Torch Dropped

I am not an athlete. I know this about myself. Now, I do wish I were more athletic in general, but I have come to understand that I do not aspire to be an athlete. A musician may or may not show the same dedication as an athlete. It takes practice to get to Carnegie Hall, but a guy who gets bombed every weekend and plays the ukulele at 3 AM is still a musician. I was a musician and still pick up and play things, but I am not an active performing musician. Anyone could be into sports. That does not make you an athlete. An athlete is different. I think nothing is more exemplary of the peculiar nature of an athlete than this past summer’s Olympics, in which the world was enthralled by the dedication and perseverance of…well, I don’t remember his name. But lets call him that guy with the metal things for feet. He had suffered some mishap that resulted in the loss of his feet, and he competed in the Olympics with a pair of springy metal things. The world was inspired and, as I just said, enthralled. Count me out of the world for this one. Here’s the thing: say one afternoon I was shopping at Von Maur and riding the escalator when I began to feel faint, and then I fainted, falling on the escalator. Not down it, but just falling back. And I was wearing shoes with too long laces. As the escalator reached its end where the steps go flat and into the floor, they catch my laces and suck my feet into them, mashing my feet up to the ankle into a pulpy shredded mess of blood, flesh, and bone. I briefly snap back into consciousness, shrieking an un-Godly howl, but promptly go into shock and unconsciousness again. Some time later - days perhaps - I awaken in the hospital, where an emotionally flat doctor, I think from India, informs me that my feet have been amputated, but as they were able to do this below the knee I should be able to walk again with prosthetics and much lengthy rehabilitation. I am not sure what might go through my mind at this point. Maybe I might wonder, “Where’s my underwear?” But I am pretty damn sure I would not first think, “I have to run in the Olympics.” And for pretty good reason. That being running in the Olympics after getting your feet cut off is mental. Without feet, one would still wander the planet into a ripe old age, even bouncing around on what look like a pair of leaf springs from a 67 Firebird. I might think something like “what am I going to do for a living in ten years?” If a violinist got his hand cut off – say the fingering hand – I think they would be universally practical and sell the violin. They might take up percussion, or slide guitar, and still play music. But they wouldn’t probably start asking Dr. Bombay for the bionic hand and an audition at Julliard. Just a guess. I don’t rule out one day that being an option. I hope so, yet I worry that the re-attachment point would be less suited to stress, maybe resulting in the fake feet sheering off mid marathon. People who go deaf can benefit from cochlear implants, so if you love listening to the ballgame on the radio, there you go. But a true athlete will hear none of this, nor will their parents. Olympic athletes and their parents – who don’t just stumble into Olympic training programs with their kids accidentally – regularly, subject themselves to rigorous and stressful routines. These routines often involve your child not living with you anymore while in grade school, intense workouts that delay sexual development, social retardation when around people not involved their sport, obsessing with their physical appearance, and familiarity with sexual predators. But, they don’t worry about paying off student loans, so maybe that is good. After the Olympic competition period of their lives has passed – sometimes by 15 - they can have reunions where they swap stories of their depression, psychiatric counseling, drug and alcohol abuse, how they are coaching some kid now and those special competitions way back, like the one where they had a group encounter with Usain Bolt. And they can remember that guy with the metal feet. No, I am not an athlete, and with age I grow more uncomfortable with every wistful Bob Costas report that I am pretty sure is supposed to be inspiring to me, but only makes me think of the Ottoman Empire raiding Christian villages for young boys to be taken and turned into efficient killing machines that would then turn around in 20 years and kill the village. The ratings for the Olympics have been trailing off for the past couple of decades. The novelty of seeing them may have gone the way of networks telling us the program we were about to watch was in color. Their height seemed to parallel the economy running low in the past, like Tarzan being wildly popular in the depression. But they were up again for this year's. Times is tough, but I did watch more this year, what with the women’s volley ball camera angles and the guy with metal things for feet.

KING KONG!

I like to get out to the movies, but I don’t get to that often. I can watch movies on demand if I miss them even at the buck theater, which is now two bucks. I can do that, but I just never do on demand. A week or two later, then its just on TV. If I wait long enough, it seems that King Kong will be out – again. I saw the Jack Black one. If you saw the original then you know the story. Same basic script. And that is tough because there is something that bothers me about it. You know the part where Denning unveils Kong for the people in the theater? He says

“Behold Kong, The Eighth wonder of the world!”

Now here is the thing: Kong is a big gorilla. I mean gigantic, and that is impressive. But we have just watched these guys go to an uncharted island, fight the stone-age tribe that lives there, run into man-eating giant insects, the complete collection of Jurassic Dinosaurs, and King Kong, whom they knock out with a gas bomb, tie up, throw on a boat, take to New York, and load into a theater WITHOUT incident - and THAT is the 8th wonder of the world? How about that ISLAND? 5 minutes before, they are being attacked by dinosaurs. DINOSAURS!! Millions of years on this island, I would say they get to be 8th wonder before Kong. How about the tribe? They live on this island for 10's of thousands of years, and built a wall that keeps all these things away. Including the flying dinosaurs. How come they never fly over the wall? 8th Wonder right there. Initially, I am thinking Tyrannosaurus Rex has 8th Wonder down pat, but that wall is literally amazing. In comparison, a giant gorilla is a frigging birth defect. But they remake the movie every 20 years. Why? Because we LOVE King Kong. We do. A movie where a giant gorilla goes nuts – APEshit – in New York. We relate. Not the whole over-the-top Beauty and the Beast thing. Sure, bestiality is fascinating. But the anger, the violence, a blonde in her undies, and there is a cuddly big pet thing in there. They don’t remake it because of the story. I think the guy who wrote King Kong was a con man. It’s built on that whole con artist thing where they tell you some story and we all sit there and go, “what? Yeah sure. Ok” Think about the gaps in the story. The whole leap of faith. They catch Kong and bring him to New York City. I haven’t tried to import anything via ship lately, but I think that it is not too easy to just show up at the dock with a giant gorilla. You couldn’t import a case of soy sauce in this country. And I think wouldn’t somebody be looking for all the guys who died on the island?

“My brother was on the ship with the giant gorilla, and he hasn’t come home.”

“What? Can you wait till after the theater premiere?”

“Ok.”

That Denning character – just not a big picture guy. He gets the gorilla, and: Shit – how can we make money with this big fucking gorilla? Maybe we can bring him to a theater and have people pay $20 to ….LOOK at Kong. For how long? I think after 5 minutes that show would suck. What was the show going to be? Was he going to dance? It’s not like he could be funny…LIKE ME. He was all chained up. Maybe, I think, they were going to torture him. Its possible - people would dig that. Behold KONG, the 17th wonder of the world – then he shoves a tazer into his nuts. In the flick, this thing goes to Broadway. I said $20 because I am guessing a show was $20 before Pearl Harbor. Maybe less. I know that nowadays, even if you scored tickets at a booth, you’d be out a week at a bad motel. Even in New York, how long could that show run? A couple of months?

“Hey, I got tickets to King Kong.”

“Oh, it’s just a gorilla, plus he shits and pisses on his platform and it is gross.”

Maybe they planned to take it on the road. Two years later they would be playing Anchorage, and Kong would be so bored and fat he would sleep on stage. Then they would really have to tazer his nuts. You’d read in the paper that King Kong got sold to a roadside hick show in northern Florida. Or they would figure out he cost so much to feed they would pull over on some road in Nebraska and shoot him, throw him over the side of a hill. Big gorilla is fascinating, but come on. If they caught the Tyrannosaurus, I would be interested. I would want to eat it. There is not a lot of thinking through with King Kong, but boy, do we love it.

Damn Your Eyes

This is a rare classic slam, old Damn Your Eyes. I heard it a
few days ago, and recalled the first time someone yelled it at me, or more accurately,at a kid I was with. The yeller was an old gal herself, and my friend really deserved it, or possibly even a kick in the ass. Or both. I didn’t deserve my eyes being damned, but I did laugh at what he said. Whatever. But even then, it really hit home with me. Damn Your Eyes was a top drawer rip. There are lots of things you can say to people to let them know you wish harm on them, and think they are less than shit on your shoes, but Damn Your Eyes, now that is a cut above the rest. It expresses all of that, but it is clearly wishing a severe state of affairs on your eyes. You could just say “I hope you go blind,” which is rough. But damning one’s eyes? Now, that is calling God into the mix. You are wishing God would remove all holy protection from someone’s eyes, and tangentially the whole bag of bones. Opening someone’s eyes to evil is wild. That could be blindness, but it could also be injury. An injury birthed from Hell itself would imply a lot of nasty crap. Like, maybe they could still see, but their eyes would burn, from something like a handful of Snowy bleach. That would really suck, especially if you were young, and could live a while, but would always walk around thinking “why me?” all the time. Wishing death is pretty bad, but wishing an existence with damned eyes is harsh.

Maybe the idea was a big rip AND wishing that your eyes would see evil. Seeing evil is bad. That reminds me of the movie The Sentinel, where this chick has to guard the gates of hell. It starts showing up while she is reading a book – maybe Jacqueline Susan – and it turns into Latin to her. Her eyes were damned. Actually she was, because she tried to kill herself. People today wouldn’t buy that. Killing yourself, and not doing it right, well, then you just have problems. Not a sin. Sin is hard to buy, angels are easy. Either way, seeing into hell every day, watching out for demons trying to sneak into the world, not a gig I want.

And I think that is why I really like Damn Your Eyes. It is multi-purposed, and it is really heinous. I just was part of a film fest, and our flick failed to impress, but when I think of some of the things that did, I really don’t feel bad. I mean I did, but I didn’t as far as content and effort wise. But when I see some things that do impress people, and I think of what a lot of people tell me is good comedy, or when I think of Hotel For Dogs. Then I think too of that old gal, yelling “Damn Your Eyes!” And maybe she did mean me too.

Animal Crackers In My Soup

4/30/2008

I got a call asking me to pick up animal crackers with frosting and sprinkles, so I did. I love those myself, but I also like regular animal crackers, in the teeny box with a string. Frankly, I find those to be delish. Funny thing is, every time I see them, I think of Shirley Temple singing that song. It is a fun tune, catchy and pretty much a classic. But I think the guy who wrote it was just making shit up. Regular crackers – saltines – they rock in soup. Oyster crackers work as well, especially in a nice chowder. I'm no fan of Manhattan Clam chowder, but if I had to, I would put Oyster crackers in that. But who the fuck puts animal crackers in soup? That would be horrific. First and foremost, they are cookies. You don't get a bowl of chicken noodle soup and pop in some oatmeal cookies. You don't eat that. This guy wished they were crackers, so his song would work. Perhaps, he never even had them, and just saw them and assumed they were crackers. But I guess it is possible that people back then put cookies in soup. Man, the Great Depression was no fun. Great songs, though.

Wow. I forgot about this. Well, I am back. I never went anywhere, kind of. I just dealt with my brother dying, and some other hideous shit. Makes writing just another thing you can skip. But I have been writing again, and thinking, and moving beyond doing laundry in my free time. So, there you go. I will start putting stuff up again. I promise.

The Wonder of Radio

If you listen to as much radio as I do, then you are probably someone who gets stuff done. You can have the radio on and still do the laundry or whatever you need to do. Maybe not as much as you could, or you wouldn’t be on the internet reading this stuff. But with radio, you also stay informed and you are up on the latest whatever. So you probably have heard the Preparation H commercial. If you haven’t, go turn on the radio and wait.

In case you have heard more than one, or you really don’t have time to listen to the radio as it might get in the way of that scrabble game you play on Facebook with someone you know but don’t ever get to physically be in the same place with, then I will give you the nickel tour of my fave. It extols the virtue of Preparation H via the sad tale of a guy who takes a romantic carriage ride through the park with his beloved. He speaks in a deep voice with a hip urban vibe. In the process, the bumps and horse-trot-induced jerky ride send shockwaves to the poor guy’s hemorrhoid filled asshole. I am just taking it that he has hemorrhoids. He could have poison ivy of the ass, or maybe his wife threw cayenne pepper and fiberglass resin in his ass while he was asleep. But he does talk about the itching and burning. It being Preparation H, I am thinking rhoids. At any rate, I have heard this commercial several times, and I laugh out loud every time. I guess as comedy goes, I have a sophistication level that reaches far enough to enjoy Monty Python and not so high that I can ever chuckle along with the pretense of humor in a Garrison Kellior show. But when I find lowbrow humor, I can go waaay below Curly Howard drinking out of a rubber boot. And this is about as low as it goes.

Not that I want to tell you about that one slim aspect of this wonder of a commercial. That would be too easy, and besides that, anyone who knows me knows I laugh at shit like that – pun intended. No, there is so much more to behold here. Lets start with the creative process. The agency that came up with this had to have been the happiest and most fun place to work at in the world the day they got this assignment. Having a hemorrhoid cream company as your client assures a good sense of humor will develop if there wasn’t one. (Yes – rhoid imagery is hard to suppress right now) And they have the BEST. But if this is the campaign that the client bought into, what in the hell did they reject? I tell you who knows: the guys that came up with this work! And I bet they die laughing still over each one of them. I bet the client did too. The secret to happiness is loving what you do for work. And I bet these are a lot of happy people. Why not?

It goes beyond the concept of adults at an ad agency brainstorming over how to illustrate a really bad place to have your ass if you have hemorrhoids.

Once, a countless number of years ago, a small semi-aquatic creature dragged itself out of the primordial ooze and used its primitive lungs to breathe life-giving air. In doing so it set in motion the evolutionary process that lead to modern mankind fighting against all odd to survive (creationists, play along). In the years that followed we gathered together to survive, to spread over the globe, to create great civilizations, to withstand anarchy and war that followed their collapse, to contemplate our existence and creation in great religions, to invent, to philosophize, to love, and learn. In the past one hundred years, humans have come up with wonderful inventions: electric light, air travel, space travel, harnessing of atomic energy, medical advances, and standards of living that would have been unimaginable a generation or two before. We can communicate directly from our desktops with any number of people around the globe, we can digitally send volumes of books and music to anyone instantly. And with radio we have the latest news, sports, and entertainment for free floating in the air. And what do we do with that technology? We have the deep and accented baritone voice of an adult tell us how he slathers his festering asshole with a soothing cream. Or, as I like to think of it, the zenith of western civilization.

I think if we could communicate with that first creature to leave the water, and tell it of the commercial for Preparation H, he would turn the fuck around.

Oh, God. I haven't been in a writin' mood. I have been pulling records to sell, which is cool because A) records are HOT now, and B) I have too many. So, here is another oldie:

Spicy and fast

I have enjoyed Big Bowl since I was in Chicago. Now, I still enjoy it but the service has kind of dwindled with the novelty. You wait a while longer, they fuck up the orders every other time. The wait staff used to be the top drawer people, now they are the ones who are trying. But overall, still good stuff and the ginger ale is a trip. I keep pushing myself beyond the pad thai comfort zone, and I find that is where life's true rewards lay. And they give out fortune cookies. I find these to be both fun and irritating. The name itself is misleading, as they very rarely tell your fortune. This may have been a mistranslation of some Chinese word, if the Chinese actually had these things. Chinese food, like Ginger Ale 40 years ago or Kit Kats in Canada, is still remarkably different depending on where you are here, as opposed to where the Chinese people who make it are from. But the fortune cookie is pretty much universal. And again, Big Bowl is not Chinese food, but a corporate regurgitation of pan-Asian cooking. But really not Korean or Mongolian. I suspect the Chinese may call these things Interesting Observation Cookies. The idea that the cookie is magically connected to you on some spiritual level, and somehow finds its way to you, is still there. At any rate, I went to Big Bowl, and my fortune cookie actually told a fortune, and was not some odd flattery or character assessment as most are. It said I was going to receive a cheerful message. As I was reading this, the waiter was bringing the check to the table behind us, and apparently he had to add or fix something and was back with it. He was a fairly short and apparently Mexican guy. The cheerful blonde gal accepted the bill and said with a big smile "Wow, you really are Speedy Gonzalez." He smiled. I did too. She seemed oblivious. If my fortune cookie had said "You will hear a woman call her waiter something that could offend the dogpiss out of him" I would have shit my pants at its mystical accuracy. I hope by telling what it actually did say that I have not ruined my fortune. I can always use a cheerful message.

Thursday, May 22, 2008