Tuesday, December 29, 2009

As time goes by

And never can I remember such happiness about so little. There's happiness everywhere I look. In every corner, in every passing tree sunlit this morning. Another day has come for me to live. There it is for me to grasp and wring life from. I yearn for more life. There is happiness in the little tender sadness that spills over into the edges of my life from pop songs and memories. My life to do with as I please. To go to work each day, to thank my lucky stars, to love people as hard as I can, to log another 40 hour week and never forget that my whole life has been a blessing, a reward beyond reproach that I may never have known until this moment.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

With great periphrasis comes precious little

Dig if you will the little warning on the end of alcohol ads (because alcoholic beverage producers care about your safety a great, great deal)

It starts here:

-Don't drink and drive

It becomes this:

-Please drink responsibly

It starts to meander:

-Responsibility matters

It devolves into this here:

-With great beer comes great responsibility

I see it going here:

-A responsible person does responsible things

And in 2046, when all meaning has been painfully wrung out of the warnings and we live in a euphemistic hell of saying what we don't mean, it will end with this:

-Just be

Friday, December 25, 2009

I was so in shock my heart went down south

We're Christmas veterans

John McEnroe has no shame, and you wouldn't either if you were him

The Radio Shack commercial with Biz Markie? Takes cringing to a new level. It almost physically hurts me to see that crap. Who thought of this? Who? I want names and addresses. It is so unfair that the people who made this monstrosity have cushy advertising jobs and get paid. I can write a commercial twice as good for half the money. No kidding. This is the spot. It's beyond awful. Don't watch it, you might be hurt. Yeah we get it, Biz Markie had a hit song a long time ago and he badly needs some money. You don't have to hit me over the head with it, Radio Shack. And the part that kills me is that ad industry people are patting themselves on the back about the spot here. Could you be anymore out of touch? Please, someone justify this thing to me. I am dumbstruck.

x

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Heigho, the tale was all a lie

The Jaguars are playing Sinatra's "My Way" at their stadium after losing to the Colts. What exactly is the statement that playing that song makes? They lost 'their way' to the Colts, who had nothing to play for, having already locked up the best record in the AFC (by the way, Sinatra is on tape saying that he hated "My Way", but that it bought him a lot of pizza pies). Personally, I played "My Way" after I graduated from college, which I definitely did do, by the way, graduate from college that is, because really, I got through college, or 'university' as they say in Britain, my way. My father seemed to think the song was a good joke, to be shared with people in conversation. I was perfectly serious about it. I messed up a lot, and I didn't really warm up to the whole college deal until at least sophomore year, but I did it, and I did it my way. If this comes off as self-centered, it's because it is. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but hey, I graduated from college. That's something that I did. Count how many times I used 'I' in this paragraph, or how many commas there were. See if you can do that, college graduate.

Peyton Manning, in the post-game interview, was at pains to point out that Jim Caldwell is the coach of the Indianapolis Colts, and that the team follows his directives. He was so emphatic that it almost seemed as if he had something to hide. I mean, Peyton Manning is clearly the coach of the Colts, right? Caldwell does not blink his eyes. This has been said before, but we can't be sure that Caldwell isn't an android. I'd just like some evidence that he's alive, and running the ole football club. He's sort of Peyton's beard so that he can deny that he is actually controlling the team. And why not bring back the player-coach? It worked for Bill Russell.

And a note: I hate when people call something a 'journey'. Just so sanctimonious, it seems. And how good are athletes at talking without saying anything? Why don't the reporters just skip the interviews and write responses to their own questions? It's pretty obvious that we all know in advance what an athlete is going to say.

every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main

You wonder where these things are headed.

I cannot for the life of me understand how people are so easily duped. They want to be duped, possibly. I have a hard time writing coherently. Down with adjectives.

Nonsense.
The Jersey Shore. What's that all about?

It would be nearly impossible for me to be less worried. Just wanted you to know.

That's what matters most.

Again, nonsense.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Haiku pour vous


Magazines here, there
Haphazard piles cresting now
See them all topple!

Monday, December 7, 2009

When the dealin's done

I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.

There's such a great distance between that weird psychedelic beauty by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition and his later song "The Gambler." I wonder how Kenny Rogers bridged that gap. I wonder how, psychologically, he can reconcile those two incredibly different parts of his career.

Kenny Rogers sure is crafty, to say the least.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Majority sports ramblings

-First real snow storm waited until December. A sign of the shape of things to come?

-Two different Minnesota Vikings players arrested for driving over 100 mph within a week of each other. Ever heard of cruise control, guys? Set it on 70 mph, you're golden.

-Mark Mangino is nearly spherical, it seems.

-Brett Favre's childlike enthusiasm, unlike the swine flu, is not catching.

-It looks like the mime robber from television's Nip/Tuck is back!

-As Michael Jackson said: "And we gon' ride the boogie". What does that mean?

-Beginning both your first and last name with the letter J will get you far in life. Witness Johnny Jolly, Jimmy Jackson, Julio Jones, Jim Jefferies.

-MTV's Jersey Shore: Everything you hoped for, and more.

-The horoscope said my luck would turn today. Is that bad or good? I usually consider myself a pretty lucky guy.

-Please, no singing in television commercials. Please.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

goodness gracious

And leave Tiger alone, eh? There's no way this is anyone's business but his. Don't give me that TMZ bullshit.


What happened to people being discreet?

doublethink

The amount of information that google can and does collect about users of its services is staggering and frightening. I don't mean to scare you, o estimable reader, but through the magic of google Analytics I can find out what city you live in, what Internet browser and Operating system you use, and what language your computer is set to. Big Brother, anyone?

I'm not really making any comment, just putting it out there. I know far too much about who may be reading these very words. Spooky.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

my eardrums for a moment of peace

The question, fellow Romans, is how we could possibly endure approximately three weeks of commercial radio Christmas tunes at the workplace, supposedly a sacred place? And how can a radio station possibly sell this tired trick of attempting to go all-Christmas 24 hours a day for nearly a month straight? It is a fool's-errand. Nobody, but nobody, needs 24-hour a day Christmas songs.

And the repeats. O, the awful repeats. Mariah Carey's frighteningly exuberant All I Want for Christmas is You, in which she sounds positively tickled to be desperately pining for her significant other at Christmas time. Paul McCartney doing an interminable, and very, very dated 80's-style (it came out in 1979) holiday song, of which every other line appears to be the dread refrain "Siii-imply haaa-aaving a wonderful Christmas time."

Elvis Presley with Blue Christmas, which is fine, but no one needs to hear it more than once a day (we had it twice in four hours already yesterday), even at Christmas time. And the real problem at the root of all this holiday-themed sonic evil: today was only Monday, November 30th. What will we do for 23 more days when today was already jam-packed with repeats, played within lit'rally 4 hours of each other as if there weren't offices which through no fault of their own had been listening all the live-long day.

And besides all this, have you ever actually listened to the words of these Christmas songs? They are intolerably bad. The only thing they do is rhyme, the only thing. They are nearly devoid of meaning. We desperately need new Christmas songs (By the way, I actually enjoy the more religious Christmas songs that deal with the nativity and all, but you don't really get those on commercial stations like WODS Boston, usually a much-loved oldies station for me, transformed into a hideous holiday monster of trite, oft-repeated, cookie-cutter (how appropriate!) Christmas sentiments).

Let's run down what the Christmas songs say. All of them seem to come back to these several themes:

-Christmas is the BEST time of year. No serious person may question this.

-Snow is fun, even though it may at times be 'frightful'. Those are the times when it's a good excuse to spend more time with your beloved.

-You are always surrounded by many loved ones at Christmas. Relations with these people are blissful, always.

-It's no fun to be away from your beloved at Christmas time. You should aspire to be with them, and write a song about it if you can't.

-Sleighs

If you have any other themes, let me know, but I think those are the major ones.

Christmas seems to be so much a sham right now. A sale masquerading as a cultural institution. People whip themselves into a frenzy with Christmas music and tear themselves up over what to get for their loved ones. Just enjoy the time off, don't get stressed out about stupid stuff, and spend time with your family. Because a man that doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man. Just take it easy. And lay off the 24-hour Christmas songs, they will drive you nuts.

A postscript: And today, Amanda's computer at work contracted a virus from a Christmas music website and had to be sent away to the help desk. It goes to show that the age-old maxim is true: If you play fast and loose with Christmas music, you're bound to get burned.