Another great 2-book set:
Looking For Mr. Goodbar
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
The "Secret" is how they can keep repackaging the same old shit and know you'll keep buying it. The producers of Three Stooges DVDs use a similar philosophy.
Finland has not participated in a war in decades now. What the hell's their problem?
The dinosaurs took care of the planet.
For way longer than we've even been on it... and it still got rid of them.
A bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos before bed will produce the same effect as some bad acid before bed.
Why do the neighbors insist on slamming doors? To convince them to stay closed?
When Hitler was dead, the war in Europe was over. When Saddam Hussein was dead, 20,000 more troops were sent in. What aren't we being told?
If you travel back in time and shoot your grandfather, you do not suddenly cease to exist. But your hair changes color. Your height possibly changes, and if you're lucky, the length of your shlong gets a sudden boost.
Sometimes I wonder, maybe it is worth it to go into politics, for all that money I wouldn't have to work for.
If sex were as good as root beer, would it be foamy?
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
All In My Head
I'm thinking of a radio advertisement. I heard it years ago, many years ago – we're talking 1973 or so. I don't remember what the ad was for, just the repeated catch-phrase that echoed eerily through a night-shrouded country bedroom, with dogs ruh-ruh-ruffing somewhere off in the distance, and crickets chirping just beyond the open window. "Did they die for us?"
Who? Did who die? I'm trying to remember it. It was spoken by a group of children – a chorus of nine- and ten-year olds. "Did they die for us?" Then a somber baritone announcer mumbled something no doubt poignant and sobering. Followed by the children asking once more, "did they die for us?"
That's all I have. No clues that will suddenly uncloak the answer the longer I ponder. Just the interesting notion of who "they" might be. The ones that apparently died. And made a group of children curious as to whom "they" kicked off for.
Was it about veterans? When I think sometimes of a radio murmuring in the dark somewhere next to my bed, I remember one particular veteran: my dad. There's no face connected to this particular memory of him – just the blackness of a dark bedroom, pierced by a tiny, glowing orange point of light. A cigarette flaring. Intensifying to a neon yellow ever briefly, then simmering down to a flicker of amber. A falling star in an empty night. He smoked in bed. Never fell asleep mid-cig. He was either very careful or extremely lucky.
Was it rabbits that died? The bunnies who bought the farm, so that the mothers of this group of kids could find out whether a nose-picking little radio actor was on the way? Those were the 70s, afterall. There were no little gray "+" signs that turned blue. No ultrasound photographs. The "rabbit test" involved the death of Bugs, so that Mom could find out if your new little brother was in the oven. In that case, kids, yeah – they died for you. The real question is, were you worth it?
Another memory I connect to a puttering little night stand radio is announcer Vin Scully ("Vinnnz Gully" as he himself pronounced it) fading in and out with "so that's the inneen, as thuh Daahhjers take a pawbuball to zekkun" (the Dodgers take a pop-up ball to second) and thah remines me, faahnz, how all other lunchmeats come in zekkun to Fahhmer Jahhnz lunchmeat..."
I could listen to this guy talk all night, about damn near anything. An Ell-Lay raydeeo dude fighting his New Yawka accent like a mailman swatting a pitbull with the Publishers' Clearinghouse sweepstakes.
"An I godda pizzed-off bumble-bee in my trowzers, stingin' my azzzz, fanz, an boy duz it hurrrrt. Which remines me how all the other weener brands STING YOU IN THE AZZ at the subermarket cheggout lines. Unlike the deee-lishuss, wallet-friendly priced weenerz frum Fahhmer Jahhhn..."
I'd get up at 1:30 in the morning for a sandwich, to get that mean Fahhmer Jahhn bologna monkey off my back. Yes, I was a fat kid, until the few stations whose signals reached over the mountains to our house stopped carrying Dodger games – or at least just broadcast day games, when I was at school.
I'll never forget Scully translate the drama of a sudden homerun, to an audience that couldn't actually see the action. "Heeerrre's the pitch... An it's wayback... waaaayyback... and kiss it g'bye!!" I can hear it in my head, as clear as any 50,000 watt signal drifting north over the hills on a night sky crowded with thunderheads.
Scully announced Dodger games on the radio almost since Marconi invented the damn thing. I think Al Michaels first got work simply because his voice was a sound-alike to Scully's. Since the Dodgers themselves couldn't draw much of a radio audience by actually winning a game on a regular basis, they must have figured they'd better stick to SOMETHING that worked. Screw the game.
I just remembered that the foreboding "Did they die for us" commercial happened during a Dodger game broadcast. Maybe it referred to the Dodgers themselves. Or maybe just the ratings of their radio games.
Dodgers don't really die. They pop up to second.
Who? Did who die? I'm trying to remember it. It was spoken by a group of children – a chorus of nine- and ten-year olds. "Did they die for us?" Then a somber baritone announcer mumbled something no doubt poignant and sobering. Followed by the children asking once more, "did they die for us?"
That's all I have. No clues that will suddenly uncloak the answer the longer I ponder. Just the interesting notion of who "they" might be. The ones that apparently died. And made a group of children curious as to whom "they" kicked off for.
Was it about veterans? When I think sometimes of a radio murmuring in the dark somewhere next to my bed, I remember one particular veteran: my dad. There's no face connected to this particular memory of him – just the blackness of a dark bedroom, pierced by a tiny, glowing orange point of light. A cigarette flaring. Intensifying to a neon yellow ever briefly, then simmering down to a flicker of amber. A falling star in an empty night. He smoked in bed. Never fell asleep mid-cig. He was either very careful or extremely lucky.
Was it rabbits that died? The bunnies who bought the farm, so that the mothers of this group of kids could find out whether a nose-picking little radio actor was on the way? Those were the 70s, afterall. There were no little gray "+" signs that turned blue. No ultrasound photographs. The "rabbit test" involved the death of Bugs, so that Mom could find out if your new little brother was in the oven. In that case, kids, yeah – they died for you. The real question is, were you worth it?
Another memory I connect to a puttering little night stand radio is announcer Vin Scully ("Vinnnz Gully" as he himself pronounced it) fading in and out with "so that's the inneen, as thuh Daahhjers take a pawbuball to zekkun" (the Dodgers take a pop-up ball to second) and thah remines me, faahnz, how all other lunchmeats come in zekkun to Fahhmer Jahhnz lunchmeat..."
I could listen to this guy talk all night, about damn near anything. An Ell-Lay raydeeo dude fighting his New Yawka accent like a mailman swatting a pitbull with the Publishers' Clearinghouse sweepstakes.
"An I godda pizzed-off bumble-bee in my trowzers, stingin' my azzzz, fanz, an boy duz it hurrrrt. Which remines me how all the other weener brands STING YOU IN THE AZZ at the subermarket cheggout lines. Unlike the deee-lishuss, wallet-friendly priced weenerz frum Fahhmer Jahhhn..."
I'd get up at 1:30 in the morning for a sandwich, to get that mean Fahhmer Jahhn bologna monkey off my back. Yes, I was a fat kid, until the few stations whose signals reached over the mountains to our house stopped carrying Dodger games – or at least just broadcast day games, when I was at school.
I'll never forget Scully translate the drama of a sudden homerun, to an audience that couldn't actually see the action. "Heeerrre's the pitch... An it's wayback... waaaayyback... and kiss it g'bye!!" I can hear it in my head, as clear as any 50,000 watt signal drifting north over the hills on a night sky crowded with thunderheads.
Scully announced Dodger games on the radio almost since Marconi invented the damn thing. I think Al Michaels first got work simply because his voice was a sound-alike to Scully's. Since the Dodgers themselves couldn't draw much of a radio audience by actually winning a game on a regular basis, they must have figured they'd better stick to SOMETHING that worked. Screw the game.
I just remembered that the foreboding "Did they die for us" commercial happened during a Dodger game broadcast. Maybe it referred to the Dodgers themselves. Or maybe just the ratings of their radio games.
Dodgers don't really die. They pop up to second.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Peevish Pastiche
I've had enough long-winded belly-ache about politics and all the crap served up hot on a paper plate by the media. They don't even spice it up anymore. Now the crap is sugar-free. Now it's bland and bereft of all zing and zeal. Sure, it's the same crap – but now they don't even attempt to make it look or taste like something else. Cynical turds.
Piss on our heads and shout that it's Free Lemonade Day.
How can I impress you with my rapier wit and wordplay wizardry when they bombard us with so much CRAP demanding comment!! Shitmeisters!!
Have you seen Madonna's latest concert snaps featuring those tendony forearms and sinewy inner thighs? That's what retirement home nurses see every day at sponge bath time. I'm turned on. Seriously. When you get to be my age, things that were repellant in my twenties suddenly totally DO IT for me.
I say, as long as you can hold that Schick steady enough for even crotch-frame symmetry, flaunt it, Madge! Play the Strat more often too!
I'm glad that one of my personal heroes, Jerry Lewis, doesn't look like an oompa-loompavitch anymore. He may be 82 now, but he looks like "Jerry" again, and that brings on a feeling of peace. That some things really are eternally correct. See "The Bellboy." That movie explains everything. When you walk through a storm...
Another Jerry – Reed – died. The slickest cracker in the box. A better guitargod, and a better actor, than a lot of folks gave credit for. And we're now "In a world" without Don LaFontaine. Sucks.
See this shit? There's TWO MORE 20th century icons that future dumbed-down generations of entertainment addicts will, ironically, not have frickin' clue one about. And when some old fart – like yours truly – attempts to explain to them what they missed simply by being born too damn late, they won't spend two seconds listening. They'll turn up the volume on their iUnipodphoneberry and lurch away. Fawk.
I see Karl Rove is back in the country, and still being given national airtime to spew his corrosive demon bile. Isn't he a fugitive? Shouldn't someone have met him at the border with handcuffs?? Wow, here's a guy doing Osama bin Laden one better – living right out in the open and still not being hauled in.
The Hadron Super Collider is due to be switched on in a week. There are some scientific types being spun into the wacko column, who think it worth talking about, that this huge "unknown" might shove us into a dangerous new territory that there will be no backing away from.
The most extreme nightmare scenario: it conjures up a mini black hole – on earth – that does exactly what the big black holes in space do, that is, devour light and matter. That would pretty much be the bad hair day from hay-ell, bee-otch. Incredible to watch. Impossible to run from.
Suggestion: Give Rove an up-close-n-personal tour of the contraption, timed just as the toggle is flipped.
The most far-out & groovy possibility: it creates a method of time-travel. Sign me up. I'll even join a gym and start eating right to qualify!
When the atom bomb was first invented, there were well-educated folks who predicted it would trigger some kind of doomsday chain-reaction into motion. Hasn't it?
Who knew I'd give myself a shit-fit being more green. I put all my empty bottles in a plastic garbage bag in the kitchen – once a week I can make a single trip to the recycling area with my big bag-o'-bottles. One problem: the bag eventually gets too big, and I get too lazy to haul it downstairs. Those bottles aren't exactly designed to stack well. And they make the darnedest whack-a-pow on a formica floor. You know what the favorite time is for a pile of plastic bottles to shift and tumble? Strange question, sure – but with a definite answer.
Two-fricking-fifteen in the a.m. Twocka-bucka-kapow-poppa-bang-doo-dup-dup. I'm in bed, tryin' to get my nightly 'old guy with work in the morning' snooze, and suddenly I'm jolted awake by what sounds like a midget wearing clogs who's decided to jump out of hiding and trash the kitchen.
I was cleaning my fridge one night (gawd I'm glad those 3-month old apples were in a tied baggie) and there was something big and black, squashed, stuck to the back wall. I jumped. Ow my head. What the shit is THAT!
Whatever it was, it had died horribly. And had been preserved by the cold. Some mysterious dark brown roadkill, had met the Reaper while foraging in the frozen white alternate universe that is the fridge, and was defiantly still holding ground in grim repose.
I wadded up a mighty ball of paper towels, to grab the creature without its icky inner ooze grabbing me back. I reached forth. Crackle. Crunch.
A frozen round of brown wax paper – that had once held a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.
I rose, looked at myself in the reflection of the microwave oven window. Slack-jawed, worthless, pouty-lipped, girly-man.
Now I'm listening to a radio ad for one of those psychic hotline scams. "The tarot tells me that this man you've been dating can be stubborn and hard to deal with?" Yes, the woman caller giggles. She asks how the online psychic could tell that? Well, I think, possibly it's because everything he does for you is judged against the advice of some astrological shit-heel with pat answers for every conceivable bird-brain scenario you insist on letting her be a third-party to?
What they see in that crystal ball is your Visa card, putz.
Just letting the thoughts blow through my head like old pillowcases through a dry cleaners. Leaves through an alley. Bologna through a puppy's tummy.
One political note: as I write this, the Republican Convention is in full swing. It's performance art, you know. All these people really care about is hanging onto their earmarks, their perks, their private jets and reserved parking. Cuff links aren't free.
It's bedtime. That means that another workday is about 12 hours away. I wonder what I'll dream about tonight? I hope it's the Swedish women weightlifters team again.
Piss on our heads and shout that it's Free Lemonade Day.
How can I impress you with my rapier wit and wordplay wizardry when they bombard us with so much CRAP demanding comment!! Shitmeisters!!
Have you seen Madonna's latest concert snaps featuring those tendony forearms and sinewy inner thighs? That's what retirement home nurses see every day at sponge bath time. I'm turned on. Seriously. When you get to be my age, things that were repellant in my twenties suddenly totally DO IT for me.
I say, as long as you can hold that Schick steady enough for even crotch-frame symmetry, flaunt it, Madge! Play the Strat more often too!
I'm glad that one of my personal heroes, Jerry Lewis, doesn't look like an oompa-loompavitch anymore. He may be 82 now, but he looks like "Jerry" again, and that brings on a feeling of peace. That some things really are eternally correct. See "The Bellboy." That movie explains everything. When you walk through a storm...
Another Jerry – Reed – died. The slickest cracker in the box. A better guitargod, and a better actor, than a lot of folks gave credit for. And we're now "In a world" without Don LaFontaine. Sucks.
See this shit? There's TWO MORE 20th century icons that future dumbed-down generations of entertainment addicts will, ironically, not have frickin' clue one about. And when some old fart – like yours truly – attempts to explain to them what they missed simply by being born too damn late, they won't spend two seconds listening. They'll turn up the volume on their iUnipodphoneberry and lurch away. Fawk.
I see Karl Rove is back in the country, and still being given national airtime to spew his corrosive demon bile. Isn't he a fugitive? Shouldn't someone have met him at the border with handcuffs?? Wow, here's a guy doing Osama bin Laden one better – living right out in the open and still not being hauled in.
The Hadron Super Collider is due to be switched on in a week. There are some scientific types being spun into the wacko column, who think it worth talking about, that this huge "unknown" might shove us into a dangerous new territory that there will be no backing away from.
The most extreme nightmare scenario: it conjures up a mini black hole – on earth – that does exactly what the big black holes in space do, that is, devour light and matter. That would pretty much be the bad hair day from hay-ell, bee-otch. Incredible to watch. Impossible to run from.
Suggestion: Give Rove an up-close-n-personal tour of the contraption, timed just as the toggle is flipped.
The most far-out & groovy possibility: it creates a method of time-travel. Sign me up. I'll even join a gym and start eating right to qualify!
When the atom bomb was first invented, there were well-educated folks who predicted it would trigger some kind of doomsday chain-reaction into motion. Hasn't it?
Who knew I'd give myself a shit-fit being more green. I put all my empty bottles in a plastic garbage bag in the kitchen – once a week I can make a single trip to the recycling area with my big bag-o'-bottles. One problem: the bag eventually gets too big, and I get too lazy to haul it downstairs. Those bottles aren't exactly designed to stack well. And they make the darnedest whack-a-pow on a formica floor. You know what the favorite time is for a pile of plastic bottles to shift and tumble? Strange question, sure – but with a definite answer.
Two-fricking-fifteen in the a.m. Twocka-bucka-kapow-poppa-bang-doo-dup-dup. I'm in bed, tryin' to get my nightly 'old guy with work in the morning' snooze, and suddenly I'm jolted awake by what sounds like a midget wearing clogs who's decided to jump out of hiding and trash the kitchen.
I was cleaning my fridge one night (gawd I'm glad those 3-month old apples were in a tied baggie) and there was something big and black, squashed, stuck to the back wall. I jumped. Ow my head. What the shit is THAT!
Whatever it was, it had died horribly. And had been preserved by the cold. Some mysterious dark brown roadkill, had met the Reaper while foraging in the frozen white alternate universe that is the fridge, and was defiantly still holding ground in grim repose.
I wadded up a mighty ball of paper towels, to grab the creature without its icky inner ooze grabbing me back. I reached forth. Crackle. Crunch.
A frozen round of brown wax paper – that had once held a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.
I rose, looked at myself in the reflection of the microwave oven window. Slack-jawed, worthless, pouty-lipped, girly-man.
Now I'm listening to a radio ad for one of those psychic hotline scams. "The tarot tells me that this man you've been dating can be stubborn and hard to deal with?" Yes, the woman caller giggles. She asks how the online psychic could tell that? Well, I think, possibly it's because everything he does for you is judged against the advice of some astrological shit-heel with pat answers for every conceivable bird-brain scenario you insist on letting her be a third-party to?
What they see in that crystal ball is your Visa card, putz.
Just letting the thoughts blow through my head like old pillowcases through a dry cleaners. Leaves through an alley. Bologna through a puppy's tummy.
One political note: as I write this, the Republican Convention is in full swing. It's performance art, you know. All these people really care about is hanging onto their earmarks, their perks, their private jets and reserved parking. Cuff links aren't free.
It's bedtime. That means that another workday is about 12 hours away. I wonder what I'll dream about tonight? I hope it's the Swedish women weightlifters team again.
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