wedge blog

In a secreted lab, far away from cameras and animal rights activists, there may be researchers behind locked doors watching stop-action images, busily calculating the bone fracture tolerances of figure skaters.

I imagine primates rolling over spent limbs toward steel food dishes, the result of a controlled study that roughly translates in English to ‘Chimps on Ice’.

When I was a kid, a single spin above the rink was considered the ultimate in figure skating. I was glued to a our first color TV to see Great Falls, Montana’s own John Misha Petkevich skate at the 1968 Olympic Games: the crowd swelled into polite applause at a single Lutz back in those days.

In the 1960’s, Olympic skaters were young adults in their twenties. Now that science has confirmed that our bones begin their brittle decline at puberty, talented skaters live far from their families and fall asleep clutching stuffed animals on their way to five a.m. practice. Time’s a wastin’…you got one, maybe two Olympics, right?

We are seeking the limits of humane endurance, boldly about to go where no groin pull has gone before. First it was a single, then a double, a triple, and now, the elusive quad. At each increased rotation, rapt fans wonder if the skater’s body will spin apart on camera, appendages detaching, Quentin Tarantino style, across the rink.

It’ll take more than the Zamboni machine to clean up that one—but can you imagine the ratings?

Is there a limit? The Last Lutz, a banner headline may someday read, atop a photo of a perplexed seventeen-year-old kid cradling what used to be his left leg, designer skate still attached. There will be an “I Told You So” sidebar written by 94-year-old Dick Button, and interviews of boy Soprano hopefuls who’ll glance at their coaches before nervously assuring reporters that this tragedy will not deter them from their dreams.

The last resort may be selective breeding. It’s probably a shameful drinking game among sports agents, a whispered fantasy league. Look at sports controversies today and tell me it’ll never happen…well, maybe not with figure skating.

Gender scandals are on the rise, though on ice they have involved orientation more often than chromosomes. Still, could some version of reality be far behind a Will Farrell movie? How can we give our skaters the edge?

Beyond the sextuple Lutz, ankles may shatter, trainers may shrug, and sports medicine experts may be forced to frantically search for controversial protocols: is it worth sacrificing the youths of the few, so every four years the many can spend a few hours of pride and nationalistic frenzy, witnessing the ignominy of an icy ass on NBC that does not belong to Jay Leno?

“If you have to go to the restroom, you may not be re-seated.” The stern middle aged lady walked down the aisle whispering pointedly to theatergoers five minutes before curtain went up at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater’s opening night preview of “A Behanding in Spokane”. I’ve only been to six, maybe seven Broadway shows in my life, but I’d never had someone threaten the obvious to my bladder before. Was it an omen? A threat? Christopher Walken’s sense of humor?

Walken is always smilingly sinister: the guy’s had me jumpy for years. I’m not talking just Pulp Fiction, either; I’m referring to his role as the Commie-phobic dad in Blast from the Past. As the lead character Carmichael in ”Behanding”, Walken rests on the caricature of old roles, washed up and still dripping.

Sam Rockwell co-stars as Mervyn the night receptionist at a dumpy hotel. Rockwell doesn’t stray too far from familiar ground either. He’s the insecure misfit, the sort of neglected kid who lashes out because he has so little to live for.

My guess is that playwright Martin McDonagh had drinks with Walken, and wrote a play to Walken’s fallback persona, tossing in some Ron Popeil playwriting for good measure…“But wait…there’s more.”

These interjections of racism and profanity were meant to add layers, but instead made the audience uncomfortable. Back where I sat, it was the kind of laughter that conceals vague embarrassment. The symbolism, on the other hand,was sophomoric, and the ending was a disappointing cliche.
It was smart not to have an intermission. Along with the bladder threat, they might have lead to a steady stream from the Schoenfeld.

Between the first and second acts, Rockwell’s character Mervyn gives his captive audience a connection by referring to perverse fantasies about the Columbine High school killers. Nigger and cunt jokes aside, not many showed laughter or gasping at this gaffe.

A high point in the plot for me was when a young girl of color in the middle of my row in the theater rebelled with an unforgivable need to use the bathroom. We dutifully did the Broadway, one-row version of “the wave” to let the poor thing express with her bladder what McDonagh was doing with his script, but at least she didn’t do it down one leg and make everyone watch.

Walken was his smarmy self without apology…or energy. Rockwell was annoyingly apt as Mervyn. The two supporting actors, Anthony Mackie (Toby) –who did a great job in The Hurt Locker--and Zoe Kazan (Marilyn) were more entertaining than the headliners, but their roles didn’t catch me…they had me wanting to bite, but the words were too overwritten to swallow.

There are two saving graces of this 16-week run: first the set, which, in contrast to many minimalist Broadway productions, was a perfect dingy hotel room, framed with an even dingier ripped house curtain.

The second saving grace is hope. When I see a good playwright “mail one in” it gives me hope that something I write may someday get a nod from an editor or a producer. You would think that with a name like Erich Jungwirth the associate producer of “A Behanding in Spokane” would have understood the offensive symbology of the script and reconsidered his backing, or perhaps the other producer Richard Jordan, might have realized he’d have to cross the River Jordan to finance another production after being personally be-walleted…on Broadway.

The Five Boroughs of New York City

Quick, where’s Broadway?

Because the same name can be used in other boroughs, it helps to know which Broadway you’re talking about. If you are planning to give your regards in Manhattan, don’t take the J or Z line to Broadway Junction (Queens); please take the C line, get off at 42nd Street. If you care to see the other Broadway, remain on the subway for about 18 stops, except if you are headed to East Broadway, in which case please take the V line.

Luckily Rockaway Avenue is on the way to Far Rockaway if you are on the A line, but you aren’t so lucky if you are headed for Rockaway Parkway, which is the last stop on a totally different subway line. At least all these destinations are in the same borough.

By the way, there are TWO 23rd Street Stations. They are both served by the E line. It takes half an hour to get from one to the other if you get on the wrong E train by mistake. Trust me, I know.

As a cruel twist, although you do not see them on maps, Manhattan has handles: big steel handles, one at South Ferry, and the other way up at 207th Street. While you are in the subway, New York flips a 180 just to piss you off. The funniest part of this joke is that everyone maintains a straight face.

Even if you don’t visit them, you should recognize the other four boroughs of New York City, out of respect for all the people who serve you in hotels, restaurants, stores and salons at the very least. Besides, if you walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, when you get there, no shit, you are in Brooklyn.

In case you haven’t gotten the point, getting around in New York City is confusing. You need an easy way to remember the five boroughs of New York City—Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, Queens, and Brooklyn. I do it by thinking of the Naked City–fully undressed.

The Manhattan part (flaccid) is the main organ of the City, the borough that becomes engorged during the day and expensive to sleep with all night. Once I got a taste of Manhattan I admit, the smile on my face was so big I didn’t care if I saw another Queens in my whole life.

What gives Manhattan its bucks? Have you ever seen a rodeo? Do you know WHY Broncs buck? You’d buck too if someone did that to your testicles. So right there, logically attached to the base of Manhattan: the bucking Bronx.

The big splat of an island off the other end, the tip of Manhattan, well, that’s Staten Island. Much of this part of New York City got shot out so far it almost stuck to the wall across the room—New Jersey. Enough said.

Up close, sitting right beside Manhattan but not touching it, you got Queens. Queens like to attract Manhattan, but we are often happier sitting next to it than actually touching, thanks.

Brooklyn, the big land mass just under Queens and across from Staten Island, is Manhattan’s ambitious alter ego. If you can’t afford a 4.2 million dollar condo in Manhattan, you may be able to look at your high-powered kid brother from a place in Brooklyn, like they do in the short embedded slideshow on Brooklyn’s website(!)…The way I remember Brooklyn is not strictly anatomical, but it’s relevant. Brooklyn is the Peeping Tom, the verdant voyeur of New York boroughs, with its Botanical Gardens and Brooklyn Bridge. Besides, Brooklyn separates Queens from Staten Island, which, given the previous descriptions of both, may not be a bad idea.

Once you take the fancy clothes off the Naked City, see, it’s not so complicated after all. Big cities all look the same with their pants down.

Test your skill by labeling the boroughs on this map.

In Great Falls, Montana it doesn’t matter if you’re on public assistance or if you own a private jet: everyone shops at the local supermarkets. Geography is the great equalizer: it’s either Smith's...or starve—even Letterman, when he visits his Montana cabin, can fly in only so much Dean & Deluca (which, come to think of it, might explain his brief visits AND the bear in the kitchen).

Though folks in Great Falls all stand in the same grocery line, it’s not as though we don’t have a pecking order, especially if your last name is ‘Weaselhead’ or ‘Runs at Night’. Sales clerks everywhere are guilty of ethnic profiling, though no one in Manhattan or Montana turns away a cash sale. This explains the indulgent, somewhat condescending smile I got today in a Persian market.

Another class symbol is less important in my hometown: the car. There are no old automobiles in Manhattan: I suspect they force them to pull over and remain in Jersey where they belong. In Great Falls, my husband drives a 1992 Dodge Spirit with a peeling hood and a Hooters sticker. It’s a Montana badge of courage to keep an old horse in power.

In New York, I count limos on the two-minute walk to Starbucks; in Great Falls, I hoof it two miles to get to our solitary Starbucks, and count cars with a right front quarter panel held on by duct tape and Bondo (less than three and my companion pays for my mocha).

Back home there are many measures of a man: where he lives, what he drives, the veracity of his ex-wives, how many times he’s seen gambling his paycheck at The Prospector. You don’t want to judge too quickly: you’re bound to run into him again, and when it happens, you might have a flat tire or need a beer. Heck, in Montana it takes ten seconds just to see if whatever you're looking at is fit to shoot for dinner. Sadly, every hunting season, mistakes are made.

In Manhattan, partner, you got two seconds to size someone up.

In the City, we are all extras in the movies of other people’s lives. Without a supporting role—or at least an actor’s union card to prove your worth in my story—you got two seconds, one chance.

Instead of rutted rural roads, here the subway pitches and yaws, ta thump, in unison with sharp glances.
The black guy with papaya fists holds the rail and stares back hard, one-two. the tiny lady in the torn red hat tucks her shopping bag tighter between her legs, one-two, as if she’s worried I might reach across and snatch whatever smells inside. The greasy kid bopping to his iPod turns his head without turning his body, horror-film style. One-two.

Back in Montana, all these folks would all merit a good stare. On the subway, instead of offending anyone, I savor my two seconds, like a crime victim who might be forced to i.d. the perp at a later date.

I adore the anonymity of The City. If I want to tease my hair, put on a PETA t-shirt and roller blade backwards in Central Park whistling Verdi, no one would care. If I did any two of those things at home, someone would call my mother…and I’m over fifty.

Because New Yorkers’ personal space is so small, details loom large. Bags, watches, hairstyles and such—any one of these might confuse another member of your tribe. Back home it’s hard to determine gender, let alone social status in our snow gear…and though we might not know a Rolex from a Timex, we know the O’Days had a big spread east of town, and the lady who sold the shoe store had a brother at the State Pen.

Some New York tribes are instantly recognizable: camel coat, wingtips, shifty glances: financial district. Three inch Manolos and printed tights, Diet Coke, student at the FIT. Long curled sideburns, black hat, glasses: not a Lost Tribe, anyway.

The grey grandeur of it all! There is something oddly reassuring about big buildings, new faces and the rolling smells of the City. Skyscrapers bestow upon me the kind of calm that I imagine a New Yorker might get from Glacier Park.

Manhattan, you are my muse.

I’ve seen those Discovery Channel mini-series where suspicious tribes accept anemic strangers to their clans in the interest of science. Is there anyone in Manhattan who’ll trade an old Dodge for a Metro pass, pour me into the native costume (black Prada), and feed me little black fish eggs while I pretend to make a face for the camera? I have a saddle back home…from what I could tell in a two second glance, it looks like it’ll sit that City ass of yours just fine.

Is this a party or a wake?

Six months ago I cancelled our daily delivery of the Great Falls Tribune. I’d been reading the Trib all my life and I’ve been the subject and author of a few stories over the years. I’m writing because, as a subscriber who has been missing for six months and an advertiser that’s been missing for three years, The Tribune never once noticed I was gone.

I understand it’s not totally the newspaper’s fault. The industry is suffering, the economy is lousy, technology is in transition, the home page on my computer is an Internet daily. It used to take me a half hour every morning to read the paper, then it took fifteen minutes, not long after that, ten. A dropped sentence at the bottom of a column became more common, catching a grammatical error used to be challenging; it became embarrassing.

The slow decline of the paper is akin to watching a loved one suffer. I remember my father losing all that weight before he passed away. The paper, though occasionally bloated with ads, is starved for content that resonates with me. In an odd parallel, I began to see the same person dying two or three times on the obituary page (Printing errors? Editorial issues? Paddles?) Sometimes in a senior moment of my own, I’d think “Do I know that guy? His name is familiar.”Then I’d realize I read the same obituary a day or two before.

Instead of opening the paper, I began to check headlines and obituaries online. I’m not even conscious of the sneaky Netflix ad anymore, and I understand the obituary links don’t raise the dead, but they do raise a little revenue for the Tribune.

As the Tribune’s content became less relevant, my internal equation began to weigh in favor of saving trees. I began to feel guilty, even knowing that newspapers use a high percentage of recycled waste. The Sunday New York Times:worth the trees. The Tuesday Great Falls Tribune: well, maybe not.

I have friends and acquaintances who work for newspapers. They are all more talented and experienced than I am: we knew this day would come, but I didn’t realize how much the Tribune…didn’t care.

My husband’s team loyalties and investment strategies are broad. The Tribune’s sports and financial sections are weak (unless you cheer for Dutton or the Bison). Last summer I watched my man read an editorial page, shake the paper and then shake his head. “Why do we get the paper?” he asked sadly.

To cancel, I dialed a toll-free phone number and spoke to a stranger. She never asked why, didn’t offer us a Sunday-only delivery (I suggested it), and never mentioned the Tribune online.

It’s not just the content—it’s the delivery.

Over the years we’ve hoped the neighbors didn’t notice us tiptoeing from our covered porch to the sidewalk to retrieve a snowy or soggy paper ten feet from our door, and there have been times (understandably) when news was literally scattered to the wind. Sometimes the Trib would be hidden totally under our grimy sisal doormat, or it would arrive too late for early risers.

Occasionally the Tribune would not arrive at all, and we’d have to call Gannett instead of calling our friends a few blocks away. “Please press TWO…”

As a former advertiser, I’ve wondered why, after years of buying big ads, when my latest ad rep quit, no one bothered to call. I liked my old rep. Whenever I asked him how he was, he’d reply, “Fine as frog’s hair.” Ironically, as far as I know, there’s no hair on frogs.

In the last thirty months or so, I’ve learned my demographic isn’t reading the paper anyway. As a jeweler, most of my locals are young engaged couples who get their news online. Precious metals investors seem to find me, and after 17 years in business, referral is booming. Ironically, the slower economy has created more comparison shoppers, which is great for my business model.

Out of continuity, fear of lost revenue, and loyalty to the ‘frog’s hair fellow’, I’d have spent thousands with the Trib. Now it’s just too late.

I log on to the free online paper, get the Sunday edition and I read the rest at the Peak. I hit the gym often, I don’t miss much. It takes five to ten minutes most days, and I never wrest a copy from anyone under fifty.

At forums about the future of media, no one under 35 is wringing his hands: these fellows are too busy downloading, uploading and texting. The guys at Gannett have one fist fumbling with digital media, while the other looks like it’s throwing in the towel on the Great Falls Tribune.

There’s a small-print-short-blurb in this week’s New Yorker about a middle aged artist I never heard of, some guy celebrating a retrospective in a swank gallery in the West Village.

As a person with a creative temperament, it’s disappointing to see someone celebrating a retro while I still seek a spective.

I wear butt lifting pantyhose and dime-store reading glasses. My creative output is limited to a few pithy editorials and a smattering of fluff features in regional and trade magazines.

I don’t bother to read the rest of that New Yorker review, instead I flip the page noisily, landing on a sidebar about someone with more mainstream recognition—Marianne Faithful. The singer’s voice, according to this Oracle of All Things Artsy, is “entirely busted”—another peer whose potential has been played out.

Why bother hashing out conflict on canvas or computer when the other golden oldies are exhibiting their laurels or rolling joints with them?

This question was meant to evoke pity, not a rational response. The shirttail relative I was talking at didn’t miss a bite. Ham sandwich in hand, he pulled out a slim green paperback called The Thirty Six Dramatic Situations and flopped it onto his kitchen table.

So it’s either been said, it’s too late to say it, or it’s boring.

A lot of fruit rots, overripe and uneaten, falling to rejoin the mush of the collective unconscious, and annoyingly enough, sometimes a stranger picks up the seed that was allowed to whither, plants it in his own shit, and it smells good!

I figured sooner or later my true talent would reveal itself, like a shiny new car behind a curtain in a game show. To this point, no one has even yelled “Come on down!”

At least the curse of perpetual potential has kept me looking about a decade younger than my peers: perhaps compensation for lack of a body of work is a good body.

An early journallist filled his mouth with red fruit, pressed his hand against the cave and spat out the juice. When he took away his stained hand, his story remained. Centuries later, four fingers, opposing thumb, cave wall, story told.

In the next ten weeks I am going to force some juice from drying fruit. Roll, squeeze, and spit. Don’t be alarmed if you see middle aged Montanan wandering the City with one hand in her pocket and a little red goo at the corners of her mouth.

Just outside the entrance to the old gym at Great Falls High there is a bronze plaque with a relief sculpture of a hockey player.

As a high schooler I didn’t read it but like every student at GFHS I knew it honored Terry Casey.

If I had been a few years older I’d have had a crush on Terry Casey. He was an All-Star quarterback and a fast pitch softball hero. Casey won a hockey scholarship and in 1968 he was named Captain of the U.S. Olympic Hockey team.

The whole town beamed. First John Misha Petkevitch, now Terry Casey. Great Falls was the place for ice.

In July of 1968, Terry and two buddies were killed in a head-on collision near Plentywood, where they were headed for a fast-pitch softball tournament.

Forty one years later our town still mourns the loss.

On the Casey Cup website there are two pictures of Terry. In the first picture he’s about fifteen, a thick butch shined with Brylcreem. His smile is wide enough to hold a hockey puck.

In the other picture Casey’s a few years older, his butch cut so close the scalp shows right through. This photo is impromtu, he’s in an oversized jersey with an appliqued Indian on his chest, the number twelve on his left shoulder. He might be thinking of a his lottery number in the draft, or some girl. Whatever the cause, Terry’s ‘Leave it to Beaver’ grin is long gone.

Who knows what he would have looked like at forty.

For me, my sister and three brothers, learning to skate at the Civic Center ice rink was a rite of passage. The grey rubber skate guards, the painted wood bleachers blocked off by curved plywood, the concession stand in the corner…like Terry Casey, it’s all long gone.

It’s because of Terry Casey and former Olympians Petkevitch and Scott Davis that folks like me donate to the Ice Foundation every year. Thanks to the skaters, their families, and a good dose of community pride we have a new ice arena filled with kids, pucks and blade guards.

Billings may boast sports commentator Brent Musberger, but we had the real deal with Casey, Petkevitch and Davis.

We have a tradition to uphold.

A Man Selling His Ka'ak

I know this is off-color, and I’m sure there will be comments that require deletion. Read this: it’s G-rated…the entendre is up to you.

Everyone loved my husband’s grandmother Sito. With thinning blue-white curls and a faded cotton apron stretched over her small round belly, you might think Sito was a feeble old lady, but she rolled grape leaves so tight they popped…and she played cards like a riverboat shill.

Sito was the queen of a Lebanese pastry with an unfortunate name, ka’ak (pronounced ‘cock’). Every Christmas Sito would pinch off hundreds of ka’aks with her tiny hands, branding each soft mound with a nasty metal tool just before shoving a batch in the gas oven.

We’d tear open our annual Holiday shipment of cold ka’ak and let the packing fly, unzipping successively smaller plastic bags to devour the sweet booty inside. Sito packed her ka’ak so tight sometimes we’d need to bang it on a hard surface just to separate ka’ak from box.

It is a family tradition to gorge ourselves on ka’ak to celebrate the birth of the Christ child.

Now that Sito’s gone I don’t crave ka’ak as much as I used to, which is probably a good thing. Once I start it’s hard to stop. I tell my husband that I must have acquired an unfortunate sensitivity to eating ka’ak, and I often politely decline. These days I only eat ka’ak when I can no longer resist the aroma, once or twice a year.

If you don’t eat ka’ak right away it gets too tough to chew, and it loses that faint anise scent that fills the house, letting everyone know that someone is downstairs eating ka’ak. Sito’s ka’ak was pretty big, so it was perfectly acceptable if guests wanted to split a ka’ak with a firm jerk of the wrist. It’s a shame not to try a little, and it’s always interesting to see folks acquire a taste for the stuff. Guests who initially turn up their nose have been heard to politely inquire as they enter my kitchen, “Do I smell ka’ak?”

Our daughter’s friend Jason would down two or three ka’aks in a single sitting. When Jason went away to college, I even sent him a care package with “FRAGILE: Ka’ak” written on the box.

By New Year’s Eve though, we all get sick of stuffing our faces with ka’ak and toss what’s left into the freezer. Ka’ak freezes surprisingly well. It’s naturally kind of dry, and thawed ka’ak is even worse, so I always had something juicy around the house to wash it down, especially when the kids were little. It would have been awful to rush a child to the Emergency Room after he choked on ka’ak.

Everyone in my family is kinky about ka’ak. I prefer mine in the morning, served so hot I can barely touch it, lubed up with a little butter. I’ll look at it, bulging and steaming, and I’ll tell myself to take little savoring nibbles, but I’m embarrassed–and just a little boastful–to admit that I often devour an entire ka’ak in a few bites. My husband prefers his ka’ak straight up at night. For our daughter, ka’ak smeared with just about any condiment is a meal in itself.

For our some reason our son never cared much for ka’ak. He’d toast his ka’ak until you could hear it sizzle, and then scoop ice cream on top before wolfing it down, hoping to disguise the taste.

After my husband’s grandmother Sito passed away, her only daughter became the Keeper of Ka’ak. Auntie’s ka’ak tastes like Sito’s, but there’s something about the texture that will just never be the same.

I am afraid someday when Auntie passes away, no one in our family will eat ka’ak again. It’s sad to even contemplate the Holidays without embarrassing Lebanese pastry. Perhaps to defy that day, Auntie in her later years has done Sito proud: she’s become wildly prolific, giving away so much ka’ak that by summer I break up what’s left in the back of our freezer and scatter broken ka’ak on the back deck where it’s picked at by neighborhood felines.

Poor Auntie has become self-conscious about the lore that surrounds this delicacy, so she has invented a euphemism for ka’ak. She’s in her 80’s now, and she calls it “cookies”, but you can’t fool us: we all know ka’ak when we see it.

Is Real Health Care Reform Down for the Count?

House lights dim as the Ref grabs the lowered microphone:

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Ladies and Gentlemen! May I have your attention, please?”

“In ‘The Cable TV Championship for Healthcare Reform’ we have, in the upper left corner, former sportscaster and liberal heavyweight Keith Olbermann.
(Keith bashes his blue boxing gloves together, grinning demonically). [

“In the FAR right corner, we have Fox News Pundit and LDS spokesperson Glenn Beck (cheers and boos as Beck, still seated, makes a futile attempt at an obscene hand gesture with a huge red glove).
\

The venue is packed, and just about everyone has a vested interest in the outcome of this Rumble in this Political Jungle. There’s Max Baucus, Senate Finance Committee chair, with an affable lip-licking lisp as promoter Don King; congressional Republicans, waiting lazily with brooms to sweep up votes after the brawl; and that skinny black guy Obama with the microphone in the middle of the ring, trying to dodge premature punches as he explains the rules of a fair fight.

If you’re like me, watching the health care fight on ‘Pay per View’, try turning down the volume. It doesn’t matter who says what: like most Americans, Olbermann and Beck hit the canvas with the same obese thud.

Hey, it’s not that these guys are idiots–in my mind, only one is an idiot, and you’ll have to guess—it’s that by the time they got into the ring, it was too late to save either of them.

Like 66% of Americans (according to the CDC), Olbermann and Beck are pudgy and pasty and about to die. They can barely raise their gloves. Everyone has overlooked the big reason that health care reform will fail: it’s too late. We are so sick that our entire economy has become dysfunctionally vested in disease.

Genuine reform would gut entire industries: Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Archer Daniels Midland, Frito Lay, Coca Cola, Sonic, TV remote manufacturers, Altria (Philip Morris): bye, bye! What would plus-size clothiers and big Pharma do without the cash cows of obesity and diabetes?

We don’t have the courage to admit that we prefer to work at the ass end of health care, rolling up dollar bills and shoving them into that end of the system because real reform means we’d have to work to follow a plant-based diet and walk to work. Can’t someone just give me a friggin’ pill???

We talk about health care reform in this country as if we have a right to plant our widening hineys on the couch and suck down greasy takeout. If aliens from outer space watched prime time TV ads, they might decide to come back in a couple of generations to be spared the trouble of eradicating us from this gift of a planet. By that time our allergies, immune disorders and erectile dysfunctions might have us all down for the count.

Everyone has a right to be treated for what ails them, but many Americans want to cash in on health care without investing in a healthy lifestyle.

Keith, Glenn, are you listening? Take off the gloves, boys, skip the ‘Thrilla in Vanilla’ and make your way from the political boxing ring to the salad bar.

This editorial was published in the Great Falls Tribune on Sunday, May 8, 2005, just after a census report showed we’d declined a bit in our population base. Now that I have a ‘blog’ I thought it might be fun to re-publish it online. In the next few days I’ll fill you in on the effects this story had on the community, the Tribune, and how many people yelled at me.

It’s also a chance to see what’s changed…Read it for yourself and let me know what you think.

If you were blindfolded and dropped into the center of a midsize U.S. city, would you know where you were?

Sometimes it's hard, because cities characters are muddied by growth. Any decent size city has a similar landscape of national franchises: you could travel the nation in any direction eating only at McDonald's and sleeping only at Holiday Inns (hey, it might not be fun, but it's possible). Memories of one city melt into another, and many are forgettable.

Not in Montana. Each of our cities has that unique personality.

We have Billings, the big city wanna-be of Montana. Its downtown is crisp and boxy with a little graffiti in dimly lit alleys and on the sides of rail cars. Billings is the undisputed fossil fuel capital of Montana, the big fish.

Butte is the plucky little sister -- the kid who takes a black eye in stride (just look at the pit). Butte just picks itself up, wipes its eye with a well-worn sleeve, and claims it can take what the world dishes out.

Ever since I went to school down there, Missoula has been referred to as “Harvard on the Clark Fork”. She's the girl with the horn-rimmed glasses and a bag of granola in her purse. Every family has one -- you know, the person who can spell Sartre, reminds us about greenhouse gases and reflects a social conscience even when it's annoying.

Bozeman is in flux. She used to be the unabashed cowgirl, but she's traded in her real chaps and manure-scented cowboy boots for the Ralph Lauren Version of the Cowboy West. The change is somewhat awkward but inevitable as people from outside bring their upscale ideas of attire and property values.

Kalispell and Whitefish will, in my lifetime, become one urban area. Right now in any Montana city, you can drive for 15 minutes and be away from civilization. I predict that drive time will double or triple in the Flathead Valley.

You can't mistake Helena’s Last chance Gulch for any city center in America. Helena's cultural assets are not as overt as Missoula's. She's the polite political wife, who knows that social change must originate in the House, have at least three readings, and be accompanied by lunch at Jorgensen's.

That leaves us.

Sadly, Great Falls fills the role of the ugly stepsister of Montana cities. You want the smart one, date Missoula. You want the rowdy one, see Butte. The up-and-comer? Billings. The sister with clout, Helena. The popular girls? Try the Valley girls from Kalispell or Bozeman.

In the Electric City, we don't have an easily perceived persona, except perhaps Malmstrom Air Force Base. We’re the ag trade center, and we’re trying to capitalize on our associations with Charlie Russell and Lewis and Clark.

We do have great assets here, but let's not be too quick to compromise them for a one night stand. Let's not court environmentally unfriendly development that preclude clean alternatives. Let's not give tax advantages to companies that hire minimum-wage employees. Instead, let's decide what's great about Great Falls and do what we can to show our assets to their best advantage and grant our favors to the best suitors we can attract.

I suggest our own version of “Extreme Makeover”. Let’s help attract good dates and solid future relationships. First let’s do something about Tenth Avenue South. I don’t understand why we spent money making Central Avenue harder to navigate and easier to vandalize, while at the same time I try to avoid showing newcomers Tenth Avenue South.

Our town has lost potential professionals looking to relocate here in the ten minutes it takes to drive from the airport down Tenth. I’m tempted to set up flowerpots in the medians myself.

I would suggest that as a community we establish an identity that is easily perceived and understood and communicate this to visitors and suitors: we can’t do this without doing something about the blight of Tenth Avenue South. Our sister cities have for the most part good (or at least understandable) first impressions: we do not.

The Great Falls Tribune can be a standard bearer for a makeover. Let’s push our assets and let the Tribune do, what a classic ‘tribune’ is supposed to do: spread the word. The Tribune itself is one of our best assets. It’s Montana’s best daily by far. Let’s start by asking the Tribune to cancel its skewed “Greatest of Great Falls” contest and replace it by helping to assemble 100 reasons why Great Falls is a great place to live. From this list perhaps we can form an identity, and use it as a litmus test to see which potential development may be a true asset.

Our hundred reasons can be assembled by everyone from school kids to business executives to retirees, and used for promotion and reference lest we forget that we are the ambassadors for our own future.

At critical votes in local government the list can be removed from pockets, unfolded and flailed so our elected officials remember what’s consistent with our assets and what looks—or smells—bad.

I’ve lived in Great Falls pretty much all my life. It’s a great place to live and raise kids, but now my kids are growing up and moving away. I’d sure like to learn them home. When they come to town, I’d like to offer them more than Tenth Avenue South, and a shrinking population base.