Why I won't dye my hair

I've been trying to figure out what I could possible contribute to this blog, that would be a bit different than what Michael has been covering. As he so kindly pointed out, I have some knowledge in the environmental end of things, so that seems like a good place to start. But where? To say that there are any number of topics that could be talked about for years (like, for a PhD dissertation, or to change the world via a Nobel Peace Prize) would be stating the obvious. So, I've decide to try a different angle. What could be more concrete, more personal, more mundane (and even "everyday") than explaining why I won't wash the the gray right out of my hair?

Contrary to popular family myth, I'm not doing this just to annoy my mom. Although, frankly, that wouldn't be a bad guess. I do have a son who proclaims allegiance to the Yankees, of all teams, and I'm just about 100% positive he does it to be contrary. So, that gene runs strong in us. No, I won't dye my hair because I believe it would be hypocritical.

A brief rundown. Many years ago, I realized that I wanted to make some kind of difference in my professional work by focusing on the environment. For me, that hasn't meant working for an advocacy organization or another more "typical" route. It's been focusing much more on what is really going on and what can be done about it. My first job involved cleaning up contaminated sites. Sounds more interesting than it really was, as far as I was concerned. As everyone who knows me is aware, I'm not big into cleaning. I wanted to cut off this contamination at the pass -- prevent it from happening. How to do that effectively? How do you know what you've prevented? How do you really measure the impact of having something NOT happen? I'm still working on that. But, as I've gotten involved in more projects and other lines of work, I've tried to take what I've learned and applied it to my personal life. Like changing over to compact fluorescent bulbs while we still lived in Providence and carting them across the country and back again with us since they still worked. Like buying the most fuel efficient car we could afford. Like trying to have car-free days since I live in a small city with lots of things in walking distance and a pretty good bus system. Which leads me to my hair.

I have the good fortune of having the Irish genes (as I like to think of them) that make me appreciate a good story, love a good laugh, and makes my hair go gray early. I have a fair amount of "natural highlighting" at this point, and most women about to enter their 20-20's would be well into dyeing by now. But I won't, and here's why:

1. I can't be bothered to do much of anything with my hair.
2. I've only been asked once if my daugher was my grandaughter and I survived that with only a small amount of scarring.
3. Most importantly: I've spent my entire adult life trying to reduce the use of chemicals and pollution, and I cannot in any way, shape or form bring myself to add more to the environment (not to mention ask others to expose themselves for my benefit) just to look younger -- or even "my age."
   

Think this is an overreaction? Maybe. And I'll concede that there is still some debate about the risks (here and here -- just two examples). Having said all that, it still goes against all that I'm trying to do: minimize the use of non-renewable resources in my everyday life.

In a world...

Has your profession invaded your personal life?

One More Reason for Clinton to Leave

The sooner she's out, the sooner John Cleese is in. I told you he was the satirist's candidate. Meanwhile, her candidacy has seen better days:

Hope For Us All

For a Mets fan in Boston, the native inhabitants of the Red Sox Nation were always a little bit scary. When I was at B.U., The Curse was alive and well and the crowds at Fenway were still capable of mood swings so violent they made Norman Bates look like Norman Rockwell.

Yesterday's flawless champ could be tomorrow's charmless bum. Even worse, sometimes "yesterday" meant "last inning" and "tomorrow" meant "did-you-see-that-fuckah-drop-the-bahl? right now." Now, I don't know how much the atmosphere there has changed since they finally managed to assuage the Bambino (twice), but there are good portents.

Bill Buckner got a hero's welcome yesterday. I was only seven when the fateful play occurred - and the Mets winning the '86 Series was a formative experience for my fandom - but I still say that Buckner got a raw deal. One night a Boston poet named Jack McCarthy did a reading at school at the behest of Liz Jones. I still love his poem about Buckner. I've read it in previous years to macho senior boys who were, shall we say, skeptical about the merits of poetry. And though I doubt they're now knee-deep in sonnets and haikus, they like Jack McCarthy, which means they have a little taste. It won't be as good if you can't hear him read it, but I'm going to post it anyway:


THE WALK OF LIFE


You weren't here that long
near the end of a career
that wasn't quite Hall of Fame.
We knew you through the box scores
and the car radio.

And I remember as that fateful season neared its end
almost hearing tears in the announcer's voice
as he tried to describe the sight of you
careering around second on your two
terribly damaged legs
stretching a double into a triple.
"Gallant" was the word he used
and gallant is how I remember you.

But we live in a time
when Nike erects a billboard
in sight of the Olympic athletes:
"You Don't Win Silver,
You Lose Gold,"
and so it is that some remember only
the nightmare tenth inning of Game Six
the big bouncing grounder
that found its way
between those gallant legs, condemning you
to the underworld of those who made it to
within a whisker of the top,
who beat all the competition

except one.
The inmost circle of that underworld's reserved
for the Fred Merkles, and Roy Reigelses
Denny Galehouses, and Mike Dukakises
for those second-place finishers
destined to be remembered particularly
for their hammartia
that one error in judgment
the base untouched
the photo-op in the tank

Oh, Billy Buck,
why did it have to happen to you?

I once saw a music video
that began with a long string of clips
of athletes looking foolish-
stone-fingered tight end
juggles ball five times
before linebacker demolishes him
and ball drops harmless out of bounds;
runner trips over second base as though
surprised that it was there;
tall Caucasian butchers slam dunk,
comes away bleeding.
Then suddenly it changes-
wide receiver soars in the end zone
gets one hand on the ball
but it sticks
and he cradles it to his belly
surrendering his body to the furious crash
of the cornerback he just burned
in a moment of such violent airborne beauty
such conspicuous gallantry
that you thank God videotape exists
and you pray that long after we've destroyed ourselves
aliens will land and find this tape
and wonder at the mad grace
of such a race.
And the soundtrack sings
"You do the walk,
you do the walk of li-hi-hife..."

I was surrounded by children
when I saw that video
my daughters and their cousins
and like someone suddenly filled with the spirit
I stood up and began to preach
the brilliance of what they were watching:
that if you want to achieve
anything spectacular in life
you have to risk humiliation
and this one time they all listened to me
fascinated like...
pigeons in Assisi.

And I can still see you
standing stiff and tall,
the ball bouncing toward you big and slow
and I know you're thinking,
"Thank God, at least we're out of the inning,"
but then it's a little too slow
and the batter is tearassing down the line toward you
faster than anyone named Mookie has a right to move

so you reach deep into
the gallant center of your soul
and you will the ball to get there
a little quicker
because now it has to
and there is one tired instant in there
when you believe that you can do this,
that you can will the ball there-
it's believing in yourself too much...

[long sigh]

I guess what bothers me most is our dishonesty.
We know this happens to a thousand people
one way or another every hour of every day.
But we can't live with that knowledge.
So we joke, we say,
"Like Bill Buckner, ho ho ho"
fostering the pretense we're too good
for this too happen to us
when what is spectacularly obvious
is we're not even close to being good enough
ever to be exposed to anything this bad
our errors go unnoticed
because we go unnoticed
and we like it that way....

If we were honest, your name would be spoken
only after the lights were out
and then only between two persons
who had achieved the deepest intimacy
who knew that they could turn to one another
in the darkness
when the fear was on them
one of them might gently brush
the shoulder of the other
and the other one might
swim up from the depths of sleep and whisper
"What is it, my darling?"
and the one might sigh,
"Bill Buckner,"
and the other might
caress the one and whisper

"Shhh. It's all right.
Sleep will come,
when you're not looking.
Morning will come, and breakfast,
and things that should be easy
will be easy once more.
It's the Walk of Life.
You've walked it before
and you will walk it again.
Shhh now beloved."

It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes the O-Train to Be Wry

I make my pilgrimage a week from tomorrow. After Hillary phoned in an interview with Jon Stewart prior to Texas/Ohio (Part 1 here, Part 2 here), I don't think my dream of seeing Obama make a cameo is all that impossible. It's probably too much to hope that he sit down and go tête-à-tête, in front of Pennsylvania and the whole world, with Stephen "The Nailer" Colbert. Still, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. My brain tells me "no." My gut tells me "maybe." Obama is, after all, the satirist's candidate:

The impossible dream, of course, is that Barack Obama might someday appear opposite Stephen Colbert, who, via his know-it-all know-nothing character, engages in true, niche-market satire... Obama has already engaged Colbert on his own terms, publicly sending the host a letter on the eve of his delivering a commencement address at Illinois' Knox College. "Don't forget to bring the Truth," Obama wrote. "I'd recommend putting it in your carry-on bag rather than in your checked luggage. O'Hare Airport is notoriously unreliable." The letter is droll, the tone poker-faced. At one point, Obama refers to his constituents as germy ("a few words of advice ... use hand sanitizer") in a way that subtly acknowledges the disgust that all politicians must feel, at some level, for the public. It's very funny, and you can't do that on television.

How Will It Play on the Coasts?

Early drafts of Oliver Stone's biopic on George W. Bush are meandering their way throughout the internet. Slate's take here. They're going to dramatize the pretzel-choking incident. Sounds dull. But then why should we expect the life of the current president to make for good drama? If there were a way to stage the human cost of his presidency - maybe an asynchronous, seven-continent romp displaying the impact of incompetence and bravado in power, we could get the screenwriter from Babel on board - that might be moving.

But his life? Weak tragicomedy, at best. Like a Farrelly Bros. vehicle: one not-so-great joke, over and over, until finishing the movie becomes your own personal quagmire, typified by the obligation you feel to your former self and the time you lost by going into the theater in the first place.

I almost wish he'd go all Oliver Stone on it, using anecdotal evidence as the germ for fantastic reenactments of Dubya's Dastardly Deeds. The crazier, the more impossibly paranoid, the better. We don't really need dirt-digging right now. We need some escapism. We need some fresh air. We need some new ideas. We need to get clean. And waking up from the Black Sleep of Kali that was this past seven years is the first step.

The idea of a Bush movie did remind me of the SNL gag from years ago when they made a fake commercial for "Philadelphia" action figures. If you get the notion to play "W," you could always conscript your other toys to fill the roles. Some possible stand-ins:

• George W. Bush = Curious George, Buzz Lightyear, any specimen from Bratz
• Dick Cheney = The Pit of Sarlacc
• Donald Rumsfeld = Skeletor
• Barbara Bush = Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (now with fire-breathing action!)

Your suggestions?

TBKF R.S.V.P.

Though it's been a light week in terms of posting, much has changed with respect to the blog. First, for those of you who read your email (hint: if you're reading this, you do), This Blog Kills Fascists / The Daily Exorcise / The Blog So Nice, They Named it Thrice is now by invitation only.

We're very exclusive, you know. 18% gratuity included. Replace all divots. Do try not to piss in the fountain.



As my friend Richard explained to me, after declining to write a guest-post because he's too busy LEARNING JAZZ BASS GUITAR (see what I mean about friends doing cool things?), he simply wouldn't write for any blog that would have him as a member. He was paraphrasing Groucho Marx and he was kidding. I think.

The goal of going private was expediency, not exclusivity. If anything, I am glad to have a place to dump my thoughts and gladder yet to occasionally get feedback on them. I certainly don't pretend that my posts are pleasing any one more than me. It has been good to get things off my chest. And, by that measure, the blog has already been a much bigger success than I expected. If it made any of you laugh or think or productively angry, then, well, that's gravy. More than I hoped for when I began it.

Speaking of the blog's conception, a few people have commented to me on its name. If you haven't been able to tell by the various images that adorn the layout, it is a reference to a slogan that the late great Woody Guthrie used to write on his guitar. He was a complicated man who wrote what Pete Seeger called "deceptively simple" songs. He was also America's first punk rocker. And lots of other things. And lots of other things.

"But," you might be saying out loud to your computer screen, "isn't the title a little hard-core for a blog that has posted not once - but twice - on Celine Dion?"

To which I will respond by saying, "Good question. Yes, now that you mention it, the blog's name does seem a little inappropriate, given the content and style of the writing."

YOU: "And the new logo graphic! This from the guy whose idea of 'edgy' is a Muppets mash-up of a Rick Astley song?"

I: "Ok, ok, you're kinda piling it on now, but I get the message. I'm not 'underground.' But, it's not like I shop at The Gap while wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt made in Indonesia."

YOU: "Comparing yourself to other poseurs only puts you on the poseur scale, dude. And it's a slippery scale, if you know what I'm saying. Not to mention the fact that any argument you could possibly make is lost before it's made, thus spaketh Godwin and Godwin's word is Law!"

I: "That's all well and good, but the title AND the logo are staying. And here's why. I like them. Maybe someday my blog will stave off a totalitarian regime, maybe not. But for now it has a sense of humor. And fascists don't have a sense of humor. That's what makes them fascists. They're always blathering on and on about right angles & purity & the submission of individual rights to the needs of the state. Bor-ing! Furthermore, Richard (you may remember him from such paragraphs as "the third"), who is learning JAZZ BASS GUITAR, told me that the name of my blog "kicks so much ass." Stay with me on this. Jazz invented the word "cool." Who is the coolest member of any music group? The bass player. Richard = Bass + Jazz. Richard is unimpeachably cool. And he strongly endorses the blog name. Therefore, according to the Transitive Property of Jazz Bass, my blog name is cool."

For further proof of my street cred and my thesis, check out this indie cartoon:

Full disclosure: that exact comic used to hang on my brother's bulletin board. So, that's not original either.

Stephen Colbert Cured My Sciatica

It will come as no shock to Stephen that the Colbert Bump is very real. However, it might break his heart to learn that Republicans appearing on his show reap no discernible reward. Democrats are the sole beneficiaries. He'd probably counter the evidence by editing Wikipedia to say the opposite or else note, simply, that of course it doesn't help Republicans: what could you give the politicians who already have it all?

For my own part, I anticipate enjoying some tangible, positive effects for attending the show's taping on April 17th. No doubt my students' test scores will go up, my butt will have grown re-accustomed to my bike seat over night, and I'll be better looking to boot.

Incidentally, The Daily Show was particularly weak on Thursday. I know that much of their success depends on the source material, but Colbert has now, in my opinion, eclipsed his predecessors. Of course, he's always been a talent in his own right. Strangers with Candy would have been vastly inferior without his influence and currently he's using his considerable coattails to elevate some of the shows over at Adult Swim, too.

Prediction: if a Democrat is elected President, The Daily Show's trembling flame - so essential during our darkest days - will flicker and possibly go out. Lack of fuel. But The Colbert Report will experience a renaissance.