P.S. A Column On Things

Start of June 24 Column. More or Less Continuous News Service since 1998

My Grandson: Changing Behavior

He used to insist on cooking after school, like his dad. For some time he asked for Gummi Bears and Rescue Rangers (having moved beyond Roadunner and Tom and Jerry). Or at least he did until last week; now he wants me to read and re-read David Egger’s first juvenile book, The Eyes Aand The Impossible. Does my pride about him know no end? Apparently not. Surely I would never have chosen a novel over television in 1957. But then, maybe children’s books were worse and TV was better.

Things (hardly) no one will ever do again: Have A Single Sex High School education

   Vicki and I both attended single-sex high schools: Westlake for Vicki, Benson Polytechnic for me. Both are co-ed now. There are still single-sex high schools: about 400 public and 400 Catholic.

Vicki went to Westlake because it was a great private school. I went to Benson because it was the best public school in Portland (admission was based on grades and recommendations, as opposed to proximity), and because it was all-male. And because it had a 250-watt AM radio station. I was shy and awkward around girls, wanted to go to MIT, and felt I would be less distracted in an all-boys school (not to mention more able to become a broadcaster).

Research says single-sex education results in less socialization: students don’t learn to work with and befriend members of the opposite sex. Probably, based on my experience.

I went on to what was, at the time, essentially an all-male college. MIT was 10% women in the class of 1974. I loved MIT women, loved being around them. Still, many of the same problems there. Now that it’s 50-50, I am sure things are better.

 

John Humes Fan Club

This picture of a 1969 sweatshirt requires a little explanation for 98% of you. Students who worked at KBPS, the radio station at Benson High, Portland, Ore., loved to go sit in the control rooms of area radio stations, an activity frequently facilitated by fellow alumni―there wasn’t a station in the area that didn’t harbor at least one KBPS alum.

Jim Fenwick was a phenomenally popular talk show host at KGW-AM; famously full of himself. His engineer, John Humes, was a KBPS alum. A few of us were regulars in the control room during Fenwick’s nightly show. We came up with the idea of irritating Fenwick by forming a fan club… for his engineer. Many’s the time I proudly wore this shirt―obscure outside of a small circle even at the time.

I have been in recent touch with a high school buddy, Gene Carbaugh. I mentioned casually I wished I hadn’t thrown out my JHFC sweatshirt. The next thing I know, this arrives in the mail.

More Music

I have given up trying to figure out where they come from, claiming that I’m through writing them, or trying to stop the lyrics from tumbling out. This one is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. When he heard Nothing I Wouldn’t Do the first time, my five-year-old grandson said, “That doesn’t look like you… or maybe when you were younger.” Then he added, “That’s not you singing.”

Also available on Spotify ($0.003 cents per stream for me) or Itunes ($0.10 for me).

My nephew, on the other hand, said it reminded him of early Beatles: high praise indeed.

This and That

Maybe Hip Op
Yup, “third time’s the charm.” I now have a metal hip. Lots of pain? You bet. Even less, when you get, to the weekend. (60s reference)
…
Your Fault
This one-item This and That is your fault. I got nothing. OK, to tell the truth LinkedIn has nothing and I decided not to just keep swiping links from Semi-Rad. So it’s up to you.

End of June 24 Column (No. 935)

Start of June 17 Column. More or Less Continuous News Service since 1998

Things No One Will Ever Do Again: Work 20 Years In One Place

My grandfather was a milkman for 20 years, mostly at his own Lakeside Dairy. My father was a milkman for 40 years, 20 at Lakeside. When I was a boy, I vowed never to stay so long at one place. Five jobs in five years after college. Then, 20 years at CMP Publications.

Now, of course, no child has to make that vow, because no one will ever again work 20 years in one place.

The twin truisms of work in America have finally sunk it: “management are idiots,” and “company loyalty runs in one direction, from you to the company.”

One reason is the fatuous management mantra: “shareholders first, screw the employees and the public as long as I make $10 million a year in stock options.” And thus the rest of us trampled and impoverished.

The other is, “Who needs unions?” The answer is: everyone who is not a capitalist. Without a union, the power imbalance is hopeless. Capital will drive wages and benefits down to the lowest common denominator.

 “I don’t need a union; I am a talented professional, always in demand, set my own terms.” The word hogwash suggests itself. If you spend a half-hour reading about American Labor History, you will realize we needed unions then and now. Without them, everyone except the 1% would live in poverty that would make China in the 60s look like a worker’s paradise.

1500 movies later

After watching about 1,500 movies in my life – about half of which I reviewed in public – I was moved by classical music critic Joshua Kossman‘s farewell column in the San Francisco Chronicle, in which he says it’s just talking if you say whether or not you like a work of art; it is reviewing when you say why.

 One of the things I’ve struggled with for 55 years is the fact that I always know how the movie made me feel, but often don’t know why. I have the same problem in my book reviews. Why is one great and another just adequate? Like Justice Potter, I know it when I see it even if I can’t define it. Which means that at best I’m a three star reviewer. Or, for Chronicle readers, the little man is sitting in his chair.