Sunday, October 10, 2004

Dead, Dead, Dead I want it to die. My nonprofit is run by invalids and incompetents. My executive director is, at best, out of her league. At worst, she refused to see the writing on the wall and now has done a fine job of convincing me this is not her fault, that the other people are to blame, that she is an innocent caught up in a maelstrom. I want it to live. My organization was founded on the dream of one man and sustained by the dreams of idealists and nature-lovers. It is truly an organization founded by love - love for one's natural surroundings, and love for balance between demand and protection, between business needs and ecosystem livelihood. I want this magnificent organization to rise again, to grow ever stronger, to blossom where it once wilted. We deserve to close our doors. Board members have begun speaking to their peers - that is, our competitors. The do-gooder world is a cannibalistic one, where cries for help inspire behavior more akin to sharks in the water than comrades in arms. Major donors in the community know how much trouble we're in. Members of our board have made foolish decisions, which will make it even harder for us to rise onto solid footing again. If we continue, my job will be wild in the next three months. I'll have to pull together fundraising call sessions, emergency calls for membership, and it might not work. But I'll be hustling, one way or the other. I want it to die. I want to start over with a new organization, one that isn't trying to run with one broken leg and a bum ankle. I want security, for me and my family. I don't want to be a hero to these people - I want to abandon them and go find a truck-driving job and just be a breadwinner. I want to save them. But if I do, I'll be saving them from themselves. They deserve to lose. They deserve it. They deserve to have their own incompetence and continual apathy met with its most natural result - failure. Any other result would convince them that they know what they're doing. They may know many things, but in this case, they have no goddamn idea what they're doing. They couldn't organize a bake sale, much less the resurrection of an insolvent organization. I've told my fellow staff that if we find a way to solve this budget crisis, it just enables a hapless board to continue functioning. In previous years, it was always a deep-pocketed donor who wrote five-digit checks to save our bacon. Now, it'll just be the staff running to rescue the board. But it's always someone else: the board has always had their savior. It's time they fall on their faces. They deserve it, but I don't want to see it happen. I don't want to see the reaction when the children of the founder find out that their father's dream is dead - died because the appointed stewards of that dream couldn't see they were going down until the ground jumped up to meet them. I don't want to see that kind of heartbreak. Ultimately, it's out of my hands. Tomorrow morning, I start my service as one of twelve jurors deciding a person's fate. Tomorrow evening, the board - fittingly, it is also comprised of twelve members - decides this organization's fate. We all stand in judgment of each other, each casting the dice for others, each having our future decided by strangers. The case is out of our hands now. There is nothing more to do. 10:00:37 PM     Speak up!  []

Cover Songs that Don't Exist Years ago, I decided that John Lydon needed to do a cover of "It's No Secret."  His voice would add an interesting edge to the song.  He hasn't done it yet.  I'm a little disappointed. For the past hour, I've been imagining Matthew Sweet doing a cover of "You Belong to Me" - the Carly Simon song.  It really works, with his reedy plaintive voice.  Try it in your own brain. "You don't have to prove to me that you're beautiful to strangers..." Sounds good, doesn't it?  A soft tempo,  maybe a little pedal steel in the background.  I wish more musicians would listen to the voices in my head. 5:33:24 PM     Speak up!  []

The Seattle Sports Curse I cannot believe what I just saw.  The Seahawks were ahead 27-10 with less than 10 minutes left in their game, against the St. Louis Rams.  They were cruising.  They had intercepted the hapless Rams quarterback, Marc Bulger, three times. It looked like a sure thing. Then something happened in Bulger's brain, and he suddenly caught fire.  I've heard the sportscaster guys use the word "unconscious" before, and I don't like it usually, but today it worked. Bulger was playing like he was in a dream.  Everything he tried for the last ten minutes of the game was beautiful.  They scored two quick touchdowns, shut down the Seahawks' offense with ferocity, and got the ball back with 1:24 left in regulation time.  They had no time outs. They didn't need time outs.  Bulger marched his field down like Sherman through Georgia, like Elway through Cleveland, and got the ball to the Seattle 36-yard line.  They kicked the easy field goal to get it into overtime.  One of the announcers said that if he was the coach, he would have given Bulger one chance to end it with a touchdown.  I agree - Bulger was amazing, and given the chance, he probably would had done it right there. But it didn't matter, because Seattle lost the coin toss, the Rams took over again, and with a 52-yard screaming pass to Shaun McDonald, it was over.   The poor Seahawks fans barely had time to get their garlic fries and get back to their seats. 10 years ago, before I moved to Seattle, I heard Rod Long talking about the Seattle sports curse.  The Sonics had just lost a heartbreaking playoff series to the Denver Nuggets (remember Mutombo clutching the basketball like a little baby?  That was the series.)  The Seahawks, then, were a laughing stock.  And the best thing about the Mariners was Ken Griffey Jr., right before he shattered his wrist against the center field wall.  The way Rod Long explained it, it was like God just didn't like Seattle sports. I hate to bring diving beings into the conversation, but you know, this team can't get a winner.  It's a good thing nobody comes to the Storm games - if more fans came, they might jinx them, too.  5:04:07 PM     Speak up!  []