Claus. Santa Claus.

The dude in the red suit. We saw him no less than seven-thousand times today. He was in the mall, on a big velvet chair, taking late orders from kids, until we got into line. Then, he needed a break. Half hour. (He's magic and he can make reindeer pull him [and enough toys for every child on the globe] through the cold stratosphere and deposit treats under billions of trees in, like, sixteen seconds, but he can't conjure up a sandwich for himself. His is not omnipotence -- it's potency with certain parameters.)

Always time for a quick Coke.

Still, he gets around.

He was on street corners, ringing bells, as we drove on a Christmastime trek. He walked through the restaurant in which we ate dinner and he patted my boys on the back, ho-ho-hoing all the time, completely un-fatigued and seemingly unconcerned about a particularly pressing deadline. He's all over TV, too. Local news asked him how things were going. "Ho-ho-ho. Fine. Just fine."

He's in every mall across the civilized world at the same time, every day from Thanksgiving to Christmas. (I don't know if he takes breaks at the same time in each mall, though.)

Scripted Sincerity

Welcome to The Borg Collective.

On the radio, this morning, I heard a guy explain, with no sense of outrage (or even mild, wistful amusement) that hospitals, in order to get higher customer satisfaction ratings, are "scripting" doctors and nurses. For instance, they are telling a nurse who is transferring a patient to say things like: "Oh, you are going to the third floor. You'll have so-and-so as a nurse. She's wonderful."

Isn't that heart-breakingly hilarious? They are scripting the personal touch.

One must, after all, impress the queen bee of the hive, right? Or, in this case, the "team" that heads the "team," which is composed of more "teams."

Now, people are being told what to say in a workplace that is supposed to be driven under the energy of compassion and a desire to help others to heal. In a hospital, for God's sake. This is fine with the general population, because it is good for the work community. And what is good for the community is all that is important, right?

And what do you say, as a nurse or doctor? Do you say, "No, I won't do this," and risk losing your job in a struggling economy? No. Of course you don't. It doesn't seem like such a great evil, when you look at it that way. But, splice all of these little evils end-to-end, and you have the road to Orwell's worst nightmare.

I didn't start writing this blog with an agenda in mind, but you will notice that I keep coming back to this theme of the not-so-slow death of the individual in an increasingly hive-minded society. It just keeps slapping me in the face.

Well, call me old-fashioned, but when I get hit, I tend to hit back.

The Thieves of Glory

I suppose I have accepted the fact that it has become okay to brag, in modern society. I don’t like it, but it seems the guidelines of humbleness have disappeared. Athletes, actors and the common person in the street seem to have no compunction about saying, “I’m the best…” or “I’m great at…”  It’s probably a result of years of self-esteem programming in schools and on TV. I don’t like it, but I can’t change it.

I wonder, though, if we could try to stop this arrogance from extending into stealing the credit that is due to others. 

Father Mychal Judge: hero
-- victim 0001

I started thinking about this after the World Trade Center attacks. A few months after the dust literally settled, I started seeing bumper stickers that read things like: “Support Your Local Heroes of Station 4.” All of a sudden, one was a hero simply for being a firefighter.

Now, hold on…wait, wait… Before you get mad and start typing angry responses about the lack of respect I have for firefighters, let me say this: To become a firefighter is a noble choice born out of the desire to help others and out of the willingness to put one’s self in danger for others. I respect the career immensely.

For the Children

We should be silent, now, just for a while.

An Open Invitation to Rush

Alex, Geddy, Neil

I've mentioned, before, how important the progressive rock band, Rush, was to my development as a musician and as a writer. Neil Peart, the drummer and lyricist, was one of my biggest influences as a thinker and as a drummer. Geddy Lee, the bass player, singer and keyboardist and Alex Lifeson (maybe one of the most underrated guitarists of all time) also had a big influence on me. But, now, as a forty-four-year old, I am realizing how lucky I was to have had these guys as role models. Why? Because they were (and are) true individuals who have always been honest about their music and who never felt a need to play a part (whether that be "rock star" or "eccentric artist") that the world pressured them to play.

In fact, I remember one interview with Geddy Lee, back in the Moving Pictures days, I think. Geddy was asked if he wanted to meet his heroes. He said no -- not any more. He had met one of his heroes, once, and he had been horribly disappointed.