Dr. Duke Emerges from Hiding

Dr. Duke found a seat in the back of the jam-packed board room, between a teacher from Monroe Elementary and an Asian man who appeared to be asleep; the man’s zipper was open and his shoes were untied. Duke was coming off a week-long peyote bender in Sedona and felt as if the room was tilted to one side, like a ship in a storm. He watched a District administrator trip and nearly fall over a laptop power cord. Nobody else in the room seemed to notice, or if they did, they didn’t care. The five Board members and the Superintendent trooped in from an adjoining room. The Board members looked glum, as if the fate of western civilization rested on their shoulders; on the other hand, the Superintendent was beaming as if he’d just won the lottery. The contrast made Duke’s forehead throb and he wondered, again, why he was here on a Tuesday night when he could be home watching the World Series. Duke had $500 riding on the underdog Cardinals. He’d bet a twenty-three-year-old Navajo virgin he met in Sedona and spent a week trying to bed down that the Cardinals would shock the Detroit Tigers in six games. Duke failed to get the girl into the sack, primarily because she thought it would be bad luck to lose her virginity during the Major League Baseball play-offs.

During the Pledge of Allegiance Duke silently cursed George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Newt Gingrich, and for good measure threw in Bill and Hillary Clinton, Joseph Lieberman, Katie Couric, and Diane Sawyer. “May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your pubic region,” he whispered – or at least thought he whispered – though when several people turned to stare at him he realized that he’d been shouting like a street-corner preacher. “I had a bad week in Sedona,” he explained. “Too much sun and peyote, not enough sex. But you have nothing to fear. I’m just a run of the mill psychopath.”

The Superintendent launched into a monologue about an obscure Albanian research study which indicated a strong correlation between eating organic strawberries and improved standardized test scores. The Board members scribbled notes and nodded their heads; one wondered if the strawberries had to come from Albania or would strawberries from Oxnard or Santa Maria work just as well? The Superintendent had no idea and his inability to answer the question didn’t bother him in the least; he was still smiling as if he had the King of Siam by the balls. Duke found the Superintendent’s sunny demeanor annoying and wondered what prescription medications the man was on. Lithium? Zoloft? Paxil? Luvox? Enzyte? Even when he described a gaping hole in the budget the Superintendent’s rosy expression never changed. “Sweet Jesus,” Duke thought, “this guy should have captained the Titanic. He would have glad-handed the passengers when the ship was going down. ‘Isn’t this weather wonderful? Great night for sailing!’ Ladies and gentlemen, don’t pay any attention to that iceberg! I assure you that we have everything under control.’”

A teacher from La Cumbre Junior High was making an impassioned public comment about saving her school from an invasion of elementary kids. The teacher painted a dire portrait of overcrowding, first graders forced to make peepee next to seventh graders, traffic congestion, building code violations, and so on for three minutes and ten seconds. The speech was long on passion and short on facts and logic, but what the hell, George W. Bush is a moron who never lets facts bother him and he’s sitting in the White House playing president. To Duke the argument sounded silly, not to mention premature. The La Cumbre crowd needed to chill, hold a soothing group hug, and then get it through their panicked minds that the District wasn’t proposing to build a fortified, cinderblock and concertina wire compound on the campus. The world would not grind to a halt if a few hundred elementary kids moved into classrooms on a half-empty campus. Get a grip people!

The side-effects of a week-long peyote binge coupled with the endless drone of public comment were taking a toll on Duke. He heard the sound of flapping wings and saw a flock of pigeons fly through the open door and land on the dais in front of the Superintendent. The pigeons bobbed and clucked and cooed and preened until suddenly they transformed themselves into teachers -- angry, underpaid teachers armed with ripe tomatoes – which they began throwing at the Superintendent and Board members, a hail of crimson bombs. The Board members ducked under the dais or scurried for cover while the Superintendent took the brunt of the assault, smiling as jovially as ever as tomato juice and pulp dripped down his face, all over his papers and his necktie. No problem, ladies and gentlemen. Isn’t it great to see such spirited teachers! How about a big hand for our wonderful staff!

In fact – and much to Duke’s chagrin – nothing of the sort happened. There were no pigeons, no tomatoes. About forty teachers merely stood in solidarity while their elected leader read a proclamation. Damn, Duke thought, this time I’ve gone too far, totally rewired my own circuitry. If the illusion is unreal and the unreal is an illusion…what! Sweet Jesus, I’m jabbering. I’ve got to get out of here. But where’s the door? And why are there bars over the windows? And is the Superintendent really holding a cattle prod?

What saved Duke from terrible public embarrassment was Kenneth Locke, self-proclaimed genius, master of the Arts, master of the forehand, the backhand, and the serve and volley; Kenneth Locke, who peddled around town on a mountain bike, with a tennis racket and a guitar strapped to the front forks, visiting every public agency where he could take advantage of his right to three minutes at the podium to spread his gospel of Art for Art’s Sake. “I have the knowledge and I am the messenger,” Locke began, “I am the heir to Leonardo DaVinci and the spokesperson for the emerging avant garde.” Locke attended Board meetings week after week, using his allotted time to advance a philosophy that never failed to amuse and befuddle his audience. “You can’t serve two masters,” Locke intoned, “and it’s even harder to serve three or four.” At this the Asian man next to Duke woke with a start and clapped his hands. Locke said, “If there is no master there can be no student, and if the student isn’t ready, the master will not appear. Think about that!” A driver, a three-wood and a three-iron from sanity, Locke concluded by telling the Board that he would be out of town and out of touch for a while, but would return and update them on his quest.

Duke leaned back in his chair. This was better, much better; being in the presence of genius made the whole meeting worthwhile.

White-Beard Notes

White beard notes of a Semi-Clean Man. What’s that ringing in my ear? Who do you turn to when all your heroes are long dead, pushing up weeds in neglected graveyards? This isn’t a heroic age. This is an age of cowardice and spin, cover-my-ass hypocrisy, big lies shouted from big platforms, and the silence of the Great Majority, to borrow a phrase from old Dick Nixon. Even Nixon might feel ashamed today. Do you get the feeling that the whole deal is sliding toward the sheer face of a steep cliff? Crack another Coors Light, ignore this nagging disquiet, ignore the ringing in your ear and the man behind the velvet curtain. A crow perched on a wooden fence, hot salsa on a king-sized burrito, pigs feet under glass. Wealthy pale skins come down from their hilltop fortresses to taste the delights of a Westside taco stand. Militarism is the last refuge of a failed government. When moral reason fails, pull your pistol from its holster, wave it around so everyone can see how big and bad you are. Why is investing in people, not things, a radical notion? He was a wise and stupid man, for he could see things far away, yet was blind up close. Switch on the Tube, tune in to Fox’s coverage of the baseball playoffs, and be bombarded with commercials for Fox’s own slate of blood & guts dramas, hospital dramas, legal dramas, and game shows. Hey, Rube, you can win millions! Solve all your troubles in twenty-two minutes. VISA gets a nice slot, so does E-Trade, Verizon Wireless, and oversized liquid crystal HD televisions from Sharp. Whoopee! I feel deprived without my HD TV! Mirror mirror on the wall, which is the dumbest country of all? The most morally bankrupt? Number one in hypocrisy? Oh, baby, we got that market cornered. We’re untouchable, the undisputed champs. And how proudly we wear our crown of thorns! Teach the children, but teach them what? To conform and obediently follow the dictates of crooked masters? Who is teaching the children to stand up and speak out against injustice and hypocrisy and greed and lawlessness? Such thinking isn’t included in the standard, state-approved curriculum. Do you feel the creep of fascism? We love our guns, fear foreigners and immigrants, propose to build walls to keep them out, and trample our most sacred traditions in the name of “security,” in the name of protecting our “freedom.” Means and ends. Remember the wise black man who said, “the ends are not cut off from the means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.” In other words, ends and means must be aligned. Too much hatred, too little love. The morning train rumbles through town, waking the sleepers in the homeless encampments along the tracks. Poverty and want in the shadow of prosperity and wealth. What are we building here? Man rolls over and pulls his dog closer as the train roars past. Have you checked your credit score lately? Have you talked to Chuck Schwab about your portfolio? The DOW is up, how do you feel about that? Or are you worried about your enlarged prostate? Have you heard about Avodart? Ask your Doctor. Oh, you can’t afford to see a doctor? Too bad, man, too bad; your death will be drawn out and painful. Ever thought of going down to the blood bank and selling a pint? I tried it once, but they said my blood was only semi-clean.

MoTown Blues

It’s October, again, and that means play-off baseball, which means that my Yankees are among the field of hopefuls, and even the favorites in the minds of some. If the New Yorkers had better starting pitching and a more reliable bullpen I might agree, but if I had money to wager, I’d bet that the Bronx boys make an early exit.

Game 3, Detroit, and the Yankees are not hitting against Kenny Rogers. The Gambler is mixing a wicked curve with a nice change-up, and the Yankees are flailing. The Yanks have had base runners in every inning but can’t move them because they are incapable of stringing hits together. Shades of last year against the Angels, shades of the great collapse against the Red Sox in 2004, and against the Marlins in 2003. This high-priced offense that lives by the big fly has a nasty habit of going stone cold at the wrong time. A-Rod is absolutely the highest-paid choke-artist in the history of this great game. What’s he hitting in the first three games of this series, .175? The Yanks would be smart to move A-Rod in the off season, to any team that will take on his massive salary and give something of value in return.

Five innings in the books and the Yanks trail by three. Rogers has struck out five. He’s on his game and the momentum has shifted entirely to the Tigers. Giambi just grounded to first for the third out. Another runner stranded.

5-0 now. Detroit has all the mojo, Randy Johnson is off to the showers, and George Steinbrenner must be popping a hemorrhoid. Not much to say, except this looks awfully familiar. Few teams in a best-of-five series have ever come back from a 2-1 deficit, but it looks as if the Yanks are staring down the barrel at that dire option.

Top 7th. Posada strokes a lead-off double to center. The Yanks have had at least one base runner in every inning. Matsui grounds to second, moving Posada to third. Bernie Williams swings like a blind man at a Rogers curve and strikes out; Cano grounds to second to end the inning. The Yanks appear flat and stunned. Rogers is pumped up, Tiger fans, sensing that the night belongs to their club, go apeshit.

Granderson just hit a solo dinger to right for a 6-0 lead. The Yanks are finished. When the Bombers go 1-16 with runners in scoring position, Yankee fans can read the writing on the wall because we’ve seen it so many times over the past four or five years. They could have mailed this dismal performance in from the airport. Should I switch this massacre off? It’s excruciating to watch a $200 million team get shut-out. Joe Morgan, who before this series began said that the Yankees were the best hitting line-up he’d ever seen from top to bottom, must feel like a fool.

Damon just fanned. Jeter works a walk, though he took a pitch that was a borderline strike. Looking toward tomorrow – and what else can we do? -- the Yanks will send Jaret Wright to the mound. How many innings will Clyde’s son last before Torre brings a hook? Abreu goes down looking and A-Rod lofts a lazy fly to right. The futility continues to pile up for the game’s highest-paid player.

Game 3 has been ugly, just ugly. The Bronx boys should feel ashamed. 0 for 18 with runners on base, dominated by a 41-year-old lefthander. They fall 6-0 and trail 2 games to 1. They have dug a deep hole.

The Real Banana Republic

The detainee bill passed recently by Congress sends shivers down my spine. We’ve traded our torch of liberty for a beacon of hypocrisy. How are we ever going to climb back up this slippery slope? It’s too depressing to contemplate, as is the entire reign of Bush/Cheney. These people are deluded, corrupt, and criminal, greedy for power. The more I look the less I see the nation once known throughout the world as the great hope for mankind.

We’ve lost our mojo. We display all the characteristics of a banana republic: government corruption, election fraud, official incompetence, false religious fervor, and a yawning gap between rich and poor.

And now, like the best of the banana republics, we condone torture.

When will this madness end? If the country had an opposition party worth following I’d feel more confident that the bleeding might soon stop, but all we’ve got is a herd of callow wimps: Clinton, Biden, Kerry. None of these people has ever seen a principle they can’t wait to compromise.

The words of Martin Luther King, Jr. echo down from the mountain tops, through the valleys, all the way to the coast, calling good people out, chiding us for our cowardice in the face of outrage. Shame on us for turning our backs on what gave us such promise: freedom, equality of opportunity, justice for all.

Concerned citizens – and they must number in the millions – search in vain for an outlet for their anger. They might feel the urge to march in the streets but hold back for fear of marching alone. Intelligent voices are drowned out by the likes of Hannity and Limbaugh and O’Reilly, misinformation fills the airwaves, and the public is too dispirited to wade through the lies for a nugget of truth.

Immoral means can never lead to a moral end. In the name of preserving freedom we reserve the right to torture, and grant ourselves immunity from any consequences. In the name of security we reserve the right to shred and trample our fundamental values, invade other countries, and demand that the rest of the world remake itself in our image.

The high crimes and misdemeanors of the last five years will weigh like a millstone around our collective necks for years to come. Until someone can convince me otherwise, I remain more fearful of what we can do to ourselves than what can be done to us by outsiders.