“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” – Thomas Jefferson, Statesman, Inventor, President
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” – Emma Lazarus, Poet
“You’d see ‘em wearing their baggies, Huarachi sandals too, a bushy, bushy blonde hairdo, surfin’ USA…” Brian Wilson, Beach Boy
The preceeding words were quotes meant to bring to mind the high values, the sense of freedom, the spirit of the American dream. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.
Just yesterday the United States of America celebrated its 230th birthday (it doesn’t look a day over 215). How do Americans choose to commemorate the birth of a nation built by such brilliant minds as Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison? What do they do to honor a nation created to give its citizenry freedom unmatched around the globe? What is the celebration for a nation where every little boy and girl can dream of becoming whatever they want to be? There is only one natural choice. We blow stuff up.
I have to admit I have never truly understood the attraction to fireworks so many people have. The big, up-in-the-sky glittery ones are pretty, but the ones people light themselves which make loud noises with destructive force puzzle me. The phrase “playing with fire” usually means someone is doing something unwise. Yet during early July people all over the country intentionally play with fire.
There are certain memories of July Fourths past which always come to mind. There was a man I saw who only had one hand. He was not letting that stop him from participating in the celebration. He had a cigarette in his mouth and he was using the good hand to light small firecrackers on the smoldering tobacco and would then toss them away just before they exploded. This may explain why he only had the one hand.
I know the state of Kansas has taken some guff from the national press about the theory of evolution recently. But it was right here in the Sunflower State I witnessed Darwin’s concept of natural selection at work. There were two young men lighting firecrackers. That by itself is not the scary part. They were lighting their Black Cats as they held them in their hands. Problematic, but not as bad as it got. They would then hold the tube of gunpowder and watch the fuse get shorter and shorter and at the last possible moment they would throw the miniature explosive. Dangerous? Yes, but they were getting it away from their person before it blew up. However, they were throwing them at each other. I averted my eyes and went away from what appeared to me to be impending carnage. Now these young men have probably grown up to be fine upstanding individuals, but part of me hopes since they seem to have missed out on the DNA strand reflecting the sense God gave a goose they did not become parents and pass on that character trait.
Actually, when you stop and think about it fireworks probably do epitomize our country. This is the country of Rock and Roll, so it is obvious we like to be loud. Fireworks are loud. We are a country of ingenuity. What other country would desire the creation of a small disk of an unknown compound that when brought to a certain temperature with the help of a match grows long black snake-like things which leave stains on the driveway able to withstand the elements longer than any paint or siding one puts on one’s house? (Do they still make those things?)
The big fireworks extravaganzas which light up the skies for miles around with their colorful explosions exemplify our nation better than anything. Next year, do not look at the sky, but rather watch the people who are watching the man-made comets. You will see individuals with slack jaws making unintelligible noises, simply vowel sounds which indicate amazement. The powers that be on Madison Avenue know this quite well. Spend big money on something that only lasts a short time yet causes people watching it to become slack-jawed and mesmerized. This concept has caused everything from people buying tickets to yet another movie starring Ben Affleck, products like plastic razors with four blades when three blades were the ultimate just weeks ago and various individuals being put into elected office who many of us would not hire to feed the guinea pig and water the plants while we were gone on vacation.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Cool Eye for the Square Guy
First of all let me make it clear, I am not having a mid-life crisis. There will be no sports car purchased, nor any running away to a tropical island to paint lovely native girls in varying stages of undress. The reason for my special tutoring on how to be cool revolves around the sheer volume of time I spend around young people. I have a teenage girl living in my house as well as a will-be-a-teenager-entirely-too-soon girl and an eight year old boy. My job has me surrounded by 600 or so fifth and sixth graders. Working for the Legend basketball team also has me with guys (choke, gasp) twenty years younger than I. Because of all this I decided to enlist the help of one of those Legend players to give me a make-over enabling me to infiltrate the ranks of the young and cool. Framecio Little was kind enough to mentor me.
The khaki Dockers and polo shirt had to go. I needed “fresh gear” if I was to cross-over to the cool side. First I needed a bright white t-shirt. The shirt is not supposed to have any printing on it and it should be quite large on the person. The depressing part was the size of shirt required to hang down low over the decidedly middle-aged paunch I had accumulated over my forty some years of existence. Framecio said I should wear denim shorts with the white shirt. Holy cow, I had those in my closet already. I’m cooler than I thought I was. The final touch for looking the part was to get my “feetwork right.” That means shoes. The problem was I would have to sell my car in order to afford the “J’s” or “Ones” required. For the uninitiated in the audience those are styles of shoes endorsed by Michael Jordan. If you make Jordan paychecks than Jordan shoes are not a problem. However, most of us do not make Michael Jordan money. We fall more into the tax bracket of the guys who put Michael Jordan’s actual shoes back into his locker at the country club after giving them a good shine.
Young and cool also means gadgets need to be a part of my day-to-day life. However, the latest video games are more complex than the United States tax code written in Aramaic. I do have a cell phone, but I do not know how to use it other than the basics. “Texting” is beyond me. I have a friend (who constantly reminds me he is a full decade younger than I) capable of texting faster than I can talk. He flips open his latest version phone, which is as thick as a slice of lunch meat, and his thumbs fly over the keys like the feet of that Riverdance guy.
One gadget I have is an iPod. I have the simplest version possible, but I do have one. I asked Framecio which musicians I needed to load to be considered up to date. He proceeded to list four rappers with names as familiar to a middle aged white guy from western Kansas as list of existential philosophers of the late 19th century would be to, well, would be to anyone. The fact that I have some Ray Charles on my iPod gave me a glimmer of coolness. My mentor said older rhythm and blues is termed “getting your grown man on” and I am nothing if not a grown man.
The slang of today seems to have been developed by the same people who write the advertising copy for detergent. “Fresh” and “clean” are current terms. A phrase used to compliment someone on something would be: “Them clean right there.” (with apologies to the grammarians in the audience) A great car has been sweet, cool, even cherry. Now you would be driving a “clean whip” if you had the best car in the neighborhood. The car I drive would not only not be sweet, cool, or cherry, the term “clean” would not be used in any sense of the word. The French fries on the floor of the back seat would require carbon dating to figure out how long they have been there.
Okay, I am now ready. I have on my “fresh gear.” I’m carrying a cell phone and my iPod is playing some Young Jezzy. My “feetwork” are “clean.” My “pockets are right” (which means I have money to spend). Also, my “clean whip” is gassed and ready to roll. The problem is I am just going to the grocery store to replenish my supply of antacids.
Christopher Pyle is now so “clean” and “fresh” his wife has him hanging from the rearview mirror in the minivan instead of one of those cardboard evergreen trees.
The khaki Dockers and polo shirt had to go. I needed “fresh gear” if I was to cross-over to the cool side. First I needed a bright white t-shirt. The shirt is not supposed to have any printing on it and it should be quite large on the person. The depressing part was the size of shirt required to hang down low over the decidedly middle-aged paunch I had accumulated over my forty some years of existence. Framecio said I should wear denim shorts with the white shirt. Holy cow, I had those in my closet already. I’m cooler than I thought I was. The final touch for looking the part was to get my “feetwork right.” That means shoes. The problem was I would have to sell my car in order to afford the “J’s” or “Ones” required. For the uninitiated in the audience those are styles of shoes endorsed by Michael Jordan. If you make Jordan paychecks than Jordan shoes are not a problem. However, most of us do not make Michael Jordan money. We fall more into the tax bracket of the guys who put Michael Jordan’s actual shoes back into his locker at the country club after giving them a good shine.
Young and cool also means gadgets need to be a part of my day-to-day life. However, the latest video games are more complex than the United States tax code written in Aramaic. I do have a cell phone, but I do not know how to use it other than the basics. “Texting” is beyond me. I have a friend (who constantly reminds me he is a full decade younger than I) capable of texting faster than I can talk. He flips open his latest version phone, which is as thick as a slice of lunch meat, and his thumbs fly over the keys like the feet of that Riverdance guy.
One gadget I have is an iPod. I have the simplest version possible, but I do have one. I asked Framecio which musicians I needed to load to be considered up to date. He proceeded to list four rappers with names as familiar to a middle aged white guy from western Kansas as list of existential philosophers of the late 19th century would be to, well, would be to anyone. The fact that I have some Ray Charles on my iPod gave me a glimmer of coolness. My mentor said older rhythm and blues is termed “getting your grown man on” and I am nothing if not a grown man.
The slang of today seems to have been developed by the same people who write the advertising copy for detergent. “Fresh” and “clean” are current terms. A phrase used to compliment someone on something would be: “Them clean right there.” (with apologies to the grammarians in the audience) A great car has been sweet, cool, even cherry. Now you would be driving a “clean whip” if you had the best car in the neighborhood. The car I drive would not only not be sweet, cool, or cherry, the term “clean” would not be used in any sense of the word. The French fries on the floor of the back seat would require carbon dating to figure out how long they have been there.
Okay, I am now ready. I have on my “fresh gear.” I’m carrying a cell phone and my iPod is playing some Young Jezzy. My “feetwork” are “clean.” My “pockets are right” (which means I have money to spend). Also, my “clean whip” is gassed and ready to roll. The problem is I am just going to the grocery store to replenish my supply of antacids.
Christopher Pyle is now so “clean” and “fresh” his wife has him hanging from the rearview mirror in the minivan instead of one of those cardboard evergreen trees.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
For some fifteen minutes of fame is too much
Maybe I am missing something. Are famous people really that much more special than the rest of us? I have met a few big time famous people. Maybe ‘met’ is too strong a term. I worked at a bookstore in Santa Monica and sold stuff to some big time famous people. George Carlin, Goldie Hawn, Rick Springfield (well he was famous at the time), and Dick Van Dyke were customers of mine. I didn’t really talk to them, beyond “That will be fifteen dollars and seventy-eight cents, please.” Each was polite. They didn’t expect special treatment because they were stars. Each person was quite normal. There was no ethereal glow emanating from their eyes and extremities. I did not hear music playing as they approached the cash register. They behaved like normal folks so I treated them like normal people.
I bring this up because there was a major ripple of excitement in Dodge City. A star of epic proportion was sighted in the area. This person has had a major impact on movies, on literature, on television. This person has cast a massive shadow (I am resisting a fat joke at this moment) over the entire nation and its culture. Am I talking about a person who has written a novel of such humanity and depth it has touched a generation? Am I talking about a person who invented a new format for television which revolutionized the art form? Nope. Oprah was in southwest Kansas!
The visit was reported in this very paper. What did they report? They reported what she ate. Her first visit was to Clark Pharmacy in Cimarron where she had a root beer float and shared an orange smoothie with her friend. Do I really need to know what she had? On the other hand, by reporting what she had it proved she had not done her homework. I lived in Cimarron for ten years. I loved going to Clark’s. The thing to order is a “black and white.” This concoction of ice cream, chocolate syrup and marshmallow stuff is actually good enough to cause the one consuming it to attain a beatific state akin to a Buddhist getting to end of the Eight Fold Path and becoming one with the universe. Okay, I exaggerate just a bit. However, I do believe one hot day in July I ate a large “black and white” and heard an astral choir as I slipped into a blissful sugar stupor.
Being famous seems to guarantee people will care what happens to you, but it does not guarantee what a famous person does should be made public. For example, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s every breath must be photographed and sent to every media outlet in the world. I have nothing against either of these people. They do seem to have a greater amount of social consciousness than many movie star types. Can you picture Jessica Simpson trying to help fight hunger in third world countries? Actually, Jessica Simpson identifying third world countries on a globe is difficult to envision. Back to Jolie and Pitt, they recently had a baby. Lots of people have babies, heck, my wife and I have had three of them. But then we are not rich and famous. I know if I was a filthy rich individual with resources and opportunities galore I would choose to have my baby in Namibia. Everyone knows if Johns Hopkins University Hospital and Beth Israel Medical Center is not handy flying to a small West African country sandwiched between the Namib and Kalahari Deserts is the next best thing. After being sure they had their child in the most reasonable environment they could arrange they proceeded to name the little helpless girl Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt.
It may be necessary to get Congress involved in order to stop the senseless brutality that is celebrities naming their own children. We have Courtney Cox and David Arquette naming their daughter Coco. Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband named their first child Apple and the most recent one Moses. Geri Halliwell, who barely counts as a famous person since she is a former Spice Girl, named her daughter Bluebell. I’m sorry but that is the name for the milk cow in a Little House on the Prairie story not a baby girl who has to live with it for the rest of her life. The scariest thing about this concept may revolve around the most reasonable name given by a pop culture icon. A baby boy was named Sean, a strong name without connotations which bring to mind fruit, cows, or breakfast cereal. This name was given by Britney Spears. It may be a sign of the apocalypse when she is the voice of reason.
I bring this up because there was a major ripple of excitement in Dodge City. A star of epic proportion was sighted in the area. This person has had a major impact on movies, on literature, on television. This person has cast a massive shadow (I am resisting a fat joke at this moment) over the entire nation and its culture. Am I talking about a person who has written a novel of such humanity and depth it has touched a generation? Am I talking about a person who invented a new format for television which revolutionized the art form? Nope. Oprah was in southwest Kansas!
The visit was reported in this very paper. What did they report? They reported what she ate. Her first visit was to Clark Pharmacy in Cimarron where she had a root beer float and shared an orange smoothie with her friend. Do I really need to know what she had? On the other hand, by reporting what she had it proved she had not done her homework. I lived in Cimarron for ten years. I loved going to Clark’s. The thing to order is a “black and white.” This concoction of ice cream, chocolate syrup and marshmallow stuff is actually good enough to cause the one consuming it to attain a beatific state akin to a Buddhist getting to end of the Eight Fold Path and becoming one with the universe. Okay, I exaggerate just a bit. However, I do believe one hot day in July I ate a large “black and white” and heard an astral choir as I slipped into a blissful sugar stupor.
Being famous seems to guarantee people will care what happens to you, but it does not guarantee what a famous person does should be made public. For example, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s every breath must be photographed and sent to every media outlet in the world. I have nothing against either of these people. They do seem to have a greater amount of social consciousness than many movie star types. Can you picture Jessica Simpson trying to help fight hunger in third world countries? Actually, Jessica Simpson identifying third world countries on a globe is difficult to envision. Back to Jolie and Pitt, they recently had a baby. Lots of people have babies, heck, my wife and I have had three of them. But then we are not rich and famous. I know if I was a filthy rich individual with resources and opportunities galore I would choose to have my baby in Namibia. Everyone knows if Johns Hopkins University Hospital and Beth Israel Medical Center is not handy flying to a small West African country sandwiched between the Namib and Kalahari Deserts is the next best thing. After being sure they had their child in the most reasonable environment they could arrange they proceeded to name the little helpless girl Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt.
It may be necessary to get Congress involved in order to stop the senseless brutality that is celebrities naming their own children. We have Courtney Cox and David Arquette naming their daughter Coco. Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband named their first child Apple and the most recent one Moses. Geri Halliwell, who barely counts as a famous person since she is a former Spice Girl, named her daughter Bluebell. I’m sorry but that is the name for the milk cow in a Little House on the Prairie story not a baby girl who has to live with it for the rest of her life. The scariest thing about this concept may revolve around the most reasonable name given by a pop culture icon. A baby boy was named Sean, a strong name without connotations which bring to mind fruit, cows, or breakfast cereal. This name was given by Britney Spears. It may be a sign of the apocalypse when she is the voice of reason.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Everything may be for sale
I didn't write a column last week and I am placing this one on the blog late. This one appeared May 31st in the Dodge Globe.
Money makes the world go around. I hate to rain on the parade of the more optimistic readers out there who may think love makes the world go around, but I have yet to find a store clerk who would allow me to have a soda and a candy bar in exchange for a hug. (You should see some of the reactions I have gotten attempting to find the clerk who would let me.) Affection may give one a warm feeling in one’s heart, but it takes a buck fifty to buy the Tums to cure that warm feeling so one can get to sleep.
Since I have worked in the education field for many years I have at times tried to get students to put forth more effort by pointing out that an education can lead to more money. There are many extensively researched studies showing the more education a person has the more earning power he has over the course of his life. This has backfired on me. After I have given my powerful speech outlining how the level of education allows one to have a career which gives a person the wherewithal to live a life with choices and luxury a student asks me what my educational background is. I proudly tell him I have three college degrees, two undergraduate and one master’s degree. The student then points out the window to the staff parking lot and asks why I am driving a 16 year old two door Escort with a tire that requires airing up every third day.
Everybody seems to desire more money than they have at the moment. Individuals usually have to do pretty normal stuff to earn extra money, getting a second job, having a garage sale, or offering a kidney on E-bay. I have a new idea. Big time corporations spend millions if not billions of dollars each year to advertise their products. A commercial during the Super Bowl costs more than the gross national product for most third world countries. If the people who make Snickers bars would be willing to pay me a hundred dollars a month I would gladly tell everyone I meet on the street that “Snickers really satisfies.” Granted it would not reach as many people as a commercial during Will and Grace but it might reach more than a commercial during Jake in Progress and it would cost the company a heck of a lot less.
Whenever a sports team moves into a new stadium they sell the naming rights for the stadium to a corporation for huge sums of money. I prefer things the old way. It was much more macho for a football team to play in Soldier Field. Just how manly can Lance Berkman feel playing baseball in Minute Maid Park? I still think the field in Heinz Stadium should have a 57 yard line. But I digress. Individuals should have this opportunity to augment their income. When a young couple is expecting their first child it is not only an exciting time in their lives but it can also put a huge strain on their finances. Here is my idea. When the stork delivers the little bundle of joy she is not named after Grandma or the favorite aunt but the birth announcement would read like this: Mr. and Mrs. John Smith wish to announce the birth of their daughter Mazda Smith – an infant with the soul of a sports car.
It is not only individuals who are feeling the crunch of financial shortfalls. Governments are not getting the revenue they need and raising taxes only ticks people off. Let’s have Kansas fund the education needs for the state in creative ways, by selling out to corporate America. It could very well work. Take the state seal off of the flag and replace it with a Nike swoosh. Ditch “Ad Astra Per Aspera” and make “Think Outside the Bun” the state motto. The Meadowlark is replaced by the AFLAC duck as the state bird. The state amphibian is the GEICO gecko (I can’t believe we have a state amphibian anyway). I like “Home on the Range” but Bob Seger singing “Like a Rock” would sell a few more trucks and pay for the highways they drive on. I may be ahead of my time here. But, you’ll be sorry when Missouri becomes the Great state of Microsoft and stops having property tax, income tax, and sales tax. The Arch in St. Louis is called the Bill Gatesway to the West and the football team in Columbia becomes the Fighting Search Engines.
Money makes the world go around. I hate to rain on the parade of the more optimistic readers out there who may think love makes the world go around, but I have yet to find a store clerk who would allow me to have a soda and a candy bar in exchange for a hug. (You should see some of the reactions I have gotten attempting to find the clerk who would let me.) Affection may give one a warm feeling in one’s heart, but it takes a buck fifty to buy the Tums to cure that warm feeling so one can get to sleep.
Since I have worked in the education field for many years I have at times tried to get students to put forth more effort by pointing out that an education can lead to more money. There are many extensively researched studies showing the more education a person has the more earning power he has over the course of his life. This has backfired on me. After I have given my powerful speech outlining how the level of education allows one to have a career which gives a person the wherewithal to live a life with choices and luxury a student asks me what my educational background is. I proudly tell him I have three college degrees, two undergraduate and one master’s degree. The student then points out the window to the staff parking lot and asks why I am driving a 16 year old two door Escort with a tire that requires airing up every third day.
Everybody seems to desire more money than they have at the moment. Individuals usually have to do pretty normal stuff to earn extra money, getting a second job, having a garage sale, or offering a kidney on E-bay. I have a new idea. Big time corporations spend millions if not billions of dollars each year to advertise their products. A commercial during the Super Bowl costs more than the gross national product for most third world countries. If the people who make Snickers bars would be willing to pay me a hundred dollars a month I would gladly tell everyone I meet on the street that “Snickers really satisfies.” Granted it would not reach as many people as a commercial during Will and Grace but it might reach more than a commercial during Jake in Progress and it would cost the company a heck of a lot less.
Whenever a sports team moves into a new stadium they sell the naming rights for the stadium to a corporation for huge sums of money. I prefer things the old way. It was much more macho for a football team to play in Soldier Field. Just how manly can Lance Berkman feel playing baseball in Minute Maid Park? I still think the field in Heinz Stadium should have a 57 yard line. But I digress. Individuals should have this opportunity to augment their income. When a young couple is expecting their first child it is not only an exciting time in their lives but it can also put a huge strain on their finances. Here is my idea. When the stork delivers the little bundle of joy she is not named after Grandma or the favorite aunt but the birth announcement would read like this: Mr. and Mrs. John Smith wish to announce the birth of their daughter Mazda Smith – an infant with the soul of a sports car.
It is not only individuals who are feeling the crunch of financial shortfalls. Governments are not getting the revenue they need and raising taxes only ticks people off. Let’s have Kansas fund the education needs for the state in creative ways, by selling out to corporate America. It could very well work. Take the state seal off of the flag and replace it with a Nike swoosh. Ditch “Ad Astra Per Aspera” and make “Think Outside the Bun” the state motto. The Meadowlark is replaced by the AFLAC duck as the state bird. The state amphibian is the GEICO gecko (I can’t believe we have a state amphibian anyway). I like “Home on the Range” but Bob Seger singing “Like a Rock” would sell a few more trucks and pay for the highways they drive on. I may be ahead of my time here. But, you’ll be sorry when Missouri becomes the Great state of Microsoft and stops having property tax, income tax, and sales tax. The Arch in St. Louis is called the Bill Gatesway to the West and the football team in Columbia becomes the Fighting Search Engines.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Happy versus Unhappy (Rebuttal to Rob)
Here is the column as it appeared in the May 17th Dodge City Daily Globe.
A while back I wrote a column about being happy. I was for it. I received an e-mail from an old friend of mine. He was against it. He said being happy was over-rated and actually works against mankind. Part of his theory stated happiness leads to complacency and complacency leads to a kind of stagnation. He said Thomas Edison was angry about stubbing his toes on the furniture in the dark and that was why he invented the light bulb. According to my friend negativity, not necessity is the mother of invention.
I see his point of view. I am quite happy when I am sitting in my chair listening to good music and doing almost nothing else. At those points of my life I may be happy but I am not doing my part to end world hunger, promote a greater sense of understanding amongst people of different races and religions, or develop a clean renewable power source to save the environment. Then again, on my most productive days I might get the grass cut, some dishes washed and the laundry folded. None of which is exactly Nobel Prize winner material.
Negativity probably is a wonderful motivator. This great nation of ours was founded by a group of rabble rousers set on tossing out the king. We should thank them for being negative. If not we would have to drink tea everyday of our lives (yuck), even more of our friends and neighbors would think Benny Hill was actually funny (ack), and Wimbledon would be more important than the Super Bowl (gasp).
When you really think about it unhappy people probably have done more good for mankind. Susan B. Anthony wasn’t happy with the way things were. Mahatma Gandhi wasn’t happy with the way things were. Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t happy with the way things were. George de Mestral wasn’t happy with the way things were. Who is George de Mestral you ask. George de Mestral was an amateur mountaineer from Switzerland who was not happy with the way things opened and closed so he invented Velcro, and now the world is a better place.
It is not just in the grand scheme of things that unhappy people effect the most change. It happens in the homes of normal everyday people all the time. If you are a parent of almost any age child this will be familiar to you. A grown person with logic and intellect calmly and politely explains to a young person the benefits all parties involved in the situation would enjoy if the young person would turn the music down and remove the dirty gym clothes from the dining room table so the family can enjoy a meal together. That style of approach elicits a blank stare akin to the one Alan Greenspan would get explaining how the Nikkei average affects the price of gas in Boise to Paris Hilton. (Heck, Alan Greenspan explaining Nikkei averages to almost anyone would cause blank stares.) The parent who has absolutely had it with the child’s slovenly manner and has resolved to create a Norman Rockwell moment around the dinner table even if it kills them, will yell at the kid to “get his junk off the table this very minute or he will be grounded until Chicago Cubs win the World Series.” This causes the child to move her/his lazy behind and do what s/he is told. Happy, calm parents may be what Dr. Spock and T. Berry Brazelton recommends, but frazzled and annoyed parents get results.
I will not go completely over to my friend’s way of thinking. I still think it is better to spend extended periods of time with people who are happy. Getting stuck in a room with people who believe (as Woody Allen once stated) that life is divided into two categories, the horrible and the miserable and one should be thankful if they are simply miserable is not my idea of a great Saturday afternoon. I do not want to go too far the other way either. I want to spend time with folks who are reasonable in their happiness, not so gleeful they make Kelly Ripa look like a character from an Ibsen play. If I am on a transatlantic flight I do not want to be sealed into the cabin of a 747 with a youth group singing camp songs and trying to talk the stewardess into making s’mores. Moderation is the key to all things.
Christopher Pyle once flew to London on the same plane with a youth group. There were no camp songs but the level of “cute happy” in the cabin caused him to contemplate using his seat cushion not as a floatation device but rather a suffocation device.
A while back I wrote a column about being happy. I was for it. I received an e-mail from an old friend of mine. He was against it. He said being happy was over-rated and actually works against mankind. Part of his theory stated happiness leads to complacency and complacency leads to a kind of stagnation. He said Thomas Edison was angry about stubbing his toes on the furniture in the dark and that was why he invented the light bulb. According to my friend negativity, not necessity is the mother of invention.
I see his point of view. I am quite happy when I am sitting in my chair listening to good music and doing almost nothing else. At those points of my life I may be happy but I am not doing my part to end world hunger, promote a greater sense of understanding amongst people of different races and religions, or develop a clean renewable power source to save the environment. Then again, on my most productive days I might get the grass cut, some dishes washed and the laundry folded. None of which is exactly Nobel Prize winner material.
Negativity probably is a wonderful motivator. This great nation of ours was founded by a group of rabble rousers set on tossing out the king. We should thank them for being negative. If not we would have to drink tea everyday of our lives (yuck), even more of our friends and neighbors would think Benny Hill was actually funny (ack), and Wimbledon would be more important than the Super Bowl (gasp).
When you really think about it unhappy people probably have done more good for mankind. Susan B. Anthony wasn’t happy with the way things were. Mahatma Gandhi wasn’t happy with the way things were. Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t happy with the way things were. George de Mestral wasn’t happy with the way things were. Who is George de Mestral you ask. George de Mestral was an amateur mountaineer from Switzerland who was not happy with the way things opened and closed so he invented Velcro, and now the world is a better place.
It is not just in the grand scheme of things that unhappy people effect the most change. It happens in the homes of normal everyday people all the time. If you are a parent of almost any age child this will be familiar to you. A grown person with logic and intellect calmly and politely explains to a young person the benefits all parties involved in the situation would enjoy if the young person would turn the music down and remove the dirty gym clothes from the dining room table so the family can enjoy a meal together. That style of approach elicits a blank stare akin to the one Alan Greenspan would get explaining how the Nikkei average affects the price of gas in Boise to Paris Hilton. (Heck, Alan Greenspan explaining Nikkei averages to almost anyone would cause blank stares.) The parent who has absolutely had it with the child’s slovenly manner and has resolved to create a Norman Rockwell moment around the dinner table even if it kills them, will yell at the kid to “get his junk off the table this very minute or he will be grounded until Chicago Cubs win the World Series.” This causes the child to move her/his lazy behind and do what s/he is told. Happy, calm parents may be what Dr. Spock and T. Berry Brazelton recommends, but frazzled and annoyed parents get results.
I will not go completely over to my friend’s way of thinking. I still think it is better to spend extended periods of time with people who are happy. Getting stuck in a room with people who believe (as Woody Allen once stated) that life is divided into two categories, the horrible and the miserable and one should be thankful if they are simply miserable is not my idea of a great Saturday afternoon. I do not want to go too far the other way either. I want to spend time with folks who are reasonable in their happiness, not so gleeful they make Kelly Ripa look like a character from an Ibsen play. If I am on a transatlantic flight I do not want to be sealed into the cabin of a 747 with a youth group singing camp songs and trying to talk the stewardess into making s’mores. Moderation is the key to all things.
Christopher Pyle once flew to London on the same plane with a youth group. There were no camp songs but the level of “cute happy” in the cabin caused him to contemplate using his seat cushion not as a floatation device but rather a suffocation device.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Reading the fine print can be fun
“For medical emergencies seek professional help” is actually printed on the side of a box of band-aids. This brings to mind a rather unpleasant image. Someone has suffered an accident while juggling chainsaws. A variety of body parts have been marred, if not actually severed, and the person crawls to the bathroom to get a band-aid. Only when he sees the precaution printed on the box does it occur to him that calling an ambulance might be a good idea. When interviewed by the local press the hospital patient says, “I owe my life to the manufacturers of band-aids. If they didn’t have that warning on the box I probably would have just taken a couple of those little circle shaped thingies and placed them on my arteries.”
There are so often terribly obvious things stated. I don’t know if they are stated because people are actually not intelligent enough to know them or if companies have to tell us to avoid being sued. There was the famous case where a lady successfully sued a fast food chain because she was burned when she spilled coffee on herself. I tried coffee a few times twenty years ago and hated it. So, I have not put a cup of coffee to my lips in quite a long time. But I do know that coffee is HOT. You can ask most any sentient being if coffee is something they would like poured into their laps and they will most all answer, “No.” Heck, dolphins would probably tell you, “If we had laps we would not want to pour coffee on them.” Well, due to the lawsuit the aforementioned fast food chain now has to have printed on all their coffee cups a warning about the contents being hot. Something comes to mind along the lines of “No kidding, Mr. Holmes.”
The tiny print at the bottom of television commercials is often entertaining to read (if the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading course paid off and your glasses are powerful enough). The ones that state the obvious are always the car commercials. They show a truck being landed upon by a flaming meteorite with a force akin to a small atomic weapon and at the bottom of the screen it says: professional driver on a closed course and dramatization. Darn it. I wanted to get a car which was proven to withstand the impact of a burning hunk of the original big bang.
Medicine commercials do similar things. There is the usual list of possible side effects read so fast people pick up every other word. Most of them discuss things so horrific I think I’d rather have the illness. “If you take this medicine for occasional heartburn possible side effects could include diarrhea, constipation, dizziness, headache, irritable bowel syndrome, heart palpitation, temporary blindness, rhinorrhea, scurvy, rickets, and an uncontrollable urge to sing Toby Keith songs.” I don’t know about you, but I would simply rather burp repeatedly.
I noticed the small print on a commercial plugging a medicine for colds and allergies. The large print which was also spoken by the authoritative-announcer-voice-guy read “Feel Better Faster.” The tiny little print not spoken at all said “versus no treatment at all.” So, what they are saying is, it is clinically proven you will get better faster if you take this medicine than if you do not treat the symptoms at all. Thank you for that little tidbit of information, Jonas Salk. You would probably get better faster if you ate a fifty cent can of chicken noodle soup and took a nap than if you did nothing at all.
Television commercials will probably keep trying to give misleading information and then make the government and their lawyers happy by putting tiny print on the screen to disavow any responsibility. Beer companies would have the most fun. Here is the advertisement I can envision.
A very homely man and woman are sitting in a bar. They both have a beer and then look across at each other. They are both slightly more attractive. They order several more beers. There are now a bunch of beer bottles in front of each of them and their eyes lock in a feverish moment of passion. The man is now the hunky doctor guy from the TV show Lost and the girl makes Angelina Jolie look like Granny Clampett. They clasp hands and leave the bar together. The tiny print at the bottom of the screen reads: This is what it feels like, but the next morning you may find yourself to married to a woman nicknamed The Diesel. We are not responsible for any legal fees or tattoo removal expenses.
There are so often terribly obvious things stated. I don’t know if they are stated because people are actually not intelligent enough to know them or if companies have to tell us to avoid being sued. There was the famous case where a lady successfully sued a fast food chain because she was burned when she spilled coffee on herself. I tried coffee a few times twenty years ago and hated it. So, I have not put a cup of coffee to my lips in quite a long time. But I do know that coffee is HOT. You can ask most any sentient being if coffee is something they would like poured into their laps and they will most all answer, “No.” Heck, dolphins would probably tell you, “If we had laps we would not want to pour coffee on them.” Well, due to the lawsuit the aforementioned fast food chain now has to have printed on all their coffee cups a warning about the contents being hot. Something comes to mind along the lines of “No kidding, Mr. Holmes.”
The tiny print at the bottom of television commercials is often entertaining to read (if the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading course paid off and your glasses are powerful enough). The ones that state the obvious are always the car commercials. They show a truck being landed upon by a flaming meteorite with a force akin to a small atomic weapon and at the bottom of the screen it says: professional driver on a closed course and dramatization. Darn it. I wanted to get a car which was proven to withstand the impact of a burning hunk of the original big bang.
Medicine commercials do similar things. There is the usual list of possible side effects read so fast people pick up every other word. Most of them discuss things so horrific I think I’d rather have the illness. “If you take this medicine for occasional heartburn possible side effects could include diarrhea, constipation, dizziness, headache, irritable bowel syndrome, heart palpitation, temporary blindness, rhinorrhea, scurvy, rickets, and an uncontrollable urge to sing Toby Keith songs.” I don’t know about you, but I would simply rather burp repeatedly.
I noticed the small print on a commercial plugging a medicine for colds and allergies. The large print which was also spoken by the authoritative-announcer-voice-guy read “Feel Better Faster.” The tiny little print not spoken at all said “versus no treatment at all.” So, what they are saying is, it is clinically proven you will get better faster if you take this medicine than if you do not treat the symptoms at all. Thank you for that little tidbit of information, Jonas Salk. You would probably get better faster if you ate a fifty cent can of chicken noodle soup and took a nap than if you did nothing at all.
Television commercials will probably keep trying to give misleading information and then make the government and their lawyers happy by putting tiny print on the screen to disavow any responsibility. Beer companies would have the most fun. Here is the advertisement I can envision.
A very homely man and woman are sitting in a bar. They both have a beer and then look across at each other. They are both slightly more attractive. They order several more beers. There are now a bunch of beer bottles in front of each of them and their eyes lock in a feverish moment of passion. The man is now the hunky doctor guy from the TV show Lost and the girl makes Angelina Jolie look like Granny Clampett. They clasp hands and leave the bar together. The tiny print at the bottom of the screen reads: This is what it feels like, but the next morning you may find yourself to married to a woman nicknamed The Diesel. We are not responsible for any legal fees or tattoo removal expenses.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
A car by any other name...
The other day I was blithely driving along in my tiny little two door car. My sound system, otherwise known as a factory issue AM/FM radio, was tuned to a local music station. Then all of a sudden the world went dark. I don’t get a chance to watch the news very often, but I was pretty sure there had been no mention of a total eclipse of the sun happening around 5:00 PM on Thursday. I looked to my left and learned the sun had not been blocked by a celestial body, but rather the sky had been blotted out by a vehicle large enough to apply for statehood. (“We recognize the fifty-first state in the union: The Jones Family’s SUV.”) The car, car is such an inadequate word; the gasoline powered pachyderm passed and merged in front of me. That is when I was able to read the model name, the Armada. I had to look up to see the chrome plate affixed to the rear of the car. It was a like driving a car built for Hobbits behind a vehicle with Paul Bunyan legroom.
The name makes sense. The Spanish Armada was, in its day, the largest group of fighting ships ever assembled. The gargantuan vehicle in front of me could have been assembled using twenty or thirty 1990 Ford Escort hatchbacks similar to the one I was driving. Then it occurred to me, maybe it had been made from unsuspecting compact cars, maybe I was in danger, maybe I had better start evasive maneuvers. That was when I started laughing. Evasive maneuvers in a sixteen year old Escort were as likely as Dick Cheney being named People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive.
Naming cars sounds like a great job. I am sure there is tons of research done by market analysts to best target just the right audience. I am not sure they are always sending the message they intended. For example, there is a car called an Aspire. It is a little car, so little it looks like the consumer needs to buy two, one for each foot, to be a useful mode of transportation. The name fits. It appears to be something which hopes to be a car one day. It aspires to be a real car like Pinocchio hopes to be a real boy.
There are quite a few that just do not make sense to me. The Hummer is someone who doesn’t know the words. There was a car called a Citation. Isn’t that what police call it when they give you a little slip of paper requiring the payment of a fine or an appearance in court? Tundra? Yep, I want to drive a car named after a frigid nearly lifeless part of the frozen north. If we follow that logic we might as well name a car after a dangerous region of the world. Ladies and gentlemen introducing the Chevy Beirut. There is an Expedition. How about the Ford Donner Party, with a built in barbeque for those gridlock traffic jams in Los Angeles?
The next step in the evolution of car names will probably go along the lines of food and cigarettes. The government will require truth in advertising. Instead of the Chevette the government would have required it be called “The Boxy Car which Guarantees Never Attracting Girls.” When a person goes to his local dealership to purchase one of those giant SUV’s he wouldn’t ask for an Escalade but rather, “Do you have a ‘To Heck with the Environment’?” One of those flashy little two-seater sports cars would be called the “Mid-Life Crisis.”
The majority of car names are rugged and macho: Magnum, Viper, Mustang, and Explorer. This only made sense. For years men were the chief consumers for cars. It was a true rite of passage for a man to buy his first car. It usually entailed things like looking under the hood and kicking the tires. Both of which I can do. The problem lies in the fact that as long as there is an engine in plain sight and the tire doesn’t explode when my Chuck Taylor high top makes contact with the radial I have no further insight.
With more and more attention being paid to equal treatment for the sexes I fully expect Detroit to start targeting the female demographic. I can hear Queen Latifah doing the voiceover for a new commercial: “For Mother’s Day the Mazda Bouquet – That new car smell beats sniffing a dozen roses any day.” Maybe a television commercial featuring Julia Louis-Dreyfus introduces a new car: “the Nissan Lifemate – more dependable than any man. It takes you shopping, waits patiently in the parking lot, and even carries all your packages home without complaint.”
The name makes sense. The Spanish Armada was, in its day, the largest group of fighting ships ever assembled. The gargantuan vehicle in front of me could have been assembled using twenty or thirty 1990 Ford Escort hatchbacks similar to the one I was driving. Then it occurred to me, maybe it had been made from unsuspecting compact cars, maybe I was in danger, maybe I had better start evasive maneuvers. That was when I started laughing. Evasive maneuvers in a sixteen year old Escort were as likely as Dick Cheney being named People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive.
Naming cars sounds like a great job. I am sure there is tons of research done by market analysts to best target just the right audience. I am not sure they are always sending the message they intended. For example, there is a car called an Aspire. It is a little car, so little it looks like the consumer needs to buy two, one for each foot, to be a useful mode of transportation. The name fits. It appears to be something which hopes to be a car one day. It aspires to be a real car like Pinocchio hopes to be a real boy.
There are quite a few that just do not make sense to me. The Hummer is someone who doesn’t know the words. There was a car called a Citation. Isn’t that what police call it when they give you a little slip of paper requiring the payment of a fine or an appearance in court? Tundra? Yep, I want to drive a car named after a frigid nearly lifeless part of the frozen north. If we follow that logic we might as well name a car after a dangerous region of the world. Ladies and gentlemen introducing the Chevy Beirut. There is an Expedition. How about the Ford Donner Party, with a built in barbeque for those gridlock traffic jams in Los Angeles?
The next step in the evolution of car names will probably go along the lines of food and cigarettes. The government will require truth in advertising. Instead of the Chevette the government would have required it be called “The Boxy Car which Guarantees Never Attracting Girls.” When a person goes to his local dealership to purchase one of those giant SUV’s he wouldn’t ask for an Escalade but rather, “Do you have a ‘To Heck with the Environment’?” One of those flashy little two-seater sports cars would be called the “Mid-Life Crisis.”
The majority of car names are rugged and macho: Magnum, Viper, Mustang, and Explorer. This only made sense. For years men were the chief consumers for cars. It was a true rite of passage for a man to buy his first car. It usually entailed things like looking under the hood and kicking the tires. Both of which I can do. The problem lies in the fact that as long as there is an engine in plain sight and the tire doesn’t explode when my Chuck Taylor high top makes contact with the radial I have no further insight.
With more and more attention being paid to equal treatment for the sexes I fully expect Detroit to start targeting the female demographic. I can hear Queen Latifah doing the voiceover for a new commercial: “For Mother’s Day the Mazda Bouquet – That new car smell beats sniffing a dozen roses any day.” Maybe a television commercial featuring Julia Louis-Dreyfus introduces a new car: “the Nissan Lifemate – more dependable than any man. It takes you shopping, waits patiently in the parking lot, and even carries all your packages home without complaint.”
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Fate is still in charge
I realized I missed putting this column on last week.
All of us look at our lives as very complex things. Blood, sweat, and tears have all been expended to get us where we are. There is planning, worrying, re-arranging and more planning. We all have goals, hopes, and dreams. Goals, hopes, and dreams change as we age. When I was ten years old I wanted to be the next Ed Podolak. (If you know who Ed Podolak is give yourself twenty-five bonus points.) When I was twenty I wanted to be the next Steven Spielberg. Now that I am forty-three I want to be the next in line at Dairy Queen, some goals are more achievable than others.
I had no idea five years ago I would be writing a humor column once a week for an honest to goodness newspaper (how many readers just looked over the top of the newspaper and commented to their spouse “Oh, he’s trying to be funny.”). I had no idea ten years ago I would be an assistant principal at an intermediate center (heck, ten years ago I had never heard of an intermediate center). Fifteen years ago I would not have guessed I would have three children (there are times each week I look into the back of the minivan with mild shock). Twenty years ago I would not have thought I would be a happily married man (most every woman I knew twenty years ago would have gotten a good giggle out of the idea as well). Every one of those things may never have come to pass if my father hadn’t shaved off his mustache on a fateful night in 1967. More on that later.
We first get our educations. Some have a diploma from an institution of higher learning. Some people earned that diploma with hard work and tireless intellectual curiosity. Some people earned that diploma by writing the tuition checks, showing up in class on a semi-regular basis and consuming large amounts of cereal malt beverages with friends. (Since my mother reads this column I would like to go on record and say I was somewhere in the middle of this work/play college student continuum.)
Sometimes it is not what you know, but rather who you know that makes the biggest difference. If I knew George Clooney I would be more likely to get my screenplay made into a multi-Oscar winning motion picture. I don’t know George Clooney. I do know the morning disc jockey on KSSH so I can get an Elvis at Eight song dedicated to my daughter. Which is more important, really, the excited face of my nine year old girl hearing her name on the radio or the fame of writing a smash hit movie? It’s a no brainer. I want the fame. I’ll buy her her own stupid radio station after I cash the checks.
Actually, we put too much stock into what we do on purpose to make our lives what we want. Things just happen. Back to my father and his mustache. He was the city manager in McCook, Nebraska. The town was celebrating some sort of centennial and many of the men in town had grown facial hair to look more pioneer-like as they drove their cars around town wearing suits. (I didn’t say it made sense I just said they were doing it.) He had a job interview with the Hutchinson, Kansas city commission. He drove into town a day early, that night in the hotel he decided he’d shave off his mustache. It turned out the commission was a little split on who to hire. They chose my father on a three to two vote. Later he had a discussion with the lone woman on the commission. She had voted for hiring him. He told her he had had a mustache. Her response was she wouldn’t have voted for him if he had shown up with a mustache, after all it was 1967 and hippies had mustaches.If my father had not gotten the job in Hutchinson I would not have met the friends who were so influential in my youth. My sister wouldn’t have worked for the museum in town and fixed me up with the cute assistant curator. I would not have married her. I would not have moved to Dodge City. I probably would not have become a teacher. If I was never a teacher there is no way I would have become a principal. If I wasn’t a principal I wouldn’t have given a certain young man an entire week of recess detention. So there is at least one person who wishes my dad had lost the stupid razor.
All of us look at our lives as very complex things. Blood, sweat, and tears have all been expended to get us where we are. There is planning, worrying, re-arranging and more planning. We all have goals, hopes, and dreams. Goals, hopes, and dreams change as we age. When I was ten years old I wanted to be the next Ed Podolak. (If you know who Ed Podolak is give yourself twenty-five bonus points.) When I was twenty I wanted to be the next Steven Spielberg. Now that I am forty-three I want to be the next in line at Dairy Queen, some goals are more achievable than others.
I had no idea five years ago I would be writing a humor column once a week for an honest to goodness newspaper (how many readers just looked over the top of the newspaper and commented to their spouse “Oh, he’s trying to be funny.”). I had no idea ten years ago I would be an assistant principal at an intermediate center (heck, ten years ago I had never heard of an intermediate center). Fifteen years ago I would not have guessed I would have three children (there are times each week I look into the back of the minivan with mild shock). Twenty years ago I would not have thought I would be a happily married man (most every woman I knew twenty years ago would have gotten a good giggle out of the idea as well). Every one of those things may never have come to pass if my father hadn’t shaved off his mustache on a fateful night in 1967. More on that later.
We first get our educations. Some have a diploma from an institution of higher learning. Some people earned that diploma with hard work and tireless intellectual curiosity. Some people earned that diploma by writing the tuition checks, showing up in class on a semi-regular basis and consuming large amounts of cereal malt beverages with friends. (Since my mother reads this column I would like to go on record and say I was somewhere in the middle of this work/play college student continuum.)
Sometimes it is not what you know, but rather who you know that makes the biggest difference. If I knew George Clooney I would be more likely to get my screenplay made into a multi-Oscar winning motion picture. I don’t know George Clooney. I do know the morning disc jockey on KSSH so I can get an Elvis at Eight song dedicated to my daughter. Which is more important, really, the excited face of my nine year old girl hearing her name on the radio or the fame of writing a smash hit movie? It’s a no brainer. I want the fame. I’ll buy her her own stupid radio station after I cash the checks.
Actually, we put too much stock into what we do on purpose to make our lives what we want. Things just happen. Back to my father and his mustache. He was the city manager in McCook, Nebraska. The town was celebrating some sort of centennial and many of the men in town had grown facial hair to look more pioneer-like as they drove their cars around town wearing suits. (I didn’t say it made sense I just said they were doing it.) He had a job interview with the Hutchinson, Kansas city commission. He drove into town a day early, that night in the hotel he decided he’d shave off his mustache. It turned out the commission was a little split on who to hire. They chose my father on a three to two vote. Later he had a discussion with the lone woman on the commission. She had voted for hiring him. He told her he had had a mustache. Her response was she wouldn’t have voted for him if he had shown up with a mustache, after all it was 1967 and hippies had mustaches.If my father had not gotten the job in Hutchinson I would not have met the friends who were so influential in my youth. My sister wouldn’t have worked for the museum in town and fixed me up with the cute assistant curator. I would not have married her. I would not have moved to Dodge City. I probably would not have become a teacher. If I was never a teacher there is no way I would have become a principal. If I wasn’t a principal I wouldn’t have given a certain young man an entire week of recess detention. So there is at least one person who wishes my dad had lost the stupid razor.
That's not sick, that's funny
Everybody at my house is sick. Usually what happens in a family of any size is people take turns. The five year old drags some malicious germ home from the playground jungle gym. He rubs his nose on a variety of household surfaces before his symptoms become obvious enough to warrant quarantine in his room. Just as he starts bouncing around, the nine year old sister is the next to fall. She covers her mouth every fourth sneeze. On the other sneezes she sends a scatter pattern of bacteria like a shotgun loaded with ten million pellets of poison. When she starts feeling up to pestering her little brother again, the teenager succumbs to the insidious microbes. Since he whines as often as he talks no one has any sympathy for him until he has thrown up more than an entire fraternity on St. Patrick’s Day.
The mother, by now, has spent so much time medicating, soothing, feeding, cleaning, calming, and tucking in all the victims she starts to feel a little queasy. Before you can say, insurance co-pay, she has a fever and the energy of a three-toed sloth on Quaaludes. This is when the father puts on his jacket to head to work making some crack about he wishes he could stay home all day in bed watching television. At this moment the only reason he isn’t spending the weekend in a hospital bed watching his heartbeat represented on a tiny screen is his wife cannot get out of bed.
It is just one of the many injustices in life. After about the age of two a person is not allowed to stay in bed all day without being accused of being a lazy no good bum. The only way one can get away with it is if he or she has symptoms including, or even combining, pain, violent gastro-intestinal episodes, and/or coughing fits requiring the wearing of a truss to avoid permanent injury.
Different people have very different styles of being sick. When I am sick I pretty much want to be left alone. Occasional words of pity are welcome, but otherwise other people in the vicinity just annoy me. It may be true that other people in the vicinity annoy me when I am not sick, but in my weakened condition I don’t have the restraint to avoid telling them to buzz off when I am unwell.
Being a stoic person has come to mean someone who does not show emotion. There is a sort of continuum of stoicism for people dealing with being sick or any kind of pain. This range has to do with what it takes to elicit emotion.
Category #1 – Very Stoic: These people can step on a LEGO left on the floor at two o’clock in the morning and not only avoid yelling loud enough to wake the neighborhood but they don’t even dance about like a hyperactive Pip. They go to work with a high fever, stomach cramps, and a migraine. While showing admirable toughness without complaining these people need to be dragged back home and tied to their beds before they can spread germs to innocent bystanders. Just because you’re so tough doesn’t give you the right to transport your virulent body into my personal space.
Category #2 – Rather Stoic: These people cuss when hitting their thumb with the hammer, but only use words permissible in PG-13 movies. When sick they admit it but do not advertise it to anyone and everyone. They are capable of whining, but only to their spouse in hopes of getting a foot massage.
Category #3 – Stoic, Schmoic, I want some Sympathy: These people limp like Zola Budd running on a bed of broken glass if they so much as have a grain of sand in their shoe. An indication that they may have a predisposition to one day get mildly unwell causes them to whimper like a puppy. A hangnail elicits a trip to the emergency room because cutting it off with no anesthetic whatsoever would amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
Category #4 – Mock Stoic: These people may be the most annoying. They make sure you know they have something wrong with them, like a strained muscle. Then every time they move they make little noises. When bystanders ask, “Are you okay?” The Mock Stoic carefully places a half grin half grimace on his face and says, “Oh, I’m fine really. It only hurts when I sit down, or stand up, or lie down, but I’m okay.” It is my opinion these people are fair game for a poke in the eye so they can experience real pain.
The mother, by now, has spent so much time medicating, soothing, feeding, cleaning, calming, and tucking in all the victims she starts to feel a little queasy. Before you can say, insurance co-pay, she has a fever and the energy of a three-toed sloth on Quaaludes. This is when the father puts on his jacket to head to work making some crack about he wishes he could stay home all day in bed watching television. At this moment the only reason he isn’t spending the weekend in a hospital bed watching his heartbeat represented on a tiny screen is his wife cannot get out of bed.
It is just one of the many injustices in life. After about the age of two a person is not allowed to stay in bed all day without being accused of being a lazy no good bum. The only way one can get away with it is if he or she has symptoms including, or even combining, pain, violent gastro-intestinal episodes, and/or coughing fits requiring the wearing of a truss to avoid permanent injury.
Different people have very different styles of being sick. When I am sick I pretty much want to be left alone. Occasional words of pity are welcome, but otherwise other people in the vicinity just annoy me. It may be true that other people in the vicinity annoy me when I am not sick, but in my weakened condition I don’t have the restraint to avoid telling them to buzz off when I am unwell.
Being a stoic person has come to mean someone who does not show emotion. There is a sort of continuum of stoicism for people dealing with being sick or any kind of pain. This range has to do with what it takes to elicit emotion.
Category #1 – Very Stoic: These people can step on a LEGO left on the floor at two o’clock in the morning and not only avoid yelling loud enough to wake the neighborhood but they don’t even dance about like a hyperactive Pip. They go to work with a high fever, stomach cramps, and a migraine. While showing admirable toughness without complaining these people need to be dragged back home and tied to their beds before they can spread germs to innocent bystanders. Just because you’re so tough doesn’t give you the right to transport your virulent body into my personal space.
Category #2 – Rather Stoic: These people cuss when hitting their thumb with the hammer, but only use words permissible in PG-13 movies. When sick they admit it but do not advertise it to anyone and everyone. They are capable of whining, but only to their spouse in hopes of getting a foot massage.
Category #3 – Stoic, Schmoic, I want some Sympathy: These people limp like Zola Budd running on a bed of broken glass if they so much as have a grain of sand in their shoe. An indication that they may have a predisposition to one day get mildly unwell causes them to whimper like a puppy. A hangnail elicits a trip to the emergency room because cutting it off with no anesthetic whatsoever would amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
Category #4 – Mock Stoic: These people may be the most annoying. They make sure you know they have something wrong with them, like a strained muscle. Then every time they move they make little noises. When bystanders ask, “Are you okay?” The Mock Stoic carefully places a half grin half grimace on his face and says, “Oh, I’m fine really. It only hurts when I sit down, or stand up, or lie down, but I’m okay.” It is my opinion these people are fair game for a poke in the eye so they can experience real pain.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Chooing Well is Important
There are a whole lot of reasons I made the right decision about who to marry. A story may best illustrate one reason. A husband and wife are preparing to go out. Questions all husbands fear are usually in the offing in this situation. You know the ones. The most innocuous one (How do I look?) can be answered without fear, if the husband thinks it through. However, there are more insidious ones. Such as: “Does this make me look fat?” This question is in the lightning round of the “You Bet Your Wife” game show, because the speed at which you answer is more important than the actual answer. The miniscule pause you use to carefully select your words is just long enough for your lovely wife to fetch a pillow and the scratchiest blanket in the house to make up your bed on the den sofa. This is where I can prove I chose the right woman to marry. She does not ask these questions. It turns out she has a very good reason for not asking me such questions. She doesn’t value my opinion.
That may sound a little rough, but it is quite the right frame of mind. She does care what I think about things, but not things I know nothing about. I mean really, I wear white athletic socks at all times and wore grown-up man dress shoes for my wedding but that may have been the last time. So, am I really the person you want to guide your fashion choices? Probably not.
Remember the line of clothing for children that had special labels to help kids create matching outfits. If little t-ball star Tommy can get a shirt with a “cute lion” on the label and then a pair of shorts with the same “cute lion” he knows Mom will not cringe has he runs out in the neighborhood to play. Many grown men, myself included, could use similar help. The guys in marketing would have to lose the cute little zoo animals used for coordinating the outfits. The icons should be more manly. If captain of industry Thomas removes a shirt from his closet with a “’67 Mustang Fastback Shelby GT500” and then finds a pair of slacks with the same car he knows his wife will not cringe as he heads out to work in the big city. I might be on to something here. How about we market clothes for teenage boys? The symbols used could be a pair of “Jessica Simpsons” makes an outfit. (There is a joke there when referring to a pair of “Jessica Simpsons,” but I will leave that up to the individual reader to finish.)
Another reason I obviously made the right choice is she has absolutely no expectations that I be adept at fixing things. Some men have the knack to take broken things and make them right again. These faith healers of small appliances and household fixtures amaze me. Simply by laying hands upon the afflicted component of the house these Bob Villa meets Oral Roberts guys are greatly useful. I like duct tape and everything but I have no imagination for the million and one uses a real man has for it. The one true indicator proving I am not a Mr. Fix-it has to be I do something which no self-respecting handy man would ever do: I read the instructions.
An excellent example of my lack of handiness happened years ago when we lived in an older house. There was a big downpour of rain. We had had a problem with moisture in the basement in the past so I decide I need to be a guy and investigate the situation in the little concrete room which housed the furnace and the hot water heater. When I got down there I realized I was not equipped to handle the situation. There was quite literally a stream of water coming from the wall. It looked like an above ground pool had sprung a leak. The water was squirting into the room from an eighth inch hole in the wall. I stared at it for a moment or two, and I then sprang into action. My “a screwdriver has something to do with orange juice” instinct came into play, and I did the only thing I knew how to do. I stuck my finger in the hole. This would have worked to, if I never wanted to go anywhere again for the rest of my life. My wife came downstairs after noticing I had not returned to the living room. She then did something that also proves we are a perfect couple. She started to laugh…hard.
That may sound a little rough, but it is quite the right frame of mind. She does care what I think about things, but not things I know nothing about. I mean really, I wear white athletic socks at all times and wore grown-up man dress shoes for my wedding but that may have been the last time. So, am I really the person you want to guide your fashion choices? Probably not.
Remember the line of clothing for children that had special labels to help kids create matching outfits. If little t-ball star Tommy can get a shirt with a “cute lion” on the label and then a pair of shorts with the same “cute lion” he knows Mom will not cringe has he runs out in the neighborhood to play. Many grown men, myself included, could use similar help. The guys in marketing would have to lose the cute little zoo animals used for coordinating the outfits. The icons should be more manly. If captain of industry Thomas removes a shirt from his closet with a “’67 Mustang Fastback Shelby GT500” and then finds a pair of slacks with the same car he knows his wife will not cringe as he heads out to work in the big city. I might be on to something here. How about we market clothes for teenage boys? The symbols used could be a pair of “Jessica Simpsons” makes an outfit. (There is a joke there when referring to a pair of “Jessica Simpsons,” but I will leave that up to the individual reader to finish.)
Another reason I obviously made the right choice is she has absolutely no expectations that I be adept at fixing things. Some men have the knack to take broken things and make them right again. These faith healers of small appliances and household fixtures amaze me. Simply by laying hands upon the afflicted component of the house these Bob Villa meets Oral Roberts guys are greatly useful. I like duct tape and everything but I have no imagination for the million and one uses a real man has for it. The one true indicator proving I am not a Mr. Fix-it has to be I do something which no self-respecting handy man would ever do: I read the instructions.
An excellent example of my lack of handiness happened years ago when we lived in an older house. There was a big downpour of rain. We had had a problem with moisture in the basement in the past so I decide I need to be a guy and investigate the situation in the little concrete room which housed the furnace and the hot water heater. When I got down there I realized I was not equipped to handle the situation. There was quite literally a stream of water coming from the wall. It looked like an above ground pool had sprung a leak. The water was squirting into the room from an eighth inch hole in the wall. I stared at it for a moment or two, and I then sprang into action. My “a screwdriver has something to do with orange juice” instinct came into play, and I did the only thing I knew how to do. I stuck my finger in the hole. This would have worked to, if I never wanted to go anywhere again for the rest of my life. My wife came downstairs after noticing I had not returned to the living room. She then did something that also proves we are a perfect couple. She started to laugh…hard.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Happy isn't always easy
Here is the latest column as it is published in the Dodge City Daily Globe newspaper.
I used to think everyone’s goal in life was to be happy. I fully realized different people had different ideas of what would bring happiness. There were of course times someone would desire something which made absolutely no sense to me. For example, in high school a girl named "Joan" decided she would rather go to the prom with "John" instead of the more sensitive, more intelligent, and more handsome "Chris." (Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent, but you know who you are. Don’t you, Mary? You remember stomping on the fragile male ego of a shy young man crushing his spirit like an aluminum can in one of those things which crushes aluminum cans so you can turn them in at the recycle center in order to do your part to help keep America clean and save energy. You remember, huh, don’t you?!? Sorry, I guess it is more of an open wound than I thought it was.)
As I grow older and spend more time with a greater variety of people my newest conclusion is there are a lot of people who are not only not happy but they do not seem to want to be happy. The things they say and do indicate there is some sort of perverse need to be unhappy. If you stop and think about it you probably know someone like that yourself. These are the people who see the glass half empty, but they also believe the drink in the glass is carcinogenic, laced with lima beans and has an aftertaste worse than diet soda.
I think part of what validates the negative thinking of so many people is the way people rate what is good and bad in the arts. I have named this the Oprah Disease. The reason I have given it that name is because of the daytime talk show host’s book club. When she first decided she was not only the person to decide what was trendy and important in relation to issues facing the women of today, but was also to be the bell cow for what was true literary greatness, she chose book after book with such depressing storylines it was hard to find a building high enough to jump off of after reading one. I mean really, just because the main character is an unwed teenage mother working in a coal mine whose son suffers from a rare skin disease requiring him to live his life wearing clown make-up doesn’t mean it is well written. It just means the author has mercilessly beaten the audience over the head with the pity stick causing them to put a strange value on the book.
To be fair it did not start with Ms. Winfrey. Look at the books we grew up reading. Old Yeller? The dog dies. Where the Red Fern Grows? Two dogs die. It makes you glad Dr. Seuss didn’t try to earn a few extra bucks writing for this demographic. One fish, two fish, dead fish, horribly mutated due to the accident at the nuclear plant fish. Or maybe the Woset is forced to come out of the closet and is persecuted for his alternative lifestyle. Or even worse…The Cat in the Hat is diagnosed with feline leukemia and leaves Thing 1 and Thing 2 alone and destitute in their box.
The movies are just as guilty. Look at the Oscar winners for Best Picture over the years. A comedy won when F.D.R. was president and not again until Nixon was in the Oval Office. Both are times in history when the world needed a good laugh. (Judging from the present state of affairs a comedy should be winning again quite soon.) The most recent winner stuck to the trend of depressing must be good. Crash featured an all star cast of very talented actors and an intelligent script, but was there a single likeable person to be found in the entire film? One of the most suc cessful movies of the recent past was Titanic. Everyone who bought a ticket walked into the theater knowing the boat was going to sink. The King of the World became fertilizer for a kelp bed, but that was not the worst of it. Not only was the romance doomed. Not only did Leo DiCaprio and hundreds of computer generated extras die. All these horrible things happened AND Celine Dion sang. What’s next? Hindenburg starring Matt Damon and Kate Hudson as doomed lovers traveling to New Jersey on the airship and the theme song, "Oh, The Humanity," is performed by, no, dare I even think it…Barry Manilow.
I used to think everyone’s goal in life was to be happy. I fully realized different people had different ideas of what would bring happiness. There were of course times someone would desire something which made absolutely no sense to me. For example, in high school a girl named "Joan" decided she would rather go to the prom with "John" instead of the more sensitive, more intelligent, and more handsome "Chris." (Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent, but you know who you are. Don’t you, Mary? You remember stomping on the fragile male ego of a shy young man crushing his spirit like an aluminum can in one of those things which crushes aluminum cans so you can turn them in at the recycle center in order to do your part to help keep America clean and save energy. You remember, huh, don’t you?!? Sorry, I guess it is more of an open wound than I thought it was.)
As I grow older and spend more time with a greater variety of people my newest conclusion is there are a lot of people who are not only not happy but they do not seem to want to be happy. The things they say and do indicate there is some sort of perverse need to be unhappy. If you stop and think about it you probably know someone like that yourself. These are the people who see the glass half empty, but they also believe the drink in the glass is carcinogenic, laced with lima beans and has an aftertaste worse than diet soda.
I think part of what validates the negative thinking of so many people is the way people rate what is good and bad in the arts. I have named this the Oprah Disease. The reason I have given it that name is because of the daytime talk show host’s book club. When she first decided she was not only the person to decide what was trendy and important in relation to issues facing the women of today, but was also to be the bell cow for what was true literary greatness, she chose book after book with such depressing storylines it was hard to find a building high enough to jump off of after reading one. I mean really, just because the main character is an unwed teenage mother working in a coal mine whose son suffers from a rare skin disease requiring him to live his life wearing clown make-up doesn’t mean it is well written. It just means the author has mercilessly beaten the audience over the head with the pity stick causing them to put a strange value on the book.
To be fair it did not start with Ms. Winfrey. Look at the books we grew up reading. Old Yeller? The dog dies. Where the Red Fern Grows? Two dogs die. It makes you glad Dr. Seuss didn’t try to earn a few extra bucks writing for this demographic. One fish, two fish, dead fish, horribly mutated due to the accident at the nuclear plant fish. Or maybe the Woset is forced to come out of the closet and is persecuted for his alternative lifestyle. Or even worse…The Cat in the Hat is diagnosed with feline leukemia and leaves Thing 1 and Thing 2 alone and destitute in their box.
The movies are just as guilty. Look at the Oscar winners for Best Picture over the years. A comedy won when F.D.R. was president and not again until Nixon was in the Oval Office. Both are times in history when the world needed a good laugh. (Judging from the present state of affairs a comedy should be winning again quite soon.) The most recent winner stuck to the trend of depressing must be good. Crash featured an all star cast of very talented actors and an intelligent script, but was there a single likeable person to be found in the entire film? One of the most suc cessful movies of the recent past was Titanic. Everyone who bought a ticket walked into the theater knowing the boat was going to sink. The King of the World became fertilizer for a kelp bed, but that was not the worst of it. Not only was the romance doomed. Not only did Leo DiCaprio and hundreds of computer generated extras die. All these horrible things happened AND Celine Dion sang. What’s next? Hindenburg starring Matt Damon and Kate Hudson as doomed lovers traveling to New Jersey on the airship and the theme song, "Oh, The Humanity," is performed by, no, dare I even think it…Barry Manilow.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Return to the Blogosphere
I realize due to the extended absence no one may even notice I have started to post again. The great number of things going on in my life seem to always get in the way of writing this blog. I have decided I will start posting my weekly humor column published in the Dodge City Daily Globe newspaper.
I still hope to turn my life into one that spends more time creating than anything else. I have switched jobs back to education. The job takes a lot of energy, especially spending so much time being lied to by eleven year olds. Imum Pancy has been successful. Broken Wind has to be considered a success. The Gunsmoke documentary was a success. We have plans for more projects that should continue the success and fun.
Weekly Column ---
Always before the phrase “It’s a small world” brought to mind that insipid song. You know the one. Once it starts running through your head a severe blow with a blunt instrument is the only thing able to remove it. Note to anyone planning a trip to Disneyland: Do not go on that ride first otherwise it is impossible to enjoy Space Mountain with “It’s a world of hope, it’s a world of joy” slamming around in your mind.
Actually, the phrase is meant to refer to the odd little coincidences in life showing the interconnectedness of people. We have all had those moments. As you are checking out at the local super market the person at the cash register strikes up a conversation. At some point in the conversation you realize you both grew up in the same small town in southwestern Nebraska, you both went to the same grade school, you both had a crush on Miss Sheridan your fourth grade music teacher, but that is not all. You both have the same strawberry birthmark in the shape of the European country, Italy (without the island of Sicily included) showing you were separated at birth and you are not only brothers, but the true heirs to the throne of the ancient land of Zendovia. Well, maybe that only happens to me.
Recently, I started reading the book, The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. It is a fascinating read. The thesis put forth by Mr. Friedman is the technological and political changes within the last twenty years have made the world flat. The world has been made “smaller” by the communication industries. Information which used to take days, weeks, and months to get from one spot on the world to another can now be shared almost instantly. That is not what he is talking about. The author says the world is being flattened, because people all over the world not only get information instantly but they can use it to build and create like never before. Tasks that used to only belong to the Untied States can be done and done well all over the world. The leveling of the playing field has flattened the world.
If Christopher Columbus tried his voyage today he would use satellite tracking devices which would tell him exactly where he was at all times. If he had any difficulty with the software he could call a helpline and oddly enough it would probably connect him to genuine Indians (not the Native Americans he mistakenly named after a country on the other side of the globe). A great many of the call centers helping people with credit card or computer problems are in places like Bangalore, India. No longer is India supplying spices and exotic goods to the royalty of Europe. Now India supplies young, educated people adopting fake American names and accents, to help little old ladies in Pasadena get their e-mail working again.
My favorite use of the extensive connectivity of the world has to be remote personal assistants. Many people have PDA’s (personal digital assistants) those handheld computers which have calendars, notepads, address books, e-mail capabilities, as well as the most important thing, Tetris. The other day I was attending a church meeting and the senior pastor pulled one of those electronic doo-dads out of his pocket to check a date for an upcoming event. I have to admit I had to wonder if he typed in Deuteronomy 2:15 could he get the passage? Or better yet, was there a Catholic version into which the priest could type the confession proffered by the parishioner and receive the proper penance to be handed down?
Anyway, the remote personal assistant is something big time corporate types are now using. It is an actual person. Let’s say you need a report researched and a presentation prepared for a meeting at 9:00 AM the very next day, it is 6:00 PM the previous evening, and your mind is mush from a tough day dismantling the pension fund of hundreds of life long employees in order to purchase a new jet to get you back and forth to your villa in the south of France. Joe Chief-Executive-Officer e-mails his RPA what he needs. This request is processed in an office in India. The research is done by four recent graduates from the M.I.T of New Delhi and the PowerPoint presentation is created by a computer geek working towards his Ph.D. in nanotechnology. When the goliath of Wall Street arrives in his corner office the presentation is waiting in the inbox of his desktop computer. I’d love that. I just e-mail a humor writer in India and the next day a column is waiting for me. Granted jokes about sacred cows in Dodge City might fall a little flat.
I still hope to turn my life into one that spends more time creating than anything else. I have switched jobs back to education. The job takes a lot of energy, especially spending so much time being lied to by eleven year olds. Imum Pancy has been successful. Broken Wind has to be considered a success. The Gunsmoke documentary was a success. We have plans for more projects that should continue the success and fun.
Weekly Column ---
Always before the phrase “It’s a small world” brought to mind that insipid song. You know the one. Once it starts running through your head a severe blow with a blunt instrument is the only thing able to remove it. Note to anyone planning a trip to Disneyland: Do not go on that ride first otherwise it is impossible to enjoy Space Mountain with “It’s a world of hope, it’s a world of joy” slamming around in your mind.
Actually, the phrase is meant to refer to the odd little coincidences in life showing the interconnectedness of people. We have all had those moments. As you are checking out at the local super market the person at the cash register strikes up a conversation. At some point in the conversation you realize you both grew up in the same small town in southwestern Nebraska, you both went to the same grade school, you both had a crush on Miss Sheridan your fourth grade music teacher, but that is not all. You both have the same strawberry birthmark in the shape of the European country, Italy (without the island of Sicily included) showing you were separated at birth and you are not only brothers, but the true heirs to the throne of the ancient land of Zendovia. Well, maybe that only happens to me.
Recently, I started reading the book, The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. It is a fascinating read. The thesis put forth by Mr. Friedman is the technological and political changes within the last twenty years have made the world flat. The world has been made “smaller” by the communication industries. Information which used to take days, weeks, and months to get from one spot on the world to another can now be shared almost instantly. That is not what he is talking about. The author says the world is being flattened, because people all over the world not only get information instantly but they can use it to build and create like never before. Tasks that used to only belong to the Untied States can be done and done well all over the world. The leveling of the playing field has flattened the world.
If Christopher Columbus tried his voyage today he would use satellite tracking devices which would tell him exactly where he was at all times. If he had any difficulty with the software he could call a helpline and oddly enough it would probably connect him to genuine Indians (not the Native Americans he mistakenly named after a country on the other side of the globe). A great many of the call centers helping people with credit card or computer problems are in places like Bangalore, India. No longer is India supplying spices and exotic goods to the royalty of Europe. Now India supplies young, educated people adopting fake American names and accents, to help little old ladies in Pasadena get their e-mail working again.
My favorite use of the extensive connectivity of the world has to be remote personal assistants. Many people have PDA’s (personal digital assistants) those handheld computers which have calendars, notepads, address books, e-mail capabilities, as well as the most important thing, Tetris. The other day I was attending a church meeting and the senior pastor pulled one of those electronic doo-dads out of his pocket to check a date for an upcoming event. I have to admit I had to wonder if he typed in Deuteronomy 2:15 could he get the passage? Or better yet, was there a Catholic version into which the priest could type the confession proffered by the parishioner and receive the proper penance to be handed down?
Anyway, the remote personal assistant is something big time corporate types are now using. It is an actual person. Let’s say you need a report researched and a presentation prepared for a meeting at 9:00 AM the very next day, it is 6:00 PM the previous evening, and your mind is mush from a tough day dismantling the pension fund of hundreds of life long employees in order to purchase a new jet to get you back and forth to your villa in the south of France. Joe Chief-Executive-Officer e-mails his RPA what he needs. This request is processed in an office in India. The research is done by four recent graduates from the M.I.T of New Delhi and the PowerPoint presentation is created by a computer geek working towards his Ph.D. in nanotechnology. When the goliath of Wall Street arrives in his corner office the presentation is waiting in the inbox of his desktop computer. I’d love that. I just e-mail a humor writer in India and the next day a column is waiting for me. Granted jokes about sacred cows in Dodge City might fall a little flat.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Nobody's Perfect
First of all let me say that I am far from perfect myself. I have a tendancy to procrastinate and I often underestimate how much work it will take to accomplish some tasks.
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way it is time to point the finger elsewhere...
In my capacity as the general manager of the Legend I come into contact with a great many people, groups, businesses and so forth. I have learned that people spend a lot of time in none productive pursuits. As a teacher the day was so clock driven the wasted time was minimalized. (A bad teacher could waste the whole day, but if you were really trying the "lost" time was small.) The pre-planning time is not anywhere near as much in the "real world" There seems to me at least a great deal more winging it going on. It is not necesarily a bad thing, but it can frustrate people who come in from the outside.
I hope the things I do do not cause the same levels of frustration in others that I experience with some of the entities I am dealing regularly.
Here is the latest Globe column... a day late said the procrastinator...
http://dodgeglobe.com/stories/030905/lif_20050309044.shtml
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way it is time to point the finger elsewhere...
In my capacity as the general manager of the Legend I come into contact with a great many people, groups, businesses and so forth. I have learned that people spend a lot of time in none productive pursuits. As a teacher the day was so clock driven the wasted time was minimalized. (A bad teacher could waste the whole day, but if you were really trying the "lost" time was small.) The pre-planning time is not anywhere near as much in the "real world" There seems to me at least a great deal more winging it going on. It is not necesarily a bad thing, but it can frustrate people who come in from the outside.
I hope the things I do do not cause the same levels of frustration in others that I experience with some of the entities I am dealing regularly.
Here is the latest Globe column... a day late said the procrastinator...
http://dodgeglobe.com/stories/030905/lif_20050309044.shtml
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Reading and Listening to Books
Books on tape are great!
I still love to sit on the couch with an actual paper and ink book and read. However, since I am in the car an awful lot books on tape or CD have been wonderful. Reading allows for re-reading and underlining and referring back a few pages, which is always good. The availability of books in audio has doubled the input my brain can get.
I am reading "The Tipping Point" an interesting book about the dynamics of epidemics, of both the social and illness types. I am listening to "To Sail the Dark Wine Sea - Why the Greeks Still Matter." Usually I just read detective novels and go to sleep. I do not know what kicked off this interest in non-fiction, but I am learning a lot.
The book about the Greeks is cool for a few reasons. One reason I like it is because I got into quite a debate in an education class about what an educated person should know. Too many folks think an education is just something to prepare you for a career. Aarrrggghhh! An educated person is a valuable human being not the employee of the month at Starbucks! Learning about Homer and Aeschylus etc. has benefits even in 2005. I also learned that the word "symposium" means a meeting for drinking large quantities of wine. The next time I am invited to an education symposium I'm going!
The latest column is at this address:
http://www.dodgeglobe.com/stories/022305/lif_20050223041.shtml
I still love to sit on the couch with an actual paper and ink book and read. However, since I am in the car an awful lot books on tape or CD have been wonderful. Reading allows for re-reading and underlining and referring back a few pages, which is always good. The availability of books in audio has doubled the input my brain can get.
I am reading "The Tipping Point" an interesting book about the dynamics of epidemics, of both the social and illness types. I am listening to "To Sail the Dark Wine Sea - Why the Greeks Still Matter." Usually I just read detective novels and go to sleep. I do not know what kicked off this interest in non-fiction, but I am learning a lot.
The book about the Greeks is cool for a few reasons. One reason I like it is because I got into quite a debate in an education class about what an educated person should know. Too many folks think an education is just something to prepare you for a career. Aarrrggghhh! An educated person is a valuable human being not the employee of the month at Starbucks! Learning about Homer and Aeschylus etc. has benefits even in 2005. I also learned that the word "symposium" means a meeting for drinking large quantities of wine. The next time I am invited to an education symposium I'm going!
The latest column is at this address:
http://www.dodgeglobe.com/stories/022305/lif_20050223041.shtml
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Complaining through the ages
I think I have passed over into the OLD generation. I am seeing more and more things that I think were better when I was a kid. Television was better. There are things I like, but there are fewer things. The hot new music is unintelligable to me much of the time. I grumble and grouse in a much different way. As a kid you whine and do odd body gyrations to show your parents you are bored to death as they shop in the grocery store. As a teenager you loudly complain and have the egocentric idea that no one has the problems you have. As a young adult the complaining is done in small groups as you talk about how tough it is to make a living with something as useless as a liberal arts degree. I am now at the stage where I sigh a lot and grumble under my breath. "Grumble, grumble, darn kids never close the stupid doors, grumble, grumble, grumble, freakin' dog is always barking, grumble grumble, grumble, damn government can't get anything right, grumble, grumble, grumble."
Yep, I am in that generation. I truly do not mind it though. There are many, many things right with my life, but it is still oddly enjoyabe to grumble - somewhat cathartic.
Grumbling is allowed, but don't forget to enjoy the good things...
If you interested the latest column by yours truly appearing in the Dodge City Daily Globe is at the following address:
http://www.dodgeglobe.com/stories/021605/lif_20050216044.shtml
Yep, I am in that generation. I truly do not mind it though. There are many, many things right with my life, but it is still oddly enjoyabe to grumble - somewhat cathartic.
Grumbling is allowed, but don't forget to enjoy the good things...
If you interested the latest column by yours truly appearing in the Dodge City Daily Globe is at the following address:
http://www.dodgeglobe.com/stories/021605/lif_20050216044.shtml
Monday, February 07, 2005
Thinking can be complex
I hate it when people make lame excuses for not getting tasks accomplished. So I will not regale you with all the reasons I have not blogged recently (writing for the Globe, getting things done for Imum Pancy, things for the Legend are beginning to bounce, I am still married with three children...sorry).
I have been reading fascinating stuff recently. Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink has really cool insights into how people think and why they think the things they do. Did you know that a disproportionate number of top CEOs are not only white and male (no surprise) but they are also tall. The things you think without realizing it push you in all sorts of directions that may or may not be good for you. Did you know that just making angry faces without having things that have truly pissed you off can make you feel angry? If you hold a pen in your teeth, thus making it easier for your face to smile, while watching cartoons makes them more enjoyable. If you hold a pen between your lips, thus making it hard to impossible to smile, while watching cartoons makes them less enjoyable. If you put a person in a certain frame of mind they will act in that frame of mind even in situations that would normally cause different reactions.
The human mind is an amazing thing...to bad too few of us use it on a regular basis. Others overuse it and need to let it do more of its stuff on its own. The well-trained gut reaction is often more valuable than the highly dissected, re-thought, re-hashed, and highly researched decision.
I have been reading fascinating stuff recently. Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink has really cool insights into how people think and why they think the things they do. Did you know that a disproportionate number of top CEOs are not only white and male (no surprise) but they are also tall. The things you think without realizing it push you in all sorts of directions that may or may not be good for you. Did you know that just making angry faces without having things that have truly pissed you off can make you feel angry? If you hold a pen in your teeth, thus making it easier for your face to smile, while watching cartoons makes them more enjoyable. If you hold a pen between your lips, thus making it hard to impossible to smile, while watching cartoons makes them less enjoyable. If you put a person in a certain frame of mind they will act in that frame of mind even in situations that would normally cause different reactions.
The human mind is an amazing thing...to bad too few of us use it on a regular basis. Others overuse it and need to let it do more of its stuff on its own. The well-trained gut reaction is often more valuable than the highly dissected, re-thought, re-hashed, and highly researched decision.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Letter to the Editor
Dear Sir,
I want to express my displeasure about an issue in the Kansas State Legislature. I can't believe these people are spending so much time talking about s-e-x. They should be ashamed of the themselves. I don't think s-e-x should be talked about in public places. However, I am going to have to make an exemption.
The people in Topeka want to outlaw same sex marriage. This is awful! I only know one way to have sex. I have the same sex all the time. If they make this illegal I don't think I can handle it. I can't come up with a new way to do it each time my wife and I want to have relations. Granted it only happens whenever we change the clocks (and the batteries in the smoke detectors) but after we spring forward I will not be able to figure out a new way to fall back.
Those yahoos in Topeka had better come up with some kind of manual if they expect everyone in the state to stop having the same sex. I for one would allow my tax dollars to make some sort of Kansas Sutra to help the less imaginative of us.
Sincerely,
Floyd Christopher Turbo, Jr.
(apologies to my mother who reads this...)
I want to express my displeasure about an issue in the Kansas State Legislature. I can't believe these people are spending so much time talking about s-e-x. They should be ashamed of the themselves. I don't think s-e-x should be talked about in public places. However, I am going to have to make an exemption.
The people in Topeka want to outlaw same sex marriage. This is awful! I only know one way to have sex. I have the same sex all the time. If they make this illegal I don't think I can handle it. I can't come up with a new way to do it each time my wife and I want to have relations. Granted it only happens whenever we change the clocks (and the batteries in the smoke detectors) but after we spring forward I will not be able to figure out a new way to fall back.
Those yahoos in Topeka had better come up with some kind of manual if they expect everyone in the state to stop having the same sex. I for one would allow my tax dollars to make some sort of Kansas Sutra to help the less imaginative of us.
Sincerely,
Floyd Christopher Turbo, Jr.
(apologies to my mother who reads this...)
Monday, January 24, 2005
The King is Dead...
I always felt a certain connection to Johnny Carson. He was born in Nebraska. I was born in Nebraska. He started on the Tonight Show in 1962. I started on this planet in 1962. Every anniversary show for Johnny had the same number as the number of candles on my birthday cake. He was funny. I always wanted to be funny. He seemed to have a kind soul. I strive for kindness. Humor for him was never mean-spirited. I find it difficult to make jokes that might be hurtful to anyone. He was a private man. I am naturally shy and value my time on my own, even though much of my work has me in some sort of public spotlight. I have missed him since 1992 and now he has passed.
Why do I feel genuine sadness? I never met him. I only saw him on television with millions of others seeing him at the same time. He wasn't talking to me. That is what made him the best at what he did. His sincerity was visible. For years and years I wanted to be Johnny Carson when I grew up. But no one will ever quite match up to him.
Thank you Mr. Carson for all your time and talent given to so many, and for being a role model I am still proud to publically proclaim.
Why do I feel genuine sadness? I never met him. I only saw him on television with millions of others seeing him at the same time. He wasn't talking to me. That is what made him the best at what he did. His sincerity was visible. For years and years I wanted to be Johnny Carson when I grew up. But no one will ever quite match up to him.
Thank you Mr. Carson for all your time and talent given to so many, and for being a role model I am still proud to publically proclaim.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
New Stuff is Happening
As mentioned earlier, I have made the leap to newspaper columnist!
The old Chris, who always down-played any successful endeavor, would say the local paper just wanted a local writer to add more local flavor to the paper. The new Chris, who proudly takes credit for his accomplishments, would say increased confidence in his writing helped him sell his work to a new outlet. Either way (you choose) I am now officially a weekly humor columnist for an honest to goodness newspaper.
The most recent column (number 2 overall) is posted on the papers website at this address:
http://www.dodgeglobe.com/stories/011205/lif_20050112022.shtml
The "Pod of Geniuses" known as Imum Pancy is working towards many new things. Life can be good.
The old Chris, who always down-played any successful endeavor, would say the local paper just wanted a local writer to add more local flavor to the paper. The new Chris, who proudly takes credit for his accomplishments, would say increased confidence in his writing helped him sell his work to a new outlet. Either way (you choose) I am now officially a weekly humor columnist for an honest to goodness newspaper.
The most recent column (number 2 overall) is posted on the papers website at this address:
http://www.dodgeglobe.com/stories/011205/lif_20050112022.shtml
The "Pod of Geniuses" known as Imum Pancy is working towards many new things. Life can be good.
Monday, January 03, 2005
A new year begins...
The year ahead seems to be rife with possibilities. I get to generally manage the Legend with a year under my belt and put more of my own stamp on the game night entertainment. I am continuing with the radio broadcasting of high school sports which is fun and the added experience makes it possible to be a better broadcaster for the Legend. I get to continue the column in the Legend magazine. These things are great fun and allow me to dabble in a variety of things.
The new endeavors look good. The "Broken Wind" script is finished and the pre-production and the shooting schedule should get accomplished in a while. I also will be branching out with the humor column stuff to the Dodge City Daily Globe. Wednesday's "lifestyle" section will start carrying my stuff. Since Dave Barry is taking a sabbatical why not try to fill the void.
Everything that is going well in my life can be attributed to the people I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by. Claudia makes it all happen. The family I grew up in created my sensibilites. Rob taught me how to be funny and to be a friend. Sarah keeps pushing me to create, and helps set the bar high. Seth has provided confidence and made what was only a weak wish into a reality. Thank you to all.
The new endeavors look good. The "Broken Wind" script is finished and the pre-production and the shooting schedule should get accomplished in a while. I also will be branching out with the humor column stuff to the Dodge City Daily Globe. Wednesday's "lifestyle" section will start carrying my stuff. Since Dave Barry is taking a sabbatical why not try to fill the void.
Everything that is going well in my life can be attributed to the people I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by. Claudia makes it all happen. The family I grew up in created my sensibilites. Rob taught me how to be funny and to be a friend. Sarah keeps pushing me to create, and helps set the bar high. Seth has provided confidence and made what was only a weak wish into a reality. Thank you to all.
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