In Part One of this two part series,  I ended with “I vowed to ask everyone on my next flight to hold up a card telling everyone else what they paid for their round trip flight to and from equivalent destinations. I am not through with the fight against non-competitive Ramsey pricing, and also being treated like freight, not a customer. One fight at a time is a reasonable rule of engagement with monopoly practices in markets.” This is the second fight.

You might recall from Part One my frustration when I could not get the airline to help me with my problem. I expressed my frustration as follows when I was put on hold.  Now what? I can just lick my wounds taking some blame that I didn’t handle that very well and accept my fate at the hands of some airline efficiency programmer who is likely controlling policy by maximizing a revenue function based on a Ramsey pricing system designed by an economist. I’m an economist, and now I feel a victim of my own science. I will not accept this situation!” You might ask what is Ramsey pricing, and why does it place the airline in charge of your ticket and thus your flight experience? Good question. Let us explore and decide what the fight is about.

The Ramsey problem, or Ramsey-Boiteux pricing, is a policy rule concerning what price a monopolist should be allowed to set, in order to maximize social welfare, subject to a constraint on profit. In the case of airlines, no profit constraint is applied today. The system without the constraint maximizes the price paid by each customer one at a time at their highest willingness to pay level. The profit constraint would set profit at the best alternative competitive profit for similar risk investments to airlines by a regulatory body. In this era we have abandoned the constraint and destroyed price competition transferring benefits from the customers to the airlines and have no regulation of profit based on the rule.

Ramsey pricing was once called first degree price discrimination and operates best under conditions of inelastic demand (where a customer needs the product, ie.to fly, and is not deterred by price over a wide range). This kind of discrimination was historically controlled by secondary or used product markets. Preventing passengers from selling their seats to other passengers would have been an anti-trust violation in 1968 and before. Preventing the secondary market means that the seat for sale at a specific time is viewed by the consumer as their only choice and they must purchase it or it will vanish from their set of rational choices since they cannot resell it or get their money back if their plans change. All risk is transferred to the customer. To the airline the seat has a marginal (additional) cost of zero, yet it must cover its fixed costs which are constant for all seats on the plane. They sell when they find a customer who will pay  a price at their maximum willingness to pay. The system isolates the customer and makes each seat a separate market.

All the seats travel together, obviously, and therefore the airline seeks to maximize total seat sales value for the given number of seats on that flight. Thus the consumers gain zero consumer-surplus (the value they would be willing to pay above the competitive price for that seat) and the airline captures all the value of consumer/producer competition in the form of maximizing profit above cost for that flight per seat. Of course, the system is used on all flights. Thus non-competitive profit is maximized when the flight is full. When you fly these days have you noticed that you are almost always on full flights in planes where an additional seat is not technically possible? You can tell when this is true without counting the seats because your legs are asleep, a good proxy measure for no more room.

The downside risk for the monopoly airline is not selling all the seats reducing profit. If you understand this so far, you now understand why you feel like a piece of cargo or a revenue unit, not a person, when you fly.

In the full airplane scenario customers who could communicate with one another would quickly see that a market for seats could be created through the knowledge that when they refused the airlines price for any seat collectively they could bargain for lower prices if in fact they could sell tickets to each other. This would be most powerful when the airline was faced with collective refusal to buy thus a zero sales scenario for a flight with fixed costs. To the airline zero sales would translate into their loss being maximized. In this competitive face-off the price ultimately offered by the potential consumers would be the single uniform price that a competitive market would generate,  not a monopoly set of different prices. That price would cover total costs at full capacity including as one of the fixed costs a competitive profit margin. If that were not true then the airline would not offer the flight.

If you want to get thrown off an airplane just stand up and ask everybody to write the price they paid on a sheet of paper and hold it up for everyone to see. My little fantasy works best if it goes global. That would strike terror in the airline executive offices. It, however, would not be terrorism, it would be a call for the return to competitive market pricing. Have you noticed that in highly competitive markets prices available from each seller are almost exactly equal for the same product? When you compare prices in the airplane see if you can find the differences in the seats reflecting the price differences, or if some seats arrive earlier or have ejection capsules in case of a crash that your seat does not have. Every seat in each class is the same. They should have the same price for the same trip.

If you think the reason you can’t sell your ticket to each other potential customer is due to security, you are wrong. It is to make sure that no such secondary market for tickets comes into existence. No matter who holds a ticket they eventually have to come ride the plane and be checked for security. It would matter very little if the ticket were bought and sold a number of times among customers for security. However, it would end the situation we face where each customer pays a different price to travel together at the same cost per seat. Those of us over 65 can remember selling their tickets down at the student union if we decided not to take a particular trip we had booked with the airline. The reality is that this is the way a competitive market looks, instead of what we have today which is a monopolized market pricing system.

In both cases social welfare is maximized which leads the monopolist to think they have done no harm. In reality harm comes from a redistribution of the social welfare in the form of noncompetitive profits taken from each consumer transferred to the airline that would not have occurred in a competitive market. In a competitive market actual prices would be driven to equal prices for all customers because they could communicate with each other. The communication is not complex because all the information would be conveyed by the price. The rational consumer group will initially offer to buy at a price below the eventual market price. In negotiation the first sale would be at the price the airline could offer that would cover their total costs at their estimate of total demand for this flight. Once the customers have one ticket it would compete with any attempt by the airline to insist on higher prices. The airline is then forced by the market to maximize its available seats at that price to maximize its profit for that flight.

Is there anyone dumb enough to not be able to recognize that the ability to buy a seat from another passenger at a price below that charged by the airline would be a good idea? You might argue that when the consumers act collectively by threatening to engage in the act of buying and selling tickets to each other it harms the airline. But you must recognize that the airline in the absence of competition from other airlines or other ticket holders for the same time and routing clearly harms the consumer by controlling without alternative choices the market price. Those who defend the airline do not understand what a competitive market means. However, their understanding is selective. Virtually all of them would oppose vehemently a regulatory elimination of the used car market to protect the profitability of new car sales. Just ask them. Do you think GM and Toyota would support killing the used car market? Isn’t it full of unsafe at any speed gas guzzlers?

To be clear the regulation or rule that tickets cannot be bought and sold in a secondary market was brought on by the airlines, not the government. The airlines did this by being allowed to make the ticket a contract where the customer cannot sell the ticket to anyone else. In the world before this change the ticket was the property of the passenger when purchased.  Now it is more like an option to fly at the discretion of the airline. You don’t fly, no refund means you didn’t exercise your option. If you owned the ticket your risk is not being able to sell it. The airlines have avoided responsibility for this monopoly rip off by the customers being convinced that the problem is government regulation often mistakenly seen as security driven. A fool and their money are soon parted.

What is really remarkable in this case is that those who love the market the most are the most likely to be taken advantage of by the airline since they think the regulation is driven by an intrusive government instead of their false friend the business we call the airlines. The only markets really created here are the one for lobbyists in Washington and the one for politicians who will run on an antigovernment pro-business platform. The fool is the customer who supports this anticompetitive model instead of their consumer interests politically.

The truly savvy airline executive would say this is all speculative because the cost of consumers communicating with each other is so high per ticket that no secondary market will ever come into existence. Of course, that was not true when I could and did sell my tickets back in the “good old days”. An executive of this limited vision might consider the potential of Twitter and Facebook to finally prove useful when people stop gossiping about nothing or sending each other pictures of food from breakfast and start using the friending system to communicate at virtually no cost about prices. This fits nicely because it would channel useless behavior or ditsy behavior by those with food fetishes into socially useful price competition which is exactly what Adam Smith was trying to create when he described a competitive market. It channels the selfish behavior of buyers and sellers into the market where the conflict is resolved peacefully by voluntary agreement on price for the product. This free-market potential exists and it would be hard to hide its benefits. This deregulation would be customer friendly and just involve making tickets the property of the customer. Revolutionary: No, competitive.

Just imagine a blog of everyone wanting to go to Las Vegas the week of the National Finals Rodeo agreeing not to buy tickets collectively until the airlines posted a price at cost plus a competitive return and they could buy and sell tickets among themselves. Do you think no one would go to the NFR or everyone would go at the same price? Try this in all markets.

Suggesting that too much time used negotiating would make consumers give in would be the airlines ploy. Don’t customers spend huge amounts of time now as their own travel agents, while price searching and paying for luggage and seat preference? Don’t you think they would spend even more time to get vastly lower prices by buying and selling their tickets among the customers to set the price? I do. If there is premium value for particular isle seats some of that value could accrue to customers not just to the airline.

An even more saddening argument surrounds the perception that sites like Kayak and other discounters create competition. They do not. They simply provide a means for tickets to be allocated at prices set by the airlines using the Ramsey system with competition only coming in markets where there are multiple airlines that have no explicit or implicit price setting agreements offering competitive choices to consumers. Those are hard to find because of mergers and code sharing systems. At these sites you are finding a price, not negotiating to set the price. If you want to test the workability of negotiating with the airlines through Kayak, for example, I recommend a little experiment. Go to your local grocery store and pick out 20 items, then go to the checkout counter and make up offers below the stated price for each item and negotiate like you were on the beach in Mexico. Kayak wouldn’t do that for you, they would guide you around the store showing you dried up fruit not sold yet at a price set by the grocer.  You’ll never be invited back to the store because your cell won’t work from the county jail. Let everyone you know how it went on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Please!

It seems like a good day to start a revolution. It is a sad day in the country where the market is touted that consumers demanding to have the power to negotiate over price is a revolutionary action. You are not freight.

While I’m an unabashed Obama supporter, I have thought that Romney probably isn’t a bad guy in comparison to the Bush/Cheney team. I’m starting to change my mind. It will be interesting to see what other gems the campaign will dredge up in the next few months. But the story of Romney’s bullying in prep school brought a familiar old feeling of disgust to my gut I remember experiencing when I was in high school. It was senior year, and the entire class had gathered at the beach for our final graduation party. For no explainable reason, the class bully viciously attacked a “weird kid” who happened to be walking on the wrong side of the beach. Everyone stood around in a circle while the creep hurled insults and taunted the kid (who would clearly loose) into a fight, until some of us protested and the level-headed guys intervened to break it up. I remember watching the small skinny kid slink off in humiliation. My heart broke for him.

Now a disturbing portrait of Romney in his youth is emerging. The most egregious incident is the homophobic episode of Romney pinning the “weird” kid down and cutting his hair in front of his laughing classmates. The more troubling details of the story reveal how Romney purposely walked a blind teacher into a glass door – just for laughs. Now I’m rethinking my position on the man. Weeks prior to this latest disclosure I was having a discussion with my 81 year old mother who lives in Massachusetts. “I don’t trust the man” she said matter-of-factly. Mom has always had razor accuracy when judging a person’s character.

I have a twin sister who is deaf, and have spent much of my youth around handicapped and mentally disabled people. As a teen, I babysat for a family friend who had a son with severe Downs Syndrome. Both our families grappled with the pain and difficulty of raising disabled children, and the inevitable social ostracizing that comes as a result of the ignorance. That experience is indelibly woven into my soul. So you’ll understand there is nothing more disgusting to me than a person bullying someone less fortunate than they – especially someone who is disabled. While I realize “guys will be guys” and the fraternity culture in many schools promotes this sort of thing, there is a big difference between good-natured ribbing and true acts of cruelty.

I have noticed there are four kinds of people in life:

• Those who perpetrate cruel acts for a laugh.
•  Those who go along with it – amused.
• Those who simply don’t care if it doesn’t affect them.
• And those who have the courage to stand up and say; “hey that’s not right. Cut the Shit.”

I find people who speak out in face of injustice were raised with a sense of compassion, and have empathy because in most cases they have personally experienced some sort of adversity that shaped their character. There is a line between playing a good-spirited practical joke, like the time my brother in-law told my sister to ask their car mechanic to fix the “Gonkulator”, and a purposeful attack meant to demean someone because they are different.

I just finished reading the Vanity Fair article about the new Obama biography that explores the relationship with former college girlfriend’s Alex McNear and Genevieve Cook. Instead of a debase tell-all book, what emerges is a story of a thoughtful young man in his 20’s obsessed with finding his place in life; caught between two races and two directions. Instead of playing practical jokes, he focused his time writing, reading, running and pondering the meaning of life. Obama could have pursued wealth, as he was heavily pursued by the New York financial world. Instead, he chose the path of community organizer at half the pay, to follow his dream of making a difference in the world. McNear muses; “He (Obama) really worked his way through an idea or question, turned it over, looked at it from all sides and then came to precise and elegant conclusion.” There are many excerpts from letters Obama wrote, and you can’t help coming away with a deep admiration for the man he purposefully meant to become.

Today the media is afire with discussion around the Romney bullying issue. The one theme that has emerged is how Romney missed an opportunity to courageously stand up, admit his wrong doing, and start a national dialogue against bullying, while at the same time demonstrating his growth as a person. Instead he lied about remembering, and made a halfhearted apology for “some pranks that might have gone too far.” My Mom is right, this guy is a jerk and not to be trusted. Another famously correct Mom assertion; “You lay down with dogs you get up with flees…” Remember that when you enter the voting booth in November.

Yes, your behavior in youth is a reflection of the person you will become. Certainly we all make mistakes when we are young. Luckily most of us learn from these mistakes, and utilize them to learn and progress into adulthood a better person. Often we use these mistakes as teaching moments for other young people. But that only happens if you possess the honesty, integrity and self-confidence to admit and confront your past offenses.

In November we will face the choice between two men with very different backgrounds that have shaped them as adults and leaders. If Obama gets a second term (and I believe he will), I think he will go down as one of our greatest Presidents, perhaps on par with Lincoln.

Editors Note:  I am pleased  to finally welcome Dennis O’Donnell to The Bizzy Life. Dr. O’Donnell is not only a great friend, brilliant economist, solid fly fisherman, and a faithful Irishman (he and his family even have their own brand of Irish whiskey), he is also one of the bravest and most positive men I have ever met.  For the last several years Dennis has successfully battled Parkinson Disease.  In this first installment of a two part series on the complications of living with Parkinsons, he covers the difficulties of travelling.  Welcome Dennis!  Tim O’Leary

When you suffer from Parkinson’s Disease, there are few things more complicated than travel, and when I hear someone say “Oh, I know someone with Parkinson’s”, I thnk I have encountered someone who will unwittingly either make my life very, very difficult, or hopefully be intuitive enough to help solve my problem in a thoughtful way.

For a person with Parkinson’s, there are few things more complicated than travel. When an airline tells you “those 20 extra minutes should be no problem for you,” it is clear you’re about to be done in by someone who is going to define your problem for you. What you wanted to hear was “could you please tell me what impact the changes in your flight itinerary are going to have on your disability?”,  thus signaling that the person is going to help you solve your problem in a thoughtful way and work with you to help solve the problem.

I was recently rebooking existing airline reservations because the airline had changed the second leg and the final flight time on a long trip, increasing a layover at an intermediate destination from 3 to 7 hours, and delaying my final destination arrival time by 20 minutes. This pushed my arrival time beyond midnight in the middle of winter in Montana. This paled in comparison to the difference in managing seven hours in an airport,  as opposed to a two hour layover, a two-hour flight, and then a three-hour layover. This double move on the part of the airline to an existing reservation seemed like just another annoyance in what I’ve come to call “travel land.” This is a place where humans are cargo and revenue units; not people anymore.

The one hour phone call that this combination of people management and logistics took to resolve is the type of complex problem someone with Parkinson’s can face in many different circumstances. The problem arises from the fact that Parkinson’s is a condition where you are “on” sometimes and “off” at other times. In general terms, the “off” state for Parkinson’s is one where you move very slowly, freeze up, are stiff, and hardly able to walk; while in my case experiencing noticeable hand tremors.

The “on” state for many persons with Parkinson’s, until the ending stage, is a time when you are able to move fairly normally, the tremor is hardly noticeable, and though while stiff, it’s not too far from what might occur with aging.

The difference between the “on” and “off” in most cases is that the medicine the Parkinson’s person is taking is working to effectively suppress the symptoms. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.

As a result of this switching from one state to another some people come to think they understand Parkinson’s from the” on” point of view, thinking that the “off” situation is potentially fake; or that it exists because of some mistake on the patient’s part such as not taking meds properly or not being tough enough to manage the problems. It is unclear whether these people come to this conclusion because that’s the experience they have had with people they actually know who have Parkinson’s, or whether it is based on their general world view that people should just toughen up and overcome the problems that vary over time.

The alternative scenario would be those who come to understand Parkinson’s from an “off” point of view. They understand that your default is “ off” and being ”on” is a blessing resulting from the proper use of medication, getting good sleep, avoiding stress, a commitment to healthy exercise and some magical alignment of the stars and your metabolism .

Even with all of these possibilities being able to control when you’re “on” as Parkinson’s progresses is increasingly unpredictable and difficult. In this hour I wound up dealing with people who had each perception. My response to the phone voice on the other end who had just said, “those 20 extra minutes should be no problem for you” and became a neurologist as well as airline representative was to suggest that we needed to work on the reservation change and that her attempt at being a doctor was inappropriate. I thought this was a well-intentioned attempt to stay on task in my negotiation. She obviously didn’t. A condescending voice retorted “I’m not playing Doctor, you now have 7 hours to get ready for that flight which is 20 minutes later than you had before.” I began thinking where in the Parkinson’s literature and my experience was this magical 20 minutes discovered. And then become the test of whether or not I am living up to the standard defining quality Parkinson’s behavior. As you might imagine I was focusing entirely on the problem of dealing with the 7 hours of medication management, not the 20 minutes of extra travel she was insisting on as the point of reference. It was clear that she was insisting in an unrelenting way on her point of reference. In part to test that hypothesis I responded “we will take a flight the next day”. She replied “that will cost you under our rules”. Hypothesis confirmed!

I said “you mean there are no alternatives?” The response was no longer remotely friendly but now intentionally officious and she blurted out, “you can pay the change fee plus the additional airfare charges for you and your wife”. My response was, “you mean there’s nothing we can do about my being dropped due to a schedule change by the airline in Denver at one o’clock in the afternoon while not being able to get to Montana until midnight without paying an extra sum of money when there are at least three flights in between and flights the next morning?” Her response was “No, I’ll check with my supervisor on the cost to you and your wife”. Click!

Suddenly I was on hold listening to that numbing music that once took you “up, up and away” to dreamy places in comfort. After about 3 min. of listening to horrid music blaring out of the cheap speaker on the phone at too loud an amplitude, causing feedback and bizarre tonal shifts, I reached to switch off the speaker. I was on speaker because my hands sometimes shake so bad that I wind up talking while banging the phone against my head to the rhythm of Brazilian music. Trying to switch the speaker off is tricky with a trembling hand. I cut the connection. Yes, there is a magical combination of keystrokes that invariably only a trembling hand can activate. This combination always leads to cutting off phone calls if you have Parkinson’s. How did they program that? How is it deactivated according to the manual? Where is the manual?

Now what? I can just lick my wounds taking some blame that I didn’t handle that very well and accept my fate at the hands of some airline efficiency programmer who is likely controlling policy by maximizing a revenue function based on a Ramsey pricing system designed by an economist. I’m an economist and now I feel a victim of my own science. I will not accept this situation!

So now, tremor in check for a moment, I redial the airline knowing that I’m playing Russian roulette with my reservation and the nature of the next airline representative is at best a random draw. I, of course, get a different person. So we must go through the whole story all over again. After pointing out the change in my reservation I hear the following “I notice you have requested wheelchair assistance between your flights. Is that correct?” My response is ” yes I have Parkinson’s and can have mobility problems depending on how I’m doing at the time” The airline representatives response is “I see, I have a neighbor who is wheelchair-bound sometimes and his friends take him fishing which often means they have to pick him up and put him in a seatbelt equipped chair in the boat. He loves to fish. I’ve often wondered if he has Parkinson’s”

I freeze. At this moment I have no idea which fork in the road we are about to take. Is this person going to be from the “on” perspective or the “off” perspective? That is the question of the moment. The airline representative’s tone softens and she says “how can I help you with your problem? It looks like you have a seven-hour break between flights and a midnight arrival in Missoula after starting that morning in Costa Rica at 7:30 AM. Whew, that’s exhausting to even think about”.  The air quietly flows out of my lungs and I say “I’m unsure whether I can really manage that situation”. Her response is, “let’s see what we can do”.  Oh joy, she is going to let me evaluate my situation and help in whatever way she can. She’s going to treat me as though my default situation is “off”. This means she’s protecting me from the downside risk rather than forcing me to overcome the downside by assuming the upside is attainable with some certainty through my efforts. “First, do no harm then, figure out what to do”. This is the mantra one needs to hear in my situation from the person helping you through a predicament.

In the end this helpful woman represented the airline very well and within the rules arranged for us to fly out the next mid -day with no extra airline charges while only having to pay for our lodging that night. Amazingly, during the course of this constructive change the first representative interfered, complained that I cut her off, and that the charge to us should be $500 each. The supervisor overruled and didn’t apply the fee. The airline now has a customer for the long-term. Even people with Parkinson’s have some choices. Too bad it can’t be when to be “on” or “off”.

Despite this reasonable outcome, not all problems were solved since I still felt that I paid too much for my ticket. So I vowed to ask everyone on my next flight to hold up a card telling everyone else what they paid for their round trip flight to and from equivalent destinations. I am not through with the fight against non-competitive Ramsey pricing and also being treated like freight not a customer. One fight at a time is a reasonable rule of engagement with monopoly practices in markets.

As I think most of us have noticed, we are deep in the middle of the war on women. Bloated talk show hosts accuse women of being “sluts and prostitutes” because they want birth control. Several state legislatures trying to eliminate abortion attempt to take punitive action against a woman seeking legal control over her own body; requiring them to undergo invasive procedures akin to rape, or in the recent case in Arizona, requiring a woman seeking a legal end to her pregnancy to first witness an abortion.

And all this leaves me wondering; where are the men?

Here is one fact I am fairly sure of. A woman only needs birth control or an abortion because she has had sex or intends to have sex with a man. (Except, of course, in the case of immaculate conception. And I guess I will go on record here – in the case of immaculate conception I remain firmly opposed to abortion.)

But I would make the case that men play an even bigger role in this problem than women.  Like most men, I spent a significant amount of my youthful single years attempting to convince women that sex with me was a really great idea.  Most men devote significant amounts of time and personal resources to make this case to women, so when they do capitulate there needs to be shared responsibility.

A woman who wants birth control is a slut – but what about the man she has sex with? What do we call him? Of course, I think most of us hope and pray that Rush Limbaugh and his sex partner always use some sort of birth control for the good of mankind, even though it is easy to forget the condom when you are high on Oxy, but my point…. there is always a man in the equation.

And let’s discuss the Arizona situation. A Republican in that state has introduced a bill specifying that any woman who wants an abortion should have to first witness an abortion. What about the man who impregnated her? What does he have to do? If we believe we should punish the woman for her unplanned and unwanted pregnancy by humiliating and causing her trauma, shouldn’t we take the same action against him? Maybe it would help eliminate unwanted pregnancies if he had to have his penis tattooed  “slut stick”.

Here’s another idea. If they pass this law, in addition to having to witness an abortion, the couple should then have to go spend a day in a double-wide with a 15 year old unwed mother raising the Down’s-syndrome inflicted baby she conceived after being raped by her uncle Lenny.

Actually, a few legislators are responding with some interesting counter legislation to combat the stupidity of this movement. In Virginia,  State Senator Janet Howell proposed  mandating rectal exams and cardiac stress tests for men seeking erectile  dysfunction meds. Her amendment failed by just two votes.

In Illinois State Rep. Kelly Cassidy proposed requiring men seeking Viagra to watch a video showing treatment for persistent erections, an occasional side effect of the little blue pill. As she explained, “It’s not a pretty procedure to watch.”

In Missouri, nine female lawmakers cosponsored a bill restricting access to vasectomies except for men risking death or serious bodily harm.

Oklahoma, a state normally associated with a lot of crazy right wing stuff, had some interesting proposed legislation. When a zygote-personhood bill came before the state Senate, Sen. Constance Johnson penned an amendment declaring that ejaculating anywhere outside a woman’s vagina  constitutes “an action against an unborn child.” Bonus: Johnson also suggested  that any man who impregnates a woman without her permission should pay a  $25,000 fine, support the child until age 21, and get a vasectomy, “in  the spirit of shared responsibility.” In response to the same bill, state Sen. Jim Wilson proposed an  amendment requiring the father of an unborn child to be financially  responsible for its mother’s health care, housing, transportation, and  nourishment during pregnancy.

I suspect that if men were subjected to the same penalties as women when if comes to sex, we would have a different political landscape.

Meatballs? What the hell is wrong with me? I’m sitting here wanting to talk about meatballs. It is true that I have been extremely stressed of late with five homicide cases and several really large civil cases in final trial prep, but writing about meatballs is the functional equivalent of Glenn Close sitting in her living room clicking the light on and off while she waited for Michael Douglas to call.

Am I actually working my way through a nervous breakdown? Is this the end? I have to admit that I find the idea of walking around the neighborhood in a robe and fluffy slippers very appealing lately. But meatballs? Really? Let’s explore….

In every part of the world people combine some form of ground meat, eggs, bread crumbs and liquid and then form them into various sizes and shapes. There is something so basic and comforting about the delicate texture, subtle richness and lusciousness of a meatball. Yeah, yeah…ground meat is bad…I know….but this is not the “Eat a Meatball Diet” (although that might be fodder for my bestselling diet book). Listen up, if you’re otherwise good to your body, you cannot go wrong if you dive into a meatball sandwich once in a blue moon. Even if you do die from eating a meatball, what’s the big deal? I mean you were probably going to die anyway, so at least you’ll start the dirt nap with a smile and just a bit of indigestion.

If you don’t like meatballs then you need to figure out what is wrong with you. People who eat meatballs like dogs, long walks on the beach, classic movies and the Baby Jesus. I’ve written to the FBI and urged them to add “Hates Meatballs” as a box on their serial killer profile surveys. You know who probably has never eaten a meatball sandwich? Mitt Romney. We all know we don’t like the guy and that’s why. I’m willing to bet that Mitt has never pounded down a meatball sub, and washed it down with a Pabst Blue Ribbon. Hell, I’ll bet you that Romney, Santorum and Ron Paul haven’t eaten one.

I think a persuasive argument can be made that there is no such thing as a bad meatball sandwich. Now in my corner of the world we call submarine sandwiches “subs” or “grinders” (pronounced “grinda”) if they are heated in the oven. Everyone I trust in this world can tell you where you can find a great meatball sub. In my old neighborhood it was Mama Mia’s on Hyde Park Avenue.

If you don’t like meatballs you need help. What meatballs lack in nutritional value, they more than make up for in soul healing comfort. Personally, meatballs bring me back to Mom’s kitchen standing over a pot of her sauce and stealing meatballs to make sandwiches with fresh Italian bread and some grated cheese. She’d always yell that she didn’t make a lot but remarkably always managed to leave the bread right next to the huge simmering pot. As I think about meatballs in my life I do not have a single bad memory. Even the bad meatballs they served in the Air Force weren’t that bad. Meatballs my friends are a wonder food.

Last week I had business in Manhattan and wanted to take my business associates for lunch someplace uniquely New York, but still very casual. “Uniquely New York” normally means a stop at the Carnegie or Katz’s for deli or Lombardi’s for pizza. Last fall my wife and I did the Carnegie Deli and learned, once again, that a 2 lb corned beef sandwich (while wonderful) would not allow for any food for at least two days. Lombardi’s Pizza is great but you can find pizza anywhere, and although New Yorkers won’t agree, the best pizza in the known world is made in Boston’s North End at the original Regina’s. So I decided to try something a bit risky, and headed to Stanton Avenue for lunch at the “Meatball Shop”. The Meatball Shop is the creation of Michael Chernow & Daniel Holzman, and the beauty of their concept is that they “Make Balls”, a few well executed extras, and nothing else. You won’t find a steak, tacos, fish, burgers or any other type of food, this is all meatballs all the time and it is really fantastic.

On our visit to the Stanton Street location (they have 3 locations) we had a 35 minute wait at 2:30 on “Good Friday” (sorry about the meat on Good Friday Father). They text or call you when your table is ready (a very good feature), and we found a park bench to hang out on while we waited. I knew we were in for a treat by the number of New Yorkers who were eating out of Meatball Shop to-go boxes on the benches where we waited. If you want to find a good diner or local joint look for cars in the parking lot, lots of cars then it’s usually a safe bet. If you see people eating out of boxes on the freaking street…why then my friends you’ve found a real gem. When we were seated we were handed a laminated menu with a dry erase pen similar to what you frequently find in sushi restaurants, and then the moment of discovery. You can do a lot of stuff with meatballs! You can get “Naked Balls”, “smashed balls”, sliders or heroes all with different sauce options….and lots of great sides like roasted cauliflower, braised spinach, risotto, polenta and white beans. There are four standard balls and one daily special. You can have beef, spicy pork, chicken or a veggie ball. I opted for a spicy pork meatball hero on a whole wheat sub roll with provolone with classic tomato sauce. When our lunch was served it was nothing short of amazing in its simplicity and perfect execution. Three spicy pork balls on a fresh roll that was not too large or bulky, and more than up to the task of standing up to the delectable meatballs. I am not sure what happened next because I was consuming a sandwich that was consuming me right back. I mean it, this was one of the best things I’ve ever put into my mouth. They give you a small arugula salad so that you can tell yourself that, with the whole wheat bread, perhaps….just maybe…you just ate something healthy. After a few moments of trepidation you’re not going to give a rat’s ass about your calorie count as you devour this sandwich. I just sipped my Pabst and thought about my mom, and which ice cream sandwich I was going to have for dessert. I decided to call Mom and to go with the white chocolate lemon pistachio cookie and buttermilk ice cream sandwich.

Oh, my lunch guests? I do not have a memory of them once the sandwich arrived. I know that we were all very happy and full. We decided to walk the 70 blocks back to our hotel to undo some of the caloric damage.

When you’re in New York and you need a break, do yourself a favor and check this place out. If you can’t get to New York, go and find a meatball sandwich, or even better make your own.

Here is my meatball recipe….(you’re not ready for my mother’s)

• 2 lb ground beef (buy organic to avoid the pink slime nonsense)
• 1 lb ground pork
• 3 large eggs
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• ¼ cup of grated cheese (I prefer Romano)
• 1 tbls oregano
• 1 cup seasoned bread crumbs
• 1 tsp red pepper flake
• Milk, water or chicken stock to moisten the mix (usually about ½ cup)
• Salt and pepper to taste.
• 2-3 tbls olive oil

Combine all of the ingredients and allow the mix to sit in a refrigerator for 1 hour. Then form into balls about 3” in diameter (if the mix is too stiff add some liquid, if it is too moist mix it a bit more and add a bit more meat), then place into a baking dish or pan and allow to bake in a 350 degree oven turning them at least once until they are firm to the touch and 140 degrees internal temp, then just pop the cooked balls into a tomato sauce and allow them to simmer for at least an hour, then eat them before you’re kids find them.
Once the balls are done, slap three of them in a sliced sub roll, slice the balls in half, add some provolone pop it into a 350 dgree oven for 10 minutes to allow the cheese to melt and and then smash that beast into your mouth. Enjoy.

If you need a tomato sauce recipe send a reply with an e-mail and I’ll shoot one right out. I might be having a nervous breakdown but I’m going for a meatball sub for lunch.

I’m hot right now. Yesterday’s mail brought the first of what will surely be a great many solicitations to join an “active retirement” community….really? At first I thought it was a joke played on me by my wife who took enormous pleasure when I received my “Special Offer” to join AARP a few years back.  She actually signed me up. I’m beginning to wonder what she’s up to. The only thing she keeps in our safety deposit box is MY life insurance policies. What is it that those young people say…errr….I mean type? Wtf? Although the free insulated tote was sort of awesome, it didn’t take long to scrape the AARP logo off either.

Listen, I may be 54 years old, and I may like to eat dinner at 4:30 and hit the sack after the 7:00 news….but I’m not old! Plenty of young people are up at 4:00 a.m. for a nice cup of tea and some toast with low cholesterol butter substitute and orange marmalade, aren’t they? Oh sure, at a recent round of golf with four of my closest friends we did spend a lot of our time talking about the benefits of fiber. Hell, I remember when we used to talk about women’s asses, and now we seem all possessed by our own. Then I began to notice that our daily coffee group, once considered a roundtable of local legal heavyweights, has an average age of 58 and our breakfast choices have changed from eggs and bacon to oatmeal and bran muffins. Maybe these guys are old…but not me….no chance.
I read somewhere that 50 is the new 30. I’m just wondering who said that and how they came by that information.  I have the sense that some 80 year old is chuckling to himself. I’m fairly confident that the phrase wasn’t coined by some hipster Doofus waiting in line at a PinkBerry some place.

I do think that there have been some very troubling trends as I’ve reluctantly waded into my “advanced middle life”. For instance, what the hell is going on with my hands? About 5 years ago I looked down one day at a deposition and realized that I have my father’s hands. What in the name of Jehoshephat are those brown dots all over the backs of my hands and why did I just say “Jehoshephat”? At my annual physical later that month I asked, “hey doc, what the hell are these brown dots all over the backs of my hands?” Without skipping a beat, or much of a look at the spots all I got was “Don’t worry about that, it’s nothing…just a few ‘age spots’, now bend over and then let’s get you scheduled for that colonoscopy and a nice flu shot”.  As I waited for the twenty something receptionist to validate my parking ticket and repeatedly remind me that the lab was on the first floor… “Listen you dolt, give me me goddamned lollipop and validate my ticket…don’t you have a Justin Bieber concert to get to….idiot!”

After that visit it occurred to me that it was time to pick up the sport’s car. I bought a nice silver 350Z convertible number about two days after that visit, scheduled a guitar lesson, bought a guitar, new skis, got some really cool Oakleys, and started wearing Ed Hardy tee shirts on my new motorcycle. That year I also signed up for a triathalon and nearly died when the small group of 50-54 year old swimmers I latched onto failed to “veer” right past the enormous orange marker and were on a bee line to the English Isles when the event organizers mercifully sent a small armada of volunteers in kayaks to herd us back to the group.

Oh, and about those “age spots”….do not…I repeat DO NOT try to rub them off with an apricot scrub….you’ll just end with red raw hands with brown spots all over them. I think they got a bit darker in fact.

At first, the AARP membership was a running joke around the old homestead.  Now I look forward to the monthly magazine for the articles dealing with increasing testosterone levels, prostate health, and managing cholesterol. They’ve done a wonderful series of articles on effective ways to deal with gout and uric acid in general. I cancelled my Sports Illustrated and eagerly await my subscription to “I’m Old Quarterly”. Plus I’ve found that you can really meet some nice people when you have dinner at 4:30.

Here’s the truth of it….we are a different generation, we don’t smoke, eat tons of red meat washed down with Manhattans, the only thing I actually use the AARP magazine for it to line the litter box…screw them….my generation exercises like no generation ever has. I just wish corporate America would stop telling me I’m old. I so desperately want it to come as a surprise! I decided not to make that appointment at the Mature Living Community…nah, I’m going to take the baffles out of the straight pipes on my Harley and then I’m going to go down there and scare the bejesus out of some old farts….I’ll see you suckers at the funeral home, I’ve got some living to do!

Ps. If anyone knows where I can find bifocal motorcycle shades please drop me a line.

When I was in the seventh grade I moved from a small Catholic school to a large public junior high school.   At my Catholic school, sex education consisted of the parish Priest pulling the boys aside to tell them “masturbation is a sin”. I won’t say this was the reason I left Catholic school, but it did contribute to my decision. It did not make sense to me that “sex with the one I love” could really piss off God.  Why else would he have created the penis and Farrah Fawcett?

So I was a bit surprised when I reached public school. There, sex education was part of the curriculum. All of us sat through the requisite “badly produced film” showing how babies are made.  I had a pretty good idea how the process of sex started outside of the body, but the internal workings were a bit of a revelation to me. The film had lots of weird vaginal and penis diagrams, with narration from a guy who sounded like he was doing voiceover to introduce the new Dodge Hemi engine. “The uterus!  Truly one of the miracles of the body.” I learned that sperm are determined little fellas, and you have to be really careful where you place them.

The course also covered the various risks of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.  We learned that “the last minute withdrawal” and Coca Cola were not effective birth control methods.  Our Life Science teacher, a Vietnam vet, pulled the guys aside to detail the many horrible venereal diseases he had seen while in Nam.  “Horrible dick rot, guys. You do not want to get the Weeping’ Willie.  Use a condom.” he told us sternly.

And we listened.  In fact, one of my friends stole a three pack of rubbers from his Dad’s dresser, and we all put one in our wallet – “just in case”.  Well, “just in case” did not happen for quite a while – several years actually – but I remained ready.  In fact, the true sign of “ready” at that age was the tell-tale ring that develops over time from sitting on a condom stuffed away in your wallet. Luckily I had the foresight to occasionally change out the rubber, as after a couple years they tend to rot.

But the point is, almost forty years ago the people that ran the school system in conservative Billings, Montana were smart enough to realize that sex education is a great thing for kids.  It informs. It helps prevent unwanted pregnancy and disease. It’s good for society.  If it were not for those forward-thinking folks, I suspect that many of my friends and I would have suffered many cases of “Weeping Willie”, and probably been responsible for a few abortions and / or unwanted children.

Which makes it all the more incredible to me that across this country there are influential people that want to eliminate sex education in schools, and move us back fifty or sixty years to replace education with abstinence training and the blind hope that “kids just won’t have sex”.

OK – I get it – you don’t want your seventh grader encouraged to have sex.  I’m not a parent, but I also don’t think a twelve or thirteen year old is ready for sex, and I think it is every parent’s right to determine the proper course for their own child’s sexual indoctrination and moral structure. But teaching kids how sex works does not encourage them to have sex.  When I was that age I also studied World War II – but that did not make me want to invade Poland or become a Nazi.  And face it…..if they watch television, use the internet, or go to movies, they are aware and encouraged to have sex.  Why not arm them with the proper information and warnings about what it could lead to so they are ready and make good decisions?

I know how some people think. Don’t talk about it – and then it won’t exist. But that’s like believing that denying global warming and evolution will somehow make the earth healthy and 6000 years old.  Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.

And not to be crass, but people love sex almost more than they love anything in the world!  That’s why potty-mouthed people say things like “that was a lot of fucking fun” – or “that was fucking great!”  “Fucking” is both an adverb and verb that usually connotes wonderful, so people are going to gravitate to it.  People like sex so much that they often put it above everything else in their lives. Sex has toppled the world’s most powerful men, and led to a restructuring of the globe, so do we really think a kid will have the willpower to resist “Katie in the incredible tight jeans”?

Next point – and I know some of you don’t want to hear this – but teenage sex when properly handled is one of life’s greatest gifts!  Most of the people I know lost their virginity somewhere between the ages of 15 and 20 – and I seldom meet anyone who said “gee, I wish I would have waited to have sex until I was 34 and married”. Ask someone on their deathbed – and unless they are dying of a sexually transmitted disease – I bet the one thing they will not say is “the biggest regret in my life is that I had too much sex”.   Of course, if you ask someone who was not educated, and did not understand the risk of pregnancy and STDs they might regret their sexual past.

Some of the best memories of my life revolve around the sex I had in high school and college (and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who helped create these wonderful memories – you know who you are). I would hope all young people of the appropriate age and emotional state could have the freedom to choose whether or not to experience the wonders of sexual exploration with a full understanding of the pros and cons.  And part of making that experience great is education; making sure that kids know about the dangers of unwanted pregnancy and STDs.

It’s getting hard to keep track of our latest and greatest debt crisis. Subprime meltdown, the near collapse of the American banking system, the European debt crisis….. There’s no lack of people, companies, and governments spending more than they make and suddenly we all have to pay the price.

And the newest potential financial collapse we might face, according to this month’s Consumer Reports…. the thousands of American students who borrowed more money to go to college than they can feasibly repay. Between 1996 and 2008 the average debt level of graduating seniors has increased 82%. According to FinAid.org, the average college student has eight to twelve loans to cover their undergraduate education. The average debt for a graduating senior is now $27,650 for a student from a private non-profit college, and $20,200 for a public school graduate, but this is just an average. It is not unusual to see students at the top end of the spectrum, with $50,000, $60,000, or even $100,000 plus in loans.

When you consider that the unemployment rate among college graduates is 9.1% – the highest on record – these debt levels become even more daunting. If you come out of school either unemployed or underemployed, it’s tough to make headway on debt that just keeps growing and will potentially haunt you all your life. I fear a day twenty years from now when kids that graduated from college in 2012 will still be paying off their college loans. And because they are paying off their education into middle age, they won’t have the money to buy homes, cars, and other items that push the economy forward. Debt does not create jobs, except for the few people that become debt collectors, and it is a terrible burden on the economy.

There are a variety of reasons for the problem. Tax dollars going towards higher education have plummeted in most states, requiring student to pick up the difference. Education grows continually more expensive, and as a society we should probably be discussing how to make it more accessible instead of letting the costs continue to spiral. And due to the challenging economy, many students are opting to stay in school as opposed to entering the job market.

I also suspect that our college students suffer from some of the same issues that hampered many of their parents; a basic lack of knowledge about the true cost and impact of debt. I see how it happens. A few years ago people were buying houses they could not possibly afford. A simple look at the numbers should have revealed that fact, but many people don’t really understand those numbers. Banks were willing to lend them the money, and everyone was willing to bet on the upside; that prices would keep increasing and it would all turn out in the end. We all know how that turned out.

Most students have much less financial experience than their parents. To compound this problem, there is no more optimistic time than when you are 18 and heading off to the most exciting phase of your life. Taking on a debt you don’t have to pay for several years seems a no-brainer. Almost every college student assumes they will be wildly successful and make buckets of money.

So the best thing a parent can do is to give their student a realistic snapshot of what life will be like after graduation if they have a huge debt to service. Go online to one of the many debt calculators, and demonstrate what life looks like financially under normal circumstances with a big debt load. Those magical years after you graduate are not so magical if all your income is earmarked towards paying for your education; or worse, you continue to fall deeper and deeper into debt. And if you don’t feel qualified to discuss debt implications with your student, find someone qualified that can give your student good advice.

Just to get you started, I ran a few different loan amortizations to show how much a monthly payment would be.  I am using 6% as an average interest rate -

• Borrow the average $27,500 for five years, and the payment will be $535 per month, or about the lease price for a small BMW.
• Going Ivy League?  Borrow $100,000 for five  years, and the payment will be $1933 a month – or go for a ten year amortization and it is $1100 per month, or depending where you live, a reasonable payment on a pretty nice condo.

Or another option…. just bite the bullet and let the kids live with you for the rest of their lives.  There is a big nationwide trend that has kids graduating from college moving back home with Mom and Dad.  Your choice… financial education and proper planning, or a lifelong tenant that pays no rent.

Just when I thought I was losing interest in the unending Republican debates and primaries, a Savior has been revealed. Yes my friends, Sarah Palin has challenged Barack Obama to a debate and I, for one, must insist that this debate take place.

Oh, I know, Sarah isn’t actually running for any office and seems genuinely dedicated to becoming wealthy. But I would suggest that we not look at this as a “political” exercise at all. Let’s bill it as pure theater! They can hold the debate at the theater “formerly known as Kodak” in Los Angeles. I can just see Old Leatherneck Joan Rivers propped up one more time interviewing Hollywood’s elite as they limp down the Red Carpet.

(As an aside, did anyone else notice how old and gamey the Hollywood folks looked at the Oscars this year? When did Meryl Streep decide to keep the Julia Child thing going? I am so freaking excited, that I’m formally asking our editor for a press pass (I so desperately want to meet David Hasselhoff) so that I can witness one of the great theatrical moments in recent American history.)

Maybe we could get that poor bastard who screams “Let’s get reaaaaaaddy toooooooo ruuuuuuuuuummmmble” to introduce the debators, and then it can be moderated by P. Diddy, Ellen, and the guy who owns Girls Gone Wild! This could work people!
I’m not kidding about this.

I really read this story on the net this morning, Sarah Palin wants to debate the President about the “things that really matter to Americans”. Now apart from the fact that the President does not typically debate private citizens, what madness has gripped Palin this time? My assumption is that the trauma caused by her humiliation at being revealed as an ill-informed rube when Grandpa McCain selected her as a running mate four years ago has been washed away by all of the Tea Party rallies. Either that or she just enjoys a good ass-whuppin.

When we last witnessed Ms. Palin in action, she did not know what the “Fed” was, nor did she know that there was a North and a South Korea. Hell, she may not have known that there was a North and South Carolina! But just a refresher or two….

1. “But obviously, we’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies” – Says Palin on November 24, 2010 as a guest on the Glenn Beck show. No Sarah, we don’t really get along with North Korea and still actually never quite got around to ending the Korean Conflict more than a half a century ago.
2. When asked to name a Supreme Court decision that she disagreed with on October 1, 2008 in an interview with Katie Couric: “Well, let’s see. There’s ― of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there’s never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So, you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but…”

Her views of “ObamaCare” are well known…or are they?

“We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn’t that ironic?”, said Palin.  Why no, I think a better term for it is hypocritical…she made that stunning admission on March 6, 2010.

And then when you can’t believe she’s been mentioned as a serious candidate for the Presidency of the United States, she let this one go on the subject of Paul Revere;

“He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells, and um, makin’ sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.”

Ms. Palin….what the hell are you talking about? Not knowing the story of Paul Revere’s ride is a big deal! Our President should know the story, along with the story of Bunker Hill, the Battle of New Orleans, and the events that led to Civil War. Ms. Palin knows none of it. When it was pointed out that she was…surprise surprise…wrong yet again….this Woman who Would Be President explained:

“[Paul Revere] did warn the British. And in a shout-out, gotcha-type of question that was asked of me, I answered candidly. And I know my American history.”

No Ms. Palin, Paul Revere most certainly did not warn the British….sad, really just sad. Her blunders are so prevalent that when I typed “Dumb Palin Quotes” into a Google search it indicated in 20 seconds that there were 1,830,000 results. But there is no doubting Ms. Palin’s popularity with a segment of Americans, and I certainly understand that she has accomplished a great deal in her life. The fact that she is a great person and a wonderful mother does not mean she is prepared to be the President. That was determined by the American people who in many polls do not believe she is qualified by virtue of her education, life experience and ignorance of basic facts.

Since the early days of George W. Bush’s candidacy there has been a paradigm shift in American political culture. When I was young the President was regarded as the best of the best. The thought that a Presidential candidate wouldn’t be able to identify a newspaper they had read, or that they wouldn’t be able to speak fluently on the major historical events of our national history would have been unthinkable. But along came George W., and all of a sudden people want a guy who doesn’t have a clue, but who would be great to have a beer with. A good many Republicans seem to embrace candidates based upon social issues like abortion, religion and homophobia despite the fact that many of these social throwbacks work against their financial interests. The success of Rick Santorum underscores my point. Here’s a guy who holds positions that are viewed as shocking by a majority of Americans, but he’s proving very popular with the Republican primary and caucus voters.

Palin’s lack of knowledge about world history and events is shameful for someone aspiring to become a national political figure. You see Ms. Palin, the right to debate a President comes as a result of running against the President in an election. You should have been willing to debate Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. You don’t get to skip a year of campaigning and still get to grandstand. Not that it seems to matter to this woman, but her need to remain relevant can serve to detract from the ultimate Republican nominee. That person, not you Ms. Palin, will speak for the Republican Party. I also love the arrogance. Mr. Obama is an accomplished orator and a very competent debater. He would know what newspapers he reads because….wait for it….HE actually reads newspapers. I’ll go one step further, I’ll bet you dinner that Mr. Obama, Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich can all recite Longfellow’s poem…now be honest Sarah…you just asked yourself, “What Poem? Didn’t you?

This is my latest installment on an extended fishing trip to Argentina and Chile.  For the final phase of my trip I had to get from the Argentinian Patagonia to the Chilean Patagonia.  From a mileage perspective this is not too bad of a trip, but the reality is there is no easy way to cross the Andes.  Yellow Dog Fly Fishing Adventures arranged to have someone from the Chilean lodge come and pick me up, and my itinerary said it would be a “six hour scenic drive”. In reality, it turned out to be a very long twelve hour drive, largely on a dirt road, across a very barren desert.   But, it was an interesting adventure.

On the day of my departure my guide Oliver showed up in Argentina to chauffeur me to Rio Cincos Lodge.  We climbed into a dirty old four wheel drive and headed out across the desert. Unfortunately Oliver’s English was very, very limited (though much better than my Spanish), so within the first few minutes we had exhausted every possible conversation.  There is a funny point – the “I give up trying to talk to you point” as I like to call it – when you realize you cannot communicate with someone else.  Every now and then I would ask Oliver a question, and instead of even attempting to answer, he would look at me and then look away into the distance and ignore my question, knowing there was no hope of understanding what I said.  Soon I was doing the same with him.  Luckily I had a great book to listen to on my iPhone, which made the trip quite manageable.  Oliver also liked some American rock and roll, which he played off a jump drive stuck into his stereo.  I discovered he had quite a few Credence Clearwater Revival hits, and we managed to communicate our joint appreciation for 1970’s rock and roll.

About 4 pm we drove into a tiny little town; literally just a few buildings at a dusty bend in the road.  It looked like a town that should host a gun fight.  Oliver pointed at a house, and with a kind of sign language asked if I was hungry.  We entered what appeared to be someone’s kitchen. There were hand-drawn signs on the wall with the menu.  A few other people sat in the kitchen eating empanadas, and watching an old Sly Stallone movie that had been dubbed into Spanish.  It was from the “really silly” period in Stallone’s career (which I guess encompasses 1980 to present day). In this film he wears mirrored sunglasses – even at night – has a toothpick in his mouth at all times, mumbles a lot, frequently has sex with a tall co-star I believe he ended up marrying for a while, and drives around in a 1940’s-circa car that has been converted into some kind of evil-looking low rider.  Though I can’t understand what he is saying, I do recognize when he mutters the tagline of the film, which is something like “you’re the disease and I’m the cure”.  This is from the time period when Dirty Harry films are topping the box office with Clint saying things like “do you feel lucky, punk?”, but Sly’s tough slogans never had quite the same punch.  There is a commercial break in the movie, and I can’t help but notice they show a direct response commercial for an American product, some kind of Ab machine.

I see on the sign they have what I assume is a hamburger, which seems like a safe bet to order.  I had a choice of the “Hamburguesa”, or the “Hamburguesa Deluxe”, and since the fanciest version is only $1.00 more I decide to go all out, and also order a very tasty Argentinian beer.  I assumed the “deluxe” would include lettuce, tomato, pickle, and an order of fries, but I was wrong.  Here is the recipe for Hamburguesa Deluxe in case you would like to make it at home:

Start with a really big hamburger, but by hamburger I don’t necessarily mean beef.  Despite the fact that I was in some of the world’s best cattle country, this meat had the aroma of something more exotic than cow – I’m thinking Shetland.  Then top it with the following:

1. One inch of mayonnaise.
2. A big slice of  white cheese – or at least it looked like cheese.
3. Two fried eggs with extra grease.
4. A thick slab of Canadian bacon.
5. ½ inch of yellow  stuff.  No, not mustard, that’s what I thought too, but it has no discernible taste.  Not sure what it is, but I assume it is some kind of substance designed to slow your blood pressure and metabolism, or perhaps lubricate your throat for the other ingredients.  You might try to find it at your local Sherwin Williams store.

Fearing an instant coronary if I were to ingest the toppings, I scraped my deluxe back to the basic burger.  Oliver looks at me as if I am crazy, and I indicate he should feel free to eat the heap of “deluxe” that lays on a greasy wrapper, but he passes.

As we near the Chilean border we enter another  small town, and at the local gas station we stop and Oliver fills up five 8 gallon gas cans that sit in the back of the vehicle.  I’m not sure why we would need an additional 40 gallons of fuel (hopefully the twelve hour drive is really not a twelve day journey), and now the Mitsubishi feels a little like driving in a bomb.  I’m hoping we are not on some kind of suicide mission, and I mentally commit to jumping out of the truck if I see us heading towards the gates of an American embassy.  I cannot understand what Oliver is saying, but he indicates there is some problem getting fuel in Chile.

Hitchhiking is quite popular in Chile, and doesn’t carry the stigma and perceived danger it does in the United States. so along the way we stop serveral times to pick up travellers.  In the afternoon we give a ride to a dentally-challenged Gaucho (South American cowboy). He is an older man, obviously headed to the next little town for a date; with his “Gaucho-go-to-meeting” clothes on.  He smiles happily and chatters away with Oliver; obviously quite excited about his upcoming evening.  And this leads me to an observation I made about Chilean men. They smell good.  I don’t say this is a creepy or inappropriate way.  I’m not changing teams just because a guy slaps on some Aramis.  But many of the men I meet in Chile are wearing cologne, and just the right amount of cologne, not like American men who tend to drench themselves.  Instead.  the Chilean gents have a clean and woodsy-kinda smell.  Anyway…

We cross the border into the Aysen region (the Chilean version of a state), heading for the town of Coyeque. The lodge is just on the other side of the town, and I am looking forward to the conclusion of this very long, bumpy drive.  But as we approach the town there is a road block, with angry-looking men burning tires.  Over the next few days I come to learn that there is a bit of a revolt going on in Aysen.  The local population has decided that their taxes are too high, and prices have gotten unreasonable.  The government has apparently not been responsive, so the local population has essentially barricaded the region, and will not allow food or fuel into the towns.  They also stop all traffic, opening up only a few times a day to allow cars through.

When we get to the first barricade our timing is good, as we just happened to reach it when they were opening up traffic for an hour.  But ten minutes later we hit another one, and via broken English I am told we will need to sit here a couple hours until they open again.  I manage to ask “where is the lodge”, and Oliver indicates it is only another mile past the barricade.  “I will walk”, I tell him.  I gather my gear and walk past the protestors, a little unnerved as I am not sure how they will react.  Oliver calls the lodge, and they have a truck pick me up on the other side of the barricade.

Over the next few days the protests grow more severe. I have difficulty understanding the protestor’s rationale.  They essentially cut off all food and fuel deliveries to their own town; starving themselves and their own people in an attempt to get the government to respond to their demands.

“Wouldn’t it be better to cause some kind of inconvenience to the government as opposed to torturing your own people”, I ask a few locals, but they don’t seem to understand the concept, and I think back to the LA and other American riots where the locals ended up looting and burning down their own neighborhoods.

And the protests had other negative economic impacts on the locals.  When I reach the lodge all the guests are very concerned about the protests turning violent, and perhaps shutting down the only airport.  I awake on the second day to discover all the guests in the lodge are leaving five days early. They try to convince me to leave with them.  “You don’t want to get caught down here in a riot”, an American from New York tells me ominously.  I can’t envision why a fishing lodge would receive the wrath of tax protestors, so I say goodbye to the twelve guests, leaving only me in a huge lodge.

(Next – I escape the riots and catch some really big fish.)