Where Are the Real Men?

The other day at the West Alabama Ice House I overheard a fellow challenging a group around him to re-cast the 1960 classic The Magnificent Seven from the crop of today's well known actors. That turned out to be quite a challenge. Names like Ben Affleck were tossed out. But if you saw him in The Sum of All Fears, the movie based on Tom Clancy's best seller, you know that he does not have the gravitas to play Jack Ryan much less any character from M7. Harrison Ford was much better in the two previous films based on Clancy's work but he is too old to be considered for this challenge.

Kieffer Sutherland was about the best we could come up with but he is essentially a one-hit wonder with his 24 television series franchise. Where are the Yul Brenner's of today? There was an actor of incredible range who could sing and dance in the King and I and yet be believable as a tough gunslinger leading a group of men hired to save a small Mexican farming village from ruthless Banditos. And where are the Eli Wallach's, Steve McQueen's, Charles Bronson's and James Coburn's today? They just are not there. Yeah, if Clint Eastwood were a bit younger and still acting instead of directing he would fill the bill. So would the late Charleston Heston or the aging Kirk Douglas. But having to choose from a contemporary list of actors, I just can't do it.

This all got me to thinking about Real Men. I don't mean Todd Palin caricatures of real men. Hunting, fishing and racing snowmobiles does not make a Real Man anymore than NASCAR is a sport. A Real Man can fix an automobile not just drive one in circles. Unfortunately it has become almost impossible to fix the modern car today without complex computer equipment and secret factory codes. The backyard real-man mechanic has been emasculated by technology.

Where did all this start? I peg that at the end of the Reagan administration. We had a weak one-term Daddy Bush in the White House followed by pretty-boy, smooth-talking Clinton. During those years we saw the rise of feminism, political correctness, the cult of diversity and finally in Dubya's first term the ill-conceived and badly executed Iraq War. Whenever I hear the theme song from M7 it says to me "Here come the good guys to kick some serious bad guy butt" and I get chills down my spine. That is what Iraq should have been but was not and ended America's hegemony in kicking butt around the world. Nobody wants cowboys anymore.

I call what has happened to the men in this country "The Wussification of America". Look at today's TV shows. No Real Man should want to watch American Idol or Extreme Makeover: Home Edition but they are immensely popular. I think a Real Man would prefer something like Bonanza or Gunsmoke but nothing like that exists on TV today. Okay, maybe the Sopranos fills the bill, but it is (or was) on cable and not really mainstream. Shows like CSI and Law and Order are great but they lack the kick-ass, get-er-done energy a Real Man needs to be entertained. The aforementioned 24 series does that but it is the exception in a sea of mediocre reality shows and crap like Desperate Housewives and convoluted nonsense like Heroes. And this trend started years ago. I realized early on that I did not want characters like Scully and Mulder... I wanted someone like Hoss Cartwright or Marshall Matt Dillon.

So what is a Real Man? For starters, he doesn't get mani-pedis and he doesn't moisturize. He does not shop at Bed, Bath and Beyond or Linens and Things. If he were to find himself in one of those stores it better be because his wife/GF dragged him there. And he better go begrudgingly if he wants to maintain his RM bona fides. He does shop at Sears, Home Depot or better yet, an authentic local hardware store where things are still displayed in open bins and not all shrink wrapped up and hanging in neat rows on pegs. Real Men know how to do things, not just talk about them. They know how to fix a leaky toilet, rebuild the lawnmower's carburetor or install a ceiling fan without having to look up instructions on the Internet. A Real Man can build a one-match fire (unlike most of those wussie morons on Survivor who couldn't light a fire with a gallon of gas and a blowtorch). And finally, a Real Man supports his family, knows how to barbecue and teaches his kids stuff - real, useful stuff - and does not just shuffle them off to in front of a computer.

So what to do? Can we turn this around? We can try. Real Men, here is your assignment: Get out there and build a fire, burn some meat, toss down a cold one and start planning your next trip to the hardware store. If we are going to make some changes, we are going to need some tools!

Note: The Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) was most helpful in researching this rant.

Spreading the Wealth

It's only a couple of days away from Election Day 2008. I am sure most of you have made up your mind for whom you will be voting (or have voted already). However, I felt the need to add one more rant before we all go to the polls.

Lately I have been thinking about what Obama said in reply to the question from Joe the Plumber about the candidate's tax plan. I don't agree that spreading the wealth is a code phrase for socialism as some have suggested. But I have been thinking a lot about what it could really mean. The meat of Obama's plan is to raise taxes on the rich, lower taxes on the middle class and dole out cash to many earners who are currently not paying any taxes at all. That is indeed spreading the wealth.

Now I am by no means rich. I am now and have always been firmly rooted financially in the middle class. In the interest of full disclosure, I do stand to lose a substantial amount of money in the future if the capital gains tax break is allowed to expire, as Obama has suggested (this was one of Bush's so-called tax breaks for the rich). In any case, taxing the rich at first does not seem like such a bad idea. After all, as Willie Sutton the bank robber reportedly said, "that is where the money is".

Indeed it is. Currently the top 5% of all wage earners pay 60% of all taxes. Strong shoulders should be able to bear a little more load. Give the hard working man (or woman) a break at the expense of the rich, who certainly can afford it. Let their polo ponies eat hamburger rather than steak. As Obama said to Joe: "it's good for everybody" (well maybe not the ponies).

The problem I see here is this: with a Democrat as President, a filibuster-proof Democrat controlled Congress in power and a new leadership eager for reform we may see those tax increases trickle down to the middle class. If you think back to Daddy Bush's acceptance speech in 1988 he said, now infamously: "Read my lips: no new taxes". We all know what happened after that.

My concern is that the same thing could happen to President Obama. I trust and admire the man but there is no guarantee that he can keep his pledge to tax only those currently considered rich. What is middle class today might look like rich in the future, especially with an electorate hungry for the many entitlements they will expect from a Democrat controlled government. The money has to come from somewhere and the rich are already paying a hefty chunk.

I doubt what I have written here will change anyone's vote but it is good food for thought. Be careful what you wish for. My worry is that in the near future I will have to spread something closer to my backside :-0.

To see more of what to expect in a President Obama future you might want to read this article by Pat Buchanan. It also appeared in today's Houston Chronicle.

Now go vote!

It's Getting Scary Out There

And I am not just referring to Halloween. With the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, the Stock Market faltering and a presidential election coming up we have a lot to be afraid of. As Geena Davis' character said in the 1986 remake of The Fly: "Be afraid. Be very afraid." It is the upcoming election that may be the most frightening. Paraphrasing another movie quote by General "Buck" Turgidson from Dr. Strangelove: "But it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless distinguishable, (post-election) environments:" Obama vs McCain.

Neither candidate has done a very good job of illuminating their policies and platforms. Much ado has been made about the character and experience of the candidates and their running mates. With the focus now on the economy (the Iraq war having taken a back seat) we probably know more about the candidates' economic ideas than anything else. Obama would give some minor tax breaks for the middle class, increase taxes on the top 2% of earners, increase the capital gains tax and mandate some kind of expanded, if not universal, health coverage. McCain would keep the Bush tax cuts, including not raising the capital gains tax and provide a health insurance tax credit to offset ending the tax break for employer provided health benefits. Pretty standard and uninspiring stuff.

The scary part for an Obama win is not the man himself but the real possibility of what the Wall Street Journal called a "liberal supermajority" in Congress. This would be an almost Republican opposition-proof legislature dominated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. And with no threat of a Republican presidential veto this would be the first time in decades that we would have such concentrated partisan power in Washington.

Many would argue this is a good thing. We need to tilt the US back to the left to offset all the right-leaning polices of the last eight years (and really before that because Clinton was more moderate than most of the right would have us believe). The real danger is not what the supermajority might do but how they would do it. The checks and balances of a congress tilted one way versus a president the other would be lost.

So what about a McCain win? To be blunt: It could be a disaster. It certainly would crush the whole "Audacity of Hope" thing and could even cause some form of civil unrest not unlike after the Rodney King cop beating acquittals. I have one neighbor that remarked he is stocking up on extra ammunition in case Obama does not win. I think that a bit severe but I do believe that feelings would run very high and deep if McCain were to win -- much more so than if he lost. And don't forget the world view of the US. Much of the rest of the world, especially Europe, is pulling for an Obama win. It would signal to them a steep turn in our foreign policy away from that of the failed Bush administration.

Assuming a polite, civil and resolved acceptance of a McCain win (not unlike what happened in 2000 with Bush narrowly defeating Gore), we would wind up with a Democratic majority in both houses and a Republican president with a veto threat to keep things in check. That's the only light at the end of that tunnel.

The 800 pound gorilla in the room is still the economy. With a recession looming, banks and businesses failing, unemployment rising, the Stock Market tanking and our national deficit approaching a trillion dollars we don't have a lot of wiggle room when it comes to what can be accomplished by either President elect. Either man will inherit a mess that will be harder to clean up than Chernobyl. Increased government spending will be required to deflect recessionary pressures and the deficit will undoubtedly increase because it will be impossible to effectively increase taxes without exacerbating the recession. Fun times ahead indeed!

So, enjoy the ghosts and goblins of this Halloween because they will be least scary things you will encounter during the next year.

Hurricane Ike Motor Madness

Even after mayor Bill White asked Houstonians not to do so many went out in droves after the storm to drive around and assess the damage personally. These people just clogged up the works and got in the way of first responders and others who had a legitimate reason to be on the roads.

You know, I could not figure out why there were all those gas lines on Sunday. Now I know. Everybody was out joy riding and were afraid they were going to run out of gas. The motorists in this city behaved liked typical Russians who get into any line they see just in case something they might need is running out.

Ike hit on a Friday night. Nobody was going to work on Monday and many not until much later in the week. Teachers got the whole week off. Yet people were out driving around, burning up precious gas and then wasting even more waiting in line with their engines running, their AC on full blast (even though temps were in the 70's) and getting into fist fights over people cutting in line.

The Gulf Coast had nearly a week's warning about the impending landfall of Ike. People were admonished to stock up on water, other essentials and non-perishable food (although on the Thursday prior I saw shopping baskets filled with dozens of eggs and gallons of milk at the supermarket). People were also advised to fill up their car and be prepared to spend a few days without electricity.

But what happens on the day after Ike makes landfall? Droves of people are out in their cars driving around trying to get supplies of water, food, ice and yes, gasoline... the very things they were supposed to have in good supply already. So much for self reliance. Although the local television coverage of Ike and its aftermath was riveting and very well done, I had to turn it all off because I just could not stand hearing another person whine about where the "gummint" was to help them out.

What a bunch of morons. Hope they forget to vote in November. On the other hand, if you are a Republican I guess you do want all these people to vote :-).

Riding Out Hurricane Ike

It has been a couple of days since Hurricane Ike blew through Houston. I fared pretty well with only brief loss of power and minimal damage. Here is an account of what happened to me.

Before the Blow

On Monday, August 8 (one week ago) I got an email from a friend of mine who works at local TV station KTRK. She wanted to know if I had a generator because their consumer reporter was working on a story about using them during power outages. I told her I did and about an hour later their reporter came by to interview me. You can see an abbreviated version of that report here (I cut out most of the stuff that did not include moi). I took this media moment to be an omen and decided to begin my preparations for Hurricane Ike.

First I stocked up on gas for my generator, buying additional 5 gallon containers to bring my total reserve up to 20 gallons. I also filled up my car's tank. Next I hit the food store for a stock of non-perishables (all the usual crap that you never would eat otherwise). I never buy water. It is a waste of money. Instead I fill a 5 gallon container from the tap and use that for drinking, the dog's water and cooking. For everything else I have 15,000 gallons of the stuff in my pool.

I cruised along until Thursday watching Ike's track through the Gulf. By that morning I decided this was the real deal and it was time to board up. The last big one to hit Houston was Hurricane Alicia in 1983, just four months after I moved into my current townhouse. I did not board up then primarily because of my busy shooting schedule and my preoccupation with what might happen to my studio building. But 25 years later things were different. With time on my hands and memories of how the wind blew for Alicia I took the cautious route.

So it was off to the lumber yard for some plywood. Fortunately I have a good one only a few blocks away. It is not the cheapest place in town but I knew that the big-box stores would be a cluster f**k. It was a bit of a scene even at the lumber yard... a bit like the trading floor of a commodities exchange. With supplies running low and the counter guys ticking off what they had, buyers were calling out "I'll take 8 sheets of the OSB" or in my case "I'll take 6 sheets of the BC pine". Even thin plywood is not cheap (I chose 3/8 inch to keep the weight manageable) and I paid $18 a sheet!

It took me about 8 hours spread across Thursday afternoon and Friday morning to get my windows covered. When done each day I was exhausted. Later on I realized that I did the equivalent of a good carpenter's day's work and it had worn me out. Makes me appreciate how hard they work and that I stayed in school and got my degree. I am not saying that there are not lots of hard working people with college educations, but I have always seen my sheepskin as a ticket to avoid back breaking labor for the rest of my life. Anyhow, I got it all done and headed to the Ice House for the inevitable Hurricane Party.

Just like Hurricane Rita three years earlier, Ike was to make landfall sometime late on a Friday or early Saturday. This is the perfect scenario for an impromptu party at the West Alabama Ice House just a few blocks away. I remembered how much fun the Rita party was and looked forward to the Ike party. It did not disappoint! There is something about the impending doom of a hurricane that brings out the party animals, especially the foxes (if you know what I mean).

During the Blow

The Ice House party ended around 8PM and I headed home to wait out the storm. I watched TV until 10:30PM when the wind came up just enough to knock out my electricity. I headed up to bed to try to sleep through most of it. By 5:00AM Saturday morning the wind was howling and the house shaking enough to make any more sleep impossible. I got up and hooked up my generator to my refrigerator, TV and a box fan and cranked it up. It started with just one or two pulls (just like in the video). The final item to connect was the coffee pot... gotta have coffee in the AM no matter what. I sat down on my couch and clicked on the TV to see the soon-to-be endless local reporting on the hurricane. My satellite dish was out but I was able to get an over-the-air, albeit weak, signal on a small set of rabbit ears. Digital TV is much different from old analog. Instead of a snowy, rolling image when the signal is weak you get a jerky, pixelated one with broken-up audio. Fortunately most local stations were simulcasting on the radio as well. That audio was clear although completely out of sync with the picture.

As I sat there staring at the TV's pixelated images and listening to the out-of-sync audio I realized that the storm had not gone west of us as predicted. Instead it had moved slightly to the east and we were not getting the south-easterly winds from the so-called "dirty" side but northerly winds from the western side. This meant the wind was blowing directly against my sliding glass doors and windows facing north towards my pool. And I was sitting right in front of them. For some odd reason though, I felt fairly safe if not a little nervous (which might be from all that strong coffee). The wind did not really die down until near noon although my power came back on at 7:30AM. Go figure.

I continued to run my generator just to be sure the power was on for good and to gauge how long it would run on a tank of gas. It turns out that my original estimates were about right that a tank of gas (about 2-1/2 gallons) would run the fridge, TV and fan for about 8 hours. With 20 gallons of gas on hand that meant I could have run continuously for about 3 days. Of course, I could stretch that out by cycling it on and off throughout the day. Since my electricity came back so quickly I was able to do a mitzvah and loan my geny to my bookkeeper and her hubby who were still powerless in Midtown.

After the Blow

As I mentioned at the top of this rant, I came out pretty much unscathed. I had no significant damage other than some lost tree limbs and a pool full of same. Some of my neighbors did not fare as well. There were quite a few felled trees on my street and in the nearby neighborhoods. I (unlike many others) have not ventured out in my car to peruse any other parts of town. I prefer not to clog up the works and let the media bring it all to me. Anyway, I did all that sort of thing back in 1965 in New Orleans while riding out Hurricane Betsy at Tulane. As chief photographer for the student newspaper I ventured out at the peak of the storm when the winds were so strong that you could lean into them and not fall over. It was not until the next day that I realized how stupid I was when I saw a finger-long shard of glass embedded in a palm tree on campus.

So, I have weathered three major hurricanes in my lifetime: Betsy, Alicia and Ike. Here's hoping that "three's the charm"! At least for me.

Postscript

Among the many sad things that have happened as a result of Hurricane Ike I want to mention two that I think are particularly poignant, one here in Houston and the other in Galveston:

A fire that started in Brennan's Restaurant early Saturday morning burned that 40+ year old venue to the ground. Many considered the Houston Brennan's to be the best of all the Brennan Family eateries including the original in New Orleans. You can see a video I made at the restaurant during its 40th Anniversary Party here. Another tragic loss was the Balinese Room nightclub in Galveston which was completely destroyed. You may remember this place from the ZZ Top lyric "Everybody knows, it was down at the Balinese!"

And Finally...

Much of Houston is still without electricity tonight and therefore air conditioning. Fortunately for them Mother Nature has provided a gift. Today a cool front came in and brought much cooler and drier weather with the high temps in the 70's to low 80's. This will make life in Houston and the cleanup after Ike much more bearable.

The Heroes of Paschal High in the Piney Woods

Once again this year the three of us who call ourselves The Heroes of Paschal High met up for another Summer confab. This time we took off to the Piney Woods of East Texas to a little cabin near Woodville. From the outside this cabin looks like any other quaint house in the woods. But Austin architect Ken Routh (one of the Heroes) created something unique for the owners. He encased an old log cabin built back in the 1830's (when Texas was still a Republic) inside the otherwise unassuming outer structure.

Ken's idea was to protect the original cabin and its fragile logs from the outside elements yet maintain the charm and history of the space on the inside. When you step into this cabin it is almost like walking into a diorama in a museum. This strategy not only preserved the original cabin but allowed for the addition of an upper floor to accommodate more guests and a kitchen and bath to make the cabin livable by today's standards. We definitely enjoyed our short stay in this historic place where we cooked, ate, drank and commiserated nightly. But that is not the only reason we came to the woods...

We came to shoot our guns! Since the cabin sits on over 800 acres of thick woods in the middle of nowhere we could plink away to our hearts delight. And speaking of hearts, before all you PETA types get all worked up, nothing with a heartbeat was harmed. We did kill a lot of innocent beer and soda cans however. Note the exit wounds on the cans pictured here.

One of our other Heroes Bob Coalson was not as familiar with guns as myself and Ken, so we had to give him a little education in the ways of weaponry. But Bob did just fine and was able to hit his can with almost all his shots shooting the Ruger Single Six pistol we assigned him. Ken and I spent most of our time with my Ruger 10-22 rifle with a 25 round magazine. I also brought along my Winchester Model 1894 lever action carbine which is an original manufactured during that year. As Sigourney Weaver's character Ripley is warned by Michael Biehn's character Corporal Hicks in Aliens: "It will kick some". And it did, leaving a nice bruise on my upper right arm when I let the gun slip off my shoulder a bit. But the shot from that gun definitely made a well-shaken Diet Pepsi can "blow up real good"!

You can see three videos of our exploits in the woods at: www.youtube.com/ronscott

My AC Went Out

My central air conditioning went out Sunday. Law of AC in Texas says: AC go out only on weekend. Remembering the sage words of an old AC man that "90% of AC problems are electrical in nature", I got out my trusty volt meter. I determined pretty quickly that there was no juice to the thermostat. I checked the usual suspects, the breakers, and all was OK there. I decided to dig deeper and removed the panels on the air handler to get at the control board. Sure enough, it had a blown fuse. That meant a quick trip to the hardware store for a couple of replacement fuses. I popped one in and flicked the fan-only switch and the fan fired right up. Next I called for cooling and bam, the fuse blew again. This suggested that something was shorted related to running the compressor (but not the fan).

Next I pulled the wires from the control board that go to the contactor (relay) in the compressor unit outside on the roof. The contactor is the device that switches the high voltage to the compressor on or off in response to low voltage signals from the thermostat. I called for cooling again at the thermostat and the fuse did not blow. A quick check across those pair of wires to the roof with the meter showed 1 ohm of resistance. Mr. Ohm says: E = IR so I = E\R and if E is 24 volts that means an "I" (current) of 24 amps. Since the fuse was rated at only 5 amps, that was not good.

So I went up to the roof to check on that contactor and to rule out that the wire going to the contactor was not shorted. Oh yeah, other Rule of AC in Texas: When time to work on part of AC in hottest location, sun will be very high in sky. After removing the panel to reveal the contactor and checking out both the resistance across the contactor coil and the wire back down to the control board I confirmed that it was indeed the contactor that was the problem. Being that it was Sunday I knew I could not get a replacement that day.

It was going to be a long hot afternoon and night with no AC. I solved the hot afternoon problem by spending it at the Ice House. Still hot there, but the beer was plenty cold enough. Fortunately, back in early June I had installed a small window unit in my office. I was able to blow some of that cool into my bedroom with a box fan and that combined with my new ceiling fan made for fairly comfortable sleeping.

I did call my AC repair guy on Sunday anyway, figuring since I had sussed out the problem I could get the job done pretty cheap and not have to endure any more time on that hot roof. However, by noon on Monday I had not heard back from him. The house was starting to get pretty hot and I was getting antsy. I decided to Google-up my nearest AC parts place and give them a call with the part number. They did not have the exact part but one close enough to work. Contactors are pretty simple things and as long as they have the right number of poles (connections), the right load rating and coil voltage they will work. Just to be sure I pulled the faulty part to take with me (again, here I am at high noon on that hot roof).

I got the contactor, hooked everything back up and lo and behold: cool air again! The total cost for this repair was $10 for the part and about $2.25 in fuel for the round trip to get it. I think I might have saved some money! Funny thing is that on the way back from the parts house my AC guy finally called me back. I told him what I was up to and that if things did not work out I would call him back. Thankfully, I didn't need to.