Could Beethoven Have Forseen This....

    Doesn't it seem fitting that Ode To Joy has become a global anthem in this time of virus?
    Any rendition heals, but there is something "responsive"  and in the moment in the Rotterdam Philharmonic styling, at home, but together, virtually.

        Have we not laughed, or been brought to glassy eyes or felt a wholeness in the links, videos, zoom conversations or meetings as we all face the virus in isolation, or singularly, but like the orchestra, together?

     Isolation perhaps, socially distanced, life interrupted, but in community.
     My heart swells when we fragile and even frightened humans step onto balconies, porches, decks, or open our windows to yell, sing, ring bells, beat pans, applaud and cheer our medical providers. We cannot see the enemy, but we can defy its terror and rouse the lion in our human spirit and soothe our souls.

      We have imposed barriers in our one time convenient lives, we have placed obstacles to the common rhythms and familiar patterns. Now we wonder if perhaps we have taken so much for granted. 
      I was lamenting how I miss the sound of Jim Nantz and the tumult of an emphatic basketball arena. I feel cheated that I can't see the jibes and joy of Greg Gumble, Clark Kellogg, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith. And that started me on a  trail of the sounds we are missing.
      The chatter at Lily's coffee deck, my circle of chatterers and debaters, the joy of children at play drifting up the ridge from the grammar school playground, the clang, beeps and buzz of the big box and grocery store, live music wafting in from clubs, the hostess greeting or the chime of wine glasses toasting, the conversations in parking lots, the vibe of a tasting room, the sound of traffic even, and the applause of a concert crowd.

     I hope we are making more calls. It's a way to care, to check up, and just enjoy someone's company, even if distant. My friend Frank and I were sharing how we've been looking for old basketball games or sports events on the cable. He's reading a Sports Illustrated anthology of great moments. 

     In a large, large way, the field of competition, all sports, are a major element in the sound score of lives. How many Saturday or Sunday afternoons did that mellow "Whoa, Nellie..." of Keith Jackson or Dick Enberg's "Oh My..." serve as a gentle assurance that all was well with the world. 

     So, in the interim, we have replays, but there is something "normalizing" in hearing Al Michaels, or Bob Costas, and others. Normalizing like a friend complaining about the freeway traffic, or the sound of airplanes, or even the car with loud speakers in the next lane. 

     Normal. Normal life has more sounds, more sub conscious cues that we are well.

     As I was mulling this, Scott Simon of NPR must have been having smiliar withdrawal. On his March 28 Weekend edition, he took it on with the inimitable Hank Azaria.

      Link here to hear 4 minutes of smiles.

  

   Normal is on the other side of the virus and our social distanced restrictions. Getting there, getting through this is so much easier than what our parents or grand parents faced in the Spanish Influenza. Our cyber, wireless, social media world, helps us to remain in community. If each send, or text, or photo, or share could emit a sound lifted to the spheres, it would probably sound like an Ode to Joy.

    Stay well. See you down the trail.

A Good Night in America

winners

      The hometown kids prevail and Jon Batiste wails. Good nights in the US.

  

    High tides, driving rain, breaks of sun play. Victories too.

 game night

  Game night, school night is a good night in America.

   It is the rhythm and soul of our collective dream, the sweat and the lessons of life. It is sweetness, pure and simple from large urban field houses to small village gyms.

    That is especially so in a school like Coast Union in Cambria with an enrollment under 250 kids.
    I am almost religious about basketball. It's in my DNA and has been a constant dream since I learned to dribble in grade school. I love the game and I love to see kids also love the game. That is especially so here, for sure.

   I'm watching a classic basketball scenario run before my eyes here on the California Central coach.  It seems only a couple of years ago Coach Gehrig Kniffen was the floor captain of his scrappy Broncos team. He played with heart and a court sense. Now he's teaching the love of the game to his team.

   They're not big. One of the kid's mom tells me only 3 or 4 of the boys were basketball players. The rest of the kids grew up on soccer.
   Coach Kniffen has done well. The team plays smart, they spread the floor, they move the ball, work for a shot and show a tenacity and drive. 

    In this gym on this night the game was see saw, tight with heart and soul pushing up and down the court. Parents and friends were enthralled and entertained. On this night the hometown Broncos gained a well deserved victory. And on this night in America winners and losers met as good sports.

Orcutt would have a ride home, considering those few plays, those missed opportunities that could have made the difference. The Coast Union Broncos would give the new coach another first season win. It is the way of the game, an American way.

    It is a game that is immensely personal to a boomer from Indiana. My life is measured in chapters of basketball.

    I got the love of the game from my dad who was a skilled and accomplished player who, were it not for WWII, probably  would have continued on in semi pro and eventually professional hoops.

    I'd practice ball handing and dribbling in the basement of our little Muncie house and clip newspaper articles of my beloved 1950's era Muncie Central Bearcats.

    In Indiana a kid plays basketball wherever and much as he can. I remember Jon Hilkene's old barn with a hard packed uneven dirt floor on half the court and uneven old planks around the hoop and free throw line. We used to shovel snow or chip ice from Tom Johnson's extra wide driveway that was bathed in a street light and well pointed night spots on the house. In the winter we had to wear gloves, which affected our shooting and in the summer, sweat soaked we'd swat at mosquitoes and gnats. Summer basketball camps where the smell of the gym was especially sweet from the wax. Playing between the Hackbee's and Lowen's on an uneven, sloping alley with hoops hanging on the backs of garages, stopping when trash trucks or cars drove by. 

    An Indiana kid dreams of wearing the school colors, but life and moves and broken bones and size can conspire against that "glory." But in Indiana a kid can play in community centers in the inner city with dazzling players and shake and bake moves, or in a legendary old hotel in industrial or AAU leagues with true one time stars, or in church leagues campaigning around the city in great old gyms, at the Y, in pick up games on hallowed field house floors.  

     Even in middle age and beyond an Indiana kid can play in the elbows for lunch bunch at the Y, or in "celebrity games" barnstorming around the state in hallowed old field houses and gyms, playing local all stars or faculty teams to raise money for schools, bands, charities and the like. 

     Game night in America is a good night. It is stepping into a slip stream of good nights that reach back to the beginning and flow forward with that sweet, sweet sound and smell and swish of a net.

   New Orleans virtuoso Jon Batiste, leader of the Stay Human band that is Steven Colbert's house band on CBS is a hoopster. He is also a dynamic and charismatic performer.

   After his recent piano concert in San Luis Obispo he lead

a "love march" out of the auditorium. Was he great? Look at the smile on that little guys face. If you ever get a chance to see him, don't miss it.  It is pure joy, love and energy.

    He said his concert is like sitting in his living room while he just plays around. That's a great thought.  So is spending some time in a gym with him, playing the great American game.

     See you down the trail.

MATTERS OF CONTROL

     Lana's knee replacement surgery meant I spent a few days at the hospital, a rich tableau for an old reporter and watcher of people.
     One thing I am sure of is that nurses run things. Doctors matter of course and so do the administrators, but the nurses are the heart and soul and a good portion of the brains. It's similar to the army, where Sergeants run things. Nurses and sergeants know things based on practical experience on top of their considerable training. If you want to know something, ask a nurse. If nurses offer advice, take it.
     I'm biased because my youngest daughter Katherine is a nurse and so are several of our good friends.
     Maybe this nation would be a lot better off, if nurses were running the show.

there's a cure for that

        branding and castration in Templeton California

        I take it as my patriotic duty to rail about a couple of items and offer up a solution as pictured above.

         A military parade? Just one more warning sign on the growing checklist this guy is separated from reality,  normalcy, decency and intelligence and that he's acting so like a banana republic dictator he represents a danger to our democratic republic. He's got no politics or policy that we could fight about it, it's just his ego insanity, arrogance and lack of knowledge.

         Scores of experienced men and women warned us in the campaign, he's unfit, unqualified and lacks the intelligence to do the job. He won't even read the daily presidential briefs, he spends hours doing his "hair," comes to work late, leaves early and cannot be trusted.

         Yea, I know I'm sick and tired of it too. But we cannot for moment let this tyrant go unchecked or unchallenged so some times we have beat a dead horse. 

        There is the vexing matter of those who continue to support him, and the republicans who refuse to rebuff him. I submit they will be remembered by history as fools and a cancer on the great American experiment. 

         Wouldn't you love to see this bloated over the hill playboy and scammer meet justice-Batman or Avengers style? Or from a cowboy like those pictured above.

an example of the decline

          It was an item many would have missed. The Sinclair Broadcast group, the nation's largest owner of TV stations, is fighting for deregulation so they can amass more stations. That alone is a topic for discussion, but the point today is Sinclair asked executives, including news executives and local news directors to contribute to the legal fund.

         They are nuts! They are turning their back on 50 years of journalistic cannons. All major news organizations, ABC, NBC, CBS, FoxNews, and CNN forbid journalists from contributing to candidates, parties or political organizations. Frankly, as a journalist, you wouldn't want to. It helps eliminate conflict of interest or the perception of a bias.

        "I've never seen anything like this," says Professor Lewis Friedland of the University of Wisconsin and a former TV producer, "it's blatantly unethical."

        Sinclair's senior vice president of strategy and policy said there was nothing wrong with the request since it did not go to reporters, anchors or other newsroom employees. Rebecca Hanson said the news directors "were solicited as a result of being part of our managerial level, not because of their role in editorial." Ms Hanson, you cannot have it both ways.

        I was a news director at the flagship station of a TV chain and a member of the management, but also responsible for day to day news operations and content on three stations. Journalists and news people always put priority on content. Hanson's comment and lack of understanding of the ethical violation is so typical of profit driven corporate management where the only thing that matters is the bottom line. And it is not unlike the logic of those who can support donald trump. Oh, by the way, Sinclair mandated that local stations run pro trump commentaries, right wing harangues and pro trump news stories. Mandated that! They are further right than Fox News and they plan to challenge Fox by purchasing new stations, but first they must challenge the Federal Government. 

        I would not, nor could I have, worked for Sinclair. They are a bane on real journalism, but this is the age of trump, where someones opinion carries as much weight as facts, science and truth. It's an age where money and lies persuade.

       There are days when I wonder if traditional American values or principles of fairness, honesty, experience and the value of intelligence and history can survive an age of Facebook, social media, news by flavor, right wing news bias, low information citizens, big money and swindlers like trump and Putin. Maybe not, but not without a fight and a full defense of the constitution and bill of rights. 

        The staff person who was tasked with explaining to the president what the 10 amendments that are bill of rights were says he got to the fourth, trump rolled his eyes, used his finger to blubber his lips and that was it. It is a good bet donald trump has never read the constitution, doesn't know what the separation of powers or checks and balances are -but he's pretty sure his button is the largest.  

        

        See you down the trail.

        

LIFE IMITATING ART

MY LAZY BUDDY

   Exploits of Hemingway our polydactyl have been documented here in previous posts. But here is something you may not know. He is a rescue cat from HART our local shelter-The Homeless Animal Rescue Team. He was an abandoned "freak," an off spring of feral cats in Paso Robles.
   The woman who brought him to HART had been watching a feral cat as it prepared to birth kittens. After they arrived the mother carefully moved the litter over a fence, except for Hemingway. Instead she dropped him elsewhere and left. Rescuers reason she wanted nothing to with a kitten who had six fingers on each paw. Being dumped by your mom could give you an attitude, right?
     When he arrived in Cambria he was put into a separate holding cage because he was wildly rambunctious and a "biter." They warned us he might be a handful but everyone loved the little scamp. They gave him an apt name.

   Hemingway was even a "poser boy" for a benefit.

  He is the first of his "line" to be domesticated. Nothing in his genes prepared him to be a "pet." Perpetually curious and affectionate he's been a delightful pal. A little slow, I call him a Palooka, he is playful. The trash trucks and mail unit scare him. He shows evidence of hypersensitive hearing. But he is playful, easy going and loves attention. He knows he's family. Good, for a "left for dead" creature.

  Well, as he has grown he's perfected the Garfield Syndrome. When not eating he loves to nap, often in the Jade planter on the front deck. Here he expresses his pique at being disturbed during a nap.

   But it's not about nothing. Of recent he's learned to resemble a corpulent old man dozing in an easy chair. That jade makes a perfect back support.  The good life!

   Life confronts us with complexity and the news suffers no shortage of inhumanity, but pets, from rescue shelters especially, are memes of caring. In return, we have fascinating entertainment while we abet a job description to pine for.

WE WERE BORN THAT WAY

    Bob Christy, a former colleague and longtime friend, who's blog can be found in the Rich Blogs Column to your right on LightBreezes, posted recently on the difficulties vexing transgender people. 

    We are in a learning curve. Societal understandings are morphing. Prejudice, ignorance-often because of limited or narrow life experience and exposure and a moralistic judgementalism will be overcome. Demographic cohorts of 12-40 year olds get it. You see the fault line? Life is more intricate than old black and white television. 

     The CBS 60 Minutes piece on a swimmer on the Harvard mens team is a case in point. He was born a girl, but didn't fit the gender. She had been a champion in girl's competitions and was offered a scholarship. But a gender change changed more. He now competes on the men's team. He is taking hormone treatments, had a breast removal and is a man with a vagina. 
     Generational perceptions influence how we think and react and that is especially so in this area. But more new challenges are due. Pharmacological advances, regenerative medicine, medical technology and artificial intelligence in particular will have humankind scratching our heads trying to determine what makes a human, human? That is an easier question today.

PINERIDGE ONIONS

   More evidence of why I appreciate that Lana likes to play in the dirt.

    One of our favorite Italian chefs is receiving a gift. 

    See you down the trail.

PICTURE PERFECT & WAITING FOR THE NEXT DANCE

GLORIOUS SPRING

   Spring blooms spray the hills rolling to the Pacific behind Cayucos California.

   Echium bathes in spring sun.

   Color explodes.

    A wind chime serenades.

   Walkers trek to iconic Morro Rock.

    Walking on water?

   A box set. Hemingway and Joy ready for a snooze.

CONFESSIONS OF A BASKETBALL JUNKIE

     It's tough now. The Big Dance is over, the confetti has been swept away. It ended well, one of the most competitive and hard fought games in the history of the men's championships, but that makes it tougher, the withdrawal harder. 

      When Villanova's Kris Jenkins left fly a three point buzzer beater, basketball fans were in ecstasy. North Carolina and Villanova had spent 39 minutes and 58 seconds of extraordinary athletic and emotional effort. After a month of tourney play when 66 other teams had failed to get to the summit, that a game could come down to a final shot with two seconds left is an exhilaration stupendous.

       But now it's over. No more Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sundays of back to back games. That unique harmonic rush of arenas full of thousands cheering, balls and shoes on hardwood, rims rattling, the CBS sports theme, announcers and analysts who become like friends and neighbors no longer fill the sound scape.

      Growing up in Indiana, home of Hoosiers, and the Hoosiers, Bulldogs, Boilermakers, Cardinals and Fighting Irish this guy fell in love with the game.  We started playing in the second and third grade. High School basketball is a thing of legend the world knows because of the above mentioned Hoosiers. But college basketball is my addiction and that jones is fevered during March. It is indeed a madness, but April brings the hard comedown.  

       I get mildly interested in the NBA playoffs but it is somehow different, less passionate and without the same buzz. My daughters remind me some of their happy family memories include the almost festive air of the home during basketball season, the aroma of chili, or pizza or chicken wings, or burgers in the air with that hypnotic audio mix of a game on the tv and dad and mom in varying states of enthusiasm or despair. Now we must wait another year as we rehab and withdraw. 

      But there are sports classic channels and youtube. And course there is tennis, which conveniently fills the calendar. I love tennis. I no longer play basketball, but I play tennis and I love to watch it. The Opens and the Slams are great, but it is oh so quiet and there are no last second shots!

    See you down the trail.

SEX & TENNIS and WHEN REAL MEN CRY

LEGACY

   Lone chimneys dot California wilderness and mountain areas. Sentries, guarding the past of what was once a place of life and settlement they are also powerful testament to enduring. Some things last and remain. So it is with life and human legacy.

REAL MEN TEARS

   The Detroit Free Press said it was his "most impressive moment after the worst loss," Michigan State coach Tom Izzo in tears, voice cracking after his highly ranked Spartans lost to little Middle Tennessee State. One of his key players Denzel Valentine said it had been his job to carry a team but he let them down and that's when a tearful Izzo reached out to touch the neck of an obviously hurting kid. Tom Izzo is one of the real and genuine guys in big time college coaching. Of course he was disappointed in the team's play and their loss but he was more concerned, even compassionate about how much it hurt his kids.

     Chris Mack coach of Xavier that lost on a last second shot  was interviewed live after trying to console his highly ranked team. He emerged solemn and shaken and was asked what it was like. He said, "that is a tough locker room right now, really hurting."

     There were other such moments as the NCAA tournament  played down to the Sweet 16. Even the professional analysts, Clark Kellogg, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley were moved by the emotion, especially the Izzo comments and concern. Some may poo poo the emotions but one needs to remember despite their size and skill, they are still  really kids, many in their teens and most will never go on to play professional ball, so a tourney loss is the end of a dream and the ruin of hope. A coach, a good coach, cares about that as well. And so it is healthy, I think, to see a man who has drilled and trained an athlete, to respond to the kid, or young man with concern and compassion at one of the worst moments of their young life. And if tears flow, that's not only human, real and caring, it is also manly. Real man, manly!

AND THERE ARE MINDLESS WORDS 

     It didn't take long for most of tennis and much of the media world to fire back at Raymond Moore. He is the now besieged CEO of the Indiana Wells Tennis Garden and BNP Paribas tournament, one of the prestige venues in the world.

      Players, commentators, journalists and fans heaped scorn on Moore for his comment, on the day of the Championship Finals, that women tennis players had ridden the coat tails of men and that women players should go down on their knees to thank players like Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal.  

      Even if that was true, and it is not, it certainly is not wise to make such a sexist and outrageous comment to anyone, especially the media. Patrick McEnroe quickly said Moore should resign. Serena Williams and others have called the comments offensive. 

       I have not seen marketing studies to verify it but my hunch is the women professionals are every bit as much a box office draw as men. The top ranked women, like their male counterparts are millionaires from prize money and endorsements. 

       Oracle mogul Larry Ellison who owns the complex and tourney is expected to have the last word on Moore's unfortunate comments.

OBSERVED

   We caught this lovely scene and sound as we drove home from dinner in Cambria.

      Someone hired Voces Tapatias Mariachi to serenade those living in this apartment just off Main Street.

   It was a lovely pre sunset desert.  

Puzzling

UNLIKELY CHALLENGE

    Lana, a decades long veteran of jigsaw puzzle work says this ditty from Liberty Puzzles is the toughest she has confronted.

    Alone and with friends she has worked much larger puzzles and with hundreds more pieces. This wood puzzle with interesting shaped cuts may be small, but mighty.

POLI PUZZLING

    Al Hunt is one of the last of the old boy political analysts, descending from a craft where watching and observing were the tools. Unlike most talking heads now, eager to predict or pontificate, Hunt watches and takes measure, often finding foundational facts. Hunt believes what Eric Sevareid said many years ago, you cannot predict politics.

     The other evening as a pollster and other political technicians were doing a horse race assessment and talking about likely outcomes, Hunt reminded them it was impossible to predict what could or might happen or how it could affect a race.

      Too much time and too many words are spent  handicapping outcomes. Coverage is numbers crazy, doing the simulated sports coverage of the campaign, how to win or lose the game. A lot of wordage seems motivated by career posturing or boosting a media profile. Missing in the heat is illumination or thoughtful analysis. Attention spans and historical perspective seem to suffer a deficit disorder.

      Spend a couple minutes here, time traveling to 1977 when television news analysis was indeed thoughtful and provided depth and significance. Sevareid provided this role for CBS News. You'll better know  the quality and intellect of that time and work by seeing this, Sevareid's last comment at the time of his retirement. Walter Cronkite's follow also shows us a perspective that we miss.

GRAZING
cow and lens

    San Simeon Creek Road, northern San Luis Obispo County, California

  

     See you down the trail.

REPUBLIC OF SNARK and THROWBACK TO NEWS JUDGEMENT

HAIR TRIGGER NASTINESS

     Maybe it's all the caffeine, or 24 hours of cable news yackers. We are wired and wireless and trending and our analytics are almost important as the Dow. Whether it's the spirit of our tweet or post or actual comment in a meeting, we've become a nation obsessed with snark, the 2015 version of snide. Invective has infected.

     It will take social archaeologists to explain why. In the meantime we all seem to suffer through a prolonged season of nastiness.

     Television maybe the greatest purveyor, or perhaps it's social media, but its omnipresent and it is making jack asses out of many of us and it threatens civilization. At least it threatens civilized conversation, dialogue and even debate. So many seem driven to be, dare I invoke a 20th Century and politically incorrect phrase, bitchy.  No gender reference here, simply the attitude. Nasty.

     The Brian Williams sadness has been a magnet for a lot of invective and scorn. It doesn't take much, but this has been a bonanza for snark masters.

     The masters of nasty live in the comments section of the Internet. I picture desperately unhappy and unbalanced people unloading on all the failures, misery and unhappiness of their lives with their lethal toned diatribes and rants. Most of this carping deserves to be ignored. But for many it is bait and thus the word battle of the nasties ensue. 

     "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!"  If we can genre and time hop and borrow a sentiment.  Life is too precious to permit others to show their butt headedness.  It's time for an attitude change, on tv, in social media, at the coffee shop and anywhere else where sarcasm has replaced reason.

Let's get back to plain old fashioned arguing without the snide, eye rolling, tongue clucking, sassiness.

IT'S THAT TIME

 A tribute to California spring as an antidote to those of you caught in winter.

  Things are growing well in "Indiana" with a bumper crop of lettuce.

THROWBACK TO JUDGEMENT

   As the sad destruction of Brian Williams and NBC's credibility plays out before us I post a shot of what I will call the "safety bench."

   This is the conference table where for 3 years I presided as the News Director, the senior news executive, of a division that provided programming for CBS, CW and Univision affiliated television stations. 

    We met here in the morning with our day side staff and again in the early afternoon with our evening staff.  We were responsible for at least 7 hours of programming each day across three stations and the accountability started here.

     Reporters, producers, photographers, editors, graphic artists, assignment staff and promotion people would gather as we planned a days coverage and approach.  But we also evaluated.  What did we do well in the previous 24 hour cycle?  Where did we mess up?  Why?  How could we have done it better?  What can we bring to coverage that will make the viewers investment of time worth it?  Every day.  It is not common for the senior executive to guide the session, but I thought it needed to be done. I had the best support staff available in my assistant News Director Kevin, executive Producer Stacy, Assignment Manager Jim, unit managers and a great team of producers.  

     There was a tendency in many shops to "get rolling," to get out of the meeting.  We took the time to evaluate, analyze, criticize, compliment and to measure our work product against our mission/vision statement and our operating principles.  

      Our team did well, very well. As I read about the Brian Williams credibility issue, I can't help but wonder how it might have been different if he had been held accountable by a process that didn't allow ego, big salary or title to filter him from the scrutiny our staff sustained everyday.

            I am thrilled to hear from former employees and colleagues who say those were great years. Some tell me they were the best of their careers. It was all about a mission, a purpose and putting the interests of viewers above all else.

       See you down the trail.