So Slobbering Tired I Couldn’t Buy Brandy

Still recording the voices every night, but won’t be able to get anything up until sometime this weekend.

Yearbooks went out to seniors today after an elaborate prank that had them all hooked and reeled in. It’s the subject of tonight’s voice recording.

One of my secret web projects has a higher Technorati authority rating than every blog-type thing at hawaii.alltop.com I say this not to protest its exclusion (it isn’t really appropriate, not being related to Hawaii at all except that Hawaii is where it happens to be written), but to express my pleasure. I’m averaging just under eight comments per post, which I find somewhat surprising. Thought it’d be much lower than that. I have been unable to translate all that traffic into ad-clicks, however. ‘Sokay.

People who want Senator Clinton to bow out of the race before the convention determines a candidate are being unfair the the enormous number of party voters who want her to represent them. Please, Dems. Don’t bypass the entire nomination process just because you think it puts your party in a better position to win the election. You feel very strongly about your candidate, but nearly equal numbers of your fellow Democrats feel the same way about theirs. Let the voices be heard, let the delegates speak up and be counted, and let a candidate step forward with the backing of the entire party, reconciled and united. The fact that this nomination is still being contested implies a strength in your party, not a weakness.

Republicans, you have your candidate. I have a great deal of respect for Senator McCain and might have voted for him over Al Gore and would certainly have voted for him over John Kerry (assuming no Libertarian candidate). Your move is to keep your mouths shut and let the Democrats duke it out, which seems to be the party’s strategy right now. Let’s face it, though: Your candidate is weak, and you know it. Where everyone in the country seems to be calling Senator Clinton the divisive one, your candidate is probably more divisive within his own party than she is within hers. The war and the economy will determine all, and it’s not looking good for your party. Honestly, you have nobody to blame but yourselves. Economies shift; I am not sure your party can be held even halfway responsible for that. But this war. It’s a bad thing. It’s a mess. I don’t know what the heck we can do about it, and while I don’t like the Democrats’ proposed solutions, the mess itself is yours. The midterm elections of 2006 were only a taste of what’s to come this autumn. The pendulum swings.

Obama people: Get a grip, okay? He’s a politician. He’s not the messiah. The trouble with putting your candidate up for canonization is that anyone who opposes him turns into the antichrist, and that’s neither accurate nor fair. The religious fervor with which you support your candidate and denounce his opponent scares me, and I think it is characterizing your candidate as the divisive one, even though it’s all you. There are intelligent, thinking voters who are trying to hear your candidate, but all we hear is you. That’s enough to turn some of us (read: me) off. I know nobody courts my vote anyway, but I want a Stands with a Fist candidate like Jerry Brown, like any Libertarian Presidential candidate, and even like (gasp) Ralph Nader (for whom I would never vote). Your JFK-like portrayal of Senator Obama gives me the willies.

I would like any readers of this space who are not already decided for Senator McCain to consider Jackie Robinson, a person I’ve been thinking a lot about for the past couple of months. Sometimes, it is just time for a wrong to be righted. Neither of the Democratic candidates has the kind of greatness Jackie Robinson now has (but c’mon: he was a quiet second baseman. there was nothing superstar about his bearing when he stepped over the baseline that first season), so there’s really no way to compare. No Presidential candidate can compare to Robinson.

Sometimes, it is just time to right a wrong. The election of this nation’s first woman President or first Black President won’t fix everything, but it would be a first step toward righting a lot of wrongs. Please consider Jackie Robinson before you categorically dismiss this argument. I would be just as passionate about a Black candidate or a woman candidate if he or she had a little circled R next to his or her name; I promise.

Month of Voices

March was the Month of Lists. April was the Month of Letters. May is the Month of Voices.

For the month of May, I am going to record an audio entry each day, trying to focus on telling a story from my silly life each time. Because of the mechanics of recording and the logistics of getting stuff uploaded (the upstream from my house is ridiculously slow, and since I’m never there, I’ll have to leave it to upload while I’m not in front of the machine), voice entries may not post on the dates they are recorded, but I promise not to mis-date anything. Timestamps will represent the recorded-on dates.

I could just do my podcast every day, but there’s a difference between the Literate Loser and this, and I’m going to maintain the distinction.

Today’s is already recorded and uploading at this moment. Could be a while.

:)

Letter for April 30: My Eyes

Dear My Eyes:

Yes, you’ve seen the years and the slow parade of fears without crying.

But this is not going there. I just need to apologize. You have been in a delicate state for the past few years, and I have mostly taken good care of you, but lately I’ve overworked you and not given your always your daily dose of medication.

Please don’t take it out on me. You’re already failing me a little, on the left side, and I just cannot afford to let my vision deteriorate any further. I swear, I will make it all right with you if you just hang in there with me. I apologize for the late nights, reading under the covers. I apologize for being an English major and taking eight years to finish school. I apologize for the eighty-seven Newberys. I apologize for the long grading sessions into the wee hours. I apologize for the endless staring at computer screens.

Please, let’s start again, shall we?

Sincerely,
M

Letter for April 29: Woz

Dear Steve Wozniak:

Something got me to thinking about the US Festivals this evening. Can I just say that you’re the coolest guy in the universe, except for maybe T Bone Burnett? I was fourteen when the 1983 festival aired live on cable, and I watched just about every available minute of it (for some reason, I think some of it wasn’t shown) except for the stuff on country day.

When I become a massively wealthy multimillionaire, I’m going to be like you, Woz. I’m going to run a music and technology festival and invite only cool bands. And I’m going to lose millions of dollars and not care.

Highlights for me:

  1. Dale Bozzio’s plexi-glas bra and platinum hair streaked with pink and blue. Hello!
  2. Scorpions. It was my opinion at age fourteen that they had the best set. Great show.
  3. Bono climbing the scaffolding with that enormous white flag. That was rock and roll.
  4. DiVinyls and the English Beat. Man, they bored me then. I would like to get another shot at hearing their performances now, though. I just wasn’t open-minded enough at fourteen, ‘though I dug INXS and, in fact, all the other bands who played on New Wave Day.
  5. I have no recollection of Quarterflash playing there. Which is too bad, because I dug Quarterflash.

What is the point of being filthy stinking rich if you’re not going to do something cool, like have two four-day music festivals where David Lee Roth wears buttless Spandex? Tom Clancy bought a baseball team. Paul Allen bought a football team. You threw a huge rock and roll party. I can’t wait to be in the club, ’cause I’m going to top them all. Someday.

You rock so hard it’s not even funny!

Sincerely,
Dwy

Letter for April 28: Al Davis

mcfadden

Dear Mr. Davis:

Nice job. Two of the Around the Horn guys say you guys got the surprise pick of the draft. Darren McFadden is big, strong, quick, and versatile, just like last year’s first-rounder. Now you have last year’s best QB and this year’s best RB, to go along with a couple of outstanding linebackers, a couple of all-star-caliber corners, and a decent set of safeties.

Now leave your coach alone to do his thing. Stay in the box. Don’t get in the way. You’re still the man in Oakland, and we all know it. Step back and let your guys do their thing. We don’t expect a SuperBowl this year; but I think six or seven wins would be a nice step forward. Don’t mess this up; you could really be rocking in a couple of years.

Please.

Sincerely,
M

Letter for April 27: G

Dear G:

Okay, you asked, so now I will tell you what things looked like from where I was, if you will agree to tell me what it was like from your end, okay? I know you said you heard every word that was shouted into your ear (sorry!), but what about waking up in a hospital bed? Did you know you were being airlifted out of the ravine while it was happening, or did someone have to tell you after?

But here it is. The picnic was at Sherwoods, I am almost certain. Sea Life Park may have been involved before that, but I wasn’t involved. Or perhaps Sea Life Park was a separate event. I do know that I rode with Steve out to the beach. I had only recently become reinvolved with Saimin, having just returned from college in Hilo, and you were among the huge wave of newer (younger!) members I was just getting to know.

Somebody was given a nice HIC jacket for agreeing to eat an olive. I don’t remember that person’s name, but I’ll bet you know what I’m talking about. It was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen. Tears were leaking out of her closed eyes as she forced herself to chew that black olive.

We agreed to stop at the Toilet Bowl on our way home. I’d actually never been down to it, so it was kind of neat. I wandered off toward the ocean a bit, and when I came back toward the bowl itself, I saw you lying on the black lava, on your back, straight out as if being fitted for a coffin. You weren’t sprawled; you weren’t awkward in any way. It looked as if you’d decided to lie down for a little nap, right there just a few feet from the Toilet Bowl.

In Saturday’s brief recollection of this at the winery, Steve mentioned somebody helping move you from the edge of the bowl. He asked if it was me, but no. In fact, I’m not sure I agree that this is what happened, because by the time I went over to you, Steve was not standing right there, and why would he have wandered away? Two of the other girls were standing a few feet away, looking at you, looking concerned. I asked what happened, and they said they didn’t know. I asked if you were breathing, and one of them said, “I think so.”

I said, “YOU THINK SO?” I could see that they were frightened, too frightened to do anything. I had had several years’ worth of first aid training (Boy Scouts rule), so there was never a question about what SHOULD be done; the question instead was, well, I’m not sure. Why did I hesitate? Why was I annoyed that your friends hadn’t done anything, except that I was pretty sure I didn’t want to be the one to have to do anything. I mean, once I committed to doing something, I was going to have to do it right, and I’d just met you hours before!

But it was clear that nobody was doing anything, so I got down on my knees, right alongside you as I was taught. I put my ear close to your mouth so I could listen for breathing, or feel your breath on my cheek, and I kept my eye on your torso, looking for the telltale movements of a person who was BREATHING. At first, it didn’t think you were breathing and I got scared. Your chest and stomach were NOT moving, and although I’d practiced artificial respiration for years, this was going to be the first time I’d actually have to do it. I was scared as heck.

Then, I heard it. A very, very, very, very faint moan. It was short, and there is no way anyone would have heard it if his or her ear had not been right next to your mouth. And I felt a small, small, small puff of breath. I tilted your head back, awkwardly, knowing I was supposed to open your airway but for some reason not remembering exactly how to do it.

You were breathing, but it wasn’t much of a breath. It was like you were in hibernation or something. And it’s taking me several minutes to explain all this, but it was just seconds. The time between my asking the girls if you were breathing and your moaning oh-so-faintly in my ear was probably less than a minute. Two minutes, tops. I said your name a few times, in your ear. “G—–. G—–. Can you hear me? Okay, I’m going to call emergency. You’ll be okay.”

I asked if anyone had a phone. This was 1996 and it would be a good eight years before I had my own cellular phone, and I had never made a call on one, as far as I can remember. But yes, one of your friends had a phone. I dialed 911 and asked how to make the phone connect. The girl had to point to the button for me.

“Hello. I’m with some friends at the Toilet Bowl, and there is a girl here who is unconscious.”

“Are you at the actual Toilet Bowl, around the corner from Hanauma Bay, or nearby?”

“I am actually right at the edge of the Toilet Bowl.”

I’m sure we exchanged a few other unpleasantries, but now that I was in action, I was pretty calm. Yes, my heart was pounding and I think I was still scared to death, but making calls to 911 was something I knew how to do. I actually practice it, when I’m all by myself sometimes. I imagine certain situations, such as car accidents or heart-attacks, and I practice calling 911, actually saying aloud what I would need to say. My scoutmaster told us that the 911 call could be the most important part of first aid, you see, since so much could be determined by how quickly someone could come, and how easily they could find you. He told us stories of how people sometimes called 911 and said into the phone, “Hurry! Someone just had a heart attack!” and then hung up without giving any more information. So as nerdy as it sounds, I do practice making 911 calls. I’m also one of those people who calls when the neighbors are having a loud fight. I know domestic squabbles are none of my business, but once I can hear them, they become my business and I don’t want anyone getting hurt.

Anyway, so I called emergency. By now, Steve had joined us, and the two girls and Steve and I were standing together, just waiting. A minute later, one of the Hanauma Bay lifeguards came running around the point, and he got down on his knees right where I’d been, and he checked for breathing just as I’d done. Then he placed a hand beneath your neck and lifted gently up, while pushing gently back on your forehead with the other hand.

That’s how you do it. I will never forget it now.

“G—–! G—–!” he said, loudly into your ear. “Can you hear me?” You did not respond. He repeated himself a few times. You told me later, when I saw you online, that you heard every word, and all you could think was, “Please stop yelling in my ear.”

The lifeguard got on his radio and asked for an ambulance. He told us that an ambulance was coming. He asked if you’d fallen. None of us knew. I don’t think any of us saw it.

Once an ambulance was on its way, I told Steve, “We should call her parents.” The girl whose phone it was knew your home number, so I called.

“Hello. You don’t know me, but my name is Mitchell, and I’m a friend of G—–’s. She’s been injured somehow, and is unconscious but breathing. We are at the Toilet Bowl, near Hanauma Bay, and an ambulance is coming.”

“Okay.” I think it was your mom. She seemed pretty calm, ‘though it was clear she was concerned.

“An ambulance is on its way, but I don’t know where they’re taking her. I’ll call you back as soon as I find out.”

The person thanked me.

It took longer to get you out of there than I expected. They called a helicopter and lowered a stretcher. Some guys put you on the stretcher, strapped you down, and lifted you out of there and lowered you into the parking lot, where an ambulance was waiting.

Now you were in someone’s care, but the sight of you being lifted out of there, a helicopter hovering right over us, was the freakiest part. Somehow, the helicopter made it much more serious than it already was.

Your parents called back before we knew where you were going, so I said I’d have to call back. We found out a few minutes later that it was Queen’s Hospital. I called your parents back, and I think they were on the road to town already. Did they live on the Leeward side? I sorta remember someone saying they lived far away, like Wahiawa.

We all got in cars and went to the hospital. Your friends were all on the phone, calling all your other Saimin friends. Pretty soon, the waiting room was packed. Some of the girls were crying. At this point, I began to feel a little weird. It was now sometime in the evening, and I was exhausted, and I was waiting in the waiting room for what? I didn’t know. I didn’t even really know you, and I didn’t know most of the people waiting with us in the waiting room. I just wanted to go, but I also needed to stay.

Eventually, someone came down and said you were conscious and okay.

We left.

I got right on Saimin and tried to stay on all night until you came on. I had to see if you were okay. You did get on. I don’t remember if it was the next day or late, late that night (I think it was late the next night), and I pmed you and said I’d been worried, and you thanked me. It was a little awkward. That was when you told me you’d heard every word we’d said to you.

Steve saw me online and pmed me his thanks for my part in helping you. He was sincerely, humbly grateful that I was there. The next time we had an event, he said he really wanted me there “in case.” I was flattered, but I thought he was being just a little silly. I mean, out of hundred of Saimin events spanning almost a decade, how many times did emergency need to be called?

I think that was the only time we ever discussed it, until this past Saturday night.

But I want you to know that I was deeply affected by this experience. First, the sight of you lying there, unconscious, has never left me. You looked so quiet and so peaceful, which is what people say about dead people. And I don’t mean to make this a morbid thing, but there was the possibility that you might have died, or that your breathing might have stopped and someone was going to have to do something.

And then there was the moment of hesitation. The moment where I looked around, hoping someone else would see if you were breathing, or someone else would kneel down next to you and see if you were okay. I was ashamed of that moment, ashamed that I had not just taken action.

I thought about this a lot over the next few weeks. I didn’t decide just then and there that I would be the guy who takes action from then on. I guess it came to me gradually, but I did realize that when something happens, a lot of times it seems that everyone is waiting around for someone to do SOMETHING. Once I made the move that day, once I knelt down, everyone else was ready to do something. This person handed me a phone. That person gave me advice. I felt the support of those people and it made me better able to do whatever I was doing.

Steve knows his stuff, too. He was not grateful that I happened to know some first aid (first aid that was unnecessary this time), because he knows first aid too. He was grateful that someone calmly did something. Someone called emergency. Someone spoke to the lifeguard. Someone called your parents. This time, someone was me.

I have always felt connected to you in a way I don’t think you can appreciate. You were the person who made me the guy who does something. I have rushed to the aid of girls crashing mopeds, of co-workers falling down, and of cars rolling backwards with nobody behind the wheel! I know I told you about that car, but I didn’t say that I was about fifty yards away from the car when I first saw it rolling slowly backwards. Other people (mostly students, but also a couple of parents) saw the car too, but I was the one who ran after it and stopped it less than a foot from the building it was about to roll into.

So yes. I believe that I have told some students about you at least once a year in my twelve years of teaching. It just comes up somehow. Something someone says will remind me of the fact that most of the time, people are waiting for someone else to do something. I picture you lying there, quiet and peaceful. Then I tell the story. I doubt it has changed anyone’s life but my own, but if it has changed only my own, it’s at least done that.

Thank you for being okay. If you hadn’t been okay, I’d still have learned something, but maybe it would be a lot less pleasant!

Sincerely,
M

Letter for April 26: Steve

Dear Steve:

Thanks for the invitation. I had a great time this afternoon. Something about the Saimin crowd, even the members I didn’t know very well, has always put me at ease. I wish there could have been more of the old gang, but of course everyone’s married and has kids and lives now. Well, almost everyone, I guess!

I love wine, but when you live alone, it’s just not very economical. Wine’s also a bad idea for the consistently sleep-deprived, so for the past few years I go looooong periods of time between glasses. This evening was a nice reminder that it’s better with friends, too.

I swear, we have to hang out when I’m finished with this stupid paper. Gr! I’ll call you when I’m done.

Thanks again.

Sincerely
M

Letter for April 25: Old Saimin Friends

Dear Old Saimin Friends:

And by old, I mean you were there in the days when membership was a matter of being voted in.

I was thinking of you, the way I do once in a while. One of the things that saddens me most is how everything changes, and how no matter how good things might be now, they aren’t what they once were. It’s easy to wax nostalgic about old friends and late nights, and I resist the temptation when I can. But I checked out Saimin2 this evening for the first time in ages (I try not to look at it too often for fear of too many trips down memory lane) and saw that I missed get-togethers with three of my best friends on Saimin, and I learned that one of the old gang is dead.

There’s something beautiful and elegant about a five-line chat system running on connected Apple // machines (a //+ and a //gs in its last incarnation, I believe) and five 300 bps modems. I know it’s weird to long for such low-tech communication, but I do. Something was lost when Saimin was dismantled, and it wasn’t just the endless clicking and resetting of the modem on autodial (I had a pulse line). It certainly wasn’t the basic set of Hayes commands or the set of Saimin commands, as my fingers still remember both. I know that when old people long for the old days, they don’t merely long for a certain lost innocence, but they also lament the passing of a better them. Okay, I don’t KNOW that, but I suspect that. This is a weird thing, because most of us know we get better over time, yet there are things about me in 1988 that I miss, not the least of which is my youth.

I see you all with families and careers now, and you all look happier than I’ve ever seen you, and yet I lament the passing of the old you.

So if any of you are reading this, grab a two-liter bottle, give it a little squeeze, and picture diving Tony doing one last trick. And think of me, because tonight I think of you. Let’s get together the next time you’re in town, dang it!

Sincerely,
M
(29 proginoskes / 52 scrivener)

Letter for April 24: Bruce Cockburn

Dear Bruce:

You already know you’re my favorite musician. Oh no, wait: You don’t. ‘Cause I’ve never had a chance to tell you. Well, some day I will, but that day is not today.

Today I just want to thank you for Circles in the Stream, your live album from 1977. I’d been feeling rather hostile, you see. There are these families in my home state. They’re siccing lawyers on each other over a stupid David Beckham soccer jersey. Their sons are ten, and the boys had been best friends for the past three years. Now the families aren’t speaking to each other and one boy’s parents refuse to let him share the jersey (as was the original plan) with his friend.

It’s enough to make you wanna put a fist through something. I’m not given to profanity, but all kinds of profanity went through my head as I pondered the disgusting lesson these parents were teaching their boys.

I thought my playlist of recordings of “Ulili E” (you don’t know it, but you’d like it—it’s a wonderful song) would cheer me, as it often does, but it didn’t. So I switched over to Circles in the Stream, an album I haven’t listened to in a couple of years, and I nearly forgot what it was that had me riled up in the first place.

This cafe closes in a few minutes, and you just launched into the second-to-last song on the album, “Joy Will Find a Way.” It’s a moment I love on this recording, because before you begin to play it, you say, “Is there any reason the people that are in the corner dancing can’t go on dancing?”

Indeed. Isn’t there? “As longing becomes love / as night turns to day / everything changes / joy will find a way.” Yeah, yeah. I know it’s a song about dying. That doesn’t alter the fact that as I listen to it right now, it reminds me that maybe I need to just chill sometimes, whatever the idiocy of my neighbors. Love is the response; profanity and anger perhaps are a bit less productive.

So thanks for that. Whether I’ll still feel okay in the morning remains to be seen, but for now I’m chill.

Sincerely,
M

ps: you rock!

Letter for April 23: My Photography Students

Dear My Photography Students:

I’m very proud of you this evening. Nice work. You represented yourselves wonderfully, you received praise graciously, and you made your teacher look good. That last one’s not an easy thing to pull off!

Now have a good four days off. I will be thinking of you almost constantly between now and when I see you again on Monday.

Love,
Mr. D <><

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