Big Dallas Bust!

In case you thought "Don't Mess With Texas" was a worn out expression from that biggest of American mainland states with a century old bullying complex, think again. Chace Crawford, 24-year old Hollywood heartthrob who hails from the Dallas area, was nabbed, mug-shot and released on $2,000 bail for being in possession of what some are reporting was a singular marijuana cigarette. You read this correctly: from the same state that brings us oil-reeking money, the Bush dynasty and switch-happy executionists comes a loud and clear message--kind of like the drawled out imperative blasting from one of those battery operated megaphones held by a state trooper with a size 42 girth--"NOT IN OUR STATE."

Well, good for those Texas officials, going against the grain and sticking up for what they think is right and American. Never mind that this just makes it "louder and clearer" to citizens in the rest of the country, many of whom happen to be existing in the 21st century, that Texas is a just what we all thought: "A big stretch of largely nondescript land with a backwards establishment. . .except for Austin."

If you think I am jumping to unfair conclusions about the Lone Star State and that I am just a hippy Californian with an attitude, you may be right--or at least right-wing; (far be it from me to tangle with you or even engage with you in healthy disagreement. . .chances are you are probably packing a piece behind your belt buckle) but consider this: I have actually been to Dallas.

Believe me, I have walked along the rail-straight highways of Dallas, I have spoken to the people of Dallas; to boot, I have a BA in Anthropology and here are a few things I surmised from my ethnographic visit:

1. Anyone cool or open-minded in Dallas, doesn't really like it and speaks longingly about leaving some day.

2. It is hot and flat.

3. All different sizes of "Shooting Towers" are on sale and on display at various hunting superstores.

I'm guessing, bless your soul, you may not have a clue about what a "shooting tower" is?

A "shooting tower" is a platform elevated upon a 40 or 50 foot quad or tripod in which a camo-donning "sportsman" lurks and waits for unsuspecting--often graceful and beautiful--wildlife. It can be like a throne where one sits like some kind of "King of Killing" or it can be an actual enclosed hut in which he hides out. Either way the end result is the same: "Fooled Ya! Bang. . ."

Of course not everyone in Dallas is out there saving their pennies for a shooting tower, but the fact that they are on display, on sale and on the side of the main highway says something about the establishment, about the status quo, about what is acceptable in Dallas.

This seems particularly twisted in a state where, in 1966, former marine sharp shooter Charles Whitman, decided to test his skills on actual people and killed 14 and wounded 32 from the top of the 307 foot "shooting tower"--the University of Texas, Austin administration building. Charles Whitman fooled everyone that day and that was one hell of a dirty trick. Given this heartbreaking history, is it that much of a stretch for Texas and it's famed sportsmen to see what little sport is involved in this and how fundamentally uncool it is?

More to the point, where are we in our evolving civilization if shooting towers are legal and acceptable and herbal cigarettes are illegal and unacceptable? Chace Crawford may have been born and raised in Dallas, but if I were him, I wouldn't feel too badly about the fact that I can no longer call it home.

Andrew Koppel

Apparently, Andrew Koppel, son of the stalwart nightline anchor Ted Koppel was "found dead in a NYC apartment." There is something particularly haunting and news-catchy about the phrase "found dead in a NYC apartment." It rings differently than, say, "was in a fatal car accident" or "died in his home surrounded by loved ones" or simply "passed away." Dying in an apartment is not the same as dying in a hospital, "after a long bout with cancer" or at war, "while serving his country."

When someone is "found dead in an apartment" the subtextual tragic message comes through without even going into detail. You think drugs and alcohol, you think about a well-hidden American loneliness. There is no question that when you leave the world in an apartment, you die filed away and "apart from" the world in some strange, tangible way.

The picture painted in my head is a portrait of isolation in the midst of a busy world; a singular lifeless body suspended above a sea of transportation and commerce. A highrise living unit, essentially a box, with a certain definable square footage, becomes, at once, a kind of mausoleum. The phone rings and rings. Emails pile up like electronic laundry. The muffled noises of a sought after cosmopolitan city still clamor on while the dead in their apartments wait to be missed or scented. If Andrew Koppel hadn't have been a Koppel, his unromantic "apartment"passing would not have even made the headlines; he has his dad to thank for this last bit of notoriety.

Andrew Koppell was only 4o years old. I myself have recently turned 40 and suddenly know all too well that sense of being neither old nor young, neither here nor there. It is a state when birth and death seem equally far away and you are lost directly in the middle of a kind of labyrinth. To just up and die at 40 seems like a stark reminder of. . .well. . .I don't know, but it's a reminder of something, I think, as I try to punch this brief message out, loop my belt through my pants and shove off to make a buck.

I find myself asking questions, this morning, that are really, depending on how you look at it, none of my business; like just what went on in that Koppel family anyway? Was young Andrew ignored in some essential way by his amibitous father? Were his other siblings always "better than" him? You see, I have no choice but to ask these questions because I am a father. I have a son who is eight years old and I want to do everything I can to make absoultely sure he doesn't stop breathing in an apartment some day with a head full of Jameson whiskey.

Maybe if Ted had decided against that third news anchor promotion and opted to be, say, the assistant baseball coach instead for his son's little league team back in '77, Andrew would not have been "found dead in a NYC apartment?" As unfair as that sounds, I have to wonder about what impacts, both positive and negative, my own personal amibtions will have upon my family members. There is always the wild card called, "clinical depression" that assures us nothing can be done about brain chemistry and that certain people, regardless of nuture, will end up over-medicated and cold in a highrise mausoleum some day. I am on the fence as to whether the "brain chemistry" argument offers anyone much solace.

And to think it all started when not too old and not too young labyrinthian Andrew noticed someone in a Hell's Kitchen bar on Sunday, that was donning the same kind of straw fedora as he was. "Hey, nice hat!" he was reported to have hollared from his barstool and then he started buying drinks for the guy. It was whiskey straight up for this new brother of his with the same hat on as him. This all, of course, led to keeling over in an apartment later that evening.

But that propensity to be lilted by someone with the same hat as you is so familiar, so childlike, so human that I think I understand Andrew a little. See, my son and I both have these mud-orange shirts that say "Texas" in white block lettering (I bought these shirts in the Dallas airport when I was on my way back home to California last summer after getting my book rejected from an agent who kept looking at his watch during our entire 10 minute meeting). When my son and I wear these shirts at the same time--sometimes on purpose, sometimes by serendipity--there is this unimaginable delight we share.

On the same note, the other day, I was drving through a little hick town (my town) in my '96 Ford truck and someone else drove right past me in the same kind of truck, same year, different color. The guy passing me waved out the window. I waved back and honked the horn, so did he, and for that instant in time, the stranger was my brother, for we had the same truck. It was was almost like, for a flash there, all the little things that separate people from one another seemed to vanish and I felt like buying him a drink.

"Crude Oil" is a Good Name For It

I don't think we can argue with the fact that what is happening to the Gulf right now is "crude" in every sense of the word. Here are a few definitions of the word "crude" from various sources:

"not carefully or expertly made"

Yeah, you can say that again...someone forgot to engineer a shut off valve on that multi-million dollar piece of extraction equipment. Things go wrong and all, and not being a trained engineer in petroleum transfer technology, I'm sure I'm jumping the gun by suggesting that there should have been, let's say a "switch" or something like that to shut the thing down below the surface...but you know what they say about hindsight.

conspicuously and tastelessly indecent as in "coarse language"

"a crude joke"; "crude behavior"; "an earthy sense of humor"; "a revoltingly gross expletive";"full of language so vulgar it should have been edited.

I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that what is happening, or not happening, in the Gulf is in the neighborhood of "indecent." To boot, phrases like "drill baby drill" fall into the classification of "crude language." If we look at the this whole business of puncturing holes beneath the surface of a large--really large--body of water to extract a coarse soup of sticky, toxic hydrocarbons so that we can run the combustion engines of commerce and war, "crude behavior" is not far off the mark. I would go as far as to say it is indeed "revolting." I can only hope that we humans will "edit" our actions and evolve to the point where future generations will look back on us cave people and say, "Our predecessors were clever but awfully crude...now we run our engines on solar and steam and we have no use for weapons any more, but we thank the idiots of yesteryear for creating the foundations of true civilization at long last."

"unrefined: not refined or processed"

Relating directly not only to the oil itself but also the human state of mind in creating ingenious inventions that ruin basic living systems...kind of cancels out the ingenious part and leaves us with "crude."

"belonging to an early stage of technical development; characterized by simplicity and (often) crudeness; "the crude weapons and rude agricultural implements of early man."

Poetic...Speaks for itself...needs no commentary, like a series of thematically related Haiku.

"blunt: devoid of any qualifications or disguise or adornment; "the blunt truth"; "the crude facts"; "facing the stark reality of the deadline"petroleum: a dark oil consisting mainly of hydrocarbons not processed or subjected to analysis; "raw data"; "the raw cost of production"; "only the crude vital statistics."

What is the "blunt truth" about this situation? Well, I hate staring at truth as much as the next guy, but here goes: "I have found the enemy and he is us." That's right, it's not BP or the Gov'ment, or Terrorism ( or even Socialism) that's to blame for this nightmare in our own backyard swimming pool. To illustrate this reality, my wife has just informed me that we are "out of milk and half and half" so I have to now end this blog entry to drive to the store and pick up more provisions. I live in a remote town at the end of winding foothill roads. How did the milk even get to our little country store in the first place? Maybe it's time I get a cow? In any case, if I have to go to the store anyway, I might as well pick up a 6-pack to get through Memorial Day.

Ode to Gary Coleman

Gary Coleman is really gone. What 'chu talkin' 'bout? I'd gotten used to hearing about how messed up his post-child stardom life was and from now on whenever his name is mentioned, no more stories about going broke, getting hired as a mall cop and punching an autograph hunter, no bad marriages or sick kidneys...just plain dead. I was surprised at my reaction to the news of his mysterious fatal brain hemorrhage in his remote Utah home.

I've dwelled on Gary for the last few days and it's made me reminiscent of my late 70's early 80s life as a boy, born in the same year as Gary, watching Diff'rent Strokes with my family while eating tuna sandwiches or tearing into a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Gary, or rather, Arnold Jackson, made us laugh after a long day of work and confusion. His character role, the young, clever black kid with perfect comedic timing epitomized hope. Always, the dark question looming for Arnold and his older brother Willis in that show was what might have happened to them if rich, white, Phillip Drummond hadn't taken them into his Park Avenue home. Hell, they might have become rappers or drug dealers or something without their great white father. Also, what might have happened to Mr. Drummond if he hadn't found these boys? Who knows, as a widower with no life purpose besides filling his bank, maybe he'd have become a regular martini sipper in the local hotel bar?

In any case, the show was important as it reflected an attempt by mainstream America to bring racial and economic integration to another level besides just public schooling and commerce. The concept put forth was that Americans, whatever their color or background, are actually capable of treating one another as a family--struggling, offering support and nourishment and, of course, laughing together. A criticism of the show could be that the best America has to offer is provided, still, by the white aristocracy.

I have been, somewhat tearfully, watching Diff'rent Strokes episodes on Hulu for the last couple of days and the thing that strikes me most about little Gary Coleman, is the sparkle in his perfect, brown eyes. Watch some episodes and you'll see what I mean. In posting the news of Gary's death, many media outlets have been juxtaposing Gary's bright and youthful face against his older, dejected, gone-through-rehab-face. The story indicated in that simple photo comparison says more than any words could. It's another Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe tale about the irony of what happens when someone actually reaches the pinnacle of fame. What happens when you reach it before you are ready? Can anyone ever be ready for such a life? It's about the voracity of America, the raw ability of our pop culture to chew up and spit out its most beloved and that's not the worst of it: there are more "stars" to come: Who's next? Gary, thank you for making us laugh off the 70s. I will always be a fan and may you rest, finally, in peace.