A Sense of Urgency

It's the name of a book I'm reading by John P. Kotter. It's a book about CHANGE—organizational change. Kotter posits that the main barrier (among others) is complacency. The goal is activity with purpose and the real challenge is discerning fruitful activity from that breathless, mindless doing that we attend for its own sake because it makes us feel safe. I think the principles apply equally to personal change. I believe there has to be an honest sense of urgency for both organizational and personal change to occur, More to come as I read further in this book by one of the gurus of change.

Technology II

It's done. I'm a Tweeter. Or is it Twitterer? Or is it Twit? The value may be questionable, but I won't know until I experiment and see where it takes me. For if I don't try, I'll never know. Trying is doing. Doing is so much more than the words we use to prepare to do, or think of doing, or dreaming, or wishing, or wanting. Yoda said "Try not. Do." Nike says "Just Do It." I just did.

Technology

We need it. We want it. We are all but slaves to it. Like Hal in 2001 Space Odyssey, the Technology monster seems to be running us rather than the other way around. 

Our writer's group had a panel on it. Some of us had stuck our big toe up to our knee in the ocean of technology, but it appears that the tsunami has us running to the high ground...wherever that is. Because the high ground keeps getting higher.  And like Tantalus we keep reaching for it, but it's just beyond our grasp. 

Surrounded by it, neck deep, we tread water and try to go with the flow, and without surfboards, we ride until we meet the sandy beach flopping and flailing, wondering what to try before the newer wave comes and pushes us around just a little more. 

But we live through it.

"101 Ways To Promote Yourself"

I'm starting a new venture. We all must if we are to progress. I'm stepping into the future because the past is gone forever. The book -- 101 Ways--is by Raleigh Pinsky -- a P.R. person, who promotes herself to a remarkable degree, a living advertisement for Public Relations. My blog has already changed, and will change more as I plow through her book. I'm on chapter one. Naming your Business. Indeed, naming oneself...a difficult first step to be sure. It's the beginning and "a trip of a thousand miles begins with the first step" or something like that. Walk with me.

URBAN WILDFLOWERS

The word "urban" to me means city. City like New York. City like L.A. City like Chicago. Like not suburban or country. I'd call where we live suburban, but it's rapidly going urban. When does the sub find itself scrubbed from the property and ground down into "urban?" And it's definitely a down not an up, for although some call it progress, it (urbanization) drags pollution and overcrowding, crime and stress along with it, making tranquility its victim, sanity a mortality statistic, like soldiers in a war meant to conquer poverty in a place that didn't want the ravages of civilization anyway, thanks.
"Whither the wildflowers?" we ask. Whisked away, the wildflowers would want to wave wistfully in wide women's backyards, but will waste away in the wagons with wooden wheels drawn by dirty white horses every Wednesday during the week and every third weekend at the end of every month ending in a "y."
The wagons went West, the wildflowers wilted, and Urbanity laughed to see them go, triumphant again--restaurant chains, drugstore and hardware store chains muscling each other in the background for newly paved-over wildflowers. Man's striving to have more had created a place to escape FROM on the very next plane to find the open spaces where the wildflowers grow wild, but not the people because there is peace in the wilds. Contradictions notwithstanding, the open spaces beckon closed minds formerly full but now emptied by predatory purveyors and pedantic preachers. Pus-carrying pimples on pre-pubescent people in countries no longer confined to the U.S. but bleeding globally, harbor no longer in solely U.S. ports, but spread beyond borders in electronic vastness making no one immune to the disease of progress in the 21st century.

The Day After Christmas

‘Twas the day after Christmas, when all through the house
I looked everywhere, but couldn’t find my spouse.
The presents from Christmas were strewn everywhere,
With nary an empty space, sofa, or chair

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of techno-toys danced in their heads.
And I in my sweatpants and my hubby no where near,
Ran to the garage to see if his car was here.

When out on the roof there arose such a clatter,
I ran to the yard to see what was the matter.
Away to the sidewalk I ran with a dash,
By this time, my face had become as white as an ash.

The sun on the top of the slippery, wet roof
Made me scared, and curious, and no longer aloof.
When what to my wondering eyes would appear,
My husband, was sitting up there, drinking a beer.

In his little old bathrobe, so old and so ratty,
My husband looked cute, but I fear he’d gone batty.
More rapid than eagles, his beer did he drink,
And I whistled and shouted “What will the neighbors think?”
As old wives that before the wild hurricane fly,
When we meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky
So up to the house-top I dashed in a hurry.
To sit by my husband and share in his worry.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard the whole tale:
He’d spent all our money on Christmas stuff on sale.
As I drew in my head and was turning around,
Up the ladder came the kids, still in their nightgowns.

Their hair was all messy, their faces still wrinkled,
Their slippers were red and had sleigh bells that tinkled.
“What’s happening, what’s wrong?” the two asked quite worried.
“We heard a loud noise and then we just hurried.”
Their dad’s eyes, how they watered, his face looked so sad.
His cheeks showed his sorrow; it didn’t look like their dad!
His miserable mouth was drawn down in a frown
And the beard on his chin was grizzled between the brown.
The stump of a cigar he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face, and a little beer belly,
That I say came from too many trips to the deli.
He was sullen and quiet, not at all himself,
And we cried when we saw him in spite of ourselves.
But a wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave us to know we had nothing to dread.
He spoke to us then, and gave us a smirk.
“I guess I’ve just been the silliest old jerk.”
And laying his finger aside of his brain,
Gave us a nod, and said “I won’t do this again!”

He stood on the roof, to his family gave a cheer,
And together we all hugged thanking God we were here.
But we heard him exclaim, 'ere we climbed down to the yard,
"I’m going to take and cut up every credit card!"

-- Kathryn Atkins
2005

Katella Avenue, Cypress California

Don’s Turf Motel stands alongside a row of sad buildings whose demeanor can only be described as 1950s architecture, the word architecture applied loosely. The structure has an exterior of plain brown warped wood, aging cracked paint, and light brown stucco walls chipped and worn showing dirty white stucco beneath.
The requisite vacancy/no vacancy sign only “neons” the NO. And we wonder. Does that mean there are REALLY no vacancies? Does it mean people LIKE staying there? Do these people know there’s a Marriott Residence Inn less than a mile down the street? Or that Disneyland is eight miles away? More importantly, are the people that stay here the kind that would care? It is said that people check into this motel with no more luggage than several fifths of Jack Daniels, drink themselves through two or three or four days and nights, hiding safely from family and friends, for who would think to look for them there?
Are ALL the rooms filled with people like these -- the empty bottles metaphors for the chasm of addiction that alcohol creates and fills for some, sex for others, food for still another group? Perhaps there are jockeys that stay there. It is, after all, across the street from the Los Alamitos Race Track, and may be, like in the story of Seabiscuit, a place for the featherweight men and boys to hang their jockey pants, affordable for two three, or four in a room. Do we know?
On some weekends, bikers by the dozen crowd the parking lot adjacent to this seedy throwback strip of history. Hells Angels congregate here, attracted to the older architecture, perhaps being reminded of easy riders of days gone by. Or would the Marriott parking lot down the street snub the Harleys and run them out as a deterrent to higher class customers – businessmen who stay near the companies down the street – Yamaha, Mitsubishi, and more – to sell or work or avoid a commute from Bakersfield where they can afford to live?
Along the same road a few blocks down, the Finish Line Foodstore completes the ensemble of late fifties/horse racing ambiance. The flashing sign appeared one summer evening as twilight eased onto the avenue. A small crowd had gathered to watch the store’s new sign depicting horses mating at a representational Finish Line. As the crowd grew, police were called in to break up the throng that had spilled onto Katella, slowing traffic to a canter, then to a halt. In fact, the automobile cops had to call for motorcycle backup. Stalled, the motorcycle police summoned the horse-mounted officers.
It took the equine staff a while to fit out their steeds, mount and arrive at the scene. In fact, by the time they came to the Finish Line Foodstore, the storeowners had produced guns. The crowd had lobbed strawberry boxes at the sign, purchased from the nearby strawberry stand, and the humping horses had sticky strawberry pulp dripping off the sexy sign making a sloppy mess of what was an education in animal husbandry for city folk who had never seen it done in real life.
Mounted Officer Sergeant Ron Flood, an imposing figure on his horse, Flash, announced through a loudspeaker, “EVERYONE NEEDS TO LEAVE. NOW!” No one moved. Few people heard.
Suddenly from above, a pair of helicopters arrived. One was a news helicopter. A spotlight bathed the darkened crowd in daylight. Sergeant Flood waved them away because behind them was the police helicopter he had requested. He repeated one more time, “EVERYONE MUST LEAVE NOW. YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF THE LAW. IF YOU DON’T LEAVE, WE WILL ARREST YOU ALL.”
The warning was ignored. Although some folks nearby heard the blast, they were actually more interested in the fight that had started near the front of the crowd. Within minutes, the fight spread. The heat of the day, the stench of recession; the outrage at the display all spilled over into a frenzy of pent-up physicality. Women and children were invisible to the men whose self-control had passed the tipping point. Teeth and hair, blood and spit flew into the air.
As a last resort, Sergeant Flood shot his gun into the sky, grazed the helicopter, and the sound of the ricochet finally woke up the heli-cops waiting to engage. Six men dropped by tether into the roiling mêlée. Billy clubs trumped fists; riot gear paddled street clothes; and finally tear gas stunned the manly to meek, hammering the testosterone-thick air and returning defiant fighters to submissive.
Names were taken, handcuffs snapped, ambulances wailed in the background as Sergeant Flood borrowed a billy club, and astride his faithful steed, destroyed the offending sign whilst a wily lawyer in the crowd clicked pictures.
Although the First Amendment was invoked at the hearing three months later, the judge threw out the case. “No one in our community needs neon humping horses at the Finish Line Foodstore at twilight or any other time.”
The gavel came down. BANG. Case closed.