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?

When JohnnyB Comes Marching Out of the Closet

*It's 1863. Irish-American bandleader Patrick Gilmore is seated at a writing desk in his parlor. Hillary Duff enters the room.
DUFF: Writing another song, Patty?
PATRICK: For sure. I ripped off this tune called "Johnny Fill Up The Bowl" from some stoner and I'm writing a nice Civil War ditty called "When Johnny Comes Marching Home".
DUFF: Let me see the lyrics. "Oh the men will cheer and the boys will shout. And we'll all feel gay"? That's insulting. Think B4 you write.
PATRICK: "B4"? What a queer thing to say. Oh WTF, I'll just use the name Louis Lambert and no one will know it was me, except my life partner, Johnny.

*Today I pulled a t-shirt out of my closet that I got at Tall Stacks in Cincinnati (the Queen City of the West) a few years ago. We had taken a riverboat cruise and saw a dinner show on the boat. I bought the t-shirt as a souvenir. So I came out of the closet today wearing my shirt that says "Creole Queen" across the front. Mocha-choco-lata-ya-ya.

*Last year, three of my friends at work and I all became shareholders, or "principals" in the firm we work for. Though the business entity we work for is a corporation, not a partnership, we still call each other partners, because it's just easier. When I introduce Mike, I say, "this is my partner Mike.....I mean, we're business partners."

If my friend Bill was still writing, he would tell all about how words evolve and "gay" and "queer" and "queen" and even "partner" take on new meanings.

I was thinking about all that when I came out of the closet with my Creole Queen t-shirt on and I had an epiphany, which, I hope to God, has only either a religious connotation or means a "sudden insight". My epiphany was to finally realize what the opponents of same sex marriage are talking about when they say that it will destroy marriage. As they say, marriage "is defined as between a man and a woman" If same-sex marriages proliferate, "marriage" will become another euphemism for gay - er, queer - I mean, homosexual, and cause confusion. The anti-same-sex people are just all about language purity. It's words they care about.

I don't believe that you can stop the evolution of language or the changing mores of society. The understanding of the word "married" is already in doubt. When I introduce Mike, I say, "this is my partner Mike.....I mean, we're business partners. We're married." Then I have to explain THAT. "I mean, he's married...to a woman. And I'm married...to a woman - not the same woman."

So just relax, light up a fag, grab some fruit and we'll all be gay.

You Lost Me There

"Ala. policeman feared missing arrested in Vegas"
"Feared" missing? You might be "feared dead", but we know you are missing; the definition of missing is "not able to be found". Would you now say, "I know where he is, I fear he might not be missing"? Drop the "feared" and you have room to spell out the state "Missing Alabama Policeman Arrested In Las Vegas", which is even better because you've missed the confusing adverb-adjective-verb combo "feared missing arrested" mess in there.
So what I really liked about all this was the sentence used to illustrate the second definition of "missing":
"lacking: nonexistent; 'the thumb is absent'." What? Who says a sentence like "the thumb is absent"? And, really, the word you are supposed to be illustrating is "missing", not absent. I fear the logic is absent, not there, lacking, um, what's the word I want?

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Re-gifting

I just realized that I forgot something I wanted to write about. When Allie (the 19-year-old psych major) was here last week, we were listening to holiday music and "It's the most Wonderful Time of the Year" came on. When Andy Williams sang about "...scary ghost stories and tales of the glories..." I asked, "Who tells ghost stories at Christmas?" As soon as Allie said, "I always wonder that too," it came to me. "Oh, 'A Christmas Carol' - Scrooge is visited by ghosts." To which Allie said, "After 50 years of hearing that song, you just had that epiphany?"
First off, my dear, that song hasn't been around 50 years, it just seems like it when you hear it 2000 times every November and December. Regardless, it struck me that "epiphany" was the perfect word to describe a revelation at Christmas time and perfectly fitting to the theme of "A Christmas Carol". What I said, though, was, "I guess I never really tried to figure it out"; to which she replied, "Okay, I just thought people at your age didn't have any more epiphanies.
Oh, that's right - a sudden insight into a harsh reality from my daughter: You get a little bit over 50 and there are no more intuitive perceptions. You'd better have everything figured out by 49 because after that, everything is perceived according to stock footage of life in your brain.
I'd never realized life would be like that until she told me - but I just smiled because it did occur to me suddenly at some point that you can't argue with a 19-year-old.

Under Rated

What is the movie ratings system hang up with “language”. I watched a movie yesterday that was rated PG because it had “some language” (“some language” is not as bad as “language”, which might have earned it an R rating).
Every other movie element that we desire has a more descriptive term or at least some modifier to tell you what great stuff you will find. They don’t say “rated R for action, situations, use, bodies and language.” They list violent action, sexual situations, drug use, nudity and language. Yes, they occasionally modify the last one as some language.
I wonder in what sense they mean “some”. In the movie I saw, two people spoke a few lines of French; possibly the ratings board was unsure what language that was (“just some weird language or other”) or they just meant it was only a few lines (“just some foreign words, not enough to be annoying”).
Why not just use “profanity”, “obscene language”, “dirty frickin’ words” or something like that? The people who came up with that non-descriptive term are rated L7 for "some vocabulary".

No Pun Intended

If you look at some of the blogs that I have links to, you might think that I like words. My sister does too. She reminded me about our family’s oft repeated line, “What’s that up the road, a head?” which never failed to amuse us. In our family you could do that – for one, you could use phrases like “oft repeated” – and you could reuse a word related joke or, dare I say it, a pun over and over. If I told my mother I was going to get a haircut, she would say, “Why don’t you get them all cut?” She would say it every time. It was her “Freebird”, her “Who’s On First”; she had to say it - and I waited to hear it.
Now that I’m the parent, with a routine full of witty wordplay, my daughter, who is otherwise very intelligent and well-educated, does not like puns and would surely never tolerate serial punning. (“Yes I would, and don’t call me Shirley” – sorry, had to say it.) If my wife asks me to “put strawberry jam on the grocery list,” I want to say “But that will make the list sticky.” I want to say that every time. When I was a kid I would have; now I bite my tongue. I don’t even say it the first time because that is just asking for abuse.
Puns are like mathematics: people claim to hate them and then use them without realizing it. I had a friend in college who hated puns, but told this joke: “There are three guys. One is running into a room, one is in the room, in bed with a woman, and one guy is running out of the room. What nationality are the men? --- The guy running in, him Russian. The guy in bed, Himalayan, the guy running out, him Finnish.” So, forget whether “Himalayan” is a nationality, that joke is funny (to me) and it is all puns. If you are making genital-related jokes about George “Bush” and “Dick” Cheney, those are puns. I know, “and Barack Obama is half Caucasian but no one is going to call him whitey”. And no one is going to say my puns are funny if they are not grounded in sex or crude humor.
Which gives me an idea: A new service that is like phone sex - but with puns. For example, you might call up and a woman answers:
“Hello, this is Anita.”
“Anita who?”
“Anita Betterjob.”
“Anita, did you hear about the woman who is suing Victoria’s Secret because she was injured by a thong?”
“No. Is she okay?”
“Well, she got rid of the underwear, of course, but the scar hasn’t healed. So, the thong is ended, but the malady lingers on.”
And Anita would laugh. Every time.

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Words Are In Style (and a contest?)

If you like words, your friends have undoubtedly received a certain email from several friends repeatedly over the years. It starts out with "Each year the Washington Post asks its readers to take a word from the English language and by adding, removing or changing only one letter create a new word..". Oddly enough, the same words win every year. (click here for the longest list I found.) The Washington Post does indeed have writing contests and undoubtedly had this one at some point, but they don't do it every year. People are better at creating emails and urban myths than at creating new words. The Post still has writing contests in their weekly "Style Invitational". The current contest asks you to "Translate a sentence or two of literature or other good writing so that "Los Angeles residents under 40" can appreciate it." You have to read the contest to see why they ask that. (You have to register to read the Wash. Post online, but it's free and easy).
I know the Bills (Brohaugh and my dad) and Susan (word whores all) will be right on this.
My first entry is already in, so I can reveal a bit of it here. I took "A Tale of Two Cities": It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair . . ." becomes "Times were good, the LA Times sucked....we thought the Dodgers could win, we knew they'd be out of the playoffs".
When you are done entering that contest I have one for you here. I invite all 5 of my readers to take a word from the English language and by adding, removing or changing only one letter create a new word and define it. I would add a space to "contest" to make it "con test", an email or a blogger contest that you can't decide whether is real or fake. The winner of my contest gets a copy of Everything You Know About English Is Wrong.

Humor-Blogs.com are winners.

The Twelve Weeks of Christmas

Anachronisms are things that are placed in the wrong time period
Are they referring to the Christmas decorations on the house down the street?
Tomorrow it will be February and these people still have the Nativity scene, electric snowman, the 10 foot blow up Pooh and Tigger. Maybe they are waiting until Wednesday - if Punxsutawny Phil sees his shadow, we have another six weeks of Christmas? Ooh, that reminds me, time to pull out the Groundhog Day video. Gotta watch Bill Murray and (sigh) Andie MacDowell.





Pooh in the hunny pot, all rights owned by Disney (ripped off from A.A. Milne)and Home De-pot Ugly Yard Decorations, Inc.