Eight Feet Deep

Jenna, Jenna, Jenna, you’re so grown up. Why it seems like only a few years ago — back in the days when I was a reporter — you were sticking your tongue out at me and the rest of the media entourage after attending Easter Services at Fort Hood. Oh wait, it was just a few years ago. A little more than three I believe, but I could be wrong. For that matter, it might not have even been at Fort Hood. These things all run together nowadays.

Now, at 25, you have a teaching job, you’re engaged and you are hawking a new book you’ve (at least somewhat, I’d hope) written.

It must be stressed that I bear no ill will toward Jenna, her sister or any of her family including her pin-headed father. Actually, I don’t think Gee Dubya is a pin head. He just acts like one, or so I sort of hope, because even I can’t bear the thought that “ma fella Amercans” could elect (well, at least elect for one-term)a president like George Herbert Walker Texas Ranger Chuck Norris Magillacudy McDougall Sanchez O’Henry Bush. And besides, back to Jenna again, I always kind of felt a kinship with her at least in the respect that she liked to party and raise hell.

Whatever Jenna can get out of life, I advise her to take it and run with it because tomorrow whatever it is might no longer exist. Which is really to say I wish her well on her book. I even find it admirable that if the president’s daughter is going to use her celebrity to sell books at least they are publications with such important topics such as HIV and AIDS.

What does irritate me about Jenna’s new book isn’t Jenna. No, my antipathy stems from however many other struggling writers must feel when yet another celebrity’s book is even considered for publication, much less published.

Now certainly it doesn’t take much to be published these days, especially on what Jenna’s paw calls “The Internets.” But to see your work published somewhere in which its publication both means something and pays more than free copies is much more difficult.

Books which are published ahead of the line of the great unwashed writers by offspring of the rich and famous is nothing new. Just think of some of the names: John F. Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy Whatever Her Married Name is Now (who is actually a very good author) are just a couple of people who come to mind. Oh yeah, Paris Hilton. Paris Freaking Hilton. And I should point out that it is not just these celebs who have books published while the rest of us live on ramen noodles that ticketh me off. It is relatively easy to publish your own book these days. It is selling those books which is the trick. It is there where the rich and famous and their kids really jump in front of the line. They get book tours while Homer sells his memoirs of the great Stray Cats concert that never happened at a flea market if he is lucky.

So no Jenna, I don’t hate you because you are beautiful or famous or whatever. I don’t hate you at all. It is just disheartening to once again think of having to work even harder to get something you have written to one day bring some reasonable critical success and/or adequate compensation.

When your daddy isn’t president you have to try just that much harder. So that I will do — right after I take a little nap.

While out driving around for work this afternoon I caught a small bit of both Rush Limberger’s show and that of Bill “Baba” O’Reilly. I must admit I can only take small bits of either.

Limberger was talking about his favorite topic: Himself. The gist of his rant was about how the Democrats in the Senate were making speeches in an effort to have a resolution approved that would condemn the despicable talk show host over comments he made in which he referred to some who had been a soldier as a “phony soldier.” Apparently the move by the Dems is a tat for tit in response to the flak their party received over the recent MoveOn.org ad calling Iraq commanding Gen. David Petraeus, Gen. Betray Us. It’s silliness — times two.

All of the noise being made in Congress over people’s self-expression is more akin to first-graders arguing than it is to statesmanship. Both sides will not do what the people want them to do, regardless of the reason why, so alleged lawmakers clamor over who said what and when did they know when they said it. It makes me want to lay down my burdens, down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the riverside … Or just lay down. Perhaps I shouldn’t have watched “Gandhi” last night.

Of course all the hell that is being raised about Limberger’s remarks just calls more attention back to Limberger. And that is exactly what he wants.

O’Reilly was talking some of the same grand banquet of crap. He was ranting about Sean Penn making some comment. I don’t know what about. I don’t care. O’Reilly, wouldn’t you know, defend Penn’s right to speak but said the actor was morally wrong because, basically, Penn disagreed with O’Reilly’s point of view. Then Baba gets a call from some guy who says he served in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now hosts some small-time talk show. Oh wait, no, that was on Limberger’s show.

This man who was the supposed veteran said the best thing the public could do for those soldiers fighting in the wars was supporting the troops’ mission. Well, I can’t tell by listening to the radio whether this caller was really a veteran or a talk-show host. For all I know, he could be a “phony soldier.” Then again, if someone says on a right-wing talk show that they are a veteran or they know or did this or that then it’s okay.

I do have to admit, having been a newspaper reporter, that it is extremely difficult if not most times impossible to completely check out someone’s story while under a tight deadline. But talk radio doesn’t even try. You can’t see ’em so they must be who they say they are. What a way to run a business. Hey, I have some really hot land for you out in Arizona … Yes, it’s hot all right, 115 degrees in the shade.

The bottom line is what passes for political discourse — and I drag myself into it sometimes I will shamefully admit — is pure, unadulterated silliness. You have no doubt heard of the Silly Season? Well, every season is now the silly season. Just plain damned silly.

A doctor at some point in time no doubt gave Charlie Wilson a choice of giving up wine, women or song upon which he must have given up singing. He may have even given up wine but it might not have been quite fast enough to keep him from needing a new heart.

Fortunately, for those who have long admired, discussed or even cussed the flamboyant former East Texas congressman, Wilson got that new heart this week after a transplant in a Houston hospital.

Most of the folks outside the area between Nacogdoches and Beaumont would not have heard of Charlie Wilson were it not for a best-selling book written about him a couple of years ago.

Since Tom Hanks will be playing Wilson in an upcoming movie based on “Charlie Wilson’s War” which will co-star Julia Roberts, it is likely the rest of America will find out a bit about the tall, roguish politician who represented East Texas in Congress for more than 25 years.

Wilson’s obscurity – he didn’t have a lot of bills named after him and in fact didn’t sponsor a whole lot of legislation to begin with – combined with his ability to wage a secret war against the Soviets in Afghanistan will be what becomes his eventual legacy on a national and even international scale.

But little, old blue-haired Baptist ladies and hard-working farmers from places like Corrigan and Goat Hill and Bleakwood didn’t keep sending Charlie Wilson back to Congress for more than two decades because he secretly led the Mujahideen against the Commies in Afghanistan. No, Charlie kept getting sent back from the Neches River to across the Potomac because he “took care of the home folks.”

In fancy governmental talk, that’s called “constituent services.” But Charlie and his campaign directors and ad folks pegged it as helping the people back home like the war veterans who waited 10 years for their nation to repay them in disability benefits for getting shot up in exotic places like Guadalcanal and the A Shau Valley.

Charlie wasn’t an angel in his congressional years. There was talk about his drinking and womanizing and check-kiting and even whispers about cocaine use. But the truth that really matters was that if you had a problem that Charlie Wilson and his wonderful bunch of worker bees in Washington, Lufkin, Orange or wherever his offices happened to be could solve then it was as good as done.

What a contrast between Charlie and the guy who is now my congressman. Ted Poe seems more interested in helping the home folks in El Paso or Tucson or on “Lou Dobb’s” CNN show.

It is just a wild guess, but I doubt if Ted Poe will ever be distinguished with much at all other than the publicity-seeking sentences he imposed as a district judge in Houston. I doubt he will ever have a best-selling book or a movie starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts made about him. Poe seems to be too busy taking care of the right-wing Republican base than to help with things like veterans disability or Social Security checks. Maybe that is good for an election but I just wonder how many elections down the road will his right-wing ass kissing get Poe?

Charlie Wilson may not live quite so large a life with his new heart that he had with the old. But at least his heart is in the right place. That’s more than I can say about a lot of the weasels these days who represent us in Congress.

The negative effect looks a bit more dramatic than the fading black and white from which this picture of my old destroyer came.

If you look at the photo above and the one from yesterday’s post, you might see they are somewhat similar. Actually, they are the same photograph only I used a negative special effect on my digital photo program that brings out the atomic cloud/wave/whatever it is better than the old black and white I used yesterday.

Actually, the photo has something of a special meaning to me. The ship is the destroyer U.S.S. Agerholm, on which I served some 30 years ago. I wasn’t on the ship when this picture was taken. That was in 1962 when the “Skaggy Aggie” as we called her was part of a series of atomic weapons testing known as Operation Dominic which was held in the Pacific Ocean. The Agerholm fired a nuclear anti-submarine rocket, or ASROC, at a target some 4,300 yards away. This is one of the many reasons I am glad I wasn’t on the Agerholm back then because it just is not very desirable to be close to any nuclear weapon going off, much less a nuclear torpedo, which is what this ASROC was.

This is how the Agerholm appears these days. At least, this is how the pair of 5-inch gun mounts appear today under some 400 or so fathoms of water off the Southern California coast.

The Agerholm was put out of service about seven months after I left her and the Navy. I later learned that the ship was sunk as part of a Tomahawk missile test in 1982. Today, the Aggie is known as “Seamount Agerholm” and serves as a focus for scientists who study how little cities of aquatic life take hold and flourish around sunken structures.

While I know the ship is much more than junk littering the bottom of the eastern Pacific, it still is kind of hard to look at it sitting there. I lived on that ship for about a year and traveled to a number of cool places in the western and southern Pacific. The result of the photo is kind of like looking at your home or apartment sitting way down in the deepest recesses of the ocean. It’s kind of sad in that respect. But maybe it is doing some fishes some good.

The U.S. Navy stands by on the U.S. Pacific Coast as Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy goes off during a Saturday news conference.

If you are one of the many out there who hate the media — who cringe and become enraged when a reporter asks the president a tough question or feel sorry for rich football coaches when the media asks them why their teams stink to high heaven — then you will no doubt like Mike Gundy’s little hissy fit at a media “opportunity” after his Oklahoma State Cowboys beat Texas Tech.

His performance at what was allegedly a post-game news conference can be seen all over TV and You Tube today so their is no need for me to link it.

In short, Gundy went apesh*t over a column written by Daily Oklahoman columnist Jenni Carlson who questioned the intestinal fortitude of a benched Cowboys quarterback. Gundy didn’t think the character of a college player should be questioned but Carlson, thankfully, is sticking to her guns, er laptop.

Perhaps a coach might have a case were Carlson writing about some high school or junior high school football player. But she wasn’t. She was writing about someone who plays for a Division 1 NCAA school. And we all know that the big thing with sports, especially at that level, isn’t sports. No it is about, I hate to break it to you, money. Like the old saying goes: “No one fills a stadium to hear a chemistry lecture.”

Professional football, unlike baseball, has no farm system for players to develop and get paid. Well, actually it does, it’s called college football. So like it or not the quarterback — whether he be at Michigan, Oklahoma State or even Sam Houston Institute of Technology (known by their famous acronym)is a legitimate subject for writers to scrutinize, analyze, analgyze or pyrolyze.

Nonetheless, the assh***ization of America has caused folks who spend too much time with their heads up their asses to get upset when their sacred cows are turned into fajitas. Certain politicians or sports figures (Barry Bonds for example) or even coaches such as Gundy and the former Dallas Cowboy’s rotund one Bill Parcells think no room exists for criticism of their players or themselves. And why should they? Politicians and big business execs and street thugs and their lawyers all deflect their shortcomings by blaming the media. The media, to their discredit, have sat idly by like little bitches and have taken it. So sports figures owe no answers to anyone. Little Johnny on the Pop Warner League team? Don’t even go their or his daddy will have a contract out to cap your ass so fast you’ll be in Limbo into the next century.

It is true some people write about some things they know nothing about and deserve the criticism they get for it. Take me for example. I don’t know nothing (except that double negatives irritate the hell out of English teachers.) People you hear on the call-in shows quite often don’t know what the hell they are talking about, nor for that matter, do the hosts of those shows. So I guess perhaps it all evens out. Or maybe it doesn’t. Hey, I never claimed to know what the hell I am talking about.

So there you have it. Put up, shut up or go ride the golden lizard. That’s what I am talking about.

golden lizard — No, I really, really have no idea what I am talking about.
Sam Houston Institute of Technology — Sam Houston State University has never been known, as far as I know, Sam Houston Institute of Technology even though Dan Rather, an alumnus, claims it once was. Stephen F. Austin State University, my alma mater, was never named simply “Steve” although I hope some day it will become Steve U.