The Real Sound of Silence

The song remains the sameWhen I was a teenager, I loved nothing better than putting on my headphones and listening to “Exile on Main Street” at a body-shaking volume (it being usually late at night when I got the chance). Later on in a misspent youth, quite below the legal drinking age, I made it in to a lot of the first punk bars in Detroit. Clubs like Bookie’s and the New Miami, for those who want to get nostalgic. And when tours were announced for bands other than Journey and Kansas and the Babys and whatever other kind of bastardized rock you can name, I snapped up tickets to those, too, and did everything I could to let the music pound through my body as if I were a jellyfish. After a triumvirate of the Ramones in November 1978, the Police two months later, and the Jam two months after that, I remember feeling like someone had rammed a spike down my ear canals, giving me unsettling pain to go along with the expected ringing in my ears.

The pain eventually stopped, but the ringing never has, and has actually gotten worse over the years.

We could never figure out why I got it quicker and more severely than any of my friends, some of whom were musicians (shouldn’t being in Big Black have had some kind of corrosive effect?). But such is life. Since losing my hearing was the worst thing that ever happened to me (how’d you like to be a writer and not be able to overhear conversations in public?) , I’ve badgered all my nieces and nephews to wear ear protection at concerts. Being smarter than me, they have actually followed my advice. And for anyone reading now, considered yourself badgered. Earplugs have never been easier to find at the store.

If you want to know what it feels like to have constant ringing in your head, check out this story on NPR about composer Brent Michael Davids. A sufferer of tinnitus (the medical name for the high-pitched ringing), Davids wrote “Tinnitus Quartet” to give audiences an idea of what it’s like to have this condition. Listen to that high A in the short snippet in the newsstory, and then imagine having that in your head day and night, every day of your life.

Ironically, even though The Jam was the band that broke my ear’s camel’s back, I didn’t even like them all that much. About three years later, they were one of my favorite bands

Christmas, A Time for Friends, Family and Blunt Eye Trauma

Maybe this will teach kids not to smoke in bedSo Christmas is coming barreling down the road, a full 18-wheeler of fun and frolic and rich food that’s only sort of tasty. Before you put on your hockey pads and go out to the mall, you should check the list of this year’s most dangerous toys. You can find this list, published every year by the group Parents Who’ve Already Turned Their Kids Into Whiny, Fearful Pansies and Now Have the Time to Do It to Yours, and pictures of the toys at CNN. This grouping is a staple of the news at this time of year, along with announcements of January plant closings and designated driver reminders.

First off, anyone who has to point out that the “Lord of the Rings – Return of the King Uruk-Hai Crossbow” set might cause eye injuries should get a job on the local weekend TV newscasts. It’s the only place I can think of where such “No, duh” thinking can be turned into a paying job. If a kid takes an Uruk-Hai as his role model, good luck getting him or her to put on eye protection.

Secondly, if everyone is so worried about youngsters choking on small parts of all these toys, my best suggestion is to cover the toys in Tabasco sauce or Chinese mustard. If we teach the little bips to quit putting things in their mouths, maybe they’ll spread fewer cold germs.

Another solution to the small, swallowable parts problem is to only give kids very large, heavy presents, like 6X6 posts or sandbags. This would have the double benefit of strengthening their upper bodies.

Lastly, I really can’t find fault with the makers of the 38″ Air Kicks Kickaroos Anti-Gravity Boots, even apart from the cool name. The boots are sort of spring-like things that kids slip over their boots. The Toy Nazis are whining that the box only warns children to “always remain in control of your motions”. I think that’s just good advice for everybody, not just kids.

Come back, Irwin Mainway! Make playtime fun again!

Once You Can Fake Sincerity….

Pathetic?  Yes, but not in the way you think.You’ve got it made. Or so says the old joke about acting. But now it appears to apply to marketing as well.

The folks at Urban Outfitters—the same people who last year brought you the feel-good board game for all ages, Ghettopoly—are lending their unique tinsel touch to Christmas decorations. Now, for a mere $24, you can own a replica of that eloquent statement against the commercialization of Christmas, Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.

No word on what they would charge for replicas of Zuzu’s petals, but it’s only a matter of time with these kinds of places, who cater to people with disposable income but no style, imagination or (apparently) sense of irony.

Reminds one of those gargantuan Christmas pageants that some megachurches put on, complete with choir, orchestra, and camel riders, that intend to hammer home Christ’s humble beginnings in the most outlandish manner possible. “Christ may have preached a gospel of humility, but really, this is the kind of birthday celebration he’d really like.”

Nothing sells like humility, baby. Milk it, milk it!

Kansas, Land of Scientific Opportunity

Gold?  Hell, I'm working on a new artificial sweetener.Why is everyone getting so upset with the Kansas Board of Education for rewriting the definition of science? Can’t they see what a victory for democracy this is? Now it doesn’t matter what facts or evidence may indicate—if you get enough enlightened people to vote for your position, it becomes the standard of truth. I tell you, the sky’s the limit with this kind of attitude.

With this kind of ScienceDemocracy ™ , all our problems will be over. Just think of it:

The “Law” of Gravity—Picture a cute little American baby. Confident, curious, strong and true. This baby is intrigued by the open window in his 13th floor apartment. When no one is looking, the baby crawls up to the windowsill, totters for a moment, then falls out into open space.
A tragedy? Hardly, now that we can rewrite our definition of science to include divine intervention. Think of the millions of lives saved when our deliberative bodies invalidate this oppressive bit of demagoguery. Skydivers with faulty parachutes, airplane passengers on doomed flights, dizzy stiltwalkers, even potential suicides standing on building ledges—all saved through the power of democracy.
As an extra bonus, many overweight people would feel the pounds melt away overnight, as their mass is negated and they feel light and airy as a feather.

The “Laws” of Thermodynamics—Energy can be neither created nor destroyed? Balderdash! That just goes against the American can-do spirit!
As soon as we redefine science to include wishful thinking, we’ll never have to worry about energy again. The hell with Iraq—bring the soldiers home now, and let them loot the Bureau of Antiquities on the way out! Ditto for Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela. For every tank of gas we burn, we can create two, three, ten—as many as we believe we can create!
Don’t worry, little caribou. We won’t come drilling up there in Alaska—we don’t need to, and it’s too damn cold besides!

Coulomb’s “Law” – “Force between any two charges is equal to the absolute value of the multiple of the charges divided by 4 pi times the vacuum permittivity times the distance squared between the two charges”? AS IF! In your face, Coulomb!!!

Time Travel—There are those who argue time travel is impossible because it violates the “laws” of thermodynamics, by creating energy in a place where there was none before. But right-thinking democracy is stronger than anything that tries to stand against it. Here we have an obvious case in point: with one vote last night, the state of Kansas whisked its students back a good 75 years. What’s to stop them from sending their kids back 200 years, or 500? Think of what we could learn about the Dark Ages by actually living it ourselves!

Science Democracy!
The Future of America!!

Hotter Than Georgia Asphalt

Here’s the latest in genre fiction that aspiring hacks might want to sharpen their hacksickels for: NASCAR romance fiction.

I know many of you are slapping your foreheads, and some of you are doing it because you’re thinking, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Don’t be too hard on yourself. Sometimes the most obvious ideas are staring us right in the face, with a slack jaw, a bad haircut, and a number 8 hat on their greasy heads. Nothing says romance like the smell of burning rubber and oil, jumpsuits covered in ad patches, and the shivery frisson of possible fatalities on the track. If you and your missus ever spent your honeymoon in the snake pit at Indy, you know what I’m talkin’ about.

I had a whole list of strained metaphors and double entendres to pepper this post with, but I bet any of you could come up with something at least as good as,

“Shellee breathlessly announced to her pit crew that she was in major need of some lubricating.”

“Lula May wasn’t going to settle for Mr. Goodwrench when she knew, somewhere in the South Carolina night, Mr. Greatwrench was waiting for her.”

“Doris felt her passion circling her in great waves, round and round in deafening roars, until it was way past time to wave the yellow flag of caution.”

(Thanks to Neddie Jingo)

Frankie Say, “How’s Your Bird?”


The other day, President Bush outlined his plan for fighting the avian flu, or bird flu (not to be confused with the Evian flu, which is commonly known as bottled water flu, or the Elian flu, known as the underage Cuban political pawn flu, or the EvaGabor flu, known as the “Olivah, your hotscakes are retty” flu).

With all modesty, I must confess I have a better plan:

First, isolate the chicken farms of China and southeast Asia and treat every bird there with a strong strain of the Ebola virus. Then, among the birds still standing, expose them to SARS and feed them a steady diet of aspartame. For any infected waterfowl that migrate to North America, determine the most effective way to spread the flesh-eating bacteria identified in Toronto some years back and apply that. At the same time, set up feeding stations for the ducks and geese in the countryside to keep them away from cities and suburbs. These feeding centers would be stocked with grain laced with alar, anthrax, Legionnaire’s disease, the swine flu virus, and the human papilloma virus, just to be safe.

And any birds that emerge alive after all of that, we bow down and worship with tribute and sacrifice as if they were King Kong.

Now, my brother heard that Bush’s avian bird flu plan in large part relies on lifting restrictions for developing wetlands that harbor these “duck-billed pterrorists”, especially those areas that may contain oil. “Less birds, less flu,” the thinking goes. This can’t be true, can it?

Run for your lives!!!!!!!!!!

This Year for Halloween, I’m Going as a Candy Pimp

When you hand out the sweets at Halloween, do you give the kids the candy you don’t particularly want or like first? If you were down to giving a kid a Reese’s cup—I mean, a full Reese’s cup—and a roll of broken Smarties, you’d give the kid the Smarties, right?

I’m asking because some of the kids who came to my house may be surprised to find leftover Easter candy in their bags. Hey, beggars and costumed extortionists can’t be choosers. They might not even be surprised, and will just eat whatever gets tossed at them.

This weekend, the Cub Scouts were cleaning out their storage locker in the church basement, and were throwing out a bag of Easter candy. This year’s candy, I presume. My son, being admirably frugal, picked the bag out of the pile and brought it home to augment our Halloween candy. And I encouraged him. I thought it was a great idea.

First off, I always freak out on Halloween that we’re going to run out of candy. With every trip to the store, I’ll grab an extra bag of treats, just to have in reserve. When the kids stop home for a break, I make them pull out the things they won’t eat so I can pass them along to someone else. (And who can blame them for getting rid of Three Musketeers bars? Can we send this one to the candy afterlife like Maple Buns and Charleston Chews?)

These weren’t just any Easter nibbles. They were chocolate eggs. (I mean, Marshmallow Peeps would start to get a bit hard by now.) And, they weren’t just any chocolate eggs. These were eggs made of Nestle’s Crunch and Butterfinger and other attempts at crossover monopolization of holiday sweets. So, you know, nothing from the Dollar Store that advertises its chocolate as having “really chocolate flavor.”

When kids I didn’t know came up to the house, I didn’t slip them the Twix bars or the York Peppermints or the M&Ms. Those packets were all visible in the basket, nice and shiny. But I made a little pile of the chocolate eggs right up in the front of the basket, where their little eyes couldn’t see them, and grabbed a couple to toss into the first bags. (Dropping in more than one item always creates a sound that makes me look really generous.) All I’m saying is, if we’re going to end up with any leftovers, it better be the stuff that I’m gonna eat. I even ate one of the little eggs, and it was fine, just fine. I’m still here, aren’t I? It’s not like I really pimped them by handing out toothbrushes or religious pamphlets. Those kinds of people deserve to be deported.

And hell, it wasn’t Christmas candy. That would’ve been a little much. Well, maybe not. Does peppermint have a half-life?

I Really Wanted To Hear The Air-Raid Sirens, But…..

WOOO-WOOO-WOOO-WOOOOOOO!I’ll take this White Sox championship anyway. It was damn fine to see this batch of players take it all the way. They embody everything you don’t see in sports anymore, guys who put the team ahead of their own needs, who play the game for the love of it, who stick together and don’t point fingers. These are clichés only because they are true. If it was possible to buy team chemistry, don’t you think every team would play this well? (Maybe someday we will be able to buy team chemistry—time will tell.)

The Sox have gotten short shrift ever since I moved to Chicago 23 years ago. They weren’t the “loveable losers” during their lean years—they were just regular losers. The fans didn’t embrace them for their effort—they voiced their anger with their mouths and their feet, by staying away from the stadium. They’ve played second fiddle in town through most of their existence. And now they’re on top, and it’s a gorgeous thing.

Looks like Alderman Burke and I are on the same page about the sirens. You know you’re getting old when you start agreeing with Ed Burke.

Go, Sox, Go!

So I Can Finally Go To Bed

Courtesy of the Chicago TribuneAfter staying up late to watch the White Sox finally win the game against the Astros last night, my head is a little fuzzier than usual today. So, the real writing of the day has given way to blog ramblings and random thoughts.

HOUSTON, LIGHTEN UP!
Hey, we all know this is the first World Series game ever played in theGreatStateofTEXAS, but for God’s sake, in a close game, don’t look so WORRIED! I’ve never seen so many shots of people in the stands holding their breath in deathly silence, on the verge of tears and a nervous breakdown, when their team has the chance to win the game with one stroke of the bat. How many walks are the Sox supposed to fork over for you guys to show some life?!?

For a while, I just thought people in Houston had an overwhelming urge to sit on their hands and then smell their fingers. Then I blamed it on lazy Fox Sports directors who want to show us what a close game it is by broadcasting pictures of Desperate Texas Housewives and grown men looking forlorn in their rally caps. Maybe the Book of Revelations has some mention of the World Series, and those people were all devout Pentecostals counting pitches. Hell, Texans don’t show this much concern when their state executes retarded people. It’s a game, people! A game you’re going to lose, but still, a game!

NO MORE DRONING ON AND ON
Can’t wait for the Series to be over so we can stop hearing that annoying buzzing of the Killer Bees on the PA when Biggio, Berkman, Bagwell, Burke, Brando or Bullwinkle steps up to the plate. I mean, with fire ants, flying cockroaches, nuclear scorpions and whatever kind of surprise bug is mutating inside their chemical factories, you’d think Texans would be reluctant to embrace a lethal insect metaphor for their fave players.

ALL THE SINCERITY MONEY CAN BUY
Although I’ve never been there, Minute Maid Park, with its manufactured quirkiness, seemed to have all the character of a T.G.I.Fridays. The choo-choo train full of oranges looked like it belonged in a Nieman-Marcus Christmas display, the zigzag home run line in the outfield is a complete mystery, and the hill in the outfield was lifted from Cincinnati’s Crosley Field, which was built 93 years ago on top of a brick quarry. What are they going to do next year for that “quirkiness”, replace the bases with milk crates and car seats? Line the outfield wall with winos who can steal the ball and delay the game? Build a highway through the outfield so everyone can yell “Car!” to warn the players?

NO LIP-READING SKILLS REQUIRED
Thank you, Fox Sports, for showing the replays of Phil Garner and Carl Everett yelling obscenities at each other. For a minute, I thought I was watching HBO.

WHERE? WHO? BOURBON STREET?
Thanks also to the local Fox Channel for putting their talk-to-the-hoarse-drunks reporters in a bar called Bourbon Street in Merrionette Park. Gives the broadcast a Mardi Gras kind of feel, mostly because the crowd was 100% white. It also made me look up on a map where Merrionette Park is, and vow to never go there.

HOW DO YOU BUILD A BASEBALL FAN?
I’m the only one in our house who likes baseball (blame it on the Tigers of 1968), so through this postseason, I have kinda been on my own. I try and get my kids riled up, and while they do like to sing the “Go Go White Sox” song–and who doesn’t?– they don’t have the interest to sit through any of the broadcast. I’m making slight inroads on my wife, who will put down her book and come downstairs to see the last two or three innings. She got to see Konerko’s grand slam and Podsednik’s game-winning homer in Game 2, and I hammered home the fact to her that she just witnessed a little bit of history.

So last night, as the game stretched into extra innings, she watched a little bit with me. The game is tied, and the Sox keep walking batters and then putting out their own fires. About 11:30, she shows a little grown-up sense and heads to bed, but tells me that if she can’t sleep from the tension, she’ll come downstairs to watch some more. I figure she’s joking, but when Geoff Blum homers in the 14th and I cash it in at 1:15 a.m., who is listening to the game in bed, like a little boy sneaking a transistor radio under the covers? My ever-lovin’ wife! There may be hope for her yet.

Conspiracy for Dummies

Good Morning, Mrs. Wilson
For anyone still confused by PlameGate and why it should be a no-no to drop names of CIA agents to newspaper columnists, a nice and simple version of the story–suitable for bedtimes–is available here.