The Rules: Haiku consist of three lines.
The first line has 5 syllables.
The second line has 7 syllables.
The third line has 5 syllables.

Haiku often contain references to nature, and the third line may hold a surprise, an unexpected twist.

Schaefer’s Ambulance
takes you where you need to go
for the smallest fee

Now it’s your turn, readers. Go to the jump and give up your best haiku in the “Comments” section.

Related posts:

1. Haiku Friday
2. DogCanyon Haiku: Audience Participation Required
3. Haiku Friday: My America

You may not have heard of Star Anna yet, but you will.  And if you have and have been fortunate enough to see them live, you know how damn lucky you are.  Star is well-known around the Seattle area as a talented vocalist with a heavy duty soul.   Star and her music (pretty much one in the same) are powerfully raw, lovely and tender, shy and ready to put it all out there in all the right ways.  I was lucky enough to see Star Anna and her band the Laughing Dogs play at the Historic Columbia City Theater in Seattle on July 23, 2010.  For those of you who don’t know about the theater, apparently Jimi Hendrix played there before anyone had heard of him.  The distinct possibility of being able to draw a parallel between Hendrix’s and Star Anna’s humble Washington beginnings to eventual well-loved rock legends sometime in the near future had gotten me all giddy for the show.   I don’t exaggerate (well, sometimes I do, but not right now) when I say that the entire night I had the strong feeling that I was watching my favorite local band at the beginning of a new road…on the verge of making it big.   I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more right now.  I’m not the only one.  A quick look at their website will show you that the legendary Mike McCready (Pearl Jam) and Duff McKagan (Guns ‘n’ Roses) are right there with me.   In fact, September will find the band in Stone Gossard’s (Pearl Jam) Studio Litho to record their third album, featuring McCready.  Plenty more about their upcoming record in part two of this series.  Needless to say, you’ll want to buy it as soon as it comes out.  Here is a video taken by Layne Freedle (Outlaw Digital Media) of one of the new songs, For When I Go, that will be on that record.

All of that recognition is great for the band and for their well-earned future as legendary rock stars, but for me, it’s all about seeing these guys live.  No shit, you can’t watch Star belt her soul out for five seconds without knowing that she’s there on stage for nothing but the music and the damned honest truth in her soul.   And that soul is so deep, I’m not really sure where it hits bottom or if it ever would.  She’s not some here today pop star, on stage to get attention or try to be the pretty one, but it happens all the same.  I don’t care who you are, when you watch Star Anna grab these lyrics in her heart, rip them out with her clenched fist and deliver them straight to your gut with a contorted face full of remembered pain, she’s the most gorgeous and riveting person in the room.  There just isn’t anything more beautiful than that kind of authenticity.  Simple as that.  And while I called her raw, that’s only from an emotional standpoint…she and her band can pull off live what most bands fail to pull off on stage or with all of the extras in the studio.  Being in the room while they perform is nothing short of electrifying.  The first time I saw Star and Justin perform was at the Hootenany for Haiti alongside McCready and McKagan, and the moment she sang the first note, every arm hair in the room stood up straight.  Hundreds of people were holding up their arms to show their friends, saying, “Holy Shit!  She’s f*cking AMAZING!”  As many times as I have seen them play, I continue to have the same experience:  chills, goosebumps and total fulfillment at the end of the show…except that I want to see her play all over again, which as it turns out, is not usually easy for Star Anna, even for an encore.  She often leaves the stage spent and so emotionally involved that she feels like throwing up as she and the band describe in these interview excerpts:

StarAnna encore

StarAnna Yakima Show

Now, lest you think I have the biggest girl crush you’ve ever seen, let’s move on to the rest of the band.

I don’t know for certain why the band is called the Laughing Dogs, but right away I had a strong theory.  These guys just downright enjoy each other’s company and seemingly never stop laughing.  Justin Davis (Guitar), Keith Ash (Bass) and Travis Yost (Drums) are just about the most laid back, fun group of guys I’ve ever met.  Not a lot of ego here, just a deep, shared passion for music, a mutual respect for each other and the Star and a helluva lot of easy laughter.   In fact, Star told me at the beginning of the interview that I should move the recorder away from Justin because it will likely just wind up being a tape of him laughing.  I took her advice and moved it…although not quite far enough apparently!  Forgive the sometimes scratchy, living room quality of the recordings, along with the sounds of dogs panting, kids talking, phones ringing and so on.  You won’t need to forgive me for the raucous laughter though, because they are after all, the Laughing Dogs.  Besides, the interview was just fabulously fun.  By the way, lead guitar Justin has a GREAT laugh.  He even does it while they are playing and most of the time I think it is because they are just having so goddamned much fun.  Not only do they all have great senses of humor, they are just about the nicest people you’d ever want to meet.  Keith Ash greeted me when I arrived at his house and asked if I wanted a sandwich and made me feel incredibly welcome in his Seattle home as the family and friends hung out.   Throughout the interview all of the band members were accessible, honest and open.   No question in my mind, these are just good people.  Good people with intense loyalty and love for each other.  It is not unusual or shocking for them to offer up a compliment or even downright gush about their pride for each other and the band, or to see Star sprawled out on a couch using drummer, Travis Yost’s leg as a pillow.  These folks are guys are as T-I-G-H-T as it gets for a band.  They’ve already been through the typical challenges a band faces over the last three years; any conflict that would cause most bands to dismantle and fade away has always worked to pull Star and the band closer and ready to move forward positively together.  One thing you can’t help but pick up from the band without anyone having to mention it is their intense loyalty to Star.  Even though as Justin points out that none of them put themselves ahead of any one person in the band, I got the impression that they feel a strong brotherly love for her and are extremely proud of knowing and working with her.  So good news, the band that makes amazing music together has what it takes to stay together for the long term.  Again, they deserve it.

StarAnna Learning Starting the Trip

Right now the band is looking forward to playing at Bumbershoot in September, a large 40-year-old music and arts festival in Seattle and are looking towards the expanding their past tour circuit to reach larger concentric circles east and south each year, this year hitting Arizona and California venues.   They’d likely be warming received in Austin (or Myanmar—I mean, who wouldn’t love this band?), and will likely be working towards a spot in SXSW 2012.

That’s enough background info.  Enjoy some more video filmed by Layne Freedle (Outlaw Digital Media) of the show at the Columbia City Theater and photos I took of the evening.   Look for the part two of the series for more of the interview from Keith Ash’s living room, where you will hear the band talk more about their upcoming album, as well as experience for yourself more of the living room vibe.

Choking on the Words filmed by Layne Freedle (Outlaw Digital Media)

Space Beneath the Door filmed by Layne Freedle (Outlaw Digital Media)

Star Anna.

Justin Davis smiles the night away.

Keith Ash on Bass.

Backstage with Star Anna and Travis Yost, relaxing before the show.

Travis Yost on drums and Keith Ash.

Ty Baillie tears up the keyboard as a 4th Dog at the Columbia City Theater Show.

You can check out more of my portrait and commercial photography at www.simfotico.com, my art photography at www.keeshadavis.com (still in progress but good enough to be seen) and on Facebook here and here.  You can see 400+ photos of Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs I took during the interview and during the Columbia City Theater Show at http://www.flickr.com/photos/keesha_davis/sets/72157624462400721/

Find out when Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs are coming to your area on their 2010 tour at http://www.starannamusic.com/fr_home.cfm.  If you are interested in booking the band, please contact their manager, Dave MacDonald at dave@staranna.com.

Read up on the Historic Columbia City Theater at http://www.columbiacitytheater.com/

Related posts:

1. Santa Anna’s Leg
2. Lone Star Round Up Hotrod Parade on South Congress Today!
3. The Hoodlums: Band At Center of New Texas Music Scene

In the pilot (which aired on June 8, 2009 and was Showtimes most successful premiere ever), Nurse Jackie, a no-nonsense nurse working at All Saints hospital in NYC, demonstrates her ability to show both a hard edge and a bottomless well of compassion. And she doesn’t hesitate to work as a sower of dark justice and good, taking risks to create small renegade reparations in an unjust world. She doesn’t hesitate to falsify a dead patient’s driver’s license to make him a registered organ donor, or steal a violent perpetrator’s wallet and give the cash to a recently widowed pregnant woman. A student nurse wonders aloud if Nurse Jackie might indeed be a saint. But if Jackie is a saint, she is one from the order of St. Augustine who lives by the mantra: “Dear God, make me good, but not just yet.”

In an average workday, Nurse Jackie snorts enough Oxycotin to tranquilize an elephant, an addiction ostensibly begun as a palliative for a very real back injury. And the narcotics are supplied by the hospital pharmacist Eddie (Paul Schulze) who Nurse Jackie meets everyday at noon in the hospital pharmacy for a lunchtime quickie.

After a 12 hour shift, Nurse Jackie leaves the insular and demanding world of the hospital, taking the subway home. On her doorstep, she slips on her wedding ring and heads inside to greet her very hot, sweet, younger husband and her two little girls.

The fictional Nurse Jackie is joined in her behavior by plenty of real life wives. Studies show that 45-55% of married women (and 50-60% of married men) “engage in extramarital sex at some time or other during their relationship” (Atwood and Schwartz, 2002 – Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy). This is a truth that has not been fully explored in television and movies. Sure there have been some notable philandering wives in film (Mrs. Robinson of course leaps to mind—who doesn’t love a woman who wears a leopard print jacket to her own daughter’s wedding?). But more often television and film have ignored the reality of women’s infidelity, shying away from depictions of the “good” mother and wife who cheats. Instead, pop culture and the media often focus on the unfaithful husband, avoiding explorations of the idea that the beloved wife and mother could have a set of needs she’s meeting outside of the marriage.

The Oscar-nominated Up in the Air (2009) touched on this idea, but didn’t give us more than a glimpse through a cracked doorway of the extramaritally adventurous Alex Farna’s (Vera Farmiga) home life. But in Nurse Jackie we see that Jackie’s attentive, romantic husband appears to be the whole package, not just running his bar, but also uncomplainingly keeping the kids fed and nurtured while Jackie works yet another long overtime shift.

Jackie’s addiction and her pharmacist’s willingness to supply her with Oxycotin causes the viewer to wonder if she’s just using her lover as a med dispensary, or if she actually likes him. But there is clearly friendship and chemistry between the two, and Jackie doesn’t seem to be the kind of woman who would have sex with a man purely for the pharmaceuticals. (After receiving a ‘Me so horny’ text from the pharmacist, Jackie doesn’t hesitate to let him know that the adolescent booty call turned her cold).

Jackie’s renegade style at the hospital requires a major suspension of disbelief. But I’m not a stickler for realism in television. (If Law & Order showed courtroom scenes as they really are, would anyone be able to stay awake through an episode?) But what’s really worth watching is the show’s exploration of Nurse Jackie’s complicated and “flawed” character, of what it means to be a sinner and a saint, an imperfect human doing good work in the world.

Nurse Jackie has been greenlit for a third season. Season 1 of Nurse Jackie is now available on Netflix.

Related posts:

1. Modern-Day Saints
2. At Home With Some Saints: Celebrating the Super Bowl With New Orleans
3. My Wedding Dress Fetish

Teeth with Braces

I am convinced that had I not had the meddlesome and sausage-like fingers of one Dr. Blackwood in my mouth at the age of 13, my face would work better today, including lusher lips. Judging from my sons’ faces, lips like Angelina Jolie.

At my age, lip lushness is an issue. Why is it that lips get narrower and narrower with age? Why can’t they be like ears and noses that continue to grow throughout our lives? I’ve even heard that those appendages continue for a while after death, although I can’t imagine who is circulating that rumor, nor how they would be checking its veracity.

When I was 12, my mother was told that I had an overbite that rivaled a rabbit, but looking at my front teeth now I can’t imagine it. Who told her? Our dentist, who lived in our neighborhood and ran off and left his wife and children for his hygienist. His name was Dr. Swindle, if you can believe that. Who would truck with someone who was named Swindle? His wife should have seen it coming. Probably made part of the $2000 proposition, the cost of braces, at that time. $2000 in the 60s!! And you can be sure that it was intimated that the parent must not really love their child if they weren’t willing to spend it.

Upon stern recommendation that I obviously had too many teeth for my mouth, four permanent teeth, the 4th away from center on top and bottom in both directions, were pulled and the rest yanked back using an ever-tightening wire attached to each tooth by running it through a track that protruded from bands attached with cement around each tooth. Hurt? Lord, yes! But not enough. We had to increase the speed with which we pulled those teeth from their rightful places by using rubber bands for constantly increasing pressure. Tiny rubber bands that would not even encircle your pinkie, were attached to a tooth’s track assembly on the sides of your upper teeth, and then anchored to a similar assembly on the bottom teeth an inch or two further back in your mouth. The resulting tension was STILL NOT ENOUGH!! I also had a “mouth-bow”. This was an apparatus (I use this term with the full knowledge that it is only the first of two apparati I have had inserted into my body, the second being a gynecologist’s speculum, duration about 2 minutes) (Don’t try this at home.) that I used nightly. All night. Every night. My braces had small metal tubes on the offending upper side teeth. This bow-shaped apparatus fit into those metal tubes inside my mouth, had a parallel bow outside my mouth attached to an wide elastic strap with Velcro closures running around the back of my head. It was padded, thank you! Don’t want to create pain! The pressure this monstrosity created was like having a fish hook with tension on it attached to a finger or toe nail 24/7.

After all this are my teeth straight? Yes they are, but my tongue has never fit in my mouth. When I close my teeth, my tongue is further back in my throat than feels normal. If my tongue is relaxed, it is between my upper and lower teeth. I’ve gotten used to it, of course, but it just goes to show, don’t fool with Mother Nature. Was it a good thing? Probably not. Now that I see how my own children’s teeth turned out, and how what was mildly out of alignment went into place as the jaws grew to accommodate them.

There are jokes made about the Brits’ awful teeth, and how they are not nearly as interested in perfection as Americans. They believe it gives a face character to have some flaws. Americans believe in magazine perfection, and that it is not just attainable for each of us, but imperative. I believe that somewhere in between lies the answer—isn’t that always where the answer lies?

Related posts:

1. Prayers to the Tooth Fairy
2. Bill’s Teeth: a short story

It’s a rare day that Sarah Palin, the Klondike Queen of Kooks, doesn’t get a front-page turn on Huffington Post. Left, Right, Middle or Ozone, commentators of all stripes are mesmerized by the Right. No matter how nutty, nasty or distant from reality, the extremists talk and the whole political sphere gets all rubbernecked.

I’ve fought white conservatives’ annual voter suppression and intimidation campaigns for decades in the South. It was and is hard to get attention on the issue. But let a couple of black guys dressed up as New Black Panthers hang around an African-American polling place in Philadelphia, and FoxNews has America thinking the Liberty Bell down the street has finally fallen apart.

When CBS News’ Bob Schieffer somehow avoided the Right’s hypnotists on this unscandal and failed to make it a subject on “Face the Nation,” Fox’s Megan Kelly was so shocked she attacked Schieffer on the air. That’s how accustomed the Right is to having its daily way with the minds of America’s newsies and pundit class.

I can’t bring myself to say much about Drudge, except how in the hell is it that college-educated journalists let themselves be drug around by the nose by the idiot? Where is their self-respect? Where is their judgment? Where is their common sense?

It’s not enough to pin the blame on the Right’s legendary message machine, the noisy blog-to-talk-to-Fox-to-talk-to-blog circle of hate. By all rights it ought to be a classic closed system. But there’s something else afoot here, Holmes.

How is it that the Right has mesmerized the American media, including some in the Left-leaning media? Part of the answer lies in the great moral leveling of the media itself. The elimination of authentic moral considerations in reporting reduces everything to mushy he said/she said. Anything goes, so long as it’s entertaining.

Political news has been Jerry Springer-ized. This is an old and very un-Springery observation. It remains relevant. Clowns play better than statesmen in today’s news. Everybody knows it, but few do anything about it. Success comes to those with empty heads, no moral compass, and the gift of self-delusion.

There’s a folk legend that hypnosis can’t make anyone do something they’re opposed to morally. If that is the case, America really is in moral danger. Or, more accurately, America is danger because of its moral vacuity.

Cultural memory is essential to social ethics, and America is losing its memory. The Right is busy re-writing the Constitution, confident that very few Americans know what it is. The extremists have yet to find a way to justify torture, domestic spying, federal intervention in our bedrooms, and government control of women’s bodies while prohibiting federal enforcement of the commerce clause. However poor their reasoning, however fact-free their arguments, the major media continues to afford them the benefit of the doubt.

History and memory. They are key to understanding the Right’s hypnotic power over today’s media. The New York Times has a story today about China’s murderous occupation of Tibet. The parallels with the European conquest of the Americas are striking. Really striking. So striking that they ought to be mentioned. But they are not.

That, I think, is a clue to Right’s mesmeric power. History is assigned to another bureau. It is someone else’s beat. The Right gets this, and it promises journalists what logic tells us is impossible: a place in history that requires the erasure of history.

The person who, like Emerson, wants to pierce the rotten diction that is the lifeblood of destructive fantasy is, well, little more than a drag, a bummer, out of touch with the power of anti-history while looking to the lessons of history for some sign of justice.

Related posts:

1. Media Deference to the Extreme Right
2. PalinDrone
3. Nobel Decibels

Wait, let’s back up a minute. (See? Lack of focus. That’s part of my problem.)

Barton Springs is beautiful anytime, but my favorite times to visit are during the free hours — and not just because I’m cheap. At nine o’clock in the evening, after a sweltering, sluggish day, there’s just nothing like a visit to the Springs. The air near the water is cooler than the air farther up on dry land. The water itself is a sweet, cold revelation. And it’s dark enough out to imagine that it’s, say, a hundred years ago — back before A/C, when Austinites probably came to the Springs of a summer’s eve because it was the only way to cool down. I mean the only way — there weren’t any Polvo’s margaritas or noon shows at the Alamo Drafthouse back then.

The Springs are also gorgeous at around six-forty-five in the morning, when the sun is coming up and it’s just you and a handful of other lap-swimmers doing the eighth-mile length of the pool as many times as you can take it. That first plunge into the water takes your breath away, but since it isn’t too hot out yet, the shock isn’t as bad as it is in the afternoon. Your body adjusts. You surge forward, and then it’s just arm over arm, breath after breath, water in your ears, lungs tight but strong as you watch the fish twit back and forth in the reeds beneath you.

Before I moved back to Austin, during my four-year sojourn in San Francisco, I was a kickboxer. Like a lot of people in that city, I headed west when a love affair went really, really bad. I needed kickboxing: needed to pound it out on a heavy bag or my sparring partner, to use not just my fists but my knees, shins, elbows, heels, and also my speed and my instincts — my tools for avoiding injury. I’m untouchable. I’ll mess you up, but you can’t get me, never, ever again. You can see why martial arts might appeal to the brokenhearted.

It also appealed to me because it was the only time of day when I was thinking of just one thing: how to make my muscles keep going; how to get through the ninety-minute class without passing out or dying. I wasn’t fit, back then. I hadn’t known until then that exercise could quiet an overcrowded, constantly chattering mind. My obsessive, pessimistic, second-guessing thoughts just evaporated when I was kickboxing, vaporized by power, sweat and exertion.

By the time I moved back to Austin, I didn’t need such an aggressive workout anymore. My broken heart had healed. I got into more meditative forms of exercise: swimming, biking, running. You know, triathlons.

Meditative. It means “involving or absorbed in meditation or considered thought,” and it is one of my favorite qualities of some of my most favorite activities — running, playing music, writing. Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote about flow, the state of engaged focus and absorption in a meaningful task that leads to, or perhaps is equivalent to, optimal experience. This touches on what I’m describing: When I’m doing something I find meaningful and interesting, something that requires my focus and shuts out the jibber-jabber of my slightly neurotic brain, I’m in the flow, a meditative state that is either happiness or something even a little bit better.

So if I can achieve meditative states, why, oh why, can’t I meditate?

Here’s an example of what happens when I try. At Barton Springs this morning, after swimming a half-mile, I get out of the water feeling pretty darn good. Muscles tight, skin chilled but warming up under the morning sun. I walk over to my towel, keeping my stomach sucked in, though there aren’t too many people around yet; probably no one’s looking. Hey, maybe I’ll take advantage of the early hour, sit and close my eyes for a few minutes, and just focus on my breathing. That’s what meditation is, right? In its simplest form? That’s what many people and Web sites and texts have told me.

So I sit, cross my legs, get comfortable. Close my eyes. Breathe, in, out, in, out. I’m conscious of the sounds of splashing water, birds calling to each other, insects doing their thing. I try to do what I’ve heard I’m supposed to do, and let those sounds enter and exit. Don’t attach to them. Don’t attach to my thoughts. If they surface, I can just let them go, like catch-and-release fishing.

Remember that time when a fish bit the crap out of my ankle when I was standing in the deep end? That thing left a fish-mouth-shaped scab on my leg! I swore there were piranhas in Barton Springs!

Oh, crap, I’m thinking. Let it go. Back to focusing on my breathing. In. Out.

And then…suddenly, the sounds of splashing and insects and bird calls and people’s voices came together in a swelling orchestra, and she let the sounds enter her, and she was One with the sounds: One with Barton Springs —

Argh, thinking again. This always happens — whenever I try to meditate and stop thinking, I start narrating my meditation! Okay, I’m focusing, I’m focused —

Maybe I should write an essay about this. Narrating your mediation. That’s kind of funny, right? Maybe that happens to a lot of people when they try to meditate —

I stop, and give up for the day. It was a good try — four-and-a-half whole minutes. I’ve read research studies that show just 10 minutes of quiet time at the beginning of each school day helps students perform better academically. Maybe 270 seconds of quiet time will help me meet the rest of my day with greater comprehension, compassion and equanimity.

Or maybe, if meditation forever eludes me, meditative acts can serve as a close cousin. I think, with a brain as garrulous as mine, they’ll have to do.

—

The Barton Springs free hours are between 5 and 8 a.m. every morning, and between 9 p.m. and closing time at 10 every night. You can also go at other times of day for just $3 (adult entry fee). Visit the Barton Springs Web site or call the hotline at 512-867-3080 for more information.

Related posts:

1. DogCanyon Haiku: Audience Participation Required
2. The World Is Rich, But It Is Not Mine
3. Gone Fishin’

Related posts:

1. Media Deference to the Extreme Right
2. Why the Media Can’t See the Trees for the ACORNs
3. Before the Mountains: Sotomayor and Sitting Bull in America

On Frenchmen Street, a two-block circus of music and bars not far from the Quarter, a young street poet bangs away at his spontaneous verse on an old Royal typewriter and recites them for tips. He came to New Orleans from D.C. to work as an ambulance driver. A city hiring freeze left him a lot of time to write. But he’s not panicked. He was, I promise, happy, if in a bluesy kind of way.

I don’t meet many happy people in politics these days. I’m not sure I meet any. In the political arena, panic is everywhere. On the Right, there’s panic about zombie communism. Maybe we should shorten the name of this ultimate straw-bogeyman to zommunism. Anyway, On the Left, there’s panic about undead fascism. Those not panicked about being sold out are panicked about being accused of being sellouts.

One of Austin’s greater slacker rituals used to be the annual North Austin/South Austin tug-o-war called the “Tug of Honor.” A big rope was strung across the Colorado River, and hundreds of beer-drinking partisans lined up on their side of the river, grabbed the rope and tugged. At some point, one side or the other tumbled into the river. Now, we are much too panicked for that sort of revelry. But there’s another point here.

If you’ve ever been on the losing side in a tug-o-war, you know that moment of panic when your team is overpowered, its mutual footing lost. There’s a kind of oh-my-god panic. Somehow, in our current political circumstance, all sides seem to be having such a moment at the same time. The laws of physics hint that that shouldn’t be possible.

I’m not talking about earnest engagement and advocacy, about the moral courage to advance the causes one believes in. Not all political disagreement falls into the panic mode. Still, and don’t panic at this, I think political ideology is usually, if not always, thin and two-dimensional. Our ideological wars beat with dry if frenzied hearts. The point is, some of our humanity is lost when it’s Certainty versus Certainty on the political playing field. We all loose the resources we use to cope with hope and heartache in our everyday lives.

I can almost never remember today the thing that made me panic day before yesterday. That’s not exactly right. It’s better to say I can almost never work myself into a panic today over the thing that panicked me day before yesterday.

Some symptoms of panic: a fear that all is lost when something is lost; an absolute, religious faith in one’s own judgment; the taking of political setbacks personally; repeated lashing out at those who disagree with us; the certainty that the world (or democracy, or America, or something) will not survive if one’s view does not prevail immediately.

Now, I believe democracy is at risk these days. I think America is fast becoming a kind of purple plutocracy. Corporations are persons, legal entities with no accountability. Corporations are the new humans, above the people and beyond the checks and balances. In this there is great danger. (By the way, if corporations are persons, isn’t it fair to describe Big Insurance as psychopathic? Wikipedia says, “Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by an abnormal lack of empathy combined with strongly amoral conduct, masked by an ability to appear outwardly normal.” I rest my case.)

But reason to panic doesn’t mean we should panic. Cable news lives to keep us on the edge of panic. What was once NightLine is now Once-A-Minute Line. Everything is urgent, from the Hollywood fall-from-grace (nothing is less urgent than Mel Gibson), to a traffic pileup. America was panicked into war over Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. I rest another case.

I’m with the street poets of New Orleans, and there’s no such thing as a poem written in panic. Or a good law, either.

Related posts:

1. Out With the Old Politics, In With the New
2. Politics With a Human Face
3. Prairie Humanism and the Politics of the West

With a heavy heart, I took to the airwaves Friday night after what had been a tragic 48 hours or so in North Texas.  Coppell Mayor Jayne Peters (pictured) had gunned down her daughter, Corinne, and then took her own life.

Radio broadcasts and blogs had been filled with comments from people with no sympathy for what family and friends of the mayor and her daughter are now going through:

“She’s a murderer.”

“She’s a coward.”

“I’m glad she’s dead.  One less crazy woman.”

“Why lower the flag for a woman who killed her kid?  She’s honored while the average joe who puts on his work boots every day and makes it happen on a daily basis gets nothing?”

An honest debate over why the flag had been lowered at Coppell city hall was healthy and justified.  There was no honor in what had happened.  Only sadness.

Jayne Peters had lost her husband to cancer recently and was struggling to pay her bills.  We now learn that she had used her government credit card to buy groceries and clothes.  Her daughter, Corinne, had just graduated from the Coppell ISD and had told friends she was preparing to go to UT. But, it turns out the University of Texas had no record of her applying to become a Longhorn.

The more information that emerges about the Peters’ situation, the more it seems they were felt pressured to keep up appearances.

In her suicide notes, which were scattered around her apparently unaffordable home, Jayne Peters wrote that 19 year old Corinne (pictured) had become “completely unconsolable.”  She and her daughter had “not slept at all, and neither one of us could stop crying when we were together.”  Mayor Peters asked that there “please, please, please” be no funeral or memorial. Nevertheless, hundreds showed up for a memorial Friday afternoon.

So many mean spirtited comments have been directed at Jayne Peters and it’s not difficult to understand why.  There has been an all out assault on empathy in America. Why wouldn’t this woman have let her family and neighbors know how bad things had become?  Is it because we’re not supposed to lean on others?  Is it because those of us who live in suburban America have been told that no matter what your circumstances may be, your neighbor doesn’t need to be bothered with it?  You should always be self-sufficient.  You should never allow yourself to be seen as weak.

On my Friday night show, I was overhwhelmed by the outpouring of sympathy.  One caller told me his son had attempted to commit suicide on Father’s Day.  Father’s Day to him now is a celebration of the fact that he’s STILL a father. Another told me they feel there just aren’t any forums in which people are allowed to express support for those who are suffering in tough economic times.

Another listener who lives in Coppell wrote to me:  “As a neighborhood and community, we will get past this tragedy.  However, the family will have to deal with this forever.  Friends will have to deal with this forever…I saw the family go to the house today and I feel terribly sorry for them.”

Those who repeatedly call for personal responsibility are right.  But, there is also a responsibility to let our neighbors know we are there for them and there’s no need to feel such great shame for their failings.

Heaven help us all if we can’t do that.

- Scott Braddock

Related posts:

1. At Home With Some Saints: Celebrating the Super Bowl With New Orleans
2. The Ambassador, Tom Schieffer

            As he sat now, at seventy-six years old, he thought of Rosie. They had retired to Ruidoso, New Mexico, where the clear mountain air restored their lungs and lives. His long legs stretched out before him and rested on the cozy green ottoman she had purchased just for him. His heels touched and his feet splayed out in opposite directions, affording him just enough space in between to see the flickering of his TV. His feet looked rotten. They were unkempt, which is something that Rosie would have never let happen. She had always made sure he was lovingly groomed for public display, but after her death, he let himself go.

             Bill’s usual afternoon had been interrupted again by a sharp, cold pain in the back of his mouth. He had been watching Working Girl with Melanie Griffith and was already up to his favorite scene. He owned this movie, but today it was on television. He watched the broadcast version with commercial breaks every fifteen minutes while the worn VHS sat right beneath his feet, in a hefty drawer built into the side of his recliner.

      Bill loved Working Girl. He loved her spunk. ‘Tess’ the main character, ended up sticking it to her awful boss and that never got old to Bill. In fact, and he’d thought about this a lot, it might have been the greatest story ever told. Innocence and good triumphed over evil, love found a way, and the meek inherited the earth. Bill thought about the screenwriter, typing away at his computer and then sitting back when he knew he had written a great piece of work. Bill often congratulated him in his mind—it was a damn good movie.

            As he watched, he moved his tongue along the slippery sides of his teeth. The pain had been with him for years; Bill had always had bad teeth. At the age of sixty two, he’d had multiple extractions in the top, front section of his mouth and the dentist had given him a little plastic bridge with falsies that snapped into place. He popped it in and out—the grand kids loved that. The bridge was kept in a cup by his bed at night. One morning, as he gazed at his simulated teeth soaking and bobbing through foggy, tired eyes, he knew he had become an old man. When one routinely has to snap parts of one’s body back in place, one has reached a crotchety phase.

       When the movie was finished, Bill reached for his tenth cigarette of the day. It was 4:00 pm. In general, his mouth was a source of great shame. His teeth ached and groaned, he coughed, puffed, and smoked like an old monster, and years of smoking had worn away his taste for food. Sandwiches felt fine in his mouth. Soft, white bread was his only pleasure. He craved the texture of it and the way it muffled the pain and the all-around bad taste of his cavernous mouth. Today, like most days, his thoughts drifted back to his old neighbor and friend, Russell Ives. Russell had been to Juarez, Mexico, and returned with an empty, floppy mouth. His teeth had been hurting him for years and one day he had decided enough was enough. He drove his truck straight down to Juarez with no stops and no regrets. The outpatient procedure had been dirt cheap and in Russell’s words “a goddamn cakewalk.” Back at home in Ruidoso, Russell had dentures made and took them in and out of his mouth as he pleased. The pain was entirely gone; he had reclaimed his mouth as his own domain. His grin was wider, his eyes were bright and his last days were full of joy.

            Bill had known Russell for a short, but meaningful time. They had both been the sole widowers on a street of lonely widows. They had been cared for, to replace the memories of long-dead husbands. Casseroles and Jello pies arrived daily. The men would sit on Bill’s porch, eat them with gratitude and watch the mystical New Mexican sun go down. This was a spiritual time for both of them. It was the end of two decent lives, two fine men with stories to tell. Bill was pleased to have a friend.

            Russell died a few months after his spontaneous procedure. Ever since, Bill had thought that it was a shame he’d been buried in those perfectly good dentures. They might be a nice fit on someone else. Surely, their friendship could have included one last, sweeping act of generosity. Russell has selfishly gone to the grave with a pair of fake teeth he’d never use again. The shame of it all made Bill red in the face. He switched the channel and crept, like the old man he was, into the kitchen to make a sandwich.

            As he made his way, the phone rang loudly. The phone rang like this about once a week. It would be his son Roy calling for advice. Bill loved his only child, but had lately started to dread these conversations. Roy had divorced his wife two years earlier and had since made a life out of being divorced. He talked on and on about lawyers, visitation, legal bills, court dates, and property arrangements. This was foreign territory to Bill, and he disagreed with his son. His divorce, from a perfectly nice woman named Andrea, had seemed hasty to his father. Bill would just return the call a few hours later during the local news, as he usually did.

             As he raised his white bread sandwich to his lips, Bill was suddenly blindsided by a horrific pain in his maxillary central incisor. This was a new level of discomfort for Bill. His tooth felt as though it had been frozen in ice for years and had just been shattered by a tiny sledgehammer. Bill let out a holler as his sandwich dropped to the ground. He clasped his lips tightly with both hands and threw his head back into the supple, leather headrest of his recliner. The pain persisted for a full minute, and left his body shaking and reeling for an hour afterward. He was incensed. He hated that something so small could cause him such misery.

He stared out the window at the enormous sky over his yard as his foot tapped nervously to distract him from the pain. Before he could even think it through, his keys were in his hand and his hat was on his head. This was it! Bill would drive to Juarez without stopping, like Russell had. He would end the battle his mouth had laid against him with an atomic last stand. He would have a clean slate for the rest of his life.

             Bill backed out of his driveway and drove down the street. He made it down the block and into the main section of town. He knew his route by heart, as he had crossed the mountains and headed south a thousand times in his head. The trip to Mexico had been an obsessive fantasy, but now it would all come true.

            As he left the edge of town and headed down the winding mountain roads that would make up the first hour and a half of his journey, he searched for music on the radio. Hank Williams would have been nice, or Johnny Cash, but no good country was anywhere on the dial. Instead, he was forced to listen to old Gospel tunes. As the music swelled a joyful chorus joined the main singer and Bill was surprised at his reaction. He had never been a particularly religious man, but the sound of this song, brought back an old feeling. He remembered his long days in Bible school in Sweetwater, Texas. As a little boy his mother had left him every Sunday morning while she walked around town taking time for herself. He always hated being left behind.

            He drove on now, as the sun crept down behind the mountains. It was late February and the evenings in Ruidoso often brought snow. The clouds were heavy and pink. The glow of the sunset grew into their violet linings and created a beautiful dusk around him. Snow began to fall, the flakes drifted down like drops of cold stardust. The sky had never looked quite like this. As Bill surveyed the magic around him, he gripped his steering wheel tightly and began to cry. His emotions these days were always unexpected, which he found to be the strangest part of getting so old. The view was stunning and serene. The perfect words for what he saw swiftly came to mind and his breath caught deep in his throat. He rarely had the words these days.  He pushed lightly on the break and moved onto the narrow shoulder of the mountain road. He came to an idle stop and switched off his headlights, his tooth still aching. All around, Bill and his truck were alone in the midst of what he could only describe as a rosie winter.

Related posts:

1. Henhouse: a short story, Part 2
2. Henhouse: a short story, Part 1
3. Hotshot Love: a short story about love and fire, Part 4