Fulminating Obnoxious Xenophobes

 
    In the interest of transparency, one of the  large banks should invent a new investment product:  The Quarter-Million Dollar.*

*value before cooking


   In another week or so...

      Having failed to reach a quorum
      Safely back in your sanctum,
      Senator Richard Santorum,
      You probably still thanked 'Im.


   One time Glenn Beck asked Palin who her favorite founder is.  His tone was that of a telephoning teenager  asking her BFF which Jonas brother she liked best.  After an awkward deer-in-the-headlights moment, Palin said something like, "Gosh, you know, I like 'em all."  I'm not sure who my favorite founder is, but I know who my favorite founderer is.

   
   Romney will be greeted as a job liberator.  

   Mitt's outgoing voice message:  I'm very busy campaigning, so I'll be out of touch.

   Rom(ney)Coms:  Seamus and Me, Jobless in Seattle, You've Got No Healthcare, Willard Scissorhands, Hog Day.


   GOP Congress hails new era of productivity:  Corporations discover way of operating with no employees.

   GOP's idea of compromise with gays: Prop H -- they can legally scratch each other's backsides.

   Gingrich voters must first register with an offender database.

   Don Trump:  "Euge"-enics

   Gov. Christie puts the "meaty" in mediocrity.

   Telling Mr. Buffett to "Shut up and just write a check" to the US Treasury is like telling Bulls-era Michael Jordan to stop whining and help his team.

   Which star bellied Sneetch do righties dislike least?  We'll know in a week.

   (2013 update):  The words "budget" and "Ryan" go together like "carnival" and "cruise."

All of the Good Ones Are Taken

     I once worked on the set of a film that took so long in post-production that by the time it was ready to release, another film had taken the title.  The reason Hollywood is doing so many sequels and reboots is that all possible titles have been used.

Ghost, Ghost World, Ghost Town, Ghost Writer, Ghost Rider.

Just in Time, Nick of Time, Out of Time, Out of Sight, At First Sight.  You get the idea.

    A guy I know is always trying to get folks to come on board his projects, and he’s always writing crazy screenplays.   I don’t think these have been taken.  Yet.

Luxury, Smug Jury—The  story of a jury who convicts on all counts after being fed up with high-priced legal teams.

Representative Slice—A notoriously corrupt congressman is dubbed  “Representatve Slice” after a series of ultra-porky projects get funded for his cronies.  (It’s a bacon joke.) 

Doppelgangbanger—A crime family composed of identical quadruplets runs amok in New York.


Homing In—An RV salesman has a mixup with one of his paychecks, causing him to lose his house, so he moves his family into one of the motor homes on the lot.

Illegal Alien vs Unexpected Pregnancy—???  No idea.

   There should be an oscar for Best Gum-Chewing.  All time best gum-chewing:  Rod Steiger, In the Heat of the Night.   Runner-up:  Pacino, Glengarry, Glen Ross.

   Never go to a movie whose one-word title ends in “-iana.”

   Can anyone watch a movie called The Rundown without thinking, The Rock and Rosario Dawson could make one helluva porno.

   Ms Poehler  and Sedaris could get really hopped up on coffee, and make a movie called Chasing Amy.  Wait, I think that’s taken.

 Harry and the Secret Chamber Pot, with Rupert Grunt.

   Do people even go to movies anymore?  A movie theater has become just a place to sit.  Sit under the A/C and try to make out with your date. 

   Movies advertised as “It will play with your mind”:  Who says I want my mind played with?  Play with my balls.


   Movies  advertised as “An action-packed thrill ride”:  Why not just go to a theme park?

    Which actor starred in the movie Flight Plan?

a)      Ian McShane

b)      Sean Bean

c)       Mr Bean

d)      Colm Meaney

e)       Mean Joe Greene

              

    Enjoy the Oscars, everybody!

Watch For Children

  Sometimes women at a club or mixer will ask if I have kids.  I’ll say, “No, I don't work for KAOS, but I have several nieces and nephews locally with whom I enjoy spending time.  The conversation drifts to other topics and then returns inexorably to children.  “Well,” I reiterate, “I have lots of nieces and nephews.”  “Oh, we’ve heard  that story!”  Like I’m a piece of shit if I don’t have kids.  Having a baby doesn’t make you a hero; it makes you a parent.

                A gal sure shows her devotion

                When a guy has been taken ill,

                With soup, organic juice and potion,

                She brings him a big basket filled.

                To help him get a good night’s slumber,

                There’s tea  and bread on the shelf,

                But, alas, she forgets his number,

                When his seeds are kept to himself.

  Some folks believe that the smart people should have kids to help offset all the dumb ones reproducing.  My parents used to use that argument on my older brother back when he was very anti-children.  (Which he was up until his wife, eleven years into the marriage, gave him an ultimatum.)  I don’t quite buy into that argument.  Many smart people whom I respect choose not to reproduce.  People like Steve Martin.  Let Steve focus on making movies, and the breeders can collect all the DVDs.

Every Once In A Blue...

    I once saw the following on a page of quotations about  alcohol.  “One drink is too many, and a thousand not enough.”  I assumed the speaker/writer  meant that alcohol is overrated, and I would tend to agree.   Upon further reflection, maybe he’s an alcoholic.  Alcohol tightens muscles (thus the expression “getting tight” ).  Pot relaxes muscles, so maybe restrictions on pot should be more relaxed than those on alcohol, which is exponentially more harmful and destructive than pot could ever dream to be in its haziest paranoid dreams. 

    Moderation, folks.  You don’t need to inhale a thirteen-ounce bag of Tostitos (hint of lime) after downing a fifth of gin (hint of alcohol poisoning) and splitting an eight ball of blow (hint of suicide).  Try a little abstinthe. (abstininthe)  SECOND ONE IS BETTER

    Tobacco can make for a delightful experience in moderation.  I’ve never quite understood  why people don’t seem to have widely varying cigarette-smoking experiences that depend heavily on prevailing air conditions.  Sometimes after a smoke I’ll think, I really could’ve done without it.  Other times it’s more like, Yeah! That’s the stuff.  

    Have a smoke by an open window on a cool and rainy day.  Or outdoors on a halcyon day with a very light breeze.  I’ll always remember that sweet smell, sitting in the back of the neighbors’ station wagon when their mom opened her window and fired up a cig before driving to the country club.  Ah, summer breeze.  FYI: when indoors, running the central air, heat, or ceiling fans ruins the experience.  Generally, slowly blowing the smoke out your mouth while inhaling through your nose maximizes sweetness. (Actually, I guess that's not technically possible. But you can do it intermittently, sort of like when a person checks themself for bad breath.)  My best cigarette moments are those where I’m slightly retreating from the cherry, like an in-the-zone basketball shooter who knows his spot, gracefully falling away from the release of his jumper.

   I often sit out in the smoking gazebo at work even though I never smoke at work.  Why buy the cow?  Many of my colleagues who don’t sit in there probably assume as they walk past that I’m a regular “smoker.”  These days I smoke very seldom, every once in a while, every once in a blue… state.  But seriously, folks, it's a crime that weed is still illegal in many states. 

One reason is that cannabis is not physically addictive. Things that are more addictive than pot: caffeine, TV, porn, alcohol, talking on the phone, video games, comedy, music, reading, taking bribe money from Big Pharma and Big Booze lobbyists.  There are two types of people who are opposed to legalizing pot: Greedy people and ignorant people. In the former group you have people who benefit from the booze and pharma industry's profits, cops who make money from busting people on pot charges, the prison industry, etc.  Among the second group of people are, of course, religious busybodies who like to tell other people what to do.  

   If you’re able to watch the brilliant smoking scene in His Girl Friday—where  a 36-year old Cary Grant, wearing that splendid gray suit, fires up a cig as he attempts to wear down Rosalind Russell—without  running and getting something to smoke, “you’re a better man than me.”  I can’t think of a more compelling advertisement for smoking.  He smokes that cigarette the way Miles Davis plays trumpet.

    A final note on booze and smoke: They should have “drunk tank clowns” to keep the angry drunks away from the peaceful ones.  And they should have bar-and-grill clowns to keep the non-smokers away from the smokers—or just to squirt water on offending, self-important cigs and stogies.

(include bit about Laura Ingraham???  ... some folks become delightful; some become Laura Ingraham)

Check the Luggage

    Which is more of a horror show: going through life as a male or as a female? Before you jump at what you assume is the obvious answer, consider what can happen with the male luggage.  And I don't just mean the obvious problem with it. 

    It is possible for old one-eye to get snared on a rogue pube—that’s right, a rogue pube.  Every time you move a certain way the noose gets tighter.  Could this be a desperate cry for help? 

    Buck up there, little fella.  Things are gonna get better.  I know that I spend too much time at home watching You-Tubes of  Tim Minchin and Ricky Gervais.  I’d go out to a bar or club, but I get so tired of waitresses asking me for my number.  You’ll find someone with an equally tangled life, someone with whom you can share your “I-know-right?”s.

    The ever-tightening noose has cut a diagonal crease across his face, leaving him looking like scarred Bond villain Blofeld.  “Good evening, Mr Bond.  I have kidnapped Miss Goodhead.  I intend to find out why she’s called Miss Goodhead.  Bwah, hah hah…”

     Just how pathetic is the current state of the male condition?  The following grafitti in a pub men’s room sums it up.  On the wall to the right of the urinal, written in one hand, it said, “I fucked your mom.”  Down below that, in a different, although not entirely different, hand it said, “Go home Dad; you’re drunk.”

Heidi

    Ever see those ads for Career Builder.com?  There’s a little kid dressed in a coat and tie sitting in the back of a limo.  The tag line reads, “Is your boss younger than you?”  Uh-huh.  At least that was the case a few years ago.  I was a team leader, and my supervisor was a 25-year old, pasty white girl with light black hair, pig tails, nice tomatoes and a tramp stamp.  Sort of a slightly goth Pippi Longstocking. 

    For a week or two, before I decided she was kind of too young, too grungy and too uninterested, I was  a little sweet on her.  We both liked to write and she had a good sense of humor.  At this particular job, it is exceedingly easy to be funny.  I mean it is about as easy as falling off the rolls of the employed.  One day I was really riffing with a lady on my team, really in the zone.  Heidi had to collar me a few times. 

    The next day I felt bad about it, and went to talk to her. 

    “Are we cool?” I probed.  “I mean… not as in hip.  You know,  Are we square?” 

    You bet we are.  Heidi looked up at me through--maybe above on the right side--her crooked plastic frames.  Heidi was into all things superhero, especially batman, and she often wore batman-themed apparel and accessories. 

     One day a woman on my team asked me if I knew where Heidi was.  “Oh, probably off playing with her bat signal," I answered.  Who knows.  Maybe she was getting high.

    Heidi was hyperactive.  When she typed on the computer it looked and sounded as if she were trying to save the villagers in a movie.  She spoke so fast that sometimes our team couldn’t quite make out what she was saying.  After a while, she realized she really needed to slow it down.

 

    So when the time came for her to record a training video for our team, she made a major effort to adjust her tempo.  She really overcompensated.   So much so that in the finished product, she enunciated every syllable, every sound.  That smooth deliberateness, combined with the dynamics of the recording equipment resulted in what sounded exactly like a late night ad for phone sex. 

    She knew it, too.  I ribbed her, mimicking her sultry tone:  “If you have any questions or desires at all,  just ask.  Feel free  to use any of the materials I’ve provided  to  get yourself  up to speed.  I’ll be sure  to bring this project  to a full and  satisfying conclusion.” 

    She appeared to be giving me some sort of signal via  hand gesture.

Happy Valentines Day

    
   Mid-February brings three things that can cause heartburn for couples:

1. Champagne
2. Chocolate
3. Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

    Of the holidays involving obligatory gift exchange, Valentines Day is particularly tricky.  It tends to cause the most misunderstandings and hurt feelings.  My last Valentines Day, she got me a cologne set that I never use, and a few pairs of underwear that are meant to be sexy but are just too tight.  I got her a dozen roses that are dead now, and a vibrator (which I'm guessing she never uses, or is dead now.)

    One of my best Valentines Days was about four years ago.  I took my girlfriend out for dinner, and then we went to see Juno.  It's a great movie, and I held her hand tightly, basking in the warm knowledge that we would never have the problem confronting Ellen Page and Michael Cera.  She couldn't get pregnant.  One less thing to worry about, though she probably wasn't quite as thrilled.


    I've heard about these guys who have "Honey-do" lists.  Honey-do lists?  I don't have 'em.  I have "Cantaloupe" lists:  

• Can't fix the sink
• Can't go on a cruise
• Can't elope

   This year I started seeing this girl just before her birthday, which is Feb 2nd.  Today is Valentines Day.  It's like I'm living the same day over and over... I signed the card, "It's me again."  Then, "xoxo-Godiva chocolate-premium roses-reservation at fancy restaurant-Champagne-plush bear-xoxo."  (Was that wrong?)

   Him: "Modern commercialized Valentines Day is BS."
   Her:  bristling
   Him: "If it makes you feel any better, most things in life are BS."
   Her:  bristling
   Him: "No, I didn't think it would."

   

Insular, Uninsured Bicuspid

    I always like to keep things upbeat at the dentist.  Today I was in for a major root canal, and wanted to act like it was no big deal.  At the reception area one of the two ladies said, "Are you ready for this?"

    "Yep."

    So when I got down to the work area I played it down by saying to the dentist, "This isn't anything we haven't done before, right?"  After I'd left the building, I wondered if maybe he heard it as, "This isn't anything YOU haven't done before, right?"  As in the Patronizing or Condescending We.  It's so easy to be misunderstood.  I'm pretty sure he didn't take it the wrong way.  Two hours in the chair, and lots of heavy drilling.  $2400 bicuspid. Tough day.


    You know, you can't  really tell that a singer is British from the way they sing.  Ever notice that?  When they're singing they sing regular.  Regular?  How insular did that word sound?  Then in the interview they pronounce "blueberries" to rhyme with DREW Brees.  They're all, "Indeed.  I fancy them. Brilliant."  John Lennon didn't sing, "STRAW-bree fields forever;" he sang, "STRAW-BEAR-REE fields forever."  Curious.

Jaundiced Eye

    You may have noticed that right in this blog’s title, it is indicated, or at least implied, that I am a man.  (My nephew actually came up with the first four words of the title, and perhaps to him, I am.)  Assuming that I am indeed a man, when did I become one?  It probably happened about two years ago, when I realized that I don’t need to watch a football or baseball game just cuz it’s on TV.  That is when I became a man.  Or maybe that’s when I became a woman.

    The Super Bowl turned out to be a good game.  I watched most of it, including the exciting finish.  But I have a limited tolerance for hype.  Every game in sports is the game, as opposed to the perfunctory fulfillment of a contractual obligation.

     Michaels and Collinsworth did a good job.  Fortunately, neither FOX nor CBS had the rights to the game.  How about a V-chip that mutes only the play-by-play guy’s voice.  Now that’s censorship I can believe in.  If Joe Buck, Jim Nantz, or, god forbid, Brent Musberger calls a football game, I watch with the sound off.  Ian Darke, the guy who does the World Cup games, does it right.

    CBS is particularly good at taking the enjoyment out of watching sports on TV.  Starting several years ago, every time they go to or from a replay, they hit you with that eye-punishing, radiating eye logo that I can’t watch on my TV.  At someone else’s house, it never seems as bad, and they often don’t understand my complaint.  I have a very vivid TV.  You want a TV like that. It’s quality. But when the broadcasting imbeciles put up noisy, overdone  graphics every 20 seconds, it’s the visual equivalent of getting repeatedly kicked in the head.  Talk about a jaundiced eye.

    After a while, you can kind of time when they’re going to do it.  I’m looking down and away, like someone who’s being scolded, trying to calculate when it’s safe to look again.   You need to get a rhythm:  Turn your head and curse… turn your head and curse.  That should be CBS Sports’ slogan.  (Actually, I guess they’ve recently dropped the radiating eye torture for a different type of explosive, blinding visual noise.)  Other CBS shit: During a college hoops free throw, they splash a big, flickering ad for How I Met Your Mother.  More like, How I Fucked Up the Game.  And from the NCAA season opener in December until the final commercial break in April, how many times will they have cued that insipid  jingle?  Dah nuh nuh nunt...duh DAH Nunt.  Dipshits.

    ‘Course I'm irritable and my eyes are sensitive.  These days I can’t watch certain programming without a welding mask.  And forget about watching NBC’s The Office.  Hey camera man:  Hold the fucking camera still.

    College hoops is genuinely exciting.   The NBA, on the other hand, could fold and I wouldn’t notice.    I remember my friend’s wife saying many years ago, “You only have to watch the last two minutes.”  Indeed, oftentimes the hoops team that wins is the team that scores last, whereas in hockey it’s the team that scores first, and in soccer it’s the team that scores at all.

     (Mar 2013 update)  As a 'Cuse fan, I figured the Syracuse / Indiana game would be like watching the torture scene in the film Syriana.  But lo and behold, the Orange pulled the upset.  Let's go Orange, and in hockey, Let's go Pens!

Two minutes to Jeopardy!

(cont'd from Feb 1)

    When I showed up at Stella's, the cat was not on the dining room table, which made sense, as Tom had called me earlier to say this would be my last day.  No "six more weeks of home care duty" for me.  The entire operation is being turned over to the Hospital's home care unit.

    I offered to fetch some library books for Stella.  She goes for stuff like Seabiscuit, Captain Cabot, anything to do with the Navy or maritime stuff.

    As I fixed dinner she was going on about some Captain.  "Captain McSomething was the brother of the woman who started Pepperidge Farm. When he was in the Coast Guard..."

    "Two minutes to Jeopardy!" I countered.  Or should I say, counted.

    We'd been watching mostly Food Channel shows, and NCIS.  I'm always pleased to tell people that I've never seen any incarnation of CSI or Law & Order, which are like a virus that spreads all over the cable line-up; I've never seen Bones or Cold Case, The Closer, JAG, Criminal Minds, Grey's Anatomy, ER, House etc.

    "Oh, NCIS is ten times better than any of those other shows," she pointed out.  (As far as I can tell,  it's crap.)

Rise to the Occasion

    I've started looking after my brother-in-law's octogenarian aunt.  Cooking, making sure she takes her meds, being there.  She's a jolly old Navy lady with a lot to say, and I  enjoy her conversation.  Since her rehab from being stricken, she never stops talking.  We thought it was a stroke, but it couldn't have been that. She  definitely can talk.  I don't mind, but after a while, she needs to conserve her strength, save herself.

    The cat walks all over everything, and if I don't watch my food like a hawk, she'll stick her face in it.  Cats belong outside, if you ask me.  Although there are 100,000 stray cats already in the county.

    The sweet, heavy set nurse who showed up in her minivan to take the night shift got lost on her way to the condo.  And as she sat in her vehicle at a light, the cop in the next lane cited her for not having the seat belt on. That's a bullshit ticket.  She wasn't even moving, and it was a residential area.  How many hours will she have to work to pay it?


    Apparently I was the last resort for my brother-in-law, Tom.  He asked me to do this detail because none of the other relatives in the area, including my high school-aged nieces and nephews could fit it into their busy schedule.

    The past week or so before he called me, I'd been sort of dying on the vine.  My back's been screwed up.  This morning it really hurt, and I thought, I'm the one who needs help.  Maybe I should call my sister-in-law and have her send one of the kids up to get me on my feet, so that I can go over and get Aunt Stella on her feet.  I'll be all right.  It's good to have an occasion to rise to.

    Tomorrow when I show up, if the cat is on the dining room table, I guess it's six more weeks of  helping with the home care.  Happy Groundhog Day.

(to be continued)