Man Martin's Blog, page 139

Jokes That Aren't

"So the farmer kills him."So a kangaroo comes into a bar and orders a gin.  The bartender charges him fifty dollars, and says "We don't get many kangaroos in here."  The kangaroo says, "God, oh, God, I can't help it.  I'm an alcoholic, and I can't stop myself."

There's a Catholic priest, a Rabbi, a Baptist minister, and a lawyer in an airplane.  The captain comes over the intercom and says, "We're having engine trouble, and we're going down."  The plane crashes and everyone dies.

A traveling salesman asks if he can spend the night at this farmer's house, and the farmer says okay.  But the thing is, the farmer has this incredibly sexy daughter, and she and the salesman make love that night.  The next morning, the farmer finds out about it, and kills the salesman.  The body is never found.

A man walks into a psychiatrist's office with a penguin on his head.  The psychiatrist says, "What can I do for you?"  The man says, "My wife died recently, and I've been incredibly depressed with thoughts of suicide."

Pete and Repete are in a boat.  Pete falls out, and even though it was only an accident, Repete can't get the district attorney to believe him.  He ends up serving seven years for negligent homicide.  His bunk-mate was a white racist named Earl.

The Wise Man Speaks

I Thought He was a Street Person Going for a
Shower-Curtain LookSo what's the deal with all this wisdom, and how come I got so much of it?  That's what you want to know, isn't it?  I'm just dripping with wisdom, I'm swimming in it.  I got wisdom coming out of every orifice and when I take out the trash, I got to be sure to throw out some extra wisdom just to keep it from piling up around the joint.  People going through my trash all the time, just hoping to pick up some wisdom, and who can blame them?  You know who I saw digging through my garbage the other day?  The Dalai Lama.  That's right.

I thought he was just a regular street person, going for kind of a shower-curtain look, but no, it's the Dalai Lama.  And I says, "Dalai, what gives?"  And he's all like, "You got so much wisdom, I just hate to see it go to waste."  So I says, "Knock yourself out, Dalai."  Just because you're wise, doesn't mean you can't afford to be generous.

So I'm betting you'd like me to lay some of my wisdom on you.  Here goes.

Early to bed, and early to rise.  That's right, that's one of Franklin's, but it's still just as true as ever.

If you don't control your temper, then it controls you.  That's one of my personal faves.  You know what they call an angry fool?  A fool!  Get it?  That one just cracks me up.

Everyone thinks he's a nice guy even if he's a straight-up butt-hole.  That's a hard one to wrap your head around.  You meet a grade-A blue-ribbon butt-hole, like a complete jerk, and he thinks he's Mr. Nice.  Doesn't keep him from being a butt-hole, though.

Don't go blowing a bunch of money on crap.  You know what they call expensive high-grade imported-from-Europe latest-thing crap?  That's right, crap.  Pretty much the same line as the one about the fool, but you get the idea.

Well, that's about it.  Fact is, after 2,000 years there's only so much wisdom out there.  I was just kidding about throwing out the extra in the trash.  I wasn't kidding about the Dalai Lama, though.

Poor sap.

Open Letter to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

I believe I have made an enemy of you, sir.  I do not know how this has happened, but it's the only explanation that makes sense.  Just take one example; the other day I was driving to work, and every stoplight was red.  Sure, one or two, you expect that, but every one?  It can't just be coincidence.  Then you take traffic itself; I'll put out of a lane that's come to a standstill and into one that's still moving, and then that one stops and the other one stops moving.  Clearly, someone is messing with me.  Someone with with power.  Someone with a grudge.

And it doesn't end when I get out of my car either.  I'll get in line at the grocery store, and I pick the shortest one, right?  Because otherwise, it'd be stupid.  But every time, the cashier suddenly turns into one of the Living Dead and scans items - all she has to do is scan them - as if each one were made of solid lead and the process of dragging them across the scanner - that's all she has to do - were as mysterious and complex and constructing the Great Pyramids.  Either that, or the customer in front of me - who only has, like, four items - will discover everything he's selected is missing its bar code or perhaps is not listed in the store's inventory at all, and requires the store manager, the CFO of the company, and several major shareholders, to track down each individual item and negotiate a price based on current commodity indexes and the core rate of inflation.

All I can say is, c'mon Mr. Christie, lighten up already!  Truce!

I do not know why you are so bitter that you must take out your rage on someone who has never said anything against you nor done anything to harm you.  Often this kind of bullying masks a deeper insecurity.  Is that it?  Is it your weight?  You need to know that you are ultimately judged by who you are not how you look.  In the meantime, maybe cut back on the rib roasts a little.  Is it your name?  I have a very cool name, and that is apt to make me smug.  Maybe that is why you have singled me out.  I am sorry you have such a dumb name, but surely you can see this is not my fault.  For this, you must make peace with your parents. Whether they gave you your name as a joke or because they stuttered, I don't know, but the time has come to deal with the demons of your past and move on.

And please, for the love of God, enough with the harassment already.

Things Are Not As Simple as They Seem. So Stay Away from Things

When You Get Right Down to It,
This is Just Somebody's OpinionThings are usually not as simple as they seem.  This is very inconvenient.  Take other people.  You size someone up - taking careful account of their age, race, sex, socio-economic status, and religion - and then, blammo!  It turns out they're nothing at all like you expected.  This completely wastes all the effort you put into judging them beforehand, which is why I recommend avoiding other people altogether, at least people who are not already exactly like you and don't share your tastes and opinions.  Certainly, it is appropriate to observe them from a distance - this is what they're there for - but on no account interact with them.

Facts are another thing.  You have opinions, and they are strongly held.  Good for you.  Opinions are the peanut butter of the soul; they hold together the two slices of bread that are...  Okay, I lost control of the metaphor, but nevertheless, opinions are essential to your sense of well-being and hence to your ability to operate in the world.  Unfortunately, every so often you come up against a fact, and what an awful lot of facts there are!  Many of these facts completely contradict things you believe.

Now what?

Not to worry; fortunately, facts are even easier to do without than people.  When you get right down to it, what is a "fact" anyway, but a kind of opinion?  Like algebra, that's just someone else's opinion!  I'll emphasize that phrase again: someone else, someone who is different than you.  Starting to get the picture?  We're talking about the sort of people you're better off avoiding in the first place.  And if they come back at you with - but remember, don't engage with them - a bunch of palaver about "scientific method" or "proof" or whatever, that's just another opinion.  And unless it agrees with you, a wrong opinion.

But what do you expect of people like that?

Amazon's Drones

Amazon is planning to deploy unmanned drones to deliver goods to customers.  They will call this service, "Amazon Prime Air," and they hope once fully operational, it will be able to deliver orders in thirty minutes or less.  They will need approval from the FAA and there's still some research and development to be done but they've already done test runs and they expect to have the system up and flying within a few years.
Is there anyone besides me who finds the thought of the air filled with unmanned delivery drones inexplicably chilling?  You punch an order into your smartphone - or hell, speak an order - say what sidewalk cafe or Bora Bora bungalow you're currently at, and - oh, wait a minute; you won't need to tell Amazon where you are, your smartphone already knows, and will tell Amazon for you, unless you want the order shipped somewhere else, like you want a crate of Deluxe Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches shipped to that nice neighbor who keeps borrowing your tools without returning them.
Is there ever a point when our lives become too convenient?  Is there something eerily troubling about requesting something and thirty minutes later having it come to you literally from the sky?  Everything I want - assuming I got the dough to pay for it - is immediately accessible - without frustration, delay, going to get it, or dealing with another human being - and comes to me via flying whirligig.  The thought should make me happy, right?  Excited.  And in a way, it does.  But deeper down, it bugs the hell out of me.  Why is that?  Can anyone tell me, why is that?

Technological Dotage

Last night I had a dream in which a toddler, scarcely out of diapers, was demonstrating how to use a smartphone and telling me I was in my "technological dotage."  What's remarkable was the dream is precisely a number of actual conversations over the past few years, conversations, I might add, that have been occurring with ever-increasing frequency.  I had the perfect rejoinder for the little tot, and would have given it, except at that moment, she turned into an enormous green moth and fluttered away.  The next thing I knew, I was in the Five Points Marta Station wearing only my whitey-tighties.

My great-grandmother, I would have said, or possibly my great-great-grandmother, never reached her technological dotage.  She was born, lived, and died surrounded by the same comfortable, familiar unchanging milieu.  Oh, sure, maybe the neighbors got themselves one of those fancy new Franklin Stoves or Becky Sue's husband went and bought her one of those newfangled Singer Sewing Machines, but basically life went on as it has always done, the pace of change too slow to notice in a generation.

My grandmother's case was somewhat different.  She traveled in a covered wagon to Montana and lived to see men walking on the moon.  She never quite reached what you'd call technological dotage, but she came close.  Her early life left indelible marks.  For instance, she always referred to a refrigerator as an "ice box," which wasn't something you'd even notice except you knew what she had in mind was an actual ice box which had to be replenished each day by a fresh delivery from the iceman.

Now I, in my fifties, am already in my dotage.  There are some things I not only don't understand how they work, I don't get why you'd want them.  The other night at a party, "Freebird" came on the stereo - excuse me, iPod, or Pandora or whatever - and a guest began waving her phone over her head.  She had an app displaying a cigarette lighter with a wavering flame dancing with the motion of the phone.  What???  How many apps must she have downloaded to have access to that particular one just in case an opportunity came along to use it?  On another occasion, a friend proudly demonstrated an app that allowed him to speak into his phone which would translate his words into a text message.  What???? What???  It was a phone.  I still haven't gotten over that one.

Anyway, my whole point about technological dotage is, it's arriving sooner and sooner.  For my great-great-grandmother, it never hit.  My grandmother experienced it, but not in a very major way and only when she was elderly.  But it's walloped me in my fifties, when I'm still a mere slip of a thing.

This means you, you smarty-pants youngsters, will experience it even sooner.  Think about that before you turn into giant moths and flit away.

Dennis Rodman Explains Himself

Happy "Believed-to-Be Birthday,"
Kim!Rodman brought a team of fellow former National Basketball Association stars to Pyongyang, to mark leader Kim Jong Un's birthday, which is believed to fall on Wednesday. The games come just after execution of Kim's uncle Jang Song Thaek, who was one of the most powerful figures in North Korea. During an interview with CNN, Rodman seemed to say that Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, held in North Korea since May 2013 was responsible for his own situation. "If you understand what Kenneth Bae did .... Do you understand what he did in this country? Why is he held captive in this country?" (Reuters)

Here's the thing people don't get about Kim.  Sure he's a dictator (air quotes) sure he's a monster (air quotes) who kills (air quotes) without mercy or conscience, but deep down, do they understand what kind of man Kim Jong Un is?  Have they taken the time to understand the person?

When you get right down to it, Kim is a very, very lonely man.  Sure, he's surrounded by sycophants and ass-kissers who will do whatever he tells them, but that's not the same as real friendship.  Believe me, I've experienced.  Deep down, Kim knows they only hang with him because they're afraid he'll kill them if they don't.  And it wouldn't do any good for Kim to ask them, "Why do you hang out with me?" because they'd only say, "It's not because we're afraid to die, oh no!  We really like you!  We think you're terrific!"  But Kim knows the score.  That's why he and I are so tight.  He can't kill me, so he knows my friendship isn't based on fear.  It's because he pays me.  It's a whole different sort of thing.

And everyone makes a big deal about Kim executing his own uncle, like he's the only one who ever did that before.  They're all like, Kim murdered Jang Song because he didn't clap enthusiastically enough, that's terrible!  Well, just stop and think about how Kim felt about it.  Here's Uncle Jang, barely putting his hands together after Kim just awarded himself another honor, and he's Kim's own uncle and knows Kim can have him killed, and he still gives half-ass applause.  That kind of thing hurts, man, you try not to let it show, but it hurts.

And Kenneth Bae, do you know what Kenneth Bae did, do you really know?  No, you don't ,do you?  Well, I don't know either because he's in a North Korean prison, and no one talks to nobody in a North Korean prison.  So we don't know what he did, but people get all judgy like he's sooo innocent, though we can't know for sure what he did because he's not allowed to talk to anyone.  So get off your high horse, people.  And you can bet whatever he did, it hurt Kim's feelings really bad, but no one ever thinks about that, do they?

So, yeah, I'm going to play hoops in North Korea.  Why?  Because I'm getting paid, and because Kim is my close personal friend, and because Wednesday is believed to be his birthday.  That means he's believed to be a Capricorn.  Jesus was believed to be a Capricorn, too, man.  You know what Capricorns are like, deep down?  They work hard to prove themselves because deep down they feel they aren't worthy.  If they can just learn to love themselves man, they can let go of all the negativity and be truly happy.  Think about it.

10 Reasons to Stay Inside (Other Than It's Freezing)

"Ugly and Mother
Dressed Me Funny"1. There's a lion out there.
2. Ugly, and my mother dressed me funny.
3. Days ending in -y unlucky.
4. Rather sleep.
5. Harmful UV Rays
6. Still have salted peanuts.
7. Gilligan's Island Marathon.
8. Barack Obama may call. (Even presidents get wrong numbers.)
9. Frozen precipitation mixed with meteors and volcanic ash.
10. Yeah, like I want to make the NSA's job any easier.

Things My Grandchildren Will Never See

Before you ask, no, I don't have any grand kids, and none are on the immediate horizon, but some of these things my children have seen, at least for a short time in their lives, so I can't title this "Things My Children Will Never See."  Nor is this some sort of speculative piece about the far-distant future of robotic maids and space-ship commuters - these are things a child born today would never see, things I grew up with and thought would be here forever.

Turntables and reel-to-reel recorders:  Remember those?  Everyone had a turntable with a special fat doohickey you'd put over the other doohickey for playing '45's.  Or was it '48's?  We would play the album Hair speeded up and pretend the gerbils were giving a rock concert.  If you had reel-to-reel, you were a serious audiophile.

Woolworths: Good Lord, how can Woolworths have gone away?  Does anyone remember the wonderful smell of the inside of Woolworths?  It was the first and only place I ever shoplifted, and I always secretly blamed myself for their eventual demise.  They get a mention in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, when someone throws Ulysses McGill out of the "Wool's Worth," but future generations won't even get that joke.  "Five and Dimes" have also disappeared but they've been replaced with "Dollar Stores," so that's not extinction, it's inflation.

The Sears Catalog: I could almost weep that the next generation will never know this essential joy of Christmas greed.  A fat book, thicker than a telephone directory, packed with stuff you could want.  Most of it, granted, seemed to be refrigerators and lawn tools, and a fair amount of the rest was sweaters and junk, but there were pages and pages and pages of toys to gloat over and envy.  Sears itself may be on the ropes, another inconceivable loss, but the passing of their Christmas catalog strikes the sharpest pang.

Pay Phones: An entire aspect of the culture was built around these - Clark Kent was always dashing to a phone booth to change into Superman.  The sardonic rejoinder, "That and a dime will get you a phone call" doesn't even make sense unless you have the essential referent.  The Yellow Pages, have gone with them - though, we still seem to get these periodically.

I've skimmed over the preceding and seen I've overused the word "essential," but I'll let it stand.  These things I imagined were essential, such primary parts of my landscape were they, turn out not to be essential.  That, I suppose, is the essence, the essential part, if you will, of time: things that we thought were essential - payphones, turntables, catalogs, Woolworths - turn out one by one, not to be.

These Kids Today!

My descent into old-fogey-hood is turning out to be steeper and more precipitous than I expected.  When discussing the younger generation, whom I always refer to as "these kids today," my voice assumes a squeaky note, that is simultaneously outraged, contemptuous, and powerless.  Powerless outraged contempt is the very cornerstone of fogeyism.

Some of my complaints are - "The dancing they do!  It's indecent!"  "The music they listen to - it's just noise!"  "They have no respect for their elders!" "They expect everything to just be handed to them!"  These complaints are invariably followed, for comparison's sake, with corresponding examples from my own youth, preceded by, "In my day..." or "When I was a kid..."

Another thing sure to bring on an old fogey rant is technology: "These kids and their dang Smartphones, constantly texting..."  (By "kid," I mean just about anyone under the age of forty-five.)  Old fogeys in the past complained about, "these kids and their fancy transistor radios," or "these kids and their new-fangled flivvers," or "these kids and their dag-nab tools of sharpened stone."

The descent to fogey-hood is changing me outwardly as well as inwardly.  I've taken to wearing reading glasses halfway down the nose, so I can look over the lenses at the youngster I'm advising about the importance of oil changes, eating enough fiber, and saving for retirement.  I've learned to tie a bow-tie, but truthfully, the look is too hip for my comfort.  I think I also want some suspenders I can put my thumbs behind, and maybe a lightweight bamboo cane to shake impotently in the air, as I mutter tremulously, "hell in a hand basket."  Then all that will be required is a straw hat, and the transformation will be complete.

I just realized the description I put together is not an archetypal fogey, but a member of a barbershop quartet.  Oh well.  It's the same thing, really.