Katharine Hepburn, 1907-2003
A fantastic example of 20th-century American beauty. I, of course, remember her as the old lady in On Golden Pond. Thing I noticed: She won an Oscar in 1933 and one in 1981. Hard to find a comparable example of staying power.
Monday, June 30, 2003
Friday, June 27, 2003
What's in my dressing room?
Was reminded last night of the greatness of thesmokinggun.com. I spent a while late last night browsing here, where contract riders for touring musicians are stashed. Yeah, some of the demands are silly or bizarre, but hey, if you're on the road all the time, it's not like you're buying groceries. Might as well be made to feel at home. And, at some venues, you do have to actually specify that you want hot water in the shower.
It got me to thinking: What would my contract rider demand?
RJ's DRESSING ROOM
PURCHASER will be required to set up ARTIST's dressing room at the venue as follows. This is to be a star dressing room, not a large team locker room. Any deviation from the below will be considered a breach of the contract.
Furnishings required (all items must be clean)
One (1) couch, leather, no less than eight (8) feet in length (black preferred)
One (1) coffee table and three (3) chairs (actual furniture not folding chairs)
Clean toilet and shower, with hot running water
One (1) dozen bath towels, clean, not white
One (1) copy of that day's local newspaper
One (1) copy of that day's USA Today (does not apply to Saturday and Sunday shows)
One (1) copy of that day's New York Times
One (1) hand-rolled cigar, of the highest quality available locally (if it costs less than $20, it's not acceptable)
Broadband internet connection
Unrestricted OUTGOING ONLY phone line (local and long distance calls)
Dressing room food (hot beverages hot, cold beverages cold, please. All packaged items to be opened only by tour personnel)
One (1) gallon Starbucks House Blend coffee (substitute this, and PURCHASER runs the very real risk the show won't go on)
One (1) large vegetable tray, with carrots, cauliflower and broccoli (cut small please!)
One (1) tray hot finger foods (buffalo wings, fried chicken fingers, Southwest rolls)
One (1) package Oreo cookies (regular, not Double Stuf, and sure as hell not Hydrox)
One (1) pint Ben and Jerry's ice cream, Karamel Sutra variety
Six (6) cans Shiner Bock beer (this may require a pre-order, as Shiner Bock is not widely available outside of Texas)
Six (6) cans Dr Pepper
Six (6) bottles of water (Aquafina preferred)
40 lb of ice
One (1) bottle of Advil
One (1) package of Rolaids, cherry flavored
Dinner (to be served after the show)
There are no vegeterians on this tour. The less healthy the food, the better.
Check with tour director before load-in, but expect that a large order from the best local barbecue joint or steak house will be requested. For venues in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California, expect to be in constant contact with the best local Mexican restaurant.
Wonder if I can get this at work?
Was reminded last night of the greatness of thesmokinggun.com. I spent a while late last night browsing here, where contract riders for touring musicians are stashed. Yeah, some of the demands are silly or bizarre, but hey, if you're on the road all the time, it's not like you're buying groceries. Might as well be made to feel at home. And, at some venues, you do have to actually specify that you want hot water in the shower.
It got me to thinking: What would my contract rider demand?
RJ's DRESSING ROOM
PURCHASER will be required to set up ARTIST's dressing room at the venue as follows. This is to be a star dressing room, not a large team locker room. Any deviation from the below will be considered a breach of the contract.
Furnishings required (all items must be clean)
One (1) couch, leather, no less than eight (8) feet in length (black preferred)
One (1) coffee table and three (3) chairs (actual furniture not folding chairs)
Clean toilet and shower, with hot running water
One (1) dozen bath towels, clean, not white
One (1) copy of that day's local newspaper
One (1) copy of that day's USA Today (does not apply to Saturday and Sunday shows)
One (1) copy of that day's New York Times
One (1) hand-rolled cigar, of the highest quality available locally (if it costs less than $20, it's not acceptable)
Broadband internet connection
Unrestricted OUTGOING ONLY phone line (local and long distance calls)
Dressing room food (hot beverages hot, cold beverages cold, please. All packaged items to be opened only by tour personnel)
One (1) gallon Starbucks House Blend coffee (substitute this, and PURCHASER runs the very real risk the show won't go on)
One (1) large vegetable tray, with carrots, cauliflower and broccoli (cut small please!)
One (1) tray hot finger foods (buffalo wings, fried chicken fingers, Southwest rolls)
One (1) package Oreo cookies (regular, not Double Stuf, and sure as hell not Hydrox)
One (1) pint Ben and Jerry's ice cream, Karamel Sutra variety
Six (6) cans Shiner Bock beer (this may require a pre-order, as Shiner Bock is not widely available outside of Texas)
Six (6) cans Dr Pepper
Six (6) bottles of water (Aquafina preferred)
40 lb of ice
One (1) bottle of Advil
One (1) package of Rolaids, cherry flavored
Dinner (to be served after the show)
There are no vegeterians on this tour. The less healthy the food, the better.
Check with tour director before load-in, but expect that a large order from the best local barbecue joint or steak house will be requested. For venues in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California, expect to be in constant contact with the best local Mexican restaurant.
Wonder if I can get this at work?
OK, I'll bite
A web site offered to "analyze my name." Here's what it came up with:
You are spontaneous, happy-go-lucky, and you enjoy the company of others--the more the merrier. You make friends easily as people are attracted to your warm and generous nature. However, you have to watch that others do not take advantage of your generosity, for you are apt to be influenced by hard-luck stories and give when it might be more prudent not to. You are ever on the watch for ways and means of making some "easy money" because this name destroys initiative and ambition, producing an easy-going, come-what-may nature which attaches value to money only for the self-enjoyment it can offer. Misunderstandings could exist in your personal life because of this emotional power which you have difficulty controlling and also because of a difficulty in accepting a responsibility and seeing it through. You are apt to leave a project unfinished and go on to something else. Routine and system are foreign to your life, and, of course, these assets are an integral part of any successful undertaking. You are fond of sweets and rich foods and your tendency to eat heavily, causes overweight. You could be subject to skin disorders, swelling of the legs and ankles, fluid function disorders or weakness affecting the back.
Uh, OK. Pardon me while I go eat some more ice cream right out of the carton.
(For the record, I'm 5-7 and weigh 130 pounds. I'm not too worried about that overweight thing. Now, about the skin disorder ... )
A web site offered to "analyze my name." Here's what it came up with:
You are spontaneous, happy-go-lucky, and you enjoy the company of others--the more the merrier. You make friends easily as people are attracted to your warm and generous nature. However, you have to watch that others do not take advantage of your generosity, for you are apt to be influenced by hard-luck stories and give when it might be more prudent not to. You are ever on the watch for ways and means of making some "easy money" because this name destroys initiative and ambition, producing an easy-going, come-what-may nature which attaches value to money only for the self-enjoyment it can offer. Misunderstandings could exist in your personal life because of this emotional power which you have difficulty controlling and also because of a difficulty in accepting a responsibility and seeing it through. You are apt to leave a project unfinished and go on to something else. Routine and system are foreign to your life, and, of course, these assets are an integral part of any successful undertaking. You are fond of sweets and rich foods and your tendency to eat heavily, causes overweight. You could be subject to skin disorders, swelling of the legs and ankles, fluid function disorders or weakness affecting the back.
Uh, OK. Pardon me while I go eat some more ice cream right out of the carton.
(For the record, I'm 5-7 and weigh 130 pounds. I'm not too worried about that overweight thing. Now, about the skin disorder ... )
Strom Thurmond, 1902-2003
He was a political giant, no doubt about that. He was a solid representative of the good people of South Carolina all those years.
And no matter how many mea culpas and philosophical turnarounds he claimed, he exits this world a racist.
I hope the next world has less patience for people like him.
I hope we've learned something from him. I hope we don't do it the way he did.
He was a political giant, no doubt about that. He was a solid representative of the good people of South Carolina all those years.
And no matter how many mea culpas and philosophical turnarounds he claimed, he exits this world a racist.
I hope the next world has less patience for people like him.
I hope we've learned something from him. I hope we don't do it the way he did.
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
My struggle
I'm trying to come up with something interesting to put in this space. I really, really am. I'm probably trying harder at this than anything else I've done today.
But it's not coming. It's just not there.
Oh, the ideas are there, certainly. I could expound on:
the bad juju at work
how funny it is that John Ashcroft could actually plead with the news media to spin the Patriot Act in a positive light and keep a straight face while doing so
my desperate search for something important (outside of the obvious home and family)
how good it feels to be exercising semi-regularly again
But, certainly, none of that stuff is going to hold your interest. I readily concede that.
This being my forum, I usually don't worry that much about holding your interest. I write whatever suits me. If you find it interesting, fine. Occasionally you do, and you tell me so. Few things in my life are more rewarding than that, which tells you something about the lengths to which I go to find rewards these days.
But suddenly, it seems important to not waste your time with trivial tales about my life, about my wants and needs and hopes and desires and struggles and the constant search for inspiration. Hell, it bores me, anymore.
Suddenly, it seems important that I give you something that opens your mind a little bit, something that makes you think, something you haven't heard or seen or read before.
But it seems I've come to the edge of my capabilities -- my capability to accomplish, my capability to inspire, my capability to be inspired.
When you come to the edge, you have a few choices. You can turn left. You can turn right. You can descend the bluff and see what's below.
Or, you can back up and run the same road again.
Three of those choices involve some sort of serious risk, the main risk being the potential for abject failure.
But is backing up and running the same road again a failure all its own?
I'm trying to come up with something interesting to put in this space. I really, really am. I'm probably trying harder at this than anything else I've done today.
But it's not coming. It's just not there.
Oh, the ideas are there, certainly. I could expound on:
But, certainly, none of that stuff is going to hold your interest. I readily concede that.
This being my forum, I usually don't worry that much about holding your interest. I write whatever suits me. If you find it interesting, fine. Occasionally you do, and you tell me so. Few things in my life are more rewarding than that, which tells you something about the lengths to which I go to find rewards these days.
But suddenly, it seems important to not waste your time with trivial tales about my life, about my wants and needs and hopes and desires and struggles and the constant search for inspiration. Hell, it bores me, anymore.
Suddenly, it seems important that I give you something that opens your mind a little bit, something that makes you think, something you haven't heard or seen or read before.
But it seems I've come to the edge of my capabilities -- my capability to accomplish, my capability to inspire, my capability to be inspired.
When you come to the edge, you have a few choices. You can turn left. You can turn right. You can descend the bluff and see what's below.
Or, you can back up and run the same road again.
Three of those choices involve some sort of serious risk, the main risk being the potential for abject failure.
But is backing up and running the same road again a failure all its own?
Saturday, June 21, 2003
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Sunday, June 15, 2003
A long drive, a big party, an old guitar, a rebirth
The instrument is a C.F. Martin guitar. In its 30-plus years, it has been in many different hands.
It was purchased in 1971 by a man in Texas who wrote beautiful, haunting country songs that few people ever heard. It rang its notes at many family sing-alongs, but didn't get out much beyond that.
About 15 years later, he gave it to his sister, many years younger, who sang many of his songs -- and beautiful, haunting songs of her own -- to appreciative, if small, crowds in coffeehouses and county fairs throughout Texas.
The sister became dissatisfied with this guitar after many years, many songs, a CD and many appreciative, if small, crowds. She bought a new Martin and relegated this one to a dark corner of the closet.
The instrument became dangerously close to becoming garage-sale fodder before it was intercepted by a man whose musical heart hadn't beaten for many years. He was a man who wrote perfectly average country songs that nobody ever heard. His skills were minimal, but the Martin gave this man its best -- like it had for the musicians who previously bared their souls through this instrument. The sister gave this man her blessing, and the Martin. Soon, this man's musical heart was resuscitated.
It's a long way from early-'70s Texas to a summer night in 2003 in South Carolina, when the Martin made an appearance during the waning hours of an amazing gathering of people. The Martin was flanked by a man with an Alvarez and a man with a cheap but game Epiphone. In a cathartic session that lasted from 1 a.m. until well past 4, the music poured out, bringing friends and family together in the way only music can.
Honestly, I have no idea how we sounded, and it didn't matter because it just felt so good. We were being treated like stars. People were singing along. People were shouting out requests. Cousin Otis played a few of his original songs, which, um, celebrated his college years. The fellow to my right, a guy none of us had met before that night, was playing like he'd been playing with us for years. His way-above-average skill brought out the very best in the cheap guitar he had borrowed. Every once in a while, a trio of shots would magically appear, further fueling the musical fire.
Cousin Otis and I come from a large, close and musical family. We bore witness to many family sing-a-longs, but by the time we were old enough to participate ourselves, our paths had diverged. We had played together a few times -- most recently in about 1991, when I was 22 and just married and he was 17 and a junior in high school. We talked about getting together many times after that, but it didn't happen until last weekend. It damn sure better not take 12 years for it to happen again.
Last weekend's gathering was a party Cousin Otis throws every year to celebrate, well, to celebrate himself and his friends. There was much to celebrate. Otis' brother, Beaker, is now offically Dr. Beaker. Otis and his wife endured a professional shitstorm at work that week; it was mentioned at the gathering, but only by the 30 or so co-workers who came to them to express their unconditional support. The crowd at its peak was estimated at about 70, representing seven states and the District of Columbia.
It wasn't the perfect weekend -- The Wife couldn't be there, because weekend-length babysitters aren't easy to come by -- but if she had been there, it would have been.
Over a 54-hour period beginning at 7 a.m. last Saturday, I spent 18 hours driving, 12 drinking, 3 with the Martin, probably 7 of them sleeping and all of them meeting wonderful new people and celebrating life. I came home feeling renewed, feeling much better about the world around me, and plotting ways to find one of those weekend-length babysitters in time for next year's event.
The instrument is a C.F. Martin guitar. In its 30-plus years, it has been in many different hands.
It was purchased in 1971 by a man in Texas who wrote beautiful, haunting country songs that few people ever heard. It rang its notes at many family sing-alongs, but didn't get out much beyond that.
About 15 years later, he gave it to his sister, many years younger, who sang many of his songs -- and beautiful, haunting songs of her own -- to appreciative, if small, crowds in coffeehouses and county fairs throughout Texas.
The sister became dissatisfied with this guitar after many years, many songs, a CD and many appreciative, if small, crowds. She bought a new Martin and relegated this one to a dark corner of the closet.
The instrument became dangerously close to becoming garage-sale fodder before it was intercepted by a man whose musical heart hadn't beaten for many years. He was a man who wrote perfectly average country songs that nobody ever heard. His skills were minimal, but the Martin gave this man its best -- like it had for the musicians who previously bared their souls through this instrument. The sister gave this man her blessing, and the Martin. Soon, this man's musical heart was resuscitated.
It's a long way from early-'70s Texas to a summer night in 2003 in South Carolina, when the Martin made an appearance during the waning hours of an amazing gathering of people. The Martin was flanked by a man with an Alvarez and a man with a cheap but game Epiphone. In a cathartic session that lasted from 1 a.m. until well past 4, the music poured out, bringing friends and family together in the way only music can.
Honestly, I have no idea how we sounded, and it didn't matter because it just felt so good. We were being treated like stars. People were singing along. People were shouting out requests. Cousin Otis played a few of his original songs, which, um, celebrated his college years. The fellow to my right, a guy none of us had met before that night, was playing like he'd been playing with us for years. His way-above-average skill brought out the very best in the cheap guitar he had borrowed. Every once in a while, a trio of shots would magically appear, further fueling the musical fire.
Cousin Otis and I come from a large, close and musical family. We bore witness to many family sing-a-longs, but by the time we were old enough to participate ourselves, our paths had diverged. We had played together a few times -- most recently in about 1991, when I was 22 and just married and he was 17 and a junior in high school. We talked about getting together many times after that, but it didn't happen until last weekend. It damn sure better not take 12 years for it to happen again.
Last weekend's gathering was a party Cousin Otis throws every year to celebrate, well, to celebrate himself and his friends. There was much to celebrate. Otis' brother, Beaker, is now offically Dr. Beaker. Otis and his wife endured a professional shitstorm at work that week; it was mentioned at the gathering, but only by the 30 or so co-workers who came to them to express their unconditional support. The crowd at its peak was estimated at about 70, representing seven states and the District of Columbia.
It wasn't the perfect weekend -- The Wife couldn't be there, because weekend-length babysitters aren't easy to come by -- but if she had been there, it would have been.
Over a 54-hour period beginning at 7 a.m. last Saturday, I spent 18 hours driving, 12 drinking, 3 with the Martin, probably 7 of them sleeping and all of them meeting wonderful new people and celebrating life. I came home feeling renewed, feeling much better about the world around me, and plotting ways to find one of those weekend-length babysitters in time for next year's event.
Monday, June 09, 2003
Thursday, June 05, 2003
Hmmm
I went to post the post below and was led to an odd-looking Blogger interface. Well, OK, I thought, guess they've finally made the changes they said they were going to make. It's not as good, but oh well, what do you expect for free?
Then I hit "Publish." An error came up. I hit "Re-publish."
And now, it appears, the entire blog has been zapped except for these two posts.
For a free service, Blogger's not bad. Oddities like this usually get fixed pretty quickly. I'll hold my rage until I see if that trend continues.
I went to post the post below and was led to an odd-looking Blogger interface. Well, OK, I thought, guess they've finally made the changes they said they were going to make. It's not as good, but oh well, what do you expect for free?
Then I hit "Publish." An error came up. I hit "Re-publish."
And now, it appears, the entire blog has been zapped except for these two posts.
For a free service, Blogger's not bad. Oddities like this usually get fixed pretty quickly. I'll hold my rage until I see if that trend continues.
Completely irrelevant story
The Wife related this tale of woe from one of her friends. I offer it to men who have done something stupid to earn their wife's contempt, as a small consolation.
The Wife's friend and her family arrived home after a weekend trip. They brought their dirty clothes home in big green plastic trash bags. The friend put the bag containing the clothes on the living room floor and went about her business. The friend's husband went around tidying up; he grabbed the trash bag out of the kitchen and picked up the trash bag on the living room floor.
Yeah, you know what comes next.
He threw both bags in the dumpster.
One bag contained remants of dinners from the previous week, used paper towels, newspapers, that kind of the stuff. The other bag was filled with every stitch of their best clothing, including new clothes their baby son had received for his birthday.
By the time they figured this out, the truck had long since rumbled off to the landfill.
Oops.
This was Monday. He's still paying for it at home. He'll be paying for it at the mall this weekend.
Sucks to be him. It's much better to be you.
The Wife related this tale of woe from one of her friends. I offer it to men who have done something stupid to earn their wife's contempt, as a small consolation.
The Wife's friend and her family arrived home after a weekend trip. They brought their dirty clothes home in big green plastic trash bags. The friend put the bag containing the clothes on the living room floor and went about her business. The friend's husband went around tidying up; he grabbed the trash bag out of the kitchen and picked up the trash bag on the living room floor.
Yeah, you know what comes next.
He threw both bags in the dumpster.
One bag contained remants of dinners from the previous week, used paper towels, newspapers, that kind of the stuff. The other bag was filled with every stitch of their best clothing, including new clothes their baby son had received for his birthday.
By the time they figured this out, the truck had long since rumbled off to the landfill.
Oops.
This was Monday. He's still paying for it at home. He'll be paying for it at the mall this weekend.
Sucks to be him. It's much better to be you.
Sunday, June 01, 2003
Wacky weekend
The Wife was gone the better part of Saturday, and apparently, she took all the good luck in the house with her. The following happened in about a 64-minute period Saturday morning:
The Boy, continuing his destructive streak, broke a bowl that was very precious to The Wife. Her parents received the bowl as a wedding gift. Her parents divorced when The Wife was 2.
The Boss calls to tell me the FBI captured Eric Rudolph. I had to do a quick mental archive search on "Who's Eric Rudolph?" Big breaking news around here, apparently. I begin making preparations to try to find a place to leave the children so I can go to work.
While I'm cleaning up the bowl, a hose becomes disconnected under the sink, spewing dishwasher sewage all over the kitchen.
About the time I exhausted the list of possible babysitters and began making mental preparations to take all three kids to work with me, sanity began to prevail. The folks at work scaled back their plans a bit, making my presence unnecessary in anything other than a virtual form. (Woo, technology!) The plumbing issue proved to be an easy fix. The Wife's still crushed about her bowl, but it's another in a long list of things The Boy has destroyed. (He's not willful or vicious, by the way; most of the destruction is accidental.)
So you have to figure that Sunday will be better. We're all set to head to the Western Edge to visit a friend from Texas who's attending a seminar in St. Petersburg. Then, Sunday came, time got away from us, the schedules wouldn't mesh, and we got about 20 miles from home before we became convinced it wouldn't be worth anybody's time.
I'm unaccustomed to Stuff Not Working Out on this radical of a level. I'm spoiled, certainly. It's been a while since I've had a weekend become so clusterfucked.
We yanked it back on track toward the end, with a family trip to the mini-golf course and a solid dose of ice cream. But it's been a while since I've sat here on a Sunday night thinking, "Man, I'm glad that's over."
The Wife was gone the better part of Saturday, and apparently, she took all the good luck in the house with her. The following happened in about a 64-minute period Saturday morning:
About the time I exhausted the list of possible babysitters and began making mental preparations to take all three kids to work with me, sanity began to prevail. The folks at work scaled back their plans a bit, making my presence unnecessary in anything other than a virtual form. (Woo, technology!) The plumbing issue proved to be an easy fix. The Wife's still crushed about her bowl, but it's another in a long list of things The Boy has destroyed. (He's not willful or vicious, by the way; most of the destruction is accidental.)
So you have to figure that Sunday will be better. We're all set to head to the Western Edge to visit a friend from Texas who's attending a seminar in St. Petersburg. Then, Sunday came, time got away from us, the schedules wouldn't mesh, and we got about 20 miles from home before we became convinced it wouldn't be worth anybody's time.
I'm unaccustomed to Stuff Not Working Out on this radical of a level. I'm spoiled, certainly. It's been a while since I've had a weekend become so clusterfucked.
We yanked it back on track toward the end, with a family trip to the mini-golf course and a solid dose of ice cream. But it's been a while since I've sat here on a Sunday night thinking, "Man, I'm glad that's over."
Friday, May 30, 2003
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Technical difficulties
The Boy, 4, unplugged the computer yesterday morning.
That was bad enough.
But then, he plugged it back in.
Oops.
Our cable modem is currently fried. Until we get the good folks at the cable company to bring us a new one (hopefully later today), we'll be out of service at this forum.
The Boy, 4, unplugged the computer yesterday morning.
That was bad enough.
But then, he plugged it back in.
Oops.
Our cable modem is currently fried. Until we get the good folks at the cable company to bring us a new one (hopefully later today), we'll be out of service at this forum.
Friday, May 23, 2003
Smack talk
The Wife and I find ourselves occasionally sharing a bout of insomnia. We usually deal with this by staying up until absurd hours flipping through channels. Eventually we catch ourselves watching something we wouldn't ordinarily watch.
This is how we stumbled upon MTV the other night, which was running a follow-up on a documentary it did a few years ago on the run of heroin-related deaths in Plano, Texas. We found this interesting because we lived very near Plano -- and, in fact, the heroin story was enough to make us cross Plano from our real-estate list when we moved to the Very Large Metropolitan Area in 1999.
The documentary -- which was very well-done -- segued into the made-for-MTV movie Wasted, a horribly over-acted 2003 version of Reefer Madness. That said, I wonder if it shouldn't be required viewing for parents in Plastic White Suburbia who think their little darlings would never, ever do such a thing as black tar heroin. Nineteen sets of parents in Plano, Texas, certainly found out differently in the late '90s.
Nothing is ever as simple as it seems, of course, and this story certainly wasn't.
Because this is what I do when I get very interested in a topic, I logged on and did some research to remind me what the story was all about. It led me to two observations:
I got a kick out of the generalizations the news media will make in order to make the story, shall we say, more compelling. Plano was often described as "an affluent suburb of almost 200,000 mostly white, upper-middle-class people." Well, that's true for the western part of the city. The part of the city in which most of the heroin deaths occurred, however, was the eastern side, which leans much more toward middle-middle class and, in a few isolated cases, lower-middle class. These weren't all bored rich kids. They fit more closely to the profile of the average drug user I recall from high school. Which, of course, is not nearly as interesting. I find it stunning that, if you believed everything you read, the only people who use drugs are minority kids from desperate situations or bored rich kids. My observation, which comes directly from the middle, indicates drug use cuts across all class and racial lines pretty much equally. Plano often was described as "a suburban oasis," which conveniently overlooks the fact that it's 15 miles north of the nation's eighth-largest city. It's not a far stretch to believe that drugs are fairly accessible in Dallas.
A subculture exists which tries very hard to maintain a straight face while defending drug use on intellectual or medical grounds. These are not people who say, "Man, it's cool to get high, dude; go ahead and try it." These are people who have spent considerable time doing research in an effort to criticize the United States government's war on drugs, while, as a sideline, suggesting that illicit drugs are perfectly safe when used as directed. According to the smack sympathizers, people actually very rarely die just from using heroin. It's only the idiots who drink alcohol or use other drugs while they use heroin. And, if heroin was legal and regulated, its purity would be controlled by outside forces, which would make it less dangerous. Oh, OK. All heroin needs is a warning label. Trust me on this one: An attack on the "War on Drugs" is perfectly legitimate. Don't undermine it by making the completely stupid suggestion that heroin is safe as aspirin.
As a young person, I experimented with this and that, but my friends and I drew the line at cocaine, heroin and LSD. I actually tried cocaine, once, with a co-worker, and it was so damn good I was convinced I should never, ever do that again. My friends -- most of whom never met a joint they didn't like -- were very quick, in their ways, to express their abject disapproval of my having crossed the line that one time. I took that to heart, too.
As a parent, of course, all this scares the hell out of me. I am pretty much of the belief that if you mess with heroin or acid, you deserve whatever you get, be it jail, rehab or untimely death. I have to apply that belief to my own children, too.
I knew drug users as a teenager and young adult. Only one of them I'd classify as somebody who had a serious problem. She's a story I'll save for another time. Another talked about it a lot, but I suspect he talked a lot more than he did.
To my knowledge, most of you have little or no experience with heavy drugs. Here's the thing that, as a parent, I'm genuinely interested to know: What kept you from it? Do you credit your parents? Did you have better things to do? Not enough money? For me, the deciding factor was, quite honestly, the reverse peer pressure thing described above, although that certainly wasn't the only reason.
And if you did go through a phase, I sure as hell won't pass judgment. What pulled you out of it?
Leave a comment, or send a private e-mail (which, you have my word, will remain private). I realize the only thing I can really do for my children is pay as much attention to them as possible and spend the next decade-plus tiptoeing that fine, fine line between keeping them from stuff and driving them to it. But I'll take all the help I can get.
The Wife and I find ourselves occasionally sharing a bout of insomnia. We usually deal with this by staying up until absurd hours flipping through channels. Eventually we catch ourselves watching something we wouldn't ordinarily watch.
This is how we stumbled upon MTV the other night, which was running a follow-up on a documentary it did a few years ago on the run of heroin-related deaths in Plano, Texas. We found this interesting because we lived very near Plano -- and, in fact, the heroin story was enough to make us cross Plano from our real-estate list when we moved to the Very Large Metropolitan Area in 1999.
The documentary -- which was very well-done -- segued into the made-for-MTV movie Wasted, a horribly over-acted 2003 version of Reefer Madness. That said, I wonder if it shouldn't be required viewing for parents in Plastic White Suburbia who think their little darlings would never, ever do such a thing as black tar heroin. Nineteen sets of parents in Plano, Texas, certainly found out differently in the late '90s.
Nothing is ever as simple as it seems, of course, and this story certainly wasn't.
Because this is what I do when I get very interested in a topic, I logged on and did some research to remind me what the story was all about. It led me to two observations:
As a young person, I experimented with this and that, but my friends and I drew the line at cocaine, heroin and LSD. I actually tried cocaine, once, with a co-worker, and it was so damn good I was convinced I should never, ever do that again. My friends -- most of whom never met a joint they didn't like -- were very quick, in their ways, to express their abject disapproval of my having crossed the line that one time. I took that to heart, too.
As a parent, of course, all this scares the hell out of me. I am pretty much of the belief that if you mess with heroin or acid, you deserve whatever you get, be it jail, rehab or untimely death. I have to apply that belief to my own children, too.
I knew drug users as a teenager and young adult. Only one of them I'd classify as somebody who had a serious problem. She's a story I'll save for another time. Another talked about it a lot, but I suspect he talked a lot more than he did.
To my knowledge, most of you have little or no experience with heavy drugs. Here's the thing that, as a parent, I'm genuinely interested to know: What kept you from it? Do you credit your parents? Did you have better things to do? Not enough money? For me, the deciding factor was, quite honestly, the reverse peer pressure thing described above, although that certainly wasn't the only reason.
And if you did go through a phase, I sure as hell won't pass judgment. What pulled you out of it?
Leave a comment, or send a private e-mail (which, you have my word, will remain private). I realize the only thing I can really do for my children is pay as much attention to them as possible and spend the next decade-plus tiptoeing that fine, fine line between keeping them from stuff and driving them to it. But I'll take all the help I can get.