Enlightenment of the Gray

            You know the old saying about seeing the world through rose colored glasses, well my glasses are gray. I know I know, with all my columns about pessimism and negative outlook on life would you expect anything less? Well here’s a twist, I’m not talking about the gray of that dark cloud hanging over my head or of the gray on my head that comes with age. I’m talking about that lovely shade that exists between the hard edges of black and white. I’m talking about the gray of compromise, the gray of seeing both sides of the story, the gray of knowing that life is indeed not black and white.

            When I was a young man of Twenty-two I went to work as a forklift driver at a beer distributorship. My immediate boss was an ornery old (probably the age I am now) red headed guy named Tommy who had been working for the company most of his life. When it came to his warehouse it was definitely a case of black and white. “This is how we do it, this is how we've always done it, and this is how we will continue to do it.” Of course me being the passive-aggressive kind of guy I am, I would just say OK and do what I wanted to do anyway.  Needless to say we butted heads a lot and didn't get along very well.

            Unfortunately for both of us, within a few years I went into management and became Tommy’s boss. We still didn't get along and now it was his turn to undermine my authority. Now I was the one being ridged, fighting with him about not following the “new” rules. I wish that I could say that we both found the “Enlightenment of the Gray” and compromised on issues and learned to get along. But that’s not what happened at that point in my life, we never really got along. Years after I had left the distributorship I saw Tommy at a funeral and he still wouldn't talk to me. I guess it didn't help that he was the one in the casket (just kidding, but it did make you laugh).

            In my youth I was much more in touch with my gray side, I could listen to two sides of a story and they both made sense and sounded valid to me. I bet that’s why I never went out for the debate team. As I got older and became a boss and business owner I lost sight of the Gray and became much harder. I’m the boss and it’s my way or the highway. I got caught up in the power and now with hindsight I can see that I wasn't really a very good boss.

In my personal life I wasn't much better. Diane and I now laugh about how earlier in our relationship I would say “No” (much like my father before me) to just about any request she made. I sure wish now that I had listened to her when she said no to my business ideas instead of just pushing ahead anyway. Luckily and through hard work and perseverance there is much more Gray in our marriage today.

Sadly today in this country as a whole there doesn't seem to be much room for Gray. In politics  it’s about Red verses Blue. In business it’s all just about the mighty Green. In energy we’re still way too dependent on Black oil and coal. And when it comes to dealing with other countries it’s all just about the Red, White, and Blue.

So what’s the point or reason for this column today? It’s because now as of late, I once again find myself having to deal with people who only seem to see the world in black and white. You’re either with me or against me, my friend or my enemy, I’m right and you’re wrong, etc. etc. etc… I wish that they could see the Gray that’s all around us. That in almost everything and every situation there is room for compromise and in so many of those situations there is a need for compromise.

That’s what I’m calling the “Enlightenment of the Gray”, the understanding that in this world of Seven Billion plus people we are not alone. If we want to survive in our society, in our community, in our family, in our work, and in our play, then we all need to get along. The best way I know to get along and avoid the fray is to be, “One with the Gray”.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 15 of the following link. Winters Express 3/14/13

On Pessimism and Poetry

I ran into Charley the Winters Express publisher a week after my last column ran and he said “your column was the most depressing column I’ve ever read”. OK, I can’t argue with that. It was supposed to be about the December downer that a lot of us feel. I had a few other people tell me that they could relate and also have some of the same feelings. Anyway, writing that column and spending time thinking about how I lean towards the pessimistic view of life just made me wonder WHY?

            Coincidently that week I was looking through an old box of photos, birthday cards, and papers that had been stashed in the basement. I found my high school diploma that my mother had returned to me ten years ago when she was moving to a smaller place. When I opened it there was also my birth certificate as well as my Argentinean I.D. card from when I was 4 years old. There was also a folded up piece of yellowed dried out paper that I didn’t recognize. To my surprise when I unfolded it, it was a type written (for lack of a better term) poem. I recognized it as something I had written in my early teens and man did it hit home.

            I’ve been wondering of late if all my thoughts about the state of the world and of my feelings about life in general are a product of age or have they been there all along? This poem kind of answers that question. I’m going to try and reprint it for you to read with all its grammatical and spelling errors intact. Here it is, my first and (as far as I can remember) only attempt at poetry. Hey, and don’t laugh. Remember I was probably only in 7^th or 8^th grade when I wrote it.

Me     I am me, even though sometimes I wish not to be.   You see I being me, is hard for others to see. Is it not true that sometimes thee does not wish to be thee. You see some peopl think that I dont like being me. But what do they see? They see truth and they seeuntruth. They see me and they see you. They see us in the middle of This over populated over polutid over problemed world. They see maney of me, but I think many of them are like alot like ME                                                 BY       EDMUND LIS

 

I guess we can safely say that I’ve been feeling for a long time now that the world we live in is a pretty messed up place. I also hate to say it, but I think my generation has made it worse. I am part of the original “Me Generation”, we were self absorbed during the 70’s and obsessed with material greed in the 80’s. We are the reason the economy is in the toilet without a safety net for many to hang on to.

Of course when you’re talking about such a large group you have to generalize a little. Not everyone I knew was a money grubbing immediate self gratifier, but I did know a few and I have to admit I had my moments. What I can say is that in my own small way I have tried to change things. Not the whole world just my immediate sphere of influence.

To help combat overpopulation I had a vasectomy before I could produce another mouth to feed. As a small business owner in the early 90’s I used to save and store all my cardboard, cans, and bottles. I would then haul them down once a week to the lone (volunteer run) recycling center we had in town. I also got fired from my 80’s corporate job in part because I was too vocal about my displeasure with the greedy direction my boss (and peer) was taking his company. Most of all what I have always tried to do is just be a good person. I try to treat people, places, and things with respect, compassion, and empathy. Of course I am human so I haven’t always succeeded but I do try.

So this brings me back to the question of being pessimistic. Maybe I’m thinking too much about the label itself and wanting to identify with it. If in my life I keep trying to make things better then I must also be optimistic that it can get better. So am I both or neither, is the glass half full or half empty? You know what I see when I look at that glass, I see half a glass. I guess that just makes me a realist.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 16 of the following link. Winters Express 1/31/13

All I have to say about December is "Bah Humbug"

      This December people were asking me if I was going to write a column for the month. My reply was simply, “it’s the holidays and I don’t want to be depressing”. So why is December a downer for me with all that “joy and merriment” all around. Here’s my list, no need to check it twice.

Birthdays: There are way too many people around me with December birthdays and that adds a lot of stress to the holidays. My wife Diane’s is on the 20th, my twin siblings are on the 15th, the same birthday as my father in-law who died 15 years or so ago. My mother in-laws birthday is the week before my wife’s and my nephew’s is the 28th. Oh, and last but not least; my sister, the one that was murdered the day before her 15th birthday. Her birthday is the same day as my wife’s on the 20th which makes my wife feel kind of weird, so she always wants to keep it low key, especially around my mother.

Christmas: Not having been raised with any kind of religious teachings, Christmas was all about Santa Claus and presents not Jesus or Hanukkah for that matter.  Both my parents were born in Argentina and raised Jewish so I think for our family Christmas was more about trying to be American. We didn't have any history or traditions around Christmas so for us kids it was all about the getting and not much to do with the giving.

I for one have never been very good at receiving gifts which in turn makes me uncomfortable at giving gifts. I've always been of the mind that if I want or need something I will just get it myself. On the flip side I also don’t want to guess what someone else may want or need.

      In my 50 plus years of Christmases and birthdays I can only think of a couple of times where I've been truly happy with a gift I've received. They were both from my wife and seeing as how we've been together for over 30 years that’s about a 3% success rate. Finally after all those years of trying to find me that perfect gift I convinced her to just get me what I want, nothing. So now I get nothing and you know what? I’m still not satisfied, just a little sad.

New Years Eve: Like we need another collective excuse for a party. I guess I’m a little jaded living next door to the most happening party bar in town. It’s just how I want to start the New Year with drunken revelers being loud, exploding fire crackers, and puking on my front yard.

Moira: That was my sisters name, like I said at the beginning she was killed on the day before her 15^th birthday. That would be December 19, 1973. She went off to school that day and never came home. My parents reported her missing but the police listed her as a possible run away. This was back in the day before we all knew about serial killers, missing kids on milk cartons, or that friends could keep a secret about something so terrible.

      At the time Moira went missing our house and family were not a happy place. My parents were always fighting and inching towards a divorce, with us kids feeling the stress. My older brother had just gone off to college and I was a rebellious teenager who couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. When I heard that my sister might have run away I thought “cool” she escaped and I wished that I had the guts to just leave, but I just escaped with the help of drugs and alcohol. For the month before some kids found her body in a park, life just went on for me in my usual smoky cloud of obliviousness. That included her birthday, Christmas, and New Years.  Her murder has never been solved and for most of my life I didn't think much about her life or death. I don’t know if it’s my age, or that I spend a lot of time reflecting on the past, or that my emotions aren't buried in the smoky clouds anymore. But for whatever reason I think of my sister much more these days, especially during December.

      Like I said, December is not my favorite time of year and I’m glad it’s over but it’s not all doom and gloom or an insurmountable downer. There is that short lived collective spirit of giving that we see around us, there is the annual return of Egg Nog, and for Diane’s birthday there is our favorite meal in the world, Smelt & Frites at Bistro Jeanty in Napa to remind us of Michigan and simpler times.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 12 of the following link. Winters Express 1/10/13

That's Entertainment?

           A few months back I was home sick, my wife Diane was at work and I just wanted to lie on the couch and do nothing. I decided to watch a movie on cable that I knew Diane wouldn't be interested in watching.

First let me give you a little background as to what we usually like to watch or not watch. We don’t like anything with graphic violence, if it has too much action we get all wound up and can’t get to sleep. Stupid comedies are just a waste of time and horror flicks, well they are usually a combination of all of the above. So what does that leave? Chick flicks, not to violent suspense thrillers, romantic comedies, documentaries, and period movies of classic novels. Realistically we don’t watch too many movies and the same criteria apply to TV shows.

The movie I decided to watch was the American version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” based on a Swedish novel and movie. I had seen the previews and ads on TV so I knew it was a “mystery thriller” but what I didn't expect was the level of graphic violence it contained. I mean for me it was so disturbing that I couldn't get the images out of my mind for weeks.

The story line about a serial killer of young women was bad enough with images of the dead victims but to me that doesn't even compare to the graphic depiction of “Anal Rape”. Not once but twice in the same movie. First the female lead is raped then later she revenge rapes her male rapist, both in way to graphic detail.

This brings me to a question I have to ask because I really don’t understand how and why this kind of imagery has become acceptable entertainment. When did so many in our society become desensitized to the reality of violence? One of the reasons I tell myself that I don’t watch violent images is precisely because I don’t want to become desensitized to the horror of violence. If I’m walking down the street and see someone who’s been victimized, I want to feel their pain and anguish. I want to empathize with them not ignore them.

The problem is that it’s getting harder and harder to not be desensitized. We are constantly bombarded with news images and information about all the violence in the world. Whether its man-made wars, crime, or even accidental violence we see the images. Then there’s Mother Nature with all her destructive power. Hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, droughts, and everything else she can throw at us, we see images of it all.

With all that real violence all around us, why do we entertain ourselves with fake violence? That’s really my question because I just don’t get it. Maybe it’s just me because I've never been a violent person. I've never been in a fight, I've never hunted or purposely killed anything (yes I feel a little guilt that animals are killed to feed me but that’s another column), and I've never had any violence against me. Or maybe it’s because unconsciously I’m trying to not be reminded of the real life “Unsolved Murder Mystery” surrounding my younger sister’s death when we were teenagers.

Or maybe it’s because there is so much uncontrolled violence all around us that we do want to be desensitized to it. I can kind of understand that, needing to be desensitized so as not to go a little nuts worrying about something out of our control.

But being desensitized and being entertained, those are two very different things and I still don’t get it. Let me give you one last example and story from my life.  As a young man way back in the 70’s I watched all the Muhammad Ali boxing matches and I cheered him on and was in awe of his ability to inflict and receive pain. I was entertained and didn't really give it much thought. Somewhere in my late teens a friend invited me to go with him to watch a live golden gloves competition. That was a turning point in my attitude about violence for entertainments sake. Watching a bunch of 8 and 10 year olds trying to beat each other up was hard enough but watching and listening to all the adults cheer and egg them on was to me disgusting, socially sick, and even immoral. It just felt wrong and it still does.

My feeling is that humans as a species and people as part of a society will never advance or evolve into peace and harmony as long as we are entertained and not appalled by violence and pain. So maybe human nature won’t allow us to advance without violence but I can still fantasize about a peaceful future and that fantasy, that’s what I call entertainment.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 15 of the following link. Winters Express 11/22/12

Food for Thought

Recently Richard Kleeberg wrote in his “On Point” Winters Express column about wanting to know his life’s expiration date and how no one wanted to really talk about that question. I for one would love to talk about it and oh so much more. You see for some reason I spend way too much time thinking about death. The reasons for that could fill a few columns and a few years of therapy so we’ll save that discussion for another time.

            Today let’s go in a direction that’s going to make a lot of you squirm and most of you will think I’m crazy for even having these thoughts. You see not only do I want to know my expiration date but I also want to know my “Nutritional Value” and my “Thermal Value” as well.

            Why? You ask. Because not only do I think a lot about death I also think about over population and how it’s becoming unsustainable. So what’s that got to do with nutrition and heat? Well to put it simply, for long term sustainability the world needs more power (thermal energy) and more food (nutrition). Uh, oh, now you’re starting to see where I’m going with this.

 Yes, I’ll say it. When I die, I either want to be made into some “Spam” like product for human consumption or burned in some big power plant where my final heat will help turn some giant turbine that will produce a small spark of electricity. That little bit of electricity could possibly save someone’s life (or just power some useless gadget) and a few cans of “Spam-Lis” might keep some starving child alive for a few days. Alright, alright, don’t get all grossed out on me. Do we really know most of the time what we are eating and where it came from? As that old fast food commercial so cynically likes to tell us, “parts is parts”.

            Now before you just write me off as totally crazy, remember that these aren’t original thoughts. I guess at the time I didn’t realize how influenced I would be by the 1973 movie, Soylent Green. If you don’t know that movie the basic plot is that in the year 2022 the world is overpopulated, over heated from global warming, and food is in short supply. Most of the population survives on rations of plankton based wafers called Soylent Green produced by the giant Multinational Soylent Corporation. The movie is a basic detective - science fiction with the major plot twist at the end being Charlton Heston yelling out “Soylent Green is People!” after finding out what the wafers are really made of.

            What has always stuck in my mind from that movie was not the people as food part. It was the depiction of voluntary Euthanasia available at government run clinics. The volunteers who were then unwittingly turned into food had this wonderful last experience of sights and sounds from a natural world that had become extinct. Even as a teenager when I saw the movie I thought that’s how I want to go, and I still feel that way.

            Not that I’m ready to go any time soon. Now when I think about my eventual death, whether it be with an unknown expiration date or with an expiration date of my choosing I wonder have I made a difference? Has anything that I’ve done made a positive contribution to my planet and my species? Do I still have the time, energy, or even the desire to try and make a difference?

            As I’ve written before, I tend to lean towards passivity and laziness. So what can I do to help my fellow man and the giant flying rock we live on? Something that won’t take too much effort since I am kind of busy just trying to survive in this modern world of ours. Those couple of ideas I just put out remind me of one of the things I do now that really helps people, is very easy and passive to do, and if you really think about it is also kind of gross and macabre. Every few months I’m solicited by a club with over a million members whose mascot is a ferocious (but almost extinct) wild animal. What are they asking me to do? They want me to give BLOOD and I do so willingly. Once I give it to them they can do anything they want with it. They could be feeding a small army of baby vampires, or maybe making a delightful blood sausage. No matter what, once it’s out of my hands (literally) it could end up anywhere and hopefully it’s doing some good.

            So yes I’m serious. When I’m dead I want my corpse to help make a difference. And those crazy ideas I just put out there, well they’re just food for thought.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 13 of the following link. Winters Express 10/18/12

Now it’s personal!

I’m back! And this time its personal (queue music) Dun-Dun-Dun-Dum! I’m upset, frustrated, and even a little angry. Why you ask, and with whom? In general I’m mad at America and so many of its dysfunctional systems. Since the political season is just getting into full swing let’s start there. The two party American system is broken and short of a populist revolt or military coup I don’t see how it will fix itself. The problem is that the two sides only have self-interest and re-election in mind. There is no room for compromise because it makes you look weak, and if you look weak you can’t get re-elected. Also if you don’t tow the party line the party “bosses” take away their support and once again you can’t get re-elected.

            

          For most of us Americans, politics is like a spectator sport. We pick our favorite team. We root (vote) for them for a multitude of reasons, anything from they were my parents favorite team, their captain is smart or cute, or for that matter black or white, or maybe because I strongly believe in one small part of their total platform (i.e.: pro-life or pro-choice) or this year’s hot button issue (distraction) “Gay Marriage”. Some of us are diehard fans who wear our team colors with pride but can’t afford tickets so we watch the game on TV. Others of us make the big donations and get to sit in the box seats and rub elbows with the powers that be. When it’s all said and done, most of us know the reality that it’s only a game and no matter which team wins or loses it doesn’t affect our day to day lives very much.

            

        Something that does affect our lives more on a daily basis is Health Care or the lack there of. One of the things that I found very frustrating about the whole “ObamaCare” debate is that it actually had very little to do with health care and everything to do with health insurance. Now I don’t know about you but for me these are two totally different issues. One should be a basic human right the other is just a way for some people to make a boat load of money, you decide which is which.

            

       Now this is where it gets personal. I have health insurance (unlike 50 million of my fellow Americans) but I still can’t really afford health care. Let me give it to you by the numbers. My wife and I pay $660 per month for a PPO plan with a $2500 deductable. Now it’s a little misleading because that deductable amount is for each of us so it’s actually $5000. Then there is the little thing the insurance companies call Maximum Out of Pocket expense, that is on top of the deductable. For us it’s $7000 each for a whopping possible total annual health care cost of $19000 plus the $7920 for the insurance premium for a grand total of $26920. And that’s only if we stay within “system”, if we go to a health provider outside the system tag another $6 Grand onto that. Now if I make the average American annual income of around $50K (before taxes) that would be more than half my annual expenses. How is that going to be possible since I also need food, shelter, & clothing, not to mention transportation.

            

        OK, I know that’s a worst case scenario but that’s kind of where I’m at right now. You see my family had a major “health scare” this summer and as of this writing we are about $8K short of our max out of pocket with more bills to come. Now so none of you worry, everything is OK now health wise and no you don’t need to ask details since you know I don’t tell tales out of school. I always hoped that this wouldn’t happen to us but unfortunately, hope just doesn’t cut it.

            

        I’ve mainly been talking about health insurance now let’s talk health care. Unfortunately the week we got the diagnosis from the WHF was the same week that Dr. Davis left and fortunately we were referred to the UC Davis Medical Center. They have been great. Scheduling, communications, explanations, and the medical care have all been wonderful. And to top it all off they have been more than willing to work with us on that big ass out of pocket bill we have with them.

             

        So that brings me to a last little note for today. I was just looking at one of the bills from UCDMC and I was totally shocked to see that a one hour outpatient surgery with pre-op, anesthesia, post-op and all the other bells and whistles was billed at $36000. But that wasn’t the shocker, my insurance company only paying $7600 or 21 cents on the dollar now that was a shock. So which one is the true value of the service that we got, or is it somewhere in between?

            

       No wonder I’m angry. The only ones who can fix the health care system are the politicians and we all know how well that system works. 

To view the column in it's original form go to page 15 of the following link. Winters Express 09/20/12

Cruising at a lazy 55

OK, I warned you that this column named “What’s the Point?” would lean towards the pessimistic. So what better time to show my true nature than a milestone birthday. This week I turn fifty-five. Happy friggin birthday to me. Some people look at the proverbial glass as half full, others as half empty, mine is not only half empty but it also has a crack in it.

So what’s so special about fifty-five? For starters it’s got a nice rhythm and ring to it; fityfive. It rhymes well; I’m still alive at fifty-five. I’m 99.9% sure that I’m more than half way through my life since only a few dozen people have ever lived to be over 110. Also if I had the money I could buy a house in Vacaville at the seniors community of Leisure Town. But for me the real significance is that growing up, fifty-five is the only future age that I actually thought about or aspired too. I was not one to spend much (if any) time thinking about or planning for my future. But I was always told that once you turned fifty-five you could retire. Nobody mentioned, or more likely I wasn’t listening, that you needed to save money and better yet work that one full time job for 25 or 30 years.

So using this birthday as an opportunity to reflect on my life, what do I see? Well first I guess I could have used a better mental theme song in my youth.  Yeah, you know those lyrics that are always floating around in your head. Well mine was “Lazy” by Deep Purple. The one that goes, “Your lazy, just stay in bed. You don’t want no money, you don’t want no bread. - Well my trying ain’t done no good, you don’t make no effort, no not like you should.” That’s me in a nutshell, not making the effort like I should.

My life is full of great starts, but lazy follow through. When I started high school I was smart and liked to read. I didn’t like to study nor do home work so when I discovered pot I artificially enhanced my laziness 10 fold. After high school as a meat salesman there were many days where I would just drive around telling myself that’s not a good place to stop, nobody’s going to want to buy anything. As a manager at the beer distributorship I did my job but didn’t try to be innovative or make more work for myself. I tried to take some college classes while I was working but I still hated studying so I quit again.

In spite of myself I’ve had some successes but then I get lazy. The biggest success that I blew was Steady Eddy’s Café at the Flint, MI farmers market. (I sold it 18 years ago & it’s still going strong) For the restaurant business it was a dream come true. Basically it was a furnished restaurant, with very low rent, only open 3 &1/2 days a week, great foot traffic, meat and produce suppliers downstairs, and cash only. It was successful and making money from day one. But after a few years my scheming lazy side took over and I thought I could make more money while working physically less. So I sold the café after having started Steady Eddy’s Gourmet. That was a wholesale manufacturing business that bottled and sold my vegetarian chili (still available at both Steady Eddy’s locations) to specialty grocery stores. Since you can’t find my Vegetarian Chili or Salsas in the grocery stores any more I guess I didn’t follow through on that either.

After a few more years of either quitting or getting fired from management jobs I moved to California to work for and help my brother expand his business selling and servicing sewing machines and vacuums. After 5 years of fairly easy work, the naively optimistic part of my lazy self said “hey why don’t we open a Coffee Bar here in quiet Winters”. It will be a nice easy, ma & pa business where I can drink coffee and read the newspaper in between the few customers that we need to make a living. As any of you who have been in the coffee house can attest there was nothing quiet or easy about it.

Those four plus years owning the coffee house were the hardest my lazy self has ever worked so when I saw an opportunity to create a full time desk job with the Chamber of Commerce I took it. That didn’t work out as I planned but at least I don’t have to get up at 4:00 in the morning any more.

So as I reflect on my fifty-fifth birthday, my questions would have to be. If I’m so lazy why have I worked so hard, and if I’m working so hard why can’t I reach cruising speed?

To view the column in it's original form go to page 14 of the following link. Winters Express 6/7/12