February 29, 2008
I'm In The Jailhouse Now
Last night, on MSNBC online, I saw this headline: "1 in 100 Americans behind bars" and it didn't mean that we have an overabundance of bartenders. I got up this morning and read this headline in the Cinicnnati Enquirer "1 in 99 Americans behind bars" (like this). So, while I was sleeping, another 200,000 people were locked up! There are about 100 of us in this building where I work. That means one of my coworkers is in jail! I am going to spend the rest of the day trying to figure out which one of these people it is.
February 28, 2008
Do It Again
There's Twilight Zone episode (and my life is guided by Twighlight Zone lessons) in which a man tries to revisit his youth and finds out you can't - you have to move on. However, now there is a group of people who believe they can recapture an important part of their innocence, by which I mean...their innocence. They are "born-again virgins". Apparently they can restore virginity through prayer and meditation and essentially just deciding that their spiritual values have changed. I wish i could do that after a visit to Las Vegas casinos - just decide I no longer believe gambling is acceptable behavior and ask them to give my money back.
This is pretty much what Hillary Clinton would like to do with her vote on Iraq, what John McCain would like to do with his remark about staying in Iraq 100 years and what Barack Obama would like to do with his promise about restricting campaign funds.
In a semi-related story, people are also becoming cyber-virgins by having their internet hymens restored, so to speak. So at least the video of you losing your virginity can be erased. Except that I already downloaded it.
February 27, 2008
Too Much O' Nothin'
With over 1.2 million views of just this YouTube version, you have probably seen the Tale of Two Brains analysis of the difference between men's and women's brains, unless, perhaps, you are a woman. I have received the video clip three times in emails - each time from some male friend of mine. Men clearly like this monologue despite the fact that it might seem to put us down by stating that we spend a lot of time in our favorite state of mindless concentration on nothing. When women ask us what we are thinking about and we say "nothing" we mean it. And as Mr. Gungor points out, that drives women crazy. The women in the audience for the clip were laughing but clearly skeptical. Women cannot accept our devotion to nothing and are collectively trying to stop us.
Sometimes, prior to going out for an evening, I can be found sitting happily on the couch, examining the contents of my mental nothing box. My wife, alerted by radar, will peek into the room and say something like, "While I'm putting on my makeup, why don't you reorganize the kitchen cabinets." I respond with a thoughtful expression of uncertainty as to the urgency of this mission, like, "What the hell are you talking about?" She'll respond, "I just thought you were looking for something to do." Yes, that's exactly what I was doing. I was sitting there, staring straight ahead, looking for "something to do." I guess I expected "something to do" to just walk across the room in front of me so I could find it more easily.
It may be that women do like the Tale of Two Brains video and are passing it on, but only to each other as part of the anti-nothing conspiracy. I don't know if that's the case; frankly I haven't given it much thought.
February 25, 2008
Holes
Yesterday I was sitting on the beach in Naples, Florida. Nearby a few kids were thrusting shovels into the sand and begging their dad to help them dig a hole to China. That brought back fond memories of my sister and me digging similar holes in the beach in California. I didn’t know kids still did that and I wonder how long it has been going on and why it’s always China. It’s not like the saving-starving-kids projects, where US children had an option of what country to provide aid to by cleaning their plates.
Internet researchers suggest that, after Columbus’ went out to pick up Chinese food and returned years later with cold Caribbean conch fritters and jerk chicken, a direct hole through the Earth was theorized as a better delivery route to get some moo shu. However, I think the hole to China is really a more modern, USA phenomenon.
For those brainiacs out there who are going to tell me that a hole from anywhere in the US, dug straight through the center of the Earth, would put me in the Indian Ocean and not China, I know that. Yeah, I knew it before you. Well, I knew it before you were born. I knew it before infinity. So there! When I was 5 years old and planning my excavation, my sister and I mapped our route through the Northern Hemisphere, bypassing the center and shortening our mission by two or three millennia.
But I still wonder, do kids in other countries plan similar hole projects? And where are they aiming for? What about Chinese kids? Do they try to dig to the US? Many cultures are older than that of my European ancestors and they were advanced in science far earlier than we were. I think ancient Chinese parents told their kids, “Instead of digging a hole to America, why don’t you just walk North, take the land bridge to Alaska and then head South to the beaches in California. And so they did.
Thanks, But No Thanks
McCain endorsed by George W. Bush - Ouch!
Obama praised by Louis Farrakhan - Ooof!
Hillary Clinton supporters are thinking this can only help their candidate. But wait... she's been endorsed by TWO pariahs: Bill and Hillary Clinton.
February 21, 2008
Say Anything
Clinton and Obama had a little war of words the other day. Obama may have, let's say, "shared" a few lines with Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. But Clinton's words of accusation sound desperate. Obama can say anything and people like it; they like the sound of it, they like the feel of it. Here's Obama's latest response to Clinton's charge that his rhetoric is "just words".
Smile a providential smile,
Say borrowed words you’ll quote from me
Words, I speak to lift your hopes
For that will bring your vote to me
This country’s lost its glory,
If you will buy my story, now, we’ll change.
Vote now, then at some later time
I’ll figure out just how we’ll change
Speak, inspiring sorts of words,
and vaguely promise change to you
And you’ll, feel good but won’t know why,
My rhetoric just dazes you
She says, my words dont mean a thing,
Just have a fuzzy, warm cache
Its only words, but words are all I need,
To take her votes away
February 14, 2008
Brain Dead in Ohio
Here in Ohio we have our primary election in March. This year, for once, the candidates have not already sewn up the nomination. The outcome of Ohio's vote is already known, of course, because the pollsters have figured it out in advance. Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic primary here. Why? Because “(Ohio) has blue-collar America with a smaller percentage of .. Democrats with college educations… than in many other states where Sen. Obama has carried the day." Senator Clinton is counting on us because we are the uneducated, financially inept crowd that is her base. Obama appeals more to college educated, higher-income people.
Now, we do have that there University up in Columbus, The Ohio State University, which some of our younguns go to. But they mainly go there to learn how to spell the name of their state (it's O-H I-O, in case you wondered). If anyone does get an education there, they just get smart enough to move out to somewhere like Florida or Tennessee – somewhere there’s more smarter people. Leastways that’s what the Democrats do. Ohio’s got lots of smart Republicans that stay right here. They are smart cause they know how to fix voting machines. They are smart ‘cause they know we solved all our serious problems by getting us some wiretaps and PATRIOT Acts and such stuff as I don’t understand. So now we can spend our efforts making laws against the gay folks that want to marry each other and folks-not-from-around-here who illegally clean our hotel rooms.
So we got a song for Hillary to show our support:
Obama and Clinton running
Here Hillary gets our vote
‘Cause we’re Democratic dummies
Brain dead in Ohio
What it comes down to is
We are so ignorant we
Can’t hardly chew gum and walk
That works for Hill’ry
‘Cause we’re her constituency:
Voters as dumb as a rock
Na na na na na na na na
I think I forgot the words
Na na na na slobber drool
Brain dead in Ohio
It's Closer Than You Think
Calling Bruce Willis.
In other space news:
Coming Soon From Disney: The Little Mermaid on Mars!
If there is a mermaid on Mars, it proves there was water. But it's probably just another image of Jesus.
February 13, 2008
More Love
"Gals make passes at guys who wash glasses" "...a tongue-in-cheek organization called the Cambridge Women’s Pornography Cooperative, ...recently published a collection of photographs of fully clothed men cooking, cleaning house and offering up comforting cups of tea. The book, entitled “Porn for Women,” has sold more than 140,000 copies after just 11 months and has already spawned both a calendar and the newly released “Porn for New Moms.” "
God help the man who reveals his desire for a woman who cooks and cleans. Sure, we picture them doing it naked, but it's basically the same fantasy, right?
I do most of the cooking at home and I clean up the kitchen afterwards. i fear that, someday, my wife will go on the internet and post naughty pictures of me squirting cleanser onto the counter. When these are revealed I will never be able to run for President. I'm probably safe since my wife is not totally comfortable "cruising the Information Superhighway" as the kids today like to say.
February 12, 2008
Romancing the Stone (From Which You Can't Get Blood)
I saw a link to this article, “How to Teach a Man New (Romantic) Tricks” and had to check it out for two reasons: (1) The parentheses reminded me of the “unnecessary quotation marks blog” and (B) I wanted to see what the other team is plotting.
The thrust of the article is contained in these two sentences: “Men and women certainly have differing definitions about what is sexy or romantic” and “So now you know why trying to get romance out of your guy is like trying to get blood from a stone.” The first asserts that men do have a definition of romantic, but the second tells us, whatever it is, it’s WRONG. So, the rest of the article is devoted to telling the woman how to get the man to do it her way; you should never try to understand and indulge his idea of romance. (Here’s a hint ladies. The author suggests that a bad outcome would be “that you could wind up with beer and pretzels, watching football on TV.” Why not turn that into a romantic interlude on the guy’s terms? First, let him know that you, unlike the author, realize it is February and he is watching basketball, not football. Step two: resist the urge to ask him why they are wearing that shade of blue or other fashion related questions. Step 3: get him another beer. Isn’t this nice?)
The author says that “…women's sexual fantasies tend to be filled with more romantic interludes ...women find a candlelit bubble bath or spontaneous picnic at dusk to be a great way to get in the mood sexually, as well as a way to express and share their love.” Really? The suggestion is that you are taking a candlelit bath together. The back seat of a VW has more room and is cushier than most home bathtubs. And, if my wife and I attempted to get in our tub at home, there would be moans and groans, but they would not be sex noises; they would be the cries of two aging bodies trying to bend and sit. Applying Icy Hot is foreplay for 50-year-olds. And a spontaneous picnic at dusk? Please, Valentines Day falls in FEBRUARY. It is currently 30 degrees out at noon. Sure, this is something we could save for summer, when dusk is picnic time for mosquitoes.
She has one suggestion that sounds like the woman is indulging the man’s ideas; she says, “You could trade sexual fantasies”, but she just means talk about them, not actually do anything, because women are generally disgusted by men’s fantasies. The guy would interpret “trading sexual fantasies” as being akin to fantasy football league. “I’ll give you Tom Cruise for Heidi Klum and Jennifer Aniston,” he would say. Then she says, “Why two women? What the hell is it with men and fantasies about two women.”
So all the women sing:
L is for the things you’d Like to do
O is Oh, please tell me THAT’S not true!”
V’s a Voyeur rated X-tra Vitiated
E is Even more perverted than you’ve been before
And love is all that I will give to you
Love, and I mean just between we two,
Turn the lights off, I’ll get naked
You’ll have fun and I’ll just fake it
Then I’ll bathe, but without you
February 09, 2008
I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing
Neil Young says that “music can no longer change the world”. I hope that McCain, Clinton and Obama are paying attention because the loss of music’s magical mystery power to effect world change is a more significant harbinger of doom than global climate change or same sex marriage.
Music’s influence has in fact been declining for some time, the downward trend started around the time that Young and his compatriots set in motion the end of the Vietnam War. To track the arc of musical metamorphosis in the world, let’s look strictly at how music has ended wars through history.
There is some evidence that the Hundred Years War was ended by wandering minstrels singing anti-Plantagenet ballads, but it took over a century due to the lack of music agents to book wandering gigs in France. Similarly, the War of 1812 went on for a year beyond the signing of a treaty because Tchaikovsky was touring Russia and his 1812 overture didn’t reach General Jackson down in New Orleans until Jean Lafitte brought it over on his iPod.
Music’s ability to end war peaked in the early 20th century. World War I was neatly wrapped up just 2 years after George M. Cohan wrote “Over There” (The so called “Song to End All Wars”). World War II was ended shortly after Spike Jones sang “The Fuhrer’s Face” and serious people began to think that maybe this Hitler guy wasn’t such a swell fellow. However, it took 4 years for music to end that war.
Some historians argue that music’s power surged during the Korean War, which lasted only 3 years. These historians fail to note that there were no Korean War songs and the war ended because people became bored with it, being that it took place in the 1950's, a time of global boredom and lame music.
Ironically it was in the 60’s that the influence of music on world events became widely understood, yet that decade also saw a huge dropoff in musical muscle. Bob Dylan, the master of Changin’ Times with song, could not end the Vietnam War with his lyric asking “How many times must the cannonballs fly.” The prevailing theory is that he tried to pack too much into one song. Blowin’ in the Wind addressed racial injustice, war, and human suffering in general. Dylan was able to bring about civil rights with that tune, but little else changed. A decade later, Neil Young noted that his buddy Graham Nash's not-so-subtle “we can change the world, rearrange the world” line failed to force Nixon out of office and end the war. Nixon was elected and the Chicago 7 went to jail. Music did eventually bring about the War’s end. The root of that result is generally traced to Woodstock where, during a rendition of “Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag**”, Country Joe McDonald admonished the crowd, "Listen people, I don't know how you, expect to ever stop the war if you can't sing any better than that. There's about 300,000 of you f***ers out there, I want you to start singing!" The audience, somewhat taken aback by his profanity, didn’t start singing louder until sometime later and it was several more years before the war ended. (**related)
So now we are in the midst of a war in Iraq and, as Neil Young has told us, music is powerless to end it. In fact John Mayer gave up even trying to cause change; instead he reflects the prevailing attitude of just sitting around, "Waiting on the World to Change". Maybe it's ennui amoung our youth or maybe music today is too fragmented for one war-ending song to reach many people and get change rolling.
Neil Young knows about changing the world with song. His classic "Southern Man" ended slavery in the South (related). But he is right, these days the only time large-scale change is brought about by music anymore is when a popular TV show causes us to believe that someone like Taylor Hicks is an American Idol.
February 01, 2008
I'm a Man
Several months ago the women of our Havurah, all being of a certain age, decided to get tickets to “Menopause the Musical”, which was going to be in Cincinnati this week. My wife asked me if I wanted to go. I was hesitant, but she convinced me that I would enjoy it because it’s made up of various song parodies and I like song parodies, right? I like pie, but I wouldn’t like cat food pie (I assume), but I didn’t apply that sort of logic then. The play was several months away and I just agreed to go, assuming my buddies, the other havurah guys, might also be going.
Our tickets were for last night, Thursday. On Wednesday I read a review of the show which said that ladies of a certain age love it – “bring all your gal pals.” Feeling some trepidation at this point, I suggested to Karen that maybe this show wasn’t for me. I feared being the only man in the audience. “Oh, there will be lots of other husbands there, I’m sure,” she insisted. Sure – then how come none of the other havurah men were going?
To get in the mood for the musical’s theme, we went to a restaurant where each entrée name and description was first engraved on the head of a pin and then reduced before being transferred to the menu. The print was small, is what i'm saying. Those who had bifocals were able to relay to the rest of us (who had forgotten to bring reading glasses) what some of the dishes were. The food was good, but really, the place could be spruced up with a few 100 watt light bulbs and some high-powered magnifying glasses for the old people.
I thought I had mentioned in these pages before (but I can’t find it) how my extended family is 90% women. I grew up around a lot of women, who had all the standard hormones, intuitions and (delightful!) quirks that we associate with women. I have experienced a houseful of women with corresponding monthly visits from Aunt Flo. However, as we entered the theater and settled into our seats, it became obvious that I had voluntarily entered a room with 1200 menopausal women. No worries, though: as Karen had promised, there were plenty of other men – at least 3, possibly as many as 5.
The show was good but, for me, a bit unrelatable. They were not talking to me, they were talking about me. “Men” is the root word of menopause, if you see what I’m saying. Actually, they only ragged on men a little bit. The show was mainly about the effects of menopause, which happens to an exclusive group of humans and I am not a member of their club. I was the white guy at Def Comedy Jam, the Jew at Easter dinner, the Republican on The Daily Show.
Some of the songs were just okay and some were pretty funny, though not as funny to me as to the club members. The actresses performed well. I’d recommend the show to all my friends – who are women. Here's a hot flash: Take your gal pals, not your husbands.