Point of Deja View

This post is about the current Italian political situation.

In the summer of 1973, I applied for a job at Yosemite National Park, where my mother had worked many years as a young woman, but they didn’t take me. Too late to find another job, I stayed home with my little brothers and started my first novel (since burned).

I also watched television obsessively, like most of the rest of the country. The Watergate hearings were broadcast every day. My mother and I discussed them at supper. My grandfather (a Nixon supporter) and I discussed them every Sunday. History was being made, and we knew it.

Nixon was the enemy when I was young. He represented the Establishment, the War, repressive conservatism of adults against youth, the cops busting heads at peace demonstrations, Evil. When four students were killed at Kent State, Richard Nixon pulled the trigger. And lots of other bad stuff. He didn’t like our rock music; we didn’t like his greasy short hair.

When Nixon abused his power to halt the investigations, lied about everything, fired anyone who tried to get in his way, thought he was invincible, above the law, then he was finished. The wounded beast is the most dangerous, however; it’ll hurt you as it lies dying, if you get too close. Nixon was soundly re-elected while the Watergate break-in investigations were beginning. The beginning of the end.

Everyone knew Tricky Dick was rotten, and we were merely curious to see when and how he’d fall from grace. There’d always been something sleazy about him; from back in the Eisenhower days he had trouble seeming honest. You wouldn’t buy a used car from that man. When my grandfather heard Nixon’s bitter cussing on the tapes, he turned on him too. “I never expected him to be like that.” We saw behind the mask. And it was all over.

But we had the process to respect. The steps to follow included daily special news broadcasts all summer long. The independent counsel investigations and Senate questioning of witnesses with the threat of perjury charges, the Washington Post articles of Woodward and Bernstein. Deep Throat, Expletive Deleted, and the Smoking Gun.

After Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment, I was infuriated by the next development. Ford’s first act was to pardon Nixon so that he would never do prison time. That didn’t apply to his associates, his co-conspirators, his thugs (see famous poster), most of whom spent months or years in the joint. Strange perhaps, given that they all worked for the man who gave the orders. In the following years, people have said that what Nixon did was not so bad, but he was guilty of 1) obstruction of justice, 2) abuse of power, 3) contempt of Congress. That sounds pretty serious to me. Plus so much more that was never proven because he never went to trial.

There’s a saying written on the wall of every courtroom in Italy: The Law Applies Equally to All. Period.

When Richard Nixon was running for president in 1968, he made a pathetic cameo on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In, by saying the famous catch phrase: “Sock it to me!” Six years later, we did.

Here’s a popular expression in the United States: The bigger they come, the harder they fall.

And here’s a quote from Abraham Lincoln: You can fool some of the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.

Or a newer one: Regime change starts at home.

See? Told you this was a post about Berlusconi.

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: What do you get when you drop boiling water down a rabbit hole? Hot cross bunnies.

Jeff: Oh we’re doing the fast ones today?

Mutt: Right. What do you get when you pour cement on a burglar? A hardened criminal.

Jeff: What do you get when you put the pictures of the Kings of Russia on a flag? The Tsar-Spangled Banner.

Mutt: What do you call a cow with no legs? Ground beef.

Jeff: What do you call a man who drinks and falls off his horse? The wine-stoned cowboy.

Mutt: What do you call a rabbit with fleas? Bugs Bunny.

Jeff: What do you call a veterinarian with laryngitis? A hoarse doctor.

Mutt: What do you call it when a walrus eats 1000 clams? A calamity.

Jeff: What do you give a person with water on the brain? A tap on the head.

Mutt: What does a spy do when he gets cold? He goes undercover.

Jeff: What goes "Ha, ha, ha, plop"? A man laughing his head off.

Mutt: What grows up while growing down? A goose.

Jeff: What happened to the lawyer who was thrown out of a saloon? He was disbarred.

Mutt: What happens to deposed kings? They get throne away.

Jeff: What happens to illegally parked frogs? They get toad away.

Mutt: We got a million of ‘em.

Jeff: And not a single one funny.

Mutt: You groan today and tell ‘em tomorrow.

Jeff: Sock it to me!

We Said It Before Chernobyl

by Dario and Jacopo Fo*

Tell me how many human lives you’re willing to risk, and I’ll tell you what kind of person you are.

Since the first atomic power plant in the world was constructed, we have continued to protest, fearful of the colossal risks that this technology involves. For decades the supporters of nuclear energy have continued to repeat that we are panic-stricken, emotional, non-scientific retrogrades. They say that we worry for nothing: “Our scientists are the best in the world, we have used every system possible to guarantee the safety of this plant! Stop being extremist and thick-headed ecological maniacs. Read my lips: there is no nuclear danger!!!” Then the technology regularly jams. In recent decades, there have been more than 150 accidents in nuclear power plants with emissions of dangerous radiation. In some areas surrounding the plants, a rise in the number of tumors and malformations in newborns has been found.

Then the terrifying Chernobyl disaster occurred … the calculation of deaths caused by the emission of radioactivity is difficult and controversial … Some say 200,000 dead and 200,000 more at risk. After Chernobyl, they went back to telling us to be calm: “That plant exploded because it was the old type, outdated technology. Today our nuclear reactors are, on the other hand, brand new, super-high-technological, there is no risk!!! Stop being hysterical!” Even the day after the earthquake, Saturday March 12, the headline in the Messaggero was exemplary: “Safe nuclear power, here’s the proof!” an article by poor Oscar Giannino: “When we still had only the first reports of the tremendous quake that hit the northeast coast of Japan, the Italian websites and news agencies started spreading warnings about a nuclear alarm, yet, as of now the first thing to say is that the great intensity of the phenomenon that struck Japan confirms once again the fact that nuclear plants, as far as their safety goes, have made great strides forward in the last few decades, enough to stand up to the reality of the situation without creating dangers for the environment or the population, because the events that occurred were off-the-scale and beyond the scope of the standard regulations under which the nuclear power plants are built today .” Talk about famous last words…

These days, we are seeing how things really are, seeing past the reticence of the Japanese government and that, even worse, of the company that manages the plants. We are discovering that the information given in recent days was mostly false; we are discovering that there were explosions, contaminations and that the situation is extremely serious, enough to impose a 20-kilometer evacuation area and cause panic in Tokyo and an exodus from the city. This is a frightening situation, horrifying for this people who were devastated by the seaquake, devastated by the pain for the deaths of their loved ones, homeless, cold, out in the snow, with little food and a radioactive cloud over their heads, praying that at least the wind will be kind and take the radioactive plague away. Unimaginable pain.

Of course, the Japanese had done a great deal to contrast the earth’s follies, the earthquake per se caused few victims, even though it was enormously stronger than the one in L’Aquila. But there was no stopping the tsunami… And now the fusion of the radioactive rods risks provoking a carnage even more colossal. An immeasurable horror. But then, if nature can be so unpredictable and so destructive and devastate an entire people who are vigilant about safety measures, wouldn’t it be prudent not to risk ever again adding more risk to what we cannot in any way avoid? It’s already hard to accept our precariousness, accept that a meteorite can land on your head and no helmet will protect you… Not to mention volcanoes… But why build hundreds of cathedrals (nuclear and chemical) where a meteorite might land causing the end of the world? In the famous Kurosawa film Dreams a nuclear plant explodes and spreads radioactive gas which generates instant mutations in the few survivors in a land incredibly similar to the post-tsunami one. A man yells at the nuclear manager, accusing him of the devastation around them: “You didn’t think this could happen?”

But they didn’t. They didn’t think… Someone, like environmental minister Prestigiacomo, poor unhappy thing, still continues to repeat that this disaster will not stop nuclear power in Italy… They say that this Japanese plant exploded because it was the old type, not like the ultramodern French ones that we’re buying. The same old slogans? Again? Don’t they listen to themselves when they talk? Incredible. And they accuse those who have always fought to stop the nuclear madness of looting: “You should be ashamed to take advantage of the Japanese grief to promote your own far-out ideas…” We said it before Chernobyl, we said it after Chernobyl and we will continue to say it until the last nuclear plant is closed. Only then will we shut up. And facing this enormous atomic disaster we understand that there’s a great difference in the value that is given to human life. In our opinion, no risk is acceptable. For the nuclearists there is a level of acceptable risk. They always think it will apply to others.

Ps: In recent days the government has canceled all funding for renewable energy sources. They say they will replace them but they’ll be drastically cut and limited. It seems like the perfect time to crush all development of renewable energy sources in Italy.

Il Fatto Quotidiano, March 19, 2011

*playwright Dario Fo won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997. This translation is unauthorized.

Bad Moon Rising

There’s a big bad moon shining right into my study, right up to the legs of my chair, right now reaching like a ghost to infect my blood with dread, with the fear for what I’ll wake up to tomorrow and even the fear that I won’t wake up tomorrow, unreasonable but instinctive.

My grandfather, in our numerous discussions over the chessboard, shared his hope for a future world governed by world law and a world police force to enforce basic principles, agreed to by all countries—the dream of the League of Nations and the United Nations and whatever better, stronger organization might come later. A great dream.

Today we’re sitting around wondering what’s really happening down in Libya, what somebody might do about it, and suddenly it’s WAR. Madman Gheddafi says he’s gonna bomb the hell out of Sicily like he’s doing to his own cities, so everyone’s on edge. And the echoes of Iraq-Afghanistan-Vietnam-Korea are haunting. And ethics shouldn’t change with vicinity, yet it’s war on our door. We wait, impotent, to see how this risky adventure turns out. No one knows now. Obama doesn’t know. It could all fall apart and crash like the Towering Inferno of Babel. Or innocent lives saved. When the cops confront a suicidal psychopath they know that ‘kill or be killed’ is a likely outcome. But can we just turn away? (As a man who has slept in his car and volunteered at the soup kitchen to get a square meal himself, I do trust Obama not to engage in military action for personal gain, though there are oil wells involved. At least that's different from Iraq.)

I’ve been watching NHK Japanese TV in English for a week. We’re finally getting the news about the people, not just the science or the politics or the economics. They now show crying. They no longer say that everything will be okay. People are dying for lack of medicine, heat, clean water, etc. People are running scared with no destination in mind. I’m sick of constructed scenes of self-control, sick of forced calm, I’m sick of lies told to avoid panic. "Situation normalizing" my ass. Pain, immense crushing pain, unbearable suffering, shock, radiation notwithstanding, that’s all there is. Go ahead, cry. Cry for a year if you want. It shouldn’t be easy to live when everything but life is gone. Hiroshima/Nagasaki revisited. Break down, collapse in a heap, we would all do that. No one can expect the Japanese to care for themselves without help. “Stiff upper lip, look on the bright side, the show must go on” is bull.

Then there’s the embarrassing local squalor. Berlusconi and his prostitutes, his prostitute girls and his prostitute political cronies, his prostitute laws to abolish The Law, to abolish public schools, hospitals, social services, environmental controls, the parliament, the courts, the constitution and fair and free elections. It’s hard even to imagine his ideal world, his mondo porno, would we all be forced to do the striptease? Would anything work? Would trucks still come to haul away the trash? Would he allow us a bowl of gruel if we’re good worker ants in his factories? He said once that he doesn’t ever expect to die, but if he does, who does he think will carry on his folly? The answer is in a book by George Orwell called 1984. This is Italy 1984, now and always.

So, after a week of scirocco winds, we’re blinded by the sand storm of lies, false information, idiotic expert hypotheses, propaganda, conflicting scenarios, threats, insults, loud rumbling sounds, muffled cries for help, invisible death particles of unknown potency, and we stumble around lost when all we want is to find the eye of the storm. The ‘I’ of the storm. But it keeps moving, dodging us. Trickster never sleeps.

Happy trials, Martin

Bad Moon Rising – John Fogerty

I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin'.
I see bad times today.

Don't go around tonight,
Well, it's bound to take your life,
There's a bad moon on the rise.

I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

Hope you got your things together.
Hope you are quite prepared to die.
Looks like we're in for nasty weather.
One eye is taken for an eye.

Is it better to be wrong?

In 1977 I was organizing and participating in the No Nukes movement. We believed that those power plants were bombs, and that bombs eventually explode, killing people. The experts said they were absolutely safe, and we called them liars.

At the under-construction Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant in San Luis Obispo, we young activists got into trouble. Busted, detained, tried, convicted, sentenced. We all got two year sentences for trespassing, reduced to 15 days plus probation and fines. Those who refused the fines did the whole two years, reduced to 6 months for good behavior. Hard prison time for a hypothetical.

I started my statement in court by saying: I’m a school teacher so I’m particularly concerned with the well-being of children and their future. Though built smack on top of the San Andreas Fault, you say the DC power plant is safe today, but I ask will it be safe decades from now? Would you put your children and grandchildren at risk? (They did.)

As far as I know, Diablo Canyon, notwithstanding our Abalone Alliance movement activities, is still running strong 34 years later. Am I glad that I was wrong? Am I still waiting for a disaster to prove me right?

After our protests, and after they were squelched by the County Court-Electric Company Alliance, the Three Mile Island accident occurred (79). Then Brown’s Ferry (84-5), then Pilgrim (86). And then Chernobyl (86), more later. THTR-300 (86), Peach Bottom (87), Niagara Mohawk (87), Calvert Cliff (89), Greifswald (95), Millstone (96), Crystal River (96), Tokaimura (99), Davis-Besse (02), Mihama (04), and now the name that will live forever FUKUSHIMA (11).

Let’s not forget the film The China Syndrome (79), Silkwood (83), the No Nukes album (79). New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone (87), Italy renounces nuclear power by referendum (87) [now the fools want to reinstate], Germany Nuclear Exit Law for permanent shutdown by 2020, and many states, regions, localities declaring their territories nuke-free. Millions of people joined protest movements worldwide.

Currently, 31 countries operate nuclear energy plants. Does that scare you? If they're far away they can't hurt you, right? Are you one of the faithful? Technology is flawless and officials always tell the truth, and you will bet your life on it. And all your offspring's lives for millenia. You will?

I need to go out this morning to get our recent blood test results. We had the usual battery plus thyroid. Why? Because many, many of our friends are discovering thyroid problems. Several have had operations, all take medicine. Sicily is thousands of miles from the Ukraine and 25 years from Chernobyl, yet they now tell us that the toxic cloud arrived here and this is the result. We’re all slowly getting sick when we shouldn’t. The long-term fallout from Fukushima can only be worse.

Nukes are fine, just so you don’t eat plants or animals, drink water or breathe.

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: The invention of the coffee percolator gave us grounds for celebration.

Jeff: You said it pal, and the inventor of rubber gloves thought they came in very handy.

Mutt: The inventor of the auto muffler said it was exhausting work.
Jeff: The inventor of the recliner got a chair of the profits.
Mutt: The man who invented the football got a kick out of it.
Jeff: The inventor of the relief map got a raise.
Mutt: The inventor of the rocket went out to launch.
Jeff: Yeah with the inventor of the lighthouse, and they celebrated the occasion with beacon and eggs.

Mutt: I feel queasy.

Jeff: Likewise.

A Pleasant Sunday Drive

We awoke saying we wanted to go back to sleep. The Sunday expression: Let’s not get up all day. Then a phone call, a death in the family, the elderly aunt must go to say goodbye to her sister, who lived near Rome. She’s in her eighties, frail and confused, could she take the train? Could someone accompany her? No.

It was her sister. We got ready in a flash and jumped in the car for what could be an 8-hour drive … each way. We work Monday and can’t get out of it.

Off to Adventureland. We drove to the ferry dock, and they closed the gate as we drove up. A 40-minute wait for the next run before we even got going. It’s 10 am., no it’s 10:40. Bad luck seems appropriate when there’s a death in the family.

We got to Calabria driving in the rain. It rained hard or soft all the way. Violent scirocco winds. It seemed to take forever. We stopped for gas and snacks, coffee a couple times, and got to Lazio about 5 pm. But this little village in the hills was a challenge to find. We got stuck on a dirt road full of mudholes when the navigator took a shortcut. Turn back, turn here, turn up there. Finally arrival 6:30 pm.

Half an hour to share grief, leave auntie, back on country roads trying to get out of the village (in pitch dark), back on the trip. Jovanotti on the music player for energy. They had advised us a new route that, though longer, would get us back on the freeway easier. Probably lost an hour following that suggestion.

Can you make it? Too tired? I’m fine. (Lie.) Lazio, Campania, Basilicata, Calabria: curvy high mountains, rain and fog, plenty of roadwork with one lane open, behind a slow truck. Dark, cold and lonely, driving, driving. There had been an advisory on the ferry that between 10 pm and 4 am they would not leave from the usual Villa San Giovanni but from Reggio Calabria, half an hour further south.

We got there at long last ready for our crossing. Closed. Back to Villa too stunned to get angry. Ticket, ferry, wait in line, crossing on rough seas, heads and stomachs swaying worse than the boat. We land on Sicily, home up on the hill. In bed, still swaying, alarms set for two hours later. Can’t sleep.

There’s no punchline to this story. We drove almost twenty hours in one long stretch. That’s what we did on Sunday. It wasn’t fun, it was dangerous. But also, therefore, fun. I met a guy once at a party who’d just driven from Denver to San Jose, about 20 hours straight through. I thought he was heroic, and stupid.

But it had to be done. It was her sister.

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Did you hear about the pregnant bedbug?

Jeff: Yeah. She had her baby in the spring.

Mutt: Okay, what is the difference between a knight and Santa's reindeer?

Jeff: Go on.

Mutt: One slays the dragon and the other drags the sleigh.
Jeff: A man recently invented a knife that cuts four loaves of bread simultaneously. He calls his invention a four-loaf cleaver.

Mutt: My sister was engaged to a boy with a wooden leg, but broke it off.

Jeff: Aren’t you tired?

Mutt: Now that you mention it.

Morto per la libertà

Messina is closer to Tripoli than to Rome. We can almost hear the dying and crying. We can almost hear the yearning for a freer life.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And Gheddafi or Gadhafi or Qadhdhafi or Kadhafi was known as a stoned-out crazy man even back in the 70’s when I toured the region. Maybe his goal is to “live in infamy.” He’ll get that. Shooting on his own people praying at funerals, Good God! (i.e., Allah Akbar)

A recent piece by Italy’s funniest man, Roberto Benigni, about the origin of the national anthem (below), got me thinking about how people in the past fought for us and how we look back on them or don’t. We ignore their sacrifice at our own risk.

I mean, the Arab world seems to be experiencing their American Revolution, 235 years later. After their inevitable victory--despots fall by definition--how will the grandchildren of the current generation see their actions? And how do we consider our founding fathers (like my ancestor, John Strahl)? After all, they did put their lives at stake to make a better world for their descendants. Many died for us. 

War is often about money for the bigshots who decide to wage it, and the poor schmucks who volunteer to fight it, but it sometimes has other inspirations too. I recently re-watched Ken Burns series on the Civil War, our worst horror. A killing and dying butchery all for what? For what (right or wrong) the common soldiers believed in. For their families back home and those to come.

That’s us, folks. People have been sacrificing for centuries so that we can twitter and tofu and pilates and Oprah. They lived hard lives of work or died young so we could live this full, easy life and decide how to practice our freedom to make our own ideal world. Global warming, for instance, doesn’t come from outer space. Sex slavery wasn’t invented by Martians. If we live in a sickening, psychotic mess, it’s our decision. Our responsibility.

Would those boys (girls, men, women) whose dying thought was that they wanted us to have better lives than theirs be proud of how we turned out? Do we owe them something? Do we owe them for dying for us? How to repay … how?

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Howdy, Sir Jeff. Did you hear about the medical student who got in trouble for performing an operation? He removed the appendix from his medical textbook.

Jeff: How about Hans and Stein?, who were playing in their yard in Zurich when one of the boys accidentally swallowed a coin and started choking. Hans ran inside to get help, yelling "Mom! Dad! Come quick! There's a franc in Stein!"

Mutt: Quite amusing. Okay, two fish are in a tank. One says to the other, “Uhm … how do you drive this thing?”

Jeff: Good one. Two seagulls are sitting on a perch, one says to the other, “Something smells fishy.”

Mutt: Two guys were stranded on a desert island. The only way they could get food was to kill sea birds by throwing rocks at them. By the time they were rescued ... they had left no tern unstoned.

Jeff: Good grief.

30 Million Slobs

Here’s a passionate post nobody will like. I’m touching the nerve. Pinching the central nerve of We the People of these United States. No, not the constitution, but booze.

Every year around the holidays (the eggnog/champagne sales season) newspapers print articles with titles like “More research supports moderate drinking” (San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 25, 2010). It seems to be a pro-alcohol article, drinking is good for your health. We’ve read that before. But the evidence “suggests” that very moderate drinking “a beer after work a few times a week” “may” help people live longer… Yet farther down the page: the research is inconclusive, non-drinkers should not start, the risks associated with drinking alcohol are serious, binge-drinking is always bad (i.e. holiday drinking), tens of thousands of deaths, better ways to reduce stroke or heart attack risk, and pretty soon the article is talking about alcoholism, drunk driving, etc. And the last line: “some people can have one and feel great and that’s it, and for others, there’s no stopping.”

Alcohol is as addicting as heroin, yet not to the same percentage of people. That is, heroin is always addicting, alcohol, among social drinkers in the US, is addictive to about 10%. It seems to be a chemical problem rather than a character flaw. Two social drinkers, even twins let’s say, can drink the same amount for the same amount of time, and one becomes dependent and the other doesn’t. There’s no telling beforehand.

It’s interesting that the percentage changes in different cultures/races. Among Native Americans the percentage of social drinkers who become alcoholics is around 90%, they have no resistance, a couple beers a week is not possible. Among Italians the percentage is one of the lowest anywhere, about 1%, they begin drinking small amounts as children. I know no heavy drinkers here in Sicily, only foreigners. Most Italians that I know, in fact, have never been drunk in their lives. As soon as they get the first buzz, they stop.

In the United States, the number of persons addicted to alcohol, that is who cannot stop drinking at will, is estimated at 25-30 MILLION! An enormous public health crisis, if not the biggest. Do we hear about government intervention? Silence. Is anyone actively fighting this trend? Doesn’t seem like it. Why then is this the best kept secret in our country? Easy. Can you imagine the revenue from 30,000,000 slaves who have no choice but to buy hooch every day for the rest of their lives? It keeps the rich getting richer to pretend that only weak personalities abuse alcohol. Their fault, not ours.

So no one is perturbed by a constant bombardment of mind-controlling messages. On the sports-related ads, the slogan “Grab some Bud,” has become “Grab some Buds.” A subtle difference, but, hey man, I’ve got two hands. The first inning of baseball games is now called the Thirst Inning, implying that real fans down a brewski nine times during a game. Coors Field, Busch Stadium, Miller Park, Milwaukee Brewers—say no more. Then there’s football, the drunken rowdy sport. Parking lots of puke. They will not show mercy until you yell “Uncle Jack Daniels!”

The drug pushers will not be satisfied until they have all 300,000,000 Merry Cans under their control. World population's now at 7 billion, and the distillers are toasting their new captives. Bring 'em on, first beer's free. Do bartenders like out-of-control drinkers? Duh. And most of them, before closing up, everyone’s gone, all that free liquor….

Imagine booze prices doubling. A few social drinkers might slacken off a bit, maybe, but the addicts will pay any price for their fix. Double again. Why is this turning-straw-into-gold dream/nightmare even legal? Government makes the laws, government collects the taxes. Why are they considering legalizing pot in California? Encouraging self-destruction to fund instruction.

Sober up folks! Don’t let the scammers trick you into dependency. Don’t buy a life you don’t want. The fun wears off, the pain never washes away. You empty the bottle, it empties you. Ain't as harmless as they say. Be strong. Say that’s enough. Don't choose the booze ruse.

Not to mention alcohol and: rape, pregnancy, auto accidents, organ damage, crime, divorce, suicide, obesity, mental illness, domestic violence, etc., etc. Shhh, not to mention.

Oh, and, one more thing, please drink responsibly. All 30 million of you. Us.

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Mr. Humbug trying to ruin everybody’s fun again.

Jeff: We can get back at him though. Ready?

Mutt: Have at it, brother.

Jeff: A man walks into a bar and says, "Give me a beer before the problems start!" Again, the man orders a beer saying, "Give me a beer before the problems start!" The bartender looks confused. This goes on for a while, and after the fifth beer the bartender is totally confused and asks the man "When are you going to pay for these beers?" The man answers, "Now the problems start!"

Mutt: A baby seal walks into a bar. "What can I get you?" asks the bartender. "Anything but a Canadian Club," replies the seal.

Jeff: A doctor made it his regular habit to stop off at a bar for a hazelnut daiquiri on his way home. The bartender knew of his habit, and would always have the drink waiting at precisely 5:03 p.m. One afternoon, as the end of the work day approached, the bartender was dismayed to find that he was out of hazelnut extract. Thinking quickly, he threw together a daiquiri made with hickory nuts and set it on the bar. The doctor came in at his regular time, took one sip of the drink and exclaimed, "This isn't a hazelnut daiquiri!"

"No, I'm sorry," replied the bartender, "it's a hickory daiquiri, Doc."

Mutt: Well, that’s nothing. They arrested my bartender for taking liquor home. I believe the official charge was "emboozlement."

Jeff: Pedersen is reeling, swooning, down for the count, a few more grog jokes and he’s out cold, a-1, a-2 ...

Neal at the Eye-Doctor

Neal went to the eye-doctor, the oculist or optometrist, for an exam so he could get some new reading glasses. No big deal. Except that we’re talking about Neal.

When the receptionist-nurse lets you in, you sit in a square waiting room with too-low, too-soft sofa benches in black vinyl and wait your turn to have the various stages of your exam. She has a nice smile, but the magazines are trashy and the pictures on the wall are flat out ugly. There’s a door on the right into the restroom. The restroom is really a converted broom closet, and the door is flimsy with a sort of screen thing near the bottom.

Neal waited a long time. The nurse invited him in to get his eye pressure checked on a machine. She was cute and Neal had unclean thoughts. In addition, he could not keep his chin on the chinrest and keep his eye open while the machine blew air into it, so the exam had to be repeated twice. He returned to the waiting room with a grin while the nurse shook her head.

Then she put eye drops into his eyes to dilate the pupils. She wasted a drop or two when Neal unintentionally shut his eye. He wasn’t really used to this sort of thing. Then the really long wait started.

Neal couldn’t read and the light sort of hurt, so he tried to find something to think about, like a mental game or a story to keep him occupied. But he found nothing and just fidgeted for half an hour. Often he blew out air like he was exasperated. Like ‘I can’t stand this much longer.’ Nobody in the waiting room would talk to him.

Then Neal needed to take a leak bad. He had a little trouble with the door knob, but got inside okay. Ah, alone at last! At the bottom of the door there is a grate because there is no window in the restroom, just a ventilator fan which was broken. This situation was not entirely clear to Neal. What was clear was that he had to take a leak really bad and he was in a restroom.

The grate in the door and the lack of a noisy ventilator meant that the ten or so people in the waiting room five feet away could hear everything just as plainly as if they had been in the restroom with Neal. He unzipped; they snickered. He groaned as he readied for action; they looked at one another with smirks. He let loose; they chuckled like little kids in church. It wasn’t that funny, but the laughter was contagious and unstoppable.

The men, women, teens and children in the waiting room were all out of control. Neal heard the noise but had no idea that he was putting on a show from behind the door. Then the audience tried to contain itself so that he might be less embarrassed when he came out but the laughter came in ripples. It’s always hard to stop when the crowd’s tittering.

Neal finished his leak by blowing some nice long high-pitched wind, and the waiting room exploded. By this time the nurse and even the eye doctor had come out to see what was so funny. People were drying their eyes and containing themselves while Neal washed his hands, and then he emerged. As soon as they saw him they broke up again. Even the eye doctor laughed in squeaky hysterics.

But the worst was yet to come. Neal smiled at everyone and yearned to join in the fun. “What’s so funny?” he said. Everyone laughed even harder. And then a teenage girl saw that Neal had trailed a foot-long piece of toilet paper stuck to his boot. She pointed and the people started falling off their chairs holding their sides. Neal saw that they were laughing now at his toilet paper train, so he pulled it off and held it up. He laughed too. Nobody could stop. They had to wait an extra hour for everyone’s eyes to normalize in order to continue the examinations. Some had to go home and come back another day. One older woman said she laughed so hard she almost wet herself, but she would not use that sound-amplifying toilet if it was the last one on earth.

Neal, once again, had provided a valuable public service.

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Very early one morning, two birds were sitting at the side of a large puddle of oil. They saw a worm on the other side.

Jeff: I’m not feeling too good myself.

Mutt: So one flies over and the other one swims through. The question is: which one gets to the worm first?

Jeff: Oh, that would be … the one who swam, of course, because "da oily boid gets da woim."

Mutt: Okay, but did you hear about the woman driving her car slowly and knitting at the same time?

Jeff: Ugh.

Mutt: A man came up from behind and he wanted to pass her. He opened the window and yelled, "Pull over! Pull over!"

Jeff: Ugh.

Mutt: The lady yelled back, "No, it's a sweater!"

Jeff: My turn. One day a man went to see Mozart's tomb. When he got there, the tomb was open and Mozart was sitting there tearing up pieces of paper. The man asked: "What are you doing with all of your great works of music?"

Mutt: And …?

Jeff: You can’t guess?

Mutt: Um, no.

Jeff: Mozart replied, "I'm decomposing!"

Mutt: Ha ha ha ha … I don’t get it.

Two San Francisco Heroes

One from Oakland, one from Stockton.

In 1975, I was twenty, coming back from Africa, on the last link, LA-SF, of a long trip, 25 flights in all, and I sat next to a small Asian woman who was friendly but tense. She told me that she was a professor of English at UC Berkeley. I responded that my parents had both gone there, that I had wanted to but was not accepted. Too white, too male, we both agreed. She grew up in Stockton where I was living, where my dad was from.

We drank our juice and rode out the short flight. When landing was announced, this nice woman leaned close and asked if she could please hold my hand during landing because she was terrified of flying. Of course. She gripped my hand and arm hard and pressed back in her seat until we were safely on the ground.

About a year later, I saw her picture in the newspaper. Her first book had just come out, The Woman Warrior. Her name is Maxine Hong Kingston, one of the most famous and best California writers. From Stockton like Dad.

This morning her picture was on the front page of the newspaper again. Her new book is called, I Love a Broad Margin to My Life.

When I was a kid we didn’t have a television until I was about five or six. (Thank you parents) When we did get a tiny box, my mother would watch and mimic Jack LaLanne, the exercise guy from right there in San Francisco. Later my dad would also change his schedule so he could lie on the floor and stretch with Jack. Later I also did the push-ups and sit-ups that President Kennedy suggested along with Jack. Everybody loved to exercise with Jack LaLanne.

His jumpsuit was a little weird, but his muscles and his exploits like swimming to Alcatraz and back in chains, convinced us that by following his method you could live better and longer. A bit of skepticism remained, however. I said, “what if he spent his whole life exercising and eating well and then dies anyway.” Jack LaLanne died yesterday at age 96.

He exercised till the end, two hours a day in the gym and one hour in the pool. He followed his natural diet all the way to its natural conclusion. Now, wouldn’t you like to live healthy and happy, with your brain fresh and body fully functional (his wife was always smiling) until almost 100 years of age? Never too late to start, Jack would say.

I’d like to go on and on about my hero, but I can’t be late for my Pilates lesson.

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Why is it that if someone tells you that there are a billion stars in the universe, you will believe them; but if they tell you a wall has wet paint, you will have to touch it to be sure?

Jeff: Snow White took photos of the Dwarfs and their surroundings. She took the film to be developed. After a week or so she went to get the finished photos. The clerk said the photos were not back from the processor. Needless to say, she was disappointed and started to cry. The clerk, trying to console her, said, "Don't worry. Someday your prints will come."

Mutt: If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

Jeff: Sometimes when I'm bored, I make spaghetti just to pasta time away.

Mutt: How do crazy people go through the forest?

Jeff: They take the psycho path.

Mutt: What do you get from a pampered cow?

Jeff: Don’t tell me.

Mutt: Spoiled milk.

Jeff: What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work?

Mutt: I dunno.

Jeff: A stick.

Come Back, Shame, Come Back!

Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash. Your picture in the paper nor money in the bank, neither. Just refuse to bear them.  William Faulkner

Used to be, you’d get caught with your hand in the cookie jar and lie, cry, sigh, ask why, deny, something. Out of shame. We shaved our fingers in gest-ure. Now the crooked politicos and businesspersons, cheating students and lovers go through a revolving door from success to disgrace and back to success. Shouldn’t [place name here] Martha Stewart be hiding her face in shame, never again leaving her estate? Guess not. Celebrities busted (and we chuckle), plug-in families with interchangeable pieces, sex with for-sale strangers—hey, that’s show biz!

I know a couple people who have been arrested, convicted, jailed, released, and I can’t get over how they go right back to their daily lives as if nothing had happened. The whole business slides off like fried eggs on Teflon. What’s changed? Maybe I didn’t see clearly because I was young, but it wasn’t like this in the past. People cried, repented, begged forgiveness, paid penance. At least they mounted an improbable defense like sweaty “I am not a crook” Nixon. Like Academy Award evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart. Clinton, Letterman, the Pope (sort of).

Nowadays we seem to be imitating the psychopaths who rule our newswaves and tvwaves. “I shot all those people. Yeah, so?” “I stole all that money. Yeah, so?” “I betrayed your trust. Yeah, so?” We’ve developed tortoise shells of indifference to our own guilt. Or become very good at hiding it.

Remember the nightmare where you’re onstage and realize you’re naked? That’s not a nightmare anymore, it’s a dream come true. It’s the aspiration of the younger generation, the big bang, the reality joke. And I’m not talking about shame for nakedness, like Father Serra on his first visit to California:

“I found myself in front of twelve of them, and I saw something I could not believe. It was this: they were entirely naked as Adam in the garden, before sin. We spoke a long time with them, and not for one moment, while they saw us clothed, could you notice the least sign of shame in them.”

And I’m not talking about shaming others, which shouldn’t work, or the worst of all, when society makes people feel shame towards themselves. I heard an Indian say that the white schools made him ashamed of being an Indian. That’s some education! Gays ashamed. The overweight. Teenagers with poor complexions. The illiterate. Sick people. Unwed mothers. No one should feel ashamed for who they are, but only for what they do. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that what we were taught?

I don’t want anyone to feel misplaced or exaggerated shame (the guilt trip goes nowhere), but some wouldn’t hurt. Shame, when it’s working, makes you wish you could dig a hole and jump in; extreme humiliation, remorse, embarrassment. And for good reason. Guilt is realizing you have done wrong. Condemnation is being sentenced for doing wrong. But shame is self-sentencing, the real punishment, the feeling that you’re unworthy, depraved, rotten. Shame should be a feeling so bad and so strong that we avoid it like an electric fence. Change your plans, go around the obstacle, anything, but don’t touch that wire!

You don’t need a church to tell you what’s wrong, what to avoid. Or schools, parents, the social order. You know. It’s not so flexible. You know. Before the ten commandments, they already knew. All the rest is excuses and justifications. Our punishment-reward system is built-in. We know the right thing, though we don't always do it. But when cheaters prosper, when crime pays, when exhibitionism is rewarded and when nobody seems scandalized or ashamed of anything anymore, the non-cheaters feel, well, stupid. Is honesty stupid today? Modesty passé?

This fat ugly old guy who works at my university, in the registrar’s office was trading, um, blow jobs for straight A’s. Despicable, right? So he gets caught, goes to jail, goes to trial, gets convicted, does a few weeks time, gets out, gets his six-month notice for early retirement ... and comes back to work, and spends his days sitting in the corridor, that we all pass through, yucking it up with students and profs alike, teasing passersby.  I mean, has the world gone insane or what?

Not to mention Berlusconi, and I prefer not to mention Berlusconi. This post is not about him. I’m sick of his raunchy sex life. Please leave us alone, go crawl in your bunker in the Bahamas. You should be ashamed. And everyone who voted you, and everyone who defends you, and everyone who is not embarrassed by and for you. Enough already.

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: The Tate Watch Co., established in the 1880s in Massachusetts …

Jeff: Oh goody, I love history.

Mutt: The Tate Watch Co., established in the 1880s in Massachusetts, wanted to expand their line of products. They decided on compasses, reasoning that the pioneers traveling west would all need one. Their watches were of excellent quality, not so their compasses. Pioneers often ended up in Canada or Mexico. Hence the expression, "He who has a Tate is lost."

Jeff: I used to love history.

Mutt: Your turn.

Jeff: A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing around in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. About an hour later, the manager comes out of his office and asks them to disperse. "But why?" they asked as they moved along. "Because," said the manager, "I can't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."

Mutt: Every one a winner. How about the guy who goes to the psychiatrist and says, “Doc, I can't stop singing 'The green, green grass of home.'”

Jeff: And the doctor says, “That sounds like the Tom Jones syndrome.”

Mutt: And the guy says, “Is it common?”

Jeff: And the doc says … (All together now)

Mutt and Jeff: “It's not unusual!”

Addedendumum

The management of Sunset Intersection, and the special quiz committee, wish to thank all those who took part in the first and best of the many-more-where-that-came-from S.I. quizzes. There were some good and witty guesses, but all wrong. I will be keeping the first prize Ferrari.

In Italian there’s a word that has no English equivalent: coetanee. Other people your own age. A brotherhood/sisterhood begun at the same time many years ago. Your kinfolks, even when you’ve never met and never will. I like that.

The next big quiz will involve a chicken and an egg in a rumpled bed smoking cigarettes, and the question will be: Which came first?

Stay tuned for that and much more.

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other:

Jeff: I know, I know,  "Does this taste funny to you?"

Mutt: A plateau is a high form of flattery.

Jeff: Alarms:

Mutt: Huh?

Jeff: What an octopus is.

Mutt: Oowah.

Jeff: Did you know that William Tell and his family were avid bowlers?

Mutt: William Tell? No.

Jeff: It's true. But, unfortunately, a fire destroyed all the league records.

Mutt: That’s terrible.

Jeff: Yes. So we'll never know for whom the Tells bowled.

ANSWER

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.  Kurt Vonnegut

That’s it, the correct answer: All those people on the A-list, the B-list and the Italian list are exactly my own age, give or take a few months. They didn’t go to my high school, but they would have graduated in the same year or the next. We all saw the same I Love Lucy reruns growing up. We were all in the same hospital nursery in side-by-side cribs.

I don’t know if that’s terror or community, but it strikes me. If I ever meet someone on that list, I’ll have a conversation starter. It makes me feel like I should be on a list of people my age doing something. Doing what? Something.

Maybe the real list contains a lot of real people whose lives and work are much more important than the celebrities, athletes and artists on my list of famous names. Okay then, let’s start making a list of the ordinary people my age (or your age) doing ordinary things in their mid-life. Keeping themselves together and keeping together those they care about in times of terror when we all feel like suicide bombers about to explode. What can keep us whole, sane, at peace?

If you go back a couple posts you can find one answer: each other. And I say that as one with very few friends, a small family and some general doubts about the attractiveness of my fellow humans. But, as any alien invasion film will show, we grasp onto one another, to members of our own species, in times of crisis. The problem is that this is a constant time of crisis. Yeah, but People, we made this mad, mad world of fear, we can unmake it. [Group hug here.]

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: What would you get if you crossed a donkey with an owl?

Jeff: A smart ass who knows it all.

Mutt: Like you. So what did the coach say to his losing team of snakes?

Jeff: You can't venom all.

Mutt: What would you get if you crossed a pigeon and a general?

Jeff: I’m on strike.

Mutt: A military coo.

Jeff: Alright, what did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?

Mutt: Um, make me one with everything.

Jeff: That’s right. Now I’ve got a query for you.

Mutt: You always have been queery.

Jeff: If I hated my house and fell in love with my office building, would that be an edifice complex?

Mutt: Nix, Jeff, Nix.

Il primo grande Sunset Intersection Whiz-a Bang-a quiz! Un indizio per i lettori di lingua italiana.

La domanda è: cosa hanno in comune queste persone?

Diego Abatantuono

Alessandro Altobelli

Massimo Bubola

Novella Calligaris

Sergio Caputo

Milly Carlucci

Pier Ferdinando Casini

Bruno Conti

Pino Daniele

Teresa De Sio

Zucchero Fornaciari

Angela Finocchiaro

Anna Galiena

Gene Gnocchi

Ezio Greggio

Riccardo Illy

Gad Lerner

Fiorella Mannoia

Roberto Maroni

Daniele Masala

Ornella Muti

Francesco Nuti

Donatella Rettore

Francesco Rutelli

Marco Tardelli

Ricky Tognazzi

Livia Turco

Walter Veltroni

Donatella Versace




Buon quiz, Martin