Testing 1, 2, 3.

I'M NOT AN ELECTRICIAN OR AN ENGINEER. Luckily, you don’t have to show some kind of license or certificate when you go to Home Depot® to buy a pair of wire strippers or vice grips, because like most guys, I don’t let knowledge, or the lack of it, get in the way of taking things apart and trying to put them together again.

As a kid, I remember the intrigue of attaching wires together to see what would happen. One such memory is burned into my cerebral circuitry. It was probably second grade and time for the school science fair. My parents were very busy. They were bakers at the time, making pies for the early morning deliveries. I took it upon myself to create a blue-ribbon science fair entry.

We definitely could have hung out together.

I found an extension cord, cut off the feminine end, stripped the wires back and taped them to the legs of a little metal folding chair. I strapped my little brother in and was just about to plug in my certain-to-be-award-winning entry, when my mom noticed, screamed, and the rest is a blur. Despite other, later experiments on my brother, he’s still here today.

One of my favorite and successful, projects started with finding an old record player in a pile of junk someone had dumped onto the Arkansas riverbed near our house. Its tubes were missing, but I used the turntable parts, wired around the internal amp to another working amp and voila!

So, four paragraphs in now, let me say, this is a post about connections. I had an english teacher once who critized my writing because, “it takes you too long to get to the point.” Well, I have a blog now, so… there.

For several posts now, I’ve been talking about having a "knot"—a group of people to hang out with, talk with; connect with. I realize my metaphor is a bit flawed now, in an age where everything is becoming more wireless. But I really like the picture of relationships being like wired together. Even the picture that sometimes wires fray and sparks fly.

Tonight I’m meeting with a little knot of people I treasure. We meet almost every Friday night. They are the first two people I’m interviewing as a part of the series I promised in my last blog post. I’m hoping to wrap up the interview tonight so I can write about it over the weekend.

Until then, may your connections be strong and your tubes burn brightly.

Finding the Knot

So...

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Bert and Ernie
The Lone Ranger and Tonto
The Team
The Tribe

To review: a couple of posts back, in a little essay titled, Keeping Company I mentioned a group called The Inklings. It's the kind of group that C.S. Lewis described as "a little knot of friends who turn their backs to the World."

As I said, I would like to have a group like that—a Knot, if you will. To explore the idea further, I started with identifying "six" people I would like to invite to a dinner. These people wouldn't actually be in the Knot, but in going through the process of who to invite, maybe, I thought, I can discover something about myself and the kind of people I could potentially be in a group with.

If you take a look at my "six": David Letterman, Flannery O'Connor, Paul McCartney & John Lennon, Tina Fey & Amy Poehler, Yo Yo Ma, and Atticus Finch, some elements are evident: humor, music, creativity, gregariousness, a strong B.S. filter, and a certain, healthy irreverence.

Maybe it's a guy thing. I don't know for sure, I've never been a girl. But it seems like guys like to be a part of the something. Maslow called it "Belonging" needs. Back when I was a kid, guys had clubs and lodges they could join. I'm not sure what all went on, because by the time I was old enough to join in and find out, Gloria Steinem had burned her bra and all males were chauvinistic pigs. Now don't get me wrong. I'm happy for women, and probably would have said something like, “You go girl!” had I ever met Ms. Steinem; but I will admit, I would have liked to go to one of those lodges where guys wore funny-looking hats and had a secret handshake, and maybe smoked a cigar and acted like big shots and maybe had a bowling team.

Now, men seem to be relegated to impromptu little gatherings at places like McDonald’s or The IHOP where they can drink cheap coffee, and complain about the dang democrats. That's not the kind of Knot I'm looking to be a part of. I'm not even sure I would want to go bowling with those guys.

The fact is, the Knot is already forming in my mind. (Wow, out of context that sounds ugly and ominous.) What I mean is, I already know some of these people and we're actually loosely knotted now. They may not look at it that way, but I do. 

So here's my plan: over the next few months, I'm going to interview these people, these potential Members of the Knot, and introduce them here at About Pops (if they'll let me that is). So stay tuned.

STICKS & STONES & WORDS

IF YOU'RE GOING TO WRITE A BLOG you want to believe you have something to say, and you want to hope someone out there besides your mother will read it. Sometimes, depending on the topic you’re writing about, you want to create a sense that you might know what you’re talking about. I’m going to try that.

• I majored in journalism at The University of Tulsa.
• I’ve been to Paris.
• I love satire.
• I was once beaten up for a satirical comment.

It was fifth grade, recess on the playground at Jenks Elementary School. There was this kid that was purported to have been in fifth grade for a few years now. I quipped that, "I bet if he ever finished fifth grade he would probably be so excited that he might cut himself shaving." Word quickly spread. He was mad, out for revenge, and it would all go down at recess. Sure enough here he came. He walked up to the jungle gym I had climbed to the top of, hoping for a battle advantage. He took a long drag from his Marlboro, flipped it to the asphalt, and ground it out with his boot. A crowd gathered, like happens when there’s likely to be blood shed on the playground. Fortunately, the crowd drew the attention of the teachers “on duty”. The crowd dispersed, disappointed. After school, as I walked to the school bus, here he came around the corner. He pulled my blue, canvas-like notebook from my arms. He said, “You hurt my feelings kid. Now I’m going to hurt yours.” Then he whacked me across the head with my own notebook. I lay in the gravel stunned for a minute, then he reached down and helped me up, dusted me off and offered me a Marlboro. [At least in my fifth grade/now 64 year-old mind that’s the way I remember it.]

I know that Sticks and Stones and (maybe even 3-ring binders) can break one’s bones, but as it turns out, sometimes, Words do hurt.

I feel bad for having a laugh at Harper's expense, but what a great metaphor this is. Surely you've had times when you were having a great time and all of a sudden you find yourself tangled up in your own balloons.

For the most part, here at About Pops, I try to stay clear of hardcore politics. So what I’m aiming for here isn’t at all political commentary. It’s just me thinking out loud. Oh, and don’t you dare go away from this trying to say that I am in any way was justifying the ugly deeds of terrorists in Paris. AND, assuming anyone is still reading this (which I realize is an enormous jump to a conclusion), don’t think for a second that I am trying to equate getting beat up on the playground with the massacre at the magazine studio.

In journalism school we were taught with conviction that a free press is crucial, and I believe it. But free press or not, free speech or not, words and cartoons sometimes hurt. As I learned in the fifth grade, we are free to say whatever we want. That doesn’t mean though that we might not get hit in the head with a notebook.

I didn’t learn a lot from that day. I still love satire (I'm writing this post aren't I?). It seems we need to be secure enough in our convictions that we can laugh at ourselves. If you read my post called, Keeping Company, I chose David Letterman, Tina Fey and Amy Pohler as guests at my dinner because, although I am sometimes offended, they make me laugh.

Does humor sometimes hurt? Yes. Does it sometimes offend? Yes. Does it incite anger? Yes. Do we need to laugh? Yes.

I’m trying to reconcile our need to laugh and the fact that in the end, sometimes, Words; like Sticks and Stones, do hurt.

DISCLAIMER: If I’ve offended anyone here, I’m sorry. I hope you were at least a bit entertained. See what I mean? This is a conundrum.

Pops & Popeye

Happy Birthday Elvis. I can’t believe you would have been 80; it seems like only yesterday.

Normally I don’t dish out birthday wishes to celebrities here at About Pops. But I do normally talk about myself and getting older.

“Then,” you might say, “you must be a big fan of Elvis and his music.”

No, not really. I looked at my iTunes library. I have one Elvis recording, Here Comes Santa Claus. That was a song on a Christmas album I bought.

You see, the deal is, Elvis and I share a birthday; today, January 8.

[cue up The Beatles, "When I'm 64"]

I talked to my Mom and Dad last night. (We senior adults call and check on one another when it’s bitter cold outside.) They were recalling the night of my birth. Apparently, I just barely made it on the 8th. A few more hours and I would be saying, “Happy Birthday” to Kate Middleton, Richard Nixon, Jimmie Page and Dave Matthews. Now there’s a couple of guys whose music I have lots of.

No complaints though. The King and I share the 8th with some pretty cool people and at least one nut-job. I’ll let you guess which one (or more): Stephen Hawking, R. Kelly, Noah Cyrus, Kim Jong-un, and Soupy Sales, just to name a few.

Birthdays are one of those contemplative days for me. You know—looking back and thinking about the days ahead. As happens, well-meaning people, and people selling books, tend to offer insight on days like this. This is from the WWW:

Capricorns born on January 8 seek to balance worldly concerns with an expression of their soul-needs. Although they strive for a pragmatic approach to life, they have a superstitious nature. They are gifted yet may be riddled with self-doubts. These problems are exacerbated by the fact that they have difficulty expressing their feelings through words.

Friends and Lovers
Because of their basic distrust of others' motives, it is hard for January 8 people to make friends. If trust is breached, the friendship is likely to end. They have a powerful love nature. They are romantics who demand total devotion. Even if they are not especially attractive they can cast a spell, drawing lovers to them with ease.

Children and Family
Even when they do not feel bound to family members, people born on January 8 are generous to them. They may have had a strict upbringing from which they lapsed in adulthood, creating guilt and dishonor. They make doting parents, anxious to give their children material as well as spiritual riches.

It’s like someone’s been reading my journals. I’m tempted to click the link and spend “$19.95 for the full report”.

On second thought: for what?! At 64, when it comes to stuff intended to make me more self-enlightened, I’m with Popeye, “I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam.”