February 27, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 326
If you were King of the Forest, the animals still wouldn't listen to you. They've all pretty much got their own agenda, and Hail to the King isn't a huge priority.
PEOPLE TO AVOID
If there's one standout feature of life, it's that there's no shortage of people. They are everywhere, in all shapes and sizes, and with all sorts of things on their mind. Most of them are delightful and very good company, well worth knowing. There are those few, however, who are either cruel, selfish or just plain irritating. Luckily there are few of them and a ton of the more enjoyable types so you're not missing out on anything if you avoid these people:
Someone who has many amusing stories that all seem to end with the phrase: "So I took out my gun and shot him!," followed by a big belly laugh.
People who want to discuss their pets constantly and insist you agree their animal is "almost human." No, no it is not. But you are.
People who scan religious texts for out-of-context excerpts that justify their hatred and their nasty behavior. A pox be upon them.
Anyone who doesn't like ice cream. What else is wrong with them?
People who insist that their oddball diet of choice is the only proper sustenance for everybody and only evil people disagree with them.
Thunder Thieves. There are those people who just cannot stand to let someone else shine, to have their moment of joy and feeling special. They interject themselves into someone else's big moment to focus all attention back where they feel it properly belongs, on themselves and only them at all times forever no matter what. Another name for such petty and insecure souls is opera singers: me-me-me-me!
Exercise fanatics. To these people, there's nothing worth doing that is not worth overdoing. Most of us would take the six pack over the six pack abs.
Experts on everything. Keep going, professor. I think I see someone in need of your vast intellectual prowess down the road a mile or so.
Frowners. That's one hell of an odd choice for a permanent facial expression, and one most of us would rather not look at for very long.
Conspiracy Nuts. The biggest favor you can do for these people is to shun them. This way they'll be certain there's a nefarious plot against them, thus making their lives full and purposeful. It's a win-win situation. You've spread some joy to someone and don't have to listen to their convoluted nonsense.
Judges. Ever notice that judgmental people never judge anybody to be good in any way? No, the rest of us never just seem to measure up to their own personal perfection.
Advisors. We all seek advice from time to time from people who know us and who we trust. Then there is that breed of unsolicited advice-givers whose own lives are generally a mess and yet they feel they know what is best for everyone else. Other than for amusement, why would anyone listen to them?
Men who carry a change purse in their pocket. What the hell is that all about? Didn't they ever read about Ebenezer Scrooge?
Gloom and doom types. To these people, the future hold nothing but disaster. If they won ten million bucks in the lottery they'd complain about the taxes they'd have to pay and how everybody would be after their dough. Vindicate them by making sure being in your company is not in their future.
Blamers. Blamers are never at fault for all the crazy things that happen to them. Like their Conspiracy Nut cousins, there's always something or somebody to blame for their misfortunes. It's never the person they see in the mirror every bleak morning and they will never admit that the whole world may have a point and they just might have a little bit of a flawed attitude.
Dismissers. When something hard or catastrophic happens to you, there are those among us who say it is no big deal, that their experiences have been far worse. Cancer, shmancer! I have suffered worse. So what if someone you love died? I get migraines! Not the best people with which to commiserate.
Bad News Bearers. Some people just love to put a damper on everyone else's joy, usually waiting until someone is feeling pretty good before dropping some horrible piece of information from their vast inventory of disturbing and negative tidings. Killjoys live for wiping the smiles off other faces to match their own grim mugs. Give them some bad news: You've seen the last of me.
Revisionists. These are people who feel that their own painful past can be rewritten in memory, even trying to convince people who were there at the time that their behavior was completely admirable and proper. They insist long and loud even though everybody else remembers vividly how badly they screwed up and how rotten they acted. Admitting a mistake would be like cutting off a limb to these people, so instead they alienate everybody close to them with their lies and self-deception.
Voices of God. While many of us believe in God and practice one sort or religion or another, few of us pretend to speak for the Creator. Those who do always seem to interpret God's words in a way that agrees wholeheartedly with their own mindset and personal opinions. How convenient. And when you're God's mouthpiece, then anything you do is automatically okay, like that whole multiple subservient wives deal and getting rich on other people's money. How very convenient!
War Mongers. Doesn't it seem that the least war-mongering people are soldiers, the people who actually have to fight the wars that others love to start from the comfort of safe surroundings? Soldiers sign up to defend and protect their nation and have their hands plenty full with that demanding duty. They don't need the people who they serve using them as expendable pawns every time their nation disagrees with another nation. War is hell on earth, but only for those in harm's way. For some, it is a parlor game for monetary gain and a casually vicious enterprise. Wonder how casual they'd be if the viscousness, the stench of death and horrid bloody injuries were part of their everyday lives, if those who call for warfare at the drop of a hat actually had to participate in one? Before boot camp was over Pacifism would catch on in a hurry. Who knows, humanity might even get the hang of tolerance, good will and diplomacy. Until then, shun the war mongers, those cowards and bullies by proxy. You want to be a bully, do it in person or shut the hell up. Faced with the prospect of facing real danger, all bullies change their tune swiftly.
Someone who has many amusing stories that all seem to end with the phrase: "So I took out my gun and shot him!," followed by a big belly laugh.
People who want to discuss their pets constantly and insist you agree their animal is "almost human." No, no it is not. But you are.
People who scan religious texts for out-of-context excerpts that justify their hatred and their nasty behavior. A pox be upon them.
Anyone who doesn't like ice cream. What else is wrong with them?
People who insist that their oddball diet of choice is the only proper sustenance for everybody and only evil people disagree with them.
Thunder Thieves. There are those people who just cannot stand to let someone else shine, to have their moment of joy and feeling special. They interject themselves into someone else's big moment to focus all attention back where they feel it properly belongs, on themselves and only them at all times forever no matter what. Another name for such petty and insecure souls is opera singers: me-me-me-me!
Exercise fanatics. To these people, there's nothing worth doing that is not worth overdoing. Most of us would take the six pack over the six pack abs.
Experts on everything. Keep going, professor. I think I see someone in need of your vast intellectual prowess down the road a mile or so.
Frowners. That's one hell of an odd choice for a permanent facial expression, and one most of us would rather not look at for very long.
Conspiracy Nuts. The biggest favor you can do for these people is to shun them. This way they'll be certain there's a nefarious plot against them, thus making their lives full and purposeful. It's a win-win situation. You've spread some joy to someone and don't have to listen to their convoluted nonsense.
Judges. Ever notice that judgmental people never judge anybody to be good in any way? No, the rest of us never just seem to measure up to their own personal perfection.
Advisors. We all seek advice from time to time from people who know us and who we trust. Then there is that breed of unsolicited advice-givers whose own lives are generally a mess and yet they feel they know what is best for everyone else. Other than for amusement, why would anyone listen to them?
Men who carry a change purse in their pocket. What the hell is that all about? Didn't they ever read about Ebenezer Scrooge?
Gloom and doom types. To these people, the future hold nothing but disaster. If they won ten million bucks in the lottery they'd complain about the taxes they'd have to pay and how everybody would be after their dough. Vindicate them by making sure being in your company is not in their future.
Blamers. Blamers are never at fault for all the crazy things that happen to them. Like their Conspiracy Nut cousins, there's always something or somebody to blame for their misfortunes. It's never the person they see in the mirror every bleak morning and they will never admit that the whole world may have a point and they just might have a little bit of a flawed attitude.
Dismissers. When something hard or catastrophic happens to you, there are those among us who say it is no big deal, that their experiences have been far worse. Cancer, shmancer! I have suffered worse. So what if someone you love died? I get migraines! Not the best people with which to commiserate.
Bad News Bearers. Some people just love to put a damper on everyone else's joy, usually waiting until someone is feeling pretty good before dropping some horrible piece of information from their vast inventory of disturbing and negative tidings. Killjoys live for wiping the smiles off other faces to match their own grim mugs. Give them some bad news: You've seen the last of me.
Revisionists. These are people who feel that their own painful past can be rewritten in memory, even trying to convince people who were there at the time that their behavior was completely admirable and proper. They insist long and loud even though everybody else remembers vividly how badly they screwed up and how rotten they acted. Admitting a mistake would be like cutting off a limb to these people, so instead they alienate everybody close to them with their lies and self-deception.
Voices of God. While many of us believe in God and practice one sort or religion or another, few of us pretend to speak for the Creator. Those who do always seem to interpret God's words in a way that agrees wholeheartedly with their own mindset and personal opinions. How convenient. And when you're God's mouthpiece, then anything you do is automatically okay, like that whole multiple subservient wives deal and getting rich on other people's money. How very convenient!
War Mongers. Doesn't it seem that the least war-mongering people are soldiers, the people who actually have to fight the wars that others love to start from the comfort of safe surroundings? Soldiers sign up to defend and protect their nation and have their hands plenty full with that demanding duty. They don't need the people who they serve using them as expendable pawns every time their nation disagrees with another nation. War is hell on earth, but only for those in harm's way. For some, it is a parlor game for monetary gain and a casually vicious enterprise. Wonder how casual they'd be if the viscousness, the stench of death and horrid bloody injuries were part of their everyday lives, if those who call for warfare at the drop of a hat actually had to participate in one? Before boot camp was over Pacifism would catch on in a hurry. Who knows, humanity might even get the hang of tolerance, good will and diplomacy. Until then, shun the war mongers, those cowards and bullies by proxy. You want to be a bully, do it in person or shut the hell up. Faced with the prospect of facing real danger, all bullies change their tune swiftly.
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 325
Being drunk is no excuse for doing stupid shit. Lots of people get drunk and behave just fine. If you're an idiot, that's not Jack Daniels' fault.
NOTE TO WOULD-BE DEMOCRACIES: SOMETIMES YOUR GUY LOSES
So we're trying to create democracies now in places that have never experienced getting to choose their own leaders. That's a dicey proposition. And on top of this, we're trying it in places where tribal, regional, ethnic and religious loyalties are far more important than national unity. These places have been cobbled together as "nations" only because there were strong and brutal dictators around to enforce national unity. Anybody remember Yugoslavia? That was another psuedo-nation created by imperialist powers following World War 2 and it lasted only as long as its dictator did.
Field Marshall Josip Broz Tito was a real live rootin'-tootin' brutal dictator who knew quite well he was presiding over disparate nationalities and held Yugoslavia together by the force of sheer terror. After he finally dropped dead at the ripe old age of 87, Yugoslavia instantly reverted to the ancient pastime of all the Balkan States: earnestly killing one another for the pure joy of it. These days Yugoslavia is several nations, all hating their neighbors and laying claim to some portion of their territory. Map-makers at Rand-McNally are on constant alert for the formation of new nations in that region, their border erasers at the ready.
Most Balkan nations, by the way, are democracies, at least nominally. The electorates there, however, haven't yet gotten the hang of living with the fact that sometimes your candidate loses the election. When that happens in a democracy, that is not the signal to carve out another small nation or to start yet another ethnic cleansing genocide campaign. Unless of course you're a Balkan nation, where many centuries of murderous tradition trumps civilized living every time. The winners of the elections don't really get the concept either and usually start oppressing their nation's minorities and jailing the political opposition as soon as they take office. But, they are Balkan nations, and that is what they do. Babies cry, dogs bark and Balkan people slaughter one another and there's nothing any of us can do to change these facts of life.
So that leaves us with our grand experiments in Iraq and Afghanistan, two places with no history at all of choosing their own leaders, and in Iraq, their history is where history began. Civilization as we know it started there, and since we began writing down what men have done there hasn't ever been any sort of election there. Kings, emperors, dictators and conquerors have always ruled that region by force of arms. That's a huge problem, to get people to rethink 5,000 years of a way of life. And the way we went about introducing the joys of democracy to these people is petty problematic too.
We invaded their nation without provocation, destroyed and disbanded their armies, blew up a ton of their infrastructure, killed hundreds if thousands of their people and hung their leader. And now we're telling them to be like us? Not a whole lot there to recommend itself to emulation. How can these people tell the difference between America and Alexander, Darius or any other of "The Greats" who have arrived with slaughtering, conquering armies? To them we're just the latest dangerous horde coming to impose our will and sack a helpless nation. When we leave it will be a huge relief to the the locals who will then most likely go back to being ruled by some other tyrant who will erect many statues of himself and amuse himself by terrorizing his own people and imprisoning and executing anyone brazen enough to oppose his autocratic rule.
And then things will feel right again to most Iraqis. They know what we do not; that anyone they elect will be somebody that a significant portion of the population hates because he is not of their particular tribe and does not follow their version of Islam, and as such is eligible only for being murdered in his bed with his entire family. That was also true of the kings and dictators that have ruled them over the millennia but those guys gave the opposition no options at all when it comes to having a say in how the government operates and who gets to kill who. Which sort of suits the people there, who will be content to grumble amongst themselves about the government. Then the dictator will die or be killed and another one will take his place, just as it has been for 5,000 years.
And then there's Afghanistan, a.k.a. Illiteracy Central. Less a nation than a collection of tribal areas run by warlords, this country is even less likely to embrace democracy any time soon than a pride of lions is to elect their next alpha male. Democracy, more than anything else, requires the consent of the people. Look at our last President, Bush The Younger, who was hated by so many for his incompetence, his corruption and for invading the wrong country, of all things, and yet there was absolutely no movement in this country to overthrow our lawful government. In a democracy, when you make a mistake and elect a complete idiot, you ride it out as best you can and then elect someone else to clean up their mess, like America just did.
That method is far preferable to periodic civil war over who gets to run things, but again, that requires the consent of the people. In general, democracies are full of educated people. That's not the case in Afghanistan. In recent attacks, Taliban insurgents have been blowing up schools that had the gall to educate girls, a no-no for those cavemen. God forbid they got an education and became interesting people who would see right through the Taliban's misogynistic fear of women. These Taliban were the latest dictators in Afghanistan, a group of cretins so dense and backward that not only do they oppose education, they seek to ban music, dancing, movies and anything else there is to smile about in that desolate backwater.
The puppet democracy installed by America is failing. Meanwhile the only reason America had to be there, finding Osama bin Laden, is on the back burner while we distract ourselves by trying to instill democracy in a very undemocratic society. This is another place once conquered by Alexander The Great of the Balkan state of Macedonia, not incidentally, and another place where he made no difference at all in their lives or attitudes when he left. And their way of life and their attitudes haven't changed all that much since his brutal visit in 321 B.C.
Outside of enthusiastically embracing the cool weapons the West has supplied them with in order to kill whoever opposes them or even thinks about it, the Afghani tribal warlords and the people that they rule absolutely have no use for democracy or any notions of an equitable, tolerant and peaceful society. And just as in Iraq, we are not exactly providing them with any sort of stellar model of a utopian society when the first contact they have with us in on the business end of a gun barrel. The military exists not for winning hearts and minds, but for annihilating them. They are not exactly the Peace Corps. So to expect these two nations to embrace democracy is wishful thinking. Democracies always spring up when the people of a nation insist upon it and get rid of their tyrants. And once having done so, they commit themselves to putting up with their lawfully elected leaders for the length of their term in office, whether or not they voted for them.
America should just stop kidding ourselves that it can be otherwise and leave these places to their misery until they wake up and smell the coffee. Only at that point can we assist these nations if they want our help, and after what we have done to them, it's pretty understandable if they don't seek our counsel. Let's just kill or capture bin Laden and bring our troops home. Seven years in Afghanistan is far too harsh of a sentence for our soldiers, who didn't do anything to deserve it. We went to war there only because they were giving safe haven to our mortal enemies, not to redesign their government or change their way of thinking. That's got to come from within. It's none of our business how long that takes so long as they are not attacking us.
Field Marshall Josip Broz Tito was a real live rootin'-tootin' brutal dictator who knew quite well he was presiding over disparate nationalities and held Yugoslavia together by the force of sheer terror. After he finally dropped dead at the ripe old age of 87, Yugoslavia instantly reverted to the ancient pastime of all the Balkan States: earnestly killing one another for the pure joy of it. These days Yugoslavia is several nations, all hating their neighbors and laying claim to some portion of their territory. Map-makers at Rand-McNally are on constant alert for the formation of new nations in that region, their border erasers at the ready.
Most Balkan nations, by the way, are democracies, at least nominally. The electorates there, however, haven't yet gotten the hang of living with the fact that sometimes your candidate loses the election. When that happens in a democracy, that is not the signal to carve out another small nation or to start yet another ethnic cleansing genocide campaign. Unless of course you're a Balkan nation, where many centuries of murderous tradition trumps civilized living every time. The winners of the elections don't really get the concept either and usually start oppressing their nation's minorities and jailing the political opposition as soon as they take office. But, they are Balkan nations, and that is what they do. Babies cry, dogs bark and Balkan people slaughter one another and there's nothing any of us can do to change these facts of life.
So that leaves us with our grand experiments in Iraq and Afghanistan, two places with no history at all of choosing their own leaders, and in Iraq, their history is where history began. Civilization as we know it started there, and since we began writing down what men have done there hasn't ever been any sort of election there. Kings, emperors, dictators and conquerors have always ruled that region by force of arms. That's a huge problem, to get people to rethink 5,000 years of a way of life. And the way we went about introducing the joys of democracy to these people is petty problematic too.
We invaded their nation without provocation, destroyed and disbanded their armies, blew up a ton of their infrastructure, killed hundreds if thousands of their people and hung their leader. And now we're telling them to be like us? Not a whole lot there to recommend itself to emulation. How can these people tell the difference between America and Alexander, Darius or any other of "The Greats" who have arrived with slaughtering, conquering armies? To them we're just the latest dangerous horde coming to impose our will and sack a helpless nation. When we leave it will be a huge relief to the the locals who will then most likely go back to being ruled by some other tyrant who will erect many statues of himself and amuse himself by terrorizing his own people and imprisoning and executing anyone brazen enough to oppose his autocratic rule.
And then things will feel right again to most Iraqis. They know what we do not; that anyone they elect will be somebody that a significant portion of the population hates because he is not of their particular tribe and does not follow their version of Islam, and as such is eligible only for being murdered in his bed with his entire family. That was also true of the kings and dictators that have ruled them over the millennia but those guys gave the opposition no options at all when it comes to having a say in how the government operates and who gets to kill who. Which sort of suits the people there, who will be content to grumble amongst themselves about the government. Then the dictator will die or be killed and another one will take his place, just as it has been for 5,000 years.
And then there's Afghanistan, a.k.a. Illiteracy Central. Less a nation than a collection of tribal areas run by warlords, this country is even less likely to embrace democracy any time soon than a pride of lions is to elect their next alpha male. Democracy, more than anything else, requires the consent of the people. Look at our last President, Bush The Younger, who was hated by so many for his incompetence, his corruption and for invading the wrong country, of all things, and yet there was absolutely no movement in this country to overthrow our lawful government. In a democracy, when you make a mistake and elect a complete idiot, you ride it out as best you can and then elect someone else to clean up their mess, like America just did.
That method is far preferable to periodic civil war over who gets to run things, but again, that requires the consent of the people. In general, democracies are full of educated people. That's not the case in Afghanistan. In recent attacks, Taliban insurgents have been blowing up schools that had the gall to educate girls, a no-no for those cavemen. God forbid they got an education and became interesting people who would see right through the Taliban's misogynistic fear of women. These Taliban were the latest dictators in Afghanistan, a group of cretins so dense and backward that not only do they oppose education, they seek to ban music, dancing, movies and anything else there is to smile about in that desolate backwater.
The puppet democracy installed by America is failing. Meanwhile the only reason America had to be there, finding Osama bin Laden, is on the back burner while we distract ourselves by trying to instill democracy in a very undemocratic society. This is another place once conquered by Alexander The Great of the Balkan state of Macedonia, not incidentally, and another place where he made no difference at all in their lives or attitudes when he left. And their way of life and their attitudes haven't changed all that much since his brutal visit in 321 B.C.
Outside of enthusiastically embracing the cool weapons the West has supplied them with in order to kill whoever opposes them or even thinks about it, the Afghani tribal warlords and the people that they rule absolutely have no use for democracy or any notions of an equitable, tolerant and peaceful society. And just as in Iraq, we are not exactly providing them with any sort of stellar model of a utopian society when the first contact they have with us in on the business end of a gun barrel. The military exists not for winning hearts and minds, but for annihilating them. They are not exactly the Peace Corps. So to expect these two nations to embrace democracy is wishful thinking. Democracies always spring up when the people of a nation insist upon it and get rid of their tyrants. And once having done so, they commit themselves to putting up with their lawfully elected leaders for the length of their term in office, whether or not they voted for them.
America should just stop kidding ourselves that it can be otherwise and leave these places to their misery until they wake up and smell the coffee. Only at that point can we assist these nations if they want our help, and after what we have done to them, it's pretty understandable if they don't seek our counsel. Let's just kill or capture bin Laden and bring our troops home. Seven years in Afghanistan is far too harsh of a sentence for our soldiers, who didn't do anything to deserve it. We went to war there only because they were giving safe haven to our mortal enemies, not to redesign their government or change their way of thinking. That's got to come from within. It's none of our business how long that takes so long as they are not attacking us.
February 26, 2009
SCIENCE WE CAN USE
Now that the war on science is over, maybe our scientists can get busy doing useful things again. For eight years under the Bush The Younger Administration, science was considered some sort of anti-religious voodoo. Our nation's scientists had to be content with narrating shows on cable TV about black holes and biographies of dead scientists who actually accomplished something. It was a nice racket, but it has sort of dulled their intellectual edge. Our space program is dying on the vine too, with the latest attempt to send yet another piece of space junk into orbit landing in the Arctic Ocean. Our space shuttles are starting to become a collection of old, beat-up cargo trucks, accidents waiting to happen.
The only diseases that have been cured are the phony ones some scientists have been inventing while in the employ of giant drug companies who then market expensive placebos to treat them. That whole Attention Deficit scam is nothing more than a world full of people bored to tears with our paltry scientific output in recent years. Who wants to listen to people with expensive educations babbling about some wonder drug that still doesn't make anything they say worth our time? That attention deficit will in force remain until they come up with something worthwhile. Some suggestions:
CLOSE THE NUTRITION/ENJOYMENT GAP. It seems that everything that is bad for you tastes great while anything good for you tastes like crap. No matter how you slice it, shape it or package it, tofu is horrible and unsatisfying. What the hell is it, anyway? It's not even similar to food. Why not get to work on potato chips that are nutritious without tasting like fried cardboard? How about a wholesome food that tastes like Peeps? The kids would clean their plates at every meal. And stop trying to get us to stop enjoying steak. It's not going to happen. We're carnivores and predators by nature and don't give a rat's ass who disapproves. If we were meant to eat bean sprouts, the damned things would taste like something.
STOP WITH THE CRAZY WEAPONS. Who's side are the scientists on? They have provided the world's military organizations with enough firepower to kill us all several times, from poison gasses to nuclear warheads and now unmanned predator airplanes that can find you and kill you along with anybody in the immediate vicinity without anybody getting so much as mud on their boots. While all these things are pretty impressive from a pure technological standpoint, where's the benefit to mankind? If the scientists don't cooperate with the military, none of these things get manufactured. How about conducting a war on cancer or diabetes? If we deploy half the resources and energy that we bring to bear in the taking of lives, maybe we could save a few. Maybe the scientists could sleep a little better too.
LOSE THE "JUST BECAUSE WE CAN" MENTALITY. Most of us are capable of doing any number of crazy things but we don't. Just because one is capable of something, that doesn't mean that it must be done. Who wants cloned humans? We've got a ton of people already and we let 36,000 of them die every single day from the torture of starvation. How much regard will we have for the lives of people we create in laboratories? And knowing scientists, they'll clone themselves, and then we'll have two or three of each of these annoying social misfits on our hands. Then what? People will start reaching for some of those high-tech weapons to thin the herd of these pompous and tedious creeps, that's what. And if they feel they must clone somebody, how about cloning some strippers? Everybody likes them.
LEARN TO SPEAK. Scientists like to speak in shop talk, then get all condescending like we're all morons because we don't understand them. We would understand them just fine if they lose their pomposity and speak like regular people, which is what they are, white coats or no white coats. Somewhere during their many years of schooling, they need to take a course or two in speaking intelligibly. The temptation of many professionals is to assume that the basics of their specialized fields is common knowledge, but most people get over it and learn to communicate with other people. People can understand just about anything when it is explained by a person skilled not only in molecular biology, but in talking. Which, by the way, is a skill most of master quite early in life. Maybe some of these people could do a study on why scientists have been unable to grasp this most basic of human concepts when they are capable of unraveling DNA codes. It could be that their own DNA code is missing something somewhere. Odds are, though, that none of them will go near that one with a 10-foot test tube.
The only diseases that have been cured are the phony ones some scientists have been inventing while in the employ of giant drug companies who then market expensive placebos to treat them. That whole Attention Deficit scam is nothing more than a world full of people bored to tears with our paltry scientific output in recent years. Who wants to listen to people with expensive educations babbling about some wonder drug that still doesn't make anything they say worth our time? That attention deficit will in force remain until they come up with something worthwhile. Some suggestions:
CLOSE THE NUTRITION/ENJOYMENT GAP. It seems that everything that is bad for you tastes great while anything good for you tastes like crap. No matter how you slice it, shape it or package it, tofu is horrible and unsatisfying. What the hell is it, anyway? It's not even similar to food. Why not get to work on potato chips that are nutritious without tasting like fried cardboard? How about a wholesome food that tastes like Peeps? The kids would clean their plates at every meal. And stop trying to get us to stop enjoying steak. It's not going to happen. We're carnivores and predators by nature and don't give a rat's ass who disapproves. If we were meant to eat bean sprouts, the damned things would taste like something.
STOP WITH THE CRAZY WEAPONS. Who's side are the scientists on? They have provided the world's military organizations with enough firepower to kill us all several times, from poison gasses to nuclear warheads and now unmanned predator airplanes that can find you and kill you along with anybody in the immediate vicinity without anybody getting so much as mud on their boots. While all these things are pretty impressive from a pure technological standpoint, where's the benefit to mankind? If the scientists don't cooperate with the military, none of these things get manufactured. How about conducting a war on cancer or diabetes? If we deploy half the resources and energy that we bring to bear in the taking of lives, maybe we could save a few. Maybe the scientists could sleep a little better too.
LOSE THE "JUST BECAUSE WE CAN" MENTALITY. Most of us are capable of doing any number of crazy things but we don't. Just because one is capable of something, that doesn't mean that it must be done. Who wants cloned humans? We've got a ton of people already and we let 36,000 of them die every single day from the torture of starvation. How much regard will we have for the lives of people we create in laboratories? And knowing scientists, they'll clone themselves, and then we'll have two or three of each of these annoying social misfits on our hands. Then what? People will start reaching for some of those high-tech weapons to thin the herd of these pompous and tedious creeps, that's what. And if they feel they must clone somebody, how about cloning some strippers? Everybody likes them.
LEARN TO SPEAK. Scientists like to speak in shop talk, then get all condescending like we're all morons because we don't understand them. We would understand them just fine if they lose their pomposity and speak like regular people, which is what they are, white coats or no white coats. Somewhere during their many years of schooling, they need to take a course or two in speaking intelligibly. The temptation of many professionals is to assume that the basics of their specialized fields is common knowledge, but most people get over it and learn to communicate with other people. People can understand just about anything when it is explained by a person skilled not only in molecular biology, but in talking. Which, by the way, is a skill most of master quite early in life. Maybe some of these people could do a study on why scientists have been unable to grasp this most basic of human concepts when they are capable of unraveling DNA codes. It could be that their own DNA code is missing something somewhere. Odds are, though, that none of them will go near that one with a 10-foot test tube.
February 25, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 323
Let the little things go, but for what's important, take a stand. Have the balls you were born with or risk losing them. Fight evil and injustice.
SOME DON'T GET IT
The government of Pakistan says that American strikes against Al Qaeda in Pakistan have greatly reduced that terror gang's global reach but heightened their threat to Pakistan. Their point being? If Al Qaeda wasn't in Pakistan in the first place there would be no American attacks within their border. And speaking of borders and Pakistani territory, their government has ceded huge chunks of their own nation to warlords and Taliban terrorists. And so America takes it upon itself to kill as many Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters as they can so they can't plan more devastating attacks on The United States and other Western nations. Whether that's right or wrong, that's the reality and a policy that will continue as long as America's enemies are allowed to hide there. The government of Pakistan just doesn't get it.
So the Governor of Louisiana complains that the President's budget has 130 million dollars set aside for monitoring volcanos. Aren't volcanos things you should sort of keep an eye on? Doesn't seem like enough when you think about the potential damage volcanos can do. Maybe he figures that this administration should ignore volcanos like the last administration ignored the inadequate levees in his home state. How did that work out for New Orleans? This Governor Bobby Jindal guy has his head buried as far up his ass as the Bush the Younger administration did. He also tried to make a grandstand issue of the bailout billions being handed to his state by President Obama and the Democratic Congress, saying he would refuse "some of the money" because it violated his Republican free-market anti-Big Government philosophy.
Well, his version of some of the money was less than 1% of the total of $3.7 billion earmarked for Louisiana, eagerly glomming the other 99 and a half percent of the dough. And the portion he tried to refuse? That would be for extended unemployment insurance for his state's hard-hit workers, people who tend to vote. Being the governor of a state, he is allowed to accept or reject the money. The way the law is written, however, he would either have to accept every penny or reject the whole package. He can always make that choice if he's so sure of his principles, the same ideas and policies that held sway in America for eight years and got us into this horrendous mess. Odds are he'll take the money and not shut up, but at least the people of his state will benefit from the recovery plan even if their governor doesn't get it.
Also not getting it is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a multi-billionaire who bought his office twice and had the law changed so he can try to buy it a third time. Now, there's nothing wrong with his being a billionaire, he earned his money and earned it clean. He didn't make his dough by cheating or on the back of underpaid workers. And when he's done with politics he wants to get into philanthropy and give most of his money away. So there's a lot to recommend the guy as a decent man. He just happens to be a clueless mayor. When he's not tripling the price of parking tickets and other civil fines to create a shadow tax on the working classes, he's trying to put tolls on the East River bridges, ancient and incredibly busy structures emptying into crowded streets with absolutely no space for toll plazas.The traffic jams this would create would make the already legendary Manhattan traffic jams unbearable.
He also tried to nickel and dime police recruits several years ago, paying new cops Wal-mart wages. When reminded that he was asking for a corrupt police force, that the best candidates will seek jobs elsewhere, he scoffed, citing fiscal responsibility. Well, a couple of years later the Police department was rocked by scandals when these bottom-of-the-barrel recruits started moonlighting in their own crime careers as well as being corrupt cops. The City Council stepped in and raised police salaries so they could once again hire better people for the job, but not before a lot of harm was done and innocent people killed. There's a reason for paying the police well, and teachers too. We want to attract the best possible people to those critical jobs, honest and dedicated individuals who are worth their decent pay. Michael Bloomberg had to blunder his way into scandals and consistent sub-par performance before he found out that cheapness is it's own reward. When it comes to politics, he's a good businessman, but a lousy mayor who just doesn't get it. Some people never do.
So the Governor of Louisiana complains that the President's budget has 130 million dollars set aside for monitoring volcanos. Aren't volcanos things you should sort of keep an eye on? Doesn't seem like enough when you think about the potential damage volcanos can do. Maybe he figures that this administration should ignore volcanos like the last administration ignored the inadequate levees in his home state. How did that work out for New Orleans? This Governor Bobby Jindal guy has his head buried as far up his ass as the Bush the Younger administration did. He also tried to make a grandstand issue of the bailout billions being handed to his state by President Obama and the Democratic Congress, saying he would refuse "some of the money" because it violated his Republican free-market anti-Big Government philosophy.
Well, his version of some of the money was less than 1% of the total of $3.7 billion earmarked for Louisiana, eagerly glomming the other 99 and a half percent of the dough. And the portion he tried to refuse? That would be for extended unemployment insurance for his state's hard-hit workers, people who tend to vote. Being the governor of a state, he is allowed to accept or reject the money. The way the law is written, however, he would either have to accept every penny or reject the whole package. He can always make that choice if he's so sure of his principles, the same ideas and policies that held sway in America for eight years and got us into this horrendous mess. Odds are he'll take the money and not shut up, but at least the people of his state will benefit from the recovery plan even if their governor doesn't get it.
Also not getting it is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a multi-billionaire who bought his office twice and had the law changed so he can try to buy it a third time. Now, there's nothing wrong with his being a billionaire, he earned his money and earned it clean. He didn't make his dough by cheating or on the back of underpaid workers. And when he's done with politics he wants to get into philanthropy and give most of his money away. So there's a lot to recommend the guy as a decent man. He just happens to be a clueless mayor. When he's not tripling the price of parking tickets and other civil fines to create a shadow tax on the working classes, he's trying to put tolls on the East River bridges, ancient and incredibly busy structures emptying into crowded streets with absolutely no space for toll plazas.The traffic jams this would create would make the already legendary Manhattan traffic jams unbearable.
He also tried to nickel and dime police recruits several years ago, paying new cops Wal-mart wages. When reminded that he was asking for a corrupt police force, that the best candidates will seek jobs elsewhere, he scoffed, citing fiscal responsibility. Well, a couple of years later the Police department was rocked by scandals when these bottom-of-the-barrel recruits started moonlighting in their own crime careers as well as being corrupt cops. The City Council stepped in and raised police salaries so they could once again hire better people for the job, but not before a lot of harm was done and innocent people killed. There's a reason for paying the police well, and teachers too. We want to attract the best possible people to those critical jobs, honest and dedicated individuals who are worth their decent pay. Michael Bloomberg had to blunder his way into scandals and consistent sub-par performance before he found out that cheapness is it's own reward. When it comes to politics, he's a good businessman, but a lousy mayor who just doesn't get it. Some people never do.
February 24, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 322
Attaining perfection would be a real drag. We would have nothing to shoot for, and be afraid to do anything at all for fear that we might mess things up.
THINGS CAN'T BE THAT BAD...
Okay, we got it! The sky is falling. Life as we know it is over. We're all going to Hell in a hand basket. It's getting to be a real pain in the ass to read the news lately. One dire prediction after another, bankers begging like bums for more billions, company after company laying off workers and internet geeks crying they can't get start-up millions for their latest annoying internet idea that the world just cannot do without. One insane Congresswoman even lamented that we are running out of (!) rich people, the ignorant bimbo. Woe is us and shit...
While things are pretty bad and a lot of ordinary people are taking major financial hits they cannot afford, well, it it really all that bad? The day after the Academy Awards broadcast, that annual overblown expression of love by Hollywood for itself, you have all sorts of serious news outlets dedicating reams of copy reacting to the show, good, bad and indifferent. How bad can things be when serious people still have time to critique the Oscars? It's always a good sign when people pursue the frivolous. That means there's still more to life than the grim business of hunting and gathering. And what's more frivolous than the Academy Awards?
Thirty six million American households watched the damned thing, with who-knows-how-many people per household riveted to their sets to see who gets the award for Best Performance In A Movie Everybody Hated and things of that sort. It's been a while since a lot of people have actually seen the nominated movies, but none of that seems to matter. It's still the same parade of the fabulous, the beautiful and the glamorous preening for each other and praising one another to the skies. And if they go a bit over the top, well, it's the Oscars, isn't it? What do we expect from Hollywood, restraint?
And in truth, the auditorium where the Oscars are held is a room full of breathtakingly talented people, not only the actors, directors and writers, but the rest of the people who's job it is to produce these films, edit them to make the narrative flow seamlessly, operate the cameras, make them sound authentic, light them properly, make the costumes and add all kinds of special effects. And if they get a whole lot carried away with themselves once a year, so what? Who would watch it if they didn't? Who would care if they showed up in regular clothes and didn't sing and dance and joke around? They are entertainers, as valuable a national resource as gold, and a hell of a lot more valuable than the miserable failures running our financial institutions.
Pretty much anybody can ruin a giant corporation through greed, corruption and incompetence. Hell, most of us could do it for half of the annual $20 million or so the giant corporations pay their CEOs. But not many people can do what our artists do, and they have not failed us like our corporate princes. Year in and year out, in good times and bad, America's artists produce an astounding array of great performances, and not only in the movies. Our musicians are still the trend-setters of the music world, writing and performing the soundtracks to our lives. Our comedians punch holes in our assumptions with hilarious precision and get us to think about things in a different way. Our visual artists are painting and sculpting their unique personal visions regardless of what the Dow Jones index says.
And it's not only our famous artists who give us these gifts. Visit any off-Broadway or regional theater where struggling actors are toiling for peanuts and you'll see incredible talent on display, as moving and insightful as the big stars. Go to any nightclub featuring live music and listen to some of the musicians few people have heard of and you'll come away wondering why these brilliant people are not famous. Go to any small art gallery and see the paintings and sculptures of unknown artists; brilliant, beautiful and challenging.
None of these talented artists decides to become an artist. That would be insane and something that can't be done. You don't become a great artist because you want to. No, the art picks them, not the other way around. They have no choice but to pursue their visions and share the results with the rest of us. We might want to do what they do, but the truth is, we cannot. It is very difficult and demanding and a rare gift. But we can appreciate the incredible gifts our artists give to us, and how very rich they make our lives. Who among us cannot recite the lines to his favorite movie verbatim, sing along to a thousand great songs, conjure up mental images of their favorite paintings or remember every line of a great poem? All these things have been created for us to enjoy.
None of these pieces of art were created by bankers and accountants. None of them affect the economy one way or another. None of them will feed your family or pay your bills. No piece of art will cure a disease or usher in any scientific breakthroughs. But without our artists, we'd all be poorer than poor, we'd be spiritually bankrupt and adrift in a bleak landscape. So let the Hollywood people celebrate themselves. And why not? These artists know they are the lucky few, the ones who get to be rich and famous. They'd be doing what they do anyway, just like the vast majority of artists and performers everywhere, toiling not for the sake of money or recognition, but for the sake of the art; the music, the acting, the painting, the writing, the sculpture, the photography. They are artists and they have no choice, they must create and they must give. That's the nature of the beast. Let's hope things don't ever get so bad that the rest of us don't notice. Hurray for Hollywood!
While things are pretty bad and a lot of ordinary people are taking major financial hits they cannot afford, well, it it really all that bad? The day after the Academy Awards broadcast, that annual overblown expression of love by Hollywood for itself, you have all sorts of serious news outlets dedicating reams of copy reacting to the show, good, bad and indifferent. How bad can things be when serious people still have time to critique the Oscars? It's always a good sign when people pursue the frivolous. That means there's still more to life than the grim business of hunting and gathering. And what's more frivolous than the Academy Awards?
Thirty six million American households watched the damned thing, with who-knows-how-many people per household riveted to their sets to see who gets the award for Best Performance In A Movie Everybody Hated and things of that sort. It's been a while since a lot of people have actually seen the nominated movies, but none of that seems to matter. It's still the same parade of the fabulous, the beautiful and the glamorous preening for each other and praising one another to the skies. And if they go a bit over the top, well, it's the Oscars, isn't it? What do we expect from Hollywood, restraint?
And in truth, the auditorium where the Oscars are held is a room full of breathtakingly talented people, not only the actors, directors and writers, but the rest of the people who's job it is to produce these films, edit them to make the narrative flow seamlessly, operate the cameras, make them sound authentic, light them properly, make the costumes and add all kinds of special effects. And if they get a whole lot carried away with themselves once a year, so what? Who would watch it if they didn't? Who would care if they showed up in regular clothes and didn't sing and dance and joke around? They are entertainers, as valuable a national resource as gold, and a hell of a lot more valuable than the miserable failures running our financial institutions.
Pretty much anybody can ruin a giant corporation through greed, corruption and incompetence. Hell, most of us could do it for half of the annual $20 million or so the giant corporations pay their CEOs. But not many people can do what our artists do, and they have not failed us like our corporate princes. Year in and year out, in good times and bad, America's artists produce an astounding array of great performances, and not only in the movies. Our musicians are still the trend-setters of the music world, writing and performing the soundtracks to our lives. Our comedians punch holes in our assumptions with hilarious precision and get us to think about things in a different way. Our visual artists are painting and sculpting their unique personal visions regardless of what the Dow Jones index says.
And it's not only our famous artists who give us these gifts. Visit any off-Broadway or regional theater where struggling actors are toiling for peanuts and you'll see incredible talent on display, as moving and insightful as the big stars. Go to any nightclub featuring live music and listen to some of the musicians few people have heard of and you'll come away wondering why these brilliant people are not famous. Go to any small art gallery and see the paintings and sculptures of unknown artists; brilliant, beautiful and challenging.
None of these talented artists decides to become an artist. That would be insane and something that can't be done. You don't become a great artist because you want to. No, the art picks them, not the other way around. They have no choice but to pursue their visions and share the results with the rest of us. We might want to do what they do, but the truth is, we cannot. It is very difficult and demanding and a rare gift. But we can appreciate the incredible gifts our artists give to us, and how very rich they make our lives. Who among us cannot recite the lines to his favorite movie verbatim, sing along to a thousand great songs, conjure up mental images of their favorite paintings or remember every line of a great poem? All these things have been created for us to enjoy.
None of these pieces of art were created by bankers and accountants. None of them affect the economy one way or another. None of them will feed your family or pay your bills. No piece of art will cure a disease or usher in any scientific breakthroughs. But without our artists, we'd all be poorer than poor, we'd be spiritually bankrupt and adrift in a bleak landscape. So let the Hollywood people celebrate themselves. And why not? These artists know they are the lucky few, the ones who get to be rich and famous. They'd be doing what they do anyway, just like the vast majority of artists and performers everywhere, toiling not for the sake of money or recognition, but for the sake of the art; the music, the acting, the painting, the writing, the sculpture, the photography. They are artists and they have no choice, they must create and they must give. That's the nature of the beast. Let's hope things don't ever get so bad that the rest of us don't notice. Hurray for Hollywood!
February 23, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 321
Promising every citizen life, liberty and (the ever popular) pursuit of happiness is one hell of away to create a nation. There's just no place on the planet half as cool as America. Sorry, everybody else, but that's a fact, Jack.
INTERVIEW WITH ELMER FUDD
To celebrate last night's Oscar awards, we reprint this interview with a great star of he sILver screen Who never won an Academy Award. Hopefully this will help put Mr. Fudd back on the radar of the Academy to give him a long-overdue Lifetime Achievement Award at next year's Oscar ceremony:
Looks like I've found my niche in this blog business, folks. Interviews! It's real hard to find new stuff to say every day so I figured I'd try my hand at interviewing, you know, let somebody else do all the work, just ask them some questions and sit back and let their words fill up the old blank pages for a change. My first one, with Mick Jagger of all people, didn't exactly go off without a hitch but I've learned from my mistakes. Turns out you've got do some actual work to prepare for these things, somewhat of a disappointment but I guess there's no free lunch in this business, unlike my other trade which is catering where there's more free food than you can possibly eat, but that's another story
Today's interview is with a bona fide American icon, a star of screens large and small and one of the most recognizable names in show business. Don't ask me how I landed this extraordinary coup, just let me say that at the end of a lot of very delicate negotiations with his representatives I am privileged to give my readers a real treat, an interview with the great Elmer Fudd himself! You all know Mr. Fudd as the star of countless cartoons as the comic foil for Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird and too many other mega-stars of cartoonery to count. His portrayal of "The Intwepid Hunter" is a classic of Bunyanesque proportions, rivaled only by Chaplin's loveable Everyman "The Tramp" in motion picture annals. Elmer Fudd could do it all, comedy-wise. He could be as good a straight man as Bud Abbot when playing off Bugs Bunny or as zany as Jerry Lewis if the situation required zaniness. He also was a deft hand at pathos, able to produce the tears at the dwop of a hat.
Now retired from performing, Elmer Fudd has moved behind the camera to the director's chair, helming such latter-day classics as "Saving Pwivate Wyan," "Piwates of The Cawibbean" and "When Hawwy Met Sawwy." Not limiting himself to directing, Mr. Fudd has also been busy writing squwipts, I means scripts for top television shows like "Waw and Owder", "Thirty Wock" and "Without A Twace," and also directing many episodes of "Ugwy Betty."
Mr. Fudd arived at the offices of bobcrespo.com alone, with no entourage or limousine, explaining that he "Wuv's to supwise peopew by woawing up my Hawwey Davidson." Indeed it was a shock to see him pulling up to bobcrespo.com on his bike, and more surprising still to see he has grown a beard and let his hair grow in, wearing it long like a true biker. Elmer also sports many tattoos, not surprisingly likenesses of many of his former costars, most prominently a large Tweety Bird with Sylvester the Cat on one forearm and Bugs Bunny munching a carrot on the other. He's also in surprisingly good shape, exhibiting none of the round tubbiness you associated with his film roles. "I'm a widdiw bit of a gym wat," he explained. Indeed, his firm handshake is a dead giveaway that he's been pumping a lot of iron.
Mr. Fudd made himself right at home in my office, accepting a glass of iced tea and lighting up a cigar, which I half expected to explode in his face. A relaxed man at home in his own skin, he was the one who broke the ice:
EF: "Nice pwace you've got here."
BC: "Thank you Mr. Fudd. Welcome to bobcrespo.com.
EF: "My pweasure. And cawl me Ewma"
BC: "So, Ewma, let's get right into to it. I suppose your classic line from that Bugs Bunny cartoon 'My name is Ewma Fudd. I am a miwwionaire, I own an mansion and a yacht' has more than come true for these days."
EF: "You can say that again, my fwend! See, Bugs and I got together years ago and bought all the rights fwum Wawner Bwothers to ouw cawtoons and now we're wowwing in dough as they say."
BC: "Smart business move, sir. Very forward thinking."
EF: "Weww, the studio boys figuwed cawtoons wewe onwy siwwy stuff, not weawy cwassic archive matewial wike other movies, but me and Bugs knew better and we made them as offer and they gwabbed it. Now what they got is dated bwack and white mewodwamas whiwe me and Bugs got timewess cwassics that never get old. There's always a new cwop of kids who wuv our work."
BC: "It sounds like you and Bugs are great friends. Watching your cartoons you'd think you two would always be mortal enemies."
EF: "Sounds like somebody took the cawtoons a widdew too sewiouswy, Bob. We wewe acting! I guess we were pwetty good at it, huh?"
BC: "Had me fooled."
EF: "Oh-kaaay. Anyway, me and Bugs are gweat buddies. we go golfing, work on squwipts together, devewop new shows, do a wot of pwoduction. One of our gweatest cowabowations was "Evwybody Wuv's Waymond."
BC: "That was you guys?"
EF: "Wike I said, me and Bugs. 'Wiww and Gwace' was ours too, both in syndication now, money in the bank for our gwandkids."
BC: "You have a big family?
EF: "Me, I have a weguwar sized famiwy, I guess. Two kids with my first wife and thwee gwandkids and coupew of wittew ones now with my second wife, too young to be mawwied yet."
BC: "Your second wife or your kids? Just kidding. And what about Bugs Bunny?
EF: "Him? I've wost twack by now. He is a wabbit, you know. Must have a couple of hundred gwandkids by now, especiawwy if his kids took after him, if you know what I mean."
BC: " A real ladies man, eh?
EF: "No. Wike I said, he's a wabbit. Wabbits repwoduce a wot, you know."
BC: "A kwazy wabbit?"
EF: "Didn't I just teww you he's a good fwiend and my copwoducer? Nothing Kwazy about him. Shwewd as they come."
BC: "But in your cartoons..."
EF: "There weawy is something wong with you, isn't there? "
BC: Well, to tell you the truth I'm a little disappointed that you're such a ...how can say this... a regular guy."
EF: "When you meet Wobert DeNiwo, would you expect him to be some inarticulate thug with a gun in his pocket?
BC: "Of course..."
EF: "What don't you get about show business, Bob, the show or the business? It's all make-beweave! Can't you sepawate Ewmer Fudd, the actor and cartoon chawactew fwom Ewmer Fudd the man?"
BC: "I never realized there'd be a difference."
EF: "I think this is a kwy for help on your part, Bob."
BC: "But you're Elmer friggin' Fudd, dammit! I should be able to hit you on the head with a hammer and make a bunch of little bumps on your head, blow off a shotgun in your face and get it all black, stuff you into a mailbox and all that stuff...."
EF: "I'm getting vewy uncomfortable here, Bob. I think I'll be on my way...."
BC: Can't I just fling you out the door with a giant sling shot? I thought we'd get to have some madcap, zany action here today..."
EF: "This is not a Woad Wunner episode, Bob, this is weaw wife. Didn't you ever hear of speciaw effects?"
BC: "Real life? You're Elmer Fudd, you can fall off the roof onto your head if you wanted to! Get hit a bunch of times with a giant mallet and shake it off! C'mon, Elmer, I've got a bunch of stuff prepared. Check out this stick of TNT!"
EF: "Bob, wet me warn you, I'm a bwack bewt in Kawate, domn't come any cwoser!"
BC: "Now you're talking, Fudd, let's do some cartoon stuff!."
EF: "Don't say I didn't wawn you!" (END OF INTERVIEW.)
Boy, that Elmer Fudd sure packs a mean karate chop for a cartoon character. He flipped me like a burger and stormed out my house, or rather, my office, hopped on his Harley and roared away, saying some very un-Elmer Fuddian things to me as he left. Looks like I'll have to tweak my interview techniques a bit more. You know you're an amateur when you alienate a retired cartoon character. Now what am I going to do with that giant mallet, the shotgun, the bear trap and that stick of dynamite, to say nothing of that giant sling shot I built with pieces of the china closet and our drapes?
The lovely wife insists I get rid of them and replace the drapes before I write another blog. She never did appreciate cartoons all that much and now she's questioning how I run my interview business! She doesn't seem to understand learning curves either, I suppose. Oh well, as they say in cartoons, back to the drawing board! Next time I'll nail it. Maybe O.J. Simpson's got some spare time on his hands. Should I take a stab at it? Let me just whip out my celebrity phone book here... okay, under S, let's see... Simon- Carly, Simon- Neil, Simon- Paul, Simon-Simple, hmmm, no shortage of famous Simons... Bingo there it is! Simpson, O.J., football Hall of Famer, B-actor and acquitted killer, let me just dial him up...
BC: "Hello? Mr. Simpson? Bob Crespo here, of bobcrespo.com. It's a website, sir. I was wondering if you would grant me an interview.... How much? Cash only, you say?... Or Krugerrands? Gee, that's an awful lot of gold, sir... No, I'm not making fun of you.. What? ... No, I don't think I'd like you to come over here and do that at all... Oh, you do know where I live?... O.J., I don't think that's necessary at all... all I wanted was... I mean... what do you mean or else?... couldn't we just forget all ab... What?... Mr. Simpson, you're blowing this all out of proportion... No, sir, I'm not calling you a liar, no need to do that..."
Like I said, this interview business isn't as easy as I thought. Now I have to move. I have a sinking feeling the lovely wife isn't going to understand that one one at all.
Author's note: To check out my first interview, the one with Mick Jagger, click on to September's blogs at http//:www.bobcrespo.com, just under the site menu, (Sep 2007). It actually ran a little smoother than this one, even though I didn't think so at the time.
Looks like I've found my niche in this blog business, folks. Interviews! It's real hard to find new stuff to say every day so I figured I'd try my hand at interviewing, you know, let somebody else do all the work, just ask them some questions and sit back and let their words fill up the old blank pages for a change. My first one, with Mick Jagger of all people, didn't exactly go off without a hitch but I've learned from my mistakes. Turns out you've got do some actual work to prepare for these things, somewhat of a disappointment but I guess there's no free lunch in this business, unlike my other trade which is catering where there's more free food than you can possibly eat, but that's another story
Today's interview is with a bona fide American icon, a star of screens large and small and one of the most recognizable names in show business. Don't ask me how I landed this extraordinary coup, just let me say that at the end of a lot of very delicate negotiations with his representatives I am privileged to give my readers a real treat, an interview with the great Elmer Fudd himself! You all know Mr. Fudd as the star of countless cartoons as the comic foil for Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird and too many other mega-stars of cartoonery to count. His portrayal of "The Intwepid Hunter" is a classic of Bunyanesque proportions, rivaled only by Chaplin's loveable Everyman "The Tramp" in motion picture annals. Elmer Fudd could do it all, comedy-wise. He could be as good a straight man as Bud Abbot when playing off Bugs Bunny or as zany as Jerry Lewis if the situation required zaniness. He also was a deft hand at pathos, able to produce the tears at the dwop of a hat.
Now retired from performing, Elmer Fudd has moved behind the camera to the director's chair, helming such latter-day classics as "Saving Pwivate Wyan," "Piwates of The Cawibbean" and "When Hawwy Met Sawwy." Not limiting himself to directing, Mr. Fudd has also been busy writing squwipts, I means scripts for top television shows like "Waw and Owder", "Thirty Wock" and "Without A Twace," and also directing many episodes of "Ugwy Betty."
Mr. Fudd arived at the offices of bobcrespo.com alone, with no entourage or limousine, explaining that he "Wuv's to supwise peopew by woawing up my Hawwey Davidson." Indeed it was a shock to see him pulling up to bobcrespo.com on his bike, and more surprising still to see he has grown a beard and let his hair grow in, wearing it long like a true biker. Elmer also sports many tattoos, not surprisingly likenesses of many of his former costars, most prominently a large Tweety Bird with Sylvester the Cat on one forearm and Bugs Bunny munching a carrot on the other. He's also in surprisingly good shape, exhibiting none of the round tubbiness you associated with his film roles. "I'm a widdiw bit of a gym wat," he explained. Indeed, his firm handshake is a dead giveaway that he's been pumping a lot of iron.
Mr. Fudd made himself right at home in my office, accepting a glass of iced tea and lighting up a cigar, which I half expected to explode in his face. A relaxed man at home in his own skin, he was the one who broke the ice:
EF: "Nice pwace you've got here."
BC: "Thank you Mr. Fudd. Welcome to bobcrespo.com.
EF: "My pweasure. And cawl me Ewma"
BC: "So, Ewma, let's get right into to it. I suppose your classic line from that Bugs Bunny cartoon 'My name is Ewma Fudd. I am a miwwionaire, I own an mansion and a yacht' has more than come true for these days."
EF: "You can say that again, my fwend! See, Bugs and I got together years ago and bought all the rights fwum Wawner Bwothers to ouw cawtoons and now we're wowwing in dough as they say."
BC: "Smart business move, sir. Very forward thinking."
EF: "Weww, the studio boys figuwed cawtoons wewe onwy siwwy stuff, not weawy cwassic archive matewial wike other movies, but me and Bugs knew better and we made them as offer and they gwabbed it. Now what they got is dated bwack and white mewodwamas whiwe me and Bugs got timewess cwassics that never get old. There's always a new cwop of kids who wuv our work."
BC: "It sounds like you and Bugs are great friends. Watching your cartoons you'd think you two would always be mortal enemies."
EF: "Sounds like somebody took the cawtoons a widdew too sewiouswy, Bob. We wewe acting! I guess we were pwetty good at it, huh?"
BC: "Had me fooled."
EF: "Oh-kaaay. Anyway, me and Bugs are gweat buddies. we go golfing, work on squwipts together, devewop new shows, do a wot of pwoduction. One of our gweatest cowabowations was "Evwybody Wuv's Waymond."
BC: "That was you guys?"
EF: "Wike I said, me and Bugs. 'Wiww and Gwace' was ours too, both in syndication now, money in the bank for our gwandkids."
BC: "You have a big family?
EF: "Me, I have a weguwar sized famiwy, I guess. Two kids with my first wife and thwee gwandkids and coupew of wittew ones now with my second wife, too young to be mawwied yet."
BC: "Your second wife or your kids? Just kidding. And what about Bugs Bunny?
EF: "Him? I've wost twack by now. He is a wabbit, you know. Must have a couple of hundred gwandkids by now, especiawwy if his kids took after him, if you know what I mean."
BC: " A real ladies man, eh?
EF: "No. Wike I said, he's a wabbit. Wabbits repwoduce a wot, you know."
BC: "A kwazy wabbit?"
EF: "Didn't I just teww you he's a good fwiend and my copwoducer? Nothing Kwazy about him. Shwewd as they come."
BC: "But in your cartoons..."
EF: "There weawy is something wong with you, isn't there? "
BC: Well, to tell you the truth I'm a little disappointed that you're such a ...how can say this... a regular guy."
EF: "When you meet Wobert DeNiwo, would you expect him to be some inarticulate thug with a gun in his pocket?
BC: "Of course..."
EF: "What don't you get about show business, Bob, the show or the business? It's all make-beweave! Can't you sepawate Ewmer Fudd, the actor and cartoon chawactew fwom Ewmer Fudd the man?"
BC: "I never realized there'd be a difference."
EF: "I think this is a kwy for help on your part, Bob."
BC: "But you're Elmer friggin' Fudd, dammit! I should be able to hit you on the head with a hammer and make a bunch of little bumps on your head, blow off a shotgun in your face and get it all black, stuff you into a mailbox and all that stuff...."
EF: "I'm getting vewy uncomfortable here, Bob. I think I'll be on my way...."
BC: Can't I just fling you out the door with a giant sling shot? I thought we'd get to have some madcap, zany action here today..."
EF: "This is not a Woad Wunner episode, Bob, this is weaw wife. Didn't you ever hear of speciaw effects?"
BC: "Real life? You're Elmer Fudd, you can fall off the roof onto your head if you wanted to! Get hit a bunch of times with a giant mallet and shake it off! C'mon, Elmer, I've got a bunch of stuff prepared. Check out this stick of TNT!"
EF: "Bob, wet me warn you, I'm a bwack bewt in Kawate, domn't come any cwoser!"
BC: "Now you're talking, Fudd, let's do some cartoon stuff!."
EF: "Don't say I didn't wawn you!" (END OF INTERVIEW.)
Boy, that Elmer Fudd sure packs a mean karate chop for a cartoon character. He flipped me like a burger and stormed out my house, or rather, my office, hopped on his Harley and roared away, saying some very un-Elmer Fuddian things to me as he left. Looks like I'll have to tweak my interview techniques a bit more. You know you're an amateur when you alienate a retired cartoon character. Now what am I going to do with that giant mallet, the shotgun, the bear trap and that stick of dynamite, to say nothing of that giant sling shot I built with pieces of the china closet and our drapes?
The lovely wife insists I get rid of them and replace the drapes before I write another blog. She never did appreciate cartoons all that much and now she's questioning how I run my interview business! She doesn't seem to understand learning curves either, I suppose. Oh well, as they say in cartoons, back to the drawing board! Next time I'll nail it. Maybe O.J. Simpson's got some spare time on his hands. Should I take a stab at it? Let me just whip out my celebrity phone book here... okay, under S, let's see... Simon- Carly, Simon- Neil, Simon- Paul, Simon-Simple, hmmm, no shortage of famous Simons... Bingo there it is! Simpson, O.J., football Hall of Famer, B-actor and acquitted killer, let me just dial him up...
BC: "Hello? Mr. Simpson? Bob Crespo here, of bobcrespo.com. It's a website, sir. I was wondering if you would grant me an interview.... How much? Cash only, you say?... Or Krugerrands? Gee, that's an awful lot of gold, sir... No, I'm not making fun of you.. What? ... No, I don't think I'd like you to come over here and do that at all... Oh, you do know where I live?... O.J., I don't think that's necessary at all... all I wanted was... I mean... what do you mean or else?... couldn't we just forget all ab... What?... Mr. Simpson, you're blowing this all out of proportion... No, sir, I'm not calling you a liar, no need to do that..."
Like I said, this interview business isn't as easy as I thought. Now I have to move. I have a sinking feeling the lovely wife isn't going to understand that one one at all.
Author's note: To check out my first interview, the one with Mick Jagger, click on to September's blogs at http//:www.bobcrespo.com, just under the site menu, (Sep 2007). It actually ran a little smoother than this one, even though I didn't think so at the time.
February 22, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 320
You sort of know you've pissed off a lot of people when you're featured in the lead segment on "America's Most Wanted." That's a huge clue you've been a real jerk.
LET'S GET THE GOOGLE EARTH GEEKS ON THE BIN LADEN CASE
So now Google Earth's new oceanographic views have found the lost city of Atlantis, which they then proceeded to deny. Okay, let them have their little secret, nobody really gives a damn about Atlantis. Let them team up with National Geographic and do a nice TV special on the place. Atlantis is that fabled advanced civilization of folk lore attributed with all sorts of modern gizmos and inventions, with the sole exception of being able to escape to any of the many other nearby land masses when their country sunk beneath the ocean waves. So much for being able to think of everything.
But the question is, if Google Earth can have a picture of everybody on the planet's house and every feature of every wilderness and now they're providing detailed images of the oceans and what's underneath them, isn't it about time that the United States Armed Forces enlists Google Earth to find the most wanted man on the planet? That would be Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United States and dozens of other deadly terrorist operations. The guy's been on the run for years, eluding the United States Army and Air Force by hiding in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Even the Predator drones that have been killing Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in droves haven't spotted this guy, who at at 6 foot, 6 inches, is possibly the tallest guy in the whole region.
So, let's draft the Google Geeks. They've already spotted the Predator drones in Pakistan and zoomed in on a sniper over there, so how about finding a basketball player-sized Arab who uses a walking stick? It's not like there's a whole bunch of them cruising around over there. And no doubt the guy has himself a posse. What's the point of being an evil mastermind if you're not surrounded by henchmen? There will be bodyguards, lookouts, drivers and the guy who operates his video equipment when he makes his his latest death-to-America video. So you instruct the Google geeks to look for a bunch of heavily armed guys in turbans surrounding a guy who stands head and shoulders over them. For the guys who found Atlantis that should be a snap.
Our Armed Services so far have only been able to kill and capture an endless supply of bin Laden's # 2 men, an unenviable job if ever there was one and one that has expendable written all over it. You have to figure the guy who paints the names on the office door for the #2 man in Al Qaeda Headquarters is one busy guy. But it's Osama bin Laden we've got to get, the Goldfinger of terrorists. Without him Al Qaeda is nothing, just another two bit jihad outfit run by mouth breathing goons without the brains to plan a meal, much less a major terror attack. But so far he's been harder to find than Waldo in a crowd of Mormons. It's time for the Armed Forces to take the next step and bring in the big guns, the Google Geeks.
Once they find bin Waldo, they could give the Predator drone guys in Nevada his coordinates and they could send him to his 72 virgins reward along with his henchmen. Problem solved, a monster given justice and then America can clear our troops out of that part of the world and leave them to their own devices. It's pretty apparent at this point that neither Afghanistan or Pakistan are places that we can understand, or even want to. Places that gladly provide sanctuary to likes of bin Laden and the Taliban aren't about to have their hearts and minds won over by America any time soon. So get the Google Geeks to find the mastermind, kill him and all his henchmen and then leave with a warning that Google's got their eye in the sky on them. You can't hide from Google Earth. Ask Atlantis.
But the question is, if Google Earth can have a picture of everybody on the planet's house and every feature of every wilderness and now they're providing detailed images of the oceans and what's underneath them, isn't it about time that the United States Armed Forces enlists Google Earth to find the most wanted man on the planet? That would be Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United States and dozens of other deadly terrorist operations. The guy's been on the run for years, eluding the United States Army and Air Force by hiding in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Even the Predator drones that have been killing Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in droves haven't spotted this guy, who at at 6 foot, 6 inches, is possibly the tallest guy in the whole region.
So, let's draft the Google Geeks. They've already spotted the Predator drones in Pakistan and zoomed in on a sniper over there, so how about finding a basketball player-sized Arab who uses a walking stick? It's not like there's a whole bunch of them cruising around over there. And no doubt the guy has himself a posse. What's the point of being an evil mastermind if you're not surrounded by henchmen? There will be bodyguards, lookouts, drivers and the guy who operates his video equipment when he makes his his latest death-to-America video. So you instruct the Google geeks to look for a bunch of heavily armed guys in turbans surrounding a guy who stands head and shoulders over them. For the guys who found Atlantis that should be a snap.
Our Armed Services so far have only been able to kill and capture an endless supply of bin Laden's # 2 men, an unenviable job if ever there was one and one that has expendable written all over it. You have to figure the guy who paints the names on the office door for the #2 man in Al Qaeda Headquarters is one busy guy. But it's Osama bin Laden we've got to get, the Goldfinger of terrorists. Without him Al Qaeda is nothing, just another two bit jihad outfit run by mouth breathing goons without the brains to plan a meal, much less a major terror attack. But so far he's been harder to find than Waldo in a crowd of Mormons. It's time for the Armed Forces to take the next step and bring in the big guns, the Google Geeks.
Once they find bin Waldo, they could give the Predator drone guys in Nevada his coordinates and they could send him to his 72 virgins reward along with his henchmen. Problem solved, a monster given justice and then America can clear our troops out of that part of the world and leave them to their own devices. It's pretty apparent at this point that neither Afghanistan or Pakistan are places that we can understand, or even want to. Places that gladly provide sanctuary to likes of bin Laden and the Taliban aren't about to have their hearts and minds won over by America any time soon. So get the Google Geeks to find the mastermind, kill him and all his henchmen and then leave with a warning that Google's got their eye in the sky on them. You can't hide from Google Earth. Ask Atlantis.
February 21, 2009
DOPOTO REPORTS: 2009 IS STARTING OFF STRANGE
The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has been keeping an eye on developments in this still relatively new year: 2009, A.D. We use the old A.D.(Anno Domini) reference to the year since no one has decided conclusively whether the proper designation is C.E. (Common Era) or M.E. (Modern Era). We also like the Latin words "Anno Domini" since we're a Department and all and it always looks petty official and impressive to use Latin phrases. Even anonymous Departments are not without their conceits.
Be that as it may, the many reports crossing the desk of DOPOTO so far this year point to a strange year in the making. Originally touted as the official closing of one of the most regrettable chapters in American history, The Bush The Younger Administration, also know as "The Lost Years," the whole concept was blurred before the year even began by the widespread collapse of the nation's and the entire world's financial institutions last October. Many other key industries followed suit and America began dusting off our FDR/Great Depression analogies. The changing of the calendar year, and the subsequent swearing in of an optimistic young president did little to change the reality of the collapse and the feeling of imminent doom.
So, "Change we can believe in" turned swiftly into "Can you believe this change?" It seems that decades of unregulated thievery, corruption and reckless gambling by those entrusted with the driving engines of our economy had finally produced the predictable results. Greed has made us poorer, with even the wealthy taking some heavy financial hits this time. When that happened, researchers at DOPOTO knew this was serious. Normally when hard times hit, the rich get richer. Not now, and you have all sorts of wealthy people crying crocodile tears and unloading their third and fourth homes and sharply cutting back on their absurd purchases. While that is of little consolation to the poor that are, as always in times like these, getting poorer, it is a eye-opening indication of the seriousness of the crash. The greedy have finally lost control and are eating each other.
Another odd trend is that the disgraced Republicans, on whose watch this all happened, are feeling less than disgraced, even defiant for their complicity in the political and economic collapse of the Bush The Younger Years. Offered the olive branch of inclusion in the new administration of President Obama, they refused to cooperate and are in full attack mode against the policies being implemented to correct their unbelievably huge mistakes. They are even claiming that their ideas (!) are the only good ones out there, even though it's apparent even to dead wine-drinking chimpanzees that their policies were about a effective as FEMA during a hurricane.
Some have even gone on record as hoping the new president fails, figuring it's only fair since their guy Bush The Younger failed as miserably as is humanly possible, which didn't really bother them so long as they kept prospering. They now say it's okay to be rich people first, Republicans second, and Americans maybe third or fourth, if even that high on their list of priorities. They're the people who reinvented patriotism as a political fear tool and now that they're out of power they've discarded it's empty shell completely, concentrating openly on promoting the interests of the wealthy elite without having to pretend otherwise like when they took oaths of office and had to appear to be working for all the people and whatnot.
Also resurfacing in early 2009 is that ever-entertaining mental midget Sarah Palin, the former Republican Vice Presidential candidate and current Governor of Alaska. She announced that she was in favor of President Obama's economic stimulus bill, then against it, without really being able to explain why or even what the word "stimulus" meant. She also publicly debated with her 18-year old daughter Bristol on the topic of Creationism versus Evolution and was soundly trounced by the child. Then it was announced that Ms. Palin owes $70,000 in back taxes to the Federal Government and her state is going broke. The 2012 Republican presidential nomination seems to be slipping from her grasp every time she opens her mouth, but Democrats are said to be very hopeful for a Palin run for the presidency, with perhaps Bill O'Really as her running mate. That ought to keep the Republicans in the snide commentary business and out of public office while more responsible people clean up the horrendous mess they made of the nation while they were in charge.
The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious has been searching the news for signs of normalcy to return, but between the lady who married the drunken chimpanzee who ate her friend's face, the rash of right-wing propagandists declaring a presidency that is barely one-month old a disaster and the prospect of there being no more Pontiacs, it's hard to get a handle on 2009. Even the coming baseball season promises to be a drug scandal-scarred fiasco, so DOPOTO, like the nation it reports to, hopes for the best. Frankly, we here at the Department will miss the Pontiacs.
Be that as it may, the many reports crossing the desk of DOPOTO so far this year point to a strange year in the making. Originally touted as the official closing of one of the most regrettable chapters in American history, The Bush The Younger Administration, also know as "The Lost Years," the whole concept was blurred before the year even began by the widespread collapse of the nation's and the entire world's financial institutions last October. Many other key industries followed suit and America began dusting off our FDR/Great Depression analogies. The changing of the calendar year, and the subsequent swearing in of an optimistic young president did little to change the reality of the collapse and the feeling of imminent doom.
So, "Change we can believe in" turned swiftly into "Can you believe this change?" It seems that decades of unregulated thievery, corruption and reckless gambling by those entrusted with the driving engines of our economy had finally produced the predictable results. Greed has made us poorer, with even the wealthy taking some heavy financial hits this time. When that happened, researchers at DOPOTO knew this was serious. Normally when hard times hit, the rich get richer. Not now, and you have all sorts of wealthy people crying crocodile tears and unloading their third and fourth homes and sharply cutting back on their absurd purchases. While that is of little consolation to the poor that are, as always in times like these, getting poorer, it is a eye-opening indication of the seriousness of the crash. The greedy have finally lost control and are eating each other.
Another odd trend is that the disgraced Republicans, on whose watch this all happened, are feeling less than disgraced, even defiant for their complicity in the political and economic collapse of the Bush The Younger Years. Offered the olive branch of inclusion in the new administration of President Obama, they refused to cooperate and are in full attack mode against the policies being implemented to correct their unbelievably huge mistakes. They are even claiming that their ideas (!) are the only good ones out there, even though it's apparent even to dead wine-drinking chimpanzees that their policies were about a effective as FEMA during a hurricane.
Some have even gone on record as hoping the new president fails, figuring it's only fair since their guy Bush The Younger failed as miserably as is humanly possible, which didn't really bother them so long as they kept prospering. They now say it's okay to be rich people first, Republicans second, and Americans maybe third or fourth, if even that high on their list of priorities. They're the people who reinvented patriotism as a political fear tool and now that they're out of power they've discarded it's empty shell completely, concentrating openly on promoting the interests of the wealthy elite without having to pretend otherwise like when they took oaths of office and had to appear to be working for all the people and whatnot.
Also resurfacing in early 2009 is that ever-entertaining mental midget Sarah Palin, the former Republican Vice Presidential candidate and current Governor of Alaska. She announced that she was in favor of President Obama's economic stimulus bill, then against it, without really being able to explain why or even what the word "stimulus" meant. She also publicly debated with her 18-year old daughter Bristol on the topic of Creationism versus Evolution and was soundly trounced by the child. Then it was announced that Ms. Palin owes $70,000 in back taxes to the Federal Government and her state is going broke. The 2012 Republican presidential nomination seems to be slipping from her grasp every time she opens her mouth, but Democrats are said to be very hopeful for a Palin run for the presidency, with perhaps Bill O'Really as her running mate. That ought to keep the Republicans in the snide commentary business and out of public office while more responsible people clean up the horrendous mess they made of the nation while they were in charge.
The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious has been searching the news for signs of normalcy to return, but between the lady who married the drunken chimpanzee who ate her friend's face, the rash of right-wing propagandists declaring a presidency that is barely one-month old a disaster and the prospect of there being no more Pontiacs, it's hard to get a handle on 2009. Even the coming baseball season promises to be a drug scandal-scarred fiasco, so DOPOTO, like the nation it reports to, hopes for the best. Frankly, we here at the Department will miss the Pontiacs.
February 19, 2009
CAN WE TRY TRANQUILIZER DART GUNS?
There was that story about a pet chimpanzee in Connecticut mauling that woman and being shot dead by the police. Good call by the cops. But the question here is, why wasn't a tranquilizer dart gun used? Not on the chimp, but on the owner of the ape before she decided it would be nice to marry a chimpanzee? Okay, even if she slipped through the cracks at the time of purchase, what about when she taught the chimp to drink wine, take Xanex and ride around with her in her car? Shouldn't the local authorities have loaded the dart guns with something strong at that point and taken this woman out? The chimp was 15 years old, so it's not like it was some sort of secret. You don't have to be a primate expert to know that Chimpanzees are aggressive and dangerous animals unsuited to anything but life in the wild or slapstick comedy routines.
Connecticut is sort of the direct opposite of "the wild" and the woman made absolutely no attempt to provide her chimpanzee with a proper comedy wardrobe like little 3-piece chimpanzee suits and derbies or wedding gowns or cowboy outfits, nor did she provide the unfortunate creature with an acting coach. What did the Connecticut authorities expect? A preemptive strike with a tranquilizer gun at the point of purchase would have avoided the whole nasty episode. Her unfortunate friend literally had her face removed by this angry ape, eyes, nose and jaws. It couldn't be stopped by its owner with a shovel a butcher knife so it had to be shot dead. Perhaps legislation could be introduced allowing our local police to use their discretion when dealing with unruly humans before things get so out of hand.
People who think it would be a great idea to own a lion or a tiger, for example, would be prime candidates for getting darted. And it would be for their own good, of course, as well as in the interests of public safety. No one likes to read the inevitable stories of the owners of lions and tigers being killed and eaten by their big cats. Well, almost nobody. Some of us (ahem!) find it pretty amusing and a sort of poetic justice. But still, it's unfair to kill the animals for behaving like animals. They're large carnivores, period, amen. Caging them and bottle feeding them does not change that stubborn fact. When you're a domestically raised tiger, your hunting skills are bound to be a bit rusty but your genetic imperatives command you to hunt and kill, so who better that a slow human with their two measly legs and conspicuous lack of claws and antlers to practice your killing skills on? It's not like the tiger was ever your cuddly little Fido in the first place.
It's a 600-pound carnivore living in a cage in your back yard. There's a reason for that cage. Don't go in there and ask the thing to fetch your damned frisbee for you. Lions and tigers are notoriously uninterested in playing with you, especially if you're the fool who's idea it was to lock them up in that cage in the first place. At least the Connecticut chimpanzee got to ride around in a car every once in a while. You can't do that with your pet lion or tiger, or take them out to the park where there's dogs and children running around, otherwise the kid/dog head count would be a bit light at the end of the day.
The Connecticut Chimp Lady, on the other hand, took the human/wild animal relationship a step further, living with her Chimp as husband and wife. That's pretty odd, no? She fed him filet mignon and lobster tails, they watched TV together and lived as many other couples do, although the vast majority of other couples are both human beings. They drank wine, bathed and slept together (Insert your own jokes here. You may use another sheet of paper if necessary.). When the Chimp was feeling depressed or irritable, she gave him tea laced with Xanex, not unlike what many wives do for their human husbands. Most husbands, though, don't tear off their wife's friend's face, no matter how annoying that friend might be.
Are there lessons here for the rest of us? No, no there aren't. We already know it's pretty weird and stupid to marry a chimpanzee. In a thousand years it would never occur to us to go that route, no matter how many bad human-on-human relationships we've endured. Unfortunately, now the chimp's owner and the lady without the face had to learn this the hard way. It's too late to dart this idiotic owner, but not too late to put her in a cage. Maybe treat her like people usually treat chimpanzees, stripping her naked and giving her bananas and a tire swing in her prison cell.
It would only be a matter of time before she began banging her head on the cage and throwing her feces around, but what the hell, it was her idea to blur the species roles of humans and apes, not anyone else's. Maybe that will give other like-minded cross-species romantics something to think about before they share their bed with a beast. Maybe the woman without the eyes, nose and jaw will at least be able to hear that her former friend has been locked away for a long time for the high crime of aggravated stupidity. Or at the very least, shot repeatedly with tranquilizer darts, a fresh round administered as soon as the last one wears off. This way she won't be able to go shopping for a new chimpanzee husband anytime soon.
Connecticut is sort of the direct opposite of "the wild" and the woman made absolutely no attempt to provide her chimpanzee with a proper comedy wardrobe like little 3-piece chimpanzee suits and derbies or wedding gowns or cowboy outfits, nor did she provide the unfortunate creature with an acting coach. What did the Connecticut authorities expect? A preemptive strike with a tranquilizer gun at the point of purchase would have avoided the whole nasty episode. Her unfortunate friend literally had her face removed by this angry ape, eyes, nose and jaws. It couldn't be stopped by its owner with a shovel a butcher knife so it had to be shot dead. Perhaps legislation could be introduced allowing our local police to use their discretion when dealing with unruly humans before things get so out of hand.
People who think it would be a great idea to own a lion or a tiger, for example, would be prime candidates for getting darted. And it would be for their own good, of course, as well as in the interests of public safety. No one likes to read the inevitable stories of the owners of lions and tigers being killed and eaten by their big cats. Well, almost nobody. Some of us (ahem!) find it pretty amusing and a sort of poetic justice. But still, it's unfair to kill the animals for behaving like animals. They're large carnivores, period, amen. Caging them and bottle feeding them does not change that stubborn fact. When you're a domestically raised tiger, your hunting skills are bound to be a bit rusty but your genetic imperatives command you to hunt and kill, so who better that a slow human with their two measly legs and conspicuous lack of claws and antlers to practice your killing skills on? It's not like the tiger was ever your cuddly little Fido in the first place.
It's a 600-pound carnivore living in a cage in your back yard. There's a reason for that cage. Don't go in there and ask the thing to fetch your damned frisbee for you. Lions and tigers are notoriously uninterested in playing with you, especially if you're the fool who's idea it was to lock them up in that cage in the first place. At least the Connecticut chimpanzee got to ride around in a car every once in a while. You can't do that with your pet lion or tiger, or take them out to the park where there's dogs and children running around, otherwise the kid/dog head count would be a bit light at the end of the day.
The Connecticut Chimp Lady, on the other hand, took the human/wild animal relationship a step further, living with her Chimp as husband and wife. That's pretty odd, no? She fed him filet mignon and lobster tails, they watched TV together and lived as many other couples do, although the vast majority of other couples are both human beings. They drank wine, bathed and slept together (Insert your own jokes here. You may use another sheet of paper if necessary.). When the Chimp was feeling depressed or irritable, she gave him tea laced with Xanex, not unlike what many wives do for their human husbands. Most husbands, though, don't tear off their wife's friend's face, no matter how annoying that friend might be.
Are there lessons here for the rest of us? No, no there aren't. We already know it's pretty weird and stupid to marry a chimpanzee. In a thousand years it would never occur to us to go that route, no matter how many bad human-on-human relationships we've endured. Unfortunately, now the chimp's owner and the lady without the face had to learn this the hard way. It's too late to dart this idiotic owner, but not too late to put her in a cage. Maybe treat her like people usually treat chimpanzees, stripping her naked and giving her bananas and a tire swing in her prison cell.
It would only be a matter of time before she began banging her head on the cage and throwing her feces around, but what the hell, it was her idea to blur the species roles of humans and apes, not anyone else's. Maybe that will give other like-minded cross-species romantics something to think about before they share their bed with a beast. Maybe the woman without the eyes, nose and jaw will at least be able to hear that her former friend has been locked away for a long time for the high crime of aggravated stupidity. Or at the very least, shot repeatedly with tranquilizer darts, a fresh round administered as soon as the last one wears off. This way she won't be able to go shopping for a new chimpanzee husband anytime soon.
February 18, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 317
You can't do a damned thing about the circumstances of your birth and you've got almost nothing to say about how and when you die. In between these two events is when you get to ride the wild stallion. Ride 'em, cowboy, hard as you can. Live it up.
I'M A MODERN MAN!
Look at me, I'm a Modern Man. I do modern things, pushing buttons, clicking my mouse, downloading, uploading, sending data across the World Wide Web, getting crucial bulletins from cyberspace. How are things in Glocca Mora? Why speculate? Google it and see. When I leave my master console I'm still connected, iPhone at the ready, laptop handy in case I need to connect. I'm a Modern Man, hooked-up, wired in and on the grid. Where's Waldo, you say? Let's Google his skinny white ass too, see where he's at. You can't hide from us, we're Modern Men, part of the hard-charging cyber patrol, sending, receiving, seeking, locating, scanning, deleting, updating, interacting!
You got questions? We got answers! And the answer is always wire yourself up more. Add more memory! Get the newest phone, it does everything! Get the new wristband computer while you're at it, and use any surface for a touch screen! Talk to your car and tell it where you want to go, follow the Yellow Chip Road to your destination. Pay no attention to those puny humans behind the curtain, they matter not at all! The Great and Powerful Oz has no use for flesh and blood! Keep your eyes on the little electronic icon birdie! Stray not from the alternate reality we have created!
When you are a Modern Man, you are above the fray, far, far away from the emotionally draining demands of surly humanity. They are all around, these breathing, smelly, unpredictable people, with their head colds and their sniffles, their wants, their needs, their passion, their hunger, their trouble, their emotions and their alarming desire to touch and be touched and to speak unchecked, to challenge and prod! Yet, though they are everywhere, we need not face them and must not stoop to the ways of yesterday. To a Modern Man they might as well be on Mars! They are there, but not there. Invisible. You want to talk, do not approach the Modern Man! Interface with my devices, send me your profile, and don't hog the megabytes with personal details. State your business, for the Modern man is busy! He's got things to do, places to be, connections to make and you're not invited. Modern Man walks alone.
You want my Modern Baby, I'll donate my sperm, thank you, and we'll get a nanny to raise to slobbering little lout until he's a grown up Modern Man. I will text him my love, and we'll play catch with e-mails. He will be an even more Modern Man, wired up in ways we can now only dream of. Computer chips and phone connections will be installed right into his brain, and his location will be known instantly, yet he will be aloof, self-contained and flying solo. He will be Cyber Man, as one with his video games, his cyberstreams of data and his virtual friends. He will not be touched.
He will interface with the world, never needing to travel, having no desire to see it for himself since the world will come to him in vivid digital images. The actual experiences and the sweat and the thrills have been obtained by others, and the results distilled to their digital essence. He will grow up knowing that the images are enough to become an expert without the effort, an encyclopedic authority on lands he has never seen, people he has never met, foods he has never tasted. And Modern Man will be proud of little Cyber Man and post his parental boasts on his virtual profile pages.
So let us celebrate our Modern Man status. Not in person, of course, not actually being together, speaking and touching and having uncontrolled conversations. That is the way of Unmodern Man, and we shun him and his backward ways. We will toast each other from the solitude of our consoles, and share data in cyberspace, maybe relate amusing stories via e-mail and electronic chat rooms and share digital photographs. We will not soil our fingers on newsprint and bound books that others have handled. Instead we will gain our information online, knowing it to be the full truth in convenient synopsis form.
We will be entertained digitally in real time or record our favorite diversions to suit our hectic schedules. We will read books in electronic format, as they were meant to be scanned, so long as they are short and to the point. The novel is yesterday's art form, too long and too convoluted for Modern Man. His time is precious, the demands on his attention infinite. There is much to do, much to scan, many a website to be explored and forgotten. We will post our expert insights for others to heed, and monitor the entire world from our flat screens. Look at me, I'm a Modern Man doing modern things. I am here, yet not here, living at my web address and plying the ether highways. I am Modern Man and cannot be touched. Gaze upon my digital image.
You got questions? We got answers! And the answer is always wire yourself up more. Add more memory! Get the newest phone, it does everything! Get the new wristband computer while you're at it, and use any surface for a touch screen! Talk to your car and tell it where you want to go, follow the Yellow Chip Road to your destination. Pay no attention to those puny humans behind the curtain, they matter not at all! The Great and Powerful Oz has no use for flesh and blood! Keep your eyes on the little electronic icon birdie! Stray not from the alternate reality we have created!
When you are a Modern Man, you are above the fray, far, far away from the emotionally draining demands of surly humanity. They are all around, these breathing, smelly, unpredictable people, with their head colds and their sniffles, their wants, their needs, their passion, their hunger, their trouble, their emotions and their alarming desire to touch and be touched and to speak unchecked, to challenge and prod! Yet, though they are everywhere, we need not face them and must not stoop to the ways of yesterday. To a Modern Man they might as well be on Mars! They are there, but not there. Invisible. You want to talk, do not approach the Modern Man! Interface with my devices, send me your profile, and don't hog the megabytes with personal details. State your business, for the Modern man is busy! He's got things to do, places to be, connections to make and you're not invited. Modern Man walks alone.
You want my Modern Baby, I'll donate my sperm, thank you, and we'll get a nanny to raise to slobbering little lout until he's a grown up Modern Man. I will text him my love, and we'll play catch with e-mails. He will be an even more Modern Man, wired up in ways we can now only dream of. Computer chips and phone connections will be installed right into his brain, and his location will be known instantly, yet he will be aloof, self-contained and flying solo. He will be Cyber Man, as one with his video games, his cyberstreams of data and his virtual friends. He will not be touched.
He will interface with the world, never needing to travel, having no desire to see it for himself since the world will come to him in vivid digital images. The actual experiences and the sweat and the thrills have been obtained by others, and the results distilled to their digital essence. He will grow up knowing that the images are enough to become an expert without the effort, an encyclopedic authority on lands he has never seen, people he has never met, foods he has never tasted. And Modern Man will be proud of little Cyber Man and post his parental boasts on his virtual profile pages.
So let us celebrate our Modern Man status. Not in person, of course, not actually being together, speaking and touching and having uncontrolled conversations. That is the way of Unmodern Man, and we shun him and his backward ways. We will toast each other from the solitude of our consoles, and share data in cyberspace, maybe relate amusing stories via e-mail and electronic chat rooms and share digital photographs. We will not soil our fingers on newsprint and bound books that others have handled. Instead we will gain our information online, knowing it to be the full truth in convenient synopsis form.
We will be entertained digitally in real time or record our favorite diversions to suit our hectic schedules. We will read books in electronic format, as they were meant to be scanned, so long as they are short and to the point. The novel is yesterday's art form, too long and too convoluted for Modern Man. His time is precious, the demands on his attention infinite. There is much to do, much to scan, many a website to be explored and forgotten. We will post our expert insights for others to heed, and monitor the entire world from our flat screens. Look at me, I'm a Modern Man doing modern things. I am here, yet not here, living at my web address and plying the ether highways. I am Modern Man and cannot be touched. Gaze upon my digital image.
February 16, 2009
PEOPLE IT'S OKAY TO HATE
We're always striving in this toubled world to cut down on the unreasonable hatred that exists between people. It makes no sense and is rooted in fear. It makes us less of a human being to harbor hatred, harming the hater more than the hated. People are people the world over and are pretty much the same - the good, the bad and the indifferent. Maybe we don't all think alike or want the same things out of life, but by and large, people are fine, they're pretty decent and we should just let each other be. That said, there are some people worthy of our withering scorn. They are not from any one particular ethnic goup or single nation, but sprinkled thoughout all of humanity just to annoy the crap out of the rest of us. If you feel a pressing need to hate someody, channel your hate properly. Try these people:
People who say it's okay to kill for God. What? Everybody knows that murder is for crimes of passion or personal gain! Leave God out of this. We're fine with murder, there's plenty enough of them going on all the time and for very specific reasons. We sure don't need a new excuse.
People who never lose any socks. Seems like a small thing to hate somebody over until you check your own sock drawer and realize how unnatural it is not to have a dozen or more unmatched pairs. There's something very wrong with someone who doesn't lose a sock here and there. The suspicion here is that they are aliens come to live among us.
People who make up new names for obvious stuff, like a spiffy new name makes a huge problem okay all of a sudden. Here's a flash for our Spin Doctors: "Semi-automomus regions" are chunks of a country's territory taken over by some bloodthirsty warlord from an ineffectual government. "Society's most vulnerable" are what they always were: the dirt poor, the sick, the elderly and the children. "Strategic reconfiguration" is still a retreat and "Supply side economics" never meant anything in the first place, it was always a flimsy excuse to let the super-wealthy keep calling the shots forever. Well, the "supplies" in the supply side never seem to get to "society's most vulnerable," do they?
People who get all their Christmas shopping done by October. These uber-organized control freaks are not just happy to be more efficient than the average bear, but they feel the need to boast about it at every opportunity. And not only brag shamelessly, but they take every opportunity to put the rest of us down for not being like them. Shun these humorless robots.
Phony journalists. Is reading the news from a script in front of a camera anything you or I can't do with a little practice? Of course not, but that doesn't make us journalists either. No, the journalists would be the people who actually go out and find out what's going in and write the scripts for the hairdo people on TV news, often at great risk to themselves. And journalists are the people who write newspapers, reporters who follow a very stringent code of conduct and accountability. At least that's what the dictionary says.
People who smile the whole time they are speaking, no matter what the subject matter. See above, and hate them passionately.
Cell phone addicts. "I've got to take this!" "I have to make a call!" Why? You're not Captain Kirk or the president answering the call to avert some huge calamity. Besides, you're already having a conversation, one with a real person right in front of you. Does that make you uncomfortable? Do you need to escape or feel especially important? Just say so and walk away, don't use your cell phone as an excuse. It's odd how a form of communication becomes a tool for disengagement from living, breathing flesh and blood. And if you start playing some dumb-ass video game on your cell phone when you're in the company of others, it is permissible for them to administer two quick slaps to snap you out of it.
In-your-facers. We all know some of these annoying fools. They believe in something strongly, or so they'd have you think. But that's not enough for them, they have to initiate the conversation about whatever it is that drives them and get in your face and demand you agree with them. Whether it's religion, politics, morals, music, food or culture, these people are so damned insecure they spend their lives challenging people and generally making a nuisance of themselves. At every opportunity, they make sure the subject come up, and the only remedy you have is to tell them the truth, that you don't really think all that much about them or their damned pet peeve. We're fine with our own set of beliefs and principles, thank you very much, and don't feel any pressing need to advertise our way of thinking and convert others. Besides, with that approach, you'll never find out what anybody else has to say, but maybe that's the whole point of in-your-facers.
Opera singers. Not real opera singers, they're okay as far as that caterwauling drama is concerned, but the people who's oft-repeated mantra is "me-me-me-me!" It's always all about them, all for them and me and me and me and me and blah-blah and double blah. Usually these are people who have "found themselves." Unfortunately, a lot of people who find themselves find very little else afterwards. They cannot bear to have the focus taken off their boring little concerns. Unlike their In-your-face cousins, they don't have any one overriding theme, but are perhaps even more tedious with the breathtakingly broad dullness of their selfishness. Nothing about them is not fascinating to them. Sorry, but we don't care what you ate for breakfast, who you gave a piece of your mind to (they must have strayed from the topic of you) or that you had a headache yesterday. You're giving us a headache now and we hate you.
There, that felt better, didn't it? We all know it's wrong to hate, but inside of all of us there it is, one of our emotions, as valid and real as any of the others that drive our lives. To deany that it exists within us is crazy and dishonest. Can you deny the love you feel? It's flip side is hatred, an emotion that can rule us if we allow it to. The trick is to channel it where it belongs, where it makes sense. It's a good thing to hate injustice, cruelty and oppression. You can even hate lima beans, a very sensible and logical target for your pent-up rage. But to hate whole groups of people who never did anything to you but exist is a real waste of a powerful emotion, so very unsatisfying. The people to hate are out there and you don't need to seek them out. They'll find you, and they'll annoy the crap out of you. It's okay to hate them for eating chunks of your life with nothing to show for it but irritation. Kill for peace.
We're always striving in this toubled world to cut own on the unreasonable hatred that exists between people. It makes no sense and is rooted in fear. It makes us less of a human being to harbor hatred, harming the hater more than the hated. People are people the world over and are prety much the same - the good, the bad and the indifferent. Maybe we don't all think alike or want the same things out of life, but by and large, people are fine, they're pretty decent and we should just let each other be. That said, there are some people worthy of our withering scorn. They are not from any one particular ethnic goup or single nation, but sprinkled thoughout all of humanity just to annoy the crap out of the rest of us. If you feel a pressing need to hate someody, channel your hate properly. Try these people:
People who say it's okay to kill for God. What? Everybody knows that murder is for crimes of passion or personal gain! Leave God out of this. We're fine with murder, there's plenty enough of them going on all the time and for very specific reasons. We sure don't need a new excuse.
People who never lose any socks. Seems like a small thing to hate somebody over until you check your own sock drawer and realize how unnatural it is not to have a dozen or more unmatched pairs. There's something very wrong with someone who doesn't lose a sock here and there. The suspicion here is that they are aliens come to live among us.
People who make up new names for obvious stuff, like a spiffy new name makes a huge problem okay all of a sudden. Here's a flash for our Spin Doctors: "Semi-automomus regions" are chunks of a country's territory taken over by some bloodthirsty warlord from an ineffectual government. "Society's most vulnerable" are what they always were: the dirt poor, the sick, the elderly and the children. "Strategic reconfiguration" is still a retreat and "Supply side economics" never meant anything in the first place, it was always a flimsy excuse to let the super-wealthy keep calling the shots forever. Well, the "supplies" in the supply side never seem to get to "society's most vulnerable," do they?
People who get all their Christmas shopping done by October. These uber-organized control freaks are not just happy to be more efficient than the average bear, but they feel the need to boast about it at every opportunity. And not only brag shamelessly, but they take every opportunity to put the rest of us down for not being like them. Shun these humorless robots.
Phony journalists. Is reading the news from a script in front of a camera anything you or I can't do with a little practice? Of course not, but that doesn't make us journalists either. No, the journalists would be the people who actually go out and find out what's going in and write the scripts for the hairdo people on TV news, often at great risk to themselves. And journalists are the people who write newspapers, reporters who follow a very stringent code of conduct and accountability. At least that's what the dictionary says.
People who smile the whole time they are speaking, no matter what the subject matter. See above, and hate them passionately.
Cell phone addicts. "I've got to take this!" "I have to make a call!" Why? You're not Captain Kirk or the president answering the call to avert some huge calamity. Besides, you're already having a conversation, one with a real person right in front of you. Does that make you uncomfortable? Do you need to escape or feel especially important? Just say so and walk away, don't use your cell phone as an excuse. It's odd how a form of communication becomes a tool for disengagement from living, breathing flesh and blood. And if you start playing some dumb-ass video game on your cell phone when you're in the company of others, it is permissible for them to administer two quick slaps to snap you out of it.
In-your-facers. We all know some of these annoying fools. They believe in something strongly, or so they'd have you think. But that's not enough for them, they have to initiate the conversation about whatever it is that drives them and get in your face and demand you agree with them. Whether it's religion, politics, morals, music, food or culture, these people are so damned insecure they spend their lives challenging people and generally making a nuisance of themselves. At every opportunity, they make sure the subject come up, and the only remedy you have is to tell them the truth, that you don't really think all that much about them or their damned pet peeve. We're fine with our own set of beliefs and principles, thank you very much, and don't feel any pressing need to advertise our way of thinking and convert others. Besides, with that approach, you'll never find out what anybody else has to say, but maybe that's the whole point of in-your-facers.
Opera singers. Not real opera singers, they're okay as far as that caterwauling drama is concerned, but the people who's oft-repeated mantra is "me-me-me-me!" It's always all about them, all for them and me and me and me and me and blah-blah and double blah. Usually these are people who have "found themselves." Unfortunately, a lot of people who find themselves find very little else afterwards. They cannot bear to have the focus taken off their boring little concerns. Unlike their In-your-face cousins, they don't have any one overriding theme, but are perhaps even more tedious with the breathtakingly broad dullness of their selfishness. Nothing about them is not fascinating to them. Sorry, but we don't care what you ate for breakfast, who you gave a piece of your mind to (they must have strayed from the topic of you) or that you had a headache yesterday. You're giving us a headache now and we hate you.
There, that felt better, didn't it? We all know it's wrong to hate, but inside of all of us there it is, one of our emotions, as valid and real as any of the others that drive our lives. To deany that it exists within us is crazy and dishonest. Can you deny the love you feel? It's flip side is hatred, an emotion that can rule us if we allow it to. The trick is to channel it where it belongs, where it makes sense. It's a good thing to hate injustice, cruelty and oppression. You can even hate lima beans, a very sensible and logical target for your pent-up rage. But to hate whole groups of people who never did anything to you but exist is a real waste of a powerful emotion, so very unsatisfying. The people to hate are out there and you don't need to seek them out. They'll find you, and they'll annoy the crap out of you. It's okay to hate them for eating chunks of your life with nothing to show for it but irritation. Kill for peace.
People who say it's okay to kill for God. What? Everybody knows that murder is for crimes of passion or personal gain! Leave God out of this. We're fine with murder, there's plenty enough of them going on all the time and for very specific reasons. We sure don't need a new excuse.
People who never lose any socks. Seems like a small thing to hate somebody over until you check your own sock drawer and realize how unnatural it is not to have a dozen or more unmatched pairs. There's something very wrong with someone who doesn't lose a sock here and there. The suspicion here is that they are aliens come to live among us.
People who make up new names for obvious stuff, like a spiffy new name makes a huge problem okay all of a sudden. Here's a flash for our Spin Doctors: "Semi-automomus regions" are chunks of a country's territory taken over by some bloodthirsty warlord from an ineffectual government. "Society's most vulnerable" are what they always were: the dirt poor, the sick, the elderly and the children. "Strategic reconfiguration" is still a retreat and "Supply side economics" never meant anything in the first place, it was always a flimsy excuse to let the super-wealthy keep calling the shots forever. Well, the "supplies" in the supply side never seem to get to "society's most vulnerable," do they?
People who get all their Christmas shopping done by October. These uber-organized control freaks are not just happy to be more efficient than the average bear, but they feel the need to boast about it at every opportunity. And not only brag shamelessly, but they take every opportunity to put the rest of us down for not being like them. Shun these humorless robots.
Phony journalists. Is reading the news from a script in front of a camera anything you or I can't do with a little practice? Of course not, but that doesn't make us journalists either. No, the journalists would be the people who actually go out and find out what's going in and write the scripts for the hairdo people on TV news, often at great risk to themselves. And journalists are the people who write newspapers, reporters who follow a very stringent code of conduct and accountability. At least that's what the dictionary says.
People who smile the whole time they are speaking, no matter what the subject matter. See above, and hate them passionately.
Cell phone addicts. "I've got to take this!" "I have to make a call!" Why? You're not Captain Kirk or the president answering the call to avert some huge calamity. Besides, you're already having a conversation, one with a real person right in front of you. Does that make you uncomfortable? Do you need to escape or feel especially important? Just say so and walk away, don't use your cell phone as an excuse. It's odd how a form of communication becomes a tool for disengagement from living, breathing flesh and blood. And if you start playing some dumb-ass video game on your cell phone when you're in the company of others, it is permissible for them to administer two quick slaps to snap you out of it.
In-your-facers. We all know some of these annoying fools. They believe in something strongly, or so they'd have you think. But that's not enough for them, they have to initiate the conversation about whatever it is that drives them and get in your face and demand you agree with them. Whether it's religion, politics, morals, music, food or culture, these people are so damned insecure they spend their lives challenging people and generally making a nuisance of themselves. At every opportunity, they make sure the subject come up, and the only remedy you have is to tell them the truth, that you don't really think all that much about them or their damned pet peeve. We're fine with our own set of beliefs and principles, thank you very much, and don't feel any pressing need to advertise our way of thinking and convert others. Besides, with that approach, you'll never find out what anybody else has to say, but maybe that's the whole point of in-your-facers.
Opera singers. Not real opera singers, they're okay as far as that caterwauling drama is concerned, but the people who's oft-repeated mantra is "me-me-me-me!" It's always all about them, all for them and me and me and me and me and blah-blah and double blah. Usually these are people who have "found themselves." Unfortunately, a lot of people who find themselves find very little else afterwards. They cannot bear to have the focus taken off their boring little concerns. Unlike their In-your-face cousins, they don't have any one overriding theme, but are perhaps even more tedious with the breathtakingly broad dullness of their selfishness. Nothing about them is not fascinating to them. Sorry, but we don't care what you ate for breakfast, who you gave a piece of your mind to (they must have strayed from the topic of you) or that you had a headache yesterday. You're giving us a headache now and we hate you.
There, that felt better, didn't it? We all know it's wrong to hate, but inside of all of us there it is, one of our emotions, as valid and real as any of the others that drive our lives. To deany that it exists within us is crazy and dishonest. Can you deny the love you feel? It's flip side is hatred, an emotion that can rule us if we allow it to. The trick is to channel it where it belongs, where it makes sense. It's a good thing to hate injustice, cruelty and oppression. You can even hate lima beans, a very sensible and logical target for your pent-up rage. But to hate whole groups of people who never did anything to you but exist is a real waste of a powerful emotion, so very unsatisfying. The people to hate are out there and you don't need to seek them out. They'll find you, and they'll annoy the crap out of you. It's okay to hate them for eating chunks of your life with nothing to show for it but irritation. Kill for peace.
We're always striving in this toubled world to cut own on the unreasonable hatred that exists between people. It makes no sense and is rooted in fear. It makes us less of a human being to harbor hatred, harming the hater more than the hated. People are people the world over and are prety much the same - the good, the bad and the indifferent. Maybe we don't all think alike or want the same things out of life, but by and large, people are fine, they're pretty decent and we should just let each other be. That said, there are some people worthy of our withering scorn. They are not from any one particular ethnic goup or single nation, but sprinkled thoughout all of humanity just to annoy the crap out of the rest of us. If you feel a pressing need to hate someody, channel your hate properly. Try these people:
People who say it's okay to kill for God. What? Everybody knows that murder is for crimes of passion or personal gain! Leave God out of this. We're fine with murder, there's plenty enough of them going on all the time and for very specific reasons. We sure don't need a new excuse.
People who never lose any socks. Seems like a small thing to hate somebody over until you check your own sock drawer and realize how unnatural it is not to have a dozen or more unmatched pairs. There's something very wrong with someone who doesn't lose a sock here and there. The suspicion here is that they are aliens come to live among us.
People who make up new names for obvious stuff, like a spiffy new name makes a huge problem okay all of a sudden. Here's a flash for our Spin Doctors: "Semi-automomus regions" are chunks of a country's territory taken over by some bloodthirsty warlord from an ineffectual government. "Society's most vulnerable" are what they always were: the dirt poor, the sick, the elderly and the children. "Strategic reconfiguration" is still a retreat and "Supply side economics" never meant anything in the first place, it was always a flimsy excuse to let the super-wealthy keep calling the shots forever. Well, the "supplies" in the supply side never seem to get to "society's most vulnerable," do they?
People who get all their Christmas shopping done by October. These uber-organized control freaks are not just happy to be more efficient than the average bear, but they feel the need to boast about it at every opportunity. And not only brag shamelessly, but they take every opportunity to put the rest of us down for not being like them. Shun these humorless robots.
Phony journalists. Is reading the news from a script in front of a camera anything you or I can't do with a little practice? Of course not, but that doesn't make us journalists either. No, the journalists would be the people who actually go out and find out what's going in and write the scripts for the hairdo people on TV news, often at great risk to themselves. And journalists are the people who write newspapers, reporters who follow a very stringent code of conduct and accountability. At least that's what the dictionary says.
People who smile the whole time they are speaking, no matter what the subject matter. See above, and hate them passionately.
Cell phone addicts. "I've got to take this!" "I have to make a call!" Why? You're not Captain Kirk or the president answering the call to avert some huge calamity. Besides, you're already having a conversation, one with a real person right in front of you. Does that make you uncomfortable? Do you need to escape or feel especially important? Just say so and walk away, don't use your cell phone as an excuse. It's odd how a form of communication becomes a tool for disengagement from living, breathing flesh and blood. And if you start playing some dumb-ass video game on your cell phone when you're in the company of others, it is permissible for them to administer two quick slaps to snap you out of it.
In-your-facers. We all know some of these annoying fools. They believe in something strongly, or so they'd have you think. But that's not enough for them, they have to initiate the conversation about whatever it is that drives them and get in your face and demand you agree with them. Whether it's religion, politics, morals, music, food or culture, these people are so damned insecure they spend their lives challenging people and generally making a nuisance of themselves. At every opportunity, they make sure the subject come up, and the only remedy you have is to tell them the truth, that you don't really think all that much about them or their damned pet peeve. We're fine with our own set of beliefs and principles, thank you very much, and don't feel any pressing need to advertise our way of thinking and convert others. Besides, with that approach, you'll never find out what anybody else has to say, but maybe that's the whole point of in-your-facers.
Opera singers. Not real opera singers, they're okay as far as that caterwauling drama is concerned, but the people who's oft-repeated mantra is "me-me-me-me!" It's always all about them, all for them and me and me and me and me and blah-blah and double blah. Usually these are people who have "found themselves." Unfortunately, a lot of people who find themselves find very little else afterwards. They cannot bear to have the focus taken off their boring little concerns. Unlike their In-your-face cousins, they don't have any one overriding theme, but are perhaps even more tedious with the breathtakingly broad dullness of their selfishness. Nothing about them is not fascinating to them. Sorry, but we don't care what you ate for breakfast, who you gave a piece of your mind to (they must have strayed from the topic of you) or that you had a headache yesterday. You're giving us a headache now and we hate you.
There, that felt better, didn't it? We all know it's wrong to hate, but inside of all of us there it is, one of our emotions, as valid and real as any of the others that drive our lives. To deany that it exists within us is crazy and dishonest. Can you deny the love you feel? It's flip side is hatred, an emotion that can rule us if we allow it to. The trick is to channel it where it belongs, where it makes sense. It's a good thing to hate injustice, cruelty and oppression. You can even hate lima beans, a very sensible and logical target for your pent-up rage. But to hate whole groups of people who never did anything to you but exist is a real waste of a powerful emotion, so very unsatisfying. The people to hate are out there and you don't need to seek them out. They'll find you, and they'll annoy the crap out of you. It's okay to hate them for eating chunks of your life with nothing to show for it but irritation. Kill for peace.
February 15, 2009
LIFE'S RICH PAGEANT
Open the door. Go outside. Take a look around. You never know what you're going to run across. Maybe something cool and different, maybe not. You'll never know, though, until you open the door and cruise around. Check the streets, check the stores, walk through the parks. Keep your eyes and ears open. There's a lot of noise out there, a lot things to see. Most of the noise is made by people, the squeaky wheels of creation. We sure do have a lot to say. We're everywhere, even where we shouldn't be, like in deserts or on mountaintops or even (for the really resilient souls) New Jersey.
Like the old song says: "It's the same all over, there's people everywhere you go." You might hear some wild laughter around the corner and go to investigate, and the guy laughing and telling stories is in a wheelchair and has a patch over one eye. And he's full of piss and vinegar and not even a little bit defeated. He seeks no pity and spreads his fierce joy in a situation that would crush another man. He knows something others don't, maybe because of his suffering, maybe because that's who he is, maybe because he sees no other way. He's full of life and joy and defiance. Listen to this guy.
Maybe you'll run across some little kid walking a gigantic dog, or rather, being tugged around by his pet, a big old scary looking animal who's really sloppy-friendly and wags his tail all the time and sniffs and investigates anybody willing to get near him, hoping they want to play with him and the kid. The dog and the kid leap and tumble, then they roll around in the park grass like wrestlers for a while. Neither one of them gets tired. Then the kid whips out a ball and tosses it and the dog fetches it and then the kid has a hell of a time pulling it out of the dog's mouth and they play this comic tug of war for an hour, the little one again and again sticking his hand into a row of scary looking fangs until the dog decides to let him have it, tossing the scarred ball and doing it all over again. There's worse ways to kill an afternoon. Then they both realize they're really hungry all of a sudden and make a bee-line home to see what's to eat, both sets of eyes wide with anticipation. The dog knows the kid will slip him some of whatever he's eating.
So you move on, see what's around the corner, your own eyes wide with wonder and open to the possibilities. You see more people, zooming here, zooming there, keeping their appointed rounds. Others are doing what you're doing, meandering around to see what the day will bring. Every day can't be purposeful and grim, and this one is for meandering. You stop and watch a construction site where the skeleton of a skyscraper pierces the blue sky and hard men in hard hats who know exactly what they are doing go about their business of building. They operate cranes hanging off the steel bones 300 feet in the air, weld and rivet the beams, drive cement trucks and shout so loud you wonder if they really need those walkie-talkies. You come back 6 moths later and there's a finished building, beautiful and gleaming and full of people doing whatever it is they do in gleaming skyscrapers. The hard men in the hard hats are someplace else building something else.
You don't have to be a tourist to do some sightseeing, especially in a magic place like New York City. Everywhere you go there's statues and plazas and fountains and fabulous bridges, arches and boulevards and parks and carousels and Ferris wheels and waterfront, the ships and pleasure craft leaving white trails in their wake. Calmly watching over this crazy place is the Granny of all statues, Lady Liberty, out there on her own little Island at the mouth of New York Harbor. She's seen it all, from the days when she was the tallest thing around to that horrible day when the towers fell. Still she greets every newcomer and never wavers for an instant from her promise of hope, freedom and endless possibilities. She doesn't think we're wretched refuse at all, she thinks the world of all of us, and we think the world of her.
And so we move on, looking around, celebrating being alive in these days of amazement and change. The day grows late and it's twilight, and the sun and the clouds get together to paint another masterpiece, using whatever materials are at hand, like the Verrazano Bridge, to shower us with unspeakable beauty. Then it gets dark and the lights go on. The man-made wonders take over, and people come out of the woodwork after a long day's work, seeking each other out, doing the things they like to do, trading stories and jokes, and enjoying the night air. The hour grows late and things quiet down a bit, or at least as quiet as it gets when there's people around. The Lady keeps an eye on things from her pedestal in the harbor, and you go home and rest easy. Maybe you'll dream about little kids and gigantic dogs rolling in the grass, their musical laughter rising to the heavens.
Like the old song says: "It's the same all over, there's people everywhere you go." You might hear some wild laughter around the corner and go to investigate, and the guy laughing and telling stories is in a wheelchair and has a patch over one eye. And he's full of piss and vinegar and not even a little bit defeated. He seeks no pity and spreads his fierce joy in a situation that would crush another man. He knows something others don't, maybe because of his suffering, maybe because that's who he is, maybe because he sees no other way. He's full of life and joy and defiance. Listen to this guy.
Maybe you'll run across some little kid walking a gigantic dog, or rather, being tugged around by his pet, a big old scary looking animal who's really sloppy-friendly and wags his tail all the time and sniffs and investigates anybody willing to get near him, hoping they want to play with him and the kid. The dog and the kid leap and tumble, then they roll around in the park grass like wrestlers for a while. Neither one of them gets tired. Then the kid whips out a ball and tosses it and the dog fetches it and then the kid has a hell of a time pulling it out of the dog's mouth and they play this comic tug of war for an hour, the little one again and again sticking his hand into a row of scary looking fangs until the dog decides to let him have it, tossing the scarred ball and doing it all over again. There's worse ways to kill an afternoon. Then they both realize they're really hungry all of a sudden and make a bee-line home to see what's to eat, both sets of eyes wide with anticipation. The dog knows the kid will slip him some of whatever he's eating.
So you move on, see what's around the corner, your own eyes wide with wonder and open to the possibilities. You see more people, zooming here, zooming there, keeping their appointed rounds. Others are doing what you're doing, meandering around to see what the day will bring. Every day can't be purposeful and grim, and this one is for meandering. You stop and watch a construction site where the skeleton of a skyscraper pierces the blue sky and hard men in hard hats who know exactly what they are doing go about their business of building. They operate cranes hanging off the steel bones 300 feet in the air, weld and rivet the beams, drive cement trucks and shout so loud you wonder if they really need those walkie-talkies. You come back 6 moths later and there's a finished building, beautiful and gleaming and full of people doing whatever it is they do in gleaming skyscrapers. The hard men in the hard hats are someplace else building something else.
You don't have to be a tourist to do some sightseeing, especially in a magic place like New York City. Everywhere you go there's statues and plazas and fountains and fabulous bridges, arches and boulevards and parks and carousels and Ferris wheels and waterfront, the ships and pleasure craft leaving white trails in their wake. Calmly watching over this crazy place is the Granny of all statues, Lady Liberty, out there on her own little Island at the mouth of New York Harbor. She's seen it all, from the days when she was the tallest thing around to that horrible day when the towers fell. Still she greets every newcomer and never wavers for an instant from her promise of hope, freedom and endless possibilities. She doesn't think we're wretched refuse at all, she thinks the world of all of us, and we think the world of her.
And so we move on, looking around, celebrating being alive in these days of amazement and change. The day grows late and it's twilight, and the sun and the clouds get together to paint another masterpiece, using whatever materials are at hand, like the Verrazano Bridge, to shower us with unspeakable beauty. Then it gets dark and the lights go on. The man-made wonders take over, and people come out of the woodwork after a long day's work, seeking each other out, doing the things they like to do, trading stories and jokes, and enjoying the night air. The hour grows late and things quiet down a bit, or at least as quiet as it gets when there's people around. The Lady keeps an eye on things from her pedestal in the harbor, and you go home and rest easy. Maybe you'll dream about little kids and gigantic dogs rolling in the grass, their musical laughter rising to the heavens.
February 14, 2009
BE MY VALENTINE... DON'T MAKE ME STALK YOU! BOB CRESPO & THE BIG SPENDERS LIVE ON VALENTINE'S DAY! MUSIC, MUSIC, MUSIC!
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2009, 9:00 P.M. live at BADBOB'S BBQ
3112 LAWSON BOULEVARD, OCEANSIDE, NEW YORK 11572
For directions call: (516) 561-7427. Come to BadBob's BBQ on Valentine's Day with your main squeeze (Or your side lover. Up to you, but don't blame The Big Spenders if you choose wrong and it blows up in your face.). The best barbecue joint on Long Island now brings you the hottest music anywhere anytime when Bob Crespo & the Big Spenders show up to rock your world. Join Bob Crespo on vocals and guitar, Gary Kroman on lead and slide guitars, vocals, Ian Zdatny on bass, vocals and Dave Forman on drums and vocals. ALL STARS AT EVERY POSITION! (Maybe one of you Italian folks can bring a spare vowel for Ian's last name. Or not.)
3112 LAWSON BOULEVARD, OCEANSIDE, NEW YORK 11572
For directions call: (516) 561-7427. Come to BadBob's BBQ on Valentine's Day with your main squeeze (Or your side lover. Up to you, but don't blame The Big Spenders if you choose wrong and it blows up in your face.). The best barbecue joint on Long Island now brings you the hottest music anywhere anytime when Bob Crespo & the Big Spenders show up to rock your world. Join Bob Crespo on vocals and guitar, Gary Kroman on lead and slide guitars, vocals, Ian Zdatny on bass, vocals and Dave Forman on drums and vocals. ALL STARS AT EVERY POSITION! (Maybe one of you Italian folks can bring a spare vowel for Ian's last name. Or not.)
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 314
When you're really angry at someone, count to 10 before speaking. That'll give you a little time to think of something really nasty to say to them.
HAPPY CORPORATE LOVE DAY
Here's hoping all my readers survive Valentine's Day without too much strain on the old relationship. In a holiday where the observances have been decided by candy, flower, greeting card and jewelry corporations, it's hard to know what is enough to tell your sweetie that you love them. Questions fill our minds. Don't ask the companies for guidance because they will tell you no matter what you do that you haven't spent enough money to express your love. So you sort of have to wing it. Is this card too funny? Does it cost enough? Will this giant box of chocolates fit though the door? Is there financing available on these roses? If I buy jewelry, will she expect me to marry her? If I don't, will she want a divorce? Will my husband be okay with an 8-foot Teddy bear? These are tough calls, people!
Putting a price on love is hard when you're not dealing with prostitutes, who sort of have it down to a science, but using them as consultants on the matter always seems to lead to misunderstandings. Of course you could reject the whole phony notion, but that's a dicey proposition at this stage of the game. The advice here? Take your Sweetie to BadBob's BBQ joint in Oceanside, Long Island tonight to eat some delicious, sloppy food and hear some great music by Bob Crespo & The Big Spenders. It might not advance and enhance your relationship but at least you'll have a great time, and that's always a plus. It's hard to argue when your belly is full and the band is rocking. See the ad above for details and be there with your honey. Happy Valentine's Day.
Putting a price on love is hard when you're not dealing with prostitutes, who sort of have it down to a science, but using them as consultants on the matter always seems to lead to misunderstandings. Of course you could reject the whole phony notion, but that's a dicey proposition at this stage of the game. The advice here? Take your Sweetie to BadBob's BBQ joint in Oceanside, Long Island tonight to eat some delicious, sloppy food and hear some great music by Bob Crespo & The Big Spenders. It might not advance and enhance your relationship but at least you'll have a great time, and that's always a plus. It's hard to argue when your belly is full and the band is rocking. See the ad above for details and be there with your honey. Happy Valentine's Day.
MAKE UP YOU OWN BIBLE QUOTES!
There's a bunch of ancient Biblical texts written around the same time as The Bible, both the Old and the New Testament. When it was time back in the day to decide on what officially gets in the Bible, these texts were left out for one reason or another by those in charge, whoever they might be (The Bible doesn't give credit to its compilers. Fortunes in royalties for this perennial best-seller were lost this way.). Some of the texts were a bit out of synch with the overall orthodox message of Judaism and Christianity, and others gave weight to role of women in the two respective faiths, something of a no-no for the Middle Easterners who codified the texts. These people for the most part still have all sorts of severe woman problems, and the idea of a woman having authority in religious matters scares the crap out them. Anything remotely humorous was excised too. These books and gospels that didn't make the cut are available as Books of The Apocrypha, and the overall feel and and style of them is very much the same as the universally familiar Bible writings. That is; windy, bleak and wide open to second-guessing.
Some religious scholars have discounted a lot of these texts as forgeries or blasphemous attacks on the faith, while others have verified their authenticity through painstaking research. Who's to say? For that matter, who's to say that the official Bible texts are the correct ones? They were, after all, compiled by men, and men being imperfect beings who often have an axe to grind, you have to wonder what's what. There are so many contradictory messages and ambiguous passages, you have to figure the editing process was not very a rigorous one, but perhaps one full of sharp differences of opinion and compromises. The result speaks for itself, a confounding testament that would never have made it out the editing process of any respectable publisher in its current confusing form. But there is is, revered by billions, who live by whatever people tell them these whacky words mean.
These ambiguous and contradictory passages are the things that Biblical interpretation careers are made of. For example, Leviticus 19:27 says: "Do not round the corners of your head." What? What could that possibly mean, if anything? Who's head has corners? Some men take it to mean they should never shave. Okay, fine, if that works for them, what the hell, why not? Beards are cool, and save the bearded a lot of dough on razors, shaving cream and Brut. And that's just one of hundreds of statements and passages open to broad interpretation, and throughout history the arguments have raged even unto the point of widespread warfare over the meaning of the words in religious texts.
How cool is that? Let's make up some of our own! Oh, they can sound innocuous enough, like, say... "Cometh not unclean before thy God!" Sounds pretty Biblical, no? What does it mean? Whatever you want it to! That's the beauty of Biblical quotes, fake or otherwise. You state them with some sort of grave, condescending authority with just the right mixture of piety and insanity and with plenty of wiggle room to let people read their own meaning into them and some people will think you've got the answers, that you're The One. Others will declare you an evil menace, and the fight is on! It's a thing of beauty, people! How about this one: "Righteousness comes not by vinegar but wine!" That'll have people scratching their heads. Let's try some more:
"I am The Lord thy father... Luke."
"I am The Lord thy God - sacrifice not thy rancid goats to me!"
"Blessed be him that knoweth little, his days shall be filled with wonder."
"The road knoweth where it ends, ye do not."
"Betrayeth not thy nose."
"Speak to thy brethren of their pitiful failings, and castigate them fiercely!"
"Tend thy vineyard with whimsical vengeance."
"Teach thy children what thou knowest not."
"Vow ye vengeance upon false prophets."
"Sayeth no ill of female flesh, for thy Lord has created it thus."
"Do not stay the hand of vengeance from those who call the Lord's work shameful!"
"When thy cup runneth over, pour ye no more, blind fool!"
"If thy brother sayeth his words are the Lord's, smite him. If he hateth women, scorn his ignorance."
"Is not the Holy Spirit left-handed?"
"When the lamb and the lion lie together, only the lion shall rise."
"At some point, the left hand findeth out what the right hand doeth."
"Prayeth not for trivial things, for thy Lord has a full plate and little patience for insecure fools."
"When men and angels collide, doves fly in circles with olive branches in their beaks."
"The Lord will smite the wicked who claim His place."
"Who giveth empty words to the poor feedeth only his own ego."
"The Kingdom of God is built on the dreams of the faithful."
"Blareth no more thy loud trumpets, for thy Lord is sick of their sound."
What do these things mean? Who knows and who cares? They sound like they mean something and when it comes to religious texts, that's pretty much half the battle. Next time you're cornered by some overly religious annoying lunatic, try whipping out one of these quotes. That should rattle their cages and send them scrambling back to their Bibles to see how they missed that one. They'll find out eventually it's bogus but at least you're off the hook. Make up some of your own. It's fun and if you can start a fight or two here and here, well, that's energy well spent. If you can instigate a religious war, you might just attain sainthood or the nickname "The Great."
If you've read the Bible enough it's easy to come up with some ridiculous statement in a similar vein as that dense writing. Whatever you so, don't crack a smile when you whip out the bogus quotes. A sense of humor will give you away in a second. There's only one thing Bible nuts hate more than other Bible nuts questioning their perfection, and that's laughter. So "Jest ye not" and you can have some real fun with making Bible stuff up. And remember: the bleaker the better. Practice scowling and sneering in the mirror and rehearse your most morbid vocal delivery. When you creep yourself out, you've got it! Then go forth and spout scary nonsense. They'll eat up those grim words up like gumdrops. "So is it written, so it is misread."
Some religious scholars have discounted a lot of these texts as forgeries or blasphemous attacks on the faith, while others have verified their authenticity through painstaking research. Who's to say? For that matter, who's to say that the official Bible texts are the correct ones? They were, after all, compiled by men, and men being imperfect beings who often have an axe to grind, you have to wonder what's what. There are so many contradictory messages and ambiguous passages, you have to figure the editing process was not very a rigorous one, but perhaps one full of sharp differences of opinion and compromises. The result speaks for itself, a confounding testament that would never have made it out the editing process of any respectable publisher in its current confusing form. But there is is, revered by billions, who live by whatever people tell them these whacky words mean.
These ambiguous and contradictory passages are the things that Biblical interpretation careers are made of. For example, Leviticus 19:27 says: "Do not round the corners of your head." What? What could that possibly mean, if anything? Who's head has corners? Some men take it to mean they should never shave. Okay, fine, if that works for them, what the hell, why not? Beards are cool, and save the bearded a lot of dough on razors, shaving cream and Brut. And that's just one of hundreds of statements and passages open to broad interpretation, and throughout history the arguments have raged even unto the point of widespread warfare over the meaning of the words in religious texts.
How cool is that? Let's make up some of our own! Oh, they can sound innocuous enough, like, say... "Cometh not unclean before thy God!" Sounds pretty Biblical, no? What does it mean? Whatever you want it to! That's the beauty of Biblical quotes, fake or otherwise. You state them with some sort of grave, condescending authority with just the right mixture of piety and insanity and with plenty of wiggle room to let people read their own meaning into them and some people will think you've got the answers, that you're The One. Others will declare you an evil menace, and the fight is on! It's a thing of beauty, people! How about this one: "Righteousness comes not by vinegar but wine!" That'll have people scratching their heads. Let's try some more:
"I am The Lord thy father... Luke."
"I am The Lord thy God - sacrifice not thy rancid goats to me!"
"Blessed be him that knoweth little, his days shall be filled with wonder."
"The road knoweth where it ends, ye do not."
"Betrayeth not thy nose."
"Speak to thy brethren of their pitiful failings, and castigate them fiercely!"
"Tend thy vineyard with whimsical vengeance."
"Teach thy children what thou knowest not."
"Vow ye vengeance upon false prophets."
"Sayeth no ill of female flesh, for thy Lord has created it thus."
"Do not stay the hand of vengeance from those who call the Lord's work shameful!"
"When thy cup runneth over, pour ye no more, blind fool!"
"If thy brother sayeth his words are the Lord's, smite him. If he hateth women, scorn his ignorance."
"Is not the Holy Spirit left-handed?"
"When the lamb and the lion lie together, only the lion shall rise."
"At some point, the left hand findeth out what the right hand doeth."
"Prayeth not for trivial things, for thy Lord has a full plate and little patience for insecure fools."
"When men and angels collide, doves fly in circles with olive branches in their beaks."
"The Lord will smite the wicked who claim His place."
"Who giveth empty words to the poor feedeth only his own ego."
"The Kingdom of God is built on the dreams of the faithful."
"Blareth no more thy loud trumpets, for thy Lord is sick of their sound."
What do these things mean? Who knows and who cares? They sound like they mean something and when it comes to religious texts, that's pretty much half the battle. Next time you're cornered by some overly religious annoying lunatic, try whipping out one of these quotes. That should rattle their cages and send them scrambling back to their Bibles to see how they missed that one. They'll find out eventually it's bogus but at least you're off the hook. Make up some of your own. It's fun and if you can start a fight or two here and here, well, that's energy well spent. If you can instigate a religious war, you might just attain sainthood or the nickname "The Great."
If you've read the Bible enough it's easy to come up with some ridiculous statement in a similar vein as that dense writing. Whatever you so, don't crack a smile when you whip out the bogus quotes. A sense of humor will give you away in a second. There's only one thing Bible nuts hate more than other Bible nuts questioning their perfection, and that's laughter. So "Jest ye not" and you can have some real fun with making Bible stuff up. And remember: the bleaker the better. Practice scowling and sneering in the mirror and rehearse your most morbid vocal delivery. When you creep yourself out, you've got it! Then go forth and spout scary nonsense. They'll eat up those grim words up like gumdrops. "So is it written, so it is misread."
February 12, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 312
It's always fun when you're shopping and you see a sign that says; "Buy one, get one free!" Unless of course that item is hip replacement surgery.
WHY THE NEANDERTHALS DIDN'T MAKE IT
More DNA news! Scientists are almost finished sequencing the entire DNA code of Neanderthal Man, the cavemen who lost out in the evolutionary sweepstakes and disappeared from the face of the earth about 20 or 30 thousand years ago. These people were bigger and stronger than modern man and had brains of equal or larger size than their competitors, and also had the gene for speech. They lived in similar extended clan groups as our immediate predecessors and used pretty much the same tools and hunted in groups like our forebears did. So why did they disappear while we thrived? Well, their DNA code is beginning to provide some startling answers.
For example, while the immediate predecessors to modern man were smaller and more fragile, they were able to climb trees and Neanderthals could not. Doesn't seem like such a big deal until you consider that saber-toothed tigers couldn't climb trees either. Those 800-pound lions enjoyed nothing more than snacking on bipeds. That's just one difference. Many other genetic disadvantages have been pointed out. While we always assumed that these people looked more or less like us, maybe a little hairier, it turns out that they were actually colored bright orange at a time in earth's history when nothing else was orange, and thus had a hell of a time blending in with the scenery when some of the large predators of the day were searching for a meal. During an Ice Age, playing "Where's Waldo the Caveman" was a snap.
Their DNA code has also revealed the Neanderthals to have a propensity for taking the caves of rival species, which is a fairly commonplace competition in nature, but theirs was a particularly stubborn trait. Neanderthals seemed to prefer to fight it out with something called Cave Bears, who were about the size of a Buick. Not surprisingly, that didn't always work out in their favor, with the bears getting to keep their lairs and getting well fed without having to go out hunting that day. And the ancestors of modern man, as devious as we are, adopted the practice of posing as real estate agents, placing signs saying "Open Cave today" and assuring the Neanderthals the place was ready for immediate occupancy. It seems that Neanderthals also had a strong genetic predisposition for trust, another trait that did not always serve them well. It was perhaps their most fatal flaw.
Our genetic code plays a huge role in the choices we make as a species. While their trusting nature was fine while they were the only cave men around, once modern humans started appearing, the Cave Real Estate Agent ruse was only one of the tricks played on Neanderthals. Other early humans posed as "Cave Bankers" and got all the Neanderthals to deposit all their dried food, beads and seashells in Cave Banks, supposedly for safekeeping. Imagine their distress when they went to make a withdrawal from the bank only to discover that these so-called bankers had given their seashells to their girlfriends and eaten all their food! Then they told the Neanderthals that they had to bail them out with more seashells and preserved food or the Cave Bank would go out of business.
The beauty of the whole scam was, the Neanderthals bought it! They thought they had done something wrong, and so they started hunting and preserving and bead-making overtime to keep the Cave banks well stocked. They looked the other way when the Cave Bankers started awarding each other huge bonuses of mammoth jerky and seashell necklaces, and even redoubled their efforts to stock the place and keep the Cave Bankers happy. Countless Neanderthals perished from exhaustion this way until they finally figured out they were being had, but at that point their numbers were so decimated that it was too late to recoup, population-wise. No only that, the Cave Bankers and Cave Real Estate Agents foreclosed on cavern after cavern, turning these people out into the cold, where the giant wolves, lions and bears had a field day picking off the bright orange and now homeless Neanderthals.
After those episodes, it was only a matter of time before the remaining Neanderthals simply lost their spirit. Everywhere they turned Homo-Sapiens had taken the choicest caves and hunting grounds, and had invented another scam to cheat them out of their hard-earned mammoth meat, sharp tools and seashell necklaces. They figured if life was going to be like this forever with all the Cave Bankers and Cave Real Estate Agents and endless toil to keep them happy, then extinction didn't seem like such a bad option. They had enjoyed a good 500,000 year run, far longer than Homo-Sapiens, and they figured what the hell, let's call it a day and see if these new guys can do something with this planet. The jury is still out on that one.
For example, while the immediate predecessors to modern man were smaller and more fragile, they were able to climb trees and Neanderthals could not. Doesn't seem like such a big deal until you consider that saber-toothed tigers couldn't climb trees either. Those 800-pound lions enjoyed nothing more than snacking on bipeds. That's just one difference. Many other genetic disadvantages have been pointed out. While we always assumed that these people looked more or less like us, maybe a little hairier, it turns out that they were actually colored bright orange at a time in earth's history when nothing else was orange, and thus had a hell of a time blending in with the scenery when some of the large predators of the day were searching for a meal. During an Ice Age, playing "Where's Waldo the Caveman" was a snap.
Their DNA code has also revealed the Neanderthals to have a propensity for taking the caves of rival species, which is a fairly commonplace competition in nature, but theirs was a particularly stubborn trait. Neanderthals seemed to prefer to fight it out with something called Cave Bears, who were about the size of a Buick. Not surprisingly, that didn't always work out in their favor, with the bears getting to keep their lairs and getting well fed without having to go out hunting that day. And the ancestors of modern man, as devious as we are, adopted the practice of posing as real estate agents, placing signs saying "Open Cave today" and assuring the Neanderthals the place was ready for immediate occupancy. It seems that Neanderthals also had a strong genetic predisposition for trust, another trait that did not always serve them well. It was perhaps their most fatal flaw.
Our genetic code plays a huge role in the choices we make as a species. While their trusting nature was fine while they were the only cave men around, once modern humans started appearing, the Cave Real Estate Agent ruse was only one of the tricks played on Neanderthals. Other early humans posed as "Cave Bankers" and got all the Neanderthals to deposit all their dried food, beads and seashells in Cave Banks, supposedly for safekeeping. Imagine their distress when they went to make a withdrawal from the bank only to discover that these so-called bankers had given their seashells to their girlfriends and eaten all their food! Then they told the Neanderthals that they had to bail them out with more seashells and preserved food or the Cave Bank would go out of business.
The beauty of the whole scam was, the Neanderthals bought it! They thought they had done something wrong, and so they started hunting and preserving and bead-making overtime to keep the Cave banks well stocked. They looked the other way when the Cave Bankers started awarding each other huge bonuses of mammoth jerky and seashell necklaces, and even redoubled their efforts to stock the place and keep the Cave Bankers happy. Countless Neanderthals perished from exhaustion this way until they finally figured out they were being had, but at that point their numbers were so decimated that it was too late to recoup, population-wise. No only that, the Cave Bankers and Cave Real Estate Agents foreclosed on cavern after cavern, turning these people out into the cold, where the giant wolves, lions and bears had a field day picking off the bright orange and now homeless Neanderthals.
After those episodes, it was only a matter of time before the remaining Neanderthals simply lost their spirit. Everywhere they turned Homo-Sapiens had taken the choicest caves and hunting grounds, and had invented another scam to cheat them out of their hard-earned mammoth meat, sharp tools and seashell necklaces. They figured if life was going to be like this forever with all the Cave Bankers and Cave Real Estate Agents and endless toil to keep them happy, then extinction didn't seem like such a bad option. They had enjoyed a good 500,000 year run, far longer than Homo-Sapiens, and they figured what the hell, let's call it a day and see if these new guys can do something with this planet. The jury is still out on that one.
February 11, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 311
Mirrors are completely inaccurate since we see ourselves backwards in them. So much for self analysis.
WHAT THE HELL IS A TOXIC ASSET AND WHY WOULD ANYBODY BUY SUCH A THING?
Who's going to buy the toxic assets? Any volunteers? The government has just unveiled a $2.5 trillion rescue plan for America's banking system, and as if that figure isn't incomprehensible enough, we now have to digest the existence of "toxic assets." Who would want such a thing? Where would you store them safely where the kids wouldn't get their hands on them? Fortunately, there is a lot of talk about "vulture investors." Anyone familiar with vultures knows that there is no piece of meat too rotten and lice infested for them to eat. They are natures garbage disposals. Looks like they have some relatives in the financial sector. Wonder what these people are like? Could they be any creepier than regular Wall Street people? That would be hard. And what made them interested in investing in poisonous assets?
The Wall Street capos, consiglieres and soldiers are all scrambling to get a piece of the government trillions, and understandably so. They blew all their investors' dough on schemes, jets, bonuses, drugs, drinking, gambling, hookers and room service bills at 5-star hotels and they need more cash, and plenty of it, to maintain their lifestyles. Without other people's money, gangsters are basically you and me, that is, regular dopes who work for their money and live on what they earn. Wheres the fun in that? Why become a corporate mobster if you have to answer to somebody? Gangsters take. That's what they do.
And if they corrupt everything they touch, well, that's the price the rest of us pay to be entertained by larger than life criminals. For years we've been fascinated by the mob and a lot of our popular entertainment has reflected that. One of he best movies ever made was "The Godfather," about a bunch of killers and thieves. Real-life mobsters like Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, Dutch Schulz, Lucky Luciano and countless others have become part of American folk lore. Independent bank robbers like Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Ma Barker and Willie Sutton were transformed into American heroes. Only now does it dawn on us what small-timers these people were.
It turns out the real gangsters are in the boardrooms of major corporations, and have been for a long time. Until recently, they played it pretty low-key, siphoning off millions from the economy to build huge personal fortunes and living lavish lifestyles. For the most part they were of the Carlo Gambino school of gangsterdom, not drawing too much attention to themselves and staying off the public radar and out of jail as they systematically bilked the system. Then, in a grand reverse, they went all John Gotti on us, making headlines and ratcheting up their greed tenfold as all the capos decided that hundreds of millions was not enough anymore, they all had to be billionaires all of a sudden.
It turned out that even the most powerful economy in human history could not withstand their insatiable greed and the whole thing went kablooey last year, plunging America into what's starting to look more and more like The Second Great Depression. And so it came to be that a lot of the assets of America are now called Toxic Assets. That's pretty fucked. And now the government is hoping that some vultures in suits will eat this carrion. And what if your pension fund is one of those toxic assets? Or junior's college fund? John Gotti wouldn't have given a rat's ass, so don't expect these corporate gangsters to care either. You're fucked, we're fucked and the vultures are going to give you pennies on the dollar as the price of the president forcing them to scrape by on only half a million bucks a year.
So it looks like you've got to keep working until you drop and junior's got to join the Army or learn a trade, like flipping burgers or waxing the gleaming floors at corporate headquarters. It's not you and I in line for any of those trillions. We'll be the ones paying that bill, though, one way or another. Maybe we're the vultures, consuming the scraps too unpalatable for hyenas. Corporate greed and corruption made seven trillion dollars vanish last year, and yet no arrests were made outside of Bernie Madoff, who at least admitted what a piece of shit he is. The rest of them of them go their merry way as if they did nothing wrong, and show up in our nation's capitol with their $500 haircuts and $2,000 suits with large suitcases to haul away more of America's dough. Is it too late to hunt them down with bloodhounds and shotguns and put them on a chain gang?
The Wall Street capos, consiglieres and soldiers are all scrambling to get a piece of the government trillions, and understandably so. They blew all their investors' dough on schemes, jets, bonuses, drugs, drinking, gambling, hookers and room service bills at 5-star hotels and they need more cash, and plenty of it, to maintain their lifestyles. Without other people's money, gangsters are basically you and me, that is, regular dopes who work for their money and live on what they earn. Wheres the fun in that? Why become a corporate mobster if you have to answer to somebody? Gangsters take. That's what they do.
And if they corrupt everything they touch, well, that's the price the rest of us pay to be entertained by larger than life criminals. For years we've been fascinated by the mob and a lot of our popular entertainment has reflected that. One of he best movies ever made was "The Godfather," about a bunch of killers and thieves. Real-life mobsters like Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, Dutch Schulz, Lucky Luciano and countless others have become part of American folk lore. Independent bank robbers like Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Ma Barker and Willie Sutton were transformed into American heroes. Only now does it dawn on us what small-timers these people were.
It turns out the real gangsters are in the boardrooms of major corporations, and have been for a long time. Until recently, they played it pretty low-key, siphoning off millions from the economy to build huge personal fortunes and living lavish lifestyles. For the most part they were of the Carlo Gambino school of gangsterdom, not drawing too much attention to themselves and staying off the public radar and out of jail as they systematically bilked the system. Then, in a grand reverse, they went all John Gotti on us, making headlines and ratcheting up their greed tenfold as all the capos decided that hundreds of millions was not enough anymore, they all had to be billionaires all of a sudden.
It turned out that even the most powerful economy in human history could not withstand their insatiable greed and the whole thing went kablooey last year, plunging America into what's starting to look more and more like The Second Great Depression. And so it came to be that a lot of the assets of America are now called Toxic Assets. That's pretty fucked. And now the government is hoping that some vultures in suits will eat this carrion. And what if your pension fund is one of those toxic assets? Or junior's college fund? John Gotti wouldn't have given a rat's ass, so don't expect these corporate gangsters to care either. You're fucked, we're fucked and the vultures are going to give you pennies on the dollar as the price of the president forcing them to scrape by on only half a million bucks a year.
So it looks like you've got to keep working until you drop and junior's got to join the Army or learn a trade, like flipping burgers or waxing the gleaming floors at corporate headquarters. It's not you and I in line for any of those trillions. We'll be the ones paying that bill, though, one way or another. Maybe we're the vultures, consuming the scraps too unpalatable for hyenas. Corporate greed and corruption made seven trillion dollars vanish last year, and yet no arrests were made outside of Bernie Madoff, who at least admitted what a piece of shit he is. The rest of them of them go their merry way as if they did nothing wrong, and show up in our nation's capitol with their $500 haircuts and $2,000 suits with large suitcases to haul away more of America's dough. Is it too late to hunt them down with bloodhounds and shotguns and put them on a chain gang?
February 10, 2009
BE MY VALENTINE... DON'T MAKE ME STALK YOU! BOB CRESPO & THE BIG SPENDERS LIVE ON VALENTINE'S DAY! MUSIC, MUSIC, MUSIC!
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2009, 9:00 P.M. live at BADBOB'S BBQ
3112 LAWSON BOULEVARD, OCEANSIDE, NEW YORK 11572
For directions call: (516) 561-7427. Come to BadBob's BBQ on Valentine's Day with your main squeeze (Or your side lover. Up to you, but don't blame The Big Spenders if you choose wrong and it blows up in your face.). The best barbecue joint on Long Island now brings you the hottest music anywhere anytime when Bob Crespo & the Big Spenders show up to rock your world. Join Bob Crespo on vocals and guitar, Gary Kroman on lead and slide guitars, vocals, Ian Zdatny on bass, vocals and Dave Forman on drums and vocals. ALL STARS AT EVERY POSITION! (Maybe one of you Italian folks can bring a spare vowel for Ian's last name. Or not.)
3112 LAWSON BOULEVARD, OCEANSIDE, NEW YORK 11572
For directions call: (516) 561-7427. Come to BadBob's BBQ on Valentine's Day with your main squeeze (Or your side lover. Up to you, but don't blame The Big Spenders if you choose wrong and it blows up in your face.). The best barbecue joint on Long Island now brings you the hottest music anywhere anytime when Bob Crespo & the Big Spenders show up to rock your world. Join Bob Crespo on vocals and guitar, Gary Kroman on lead and slide guitars, vocals, Ian Zdatny on bass, vocals and Dave Forman on drums and vocals. ALL STARS AT EVERY POSITION! (Maybe one of you Italian folks can bring a spare vowel for Ian's last name. Or not.)
DNA PROVES: WE'LL DO ANYBODY THAT WILL HOLD STILL
There's a lot of DNA news lately. It seems that American wolves have dogs imported by Europeans to thank for their distinctive black coats. That will come as no surprise to anyone who's ever been around a male dog who hasn't had the indignity of being "altered" or "neutered," polite terms for having had their nuts cut off. Put it this way, they don't call them dogs for nothing. And speaking of dogs, there was an item in the DNA science pages reporting that one in 400 people in this world are descended from Ghengis Khan. The creator of the largest empire in history, apparently this guy conquered a lot more than territory.
Not that Mr. Khan was exactly a celebrated romantic. He had dozens of wives and concubines and his Mongol hordes were noted for raping and pillaging their way from Mongolia through China, across the Steppes of Russia and right into the heart of Europe. He obviously did more than his share of the raping, being the head honcho and all. It was also customary to demand the daughters of the vanquished leaders as a tribute. Whatever the circumstances of his sexual encounters, the man's DNA footprint lasted a lot longer than his empire, which pretty much died when he did. You have to figure that between planning his many military campaigns, administering his far-flung-empire and doing any female that would hold still long enough, the guy had to be the biggest overachiever in history.
And old Ghengis wasn't alone in spreading his seed far and wide. Notable conquerers like the Romans, Persians, Macedonians, Huns, Vikings, Normans, the Muslim Caliphate, the Crusaders, the French, British, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and countless others got pretty busy with the locals and left their indelible DNA fingerprints everywhere they went. Non-conquerers got in on the act too, most notably the diaspora-prone Irish and Jews and the enslaved Africans who were imported to the New World in chains. There's more than one kind of sword play and the nocturnal type seems to have been the more popular of the two. Warfare, conquest and subjugation aside, people just seem to like each other a hell of a lot on a one-on-one level.
And then there's America, with perhaps the biggest DNA gumbo around, which makes sense in a nation whose calling card is welcoming immigrants of every stripe. Where else would you meet somebody named Mario McMillan, Helga Chang or Juan Washington? Australia, maybe, another gumbo nation, sort of a mini-America, populated by their own version of our wretched refuse. South America is also a pretty impressive laboratory of Indigenous, European, and African DNA. Even Europe is getting a little blurry these days with transient worker populations and emigres of all sorts, and of course fraternization is rampant.
And all this has come to pass with a good many of us receiving training from childhood not to have anything to do with certain kinds of people, that they are evil or inferior or simply "different." Curiosity being what it is, though, a whole lot of us seemed to want to find out for ourselves just how different they were. Nothing like field work to prove or disprove a theory. The results must have been inconclusive since there is still so much enthusiastic testing going on all over the world. The resulting DNA mix is breathtaking, and one of the stars of this whole trend is the new American President, Barack Obama, son of a Kenyan shepherd and a white American of various European heritage. Fifty years ago he might have been legally required to hate himself but now he's the most famous and powerful man on the planet.
Also recently reported was the presence of cave man DNA in all modern humans, which goes a long way towards explaining our territorial instincts, that tendency to horn in on the next guy's turf. And when the conquering is done with and things get sorted out to whatever new realties there are, well, what else is there to do but enjoy each other's company in the most fun way we can think of? And in a lot of these cases of conquerer and conquered, in a few generations it's hard to tell who's who anymore. Does England know who's an Anglo and who's a Saxon? Was Czechoslovakia all that certain who was a Czech and who was a Slovak? What about Bosnia and Herzegovina? And in Italy, nobody has a clue who are the real Romans anymore, who imported so many slaves and had so many resident immigrants from their huge empire that they pretty much screwed each other into creating modern Italians.
So while scientists speculate about about the feasibility of cloning wooly mammoths from their DNA, the cave men that used to hunt these great beasts lives within us. Maybe that's why we're so excited about the DNA of mammoths and saber-toothed tigers and gigantic short-faced bears, there's something inside us that remembers these animals. That could be why we also have a fascination with great empires, because they were our not-so-distant blood relatives. But even more exciting to us humans is mixing our DNA with other modern-day humans in the one act that our DNA compels us to perform, almost as urgent as eating and breathing, sometimes even more so.
There hasn't been an enemy throughout history that was so hated that someone didn't say: "Yeah, I'd hit that!" There's a reason why Europeans all look vaguely alike in spite of their many centuries of warfare and mutual enmity. They finally got the DNA memo and formed the European Union and created a common currency, the Euro, the better to pay for the affection of foreign ladies plying the world's oldest profession without having the bothersome delay of figuring out exchange rates. Maybe scientists are right, that someday all humans will be a similar light beige color, but not for the reason they think, but simply because we love getting busy with one another. Evolution, shmevolution, it's the wild thing that drives humanity. Sometimes it drives us nuts when all out pretenses of rationality and free will go up in smoke at the sight and touch of smooth flesh. We're as hard-wired as our randy mutts sometimes.
So if the DNA science pages are any indication, the days of racists raising endless generations of racists are numbered. At a very slow pace, our curiosity and our urgent biological mandate to pass along our DNA to whoever will have us will solve our skin color problems. It might not solve our hatred problems, since we still manage to find a way to hate people that already look just like us, such as in the MIddle East and Northern Ireland to name but two of many instances, but it could be a start. And if space aliens ever show up to pay us a visit and they are humanoids, guess what our most common denominator will be? It won't be ray guns, that's for sure. Again, we might not like them as a race all that much, but that never stopped us from having each others' babies before. Freddy Klingon, anyone? Viva, DNA!
Not that Mr. Khan was exactly a celebrated romantic. He had dozens of wives and concubines and his Mongol hordes were noted for raping and pillaging their way from Mongolia through China, across the Steppes of Russia and right into the heart of Europe. He obviously did more than his share of the raping, being the head honcho and all. It was also customary to demand the daughters of the vanquished leaders as a tribute. Whatever the circumstances of his sexual encounters, the man's DNA footprint lasted a lot longer than his empire, which pretty much died when he did. You have to figure that between planning his many military campaigns, administering his far-flung-empire and doing any female that would hold still long enough, the guy had to be the biggest overachiever in history.
And old Ghengis wasn't alone in spreading his seed far and wide. Notable conquerers like the Romans, Persians, Macedonians, Huns, Vikings, Normans, the Muslim Caliphate, the Crusaders, the French, British, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and countless others got pretty busy with the locals and left their indelible DNA fingerprints everywhere they went. Non-conquerers got in on the act too, most notably the diaspora-prone Irish and Jews and the enslaved Africans who were imported to the New World in chains. There's more than one kind of sword play and the nocturnal type seems to have been the more popular of the two. Warfare, conquest and subjugation aside, people just seem to like each other a hell of a lot on a one-on-one level.
And then there's America, with perhaps the biggest DNA gumbo around, which makes sense in a nation whose calling card is welcoming immigrants of every stripe. Where else would you meet somebody named Mario McMillan, Helga Chang or Juan Washington? Australia, maybe, another gumbo nation, sort of a mini-America, populated by their own version of our wretched refuse. South America is also a pretty impressive laboratory of Indigenous, European, and African DNA. Even Europe is getting a little blurry these days with transient worker populations and emigres of all sorts, and of course fraternization is rampant.
And all this has come to pass with a good many of us receiving training from childhood not to have anything to do with certain kinds of people, that they are evil or inferior or simply "different." Curiosity being what it is, though, a whole lot of us seemed to want to find out for ourselves just how different they were. Nothing like field work to prove or disprove a theory. The results must have been inconclusive since there is still so much enthusiastic testing going on all over the world. The resulting DNA mix is breathtaking, and one of the stars of this whole trend is the new American President, Barack Obama, son of a Kenyan shepherd and a white American of various European heritage. Fifty years ago he might have been legally required to hate himself but now he's the most famous and powerful man on the planet.
Also recently reported was the presence of cave man DNA in all modern humans, which goes a long way towards explaining our territorial instincts, that tendency to horn in on the next guy's turf. And when the conquering is done with and things get sorted out to whatever new realties there are, well, what else is there to do but enjoy each other's company in the most fun way we can think of? And in a lot of these cases of conquerer and conquered, in a few generations it's hard to tell who's who anymore. Does England know who's an Anglo and who's a Saxon? Was Czechoslovakia all that certain who was a Czech and who was a Slovak? What about Bosnia and Herzegovina? And in Italy, nobody has a clue who are the real Romans anymore, who imported so many slaves and had so many resident immigrants from their huge empire that they pretty much screwed each other into creating modern Italians.
So while scientists speculate about about the feasibility of cloning wooly mammoths from their DNA, the cave men that used to hunt these great beasts lives within us. Maybe that's why we're so excited about the DNA of mammoths and saber-toothed tigers and gigantic short-faced bears, there's something inside us that remembers these animals. That could be why we also have a fascination with great empires, because they were our not-so-distant blood relatives. But even more exciting to us humans is mixing our DNA with other modern-day humans in the one act that our DNA compels us to perform, almost as urgent as eating and breathing, sometimes even more so.
There hasn't been an enemy throughout history that was so hated that someone didn't say: "Yeah, I'd hit that!" There's a reason why Europeans all look vaguely alike in spite of their many centuries of warfare and mutual enmity. They finally got the DNA memo and formed the European Union and created a common currency, the Euro, the better to pay for the affection of foreign ladies plying the world's oldest profession without having the bothersome delay of figuring out exchange rates. Maybe scientists are right, that someday all humans will be a similar light beige color, but not for the reason they think, but simply because we love getting busy with one another. Evolution, shmevolution, it's the wild thing that drives humanity. Sometimes it drives us nuts when all out pretenses of rationality and free will go up in smoke at the sight and touch of smooth flesh. We're as hard-wired as our randy mutts sometimes.
So if the DNA science pages are any indication, the days of racists raising endless generations of racists are numbered. At a very slow pace, our curiosity and our urgent biological mandate to pass along our DNA to whoever will have us will solve our skin color problems. It might not solve our hatred problems, since we still manage to find a way to hate people that already look just like us, such as in the MIddle East and Northern Ireland to name but two of many instances, but it could be a start. And if space aliens ever show up to pay us a visit and they are humanoids, guess what our most common denominator will be? It won't be ray guns, that's for sure. Again, we might not like them as a race all that much, but that never stopped us from having each others' babies before. Freddy Klingon, anyone? Viva, DNA!
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