Man Martin's Blog, page 118

Mistakes I Haven't Made Yet

I've made some mistakes in my life, and I'll admit it.  Hey, I'm only human right?

For example, drying my hair - back when I had it - with an open bottle of Ben Gay on the counter, where it could easily get tangled in the cord and where it was approximately level with my exposed genitalia.

That was a mistake.

Using my wife's Nair on my face thinking it might save me the trouble of shaving.
That was a mistake.

Allowing my cousin to talk me into chugging a bottle of Johnny Walker at my bachelor party.

Oog.  Was that ever a mistake.

But there are some mistakes I haven't made.  Some mistakes you can't undo.

Like accidentally starting a nuclear war.  I haven't done that.

Reading aloud from an ancient book bound in human skin and summoning from some dark eldritch dimension a nameless horror of unspeakable evil.  Haven't done that either.

Interrupting Easter Sunday service by shouting, "Stop the music!  They found the body!"  There's another one I didn't do.

So all in all, I can feel pretty good about myself.  Yes, I've made some mistakes, such as mistaking wasabi for guacamole - that was a bad one - but there are a few mistakes I haven't made.

Yet.

Three Tricks to Make Friends

I can't tell you how many friends I've lost this wayThe Beatles's song tells us to look at all the lonely people.  Where do they all come from, the Beatles want to know, where do they all come from?
This just goes to show how incredibly dumb the Beatles are.
Looking at all the lonely people is A. Impossible, because being lonely, they're all in separate places.  Looking at each of them individually would take weeks.  B. Looking at a lonely person only exacerbates the problem.  Now he's lonely and self-conscious.  Thanks a lot, Beatles.
The real trick is to get lonely people into caring nurturing relationships.  After that, they'll be somebody else's problem.  So how can a lonely person make friends?  Presumably, if you're reading this blog, you're a lonely person yourself, because clearly you don't have anything better to do.  You might think you can make friends by staring at them without speaking or sitting in the bathtub and crying.  This is not so.  Oddly enough, going up to people and plaintively asking, "Will you be my friend?" doesn't work either.  Fortunately, there are some simple techniques for making friends.
Call People By Their Names: People like to hear the sound of their own names, so say their names frequently.  For example, if you're sitting next to someone named Dave, say, "Dave."  When he says, "What?" don't answer just wait a few seconds and say, "Dave," again.  Every few seconds say "Dave."  Nothing else, just the name.  Don't respond to questions, threats, or pleas for you to stop.  Soon he will be your friend.
Be Complimentary: There's a saying that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.  Like the Beatles' song, this just goes to show how stupid some people can be.  Why would you want to catch flies?  But back to the topic, try saying something nice once in a while for a change.  But it's not enough to say something like, "You're not as big a loser as everyone says you are," or "You must really love your mother to let her dress you that way," you have to be sincere.
Don't Hit a Friend on the Head with a Haddock:  I cannot stress this enough.  I don't know how many friends I've lost hitting them on heads with haddocks.  I mean, I'm holding a nice fresh haddock, and there's someone's head, what am I supposed to do?  But this will only lead to misunderstanding.  Instead, tell your friend, "Hey, watch this."  Then hit someone else on the head with a haddock.  Your friend will not only find this hilarious, he'll be touched by your consideration in not hitting him on the head with your haddock.  As far as the other person goes, he probably wouldn't have liked you anyway.
Be Amusing: People like people who amuse them.  Point at an imaginary spot on someone's shirt, just below the chin, and say, "There's a spot."  When they look down, bonk them in the nose.  If they don't look, keep repeating, "There's a spot, look, there's a spot, look," and like that until they finally give up and look.  Then bonk them.  A little while later, do the same trick again.  It never gets old.

Now It Can Be Told

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Portland, Oregon, police were told there was a chicken — and it was attempting to cross the road. In fact, the citizen who called the police non-emergency line on Monday evening reported that the chicken's efforts to cross a road in a north Portland neighborhood were bringing traffic nearly to a standstill.I was called in on the Chicken-Crossing-the-Road Case in Portland.  The suspect is still at large, and they needed my unique services.  I'm an animal profiler.It's sort of like one of those guys who profiles serial killers, you know, looks at their modus operandi and discovers they had mommy issues or whatever.  I really want to be a serial-killer profiler, but those jobs are way harder to get than they led me to believe back at Yale.  Yes, I have an associate degree in profiling from Bernie Yale's College of Criminal Justice 'n' Stuff.  Anyway, I'm filling in with part-time work profiling animal crimes until I make it to the big leagues.So what have I learned about Chicken X?  (Chicken X is the name I've assigned her until I've discovered her real name.)  Well, to start with, we have to firmly establish she really is a chicken.  The person who called 912 (The non-emergency police number.  If you just want to chat, you can call 913) said it was a chicken, but eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable.  In Newark, just last year, there was some vandalism allegedly perpetrated by a "monkey."  Turned out to be a chimpanzee.  So you never know.  Could be a chicken, could be a rooster.  Could be a hen.  Could even be a pullet, you never know.Nevertheless, I'll stake my reputation on it, that this really is a chicken.  Roosters are aggressive and - if you'll pardon the expression - cocky, but they aren't road-crossers.  Roosters prefer to stay put.  Chickens on the other hand often have deep-seated insecurities about themselves.  All their lives they've been called "chicken," and this gives them a subconscious desire to prove themselves.  They begin to wonder about their identity - "Did the egg come before me?" they ask themselves, "Or is the egg something that comes after me?"  They can drive themselves crazy with this sort of circular thinking.Once a chicken begins this downward spiral, she just can't help herself.  Show her a road, and she just has to cross it.  Ask a chicken why and she'll say, "To get to the other side."  But that's just a rationalization.  The deeper question is why does she want to get to the other side.  Does she believe on the other side, she'll be different in some way?  That she will find the answers to life's dilemmas that have eluded her?  Or is this a subconscious desire for death - that she wishes to cross over?  Does she secretly want to be a rooster?The truth is, in a case like this, there are many answers and no answer.I only hope we can find her before she crosses again.

Me and Grammar (Or should that be Grammar and I?)

I'll admit it, I love me some grammar.  I just get down and roll in it, I love it so much.  The school year is just starting, and I'm reviewing parts of speech with my little cherubs, and yes, I know, ho-hum, but grammar is so cool.  Like, you take Shakespeare.

Wild Bill Shakespeare
Grammar was His BitchIn Richard II, Henry Bolingbroke, who's just invaded England, greets the Duke of York as "my gracious uncle," and York angrily retorts, "Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle."  Isn't that slick?  Wild Bill makes "grace" and "uncle" into verbs, and when you call someone, "uncle," you "uncle him."

Here's another.  In Romeo and Juliet, the apothecary is afraid to sell Romeo poison because, "Mantua's law is death to any he that utters them."  "Utters" is nice - even to mention the name of the poison is a death penalty, but my favorite part is "any he."  Any he?  Any he?  What Shakespeare's doing is using a personal pronoun like an indefinite pronoun.  It's like guys cruising for chicks saying, "Let's go see if we can pick up some shes."  Actually, that is pretty cool, and I think I'll have some characters say exactly that the next opportunity I get.

Now in case you think I'm joking, here's one last one.  All of a sudden.  You've said that one before yourself, haven't you.  Well, Shakespeare coined that phrase in Taming of the Shrew.  Take a second to think how odd that phrase is.  Grammatically it makes no sense.  Sudden is an adjective, it cannot be the object of a preposition, but that's how Shakespeare uses it.  It's like saying, "All of a gradually," or "All of a slowly."  Those other two expressions wouldn't work, because they aren't about suddenness.  We get to the end of that phrase, "all of a sudden," and subconsciously we're thinking, where's the noun?  And there is no noun!  Whoa!  It's just sudden.  The expression itself is sudden, get it?

Okay, that's enough, I'll stop.

But I love me some grammar.  

1002, 1003, 1004, 1005, 1006, 1007, and 1008 that were cut from the book "1001 Great Jokes"

A man walks into a doctor's office, but realizes he's looking for the Post Office and walks back out again.

A traveling salesman spends the night with a farmer who happens to have these three beautiful daughters.  The traveling salesman is gay.

A doctor tells his patient, "I have good news and bad news.  The bad news is your total cholesterol is 230, but the good news is your HDL level is 59."

A priest, a rabbi, and a lawyer are on a plane together.  The in-flight movie is "One Hundred-Foot Journey."

Jesus and Moses are playing golf together.  Not that Jesus and Moses.

A little boy catches his mother having sex with the mailman.  "What are you doing?" the boy asks.  "He's delivering a letter," the mother answers between pants.  When the father comes home, he asks his son if anything interesting happened that day.  The boy is too traumatized to speak.

A octogenarian golfer is retrieving his ball from a water hazard when he hears a voice, "I am a magic frog.  If you kiss me, I will turn into a beautiful princess."  At this point, the golfer realizes he has had a stroke.

What We Talk About When We're Together

Nancy's in Philadelphia this week on business.  Between business trips, taking care of Mamma and Daddy, and a trip to Florida, in the past several weeks, I've seen her a total of about four days.  This is a monumental drag.

Drag is the perfect word here; it actually feels as if I am dragging.

I believe there must be a vitamin similar to Vitamin D, except that rather than being activated by sunlight, it's spending time with your wife.  Before you think I'm going to get all gushy on you, when Nancy and I are together we don't stare at each other cow-eyed and make goo-goo noises all day.

Here's what Nancy talks about when we're together: things I need to do; amused, irritated, or concerned narratives about other people, especially her parents; work-related subjects, complaints about stuff I did do; acknowledgement that the dog is a good dog; acknowledgement of produce from the garden; acknowledgement of completion of a thing I needed to do; personal queries, usually ending in "yet," as in, "Did you --- yet?" savings-draining expenses we need to undertake in the future; the progress of the savings-draining expenses we are undertaking right now; personal destinations - yoga, pedicure, etc; mutual destinations - church, Costco, etc; comments on conditions of weather, mosquitoes, and personal health.

The following represent my range of conversational topics: vague expressions of agreement, "mmm-hmm," "uh-huh," etc; vague expressions of concern and interest, "oh," "wow," etc; queries about supper menus; announcements of personal destinations, the gym, the hardware store, etc; remarking on mutual destinations, church, Costco, etc; queries about Nancy's family; status updates on things I was told to do; apologies for things I was told not to do; promises to do things I need to do but haven't yet; denials of responsibility for minor misfortunes in which I had no part; discussions of money, how much we have, what piles we have it in, how best to allocate it; acknowledgement that the dog is a good dog; acknowledgement of produce from the garden; inarticulate attempts at grand philosophical themes; comments on conditions of weather, mosquitoes, and personal health.

And that's it.  The Martin household discourse in a nutshell.  Not much to look at.

But how I miss it.

I'm Peeved as Heck and I'm Not Going to Take It Very Much Longer

I've Had Jusk About Alls I Cans Standsk and I Can'tsk Standks
Very Much More.
(Forearms Not Actual Size)If you think I'm going to put up with this much longer, you're entirely mistaken.  I mean it.  I'm fed almost up to here with this foolishness.  Not all the way up to here, you understand, but almost.  Like three-quarters full.  This may not be the last straw, but it's the next-to-last.  It's the penultimate straw.  At the very least, it's the antepenultimate straw.

You know Popeye?  He'd always say, "I hads alls I can standsk and I can't standsk no more?"  And then he'd squeeze a can of spinach - like just crush it in his fist until the lid popped off and spinach came gooshing out, straight into his gullet?  Immediately he'd go about whipping Bluto's ass with those weird forearms of his that were way bigger than his biceps for some reason - like his anchor tattoo had to be on his forearm because there wasn't room on his upper arm which was no bigger around that Olive Oyl's thigh - I mean, what kind of exercise did he do to have such massive forearms and leave his biceps like soda straws?

Sorry, I forgot what I was talking about.

Anyway, I'm almost at the point - not quite, but almost - of considering going all Popeye in this situation.  And believe me, my upper-arm development is way better than Popeye's.  My forearms may be no match for his, but my upper arms - I'm not bragging, I'm merely stating my upper arms are better than Popeye's, and if you don't believe me, you can come over some time, and I'll show you.

You're cruisin' for a bruisin'.  You're headin' for a shreddin'.  You're motor-vatin' for a de-capitatin'.  These are just some of the many rhyming threats I may be prepared to utter at some point in the future, along with, You're hum-veein' for a bumble-bee-in'.  The last one doesn't even make sense, but that's the sort of thing that happens when I really lose it, which could happen at some soon point in the foreseeable future.  You'll be there thinking, bumble-bee-in', is he threatening to sting me? when kai-yow, I open an extra large can of whoop-ass much like Popeye's spinach, only mine is only a metaphorical can and I have regular-sized forearms.

I'm not ready to say f- you and the horse you rode in on, but you and the horse might want to get better acquainted, if you know what I mean.  Take the horse out for coffee or go to a movie or something.  See if you have common interests.  Tell the horse she has a very sensuous mouth.

That's just the kind of mood I'm in.

An Open Letter to the Chickens from Farmer Bezos

Many, many thousands of years ago, before any of you were born, even before I was born, chickens and humans were in a life-or-death struggle.  Hard to believe, isn't it, from the comfort of your high-rise chicken condo, but it's true.  Humans hunted wild chickens for their pelts, and chickens in turn savagely attacked humans with razor-sharp claws and beaks.  It was a terrible time.  Mother chickens told their hatchlings never to trust any chicken over four feet tall, especially if it didn't have feathers and carried a club.

At one point, chickens were hunted nearly to extinction.  Think of that.  A world without chickens.

Then came an important advance, chicken farming, and an era of cooperation and peaceful relations arose between humans and chickens, a golden age.  Humans would care for thousands and thousands of chickens in a single building where no chicken ever had to leave the comfort of their tiny compartments or go outside, and in return humans took the eggs, which they carefully incubated and later fed them on the the choicest and most succulent mealy bugs and allowed them to frolic in unbelievably verdant fields forever and ever until the end of eternity.  

At first it was only eggs that were selected for this great honor, but the kindly humans, began to see how unfair this was.  What about the chickens who were already hatched?  Did they have to live out their lives on this earthly plain with no reward?  And so humans began an innovative program of selecting certain chickens for the processing plant, where, they, like so many generations of eggs before them, would live in perfect bliss and comfort and safety forever and ever until the end of time.

Now, we are on the dawn of another new era for chicken-kind: hydroponically-grown, genetically-modified, featherless, boneless-chickens, raised in comfort and luxury in big metal vats fed intravenously with liquid protein, antibiotics, steroids, and chicken-processing-plant floor-scrapings.  This means more chickens than ever before.  Now thousands of chickens get to live not just in a building, but a single large container - they don't need oxygen because their feeding mixture is oxygenated already and they don't need sunlight because studies show chickens don't need sunlight.  A win-win.

And yet, some chickens selfishly and maliciously have been complaining.  And they've been urging other chickens to complain as well.  They say their compartments are too "small," that there's no "air," that they're full of "feces."  Put simply, this is collusion, and is illegal.  Just recently a human court found some chickens guilty of collusion and sentenced them to fines and imprisonment, but certain chickens are at it again.  Some chickens just never learn.

The time has come to reveal something about the processing plant that no chicken has ever before been told.  Not all chickens get to live for eternity in perfect happiness.  Most chickens, yes, but some chickens - chickens who are disloyal, chickens who are ungrateful, chickens who spread rumors and collude - these chickens spend eternity in unbearable chicken torment - their feathers are endlessly, plucked, and when they grow back, they're plucked again!  And there's food, delicious, yummy bugs and worms - but they're always just out of reach.  And these bad chickens are in terrible torment, and there's endless clucking and gnashing of beaks.  Truly, I would be moved to pity for these chickens, if they didn't deserve their plight so deeply.

This is just something to keep in mind if the chicken in the next compartment over tries to incite you to disobedience or ingratitude and against the humans, who wish only for your well-being and happiness.

We humans are friendly and intense.  But if push comes to shove, we settle for being intense.

Sincerely,

Farmer Bezos

Standards Aren't What They Used to Be

Your School BoardWelcome back to a new school year, and we know all you parents and students will be thrilled to know the public education system is rolling out a whole new list of initiatives to better serve you and to prepare your students to become lifelong learners in an ever-changing world and meet the environmental, social, and economic challenges to come, robust and rigor.

Last year, we promised you the same thing with a different whole new set of initiatives, but those turned out to lack the rigor and not be as robust as we'd anticipated so we've dumped them in favor of something new, just like we dropped the last twenty sets of new initiatives before.  We are confident, robust and rigor, we've hit on the last new set of initiatives we will need.  So what's different, robust and rigor?

Robust and rigor, remember "No Child Left Behind?"  Well that's robust gone rigor.  Our new robust model is rigor, "Go ahead and leave some children behind."  Remember how we used to rigor talk about robust "self-esteem," well, no more.  Now, robust and rigor, we don't care about self-esteem."  In fact, robust, we rigor tell kids, "You're rigor ugly and your robust mamma dresses you funny."  Robust studies now show rigor that low self-esteem leads to higher achievement.  All these robust rigor years we had it exactly backward, go figure.

And robust and rigor math.  We tried robust getting children to rigor understand the problem rather than solve it.  Then, robust, it was like, we don't rigor give a hoot if you know what you're doing, just get the right answer.  Or maybe robust it was rigor the other way around.  Robust, I forget, rigor.  But in any case, rigor, our new robust model is, "Look, don't come to me for help, I don't know the answer either, I got an even crummier education than you!"

What we've robust rigor done is gone back to the basics.  And the basics in public robust education rigor has always been buzz-words.  So that's robust and rigor what we're doing.  This year's robust and rigor buzzwords are "Robust" and "Rigor."  We will rigor use them robust in every single sentence from here to eternity until test scores rise or we come up with something else.  We robust are confident this rigor will improve learning.  God knows, rigor, we've tried everything else, robust.

Robust and Rigor,

The Department of Robust and Rigor Education

Things I Don't Want

I was riding back from North Carolina with Spencer and Glenn and we passed this incredible roadside display of gigantic, brightly-colored metallic roosters, giraffes, and elephants.  "I want one!" I shouted.  Of course, what I meant was, I don't want one, but the thought of wanting one, of going to the guy behind the counter and saying, "How much for the twelve-foot rooster?" was very pleasant.
Hence this blog is about some of the many things I don't want.  This is not about things I actively don't want, things I'd never even daydream about having, like a tattoo, a motorcycle, or a pet ferret.  What I'm talking about is things I actually like, that make the world a better place for their existence, but I still wouldn't want, things I'm happy for other people to have.  I understand there's a Native American custom that if you compliment a possession, the owner's supposed to hand it over to you.  I think that's a terrible custom.  When I tell someone I like a painting on his wall, I mean I like the fact you have it.
Take for example dogs.  I like dogs.  I even have one.  But I can see someone else's dog and admire it without secretly feeling jealous or wanting one of my own.  I am wonderfully content with Zoe; nevertheless, I can appreciate the good qualities of your greyhound, schnauzer, or mutt.  
It's a wonderful thing to live in a world of material possessions you don't have to possess to enjoy.  I'm not talking about clouds and sunsets or that stuff.  This isn't a kind of "best things in life are free" blog - although I don't discount that - this is about enjoying the stuff other people paid for.
Like Victorian houses.  Oh my goodness, I love looking at someone's Victorian home.  I'm really mad about spires, and porches, and towers, especially when they're done up as "painted ladies" in those wild color combinations.  But emphatically, I would never want to live in a Victorian home.  
It's the same way with classic cars.  Show me a Duselldorf or certain years of Stingrays, and I will positively drool.  Sometimes the owner will open up the hood and show you the engine is gleaming chrome.  I love those old cars.  It makes me happy to see them, and I'm grateful there are people who devote themselves to restoring and maintaining them.  I don't want one.  I don't want to be one of those people.  I'm just glad those people exist. 
Or horses.  Is there any sight more uplifting than seeing these glossy brown muscular animals sporting around in a green field, or even just cropping grass?  Would you want to actually own one?  I wouldn't.  But it makes me happy someone else has them.  I even like to see cows.  Or goats.  Goats are not something I want, and yet I smile every time I see them.  Chickens are all the livestock I need.
(You knew sooner or later, I'd get around to bragging about my chickens.)  Maybe part of the pleasure I get from my chickens is the thought of the pleasure the neighbors get from the contemplation of owning a chicken without actually having to own one.  If so, that's just an added soupcon of chicken-induced happiness.
This makes me want to go somewhere - some huge open-air market - where people bring weird and wonderful geegaws from the four corners of the world for me to wonder and delight in.  Look at all the bright and glittery things!
That I don't want.