Barry's Life in Napa Blog

When things go wrong, there is only one thing on my mind - find someone to blame. Being the self-centered yet sensitive sociopath that I am, I rarely find my satisfactory scapegoat to be (a) me, or (b) another specific person So I am happy to report that the deficiency of blog posts on my part of late is not the fault of (a) me, or (b) another specific person But my good friend blame can be placed squarely on a faceless, heartless, brainless Corporation. (A timely scapegoat indeed, given the tenor of the times. All you one-percenter-shareholders-in-faceless-heartless-brainless corporations, take heed. I'm watching you.) The FHB Corporation in question is an alleged supplier of bandwidth, a commodity of importance to He Who Blogs - particularly he who blogs only in privacy and mostly late at night when the hour and the wine facilitates. There is a certain solitude required - a solitude the FHB Corp has refused to provide me for most of the last six months. I m...

Preface: This is one of those posts where I will relate bits of my personal history that unveil the workings of my mind, and as such, may be viewed as (a) self indulgent (b) pathetic (c) whiny, or (d) all of the above. I proceed apace, undeterred. Central thesis: Halloween sucks for me. Argument: Halloween, for me, is like almost every other holiday - front-loaded with anticipation, and rarely providing a commensurate payoff. And that stems from a series of childhood incidents that left me as unfulfilled as a trick-or-treating kid who sees a toothbrush dropped into his candy bag. There were at least three elementary school Halloween disasters - my Halloween baggage. Being just as "actor-y" at age six as I am today, the selection of a costume was of immense importance. My mother always offered to sew up something, so we would peruse the Butterick patterns at J.C. Penney and I would usually find something super cool that I wanted to be. In disaster number one, I had chosen to ...

My uncle Rodney, the last of the three Martin brothers, died two days ago at 94. He was married for 72 years. It's hard to know if all those years were happy years because he was prototypically the man who wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful, but I think he was happy. I cite this as a pre-counterpoint - a preterpoint, if you will - to what follows. I will now wage war with the concept of happy endings. (No, not that kind, you pervert.) From toddler-hood we are marinated in happy endings. Wicked queens (no, not that kind, you pervert) and ugly stepsisters and predatory wolves in the woods always get what's coming to them. Handsome princes and damsels in distress find true love and always live happily ever after. We learn fast. At about age 5, my daughter whispered to her grandma during a stressful moment in a Disney movie, "Don't worry, they get married in the end." This was a movie this child had never seen before. She was already primed to believe in happy...

A little more than a year ago I had approximately 4,347 channels of TV at my disposal. I was a Dish Network man, with the Ultra Supreme Omniscient package I think the called it, plus a little HBO and Showtime or Cinemax (who can tell them apart?) Today, through actions of my own, I must admit, I now dwell in the nether regions in a place called Basic Cable. Or if there's a level below that, that's what I have. Yes, I chose to leave my formerly comfortable surroundings - 42-inch HD flat screen, leather sectional, Tempur Pedic mattress, stainless steel appliances - for the sofabed, folding chair, and college-dorm type kitchen I now "enjoy." I walked away from comfort for a number of reasons - good reasons - but I never anticipated falling into the seventh level of Hell that is Basic Cable. Yes, I could buy my way back up into the clouds with Comcast, AT&T, Dish or Direct TV, but as the man sang, "money's too tight to mention" and if any more of my diet...

When I was a senior in college majoring in theatre, my directing class project was a play called "No Exit" by Jean-Paul Sartre . This was a precious choice, a choice fraught with meaning, because I needed so much to do something outrageous and avant garde and non-Midwestern. This was the choice of a pretentious young guy who wore 1940s suit coats from the Goodwill and smoked Gitanes and Russian cigs with gold tips and came within a hair's breadth of donning a beret on several occasions. So for making a statement, "No Exit" filled the bill. The play is about three people who find themselves in this - place - and gradually discover they are dead. (Kind of seems like a plot you've seen before, right? Like on "Twilight Zone" or something? But I think Sartre may have been first out of the gate with this setup.) There's a man and two women, and the man is tormented by the fact that one woman rejects him heterosexually and one rejects him homosexually...

Many people are recipients of transient hateful juju from me in the course of daily life. There's the twit in the grocery line who waits until the clerk announces a total before they even begin to look for their wallet, surprised (again!) by the need to pay for the stuff. There are the hosers who can't figure out how a 4-way stop is supposed to work. And dimwits who talk in a movie theater like they're sitting in their living room. All these primitive forms of life get just a fleeting moment of being despicable to me. But there is a special category of annoyer for whom I generate hour upon hour of fresh brewed hatefulness - the person sitting next to me in an airplane. There must be no common life situation that creates more consistent dissatisfaction than air travel. Let's face it, every aspect of it sucks hard. Having to ride shuttle buses or return rental cars, schlepping bags around, worrying about your 3 ounce fluids, standing in the ticket line, standing in the se...

So jeez, I am feeling a little contrite because I have neglected this blog. Feeling a little like I have let an old friend fall by the wayside while I have been spending all my time with someone new.I even got needled by one of my (few) readers today - "Wow, no blog post since April 2!"  Feeling a little frivolous and superficial because my good old reliable Blogger blog here has fallen victim to my other time sucks - namely, Facebook, and of course, what I like to call "real life." Maintaining a blog is no simple task, my friend. Just mouse up there to the top of the screen, left of center, and start clicking on "Next blog." You will soon soon discover there are lots and lots people who start a blog, make two or three posts, and discover it's kind of demanding. (You'll also discover that about two-thirds of all the random blogs you'll see in the "next blog" mode are in Spanish, which I find strangely fascinating. ) Maybe those whose ...

I've been thinking a lot lately about the need for approval - why some people seem to have zero need and others have an unquenchable thirst for it. I admit I am closer the the latter description than the former. It's easy for a person to say that they don't care what other people think, and I've known a few who really walk that talk. People who wear outrageous clothes they find in dumpsters, and take part in role-playing games in the park, on one extreme - or who are complete sociopaths who have no conscience whatsover. But I think most people who say they don't care what other people think really do care - maybe more than the average person. That act of being defiantly bold and unique and living by some unspoken personal creed is in itself a seeking of approval for being defiantly bold and unique. For those of us who are somewhere in the "mainstream" (whatever that means anymore) there's no denying that we are seeking approval constantly. To get the a...

Since it is almost the New Year, it's appropos to point out new laws that will take effect on January 1, 2009. There are always a lot of handy new laws each year. The one that is getting the most attention now is the new rule against texting while driving. What's next? I suppose they will ban me from other things I currently enjoy while driving, like making waffles and quilting.Fascists.  But there's one new law that's getting overlooked so far - as of 1/1/09 it will be legal to inflict physical mayhem on people who walk slow in front of you - people known as "slow walkers." "It's about time!" you say, and indeed, you are correct. It's time to put an end to this scourge of humanity - these pokey butts who are wasting our precious time with their dawdling, wandering, and general cluelessness.  Let's make it clear this new law does not allow the corporal punishment on the clearly infirm. However, it is acceptable to say to a person with one...

Having recently become a person who spends a lot of time alone, and this being something that is new to me, I thought I would pass on some tips on the topic.  1. Some so-called experts will say you should not drink alone. Hogwash. A much more realistic and useful bit of advice is this: always have one glass of water to match each drink. This guarantees two things: lots of trips to the bathroom, which may result in some type of human interaction (Not IN the bathroom, ok? I don't swing that way) and you will remain semi-sober so you can drive yourself home - important when you are alone. No good to be slobbering all over some cab driver. You may want him to be your friend now, but you won't tomorrow. 2. Consider investing in a cushion. Carry it with your laptop. The chairs at Starbuck's are hard and if you really want to be the creepy guy who's always sitting there, you may find your butt goes numb. 3. Go ahead and wear the sweat pants. After all, you are alone. Who car...

Most of us have never seen a week in the world like this one. Here we are three weeks out from the most notable election of the post-war era - financial markets in free fall and there's no bottom in sight - and then the Norwegian Nobel Committee gives the 2008 peace prize to Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president. I mean, just one whipsaw after another. I can already hear the water cooler chatter across American - "Ahtissari? Who would have guessed?" So with all these monumental stories in the news, it makes sense that I am concerned today about bad drivers. You may have read that surveys unfailingly show that some 80% of people consider themselves to be a better than average driver. That's a classic delusion, unless our streets are like Lake Woebegone, where Garrison Keillor tells us "all the children are above average." Math is not my strong suit, but I don't think that's possible. In fact, we all think we are better than average drivers...

Let me be the first to admit that I am peevish. It's been a lifelong battle to avoid showing the world just how easily irritated I am. So it make sense that I have more than my fair share of pet peeves, in addition to my many peeves that remain feral. High on my list of peeves (and I do actually have a list, I keep it in my wallet) are people who forward emails with wild and false claims, never taking a moment to consider if the warning, amazement or indignation they're sharing has any ghost of validity. Being big on the whole truth thing, each time I get one these canards in my inbox I feel - you guessed it - peevish. It's not as if there aren't simple ways to check the reality of the latest outrageous news. There's snopes.com , for Pete's sake. How hard is that to use? Simply type in a few keywords from the latest lamebrain email you received, and chances are you'll know in 10 seconds whether to alert the nation or not. (But the more challenging question i...

I need a good book to read. I always feel out of sorts when I don't have a good book going, and right now I am in between reading gigs. I could feel this coming on as I finished Thirteen Moons . Really loved that one, and experience tells me that it's rare to find a great book to follow a great book. More likely you get a double-bogey after a birdie, which is something else I have experience with. Don't get me started. Thirteen Moons had everything I like in a novel - historical context, wisdom, a sense of humor, a character I could believe and care about, and just the right amount of sentimentality. (The New York Times review said this one by Frazier is a lot closer to Larry McMurtry than to Cormac McCarthy, which is just fine. Anything that falls on the spectrum between those two guys is going to be a good read for me.) I hated knowing that I would have to finish it. Now what? I periodically commit myself to the idea that I won't buy another book until I have read e...

People who chew ice should be deported. Maybe to Iceland, where they would find all the ice they want to chew until their freaking faces freeze and break off. There are a few times and places where the chewing of ice will be allowed: (a) you are 10 years old or so, or (b) you are at a county fair and have a snowcone, or (c) it's over 90 degrees and you are in the bleachers at a ball game, or (d) you just had a nice fountain Coke with crushed ice on a hot day, or (d) you are dying of dehydration and all the water is frozen Times and places where chewing ice is NOT allowed: (a) you are in a meeting room with lots of other people, one of whom is speaking to the group and everyone is supposed to be listening quietly (b) all other cases not described in a through d above (c) in general, anywhere within 500 yards of me, or I swear I will - I mean it! Don't make me come over there!! People who know me know I have a thing - and I mean a bad thing - about noisy eating, the smacking of t...

I feel I owe an apology to the dozens of readers...well, tens.....OK, any individual who may read here accidentally, for being more than usually spare in my offerings. Taking note that the topic category for this post is "whining and complaining," here's why. After about six months of work, today we are scheduled to launch the new website I have been working on for the City of Napa. I say scheduled, because we have scheduled to launch several other times and had to abort. Today I think it will happen. A few months ago when it was in the news that I would be re-making the City's website, some wisenheimer wrote to the Napa Valley Register something to the effect of "any teenager with a MySpace can make a website." True in some sense, but most teenager's MySpaces don't have 300+pages and hundreds of documents, and most importantly, teenagers don't have to coordinate, coerce and cajole several dozen other people to provide, and then approve, the con...

In the last week, I've heard about an old friend who's just had a big tumor taken out of his head, and another friend who is paralyzed with Guillen-Barre Syndrome (one of those afflictions you'd just as soon you'd never heard about.) These guys are both in the 40 to 45 years old range. And today there is a funeral for a local police officer who died from cancer at 39. It puts me in mind of those "storming the beach" scenes. There are always lots of troops making it through, but alongside others are falling, some wounded and some dead. Middle age seems to be that way. You keep trudging forward while the casualties mount up, wondering if there's a blood clot with your name on it out there waiting for you. With all the awareness we have of these everyday casualties, and knowing that there is inevitably some suffering just around the next corner, it's amazing that so many people can screw up the courage to keep getting out of bed everyday. And not only to...

The latest tally: not enough bees, WAY too many crows. You may have seen any number of news stories worrying over the decline of bees. No one has a definitive reason, but there is a problem they call "colony collapse disorder" that either is or isn't a serious problem, caused or not caused by pesticides, genetically modified crops, or malnutrition. Some people think the dwindling of the bees is caused by cell phones. In this scenario, the young worker bees fail to produce food for the hive because they spend all their time texting each other. Anyway, it's a big problem if the bees poop out, because that means no strawberries, unless we find some other way to get all the plants pollinated, which I'm sure we would do because who wants to live in a world without strawberries? So on the one hand, we have too few of something we really need - bees - and at least in my neighborhood, an enormous oversupply of something we could probably do without - crows. I don't k...

You would think that the fat kid would have liked every kind of candy, but it just wasn't true. And it seemed like there was a mandate that the Easter basket was filled with weird stuff, candy I never saw the other 364 days of the year. Peeps, for example. "What the &%#$ are Peeps?" I would ask myself, pawing through the polyester grass. Being willing to experiment, I took a bite of one of the Peeps, and learned that it is a candy product that is made of colored sugar and marshmallow and, after they are manufactured, placed in a drafty warehouse for 19 months to ensure they are fully stale before making their way to my Easter basket. Even with the the dismay that is the Peep clinging to the roof of my mouth, I was still able to shape words of horror at the sight of an even more appalling candy - Circus Peanuts. So atrocious as to have been included in the list of the worst at bad-candy.com. What torture is the Circus Peanut! From it's abhorrent shape and color, to...

I am worried about the fate of the great institution of the daily newspaper. That worry becomes panic, outrage, and complete flemesifation when my delivery is late. (Sorry, I couldn't think of a word that described my feelings so I had to make one up.) Not only is the paper business up against this new-fangled internet thing, but it's also up against the tendency to consume information at a higher level than the local. As the world gets smaller, we live regionally. Lots of people today don't care what's happening in the neighborhood until something bad happens, like a sex offender moves in next door, or even worse, a subdivision gets approved. So the daily newspaper isn't essential as it once was. I don't really need it at all. That is, until I don't have it. If I am up at 6, I can wait almost patiently until 7, but if that thing's not in the driveway at that point, God have mercy, my vengeance will not be assuaged. This, of course, is a learned behavio...