Ramblings of a Madman

I'm Baaack...

Yes indeed, took a whole week off after a month of posting almost every day.

While trying to decide whether to write a novel in a month, completing fourteen hour workdays, or reveling in the pleasure of understanding Internal Revenue Code 6702, life has been a barrel of fun.

Regardless, it feels good to sit at the keyboard again. 

One of the reasons I took a week off was because it started to feel like everything I wrote was laced with cynicism and sarcasm (two of my favorite states of being), and I got tired of reading about it.  I kept looking at my posts, thinking "This guy needs to get laid - or at least get out of the house once in awhile."  My subconscious must have agreed, since during the past week I've had salacious dreams involving Cameron Diaz, an extremely hot ex-girlfriend, and Newt Gingrich (if you're a little confused by that last one, you're not the only one...).

Needless to say, it's time to move on and rediscover the joy in life.

So of course I turned to the Sports Section...

And found out Red Auerbach died on Saturday.

Ouch.

Actually, this was one of those moments that makes me think - a lot.

For those who don't know, Red Auerbach was the winningest basketball coach in NBA history (and if you don't care about NBA basketball, you should be ashamed of yourself).

Red was one of those guys you couldn't help but admire, no matter what team you rooted for.  He was involved in 16 national championships for the Boston Celtics, 9 as a coach and 7 more as the general manager.  He invented the "victory cigar", lighting one up on the bench every time he knew his team was about to win.  He was one of those guys who spent his whole life doing what he loved.  And it showed.  As I read about his career, I was struck by the thought - could Red have existed today, could he have become a legend in the 21st century?

I doubt it.  The cigar police would have arrested him for violating FAQMD regulations.

It made me think about the world and how it has changed.  I got an email from my uncle Paul the other day - one of those retrospective "remember the way life used to be" multimedia deals with slides and music and pictures.  Very cool.  Check it out at -

http://oldfortyfives.com/TakeMeBackToTheSixties.htm

...and while I watched it, I remembered how COOL a Viewmaster was.  When I got one, I was about 10, and it was the ultimate technology - my very own slide show (I had one about dinosaurs).  I musta watched those things a couple of hundred times each.  REAL DINOSAURS (or at least real pictures of dinosaur models - in color even).  How cool is that?

And I'm wondering if life is getting better or not.  I mean, does it actually help that I can get 900 stations on my Hi-Def TV set when there's nothing to watch and a good book is actually more satisfying?  I live in Southern California, have a couple of dozen excellent friends, plus family, yet I have no time to visit with any of them because I work sixty-plus hours a week, and it takes two hours to drive 10 miles to see any of them.  How does this improve my life?

Every aspect of life is regulated, controlled, observed, scrutinized, boxed-in, and examined.  And I don't recall any further satisfaction on any level as a result for anybody I know (though the examiners, scrutinizers, and observers have plenty work to do, so we've got that to be thankful for). 

I grew up having neighbors.  Now I don't know who they are and don't care to.  What happened?

It takes longer to do everything, maybe because I have to keep track of all the time-saving devices at my disposal.

I have to go to the gym to 'work-out.'  No wonder I don't want to go.  Even exercise is work these days.  I used to participate in sports or games.  Now I count carbs, heartrate, fat calories burned, and minutes until I'm done.  yippee...

There's got to be a better way.  I see it in my friends and family with their family - a little oasis of life and love in the midst of all the rushing around and chaos.

And I'm reminded of better times when I read about Red Auerbach living life about as fully as it could be lived, back when sports were fun and following them was not a full-time occupation filled with 'fantasy' leagues, salary caps, and athletes who make so much money that each one of them could pay off the national debt of Rwanda - by themselves.

I want a world where the population doesn't double by the year 2011, where it's still possible to live in a place where I don't have to bar my windows and doors, where the evening news actually includes events that matter to people, not just car crashes and double homicides, and a world where reality-TV doesn't mean there is no reality connected whatsoever.  In fact, let's just make an agreement right now and eliminate 'reality-TV' altogether.  As of today it no longer exists.  Okay?

I feel better already.

I'm not advocating a 'kinder and gentler' America.  George already has a trademark on that vision and we're seeing his particular version of kind and gentle right now.  How about a land where "freedom reigns"?  I'd go for that.  A land where I don't have to register with the city to put a "For Sale" sign on my car, or have a yard sale in my yard.

Actually I started out saying how I wanted to be less cynical and sarcastic - how about this - I love this country and I'm tired of someone else telling me their version of what it should look like - candified, homogenized, commercialized, mass-marketed, shrink-wrapped, sound-bitten, politically-corrected, and oh-so-carefully packaged by those who stand to gain the most by keeping us sedated, sequestered, and seduced by telling us we continue to live in the "land of the free and home of the brave". 

It's time to wake up and smell the roses, drink the coffee, and eat some homemade pasta.  And out of respect for Red Auerbach, smoke a cigar...

Unnatural Selection

Anyone who believes in evolution has excrement for brains.

Divine Intervention is not miraculous or extraordinary - it's the most common occurrence in everyday life.

And I can prove it.

Yesterday as I was driving home from the store, I started to make a right turn off Ventura Boulevard.  As I did so, I observed a woman walking on the sidewalk toward the intersection.  She was still several steps from the curb and the "Walk/Don't Walk" sign was clearly "Don't Walk".  Not that this mattered one whit to our heroine, since she didn't even look at the signal, proceeding directly into the crosswalk without looking up, to the left, or to the right.  Now I realize she was probably engaged in a very important discussion with whatever nit was on the other end of the cell phone she had imbedded in her left eardrum.  However, only me leaping on my brakes, followed by the locked wheels of 3 cars behind me prevented her from putting a massive dent in the front grill of my car (I considered running her over for the good of the human race but you know how much it costs for a good body and paint guy).  Did the screeching tires, blaring horns, and shouted curses (at me, for stopping too quickly - what kind of idiot am I anyway?) have any effect on the woman walking blithely through the intersection?  Are you kidding?  She never even looked up.

Now, "Survival of the Fittest" dictates that this woman, without the preservation instincts of a cabbage patch doll, should have been killed off generations ago.  Wiped out.  Extinct.  Ancient history.

Instead, God protects her with a battalion of guardian angels the size of elephants.  It's the only logical explanation...

We live in a society where only the stupid survive.  I estimate, conservatively, that stupid humans outnumber conscious humans about 8000 to 1.  And the stupid people have been making stupid laws protecting the stupid people, further ensuring that more stupid people will flourish and propagate, making even more stupid people.  The good news is we'll never run out of contestants for The Wheel of Fortune.

On an encouraging note, I saw my own personal growth in this moment.  When she stepped into the intersection in front of 4 oncoming cars, instead of screaming in frustration at the winner of a bizarro-world unnatural selection process, I laughed.  It was as if I was witnessing a miracle, like Jules, the hit man in "Pulp Fiction."  "God got involved", stepping in and saving a woman too stupid to save herself.

I used to rage at this.  I wanted everyone to pay for being stupid.  There was even a comedian a few years back who proposed a stupid tax.  Pay 25 cents every time you do something stupid.  "You just pushed the elevator button when the light was already on.  That was stupid.  You owe me 25 cents.  You just paid me...that was stupid too.  You owe me another quarter."  The problem is, the stupid people would soon run out of money and then the rest of us would have to support them.  Oh, wait a minute, that's happening already...

We've blown out the Darwin curve.  The stupid are inheriting the earth and they're turning it into a strip mall, where they can take all their little stupids to run around and jump on the furniture while innocent bystanders long for the good old days when you could just pull out your gun and shoot the varmints.

The problem is, you can't fix stupid.  Bob's Maxim #27: The collective IQ of humanity rises or falls in direct proportion to the number of humans currently on the planet.  Since the human population has tripled in the past 60 years, this means the average IQ, which used to be 100, is now at just over 33, roughly the equivalent of a rutabaga. 

So the next time you're fuming in your car as a woman holds up 4 lanes of uncontrolled traffic by walking through a crowded intersection with a cell phone in her ear -- blame God...He actually likes this person...

Fundamentally Sound

I have a fundamental distrust of fundamentalists.

Which, you could say, makes me fundamentally opposed to fundamentalism.

Let's start with the basics...

I experienced fundamentalism at a fairly impressionable age - late teens, early twenties.  The particular brand of fundamentalism I adopted was Christianity, though I've known fundamentalists from a variety of perspectives - religion, politics, social causes, racial and ethnic perspectives, etc.  All of them share one fundamental (I just can't stop myself) similarity...their perspective is right - and everyone else's is wrong.  Period.  End of discussion (unless we're continuing the 'discussion' so I can convince you how right I am).

It dominates and pervades our society, or at least the society we see and hear and read about in the media.  Polarized viewpoints get ratings points.  People listen to a talk radio host spout an artificially skewed, unbalanced point of view so others will call in to agree or disagree, purely for the purpose of manipulating an emotional argument.  And we're stupid enough to buy into this stuff (or maybe that's just the way we're built).  The amount of listening that goes into these debates is zippity-doo-dah.  No one considers the merits of the other side.  No one is interested in finding an answer.  It's all about winning converts, whether you're trying to convert them to Christianity, Islam, the Republican party, environmentalism, pro-choice/pro-life, conspiracy theory (my favorite), political correctness, anti-democracy/pro-socialism, free enterprise (a mythical concept but very popular), the 'war on terror' (another oxymoron), etc., etc., etc.

The whole thing pisses me off.

I'm don't believe the answer always lies in the middle.  I'll fight to the death for certain rights and principles, and I'll do whatever it takes to defend my family and friends.

That said, let me emphasize with as much tact as I can muster, that fundamentalism in ALL its iterations, is ignorant AND stupid (and no, they're not the same thing).

At the point where any person says they have the answer, they've issued an edict, which persons of authority have used for centuries to end any discussion they don't have any particular use for, by blaming God, royal authority, being "the man of the house", parenthood ("because I'm your MOTHER"), etc.  Edicts are usually handed out by people who are afraid of entertaining any idea that threatens their own preciously-held worldview.

Why am I writing about this?

Because I just saw a soundbite of our president telling us we need to, in effect, suspend Geneva Convention protocols in order to protect our country in the previously-mentioned 'war on terror.'

He's an idiot and a liar.  End of discussion...

Low-Stakes Poker

Yesterday I got a raise.

As a reward for all my hard work, dedication, long hours, leadership, vision, intelligent direction, skill dealing with people, problem-solving, and results far beyond what anyone else had previously achieved.

Oh yeah, and as an incentive to keep me from bolting for another position. 

Ya just gotta love this country.

I've been with my current company for six months, placed in charge of their largest account.  I've done exceptional work.  Fixed a situation that had been almost irretrievably broken (they went through 9 managers in the year and a half before I arrived - "Danger Will Robinson, Danger!").  Patched up relations with a client who was threatening to abandon ship when I first came on board.  Completely turned around their financial situation, caught up on six months of unpaid invoices (still can't balance my own checkbook...), cut their losses in half, set up functional operations and administrative systems, created structures for employee review and accountability, improved department morale, even coaxed the client into adding some key positions so we could be more responsive to their needs.  Should have nominated myself as Man of the Year...

The response you hear from my corporate office is deafening crescendos of silence.  Crickets. 

They did manage to stay out of the way for the most part and let me do my job (as King Arthur would say in Monty Python & the Holy Grail - "God Be Praised!").  They're really busy up there at the corporate level - you know how much pressure you have to deal with as an executive - filling out expense vouchers, answering email...

Before I took the job, I was promised a salary review after 90 days, at which time I'd receive an increase.  Set in stone.  Guaranteed.  90 days comes and goes.  No increase.  No review.  I nudge the boss.  "I'm working on it," he says.  Of course.

Meanwhile, I keep on truckin'.  Rave reviews are starting to come in from various client departments.  They like our guys now.  Wouldn't dream of swapping us out for anybody else.  I set up commendation standards for my employees.  Lots of pats on the back, everyone's feeling good.  Of course, the employees ask when they're going to get a raise.

Corporate response.  "We're working on it."

Hm.

Finally, after six months of revitalization, I get the good news I've been looking for.  I turn on my computer Monday morning to find this encouraging email from my boss.  "Your 'controllable loss' for last week was unacceptable.  Again.  What is the problem?"

Warmed the cockles of my heart right up...also made me look up 'controllable loss' in the dictionary...

I decided to share my warm feelings with my boss.  At first I started to write him an email reply, but you know, sometimes person to person communication is best, so I gave him a ringy-dingy, and in my usual reserved, polite style, proceeded to tell him exactly what I thought he could do with his 'controllable loss'...

He didn't fire me.  He did suggest we continue the conversation after I'd had a cup of coffee and calmed down, and he assured me his email was not a criticism but merely a "reminder" that we needed to keep "improving our numbers."  Stifling the urge to tell him what 'number' I thought the company was, I hung up the phone.

The following two days were interesting.  An unusual amount of activity started going on behind the scenes, which I interpreted as corporate management scrambling to figure out who they could get to replace the malcontent in L.A.  Based on what happened next, the answer was clearly, or at least presently, "no one."

Instead they gave me a raise.  In fact, they convinced the client to ante up with an increase larger than the one they originally promised.  Then the COO of my company added a few more dollars to the kitty.  Followed by my boss giving me a congratulatory phone call and letting me know I'm the best manager they've got, and he's sure there are times when I get frustrated and could make more money somewhere else but they just want me to know how much they value my work and support me 100% and look forward to a long and happy working relationship together.

In other words, I better get my resume together because when they do find someone to replace me they're going to fire my ass.

Because right now I make too much money...

Suckered by My Mother...

My mom is smarter than me.

Not that this is any great shock or anything...

I'm driving home last night from work and I get a Mom voicemail.  "Honey, I haven't seen you in awhile.  Give me a call."  Being the dutiful and unsuspecting (did I mention gullible?) son that I am, I make the phone call.  "Mom!  How's it goin'?" 

I'd like to think the rest of the following exchange happened because I was tired and caught offguard, but the reality is my mother is sharp as a whip and I'm just not that bright.

First, she gushes about how she's going out of town on a week-long road rally with her boyfriend (just for the sake of posterity - what's the statute of limitations on calling your 'significant other whom you are not actually married or engaged to' your 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend' - is it 60 years old?  70?  100?  Can we just agree that any human being you're involved with but not hitched to after the age of thirty must be called something other than 'boy' or 'girl' and be done with it?  Can we get a ruling on this?).  She's very excited.  And I'm excited for her.  Let's face it, Mom's happiness is my happiness (because God knows what can happen when your mother is unhappy...).

Anyway, she gives me the good news and then, in her enthusiasm, she asks if I'd like to stay at her place for a week or so while she's gone, you know, sort of as an afterthought, like it's a favor to me.  Now, I fall for this because a) this is my mother and there's no way your mom would try to pull a fast one on you, because, well, she's your mother and moms don't do that kind of thing because it would violate Momlaw, right? - the official code which governs all Mom-behavior (EDITOR'S NOTE: There's an infrequently publicized but well-established corollary to Momlaw which states that mothers can legally do anything to manipulate their children into doing whatever the mother wants - IF AND ONLY IF the mother determines that said manipulation can be interpreted as being "for the child's own good" - the interpretation of said 'good' of course being at the sole discretion of the mother - a clause which invokes responsibilities so far-reaching and consequences so life-altering that mothers only trot it out whenever they feel like it - in other words, on a daily basis...), and b) I buy into it because it means I won't have to deal with my housemate for a week (not that I dislike Michael or anything, because he's a good guy and all, but let's just say it would be easier to live in the same house with Felix Unger as my homey.  I mean, he doesn't actually follow me around with an aerosol freshener and portable sterilization unit to 'tidy up' behind me, but I'm pretty sure he would if I didn't brandish a kitchen knife whenever he gets too close to a psychotic 'required cleanliness in the World According to Michael' break with reality.  Not that these episodes are frequent or anything...).  (By the way, I'm pretty sure that the preceding paragraph contains the longest back-to-back parenthetical statements I've ever written - or at least makes it into the Top 10.)

Onward.

So, after giving careful consideration to a) and b) above for approximately a millionth of a micro-second, I say, "Sure Mom, I'd be happy to..." and immediately realize I've made a 6'4", 238 lb, Bob-sized boo-boo.  You know how sometimes you get premonitions - not necessarily ESP-type, technicolor forecasts with time and date-stamp precision, but a sense of foreboding, of uneasy trepidation, like in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, when the music starts to build just before Leatherface pulls the ripcord on the chainsaw and starts severing limbs...  I mean, you know something bad is about to happen - it's why you came to the movie in the first place - it's just that, all of a sudden it doesn't seem like such a good idea to be sitting there and you're wondering why you spent $27.50 including parking and popcorn to watch some poor dumb SOB have his appendages removed and turned into sashimi all over the screen and wondering if it's too late to back out, but you're already in the theater and besides there are people on both sides and it will take too long to ask them to move and Ohmigodlookwhat'shappeningwhydidn'tileavewhenistillhadthechance...

Except you know you never had the chance - and neither did I.

So Mom says, "there's just one little thing you need to do..." (briefest of pauses as I'm given opportunity to consider the multitude of possible ways in which I'm about to be proven the imbecile of imbeciles) - "you'll need to take care of my tenants while I'm gone...that's not a problem is it?"

I've just been outmaneuvered by the simplest of ploys.  She doesn't even have to bring out the big guns on this one.  No sophisticated machinations.  No elaborate ruses.  Nope.  Mom demonstrates her brilliance in simplicity.  A two-step trap, perfectly executed with cunning and precision, relying on her own enthusiastic initial pitch and my unbelievably predictable willingness to go along with the program.

I never had a chance.

There was, of course, not a shred of possibility that I was backing out at this point.  Not without permanently revoking my SonCard, redeemable at one location only and protected by an unassailable Card Issuer Makes The Rules clause, but bound by tradition, usable pretty much 24 hours a day, and with a relatively low annual maintenance fee.  Ya gotta pay your dues.  I was in.

"Sure Mom.  No problem.  I'd be happy to take care of the 127 people who live in your complex while you're gone."

"Great Honey.  I'll make sure and stock the fridge with all the stuff you like to eat" - adding insult to injury by demonstrating just how cheaply I can be bought.  I am the all-time putz of all-time putzes.  There better be Ben&Jerry's in the freezer.

"Oh, just one more thing..."  Damn it!  Just as I'm thinking I can get out of this conversation with some shred of dignity intact, she goes for the final jab - the 'finish him off' knockdown flurry to end the round and send me staggering to the canvas, begging my corner to throw in the towel...  It's a knack Moms have.  Just when it seems there is nothing left to get snookered into...  "Would you mind giving Tim and I a ride to the airport on Saturday?" 

Pause.  Deep breath.  Sound of formerly-reputed-to-be-competent-male crumbling in humiliation under the onslaught of a clearly superior opponent.  "Not a problem," I was planning on having my remaining wisdom teeth pulled that morning anyway - we'll make a day of it..."I'd be happy to...what time?"

"Oh, I don't know.  Sometime around midday..." 

Resistance is futile.  I'm a beaten man.  "I'll see you then.  Nice talking to you Mom."

Maybe I'll learn by the time I'm 80.  But probably not...

Living with Legends

It's not easy being the black sheep of the family.

My dad was a tough guy.

My grandpa was a tough guy.

Pretty much everyone from the part of the world my dad's family is from were tough guys -- including the women (Highlands of Scotland, not far from Glamis, where MacBeth hung out - "Aye, mess w' mae, Laddy, I'll cut y'er friggin' 'ead off" - and they'd do it too - with broadswords).

Meanwhile I went to school.  Never got kicked out.  Never punched out a teacher.  Hardly even skipped class.  Got decent grades.  Even graduated.  A couple of times.   

It's hard to live this kind of stuff down...it's like coming from the Bush family and saying 'screw this Republican stuff - I'm running as an independent.'  Goes over like a fart in church.

It wasn't that my family didn't love or respect me.  Far from it.  In fact, that was part of the problem.  I was the 'good kid.'  Ouch.  They expected better of me.  Double ouch.  Now I was not only a big sissy but I was being excused for it.

Talk about hitting a guy where it hurts...

See, everyone looked up to my dad and grandfather.  They had 'reps'.  They had respect.  They earned it.  Some of their brawls were legendary (and if they weren't already, Dad made sure they were by the time he finished telling about them).  Dad and Grandpa meant everything to me and I wanted a rep like them.

I actually had a rep when I was a kid, but it wasn't the kind you wanted spread around.  I got in plenty of fights, but they were the 'close your eyes and swing wildly hoping no one connects with you' type.  I rarely connected.  Got bullied too.  The humiliation was 100 times worse than getting beat up - until I finally got too big for the bullies to mess with anymore.  But that didn't count in my eyes because I didn't stand up for myself when I was a scrawny little kid.  I was scared and I knew it.  Everyone else knew it too.  Kids can smell that stuff.  I took a lot of grief on the playground but I still avoided fights whenever possible. 

Then something scary happened.  I reached a point in my late teens where I refused to avoid fights anymore.  In fact, I started doing stuff that even the most testosterone-imbalanced male might think twice about -- like the time I called an imbecile with a loaded gun in his hand a "f___ing idiot" and told him if he didn't put the gun away I'd "shove it up his f___ing a__."  This is possibly not the message to shout at a sub-moronic buffoon with a loaded weapon.  Particularly when he's been firing it at random for 5 minutes without the slightest clue or concern about what he might be aiming at.  And you're standing 30 yards from the nearest cover, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.  This is not what tough guys do.  This is not even what idiots do...

I know you'll be surprised to learn he didn't put the gun away as I'd so gently requested.  Instead, he turned and fired it.  Fortunately not at me, though based on his brain capacity and the results of his previous target practice, that was no guarantee he wouldn't hit me.  The most fascinating part of this story to me, aside from the fact that I was standing when it was done, was that I wasn't afraid.  Nope.  Enraged.  Ready to rip him a new aperture to insert his soon-to-be-collapsible skull.  Adrenaline was flooding through my body like whitewater and the only thing I wanted to do at that point was imbed a rock in his brain (as if I could have hit a target that small).  And even though the only rock at my disposal was too big to throw or even pick up, the still, small voice inside my head kept insisting, "kill the sonofabitch!!!" 

I didn't kill him and apparently he didn't kill me.  But even at that moment I knew I wasn't a tough guy.  As Forrest Gump's momma used to say, "Stupid is as stupid does," and you don't do much more stupid than that.  My buddy Bill who was with me agreed.  After he stepped away from the cover he'd dodged behind.  (If I was really cool, I'd have walked past the dude without saying a word, then slashed his tires when I got to the parking lot...)

So I've never been a tough guy and it doesn't look like I'll be joining the club anytime soon.  All that's left is to be an idiot without a rock to throw -- but that doesn't make very good stories for the kids...

Another Saturday Night...

Yes, it's true.  Another Saturday night has come and gone in the life of our intrepid explorer.  Inquiring minds eagerly anticipate what new adventures befell the Mad One 'pon yon Saturday evening of yore'.  A monster truck rally?  A bullet-riddled invitation to join organized crime?  Dinner with Tipper Gore and Condi?

How about an evening with a young man, who, for the sake of this communique, we'll call Dane Gerous Rhodes?

Because that's his name (don't shoot the messenger - I'm not his father).

And one day he'll outshine us all.

For the moment, however, he happens to be 3.  As in years old.  As in still wearing diapers (which fortunately his father was around to, er, handle).

Yes indeed, Guy's Night in the San Fernando Valley.  Complete with beer, barbeque, and "Spirit", the animated horsey who found true love but did not, according to Dane, kiss an Indian (I only report the facts as they're presented to me).

Do I know how to party or what?

My buddy Rocky (Rhodes - yes, there is a theme here - don't ask about his daughter) called to tell me the girls in his house were on a road trip to Arizona for the weekend, so it was just him and The Kid (the aforementioned three year old, also known as "Daner"), and did I want to come over for some male bonding - strippers, loaded firearms, alcohol, etc.  He told me I could bring my adolescent nephew.  Sold.

I asked if I needed to bring anything for the barbeque and he said "Corn" (at least I'm pretty sure that's what he said), so my nephew Max and I stopped and bought several ears' worth.  When I handed them to Rocky, he just shook his head.  I also had to go back to the store for beer...

But not before getting down to some serious guy stuff.  As soon as we walked in, Rock handed paint brushes to both Max and I and told us to get to work.  Dane was scheduled to move into his new bedroom and there was painting to do.  A barnyard scene had already been sketched on the walls, complete with barn, hills, blue sky, and fenceposts.  All we had to do was fill it in - like painting by numbers.  It quickly became apparent he'd overestimated our skillset.

An hour and several 'creative applications' later, it was clear the only thing that might improve my painting ability was 'recreational beverage enhancement'.  I made my escape to the store while Rocky and Max cleaned up the mess...

When I got back to the house with appropriate alcoholic support (Max drank Gatorade, Sis, I swear...), Max and Rocky were heavily engaged in a philosophical discussion about whether a single-parent family could offset the inherent challenges of child-rearing with enough love and family assistance.  There may also have been a brief segue into whether a leather bustierre is preferable to velvet, but it's possible I imagined that part of the conversation...

All in all, a good time was had by all.  The corn was good, the beer was cold, the chicken we barbeque'd gave it's life in a good cause and we saluted it's valiant spirit while gorging on it's charred remains, and, most importantly to Dane, Spirit lived happily ever after on the animated plains of Daner's TV set.  As odes to family life go, not a bad way to spend a Saturday evening.

Do Not Ask for Whom the Station Changes...It Changes for Thee.

Why is it my taste in music is so much better than yours (and of course, by extension, my taste in clothes, movies, books, cars, women, interior design, comics - all the important things in life).  Let's face facts.  I am the arbiter.  My word is law.  If you disagree with me, you are a low-grade moron.  So let it be written, so let it be done (Yul Brynner would be proud).

There's an old lawyer's joke I've adapted for this evening's 'lyrical lesson' - "What would you call it if all the commercially-produced, mass-market music in the 21st Century were buried at the bottom of the ocean..."

"A good thing."  (Insert rimshot here.)

I kid you not.

Rap is crap.  Reggae is worse.  'Alternative' music makes me yearn for any other alternative.  The past 15 years of Country music sounds like it was mixed for (and possibly in) a suburban shopping mall.  'Contemporary jazz' like "The Wave" makes me want to drown myself.

I live in the 2nd largest media market on the planet and everything - wait, let me amend that statement - EVERYTHING I hear on the radio makes me want to firebomb my car stereo.  There are 47 major radio stations in Los Angeles and 28 of them play nothing but mariachi music.  Take me home country roads...

I'm hearing AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" in elevators and supermarkets.  Bob Seger sold out 10 years ago, apparently realizing (correctly) that it was a lot more lucrative to be a jingle-man for Chevy than a living monument to rock-n-roll.  What the hell is wrong with this country?

Going to high school and college in the 70s and 80s, I spent a heck of a lot more time in record stores (note to readers under the age of 30 - ask your parents what this is...) than I did in study hall or the library.  I could give you the "B" side of approximately three hundred 45s (same note to youngsters as above) even if I couldn't name the capital of Quebec (I think it starts with a letter from the Canadian alphabet...) or the first female supreme court justice (William Ginsberg wasn't it?).  Music was part of life and life was good.  Didn't matter if I was listening to Bachman Turner Overdrive or Earth, Wind, and Fire, no matter what the genre, we had the pick of the litter.  If you actually cared about lyrics in your music (weirdo), singer-songwriters like Van Morrison and Jimmy Buffett kept your motor runnin'.  Artists no one ever heard on the radio, like Bruce Cockburn and Hothouse Flowers, did stuff you could listen to for 2 decades and not get tired of.

Now I hear "Coldplay" on the radio and I figure they named the band after how their music leaves people.  I wouldn't give you two-bits for "50-Cent".  "Radiohead" sounds like "Soundgarden" sounds like "Rage Against the Washer & Drying Machine" sounds like "Beavis & Butthead."  Did you know Paris Hilton is now a recording artist?  Apparently it's not enough to be a billionaire's daughter, star of her own 'reality-TV' show (don't even get me started), an internet porn sensation, and covergirl for EVERY SINGLE TABLOID ON THE PLANET.  Nope.  Now she records her own music too.  I heard a clip on the radio the other day.  So help me God, it sounds just like her...

It doesn't matter though, because the music all sounds the same anyway.  I hear so many minor chords, I need B-vitamin injections just to work up the energy to turn the radio dial (oops - I mean hit the 'scan' button).

Where are the great bands?  Where's the music that kicks gluteous maximus?  Whatever happened to the Doobie Brothers?  Where's Grand Funk Railroad when you need them?  Oh, that's right.  They're opening at the Orange County Fair on Friday and Saturday nights for "The Captain & Tennille"...  Somebody just get a gun and put me out of my misery.

If I sound like an old fart who never bothered to grow up ("Yeah!!  That's RIGHT Fogey-Boy - music has changed since the Pleistocene Era when you were a kid, so get over it!"), consider this - even today's generation is sick of the same schtick over and over again.  Instead of Justin and Beyonce and Eminem (chocolate or peanut - I can't decide), they're listening to Frank and Miles and Aretha (who can blame them).  Even my 15 year-old nephew is attempting to form a personality.  The other day he proudly announced that he's "getting into" Foreigner (I know, I know -- I bit my tongue and repeated to myself, "any change is good change...any change is good change...").  So perhaps there's hope.

A few years ago, I came up with my own solution to the homogenized, lowest-common-denominator, dumber-than-dirt, mass-produced pap I keep hearing on the airwaves.

Start my own radio station.

The idea is a winner.  I can feel it.  No playlists.  I get to force my will upon the audience (I've already got a constituency of one).  If I want to play Bo Diddley, The Who, Aaron Copeland, Talking Heads, and the Cocteau Twins, back-to-back-to-back-to-back, who's going to stop me?

As soon as I thought of it, I knew immediately what to call it.

K-BOB.

"All the music Bob likes to listen to, all day long."

No matter what, it's got to be better than "Jack."

Thongs and Dreams and Ferris Wheels...

The muse is back.

It's amazing what a few hours' sleep will do.

I've decided (for now) not to throttle my computer for flushing yesterday's post into the Internet septic system, hence never to be recovered (Manlaw - never stick your hand into anything you don't recognize immediately, particularly any of that toxic sludge at the bottom of the garbage disposal - that's what they pay plumbers for - or something your wife will do while you guard the television in case something bad happens).

Onward we go...

What's with women's underwear these days?

It's everywhere.  I couldn't avoid it if I wanted to.  And it's not a pretty picture.

Sneaking a peek at women's undies used to be a full-time occupation.  One of the truly great guilty pleasures in life.  Glancing down as a woman 'happens' to lean over to adjust her skirt, catching  a glimpse of cleavage...  One of the highlights of my day.  The key to observing a woman was to keep an eye on the seams - around the top of her blouse...between her shirt and her skirt.  Never let your attention stray from the edges because you never knew when you might catch lightning in a bottle, popularly known as 'seeing some skin.'  Some of you may be saying "Ogilvy, what kind of sick bastard are you?", but if you act like you don't know what I'm talking about, your name is Pinocchio and your nose just sprouted twigs. 

The fun was in what you 'might' see - forbidden, tantalizing, always just beyond reach...

Now I'm up to my eyeballs in sports-bras and butt-floss every time I venture outside the house and half the time I wish it would just go away.

The thing is, catching a glimpse of a woman's bra or panties used to be forbidden - HER: (Feigning indignation) 'You animal, what are you staring at!?"  ME: "Excuse me ma'am...it must've been an accident..." (Rrrufffff!!!)  Now a woman's public display of underwear is a fashion statement.  I can't go anywhere without seeing some Britney wanna-be's soiled, wadded-up 'booty band-aid' rising unmistakably above the top of her jeans...and IT'S NOT SEXY!  I'm not kidding.  I realize the exposed-thong look makes some dudes (mainly mental midgets - go on, knock the chip off my shoulder, I dare ya) want to take said garment between their teeth and rip it off, but mostly it makes me want to give the girl a Murphy - "Oh I'm sorry, I thought this was a piece of string - I was just pulling it out for you..."

Note to all 'girls', young and old, who think this particular fashion accessory is attractive - COVER IT UP!  If I want to see what's been in your butt-crack, I'll dig it out myself.

Where's the mystery?  Where's the eroticism?  Half the chicks walking down Ventura and Hollywood Boulevards these days aren't wearing enough actual clothing to create any kind of feminine mystique at all.  The bods look good but there's nothing to look forward to.  Might as well surf porn on the internet.  At least there I can view the whole package.

Further note on 'thongs' - they're for sissies (this goes for men as well as women, and the fact that I even need to mention males as possible participants in this particular form of attire is proof positive Armageddon is just around the corner).  Real women wear panties, or "lingerie" for the bedroom set.  Don't believe me?  Go on Google and type in 'thong' and see how many dedicated sites you come up with, then do the same thing with 'panties' (actually, I may have to do some research on this...don't go away...this might take a few minutes...).  Yup.  Just as I suspected.  Men the planet over have cast their votes.  Panties in, thongs out (so to speak).  At best, a thong is a synonym for 'flip-flops', like the good old days.  If you've got your undies up your bum on purpose, you need more help than Freud, Jung, and Dr. Phil together can give you.

Also, why are women's pants now only to be worn below the pubic bone?  I have to admit, I've grown a little more accustomed to this one...  However, what's next?  How much lower can we go?  At some point, just spray paint a little blue patch over the pubic area, place a micro-dot on the ass as cover, and be done with it.  Then we can all be 'real' with each other.  Real what I'm not sure, but I can tell you we're missing a bet here.

The female body is exquisite, worshipped in many cultures and across the ages as perfection, the gateway to eternal life (and the Christians and Jews who are crying 'foul' should take a gander at the influence of Isis and Osiris on both Old and New Testament theology).  I'm not going the worshipping route anytime soon, but you can definitely put me down as a lifelong admirer and connoisseur - I may not know Beaujolais from Chianti, but I can spot a vintage female physique in the dark (and have, on more than one occasion).

So why does our society continue to strip away the sensuousness and seductiveness of a work of art as endlessly mesmerizing as the female form by simply throwing it at the screen of our consciousness like a 'performance piece'?

Just a guess, but I'm thinking a man gets blamed for this one...

Grrr...

I just lost an hour and a half of writing because "the page expired".

Son of a ...