Eight Feet Deep

I wish I could play the guitar like that. Hell, I just wish I could PLAY the guitar.

A fellow named Ian sent me a bunch of fotos of a bitchin’ time that was had in Bermuda. Apparently, Ian thought I was in the band that he saw with friends in Bermuda, or that I was this guitarist or something of a sort.

I e-mailed Ian back and told him that I had never been to Bermuda as well as had never played the guitar. Those are two things I have meant to do: Go to Bermuda and learn to play the guitar. So who is this dude laying down the riffs or, as we cubes (a square who is a bit edgy) say, “playing the guitar?” I really don’t know nor do I know who the Ian is who e-mailed me. I’ve known an Ian or two. I’m sure most people have known or at least seen an Ian at some time or the other. But this particular Ian, I’m sorry, it must have been that other eight feet deep guy in Bermuda.

If anyone out there in the cybergalaxy knows who this is playing the guitar, please let me know so I may plug him. No, by plugging him I don’t mean shooting him with a gun. I mean giving him a mention so as to boost his bidness. Of course, if this guy’s band depended on me for advertising, I would expect they would have to go back to their days jobs provided they never left those jobs.

Nonetheless, from the other pictures that Ian sent me, I definitely wished I had been with him in Bermuda. It looks like a good time was had by all. And, I rather like having a good time.

While waiting to see the 16-year-old girl who was masquerading as a doctor today at the VA, I watched Pat Robertson and his ever riveting “700 Club” on the waiting room TV.

I found it odd that the VA allows Pat Robertson to be seen on their teevees because it seems as if Pat and God (the dynamic duo)directly compete with the VA in the healing department. Okay, one might say Pat heals through God. Or that the VA heals through God. Or that God heals through Pat. Or that God heals through the VA. Or that God heals through a PPO with a $1,000 deductible. Six of one.

It has been awhile since I watched the “700 Club.” Okay, I never watched it before. But it was amazing what ailments that Pat allows to be healed through the power of prayer and corporate advertising. After praying for someone with a rare form of cancer, Pat said a prayer to get rid of some woman’s hangnail. I mean, it’s a nice gesture, praying to cast out evil hangnails but you’d think Pat would be involved with bigger things.

The truth is, I can’t ridicule someone’s beliefs when it comes to the power of prayer. For instance, I prayed that either I would be called to see a doctor or else the television would explode just as Pat prayed for God to relieve a 3-year-old’s “bobo.” Fortunately, I was called by the 16-year-old doctor before that happened. Praise be! It’s a mir-a-cul!

CHECK IT OUT! Pat shares his cooking tips along the way to help make your pancakes light and fluffy. Just like Moses made ’em!

A visit to any VA Hospital is not a picnic. But it seemed my trip to the Dallas VA Hospital this morning was particularly fraught with equine feces. My visit was to obtain a new primary care doctor, as well as get the gears in motion for appointments with a neurologist and that hospital’s pain clinic.

It seemed as if all the non-medical personnel (and some of the medical ones) found it to be a great imposition to answer my questions or help me. “Oh me oh my! I do not wish to impose on whatever it is that you do just to help an old, shaking veteran such as me who is in severe pain!”

Sometimes it is hard not to believe that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs practices what I call medicine by attrition. I refer to the practice of waiting out patients until they die so the VA will not have to expend any energy or precious resources that might interfere with more important matters — such as their pay raises. The VA might as well shoot me.

Fortunately, not all VA employees are like that. But those who aren’t should bitch slap those who are and remind them why in the hell they work at a VA Hospital.

Ahhhh! Bitching makes life a little easier to tolerate.

Collin County Comm. Jack Hatchell

Yes, it does indeed seem like déjà vu all over again. The more things change, the more they remain the same. The more things change, the more they remain things. Whatever.

Here I am back in Collin County, Texas, without a job, just as I was 15 months ago. Meanwhile, the Collin County Commissioners have voted themselves a pay raise. How is that familiar? Well, it just so happens that in the county I left, Jefferson County, the commissioners there also decided to raise their own salaries.

Now perhaps you might think that the 6 percent pay raise Collin County’s ruling board approved by a 3-2 margin isn’t a big salary hike. That would be true in most cases. It certainly isn’t as large as the 17.2 percent raise they first proposed. Commissioner Jack Hatchell had the decency to make a motion for the tentative 6 percent compromise raise for the commissioners court and adding a 2 percent salary hike for other county officials.

Jefferson County commissioners tenatively approved an 18 percent raise for themselves and a 5 percent raise for the county judge.

The rationale for the raises in these two counties appears to be the added stress and strain on commissioners in governing larger Texas counties. Officials in Jefferson County — with a population of about 231,000 — decided to base their prospective raises on an average of counties with like sizes. Commissioners in Collin County, with more than a half-million residents, feel their salary should be about 90 percent of neighboring Dallas County commissioners.

So should local government officials be paid based on population? Obviously some pros and cons exist. It seems as if the larger the population, the bigger the increase of time expended by that official. And like Yogi Berra (or was it Ben Franklin?) said: “Time is money.”

Jefferson County Comm. Bo Alfred

At least Jefferson County Commissioner Bo Alfred had the novel idea that the county’s governing council should be paid more than other county officials because they take more s**t from residents.

But do you suppose the Collin County commissioners will perform 6 percent more work if they get a raise? And what about Alfred and his fellow court members in Jefferson County? Do you see them hopping up and doing 18 percent more than what they have been doing?

Neither set of raises are carved into stone as of yet. So the residents of these two counties — one in North Central Texas and the other on the Gulf Coast — need to do a little “Hmmm” -ing and figure out whether this is a sound move. Will higher salaries attract higher-caliber candidates? Will the increased pay lead to a more efficient government? I have my theories. But I will keep them to myself. I just say it’s all a case of the same things only they are different.

When CBS News announced that Katie Couric was to be the new evening news anchor, I had my reservations. But I have to say I was rather pleased with her initial newscast last night.

Being introduced in a voice over by no less than God himself, Walter Cronkite, the new broadcast showed from the start that it was going to be different from the rest of the pack and set apart from what CBS has done in the past.

Couric showed a bit less of her perky personae in the broadcast debut that had been such a staple of the “Today” show. She was serious when serious was needed and light when the occasion called for light. The new editorial page-style segment and picture features are perhaps a bit gimmicky, but if continued to be done right they could provide a relief from what has become a tiresome format in network news.

Alas, Katie doesn’t yet have the gravitas. Her personality lends itself more to the opening music of “The Devil Wears Prada.” And that’s not really bad — Katie or the song. There is nothing wrong with a little upbeat glamour. And besides gravitas is not necessisarily a congenital trait. After all, Ed Murrow, David Brinkley and Walter Cronkite didn’t start off being the Ed Murrow, David Brinkley and Walter Cronkite that the world came to know.

So I am impressed thus far and we shall see how Katie fares down the line.