It ain't all pizzas and cream

Repeat after me...

Coach light...
Hand towel...
Linen closet...
Breakfast nook...

These are phrases I'm only now, as the owner of a suburban home, beginning to understand.  Until Monday, they had only vague ghost-like meanings, without any application or example in my life.   Sort of like unicorn or phlogiston.  But last night when Cecily said, "remember to turn out the coach light," I was alerted to just how spectacularly foreign my life had become, and how quickly it could change. 

Bear in mind that 17 years ago I was homeless--not in the soup line, Salvation Army sense--but my name appeared on no deed or lease...my only job was a part-time night-shift gig loading beers at a local delicatessen...my few sticks of furniture were in storage...and I was living on my girlfriend's fold-out couch.   Oh, and I was drunk almost all the time.  So you'll understand if it seems a little strange to have a coach light or a linen closet.

During those days, in the work-a-holic 1980s, when most of my peers were cutting each other's hamstrings to get one rung ahead on the corporate ladder, I realized that if I were ever to succeed financially in any sense, it would be by charity, luck, or crime.  Certainly not by my work ethic, which is even harder to find than phlogiston.   And since I don't have the belly for crime, and I'd have to hold my mouth open a long time before a veal parm would fly into it...luck would have to be with me.

So I think that buying a modest rowhome from a friend and in 4 years selling it for triple its value (and without putting any substantial work into it) qualifies as luck.  Big time.  Further proof that anyone can pick the right horse. 

So here we are in our new home, and with an instant 50% equity, thanks to the proceeds from the old home.   And I'm learning new phrases like hand towel, breakfast nook, and finished basement.   Maybe life IS all pizzas and cream afterall.

____________________________________________________________________

Slang of the day will return when I locate my dictionary.  In the meantime, here's a thought for the day...

Starved for Leadership
Californians electing Arnold Schwarzenegger governor is like a hungry man eating a picture of a hamburger.

Cheese Grabbies, Pretzel Noobies

I just got done watching a ABC News story about a potential ban that would limit or eliminate TV ads promoting junk food to children. This in itself is not "new" news.  There have been similiar proposals,  designed to limit the availability of junk food in public schools, for example.  But this one seems a bit extreme and off target to me.  The rationale is that the industry won't self-regulate, so the government must step in.  Pardon me for asking such a rube's question, but WHY must the government step in?  I mean, this equation seems to be missing one important variable... we have the kids, the junk food industry, the media, and the government... but where are the PARENTS?  Afterall, they're the ones buying the junk food. They're the ones with the money.   

My mom wasn't too strict about limiting my junk food consumption, but even she had her limits.  So she said, "No."  As in: "No Charlie, you may NOT have any Cheese Grabbies today...you already have a bag of Pretzel Noobies at home."  Simple as that.  Don't get me wrong, I think in "captive audience" situations like school cafeterias, it is the responsibility of the school to provide nutritious meals.  But in the home, that responsibility falls to the parents....not, in my opinion, the government or the food industry (I'm drinking a Coke and eating Milanos as I write this, as is my CHOICE).

You may well ask, what about allowance money?  Well, that has always gone to the bubblegum and soda market anyway.  Nobody is going to make a 9-year-old nutritionally responsible with their allowance.  And frankly I wouldn't want to... other than to make the point that, "If you spend all your money on Cheese Grabbies, you won't have any left for the sneakers that light up [or fill-in other inane, trendy, and soon-to-be-forgotten or broken item here]."  There, at least, is fiscal responsibility.    

So now you're probably asking, why hasn't he brought up the "obesity epidemic"?  Because it's a load of crap...more fear-mongering on the part of our ever-vigilant media...always eager to jump out of our TV sets and yell, "Boo!"  Cecily addresses this topic so much better than I could, so I won't belabor it, other than to say that if we need the government to tell us that we shouldn't eat jellybeans for breakfast and cupcakes for dinner, we're in bigger trouble than I thought. 

Does all this mean I'm anti-exercise?  Hell no. I'm very pro-exercise, tho not necessarily in the "team sports" flavor (which at the end of the day ends up being cruel or belittling to somebody).  I'm  thinking more about walking, running, swimming, cycling...activities that can be done alone or in groups, competitively or not, and any of which (from a health perspective) beats sitting around playing the latest version of Grand Theft Auto.

Again drawing on personal experience here, my mom was not too strict about limiting my TV time, but when she thought I'd been inside too long (and when SHE needed a break), she'd tell me to go to the park.  And I did.  Either alone or with friends.  And I played, using something they used to call "imagination."  But again, it all comes down to the parents.  Lesson one: "Don't buy the Playstation."  At least then your kid will have to walk to and from the house of a friend whose parents did buy one.  And that is exercise.

A Mighty Wind

OK, we're about a month into the 2005 hurricane season, and we've already had 5 named storms (for those of you keeping score: Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Dennis, and Emily).  At this pace, we'll have to start dipping into the 2006 names by October. 

But my rant tonight isn't about the storms, or about global warming or whatever may be responsible for them.  It is about the news coverage.  In our age of media over-saturation, we see dozens of "on the scene" reporters scurrying about like half-drowned rats every time one of these storms makes landfall.  And the whole thing brings to mind a few questions...

1. Why the slickers? I'm convinced that storm correspondents wear those rain slickers not to keep dry (which would be quite a feat in a 100-mph wind) but to make the storm look "blowier" on tape.  Face it, the sight of a reporter being dragged down an abandoned boulevard by his own hoody is far more dramatic than a guy standing around in his shorts and t-shirt and talking about what a drag it is that his bar-b-q got rained out. 

2. Why the wires?  Why in this age of cordless everything are we seeing storm correspondents wired up like Christmas trees?  Most of our phones are wireless, an increasing number of our computers are wireless...so why are the people in charge of our breaking news standing around with microphones big as heads of broccoli, and wired with what looks like bridge cable?  Is this 1943?  Where is Edward R. Murrow?  Don't get me wrong, I have an affection for this old-time approach...but it seems out of place in a society and an industry (TV news) that is so obsessed with technology.

3. How much is too much? Last winter I posted an entry titled "It's snowing out here too, Bob" or somesuch.  Just substitute "raining" for "snowing" and you have our hurricane coverage.  How many folks to we need to tell us that the weather is very very bad before we believe them?  Given the number of correspondents assigned to the task, I imagine that if any one film crew panned back for a wide angle, their shot would reveal a mile or more of storm-tortured beach, lined entirely with other news crews.  Where do these guys all eat?  It's not like there's a Domino's delivering to the the evacuation zone.  But it is fun imagining the guarantee: "If your pizza gets swallowed by the sea, you're next one's free."

Ghoul Magnets

Well it's that time of year again... the week-long fiesta in Pamplona, Spain, highlighted of course by the famous "Running of the Bulls."     As you might expect, several people were gored and trampled again this year.  I actually heard one TV news reporter  express some shock at this fact.  I felt like shaking him by the shoulders and saying, "They were running down a street about the width of your sleeve, with hundreds of other people and a dozen angry bulls.  What did you think would happen?"  But since he was in the little TV box and I was out here in my livingroom, I couldn't.

The Running of the Bulls is perhaps the most famous example of what I would call "acceptable jackassery"--a chance for any moron to lay his/her life on the line for nothing--and a classic ghoul magnet (I am no exception). Interestingly, none of today's injuries was fatal (there have only been a scant 10 fatalities resulting from the event since 1910).  Which means that most of these morons will go home with a nice scar to show to the fellas down at the local Jerkoff's Tavern...between TV ads for minivans and corn chips.

But I have to wonder... could there be an American equivalent?  How about the "Running of the F Trains"?  A hundred or so morons go down into the New York subway system and try to outrun the train.  I'm sure you could drum up some interest.  And the TV news reporters would get to say sentences like this:  "Three people were crushed and a dozen electrocuted today near 14th Street as part of Manhattan's week-long festival highlighted by the Running of the F Trains!" 

Dare we dream?

* * *

And I'm sure to piss-off someone with this one, but I'm going to add airshows to the list of "acceptable jackassery," tho with the caveat that the jackasses in this case are highly trained pilots who try to make their planes do things that they cannot. Face it, the average accountant from Cleveland could not come SO close to executing a perfect triple barrel roll before smashing into another plane.  That takes talent.  And training.  But airshow crashes are so commonplace that they are ghoul magnets.   I doubt that anyone shows up for any other reason than to see (and videotape) a disaster firsthand.  And if they're lucky, to sell it to the local TV network affiliate.  But I don't see these spectacles ending anytime soon.  It's definitely a case of: "If you crash it, they will come."

________________________________________________________________________

Slang of the day: flying blowtorch: a jet fighter.

What is WRONG with these people?

Kiki, Lola, Capri, Sofia.  Recognize the names?  They're the "Fantanas"--the Fanta soda girls who've infected most (if not all) movie theater chains with their brainless earworm loop of "Fanta Fanta dontcha wanta...Fanta Fanta dontcha wanta..." It's enough to make you want to arrive late. 

Well, as if the basic commercials weren't annoying enough, the producers of these ads have now created a faux persona for the all-girl "group" that includes a "greatest hits" selection.  Only problem of course is that the songs are ALL THE SAME.  And the "verses" are almost too inane... e.g., serenading a guy in a body cast with: "You look hot in all that plaster...drink some Fanta faster faster." Who wrote that one?  A drunk stroke victim?  I'd prefer something more honest...and more reflective of what is actually going on:

    "You're hotter than a pressure cooker...So buy a soda from a hooker!"

Also, I realize that repetition is one key to salemanship, but I'm sure that the endless chanting of "Fanta Fanta dontcha wanta" violates the Geneva Convention (if we're still adhereing to such standards of conduct).   I do wonder tho if the Fanta ads are being used as a form of torture at Guantanamo Bay.  They might work.  After only a few viewings I feel my personality beginning to fracture...so imagine the effects on a sleep- and food-deprived prisoner after 36 straight hours of "Fanta Fanta."  Not that I condone torture, but I think nearly anyone subjected to this treatment would probably sell their own mother for a nickel.   

Anyway, I'm not going to further Fanta's sales by plugging their website (I believe the brand is owned by Coke anyway, so they're still getting my money).  My only hope is that Kiki, Lola, Sofia, and  Capri  will move on to a product line that cannot be advertised in movie theaters. Perhaps they could become beer hookers instead:

   "Tonight's the night for getting plastered...Drink some Miller, faster faster!"

_________________________________________________________

Slang of the day: blonde and sweet: coffee with cream and sugar.