handywork of Jim Guy Tucker and, guess who, Bill Clinton. How are you going to get to be a serious GOP presidential contender if you don’t blame something on Bill Clinton? Huck says it was Jim Guy who commuted Dumond’s sentence. Well. That much is true. What he is smart enough to understand is that most of America is not smart enough to understand that commuting a sentence doesn’t mean letting a guy go free. See, Governor Bill Clinton refused to make Dumond eligible for parole. It was thought by the good ol’ boys that was because the 17 year old cheerleader the guy was convicted of raping was a distant cousin of Slick Willie. In some sense, in the minds of the hard-core Clinton haters, that meant what the pervert did was, you know, kinda OK. When Jim Guy became guv, he reviewed the case and did “commute” Dumond’s sentence. That means he changed the “life plus 20” sentence the guy originally got, and reduced it to 39 years, making him “eligible” for parole. That was in 1992. So, you see, Jim Guy didn’t let the animal out of the cage.

Then, along comes the new Governor Huckabee, who planned to release Dumond outright, for lack of sufficient DNA evidence – even though the victim of the crime positively identified him. That got a bunch of folks up in arms, so he backed off his overt plan to let the rapist go, and started putting pressure on the parole board to do it for him. That eventually worked, and Dumond was set free on parole in 1999.

The next year, according to the jury who convicted him in 2004, Huckabee’s pet project raped and killed a woman in Missouri.

So, is Huck telling the truth when he so cleverly says that the Governor in Arkansas doesn’t have the power to parole a convicted felon? Sure he is. Does that mean that he isn’t lying to the people who ask him about the Dumond situation? You decide.

Kind of brings to mind the commercial that shows the car submerged in hurricane waters and the seller re-writing the ad from “slight water damage” to “new interior”, doesn’t it?

But that’s all becoming pretty well known, now that Huck’s free ride is coming to an end. And, soon, all the details of his snatching stuff from the governor’s mansion and using campaign contributions for whatever he decided, and smashing computer hard drives when he didn’t want to leave behind any incriminating evidence will be out in the national light also. He’ll have something to say about those things. It will be carefully crafted to not be a lie, while at the same time completely concealing the truth.

But none of that stuff about the Huckster is what bugs me – because the media is beginning to catch on. It doesn’t even seem to weigh heavy on my opinion of the guy that he seems to honestly believe the earth is only 6,000 years old. What really gets my goat is how he keeps saying that he is the only republican who has “defeated the Clinton political machine in Arkansas four times”. That was confusing to me, what with my caveman digital artist mind and all. So I asked Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times (the ultimate authority on Mike Huckabee) what Huck meant when he referenced those four victories against Clinton. Turns out he was speaking of victories, in his run up to the governor’s office, after Clinton was already President, against Nate Coulter, Charlie Cole Chaffin, Bill Bristow, and Jimmie Lou Fisher. OK. They were democrats. But I even went so far as to re-arrange the letters of their names, and I couldn’t get “Bill Clinton” out of any of them. The closest I can get is if I use letters from ALL of their names, and even then, I can only come up with “Bill Clinto”.

Wait! I left off the “N” in “Nate”.

The Huckster wins again.

© 2007 Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/

TERRIFIED

Last week, in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a “command center” was set up on the south side of the square. Traffic was barricaded off to the square and College Avenue. An alert interrupted the un-interruptible light-heartedness of KKEG radio – warning the classic rock audience that the unthinkable might be occurring in the very heart of Razorback country. White powder found at the Federal Building!

Had this happened ten years ago, during the “War on Drugs”, everybody would surely have suspected this mysterious appearance to be a couple million dollars worth of cocaine some South American drug lord dumped there to hook all the kids. Development expense for future business. But, we’re in a “War on Terror” now. This stuff has got to be designed to kill.

Well, maybe. If you’re allergic to biscuits.

As it turned out, those way-too-healthy Fayettevillians were having another one of their “hash runs” (another term that would have caused problems in the drug war), and they marked the trail for the runners with flour. That path went right in front of the federal building. Some deputy saw it and our tax dollars went to work.

“In a similar incident in Connecticut in August, two people were charged with felony breach of the peace after a hash run trail forced the evacuation of a furniture store in New Haven.” – The Morning News.

The Fayetteville Police Department advised in this case that no criminal charges were likely because there was no malice or mischief involved. Not THIS time.

How nice.

But don’t read that to mean that any foolish person can recklessly spill flour on the sidewalk downtown and bypass a waterboard vacation to Gitmo. When are you people going to realize that we’re approaching our 7th year of a crisis situation? We can’t be doing crazy negligent things like this. Our very survival; the power base of the President of the United States; and the campaign of Rudy Giulani are at stake. It ain’t “business as usual”.
Once, years ago, a guy tried to walk onto a plane with a bomb in his shoe, ala Maxwell Smart. Would you believe it? Now, when you take a trip, you better wear the good socks with no holes in the toes. And leave that bottle of water at home. There’ll be plenty to drink on the plane – unless you’re imprisoned on the tarmac for ten hours due to some problem with take-off, eating little bags of salty peanuts and pretzels, and the airline runs out of consumable liquids. If and when that moment presents itself to you, thank your maker that the shoe bomb guy had it where it was and not surgically implanted in some body part you might have needed when you arrived at your destination. Say, it was a leg, and you were on your way to participate in some “hash run”.

A couple of weeks before the Great Fayetteville Shutdown, California caught fire and burned to the ground. Several days into the fire, TV news stations were reporting that those fires must have been deliberately set by people with a high degree of knowledge about such things – which was why firefighters were having such a hard time putting them out. This led to speculation that those terrorists we’re so afraid of could have been the perps. But, it just so happened that the biggest of those fires was actually set by a 10 year old kid playing with matches. Apparently nobody ever told him that would cause him to wet the bed.

The point is, terrorists could set fires like that. But they haven’t, so we don’t outlaw matches. They could easily scatter a 50 pound bag of roofing nails along the L.A. freeway system any day at about 4pm, and probably net almost as many deaths as they did on 9/11. So, why are roofing nails so available? Because they haven’t done that yet. They could sneak into the nation’s zoos and turn loose all the Godless killing machine bears, who could then find their ways to our elementary schools and devour our helpless children. And yet, those zoos are still in operation, because….correct – Stephen Colbert and I are the only ones who have thought of bear liberation as a means of terrorism. In other words, if the terrorists haven’t done it yet, it’s OK. If they have done it, we’re going to freak out about that until the cows come home because we simply have no foresight and no imagination. How then, do you win a “war” on terrorism with soldiers and guns in some part of the world where everybody shoots at everybody else? What should be the preferred weapon for combating an abstract? Imaginary bombs? If you could get them all to play by the rules (and why wouldn’t they?) you might even be able to eventually kill them off. But, how would you know when they were all dead? So, how would you know when to claim victory?

Face it. Going forward, we’re just going to have to get used to being a little scared of everything, because the world just isn’t as safe a place as it used to be, and it can never be again. But it’s not good to be terrified of anything, because if we are then “terrorism”, by its very definition, has won.


© 2007 Rick Baber
http://www.rickbaber.com/

LET THE MARKET DECIDE

After all these years, listening to Rush Limbaugh, hollering back at the radio for three painful hours every day, I’ve finally capitulated and now agree that the loveable little fuzzball was right all along. So there. I said it.

It was the diatribe today that did it. Maha Rushie was ranting on about Hillary making “health care” a big issue in the presidential election. Dude was right. Government doesn’t belong in the healthcare business. That should be a civilian enterprise, like everything else, that is “governed” by the free market – the concept that made America what it is today. As Rush said, there’s really no difference in hotel prices and hospital prices. If left alone, without government interference, hospital pricing would adjust to the demands of the market.

For example, if a hotel has very high prices, then only the rich people can afford to stay there. The hotel has to make the business decision whether or not it is willing and able to survive on only that share of the market. If they keep their prices high, somebody else will come along and offer lodging at a better price. Then, there’s a place for the middle class guy to stay. The poor guy? What does he need a hotel for anyway? He can sleep in the dumpster behind the Waldorf, where that fat cat is staying. You don’t see the gumment interfering in the hotel business.

Or restaurants. There are those hoity-toity places with real tablecloths that serve you a wee little bit of food at insane prices. You know – the kind of places where movie stars and Donald Trump and Congressmen eat. For most everyone else, there are already places that don’t charge so much for their food. Some have open buffets, where even little kids can sneeze right into the boiled chicken while they’re scooping out more sprinkles to put on their complimentary after-dinner ice cream cones. You don’t have to be rich to eat at those places. That’s because somebody filled that niche in the market. That guy eats at the high-priced place, because he was a good businessman, and now he can afford to. The poor guy literally gets food dumped right on top of him, his wife & two kids, as they sleep in the dumpster behind that hotel. That’s what President Bush was talking about when he mentioned “People trying to put food on their family”. It’s even conceivable that he could collect enough deposit bottles to feed the fam once a week or so off the dollar menu at the local fast food joint. They got ‘em everywhere. So, you see, there’s really no need for government intervention in the restaurant business. The market takes care of it.

Rich guys – the ones who aren’t chauffeured around in limousines, can drive those cars that all us middle-age-crisis guys only wish we had. They cost too much for most people. But there are car companies who stepped in there and created affordable vehicles for the rest of us….except for the dumpster family. But, really, even if they had a car, they couldn’t afford to buy gasoline, so they’d probably end up moving into the car and living in luxury out there beside the street where they would be quite the eyesore and a considerable traffic hazard. So, it would be to the detriment of the rest of society if Uncle Sam was to dictate the price of vehicles…or gasoline for that matter. The free market works again.

So, what makes “healthcare” any different? If the medical profession prices themselves into a market share that only millionaires can afford, then that’s all the business they’ll get. How much money can one millionaire spend? After all, it ain’t like people have to go to the doctor. Some bright entrepreneur will come up with a chain of medical clinics – maybe supplemented by advertising on the thermometers and bed sheets – that the “average Joe” can afford. This will be to healthcare what the motel beside the freeway is to that high priced hotel in Manhattan. Maybe some old, outdated equipment… or better yet some brand new Chinese-made medical gadgets. Some un-approved pharmaceuticals imported from countries where children aren’t afraid to put in a good 18 hour day to see that us lazy Americans are kept healthy. Maybe the folks that made “D’s” in med school could work in these places. Think of all the jobs that could be created in the medical profession. Sure, there’s still hundreds of thousands of people who can’t afford to go, even here, but it is important to any economy that people die. What else is going to motivate that guy in the “Medical Express” lane to get over that gall bladder surgery and get back out there to work for the man whose wife is in the expensive hospital getting her lips blown up so she’ll look good in the Ferrari when the top’s down. It’s a beautiful thing – the free market system – that only gets uglied-up when the government gets involved.

Anybody with any sense knows the Federal Government should have only two functions: maintaining a military of adequate size and resources to invade and occupy any country our leaders see fit; and letting no-bid contracts to big construction companies to re-build those countries after we destroy them. Everything else can be handled by the free market system.

Thanks Rush. I needed that.

© 2007 Rick Baber

Jena 6

“Things in this life change very slowly, if they ever change at all.”

So goes the theme of a Don Henley song that I can’t for the life of me remember the name of right now. But it’s true, ain’t it?

All the drama going on in Jena, Louisiana brings back some memories of my younger years in Batesville (what doesn’t?) back in the late ‘60’s & early ‘70’s. For one, there’s that tree at the school.

We had us a tree, out in front of the office at the old BJHS – which, I understand, is now some kind of kindergarten or something – down on Water Street. It was a big wide Oak, as I recall. Wide enough to stand behind and not be spotted by Mr. Caraway as we smoked those Viceroy cigarettes stolen from our dads’ dressers the night before. There were, maybe, a dozen of us who hung out there every day during the lunch break. A dozen – out of all those kids who attended that school. I honestly don’t recall if any of the “regulars” were black kids or not, but I know nobody would have had any problems with any blacks being there.

I do recall one event when one of the white guys got into a fight with a black guy behind that tree. It wasn’t because the black guy had “invaded” our space. It was because they had gotten into it over something earlier in the day and, as mentioned, the big tree was the best shield from the eyes of the school officials, and therefore the best place to resolve their disagreement. It was resolved – one on one. No guns. No knives. No cops or lawyers or political groups seeking to promote their own agendas. Just a couple of kids who had to work things out.

A couple of years later, when I was a Jr. in the “new” high school, up on the hill, I was (as usual) returning late from lunch. When I pulled into the parking lot, expecting to find that everybody else had already gone back inside, there were about ten (white) guys sitting on their cars and standing around. The “tardy” bell sounded as I opened my door. I jumped out in a hurry, thinking maybe I’d beat Mrs. Newton to class, I noticed all these guys looked and behaved uncharacteristically serious.

“Hey! Come on! The bell rang!” I said, as I took off toward the building.

Nobody moved, so, late or not, I had to go back and find out what was happening. I kept asking what was going on, but everybody just ignored me, keeping their eyes fixed on the gate up there that blocked off the then-open hallways.

As it turned out, one of the guys in the parking lot had been in an altercation with another guy – who had been hitting on his girlfriend. The guy in the parking lot, as I said, was white. The guy hitting on his girlfriend happened to be black. I say “happened to be” because I don’t think it made any difference to the dude what color the other guy was – at first, anyway. But, before lunch was over, it had apparently turned into some kind of race war.

Fearing Mrs. Newton more than I loved excitement, I got off the fender of my Mustang and proceeded toward the building. But I stopped cold when I looked up at a sea of black students – male & female – coming out the gates. I didn’t want them to think I was charging them by running up to the building, so I went back and sat on my car. Braveheart, I wasn’t.

There were, it seemed, three times as many black kids walking our direction than there were white kids in the parking lot. Skinny little cat that I was, I was certain that it wouldn’t take my pro-rata share of them to whoop me, but I had literally no place to go.

As they approached there were some words between one or two of the guys on each side of the impending battle. It was obvious that the situation wasn’t going to improve by virtue of the dialogue. They’d stop and yell for a while, then walk toward us again. When they got about 30 yards away, one guy opened the door of his pickup and pulled a hunting rifle out from under his seat, and laid it, pointed at them, across the hood.

Gulp.

Of course, they stopped walking our direction. And I quickly pondered the option of going back to Tommy’s Kingburger and playing the pinball machines, since I was already late for Geometry (or Algebra, or one of those number things). But before I could come to a decision, Mr. Cross and Coach Johnson, and Mr. Hicks (I think), and some of those other male teachers and coaches came running through that sea of black kids carrying riot clubs, looking like they meant business. The black kids split up and returned to the building. The guy with the gun stuck it back under his seat. And suddenly, WWIII was over – without a shot ever being fired.

It’s interesting to think that a guy was considering actually shooting somebody, but didn’t want to get in trouble with the principal.

After that day, although it could have happened, I don’t remember any further “racial” issues at BHS. We didn’t get any TV coverage. There was no internet to stir the pot. In fact, I may be the only person that has any recollection of the event.

I don’t know what it means. But it seems pertinent.



© 2007 Rick Baber

Secret Handshakes

August 29, 2007

I think we all owe Idaho senator Larry Craig a debt of gratitude. What a swell guy! If not for him, many naïve hicks like myself might never have become aware of the double top secret mystery dance that is apparently required to make new friends in public restrooms. If I understand it properly, it goes something like this:

“You put you’re your right hand in. You pull your right hand out. You put your right foot in and you tap it all about. You look through the crack into his pretty blue eyes. And that’s what I call cruisin’ for guys.”

What is that? It’s like an episode of “Get Smart”. Being a conspiracy nut, I have long suspected there were all kinds of groups that used this sort of covert communication, thereby keeping all us outsiders in the dark. Cloak ‘n Dagger networks that carry on these clandestine conversations right in front of our eyes, without giving us a clue. Take rich people, for example. They all must have some network like that, and if you don’t know the code you’re going to keep working for the man. But somebody lets you in, and all of a sudden it’s the blue label stuff for you baby. I mean, what other explanation is there for so many rich people who also happen to be, well, stupid?

To get in to one of these secret societies, you probably have to be nominated by a member and voted on by the rank and file, then go through some torturous and humiliating initiation process. Then they tell you if you ever let their secret out of the bag they’ll do something really bad to you and your house pets – maybe turn Michael Vick loose on them. That’s how they maintain their exclusivity. Fear and intimidation.

I’m all for “outing” any creepy pervert lawmaker – especially Republicans – but I honestly can’t understand how that guy was actually arrested for the little bathroom stall dance he did. I mean it ain’t like he walked up to Undercover Annie at 9th & High and offered her twenty bucks for … well, you know what you offer Undercover Annie twenty bucks for. All this guy did was a hand & foot routine. Who’s to say that, with all the different down-low groups there are, some of those “signals” don’t mean one thing to, say, bathroom perverts, and something else to, say, this Little League 3rd base coach I was watching the other day?

The guy started off by clapping his hands. Then he touched his hat. Then he touched his ear. Then his elbow. Then his hat again. His belt. His elbow again. His hat again. Then he clapped his hands again and acted like he was brushing something off his arm. Then he tapped his foot. Right there! He tapped his foot! Nobody popped up and busted that guy.

Now, if we’re going to arrest perverts in airport bathrooms and let guys like this stand there, right out in the open in front of everybody at a Little League game, around all those children, then people, all I have to say is this is a really messed up world.

What if the good “family values” Republican (did I mention he was a Republican?) senator was just trying to tell the guy in the next stall that he should buy Wal-Mart stock, perhaps mistaking him for somebody in the Rich Club? What if he was delusional, and just trying to get him to bunt?

Even if Craig, by some wild stretch of the imagination (snort), was trying to make some “overture” to that undercover cop, how is that act illegal? What’s the difference in a gay guy walking right up to another guy in a bathroom and saying “You wanna go see Rocky Horror with me?” and a straight guy walking up to a girl in a bar and asking “Hey baby, what’s your sign?”, as long as neither of them is holding up some cash in exchange for an affirmative response? Is there some special law that applies to bathrooms? I agree that it’s just not right to talk to somebody in there any time except when you’re both washing your hands, and even then, only about football. But…illegal?

My son thinks some people will mistake my intent with this particular piece as being that of a Republican pervert sympathizer. (More concerned that I’m sympathizing with a Republican than with a pervert, per se.) Perhaps there are some low-brows out there who will. Fact is, I’m just trying to understand what laws were broken, and whether or not they only apply to bathrooms. I may need to make a citizen’s arrest someday, and I’d really rather not have to do it with my pants down.

© 2007 Rick Baber

Polysatire Boy does Medical Research

Sometimes in the summer, when the air is still and the traffic’s as thick as Mississippi mud, and the asphalt’s cracklin’ like bacon in a pan, ol’ Rick Baber just looks Mother Nature in the eye and grins and spits and says “’Is that all you got?”

Then the fire ants carry him away to a cool dark hole where he can rest.

Hi kids! Miss me? I apologize for my conspicuous absence, but me ‘n mama have been tied up for about six weeks developing enough art to fill up the new Pinnacle Bank in Rogers, Arkansas. If you get a chance, go check out our website and see what we’ve been working on: http://www.digitalarts1.com/. We’d be proud to see you there.

But I’m not here today to write about art. Not here to chat about the weather. Muy caliente – as we say in Chickendale. I’m not even going to tick off my ol’ buddy Randy Tovey or that guy up in Cushman by writing nasty things about the guv’ment. This piece is dedicated to doing some serious research on a subject that has been on my mind for about 30 years. And I’m hoping you can help. I’m not a doctor. Don’t even play one on TV. But, my brother’s a doctor, so that’s qualification enough. Same gene pool. So here goes.

In my half century on this lovely blue planet I have known many people who have died from inoperable brain tumors. The best I could tell, these people had only two things in common: they knew me; and they all had dark hair and dark eyes. Perhaps it’s some form of denial, but I just refuse to believe that knowing me had anything to do with the untimely demise of any of these people. That leaves only the “dark hair & dark eyes” thing.

This subject has haunted and fascinated me, as I said, for about three decades. About 8 years ago, I offered up on one of my websites the theory that there was some correlation between the features described and this terrible malady. I received correspondence from maybe a couple dozen readers, and none of them had ever known of anybody to die from such a brain tumor who didn’t have dark hair and dark eyes. Of course, initially, there were those who thought they could present exceptions.

“My Aunt Sally died of a brain tumor, and she had gray hair.” Her natural hair color, as it turned out, was black.

“A friend in college died from a brain tumor and she had green eyes.” That person later wrote back to inform me that she had discovered that her friend wore contacts and actually had brown eyes.

Not one verifiable exception from that limited sampling group was given.

Now, I admit that was no scientific survey, but it piqued my interest even more. I decided that, when I had access to a larger audience, I would continue the study.

So, you’re it. Can you help a brudder out?

If you have ever known of anyone who died from an inoperable brain tumor, could you contact me with some details? Anything you could provide would be appreciated, but particularly the eye color and natural hair color of the deceased.

I don’t know if anything will come of it, other than satisfying the curiosity of this anal retentive writer, but I do know I’d appreciate any information you can offer.

Please respond to my website: http://www.rickbaber.com/; or by e-mail to cybermouth@hotmail.com.

Thanks!
© 2007 Rick Baber

BE PREPARED

The sign said “Long haired freaky people…..”. No. Wait. That’s not right. It said “BE PREPARED TO STOP”. A big diamond shaped orange sign beside the highway, somewhere between Huntsville and Harrison.

So, that got me to thinking (it’s a rare event). Am I? You know, prepared to stop?

All depends on what it is they want me to stop, I guess. What could it be? Smoking? Drinking? Gambling? Consorting with unsavory people? Maybe the sign maker is some battered Republican and wants me to stop writing this column. Fat chance.

Whatever it was, I wondered if I had the willpower. I wondered if I was truly prepared to stop, or if I even wanted to. And I wondered how they knew I was going to be here on this particular day to read that sign. Is somebody watching me?

Somebody must be. Just last night, as I started to watch a pay-per-view movie, an announcement appeared on the TV informing me that the movie had been formatted to fit my screen. If they’re not keeping an eye on me, how do they know what size screen I have. Hmmmm?

Yesterday, in an office building in Fayetteville, there was a sign as I entered the door that said “Thank you for not smoking”. Was it just mere coincidence that I was not smoking at the time?

The questions were running through my head so fast it was making me dizzy. Then, as if by plan to distract me from that line of thought, a red SUV whizzed past me. On the back window, written in white shoe polish, it said something to the effect of “State Finals Bound…..Comets…. To God goes the glory!”

Maybe it should have said “To God goes 70% of the glory!”

It occurred to me that, if God was supposed to get ALL the glory, maybe these people shouldn’t have written all that stuff on their car. I’ll bet they get a little glory out of it themselves by doing that. I had to wonder (Again. I wonder a lot.) if God was driving down some street, paved in gold, up yonder, in a white (surely it would be white) Chevy Tahoe with writing on the back glass that said “Comets to State Finals! To ME goes the glory!”

I don’t know. Maybe it was trivial, but it took my mind off that “stopping” thing for just a few seconds. Then, suddenly, the SUV started to skid in front of me. There were a bunch of guys with hardhats in the road up ahead. They should have let somebody know.

The SUV, I’m sure with some Divine Assistance, managed to get stopped before smacking the road crew. After all, they’ve got a tournament to get to.

Obviously, I wasn’t prepared to stop, so I veered off the road. Next time, I’m going to pop a few extra bucks and get a car that has brakes. I can see now how they might come in handy.

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Ethel Martin – rest in peace.

© 2007 Rick Baber