Reading a very good book

I am a close follower of rock music and the blues and of course a longtime fan of Eric Clapton. I love his virtuosity as a guitar player (even though there's been times that he wanted to steer clear of that).

I like what he stands for insofar as he's been so down, so much so in his addiction to heroin, then alcohol, then cigarettes and he's beaten them all. He overcame the death of his only son, & finally, he has founded the Crossroads Centre to help drug addicts.

I ready his 330-page book in a few nights. The book wasn't great or outstanding (I wish that he had written more about Cream, how he came up with the songs, more about being and working with Jack Bruce), but it was still a very good book!

He is very vivid about the women in his life and the self-defeating addictions that he employed that doomed his relationships, espcially the relationship with Patti Boyd Harrison (the one who inspired many of his songs including "Layla", "Wonderful Tonight" "Your Friends are Tearing Us Apart" (which is from the August album which is pictured above) .

He is also very graphic in how he beat his addictions, and how he used the Lord to help overcome such terrible demons. From the 80s to 2007, I considered RUSH my favorite band. Of all the bands I have ever seen, I have seen Rush, by far the most, probably 5 or 6 times. I loved their intelligent lyrics, awesome guitar sound and have considered them a great group. Yet toward the end of last year, something was telling me that they really shouldn't be my favorite group. One reason was their last 2 CDs weren't that great. But the really big reason was that I liked the lyricist, Neil Peart's views against authoritarianism and opposition to dictatorship, but I became increasingly "turned off" to his atheistic views. There was something inside me saying that my favorite band shouldn't really be with one who is so open about their atheistic beliefs.

It took me awhile, but then it became obvious that Eric Clapton and his music was an obvious choice for being my "favorite". Further, Clapton has clearly shown that he is a big believer in God/Jesus, tho' like all of us he has strayed off the straight and narrow.

I also liked the book because of its happy ending. Currently, Eric is happily married and has 4 daughters (and an adult daughter by a different woman). If you like Eric Clapton, his music, I would definitely recommend reading his autobiography pictured above.

doing so much better

A few days ago, I was bemoaning my bad financial shape. It's still not that great, but I got a nice big lift this morning. I got my tax refund for over $800. Time to pay down some credit cards, steer way clear of overdrafts and maybe, just maybe something good will come out of this !!

Lunesta and the butterfly

Last fall, there seemed to be a lot of stress that I was going through, and I couldn't sleep. Taking over-the-counter medicine didn't really help that much. So, I went to my psychiatrist, and he prescribed me Lunesta. Lunesta is pretty effective, and I was able to sleep better.

There was 1 side effect my doctor didn't tell me until the next appointment.

"Vince, you're not taking that Lunesta everyday, are you? You could get addicted", he casually noted.

"Oh", I replied, "Well, I won't take it everyday now".

Which brings me to the butterfly. The company who makes Lunesta (whatever rich pharmaceutical corporation that is) has a big, BIG advertising budget. So when the Lunesta commercial comes on, you hear this soothing music with a butterfly shown above, symbolizing Lunesta, that swooshes around and spreads beautiful stars that puts everyone to sleep. OOPS, THERE'S ONE CATCH!

Do you see the butterfly on that person's nose as it gently puts them to sleep????? That's in the commercial. They don't show you the part where the butterfly climbs into their mouth, onto their tongue and takes a big dump. This brings me to Lunesta's other side effect.

When you take Lunesta, you get a metallic taste in your mouth. The sleep is great, but when you drink something like coffee, tea, milk (especially milk!!!), you don't taste milk or your desired beverage, you taste metal. It's kind of like licking a metal I-beam (not that I have ever done that!).

The good news is that I'm not addicted to Lunesta. How could I be with that tricky butterfly doing something bad on my tongue? So if you see any butterflies speading stars or looking like the ones in the picture KEEP YOUR MOUTH CLOSED!! (hee, hee)

Punched & down

I was paid on Tuesday. It was even a decent sized check with overtime money on there. The money is all spent. I wrote the amount of my check and then started deducting the bills from the deposit. A minute or 2 into all of the bill paying my balance got lower and lower, and I started breathing harder and harder, feeling very tense. THEN THUD! My balance was below zero(0) after the last bill was paid.

It was a thud all right, and I walked around like I was punched in the stomach. It seemed like all of the cost cutting wasn't worth it, nor was the hard work, and working at the law firm extra so I could get overtime pay. I know that I'm wrong writing that because if I hadn't earned overtime (or didn't even work at all) or didn't cut costs, things would be much worse. Yet, I live in a tony suburb where most of the residents are making more than I am and have nice houses. I still live in my small 2 bedroom condo with 3 kids. Then when I go to work 75% of the people do better than I.
However, walking to the train station and seeing all the homeless people begging money so I feel better, but still.................
After balancing the checkbook, all the energy I had left. I walked in one speed-SLOW. I felt like something was taken out of me, and it really hurt. There was no spring in my step as I usually feel pretty enthused when I work. I felt no optimism. The checkbook has been this way since I had to pay almost $1,000 in only a few months for 2 dental bills. & every effort was made to get the dental discount, pay on installments, and still it "blew up" my checking account. Things are slightly better, but there is still over $124 to pay yet. This whole ordeal made Christmas nerve-wracking, and I wasn't sure how we were going to get the money for gas going $200 miles to my parents place in Wisconsin. We had to go because Maribeth and I arrange 1 Christmas at her family, 1 Christmas with my family up in Wisconsin.
Things have been slightly better but the progress is slow and glacial. There's no guarantee that something could happen that would wipe out all the progress. I have checked out books that deal with debt management and they tell me things I already know (spend less). I have cut costs but the budget fight is a constant fight that has no end in sight....................

Difference between editing and censoring

J

One who blogs should not want to write a blog that exploits others or makes others look like idiots. I couldn’t imagine doing that. However, I am not going to be **“Mother Hen’d” into writing a vanilla blog devoid of homelife topics. After all, how much can the 26 ++readers take of US politics?? Especially when they get news, radio, TV and yes, the Web that has tons of politics in this very political year like 2008.
So, when 1 of the 26 readers confronts me with ideas of censorship when I think about her and her reaction while I write the blog, then I feel like I’ve done enough to protect her. I’m not going to be pushed around and censored. It’s not even like she’s my only reader or even my most loyal reader.

While the content of the blog was modified last month, there will be no more restricting subject matters or photos. If I can ride the Metra train to downtown Chicago (going to work in -1oF weather) and hear about a group of women, also riding on the train, loudly speak of autoeroticism in a pet cockatiel, then what’s so bad about what’s been written on this innocent blog so far????????????? It’s reasonable to say NO to anymore limits.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

** I couldn’t help but notice that there was a blog entitled “Mother Hen…” so to the writer of that blog, no offense to yours. When I think of Mother Hen, I define it as "openly domineering another". I understand that there are other definitions and other contexts of the term Mother Hen (as a verb).
++Lo & behold, the readership is growing from the 17 it was at the start of the year!! Oh and by the way, I love Jimmy Page's guitarwork (as noted previously in this blog), so in the midst of this consternation, I wanted to put some happy pictures on there. The other 2 pictures do not need anymore introduction as you dear readers already know them :)

Going to Wisconsin again

We went to see my parents in Wisconsin. It's a 200 mi. trip. We went tobaganning again. The picture is when the kids fell asleep in the car. We thought it made a nice "Kodak moment". The only little problem was that Brianna suffered a few abrasions below her left eye when she fell off the tobaggan and hit the snow with her face.

Otherwise we had a good time. They love visiting their grandparents. & of course, my parents love having them around (except when they make too much noise. Most 80 yr. olds don't enjoy loud noises from kids).

This morning in Wisconsin was -10 F. We got back to Oak Forest, IL at 8 pm; it's farther south (and a little warmer), and it was 0 F. It really sucks when it's so cold.

If anyone remembers The Who, the picture reminds of that picture of the band on the cover of their album The Kids Are Alright. & thank God, they are all right.

One other note, Maribeth's cellphone camera is far superior to mine. I'll have to use it more often because the one I have is a blurry mess.

he's human after all.......

The winning catch in the end zone in the last minute of the Super Bowl was made by none other than Plaxico Buress. You may recall that I called him a $%&(*&^% in one of my January posts. I didn't like Mr. Buress for awhile, and during the game, my son, Ted counted the number of times the Patriots defenders hit Buress hard.

Well, we know that he caught the pass easily, and Ted, my son, knowing that the game was over yelled "NOOOOOO!" and started keening and sobbing.

Then I saw something amazing in Plaxico Buress. Instead, of jumping around and gloating, jumping around and taunting the sidelines (as the jerk did against the Packers) this is what Plaxico Buress did: he knelt down & cried.

He didn't gloat when interviewed in the newspapers. He cried in the locker room too. So, seeing all this and reading it in the paper, I have changed my mind about Mr. Buress. He is human, after all. Then there's a more compelling reason:


one of the more important axioms in the Western World: it's hard to criticize success!!

don't be a MOTHER HEN!

I have 2 roles at the venerable Goldstein law firm that I work at. One is to be a paralegal which is basically doing whatever a lawyer can do, EXCEPT question witnesses at trial and depositions and I can't sign **Pleadings, **Motions or **Discovery.
The other is being the teacher to the law clerks. I work with them pretty closely the 1st week they are at the law firm, and after a week, they are on their own except for questions they may have about the work.
One of the clerks that is in her 9th or 10th day, was speaking to a client who suffered a car accident. The client was suspicious and didn't have caller ID, and so they gave her a very hard time. She handled the situation very well.

There were about 4 things that I wanted to tell her to make her phone call better.

But I only told her 1 of the things, the most important one.
There is such a thing as over-teaching and over-talking. I had just wrote her a long memo about another file we have. So, I am picking and choosing. The most important point is this: experience is the best teacher.
So no "too much talking, over teaching" & no mother henning the clerks!!!!


__________________________
**& remember this is a very user friendly blog complete with 21 readers {& I know who you are :) } So if you were curious about these 3 legal terms, I'll be more than happy to define them.

Super Bowl not happy for Ted

Well another one of my son's favorite teams is the New England Patriots. ("They have the greatest QB, no QB had as good a season as Tom Brady had!!!!", he's fond of saying. )

Poor, poor Teddy, he didn't just cry, he howled. His favorite team scores a dramatic touch down that puts them ahead 14-10, with 2 or 3 minutes to go. Yet, the Giants pulled it out in even more dramatic fashion. They score a touchdown with less than 60 seconds left and win 17-14.

The Patriots coach made a terrible decision not to try and score 3 points in the last half of the game, and it cost them dearly. If the Patriots had gotten the 3 points, the game ends at 17-17 and they go into Overtime. But no, he messed up BADLY.

The Patriots did not protect the quarterback, Tom Brady. This picture shows Tom Brady (he has the blue uniform) getting hit by the champion N.Y. Giants (in white uniforms) and slammed into the ground. He was driven to the ground by the Giants 5 times during the game which is a lot of times for such a good team as the Patriots. THE PATRIOTS WENT INTO THE GAME 18 wins, 0 LOSSES. Yesterday, their first loss of the season denied them the championship!!

youth, change, hope for warmth

It's been a long winter. Long nights.....short days, it's not always about how cold it is. The setting before 5 pm. is the worst part of winter to me. Global warming has made it so that we have had far fewer subzero days in the 90s and 00s than we had in the 70s and 80s. When I shave my beard, the prediction is that there will be warmer weather in 4 weeks. Not quite as bold as the famous groundhog yesterday (I don't know if other nations besides USA, observe Groundhog Day).

As, I did in the 80s and the 90s (starting in about 1985) I grow a beard in the winter and shave in the hopes of warmer weather and guaranteed long days!

The beard is marginally warmer. What I have always said was the 2 minutes I save shaving is spent on scraping snow off the car when I drive to the train station. I hate waking up early in the morning, the 1st 2 hours of the day are the most awkward, and the key is to get stronger as the day goes on (until about 9pm, anyway).

So, here's to a new look....... In a semi-new year...............

Different picture w/ beard on during the XMAS holiday. From upper left going clockwise, Me, Andy, Ted, my nephew Phil and Brianna.

"**a man HAS GOT TO KNOW his limitations"

**THE TITLE CAME FROM A MOVIE!! I'm not Plagiarizing; therefore, I am crediting the screenwriter(s) of 1 of the Dirty Harry movies from the 70s. It was one of the last line of the movie when a corrupt police chief was trying to turn the police force into a bunch of nasty, funky stormtroopers. Clint EAstwood's character, Harry Callahan, of course fights them and wins.

I'm a man who is about 1/2 way through 40 and 50. About the same age as Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf. (Great book, you need to read it). I already did my mid life crisis, and no longer "slenderly know thyself" (credit to SHAKESPEARE, I won't plagiarize him either, $5 mailed to the person who knows that play)

So it's funny how my thought process has changed from my 20s. When I saw a woman who was attractive, back in the 1980s, it would brighten my whole afternoon. First, I imagined what she really looked like, then how we would get to know each other, maybe where we'd get married, and the nice conversations we had and other, certain experiences. pretty soon it was about 8pm!!

I could recognize an attractive woman, right away. Now let's fast forward 20 yrs. First, in your 40s, your carnal drive isn't nearly as strong as it used to be. Then it takes longer to recognize that someone is actually really attractive, and it doesn't register until I notice

Anyway, there is a well-established psychology that says that when one finds out that one is suffering a terminal illness, they go through certain stages; I believe they are about 4-7 stages and they go from shock, anger, grief, __________, __________, __________ to acceptance/resignation. Well, now when I see or work with a beautiful woman, my mind goes through 3 stages, happiness, chagrin, consolation.

Happiness – Instead of the happy glow that would take me several hours through the afternoon like it used to when I was 24, the happiness stage lasts only about 20 min. I’m so self-effacing now that I don’t even recognize an attractive woman until she starts speaking to me first.

Chagrin – Then I realize that the woman would severely reproach me because 1 of 2 situations would occur. She’s either much younger than me or in a different socio group (meaning? Too different mindset, too Republican, different class, someone I can’t relate too) I just don’t HAVE IT ANYMORE!

Consolation - I have an attractive, smart, driven domestic partner at home. At least, I have smart kids that look up to me. Then the one thing that hasn’t changed at all is the burning heat of conscience. I only “funkily carnal” before 1992 and in early 06’. In fact I always was bitten hard by the tiger’s teeth of conscience and never was seriously tempted with someone else from 92-2002 and after Nov., 2006. I dominated by God (and rightly so)!


Sometimes, guys and gals often wonder (starting in their 30s, “do I still ‘have it’???) I realize the answer is a resounding NO. I’m 44, just lost 30 lbs, but have about 30,40 lbs left to lose. I think about when I was separatetd/divorced in Midlothian an on the dating website Christian Mingle a/k/a http://www.relationships.com/ I was on there from Dec., 2005 to Nov. 2006 and in that whole time had one meaningful relationship. Was rejected far more than hearing the word “yes/ok”. & yes, I was on my best behavior, too!

Then I get a compliment out of nowhere and ask myself the “it” question again. Last October, I received a complement that absolutely shocks me. We had a clerk by the name of John from Arkansas. Like the other law clerks, he was in his mid 20s going to law school. He started in spring of 2007 and stopped in the fall of 2007. So we had a modest party at this swank hotel, 1st floor bar. WE were simply talking, John & I, and all of the sudden he says something like, “You’re so strong, you could throw me around like a rag doll.” & it wasn’t true; here he is a guy in his 20s just as big as I and ………..well………I am from the farm. ……………I still stay strong…Mr. Bender’s 1st password to me was “strong”……...the only time Maribeth overestimates me is my fighting ability………..NO, I STILL doubt I could take John in a fight. Maybe close but who the hell cares, anyhow???

I’m not George Clooney. Therefore, it’s Happiness -- Chagrin -- Consolation for me.

another bad languistic trend in our dear nation(UGH!)

One of my favorite websites http://www.tolerance.org/ is listed on the right on my blog as one my favorite website. If you read this sad, unfortunate excerpt of something going on in the Redneck area of the South, then you should pay a visit to Southern Poverty Law Center a/k/a http://www.tolerance.org/ as well.

Southern racists adopt "Canadian" as a euphemism for "black"
Posted by Cory Doctorow, January 27, 2008 12:10 AM permalink


The Canadian National Post looks on with mild horror as American linguists report on the growing trend in the American south to use "Canadian" as a masking euphemism for black people, so that white racists can say socially inappropriate things without tipping listeners off about the cancer in their souls.
Last August, a blogger in Cincinnati going by the name CincyBlurg reported that a black friend from the southeastern U.S. had recently discovered that she was being called a Canadian. "She told me a story of when she was working in a shop in the South and she overheard some of her customers complaining that they were always waited on by a Canadian at that place. She didn't understand what they were talking about and assumed they must be talking about someone else," the blogger wrote.

"After this happened several times with different patrons, she mentioned it to one of her co-workers. He told her that ‘Canadian' was the new derogatory term that racist Southerners were using to describe persons they would have previously referred to [with the N-word.]"
A similar case in Kansas City was reported last year on a Listserv, or electronic mailing list, used by linguistics experts. A University of Kansas linguist said that a waitress friend reported that "fellow workers used to use a name for inner-city families that were known to not leave a tip: Canadians. ‘Hey, we have a table of Canadians.... They're all yours.' "
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emphasis added by VPJS
sad, sad, sad..............................

Changes in BOTH rules and content

Well there have been some recent developments that have changed the content of this blog.

Saturday morning, I noted on my blog that there were 17 readers. There have been some more. It started out innocently enough on Saturday night when I couldn’t sleep. Instead of sleeping, I was working on my blog, getting a few advertisers. If one advertises on this blog, you make money. No one wants their blog to be merely a billboard for someone else, as we have something to say. Still, in this day and age when times are definitely not easy (& you know that just as much as I) advertising could help with a bill or 2.

Anyway, on Saturday, I was working very late into the night. That bothered Maribeth because if I couldn’t sleep, it would be hard to go to church the next morning (which it was), she was even concerned I wouldn’t go to church (but I did).

Since Maribeth was wondering what the heck was going on, I told her I was setting up some advertising. I had told Maribeth about this blog way back in 2005, but she did not remember that because it was a very brief conversation. We were still apart, still divorced. Suddenly, on Sunday she was very interested in the blog.

With her interest came rules that she set for the blog.
1. No pictures of her.
2. No post that could remotely embarrass her, and I was to not even post about her except with her express consent.
That was reasonable; she said, “I don’t want people at work knowing all about my business outside of Loyola.”
Ok, so I did some deleting. There was a post earlier this month about my sympathy for Maribeth working at a tough place like Loyola Univ. Medical Ctr. She and her co-workers go through a lot, and so out of concern and sympathy, I wrote about her, her background, how we met. THAT POST ALONG WITH PICTURE – Deleted. The post in 2005 where I was upset at her when I carryied an air conditioner, and she said something I didn’t like – Deleted (we were apart then anyway). The post about my humor and regard for the person who bought us a microwave at the law firm – deleted.


If there is a post that’s going to cause a fight – DELETED. I’ve fought enough, Maribeth and I have had her fill of arguments so posts have to be removed to keep the peace. The only exceptions are in the November and December,2006 posts when I talk about getting back together. I can't and I won't delete those because they were a pretty important event for everyone involved - me, Maribeth, obviously our 3 kids. & the picture of her is staying too because she looks fine. (sorry, Maribeth, hope you don't get all upset about the December, 06 posts)

Why didn’t I ask her before when I posted? Why do I have to delete now? The opinion goes: “Maybe I just shouldn’t have posted in the first place”.
I wanted artistic freedom or more specifically “writer’s freedom”. I had something to say of interest, and so I said it. I received response from those posts so they couldn’t have been too boring and ignorable. If I talk about the mundane, I’ll get even fewer responses. I guess maybe I can ask her about some of the deleted posts and then if it’s ok, I’ll put them back on.

I said there were 17 people who read this blog. There are now over 20 and one of those 20 readers is very important, and I have to make adjustments. That’s all there is to it. Maribeth also wants to write on this blog, and we all can look forward to that.

& don’t worry there are still a lot of past posts that are interesting. When I met Patti way back in spring of 2006, you can still see the argument I had with one several of the readers who thought it was a bad idea. I still don’t regret meeting Patti. That was just part of life. Maribeth doesn’t regret some of the men she met and spent time with. We were separated from Jan., 2003 to Nov., 2006; we acted accordingly.

Revisions

This website is under some changes. More to come later..................

It's been very cold in Illinois, and as you all know, we live 25 miles SW of Chicago. If I'm not mistaken, 25 miles would be about 50 km.

At any rate, I figured this picture of my 2nd son, Ted and his neighbor would make us all think of a warmer time.

A week later, the Packers lose

Ok, first the pictures, this is about Ted, so he is the boy to the right of Santa, and in the 2nd picture is the boy in the white t-shirt. Today, at 5:30 pm.....it looked so hopeful. Packers are at home. They are favored to win by most of the experts (bookies said by 7). Favre doesn't play well, the defense doesn't play that great, and Plaxico Buress of the other team (N Y. Giants) lights up the Packer secondary for over 200 yards. Green Bay Packers are beaten by Giants 23-20. Giants are going to go to the Super Bowl and get their ass whipped by the New England Patriots. Why do I think the Patriots are going to win? Because their QB, Tom Brady has had an astounding season, one of the top 5 seasons a QB has ever had. They have few, if any, weaknesses, and they have many, many strengths.

This is not good. There are 2 things that kind of console me. No one thought the Packers were going to play in the NFC Championship back on Labor Day, September, 2007. Then the Packers win 13 games, only lose 3 and win last week, before losing their 4th game this week.

Secondly, my 2nd son looooooovvvess football. He was born in Chicago and roots for the Bears. But since the Bears are gone from the playoffs and are sitting in warmer climate, Ted Schauf, my dear 9-yr. old son, is rooting very hard for the Packers. Why? because his lucky father (lucky to have such a great son) was born in Wisconsin, lived there the 1st 26 years of his life and has roooooted for the Green Bay Packers since 1972!!! (& how many of you were even born before 1972, lol).

So, the Giants field goal kicker kicks the ball through the goal posts and helps beat the Packers 23-20, and my son stands there and cries and cries. I'm so busy consoling Teddy that I don't even feel bad for myself. I hug him a long time. I love my son. He's a great kid, and I'm a lucky father.

It was still a good season. I don't like the way it ended. I don't like that Plaxico Buress getting over 200 yards and taunting and chiding the Packers sideline and being an asshole poor sport. & anybody who complains about Brett Favre having a bad game can go straight to hell because the Packers would never have even made the playoffs if Favre didn't have the great season he had!

Because Buress really is an asshole, and he's going to get his but whipped with all the rest of his teammates. & if the New York Giants win the Super Bowl, I'll walk from Chicago to New York City in the winter because the improbability of that act matches the improbability of NY Giants beating a team, the New England Patriots, who have 18 wins 0 losses team. Really, I will walk all 800 miles (or is it 900?? I know it isn't 1,000 miles)

Uuuhhhhh, maybe not, if the GIants shock the 100s of millions of people watching the Super Bowl, I won't walk 800some miles to NY in shock because..................I can't afford to miss work, unless some reader out there pays for my lost wages and sponsors me. Really, I mean it...................Anyway, I'm reallly glad Ted feels better.

PACKERS WIN! GO PACK! I'M HAPPY!

I want anyone who has given this Blog a read with just the slightest ounce of wishing the Green Bay Packer football team well to make a comment on this post. IF you do, I'll be forever in your debt. For real. The Green Bay Packers helped start the NFL with a team from Chicago, New York, Washington D.C. and a few other teams in the 1920s. That's a team that's been around for over 80 years, "brothers and sisters"! The fans who support the Green Bay Packers are over a million strong (not an exaggeration) and are part of PackersNation. (that's like another famous franchise in baseball, Boston Red Socks; fans call themselves RedSocksNation, or is it RedSox Nation? whatever). Amel, if you're reading this, you and your husband have automatically been given honorary status as members of PackersNation for as long or as short a time as you want (hehe, lol).

It's Saturday 3:45 pm. PackersNation is very sad. Their mighty Packers are down 0-14. Some of them (I won't lie, I'm an honest man, I was one of them) are screaming for Ryan Grant to get the hell off the football field. He fumbled twice, the Seattle Seahawks (the team the Packers played today) took 2 fumbles in for 2 touchdowns and the Packers were very down. He goes on to have the game of his life and runs 201 yards.
See #4 up there in that picture? 37 yr. old guy is the leader of the team. He's too old to get overly excited, too experienced to be down, and too awesome not to play well. He leads the Packers to score 21 points and his team is never ever down again as they go on to win 42-20.
I am happy as a lark and flying just as high!!

THE BLUES, Part 2 of 2, The Legend of Robert Johnson

II. The Legend of Robert Johnson (born 1911, died 1938) Rolling Stone magazine valued Robert Johnson enough to make him (in the “Best 100 Guitarists” issue of last year or so) the 5th best guitarist ever. I disagree with his high ranking because Johnson did not live long enough (dying in the 1930s) to play electric guitar. He could not explore the nuances of electric guitar with it’s various sounds as Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townsend (of The WHO), Alex Lifeson (of Rush), and of course, Keith Richards (of the Rolling Stones) had the gift, opportunity, talent and vision to do. I would rank Mr. Johnson 12th best ; a very good singer and a masterful guitarist, it still is only speculation what Johnson could have done with an electric guitar, wa-wa pedal and the numerous guitar pedals that color the sound of the guitar that were available to the guitar legends by the end of the 1960s. One of Johnson’s famous songs is “Crossroads Blues”, and it was covered by Cream, featuring Eric Clapton on lead guitar and lead vocal. After the song was made, the legend among the jealous, simple and judgmental ones was that Robert Johnson went to a crossroad/intersection, met Satan, let Satan tune his guitar and sold his soul to him. IN return, Satan supposedly granted him the gift of playing guitar masterfully and writing, recording great songs. The legend of Johnson selling his soul to learn to play guitar is said to have taken place in either an intersection of Rosedale or an intersection in Clarksdale, (both cities/towns in Mississippi). Feel the jealousy! You can almost hear the neighbors (both Black and White neighbors) wondering why Robert Johnson didn’t work at the factory or stay home on the farm like others who lived near him. “What the hell is he doing with that guitar??? Respectable people don’t go out and play in Blue in clubs and juke joints!” These neighbors during the Jim Crow 1920s and 30s likely looked down about him with even more cutting and judgmental criticism. “That fool doesn’t play guitar nearly as well as my cousin Andy, and you don’t see Andy hotfootin’ ‘round town. Andy is smart enough to work at the barber shop! And how many times did you see that boy in church? Not a once these last few months! Robert be makin’ eyes at that hoochie, Mary, and be messin’ with her after he done playin’ that fool guitar. They both have as much aim in life as a feather!!” It’s not bad to be revulsed by sins of another, in fact, that’s good. Yet, when one is so openly condemnatory, as a few or even some of Johnson’s neighbors were, it falls into the “judge other and you will be judged as well” type of action. Yet, like so many instances, rumor and sensationalism are not really what happened when Robert Johnson made “Crossroads Blues” Wikipedia tells the true story of what the song “Crossroads” is about. “While the legend of Robert Johnson selling his soul to the Devil is fascinating and evocative, the song itself plainly describes the very real, harrowing situation feared by Johnson and other Blacks in the Deep South in the early 20th century. Historian Leon Litwack has suggested that the song refers to the common fear felt by blacks who were discovered alone after dark. As late as 1930s in parts of the South, the well-known expression (from redneck sheriffs, KKK members and other racists) , “Nigger don’t let the sun go down on you here!!” was according to Litwack “understood and vigorously enforced”. In an era when lynchings were still common, Johnson was likely singing about the desperation of finding his way home from an unfamiliar place as quickly as possible because, as the song says, “the sun goin’ down, boy/dark goin’ catch me here”. This interpretation also makes sense of the closing line “You can run/tell my friend poor Willie Brown/that I’m standing at the crossroads' as Johnson’s appeal for help from a real-life fellow musician.”[1] So many, many times, TOO MANY TIMES, too many people are simple and stupid enough to go for the sensational (that’s why the National Enquirer sells so well, makes so much money and pisses me off!) Obviously, a Black man afraid of being lynched is much more humdrum and boring to some and not worth gossiping to the next door neighbor compared to telling same neighbor that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil, and as a result that’s why he was a sensational guitarist. After some research, there are some signs that Johnson himself may have acquiesced to the rumor as well. This is a shame, because he also wrote and sang a song like “Hellhound on My Trail” covered fear of the Devil. With a rough and tumble life with so many hazards, signs of the Devil, amid all the misfortune in his life, were prevalent. Playing the Blues, not making much money doing so, "seeing" the occasional woman, traveling and worrying over lack of money are shown in his lyrics in the song “Crossroads Blues” (just Google: lyrics & “Robert Johnson” and “song”), Robert Johnson in the mid-1930s was recognized enough that certain executives arranged to record his songs and great talent. He cast an enormous influence over rock and roll and has even been nicknamed “The Grandfather of Rock n Roll”. 30 years later, he influenced Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Peter Gabriel and many, many artists over the years. He made the songs that united (and continue to unit) Blacks, Whites and other races alike, just as good and great Blues music does!! Then, there’s the sad, obscure death of Robert Johnson. With poor healthcare in the Jim Crow era, Johnson didn’t go to the hospital and with an unknown cause (neither Johnson nor anyone could determine or help treat Johnson in the last 3 days before his death), Johnson died a slow painful death. Dead at the age of 27 he dies at the same age as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) and Brian Jones (the founder of the Rolling Stones and rhythm guitarist). As noted in Wikipedia, “There are a number of accounts and theories regarding the events preceding Johnson's death. One of these is that one evening Johnson began flirting with a woman at a dance. One version of this rumor says she was the wife of the juke joint owner who unknowingly provided Johnson with a bottle of poisoned whiskey from her husband, while another suggests she was a married woman he had been secretly seeing. Researcher Mack McCormick claims to have interviewed Johnson's alleged poisoner in the 1970s, and obtained a tacit admission of guilt from the man. When Johnson was offered an open bottle of whiskey, his friend and fellow blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson[2] knocked the bottle out of his hand, informing him that he should never drink from an offered bottle that has already been opened. Johnson allegedly said, "don't ever knock a bottle out of my hand". Soon after, he was offered another open bottle of whiskey and accepted it, and it was that bottle that was laced with strychnine. Johnson is reported to have started to feel ill into the evening after drinking from the bottle and had to be helped back to his room in the early morning hours. Over the next three days, his condition steadily worsened and witnesses reported that he died in a convulsive state of severe pain - symptoms which are consistent with strychnine poisoning. Strychnine was readily available at the time as it was a common pesticide, and although it is a very bitter-tasting substance it is extremely toxic, and a small quantity dissolved in a harsh-tasting solution such as whiskey could possibly have gone unnoticed, but (over a period of days due to the reduced dosage) still produced the symptoms and eventual death that Johnson experienced.” (emphasis added by blog author). Robert Johsnon never had the chance to witness how appreciated and valued his music was until Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Rolling Stones and other musicians herein illuminated his music 30 years later. ____________________________ [1] http://www.wikipedia.org/ “Robert Johnson” (musician) [2] Sonny Boy Williamson lived considerably longer, naturally had a more prolific career and was seen in person by Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant (as discussed in the book Hammer of the Gods). The book even goes as far as to say that Plant got so close that he stole Williamson’s harmonica.

Picture of Robert Johnson (below) was taken in 1935 when he was 24. The picture was one of the few authentic pictures of this legend.

Please note: for some inexplicable reason, I could not eliminate the space between the text below and Robert Johnson's picture.

The BLUES, part 1 of 2

The BLUES

I. Music with Suspicion - The Blues
A. Good singing, good song
B. Blues inspiration
C. The Flood
II. Companion story, "The Legend of Robert Johnson"

I. Music with Suspicion - The Blues

A. "Good Singing, Good Song"
When I grew up, there were some very clear opinions expressed about what a good song was (especially from older brothers even moreso than Kathi). A good song had a nice, upbeat, decent melody. A good song had a good singer with a good voice (like Karen Carpenter or Paul McCartney). A good song absolutely did NOT have screaming in it or riff-drenched, wailing guitars.
So are the underlined principles in the above paragraph true? That’s difficult to say because no 2 musical tastes are alike. Each is unique. Even with 2 people with similar taste, you will find one who likes a certain song better than another. That makes judging music somewhat relative and not so absolute.
However, the underlined principles in the 1st paragraph are supported by popular demand. After all, it was the Beatles and not Sonic Youth (Seattle band of the 90s) who make (yes, that’s present tense "make" because Beatles CDs are bought every day some place on planet Earth) tens of millions of dollars and were better known. People of Chicago can crow all they want about Smashing Pumpkins (a very good group that originated in Chicago and Joliet) but did they sell as well as the Rolling Stones? For every 1 person who loves the anger-laced, distorted guitar- driven song by the Pumpkins called "Bodies" (& that includes me), you will undoubtedly find 50 people who will like "Yesterday" by the Beatles. "Yesterday" is also a sad song, but a far more palatable and popular song than "Bodies".
While my political views changed away from most of my family in 1982, my musical tastes were very similar to my family’s before 1988. In the summer of 1988, I fell in love with Led Zeppelin thanks to a great roommate from Minnesota named Mike.
It is indisputable that the roots of Led Zeppelin are from the Blues. While this rock band was classified as Heavy Metal, heavy metal has been defined as "Blues on steroids". Like Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin were inspired by the Blues.
The Blues is about emotion. If someone screams during a song, it’s to reflect anguish, pain. The sad singer’s point comes across as clear as sterile water. Sometimes the Blues is a music of emotion, rather than a music filled with artful tunefulness. Like a good movie that mirrors the reality rather than the "Leave It to Beaver" sugarcoating, the Blues offers you an unvarnished look at life. & life can be difficult.
B. "Blues Inspiration"
The inspiration of the Blues is pretty clear. Certain themes are very recurrent in Blues, and they are
a. man upset that his "woman (or as they sing "wimins") is cheatin’ on him or vice versa man cheating on woman, and the anguish that results.
b. being "messed around" and "double dealed" at work
c. being poor
d. Floods
e. Drinking
f. Getting no justice in Court
g. death
Of course, there’s Blues songs with other themes but that covers about 65% of the Blues. That’s not a criticism!! The Blues is amazing, beginning with the 1st song composed beginning in 1903, all the way to musicians in the present who take a mere handful of themes to make so many awesome songs! So much hurt, pain, and, in general, downtrodden conditions, and therein springs beautiful, empathetic and sometimes even inspirational music vanquishing all the negativity!
Here’s a great example. Before 1975, Robert Plant, singer/songwriter heard and bought the Blues song "Jesus, Make Up My Dying Bed"; that song is old, written 1929-30, composed by "Blind Willie" Johnson. It must have been an artful song, because Robert Plant and the other members of the band reworked the song and came up with "In My Time of Dying" which was released in 1975 from the album Physical Graffiti.
"In My Time of Dying" is nothing short of a Christian song sung with a tragic beauty behind compelling guitars and drumming. It’s a song inspired possibly a 27 year old suddenly confronted with his own death and then making excuses. Now, when you read the lyrics and you are older than say, 32, you must cast off your viewpoint, because 50 year olds, 40 yr. olds and even many 30 yr. olds, thinks far differently than a 27 year old, especially about death. If we don’t understand nor empathize, we find an immature, superficial song. After all, he prays to Jesus, "You can deliver me Lord; I only wanted to have some fun!" But, we all have seen 20somethings confronted with a bad situation. After all, we lived in our 20s and had bad things happen to us during those times. With sons, daughters, nephews and nieces that we personally know, it really shouldn’t be that hard to imagine the desperation, even the minimizing of his guilt in the lyrics found in the Coda section .
Just one awesome song, and there’s so many more songs that pull one away from his problems, hurt and gives perspective. Yet, the Blues isn’t for everyone. It depicts the rough, raw, painful lives lead. See the companion story "The Legend of Robert Johnson" for how one man lived and died by the Blues in the next post before Jan. 12.
C. THE FLOOD
During the Jim Crow era, during 1927, when farmers in the US were already suffering horribly financially well before the Great Depression. The Great Flood of Mississippi savagely struck farmers, townspeople, Blacks and Whites in this tough, hardscrabble reagion. 13,000 people were forced to evacuate and over 1,000 died. Led Zeppelin and in particular, Robert Plant heard the song "When the Levee Breaks". Reworking the song, the band put it on Led Zeppelin IV, Back in 1927, when God decided to make Mississippi flood, it was like the song sadly sang, "Cryin won’t help ya, prayin’ won’t do you no good".
It’s common knowledge that the Mississippi River makes much of the farmland in the state of Mississippi low, flat and prone to flooding. It’s equally valid that sharecropping Blacks bought or tilled land most prone to flooding while their richer White farming counterpart owned better land, less prone to flooding. The Mississippi Flood of 1927 was inspiration to the Blues song "When the Levee Breaks" by the married couple Memphis Minnie and Kansas City McCoy. During the Great Depression, crop insurance was certainly not as commonplace for either White or Black farmers. Many, many farmers were hit by the Depression far sooner than the 1929 Stock Market Crash. Farmers succeeded with burgeoning prices during World War One; yet, those same crop prices crashed brutally in the beginning of the 1920s. The lyrics ache with the desperation of that relentless rain. The lyrics touch on the mass exodus that millions of Blacks (living in the nasty South) moving to the North during the Jim Crow era, moving mostly to Chicago, as well as Northern cities like Springfield, Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis and of course, Detroit.
"Going to Chicago, going to Chicago/Sorry, but I can’t take you!" - lyrics from "When the Levee Breaks"
Fathers and mothers (mostly mothers) had to make the agonizing choice of which one of the 5 or so children to bring up North and which one to leave with "Uncle Bob". "When the Levee Breaks" touches briefly on a person being left back in Mississippi to sort out the destruction and carnage left by the massive flood (and thereafter, hopefully finding solace in the many Baptist churches come Sunday). Clearly, there were big families in the South as there were in the North. Just as clearly, with so little money, some Black families couldn’t move North all at once. It happened, and it happened often!
Later in the aftermath, Blacks suffered insult to injury as they were forced at gunpoint to rebuild the levees ruined during the Great Flood of 1927. That’s just one of many cruelties inflicted on that race in the South during the Jim Crow era.
I advise any reader interested in the lyrics cited herein just Google the lyrics of "In My Time of Dying" and "When the Levee Breaks". Good lyrics, compelling lyrics and even better to listen to.

2 issues

I am going to write about 2 subjects in this post. One touches on humor, and the other subject is definitely not funny at all and relates to the woman pictured above.

First issue

I'm really upset that Benazir Bhutto died. I'm not one of those stereotypical Americans that are notoriously bad in geography and are unable to point to Russia on a map. Why I even know the capital of Finland and know that it hosted a very important Superpower Summit between the US and the Soviet Union back in 1974. They called it the Helsinki Accords.


Yet, since 9/11/2001, many Americans are better at geography and many are concerned at what is going on in Asia. Benazir Bhutto's death helps terrorists. Was she a panacea to Pakistan if she would have been re-elected? No. Would she have solved the problems the US has with Al-Queda and terrorists? No, she simply would have helped.


I'll tell you what would really help, a better US President would really help towards solving a very difficult terrorist problem.


Did anyone notice that the very flawed, bumptious, ursine President Bush is unable to send more troops to Afganhistan in the wake of this good woman's death? & why can't he send more troops? Because he's pissing away too much of his military resources in Iraq, that's why. Now some Bush apologists will say we're doing better in Iraq, and some of the same apologists will say that we killed Sadaam Hussein and his 2 murderous sons. The good we did in Iraq, and the good we may currently be doing in Iraq doesn't outweigh the well over 2,000 young Americans that have died in this very flawed struggle. People can point out that some people in Iraq are doing better. But many if not most are NOT. & no matter how much the Bush people and our flawed President tip toe around it and try to obfusicate, we have, in fact, plunged that nation into a civil war. That civil war pits Shiite Iraqis against Sunni Iraqis, and they are dying by the scores every single day. This war has done more harm than good. How bad is Iraq? Let me count the ways:

1. The war began under false pretenses. Bush proclaimed long and repeatedly in 2002 and into 2003 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. THEY DIDN'T! The reason that he wanted the war was that he, Cheney and probably even Rumsfeld wanted to invade Iraq when they unfortunately took over the executive branch in Janauray, 2001. After all, Hussein had plotted in the 1990s to kill Bush's father (a much better president who balanced his budget by raising taxes and knew when to stop in Iraq!) Bush wanted to settle a score, among other reasons.

2. The Iraq War was ill-conceived. Even Bush states that he made a mistake vainly flying onto of a aircraft carrier that said MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Very symptomatic of the profound mistake made. They figured the war was won when they kicked out Hussein. They had no conception, very poor planning on how to reconstruct Iraq. AGAIN, THEY HAVE, IN FACT, PLUNGED THE NATION INTO A CIVIL WAR - Shiites vs. Sunnis!

3. The Iraq War sapped the strength of fighting terrorists in Afganhistan. To his credit, Bush actually helped facilitate a well designed, well executed war against Afganhistan a month after the terrorists struck on 9/11. It is well documented that when the US bombed and invaded Afganhistan, they fundamentally changed the way terrorists could operate and diminished their effectiveness. It's well documented as Senator John Kerry noted in his challenge against Bush in 2004 that our American forces had Bin Laden within their grasp in Tora Bora only to let him go by poor execution and poor insight by Bush. The instability of Bhutto's death (how this part of the post began) gives strong support to the fact that the Taliban was only temporarily setback in 2001 and 2002. It gives support that Al Queda's setback was more temporary than permanent. Now that there's so many troops are in Iraq, we have depleted forces elsewhere and precludes or options of a stronger force in Afganhistan to take on a re-energized Al-Queda and Taliban.

4. The Iraq War has wasted billions and depletes our ability to work towards solving domestic problems. We no longer have a budget surplus but a budget deficit. Bush doesn't want to upset his rich friends by raising taxes which would be the financially responsible way to pay for his war. But that's a Republican for you. While there are some good Republicans out there, a certain core of Republicans love indiscriminately spending money in the Pentagon, raising deficits and spending needless money on interest to fund that deficit. Why? Because if they put money there, they don't or even can't put money on domestic concerns and help people who really need it. One of the idiotic Republicans' (not all of them are this screwed up prioritywise but the following describes far too many of them) pet ideas is make it a law that Congress can only raise taxes when there's 2/3 of a majority.
In so doing, the military would get their money, Social Security (until about 2030) would get their money, but the rest of the budget could "go fly a kite" because after all, the federal government is there to fight foreign foes and dole out corporate welfare. These screwed up Republicans don't actually think they should help people in need.
One should look no further than Bush's NoChild Left Behind educational initiative. Bush had bipartisan support when he helped push the initiative through Congress. But thanks to a partisan, Republican Congress made up of hacks like former CORRUPT Majority Leader Congressman Tom DeLay, the page-abusing congressman of Florida and Senator Craig of Idaho, they badly underfunded this law well below what they originally pledged. Since we were fighting the almighty war in Iraq, the No Child Left Behind was given less funding than Bush originally pledged.
For these and many other reasons, the Iraq War is the wrong war to be in, and the only place we need to be fighting is Afganhistan. For these and many other reasons, President Bush may go down in history as the worst president the US has had since Warren Harding, president during the Roaring 20s. For these and many other reasons, the death of Benazir Bhutto is a very serious setback in the War on Terrorism. Whether or not this setback is insurmountable only time will tell.
I don't have a problem with all Republicans. In fact, the last decent Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, stated, (this is paraphrasing not verbatim) that spending money on the Pentagon and the military takes money away from those who are hungry and those who are in need. He said that, not some knee-jerk liberal. He accurately warned about and presciently stated the perils of the military-industrial complex on the eve of his retirement from the presidency. The military-industrial complex has wasted trillions of dollars on such boondoogles as the Seargent York artillery gun, spent money on ships that sunk to the sea instead of defending our nation, paid for $1,000 hammers and screwdrivers.

5. The US. should have a strong military, there's no argument from me on that point. I changed from being Republican to being a proud Democrat during the Reagan administration when I read about the wanton wasteful spending that occurred by the Pentagon. The American people and even those people on the entire planet deserved better than the trillions of dollars wasted at the Pentagon as President Eisenhower so articulately described while he was still president.

SUBJECT #2

I consider writing my hobby. I certainly (as you all can tell) am no Saul Bellow or Studs Terkel, but I do have something to say, and I write it better than the average person. I know I write better than the average person because they often say or write "good" when they should have said or wrote "well". Many don't realize that well is an adverb and good an adjective. Therefore, many will use "good" when their sentence requires the adverb "well".
So what?
So what, indeed, being able to use "good" and "well" properly doesn't make me a good writer merely a better one, that's all. & I definitely have a lot to learn.
Last Friday night, I sent what I thought was a humorous e-mail to a score of people, quite a few people. I thought I would get some response. Well, I received one response. One man thought what I said was very funny. That's the funny thing about humor. You can have 3 friends hearing a joke: 1 will think it's hilarious, 1 will think it's stupid, and the last one will be indifferent.
I'm still trying to figure out if other people besides Marty thought it was stupid and deleted it out of their e-mail (probably some did), or chuckled at the e-mail and moved on to something else (possibly some did).
Why don't I post the satirical e-mail here? I thought about it. But I considered my readership. I considered in particular one special reader who has a very good blog herself. When you go to her blog, it is consistently good writing, consistently written work that puts a smile on one's face (especially mine). I want to be consistent, too. I thought that since my satire was "dirty humor", "R rated humor", then I would be considered by her and maybe others "inconsistent". Since the humor was "edgy", I was concerned that it would be "edgy" enough to make her NOT want to read my blog anymore.
But, I don't know, a person, especially a blogger, should take risks from time to time. So if any of you readers out there want to see it, I'll definitely reconsider and possibly even post "my satirical e-mail".

Pictures of this time of year

Most of you who read this blog will readily recognize my kids. The other 2 people in the outdoors picture are Kristen and Matt. They are my niece and nephew from Maribeth's side. Kristen is going to one of the top chef schools in Chicago and will graduate this spring. Matt is in his sophomore yr. at Loyola and is getting a degree in Criminal Justice. He wants to police cybercrime.

Brianna is the only one of my kids who still believes in Santa Claus. Ted and Andy found out "the real deal" a little over 2 years ago. I will take some pictures when we celebrate Christmas at my dear parents place in little Ithaca, Wisconsin (population 40 people, but mind you, it's still big enough to be a topic in Wikipedia!) .

Dear Reader, I will make sure to pass along these pictures to you.

upcoming holiday and current concerns

I am happy for my kids excitement for XMAS, I feel it won't be disappointed when they go to see their Grandma & pa Schauf in Ithaca WI and will do plenty of tobogganing on the snowy hills of SW Wisconsin. Maribeth & I are looking forward to the law firm party this Thursday.
I'm glad and happy I work at a decent firm.

I would be happier but I have a cold creeping into the bronchial tubes (hopefully I won't have pneumonia as I did 2 years at the very same time). I would also be ecstatic if it wasn't for the fact that over the past few months I"ve been subjected to over $500 in dental bills and I haven't seen my checking account above zero in over 2 weeks. Lets hope & pray the combination of today's paycheck and the XMAS bonus will cover everything. (Pray here! no just kidding, I am a mere speck in a mad universe and have no right to demand a prayer).

I'm a little bit more optimistic about my evaluation. I was given a 4 hr task for an important lawyer at our firm who works out of Israel. I was thanked by both him and the #1 at our firm. I think it's pretty clear that the staff member you go to for an arbitration pack, a Supreme Court Rule 222 Disclosure or Pre-Trial Memo is a certain someone who is more confident now. There's not many to chose from at our small firm, but I try.

From a humble blogger, I wish every reader, my dear brother with a very serious disease, all those fighting with guns, the sick and the lonely, a very precious Christmas and holiday season!!!!!!!!
VPJS

suggestions

Any good suggestions for an upcoming end of the year review?

Part 3 of 3, Down & Down again, but finally up

The year of 2003 was nearly as bad as 2002. 2002 was about loss, and 2003 was about a slow recovery I started. A couple weeks after 2003 started, I moved away from Maribeth (good) and the kids (bad), moved out of the condo and into an apartment in neighboring Midlothian (a town north and west Oak Forest and adjacent to OF). I remember as clearly as yesterday that after moving into the apartment (about a couple of weeks) my 2nd son Ted said, "Daddy, you have a 2nd son said, "Daddy you have a beautiful apartment." He was only 4 years, but he sensed how that made me a lot happier. So, he said it occasionally with nearly perfect timing!
My paralegal job went from good in November to excruciating by late winter/early spring of 2003. I had the misfortune of having a demeaning bitch of a boss with the same exact first name (including the same exact spelling!) as my ex-wife. I was wrong and she was wrong. Things went well at first and she was gracious enough to complement me and even give me $20 as a bonus for XMAS. Yet, I seemed flawed from the start. 1st, she told me at the interview that I would only do "a little" secretarial work. Yet, the secretarial work as important as being a paralegal, and there was just as much of it as there was paralegal tasks. She had no other secretary! I was shoehorned into paralegal/secretary rather than paralegal. The differences were stark. Secretaries (now this is a generalization not the way it ALWAYS is) have to have work done the same day, sometimes within 10 minutes. Paralegal will have tasks that are days and weeks long.
I was very tense and thought "everything depended on being a perfect paralegal/secretary!" When I made mistakes, I brooded on them. There were times I would make mistakes from feeling bad about the last mistake made.
Maribeth O (my damn boss, not to be confused with my ex-wife. This damn lawyer will hereafter be call "M.O.") preyed on my mistakes and yelled and had fits. The vicious circle ensued: I made a mistake –>one of us would catch it–>she would find out usually, anyway–>She would "raise hell" –>I would feel bad and became upset going into the next project and make more mistakes.
I was able to work in this excruciating fashion for 2 months. Before I was fired 4/13, I hoped at night that I wouldn’t wake up. I blamed everything on myself and had the view, "No matter how hard I try, it’s not enough". Then I was called in the office by the office manager. She said early into this meeting, "It’s just NOT working out." TRUE! M.O. was sitting right beside me. She attempted to act compassionate during the meeting, but it was well known throughout the office what a bitch she was, even among other women there! Before I was hired she had gone through several subordinates in a matter of a year or so. She was angry when I was on the best of terms with her. I remember as clearly as "earlier today" when there were times I was in her office and she didn’t seem angry. Then the phone would page her, and she would emit this angry ½ shout/ ½ grunt.
When I left, I reduced my phone bill; I found a grocery store that offered cut rate prices. I didn’t get cable when I moved out and continued that way. I got rid of my cell phone. I greatly reduced the amount I drove. About the only driving I did was when my ex-wife (the better Maribeth, "MB") was working I was given a decent severance package which I shared with my kids and MB. I decided to not be a paralegal anymore, but a medical coder who would own my own business and work for clinics and do Internet billing and submit HCFA forms to insurance companies. I was doing a better job of making ends meet.
Then, I flew into a rage, an absolute hate-filled rage! While working at the firm, I was blaming myself for 95% of the problems I was having. I hated M.O. when it finally dawned on me a crucial realization. I was ending my paralegal career after 12 years to go into business for myself. In those 12 yrs. I worked for many lawyers: old lawyers, lawyers younger than myself, women lawyers, men lawyers, nice lawyers, patient lawyers, lying lawyers and lawyers blunt and honest. Before M.O., I never met such a petty, mean, evil bitch lawyer as bad as Maribeth O. A week or so after, I came up with memories of many of the times she demeaned me, yelled at me in front of clients, even. I hated her; I literally hated her for a year. But that really hurt only myself. I talked to a priest about it 1 1/2 yrs. later in confession.
I did 2 things with my rage. One is used the anger as motivation to pass my medical billing class with honors. The 2nd was to write a story that ended up taking me a year to write called, "Change from a Coral Snake". It was a bad boss meeting a bad end. Yet, I prayed enough and had enough insight to know that the protagonist/star of the story was wrong. He was wrong to take matters into "his own hands" and create a harsh consequence against his boss. (Sorry for not publishing herein, because I still have the copyright. But if you want the story, contact me and we’ll make arrangements.)
I got a job at a hospital. Ironically, the assistance I had gotten from the government was more than what I was making at the hospital. But to be fair, I was working part time. The rest of the time was getting Medicare and Medicaid certified, then writing mailing, delivering, promotional letters and flyers for the new business.
By the summer, the "better MB" and I agreed to all the terms on the divorce. We were wisely told by Cook County Court that we had to take child parenting class (which is for those who are divorced & with kids). I was told to go to one class just like Maribeth. The bottom line was if you fight like "cats and dogs", and your kids are witness to that, it will hurt them. Good class, I would go so far as to say that it influenced my parenting thereafter. Can’t lie and say I never got into another fight with MB again, but I think I got into a lot less of them. I will truthfully assert that Maribeth is a better person now than she was in 2002. I think I've changed too.
Although Maribeth and I agreed to all the divorce terms, her lawyer decided not to "lift a finger" regarding the process of the divorce. No court meetings, no filing the final petition/agreement, no nothing. Why? Because Maribeth was behind paying her legal fees. Is that right? Is that wrong? I don't know, but that seems like "business".
I turned 40 in June, 2003. The hope and the prayer was that life really "began at 40", because things were as nightmarish at the age of 39. Between September to December of 2003, I was extremely unhappy. I wrote "Change from a Coral Snake" . I wrote an unfinished (to this day) story about 2 fathers of consecutive generations committing suicide. It became apparent that there were few opportunities in the SW Cook County area (or even Naperville and Joliet) for medical coders running their own business. So, I was at the hospital, and although I worked extra hours as many as 40 hours, I wasn’t making ends meet despite all the costs I cut. The saving grace was that the car was working well, & I didn’t have to spend too much money on car repairs.
I was on the condo board as the secretary of the Board (since I had joint tenancy ownership in the condo, I was still eligible for being on the board inspite not living at the actual condo). The board was doing well we were making the condo a safer, more secure, more marketable place, and we were led by an excellent president. He told me one day, "You were a good paralegal. Why not try again?". At the time, the only vacancies for medical coding was to work at a hospital or company. I wanted to start a career, but as an owner, not an employee in the medical coding. So in late November, I applied at several firms. In mid December, I was hired by Craig M.
Things were going well there. Plus, Maribeth paid a little more of her legal fees so her lawyer did a little more work. Prior to January, 2004, I was paying Maribeth regularly and voluntarily because her lawyer didn’t set up child support yet. Then the child support kicked in and from then until June 2007, and there was never a child support payment missed. (After June,2007, I left my job at the hospital, and increased my bi-weekly support to her on our joint accord. outside of court).
Things at the law firm were going well. Like the hospital, I was making new friends at the law firm in my new life. Money was better as I was working 2 jobs. Something interesting happened. Here are the events:
1. 6 months after working there, I received a raise.
2. Through the 1st 9 months, I was on very good terms with my boss.
3. Yet, ominously, he screamed and yelled at others. The turnover there was high, most especially with his personal secretary.
4. Then since I had more experience, he doubled my workload in the last part of summer and with less time to do tasks and I began making more mistakes.
5. Then he started treating me the same way he treated his secretaries. But I had experience with that already, since I worked for that bitch, M.O.
6. I was named not only paralegal but also secretary. Then he had good days & bad days. (Hereafter, this boss will be name CM) On the days he "snuck" his bottle of Johnny Walker under his desk, he was bad. Other days he was good. Of course, the vicious circle ensued again when I made mistakes with him as he yelled every bit as much as M.O.
Can you believe it?? I wound up with a boss even worse than M..O!!!! He would get drunk some afternoons, he lied even more than M.O., he was even more manipulative than M.O., he screamed at his wife and called her a word rhyming with "bunt", he screamed at corporation assistants when things went bad at day trading.

Oh, yes, that was another thing, while he was a successful lawyer, he openly spent his time day-trading where he wasn’t as successful. After he screamed at a corp. assistant over the phone, guess who he yelled at next? So, why didn’t I find another job? I started looking at the start of 2005 after being at the firm over a year. I had to sneak out of the office during lunch for interviews, or before the start of the day and it was awkward as hell.
One day he was so drunk after drinking 2/3 of a bottle of liquor than he came up to a couple who were African-American and were prospective clients. Marty told me later that he told them he thought that adjustors at Allstate were "schwartzes" and explained that Allstate adjustors were stingy at settling cases. The next day he looked and acted almost as bad. His hair appeared disheveled. It seemed like he was living by the joken saying, "Avoid hangovers, stay drunk!" This law firm was one mile from the train station that I took to work in the morning. That mile walk felt like a walk to the dental office where I was going to get a large filling put in my tooth, where the dentist was going to drill and drill and I wasn't going to get any anesthetic at all!
Then, my co-worker at the hospital, (a week before he was going to get married!), was shot and killed July, 2005 (see my blog on this matter, same month/year) . I started working more hours at the hospital. I knew I would get a full time job there, if I only asked. Not a good way to have it as I wish my co-worker could have lived the rest of his life rather than dying at 29.
I then delivered an ultimatum to my abusive boss, a boss more abusive than M.O.! I wrote a written ultimatum of some of his more egregarious abuses, I told him pay me more next time I was paid, and treat me better, or I would leave. I gave him 48 hrs. to make a decision with his partner. His partner was a better boss, but was a major enabler to the heavy drinker boss. But later, I admired that other boss, because at long last, in 2006, he dropped him as a partner.
The boss sat down with me and told me a bunch of lies. My flaw is that I can be nieve and often believe the best in people, and I believed him. I was getting a 2 yr. contract with an immediate pay raise and one in August, 2006. My motive for believing in him was that I wanted to work 2 years there and see if I could turn a bad working relationship into something good. Hadn’t it ever been done before by boss and employee?? So I worked another pay period there. During the first week, he treated me very well, the 2nd week worse and worse. (He probably had it all planned that way!) But then he told me on payday that I wasn’t getting my raise. CM was too big of a weasel to assume responsibility so he blamed his other partner for the decision. We know damn well that if he disagreed with his other boss it's very likely he would overrule him. So, that was my last day. I was told by my good boss at the hospital that I was full time. I had already been working at the hospital for 2 years.
I was exhilarated to leave that asshole. I received at least 7 congratulations from other people who found out that I left. Now remember, I was at a very small 3-5 lawyer firm. So the fact that the news was only told to a few people and 7 people stopped their important routine to tell me how happy they were that I finally got away from CM, that’s pretty good. My first post on this blog is also about the job as some of the 2005 posts are.
Yet, I was dogged by the same problem at the hospital in 2005 that I had earlier (August to November of 2003): I wasn’t making ends meet. The hospital job wasn’t meeting all my meager expenses. I was getting so desperate that I was walking to work inspite the hospital being in the ghetto of Harvey. Although I was now working full time and the 2nd pay period in, I worked over 10 hrs. of overtime. Still didn’t pay the expenses I had.
When I was toiling in "squalor" at CM’s law firm, I was commiserating with another attorney. She is an excellent attorney by the name of Amy Wright. She said, "Why don’t you work at my old firm, GFB&R". I didn’t at the time, because of their small rate. Then, I decided in October, 2005 to go in for an interview. The boss there and I mutually decided that I would work part time.
After that, things went well financially. I started paying down credit card debt. I spent money wisely for Christmas. I bought a very good Hepa-filtered bagless vacuum cleaner. Then I joined a Christian dating service.
By this time (December 2005/January 2006), my trials and tribulations were shown in the previous posts. Starting in March, 2006, I had the greatest spring of my life because I fell in love with Patti. She is a relationship, a good friend that I will never ever regret meeting even though we are no longer lovers. I am glad that currently she is with a "good guy" now. All these culminated in November 2006. Maribeth & I decided that when my apartment lease ended in January, 2007, I would leave the apartment and return to Oak Forest, return to the condo, return home.
I am not living happily ever after, and you knew that before I wrote it. There’s some bad days. But my situation is much better than October, 2006. I’m not really all that happy, but am resolved not to make some of the mistakes I made before. I hope that I’ve learned a lot in my 44 years. One sign of learning is that I've lasted longer at the law firm GFB&R longer than any law firm I've been at in Chicago. Another sign is they gave me a good raise. Yet another sign, and maybe the most important is that Maribeth, our 3 kids and I have gone over a year living together.
What will happen? You’ll see in this blog.
Hope you all had a very nice Thanksgiving, dear readers!

Part 2, Nettlesome problems

1999, we learned that both sons had problems. Ted, who wasn't even a year old, was repeatedly getting ear infections. Even with insurance, the out-of-pocket cost mounted and the dream of paying off credit cards crashed. He needed surgery to put tubes in his ears. His health improved dramatically. It also became tougher because of Andy's problem. He did a test that indicated that he had autism. Now most people think autism is one major mental disease. It is not. What it is is a spectrum of diseases/symptoms that, at it's worst means that your child will have bad communication problems and backward social skills (sorry I'm no psychologist but I think I am doing an accurate job of explaining this). Andy has always tested at the most minor part of the autistic spectrum. But in 1999, he had to go to speech therapy, because of his deficits with communication.
Then I made a big mistake. I thought I would be nice to Maribeth. She was having problems with making ends meet with herself and the household. So I said, "Hey, let's have a joint credit card." Yes, it made it easier to spend money on things she needed. But the credit card debt spiraled more quickly upward.
Reader, please take note. I don't really think that Maribeth is a spendthrift. She doesn't go to the opera or even plays, she doesn't spend a lot on clothes or shoes. She doesn't want to drive a fancy car or spend a lot of money on books. Yet she is well read, going to the library. We've only took one vacation longer than 3 days twice in the 10 yrs. we were married! I think the lack of time off and the lack of just plain fun like we had back in 1991-1994 hurt our marriage too.
The 2 weaknesses were food/grocery store and toys. We live right next to an expensive grocery store named Jewel/Osco. Jewel's prices are so high that they were sued with Dominicks back in the late 90s early 2000s for price fixing milk . This gave both stores a black eyes imagewise and indeed, we were spending at least a dollar more every single time we went to Jewel and got milk. & then Dominicks was across the street back in the 90s and we were spending a great deal of money there, too. The judge in the price fixing case finally ruled that there was definitely evidence of price fixing, but then he said something to the effect in his ruling on Jewel & Dominicks, "Even if there's evidence of price fixing, so what? Buy your milk at Walgreens, or Aldi or Save a Lot! No one said YOU HAD TO SHOP AT EITHER JEWEL OR DOMINICK!" We should have & didn't .

& I was by no means a miser. I spent more money on clothes than Maribeth. I worked at a law firm, then I left Sudekum law firm for another law firm and got a big raise, than I left that one and went to a really excellent law firm that handled wrongful death cases as well as the usual car accident, workers' compensation, and premises liability. I loved that firm located on the 30th Floor (Dear Reader, that firm still exists and I didn't want to mention it by name due to the main partner there who has an obstreperous reputation)
I loved my office on the 30th Floor; I could look out that window and instantly calm down seeing Lake Michigan and the northern part of downtown Chicago. It drove home the point that my problems were smaller than the world I saw outside. My professional growth was leaping high as I learned a lot from the best paralegal I ever met, Mike Sullivan. Also, the personal injury lawyer improved my writing and legal skills and some of the survival skills in the cutthroat law firm milieu. (I was to learn more later as the law firms I went to were more cutthroat than the one I was at from 2000-2002. So now, I've learned the skills of the "Insider".)

At any rate, I had below average spending habits. I spent too much on history books, clothes (to keep my "image stylistically high" at the law firms). I loved getting CDs. I have a very successful younger brother who had, at one time, over 150 CDs, and I never have gotten to that point. Yet there was a big difference between him and I: as an engineer he was better able to afford a lot of CDs than someone who worked at a hospital on weekends and paralegal during the week.
Maribeth & I demanded a great deal from each other, and when we didn't get what we wanted, we fought like cats and dogs. We weren't as mature as we should have been.

Then came that awful day in early March, 2000. I was told that I was let go from the Personal Injury Department. The office manager said something to the effect of, "Vince we thought you did a very good job. We have no problem with your productivity, your excellent attitude and your work ethic." I learned later that they wanted to put more money and manpower in the Wrongful Death Dept. and less money in the P.I department because the main partner didn't think the profit in the PI Dept. wasn't high enough. Death yields greater profit than injuries in a car accident. The lawyers didn't invent that, the loss is obviously more in Death!
We went to marriage counseling from 1999-2002. I think when I announced that I lost my job at this firm, it was the only time one of us broke down and cried in the middle of the marriage counseling session. For many guys, losing your job is more humiliating and more painful than if someone took all your clothes off in the middle of a mall and had everyone laugh at you.
Yes, that's the way I view it now, and that's the way I viewed it then. It may be wrong to think that way, but that's the way I value work.
My paralegal skills worsened. At the 2 jobs, I was at, I thought I had to be "perfect" as a paralegal and brooding about my mistakes and worrying about getting fired made me not as good of an employee at the 2 law firms I was fired at (one in Sept., 2002 and again in April, 2003).
September, 2003 was one of the darkest months of my life. I was fired then handed divorce papers by Maribeth. Why did she divorce me? We fought more and more, my depression was worse (obviously) and it was determined that I needed surgery for a deviated septum.
Then I had the terrible luck of getting an ECG which yielded a false reading of a heart attack. So before the surgery, I had a nuclear stress test, and a whole slew of other tests. My tests turned out that my heart was in great shape, and I went ahead with the surgery.
When all of this was happening, on one Saturday morning, Maribeth and I were grabbing and fighting over the Doctor's orders for more heart tests. I laughed at Maribeth and teased her. Now Maribeth gets mad when she argues with someone. But she sees a flaming orange when someone teases and laughs at her. She started punching me, and it made me laugh even more. After the test, I went to the law firm to work. She called me at the firm and told me she wanted a divorce. I reluctantly agreed.
They took me to surgery one morning. She was supportive enough to kiss me when I was rolled into the surgery room. Dear Reader, have you ever had surgery, and you woke up from anesthesia with bizaar effect? As soon as I woke up from anesthesia, I burst into tears, sobbing. The nurse there came over and listened to me. She held my hand in both of hers. She told me that she was divorced too. Now, it's unethical to ask a nurse for their name and phone # so I didn't. I took the high road and when I was given a hospital critique, I wrote her a very positive review.
Basically the next 6 months went from bad to worse. The week after the surgery, my law firm fired me. I learned that they didn't like me taking a week off from surgery. & again, I was a less confident paralegal than I was when I worked at that great law firm on the 30th floor. What an awful taxi ride home after being fired! The firm gave me $20 for cab fare home, but since Oak Forest is 25 miles away from the Loop part of downtown, it cost about $40 and I didn't have enough of my own cash to get there. My taxi driver became more and more mad. I imagined that he would let me off by the side of the interstate, and some thugs would come and kill me as I walk the remaining 10 miles. In fact, I was kind of hoping that. At least the pain and anguish would go away! But that didn't happen, the driver & I mutually agreed to stop by a gas station, I would give him $20 more, and lo & behold his whole attitude towards me changed noticeably. Bless his soul, he even helped put the two moving boxes that the law firm provided me right in my trunk. ya, right.

I was rehired in Nov., 2002. In mid January, 2003, I left Oak Forest and moved to a small apt. in Midlothian. The pressure to make ends meet were more, and I was paying child support that Maribeth & I mutually agreed on. In April, 2003, the judge set the amount of money I would pay her. (The divorce didn't go through for awhile because Maribeth would stop paying her divorce attorney. She also yelled at the lawyer's secretary for having an "attitude" with her. When she finally started paying again in the fall and winter of 2004, her divorce attorney finally made the divorce final, but Maribeth & I had already agreed to all of our divorce terms the summer of 2003)
The week after the judge set the terms of the divorce, I was fired again April 13, 2003.
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In Part 3, it gets worse but slowly and surely, it gets better until Nov., 2006.