Slung In Singapore

Every country has its own laws dealing with foreigners and foreign travelers. In the U.S., for example, people enter the country for a two-week vacation, disappear and end up with a job, no taxes, their kids getting in-state tuition for college and everyone gets the right to vote. Thailand isn’t quite so accommodating. In fact a tough-to-get visa is needed for anyone who wants to stay more than 30 days. Rather than paying the price and going through the hassle, Pea-Z and I figured our way around the strict law was to exit the country and return, having the 30-day clock start over. And if it took us to someplace interesting, so be it.

Based on length of flight (an exit on a train gets you only 15 days), the cost of the flight, and available Hilton Hotels that allow payment with points, we chose Singapore. I would have preferred Hong Kong, but it’s nearly a four hour flight and much more expensive. Singapore was on my bucket list, so that’s where we decided to go.

Every place has its charm and its bothersome characteristics, but Singapore is so small of a City State that both ends of that spectrum are on full display. Singapore is an odd mixture of capitalism on steroids and a police state and everyone seems quite pleased with that incongruity. On the immigration form as you enter the country, there is a bold red statement that says, “Death to drug traffickers under Singapore law.” It made me nervous to jaywalk…

It’s a highly organized city with strict rules on traffic control, including high taxes on cars and a huge 10-year car ownership fee that bumps the price of a new Toyota Camry to about $175,000. It works, too, because there is really no traffic on the streets, with most people traveling on a very user-friendly metro system.

Being there you get the impression people are satisfied with the strict rules and tight restrictions on immigration. Singapore has the most millionaires per capita and the third highest per-capita income in the world. I suspect many of the people who live there like the idea of keeping it a tropical business and wealth paradise and are willing to give up a slice of their personal freedom to ensure it stays this way. In that respect, the government takes on a sort of out-of-control HOA that feels they have to tell homeowners the length of each blade of grass in their front yard. The yards end up looking nice, but it would be very irritating to watch a busybody neighbor in front of your house with a ruler every day.

Singapore is mostly a Buddhist country, but seems to be more secular than anything. Their real religion may be in earning money and building 80-story buildings. Singapore is surrounded by 240 million Muslims across one waterway in Indonesia and another 30 million Muslims in Malaysia across a river that I could still swim across, given a good set of goggles. But they all seem nonplussed by being an outpost of temperance, more than likely because they have everything they could ever wish for, which includes the third busiest port in the world. I’m guessing everything their neighbors want they need to get from the ports run by the nice Singaporeans so they’re left to accept a little miscegenation in the neighborhood if they can get cheap electronics.

The other noticeable thing is Singaporeans are bored – or so it would seem. There is no natural beauty to the island, save the orchids and natural fauna, so they have built up about five Disney-like resorts with everything from huge hotels and theme parks to a 6,000 room casino/hotel with three 55-story towers with what looks like a Viking cruise ship that landed on the roof of the three towers (see photo). By all appearance, the locals were just looking to make the place more interesting – in a way, like Las Vegas. So super structures for the amusement of both adults and children popped up like pimples on a junior high school student and permeate any space that isn’t already occupied by a skyscraper.

The culture in Singapore doesn’t have the centuries to provide the color that a place like Thailand does, but there are a few. Pea-Z and I sampled a few of Singapore’s contribution to Asian culture: chicken rice and the Singapore Sling monster alcohol drink. Both are good, but one of the two should be approached with great moderation. Chicken rice is a blend of rice simmered in chicken broth adjacent to very tender white or dark meat chicken and surrounded by very interesting spices. A Singapore Sling has a lot of gin and other libations and, if you have too many, you’re given the urge to take your pants off over your head. The good news is Singapore has such a high sin tax on alcohol one can only afford a single dose of the drink invented at the Raffles Hotel, where we were. At more than $20 a pop, drinking is done in moderation so the pants generally stay on.

We’re now in Thailand, having met our immigrational journey. It makes us legal here, we think. If not, we’ll have to cross another border or two. Any suggestions??

There Is Drudgery, Too

There is a bit of boredom that must be faced when you’re sitting in a hotel room and waiting for a round of excitement promised by an exotic foreign city. Bangkok is anything but boring, but a high rise Hilton is like any other in the world; fluffy towels neatly arranged in the bath, the sheets evenly placed on the bed and tucked in perfectly in all the right places, my receipts and other scattered debris cautiously ignored and left in place by the housekeeping staff and, for reasons that will always puzzle me, the roll of toilet paper has been pressed into a neat triangle shape at the last square.

The illusion that travel in a foreign land presents endless opportunity to embrace the dazzling sites and local culture is a myth I’ve long held to myself. Much more time than I’d care to admit is spent trying to avoid a nap to keep on the time zone, only to fail miserably at it.

The fact is, the duties of life are left unchanged even when given the chance to hide out beyond the reach of dissatisfied clients or believe in the unrealistic hope that all problems were left on the tarmac as the plane accelerated to a safe and distant altitude. I had a meeting today, delivered documents to our client here, and then did my laundry. With the exception of the fact the washing machine had a five-hour setting that I didn’t count on, all of the day’s events were basically unremarkable.

I can’t avoid any of the have to things required at home. I have to cook and shop and wash the dishes I don’t want housekeeping to have to scrape the barnacles off in the morning. I still have to shower and shave and brush my teeth twice daily. Which brings up an aside: Throughout the progress of man, and through all the amazing development of human traits, how is it that we haven’t evolved to the point where the hairs on our cheeks and chins don’t fall out on their own or our teeth don’t clean themselves? It’s all very disappointing that human progress has stopped as it has. It makes me realize there is only life and death and, in between, maintenance.

There have been exciting things since our arrival. I’ve been to some great restaurants, seen some wonderful ancient Buddhist temples and felt a growing kinship with the Thai people and my hosts. The temples didn’t surprise me; I’ve heard about them for years. Although the intricate beauty and detail given to every square inch of the temples demonstrates a unique devotion to individual craftsmanship developed over centuries and passed down to the monks who care for the temple grounds.

Each plaster wall of the dozens of buildings carries a masterpiece painting depicting a historic scene with gold inlay paint. The tiles on the roof are colorfully painted and everywhere are brilliant glass squares that shine in the light. The gold-painted Reclining Buddha, all one ton of him, has ornate mother of pearl tiles on the souls of his feet and the grounds are so expertly groomed it looks like Disney maintenance workers fly in each day.

The point is the monks’ monumental pride in the beauty of their surroundings and their desire to labor on behalf of a higher source is rare in a world where most people work for the holy dollar, a vacation home or a new car. I’m not saying I’m ready to trade in my Italian suit for an orange felt robe, but I can’t help but admire the piety they share to their god and teachings.

So long as we’re on the subject of piety, I suppose it’s worth making a few admissions/apologies to my earlier post on Thailand. The missing IPhone saga, as it turns out, was a bit of conclusion-jumping. I’m sure you’ll all see the humor in this, but it turns out a baggage worker didn’t take my unlocked IPhone. This is pretty funny, but I left it at home instead of putting it in my bag. It’s a mistake that could happen to anyone – just not sure why it’s the kind of mistake that’s often made by me. Anyway, when I get around to it, I’ll send an apology note to the not so friendly Delta customer service representative. I’m sure a good laugh will be had by all.

Something I learned about the IPhone is you can plug in a message that e-mails you whenever your phone is located or turned on. My phone must have been turned on a few days later, because it tracked it to my home. Now here’s the funny part, you can play a really annoying tone that lets anyone in the house know you’ve located the phone. While I didn’t actually hear the tone, I was assured it is similar to a cat being strangled. All is forgiven now and I just as soon move on to bigger and better things.

In the interim, I did buy another phone and now I have three extra phones. This is probably a good idea as I tend to leave them here and there, so I probably can’t have enough of them. By the way, LJ, send money for the phone purchases. I’m pretty sure it’s in the budget…..

Instant Karma

The wonderful Buddhist law of moral causation – or karma – played out on my third day in Thailand. Peasey and I were headed to a meeting and hailed a taxi from our hotel. It was a rare metered taxi and the meter runs very slow in Bangkok. The 20-minute ride cost the equivalent of $1.70. Having just been to the ATM to get some local cash, both Peasey and I discovered we didn’t have any small bills and the driver didn’t have change for our large bills. I figured we were in for an argument or I would have to run into a shop or bank and get some change while Peasey was held as collateral. Instead, he just waved us off and said not to worry, there would be no charge.

For this to be the position of any cabbie in any city in the world is remarkable and about as rare as a Bigfoot siting or a Kardashian saying anything of interest. I asked the driver for his card – Mr. Sayan – and said we would call him in the future and make up for the missing fare. It’s doubtful he believed us, but he smiled anyway.

After we left, Peasey and I talked about how pleasant the Mr. Sayan was, how he was happy to point things out and how well he spoke English. We called him the next day and he remembered me, but it was a Buddhist holiday and he said he would prefer to drive us the next day. We kept our word and called him to take us around town at some sort of fixed price. We left it in his hands on places to take us and where to meet as he dropped us off at each beautiful temple and made sure we knew where to meet him. The temples are a big tourist area in town and there are a lot of street hustlers who will try to sell you a hubcap or harvest your organs, it was difficult to tell which, so it was comforting to see Mr. Sayan waiting for us as planned.

Mr. Sayan called me Boss (I have that look about me) and talked about Thai history, the monarchy, some politics, corrupt police, places to eat, photos of his two “monkeys” (his 11 and 7-year-old kids), and, at every opportunity, taught us a few words in Thai that could come in handy. Peasey retained the words better than I did; I only remember the phrase: That’s too much….

For the day, we paid Mr. Sayan $34 and offered him a job for to be our driver for the remainder of the month for $500. He honestly blushed because I think I offered a bit higher amount than he had in mind. I tried to ask him how much would be fair for a month, but I could tell he didn’t want to negotiate against himself. At first I thought $300 would be about right, but decided on the higher amount because the extra $200 wouldn’t break our budget and I wanted to make sure that we could always count on him. And during the times Peasey will be in Bangkok alone, I wanted to make sure she had a familiar and safe person to drive her around.

So, for the sake of him waving off a $1.70 ride, he earned $500 and a place in our hearts. It wasn’t exactly instant karma, but it came around for him within 48 hours. I’m happy to be a part of that story. LJ, send money, we need to cover this expense plus Peasey keeps boozing it up and going through the meal budget.

Thailand, Part Deux

Well, I’m back in Thailand. Again. This time for about three weeks, then a quick return to California to visit the office and loved ones, and then back again for three weeks. To be truthful, I’m not as enamored with the “life of adventure” as much as I used to be. Perhaps it’s because I’m getting to an age where I expect things to happen the way they’re supposed to, or maybe I’m just tired of being away from my friends and loved ones.

The things not happening as they’re supposed to has been the theme of the first 24 hours of travel. Peasey, my personal, private, executive assistant who is on this trip tells me, in one of those “you’re a curmudgeon but it’s ok” way, that the few times she’s traveled with me, I’ve had “high expectations.” Now, you be the judge: I was told the hotel we’re staying at was a certain rate and it’s about $20 per night higher – and $20 for two rooms for 21 days does add up. I was also told our rate included breakfast, but it doesn’t and that’s another $22 per day – although I wouldn’t fit through the door if I ate the breakfast buffet every day. And when I unpacked, I noticed my unlocked IPhone was missing from my suitcase. A new IPhone is about $750, although a 3G is about $300, which I suppose I will have to settle for. Either way, I need an unlocked phone so I can have a Thai phone number and I hate having to buy IPhone number 16.

So, I think you would agree I’ve been screwed.

On top of things, I left the office with a number of messes that will fall to The Boy and LJ to clean up. I hate leaving messes behind because it becomes difficult to focus on what I’m here to do instead of dealing with the pull that comes from back home. With the time difference limiting the window to talk, it puts an even greater burden on working through things and gives me more “quiet” time to worry about it all.

As for just being away from those I care about, it’s always been a bit of a trade off. It’s been fun to work and visit new cultures and make friends around the world, but it also takes its toll on my relationships back home. One of the things I’ve noticed when I’m gone for a long period of time is how time marches on. I’m here doing my thing and people back home are doing their thing. But we’re not doing our things together, so when I return, I don’t return to the exact same place to any of my relationships. It takes time to rebuild what was lost while I was away and I think I’m just getting too old to keep going through this. Phone calls and e-mails and text messages are no substitute for any kind of personal relationship.

Anyway, it’s still hot and humid in Thailand. This is the rainy season and I had to fly through a typhoon or two to get here. Bangkok doesn’t get drenched the way it does in the north and northeast where flooding this time of year is common. I won’t go up there on this trip, but I will when I come back. I’m looking forward to that for a few reasons. I’m very interested to be more in the middle of ancient Buddhist temples and will be not too far from the Cambodian border where hopefully I can take a train to Angkor Kat, the huge 12th Century temple that should be included in the Seven Wonders Of The World.

Peasey got sick on airplane food and I tried to watch a movie for the 15th time and stare at my Van Gogh Lilies screen saver. Such is our first day in Thailand. Basically it can be said I’m bored, so you get this post if you’re at all interested. I hope I will have tales of beauty and my immersion into the Thai culture in the near future. For now, it’s mostly Lazlo lamenting, as is my want.

Hankie Pankie

I got a message from my good friend Phil on Monday that my dad died again. At least that’s how it felt in the gut when I learned the news. For a whole lot of people my age, Sladed’s father Hank was a surrogate father when we were in high school and beyond. He was always near with a story, a pep talk, a joke (dirty and clean), or a demonstration of a bodily function. On Sunday night, Hank passed away after a long battle with a number of ailments and it’s a difficult thought to get my head around. He was a loving husband, father, grandfather, father-in-law and friend to so many people that I’m sure there are a lot of people feeling the same way this week.

While some of Hank’s jokes and stories were done for personal attention, most of it wasn’t. It always came at a time when one teenager or another was full of anxiety about a swim event or even trying to figure out life. Hank’s approach always hit the spot and made everyone feel better about themselves and their situation.

I was more fortunate. The surrogate fatherhood from Hank lasted for several decades beyond my teen years. I can’t say the jokes got any better over the years, but his expressions of caring about how my life was going and his general interest in all the good and often stupid things I did increased.

The memories of Hank are endless and I’d like to share a few. The first comes from his nominating himself as team dad for my high school swim team. Not only did this make him one of the few dads at every swim meet cheering for his own son and anyone else who wore those silly black and red Speedos, it also made him the most popular dad because at the end of every swim meet, he brought out a brown paper bag of nearly every kind of candy bar. I became addicted to Butterfingers and Clark Bars because of him and would likely blame him for my current girth if I weren’t so damn happy to be eating those candy bars today. As an aside – and there is usually the aside – his son went for the O’Henry bars. I wonder why.

Anyone who knew Hank knew he was one of the greatest supporters of UCLA football. OK, it was USC. And that’s the point. If you ever wanted to get your thumbs pulled off, you merely had to say something negative about his beloved Trojans. While I was attending UCLA (on paper, at least), it was very enjoyable to get in a few digs by wearing a UCLA shirt on a visit to see Sladed, hoping Hank would be around to jab you with his toothpick that was incessantly resting on the side of his mouth.

Gail and I went to UCLA together and I always managed to get her into the act. We once tee-peed his house in Bruin blue and gold and later, despite the fact I was wetting my pants thinking we would be discovered and shot, Gail and I removed his USC Trojan license plate rim and replaced it with a UCLA rim. Fortunately for our prank, it wasn’t noticed until a friend and fellow Trojan fan was helping him put things in his trunk after the UCLA/USC football game and said, “Hank, when did you become a Bruin fan?”

As was often the case, Hank got me back. He along with Jayne took out some cardinal red nail polish and painted in the UCLA rim with Trojan colors, drove to our house, dragged me out by my thumbs (what was it with Hank and thumbs?), and made me stare at his and Jayne’s handiwork.

Besides being a Bruin fan (and a closet Trojan fan), I was also a University of Michigan fan. That meant that every so often the two teams would meet in the Rose Bowl and Michigan would do one of its usual failures to show up for the big game. Of course that didn’t stop me from carrying on the pranks and it led to one of my finest moments. I placed an ad in the sports sections of the San Diego newspaper addressed to all Wolverine fans. It announced there would be a pre-game party at the home of Michigan Alum Hank’s house and to call his number to share in the festivities. The ad didn’t draw the numbers I hoped for, but I think there were enough calls to irritate him because he started giving out my number as the party’s “social secretary.”

Sadly I never did two pranks I hoped to do. One was to write a fictional piece about Hank as the world’s biggest Bruin supporter with fake quotes about how he lives and dies for the Bruins. My idea included getting the wives of his fellow Trojan teammates and classmates to put the fictional story around the morning newspaper so they would all wake up thinking the world had shifted in a strange way and Hank had turned to the dark side. My other plan that never played out was to hire the UCLA marching band and have them march down his street playing the Bruin fight song and generally annoying him and his neighbors with displays of Bruin spirit.

Hank also knew that a prankster at heart could be used for his own fun and he often put me up to things. Among my favorite memory was calling a San Diego sports radio show at Hank’s urging. His old teammate and good friend Ernie Zampese was a defensive backfield coach for the San Diego Chargers and was the guest on the show that night. Ernie and Hank had been friends at that time for more than 25 years and had a lot of nicknames for each other. For the sake of keeping this post clean, I can write one of those nicknames was Zampoosie. So I called the station and said I had a question for Mr. Zampoosie. The host immediately corrects my pronunciation while Hank suppressed a laugh. Hank pushes me to continue. “So, Mr. Zampoosie, do you intend to utilize a nickel formation or make better use of a strong safety?” The host again corrects my pronunciation and now Hank is giggling and even Ernie is laughing because he knows I’ve been put up to this. I mention Zampoosie several more times, each time corrected by the host, and Ernie can barely answer the question and I think Hank wet his pants laughing.

Hank had so many life-long friends and it’s such a testament to who he was that he and Jayne could continue those friendships up until the last days of his life.

Despite all the fun and back and forth we had, none of these stories touch who Hank really was and what he meant to his two boys, their wives and kids and especially to Jayne. I’ll never forget when Sladed was so sick and in the hospital for a very long time. Things weren’t going as well as any of us had hoped and there were even thoughts we were in for a long recovery at best. I came to visit Sladed in the hospital and when I turned the corner, Hank was sitting in a chair and quietly crying. For all his toughness and roughhouse ways, deep down Hank was a loving and emotional guy who was so worried about his son he couldn’t contain the tears.

The greatest story of Hank, however, was the 55 plus year love story he had with Jayne. She was his everything and, man, he often needed her to be his everything if only to keep him out of trouble. From the early days of dancing to the Tennessee Waltz to Jayne’s endless vigil by his side as his health declined, they were both the apple of each other’s eye. There is no better way to sum up a man’s life than to witness how he loved and how he was loved by others. His relationship with Jayne and her with him beats anything you would find in a romance novel and tells you all you need to know about the both of them.

I didn’t get to see Hank in his later stages. He wouldn’t have recognized me anyway. But I was able to keep tabs on how he was doing by Jayne having the courage and willingness to open up such a private moment to write in many forums on the journey she and Hank were on. Not only was it comforting for those who knew them to read, but I know it helped others – often strangers – find solace as they went through their own journeys. And so now Jayne will continue without her Hankie, as we all will, and I wish nothing but love and happy memories for the joy that came from just knowing the man. Peace be with you, Hank. You will be sorely missed.

I Pad Thai

Most of you know I’m more comfortable traveling in European cultures (I count New Zealand as such) and I haven’t traveled outside that comfort zone as much, particularly for business. But I am writing this from Bangkok, Thailand where I will be working – and for the most part living – for the next three months. It will take some getting used to, but I haven’t had a challenge to stretch the cultural boundaries in a while so this may be good for me. The distance and time difference will be one big pain in the patoot. For example, it’s 326,000 miles from San Diego and the time is – well, add two hours and replace the PM with an AM and vice versa. It’s also half again as warm as San Diego and with air conditioning units dominating the billboard space, I think I have an idea what’s in store for me. As an added bonus, monsoon season is quickly approaching so maybe less needs for showers in the morning. To put your mind in the proper perspective as to my level of nearly alive, think of Bill Murray at the beginning of the movie Lost In Translation when he is arriving in Tokyo half asleep, half dead. Put it to the music of Death In Vegas’ Girls, Girls, Girls for more enjoyment. His constant complaints of not being able to fall asleep seem oddly familiar. My body tells me to wake up and get on with it, but the local hour recommends sleep. This is a short trip so I have no real expectation of making any adjustment. My unmade bed looks mighty inviting at the moment. So far I like it, but I haven’t really ventured into the maze of the city much. I’m in Sumkavit, which is the financial district where I am surrounded by modern high-rise buildings, flashing lights, motor cycles, Tuk Tuks (have to dodge them), colorful pink and yellow taxis with plenty of dents so I know I need to be prepared for action at all times. There are also plenty of people with identical t-shirts advertising something with bullhorns. They may just like bullhorns here. When I was picking up my bags at the airport, there was a solitary bullhorn in a gray bin circling the baggage belt with a recorded message likely announcing something about the bags; probably that they all look alike and be sure not to grab the ones with bio-hazard signs on them. Maybe it said there is no parking in the White Zone. Among the first thing you’ll notice is the Thai people are quite small. Bill was here years ago and took an elephant ride. When the handlers helped him off his private elephant, one said, “Thank you, giant.” Bill was a big guy, but hardly a giant. Still, I look big to them, although I wouldn’t want to have to wrestle these wiry little bastards. As one of my usual asides, Bill was having his very own Lost In Translation seven years ago today as he was in Japan for his final days. I know he was immensely happy at that time, so it makes it a bit easier to think about. Thai people are very polite and the little thing they do with the partial bow with their hands together in a praying position is a nice touch. I don’t know if it’s kosher to pray or bow back to them and just continue past them with an air of superiority. For now, I’m bowing. I’m told they do this instead of shaking hands as we do. No touching, just bowing with hands pressed together. A woman working at the hotel said they appreciate when a foreigner does it back. I like to be popular, so I do it… My first stop on this epic voyage to Thailand was Korea. There’s not too much of a connection between the two countries other than they so badly mangle English terms to make whatever product they’re selling sound, well, American. Their descriptor of anything is happy, such as Happy Food, or Happy Foot Massage. I think it’s meant to suggest use of their products will make you happy. When I arrived in Thailand, I saw a coffee shop called Hey! Coffee. I imagined the franchise possibilities such as Hey! Pizza, Hey! Can Of Tuna, Hey! Dogmeat. Well, it got my attention if that was the goal. Today I went around Bangkok looking for a long-term place to stay. I had a nice driver in a 1922 bright pink Toyota. Seatbelts had to be a suggestion because the latches for the seatbelts were stuffed so far down the back seat they were probably in the trunk. I’m not sure it mattered since traffic doesn’t allow speeds in excess of 3 mph. I was capably driven by Bob, or Mr. Bob when there was a need for more formality. Bob’s English is quite good and he told me a great deal about the country from his perspective. He’s older and still a very devout follower of the King, but it’s the younger generation who aren’t as enamored and can’t find much in the way of suitable employment. It’s a country in transition in a section of the world undergoing strains in its old social fabric. For example, my hotel uses a metal detector for any car dropping off guests; something that was also done four years ago when my family traveled to Phuket. I asked Bob how often bombs were under taxis to necessitate such an additional security measure. Bob just said, “Often.” Next on my to do list is to find a metal detector of my own, which will give me the added benefit of using it on the beach back home. I’ll bet I can find many interesting items while wearing shorts and black socks and a funny hat. I’m sure there’s more to tell and bore you all with. I’ll write more when the mood strikes. I didn’t zero in on a longer-term place to stay, but I ruled out some places. They may be only a few miles from my client, but Bob estimates the drive time to be about an hour in the morning and the same for rush hour in the early evening. Plus there’s no Pizza Hut nearby!

Why I Love The Irish

A few months back I was visiting my Old Drunk Irish Partner who now works with the EU Commission in Brussels. Naturally we met for lunch at an Irish pub in this very French area of the country. The restaurant served some of the most ghoulish dishes one associates with Irish cuisine: meat pie, meat with fries, Guinness soaked meat, meat stew and some kind of a meat drink to wash it all down. Wait, that was more Guinness, not meat.

I used to introduce my ODIP with the phrase, “This is my ODIP, there is really no excuse for him." And, or course there’s not, other than he’s a delightful and bright guy with little to no social skills. Some days you’d say he looks like Drew Carey, other days you’d insist he’s a dead ringer for Shrek. He was dieting that day so he decided to skip the salad to avoid the extra calories and to give him more room for a hunk of meat piled high on fries, which, in Belgium, come with mayonnaise. I had a sense of pride when he fought off requests for dessert.

For all the lousy things I say about my ODIP, the larger truth is he is one of my best friends and one of the biggest reasons I learned to love the Irish and Ireland.

The first day I met him was as interesting a day as one could have. He was asked to work with me by a Danish company and I don’t think he really wanted the help, although he was too interested in meeting this git from the U.S. to say anything about it. He met me at my hotel and said he wanted to show me around town. Indirectly we were working for the Taoiseach (prime minister). At the time, that was Bertie Ahern.

We walked down Merrion Street toward the government buildings when we ran across a short, mostly bald man whose remaining hair was white as snow and flapping about in the wind. My ODIP began to chat it up with the nice fellow. I was introduced, although when sober my ODIP talks like he has marbles in his mouth so I didn’t catch the name of the person we were meeting. When he’s drunk, he’s much easier to understand. After we left the nice man I told my ODIP I didn’t know who we had just met. “Bullocks, that's the Taoiseach, you pelican,” he said.

Because I was more interested in going to Ireland than catching up on local politics, I figured Bertie Ahern was a motherly leader of the island nation. She wasn’t a she but the guy I had just met walking alone down a busy street.

So I said to my ODIP, “Why is the Taoiseach walking around without bodyguards"

“Why on earth would he need one of them?” he asked.

“Never mind,” I said, and began to like Ireland and the Irish even more.

While Bill Clinton was president, one of his first official visits was with the Taoiseach at the time, Charles Haughey. Clinton, wanting to show his determination for peace in other countries and act like he had the international stuff down, decided to lecture Haughey on the runaway violence in his country. Haughey simply told Clinton that Ireland registered only 38 murders the year before and asked the new, brash president, how many murders were committed in Washington, DC the year before. Clinton responded, “Let me introduce you to George Mitchell.” More reason to love the Irish and Ireland.

Later that night, my ODIP met me at the beautiful and historic Merrion Hotel where I was staying. It may be old and historic, but it’s not exactly the heart of where all the fun is happening in Dublin. Just the same, he suggested we have a drink in the hotel bar – not the last such offer I’d have that night by a long shot. My ODIP ordered a gin and tonic, and then another and another still while I nursed a pint of Guinness. He looked around and said, “For fuck sake, nobody’s in the bar, let’s go get us to a proper bar.”

I pointed to an old drunk man, face down on his table in the back of the bar and told my ODIP were weren’t exactly alone. My ODIP explained, “Oh, him. He always comes around here on the weekend to pick a fight with the tourists. That’s Van Morrison and he’s a terrible fighter, especially when he’s pissed. I’ll finish your beer and let’s go." More reason to love Ireland and the Irish.

We went to a wine bar where we met up with a colleague. I think he and his friend believed I would find a wine bar more up to my prissy American standards. They ordered three bottles of wine, not exactly meant to be doled out proportionately. I may have had one and a half glasses before the bottles were empty and it was time to head to the local political hangout on the Temple Bar. On the way there I noticed guardrails along the sidewalk. “What are these for?” I asked. My ODIP said, “It’s for the drunks to keep from falling in the streets and into the drunk drivers. Mind the vomit…” Another reason to love Ireland and the Irish.

When we got to the political hangout, I was quickly introduced to 1,000 Irish politicos packed into space for 35 Irish politicos. My back was slapped a lot and I heard, “So you’re from America, you are,” a few thousand times. I also was asked if I wanted another beer equally as often, as it was puzzling to the locals that I was still on my first beer.

I decided to try my hand at some humor to my new 1,000 well-quenched friends. I mentioned I was a direct descendent of Oliver Cromwell. “Oh, no, don’t say that, mate,” one of my occupiers of the same square inch warned. “Not a good idea to say that here, you may get a good talking too,” another said. So I guess an admission that one of my relatives brutally reigned over the Irish on behalf of the British Crown some 350 years earlier was in bad taste. Despite the fact I brought up a name of a man who attempted to cleanse the Irish Island of the Irish, I was just told to think of a better way to open a conversation. By now I’m sure you love the Irish, too.

While I was there the country was consumed with the Gaelic Football championship, more super than our Super Bowl. As a consequence there was no available hotel space in the entire country for that weekend. I decided to take advantage of the lodging shortage and take a train up to Northern Ireland whose inhabitants could care less about Gaelic Football Championships.

The first thing you note heading north is the plush landscape, so tiresomely pretty, so unrelentingly restful to the eyes that it may be the most beautiful place on the planet. It’s so lush and trim, you’d swear it was plotted out in fairways by Robert Trent Jones. I went through areas that my travel book warned me were too dangerous to venture outside the train stations. During the long, winding trip on tracks that were not designed for jotting notes on a pad of paper and pencil less you were designing Rorschah Tests, I read up on how the British came to claim this land.

It turns out that Diaruid MacMurrough, King of Leinster, ran off with the comely wife of Tighernan O’Rourke, Prince of Breffni in 1152. O’Rourke raised such a stink (and an army) that MacMurrough had to call King Henry II of England for help. The Brits arrived, somewhat tardily, in 1169 and proceeded to commit unforgiveable sins on the Irish. For the next 830 years (and still counting) the English stole land, crushed rebellions, exploited the populace, persecuted Catholics, dragged a bunch of Scottish settlers into Ulster, crushed rebellions of the Scottish settlers, held potato famines, hanged patriots, stamped out the language, taxed everybody’s pig and generally behaved in a manner much different than the Irish would have if it had been the Irish who invaded England and the shoe was on the other foot (assuming the Irish could afford shoes).

By the time I arrived at the main train station in Belfast I had read enough that I figured I would be pointed out as a Brit and taken to a nearby bucolic field and beaten with a blunt object, such as my captors' sense of humor. I decided to have a stiff drink to get the right wobble down so the natives would think I was one of them.

I hailed a taxi to take me around town. My dirvier's name was Dickie and I’ll never know if he was Catholic or Protestant or somewhere in between. I just know he was able to safely drive a taxi around the Falls Road ghetto and down Shankhill Road. Dickie first pointed out Cave Hill, which rises above Belfast like Sugar Loaf Mountain above Ipanema Beach. “Some say Belfast is an Hibernian Rio.” Maybe so, but I don’t think I’d want to see an Irish woman walking around in a string bikini. He drove me by tall Flats, high rise housing built in the Sixties when city planners hadn’t yet learned it’s a bad idea to stack poor people who drink.

As in all the world’s poor places, there were plenty of idle young men with tattoos and beer. Dickie informed me the unemployment rate was “125 percent.” But there was still a pleasantness about these slums. Young boys were out playing soccer, all the windows had freshly picked flowers in the neatly attached flower boxes above the perfectly maintained brick buildings. “You Irish have a lot to learn about slums,” I said. “Where’s your incoherent rage? Your homeless living in Hefty bags? In the slums in America you could be mugged a dozen times before lunch on a good day.”

“Well you wouldn’t want to leave your car unlocked around here,” Dickie said defensively. “Not with your suitcase and computer in here, I can tell you."

Dickie took me to the famous Avenue Bar, which had been the scene of numerous partisan attacks, including a Protestant walking in and wildly firing an AK-47 into the crowded bar a few years earlier. “A spray job,” Dickie called it. He told me to go in and he’d wait for me. “It’s a big tourist stop,” he added in a comforting manner. The moment I walked in I was identified as an American. The bar, I found out, had also been bombed in 1976 and 1983 along with the 1988 attack. I was surprised it was still open and barely a seat could be found. I was told the day after the 1988 shooting the bar was jammed.

As soon as I sat down a man moved to my side and said, “You’re American, you are,” and handed me a pint of beer. He was friendly and wanted to talk to me about political economy, international law and theoretical analysis of Irish history since the Battle of the Boyne. I just wanted to know if the food was any good. “It’s shit, it is,” he said, “But the talk is what you come in here for.”

I asked him about the shootings and if he was there or would tell me about it. “No, no, it was too dreadful to speak about. The way the Protestant animals came in the front door just there,” he pointed. “They were looking normal as the day and one pulls out an AK-47 from beneath his long coat and shoots up this corner here where Damien Devlin and Paul McBride died, and then he shoots down the length of the bar this way, killing poor Stephen McGaghan and bullets going right into the women’s loo – if there had been anyone there, they’d have died certain."

I guess he really didn't mind talking about it and the conversation drew a bit of a crowd, all with huge glass mugs of beer. They all nodded their heads in agreement with my new friend. “You were there that day?”

“I’m always here on Friday. I thought I was dead, I did. I said a Hail Mary and jumped over the bar for my life.”

We talked further about the reasons for the years of partisan battle. He referred to the 300-year-old civil war in the country as the “Troubles” and said it was all the fault of unemployment and the “boyos” out shooting and bombing each other. The Troubles. An interesting and pleasant way to call a three-century bloody war.

Do you see why I like Ireland and the Irish?

She Put A Little Love In Our Hearts

The idea of family has always been an interesting subject. From the family you come from, to the family you bring into the world, to the family that that family builds, you get a pretty big tree with pretty big branches and a mess of twigs. With each of those branches come a number of different personalities, temperaments, talents, goals, and the occasional arrest warrant. Though we’re all stuck in this grand grouping through what can only be assumed is a science experiment conducted by God, we find a way to make it all work and get along.

I’ve been blessed with the greatest of extended families I could have ever hoped for. From my grandparents, to my parents, to their siblings, to my siblings, to my cousins, to my children and, now, to their children, I couldn’t have drawn up a nicer looking tree. Sure, there has been the odd outlier among my broader brood, but even they have their charms.

This brings me to the biggest news and is something of a buried lead. The Boy and The Ber made a grandfather out of me on December 29 at 9:38 a.m. Little Livy added a bud to the Laz family tree and it’s already so easy to see she will bloom into the prettiest of flowers. Theologians and other weighty thinkers have long wondered if babies float in some kind of heaven and wait to be plucked down and given to the next family in line, or if the baby’s soul makes a conscious decision to join the family of its choice. I lean toward the latter; even more so since Livy decided to join the clan.

It’s difficult to explain, but one gets the feeling that we’ve met before and there’s an instantaneous and wonderful connection. When the boy looked into her eyes -- not for the first time, but for the first time following the stress of birth -- the two paired and they both understood this was a lifelong deal they had just made. Together, with no strings attached. How blessed I was to be able to see that. When she decided she had enough stimulation in her first hours of life, she nestled into The Ber’s arms, put her head on her tiny hands and looked as comfortable and safe as one could imagine. The Ber was born to give comfort to such a small thing that already had jumped in a big way into all our hearts.

When The Boy was born, I had this instant connection and knew the world would forever revolve around him. When The Girl made headlines she was going to turn a three-person family into four, I was really worried. It was impossible for me to believe I had any room left in my heart for a new arrival. I honestly thought The Boy had soaked up all the love I had to give. However, the moment The Girl made her arrival I knew. Love is not a finite thing. If you have more to love, your capacity to love grows equally. What a great gift from the manufacturer of the human body! If we need more love, we get an extra tank in our heart to love even more.

And so it comes to Livy. She doesn’t take an ounce of love away from anyone. Besides the special gift she brings all bundled up in her onesie, she added an extra tank in the hearts of the new papa and momma, Rexi, Grandma GG, Auntie Em, Nonna Jo, Grandpa Dan, a few dozen other twigs on the branch and, especially, to the one who puts his words and his heart out on this blog from time to time. Thank you Livy for blessing us all with your arrival and, no, you can’t borrow my car when you turn 16.

Arab Spring, Russian Winter and The Politics of Revolution

Whenever journalists and activists for democratic change get together to name a movement, it’s time to hunker down in the tall grass. In 2004 we had the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, which had been preceded by the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia, and even the Yellow Revolution in the Philippines and later the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon.

While the U.S. had a dirty hand in all of the above, none worked out well for our foreign policy. In Ukraine, more than $160 million of your taxes was spent to overturn a flawed, but accurate, election only to produce a lazy, incompetent leader for the sole reason of tweaking the Russians. In Georgia, it was much the same thing. Foreign policy leaders and the NGO community pushed out an old Soviet foreign minister who had been very helpful in reaching Détente with the U.S. at the height of the Cold War in order to install an American-educated, but deeply-imperfect leader. Our man in Georgia ended up being more autocratic than any Soviet leader and nearly caused WWIII in 2008 when he decided to take bazooka shots at the Russians.

In Lebanon, following the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, U.S. policy wonks were giddy because of public uprisings aimed at pushing out the Syrian army and removing the influence Syria had on Lebanese affairs. Free elections and the removal of Syrian troops were called for during months of protests. Ultimately, the troops left and Lebanon got the free elections they demanded. For all their trouble, Syrians, through their surrogates in Hezbollah, killed a bunch of people (targeting Christians) and Hezbollah became the leading elected force which now controls Lebanon with the (ironic) military support of Syria and Iran. This hasn’t been a good thing for America, Israel and least of all the Lebanese people.

Early in the year, protests that began in Tunisia to oust an unpopular leadership led to what was been dubbed the Arab Spring. Uprisings moved to Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria. Three of the uprisings, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, have led to a change in government from either an ally of the U.S. or at least a benign leader, to countries now run by the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the oldest anti-West, pro Sharia Law movements in the Middle East. As awful as the dictators ousted during the uprisings were (including the murder of one leader), they will seem like Laissez-Faire governments compared to the rules that will be laid down once Sharia Law goes into full affect. As for the stability of the region, Egypt was the only country sharing a border with Israel that demonstrated a modicum of respect for its simple existence. Lebanon once did before Hezbollah took control and now it’s a launching pad for hundreds of mortar rockets into Israel.

The Syrian army has butchered Syria’s revolutionaries and organizers have been rounded up by Syrian intelligence services, never to be heard from again. Despite strongly worded demands by the U.S., Europe and the New York Times, Syrian President al-Assad has opted to stay in power. I guess strongly worded statements don’t carry the same clout they once did.

And now to Russia and, with this, the pissing off of many of my friends who either live there or work there. Rallies have been held around the country to protest the obviously fixed elections by the Putin-led government. It’s been dubbed the Russian Winter since any revolutionary movement needs a name.

Most insiders think Putin’s United Russia party received just 30% of the vote instead of the offically reported 50%. But the same insiders, along with the pundits and reporters, never mention whom the votes were stolen from. Most would assume votes were siphoned from well-intentioned, democratic-minded candidates. That side of the fence wasn’t even on the ballot due to earlier election fraud and there’s no telling how they would have done had they been represented on the ballot.

The true losers due to vote theft were socialists, Communists and hardline nationalists. This group represents voters who believe Putin doesn’t show enough Stalinist traits, to others who want him to head to the Caucuses and purge a million or so minorities, and still more who just feel Russia needs to move back to Five Year Plans and the Workers’ Paradise. As much as official U.S. policy wants to continue sticking a thumb in Putin’s eye, I think most would agree his government of kleptomaniacs is preferable to the government programs that impoverished nearly a million people at the height of the Cold War.

I know the true democrats in Russia well and I would have been out protesting at their side if I thought it would do any good. These guys are modern thinkers; practical and not into being elected for the purpose of taking 5% off the top for every barrel of oil Russia sells. But they are a true minority who often find difficulty agreeing on a coherent message among themselves. And, in order to march in the protests, I would need to brush shoulders with Bolsheviks (carrying Bolshevik flags that the eagle eyes in the media don’t seem to notice) and ultra-nationalists (carrying three-legged Nazi flags that the eagle eyes in the media don’t seem to notice) and I’d be standing with very few of the democrats because most of them were already in jail.

Don’t get me wrong (especially you Russians). There is need for a change in Russia. But it is change of the organic type that happens over years of disappointment with the current regime and even a change in generations. History hasn’t produced happy results through brute force for change, particularly recent history as I adroitly point out in the magnificent piece. And it certainly hasn’t produced good results that have been helpful for American interests around the world.

It’s far better for our policy makers to keep an eye on the mess that’s stinking up our own country, support our allies as best we can, continue to trade with countries that may not be friendly, but there is a strategic value engaging in trade (or we owe them trillions of dollars). It would be far more prudent to end the foreign policy that an enemy of my enemy is a friend of mine and stay directly and indirectly out of the radical change that this year has brought. Although if the Tea Party wants to start something over here, well ……

Back At It?

It’s been quite a while since I posted something on this blog and perhaps longer since I wanted to write about anything in particular. It’s not so much a writer’s block or even a lack of material; just more a lack of inertia in searching for the right words to go whirling off my keyboard until they slam into the correct punctuation marks.

Better still, I’m just stuck.

Oh, I have half written posts about a travel incident in Ireland nearly 10 years ago, a few rants about our overwhelmed president doing an underwhelming job, and even a post about finding liberation through speaking the truth. None of them gave me the willingness to share them with what I’m sure is a dwindling audience (maybe this one will never see the light of day either).

The driving force behind this post has less to do about an interesting subject and more to do with attempting to get my groove back so I can sit down and finally finish my damn novel. Along the lines of Seinfeld and the modern-day version of the show, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, you could say, without contradiction, this post is about nothing. Now I just need to make nothing look interesting.

More than a year ago, I spent a few hours with one of the best book editors in the business. A novelist herself with a half dozen books published, she is taking time away from a hectic travel schedule promoting her novels in favor of an editing job and a steady paycheck. The purpose of the meeting was to see if she could find an editor to help me finish my book. In the end, she agreed to be that editor. I was surprised and honored she would be willing to do so and I set about to get her my jumbled mess of 420 loosely intertwined pages.

Before I packaged them up, I began to read portions of my novel and thought to myself, Well, I can’t send her this page or this page or this chapter and this chapter. In the end, I talked myself out of sending her a single page and told her my novel needed more work before it was ready for her. I’m sure she knew what that meant in writer-speak – I wasn’t about to let go of an imperfect manuscript, especially to someone who knew a thing or two about not letting go of imperfect manuscripts. I told her I would work out a few kinks and get it to her shortly. Well, that didn’t happen, as I’m sure she knew.

I don’t know what event caused me to pick up my novel again, or even when it was. Maybe it was an unseen force putting my fingers back on the keyboard and my mind back on track or a bit more time on my hands, but I’ve been re-working my novel and hope to have it ready for her to edit by the end of the year (if she’ll take it). I never set out to write a top-selling novel. I merely wanted to write a beginning, middle and end that I could be happy with and maybe share it with people close to me. If it made them happy, that would be enough.

Throughout my life I’ve had a completion problem, so this slog of finishing my novel has become, paradoxically, my epic Old Man And The Sea battle. Finishing it is the only goal now. Yeah, finishing it would make me happy….

La Tristesse Durera Toujours

That little French line is a translation of the last words Vincent Van Gough’s brother said to him, meaning, The sadness will last forever. I wrote it for two reasons; because it makes me seem a bit more sophisticated and Bohemian, and because it’s true – in losing Bill, the sadness will last forever.

Bill was my “baby” brother, my childhood roommate, my partner and my best friend and I lost all of them at once six years ago today. Rarely a day goes by when I don’t think of him or remember something he would say in a certain situation (often not suitable for a gentle crowd). I have so many memories of him, but I was worried some of the thoughts and memories of others could be forgotten. I pestered a few of his many and eclectic friends to pass on their stories about Bill and several replied with very caring thoughts.

A common theme was that Bill was tall and big and loud. There was no denying that. His voice boomed when he was happy, when he was angry, when he was telling a joke, or, come to mind, whenever he was talking. If you didn’t know him, it could be disarming because it was difficult to know if he was yelling about something, or simply enjoying life.

As loud and big as Bill was, he was also very sensitive. He gave so much of his time to anyone who asked for advice or to have deep, long talks with his kids and Sue. It wasn’t in him to allow someone to feel pain without him trying to help figure out a resolution. We talked so much about personal challenges and happiness that it’s a wonder we ever got any work done.

But rather than having me fill up this space with my thoughts, please read what others had to say about Bill. It’s a bit long, but well worth the read. He had friends from his childhood and from all walks of life and each of them got a different view and a different time from Bill. I hope we all remember him fondly and not with sadness, as he wouldn’t want any part of anyone shedding tears for him. He’d rather tell a joke or sing a song; anything to keep us from crying. We were all better to have had him in our lives, however briefly, and it’s great to keep the flame of his joy and laughter moving on through the years.

What follows are thoughts of his friends and family members and in no particular order.

When we first moved to San Diego, we had about 30 kids living on our street who were all roughly the same age and just about all who were from somewhere else, just like us. One of those early friends, Cindy, had this to say about him: “the biggest thing about Bill was his booming laugh and his absolute joy in taking on life! He pushed boundaries at times to get the experience but was actually gentle in his insistence. I'll always think of him in his high school years with his wild, surfer hair and his huge grin.

As most of you know, Bill didn’t want to just be an actor, he wanted to be a movie star! To get as close as he could to the business, he worked in movie theaters and made a lot of lifelong friends. One was his buddy Scott who wrote, “I was 17 when I first met Bill. He was hired to be the manager of the movie theater that I worked at. He was a very welcome change from the people I had worked with previously- and we quickly became friends.

One of the jobs that Bill and I ended up sharing was to leave the answering machine message for what the showtimes of the movies were. Well, as luck would have it, the theater eventually ran the movie 'The Stuntman' which Bill did extra work on- and had a line in. So, of course, when he did the show times message he said: 'The Poway Theater is proud to present, 'The Stuntman.'!!! Starring Bill Arno and Peter O' Toole!!!'

We also used to have clip boards in the managers office where we could leave each other notes. 'Need supplies', etc. Bill used to leave me somewhat perverted drawings that used to always crack me up. One of the best ones that he left me was picture of himself mooning me saying that I needed to get hotdog buns. Our boss' kids saw it, and unfortunately that was the end of those great notes...” Scott says he can produce the drawings if pressed, but it’s not difficult to believe. I’m sure his brother Peter (and several of his friends, come to think of it) can remember many actual moonings by Bill.

One of our best workers at the office was the daughter of one of Bill’s friends. It actually is painful to know how his friend has suffered the loss of Bill, but also good to know his daughter Amanda remembers him, “Some of my fondest memories of Bill were when he would crack me up with his sound effects and dramatic entries. I will never forget the 'hissing' sound while using his wooden backscratcher as a cat claw prop.”

My daughter Em has this message to Bill, and even adds a bit of Bohemian flair by tossing in the words of W. H. Auden to express her love, “As a young child, I always thought you were mad at us, but I learned very quickly to be an Arno is to be loud and if you weren't loud, you weren't heard! And being heard is very important to us Arno's. All my time with you was special, but the most special times were the simplest. I loved coming to the office when my dad was on the phone because I knew I could go straight to your office and would get a great giggle while you did your impression of Cartman. I loved the stories you told me about Cass and Janee because I could tell in your voice how much you loved them, even when they were creeeps.

I know I carry so many Arno traits, but the one I never seemed to pick up on was collecting. I loved to watch you collect things for your many hobbies and talents. Everytime Kellen gets a new surfboard, I think of you and smile. You live in each one of us and that is a gift that can never be taken away.

Since we lost you, your family has become even more important to me. Cass and Janee feel more like a brother and a sister than cousins and your amazing wife captures everything; aunt, mother, friend and of course therapist. You must be beaming with pride...

Before I say goodbye this time, I would like to leave you with the words from another splendid buggar; "He was my North, my South, my East and West; My working week and my Sunday rest. My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song..."

You will soon permanently be my West when I get a compass tattooed on my ankle - following in your family's footsteps. Thank you for continuing to guide me.”

Gail knew Bill for nearly 30 years, as he sort of came with the larger deal. Although I think she would say he wasn’t a gift you wanted to give back. She was there for the end, too. “I remember nearly exactly every step of the day we got the news he died. I wasn't with you and you told me over the phone, I remember driving to our Orangevale home and how awful my gut felt, I remember going to the office together and telling the team he had died. And I remember my feelings-my heart hurt and my soul ached but mostly I remember being worried for you, being grateful your parents didn't have to endure what we were experiencing and thinking they were welcoming and comforting him in Heaven. I remember his laugh, his voice(s), his honesty, I remember him crying like a baby at your Mother's funeral, I remember his smile when Cass was born, I remember him as honest, he could be brutally honest, he was truly a family man and while he pursued his interests with great focus he really did love the family he was given and the one he chose to create.

He embraced life and the living of it in such a huge way. There is so much I love and remember about Bill but nothing matches the way in which he lived his life: to the very fullest. He had a zest for living and lived his life to its very limit and I admire that in him so much. The love he shared with Sue and then created in Cass and Janee is inspirational-they have done well with Bill as their guiding light and I am certain he is beaming with pride watching over them.

Our family misses you and your booming voice, your varied and broad interests and hobbies, your huge presence on the screen and through the air waves, your sensitive soul, your collecting nature and the obvious love you brought to your life and the life of many others that we all benefitted from.

I am so honored to have known you, to have been a small part of your life and to have had the privilege to love you. Your example of living life to its fullest inspires me to follow in your footsteps and embrace this life we are given. This planet isn’t the same without you nor is life in general. I miss and love you Bill very much---and I will always carry you in my heart…

It may seem a bit odd, but Bill was the youngest kid in our family. My brother Peter and I tried to figure out ways to get rid of him when he was born as he was cramping the good thing the two of us had going. I even poisoned him once (on accident, I’m pretty sure), but I think we actually instilled in him the ability to withstand so much, we created a bit of a monster. From his brother Peter, “The day my youngest brother was born, I can remember running home with my younger brother Michael. We ran across a neighbor’s yard to take a short cut to get home and get our first look at our new brother. Quickly we were in the house and looking into a crib to see Bill for the first time. He had eczema and, as many babies on their first day, was not so attractive. Looking into the crib I can remember being very shocked at the sight of him as my mother replied “isn’t he beautiful.” Well I didn’t want to say no. I just looked at Michael and said “come on Mike let’s go outside and play.” That was my first meeting in this life with a very dynamic personality that was to grow up as a close friend.

As early as watching him play in the ashes in the fireplace, Michael and I realized this was no ordinary guy. Even though he was three years younger, I preferred not to fight with him, as he was willing to grab the nearest weapon at anytime to equalize the matter. This was an early theme when, even at age five after a small skirmish, I ran to close the back door of the house and lock him out. Unfortunately for me this provided no help as, quite shocked, I watched him put his fist through the window unlock the door to continue the fight.

There were many charming early memories of this type. I particularly appreciated ducking behind a chair as Bill threw a kitchen knife at me. As I ducked, I was able to see the knife stick in the wall over my head. Needless to say I escaped down the hall shutting two doors behind me as he kept throwing his entire body into the door time and time again until he broke it down. Bill was determined!!

After we started going to school, daily I was asked if I was Bill Arno’s brother. My usual reply was “no he is MY brother” but it did no good. He was larger than most kids his age and he always made it a point to protect those who got picked on in his class. In school, if you were Bill’s friend you were safe on the way home.

Bill was a showman who lived his entire life larger than anyone I knew. I truly enjoyed watching Bill grow up. As we grew older we became good friends and I considered him to be a best friend always. Bill’s artistic talent was clear from a very early age. As a very young boy, he was easily drawing very complex sketches with great expertise. It seemed as if he could play any instrument he wished to pick up and he had a beautiful voice singing solos often in choirs. He settled on acting to express his artistic talent for most of his life. He was always trying out for parts and using his booming base voice in “voiceovers” for most of his adult life.

Bill and I worked together for some time but I was happy to see that he got a job working with my other brother Michael. This was a better opportunity and he made the best of it eventually becoming Michael’s partner with Arno Political Consultants. His success in his work afforded him time to make the most of life which always included his family. This included my son Will too as well. Bill took many wonderful family trips around the world. At times he included my son Will and I know Will considered him a second father.

About a year before Bill died he told me that he felt that he would not live much longer and that he wanted to fit in as much as he possibly could. That he certainly did, particularly focusing on Japanese Swordsmanship. I must say that he was freakishly good. He became highly proficient in a remarkable short period of time and outside of his family, it was the central theme of interest for the last few years of his life.

One Friday our sword Sensei “Big Tony” called me to tell me that Bill had collapsed in Japan at a sword tournament. I had a bad feeling as soon as I took the call and Tony informed me “that it didn’t look good.” A few days later, I was formally informed that Bill had died. This was perhaps the saddest day of my life. I remember this day like it was yesterday. I loved Bill very much and know that because of that we are never apart. I am very grateful to have had him in my life and honored that he is my brother.

Being new to California as pale, geeky teens from Michigan, it was difficult to assimilate into the cool, California lifestyle. Bill instantly knew he had to buy the surf shorts, grow out his hair, put his lip in a permanent snarl and buy Hang Ten shirts. He also made a huge early impression when he got to school and made a number of friends. One of his first friends was David Steinberg, who wrote this touching membory of him. “Bill Arno was simply the best friend anyone could ever have. We met when I was about 13, through a mutual friend of mine who was a native Californian and an avid body surfer as Bill was.

I had moved to La Jolla about three years earlier from Bethesda, MD, where my father worked as a research scientist at the National Institute of Health. UCSD started a medical school and my father had a new career as a Professor of Medicine.

As an East Coast kid, and one of English-Scottish background with pasty white skin, I felt extremely uncomfortable with the intense surf culture in La Jolla. I was never athletic and was generally a very self-counscious and geeky adolescent. Add to that having a pretty absent father due to the demands of his new job and you have a recipe for a lot of teenage angst.

Bill was fair-skinned like me, but he was a big dude and he could pretty much kick anyone's' ass who gave him a hard time. He surfed, he participated in sports, and he was extremely popular at LJ High - particularly with the girls.

We all know that kids can be awfully mean.

Bill stood up for me in any number of situations. He was very protective of his friends. He had an evenness and calm about him that was truly unusual for an adolescent.

He was never mean to others and did not need to be critical or judgmental. He seemed happier than I or my other best friend and we enjoyed basking in Bill's confident and light-hearted presence.

And the most wonderful thing about Bill was that he had a wicked sense of humor and ability to mimic that was amazing. He could recite lines word-for-word and with the exact intonations from dozens of films of the time - like Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Monty Python, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. He had a similar talent musically, where he could "scat sing" a Jimmy Hendrix solo that would blow you away.

Movies were always my passion and Bill and I really bonded over that.

Years later I ended up working as a cinematographer and Bill had some acting successes. He attended my wedding and saw each other every time I was in San Diego, Los Angeles or Sacramento right up until his his death. After a divorce and a 2nd wedding, Bill flew to Martha's Vineyard just to spent time with me and meet my new wife.

I will never stop missing him. He was my very best friend and as an adult, the friend with whom I had the greatest history. I love him dearly and am so grateful for having known him

Another high school friend, Neil Shepherd wrote: “Bill was warm, wise, and mature beyond his years. Being comfortable in his own skin, he allowed others to be comfortable in theirs. Undoubtedly, he enriched the world around him and we're poorer for his passing. Many thanks for the memories and warm regards.

Another friend Peter Woods added this: “Bill was one of the first people I met back when we moved out here in '69 from the Midwest. We used to mess around over at Gordon Merricks' house up above where Tom Bevan lived off of upper Nautilus, the new frontier in La Jolla back then.

I remember telling both of those guys that I played the drums and Gordon proceeded to break out his sax while Bill went and got his trumpet from home. This was before I had met Tom and was the first affirmation that it might be ok to play an instrument and bring a little of my mid-western experience through to my new California identity and not get razzed for it like I did my striped bell-bottom pants on my first day at Decatur. Incidentally, Bill never gave me a hard time about anything I ever did, wore, or played, and was a true patron of the arts dating all the way back to day one as far as I was concerned.

I always enjoyed the way the group and activity seemed to get on with Bill's pace as soon as he arrived on the scene. It was an easy, calming and gentrified rhythm that would ensue, and always made for a richer experience, no matter the event, or people involved.

The last time I saw him was at Lino's funeral, and he was his usual bigger than life self telling lobbyist tales and generally cracking everybody up, the perfect foil for the somber occasion, checking everybody out with a tilted head, making sure the groove was comfortable.

He was a good friend.
Thanks for ringing the bell.

Chris Mahoney had similar thoughts about Bill: “I met Bill at Muirlands Junior High School. I can’t remember how, probably art class in seventh grade. Bill was a gifted artist. He would draw super heroes that could rival anything Marvel Comics was printing up at the time. I was always so envious of that talent, and I was surprised, later on, to hear he'd never really capitalized on it. He was really, really good, especially given his young age.

For a couple of our junior high years, Bill, Pete Nielsen and I were the fearsome trio. It seemed to me we did everything together: eating lunch together, sitting together in class when our schedules lined up, terrorizing the neighborhoods that branched off of Nautilus Street after school. We never got into any real trouble, probably because we never really caused any. The only real damage we did was to the iceplant that grew from the edge of Nautilus down to the fairway of the La Jolla Country Club below. We would stand at the top like great warriors or athletes and leap—sometimes feet first, sometimes diving—and then slide all the way to the bottom. We'd then use that same iceplant like vines and climb back up to do it all again.). I don't know about Bill and Pete, but I always caught it when I got home because my jeans and t-shirts would be completely stained green.

Sometimes, looking back, I can't believe how far we walked on our adventures I
do remember buying 5-pound blocks of ice from Grand liquor on the corner of
Grand Ave. and Lamont St., lugging those blocks up to Kate Session Park, and
using them like sleds to slide down the grassy slopes after sunset. Hard to
believe that the media has instilled so much fear in parents that kids can no
longer roam free like that. Interesting how well all that walking and physical play
kept us out of any real trouble.

We also took Mr. Stewart's drama class together and both became semi dedicated thespians. Again, Bill had greater talent than me, but neither of us had the talent of our mutual friend Linus Weiss. While Bill and I were competitive in sports, we were never competitive in Drama, and he, Linus, and I did a lot of acting together, working up scenes, honing our craft, and laughing a lot. We were all in one or two plays together, but my interest in motocross kept me from pursuing acting to the level Bill and Linus did. The rest of the time, I had great fun cheering them on.

As I look back, both he and Linus and he and Pete Nielsen had great senses of humor together. I don't remember myself as having that, but I do remember laughing really long and hard during those friendships. I really needed that laughter, and the light gaiety those three-way friendships brought into my life.

Interestingly, death has been an important thread in our lives as well. When our mutual friend Michael Wolf was tragically killed by a drunk driver, Bill made a special point (at the cost of some business interest) to be at the hastily pulled together services I set up. In fact, that was the last time I saw Bill. My life took me in a whole different direction since (and, to an extent, because of) Michael's death. I always kept track of and in touch with Bill, but since I missed the 20th reunion, I don't think we were ever again in each other's physical presence after that tear-filled good bye.

It was Bill who called me (I was still in graduate school in Colorado at the time.) to tell me of Linus's death. Linus had been fighting the good fight against lymph cancer for years. I can’t think of anyone I would rather hear that news from than Bill. And again, amidst the deep sadness of sharing our grief over Linus's death, Bill found ways to infuse that pain-filled call with great humor that had me laughing and crying at the same time.

Our high school class was surprisingly close, and many of us have remained that way through the ensuing years. As a result, that reunion was much more like a family reunion than it was a high school get together. It may seem odd, now that I think back, but the poignancy of hearing of Bill's death there, at that moment, in just that way, added a richness to the experience, but it did. It was sort of like sitting in a very comfortable place and closing the really great book after reading its final pages. I am very sad he's gone; I will always miss him; but I am so glad we wrote those chapters so richly.

In primary school, Bill was a big, handsome, competent, confident young man, and I aspired to be like him. I will always appreciate the ease with which Bill carried his natural talents and attributes through life, his easy smile, the lightness with which he interacted with those around him, and that unbounded confidence. Throughout my time knowing Bill, both when he was alive and since his death, it is the laughter we shared, the myriad ways he inspired me, and the wonderfully easy way he carried all is strengths and plied all his vast talents that has always left me a love-filled smile on my face and a desire to stretch myself to be a better man. I'll always be grateful to him both for the times we shared.
Another of his high school friends, Louise McCartney Bluestone, sums up how so many of his friends recall him: “What I remember most about Bill was that he was a kind, thoughtful gentle soul . He was a very special guy, a friend that could be counted on. You were so lucky to have him as a brother.


All my best to the family

Another LJHS friend, Michael Boyajian, wrote: “One of the fondest memories that I had of your brother, Bill was going out to the Borrego Desert to film the "Last Dollar," in or around 1974-1975. Gary Appel was the director, and David Steinberg was the cameraman. We were all involved in the drama department at La Jolla High School. The film was a western, but Gary had a limited budget, so we had to do without horses. Bill was one of the stars of the movie. The sound was dubbed in after the movie was filmed up at UCSD. I played one of the "bad guys," and my voice wasn't deep enough, so Bill's booming voice was used. Hank Watkins, Caleb Taylor and many others were also involved. This is only one of the memories that I have about Bill (we all ran in the same circles, and Bill ended up marrying one of my sister, Amy's best friends).

Bill was really in his element when he was on stage. I remember when he came home one day and announced how his school was going to put on a performance of Fiddler On The Roof. It was such an involved musical that I remember his theater teacher having misgivings that high school kids could meet the demands on stage, even thinking about bringing in a pro to play Tevye – a role his best friend Linus was born to play. When it was performed, it was done as well as anything you could see Off Broadway and I think it may have been that single play that gave Bill the inspiration to pursue an acting career. One of his castmates, Hilary Michels Dunning remembers that time this way: “I went to his senior prom (and another formal too) with him when I was a young and green sophomore. I was so completely head over heels for that guy! I always felt bad about senior prom - here he picked me up in your parent’s way cool black car (some sort of Thunderbird or something?) and the prom was at the Hotel Del. The part I feel bad about is that all his buddies and their dates were supposed to be out all night long, and my parents made him bring me home by 2:00am. That was some sacrifice on his part! Hopefully, he dropped me off and went back to party! lol

I remember his beautiful, gorgeous singing voice, his twinkly blue eyes, his smile, his laugh, and his resonant speaking voice. And as a tall gal myself, his height was so welcome! :) And he had this great sense of humor and this inner strength - he was grounded and mature. I so looked up to him and respected him.

I fell head over heels for him during the production of Fiddler on the Roof, when he played Perchik. I just went through every rehearsal with stars in my eyes for him. :) I couldn't believe it when my crush was returned. It was a fairly innocent romance and I wanted it to go on forever. (He was never truly committed though, as I think his heart still belonged to Sue and they were on a break when he was with me.) Plus he just seemed so much "older" than me...I was in complete awe of him.”

Another classmate, Dr. John Andrews wrote: “when I think of your brother I always smile. In high school Bill was the big dude with a deep, booming voice who was thoughtful, creative, and extremely kind to everyone. He had unique intensity about him that was complemented by a self confident, mature, and fairly chilled out demeanor. He set an example for all of us to go to the beat of our own drummer. I'll be thinking about him on the 13th...

Brian Micheletti had this memory: I first met Bill in 7th grade at Muirlands JHS. He was a big athletic guy back then, around school he had a laid back presence. Like Dr John said Bill had that booming voice that always let you know he was there. The words Dr John used in describing Bill were right on, thoughtful, creative, kind, intense, confident, mature.

This bring's me to my Bill moment. I was 2 years more or less out of high school. I had turned to surfing a lot after high school, while working and going to school. I was out with some buddies excited to see a new surf flick at the Roxy Theater in PB. I'm waiting with my friends in line working a good buzz when this big arm grabs my shoulder. I turn around to have this official looking Bill (slacks and white shirt) with a serious face, tell me in that take control voice that he needs to talk to me inside. I give my friends a little worried look. He walks me straight into the office. With his back to me he turns and starts to crack that big Bill grin that lightened many a moment. To get me in free, he told me that he needed to look serious to keep his employees from catching on. It was a very cool thing to do. I also hadn't seen Bill in a while and it was good to talk. I will always remember Bill for that moment. Mike thanks for bringing back some good memories.

Bill’s fellow workers were also not immune to his charms. Our longtime CFO, Linda, remembers his pretty much like all of us did, especially the part about his joke rarely being appropriate for the general public: “Bill was such a funny man. He always made me laugh and would always come up with something funny even when times were tough. A lot of the jokes I remember are very inappropriate for the public consumption. He was a great guy and he is missed.”

Teri, one of Bill’s longstanding co-workers says this: “My best memory of Bill is when he decided that it was time for my "annual review.” He called me into his office, now keep in mind at the time I was very intimated by Bill. He offered me a seat in the chair across from him. When I sat down, I slid all the way back into the chair, not realizing it had such a sharp slope to it. I guess the look on my face was funny because Bill let one of his famous billowing laughs out at me. After that moment, Bill forever held a place in my heart. (Oh and my review went really well!)”

The years have slipped by pretty fast since 2005 and it’s difficult to believe he’s been gone this long. I hope all of his friends and family, and especially Sue, Cass and Janee, are warmed by his memory and are sitting in the glow of his love, not only on this day, but at any moment he shines down on them. There are so many of his oft-repeated lines that could close out this, whatever this is, a tribute, I suppose. From one of his favorites as he would bump your chair from behind, “feel anything,” to Bill Murray’s Razor’s Edge, “he won’t be missed,” even to his version of what Ronald Reagan should have said in a farewell speech (including another moon shot). But I remember him doing Bugs Bunny as a kid over and over again saying, “That’s all folks.” For now, I guess that says it best.

Silly Fighting

I have to mention something, even with the likelihood I will offend the easily offended. A few days back I was at a restaurant and I heard a commotion behind me. I turned to find an older man punching another patron who responded with some heavy shoving that ended up turning a dining table over and spilling a bucket full of beer over the floor.

Two burly security guards separated the two, although it took a bit of doing and seemed more like the half-hearted attempts by NHL referees to break up a hockey fight before enough blood hits the ice. As a quick aside, the security business in the country I was visiting may be the fastest growing job sector with security at most restaurants, shops, malls, clubs, parking lots, office buildings, even private security guards. Despite the number of beef at most places I go, I don’t feel much safer.

Once the fighters calmed down, the security guards turned the table back over and rearranged the chairs. The combatants each sat down at the same table and began talking to each other with very little anger, it appeared. So the fighters were actually friends – maybe even relatives – and must have figured a point needed to be made with fists rather than a tough talk. As far as fights go, it wasn’t much of a thing to watch and was more reminiscent of the break-dance fighting from the movie Zoolander than a heavyweight championship bout. Still, it was a head-scrather….

Burning Issues

I have a friend who just can’t sit still. In the past year, he’s been to Afghanistan several times and stayed for a good period of time in South Sudan, living in conditions that even he thought were a bit too austere. A few months ago he contacted me from Kabul at a time that hostilities had increased, including the blowing up of his favorite store to buy his Diet Coke. He’d missed the bombing by about an hour, but seemed more miffed by the loss of his Diet Coke supplier than he was unnerved by the violence. (I’ve always told him his Diet Coke addiction will kill him). In fact, during a chat that day, he admitted to being bored.

He arrived back in Kabul the very day the Afghan “street” was in full mob mode because a goofy pastor had burned a Quran a week or so earlier. The first message he received upon his arrival was from the American security mission in Kabul that read:

Currently ongoing incident:

Shooting - Massoud Cirle/Abdul Haq Circle 0925hrs

Shooting currently ongoing believed to be involving ISAF and Insurgents.

Shooting ongoing. I’m not sure you want to be in a city with that message, but he just laughed it off. So I wrote him asking if we should find more pastors to burn more Qurans so he could have a bit more excitement in his life. He responded with an interesting viewpoint. He suggested the pastor come to Kabul to burn a Quran and become an instant martyr. He made a good point. It’s easy to tweak a religion from a distance and not worry about the consequences for the actions.

However there are two conflicting thoughts, despite the fact that Pastor Jones really had no need to burn anything and if he wanted to do something productive, he should shave that silly mustache! But by burning the Quran, two things come to mind: 1. He claimed Islam is not a religion of peace and, coincidently, they proved the pastor right by killing 20 people in brutal ways, and 2., If a group of Muslims were to come to the most Southern Baptist town and burn a box full of bibles, it’s highly doubtful anyone would have been beheaded and probably the worst that would have occurred would have been a strong letter to the local newspaper and a lot of noise on talk radio.

We seem to be in a war of jingoism coupled with politically correct responses to the obvious: we’re engaged in a clash of cultures, and all it takes to whip up a mob in the Middle East are a few good community organizers and CNN journalists for the mob to mug for the cameras. My opinion is we need to shut down the entire operation, leave the region and leave them stumped to find reasons to join a mob instead of working on creating a country that isn’t among the world’s biggest basket cases.

Random Thinking....

Obama gets to play with his military toys: Due to the ever-changing situation in Libya, this thought may have a shelf-life of a few hours, but I find it humorous that our Nobel Peace Prize winning president decided to lob Trident missiles into Libya to save the Libyan people. It made me turn to me DVD library to watch a few clips of Team America: World Police when they destroyed Paris to save the city.

Most presidents who take us into war (what else can you call it – certainly not a “kinetic military action"?) give Americans a bit of a pep talk before the bombing begins. They’ll make a case to the American people about why we’re blowing up things, the goals and who is supposed to die for messing with us, or our “vital national security interests,” before they give it a mission name like Operation Wag The Dog. The Libyan attacks by a coalition of the unwilling seems more like letting a few Europeans show off their new combined EU defense industry products, ready for sale. Although it’s a sad day indeed when you throw a war with European countries and the Germans decide to sit it out.

Our historic president decided to be historic once again, giving his unwatched speech to America in what, in the end, seemed more like a justification than a call to arms, and did so nine days after the first missiles were launched. Perhaps future presidents will take the 20/20 hindsight approach in addresses to the nation on all sorts of matters. A president is more apt to appear he made all the right moves when you get to back into your remarks rather than try to back out later, as George W. Bush discovered in declaring Mission Accomplished about eight years too early in Iraq.

The president even took the opportunity to slap himself on the back a few times, comparing how long it took him to order the missiles compared to the time that passed for President Clinton to kill civilians to stop the killing in the Balkans – either a slap in Ms. Clinton’s face for getting him into this mess, or he somehow thought the press forgot where the Balkans are (most did, likely). In all fairness, President Clinton was hiding under his Oval Office desk while Madeline Albright got the Balkan War up to a fever pitch, and it appears President Obama was also cornered by his Secretary of State to stir up some desert dust – so much for feminist talk that only men create wars.

While he was given less of a pass by the press than normal on his tardy talk, I don’t think anyone with the courage to watch his non-fireside chat found a greater understanding of our mission in Libya. Key questions left unanswered: Are we out to kill Gaddafi, or just trying to send a message by blowing up his palace? Who are the rebels and why were they only mentioned in passing? Are we arming the rebels with Stinger missiles so they can take out Libyan air force jets and the occasional commercial 747? Why did we hand off command and control to NATO when the top two commanders of NATO are American, we are the major funder, and they still need our advanced weaponry to enforce a no-fly zone and to make big holes in the ground where once strategic targets were? And, finally, it’s quite worldly of us to jump into such a fray to spare innocents, it’s just sort of puzzling why innocents in South Sudan, Congo, Syria, Ivory Coast, Bahrain and the protestors in Iran in 2009 don’t warrant the same compassion. Look, the president is just too damn smart for us regular folk to understand such nuance – even with 20/20 hindsight. Let’s just hope he picks his battles better than he does his Final Four picks.

The facts are in: California sucks. There was an interesting article by Forbes naming the Top 15 cities where things are getting worse. The major criteria were unemployment rate, the expectation for future job growth, and percentage of homes in foreclosure. Of the top seven cities, six are in California. This little tidbit coupled with a $26 billion deficit and bond rating that just slipped below Louisiana to come in at number 50, can lead one to wonder about the effectiveness of our elected leaders.

While we’ve had our boneheaded governors in the Golden State, there have been two constants in California politics since 1995: a huge left-wing democrat majority in the legislature beholden to special interest and a small and right wing minority of republicans beholden to the voices in their heads. The theory of “never the twain shall meet” is alive and kicking among our politicians and no amount of gunplay is apt to change things.

There was a day in California when the majority of legislators were lawyers prior to entry into public service. Say what you will about lawyers, but they know how to draft laws, take their one-third, and get out of town. Now the majority of legislators’ previous employment was the staff of former legislators, thanks in no small part to term limits and the idiots who put it on the ballot (me!). As a result, the main form of legislating is towing the company line and, presto, all problems over the past 15 years have been kicked down the road so far that we’ve finally found the dead end. I say give them all a year’s paid vacation just so they’ll leave us alone for a year and maybe things won’t get any worse. We’ve tried everything else, let’s get innovative.

Why one shouldn’t fly with Russian passengers: You’ve all heard that flight attendant’s speech prior to take off; that one that mentions 30 times to shut off all electronic devices, check to make sure your seat belt is fastened, and how much the various meats on a stick will cost. There are certain sounds only dogs can hear, but I’m guessing there are other sounds that only Russians can’t hear. One of them is to shut off all electronic devices.

I was on a flight to Moscow the other day and all Americans dutifully turned off everything they were required to, including the flight attendants. I kept my phone on a bit longer than normal because AT&T’s service is so incredibly awful, I had to wait five minutes for an e-mail to clear my outbox. I was reminded three times to shut off my phone and, with a feeling of lawlessness, I even chose to hide my phone to avoid further scolding. The Russians sitting in the row across from me? One woman had two mobile phones switched on and was showing her seatmate something on her computer while we were taking off. She also wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. Not a single flight attendant said anything to her – likely because they knew it would do no good.

There is an old joke about an America, a Frenchman, and a Russian. The task is to get each one to jump off a bridge into the river. To the American, he’s told he’s lost all his money and, with nothing to live for, he jumps off the bridge. To get the Frenchman to jump, he’s told he’s lost all his lovers. To convince the Russian, a sign is placed on the bridge that reads, It’s forbidden to jump off the bridge. Now I’ve been on a lot of flights inside Russia and I can’t recall a single instance of a Russian turning off anything electrical, which makes one believe there’s nothing to this canard of electronic interference in the first place. But on the remote chance there is, my suggestion is flight attendants change their pre-flight announcements to say, It is forbidden to keep your electrical devices turned on.