Success, fame, and fortune, they're all illusions. All there is that is real is the friendship that two can share.

What a sad day yesterday was. A couple of generational icons lost in a matter of few hours. In their own ways both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson defined the decades in which they exploded into the American psyche.

I found myself oddly reflective last night about the death of Jackson. More than Farrah (I was a Heather Thomas pink bikini poster guy) he was the star that you really couldn't escape when I was a teenager in the 80s. I was not a fan. I should say: I tried not to be a fan. The guy was so talented he made that prospect difficult as hell.

A flood of memories of growing up in the 80s elbowed their way into my consciousness last night.

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I was with some buddies at the "Rhoddies." The Rhoddies are Portland's Rhododendron Garden located next to a golf course in Southeast Portland. The Rhoddies were a popular place for teenagers to drink and hang out for impromptu parties if you didn't have anything better to do on the weekend.

Somewhere a boom box was blaring what I'd like to think in this memory is "Beat It," although it could have just as well been Madonna or Culture Club. Everybody has fluffy 80's hair. I'm wearing by dark grey Miami Vice jacket with the sleeves rolled up.

At some point I broke away from my buddies and and was standing on a foot bridge by myself sipping a Bartles and James. It's an absolutely beautiful summer night. Bats were swooping down on the bugs by the lake. I remember thinking to myself: "goddammit, it's good to be alive."

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We're out at my grandparent's farm on the 4th of July. Besides shooting off illegal fireworks and stealing shots of grandpa's homemade cherry wine, we also spend a good portion of the day tearing around the property on my little red go cart and playing pick up football.

Practically everybody I love at that moment is in that one place.

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I'm sitting in my old, red Volkswagon Rabbit in the parking lot of McDonalds waiting for my girlfriend to get off her shift. I'm listening to the radio and as sure as I write this it's "Billie Jean."

When my she finally gets in the car there's some perfunctory discussion about where we're going to go. A movie? Grab something to eat? It's all bullshit. We know we're going to wind up parked on a dark street somewhere for some serious snogging and heavy petting.

She apologizes to me because she smells like french fries. I lie and tell her I can't smell the fries. The truth is she does, but I don't care. I like french fries.

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It's Halloween and "Thriller" is playing in the other room while I'm getting Frankenstein makeup applied to my face. I'm going to be the climax of this particular dance. The late, great Mark Zimmerman who was the King of Halloween has planned this dance as his Magnum Opus.

Mark has rigged a scaffolding in the middle of the dance floor going forty feet up to the ceiling of the gymnasium. To this he's affixed a pulley system. In my Frankenstein costume I'm going to be lying on a gurney under a sheet, wheeled out at the right moment to the song "Weird Science" and actually cranked up to the ceiling of the gym where Mark has placed strobe lights near the skylights to simulate lightning. All of this for a high school dance.

Because it was dangerous I asked some guys I could trust to actually wheel me out and run the pulley system. I couldn't see anything under the sheet as they pushed me into the gym and the other kids started cheering but I vividly remember my best buddy Jeff leaning over the sheet near my face, stinking of beer and whispering "have a nice trip, Frankie" just before he socked me in the nuts.

I was going to die.

Of course it went without a hitch and as soon they lowered me back down and as Oingo Boingo blurted "it's alive!" I hopped up and did my own version of Jack's zombie dance.

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I'm in my high school history class and Mr. Sprinkle is rushing through his lesson so he can tell us "war stories" in the last 10 minutes of class. Mr. Sprinkle was in Vietnam and decided at some point that the best lesson he could give his students wasn't out of books. He could tell us stories from his own life about how horribly stupid war is.

Today he's telling us a horrible story about how American troops sometimes slept behind idling tanks to stay warm, even though ordered not to and how once a month a soldier would be killed when the tank backed over them.

In part because of Mr. Sprinkle I have a lifelong love of history, a deep distrust of authority and a wicked sense of humor.

-----------------------------

I'm on a date heading to a party and we're lost. Ahead of us smack dab in the middle of the street is a GIANT puddle. My date and I are arguing about whether my Rabbit can make it across. I say it can, she doesn't think there's a chance in hell.

I hit the gas and the car stalls right in the middle of the puddle. We both have to wade through a foot of water to shore so I can call a tow truck. That was my first and last date with that girl.

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I'm sad about Michael Jackson passing. There was so much talent and potential in that guy and he just went off the rails. It's depressing that he was obviously so uncomfortable in his own skin. I kept hoping he'd get it turned around. He could hae been the elder statesman of pop music.

But truth be told was really brought tears to my eyes yesterday was all these memories from the time when Jackson really was the King of Pop. I thought about goofing around with my friends and family, being young and in love, dancing, and being so damned alive and sooooo damned stupid at the same time. Jackson's death makes all of that wonderful stuff seem so very far away.

It makes me feel so... old.

Damned your eyes, Igor!

Doc Zaius tagged me with eyes meme last week. I'm going to be nice and not tag anyone else, but here are my eyes. Let it be known that those eyes are connected to a Clooneyesque visage on a perfect physique if you were wondering.

Good luck with your layoffs, all right? I hope your firings go really well.

This is the 999th post so tomorrow it's pix of my critters.

I've been sharing some of the more egregious things I've seen from inside the corporate world to try and present a sort of counterpoint to all the bitching we've seen about the role of government as of late. There seem to be a large block of people who still believe that government is inherently evil, while private enterprise is all noble competition, candy canes and lollipops.

Besides the salary limits and bonus thing I've already talked about, the company I work for has also done the following in the last few years---

• Eliminated carryover vacation time for employees and instituted a "use it or lose it" policy. (I refuse to honor this btw. If my employees made good faith efforts to use their time I comp it into the next year.)


• Changed health care providers plans every year and health care providers twice. Each time our rates and deductibles have gone up.


• During the most recent change they picked a provider that implemented the social engineering with deductibles plan. We're responsible for a much higher percentage of our deductible for diagnostics. The excuse is that they're trying to keep people from getting "frivolous" MRIs and X-rays by making it more expensive. I am seriously considering taking my kids out of sports because of this. We can't afford an injury.


• Eliminated a 70-year old company tradition by which the company essentially shuts down, employees are recognized at a party and, most importantly, frontline employees were allowed to ask direct questions of the top management of the company. Funny how this went away just as they started squeezing employees.

For those of you that might be wondering why I continue to work for an institution that would take all those actions the answer is that I have friends at competing companies and the horror stories they tell about cuts to benefits, etc. make the complaints I've listed sound benign by comparison. These issues are widespread and systematic.

Some of the things I hear about how government should stay out of the way and let the market just correct itself leave me seriously flabbergasted. I can't help but wonder if these corporate fanboys have spent even a single day in a corporate environment. The idea that corporations are anything less than amoral institutions dedicated almost entirely to providing value to their shareholders is pretty ridiculous.

I wonder if we could ever get back to the days of Henry Ford when the prevailing corporate philosophy was to take care of their employees with the recognition that they themselves were consumers. I consider conservative's arguments about corporate tax cuts and how they would lead to higher wages and job creation and think they might as well be speaking Farsi for all the sense those arguments make. They simply have no relation to reality.

You're walking around blind without a cane, pal. A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place.

I'm having a hard time figuring out how to write this and not have it come across as whining because it concerns my personal bonus, or lack thereof. I decided to share this because it's just another micro example of how American business doesn't always operate in good faith towards the people it employs.

I'm a believer in incentive (bonus) programs not just for managers but for years I've been pushing the company to adopt some sort of profit sharing plan for staff. If they're structured correctly and tied to performance I believe they provide the company with engaged, satisfied staff.

The incentive program I participate is pretty standard. Basically I'm given a numerical rating on a quarterly basis. This rating is a combination of employee and customer satisfaction and performance against budget. If my numerical rating is mid to low against those factors then I don't qualify for a bonus.

If I'm an dick of a boss and have a bunch of employees leave then I won't qualify for a bonus. If I have really unhappy staff and that's reflected on employee feedback surveys then I won't qualify for a bonus. If I lose customers or customers are unhappy with our product or service then I won't qualify for a bonus. If I don't beat the company's top and bottom line financial goals for my book of business then I really, really won't qualify for a bonus.

On paper it's a pretty good plan. You can see how managing to that plan forces me to be a better manager and not take anything, or anyone for granted.

In 2007 the company tweaked the plan. Apparently corporate didn't like the unexpected allocations for bonuses that would pop up (they don't like financial surprises) so they decided to take money out of your book of business to set aside for any bonuses you may qualify for. A line titled "performance sharing" appeared on my profit and loss statements and a dollar amount based on a percentage my salary was set aside from my total revenue each month on this line.

This had it's obvious downside for managers. The financial goals for an incentive now became that much harder as your numerical rating was figured after all of those line items, including "performance sharing" were subtracted from your overall revenue. They were slyly making it harder to score a bonus.

In 2008 they tweaked the plan again. This time they indexed manager's numerical ratings against their region. This means you could have a great quarter but not see a penny if the other managers in the region were boneheads who didn't know how to run their businesses. Their excuse was that this would encourage "teamwork" but that idea is laughable. I have nothing to contribute to accounts in Seattle or San Francisco in terms of personnel and vice versa.

This had the desired effect of putting bonuses out of reach of even the best performing managers, myself included. My feeling was something akin to "Whatever. I'm lucky to have this job. At least the site financials will look even better."

Yet, they continued to take "performance sharing" dollars out of my account like clockwork. I had assumed that they would just pay that unused chunk of bonus cash back into the account at the end of the year when they closed the books. I kept checking my financials for this big block of cash, now totalling over $7000 to show up. Of course it never did.

This week I had a conversation with my manager and asked him where this money went. He flew into a rant. Apparently we've already identified and complained about this with corporate and were met with the hand. Apparently that "performance sharing" is meant for somebody else to share and is not to be questioned.

To sum up: the company takes money out of my book of business to cover a potential cash incentive for me, the very act of taking this money out makes it harder for me to achieve that incentive so they don't have to pay it, when I fail to achieve the incentive they keep that money without an explanation rather put it back into my business.

Why, it's almost like they're stealing it.

I wish I could tell you that Andy fought the good fight, and the Sisters let him be. I wish I could tell you that - but prison is no fairy-tale world.

Tales from private industry...

Boiled down to it's essence the debate over the stimulus is between those that subscribe to the tired religion of the "free market" vs. those who realistically recognize that there are occasions when it's necessary for the government to take action to keep the economic waterwheel that is the economy from seizing up and grinding to a stop.

There are more than a few people who continue to look at government as evil and for them the debate begins and ends with that concept. They cannot fathom that private industry ain't all that and a bag of chips. As someone who actually has spent his whole life in private industry I find this idea pretty absurd. Every criticism you can level at government can be turned around and thrown and private companies. Every single one.

I value my bloggy anonymity, mainly because I'm often reading, writing and commenting on other's blogs from work. They say that's frowned upon. So this may be somewhat vague, but all of it is true.

I'm a middle manager at a Fortune 500 company in real life. I like the company I work for quite a bit. I consider them well run, their reporting to Wall Street is pretty above board and they're not likely to wind up on the nightly news because of any corporate shenanigans. But they are a company like any other, which means we've continued to increase productivity for years without rewarding employees and they do things that I would consider unfair if they weren't standard corporate practice.

Just one example of how employees suffer the death of a thousand cuts behind the scenes. For years annual merit raises have been held to 3% average, 5% for our best performing employees. It's a sort of grading curve where as a manager I'm expected to identify poorly performing staff and exclude them from an annual raise. The thing is - I have no poorly performing employees. If I did they wouldn't be working for me.

So the net result is that my experienced, tenured staff wind up getting 3% raises annually. Well below the cost of health care inflation alone, not to mention the cost of living. The longer they work for me here the worse off they are going to be financially.

I've been terribly worried that this year this would be even worse and that the percentages for non-exempts would be lowered or raises frozen altogether. They've done that with managers like myself already so I won't be getting a raise this year. Truth be told- I'm just happy to have a job in this economy so I'm not terribly upset.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about how the company recently started sticking me with incentives I'm eligible for. They've really become quite ingenious in how they screw you. Under other circumstances I might admire their creativity.

I'll be your huckleberry.

Randal a étiqueté moi mais je ne peux pas parler français.

Thank goodness there's a Babel Fish translator.

1. Five names you go by: Dad, Lurch, Johnny Apache (My stripper name from college), Vernon (Wormer) and Sergio Marinara.
2. Three things you are wearing right now: A smile (gag), mesh underwear (I rarely wear underwear but when I do it's usually of the mesh variety) and a cheap tie.
3. Two things you want very badly at the moment: Go home and get some more sleep and Bo Derek.
4. Three people who will probably fill this out: Our gorilla overlord, our blogger chaplin and our comic book expert.
5. Two things you did last night: Drove my oldest daughter to firefighter school and made delicious club sandwiches for the family.
6. Two things you ate today: One piece of dry wheat toast and another piece of dry wheat toast.
7. Two people you last talked to on the phone: Mrs. Wormer who heard there was an accident on the freeway involving a fistfight and was worried it was me and one of my staff who just called in sick after being on vacation for the last two weeks. One more pay raise and I'm switching to the Republican party.
8. Two things you are going to do tomorrow: Look for a new employee and get in a fistfight with somebody on the way to work.
9. Two longest car rides: When I was 12 and my parents decided to drive to Disneyland from Portland. They kept stopping to look at redwood trees and stuff. The other was Thanksgiving when we drove to visit my Mother in Law. Dead man walking.
10. Two of your favorite beverages: French roast coffee, homemade blackberry wine, scotch, blended margarita, coke, banana milkshakes... I can't limit it to just two.

I'm gone, man. Solid gone.

This may be a morbid post but what the hell. I've been working on a list of songs that I'd like played at my funeral. I'm still young and (hopefully) that day is far, far away but I think it's a good idea to do something like that while one is young and lucid. Or as lucid as I can get.

At one point this list grew to over a hundred songs. Unless the funeral turns out to be an all day affair that's obviously way too many tunes. I think 20 is a nice number. That's roughly an hour of music.

One way of thinking that really helped narrow it down was to pull out songs that I had on the list because I simply liked and keep the songs that more told a story about me. In that sense the songs run from my childhood until now. This is sort of the soundtrack of my life.

I would love to see you guys take a stab at your own soundtrack. Let me know if you do.

1) "The Bear Necessities," Phil Harris - The earliest song I remember loving. I had a toy record player and this on a 45 and I would play this, sing along and dance around my room for hours. My parents must of loved that.

2) "I Don't Want To Be The Lone Ranger", unknown - I have no idea where we got this song but my mom dressed my brother and me up like the Lone Ranger and Tonto and we lip-synced this tune for a talent show.

3) "Star Wars," John Williams - My folks rented a van and took me and my friends to wait an hour and a half in line to see the first Star Wars movie. From the moment this theme started and the title march scrolled it was an out-of-body experience that led to a lifetime love of film.

4) "Star Trek," Alexander Courage - I would watch reruns of this show when I got home from school. It burned into my psyche.

5) "Every Little Thing She Do Is Magic," The Police - In my grade school class everybody had a favorite band. Mine was The Police. I liked the reggae/ punk fusion and Sting's raspy voice.

6) "Great Balls of Fire," Jerry Lee Lewis - I started to appreciate that there was cool older music. This song stuck out because I remember loving to sing the part that goes "kiss me baby, Mmmmmmm, feels good."

7) "The Last Time," The Rolling Stones - So many great Stones tunes but this older one is one of my favorites.

8) "Goonies R' Good Enough," Cindy Lauper - I'm not going to apologize for this song. This movie has a soft spot in my heart then and now.

9) "Raider's March," John Williams - Friends dragged me to see this film. It looked way to commercial for me. I wound up loving it.

10) "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me," Culture Club - I don't even like this song but when I hear it I have flashbacks to making out with some pretty girl in my old VW Rabbit.

11) "El Shaddai," Amy Grant - Laugh if you want but for a time I had serious intentions of being a priest. I think being in love with Amy Grant might have had something to do with it. Teenagers aren't known for their clarity of thought.

12) "Pachabel's Canon," Pachabel - If there's a more perfect piece of music I haven't heard it.

13) "We Got The Beat," Go Gos - Loved the Go Gos and loved dancing to the Go Gos.

14) "Mighty Oregon," unknown - University of Oregon was probably the best time of my life.

15) "Otis Redding Live At Montrey Pops Festival," Otis Redding - Technically more than one song so sue me. I vividly remember listening to this in a college dorm room the first time I smoked a blunt.

16) "No Woman, No Cry," Bob Marley - The first time I heard this song I took it to mean if you don't have a woman in your life you won't be shedding any tears. Only later did I realize he was trying to comfort his wife in the song. I like my interpretation better.

17) "Groovy Kind Of Love," Phil Collins - Our song so shut up. :-)

18) "La Valse D'Amelie," Yann Tiersen - This movie is too wonderful to describe. You either live your life alone or you share your life with others.

19) "Mosh," Eminem - I really thought we the kids would save us from Bush in 2004. They did. Just a couple of years later is all.

20) "Everlong," Foo Fighters - The acoustic version of this song gets to what it means to love someone. "Breathe out, so I can breathe you in. Hold you in."

There was howling just a minute ago.

Happy Halloween y'all!

For me this Halloween is bittersweet and, truth be told, I'm feeling a little old. My youngest hurt his knee at football practice a couple of weeks ago so this will be the first Halloween in fifteen years that I won't be trick or treating with my kids. Jesus, life moves fast.

On the other hand this holiday in celebration of all things scary is actually a day of hope. Our long, eight year nightmare meets the beginning of the end next Tuesday. That warms my heart.

Just a reminder: remember to check any apples you get trick or treating for razor blades. I've heard that warning since I was a kid.

As we say in program: progress, not perfection.

I almost missed the very cool news that Al Franken pulled within 2 points of Norm Coleman in his Minnesota senate race. This particular race has taken sentimental meaning to me because of the horrible loss of Paul Wellstone in that plane crash a few years ago and the way Rush Limbaugh and Republicans politicized Wellstone's memorial. Something that Franken himself documented in his book "Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right."

On an unrelated note I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who takes the time to plow through my mental meanderings here on this blog. Especially when I veer into the occasional rant. My grammar/ punctuation isn't always up to par, no more so when I'm writing about something that pisses me off like Scott McCellan.

Cheers!

Dean

That's what scares me.

One month until Indy!

This is going to be one of those rare films I actually see on opening night so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Please, please be good!

Also- Freida tagged me with the "six things you didn't know about me" game.

• My undergraduate degree is in history with a focus on Spanish/ Latin American history.


• I met my wife at a Halloween dance. I was a Frankenstein Monster and she was a six-foot tall Butterfinger Candy Bar.


• I once got high in college by drinking an entire bottle of Robitusin DM. I saw Jerry Garcia in the clouds.


• On a visit to Mexico City I did the special prayer for healing at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It took me five hours to crawl to the front of the sanctuary on my knees.


• I'm a Trekkie. Of the old school variety.


• I make a mean Enchiladas Verdes con Pollo. From scratch (except the tortillas.)
  
  

What's not to like about Robin Hood? I'll steal from the rich and give to a poor bear- me. Stay here, Friar Boo-Boo.

Thanks to Swinebread's tag I have to reveal 8 random facts about myself. I'm not sure what would happen if I don't (hole in the time space continuum? Bush gets third term?) but the consequences are just too unfathomable for me not to take up the challenge.


1) I like Westerns. This is a horrible secret I've only recently come to terms with.

2) My college thesis was on the book What is Philosophy? by Jose Ortega y Gasset.

3) I'm a Duck so it's to my shame that I have Beaver blood running through me and occasionally find myself rooting for their teams.

4) I cheated at Dungeons and Dragons as a kid. I never really "played up" my 30th level bard. Sorry Western Oregon Wargamers.

5) I've volunteered on several political campaigns but it's been years since I have had the time.

6) I once killed a bear with my bare hands. I pummeled him to death while his buddy in the hat and tie made off with my pic-i-nic basket.

7) I've been seriously addicted to coffee since I was eighteen and working in a warehouse.

8) The first girl I ever kissed was from Canada. Nobody believed that story.

Now I tag Overdroid. I know he won't respond because as Swiney mentioned he hates these things but I think it'd just give him an excuse to update his site.

George just want to look a little special today.

The new look of the site is an attempt at a minimalist ascetic. Let me know what you think. My posts are also showing up in the Blue Oregon live feed now and traffic's been picking up slightly.

Not that I care about such things, mind you. I'm above all that.

You've taken something I did as a lark for a couple of years and turned it into a colossal waste of time.

It's hard to believe but I've been blogging for exactly one year as of this last Saturday. Nowhere near don's record, but still...

I've been spending free time tagging all the posts from last year. Basically I just wanted to see what film/ television wells I dip into for quotes most often. I think that may say something about me on a subconscious level.

Let's drop Star Wars (11 quotes) and Star Trek (11 quotes) of the mix right away since those numbers unfairly. Here are the films and television shows I've quoted the most last year-

The American President (3)

The Simpsons (3)

The Wizard of Oz (3)

This is Spinal Tap (3)

Young Frankenstein (3)

Aliens (3)

Back to the Future (3)

Battlestar Galactica (3)

Blazing Saddles (3)

Caddyshack (3)

V for Vendetta (3)

Saturday Night Live (4)

And my number one non-Star Wars/ non-Star Trek entertainment source for quotes-

The Princess Bride (5)

I'm a little embarrassed that there are few "serious" titles on that list but I'm comforted in the realization that most of those comedic quotes were often juxtaposed against rants on war and carnage so I think it's fair to say that if this list tells me anything about myself it's that 1) I love irony and 2) I really, really need to get a life.

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.

Welcome to The Dean's Office. If you've had to come through my door you've then you've broken the rules. Perhaps you dumped a whole truck load of fizzies in the swim-meet. Perhaps you started a food-fight in the commons. Maybe you simply attended last night's toga fiasco at the Delta fraternity house. Whatever the crime, it goes without saying that you're a non-conformist and we here at Faber college don't like non-conformists. The purpose of this school is to shape young minds into machines of independent thought NOT to create rebels.

Before I dole out punishment for whatever the hell you've done let me just tell you about a young man at this school named Doug Neidermeyer. Doug's the Student Body President, President of the Honor Society, ROTC Officer and Rush Chair of the Omega House. Doug's an outstanding citizen and it's an honor to have him here at Faber.

Doug didn't get to be the fine young man he is today by initiating a midnight panty raid on sorority row. He didn't get there by squirting mashed potatoes out of his nose or having medical school cadavers delivered to the alumni dinner. He got to be that way by discipline. He got that way by hard work and the sweat of his brow. Not to mention a leg up from a rich, well-connected father who donates generously to this college.

As I look across my desk at you I have to say you are nothing like Doug, son. Not even close.

I'm putting you on double-secret probation.

Please tell Mrs. Johnson to hold my calls on the way out and... have a nice day.