Eight Feet Deep

Dick’s First Law of Expectations

For every expec­ta­tion: a, there is a pos­tu­lated result: b, that is pre­sumed to pro­duce a known or unknown state: c. How­ever, the real­iza­tion of that state is instead the known and much dreaded result of xyz$@*%!@*#!

A fed­eral judge in Ari­zona has struck down some of the most con­tro­ver­sial parts of that state’s new law that would require state and local law enforce­ment offi­cers to check the immi­gra­tion sta­tus of those who have been stopped. This is just the first strike in what will likely be sev­eral stops in court. Of course, it could end up in the Supreme Court and the law might be totally upheld because of that court’s con­ser­v­a­tive major­ity. Remem­ber the “elec­tion” of Pres­i­dent Bush?

The require­ment that a local police offi­cer check the immi­gra­tion sta­tus of some­one they have detained for traf­fic or other rea­sons makes no sense other than the dis­like for one’s skin being a dif­fer­ent color. Should this law even­tu­ally get the go-ahead, how many Lati­nos “born in the U.S.A.,” as Mr. Spring­steen once sang, will be arrested and go to jail for noth­ing but being Latino? It doesn’t just threaten those of darken skin shades. Local police offi­cers have dif­fer­ent ways of inter­pret­ing dif­fer­ent laws and some­times those inter­pre­ta­tions are wrong. So ask your­self this: Is the wrong­ful arrest of your son or daugh­ter or grand­child worth your wrath over those who are here illegally?

That’s some­thing to think about, Jedge.

I have been noti­fied of a Trjoan Horse virus when going to this page. If any­one who reads this and expe­ri­ences such a warn­ing from your anti-virus pro­gram, how about let­ting me know at eight­feet­deep? I think my prob­lem may be nar­rowed down, hopefully.

Thanks,

Dick

It has taken 30 or 40 years to real­ize what I should have known all along. The Byrds are among the great­est bands of the 1960s, or rock and roll, or coun­try rock, one could argue. I sup­pose it has taken such a long time to come to such an epiphany since I came to know The Byrds incre­men­tally through their actual par­tic­i­pa­tion with or influ­ence on the Eagles, Poco, The Fly­ing Bur­rito Broth­ers, Buf­falo Spring­field, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, That is even through so many of their songs have placed them­selves in my mind for so many years: “Mr. Space­man,” “Turn, Turn, Turn,” “I Will Be Feel­ing a Whole Lot Bet­ter,” et cetera, no rela­tion to Pete Cetera, bass player and vocal­ist with Chicago and later a solo singer of sorts.

These are just some thoughts as I attempted to embed a jour­nal­ist video of The Byrds “I Will Be Feel­ing a Whole Lot Bet­ter” onto the blog and got a “Tro­jan Horse” warn­ing from the lady on my avast antivirus pro­gram. Thanks lady. This is the sec­ond encounter I have had with a virus on this page. Well, maybe more than that if you con­sider page views, damn Inter­net jar­gon! So, it seems I will have to con­sult with Paul, my IT wiz­ard in Japan. Maybe I’ll write a song about him. Maybe not.

Once again it is time not to panic, not to fret, not to stick your head in the sand, not to freak out. But just look and lis­ten if you live along the Gulf Coast. Trop­i­cal Depres­sion 3 may soon become Trop­i­cal Storm Bon­nie, or not. It may even become Hur­ri­cane Bon­nie, or not. All of this is not to be con­fused with Hur­ri­cane Bon­nie that hit North Car­olina in August 1998, inflict­ing more than $1 bil­lion in dam­age, if you believe Wik­pe­dia.

Now a lot of the weather fore­cast­ers, includ­ing the most always care­ful National Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter, do not have a lot of high expec­ta­tions for what is now called TD 3. That’s a good thing, Martha. There is all that oil there in the Cen­tral Gulf float­ing around that the national media seems trans­fixed upon. Okay, that is a low blow. I too am con­cerned about the oil and the attempt to per­ma­nently stop the leak and get the mega mess cleaned up. It just seems the national media never really shows the con­cern that they should for the not so sexy spots on the map. That is, they don’t pay atten­tion to it until a hur­ri­cane comes and gives a good shot for an anchor to do a “Dan Rather” and per­form the now highly-cliched exer­cise of stand­ing in a wind that is potent enough to knock one down.

The five-day “Cone of Doom” lays out a tremen­dously uncer­tain path for a storm of a mag­nif­i­cently con­jec­tural terminations.

Hey, there are peo­ple out there in places other than New Orleans! Cameron, La., was oblit­er­ated 53 years ago. The National Weather Ser­vice in Lake Charles now puts the total deaths at 500. The unknown toll has teetered between 300–500 for years. Audrey came in with a 12-foot  storm surge on the town some three feet above sea level with winds gusts esti­mated at 150 mph.

Some 50 years later, Hur­ri­cane Rita socked the lit­tle town and parish seat of Cameron once again with a storm surge of around 12 feet and with 100-mph winds in tow. The death toll has always been screwy with Rita but one report said one per­son died in Cameron. Nev­er­the­less, from one who vis­ited not long after­ward, lit­tle stood there after Rita other than the Cameron Parish Courthouse.

As was the case with Rita, the 1,200-some odd res­i­dents of Cameron had long ago learned when a hur­ri­cane is com­ing, there is no rea­son under the sun you can’t see to stick around. So when Ike once again flat­tened Cameron in 2008 with mas­sive 22-feet tidal surges, folks got out of its way.

Cameron is only one town. There were many oth­ers in the path of Rita and Ike and Gus­tav and Kat­rina and on and on. I just picked Cameron because I vis­ited it for a vaca­tion day less than a year after Rita slammed it.  I sat around on a rainy, cold after­noon at some bar in the tiny down­town Cameron — impressed that it had more than one bar — that dis­ap­peared after Rita, lis­ten­ing that after­noon, laugh­ing and drink­ing some beers with a bunch of aging Cajun men and later with a daz­zling Aca­dian lady who was prob­a­bly the best look­ing woman in Cameron. Then, I vis­ited that same place a year later for a story I was writ­ing and saw very lit­tle I knew that remained of this pleas­ant lit­tle place I had once vis­ited other than the big, old cour­t­house which seemed to be perched up on a hill, if you can call three or four feet a hill.

TD 3 may not be much more than it now is. It may be a trop­i­cal storm, which is what a lot of the mod­els seem to pre­dict. It seems headed for the mid­dle Louisiana coast, although some mod­els put the cen­ter of the storm land­ing around Cameron or Sabine Pass, Texas. The lat­ter of which is about 45 miles north of where I live.

But as I have said and have said again, now with expe­ri­ence, trop­i­cal weather flare-ups sel­dom go where they are sup­posed to go. They also some­time do what they aren’t sup­posed to do. I say that not to scare any­one, nor to make it look as if I am smack dab in the mid­dle of dan­ger, like I have been before with a cou­ple of these storms. I am just say­ing what I am just say­ing. It’s hur­ri­cane sea­son, ya’ll. Time to keep heads up. Crank up the old The Clash CD and fix­ate on “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” and dance around until you have a plan in case things start get­ting nasty.

Does that sound like a plan?

Lind­say Lohan is going to jail. But for how long? That is the big ques­tion float­ing around in the media today for all to see.

Too bad the big ques­tion isn’t: Who is Lind­say Lohan?

I might have seen her in a movie. As a mat­ter of fact, I’m pretty sure I did once. I think she played this juve­nile delinquent-type char­ac­ter. Per­haps it was an autobiopic.

The truth is that I don’t watch a lot of movies until they make it to tele­vi­sion. And that doesn’t take all that long these days does it? I would never know­ingly watch a movie just because it starred Lind­say Lohan. I wouldn’t even watch a movie just because it starred any­one, not even Clint East­wood, not even John Wayne, rest his soul, not even Salma Hayek. Well, I could make exceptions.

I know Lohan is a big star and she is even more famous because she is infa­mous. She keeps screw­ing up. She comes to court late on her sen­tenc­ing date and on the date she is to report to jail. In other words, she is a twit. Either she is a twit or she is just really messed up on “sub­stances,” or both she is a twit messed up on sub­stances. Got to be one or the other, plus maybe she thinks it is good PR. Who said that even bad PR is good PR? Was that what was said? I don’t know.

A heli­copter fol­lowed Lind­say Lohan all the way to jail this morn­ing just to see if a pho­to­graph could be snapped of her in hand­cuffs, wear­ing no under­pants. No luck there.

I’ve known peo­ple who have gone to jail. Real peo­ple. Peo­ple who aren’t famous and who are just like you and me. I’ve known peo­ple who’ve gone to prison. We all know some­one who is going through some­thing that some of these famous peo­ple we’ve never heard of, some­times go through, and more. Some of these non-famous peo­ple have much more inter­est­ing sto­ries than Lind­say Lohan. But most aren’t as famous or as rich or as rich and about to be has-beens if they don’t quit snort­ing coke or shoot­ing up or what­ever it is they are doing to f**k up.

These real peo­ple aren’t fol­lowed by heli­copters. For that, I am grate­ful. Some peo­ple I know might just take a pot shot at “Chop­per Dave,” who after all is only doing his job.

The rich and famous are fol­lowed and make the news because they are rich and famous. The “com­mon” folks just love to see the big fall far. The real peo­ple also like to live vic­ar­i­ously through the Lind­say Lohans of the World. Oh, they cuss them and call them idiots, but like slow­ing down to watch a car wreck, the real peo­ple want to know what the beau­ti­ful peo­ple are doing every minute of the day.

Too bad the real peo­ple don’t real­ize just how fas­ci­nat­ing they are. Who in the World knows what goes on in the minds of the not rich and obscure.

Do you see the lit­tle graphic to the left? It is what the National Weather Ser­vice uses to illus­trate the fore­cast for tomor­row in Arling­ton, Texas. There are also more of these sym­bols. One  is for this after­noon, another for Sun­day and still another for Monday.

It means that the temp is going to be hot­ter ‘n hell. Hot­ter than a $2 pis­tol. Hot enough to fry a con­struc­tion worker on the side­walk hold­ing an egg in one hand and Jimmy Dean Pure Pork Sausage in the other.

I men­tion this for Arling­ton is where I am going this week­end. Why? Is it not hot enough where I live 45 miles north of Sabine Pass, Texas? Well, it will be hot in Beau­mont. This is, after all, mid-July. But there will be a slight chance of thun­der­storms and not nearly as hot as in North Cen­tral Texas.

My mind usu­ally equates North Cen­tral Texas with heat and big thun­der­storms and hail. I once saw a storm rain down baseball-sized hail and left the ground in April look as if a bliz­zard had come through. Oh, the win­ters are cold there too. I’ve lived in sev­eral places in Cen­tral and North Cen­tral Texas for var­i­ous peri­ods of time and found the weather is most dis­agree­able with me.

But I am going to visit some old col­lege friends. These friends were edu­cated, as I  was at the “School of Steve” or “Steve  U.” a.k.a. Stephen F. Austin State Uni­ver­sity in Nacog­doches, By God, Texas. So I know my friends are smart enough to have plenty of air con­di­tion­ing. Thank good­ness. Because it’s going to get hot I tell you.

See! I told you so. I told you that White House Press Sec­re­tary Robert “I’m A Loser” Gibbs was mak­ing a ter­ri­ble mis­take when he said it looked as if the Democ­rats would lose the House dur­ing the Novem­ber mid-term elec­tions. It was a gaffe! Just as I told you so. Actu­ally, that is not what I told you at all.

Just as one shouldn’t write under the influ­ence of alco­hol or drugs, although Edgar Allen Poe sure gave it the old Bal­ti­more try, one shouldn’t write under the influ­ence of pain. Unfor­tu­nately, I do that some­time. What is even worse, I write under the influ­ence of pain, mostly with­out telling any­one. All kinds pro­fun­di­ties appear and why would that happen?

There are times that I may write some­thing  such as “much to my cha­grin” and I write it just because it is eas­ier to write a cliche than it is to think and explain what one is actu­ally try­ing to say. I have no idea what “much to my cha­grin” means. It don’t mean much to me, but it means much to my cha­grin. My lit­tle pet cha­grin that I keep in a cage with its tiny lit­tle wheel.

No. I am lying. I know what “much to my cha­grin” means. I was just try­ing to fool the reader into think­ing I was com­ing clean after years of writ­ing like I know what I am doing. But I really know what I am doing. I just don’t want the reader to know that all the time so I can lure that per­son into my web of com­fort. To let them feel, for just one moment, like they are much more supe­rior to this per­son writ­ing this garbage. Why would I do that? I haven’t the clue.Well, yes, I actu­ally do. You see, I am a habit­ual liar. No I’m not. I just lied about being a liar so I could con­fuse the reader. And why in the world would I want to con­fuse the reader, the per­son who reads my words?

Beats me. Much to my chagrin.

“Ouch, damn back.”

I say stronger words than those when I com­plain of a back pain, so why not have a for­mal con­ver­sa­tion with my back?

Uh, per­haps because it can­not talk back. My back don’t give me no back talk. That sounds as if it could have been a great 50s R & B song. Which is a per­fect segue because I was think­ing about some­thing from almost that long ago related to my aching back.

If there was one thing my broth­ers and I could agree upon, it was our devo­tion for “The Three Stooges” and their mem­o­rable bits. Now even 50 years later if one of my broth­ers men­tions a back­ache — other than heart prob­lems back dis­or­ders are leg­endary among the five of us broth­ers — it imme­di­ately turns into a Stooges’ bit.

“Oh, you got a weak back?”

“Yeah.”

“How long have you had it?”

“Oh, about a week back.”

When your back gives you loads of mis­ery it seems humor is a good potion to try when you don’t have some­thing stronger on hand, like Val­ium or Mor­phine. How­ever, a good “adjust­ment” some­times helps too.

I don’t get my back adjusted any­more because I am afraid my spine would snap like a drought-stricken corn stalk. But when I was younger and would get mus­cle spasms in my back, a trip to my doc­tor or the old retired chi­ro­prac­tor would seem pretty helpful.

Even in my mid-20s I would get back spasms. Some prob­a­bly had to do with my line of work as a fire­fighter. Or per­haps they came from other activ­i­ties — like well, going to ice cream socials, right. My doc­tor was an osteopath, which is a doc­tor trained in med­i­cine but takes a more holis­tic approach to treat­ment. One such approach is giv­ing adjust­ments like chi­ro­prac­tors do. These adjust­ments were quite help­ful. I kept get­ting them for quite awhile until my doc­tor started hav­ing his own back prob­lems. Too bad the physi­cian couldn’t heal himself.

I also used to go see the old retired chi­ro­prac­tor who lived just up the street from me. He wouldn’t prac­tice unless some­one would come by and ask, and then he only charged a $10 bill for his service.

This is one of these days I have an aching back. From what, I don’t know. I have just had these back spasms since I was a young adult. Maybe these spasms orig­i­nated 30 years ago we loaded ammu­ni­tion on our ship for our 3-inch can­nons. The ammo weighed about 50 pounds apiece. Once, when we were leav­ing dry­dock we stopped at Seal Beach and picked up all of our ammo. I was part of a human chain load­ing those suck­ers all after­noon and into the night. Another time we loaded from a “Vert-rep,” for “ver­ti­cal replen­ish­ment.” This meant unload­ing shells from a huge heli­copter and stow­ing them about three decks below. I don’t know if either load­ing caused any per­ma­nent dam­age. I doubt it did. It sure made me respect the hell out of hav­ing smaller weapons to fire, if you get my drift.

I guess I will try treat­ing myself the old-fashioned way — with an Old Fash­ioned! No, just kid­ding. I will take my med­i­cine as pre­scribed and then jump in bed and pull the cov­ers over my head if that doesn’t work. I will also try to laugh by think­ing of the Three Stooges and their ridicu­lous bits. At least Doc­tors Curly, Larry and Moe don’t charge you out­ra­geous rates and send you back for test after test after test, with seem­ingly no result in sight. Of course, they have no mal­prac­tice insur­ance either. Nyuck, Nyuck, Nyuck.

Heat­wave blan­kets much of the U.S., Threat­ens Grids, reads the head­line of a CBS News.com story.

Never let it be said that I lack empa­thy. But one has to sti­fle a chuckle — the kind of when you whis­per a funny about the deceased dur­ing a funeral — when you see the rest of the U.S. is hot­ter than Hell. After all, it is the snow-mobile-ridin,’ ice-fishing, 50-below-swimmin’ Polar Bear Club-types who flick off a com­ment when they hear of Dal­las being par­a­lyzed dur­ing a snow or ice storm. Or they hear of schools shut­ting down.

“That ain’t noth­ing,” says Thor of the Frozen North.

Well, 102 or 103 in New York or Philly is hot. And 91 in Mon­treal, something’s out of whack, eh?

The fact is we, speak­ing of the peo­ple down in these parts (South­east Texas) live with such tem­per­a­tures pretty often. Oh, it doesn’t go over 100 degrees here every day. Some sum­mers it doesn’t even get to 100. But oth­ers do. And the humid­ity. It’s killer, dude. It gets so humid that there are times when you either don’t depend on one shower or bath to last you dur­ing the day, or you just say “the hell with it.”

There are old and old and poor folks up in the North­east that have a hard time deal­ing with the heat. I hope they get fans and access to some places to cool down. For those who mouth about how their cold win­ters “ain’t noth­ing,” well, you are right. That’s why, at least I, live where I do.