Category Archives: Pooge

How about, “Let’s Beat Up Burnett and Beckerman?”

You know that stuff that Sweet Virginia needed to scrape right off her shoes (sorry, no links, you have to get it)? They must have been hip-deep in it when they thought up this one.

By far the most unlikely star of a prospective fall situation comedy
is that still-active lead singer of the Rolling Stones, who has signed
on to an ABC pilot for its fall schedule. Just to increase the degree
of unlikelihood, Mr. Jagger shot his scenes for the New York-based
pilot in a hotel room in Auckland, New Zealand, last week.

That
was the culmination of a saga at least as whimsical as the premise of
the show, which, for now, anyway, is titled "Let’s Rob Mick Jagger."

The writing team that came up with the idea, Rob Burnett, long David Letterman’s
executive producer, and his partner, Jon Beckerman, had previously
created the NBC comedy-drama "Ed." As Mr. Burnett outlined the tale in
a telephone interview, he and Mr. Beckerman "wondered if there was a
way do a serialized comedy — something like a comedy version of ‘Lost’
or ’24.’ "

Hatched in numerous meetings, the concept centered on
a janitor for a prominent New York building, to be played by the
character actor Donal Logue.
Down on his luck, the janitor sees a celebrity on television wallowing
in his wealth during a tour of his new Manhattan penthouse. Enlisting a
crew of similar ordinary but frustrated accomplices, the janitor
conceives a plot to rob the big shot’s apartment, a story line that
would unfold over a 24-episode television season.

Well, for one thing, serial comedy’s been done. Check the original BBC version of "The Office," which is highly unlikely to be topped by this high-concept freak.

For another thing — and this is the awful part — if I thought Mick would be nearly as much fun in this as he was in "Freejack" (which is on a list I haven’t yet completed of "Top Five Cheesy Movies that are Fun to Watch"), I might even tune in. For the pilot, anyway.

Morbid curiosity will take one a long way. Television counts on that.

It was inevitable

I got this from a certain former newspaperman-turned-bureaucrat who’s too chicken to put his name on it.  But then, as he admits, he didn’t write it himself. The joke is obvious, but this takes it beyond the obvious, and is therefore somewhat creative:

George:   Condi!  Nice to see you.  What’s happening?
Condi:   Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.
George:   Great.  Lay it on me.
Condi:   Hu is the new leader of China.
George:   That’s what I want to know.
Condi:   That’s what I’m telling you.
George:   That’s what I’m asking you.  Who is the new leader of China?
Condi:   Yes.
George:   I mean the fellow’s name.
Condi:   Hu.
George:   The guy in China.
Condi:   Hu.
George:   The new leader of China.
Condi:   Hu.
George:   The main man in China!
Condi:   Hu is leading China.
George:   Now whaddya’ asking me for?
Condi:   I’m telling you, Hu is leading China.
George:   Well, I’m asking you.  Who is leading China?
Condi:   That’s the man’s name.
George:   That’s who’s name?
Condi:   Yes.
George:   Will you, or will you not, tell me the name of the new leader
of China?
Condi:   Yes, sir.
George:   Yassir?  Yassir Arafat is in China?  I thought he’s dead in
the Middle East.
Condi:   That’s correct.
George:   Then who is in China?
Condi:   Yes, sir.
George:   Yassir is in China?
Condi:   No, sir.
George:   Then who is?
Condi:   Yes, sir.
George:   Yassir?
Condi:   No, sir.
George:  Look Condi.  I need to know the name of the new leader of
China.  Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.
Condi:   Kofi?
George:   No, thanks.
Condi:  You want Kofi?
George:   No.
Condi:   You don’t want Kofi.
George:  No.  But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk.
And then get me the U.N.
Condi:   Yes, sir.
George:  Not Yassir!  The guy at the U.N.
Condi:  Kofi?
George:  Milk!  Will you please make the call?
Condi:  And call who?
George:  Who is the guy at the U.N?
Condi:   Hu is the guy in China
George:   Will you stay out of China?!
Condi:   Yes, sir.
George:   And stay out of the Middle East!  Just get me the guy at the
U.N.
Condi:  Kofi.
George:  All right!  With cream and two sugars.

Drawn breath

What barren D?

Sorry. Mike Cakora just distracted me (in commenting on a recent post) by saying the letters in my name could be rearranged to say either "when drab art" or "brawn hatred."

He signed off, "I make a rock."

Har-de-har.

I had never explored those possibilities. I am more than aware, however, of the various ways Microsoft Word wants to spell "Warthen." There’s "War then," which is actually how it’s pronounced. Then we have:
Wart hen
Earthen (which has a reassuring solidity to it)
Wathena
Warden
Writhen
And the ever-popular "Wart hog."

The last may be my favorite, as I’ve always thought the A-10 was a fine aircraft. The Air Force hates it, but it provides fearsome ground support, and they’re almost impossible to shoot down.

The spell-checker on Netscape e-mail adds "Wrath" to the list. That’s pretty cool.

Unimaginatively, Outlook adds "War" and "Wart" (like young Arthur in The Once and Future King).

Typepad, the fanciful and perpetually irritating software I’m using at the moment, comes up with:
Warren
Marthena
Within
Weather
Athena
Athene
Heathen
Wrathing
Then
Warn
Waylen
Wharton (very popular with humans who misspell it)
Worth
Withe
Withing
Waken
Whether
Worthier
Farthing
Northern
Worthies
Warner
Worthy
Wither
Wooten
Worden
Whiten
Withed
Withes
Worsen
Whither

"Northern!" Prepare to defend yourself, suh!

And why Waylen, but not Waylon?

And what’s a Wathena?

Meanwhile, for "Cakora" we have:
Capra (love your movies, man!)
Cara
Cora
Kora ("Kora Kora Kora")
Caria
Clara
Camera
Caro
Kara
Okra (my favorite vegetable)
Kira
Korea
Cake
Cobra (That’s bad, Mike. As in "good." Like "phat.")
Cairo
Accra
CARE
Care
Cari
Carr
Cori
Cork (faith and begorra)
Cory
Kore
Kori
Kory
Coca (so that‘s where he gets the energy to write like that)
Core
Corr
Cookery

And now, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll go over and take a look at the view from our…

Okra Ike Cam.

Strictly business: Veep shows impartiality

There are many who speak of Vice President Dick Cheney with disrespect. This they should not do.

They say he cares only about taking care of his rich Texas friends. Over the weekend, he proved them wrong.

He showed that to him, all men are created equal. If business requires that he whack a friend, then he will not hesitate to do so.

Of course, he didn’t quite succeed in taking out Harry Whittington (Oh, and thanks to Mike C for the link). But even in this "failure," he showed his greatness. While he is what Sicilians call a "man with a belly," he also has a great heart. In the moment of pulling the trigger, he couldn’t quite bring himself to aim straight.

Of course, there’s another way to look at this. It’s highly likely that the Veep didn’t mean to take the guy out completely. After, would he have used a 28-gauge loaded with bird shot if he had meant to kill?Sneaking

In any case, the warning was delivered.

The White House has certainly taken the message seriously. Just as Sonny was very suspicious of Caporegime Clemenza after the Don was shot, it looks like the Secret Service is keeping a close eye on the Veep. Above you see a surveillance photo taken of Mr. Cheney as he was sneaking into the office just this morning. Don’t ask me how I got it.

Mr. Whittington got the message, too. According to The Associated Press, "Whittington sent word through a hospital official that he would not comment out of respect for Cheney."

What did Mr. Whittington do to earn this treatment? I’m not sure — after all, he was by all appearances a loyal family retainer, who had dutifully paid his tribute (the $2,000 maximum allowable personal contribution to the 2004 campaign). But according to a member of the Armstrong Family, which owns the ranch on which they were hunting, "He didn’t do what he was supposed to do."

I suppose that’s all we really need to know.

The only question remaining is, does this mean open war with the Whittington Family? I don’t know; hopefully, the other families won’t stand for it. But Mark, I’m telling you as a blogger who appreciates your loyal readership: Watch your back.

This thing’s gone far enough

OK, I should probably admit to you where I was going when I drove by the girl who was talking on the phone while jogging. I mean, if I don’t face up to my problem, how am I ever going to get better?

I was on my way to … well, to this place again. What’s so bad, or noteworthy about that? Well, this was the first time ever that I left work and drove halfway across town and back for no other purpose than to fetch myself a cup of coffee. In the past, it’s always been, "Hey, I think I’ll go book-browsing," or, "I have an errand to run in Five Points," or, "I need to go to a hotspot to do some blogging" — and pretty much always on a weekend.

(Oh, and for those of you keeping score on my time management: Except for that 20 minutes, which substituted for a lunch hour, I was very productive the rest of the day. Especially after that last coffee. So judge not, lest ye also become a blogger.)

This time, I didn’t even pretend there was an excuse. I had been thinking about my next cup of coffee ever since I had my last one, at breakfast (unless you count that half a cup I got at mid-morning, after begging the guy in the downstairs canteen to open back up just for me to get a refill, and then draining what little was left in the insulated carafe thingie). So first chance I got between meetings and such, I put on my coat, muttered something about "an errand or two to run," and drove straight there.

Here I am acting all bemused at the idiosyncracies of youth (my last post) one minute, then the next I’m standing in a long line of them waiting for a caffeine fix. I listen to them rattle off elaborate, absurdly complex orders that sound like litanies chanted in a foreign tongue — with repetitive responses intoned by the help behind the counter — and edge forward, waiting for when I can order my "plain coffee." The lad in front of me actually asks, "What do you have?" The reply is, "Depends on whether you want hot or cold." Everyone — except me — is hugely entertained when he asks for something in-between, and is informed that’s one thing they don’t have.

By the time he removes his inconvenient self and I belly up, I’ve scrapped plans for "just a small one," and order the "grande." The counterman overfills it — no objections from me there — and I ruin a perfectly good dress shirt and pair of gray pants trying to drive back. Ah, but it’s worth it. It tastes lovely. I even find myself tearing away the insulating wrap to savor the inanity of "The Way I See It No. 49." I am utterly lacking in discrimination at this point.

This is madness. I managed to quit Vicodin when I had taken it day and night for weeks after I broke my ribs kickboxing several years back. (And believe me, I felt its pull. No wonder it’s the favorite addiction of TV writers, from "House" to "The Book of Daniel.") So what’s with this? Why does this dark brew charm me to greater foolishness each day?

Well, I’m going to summon what shreds of self-respect I have left. Tomorrow, one coffee with breakfast. A big one. But that’s it. Or maybe another small one, if they’re just going to dump it out anyway. But no more mad, mid-day quests.

Today I hit rock-bottom. There’s only one way to go now.

In the interest of fairness

OK, now that I’ve filed a post criticizing the governor’s rhetorical style (but not his substance, please note, Lee‘s non sequitur about my reviewing his speech in advance notwithstanding), let’s detail some of my own gaffes in the course of this day preceding the State of the State. (I’d go ahead and tell you something of the substance of the speech, but it’s embargoed.)

How many ways can one man screw up in one day? Let us count them. Or some of them — I’ll let myself off the hook on a few things:

— I was late for the annual pre-speech briefing for editorial page editors. Not my fault, but then you have enough such incidents that "aren’t your fault" and you develop a certain kind of reputation anyway. I have one of those reputations. In fact, my boss, the publisher, has mandated that I have a weekly session with our VP for human resources, one of the most organized people I have ever met, in an effort to straighten myself out. At our last meeting, my coach said my assignment for the next meeting would be to think about what I want to get out of these meetings. This caused me to make a note to myself not to spend the next meeting free-associating.

— Anyway, I comforted myself with the thoughts that the luncheon was set for 11:30, and no one would actually start eating that early, and in the past these things have featured 20 or so minutes of standing about with drinks (generally soft in recent years, despite the guest list) before getting down to business. Also, I recalled that at the first such meeting after his election, lunch had been buffet-style, which gave me a little more wiggle-room. I was wrong, as you’ll see in a moment.

— An aside: I should count myself lucky that the guard outside let me pull my disreputable ’89 Ranger through the gates at all. I’ve come to appreciate the mere fact of actually getting into the governor’s mansion ever since one evening in 2002, just before the election. I was at the time a member of the Columbia Urban League board. It was the night of the CUL’s biggest event of the year, and as a minor part of the festivities I was to be honored with the organization’s John H. Whiteman Award for "outstanding leadership" as a board member (sort of a nice going-away present, really, since I was about to cycle off the board). Gov. Hodges had agreed to hold a reception at his place before the banquet out at Seawell’s. The guards looked at my invitation, heard my name, and said I wasn’t on the list, so I couldn’t come in. I remonstrated, and they made a phone call, and told me I definitely was not to be let in, and that I could take it up with the governor’s office in the morning, if I were so inclined. Worse, they wouldn’t let Warren Bolton in, either, apparently because he was with me. Well, I was cool and mature about it. I decided we should stand just outside the gate, and give a straight answer to any arriving or departing guests who asked us why we were standing there. They all shook their heads in apparent disbelief. It didn’t stop them from going in, though, as I recall.

— Anyway, after I pulled into the grounds, another guy in a Smokey the Bear hat waved me into a space. I hopped out and headed in. He said, "Your license plate is expired." I said, "What?… Oh… yeah… I think that sticker’s at the house somewhere." He told me he didn’t mean anything bad by telling me: "I’m just trying to save you fifty bucks." OK, uh, thanks, I said as I kept going toward the front door, but then I slowed down as it occurred to me that it was an ethical violation on my part to accept such a discretionary reprieve when I was a guest of the governor. I was about to turn around when I remembered: These governor’s Protective Detail guys dress like Highway Patrolmen, but they’re not actually troopers, and don’t have powers to enforce highway laws anyway. That is, I don’t think they do. I went in. I was late enough.

— And even though I couldn’t have been more than 15 minutes late, I’m sure, they were
already well into the salad course — everyone seated at the formal
dining table — and in mid-conversation regarding the governor’s
agenda. The only good thing was that I slipped in quietly enough that
the governor didn’t notice me until I had asked my first question, well
into the main course.

— Of course, my question turned into one of those mini-debates with the governor, which went on an embarrassingly long time before I could make myself stop arguing with his answers. Meanwhile, everyone else sat quietly waiting to ask their questions, and probably thinking about what an ass I was making of myself at their expense. I don’t know why I do that, but I do it everywhere I go. I can’t just make like a reporter, write down the answer, and shut up. But I should. Sometimes I should.

— I almost left the digital recorder I had turned on and slid down the table, but the governor called out, "Somebody leave a recorder out here?" Mine. Thanks. At a previous such lunch during the Hodges administration (before I was barred from the grounds), I had left my recorder. I never saw it again. This one was its replacement.

— To make up for my performance inside, I decided to make friends with the governor’s dogs on the way out. One consented to be petted; the other stood off and regarded me with healthy suspicion. Warren and Cindi Scoppe, who had come in a separate car in order to be on time, waited for me. I finally realized they were waiting because we needed to have a quick huddle to decide what, if anything, we wanted to say about the speech for the next day (to avoid interfering with the production of the news pages, our pages need to be done well before time for the speech), and they knew I was planning to go to Harry Lightsey’s funeral at 2:30. I told them I had time to meet them back at the office and discuss it there before heading for Trinity Cathedral. Then I stepped over to my truck, and realized I didn’t have my keys.

— Warren and Cindi waited while I barged back into the mansion without knocking (the faux pas just keep piling up, don’t they?) and searched around under the dining room table while the staff was clearing it. They said they hadn’t found anything. I guessed the answer to the mystery on my way back to the truck. Yep, my keys were in the ignition. Don’t even ask why I had thought it necessary to lock my truck
inside these well guarded grounds, because I don’t have an answer.

— Fortunately, Warren and Cindi were still waiting — they know me well — and we had the opportunity to fully discuss the next day’s editorial while I rode in Warren’s back seat back to the office. I had explained the situation to the guard at the gate, and he said it would be OK to get the truck later. I knew there was an extra set of keys in my desk.

— What I also knew, but forgot until we got all the way back to the office, was that I also carry yet another spare key to the truck’s doors in my wallet, for just such emergencies. Sure enough, as I found standing stupidly back in my office and rummaging around through credit cards, there it was. In my pocket all the time. Great. No one would have ever had to know, if I had just remembered that.

— So I had to ask my boss, the publisher,…

Oops, just realized that if I don’t run home NOW, I’m going to miss the State of the State itself. I have to watch to make sure he actually delivers the speech we’re commenting on tomorrow. Have to finish this tale of serial humiliation later…

Who put the ‘sip’ in ‘insipid?’

Two confessions:

  1. I’m hooked on Starbucks, although only moderately so. I hold my consumption of their House Blend to once a week, most of the time. (While in Memphis the week after Christmas, I’ll admit I drank it daily because an outlet was nearby; it nearly ruined my appreciation of the Ritazza joe they sell in the canteen down in the basement here at work, which normally I love.) It would be so much nicer if I gave my custom to some nice, local coffee house, but I leave that to my kids. They’re into that "Friends" kind of scene. To me, coffee’s not a social thing. I duck in, get it and go — unless I’m at a bookstore, in which case I quietly browse while drinking it. For this reason, I think it’s great that Starbucks is moving toward drive-thru. I can hardly wait for them to do that here — preferably on MY side of the river.
  2. I find those little philosophical musings they print on the side of their cups, under the heading "The Way I See It," irritatingly trite and inane. Fortunately, they’re usually covered by the brown insulating sleeve. But I sometimes peel that off (I put a lot of sugar in it, which makes anything that spills over the side quite sticky) and read the musings anyway. I don’t know why. Morbid curiosity, perhaps. Or maybe sneering at these banal observations makes me feel better about drinking the coffee. I don’t know.

Here’s an example, dubbed "The Way I See It #61:"

Imagine we are all the same. Imagine we agree about politics, religion and morality. Imagine we like the same types of music, art, food and coffee. Imagine we all look alike. Sound boring? Differences need not divide us. Embrace diversity. Dignity is everyone’s human right.

This is the considered opinion of one Bill Brummel (Beau‘s great-great-great grandson, perhaps?), identified thusly: "Documentary filmmaker. His programs focus on human rights issues."

Is there anything wrong with anything he said? No. But does it provoke thought? No. In fact, by the time he got to the bumper-sticker sentiment, "Embrace diversity," my brain had nearly shut down, grande coffee notwithstanding. Talk about boring.

Variety is the spice of life, and so on. We all agree on that. But when I see something this mind-numbingly obvious represented as profundity worthy of mass reproduction, I find I want to argue with it. I want to say something like, "You know, it would be great if we’d go ahead and all agree on morality. If there were fewer people out there disagreeing with the consensus on morality, we’d have lot a less rape, murder and child molesting going on. There would still be some of those things, of course, because it is tragically human to do things we know is wrong. What’s really unbearably outrageous is people doing things that we all pretty much know are wrong and defending them as being OK, and condemning those who would censure them as narrow-minded. Such people’s battle cry is "WHOSE morality?,’ as though there were no absolutes, when there are. Seriously, can’t you think of ANYTHING that is just plain wrong, no matter who says it’s right? What do you have to say about that, Mr. ‘Imagine there’s no heaven?’ How about the crimes I mentioned above? Couldn’t you draw the line at child abuse? And if you could, wouldn’t you have to admit that there IS legitimacy to drawing lines, meaning that diversity of thought and attitudes is NOT always good? Huh?"

OK, so maybe that wouldn’t fit on the cup. But I think it would be more worth the ink.

Dang

I remember some comedienne — apparently Rita Rudner — saying 15 or 20 years ago that she refused to buy anything technological until she got a written guarantee that nobody was going to invent anything else.

Those of us who had bought the White Album on vinyl, cassette and CD by that time could identify.

But I really thought I was safe on this one. I really thought DVDs were going to be a smart buy. I’m really into movies, and when I was a kid I thought that if ever I were as rich as Howard Hughes, I’d own copies of all my favorite films so I could watch them any time I wanted. And I’m not talking about "Ice Station Zebra" here.

But when VHS came out, I confined myself to taping the edited versions they showed on TV. I generally didn’t think buying the movies themselves on tape would be a wise investment, and I was right. That’s why you can pick up the few remaining on store shelves today for a song.

But DVDs were different. They were digital, and ones and zeroes would always be ones and zeroes. If a more advanced format came along, they should be easily transferable with little or no loss of quality, right? You couldn’t say that about the analog versions.

So I started collecting some of my favorites. As a father of five, I’ve never been one to spend much on toys for myself, but I wasn’t shy about making lists of what I liked and did not yet have for my family to consider for Christmas, my birthday and Father’s Day.

So gradually, I built up my my modest film library to where it fills, say, a couple of bookshelves. All primo stuff, too. And whenever possible, I went for the widescreen or letterbox format. Sure, Steve McQueen might look pretty small in "The Great Escape" on my old-fashioned, nearly-square 27-inch — but I was looking to the future.

In fact, I was at Best Buy just last night, exchanging one of the two copies of "Snatch" I got for Christmas for one of "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," and while I was there, I couldn’t resist checking out those 50-inch plasma babies and dreaming of the day when they drop down to my workadaddy price range.

Then, this morning, I got around to perusing the Week in Review section in Sunday’s NYT, and ran across this outrage.

For those of you too lazy to follow the link, it says:

DVD movies look just fine on TV. But if you’ve recently bought a
high-definition screen, you may be surprised to discover that current
DVD movies don’t actually play in high definition.

Maybe that’s not too bad. I mean, if my movies look as good as they do now, only wider and bigger, I could live with that and be satisfied. But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that just in case you want to start buying DVDs that do play in high-def, you’ve got to make a bet that risks wasting even more money than the suckers who bought Beta in the early 80s.

That, in fact, is the point of the story — that two mutually exclusive formats have been drawn up for high-def DVDs, and it’s not just Sony on one side and the rest of the world on the other. Apple, Panasonic and 20th Century Fox are backing one pony, and Microsoft, Sanyo and Warner Brothers are putting their money on the other.

There is some good news, though: "Both types of players will be able to play conventional DVDs." Just not in high-definition. Well, I can live with that. But still.

It DOES mean something, Mr. Natural

Totally off any subject at hand, and probably not worth reading, but I’m still reeling from having wasted two hours of my life, so why should you be spared…

In a post toward the end of last month, I made a completely superfluous reference to underground cartoonist Robert Crumb’s Mr. Natural character. I won’t be making such casual links in the future, at least, not to that individual’s creations. Last night, my wife and I watched "Crumb," the David Lynch-produced biographical documentary. We had sort of enjoyed "American Splendor," in which Paul Giamatti managed to make Harvey Pekar‘s excruciatingly mundane existence interesting. Since that oddball flick was based in the "reality" comic book illustrated by Mr. Crumb, we thought (no, I thought; I take full responsibility) the 1994 film about him might also be engaging. We were (I was) wrong.

I came away from the film with one overwhelming impression:

Boy, that R. Crumb is one twisted (expletive).

Excuse my implied language, but I just had no idea. And yet I should have. It’s right there in his work, and if there’s ever been a better illustration of the truism that "by their fruits ye shall know them," it is the work of Mr. Crumb. (And yes, I read the part of that chapter that said "judge not," but read on.)

I never was a fan of Zap Comix or any of Mr. Crumb’s other work, but I was exposed to some of it at the time (although not much more beyond the ubiquitous "Keep on Truckin’" thing, and the Janis Joplin/Big Brother and the Holding Company album cover and such). And back then, I just thought this was a guy whose imagination was a little out there on the fringe of the kind of countercultural stuff that shocked our parents but that I tended to shrug at. I didn’t embrace it, but I wasn’t all that horrified, either. I was very young, and had not yet figured out that in one sense of the word (see sense 2), "discrimination" can be a healthy thing.

If the documentary got it right, the stuff in those comics was not just the product of a warped, hyperactive imagination with a penchant for mocking social mores. The problem was, he wasn’t entirely making this stuff up. According to those interviewed for the film, those twisted characters acting out abnormal, fetishistic sexual obsessions with a complete lack of regard for the human objects of their perversions actually were R. Crumb, in a real sense. As former wife after former girlfriend (one of them a professional pornographer) after family member, and Mr. Crumb himself, repeatedly asserts in the film, he not only thought like that, he acted like that. At one point, he acknowledges that he doesn’t think he has ever actually loved any woman. His relationships — or what we learn of them — tend to bear this out. As for some of the other twisted stuff — such as the drawings that pushed extreme racial stereotypes far beyond mere satire — the viewer is left without any satisfactory explanation.

All of that said (and here’s where I get to the "judge not" part), the film also made clear that the tree that is Robert Crumb was severely bent as a twig. No, it’s not an excuse, but it does appear to be part of the explanation. As Mr. Crumb and his brothers related, their father brutalized them (breaking the artist’s collarbone one Christmas) and their mother was an amphetamine addict who attacked the father (to the point that he wore makeup to work to cover where she had clawed his face). Both of the brothers were withdrawn and dysfunctional — neither was able to make his way in life in even the unconventional manner that their famous sibling has. One of them, who lived with their mother, never ventured forth into the world and spent his days in a psychiatric prescription drug fog, committed suicide a year after the filming.

There were also two sisters, but they declined to be a part of the film, indicating that at least someone in the family was capable of making good decisions.

It was profoundly depressing. And if I ever found anything in Mr. Crumb’s work even mildly amusing before, I won’t in the future, knowing where his "art" comes from.

Come to think of it, the fact that I watched the film all the way to the end makes me wonder a little about myself. And if you read all the way to the end of this, I sort of wonder about you, too.

Back to work.

Just in time for Halloween

A black cat crossed my path this morning.

Which wasn’t fair at all. I mean, I had done everything right. Got up early, dropped off some shirts at the cleaners well before the cutoff for getting them back today, ran a couple of other quick errands while I was at it, and headed home for my morning run and then breakfast.

So I didn’t really need this omen. Not that it matters, of course. I have this happen every once in a while, and I’ve never noted any correlation between black cats and bad things happening. And I’m the neurotic sort who analyzes everything to death, including trivial apparent connections, so I would have noticed.

Still. It sort of ticked me off. The cat seemed to do it deliberately.

Anyway, I was wondering. I came across this cat suddenly, as I was rounding a bend coming into my neighborhood. It was sort of fluffy, and at first I thought it was a small dog. It was standing indecisively near the curb, and then started briskly out it front of me as I rolled toward it. It saw me, and stopped, just as I was braking. It looked for an instant as though it would turn back, but then looked away from me (in that arrogant way cats have) and proceeded on across.

What I was wondering was this … or rather, two things:

  • If the cat had turned back, would that have been a good omen? Or at least neutral?
  • If I hadn’t braked in time, and had run over it, would that have negated any theoretical bad luck? Or would it have been worse, like breaking a mirror or something? I know it would have made me feel worse. I think. (And no, Cindi, I wouldn’t have done it on purpose.)

As I said, I analyze everything to death. Anyway, any experts out there on this? Resources on the Web are confusing. This one says that in some countries, a black cat crossing your path is a good omen. Should I move to one of those countries?

I don’t know. I’m not planning on dressing up or anything, so this is as close as I get to getting in the spirit of the holiday. Have a happy and safe All Hallows’ Eve, and a blessed All Saints Day.

Harriet Miers was a BABE

This might seem like a strange thing to bring up now that Harriet Miers’ nomination has been withdrawn. In fact, it would be an odd subject even if her nomination were still operative. But I’m not the one who first brought it up, and when I ran across something interesting while hunting for art for my last posting, it seemed to call for a mildly interesting footnote on the whole affair.

A lot of people (tacky people, mostly) said unkind things about Ms. Miers’ personal appearance — something that, it should go without saying, should have no bearing on her suitability for a seat on the court. Even one of our own letter writers (none of whom can be described as tacky, of course) remarked upon her makeup in a way that was not complimentary.

But that was nothing compared to the nasty, catty stuff out there in the Blogosphere. Such was to be expected, of course, from the incorrigible Wonkette, who said Ms. Miers reminded her of "an LPGA contestant," and then conducted a "poll" on the subject of her readers, who said she reminded them of, among others, Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne.

Plenty of others joined in, as you can see by the links from this posting.

But allow me to have the last word. I discovered this morning that Harriet Miers was a babe. At Miersbabe_3 least, she was once upon a time (in 1963, when she was in high school, to be exact). Beauty may fade as bitter experience does its worst upon us, but at least this former Supreme Court nominee can say (if she ever wants to) that she was once better looking than any of those making fun of her.

Not that it matters, of course. I just thought it was interesting.

Thank Blank

Has anyone noticed, and been bothered (or at least perplexed) by the message on the electronic sign at the state fairgrounds the last few days?

(Safety consideration: This is best studied while stuck at the Rosewood red light when heading south on Assembly.)

The message is as follows:

First, the entire sign is filled with the word "Thank"

Then the word dissolves into a picture of the upper part of a clown’s face, and as you watch (waiting for the next word), the clown gives you an animated wink with his right eye.

That is followed by the words, "For a wonderful"

and the message ends with the words, "2005 State Fair"

So, to put it all together, the message is:

Thank (winking clown) for a wonderful 2005 State Fair.

What is that supposed to mean? Did someone forget the word "you," or is the first word supposed to be "Thanks?" If so, whoever made the error has had all week to fix it. I have to wonder whether there’s something I’m not getting about the message. Is the winking clown a reference to Conklin Shows, which used to run the midway (it has been merged into North American Midway Entertainment, the new vendor)? I believe its logo is, or was, a stylized clown face. Would the State Fair folks put up a sign facing the public to thank the (former) private provider in this manner? Seems unlikely. Is the fact that the winking clown is winking at you, the passerby, meant to imply the word "you?" If so, that is one really cryptic use of body language.

Can anyone decode this? As one who went to the fair, I’m assuming this is a message aimed at me, but I’m just not getting it.

Missed opportunity

I was trying to get a bit of work done just now — and yes, I do occasionally attempt that, even though, as Jake Barnes noted, it’s part of the ethics of journalism never to appear to be actually working (when you get to that last link, search for "newspaper") — and the mobile started buzzing.

I didn’t recognize the number, but answered.

Me: "Hello."
Female voice, with a tone as though there’s something wrong about my voice: "Gracie?"
Me: "No Gracie here. Sounds like you’ve got the wrong number."
She, sounding less accusatory: "Oh, I’m sorry."
Me, taking it like a sport: "Not at all. Quite all right."

She hangs up, and only then, when it is a second too late, do I realize that I should have said: "When you do find Gracie, say goodnight for me."

This column contains no allergens

‘Disinterested observer’
corrupted by a can of soup
By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
    BIG BROTHER is about to step in and make my life — and the lives of a tiny handful of others — better by imposing broad regulations that will probably cost the food industry billions without benefiting the overwhelming majority of Americans one whit.
    And I’m fine with that. But the fact that I’m fine with it does make me a tad uncomfortable.
    I’ve never wanted to be part of an interest group. That’s why I throw away those membership solicitations from AARP (even though I sometimes feel a wee bit envious of the discounts my wife, who lacks such scruples, enjoys).
    For one thing, it’s a liability in my business. Even though I write opinion these days rather than “objective” news, I value detachment. Like the human computers called “mentats” in Frank Herbert’s novels, I prefer my judgments to be generally untainted by “feelings” or self-interest.
    I can be passionate about issues, but they tend to be fairly abstract (say, government accountability) or involve groups to which I don’t belong — such as poor, black, rural children who get the short end of the stick on educational opportunity.
    I cling to the great self-delusion of the Average White Guy, which is that I don’t belong to a group. If there’s a group trait among us white guys, it’s that we don’t see ourselves as having group traits, or interests in common. I look at a rich white guy and don’t celebrate his success (he’s not sharing it with me). And when he goes to the slammer for insider trading or whatever, I’m as likely to feel Schadenfreude as a member of any other ethnic group.
    You can’t even characterize me as a WASP. I’m a half-Celtic mutt, and I’m Catholic. But I refuse to feel aggrieved when secularists (vicious, slanderous dogs that they are) attack the Church. I tend to snort at whiny releases I get from the Catholic League For Religious and Civil Rights (“Yahoo! Displays Bias Against Catholics”), and sneer at politicians’ ham-handed efforts to corral the “Catholic vote.”
    Not that bias against Catholics doesn’t exist. It’s just that I refuse to join the pity party.
    But there are limits to my detachment. I’m no mentat, but a three-dimensional human being, and to fail to recognize that is to fail to see the world accurately (as any mentat would tell you).
    I think it would be great if somebody really did do something about the trains that keep me and others who work on Shop Road from getting downtown and back in a timely fashion. And as an asthmatic, I welcome all the restrictions recently placed on smoking in public places.
    But I can rationalize those. Eliminating train delays would also benefit football fans (a group to which I definitely don’t belong), fairgoers, Farmers Market shoppers, folks trying to get to I-77, and the residents of Arthurtown, Taylors and Little Camden. And everyone is harmed by cigarette smoke; those of us who suffer more immediately are merely the canaries in the coal mine.
    But this latest thing I just can’t rationalize away. On Thursday, I finally became corrupted by the unoriginal sin of narrow interest. That was the day I read in an article (it wouldn’t let me link directly; search for "Zhang" and "allergens") from The Wall Street Journal that a new federal food-labeling law taking effect Jan. 1 will not only cause packagers to highlight the presence of milk, eggs and wheat (to which I am allergic, in the first two instances to a life-threatening degree) and other major allergens, but it will go to the next level — letting the less-savvy know that “whey” and “casein” mean milk just as surely as do butter and cheese. (I was an adult before I realized why I was getting sick from consuming “non-dairy” products containing traces of sodium caseinate.)
    Best of all — and this is the really sweet part — some manufacturers are going so far as to simply eliminate the allergens from their recipes, when they are not key ingredients. You may ask yourself why the allergens were even in there if they were not essential. If so, congratulations! You have finally thought to ask a question that has driven me nuts my whole life. I have to remove my bifocals and press labels against my nose to read the fine print on every packaged product I consider consuming. And more often than not, I find that some innocuous-sounding product such as beef-vegetable soup, or an oat-based cereal, has been inexplicably poisoned with whey or another form of dairy. It doesn’t look creamy, and you can’t taste it, but it’s there.
    And there’s no acceptable explanation for it; the soup or cereal would taste fine without it. As often as not, a competing brand right next to it is made without the offending materials, and with no damage to quality.
    So how to explain it? Why would a food processor go to the expense of buying mass quantities of an irrelevant ingredient, arrange to have it delivered, and put it in the product? Other interest groups have their paranoid conspiracy theories, and here’s mine: This country has for decades been run from behind the scenes by the dairy industry. Don’t try to “reason” with me on this; no other explanation satisfies.
    Yet the iron grip of Big Cheese must be loosening. How else could the FDA be getting ready to enforce these new regulations? How else could Campbell Soup Co. — an outfit that produces a gazillion products, of which I can safely consume about four — be on the verge of purging its products of unnecessary allergens?
    In any case, it’s wonderful news. To me. Suddenly, grocery store aisles are going to seem a lot less like minefields. To me.
    And there’s the rub. I just can’t get around the fact that in this case, I am a member of a hyper-narrow interest group. Sure, millions have “allergies,” in the sense that they get seasonal hay fever, or suffer a little rash when they eat strawberries. But not that many of us have real allergies, in the sense of a clear and present danger of going into deadly
anaphylactic shock from exposure to a common food. Oh, everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who has “this bizarre thing about peanuts,” but that’s about it. The Journal article says about 150 people die from food allergies a year. So in one sense, the entire food industry is going to be retooled to save about one in every two million people.
    And I think that’s great.
    So I’m human. Sue me. But don’t try sneaking any of your spoiled bovine secretions into my tucker. If you do, Big Brother’s gonna getcha.

Feliz Nueve de Octubre

Happy John Lennon’s birthday, all you fans out there! May you be a whole lot happier than he was, in spite of all his advantages.

And no, I’m not the kind of guy who goes around with totally pointless Beatles trivia in his head. Lennon Well, actually, I am the kind of guy who goes around with totally pointless Beatles trivia in his head, but not to the extent of remembering their birthdays. That’s like something chicks would do, man, like remembering their fave foods (John: corn flakes) or something. And as I age, I find I can’t perfectly remember all of the words to all of their songs any more, so there’s a good chance that’s been crowded out by more important stuff. Not a certainty, but a chance.

No, I remember that the ninth of October is John Lennon’s birthday because Nueve de Octubre is also Guayaquil Independence Day. Now, you might not find that credible — who goes around remembering anything beyond the Fourth of July and maybe Bastille Day, right? But I lived in Ecuador back when I was in the fifth and sixth grades, and not only was Nueve de Octubre the name of the main drag in Guayaquil, but we got a whole week off from school for it. We got a Scroogesque day-and-a-half for Christmas, but a week for the day that Guayaquil tried to secede from the rest of the country. Lest you think that means Guayaquil is more nationalistic than Catholic, I should probably point out that since we were south of the equator, the school year was backwards, and Christmas fell just days before summer began. There was little point in taking off a lot of time at the end of December when we were going to be off from early January until April. Besides, the week-long celebration also included the Día de la Raza, which we think of as Columbus Day.

And OK, I also remember that John Lennon was born during the Blitz, as German bombers were attacking Liverpool in 1940. That’s a pretty cool factoid, I always thought. But I don’t know his fave color. Or I didn’t until I looked it up (green).

So it has come to this…

You can read, or see video, of all the devastation — the flood waters, the bodies in the streets. You can see the refugees from the path of the storm, right in your own community. You can participate in debates about whether New Orleans should be rebuilt, and if so, how. But sometimes it’s the little things — the truly insignificant things, really — that tell you just how far gone a once-vibrant, unique city has gone compared to what it was.

To many people, the beverage associated with New Orleans is bourbon. But I haven’t been there since I lived there in junior high school, so I have a different association. To me, New Orleans is about sitting in front of the Cafe Du Monde and drinking coffee with chicory while looking out across Jackson Square. In fact, since about a year or so ago, when I suddenly realized I could get it over the Internet, that’s what I’ve drinking at home. I’ve been wondering whether I’ll have to give it up, but that’s seemed hardly worth talking about in light of all the real suffering out there.

(Cafe Du Monde already had nostalgic associations for me when I first discovered it at that young age. That’s because the cafe itself — or something that looked just like it — was used in the logo of French Market brand coffee, which my grandfather had sold when I was even younger. It meant a lot to me to be sitting in the actual place in the picture.)

But this morning, I heard this report on NPR. To my shock, an actual denizen of the city — a columnist at the Times-Picayune — stated on coast-to-coast radio that the four hours each day that Starbucks is open is "the best four hours of the day." The point of his commentary was to portray the extent to which his city is no longer the home that it was. Nothing could have communicated that idea more completely to me than that one detail — that someone actually OF that city, where distinctive coffee is a part of the community’s character, could speak so wistfully of the Wal-Mart of java. Hey, I’ve been known to drink Starbucks myself — even to go out of my way to get some, knowing that I have the true stuff at home. I suspect that, to paraphrase an old Mike Myers line, they put an addictive chemical in it that makes you crave it fortnightly.

But I don’t live and work in New Orleans. When someone who does is reduced to standing outside McCoffee waiting for it to open each day, you have to wonder whether the place will ever be anything like what it was, ever again.

Get a little respect

Based on the fact that it garnered no comments, I’m thinking not many people bothered to read this little ditty from yesterday — probably because there wasn’t a whole lot of substance to it in and of itself, I’ll admit. (The Ron Morris column it was based on was much better.)

But if you didn’t read it, you probably didn’t follow the link back to this older (and marginally more substantial) posting, and that would be a shame. Because when I looked at that older posting, I noticed I had failed to provide an explanatory link for the phrase,  un’ uomo di rispetto, and so I went out surfing and found one. And I thought it was pretty cool, so I write this to draw your attention to it.

Of course, you’re not going to like it unless you’re a Godfather fan. I particularly liked it because it was so much like one of my many get-rich-quick schemes that I’ve never followed up on (probably because I don’t want badly enough to be rich). It came out of an idle conversation one day with a colleague while we were riding in a car and had the time to be idle. The idea was to do a self-help book that would actually sell to guys, rather than just to the Bridget Jones types out there. It would have been lessons for life gleaned from Mario Puzo‘s masterpiece — both the book and the movie. The title could have been something like, "Listen to Your Godfather." Or whatever.

Anyway, the lessons would be based on such pearls as, "Never tell anybody outside the family what you’re thinking," and "Spend time with your family… a man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man."

Basically, every other page would have elaborated for a few paragraphs on one of the aphorisms, with an appropriate still from the movie on the facing page — assuming we could get the rights. I think it was thinking about going through the hassle of dealing with all of those pezzonovantes in Hollywood and New York trying to get the rights that put me off the project.

I never figured out what to do with the most oft-repeated saying from the movie: "This is business, not personal." It probably would have required an introductory essay at the beginning of the book explaining that the reason you need to buy the book is that you might think you understand the significance of that phrase, but you really don’t. See, the movie actually failed on one level. The point of the book, revealed in a soliloquy by Michael just before he goes off to kill Sollozzo and Capt. McCluskey, is that all the things that people say are "business, not personal" are actually personal. He explained that understanding that, and living his life accordingly, was the secret of his father’s "greatness."

This is a major theme for Puzo, which he explored more transparently in The Fourth K, which is about a president who, because of a personal tragedy — the murder of his daughter by terrorists — uses the power of his position to launch a worldwide War on Terror that is in reality a personal vendetta. And no, all you antiwar folks out there, the president’s name wasn’t "Bush." It was "Kennedy."

Fight or flee? Neither, actually, old boy.

Imagine this in Andy Rooney’s voice, only with an edge…

Didja ever have one of those days when you were utterly convinced that those experts out there are right, that evolution has not prepared us in any way for modern life — especially of the white-collar variety? A day when you reach the realization that Ron Livingston‘s character did in "Office Space" — that Man was not meant to sit in cubicles (or offices) doing TPS reports?

I mean, our bodies — and particularly our central nervous systems — were just not made for responding to stress by smiling and being being all civilized and diplomatic and constructive and filling out the proper forms. We’re hard-wired to fight or flee, and all the rules nowadays say we can’t do either.

Anyway, while most days I love my job and can honestly say that I wouldn’t trade it for any other (except maybe directing movies, and I don’t think that’s realistic at this point), there are days — and I’m not saying this is one of them, nor am I saying it isn’t — when I wish I were something like a soldier, or a boxer. Days when instead of saying, "Yes, sir, well, I’m sorry you feel that way about that column/editorial/blog item," you want, on an atavistic level, to just go out and take out the objective (or at least blow something up), or kick some butt.

Of course, neither of those options is any more realistic than my chances of directing. The Army wouldn’t take me even when I was young and relatively fit. As for boxing — well, I took up kickboxing several years ago, when I was 47, and in my very first (and last) sparring match, my opponent broke four of my ribs in the first round. I still went the full three rounds, even after he dropped me to one knee by hitting me again in the very spot where my ribs were broken. That one hurt. (I am proud of having gone the distance, even though it was only three rounds. Conversely, my wife sees it as final proof, as though she needed any more, that I am an idiot. Which isn’t my fault, since, speaking of evolution, my brain still hasn’t fully developed.) Basically, this guy didn’t get the idea of sparring; he seemed to think it was a real fight. Combine that with my inability to think defensively (as in, keeping my stupid elbows down), and I was in trouble.

So really, I’m pretty lucky that I do have a weenie job such as editorial page editor. Especially since someone just came in while I was writing this and gave me some good news that made this day a lot better. So I guess I’ll wait until another time to strip off my clothes and go running through the savanna — or the would-be Green Diamond project — looking to kill a wildebeest with a rock. For now, blogging is about as close as I’ll get to that.

Out amongst ’em

    Just a few more minutes — a precious few — and the mob will be sufficiently distracted by their bread and circuses that I can make my escape. Until then, I’m trapped…

Forgive me, but this situation brings out the very worst, most prejudiced, least tolerant elements of my character.

I was out amongst ’em today. By "’em," I choose a semi-articulate means of expressing my strong sense of "otherness" when compared to a certain very broad swath of the folk of our land.

I’m talking about football fans. Yes, yes, I know, many football fans are otherwise good and decent people in whom I would find many fine and admirable qualities. Many of them are friends of mine. (But we bigots always say that, don’t we?) But when they are in fan mode, I find them intolerable.

I suppose this is to some extent, like all prejudices, an irrational response. I have an excuse, though. I think I’m suffering from a mild form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Football has been very, very bad to me.

I haven’t been a football fan myself since 1969, when that snotty Joe Namath led the Jets to beat my team, the Baltimore Colts, in a drastic distortion of the natural order. I had waited what had seemed like forever (a year or two is like forever at that age) for Johnny Unitas and company to prevail over the hated Packers, and they finally had. That meant they had achieved their rightful place as the best team in the world. Sure, there was that mere formality of a post-season exhibition against the AFL, but everyone knew that the AFL was profoundly inferior to the NFL, so it hardly counted, right?

What that stunning experience taught me was that football is an unforgivably capricious sport. Too much rides on the uncontrollable flukes of a single game. In baseball, as in life, you’ve got to be good over the long haul to achieve the pennant. That builds character. In football — because the game is so insanely harsh upon its practitioners’ bodies — there are so few games that every single one is all-important. You can’t afford to lose a single one, if you want to be the champs. Such inflated stakes make each game ridiculously overimportant to fans. They lose all sense of proportion, which is very off-putting.

But I didn’t really learn to hate the game until I came to work at The State, and spent my first year here being the editor in charge on Saturdays. You can see where this is going, can’t you? It seemed that the sadists over in the Roundhouse had contrived to schedule every single home game that year to begin shortly after the time I had to be at work — meaning that there was no way I could get to work in less than an hour and a half. You’ll recall that back then, the newspaper offices were located in the very shadow of the Grid Temple. We’re a little farther away now, but not enough so to make it easy to get in and out on a game day. Oh, excuse me, isn’t that supposed to be capitalized — Game Day?

I would travel around and around a circle with a five-mile radius centered upon Williams-Brice, probing for weaknesses in the wall of flag-bedecked vehicles, looking for a way in to work, always frustrated. Up Bluff or Shop road? No. Around Beltline to Rosewood and back in? No. A frontal assault up Assembly? That was as mad as Pickett’s Charge. Through Olympia? Are you kidding?

By the time I was finally at the office, I was foaming at the mouth. Seriously, I wasn’t fit to talk to for hours, I was filled with such hostility for every single fan (you know the word is short for "fanatic," don’t you?) out there. I was in such a degraded, paranoid state of mind that I actually believed (temporarily) that they had all conspired to cause me this frustration intentionally (they couldn’t possibly be enjoying that gridlock themselves, so there HAD to be a nefarious motive somewhere). My embarrassing discourses on the subject to fellow employees were as profane as they were unwelcome. I think the worst day was the one when I was almost arrested by a Highway Patrolman who refused to let me up Key Road to The State‘s parking lot when I had finally worked my way to within 100 yards of it — an obstinacy on his part to which I responded with a distinct edge of barely-contained rage.

This afternoon, I had to go out a little after 1 p.m., and had to pass twice through the heart of the fan encampment. Folks were already tailgating. There was no yardarm in sight, but I’m quite certain the sun wouldn’t have been over it if there had been, and these folks were already getting a six-hour jump on the liquoring-up process. (They couldn’t really like football, if they need that much anesthetic before a game.) This shouldn’t have bothered me, but I couldn’t stop thinking thoughts such as these: This is Thursday, a workday. I’ve got more work waiting for me back at the office than I can get done by the weekend, and there’s a war going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Gulf Coast from Texas to Alabama has just been essentially wiped off the map, the price of fuel has jumped practically 50 percent in a matter of days, and these people can’t think of anything better to do with their time.

But they’re not the problem. It’s me. My response is contemptibly irrational. I’m only harming myself. Case in point: I’ve been ranting about this so long, I’ve almost lost my window of opportunity to escape before the fair-weather types start slipping out at halftime and clogging Shop Road.

Gotta go. Bye. I’ll try to be more civil and tolerant of my fellow humans in my next posting. But I’m not promising anything.