Light Up This Guy Like a Flame

Recently we watched the original, 1980 “Fame” movie about a performing arts high school in New York which was remarkable because there was only one gay kid in the entire collection of dance, theater and music students.

Montgomery MacNeil’s homosexuality is not just presented as an anomaly; he reveals it as his response to the theater class assignment, “tell us your most painful moment”. Montgomery explains to his classmates that his therapist told him the condition is “probably a life choice”. Monty morosely relates that he is “getting a lot of help” and he is amused by the irony of being “gay” when it dooms him to a life of never being happy. His parents were divorced and he tells about going someplace with his mother, where it was “like we were lovers.” What!? The creepy factor totally obscures the outdated implication that not having a male role model may have led him to his “life choice”.

This was the attitude about homosexuality 30 years ago; imagine what the attitudes were a decade earlier – when I was in junior high school.

When I was 13, we had a sex education assembly at school. Dr. Agee talked about many things including that then taboo subject. We were all giggling, when suddenly she said something that hit home. And this is the only thing I remember her saying that day: “it is unclear how homosexuals get that way, but one theory is that boys who grow up in female dominated households become gay”.

My parents were divorced and I lived with my mother and older sister. Sitting through the rest of that lecture in a cold sweat, I realized that female domination was like a poison, slowly turning me gay. Back in the 60’s, we didn’t have any gay, prime-time role models like Elton John or Rosie O’Donnell or even movie characters like Montgomery MacNeil. All we had was Liberace - and they didn’t acknowledge his sexuality. I would ask my mom, “Why does that man dress all sparkly and talk funny like that?” She wouldn’t answer me, she’d just switch the channel to Gomer Pyle USMC, and say, "There, watch that Jim Nabors fella. He’s a Marine."
(Surprise, surprise, surprise, when it turned out Jimbo was gay.)

So my family situation was making me gay and I didn’t know exactly when it would happen. It could happen slowly, or the swish might be flipped overnight.
The fact that the girls in school, sporting their new, perky breasts in soft, fuzzy sweaters caused me to have an erection did not entirely reassure me. I was 13 years old – the mechanism was still getting calibrated - a bowl of oatmeal could give me an erection. I needed a way to know for sure what I was.

So, what I did, I kept a stack of Playboy magazines under my bed and I would periodically test myself to see if I could still have a “complete” experience with the centerfold. There were frequent pop quizzes. One day I did 12 separate tests – January through December – all home runs -- but as I started through the batting order a second time, my fears were confirmed. No reaction. I tried holding the magazine in the other hand. Nothing

The next day I pulled out the magazines to say goodbye and, I don’t want to go into detail, but clearly I was hetero again. Apparently it switches back and forth. That’s what that one guy told me in college.

Nevertheless, the rest of my life, despite my lack of attraction to men and despite my positive experiences with women (including marrying one and fathering another) I still have lingering doubts and I look for signs.

The things that worry me are:
I don’t fix my own car or even change own oil
I don't read in the bathroom and I often pee sitting down.
My life is still dominated by women.
I still REALLY like oatmeal – I don’t know what that means.

The main thing that proves that I’m a heterosexual man is that I have retained the skills I developed with those Playboys: my hands are strong and I can work a remote -105 cable channels in a 5 minute commercial break and back to the show I’m watching, without missing a second, baby.

The shows I watch now have more openly gay characters than those we saw in the 60s or even the 80s. I haven't seen the new "Fame" movie; I hope it has a more enlightened portrayal of gay people. In the United States today, a lesbian can grow up to be the daughter of a (former) Vice President. However she can't marry her mate. Maine just became the 31st state to officially reject same-sex marriage.

Baby hold me tight
Cause you can make it right
You can shoot me straight to the top
Give me love and take all I've got to give

I feel it coming together
Let us give marriage a try
Gay!

Christmas With Bob Man

At my daughter's Bat Mitzvah service, I read some lyrics from "Forever Young". I told her they were from the great Jewish poet Robert Zimmerman because she didn't like Bob Dylan - well, she didn't really know if she liked Bob Dylan or not, because she couldn't get past his voice.

That's so unfair. Do I tell her that Dane Cook is a lousy comedian because he's not funny? (Yes, I do). But people shouldn't put artists in a box; who's to say what "good" singing is? Bob Dylan is the voice of the people and the people are raspy and untrained.

The great Jewish poet Robert Zimmerman now has a Christmas album out. I was alerted to this by al in la (his name is Al and he lives in LA).

When Gary Burbank was alive, I used to write songs for his radio character, Bob Man, who sounded a great deal like Bob Dylan. Coincidentally, Bob Man has a Christmas album coming out also. Here are a couple samples:



BOB DYLAN'S WHITE CHRISTMAS DREAM:

While riding on a train going west,
I fell asleep for to take my rest.
I dreamed a dream that featured snow,
On a white Christmas like the ones I used to know.

With icy leaves, the tree tops glistened
For sleigh bell sounds, the children listened,
Ten thousand dollars for your days to be bright
I’d give that, to make your Christmases be white.


BALLAD OF A FROSTY MAN

You run down the streets of town
With your broomstick in your hand
Though the sun is baking
You say, "Let’s laugh and play, man."
A cop says stop
But you pass his raised hand
Are you fairy tale
Or a jolly soul?

Because, something is happening here
Since that hat went on your head,
Frosty, man of snow.


Given the mess of Christmas, Judaism, and Dylan in my history, the Bob Dylan Christmas album would make an excellent Christmas or Hanukkah gift from my daughter, don't you think?

(The "Hard Snow" album cover is not mine, it's from here.)

If you don't know the tunes, you can listen here:

LOOK OUT! LOOK OUT! LOOK OUT! LOOK OUT!

A friend of mine told me a story about her daughter and the son of a neighbor playing together when they were 3 or 4 years old. The two mothers went to check on the kids and found them both naked, with the little boy trying to insert a toy car into the little girl in, um, a place he would not have found on another little boy.

My comment to my friend was “whenever you put together a boy, a girl, and a car, you’re going to have trouble.”

That was the theme of movies and songs in the early rock and roll era when I was growing up. Boys and girls have been a dangerous mix throughout music history but the tragic third element that sparks death varies based on genre. In folk and old-time country music, if your sweetheart wants to take you down by the river, don’t go; I’m just sayin’. In blues and jazz music, there’s no escape; your lover will hunt you down with a gun (see “Frankie and Johnny”).

But in rock and roll, scientific studies prove that death comes by motor vehicle 95% of the time. I recently read someone else’s blog entry about sad songs. One commenter said that the saddest song was “Last Kiss” by Pearl Jam. The really sad part was that this person was so young she did not know that was a cover version of the original from the early 60s, the heyday of the teen death rock and roll song.

“Last Kiss” falls into the category of “boy and girl together in the car”. In that scenario, the girl is a passenger and she always dies. “Teen Angel” is the earliest “hit” I could find in this sub-phylum. In that song the boy doesn’t kill the girl through reckless driving; instead, the girl, stupefied by love (as teen girls always are) runs back to the stalled car to get the boy’s class ring and is hit by a train. (Note: The class ring was symbolic of true love, "going steady", in 1960). But we are left to wonder: Why had she taken the ring off? Had they been fighting? Did he kill her, park on the tracks and then make up the story about her running back to the car? Was his last name Peterson?

The ring element makes a nice link between “Teen Angel” and “Tell Laura I love Her”. The difference is that “Tell Laura…” belongs to the sub-phylum “Love-sick boy alone in vehicle ends up dead.” Tommy wants to buy Laura “everything” which is comprised of “flowers, presents (and) a wedding ring.” If only he had had the good sense to get a job. Instead he enters a stock car race to win a prize, but crashes and dies. I know the lyrics sound hokey when you read them, but if you have ever seen Sha Na Na do this song live… for the last verse they form the chapel where Laura prays and the music swells … “alone in the chapel she can hear him cry….” … it still brings chills, just thinking about it. This is my favorite teen death song.

A few years later the Shangri-las recorded a love-sick boy death song, which again involves both a ring and a vehicle, but in this case it’s death on a motorcycle. "Leader of the Pack" is wholly unbelievable in its premise: the girl’s parents tell her has to break up with the boy and she just complies. In real life she would have snuck out to hook up with him and gotten pregnant – possibly later throwing the baby off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Anyway, in this song, he drives off, crashes and dies.

There is much debate among students of teen death music about "Leader.." It states that Jimmy was "from the wrong side of town". Is this a code for inter-racial coupling? (Worse than teen pregnancy in the 1960s). The question stems from the girl's friends asking "whatcha mean when ya say that he came from the wrong side of town?" Some scholars postulate that the friends were just "total ditzes" because they just don't seem to comprehend simple declarative statements, such as, "My dad said, "Find somebody new", to which they respond "whatcha mean when ya say that ya better go find somebody new?" Further support for the ditz theory comes at the beginning of the song when the friends ask each other, "is she really going out with him" when everybody at school knows about the relationship and Jimmy's death.

The "accident" is also controversial; was his vision just clouded by tears or did he deliberately crash? The same question can be asked about Laura’s Tommy. “No one knows what happened that day, how his car overturned in flames.” Numerous literary studies have postulated about this. Was Tommy losing the race and so saddened that he could never afford the flowers or presents, let alone the ring, that he wrecked his car on purpose? Was there an insurance policy naming Laura as his beneficiary? (Evidence: “it was just for Laura he lived and died”) Was he just driving a crappy car that burst into flames and overturned spontaneously? (Evidence: he couldn’t afford flowers so he couldn’t afford a good car). My theory is that he was killed by God for having pre-marital sex with Laura (Evidence: “Laura and Tommy were lovers”). Undoubtedly they had sex in the back seat of that very same car he died in, which is why it burst into flames. She went to the chapel to ask forgiveness for her sin, which is what Tommy should have done instead of giving in to greed (another deadly sin!) There may be a clue about the lyrics in this reenactment.

By the mid-sixties the boy/girl/car death songs were dying out. In the late 60s and 70s drugs became a bigger part of the music and overdose the more favored means of death. Now would be the time for a return of the car death genre, only now it would go something like this:

Laura and Tommy were lovers
That’s what everybody read
“Laura is in a relationship”
That’s what her Facebook status said.

Tommy also declared his love
While driving his car around the street
He had a cell phone and a Twitter account
So here’s what Tommy tried to tweet:

@Laura: I <3 u
@Laura: I need u
@Laura: do not cry, my <3 4 u will never di….

And, of course you would be able to download a “ring” tone of the song.

Sing a Wrong Song

I grew up in L.A. and never went to a summer camp. We had to make do. For crafts, our parents (or step-parents or parent's life partners) would have the immigrant gardener or maid make us some turquoise jewelry or hand-woven baskets.

In place of ghost stories, we would sit in a circle late at night and describe plastic surgery disasters. (WARNING: I didn't link to any of those pages directly because I still have nightmares about some of them).

Instead of singing around the campfire we would gather in Laurel Canyon during brush fire season and sing with Joni Mitchell and all them, while the caterer toasted chocolate truffle s’mores served on organic graham biscuits, infused with Acapulco gold.

So, since I don't really know the Music Day at summer camp drill, for my fellow humor bloggers sitting around the flickering computer screen, I offer some examples of the songs I have recently stolen from actual writers.

What would summer camp be without hot dogs?

Hot dogs, Armour hot dogs
What kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs
Fat kids, sickly kids
Vegans have an answer:
Poor-ly - nourished kids
Kids with colo-rectal cancer
Hot dogs, Armour hot dogs
The dogs we warned about!

Sarah Palin is taking Summer vacation seriously - by quitting altogether:

Take this job and shove it, I don’t wanna work no more
Sarah Palin done quit and gave me the reason I was looking for
Don’t wanna just be collectin’ my pay
You’re the one I’m doin’ this for
Take this job and shove it, I don’t wanna work no more"

This summer we may be seeing a comeback from this long winter of our discontent:

What have you done my stockbroking son?
And what did you do with my retirement fund?
I sold mortgage-backed securities without regulation
I crippled the credit of large corporations
I ruined economies of world power nations
I stumbled on the slide of inflated earnings
I pumped up the bubble until it was bursting
And it’s the Dow, it’s the Dow, it’s the Dow, it’s the Dow
And it’s the Dow Jones a-gonna fall

It's about time to bunk down, so I leave you with this:

Deep down in Cincinnati where the boy has been
Since he moved to the Midwest from the L. A. scene -
What jerk would choose Ohio over Hollywood?
Just a "special" kind of dork named "JohnnyB" could
He never ever learned to really write so well
And for ripping off songs, he is going to Hell
Go! Go .... go, already!

As American as Lawsuits, Jersey Crooks and Cancer-Causing Processed Meat Products

A vegan advocacy group wants a New Jersey court to order Oscar Mayer, Hebrew National and other food companies to slap a warning on hot dog packages which says that eating processed meats increases the risk of cancer.

I had a number of random thoughts about this story.

Hot dogs already carry a warning label. It’s the list of nutritional information. 1 hot dog (and no one eats just one) contains 150 calories, 120 from fat and 30% of your daily saturated fats. I think your arteries will explode before any cancer cells have a chance to start on your colon.

The story refers to a “vegan advocacy group.” What do vegan advocates want? Homeless advocates would like to reduce the number of homeless people. I have to assume vegan advocates want to reduce vegancy, and therefore should be promoting meat eating.

The vegan advocates go by the name “Cancer Project”, which seems to me like they are hiding their real agenda. That’s like the national beef council going by the name … um … “Cancer Project”. What are the vegans hiding? The names Oscar Mayer and Hebrew National so high on their hit list, perhaps they have anti-Semitic leanings.

Hebrew National has long claimed that they answer to a higher authority than the US government. That authority is Conagra Foods (current owners of the Hebrew National Brand) who give orders to the government.

The lawsuit is in New Jersey. The Feds just busted a bunch of people in New Jersey, politicians and rabbis who are charged with, among other things, illegal human organ-selling. I don’t want to think there is a connection between New Jersey, rabbis selling human organs and Hebrew National hot dogs.

America has a National Hot Dog and Sausage Council. We have no national health care, but we have a National Hot Dog and Sausage Council. Okay, they are a food industry lobby, not a government agency. But at least they have the decency to put what they’re about in their name.

The reporter got some valuable quotes from random hot dog advocates, like this: "Vegans complaining about hot dogs is like the Amish complaining about gas prices," said Susan Thatcher of Irvine, Calif. No, Susan, Vegans complaining about the price of hot dogs would be like the Amish complaining about the price of gas. Vegans complaining about hot dogs causing cancer would be like the Amish complaining about gas emissions from cars causing cancer.. Hmmmm.

Once the warning label lawsuit is won, this will be the new ad for Armour hot dogs:

Hot dogs, Armour hot dogs
What kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs
Fat kids, sickly kids
Vegans have an answer:
Poor-ly - nourished kids
Kids with colo-rectal cancer
Hot dogs, Armour hot dogs
The dogs we warned about!

By the way, here's a scene from the next Seth Rogan, Katerine Heigl romantic comedy:

"Hey, would you be interested in a nice hot kosher weiner?" "Thanks, but I have a thing for pork."

Take This Job and Shove It

“(Sarah Palin) said she had decided against running for re-election as Alaska's governor, and believed it was best to leave office even though she had two years left to her term.”

The woman quit half-way through the job she asked for and made it sound noble:

“Many just accept that lame duck status, and they hit that road. They draw a paycheck. They kind of milk it. And I'm not going to put Alaskans through that,” she said.

Because, of course, those were her only two choices: resign or just sit around the Governor’s mansion eating moose jerky and following John McCain on Twitter. Actually taking care of the state’s business would be too much to ask of someone who wasn’t doing it in order to get reelected.

“I really can’t work up a good goddam for the state of Alaska anymore and I didn’t want to disappoint all y’all, so, screw it. The Lieutenant Gov can have this shit,” she explained

Don’t misunderstand me, I admire what she did. I would do it if I could. “Boss, a lot of guys my age just start coasting toward retirement, phoning it in and delegating all their work to others while they go to seminars and conventions paid for by the company. I don’t want to do you that way. What don’t you understand? Here, let me put it in a song, see if that helps.

Take this job and shove it, I don’t wanna work no more
Sarah Palin done quit and gave me the reason I was looking for
Don’t wanna just be collectin’ my pay
You’re the one I’m doin’ this for
Take this job and shove it, I don’t wanna work no more"

I can’t do that. Why? Because I don’t have other options. Palin does. Palin is a schemer who knows there is more money, power and influence for her if she gets out of Alaska and comes to America. And she quit now because (unless she is avoiding some major scandal that was about to bring her down) she is going after that stuff before it slips away.

Palin famously compared her hockey-mom self to a pit bull. A pit bull is a dog that will bite you and never let go. If Sarah Palin is a pit bull who had Alaska politics by the ass, what she just did is like the dog saying “Hey, heck with this ass, I smell bacon,” and dropping them.

Hey Baby, How Much Would it Cost Just to Get My Lines Crossed?

UPDATED

The other day Mark Sanford revealed that he had been involved with other women besides his mistress, but it was no big deal because

"There were a handful of instances wherein I crossed the lines I shouldn't have crossed as a married man, but never crossed the ultimate line," he said.

This prompted me to try and call him once again to see if he really is a big hypocrite of if he's just a misunderstood profligate miscreant. Once again I got put on hold.

You have reached the office of the Governor of South Carolina. The governor is tied up right now but the dominatrix involved is just teasing him and it's all quite innocent. Please hold and listen to our musak.

I keep a loose hold on these vows of mine
I keep my options open all the time
I keep a mistress and an open mind
A couple times
I crossed the line

I find it very, very easy to construe
My infidelity as sort of being true
I’ve been with other women, but we didn’t screw
A couple times
I crossed the line

You have reached the office of the Governor of South Carolina. The governor is is busy celebrating the fact that Sarah Palin may have done something that will take the spotlight off of him. Please hold and listen to our musak.

One poke over the line, sweet Jesus
One poke over the line
Slippin' out of town for a sex liaison
One poke over the line

I hung up at that point.

South Carolina Leadership on Hold

Last night “Dr. Strangelove” was on TMC. The premise is that a rogue general sends bombers to destroy the USSR and hilarity ensues. It came out in 1964, as did the very similarly premised “Fail Safe", which disappoints, as it fails to find the comedic angle on the nuclear bombing of Moscow and New York.

Thinking about these movies and the fun we had under the constant fear of nuclear war with Russia, and also watching the news yesterday, I became nostalgic about a couple books I read back when the world was young and the war was cold.

One was “Vanished” about some Presidential advisor who vanished and got everyone’s shorts in a wad until it turned out he was off solving the Cold War (if I remember correctly). (Oh my god, looking at the cover just stimulated the memory of my teenage response to the hot sex going on in the story - but I cared only for the political intrigue. Right.)

There was also “The President’s Plane is Missing”, by Rod Serling’s brother, in which the President disappeared and got everyone’s shorts in a wad until it turned out he was off solving the Cold War (if I remember correctly).

With these memories in my head, I had high hopes for a n intriguing revelation about where South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was for the past week. But, no, he had not gotten Korea to stop their nuclear program nor overturned Iran’s fraudulent election. He was just off violating his marriage vows with some hot tamale, the way so many other ordinary American dads spent their Fathers Day.

He stood up there and did the obligatory confession/apology; however, he did not force his wife to join him. Why? Because the confession/apology with the loyal wife on the side has become a cliché.

Cliché: noun
3. anything that has become trite or commonplace through overuse.

Scandal laden politicians, caught doing the evil deeds they have previously denounced, have become so redundant they have to change up the obligatory public expiation just to hold audience interest.

Mark Sanford’s tale did have some appealing aspects: the fact that he was missing for a week, the story about hiking miles on the Appalachian Trail turning into a story about humping Maria, some Argentinan tail and the obvious jokes about crying for that country.

I was moved enough by all that to try and call Sanford and ask him how he got himself into this. This is all I got:

You have reached the office of the Governor of South Carolina. Your call is very important to us. But not to the Governor, just like he doesn’t care about his job or family. He’s off God knows where. Please hold and listen to our musak.

I cried to leave Argentina
I broke my promise
Can't keep my mistress.

You have reached the office of the Governor of South Carolina. The Governor can’t come to the phone right now, he’s on another woman. Please hold and listen to our lovely muzak.

Maria!
I've just nailed a girl named Maria,
And suddenly the name
Of my wife escapes my brain
Who's she?

You have reached the office of the Governor of South Carolina. Your call will be answered in the order in which you were deceived. Please dangle on the line we are feeding you and listen to our musak.

How do you get your freak on with Maria?
How do you slink away to party down?
How do you get it up to do Maria
While screwing your job and family back in town?

Marriage and fam’ly you told us should be sacred
Clinton lied and you took a moral stand
How do you go get laid
And piss on your Fathers Day
How can your moral compass be your gland?

I miss the cold war.

Selling an Apple a Day Means the Doctor Gets Paid

Did Steve Jobs’ wallet help cut transplant wait?

Now you say you’re before me
In the transplant queue
Well I can buy me a liver, buy me a liver
I got a liver over you

I can’t say that I’m sorry
The health system's askew
'Cause I can buy me a liver, buy me a liver
I got a liver over you

Need to move up on the donor list? We've got an app for that!

Trouble With a Capital T and A

Cincinnati battled Larry Flynt.
The Queen City took on Robert Mapplethorpe.
We have established, time and again, that that sex stuff belongs in Newport, Kentucky, not in River City.
So how did Kenny Tessel think he would get away with the sex display in front of his business?

You will recall Kenny and his girlfriend BarBe Q from a recent post. Wednesday night, BarBe, dressed in a more modest outfit than her working attire, went before a review board to defend her job. "I ain't a ho or a street walker," she explained, "I can't even walk much. I am a spokesmodel and a classy broad. Kenny has made me an executive."

In some cities BarBe's professional appearance, quiet demeanor and obvious sales skills would have won the board over. But this is Greater Cincinnati. Oh, she gets to continue working the streets, but she must sell only Kenny's ribs and must not display her own

"she must dress more modestly. Her clothing must be 'appropriately sized' so 'nothing can be seen from the side'."

Actually, things were going well for BarBe until some carpet-bagging, out-of-town modest-clothing salesman stood up and said:

"Well, either you're closing your eyes
To a situation you do not wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of a mannequin in your community.
Ya got trouble, my friend, right here,
I say, trouble right here in River City.
Why sure I'm a barbecue eater,
Certainly mighty proud, I say,
I'm always mighty proud to say it.
I consider that the hours I spend
With some ‘cue in my hand are golden.
With a vinegar-based hot sauce
And a cool beer and homemade pie.
Ever take and try to get
A satisfying meal for yourself
From a topless restaurant?
But just as I say,
It takes wood smoke, brains, and decency to sell
In the barbecue game,
I say that any boob can flash
And pull a man into a shop.
And I call that sloth!
The first big step on the road
To the depths of deg-ra-Day--shun
……
Friends, the string bikini is the devil's playground!

Trouble, oh we got trouble,
Right here in River City!
With a capital "T"
That rhymes with "B"
And that stands for boobs!"

So now BarBe will be dressed more appropriately for Cincinnati. At least the t shirt gives her somewhere to wipe the sauce off her fingers.

Inches, Feet, Miles

Question: Which 4 states meet at the Four Corners Monument? If you answered with the names of any 4 states, you are wrong … maybe.

“National Geodetic Survey officials say the Four Corners marker showing the intersection of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah is about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) west of where it should be, the Deseret News reported.

But wait, “The marker is 1,807.14 feet east of where it should have been placed, said Dave Doyle, chief geodetic surveyor for the National Geodetic Survey, which defines and manages a national coordinate system.”

You have to wonder how anyone could get the monument wrong. All they had to do was wander around until they saw the big “A” and the dashed border lines intersecting.

It was probably some man, assigned to install the monument, who was too proud to ask for directions and just put the marker down where it was easiest to install. “The borders intersect over there, why did you put the monument here?” “The light was better over here.”

What’s possibly worse is first saying the monument is 2.5 miles west of where it should be then saying it is a mere 1,807 feet east (1/3 of a mile, a mere glitch, not worth discussing). They tried to pass this off with some BS about measuring from the Prime Meridian versus the Washington Meridian. Who ever heard of the “Washington Meridian”?

I think what happened is, after the first AP story appeared, President Obama was woken up at 3 a.m. and briefed on the crisis.
“Mr. President, given the state of our economy and the budget you’ve laid out, we can not afford to handle the deluge of lawsuits from people who were duped into thinking they were at the four corners when they were actually just at a flat place in Colorado … or Utah or somewhere. They will claim damages for erroneous souveniers, family photos and related pain and suffering.”
“Isn’t that an issue for those states whose borders are involved, not a Federal issue.”
“Sir, given your socialist agenda, individual states rights and issues no longer exist.”
"Oh. Well, what would Bill Clinton have done in a case like this?”
"He would have lied, sir.”
“Okay then, make up some pseudo-scientific reason that the monument is really correct.”

The best part of the story is that, “In any case, the measurement differences don't matter anymore, Doyle said, because ‘the monument controls.’
‘Where the marker is now is accepted,’ Doyle said. ‘Even if it's 10 miles off, once it's adopted by the states, which it has been, the numerical errors are irrelevant. It becomes the legal definition’ of the Four Corners.” Whatever the Ministry of Truth says is right.

Songs For the New Depression

(Title stolen from Bette Midler)

The Dow Jones Is Gonna Fall
(A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall)

What have you done my stockbroking son?
And what did you do with my retirement fund?
I sold mortgage-backed securities without regulation
I crippled the credit of large corporations
I ruined economies of world power nations
I stumbled on the slide of inflated earnings
I pumped up the bubble until it was bursting
And it’s the Dow, it’s the Dow, it’s the Dow, it’s the Dow
And it’s the Dow Jones a-gonna fall

And who did you meet, my bank failure son?
And whose coffers increased with big bailout funds?
I met AIG who’d had inadequate reserves
I gave them sev’ral billion that they didn’t deserve
I gave Wall Street massive cash funds with multiple zeroes
I saw them bonus themselves as if they were the heroes
I then criticized poor folks for not paying their mortgage
Though someone else’s greed is why they can’t afford it
And it’s the Dow, it’s the Dow, it’s the Dow, it’s the Dow
And it’s the Dow Jones a-gonna fall


The Boxter
(The Boxer – Paul Simon)
I am now a poor boy
And my stocks have all dissolved
Someone squandered all my savings
On squat propped up by bullshit
And false promises
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And then he does invest

Well I hocked my home
And my SUV
And I sold my little boy
To invest with Bernie Madoff
And some mortgage-backed securities
All uninsured
Now I go
Seeking out the cardboard boxes
Where the homeless people go
Looking for the places
Foreclosed people know

Lie-la-lie--------

Expecting more years of recession
I’ve been laid off from my job
Now I’ve got no prospects
‘Cause I believed in all those whores
CNBC puts on
I do declare---
Chapter Seven – that means bankruptcy
So creditors beware

Lie la lie ---------

Now I’m looking down at wall street
From my ledge, soon I’ll be gone
Going down
And the New Deal stimulus will
Will not be feeding me, or keeping me
From going down

In the driveway stands a Boxter
And a Porsche by its make
And it serves as a reminder
Of wealth evaporated now
And dividends that dried up
And what put me in this mess
I’d be leaving, I’d be leaving
But the car’s being repossessed
Lie la lie lie lie lie lie----

Lie la lie---

Please Do Keep Me Synonymous

The Cincinnati Bengals have become synonymous with losing. Gary Burbank for years took calls from the Synonymous Bengal ("I happen to be one of the Cincinnati Bengals who most assuredly do want to remain synonymous so's not to besmirch my reparation, you understand") who epidermisized the haplessness of the team.

In 2002, second-year receiver, young TJ Houshmandzadeh was used as a kick returner and he often returned the ball ... to the kicking team via a fumble. TJ was not the team's biggest problem, but when I wrote this song, which Synonymous sang, about that awful year, TJ became the tag line.



TJ was so embarrassed by this satiric thrashing that he vowed to become the most reliable receiver on the team and one of the top pass catchers in the league. He achieved that goal and became my favorite player.

I am posting this now because TJ will soon leave the Bengals and get big bucks from some real team out there somewhere. He tells me his only regret is that he will not have me around to motivate and inspire him with my humiliating mocking of his weaknesses and mistakes. I am using my #84 jersey to wipe away my tears. I am also waiting for him to send me some of the money he gets because I made him what he is today.

Suicide is Painless

Saturday brought a depressing, winter, seasonal affective disorder theme to the comics.
In "Dennis the Menace", Henry Mitchell has just spun out on the ice-covered, quiet residential street. Since we know that Alice is the one who always wrecks the car (because she's a woman) we know this is Henry's deliberate, murder/suicide attempt. He had hoped to smash into something, anything and end this tortured existence with Dennis the Menace. He and his wife are clearly despondent at his failure, as Dennis still shouts in their ears. Meanwhile, on the sidewalk, a neighbor stood in place as the car careened toward him, doing adonut but just missing him (Henry failing again). The man was hoping ... hoping that the car would crush him because he cannot take another winter of shovelling away the mounds of snow the snowplows must have left, only to have his wife drag their daughter along the walk he's trying to clear - the daughter he knows will soon be a victim of this hellion, Dennis, who terrorizes the neighborhood.


In "Zits", Jeremy, sick of his mother's perpetual optimism in the face of a world sinking deeper into chaos, feigns a suicide attempt. In the background Walt is carrying out the real thing. He has the light cord around his neck and has knocked the ladder aside; we see his legs flailing helplessly as he struggles for air. Unfortunately, neither his wife nor his son cares enough to turn and see what he is gurgling about. And so we await Sunday's comic for the start of life without daddy in Zits.
These two tragic scenes made me think of John Prine's song "Souvenirs" (written by Steve Goodman).

All the snow has turned to water
Christmas day has come and gone
Broken toys and faded colors
Are all that's left to linger on.

Here is a video of it - Prine's throat in this is till ravaged by cancer surgery and his voice is rough and changed, which makes it all the more poignant to go with the sad theme of today's comics.

Happy Holidays (NEW - ENHANCED!)

MERRY CHRISTMAS

And
HAPPY HANUKKAH

Grandmother of 6 Causes Blog Rant

CHICAGO - The wide-ranging public corruption probe that led to the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich got its first big break when a grandmother of six walked into a breakfast meeting with shakedown artists wearing an FBI wire.

It is not clear from that sentence if the shakedown artists were wearing the wire or the grandmother was, but I’m going to assume it was the latter. Besides, I can leave the discussion of modifier placement to Bill; I’m more interested in why there is a journalistic requirement to identify a woman’s grandparental status. You will never see any of these stories in the news:

The wide-ranging public corruption probe that led to the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich got its first big break when a mother of 4 walked into a breakfast meeting with shakedown artists wearing an FBI wire.

The wide-ranging public corruption probe that led to the arrest of a father of two got its first big break when a grandmother of six walked into a breakfast meeting with shakedown grandfathers of one each, wearing an FBI wire.

The wide-ranging public corruption probe that led to the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich got its first big break when an older, childless woman walked into a breakfast meeting with shakedown artists wearing an FBI wire.

Great-grandmothers get the same standing in the press:

Great-Grandmother Uses Gasoline to Fight Off Purse Snatcher

No newsworthy status is conferred by being a mere grandfather, a meager mother, or even just a measly old woman. As near as I can determine, when a woman’s child gives birth, the woman becomes pitiably frail to the point where we are astounded that she can leave the house, let alone fight crime. No matter that a grandmother could be a healthy 40-year-old who could whip my ass if I crossed her - not that anything like that ever happened outside a bar somewhere in Cincinnati. Even if it did, grandmas get a pass. A grandma’s lack of strength and mental ability is assumed to render her immune to prosecution for crime:

A 64-year-old grandmother convicted of obstructing official business by feeding parking meters for strangers is suing the city of Cincinnati.

If an old man obstructs justice, by god, book him, Danno – and beat him up if you want, we don’t care. Just don’t hassle our grannies or we will make it public knowledge and shame you.
My wife is the mother of a childless (so far as we know) girl. Until my daughter has her own kid, my wife cannot get away with crime or even get recognized if she thwarts a bank robbery or busts a political corruption ring.
If Chelsea Clinton had a child, last month would have brought us this headline: "Obama Nominates Grandmother as Secretary of State".
Why do I care about this aura attached to grandmotheriness? Because “Elderly Woman Got Run Over By A Reindeer” would not be considered funny and that song would never have gotten on the radio and the world would be a better place.

Referrals

Awesomeness from Scarletvirago. Hilarity from Dave Barry.

Please Stay Home For Christmas

Note to the Eagles, Harry Connick, Jr. or anyone else thinking of doing a cover of the classic "Please Come Home for Christmas" by the immortal Charles Brown: Please don't. If you feel the need to play this song at a concert, just play a recording of the original and sit back.

I Rot the Songs

In a group I belong to, 3 of us out of 10 friends have the same birthday in December. My older friend Bill (Everything You Know About English is Farkakteh) celebrates the day after I do. I have several other friends born around the same time (late November through mid-December), meaning all are Sagittarians. I am more into words than astrology, so what interested me most about this calendaric coincidence is that it would make a good country song: “All My Friends Are Sagittarians”, kind of like “All My Exes Live in Texas”. Now, the majority of people I know are not Sagittarians, but “Some of my friends, but not all and none of my close family, are Sagittarians” doesn’t work so well as a song. Also, I know that ‘friends” does not rhyme with “Sagittarians”, but “exes” doesn’t exactly rhyme with “Texas” either (though it works better than Steve Miller’s “rhyme” of “Texas”, “facts is” and “justice”), but I pronounce the words as “frenz” and “Sagittarienz”, giving the song a hip-hop flava. What I want to write is a country, hip-hop, pop, folk fusion song. I am struggling with it because I can write a parody song given some one else’s tune, but coming up with a completely original song is tough, which is why I’m a number jockey in Cincinnati, not a tune smith in Nashville.
Much of the typical Sagittarian traits apply to me: Interested in philosophy and religion, impulsive and independent, procrastinate, natural comedians (sometimes exaggerating their adventures to entertain people), but sometimes offend by speaking without thinking, and can be argumentative or blunt. Sagittarians are susceptible to hip troubles and leg pain. Okay so far, but also, Sagittarians are great athletes, big-game hunters and fishermen. HA! All these traits ought to be worked into the song, unless they don’t rhyme. But like I said, I’m having trouble; in fact I pretty much just have words that rhyme but have nothing to do with the zodiac or my real friends. Here’s what I have so far:

CHORUS:
All my friends are Sagittarians
We have affinity for philosophy,
Sometimes we act like horse rear ends
Comedians, contrarians, some quinquagenarians
All my friends are Sagittarians



I know some Rastafarians
Braided, bearded, hairy men
Need ganja? They are carryin’
They grow it: they’re agrarian

This woman’s name is Marian,
She is a librarian
‘Til her body turns to carrion
She’ll be Sagittarian

CHORUS

One pretends she’s a thespian
She also is a lesbian
She won’t eat meat or marry men
She’s a vagitarian

So, not all my friends are men
Some are more ovarian
And even imaginary friends
Of mine are Sagittarians

CHORUS

We’re characterized as mutable,
Think everything’s disputable
We’re blunt, unlike our arrow,
Don’t follow the straight and narrow

We’re impulsive but procrastinate
We’re honest but exaggerate
Legs hurt from the brains we’re carryin’
We are proud Sagittarians

CHORUS

See, it’s pretty lame. I invite you to make a much better song, produce it and upload to YouTube and link to it in the comments. When some record label or artist buys it, we’ll split the profits. Or just write some lyrics in the comments. Here’s some leftover words you might use:
Bavarian, Aryan, clarion, barbarian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, non-sectarian, sectarian, Wagnerian, centenarian, grammarian, libertarian, vegetarian, proletarian, seminarian, Unitarian, veterinarian, authoritarian, disciplinarian, egalitarian, humanitarian, octogenarian, parliamentarian, totalitarian, utilitarian, septuagenarian, begins and ends, portends.

(I was going to use the Sagittarius image from this site, because it's pretty right on, but I couldn't get past the misuse of "your" instead of "you're".)

The Devil You Know

RECENTLY EDITED
(This has nothing to do with the "Profit From the Rapture" book contest in the previous entry* - but read this anyway, then scroll down and enter the contest)

I don’t listen to the radio much anymore so finding new music artists that I like has to be somewhat serendipitous. My best talent scout has gone off to college and I no longer get to suffer through her music in the car or in my house in order to find the few gems in “contemporary” music (I’m usually late to the party. By the time I asked to copy Allie’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” CD, she told me no one listens to that anymore).
I do listen to Bob and Tom in the morning to provide a little comedy stimulus and that’s where I first heard Todd Snider (who has been around a while).

They found a store with a sign that said their beer was coldest.
So they sent in Brad 'cause he looked the oldest.
He got a case of beer and a candy bar, walked over to where all the registers are
laid his fake I.D. on the counter top.
The clerk looked, and turned to look back up and stopped.
He said "Son, I ain't gonna call the cops, but I'm gonna have to keep this card"
the guys both took it pretty hard.

Not that I ever tried to buy beer when I was underage, but I, um, had a, uh, friend who did. Todd even had a song that connected to the accountant/mathematician side of my brain.

They say 92 percent of everything you learned in school was just bullshit you'll never need
84 percent of everything you got you bought to satisfy your greed
Because 90 percent of the world's population links possessions to success
Even though 80 percent of the wealthiest 1 percent of the population
Drinks to an alarming excess

Though there is somewhat of a kinship between Todd and my inner flower child,

Tree huggin’, love makin’, pro choicin', gay weddin’, widespread diggin’ hippies like me.
Skin color-blinded, conspiracy-minded, protesters of corporate greed,
We who have nothing and most likely will ‘till we all wind up locked up in jails
By conservative Christian, right wing Republican, straight, white, American males

I am a child of the 60s and Todd is much younger

My old man says the Woodstock generation
Found a way to make this nation
Open up its eyes and take a look around
And he says my generation
Ain't good for nothing

and has had quite a different lifestyle from mine.

I came in off a dead end street
Walked in slow and took a back row seat
I knew I had nothing new to say
So many people looking so burned out
I couldn't help feeling bad about just having to be there anyway

A friend of a friend from work came in
I never have known what to make of him
He'd always seemed to be so insincere to me
You know I've always been afraid of a 12 step crowd
They laugh too much and talk too loud
Like they all know where everyone should be

So when we went to his concert last night at a small theater in Covington, KY, we wondered what kind of crowd to expect. I told Karen it would probably be young, unemployed, recovering alcoholic, drug addicted, lazyass hippies.
We walked in off a Covington street, anticipating unwashed losers we’d meet, I knew we would feel so out of place. But so many people looked just like us, recovering hippies who were fifty-plus, with gray in their hair, age on their face.
Then when a friend of my in-laws came in, it made me laugh, made my head spin, this just would not seem to be where such old folks would be. I’d really picture them in the symphony crowd, where the music’s instrumental and not too loud, where blue-hairs go, not young dudes like me.
Seriously, friends of my wife's parents? at a Todd Snider concert? That was just wrong. More young people came in later. It ended up being a broad range of ages and, on the surface, not what I expected. I really wanted to ask some people if they were unemployed, recovering alcoholic drug addicts but Karen stopped me. Probably they were just former tree huggin’, peace lovin’, pot smokin’, barefootin’ folk-singin’ hippies like me.

*Mr. Snider does have a song for the Rapture