Going To Heaven

Published in the Desert Valley Times
August 30, 2005

This week’s Chronicles is for a friend of mine who unexpectedly lost her brother last week.
Hopefully she can find a smile in here somewhere.
I hate it when someone close to me loses someone.
I feel so inept.
I’m a professional writer, a wordsmith, someone who uses vocabulary every day like a cement worker uses a trowel.
Yet my shortcomings are never as clearly evident as when I look for words of comfort to offer, and those words are never adequate.
First, let me offer some quick background.
I’m not a religious person.
I belonged to a church only once in my life, but to paraphrase Groucho Marx, I should have never joined any church that would have me as a member.
I’m not sure where this leaves my soul, but I doubt that the dusty old thing is worth God and the devil getting into a poker match over.
I’m not a particularly good person, and not a particularly bad person (although there are HOA board members all over this city who would argue the latter).
I just go through life trying to do the best I can, praying that God grades on a curve and throws in extra credit for effort.
For the record, I believe in God.
I’m a bit fuzzier on the “Heaven” thing.
Before I start, please understand that I’m not bashing or disrespecting anyone’s religion, I’m just offering a few observations.
After all, you must admit that the various versions of Heaven can be pretty amusing when you look at it objectively.
If you have enough bourbon in you, the ideas can be downright funny.
First, the standard King James version of Heaven.
Angels with harps.
I don’t know about you, but harp music has never turned me on.
Also, while movies and cartoons show angels as fully clothed while bearing wings, I suspect Heaven is a clothing-optional beach.
Now for the Kodak moment:
If I happen to slide through the Pearly Gates on a technicality, do you really want to see my big naked behind sitting on a cloud strumming an electric four-string harp and singing Garth Brooks tunes?
I know, sounds more like Hell, huh.
For my LDS brethren, Heaven becomes a Monty Hall game show.
If you’ve been so-so, you get what’s behind door number three.
Better behavior gets a shot at door number two.
And for those who tithed, avoided tea, and followed their patriarchal blessing, a trip to the Kingdom behind door number one is your reward.
I like that version, because I have a one-in-three chance of winding up somewhere wonderful.
It’s better odds than I get from the nickel slots.
(Boy, I hope God was kidding about that gambling thing.)
But the best vision has to be the Muslim Heaven.
For those with the best track record on Earth, 72 virgins are waiting.
I don’t understand how this is a big attractor for women believers, but I’m sure there’s some major reward for them as well.
But for guys, it’s the 72 virgins.
Of course, they don’t talk about the downside, which is 72 angry mothers-in-law.
I imagine that would be their version of Hell.
It would certainly be mine.
I’m not sure where atheists believe they’ll go when they die.
Maybe to the mall.
Maybe Taco Bell (which would mean Mesquite is one restaurant short of truly being Heaven).
The idea of being nothing more than worm food or a dust mote in someone’s eye upon death is too depressing to consider.
I’m not sure what Hell is supposed to look like.
I’ve endured southern Nevada in July, so I’m not intimidated.
But to concur with country philosopher Hank Williams Jr., if it’s much like New York City, I’d rather not go.
In fact, I’d prefer to just postpone the trip altogether.
However, I suspect God is like the ultimate newspaper editor.
When your deadline arrives and your story is due, time is up.
And God never stops the presses.

Betting Big

Published in the Desert Valley Times
August 23, 2005

I’m not much of a gambler.
It’s not a religious matter, or an ethical issue.
I simply suck at it.
I feel pretty sure that, if I were to bet $5 that the sun was going to rise tomorrow morning, it would be the day of a solar eclipse.
When I make a rare visit to one of the local casinos for a few hands of blackjack, I never expect to walk out with any money in my pockets.
That’s one of the few gaming speculations where I’m consistently correct.
And I don’t consider it gambling when I drop a few dollars into the slot machines while waiting in line for the buffet.
I consider it a donation to help send poor, underprivileged casino owners to summer camp in the Bahamas.
Unfortunately, the IRS doesn’t see it that way, so I don’t even get the deduction.
When it comes to sports wagers, I’m particularly inept.
At the greyhound track, I could bet on the rabbit every race and still manage to go broke.
The only way I could make any money betting on football would be to charge $5 to every New England fan I know if I just promised never to bet on the Patriots.
You’ve heard of the Midas touch?
I have the antidote.
It’s called the “Morris touch.”
If I were to bet ten bucks on the Philadelphia Eagles beating Mesquite’s fourth-grade youth football team, I feel pretty confident the Baby Bulldogs would wind up on the heavy end of a 34-20 score.
(It’s not as unbalanced a contest as you might think. Our team would have a starting lineup of nine-year-olds, while the Eagles would have Terrell Owens.)
And don’t talk to me about “the spread.”
The only time I get “the spread” right is when it involves cream cheese and a bagel.
I’m pretty knowledgeable about football (although a certain Iggles fan who wrote in last year might dispute that), but when it comes time to put my small money where my big mouth is, I can never seem to get it right.
Hence, the Morris touch.
Fortunately, I work for the newspaper, so I don’t have much money available for gambling.
Or eating, for that matter.
Since I haven’t found a bookie willing to accept El Rancho coupons on the Packers-Bears game, I’ll have to be satisfied with knowing how much money I save each week by being too broke to go broke.
So I’ll continue my life’s history of being out of sync with my environment.
I grew up in Maryland, the seafood capital of the world and the home of Maryland blue crabs, but didn’t like seafood.
I spent 16 years on the west coast of Florida, living six minutes away from the Gulf of Mexico, and never went to the beach.
And now I live in Nevada, where gambling is a way of life, unable to make the right call in a game between Cleveland and the Steelers.
For those who want to use the “Morris touch” to their advantage, the Browns play in Pittsburgh on Nov. 13.
I’m setting aside 10% of my salary for the next 11 weeks so I can bet $5 on the Steelers.
Browns fans should wager accordingly.
I would recommend that you get your bets in early, before the local sports books find out which way I’m leaning and Cleveland becomes the odds-on favorite.

HOA Kindness Goes MIA

Published in the Desert Valley Times
August 23, 2005

You know it’s a bad day when I start quoting Rodney King.
But if I had my way, the CC&Rs for every homeowners association in Mesquite would begin with the line, “Can’t we all just get along?”
Unfortunately, the answer too often is “No!”
(Notice the exclamation point? Not just a “No.” but a “No!”)
The latest example comes from a little development out past Primex that I’ll refer to as “Encampment.”
Apparently, the homeowners from this particular fiefdom are tired of Joe Citizen using their private lanes as thoroughfares to Turtleback.
This is a reasonable expectation, since it is a private road which they paid for and maintain with their dues.
Unfortunately, their discontent has expanded.
So far, they have hammered the mayor.
They have complained to the city council.
They have threatened to write ugly letters to offending businesses.
Any day now, neighbors are expecting the association to institute a draft in order to raise an army.
Patriot missiles and nuclear weapons are sure to follow.
Okay, maybe the Patriot missiles are an exaggeration.
After all, the association can’t seem to come up with enough money to install a coded gate, which would appear to be the most rational solution.
If they can’t afford an automatic gate, advanced anti-ballistic weaponry might be a stretch unless somebody has an uncle at Raytheon.
But it’s no exaggeration that the problem has the potential to disrupt the harmony of a community that prides itself on the kindness of its citizenry.
While armored tanks and M-16s haven’t come into play yet, several of the residents of “Encampment” have armed themselves with video cameras to record the offending vehicles that dare to drive through their neighborhood without permission, while others jot down license plate numbers of unfamiliar cars wandering through their parking lots.
This is a dangerous precedent.
What if every neighborhood adopted this tactic?
I can envision gun turrets atop sand-bagged privacy walls and higher association fees to fund sophisticated radar networks.
Various developments would fire off missives to the heads of other associations, threatening them with attack if they don’t keep their homeowners out of those PUDs.
“Welcome to Mesquite” signs would be ripped down and replaced with border markers bearing slogans like “Keep Out! Trespassers will be filmed, documented, and generally made to feel like interloping Muslims at a Bar Mitzvah!”
Board meetings would become treaty negotiations.
It’s the bane of all small countries headed by power-hungry despots with too much time on their hands.
(The whole Iraq thing could have been avoided if Saddam had just taken up a hobby.)
This community has worked too hard to earn the reputation of being a friendly place to let a few zealots ruin it.
To the HOA presidents and board members who insist on patrolling their communities each morning with clipboards in search of unrolled garden hoses and visitors “vizout zere paperz!” I would offer this simple advice:
Get a life.
For those communities headed by their own little Idiot Amins who are too clueless to figure out how to do that, I would recommend a nice quiet coup d’etat at your next board meeting.
When it comes to HOA tyrants, “Just Say No.”
Let’s go back to being a nice town where people are allowed to borrow each other’s roads without fear of reprisals.
Let’s get that Magic back.

Fun Is Not Recreation

Published in the Desert Valley Times
August 19, 2005

Once upon a time, the term “recreation” was nearly synonymous with “fun.”
Unfortunately, thanks to the stuffed shirts who sit in various state and federal legislative bodies, one no longer has anything to do with the other.
There was a time when people could jump on their ATVs, head into the endless wasteland known as desert, and enjoy a ride across wide open desolate spaces.
Then some legislative loser found out about it, heard that someone dared to use a natural resource for something as frivolous as “fun,” and rammed through law after law to curtail the enjoyment of four-wheeling.
Today, inmates sweeping up the jail have more freedom than an ATV enthusiast intent on riding through any land owned by the federal government (which, in Nevada, is nearly all of it).
Riders hear “No!” more often than a four-year-old in the candy aisle at Smith’s.
Now, it appears that someone spilled the beans about the fun that you used to be able to have in a boat.
I owned and operated my first boat when I was 13 years old.
Today, I would be an outlaw, since you must be 14 to operate a motorized watercraft.
You must also take a boating course, and keep proof of that course with you at all times on the water.
(“Your paperz, pleeze! Ve must zee your paperz!”)
It’s a good thing Christopher Columbus never tried to navigate Lake Mead.
And Heaven forbid you get caught without wearing a lifevest, a cumbersome device that sort of defeats the purpose of enjoying a day in the sun working on your tan.
Last Saturday, the DUI Gestapo set up a “safety checkpoint” at Cottonwood Cove on Lake Mohave.
They’re proud of the fact that they stopped 153 boaters that day.
I guess the freedom to travel without government interference and warrantless stops ends at the water’s edge.
Of course, it’s all in the name of “safety,” which makes anything short of a strip search and a cavity probe an acceptable government activity.
This time, they were in search of the “demon rum.”
It’s funny how the effects of Prohibition linger even 70 years later.
A Nevada game warden mentioned that an officer was “amazed by the amount of beer, wine coolers, and other alcohol that was being placed into boats” while manning a boating information booth at a launch ramp.
Wow.
Drinking beer while fishing.
Who’d a thunk it?
Hopefully, nobody mentions to lawmakers that people actually drink beer in the parking lot before football games, or the Oakland Raiders will be out of business.
And before I get a stack of hate mails from “BADD” or the Carrie Nation club telling me that X number of people lose their lives to drunk boaters, save your AOL time.
I get it.
I agree that anyone who kills someone while operating their boat while under the influence should be locked up.
But I also believe that anyone who kills someone while operating their boat while NOT under the influence should be locked up as well.
At what point do we consider prophylactic justice as going too far?
(“Prophylactic justice” is the practice of arresting people because they MIGHT break a law, like locking up a guy in a canoe because the three beers he drank MIGHT lead him to run over a pontoon boat full of nuns.)
And I’m saying this as a guy who doesn’t drink beer.
But the point is that legislators have run out of annoying ways to manipulate, stifle, and control our lives in business, commerce, travel, education, marriage, child-rearing, and even in our homes, and are now extending their treacherous tentacles into our recreation.
Men and women have managed to navigate entire oceans for thousands of years with nothing but a compass and an incomplete map bearing warnings of sea serpents, but the state of Nevada feels we need a whole new layer of rules and regulations to survive the treacherous waters of Lake Mohave.
I guess the next round of watercraft legislation will involve size requirements and an operators license for rubber duckies, and a whole section of state regulations so people don’t become victims of drive-by splashings in their own bathtubs.
It’s a shame we can’t invoke “logic checkpoints,” where we line up all of our government officials and test them for common sense.
Like innocent boaters who are forced to take breathalyzers, any official who tests positive for stupidity or registers less than an I.Q. of 45 would be forced out of the legislature.
Of course, that would leave a state law-making body composed of around nine members and a janitor.
Then again, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
To those nine, I would ask simply and humbly:
Please stop trying to regulate and eliminate fun.
It’s supposed to be one of the fringe benefits of freedom.
Even the Declaration of Independence specifies our right to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Your illegal and immoral DUI checkpoints are violating the second and third in the dubious attempt at protecting the first.
Go back to making inane laws about things like the proper size of road gravel and leave our recreation alone.

Hospital Firsts

Published in the Desert Valley Times
August 16, 2005

There are many advantages to having a new hospital in our community.
The obvious ones have a lot to do with proximity to major supplies of bandages after a close encounter with such things as a cranky lawnmower.
But a new hospital offers another benefit.
It’s the fact that almost every malady qualifies as either “the worst,” “the first,” or “the biggest.”
When a medical center has been around for a long time, like Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, there’s not much that can even raise a physician’s eyebrow.
“Gall stone the size of a corn dog? Saw it in ’92.”
“Left leg attached to a Buick? Nearly a weekly ritual.”
“Broken arm after getting run over by a juggling bear on a unicycle? 1973, 1986, and twice in 2000 (the Democratic National Convention happened to be in town, remember?)”
Here in our little slice of microwaved Heaven, almost anything you can drag into the pristine Mesa View Regional Hospital Emergency Room will qualify as “one for the books.”
I don’t have access to the MVRH records (the bureaucrats who crafted the HIPAA legislation have no sense of humor when it comes to columnists and medical catastrophes).
However, it’s a pretty safe bet that the title is still available for “biggest hernia,” “first rectal extraction of a gardening implement,” and “largest olive passed through the left nostril while laughing at a CasaBlanca comedian.”
Recently I had a chance to take the crown following a visit to my local doctor.
After looking at a recent battery of blood tests for my diabetes, he informed me that my glycohemoglobin number (whatever that is) was over 14.
He explained that “normal” was around six.
He said it was the highest number he’d ever seen.
I assumed the properly concerned facial countenance expected of someone who had just received bad news.
However, a small voice inside pumped its little fist and exclaimed “Yes! I am number one!”
While I’m now dieting, exercising, and taking a host of funny-shaped pills, I’m still contemplating having the number “14” tattooed on my chest.
Let’s face it, there’s never been a “good” reason to check into a hospital.
Nobody makes an appointment to see the doctor just to announce your daughter is getting married, and guys aren’t lining up to put their insurance to the test because they just shot a 74 at Wolf Creek.
If you’re visiting a health care professional, it’s usually because some part of your body is staging a physiological rebellion (except for childbirth, which is a rebellion that is delayed for about 15 years).
But if you’re going to be sick anyway, you might as well be the best at it.
Don’t settle for that wimpy 102 temperature.
Give the docs something to talk about.
Aim for 106.1.
Be the first patient MVRH has ever treated for scurvy.
And don’t settle for one of those microscopic kidney stones.
Try passing something you can use in your next game of marbles with your grandkids.
No matter what the injury or illness, be sure you can punctuate the tale of your most recent visit with the words “and it was the biggest they’d ever seen!”
Fortunately, with a hospital this new, you can be assured of a “worst,” “first,” or “biggest” title without forcing your doctor too deep into his Physician’s Desk Reference.
And while we’re on the subject, did I tell you about my daughter’s tonsils?...

Helpful Hints At The DMV

Published in the Desert Valley Times
August 9, 2005

Her last words as I left her desk are still ringing in my ears.
“I don’t want to see anything about the DMV in your paper next week.”
I get a lot of that these days.
In fact, if I heeded those words every time I heard them, this space in your newspaper would be filled regularly with badly-drawn pictures of flowers done in crayon.
Or another ad.
Fortunately, I’m hard headed.
I made my annual pilgrimage to the local DMV office last week.
It’s a trip that rivals trips to the dentist and regular proctology exams as less-favored destinations.
But bashing the Department of Motor Vehicles is almost cliché, like shooting over a baited field.
Instead, I’m going to offer a few tips for your next trip to this hallowed state agency as a public service.
Before I begin, I just wanted to acknowledge that the lady who helped me last week is terrific.
In fact, the entire staff at our local office seems to be among the most competent and friendly in the entire organization.
And I’m not saying that just because I don’t want my driver’s license number to end up on some website with a flashing banner that says “Steal this guy’s identity for fun and profit.”
They really are helpful and capable.
Unfortunately, even really good sailors occasionally find themselves on Russian mini-subs at the bottom of the ocean.
Now for the helpful hints.
First, bring a book.
I would recommend “War and Peace,” or a similarly lengthy tome.
If you can’t read, bring lots of picture books.
(Although, the inability to read might pose a problem when you try to take that ever-important license exam.)
If someone in a hat and trench coat comes up to you in the DMV parking lot and whispers “I’ve got number 23,” pay whatever he asks.
Scalped numbers may be the only way you can get in and out of the place before your toddlers graduate from college.
Speaking of toddlers, please leave your small, crying, running, screaming children at home.
If, as I suspect, you can’t beg or con anyone into watching your little demons at home, try bringing along some items to keep them occupied and quiet.
Narcotics and a gag are perfectly acceptable.
If you have more than one, I would recommend seating them in different areas.
Maybe Logandale and Scenic.
Next, and I say this as respectfully and lovingly as I can, please shower or bathe before showing up.
Ever taken a whiff of three dozen sardines jammed into a can after being left open in the desert for a few days?
I know the French consider it de rigeur, but in a confined space like the DMV waiting area, yesterday’s manure-moving project isn’t going to make you popular.
Another suggestion is to make sure you bring plenty of money.
As a rule of thumb, bring as much as you think you’re going to need, then bring more.
You have a better chance of escaping the dollar slots section of the Eureka with your wallet intact than the DMV tag renewal process.
For those who don’t know, there is no grace period when your tags expire.
I thought the state would be understanding, since I’ve been busy covering flag football games, attending water board meetings, and being broke.
The punishment for being five days late on my tags cost more than some peoples’ divorces.
If you happen to see me at the I-15 exit with a cup and a sign that says “Will write for tag money,” please be kind.
And finally, be nice to the good folks working behind the DMV counter.
It wasn’t their idea to fine you $250 because the dog ate your insurance card.
Your anger should be directed at the yahoos in Carson City who passed such idiotic laws.
And if you can manage to get your car registered, get your tags renewed, take your driving exam, pass your road test, get your photo taken, and get your driver’s license issued, all in this lifetime, I would recommend you drive straight to Carson City and tell them about your anger.
Just be sure to bring along a valid I.D.

Steroids In Supplements

Published in the Desert Valley Times
August 5, 2005

Baltimore Oriole baseball star Rafael Palmeiro recently tested positive for steroids, and was given the standard 10-day vacation by major league baseball.
Back in March, Palmeiro told a congressional committee that he had never, ever used steroids.
This week, he had to amend that statement, invoking the new word "intentionally."
As cop-outs go, I kind of like that one.
It's like the 21st century version of Flip Wilson's catch phrase "the devil made me do it."
It lets you off the hook by suggesting it's not your fault, no matter the crime.
By using the word "intentionally," Palmeiro is intimating that there must have been some steroids in something he ingested.
He doesn't come out and say what that might have been, but believe me, I can empathize.
I mean, how many times have we all gathered around the dinner table and "unintentionally" wolfed down a half-dozen ears of corn, only to find out later that we have tested positive for steroids?
I'm sure it happens all the time.
Poor Palmy could have picked up that dose of steroids in anything.
Maybe he was drinking from a water fountain after somebody else who had steroids in their system.
Or it could have been one of those non-kosher hot dogs.
They put just about anything in frankfurters these days, so it's not beyond possibility that Palmy was contaminated by a couple of dogs at the ball park.
Perhaps the Orioles star picked up a "contact" positive by being in the room where someone else was doing steroids.
And of course you can't rule out fast food.
Maybe steroids is part of that "secret sauce" we keep hearing so much about.
Unlike some of the brainless rookies coming out of the high school ranks, who frequently claim they didn't know they were injecting steroids into their thighs in spite of the fact that "STEROIDS" was marked in large letters on the bottle, a long-time pro like Palmy would know better.
That's why it has to be something he inadvertently took that caused the positive test.
Major League Baseball needs to do more research.
I would recommend they start by running some of those sunflower seeds through the gas-chromatograph spectrometer.
Connect the dots.
Lots of baseball players eat sunflower seeds.
Lots of positive steroids tests come from baseball players.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
Or maybe there's more in that bottle of Gatorade then we realized.
Some have wrongfully suggested there might be a trace of steroids in some of the muscle density drinks and supplement shakes athletes often use.
Just because some people might believe that ingesting artificial substances for the purpose of causing unnatural muscle growth could be considered cheating doesn't mean that steroids are involved.
There are lots of things other than steroids that cause such rapid and explosive muscle enhancement.
There'summmthere's
Spinach!
That's it!
Check Palmy's recent diet.
I'm sure he wasn't taking those over-the-counter cheating products.
It has to be spinach.
Take a look at an old Popeye cartoon, those bulging forearms, then get a glance of Palmy's hammers.
Do you see a resemblance?
Unfortunately, the similarity ends there.
While Palmeiro continues to insist that, no, nope, huh-uh, he's not a cheater, never has been, is just a victim of circumstances, at least you could count on Popeye to be honest in his post-game interviews.
Palmy should give it a try the next time he appears before congress to be asked if he's a juicer:
"I yam what I yam."

Shuttle Advice

Published in the Desert Valley Times
August 2, 2005

The space shuttle Discovery finally launched last week after being in the garage for the last two years.

Apparently, the mechanics over at NASA aren’t that hot, since they weren’t able to definitively solve the issue of a balky number-three fuel sensor, and they have discovered since lift-off that a few parts fell off the vehicle during launch.

I once had a 1974 Ford Pinto, so I can relate.

Like Discovery, my Pinto had a bad fuel gauge.

I’m sure the eggheads at NASA tried the "tap on it with a pair of pliers" trick, which usually did it for my car.

And like the shuttle, I occasionally had parts falling off my Pinto, usually pretty innocuous things like mufflers and drive shafts.

But it’s what you expect from a vehicle that’s over 20 years old.

I don’t know why NASA has that surprised look on their face when they light the candle on a bird that was built in 1983, and stuff starts going wrong.

Think about it…any of you still driving a car that old which DOESN’T have malfunctions and missing pieces?

And we’re talking about a shuttle design that was developed in the 1970s, back when advanced propulsion systems consisted of an Acme rocket strapped to a coyote.

I used to drive an older car that had over 100,000 miles on it.

Occasionally, there would be something leaking out of it that might have been oil, or could have been liquid hydrogen.

So it shouldn’t come as any great shock to NASA that their vehicle, which has a couple of million miles on its odometer, might have a few rattles under its hood and a few rips in its upholstery.

As a devoted American and Patriot, I’m now going to offer a few suggestions to the boys and girls in Cape Canaveral about proper repair and maintenance techniques for 20-year-old vehicles, free of charge.

(Are you getting the irony here? A forty-something humor writer is going to give tips to rocket scientists? My mother would be so proud!)

First, let me say two words:

Duct tape (also known as "duck tape").

You have insulation coming off your exterior tank?

Duck it!

The duct tape would also work great for those pesky heat tiles that keep falling off.

And if you can’t find the electrical short in the fuel sensor, there’s always electrical tape.

Let me give you step-by-step instructions on how to fix it.

1. Cut about an inch and a half of the black electrical tape off the roll.

2. Carefully take the strip of tape into the command module

3. Place the tape over the red "Fuel Level Low" light so you can’t see it flashing anymore.

Wasn’t that easy?

I also have additional repair techniques available that involve baling wire and old coffee cans, but I’m running out of space here.

The best advice I can give is the one I employed when my Pinto got old.

Here it is:

Visit your nearest used space shuttle dealer.

Discovery is past its prime.

It’s time to trade her in.

Take the fuzzy dice off the rear view mirror and peel that "Aerosmith" sticker off the left wing.

We’re talking about the safety of seven brave souls and the pride of a nation here.

We can do better than the space-bound equivalent of a 1974 Ford Pinto.

(Although I must admit, I still miss those mag wheels.)

If you can’t find a used shuttle dealer, simply drag Discovery over here and leave it parked on the street overnight in one of the seedier neighborhoods of Las Vegas.

I’m sure Uncle Sam has insurance.

Let the "Good Hands" people buy you a new one.

The bottom line is that it’s time to pull Discovery out of rotation.

And for the next shuttle, could we see something in a metal-flake blue with spinners?

Beautiful Music

We’ve been condemned to mediocrity by our zeal for perfection.
That’s my official ruling on music, particularly country music.
First the disclaimer.
Once upon a time, I was a small-time country singer working the club circuit, first in northeastern Maryland then in southwestern Florida.
I was a decent singer, but my Achilles heel was actually a size-48 waistline.
If you closed your eyes and listened, I could be your dream guy.
Open your eyes, and even through the Budweiser-filtered smoke-filled haze, I would be your nightmare.
But once upon a time, the way you looked didn’t matter.
Go back and revisit some of the biggest country and even rock stars of the sixties and seventies.
Ever see a picture of Janis Joplin?
Sorry, that was one ugly female.
But man, she could sing!
Merle Haggard, one of the biggest names in country music, was never a very pretty man.
Rumor has it that NASA refused to use his face in ads for the Apollo program because it had more craters than the moon.
(Okay, I just made that rumor up, but you have to admit it’s funny, and pretty close to true.)
And Loretta Lynn, who I still love from afar to this day, could have been billed as one of the "Lee" sisters with Patsy Cline..."Ug" and "Home."
But all of these stars rose above their appearances because while they weren’t beautiful physically, they were beautiful vocally.
Fast forward to the 21st century, a musical landscape where evil record companies look at the face first, and the music second.
If you are a size two with perfect skin and noticeable boobs, you have a place in Nashville society.
It doesn’t matter if you can sing, that’s what studio engineers are for (who are usually the ugly ducklings who had the talent but not the looks to be on the other side of the studio glass).
The same applies to male stars.
Think about it.
The last ugly singer to make it big was Garth Brooks, and I’ve been told by some women that even he has some puppy-dog cuteness that gets him by.
Today’s country music lineup is filled by women like Shania Twain and Faith Hill (who, while actually being a truly talented singer, still owes a sizeable portion of her fame to her sizeably portioned “hills”).
The only “fly” in the ointment of my position is a real former barfly, Gretchen Wilson.
She’s like the antidote to an overdose of Erika Jo and Deanna Carter.
But the fact remains, lesser talent is making it onto the music scene simply because pretty faces equate to more airtime on CMT.
The trend isn’t quite as prevalent in pop and hip-hop music, where a cool name like Linkin Park or Eminem or Hoobastank is more important than talent, but it’s still tough to find an ugly single artist.
“Li’l Kim” is the poster child for this hypothesis, since she has absolutely zero musical talent, but consistently makes the top ten because she has nice boobs and isn’t afraid to show ‘em.
To anyone.
To everyone.
At any time.
Today’s truth is that singers who would score no better than a seven at a local talent show are signing million dollar contracts because they score a perfect ten on the beauty-meter.
When it comes to Miss America pageants, I’m okay with that.
But when it comes to the sounds coming out of my radio speaker, I’d rather hear an ugly woman like Patsy Cline crooning about a life of struggle than a synthesized beauty like Miranda Lambert singing about heartache she’s never known.