Be afraid I am having a dinner party

I am hosting a dinner party tonight. Let me repeat, I am hosting a dinner party tonight. I can't cook, my house is a mess, and I entertain rarely. Is disaster imminent? I hope not.

Why am I hosting a dinner party given that being a host is not one of my strengths? The answer is quite simple. As a member of a church, I belong to a group that do supper once a month. The group divides up and six people have dinner on a weekend at someone's house. I have been to a couple of these parties. People have opened their houses to me. People have fed me. Now it is my turn.

I am okay with that and gladly accept my social responsibility. But noble intentions are the paving stones of the road to perdition and that would give even the most pompous fool a moment's pause. What I am having trouble accepting is how unsuited I am to do this particular task. I live alone and I enjoy living alone. When I bought my house, I thought it was an excellent idea, better than living in an apartment because in this case, the landlord is a jerk who doesn't fix anything and the tenant is a slob, who is well on his way to starring in the reality show Hoarders. Since I am both tenant and landlord I get along fine with me.

But tonight I'll open my house to a group of people who have no idea regarding the disorder of my private life. I am a terrible cook, which means I am an okay bachelor cook. Most of the things I eat are fresh fruits, vegetables, the all-to-frequent microwaved baked potato or chicken pot pie, and chicken or fish that is broiled or seared until they reach leathery toughness. Does that mean I am a terrible cook. No! I can say for a fact that no one has ever lived to complain about my cooking. Conceptually a dinner cooked by me is like an airline flight. Every one of my meals that you walk away from is a "good" meal.

But my guest have nothing to fear. They are bringing the salad, dessert, and garlic bread. I am serving lasagne. Once, long ago in the past, when I was married I may have actually learned how to make lasagna. But now that I am divorced, what simple cooking skills I once possessed have gone the way of other lost skills, such as being able to answer the question about fat women in bathing suits or proper foot massage technique. So the meat lasagna is being purchased from Caesar's Italian Delicatessen in Bakersfield. The meatless lasagna is coming from the frozen food case of Albertson's. So as long as everything is heated thoroughly everything will be fine.

But being a bachelor means that I didn't have enough plates and bowls for my guests. When I got divorced, the ex got the house, the car and all the kitchen stuff. So I went to Wal-mart and bought a 4-piece place setting to go with the plastic lawn chair and folding card table that constituted most of the furniture of my apartment. Not wanting my guest to eat off paper plates, I decided to go to Target and buy dinner ware for eight people. That also included place matts and napkins. I've stayed true to myself in the sense that nothing matches, but at least there's enough to ensure that all my guests have something to eat off of. What was really great was that it reminded of the joys of shopping in preparation of a divorce. But it was better there were no lawyers or ex spouses to deal with.

All that remains to do is pick up and clean the house prior to guests arriving. But that is an Augean labor that would give Heracles a moment's pause. It will require me pickup all the crap, mostly paper, and shove it into plastic bags and hide in a spare bedroom until they can be sorted, shredded, recycled or saved. Don't hold your breath. The carpet will have to covered with somekind of smelly cleaning stuff and vacuumed the kitchen and bathroom floors mopped. I should also replace the cracked toilet seat in my main bathroom, but I don't think that is going to happen.

But it's worth it, I guess. Every person needs to be part of a community. All I can hope is that when I open my house, my guests will notice that I am opening my heart as well. If that is the case they hopefully they will ignore the chaos of my solitary life, have an evening of good food and fellowship, and walk away from the dinner. Well that pretty much sums it up. Walk away from the dinner without worrying about being poisoned.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Be afraid I am having a dinner party copyright March 19th 2011 by Jamie Jacks.

Photo credit National Cancer Institute Len Rizzi Photographer retrieved 3/19/2011 from http://visualsonline.cancer.gov/details.cfm?imageid=2547

Random Thoughts March 15, 2011

Rep. Michele Bachmann's gaffe hear 'round the world

There's been a lot of chortling regarding Minnesota Congresswoman (Tea-Liban 6th District) Michele Bachmann's recent gaffe about Revolutionary War geography while in New Hampshire. Representative Bachmann told an adoring crowd,

"Before headlining a GOP fundraiser, the possible presidential hopeful told a group of students and conservative activists in Manchester, 'You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord.'" according to the Huffington Post. Which was an unfortunate mistake to make if she has presidential delusions.

I wanted to say something biting like the deranged Roman Emperor Gaius Caligula once appointed a racehorse to the Roman Senate and the people of Minnesota's 6th Congressional District have elected Michele Bachmann to Congress. (notice how I snuck it in here).

But before I did that I read Rep. Bachmann's biography in Wikipedia. She has a law degrees from Oral Roberts University and William and Mary. She was a tax lawyer for the IRS. She's intelligent.

Which means I have a hard time explaining many of her bizarre policy positions and statements. The Economist once called George W. Bush, "intellectually incurious." I wonder if Rep. Bachmann has this defect as well. She has found an ideological niche and is now comfortably ensconced in it. Many of her political beliefs and positions all no room for compromise. It seems that her political success depends in part on not compromising.

When my back was to the wall, comedically speaking

Saturday night, I did my first comedy monologue. It was for a pledge drive dinner for the Unitarian/Universalist Fellowship of Kern County. The last time I tried to do stand up comedy was over 30 years ago.

It was not an auspicious debut. It was an open mic night a bar called The Levee at 43rd and Main. I got up on stage and tried to do something crazy, like kicking a chair and acting strange. I didn't last long. As my friend Stepbuddy Anderson later wrote, "I had a chance and blew it."

This time was better and different. I actually wrote out my jokes beforehand. What was surprising was how easy I thought that was. After I finished creating my monologue, I was suspicious about how easy it was. But in way it was easy. I am a storyteller, I tell stories. I also know that if I make jokes about myself, I have an endless supply of funny stories and my jokes won't hurt anybody.

It went okay. But I was nervous and rushed my delivery. Which means I need to practice and I need to start creating an archive of funny stuff.

Phrases I liked today

One of the things that has just been archived, is the phrase"counterfactual deficits." Sorta know what it means,

Found a definition for counterfactuals, "Counterfactuals are mental representations of alternatives to past events. Recent research has shown them to be important for other cognitive processes, such as planning, causal reasoning, problem solving, and decision making—all processes independently linked to the frontal lobes. "


Sounds like something I should suffer from. Also came accross the phrase, "sarcasm perception." Psychologist are doing research on counterfactual deficits and sarcasm perception. I don't intend to read any of that research but I do like the phrases.


Capitano Tedeschi

30

Random Thoughts March 15, 2011 copyright March 15, 2011 by Jamie Jacks.
Michele Bachmann official photo, (government document in the public domain) source:

http://bachmann.house.gov/Biography/OfficialPhoto.htm

The Devil dances live from Cairo

The whole world is rupturing.
We see it unfolding on the nightly news.
Pundits like Jeremiahs tell us of
disasters now unnatural.

The floods now are from rivers of people
not water.
The explosions of are not of coal seam methane
but of human rage pent up
not in the tunnels underground
but in ancient alleys of distant streets.

We are witnesses thanks to
the uses and gratifications of social media.
But this new technology fills us with
a sense of fear
not feelings of transcendence.

We see the collapse of alliances and long-time allies,
while angry masses in their thousands demand
Bread, justice and peace.
And meanwhile they hurl epthitets on the nightly news
we know they are hurling monkey wrenches
into the delicate cogs and gears of the American
Imperial machine.

Now we know the Devil dances
live from Cairo
over wi-fi now.
Destroying in a moment our democratic
mythologies and conciets.

The demonstrators in the Muslim streets
delicate as dancers whose dancing shatters
our sunny sky with future filled with
higher food prices and
predictions of $5 a gallon gasoline.

We witness a reclamation of indigenous rights
and realize that
we stand on the floor of canyon
where black gray skies threaten inundation
and not just rain.

An inundation that drowns our world
while creating a new world
beyond reason and brighter than
the rainbow.

A dawn of a new era
in which we participate
but do not wish
to see.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

The Devil dances live from Cairo copyright by Jamie Jacks 18 February 2011

Photograph from the U.S. Department of Defense. Source: http://www.defense.gov/dodcmsshare/newsphoto/2011-02/hires_110204-M-8012P-076.jpg. In the public domain.

Gerry Rafferty? No Al Stewart.

On January 4th, 2011, Scottish folk singer Gerry Rafferty died. His song Baker Street, was an iconic rock ballad of the 1970s. But as I was reading Rafferty's obituary and feeling somewhat saddened that his life had been devastated by alcoholism and depression, I was trying to remember the lyrics of another song, that I thought that Rafferty had also written.

It was about a Russian soldier who fought the German's in World War II. So I did a search on You Tube and found out it was not a Gerry Rafferty song, but a song written by another Scottish singer Al Stewart, who is very much alive. Al Stewart song Year of the Cat came out in 1976 and Rafferty's hit song Baker Street came out in 1978. So they would have been playing on F.M. radio about the same time.

The song I was thinking of was Roads to Moscow. Which tells the story Russian soldier who fights the Germans from the start Hitler's invasion of Russia to the conquest of Berlin. War over he expects to go home but,

I'll never know, I'll never know
Why I was taken from the line and all the others
To board a special train and journey deep into the heart of holy Russia
And it's cold and damp in the transit camp, and the air is still and sullen
And the pale sun of October whispers the snow will soon be coming
And I wonder when I'll be home again and the morning answers "Never"
And the evening sighs and the steely Russian skies go on forever

source: http://www.answers.com/topic/roads-to-moscow

Stewart writes beautiful music. He also enjoys writing songs about history. That makes for interesting music. It also pretty much guarantees that many of his songs won't be played on MTV or what passes for FM rock radio. One of my current favorites of his is Hanno the Navigator, about the Carthaginian admiral who first explored the coasts of Africa. The lyrics are beautiful and playful at the same time.

It's a good day
for going to sea
Hanno the Navigator said to me.
There's an open sky and a steady breeze
out beyond the Pillars of Hercules.
Above the foam-kissed waves seagulls scream
up in the masts of our trireme
and it's a good day
for going to sea
Hanno the Navigator said to me.

source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ7RD7ebZUA

Gerry Rafferty is gone and that's sad, but in researching his life and trying to remember his music, I was able to find another artist, Al Stewart whose music I enjoyed when it came out some 30 plus years ago. The other great thing is that Al Stewart will be playing here Bakersfield on April 16th. Count on it, I intend to buy tickets.

Capitano Tedeschi.

30

Picture of Gerry Rafferty by Eddie Mallin,(6 September 1980) retrieved from Wikipedia on 16 Feb. 2011. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gerry_Rafferty.jpg and used in accordance with permission granted by Creative Commons.

Gerry Rafferty, No Al Stewart copyright 16 February 2011 by Jamie Jacks

The cult of the dead God--Ronald Reagan

source: http://reaganboner.tumblr.com/page/4

Ronald Reagan the president, well I'm not a fan but he was probably a better president than I give him credit for. Sadly, Ronald Reagan, the president, has become the god of what I call, The Cult of Ronald Reagan. It is the Cult of Ronald Reagan I despise. Its is tenants are no longer effective and it's principal priests are debased and false.

What tenants you ask? Well the idea that Reagan advanced that Government is not the solution, government is problem.

Many of the cult's followers no longer engage in debate, refuse to compromise and rigidly adhere to creeds and dogmas that currently have no relevance in a rapidly changing world.

For nearly 22 years, the Cult of Ronald Reagan has exerted its baleful influence on American public life. Our republic is on the edge of bankruptcy and economic demise to the misguided pursuit of pseudo-Reaganistic policies by Bill Clinton and the two Bushes. Now as the country is slowly recovering from these policies, it is members of the Cult of Ronald Reagan have regained control of the House of Representatives. Now in power, they threaten to destroy the country's fragile economic policies that demand tax cuts for the rich while destroying what remains of the nation's social safety net.

What I find really amusing is the idea that Ronald Reagan might not be able to win elective office in what passes for today's Tea or Republican parties. As Alex Massie notes in his blog,

"For a long while and certainly at the time he was in office Reagan was an under-rated President; today he's in danger of being over-rated. The problem with the Cult of Reagan is not Reagan, but the impact membership has on the believers. He was more flexible than his admirers today sometimes acknowledge. Few of today's Republicans would, one supposes, endorse Reagan's tax-raising 1982 budget. Nor, one suspects, would today's nationalists approve of his decision to talk to the Soviets (indeed, at the time there were some who whispered that Reagan was "soft on Communism".) Nor, for that matter, could a Republican with national aspirations today endorse Reagan's liberal approach to immigration issues.

"Indeed, it's not clear a less gifted communicator armed with Reagan's actual beliefs could really win the Republican Presidential nomination today. And that's fine! Times change and so do parties. What was appropriate for the early 1980s isn't necessarily appropriate now. Reagan should no more be held as a template for modern Republicanism than Churchill should for the Tory party. (Mind you, the Cult of Churchill is also stronger in the United States than it is in Britain.) But nor should an imaginary Reaganism hold sway over, or demand unthinking fealty, from today's conservatives."

source: http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/6677674/the-cult-of-reagan-president-of-all-our-hearts.thtml

I agree with Alex Massie. Like I said I am not a fan of the Reagan Administration. Ronald Reagan, the Dead God of the corrupt Cult of Ronald Reagan, well he's just a figment of some people's imagination and not a real man at all.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

The cult of the dead God-Ronald Reagan copyright Feb. 10, 2011 by Jamie Jacks

Tule Fog

The last of the day is hazy,
but there was some sun and some warmth.
night becomes gray with fog

I drive into the evening
attempting to perform and gain certainty
from the rituals of my daily life
Headlight beams distorted
Distance disappears when landmarks
are swathed in vapor

I try to come to terms with
a new year
I feel late like I'm
26 days behind the rest of the world
Lost, groping cautiously
Propelling myself in to a future
I cannot see my way clearly

The night is cold,
All the world seems besieged
What once was known no longer has meaning
I’m up late pondering the nature
The nature of all manner of darkness.

Capitano Tedeschi

Tule fog copyright Jan. 27, 2011 by Jamie Jacks

Luis Aragon carved simple santos by hand

Not everyone knows
the nature of the carving
the mind sees,
the point of the knife
sharp and inquisitive
the blade
shaving away the false
leaving only the truth.

Every man is part of the holy trinity
of Land, Flesh and God.
Crops rise from sandy soil
children and goats romp
in the simple circle of the corral.

At night, while the woman slept and
the dog snored at the threshold
It was by lamplight pale yellow like
the glow from the gates of heaven
that the carving was done.
It was then that you searched for God
through the transubstantiation of
mesquite wood.
Without knowing how,
You'd see Saint John
in a piece of mesquite.
by your knife,
Saint John would be freed
from the wood
his body inverted trapezoids
of faith that was harder than flesh
his face a grainy vision of righteous anger.

In the morning,
Saint John would have gone
given to some stranger from Santa Fe,
who had stopped to ask for directions.
The Saint no longer belonging to you,
but to God.

All your days were spent this way.
Wrestling a living from the harsh,
uncompromising earth.
Watching the flocks and grandchildren grow
and in the evening
the mad passion of your hands
recreating the bible
in scrap pieces lumber.
Until that final day, when you
fell like a wood chip
to the hard earthen floor.

You are gone now.
St. John is a prisoner
standing on display
in a plexiglass case
owned by a museum that never
gives anything away.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Luis Aragon carved simple santos by hand copyright Sept. 15, 2010 by Jamie Jacks