Take charge guy

I've been taking a more active part in the landscaping. Went out and trimmed the ornamental maples, and immediately felt like I'd blown it somehow. 

The larger of the maple shrubs had something hanging in it. I used to look out the kitchen window and see it, like a bookmark hanging from a branch, reflecting the sun brilliantly, so I took it for a mirror. Later, I thought perhaps it had colors on it and had mistaken it for a mirror. Today I went and looked.

 It's a plastic container, like for an ice lolly. Saran plastic. It somehow caught the light. I had been thinking of taking it out-- it didn't belong there-- but I liked seeing it. Then I pulled it out and realized as it was too late that it was part of a bird's nest. Empty, at least, and hopefully I haven't ruined its structure, but it had been incorporated into the nest by the bird who made it, and I feel a little bad that I didn't leave it. I did leave a second wrapper, which seems to indicate that the bird really liked having those plastic bits in there.

So there we are. I took initiative, and regret it again.

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Sermonette: "Uncle Melty"

 I was thinking about a moment in the Proctor & Bergman movie, J-MEN FOREVER!, where the footage we're watching from old Republic and Monogram serials shows the cave walls softening and running down in a horrific cliffhanger way, and the evil voice of our nemesis The Lightning Bug cackles "It's Uncle Melty!"

 And I get that reference! I even know I saw at least one Milton Berle show, because I remember there was a gag about a "topless dancer" (or was it waitress?) and it turned out to mean SHE HAD NO HEAD! Well, okay, I get it. Anyway!

I probably know Uncle Miltie from repute, via an older relative-- I had plenty-- or from MAD Magazine, which answered questions and asked many more, or from any of the nostalgia sources I readily found and latched onto. Let me tell you about secondhand nostalgia! Wait, no.

I was an early misguided adopter of nostalgia, and somehow managed to learn that old stuff wasn't all good by the time I was much of a teen, but if nothing else, it gave me an elevated level of ability to converse out of my own depth, and drop names and slogans and whatnot. So I know Uncle Miltie.

These kids today, though, would hear those words and think "Oh, yeah, like if you're in a family, and they're all cute and stuff so you say 'Uncle Milty,' only the walls are melting, so it's Uncle Melty, and I guess that's an okay joke." They don't even know the Uncle Milton from the ant farms. WAIT, ANT FARMS?

Yep, this is another thing that was normal in my world, students. You could buy this clear plastic cross section and put sand in it and ants would build tunnels in it. You got the ants in the mail after you sent in this coupon that came with it. Ants. In the mail. Is this still happening?

I picked up an ant farm, good condition in box, 25 cents at Mac's Swap Shop. Took it to show my sixth-grade classmates, and we put in some of the best playground dirt and some outside ants, then pondered how to feed them. Honey! I thought of honey from a cotton swab, and pretty much murdered those damn ants. No wonder they hate me now. What a mess. I'm sorry.

But kids today, they don't even know about sea monkeys, I'll bet. Or have a friend who'd order them, knowing what they were, just to see how it goes. But I was in my 40s by then. But there's the problem with a lot of my favorite humor. It was created by smartasses, and they came right out with current names and brands and jingles and catch phrases, and it takes the Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion to decipher them, even if you were lucky like me and damaged your brain on books of antiquated ephemera.

Perhaps the answer to the question that vexes surviving Monty Python members ("Why are these people still so obsessed with this one job I had in the 70s?") is that they hit upon a magic balance of current references with eternal generic equivalents, and will take another generation or so to make the humor truly obscure.  

Some ancient humor survives surprisingly well, like D'Ordel's Pantechnicon, written around 1908 by an architect of the doomed Afghanistan partition, partly by boiling all its targets down to archetypes that I can still spot. I feel like the part where he explains how to generate a multi-page article from a (redundant) two-word prompt sounds like it's talking about how to use A.I. 

There's also MURDERS by George Grossmith Jnr, son of the original Ko-Ko, which I talk about at the link. Despite the changes since 1915 (no 'organ man' playing along the street, no 'laundress'), it holds up better than, say, most radio comedy. (If I could ever find it online, I'd link to "The Albert Brooks Show" from "1943," which came out on a comedy LP in the 70s, written by Brooks and Harry Shearer, which contains every single cliche of the genre, except for six others.)

Anyway, I'm on borrowed time, so end of sermonette. Go, sin no more, and touch grass. Listen to a new joke, a current song, read a fresh book. The old stuff's okay, as long as you remember it's old and it's stuff.

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Explaining

Early in the time my family converged at my niece's home to process the approaching death of my sister Martha, several people were around her in the curtained alcove her daughter Bonnie created for the hospice bed. She was still conversing with visitors at this stage, though she sometimes wandered. Bonnie and Kathryn (the sister I came with) was helping her with a garment, and I heard her say something that caused some mistaken assumptions about my sister complaining. It's not that she didn't complain, or have a lot to complain about, but they were mistaken and I had to correct them. A minute or two later, I called Kathryn and Bonnie over and explained.

The lady of the house comes home at midnight. She pulls the long cord, and a moment later, her butler appears. "Madame?"

She speaks in a low voice. "Charles. Please remove my wrap." "Yes, Madame."

"Charles, I'd like you to unzip my dress." "Yes, Madame."

Garment by garment, it continues. Then: "That will be all, Charles." "Very good, Madame."

"And, Charles?" "Yes, Madame?" 

"Don't ever let me catch you wearing my clothes again." 

 See, they thought she was complaining, but she was actually quoting the punch line of a story she'd told me when she was about ten, and it was important that they know what she was saying. Punch lines were our life. Also, it was a good story, so.

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Fire and A.I.s

Some say the world will end in fire.
Some say in ice. 
From what I’ve tasted of desire 
I'd almost rather end in fire. 
But when I guess at how we'll stop 
I've seen enough of creeping crud 
To guess we'll grind down, stuck in slop
And not in fire, or ice, or blood.

 [first three lines verbatim from Frost] 

keeping up

 I didn't leave NOT BRAND ECHH. BRECHH left me. 

Not that this is an essay about NBE. I just wanted to say that by way of intro to some thoughts I'd been having about MAD and The Simpsons and things that remind me of them in the following ways. 

 Reading about Bill Gaines, the publisher of MAD from its inception to his own death, I found a statement by Gaines (or perhaps by Al Feldstein, longtime editor after Harvey Kurtzman was fired by Bill) that said that they usually had readers for ten years, and after that they move on to something else and feel that they have 'outgrown' the magazine. 

It wasn't that the magazine had changed necessarily, but there was some sort of cycle out there, and that was how long it went, and changing it didn't seem to be an option.

Looking back, I was a little stubborn, but lasted just a bit over ten years from the time I didn't get it but read anyway to the time I begrudged my coins in favor of NATIONAL LAMPOON, which lasted fewer than ten years because of a verifiable dropoff of the magazine's quality. 

With the Simps, I extended the ten years to a couple of decades before losing track of the show on a week-to-week basis (which coincided with an era in which "week to week" was losing its meaning due to advanced cable options and streaming), and now I watch an episode when I remember and am in the mood. I'm rarely disappointed. Minute for minute, it's a darn funny franchise. I don't think they ever jumped the shark.

Plenty of folks disagree with me, vehemently, but this is my blog. According to my first two paragraphs, though, I feel like perhaps they wore out on it in the natural progress of time but feel the need to post a reason. There's not always a reason. 

Sometimes time itself changes things. (Points at unread VIZ issues from a subscription I've had since we lived in Virginia.) I really AM going to read all these. Not ready to let go yet. See? I'm reading this one.
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Nie mehr

First, they came for me,
Hence the brevity of this poem.

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two-fisted action haiku (with seasonal reference)

The seasons can't hold:
Summer, avoiding Autumn,
Swerves into Winter!

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the facts in the case

 

In 2003, we bought a couple of suitcases for the China trip to gather the family together. There's the red one, which I use pretty much every time I'm gone for a few days, and the black one, its twin in every respect save for color. These cases went to China, England, China again, and Michigan, repeatedly. 

We're trying to slim down, ably obstacled by my own second-guessing, wishing for a tithe of "keep" in every batch that goes out, and trying hard not to act on it. My stomach churned on seeing this stand by the curb for two solid days, including light rains and showers. I hoped someone would come and claim it for their own future adventures. They didn't.

Today I went out to move the bins, because driveway sealers were doing their work, and I didn't want out trash guys to be inconvenienced. "We're gone in five minutes!" the man said as I wheeled the barrels, and I explained that our trash guys show up at the darnedest times and all. "Then I hope they take that stuff," I said, indicating the above cornucopia. "I took the suitcase!" said my new hero.

"YES!" I said. "That's a good fucking suitcase. We went all over with it, and it's still as good as it ever was. I didn't want to give it away in the first place, and I'm glad it's going where somebody'll use it! That suitcase is older than my daughter (I may have been off by a few months here), and we got it 23 years ago (off by one)." 

And I went on in, feeling GOOD about the suitcase, and hoping it has great adventures in the future. Only regret now is that I didn't put a sticker inside that said it had been to China, England, Escanaba. But a happy ending is a happy ending, especially when it's a beginning.

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for June 27, 2025

Fawn trailing a doe
Wonders why I mow the lawn.
Me too, kid. Me, too. 

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theme for two guys in a car helping people

There's a hood holed up in Chi Town!
In St. Lou they fixed the fight!
There's a doubting priest in Joplin
Who might never see the light!
Berdoo's got a missing kid!
Flagstaff's gonna flip its lid...

ROUTE 66, WHERE ARE YOU??
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the Copper

"Monster! (cried I) Hound of Satan!
Every way I turn, you're waiting!
So obsequiously waiting, waiting at my chamber door.
As the victim of your haunting,
Will you tell me what you're wanting?
Tell me once and leave off taunting,
Lift thy blight, O rumpled bore!"
Quoth the copper: "One thing more..."

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Frost Report

Two roads diverged in a sunny wood,
And as I could not exist on both,
I chose the fire and hoped for good

I may regret I threw those dice,
I haven't yet, but life surprises.
I might've done as well with ice.
Or a million other otherwises.

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up

The dizziness seems to be going away when I sit up in bed now, and when I lie down. It gave up when I decided it was five seconds of being high for free. Now sitting up in bed is reserved strictly for wee-hours angst, as it should be. (My brain has actually learned on this one, that I will no longer lend credence to the things it tells me at this hour. It can't be trusted.) Sitting up was my signature achievement, though. 

In sixth grade, we were still feeling the bad effects from Jack Kennedy's physical fitness mania, setting aside a portion of the year for The President's Fitness Thing, whatever they called it, which was a wall-to-wall exposition of Everything Kip Can't Do. They had a distance written down that I should be able to throw a softball, and I couldn't, and how many pushups I should be able to do, how far I should be able to jump, and other whimsical markers of inadequacy. (It didn't help that I was most of a year younger than the rest of the class, physically, and farther than that emotionally.) 

So for a week or a year or however long it was, every moment outside was spent being subnormal, much to the amusement of the bullies I'd been sharing classrooms with since second grade. Coach has your back, though. If anything happens, he'll make you run laps around the playground for a while. 

The surprise was the situps. Someone had decided, with 100% obvious objectivity, that the goal was 100 situps. Don't worry, a guy'll hold your ankles! I don't know what made this happen, whether it was one insult too many or what, but I did 100 situps. Objectively did them all, with an adult counting each one. I made it to 100 and stopped. No power on Earth could have made me do another. And after that, I was cool. I was the king of the classroom. I made it!

 Just kidding. I don't think there was an echo or a dead cat bounce. Situps were quietly removed from the list of things to make fun of me for, and that was that. Nothing else changed. Years later, I was an older college student (not much older, I was about 23 to start), and I had to take a PE class, something I'd successfully avoided since high school (see: being threatened in the locker room). I still couldn't "run" a mile, but I knew deep inside that I was going to blow them away on the situps. Except I didn't. I did a handful and then turned my attention to the exercise of breathing without losing my last three meals. Oh, well. I guess I had 100 in me, total. 

Another twenty years after that, I was a member of the Male Chorus in The Mikado, really liking the inadvertent discovery that at least some of my fellow thespians had imperfect graydar and thought I was maybe pushing thirty. I didn't fool myself that I looked good, but please don't fault me for feeling good that I didn't look used up yet. 

Anyway, the chat among Us Regular College Guys somehow turned to situps. Bryan said he could do X number. Fred maybe suggested a higher figure. Then they looked at me. I could have done the Old thing, and told them all about my grade school triumph, being careful to describe the motor cars on the street and the popular TV shows of the day. I didn't. Instead, I said "I arrange my day ahead of time so that I don't have to sit up," and that was the Right Answer, because I can talk to the young people. I speak their language! 

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going sideways

I posted a couple of times this year, but they went sideways, and not in a great way. I wrote two short posts and didn't notice that they went into the wrong account and were posted into a parallel universe where they didn't get any comments either. The one I keep thinking about is about my cool tip for practicing, which is "turn the tablet sideways."

Figure 1: The tablet (tabloid)

I impressed Dad with this, several years ago, by showing that a screen which showed a whole page in a reduction somewhere between full size and miniature score sized, so that he could read Ravel right off the tablet. Of course, that also meant far fewer lines visible at a time, and this was enough of a handicap, I thought, that I mostly didn't avail myself of it, except for PDFs of music that were Landscape orientated. 

Recently, though, my eyes prevailed upon my hands to turn it sideways during some tough passages, and I found a new world, actually. I didn't realize it at first, because I was trying to see it at that size and still keep scrolling while playing up to speed. Yeah, THAT COULD WORK. 

Figre 2: The tablet (landscape)

 Contrariwise, what works for me is the Zen state of having two or three lines (if squinching a little gets me more) and not leaving them. Practice those measures and keep doing them for a while. Do it until you can't hide that one error you keep making from yourself and then deal with that by (say it with me) taking the measure apart as far down as necessary to make the brain understand what happens in it. 

That means playing the hands separately. That means if you have to use both hands to play one of the hands' parts a few times, you do that, until your fingers know the exact choreography of the dance from this white key to that black key and you begin to perceive the topography of the playing field as both massive and as if viewed from far above. It's like the old saying: Practice Makes Incrementally Better.

I feel a strange excitement now when I reach to rotate the tablet to oblong view. It's like my eyes are better. It's like I don't have to rush from one measure to the next.

And, by the greatest of fortune, I find that I now enjoy playing passages over and over. I have an excuse now: I'm practicing. 

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