A Twilight Zone kind of heat

It wasn’t until I lived in the Southern California desert of the Coachella Valley during the summer that I experienced first hand what it was like to deal with ridiculously hot weather.

People from the Midwest, the Eastern Seaboard and the Deep South always pooh-pooh high temperatures in the West. They say, “But it’s a dry heat.”

As if low humidity heat is somehow cooler than humid heat. Well, maybe that’s true, I don’t know. I’ve been in both types of heat. I spent a couple of steamy summers in New England, and I can testify, they’re no treat. But whether it’s wet heat, or dry heat, they both suck if you ask me. To me, too hot is too hot, any way you slice it.

Long ago as a young reporter in Palm Springs when I first experienced the peak heat of a low desert summer, I noticed a few things I hadn’t seen before. People put towels over the steering wheels of their cars. They had to, or driving was out of the question, the steering wheels were too hot to handle. Just opening the door to get in a sun-baked car was a challenge without burning your hands.

It was about this time that I noticed upon walking out of a refrigerator like, overly air-conditioned office, and into stifling heat outside, that my room temperature eyeballs immediately sensed the oven-hot air. It was as if my eyeballs were an early warning system telling me that I should turn around and go back to where it was cool.

Palm Springs’ high heat outside and the extra cool inside most of its buildings made for an odd man-made mixture of temperature extremes. If someone were to repeatedly cross between indoors and outdoors throughout the day, their bodies would surely retreat into convulsions and their brains would short circuit into useless mush. It must have happened on occasion, since I noticed everybody pretty much stayed indoors when the sun outside was broiling everything into one large mirage.

Native Americans were the first to settle in the desert of Palm Springs. These natives understood the simple fact that during the summer, the desert floor of what would become known as the Coachella Valley, was just too hot for comfortable living.

These people didn’t have electricity to power yet-to-be-invented air conditioners, or anything else for that matter.

But they did know one thing. If they hiked up into the higher altitudes of nearby canyons where there were cool water springs, palm trees and cooler air, summer was a pleasant experience. So that’s what they did. It made perfect sense.

Then white men came and settled the valley, and decided that, by golly, even if it was ungodly hot in the summer, why they were just going to stay and tough it out. After all, it was only for a few months, and then the weather was great the rest of the year.

These first white settlers didn’t have electricity either. But they had swamp coolers that helped humidify and theoretically cool their living areas. If these had been reasonable people in tune with nature, they would have left in the summer like the local natives did. They must have been desperate, out of money, running from the law, gluttons for punishment or all of the above to decide to stay put for the desert summer.

But then technology marched on, in came air conditioning and the year round population of the valley grew. And before long just about every indoor space in the valley was cooled with electricity-sucking air conditioning units.

After getting my job at the local newspaper, I found a small apartment near downtown Palm Springs. I’d come from living near the ocean in San Diego, so desert living was new to me.

One very hot Sunday morning in early summer I had nothing to do. It was already viciously hot outside, so hot that one colleague described it as “nuclear torque.” Other local desert heat descriptors I'd heard included Hellmouth and Parallel Hell.

So I figured I’d stroll downtown and watch a movie where the air conditioning was sure to be better than the lame little wall mounted metal box in my apartment. The thing rattled and droned as it impersonated an air conditioner and only slightly cooled the air within five feet of it.

I walked out my door and was immediately hit in the face with the merciless heat of a blast furnace. As I started to walk, I realized something. Even though the sun was high on this Sunday and it was close to noon, there were no cars driving around to speak of, and no people could be seen anywhere.

But there was an eerie duet of sound wafting in the hot, still air. It was a combination of whirring cicadas trying to cool themselves, and the hum of myriad air conditioning units on at full throttle in every apartment, store or office building in the area. The abandoned streets in full daylight of staggering heat made it seem like there had been a nuclear blast that eliminated all life. For all I knew I was the only survivor of a post apocalyptic world.

Suddenly I imagine Rod Serling walking toward me on the sidewalk, looking cool as a cucumber in the hot sun, wearing a black suit and tie, and shiny black dress shoes. His hair is black, his face oddly pale. His bushy black eyebrows furl as he speaks to me in his inimitable clipped speech. It was a narrative style all his own. Hard as Jack Webb tried, he could never master Serling’s riveting delivery when Webb starred in and narrated Dragnet, that lovable, stupid old TV cop show, in which he played the wooden Sgt. Joe Friday. I quickly refocus on Serling, who begins a mellifluous monologue:

 “You unlock this door with the key of imagination,” he says. His tone is serious, edgy. He speaks with absolute conviction. “Beyond it is another dimension,” he continues. “A dimension of sound. A dimension of sight. A dimension of mind.” Serling, it is clear, is a messenger.

“Hi Rod,” I say, waving, hoping he’s up for Raiders of the Lost Arc in the dark cool confines of the downtown movie theater.

I don’t think he hears me.

“You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance,” he says. “Of things and ideas. You just crossed over into…The Twilight Zone.”

Serling then disappears in a blink. I pick up the pace of my stride along the abandoned, sun-scorched sidewalks of Palm Canyon Drive. I finally make it to the theatre. I’m thirsty and soaked through with sweat. I find a seat in the half empty, refrigerated, popcorn-infused air of the darkened theater. My wet clothes soon turn clammy and cold as the movie starts. I’m still in…the twilight zone.

I learned a few things from living in that desert during the summer. I didn’t learn them from Rod Serling, but from trial and error. I learned that trying to sleep with poor air conditioning is an exercise in suffering. I learned it meant lying awake, uncomfortable, amid hot air that yielded sweat-dampened sheets and glistening heat at the base of my neck. I learned that electric fans could move the hot air of a room around, but they never managed to make it any cooler.

I eventually moved out of the desert and to California’s Central Valley. I bought a house there. The summers, while not offering as many mega-hot days as the desert, would typically feature about 10 days of triple-digit, stifling weather.

The house I bought was a no-frills, 1,000 square foot post-World War II stucco rectangle with a fireplace and detached garage. It had no insulation in its walls and the old double-hung windows let in plenty of air and sound from outside. Not only did this house not have any insulation, it had no air conditioning whatsoever.

So what we found out upon spending what turned out to be 12 consecutive summers in this house without air conditioning, was that on hot days, it managed to make the air inside even hotter than the air outside.

With its stucco shell, the house on hot days became an oven, or an externally heated pottery kiln, soaking in all the outside heat and efficiently radiating it inward into its rooms. Sleeping required wet dishrags on the forehead and a couple of electric fans at full blast.

Just like in the desert, we spent hot weekend days in the air conditioning of a movie theater or a mall.

If we didn’t get out of the house in the heat, we would slow cook like pork butts in a covered barbecue. Within a few hours we became motionless, knocked out. Like fully barbecued meat, a fork could be stuck in us, and it would indicate that we were done.

Eventually we improved the house with air conditioning and new windows. And when I look back at all those years without AC, I can hardly believe that at some point we weren’t found face down in the house, dead of heat stroke.

Once a friend had a backyard birthday party on one of the hottest days in memory for the area, probably around 110. I was tired of making small talk and sweating in the insufferable heat.

I saw a big tub of ice water cooling cans of beer. So I did what I needed to do. I stepped into the cold water with both bare feet and stood in the tub's icy water. And it did the trick. I may have looked idiotic standing in the tub of ice water meant for beer. But I didn’t care. I cooled off. I beat the heat, more than happy that I found a way to do it.

       It’s important to beat the heat when it’s just too hot outside. Yes, I know, air conditioning is bad for the environment, blah blah blah. But I like that it can beat the heat. And every time it’s mercilessly hot outside, and there’s somewhere to go with good air conditioning, I’m going there. Every time. Too much heat is bad for us. It dehydrates us. It keeps us from sleeping well. It scrambles our brains.

Just listen to what Rod Serling says next time you’re suffering in a heat wave and you see him. And there’s nobody around anywhere. He’ll tell you what’s going on.

Mark Eric Larson has written two books of essays, "The NERVE...of Some People's Kids," and "Don't Force it, Get a Bigger Hammer. To read, visit: 
http://www.scribd.com/Mark%20Eric%20Larson/shelf

Camping? Uh....no

When I was a kid, I was like most kids. The idea of camping sounded exotic and full of adventure. The smell of the pines, the campfire smoke, the sleeping outside, it was guaranteed fun.  I wanted to experience the cattle drive camping I’d read about, seen in movies and TV shows. I wanted to hear the cows mooing on the cattle drive. At the end of the hot, dusty trail, I wanted to get some grub from Cookie then sit by the fire and chow down on sloppy good stew and biscuits served on tin plates. I wanted to slurp coffee from a tin cup. Those movie cowboys carried their bedrolls tied up behind their saddles. But you never got a feel for how it might be sleeping on hard dirt night after night in a couple of smelly rolled up blankets.

         The first big camping experience I remember was when I was 8 or 9. It was a backpack hike into the glacier smoothed granite outcroppings, wind-bent pines and scrub brush of Desolation Valley, in the Sierra Nevada mountains southwest of Lake Tahoe.

         I was with my parents and Uncle Roger. We climbed a rocky trail most of the day and finally made it to a glacier lake and set up camp. There weren’t any other people around the small lake, which sat below two converging, tall ridges. Thin stands of pines were near the shore.

         It was quiet up there where we camped, a peaceful experience of being in the middle of nature, away from people and the constant hum of civilization. Light breezes filled our senses with the bracing fragrance of pine trees. The earth was pungent with moss and lichen-clad granite near the ice cold and clear water’s edge. The trees offered carpets of dead brown pine needles.

         The long hike and cool, thin air made us hungry. We ate well and only a couple hours after dark, crawled into our bags to enjoy dreamless, deep sleep. When dawn came, the site remained still and quiet. Icy cold air slowed our progress in getting out of our bags to build a fire and make breakfast.

         A few years later when I was a young teen I worked on a summer resort on Lake Tahoe’s west shore that had a campground, beach and marina. It was only a few miles as the crow flies from  Desolation Valley. This resort campground was like many others along the shores of Lake Tahoe: It had showers and bathrooms and garbage dumpsters.

          I worked on the resort’s maintenance crew, and one of my jobs included keeping the campground showers and toilets in running order. My partner on jobs was Cory, a chipper old retired fireman with a big belly and red bulbous nose rivaling those of WC Fields or Karl Malden. Like WC Fields, Cory was a fan of alcohol. He liked to laugh, but was nowhere near the comedic barb-master Fields was. But like Fields, Cory tended to grumble about the things in life that pissed him off. Like his adult son.

         “Thinks the world owes him a livin’,” he’d mutter.  Cory did brighten at female resort goers walking around in bikinis. “Look at that bellybutton sandwich!” he’d chortle. “Ann (his wife) always says ‘Look, but don’t touch!’”

         One time we entered the women’s campground restroom to fix a flooded toilet. It had a trout’s head in its tank, and maliciously bent flushing hardware. That was my first look at what women write on public bathroom walls in campgrounds. Or at least the female composed graffiti at that campground. To my surprise, the messages were much nastier than anything I’d read in any men’s public restroom. By a long shot.        

         While working at the resort, I never understood how people could be happy setting up their campsite next to a dumpster or the restrooms. When the campground was full, which was all the time, people just dealt with having their campsite in those less than ideal locations, maybe stringing up a tarp to give separation. Yes, there were pine trees dotting the campground, but to me, this wasn’t real camping. It was more like a tent city, with campsites set up side by side like a mobile home park.

          I figured the whole idea of these organized campgrounds was to bring civilization to a well trampled version of the wilds. This approach seems to do the trick for the countless people who stay at campgrounds. And some are much better than others. They’re near or are in the middle of wilderness. Some of these are off of remote roads deep in the woods, and are too far off the beaten path to draw crowds.

         But the high-traffic campgrounds work well for those who don’t want to give up too many amenities while being in a less threatening version of the wilds. They figure being near any live pine trees makes for a perfectly fine alpine experience. Even if the trees have been peed upon by a million dogs. Even if the bathrooms are hygiene free, the showers don’t have hot water, and the dumpsters bring furry flies and stench to the campground experience. That’s their version of roughing it, and they’re good with it.

         Many of these campers pack not only camping gear, but many of the comforts of home. They haul and unload mountains of gear: tents, air mattresses, sleeping bags, elaborate cookstoves, mosquito nets, pots, pans, plates, silverware, tables, lawn chairs, beach chairs, lanterns, radios and even TVs.

         I always wondered, if comfort is the big goal, why leave home at all? Just pitch a tent in the back yard if you yearn to sleep outside under the stars. Think of all the hassle saved by not having to load, unload and set up tons of gear. You might not be close to a beach or a lake if you camp in the back yard, but then it’s not likely you’ll smell a dumpster with rotting fish heads in it or the ripe aura of public toilets wafting into your dirt-caked nostrils.

         Through my college years, camping became less and less of a good idea to me. Camping during those years with minimal gear, as in a single sleeping bag, I realized a few things. Such as, sleeping on the hard ground really sucks. And having to get out of a warm sleeping bag in the freezing air to go pee isn’t so great. You’re lying there in the pre-dawn frigid air, your face, or maybe just your nose, is the only part of you that’s sampling how very cold the air outside is. Otherwise you’re toasty warm. But there’s one problem. You’ve gotta pee really bad. You know getting up out of your warm bag, you’re gonna freeze your ass off as you make a beeline to wherever you’re going to pee. So you think about waiting til it warms up. But, no, you really gotta go. So you get up and bear the cold. It’s worth it for the relief, but still, you never forget how you shivered all the way.

         And getting dirty from head to toe from moving around in the dirt and dust of most campsites, isn’t fun at all. Having a stiff neck and achy back from sleeping on an unforgiving, hard surface isn’t so great. Making freeze dried food with boiled water is overrated, no matter how great the pictures on the packaging make it look. So camping to me became a first hand experience of being a prairie pioneer of yore, sleeping under the stars after days on end of getting rudely jolted while riding in your Conestoga Wagon across an endless prairie. At the end of the day, you were filthy dirty, starving, with a sore ass and a wrenched back.

         Back in those days, or now, camping is just an exercise in discomfort and inconvenience. It’s messy. Dirt becomes something you wear. Unless the camp is stocked with gourmet fare, the food is usually carb-heavy and produces enough smelly ass gas to fumigate a circus tent. Still, if booze is included in the camp supplies, which it usually is, even bad camp food is tolerable. I’ve learned that the intake of booze helps smooth over a lot of the annoying rough spots of camping. And I’d venture to guess that for some campers, getting shit-faced is the most feverishly anticipated part of camping. So that’s what they do. This is why at campgrounds, one often hears cackling laughter and occasional whoops of “Yeeeee-Haah!” into the late night hours.

         A few years ago my old college roommate suggested we camp out and snorkel on the northern end of  Santa Catalina Island. This sparsely populated island made famous in song many many years ago by the Four Preps is a mountainous north/south stretch of jagged cliffs, rocky deserts, and pockets of lush grasslands. It juts out of the Pacific Ocean 26 miles offshore of Southern California.

         This trip meant camping at a campground I’d stayed at a couple of times several years earlier. It had a waterfront view, and a nearby general store and restrooms, so it wasn’t exactly roughing it. At that point, I had no desire to rough it in any way, so I said I’d go.

         Several years earlier on a hiking trip across the island, I camped in its barren interior on an exposed high desert-like plateau. The site offered a westward view down a wide canyon on one side. An eastward gaze was rewarded with a big view down a steep grassy slope that dropped to a panorama of the deep blue Pacific below. While that had been more the pure camping experience in the wild, the night spent there on hard ground in the company of many sharp little rocks had been a little unnerving.

         Catalina at the time had wild buffalo wandering around the island, grazing wherever they wanted. It was pre-dawn when I heard heavy hooves thumping the hard earth nearby. I sensed something very big, something that was breathing, was very close. I looked up and saw a buffalo sniffing around, its massive furry brown head lowered. Looking up at it from the ground, this animal seemed twice as big as it really was. Which was still pretty damn big.  I was happy to see this buffalo wasn’t riled up, just mildly curious. If he was annoyed he could have easily stomped and butted the crap out of me. But to my relief, he lost interest and meandered off.

         That was my second camping encounter with sniff-happy wildlife investigating campground scents. A year or so earlier I was in the wilds of Northern Arizona with two buddies on a camping and fishing trip.

         I slept near our burned out campfire ring only to be awakened in the dim pre-dawn light by a clinking sound and the incredible, unmistakable stench of a skunk. The other two guys were sleeping in a tent a few yards away and were oblivious. I looked up to see Pepe Le Pew sniffing some empty cans about 25 feet away. He seriously reeked like he’d already sprayed his calling card somewhere close. He waddled directly toward me in my sleeping bag, sniffing the ground, tail up.

         I’d heard that if a skunk sprays you, the only thing to do is bury whatever clothes get hit. So while this skunk is nosing his way toward me, my first thought is, just don’t scare him. My heart thumps harder as I wonder when he's finally going to look up to see me sitting up in my sleeping bag looking at him. He finally sees me, and quickly scampers off. Oh, what a relief that was.

         On another trip, curious wild animals weren’t a problem. Some college buddies and I hiked to the bottom of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. There was a campground up a way from the river, but we broke the rules and set up our own site on flat rocks and sand right on the Colorado River. The sound of the flowing water, the bracing cool air, and the star-lit sky dome above the canyon walls on each side made for the best camping experience I’ve ever had. Other than my buddies, it was people-free. It was like the universe saying, “You want to camp? This is camping.”

         Taking the shuttle boat out to Catalina, my buddy generously provided all the gear we’d need: Two one-man tents, a huge cooler stocked with steaks and beer and full bar, a gas cook stove, food, plates and cups, folding chairs. Once we got to Two Harbors we went to our site perched above an inlet’s calm waters.

         But this is a high traffic campsite. It and every other site in the campground has been camped on thousands of times. A large group was camping adjacent to us, with a monster tent and enough gear to make it look like a small circus. There was straw where I first started to set up my tent. I quickly discovered it covered up some fresh shit a cat likely deposited there and disguised under a veil of straw.

         The smell was overwhelming, and I immediately wondered why I agreed to camp here again. I also wondered how many people and/or animals had shit or pissed on or around this site over the years. If I knew that stat, I probably would have taken my sleeping bag and hiked into the backcountry to camp, welcoming any and all buffalo that might wander by to say hi.

         After the shit was cleared away, I found a level spot on hard packed ground where no shit could be deposited and got my tent set up. After we ate and drank a bit to take the edge off, it was time to retire to the tents. I got in my tent only to discover two things: The pad for my sleeping bag didn’t really keep the hard ground from feeling like a long sharp rock under me.  And the air in the stinky little tent was ridiculously hot and still, making it easy to sweat, but well nigh impossible to snooze comfortably.

         The only thing to do was lie still in the stifling heat, in hopes of falling asleep. I woke in the night to a flashlight beam’s silhouette of a stray cat strolling through the campsite, a creepy, distorted Halloween-like view through the tent material that made me wonder once again, why I had agreed to this trip. The cat was probably looking for snacks and some nice straw to decorate.

         The next morning, a little bit hung-over, I walked over to the camp’s men’s restroom. Some of the toilets were backed up, making for a noxious stench as unshaven, dirty men campers waited in line to shave, shower, or take a shit or a piss. This activity took place in stalls that made a tipped over, overflowing Port-a-Potty in the hot sun smell like a whiff of spring flowers.

         Once I finally got out of that noxious cauldron of human waste -- after a long period of holding my nose and trying not to vomit -- I wondered if I hadn’t contracted some sort of deadly infectious disease. You know, something that might cause bone rattling phlegm-rich coughing jags or patches of skin to boil up into pizza-like pus craters.

         Upon surviving that camping trip without getting any symptoms of the Black Plague, I decided I was done with camping. And looking back, I think it was the right decision. Especially after hearing the story of a co-worker who went on a camping trip in Oregon on her honeymoon with her new groom and their dog. They were in the tent ready to go to sleep when the dog, a basset hound, started shaking in mortal fear. They didn’t know why until they flicked on their flashlight to survey the darkness outside. Oops, they saw the eyes and outline of a mountain lion about 20 yards from the tent. Terrified, they didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t sleep. They ended up waiting out their hostage situation until first light, when they burst out of their tent, tore it down, grabbed what they could, and ran back down the trail with the dog, hearts pounding.

         They made it. But it’s a good bet they don’t like camping in the wild so much anymore.

         And a woman friend told me of camping with her boyfriend in a tent somewhere in the wilderness when they heard a bear going through their campsite. The boyfriend decided he knew what he’d do, he’d scare the bear away by banging some pots and pans together. Surely that would scare the obnoxious Mr. Bear away.
        Well, no. The bear reared up on its hind legs at the offending sound and let out a murderous roar. This caused the boyfriend to beat a hasty retreat back into the tent, happy to wait for the not so compliant bear to go away.

          I figure the pioneers that made their way across the prairies of this country in search of a place to settle down, really didn’t have a way out of their myriad discomforts. They had to suffer through the inconveniences of camping out night after night with only the barest of essentials. They didn’t have bug spray, hot showers, clean comfortable beds, and kitchenettes while on their overnights. No, they had to rough it, recovering from their bone jarring days sitting in or on their Conestoga Wagons. They had no choice but to deal with clouds of horseflies and mosquitoes, and relentless methane generating, air befouling daily menu specials -- like pork and beans – every night.

         But then came modern times with all the comforts we can enjoy while traveling and staying overnight at places away from home. So we can choose to rough it by going camping, trying to bring as many creature comforts from civilization as our cars, trucks and/or trailers can haul. Or we can choose not to.

         I choose the latter. No, getting filthy dirty, spending the night in stinky hot tents, getting a stiff neck, wrenched back or both, freezing, trying to keep cool in oppressive heat, eating freeze-dried food, taking cold showers in public filth infested stalls, holding back a furious need to pee, taking shits in campground public toilets that emit mutant stink, just doesn’t work for me.

         I like to hike, and bike and kayak, but I now make sure I go on day excursions only. Instead of camping, I plan for my outdoor forays into nature to end in our modern, amenities-rich world. Call me crazy, but after a strenuous, satisfying hike, bike ride, or kayak trip, I’ll drive home, to a friend’s place or a local motel so I can enjoy a hot shower, good food, and a firm bed with clean sheets and blankets. It means a roof overhead, not smelly canvas or nylon. The bed will likely be just as comfortable as any cushioned sleeping bag.  And even if it’s Bob and Stella’s Free Cable Motor Lodge and it has a dirty carpet with airborne scents you figure are a mélange of mold and bleach, that’s OK.

         At least a great night’s sleep is a good bet even at a cheap motel, provided the walls aren’t too thin. There, with the creepy artwork of sad-eyed puppies on the far wall dimly lit by the old TV casting an orange-ish hue over other colors the ancient set fails to produce, you don’t mind.

         Pleasantly tired from your day in nature, you don’t mind watching the local weatherman with the blinking tie and hairpiece give his goofy maniac forecast. You’re showered, fed and comfortable on the bed. Tonight, you won’t have any chance encounters with feral cats, skunks, buffalo, mountain lions or bears wanting to see what’s new for snacks. You won’t sweat, you won't freeze. No, you’ll sleep like a baby.

         So if you decide to just say no to camping, you won’t be sorry. Roughing it can be fun. But too much roughing it, at some point, needs to be left to our hardy ancestors who never knew the joys of hot and cold running water, heating and air conditioning, and toilets that magically flush the stink away.

         Camping? Uh…no.

This essay is dedicated to Roger Franzen, my uncle, who brought joy and magic to my childhood.

Mark Eric Larson has written two books of essays, "The NERVE...of Some People's Kids," and "Don't Force it, Get a Bigger Hammer. To read, visit: 
http://www.scribd.com/Mark%20Eric%20Larson/shelf

Keeping the shit away from the fan

Citizen One: Don’t worry about all the rain and the chance that there’s going to be a big flood. Relax. It’ll be fine.

Citizen Two: I can’t, I worry. I don’t think they’re letting enough water out through the dam.

Citizen One: Don’t worry. Cross that bridge when you come to it.

Citizen Two: What if the water overload spills over the dam and helps the river blow out the bridges and levees? Then what?

Citizen One: Start filling sandbags. Fast.

       When trouble is brewing it would be great if we could hear a booming voice from the sky repeating what that TV mechanic used to say in some long bygone commercial advising regular oil changes: “You can pay me now, or pay me later.”

       We tend to pay later, and if we aren’t lucky, we then have to pay the highest price. We do it all the time. Pay the big price. We never learn that with a little foresight, we don’t have to. But it’s pretty plain to see our preferred comfortable position is to keep our heads firmly planted in the sand.      

       Many years ago I had a washing machine that screeched increasingly louder as it seemed to be throwing grease onto clothes it was supposed to be washing. We ignored it and kept using it, not wanting to pay for repairs or possibly a new washer. Both of those scenarios meant spending money that was already tight. Ignoring the screeching worked best for us.

       Then one day while in the back yard I could hear the washing machine wailing in what seemed to be an otherworldly desperate pleading from an ailing machine, as if it were being slowly and painfully drained of life, and wanted some relief.

       Only then did I realize, wow, that thing is really messed up. Better get it fixed. Through good fortune I found out it would be under warranty for another week or so, and its repairs were done for free. We could have done this when the machine first started screeching, but…. we didn’t.

       Another time from the days of yore, the brakes on my car were getting increasingly bad. I’d pump the pedal to get a little more pressure, and it seemed to work every time. But because of that, I never made a mental note that I needed to fix the brakes. But one early morning, the brakes failed to stop me. I coasted into an intersection, right through a red light, while madly pumping the brake pedal.

       Luckily, it was so early in the morning, there were no other cars, and nothing happened. But I realized then I could have been in big trouble if there had been cars crossing through. Only then, after what could have been a major crash, did I go get the brakes fixed.

       Once, while an ex was being unfaithful, I vaguely knew something was amiss, but chose to ignore what were very clear signs. Upon an eventual confrontation, it all blew up and we went our separate ways. Even though the signs were visible for several months, on some level I decided to ignore them. As if ignoring them meant they couldn’t mean anything.

       This denial, conscious or not, happens repeatedly in the human experience, from the microcosm of individuals and their daily interactions, to whole countries confronted with problems that cause death, injury, property loss, widespread financial disasters, or other chaotic events.

       So while we in the United States may have sensed the economy was running too hot in 2008, and home loans were being handed out for practically nothing, most of us preferred to look instead at the bright side. We were happy with money being made all around in the booming economy. How could we worry about a slump? We didn’t want to go there.

       The sub-prime home mortgage debacle, which was clearly evident as a growing problem for months, wasn’t faced front and center until it came to the brink of toppling the U.S. economy. Only panic economic stabilizing measures by the government averted a total meltdown. But the problem still lingers with a crippling, longstanding double dip-recession that has the economy staggering like a punch-drunk fighter.

       Terrorist activities against us were on the rise prior to 9-11, and the general feeling coming from somewhere was that we should be ready for a big attack that could happen any day somewhere. We didn’t know when, or what it would be. So what could we do? Worry? No, we just went on with our lives and hoped for the best.

       Then 9-11 happened. And, once again, after disaster struck hard, the government acknowledged the problem: Its intelligence system failed. And for the country’s future health, it needed to be fixed.

       A few decades ago, governments all over the globe realized all the available landfills were just about filled up with trash. So only then, after years of evidence that it was a problem that wouldn’t be going away until it was dealt with, came the panicky realization that this problem suddenly had to be solved for a simple reason:  There was no place to put future trash. The answer came with big recycling programs to divert the massive inefficient waste flows, and globally, cultures tuned in to the necessity and common sense of recycling.

       Regulators in the U.S. didn’t enforce safety rules for offshore oil rigs, or natural gas pipelines. Then, lo and behold, the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico happened from a poorly maintained rig. And a neighborhood in San Bruno, California blew up because an old pipeline that should have been repaired or replaced, leaked gas.

       Only after the mayhem of these disasters causing death, destruction and ecological ruin were moves made to prevent more of this stuff happening in the future.

       But not before, when the disasters would likely have been averted.

       In all of these cases, follow-up investigations show that signs of a potential disaster were clear for anybody to see if they’d bothered to look. Then come the cliché conclusions that “mistakes were made” and corrective actions are pursued.

       Still, we know that to take the needed corrective measures to turn away or minimize the mayhem of a disaster, it is inconvenient, costly and time consuming. And many times, the unwillingness or inability to pay the price for preventive measures is the sticking point. If prevention costs eat into profits, which they inevitably will, those actions are easy to ignore.

        Now an energy crisis looms for the United States bigger than any it has so far experienced. Not enough future oil supplies are lined up, and competition for energy of all kinds has become hot and heavy from China, the emerging giant of the East. Like it or not, we will continue to be oil dependent until the gasoline engine is no longer driving cars. That doesn’t look to be changing any time soon, as gasoline powered cars are continuing to be built and bought globally.

       Right now, all the signs are clear to see. We need to develop much more sources of affordable energy for our future. Or?

       Or, there will be an energy crisis hitting our country. History has shown we have been very resourceful in responding to the ill effects of big crises of all kinds. But at some point, one wonders, when will we wait too long to make an effective correction to a vast, critical problem that causes widespread chaos?

       If we keep on the same path of blissful denial when foreboding signs appear, we are our own worst enemy. We need to wake up to what’s going on around us. If we do, just like the TV mechanic used to say, we can pay now or pay later. Now is affordable, later will surely be very expensive.

       We need to listen to the washing machine when it screams out for relief, then fix it. We need to repair the bad brakes when they continually show signs of giving out. We need to confront those who break agreements or the law and in doing so, hurt people and nature.       

       It’s not popular to note and heed clear-cut warnings from unmistakable signs that point to a future disaster, by making early corrections.

       But if we stand by and do nothing and let harmful situations take hold, we may be unable to survive the flying load of doo-doo after it hits the fan. 


Mark Eric Larson has written two books of essays, "The NERVE...of Some People's Kids," and "Don't Force it, Get a Bigger Hammer. To read, visit: 
http://www.scribd.com/Mark%20Eric%20Larson/shelf

Self help made easy

       Self-help books are everywhere, but let’s face it, if we’re being truthful here, they’re a total waste of money, a total waste of time. They take several hundred pages, repetitively explaining their message, which, really, can be easily summarized on one page.

       Self-help books are just a moneymaking genre for publishers, dressed up to look like something that will help us, the behaviorally afflicted, to curb our bad habits. Publishers and self-help authors know that if their oh so insightful solutions are padded in page upon page of repetitive hash that is long enough to be bound into a book with a pretty cover, and given an eye-catching title, such as Your Clutter Free Life; voila, book sales!

       Publishers’ data tells them people with nagging negative behavioral hang-ups are going to buy these books. Publishers don’t care if these self-help books work or not. They just want the look and feel of the book to convince people with hang-ups that they'll rid themselves of the nasty behavior -- if they buy the book. 

       But let's be honest here. We who buy self-help books aren’t as interested in solving our problem as we are in looking like we are working on solving our problem. We figure if we buy a book aimed at stopping our binge drinking, or out of control gambling, or constant use of overly blue language, and leave it on a table where it is easily seen by friends and family, they will think, “Hey, Bob’s actually doing something about his problem. Good for Bob!” 

       Problem is, after we the afflicted buy the self-help book, we  read a chapter or maybe two. But then we put it down and forget about it as soon as we realize solving our problem won’t be easy. We figure we have a very complicated, seemingly impossible problem to solve. We're not so keen on the fact that it will take fortitude and discipline to beat this thing. That we will actually have to quit an addiction, and/or comfortable habit that maybe we don't think is so bad to have after all. We sense that signing up for a routine of rigorous discipline that will kill our bad habit, for the most part, is something we can’t be bothered with. It's just too much. We know deep down we’re not that interested in improving ourselves. We think not having a bad habit or two would be great and all, but having them isn't the end of the world, either. After all, we are who we are, and if others don’t like us, flaws and all, that’s their problem! 
     And so our behavioral hang up, whatever it is – always being late, living in ever encroaching clutter, getting into ever more debt, etc., continues on. And our self-help book gets abandoned and takes on its new role of collecting dust. Until the time comes to donate it along with our old unwanted and unread books to whoever will take them. Absent any takers, we dump the clutter-causing books into the recycling bin as part of an inspired spring cleaning.

       So if we buy into the notion that self-help books are a waste of money, where do we go for behavioral help? Well, first we promise to never buy a self-help book promising to free us from our bad habits! We know they just don’t work.

       So, should we seek counseling to cure ourselves of our nagging problems? 
       Nah, who has the time for that? Yakkety yak yak yak. That doesn’t work either.

       Still, we want a quick fix to our nagging little behavioral issues. So in the spirit of supplying what the self-help market wants, what follows are cheaper and quicker fixes than those self-help books described above as nothing but deceptive sales pitches aimed at separating you from your money.

       You know, comforting little self-help titles like: Conquering  Clownphobia, or No More Spontaneous Dancing: Your Path to Freedom, or the wildly popular, Clutter Rules No More.

       OK, let’s just cut to the chase, amigos. 

       So, your house is cluttered? You don't like it? Here’s what you do: Rent a truck with a large enclosed bed. Then go through your house and throw into the truck bed all the items that are cluttering up your house. Drive the truck to a goodwill store. Unload the truck. Drive the truck back to the rental store. Go home. No more clutter. End of clutter problem.

       Next?

       So you’re fat or edging ever closer to morbid obesity? Don't want to be that way?  Well then, here's what you do: Eat healthy food in small portions, and exercise every day.

       Next?

       Always late? Don't like always being late? Here’s what you do: Get a watch that keeps accurate time. Now, keep looking at it so you always know about what time it is. If you have an appointment, figure out how much time it will take you to get there. Maybe add a few minutes to take into account any unexpected delays. Then, subtract that time from your appointment time. So if your appointment is at 4 and it takes you a half hour to get there, make sure and leave at 3:30. You must keep watching your watch so you leave on time. If you can’t keep an eye on the time and leave for appointments on time, you will always be late, nothing can be done for you. But if you can, you’ll be on time almost every time.
     Next?

     Can’t get organized? Figure out the tasks you need to accomplish. Then figure out what you need to do to finish each task. Prioritize the tasks with the most important one at the top of the list. Then, one at a time, do the tasks. Don’t put them off. Do them.

     Next?

     Procrastination a problem? This is just a matter of doing tasks now, and not putting them off. As stated above, don’t put them off, do them. If you put them off, you’re shying away from the problem, and there’s nobody that can change that but you. Deal with it.

     Problem with debt? Getting out of debt is something everybody has to do at some point. All it amounts to is paying off what you owe in monthly increments, until you don’t owe any more money. This isn’t easy, but this is all you have to do. Now, once you’re out of debt and you don’t want to get in any more out of control debt, there are a couple things you can do. If you can’t control the use of your credit cards because you’re a compulsive spender of money you don’t have, you simply shouldn’t use credit cards. Cut ‘em up and only buy stuff with cash. Otherwise you’re headed for bankruptcy.

       But if you do have some self-discipline, staying out of debt is simple. Don’t use your credit card unless you have the money to cover the purchase. And when you get the bill, pay it off immediately. That way, no interest accrues. Simple. The idea here is to only buy what you have the money to pay for. If you can’t pay off the bill when it comes, you’re in over your head because of your own lack of discipline.

       Next?

       If you happen to be an alcoholic, drug addict, compulsive gambler or any other kind of addict, here’s the scoop: Don’t drink alcohol, take drugs or gamble, or do the addictive behavior you have.

       Next?

       Now it’s true, the above-suggested solutions to behavioral problems may seem oversimplified. Not so. They all point to the fact that it’s up to us to face our bad habits, stop them, and replace them with good habits. So, don’t cause clutter, be neat. Don’t gamble with money, make gentleman bets. Don’t get into debt, just quit spending money you don’t have.

       It’s all easy on paper. However, this stuff really is tough to do. 

       Yes, curing ourselves of bad habits requires some serious inner work. That in itself is unsettling. We're forced to ask ourselves: Do I really want to improve myself this badly? I mean, the things it requires seem kind of Spartan, you know? What ever happened to enjoying life? 
      So we come to the same conclusion we would if we had paid for and not completely read a self-help book: Me, do the hellishly hard work needed to stop a bad habit? Nah!


Mark Eric Larson has written two books of essays, "The NERVE...of Some People's Kids," and "Don't Force it, Get a Bigger Hammer. To read, visit: 
http://www.scribd.com/Mark%20Eric%20Larson/shelf

Keepers of the flame

Neil Young, among the great singer songwriters of our time, was on the stage of the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and told about the old guitar he held. Back in the early 70s when he was about to record Harvest, his breakthrough solo album, Young asked a friend in Nashville to find a guitar for him. The friend found a guitar, all right, the one that had been played by country music legend Hank Williams. It had a leather strap hanging down from the top of the neck below the tuning pegs. Young played it on Harvest and over the years, has played it along with his other choice guitars. He told of how the well-used instrument was once Williams’, and that after his time with it, somebody else would have it to play. He never talked of Hank Williams or of himself as owners of the guitar. He talked of it as if he and Williams were just its well known keepers because they both liked the sound it brought to their playing.

During that brief chat to the crowd and the audience watching the filmed documentary “Heart of Gold,” Neil Young’s thoughts were a reminder of how fleeting ownership really is. We may be fortunate enough to have temporary rights to things. We may tell ourselves we own a car, a house, a dog, a cat, all of our “stuff” that we use at our convenience. Sure, we may own these things in a legal sense. But we won’t own them forever. We will die, and those things will either be tossed or bought by someone, as the next round of thing keepers takes our place in the fluid ways of the universe. Nope, nothing is forever, and that’s a good thing. Everyone and everything has a birth, a life and a death, a space in time of togetherness between people, their environments and “things,” then, eventually, a parting of ways. When those windows of time end for whatever reason, including death, we sometimes are able to say goodbye, sometimes not. When the time comes, Neil Young and that magic music box once played by Hank Williams, will go their separate ways. The guitar may sit on a shelf and collect dust until it turns to dust itself. Or it will get a new life with another guitar player who will also play it for a time. That cycle will continue for the great old guitar until it can be played no more.

The ultimate cure for boredom

We’ve all heard of and seen footage of those adventurers that scale Mt. Everest, or any of the other mega mountain peaks around the world. “Because it’s there,” is the stock answer to why these people do these sorts of things. But it’s a reasonable question to ask. Why risk the very real possibility of losing your pulse on an adventure? Why do they want to trek to one or both of the poles? Why is it fun to risk drowning, or freezing to death scuba diving under the polar ice cap, or falling off a cliff? Why sign up for this stuff?

Peter Hillary is the son of the famed New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary, who along with his sherpa was the first to reach the peak of Mount Everest back in the 50s. The younger Hillary recently told a local audience of his life as the son of a famous mountain climber. Peter followed in his dad’s footsteps and managed to do him one better on Everest. He’s made it to the top of the thing and back not once, but twice. That’s not to mention hiking Antarctica on foot to the South Pole while pulling a ridiculously heavy sled of his supplies. He made the descent of K2, another famous monster mountain peak, during a storm. He’s fed pods of sharks.

So it’s clear, putting himself into extreme situations is in Peter Hillary’s blood. It’s a trait that calls upon him to find out for himself if he’s got the stuff to survive the nastiest of conditions that come into play while trying to reach life-threatening destinations. These are adventures most of us can’t imagine doing.

Hillary recalled scaling Everest and using his ice pick to gouge out a narrow shelf from the face of a sheer ice wall. That enabled him to get a toehold on the ice so he could sleep, suspended, upright in a sleeping bag. He talked of preparing soup to heat up while parked on the ice wall, and sharing the soup in the dark with his hiking buddy. It’s pitch black, freezing, he has to try to sleep, and try not to think about the fact that there’s an endless abyss below which means certain death if his tie lines come loose and he falls into it. And onto something unforgivingly hard at the end of the fall.

Another time, during the days-long trudge through the flat white cold of Antarctica, he was wracked with stifling boredom. To keep from turning into a blubbering maniac, he forced himself to think of family and missed loved ones. It worked.

An amiable, quick to joke, self-effacing guy in his 50s, Hillary doesn’t give the impression he does what he does to boost his ego and brag about what a manly man he is. It seems like he does it as an inner journey, a personal quest to test his will. On his treks, he has to overcome physical adversity and emotional challenges that come with scaling the ice of the tallest mountains in the world and other dicey, less than comfortable adventures. If he can’t push back nature's attempts to knock him around enough to surrender to its unforgiving forces, he won’t live to tell about it. He’s a bona fide adventure junkie bent on experiencing his life to the fullest.

While the going gets extremely tough on Hillary’s chosen path, the rewards are otherworldly, spiritually charged encounters most humans can only glimpse through photos or footage: looking out from the peaks of the world’s tallest mountains, witnessing the snow and icescapes of the North and South Poles.

As Hillary told his image filled stories of red zone adventure, it occurred to me what his worst fear has to be. He wants to avoid it more than losing footing on a sheer ice wall, and dangling like a hooked fish over an endless abyss. He’ll do anything to keep from being overtaken by one dreaded feeling: Boredom.

Putting himself to the test in all his expeditions has kept him away from the mundane, make-a-buck world many of us wade through for years on end with 9 to 5 jobs. Except for long stretches of trudging to the South Pole, he’s managed to put the slip on tedium, boredom, and the awful state of regularly going through the motions, that many of us do all our work-a-day lives.

For Peter Hillary, a good day at the office is doing what it takes to stay alive to tell the stories of his adventures. It’s a tough job. But the benefits – a life lived to its fullest -- aren't too bad.

I can play this, but I’d rather play that

Arturo Sandoval is one of the most facile and passionate trumpet virtuosos who ever blew the instrument. At a recent San Francisco concert, however, the fun loving musician confessed something to the audience. He prefers playing the piano over the trumpet. He’s been playing the trumpet for 50 years – he’s 61 – and over those years, his marriage to the brass horn has been nowhere near as easy and as fun as the much easier to play piano.

“I’ve gone through a lot of pain, with my lips with THAT,” he says, looking toward his trumpet, sitting to his left on the stage, upright on a stand. Continuing to refer to his horn as “THAT,” he says it has been a difficult partner to perform with over the years. He told of its most annoying habit. It almost always cooperates without protest to his rigorous high and low-note playing demands in rehearsals. Then, when it comes time to perform on stage in front of live crowds, to his dismay, his trumpet is often a cranky, unwilling partner in producing the notes he wants from it.

“Play nice tonight,” he says he’ll cajole the instrument. He then stands bolt upright, frowns and shakes his head defiantly as if he’s the trumpet, refusing to play nice for the concert. He then slumps, sighs and shakes his head.

He says in Cuba where he grew up, the piano was considered the instrument of choice -- for girls. If a boy said he wanted to play the piano, “Everybody said, Uh oh…..”

“A piano is so nice,” he says. “It plays nice all the time, the way you want it to.”

He then sits down at the grand piano on stage and plays his version of “As Time Goes By.” He coaxes a beautifully nuanced and personally styled rendering of the standard. The audience hears every note in quiet awe of Sandoval’s fluid piano play.

When he switches gears into percussion and conga driven dance music, Sandoval rips it up on a waist high electric keyboard and dances while he plays. He’s a ham and isn’t afraid to show his musical talent, which is easy to see, is big time. He scats in his own trumpet-like style and playfully hits the lowest lows and the highest highs on his trumpet that are not only fun to hear, but hard to believe he can reach.

When he takes the lead on an up tempo “Cubop” number with his band, Sandoval generates a fusillade of artfully controlled, yet fat notes that flow from his horn, soaring above the rhythmic textures of his band. And when he slows down to play a ballad alone on the quiet stage, a sound as pure and rich as poured honey flows from his horn, a soulful power that fills the room. Listening to him play a beautiful solo song, it’s easy to forget the breath control it takes to produce the clean sustained notes he crafts through his horn.

Sandoval does a tune with his record producer sitting in on the drums. After the tune, his producer takes the mike and tells the crowd he walked out of Macy’s a couple hours earlier and on the sidewalk saw an 11-year-old kid playing Moon River on a trumpet. He told the kid his father in law, Henry Mancini, wrote that very song. He talked with the kid’s mom, then left to walk back to his hotel.

“I thought to myself, hey, Arturo Sandoval, the world’s greatest trumpet player, is playing here tonight.” So he turned around and walked back to the kid and his mom and told them to be at the theater 15 minutes before the show. Then he introduces the kid and waves for him to come on stage. With a few nerves, the kid plays most of Moon River serviceably, and stops a few times, because of trouble with his mouthpiece.

When the kid finishes to big applause, Sandoval leans down to him with mike in hand and says, “You’re lucky. Go backstage and give them your address and I’ll send you a new trumpet.”

Sandoval doesn’t seem to be hung up on trying to prove he’s the best trumpet player on the planet, which he very well could be. He just loves to play and hear music. And in his joyful playing, he simply gives listeners music of emotional highs and lows few musicians can muster. He just plays like a ravenous monster and lets his audiences decide for themselves how good he is.

Step up, do something

When he anchored the NBC Nightly News, I always liked Tom Brokaw. With his big baritone voice, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. Like other big name network anchors of his generation, he got one of the world's few highly paid jobs reading news copy because he looked and sounded good on TV. Even though for years, he seemed to have trouble saying his Ls. Most TV news anchors around the country are pretty faces, but they're mostly pegged as airheads, or “blow dries,” for their perfect hair yet seemingly thought-free heads. But Brokaw always came off as a worldly, brainy guy.

Dan Rather at CBS and Peter Jennings at ABC were the two others that competed with Brokaw in the days of yore when national networks were the kings of broadcast news. Like Brokaw, Rather and Jennings got their nightly network TV news reading jobs because they fit the desired image the network bosses wanted for good ratings: Earnest, handsome newsmen, nice friendly guys that wanted to get and read to you the newest news they could from their chairs in front of the cameras.

But neither Rather nor Jennings ever had Brokaw’s winning combination of brains, movie star looks, compassion, and friendly wholesome neighbor-like demeanor.

Rather always came off as a little dumb, like the guy who always says, “What’s funny?” after a hilarious punchline is delivered and everybody else is laughing. And he always seemed annoyed, like he constantly wanted to get up from behind his desk and punch someone.

Jennings always seemed like he was trying to be an aristocrat on the air. His style was to have rolled up sleeves to show he was really on the job and working hard, and a haughty, yet smooth delivery. A lot of people liked his schtick, others didn’t. He didn’t rub me the wrong way, but he seemed just a little too full of himself with his occasional knowing smirk and nod to the camera.

Not that any of this broadcast past matters now.

These days, these three once powerful news networks don’t hold sway over the nation any more. They, along with newspapers, are now within a sea of competitors in the “news” dispensing arena all fueled by the onset of the Internet. So these days, old retired network news anchors are either retired, or dead. They are, for the most part, irrelevant artifacts of news broadcasting history.

But Brokaw has tried, like Walter Cronkite, the most credible national TV news anchor that overlapped with Brokaw’s pre-Boomer generation, to remain relevant in his gray days. After Brokaw retired from showing his earnest, handsome face and perfect hair on national TV most weeknights, he wrote books.

His latest effort was a book of personal stories from veterans of World War II. Brokaw, in what was essentially a pitch to buy his book, recently told a local crowd a few anecdotes from it. The book points out that this was a humble, selfless bunch, reluctant to talk about their life-wrenching experiences. This generation gave without a whisper of complaint, all they had to serve the country, and help it win World War II. Yet it has been largely unappreciated, Brokaw contends, by later generations like the Baby Boomers.

Brokaw called on the crowd to take a cue and follow their elders’ example of selfless service to their country. Volunteerism is a critical need right now, he said, which is a time, in his mind, that is as critical to our country’s survival as winning World War II was then. The U.S. is no longer the world’s unchallenged economic power, he said, noting China and India as big new rising players in global commerce.

He meanwhile lamented the history of violence in American politics and how easy it has remained for crazy people to buy lethal handguns.

Brokaw asked the crowd to reach out to any families they know whose sons and daughters are serving in the military. They are paying a big price for all of us, he noted, adding they could use a lot more help and good will from their fellow citizens.

Brokaw offered plenty of food for thought for his audience to chew on. He showed that while his old job may be all but irrelevant these days, he is not.

Mark Eric Larson has written two books of essays, "The NERVE...of Some People's Kids," and "Don't Force it, Get a Bigger Hammer. To read, visit: 
http://www.scribd.com/Mark%20Eric%20Larson/shelf

Media arrogance

For more than a century, daily newspapers dominated media audiences. They made a tradition of posting double-digit profits, when most businesses have traditionally been more than happy with low single-digit profit. But even though dailies were longstanding, powerful profit machines, they rarely felt any urgency to make adjustments to their business model. They pretty much sat pat, even as the market they served changed, and competing, much more efficient technology to disburse information was developed.

But beginning in the 1980s that audience domination started to erode with declining daily readerships. The weaker of two-paper cities were forced out of business. The survivors sailed on with even bigger monopoly profits. Some dailies were shamed into beefing up their business pages, because local business weeklies were making their skimpy, behind the sports page coverage look bad. Realizing that running black and white photos was beginning to look grayish and bland to increasingly visually oriented readers, they took a cue from the color-blitzed upstart USA Today. They started displaying much more expensive color photographs and graphics. But that was about it. They were still profitable, so for them, all was moving along fine, with profits showing the proof.

Meanwhile, entertainment became more popular among a growing younger generation in the national population without any interest in reading daily newspaper stories. And this audience demographic of course, held no interest in buying or subscribing to a daily. That shrank daily newspaper readership even more. While staying profitable, several surviving dailies became publicly traded as a defensive move when younger generations of their family ownership wanted no part of taking over the reins of the newspaper. They wanted only the wealth they were entitled to. Publicly traded dailies then became even more squeezed for short-term shareholder profit and veered away from the more prudent path of long-term investments meant to help them cultivate growth over the long haul.

And then one day the Internet came along. Early on, the new online medium was something the dailies saw only as a potentially minor competitor. They and other media started their own websites. But they had no idea how they could make money selling advertising on websites as profitably as they had done for years with print.

But then, almost instantly, the 800-pound gorilla to replace daily newspapers as a dominant advertising medium, appeared. Google came along and figured out how to sell advertising – a lot of advertising -- to support its lightning fast, dynamic search engine. Google offered the news gathered by newspapers by linking users to their websites, and any other with useful information.

Then along came Craigslist, a 600-pound gorilla offering free classified ads online. That exploded a major revenue stream of daily newspapers. Suddenly, it was realized by a lot of former daily newspaper classified advertisers that Craigslist gave them the same or greater audience reach of a newspaper. All without having to pay a dime.

So now, the once omnipotent dailies are in the advanced throes of near bankruptcy, bankruptcy, or death. A lot fewer people read them anymore because of all the news and information available online. Fewer businesses and services buy advertising in them because online ads cost less and generate better results. Debt ridden, dailies have resorted to cutting staff, putting themselves up for sale, printing less pages on smaller sized formats, all while trying with little success to make their online sites profitable with ad sales.

Only a few big market dailies with national readership may survive, clinging to an antiquated business model that has been soundly beaten by technology and a changed appetite for media among the masses.

Some people see this as a sad thing. They grew up reading newspapers every day, and can’t imagine life without them.

Others applaud the demise of the daily newspaper, which to some, arrogantly wielded its power for too long.

TV and radio news media often were considered second-rate headline readers to the literary depth a newspaper provided in its news stories. TV and radio journalists chafed at being cast as lesser quality journalists with their limited air-time work than dailies, which had the luxury of more space for in-depth news. Meanwhile, some reporters at powerful dailies were arrogant and bullied sources to get information. They generally didn’t feel a need to be fully professional. They felt untouchable in their power, which was without a doubt, intimidating. Though only a few daily journalists were in that mode, with many others solid professionals, the arrogant bad apples left a bitter taste with those they’d slighted over the years.

One radio journalist I know who is usually reserved and diplomatic, changed his tune after a few drinks. He spewed his resentment of daily newspapers, and his delight at their demise.

“They had all the chances in the world to adjust to the changes in the market, but they never did,” he said. And he apparently thinks all daily journalists were too arrogant, and crowed at the change of fortune for them.

“Now they’re unemployed,” he said. “That’s OK. It’s good for them. It’ll toughen ‘em up.”

I’ve been a daily journalist in my career, but most of my years were spent at a business weekly newspaper, which is a different, more specialized animal than a daily. Still, I found myself a bit taken aback by his hostility at dailies in general, and his resentment-fueled glee at their downfall.

But his beef wasn’t any less arrogant than the daily newspapers and reporters he no doubt despised for arrogance in his dealings with them. He boasted his journalistic medium of public radio is now more popular than ever, hinting that it is the only credible journalism source left in media. He seemed to relish the notion of his medium as finally emerging from what had been the ever-present shadow of daily newspapers as the new superior source of journalism available to the public. He seemed more than willing to assume the dubious mantle of the arrogant journalist now, convinced of his news medium’s invincibility.

But if daily newspapers can go down, so can any medium, including public radio. Arrogance, while an inherent affliction of some journalists drunk with power, is just that. It’s an affliction of self-importance that doesn’t do anything but alienate people who come in contact with it. And because the daily newspaper industry has no doubt been arrogant in its many years as the dominant news medium, other news media should take note. It’s not a good idea for any media enjoying wild popularity and success to assume a top-dog arrogance that it will never have to change with market shifts. That ultimately led to the humbling downfall of dailies, and it will no doubt happen again because of blind arrogance.

As somebody wise once said, “The second you think you’ve got it all figured out, you’re toast.”

To see Mark Eric Larson's digital book of essays, "Don't Force it Get a Bigger Hammer," A newspaper journalist's memoir with names changed when that seemed best, visit:

http://www.scribd.com/Mark%20Eric%20Larson

His second book of essays, "The NERVE of Some People's Kids," will be posted at the above site in May 2011.