Of Karma & Tea Baggers

—a news story commentary by Mercurious—

While my Buddhist leanings aren't fundamental enough to make automatically subscribe to full-blown belief in karma, it's not too hard to observe that all actions lead to consequences. In other words, while I have some trouble really believing that we reincarnate in subsequent lives on this earth, I fully believe that what we do here and now causes a reincarnation of sorts in later days.  What goes around, comes around. Leading a decent, good life may not cause you to come back in better circumstances in another life after you die, but it can be transformative in this life, right here and now.  Similarly, if you behave in mean, selfish ways, there will be some kind of payback in terms of quality of life and fortunes.

Michele Bachmann is Minnesota's own embarrassing representative of tea-party ignorance and bigotry. This is the woman who has argued that because the last swine flu epidemic came under Jimmy Carter, there was a causal relationship between disease and democrats; who believes that there are "hundreds and hundreds of scientists, including many nobel prize winners," who subscribe to intelligent design; whose family business is aimed at "curing" gay people of their transgressions against God; who believes that it is unconstitutional for the government to conduct a census.

There is no more paranoid, parochial person in politics—so much so that even writing a blog entry about her will put you on the Bachman organization's radar. Bachman comes from the Richard Nixon camp of political paranoia, clearly. My own brother, after writing a critical letter about Michele Bachmann's stance on gun control, was investigated in person by authorities at the request of the Bachmann organization.

A recent news story, though, suggests that the "what goes around comes around" adage is now starting in motion. Bachmann is now being investigated for certain legal violations that involved stealing a list of home-school families in Iowa in order to campaign direct to them before the primary last year. Now, in terms of political corruption, this is very small potatoes, indeed. Our own beloved Hubert Humphrey routinely did far more outrageous things in terms of campaign strategy. In and of itself, this is no story at all.

But now the campaign organization is holding back salary payment from staffers until they sign confidentiality agreements to prevent them from leaking details of campaign strategies and illegalities. Such is the paranoia of the organization that they fear the secretaries who are owed $900 or $1000 will sabotage Michele's fortunes by leaking details to the press.

Now, this may be wishful thinking on the part of this liberal, but I'm predicting that we are now seeing the start of a gradual fall from national prominence to widespread ridicule and disgrace for the Teabagger Queen. The district Michele represents is one of the most conservative in all Minnesota, but even they are not ignorant enough to look away when it comes to financial extortion. The only thing worse than taking away a teabagger's handgun is taking away his money.

You heard it here first: Michele Bachmann will not win another election. The karma of paranoia is beginning to ripen.

What Does Honor Mean for Geezers?

Over at The Art of Manliness, Brett has been writing a fascinating series of articles on the subject of manly honor. You can read it here.

It's striking to recognize the degree to which the Geezers of these pages practice a life of manly honor (here at Old Geezers Out to Lunch, we are nothing if not confidently aware of our virtue) , but there is still much in Brett's articles for men of all ages and predispositions to reflect on.

So here are some open-ended question for the Geezers Emeritus, as well as anyone on our mailing list and everyone who stumbles into Old Geezers Out to Lunch. Please do add your responses and observations in the comment feature at the bottom of the page.  This post will stay active so long as the conversation chain evolves.

In this time and this place, what does it mean to live with honor? If you are a geezer, how do you define it for yourself?  If you know a geezer, how do you observe honor manifesting?  Does honor mean the same today as it did 'back in the day'? Or is is it less relevant in today's world? Is there anything unique about the oft-discussed "male honor"?

12 Signs That You're Nearing the Geezer Years

Once men make peace with being middle aged, there comes a point when they begin to suspect the onset of approaching Geezerhood. To the truly conscious, it is quite evident when that occurs, but alas, few of us are really that self-awere. Never fear: Assembled by the Council of Geezers (a newly recognized organization), here are 12 signs that Geezerhood is upon you. Recognizing yourself in any one of these allows you to apply for membership in the club.

Keep going...lower....lower....

1. When an on-line account asks you to define your birth year during registration, you now need to scroll nearly to the bottom of the drop-down list to find it. Startled, you realize you were born barely 10 years after World War 2.

2. You prefer your E-book reader not because it's cool technology, but because you can set the print large enough to read without glasses.

3.  Your wife rubs her palm in the center of your back in the middle of the night not because she's feeling frisky, but because you're not snoring and she's checking to make sure you're still breathing.

4. You check your 401k account balances weekly, and you genuinely understand the concept of "equity." You actually fret over the question "Bonds or stocks?"

Robert Plant: Lead singer of Led Zeppelin,
and Geezer extraordinaire

5. The Kennedy Center Honors programs has become much hipper in recent years, obviously. Once mired in the likes of Martha Graham, Helen Hayes, and Jimmy Cagney, the program now has the great good sense to honor Springsteen, Dylan, David Letterman, and Led Zeppelin.

6. Your kids no longer treat you like stern gods, and you have also passed through the period where you're a moron;  they now interact with you like regular people.  Enjoy it: the tolerant pity phase is just down the road.

7. On cable television, the History Channel, Discovery, and the Weather Channel  are far more interesting than HBO or Showtime. You'd rather watch "Hoarders" and  "Pawn Stars" than "Breaking Bad" and "Mad Men."  Everglades pythons exploding after they swallow alligators is more intriguing than bare boobies on "Boardwalk Empire."

8. "Spam" for you will always be a suspicious canned meat from the Hormel meat company. You've given up trying to understand the other kind of spam, or why we should be scared of it.


9. Having sex on the floor no longer has any appeal whatsoever. And man-on-bottom is preferred  for a single reason: it's easy on the back.

10. When you exercise or work hard, the sweat soaking through your sweatshirt radiates out from your navel area, not your pectoral muscles. And you've now forgotten just when it was that your waist measurement began to exceed your inseam. You now understand those poor guys who cinch their trouser belts up at a point just below the armpits.

"Hey, buddy, wanna score
some primo Kava? Cocktailhour
without the hangover."

11. Rather than knowing all the different types of marijuana currently in circulation, you are now knowledgeable about the natural herbal cures for prostate trouble, high cholesterol, jet lag. You get your stash at Whole Foods, not at the northwest corner of Franklin St. & Chicago Avenue on Saturday night.

"Wasn't me. Was it you?"

12. When standing at a urinal in a public restroom, you no longer have the muscle control necessary to hold back flatulence while peeing: it's all or nothing. And you're not really very embarrassed about it.

Movies by Mercurious: January 3, 2013

This film will be highly polarizing: you will either have your socks blown off by it, or you'll be utterly disgusted. A few people may have both responses (this was true for a geezer friend of mine, who was stunned in a way that nearly caused him to walk out).

Quentin Tarantino tends to elicit this kind extreme reaction in audiences, and Django Unchained is no exception. My own view is that it's an exceptionally fine movie, but lord almighty is it shocking and brutal. I found myself averting my eyes a dozen times, even while I winced and laughed at the over-the-top humor of the thing. 

It's rather hard to discuss the movie without giving a whole lot a way and spoiling it for potential viewers, so instead I'll give some diagnostic questions to help you decide if this movie is appropriate for you:

• You are able to watch movie violence and over-ride your suspension of disbelief in a way that lets you enjoy the pure demonstration of special effects. 

• You can see potential for finding humor in a raid by a KKK lynch mob.

• You enjoyed movies like Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, Seven Psychopaths. 

If you can answer yes to at least two of these, you can probably safely see Django Unchained. 

Tarantino is so invested in shocking normal attitudes that I'm not sure he'll ever get nominated at the Golden Globe or Academy level; but if he does, this might be the movie that does it. Mrs. Mercurious, bless her soul, is great at appreciating the same kind of movies as me, and she liked this one much better than Pulp Fiction—which she loved.   A word of warning, though: it's likely a rare member of the feminine geezer club who can get ride this vehicle—it has the potential for badly sickening the faint of heart.  It might be a move best enjoyed "with the boys."  Not exactly a date movie. 

Django Unchained is blessed with some exceptionally fine supporting roles, so much so that it would be difficult to pick who might get supporting actor nods. Christopher Waltz is, if anything, even better than he was as the Nazi you loved to hate in Inglorious Basterds. Samuel L. Jackson (of Pulp Fiction fame) is also astounding. The biggest treat, though, might be Leonardo DeCaprio, who makes a villainous turn here that is exceptionally fine. There comes a moment where DeCaprio shifts from amiable evil to truly disturbing perversity in a way that will make you rethink Leo's abilities as an actor. Any one of the three is quite worthy of best supporting actor.  

I cannot think of a movie that has stuck in my head quite the way this one has. If you are really willing to challenge your soul, you might do a long double-feature matinee, seeing Spielberg's Lincoln in the early showing, then taking the electroshock treatment of Django late in the day. The close juxtaposition of the two movies will mess you up for weeks.  

These may well be the two best movies of the year, and they ostensibly deal with the same subject matter (slavery) in an historical time period only 10 years or so apart. 

And you will never see two movies that are so good, and yet so unlike one another. 

Django Unchained Geezer Quotient: 96/100

Password Overload

The IT guy at work told me the other day that, as part of the new security measures, I would need to change my log-on password to the corporate file server each and every month. And I could not reuse any previous password.

"No."  I said flatly. "That's the last straw. I can't do this any longer.  Either I keep the same password, or I'll find ways to make your life a living hell."  In reality, I can't really do much to this IT guy, other than occasionally temporarily withhold a signature he needs to buy new hardware or software. Though he doesn't know it, his power over me is far greater than mine over him. Perception is it's own reality, though, and he believes that my senior status makes me someone to be heeded.

I had just had enough. Ten years ago, or even five years, computer passwords were a breeze. I think I perhaps had one email password, and another for the corporate file server.  Not all that long ago, two passwords were plenty.

Gradually, thing proliferated, and eventually got to the point where the number of required passwords is in the dozens. I now have to keep them written down in a little cheat sheet notebook. Mind you, I don't password-protect my home personal computer or cell phone, or anything else where you have an option not to.  It's really only the essential accounts, or those where it is mandatory, where I use passwords.

Even with this minimalist approach, I counted the other day and came up with 39 various on-line accounts or memberships that require passwords for me to remember. Given that I have trouble remembering whether my most recent birthday was the 57th  or 58th , you can see the dilemma that I'm in.

A quick survey:  4 on-line banking accounts (one personal, three business accounts; 3 airline frequent flier accounts; 4 credit card accounts (three personal, one business); 3 health care accounts (one for my GP doctor, one for a specialist, and one for my flex-spending health account); 6 professional groups (mostly relating to the publishing industry); 2 investment/retirement accounts; 3 social media accounts (two personal, one professional);  5 home entertainment accounts (things like I-Tunes, Netflix, Amazon, Comcast), 3 website/blogging accounts; and a number of single accounts for things like various on-line merchants that the family uses routinely.

For awhile, it was easy, because I just used the same password over and over. But then out of spite or sadism, the accounts began to insist on diabolical variations: your password had to be at least 14 characters (or nine, or 17) in length, and it had to include an uppercase letter, and 3 numbers, and a symbol—and it couldn't use any portion of your own name.  And now it was not only a password, but you had to create a user name, as well, which had its own set of arcane requirements.

I really do imagine that there are some twisted young adults who dream this stuff up, because just when you got this part down, they started adding "security questions" to the mix. At first it was easy enough: your mother's maiden name; name of your first school. But pretty soon it wasn't a single security question, but two or three. Recently, I was faced with an account that required you to pick five different questions among a possible ten. And only two of them were slam dunks. Among the others, I had to pick from "best childhood friend," "favorite author," "job you wanted when you were growing up," and "street where you grew up."

Now, my answers to these are variable, or impossible. I had a bunch of good friends growing up, and which was the favorite varied from moment to moment: are we talking kindergarten or seventh grade?  My favorite author will depend on my mood: there are at least five that are favorites at different times. Growing up, there were times I wanted to be an author, times when I wanted to be a geologist, times when I wanted to be a doctor, not to mention the time I was set on becoming a photographer for Playboy. I didn't grow up on a street at all, but on a country road with no name at all.  So I had to pick random questions and random answers, then note them dutifully in my cheat-sheet notebook so I could retrieve them in the future.

And the coup de grace: now you are forced to interpret a couple of fuzzy photos of jumbled letters and type these in, as well, before you can pass through the gauntlet and get access to a paypal account containing $17.29, which you've been too lazy to close out. This interpretation of two fuzzy words or numbers is supposed to prevent automated computer "spammers" from sending you lots of junk mail, but the real effect is to prevent ME from getting into my own accounts.

It's all quite an indignity for a geezer. If I ever appear to vanish suddenly from the world of blogging and cyber reality, it's possible that something unfortunate has happened to me. But it's more likely I've hidden my cheat sheet containing my passwords and have forgotten where I put it.

But the IT guy did manage to make an exception for me—I'll not have to change my password monthly, or ever. The tradeoff is that he assigned me the permanent password rather than letting me choose it myself.

I'm now "GeezerJAckass123!!" for all eternity.

Geezers Get Better Gifts

—a short reverie from Mercurious—

Two weeks ago, I celebrated my 57th birthday, which was of course followed by Christmas. While many aspects of progressing through middle age aren't all that appealing, there is one that is better.

Dads who have reached the Geezer years get better gifts.

This might seem counterintuitive, as one thing I've noticed about growing older is that most of us don't want any more stuff. I spend a lot of time these days trying jettison crap from around the house, and I have a rule of thumb nothing comes into the place unless two things leave. In my old age, I've become the opposite of a hoarder. One of my heroes is my wife's grandmother, who, when she died at age 103, could pack up her entire collection of belongings in two small cardboard boxes. A very admirable thing, to lighten your load as you prepare for the final dirt nap.

So you might think that I'm a very difficult guy to shop for, since I don't really want any more stuff. It's actually quite the opposite. These days, I'm quite delighted by four relatively transient and ephemeral things: a dinner or movie out with the immediate family; kindle books (they take up no room at all, blessedly, and I can share them with the entire family); classic movies on blu-ray disk (they take up not much space at all) and a decent bottle of single-malt Scotch (which is, alas, exceedingly temporary and never lasts any time at all).

I scored a trifecta over this holiday, with a boisterous and good-humored birthday dinner out at a good pizza joint with half-price drinks, a boxed set of all the James Bond films on blu-ray, and a nice bottle of surprisingly good 14-year-old Glenrothes Scotch.

Now, I surely enjoyed birthdays in the years where the kids were younger, but it was celebrating the other birthdays in the family that was more fun than celebrating my own. The reality is that once your kids are older and your spouse has given up trying to change you, everybody has come to know your peculiarities a little better, and they rarely give you ties or sweaters that you'll never wear.  And as my kids pointed out, it was hard for them to buy Scotch when they were 8 and 12 years of age.

A peculiar paradox:  wanting less means you get more from life. Excuse me now. A wee dram of the good stuff awaits.

Les Miserable Movie Afternoon: Movies by Mercurious, December 27

Now, it must be said that I'm not a fan of musicals, either on the stage or on screen. So you may want to interpret this review with that knowledge. When The Sound of Music comes onto the tube annually, it is almost physically painful for me to watch it. Recent efforts to tolerate the  Broadway performances of Wicked and Beauty & the Beast performed by excellent touring companies at local stage theaters caused a similar reaction in me.

But there are exceptions to this rule. I was entertained greatly by The Lion King, enough to see the stage play twice; and have been pleased by other stage performances over the years—Camelot, Chorus Line, Cabaret, come to mind. On the screen, I thought Chicago was a lot of fun, and Moulin Rouge was inventive enough that I actually own a Blu-ray copy. I  thought that Rock of Ages was old- fashioned silly fun, much like Bye, Bye Birdie was in its day,  and I admired it for its lack of pretentious self-indulgence.

I had some hopes the Les Miserables might fall into the latter category of tolerable musicals, as the film trailers seemed interesting, and I have some admiration for both Hugh Jackman's range as an action-hero/song-and-dance performer, and young Ann Hathaway's talent. Having never seen a live staging of the play, I attended the film without a lot of preconceived opinions, though I was aware that the Broadway stage play tends to be either adored or loathed.

(As the classic Victor Hugo novel was an all-time favorite for me, after first reading it nearly 40 years ago, the whole idea of turning it into a musical always struck me as rather bizarre. The Nazi gas chambers and the crucifixion of Jesus seem just about as well suited for musical dramatization. I did acknowledge that the potential for Phantom of the Opera silliness was certainly inherent in this play.)

To make a long story short, Les Miz will not enter that short list of good musicals for me. Too long, amateurish lyrics on the bulk of the filler songs, too few really good showcase numbers, a silly alteration of a classic story, all add up to a fairly excruciating Christmas afternoon matinee.

To start with, the film attempted to follow the stage drama too closely, I think, and as a result did not make use of the advantages that film as a medium—to tell story through images rather than words, to imply time symbolically rather than literally, etc. This was the thing the Moulin Rouge and Chicago did so well.

I should not have been surprised, I suppose, that the producers of the film insisted on making the love story the main element of the tale. It was undoubtedly necessary to ensure commercial success, but it also doomed the film artistically.

Those who have read the novel understand that this light love story was not really a central element of the novel.  The Victor Hugo novel I so admire is really mostly about the redemptive power of correct moral choices in circumstances of pain and suffering, a message was sadly diluted by the the dreamy-eyed characters batting their lashes at one another throughout this film adaption.

A peripheral love story is present in the novel, but is quite tangential to the interior moral dilemma within the conflict between  Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert. The novel works on both a psychological level as an examination of personal redemption, and as a sociological comment on class warfare, but traditional romance isn't really a part of it at all. So naturally, the geniuses of American musical theater thought it made great sense to change one of the 10 greatest novels of all time for the benefit of the Entertainment Tonight crowd.

(And if you are going to do something so stupid, I really, really, don't understand why there can't be more genuine poetry in the text of these musicals. Are there really so few talented writers penning for the musical stage these days?  Such text drivel could never get published in obscure academic literary magazines, and it's impossible to understand how big-budget broadway theater can be written so much more poorly than the average Aaron Sorkin television drama.)

In a song near the end of the film (though not close enough to the end), a character speaks of his "pain that will never end.)  I turned to my wife and whispered "Much like this movie," which elicited chuckles from nearby patrons.

Les Miserable could have been great. Wasn't very good. Geezer quotient: 60/100.

Django Unchained awaits for the New Year's movie adventure.