Culture Wars

Nothing of import to write today. Just wanted to share this video from The Onion which cracked me up. Tomorrow's election day. GO VOTE! (Even if it means you vote for McCain.)


In The Know: Has Halloween Become Overcommercialized?

Fare thee well, flightless friend

Last Sunday morning, after a night of heavy drinking and little sleep - so worthless there was no veritas which I could type in vino-ed - I was hanging out with a friend of mine when my foggy brain realized that, in his aviator sunglasses, he looked like Steve ... Austin. No. Steve Tyler. Not it either. Steve ... city in Texas; he's a Bloom County character ... Steve Dallas! Compare, here. As he likes the work of Berkeley Breathed, I believe he took the comparison as a compliment. I meant it as a complimentary observation, at least. Then I remembered, "Holy shit. We only have one week until Opus leaves the pages of the comic section, forever." I need to take the little bird out. I need to show him some love. I need to get caught up!

That week has passed, and Opus departed today.



When Breathed announced he'd return to comics, he struck a deal that Opus would be a half-page, front page, one-week only strip. Honey and I were thrilled. Who else but Breathed deserved such an honor? Like Postsecret, it became a Sunday ritual for me. What did Opus have to offer this Sunday morning? This week, I read the preceding four strips only, but I don't feel caught up at all. I had fallen behind in the last year or so. During that time, our paper moved it from the front page of the funnies to the second, then later the third page. Bastards. Also somewhere during that time, my thesis and performing and my job became all-consuming and taking an hour on Sunday to read through the paper became a luxury I didn't afford myself as often as I should have. I needed sleep. Or a drink. Or a Tylenol PM with a benadryl chaser and post-it note reminder to spend 5 minutes with my dear, suffering husband and dog.

Bloom County is the first comic I remember following. (Not that I'm a big comic follower.) It was such a fun world for me. The first time I remember noticing it was when my dad received a copy of Loose Tails for his 40th birthday, from a friend. A wheelchair-bound man bedecked with nerdy kids and wierdo animals? Something about the wheelchair attracted me. Was this about a guy in a wheelchair? What a wonderful country we live in, where one who can't walk can be the hero! And all the little critters and kids riding on him: it's like when my brother and cousins and I used to take turns riding on the back of my cousin S's chair! Awesome!

As I dug into it, it seemed to be less about Cutter John alone, as it was all the awkward misfits who inhabited Bloom County. It was smart and dorky. Kinda like I was when I was 10. Some days I was Milo, principled and precocious, others I was Binkley, clueless and a vegetable resemblant. Incidentally, when I learned that New Orleans' newspaper was called the Times-Picayune, I had a hard time believing that they didn't swipe the name from Bloom County's rag. As a teenager, I decided I should grow up to be Lola Granola; I'm wearing overalls as I type this, ready to garden a bit this afternoon, so maybe that's the connection anymore. I learned what a vegan was from Bloom County. After the aliens swapped Steve Dallas' brain, he ditched Republicanism, got a perm, gave up smoking and eschewed ingesting any animal products. And yes, even though I've been a Democrat since I was a kiddo, I loved Steve, as well. How can you not love a character so sexistly clueless - or cluelessly sexist? He was kind of the antithesis of Cutter John: strapping and healthy, selfish and a defendant of the status quo.

I loved how Bloom County celebrated our hopes and fears, our flaws and fantasies, our accomplishments and mistakes. It's the fault of cockroaches that Bush the elder chose Dan Quayle - I laminated that one, as it was from the last strip received at the doorstep of my native home before our big move downstate; a souvenir. Don't we all need a field of dandelions to escape to to ponder the meaning of life? And of course, there was Opus to love the most. I think I like him - and identify with him - because he's always a little out of place, but wide-eyed, receptive and hopeful. He, like me, suffers from foot-in-mouth disease ("Hare Krishnas = Hairy Fishnuts"). He's both a progressive and a traditionalist. He's a romantic at heart, but also a thinker - for real, he is. And he's got a penchant for silly hats. I don't have that penchant, but I have a deep admiration for it. In recent years, I've assumed that if I ever got a tattoo, it would probably be of Opus; maybe of him looking chastened. Of course, I'm not so sure that pudgy, perplexed penguin anywhere on my body would entice my husband's amourous fingertips to continue their tradition of tracing my curves. (That's for you, VirginiaGal ... you can open your eyes, now, or clean up the puke on your chin, depending on your reaction.)

Now he's gone to live in his fantasy. Even with being so far behind in reading the latest strip as to feel estranged, I can't help but feel loss. My pudgy penguin friend won't be there anymore to greet me on Sundays. My Steve-Dallas-doppelganger pal doesn't think this is the last from Breathed. He's sure he'll pull a Michael Jordan in a couple of years and resurrect something from Bloom County to run for a few years again. I'm not as convinced. Though, I'd be thrilled if he did. Certainly, I'll have the books to keep me company (note to self: ask for entire collection for Christmas?), he'll no longer be part of my Sunday. Who'll fill that gap? Boondocks? Our paper hasn't run that strip in about 2 years. Bastards. Doonesbury? Too overtly political - excellent, but I prefer foibled accessibility. Foxtrot? Puh-leeze. Maybe Pearls Before Swine or Non Sequitir. Apparently, Berkeley Breathed is going to focus on writing childrens' books. I guess if/when Honey and I have kids, I can use those as a starter drug to lure the bairn into the church of Bloom County. Our favorite Homer Simpson quote is, "Raising kids is easy. You teach them to hate the things you hate, and what with the internet and all, they practically raise themselves." I don't hate much, but I do hope I can inculcate them to appreciate the pen of Berke Breathed.

WMML for the last few days

Yes. I'm ripping off the title of this post from the regular feature on Sonnjea's blog. But imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I hope she takes it as such.

Thank goodness for John McCain. Without him, a sophomoric joke from The Office that has had Honey and me in stitches since Thursday would've probably petered out by now. ("Petered out? Then why am I pregnant?" Hey-oh!)

In the season premiere of The Office, the folks at Dunder Mifflin were having an office weigh-in to compete in their company-wide summer weight loss challenge. As they crowded on the warehouse scale, Dwight was trying to get people to eat more to skew the results, so their end loss would be larger. He walked up to one of his officemates and held an eclair to her face. "Here, eat this eclair. If you can't swallow, at least hold it in your mouth." The camera focused on Jim who clearly got a kick out of Dwight's request. It took a few beats for me to figure out that it was a double entendre, but I've been riding it all week. Both Honey and I have been walking around the house looking for excuses to say, "If you can't swallow, at least hold it in your mouth." Yes. We're extraordinarily mature!

Around Sunday night, the joke started aging a little. But thankfully, the Republican candidate for the Presidency revived it for us. Monday morning, 6AM: we're sitting in the kitchen, checking emails, reading the news, etc and listening, as we do every morning to Morning Edition. The reporter is delivering a story about McCain and the bailout plan. They play a clip (about 15 seconds into this file) and McCain says something that rouses Honey and me out of our groggy Monday morning stupors. "This is something that all of us will swallow hard and go forward with."

Immediately, we died laughing. Awww, yeeeaaaahhhh! If you can't swallow the bailout, at least hold it in your mouth, America.

Our reaction was completely juvenile, I know. And, that I've been mashing up those two bits of media in my brain have kept me giggling for a week speaks to my utter lack of sophistication. But it certainly woke me up, on a morning when I so dreaded going into work that I wanted to cry. And it woke me up enough to really get a good workout on the Wii Fit - something I hadn't done in weeks. So ... thank you, John McCain. You are a Monday morning hero to this young woman!

Pup-cake

Sonnjea, over at Koji's Kitchen, always ends her posts with WMML, or "what made me laugh." Often, it's some antic that her dog Koji did during the day. Last night, we had a moment that made me think I should add a WMML tagline to my posts.

We have lots of reasons to eat cake in our house. Mine and Honey's birthdays and wedding anniversary, as well as Memorial Day and 4th of July all fall within roughly a 10 - week period. Plus, cake is a good thing and sometimes you just need cake*. We had cake last night and we indulged ourselves with a second helping late in the evening as we settled in to watch a movie in the den. Babydog, who often licks our plates clean if she's been good, was treated to Honey's leftovers. I took my time with the second piece. An entire second piece was just too much for me, so I scraped about half the icing to the edge of my plate, ate a bit of the cake and ate the other half of the icing. Babydog watched this all eagerly. I put her on a down-stay and then released her. She eagerly lapped up as much of the icing as she could and ate some of the cake. I took the plate away from her, so she wouldn't overdo it, and left her smiling.

Then, we watched something we'd never seen in our dog. Babydog had a sugar-high. She was grinning from pointy ear to pointy ear, panting. Her eyes were wide. She trotted over to Honey, sitting in his recliner, then over to me on the sofa. She'd jump up on the sofa with me and pace the length and come and pant and smile in my face. Then she'd jump off and then on again. Several times, she jumped up and climbed over the pillows to peer over the back of the sofa, like a kid who climbs monkey bars. She'd look over the edge and smile at us widely then jump off the way she came. Then she'd jump back up to peer over the back of the sofa again, pondering whether she could jump from a place so high - akin to a 10 or 12-foot jump to you and me, I suppose. She never did it. But she was so smiley and fidgety that Honey and I had to stop the movie to laugh at her. I half expected her to start saying, "you know what? you know what? you know what? you know what? I can curl my tongue." Or even better, " you know what? you know what? you know what? I can count to 200 by 5s; wanna hear?" I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd have climbed to the arm of the sofa and started belly flopping into the middle of the cushions or if she'd have started playing "the floor is lava."

That is what made me laugh.

*Cake is a large part of the reason we are married to begin with.

**note: The image above is not, in fact, Babydog. I just grabbed a picture off the "series of tubes" of a corgi eating cake. I accidentally left my camera at a friend's house during 4th of July festivities, so I didn't get to capture Babydog's mania. My friend promised I should receive my camera again, soon, with a few jokey pictures included. The last time I entrusted her with my camera, I found she'd taken a snapshot of hers and another mutual friend's cleavage.

Apropos of nothing. In fact, inappropriate

WARNING: If you're easily offended by bodily functions and non-medical/clinical discussions thereof, then it may be better for you to check out another blog.

Alright, so tonight I should be writing content which may or may not be used in collateral to be distributed at a fundraiser I hope to attend this weekend, but haven't really delved far into my wallet to see what kind of coin I can afford to part with these days. Yesterday I attended a baby dedication for a friend (or rather, for his baby) at a Unitarian church where I had several years previous, attended a memorial service for a former coworker, and I had been planning to blog on religion, ritual and variations on the theme. However, musings on religious expression will have to wait, and before I proceed with my writing assignment tonight, I simply must share with the few of you who read this what simultaneously turned my stomach and tickled my funny bone (all foreshadowed puns intended) this evening.

Honey and I have been watching The Tudors on iTunes; the first season anyway. It's totally as trashy as the website makes it out to be, but it's also got plastrin-front gowns! lutes! plague! Northam, Neill and Jonathan Rhys Meyers! Tonight, we watched the 10th (and I believe final) episode of season one. It opens with the young King Henry VIII masturbating into a cloth being held open by a servant-boy. I kid you not. I can't help but laugh just thinking about it!

The scene is awkward to say the very, very least. It cut away to shots of Anne Boleyn's heaving breasts and then back to the young king straining and whacking (all seen from the waist up). And just as the king came, we saw a closeup of Anne's delicate hands piercing a threaded needle through a piece of embroidery she was working on. Then, with the king spent, the servant, who had previously had his face maybe a foot from the royal junk and turned away (a wise choice in his position, I must admit), gets up, bows to the king, and holding the cloth slightly slack, leaves the room.

The way the scene played out, it seemed like Henry was working off some morning wood. Now, I have no idea if this was common practice for male monarchs to employ a manservant to accept his "kingliness," as it were. Though no history buff myself, per se, I place no faith in the historical accuracy of this series; I see it more as costume-drama porn set against the skeleton of historical events. All that said: what worse job could there be in the court than to be the Royal Jizz-catcher? Who did you have to piss of to get that assignment? I should hope that promotion was swift. My God! I'd much rather scrub the peasants' outhouses than have to spend each morning with my face inches from the sweaty scepter, praying that his aim was good. (Massive shudder!) I would be begging God every day for tuberculosis or the plague or leprosy to get me out of that job!

I was icked out by that for at least the first 5 minutes of the show. I wish I could tell you what transpired in those first five minutes, but I was temporarily blind. That's right: masturbation blinded me. All these years of the real stuff did nothing to my vision; seeing the staged version on TV blacked me out for five.

I apologize if I grossed anyone out. Mostly. This was just too weird and hilarious to keep to myself. ... I suppose it's discussing these sort of things that keeps be from being invited to posh places and events. This, and the fact that I'm not well-heeled.

Organization and Orgasms

I spent all yesterday afternoon and night cleaning up the tags on my blog. I'm hoping that the tagging system makes a little more sense than it did in the past. And, if you're interested, I hope you use the tags ... maybe I'll start using yours, then. Reciprocal scratching eh? [wink, wink; nudge, nudge!]

This morning my plan was to blog on either a movie we saw last night or on the practice of blogging itself. Both of those posts will have to wait. Today, I am blatantly ripping off JoeInVegas. Of course, I blatantly rip off Three Beautiful Things all the time, but today, I don't even bother coming up with my own content. And that's because Joe's bit was right up my humor alley. So, thanks for starting my Monday off right, Joe! (still hoping i've got this video embedding business down.)

Apply palm to forehead, forcefully. Utter, "d'oh!"

I love it when people do particularly obvious boneheaded things. It's hilarious. I also love it when the boneheaded thing took years to plan and accomplish and went undetected for decades. Such is the case with a cluster of buildings at the Coronado Naval Base which from the sky, clearly resemble a swastika. Here, take a looksee:

What I love about this is that the Navy claims that no one noticed this for forty years. The buildings were built in the 60s and until the advent of Google Earth, it slipped everyone's notice. I have to think this is bullshit. I worked at an architect's office for about a year and from what I remember about blueprints, you get to see buildings from all angles; top view included. Even if that slipped their purview, it seems like someone would've noticed something on a fly-over. The military loves doing fly-overs in all branches of service. I'm supposed to believe that during some air show, no pilot ever looked down and said, "Holy shit, Bill, look to your left! You won't believe this!"

Frankly, I think the Navy's $600,000 investment in landscape architecture to hide the building shapes isn't going to cut it. I think we'll find eventually they're going to have to do some major remodeling. In any event, it's rather hilarious to me that 20 years after the Holocaust, the same people who fought against the bloody oppressor would have unintentionally paid homage to their evil enemy in a form as permanent as a quad of buildings.