Unflipping believable

 I have bemoaned in the past that current youth interaction with the internet eliminated accidental reading but until I find the link to it, it will not be on the test. What I'm saying is that the entire nature of TV has changed so they will miss your jargon and cultural references or insist you are making stuff up. An important formative skill will be lost -- channel flipping.

From the earliest "remotes" (including younger siblings) to much more modern marvels you could move between channels with a relative consistency and efficiency. We developed favorites, and patterns. We anticipated plot twists and timed ourselves to be where we needed to be, when we needed to be there. We memorized numbers and combinations, often never knowing the actual name of the channel, just its letter or number. As the years progressed, we had to learn more and more numbers and combinations, but that is the price we pay for a free society. With tax. But this taught us how to retain important information.

But today, if I'm watching a football game on one streaming service but want to bounce to my cable company's cooking channel during the commercials. If I do that, then to get back to the football game isn't just a matter of hitting the "last" button because to open an app every single time is a onerous demand. Every time I do I feel like I have to solve a level of Zork just to get to the install screen. And when it finally logs you in, it takes you to the front page and you have to find your way to where you were tryoing to go initially. If he remembers. Then TV system does the same thing it does every time -- spinny circle, blank screen and then the proper feed. There we go, and....Dang. The ball game just hit the 2 minute warning. I want to check out that recipe and see how it ends! and repeat. No one will want to flip (a boon to advertisers who buy time and anticipate an expected loss of viewership at commercial -- now that bouncing is prohibitively annoying more eyes will stay on the ad) so maybe this is to encourage us to buy more TVs and computers? Go to sports bars? Maybe this is so the tech people can create a need that the nex-gen tech can solve! Yeah and they already have the solution in boxes, ready to be shipped at a premium.

I dunno but I'm pretty sure its a conspiracy.

A fan letter

 Sir -- 

I wanted to drop a note of thanks for your contribution to not just the dominant culture but to the dialect, the common cultural patois, the communication of the collective consciousness which comes from and touches our souls and the gestalt memory of our community.

I found myself late this evening lazing on the ersatz chesterfield adorning my parlor feeling a "mite peckish" as the Bard wrote. Living the solitary existence, I spend time oft stretched out, contemplating my childhood -- summers at the Y and a vacation cabin of Lincoln Logs, and I lack the companionship that would provide a steady and exploitable resource of creator and conveyance of comestibles when the pangs set in. I recalled an adventure of the previous even, when a chance encounter with a local butcherman (as he is commonly known in the market square) who presented me with a pre-shaped and seasoned mound of chopped meat for to be baked. It had been so and it sat in the safety of the icebox, awaiting application of heat to bring it back to the land of the edible.

So, sans a spouse for proxy retrieval (and as I am orphaned currently, bereft of parents both lost to the ravages of disease) and reluctant to arise from the repose and comfort furniture oft provides, I arched my back and, without engaging conscious thought, yelled, "Ma, the meatloaf!" And I sputtered a chortle at the inanity of my actions.

Though no delicacies appeared, I did achieve a moment of Zen awareness, looking at myself as if from the outside and realizing that I had somehow eternalized and internalized that creature of your wit and that phrasal child of your mind. You have won my respect and, dare I say, loyalty for your part in shaping my identity and comic field of experience.

So I tip my cap to you and say, "Thank you, Kevin Nealon!"

Sincerely and yours Etc,

Dan

In which I tell a joke

 

Imagine that there was a guy with the last name, "Chicken" and he meets a woman whose last name is "Nugget" and they get married. Then her last name would be "Chicken-Nugget" if they agreed to hyphenate their last names with his name first. And did I mention that her first name was "McDonald's"?

Hilarious, right?

The Cookie Review

 I'll start with background and a story.

The background -- I used to weigh less. I was more than a bit chonky in high school (all pizza and no girls makes Dan a fat boy) but I worked hard for the last year so that I could go to college and wear a pair of jeans like a normal person. For 4 years, I kept myself relatively slim, or even, dare I say, "svelte."

By the time I got hitched I was rocking a totally reasonable body. Then it all went to hell, but that's just because hell has a really excellent pizzeria. So I started packing on the el bee ess and went back to the primordial pleasantly plump. After the children came out I decided that I wanted to find a way to get back down to fighting weight. I anticipated fighting with the children, it seems. That might not have been the best attitude, but dagnabit, I am what I am. Usually.

I looked in to many different approaches to diet and settled on the one that made the least sense -- an Atkins-esque, low carb diet. And I stuck with it sort of for 20 plus years. Sometimes I was stricter on it than others, and I got time off for good behavior during vacations and holidays (and when I felt weak). But I always came back to it as my standard because, truth is, it has worked. I can get myself back to something around the lower end of my weight journey if I stick with the plan. Eat a cow everyday but god forbid I taste a single pretzel. There are rules about this.

A real deficiency is junk food. There are fake sweeteners and such but making stuff with them isn't easy. And fake flour? even harder. But I do it occasionally because a man's got to eat cookies sometimes. There have been attempts over the year but either they compromised on some necessary element of "food" or I compromised on my bottom line standards of what I was willing to eat. So when I found these "weighless cookies" that boasted zero net carbs, I was hooked. I bought a box and, that evening, scarfed them down like they were my business and thought, "well that was passable...I'll buy them again." So I go back to the store the next week and see them. Ever the optimist, I put two more boxes in my cart and went to check out. I get the sum and it seems way hi, so I look through the receipt and see that each of the boxes of cookies (6 each of three "flavors" with each cookie looking like a thicker quarter) is $25. Yeah. Well, I couldn't put them back so I figured I would save them for a special occasion and eat them slowly and deliberately. That was a mistake on every level.

Well, I ate another box recently but this time I took notes so I present to you my review:

I took a bite of the first group of cookies (the three flavors are "chocolate chip," "vanilla," and "marble." The last flavor was most authentic because you could really taste the marbles. After a bite or two, my mouth felt like it was engaged in 5 or 7 different allergic reactions at the same time. There was a weird bitterness and I'm not sure that cookies like this are supposed to be spicy. But it was a cookie so I persevered and ate all of them.

There are 18 cookies -- if that doesn't scream "single serving" then I don't know what does. Some of the bitterness was reduced by putting the cookies in the microwave (and turning the microwave on) for about 20 seconds. More bitterness can be removed by putting all the cookies in the garbage, forever.

As I continued to eat, the cookies became unpleasantly spicy and not in the good way. When I left them in the microwave for 30 seconds, they acquired a burnt flavor which was, considering the alternative, almost welcome. I kept eating, dreading each bite. Eventually, I took them out of the microwave and doused them with very low carb chocolate syrup. As delivery agents for the syrup, they were not complete failures. After finishing them all I realized that the three flavors are actually "painful," "Silly-Putty," and "angst." 

Anyone want a $25 box of cookies?

See me, hear me

 

I took some time yesterday to practice my "lying on the couch" skills. I put on some music to get me in the mood -- the particular streaming TV channel I found put the song lyrics up as the music played. I watched the lyrics go by, matching the music played and I realized just how stupid and poorly worded the lines often are. I also realized that the lyrics I apparently made up in my head years ago are actually better than what I found out the singer is actually singing.

The pedestal of "poetry" upon which I have consistently installed the musical verse as co-captain sets a standard, an expectation in my head of something that rises to the level of that ill-defined "poetic." The words are supposed to make some sense, even if that requires a poetic license when interpreting. But when Heart sings (in Barracuda, and I don't know which Wilson sister penned this) "you're gonna burn burn burn burn down to the wick" I must cry foul. Things don't burn TO the wick.

Some songs don't make any sense at all (semantically, syntactically, linguistically, contextually, conceptually, stylistically...) and in fact, if one were to separate the lyrics from the music and judge the words in that vacuum, the fact is that a lot of them are really, really bad.

I was under the impression that in certain cases, like in many songs by R.E.M., unintelligibility was the point, and if you could make out the words, there was no attempt to have them make sense. Good gag, fellows. Yay, Athens and all that. But when did Nirvana stop making sense? Sure, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder was using intentionally non-sensical lyrics for Yellow Ledbetter, the Beatles turned the vocals around in Rain, the "words" to the closing theme of WKRP are supposed to make no sense and the conversation in the midst of Everlong was studio-tweaked so as to be impossible to understand but the run of the mill lyrics, when the writer/performer is making no effort to mask them, should paint pictures, or tell stories or somehow express a strong emotion. They should do something poetic, that is communicative with an awareness of form, banking on a shared set of meanings and understandings with the audience. Heck, once we found out what the lyrics to Louie, Louie were we learned that they tell a clear story. It just seems that so many of them don't do that!

Now wait, you are no doubt saying -- aren't there equally insipid, illogical or otherwise offensive pieces of non-musical "poetry"? Why lay this at the feet of lyricists when generations of bad poetry have been written. Here's a reason. Yes, bad poetry exists but can you name it? (not some well regarded poem that you, personally, don't like, but a bad poem that everyone agrees is bad but everyone likes anyway)

In poetry, the word (most of the time) is intrinsically important so the poem's success, its rise and fall, depends on that word and very little else. Fame is achieved after the gatekeepers of word and culture pass judgement and call the poet by that title. It might be a fluke of timing, but that poem has to touch people in a way that gives it legs in the public eye. The musician has his music as a top priority and this redeems the existence and burden of poor language skills (Rick Springfield's "the question's probably moot" I'm looking at you, and no, "probably mute" is just as bad). The point is that the poetic inanities sink based on the poverty of their core purpose as a collection of words, therefore standing much less of a chance of achieving popular awareness and acceptance and much more chance of remaining mired in the murky depths of ignominy.  But a "great song" might be composed of a quality melody saddled with words of lead but it will still rise to the top and enter the public sphere and consciousness by virtue of its music. So bad poetry exists but we stand much less chance of hearing about it.

Therefore, Aerosmith can write nonsense as its lyrical approach and still produce a hit so hook-laden that a Dr. a Captain and Gordie Howe stargaze at it. I don't think Wooly Bully achieved fame on the back of its expressive turns of phrase. You let the music do the talking, I guess and the pseudo-poetry, the lacking lyrics that should be languishing in the refuse heap are there for us to suffer through on the shoulders of musical genius. But bad poetry ends up in the dustbin of history.

This presents the problem of how to approach those words. Are they still called poetry or can I find a way to dismiss them as something lesser so that I can remove that sense of obligation from them, and others can't throw them at me as examples of expression that, by name and genre, can be in the same sentence as the classics of our language and its expression in verse?

Don't know.

My brain is full.

 Last night was a very prolific night and I am surrounded by pieces of paper and self-sent emails which have discrete little thoughts, ideas and stuff like that.

I shall now empty my brain here (except for some stuff slated for elsewhere).

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I watched the "Flamin Hot Cheetos" movie last night. Here are some reactions:

1. New game played when I go to the movies, "Is that Tony Shalhoub or not?"

2. Suddenly at one hour and 2 minutes into the film, the grumpy and grizzly older mentor-figure suddenly and magically becomes Dennis Haysbert!

3. As some one with very little appreciation for the spicinesses of the food world I was well prepared not to to like this movies. Well, as a famous US president once said, "mission accomplished".

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I'm looking for someone to make a Frank-Miller-esque origin story for Tevye. Maybe his life before Anatevka and how he married his wife. I would call it something gritty, like "Fiddler: Year One"

-------------

I heard a song last night (though I don't remember what the song was) and here's how I could explain it:

A band with a hit

that's a curious mix

of the Cure and the Clash

and some Kiss.

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Just tonight I've not written more top ten hit songs than most people don't write over their entire life 

------------

He found himself in the unenviable position of one trying to make a weighty decision with the impaired cognitive faculties of one for whom closing a Ziploc bag felt like operating heavy machinery.

----------

Only when they hear the playback and

read the transcript of today will they 

believe me about what I claim I say.

-------------

"On the realization of how important the tongue is in eating successfully"

Meet the poor tongue

not glam'rous as the lung

but swallow much depends

on the buds and their ends

So chew you no chew

and drinks must dry out

since food will now kill you

the tongue has the clout.

False Flags

 Yes, another football post but before you skip it, realize that if I'm right, you could have gotten in on the ground floor. And what do you lose if I'm wrong? Nothing, right? So please send me like 10 bucks so that if you are wrong, you have lost something.

First, an apology. This post will be exploring adult themes and use language that will be relevant to those themes. I must use said racy words and phrases to illustrate the specific point I will be making. Now, on with the show:

The commentators read from their scripts not just in terms of the ebb and flow of the story line and the progress of the plot but in order to inject into our collective subconsciousnesseseses an acceptance of certain ideas. The massive number of football terms that are military in origin desensitizes us to the violence and we support the military complex because it connects to the glorification of the jocks, video games and the romantic notion of representing the home team and coming back from war. The other set of phrases is attempting to realign our thinking to accept erectile dysfunction as a perfectly normal condition. This will reassure the vast number of silent sufferers that they are not alone nor do they need to be embarrassed so they will be motivated to speak with their medical professional who will prescribe certain medicines. The resultant increase in demand will drive prices higher and stock values through the roof. No doubt the pharmaceutical companies, the military and the NFL will be rolling in the resultant dough.

The use of words and phrases like "penetration" (I heard the play by play guy last night speak about a running back who was good at "exploiting the smallest hole" and then said that the guy "has a bright future coming on"), the backfield, premature release, soft cover, wishBone offense and more -- there must be an agenda at work, and also at home here. Like, wherever!

During the commercial, I was told to "download the dick zap" (the uninitiated might think it was "the Dick's App" for the sporting goods chain, but who would download an app for a sporting goods store?)

another brain dump

 Scraps of paper pile up and I need a place to hide my stuff away, so here are some other things.

1. An idea for betting -- when you sign up for one of those online betting platforms, you declare a "home team". That's YOUR team, the one you root for. If, during the course of the season, you bet on the result of a game in which your team is playing, and you bet AGAINST your team and win, you get a payout with an extra 5% premium for your guts.

2. Watched more football and heard the following comments:

      a. of a place kicker, "he is among the top 5% in the league in successful kicks and that field goal shows you why." No, it doesn't show WHY -- it shows how he qualified for that statistic.

      b. The decision to challenge a call, to throw in that red flag and contest the on-the-field call voice of the expert. This is, you understand, not just a game -- this is the referee's workplace. You are watching him or her at work so now imagine if all those people watched, replayed and dissected everything you say and do and then you get challenged, in public. You just want to whisper "pssst, hey, coach, stop undermining my authority and making me look like an officious douche, you jerk."

      c. I just saw a receiver, in between plays, chatting with a defender. There is a challenge about whether the reception was a completed catch and I swear I just saw the defender say "it don't matter to me either way."

      d. Heard this comment about a player's improved play -- "He's dusting off the cobwebs of his old self." I have no idea what that means.

3. I think playing slot machines is sort of like sitting in front of a guy who keeps yelling "I'm thinking of a number! GUESS IT!" and no matter what you guess the guy yells "WRONG!" and slaps you in the face and then you both keep repeating this.

4. I did learn that Atlantic City has no supermarkets and has to have food bussed in in to be sold. That's insane.

5. Leo Sayer's "When I need love" is a really nice song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obC0MFHWJ0A

6. I watched the movie "No Body" again. I really, really like this movie. There is something so EARNEST about each of the characters/actors. The camera angle choices, the composition, it is all so balanced and intentional. It is understated and sincere but never taking itself too seriously. It just unfolds. There is an emotional depth and the movie unapologetic. Fantastic.

7. The music of my youth and adolescence is that elusive warm blanket for all me-kind; a patchwork of squares of sound, ragged edges and all, all holding me together in memories I should be able to access.

8. God doesn't let us understand the true nature of death because God doesn't want us to get too comfortable in this life or too certain about the next. We should never feel rewarded and clear on what's going on.

9. Sure, they say we have satellites in orbit that have cameras that can soo down to earth and read the license plate off of a moving car, and can look into the expanse of space and peer into the dawn of time, and yet, here in my world, I can't get a simple pair of binoculars that incorporate multi-spectrum sensitivities and magnification equivalent to an electron microscope with offensive weapons capability, and still be scratch resistant. Sheesh.

I watched a couple of movies

 So one movie I saw was called The Serpent. I have no idea what it was about. It was really bad but I took some notes. I don't think the context is necessary, so I'll just transcribe the snark as it happened:

1. Yes, but they're Company hot pants so it makes sense she would wear them on an op.

2. She steals 3 cars, kills 14 men including 2 CIA agents, makes a series of phone calls and raises a child from birth to 14 years old, all in the space of a 25 minute tracking shot.

3. It was so bad, I want someone ELSE'S money back.

The other movie was the new Indiana Jones movie (the Dial of Destiny). 

There was prodigious product placement for Pan Am Airlines. I am much more aware of their brand identity now and am very interested in availing myself of their product or service.

I have about a million questions about plot. How did the bad guys know to go to Sicily? The one bad guy watched a boat move away by using binoculars. He was able to discern the direction ("they're going west not east") but that should still leave a lot of planet to cover.

The whole issue with Schmidt and Voller and the same actor playing two unrelated roles makes no sense.

Indy gets shot. He is almost dead. A few scenes later, he is doing well. Then, he is collapsing and near death. Then he gets better.

I also saw "anon" last week (a Netflix original!) It is a Gattaca based movie that looks like parts were shot in Washington Heights when no one was in town.

Jets game, notes

 During the game Jonathan Vilma was discussing the holding calls that no one can see as there were calls that befuddled everyone. Then there was another strange call, "improper helmet use" but no player number was given and there was no replay -- instead, the camera switched so we can watch the guys in the booth chat. Eventually there is a replay and Vilma says, "he doesn't use his helmet at all" (which, I believe he says be cause he is assuming that the penalty was on a player involved in the tackle whereas I think the refs were finding something to call on a player off the ball and no one knew that that was what they were talking about because somebody was off book).

Despite the spate of questionable calls, no one thought to consult rules expert Dean Blandino until the 4th quarter. Greg Olsen had been complaining about the officiating since the 3rd quarter of the 49ers-Eagles game. Everyone sees it!

Coexistence Games

 So I had an idea. "Idea" is ancient Stupidic for "thought that keeps you from sleeping." So here's my idea:

Invite 2 representatives of every religious organization in an area (or every cultural group etc) to a get together to increase cultural sensitivities and knowledge. Each person should prepare by filling out a set of forms that have questions (what are the common misconceptions (or questions...) about your particular religious (cultural, political...) identity, what are three core ideas, what is one thing you have learned about another group today etc). Participants are invited to sign up to be "presenters" at scheduled sessions, in small groups, and those who aren't presenting can see the lineup of scheduled presenters and choose a group to join. The presenters explain whatever the topic is for that session/group, and then maybe take a question. Then there is food and milling about and then people sign up again, so many can choose to present and you can choose to whom you want to listen. Take a day and have 50 reps (25 groups) and 10 sessions of 15 minutes each, some lunch and snacks, and people leave fed and informed.

Someone run this up the flagpole and see who salutes. Now I try to go to sleep.

I confess

The following was written in real time, as it happened:

Today I'm going to admit something to you. Please don't think less of me for this -- accept me or reject me, there is no try, but here it is: I have never, never ever seen The Kentucky Fried Movie until tonight [ed. note, last night]. There it is.

I pride myself on my knowledge of trivia and cultural knowledge having consumed all and drunk from the fountains of communicative expression in all forms. I thought I'd seen it all and I acted like it. And I have seen a lot so I guess I somehow faked it and people just thought I had seen TKFM. But damn it, I'm watching it now [ed. note, then] and it is incredible! [ed. note -- I'd like to think that this is because of the movie, not because of any other variables which might have affected my mood at the time].

But if I haven't seen it, and I'm pretty sure I haven't, why do I feel such a crazy and constant sense of de ja vu as I watch? The scenes (the visual aesthetic and the familiar nostalgia), the plots, the actors...I somehow HAVE seen it but I have no ACTUAL memory of it, just the suggestion of memories.

I have to to have seen it. But I know I haven't. Or at least, I don't know that I have.

I feel guilty about this, having passed myself off as this flavor of fraud. I'm not sure that that's the wording I mean, but I'm trying to explain that I let and even led people to believe my encyclopedic knowledge of cultural touchstones and references (covering a particular range of years) and here it is, this perfect source code for 90% of modern day life on comedic earth and I have no conscious memory of ever having seen it. But it is triggering in my head a 24 frame per second set of technicolor de ja views and chains of thought that make simple memory look like a figment filmed in sepia tones.

I'm angry now -- at me and at the rest of the world. How did I miss this? How did the world let me miss this? I made it through all the banter and nodded sagely when the topic arose, and assumed that because wasn't called out for NOT recognizing all the bits and pieces, there was nothing so essential in the movie that I missed. I got everything the equivalent from somewhere else. I got by without it and nobody said a word so I couldn't have missed much. How unique and distinct could it possibly be?

I was a fool, a goddamn fool. I know that now and I'm not sure what to do with this new, little piece of self-knowledge. What else is the universe holding back or hiding from me, or me from myself. And why?

But maybe, somehow, in some alternate way, I DID see it, hear it and not just of it. Clips? Copies? I just don't know, but that film was a revelation.

There was no specific moment, no formal exam ever administered, nor any oath of loyalty required so no one knew that I hadn't seen it, but no one directly asked me and everyone just thought that, as it is a cultural imperative, I must have seen it and the world rolled on.

Brain Dump

 Another collection of things I have written recently that have no other home. Sift through them as you will.

-------------------

I was watching a football game and there was a camera shot of the defensive coordinator, the guy way upstairs, watching the game and some screens intently, and telling the guys downstairs what to do.

Every group of guys has at least one of these type -- always yelling at the TV set, telling everyone (especially the TV set) that he could do a better job of calling the game. "Put up or shut up" somebody said, and this guy said "try me."

--------------

I watched a documentary of Pink Floyd that clearly didn't have the permissions of the group members, nor any access to copyrighted material so it was pretty weak. But I realized that I like the song "Money" somewhat but I really like the song, "Time."

There was a string group playing a classical-type rendition of a Floyd song and I actually had this thought in my head, "I would have pitched that down and scored it for viola."

---------------

You know all those TV shows on which the host tries to conquer some restaurant challenge meal, some ungodly amount of food? I see those as menu inspirations for dinner.

-------------

Decisions....decisions!

I realized that I'm not actually aware of the decisions I make most of the time. Even if I do acts consciously, I can't pinpoint the moment when I flip that switch and decide to act. When did I actually choose that course of action?

--------------

Sometimes when I see someone pulling a rope that goes down a well, I wonder if that person is having a tug of war with someone in China.

-----------

there is more but the paper on which I wrote it is in the other room.

The Dallas Game

 

If you think I'm done with my NFL-is-Scripted theory, you're wrong. I watched the first half of last week's Thursday night game and, oh man, I have notes!

First Dallas possession. First down throw in the Red Zone. "Flag" on the play. Now, the announcers tell us, "We'll hear from the officials." The announcement comes, "There is no flag on the play" and we all repeat dumbly "there is no flag on the play" like hypnotized zombies. The official releases the mental hold he has on all of us and turns to two players who look at him confusedly and he says (yes, I heard him say this) "No, none -- we called it off, we called it off!"

The TV guy says, "Well, I guess. There's. No. (in a high pitched, squeaky voice) Flaaaag. Ontheplay."

Cut to commercial.

Later comment when something similar happens soon after, "That's the second time they've picked up a flag."

[the commentator knows something is hinky]

During the course of the game, I see, after more plays than usual, players lifting their hands after they make a tackle or whatever it is they do, as if to say "Not me, I didn't do anything." I've seen players being nice to each other, helping each other up and chatting between plays. All of this sends the messages to the officials that "we aren't your pawns tonight. We aren't going to give you ANYTHING to call us on and hold against us -- nothing to allow you to steer us. If you call a penalty, you will be seen as the corrupt force that you are."

At least that's what it looks like to me.