Thoughts on Mitt Romney's Acceptance Speech -- Liveish

So the question is....should I go to sleep, or should I watch Mitt Romney give his acceptance speech for the nomination.

Eh.  Guess I'll watch the convention.

So Clint Eastwood just finished (I love his work as a director, but he looked like he could use a nap).  Now its Marco Rubio's turn.  Everytime I hear his name I think of that kid in Hook who's name is roofy and all the kids say "Roofy-o!" when he does something awesome.  Hook was a fine film.  I only realized the other day that....shoot...Dustin Hoffman was hook.

Focus.

I have to pee.  Should I skip the intro and go for it?  Eh....

Okay.

Run!

Okay, I'm back.

Changed the channel from CNN to NBC.  That little factoid block at the bottom of the screen was really annoying.  What is this?  Pop-up politics?

Huh.  I wonder if Obama is watching tonight.  I wonder....

I got to say, Marco Rubio is doing a pretty good job.  Can't say I agree with him on everything, but he's a good speaker.  Faith in the creator the most important value of all?  I think Thomas Jefferson may disagree.  If America is really God's chosen country...I dunno, I don't think that really bodes well for the Lord.  What makes me better than all those poor kids in Taiwain who knit my underwear together?  And one day, will I be knitting underwear for them?

You know, this has been a really long introductory speech.  Come on buddy, wrap it up.  I have to, you know, go to work in the morning and actually do something instead of spend the day on a bus galavanting across the countryside talking about how great America is.  I'm trying to do my civic duty and listen to what Mitt Romney has to say...but at some point I got to get some sleep so that I could do my part.  5,000 people have spent three days in Tampa, dropping a lot of money, but not really doing anything to forward society (unless you believe that Mitt Romney is going to win and take us forward....).

Okay, here we go.  He's finally stopped talking Apple Pie, he's finally going to....wait, nope...nope...nope he's still talking about how great we are.

Wow, was that a gaffe?  Did he just say we chose more government than more freedom?  Oops.

Hey!  There he is!  He's walking down the aisle, shaking hands, looking presidential, walking down the red carpet.  NBC is comparing it to a wrestler ending a ring.  Sheesh.

I think it would have been way cooler if Mitt Romney had appeared on the stage suddenly in a poof of Red smoke.  Or maybe if he had been wheeled onto the stage in a pod.

But what if the pod doesn't open?  The election would be lost.

Okay, now he has walked up the stairs.  He has a good, presidential jauntiness about him.  It would be a bad thing if he, say, tripped and fell or looked a little winded once he got to the top.  Risky, having stairs.  I'm sure there were some staffers who thought it was a bad idea.  But when you are president, you are going to have to walk up many stairs.  Best get used to it.

1036:  Mitt Romney accepts nomination

1037:  Whoever did Romney's make up did a really great job.  He looks like a young 63.  Not at all a full 65.  Nice teeth to.  If he is an observant Mormon he won't drink coffee or coke, and that has left him with a brilliant smile.  Very nice.  Nice suit too.  Very Slick.  And a Red tie!  Obama always wear a blue one.  How charmingly unsubtle.  I wonder if that will be a motif through this race.

1038:  Psh.  The Republicans were comabting Obama from day one, tooth and nail.  You never gave him a chance.

1039:  Romney gives a little jab, building a business with your own hands.

1040:  Eh....the new Americans may embrace the future.  But the old Americans are horribly wedded to their past.  We are hobbled by it, even as we don't understand it, even as we deny it.

1043:  I doubt that Romney is really going to be able to lower gas prices.

1044:  Romney's eyebrows are a little unkempt.  Ann Romney's however, are well plucked.  In Upper Malakvia, thick eyebrows are a sign of fertility and virility, and so he's probably just won their vote.  Will they decide the election....

1045:  Funny that Romney discusses the race to the moon as a sign of America's greatness.  It is totally just, because its the greatest engineering feat ever accomplished, but it was also a massive government undertaking which cost an incredible amount of money.  It just shows what government CAN accomplish.  Or what it could do.  Maybe our government can't do that anymore.  Maybe our country can't do that.  But it shows what the government, well lead, well funded, can do.

1047:  Again, the American government fed Romney's dad when they arrived from Mexico.  Under the Ryan plan, would we still do that....probably.

1049:  Touching story about the rose.  That is really great.  Good on ya, Romney.

1051:  Hey, a touch of emotion there from the big man.  Did his voice break?  Or does he need a little oil?  Hell, raising 5 kids is tough.  Raising just one is tough.  And 5 boys no less.

1056:  Eh, here we go again with the whole business thing.  I still don't think that being a businessman means you are going to be a great president.  Donald Trump is a....businessman.  Sort of.  But I don't think he would be a good president at all (though it would be so funny to see him try....until we all started crying because America was broken).

1057:  A joke about going to hell.  Eh.  Falls a bit flat for me.

1100:  So anyone can be Steve Jobs?  Has this guy read Outliers?

1100:  Woah!  Who was that guy?  He had really really awful teeth.  He probably should have laid off the coffee, soda, and cigarettes...

1102:  Romney's earlobes are connected to his face.  I wonder what that says about his character?

1104: So on the 5 point plan to create jobs?  I agree with balancing the budget (if it includes revenue increases) and...the third one.  Which I forgot.  Its getting late.  I am tired.

1107:  Now the social issue stuff.  None of it I really agree with, reading between the lines of what he is saying.  Its one of the big things that keep me from voting Republican.  Far more likely to vote Libertarian, but I don't think Libertarianism works in this day and age.

1110:  Oh great.  Now we are going to war with the Russians.  Guess that is how we are going to create those 12 million jobs.  Okay, that is a stretch.  The policies of Truman and Regan no longer apply, when free nations elect terrorist organizations to government.

1112:  Do you want to see a guillotine in piccadily?  NO!  Do you want that raggedy-ass Napoleon to be your king?  NO!  Do you want your children to sing the Marseille?  NO!

1114:  Thank God.  Its finally over.  A good speech.  A really good speech.  I find myself in a strange place, because I think I like Romney more than Obama, I think maybe he is probably a better leader.  That means a lot.  But in this day in age I am so scared of giving the Republicans a mandate to do whatever the hell they want and I still do not agree in large part with their philosophy.  If I could be certain he would lead as a moderate I would consider voting for him.

Allright.  Good night guys.  See you tomorrow.

Sport! Predictions for the 2012 - 2013 Season

Hey everybody!

Are you unhappy with the state of political discourse in America?  Has your daughter gone Goth?  Has the long service award you received from the crackerjack factory made you reflect on the Sisyphean labor of life?  Are your boobs starting to succumb to the ravages of age and the forces of gravity?  Are you getting a little jowly?

Well, never fear, because its the beginning of a new year in Sport!  With the start of football, football, and football this fall you will soon be able to distract yourself with the sweet, sweet opium of televised athletic competition!  Couldn't come at a better time, my friends.  Could not come at a better time.

I always like to make some predictions before the season's start, so dial up your bookies because here we go:

Football (aka Soccer):  I find myself in a very strange place as a soccer fan.  Everyone who follows this blog knows that I am a Chelsea fan, but this year I joined a consortium of high rollers to purchase a piece of Manchester United (okay, okay, my brother bought 6 shares of MANU stock on the NYSE that are split between my dad, my brother and I, and I owe my brother $30); this means I now own a piece of one of Chelsea's bitterest of rivals.  On the other hand, I do have Sir Alex Ferguson on speed dial.

To make matters worse, I have also entered into a bet with those same high rollers as to who will finish higher in the league and I picked Manchester City to win the league.  Of course, that was before Manchester United acquired Robben Van Persie (Good god I would love to own a piece of him....wait a tick: I do!!).  My reasons, at the time, were that Manchester City and Manchester United hadn't made many moves on the transfer market, and I figured Manchester City still had the better side.  Again, that was before MANU bought Van Persie.

But if I am not supporting Chelsea with my money or with my mind than I am certainly supporting them with my heart.  Chelsea FC are two games into the season and are top of the table right now.  I think they have made some good signings - Hazard looks wonderful - and I am still hoping that Torres finds his old form, or at least something like it.  Its a different look from Chelsea, a side that emphasizes attack with a midfield talented enough to pick the locks of a stacked defense.  They could use some true wingers (they rely on Ivanovic and Ashley Cole to press up far too much and I think it leaves them vulnerable in defense...), but I think if the team gels and if Torres could find his form they make a title challenge after all.

My prediction for Chelsea:  A return to the top 4.

NFL Football:  This year I am really going to try to pay attention to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the football team I chose to follow after an extensive selection process involving many bribes and much prayerful consideration.  I'll be honest:  Don't know much about the team, but I think the Steelers are a little long in the tooth.  I predict that they will go 10-6, finish second in their division (to the Ravens), get to the playoffs in the wildcard spot, and lose in the second round.  If that is not supporting your team, I don't know what it is.

Hokie Football:  Well its a new season for Virginia Tech who ended last year by fake punting their way out of a shot at winning a BCS bowl game.  But that was eight months ago, and 99.8% of the Hokie Nation has absolved old Frank Beamer of his past sins and is looking forward to the new season.

And well they should.  When I look in my tea leaves I see yet another 10-2 season, with losses to UNC and Florida State.  I see a meeting in the ACC champeenship between Florida State and Virginia Tech, and the victors shall be clad in orange and maroon, or white and orange, or black and orange, or whatever the Hokies happen to be wearing that day (Fuck you, Herbstreet!).

So you know what that means.  The Hokies are going to go to yet another BCS bowl game.  The team will rally around the old man, tearing up the locker room while they scream "Let's win one for good ol' Frank!" and they will go out there and they will play like men, like warrior poets!

But they will be outgunned, outmanned, outbamboozled, and outdone.  They shall come home with nothing but pride, and Beamer will only grow more stooped as the town of Blacksburg and hundreds of thousands of fanatical alumni with little better to do continue to heap the expectations on the septuagenarian's shoulders.

So, 10-2 and ACC champions again.  It's going to be another disappointing season.

On the Price of One Man's Vote

Hey Mitt:

My name is Nicholas Marickovich, and I work at Newport News Shipbuilding, where we build some of the largest and finest pieces of military hardware the world has ever seen.  Sometimes on time, sometimes on budget, but always good ships.

Even though I am a defense worker, and a vote for you is surely in my best interest, I am not intending to vote for you in November.  While I have to admit I am disappointed in Obama's leadership style and I think the tone of his campaign has been rather awful, even in comparison to yours, I have to admit that I tend to align myself more with his policies than with yours.

In addition, with all apologies, I don't believe that running a business qualifies you to be president.  The USA is not a business, but rather a country, and macroeconomics is not microeconomics.  I understand that being a community organizer doesn't qualify you either, but you have to admit that your opponent has a jump in you in years on the job.  It's a shame that you can't run on your record as being governor of the great state of Massachusetts because of, well, the whole healthcare thing.  But, you win some, you lose some, right?

However, if you really think my single vote is going to take you over the hump, there is still one way you can win my vote.

Mr. Romney (or should I say, Governor Romney):  If you meet me at the 46th street gate at NNS shipbuilding one fine morning, introduce yourself, shake my hand, and give me a doughnut, then I will vote for you.  And I don't want the doughnut to come from money donated by Adelson or anything like that.  I want you to open that wallet of yours, go down to the Krispy Kreme, and buy me a doughnute (note the silent "e" - I imagine that anyone who makes over $250,000 a year probably spells it this way) with Bavarian Cream filling.   And it can't be one of those day old fund raising doughnuts either.  Its got to be the genuine article, from the shop on Mercury Boulevard.

Now, I get to work early, hitting the gate around 6:20 AM.  It will be tempting to send an aid or even the presumptive VP, Paul Ryan (masterful goal, by the way), in your stead.  Do not do it.  I want to know that even if I can't take you to the bar after work to buy you a beer, you are still going to be waking up with me everyday to head to the trenches with your hard hat in hand and your cigarettes in your shirt pocket, at least in spirit.  Kind of.  Sort of.  Maybe.

Bonus points if the filling is still warm.  I'll vote for Cuccinelli or something like that.

Ugh.  No.  I could never do that.  Not for just meeting you and a warm doughnut.  Not for all the cream in Bavaria.  But if, say, Anne Hathaway met me at the 46th street gate with a dozen warm doughnuts (again, not of fund raiser quality), well, then we could talk.  No guarantees.  If she was naked, or even mostly naked, that may help sway my decision, but still won't necessarily carry the day in Mr.Cuccinelli's favor. 

V/R, Best of Luck, Etc. Etc. Etc.

Nick Marickovich
MFWIC, Philanthropist, Man of the People
NNS Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.

On the Selection of Paul Ryan

Watching Obama and Romney go at each other over the past few months has been like watching a really, really bad soccer match.

"But Nick," you say, "I thought you always said there no such thing as a bad soccer match!"

On the contrary, my friends, on the contrary.  While I will staunchily defend the beautiful game with every ounce of intestinal fortitude I have at my command until I'm pushing up the daises, I'll concede that there is nothing more miserable to watch on TV than a stagnant 0-0 draw.  That is, of course, in stark contrast to the sparkling 0-0 draw;  they do exist and they are exciting even if it is somewhat disappointing.

The Obama-Romney match-up had all the classic hallmarks of a study in nill-nill craptology.  On the one hand, you have Romney, who seems a little out of his depth, happy to have reached the knock-out rounds after a brutal qualifying campaign.  On the other hand, you have Obama, the reigning champion, confident that the match is his to be won if he simply doesn't lose it.  He hunkers down, puts 10 men behind the ball, and hopes to get a goal on the counter...like in the debates or something.  It's not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea.

So we've watched as they've poked and prodded, whinged and whined, flopped and faked, and passed the buck around and around and around with patented Spanish tikka-takka panache.  Romney keeps diving in the box, trying to draw a penalty and of course Obama picked up a card in the 21st minute, and all he can do is hold up his hands in the universal "What, me?  Me? Oh no.  No no no.  I didn't kick that guy in the balls" gesture.

This is exactly the look I was going for with regards to Obama, but you can't actually find a picture of Obama giving the  universal "what?" shrug, which astonishes me.  That's political discipline my friend.  That's political discipline! The man is a machine.

Now.  One of my favorite soccer cliches is "The game doesn't really start until the first goal is scored."  And this is a match that desperately needed a goal, desperately needed someone to take the initiative.  And just as we are getting towards convention time and the crowds are getting ready to leave their seats for cheap beer and meat pies, well, this happens:

Romney gets off the bus now.....really needs to wrest the initiative from the match here, looking for the first goal of the game...he walks up the podium...opens his mouth...Ryan?  RYAN?? Yes, yes it is!  RYAN! Oh, what a strike!

Or, if you prefer the Telemundo broadcast:

  

So there you go.  Mitt Romney, in selecting Paul Ryan as a running mate, has opened the scoring and finally made the race a little interesting.  The big question is now how do both sides respond?  Romney's clearly going to want to continue the attack to press for that second goal, but that could lave him vulnerable to an Obama side that can score so quick on the counter.  On the other side of the ball, Obama has certainly been knocked a little bit off their heels a bit by that goal, but then again I suppose it wasn't unexpected.  Don't expect them to change tactics.  Like Barcelona, Obama will stick to his game plan through thick and thin, try to establish possession in the midfield, and slowly grind down his opponent in a withering malestorm of negative advertisements (in all seriousness, Obama, LET UP!  I'm still going to vote for you, but I think you have done yourself great discredit in this campaign).                                                                   .

Game on! November can't come fast enough.

Books you may not like: Vincent Van Gogh, The Life

If I sit and really think about it, public schools, of all things, really helped foster an interest in art.  I remember basically three pivotal moments in my schooling that really cemented a love of art.  My entire time spent with art in school couldn't have taken more than 117 hours of schooling out of the staggering 15840 I spent in grade school and college, and yet those 117 hours (a mere 0.74%!) have paid incredible dividends, adding a richness to life that goes well beyond the scant amount of time spent.  Opponents of teaching art in public schools, take note!

Anyway, here they are:

1. I remember being exposed to art for the first time, really, in the third grade, when every other week we were marched off to the art room for an hour.  And one of the paintings I remember seeing was Van Gogh's "The Bedroom in Arles" I don't what it was about it - maybe it was the colors, or the kind of skewed perspective, or the fact that we learned Van Gogh was so crazy that he cut off his ear and gave it to his girlfriend (which, to the mind of a third grader, was kind of cool, but why go through so much trouble just for some dumb girl with cooties), but I liked it, and I tucked it into the filing cabinet for later.  
2. I've mentioned in this blog many times my European History teacher's delegation of teaching art history to "Sister Wendy's History of Painting".  While I have often joked about this, I have to commend him for giving the task to more capable hands.  
3. At Virginia Tech, all science and engineering majors have to take a class called "Creativity and Aesthetic Experience", where basically the head of the theatre department learns us about theatre, art, and music, and we have to go and see some shows and concerts.  It was kind of silly, but it was welcome break from never ending math and it was here that I learned about texture and contrast in painting for the first time, only deepening my appreciation.  

There you go.  A smattering of arts education goes a mighty long way.  

Anyway, as my appreciation grew, I became more and more drawn to Van Gogh's work, and I have to count his landscapes, and even some of his still lifes, as some of my favorite pieces of art.  If I happen to come across one in a museum I can stand and look at it, transfixed, for fully...well, five minutes.  But in this day and age of tweets and instantaneous everything, five minutes sitting contemplating a painting is like an eternity.  You know, kind of like how one dog year = seven people years.  

I even came a little bit to idolize the man himself. My knowledge had deepened a little more - I knew that the had given his ear to a prostitute, not merely his girlfriend, and that he was totally reliant on his brother for money.  Still, I admired the way he seemed to give himself wholly to his art.  But that was about all.  I wanted to know a little more.

So it was natural then that I would pick up a copy of the latest Van Gogh biography, Van Gogh: The Life .  It reads wonderfully well, justifying the claim by many reviews that it practically reads like a novel.  The authors did an incredible job of breathing life in Van Gogh's life and times.  The book is also well illustrated though most of the illustrations are black and white.  Van Gogh painted so many works I found that sometimes I had to go to the Google or to another book I have on Van Gogh to see a particular work being discussed in the book.  

Well written as the book is, its a tough read because it is basically an 800 page study in human misery.  Van Gogh was an odd kid with a strange personality that his parents (a pastor in the Dutch Lutheran church and his very status oriented wife) did not take too well.  He was sent to a series of boarding schools in which he failed, and then the family used its connections to get him a job at Goupil art dealers, at which he failed several times.  He then tried to be a missionary but failed as that at well, and when studying to take entrance exams so that he could go to seminary and be a pastor like his father?  Guess what:  failed those too.  

Vincent's repeated professional failings, coupled with his odd behavior (drunkenness, cavorting with prostitutes, hanging out with the peasants) brought scandal on the family and finally he was basically ostracized.   

And that seems to be the source of Vincent's misery.  For some reason he just was unable to connect with people, he was unable to find a family, and he would try again and again to graft himself into someone's life.  But, as Sien Hoornik, Paul Gauguin, and host of others found out, he did it with such incredibly intensity that it was simply impossible to live with him for more than a few months.  By the end of his life, even the two penny whores of Arles would politely refuse the strange man's company.

What's doubly sad that is tragedy seemed to touch all of those he came into contact with.  One of Vincent's brothers was killed in the diamond mines of Africa; one of his sister's ended up in an insane asylum; one of the only women that seriously loved him nearly killed himself after both her and Van Gogh's family got in the way of the match; Sien Hoornik drowned herself at the age of 45.  

And then there's Theo Van Gogh, Vincent's younger brother, who was a success at Goupil and struggled all his life to support Vincent by sending him money, paints, canvases, and trying to sell his works through his art world connections.  Theo was the closest friend Vincent ever had, and yet their relationship was under constant strain from Vincent's never ending demands for money.  Theo and Vincent cavorted together in the whorehouses of the Parisian underworld and both of them contracted syphilis.  The disease drove Theo horrifically insane and he ended his life in a straight jacket and a padded room.  Were it not for Theo's marriage to Joanna Bonger, who did much to give Vincent the recognition in death that he had never had in life, Vincent's art work may have died with Theo.

The question I found myself asking as I read the book is:  was it all worth it?  Was the work left behind worth the price?  Is my five minutes of enjoyment worth a lifetime of unhappy toil?  I don't know.  But it's a dangerous question to pose, because it suggests that nothing is worth ceaseless Sisyphean task of living a life that all of us are engaged in, even if it is something that a good number of us engage in with more happiness and success than Vincent Van Gogh.  Then again, perhaps Van Gogh's work points to an answer.  Maybe it is our mission, our vocation, to pull something beautiful out of the jaws of life, steeped in suffering though it may be.