Blog tradition: Ray Davies & a slouching idiot says thanks

This one’s from Thanksgiving ’11. I’ll be thankful if you read it aloud at the dinner table right before the Thanksgiving prayer.

Kidding!

Thank you for being my friends. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day and remember the men and women serving in our armed forces in your prayers.

I advise you to start today, as I do every Thanksgiving, by playing the 2006 Ray Davies song, “Thanksgiving Day.”

We can argue all day and night about our favorite Christmas songs, there must be a million of them, but there’s only one Thanksgiving song.

And I mean that. Can anyone name even one great traditional Thanksgiving song?

Leave it to an Englishman to write the song about one of our most authentic American holidays. Be sure to download it as soon as you finish reading this. I promise to keep it holiday snappy.

The song’s got it all. The poignancy, the longings, the Greyhound rides home, the hearth, the family dysfunction and in the end the euphoria of my very favorite holiday.

I’m thankful for Ray Davies.

And I’ll be thankful for the U.S. Marine Corp and all who serve.

We were in Washington, D.C., over the weekend where I went to write a story about the lavish Christmas festival at the Gaylord National Hotel (and, man, I’m thankful I get to do cool stuff like that as part of my job).

The place was crawling with Marines in their dress blues. The hotel was the site of their annual ball.

It diminishes me even further, but I get kind of squishy whenever I’m around a serviceman or woman, especially a Marine.

I’m grateful for their service. They are just the most impressively composed human beings on the planet.

I’ve never seen a Marine in action, but I imagine they could overwhelm most any enemy with just manners and posture.

I understand they teach other more lethal things in grueling boot camps, but if someone told me it was 13 weeks of manners and posture I’d believe it.

It’s like they are constructed with steel spines that make slouching physically impossible. My body would assume a natural slouch if it was suspended from a noose.

I was in the company of about 100 other journalists who, like me, stood around slouching for hours at a time waiting for someone to bring us something free.

I’ve never seen a more vivid mingling of the givers and the takers.

I’m sure if I’d have spilled a free bourbon a Marine would have sprung from the rafters and thrown his medal bedecked jacket over the puddle to assist my wife and daughters over the floor hazard.

I don’t know how to say thank you without sounding cliche or maudlin, so I just tried to make eye contact and say, “Happy Holidays,” hoping it would convey so much more.

But that, too, has pitfalls, as I learned on the elevator.

We got on together in the lobby. I asked this man who does so much for me and our country to do one more thing. 

Could he please push 15?

Guys like me can’t do anything for ourselves.

He was wearing a Steeler jacket. Eureka! I could make Pittsburgh small talk!

If my room had been on the 353rd floor it might have given us enough time to talk up a real friendship.

But we had a very friendly chat, enough so that when the elevator floor bell rang I felt comfortable looking this strong, proud man eye to eye and saying, “Happy Holidays” hoping he’d know what I really meant, which was:

“Thank you for all you sacrifice for me and my loved ones. Thank you for the friends you’ve lost, the tears you’ve shed, and the enemies you’ve killed. I hope your holiday season is filled with love, joy and a peace that’s so often elusive to warriors like yourself. And I hope the Steelers we both cheer act like United States Marines and kick the asses of their every opponent clear through to the Super Bowl.”

It was perfect. He knew exactly what I meant. The door opened and I gave one last firm nod and gathered up my stuff.

Damn. Wrong floor.

He was too gracious, of course, to point out I asked him to push 15 and was exiting the elevator on 11.

But to ride four more floors in awkward silence risked ruining the perfect micro-conversation.

So what did I do?   

I marched right the hell out that elevator door like I knew where I was going leaving this Marine to logically conclude I’m an idiot.

I’ll bet the nation is full of slouching idiots like me.

We have to wait around 364 days until the one day comes when we’re comfortable saying a truly heartfelt thanks.

So Happy Thanksgiving to all our servicemen and women, their families, Ray Davies and to each and everyone struggling to get along in this great, big beautiful land I’m forever thankful to call my home.

Talkin' Turkey (the Republic of) in 2016

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This is the time of year I always find myself wondering if the Republic of Turkey has a national bird. 

I’m sure I’d find my wondering betrays a vast ignorance about a proud and noble people, residents of a staunch NATO ally and a bastion of secular democracy in a Middle East that seems forever enflamed by tyrants driven by deadly religious passions.

Only an idiot would sit down at grace every year and distractedly wonder during the blessing if the turkey is Turkish.

But I cannot escape the thought.

I dream of one day taking the kids to Turkey and promising it’ll be just like the summer we went to Hershey, only with Thanksgiving themes.

“We’re going to spend a couple of days at the Cranberry Sauce seaside resort before heading to the Stuffing Mountain Range. And I hear nearby Mt. Mashed Potato is great this time of year so we’re taking all our ski gear.” 

There’ll be pleasure boating down the Gravy River, sight seeing through Carrot Forest, and you’d have to think there’d be a dandy amusement park in Candied Yam Land.

To me, the nation’s name presents a classic chicken-and-the-egg question. Which came first: turkey or Turkey?

I encourage you to look it up because I won’t.

I’m charmed by the idea that the two are related and researching things like origins might demolish some of the naive pre-conceptions.

I like believing I could go to Turkey and greet the natives by saying, “Gobble! Gobble!” and they’d find it so original and hilarious, they’d say, “Gee, are all Americans as funny as you? Because if they are, we love America! USA! USA! USA!”

I wonder what people in Turkey think about Thanksgiving and I wonder if they eat turkey in Turkish restaurants in downtown Istanbul. I doubt it and I wonder how many businessmen got off planes with their mouths watering for a turkey dinner and left exasperated after a steady diet of pilav and lamb kebabs. 

Certainly some of them have access to Food Network programming, which for the next few days will be all about turkeys and Thanksgiving. 

So some people in Turkey will see smiling Americans of various ethnicities talking about how much fun it is to roast turkey, deep-fry turkey and shove various side dishes up turkey butts.

Much could be lost in translation. It all might sound completely different to people who live in Turkey.

It might sound like a declaration of war.

I know many U.S. patriots would go straight to DEF-CON5 if we saw a broadcast of a voluptuous dark-skinned woman saying, “First you want to tie America up, pour seasonings on it, fill its empty carcass with stale bread and then shove it in the pre-heated oven for four hours. When America’s cooked, slice it up into succulent pieces and feed it to your children. Oh, and be sure to thank Allah for all the America filling up your bellies!”

So being diplomatically-minded, I’m just trying to get out in front of this because I can imagine one day people in Turkey will become furious when they realize people in America have one day a year where everyone celebrates eating turkey.

There’s no reason to believe political correctness stops at our shores.

So this Thanksgiving, there should be some sort of educational outreach to reassure the Turks we are talking about consuming a delicious native bird and not one of our most essential  allies in a region vital to our national interests.

And I hope any Turks reading this will take no offense at my simple-minded jests.

The last thing I’d want to do on Thanksgiving is ruffle any Turkey feathers.

Related . . .

The true tale of the Pilgrim turkey rapist

RIP Jerry Palmer: Poor golfer/great friend

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Our friend Jerry was simultaneously the worst golfer and the sweetest guy I’ve ever known.

The two rarely equate.

Bad golfers throw clubs.

Jerry threw parties.

Of course, all the obituaries will note this splendidly preposterous golfer was the younger brother of Arnold Palmer, one of the greatest golfers in history. 

Jerry, 72, died just 55 days after his brother, 87. It seems so unfair.

I’d argue that Jerry was the only person on the planet who loved golf more than Arnold.

Arnold’s love of golf left him richly rewarded. From a young age, his achievements nurtured his love. Golf bestowed Arnold with wealth, adulation and historic renown that will forever endure.

If golf is a mistress, she succumbed to Arnold.

She ridiculed Jerry, taunted his courtship, denied her comely affections.

He didn’t care. He never stopped loving her.

There’s real beauty in that.

Golfers love the older brother but, man, most of us can really relate to the younger one.

If golf was unkind to him, everyone who knew him — and he knew everyone — made up for it. 

It was just so easy being nice to Jerry. The brother of The King was a real prince.

I’d known him about 15 years. I profiled him for Kingdom Magazine in 2008 (link below). 

The thrust of the article was, gee, what’s it like growing up and living in the shadow of one of the world’s most famous and beloved men? There are plenty of cases of resentful siblings who let residual fame warp them into dysfunction.

It was never a problem with Jerry. 

C’mon, I asked, wasn’t being Arnold’s brother ever a burden?

“Honestly, I can’t think of a single burden,” he said. “I enjoy my life. I have two wonderful children, a job I love and I have one of the world’s biggest celebrities for a big brother and the celebrity just happens to be a great guy in every way.”

We talked for 90 minutes. Then he took me to lunch, we played 18 holes of golf and enjoyed cocktails long into the night.

I’m happy now that Jerry had many, many days that went exactly like that.

While he was always sunny, the memory of him I’ll carry longest is one of meteorological misery.

For years, me, Jerry, his insurance agent and a state cop — his friendships were delightfully eclectic — would drive to Stonewall Resort in Roanoake, West Virginia, for golf and camaraderie. It was our year-end custom.

He’s played at many of the finest courses in the world, but always said Stonewall was one of his favorites.

Mine, too!

But on this day the forecast was discouraging. Day-long rains, bitter gusts, and descending temperatures — I argued we skip in favor of what I was certain would be a long, boozy lunch near a roaring fire

Jerry wouldn’t hear of it. He was determined to uphold our tradition.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more miserable on a golf course. After one hole, we were drenched, chilled to the bone.

I remember at the 9th hole we had what you might consider a golfer’s intervention.

“Jerry this is nuts.”

 “Let’s quit.”

“The bar’s open!”

Jerry wouldn’t hear of it: “I really think the weather’s going to change. And why would we quit when we’re all having so much fun?”

He was correct. The weather did change.

It got even worse.

I remember being at the most distant point from the warmth of the clubhouse and in a driving rain seeing Jerry whiff again and again and again at a ball stuck in a difficult lie.

And he looked like the happiest man in the world.

Later at dinner, he jabbed us for having wanted to quit.

“Wasn’t that fun?” he said. “Wasn’t that just the greatest day?”

It was. Just marvelous.

Just like Jerry.

I imagine him in heaven right now, the sweet, smiling guy who looks like he’s been there all along.

Related …

Brothers to a tee: Arnold and Jerry Palmer (Kingdom)

RIP Arnold Palmer: A lucky local says goodbye

I now have one (out of four) agents

(732 words)

I’ve gone my entire life without having even one of these and by the end of this week it’s possible I could have three.

A decent haircut?

No, that for now remains bucket list.

I’m talking professional agents, men and women who sense profit and fun working on my behalf.

Understand, I’ve gone decades without doing even a day of work on my own behalf, so this could be pivotal.

But I’ve secured the confidence of one agent who believes he can jump start my eminence and deepen my income while doing the same for his.

He’s David Sedelmeier of Talent Network, Inc. He had me in to his Pittsburgh studios the previous week to record this podcast.

It was so much fun because David really loves my writing and says so on the podcast: “Your writing skills are really exceptional. You write just like you talk and I know how rare that is. We work with a lot of very funny comics and I know that’s not easy. But I couldn’t put your book down. I just really enjoyed it. It’s very unique, funny and positive. Beautiful, really.

“And the premise of ‘The Last Baby Boomer’ is just hilarious. I can’t wait to get my hands on it.”

So is David a literary agent who wants to promote my books he’s so eager to praise?

Nope.

He’s intent on promoting me as a speaker, one who happens to write.

He’s already secured me for a September keynote in Denver for a national convention. And I think he’s just getting started.

Equally heartening is I have three (and counting) agents interested in me because I’m a writer who happens to speak.

If history is any gauge then the courtship remains tenuous, but I have one agent interested in “Last Baby Boomer,” and two in another narrative non-fiction proposal I’ve begun to pitch.

And I continue on merrily perplexed that “Use All The Crayons!” remains a self-published orphan. It’s near unfathomable to me that a book that’s sold so well by an author who’s constructed a solid speaking platform on its behalf can’t find a mainstream publisher.

Platform is industry jargon for a writer who can speak by engaging audiences either in person or through, say, a blog or social media.

Or so I hear.

I don’t know why I’m surprised by any of this because I’ve been baffled from the beginning.

See, “Crayons” was published before “Baby Boomer,” but was written because of it. I could never have written the former had I not endured the failures of the latter.

As many of you know, my “new” novel was finished in 2001.

Back then, I was brash, strident, stiff with self-assurance.

I’d say I was a walking erection, but that’s a risky kind of analogy that could be easily misappropriated by hostile commentators. 

Still, I was sure I’d written the great American novel.

I believed this because a prestigious NYC agent told me I’d written the great American novel.

His name was Phil. As was the custom of the time, I’d snail mailed Phil an intro and the first three “Boomer” chapters. 

Phil called two days later.

“This premise is fantastic and I love the writing. Every sentence positively crackles. I want you to overnight me the entire manuscript right away. I think you just might have written the great American novel.”

I set the phone down and, I swear, my first thought was, “Should the Cadillac be black or red?”

Two sensible Saturns later, I still recall with stinging clarity what happened next.

I waited three torturous weeks before checking back.

A woman answered Phil’s phone. I asked for Phil.

“Phil doesn’t work here anymore,” she said.

What happened to Phil?

“No one knows. One day he just stood up from his desk and walked out and never returned. He hasn’t been heard from since.”

I choose to think Phil was too staggered by my evident genius to further proceed in the literary realm.

So I’m happy today to have even one agent toiling on my behalf.

Cruel experiences teaches this optimism could be dashed.

Maybe this time it won’t.

That’s what I choose to believe.

You need an agent to make vital connections, but even without agents I’ve always had hope.

And hope is really healthy, it’s free and hope really helps.

At least I hope so.

Maybe world needs a "National No-Pray Week" (from '08)

One of the banes of returning from vacation is the e-valanche of electronic messages in our in-boxes. We are besieged with pleas, queries and so many pornographic advertisements that many truly worthwhile e-mails get deleted without even a cursory glance.

Think you have it bad?

Imagine how God must feel. 

Heaven knows, we are a prayerful society. Americans of many faiths pack the places of worship at least once a week and pray to God that He will heal us, enrich us, and ease the myriad suffering in our world of woe. And many of us issue fervent prayers at meals and bedtime asking for the same things. 

That’s not all. Startled students mutter silent prayers for divine recollection during pop quizzes, patients pray the golf-mad doctor’s not too distracted by his afternoon tee time to perform lifesaving surgery, and drunks in bars pray He will help steer the car to safety and surreptitiously past the DUI road blocks.

And, yes, like beauty contestants, we all pray for world peace. This holiday season weekend will again be one of God’s busiest and I can imagine Him with the sullen scowl of the poor overworked souls down at the post office the week before Christmas.

Where has it gotten us? It seems, once again, to the brink of destruction. People all over the world are being slaughtered, usually in God’s name. In nearly every major conflict, God is the mutual justification for a holy hell that’s erupting around the world.

Clearly, God has turned a deaf ear to our massive and constant prayers for world peace. In fact, it seems God’s gaming interests take priority over matters of hateful life and violent death. Many lottery winners thank God, believing He was behind the lucky jackpot sequence and that powers from above divinely selected them to -- hallelujah -- win the Powerball. Same goes for championship athletes who assure us God answered their prayers for righteous victory on the gridiron or ball field.

“Go Angels!”

I go to worship God at a small church in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The late Fred Rogers, an ordained Presbyterian minister, grew up near my Latrobe, Pennsylvania, home. My church is the same one attended by the young Arnold Palmer. As one could surmise by the nature of these two beloved icons, it is a humble and unpretentious place.

Our pastor doesn’t have a powerful television pulpit. He’s never led us in hateful prayers or asked God to tinker with the tickers of any ailing U.S. Supreme Court Justices whose constitutional philosophies differ from his. And I adore him. His every deed exudes a joyful foundation of love that makes me happy knowing my pastor’s life is dedicated to saving my soul.

-

I asked Pastor if he thought maybe God could use a break.

“No, I don’t think God needs any kind of break,” he said. “His strength is infinite and He truly wants to have a personal relationship with each of us. Rest assured, we’re not bothering Him.”

One friend told me that prayer is actually holding the world together, that if we suddenly stopped praying, everything would get worse.

Could it?

If we stopped praying and the earth began to rupture and the oceans commenced to boiling, then believers would certainly burst into simultaneous, heartfelt prayer along the lines of: “Father, forgive us; for we know not what we’re doing.”

That, at least, ought to sound familiar to Him. It was among the last words Jesus Christ uttered before ascending to glory.

Given that result, it’s certainly worth a try.

For God’s sake, it’s high time we try something new. I’m proposing a “National No-Pray Week” where we close the churches and cease any and all prayers to God Almighty. And, no, that doesn’t mean you can substitute any pagan idols. Don’t stop believing in God. Just quit bugging Him.

Who knows? He might enjoy the leisure. He might reward us by eliminating world hunger or at least giving us a carefree week without extreme weather conditions. We just don’t know. But we have to try. No one can argue that 2,000 years of steadfast prayers have made the world a better, more peaceful place.

On the contrary, even with all that prayer, it still seems now more than ever that the whole wicked world is -- God help us -- going straight to hell.

If we don’t try something new, I fear none of us has a prayer.

Related . . .

Proper prayer posture

When idiots pray

America needs snitch prayers