Is it Just Me...

Kiss Me Now!

2009-02-04T13:57:00.000-05:00

She was too old to be wearing pigtails. Not that they dissuaded me from being fascinated with Hilda. Hilda had come of age early on in her life and was, to put it mildly, quite well endowed. I was thirteen and as such, terribly fascinated with the mysteries of all things feminine. So the pigtails were an accent to her endowments. One never knew quite where they would end up when Hilda shook her head. Two out or two in? Left or right orientation? I was no statistician at the time, but I kept a running tally going anyway, inveigling her to shake her head in the negative as often as I could.

You see, boys growing up in the 1950’s in this country had little to instruct them about the mystery that was womanhood. We did the best we could employing Macy’s and Sear’s catalogs to ogle at the bras, panties and garter belts. I suspect that men who like to dress up in women’s clothing (Mr. Guiliani, you look mahvelous!) spent an inordinate amount of time in the catalog development stage and became hopelessly stuck at that level.

When Hilda wandered into my life, she was far better equipped to advantage those fascinating pieces of apparel than the girls I’d had minor crushes on up to that time in my own class. I leaped forward out of the Macy’s catalog to a real life model.

Hilda was two years older than I, and was considered by the boys in her class as odd. She was rather plain looking and frighteningly honest about everything. She dressed like the girl on the Swiss Miss cartons, while her female classmates were experimenting with tight sweaters and slinky skirts.

We’d met at the shooting range in the basement of the Junior-Senior High School we attended. Although I was quite the marksman by then, Hilda always outscored me. Our brief romantic fling, such as it was, lasted through the better part of June and July of that year.

Of course, being a desperate man, I quickly professed my great love for Hilda. She knew better and told me that such a pronouncement was not going to get me to the Promised Land (or words to that effect). Hilda lived some distance from my house, which provided a good buffer from my Mother, who was just returning from one of her many sojourns to the local psychiatric ward. I had to tell Hilda about my Mother to keep her from calling our house.

Hilda’s Mom and Dad were very nice people, though I think because of my age and, at that time rather jejune nature, dismissed me as nothing more than a “play friend” , calling me such each time I came to visit. At first I bristled at the comment until it occurred to me that this provided me good cover. There seemed to be no parental suspicions as to my motives. Hilda, of course, knew better. Nonetheless, all of the Macy’s catalog apparel was in place and with occasional errors in judgment, she provided me innocent glimpses at heaven and what must have been adolescent arrhythmias.

Once school was out, Hilda and I could enjoy the run of her house once her parents left for work. I got to like Hilda on many different levels. She was honest, funny and very unpredictable. On what would be our last afternoon home alone, Hilda decided to test my taste buds.

Clambering up a stepstool, she pulled tins of spices down from the top shelf. I decided to retie my shoe at that point, affording me another glimpse at heaven’s gate. Caught in the act, I froze and babbled out, “You should be more careful on that ladder! Watch where you’re stepping!”

“Watch where you’re staring!”

Hilda swung around, hiding the little Durkee tins from my view and proceeded to rub the contents of one on her lips. “Kiss me now,” she commanded. Hilda then grabbed my head and applied a brief hard smooch, with no desired body contact due to her exaggerated body dip forward. “How did I taste?”

“Spaghetti-ish.” I smelled the oregano before she’d even turned around.

Hilda wrinkled up her nose and swung around, wiping her lips frantically and applying another spice to her now puffy lips. “Kiss me now.”

I complied, though less enthusiastically. “Toast.” It was all I had to associate cinnamon with. I obviously did not strike the right tone as Hilda was now furious with me. Once again the secret containers were accessed and once again I was commanded to pucker up.

“Okay, what about that time?”

“My lips are burning. Can I wash them off?”

“You are hopeless.” With that, she swung around and opened the back door. “Go home.”

I saw Hilda again at the nearby shopping center the following day. She apologized for her behavior and mumbled something incomprehensible about the time of the month. I assumed she must be a bit crazy and having dealt with a crazy mother, figured I was at my limit. We did manage to enjoy each other’s company, as much as was possible considering I was still tallying the braid thing in my mind and fantasizing about what things looked like under the Macys equipment. With all that going on in brain, I doubt I was very good company. Then again, she would always show up smelling a bit different each time, though careful not to ask for my opinion on that subject.

By the end of July, my parents announced that we were moving. My mother wore out her welcome quickly during those terrible years. Since Hilda was afraid to call the house and the move to the new home some twenty miles further east was effected rather quickly, I simply slipped out Hilda’s life. A month after we left, the old house was torn down and three new homes built in its place. I was gone.

I don’t know if I left much of a void in Hilda’s life that summer. But, oddly enough, she did leave a small hole in mine. Through Hilda and others I slowly discovered that we all are desperately searching for the right bridges to build to cement ourselves to others. I found that articles of clothing and those body parts beneath did not assure a healthy and satisfying relationship. I am sure that she found that a loving relationship could not be based on the flavor of her lips. She was not an island in the journey that has been my life, but a stepping stone.

My Hero, Michael Phelps

2009-02-03T17:58:00.002-05:00

So Michael Phelps took a hit on a bong back in November. Oh my. I am so not shocked. I am so not too terribly surprised. It is a fairly common way to get high in the course of an evening among all age groups. We’re all quite aware of this. But still, Michael is going to lose a ton of money in endorsement contracts. And, he had to apologize to the world for having done so heinous a deed that most of those in his generation have already done anyway.
Consider that recent research has shown that over fifty percent of teenagers try marijuana before graduating high school. Some studies would indicate that most adults in their thirties have had some toking experience. What’s also interesting is that less than one percent of adults smoke marijuana daily. Why the drop in numbers? Marijuana is not addictive, for which reason it is not considered a “gateway” drug to other, more problematic drugs. What if Michael had opted to raise a glass of beer or two that evening? What if the photographer of note that evening had snapped a few shots of Michael slugging down a Bud? Any problem? Any apologies necessary? Nope. That would be just fine. In fact, it might have reaped him a few Anheuser-Bush promos during the Superbowl.

Now the hypocrisy here is underscored by the facts surrounding a comparison of alcohol and marijuana. There are hundreds of alcohol overdose deaths each year, yet there has never been a marijuana overdose death in history. The consumption of alcohol is also the direct cause of tens of thousands of traffic accident fatalities. Add to this the fact that alcohol is one of the most toxic drugs and oddly, requires no prescription. A lethal dose is generally considered to be ten times the “prescribed” amount- say two or three drinks. Marijuana, on the other hand, would require puffing at least a thousand reefers to approach a lethal dose. And that is an assumption, as it has never happened anyway. And for those who warn you that long term use will leave you babbling in the corner, there is little evidence, however, that long-term cannabis use causes permanent cognitive impairment.

Considering all of this, could someone please explain to me what all the fuss is about? Why is it that between 1998 and 2007 New York City police arrested 374,900 people for low-level, misdemeanor marijuana offenses. That is more than eight times the number of arrests on the same charges for the previous ten-year period between 1988 and 1997, when 45,300 people were picked up for having small amounts of marijuana. This, in light of the fact that current NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg readily admitted that he smoked marijuana on numerous occasions just prior to being elected. After being elected, of course, the Mayor vowed to enforce the rules on this heinous crime. What a waste of taxpayer’s money and police’s time!

Meantime, about 13,000 people die every year in this country due to alcohol. How many marijuana related traffic fatalities were there? What also ticks me off is that if you are found to be in possession of marijuana, which is a misdemeanor, you could go pay fines, go to jail, lose college financial aid, food stamps, public housing and, in some cases, even voting rights. If, however you are arrested for driving drunk, you might get your license revoked if you get caught doing it often enough and maybe, just maybe you’ll cool your heels in a jail cell for one weekend.

I want to thank Michael Phelps for putting his baseball cap on backwards and dragging a little Mary Jane into his lungs. Along with President Obama, President Clinton (oh of course you inhaled) Michael Bloomberg and many other notable successes, Mr. Phelps will prove to all of those kids who view him as a role model that they too can go on to become successful in anything they want to do, even though they sat in a friend’s basement one evening and felt their toes go a little numb. Oh, and about that other feel good thing, no, you won’t go blind! But you might just win one those shiny gold medals.

Playgrounds

2009-01-29T12:05:00.005-05:00

During the warmer months, I like to walk a circuit through the little town in which we live which includes a walk by an elementary school that I'd worked at some years ago. I could cut through the school or just follow the roadways alongside it. That decision is based on whether school is in session.

Now it may seem risky for an old guy to be wandering around school property during a school day ( I do not wear a white raincoat when I take my walks, by the way), but I am known there by many so I am not really concerned. What has always intrigued me is the fact that I am singularly uncomfortable walking about the school grounds when no one is there. I guess the experience of having monitored a playground as a teacher has built an association in my mind of laughter, angry voices, heated exchanges over kickball games and loud wails from a recent injury. It is the lack of those sounds, the absence of children on swings and slides that makes the place a bit oppressive for me. It seems a defiance of the natural order of things.

I find it rather a melancholy experience walking through, and I have, at times, sat on a bench in the playground to flesh the feeling out a bit further. I realize that those children who played there forty years ago in my care, are grown with far too important things to do than to be bothered with a kickball game. Or might they indulge? I would, given the chance.

Some have died in car accidents or of cancer, or a heart attack. They are noted in obituaries that I have passed to my wife at the morning breakfast table. "Look, do you remember this boy? He lived over on Main Street. Had him as a student. So young. Nice kid." Was he there with me on the playground? Many have suffered through loss of a loved one, divorce, mental illness and on...

Life is fleeting. It is fragile. A May fly born as I rise to make my morning coffee will be gone by supper. Sooner if I, retrieving the morning paper, swat it off my head. I should know better by now. It is a passing parade. No need to fear empty playgrounds. But I avoid them still.

During the warmer months, my wife and I like to walk around a large graveyard nearby to us. Oddly, I have no fear of graveyards. The dead are there. They don't move about, I see no shadows, hear no voices. There is no association with life; no need to implant thousands of ghostly children swirling about you. This graveyard has no needs, no memories. It has always been this still. Perhaps that's why I find mortality a bit comforting. That a playground represents the start of struggle through the world of the living.

Dear Angels, Go Away

2009-01-26T16:50:00.004-05:00

So I open up my email and find yet another smarmy little posting with lots of cutesy pictures of angels, and little kids praying and, of course, the standard sunset shot off the coast of California. I am instructed, as always, to read the inspiring message about all of the angels that are watching over us and, I don’t know, maybe I get to name one and take it home with me. I couldn’t tell you the content of the whole thing because I never bother to read them anyway. Nor do I forward this stuff to everyone in my address book. I like most of the people on my email list, just not the ones who send me this crap.
Now you may be saying to yourself right now, what a nasty little misanthropic human being this jerk is. Well, tell me this then. Why is it that in the richest nation on the face of this planet, regardless of the current economic woes, we can allow a 93 year old man in Wisconsin to freeze to death because he couldn’t pay his electric bill?

Now mind you, this old man, Marvin Schur, FORMERLY of Bay City, Wisconsin didn’t just freeze his ass off over the course of one night because the power company, run by Bay City put a limiter device on Schur’s home. According to Bay City Manager Robert Belleman, hereafter described as HSOB (heartless son of a bitch), he didn’t know if Schur had been personally contacted to explain how the device works. Nor, quite apparently, did HSOB or anyone in his department advise Mr. Schur that no matter what he did, he was going to die a slow and agonizing death over the course of the coming week.
The Bay City medical examiner, Kanu Varani, stated that Schur would have died a “slow and agonizing death” when hypothermia set in. His house was well below freezing inside when neighbors discovered him. Schur had no children and his wife had died several years ago.
So where was Mr. Schur’s angel? Did he pray to God to have his furnace turn back on when the mysterious black box outside blew off like a fuse? Was the money he had carefully clipped to his electric bill going to be mailed before his toes turned blue? Did anyone care? Apparently not.
He was 93 for God’s sake!
I don’t think we can wait for that cute little group of angels when it comes to the Mr. Schurs of the world. He was not a welfare cheat, he wasn’t running a crack house, he just couldn’t afford to live in his home anymore and there was nobody around to help him do otherwise. He needed our charity. He needed us to help pay his bill, or provide agencies within power companies to deal with these problems in a humane fashion.
Christ said that the poor would always be among us. Then, in the four synoptic gospels he told us 343 times that it was our responsibility to take care of those poor people. Give them the shirt off our back if need be. And where do all too many “Christians” put all of their efforts? Abortion, Gay Marriage and Stem Cell Research. The Three Horsemen of The Apocolypse by many peoples' standards.
Let me tell you something- if you abort a baby, it’s not going to take three days to perform the procedure, which is about how long Mr. Schur spent in agony (the Medical Examiner’s word, not mine).
Stem cell research? Well, if it’s legal anyway, and you could save lives…

Now as to gay marriage, I think that hornet's nest is stirred up by a lot of evangelical ministers who want to climb into bed with other guys and hate themselves for it. Just ask Ted Haggard. He knows what I mean.

So to all my "angel" people out there, stop sending me that crap and get good and angry about all of the poor people out there who never did anything terribly wrong to anybody, but who are getting the shaft. Looking for an angel to help the down and out? Look in the mirror, sport.

Dear President Egghead?

2009-01-22T22:35:00.004-05:00

Despite the fact that Barack Obama is an openly intellectual fellow, he is now our President. People voted for a smart guy. Oh boy, maybe we have regained our senses and are willing to accept that the most powerful person in the world ought to have a hefty brain rattling around in his or her skull, and not be afraid to show it. For the past eight years, George Bush has made anti-intellectualism the hallmark of his administration, rejecting any learned expertise on foreign and domestic policy. His castigation of science was evident in his rejection the Kyoto Treaty, reproductive health issues and on and on. And America seemed to love it. Eat it right up and then flip the TV on and stare at “American Idol” for a few hours, urging Simon Cowell on to eviscerate some poor yodeling sap.

When I was in college, the must read book of the day was Anti-intellectualism in American Life , a 1964 Pulitzer Prize -winning book by Richard Hofstadter. Hofstadter accused religion, politics, and the public schools of fostering resentment and suspicion of intellect, of the life of the mind, and of those who devote their lives to it. He described a society where teachers, preachers and small town pundits fostered a serious and at times violent divide between the “liberal elites” and, oh dare I say it, Joe Six-Pack. Unfortunately, I don’t think much has changed since then.

Because of my thirty-five years in the public schools, I am convinced that the furtherance of anti-intellectualism in this country can be credited, in part, to educators who believe that children must be entertained and feel good while they learn. It may look terribly productive to walk into a classroom where students are watching movies, working on multimedia presentations, scripting plays, and rewriting popular song lyrics, but the emphasis on feeling good about oneself creates a culture in which students are not likely to challenge themselves. If students are not provided the opportunity to experience working hard to understand a concept, they’re not likely to do it on their own. The result? A life spent avoiding books, poetry, art, music and debates on intellectual or pragmatic topics -- anything that requires any effort to understand or has no immediate extrinsic reward. “American Idol”, si, “Masterpiece Theatre”, oh please!

Add to this the anti-intellectual trends evident in the burgeoning Pentecostal Christian communities. Rick M. Nañez, an Assemblies of God missionary who wrote a book on anti-intellectualism in Pentecostal traditions contends that too often Christians are sidelining the life of the mind for he calls “mindless spirituality that is lacking in intellectual achievement, cultural cultivation, and critical thinking.” Add to this the Biblical literalists who are showing the latest Flintstones movie as a documentary.

So though I think the adults have regained control of the Federal government, I really don’t think that the tenor of our society is going to smarten up any time too soon. All too many voters in this country may have voted for really smart guy as President because they were scared shitless by the destruction of wrought by the little putz who preceded him. But, they might not want to have he and his equally intelligent wife and children living next door to them. Not necessarily because of the color of their skin (though God knows those jackasses are still out there). More to the point, they may find them odd and a bit scary because they read those big books and don’t watch game shows. Wow. What a bunch of egghead weirdos.

Get Back in the Beast!!!!

2009-01-21T17:28:00.002-05:00

So I spent Tuesday, January 20th, sitting around the TV most of the day with friends and family feeling as high as a kite. Not because of any of those additives I might have inhaled, swallowed or smoked back in the sixties, but because we had an actual intellectual, intelligent person ascend to the Presidency. Yes, he actually is smart, decent, loving and all that good stuff that could lead this country towards a brighter future. Unfortunately there is enough darkness out there to convince the security folks who want to keep President Obama safe that they had to go that extra mile or so to keep him in one piece.
If you watched the Inauguration, you were probably acutely aware of the protective glass surrounding Obama's seating area, as well as the podium. Then there was Cadillac One (aka. "The Beast") which was specially designed for HIM. Unbelievably, he was also dressed for the dangerous occasion. The U.S. Secret Service has not released details, but there are speculations that Obama's suit came from Colombian designer Miguel Cabllero, who specializes in the bullet-resistant clothing, making everything from polo shirts to leather jackets to windbreakers. Yeah, they had him dressed in a bullet-resistant coat.

Why all the extra effort on this President? Because there are people driven on by the likes of Grand Wizards, Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters who would just as soon see this man dead. Common sense would dictate that if we can keep “enemy combatants” at Gitmo, we could keep Ann, Rush and all of their followers there as well for inciting nutjobs (aka their base) to seek to kill this great man. And they are doing just that. Want to be an advocate for Gitmo, Rush? Fine. Do it from inside.

Getting back to Tuesday, is it just me, or did you have the urge to scream “Get back in the Beast!” when he and Michelle went trooping down Pennsylvania Avenue? Yeah, hi Al Roker, it is warm. Now get back in the bullet-proof car!

It was such a bittersweet experience in total. One and one-half million people witnessing that great inauguration and not one single arrest!!! Everything orderly and safe. Why? Because the man can instill such joy and hope in people. Want to call him the Messiah, Ann Coulter? The Chosen One, Rush? Go right ahead. He is the One for our time. I just want him to survive the dark forces that are out there.

Dear SeanAnnRush

2009-01-19T08:12:00.006-05:00

I felt, that in fairness to SeanAnnRush, they should be warned that continuing to attack Barack Obama as a liberal, or a Muslim ( note Annie's B. Hussein Obama rhetoric), may well reduce their notoriety. Never has there been so much goodwill exhibited towards an incoming President. An 84% approval rating. Sixty-eight percent of the population "thrilled" about his arrival. Polls indicating that the public is willing to be patient as this man works to undo the terrible harm done to us by that little jackass who is currently packing his bags.

Faux News is losing viewers, rapidly. Even Alan Colmes smelled that wind blowing and headed off for higher ground. Worse, on his way out, he showed up on the Colbert Report to lampoon his own humiliating position that he suffered through with Sean.

The full-throated angry rhetoric will work against SeanAnnRush. We all know that they lie. They lie with abandon and will continue to lie because that is all they have. Their lies have provided them with the power they would never gained as legitimate commentators as they lack the talent and brains to do so. So they are left to lie. They do not know who they are, nor do they have any moral compass about them. Their ever-dwindling base has been equally fearful and amoral. That explains their loyalty.

I have a feeling that right now, that fear is increasing exponentially. If this man succeeds beyond even just the low state of affairs that was the Cheney-Bush administration, These hate-mongerers will find their space in the media more and more squeezed. The louder they howl about a man who significantly improves the state of our affairs in this country ( and I have faith that he will), the more hollow their lies will appear. And that will explain their dwindling base.

Barack Obama appeals "not to our easy instincts but to our better angels." He asked if we will " participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? " And more and more people in this country are beginning to grab on to hope.

NO QUIET EXITS

2009-01-16T08:37:00.004-05:00

“There are some who would like to rewrite history. Revisionist historians is what I call them.” George W. Bush, Forty-third President of the United States.

I really didn’t think the Bush Administration would make a quiet exit, and God knows it should have. When one’s reputation is being castigated on a daily basis by all but the brainless wonders at Fox News, and the Nation is ready breathe a collective sigh of relief when your bags are finally packed, the last thing you want to do is to start the dog and pony show. But they did.
In case you missed it, last week, the White House issued a report titled, "100 Things Americans May Not Know about the Bush Administration." It sure was a swell read. Essentially, it is a laundry list of things this Administration did that most of us would rather they hadn’t. This list was followed up by a series of interviews, a final press conference and the final address to the Nation.
What was touted as their greatest accomplishment? Keeping America safe. No further terrorist attacks after 9/11. Lest we forget, this little idiot’s tenure began before 9/11.
On Aug. 6, 2001, Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice were given an intelligence report headed, "Osama Bin Laden Is Determined to Strike in the U.S." Rice had already been warned that terrorists might already be in place to carry out such an attack. Just prior to this now infamous meeting, George Tenet, then CIA director had summoned Rice to his office and shared his concerns. Later, speaking to Richard Clarke, then National Security Council counterterrorism Director, Tenet related his fears based on sudden increases in key data. "It's my sixth sense, but I feel it coming. This is going to be the big one."
Face with the task of protecting us from harm, and certainly having been filled in on all of this background information by all of the aforementioned players, Bush handed back the report to the CIA analyst and said, "All right, you've covered your ass now." Had we not elected this arrogant little twit, could 3,000 lives have been saved? It’s possible.
As to mitigating the potential for attacks after 9/11, I would give far more credit to the absolute stupidity of those who want to attack us, than anything this Administration ever did. Every year, thousands of illegal immigrants filter in through our very porous borders. Millions of shipping containers enter the country without any security checks. Nuclear power plants are still incredibly vulnerable, as are chemical plants. Attorney generals from several states have repeatedly begged the NRC to boost security around nuclear power plants to no avail.

This is just one aspect of the great harm that has been done to this country by these swaggering idiots. The Iraq War, the wiretapping, Gonzales and on and on. What is to be done? Allow them to meander off the stage, wallowing in their self-denial? I sure hope not. As Roman historian Tacitus noted, "The worst crimes were dared by a few, willed by more, and tolerated by all." This administration was criminally and constitutionally corrupt, and an independent counsel is needed to further expose the erosion of our civil liberties and our standing in the world by all of the players in this trainwreck of a Presidency.

WOOF

2009-01-14T10:34:00.003-05:00

My Mother was a Doggie Person. Now, that is not to say that she looked like a doggie; she was just nuts about doggies. She belonged to a sect of people I choose to call Doggie People. I think these people live very different lives from those of us who may like dogs and even have them as pets (Doggie People are loath to refer to them as “pets”). These are people who think of them as part of the family, treat them as such, and, may in fact, in the familial order of things, place them above other human-type family members. My brother, sisters and I were way down on the ladder in our childhood household.

Anyone who might call this an exaggerative post need only Google “dog lovers” and bite their tongues. You can indulge your canine pal with doggie yoga, massages for Fido, gold crowns, baptizing kits and to my mind the ultimate stupidity in wasting your money, a doggie cell phone. Yep, as the ad reads it’s a “bone-shaped cell phone that will let dog owners talk to their best friend over a two-way speaker.” This will absolve you of all guilt when leaving Maxwell home alone each day. He’ll wait eagerly for your lunchtime call, anxious to share his morning’s adventures. And, it’s only going to set you back about four hundred dollars (service plan, taxes and local fees not included- this spoken in that very fast voice they use on radio).

In addition to all of the money flushed down the drain by investing in this crap, there exists the very real danger of a Doggie Person becoming increasingly distant from his or her human friends and relatives. Don’t laugh. Been there, done that.

My Mother cooked special meals for all of her pets. We’d smell ground round frying in a pan and dream of the dinner waiting on the table, only to be confronted by overcooked spaghetti with tomato sauce. Meanwhile, Dolly or Gigi or Foofoo would be wolfing down that ground round mixed in with fluffy white rice. We quickly became alienated from her pets and they grew distant from us, as we would often find ourselves growling at them and they at us, when dinnertime approached. It’s hard to imagine now that something sitting on the dining room floor in a plastic bowl might look really appetizing.

This insult to our sensibilities was capped by the issue of physical harm. My Mother was far more concerned about the welfare of her dogs than any of us. I can remember any number of mornings walking down the stairs and through the living room to the kitchen with a Scottish Terrier firmly attached to my pants leg, growling loudly. Any attempt to dislodge the little bastard was met with a screech from the Doggie Goddess. “Don’t you hurt that dog!” I’d head for the bathroom, daub some mercurochrome on bite marks and dream of one day sinking my teeth into that terrier’s underbelly.

Now I know my Mother might seem a bit over the top on this stuff, but honestly, could these same behaviors be exhibited by someone willing to dress their Greyhound in a bunny costume for Easter, cell phone placed jauntily between the two floppy pink ears? Would someone who willingly dropped their poodle off at a two-hundred dollar a day doggie spa have a warped sense of values? It’s possible.

I will admit readily that I do not have the credentials to figure out what causes Doggie People to be, well, Doggie People. I do know that my mother was actually a pretty good mother to all of us until we hit the age of about two. Up until then, we were like dolls, which, like dogs, she also collected. After that, like any kid that age, we got a lot less compliant and at times, downright annoying. We didn’t seem to be as appreciative of things done for us. We could be messy, smelly or sick, as long as we wagged our tails at the right moment when given a cookie or a pat on the head. If not, we got knocked down the familial ladder, right under Dolly or Gigi’s ass. And I think that’s where the answer lies. Doggie People like dogs because a dog will love you no matter what. Even dogs that are abused don’t tend to turn on their masters or mistresses.

People on the other hand, even little people aren’t quite so predictable or compliant. For instance when I was four, at the height of my child modeling career (I was a cute kid), my mother, at the behest of a photographer, tried to stick a dress on me for a photo shoot. I rebelled, causing quite a ruckus and bringing my modeling career to a sudden end. I also finally got a haircut, as my Mother had kept my blonde hair quite long, no doubt for just such an occasion. This act of defiance came back to haunt me until the day my Mother died. Consider that she routinely dressed that nasty Scotty of hers in a bright plaid dress and tied bows in his hair before trotting him around the neighborhood. He was quite happy with this arrangement. I was such a disappointment.

So to all the Doggie People out there, enjoy your doggies. We’ve had pets over the years, but they were pets and were treated as such. But, if you cook up a special treat for them, you might want to reserve a bit for those humans wandering around the premises.

Things that scare me

2009-01-12T20:15:00.004-05:00

We all have fears. I am sure there are some universal fears amongst mankind that nature has implanted to assist in our survival. Snakes. Snakes get a really bum rap in the Bible. They are repeatedly cast as the antagonist in so many different scenarios and there has to be a good reason. I don't like snakes, but rats score a much bigger hit on me.

Ironically, we were given a pair of lab rats as gifts, sort of, when my wife and I first started teaching. Well, we actually got stuck with them, but they were presented as a gift. After a while I actually made peace with their rattiness, but they weren't the kind of animal I wanted snuggled up with me on a cold, winter's night. They lived their little lives out in their glass cage, though I did stick my hand in and pet them on occasion. They were quite docile and very smart. But, unfortunately, they were rats.

I also don't like large spiders, which I know is illogical because its the little guys who can kill with their venom. Sneaky little bastards. Bees and wasps are responsible for me carrying around a large vial of epinephrine in case I get bitten by them, so I hate them. I won't go out of my way to kill a bee, because I like honey.

Wasps, on the other hand, I see no real value in. I am sure they have some place in the natural scheme of things, but I am quite happy to squirt the hell out of their homes with one of those giant cans of deadly poison. I am sure that if I did some research I would find that wasps play a key role in the order of things around me. I don't care. I am not Googling them. Not to mention, I have a feeling if the tables were turned, they would do the same to me. They're just like that.

But what really scares the crap out of me are something I call Happy Seekers. These are people, usually women, who want to be happy because they really aren't, and they can't stand to have anyone within a quarter mile of them who is not seemingly really happy. Everybody is supposed to wander around with a glazed look and a big fat grin plastered on their faces. Then the world will look just fine to the Happy Seekers.

Now I know I sound like a chauvinist in saying this, but frankly almost all of the Happy Seekers I've met up with are women. They are very easy to spot, as they are generally quite obese, wear way too much makeup and are dressed in either t-shirts or sweatshirts with cute little kitties or puppies on them. Often, these items of apparel will have sequins or those odd little bead things affixed to them. On any holiday, you find attached to these items of clothing things like lighted Santas that blink on and off and play Christmas Carols in squeaky, overtone-laden sounds. You will be forewarned of their arrival by their perfume, heavy, cloying scents which are applied with pesticide sprayers.

They do not walk into your environs, they bound. They begin their greetings with loud squeals of delight, as if they have not seen you in years and you have just brought them the cure for the disease from which they are suffering. They hug. Long and hard. And then, and then, the worst of it. The admonition that you, you, naughty little boy, don't look happy enough! "Come on, Mr. Frowny Brown, where's that beautiful smile?" Electric shocks run up my spine at this point, causing me convulse mildly. Oblivious, my Happy Seeker continues her onslaught, yanking out a photo album from under her sequin-festooned garment. In it are pictures of about 980 children, grandchildren and of course her pets. Speaking of their pets, they wear sequined sweatshirts too. And of course, the perfume.

I am a polite fellow. I have, for all too many years endured these onslaughts, but my patience is wearing thin. The next time a Happy Seeker approaches, I might pull out this big can of insectide. I know, I know, these Happy Seekers have their place in the order of things. But I don't want to bother looking that up either.

Did we just bail out GM?

2009-01-11T16:12:00.004-05:00

Okay, so I bought myself a Chevrolet HHR last year mainly because it was so damn cute, as can be seen in this picture. It was comfortable and works well for my business needs hauling tools around, but mainly, it was just damn cute. At the time, I was a bit nervous about buying an American car because, frankly, they don't really have that great a reputation, you know (oops, sorry, I CarolineKennedied). But they're so damn cute. So I have one.

Now subsequently I have had to install mudflaps and running boards because if you don't, the paint strips off your rear fender guards, which I got GM to repaint. That was annoying, but they did come through for me and I figured, hey, design flaw in a new model, could happen to anybody, right?

Yesterday, I received a package in the mail from GM labeled "Recall information enclosed", which was the first time I ever got a recall notice in a small, floppy package. Opening the package, I found a small plastic part with adhesive tape strips on it. It seems that during safety testing, an independent firm noticed that on impact, the storage area located in the center of the dashboard would fly open.

This is where it gets interesting (you were hoping it would sometime). This little extra compartment is the only place we found in the car to store CD's. It's right above the CD player, six of them will fit in snugly and so, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. However, in looking over the owner's manual, I notice that they don't call it a CD storage area. It's just labeled a storage area. Additionally puzzling is the fact that the small plastic door that would fly open on impact with, say a tree or something, opens towards the windshield, between the two passenger bucket seats. Posing a great risk, why exactly? He queried, Yodaesquely.

But who am I to question the logic of some very well paid safety engineers at this prestigious motor car company? You know (oops). So I empty the "storage area" and I follow the detailed instructions on how to remove the two pieces of safety plastic to arm the sticky tape and insert the plastic piece into the "storage area" by the latch just as pictured by some hand model's hand in picture eight and voila, a successful implant in 20 seconds or less.

By the way, if you could not figure out how to do this, despite the 12 pictures and simplistic instructions, you could call your dealer and ask them to install it for you. That would only kill a day or two for you. Or, you could go to a site online and watch a video where the lovely hand model demonstrated it very slowly. Believe me, if you were that dumb, I doubt you could figure out how to turn on a computer.

So anyway, I tested the new latch configuration as instructed and she worked like a charm. Opened and closed just like before. The car actually seemed sturdier somehow. Then I attempted to put all of my CD's back in the "storage area". But, I couldn't. The addition of this whizzbang little piece of plastic made it impossible to store CD's in this "storage area". They don't fit now. So, they are now sitting in a pile on the floor in the front seat. Well, at least that innocuous little door flying towards the winshield will do no harm in a serious accident.

Just picture the headlines: "Man decapitated by flying CD in car crash".

Governor Goofy Is Back

2009-01-10T16:29:00.000-05:00

Just when you thought you’d heard the last of Sarah Palin, up she rises, causing no small amount of agita for an already mortally wounded Republican Party. I thought this all was over, the verdict was in and Sarah Palin had been outed as terminally stupid. As Bill Maher so aptly put it, “Sarah Palin makes George Bush look like a professor” .

Ms. Palin, still pissy about her unsuccessful run with Senator McCain (who was gracious in defeat) has now made some invidious comparisons between her plight at the hands of the effete (my word, God knows not hers) liberal media and Caroline Kennedy. Mrs. Palin claims that Ms. Kennedy is getting an easy ride from the media because of "class bias" in her bid to be appointed New York senator. Oh Sarah, don’t you realize that you are becoming more of a punchline now than ever? I don’t think so. You see, Sarah Palin is kind of dumb, and despite her poor communication skills, Caroline Kennedy is very smart. Let’s prove that point, shall we?

After graduating from high school in 1982, Sarah Palin enrolled at Hawaii Pacific College in Honolulu. According to Wikipedia, their only notable alumni was a guy who played for the New York Mets for a few years. Finding the curriculum a bit too challenging, she left after one semester and transferred to North Idaho College (a community college) where she spent two semesters as a general studies major in 1983. In 1984, our Sarah won the Miss Wasilla Pageant, then finished third in the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant, at which she won a college scholarship. In August 1984. Feeling obliged to do something with that money, she transferred to the University of Idaho in Moscow After two semesters at UI, Sarah, feeling a bit intellectually overwhelmed, returned to Alaska and attended Matanuska-Susitna College, (a community college) for one term in the fall of 1985. She returned to the University of Idaho in January 1986, screwed up her courage and what little intellect she could muster and spent three semesters completing her bachelor's degree in communications -journalism Phew! Well that wasn’t easy, was it! Then she became a sports commentator at a really small TV station in Anchorage, Alaska. Good thing she got that degree!

Caroline Kennedy graduated from Concord Academy in Massachusetts in 1975, and received her A.B. from Radcliffe College at Harvard University in 1979. Oh, by the way, that;s not a community college. She earned a Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School in 1988, graduating in the top ten percent of her class, several weeks before giving birth to her first child.

Now, I know that there are some really good reasons why Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg is not the best candidate to finish off the two years of Hillary Clinton’s term. They include the fact that:
· she has no political experience
· she didn’t vote in every election
· she, you know isn’t exactly you know, grandiloquent…you know.

However, she is very smart, has worked as an attorney, writer and editor and is well known and liked. So, as a Senator from New York for two years, yeah, that would be alright.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand is:

dumb
completely ignorant of the world outside Wasilla
nasty ("and he pals around with terrorists!")
intellectually incurious (look, George, a friend to play with!)
did I mention dumb already?
inarticulate ( see any part of the Couric interview

So, as dogcatcher for the town of East Overshoe, ID, she is still eminently underqualified. Anyway, the dogcatcher is supposed to catch them, not kill and dress them.

Mrs. Palin is back because she has been reenergized by the likes of John Ziegler. Mr. Ziegler was just one more conservative radio talk-show host. His beat was WKFI in Los Angeles until his sudden departure a year ago, which he doesn’t want to talk about. THEN, he became a documentary filmmaker!!!! He’ll be selling Amway products at your door by this time next year.
In August, 2008, Ziegler put out a documentary entitled "Blocking The Path to 9/11", which rehashed the political controversy behind the ABC docudrama miniseries “The Path to 9/11”. Missed it? Don’t worry. Not worth it. Through interviews with the Path to 9/11 filmmakers and others, news clips regarding the controversy, and footage from the miniseries itself, the Ziegler’s badly edited documentary claims that Disney/ABC opted not to release the DVD version of the miniseries as a result of pressure from the political left (read Clintons). As noted in the documentary, Disney/ABC said they decided not to because the documentary didn’t draw a large airtime audience. Neither did Ziegler’s documentary.

Now, this asshole produces a documentary entitled “How Obama Got Elected” in which, among other manufactured "evidence", he uses the results of a push poll that he paid for, where he attempted to prove that people who voted for Obama only did so because they were fed a bunch of crap by the media. The poll was conducted by Zogby who later admitted that “It was not our finest hour.”
Sarah Palin plays a leading role in the documentary as the poor, beleaguered genius from Alaska who got the hatchet job from the mean old liberal media. Clips of his tenderhearted interview with Mrs. Palin can be seen at www.howobamagotelected.com/ . Most of Ziegler’s questions start with the phrase “How did it make you feel when…”. To which, dear Sarah responds with stuff like “Well, gee whiz, it made my tummy all sick feeling!” And other such erudite observations. And to think, we just missed having her up at the Naval Observatory!

Hi, I'm Gary and I'm a PW

2009-01-09T02:01:00.000-05:00

I have a terrible addiction. I am a chronic people-watcher. Oh sure, you have no sympathy whatsoever, because, you too, like to occasionally take some time to watch people. I’m not talking about your random acts of behavior observation. I am talking obsession. If I were to come across a flyer on a community bulletin board detailing a meeting of “People Watchers Anonymous” I would sign up immediately. “Hi, I’m Gary and I’m a people-watcher.”

The reason it’s terrible is that I all too often spook a lot people out. I’m not a real fan of someone spying on me, so I can empathize with those on whom I have zeroed in. But I can’t seem to control myself. I think that’s why I find writing these posts so easy. Good writers are effective human behavior researchers. With any luck, no one will ever do me any bodily harm, but I think a few folks have come close.

When I am out working, I will schedule my day to include a break for lunch. Food courts are a people-watchers paradise. I have a feeling the fellow who invented them, Edmond Foodcourt, was a PW (I’m getting tired of writing out the word and the hyphen is not a key my fingers have memorized). I also love Japanese food and my reasoning is that it is good for you, since Japanese people seem to age slowly and make good cars and were pretty darn good soldiers in World War II. I also love chopsticks and have mastered the art of using them on those slippery bits of chicken.

So, picking out my food is quick and easy which leaves time to position myself strategically for my PW session. I like to place my potential subjects at my ten o’clock and two o’clock positions, table-wise. I then assign my targets names, because when you are covertly analyzing someone’s behavior, it is much easier to call them Peter or Mary than subject A or the guy with stupid looking fishing hat. I have a box of names I use with subcategories based on their condition in life. Folks in my generation or older are provided names that have generally gone out of style like Oscar or Myrtle. Teenagers become Thad or Katey and so on. If close enough, I might catch their real name, though I find that a bit distracting.

This all may sound innocent enough, or possibly a bit demented, but sometimes things can go awry. A few weeks ago, I sat so that my ten o’clock was a young male homosexual couple. My two o’clock was empty. I am not one of those heterosexual males who is put off by male homosexuals. For that reason, I found their behavior charming. I think they were discussing kitchen appliance purchases and I’m pretty sure the debate was over on-counter versus under the counter microwaves. Anyway, they (now Peter and Lawrence) were off in their own little world, occasionally touching each other’s hands in a very loving way. Along life’s lonely pathway, they had found each other, I waxed poetically in my mind.

Shortly after digging into my chicken, my two o’clock view became occupied by Bernie and Bessie (I like alliterative older couples for some reason). Bernie was not at all pleased by the service he’d just gotten and Bessie was upset with herself for having ordered the food that she did, because she was quite sure that it would keep her up all night and didn’t look anywhere near as appetizing as it had in the picture. This was quite audible as they had passed by me to get to my two o’clock table.

To my way of thinking, you really have to accept what you get at a food court. Most of the food has been under a red light for an hour or two, was prepared by someone who never, ever envisioned him/herself ending up doing that for a living and the meal costs you about one half of what a diner would charge. Don’t look for a Brooks Brothers label in Walmart.

It took them a good ten minutes to get settled, which is by no means a criticism on my part, as I spent that same good ten minutes twiddling one piece of teriyaki on my chopsticks while watching them get settled. We all like our stuff well arranged. Coats, pocketbooks, napkins, trays, cell phones- all must be carefully positioned or our pepperoni pizza or burger just won’t be palatable. We’d be too distracted worrying about the whereabouts of our stuff. After creating a temporary nest for themselves, Bernie and Bessie caught sight of my ten o’clock. They looked as if they were witnessing a Roman orgy.

“Can you believe that two men could act that way in public? Look at them, all over each other, in a public eating area! If there were a manager here, I’d ask him to speak to those two.” Now I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this observation as I am no lip-reading wizard, but Bessie’s sentiments were pretty obvious.

Bernie turned and stared at the young lovers. “Jesus Christ, I can’t eat my lunch now!” I think I nailed that lip-read.

They carried on a heated conversation for quite some time, lamenting the moral decline of our society and I do believe I heard some references to France and Belgium, but I’m not sure. As they finally began the straw unwrapping process I glanced over at ten o’clock and froze in horror. Lawrence, seated facing me, had apparently apprised Peter of my interest in Bernie and Bessie’s reaction to them, and Peter was attempting a furtive glance in my direction, while Lawrence looked over resentfully at Bernie and Bessie. Peter was no PW, and his efforts to spy on my spying were painfully obvious. Worse, he swung back around when our eyes met, giggling hysterically.

It’s bad enough when your subject stares back at you, but now we had a PW ménage a trois going. Bernie caught sight of Lawrence, and then stared in my direction, curious as to what had caught Peter’s interest. No doubt Bernie now assumed me to be one of “those people” as well. Were he a veteran PW, I might have been named Percy. Notwithstanding my acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle, I did have an urge to run over to Bernie and flip open my wallet to my collection of grandkid pictures. Oh, and this is my lovely wife of forty years, buddy boy. I have to work on that.

I had only one alternative. It was up to me, obviously, the senior PW in this circumstance, to remove myself. Perhaps things would settle down a bit. Sacrificing some perfectly good, though admittedly cold chicken and that wonderfully lumpy white rice I enjoy so much, I stood up, staring down intently at the table, seemingly intrigued by the advertising flyer from Sears left nearby, and put my coat on.

Isn’t it amazing that when you don’t want to look at someone or something, that it is all but impossible not to? I never want to rubberneck at the terrible roadside collision scenes, but always do. At this moment I wanted to look at one of the twenty cell phone stores, or Sears, or even the bathroom area, but my eyes just went and dragged my head back around to the shadowy theatre from which I was escaping. I was satisfied to note that Peter and Lawrence were deep in another discussion, legs intertwined under the table. Bernie had pulled apart his hamburger and was analyzing the contents. Bessie was dragging a large chunk of mozzarella off of the top of her slice. The world had regained a bit of balance. My work here was done.

The Art of Lying

2009-01-07T06:06:00.001-05:00

My Mother, God rest her soul, was a pathological liar. I don’t say that lightly, because that was part of the clinical diagnosis added to the long laundry list of problems suffered by the poor woman who bounced in and out of mental institutions for much of her life. She has been dead these seven years and my Dad predeceased her in 1983 (whether willfully or not is still an active topic of conversation between my sister and me) so I am comfortable in talking about her problems.

I bring this up because I came across some of her letters to each of her children recently (she kept carbon copies of each, just in case things went to court). The letters were sealed in a lead-lined container with a Nazi death symbol on the top. Fortunately the poisonous spiders inside had long since passed away. Reading them, it occurred to me that most people probably lie on a routine basis, but not to the extent that my Mother did, nor anywhere near as colorfully.

Reading her letters was like watching Emeril cook. A normal discourse about family plans for Thanksgiving dinner and BAM, “I know your brother is plotting to kill me. What do you think I should do?”. A few observations about whether to serve cranberries sauced or jelled and BAM, “Someone stole all of my diaries to keep me from talking, and I wouldn’t put it past that damn daughter of mine in Long Island.” Further ruminations about the merits of pickled beets and BAM, “That Damn (insert your favorite derogatory term for a nationality here) next door is stealing things from our garage”. And on and on. The genius of the woman was being able to keep all of the lies neatly sorted in her mind. She always seemed to know to whom she said what and when. “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive.” Not in this case.

So it got me to thinking about lying and how often the average person will lie in the course of a day. My mother logged in at an hourly rate. Where did she fit in? Google brought me to a work by Bella DePaulo, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of Virginia. In a 1996 study, DePaulo had 147 people between the ages of 18 and 71 keep a diary of all the lies they told over the course of a week. She found that most people in her study lied once or twice a day. Both men and women lie in approximately a fifth of their social exchanges lasting 10 or more minutes; over the course of a week they managed to deceive about 30 percent of those with whom they interacted one-on-one.

DePaulo found that some relationships, such as those between parents and teens, are very fertile ground for deception. The study found that college students lie to their mothers in one out of two conversations. As subject age increased, lying decreased, particularly between spouses. Lesson to be learned- if you married a lying sack of shit, give it some time!

It’s worth noting that when the researchers in the DePaulo study referred to lying, they didn't include the mindless pleasantries or polite dodges we offer each other in passing, such as "I'm fine, thanks" or "No trouble at all.” To qualify in this study, a lie actually had to mislead, conveying a false impression. So telling your wife that those pants don’t really make her butt look like a serving tray or Trying to convince a creditor that the “check is in the mail” do qualify as lies.

Other studies I found backed up DePaulo’s research; however I wonder how honest participants were in these diaries. They undoubtedly were assured that their information would be kept strictly confidential, but how many envisioned Ms. DePaulo on the phone with a friend somewhere: “Well, number 96 was this woman from your neighborhood named Carol Lofstoder, oh you know her? Well, she’s a lying sack of shit.” I guess I’m kind of rooting for my mother and hoping that maybe she wasn’t that far off the deception bell curve, but I’m probably kidding myself, or just lying. What I do know is that the types of lies and propensity for telling fell far short of my Mother’s capacities. This woman missed her calling. She could have taught courses in deception.

As to why people lie, I think generally it is to either impress people (“I got the biggest schvantz this side of the Mississippi”) or to get out of doing something unpleasant (“Push a vacuum cleaner with my back?”). My Mother, however, had a far more sinister motive.

You see, during my childhood, when my mother would announce that she was going to Mays Department Store and would be back in a few hours, that could mean that she might drive down the street, swing the corners and double back to the house in time to catch me smoking a joint, inviting Mary Frawley to taste our cooking sherry or rifling through her private diaries. In fact, she did bound through the back door on more than enough occasions to keep me a bit jumpy. Lying as a security system. Bet Ms. DePaulo didn’t categorize that one.

Someday, We'll Laugh...

2009-01-05T23:08:00.000-05:00

Back when I was teaching, I had a parent I will call Sylvia, just in case she wanders onto this site. Sylvia was one of those people who was always there for me. I’m not exactly sure why she always there for me, but if I needed to get a committee organized or kids needed help with an after-school event, there was Sylvia. Field trips were her particular specialty.

I grew suspicious of her feelings towards me when her son graduated from our school, and Sylvia kept volunteering to go on all the field trips. And sit next to me on the bus. And carry my belongings. It may have been her fake fur coat, but I began developing rashes on my body when she got onto a bus with me.

Now Sylvia might seem a good resource to have around, but unfortunately, there were more than a few occasions when I wanted to beat Sylvia over the head with something. I felt bad about this after the fact, as she was just trying to help, but it was her unbridled enthusiasm and altruism that all too often nauseated me. Fortunately, I found out that others shared my sentiments.

On one of our class trips to Washington, D.C., a little girl sitting in the seat in front of me was busily wolfing down a large bag of Doritos aboard the crowded, overheated, noisy, smelly bus. As she turned toward me, I sensed the impending doom based on the yellowish pallor of her face, the slight heave to her chest and her seatmate’s cautionary tale, “Mr. Grenfell, I think Ann is going to…” And she did. It was projectile vomiting of an heroic nature. I fully expected her to follow up with a loud, screechy “Marinnnn”. I was, for lack of a better word, inundated with Ann’s bilish Dorito wash. And I hated her for it. Without a morsel of guilt. It always amazed me that when kids get sick, particularly when nauseous, they want to tell an adult about it. The bus bathroom was in the opposite direction, but Annie needed to share first. Thank you, Annie.

Sylvia, who of course was sitting next to me, sprang to my rescue, grabbing a plastic bag and a roll of paper towels. She started to clean me, employing the towels and her fake-fur coat. I moved away from her, sensing that such a scene enacted in front of forty-nine adolescents could ultimately cost me my job. Unfortunately, in my current condition, no one else wanted me anywhere near them. I grabbed the towels and made a futile attempt to remove Annie’s gift from my person. Truly a wasted effort - I was going to smell like a Dorito from Hell for the next ninety miles until we got to Washington.

Annie arrived back from her little sojourn to the bathroom and told me, in all too perky a voice, “I feel much better now Mr. Grenfell.”

My hands twitched slightly, as I envisioned throttling the child. At this point, Sylvia chirped one of my least favorite expressions in the whole world. “Someday, we’re going to laugh about this.”

No, we are not, Sylvia. I say that now, I said that then. Retelling the event fills the room with the imagined sicky Dorito smell that followed me those three days. At that moment, I wanted to pick Annie up and beat Sylvia over the head with her. What marks civility in a person, what distinguishes you from apes, cretins or cavemen, is not the absence of such thoughts, but the restraint shown in not actually committing the crime.

I guess the moral to the story is that there are lots of things that aren’t going to get laughed off in life, nor should they be. There are times in our lives when we want to feel miserable and we deserve to feel miserable. It’s a grand emotional cathartic. Don’t try to push up the corners of my mouth and call me Mr. Frowny, Little Mary Sunshines of the world! As someone far wiser than I once observed “It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to, cry if I want to…you would cry too if it happened to you.” Yeah, Sylvia, try them Doritos on for size.

What Do Barack Obama and Pope Benedict XVI Have In Common?

2009-01-05T11:33:00.000-05:00

Well, if you said they're both closet smokers, according to some shaky sources, you might be right. This picture was taken (or doctored, depending on your religious fervor) by one Giovanni Bertinello, who, as we all know, is a renowned celebrity photographer. Actually I've never heard of the guy, but perhaps would have, had I been a bit more diligent in reading People, Vanity Fair and Weekly World News among other worthy tomes. Now Pope Benedict has never admitted to this and a Papal spokesperson stated that “This is a simple case of temptation getting the better of him one time and one time only."

The story caught my attention because his secret addiction was made mention of in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. Now that might merit a wow in some quarters, except that if you've been watching the slow and steady progress of said newspaper into the Rupert Murdock Hall of Shame (he bought it), it probably isn't that far-fetched to think that they might reference something less than well-proven

Mr. Bertinello was hiding behind a ficus hedge at the time that he caught the Pope smoking, something not unlike your average Paparazzi's idea of a good time for a quiet Monday afternoon. He went on to say that "He exhaled some of the smoke through his nose, and then let the rest flow out of his mouth through his rounded lips while he thumped his cheek with a finger, creating tiny smoke rings that sailed away into space, one inside the other."

Now I quit smoking twenty years ago, and I know that that type of behavior belies a real professional puffer. That's a guy who really savors his nicotine.

Soon-to-be President Obama, replacing STILL President Bush, apparently has had his battles with nicotine addiction as well, and a few editorialists have cautioned that if times get tough, as they tend to do for Presidents, Mr. Obama should be allowed the privelege of a quick couple of drags in a discreet area, for the sake of proper stewardship of entire nation of people. If needed, so be it. There's a lot at stake here, considering the awful mess W. has made.

That being said, shouldn't we cut the Pope some slack too? I think Catholics all over the world should petition to establish numerous smoking areas in the Vatican to avoid any nasty repercussions from a man with such weighty decisions before him. Wanna see meatless Fridays back on the menu? Mandatory daily confessions? Dare we bring up inquisitions? Start mailing those care packages of Marlboros now folks!

Look Who's Driving W. Now!

2009-01-04T14:15:00.001-05:00

I came across an article the other day concerning still-President Bush, as Jon Stewart refers to him, and future housing arrangements. It seems that he will be living in Dallas and has forsaken his ranching career. Now, I say that tongue in cheek, because, of course this was not a working ranch, and secondly, this was not his decision. But, then again, nothing has ever been his decision. George requires a pilot, and there have been few.

Now the first amazing thing about this story is that he is giving up living full-time at his beloved ranch. For George, that will be equivalent of being neutured. Males do not like giving up that part of their anatomy. When I took our last dog in to be spayed, the after effects were painfully obvious. Each time he went to lick himself down there, he would look up and glare at me intently, for which reason, I never allowed myself to be naked in front of him. But I digress.

The Crawford Ranch was where George got to portray himself as a guy-guy. That was the picture we were all supposed to take away. George holding a chain saw and acting like he was clearing brush ( if you look closely, you'll notice that the spark plug was removed). George driving a big, beefy pickup truck around the fields (fairly safe, as traffic would be light) and George pictured with a cowboy boot perched on a split rail fence, inspecting his herd of somethings.

These images helped some people to wipe away the images they'd seen of him in a spiffy little cheerleader uniform in college, or a flight suit defending the skies of Oklahoma from enemy invasion. Now these manly activities are about to ripped away from him. George will be holed up in a four-bedroom ranch in Dallas. Although measuring up at a whopping 8500 square feet, it actually pales in comparison to the area mansions and could be mistaken for servant's quarters.

And why is this happening to our soon-to-be ex-President (I love the sound the sound of that)? It's because Laura is driving the W. bus now. You see, George is essentially like my grandson's Mattel robot. Flip the switch, set the controls and he walks three feet, turns left, shoot some gamma rays out of his beady red eyes and dances the hokey-pokey. Thus is the nature of soon-to-be ex-president George W. Bush (I wonder how many times I can glory in writing that?). Throughout his Presidency, George has show a dour determination when elucidating his talking points. He would jauntily toss in a few shoulder shrugs and that evil little laugh, and say the same thing over and over and over again. He was disciplined. Never got him off message. Because there was only one message implanted per subject.

But I've begun to wonder, implanted by whom, exactly? Karl Rove? That was the thinking for quite some time, but frankly, I've been watching Karl on Fox News lately, and he's really not that sharp a pencil. He's ended up on Fox News for God's Sake! Dick Cheney? Nahh. We would be enduring a nuclear winter by now. I think his influence has been highly overrated, because he is pure evil, and things haven't gone that far out of control!

Now think back. At the beginning of the Iraq "War", George went a little off the flight path for a moment. The autopilot malfunctioned. He started getting too swaggery and said things like "Bring 'em on". And who smacked him on the backside with the leash? Laura.
What has she done these last eight years? Name me a single daring, interesting, engaging ... anything. Nothing. Why? The pilot wishes to remain anonymous!!!! She made the guy give up his ranch life for God Sake! That's the real power behind the throne. Take away her helmet-like coiffure and she really isn't a bad looking woman. Can that be used to gain the keys to the kingdom? Wouldn't be the first time. Look no further than your average kingdom.
Was George ready for obedience training at the hands of competent female dark mistress of the night. Well, there is his mommy.

Explaining Adolescence

2009-01-03T12:42:00.000-05:00

Most of my teaching career dealt with the age group known as early adolescents. There are any number of less flattering terms to describe this rather awful stage of life, but for those young parents out there who have yet to encounter the phenomenon, I would like to educate you as to what happens, and more importantly, why. I know, there will be those with fancy-smancy degrees who will say that this is speculative and others who will label it pure stercus (check Latin dictionary if needed). But this is what I have theorized over the years and I'm sticking with it.
You see, at or around the age of 12, a young child's head suddenly grows very rapidly and some of those long stringy pieces of neuron that developed so neatly for the previous twelve years are stretched to their limit and snap. Picture if you would, doing this to, say, the Bronx. Suddenly the Bruckner Boulevard would have a 500 ft. wide canyon in the middle of it. People living on East Tremont couldn't make their way west for love nor money. Millions trapped in homes, babies howling, dogs and cats gone rabid. Get the idea. Now the highway department would be tasked with fixing this mess, but with bond issues etc. and finger-pointing galore, it will take years. Such is the case with your adolescent.
And lest you think, dear parent that all of that love and attention will get you through these dark ages unscathed, think again. Because added to the sounds of spaghetti-like strands of nerve cells snapping apart, is the dark rumbling from the world down lower, signalling that hormones are flooding every single available cavity in the body, and awakening terrible, giggly beast.
You may believe dear reader, that your adolescence was nothing like the train wreck herein described, but honestly, how reliable is the memory of a brain-damaged child. It is the process of historical revisionism that allows us to utter phrases like "Well, when I was your age...". Yeah right, pal.
After a few years in hormone hell, we teachers began to recognize the uninitiated parents who scheduled the parent conferences intent on finding answers to this new problem with which they were burdened. They would wander into a classroom in one of two conditions- shellshocked or mad as hell.
The shellshocked parents asked what could be done and if the school psychologist could intervene, as they were sure there little Elroy was on his way to a stint in the slammer if intervention wasn't arranged.
The mad as hell folks always cracked me up, because the first question out of mom and/or dad's mouth was "What have you people done to my son/daughter?" They were convinced, often by other parents who had gone before them, that we were training there little angels to combative, and nothing would convince them otherwise. Any response to this question would be followed by "And you think WE are responsible for this situation?" Nope. Spaghetti brains. But in all of my years in public education, I never screwed up my courage enough to say that. Regrets, I have a few as Sinatra might sing.

How men don't communicate

2009-01-03T10:02:00.000-05:00

Since I do enjoy writing and feel I have so many valuable insights to share with others (altruistic hedonism?) I thought I'd jump into blogging world with the rest of the ocean full of folks who are also scrambling to collect some Warhol minutes.

One of the enjoyable aspects of being semi-retired is finding the time during the day to trot off to an area health club. I am usually in the company of others in the autumn of their years ( a far preferable description than old fart, or in Yiddish, an alter cocker). In addition to the enjoyment provided by the endorphin high I get while working out, locker rooms are also therapeutic in that they provide proof positive that those of us in this age range are all being adversely impacted by gravity.

Anyway, what I have come to notice in the locker room is that most men can't communicate. I mean, they talk, yes, sounds come out of their mouths, but they really don't communicate.
Owing to the fact that a locker room is not a particularly mentally stimulating environment, I spend my time while dressing or undressing tracking the conversations of specific sets of alter cockers (I love Yiddish), chronicling their daily salutations. What is amazing is how consistent they are, day after day, week after week.
It occurred to me that these recitations are carefully scripted to avoid the awful truth that many men do not know how to formulate conversation on the go. The basic themata for these conversations have to do with why their wives or children are the bane of their existence. The conversations run like this (names changed to protect to identity of the banal):
"Hey, Jimmy, how the hell are you?"
"Ah, you know, one day older, Tony!"
"How's the wife!"
"What a bitch, on me all day!"
"Tell me about it. Tell her I said hello!"
"My regards to Sylvia!"
"What a bitch."

And on and on. These conversations are shouted, regardless of the noise level in the room and seldom vary from day to day. God forbid a serious accident or illness is injected into the conversation. This assures a " That's too bad" followed by a hasty retreat to the showers.

Most men adopt a series of catch phrases to toss out as greetings/inquiries into current life conditions. These are also backed up by "How about them Yankees" or "This place is still a dump" to sidestep serious conversations.

I can talk paint off the side of a barn and I have a son who can strip it off far better than I. But we are the exceptions. Why? One could assume training from your father, but my Dad probably spoke to me directly about 50 or 60 times while I was growing up. All too often, the conversation consisted of "Goddamnfool". Scratch paternal imaging. Too much estrogen? Say it my face, sucker.

For whatever reason, I think we need to have schools create a new position. Remedial conversation. Ferret out all the little boys who are inclined to speak in clipped sentences, and develop a curriculum that will have them speaking just like their Mom does in a few short months. Or you could just give them a few hits of estrogen. Well, gotta grab my man bag and head off to Stop and Shop. Me and the produce manager are going to rap about picking out good turnips.