Thoughts on the Independent Voter from a Dead Gadfly

"We are reformers in spring and summer; in autumn and winter we stand by the old -- reformers in the morning, conservatives at night. Reform is affirmative, conservatism is negative; conservatism goes for comfort, reform for truth."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

Not-So-Great Depression

In case you're wondering why you feel that way, today is the most depressing day of the year. The British have studied this. If January 24 is the most depressing day it implies, of course, that there are others. If you are generally depressed it might tell you that of all the days you feel like that, this one is the worst. As if people with depression need any help deciding why any particular day is lousy.

I suppose you can put anything in a news story and it takes on some authority: The Democrats have lost their way. The Republicans have lost their minds. Balloon boy fantasizes about Angelina Jolie. How your cats are plotting to kill you.

Some things get to you more than others. It doesn't surprise that any young boy would fantasize about Jolie, mother figure that she is. Or that either political party has deteriorated in any imaginable way. Every member of the Democratic party could spontaneously combust and we would think, "that's just like them." Republicans could encircle the National Mall wearing only adult diapers while waving sharp sticks and we would shake our heads and flip back to Law and Order reruns. Cats plotting against you? Of course they are.

But I'm resisting the idea that today is the most depressing day of the year. I got up this morning and took a long snow shoe through the woods and back on a perfectly still, crisp, Vermont Sunday. Granted, some of you got up this morning and strolled down a warm sunny beach, but that doesn't depress me. You might have stepped on a sharp stone and got an infection. It may not be infected yet, but you never know. My feet are fine.

I was far more depressed last night than today. Take-out pizza and Night at the Museum II with the boys. Saturday nights used to be a lot sexier. I'm not too old to remember that. The prospect of tomorrow is more depressing than even that -- Monday. Lunches to make. Kids to prod and bully into the car. I think there is a doctor appointment in there somewhere. Tomorrow - yuck. Today - I'll take it.

Have a good day. Keep your eye on that foot.

Underpants Never Strike Twice

If the foiled terrorist on flight 253 had tried to light his underpants on fire during the middle part of the trip, I wonder if they'd now be making us stay in our seats with our hands in our laps for that hour? In eight-and-a-half years of watching our crack security professionals' attempts to keep from happening the thing that just happened this one wins the prize. Some guy fiddles in his lap with some odds and ends he brought on board and nearly detonates explosives sewn into his underpants. If this were truly a viable way to bring down an airplane you'd think that people who are paid to sit around and think about these things would have thought that might be a possibility and put these restrictions in place before somebody actually tried it. It's not like it was a brilliant or unlikely scenario. Here's a not-so-brilliant and likely guess at how that conversation went at the TSA:

"Somebody could hide this powder in their underpants and detonate it on their approach into a major US airport."

"Yea, we know. Let's wait until it happens and then then make sure it doesn't happen again. At least not on the approach"

"What if someone tries it at the beginning of a flight?"

"We'll deal with that when it happens. It's not our job to prevent these specific things. It's our job to prevent these specific things from happening twice in a row. Relax. Have donut."

So now we'll all sit with our hands folded neatly over our throbbing bladders like a bunch of school kids for the last hour of a flight for no good reason except to demonstrate with what precision the people in charge of our safety can recognize what it was they missed the first time. Speaking strictly for myself this does not make me feel safer. This makes me feel like the people we're counting on to watch our backs have no idea what they're doing, or where this thing is heading next.

Travel well. And safe.

Let it Snow

A classic Nor'easter is bearing down on New England. Unlike our urban brethren to the east and south who listen to the grave tones of their weathercasters' voices and crouch behind their snow shovels, Vermonters like this sort of thing. Kids dust off the sleds, skis get fresh wax, chairlifts lurch into action across the Green Mountains and town road crews start adding up the overtime. The only disappointment we're likely to feel in this most recent "historic event" is that the really big accumulations will peter out before they get here leaving us with a measly six or ten inches.

The downside is that my older son comes home from Seattle tomorrow via a series of eastern airports all likely to be closed by midnight tonight. That part's not so great, but he's young and resilient and I know I'll see him soon -- even if he does have the patterns of airport seating etched into his lovely face.

This week leading up to Christmas is always one of tender domestics and nostalgia. Cooking smells and rustling garland will conjure childhood memories thought lost. More innocent times project from every colored light. This is why it's called a season of joy and this is also why people get depressed at this time of year. Here's to more of the former and less of the last.

I will part with some shameless commerce. 'Tis the season, I suppose. Just in time for Christmas my publisher has released a new retrospective collection of mine called, It's Just Like I Told You; 25 Years of Comments and Comic Pieces. You can read about it on the home page, or just go buy and download it at any number of online sellers: iTunes, audible.com, Random House Audio and others. Thanks for coming around like this. I enjoy these little chats of ours.

Zhumbies

Living as I do, and perhaps always have, on the far fringes of American consumer culture it is difficult for me to get my arms around the Black Friday madness. Especially the crazed appetite for these mechanical hamsters called Zhu Zhus. Why a synthetic surrogate for what is already a surrogate? Hamsters, it seems to me, are the pet we give to our children in order to avoid getting them a dog or a cat. "Prove to us you can handle the responsibility of a pet and we'll talk about a dog," goes the traditional refrain. Of course the whole thing is a set-up. Hamsters are about the least durable living species, if my experience is any measure. Step on one - dead. Let them escape into the walls - dead, stink. Put them in a Lincoln Log fort then bomb with D-batteries - mortally injured, soon dead. Take to fourth grade show-and-tell -- MIA, presumed dead.

If by some miracle a hamster survives and breeds, children are treated to the horrors of hamster moms eating their young. In other words, hamster ownership usually puts an end to any further talk of pets for several glorious years. A Zhu Zhu will not accomplish this. A Zhu Zhu, like its real-life counterpart, is unlikely to see the sun set on Christmas Day. But there will be nothing learned. It simply becomes another piece of junk in the toy box with battery juice leaking out of the underbelly. No horror. No shame. No somber funeral in the backyard. You might as well go pick out that stupid dog now.

My advice to holiday Zhu Zhu fanatics (zhumbies?) is to head directly to the pet store and surprise the little tykes with the real deal. Lie to them and claim it is a Zhu Zhu brought to life by Santa's magic, and look, it doesn't even need batteries!

Soon you'll be holding their little shoulders in the backyard saying last rodent rites and looking forward to two or three more pet-free years. Get 'em while they're hot! Or at least still warm.

(The author pre-emptively acknowledges that the torment or destruction of helpless animals is wrong and to leverage such cruelty in order to advance some twisted notions of entertainment is just as wrong and he feels as terrible about it as he did in the fourth grade.)

Don't Do It For Me, Oprah

Now I feel bad. My previous confessional post about my Oprah regrets appears to have prompted her to throw in the towel completely. I knew as a big-hearted person that she would feel terrible about the circumstances behind my decision to decline an invitation to appear on her show, but O, taking it off the air? Entirely uncalled for. I'm fine. Really. It all worked out. In retrospect -- and at this point in my life I am all about retrospect -- not going on the Oprah show was one of the best moves I ever made.

Had I appeared on Oprah that spring of 1996 the book I'd just released might well have taken off and become something. Maybe not, but let's say for argument it did. That would have prompted publishers to line up with large cash offers for another book I didn't have in me, but would have committed to because I would have gotten all wrapped-up in the money and attention. Guaranteed. The resulting book deal would have demanded a fast-track turnaround to capitalize on all the buzz and would have derailed my life for a solid year. The book would have sucked and so would my standing as a father, husband and friend. I would have spent the money on a better boat and a larger woodshop I wouldn't have had time to use. Panned by the press, resented by my family, and distanced from my friends I would have bobbed in the bay alone on my better boat and wished I'd simply said no to Oprah. Which in fact I did.

So there, O. Happy ending. You like those, right? You know how and when to leave a stage and I -- in my little dim rim of the limelight -- did too. So, I won't feel bad about you canceling your show for me if you won't feel bad about me canceling your show for me.

Making It Right with Oprah

Sarah Palin finally said yes to Oprah. Every time Oprah is in the news, which is nearly everyday, I suffer a cringe of shame and regret. Why? -- you might rightfully ask if you cared one whit about my regrets. A badly ended affair? An unpaid loan? A business deal gone south? No. I'm afraid much worse than any of that. To get this monkey off my back once and for all I will confess to you here and now that I once said no to Oprah. I shall give you a moment to collect yourself.

It was the spring of 1996. I had been on a three week publicity tour for my book The Free Fall of Webster Cummings followed by a two week roving television shoot for the PBS series Travels on America's Historic Trails. I was exhausted and homesick. My 11-year-old son and my fiance -- now my wife -- back in Alaska were on my mind constantly. I promised them the minute I got home we'd load up the boat and head across to the wild side of Kachemak Bay for a few days of being just us. There had been delays and schedule changes and they seemed dubious. I promised them I would not mess it up again.

The day I arrived home I went immediately to the garage and started getting gear together. God it was good to be home. The phone rang and a very nice producer from Oprah informed me in a congratulatory tone that Oprah wanted me on her show. I had a fishing pole in one hand the phone in the other. Oprah was a kingmaker even then. My book wasn't doing so well and certainly needed the juice. I let too much time pass, but finally asked, "When?"

"The day after tomorrow!"

"Where?"

"Here in Chicago. We'll pay all your travel expenses and have a flight booked for you in the morning."

It didn't seem like such a hard decision to make at the time. I'd promised my family. I was exhausted. I could taste the bay from where I stood.

"Is there another day we could do it?"

"No." She said, without ambivalence.

"Now or never?" says I.

"Never."

I heard later that no one says no to Oprah. And if you do you are dead to her. Or at least dead to her show. I don't know if that's the least bit true. I do know that book sold fewer copies than any of my titles before or since. It was remaindered only a couple years later without even appearing in soft cover. I still have about twenty cases of them in my basement.

So every time I hear her name my Oprah Shame Spiral begins to churn. Like today. And I work through it the same way I always do -- I remember three wonderful spring days across the bay with my family. Sure, there were plenty of those at many other times and only one Oprah, but that one needed to happen. More than Oprah did. That's true even now as I sit here actually in Chicago on my way west to see that same son. He's now 24 and I get as homesick for him now as I ever did.

We're going to have dinner tonight and I'll have to ask him if he remembers that one trip to the cabin. I'll bet he remembers it more than Oprah remembers me saying no to her. Ain't that right, O?