The Memory Game

One evening my wife asked me to check what was on TV. I started to click around, but on the Customer Information Channel I got distracted by the promo for that movie with Sean Penn. You know. That movie where he’s a gay politician? Milk! That’s it. Somebody Milk.

In the scene that caught my attention, Milk was talking to the other guy, and looking at that actor, I thought Milk was talking to George Bush, who the other guy played in "W". Of course I found that funny - because of the type casting - so I said,
”That actor, there …”
KAREN: “Sean Penn?”
ME: “No, the one who plays the guy that shoots him… Dan.”
KAREN: “Yeah?”
ME: “The actor, who plays Dan … I can’t think of Dan’s name …”
KAREN: “Mmmm…”
ME: “Anyway, he plays Dan, who kills Harvey Milk and he also plays "W". Two evil roles. Like typecasting.
KAREN: “Ha. Yeah.” (Okay, I thought it was funnier than "Ha.Yaeh." but I moved on to trying to remember the guy's name)
ME: “James something.”
KAREN: “Yes.”
ME: “Jaaaaames …?”
KAREN: “His dad played a doctor. I mean in our time. Doctuuurrrr … Kildare?”
ME: “No. The one who worked with Dr. Welby.” At this point, in my head I was making a connection with the father actor in some commercial for auto parts with an annoying jingle.
KAREN: “But he was a doctor.”
ME: “Yeah. Oh, Dan White!”
KAREN: “Right.”
ME: Played by James something. We’re almost there. I’m going to have to go to Google.” I picked up the laptop, but then I remembered. “James Brolin!”
KAREN: “… was the father.”
ME: “….on Dr. Welby, MD”
I googled “brolin george bush imdb”. “Josh Brolin,” I announced.
KAREN: “Yes, I was thinking it was a ‘J’ name.”
I googled “james brolin marcus welby”.
ME: “James Brolin was best known for … Dr. Steven Kiley … Marcus Welby, M.D.”
KAREN: “Kiley. I was close. I said Kildare.”
ME: “Yeah. K I L. Not bad. Oh! Double-A M C O!"

We used to entertain ourselves with card games or Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit. Now this memory game fills the evening just as well.

The game changes with age. I see our future whenever we visit the in-laws. (My father-in-law's initials, by the way, are CRS)
DAD: “That guy there. Not the one that married the singer. The other one, who shot him.””
MOM: “Sean Penn?”
DAD: “The other one.”
MOM: “The other one’s father was a doctor.”
DAD: “I think his father played a doctor.”
MOM: “On Marcus Welby.”
DAD: “What?”
MOM: “Marcus Welby.”
DAD: “Marcus Welby?”
MOM: “Robert Young. He was on the show with the father of that guy.”
DAD: “Sean Penn?”
MOM: “He’s dead now.”
DAD: “Milk is dead.”
MOM: “I just said Marcus is dead. Welby, Kildare, Ben Casey. They’re all dead.”
DAD: “You know Sam Fishman died yesterday.”
MOM: “Oh, here’s Karen and John. Hello. We were just watching that movie where Sean Penn dies.”
DAD: “We weren’t watching the movie. It was a preview.”
MOM: “It wasn’t the movie. We were watching a preview.”
DAD: “What?”

And so it goes. Their game is like playing Scrabble back to back, with two boards. As far as I know, it’s still entertaining. And if it’s not, who remembers?

Breakfast At Realities

I met my friend Giddy Golightly at Mom's Country Cholesterol and Vegan Home Style Diner. She pushed aside her Watermelon Wellness Frappe to get a better angle on my fried chicken and waffles. Mumbling around the forkful of my breakfast stuffed in her mouth, she said, “Just got back from Heidi and Spencer Pratt’s interview.

“Are they dead?” I asked.

She considered it and replied, “No. They didn’t seem to be.”

“I thought you were on the celebrity death desk at E! Entertainment Network.”

“I know. Right? But when nobody dies, they make me cover other stories.” She stabbed a hunk of ham steak on my plate and introduced it to her teeth. Her yogurt sat fermenting. Heidi and Spencer told us about their new book, ‘How to be Famous: Our Guide to Looking the Part, Playing the Press, and Becoming a Tabloid Fixture.’"

“In the Twilight Zone episode titled ‘To Serve Man’,” I told her, “it turns out the aliens’ book is not a manual on how they can make our lives better; it is instead a cookbook.”

She looked up, a crumb of biscuit in the corner of her mouth. “Seriously? You don’t even say, ‘spoiler alert’?”

“Some fringe celebrities plan an event to promote a book with ‘Playing the Press’ right in the title? Could they be more obvious?”

“The book tells people how to be famous. Everyone wants to be famous.”

“Steve Martin used to do a routine called ‘How to earn one million dollars and never pay taxes. First,’ he said, ‘get a million dollars.’ Heidi and Spencer can’t tell people how to get famous – they can tell people how to stay famous – you just sucker the press in. Heidi and Spencer don’t even know if their own lives are real or a TV show.”

“Hello! They are on a reality TV show. Reality has the word ‘real’ in it. Except you don’t say REAL-it-ee, you say re-AL-it-ee. Why is that?”

“Because of the liberal media, I guess. Look, I have never watched ‘Laguna Beach’ or ‘The Hills’, the MTV semi-reality vehicles that spawned the Heidi-and-Spencer-Pratt entity. My daughter used to watch those shows and I was in the room, but even hot, young woman on the beach couldn’t make me look or listen. So I guess I shouldn’t judge them.”

“Exactly. And they want to help people like you understand them. They explained that ‘The Hills’ only focuses on a small part of their lives, they want a new show to reveal everything that happens to them.”

“If you hold two mirrors facing each other, you get a reflection of infinite nothing. That would be the result of a reality show about reality show stars who became stars by being in a scripted reality show.”

“This is an important cultural phenomenon. Like Heidi said, ‘You don't get to see our everyday lives and what we do’.

“That is the exact purpose of my life. That is my reason for doing everything that is NOT watching Heidi and Spencer. The philosopher Berkeley said we can’t know if people exist; we know only that we perceive them and can talk only about what we perceive. I don’t want to perceive them. Berkeley should be known as the father of the reality show.”

“Why be a hater? The Pratts were like the best part of ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here’ last season.”

“’I’m a Celebrity, get me out of Here’ is like Charon’s boat on the river Styx. It carries the deceased to the underworld and they never return to life.”

You are Mr. Stupid Analogy Today, aren’t you? Are you going to eat that bacon or turn it into some pseudo-intellectual pop culture commentary?” She grabbed it before I could answer.

She was right, but it still hurt my feelings. I decided not to tell her about Gilligan’s Island being based on the Greek myth of the underworld. The Skipper was Hades and Gilligan was his three-headed dog, Cerberus. The Castaways were carried across the water to the central marsh and unable to ever leave. Gilligan’s Island was a spinoff from the Twilight Zone and a metaphor for Hollywood celebrity – the first reality show. But maybe that was just the bacon/sausage/cheese/egg/jalapeno/biscuit talking.

Bengals to Fans: This Flub’s For You!

The first five games for the Cincinnati Bengals this season came down to the final seconds. With a record of 4-1 and the new nickname “The Cardiac Cats”, the team decided they needed to give fans a break, so they let the sixth game get away without a wild ending.

“The ‘Cardiac Cats’ thing is all fun and games until someone has an actual heart attack,” said Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer at the post game press conference. Wide receiver, Chad Ochocinco, added that “We felt another last second win would put our fans at risk, so the responsible thing to do was let it end with a wide point margin.”

The two players were assaulted with questions by shocked reporters, asking how the team could go into the game with the intent to lose.

“This was not a preordained decision to lose,” Ochocinco responded. “We wanted to win. But, near the end, down by 14 points, we knew that pulling ourselves within one score would start adrenaline pumping in the fans, creating an unsustainable heart rate which would only be exacerbated by a subsequent tying TD.” Palmer interjected, “That’s when we agreed I should throw a pick.” (Carson threw an interception with just over a minute left in the game, effectively sealing the victory for the opponents).

“You threw the game?!” shouted one local sportscaster, vocalizing the concerns of the group.

“Do you even listen to yourself talk?” asked Ochocinco. “You used the right word. It’s a GAME, man!” Palmer put a hand on his receiver’s chest and positioned himself between the reporter and the player. “Chad’s right. In the overall scheme of things, this is insignificant. We are just playing a game.”

Ochocinco had more to say, though he was more subdued and contemplative. “When I was a kid, football skills was all I had. It was embarrassing. I’d be outside working on this game, but looking inside at the kids who got to practice piano or do homework. Now those kids are teachers or doctors or product development engineers at P&G; they help people improve their lives, their health, their cosmetic appearance. The only way I can give back is by making their lives a little less stressful. If they can relax during the last five minutes of the game, knowing the outcome, they are better prepared to move on to their next task.”

A reporter responded by quoting a study published recently which showed that people identify with local sports teams and the fortunes of the team affect the mood of the people. When a team wins, people feel better about themselves.

“If that’s the case,” Palmer proposed, “then we need to change that. Do you really believe that people build these stadiums and are then dependent on teams winning in order to feel good about themselves? Is winning really their expectation? That’s not been our experience in Cincinnati.”

More than just a respite from “Cardiac” finishes, the Bengals hope to give their fans a life lesson.

A Simple Procedure

Watching hospital shows on television sets up too many wrong and undesirable expectations

The instructions they sent said I should arrive at the hospital at 8:30 A.M., but I got there at 8:10 because that’s just how anal I am about appointments. A sign on the door said that firearms were prohibited in the building. That was comforting.

I’d been to see the Amorous Doctor’s Husband and he was going to remove the fatty nodule from my breast. It was only because of the location that they wanted to take it out and check it. It would be a simple procedure.

It wasn’t an emergency so I was not expecting E.R. And I didn’t have a bizarre, undiagnosed malady so I wasn’t expecting House. All that was left was Grey’s Anatomy and I didn’t really want that. My surgeon seemed like a nice enough guy but I had no desire for an inappropriate doctor/patient relationship like Izzie and Denny.

Especially because Izzie killed Denny. It was unintentional, but he was still dead. A lot of patients die on Grey’s Anatomy. I was just having a simple procedure. I would be in and out. “Right. Remember when Meredith’s step-mom went in for hiccups and ended up dead?” I’m not sure who asked me that. My wife? Maybe I just asked myself. That’s the kind of out-loud internal dialog that happens on Grey’s Anatomy.

The doctor was just going to remove this small, fatty nodule from my breast. A tiny, benign cyst. When did it show up? A few years ago?. I think I finally went in to see the doctor because I really wanted to find out about it. How did it form there? Was it from Thanksgiving 2005 when I ate that big hunk of crispy turkey skin? Was it from inadvertantly swallowing a blob of gristle off the 2004 Passover Lamb?

It didn’t matter. It would soon be gone. A simple procedure. “Right. Remember when Meredith’s step-mom went in for hiccups and ended up dead?” Maybe that was the blobby nodule talking. That’s the kind of out-of-body hallucination Meredith would have on Grey’s Anatomy. “Shut up!” I told it. "You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

A sign on the door said that firearms were prohibited in the building. I went through the door to the registration desk. The woman signed me in and I sat in the waiting area. There was a flat screen TV for my family to monitor when I was “In Prep”, “In OR”, “In recovery”, “Having an affair with the doctor" or “Dead”.

I didn’t have anyone with me. It was just a simple procedure. My name came up on the screen. I was “In Prep” and yet I was sitting there in the waiting room. That was the kind of out-of-body hallucination Meredith would have on Grey’s Anatomy.

There was a sign in the waiting room that said, “Please don’t leave bags or briefcases unattended.” Isn’t that admonishing the wrong parties? Shouldn’t it say, “Please don’t take bags or briefcases that aren’t yours.” After all, the sign on the door doesn’t say, “Please don’t get shot by someone who brings a firearm into the building.”

The nurse came and took me to the prep room. She took my vital signs. She fastened a heart monitor clip on my finger. There was a single, continuous tone. I was dead. I had flat-lined and I was sitting there listening to it BEEEEEEEEP. That was the kind of out-of-body hallucination Meredith would have on Grey’s Anatomy. The nurse adjusted the clip and it went “beep, beep, beep …”

They took me down a hall and down an elevator and down more halls, going across the building. About two blocks away, we got to the OR. Three nurses were needed to get me ready. I was just having a simple procedure. They kept asking me if I was cold. People on hospital shows are always cold right before they die. I was warm. I was warm. I was warm… wasn’t I?

They had music on in the room. It was country music. Seriously? Wrong soundtrack!

The doctor came in and numbed my breast and cut out the cyst and sewed me up. The ride down the hall had taken longer. It was a simple procedure.

Now I have an ugly scar and a bruise. My breast is like that of a pregnant woman, nicely swollen and curvy, but too tender to play with. So, when I go back to the doctor for follow-up, I hope he doesn’t fondle it overly much like Mark Sloan would do on Grey’s Anatomy.

I Just Saved a Bunch of Time On My Car Insurance Commercials

I’m not the only one searching for a picture of Kim Clijsters’ husband, Brian Lynch. “Searches for ‘Kim Clijsters husband’ rank(ed) fourth on Google Trends” on Monday Morning.

I watched part of Clijsters’ win over Venus Williams yesterday and they showed Kim’s husband in the stands. He had longish, unkempt hair and a scraggly beard and mustache, which caused me to involuntarily say, “ So easy a caveman could do it.” That’s why I hate him.

Sporting events last at least 2 hours and seem to have no more than two sponsors, so you see the same commercials over and over, ad nauseum. The US Open is sponsored by Geico. Geico seems to have tired of their gecko mascot and they are sticking with the Hipster Cavemen, wrongly assumed to mentally primitive, and the Sesame Street reject character, Money Wad. I would rather spend two hours with an actual insurance salesman than watch these commercials. Geico, if you are reading this, I will never buy your products. Ever. Because of how you have defiled my sports watching experience.

I know I don’t have to watch the commercials. For one, I can leave the room. I tried getting up to get a beer every time Cavemen came on. Pretty soon I was alternating that with trips to the bathroom. By the end of a football game, I couldn’t even get up off the couch anymore and the drunken insults I shouted at Money Wad just angered my wife.

Speaking of football, ESPN college football seems to have only one sponsor, Drunk Driving Arrests, Inc.,who have had only one commercial for the past 17 years: “Over the Limit, Under Arrest”. The scenes of alcohol filled cars make me think I want to have another beer and when the booze flows out of the car I have the urge to go pee again.

The best solution to the commercial annoyance is to DVR the game and start watching an hour into it. You have to not answer the phone and shut off Facebook and twitter to prevent getting updates from friends or fan pages before you see the action on TV.

But it’s all worth it when you hit the fast forward button and watch blurred cavemen seemingly being drowned in beer flowing out of a truck as you whiz past all the commercials.

We Report, You Decide ... Not to Advertise

Promoters of white supremacy are dropping sponsorship of Glenn Beck because he called President Obama “a racist”.

Glenn Beck is a mentally challenged man, hired to host a talk show by Fox News as part of their ongoing effort to reach out to their fan base. Beck was on the Children’s Show, “Fox and Friends” when he made the remark about the President; however it caused 90% of his sponsors to drop their advertising from Beck’s own show.

I was surprised that one of the defecting sponsors is Clorox, who, ironically, always want everything to be whiter than white, effectively promoting white supremacy. (Glenn Beck, coincidentally, is one of the whitest men on television).

Having sponsors boycott a show is not a new phenomenon, and I assume it is a preemptive strike to avoid having people boycott their products in protest of Glenn Beck.

I have never gotten into boycotting specific advertisers because of the shows they sponsor. I just boycott all of them by recording shows and fast-forwarding through the commercials. Or I boycott by getting up to go to the bathroom. Or I watch the ad but effectively boycott the company by not understanding what the hell they are talking about or how it relates to the product they want to sell me, the name of which I never remember anyway.

Sponsors aside, what I really don’t understand is how these talk show hosts or town-hall-meeting-protesters get away with calling President Obama a racist or a Nazi.

I would think that any self-respecting Nazis would be offended by people associating our black President with their good name. Where is the backlash from Nazis, neo-Nazis, neo-con Nazis, etc. about this whole thing?

I would expect the real racists to be reacting in anger and calling into the Fox talk shows, railing against calling this compromise-loving, bi-partisanship-seeking, can't-we-all-get-along, black man a "racist".

Come to think of it, maybe those are the groups that the advertisers fear and the real reason they pulled their ads.

Dancing With the Falling Stars

Seeing an ad for the upcoming season of Dancing With the Stars, I realized the reason I don’t watch it: it is The Love Boat without a plot.

The Love Boat was on TV back when there were only three networks so everybody watched all the same shows and Aaron Spelling produced every one of them. So, if you lived in America from 1977 through 1986, then on Saturday night you watched The Love Boat followed by Fantasy Island.

And the premise of the Love Boat was that has-been stars would all show up on the same cruise and compete for camera time. They would have Sonny Bono and Ethel Merman fall in love or Ernest Borgnine reconcile with his long lost daughter, Charo, or something like that. The cheesey factor got so bad on Love Boat the Lauren Tewes, who played the cruise director, starting stealing drugs from the ship's doctor so she could get kicked off the show.

Fantasy Island was the Love Boat with mystery, dream fulfillment and a midget in place of love, family drama and a wacky crew. The B-list guest stars were the same people recycled though another Spelling production.

Now that Aaron Spelling is dead, the new showcase for washed up entertainers is evidently Dancing With the Stars. The upcoming season features Kelly Osbourne, Melissa Joan Hart, Donnie Osmond, Debbie Mazar and Tom DeLay, who is, I guess, doing the Sonny Bono part from Love Boat. When it was on, I had no choice about watching Love Boat, but I can choose not to watch Dancing With the Once Famous, and I exercise that choice happily.

One upside for the formerly famous: with the limited number of shows back in the 80’s, Love Boat/Fantasy Island was the last stop on the downhill slide for performers. The DWTS celebrities have the luxury of feeling superior to the D-list stars who aren’t even worthy of passing through DWTS on the way down. Those people go straight to I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

The Biggest Loser

The TV show that I am most embarrassed to admit having watched more than once is “Man V. Food” on the Travel Channel.

Adam Richman starts out each show explaining that he is not a competitive eater, i.e. he’s not competing against other men to eat the most of one item of food. "Adam will take on the city's toughest food challenge. Whether he's devouring the Atomic Hot Wings platter in Pittsburgh, or a 13-pound pizza in Atlanta.”

Some will suggest that I object to MvF because it is too manly for me, the guy who watches Project Runway and So You Think You Can Dance. I have explained my interest in those shows and how they do not diminish my manliness; I find it hard to look away from Mario Lopez on ABDC because he is a clown, not because he is so damn cute.

Why am I embarrassed to have watched MvF? What could be more awesome than watching a man eat a 10 pound hamburger or destroy his palate with a sandwich topped by jalapenos, Serrano's, habaneros and ghost peppers?

I see no shame in MvF just because it is a show watched in sloth, one that you watch only because nothing else is on. And I see no shame in that MvF revolves around other disgraceful sins of America: gluttony and waste of food. One man’s sin is another man’s pleasure of the flesh.

Yes, MvF is food porn. The pictures ought to be scrambled on your TV. You sit down on the couch with your bag of nacho cheese Doritos and the remote, start clicking around the channels and there’s a guy with 4 pounds of cinnamon roles on his plate, about to dig in. You start to get a little aroused and all drooly. Before you know it, your Doritos are gone and your chin, your fingers and the front of your t-shirt are smeared with the orange shame of self-indulgence; you feel at peace and ready for a nap.

And there you go: That is not Man versus Food. Any implied conquest is a delusion. Man conquers food when he kills it, because by doing so he conquers Nature. And I’m not talking about taming the land and farming. Anyone can defeat a head of lettuce. It takes a man with strength and courage to bring down an animal and make it into his food; even if the guy has to hire a helicopter and take a high-powered rifle to chase down and slaughter some moose, he will do it.

Man is not challenged in MvF. Consuming the hottest peppers in the world or the biggest hamburger in Duluth is only playing with yourself. If MvF is food porn, the sex porn equivalent would be Adam sitting in his cheap motel room with a stack of Hustlers, seeing how many times he could, um, “respond” to the pictures.

MvF is not man versus food any more than ODing is man versus drugs. MvF is man against his weakness; it is food’s revenge. A real competition against food would consist of putting me in a room with 4 pounds of cinnamon rolls, a 10 pound hamburger, a few pies and a couple liters of beer and see how long I could go without consuming any of it. Man versus food is any time I get a plate of French fries and try to leave just one on the plate. (Sadly, even if the last one is undercooked, bruised and cold, I will eat it – and enjoy it.)

Someone will try and tell me that if I want to see that struggle, I should watch the Biggest Loser. No, that is a woman’s show about eating right and exercising. The only thing for men on that show is Jillian, whom we can drool over while we eat Doritos. On TBL, everyone loses weight, so everyone is a winner. Who wants to see everyone win? If “everyone is a winner” were a desired goal, we Americans would negotiate with our enemies instead of bombing and shooting them. Women would be world leaders instead of men.

Of course, that would free us men up for more couch time, shamefully manipulating the remote and conquering the Doritos.

Moonwalk at the Apollo

Yesterday's news as summarized on wordle.
This is the way I like my news, condensed into keywords. I get all my knowledge of current events from headlines. I don't have time to read columns of words. Even Twitter tweets are TMI, in my opinion.

We all knew that there would be rumors that Michael Jackson's death was faked. We all knew that his nose and his skin tone were fake. What I didn't expect was this headline claim that Jackson's moonwalk was faked.

Jackson supposedly performed the moonwalk in 1983 during a TV special. Television fakes stuff all the time so I'm not surprised if they did this too. I mean, he was lip syncing, why not step syncing? The prevailing theories are that he walked forward and they played it backwards, or that they moved the stage while he stood still, or that he was already dead and being manipulated by strings.

But what surprised me even more was the claim that some other guy actually debuted the moon walk on television 14 years earlier. Nearly 40 years ago, this Neil Armstrong dude did this performance. Come on, he is clearly being aided by a walker of some sort. And may I say that the costuming, choreography and production quality in 1969 were soooo primitive. It's not even in color.

For now, Michael Jackson's legacy is in the hands of his executors: quite fittingly a business manager and an attorney. I am sure they will come up with the true story and sell it to you at a fair price.

Post Script:
Here's my favorite juxtaposition of headlines this morning from MSNBC news.

Nearly all the MJ merchandise is ‘bootlegged’
Newsweek: Why didn't economists predict the crisis?

How Did We Survive?

I just saw a reference to “Greenie Stickum Caps”. I doubt that many of my readers know what those are or appreciate what a technological advancement they were. Before stickum caps arrived, we had the tedious chore of loading a roll of caps into our guns. Mattel gave us the freedom to quickly stick individual caps on our fake bullets, fire away with our revolver – six times – and then peel off the used caps and stick some more on. That special Mattel gun even fired those Mattel plastic shells at a target (I’m sure my target – my sister – remembers).

Parents today don’t buy their kids toy guns because they think it’s a gateway to the real thing. If we hadn’t had toy guns, we would have just used sticks and pretended they were guns, so why not pay Mattel to give us better toys so we could save our imagination for other things?

Kids today are so overprotected. How did we survive? I’m sure you’ve seen that email about how tough the people who grew up in the 40s through 60s were, like this and similar ones like this.

The point of these nostalgic rants is that we rode bikes without helmets, rode in cars without seat belts, jumped off roofs, threw rocks at each other, ate Drano and no one died. It’s true! Have you ever read an email called “We didn’t survive” telling about being thrown from a car or being kidnapped and killed while hitchhiking? No. No one is typing blog entries about having their hands blown off or being blinded by firecrackers or being brain damaged by lead paint. If some kid rode his bike without a helmet and fell off, cracking his head open, THEN he got a helmet. And you don’t hear those drooling morons complaining.

We ate off asbestos plates, smoked unfiltered cigarettes at recess and tattooed ourselves with rusty nails dipped in lead-based ink and we all lived. How did we survive? Harry T. Roman got it right in his blog: (link up above) by being Christians.

“Know what else we survived? Having the Bible read to us in class every morning. It produced no religious zealots, or made us “prissies”. It gave us no guilt complexes, nor long-term hang-ups; and none of us had to have remedial time with the school psychologist. It did make us aware of right and wrong; and very few ax murders, drive-by shootings, or drug binges resulted. No rapes, molestations, or other such behavior.”

That’s right, no one was ever raped until they took prayer out of schools.

We survived without email or internet porn; we made do with the underwear ads in the Sears catalog or with the Playboy magazines that Jimmy found in his dad’s closet. We didn’t have “sexting” and crap like that so there weren’t all these teen pregnancies. Parents didn’t have to waste money on cell phones and such and were able to get kids better stuff; like the time Jimmy’s sister got to go on some year long trip, right before their little sister was born.

I miss those days when we could play with guns unattended while our moms smoked and drank. It didn’t hurt us. We survived. What was I saying? Oh yeah, Greenie Stickum Caps. Brings back Good Times. Let me tell you about how we survived...

To hear more about the things we survived, listen to Bill Cosby. If you can get this site to work, click on “The Playground”
(site may not work well)

Then 'BOOM' ya know I Mean?

This morning John Madden made the following statement:

(Referring to the telestrator) “Sometimes it’s one of deals where you have a formation like this an-an-an-and your wife’s over here and your kids are split out over here and the uh-uh-uh-uh grand kids go ‘BOOM’ like this. When ya think about it, I mean, it’s like you’re you’re you’re down field and runnin’ around sayin’ ‘I’m OPEN’ (CHUCKLING) but you’re not in the clear and you think you are but you’re NOT and you can’t really see the other players is what happens there.
Sometimes you do something for 35 years and you love it. Then, I mean, you got other things you’re doin’ and ‘BAM’ it hits you. So you reverse field and you GO LIKE THIS. (CHUCKLING)Y -y-y ou still love it but I mean you can’t do it. That’s what it’s all about.. I mean, it's FOOTBALL, greatest game in the world, if ya think about it.
And what that means when a guy does like this then then he’s, you know what I mean, GONNA do that and he doesn’t do the other thing and there he is.
Then, ‘BOOM’ you stop and go back over here, (CHUCKLING)a-a-a-and that’s what HAPPENS, ya know what I mean?”

Analysts think he means he’s retiring.

And a Warmfulla Tractum to You, Sir

I'm trying to watch Peter Orszag on the daily Show. Peter is the current Director of the Office of Management and Budget and is apparently being portrayed by Wally Cox, which is odd because I thought Wally Cox was dead (even before Andy was born). If Henry Mitchell and Max Smart had a son, he would look like Peter Orszag.

I'm trying to watch Mr. Orszag but our cable company is delivering distorted video and sound. We've been having this problem for a while where the video gets pixelated and the sound distorted on just a few channels. Karen called Warner Cable and they told her it was caused by sunspots. Sunspots that hate the local Fox affiliate and Comedy Central. The technician said to unplug the cable/DVR box and plug it back in. The old IT "reboot" solution. It doesn't work.

I called today and I spoke to a gentleman who had an accent I could not place - in fact it seemed less like accented English and more like just foreign words. Every other sentence I had to ask him to repeat; when he did so it was perfectly clear but the sound were nothing like what I heard the first time. I finally decided that, working for Warner Cable, he had become afflicted with the cable box-sun spot-pixilated-distortion syndrome that was ruining the Daily Show for me.

We managed to get through setting up an appointment for a technician to come out and really try to fix our problem. I thanked him for his help and he said, "You're welcome and have a warmfulla tractum."

I'll try.

Stock of Love

America loves sleazy, skanky people on TV.
Remember when spring break, became MTV Spring Break? The media not only took over a simple college vacation week, they morphed it into a sponsored frenzy that other media could then cover with whatever angle suited their demographic (from outrage at Fox News to jealous disdain by old rockers at VH1).
It was the same thing that ESPN did by bringing play-by-play coverage to the innocent National Spelling Bee except the Bee has more underage teens and fewer t-shirt lifting skanks shaking it in the camera.
Remember when Jerry Springer, the king of sleaze, hosted MTV’s Spring Break? Jerry Springer was once Mayor of Cincinnati. He ran for Governor of Ohio and once considered running for Senator here a few years ago.
The people serving in Congress are no more qualified to be there than Jerry Springer. That is why it is ridiculous that Congress is now in charge of huge portions of the banking/investment industry. Sure the US Treasury is involved, but they are not set up to run real banking operations. Tim Geithner looks like one of the ‘socially awkward contestants from “The Pick-Up Artist”.
And now, like MTV did with Spring Break, the media has made hearings of the Senate Finance Committee actually watchable. Senators and Representatives are making television for the masses with their trash-talking and put downs of the banking geeks who got s**tfaced on bad credit and pissed and puked all over the economy. Which, if our government was savvy enough, could be turned into a deficit reduction production with sponsorship of the high-budget reality show they are creating on the fly.
All they need to really catapult this to the top of the ratings is Jerry Springer to host and maybe some girl-on-girl make out scenes with Feinstein and Pelosi.
Seriously, what if they took the AIG executives and some taxpayers and put them all together in a house with cameras following them 24/7? The drama would unfold as the execs debated giving back their bonuses and romance developed among the opposing factions. Taxpayers would reveal their diminished assets and AIG execs would walk around in thongs stuffed with artificially enhanced wallets.
This would make money for the government and perhaps save the lives of the Wall Street skanks as America falls in love with those bad boys.
I’m going to pitch this to MTV, so give me some ideas of names for the show.

The Weather Outside is Frightful; Film at 11:00

We had about 4 - 5 inches of snow this morning, followed by freezing rain, sleet and ice. Tomorrow morning we will have more snow. Where? How much? If you think those would be the most important elements of the TV weather forecast, you are clearly NOT a trained and certified meteorologist.

TV weather forecasting 101's first lesson is that you need video, LIVE!, on the scene of the impending snow disaster. You need a reporter and camera crew in the grocery establishing that people are buying shovels so that viewers without shovels experience fear and despair. You need a reporter and camera crew on the road, to establish that traffic is moving slowly over plowed roads, which are nevertheless impassable due to being blocked by TV camera crews.

Our local station had THREE reporters stationed around town without hats or scarves to establish that (a) freezing rain is cold and (b) freezing rain and ice have different properties than water. All three reporters had to pick up chunks of ice to prove that ice accumulates. The best part was that, when they switched to the third guy, he reported to the audience, "Big surprise, it sucks here too."

One reporter stood on the edge of the "slippery and treacherous" road to tell us that any of these cars might spin out of control at any moment. "The entire viewing audience were thinking, "Oh, pleeeease, somebody hit a patch of ice and take this idiot out!" This was the snow storm equivalent of the reporter standing next to the flapping power lines in a hurricane, reporting that it is "windy".

I think my neighborhood will be south of the 8 - 10 inches of snow and we will have only 4 - 6 in round two tomorrow. Hard to say because it took you longer to read that than it took the weather jerk to give us the information we had waited for.

Weather people aren't the only dumb asses in a Cincinnati snow day. This is the thought process of the divers in front of me on the way to work today: "I think I will be safer in the left lane, out of the way of people merging on and off the expressway. Ah, yes, this is great. The closest car in front of me is a mile ahead and al the crazy, fast drivers are going by me on the right. I made a good decision. So many cars are staying behind me, following my path. I am leading them to safety. It may take us more than an hour to go 15 miles, but we'll get there safely! Ooh, look, there's an emrgency vehicle way on the other side of the freeway. I'd better slow down some more."

I may just stay home tomorrow.

Idgital TV Deadline Soon To Be Reality

On February 17, 2009 all TV stations in the United States will cease broadcasting any logical television signals and begin broadcasting exclusively idgital formats.

The idgital TV changeover will affect anyone still watching classic, scripted television shows. Viewers who have degraded their viewing to strictly basic cable and reality programming will continue to receive these programs, as they are broadcast in a lower level of consciousness to be perceived even while texting, twittering and doing homework.

If you watch any logical television programming, you must take action before February 17, 2009 in order to continue comprehending what you watch. If you do not purchase a converter box, any logical television show will no longer make any sense and will be perceived as if it were a basic cable or reality program.

Without conversion, dramatic shows such as “The Twilight Zone”, comedies such as “Seinfeld” and classic movies such as “Apollo 13” will be perceived on the same lower range of intelligence as “My Super Sweet 16”, “The Hills” or “American Idol.”

Viewers attempting to watch any logical shows like “The Wire”, will find the premise scrambled and they will be turning to their spouses and saying, “Why would anyone let themselves be filmed doing this?” “Why would people watch it? Or “On what planet does, ‘Dawg, it was a little pitchy but you a’ight,’ qualify as musical critique?"

The US government is issuing coupons to citizens smart enough to care, so that they can get a free converter to transform idgital TV back to any logoical format.
You must act now in order to be ready when February 17 rolls around.
To learn more, go to www.imnotanidiot.gov and download an information brochure.

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Women Are From Mars

I am NOT turning this into the Dinette Set Curmudgeon but I couldn't ignore today's comic. Even more uncomfortable than Dale's dislocated elbow yesterday is weightlifter guy's dislocated head today. In the second panel he turns his head all the way to the left to look at the "chicks" standing to his right. More awkward than Burl accosting the man in yesterday's comic is the chicks possessiveness today toward the exercise ball and their creepy demand that Jerry "hop off and spray it off." Ewwwww...I think. But the real problem I have with today's comic is the women have no reflection in the mirror in the second panel. The joke is based on the fact that Jerry can not see them in the mirror, which makes no sense...unless the women are actually vampire women from Mars. I suggest this because Earth vampires never have a reflection but Martians can appear and disappear at will*, suggesting that Martian vampires can control their reflections.
*(I base this on my knowledge of "Uncle Martin", a Martian who crashed on Earth and lived among us with his secret known only Tim O'Hara. Based on TV shows of my childhood, half the people in the 60s were living with someone "different-from-us" - a Martian, a witch, a talking horse, a woman reincarnated as a car - and hiding that condition from everyone. Hilarity always ensued. This formula was copied later by Mork and Mindy and then by the Laura Bush sitcom where she lives in the White House with a man comically attempting to hide the fact he has no brain.)

Lift Us Up Where We Be long

Erectile dysfunction treatment commercials are the feminine hygiene ads of the New Millennium: ubiquitous and embarrassing. But there is that one Cialis ad that I do pay attention to: the one where the couple has some sort of other-worldly sex, after which they wake up in matching claw-foot bathtubs on a ridge overlooking the ocean. You can’t watch that without wondering if perhaps Cialis has something in it besides the average E.D. ingredient (which I assume is just calcium, for strong bones).
I am not bragging, but I’ve never experienced E.D. I’m not bragging because I feel like that makes me weird and uncool. The E.D. med commercials have been on for years now and featured some of my favorite sports stars and even Bob Dole, who always has that pen in his hand, so you know he likes to keep busy. The E.D. guys on TV seem to attract a lot of pretty – and horny – women. I’m not interested in getting together with anyone besides my wife, but a little attention doesn’t hurt. I went to my doctor and asked him what is wrong with me. “I’ve never had erectile dysfunction, Doc. Why everyone else but me? I’m not normal.” I wanted to have a need for some Cialis, because I could use a day at the beach, so I asked if he could give me something to cause E.D. He said, “Here’s what I use to cause E.D.,” and he showed me a picture of his wife. That was just rude.
Then he told me, “JohnnyB, you do realize that some men just use those drugs recreationally, right?”
“Recreationally? What, do they go to some Viagra Dude Ranch and sit around a campfire in a circle, like a bunch of jerks, holding…um...hands, and singing cum-baya?
I didn’t end up getting any meds. I just went back home and watched a few, Levitra, Viagra and Cialis ads I had DVR’d so I could get the vicarious thrill of having a limp willy.
Then I noticed perhaps the strangest thing of all about the commercials. At the end, there is a disclaimer in text at the bottom of the screen that says something like, “This product will not prevent sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.” Who out there thinks that an erection pill is going to have the benefits of a condom? Oh yeah, that would be men – men whose entire blood supply is being medically redirected to a region below the belt line, leaving the brain totally lacking in oxygen needed for reason and logic.

erectile dysfunction = I end soft unit (recycle)

Humor Blogs lift you up

I Hope You Dance

Ken Griffey Jr. will soon hit his 600th home run. It won't be long after that that his career in his home town of Cincinnati comes to an end as the Reds turn to youth to rebuild a team. Nevertheless, yesterday I was more concerned with the career of another Cincinnati native son, when I told my family, "I think I am really going to miss Shane Sparks on 'So You Think You Can Dance'." Shane has been a judge and choreographer over the first three seasons of SYTYCD, but is now involved in other projects. When I talk about SYTYCD or Mr. Sparks with the guys (my boyz) I see the look in their eyes: "Why does he know so much - or even anything - about dance?"
I developed an interest in dance because of my daughter, who learned and performed and competed with the Studio For Dance in Cincinnati. Allie is an only child, who declared early on that she was not going to play "any sport involving a ball". So I ended up driving the minivan to dance competitions, toting dance bags, costumes and makeup, while the other dads were off coaching soccer games or watching their sons play baseball. The dads who did show up at the competitions tried to adopt the proper masculine response to a room full of satin and tulle (I swear I don't really know if that's what dance costumes are made of) by complaining conspicuously about having to watch this dance stuff ("stuff" here serves as a polite euphemism). The more troubled men would run up and down in front of the stage, as if it were a ballfield sideline, exhorting their little girls to "Dance faster! Don't let Amber get ahead of you! Knock her down! Don't be a pussy!", the last comment being inappropriately screamed out during a number from the Broadway show, "Cats". Meanwhile, I sat serenely enjoying the the whole spectacle, knowing that no matter how much testosterone they generated, they could not push back the tide of estrogen in the room. My life had prepared me to accept this state of being. And, I must say, sitting in a room full of women watching girls dance to "Singing in the Rain" is not such a bad way to spend a day as compared to, say, watching soccer in the rain. Besides, there were refreshments.
My daughter no longer dances with the studio (though she did take a tap class at Ohio State and you can see the class perform here and here. My daughter is the tall one on the right.) Looking back, I don't regret a minute of the time spent watching her dance all these years. And I still enjoy "So You Think You Can Dance", which she got us started watching, and I openly admire Shane Sparks. Some guys try to make excuses for me: "Well, Shane is hip hop, dude. Hip hop is a guy thing, so you cool, JohnnyB." True enough, but I also like Tyce Diorio and, girlfriend, I think he might be gay. I don't care, Shane might be too. Makes no difference, I'm still glad I discovered Shane in one of his other projects over at "America's Best Dance Crew" last season; I've got a new dance show to watch. Ken Griffey Jr. never was and never will be as athletic as those dancers. And sitting in the living room with my family, watching dance on a 92 degree summer day in Cincinnati is nicer than sweltering at the ball park. And the refreshments are cheaper.

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Shane Sparks = share spanks