Jesus Banned from the Radio? Not as Long as He Makes a Buck!

Have you seen the big news in the e-mail or on Facebook about how a certain song about God and country was banned from the radio because its lyrics "were too politically incorrect"? Yeah, I've seen it about six times too many. The right-wing parrots are parroting whatever they are told to again, but that's not the point here. Stop and think about it.

If you think there's a big conspiracy to ban God and Country from country music radio, all you have to do is turn it on and listen, any given minute of any given day. Country music radio knows its audience, and they know what their audience wants. God and Country makes money for country music radio. Rap makes money for "urban" radio. Hate makes money for right-wing talk radio. What makes money is what is broadcast. Political correctness has nothing to do with it (Howard Stern is on the radio, after all). If Jihad sold in America, it would undoubtedly be on the radio, too.

It's not just radio, folks. I hate to break the news to you, but television programming is only what is historically proven to make you sit there while the commercials are on. Nobody really cares about "American Idol" except that it glues more eyeballs to the commercials than anything else does. Everybody: clothing companies, automobile companies, telecommunications companies, even oil companies, are not operating for any reason except to make the product that will make you give them the most money at the least expense to them.

Will you give more money to somebody who really cares about you and what you think? Then they do. Will you give more money to somebody who truly wants you to be healthier and live a happier, longer, more meaningful life? Then they do. If it costs them more to make it a little bit better becuse they love you, will they do it? Not a chance.

Jesus is on the country radio station to make you hold still and listen to the commercials that come between songs. That's what he's doing there. No more and no less.

Rush Limbaugh is saying outrageous things about the President - guess why? He has commercials on his radio show, too, and he makes a whole lot of money from the people who put them there.

Everybody isn't necessarily asking you to open your wallet and spend money for a product you can touch and feel. But just about every time somebody tells you what you want to hear, they are asking you to buy something. Stop and think about what it might be and what their motives are. The world today is way too complex and too full of buyers and sellers for anybody to completely avoid being bought and sold like subprime mortgages to a megabank, but with a little thought about where the money goes and who might be behind the messages, we might be able to escape the most blatant attempts to be used for someone else's gain.

Bad Brains, part I

I have written in this blog about genius. That is one aspect of the brain which makes mine stand out, but it also comes equipped with a couple of dark sides. One is what is described by my neurologist as intractable, atypical migraine.

I have had these headaches for just about as long as I can remember, but it was many years before I found out exactly what they were. And although migraine usually includes a headache, I have found out that the pain is far from the only symptom of the migraine. It is a complex neurological phenomenon that can also affect other systems of the body, and can seriously disrupt one's life. I don't want to go into any kind of medical detail here, since so much good and official information is available on the Internet, but I have to wonder if my experience with migraine is the dark side, maybe even the payback, for a brilliant mind which was always so taken for granted.

I used to think of migraines as "sinus headaches," because they occurred in the frontal part of my head, were often accompanied by nasal congestion, and tended to happen with sudden changes in barometric pressure. There was a time when I tried to be sure that I always carried prescription pain pills with me, since these headaches popped up without warning and didn't respond well to over-the-counter medicine. I recall a family reunion dinner that had to be moved inside when a sudden storm came up; I took a pill and crawled off to sleep in the car, unable even to make the rounds with my regrets. I have since been informed that there is no such thing as a sinus headache, except maybe a dull ache accompanying a severe infection. In fact, it was an ear-nose-and throat doctor who referred me to neurology for my headaches, suspecting they were migraine.

Before I was treated, I was likely to be found in my doctor's examining room, all the lights off, curled up in a fetal position on the table. On at least one occasion, I had to pull over to the side of the road and throw up on the way to the doctor, because the accompanying nausea was so bad. (Passing restaurants on the way to the office made me think about the food they served, and just the thought was enough to make me heave.) Light was like broken glass being pushed into my head through my eyes. And the muscles in the back of my head and neck would get exquisitely sore to the touch - something like the feeling of a very bad bruise.

I have only had the famous migraine aura once. I was at work, and was copying down a long number, twelve or fourteen digits. When I looked at what I had written down, it was only seven or eight digits long. A blank space had opened up in the middle of my vision, and I had not seen the numbers in it. I also had some black-and-yellow zigzags visible at the periphery of one side. I went to the eye doctor, who told me I was experiencing classic migraine symptoms, but I did not get the headache until several hours after the visual disturbance, and, in fact, until I was waiting for the eye doctor.

By now, I have been treated for several years, and am taking a combination of drugs to prevent migraine. I also have medication to take when I get a migraine anyway, which is fairly frequently. However, I rarely have severe headaches and never have nausea with migraine any more. Now, I have one of two types of experience: either a mild headache, for which I take some pills and am able to go on with what I would otherwise have been doing; or the semi-comatose migraine state. In this case, I wake up and try to get out of bed, but am unable. On weekdays, my alarm clock will wake me up, but on weekends, I often don't wake up until the afternoon. I stay in a semi-awake, semi-asleep state until sometime in the evening, dreaming; I don't get hungry or thirsty; don't have to get up to use the bathroom; don't wake up and get bored and want to do anything. This usually follows stress and the relief of stress, or precedes severe weather changes. This condition is usually not accompanied by headache, but afterward, I remain for a day or so in a groggy, confused mental state.

The main medication I take for preventing migraine causes me not to be able to recollect names of things - a condition known as anomic aphasia. This sometimes rises to an acutely aggravating level. Considering how often I get into the catatonic but pain-free migraine state described above, I have to wonder how much worse my condition would be at this point if it were to go untreated?

Racism for Christmas

It was shortly before Christmas, 2009. I was listening to NPR, and I heard the most racist comment that I have heard in quite a long time. It was tossed off rather casually, but it made me think. The comment was made by someone who was connected with the production of a play called "Black Nativity." He said, and I'm not quoting him exactly, "If you go see 'A Christmas Carol', you would think that there were nothing but white people in America."

Now, it would seem to me that if you went to a very good production of "A Christmas Carol", you would believe you were in England in the 19th century, and America would never cross your mind. This is a story that's set in a very specific time and place, among the merchant class in an England before mass immigration. People of color could be cast in a theatrical version, but it wouldn't make much sense.

For contrast, take another hoary Christmas show, "The Nutcracker." It is a fantasy set around the dreams of the young German girl, Clara; but it could as easily be about Carl without changing the overall story or any of the musical set pieces. None of the characters in Clara's dreams - mice, nutcrackers, sugar plum fairies - belong to any specific place or time, and they could be cast with anybody talented enough. The same goes for the orchestra. You don't have to be white or black to play Tchaikovsky, but you should sound good.

Why limit the barrier-breaking in "Nutcracker" to race? Imagine the possibilities for sugar-plum fairies in an over-the-top, cross-dressing drag version!

And coming full circle to the "Black Nativity" production: I haven't seen it, but I would be willing to bet that if one saw it, one would think that there were no white people in America.

Me and Love (and Sex)

I never had any misconceptions about sex while growing up. I learned about it from my older sister, who did what she was supposed to do when she wanted answers about something: she went to the library, looked it up in the card catalog, and researched it. Nothing but scientific facts for us. As far as love (and sex) went, when I was a teenager, and all through high school, my friends would confide in me about their crushes, their adventures, and their eventual (to me) shocking experiences, and I was always cool, always an available sympathetic ear. I could afford to be detached, because I knew that the whole area of passion had nothing to do with me, and never would. I didn't so much think I was above it, as beyond it. I thought of myself as an anthropologist studying an interesting but hopelessly foreign culture.

What I didn't know was that right under my placid surface was lurking a lake of sensuousness, lust, and an aching to be loved in that way. Although I didn't have a date in high school, or fancy any particular boys, it might have been obvious, because I was busily collecting record albums by romantic, moony singer-songwriters.

When I got to college, there I was, almost eighteen and ready to go off like a time bomb. I didn't really date in college either, but I hung out in groups. One of the people I hung out with was a young man who had immediately gotten my attention the first semester in one of those seminars where we all sat around on the floor, as he was picking apart his sneakers during the class. I don't know why this attracted me to him; it may have been some sort of misfit signal. I had quite a frustrating relationship with this person. I tried to get alone with him, then I took hold of his hand once alone, but could not manage to keep it. I could tell that there was some sort of electricity in the air between us, but any time I got closer, he moved farther away. This puzzling dance culminated one evening with him telling me a story which I later realized was about his recent first sexual experience - with someone else! - and the fact that he was thinking about me all through it. It seemed to upset him when he heard from another woman in our group that I was getting married; a couple of years later, I ran into him and he pretended he didn't know me. I never have been able to figure out why he distanced himself from me at every opportunity, if he were really interested.

In the meantime, I developed an intense crush of a type which might only happen to a nineteen-year-old girl. I fell completely for a voice on the radio, a voice with an English accent and that suave and friendly tone which is a radio announcer's bread and butter. I was carrying around a portable radio and listening between classes. At noon, this particular disc jockey played an hour of oldies-but-goodies and took requests. In my guise as the Kinks Lady of Northport (see "Me and The Kinks), I would call the station from a pay phone in one of the buildings on campus and request Kinks songs during the hour. Pretty soon, he got to know me, as all the other DJs did, and we would have a conversation interrupted by his leaving to put records on. One day, he surprised me by inviting me up to his apartment. I couldn't drive, and so he came to the Quad to pick me up. I stood where I could see him before he saw me, and when I came out, he said, "What a pleasant surprise!" We went to his place and ate bologna sandwiches and talked about England and the Kinks and I don't remember what all else. We even kissed. He had to go back to work, and dropped me back off on campus.

I knew from talking to him that this DJ was five years older than me, and that his wife had recently left him for another woman. I understood that he was in a vulnerable state, and I think he understood that I was. I talked to him many times on the phone while he was on-air; I don't think I had his home number. I don't remember now if I went back to his apartment a second time. But I do know that I relived those moments in my head over and over for years. I remembered every word that we said to each other for years. My mind was completely taken up with this man. If I had known anything about sex, I probably would have lost my virginity to him, but I was still thinking that was for other people. I certainly lost my emotional virginity. I gave my heart and soul with such intensity that I could never go back to being the same person I was before I met him.

My DJ got a job in another state just a few months later, and he had to leave. It just about broke my heart. I had already met my future ex-husband, but when I first went out with him, I told him that I still loved somebody else. I may very well have taken up with John on the rebound, but by the time we got married two and a half years later, I was over my disc jockey and thought I knew John very well.

John was working with the local theater and offered me a ticket to a play. Turns out he had two, and offered the other one to another woman who didn't show up, so I guess I was the lucky winner. We went riding around in his car in the daytime, and to a couple of the famous parties at my sister's house. One thing I liked about John immediately was that he didn't have to go home early for some reason all the time (this had been a common excuse of the guy with the shoes from the seminar). We also would sit in his car, later his truck, and make out and kiss, just like a normal progression for a relationship. I enjoyed this a lot, but I apparently did not realize where it was headed. When John suggested we have sex, I told him I didn't want that kind of a relationship. He pointed out that we had that kind of relationship, and I couldn't argue with that logic. I probably had no desire to, either.

He had rented an apartment, and at first it had no furniture, but we didn't care. I would go there after class, and he'd show up after work, and I'd be so late coming home, and had so much trouble trying to get him to take me home, that I ended up moving in with him. Two years later, when I got out of the University, we got married(see For JWB).

After John ultimately broke my heart, I signed on to Internet dating sites (only free ones), at first just to see what people were on there, because everybody I knew had moved out of town and I didn't know anybody at all to socialize with. I wanted someone to chat with or to go hang out with, anyway. I briefly turned 19 again right after my divorce, and developed a huge crush on a person I met online. He was very interesting to talk to, and knew a lot about music and movies and other popular-cultural things that I could reference. He also had a great sense of humor, and we joked and carried on. I got to meet him once, but it went nowhere. One day, I saw him praising a woman on his profile, and she was raving about him on hers - then he was gone from the site without a word.

My heart would have been broken again by that rude treatment if I had not also by this time been chatting with Joe. I met him on the PlentyOfFish site, where I went by the name Coelacanth. Joe came on and made a reference which let me know that he knew what a coelacanth was - a very sharp hook to drop into the water! We started chatting back and forth with regularity. Joe has a quick mind, a gentle soul and an earthy sense of humor, and he expressed himself in writing very much as he turned out to be in person. I had to ask him if he was ever going to ask me out, or what. We had a memorable first date. I won't go into any more detail since he's a private sort of guy, except to say it's been memorable ever since.

Bama Rapture

One grand day, there will be a Bama Rapture, and everyone who is wearing any kind of an officially licensed Alabama Crimson Tide shirt (or outerwear) will mysteriously disappear, and be raised up bodily to heaven, to sit at the right hand of Bear Bryant.

Me and Jobs, Part 2

I am sometimes asked why I continue working for the State of Alabama, which has not been very friendly toward me as an employer. The fact is that in over seventeen years, they have been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to fire me on a whim.

I have worked at a place where I was fired because somebody's girlfriend needed a job. I have worked at a place where I was fired in order to cover up the fact that I was at work and someone else, who was supposed to be in charge, wasn't. I worked at a place where I insisted I was not going to work on Easter, and that they could not make me do so. I had big plans for the annual reverent double-feature of Jesus Christ Superstar and Monty Python's Life of Brian, with bread and red wine. Anyway, I didn't work, but I found out later that they had called in a coworker who had come straight in from the hospital emergency room, where she had been treated for a severe headache and double vision, and still had one pupil larger than the other at the time she went to work. And they made her work. And she went to work. I quit.

I worked for the United States Postal Service for eighty-nine days. I was what they called "probationary," meaning that I was only hired for ninety days, after which time they either rehired me on a permanent basis, or not. I was put straight to work as a front window clerk, apparently due to my history of dealing with a hostile public at the food stamp office, which I had quit to work for USPS. I was told that I had one of the highest scores ever recorded for the window clerk's exam. I was also evaluated about once a week, and the evaluations I got were uniformly laudatory in the highest degree, although I was assigned a station with no postage meter and no money order machine, which slowed my performance considerably. I was also not required to work more than 6 hours in a two-week pay period, other than my training period, since the position was technically "part-time." I had been told that everyone in this position nevertheless worked forty-hour weeks, and, other than myself, everyone did. I worked six hours one time. I would have been in trouble if I hadn't withdrawn my retirement from the food stamp office, as I was living on it. My final evaluation stated that I did not like the job, had no interest in doing it, and was unable to do it. I was literally escorted out the back door when it was discovered that if I came to work one more day, I would be hired permanently. I eventually came to the conclusion that there was more than one political faction at work there, and that I had become caught between them. You could call me a disgruntled former postal worker. Unlike some of the breed, I subsumed my anger by refusing to pass within blocks of the post office at which I had worked for the next four or five years.

Following my exit from the USPS, unemployment benefits until they ran out, and a desperate search for work, I was contacted by a friend who offered me a job he said he knew I wouldn't like. It was telemarketing, cold-calling unsuspecting companies and trying to sell them advertising in a publication that did not yet exist. He was right; I did not want it, but desperation won out. The operation was bankrolled on such a shoestring that, every payday, all the employees were in a race to the bank that the paychecks were drawn on, knowing that the last few to get there were as likely as not to be holding a worthless check. I was laid off in a round of belt-tightening, and didn't much mind.

A stint with Kelly Temporary Services, for whose local office I have nothing but praise (at least in the late Eighties), led to my working for the State of Alabama again. This is not what you would call an employee-friendly workplace, but seventeen years of steady paychecks - and raises! - tell the story. There may be many private employers out there who would hire me in a minute, treat me like a valuable commodity, pay me well, and keep me working for them until we cried in each others' arms at parting. But the odds just don't look that good from here.

Sheer Pottery II

Poor fool, I
To throw my soul upon the beach
Beyond reach of the waves,
To look hope into the sky
And get blue in my eyes.

Why catch fireflies?
They only glow, and die away
Cold and green and a little weird.
Best not to jar them.
Leave them starring the night,
Black and cold and a little weird,
Distant as the fixed stars,
Frigid as the moon.

Poor fool, I
Following footsteps out the door
And across the grass,
To look dark into the sky
And get stars in my eyes.