Naivety Scene

     Out of the corner of my eye, “nativity” appeared to be “naivety.”  An honest reading mistake. 

     In the 21^st Century, naivete  (or the British naivety) helps people believe.  Truth to tell though, if anyone had a naïve young adulthood, I did.  In my late-blooming, sheltered mid-twenties, I went to my dad and earnestly said, “People who believe in God…they’re just pretending to believe in it, right?”

     According to an article in The New Yorker, when a person sees something, only 20% of the image is created by nerve endings in the eye.  The other 80%?  Memory.  Explains a lot.  Fully 80% comes from that part of the brain that controls memory.  Which is why my particular eye/brain combo came up with naivety.  People see what they want to see.  Ex-Yankee pitcher Roger Clemens thought that the fat one-third of a shattered baseball bat was in fact a baseball.  Maybe that's not the best example.

     Another word I have misread is “storied.”  The day after Bonds hit homer number 756, the photo caption read, “Bonds breaks Aaron’s storied home run record.”  Can you think of an apt anagram for the word “storied?”   Need more time?  I’ll wait.  By the way, I am not suggesting that Hammerin’ Hank used performance enhancing drugs, naturally.  I'm suggesting the virgin did.  (Oprah to conduct seance.)

     Of course, for many people, sports is their religion.  Only instead of putting the cash in a  collection plate, they give it to the beer and hot dog guy.  Tithing to the god of nitrates, saturated fat and alcohol.  Seeing what you want to see.  And you don’t want to see how they make the hot dogs.  Or the "miracles."

The Morality of the Male Maintenance

     I came across a video of a debate titled Is Porn Bad For Society?  Both sides made excellent points, but were often talking past one another.  Like life itself, porn can be both good and bad.

     But count me in the camp that has a real problem with pornography.  It's difficult to get the timing right. So oftentimes it happens that just when you're about to be delivered from your encumbrance, they cut to an extreme close-up, Learning Channel sort of shot.  Nothing romantic there.  In my experience the most common sin committed by porn directors is not keeping everything in the frame.  The viewer should be able to see everyone head to toe  for the vast majority of the video.  "Pull back!"  It's about context.

     Also, pausing is paramount.  Who's the Einstein who decided that having the "play" icon appear  in the middle of the picture every time you hit "pause" is helpful?  That triangular icon is usually blocking something important, maybe even another type of triangle.

     Yes, things would be different if I ran porn.  All I need to see is a few cute ladies, cotton undergarments and Newton's laws of motion.

     I once got into a conversation with a self-described "recovering priest" who tried to explain the reason why Catholicism  considers masturbation immoral.  Something about "You're not being devoted to your partner if you ejaculate on your own."  (Away from her?)  In other words, masturbation  cannot be separated from sexual intercourse, which is for procreation. 

     Tell it to the hand.  As I get older, the male maintenance is a job, not an adventure.  It needs to be done, and I don't necessarily enjoy it.

     I'd actually have to say that, in general, porn probably is bad for society for several reasons.   Like ice cream and twitter, it can be very addictive for many people.  And it usually does demean women.  However, masturbating is a personal health issue; and, to borrow from  (and paraphrase) the great stand-up Tom Rhodes, what are we going to look at?  The picture on the box of Close-Up toothpaste?

   

Keep a Ring on It?

     It’s not hard to imagine an uncorrupted family man (then again)—perhaps from an underdeveloped country—who moves with his wife and child to a modern, entertainment-addled community.  Then one day he sees something called a music video.  He has never seen anything quite like these gyrating, grinding dancers.  They mesmerize him, put him in some kind of trance.  Within a week of being inculcated by this powerful public service announcement known as Put a Ring on It, he begins to rethink the construct of limiting himself to just one woman—a non-gyrating one at that.  Mixed message.

Sugar-Coated Nuptials

     Certain words strike me as odd-sounding.  Nuptials is such a word.  “Last week I went in to have my nuptials removed.”  It’s like an appendix: no longer needed.  Nuptials to me sounds like a food.  Hostess bite-sized nuptials.  “Mrs Sedgewick, these nuptials are scrumptious.”  Sounds like “vittles.”  Birds Eye frozen nuptials:  the groom has cold feet.  Mixed nuptials:  inter-racial.  Green Giant steamed nuptials:  she’s a pissed off bridezilla.  

     Remember, for women it’s bad luck to see the groom before the wedding.  For men, it’s awkward to see other customers at the massage parlor.  Other annoying words:  Kudos, props and preggers.  “Kudos and props on the nuptials.  Are you preggers?” 

Excellence in Obviousness

    You hear some aging rock legend reflecting in his memoir on his six-and-a-half marriages, and  he says something like, "The thing is, I love women.  I really do.  To me there is nothing more beautiful than the naked female body."  What a Renaissance man coming up with that!  Give him a Nobel Prize for excellence in obviousness.

Wistful Hinterland

We’d like a ring, are you listening,

Equal rights, they’re resisting

A frightening sight,

The doctrinal right

Talkin’ ‘bout a sinner, want it banned.

Gone away is the blue state bird,

“Gone astray,” bigots controvert

LGBT,

Equality,

Walkin’ in a wistful hinterland.

Rachel Maddow could say that’s a straw man,

To pretend that we all get around

She’ll say, “Are you married?”

We’ll say, “Oh, man!

Not as long as they conspire

To run this town.”

Blather on ‘bout Hellfire,

Heard it all from the prior

We’ll face unafraid,

The plans that we’ve made,

Something that they just can’t understand.

The Opposite of Customer Service

     So many of today's jobs, the low-paying jobs, require the worker to apologize incessantly; to take the heat; to subordinate oneself; and oftentimes to surrender their dignity.  Whether they be servers, tellers, repairmen, temps,  installers, clerks, or spokespeople, they have to absorb problems on behalf of the folks higher up the pecking order.  These employees are apology machines.

     You'll notice that satisfactory customer service is disappearing, largely because corporations aren't willing to invest in it.  They'd rather have angry customers and a few more pennies getting to the bottom line.

     What and who is the quintessential opposite of taking responsibility for problems?  Mitt Romney and CEOs of his ilk.  After all, Mitt titled his book No Apologies.


     RE: Reince Priebus:  His stuffy name sounds like "pre-bus," suggestive of a familiar transportation industry procedure, "pre-board."  "We would now like to begin pre-boarding.  All those in need of special assistance, who are burdened by onerous tax laws, all those with offshore trust accounts, you people in need of special accounting procedures... Oh wait.  Never mind.  You have your own jet.  Fuck off."