Vilsack’s Camp





Flew in to Des Moines on Tuesday, more on that tomorrow and what a wonderful place it is. I got back to the Holiday Inn Express across from Drake U, changed and grabbed a copy of Wednesday’s Des Moines Register at the desk. Front page above the fold was an article on how Gov Vilsack was “silently” preparing for a run at the White House. Though, if he was trying to be discreet a feature on your hometown paper is not the way to go.

The article featured four possible opponents, Clinton, Edwards, Gov. Warner and Sen. Bayh. It also mentioned Kerry. (Personally, I think the Kerry camp should take this as a sign that Iowa will not treat him seriously this time. After all he was listed after Bayh whose name recognitions with the nation is so low that more people could fifth pitcher for the Yankees over the senior Senator from Indiana.)

Two years away from the war and already the Iowa governor is stockpiling his armaments trying to prove he is worthy of national notice by raising as much money as he can. Of course, everyone assumes he will run and win Iowa. But with Vilsack comes the problems the majority of Democratic would be Presidents have. A) Who are they and what is their plan for America? B) Why are they unique? C) Will they actually try and present against and defend this plan from GOP attacks or just run another blame the other side campaign? If Bayh, Kerry, Warner, Vilsack can not answer the question I don’t think any of them are worth the time of day.

You may notice I left Edwards’ name off the list. His mission to end poverty is noble and by far completely radical of what others are doing. But can he present it to a nation that for the last eight years has been feed nothing but tax cuts and sacrifice for the war being limited to the men and women fighting and their families?

As for Clinton, her big question is will she get enough of the country to trust her and override the anybody but Hillary sentiment that runs like artery of hate across the red states?

Valentine’s Day Surprises



Depending on your age Valentine’s Day can mean many different things. If your seven, it means tons of chalky candy, exchanging cards with classmates and five bucks from Grandma. If your fourteen, it can be a struggle and a joy to find the perfect gift for what you are absolutely sure is the love of your life (who dumps you two weeks later because a guy with his license just asked her out). If your twenty-five, it can be the day you tell someone you truly do love them or at least go through the motions and buy the roses. If your forty, you get to celebrate with both a spouse and kids. If your sixty-five, you and your significant other can look back on life and smile about the joy given and received. If your eighty, you eat chalky candy, exchange cards with other people in the home and get a homemade card from your grandchild.

With the exception of the first and last one, Valentine’s Day is a day for those in love or at least a relationship. Being single doesn’t matter when your seven, because everyone gets the same cards. Being single doesn’t matter when your eighty, because you are alive. But for the rest of us, there is always the question of what to do? Some singles try to ignore Valentine’s Day and go about their life as though nothing is different. But from radio ads gushing about ring sales to specials on Champaign and at the grocery store, it is hard not to see it. Others try to find ways to celebrate with other single friends, they find bars, restaurants, movie theaters to meet. But at all of these places there are filled with lovers walking hand in hand pushing in the face of the singles the relationship they do not have. For me, I sort of like Valentine’s Day. Not because, I have any one. (No, I am alone. Mostly in the Jake Barns way; rather, then in the Hunchback way.) But because I always enjoy watching people pull out the surprise relationship.

Valentine’s Day is the only day where a friend you are rather tight with can pull out a significant other that has never been mentioned before. Three nights earlier you and your boy can be in the club looking at the ladies; but on Valentine’s he is with someone he just has gotten around to mentioning yet. Or you can have coffee with another friend and she can complain about how there are no nice guys out there. Less then forty-eight hours later on Valentine’s, she is with a guy she has been ‘hanging out with’ for awhile.
Many times these relationships will disappear shortly after the first Spring flowers. Though I have no idea where these relationships start or why they end. I am always enamored which friend will find one for the next February 14th.

Where did you go to High School?

Being from the Lou, I’ve heard that question more times than I can count. It is the city-wide inside joke that can place a person in an economic, social and ethnic class in one sentence. Supposedly, jobs are to be gained or lost by writing on the resume Country Day class of 1965 or Vashon 1993. However, for the most part it is all in good fun. Like New Yorkers wanting to know what burrow you grew up in. Personally, I am sort of happy I can participate in this ritual while my friends from other parts of the country wear blank faces while those around them talk about the Webster Groves-Kirkwood football game. But it can go too far….

C retires to the restroom, pushing and excusing his way through the packed Cheshire Inn. Yuppies, frat boys, wedding parties and a couple of middle-aged men with trophy girlfriends are all gathered in the closest 3 a.m. bar to Clayton.

C hails from the Hill Country of Texas: a place where the town had only one high school and the drive into Austin for dinner was only done for special occasions like Anniversaries and fortieth birthdays. So, for him, the St. Louis question is neither answerable or logical.

Inside the upstairs bathroom of the Cheshire past the large leather couches with a couple of partiers passing out, a threesome of young man are snorting coke-off their fingers. Not in little, neatly-cut, white lines or out of a bumper or even off a key, but off their fingers like greedy well dressed trolls. In that moment immediately after the syntax of the brain opens up, the thought on these gentlemen’s minds was? Where did C go to high school? Did he go to DeSmet? He looked like a guy they knew who went to DeSmet? C urinating and pretending not notice the drug use behind him has no idea what they are talking about. Did he just get back from Cement? (Is Cement some new club?) “Sure, I went to Cement earlier the night. See, ya’ll around.”
Back at the seats, I laugh as C tells me the story, and I relate to him they just wanted to know where he went to High School. He asks, “Who the fuck asks where you went to high school as they do coke?” I agree-Really, St. Louis, who asks that question all the time?

Why I am a Luka?

All my friends have the same question, “How can you do it?”

For some of my friends, it means the act of putting on the suit and pressed shirts and succumbing to business lunches on a daily basis. But for most it is a personal how can I do the job I do.

My college friends are used to the fiery-political-loving beatnik, who yelled he would never sell out and mocked those he thought did. My newer friends see not a YUPPIE, but a rap-listening, Democrat, hard-drinking guy who never appears out of his apartment after dark in anything but ratty jeans and much to their chagrin still doesn’t own a couch.

But I don’t believe I sold out, but rather I am rather following my core principals of helping people. Every time, a donor gives a gift of an amount that results in helping the fight of AIDS in Africa, prison counseling in South America or backpacks for Katrina victims in Mississippi, I can see the principles I read, wrote and screamed about are coming alive. And if it means, I must buy my clothes from Brook’s Brother’s instead of Goodwill then so be it.
Plus, loafers that are broken really are as comfortable as house shoes.

A Luka out on the town. 

A Luka

I spend a lot of time in coffee shops all around the Midwest and Northwest. Long drinks of tea and the occasional muffin count the majority of my calorie intake. I get strange looks in the majority of the places. Not Starbuck’s because Starbuck’s marketing plan is centered to people who look like me. At small town coffee shops and wire-less cafes stares and quizzical glances great me at the door and exist through my People’s Green.
The last man who was in many of these places with a pressed white shirt, tailored suit and freshly shined shoes might have been the health inspector or a lost insurance salesman asking for directions. I’m neither. Instead, I am a rare bread: a non-profit Luka.
Luka is the Taiwanese word for warrior. A word appealing to the blue-collar workers of that island nation because it ignores the new official language of Mandarin and reaches back into native tongue untouched by any colonization be it European or Asian. A Luka is fierce and courageous-the same combatant force as an Aztec or Spartan.
In small Iowa towns, Chicago suburbs and tops of Washington peaks, I am there asking for a gift for my non-profit. To do this, I need not to look like the longhaired, five o’clock shadowed graduate student I once was. But instead need to appear, as I would be as comfortable in a bank vault as I am at Kanya concerts. So, if you ever get a call from your favorite charity, and a person wants to come over to talk about the programs. Realize this you will be coming face-to-face with a Luka. A person who will be told ‘no’ more often then ‘yes’, but with the same smile of a Nadar canvasser and the courage of ancient solider will ask for your generous support. Because, truly without people like you, your favorite charity wouldn’t be in business.