I’m discovering that the older I get the more futile my gestures are. Does that make sense? Here’s the deal. When I was younger I would only get teed off, and then sometimes when I was really bent I would get ticked off, but now, as I am fully ensconced in my body-part-non-functioning years, I tend to get pissed off quite easily.
Marge notices it. At the breakfast table she will say something like, “Honey Mate, you tend to get pissed off more easily now that you’re very old and almost dead.” It’s that kind of inspiration that keeps me going.
So what do I mean by “futile gesture?” Well, gesturers and gesturettes, I mean this. I have been a loyal member of the Priority Club, which is the hot-shot premium membership deal of the Holiday Inn. For the last dozen years or so, I have always tried to stay at a Holiday Inn. It’s a pretty good hotel and their beds are fairly decent. But mostly it’s because I love their cinnamon rolls. (As you can see, my standards, like my arches, my chins, and my libido, have fallen over the years.)
Anyway, you get bonus points for staying at the hotel and I’ve accumulated a lot of points and have enjoyed a number of free nights. It just makes me feel good to be a member of something so trifling and petty. So, a few months ago, I took a little trip with my sons, Mike and Casey, down to see an Evander Holyfield fight in El Paso. And I reserved two rooms. One for me. And one for my loin-springers.
Well, when I got back home I looked on my Holiday Inn recap sheet online, and I was only credited with one room. My room. They wouldn’t give me credit for the other room, which I had paid for. I was, of course, what? I was incensed.
So I wrote them a long email and complained and bitched and moaned about not being important to them and how disappointed I was at not being special and I used obscene words, like Hilton and Marriott and Doubletree, to scare them. And what happened? Nothing happened, that’s what. They just ignored me. A loyal guy like me. Ignored me.
So, that is what I mean by a futile gesture. I gestured. It was futile. It was a futile gesture.
Another time a while back I canceled my subscription to Newsweek magazine because of that false story about GIs peeing on the Koran. I told them I couldn’t keep paying them to write bullshit stories, and I knew not receiving my subscription money was going to hurt them drastically. I was pretty sure it was going to force them into bankruptcy and that they would have to beg me to reconsider, and they would tell me about all the fathers and mothers they would have to fire, and let me know how many kids would be thrown on the streets. Never heard from them.
And I used to have trouble with a damn Hewlett-Packard printer back when I was publishing the Weekly, about 10 years ago. That sucky printer would never, ever work. It would always give me an error message, some code with four numbers and a dollar sign and an exclamation point and a little icon of a bomb exploding.
I tried everything to fix it. I re-installed the software. I called the HP help line. I gave the damn printer its own power outlet. I even read the manual. But it would never work. I got so frustrated I threw things at it. I even elbowed its sorry toner-cartridge butt one day. And I hate to admit this, but I think the statute of limitations has run out, so I can tell you. I killed three members of my staff for laughing at how red my face got and giggle-pointing at the spittle on my cheeks. They deserved to die. (By the way, Barack Obama knew about this, but continues to own Hewlett-Packard stock to this day.)
So I gestured up to the plate and wrote old Hewlett-Packard a letter informing them of my less-than-optimum experience, and that I would never ever buy another one of their damn supposed printer pieces of crap even if I was on a desert island and was hit on the head with a coconut. I was that mad. And over the last 10 years two things have happened. I have never bought another Hewlett-Packard product and I’m sure they’ve gone out of business because of that. And the second thing is that I have never heard from them. Gesture this!
But the most painful futile gesture I’ve made is the one I made to Bruce Springsteen. As you might remember, during the last election campaign he came out in support of John Kerry for president. He was going around the country having concerts and bad-mouthing Bush and all that. Now, I don’t want to get too political, but let’s just say I thought it was stupid and disgusting and repulsive and revolting and sickening and simplistic and it had warts and pimples on it.
So I got on Bruce’s Web site and sent him an email. I told him how big a fan of his I was, and that my favorite album of his was “Nebraska,” and how much I loved “Highway Patrolman,” and I told Bruce how I admired how he stood up for the little guy and expressed the longing of the downtrodden. And I even told him I enjoyed misconstruing the meaning of his “Born in the USA” song.
But because of his misguided political stance, I was going to have to discontinue referring to him as The Boss and that now I would be forced to refer to him as Just Another Employee. I also told him I would not ever, as long as I still had single digits to live, not ever buy another one of his albums. And I told him that I knew this would devastate him financially, but that I had to go with my heart and stand up for my ideals. And that I’m sure he would understand.
Well, I never heard from Just Another Employee. I guess he was just too wounded when his last album only sold nine million copies.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Single Digits (Cigar Smoke 5-8-08)
I just realized something the other day. I’m not lanky. No, that’s not it. I really am lanky. The other day I walked into a Starbucks and two people saw me and said, “Hey, are you Tommy Lasorda?” I rest my case.
No, I read last week that the average life expectancy of a man is 74.9 years. (I think women expect to live until 106. Something like that.) And because I am 67.1 years old, that means I have 7.8 years left. And it hit me. Hard. I realized I was now into the single digits of life. How in the double hey hey did that happen?
When you’re a kid, you never even think of buying the farm. It just never crosses your little pea-sized brain. I don’t think I ever even thought about death until I was about 30. Just had other more important things to think about. Like pimples and making the baseball team and studying and working and surviving and figuring out to defend myself when I copped a feel. When I was younger the only thing I thought was 67 years old was a redwood.
And now I’m one of those redwoods, baby. It’s funny. Life just creeps up on your butt when you least expect it and says, “Hello, Reaper here. You can call me Grim.” It’s not good being on a first name basis with Mr. R. I have to admit, it’s kind of freaking me out a little.
It’s not that I’m exactly afraid of the D-word. I don’t want to die. Yet. Maybe not ever. When I was younger — back when dinosaurs roamed Altadena — I was planning on living forever. It just seemed like a good idea to me. Why should I be like all the other people in the world and actually have to die? I saw no good reason for that to have to happen. Death was for other people. The less-cool people.
Now, that I’m into the single digits of expectancy, I’m having a few second thoughts. (By the way, can you have more than one second thought? Wouldn’t the second second thought be your third thought? Just think, in eight more years you won’t have to read these asides. I’ll be gone.) Maybe, just maybe, I will be like all you other regular people and not be special and not be God’s favorite person and maybe I won’t be able to count on being the first person to defy all the odds and live forever and eat M&Ms and corn nuts without consequences.
It’s a real pisser. This facing reality thing. Facing reality has never been my strong suit. I’m more of a believer in ignoring the really hard things of life, and maybe they will go away, or you’ll forget why they were scaring you. I’ve kind of run with the head-in-the-sand approach to life. My favorite bird is the ostrich.
But sometimes reality just gets in your face. When you’re sitting in your own damn kitchen drinking really crappy instant coffee and reading the really crappy Los Angeles Times and there is this official-ass article scientifically telling you that you have less than eight years left on the planet, well, Holy Ostrich, that got to me!
It scared the bejabbers out of me. And my bejabbers have been there for a long time, baby. I liked my bejabbers right where they were, and now they’re not there. They’re probably just running as fast as their little bejabber feet can carry them, running right along with my doomed dreams and my doomed outlook on life. (By the way, as bad as I felt when I read the life expectancy article, just think how the guy feels who is 74.8 years old. Jeeez!)
Bejabbers or not, I want to live and smell the roses — preferably from the flower side up. I do not want to smell roses from the root-side first. Nope. Don’t want that. Actually, I’ve told Marge and my kids that I don’t want to be buried at all. I’m claustrophobic, and granted I’d be deader than a doornail and a dodo, I just don’t want to somehow wake up down there and have some semblance of recognition and realize my 74.9- year-old butt is under six feet of dirt. I do not want to be in a “Twilight Zone” episode for eternity. I do not want to hear Rod Serling say, “All Mr. Larness, a bejabberless ostrich lover, wanted to do was find a peaceful garden of rest, but alas, fate was the motel keeper.” I don’t know what that means, either.
So, I’m planning on being cremated. I don’t want to be too morbid here, but just burn my bones. I do not want any fingernails left to claw at coffin lids or cremation urns. I don’t want any voice box parts left to cry out little pitiful yelps of despair. (OK, I lied about not being morbid.) And then I have a few very specific rules about how I want my ashes distributed.
First, I want the cremation container to be in the shape of the Stanley Cup. That’s most likely the only time I’ll see it. Then I want Marge and each of my kids to scoop out some ashes and put them in three other containers so they can each put them on their fireplaces and worship them every day. Is that too much to ask? No, they’ll still be reading newspaper articles about their own life expectancies. I’ll be part of the story then! Just two hours of worship a night. Big deal. What’s that? An “American Idol” and a “Lost” episode. Am I worth that? Don’t answer.
Oh, and if they have a little extra time, I’d like them to scatter some of my ashes around second base in some little ballpark, and maybe spread a few smidgins of ashes up in Humboldt County, and gently toss some ashes into a fast-moving stream in Montana, and maybe they could all quit their jobs and devote their lives to taking my ashes everywhere on a list that I will provide them in my will. Yeah, I like that.
Maybe they could stop by the house of the writer who wrote the life expectancy article and sprinkle some ashes on his breakfast table. And a few in his Cheerios. And stuff some into his nose. And smear some on his forehead. And make his dog eat the rest.
Jim Laris is the former owner/publisher of the Pasadena Weekly. Contact him at jimlaris@mac.com.
No, I read last week that the average life expectancy of a man is 74.9 years. (I think women expect to live until 106. Something like that.) And because I am 67.1 years old, that means I have 7.8 years left. And it hit me. Hard. I realized I was now into the single digits of life. How in the double hey hey did that happen?
When you’re a kid, you never even think of buying the farm. It just never crosses your little pea-sized brain. I don’t think I ever even thought about death until I was about 30. Just had other more important things to think about. Like pimples and making the baseball team and studying and working and surviving and figuring out to defend myself when I copped a feel. When I was younger the only thing I thought was 67 years old was a redwood.
And now I’m one of those redwoods, baby. It’s funny. Life just creeps up on your butt when you least expect it and says, “Hello, Reaper here. You can call me Grim.” It’s not good being on a first name basis with Mr. R. I have to admit, it’s kind of freaking me out a little.
It’s not that I’m exactly afraid of the D-word. I don’t want to die. Yet. Maybe not ever. When I was younger — back when dinosaurs roamed Altadena — I was planning on living forever. It just seemed like a good idea to me. Why should I be like all the other people in the world and actually have to die? I saw no good reason for that to have to happen. Death was for other people. The less-cool people.
Now, that I’m into the single digits of expectancy, I’m having a few second thoughts. (By the way, can you have more than one second thought? Wouldn’t the second second thought be your third thought? Just think, in eight more years you won’t have to read these asides. I’ll be gone.) Maybe, just maybe, I will be like all you other regular people and not be special and not be God’s favorite person and maybe I won’t be able to count on being the first person to defy all the odds and live forever and eat M&Ms and corn nuts without consequences.
It’s a real pisser. This facing reality thing. Facing reality has never been my strong suit. I’m more of a believer in ignoring the really hard things of life, and maybe they will go away, or you’ll forget why they were scaring you. I’ve kind of run with the head-in-the-sand approach to life. My favorite bird is the ostrich.
But sometimes reality just gets in your face. When you’re sitting in your own damn kitchen drinking really crappy instant coffee and reading the really crappy Los Angeles Times and there is this official-ass article scientifically telling you that you have less than eight years left on the planet, well, Holy Ostrich, that got to me!
It scared the bejabbers out of me. And my bejabbers have been there for a long time, baby. I liked my bejabbers right where they were, and now they’re not there. They’re probably just running as fast as their little bejabber feet can carry them, running right along with my doomed dreams and my doomed outlook on life. (By the way, as bad as I felt when I read the life expectancy article, just think how the guy feels who is 74.8 years old. Jeeez!)
Bejabbers or not, I want to live and smell the roses — preferably from the flower side up. I do not want to smell roses from the root-side first. Nope. Don’t want that. Actually, I’ve told Marge and my kids that I don’t want to be buried at all. I’m claustrophobic, and granted I’d be deader than a doornail and a dodo, I just don’t want to somehow wake up down there and have some semblance of recognition and realize my 74.9- year-old butt is under six feet of dirt. I do not want to be in a “Twilight Zone” episode for eternity. I do not want to hear Rod Serling say, “All Mr. Larness, a bejabberless ostrich lover, wanted to do was find a peaceful garden of rest, but alas, fate was the motel keeper.” I don’t know what that means, either.
So, I’m planning on being cremated. I don’t want to be too morbid here, but just burn my bones. I do not want any fingernails left to claw at coffin lids or cremation urns. I don’t want any voice box parts left to cry out little pitiful yelps of despair. (OK, I lied about not being morbid.) And then I have a few very specific rules about how I want my ashes distributed.
First, I want the cremation container to be in the shape of the Stanley Cup. That’s most likely the only time I’ll see it. Then I want Marge and each of my kids to scoop out some ashes and put them in three other containers so they can each put them on their fireplaces and worship them every day. Is that too much to ask? No, they’ll still be reading newspaper articles about their own life expectancies. I’ll be part of the story then! Just two hours of worship a night. Big deal. What’s that? An “American Idol” and a “Lost” episode. Am I worth that? Don’t answer.
Oh, and if they have a little extra time, I’d like them to scatter some of my ashes around second base in some little ballpark, and maybe spread a few smidgins of ashes up in Humboldt County, and gently toss some ashes into a fast-moving stream in Montana, and maybe they could all quit their jobs and devote their lives to taking my ashes everywhere on a list that I will provide them in my will. Yeah, I like that.
Maybe they could stop by the house of the writer who wrote the life expectancy article and sprinkle some ashes on his breakfast table. And a few in his Cheerios. And stuff some into his nose. And smear some on his forehead. And make his dog eat the rest.
Jim Laris is the former owner/publisher of the Pasadena Weekly. Contact him at jimlaris@mac.com.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Something Smells (Cigar Smoke 5-1-08)
OK, I’m getting tired of bad-mouthing ministers and schoolteachers. I thought I’d dip back into my well of boring drivel. It’s pretty much full most of the time.
I’m a creature of habit. I do the same damn things over and over. I go see hockey games in Canada every winter. I go to bush league baseball games every summer. I wear my same old ratty robe every dang night. I go outside and smoke my stogies after dinner, every damn day. And I wear the same darn cologne. (I’m out of D words. Doggone it.)
I have only used two brands of cologne in my entire life. Oh, sure, once I rebelliously splashed on some Brut in college and two squirrels jumped my nuts. But that’s another story. Of course, I started out using Old Spice. I’m not a commie. Every guy I knew used Old Spice. Since I was about 15, I just sprayed on some Old Spice and bounded out into the world like that happy-ass captain in the TV commercials. I think he got all the women. That pirate outfit is a damn babe magnet.
I used Old Spice for about 20 years and then for some forgotten reason I switched over to Chaps. I don’t know why. I think I just liked the name. Chaps — it fit perfectly for a lanky cowpoke such as myself. And you know what? Women liked it. I couldn’t believe it. I would walk into my office and some woman person would say, “You sure smell good.” And I’d turn around and there was no one else there. And I’d say, “You want to smell it a little closer after work?” And she’d say, “Not really, I’m going to get some for my boyfriend.” (By the way, it’s kind of funny, but most of the women I know all have the same first name: Plaintiff.)
But I swear women would always comment on my Chaps. Sometimes I’d be standing in line at the bank, and sure as Jimmy Carter is loopy, some woman would comment on my sweet smelling Chaps-doused face. Everywhere I went I got some nice feedback. Even when I went to my favorite donut place, the Chinese woman behind the counter would say, “You smell berry wood.” I think that was a compliment. But I could be terwibbly wong.
I’m sorry. I kid the Chinese. This nice donut woman was nothing like those Tibet-enslaving commie bastards in her home country.
Well, a couple of weeks ago I was running low on my supply of Chaps, so I went on the Internet to order a few bottles at half the cost of California cologne and save the taxes and feel defiant and try to stick it to Rob Reiner for screwing me on the cigar taxes, and I get on this fragrance Web site and damned if all the women on there aren’t saying great things about Chaps. They just love Chaps. I am not kidding. Even out-of-state women love Chaps.
And then I read a message in a forum post. Some woman from Maryland just casually let it slip, and it kind of jolted me. She said something like, yes, she loved Chaps, and yes, it turned her on when her husband wore it, and yes, it made her want to get out of her skivvies, and yada yada, and then she said, “Of course, it’s not Paul Sebastian.”
It’s not Paul who? Paul Sebastian? Who in hell’s bells is Paul Sebastian? Probably some pissy Frenchman with an eye-patch and a beret. So what did I do? I ordered three bottles of Chaps and one disgustingly expensive bottle of Paul Sebastian. I thought, “Hey Chaps face, you’ve been wearing Chaps for 32 years. Maybe it’s time to switch to a little Sebastian action. Maybe if it made Marge rip your clothes off, you’d remember what to do when you’re naked.”
So it came in the mail the other day and I generously splashed some on my cheeks and I walked out of the bathroom and the first one to notice me was my personal man’s best friend, Hadley. He knows that whenever I put on my Chaps, he’s probably going for a walk. He gets excited every day at the first smell of Chaps.
Well, I threw that fur ball for a doggy loop, baby. He took one whiff of that Sebastian shit and he cocked his long Airedale head, and he looked at me out of the corner of his canine-acal eye, and he did something I didn’t think dogs could do. He coughed.
I probably should have taken that as a bad sign, but I live on the what? The edge. That’s what. Danger is my co-pilot. So I went out to the kitchen and Marge was sitting at the table reading the paper, and I walked up to her and put my Sebastian-splashed face right up next to hers, raised my eyebrows twice, and said, “You notice anything different?” And she said, “I don’t know, I can’t concentrate. There’s this bad smell.”
That was cold. I paid $59 for this?! Fifty-nine bucks to be rejected and humiliated. What a sucker. What a Sebastian suck-face sucker I was. I was stunned. So I decided to get another opinion, and I went over to Starbucks and I was standing in line, and the woman next to me coughed very much like Hadley had coughed, and the guy next to her was looking at me like I was a French dude from Paree. And I said, “I used to be a pirate and a cowboy.” He didn’t say jack. He just looked through me. And reversed sniffed a couple of times. He was probably from UCLA.
And when I got to the front of the line, I was hoping for some kind of donut-lady positive response to my new cologne. And I got my order, and well, I just waited there a second. I didn’t move. And the girl behind the counter said, “Is something wrong?”
And I kind of stumbled a bit, and finally said, “Uh, I was just wondering if you, uh, smelled something?” I looked at her expectantly for some Chaps-like love.
She said, “Oh, I’m sorry sir. The restroom backed up. We’re having someone come out soon.”
I think you and I both know who that will be. Paul Sebastian.
Jim Laris is the former owner/publisher of the Pasadena Weekly. Contact him at jimlaris@mac.com.
I’m a creature of habit. I do the same damn things over and over. I go see hockey games in Canada every winter. I go to bush league baseball games every summer. I wear my same old ratty robe every dang night. I go outside and smoke my stogies after dinner, every damn day. And I wear the same darn cologne. (I’m out of D words. Doggone it.)
I have only used two brands of cologne in my entire life. Oh, sure, once I rebelliously splashed on some Brut in college and two squirrels jumped my nuts. But that’s another story. Of course, I started out using Old Spice. I’m not a commie. Every guy I knew used Old Spice. Since I was about 15, I just sprayed on some Old Spice and bounded out into the world like that happy-ass captain in the TV commercials. I think he got all the women. That pirate outfit is a damn babe magnet.
I used Old Spice for about 20 years and then for some forgotten reason I switched over to Chaps. I don’t know why. I think I just liked the name. Chaps — it fit perfectly for a lanky cowpoke such as myself. And you know what? Women liked it. I couldn’t believe it. I would walk into my office and some woman person would say, “You sure smell good.” And I’d turn around and there was no one else there. And I’d say, “You want to smell it a little closer after work?” And she’d say, “Not really, I’m going to get some for my boyfriend.” (By the way, it’s kind of funny, but most of the women I know all have the same first name: Plaintiff.)
But I swear women would always comment on my Chaps. Sometimes I’d be standing in line at the bank, and sure as Jimmy Carter is loopy, some woman would comment on my sweet smelling Chaps-doused face. Everywhere I went I got some nice feedback. Even when I went to my favorite donut place, the Chinese woman behind the counter would say, “You smell berry wood.” I think that was a compliment. But I could be terwibbly wong.
I’m sorry. I kid the Chinese. This nice donut woman was nothing like those Tibet-enslaving commie bastards in her home country.
Well, a couple of weeks ago I was running low on my supply of Chaps, so I went on the Internet to order a few bottles at half the cost of California cologne and save the taxes and feel defiant and try to stick it to Rob Reiner for screwing me on the cigar taxes, and I get on this fragrance Web site and damned if all the women on there aren’t saying great things about Chaps. They just love Chaps. I am not kidding. Even out-of-state women love Chaps.
And then I read a message in a forum post. Some woman from Maryland just casually let it slip, and it kind of jolted me. She said something like, yes, she loved Chaps, and yes, it turned her on when her husband wore it, and yes, it made her want to get out of her skivvies, and yada yada, and then she said, “Of course, it’s not Paul Sebastian.”
It’s not Paul who? Paul Sebastian? Who in hell’s bells is Paul Sebastian? Probably some pissy Frenchman with an eye-patch and a beret. So what did I do? I ordered three bottles of Chaps and one disgustingly expensive bottle of Paul Sebastian. I thought, “Hey Chaps face, you’ve been wearing Chaps for 32 years. Maybe it’s time to switch to a little Sebastian action. Maybe if it made Marge rip your clothes off, you’d remember what to do when you’re naked.”
So it came in the mail the other day and I generously splashed some on my cheeks and I walked out of the bathroom and the first one to notice me was my personal man’s best friend, Hadley. He knows that whenever I put on my Chaps, he’s probably going for a walk. He gets excited every day at the first smell of Chaps.
Well, I threw that fur ball for a doggy loop, baby. He took one whiff of that Sebastian shit and he cocked his long Airedale head, and he looked at me out of the corner of his canine-acal eye, and he did something I didn’t think dogs could do. He coughed.
I probably should have taken that as a bad sign, but I live on the what? The edge. That’s what. Danger is my co-pilot. So I went out to the kitchen and Marge was sitting at the table reading the paper, and I walked up to her and put my Sebastian-splashed face right up next to hers, raised my eyebrows twice, and said, “You notice anything different?” And she said, “I don’t know, I can’t concentrate. There’s this bad smell.”
That was cold. I paid $59 for this?! Fifty-nine bucks to be rejected and humiliated. What a sucker. What a Sebastian suck-face sucker I was. I was stunned. So I decided to get another opinion, and I went over to Starbucks and I was standing in line, and the woman next to me coughed very much like Hadley had coughed, and the guy next to her was looking at me like I was a French dude from Paree. And I said, “I used to be a pirate and a cowboy.” He didn’t say jack. He just looked through me. And reversed sniffed a couple of times. He was probably from UCLA.
And when I got to the front of the line, I was hoping for some kind of donut-lady positive response to my new cologne. And I got my order, and well, I just waited there a second. I didn’t move. And the girl behind the counter said, “Is something wrong?”
And I kind of stumbled a bit, and finally said, “Uh, I was just wondering if you, uh, smelled something?” I looked at her expectantly for some Chaps-like love.
She said, “Oh, I’m sorry sir. The restroom backed up. We’re having someone come out soon.”
I think you and I both know who that will be. Paul Sebastian.
Jim Laris is the former owner/publisher of the Pasadena Weekly. Contact him at jimlaris@mac.com.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Black and White (Cigar Smoke 4-24-08)
I guess Joe Hopkins, the publisher of the Pasadena Journal, didn’t like my column on the Good Rev. Wrong a couple of weeks ago. Well, I don’t know quite where to begin in my “ranting” rebuttal.
Joe and I go back a few years. When I first bought the Pasadena Weekly in 1988, I wrote a column about him putting a subhead on his paper — “The Newspaper for Black People.” Something like that. I thought he was a racist for doing that. He seemed to agree, because he stopped putting that offensive line on his paper.
And he seems to discount my reflections on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama because of my supposed profanity. Well, yes Joe, I did use a few bad words like damn and pissed-off. (Hell, I thought you liberals would like that shit.) But Joe, I’m sure you have used your column to rail against the black rappers who have used their highly hip-hopping artistic-level profanity by using the f-word, the c-word, the b-word and the n-word to degrade blacks and women. Why don’t you send me some copies of those columns, Joe?
And Joe, I don’t give a hoot (is the h-word OK?) where you go to church. Don’t give me this red herring about me wanting to tell you where to go to church. I never said that, and I don’t care what church you or Obama attends. All I care about is Obama listening to hate speech coming from the pulpit of the church he attended and doing nothing about it … for 20 years!
Which sermon did you and your other “enlightened black folks” find the most spiritually uplifting? The one where he called America the KKK of A.? Or the one where he preached that we white guys started AIDS to kill off black people? Or maybe it was the one where he eloquently moralized that white people caused the attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11? Hmm? Whatever happened to the Sermon on the Mount?
And that First Amendment whining of yours. Who the hell is stopping you from speaking your mind? Nobody. You have a damn newspaper, for Christ’s sake! You just don’t like it when someone responds. Well, Joe, I’m just using my First Amendment right to call you and Obama and the Rev. Wrong on your misguided, racist comments. If you can’t stand the heat, then get out of the damn kitchen. Just call me a racist jerk in your newspaper if you like, but please, save me the whining about how I want to stop you from speaking your mind.
Yes, I said Obama’s wife was “ungrateful” because she is ungrateful. She doesn’t seem to thank anybody for her opportunity to get a good education and for her and Obama to make over $4 million. What part of “ungrateful” am I missing?
And yes, I didn’t say Hillary Clinton was “ungrateful” because, well, she isn’t. She may be a lot of things, but she has often thanked a lot of people for her many opportunities and for her and her hubby’s ability to make a tidy little $109 million over the last few years.
And Joe, of course I respected Martin Luther King. I was devastated when he was murdered. It was one of the most sickening moments of my life. I visited his memorial in Memphis and was very moved. I still get shivers. But, please don’t equate Rev. King with Rev. Wrong and Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan and Malcolm X. In my opinion, Jackson is nothing more than a publicity-hungry extortionist of businesses for mostly phony race issues. Sharpton lied about a black woman being raped and nobody gives a damn. And I don’t have space or stomach enough to tell you what I think of Farrakhan and Malcolm X. I can tell you this, though. They’re not Martin Luther King.
And what is all this bull-word calling me “Massa” Laris? Give me a break. Joe, who in the hell have I ever kept down on the metaphorical plantation? I have never tried to stifle anybody, ever. Black or white. Just because I speak my mind you think I’m trying to keep blacks down? Come on, Joe. You know that’s bullshit (hide your eyes). I’ll give you a thousand bucks if you can find any proof of me even hinting at stifling anyone’s speech. It’s ludicrous, and you should apologize. But I guess black people don’t apologize, either, huh, Joe?
If I may go a little shrinky on you here, Joe, I think you’re mainly pissed off at me because I don’t feel the adequate amount of guilt over slavery and racial prejudice that you think I should. And to be fair, you’re right. I don’t feel much guilt. I know I can’t convey how much I abhor the evils of slavery and I know that prejudice exists. And I know I’m white, and obviously, I haven’t been in you or your ancestors’ shoes. That’s how it is. I’m a white guy. Sorry.
But, I didn’t have any slaves, my parents didn’t have any slaves, their parents didn’t have any slaves. Slavery was 200 years ago. We fought the Civil War to stop slavery. Hundreds of thousands of white guys died to stop slavery. Doesn’t that count for something? Have you ever thanked us white guys who helped you attain freedom? Maybe you have. If you have, I haven’t heard about it.
I’m not naïve about the black struggle. It has been ugly. But you know what? It’s not anywhere near as ugly as it has been. And today we have black governors and black mayors and black senators, and black police chiefs and a black Supreme Court justice and a black secretary of state. That should count for something, Joe.
And maybe we’ll even have a black president. I hope it’s not this black candidate because I don’t think Obama has the chops. But I’m glad he is in the fight. A fight without any pulled punches. Let him take the damn heat, like every other candidate always has. Let the press rip him. Don’t call it a “distraction” when you are asked hard questions. We’re just trying to see what you’re made of.
The last thing we need in America is an affirmative action president.
Joe and I go back a few years. When I first bought the Pasadena Weekly in 1988, I wrote a column about him putting a subhead on his paper — “The Newspaper for Black People.” Something like that. I thought he was a racist for doing that. He seemed to agree, because he stopped putting that offensive line on his paper.
And he seems to discount my reflections on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama because of my supposed profanity. Well, yes Joe, I did use a few bad words like damn and pissed-off. (Hell, I thought you liberals would like that shit.) But Joe, I’m sure you have used your column to rail against the black rappers who have used their highly hip-hopping artistic-level profanity by using the f-word, the c-word, the b-word and the n-word to degrade blacks and women. Why don’t you send me some copies of those columns, Joe?
And Joe, I don’t give a hoot (is the h-word OK?) where you go to church. Don’t give me this red herring about me wanting to tell you where to go to church. I never said that, and I don’t care what church you or Obama attends. All I care about is Obama listening to hate speech coming from the pulpit of the church he attended and doing nothing about it … for 20 years!
Which sermon did you and your other “enlightened black folks” find the most spiritually uplifting? The one where he called America the KKK of A.? Or the one where he preached that we white guys started AIDS to kill off black people? Or maybe it was the one where he eloquently moralized that white people caused the attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11? Hmm? Whatever happened to the Sermon on the Mount?
And that First Amendment whining of yours. Who the hell is stopping you from speaking your mind? Nobody. You have a damn newspaper, for Christ’s sake! You just don’t like it when someone responds. Well, Joe, I’m just using my First Amendment right to call you and Obama and the Rev. Wrong on your misguided, racist comments. If you can’t stand the heat, then get out of the damn kitchen. Just call me a racist jerk in your newspaper if you like, but please, save me the whining about how I want to stop you from speaking your mind.
Yes, I said Obama’s wife was “ungrateful” because she is ungrateful. She doesn’t seem to thank anybody for her opportunity to get a good education and for her and Obama to make over $4 million. What part of “ungrateful” am I missing?
And yes, I didn’t say Hillary Clinton was “ungrateful” because, well, she isn’t. She may be a lot of things, but she has often thanked a lot of people for her many opportunities and for her and her hubby’s ability to make a tidy little $109 million over the last few years.
And Joe, of course I respected Martin Luther King. I was devastated when he was murdered. It was one of the most sickening moments of my life. I visited his memorial in Memphis and was very moved. I still get shivers. But, please don’t equate Rev. King with Rev. Wrong and Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan and Malcolm X. In my opinion, Jackson is nothing more than a publicity-hungry extortionist of businesses for mostly phony race issues. Sharpton lied about a black woman being raped and nobody gives a damn. And I don’t have space or stomach enough to tell you what I think of Farrakhan and Malcolm X. I can tell you this, though. They’re not Martin Luther King.
And what is all this bull-word calling me “Massa” Laris? Give me a break. Joe, who in the hell have I ever kept down on the metaphorical plantation? I have never tried to stifle anybody, ever. Black or white. Just because I speak my mind you think I’m trying to keep blacks down? Come on, Joe. You know that’s bullshit (hide your eyes). I’ll give you a thousand bucks if you can find any proof of me even hinting at stifling anyone’s speech. It’s ludicrous, and you should apologize. But I guess black people don’t apologize, either, huh, Joe?
If I may go a little shrinky on you here, Joe, I think you’re mainly pissed off at me because I don’t feel the adequate amount of guilt over slavery and racial prejudice that you think I should. And to be fair, you’re right. I don’t feel much guilt. I know I can’t convey how much I abhor the evils of slavery and I know that prejudice exists. And I know I’m white, and obviously, I haven’t been in you or your ancestors’ shoes. That’s how it is. I’m a white guy. Sorry.
But, I didn’t have any slaves, my parents didn’t have any slaves, their parents didn’t have any slaves. Slavery was 200 years ago. We fought the Civil War to stop slavery. Hundreds of thousands of white guys died to stop slavery. Doesn’t that count for something? Have you ever thanked us white guys who helped you attain freedom? Maybe you have. If you have, I haven’t heard about it.
I’m not naïve about the black struggle. It has been ugly. But you know what? It’s not anywhere near as ugly as it has been. And today we have black governors and black mayors and black senators, and black police chiefs and a black Supreme Court justice and a black secretary of state. That should count for something, Joe.
And maybe we’ll even have a black president. I hope it’s not this black candidate because I don’t think Obama has the chops. But I’m glad he is in the fight. A fight without any pulled punches. Let him take the damn heat, like every other candidate always has. Let the press rip him. Don’t call it a “distraction” when you are asked hard questions. We’re just trying to see what you’re made of.
The last thing we need in America is an affirmative action president.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Enough is Enough (Cigar Smoke 4-17-08)
A few weeks ago they came out with the latest assessment of our high schools. You know the one: 80 percent of kids in Detroit don’t graduate, 69 percent in Chicago, 50 percent in LA. Maybe those stats aren’t exactly right. You know me. But the point is that our schools are doing an incredibly bad job of educating and graduating our kids.
And what do the Democrats want to do to fix it? Of course, they want more money. That’s all they ever want, is more money. But more money ain’t gonna do diddly. How do we know this? Because we’ve been giving them more money for more than 50 years. You talk about a poor learning curve. I used to vote to give money for every school bond, but for the past number of years I always vote not to do it any more. Enough is enough.
In California, the Democrats have held power for over 50 years. That’s a half-century to you high school dropouts. Except for those few years when we had Reagan and Deukmejian and Wilson, the Democrats have been in control of our state and our school system, and the school system has gone down faster than Monica Lewinsky. As the guy on Jim Rome says, “Its just unbeevable.”
To me, the answers are relatively simple. But I’ve learned that simple answers are usually the hardest to employ (like our non-graduates). The first obvious problem is the teachers union. Yes, I know there are good teachers, and I sure know they have to work in horrible conditions. And most parents are part of the problem, too. But the teachers union stands out. The definition of a union is that it’s a group of people who are negotiating for their own interests. The teachers’ interests are more important than the interests of the students. To the teachers, that’s not necessarily wrong. It’s just what a union is for.
Of course, the teachers will say, as they have for 50 years, that the students’ interests come first. That’s nuts. Do you think the auto workers union thinks the car buyers interests come first? Hah. Do you think the bus drivers union strikes to help the riders? Double hah. Do you think the restaurant workers are striking to get better meals for us customers? Double hah with a yuck.
It’s a conflict of interest. Even a drop out non-graduating lump of dumbed-down dumbness can figure that one out. And the schools themselves have a similar conflict of interest. They get money based on how many students they have enrolled. Not much of an incentive there to kick out the disruptive students, huh? Fat chance that either the teachers’ union or the schools would even consider a voucher plan. It’s against their interests. Why the hell should they? They would obviously lose students to other schools. Probably better schools.
Everywhere vouchers have been tried they have been successful. Competition just makes things better. Period. It does in every other area of life. Why shouldn’t it in education? It should and it would, but the teachers and schools do NOT want this. Even though a voucher program makes the students better, it does not make things better for teachers and school systems. It’s that simple. Or that hard. Follow the money.
Another obvious problem in the school system is the discipline problem. From what I hear, most high schools have a real problem keeping the little darlings in line. All the students who want to learn are constantly being interrupted by the jerk-offs. And the teachers can’t control them because of our politically correct bullshit that doesn’t allow them to do what has to be done. The ACLU is a major contributor to this craziness with their constant harping about how many rights the students should have. That is nuts.
Why should students have all these supposed rights? They’re just kids. They’re supposed to be learning from the adults who have those rights because they’re older and smarter and have earned them. Hell, kids don’t have the right to drink until they are 21. Kids don’t have the right to drive until they are 16. Etc. Etc. So why in the hell do they have the right to wear obscene T-shirts and disrupt classes and spout off about anything their little uneducated butts want to?
It seems to me that if students disrupt a class they should be expelled. They should be sent to some other school that specializes in giving them an education in some trade like auto mechanics or plumbing or dress making or computer training. It would not be that hard to do. If they behave, they get the privilege of staying in the regular school. If they’re disruptive, they’re sent to a trade school.
The misfits will probably do better and the regular schools will be far better off. Even the teachers would be happier. It’s not that hard, folks. And if the jerk-offs disrupt the trade school, they’re gone. Let them get a job.
And why don’t our high schools just stop teaching all these unnecessary courses about gender politics and global warming and gay marriage and proper condom use and whatever else is the latest pissy social fad. Seems to me teachers and schools (and the parents) should concentrate on the basics: reading, writing, math, science. When they get that graduation rate over 90 percent, then they can add classes on why we should hate oil companies or something.
And I just heard that over 40 percent of our students are illegal aliens. And that we spend more than $10 billion a year on them. To be honest, I’m not 100 percent sure on those exact numbers. Maybe I heard them wrong. But I am sure that they are pretty close, and I am sure that that’s a lot of money. Heck, with that kind of money, maybe the Democrats and the teachers union (sorry, they’re the same organization) wouldn’t keep asking us for more money every election.
I guess that would be too simple.
And what do the Democrats want to do to fix it? Of course, they want more money. That’s all they ever want, is more money. But more money ain’t gonna do diddly. How do we know this? Because we’ve been giving them more money for more than 50 years. You talk about a poor learning curve. I used to vote to give money for every school bond, but for the past number of years I always vote not to do it any more. Enough is enough.
In California, the Democrats have held power for over 50 years. That’s a half-century to you high school dropouts. Except for those few years when we had Reagan and Deukmejian and Wilson, the Democrats have been in control of our state and our school system, and the school system has gone down faster than Monica Lewinsky. As the guy on Jim Rome says, “Its just unbeevable.”
To me, the answers are relatively simple. But I’ve learned that simple answers are usually the hardest to employ (like our non-graduates). The first obvious problem is the teachers union. Yes, I know there are good teachers, and I sure know they have to work in horrible conditions. And most parents are part of the problem, too. But the teachers union stands out. The definition of a union is that it’s a group of people who are negotiating for their own interests. The teachers’ interests are more important than the interests of the students. To the teachers, that’s not necessarily wrong. It’s just what a union is for.
Of course, the teachers will say, as they have for 50 years, that the students’ interests come first. That’s nuts. Do you think the auto workers union thinks the car buyers interests come first? Hah. Do you think the bus drivers union strikes to help the riders? Double hah. Do you think the restaurant workers are striking to get better meals for us customers? Double hah with a yuck.
It’s a conflict of interest. Even a drop out non-graduating lump of dumbed-down dumbness can figure that one out. And the schools themselves have a similar conflict of interest. They get money based on how many students they have enrolled. Not much of an incentive there to kick out the disruptive students, huh? Fat chance that either the teachers’ union or the schools would even consider a voucher plan. It’s against their interests. Why the hell should they? They would obviously lose students to other schools. Probably better schools.
Everywhere vouchers have been tried they have been successful. Competition just makes things better. Period. It does in every other area of life. Why shouldn’t it in education? It should and it would, but the teachers and schools do NOT want this. Even though a voucher program makes the students better, it does not make things better for teachers and school systems. It’s that simple. Or that hard. Follow the money.
Another obvious problem in the school system is the discipline problem. From what I hear, most high schools have a real problem keeping the little darlings in line. All the students who want to learn are constantly being interrupted by the jerk-offs. And the teachers can’t control them because of our politically correct bullshit that doesn’t allow them to do what has to be done. The ACLU is a major contributor to this craziness with their constant harping about how many rights the students should have. That is nuts.
Why should students have all these supposed rights? They’re just kids. They’re supposed to be learning from the adults who have those rights because they’re older and smarter and have earned them. Hell, kids don’t have the right to drink until they are 21. Kids don’t have the right to drive until they are 16. Etc. Etc. So why in the hell do they have the right to wear obscene T-shirts and disrupt classes and spout off about anything their little uneducated butts want to?
It seems to me that if students disrupt a class they should be expelled. They should be sent to some other school that specializes in giving them an education in some trade like auto mechanics or plumbing or dress making or computer training. It would not be that hard to do. If they behave, they get the privilege of staying in the regular school. If they’re disruptive, they’re sent to a trade school.
The misfits will probably do better and the regular schools will be far better off. Even the teachers would be happier. It’s not that hard, folks. And if the jerk-offs disrupt the trade school, they’re gone. Let them get a job.
And why don’t our high schools just stop teaching all these unnecessary courses about gender politics and global warming and gay marriage and proper condom use and whatever else is the latest pissy social fad. Seems to me teachers and schools (and the parents) should concentrate on the basics: reading, writing, math, science. When they get that graduation rate over 90 percent, then they can add classes on why we should hate oil companies or something.
And I just heard that over 40 percent of our students are illegal aliens. And that we spend more than $10 billion a year on them. To be honest, I’m not 100 percent sure on those exact numbers. Maybe I heard them wrong. But I am sure that they are pretty close, and I am sure that that’s a lot of money. Heck, with that kind of money, maybe the Democrats and the teachers union (sorry, they’re the same organization) wouldn’t keep asking us for more money every election.
I guess that would be too simple.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The Good Reverend Wrong (Cigar Smoke 4-10-08)
I took Hadley for a walk at the Rose Bowl the other day, and on the way home I stopped at a Starbucks. The car just turned into the parking lot. I couldn’t control it.
And as I was walking in to get my coffee cappuccino de latte with two shots of caramel and one shot of vanilla/cinnamon with a jolt of whipped cream and some pumpkin syrup left over from Halloween, I noticed a news rack. There was a copy of the Los Angeles Sentinel in there and a headline read “Jeremiah the Wright Message for America.”
The only reason I didn’t throw up my café de espresso magnifico was that I hadn’t ordered it yet. What a disgusting headline. And right under it was another story headline that read “Barack Obama Shows America What It Means to Be Presidential.”
Talk about regurgitation.
When I first saw all that bullshit with the Rev. Wrong I knew Obama was dead meat. He’s done. If the Democrats don’t put a fork in that guy, they are truly self-destructive. In my humble opinion, he has no friggame of a chance to win the general election. He makes Hillary look like she has character.
The damn Sentinel is defending the Rev. Wrong for calling our country the KKK of A. They’re defending him for saying that the United States intentionally spread AIDS to kill African Americans. The Rev. Wrong rants that the United States sells drugs to black people to keep them down. The Rev. Wrong spews out conspiracy crap that we brought the Sept. 11 attacks on ourselves. He calls us the same as al-Qaida. The Rev. Wrong high-fives Farrakhan. The Rev. Wrong goes to Libya. And the Sentinel just laps it up.
Give me a frigging break. That’s journalism? I guess they just didn’t think the Rev. Wrong needed to provide any evidence for his weak-ass, bogus charges. Nope. I guess as long as he was black and pissed off, that was all they needed. Evidence is for other people. Something to back up the bullshit would be too much to ask of the Rev. Wrong. All the Sentinel needs is some frothing at the mouth. I’ll give you frothing. I just upchucked my Starbucks. Again.
And all this worship of Obama. That speech he gave on race was a good speech on race. The only problem was that the problem wasn’t race. The problem was maturity and judgment. The problem was Obama didn’t have too much of either. Obama danced around the Rev. Wrong. He turned the good reverend’s hate speech into a discussion on race. Imagine if a white politician sat in a church for 20 years — two damn decades — and the white frothing minister was in favor of the KKK and hated blacks and blamed blacks for every damn thing wrong with the country, and the white politician just sat there on his white butt and never said anything and got married in that church and had his kids baptized in that church, and he called that frother his friend and he admired him and he took the title of his book from him and he stood behind the frothing pastor because he was a good man whose words were just taken out of context. Can you imagine that?
Then imagine that if the white politician gave a speech on race relations, it would make it all better, and he would be a statesman, and would show America how to be presidential. The only thing more disgusting than the Sentinel’s take on all this is to see The New York Times and all the other mainstream media fall all over themselves in praise of the guy who wouldn’t condemn all that racist bullshit. Black racism. Yes, there are bigots on both sides, Virginia. Not that you’d know that if you read or watched most of the press.
As I said, I think Obama has no chance to win in November. Those tapes of the Rev. Wrong will be played over and over, as well they should be. Of course, it will be called a vast right-wing conspiracy and the Republicans will just be out to smear poor little Rev. Wrong-loving Obama. And then when all these people in the Midwest and South, and in rural areas, hell, basically everywhere, see all that Rev. Wrong ranting and hating America, and then you couple that with Obama’s ungrateful Ivy League-school-attending wife saying she was never proud of America until her hubby ran for president, he doesn’t have a, well, a prayer. In or out of church.
I am not a Hillary fan, but baby, she’s all the Democrats have now. And give me a break about this whining by Obama about the superdelegates. Not to sound too much like Geraldine Ferraro, but if Obama weren’t black, you would never even hear about how unfair this whole delegate thing would be. This politics business is a rough business.
So what if Obama had more votes than Clinton? It’s not about having the most (but not quite enough) votes, it’s about winning the nomination. Hell, will the Democrats really nominate a guy who will have lost all the big states: California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida? Jesus, if the Democrats didn’t have their crazy pro-rated primary system and it was a winner-take-all deal, Hillary would have won easily.
But that is how it is. Hillary has to live with that. And Obama is going to have to live with some superdelegate shit. Hey, what the hell are smoky back rooms for anyway?
So, if Obama loses the nomination, he won’t have lost it because he is black. He will have lost it because he lost it. Period. Someone else beat him. In this case, it might be Hillary.
If he loses the nomination, he should just take it like a man. If he says he lost because he was black, that won’t be true. Just as it wouldn’t be true if Hillary would say she lost because she was a woman. Nope. Not true. In either case.
The best politician will win.
In either case the Sentinel will lose.
And as I was walking in to get my coffee cappuccino de latte with two shots of caramel and one shot of vanilla/cinnamon with a jolt of whipped cream and some pumpkin syrup left over from Halloween, I noticed a news rack. There was a copy of the Los Angeles Sentinel in there and a headline read “Jeremiah the Wright Message for America.”
The only reason I didn’t throw up my café de espresso magnifico was that I hadn’t ordered it yet. What a disgusting headline. And right under it was another story headline that read “Barack Obama Shows America What It Means to Be Presidential.”
Talk about regurgitation.
When I first saw all that bullshit with the Rev. Wrong I knew Obama was dead meat. He’s done. If the Democrats don’t put a fork in that guy, they are truly self-destructive. In my humble opinion, he has no friggame of a chance to win the general election. He makes Hillary look like she has character.
The damn Sentinel is defending the Rev. Wrong for calling our country the KKK of A. They’re defending him for saying that the United States intentionally spread AIDS to kill African Americans. The Rev. Wrong rants that the United States sells drugs to black people to keep them down. The Rev. Wrong spews out conspiracy crap that we brought the Sept. 11 attacks on ourselves. He calls us the same as al-Qaida. The Rev. Wrong high-fives Farrakhan. The Rev. Wrong goes to Libya. And the Sentinel just laps it up.
Give me a frigging break. That’s journalism? I guess they just didn’t think the Rev. Wrong needed to provide any evidence for his weak-ass, bogus charges. Nope. I guess as long as he was black and pissed off, that was all they needed. Evidence is for other people. Something to back up the bullshit would be too much to ask of the Rev. Wrong. All the Sentinel needs is some frothing at the mouth. I’ll give you frothing. I just upchucked my Starbucks. Again.
And all this worship of Obama. That speech he gave on race was a good speech on race. The only problem was that the problem wasn’t race. The problem was maturity and judgment. The problem was Obama didn’t have too much of either. Obama danced around the Rev. Wrong. He turned the good reverend’s hate speech into a discussion on race. Imagine if a white politician sat in a church for 20 years — two damn decades — and the white frothing minister was in favor of the KKK and hated blacks and blamed blacks for every damn thing wrong with the country, and the white politician just sat there on his white butt and never said anything and got married in that church and had his kids baptized in that church, and he called that frother his friend and he admired him and he took the title of his book from him and he stood behind the frothing pastor because he was a good man whose words were just taken out of context. Can you imagine that?
Then imagine that if the white politician gave a speech on race relations, it would make it all better, and he would be a statesman, and would show America how to be presidential. The only thing more disgusting than the Sentinel’s take on all this is to see The New York Times and all the other mainstream media fall all over themselves in praise of the guy who wouldn’t condemn all that racist bullshit. Black racism. Yes, there are bigots on both sides, Virginia. Not that you’d know that if you read or watched most of the press.
As I said, I think Obama has no chance to win in November. Those tapes of the Rev. Wrong will be played over and over, as well they should be. Of course, it will be called a vast right-wing conspiracy and the Republicans will just be out to smear poor little Rev. Wrong-loving Obama. And then when all these people in the Midwest and South, and in rural areas, hell, basically everywhere, see all that Rev. Wrong ranting and hating America, and then you couple that with Obama’s ungrateful Ivy League-school-attending wife saying she was never proud of America until her hubby ran for president, he doesn’t have a, well, a prayer. In or out of church.
I am not a Hillary fan, but baby, she’s all the Democrats have now. And give me a break about this whining by Obama about the superdelegates. Not to sound too much like Geraldine Ferraro, but if Obama weren’t black, you would never even hear about how unfair this whole delegate thing would be. This politics business is a rough business.
So what if Obama had more votes than Clinton? It’s not about having the most (but not quite enough) votes, it’s about winning the nomination. Hell, will the Democrats really nominate a guy who will have lost all the big states: California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida? Jesus, if the Democrats didn’t have their crazy pro-rated primary system and it was a winner-take-all deal, Hillary would have won easily.
But that is how it is. Hillary has to live with that. And Obama is going to have to live with some superdelegate shit. Hey, what the hell are smoky back rooms for anyway?
So, if Obama loses the nomination, he won’t have lost it because he is black. He will have lost it because he lost it. Period. Someone else beat him. In this case, it might be Hillary.
If he loses the nomination, he should just take it like a man. If he says he lost because he was black, that won’t be true. Just as it wouldn’t be true if Hillary would say she lost because she was a woman. Nope. Not true. In either case.
The best politician will win.
In either case the Sentinel will lose.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Trivial Pursuits (Cigar Smoke 4-3-08)
While you guys were working on a Wednesday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I was, well, not working, so I went to see the “Jeopardy” king Ken Jennings at the Altadena Library. It was kind of cool. There were 79 other non-working lowlifes like myself. Some lower than others. But all of us were pretty damn low.
Yes, 80 of us were at an event that was held at one in the afternoon on a Wednesday. That’s pretty remarkable. It’s hard to get 80 people to show up on a Wednesday for gold ingot giveaways. I know, because usually it’s me and seven other losers attending an astronomy seminar or something. Hey, Uranus is fascinating, dammit.
I guess I went to see what Ken Jennings was really like and to see if he was going to dish some dirt on old Alex Trebek, the “Jeopardy” host. (By the way, I know that the title of the show “Jeopardy” has an exclamation point after it, but my spelling and grammar checker was getting so pissy on me that I’m leaving it out. I just wanted you to know that I am not so much of a Wednesday-event-attending loser that I didn’t know that there was an exclamation point there. I feel better now!!!!!!)
But Ken was disappointingly normal. He seemed to be a pretty good guy to me. He’s married and has a kid, and he bought a house with a part of his $2.5 million “Jeopardy” winnings. He was clean-cut and casually dressed and seemed pretty relaxed and regular to me. $2.5 million has a way of doing that I guess.
I had heard that he had dissed Alex on his Web site. He informed us that all of that him-not-liking-Alex hype was blown out of proportion because of a misunderstanding of something he posted on the site. He says Alex is a good guy … for a Canadian — much looser and funnier when not on the air. Says he’s a friendly, hard-working professional.
That was not what I was hoping to hear. I was hoping to hear that Alex was wearing that hand cast because he had backhanded his wife and when she cried, Alex backhanded his dog and when his dog yelped he backhanded his accountant, who was there to help him cheat on his taxes. But no. Ken likes Alex. He had nothing bad to say about him. I was shaken.
So I went to get a bottle of water at the back table and, as long as I was there, I picked up my second chocolate chip cookie. All Wednesday afternoon events have cookies — it’s the law. Then I went back to my seat. And the woman next to me saw my chocolate chip cookie and held up two fingers and shook her head in quiet disapproval. Bitch. That’s another word that could use an exclamation point!
I’m sorry. She was probably a nice lady. I was just feeling guilty for having the second cookie and even feeling guilty for even being there at all on a Wednesday while all of you were working and I was not working and enjoying life — and it was very stressful, if you like to be lied to.
Not much else went on. Ken gave us all a trivia quiz and then showed us his brand new book about trivia. (What a coincidence.) There were 25 questions. The three winners got 18 or 19 right. I got 12 right. I asked the nice lady next to me how many she got right. She showed me a finger that was not her thumb, forefinger, ring finger, or pinkie. “Only one right, huh?” I said.
Then they had a little “Jeopardy”-like game show and the winner got a copy of the book. And then Ken opened it up for questions. All the usual questions. What was Alex like? How did it feel to win so much money? I raised my hand, but Ken never called on me. I was going to ask, “Ken, since you won $2.5 million on ‘Jeopardy,’ why do you have to sell books that tell us that you won $2.5 million on ‘Jeopardy?’ Isn’t the $2.5 million enough, Ken? Ken, how about giving the book money to the starving children or cancer research or donating money to the Dodgers so we can get a decent third baseman?” Or I was thinking about asking him what the most materialistic thing was that he had bought with the money. A Corvette? A Fat Burger franchise? Elliot Spitzer’s Emperor’s Club Membership? But he never called on me. Maybe it was because my raised hand had a half-eaten cookie in it. I don’t know.
By the way, Ken’s answers were not in the form of a question — probably because the questions were in the form of a question, and that took the edge off things. As I was saying, after the questioning ended, Ken graciously sat up in the front of the room and graciously signed copies of his two books selling for a gracious total of $36. (Yes, I bought both of them.) Every time he would sign a book, he would graciously enter a number on his little calculator. If all 80 of us bought both books, he made $2,880 bucks. In one afternoon, for one hour on a Wednesday. Sheesh, that’s $2,880 an hour. Pretty good pay.
Alex: “Loser mid-week suckers.”
Ken: “Who buys two books about something they’ve already seen on Jeopardy!?”
So as I was walking out to my car, carrying both my books, and, because I am a what, I am a journalist, and I must tell the truth, except if it will help a Republican, I have to tell you that, yes, I was eating my third cookie. I know, I know. There were 80 of us there. I’m guessing they had four-dozen cookies laid out. That’s 48 cookies. And I ate three. That’s almost 4 percent of the cookies. Eaten by one person — me. That lady next to me was right. And not only was she right. She was right there, walking to her car with me.
I gave her a little toast-like gesture with my cookie. Just raised it up a little in good-natured pissiness, like a glass of wine. “Have a nice day,” I said. She gave me a second one-gun salute.
See what you’re missing on a Wednesday afternoon.
Yes, 80 of us were at an event that was held at one in the afternoon on a Wednesday. That’s pretty remarkable. It’s hard to get 80 people to show up on a Wednesday for gold ingot giveaways. I know, because usually it’s me and seven other losers attending an astronomy seminar or something. Hey, Uranus is fascinating, dammit.
I guess I went to see what Ken Jennings was really like and to see if he was going to dish some dirt on old Alex Trebek, the “Jeopardy” host. (By the way, I know that the title of the show “Jeopardy” has an exclamation point after it, but my spelling and grammar checker was getting so pissy on me that I’m leaving it out. I just wanted you to know that I am not so much of a Wednesday-event-attending loser that I didn’t know that there was an exclamation point there. I feel better now!!!!!!)
But Ken was disappointingly normal. He seemed to be a pretty good guy to me. He’s married and has a kid, and he bought a house with a part of his $2.5 million “Jeopardy” winnings. He was clean-cut and casually dressed and seemed pretty relaxed and regular to me. $2.5 million has a way of doing that I guess.
I had heard that he had dissed Alex on his Web site. He informed us that all of that him-not-liking-Alex hype was blown out of proportion because of a misunderstanding of something he posted on the site. He says Alex is a good guy … for a Canadian — much looser and funnier when not on the air. Says he’s a friendly, hard-working professional.
That was not what I was hoping to hear. I was hoping to hear that Alex was wearing that hand cast because he had backhanded his wife and when she cried, Alex backhanded his dog and when his dog yelped he backhanded his accountant, who was there to help him cheat on his taxes. But no. Ken likes Alex. He had nothing bad to say about him. I was shaken.
So I went to get a bottle of water at the back table and, as long as I was there, I picked up my second chocolate chip cookie. All Wednesday afternoon events have cookies — it’s the law. Then I went back to my seat. And the woman next to me saw my chocolate chip cookie and held up two fingers and shook her head in quiet disapproval. Bitch. That’s another word that could use an exclamation point!
I’m sorry. She was probably a nice lady. I was just feeling guilty for having the second cookie and even feeling guilty for even being there at all on a Wednesday while all of you were working and I was not working and enjoying life — and it was very stressful, if you like to be lied to.
Not much else went on. Ken gave us all a trivia quiz and then showed us his brand new book about trivia. (What a coincidence.) There were 25 questions. The three winners got 18 or 19 right. I got 12 right. I asked the nice lady next to me how many she got right. She showed me a finger that was not her thumb, forefinger, ring finger, or pinkie. “Only one right, huh?” I said.
Then they had a little “Jeopardy”-like game show and the winner got a copy of the book. And then Ken opened it up for questions. All the usual questions. What was Alex like? How did it feel to win so much money? I raised my hand, but Ken never called on me. I was going to ask, “Ken, since you won $2.5 million on ‘Jeopardy,’ why do you have to sell books that tell us that you won $2.5 million on ‘Jeopardy?’ Isn’t the $2.5 million enough, Ken? Ken, how about giving the book money to the starving children or cancer research or donating money to the Dodgers so we can get a decent third baseman?” Or I was thinking about asking him what the most materialistic thing was that he had bought with the money. A Corvette? A Fat Burger franchise? Elliot Spitzer’s Emperor’s Club Membership? But he never called on me. Maybe it was because my raised hand had a half-eaten cookie in it. I don’t know.
By the way, Ken’s answers were not in the form of a question — probably because the questions were in the form of a question, and that took the edge off things. As I was saying, after the questioning ended, Ken graciously sat up in the front of the room and graciously signed copies of his two books selling for a gracious total of $36. (Yes, I bought both of them.) Every time he would sign a book, he would graciously enter a number on his little calculator. If all 80 of us bought both books, he made $2,880 bucks. In one afternoon, for one hour on a Wednesday. Sheesh, that’s $2,880 an hour. Pretty good pay.
Alex: “Loser mid-week suckers.”
Ken: “Who buys two books about something they’ve already seen on Jeopardy!?”
So as I was walking out to my car, carrying both my books, and, because I am a what, I am a journalist, and I must tell the truth, except if it will help a Republican, I have to tell you that, yes, I was eating my third cookie. I know, I know. There were 80 of us there. I’m guessing they had four-dozen cookies laid out. That’s 48 cookies. And I ate three. That’s almost 4 percent of the cookies. Eaten by one person — me. That lady next to me was right. And not only was she right. She was right there, walking to her car with me.
I gave her a little toast-like gesture with my cookie. Just raised it up a little in good-natured pissiness, like a glass of wine. “Have a nice day,” I said. She gave me a second one-gun salute.
See what you’re missing on a Wednesday afternoon.
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