Bad News, Scatman, Flying Bugs, etc.

·         I think if I ever had really bad news to deliver to someone, it’d be helpful to play a ukulele as I did it.  The bad news would probably still upset the person, but he or she would have to admit that the lilting music softened the experience.

·         I went back to the HR director a couple weeks after I was hired and admitted that “Ready” isn’t really my middle name; it’s William.  She smiled and said she already knew, which kind of freaked me out.

·         If you’re ahead of me in your car at the drive- through ATM, after you complete your transaction, please feel free to review your check register and adjust yourself for a bit before you pull ahead.  I don’t have to be anywhere.

·         I watched a woman arrive at a 4-way intersection today, texting with both hands as she drove.  Fortunately, she also had a dog in her lap, who I assume was steering, so that’s good.

·         I feel bad about it, but after Chico and the Man, Scatman Crothers’s career really tanked, except for a brief reprieve with Hong Kong Fooey and The Shining of course.  The scat audience has always been fickle.

 

                                              Bonus Summer Flying Bug Feature

·         I read a news report about Asian “Tiger” mosquitos that were brought into the US from China in standing water in a Texas tire shipment.  These mosquitos are said to be ferociously aggressive and recognizable by their striped “tiger” appearance.  From the description in the article, I bet that when you get stung by an Asian Tiger mosquito you hardly notice the difference until you try to swat it.  Then it’s probably like you’ve entered Thunderdome.  Oh, and the incurable Asian Sleeping Virus thing that follows, too; that must suck.

·         Every so often I’ll find a mosquito floating in the bottom of a burning citronella candle, and I figure he was the victim of a dangerous bug dare gone horribly wrong.

·         I try not to question God’s plan, but I bet at some point He had second thoughts about having created gnats and no-see-ums.  Speaking of which, I think if you saw the word gnat for the first time, and had no idea what it meant, you'd probably still have some kind of anxiety that a bunch of it would swarm your head and fly up your nose.  It’s probably the gn thing in the word gnat that makes it so awful, because I think gnomes are pretty icky, too.  Of course, even if gnomes swarmed your head, there’s no way they could fly up your nose, so it’s not really comparable.

Taste Test Moments, Old Elvises, Admiral Halsey, Shmelvin Prackin, etc.

·         If you ever have your own cooking show on television, and it gets to the point in the episode when you take a sample taste of whatever goody you just made, I think it really helps sell the moment if you look off camera and sort of up toward the ceiling while you take a bite.  Your audience will understand that in order to truly determine the success of your cooking you need to look at the ceiling and concentrate as you taste the food.  At that point, all suspenseful pins and needles and stuff, the viewer is wondering how you’ll like it, and truly rooting for you.  If instead you just look at the camera and say “yum!”, it’ll seem forced and scripted and phony, and your fans will see right through that, and be understandably let down.  It must suck if you realize with that taste that you ruined the dish with WAY too much cumin or something, but you're only human, and that's why the fans love you. Oh, by the way, if you try this looking up and off to the side gimmick in real life, you’ll come across as kind of goofy, so I suggest that you limit to just doing it on your cooking show.

·         Elvis Presley is still hugely popular, even thirty five some odd years since his death, and Elvis “festivals” are regular events all over the country, with a bunch of “Elvis Tribute Artists” performing in competitions and concerts.  I’m an Elvis fan and have actually attended several of these tribute festivals over the years.  Elvis died when he was 42, although he was in really bad shape and looked older than that.  Unfortunately I think, the memory of Elvis in popular culture is frozen in his last few months alive. I’ve noticed that some Elvis tribute artists try to emulate him when he was heavy and sickly, and then keep at it long after they themselves turn 42.  I’ve also noticed that a lot of these older Elvis impersonators eventually look more like the heavy pompadoured actors from The Sopranos, and they seem to forget the song lyrics, mostly. They look like a fat uncle who tries karaoke at a family reunion after an open bar, but really shouldn’t.  Some of them almost seem like they never even saw an Elvis performance, which is weird, because they have decided to become Elvis impersonators, but maybe it’s just because they’re really old and have forgotten the ways he actually looked and acted and sounded. It kind of makes “what if he’d lived?” conjecture sadder than the reality of his passing.  Anyway, I’d like to think that if Elvis had lived, he’d have slimmed down or at least stopped with the bulging jumpsuits and sweaty concerts and focused mostly on acting in mob dramas.  [Editor’s note:  James Gandolfini passed away after I wrote this post.  R.I.P., and I was talking about the other Sopranos guys looking like sick Elvises, not Tony.]

·         Admiral Halsey notified me

He had to have a berth or he couldn’t get to sea

I had another look and I had a cup of tea and butter pie.

Happy 71^st birthday to Paul McCartney this week.  For about 40 years, I mistakenly thought that the words to Admiral Halsey were, “I had a cup of tea and a butterfly.”  It was catchy, but made no sense to me.  Still, I sang it really loudly in my car in a haughty falsetto.  I don’t know what butter pie is, but I’m so glad I know the correct lyric now.  Thank you, world-wide internets.

·         As I drove slowly by the classic car show in the park last weekend, I bet some of the spectators were left wondering if I might be a participant in some nearby piece of shit Hyundai car show.

·         So maybe I’m just getting older and my hearing is shot.  Sometimes I’ll be talking to someone and I think I hear him or her say something like, “Shmere roggin a shmelvin prackin.”  And I’ll smile and lean in and say, “I’m sorry, what did you say?”, and I swear to God the person repeats what sounds like “Shmere roggin a shmelvin prackin.”  If they’re smiling as they say it, I’ll respond quickly with an agreeable, “I know, right!?”, and if they look sad I say “AWWWWW, wow, SORRY!”  At that point I’m embarrassed and don’t want to seem like a worse total idiot, so I’ll look all sympathetic and supportive and just hope for the best.  Usually, then the person will either look shocked or confused or scared and walk away, or maybe they’ll smile like they’re really happy and offer me a beer or something.  If it’s the latter, I go ahead and celebrate whatever it is they were talking about, not wanting to be rude.

Hand Gestures, Statins, The Jetsons, Gym Water, etc.

·         I think there should be a hand gesture that would be universally understood to express a passive- aggressive “really?”  It’d serve as a sort of second tier “bird” for lesser offenses.  For example, when I’m driving my car and come to a stop at a four-way intersection, and a fellow motorist almost runs the stop sign, and locks his brakes up screeching to a stop at an opposite corner a few seconds after me, and then “waves me on” as though he’s being polite and doing me a favor, I wish I had a little signal I could flash in response.  The hand gesture that obviously comes to mind at that moment is probably a tad too much, and expresses road rage and anger more than the sarcastic message I wish to send.  It’d be fun to “flip him the pinky”;  I bet he’d spend the rest of the day thinking about that.

·         Though I’m not technically an expert in medicine or cooking or marketing, I think it’d be a great idea for a restaurant to promote a “Statin Omelet with Ham”.  I’m sure there’s an audience for it, and there’s probably a loophole for using “statin” in your menu descriptions without any verifiable proof, like there is for “all natural” and “healthy” and “kosher”.

·         The Jetsons was set in 2062, and, not to be a pessimist, but I think it’s unlikely that KEDs will be coming back into style for footwear 50 years from now.  Thanks to WHAM for making that comeback prematurely and ruining it for the rest of us and George.  It’s more reasonable to assume that we’ll see outdoor dog walking on treadmills become popular, and I’m surprised that we haven’t seen a successful meatloaf pill yet, but you can’t rush stuff like that.  Ok, I have two more important points to cover about The Jetsons.  Admit it, Scooby Doo was totally an Astro rip-off, although since Astro actually exists 80 years AFTER Scooby Doo, it could be argued that Astro was a rip-off of Scooby Doo.  I’m frankly surprised that Hanna-Barbera didn’t get more heat over this glaring and obvious comparison.  Still, there’s no winning this debate; let’s just agree to disagree.  Lastly, and even though I know that you’re “just cartoons”, Judy and Jane, call me.

·         Gym water must be the best tasting water, and people sure seem to be enthusiastic about drinking it.  I think gym water must also be the best kind to drink if you want to build huge muscles.  At the gym I go to, I see people drinking water after every set, I guess to top themselves off and compensate for the toll all the exertion of the workout is taking on their bodies.  Some really serious folks bring a gallon jug of water with them from home.  That seems a bit extreme to me, but probably they had bad experiences getting stranded in gyms with no water at some point, and they don’t want to take any chances.

·         I remember how much I used to be creeped-out that the video store kept a swipe of my credit card on file “just in case” there was ever a problem.  Now I kind of feel that way about routine DNA swabs and the monitoring of phone records.

Word Rules, Sharing Lunch Details, Garage Parking, etc.

 

·         I think when it comes to garage parking, people are either the back-in or face-in type.  I back my car into the garage, looking out for the tomorrow me.

·         I guess for some people, sometimes word, grammar and speech rules are just silly and unnecessary.  For example, it seems to be perfectly acceptable for folks to pronounce the word “vigilant” as
“viligant” and “relevant” as “revelant”.  And don’t get me started again on “nuculer”.  There are a bunch of other examples I could bore you with, but overriding the auto spell correct is causing my laptop to smoke.  Anyway, while this lazy and loosey goosey thing with words probably won’t ever by itself cause us much trouble, I think it may be a symptom of a societal permissiveness and lack of attention to detail that allows scandals to happen.   

·         I remember being a little kid, out to lunch somewhere with my parents and wishing so badly that I could let all my friends know what a great time I was having, where I was, and specifically what I was eating.  Or sometimes I’d be at home wondering where my friends were having lunch, and trying to imagine what the sandwich or soup they were eating looked like.  In some ways those were simpler and better times, but no one can deny that Instagram and Facebook have filled for a new generation that desperate emptiness I felt during those lunchtimes of my youth.

·         When someone wants to tell me something and feels the need to preface what they’re about to say, for example, “…there’s a reason for (such and such), and I’m going to tell you what it is….”, rather than just saying whatever it is without the warning, I pretty much want to just smack him or her.

 

·         I’m starting a new feature on the Ross Rant, which I will call “Admittedly Bad Poetry”.  Some will find the feature’s title to be charmingly self-deprecating, and others will simply think, “admit it, Brett, your stuff is all pretty bad.”

 

 

Admittedly Bad Poetry

Sit Cat

Sit he told the cat sternly

Which she ignored promptly as she ever did.

Ok fine don’t, he agreed with her.

To which she sat

Eyeing him peripherally so he’d know

It was of her own accord.

And purring away, licking

At nothing there really.

But because she could.

 

Clown face

Born with a clown face

He seemed predestined for circus work.

But sadly then he found

The hours were disagreeable.

 

Chasing Monkeys

Chasing monkeys

All day long.

Some enjoy it but

The others just seem to be annoyed.

Soft Serve, Juggalos, Opposites Attract, Duck Lips, etc.

·         The other night I drove past the spring opening of a  local soft serve ice cream shop.  There must have been 400 people in the parking lot; some were even spilling out into the street.  Those people seemed ravenous to get at that delicious soft serve ice cream.  I could picture some of these folks, snowed in and frozen dessert-starved for these last six months, excitedly crossing off days on a kitchen calendar especially dedicated to this event.  Witnessing this phenomenon  gave me what is probably a hair-brained and crazy idea for a new niche-filling business :  A Winter Soft Serve Ice Cream Shop.

·         Two Juggalos rode past my house on their bicycles the other day.  I thought to myself, wow, it’s so great that their organization still exists; otherwise, I bet there’d be a bunch of insane clown type people with no truly relevant, satisfying and meaningful social outlet.

·         Sometimes, you’ll see a really doofy looking guy with an incredibly beautiful girl, and they act like they’re so happy and in love and stuff.  You can’t help but stare as you try to process how these two ended up together, and you finally conclude that he’s probably rich and she must be a shallow gold digger.  What a couple of superficial loser phonies, you smirk to yourself, in your superior judgmental aloneness. 

·         I think it would have been so cool if the Blue Angel pilots and White House tour guides had been invited to the President’s “Memphis blues” shindig with Justin “Otis” Timberlake the other night.  I’m pretty sure they were available.

·         Sometimes when I’m at  a bar listening to a band, I wonder if the other people are dancing to a different song than I’m hearing.

·         A lot of people don’t know this, but the first “wave” at a sporting event actually happened completely by coincidence.

·         Probably no one knows exactly when it happened, but at some point, a woman did the first “duck lips” pose for a picture.  Man, it really caught on, and I hate her.

Calculus, DOMA, Smoke Signals, Holiday Eggs, etc.

·         Apparently, the new favorite word used to describe and defend ones thought process or reasoning is “calculus”.  I think it’s because for most of us, calculus is a totally foreign thing that sounds like it must be really hard and important and complicated.  To make a point of view sound more robust, sometimes a person will declare his or her calculus to be “common sense”.  That way, you can’t disagree, or you’ll be arguing against common sense.  Anyway, I think a lot of people’s common sense calculus is quite often still just bullshit.

·         I predict that Jim Carrey is one French Legion of Honor award away from being his generation’s Jerry Lewis.  The transition from edgy comic boy genius to angry, self-righteous and irrelevant unfunny old guy is always an interesting crash-and-burn to watch.  

·         At first I thought I was hearing people referring to the  “Defensive Marriage Act”.  That seemed about right.  How insecure do you have to feel about something you do, to be afraid that if someone else does it, even with a variation, it will in any way diminish your thing? 

·         I think a lot of people in the US watch what’s happening in Cyprus like it’s a fantasy horror movie.  I mean, come on, “Cyprus” even sounds mythical.  Man, we’ve really got this collective arrogant judgmental denial thing down, don’t we?

·         I know this is a controversial subject, and I don’t want to offend anyone, but whether you call them Easter eggs or Holiday eggs, they’re all mostly not really from rabbits.

·         This month marked the second failure in a decade by the Vatican Fire Department to get the Sacred College of Cardinals to use an air horn instead of the white or black smoke traditionally used to signify the status of the Pope selection process. The fire department has unsuccessfully suggested that it would be preferable to toot the horn once to signify that the Cardinals were “still thinking about it..”, and use two toots and a long blast to signify “we picked a Pope!”.   According to a Vatican Fire Department spokesperson,  their suggestion for a change is based on the fact that smoke is also sometimes recognized as a signal that, you know, the Vatican is on fire.

·         The way things are going, I think at some point all of us will have to just accept that Justin Bieber is a badass. 

Toilet Seats, White House Tours, Robots, etc.

·         They say that “71 is the new 30”.  So I guess it follows that if you multiply any age by .42 you come up with your “new” age.  That calculation makes me 21 and a half, which is cool, because I’m still old enough to drink. Phew.

·         There’s a new Kohler TV commercial that shows a self-closing toilet seat.  I assume that it was designed by a female engineer who finally accepted that the “ultimate mass education of all men and boys initiative” has been a huge failure.  I wonder if Kohler is now working on a self-replacing toilet paper roll.

·         Because of the sequestration, the White house has suspended tours, and a bunch of school kids are really upset because their field trips were cancelled.  The tours were self-guided, but I guess someone has to be paid to oversee the operation, and suspending the tours saves the costs of those salaries and security.  I wonder if the signs announcing the suspension, that they probably posted on the windows of the White House, or maybe on a fancy easel at the front door, were created by the three White House calligraphers.  Three calligraphers, in 2013, seems to be a bit excessive, but to be fair, I think one of them specializes in italic Cambria sans serif font, which is probably really hard to do with a quill on parchment paper, you know.   

·         I saw one of those personal injury lawyer ads on TV that told you who to call if you’ve had bad robotic surgery.  I haven’t heard much about this problem, but I think you should be upset if robots operate on you even if they’re successful.

 

                                   New Feature!  (same low price)

Arbitrary Policy Change Proposals Based on Packaging, Aesthetics and Emotion Rather Than Function, And Without Measurable Benefits: 

·         Proposed NYC Soda Ban:  You can buy and drink 12 ounce cups of sugary soda all day long, but if you order a 32 ounce big gulp, that’s excessive and unhealthy. 

·         TSA:  They are thinking about allowing pocket knives and baseball bats back on airlines.  It’ll be ok now though, they say, because the cockpits are fortified.  Box cutters will still be prohibited, because they’re, well, you know. 

·         Gun Control:  Semi-automatic rifles are BAD and dangerous and unnecessary and must be banned!  The Vice-President, who was assigned to head a gun violence solutions task force after the tragic Newtown, CT shooting, recommends that if you want to deal with an intruder, you should recklessly fire two blasts from your double barrel 12 gauge shotgun off your balcony.