Needles

Here’s a fun fact. The Nation’s Capital, Washington, District of Colombia, political center of the Western world and seat of Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court and the U.S. federal government as a whole, has an HIV/AIDS infection rate of three percent. Come to think of it, that’s not fun at all. It is frightening, embarrassing, and shameful. In West Africa where it is believed the disease originated, nations have declared such a high rate an epidemic.



It’s not that Washingtonians fornicate in the streets or practice other forms of unprotected sex. No. It is drugs, pure and simple. Heroin, to be exact. DC streets are still awash with the stuff, and the war on drugs—a failure through and through—has done nothing to alleviate the situation. Heroin users do not have discretionary funds. They routinely employ needles used by other, infected addicts, and the transmitted disease is in turn passed on to others either sexually or with the same infected needles. Attempts to stem HIV/AIDS have involved police crackdown, public education and free needles for the addicts who need them. The latter program, which targets the type of user who is not interested in hearing about counseling, 12-step groups or recovery, ended a week ago. Budget cuts.


Basically, DC’s PreventionWorks! operated out of a worn and tired van that made scheduled stops so addicts could turn in old needles and get fresh ones. PreventionWorks! is credited with saving many lives in the inner city, and now the recently elected mayor and council have decided the program is not worth its $300,000 annual budget. Just so you get the facts straight, DC Council Chairman Kwame Brown was recently chastised for ordering a fully-loaded Lincoln Navigator from the city for his personal use. The vehicle’s lease is $2,000 a month.


According to the Washington Post, “the average cost of lifetime care for someone with HIV/AIDS is about $385,200.” That an expense paid for by DC taxpayers and, to a lesser extent, federal taxpayers as well.


We are used to the short-sightedness of our elected officials. I guess this is just another sad example.

Bad Time Charlie

I love Charlie Sheen. There’s nothing like watching a drunk dig his own grave, not realizing that his inane diatribes are being taped for the comic relief of thousands in recovery.  Maybe it has to do with the fact that his father, Martin, has been in Alcoholics Anonymous for years (I’m not breaking anonymity here, since Martin outed himself a long time ago.) Or maybe the drug cocktails Charlie has been ingesting have finally had the effect he wanted and, as it says in the AA Big Book, he has “found much of heaven and [has] been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which [he] had not even dreamed.”  I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. I watched Charlie’s latest interview on Good Morning America and he seemed to be channeling Richard Nixon.

I find the furor surrounding this unfortunate man’s delusions interesting. Sheen Jr.’s rants have had unexpected repercussions both in and out of the 12-step community, where his criticism of the Big Book is seen as heretical since hundreds of thousand of people in the past 70 years have found relief in AA literature. Charlie, briefly put, is a ticking time-bomb, and there’s sad solace to be found in knowing that, when the things explodes, it will do far more harm to Sheen and his family than to anyone else, 12-step adherents included.

In his present state, Charlie epitomizes everything that qualifies him as a stone addict and alcoholic. He is in total and complete denial in regard to his situation; he is grandiloquent and full of himself, a far cut above mere mortals, a man of tiger blood and magic DNA; he knows his situation better than anyone else—he is not an addict, and if he was, he cured himself by blinking. He also seems to be under the impression that the powers-that-be who initially hired him to star in a so-so TV show will be willing to abase themselves to keep him under contract. He’s wrong. Hollywood is littered with the corpses of successful actors who, becoming too troublesome to the mother studio, are discarded.  Fatty Arbuckle didn’t survive and neither will Charlie. Right now, his slapstick interviews have a vague, train wreck type of allure, but YouTube is full of that sort of entertainment.

One who did survive, Robert Downey Jr., has found far more success and fame in recovery than he ever did as drunken tabloid fodder. There’s a lesson to learn there but Charlie’s not ready yet. He hasn’t bottomed. In fact, let’s face it, right now Charlie S  is in hog heaven. He’s living with two women, one of whom is a porn star. He has unlimited money, very little interest in anything outside of himself, and an avid audience watching him self-destruct. He is the subject of millions of Tweeters, the darling of the paparazzi, and his real-life is far more entertaining than that of his sitcom character.

So here’s my advice Charlie: Go for it. There’s a pretty strong possibility that you’re gonna die before you should, but what the hell, live fast and leave a beautiful corpse. Except that the latter probably won’t happen. The mortal remains of addicts are seldom pretty. So good luck with that…

Hurt People

Two-and-a-half years ago, not far from where I live in Northern Virginia, a young woman was brutally murdered by a drug- and alcohol- addicted former felon named Mark. E. Lawlor. Lawlor at the time was a leasing agent for the building complex where the young woman lived. He attacked 29-year-old Genevieve Orange with a claw hammer, struck her head 30 times as she lay napping on her couch, then raped her as she was dying. Both Lawlor and Orange, should you be curious, are/were white.

The victim’s and assailant’s backgrounds, though, could not have been more different. Orange was raised near Roanoke by a stable family that included a mother and father as well as sets of grandparents, all of whom doted on her. She was a good student, and after graduating from Virginia Tech, came to Washington to find a job. She was hired by the Futures Industry Association and rented a studio apartment in the Virginia suburbs.

Lawlor, 45, was living in a nearby transitional facility after serving five years in prison for abducting a former girlfriend. He violated his probation twice, and both times was re-incarcerated. At the time of the murder, Lawlor, according to his attorney, “had so much crack in him he was unable to form the specific intent to kill Ms. Orange.”  In other words, he was so high on crack that he couldn’t control himself.

Lawlor’s background was one of violence and rejection. He was born to a mother who often beat him and a father who regularly molested and raped Lawlor’s sister. The family led an isolated existence and there were no other relatives around. Lawlor was raped at age 13 by a friend he had made at camp. A year later, a neighbor also molested him. He was thrown out of his home at 16 by his shotgun-wielding father who told him not to return. He had started using drugs and alcohol some time earlier and was full-fledged addict by the time he was ejected from his home. When he was 18, he and a friend stole a car. They were both drunk. Lawlor was driving and crashed the car, killing the friend. He went to prison for the first time, served his sentence and sobered up, but sobriety never stuck and he was soon using again. That’s when he abducted his former girlfriend, who told the jury during this trial that Lawlor had yanked her from her car, thrown her into his car, then driven around while threatening her. He served five years for the crime

In March 2009, Fairfax Country prosecutors obtained a capital murder indictment against Lawlor for the murder and rape of Genevieve Orange. He was found guilty. Now the jury must decide if Lawlor should be put to death.

Can the extenuating circumstances of his sad and sorry life possibly excuse his behavior? Should a man with a history of mental issues and addiction be held responsible for his actions? Hurt people, it is said, hurt people, and there is no doubt as to the truth of this simple adage.

My first reaction, truthfully, was “fry the motherf*cker.”  My second reaction was pretty much the same, and my third was to wonder whether Virginia taxpayers (of which I am one) should bear the approximately $100,000 annual cost of his incarceration should he not be executed.

After almost 20 years in 12-step programs, I firmly believe just about anyone can recover from addiction, even the worst among us, if he or she is willing to be brutally honest with themselves. A less civilized part of me says the hell with it. There is no redeeming the assailant in this particular case.  In the rooms, they often ask, “What do you get when you sober up a horse thief?”  Answer: a sober horse thief.

Any thoughts out there?

End Times

We are getting subtly closer to 2012, when any number of natural and mystical causes will alter our lives forever. According to various sources, we can expect a host of deleterious events, to wit:

·        The Mayan calendar ends on the Gregorian calendar date of December 21, 2012, which most people believe is the total end of civilization as we know it.

·        A magnetic polar shift, causing massive global superstorms. NASA, it seems, is aware of this but, hey, what can one government agency do?

·        The appearance of a second sun. Betelgeuse, a very, very large star, is dying, and its last gasps will illuminate our planet for days, or maybe centuries.

·        Planet X, also known as Erin, is getting closer to our very own Earth, and will spur volcanic activities, tsunamis and quakes.

·        Nostradamus has predicted the start of World War III, preceded by a host of natural disasters.

·        Edgar Cayce apparently agrees with the Mayans.

·        Jared Loughner (he shot Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killed a bunch of people. How quickly we forget.) is a big fan of 2012 prophecies.

·        Albert Einstein once said : “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.” A highly contagious disease began striking bees in 2008.

·        Coded passages of the Bible predict solar flares and other ruinous activities. Revelation 16:8-9 "And they fourth poured out his bowl upon the sun; and it was given to it to burn men with fire. And men were burned with great heat; and they blasphemed the name of God Who has the authority over these plagues; and they did not repent to give Him glory." 

·        The Bible has a lot to say on the annihilation of mankind. Isaiah 30:26-27. Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound. Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire: ..."

·        But there is a ray of hope: According to Hopi prophecies, we are leaving the rock and mineral cycle and will soon be entering the animal and human cycle.  But then again, the Hopi have not fared particularly well since the 1600s, so I’m not sure their beliefs can hold their own against the Mayans, the Bible, Nostradamus and Einstein.

Personally, I am thinking of running up huge credit card bills even though I know this would be wrong.  

Back To Music

Yesterday I sent off to my agent a book I’ve been working on for almost two years. It’s called L’Amérique and I think it’s one of the better things I’ve written. An excerpt has been picked up by a good literary magazine, Chrysalis, and will be published in the fall. The few people who have taken a look at L’Amérique tell me it’s first-rate. Is that hubris? Maybe, but in this trade, pride tinged with a little arrogance are occasionally necessary traits. The book is finished and I should be pleased.

So why am I feeling depressed?

Maybe it’s post-partum stuff. I’ve been living with the concept of this novel far longer than with its actual writing. The writing—as usual—was the easy part, just a question of putting thoughts to the page and trying to make them readable and not too repetitive. The letting go if it wasn’t hard either, though I know for some writers it’s indescribably painful.  When I was in college, I had a professor who kept in his desk drawer the manuscript of a novel he’d finished writing years ago. He couldn’t/wouldn’t send it out, whether from fear it might be rejected or for all I know the belief that it might age well, like some sort of literary Camembert.  

My fears are not that it will be rejected so much as that it will be ignored, a far less tolerable outcome than outright dismissal.

I am not aided by the fact that an earlier book, Montparnasse, has been in the hands of my agent for more than two years and so far has gotten a chilly reception. Publishers like it, but not quite enough to justify spending the bucks to put it in bookstores. I’m afraid L’Amérique may find a similar response.

I’ve decided I’m going to take a little vacation from fiction writing. I’ve already mapped out the next fiction project and have some 50 pages of notes jotted down, but I need to change focus. So I’ve dragged out the equipment used to record a CD when I had a band, and I will try my hand at music again. I have melodies echoing off the walls of my house, and some 200 songs written in the last few decades.  I’ve changed the 20 strings on my Carter pedal steel guitar and retuned the beast, a not brief investment of time. I’ve unlimbered the mixing board, bought a second-hand amp to replace the one that blew out some time ago, and I’ve checked out the Home Recording for Dummies book from the local library.  I’m also playing daily to replenish the calluses on the fingers of my fretting hand. I have a couple of musically adept friends willing to devote their time and talent to the endeavor.

My talentless drum-bashing-at-seven a.m.-neighbor had better watch out.  It’s gonna get loud.

Buddy Charleton

Buddy Charleton died recently. He may not be a familiar name; few people outside of early country music fans have heard of him, but he was one of my favorite musicians, a real guitar hero who revolutionized music and was one of the best pedal steel guitar players in the brief history of the instrument.


Ah. You don’t know what a pedal steel guitar is, either, do you? The photo shows Buddy playing a Sho-Bud guitar. Two horizontal necks each bearing between eight and 12 strings. Three to eight pedals and assorted knee levers that either pull or release certain strings to change their notes; a volume pedal to attenuate the sound; a round and polished steel slide held in the left hand and used to travel up and down the neck of the guitar to change chords. The right hand does the picking with three or four finger picks. It is devilishly hard to play well. I have been at it for more than a decade and consider myself a rank beginner. By using both hands, both feet and both knees at the same time, I can now play a half-decent Danny Boy and I’ve also worked out an interesting version of Jimi Hendryx’s Little Wing.

I saw him perform twice and met him briefly at a musicians’ convention. He showed me a simple trick that enabled me to play an arrangement I’d been struggling with for months with no success. I think he was a kind and gentle man.

I have shamelessly cribbed this obit from his website.


“Elmer Lee “Buddy” Charleton, was a musician and teacher whose pedal steel guitar work was an integral element in Country Music Hall of Famer Ernest Tubb’s famed Texas Troubadours band.


“From the spring of 1962 until the fall of 1973, Buddy was a featured Troubadour, playing crucial steel licks on Tubb’s classic honky-tonk material and entertaining listeners with imaginative, complex, at times unclassifiable steel guitar flights during Troubadour band sets when Tubb took a break. Tubb’s band endured numerous lineup changes, and Buddy and electric guitarist Leon Rhodes were the instrumental focus of what Tubb biographer Ronnie Pugh wrote was Tubb’s “greatest band of Texas Troubadours. … For sheer musical ability they were unsurpassed.”


‘Buddy was a quiet man, and yet on the steel guitar he stood out like nobody could,’ Rhodes said. ‘I’ve always been able to play very fast, with the good Lord’s help, but a steel guitar player has a bar in his left hand and some picks on his right hand, and it’s not comfortable for him to go 90 miles an hour playing a tremendously fast song. No matter how fast I could play on my guitar, though, Buddy could do it on the steel. He was incredible, and I loved him dearly.’


“Buddy is also known for his post-Tubb career as a pedal steel guitar teacher in the Washington, D.C. area. His students became some of contemporary country music’s most accomplished players, including Bruce Bouton (Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire), Pete Finney (Dixie Chicks, Patty Loveless), Bucky Baxter (Bob Dylan), Robin Ruddy (Rod Stewart), Robbie Flint (Alan Jackson), Tommy Detamore (George Strait, Doug Sahm) and Tommy Hannum (Emmylou Harris, Ricky Van Shelton).


“He was one of the all-time greats in terms of tone and attack, and by taking lessons from him you had him as an example to look up to, just three feet away from you,” said Finney, one of the handful of musicians who moved to Nashville and became professional players after studying under Buddy in the 1970s.


“Born in New Market, Va., he broke into the music business while working a day job as a bricklayer. He played on occasion with Patsy Cline in her Kountry Krackers band, and Cline recommended him to Tubb. Buddy didn’t have a phone, so Tubb contacted him through a Virginia disc jockey and the next day, the 23-year-old Buddy flew on an airplane for the first time and joined the Texas Troubadours in Oregon.


“He would move to Nashville and become the longest-tenured of Tubb’s classic Troubadours band, with his nimble, jazzy steel work featured on spotlight instrumentals including Rhodesbud Boogie, which he co-wrote with Rhodes. Buddy is featured on numerous Tubb albums, including Live 1965, considered one of country music’s top live albums. He also starred on three Decca albums that the Troubadours recorded without Tubb, and on Tubb’s duet records with Loretta Lynn.


“Fatigued by constant touring, Buddy ultimately left the Troubadours and relocated to the D.C. area to teach. He spent decades instructing students who sought a master’s advice on playing the notoriously difficult steel guitar.”


He made a difference and he’ll be missed.

And Now for Some Really, Really Good News

See this man? His name is Brian Moynihan and he is the CEO of Bank of America. You know them, they may own your mortgage, your credit card, your car, and your children’s education.

Brian (he owns my mortgage so I’m allowed a certain familiarity) just got a bonus for doing a good job. A really good bonus of $9.05 million in restricted stock. This is on top of his $950,000 annual salary and all the perks that go along with being a CEO—insurance, chauffeured car, immense expense account, corporate jet and ski lodge, etc. His co-worker Thomas K.  Montag, who handles BOA’s global banking and markets, got $14.3 million in restricted stocks and a $900,000 cash award. Mr. Montag also makes $850,000 a year, so that his salary and cash bonus, taken together, come to roughly $2,000 an hour, regardless of where he is—the office, in anyone of his home, sleeping or sitting on the pot reading the Wall Street Journal.

You might recall that Bank of America got into trouble last year for not documenting mortgages adequately.  In fact, according to the Investment Fraud Lawyer Blog put out by Page Perry, LLC, an Atlanta-based law firm representing investors in investment-related arbitration and litigation, “The biggest lender in the United States, Bank of America Corp., may have to book a charge totaling $8.5 billion in costs stemming from disputes over faulty mortgages and mortgages securities, according to a Bloomberg.com article written by Hugh Son. The company may take the charge in the fourth quarter of this year and the cost could grow even further with lawyers ‘smelling blood in the water’ as put by Christopher Kotowski, an Oppenheimer analyst.

“In a slide show last week, the bank pegged the cost of settling demands from private investors as being anywhere from zero all the way up to $10 billion. While the cost range is only considered a possibility, Kotowski says that he does "not believe that management would put a number like this into a presentation unless they thought there was a reasonably good chance that this will be the ultimate price-tag.

“Bank of America has already taken a $1.24 billion loss during the last three months of 2010 resulting from cost to end several mortgage securities disputes. The Bank also paid Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac $2.8 billion late last year, which according to the article leaves demands from private investors as the main concern of the shareholders.”

BOA’s shares took an 11 percent hit in 2010 following losses tied to repurchasing faulty mortgages from investors.  For this, Brian Moynihan was rewarded handsomely.

How does that make you feel?