October 30, 2010: Two things are on my mind this morning, and so in an effort to clear my mind and get back to something important (like fantasizing about naked women), I want to dump them here and move on with my life.
The first involves the dictionary, or at least the stupid "pocket" paperback dictionary I have. Per se, there's nothing wrong with it -- American Heritage is a fine company, I'm sure, and it has more than served my purpose for the 10 years or so I've owned it. What I find so terribly annoying, however, is the fact that they include so many strange and irrelevant entries, but leave out so many others -- in particular people.
For starters, who the fuck is Margeret Bourke-White? Does anyone know, and do those who know really care? Yet this weird little dictionary feels compelled to include a picture of her and everything. James Boswell gets an entry on the same page, although sans picture. What makes him so special? He never won a Super Bowl. (And by the way, couldn't they have done us all a favor and left out Joyce Carol Oates' picture instead; she looks like a disturbed owl who snuck into the medicine cabinet.)
Saint Theresa also gets a picture, but there's no entry for Deepak Chopra, or Sid Barrett for that matter! I can see Winston Churchill making the cut, but why James Baldwin? Is it just because he's black? Then where's John Amos?? Or Sinbad?? Or even Harry Belafonte, who's both white and black. Equality is one thing, but I call that an embarrassing double standard? (Yes, Lena Horne is there, but her picture makes her look like a Jack O'Lantern.)
Toni Morrison is there too. (How many black writers do we need to equal equity? And I even like her!) Yet there's no entry for Truman Capote or Jack Kerouac. I mean, What the fuck?!! And I don't mean to harp on race. It's just that it's a great source of comic material.
On the whiter side, who the hell (except perhaps Lindsay) cares about Thomas Cranmer, the English Archbishop of Canterbury from 1533 to 1553. Seriously, isn't this just a tad ridiculous??!! (I mean, come on Lindsay!)
Locations are another mystery. Who the hell needs to know, especially in this limited paperback edition, that Swansea is a borough of South Wales, or that Bursa is a city in northwest Turkey?
Anyway, you get the point I hope. (Don't make me drum it into your head, like I would if you were a panda bear.) Instead, let me move on to the second item, which involves knowing what the world is up to.
I'll need to explain this in detail, but you see I've become exhausted, and so can't. I'll have to try another time, because it's important ... but I guess not that important ...
Well, okay, to be perfectly honest, none of this is really that important, is it ...
Thanks for listening!
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
At The Theater ... (or was it a "Theatre"?)
October 21, 2010: Seeing my friend Terry tonight -- and I hope you understand that my only friends are the people who've already subscribed to this Blah-ugh!, so don't try and get in my good graces now, you other bastards -- moved me to drum up the energy to do another entry. (Yeah, yeah. Big deal!)
Anyway, I wanted to tell you about my experience last Saturday going to the theater. It was a fair production of the Diary of Anne Frank, and I commend the set designer, director and actors for a good job before what I found to be an embarassing (I never remember how to spell that word!) audience of morons. (I say this because I was amazed at the large number of people who were secretly snacking and drinking from water bottles throughout the show. It was appalling and depressing to see yet another example of thoughtless, self-centered Americans in action.)
But I digress. What I really wanted to comment on was how much I hate the theater. It's taken me some time to realize this, but I finally have decided that the anxiety I experience in watching a live show is simply too much for me to endure, and why I ever put myself in the position of having to sit in a seat for two-and-a-half hours staring at a bunch of people making spectacles of themselves, I just can't tell you.
The main reason for my discontent ties directly to my core issues. You see, I'm literally unable to watch a show without constantly worrying whether the actor is going to blow his line, or whether she's going to lose her character in the middle of a moment, or whether someone in the audience is going to be so disruptive that the actor turns their head, or whether the whole set is just going to fall down, or whether one actor is going to drop a prop, or another step on someone's foot, or snag his shoe on the curtain ...
Can you imagine, it's so absolutely impossible for me to relax and be entertained when I'm perpetually charged with the terrible responsibility of having to keep the whole world together in one piece through my mental and emotional body English.
You can imagine how depressing the Anne Frank play was to begin with -- I mean, who needs to go and sit through that?! It would have been far more enriching to masturbate myself into a coma-like sleep for two hours. But not only was I forced to suffer the sympathetic pains of Nazi Germany, I had to sit there with the further worries of whether or not this play would come off without a hitch.
(And now, as if things aren't bad enough for this poor suffering soul, I think I just inhaled a bug as I was typing furiously. Terrific!)
Now excuse me, as I've got to go and cough for an hour to try and expel this thing ...
Anyway, I wanted to tell you about my experience last Saturday going to the theater. It was a fair production of the Diary of Anne Frank, and I commend the set designer, director and actors for a good job before what I found to be an embarassing (I never remember how to spell that word!) audience of morons. (I say this because I was amazed at the large number of people who were secretly snacking and drinking from water bottles throughout the show. It was appalling and depressing to see yet another example of thoughtless, self-centered Americans in action.)
But I digress. What I really wanted to comment on was how much I hate the theater. It's taken me some time to realize this, but I finally have decided that the anxiety I experience in watching a live show is simply too much for me to endure, and why I ever put myself in the position of having to sit in a seat for two-and-a-half hours staring at a bunch of people making spectacles of themselves, I just can't tell you.
The main reason for my discontent ties directly to my core issues. You see, I'm literally unable to watch a show without constantly worrying whether the actor is going to blow his line, or whether she's going to lose her character in the middle of a moment, or whether someone in the audience is going to be so disruptive that the actor turns their head, or whether the whole set is just going to fall down, or whether one actor is going to drop a prop, or another step on someone's foot, or snag his shoe on the curtain ...
Can you imagine, it's so absolutely impossible for me to relax and be entertained when I'm perpetually charged with the terrible responsibility of having to keep the whole world together in one piece through my mental and emotional body English.
You can imagine how depressing the Anne Frank play was to begin with -- I mean, who needs to go and sit through that?! It would have been far more enriching to masturbate myself into a coma-like sleep for two hours. But not only was I forced to suffer the sympathetic pains of Nazi Germany, I had to sit there with the further worries of whether or not this play would come off without a hitch.
(And now, as if things aren't bad enough for this poor suffering soul, I think I just inhaled a bug as I was typing furiously. Terrific!)
Now excuse me, as I've got to go and cough for an hour to try and expel this thing ...
Thursday, October 14, 2010
I'll Jog Tomorrow
October 14, 2010: Well, I've just come back from an invigorating jog around town, and even though I'll probably develop a rash if I don't shower presently, I wanted to take a moment to file my latest report.
You see, as I jogged by the river and became aware of the Christmas lights they keep in the trees year-round, it suddenly occurred to me that Jews should really get more into the spirit of Christmas.
Now you understand, I'm half Jewish, so I'm very comfortable bashing the whole race and stereotyping. (You'll also remember how vigorously I worked to try and ban the Nazi flag in Connecticut -- an effort I abandoned when I saw how the least amount of support came from the Jewish community, including the Anti-Defamation League (lousy Jews!).
No, but I jest. I jest because I love. And I also know that my tiny Blah-ugh! readership is solely composed of three anti-Semites, so it really doesn't matter what I write.
The point is, however, that these lovely white lights are just that, and while all the associations for me stem from picturesque homespun Christmas celebrations in my youth -- (Who am I kidding? My parents were drunk half the time!) -- I don't really see what difference it makes what religious holiday we're celebrating, as long as the lights are pretty. I myself could care less about Jesus (if that is his real name!). He means little to me, except he always looks so depressed in those church pictures. Mind you, I have nothing against him as Messiahs go, I only think he gets too much superfluous media attention, especially around the holidays.
All of this reminds me that Halloween is coming, and as you know I vehemently subscribe to the belief that it's really our most social holiday. (See last year's entry if you don't believe me ... you lousy skeptics!) People are even getting into the spirit with orange lights in recent years, and who can say anything bad about that. And the leaves are changing, as do the seasons, and so do I, and you need not wonder why.
I'm starting to itch now, so I've got to go. Try to keep an open mind as Halloween approaches this year, especially if you're Jewish or some extreme Christian who poo-poos the lessons demon worship can teach you.
You see, as I jogged by the river and became aware of the Christmas lights they keep in the trees year-round, it suddenly occurred to me that Jews should really get more into the spirit of Christmas.
Now you understand, I'm half Jewish, so I'm very comfortable bashing the whole race and stereotyping. (You'll also remember how vigorously I worked to try and ban the Nazi flag in Connecticut -- an effort I abandoned when I saw how the least amount of support came from the Jewish community, including the Anti-Defamation League (lousy Jews!).
No, but I jest. I jest because I love. And I also know that my tiny Blah-ugh! readership is solely composed of three anti-Semites, so it really doesn't matter what I write.
The point is, however, that these lovely white lights are just that, and while all the associations for me stem from picturesque homespun Christmas celebrations in my youth -- (Who am I kidding? My parents were drunk half the time!) -- I don't really see what difference it makes what religious holiday we're celebrating, as long as the lights are pretty. I myself could care less about Jesus (if that is his real name!). He means little to me, except he always looks so depressed in those church pictures. Mind you, I have nothing against him as Messiahs go, I only think he gets too much superfluous media attention, especially around the holidays.
All of this reminds me that Halloween is coming, and as you know I vehemently subscribe to the belief that it's really our most social holiday. (See last year's entry if you don't believe me ... you lousy skeptics!) People are even getting into the spirit with orange lights in recent years, and who can say anything bad about that. And the leaves are changing, as do the seasons, and so do I, and you need not wonder why.
I'm starting to itch now, so I've got to go. Try to keep an open mind as Halloween approaches this year, especially if you're Jewish or some extreme Christian who poo-poos the lessons demon worship can teach you.
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