There is a small amphitheatre in Webb Park, a few rows of concrete seats and what passes as a small stage at its foot, designed no doubt for intimate poetry readings or political perorations. Hyde Park it's not. There, walking in a tight oval, was the piper. On the way over I heard "Amazing Grace". I stopped at the top step of the small amphitheatre and when the piper made his turn he saw me. His song wheezed to a stop and he looked at me in alarm.
"Am I too loud?" he asked.
I told him that I heard him from an enclosed office a couple of hundred yards away but that I didn't mind. I was, in fact, a fan of bagpipes. I knew that he had probably been banished to the park by his family and neighbors, because one can't really play the pipes quietly. And when they are played at his level of virtuosity, there is an additional bit of auditory pain inflicted.
After an attempt at "Garryowen" (Custer's battle song) and "Mary's Wedding" he stopped to chat. Kevin had been playing the pipes for a year. He is Irish by heritage, American by birth. His inspiration is to play in the St. Patrick's Day Parade on March 17, 2012 in New York City. This marks the 250th anniversary of the first parade, 1762...12 years before the Declaration of Independence.
Kevin is not a good piper, but there is much I admire in the man. He has a goal, a deep respect for his heritage, and the discipline to practice. I am sure that there is no shortage of naysayers and folks who think he might have a screw or two loose in his head and he has chosen to ignore them to fulfill a dream. I hope that I hear Kevin again, and I know that his playing will improve.
...and now to Charlie Sheen.
A ball bag. There. Simply put, strongly stated. Cocaine and drug-addled, narcissistic, hedonistic, he now dominates the airwaves and cyberspace that must have his fellow travelers (Lindsay Lohan, Brittany Spears, the Kardashians, and Paris Hilton) swooning with envy. Sheen is an object lesson, an examplar of what is wrong with the world. Overpaid, overindulged, and overwrought. If anyone else launched into the type of verbal abuse and diatribes against his employer that Sheen did, they would be summarily dismissed, fired, made available to industry, deep-sixed, cashiered, jettisoned, or made to walk the plank. This pimple on the arse of the world is demanding that his salary be increased to $3 Million per episode because of all the mental anguish CBS and Warner Brothers have caused him. Wait, he was the employee burying his nose and head into a mountain of cocaine, he's the one with a season's pass and his own wing at Betty Ford, he's the one who threatened to cut off his ex-wife's head...and most of this occured before the network decided to truncate the season of "Two and Half Men." And he wants a raise.
Yeah, try that in the real world.
Last Friday a good friend of mine called and, laughing almost to the point where I couldn't understand him, relayed to me a quote from his buddy, radio talk-show host Jerry Doyle. Jesse asked Jerry who, in his opinion, was crazier, Mohammar Khadaffi or Charlie Sheen?
"Charlie Sheen is the Mohammar Khadaffi of Hollywood," Doyle replied, "and Mohammar Khadaffi is the Charlie Sheen of Libya."
Apt.
Note: as to the spelling of Mohammar Khadaffi...isn't it nice to be able to write something and not worry about the spelling. You can't spell Mohammar Khadaffi incorrectly.
