In listening to McCain posturing, fighting, bluffing?,  at the hearings to repeal DADT, I keep wondering Why?

Is he just pissed at Obama and will be on the otherside of any issue?

McCain doesn't seem to be a man driven by deep religious convictions, so it is hard to believe that any biblical injunction is the reason. Surely he doesn't think that he is on the right side of history here. He can't believe that 30 years from now people will cheer him.

Maybe it is just because McCain is old and doesn't want any change. I'm old and I like to think that I love change – shit! I do love change, it is what makes life interesting – and I have found it very hard to relate to Rap. I mean, I have tried. OK, maybe not really, but I have sort of tried.

A couple of days ago, I read an article in the New Yorker, Jay-Z's "Decoded" and the language of hip-hop, that talked about the complexity of the rhyming schemes in Rap. It said, among other things, The best MCs – like Rakim, Jay-Z, Tupac, and many others – deserve consideration alongside the giants of  American poetry. We ignore them at our own expense. The article opened a world and showed a complity that I know nothing about and, after reading it, I can intellectually admire  Rap, but that doesn't make listening to Rap and easier. And I think it is just because I am too old.

In a fascinating  article in the NYTimes on why Oregon State is the number one collage football team in the country, is this paragraph This style has been easier for Kelly’s players to adjust to than for his coaches, most of whom have spent many more years than he has at the major college level. Aliotti, the defensive coordinator, is 56 and in his third stint on the Oregon staff. He has also coached in the N.F.L. “It’s insanity for a coach,” he said when we talked one morning after practice. “You’ve got the music blasting, you look around and your kids are dancing and you don’t want to stop the fun. But when you’re an old-school guy like me, it takes patience and change, because you want to make yourself heard. I want to correct a guy, but we’re already on to the next play. Don’t get me wrong. This has been good for us as a team. But I have to be real with you. It’s still hard for me.”

Maybe McCain is just too old to change. Maybe a kid, say somebody who is 50, should take his place in the Senate.

I think that this gives better – better meaning accurate and powerful – picture of Afghanistan, or, really, Kabul, than any article in the New York Times. It is about nine minutes long but – if you have nine minutes – really worth it.

http://vimeo.com/15841377

SKATEISTAN: TO LIVE AND SKATE KABUL from Diesel New Voices on Vimeo.

Dexter is – in its strange way – an uplifting story of how we all feel alone and uniquely damaged but are all the same. The title character is a likable serial killer who only kills bad guys, but there are really four or five plots going on at once. It is one of my guilty pleasures.

Recently, in passing, Dexter snidely brushes off the computer as entertainment by suggesting its highpoint is showing a cat that farts and coughs at the same time. That the farting cat is all that is there.

I was reminded of movies dissing television at the dawn of the television era and realized that I may have lived through the complete cycle of television. If so, it is probably the only complete cycle I have lived through. After all, cars were here when I was born and will still be here for a long time. The same with planes.

But, when I was young, most people did not have television. As television grew, it went from television as the upstart, simple and primitive, to television as the dominant story teller. Now, as the dominant story teller,  the best television programs are longer, more complex, movies.

The Sopranos, or Mad Men, or The Wire, or, even, Dexter, tell better stories than any movie. And, like movies felt under siege by television, when when television was just starting; television now feels under siege by computers. Or, maybe, it is the internet, or maybe, just YouTube.  

(This was started yesterday.)

I am back from my knee surgery, feelin' groovy and very Thankful, although I do have a numb knee – try saying that fast twenty times. I had a torn cartilage or meniscus which – I am told – will now be fine. Well fine except that I am getting old and a deteriorating meniscus just comes with age and will, apparently, keep coming.

This picture, part of a set given to us we left the hospital, is purported to be a picture of the inside of my knee joint taken by the doctor with an arthroscopic camera. How is this even possible? How do they get a camera and a light and all the tools required into this tiny little space?  

The operation was done at the Seton Medical Center because the doctor I wanted – Dr. Shabi Khan – operates there. So I get Shabi, who has operated on both of my shoulders¹ and who I think is terrific; and as a bonus, I get Seton. Seton is a Catholic Hospital and everywhere you look, there are crosses. I am slightly cross phobic, but, at Seton, I find it mildly comforting.

The preponderance of my spiritual experiences have been in nature and I think Thoreau was spot on when he said In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World.  But there have been a few people and a few places that just glow with their spirituality: an Irish, Catholic, priest that officiated a wedding in Alviso in both Spanish and English, The Taj Mahal, The David, a hyper alive Mosque in the otherwise dead city of Fathehpur Sikri in India.

And, to a lessor extent, Seton Hospital. I have had four operations at Seton, and, each time, I leave feeling blessed. It isn't that Seton is a high service boutique hospital, it isn't. It has a sort of production line vibe. It isn't that it is cutting edge high tech, although it might be. It is that everybody there seems to be aligned in Service; a soft, easy, greater, Purpose. 

So, given the circumstances, it was a great place to spend the day before the start of Hanukkah. I left feeling thankful.

  ¹ a bad fall skiing at Whistler.

I had to get a blood test today because I am going to get a knee operation this Wednesday. Over the check in counter of the blood lab, is a water color – or, maybe, an acrylic – painting of Lake Como. 

Looking at the picture, I was struck by the beauty of Lake Como and how that beauty must influence the people who live there. I am drawn to beauty – I think everybody is. When Malcolm Pearson and I went to the Mullin Automotive Museum a couple of weekends ago, there were a couple of cars that just stunned us. We just stood in front of them – awe-struck.

At one point, Malcolm said something along the line of God was there when they designed that car. I don't believe in God but I do believe in Something; I just prefer to use the word Divine. I would really prefer to use Connection or Bridge to the Infinite, but both of those are cumbersome and  require too much explanation. Divine seems to work.

I feel pretty much the same way every time I go north down the Waldo Grade and look over Sausalito, the houseboats, Richardson Bay, and across to the Tiburon peninsula. Like Lake Como, it is staggeringly beautiful. I have been over that section of road at least 500 times, and it still takes my breath away. The people who live there, live with that view must be happier than someone living in a slum.

I don't mean always happy or happy just after they got diagnosed with breast cancer, but happier than they would be if they lived somewhere without that view. And it is not just that they are richer. People who live surrounded by the beauty of Lake Como must be happier and, originally, they were peasants; no richer than today's slum dwellers.

As a movie lover, I noticed pretty early that there are two kinds of LA movies: movies that show a beautiful, idyllic, LA and movies that show a seedy, nasty LA. The first is always a happy movie, maybe a romantic comedy, and the second is always a sad, downer movie. I spent a year in Korea, stationed in a HAWK anti-aircraft battery, on a hilltop overlooking the Yellow sea. It was a gorgeous place with staggering sunsets. I remember it with fond memories.

I am starting to think we should spend more money cleaning up slums, planting more trees, painting more bus-stops. I am convinced it would be money well spent. Well spent in that the whole country would be better off.