Jeff Likes to Tell Stories

Welcome to my blog. I haven’t kept up with it in a while. But I hope to get back to writing the types of stories you’ll find here. If my life was a sitcom, these might be considered scripts for the show. I write about my life, my interactions with my family and those strangers I encounter on a daily basis. My more serious writing can be found in various places. But I often post them on Medium.

News Outta My Control / 02.10.2004

Bush reacts to Kerry during first Presidential Debate The first presidential debate was a contrast in the candidates' positions as well as their style. But how you interpreted their performance depended on which network you tuned to. I recorded the debate on PBS for my wife who had a prior engagement. But I watched the proceedings on NBC. I was familiar with the "32-page debate contract" agreed to by both campaigns. There were to be no reaction shots of the candidates to each other's statements and retorts. But early on, Fox, which provided the video feeds to all networks, stated they would not...

News Outta My Control / 29.09.2004

After 33 years, baseball is returning to Washington. And now that it's a done deal, let's get to the good part: naming our home team. Choosing a team mascot is an art. It takes some creative thinking to come up with something appropriate to the region --something that represents who we are and where we live. There are four categories usually associated with nicknames: Nature, Colors, Strength, and Indigenous People. Let's see what we can come up with. In the Nature category how does the Washington Mosquitoes sound? After all, we live in a swamp and these buggers are our natural neighbors....

Barely Socially Acceptable / 25.09.2004

After a brief hiatus, we open a new season of The Theatre of the Barely Socially Acceptable. With the change in seasons comes the desire for change. Based on an overheard cell conversation this week on the subway I give you Act 5: Yeah, I've come up with 14 different reasons I should get a raise. Uh huh, well, I just thought of them. Haven't had a chance to get them down on paper. I can do that tomorrow. Yep, tomorrow will be a good day for me. There won't be anyone in the office and I can write them up. When my boss sees...

Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 19.09.2004

Planning large-scale family vacations is an art. But like any endeavor of this magnitude good project management is key. So when my sister informed us my niece would be getting married over Labor Day weekend, we began to plan in April.

You don't go to Northern California for a quick weekend. The wedding would be a good excuse for a longer getaway filled with familial bliss, fun, and adventure. Ok, flying two little girls cross-country and keeping them happy for 10 days presented some challenges and might be anything but blissful. Planning would be hard work, but the memories we'd be creating would more than make up for any bumps along the way. That's what we kept telling ourselves.

Now that we are back, it was worth it. The wedding was beautiful. My niece was radiant (sniff, sniff). And I wish her and her new husband the best (I also wished him good luck, now that he is part of our family).

Not that our trip was easy or idyllic. Taking our East coast girls on a picnic to watch the sun set on the Pacific in Carmel was perfect only if you can forget that just as the last vestige of sunlight sunk below the water and my wife and I embraced each other, my 6 year announced she was BORED. Romance wasn't dead. Just delayed. Yes, we will forget that part of it.

News Outta My Control / 29.08.2004

The Great Backlash began with the coming together of two very different political factions: traditional business Republicans...with their faith in the free market; and working-class "Middle Americans"...who signed on to preserve family values.

For the former group, the conservative revival that resulted has been fantastically rewarding...After all, they are wealthier as a class today than ever before in their lifetimes. But for the latter group, the aggrieved "Middle Americans," the experience has been a bummer all around. All they have to show for their Republican loyalty are lower wages, more dangerous jobs, dirtier air, a new overlord class that comports itself like King Farouk--and, of course, a crap culture whose moral free fall continues...

Thomas Frank
What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America


Lisa Sells Class on QVC

Lisa Sells Class on QVC
(Quicktime Movie, 13.2 MB)

After a hard day at the office I often enter the house, grab a beer if I'm in a "red state" of mind or a glass of Chardonnay if I'm feeling "blue" and sit down to hours of entertainment watching QVC. Yes, this home shopping network is the best way to decompress after hours of project management and endless meetings. I never buy anything, but my family questions my sanity nonetheless. I watch with amazement.

How do they sell those things to all those people? Diamonique to NASCAR replicas. I love the way those perky "SJ's" (selling jockeys) make everything from scrapbook-making kits to 18K gold sound so, so delicious. They talk as if they are describing sumptuous treats from a high-class menu. Where do they find the words? How do they talk like this non-stop? My mouth waters. Everything sounds so good --extra authentic.

To buy is to be. And the buying public calls in to express their satisfaction and to profess their love.

Simultaneously, I am amazed by how many people express their adoration for George W. Bush and the Republican Party. They are selling us something too. Many of my friends are shocked to know that somewhere close to half the population is susceptible to their selling pitches. How could this be? The facts to the contrary seem so clear.

I've been ruminating about this attraction. And I am finding a striking correlation between home shopping and the political landscape (both Republican and Democrat).

Artistic Tendencies / 09.08.2004

Inspired by a 1940s postcard I found at a flea market in June, I decided to remake my blog with elements of mid-century Los Angeles as well as the orchards that dotted the landscape when I was just a boy. [raw] Echo Park, Los Angeles: the 1940s postcard that was the inspiration for this redesign. [/raw] While the original postcard was the genesis for the new header, it needed to be reversed and then extended to complete the landscape. I photoshoped the left side, adding the rest of the palm tree, the sunset and the sky. And I drew the entire right side,...

Artistic Tendencies / 08.08.2004

Sometimes suburbia so mundane. I grew up in a tract house in the epitome of a 1960s suburb: LA's San Fernando Valley. Oh, over the years I've rebelled. Homesteading in Baltimore's inner city had its charm for a while. I remember my stepmother being scared to death to come to my place the night before my wedding. After their visit I escorted she and my father to a waiting taxi, hoping they'd be in attendance at the nuptials the next day. Los Angeles is segregated enough so that one need never encounter less-than-stellar neighborhoods. Three thousand pounds of automobile protects Angelenos should...

Idiosyncratic Celebrations, News Outta My Control / 05.07.2004

Here in Washington there are numerous local parades on July 4th --very local parades, like through the streets of housing developments. These take place all over the region, and, as I suspected, they are staggered so politicians can go from one to the other over the course of the day. Boy Scouts lead Pledge of Allegianceat local 4th of July parade. We always go to the parade in our friends' neighborhood. For some reason we don't have one in our own (perhaps we don't live in a key precinct). It's a tiny affair lead by a local troop of the Boy...

Idiosyncratic Celebrations, News Outta My Control / 04.07.2004

Everyone's talking the finer points of Fahrenheit 9/11. The Lies. The Truth. You conservative bastard. Now listen here you commie liberal. Michael Moore's a documentarian. No, his film is editorializing at its worst! Calm down, folks. It's only a movie. It's only a war. And it's only our country.

WM ISO LIBERAL-MINDED CROWD FOR GROUP HUG AND RECLAMATION OF OUR THE COUNTRY. NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY.

Last Sunday Susie and I made our way to the American Film Institute Theater in Silver Spring to see for ourselves. No matter where you live on the political sphere, the film is provocative. But I'm not here to speak about that. I'm here to talk about the crowd.

Fairly Odd Parents-Past / 20.06.2004

I wasn't impressed with Ronald Reagan's death. I didn't remember holding him or his values in high esteem when he was first governor and then President. Yet, why was everyone talking so sweetly about the man's legacy? Young bloggers with beautiful design skills spoke highly of him --too young to remember Iran-Contra and Central American death squads. Old media salts who had jousted with him during his tenure waxed poetic remembrances of his accomplishments.

Imperceptibly, I started walking hand-in-hand with them. Right to the edge. Just as I was about to admonish myself for forgetting how much I truly loved him, I staggered to a stop. My toes wiggled freely over that precipice. It was so inviting. The warm fatherly adoration encased me. It was a very old feeling. Beyond politics.

Wait, that wasn't it at all. We were suffering from historical Alzheimer's.

I waved off the chance to see President Reagan's coffin. But last Friday night I was mesmerized by his return to California. That's when I really started to remember.