You can understand how the political process makes people yawn, become disinterested, or just go flat out postal in frustration. Not a day has gone by over the past few weeks, that I don’t come home to find anywhere from 3-7 glossy 9″ x 12″ mailers from all the candidates up for election in my area. The common thread is that everyone is, and I mean every document, craps on the opposition.

Regardless if it is a local, state, or federal election, the vitriol is directed at what a crappy person his or her opponent is. And pundits have the nerve to wonder why people don’t vote. I make it to the polling place because you are supposed to, but you can understand how people can become disengaged because the bulk of the candidates are.

It comes as no surprise to this independent that we are not sending choir boys to Washington, Albany or even County and City Hall. I long suspected there is something in the water at the State Capitol where Caribbean junkets are written off as “economic development” and 20 years in other public offices makes you an “outsider” in Albany.

I don’t care that two candidates for the same office hate each other and everything they stand for, don’t particularly care if they speak of each other with affection either. Stop polluting my mailbox with laminated crap!

The masses are cynical, if ill-informed for a reason. There was an almost throwaway bit of dialogue on The West Wing that I think is pretty on the nose: “Politicians are always running for something. When one campaign finishes, the next one begins.” Okay, it sounded better when Stockard Channing said it, but you get the idea.

Just once, I’d like to open the inbox and be greeted with something telling me what you are going to do if I vote for you. Not in blank platitudes, no pronoun-laden propositions, just tell me your plan. You want my vote? Fine, what is in it for me? Can my kids schools be safe from funding foolishness? Are you going to do something to improve the jobs situation? Can you help make the government work for the people? (And don’t say run it like a business). Can you quit spending on stuff for you when cutting programs that improve the quality of life here? Can you just quit spending what you ain’t got?

But I’m not counting on those questions getting answered anytime soon.

I’ll queue up on Election Day, but I’m tired of picking between “Who gives a rat’s ass?” and the “lesser of the established evils.”

I want it to be a case of why I should back somebody other than he or she isn’t the other guy.

Yet, that seems to be the reason to go this year.

lies something. Not sure what exactly. It's been a little busy around the old workplace. My department temporarily shrunk by one and all those responsibilities landed on my desk. We hired a replacement who couldn't be expected to dive in so the seasonal activity planning stayed with me. The past two weeks, I've also had to pinch it for our press person who was out until Friday.

My ex teased me about the large irish cranium coming in handy for the wearing of many hats. I've wracked up a decent streak with 3700 people over the past couple of weekend dates and I have next weekend to get through and I'm done.

Not a moment too soon. Staging something like this is educational to say the least and you are prone to pontificating as everybody who has done their part has helped put the pieces together, with all eyes looking in my direction. It has kept me up as the details have me talking through it a lot to make sure nothing gets overlooked.

Maybe it is self inflicted pressure, but the assurance for one of my work buds that it was going okay and I've done good wasn't quite as satisfying as it should have been. I think I had already moved on to the wheeling and dealing that needs to be done in the days ahead to make sure that the next weekend runs as well as this weekend.

Makes your head hurt. I half-jokingly told a student that the key to a successful event on a grand scale was to take your preventive Advil right at the outset.

Today I took two. It's a little freeing to have them out of the way, but you invest so much in the thinking that when the Beatles "Golden Slumbers" came on the car stereo it reduced me to a bit of a mess before I event got out of the parking lot.

To balance out how much that messes up with the child rearing schedule, I was trying to dress up time with number one son over the start of the weekend. I lucked into some hockey tickets for friday night which was good, as it felt like I was giving him a bit of bum's rush to immerse myself in the foolishness at the office.

Yeah, I worry, I'm irish, it's how I roll.

Phenomenal show at the Arena on Friday











Absolutely amazing

The political process makes my head hurt. In an unintentional environmental statement, I called the board of elections to bail on both the republicans and democrats since the primaries are such a moot point lately.

Literally independent as I now have a card that says so.

So, Carl Paladino will “take a reporter out?” And Andrew Cuomo‘s minions are digging up old news on staffers working for Paladino. When you read about the exchanges in the press this week, you can’t help but wonder if either is really concerned with the abhorrent state the state is in. We are fooling ourselves if we think we are getting choir boys with any election and the media fixation with things that have nothing to do with governing doesn’t aid in the discussion. The state has been a poor business model for a very long time and so far, nobody has said what they are going to do about that. That matters more than ANY of the shenanigans being talked about this week.

With the transparency, power trips, and manipulation that was evident in plan site from the Espada episodes onward, you’d have to wonder who in their right mind would want the job?

The authorities are bloated, you have assemblymen saying things like “My boss, Shelly,” implying the peoples business was only getting attended to unless Mr. Silver said so, and in the flood of glossy postcards that filled my mailbox leading up to primary day, nobody was going to fix anything, nobody has a plan other than beating and insulting the guy they are running against.With candidates campaigning on things they DIDN’T completed like UB2020 and the party chairs picking their guys before the primaries, it’s a wonder people showed up to vote in the primaries at all. But if we get the leadership we deserve, as the saying goes, we must really suck.

These could have been separate entries, but I figured just empty the pockets and we can resume what we doing…

So, I drag my weary self to my Monday night Bikram yoga class. Yeah, if you know me at all, that is an interesting mental picture all in itself. Near empty room and I hide toward the back with the thought being I can see and hopefully not distract the more graceful with my elephant on a high-wire schtick. Young dude comes in and set his stuff right in front of me, despite the near empty room. So, for the next ninety minutes, I got a guy who thinks the three inches of boxers then the shorts is a good look. Really? Yank the damn things up fool! Nobody has ever pulled off that look.

Getting a kick out of those who are behind the “Anger is not policy” argument against the candidacy of Carl Paladino. While he won’t get a chance to try most of what he espousing, at least he appears to be for something. “Status Cuomo” (come on, you wish you thought of it) is trotting out the email “Scandal” that disappeared almost as fast as it appeared last summer. I’m sorry, democratic operatives are doing the trotting, but it won’t matter.

I don’t condone that stuff, but to pretend he is the only guy in the capital to have something question in either his in or out basket is folly too.

Think the Bills could sell Michael Vick to the fan base now?

Fun hearing the Hawaii 5-0 theme on TV the other night. Given the time the original was on, I was half tempted to call my folks and ask if I could stay up to Danno “book-em.” Like any pilot, full of exposition and former “Lost” actors who are suddenly available, but it shows some promise.

Back to the Bills for a second, maybe they should follow the Sabres model and switch uniforms back again. It worked for the Sabres as people spent a day or two talking about shirts and not about players.

Speaking of the Sabres, I think one of their poobahs was a little off in lamenting that a few newspaper columns drove Bass Pro away. I don’t they were really considering it for the same reasons Ikea didn’t want to build here. We’re not a destination point. Instead of being the nerd pestering the hot chick at the dance, the Canal side guys should (I know I’ve said it previously) look at the Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Baltimore waterfronts and see that one huge retailer isn’t going to change the dynamic. Give people water access, reasons to be there (like a beach, like a navy pier type thingy, a proportional version of Chelsea Piers and the money will come.

Remember when you stopped to parallel park, people would stop? Now, I see it all the time as everybody just loops around without regard for the car that is parking or the truck that might be coming the other way.

Sigh, and so it goes

I'm so telegenic.

is only good when Graham Chapman is with him...

You want to move? No, you just want here to be better

I don’t go for much reality tv, but of late there are a couple of programs on the Travel Channel that I regularly catch. The main one is “No Reservations” by Anthony Bourdain. The Rust Belt episode was on recently, you know with (e:Jbeatty) getting a lot of face time at the end. It’s become one of my favorite programs. It’s not just a food show, more of a food and culture show. There really isn’t anything like it, largely because of the host. Equal parts learned traveler, professional appreciator and snarkmeister, Bourdain does not play tourist, so much as seeks out the actual reality of a given location. It is definitely a job I want.

Lots of people were jazzed here about the 14 minutes he afforded Buffalo. It was nice video. I don’t really care that Schwabl’s made the cut instead of some other Beef on Weck joint. I am getting a little old to go celebrity spotting when he was here. It was too friggen cold for that. It was nice to see Ulrich’s get some face time, along with Nietzche’s in an unnamed cameo. Bourdain writes a lot of sentiments that I wish I’d written. One of those hit home last night when he was summing up Buffalo along with Detroit and Baltimore.

I've seen this episode a bunch of times before being a fan, but he hit on something that struck me.
At the end of the program, he showed a collage of folks from each spot, making themselves at home because it is home. It dawned on me that there is something to that. There is always that possibility that things COULD improve if you head out somewhere else, but that is a really big COULD. Might have made quicker hay elsewhere, but home is that for other reasons. I was reminded about that when some former classmates got together. My kids and my folks know each other and play a role in their respective lives. You can’t put a price about on that.

It’s the little things like that that cause the greatest amount of consternation when the Mayor pontificates or when the State Senate breaks down like an old Nash Rambler. The outline of a good thing is there and too many folks aren’t out to genuinely make it better. But you pick your places to make you stand in spite of those things. You look at what works around here and the vast majority of the success stories come in spite of the elected leadership.

I wrote about this a little in my own blog site and it got picked up by a journal writer in Baltimore who was a little miffed that Bourdain effectively gave a Berlitz style primer over the three cities as part of a large thesis. Each town is different and with its own set of problems. You could probably spend an hour in each region for a show but that probably will never be practical when you are talking about Buffalo, Baltimore and Detroit.

You take your cues from what effects your surroundings. My folks have never stopped looking for ways to improve our immediate surroundings and my former spouse and I have taken up that mantle with our lot.
Looking at Bourdain’s video postcard and a few scenes from “the T.O. show,” you could pick worse backdrops.

Cold beer at a reasonable price, indeed, Tony

I'd watch

Estrip would like to know my current location

Pretty cool, not exact, but awfully close. That is an older photo but it came close. I'm a little further back as this has me sharing a desk with big horned sheep.