so at the same time--and i mean, the EXACT same time--that the left is self-righteously wringing its collective hands over arizona's new "show me your papers" law, the democratic leadership has suddenly decided it's time to push forward with a chillingly dangerous idea that i thought had died a righteous death a couple years back; namely, the national ID card--complete with biometric identifiers, RFID tracking chips and god only knows what else.
at first, of course, we'll only need it to get a job, but one of these days we'll need it to get a cup of coffee--with this single step, we really are talking about the beginning of the end of freedom as we know it.
and senate democratic whip dick durban apparently thinks that we americans have been so completely beaten into submission by PATRIOT-Act intrusions upon our civil liberties over the last eight years that we'll accept this final indignity without a whimper. his actual quote (in case you think i'm lying):
For a long time [the national ID card] was resisted by many groups, but now we live in a world where we take off our shoes at the airport and pull out our identification.
arizona has certainly stirred up a shitstorm with its new anti-illegal immigrant legislation, and i'm finding it fascinating watching as the holier-than-thou backlash builds.
as a middle-class california taxpayer who has watched as the the flood of unchecked immigration from mexico and central america has immeasurably diminished the quality of virtually every aspect of life in my adopted state over the last 20 years, i have a definite opinion on the subject.
but before i go any further, i should acknowledge that i am often accused of hypocrisy on this issue--an accusation i can't really deny.
consider:
i think american companies who who hire illegals should be prosecuted, yet i personally have employed more than a few.
i've met many honest, hard-working illegals who subsequently became my friends.
i've watched as illegal immigration has reduced the once-greatest public school system in america to mississippi standards, while at the same time volunteering to tutor their kids.
i was thrilled last year when the exodus of illegals from california finally started--until i realized all the young, cute ones were leaving first.
i.e., as in so many other areas of my life, i'm a conflicted soul of the first order.
but, you know what? whenever i manage to put my own personal emotions aside and concentrate on the cold, hard facts, all becomes clear: illegal immigration is killing the southwestern united states.
consider:
in the last 20 years, hundreds of thousands of solid, southern-california middle-class [and often, union] jobs in the janitorial, trucking, construction and food-service industries have devolved into minimum-wage shitwork, thanks to a flood of third-world immigrants happily willing to do the same jobs for next to nothing [and, btw, into whose pocket do you liberal do-gooders think all the money saved from those reduced wages actually went?].
it isn't, as george bush once famously said, that illegals come here to do the work "americans aren't willing to do"; it's more like americans aren't willing to do that work for five dollars an hour--and therein lies the crux of the problem.
crime, border violence and kidnapping [i.e., the spillover from mexico] have increased exponentially in arizona over the last 10 years.
the heritage foundation conservatively figured a couple years ago that, for every $9,000 in tax revenue the average low-skilled illegal-immigrant family in america contributes [and they even included lottery-ticket purchases to get that total], said family consumes $32,000 in tax credits and social services--i.e., a $23,000-per-family deficit.
now, factor in all of the above and then multiply $23,000 x 125,000 illegal-immigrant families [i.e., 7.5% of the families] in cash-strapped arizona. and, once you've done the math from whatever non-arizona state you live in and figured your own yearly hypothetical risk and personal tax burden to cover same and then imagined what it would feel like to cough that much up each year in addition to whatever you're paying in taxes now, then feel free to sit back and judge the taxpaying citizens of arizona.
* * * * *
do i personally think arizona's gone too far?
yeah, i do--they've suddenly made fully a third of their legal citizens brown-skinned targets for police-state excess, and i can't imagine anything more un-american than that.
do i understand why they did it?
yeah, i do--arizona has been compelled to do what it did because the federal government refuses to do what it was sworn to do; i.e, uphold the law and protect the sovereign borders of the united states of america.
do i see an easy resolution to the problem?
no, i don't--each political party is encouraging illegal immigration for its own misguided purposes, none of which have anything to do with what's in the best interests of the united states of america.
what's next?
who knows? i personally am hoping texas and new mexico [fuck california--it's a lost cause] will join with arizona in order to force the federal government to do right by its citizens, but i'm not gonna hold my breath.
understand: shit like this almost never happens to me.
and not because of luck or any other such random nonsense--no, it's because, of the very few hard-and-fast rules which populate the sloppy, haphazard landscape of the life of mkf, there are two that are almost never broken; namely,
always fly nonstop; and
never check anything.
of course, when one vacillates until the very last minute, certain concessions to reality must sometimes be made--this time, it was rule no. 1 that got shitcanned.
* * * * *
on the way to tulsa international in my little rental hyundai with plenty of time to spare, i hear the ping on my iphone--i glance down and see it's a travel alert from orbitz: one of my two flights home is gonna be 30 minutes late.
fuck. i naturally pray to god for it to be the denver-LAX leg, but no--that would be too easy, right?
after enduring the inevitable pat-down at security [forget even once to remove that little 2-inch swiss army knife from your keychain? trust me, you'll be on the list forever] i sit at the gate, read my ten-dollar paperback and mentally will the plane in early, because god knows i don't wanna spend the night in fuckin' denver.
but sure as shit, and as inevitably as night follows day, what i knew would happen, happens: the 30-minute delay to denver turns into 45 minutes.
which will leave me with exactly zero minutes to make my connecting flight to los angeles.
once we finally board, i white-knuckle it all the way, praying to a god in which i don't believe that He in His wisdom will somehow bend space and time in such a way as to allow me to make my connecting flight home.
as we make our final approach into denver, we're told (a) how sincerely sorry united is for being late; (b) we'll be berthing at gate B95; and (c) that almost all connecting flights [to shitholes like laramie, des moines, boise and topeka] will be leaving from gates immediately surrounding the one we'll be pulling into.
los angeles, on the other hand? um, that'll be gate B25.
[seventy gates away, in case you're bad at math]
once we land, and even though i know it's a lost cause, i make the effort anyway, praying once again to a lost god that he'll hold the plane for me--i run like i haven't run in years.
please god--i'll never ask for anything ever again.
i round that last corner dry-mouthed, rubber-legged, hyperventilating and outta breath, seeing the abandoned gate and expecting a closed door.
but, no--the ticket agent's there, hand out, waiting for me with an expectant smile: "mr. f? thanks for getting here so fast!"
holy shit--they held the plane for me.
thank you, jesus.
i walk down the empty jetway and onto the plane--everybody's seated and watching me, resentful of my imposition upon their time [i.e., welcome back to LA]. i head back to my approximate area--there's no clear space in the overheads for my roll-on, so i start reshuffling other peoples' lesser shit to other bins in order to make room for mine, oblivious of their protesting gasps.
when i'm done, i find my seat--34F [because i'd also ended up violating mkf rule no. 3: always fly aisle].
the snotty anorexic bottle-blonde in 34D rolls her eyes, sighs, clears all her shit off the empty seats she'd thought were hers and reluctantly pauses in her texting long enough to get up and let me in.
the first time i make her get up and let me out during the flight home is because i honestly need to go to the can; the second and third times are purely gratuitous and due to nothing more than (a) my perverse nature, and (b) her being such a fucking cunt the first time.
by the time we're on final approach to LAX, i'm seething with self-righteous anger at the injustice of being seated in a planeful of such assholes.
until i remember my earlier, earnest promises of eternal gratitude, and i start to chuckle to myself.
which noticeably freaks out the blonde to my left.
as i sat there at his funeral and listened to the [too-few] testimonials, i reflected that if every friend, relative, employee and/or stray country-singer-with-promise my uncle don had helped on his way to the top had shown up that day, the church woulda been filled to overflowing; as it was, the place was maybe a third full--world's full of ungrateful bastards, i thought.
and then i recalled the way i myself had once handled don's largesse and decided to cut the rest of the world a little slack.
picture it: spring 1979
i'm 22 years old, three years outta high school, three aimless semesters of junior college and one at UT austin under my belt--depressed, directionless and adrift.
awakened from sleep one early afternoon by my roommate: "your uncle don's on the phone--says it's important."
and indeed it is. my dead father's very busy and very successful brother, who has only once before ever called me directly, has decided to light a fire under his nephew's lazy ass: he offers to fully fund the remaining two years of my college education--room, board, tuition, books, walking-around money--everything. all i have to do is finally settle on a major and get back to him; he'll do the rest.
nice, huh?
to this day, i dunno from what depths i managed to summon the chutzpah to do what i do a week later: namely, call and tell don that instead of the two years of college he's offered, i've suddenly decided i wanna go to architecture school. it's a five-year program, starting from scratch--not a problem, right?
to his credit, don not only doesn't blink, he flies me up two weeks later for lunch with him and one of tulsa's leading commercial architects--hell, he's researched the whole thing far more fully than i have.
see, here's the thing about uncle d--he listened. when you talked to him about anything of substance, he always had a legal pad, took copious notes, handed 'em off to his secretary to be typed up and added to your file--not that he ever forgot anything, of course.
i'm last-minute-accepted into the UT architecture program commencing fall '79, and don gives me a big check covering all my first-year expenses--except for a car, which i need because my old honda's dying.
he gives me a choice: (a) a new car; or (b) one of his VP's cast-off company cars. i decide that, having already taken a mile, i might as well settle for an inch this time [and besides, don's VP's cars are always fabulous, right?].
unfortunately, VP homer p. turns out to be a chrysler guy.
there's technically nothing wrong with the new yorker--it's big and plush and relatively new--but from the moment i climb inside that loose, rattly old-ladymobile and turn the key, it's alien and wrong and i hate everything about it.
homer actually showed up at the funeral; i briefly debated telling him he had shitty taste in cars, but, being sober, went with the "my uncle always spoke highly of you" option instead.
to my credit, i endure the thing for almost a month before i ditch it for a vehicle which i deem far more appropriate to a serious young student embarking upon a rigorous course of study at a major university; i.e.,
how, you ask? simple--i unload the new yorker at top dollar to neville, who has suddenly found himself flush with cash.
wait--have i never talked about neville?
neville: (a) assistant athletic director at tyler junior college; (b) my mother's then-boyfriend; (c) the reason i got straight A's in gym for three semesters without ever once showing up; and (d) [since they played football together back in the day, and most pertinent to this story] my uncle d's newest business partner in a nursery venture which was created to exploit neville's legendary green thumb.
"so, mike," my uncle d sits me down and gently explains to me that summer at grand lake when he finds out about my brilliant deal: "just so you understand, i ended up buying that new yorker three times--first, for my company; then, for you; and last but not least, for neville."
of course in my stupid, self-centered youth, i hadn't put that one together--but lemme tell you, i'll never forget how small i felt when i realized what i'd done.
i'll never forget what happened next, either--uncle d put his arm around my shamed, dejected shoulders, gave me a squeeze and said, "don't worry about it--it's ok."
and then--because he always used music to deflect shit--he said, "here, listen to this--willie and ray price just put out an album, and you gotta hear what they did with this song."
while neville's nursery would turn out to be but one of many failed business ventures don would sink his money into in order to help out a friend--and god knows i'd scorch the landscape of texas in that spitfire before it finally burned out--willie and ray's version of bob wills' faded love will forever and rightfully endure in my mind as a memento not only of that grand summer, but of the man who made it and so many other things possible.
my mother, sister and i stayed in south tulsa with janell, one of my mother's oldest friends from her east texas youth--in addition to sumptuous surroundings and incomparably delicious food, we were treated to offhand shit like the following:
janell (pointing to one of the many mementos adorning her walls): i remember when fats domino played the rio palm isle [a legendary honky-tonk dive in longview, texas which still exists to this day] back in 1955 and every kid in tyler drove over to see him.
mkf: fats domino played the rio? but wasn't it segregrated back in those days?
janell: yeah, there was a big rope across the back part of the club--the white kids could watch, but we weren't allowed on the dance floor.
it takes a lot to impress my jaded ass, but today hollywood suit outlet delivered.
within five minutes of walking through the door of this legendary establishment and into the capable hands of a salesman who's obviously heard my story a thousand times, i have the right suit [a cashmere/wool blend, no less] along with a decent 100% cotton shirt and appropriately somber tie, belt and socks--all for the package price of two hundred bucks.
he then sends me back to his tailor, and half an hour and twenty dollars later, all alterations are done and i find myself back out on hollywood boulevard with a suit-bag slung over my shoulder asking lucille ball's star why all my retail experiences can't be like this.
so yesterday as i was idling on my barcalounger in my torn undershirt swilling beer outta the can and watching jerry springer, i got a call from a former colleague who'd heard the news, asking me if i'd be interested in a rare, serendipitous opening at his current firm--i threw together a resume and interviewed with him and his boss this morning.
considering it was my first formal interview in over twenty years [i always just seem to fall into shit], i think it went well. good gig, too--they offer it to me, i'll probably grab it.
seriously, is there no end to the degree to which america will reward telegenic vacuity?
[never mind--that's a rhetorical question]
and then, there's this
they took my uncle don off life-support this morning. the funeral's monday, and not only am i not going, i will totally be conspicuous by my absence.
my mother and sister will, as always, act as apologists on my behalf, but the general consensus among the surviving family members [especially his children] will probably be,"yeah, he was more than happy to fly to tulsa back when the money was flowing, but he couldn't be bothered to make the trip when it came time to pay his last respects."
fuck 'em--i'll be raising a glass to him in my own goddam way.
[and yeah, this is the way mkf buries shit--alone and down at the bottom]
