The mindset of Hummer drivers has always been a mystery to me. (On a par with “Why did God create lobbyists?”) What message were the Hummeristas trying to convey? I’ve decided it’s some combination of:

• I have enough loot to burn as much gas I want, you little enviro-nerd, so breathe THIS!
• I’m a Type A person, and here’s some Type A-Ness (say it fast).
• If you even try to slow down in front of me, I’ll drive right over your crummy little piece of scrap metal.
• If we crash, you’re gonna feel like Tokyo after Godzilla.
• Look at me! I’m driving a vehicle named for a sex act!

I always felt like Hummer drivers were flipping the bird to the rest of us, without having to actually go to all the trouble of lowering the tinted glass and raising their jewel-encrusted arms. When you want flip off the whole world, it’s just easier to do it in a car that screams “Screw You.” If I ever meet the Governator, I’ll ask him what the heck he was thinking.

So I’m delighted about the Hummer’s downfall. But at the same time, feeling tinged with guilt and hypocrisy, because….

I bought a car this week. For decades I’ve been driving small, reasonable, practical vehicles mostly named Honda and Toyota. But before that, in my testosterone years, I was an exotic car lover. I drove two MG’s in succession, later a Malibu convertible, a BMW, and even a Peugeot Diesel. (Consumer tip: do NOT buy a Peugeot Diesel. Not only is it hard to spell, but the French make cars about as well as I make good decisions at the candy counter.)

Back then I always wanted to drive something unusual. Plus, I liked cars that went fast and cornered well. Cars that were fun. Cars that released my inner James Bond.

But the downside to cars like that is a quaint social custom called the speed limit. Constantly breaking it becomes costly. I paid more money in speeding fines and insurance premiums than I paid to the IRS. On top of that, after the Gas Wars of the ’70s I got environmentally conscious. (Crazy me. I thought everybody would. But then Reagan got elected and said not to.)

So last week my economical Japanese model finally wore out after 10 good years. I thought about getting a Prius. but didn’t really want to kill a bunch of people with a sticky accelerator. I considered a 40 mpg VW turbo-diesel, but couldn’t get myself to pull the trigger on a fat new car payment.

Then I saw it. There, on the internet, unbelievably, a 5 year old Subaru WRX with only 8,000 miles. Half the payment of a new car. And a WRX is fast! Turbocharged. Corners like a dream. Innocent looking. Sort of a sports car in disguise.

(Why only 8,000 miles? Evidently a wealthy Italian exchange student bought it, drove it a few months, went home to Italy for vacation and never came back. This is a good story, but I have this nagging fear that any day now some swarthy mafia type will turn up with a large knife, demanding the cocaine in the spare tire…)

So I bought it. And after three days, well, let’s just say I would safely bet my greatly diminshed 401k that I’ll be on a first name basis with the local constabulary. Very soon. It’s really fast.

But the thing is, gasoline goes through it like funnel cakes at a county fair.

So I’m wondering: if I use my bicycle for short trips, will Al Gore and the carbon gods forgive me?

© 2010 Greg Tamblyn

Here’s a bit of background:

As a first time filmmaker, I was extremely fortunate to have legendary actor, Michael York (Three Musketeers, Logan’s Run, Cabaret, Austin Powers), narrate the documentary for me, and equally fortunate to have Academy Award winning composer Brian Keane arrange the film’s musical score. Brian also enlisted the help of Ira Spiegel to do sound effects (Brian and Ira are considered THE “A Team” of Ken and Ric Burns PBS fame), and needless to say, they are now my “A Team” as well. What began as a documentary film has now become two (2) movies. The first is a 40 minute documentary film, narrated by renowned actor, Michael York and scored by Brian Keane. The second feature is a relaxing (healing) 55-minute meditation experience through an alchemy of breathtaking scenery set to an enchanting musical score by Grammy Award winning artists including Michael Hoppe, Secret Garden, Brian Keane, Keola Beamer and Craig Armstrong.

For over two years I have traveled to many of the world’s most pristine locations—Greenland, Patagonia, Hawaii, Iceland, Peru, Alaska, The Caribbean, New Zealand, and the Canadian Rockies—capturing the earth’s beauty in ways that are rarely seen. Inspired by decades of National Geographic specials, the BBC Planet Earth series and the majestic beauty of our terrestrial home, Earth Songs gently guides the viewer on a journey of ageless wisdom, inspiring poetry, and stunning footage of Mother Earth at her finest.

Earth Songs was made as a relaxation DVD for these troubled times. Like Seasons of the Heart, Earth Songs will be made available to hospitals across the country for in-house cable programming for cancer patients and the chronically ill. And… one dollar from the sale of each DVD will be donated to the American Cancer Society. I am also in the process of lining up some premier events across the country next year including Omaha, Jacksonville, Columbus, and Boulder (please see my the upcoming events page of my website for more details). There is also talk about airing Earth Songs on PBS… Fingers crossed on that one!

http://brianlukeseaward.net

No national chains allowed here, just local and regional specialties. I’ll think of some more in a couple hours when I get hungry, but for now here are my favorite places to eat, pre-flight or on a layover, in no particular order:

1. Dickey’s Barbeque at DFW, several outlets. Why? Because it’s the closest you can come to Kansas City* barbecue in an airport. It’s not the best barbecue by a long shot, but for an airport it’s reasonably good. And I like their green bean side dish, cooked with bacon and potatoes.

*Here in Kansas City we disagree on which local establishment has the best overall barbeque, because we have so many good ones. My favorite has always been Arthur Bryants — which Calvin Trillin of The New Yorker called “the best restaurant in the world” — but the one at the airport is only so-so. It’s probably as good as Dickey’s but I never eat at my own airport, so I’m not counting it.

2. The French restaurant in Concourse B at Denver*. You can sit down, away from the bustle, and enjoy real French cooking. The onion soup is good, and I had a pretty good coq-au-vin there too. It’s a classic French dish of roasted chicken cooked in red wine with potatoes. When done right, it’s one of my favorite meals ever.

* The Denver airport is practically halfway to Canada from Denver. It’s miles from anywhere, surrounded by nothing but vacant, flat land. Why then did they deem it necessary to put the rental cars miles away in another empty wasteland? They could have just as easily put them next to the terminal and saved everybody a 15 minute bus ride. Somebody got paid off.

3. The Mexican place in Tucson. Can’t remember the name right now. The same family has been in the business for 75 years. The Mexican food is quite good, but even better is the view out the window of the adjacent air base, where you can watch stealth fighters taking off and landing. Those are some cool looking planes.

4. The food court at JFK. All kinds of international dishes you don’t normally see anywhere else. On a recent layover I tanked up at the Indian food counter. As good as a lot of non-airport Indian restaurants I’ve been to.

More coming when I think of them. So, what have I missed?

Can you do me a favor? Would you click through to the article? The more people that click through, the higher its ranking and the longer it stays up. (Heck, you might even want to read it….it’s a good review.) This should get some extra buzz going about the new CD. My new motto: “Let’s Go Viral! Think what a funny world it would be if everyone caught a healthy dose of music and laughter.” Thanks.

(If you like the article and want to forward the link to your friends, well, double thank you very much.)

OpEdNews.com is one of the top media sites in the U.S. with 500,000 - 800,000 unique visitors a month, from 200 countries, with over 40 million hits and over two million page views monthly. It reaches more traffic than all but the 30 largest daily newspapers in the U.S.

The reviewer, Meryl Ann Butler, has published over 90 articles on OpEdNews. Most have been headlined and many have reached #1 or #2 on the site. So hopefully, with your help, we can take this one to #1.

Please do check out the review. Every click helps! I really appreciate it:

• Hard Drive: A road trip with Dad
• Flash Drive: Operating a vehicle while naked
• Skype: Something Uncle Larry caught and brought home for dinner
• MegaHertz: What Wally threatened to do to The Beaver
• Memory Stick: What the old man spanked us with
• Live Streaming: Fly fishing
• Search Engine: Looking for the dipstick
• iTunes: What I does when my guitar sounds a little off
• Amazon.com: Website run by strong women
• Scroll Bar: Tavern near the Dead Sea
• Modem: What I did to de lawns
• URL: the guy the Dixie Chicks say, “’s gotta die”
• Gigabyte: the food backstage at a concert
• Picasa: A Mexican bathroom
• Motherboard: Daddy ain’t keeping her entertained

Honorable mention, but not technically eligible for the contest: a new site being jointly produced by YouTube, Twitter and FaceBook: YouTwitFace.

And the winner, based solely on the fact that it made me chuckle and appeals to my own personal sense of fun, submitted by Janet Ackerman Beck, who wins a free t-shirt:

• Disc Space: Room enough to play frisbee!

T-SHIRT NOTE:

Thanks for your votes and suggestions on color and style. The white-on-black was the runaway vote getter (two to one) over black-on-white or any other color. I also received dozens of suggestions and preferences from you ladies about other options: cap sleeves, long sleeves, 3/4 sleeves, v-neck, scoop neck, baby doll, all kinds of colors, imprint on the back “so people are not looking at my breasts,” imprint on the front “so people ARE looking at my breasts,” etc.

Whew. This was wildly amusing, but head-spinningly complicated. I got reminded how much easier it is to be a man in the fashion department. And since I have no interest in going into the t-shirt business long-term, decided to honor the voting, emulating Henry Ford and the Model T: you can have any color you want, as long as it’s black!

You can view the t-shirts on the same page as the new CD.

It’s mid-1960s, British Invasion, Spencer Davis Group, and this teenage Winwood gives me chills. So cool. Enjoy.

(It’s an 8mb Quicktime file, so you’ll need Quicktime. Give it a few seconds to load….)

Nobody Loves You When You’re Down And Out

Their subsequent efforts to make a dinosaur omelet were met with mixed reviews. It was described as “scrumptious, if chewy, and better with Tabasco.”

But the most intriguing news is they seem quite certain that within five years we’ll be able to switch off the “bird” genes of a chicken, activate the older “dinosaur” genes, and produce a “dino-chicken.” It will be like a mini T-Rex, with teeth, a long tail, and scary little arms instead of wings.

Personally I find this fascinating, mainly because I want to make a pitch for the movie. Instead of another Spielberg thriller, I’m pushing for a Wallace and Gromit clay-mation. It features the following suspenseful developments:

• Helpless, unsuspecting pigs, goats, and foxes ripped apart and devoured by sly, predator chickens, having lured them into the hen house with decoy “peeps.”
• Halliburton, subsidized by the US Department of Agriculture, makes a fortune selling body armor to farmers.
• Colonel Sanders in a pith helmet and safari jacket: “Finger lickin’ dino-chicken!”
• Why did the chicken cross the road? To eat your cow.
• Free-range chickens? Only in your nightmares.
• Smash hit TV shows like “The Chicken Whisperer,” until, tragically, one host loses several body parts.
• Breeders of guard-chickens: “Cheaper than Dobermans!”
• Trained squads of the little monsters unleashed on the Taliban by the Pentagon.
• Insults become praise. “Did you see Corporal Yankovic single-handedly take out that Al Qaeda nest? He’s a total chicken!”
• Congress votes to replace the bald eagle with the Dino-Chicken, but China beats us to it.
• Chicken hunting season becomes a state holiday in most southern states.
• Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin, sponsored by the NRA, take ceremonial first shots at a flock of the little monsters. Dick accidentally shoots Sarah, but doesn’t have time to get off another round….

© 2009 Greg Tamblyn

For all you Analog Brain in a Digital World types (like myself), who get bewildered by the range and number of choices out there, here’s a helpful site to save you LOADS of time and cut through the clutter. You take a short quiz about what you’re looking for (preferences, price range, etc.) and you’ll get matched up with a short list of products that best match what you’re looking for.

It’s not only easy, it’s kinda fun. It’s called Measy.

Happy shopping!

“She’s the woman God put on earth to show other women how to dance in high heels.”

This has nothing to do with high heels, dancing, Tina Turner, or John Denver, but I thought about his line last night when I learned about the death of Nien Cheng. In my mind, she is one of the people God put on earth to show us how to live with strength, dignity, and grace when life is hard.

If you’ve heard my song “Stand Like Mountain, Move Like Water,” you know a bit of her story. She was living in Shanghai in the ’60s during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. She was dragged out of her home and thrown into prison, for being an educated woman. She endured extreme hardship, deprivation, and solitary confinement for nearly seven years until the political climate changed and she was released. Eventually she made her way to this country, wrote a best seller, and was a frequent guest at The White House.

Her book is a riveting account of her life, how she survived the brutality of prison, and emerged from all of the torment in some ways even stronger than before.

I got to know Nien Cheng and even visit her a few times, courtesy of my friend Brian Luke Seaward. She became one of my heroes. Of course there are other such people, and we all have ones we look up to. When we read about their creativity, intelligence, dignity, strength, and grace surviving difficult times, it makes us stronger. It gives us hope.

I’m not one of the people who buys into the notion that life is supposed to be easy, that life should be glorious and wonderful all the time. I prefer the M. Scott Peck philosophy, expressed in The Road Less Traveled: if you start from the premise that life isn’t supposed to be easy, everything makes more sense.

Challenges are what make us stronger. They inspire and stimulate our innate abilities and resources. If we want to build up our bodies, we have to stress our muscles in order for them to grow stronger. We can’t do it by lifting air. We have to put some weight on the bar.

Our life muscles work the same way. A bit of stress (hopefully) kick starts our creativity, strength, resourcefulness, intelligence. Even our grace and dignity. In responding to challenges with determination and creativity, we become stronger in every way. This is how we evolve, both as a person and as a soul.

Nien Cheng was 94 years old. Her story is riveting, empowering, and in the end, hopeful. If you’re experiencing any difficulty in your life at the moment, I humbly suggest to pay attention to what stories you are paying attention to.

If you haven’t already, I sincerely encourage you to read her book, Life And Death In Shanghai.

* You can read a bit more about Nien Cheng and the unlikely series of events that led to writing the song about her (as well as many other empowering and funny true stories), in my book Atilla The Gate Agent: Travel Tales and Life Lessons From A Musical Laf-ologist.

* The song “Stand Like Mountain, Move Like Water” was nominated for a Posi Award, It’s on my CD Art From The Heart. You can listen to part of it here.

© 2009 Greg Tamblyn

Black shirt with white print? White shirt with black print? Or do you prefer a color? Red, Blue, Green, Brown, Aqua, Teal, Rust, Chartreuse, Mauve, Ecru? (What the heck is ecru? Or mauve, for that matter…) Color costs more, but if most people prefer one particular color, I don’t mind splurging for the extra expense.

Also, do you like the image on the FRONT or the BACK?

We’ll have some available for all you t-shirt fashionistas. Please let me know what you think in the comments box below. Thanks!