It’s gonna be cold this week around here, but it could be worse. Check out this home movie from an Antarctic research station
Upgrading My Job Status
Every time a recession hits, the media are filled with stories about the “New Thrift.” How everyone’s trying to do with less. Around the holidays, the People On the Street say either that everyone on their list is going to get a homemade gift, or that family members are picking names from a hat, or that the interviewee is going to charge up everything on his plastic because what would Christmas be like without a blizzard of expensive presents to fill the aching void in everyone’s lives?
Why is thrift such a difficult concept for so many people? Money spent is, well, money spent. Gone from your pocket, and into the pocket of someone else, someone who is not you. Avoiding that scenario gives life its flavor. As the Americans in the “Greatest Generation” continue to die off, our nation will soon have no one who’ll say things like, “Well, wear it til it wears out” or “Fix that, don’t throw it away” or “Why would ANYONE ever need $300 shoes?” And that will be a dark day.
I’ve been a tightwad my entire adult life, and I’m happy with that. Proud, even. Overcoats from Goodwill, garage sale finds, store-brand cereal (except for Cheerios–every knock-off of Cheerios is pretty horrible, and look like little brown hockey pucks with holes punched in the middle). That’s all fine with me. Writers make lousy money, and the paydays are very inconsistent, so pinching pennies is just part of the job description. Besides, you need to save for things that shouldn’t be skimped on, like education, theater, and good scotch.
But now that everyone’s back in the thrift mode for the foreseeable future, I think I need to upgrade my status, just to stay a step ahead of the herd. Tightwad? Penny-pincher? Not enough. I’ve got my sights set on “Miser”. Literature has given misers a bad name. If Scrooge hadn’t been a miser for the first part of his life, would he have been able to be lavish with Cratchett and his family? I don’t see how, unless he’d charge everything to his American Express. And then he’d get into bad straits when the economy went south, default on his properties, and end up being a drain on the government. So his miserliness saved a lot of people from trouble. At least, that’s my take on it.
The Last Days Get Interesting
Thank you, President Bush.
I never thought I’d type those words, but this morning he allocated $17B to the domestic auto industry.
“It would worsen a weak job market and exacerbate the financial crisis,” Bush said. “It could send our suffering economy into a deeper and longer recession. And it would leave the next president to confront the demise of a major American industry in his first days of office.”
Sound like good reasons to me. When did he start listening to reason?
Blagojevich Christmas Carol
Just received an email from Margie Lawrence that you’re bound to like, to the tune of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”. A little research shows that it was written by John McHugh, and was the winning entry in last year’s “Songs of Good Cheer” parody contest, run by the Trib’s Eric Zorn:
Get packin’, Rod Blagojevich
The state’s in disarray
The Tribune wants you unemployed
At least by Christmas Day.
The TV pundits want your head
Could there be pay to play?
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy
Save Illinois !
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.Good riddance, Rod Blagojevich
Your Elvis look’s inane,
The Senate’s mad, so’s Lisa’s dad.
You drive us all insane.
Our transit’s broke, the state’s a joke,
The Tollway’s one big pain.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy
Save Illinois !
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.Good luck, old Rod Blagojevich
The feds have quite a place.
Fitzgerald’s poked his nose around
And if he has a case,
George Ryan’s moving stuff around
Creating extra space.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy
Save Illinois !
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
And They Said Bush was “Unresponsive”
I’d say he ducked that loafer pretty convincingly.
For more of what is sure to be an avalanche of jokes about this, click HERE.
Gif by some fella named Bisquick Mehoff, I guess.
The View From My Window
YIKES!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!! ALIEN SAUCERS!!!
THEY MAY BE SMALL, BUT THEY’RE DEADLY!!!
Ha ha. Had you going, didn’t I? Actually, this is just a stray prop from Halloween that I left hanging in the bushes for conversation’s sake. It was part of a bigger scene of an Alien Happy Hour, which had lots of glow sticks, strobe lights, and a dozen or so mini-spaceships hung in the Rose of Sharon. The spaceships were bowls of green and clear plastic that we hot-glued together and hung with fishing line. Crap, do I need a job or what?
Please note, the sign on the railing says, “Aliens with Ladies Drink Free.” We’ve often used the Alien Head in Hazmat Suit figure, so much that he’s falling apart a little. This was the first year, though, that people actually stopped and had their pictures taken behind the bar with him. He must be some kind of friendly face.
On a Curve, Headed Downhill
It used to be I felt really old when I read the birthdates of the Playboy Playmates and saw they were younger than me (and how much they hated “war and phony people”).
Then I noticed some of my favorite baseball players were younger.
Then it was the rock starts, the movie stars, the comedians, and more Playmates (in the name of further reasearch).
Now the President of the United States is younger than me.
Oh well. At least I can still count on the pope.
View from the VFW Tatler Post
Here on the north side of Chicago, we’ve been living in kind of a bubble this election season. No one has bothered to phone us, pamphlet us, persuade us one way or another. We’ve been considered a slam dunk for Obama since probably May or June. On top of that, our incumbent senator, US reps and state reps are all expected to cruise to easy victory. It gives me a skewed vision of what is going on in the rest of the country. People in other reliably crimson or indigo districts probably feel the same neglect, with a mixture of relief and longing.
I’ve spent most of the morning reading reports of huge lines for voting in other parts of the country. Here, I went to the VFW Post on Western Avenue at 10, was checked in and given a ballot right away, met about four neighbors, and was out of there in 10 minutes. The hardest part about the experience was the dank smell of spilled Budweiser, old cigars and Sansabelt slacks that every VFW Post probably has. (For some reason I always feel obliged to vote at that station. Maybe because it’s the only time I’ll ever go into such a place, and it may be an endangered species around here. A slice of life that I can’t participate in.) I’m still not used to the humongous paper ballot we’re given in Cook County. It’s literally 18 inches by 30 inches, with a privacy envelope that’s even bigger. It reminds me of a large prop a magician might use for a card trick. Holding it makes me feel foolish, a little clowny. After completing arrows next to names with a marker, the voter feeds it into a big optical reader and the ballot lands in a sealed cardboard crate. For all I can tell, there might be a couple midgets in the box reading my ballot and phoning the results downtown. There’s room enough for them.
In this country business is so consolidated that consumers can choose between two brands of razor, three brands of potato chips, maybe four types of gas station. Why then do we seem to have umpteen different ways to vote–between punch cards, scanners, touchscreens, paper ballots, and all the rest? This is the ONLY area of modern life where I’d prefer to see some standardization.
Anyway, it’s a beautiful Indian Summer morning here, with red and yellow leaves still hanging on the trees and tinting the sunlight. It’s a marvelous day to be making some history. My prediction is that Obama will win decisively (don’t know about a landslide, but that would be marvelous to see). The real entertainment this evening will be watching how it happened. Does Obama take Virginia? North Carolina? Georgia? (Some people are predicting that last one, but that seems like a longshot. Still, wouldn’t I love to be proved wrong.) As someone else has recommended, I might watch the results on Fox News, just to watch whether commentators can exist on TV running on nothing but fumes of bile. It will also be fun to watch the acceptance speech being delivered right here in the Windy City. I’m not going to bother heading downtown. Crowds bug me lately, but it will be terrific fun to watch them go bananas.
I can’t say much more about this election and its place in history. Too many billions of words have been typed already. I will say this: Regardless of the candidate’s race, I never thought I’d see Democrats run such a disciplined, organized, thoughtful national campaign AND come out on top. I give immense amounts of credit to Howard Dean and his 50-State Initiative, for showing people that there were liberals worth courting deep in the heart of “red” areas, and conservatives who would listen to new ideas if given a chance. Thankfully Obama raised enough money to be able to campaign in places a Democrat wouldn’t have bothered visiting in years past, and was so thoughtful, stirring and all-in-all TOGETHER out on the campaign trail. It will be good to see the adults back in charge in Washington.
I’ve tried to stay rational about this election, maybe even skeptical, hiding my hopes and concerns behind a big mask of snark. But it’s hard to keep that mask up after reading the accounts of people spending hours in line to vote, of black people (stories about 90 year old grannies just kill me) voting for president with tears in their eyes, of record turnout everywhere. I’m happiest to be able to kick out the Republican scumsuckers who’ve wrecked this country, its Constitution, economy, security and hopes for the future during the past eight years. Tack onto that the fact that we’re about to elect an African-American to the highest office, and it blows my little mind. I don’t subscribe to the doctrine of American exceptionalism, but this can be one exceptionally surprising country. I love it.
The Nairobi Pumpkin Trio
Our front step guardians for this Halloween season:
Liam’s at left is a giant Manga-style eye, though the back of the pumpkin being visible makes this picture rather weird. Liesel’s is in the middle, with chocolate marshmallows for eyes. I especially chose my raw material (at right) because of the big scar running across the surface. My first idea for it actually became my final choice, though I don’t know if I pulled it off: everyone’s favorite zombie-fighting comic anti-hero, The Goon!
The cap wasn’t very easy to recreate, as you can tell.
Happy Band Book Week
Urban Survival Skills
The Faintest Blip on the Radar
To any readers who may still peek in the windows here to see if anyone is alive under all those towers of old newspapers, I have to apologize. While up in Michigan this summer, my computer has apparently come down with a nervous disorder that I won’t be able to fix until I get back to town and have my DSL and reboot disks handy. So I’ll just have to use my vacation time away from the internet, like our forefathers did.
It has been an eventful summer so far, so this hiatus is frustrating, but not as frustrating as trying to download simple emails. Like I just tried to do for the past 45 minutes in the public library. From which I can’t SEND emails. But whatever.
Most recently, my family and I all piled up to Grand Rapids this past Saturday to check out my nephew’s Irish rebel band, The Waxies, and had a stupendous time. I urge you to check out their MySpace page and support Irish music in the heart of the West Michigan Dutch duchy.
The news of George Carlin’s death was a blow this past month. While his latest HBO’s specials were too screedy for my taste, his body of work was phenomenal. Whenever I correct Number 1 Son about his language lately, I need to remind myself that at his age, I was playing the album “Class Clown” over and over and learning all about the Seven Words, plus a few more that got me in trouble in Catholic junior high. A thought struck me a week ago that seemed like something Carlin would come up with, and for all I know, probably did. If I stole this from him, consider it flattery:
How can you have a circular driveway? If it were truly circular, you’d never be able to get off your property. Don’t you mean Semi-circular Drive? That would allow you to escape an endless loop of asphalt.
Of course, Carlin would have made it funny. RIP, George.
Be well, and I’ll return in three weeks.
And Speaking of Field Testing….
That’s what I’ll be doing to my marriage for the next three weeks. My ever-lovin’ wife and kids and I will be taking a camping road trip to the East Coast until July 4. Cooperstown, Plymouth, Boston, Maine, Lake Champlain, and points in between. Pray for good weather, small crowds, a sudden dip in gas prices, and a surfeit of exotic license plates for Highway Bingo. See you in a few.
PS: Please go and check out the Field Tested Books collection of essays, and buy a copy if you feel like it. Disrupt the dominant publishing paradigm!!
Click on This Young Feller
Thanks to our friends at Ampolo.
An Idea to Benefit All Mankind
My friend Steve Fiffer started a blogsite last year called Ampolo. It’s meant to be a place to share those ideas that come to you in a flash, ideas that could be worth millions or change the world or liven up your next family barbecue but you haven’t the expertise or time to make them a reality. I like to read it because it makes me feel less isolated in the world when I see someone else actually thinks that weather reporters should have to post their “batting averages” at the bottom of their screens during the TV news.
For a year, I’ve tried to come up with an innovative notion that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to send Steve for possible inclusion on Ampolo. And I’ve finally done it. I think. The embarrassment might come later. But it’s just possible that my idea could become the “gull wing doors” of the new century. Call me Clyde Crashcup. You can check out the idea here. And return to Ampolo often. It’s slick, informative and fun.