Tiger whipped by the tail

Chinese New Year's Day and Valentines Day this year happened on the same day. We find ourselves almost two week into the year of the Tiger, and sure enough the world's Tiger popped out from his sex rehab stint and onto his little television stage to apologize for his infidelities just five days into his year. Judging by all the pundit action, this sighting of yet another really rich guy getting caught with his balls landing in all those wrong fairways and apologizing for it made for epic news worthiness.

Having a one-sport-skill corporate-shill apologize for not being the person we have been sold to for years is not news. It is not news finding out about a high profile celebrity having his wood waxed by someone other than himself or his marital companion. I don't care about the domestic lies of other people. They can deal with their own hazards by themselves. But when you sell yourself to millions and then turn into a fraud, well, that's showbiz for you. 

For me, the news about Tiger's "press conference" is how small he turned out to be. Here is a guy we learned a few months back was all about chasing the skirts, and reveling in everything Tiger while putting out one very controlled press release after another for all these years about his foundation, and his other worldly goodness, while selling turds shined up to look like diamond studs. But when it came to really stepping up after a dose of adversity hit his world, and being a man about it, he whiffed the ball. Tiger Woods hid for three months from the same public he sold his snake oil persona to for these past two decades, because he is a frightened version of James M. Barrie's Peter Pan with a freakish talent that enabled him to sail over and above real life while never having to deal with all those messy and unpleasant parts reserved for the common people.  

Tiger Woods is one more 14 year old hormonal mind trapped in a man's body, just like so many overpaid and pampered athletes corporate America pays big dollars to sell what they want sold. The modern athlete today is a sellout pure and simple, just an advertising whore in a world where sports is another game of simple niche marketing to a broad male dominated audience.

Now every time Tiger Woods appears on my media dial I will always think of John Daly. Daly, like Woods, squandered a lot of public good will with his inability to grow up. Daly, however, owns his misfortunes and retains some respect by many for being brutally honest and open  in a world where image is valued much more than truth.

Tiger had an opportunity to become a human being with his first public appearance, but chose to sell a marketing plan dressed up as a public apology instead. Do we care at this point if one more celebrity says I'm sorry? What is sorry is that we live in an age where only celebrity garners major eyeball traction. Tiger Woods still has Nike and EA to hawk and John Daly now performs in his own reality television show.

Well, that's showbiz for you.         

     

 

Stuck on Telegraph Road

Midweek. Wednesday's child is filled with woe, and Thursday's child has far to go. Sums up the mood of the country for far too many.
I want to smile every day, and at some points when my goofy dog does something.... well, goofy, I can let out a chuckle and crack a grin. Too bad for me his goofiness is not perpetual. When I read the news, or hear the news talk on the radio, or watch a talking head describe any current event, all that dog comedy recedes like a tsunami wave heading to the epicenter. Blues with a 24/7 feeling permeates the atmosphere.

Good jobs are so scarce you might think they never existed in the first place. We had a small episode in Kern County on a Sunday morning to start this week with more employment despair. Rio Tinto, an Australian-British mining and mineral processing giant, locked out over 500 hundred union miners over a contract dispute and started busing scab workers onto their U.S. Borax facility in Boron , CA.  What troubled me the most, apart from the general apathy and resignation of the workers fate, was the use of the Kern County Sheriffs Department to provide security for the Rio Tinto management at the U.S. Borax site. Yep, public tax dollars going to suppress union actions over the lockout.

The response county wide has been very quiet over the loss of approximately 560 union wage jobs, which are now being filled by workers earning much less. In Kern County it now appears to be a way of life to champion those who fall to the bottom and join the vast pile of the displaced and broke working class. The motto for America seems to be if I cannot have it neither should you. We have replaced the concepts of raising the general population to higher standards with mantras of no taxes and no entitlements.
And what have you got at the end of the day?
What have you got to take away?
a bottle of whiskey and a new set of lies
blinds on the window and a pain behind the eyes

No entitlements means no retirement for most Americans. No entitlements mean substandard health care if any health care can be had. No entitlements mean diminishing to substandard our public education system. The concept of no entitlements mean you have no right to go to work. You have no right to housing. You have no rights.

I used to like to go to work but they shut it down
I've got a right to go to work but there's no work here to be found
yes and they say we're gonna have to pay what's owed
we're gonna have to reap from some seed that's been sowed

During economic downturns of the not too distant past, powerful voices in the arts spoke to broad audiences and helped tweak public opinion on big social issues. Powerful writers of popular music were the conscience of the world, and spoke to wide audiences on concerns of social injustices. Where did those voices go, and why do we not hear them today? Many of these voices are still among us,  but have been drowned out by American Idols selling cosmetics and jewelry for WalMart and Target.

One of the most powerful songwiters, and one of my all-time favorite people in music is Mark Knopfler. Had he been a young man during this decade we would never have heard from him. He might have tried to play music, but the chances of guy looking like Mark Knopfler with Mark Knopfler's voice would never get airplay today. Can you see him doing an American Idol contest?

and he takes you out in Vaudeville Valley
with his hand up smothering your screams
and he screws you down in Tin Pan Alley
in the city of a billion dreams 

Does anyone sell music today that is not sponsored by a multinational conglomerate today? And the conglomerates are doing the best possible job of ensuring the death of the world's music culture. Here is the latest chart from a CNN story on the decline of the music business over this decade. Now that is a big fall from market grace.

It takes love over gold
and mind over matter
to do what you do that you must
when the things that you hold
can fall and be shattered
or run through your fingers like dust

1982 saw Dire Straits release Love Over Gold. The bold quotes are from this epic release that resonates more today than it did when America was tuned to Hill Street Blues and our country was involved with Afghanistan the first time. As too many corporations rape and plunder workers and the land while undermining the governments who subsidize and protect them I feel that I'm traveling down Telegraph Road all over again.

Thank goodness for a goofy dog, and a decent record collection.  


  

Favre Factor Sells Soap on Big-Time Football

The Sky is Crying, and my yard is very soggy this week. Great song, crummy weather. Takes me back to many of those soggy days in Sacramento when the whole county thought the levees would break and flood a good many areas of the city. I can't complain we need the rain. This week with the bad weather and January in full swing I had NFL football and the WWE on my mind. I remembered my old buddy "Hillbilly Jim" Morris who used to call on me in bygone video days from Coliseum Video selling all those highlight packages of WrestleMania and the like. He always had great stories to tell. "Yep, one big soap opera for big guys and little guys with moms even hanging out. Let me tell you, a lot of those blows were very real. I didn't fake a broken leg and bad back from square dancin' in those arenas."  I miss Jim, and hope he's doing well.

As I watched the Dallas Cowboys getting Napoleoned Blown Apart by the Minnesota Vikings, I was really shocked. I thought for sure the Cowboys were a lock to play in the Super Bowl. I thought the Jerry Jones tribute to the NFL in the form of a giant stadium would be the ticket. Well, the game will not be played at the new Palace de Pigskin in Texas, but with all that money invested in an NFL crown jewel I thought all that tribute investment would be worth something, but I underestimated all that advertising revenue from all those Brett Favre lovers and haters out in television land. The Cowboys were the hot team driving the Eagles out of Texas, and out of the playoffs with more authority than a Roger Goodell suspension on players for bad behavior, but they played like the St. Louis Lambs on the Metrodome turf this past weekend.

Brett Favre sure looked good! 

In the NFL there are so few positive compelling human stories to punctuate the games, only the constant parade of embarrassing indiscretions and violent acts for weekly human interest grist. The exception to this police line-up parade is the soap opera called Brett Favre, which shines so bright as to dim all other stories. Brett has been the golden boy of the game for the past two decades. He has virtually every career passing record the NFL keeps track of. He has been the kid with all that exuberance, determination and flair who gained a championship in the mid 1990s. He has been the middle aged warrior who fought through pain (and pain killers) on less than great teams to soldier on  for that one last championship. He was the son who valiantly played the game of his life two days after his father had suddenly died, and on the national stage for Monday Night Football to boot. He is now the grizzled veteran who still has game, and ponders retirement every off-season for the past six years only to suit up for one last quest. He is Galahad, or Ivanhoe, or Lancelot. He is big money for the NFL.

How 'bout them Cowboys? Brett Favre sure looked good!

Now I'm not saying the games are fixed in the NFL, but most of the big ones sure seem to work out in an unusually preordained fashion. I have been suspicious of big game arrangements since Gary Anderson of the Minnesota Vikings missed a 38 yard field goal in the Championship game in 1999 when the Minnesota Vikings ultimately lost to the Atlanta Falcons.

Consider, Gary Anderson was a veteran kicker, and for the whole season indoors as well as outdoors had not missed a field goal or extra point try up to his kick attempt to win the NFC Championship game. He was indoors at the comfy confines of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. A good kick with 5 minutes remaining seals the deal. It is not as though this kick saves the Vikings from the grasp of defeat with no time remaining, or other imagined big pressure situations that might cause a nerve or two to pinch at an inopportune nanosecond. Well, the story is ancient history, and only comes up in a strange bit of memory haze when you ponder the end of the San Diego Chargers season.

Nate Kaeding definitely moved Gary Anderson off the the old how-in-the-fuck-could-he-miss-that-kick perch football geeks have been pondering for more than a decade now. Nate (the not so great in the playoffs) Kaeding has personally removed the Chagers from the playoffs twice, and both times against the New York Jets.  Could that really be a coincidence?

I also have a hard time believing that either of these two placekickers choked. When you kick at the highest level of the sport, and are considered "money" by everyone in the stadium, choking just does not come into the equation. Nor does money for the player, when you get right down to it. These NFL players are currently paid in the top one percent of all earners in America. Even kickers.

So if these guys make so much money why throw games?

The first thing that might pop into the brain upon reflecting over the above question might be gamblers. If a person got into a very bad situation and owed big bucks to people who really value seeing their money come in on schedule this could be a possibility. But you never see this with players today in the big leagues. Whether it is the MLB players, the NBA players, the NHL players or the NFL players you just don't see them in those circumstances while they are playing. They make too much money to be bought off.

We have read about the NBA referee, Tim Donaghy, being tied  to the mob over his betting on NBA games that he officiated. And there is plenty of outrage from fans around the country about the obvious favoritism shown to certain teams and stars by the officials in the NBA. Sports Illustrated ran a column by Phil Taylor that makes a good case that the NBA has a very big credibility problem on its hands, but nobody seems to care. Of course, (and I could be wrong) I am not even sure if anyone outside of Los Angeles, Cleveland and Boston even bothers to watch NBA games anymore.

College football and college basketball have been rocked by betting scandals every decade going back to the 1940s. Always with players who earn nothing while packed stadiums, and big money media contracts heap dough on the NCAA and the few select top team schools.

Baseball has had its share of gambling problems in the past with Pete Rose, and a long time ago with the Chicago White Sox- Black Sox fix of the 1919 World Series. But Pete Rose was a manager who gambled on games not fixed them, and players back in the World War I era earned no money to speak of, thus becoming easy targets for the gambling interests to persuade.

Most of the focus over the 2009 MLB playoffs were over a very high number of really bad calls umpires made at critical junctures during several games. Once again, the lowest paid people on the field making their presence known in determining the outcome of big games. In the baseball playoffs and World Series those bad calls might have been simple bargaining leverage tactics in the ongoing contract negotiations between their Union members and the MLB power brokers. 

Refereeing is a huge issue in all sports today because the dollars involved are so great, and the people making the calls earn very little in comparison to the athletes they judge on the respective fields of play. But, looking  back at the NFL playoffs this past weekend the refereeing was really a non-factor in all the games. Yes, the Chargers were penalized twice as often, and for far more yardage than the Jets, but the calls for bonehead Charger player actions were certainly all merited.

Officials could have been in on securing the deal in San Diego, and did just enough to make sure the fair-weather team did not get too far out ahead. It's not as though officials have not recently played a huge role in all but ensuring a victory for the chosen team in the NFL. Two words are all I need to type to bring back the faded memory of one franchise getting the friendly push to the top while the other franchise was getting the not so friendly nudge off the cliff. Tuck Rule. Even with the Tuck Rule fiasco, the officials ruled one way on field before being overturned from the booth.  

When humongous amounts of dollars are at stake it gets harder and harder to believe that many games are on the level these days. When you have a business monopoly the only real goal is to make money for the business. Fairness, ethics, morals and all that other stuff are for people, not corporate monopolies. How do you make more money  when you have the same number of seats to be sold at the same number of stadiums the same number of weeks every year? You need higher television and other media ratings to go after broadcast rights and advertisers for more dollars. You have to make your product compelling and appeal to the markets with the highest density of people with the highest average incomes to match your investment partners targeted audiences.

Which game offers the most must see potential? Colts-Saints? Colts-Vikings? Jets-Saints? No real drama in any of those match-ups. In two out of the three the quarterback match-ups would be fun to watch, but not compelling. From my point of view it has had to be the Jets against the Vikings all along. Did I mention the Jets got into the postseason by winning the regular season final two games when their opponents (Bengals and Colts) didn't bother to play at full strength, and then got to meet them both again to convince everybody those games were legitimate?  

I am not placing any bets this weekend, but as time goes on Roger Goodell and Vince McMahon begin to have more similarities than differences when it comes to managing their entertainment empires of big bodied people.

Have a good time watch Big-Time Football this weekend.

Food For Thought

Okay, I'm old. Not ancient, mind you. Just been around the block a time too many to be called cute, innocent, bursting-on-the-scene, or any other youthful descriptor you might want to apply to a biomass of energy exposed to all the universal elements for over fifty years.

I shave, but jeez  all those little lines seem to be bunker trenches that follicles dive inside of to hide from the artillery blast of the electric razor, and then spring back after the scheduled shock-and-awe of the morning routine to stubble the whole face.

Problems are like those damn hair follicles, just when you think you've mowed them down for good they are back at you scratching your sweetie's face, or maybe some other sensitive areas of bliss, and ruining the whole night.

People and problems are inseparable. Some have a few more than others, but problems are an experience we all share. The biggest problems have always been our own, and were ones that close friends and family got to hear repeated on a frequent basis. What are friends and family for, after all? 

Our daily problems could include being short on cash for the rent, the car payment, credit cards, school supplies, a doctor's bill, drugs, or food. There might have been a relationship problem with a significant other, friend, coworker or family member to chew over regularly. We might fret over deadlines at school, or on the job, or stacked up work with no end in sight and these all heap themselves on the problem pile.

All of these were enough to keep the headache medicine business booming, but now when the macro problems of the credit markets, the job markets, unemployment, the housing crisis, the health care system, the education system, the never-ending wars at home and abroad, the energy crisis, global climate change, and with every-other-disaster-waiting-to-be-broadcast-into-your-home life today seems to be all about problems, which must be what all those anti-depressant scrips are all about.

Why can't we solve problems today? It feels like our petty little individual problems now seem like small droplets in the ocean of problem scum. The government today has no power over the forces that have made a ruin of the economy and our total society. We live under giant corporate rules where the decision makers are loyal not to people, not to governments, not to any religious or philosophical tenet but only to the word money. Money emerged these past three decades as the reigning theology for the world.

There is a fascinating documentary on the subject of corporations and this new religion, or fierce devotion to all things money.  The Corporation is a documentary of extraordinary breadth and intelligence, and is based on the book by Joel Bakan. The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power. It has a Who's who cast of major thinkers and protagonists that range from Milton Friedman to Michael Moore and every point of view in between. The DVD comes not only with the excellent documentary, but also includes on a second disc a fabulous interview collection with all the major people who spoke in the film.

Problems need to be understood in order that we may solve them. We have been misled for too long on the nature of our biggest problem, and we must start to retake our culture and our rights back from those who truly have co-opted them under the guise of a legal system the people now cannot afford to participate in as advocates. What the big companies never told the world was that when they cut out the middlemen they cut  out most of  the people. The Corporation is truly essential viewing for anyone who seems perplexed by our rapid loss of personal liberty amid a dysfunctional and impotent set of governments. 


 

Only Size Matters in the Economy of Scales

In my past life I was an executive at a great entertainment retail company. The people at the top of the company never viewed themselves as executives, really. The company ran with records guys and gals, books guys and gals, videos guys and gals, advertising guys and gals, warehouse people, accountants, supervisors, and clerks of all stripes who all shared a passion for music, reading, art and film. Most in-house conversations were about selling more of what we had experienced, either very recently, or at some juncture of our peculiar life's time-line. Shared diverse experiences in the stores and head offices were shared with an eager and intelligent growing vendor and consumer base, which made it a perfect fit for two decades of commercial and personal success.

Those days are gone. Not only within the former industry where I worked, but in so many other industries throughout the world of commerce. At the end, the company, like so many others in a few short years time, had become overwhelmed by global forces too powerful to withstand. Size, and the subsequent scales of efficiency,became all that mattered in the business world. Small companies went bye-bye.

For years, I spent useless hours wondering what actions I might have taken to save my little business world and those that inhabited it, but finally realized immutable forces at such a high level were busy transforming business into something not seen since the the end of the 19th Century. Globalism, under the benign term, free market, had reduced the multitude to the handful, and had brought about the same horrific factory working conditions to the labor force that existed a century ago.

Globalism is simply a new word for Colonialism. The only difference is that conglomerate corporations now dominate the world markets instead of the imperial dynasties that ruled governments in the past. However, many of the same families who ruled nations as sovereigns in that age now simply rule through corporate boards of directors within a labyrinth of shell organizations, trusts, foundations, banks and businesses. I must say one has to really tip one's hat to the remarkable change of guise that the ruling class has made for itself these last sixty years, and particularly these last three decades.

In my former life, I used to watch every movie I could lay my hands on. It was my job, and I was up to the challenge. I have seen the same plots reworked, the same explosions filmed, and the same obligatory music interlude to promote the latest soundtrack entrant more times than I have made keystrokes on all the keyboards I have ever pounded on in my lifetime. I don't watch that many commercial movies these days, and those that I do view need to be pretty special in there own quirky or spectacular way. I do, however, watch as many documentaries from small independent or publicly funded film-makers as I can get my hands on.

Recently, I watched a tremendously informative PBS documentary called Commanding Heights: The Battle For The World Economy. This documentary is based on a book by Pulitzer Prize winning authors Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw. This film gives the viewer great background information on the struggles of economic ideas, movements and history while providing startling detailed accounts of our current financial crisis and the warning signs of how this collapse came to happen. It is a very pro-capitalist pro-globalist look with a late 1990s view, although the film does include a brief 9/11 account and the potential financial impact this would have on the markets.

The title for the book and this filmed translation and update comes from a famous line Vladimir Lenin delivered on his "New Economic Policy" for post war Russia. Commanding heights refer to those segments of the economy that dominate the field, much like any good commander will utilize the high ground for advantage on the battlefield.

This documentary is truly must see TV for our age. If people want to understand how this dreadful economic circumstance came to be this decade, people need to understand who and what is behind this reality. This is a great first step in finding clarity. It's good for the soul.