My Obligatory Vonnegut Piece

I loved the work of Kurt Vonnegut. I am not alone, because all of his books stayed in print or came back into print over the course of 50 years.

He was due back in town in April. We're celebrating the novel Slaughterhouse-five with this One City, One Book deal.

As most kids, childhood was upsetting and traumatic. So I read all his stuff. It made me laugh out loud. It reminded me of the dark humor of my grandmother (who was born the summer after he was, only on the kitchen table in the ghetto. To my knowledge they never did or would've crossed paths.) I always wondered if it was being well in touch with one's European roots, Indianapolis of the 20's-30's, or the Great Depression followed by World War 2 that made them sound the same. Gram passed last November. Mr. Vonnegut passed last night. I doubt I would've gotten a good answer out of either of them.

However, Sis and I spent an awful lot of time raising ourselves and our brother. A book never mentioned in all the tribute pieces, and one Vonnegut even rates poorly, was his book Slapstick. Sis and I loved that book. We still refer to each other as Betty and Bobby, because she is the left brain and I am the right, and it becomes painfully obvious when we are more than 10 miles away from each other. We had well-intentioned parents who ended up torn up by societal expectations. And we ultimately found family is the artificial one we created for ourselves out of our friends, my wife, and our in-laws. While the Lonesome No More!-model in the book failed miserably, setting one up in our personal lives has been successful and fulfilling.

My suggestion to anyone is to read that book and think about what it means to make a satisfying grown-up family out of the people who are good to you and in whom you can place your trust. You can't choose when you are a kid, but you can once you are an adult. Trust and Respect. Isn't that really what love is? Isn't that what ultimately really makes a family?

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, James C. Dobson/Focus on the Family.

Good-bye, Mr. Vonnegut. Thanks for the insights.

Romance in the Crossroads of America

Downtown offers two very romantic excursions to visitors to our fair city: gondola rides on the canal--a bargain at $75 when the ones in Venice, Italy go for 50 euros--and horse drawn carriage rides at $25.

Cat has been on me since we moved down here in '03 to take her on one. I have been trying to avoid it for the obvious exploitation of animals who are rumored to be made deaf so motorcars don't spook them. But also because I don't like horses, and I have almost hit these carriages a few times myself. It doesn't appear to be a romantic carriage ride around Central Park: more like a blind dodge 'em through a sea of lost out-of-towners driving erratically around our one-ways and an ever-growing population of taxis from hell. I'm not going to pay $25 to white-knuckle it for a half hour when I can do that for free on my bicycle.

This weekend, my worst fears came to life: Motorist jailed in horse-carriage crash
Another quality Indianapolis driver got high on who-knows-what but never got around to getting a driver's license (this laissez-faire attitude towards responsible car operation is pretty common) and slammed into a carriage. Luckily a dropout from Broad Ripple HS (go Rockets!) was smoking outside and jumped into action. He tried yelling "Whoa!" to stop the horse, which didn't seem to work. But he did pull on the reigns and eventually got it to stop. This only reinforces the rumor the horses are made deaf.

So what have we learned? High school dropouts aren't worthless, smoking is good for you sometimes, and Cat is getting a gondola ride on the canal when the weather warms up.

Happy Days

SO I'm not much of a sports fan, but it was nice to see the Colts stop choking and win a Superbowl finally. The Pacers on the other hand, after 10 years of maybe, almost lost out for the final playoff spot last night to the Detroit Pistons 100-85. Le sigh.

And the bike (bicycle place) that we really liked on Mass Ave is shutting its doors. I went to go pick up my Nishiki they rebuilt and they told me the sad news. Paying the lease on the place is cheaper than trying to run it.

The balmy weather of the past few weeks is gone. Last night while we slept, winter came again for it's final roar. This morning I awoke to less than 20 degrees-Fahrenheit and wind gusts that would test the strength of any one's toupee glue.

So I flipped to the Indy Star and saw the following article:
Same-sex marriage ban collapses

'Yay!' I thought,'Maybe the Hoosier State is coming around to the last quarter of the 20th Century.' Dare I even think it? Maybe even the 21st century.

Oh, no. I couldn't be that lucky. The article starts off optimistically enough in the first few paragraphs.

"This truly is significant," said John Joanette, a lobbyist for Indiana Equality, a leading opponent of the amendment. "This was all about doing what's right for the state of Indiana and the people of Indiana."

But then the swing vote, the one vote that finally managed to stall the bill in committee, Terri J Austin, D-Anderson, tearfully said:

"I have cried over this. I have prayed over this. I have sought advice from everyone I know to try and come to the right decision in my heart."

What was her crisis about? Not the first sentence of the amendment that defines marriage as only being only between one man and one woman, but the second sentence which reads:

"may not be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents of marriage be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."

Super. When walking the razor's edge for equality for all her constituents finally made her make a decision, it really just boiled down to: if a girlfriend was stalking her boyfriend or if some dumb redneck was smacking around his girlfriend and her kids, the police wouldn't be able to do a thing about it. And get sued again, just like in the '80's when they wouldn't prioritize responding to domestic violence calls and women got beaten to death. And the departments got their backends handed to them in million dollar increments.

The corporations chimed in with their arguments that they already offer domestic partner benefits and they would be worried about attracting librul, educated talent to the state. Because most talented, educated people are libruls, I guess. To be fair, I used to work for Lilly at a part-time gig a few years ago setting up their training sessions: they put their money where their mouths are. They very often had sensitivity workshops on the topic of LGBT coworkers (in addition to Japanese, Chinese, Indian, an Latin American coworkers as well).

To summarize, it stalled this year because the police don't want to get sued, and the corporations still want you smart people to come to our Tent Revival to make them some more money. Come to think of it, this may very well turn out to be the theme of the 21st century. Indiana, for once, might just be right there on the cutting edge.

If that's the case,(to the tune of Morrissey's "Everyday is Like Sunday")"Come, Mayan Calendar prediction, come..."

A Challenge to the Talented and Recently Graduated

I had the grand advantage of pretty evenly splitting up my childhood between Philadelphia and Indianapolis, back and forth between middle school and college.

As a mid-20's adult, I was sad to leave southeastern PA because I knew I'd miss the things I could get on the East Coast, like Yeungling beer and a decent cheese steak on good, crusty bread. And people who knew to use the right lane on the highway if they weren't going faster than the guy behind them. Oh yeah, and that the lines on the road weren't just a suggestion: they really want you to keep your car between those lines. But I wasn't going to miss the people. Poor, desperate people with the emotional mindset of Attila the Hun (and that was just navigating the Giant supermarket lanes). People who had to make some really hard decisions in order to afford a house, much less an apartment. I still have friends out there who work no less than two (cr#ppy and unfulfilling) jobs trying to stay on track with a mortgage for a dingy row house in a very unsafe section of town. And I don't miss the mindset when I go back and have seemed to become softer and gentler. Guess what guys? Being proud that you think you're some kind of hard-a**, carrying around a cross made of telephone poles really just makes you an a**hole. Get help.

I remember watching the news on New Years Eve in '95, and the news channel from NYC that I was watching said, "...broadcasting to you from the center of Western Civilization." I cracked up thinking, "If New York is the best western civilization has to offer, we're in a whole helluva lotta trouble." And I was right: for every bible-belter we have here, you guys elect somebody like Rudy Giuliani. And I heard more racist jokes there than I do here. And I know more interracial couples here than I ever saw there.

Is there a lot to be sickened by in the people here, too? Read the comments section of any Indystar.com article involving "the gays."

Sure as anything, this short life has already taught me that every place is somehow nice or has something redeeming. It's just the people that ruin it. What do the mountains of Central New Jersey and West Virginia have in common? Both are stunningly beautiful. Just don't get out of the car to talk to anyone.

But every day I am pleasantly surprised by a populace that doesn't live its everyday life like rats in a cage. I was riding the Monon trail with a friend yesterday, and people were just waving and saying "hi"--and not because they wanted to rape me or mug me or that had a touch of "the special" in the head. They did it just because its a polite and human thing to do (it took me a good 2-3 years to stop flinching when people I didn't know would just say 'hi.' That was the biggest culture shock.) And for every bible thumping, mouth breathing idiot, there are thoughtful and reflective college-educated people who wanted cheap housing and a small, easily navigable city (everything is usually 20 minutes away.)

So here is The Challenge:
If you're graduated from college and think you're smart, ask yourself: Why are throwing away your life paying $1100 for some shoebox apartment in an already saturated creative market? The most intelligent and cunning among you would move here, to the "cultural wasteland" because these kinds of places are where the most opportunity hangs like heavy fruit from the lowest branches. There is all the room in the world to create your opportunities.