Sometimes I fear for my country...

...but then something comes along to remind me that there is always hope as long as our singers and storytellers still have a voice:

"Welcome back my friends / To the show that never ends.."

You might think that after a 10-month break I could do better for an opening line than a quote from Emerson, Lake & Palmer. But, "write what you know" and all that...

Anyhow, without further adieu I'm going to propose that we dive back into our usual topic, i.e. what's been amusing me lately. This week I'd have to go with: ranting tea-baggers who couldn't find a clue with a spotlight and a steamshovel. This bit in The Onion about a man "whose understanding of the Constitution derives not from a close reading of the document but from talk-show pundits, books by television personalities, and the limitless expanse of his own colorful imagination" is so dead on the money that the laughter it generates comes out sounding distinctly queasy.

The biggest problem in America today

Is it the war in Iraq? High gas prices? The effects of global warming? The continuing plague of the American League's designated hitter rule?

Some would argue -- and on any given day, I might agree -- that it's the steadily growing gap between rich and poor, a.k.a. income inequality. A new story published today by that bastion of left-wing thought the Wall Street Journal only bolsters this perception. As the rest of the nation simmers in a frying pan of rising food and gas prices, a sluggish economy and a wave of foreclosures, how's the other half -- er, 1% -- doing?

Better than ever. According to IRS data obtained by the WSJ, "the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation's adjusted gross income in two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929." At the same time, "the average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years."

In other words, if you get the sense that the rich are in fact getting richer while everyone else struggles to stay afloat, you are not a whiner engaging in class warfare, but rather an objective observer of a measurable phenomenon. The question now is, what are you going to do about it?

Strange days indeed

Today's headlines feel like an episode of "News of the Weird," even when they aren't trying to be. First, for the geek squad we'll include the thinnest notebook ever. (Too thin for a CD drive? Hmm...) Then we move to the cops pepper-spraying and arresting unruly sports fans... at a tennis match. And of course we also had the Dems struggling to play nice, while the Reeps fell into complete disarray. Meanwhile, California voters may be grouchy about any number of things, but they still love their celebrity guv. In the Dept. of Strange Bedfellows, we find the ACLU leaping to the defense of Sen. Larry Craig. And finally, it seems the problems we are experiencing with health care for humans are merely the tip of the iceberg.

Ah, but then there's the news you really care about (if you live in my household, anyway). Unfortunately, Sam Warburg's terrific run at the Australian Open came to an end yesterday as he fell 6-4, 7-6(4), 6-2 in a hard-fought match with the impressive Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Regardless, Sam's four straight wins will give him a nice bump in next week's rankings and a nice check to take home. A great way to start 2008!

Once upon a time...

...there was a kid from Northern California who grew up, got married, wrote a lot, had kids, wrote some more, worked in politics, wrote still more, published a dozen or so op-ed pieces, wrote an unpublished novel, quit politics, wrote music reviews and feature articles, took over the newspaper he'd been writing for, ran it to the end of the trail, went to work for a non-profit, wrote another unpublished novel and a hundred or so more music reviews, took over the music review Web site he'd been writing for, got promoted at the non-profit, wrote still more music reviews, left the non-profit after nine years to try working at a for-profit and tried really really hard to like it, wrote another novel, got laid off by the for-profit and was less than heartbroken, and finally said to himself:

"I need a blog."

Or something like that.

At the moment I'm occupying my "between jobs" days with a couple of different freelancing ventures, while staying open to the possibility of finding a communications director-type position in the non-profit world. Me and the corporate for-profit world, we were not what you'd call sympatico. It's not that I have a problem with capitalism, it's just that I don't seem to be very good at it, since the nagging little voice in my head keeps insisting that my work should have a purpose beyond further enriching major shareholders.

In the meantime, my ongoing music-writing gig with The Daily Vault is ridiculously fun, but for all its inherent joys, it remains limiting. I knew all along that at some point I would write about other things -- politics, baseball, parenting, and generally navigating the dizzying, ever-accelerating evolution of our modern world -- again; I just didn't know when or how or for what audience. My first insight into how I might approach it arose out of a conversation I had with my oldest son. "I used to write these kinds of essays a lot," I said, after he'd read and enjoyed one of my early-90s op-ed pieces, "but they don't really fit in anywhere but the op-ed pages, and I don't want to have to tie everything I write about into whatever the op-ed editor has on his mind that week." Thick as I can be at times, the obvious answer did eventually surface.

So here we are. I don't have the slightest idea where this is leading, but that's half the fun. The tank is full, and the open road awaits.