Bad, yet poignant, poetry by Captain Break-It
Many, many years ago
In a place from afar,
Out dropped a creature
From a chick named Babar.
This monster's head hit the floor
With a resounding din
Caused by the weight
Of its gigantic chin.
The doctors amputated the chin
After having a talk.
If not for this procedure
The mutant couldn't walk.
Babar finally decided
Sid be thy name since
It much better than the symbol
Formerly known as Prince
The chin remained dormant
For a plethora of years.
But this did little
To calm Babar's fears.
One day it happened,
The chin began to grow
Sometime around the period
Of Mr. Brady's fro.
Sid took his chin to college
To get a degree,
Where he met a bunch of losers
In the tower of Oglesby.
The chin was corrupted
By these wasters of life.
All that was left
Was Pink Floyd and a knife.
The deans of the school
Said in a rage,
You don't belong here,
Try the College of DuPage.
The chin went back home
To take the suburbs by storm.
For the chin could not
Be confined by a dorm.
Sid plotted his return
While attending C.O.D.,
He knew in his heart
The chin had to be free.
The Coalition awaited
His triumphant return,
There was a place called Leper House
That needed to burn.
The chin finally returned
And had grown into many
Along with our Sid
Now came Vinny and Lenny.
The chin and its trio,
With their fury unleashed,
Everyone thought,
"What a dick!"
The power of the chin
Mesmerized the masses.
Even the mighty Coalition
Couldn't make it to classes.
With the college ladies
Sid was a hit.
They swarmed to his chin
Like flies do to shit.
Attempts at his life
Were brushed aside with ease.
He even survived
A case of killer pubic fleas.
The day finally came
For him to leave school.
The chin had a business world
That it had to rule.
The chin stood up
And pointed north with his hand.
He shouted, "I'm leaving now
To be the King of SeaLand."
The chin was so bad
At routing its freight,
He was banished forever
To the Lone Star State.
The chin was welcomed
With a "Howdy, y'all".
Sid cracked a smile.
Texas would fall.
Sid is still there
To this very day.
The last I heard
He was drinking with Ray.
Some say the chin is shrinking.
I don't know about that.
I kind of think
His head has gotten fat.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
An Innovative Swarm
The WNBA began in 1997. The league has enjoyed some success, more than their predecessors, but has not gained the popularity of the men’s game. During their ten years of play, I’ve seen maybe thirty minutes of exciting WNBA action. I would probably watch more if they would broadcast it on PBS and if I liked watching basketball. I don’t watch many NBA games, either, so it’s not like I’m purposely boycotting the WNBA. I would rather play than watch. That is until both my rotator cuffs stopped rotating and my knees decided to hate me with pain.
I’m looking out my window, and a large green garbage truck is parked outside my house while the garbage man tends to my trash in the driving snow. For some reason, I don’t want that large green truck to leave. But, it did.
While experiencing my thirty minutes of WNBA viewing, over multiple sittings, I realized that the WNBA game is not much different than that of the NBA, which we should call the MNBA, and refer to only the umbrella organization over both leagues as the NBA. But the men probably don’t want to be bothered by Inuit art enthusiasts who would mistake them for the Musée National des Beaux-Arts in Quebec. It’s hard to do a lay-up when some guy is trying to get you to autograph his caribou sculpture. Why does the women’s league have to lug around an extra letter in their acronym? Because this society places greater burdens on women than it does on men, that’s why. And that’s wrong. Please remember to vote for me in the 2007 Male Feminist of the Year competition sponsored by oxygen.com. If I win, I get a $100 gift card to Crate & Barrel and a trophy in the shape of a burned bra.
In the WNBA, they dribble, pass, shoot, steal, rebound, sweat, spit, pat each other’s asses, have pillow fights, scratch each others eyes out, stop talking to each other, and if you don’t know why I’m upset, I’m not going to tell you, just like they do in the MNBA. One difference is that the MNBA has a habit of impregnating groupies out of wedlock across the country, which is something I haven’t seen in the WNBA. I wonder why that is. I remember that neither league swarms around the ball and runs around the court like a gaggle of paparazzi hounding Lindsay Lohan for a nipple shot. I didn’t notice they were not doing this at the time I was watching since I never even considered it as a basketball strategy. But then I watched my daughter and her schoolmates play in their fifth grade after school basketball program. As it turns out, the after school program girls identify a lot of aspects of basketball that the professional game is missing, but the swarm is their prevailing statement.
Since the after school program is not a league, there are no set teams. Teams are chosen at the beginning of each session from the girls in attendance. Although the teams are determined by a seemingly fair, two captain-based draft system, arguments prevail while feelings are hurt. Picking somebody first last week is not always a valid contract for a return favor the next week when last week’s first-picked girl is now the captain who is best friends (for the time being) with some other girl. Player quality is not always a factor in draft order, either, but shoe color and who sits next to whom in class seem to be.
The program is managed by Mr. Christopher, who is either a saint or really hates going home to his family. Or maybe he needs the extra $1000 a year for supervising an extracurricular activity, which he probably spends on aspirin and ear plugs. By the time I was available to attend a game, the season was just about over. Apparently, Mr. Christopher had long given up trying to teach basketball to these young ladies, and preferred to watch the clock and hope nobody was killed or maimed, while the girls re-invented the game. Little girls have a tendency to enhance their competitiveness through the dulcet sounds of screaming. Based on what I observed, they are full of ideas on how the game should actually be played, regardless of the rulebook, and were not shy about making Mr. Christopher aware of their proposed rule changes with a considerable volume of zeal. He ratified most of their suggestions, except the one about if you hit the referee (him) in the head with the ball, you get a point.
There wasn’t much passing, and when there was it was due to a dribble gone awry instead of an actual attempt to get the ball to a teammate. The girls chose to borrow from football and employ “the handoff” as a safer means of distributing the ball. Most girls would dribble the ball until one of four things happened: 1. They were swarmed by all other players who wanted the ball (including teammates) and could not move. 2. An occurrence of dribbling gone awry (see above) 3. They would actually get a clear shot and throw the ball in the general direction of the basket. 4. The school year came to an end. Once another girl stripped the ball, or was given the ball by the ball handler, she would take off running and dribbling in the most open direction, with no regard to where her basket was. The goal was to break free from the swarm and regroup at another point on the floor. For anybody that has seen a National Geographic episode, you know that this is classic swarm survival behavior. The swarm would usually catch up to the new ball handling girl in a moment or two unless she accidentally went in the direction of her basket and was able to get a shot off. Even then the swarm charged after the ball even though it was no longer officially in play. Mr. Christopher didn’t enforce the rules very much, probably because the girls changed them as they played and he couldn't keep track of them. As long as the ball stayed in bounds and nobody was crying, he kept his whistle on mute.
My daughter tried to infiltrate the hive each time it swarmed around a new queen bee ball handler, but, being smaller than everybody else she rarely penetrated the outer defenses. One time she was able to crawl between the feet of the others and pull down the sock of the ball holder. This caused the girl to drop the ball because she was upset that the uneven sock look did not go with her hair style. I figured that was going to be the highlight of the game for my daughter, a memory she could tell her grandchildren about. It was quite a nice defensive play, one that I’ve never even seen Michael Jordan do.
The swarm buzzed around the floor for about 40 minutes, with the ball accidentally going in the basket a few times. Mr. Christopher had begun sucking on his shirt collar for strength or as evidence of his pending psychosis. Eventually, my daughter did get the ball when it popped out of the swarm like an elusive bar of soap in the shower. Her instincts took over as she started dribbling for the other team’s basket. I almost shouted, “Wrong basket!” but I didn’t want to look like Kathy Lee Gifford. Whenever I shout I project a strange resemblance to Kathy Lee Gifford. I’ve been told that many times. Maybe it’s my hair. She continued to dribble with aplomb. She reminded me of Curly Neal, except with more hair. I credit the rubbly nature of my driveway and my lack of ability to fix it to account for her dribbling adeptness. If you can dribble on my driveway, which is where she practices, you can dribble on any type of nasty surface, such as Bill O’Reilley’s face (and, please do), so the smooth gym floor posed no problem for her. She zigged and zagged and zooged (like zig zagging, but on different plane), always staying one step ahead of the swarm. When she got to the other team’s basket, she looped around and headed back towards her team’s goal. She had worn out the swarm, and had a clear path to the hoop. Her only contention was Ashley Grobel, who was standing inside the key awaiting my daughter’s approach. However, Ashley’s “I want to go home” defensive technique was no match for my daughter’s “I gotta shoot this thing before I fall down” drive to the basket and subsequent power dunk, shattering the backboard glass. Well, that’s what it looked like to me as she shot-put the ball at the basket where it scraped the rim and gently teetered over it through the net. While I awaited her teammates to revel in her achievement, she looked at me with a proud yet timid, glowing little smile. I smiled back with a prouder and glorious glow. Then she was trampled by the swarm, which was more interested in the loose ball than they were that a basket had been made.
I’m not sure who won the game. It didn’t matter. My daughter fought the swarm and she won. I’m sure there are many other stories just like this one that happened to other people’s daughters during that game, but none I paid attention to. Maybe this is why the WNBA has not incorporated the swarm into their game. It may only be interesting to the parents of each player. Maybe we’ll need to wait until these innovative young ladies grow up and find themselves in positions to change the WNBA so that it becomes as popular as the men’s version of the game. Maybe they need to televise the games on PBS. Maybe the WNBA players need to learn how to impregnate groupies. I don’t know. I’m not an innovative swarming little girl. But, I live with one, and that’s good enough for me.
I’m looking out my window, and a large green garbage truck is parked outside my house while the garbage man tends to my trash in the driving snow. For some reason, I don’t want that large green truck to leave. But, it did.
While experiencing my thirty minutes of WNBA viewing, over multiple sittings, I realized that the WNBA game is not much different than that of the NBA, which we should call the MNBA, and refer to only the umbrella organization over both leagues as the NBA. But the men probably don’t want to be bothered by Inuit art enthusiasts who would mistake them for the Musée National des Beaux-Arts in Quebec. It’s hard to do a lay-up when some guy is trying to get you to autograph his caribou sculpture. Why does the women’s league have to lug around an extra letter in their acronym? Because this society places greater burdens on women than it does on men, that’s why. And that’s wrong. Please remember to vote for me in the 2007 Male Feminist of the Year competition sponsored by oxygen.com. If I win, I get a $100 gift card to Crate & Barrel and a trophy in the shape of a burned bra.
In the WNBA, they dribble, pass, shoot, steal, rebound, sweat, spit, pat each other’s asses, have pillow fights, scratch each others eyes out, stop talking to each other, and if you don’t know why I’m upset, I’m not going to tell you, just like they do in the MNBA. One difference is that the MNBA has a habit of impregnating groupies out of wedlock across the country, which is something I haven’t seen in the WNBA. I wonder why that is. I remember that neither league swarms around the ball and runs around the court like a gaggle of paparazzi hounding Lindsay Lohan for a nipple shot. I didn’t notice they were not doing this at the time I was watching since I never even considered it as a basketball strategy. But then I watched my daughter and her schoolmates play in their fifth grade after school basketball program. As it turns out, the after school program girls identify a lot of aspects of basketball that the professional game is missing, but the swarm is their prevailing statement.
Since the after school program is not a league, there are no set teams. Teams are chosen at the beginning of each session from the girls in attendance. Although the teams are determined by a seemingly fair, two captain-based draft system, arguments prevail while feelings are hurt. Picking somebody first last week is not always a valid contract for a return favor the next week when last week’s first-picked girl is now the captain who is best friends (for the time being) with some other girl. Player quality is not always a factor in draft order, either, but shoe color and who sits next to whom in class seem to be.
The program is managed by Mr. Christopher, who is either a saint or really hates going home to his family. Or maybe he needs the extra $1000 a year for supervising an extracurricular activity, which he probably spends on aspirin and ear plugs. By the time I was available to attend a game, the season was just about over. Apparently, Mr. Christopher had long given up trying to teach basketball to these young ladies, and preferred to watch the clock and hope nobody was killed or maimed, while the girls re-invented the game. Little girls have a tendency to enhance their competitiveness through the dulcet sounds of screaming. Based on what I observed, they are full of ideas on how the game should actually be played, regardless of the rulebook, and were not shy about making Mr. Christopher aware of their proposed rule changes with a considerable volume of zeal. He ratified most of their suggestions, except the one about if you hit the referee (him) in the head with the ball, you get a point.
There wasn’t much passing, and when there was it was due to a dribble gone awry instead of an actual attempt to get the ball to a teammate. The girls chose to borrow from football and employ “the handoff” as a safer means of distributing the ball. Most girls would dribble the ball until one of four things happened: 1. They were swarmed by all other players who wanted the ball (including teammates) and could not move. 2. An occurrence of dribbling gone awry (see above) 3. They would actually get a clear shot and throw the ball in the general direction of the basket. 4. The school year came to an end. Once another girl stripped the ball, or was given the ball by the ball handler, she would take off running and dribbling in the most open direction, with no regard to where her basket was. The goal was to break free from the swarm and regroup at another point on the floor. For anybody that has seen a National Geographic episode, you know that this is classic swarm survival behavior. The swarm would usually catch up to the new ball handling girl in a moment or two unless she accidentally went in the direction of her basket and was able to get a shot off. Even then the swarm charged after the ball even though it was no longer officially in play. Mr. Christopher didn’t enforce the rules very much, probably because the girls changed them as they played and he couldn't keep track of them. As long as the ball stayed in bounds and nobody was crying, he kept his whistle on mute.
My daughter tried to infiltrate the hive each time it swarmed around a new queen bee ball handler, but, being smaller than everybody else she rarely penetrated the outer defenses. One time she was able to crawl between the feet of the others and pull down the sock of the ball holder. This caused the girl to drop the ball because she was upset that the uneven sock look did not go with her hair style. I figured that was going to be the highlight of the game for my daughter, a memory she could tell her grandchildren about. It was quite a nice defensive play, one that I’ve never even seen Michael Jordan do.
The swarm buzzed around the floor for about 40 minutes, with the ball accidentally going in the basket a few times. Mr. Christopher had begun sucking on his shirt collar for strength or as evidence of his pending psychosis. Eventually, my daughter did get the ball when it popped out of the swarm like an elusive bar of soap in the shower. Her instincts took over as she started dribbling for the other team’s basket. I almost shouted, “Wrong basket!” but I didn’t want to look like Kathy Lee Gifford. Whenever I shout I project a strange resemblance to Kathy Lee Gifford. I’ve been told that many times. Maybe it’s my hair. She continued to dribble with aplomb. She reminded me of Curly Neal, except with more hair. I credit the rubbly nature of my driveway and my lack of ability to fix it to account for her dribbling adeptness. If you can dribble on my driveway, which is where she practices, you can dribble on any type of nasty surface, such as Bill O’Reilley’s face (and, please do), so the smooth gym floor posed no problem for her. She zigged and zagged and zooged (like zig zagging, but on different plane), always staying one step ahead of the swarm. When she got to the other team’s basket, she looped around and headed back towards her team’s goal. She had worn out the swarm, and had a clear path to the hoop. Her only contention was Ashley Grobel, who was standing inside the key awaiting my daughter’s approach. However, Ashley’s “I want to go home” defensive technique was no match for my daughter’s “I gotta shoot this thing before I fall down” drive to the basket and subsequent power dunk, shattering the backboard glass. Well, that’s what it looked like to me as she shot-put the ball at the basket where it scraped the rim and gently teetered over it through the net. While I awaited her teammates to revel in her achievement, she looked at me with a proud yet timid, glowing little smile. I smiled back with a prouder and glorious glow. Then she was trampled by the swarm, which was more interested in the loose ball than they were that a basket had been made.
I’m not sure who won the game. It didn’t matter. My daughter fought the swarm and she won. I’m sure there are many other stories just like this one that happened to other people’s daughters during that game, but none I paid attention to. Maybe this is why the WNBA has not incorporated the swarm into their game. It may only be interesting to the parents of each player. Maybe we’ll need to wait until these innovative young ladies grow up and find themselves in positions to change the WNBA so that it becomes as popular as the men’s version of the game. Maybe they need to televise the games on PBS. Maybe the WNBA players need to learn how to impregnate groupies. I don’t know. I’m not an innovative swarming little girl. But, I live with one, and that’s good enough for me.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Bloated Portrayal of Surrender
When I committed the aberration, I thought nothing of it. Although I sensed it was immoral, from some perspectives, I felt it fair as I was only affecting myself. The transparency of my window did not give mandatory license to observe. Eventually, the hearsay disseminated, and, of course, I abnegated it entirely. Not one person believed me. The authorities were persistent with their efforts to ensure I pay for what I had done. After an exhausting fight on my behalf, I finally acquiesced.
They subjected me to some anomalous punishment involving a rake, a few straws and some eraser shavings. Hoping that they would force me to beseech, the tormentors increased the severity of the flogging at a constant rate. I did not fall prey to their cajoling. When it was evident their will was inferior to mine, they suspended their castigation.
I formulated and presented a cogent argument for my release, assuring to them that I was not a contagion to society. I convinced them that I would not defile their community. Subsequently, I was allowed to return home where I immediately penned a letter of diatribe to my congressman expressing to him my dismay to the way I was processed. I explained the impact of my dissoluteness was felt only by me. Surely, he could respect my right to individualism within my own home.
After I had mailed the letter, I sat and pondered. Had this experience enervated me? No! In reality, it had made me much stronger. So strong, in my mind, I exonerated my persecutors. Little did they know their admonishment had only reinforced my fecund nature. I looked for novel and arresting ways to secure my role as a heretic.
The actual course of my commitment to nonconformity was indeterminate. However, I did infuse a wide variety of over-the-counter drugs into my diet. The interfusion of these pharmaceuticals and my usual libations did nothing more than grieve my depths, but I continued ingesting the combination nonetheless. I sat for weeks enduring my internal jeremiads while contemplating strategies to express my raison d’etre.
Fatefully, I received a phone call from the office of my congressman. The emissary informed me that the call was in response to my written correspondence to his reverence. I proclaimed my joy to have actually received a response from a government proxy. Luckily, before I extended too many laudations, the other man denounced my actions and chided my licentious existence. My ligneous expression revealed the shock I had felt (although he could not see me because we were conversing by phone). I began to offer my defense, but futility repressed me. The correspondent was not in the least malleable. His opinion of me remained the same. He expanded his criticism of me by informing me that what I had done was no mere peccadillo. Overcome by indifference, I hung up the phone.
Had the government abandoned me and those like me (if any)? Had I lost one of the most pragmatic securities of living in an organized, free state? Was I a man without a country, like Kurt Vonnegut? Confidence in myself waned, but not for long. I came to the conclusion that my realm was my own being and nothing more. I was not a protraction of any other entity, and no opposition could compel me to recant. Not caring if my actions were salubrious, I bought a firearm and headed into the city.
After a fortnight of roaming the streets searching for a subject upon which to relinquish my aggression, I realized I had neglected to obtain appropriate ammunition for my pistol. I explored the ground for discarded bullets, but I found a scanty supply (none, actually). I was determined not to be subsumed into the existing structure of order. Since no traveling munitions merchant came to my succor, I decided to return to my fortress to regroup.
Within the ramparts of my sanctuary, I questioned the sanity of my mission and my being. Unsuccessfully probing the inner nooks of my mind for an amelioration, I screamed the wanting words of a supplicant and received no answer. My turbid state of mind forced me to only one recourse. Though I did not desire this outcome, the rigid nature of circumstances had destroyed my usual unflappable demeanor. I accepted it. All aspirations for veneration had expired inside of me. I chose to vilify myself. Slowly, apprehensively, I closed the drapes and returned to my trousers.
They subjected me to some anomalous punishment involving a rake, a few straws and some eraser shavings. Hoping that they would force me to beseech, the tormentors increased the severity of the flogging at a constant rate. I did not fall prey to their cajoling. When it was evident their will was inferior to mine, they suspended their castigation.
I formulated and presented a cogent argument for my release, assuring to them that I was not a contagion to society. I convinced them that I would not defile their community. Subsequently, I was allowed to return home where I immediately penned a letter of diatribe to my congressman expressing to him my dismay to the way I was processed. I explained the impact of my dissoluteness was felt only by me. Surely, he could respect my right to individualism within my own home.
After I had mailed the letter, I sat and pondered. Had this experience enervated me? No! In reality, it had made me much stronger. So strong, in my mind, I exonerated my persecutors. Little did they know their admonishment had only reinforced my fecund nature. I looked for novel and arresting ways to secure my role as a heretic.
The actual course of my commitment to nonconformity was indeterminate. However, I did infuse a wide variety of over-the-counter drugs into my diet. The interfusion of these pharmaceuticals and my usual libations did nothing more than grieve my depths, but I continued ingesting the combination nonetheless. I sat for weeks enduring my internal jeremiads while contemplating strategies to express my raison d’etre.
Fatefully, I received a phone call from the office of my congressman. The emissary informed me that the call was in response to my written correspondence to his reverence. I proclaimed my joy to have actually received a response from a government proxy. Luckily, before I extended too many laudations, the other man denounced my actions and chided my licentious existence. My ligneous expression revealed the shock I had felt (although he could not see me because we were conversing by phone). I began to offer my defense, but futility repressed me. The correspondent was not in the least malleable. His opinion of me remained the same. He expanded his criticism of me by informing me that what I had done was no mere peccadillo. Overcome by indifference, I hung up the phone.
Had the government abandoned me and those like me (if any)? Had I lost one of the most pragmatic securities of living in an organized, free state? Was I a man without a country, like Kurt Vonnegut? Confidence in myself waned, but not for long. I came to the conclusion that my realm was my own being and nothing more. I was not a protraction of any other entity, and no opposition could compel me to recant. Not caring if my actions were salubrious, I bought a firearm and headed into the city.
After a fortnight of roaming the streets searching for a subject upon which to relinquish my aggression, I realized I had neglected to obtain appropriate ammunition for my pistol. I explored the ground for discarded bullets, but I found a scanty supply (none, actually). I was determined not to be subsumed into the existing structure of order. Since no traveling munitions merchant came to my succor, I decided to return to my fortress to regroup.
Within the ramparts of my sanctuary, I questioned the sanity of my mission and my being. Unsuccessfully probing the inner nooks of my mind for an amelioration, I screamed the wanting words of a supplicant and received no answer. My turbid state of mind forced me to only one recourse. Though I did not desire this outcome, the rigid nature of circumstances had destroyed my usual unflappable demeanor. I accepted it. All aspirations for veneration had expired inside of me. I chose to vilify myself. Slowly, apprehensively, I closed the drapes and returned to my trousers.
Friday, January 26, 2007
The Floor and the Dog
There is a dog. There is a floor. Through no choice of the floor, the dog is on it. The floor is under the dog. The floor sustains the dog. The dog burdens the floor. The floor suffers the dog. This is their relationship. It is not the fault of the dog. It is merely following orders.
The floor pushes back, as it also follows orders. The floor hates the dog. The dog does not realize the floor is there. The dog does not consider the option of non-support. The floor considers all other options, but is helpless to choose.
The floor is covered by carpet. The dog is covered by hair. The fibers mingle. There is no contention between the inorganic threads of the carpet and the organic strands of hair. They are happy to congregate. They make room for each other. In the event of separation, some hair will remain guests of the carpet, and some carpet will travel with the hair.
The dog bestows gifts from within to the floor. The floor accepts these gifts with dissent. The dog is relieved. The floor is burdened further. Parts of the gifts meld with the parts of the floor. The floor is slightly weakened. The dog begins to feel a void, unable to fill it until opportunity rings. The floor shares the anticipation of the dog’s portending contingency as it represents a relief for the floor. The dog yawns. The floor sighs.
The gifts of the dog interrupt the camaraderie between the community of carpet and hair. The gifts incite some of the carpet threads to retreat and compact. Most, however, continue to socialize. Those directly affected by the gifts are unable to convince the others to support their cause. A wall has been built that only time can destroy. The hair does not notice the absence of the missing fibers. It makes no attempt to penetrate the separation. The influenced portion of the carpet is drawn closer to the floor and adopts its resentment towards the dog. Together they will fester until the effects of the dog’s gifts have evaporated.
There is an overweight boy wearing muddy baseball cleats and carrying a pitchfork, a box of matches and a tap dance instructional manual. The floor is having a bad day, but realizes that the dog isn’t so bad.
The floor pushes back, as it also follows orders. The floor hates the dog. The dog does not realize the floor is there. The dog does not consider the option of non-support. The floor considers all other options, but is helpless to choose.
The floor is covered by carpet. The dog is covered by hair. The fibers mingle. There is no contention between the inorganic threads of the carpet and the organic strands of hair. They are happy to congregate. They make room for each other. In the event of separation, some hair will remain guests of the carpet, and some carpet will travel with the hair.
The dog bestows gifts from within to the floor. The floor accepts these gifts with dissent. The dog is relieved. The floor is burdened further. Parts of the gifts meld with the parts of the floor. The floor is slightly weakened. The dog begins to feel a void, unable to fill it until opportunity rings. The floor shares the anticipation of the dog’s portending contingency as it represents a relief for the floor. The dog yawns. The floor sighs.
The gifts of the dog interrupt the camaraderie between the community of carpet and hair. The gifts incite some of the carpet threads to retreat and compact. Most, however, continue to socialize. Those directly affected by the gifts are unable to convince the others to support their cause. A wall has been built that only time can destroy. The hair does not notice the absence of the missing fibers. It makes no attempt to penetrate the separation. The influenced portion of the carpet is drawn closer to the floor and adopts its resentment towards the dog. Together they will fester until the effects of the dog’s gifts have evaporated.
There is an overweight boy wearing muddy baseball cleats and carrying a pitchfork, a box of matches and a tap dance instructional manual. The floor is having a bad day, but realizes that the dog isn’t so bad.
Monday, January 08, 2007
The Twelve Woes of Toothless
This is a story of a young man’s quest for the structured, well-planned, unencumbered life he meant himself to live and the jungle of capriciousness and insensitivity that stood in his way leading to the composing of one of the greatest songs in rock and roll history.
There was a young man named Tom. One of his front teeth was missing, replaced by a whittled acorn, so his friends would call him Toothless Tom. Some factions tried to call him Squirrel-fodder Toothed Tom, but it never caught on. Once, somebody referred to him in the abbreviated form of his nickname as “Tooth”. This made Tom angry. He claimed calling him that was a contradiction of terms and he would not stand for it. So, people would only call him “Tooth” when he was seated. This woeful event was merely one example of the social afflictions Tooth would endure in his first semester in his Junior year in college. You see, Toothless Tom lived in a rented house with a group of rapscallions who didn’t much care to be bothered by the tribulations of others, especially when they were the cause of much of such misery. It took a certain breed of numbskull to put up with these fellows, and Tooth was not of that gene pool.
His torment began early in the semester when he realized one of his twenty-five cent pot pies was missing from the freezer. Most of the housemates shared food, when necessary, but Tooth was strict with his supply. He would be willing to sell you some of his food, for a profit, if you were in dire straights, but under no circumstances would he give it away, especially an extravagant item such as a pot pie. In reality, Tooth had eaten the pot pie in a drunken stupor and forgot about it. He suspected everybody as the thief and never trusted anyone again. And rightly so. Once the others learned of Tooth’s penchant for the persnickety, they looked for opportunities to abuse him, in loving and respectful ways – such as borrowing his sodas once in a while, or shaking his refrigerator so that food would slip from his shelf to the one below, at which point the item would be under the jurisdiction of Tooth’s own rule: You can only eat what is on your own shelf. Consequently, Tooth would lose rights to the food item and was unable to figure out a way to shake the refrigerator to make the food jump back up to his shelf.
There were two refrigerators in the house. Four of the roommates shared one, and three shared the other. The four person refrigerator was shared communally by those users. Food could be placed anywhere, and people were trusted to only consume their own food, but if you needed to borrow something, have at it. It was all so beautiful. Tooth stored his provisions in the three person refrigerator, where he ruled it with an iron oven mitt. Each person was to have a designated shelf and could only keep his food on that shelf. He preached to his fridgemates, “Do not even look at another man’s shelf, lest be seduced by temptation to take my butter.” Unfortunately for Tooth, the freezer had no shelves, so food was stored in a rogue and mischievous manner. Tooth had difficulty coordinating the freezer to ensure the safety of his frozen chattel. Eventually, the freezer became overloaded and disordered. Tooth could not keep track of his frosty favorites. While attempting to reorganize the freezer, he realized that there were three bags of three different kinds of beans in there. This seemed bombastically unnecessary to Tooth. Who in their right mind would ever need three kinds of beans? He believed you should buy one bag of beans, eat it, buy another one, eat that, and then buy the third. Such opulence of maintaining three different kinds of beans simultaneously was deplorable! This was an outrage. He called a house meeting to air his grievance. His plea was met by guffaws. Guffaws were the primary legislative tool in the house, slightly more popular than using indifference to settle issues.
Many of Tooth’s issues involved food. Tooth was fiscally responsible when purchasing food. One might say he had a special economical gift when stretching the value of a dollar. Still another might suggest he was miserly. Yet others, most others, would swear on their dead ant lion’s grave that he was a cheap bastard, as evidenced by his weekly eleven dollar food bill, while others would spend at least fifty dollars. His parsimony was not due to a lack of funds. Unreasonable fear of pecuniary calamity drove his thrift as he was sure the “rainy day” was just over the horizon. This fear manifested itself in an incident that nearly cost Tooth his life. He bought some chicken with one of his housemates for a cookout. The cookout had to be rescheduled from its original date, so the chicken remained in the refrigerator for nine days. When exposed to the nose on the day of the cookout, the chicken let out a screech of foul fowl odor strong enough to knock out an anosmatic pig farmer. The chicken was three days past rancid. So as not to lose the $2.48 he invested in the chicken, Tooth decided to cook it, while his co-investor chose to mooch from the rest of the cookout fare. Against the counsel of his housemates, Tooth braved the chicken. He would have certainly died of food poisoning, if not for the efforts of his housemates, the same cohabitants who filled his life with anguish, who playfully made him drink so much beer, his eager regurgitory system could not remain idle.
Most were surprised Tooth could even grill a chicken, let alone be killed by a putrid one. Having never had to cook for himself prior to moving into the house, Tooth learned by trial and error, asking his pals for help when he needed it. On his inaugural visit to the wonderful world of macaroni and cheese, he took note that the directions called for the noodles to be boiled in exactly six cups of water. Not being sure of the amount, he filled a sixteen ounce Long Island glass and inquired to his mates, “Is this six cups of water?” Yes, of course it is, Toothless. Tooth soon learned the difference between two cups and six cups as he scraped scorched macaroni from the bottom of his cooking pot.
During the daily life in the house, things tended to break. It may have had something to do with the frequent field goal kicking football games in the house or the outbreaks of wrestlemania or the sudden fumble drills or general haphazard living style of the accursed living mates. In the course of field goal kicking sessions, where a pressurized air-filled two-liter plastic bottle was kicked at a kitchen window that served as the goal posts, a couple of windows happened to break. As entropy would have it, it is much easier to break a window than it is to fix it. Consequently, these windows remained broken for quite some time. This irritated Tooth, as he saw the heat from the house escape through the broken window, thereby potentially raising the heating bill. Tooth declared that his dad said he should not have to pay his part of the heating bill until those windows were repaired. This declaration was met, of course, by guffaws from the others. To his dismay, Tooth was charged the same as every other tenant when it came time to pay the bills. The windows were eventually repaired sometime after Tooth moved out of the house.
It was not only the shenanigans of his housemates that railed Tooth. There was also the issue of his classes. Tooth was a pre-med student. Consequently, he thought his educational plight was more important than the other dwellers’, for he would be saving lives someday. He may have been correct, but the others would have none of his grumble. They were busy merry making and carousing, usually to loud levels of clanking, and were not concerned with his five physio labs and his twelve pages of homework. They argued that the library wasn’t held open four twenty-four hours a day if students were meant to study at home. If that didn’t convince Tooth his entreatment for tranquility was denied, the guffaws surely did.
Tooth made some attempts to assimilate into the cantankerous lifestyle that enveloped him. His housemates spent many days kicking the hacky sack around on the front lawn in lieu of going to class. Tooth would come home from his studies, hauling a refrigerator sized backpack full of books, and race upstairs to don his high school wrestling shoes so he could “hack in”. Unfortunately, his only hacky sack move, the awkward shin graze, did not perpetuate the hack. Tooth was not very limber and had difficulty performing any activity requiring dexterity. In fact, it was an accomplishment if he could perform his signature hacky sack move without falling. His roommates, in rare moments of sensitivity, encouraged him, but the hack circle usually dispersed shortly after Tooth’s participation.
The weekly NFL confidence pool served as another social activity for Tooth. He loved football. More importantly, he lusted after the sixteen dollar payout the pool afforded. Tooth would spend hours analyzing the match ups and meticulously ranking his choices as dictated by the rules of the pool. One week Tooth mistakenly ranked two different games with eight points. The second game, where he chose Miami to win, by pool rule, was disqualified. Miami ended up winning that game, but Tooth did not reap the benefit of gaining those eight points, because he had already won eight points on an earlier game. This faux pas was the determining difference in the standings that week. Had he submitted his picks correctly, Tooth would have won for the first time, ever, and could have eaten free for a week and a half with the winnings. He begged and pleaded with the pool commissioner, but was met with guffaws and a word of advice, “If we have no rules, we have nothing, which is pretty much what you’ve won so far.” Tooth was devastated, and was sure to impart his feelings about it each week thereafter.
To relieve his stressful existence, Tooth turned to the magical world of phone sex. He came to rely on those strangers’ voices as his perceived only source of love. They gave him strength to carry on and helped build his sense of self worth and his hand muscles. Eventually, one of his counselors fell in love with him and discovered where he lived. She fell more in love with him when she realized she lived in the neighboring town. They met, and she began to initiate the phone sex calls, for free. This practice soon interfered with Tooth’s studies and she, “Porn Queen” as his housemates called her, became a nuisance to him, no different than every other aspect of his life.
There was a young man named Tom. One of his front teeth was missing, replaced by a whittled acorn, so his friends would call him Toothless Tom. Some factions tried to call him Squirrel-fodder Toothed Tom, but it never caught on. Once, somebody referred to him in the abbreviated form of his nickname as “Tooth”. This made Tom angry. He claimed calling him that was a contradiction of terms and he would not stand for it. So, people would only call him “Tooth” when he was seated. This woeful event was merely one example of the social afflictions Tooth would endure in his first semester in his Junior year in college. You see, Toothless Tom lived in a rented house with a group of rapscallions who didn’t much care to be bothered by the tribulations of others, especially when they were the cause of much of such misery. It took a certain breed of numbskull to put up with these fellows, and Tooth was not of that gene pool.
His torment began early in the semester when he realized one of his twenty-five cent pot pies was missing from the freezer. Most of the housemates shared food, when necessary, but Tooth was strict with his supply. He would be willing to sell you some of his food, for a profit, if you were in dire straights, but under no circumstances would he give it away, especially an extravagant item such as a pot pie. In reality, Tooth had eaten the pot pie in a drunken stupor and forgot about it. He suspected everybody as the thief and never trusted anyone again. And rightly so. Once the others learned of Tooth’s penchant for the persnickety, they looked for opportunities to abuse him, in loving and respectful ways – such as borrowing his sodas once in a while, or shaking his refrigerator so that food would slip from his shelf to the one below, at which point the item would be under the jurisdiction of Tooth’s own rule: You can only eat what is on your own shelf. Consequently, Tooth would lose rights to the food item and was unable to figure out a way to shake the refrigerator to make the food jump back up to his shelf.
There were two refrigerators in the house. Four of the roommates shared one, and three shared the other. The four person refrigerator was shared communally by those users. Food could be placed anywhere, and people were trusted to only consume their own food, but if you needed to borrow something, have at it. It was all so beautiful. Tooth stored his provisions in the three person refrigerator, where he ruled it with an iron oven mitt. Each person was to have a designated shelf and could only keep his food on that shelf. He preached to his fridgemates, “Do not even look at another man’s shelf, lest be seduced by temptation to take my butter.” Unfortunately for Tooth, the freezer had no shelves, so food was stored in a rogue and mischievous manner. Tooth had difficulty coordinating the freezer to ensure the safety of his frozen chattel. Eventually, the freezer became overloaded and disordered. Tooth could not keep track of his frosty favorites. While attempting to reorganize the freezer, he realized that there were three bags of three different kinds of beans in there. This seemed bombastically unnecessary to Tooth. Who in their right mind would ever need three kinds of beans? He believed you should buy one bag of beans, eat it, buy another one, eat that, and then buy the third. Such opulence of maintaining three different kinds of beans simultaneously was deplorable! This was an outrage. He called a house meeting to air his grievance. His plea was met by guffaws. Guffaws were the primary legislative tool in the house, slightly more popular than using indifference to settle issues.
Many of Tooth’s issues involved food. Tooth was fiscally responsible when purchasing food. One might say he had a special economical gift when stretching the value of a dollar. Still another might suggest he was miserly. Yet others, most others, would swear on their dead ant lion’s grave that he was a cheap bastard, as evidenced by his weekly eleven dollar food bill, while others would spend at least fifty dollars. His parsimony was not due to a lack of funds. Unreasonable fear of pecuniary calamity drove his thrift as he was sure the “rainy day” was just over the horizon. This fear manifested itself in an incident that nearly cost Tooth his life. He bought some chicken with one of his housemates for a cookout. The cookout had to be rescheduled from its original date, so the chicken remained in the refrigerator for nine days. When exposed to the nose on the day of the cookout, the chicken let out a screech of foul fowl odor strong enough to knock out an anosmatic pig farmer. The chicken was three days past rancid. So as not to lose the $2.48 he invested in the chicken, Tooth decided to cook it, while his co-investor chose to mooch from the rest of the cookout fare. Against the counsel of his housemates, Tooth braved the chicken. He would have certainly died of food poisoning, if not for the efforts of his housemates, the same cohabitants who filled his life with anguish, who playfully made him drink so much beer, his eager regurgitory system could not remain idle.
Most were surprised Tooth could even grill a chicken, let alone be killed by a putrid one. Having never had to cook for himself prior to moving into the house, Tooth learned by trial and error, asking his pals for help when he needed it. On his inaugural visit to the wonderful world of macaroni and cheese, he took note that the directions called for the noodles to be boiled in exactly six cups of water. Not being sure of the amount, he filled a sixteen ounce Long Island glass and inquired to his mates, “Is this six cups of water?” Yes, of course it is, Toothless. Tooth soon learned the difference between two cups and six cups as he scraped scorched macaroni from the bottom of his cooking pot.
During the daily life in the house, things tended to break. It may have had something to do with the frequent field goal kicking football games in the house or the outbreaks of wrestlemania or the sudden fumble drills or general haphazard living style of the accursed living mates. In the course of field goal kicking sessions, where a pressurized air-filled two-liter plastic bottle was kicked at a kitchen window that served as the goal posts, a couple of windows happened to break. As entropy would have it, it is much easier to break a window than it is to fix it. Consequently, these windows remained broken for quite some time. This irritated Tooth, as he saw the heat from the house escape through the broken window, thereby potentially raising the heating bill. Tooth declared that his dad said he should not have to pay his part of the heating bill until those windows were repaired. This declaration was met, of course, by guffaws from the others. To his dismay, Tooth was charged the same as every other tenant when it came time to pay the bills. The windows were eventually repaired sometime after Tooth moved out of the house.
It was not only the shenanigans of his housemates that railed Tooth. There was also the issue of his classes. Tooth was a pre-med student. Consequently, he thought his educational plight was more important than the other dwellers’, for he would be saving lives someday. He may have been correct, but the others would have none of his grumble. They were busy merry making and carousing, usually to loud levels of clanking, and were not concerned with his five physio labs and his twelve pages of homework. They argued that the library wasn’t held open four twenty-four hours a day if students were meant to study at home. If that didn’t convince Tooth his entreatment for tranquility was denied, the guffaws surely did.
Tooth made some attempts to assimilate into the cantankerous lifestyle that enveloped him. His housemates spent many days kicking the hacky sack around on the front lawn in lieu of going to class. Tooth would come home from his studies, hauling a refrigerator sized backpack full of books, and race upstairs to don his high school wrestling shoes so he could “hack in”. Unfortunately, his only hacky sack move, the awkward shin graze, did not perpetuate the hack. Tooth was not very limber and had difficulty performing any activity requiring dexterity. In fact, it was an accomplishment if he could perform his signature hacky sack move without falling. His roommates, in rare moments of sensitivity, encouraged him, but the hack circle usually dispersed shortly after Tooth’s participation.
The weekly NFL confidence pool served as another social activity for Tooth. He loved football. More importantly, he lusted after the sixteen dollar payout the pool afforded. Tooth would spend hours analyzing the match ups and meticulously ranking his choices as dictated by the rules of the pool. One week Tooth mistakenly ranked two different games with eight points. The second game, where he chose Miami to win, by pool rule, was disqualified. Miami ended up winning that game, but Tooth did not reap the benefit of gaining those eight points, because he had already won eight points on an earlier game. This faux pas was the determining difference in the standings that week. Had he submitted his picks correctly, Tooth would have won for the first time, ever, and could have eaten free for a week and a half with the winnings. He begged and pleaded with the pool commissioner, but was met with guffaws and a word of advice, “If we have no rules, we have nothing, which is pretty much what you’ve won so far.” Tooth was devastated, and was sure to impart his feelings about it each week thereafter.
To relieve his stressful existence, Tooth turned to the magical world of phone sex. He came to rely on those strangers’ voices as his perceived only source of love. They gave him strength to carry on and helped build his sense of self worth and his hand muscles. Eventually, one of his counselors fell in love with him and discovered where he lived. She fell more in love with him when she realized she lived in the neighboring town. They met, and she began to initiate the phone sex calls, for free. This practice soon interfered with Tooth’s studies and she, “Porn Queen” as his housemates called her, became a nuisance to him, no different than every other aspect of his life.
He realized his life was a never ending stream of nuisances. Tooth determined that the cause of his suffering was the house that he lived in. His life was nuisance free prior to moving in. After one long semester, he chose to move out and forget the entire experience.
Unfortunately for Tooth, these were no mere housemates with which he lived. These were members of the legendary rock group Leprosy. They were genius song writers and could turn any mundane event or set of events into an extraordinary piece of music (they COULD do this, but they chose not to do it very often), especially when emotionally touched by a situation, as they were with the trials of Tooth. They were actually very sensitive human beings. Tooth would have learned this had he not been bitching constantly about every little inconvenience that came his way, or was thrust upon him, as it were. Leprosy transformed Tooth’s plight into a rock and roll anthem for the ages (borrowing the melody to The 12 Days of Christmas) to record his strife until forever. Below are the lyrics that torment Tooth until this day.
Unfortunately for Tooth, these were no mere housemates with which he lived. These were members of the legendary rock group Leprosy. They were genius song writers and could turn any mundane event or set of events into an extraordinary piece of music (they COULD do this, but they chose not to do it very often), especially when emotionally touched by a situation, as they were with the trials of Tooth. They were actually very sensitive human beings. Tooth would have learned this had he not been bitching constantly about every little inconvenience that came his way, or was thrust upon him, as it were. Leprosy transformed Tooth’s plight into a rock and roll anthem for the ages (borrowing the melody to The 12 Days of Christmas) to record his strife until forever. Below are the lyrics that torment Tooth until this day.
The Twelve Woes of Toothless
By Leprosy
Oh, the twelve woes of Toothless just happen to be
By Leprosy
Oh, the twelve woes of Toothless just happen to be
Twelve pages of homework
Eleven dollar food bill
Ten calls from porn queen
Nine day old chicken
Eight points on Miami
Seven missing sodas*
Six cups of water
FIVE PHYSIO LABS
Four useless limbs
Three kinds of beans
Two broken windows
And a pot pie in a pear tree.
All recordings of the song had been tragically lost in the Mammoth Leper** Emigration of 1987 and the band has yet to re-recorded it. Still, the lyrics remain in the hearts of all of those who care to remind children everywhere to stop whining about stuff. Sometimes on a quiet summer night at Bull Frog Lake, if you sneak in under the Forest Preserve “No Admittance” chain, and you listen carefully, you can hear the anthem being sung hauntingly in the distance. Because Leprosy has also snuck into the Forest Preserve and are drunk and wooping it up on the other side of the lake.
* revised as an acceptable replacement lyric, "Seven former roommates” after Tooth moved out. Either lyric is correct. Technically, Tooth only had six former roommates because there were only seven people living in the house at the time of Tooth, but the new lyric was written at a time when there were eight people living in the house, and everybody was too apathetic to adjust for inflation.
** Yes, they were mammoth lepers.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Lovehammer Press Release
Photo shamelessy stolen from del901, so don't blame her for the following.
Marty Casey and Lovehammers just announced their upcoming single Happy Easter (All Year Long), Casey said he's excited about the new single. "There just aren't enough rock n' roll songs about Easter, so when we were approached about doing one we saw it as an opportunity to make Easter hip again."
Happy, happy Easter, hello to a new Spring,
Hiding all our eggs, looking for some Peeps bling,
I've been waiting all year long....
Fan club members are encouraged to download the song from iTunes 50 times on Holy Thursday to help Marty Casey and Lovehammers reach the top of the charts during this most religious of weeks. Godspeed.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Pliny The Elder and the Lack of Landspeeders
Pliny the Elder
23-79
His full name was Gaius Plinius Secundus, but you can call him Pliny the Elder. He was an ancient Roman senator, military commander, lawyer, historian, scientist, writer, pin-setter, moose patroller, know-it-all, typical over-achieving busy body. Kind of like Oprah.
Presumably, he was called plain old Pliny for most of his life until his upstart namesake nephew, Pliny the Younger, came along. Had there been a third Pliny, one younger than the Younger, the Younger would have become Pliny the Middle, and the Elder would have had to be transformed to the extreme case – Pliny the Eldest, leaving the youngest to be Pliny the Youngest. Since there weren’t three Plinies we can avoid such confusing talk and simply accept the comparative nicknames, and probably forget most of this paragraph.
Pliny the Younger must have made quite an impression on the ancient Roman scene to prompt people to have to distinguish between the two Plinies. Although it has not been documented, Pliny the Younger’s prominence (or at least the threat of greatness) may have provided motivation to the Elder’s persona of being a mover and a shaker, a condition that eventually led to the Elder’s death. It turns out that Pliny the Elder had nothing to worry about, since Pliny the Younger proved himself to be a bit of a slacker and parasite.
Sure, the Younger did go on to become the governor of Bithania under the Emperor Trajan, but the Roman Empire was so huge at that time, being a governor carried as much distinction as being a homeroom monitor today. Rumor has it that his gubernatorial opponent in the election was a cheating, lying drunk who never met a bribe his denari bag couldn’t envelop. That kind of behavior might entice today’s voters, but in those days it was frowned upon, since corruption didn’t become fashionable until the Catholic church was firmly established hundreds of years later.
After Pliny the Elder’s death in 79 (not to be confused with the death of disco in 1979), the Younger took it upon himself to publish numerous writings of the Elder, enjoying every bit of the royalties and exploiting the Elder’s renown. He certainly cashed in on the Elder’s death in the press – appearing with any oracle in any forum for any price, similar to Courtney Love’s mourning of Kurt Cobain, except he never sucked on a microphone for dramatic effect. The circumstances surrounding Pliny the Elder’s death ooze of irony, which provided the Younger an engaging story from which to platform his self-promotion, proving his less than upstanding nature.
Pliny the Elder is most remembered for writing a thirty-seven volume set of encyclopedia about natural history. Oddly enough it was titled, THE NATURAL HISTORY. Above all, history defines Pliny the Elder as a scientist. Back in the early first millennium AD, the scientific technique of favor was based on observation: “If it smells like shit, looks like shit, feels like shit, plops in the toilet like shit and tastes like shit, then it’s shit!” Little did they know that it was actually Aunt Rita’s goose liver pate’. But, they couldn’t have known since they never bothered to test the validity of their observations with experimental study. This is precisely the mindset that led to the demise of the more ancient of the Plinies.
The fatal natural event that sparked Pliny the Elder’s curious eye was the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 (not to be confused with the Southeast crater eruption of Mount Etna in 1979), which destroyed the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. (Remember that traveling museum exhibit of the plaster cast-like human forms who appeared to be swallowed in their tracks by the serpiginous lava? That’s how I want to go, but instead of lava, I hope it is sour cream.) At that time, Pliny was enjoying semi-retirement, spending his time writing about things like dog-headed people, people with eyes in their shoulders and super-reptilian serpents that killed bushes and exploded rocks with their breath. Either he was branching out into fantasy fiction, or he was well on his way to marble misplacement. His wife noticed a plume of smoke escaping Mount Vesuvius across the bay and alerted him (note: it is this historical event that led to the practice of all husbands throughout the history that followed to stop listening to anything their wives have to say). The naturalist in him forced him to commandeer a ship and a crew, as he had Naval connections, being commander of the fleet in the Bay of Naples and all. (He was also a nighttime tollbooth operator on the Apian Way, which has nothing to do with this story, but I thought you’d like to know.) He sailed across the bay to observe the destruction up close.
As they neared the shore, Pliny must not have noticed Chicken Little hauling ass in the other direction, because the sky was definitely falling. Fatefully, he chose to proceed. Standing on the shore, making his scientific observations of the phenomenon of all hell breaking loose, Pliny the Elder failed to observe the invisible noxious fumes accompanying the fascinating lava and smoke and shards of mountain that were spewed from the volcano. Unfortunately, his respiratory system made the observation and determined accurately that you shouldn’t be breathing that stuff. He died on the shore in the arms of a couple of his slaves (serves him right for oppressing another human life). Subsequent scientists benefited from Pliny’s deadly observations, which led to the invention of placing a handkerchief over your nose while being doused by a volcano.
Pliny the Elder’s example of being an over-exuberant busy-body who meddled in the business of gods and his ultimate death because of it scared the shit out of other like-minded scientists. They decided to hide in ignorance rather than incite the ire of the gods. This, among other things, like the coinciding formation of the Catholic Church, sowed the seeds for the Dark Ages. One can safely suggest that Pliny the Elder’s shenanigans were responsible for the squandering of 500 years of potential scientific progress. Assuming that’s true, and why wouldn’t it be, one can surmise that without Pliny’s influence, we would be driving around in land speeders by now and shooting each other with lasers instead of barbaric bullets. Thanks a lot, Pliny!
23-79
His full name was Gaius Plinius Secundus, but you can call him Pliny the Elder. He was an ancient Roman senator, military commander, lawyer, historian, scientist, writer, pin-setter, moose patroller, know-it-all, typical over-achieving busy body. Kind of like Oprah.
Presumably, he was called plain old Pliny for most of his life until his upstart namesake nephew, Pliny the Younger, came along. Had there been a third Pliny, one younger than the Younger, the Younger would have become Pliny the Middle, and the Elder would have had to be transformed to the extreme case – Pliny the Eldest, leaving the youngest to be Pliny the Youngest. Since there weren’t three Plinies we can avoid such confusing talk and simply accept the comparative nicknames, and probably forget most of this paragraph.
Pliny the Younger must have made quite an impression on the ancient Roman scene to prompt people to have to distinguish between the two Plinies. Although it has not been documented, Pliny the Younger’s prominence (or at least the threat of greatness) may have provided motivation to the Elder’s persona of being a mover and a shaker, a condition that eventually led to the Elder’s death. It turns out that Pliny the Elder had nothing to worry about, since Pliny the Younger proved himself to be a bit of a slacker and parasite.
Sure, the Younger did go on to become the governor of Bithania under the Emperor Trajan, but the Roman Empire was so huge at that time, being a governor carried as much distinction as being a homeroom monitor today. Rumor has it that his gubernatorial opponent in the election was a cheating, lying drunk who never met a bribe his denari bag couldn’t envelop. That kind of behavior might entice today’s voters, but in those days it was frowned upon, since corruption didn’t become fashionable until the Catholic church was firmly established hundreds of years later.
After Pliny the Elder’s death in 79 (not to be confused with the death of disco in 1979), the Younger took it upon himself to publish numerous writings of the Elder, enjoying every bit of the royalties and exploiting the Elder’s renown. He certainly cashed in on the Elder’s death in the press – appearing with any oracle in any forum for any price, similar to Courtney Love’s mourning of Kurt Cobain, except he never sucked on a microphone for dramatic effect. The circumstances surrounding Pliny the Elder’s death ooze of irony, which provided the Younger an engaging story from which to platform his self-promotion, proving his less than upstanding nature.
Pliny the Elder is most remembered for writing a thirty-seven volume set of encyclopedia about natural history. Oddly enough it was titled, THE NATURAL HISTORY. Above all, history defines Pliny the Elder as a scientist. Back in the early first millennium AD, the scientific technique of favor was based on observation: “If it smells like shit, looks like shit, feels like shit, plops in the toilet like shit and tastes like shit, then it’s shit!” Little did they know that it was actually Aunt Rita’s goose liver pate’. But, they couldn’t have known since they never bothered to test the validity of their observations with experimental study. This is precisely the mindset that led to the demise of the more ancient of the Plinies.
The fatal natural event that sparked Pliny the Elder’s curious eye was the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 (not to be confused with the Southeast crater eruption of Mount Etna in 1979), which destroyed the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. (Remember that traveling museum exhibit of the plaster cast-like human forms who appeared to be swallowed in their tracks by the serpiginous lava? That’s how I want to go, but instead of lava, I hope it is sour cream.) At that time, Pliny was enjoying semi-retirement, spending his time writing about things like dog-headed people, people with eyes in their shoulders and super-reptilian serpents that killed bushes and exploded rocks with their breath. Either he was branching out into fantasy fiction, or he was well on his way to marble misplacement. His wife noticed a plume of smoke escaping Mount Vesuvius across the bay and alerted him (note: it is this historical event that led to the practice of all husbands throughout the history that followed to stop listening to anything their wives have to say). The naturalist in him forced him to commandeer a ship and a crew, as he had Naval connections, being commander of the fleet in the Bay of Naples and all. (He was also a nighttime tollbooth operator on the Apian Way, which has nothing to do with this story, but I thought you’d like to know.) He sailed across the bay to observe the destruction up close.
As they neared the shore, Pliny must not have noticed Chicken Little hauling ass in the other direction, because the sky was definitely falling. Fatefully, he chose to proceed. Standing on the shore, making his scientific observations of the phenomenon of all hell breaking loose, Pliny the Elder failed to observe the invisible noxious fumes accompanying the fascinating lava and smoke and shards of mountain that were spewed from the volcano. Unfortunately, his respiratory system made the observation and determined accurately that you shouldn’t be breathing that stuff. He died on the shore in the arms of a couple of his slaves (serves him right for oppressing another human life). Subsequent scientists benefited from Pliny’s deadly observations, which led to the invention of placing a handkerchief over your nose while being doused by a volcano.
Pliny the Elder’s example of being an over-exuberant busy-body who meddled in the business of gods and his ultimate death because of it scared the shit out of other like-minded scientists. They decided to hide in ignorance rather than incite the ire of the gods. This, among other things, like the coinciding formation of the Catholic Church, sowed the seeds for the Dark Ages. One can safely suggest that Pliny the Elder’s shenanigans were responsible for the squandering of 500 years of potential scientific progress. Assuming that’s true, and why wouldn’t it be, one can surmise that without Pliny’s influence, we would be driving around in land speeders by now and shooting each other with lasers instead of barbaric bullets. Thanks a lot, Pliny!
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Secular Santa
Ask most Christian kids what the best part of Christmas is, and they’ll probably tell you it is Santa Claus bringing them a boat load of presents. Ask a Hindu kid the same question and the response you’ll receive will probably have something to do with not eating cows and bathing in a cholera infested river. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. The idea of Santa Claus has nothing to do with Christianity. The fact that he doles on Christmas Eve is a crazy coincidence resulting from, among other factors, marital stoicism.
If you believe the story told in the made for television special Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, by Rankin/Bass (and why wouldn’t you believe it – they wouldn’t put it on television if it wasn’t true), Santa’s decision to strafe the youth population of the world with gifts was not based on responsibilities or contracts he had with any religion. Also, nowhere was it disclosed that only Christian kids would benefit from their beliefs and his generosity.
Santa began his deliveries as a way to reduce the inventory of toys produced by the Kringle elves, who were neurotic toy makers incapable of curbing their toy-making compulsion. Let’s all thank our lucky britches they didn’t have the same compulsion with M. Night Shyamalan movies. All Santa wanted to do was clear out some of the toys to make room for a pool table. By the time he got back from Sombertown each night, those bastard elves filled up the den with yo-yo’s and sawdust dolls again. Plus, he was tired of sleeping in a bed full of wooden ducks, jack-in-the-boxes and toy soldiers. The miniature elf bed they gave him was hard enough to get comfortable in as it was. And the Winter Warlock was no help ever since he kicked his Angel Dust addiction. Kind of like how Sid Vicious ruined the Sex Pistols when he stopped shooting heroin. And stopped breathing.
Santa’s popularity grew, and more kids, of all creeds, looked for a handout. These demands caused him to reduce the frequency of his treks to once per year. He chose Christmas Eve, but it wasn’t because he felt he owed anything to the Christian faith, in which he may or may not have believed.
As divulged in the TV special, Christmas Eve was also Santa’s wedding anniversary. It was expressed on the program as the “most holiest of nights” . I happen to believe February 29th is the most holiest of nights, but that’s my bag. It was also a night that Mrs. Claus expected to be wined and dined and romanced. In addition, she expected some sort of diamond concoction each year. Santa was sensitive to Mrs. Claus’s anniversary needs for the first few hundred years of their marriage. After a while, his hankering waned, and accommodating his wife became more of a chore than anything else. So much of a chore that he chose to spend that particular night delivering gifts to every damn kid in the world rather than spending it swooning his honey.
This is the real reason Santa picked Christmas Eve to oblige the masses. It had nothing to do with celebrating the birth of little baby Jesus. It had everything to do with Santa being sick of his wife. Can you blame him? You saw Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Did you see what Mrs. Claus looked like by the end of the show? She must have been spending most of her time taste testing the Christmas candy. As far as animated figurines go, she looked pretty good in her younger, school marm days. Once she snagged her man, she let herself go big time. Huge time. There was no reason for her to try anymore. Not that Santa is any prize, either, but he didn’t place any unreasonable demands on her, like the want of diamonds and being paid attention to. He understood why she didn’t grope him anymore. With his size, it would take her weeks to grope him. Santa knew she did not have that much free time (because she was busy taste testing , of course). This explains why he gets delayed each year in Pattaya, Thailand, causing the Australian kids to get their presents a little late (and slightly soiled).
Since this evidence shows Santa’s generosity is not limited to those children who have been brainwashed with a Christian slant, every kid should expect something on Christmas morning. You don’t even have to call it Christmas. It can be referred to the Fat Guy Gift Day: “Hey, Fat Guy Gift Day falls on a Thursday this year. At least it won’t screw up the weekend.” Most of you get that day off from work, you may as well have something to call it.
Now that the moose is out of the rucksack, all of you non-Christian parents out there better start up a Christmas account (do banks offer Fat Guy Gift Day accounts?). Santa gives to children of all faiths. You’ve been getting off easy for too long. As for you Jewish people, you are really screwed. You’ve convinced the kinderlech that Chanukah is better than Christmas by bribing them with eight days of goodies. Now you’ll be flippin’ the bill for both occasion.
For the record, and beside the point (assuming I actually had one), I’m not Jewish but I celebrate Chanukah, because I really hate Antiochus of Syria.
If you believe the story told in the made for television special Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, by Rankin/Bass (and why wouldn’t you believe it – they wouldn’t put it on television if it wasn’t true), Santa’s decision to strafe the youth population of the world with gifts was not based on responsibilities or contracts he had with any religion. Also, nowhere was it disclosed that only Christian kids would benefit from their beliefs and his generosity.
Santa began his deliveries as a way to reduce the inventory of toys produced by the Kringle elves, who were neurotic toy makers incapable of curbing their toy-making compulsion. Let’s all thank our lucky britches they didn’t have the same compulsion with M. Night Shyamalan movies. All Santa wanted to do was clear out some of the toys to make room for a pool table. By the time he got back from Sombertown each night, those bastard elves filled up the den with yo-yo’s and sawdust dolls again. Plus, he was tired of sleeping in a bed full of wooden ducks, jack-in-the-boxes and toy soldiers. The miniature elf bed they gave him was hard enough to get comfortable in as it was. And the Winter Warlock was no help ever since he kicked his Angel Dust addiction. Kind of like how Sid Vicious ruined the Sex Pistols when he stopped shooting heroin. And stopped breathing.
Santa’s popularity grew, and more kids, of all creeds, looked for a handout. These demands caused him to reduce the frequency of his treks to once per year. He chose Christmas Eve, but it wasn’t because he felt he owed anything to the Christian faith, in which he may or may not have believed.
As divulged in the TV special, Christmas Eve was also Santa’s wedding anniversary. It was expressed on the program as the “most holiest of nights” . I happen to believe February 29th is the most holiest of nights, but that’s my bag. It was also a night that Mrs. Claus expected to be wined and dined and romanced. In addition, she expected some sort of diamond concoction each year. Santa was sensitive to Mrs. Claus’s anniversary needs for the first few hundred years of their marriage. After a while, his hankering waned, and accommodating his wife became more of a chore than anything else. So much of a chore that he chose to spend that particular night delivering gifts to every damn kid in the world rather than spending it swooning his honey.
This is the real reason Santa picked Christmas Eve to oblige the masses. It had nothing to do with celebrating the birth of little baby Jesus. It had everything to do with Santa being sick of his wife. Can you blame him? You saw Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Did you see what Mrs. Claus looked like by the end of the show? She must have been spending most of her time taste testing the Christmas candy. As far as animated figurines go, she looked pretty good in her younger, school marm days. Once she snagged her man, she let herself go big time. Huge time. There was no reason for her to try anymore. Not that Santa is any prize, either, but he didn’t place any unreasonable demands on her, like the want of diamonds and being paid attention to. He understood why she didn’t grope him anymore. With his size, it would take her weeks to grope him. Santa knew she did not have that much free time (because she was busy taste testing , of course). This explains why he gets delayed each year in Pattaya, Thailand, causing the Australian kids to get their presents a little late (and slightly soiled).
Since this evidence shows Santa’s generosity is not limited to those children who have been brainwashed with a Christian slant, every kid should expect something on Christmas morning. You don’t even have to call it Christmas. It can be referred to the Fat Guy Gift Day: “Hey, Fat Guy Gift Day falls on a Thursday this year. At least it won’t screw up the weekend.” Most of you get that day off from work, you may as well have something to call it.
Now that the moose is out of the rucksack, all of you non-Christian parents out there better start up a Christmas account (do banks offer Fat Guy Gift Day accounts?). Santa gives to children of all faiths. You’ve been getting off easy for too long. As for you Jewish people, you are really screwed. You’ve convinced the kinderlech that Chanukah is better than Christmas by bribing them with eight days of goodies. Now you’ll be flippin’ the bill for both occasion.
For the record, and beside the point (assuming I actually had one), I’m not Jewish but I celebrate Chanukah, because I really hate Antiochus of Syria.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Word of the Moment 1
I used to draw a comic called Comicabulary. Its purpose was to improve the quality of the world’s (and my own) English vocabulary by providing the definition of a word with an accompanying comic using that word to provide contextual reinforcement. Initially, I did not plan to draw a comic panel. My original intention was to present a silly paragraph or two using the word in outlandish contexts in order to develop a unique and memorable impression of the word. My hope was to create an environment that would promote the memory of the meaning of each word. Writing paragraphs proved to be too difficult for me, so I decided to draw instead. Hence, Comicabulary.
I created a set of these comics and sent them to a friend of a friend who happened to work at a comic syndication company. She told me that the comics were good and delightful, but their company wasn’t looking to promote educational tools and it was not the right kind of comic for them at that time. What she really meant was they sucked. Here’s proof:
I was never very happy with them, since they didn’t have enough of a humorous edge for my tastes. However, I hoped they might appeal to the Reader’s Digest crowd. So, why didn’t I send them to Reader’s Digest? Because, I gave up, of course. I’m not very tenacious – more Teflonacious. Ultimately, I was too enraptured with other aspects of life, like watching TV and thinking about keeping the world safe from alien invasion. Who knows, maybe someday I will exhume the comic. In the meantime, I’m going to give my original idea a go, manifested in a recurring Leper Pop feature: Word of the Moment. I don’t want to call it Word of the Day because, I believe, that title is already being used, and I don’t want to get sued. Besides, there is no way in hell I would be able to do this every day. Wisdom comes from knowing your limitations, or, at least, relying on them.
So, stand back, here it goes.
quoin (kwoin) noun – an exterior angle of a wall or other piece of masonry; cornerstone; keystone. verb – to secure or raise with a quoin.
Nobody cares about the quoins in the world. More often than not, we try to avoid running into the quoins while barreling around corners. Everybody loves barreling around corners. Only the sadistic love to barrel into quoins.
Sure, some quoins are bolstered with thicker bricks than the rest of the wall. Even decorative stone, sometimes. But the intentions of those efforts do not have the quoins’ best interests in mind. Those intentions nourish the structural fortitude of the buildings for which the quoins support. These quoin constructors are more interested in ensuring their buildings do not fall down than they are in praising the quoins.
Let us examine the quoin’s counterpart and archrival – the inside corner. The inside corner lives a nurtured life. The inside corner is basted with attention. The inside corner’s greatest offense is a little dusty build-up that can be wooshed easily away by The Swifter. The inside corners in rooms are always considered when determining the décor.
I’m as guilty as anybody in this matter. In the corners of my family room are my amp, a file cabinet of art/craft supplies, a book case, two pool cues, a door way and a pile of leaves. And of the quoins? Nothing, except my son’s guitar is leaning against one of them, and I will have to beat his ass for that. That’s all I need is for his grandma to come barreling her way from the kitchen and smash the hell out of the guitar with her Gene Simmons commemorative boots we bought her for Christmas last year.
In theory, the quoins are all supposed to be left free of debris so we do not trip on anything when barreling our way through the house. It’s a proven fact that humans love to barrel. We were bred to barrel. The social evolutionary consequences of this aspect of human development has led to unadorned quoins worldwide, except for some third world cultures where barreling around quoins is against their religion.
Barreling is a modern sociological human trait. It is one we share with dogs. Dogs love to barrel around quoins, too. They don’t care what is in their way, especially when there is someone at the door. In fact, they prefer to knock things over when barreling. This is why they wag their tails maniacally, so they can destroy our stuff even if they miss it with their barreling. They don’t care. It’s not like they paid for the stuff or will have to clean up the mess. It seems as if they don’t care about anything except for eating, getting pet and going outside. And barreling. And seeing if somebody is here. Can somebody remind me why we let dogs live with us? They certainly don’t care about quoins. And, neither do we. Maybe that’s the bond that keeps us together. Quoins. Quoins will keep us together. Think of my dog whenever, Some sweet standing quoin comes along while we barrel along, Don’t go around, You gotta be strong, Don’t Stop, ‘cause the quoin really loves you, Stop, the quoin is thinking of you, Look in my heart and let quoins keep us together. Whatever.
I think it’s time to change our view of the quoin. However, before we start enhancing our quoins with plants, and totem poles, and piles of candy that we are supposed to consider as art, and lawn furniture, and urns of ashed loved ones, and giant cardboard cut-outs of Charles Barkley, we will need to become more agile barrelers in order to avoid the items with which we celebrate our quoins. We need to start teaching precision barreling techniques in our schools, write a magazine called Better Barreling and create a home improvement show on TLC called This Old Barreler.
Above all that, we should get to know our quoins. I propose an annual world-wide Hug A Quoin Day. It will be held on the first Thursday of every August, and will require one day of post-hugging recuperation, so we can all enjoy a 4 day weekend in the summer (it is true - I don't care about people in the Southern Hemisphere), when we can actually enjoy ourselves outside, unlike the silly Thanksgiving “holiday” they throw at us in November when it’s usually crummy outside and we are forced to sit inside and eat and get drunk. I guess that’s not so bad, either, but the quoins deserve summer hugs so they can get a sense of our sweat and feel a little bit human, if only for a moment. I implore you all to write a letter to your most sensitive and malleable public official and demand that the quoins have a voice in our government in the form of a summer four day weekend, so we can get drunk outside and maybe even have sex in the woods. The quoins want us to cherish them in this manner. Just be careful to look out for barreling grandmas when you are hugging your quoin or when you having sex in the woods.
I created a set of these comics and sent them to a friend of a friend who happened to work at a comic syndication company. She told me that the comics were good and delightful, but their company wasn’t looking to promote educational tools and it was not the right kind of comic for them at that time. What she really meant was they sucked. Here’s proof:
I was never very happy with them, since they didn’t have enough of a humorous edge for my tastes. However, I hoped they might appeal to the Reader’s Digest crowd. So, why didn’t I send them to Reader’s Digest? Because, I gave up, of course. I’m not very tenacious – more Teflonacious. Ultimately, I was too enraptured with other aspects of life, like watching TV and thinking about keeping the world safe from alien invasion. Who knows, maybe someday I will exhume the comic. In the meantime, I’m going to give my original idea a go, manifested in a recurring Leper Pop feature: Word of the Moment. I don’t want to call it Word of the Day because, I believe, that title is already being used, and I don’t want to get sued. Besides, there is no way in hell I would be able to do this every day. Wisdom comes from knowing your limitations, or, at least, relying on them.
So, stand back, here it goes.
quoin (kwoin) noun – an exterior angle of a wall or other piece of masonry; cornerstone; keystone. verb – to secure or raise with a quoin.
Nobody cares about the quoins in the world. More often than not, we try to avoid running into the quoins while barreling around corners. Everybody loves barreling around corners. Only the sadistic love to barrel into quoins.
Sure, some quoins are bolstered with thicker bricks than the rest of the wall. Even decorative stone, sometimes. But the intentions of those efforts do not have the quoins’ best interests in mind. Those intentions nourish the structural fortitude of the buildings for which the quoins support. These quoin constructors are more interested in ensuring their buildings do not fall down than they are in praising the quoins.
Let us examine the quoin’s counterpart and archrival – the inside corner. The inside corner lives a nurtured life. The inside corner is basted with attention. The inside corner’s greatest offense is a little dusty build-up that can be wooshed easily away by The Swifter. The inside corners in rooms are always considered when determining the décor.
Woman: Honey, what are we going to put in that corner of the room?
Man: A beer keg refrigerator.
Woman: Don’t be silly. I think I’ll pile my stuffed animals there.
Man: Where do you want the TV?
Woman: Oh, put it in that corner over there, and make sure you don’t hit the exterior angle of the wall of the closet when you move the TV.
Man: You mean the quoin?
Woman: What’s a quoin?
Man: How the hell should I know? Can I put the TV down now?
Woman: Not until I decide what to put in the rest of the corners of the room.
Man: I wish we didn’t decide to buy a house with an octagonal family room.
I’m as guilty as anybody in this matter. In the corners of my family room are my amp, a file cabinet of art/craft supplies, a book case, two pool cues, a door way and a pile of leaves. And of the quoins? Nothing, except my son’s guitar is leaning against one of them, and I will have to beat his ass for that. That’s all I need is for his grandma to come barreling her way from the kitchen and smash the hell out of the guitar with her Gene Simmons commemorative boots we bought her for Christmas last year.
In theory, the quoins are all supposed to be left free of debris so we do not trip on anything when barreling our way through the house. It’s a proven fact that humans love to barrel. We were bred to barrel. The social evolutionary consequences of this aspect of human development has led to unadorned quoins worldwide, except for some third world cultures where barreling around quoins is against their religion.
Barreling is a modern sociological human trait. It is one we share with dogs. Dogs love to barrel around quoins, too. They don’t care what is in their way, especially when there is someone at the door. In fact, they prefer to knock things over when barreling. This is why they wag their tails maniacally, so they can destroy our stuff even if they miss it with their barreling. They don’t care. It’s not like they paid for the stuff or will have to clean up the mess. It seems as if they don’t care about anything except for eating, getting pet and going outside. And barreling. And seeing if somebody is here. Can somebody remind me why we let dogs live with us? They certainly don’t care about quoins. And, neither do we. Maybe that’s the bond that keeps us together. Quoins. Quoins will keep us together. Think of my dog whenever, Some sweet standing quoin comes along while we barrel along, Don’t go around, You gotta be strong, Don’t Stop, ‘cause the quoin really loves you, Stop, the quoin is thinking of you, Look in my heart and let quoins keep us together. Whatever.
I think it’s time to change our view of the quoin. However, before we start enhancing our quoins with plants, and totem poles, and piles of candy that we are supposed to consider as art, and lawn furniture, and urns of ashed loved ones, and giant cardboard cut-outs of Charles Barkley, we will need to become more agile barrelers in order to avoid the items with which we celebrate our quoins. We need to start teaching precision barreling techniques in our schools, write a magazine called Better Barreling and create a home improvement show on TLC called This Old Barreler.
Above all that, we should get to know our quoins. I propose an annual world-wide Hug A Quoin Day. It will be held on the first Thursday of every August, and will require one day of post-hugging recuperation, so we can all enjoy a 4 day weekend in the summer (it is true - I don't care about people in the Southern Hemisphere), when we can actually enjoy ourselves outside, unlike the silly Thanksgiving “holiday” they throw at us in November when it’s usually crummy outside and we are forced to sit inside and eat and get drunk. I guess that’s not so bad, either, but the quoins deserve summer hugs so they can get a sense of our sweat and feel a little bit human, if only for a moment. I implore you all to write a letter to your most sensitive and malleable public official and demand that the quoins have a voice in our government in the form of a summer four day weekend, so we can get drunk outside and maybe even have sex in the woods. The quoins want us to cherish them in this manner. Just be careful to look out for barreling grandmas when you are hugging your quoin or when you having sex in the woods.
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