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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Once Again, for The Bradys ...

April 25, 2013:  I had every intention of doing a Blah-ugh! entry on my friend Steven Spielberg, but that's going to have to wait. My inclination to spout about my favorite sit-com family has again grabbed at my groin and I'm going to seize the opportunity the way I seize the towel when I leave the shower naked, although hopefully I won't hurt my back this time ...

Yes, The Brady Bunch is the subject again today. Faithful Blah-ugh! readers -- the 23 of you -- know that I've barfed up some of my Brady ideas in past entries. This time, however, I won't bore you with more Marcia-related revelations, but I will put a new twist on Mike. You see, once again my children and I have slogged through another cycle of our DVDs and now, after the 14th -- or 40th, I'm not sure which -- viewing, it's become abundantly clear that Mike Brady is really the antithesis of the great father role model I always presumed him to be. (And no, Shannon, it has nothing to do with Robert Reed being gay and from Chicago.)

You see, though I've tried to deny it, I can't now watch one of these episodes without noticing how often Mike hits the kids. Yes, it's absolutely true. He swats them like insects on a regular basis, particularly in the first couple of seasons. It's a wonder he wasn't reported sooner, or that he hasn't now been cast in the sour light of other psychopathic television parents -- Homer Simpson, Archie Bunker, and Cloris Leachman. The examples are numerous -- the viewing of Greg's film on the pilgrims, Greg buying the lemon, Greg learning something-or-other ... In fact, I think Greg took the worst of his blows, which were often loud slaps on the back, but also sound whacks on the butt, the leg or the arm, depending on Robert Reed's mood.

It's ironic that Reed was such a fussbudget about the numerous implausibilities in Brady scripts, such as the time so-called Method actress "Meerna" Carter gave him and Henderson (a.k.a. Carol) tips on how to be motivated in the Safe commercial. All that time he was focusing his somewhat warped Shakespearean sensibilities on script revisions and scolding memos to the Schwartz family, he might have better served everyone by refraining from hitting the children so often.

That said, I think it's important to address the spectacle of Cousin Oliver. It was a dark day in Brady history when this pesty little jinx ambled onto the set looking like a shrunken John Denver. His smarmy one-liners and irritating glasses all served to beg the question of why Robert Reed didn't hit him more often.

Hmmmm... I see there are many, many more involved Brady-related points that require broaching, and I simply don't have the time or fortitude to address them right now. Why is Carol wearing Marcia's shirt in that episode with Lovey Howell and the Good Ship Lollipop? Does Jim Backus have a toupee or a comb-over in the pool episode? And what happened to Mr. Phillips? Was the new City Hall built in Woodland Park? Did Alice and Sam ever marry, and did he ever repair that gaping space in his front teeth? Did the kids ever record a family-version of "Clowns Never Laughed Before?" Did Maureen McCormick ever stop pronouncing words with that California patois, such as "dinist" for "dentist," etc. Does she still hate Alan Anthony? (I know I do and always will!) ...


Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Spring Sprangs ... Again ...

April 10, 2013:  I'll never be able to mutter the trite truism that 'Spring is in the air,' without immediately remembering Groucho Marx's concerned response to Thelma Todd in "Horse Feathers" -- "You mean you want me to spring in the air and fall in the lake?"

But the fact is, despite all the nuances of Global Warming and El Ninny and various weather-related geo-thermal exacerbations, spring has apparently sprung eternal ... or at least external, and that's where we'd want it, I'd think, especially because the house is so dirty ...

I'm not sure what I wanted to say about it, except it's certainly lighter. This, as you may know, owes to the new tilt we're getting from the sun, or perhaps the earth. All I know is I heard some loud noise last night, and I don't think it was my neighbor, Mrs. Schtiple, who shaves her legs with a bandsaw. No, this was spring springing, and the light lighting, casting shadows in a new and vivid way ... so get that hat on or you'll burn!

I spent a few moments yesterday lying out on the lawn photographing a bird ... And I got some great shots! Then the bird got a few shots of me, including one great one where I caught a worm ... Then the bird went in my house and drank the last Yoo-Hoo. But I showed him and ate the last of the birdseed in the driveway ...

This brings us to the question of whether this Blah-ugh! is really funny. I tend not to think so, but to be honest, I don't really read it that often. Granted, I come to the site a lot, but mostly it's because I can't get over how young I look in that picture!

Again, I'm trying to remember why I started this entry. I keep meaning to publish a remarkable poem I've been working on about Starbuck's, but I'm blocked. (I think it was the banana walnut bread.) Now I'm just trying to remind myself -- others too -- why we call this Blah-ugh! a comedy site, and not a tragedy site, although some would argue that my attempts at comedy continue to be tragic, while my forays into tragedy are endlessly masked in a kind of humorous pathos.

Speaking of pathos, did you ever read that poet John Dos Pathos. I think he wrote that volume about mid-20th century America called "Regurgitate This, Ye Sons of Soil." (And to demonstrate just how reductionist my damaged sense of humor really is, I'm actually having an uncontrollable fit of laughter after writing that last sentence! Consider this further evidence that a good writer writes for themselves, and a good reader shouldn't put up with it!)

On a completely different note, there's this very strange smell in my living room at the moment, and I can't decide whether it's coming from the kitchen, from outside, or possibly from my shirt. It sort of smells like plastic, but a kind of burnt plastic -- polyethylene terephthalate resin, I think. I don't believe anyone in the house was cooking plastic this morning, although my domestic partner tends to put anything in the oven and call it lunch. I'm hoping it's not some kind of new spring lawn chemical that Mrs. Schtiple is applying to her geraniums, the old hag. It's so weird how normal, red-blooded Americans will put all sorts of foreign objects and chemicals on their lawn in some strange vain hope it's going to make them more popular and sexier. Our lawn isn't like that. It's a down-and-dirty lawn, with lots of onion grass and dandelions. I like to go out there now and again and trim it with a pair of eyebrow tweezers.

(That smell is really making me nervous. If I cared more about my health, I'd probably investigate. As it is, I have to conclude it's probably building up my immune system and, perhaps, making my teeth whiter ... I'm beginning to think my teeth will never get whiter, which makes me wonder if I should stop eating out ... Which reminds me, I haven't even had my morning tea, and I've been up since 5:40 ...

So on that note, I'll add the closing parenthesis later, when I've had more rest and stopped ruminating on this awful stink ...



Friday, April 5, 2013

Clear-Cutting the Merrritt Parkway

April 5, 2013:  Wow! Want to see a real-life example of disturbing fantasy come true? (Me neither, but I couldn't avert my eyes in time.)

Just like the orks in the Lord of the Rings, Connecticut's state highway department is doing a magnificent job of devasting the landscape (and environment) by clear-cutting our lovely "historic scenic highway."

It's remarkable, really. The extent of the homocentric (or anthropocentric --I'm not sure which) action. Since people have died on the Merritt Parkway as a result of fallen -- or falling -- trees, it's become logical and best-practice to cut them all down. In fact, the utility companies -- and their hired minions -- are making their best efforts to cut the trees down all over the place, and this issue of tree-related fatalities fuels the fear that makes it possible.

Now, we all know I'm crazy. And if I'm not crazy, then I'm certainly annoying. But my angled mind sincerely wonders if -- in the big picture -- the BIG picture, I'm talking about here, folks -- I wonder if it's the right thing to do. You see -- and I know this SOUNDS insane, and maybe it is, and you'll have to forgive me that, because I clearly have problems, owing to an odd childhood and a sincere love of fatty foods; I mean, lots of reasons -- but, see, well, I mean, isn't it, maybe, like, possibly just POSSIBLE that this is an overreaction?

I mean, really, maybe it's a bit ... well, I mean, just a TINY ... LITTLE bit crazy to be cutting down thousands and thousands of healthy trees, some very young and growing 25 feet from the road ... couldn't we PERHAPS ... MAYBE ... think this is a wee bit EXTREME?! Yes, trees fall on people. I'm not happy about it. (After all, as many of you know, I oppose violence in all its forms, except on the handball court.) But is this business of tree killings as epidemic as the reaction implies?

The state has a figure that, over the past five or so years, 10 of the 17 fatalities on the Merritt involve people striking trees. Is it possible that some of these people were driving too fast, and therefore left the road they were supposed to be staying on? Could alcohol have been involved in some cases? Most importantly, if these 10 people had hit bridges, would we have THOSE removed?

Please understand, I wouldn't defend anything our state highway department does. I mean, come on! I'm sure a much better job could have been done keeping tabs on dead trees, or pruning. The true level of loafing in that agency would stun people if they really knew its extent. But to even allow anyone to be liable for what old or weak trees are doing is just stupendously, majestically moronic -- the vividly misdirected, confused conclusion of an authentically red and vibrantly enflamed asshole. But so it goes ...

I just, more than anything, wish people shared some of my sadness and outrage that things like this are allowed to happen. What is the value of a human life? It's awful to go there, but again, I HAVE to because no one else will. No one -- certainly no sane person, and even some of us insane ones -- no one wants to see anyone killed. BUT, we are a species of however-many billion members, and as much as we try to fight against the natural flow of things, sometimes people are going to be killed, and sometimes by trees, and I just think that has to be okay. It's bad luck, no doubt. I wouldn't wish a tree on anyone I know, even my intellectual enemies. But at the same time, it's a perfectly honorable circumstance of death, and almost commands the kind of admiration one would have for a bloke who's mauled by a lion or eaten by a shark.

My real point is that as long as mankind continues to RESIST its subordinate role to the grand scheme of the natural order -- and Cripes, if that's not God, than what is?!! -- mankind is going to continue to screw things up to a staggeringly royal extent, and it's NOT GOING TO STOP TREE-RELATED DEATHS!! .... (Whew! Excuse me. Forgive my emotional outburst ... I just like trees!)

In fact, as I drove home this morning, and passed over the Merritt Parkway via the North Avenue bridge in Westport, from where I saw this horrible devastion sight, I passed by a family -- or at least a gathering -- of many wild turkeys straddling the side of the road near Christine B's old street. Now, in all my years in town, I never used to see these birds, but now lately I've begun seeing them in droves -- literally 30 at a time -- and close to the Merritt in each case .... Hmmmmm. What could this be telling us?

But before you say you don't give a shit about the turkey population or its habitat, or any other, because you've got to get to work and you can't run the risk of a tree branch falling on your sleek dull-black racer as you navigate your way along once-wooded roads to get to your job in the cyberspace, just stop and think -- pause, put your cell phone down -- and wonder what's going to happen when the turkeys -- like the trees -- start to turn bad ...

Oh, we'll try to kill them, of course ... But will we get all of them? How will they react to that? Will they get even madder? ... And the deer? ... Can they really be trusted? ... The fawns? ... The foxes? ...

And what about the squirrels? ... What are we going to when the squirrels -- in those sweet, little high-pitched voice -- say "ENOUGH!"?