No potshots at television commercials here. Sure, there are plenty of really, really, bad ads on TV. For those came the invention of the remote control Mute Button.
I'll admit it here. I shun the mute.
Commercials are as much a part of the popular culture as the programming. (Some shows are only filler material between commercials...)
Some spots (that's what we call them in the business) are a cut-above because of the writing skills, and some are addictive because of their use of graphics or technology. (Think about those truck commercials where only the outstanding brakes keep the thing from driving off the cliff into the Grand Canyon.)
Some are great just because of the fantastic casting of the actors.
The guy on the Verizon ad, the older gent behind the motel check-in desk is an example. When he can't scare off the guest with the cell-phone 'dead zone,' he pointedly admits that the "Towels are kinda scratchy!" He has that Stephen King, man from Maine, New-England-crotchety-thing working perfectly.
Expressions can do it. Another cell-phone ad. The executive is checking with his secretary about the day's agenda, which involves texting his wife, his kids, and just about everybody - until late afternoon, when, she explains, there is a budget meeting. The executive purses his mouth in a Steve Martin sort of way (in fact, I think it is Steve Martin's mouth, superimposed...), and she immediately replies that she can reschedule it. "Let's go with that," he says. There is really nothing special about the spot - but the guy is perfect. I can imagine the casting director. "Let's go with him," she says. "Let's go with that," he replies.
I actually turn around to watch the Sonic commercials (the TV is at my back when I am at the computer), the ads that feature the wimpy guy and his friend/wife. The friend is goofy, the wife is condescending. The car-driver-guy is just wimpy - in a good way. Good wimpy. The spots are inoffensive and sometimes idiotic. Just my type. I loved the one where the goofy friend is eating tator-tots and talking basketball, when suddenly Mr. Wimpy darts out a hand to his buddy's mouth to block the tot. "Rejected," he shouts, in his wimpish way.
Then, there are the esoteric Target ads set to the Beatles song "Hello Goodbye." Maybe its the song. Maybe it's all the red targets that pop up. Maybe it is the manner of the horrid Walmart ads, by comparison. I don't know why you say good buy.
I say Hello.
McHuston Booksellers
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Inlandia Press
http://inlandiapress.com/
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Big Stage, Small Town
First of all, there is nothing wrong with small-town living. Nothing at all. Well. . . admittedly, there are a few drawbacks. Restaurants are limited and recreational activities after dark are largely self-prescribed.
The cars on the lot at the true-small-town dealerships look just the same, and the Walmart aisles carry the same products. Music, though? Outside of CD sales, there is only the occasional concert at the high school auditorium. (Rock concert? Heaven forbid! We're talking piano here.)
Tulsa has turned the small town corner. We now have a venue large enough to draw top flight entertainers, and we just can't get over it. We love it. It's our new sandbox. We can't look at it often enough. It gotta be shown off to all our friends. Come touch it!
We're still small-town enough in Tulsa that the TV news crews trot out to the BOK center when a Metallica fan has to wait in line longer than she thinks is reasonable. Cell-phone call to the news hotline.
Fan: Hello? TV News? I just wanted to let you know that we're in line at the new BOK center and we're having to wait!
Reporter: What? You're having to wait?
Fan: That's right! There's a whole group of people here. We've formed a - I don't know. . .I can only describe it as a crude sort of - line. I think that best describes it. A line.
Reporter: You're talking about a line of - people?
Fan: Exactly. A line.
Reporter: Hang on. I'm getting my camera. I'll be right there.
In the end, the reporter is seen, standing in front of the BOK center (it makes a great visual at night, all the glass and back-lighting), where he explains that - should you find yourself with tickets to a show by a popular entertainer, you might need to arrive EARLY to avoid delays.
Now, that's news. Arrive early. Why didn't we think of it? Oh, yeah. We're a little big city and we're just figuring out the new toy. This just in: There are lots of kids. Arrive Early.
Then - the reporter closes the story by mentioning the name of the next artist due to arrive to play in the sandbox. Can you believe it? Coming to our town? Wow.
It is a good thing. Great, even. Just a little embarrassing how we have to keep drawing the shiny coin out of our pocket to look at it.
It's still there. Still shiny.
Check out the bookstore!
http://mchustonbooks.com/
Authors - visit a publisher!
http://inlandiapress.com/
The cars on the lot at the true-small-town dealerships look just the same, and the Walmart aisles carry the same products. Music, though? Outside of CD sales, there is only the occasional concert at the high school auditorium. (Rock concert? Heaven forbid! We're talking piano here.)
Tulsa has turned the small town corner. We now have a venue large enough to draw top flight entertainers, and we just can't get over it. We love it. It's our new sandbox. We can't look at it often enough. It gotta be shown off to all our friends. Come touch it!
We're still small-town enough in Tulsa that the TV news crews trot out to the BOK center when a Metallica fan has to wait in line longer than she thinks is reasonable. Cell-phone call to the news hotline.
Fan: Hello? TV News? I just wanted to let you know that we're in line at the new BOK center and we're having to wait!
Reporter: What? You're having to wait?
Fan: That's right! There's a whole group of people here. We've formed a - I don't know. . .I can only describe it as a crude sort of - line. I think that best describes it. A line.
Reporter: You're talking about a line of - people?
Fan: Exactly. A line.
Reporter: Hang on. I'm getting my camera. I'll be right there.
In the end, the reporter is seen, standing in front of the BOK center (it makes a great visual at night, all the glass and back-lighting), where he explains that - should you find yourself with tickets to a show by a popular entertainer, you might need to arrive EARLY to avoid delays.
Now, that's news. Arrive early. Why didn't we think of it? Oh, yeah. We're a little big city and we're just figuring out the new toy. This just in: There are lots of kids. Arrive Early.
Then - the reporter closes the story by mentioning the name of the next artist due to arrive to play in the sandbox. Can you believe it? Coming to our town? Wow.
It is a good thing. Great, even. Just a little embarrassing how we have to keep drawing the shiny coin out of our pocket to look at it.
It's still there. Still shiny.
Check out the bookstore!
http://mchustonbooks.com/
Authors - visit a publisher!
http://inlandiapress.com/
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Technology for the Young
He is seven years old. He can manipulate the internet like a seasoned computer pro. Although he can read only the simplest words, he maneuvers through the layers of word-oriented menu screens with a rapidity that borders on astounding.
It makes it all the more difficult to realize that there are so many things in the world that remain as a total surprise to him.
Like car windows.
Having personally experienced the drawbacks of electronics in automobiles, I swore that I would never again own a car with electric windows. He saw me manually cranking the glass one evening and asked what I was doing.
Rolling up the window, I replied, not giving a thought to my answer.
Rolling a window? he asked.
I looked over and realized that he had never seen a hand-cranked window.
Yeah, I explained. I turn this handle around and around, and the window goes up.
He grinned broadly, and I could tell he wanted to try it for himself.
Cool, he said.
Friday morning, I was to drive him to school for his day in first grade. Normally, I wake up without an alarm, not having to be at the store until 9:30 or so, to make the ten o'clock opening time. Not wanting to take a chance, I set the alarm for eight o'clock. As it turned out, I awoke ahead of the alarm and it went off just as I emerged from my shower. Never did like the buzz of an alarm. It was on the wake-to-the-radio setting.
He popped in seconds after I shut it off.
Who was that? he wanted to know.
My alarm, I said.
It can talk? Make it talk again.
It's a radio.
I didn't know alarms had a radio in them.
It's a clock radio, I explained. (A real eye-opening bit of philosophy, huh? Remember - it was early in the morning...)
In our video-oriented household, radio is non-existent. Akin to magic, to the uninitiated seven year old.
Then I recall the look on his face when we toured the zoo one Sunday, and he saw for the first time those strange and powerful things that are giraffes, elephants, and crocodiles.
What would the world be like if we could look at things every day of our lives with that same sense of wonder and amazement?
Visit the bookstore: http://mchustonbooks.com/
Authors - Visit Inlandia Press: http://inlandiapress.com/
It makes it all the more difficult to realize that there are so many things in the world that remain as a total surprise to him.
Like car windows.
Having personally experienced the drawbacks of electronics in automobiles, I swore that I would never again own a car with electric windows. He saw me manually cranking the glass one evening and asked what I was doing.
Rolling up the window, I replied, not giving a thought to my answer.
Rolling a window? he asked.
I looked over and realized that he had never seen a hand-cranked window.
Yeah, I explained. I turn this handle around and around, and the window goes up.
He grinned broadly, and I could tell he wanted to try it for himself.
Cool, he said.
Friday morning, I was to drive him to school for his day in first grade. Normally, I wake up without an alarm, not having to be at the store until 9:30 or so, to make the ten o'clock opening time. Not wanting to take a chance, I set the alarm for eight o'clock. As it turned out, I awoke ahead of the alarm and it went off just as I emerged from my shower. Never did like the buzz of an alarm. It was on the wake-to-the-radio setting.
He popped in seconds after I shut it off.
Who was that? he wanted to know.
My alarm, I said.
It can talk? Make it talk again.
It's a radio.
I didn't know alarms had a radio in them.
It's a clock radio, I explained. (A real eye-opening bit of philosophy, huh? Remember - it was early in the morning...)
In our video-oriented household, radio is non-existent. Akin to magic, to the uninitiated seven year old.
Then I recall the look on his face when we toured the zoo one Sunday, and he saw for the first time those strange and powerful things that are giraffes, elephants, and crocodiles.
What would the world be like if we could look at things every day of our lives with that same sense of wonder and amazement?
Visit the bookstore: http://mchustonbooks.com/
Authors - Visit Inlandia Press: http://inlandiapress.com/
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Ancient Moves: Ancient Movies
My mother used to tell me that if you can’ t say something nice, better to not say anything at all. Do they send mothers to mother-school so they will all tell their children these things?
Me in high school, walking out the door in typical teen clothing: Bye, Mom!
Mom, shouting from another part of the house without looking: You are not going out in public looking like that are you?
Me pausing at the door, mumbling a smart-alecky reply that – if heard - will get me grounded for the rest of the semester: Mblxmaofoiajef…
The nice thing, I suppose, about the movie 100,000,000 B.C. is that it is available on Netflix, and so it technically cost me nothing to watch it. I say technically, because if it was the only movie I watch all month, it cost me $14.95. But – if you are like me, and watch movies on DVD on fast-forward just to get them back in the mail and swapped for a new one – you’re watching 75 to 80 movies a month, just like me. Averaged out, they’re practically free.
There was a previous movie starring then-hottie Raquel Welch called One Million Years B.C., but Director Griff Furst (his real name) could not be satisfied with a simple million, what with inflation and all. In 100-Million B.C. (I get tired of all the zeroes), time-travelers go so far back in the past that they cross the believable-barrier.
The premise is (I’m still saying nice things, aren’t I?) that shortly after World War II, a prodigy-science-kid invents a way to travel through time, and sends a group – including his older brother – back in time. Way back. Way, waaaaaaay back.
Oops! Equipment trouble, and they can’t return to the present. So, the prodigy-science-kid spends the next 60 years refining his invention to rescue his time-lost brother. A crack team of Navy Seals enters the machine and shoots back in time to find the previous party – who haven’t aged a bit.
In fact, the only thing about the WWII vets that ages is their clothing, and not in terms of wear. The wartime duds have somehow transformed into spaghetti-strap blouses (on the women) and other non-military wear, that have held up amazingly, despite having been worn every day of every year since the failed experiment sent them back. I won’t even mention the difference in women’s undergarments (visible in the movie) when comparing today with WWII, the stuff YOUR GRANDMOTHER WORE! Think about it. Thongs? That’s what your grandmother wore on her feet. You know, flip-flops. That’s right.
It never ceases to amaze me how much money can be thrown into a movie. I always wonder when watching movies like these, if the people involved believed they were creating high entertainment.
100,000,000 B.C. is fun, even if only for the slow-mo chuckles. It’s a laugh to watch the little computer-generated cave-people perform 30-foot vertical leaps to get to safety. (Did they think we wouldn’t notice?) And when the two women jump out of the hovering helicopter, couldn’t they find some pillows or mattresses and film a real jump? The little computer-characters look so much like Mario Bros. effects, you half expect to see a running game score total in the corner of the screen.
It is nice that there is work for Christopher Atkins (Blue Lagoon 1980) and Michael Gross (television’s dad to Michael J. Fox on Family Ties), and a training ground for special effects creators. The big dinosaurs are actually pretty well articulated. It’s just the little details that seemed to have slipped.
It may be in the year’s Top-10.
(Movies to freeze-frame and slow-motion.)
Me in high school, walking out the door in typical teen clothing: Bye, Mom!
Mom, shouting from another part of the house without looking: You are not going out in public looking like that are you?
Me pausing at the door, mumbling a smart-alecky reply that – if heard - will get me grounded for the rest of the semester: Mblxmaofoiajef…
The nice thing, I suppose, about the movie 100,000,000 B.C. is that it is available on Netflix, and so it technically cost me nothing to watch it. I say technically, because if it was the only movie I watch all month, it cost me $14.95. But – if you are like me, and watch movies on DVD on fast-forward just to get them back in the mail and swapped for a new one – you’re watching 75 to 80 movies a month, just like me. Averaged out, they’re practically free.
There was a previous movie starring then-hottie Raquel Welch called One Million Years B.C., but Director Griff Furst (his real name) could not be satisfied with a simple million, what with inflation and all. In 100-Million B.C. (I get tired of all the zeroes), time-travelers go so far back in the past that they cross the believable-barrier.
The premise is (I’m still saying nice things, aren’t I?) that shortly after World War II, a prodigy-science-kid invents a way to travel through time, and sends a group – including his older brother – back in time. Way back. Way, waaaaaaay back.
Oops! Equipment trouble, and they can’t return to the present. So, the prodigy-science-kid spends the next 60 years refining his invention to rescue his time-lost brother. A crack team of Navy Seals enters the machine and shoots back in time to find the previous party – who haven’t aged a bit.
In fact, the only thing about the WWII vets that ages is their clothing, and not in terms of wear. The wartime duds have somehow transformed into spaghetti-strap blouses (on the women) and other non-military wear, that have held up amazingly, despite having been worn every day of every year since the failed experiment sent them back. I won’t even mention the difference in women’s undergarments (visible in the movie) when comparing today with WWII, the stuff YOUR GRANDMOTHER WORE! Think about it. Thongs? That’s what your grandmother wore on her feet. You know, flip-flops. That’s right.
It never ceases to amaze me how much money can be thrown into a movie. I always wonder when watching movies like these, if the people involved believed they were creating high entertainment.
100,000,000 B.C. is fun, even if only for the slow-mo chuckles. It’s a laugh to watch the little computer-generated cave-people perform 30-foot vertical leaps to get to safety. (Did they think we wouldn’t notice?) And when the two women jump out of the hovering helicopter, couldn’t they find some pillows or mattresses and film a real jump? The little computer-characters look so much like Mario Bros. effects, you half expect to see a running game score total in the corner of the screen.
It is nice that there is work for Christopher Atkins (Blue Lagoon 1980) and Michael Gross (television’s dad to Michael J. Fox on Family Ties), and a training ground for special effects creators. The big dinosaurs are actually pretty well articulated. It’s just the little details that seemed to have slipped.
It may be in the year’s Top-10.
(Movies to freeze-frame and slow-motion.)
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Record Time for Sleeping
Should I be embarrassed to admit I had to look up the name of the Olympic gold medalist, Michael Phelps? Apparently, he is everywhere but in my memory.
As a general rule, I don’t check the swimming results in the sports pages, and the Olympics – while an event that interested me in the past – for some reason didn’t have that same allure this go-round. In a shameless fit of backslapping during the pre-football programming, the announcer who called the races won by Phelps was given a tribute and highlights of ALL the medal races were shown.
That’s my supposition.
I bailed out after the third race or so. He was in the water, he was swimming fast, but we already knew he won. The announcer sounded excited, as I’m sure he was at the time.
So. Why am I thinking about Michael Phelps, anyway?
It isn’t so much him as it is the timing clocks of swimming events. They measure time in the thousands of a second. That’s .001 – one-thousandth of a SINGLE SECOND.
The original proposition was: What is the correct answer to the question, “Are you asleep?”
Naturally, the question is posed at sporting event decibels. The sleep-state is thereby ended. Officially. As a sleeper not inclined to practice the art at sporting events (the decibel level of the question, you remember…), I naturally wake up (un-naturally) at the very first breath of the very first syllable of the very first utterance.
My waking is in swimming-time.
And awaking in thousands of a SINGLE SECOND, means that the delightful REM moments are completely gone by the time the –A- is sounded in “Are” and long before the question is finished. In fact, it’s a full-eye opener for me by the time the little foot-extension on the letter A is sounded, the one on the left.
Her: Are you awake?
Me: Sure. I’ve just been laying here in the dark since you started that sentence.
Her: I just wanted to remind you that we have to get up early, so you’d better get some rest.
It’s lucky that I don’t have reactive military training, the sort that produces involuntary karate-kicks in a thousand of a SINGLE SECOND. I’d have to have Michael Phelps on stand-by to dive in between us - in gold-medal time - to keep us breaking the blessed silence instead of kneecaps.
Check out the bookstore:
http://mchustonbooks.com
As a general rule, I don’t check the swimming results in the sports pages, and the Olympics – while an event that interested me in the past – for some reason didn’t have that same allure this go-round. In a shameless fit of backslapping during the pre-football programming, the announcer who called the races won by Phelps was given a tribute and highlights of ALL the medal races were shown.
That’s my supposition.
I bailed out after the third race or so. He was in the water, he was swimming fast, but we already knew he won. The announcer sounded excited, as I’m sure he was at the time.
So. Why am I thinking about Michael Phelps, anyway?
It isn’t so much him as it is the timing clocks of swimming events. They measure time in the thousands of a second. That’s .001 – one-thousandth of a SINGLE SECOND.
The original proposition was: What is the correct answer to the question, “Are you asleep?”
Naturally, the question is posed at sporting event decibels. The sleep-state is thereby ended. Officially. As a sleeper not inclined to practice the art at sporting events (the decibel level of the question, you remember…), I naturally wake up (un-naturally) at the very first breath of the very first syllable of the very first utterance.
My waking is in swimming-time.
And awaking in thousands of a SINGLE SECOND, means that the delightful REM moments are completely gone by the time the –A- is sounded in “Are” and long before the question is finished. In fact, it’s a full-eye opener for me by the time the little foot-extension on the letter A is sounded, the one on the left.
Her: Are you awake?
Me: Sure. I’ve just been laying here in the dark since you started that sentence.
Her: I just wanted to remind you that we have to get up early, so you’d better get some rest.
It’s lucky that I don’t have reactive military training, the sort that produces involuntary karate-kicks in a thousand of a SINGLE SECOND. I’d have to have Michael Phelps on stand-by to dive in between us - in gold-medal time - to keep us breaking the blessed silence instead of kneecaps.
Check out the bookstore:
http://mchustonbooks.com
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Sportscasters or Sportscastigators?
I'm not sure when or why it happened - but at some point in time, radio sportscasters got VERY angry. And not just angry. Anger is a momentary fit 0f passion. You get over it and move on.
Sportscasters don't move on, except to the next topic or phone call, bringing along the same cutting anger and mean-spiritedness that they laid on the previous subject or caller.
These aren't professional athletes who have taken up the microphone, either - although it can be argued that a good percentage of professional athletes could do just as good a job, without the attitude.
Who are these flame-throwing no-names that have such little patience with their participating audience members?
My stab at profiling: Played some sport at some level (Little League Baseball, High School Football, Collegiate Intramural), started in a small radio market or college station, has no degree or equivalent experience, but considers themselves a journalist. Under 35, most likely under thirty. Single or married more than once. Always correct in a disagreement, the other party is just stupid. Except for getting hired for the on-mike gig, no different than most sports fans in America, the very people being railed against.
Covering sports ought to be fun. Most sports are games, after all. It ought to be fun to listen to people talk about games.
The exception?
Dan Patrick. As far as I can tell, he is the only one on the radio that provides a consistent laugh, and can even laugh at himself. Fun to listen to, and often funny - but not in that ESPN-schtick comedian proving ground that Obermann and others developed.
He even sounds sincere, when answering (seemingly) every caller's first words - "How ya doing?"
"Doin' good," he answers.
He sure is.
Check out the books at:
http://mchustonbooks.com
McHuston's One Famous Name
http://onefamousname.blogspot.com
Sportscasters don't move on, except to the next topic or phone call, bringing along the same cutting anger and mean-spiritedness that they laid on the previous subject or caller.
These aren't professional athletes who have taken up the microphone, either - although it can be argued that a good percentage of professional athletes could do just as good a job, without the attitude.
Who are these flame-throwing no-names that have such little patience with their participating audience members?
My stab at profiling: Played some sport at some level (Little League Baseball, High School Football, Collegiate Intramural), started in a small radio market or college station, has no degree or equivalent experience, but considers themselves a journalist. Under 35, most likely under thirty. Single or married more than once. Always correct in a disagreement, the other party is just stupid. Except for getting hired for the on-mike gig, no different than most sports fans in America, the very people being railed against.
Covering sports ought to be fun. Most sports are games, after all. It ought to be fun to listen to people talk about games.
The exception?
Dan Patrick. As far as I can tell, he is the only one on the radio that provides a consistent laugh, and can even laugh at himself. Fun to listen to, and often funny - but not in that ESPN-schtick comedian proving ground that Obermann and others developed.
He even sounds sincere, when answering (seemingly) every caller's first words - "How ya doing?"
"Doin' good," he answers.
He sure is.
Check out the books at:
http://mchustonbooks.com
McHuston's One Famous Name
http://onefamousname.blogspot.com
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
The New Clichés
Can it be cliché if it is new?
Decidedly, yes.
Overuse doesn’t take centuries, just listen to the television or radio, then get your head around this…
Get your head around?
I’m sure you’ve been prodded to manipulate your anatomy in this fashion, or have been asked to wrap your head around it. It’s usually described as being hard to do.
Interviewer: “So, you ate 42 hot dogs in six minutes?”
Contest winner: “Yup. I know that’s hard to get your head around, but I done it.”
Interviewer: “Even harder to get my mouth around…but hey! Whatever works!”
We’ll have more on that story in a moment, but first – to Trisblikistan, where we have a reporter on the ground with a group of insurgents.
WHAT?
Where else would the reporter be? Hovering at shoulder-height? Suddenly, everybody is on the ground – even if they are reporting from atop an aircraft carrier miles from the nearest topsoil.
Don’t get me started on the sports clichés – I’d be too quick to take it to the house.
Check out the books at:
http://mchustonbooks.com
McHuston's One Famous Name
http://onefamousname.blogspot.com
Decidedly, yes.
Overuse doesn’t take centuries, just listen to the television or radio, then get your head around this…
Get your head around?
I’m sure you’ve been prodded to manipulate your anatomy in this fashion, or have been asked to wrap your head around it. It’s usually described as being hard to do.
Interviewer: “So, you ate 42 hot dogs in six minutes?”
Contest winner: “Yup. I know that’s hard to get your head around, but I done it.”
Interviewer: “Even harder to get my mouth around…but hey! Whatever works!”
We’ll have more on that story in a moment, but first – to Trisblikistan, where we have a reporter on the ground with a group of insurgents.
WHAT?
Where else would the reporter be? Hovering at shoulder-height? Suddenly, everybody is on the ground – even if they are reporting from atop an aircraft carrier miles from the nearest topsoil.
Don’t get me started on the sports clichés – I’d be too quick to take it to the house.
Check out the books at:
http://mchustonbooks.com
McHuston's One Famous Name
http://onefamousname.blogspot.com
Monday, June 23, 2008
More New Clichés
In unveiling new clichés, care must be taken not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, while remembering that not every cliché will make the time-honored list. That’s just the way the ball bounces. If you’ve done you’re homework, you’ve come across the new head-knockers, the phrases that commentators love to use instead of plain English.
Some clichés exist only for the sake of their inherent cliché-ness. Have you been advised lately about the danger of taking wooden nickels? Do we need to worry about that anymore?
But that’s neither here nor there.
I’m talking about the Nor’easters that bluster where storms once blew, and that ilk.
Son (age 10): “Dad, can we talk?”
Dad (age 35): “Sure, son. I’m here for ya’.”
Son (age 10): “Can you ramp up my allowance?”
Dad (feeling 85): “Can you skedaddle, you whippersnapper?”
What happened to increase? Is that a bad word now? When did it go south? Is there a penalty for its usage? Will that penalty eventually be ramped up?
No sooner is it ramped up, than it needs to be ratcheted down. No more decrease. Lessen is out.
Big government spending? Gotta ratchet it down.
Ramp up the volume on that song, will ya? Yes, you! The guy hanging on the convenience store gas nozzle while pumping high volume rap music all over our ears. It’s a special edition car stereo, one that doesn’t shut off with the ignition key, even on a timer. Babys are crying now. My chest is thumping with the bass. Or is it a heart attack...
Make that, an APPARENT heart attack.
Tim Russert is the latest victim of that dread condition, appearing under two separate headings in the medical manuals. First, the attack which is so apparent that there is no disputing the cause of death, sort of a Sigourney Weaver, chest-erupting, Alien-life-form-revealing grand mal mortem.
Son: “Dad? Are you okay?”
Dad: “Aasdraoeialfdakpoie!” (thing bursting from chest).
Son: “Oooo. That’s apparent. Heart attack. That’s gotta hurt.”
Dad: “Aasgaaaack.”
In the later on-camera interview:
Reporter: “He died of an apparent heart attack.”
Son: “Right. He died of a heart attack.”
Reporter: “Apparently.”
Son: “Oh, now you’re not sure? He apparently died?”
Reporter: “Aasdraoeialfdakpoie!” (thing bursting from chest).
Ah, well. It's no skin off my teeth.
Some clichés exist only for the sake of their inherent cliché-ness. Have you been advised lately about the danger of taking wooden nickels? Do we need to worry about that anymore?
But that’s neither here nor there.
I’m talking about the Nor’easters that bluster where storms once blew, and that ilk.
Son (age 10): “Dad, can we talk?”
Dad (age 35): “Sure, son. I’m here for ya’.”
Son (age 10): “Can you ramp up my allowance?”
Dad (feeling 85): “Can you skedaddle, you whippersnapper?”
What happened to increase? Is that a bad word now? When did it go south? Is there a penalty for its usage? Will that penalty eventually be ramped up?
No sooner is it ramped up, than it needs to be ratcheted down. No more decrease. Lessen is out.
Big government spending? Gotta ratchet it down.
Ramp up the volume on that song, will ya? Yes, you! The guy hanging on the convenience store gas nozzle while pumping high volume rap music all over our ears. It’s a special edition car stereo, one that doesn’t shut off with the ignition key, even on a timer. Babys are crying now. My chest is thumping with the bass. Or is it a heart attack...
Make that, an APPARENT heart attack.
Tim Russert is the latest victim of that dread condition, appearing under two separate headings in the medical manuals. First, the attack which is so apparent that there is no disputing the cause of death, sort of a Sigourney Weaver, chest-erupting, Alien-life-form-revealing grand mal mortem.
Son: “Dad? Are you okay?”
Dad: “Aasdraoeialfdakpoie!” (thing bursting from chest).
Son: “Oooo. That’s apparent. Heart attack. That’s gotta hurt.”
Dad: “Aasgaaaack.”
In the later on-camera interview:
Reporter: “He died of an apparent heart attack.”
Son: “Right. He died of a heart attack.”
Reporter: “Apparently.”
Son: “Oh, now you’re not sure? He apparently died?”
Reporter: “Aasdraoeialfdakpoie!” (thing bursting from chest).
Ah, well. It's no skin off my teeth.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Obscurity
All in all, it is humbling.
People achieving great things, moving in powerful circles, living enviable lives, dying and fading into that great leveler of all things: the obscurity of Time.
What does it take to achieve notoriety? Is any legacy of deed even possible? It may be the intention of the deluded unfortunates who make violence on innocents, firing guns into crowds and classrooms, hoping to achieve in death what they are unable to manage by living: the attention of the public.
What were their names again?
Sorry, I’ve already forgotten.
In an age that churns out “factoids,” every event is reduced to the minutia of that constitutes the tidal wave of information, and a sniper is merely another droplet of data.
The time for lasting fame is long past. The sun has long set on the age of Isaac Newton, Christopher Columbus, Alexander Graham Bell, Michelangelo, and their ilk. Memorable lives. Achievement. Legacy.
Quick. Who invented the atomic bomb?
Too late.
You had to stop and think.
People achieving great things, moving in powerful circles, living enviable lives, dying and fading into that great leveler of all things: the obscurity of Time.
What does it take to achieve notoriety? Is any legacy of deed even possible? It may be the intention of the deluded unfortunates who make violence on innocents, firing guns into crowds and classrooms, hoping to achieve in death what they are unable to manage by living: the attention of the public.
What were their names again?
Sorry, I’ve already forgotten.
In an age that churns out “factoids,” every event is reduced to the minutia of that constitutes the tidal wave of information, and a sniper is merely another droplet of data.
The time for lasting fame is long past. The sun has long set on the age of Isaac Newton, Christopher Columbus, Alexander Graham Bell, Michelangelo, and their ilk. Memorable lives. Achievement. Legacy.
Quick. Who invented the atomic bomb?
Too late.
You had to stop and think.
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