I saw the headline and called Santa to find out what was up…

tds: Hi Santa, it’s Tom. Say, I just saw the headline about you asking for a government bailout. What gives Santa? How can that be?

Santa: Well,Tom, hello to you too! What – only organizations below the 60th parallel can run into financial trouble and ask for help? After all I’ve done? Where do you think all those goodies have come from this past millennium-and-a-half? It takes labor and materials my friend. Sheesh… I suppose you have a list you want me to go over with you?

tds: Gee Santa, I’m sorry. That was pretty thoughtless of me. I’m sorry to hear you’ve fallen on hard times. What a jerk I am. I’m unworthy!

Santa: Whoa there big fella. First, I’m impressed how you can make it all about you so darn fast. Second, I’m only joking son! You think we do business up here in the least bit like you “middle folks” do?

tds: “Middle folks”?

Santa: Look on a map.

tds: oh

Santa: Anyway, I haven’t lasted this long by doing business like you do.

tds: Like I do? I’m not the CEO of GM!

Santa: No, you certainly are not. By the way, how’s the credit card debt coming?

tds: Okay, okay. Better.

Santa: Better. That’s right. You are doing better. Man, twenty years ago you were a mess!!

tds: Well, yes, I suppose…

Santa: Uh, huh. But that was twenty years ago, so give yourself some credit…

tds: You’re right Santa!

Santa: …but not too much. You have enormous advantages simply handed to you. Even for others in your same tribe. It isn’t a birthright. You are tremendously lucky.

tds: Yes. Yes, Santa I am.

Santa: You take it too much for granted.

tds: You’re right, Santa, I…

Santa: Leave it there Tom. It isn’t just you. Too many of you simply look for reasons to be unhappy, or be mad at each other, or never know when enough is enough. It’s always baffled me a bit. But you also surprise me too. I hope you can change, like you’ve all been talking about all year long. You’ve set yourselves up. Now you need to follow through. I hope you can, all in all, keep doing better. If you don’t, I’ll really need that bailout – but no government will be able to help me. It’ll all be over.

tds: Don’t scare me Santa.

Santa: Well, that’s up to you. Now, is there something on your list you wanted to ask me about?

tds: Well… When it gets down to it. Could you help me keep trying to do better?

Santa: As long as you keep asking, Tom, yes I can.

tds: Thanks Santa. By the way, is Rudolf okay? I’m worried. I recently saw a picture with Sarah Palin, a high-powered rifle, and…

Santa: Photoshop Tom. But I still don’t like to talk about it.

tds: Understood. Merry Christmas Santa.

Santa: Merry Christmas Tom.

“If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.”

“Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.“

“If we could just find out who’s in charge, we could kill him.”

“Just ‘cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.”

“May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.”

“Not only do I not know what’s going on, I wouldn’t know what to do about it if I did.”

———

“I’m always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize I’m listening to it.”

Not this time George.

Thanks for giving us something to think about and a good laugh, even – and especially – when we realized we were laughing at ourselves.

We all just lost a little bit of our collective grip on reality. You’ll be missed.  

George Carlin – 1937–2008

Those words have been uttered by Tim Russert since 1991. And now, suddenly, he has left us in the midst of what must have been for him one of the most exciting times of his life – an historic election, the graduation of his son from Boston College, and the enormous popularity of his books Big Russ and Me and Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons.

We will remember him, of course, as “one of the good ones” in political journalism. Like anyone, he wasn’t perfect, but he was a voice and a face we knew and trusted. There he was, every Sunday morning.

Through his devotion to his family there is a particular poignancy to his passing on Father’s Day weekend, leaving behind both a father and a son.

Perhaps then the best way to honor Tim’s life and work is to honor our own fathers and the wisdom they have laid down for us as we make our way through life.  

Tim Russert died at the top of his game. He seemed to relish his life and work. But it was all done too soon.

Chastise Man recently had a brief sense of regret that soon his old nemesis George Bush, The Man Who Broke the Country, would soon be gone and there would be no easy outlet for his wrath (which he soon got over). Then Chastise Man remembered a couple weeks ago, watching Keith Olbermann’s “special comment” about Hillary Clinton’s unfortunate reference to the RFK assassination.

While Hillary used the word “assassination” once in her comment, Olbermann kept repeating it, over and over. He was upset, outraged, indignant, but for what? It seemed that he was becoming a bit unhinged in his righteous indignation (unlike many of his previous rants in which he expressed appropriate outrage).

This got Chastise Man to thinking; it’s a fine line between righteous indignation and insanity – simply barking at yourself.

I think we’ve all become so accustomed at being pissed-off, at how the Bush administration has wrecked things, at how Congress can’t get anything done, at how liberals are immoral, unpatriotic, terrorist-loving scoundrels and conservatives are war-mongering, lying, thieving, fear-loving scoundrels.

Since we’re all scoundrels in some form or another it becomes our choice to let it either divide or unite us – at least in a time of crisis. And this is a nation in crisis.

And so we look beyond George Bush and to the possibility of a new presidency and a new start.

There are smart folks that Chastise Man respects who have expressed concern over Barack Obama – rhetoric over substance and inexperience being foremost. These are valid concerns. But after eight years of neither good policy or soaring, inspirational rhetoric, Chastise Man is happy to take the soaring inspirational rhetoric, at least for now.

This country needs inspiration, it needs to be reminded that the American experiment is still, and always will be, a work in progress. It is a country that was founded on change, and if ever there was a time we needed change in America, it is right now.

It remains to be seen of America can overcome her worst tendencies toward fear, hatred, and racism. Right now I choose to believe she can.

Christmas is our redemption.

On this Christmas Eve, two examples come to mind.  

• In 1914, in the trenches of World War 1 during the dark night of winter, the spirit of Christmas rose from the mud-soaked earth.

  Battered by a war of mechanized killing the likes of which the world had never seen, English and German soldiers and officers came out into “no man’s land” and celebrated Christmas. All together there in the miserable trenches of Europe, at some points only a few dozen yards from each other, they shared Christmas carols, shook hands, and exchnaged cigarettes. For a brief time the reason for the killing and slaughter vanished.

Christmas is our redemption.

• At the end of 1968 the United States had just endured a year ravaged by an escalating war in Vietnam, the assassinations of Marin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.

  On Christmas Eve of that year I remember looking up in the cold Colorado night on our way to Christmas Eve services and marveling to myself how at that very moment three men were circling the full moon high above. I looked closer to see if I could spot the spacemen in their capsule, which, by the ripe old age of 10, I realized wasn’t likely.

  The images back from the moon looking back on ourselves were profound. All we really knew, fought and died for, possessed, coveted, loved, hated – all of it – was just a lonely, beautiful, blue ball hanging in the endless blackness of space.

So there’s your proof. We’re all in this together, despite appearances here on the ground. We’ll just have to keep working at it.

Christmas is our redemption.

-Merry Christmas from Chastise Man!

Albert Einstein said: “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.”

Christmas is the idea that everything is a miracle.

When I was 29:
I had the world on a string, or so I thought. I was immortal. Young and foolish.

When I was 39:
I had discovered a good reason to settle down and not act so foolish, though I still was.

And now I’m 49:
My knees hurt. I can’t see as well as I used to (get a load of that one. I was born half-blind!). If I don’t get my 8 hours I need a nap (well, I need a nap anyway). I realize I’m mortal. Even though I know so much more than I did when I was 19, or 29, or even 39, I realize I really don’t know much at all. I’m foolish, I know it, and I hope that is what will eventually bring wisdom.

I have people in my life that I love and love me back, the respect of my peers (or so they tell me), and I am able to pursue activities that I enjoy and that I fancy myself somewhat skilled.

And I have Chastise Man to help me tell it like it is.

Even if I could, I don’t think I’d take 39, 29, and most especially not 19 again. 

Let’s see if I am as sanguine next year when I turn 50.

Sing it Frank!  It Was A Very Good Year

Go to the Global Rich List and you’ll discover, I’m willing to bet some of my fabulous wealth, that your annual income is closer to Bill Gate’s that it is to, well, most of the rest of the people in the world.

So I know you’re rich and you’ve got some money burning a hole in your pocket that’s bound to come to no good – put that down, you don’t need it anyway – and that’s why I’m here to help alleviate you of the burden of guilt for your mispent wealth.

You’re welcome.

When I realized how stinking rich I am compared to most everyone else in the world you can imagine my surprise. It certainly doesn’t seem like it most of the time, but sometimes you look around and go – “heck yeah”.

Of course, if you’re living in a mud hut, your cable bill is a lot less, so you don’t need all that money. Maybe you’re just too busy surviving to watch much reality TV. But then I doubt if you’re reading this you’ve ever even been inside a mud hut, let alone live in one.

And the only reason I’m not living in a mud hut right now is as much a matter of good genes, two loving parents, and the good fortune to be born in America – which is, despite our huge credit card bill to China, filthy rich – than to any extraordinary effort or “rightness” on my part. (God must just belly-laugh when he sees all these different people trying to kill each other because they are his “chosen ones”) 

So, at the risk of sounding like a bleeding-heart, liberal, heathen (guilty, guilty, and define “heathen”), I took it upon myself to sign up at a site called Kiva.org, of which I discovered through the – oh, gosh, here it comes, the height of it – Clinton Global Initiative. That’s right. Give your money away to a poor person. Bill Clinton sez so.

Don’t be ridiculous. You know it’s the right thing to do, don’t blame me if it takes Bill Clinton to remind you.

I wonder what George Bush is going to do in retirement? Never mind.

Incidentally, I’ve heard that some folks actually believe that Clinton is the anti-Christ. I suppose his current activities provide a pretty good cover now don’t they? Come on, everybody knows who the anti-Christ is. Dick Cheney

But I digress.

A poor person trying to run a business, who probably is just as smart as you, and works harder than you, is every bit as deserving at a chance to succeed and provide for their family as you’ve had since the day you were born.

Or maybe it’s just me. 

But whatever it is that has forced you to allow Chastise Man to go on like this, get over it. 

Go spend some money. 

IF – Joni Mitchell – If.wma
-Joni Mitchell, from the poem by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head
While all about you
People are losing theirs and blaming you
If you can trust yourself
When everybody doubts you
And make allowance for their doubting too.

If you can wait
And not get tired of waiting
And when lied about
Stand tall
Don’t deal in lies
And when hated
Don’t give in to hating back
Don’t need to look so good
Don’t need to talk too wise.

If you can dream
And not make dreams your master
If you can think
And not make intellect your game
If you can meet
With triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same

If you can force your heart
And nerve and sinew
To serve you
After all of them are gone
And so hold on
When there is nothing in you
Nothing but the will
That’s telling you to hold on!
Hold on!

If you can bear to hear
The truth you’ve spoken
Twisted and misconstrued
By some smug fool
Or watch your life’s work
Torn apart and broken down
And still stoop to build again
With worn out tools.

If you can draw a crowd
And keep your virtue
Or walk with Kings
And keep the common touch
If neither enemies nor loving friends
Can hurt you
If everybody counts with you
But none too much.

If you can fill the journey
Of a minute
With sixty seconds worth of wonder and delight
Then
The Earth is yours
And Everything that’s in it
But more than that
I know
You’ll be alright
You’ll be alright.

Cause you’ve got the fight
You’ve got the insight
You’ve got the fight
You’ve got the insight

We can forget our sense of gratitude for the opportunity to do something that we love and that we are good at. We become jaded.

My last cue for a typical performance of Beach Blanket Babylon (out of about 300 “computer cues” and countless mix cues) is a simple one: start the CD player for the exit music on the band’s final downbeat. And that’s right on the downbeat, thank you. NO DEAD AIR!! (It’s the little things that seperate the men from the boys.)

Anyway, working Sundays is not something I usually do at BBB, other than to talk my understudy, friend, and colleague Mr. David Bucky Cat Allen through his shift of two performance over the phone. Usually one or two calls does it. Rarely is the Sunday that some issue or technical aspect doesn’t arise that requires at least a preliminary chat around noon before all the fun at Club Fugazi begins.

But with David on vacation I had the distinct honor of running the two matinee performances of BBB. (“yeah right” I thought as I walked to work)

Matinee performances are not everyone’s cup of tea. Most probably not my cup of tea. Nonetheless, I managed the 12–hour turn-around from Saturday night’s performances and was committed to making it through the day and going home as soon as possible.

The unique aspect of the matinee at BBB is the allowance of young tykes to the performance (no alcohol served, the dick joke thinly veiled by adding the word “Tracy”, and the Witch Doctor’s lack of an erect banana).

So thus it was that I sat listening to the band playoff at the end of the second show yesterday, dreaming of dinner and a smile from my sweetie waiting at home, with my finger on the GO button of the CD remote, cued and ready to start with It’s My Party on the moment of the band’s final downbeat.

Out of the corner of my eye I spied a young man of nine or ten just outside my booth peering in at the flashing lights, pulsating meters, and glowing touchscreen indicating the status of the sound coming into 32 mono channels, 4 stereo channels, 8 DCA  busses (ahem – digitally controlled amplifiers), 16 mix busses, and 8 matrix channels (I could certainly go on with the specs, but, to the reader’s relief, I shan’t).

I wanted to let the boy know it was okay to look, but I was coming up on the last cue of the day and well, you know… NO DEAD AIR and all, so my focus remained primarily on the band’s playoff.

Right before I was to take the cue the boy blurted out "That’s so cool!" as he stared into my den of technology.

I took my cue, the CD started, I looked at the boy, smiled, and said, "Yes, it is cool!!".

He was a shy lad, I think, so he didn’t quite know what to say beyond his exclamation of coolness. I was about to show him how I could move the faders without touching them, or how I could call up EQ and dynamics curves for each channel (well, two processors each for each channel, but I promised you, dear reader, that I wouldn’t…) but the boy moved off with his family toward the door.

So there I sat, tired and hungry, my hearing in threshold shift at the end of a long day, capping a long week, one more of thousands and thousands (and thousands) of performances gone into the ether. What was different now was that some of that boy’s excitement lingered and I remembered how it felt the first time I saw a mixing console. The excitement of mixing my first gig. The feeling of “making the magic happen”.

I looked at my rig, one that I have fought and worked hard for years to acquire, and realized what a lucky SOB I really am.

That little boy’s wide-eyed wonder was the perfect end to the week. I was able to walk home with my sense of gratitude firmly in place.