Outdoor TVs, where the wild things aren't

A two-page ad in a posh lifestyle magazine is yet more evidence that another surrender to the morons among us is inevitable.

The ad features three smiling women sipping glasses of wine. The background focal point is the backs of three pancho-clad men standing in a drenching downpour watching a baseball game on a large screen TV.

“Some people don’t know when to come in out of the rain,” the copy reads. “With SunBrite weatherproof TVs you don’t have to.”

The company’s website says its outdoor TVs start at $2,095 and “are engineered to resist rain, dust, humidity, insects and salt air.” Internal heating and cooling features guarantee the TVs will run in temperatures ranging from 40 below- to 122-degrees Fahrenheit.

That means, given a long enough extension cord, these are the first TVs built to accompany explorers like Lewis & Clark.

Yes, we can now watch television outside in weather severe enough to send cows shuffling off towards the barn.

I enjoy going outdoors to see what I can’t see indoors, things like trees, blue sky, stars and birds.

We have a great back porch looking out into the deep forest of Western Pennsylvania. Some of my favorite times are spent on that porch reading, grilling and just enjoying the solitude.

From that porch, I’ve seen deer, bear, foxes and once had the good fortune to spy a wild turkey while sipping Wild Turkey. The coincidence was only slightly more rare than seeing Jack Daniel, now dead 100 years, while drinking Jack Daniel’s.

That’s happened to me, too. You’d be amazed at some of the stuff I’ve seen while drinking Jack Daniel’s.

If we had a TV out there, I’d go outside for some soul-nourishing solitude and find my daughters out there watching something like “iCarly” on the Disney Channel. The blasphemy would mean I’d again be forced to consider leaping from eight days to Amish straight to actual Amish.

And I’d miss things like the hockey playoffs, The Masters, “Survivor,” and other televised entertainment I’m guessing are shunned by actual Amish.

The porch is maybe the one place I can go where there’s no threat of being exposed to televised entertainment.

We now have TVs in fast food restaurants, in elevators, on the back of airplane seats and in places where we wait to get our teeth cleaned and our tires rotated.

And the number of TV screens we encounter on any given day is in inverse proportion to the amount of programming there is worth watching. I’ve never once been in the vicinity of a public television where anything was on I wanted to keep watching.

It’s usually news or talk shows, the vanilla ice cream of TV viewing fare. It’s meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

It’s that way, too, even in sports bars where the screens often outnumber the patrons. I’m fine with that most of time. I enjoy watching sports. But most of the time it’s shows about people talking about watching sports.

Putting all-weather TVs outside is another way in which we are extinguishing our ability to imagine anything other than what we’re shown.

I like to think I have a vivid imagination, sort of like Max from the Maurice Sendak 1963 children’s classic, “Where the Wild Things Are.” In the book Max misbehaves and his overwrought mother sends him to his barren room without supper.

Apparently Max was born before Ritalin and other psycho-stimulants were routinely prescribed.

A great adventure ensues all within the confines of his mind. His room becomes a wilderness and he sails across a stormy sea to an exotic land where the Wild Things are.

It’s a story that couldn’t be written today. Guaranteed, Max’s parents seem like the kind who’d be sure to put a TV in young Max’s room for when the rigors of parenting become too much.

And even if Max thought to conjure a magical land inhabited by crazed creatures, thanks to SunBrite weatherproof TVs, rain or shine, the Wild Things would all be too glued to the tube to bother messin’ with Max.

Melani/Myler -- an insurance industry love story

We’re enjoying a splendid spring scandal here in Western Pennsylvania too delicious to keep to ourselves.

It involves Dr. Ken Melani, the married 58-year-old now-former CEO of Highmark insurance and Melissa Myler, a 28-year-old also-married lovely whose chief credential at securing employment with an insurance conglomerate appears to have been an ability to navigate a golf cart.

As he until 24-hours ago was earning $4.5 million a year to preside over a $14.6 billion industry titan that makes life-and-death snap judgements based on indifferent data and patient charts, let me make a couple of snap judgements on Melani and Myler.

He’s an arrogant prick and she’s a shallow tramp.

I must first confess my bias against the insurance industry and anyone adept at helping it increase its already obscene profits. The health care industry suffers from many colossal failings and greed is at the heart of most of them.

Still, I’m fairly confident about my diagnosis of Melani. He looks and is acting like someone who felt his millions should insulate him from conventional behavior.

And, really, who could blame him? Up until last week when he was arrested for assaulting his mistress’s husband on their porch, it was all working out pretty swell. Highmark canned him Sunday, a move that led one newspaper to say he’d suffered “a spectacular fall from grace.”

I’m still researching to see if his wife, still steadfast it seems, is actually named Grace.

Up until last week he’d been shacking up with the comely Myler in a luxury riverfront apartment. Reports on what she did at Highmark -- besides Melani, of course -- are sketchy.

Melani had her hired in October as a “business analyst 1,” a position Highmark says requires at least a few years of experience. She must have been a quick study because previous to this she was the part-time operations manager for a Pittsburgh-area golf tournament.

Police reports said three weeks after he hired her for a job that pays between $38,000 and $58,000 the two began their affair. I guess in these days three weeks qualifies as playing hard to get.

From those humble beginnings she in January spearheaded a $15 million promotional sponsorship with the PGA Tour. The deal was hefty enough that Highmark’s board of directors was supposed to approve it before it went through.

They did not.

Melani did.

It’s something to think about next time your Highmark premium is due or your school district raises taxes citing ever-escalating insurance obligations.

It all began to unravel when she learned that Melani, suddenly suspicious of motives, hired a private investigator to dig into her background, expecting to find, I guess, something more salacious than unreplaced fairway divots.

The investigation hurt her feelings and drove her back to her husband, causing Melani to go berserk and confront the pair. A fight ensued, police were summoned and the doctor, from the back of the cruiser, tried to gain sympathy by examining the soul of arresting officer David Brankley.

“He asked me in an emotional voice if I’d ever had a relationship that was everything to me,” Brankley wrote, adding he “declined to answer.”

Oh, how I wish Brankley had responded in song with a tuneful soliloquy about a heartache he’d dare not revealed since that prom night long ago!

It’ll be interesting to see what’s next for the now disgraced Melani, freshly unshackled from that $4.5 million annual salary.

I once wrote a story about an old doctor so country he accepted live chickens from farmer patients in lieu of traditional payment. The only thing that kept it from being one of my favorites was I couldn’t get him to say he gave fresh eggs for change.

A down home practice like that would do wonders for Melani or anyone in the health care field whose soul’s been corrupted by money.

And that brings me back to my harsh assessments of Melani and Myler. The romantic in me hopes there was a true emotional connection there, but the brain in me says she never would have spent a minute with him if he wasn’t loaded and he never would have had a chance with her if he was a twice-her-age business analyst 1.

So in the end this sordid tale is all about money.

Which makes it for the health insurance industry the perfect love story.

Related . . .

Bonding over spy sex scandal

With Kelley, spy scandal plot thickens

Today’s space program needs nudity

Encore! Fatherly fibber stirs skepticism (2008)

No foolin', I just love April 1st. I've already pranked the girls twice, once bringing the youngest to near tears. I told her Mommy, who's been visiting her sister for three days, was staying an extra month. She's only 5 and doesn't understand the spirit of April Fool's Day. Now, after her baptism into the day's cruelties she gets it with a vengeance. She's been a carnival of evil pranks and I couldn't be happier. So I thought this 2008 post about telling strategic lies to the girls would be a good one for Re-run Sunday.

It began to dawn on my daughter sometime earlier this year that I haven’t been getting into telephonic shouting matches with President George W. Bush every month or so.

That’s what I’d pretend I was doing every time the Caller ID indicated some pesky telemarketer was calling to go through his or her monotonous spiel.

“Well, if it isn’t President Ding Dong again!” I’d say (I call him Ding Dong because, like a bell, his apparently empty head is still capable of producing loud, jarring noises that reverberate around the globe).

“Seriously, George, I don’t know why you keep calling here when you never take my advice. Now for the last time, if you don’t do something to shore up the housing market, it could trigger financial collapses in the banking and credit industries. Then we’re all in for a hell of a mess while you skip down to Crawford to clear brush and sip nonalcoholic beer. Please, for the good of the country, act now. And stop bothering us during the dinner hour!”

Then I’d slam the phone down and resume eating like nothing unusual had happened.

Really, it might seem to even casual observers that President Bush has been for the past eight years soliciting advice from spastic and underemployed jokers like me, but I’ll wager my shouted suggestions to the confused telemarketers are better advice than anything Bush has ever heard from Dick Cheney.

For a while at least, the 8-year-old thought her Daddy was a pretty important fellow, someone sought by famous and important leaders and celebrities around the globe.

She’s heard me have similar strategic conversations with Steeler coaches, Catholic popes and the dreamy young actor who plays Troy in High School Musical (“Kid, I’m telling you the sequel’s gonna be gold. Gold, I tell you! You gotta do it!”)

But now she’s becoming more skeptical of my little games. This pleases me and makes me work even harder to fool her.

I know I shouldn’t do it but I often find it irresistible to tell Josie a really big lie. I try to be forthright with her in nearly every regard, but I think it might be helpful to once in a while tell her whoppers of such audacious blather that she’ll learn to question everything, even the specious wisdoms of fatherly fibber.

Like the time this summer when I told her some scientists believe the entire vast sum of the oceans’ origins stem from dinosaur urine.

We were standing on the sandy shores of the Atlantic at Virginia Beach, the warm foamy waters lapping at our legs.

“I’m not saying I know it’s true, but I have read some respected scientists who say that all this water, for as far as your eyes can see, really comes from vast ancient releases of dinosaur pee.”

And that much was true. I had read it in a prominent national magazine. It was in the late and much-missed Weekly World News (favorite headline: “Baby Born with Wooden Leg!!!”), but it was a national magazine and I had read it.

That points to another supportive lie I still shout in adult arguments: “The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says you can’t print it if it isn’t true!” You’d be surprised by how many arguments that helps me conclusively win, but I digress.

Back at the ocean, Josie’s eyes scanned the horizon and I was happy to see she was engaged in critical thought. She turned to question me, but I was already dashing into the water to dive in head first. I came up with a big mouthful of salt water and fountained it up over my head as she raced to her mother to have her confirm her suspicions that Daddy’s an idiot, a confirmation Mommy’s always ready to invoke.

I think part of it, too, might be so much of what our ancestors held as sacred wisdom has been revealed to be folly.

You know the kind of thing I’m talking about: The world is flat. The earth is the center of the universe. Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.

I think a healthy skepticism is important for a curious child, and I lament so little of it in the adults they look up to for guidance. So much of what passes for conventional wisdom these days is worth little more than a great big steaming bucket of dinosaur pee.

And that’s the truth.

My absence/their fonder hearts

It was the Roman poet Sextus Propertius who is said to have given the world the first notion that absence makes the heart grow fonder when he wrote, “Always toward absent lovers love’s tide stronger flows.”

That his name endures in the canon of great poets more than 2000 years after his pre-Christ passing is remarkable, especially for a poet inept at composing even simple nursery rhyme.

My appreciation of poetry is sadly deficient and I admit when I saw the name Sextus Propertius my first thought was, man, I’ll bet it’s funny when they read his name aloud in high school English.

But his initial wisdom persists, as I am reminded whenever I return home from a jaunt.

Happened again Monday when the 5-year-old toddled off the school bus and dashed straight into my arms. I’d been away seven nights and had just returned the previous evening with a bagful of girly goodies.

“Daddy,” she said, “when we get home will you help me change into the new shirt you brought me and then come outside and play with me?”

It was so beautiful and heartfelt I decided right then and there -- to hell with my busy schedule -- I was going to be 15 minutes late for Happy Hour.

Father of the Year Award, here I come!

Who says I’m not sentimental?

I’m becoming aware that I’m loved most by the people who see me least.

I suspect that’s the way it is with most of us. The people we see less often recall the laughter and forget the pettiness. An occasional wisdom will resonate and fleeting bone-headedness will be dismissed. Embarrassing personal problems like chronic and uncontrollable flatulence are mostly gone with the wind.

The trick in life is being around enough to remind loved ones you’re part of their lives while being absent enough for them to miss you even a little.

I have momentarily achieved that balance.

Right up until I vamoosed the girls were all raring for me to go. They complained about my constantly being around, my insistence on watching the Penguin games instead of their Disney Channel shows, and they revolted at the olfactory offense that’s part of my lifelong struggle with chronic and uncontrollable flatulence.

And for me a road trip is a traveling two-fer. The kids miss me and I get to make a host of new friends because I’m becoming a master at the art of fleeting first impressions, at least among drunken strangers, my sweet spot demographic.

I think I’m popular with those kinds of folks because I’m convivial, never ask pesky questions that don’t involve another round of liquor, and the only time anyone hears me going bitch, bitch, bitch is if I’m telling a story about a successful dog grooming venture.

I like to think these methods would work as well making friends with sober strangers as it does with drunken ones, but it sounds too boring to bother trying.

Of course, given these preoccupations with being too present too often, I often fret if I blog too frequently or the posts go on too long.

So I think I’ll quit now and allow you to enjoy basking in the goodness of me being gone.

Plus, I need to catch up on those 15 minutes of Happy Hour I lost Monday when I was out playing with the kid.

Return of the panic attacks

Lewis Grizzard, the late, great Southern humorist, used to say he belonged to a no-fly club. Their motto:

“If given a choice, we will never fly. If given no choice, we will never fly sober.”

I wholeheartedly support the sentiment without practicing it.

But I thought long and hard about getting all gooned up for a long flight from Houston to Pittsburgh Sunday night.

I thought it might help me from succumbing to a panic attack, something that hadn’t happened in almost 10 years.

First a little background.

I have no fear of flying. I’ve flown in hot air balloons, bi-planes, stunt jets, have twice gone skydiving and once leaned out the open cargo bay deck while tethered to a C-45 military mule that was cruising at 10,000 feet.

It was all very cool, as I like to think I am.

My odd problem isn’t flying.

It’s flying commercial.

In that regard, my panic attacks make perfect sense.

Few people recall it, but one of the biggest news stories of the summer of 2001 was the congressional consideration of a passenger bill of rights.

The flying public was fed-up.

Exhibit A in the necessity of the legislation was a Northwest Airline flight from, I think, Detroit.

I vividly remember reading all about it in a front page story from the Wall Street Journal. It told in painstaking detail what happened on the flight where weather delays necessitated passengers be held captive on the tarmac. This one lasted nine hours.

Toilets backed up, stagnant air fouled, children screamed, passengers fought; To this day, I remain amazed someone didn’t pull the emergency chute and slide to sweet freedom.

There’s no explaining the irrational mind of man.

I made the mistake of reading every word of the story and thinking, man, if that ever happens to me I’ll go right out of my mind.

This seemed unlikely because it seemed to herald a tipping point where everyone agreed, enough’s enough, this must never happen again.

You may not remember it because of another big news story that swept it from the front pages.

That was 9/11, the day when passenger rights instantly became a quaint notion of bygone days.

Of course, you can by now guess what happened to me on my first post-9/11 flight.

Dangerous weather diverted my New York to Pittsburgh flight to Cleveland. Every 15 minutes, the pilot came on and updated us that we’d soon be on our way.

We were stuck there four hours.

I can tell you from personal experience that a jail cell is less confining than coach seats on a 737. In a jail cell, you can at least get up and pace.

In a typical jetliner, you can’t move even an inch. The feeling becomes more acute when the plane isn’t going anywhere either.

It began with a cold sweat and an overwhelming need to get up and run. I felt as if I’d been sealed in a great big coffin. I knew once the plane got rolling, I’d be fine, but I felt if I remained in that middle seat I’d go out of my mind.

Here’s another thing: There’s an utter lack of humanity on commercial flights. No one jokes. Few are civil. It’s oppressive, as is the entire air travel experience.

Looking back I wonder if one of the triggers may have been I-90.

I could practically see it from my seat. The very next day my buddies and I had planned to drive to Detroit to catch some baseball games. I knew if I could just get off that plane I could arrange for them to pick me up on the way. My unjust incarceration would be over.

I finally bolted from my seat and confided to the flight attendant I was coming unglued.

Well, she couldn’t have been nicer if she’d have pulled my head to her breast and told me to call her Mommy.

“A lot of people have been having strange reactions since 9/11,” she said.

She gave me a cool, damp towel to put on my neck and let me stand there near the open door. Just seeing access to escape soothed me. The panic passed.

But once I’d experienced it, I became hyper-aware it could happen again. And it did. Two more flights in the next six months experienced delays, one of them for two hours while they fixed a stupid Julia Roberts movie that wouldn’t play.

I’ve hated Julia ever since.

Somehow, I made peace with the discomforts of flight and have been what passes for normal for the last decade.

So none of that was on my mind as I strapped into my aisle seat for last week’s flight to Houston. As I settled in, I noticed that the guys in the middle seat beside and behind me were buddies.

“Here, you guys are friends. Take my seat,” I offered.

What a great guy! They were very appreciative at my generosity.

Had I surveilled the seats previous to opening my mouth, I never would have made the offer.

Occupying the aisle and window were two enormous stoics. They didn’t nod at me or acknowledge a fellow human being would be practically in their lap for the next three hours. I began feeling the stirrings of the old panic.

It built for over a minute before I said enough. I told the guy I’d changed my mind. I needed my aisle seat back. Pronto.

The sudden retraction of my offer baffled them. I didn’t care.

There’s no explaining this irrational mind of mine.

The return flight was sober and uneventful. I had an aisle seat and a slender female next to me who smiled when I sat down and engaged in pleasantries.

So it seems the requirements for guys like me to fly are an aisle seat, on-time flights and petite seat mates who look like they might hold my hand if I start feeling odd agitations.

My fear is the airlines might read this and realize a good percentage of their customers would pay extra for these kinds of civilities that should be common practice.

Maybe I should think about hiring a skinny hooker to fly with me next time.

It’d probably be cheaper than flying first class.

March Madness: The Tweet 20

I dedicate this Twitter round-up to my new followers listed below and those of you check out the trio of tweets along the right side bar of my home blog. And, yeah, to those who just stop by on occasion to check out the blog.

Thanks -- Will Black (@rockerWillBlack), The Weeklings (@TheWeeklings), Elda Nealey (@Elda_Nealey), Libby Shields (@Travelingsingle), Kelsey Varwig (@KVarwig), Batto Rupp (@battopydp0), and my new buddy Gary Trask (@golfergt).

In honor of March Madness, here’s my Sweet 16 tweets from the past month. Actually, four more than 16 so I guess it’s the Tweet 20.

• Male Santorum supporter yelled, "I love you, Rick!" during speech. I imagine he was pepper-sprayed, advised to never enlist and taken to an undisclosed location to pray the gay away.

• Gitmo tortures continue. New $750K soccer field isn't so inmates can play. No, they'll be forced to watch others play. Cheney strikes again!

• I'm so convinced multi-tasking is harmful to thoughtful productivity I vow to never again walk and chew gum at the same time.

• Just realized: three of my all-time best buddies are named John, Paul and George. I guess that makes me Ringo. What an artistic pity.

• Really popular all-you-can-eat buffets are places where the crowd never thins.

• That "waste not, want not" is a load of crap. I waste nothing, yet still want everything.

• Rick Santorum's kids stare at him the way the apostles must have stared at Jesus after he told a really great joke.

• Anyone know if the Doomsday Clock has a snooze alarm?

• My daughter's becoming such an ardent feminist she's arguing Idaho should change the name of its state capital to Girlse.

• I predict within 5 years ads projected monthly onto the full moon will be common. My money says Geico will be first.

• Does anyone know what the "i" in iPod or iPhone stands for because iDon’t.

• Does anyone know why Apple products are made to be obsolete in six months when they should be relevant for six years because iDon’t

• Anyone know why Apple spends its time tinkering with updates when they should be reinventing the internal combustion engine 'cause iDon’t.

• I'll bet they eat a lot cereal in the land of milk and honey.

• If Flex Seal works as well on underarms as it does on screendoor boats I'll never need Right Guard again!

• People would be more choosy about their lovers if we actually became screwed to the people we've screwed.

• Daughter, 11, is starting to make hurtful observations about my increasing decrepitness. I'm sure grow out of it by the time she's 40.

• Is everyone around Al Roker always drunk or does being around Al Roker just make people act drunk?

• The common term "pinch hit" makes baseball seem more violent than it is.

• Did the flag have to go through puberty before it became Ol' Glory?

Blog coming attractions

During the week I’ve been away, I’ve posted just two blogs and fulfilled not a single professional obligation that could lead to wages.

Yet, to which endeavor do I feel the more pressing obligation?

Yes, blog on! Ignore the logical pursuit of income in favor of all the freebie fun here at www.EightDaysToAmish.com!

Heck, I’m so near to Amish these days it’d be prudent if I spent the whole time making batches of candles for when they come to shut off the lights.

Being away on my golf trip to the Gulf Coast (in fact, it was an assignment), fills my blog dance card with plenty of story options, but precious little time to write them.

As I’m off my near-daily routine, I suspect you may be, too. So instead of plunging back in with something topical and, perhaps, heavy with thought, I figured it’d be best to present you with a slate of coming attractions.

• “Return of the Panic Attacks” -- About 10 years ago I began disappointing myself by having mild panic attacks on airplanes. As I hope you’ll see, they didn’t stem from an irrational fear of flying. They stemmed from an irrational fear of being crammed together with so many other people who fly. It happened momentarily again on the packed flight to Houston, no one noticed it and I was able to overcome it without alcoholic assistance. But I think you’ll find it interesting. I know I do. Starring Jimmy Stewart.

• “My New Friend Dated the Houston Weather Girl!” -- I met some really great folks on this trip, including a new buddy who told me about his adventures dating Local Weather Girl. And guess what? She was an awful bitch who didn’t like The Beatles. The Beatles! This screw-ball romcom promises high-pressure fun when a sunshine guy collides with a storm system that leaves destruction in its blond wake.

• “I Don’t Gamble” -- Actually, that title’s misleading. I may have spent the last seven days in some of the finest casinos east of the Mississippi River, but I didn’t wager a dime. I contend my entire life as a freelancer is a higher stakes wager than anything you can bet in a casino. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the hapless freelancer who rolls the dice on life, this one got raves at Sundance.

• “American Skin (41 Shots)” -- Geez, am I finding lots of reasons to include Springsteen mentions in my stories these days. The Trayvon Martin story was coming to a boil while I was in a region of America that has struggled with race relations to often horrific results. Commentators are saying what happened on a well-armed neighborhood watch in Sanford, Florida, is stirring a national conversation about race relations. I can think of one voice absent from the discussion. That would be Trayvon’s. Recommended for mature audiences only.

• “9 Downing Street” -- I’ve just begun reading Adam Hochschild’s World War I book, “To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion,” and was struck by references to one of the most famous addresses in the world, 10 Downing Street, home of the British prime minister. It seems so perfectly ordinary, it got me wondering about who dwelt in 1-9 Downing Street and if there was a pub on the corner or perhaps a laundromat. This straight-to-video mockumentary stars the voice of Michael Moore.

Those are just a few of the topics I hope to tackle over the next few days. As always, I’m grateful to anyone who reads this stuff and takes the time to share it with friends. The enthusiasm I hear for it blows me away.

I’ll be posting a Twitter round-up later today as a small gesture for having been away for so long.

That means there’s plenty of time for you to stretch your legs before the feature begins.

So let’s all go to the lobby! Let’s all go to the lobby! Let’s all go to the lobby and have ourselves some snacks!

Because that’s entertainment.