"Would you like another fish?"

I think it's a good idea to laugh, but Rick Santorum isn't always on TV, so I keep Dudley Moore DVDs at hand.  Try and tell him that 5'2" British comics weren't going to make it in America!  We enjoyed his voiceover the other night, watching "Milo and Otis," a live-action picture about the adventures of a mischievous cat and dog.

And that brings us to a little movie called "Arthur."  That 1981 "moon pitcha" would be great to watch anytime.  You get to see Dudley as the dipsomaniac playboy (with an unexplained British accent) (and John Gielgud as a butler who is more like a father to him) who is supposed to marry this A-list D-bag named Susan.  If he doesn't marry her, there will be hell to pay, and he won't have a dime to pay it with, because his family will cut him off.  So he goes and falls in love with Liza Minnelli.  

Hey, it happens!

So I'm not about to ruin the surprise for you if you haven't seen it, or if you accidentally got in the wrong line at the Cineplus 16 last spring and saw a version of the Arthur story starring the insufferable Russell Brand.  You should ask for your money back and go get a DVD of the original, so you can enjoy lines such as:

Susan: A real woman could stop you from drinking.
Arthur: It'd have to be a real BIG woman.

Hobson the butler:  You obviously have a wonderful economy with words, Gloria. I look forward to your next syllable with great eagerness.

and of course

Susan: Arthur, will you take my hand?
Arthur: That would leave you with one!

The movie was riddled with gags like that but it made a valid point.  Dudley's other big film was "10," which was more of a Bo Derek-runs-on-the-beach video, but it had its meaningful moments.

Dudley Moore was married four times and divorced four times, so you can't say that he ever found happiness in love.  Life didn't hand him such a great deal at all; he died at 67 of progressive supranuclear palsy, which is a terminal degenerative brain disorder described as one of the worst illnesses known to humans. 

He had musical talent (he played and composed on the piano) and comedy skills and let's hope he knows how much happiness his talents brought to us. It's like Arthur said, "Isn't this fun? Isn't fun the best thing to have? Don't you wish you were me? I know I do."

Issa Isn't

The other day, we were witness to the ridiculous spectacle of a group of members of Congress having a hearing on the topic of women's reproductive health..and all the experts who lined up to testify were NOT WOMEN!  In fact, all the members of the panel who were there to discuss this vital health issue were all MALE CLERGY MEMBERS OPPOSED to the Administration's policy requiring employers and insurers to provide contraception coverage to their employees. Gee, what a horrible thing that would be, not to have so many unwanted unplanned pregnancies, resulting in unplanned, unwanted, uncared for people roaming the earth. 

Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings, a member of the committee that was throwing this foolish party, tried to have a woman join them to talk about substantive issues, but the Chairman, this gozzlehead Darrell Issa, would have none of that.  I see his point.  Why have someone confuse a woman's issue with empirical facts from a woman, when it could just as easily be heard by a group of men with theoretical religious dogma?

We talked about this Issa dude before...so here's a Saturday rerun from January 2011. This shows what kind of man he is.

Issa Issa Baby

You just never know where the next genius is going to come from, but it appears that we may have found him in this Darrell Issa, the (R) congressman from California whose net worth hovers around the $250 million mark.  He knows everything, and there are even some things he knows about and does not talk about.

Speaking of talking, remember that annoying voice saying "Step away from the car!" when you got within ten yards of an auto with a Viper brand car alarm?  That was the voice of Darrell Issa (say "ICE-uh,") who was the chief executive of  Directed Electronics Inc, manufacturers of that irritating appliance.  He took the fortune he made from that company and went into politics, and lookie here, all of a sudden he is in his sixth term and has been elected chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, meaning that he is one of the people who will hector President Obama on every little thing that the president does from now til Obama leaves office in 2016. After the elections of this past November, Issa sent a letter to 150 bigshot corporations and associations asking them which of the president's regulations Congress ought to go after, and Baltimore Congressman Elijah Cummings, who serves on that Oversight committee, pointed out that what Issa did is simply “inviting businesses to tell us what they want us to do as opposed to protecting the American people.”

Which is why we broke away from England all those years ago, to make things better for rich businessmen, right?

Vanilla Issa

Meanwhile, Issa voted against the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), which prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation.  Himself a proud descendant of Lebanese grandparents, Issa nonetheless votes against members of other minority groups in this time-honored fashion.

Darrell Issa, while in the Army on a bomb-inspection detail, claims to have provided security for President Richard Nixon at the 1971 Orioles-Pirates World Series, sweeping the ballparks for bombs.  Nixon didn't go to any of the World Series games that year, though; that was the only hitch in that story.  But hey, I once fixed a five-course dinner for Princess Grace, although she didn't show up to eat it.  And the letter that I got in the mail yesterday was the seventeenth letter in a row that I have not gotten from Britney Spears!  Maybe the eighteenth.

Issa and his brother, who later served three years in the Ironbar Hilton for car theft, were once arrested for car theft, but hey, haven't we all driven away in a red Maserati from a showroom? And when Issa was popped for driving a yellow Volkswagen the wrong way down a one-way street in 1972, and the cops found a Colt pistol, 44 rounds of ammo, and a tear-gas gun with two rounds for it in the glove box, well, he told them that he had the right to carry arms to protect his property.  44 bullets and a tear-gas gun should have been enough to protect himself if Canada had suddenly declared war on him and him alone.

But hey. Youthful indiscretions, right?  I mean, haven't we ALL been indicted on grand theft charges and been caught riding in stolen vehicles with our brother before he went up for a three-year bid?  I mean, this Issa is a genius.  Here's why - and you can read all this in the New Yorker, if you could just give FOX News a rest for a second:

Issa bought the car alarm and electronics company in February, 1982.  That very September, the place burned down!  Electrical in nature, the firefighters said, and Issa blames the blue flames that burned into the California night on the fire department's failure to shut off a gas line, so never mind that the St Paul Insurance Company's report a month later said that the fire was incendiary, with evidence of a flammable liquid being poured over a stack of cardboard boxes, and two sources of ignition.

And just after the fire, one of his associates in the business told the investigators that right before the fire, Issa had moved the computer out of the office, with all the discs and equipment for an early pc, and had moved important files and designs from filing cabinets into a fire safe and had "increased his insurance from a hundred thousand dollars to four hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars."

The man just knew it was time to move valuables out of the building right before the building burned down, and had a hunch that the time was right to buy more fire insurance.  This makes him the greatest prognosticator of our day.  Hats off to Darrell Issa, who now is free to hassle Obama.  Surely the ability to forget his past leaves him plenty of brainspace to see the future.

Let's go, Camping

H.G. Wells was an English science-fiction writer who wrote a book in 1923 called Men Like Gods that presaged an future in which people would mainly communicate through wireless telephones and voice messages.  Can you imagine such a crazy world of phones that you can just walk around talking on and leave messages for people who don't answer their walkaround phone?

Next, they'll be talking about people typing little messages and sending them out wirelessly, and taking pictures and making movies on your cell, and I don't know what-all else!

Wells also wrote the book The Invisible Man, but you might not have seen it.

Yes, I went there.

He also wrote War Of The Worlds, which became a radio program considered to be the scariest show on AM until Rush Limbaugh began bloviating.

And we never had any space creatures invade the swamps of New Jersey and need to be hauled away by law enforcement, so he wasn't right about everything.

So, Snooki, we wanted to talk about predictions that didn't quite work out.  I'm typing this on Thursday evening, and the weatherpeople are wearing their serious looks and talking about a possible B.A. snowstorm heading our way for tomorrow.   This is a tough job, weather forecasting, because the weather changes all the time and how is one person supposed to know when it's going to rain? God only knows, and He has the best sense of humor in the world, which is why you have itchy skin in places you just.can't.reach......

Preacher Harold Camping

Like that sinbuster who kept claiming the world was coming to an end in May of last year, and then when the world kept on turning, he said, "Oh, did I say May?  I meant October! Yeah, October!" and that didn't happen.  So, to my surprise, he shut the hell up.

When I was in high school, tech-type teachers were always saying that "In the future, computers will replace paper.  There won't be paper documents in a few decades."  Well, dude, we have the documents all printed out and we have them stored in cardboard boxes and we have boxes full of flash drives with teeny images of the originals, and of course we send emails and attachments back and forth all day with links to original PDFs that we then print out to show to the guy down the hall who could just as easily see it on his screen, but he didn't. 

And the teachers did not foresee a day in which someone would hit *print* three times in order to get three sheets of paper out of the printer to take to a meeting.  Predictable.

I refudiate you, madam

As far as I'm concerned, anyone can vote any way he or she wishes to, but it starts to amuse me when Sarah Palin speaks about how conservative people are and how conservative they ought to be.  

To be quite frank about this, anything that Sarah Palin says amuses me, because, as a fan of speaking voices, I get a boot out of her Midwestern adenoidal twang.  It makes everything she says sound sort of strident and, well, a bit unpleasant.  Here are words she said about Mitt Romney the other night to a group of people so conservative that they felt the need to spend a weekend in DC with other people equally so:

"I trust that his idea of conservatism is evolving and I base this on a pretty moderate past he has had, even in some cases a liberal past," Palin told Fox News Sunday. "He agreed with mandating on a state level what his constituents needed to be provided, needed to purchase in the way of health care and Romneycare, which of course was the precursor to Obamneycare."

This is why she seems snarky...she "accidentally" creates neologisms, the better to damn Romney by linking him to the president, a guy she seems to dislike quite a bit.   This is considered "cute" by the crowd that likes to pun on people's names.  Like they call our Governor O'Malley "Owe"Malley!  That's funny. The man has to raise taxes because his predecessor spent money we didn't have, and now the bills are coming due, so blame the guy who's trying to settle the check at the restaurant after everyone has enjoyed their feast.

And how is it that people think it's so doggone cute when she calls reporters "the lamestream media"?  "Lame" is an offensive term for people facing mobility challenges.  

And the same people who use that sort of term like to mock the president because his mother and father gave him a middle name that they consider repulsive.  Like he had something to do with what name they gave him. 

Jimmy Carl Black, born James Inkanish, Jr.

It seems to me that when one has to go around trumpeting how conservative they are, they might be wondering about it themselves.  It was funny when the former drummer of the Mothers of Invention, Jimmy Carl Black, would blurt out,"Hi, boys and girls, I'm Jimmy Carl Black, and I'm the Indian of the group!" because his Cherokee heritage, while a source of justifiable pride to him, wasn't really germane to the issues the band was singing about.  It's not as funny when Ms Palin goes, "Hi, I was once the governor of Alaska for a whole half of a term and now I go about, not really havin' the nerve to run for anything, but just commentin' on everything and everyone, don'cha knooooow."

Don'cha knoooooow that she doesn't know much about Paul Revere, either? "He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells, and um, makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed."

She has no idea how much she amuses me. She ought to have her own show.  Oh wait.  She did.

Our Lazy Crooks

Kathleen Turner, movie star

The local police blotter is never full of the sort of things that make the local Chamber of Commerce blush with joy, but you have to admit there's a certain panache about some criminals, despicable though they are.  In town after town all across the nation, other people get to swell with pride as a young man is charged with multiple counts of whatever, and during his trial, has to be chained, shackled and cuffed to prevent him from bursting out with, "I did it all for you, Loretta!  They can't keep us apart!  They can't stop you from loving me!  Let me not to marriage of true minds admit impediments!"

The magnificent Towson High

Nothing but nothing is better for a town's morale than a Lifetime Movie Of The Week being filmed there, right in the courthouse.  We had our cine-moment almost twenty years ago, when John Waters made "Serial Mom" in Towson, and we got to see true movie magic at work.  It was the dead of summer when they filmed it, but some prop guy had to find autumn leaves to strew about, because they had to work in the gag about it being improper to wear white after Labor Day. 

But whereas Kathleen Turner, in that movie, killed someone with her car right there in the back parking lot of my alma mater Towson High, lately the crime scene in our village is down to just where the perpetrators can't even stay awake.  Here is something from the local Patch:

Ridge Avenue, 200 block. 10:55 a.m. Feb. 12. Someone used a key left in a home's front door and laid down in a bed. The person refused to leave until police arrived. Police arrested (a young man named Adam), 20, also of the 200 block of Ridge Ave. He was charged with fourth-degree burglary and trespassing and released Feb. 13 on $10,000 bail.

Knollwood Road, 7900 block. 1:49 a.m. Feb. 12. Someone kicked an apartment door open and laid down. Police arrested (another young man named Adam), 22, of the 200 block of Donnybrook Lane. He was charged with fourth-degree burglary and destruction of property. No further information is available.

And that's the way it is in 2011. Somehow, I can hear these young crooks, whom I don't know from Adam, being interrogated by the gendarmerie.  "Yeah, see, so you slept at the Petersons', see? And that wasn't enough, oh no.  Then you had to sleep at the Willises' and the Harpers' and the O'Hoolahans'!  And then you woke up one day, and sleeping in someone's house wasn't enough, so you started asking them to leave out some warm milk and cookies, and you slipped into their Snuggie® and used their white noise machine, and then you started recording Republican debates on their DVRs and you were up to five Santorum rants about how the left wing is trying to destroy the very fabric of America per day and still it wasn't enough, and then you started snorting Ovaltine - first the Classic Malt flavor and then the Dark Chocolate..."

Could someone just do something normal for once?  Like get arrested for jaywalking?

 

How's your Vade Mecum doin'?

Not to get too personal, but you do have a vade mecum, and to some people it's vital to have it around.

I had never heard the term before seeing it the other morning in my daily Merriam-Webster Word of the Day feed.  Here's how they define "vade mecum:"

"Vade mecum" is Latin for "go with me" (it derives from the Latin verb "vadere," meaning "to go"). In English, "vade mecum" has been used (since at least 1629) of manuals or guidebooks sufficiently compact to be carried in a deep pocket. But from the beginning, it has also been used for such constant companions as gold, medications, and memorized gems of wisdom.

 

It's probable that not so many people carry around any sort of pocket manual any more.  Even doctors no longer tote their 85-lb volume of the Physician's Desk Reference, which lists vital information for physicians: medications, their recommended dosages and possible interactions, and tee times at leading golf clubs.  All this information is now an app; just buy it at the App Store and download it on your phone.  Very handy.  Same thing for other handbooks and manuals.  Even the Bible is available to download.

In its other meaning, we all have Vade Mecum in the sense of stuff we Don't Leave Home Without. Wallet, keys, pocket change, pocket knife, bandanna, cell phone: that's mine, everyone has their own, and here's a big shout out to the person who invented pockets! Because we don't have but two hands!

A frosty reception

So how many times have you wanted to describe what could lengthily be described as "a grayish-white crystalline deposit of frozen water vapor formed in clear still weather on vegetation, fences, etc" ?  Just think of the countless times people have come in late to work because they were busy scraping a grayish-white crystalline deposit of frozen water vapor formed in clear still weather off their windshields.  (This excuse not valid in August in Maryland, although some will try it out.)

I bring this up because on TV not long ago, a weather person used the correct meteorological term to describe this grayish-white etc to the news person and the news person about flipped out.  Because, that frozen stuff is known to dictionary readers as "hoarfrost."

I'll tell you another perfectly good English word that just does not get used because it would make people giggle if it did, and that's "hoary."  Dickens used that word a lot, and it was only a couple of centuries old when he did. It started in the 1510's, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (best not to argue with that) and it descends from the Old English word "har" meaning "gray, venerable, old" and so we came to use "hoary" for something old and "hoarfrost" for that frozen junk on the windshield of the Biscayne that is grey, like the beard or hair of an old man.   Still, middle schoolers, I cannot recommend that you point out to your elders that they certainly do "look hoary" today.  I can tell you from sad experience, people won't get it.

There's a certain Bart Simpson-ish delight we all get from being asked what we talked about in Sunday School ("Hell! Hell! We talked about Hell!") and from looking forward to days of having a sore throat because it enabled (me) to ask for another horehound cough drop. Turns out, horehound is an Old World bitter perennial mint (Marrubium vulgare) used for making cough drops and me chortle. 

So now, we're finished with the snickering over words, as long as I don't have to go to a doctor and be told there's something wrong with my coccyx.

 

EW!

By now you have seen this commercial, unless all you watch is PBS or the Home Shopping Club Sandwich Channel. Seems like a good idea, to have three straight-out curt girls follow you around and criticize everything you do. If it makes you want to put that big gooey sandwich, or stack o' waffles aside, so much the better for the diet.

But outside of the dietary realm, wouldn't it be helpful to have three little helpers with us at other times?  Such as when we're tempted to be texting while racing through an intersection, trying to make it while the light is stale yellow, and trying to steer around the pedestrians and baby strollers in the walkway.   How great then it would be to have three beefy traffic cops in the Studebaker with you, growling "Dude, you could kill someone." "NOT smart!" "What are you, drunk, or crazy?"

Reaching into the toaster with a metal knife to retrieve that scorched-and-smoking slice of pumpernickel, it would be a nice reminder to have two electricians and the ghost of Benjamin Franklin: " 120 volts!" "You could get a shock!" "You could short out the toaster!"

Or when someone tries to warn you not to hold your cell over the stern of the boat while you try to get one more shot of Cousin Ingemar water skiing...when someone says "Be careful!" when you're sharpening a knife...when you go darting down the sidewalk to get the newspaper and you're certain that it's not icy...that's when you need advice.  


Kids in middle school know everything.  It would pay us all to listen. 

Sunday Rerun: We'll Cross that Bridget When we come to it

Her father was Peter Fonda, who made Easy Rider. Her grandfather was Henry Fonda, who made dozens of great movies. Her aunt was Jane Fonda, who made a lot of great movies and also dabbled in politics, made a ton of weight-loss exercise videos, and exercised her free speech rights a time or two. She's married to Danny Elfman, musical composer for everything from The Simpsons to Pee Wee's Big Adventure to Good Will Hunting, and whose nephew is married to Jenna Elfman.

Dag if you didn't guess it right! Say hi to one of my favorite actresses, Bridget Fonda. Bridget gave us starring roles in "It Could Happen to You" and "Point of No Return." ICHTY was the one where she played a down-on-her-luck waitress who accepts the tip of 50% share of a lottery ticket from henpecked NYPD cop Nicolas Cage, who guffaws his way through another whole movie. Her luck sure changes!

PONR was the one where she was a street thug in DC, known as Scooter Libby. No, seriously, she played Maggie. And when she was arrested, a secret government entity took her away, teaching her everything from martial arts to etiquette (taught by good ole' Mrs Robinson herself, Anne Bancroft.) Trained to kill in 17 different ways, she was sent out into the world to do the bidding of this mysterious organization, and then a lot of people's luck changed, mostly for the worst. Diving down a laundry chute to avoid a rifle-launched surface-to-air missile, killing a bad guy with his own breakfast, and taking care of the real-life father of the guy who played Mike Damone in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," Bridget was everywhere in this movie.

And then she made a few more movies and she retired in 2002, and has not made a movie since. I'd like to see that change next year. Not gonna happen, but I'd like to see it! She left the movies about the same time Peggy and I did: she because she had tendered enough money to be able to retire from making talkie movies for theaters, and we because we were tired of people eating chicken tenders while talking during a movie in a theater.

And did you know that the real-life guy upon whom the nerdy Mark "Rat" Ratner was based in that FTARH movie was a real-life computer geek named Mark Rathbone, who later wrote "Windows for Dummies" and made a fortune?

Bridget Fonda already had a fortune, I guess, so she doesn't need to make any more movies. I wish she would. Then I could get all worked up and say, "Oh boy I can't wait til that new Bridget Fonda movie comes out... on pay-per-view so we can enjoy it in peace and quiet without cell phones ringing, people conversing, people chewing chicken tenders in my ear, and all the rest of those things that drove us out of the theater in 2002!"

It could happen to me!

Saturday rerun - Nickel and Dimed

Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a book entitled "Nickel and Dimed," which is all about the current economy.  She showed how hard it is to get by on the minimum wage by going out there in the workplace and doing it! It wasn't always successful, but she wanted to see if she could at least pay for a place to live, transportation, and food, off a low-paying job such as serving food, cleaning hotel rooms, being a dietary aide and residential housekeeping.

I don't think I would like to replicate her efforts; being comfortably ensconced as I am in my happy life means I don't think I'd do well living out of a rented room in Podunk and earning 6 bucks at MegaMart.  But reading this book got me to thinking about three jobs I could do and three jobs I WISH I could do.


F'rinstance, I would love to be a sub shop guy.  There will be those who have been sub shop guys or gals who will say, "Oh nuh-uh you wouldn't!" but maybe for a short period it would be fun to make cold and hot subs and pizzas.  Unless people got really picky and started telling me just how much mayonnaise they wanted, or to hold the fried onions on the cheese steak.  I guess I'm saying I would like to have a sub shop to make subs for me and Peggy, but maybe that's impractical.

Waiter or server, yeah, I could try that.  I believe that someone tried to float the word "waitron" as a unisex word for all who schlep food out of a restaurant kitchen and over to a table, but it seems that most people are sticking with "server." I do love to talk to people who do this.  They all have several hundred stories about good and bad customers, and if they have a second, they are only too glad to share the stories.  You have to know when to ask, though.  

Cab driver is something else I could try, as long as we can rule out armed robberies, drunk passengers, passengers who hop out of the cab without paying and run like thieves, and drunks who would rob me and then run like thieves.  Not good.  But, take away the unpleasant aspects of any job, and it looks like a bowl of berries.  I just think that pushing a hack around would give me the chance to meet some interesting pedestrians and show them my extensive collection of shortcuts and ways to get around our county.  I don't think I'd take any fares into the city, at least its more crime-ridden areas.  But I could tell people why they should stay out here in the boonies, and we'd both be better off!

Any list of three jobs I could never land but think they would be fun to get would start with major league baseball first-base coach because this non-stressor mainly involves greeting members of my team who have successfully reached first base, reminding them not to leave for second until I say so, and picking up foul balls to toss to happy kids in the stands.  And to think, people get paid to do this!

Being president of the United States of America would be a gas too, if only for the apoplectic state it would induce in my many critics who claim I am too liberal for words.  Imagine their faces when I start my term with promotions such as "Turn-In-Your-Gun Tuesday" and "Vice-President For a Day"!

There is no doubt at all that the coolest and easiest job of the high-paying jobs is movie director and what fun that must be, huh!  You get to stand in a room full of glamorous people who have their lines all memorized, and the sound effects person is ready, and the camera people and everyone else, and then you go "Action!" and everyone acts and then later you show up at the premiere wearing a beret and a tuxedo jacket over blue overalls and talk about your "craft" and the difficulties of being an authentic "auteur."  Occasionally, a new or nervous actor will ask you what is their motivation in some scene.  You just tell them their motivation is to say all their words in a reasonably convincing manner and not fall over the ottoman in the living room scene.  And then you start thinking about what to have for dinner at some swanky H'wood bistro later.

Nice to dream, ain't it?

I never would have guest it

Here's a tricky etiquette question:

You receive a wedding shower invitation and a "hold-the-date" for a wedding..from a woman whom you have never met, who briefly worked with your husband several years ago.  Unless her husband saved this woman's life through a well-timed Heimlich Maneuver or CPR, why are you getting an invite to the nuptials?  

Ahhh...cast a wide gift net.  So many people just get invitations, say, "Meh," and send some Corningware® or a Keurig coffee machine, those little K-cup deals that work so well for two months and then just make gagging, grinding noises when all you want is an honest cup of mocha java.

BUT there is an alternative!  Here's how it works.  You buy the gift and send it along via ME!  I'm looking for a steady source of retirement income, and surely a well-paying job as Wedding Guest Stand-In would do me well.  I have a nice pinstripe suit, some shirts and ties, and I'll even find a pair of dark socks to wear in place of my customary crimson footwear.  

In return, I will take along ZipLoc bags so I can bring you some Lobster Newburg.  I will shout out "Nice pull!" when the groom toasts the bride. And I will lift up the centerpiece, look underneath and claim that it has my seat number written on a little label, thereby entitling me to take it home.  

I don't enter this profession without a background.  I love weddings, I love love, I love the church part even when everyone oooohs and aaaaaahs, and then I love piling back into the Biscayne and driving over to the conception. What better way to wile away a Saturday than to hear the DJ croon,"And now...making their first appearance as husband and wife...will you please give it up for Dickie and Dixie Normus!!!!!!!!!!!"

And while all this is going on, I'm sizing up the fruit table or the giant lasagna, as it sits bubbling away. 

And I can Chicken Dance like nobody's business. Snap snap snap snap!


I had that buddy Johnny years ago who made a Saturday habit of putting on his sports jacket and tie and showing up at receptions, blending in after everyone was seated for the main meal, showing up in time to scarf up chow and guzzle free suds.  If anyone asked who he was, he would just reply that he was an old friend of the bride.  Or groom.  His great gift was his ability to look nondescript. He just blended right on in.  I think a lot of that was owing to his sport jacket being the exact color of Lobster Newburg.


Wedding season is coming up; please contact me soon and arrange to stay home while people whom you don't even know, and/or like very much, get married.  Let Mr Guest be there for you!

One Million, Give or Take

Attention, One Million Moms:  How come there are only 40,000 of you on your Facebook page?  How is that a million?  

These goofballs who called themselves One Million Moms, a part of the bizarre American Family Association, are urging people to make nuisances of themselves.  You go on the website of this AFA, and they're busy asking you to call Home Depot stores and ask for the manager and annoy him or her by engaging them in bickering about how horrible it is that the Home Depot supports the right of people to love whom they wish.

That makes me want to stop off at the Depot on the way home and buy some 2x4s, maybe even some 4x8s.

 

I took this right off the AFA website:

Last week we reported that Home Depot appeared to be pulling back its support to homosexual activists. We spoke too soon. Immediately after we released our findings, Home Depot said it will continue to support homosexual activities.

And I find this to be true.  I needed to run by the Depot last week for some hinges, and right there in the aisles, homosexual activity abounded. I was shocked. Shocked! I lumbered on over to where they keep the lumber, trying to buy some shelving, but the aisle was blocked off because some clerks and customers had formed an impromptu chorus line, doing a tribute to the Liberace Era.

Homosexual Activities.  How silly a term. I mean, when I go to the lumber yard or the Dollar Tree for my shower supplies, no one calls that a "heterosexual activity."  When Peggy and I sidle into "our" booth at the fabulous Double-T Diner, I don't think of that as a "heterosexual activity."  And even when we have heterosexual activity, I don't think of it as "heterosexual activity." 

So, if you're gay and you work at the Home Depot, selling me paint or drill bits is a homosexual activity, and my painting the kitchen window frame or drilling a pilot hole to hang a picture is a heterosexual activity.  What's the diff?

Now, the self-righteous have turned on Ellen DeGeneres, and they're asking that we call our local JC Penney and heckle the manager and threaten to boycott the store and say any number of bad things about their towels and sheets and t-shirts. The Many Moms said that J.C. Penney was trying to gain a new target market by "jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon" by hiring Ellen to promote their merchandise.

"They  wanted to get me fired and I am proud and happy to say that J.C. Penney stuck by their decision to make me their spokesperson," Ellen said.

This is what you look like when you let others do your thinking for you.

I am proud to report that I have been walking this earth for 60 years, and during all that time, not one person who ever drove by me on their "pro-gay bandwagon" tried to force me to jump aboard with them and ride around town. Each and every gay person I have ever met left me alone with my preference, and I have tried to reciprocate by letting them do as they like as well.

See you at Penneys and Home Depot!   

 

I don't need Sri Lankans flipping me off

During the Super Bowl broadcast the other night, as the clock wound down toward halftime, Al Michaels mentioned that Patriots coach Bill "Ratty Hoody" Belichick was so meticulous, so detailed in preparing his squad for the big game, that he even lengthened the time of their break during practice in the last few days.  During the regular season and the playoffs, halftime runs for 12 minutes, plenty of time for showing beer, pickup truck and erection assistance commercials along with some insightful analysis from Terry Bradshaw.  

But in the Super Bowl, home of memorable ads and winners donning celebratory t-shirts and caps within seconds of the final gun, the halftime break is thirty minutes.  So Belichick halted practices last week and made his charges sit around the locker room for half an hour to acclimate them to the length of the break on Sunday.

The drawback was, all those men had to try to sit for a longer period of time in the same room as Tom Brady's ego, a massive, turgid, swollen ego that expands and contracts like the fortunes of the supermodels he beds.  

The good news is, during the game, which the Patriots, to Brady's astonishment, lost, neither team had to watch the halftime show.  This year,  featured artist Madonna, a singer popular in the 80's, lip-synched songs that very few people knew while even fewer paid attention, being more deeply involved in the bacon-horseradish dip and crockpot chili simmering on the card table near the kitchen.  Madonna was assisted by Cee Lo Green, Nicky Minaj, M.I.A, LMFAO, and ROTFLWTF in singing a seemingly interminable medley.  M.I.A, a British performer of Sri Lankan descent born Mathangi Arulpragasam, is 36 years of age, and virtually unknown, so she thought she would indicate, by holding up a finger, how many people cared about what she had to say about anything (see photo).  It always strikes my funny bone that this boring halftime show is sponsored by Bridgestone, a tire manufacturing company.  It's funny because I am tired of the whole spectacle.


Back in the days when the University of Maryland was turning out more All-American football players than doctoral candidates, the joke was that they needed to improve the college so it could be a school that the football team could be proud of.  Now we have this Super Bowl, and the last few games have been very good football games.  Here's a vote for a quicker halftime show, with no need to trot out people who have not been on the cultural radar since the days of Howdy Doody. 

He's not really a good man

I love pics of rich guys being hauled into court

Apparently, there are at least two John Goodmans (John Goodmen?) in this world.  Sure, there's the one from the "Roseanne" show, the actor who went on to play Linda Tripp on Saturday Night Live's satires about Bill Clinton.  I feel your pain.  

Then, there is this other John Goodman, down in Florida.  Hmmm.  What do we know about this dude?

Papa. Don't preach.

• He founded the Polo Club Palm Beach, where rich people cluster to watch people playing polo.  In Palm Beach.  Sounds delightful, am I wrong?  Next year, if they're still open, let's get down there in January and watch them play for the Herbie Pennell Cup.  Oh well now, I mean, really. 
• He's worth around 300 million dollars.
• He ALLEGEDLY drove drunk, piloting his Bentley into the path of a Hyundai car driven by a 23-year old named Scott Wilson.  As Wilson drowned in a canal, Goodman ALLEGEDLY ran off on foot (the only way to run, really) and later blew a blood-alochol test that was off the Lohan scale.
• Anticipating financial setbacks from settlements with the Wilson family, he set up trust funds for his children to hide the money from the Wilsons, who probably are as repulsed as his own kids at the fact that he
• adopted his girlfriend as his daughter.  He's 48. She's 42.  Funny what love can do.

With his trial due to start on March 6, and with charges that could send a person whose father was not an HVAC billionaire to the Ironbar Hilton for 30 years, Mr Goodman is making his plans, putting his affairs in order, getting his ducks in a row.  Under Florida law, where this bizarre adoption took place, anyone can be elected by hanging their chad out, and there is no law against having sex with an adopted child as long as there is no "lineal consanguinity" - meaning there is no close blood tie, such as aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew.

With my retirement coming up in a matter of weeks, I get a lot of questions. "How is Peggy going to put up with you now?" is one of them.  The other is, "Are you going to move?"  I get this one a lot from neighbors.

But "Have you ever considered getting a girlfriend to adopt as a daughter?" never came up.  And I don't think I want anything to do with people who live like that.


Until recently, I had considered moving to Alaska.  But I found out, wacky stuff goes on there, too.

But I am understanding now that corporations are people, my friend.  Therefore, Mr Goodman ought to adopt Apple.  That sounds like the name of a Palin offspring anyway.

Eeny Meenie Emo

It's important to look different

Because I like to keep in touch with all aspects of our national culture, I became aware of the "emo" movement in music and said, what is this, now?  It would appear that to listen to this sort of music, defined by Wikipedia as "a style of rock music influenced by punk rock and featuring introspective and emotionally fraught lyrics," one needs to develop an elaborate hairdid featuring all the shades of the emo rainbow (pitch black, dark black, jet black, shiny black, purple, pink and blond) and really trowel on the mascara and eyeliner in the same shades, except blond.   And then, from what I can observe seeing youths sauntering around the mall or handing me food at Panera, it's key to maintain a stony silence, as if building a wall of no sound to keep the world at bay.

So, listen.  I can relate to the angst, the sturm and drang, of the Emo youth. I was for years an honorary member of the Bratwurst pack. It's tough, finding yourself at the crossroads of boy and man, girl and woman, and you find yourself in high school, a microcosm of life at large if ever there was one, and it can be sad. I filled my high school years with trips to the principal's office and off-campus jaunts to historical sites such as the Gayety Burlesk and the Glass Slipper Show Bar, and of course my after-school activities in the Detention Club filled many an afternoon with healthful exercise of placing chairs atop desks and washing blackboards.  But beside the worry about grades and part time jobs and parental disapproval of piercings and opprobrium from friends, high school is that time for many of the first real stirrings of love and love's bastard cousin from Milwaukee, heartache.

There is nothing quite like the feeling of getting thrown over during a five-minute break between classes.  I saw this happen to people!  You're sitting in Algebra, and for all you know you have a steady sigoth* and then the bell rings in more ways than one. Class ends, and she sidles up to you on the way to US History, and banishes you to Dumpville USA, and then you sit down in Miss O'Hoolahan's class and she asks you for six reasons that led up to the Spanish-American War.  And you answer, "X=5.25" because your heart and mind are still in Algebra**. And as the class hoots and hollers with scorn, that's when you really start thinking about wearing six more chains on your black jeans.  And you go home and listen to your Emo bands, such as Weezer (named after the bandleader's bout with childhood asthma) and Death Cab For Cutie (named after a song done by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band that came out when I was suffering through a bout of algebra myself).  

But wait!  There's more!  I understand that music hath charms to sooth a savage breast, which was a line written by Wm. Congreve in 1697.  In 1698, music teachers stopped quoting it to high-school students for the same reason that English teachers never say "There is no frigate like a book" out loud. Music is helpful when you're down and out, got the blues, feelin' lonesome.  Sad songs by people wearing studded clothing seem to help.

Such as Little Jimmy Dickens!  That's the stage name of Grand Ole Opry legend James Cecil Dickens, who, at 4'11" towers over no man, and yet, he towers over them all when it comes to singing from the heart.  I urge you to listen to him sing "Twice The Fool" or "The Whole World Seems Different" and make this simple comparison: if these songs, recorded in the turbulent 1960's, don't help you to understand that we've all had heartache at one time, so no one is all alone in that valley, then please go back and listen again.  Little Jimmy is that good.

*significant other

 ** something you will never, ever, use again in your life.

 

 

There's Something About Marry

I happen to be a big fan of marriage, the vow to have and to hold, forever and ever, amen.  I'll admit that a certain amount of my fondness had to do with how lucky I have been in marriage.  As it happens, I married the most wonderful woman in the world, and we've had a lot of good times.  Even the bad times have tended to work out for the best, because as tough as it is to deal with sad news, it's a lot easier to handle when someone sweet is holding your other hand.

We know another couple; they've been married for years and they have a nice life going for them, too. They have helped out a relative in the most meaningful way possible, by taking her into their home, and they have worked on their respective careers while still bringing the important stuff - their togetherness - home every night.  Like all happy couples, they find the greatest joy in each other.  

And here's the part where I tell you, that other couple - Michele and Lee - are both women!  Imagine!  Two people in love, in happiness with the world and with each other, and just because they happen to be of the same gender, there are people willing to spend their evenings parading around the state capitol with protest signs protesting signs of same-sex marriage becoming legal here in the "Free" State.

Delegate Don Dwyer from Anne Arundel County is quoted in the papers as saying that he and his like-minded fellows are out to stop the bill from advancing in the Maryland House of Delegates by not letting it "out of committee," which means "don't let people vote on it."  He believes that he can stop the bill from coming to a vote among the citizens of Maryland.  Why he wouldn't want the people to be able to vote on it might be linked to a recent poll indicating that 49 percent of Marylanders would be okay with same-sex marriage.  I'm not going to mention what party Dwyer represents, but it's the same group of people who brought you Hoover, Nixon, Bush, Cheney, Bush, Gingrich and Reagan.  Open-mindedness is not a common trait there.

Notice how her eyes just mesmerize you

Another Republican in the state, Frederick County State Senator David Brinkley, says that Marylanders are uncomfortable with same sex marriage.  Well, cheer up. I have good news and glad tidings from a land called Reality.

Only people who want to marry a person of the same gender have to be concerned with this!  You see, no one is going to force anyone to get married to anyone.  You don't need to be comfortable or uncomfortable or any which way about someone else's living arrangements, sleeping arrangements, or who does what to whom while wearing what.  Every night when I lay my little head down to sleep, I say a little prayer for Peggy and the rest of the people I love, that they will be happy and healthy and fortunate, with God's great mercies.  And then I fall asleep for six hours, during which time I could not care less what's going on between two other human beings on our block, in our zip code and in the entire universe.   I mean, I was so glad when Bristol Palin found true love, because she married that nice fella and now look how happy they are! And Newton L. Gingrich, who is a living example of the value of good ol' fashioned marital stability.

I always ask the same question every time that people go on about how great it it has been that we have spent 140 trillion dollars, or whatever, on NASA so we could get some moon rocks.  What's it to me what goes on at the moon? 

A guy I used to know always defended the space program, saying that without it, we never would have had Corning Ware®, Tang®, and digital watches.

Shut me right up.

Now here comes the question I pop out every time the talk goes to why it's anyone else's business who marries whom: 

What's it to you?

I'll be right over here, sipping Tang out of Corning Ware, checking a digital watch to see how long it takes to get an answer.

And this is my beloved

Time today to write my annual birthday tribute to my splendid Peggy, who was kind enough to marry me in 1973 and remain so ever since.  One thing that I really like about our relationship is that even people who have never met her have heard so much from me about her that they tend to speak of her as if they were old friends.  This happens at work all the time, and then if people from the work group happen actually to meet Peggy at a mall, retirement party or supermarket opening (three places where you're likely to find me) they always act like they are meeting someone from folklore, like Joan of Arc or Joan Van Ark or Pamela Ewing or something.  

I talk about Peggy all the time just because she is such a good person.  I mean that in every sense of the word.  Her kindness just flows over all who come in contact with her.  More than most people, she is guided by the Golden Rule and frequently comments after yet another kind gesture to someone, "Well, that's how everyone should be treated."  

She likes the simple things in life (pause for joke about her choice of husband) and is totally thrilled to have a chance to have dinner at Friendly Farm, or a walk at Loch Raven, or a quiet evening at home, reading, or watching something good on TV like that Downton Abbey show she's so fond of.

She doesn't need the best and the brightest; just having things with love pleases her. Over the years many women, especially younger women, who come into her life have sought her advice on topics ranging from setting up a new file at work to setting up an entire new household.  These women tend to look at her in a special light, as if she were wearing a halo.  In fact, she is.


We live in a world of flash and dash and Kardashians, people who regard marriage so lightly as to use it as a plot device in a dumb TV show.  People like Peggy, who get out of bed and go to work and work hard all day and then drive home to do more and more and more for everyone else don't get the attention, and that's how she likes it, anyway.  She is all about the getting-things-done and not at all about the spotlight, but if there were a spotlight for just a minute to show the world what goodness and purity of heart and spirit look like, I'd like for it to shine just for a minute on the woman who still makes my heart skip a beat every time I see her. 

We have a quote from Ring Lardner on our refrigerator: "They gave each other a smile with a future in it."  I love that thought.  I knew from the first time ever I saw her face that I would marry her.  Peggy, I'm glad to say, felt the same way.


Happy Birthday, Peggy.  Thanks for letting me be around your goodness.  I love you like the rivers love the rain.

Drumming up trouble, celebrity division

So you think your life is tough?  How about the horrible sad woes inflicted on our wealthy entertainers?  Check this out! (from the New York Post)  

Al Roker nearly “pulled an Alec Baldwin” on an American Airlines flight when he refused to give up his aisle seat for rocker Alex Van Halen and his wife, Stine Schyberg, and remained glued to his phone after the gate closed to tune out the pushy couple’s protests.

After hosting the Rose Bowl in LA, the campy “Today” meteorologist avoided a fiery confrontation on AA flight No. 4 to New York when his first-class companions, the Van Halen co-founder and his wife, bitterly complained to the gate agent that Roker was sitting between them as the plane sat on the ground.

 

Witnesses said Alex was seated by the right- side window, his wife in the center of the cabin, with Roker in the aisle seat between them. Alex’s brother and Van Halen co-founder Eddie and his wife, Janie Liszewski, were seated in the row behind them.

“Alex complained, ‘We’re not together, Mr. Roker’s seat is between ours,” a spy said. “Al was looking at his phone, desperately trying to ignore the whole situation.”

When the agent asked Roker to move to the aisle seat in the first-row center, he stated that he’s “allergic to dogs,” a source tells us. A passenger with a little dog in a crate was in the row behind Roker, and moving to the aisle would have put him three seats away, rather than four.

To sit together, Alex and Stine then swapped with passengers in business class, our spy said, adding that a relieved Al “said ‘Hello’ to the new people when they sat down, after hiding from the Van Halens by texting.”

Roker, who then turned his phone off, seemed to have better etiquette than “30 Rock” star Baldwin, who was bounced from a flight last month for unleashing his rage on a flight attendant who asked him to put his phone away.

While the situation was uncomfortable, “There was literally not an ounce of rock star bullbleep,” a spy said of Alex, “But his wife was making a big deal complaining about it.”

A rep for Van Halen told us the band “couldn’t be reached.” NBC declined to comment.

Now, as we were saying last week, I don't fly, and here is why.  If I thought there was the slightest chance that I would have to witness Al Roker - the man whose costars obsequiously call him "Mr Roker" - having a snitfit with Alex Van Halen and his wife over who was sitting where on a jet flying coast to coast I might have had to say this:

"Hey weather guy, would it kill you to move over one and let this man and his wife sit together?  And drum guy and wife, did you think of asking nicely, or was this a big 'Do you know who I am?' thing?"

He sticks with it!

I use a little scale for gauging dumb celebrity spats like this one.  If I brought Alex Van Halen before a group of people of all ages and backgrounds, how many could ID the flamboyant drummer?  They might know his brother, Eddie, who was married to Valerie Bertinelli, but Alex?  And conversely, how many people would recognize Al Roker without his weather paraphernalia all around him?  

Maybe it's crazy, but maybe our pampered celebrities just possibly could start getting along with each other.  Picture Al Roker, sitting there faking like he's reading messages on his cell while Alex Van Halen's third wife crabs about who's sitting where.  

It almost sounds like an oil painting, ready to be made into a tapestry to decorate the homes of people who read the tabloids.

And hominy grits? Oh, about 40 or 50!

"Disgust is one of the six basic emotions—along with joy, surprise, anger, sadness and fear—but it is the only one that has to be learned, which suggests something about its complexity."

That's a quote right out of a Wall Street Journal article by Rachel Herz, an article entitled "You Eat That?"  It describes some, well, disgusting food items that are consumed, apparently with relish (or other condiments) by our fellow citizens of Starship Earth.  I won't make you toss by telling you the details, and I would not advise reading the article if you're just about to unzip your ZipLoc baggie and have lunch.  Let's just say, there are some good Italian cheeses, and then there's Casu Marzu, a big rotten favorite over in Sardinia.

I'm not going to go on about foods other people like because Heaven knows, some Sardinian might find my hominy (dried corn soaked in lye, dried again, and then cooked up with sausage.  Ummm UMMMMM!) to be repugnant, and my stewed rhubarb to be out-of-bounds.  What I am thinking about is those six basic emotions.  

The REAL Mario Lanza

Think of a baby, and think how he or she just shows exactly how she or he is feeling.  They'll let you know right away, all right.  If they feel joy because a mobile is circulating above them or some adult is making goo-goo eyes at them, their little faces light up and they burble with joy and happiness.  If all of a sudden, from behind that adult another person leaps at the baby and begins singing "The Loveliest Night of the Year," the baby will register surprise, for this might be the first Mario Lanza impersonator in his or her young life (but surely not the last.)  Anger comes along when there's no meal served along with the song, and a baby shares anger by demonstrating lung power and turning on the old water works.

Sadness is demonstrated when the baby gets a little bit older and finds out that life doesn't always go the way we want.  I can't count the number of times that I or someone I love went all-out for something, only to have it not work out...and then, that not working out turns out to be for the best. "When one door closes, try to see if there's an open window you can climb into somewhere," goes an old saying, and for good reason.  Or take the community-wide sadness of the weekend before last, when the Ravens lost that playoff game.  It was late on a Sunday, and most of Bmore went to bed sad, but a funny thing happened overnight.  The earth continued to spin, and when we got up and pulled on our sox, we found that the sun had come out as it always has. 

People who study such things say that humans developed fear out of a well-founded sense of wariness when they found themselves living near saber-toothed tigers. No kidding.  That was a fairly smart thing to do, as tigers are known to be carnivores and would regard most people as a fine dinner.  Fear the tiger!  

Most fears like that make sense.  We also have irrational fears that should be examined thoroughly...fear of Friday the 13th, fear of loud noises, fear of falling, and worst of all, fear of making a loud noise while falling on Friday the 13th.  

But...disgust has to be learned?  Not so fast, social scientists and anthropologists!  Let's go back to our baby example.  Let's give that baby a name. How about, we name him Jimbo?  Let's make Jimbo happy, first.  So put him in a warm room, wrapped up snugly, free of diaper rash, and all powdered up like a fine donut.  Then let's put on some sweet, tender, vivid music...Brahms is good.  Jimbo, all fed and happy, is ready for an afternoon nap.  

Then, break the news to him that his full name is Jimbo Kardashian, and there on his little pink face you will see instant disgust. 

Pencils Down!

This fellow Mr Fifty Cent  (I knew him when he didn't have two nickels to rub together) had a song called "21 Questions" and it made me think of 21 of my own.

1. How come in the movie "Arthur" with Dudley Moore, no one asked how come a rich New York playboy spoke with an English accent?
2. Who would play the part of "you" in a Lifetime TV Movie of the Week? 
3. How long are you willing to wait in a restaurant for a table?
4. ref #3...Would you stick around even if I told the hostess my last name is Donner so that she would later call out,"Donner..Party of 6!"
5. How do you think it felt to be the first person who ever ate a raw oyster?  Remember - they probably didn't have cocktail sauce then!
6. How is it that people will spend thousands of dollars to go to HotAsHell Florida to visit an amusement park based on the adventures of a mouse, yet they freak out if they see a mouse darting around in their yard?
7. Why do we sing "Rock a bye baby" to put a baby to sleep when the song is about putting your baby in a tree and letting the wind crash the cradle on the ground? How restful is that for a baby?
8. Do you agree with Michael Kelso's statement that "Canadians don't have time to generalize about people because they're too busy drinking beer, playing hockey and putting maple syrup on their pancakes"?
9. Do you notice how much different things were over a ten-year period than they are lately?  As in, look at how people dressed and what kind of music was popular in 1952, and compare that with 1962. But people still dress the same in 2012 as they did in 2002.  Wha' happen'?
10. If you were a celebrity, would you sign autographs for everyone who mobbed you at dinner?
11. Did you ever go on a date with someone you were sure was going to be dull as dishwater, only to find them scintillating?
12. Did you ever go on a date with someone you were sure was going to be scintillating, only to find them dull as dishwater?
13. Do you hate it when a person makes up questions and simply reverses the thesis of one to create another?
14. Do you like it when when a person makes up questions and simply reverses the thesis of one to create another?
15. Are you in touch with your inner child?
16. Can you remember to pick up a bottle of milk on the way home, or do you need to write a note?
17. What is it about some people, anyway?
18. Would you swap 10 years of your life to be really rich or really famous or really good-looking?
19. Have you ever felt like you were having deja vu for the second time?
20. If you could know your exact day of death, would you want to find out?
21. Who has ever seen a ball of wax? Why do we refer to "the whole ball of wax"?  Who wants a ball of wax to begin with?

Please send your answers before tomorrow night.