MyAdultLand

Enough has changed in the ongoing internet adventures of Paul and Diane that now we need a completely new intro. Up until November 2012, Paul Pearson and Diane Karagienakos had been longtime internet friends who had never actually met each other. As Paul was crossing through San Francisco last year, he, Diane and her dog Picard finally had a dinner in person, managing to keep the invasive paparazzi at bay. Since then, Diane’s moved to the Los Angeles area, Paul’s still in Seattle (for the moment), and they both still own computers. So they’re restarting their acclaimed internet conversation series Get Off My Chest! with a long treatise about summer. It was supposed to be a good-time, Beach Boys pre-Pet Sounds, sumptuous celebration of the season, which it still is, but with a couple of meaningful, reflective and bittersweet reflections middle-aged people like Diane and Paul are prone to having from time to time. Also, you Spotify users will dig the themed playlist at the bottom of this article. Enjoy.

Paul: ‘Aight. We have a topic? I forgot the topic.

Diane: SUMMER, Paul. The topic is summer. Sheesh!

Paul: Summer. Ah, that’s right. I forgot about summer because I’m up here in Seattle, it’s June 19, and it’s freaking overcast with a very light drizzle. Summer.

Diane: (announcing what music she’s playing) Starting with the Spinners’ “One Of a Kind,” summer 1973. Annual roadtrip with our visiting grandmother. This time to Oceanside, CA! My brothers fished.

Paul: Ahhh, the Spinners. One of my all time favorites. So, how are you enjoying the summer in L.A., which I understand has been going on since February?

Diane: I got here the first day of May, and I have to say — it feels like a childhood summer! As you know I’ve been in San Francisco most of 23 years. Which rates right up there with Seattle in terms of summer hotspots. So in preparation — which I’m glad one of us did! — I made a list of all the things summer meant to me: as a kid, adolescent, etc. Do you have any off the top of your head?

Paul: Summers in Sacramento are often unforgivably hot. Both of the houses my family lived in Sacto had swimming pools. Including this freaky Grecian-style swimming pool with a dark-blue bottom, so it retained heat. I made a lot of tents in the backyard, too.

Diane: New track: “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” Alice Cooper, summer 1973. I’m realizing I’ve got many songs from that summer. I think it was the year, I was 9, when I realized there was an adult world other than that of my parents. AM radio was a portal to this other world that excited me so.

Paul: AM radio! You know, I’ve been working on the second chapter of “My Life In Music,” and it’s all about Top 40 AM radio of the ’70s. It was much maligned, but I have very, very fond memories of KFRC in San Francisco, and KNDE in Sacto. That era of pop radio was truly desegregated. If a country song was the most popular in the nation, Top 40 radio played it. If an R&B song was #1, they’d play that too. So yeah, a big memory of my summers is walking down the street where I lived in Vacaville, CA and hearing all these radios.

Diane: You’re right! Mac Davis, Charlie Rich, Olivia Newton-John were all country, and they became top 40 stars, as did Al Green & a whole slew of R&B stars.

So my list: Summer has meant — at various ages growing up — freedom, transition, optimism, adventure, discovery, and Jerry Fucking Lewis. I grew up in Vegas, and that guy and that telethon herealded the end of all of the above, and the return to conformity, authority, alarm clocks, homework deadlines, and the preempted broadcast of Wonderful World of Disney and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom on that Sunday night. All to watch that screaming crazed sweaty creepy man demand you send more money to his kids, fuck kids with any other disease. He was the face of the end summer.

Sorry, I clearly still have Jerry Lewis issues.

Paul: You know I played on a Jerry Lewis telethon once? Not the actual, Jerry Lewis telethon, with him, but I played at the local station that was broadcasting it. They cut away every hour to the local channel, and I played on that segment.

As a Jehovah’s Witness kid, summer also meant going door-to-door all damn summer long, and heading to Reno for district conventions. It was also when I introduced myself to Johnny Carson and David Letterman, ’cause I got to stay up late.

Diane: Yup, Johnny Carson, summer 1974. Also the summer my mother — god bless her — took me & my brothers to see Blazing Saddles at the drive-In. I brought my Panasonic tape recorder. I still have every word of that movie memorized.

Paul: Blazing Saddles. Yes. That was a very important film.

Diane: Summers have become just another season. I wonder if you, being a parent are able to appreciate summer (in its most fabled definition) by proxy through your children. Do you have a big Slip-n-Slide in the back yard?

Paul: We have a deck, not an actual backyard, but yes, it’s full of summer toys and aquatic-based apparatuses. And a big-ass gas grill. That’s when I truly get down with the summer thing, when I’m grilling something. It’s that moment I feel I have mastered my masculinity, when I am standing over a rack of ribs, divining smoke with my spatula. Then I have a Sex And The City marathon. As for living vicariously through my kids – yeah, sorta, I suppose. But I do that all year long, really.

Diane: Man is to barbecue what Cro-Magnon was to Wooly Mammoth. That’s what I always say. What really stands out, regarding childhood summer, for me are those above-mentioned road trips: five of us in a car for two or three weeks. No one had smart phones to drown out the present company. We fought. We made up games in the car (often utilizing the cassette recorder), we sang (at least I did, to the AM radio). I can remember what I saw out a window when listening to Helen Reddy’s “You and Me Against The World” and the Stylistics’ “You Make Me Feel Brand New” — I don’t remember where exactly I was, but I remember the weather, and the scenery, of those moments. And who I was with. I’m so glad I didn’t have a smartphone as a kid. I fear all my memories would be of texting!

Paul: The summer of 1983 was probably the most important summer of my childhood. It was the first summer after I’d quit the JW’s. I got a job as rehearsal pianist for a high school summer stock theater group in Sacramento, Musical Comedy Workshop. To my utter shock I also landed the lead in Oklahoma! That summer I made a whole bunch of new friends. They were arty. They listened to old David Bowie! And they accepted me, for some reason. If I hadn’t had them during the transition, I’m not sure what would have happened to me.

Diane: I love that you had that experience. I had a similar “finding my tribe” time when I arrived at the campus of SUNY Stony Brook in 1981.

As I got older, summer became this big transitory time: 6th grade center (back in the days of integration) to junior high (I believe we now call it middle school), junior high to senior high. And with that came pubescent curiosity: about booze and drugs and sex and of course, rock and roll!

I came up with a timetable. My first experience with each of these happened during a summer. Coincidence? I think not!

Rock and roll: First concert, Frampton, 1977
Alcohol: first beer, Lowenbrau, 1978
Drugs: first joint, 1979
Sex: First time, 1980

You’d almost think I planned it.

Paul: My first rock and roll concert was in the summer of ’82, I believe. The Police and Santana. As for alcohol and sex I think I took care of all those in ’84. Probably drugs too. I was coping with my Orwellian fears.

Diane: The Police! wish I’d seen them. And I’m glad you had a chance to catch up on the sex & drugs tip most expeditiously.

Paul: Scheduling’s important. You know, for a long time, I had this fear of August.

Diane: Fear of August? Because it meant school started soon?

Paul: For about 10 or 12 years straight, some cataclysmic event would always happen in August. I called it Augustpanik. One of my girlfriends took it awfully personally, even though it had nothing to do with her. The summer of 1995, especially August, was fuckin’ abominable.

Diane: What was the timeframe of your Augustpanik?

Paul: I would say Augustpanik ran between… I’d estimate it as having started in 1987, and I stopped being superstitious about it around 2004.

Diane: Another thing that was Pure Summer: The Olympics!

Paul: You know, I never really watched the Olympics all that much. I was all about baseball though. One thing I resented about being raised a JW was that I wasn’t allowed to participate in sports, including little league baseball, which happened every summer a few blocks from my house.

Diane: I grew up in a very athletic household (I skated & did gymnastics, two older hockey-playing brothers). I saw every ABC Wide World Of Sports from 1972-1980, I’m pretty sure. My first Olympics was 1972: Olga Korbut vs. Kathy Rigby, Edwin Moses, Mark Spitz. And then… the hostage situation. I was way too young to understand what was happening. But I knew, at age 8, that when the perenially chipper Jim McKay said, “They’re all gone,” I understood for the first time that really bad things happen in the world.

You’re my second male friend who grew up JW — and took a while to dust it off. I’m glad you both did.

Paul: The first news story I remember was when Nixon resigned (in August!) in 1974. I was on vacation with my family in Billings, Montana. My dad was doing a real estate seminar at the university there, so we drove through Yellowstone to get there. Saw Old Faithful. And Nixon quit.

Diane: That’s so funny, I was on one of our August Road Trips: hockey camp for the boys, Penticton, Canada, when the news broke!

Back to summer: It was so built up. Nine months of looking forward to it, then boom, it was over. A lot of schools now are year-round. I wonder if that sort of diminishes the true power & meaning of summer to kids today. It was almost mythical: Summer. I swear, I suppose it’s because I was in San Francisco for summer 1990-2012 (minus the time I was overseas 1998-2000), but I have zero summer associations. It’s starting to make sense now, why I left (San Francisco).

Paul: So how has the transition from San Francisco faux summers to Los Angeles summers gone for you? Although, technically, it just started today.

Diane: It’s a lot of factors — this chapter of my life will be called “Next time I ask the universe for an adventure, remember to be more specific!” But the fact that all of this has happened during summer just makes it feel like summer 1973 (if only the soundtrack were so great). Being in a new place where it’s sunny, having the freedom to not work during this transition, not knowing what’s next in adventure… All those words that I use for summers past, I’m so happy to feel them again. I’m sure much of has to do with my own mindset and leaving behind a situation in which I stayed far too long (I’m fucking loyal to a fault). Not sure I’d feel this way if I’d moved to North Dakota, but right now, I’m a walking Joni Mitchell song, right down to the white gauze swimsuit cover I’m walking around in!

I need to get out more in L.A. proper to get a “summer vibe” on the streets. But all the people I’m hanging with are all sharing this — it’s hard for a non-earthbiscuit like myself to find words for it, this — time in life. A lot of people I’m encountering, grounded people, are feeling really optimistic here! I didn’t find much of that in SF, I’ll be honest.

Paul: Optimism. I love optimism. I moved to L.A. in the summer of ’95, which as I mentioned was the absolute fucking worst year of my life. I wasn’t very happy having to leave the Northwest for L.A. All sorts of shit happened that summer that should not have happened.

Diane: So what’s the story? Gonna give sunny L.A. another go?

Paul: I’m not sure this is breaking news for everyone, but there is an extremely strong chance I’ll be moving to L.A. in the future for work, unless something fairly dramatic happens. And the last couple of times I’ve been in L.A. I’ve really enjoyed myself. So it’s the exact opposite of the ’95 move. I’m actually looking forward to moving to L.A. If it happens. There are still milestones that have to be hit, but as of now the going understanding is that we’re headed down to L.A. But no timetable yet. The first time I was there I was not really one of the party people.

Diane: I’m surprised how much I’m enjoying it. Even where I’m staying most days, Valencia (long story), it’s so laid-back and green (for a desert) and pedestrian/bike friendly. People are nice. After 23 years in gray and damp cities (San Francisco, London), I’m liking this. There will come a time when this too shall pass, but it is a great summer. I suspect there’s no official end of summer — for adults — in Southern California. You can take your time and come back, if you want. I’ve been thinking about this for twenty years.

Paul: I would probably be much more grounded than I was the first time I lived in L.A.

Diane: I’m not letting you off the hook, music man. Some of your most emblematic songs of summer, and why.

Paul: Well, I’m not sure they were summer songs, but back when we were talking about AM radio, the songs I recall the most were “Do It Again” by Steely Dan and “Everybody Plays the Fool” by the Main Ingredient. During the Summer of Crap in 1995, there was this great station in L.A., KACE, that played R&B oldies. Great, great station. Missed. Basically anything soul-related is in my summer memories. “Love Train” by the O’Jays, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” by Stevie Wonder, all Spinners songs. Hall & Oates.

Diane: I love that you mention “Everybody Plays the Fool” by the Main Ingredient. I recently took a roadtrip to San Francisco with a male friend. That song came on, and he knew every second, every phrase and pause. I’m familiar with the song, but was never compelled as a kid to memorize it. I realized that day that that was a boy song!

Paul: Yeah, I would always hear that little “flute” introduction coming from the radios in the streets. That was the first notion of “hooks” that I ever heard.

(We broke it off here, because this was happening at the exact moment James Gandolfini’s death was announced. We picked it up the next Tuesday:)

Diane: Okay, I’m just sitting here organizing nutritional supplements (seriously).

Paul: In what order? Alphabetically?

Diane: It’s complicated.

Paul: I won’t pry. So, I definitely have a worst summer on record, and maybe a best. Do you have specific favorite and least favorite summers on record?

Diane: Fave: two, 1973 and 2004.

Paul: What was good about 2004?

Diane: I’ll go into detail in a moment. And add 1983 to the “Best” list.

Trying to think of the worst… There are a few that tie for “Meh,” but worst… There was definitely a period of bad summers, 1984, ’85, ’86, right after my mom died December of ’83. My eating disorder returned with a vengeance. Music started getting cheesy. I was young and beautiful and supposed to be happily dancing to drum beat music. Instead, I was destroying myself and hoping I wouldn’t wake up (I could never kill myself, because I wouldn’t do that to my father), but I seriously went to sleep each night wishing it was the last.

What made 2004 good… I was 40. I’d spent part of the prior year writing and performing a stage show (first time onstage) and it was taking off! We got into the Fringe Festival that summer and won Best Of Fringe. At the same time, I was directing and producing my first feature film. I’m really good at creating community, and I have to say, we had the greatest cast andcrew, most of whom I met because of the project (the film and stage show both titled Come Fly With Me Nude). I was living my dream surrounded by wonderful, good, talented people! I was working so hard I lost 20 pounds in two months — there was a lot of dancing in the show — so I looked better at 40 than I have since that summer of 1983, before my mother died.

1983 I was thin for the first time since puberty, I was in love for the first time with someone who’s still a great friend. My brother was engaged to a Greek woman who was the big sister I always wanted. Everyone was happy and the music was great! Can’t separate a summer from its music!

And you? Let’s hear your best-of/worst-of stories. And I hope yours aren’t as tied in to your weight as mine are!

Paul: Let’s kill off the ghosts of 1995 first. I moved down to L.A. with my then-wife. Things had been going bad for awhile. There were tons of things going on with her that I was never told about. I’d caught her in a pretty massive lie, which was constructed to conceal the fact that she was seeing a guy she was… well, to be honest, we still don’t know what she was doing with him. It has never been fully explained to me.

Anyway, for some reason, in August she brought him down to L.A. “with his girlfriend” and she kicked me out of the house. So I spent that month on the road. I had very few friends down there because I’d just moved. I stayed in a motel in Long Beach, camped in Lake Arrowhead, finally came back to stay in a cheap motel in Beverly Hills (no lie).

I was in Pasadena with the one friend I did have there, eating tacos in the street, when I was assaulted by a guy who was apparently being initiated into a gang. He struck me in my left eye with brass knuckles. I still have the scar. So, yeah, ’95 would be my worst summer. But you know, I was pretty stupid to put up with it.

Diane: Okay, the brass knuckles bit sucks. But that sounds to me like one of those summers (mine would be ’92) when you get so lost, you’re so raw, those experiences just lead to such searching and growth when you look back. I know I’m just even more open to new things and a “what the fuck” attitude, that when I look back, I feel like it ultimately really formed me. I always think those are probably the periods in artists’ lives from where comes the best work, when you’re stuck questioning life.

Paul: Yeah. I don’t like to revisit that particular summer (’95) too often. I’m sure it probably shaped a lot of stuff. What was infuriating about it was that it proved that my first impression of my ex-wife, which wasn’t positive, turned out to be dead-on. I have always mistrusted my first instincts, and I have no idea why.

On the other hand, going through the bad things that happened in the past is not usually an enjoyable thing for me. I don’t want to hang around those ghosts and shake my fist demanding justice. And I don’t even know her these days, maybe she’s changed and has taken a full accounting of herself. I just haven’t heard about it, and I don’t really care. That’s that.

1983 was probably the best summer. 2002 was great. That was the summer I started to come out of a very long-lasting shell. I was in Olympia and was trying a new approach to life.

Diane: Why was your ’83 so great? At the risk of projecting, I’m totally expecting music to play a part in your answer.

Paul: The establishment of a core of friends that probably, in the long term, saved my life. Yes, music was part of it. I had no idea anybody else thought I was a good singer. It woke me up to a lot of things. 2002 was a lot like ’83. I’d made a relatively new core of friends in Oly, started getting involved in musical projects again.

Diane: Self discovery! I had that moment at 40, which is an age most women dread — and I think being that age gave me the wisdom to appreciate it all the more.

Paul: Most men dread it too. I wasn’t really paying attention when it happened to me.

Hey, this is supposed to be about summer! When’d we get all self-examinatory and shit? (Although I think this is a perfectly good direction to go in.)

Diane: I know I’m miserable without that element in my life, which is sort-of what’s great about being in L.A. now, since the main reason for this move was to take the writing projects to the next level. Many of my friends here are S.F. expat actors/filmmakers who moved for the same reason, so we’re all feeding off each other’s creative energy. It’s an exciting time. The fact that I get to wear actual summery dresses (try doing that in the summer in San Francisco) just makes me feel all the more upbeat and carefree. It sounds so fluffy… but I’m enjoying fluffy right now. After 20+ years under the cold, damp, gray blanket that is summer in San Francisco, I feel like I am Joni Mitchell, and I do want to live in Laurel Canyon. I’m fixated on Laurel Canyon.

Paul: Yeah, this summer — well, so far, it’s not even a week in the books yet — is going to be interesting. I’m terribly busy already. Kind of re-emerging in a way. I heard from some astrology types that Neptune’s going to be retrograde in some house of mine for awhile, so that means I’m going to be working on some issues of personal definition. Who I am, what I can do, where my potential’s at, etc. I nodded my head as if to understand.

Diane: That’s right, you’re still in the midst of a transition yourself! I arrived here April 30, so that’s officially when summer began for me. “I nodded my head as if to understand.” Heh heh heh.

Paul: I’m still in transition but it’s not 100% where I’ll be yet.

Diane: This is my transition’s transition. The transition itself began in 2007, when death, divorce, and unemployment all struck within months of each other. Summer, of course.

Paul: This summer should accelerate the transition that’s been going on since… well, August of last year according to me, but October if you’re talking about my career. Frankly I’m not sure when I haven’t been in transition over the last 14 years. ’98 may have been the last time I’ve felt truly settled for a spell. I mean, some things are settled. Family and relationships, that’s settled. That turned out fine. My family’s just waiting on me, really.

What do you want to see come out of this summer?

Diane: Hmmm… The one thing I know for sure is I do want this state of mind, this calm, this openness to trust life, to last. I feel fearless, for the first time in a long time. I am a feather in the wind and right now it’s perfect.

Out of this summer: eventually I want to be settled (somewhat) somewhere. Even if that means I just buy a car and find some sort of existence on the road for a while. I was so tied to a place, my apartment in San Francisco for so long… I loved it in the fact that I’m a momma bear and love having a place for all my orphan friends to gather on holidays or just whenever I feel like cooking and having a dance party after. Again with the community.

I want an agent. A manager. I want to be bicoastal. I want to see my projects find the audience they deserve. That’s what I want to see come out of this move. It just may take longer than a summer.

Paul: I’d like to be a part of something. I’d like to get a sense that I’m contributing what I can to some sort of community or work effort. I’m finding my way back to what it is that I do best, which is essentially covering music. Or performing music, or helping other musicians define themselves. Now that I’m in a position to work in the music realm again, as opposed to having been sort of stranded in a position only peripherally connected to music for most of the last six years, I want to get back to the side of the music where I do my best work. And get paid. Yeah, definitely want to include getting paid for it. And create something. I don’t know, anything. Things are slowly coming together.

Diane: Since I’ve been here, I’ve spent a lot of time writing, marketing and fundraising materials for dog causes, like Rocket Dog Rescue and Paws LA. And I’ll be starting up the LA branch of aMios, a theatre company based in NYC now also in San Francisco (I write for their bi-monthly Shotz short play program).

So I guess we want a lot of the same things — the community, getting paid, being on the creative side. I’m just grateful that I have a strong creative side, though it took me a while to truly embrace it. I think that if I’d had that in my life when my mother died, I might have weathered that period differently, perhaps less self-destructively. Who knows?

Paul: Well, if I do wind up down there anytime soon, let me know what I can do to help. I got software and stuff. And the will to live.

Diane: Come here and be the musical director for my theatre company. In addition to your other projects! Peal Pearson and The World’s Most Controversial Band!

Paul: Deal. Do you have any square dances? I’m all do-si-do in that bitch!

Diane: I’m getting some ideas… See, collaboration! I love it!

Paul: I’ll start designing the T-shirts right now!

Diane: Well, you’ve inspired me to set some definite goals this summer (besides just “tan legs”). I’m even more excited! Thank you.

Paul: You’re welcome, and me too. I’m going to start taking notes.

Diane: Cool. Time for a refreshing lemonade!

(we just need to vent a little)

Seattleite Paul Pearson and San Franciscan Diane Karagienakos and  are the consummate online friends. They have never met in person blew the mystique and finally met in person last November. If not for their mutual connection to exactly two people, they might not have ever known of each other’s existence. But they instant-message each other with a rapport like they’ve been doing this internet thing for a hundred years.

In their fourth, possibly most vital conversation so far, D&P weigh in on the gun control debate, and try like hell to make it into a more comprehensive, well-rounded parley than one normally finds in the current media climate. This discussion contains one (1) Lewis Carroll reference.
Diane: Let’s roll. Let’s just dive in: What do you think the problem is and how would you fix it, given the power to do so?

Paul: Well, the prevailing conservative sentiment that the problem doesn’t just have to do with guns is correct. I mean, it’s a LOT of the problem… a whole hell of a lot of the problem… but I agree with the notion that mental health has something to do with it. And one aspect of mental health that I think needs to be addressed is why certain people have so much affection for their guns.

Other aspects of the problem? Well, fear. Our nation’s genetic code, as it were, placing a certain nobility on violence. Lack of education. The instant gratification culture. It’s lots of things.

But mainly guns.

ubergizmo.com

Diane: I’m gonna agree and disagree with you there. Agree guns are a whole hell of a lot of the problem. Agree instant gratification. Agree mental health. But I think the main problem, The Big One, is our society/culture of disconnection. Other cultures have violent games/movies, and guns, and, I assume, members of its society with mental health issues.What America seems to lack are things that counter these things. A sense of belonging. Pride of place. Strong ties to extended family, community. I work in a restaurant and every night, families sit around tables of very expensive meals, and no one talks. All of them are elsewhere on their devices. I swear I believe it’s all tied in. I’m not saying outlaw devices, not at all. But I am saying that as tribal people, we’re on a path of self-induced isolation. It’s not good, and gun violence is evidence of the worst of it.

And it’s pissing me off that no one is talking about this. Guns, mental health care system, NRA, Second Amendment. Everyone’s pointing fingers at these things, but no one’s willing to say we, America, are the problem. Come together, people!

Paul: Well, I see that disconnection as a problem witheverything that ails America at this point. We were already on our way to becoming an isolationist country, the breakdown of the tribal instinct that you mention only reinforces that. As someone raising kids with a lot of technology around the house, that alarms me as well. I’m leery of my family turning out like the one in The Ice Storm.

I wonder if we are irretrievably broken in our ability to discuss these matters like grown adults. I was thinking about this in relation to the news media the other day. Since they are driving discussion of this issue, they don’t take the time to discuss the intangible problems. They don’t like to attach a higher meaning to these things, like you just did. And yeah, it’s as much of a problem as any other problem in this mess. Still, the mathematical part of me, which is living in a very remote part of my subconscious in an unfurnished railroad apartment, also believes: You know, people really don’t need high-capacity magazines.

Diane: Absofuckinglutely. I have yet to hear a half-decent argument in favor of them. A conservative lawyer I know posted on Facebook:

It’s the middle of the night and you’re in bed on the second floor of your house in a semi-rural neighborhood. Your spouse is next to you and your kids are in their rooms down the hall. There have been several burglaries in the area recently, including one where the homeowner was stabbed and the perps got away… again. You hear the sound of breaking glass downstairs and then hushed voices. Quietly, you wake your spouse and call 911 and are told that help is on the way. You decide to wait quietly until you hear footsteps on the stairs. With nothing to fight with, you scream out, “I called the police and they are on their way!” Your door bursts open and two meth-amped assailants charge in waving flashlights and knives, demanding money and valuables and threatening bodily harm “because you called the fucking cops.” You try to give them money, but they are not satisfied so they stab you and your spouse repeatedly and as you fall to the ground the perps leave the room saying they are going to “Kill your fucking kids.” 5 minutes later, the police arrive to find the bodies of you, your wife, and your kids stabbed to death.

Or…

Thankfully, you have a legally registered pistol with a magazine that complies with the new law limiting it to seven rounds. You still call the cops and decide to wait it out, but you get your pistol ready. When you hear the footsteps and shout out the warning, the assailants burst in so you open fire. It is dark in the room and they are moving, so only two of your seven bullets are hits and they drop the first perp. The second one is still coming at you with his knife, enraged. 5 minutes later, the police arrive to find the bodies of you, your wife, and your kids stabbed to death. The perp you shot is gone.

Or…

Your pistol has a 15-round magazine. Only two of the first seven rounds hit the first assailant, dropping him and giving you a clear shot at perp #2. Terrified, you are firing wildly, but 3 of the next 5 shots find their mark. The perps are not dead, nor even mortally wounded, but they are injured and down, and you still have 3 rounds in your weapon. You keep the perps covered until the police arrive 5 minutes later.

And THAT is ONE reason why law-abiding citizens should be allowed to have medium-capacity (10 to 15 rounds) magazines.

How idiotic is that as an argument, if those are the only 3 possible outcomes? What the fuck are you doing shooting any kind of gun in your home where there are children in the dark? If you have time to strap on your big bad gun, how about just grabbing a flashlight or one of those flashlight helmet? Or best yet – night-vision goggles (which I would think if you’re enough of a firearm freak, you would automatically own — and actually take aim. But then if you were actually taking aim, you’d only need 1, maybe 2 bullets — and what fun would that be?

Paul: And how many times has Scenario #3 actually happened? You can’t predicate law on a short story. Not to cheapen the subject, but I could make a reasonable argument about not walking in fields with potholes in it, because in one scenario I heard about, a little girl fell down a hole into a room where she took oral steroids and ended up in a tea party with a grinning cat and a sociopathic queen. So don’t walk in fields, kids.

What lawmakers need to consider is the reality of the situation. And given all that’s happened, you have to weigh if all these mass murders would have been possible without quick access to high-powered weaponry. That has to be discussed.

Diane: Okay, thank you for making me laugh out loud with your frightful scenario. It comes back to your point about some people’s odd affection for their guns. I honestly don’t think most gun owners and NRA members think we need the medium-to-high capacity mags. But it’s that squeaky, well-funded wheel that keeps this from being a meaningful and forward-moving discussion. I wish the NRA would just branch off and become its own political party, stay out of other party’s pocketbooks.

And I agree with Louis Michael Seidman’s New York Times article about the constitution: that it derails any intelligent approach to problems of today. Camille Paglia did a great interview with Interview after Columbine, where she had a great approach to what’s wrong with schools and society today (circa 1998 or 1999). Her solution: Blow it up. Start over.

Same with the Constitution: Great preamble and ideas overall, but we must look at today’s modern problems through the lens of today. I don’t want to necessarily blow it up, but we need to be open to other ideas in this day and age.

Paul: The responsible gun owners far outnumber the wack-jobs, and I agree with you. I think rank-and-file NRA members are more in support of some logical restrictions than Wayne LaPierre would have you believe. But we can’t hear them. Their leaders have already proven themselves to be out of touch and comprehensively tone-deaf. It has to be frustrating for them.

As far as love of guns goes — I understand it as a hobby that could prove to be beneficial in some manner. I know some women in Olympia who have started their own gun club, and they’re extremely attentive to responsibility and safety. But in general I don’t quite get the displaced passion some people have for inanimate objects. And it’s hard to tell when enthusiasm ebbs into devotion, which ebbs into worship. I have to watch for that myself.

The Constitution was written without the framers knowing anything about the future. They didn’t know what things would be happening two centuries later. They’d probably be horrified that we don’t value fine American craftsmanship and buy a lot of our furniture from Swedes. I don’t consider it a holy document, although I’m nuts about that First Amendment.

Diane: Seems it’s never the gun wack-jobs who amass carnage before ultimately committing suicide. When did that even get on our radar as an option, a solution or reaction to an unhappy life of even phase of life? Are we just such a nation of pussies now that getting fired, or rejected (from school or a person we desire), or a series of these setbacks makes us not only want to check out, but to take innocent people with us? Whatever happened to “success is the best revenge”? Are Americans losing hope for achieving success? Are the expectations of The American Dream too great, too unrealistic? It’s like when you get sober or give up smoking or lose weight: You think it’s going to change your life so dramatically for the better. But it doesn’t. It changes it for the better, but it’s a far, far way from happily ever after.

Meanwhile, we have dumb-ass Snooki’s and Kardashians making it look like fame and success, the American “Happily Ever After,” are that easy. And if those tools can be rich and famous and happy, what the fuck’s wrong with me that I’m broke, unemployed, and can’t find a date? We are a nation of fucked up signals for kids, that’s all I’m sayin’.

Paul: It’s that instant gratification thing again. There are very few overnight successes, and if there happens to be one, the speed of culture usually cuts that success off or just forgets about it. Every noble success takes time. Even that Gangham Style guy’s been working for the last 9 years.

Right now? I think we’ve been in a downward spiral of hope for a couple of years. All of our expectations have been tempered. A lot of people feel the American dream’s out of reach. Surely I’ve felt that way from time to time in the past. But then again, I wasn’t doing what I know I need to do to be successful. That’s another story.

But yeah, I think that fatalism exists, certainly. And it trumps patience and hard work, for a lot of people. That has to stop. I think more than anything we’ve accepted anger as a food group. Some people have. It’s part of their daily diet.

I saw two of the Kardashians on Letterman last night. It was, believe it or not, the first time I was ever exposed to the Kardashian family for more than 30 seconds. I keep thinking the subset of people who are famous because “they’re famous” is about to go away, and it never does. They have a right to be happy. Certainly don’t wish them harm. But I wonder why a national of millions has glommed onto them.

Diane: It’s our culture of snark. We love looking at people’s lives and habits and making fun of them, while they laugh all the way to the bank.

I have a confession to make: I’ve watched Ice Loves Coco a couple of times now. And… I sort of love it. For proving me wrong in my own prejudice about certain people, based on how they look. I mean, she looks like a blow-up doll, but she seems really sweet. And Ice, we can think him a hothead thug, but he’s so calming and grounding a presence for her, and they clearly love each other so much. I can’t believe I’m even saying this! But… they give me hope! I don’t watch to laugh at them at all.

Paul: Ice Loves Coco is the only reality show I would even think of watching! They’re a genuinely loving couple, it’s not an exploitative relationship. I have always been an Ice-T fan and knew he had that side to him. They are not caricatured reality show stars. Ice wouldn’t ever agree to do a show like that.

Diane: Okay, Ice for President! Seriously, Obama needs to get some high profile people behind him on some of this stuff. Ice. Republicans who favor sanity in gun legislation. The NRA members whose sane voices are being drown out by the zealots. This business of guns has got to stop being another Democrat vs. Republican topic, or else you know it’s not going anywhere.

Paul: I have hope — a wafer-thin, ungraspable hope that I can’t back up with anything resembling an informed argument — that eventually some sort of rationality will emerge and we’ll agree to logical laws in terms of background checks, and not selling guns to felons or crazy people. I don’t have any way to back up that stance, but I look at how Alex Jones appeared on that Piers Morgan segment the other week. I don’t get it. He knew he was on camera, right? He knew that looking like a nutjob would detract from his argument, right?

I just searched for the phrase “when belief becomes insanity,” and found this quote about religion: “I think it becomes insanity when it requires you to believe things which are in direct conflict with empirical reality. i.e., if your religion requires that you believe the earth is flat, and you do, even though all evidence is to the contrary, then you’ve lost it.” I think that typifies the rabid anti-gun-control types to a T. The empirical truth doesn’t line up with their preferred worldview, so they just reject the empirical truth. Problem exacerbated.

Diane: Well, you’ve about as much hope as I have. How hard is it to apply the same requirements for purchase at gun shows as exist for retail outlets? Like someone stated regarding the purchase/transfer of cars, and all associated responsibilities/liabilities. Let’s just try those two things in terms of guns: background checks for all purchases, and out with the mid-high capacity mags. Let’s try and see how it goes.

As for mental health: Lord, there’s a label for everything these days. I think that’s meant to keep the docs and the pharmacies in business, I truly do. So much of what “ails” us psychologically is part of the human condition. America has a bad, bad case of First World Problems. And we have lots of pills for that. Some (schizophrenics, for example) are truly ill. But it seems the people who are involved in these shootings, they’re never on that end of the spectrum, are they? They’re usually “outcasts” or “loners,” most of which don’t gun down 6-year-olds. They need role models and trusting relationships and a stronger support system than most of us have. Not necessarily pills.

Paul: There are, as you point out, some people who truly need medication, there’s no way around it. But it’s no substitute for values. Speaking from personal experience, I think sometimes people get on those medications because other people want them to. They’re not fitting into someone else’s preferred character. I was on Celexa for a while for no other reason than the person I was living with didn’t like the fact that I didn’t always come home from work in an exuberant mood. Amusing side note: She wasn’t that sane to begin with herself. You can’t pill yourself into stability. I would use that as the utmost last resort with my children.

Diane: I worked at the medical unit at the embassy in London, sort of the primary care physician’s office for the diplomats of Europe and western Africa. And let me tell you, Ritalin was doled out to kids like fluoride tabs. “He’s fidgety in school, doesn’t focus.” Ritalin for you! I mean, little boys aren’t naturally designed to sit still in school, are they? Camille Paglia talks about this, only she’s talking about hormone-addled teenagers.

I commend you on not jumping on the medicate-your-babies bandwagon. That’s where it starts: teach your kids to work through difficult situations, or teach them to pop a pill to do the work for you. Another primarily American cultural feature that is hurting us. Pills get you through tough times, since we are lacking those other things that prop people up in other cultures. This whole mindset is part of that Bigger Picture problem.

Paul: Really, all I want right now is for both sides to be reasonable and discuss it like it’s a real, tangible problem, because it is. Whatever comes out of it will take time, I realize that. But everything’s got to be on the table and up for review. And it would certainly help if people stopped making up “facts” like “baseball bats kill more people than guns.” Research. Do your research folks.

Diane: I want both sides to be reasonable and discuss, without the shadow of the NRA and special interest groups clouding things. Do you think that’s possible, Mr. Pearson?

Paul: Sure, it’s possible. This is America, anything’s possible. We just have to get over the requirement that it be sponsored. And maybe we should have more of these discussions in living rooms and coffee shops, not just on TV.

Diane: And definitely not just on Facebook!

Paul: Yes! Let’s move this to Reddit!

Diane: And that’s a wrap!