Category Archives: satire

On the selfie

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The latest craze is to shoot a self-portrait and post it on the web. They did it during the Oscars the other night. I have always found the “selfie” to be a little narcissistic, silly at best. I mean, no one wants to take your picture so you do it yourself? Just because you have a camera doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to use it, does it? The advent of the ubiquitous digital camera, especially those attached to smart phones, means that anyone and everyone has the ability to shoot a couple of embarrassing selfies and post them on their “wall.” The “driving selfie” seems like one of those last things that some people will ever do: take a picture of themselves at the wheel of a car going 70 miles per hour. Some selfies are cute, but most should never see the light of day. The pregnant stomach selfie seems a little weird, but it does document the process. Most naked selfies would best be forgotten for so many reasons–poor taste among them. And naked selfies should never be sent over the web for any reason at all unless you trying to lose your job on purpose, break up with your significant other, or are purposely trying to get arrested. Clown selfies are illegal in thirty-eight states. Friends don’t let drunk friends shoot selfies. Tonight’s selfie could be tomorrow’s viral post on Facebook. Most people’s arms aren’t really long enough to take a selfie without distorted perspective unless you don’t mind that the whole world see your nose hair.

On the selfie

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The latest craze is to shoot a self-portrait and post it on the web. They did it during the Oscars the other night. I have always found the “selfie” to be a little narcissistic, silly at best. I mean, no one wants to take your picture so you do it yourself? Just because you have a camera doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to use it, does it? The advent of the ubiquitous digital camera, especially those attached to smart phones, means that anyone and everyone has the ability to shoot a couple of embarrassing selfies and post them on their “wall.” The “driving selfie” seems like one of those last things that some people will ever do: take a picture of themselves at the wheel of a car going 70 miles per hour. Some selfies are cute, but most should never see the light of day. The pregnant stomach selfie seems a little weird, but it does document the process. Most naked selfies would best be forgotten for so many reasons–poor taste among them. And naked selfies should never be sent over the web for any reason at all unless you trying to lose your job on purpose, break up with your significant other, or are purposely trying to get arrested. Clown selfies are illegal in thirty-eight states. Friends don’t let drunk friends shoot selfies. Tonight’s selfie could be tomorrow’s viral post on Facebook. Most people’s arms aren’t really long enough to take a selfie without distorted perspective unless you don’t mind that the whole world see your nose hair.

On frosters

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There is a new fad in the world, and it has nothing to do with decorating cupcakes and everything to do with going out in the snow and acting as if it were not the least bit cold. I’ve done it. It’s nothing new–I was in college, living in a dorm and prone to all sorts of anti-social and strange behavior. After a particularly horrible cold snap where the temperature did not go above zero for almost five days, a few of us donned shorts and t-shirts to go play Frisbee in the snow when the temperature rocketed all the way up into the mid-twenties. We were a little stir crazy to be outside and breath a little fresh air that wouldn’t kill us. We brought out lawn chairs and the grill and made hamburgers–the still air temperature went all the way up to thirty-five that day. We were sweating. That was in January of 1981 in southern Minnesota, now, flash forward thirty years and there are all sorts of photos floating around on the internet machine of people so similar things, but now they have a name: frosters. The idea is to take off most of your clothes and go out in the ice and snow so you can take a picture for the Facebook which your relatives vacationing in Hawaii will see. I can see why this is fun, and I totally understand the insanity. You wouldn’t really get the same effect if you put on a parka and boots and stood out in the heat–it’s not the same. No one cares about how much heat you can tolerate, although I do admire people who can do it. Frosters are just trying to ignore winter the best they can. It’s a mental thing: pretend that the ice and snow don’t matter at all, so that sitting in your lawn chair on the beach at Lake Nakomis in January with a beverage in your hand is your way of expressing your denial. Denial is very important when you are freezing off your cojones trying to get a stubborn car started on cold winter morning. Frosting as an activity is probably an outward sign of mental health even when the short, cold days of winter are getting you down. So putting on your swim suit, sunglasses, flip flops, and sunscreen and going outside in January is a great way of thumbing your nose at Old Man Winter. I don’t dislike Old Man Winter, but sometimes he is a challenge to the spirit. By pretending that he doesn’t matter or that he can’t ever really win, one can ignore winter and get on with life. Most frosters, I am assuming, also do a lot of winter sports such as biking, running, grilling, rock-climbing, and pond hockey. I get snowmobilers, skiers, ice fishermen, skaters and the like are really taking their winters seriously, enjoy the cold, and dream of endlessly falling flakes of snow that will close the schools tomorrow. Frosters would take advantage of a snow day to grill steaks, drink a cold frosty one, work on their tans, and shoot the photo for next year’s Christmas card with the entire family in swimwear and hip deep in a snow drift. A true froster will never admit they are cold. Probably the worst thing a person could do during a long, hard winter is to wallow in their misery, stay inside, and complain to the rest of the world about cold it is outside. Of course it’s cold outside! It’s January in the Midwest, but walk faster, admire the next guy’s stocking hat even if that’s all he’s got on! Without a sense of humor, the entire human race is in serious danger of taking itself too seriously, of believing its own press clippings, of sitting down to weep. The true froster laughs in the face of winter because that is all the human froster can do–any other analysis of the situation is to grim to even contemplate. Or decorate cupcakes.

On the Grinch

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Were his shoes too tight? Don’t get me wrong, I love the Grinch, and as a child I knew Christmas could not be very far away if the network was running this very strange cartoon about hate, violence, bigotry, and intolerance. The Grinch is a very odd character who has lived in self-imposed exile in a cave on the outskirts of Whoville. What the Grinch is, exactly, is a bit of a mystery, but in the world of Dr. Seuss species identification or confusion is usually of the first order. In fact, Dr. Seuss has been known to invent his own species of beings when he wants to. The Grinch, whatever he is, is an embittered old cranky dude who lives alone with his dog. He hates Christmas, which is no secret to the billions of people who have seen the cartoon. He cooks up a diabolical plan to rob the Who down in Whoville of the Christmas by stealing the trappings of their celebration. He lacks, of course, a fundamental understanding of why people celebrate Christmas: the birth of Christ, the messiah. The trappings are nothing more than that, trappings. After loading up an enormous old sled and traipsing up the side of his mountain to his hideout, he hears the Who come and begin to sing. His epiphany causes his heart to grow because of the love he finally feels for his fellow man who can still celebrate the birth of their savior even when there are no trappings. The cartoon is an interesting riff on the consumer culture which has ironically spawned the very cartoon of which I write. Nothing is more hyper-consumerist than television, the very medium into which the cartoon of the Grinch is inscribed. The commercial advertisements that pepper the screening of the Grinch completely undermine the message of the cartoon. The hyper-consumer event that has become the Christmas present buying season, starting with Black Friday just after Thanksgiving, is completely out of control, but nobody seems to either car or to even feign caring. Our economy necessarily depends on a happy retail December so that people can work, people can buy, and people can later pay their bills. In fact, questioning the very nature of consumer America is almost anti-patriotic, if not downright anti-American. Yet the consumer society which the Grinch hates is not sustainable in the long term. Unlimited growth is not the logical outcome of a consumerist society which has finite limits unless the consumers go into perpetual debt to sustain their vicious habits of buying every last thing that they see and end up wanting and desiring because advertising and marketing are infinitely stronger than the human will to control itself. Desire, temptation, envy are a big part of human weakness, and most of what we do is motivated by one of those negative motivations. The Grinch associates the happiness of the Who with all things they have bought–toys, trees, decoration, food. Lost in the midst of that rampant out-of-control consumerism is the only reason for celebrating Christmas: the birth of a baby, the beginning of a life. If there was anything that Jesus despised on this earth it was rampant, out-of-control consumerism inside the temple. He tears through the temple, upending tables and chasing away the moneylenders and vendors who were making a living by exploiting the needs of temple visitors. The Grinch underestimates, however, the spirituality of the Who, who celebrate in spite of him, the Grinch, I mean. So we watch this cartoon, dismiss its message off hand, and we go out shopping afterwards, unwilling to do with less, or, in fact, to do with just what we need, falling into gluttony, avarice, greed, and ego. I like the Grinch because he asks the hard questions about our society, but his analysis falls short of his objectives. Christmas comes after all.

On the Grinch

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Were his shoes too tight? Don’t get me wrong, I love the Grinch, and as a child I knew Christmas could not be very far away if the network was running this very strange cartoon about hate, violence, bigotry, and intolerance. The Grinch is a very odd character who has lived in self-imposed exile in a cave on the outskirts of Whoville. What the Grinch is, exactly, is a bit of a mystery, but in the world of Dr. Seuss species identification or confusion is usually of the first order. In fact, Dr. Seuss has been known to invent his own species of beings when he wants to. The Grinch, whatever he is, is an embittered old cranky dude who lives alone with his dog. He hates Christmas, which is no secret to the billions of people who have seen the cartoon. He cooks up a diabolical plan to rob the Who down in Whoville of the Christmas by stealing the trappings of their celebration. He lacks, of course, a fundamental understanding of why people celebrate Christmas: the birth of Christ, the messiah. The trappings are nothing more than that, trappings. After loading up an enormous old sled and traipsing up the side of his mountain to his hideout, he hears the Who come and begin to sing. His epiphany causes his heart to grow because of the love he finally feels for his fellow man who can still celebrate the birth of their savior even when there are no trappings. The cartoon is an interesting riff on the consumer culture which has ironically spawned the very cartoon of which I write. Nothing is more hyper-consumerist than television, the very medium into which the cartoon of the Grinch is inscribed. The commercial advertisements that pepper the screening of the Grinch completely undermine the message of the cartoon. The hyper-consumer event that has become the Christmas present buying season, starting with Black Friday just after Thanksgiving, is completely out of control, but nobody seems to either car or to even feign caring. Our economy necessarily depends on a happy retail December so that people can work, people can buy, and people can later pay their bills. In fact, questioning the very nature of consumer America is almost anti-patriotic, if not downright anti-American. Yet the consumer society which the Grinch hates is not sustainable in the long term. Unlimited growth is not the logical outcome of a consumerist society which has finite limits unless the consumers go into perpetual debt to sustain their vicious habits of buying every last thing that they see and end up wanting and desiring because advertising and marketing are infinitely stronger than the human will to control itself. Desire, temptation, envy are a big part of human weakness, and most of what we do is motivated by one of those negative motivations. The Grinch associates the happiness of the Who with all things they have bought–toys, trees, decoration, food. Lost in the midst of that rampant out-of-control consumerism is the only reason for celebrating Christmas: the birth of a baby, the beginning of a life. If there was anything that Jesus despised on this earth it was rampant, out-of-control consumerism inside the temple. He tears through the temple, upending tables and chasing away the moneylenders and vendors who were making a living by exploiting the needs of temple visitors. The Grinch underestimates, however, the spirituality of the Who, who celebrate in spite of him, the Grinch, I mean. So we watch this cartoon, dismiss its message off hand, and we go out shopping afterwards, unwilling to do with less, or, in fact, to do with just what we need, falling into gluttony, avarice, greed, and ego. I like the Grinch because he asks the hard questions about our society, but his analysis falls short of his objectives. Christmas comes after all.

On inspiration

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I always resort to my muse for inspiration, but it is summer, and she is on vacation. “Work it out,” she said as she escaped out the back door on her way to the airport. She needed a vacation anyway. “Lately, I feel a little burned out, and this summer heat is really repressive. Scotland, if you want to know, but don’t call. I’ll come back when I’m ready.” And the door slammed shut.So, that’s where inspiration goes when you can’t find any. Inspiration has always been an elusive animal for me. I mean, I could sit and write about books or movies or accidents or terrorist attacks just as everyone does, but I would like to write that one really good essay on palimpsests or sub-atomic particles or death in Wordsworth’s poetry. The mundane clouds my imagination with shopping and garbage and lunches and television and a hundred other inconsequential matters to which no one will ever pay any attention. Nor should they. Inspiration is about creativity and originality and beauty and creating a prose that sores without breaking, a prose that enlightens without boring, a prose that elucidates the meaning of life without being either pedantic or soporific. Instead, all I can hear is the bang of that door as my muse flees the scene of the crime. New ideas? Who has new ideas? It isn’t easy to come up with a new idea every day. Inundated by the mundane noise of everyday existence, it is hard to see the beauty in a world that is often overwhelmed by violence, injustice, tragedy, and sadness. How does one see the beauty in the world through all the tears? If my muse would only come back, we might write about the beauty of concentric circles, of prisms and labyrinths, of rainbows and lightening, of starry nights and cool breezes, of rain and puddles and cool water. But it’s hot here and I’m out of ideas. Sweat runs down my neck, my head hurts a little, and I’m frustrated with myself. This urban setting is not particularly conducive to liberating new ideas, setting free the imagination, or dredging the sludge from the subconscious where lots of strange things reside. Maybe I should drink a glass of water? My chair could be more comfortable. Maybe I should write a new treatise on the insanity and violence of modern consumer societies where death is only another movie date away? Naw, not original or imaginative, not pretty, not aesthetic. Nightingales? No, that’s been done, but I could give it a new modern slant and use the nightingale as a metaphor for peace and justice and love–a small noisy bird of no consequence that goes unnoticed by the masses on their way to buy something new. My muse is a wonderful person, but she would think it hokey. Well, she’s gone and told me to work it out, so I’m going to write about nightingales.

On inspiration

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I always resort to my muse for inspiration, but it is summer, and she is on vacation. “Work it out,” she said as she escaped out the back door on her way to the airport. She needed a vacation anyway. “Lately, I feel a little burned out, and this summer heat is really repressive. Scotland, if you want to know, but don’t call. I’ll come back when I’m ready.” And the door slammed shut.So, that’s where inspiration goes when you can’t find any. Inspiration has always been an elusive animal for me. I mean, I could sit and write about books or movies or accidents or terrorist attacks just as everyone does, but I would like to write that one really good essay on palimpsests or sub-atomic particles or death in Wordsworth’s poetry. The mundane clouds my imagination with shopping and garbage and lunches and television and a hundred other inconsequential matters to which no one will ever pay any attention. Nor should they. Inspiration is about creativity and originality and beauty and creating a prose that sores without breaking, a prose that enlightens without boring, a prose that elucidates the meaning of life without being either pedantic or soporific. Instead, all I can hear is the bang of that door as my muse flees the scene of the crime. New ideas? Who has new ideas? It isn’t easy to come up with a new idea every day. Inundated by the mundane noise of everyday existence, it is hard to see the beauty in a world that is often overwhelmed by violence, injustice, tragedy, and sadness. How does one see the beauty in the world through all the tears? If my muse would only come back, we might write about the beauty of concentric circles, of prisms and labyrinths, of rainbows and lightening, of starry nights and cool breezes, of rain and puddles and cool water. But it’s hot here and I’m out of ideas. Sweat runs down my neck, my head hurts a little, and I’m frustrated with myself. This urban setting is not particularly conducive to liberating new ideas, setting free the imagination, or dredging the sludge from the subconscious where lots of strange things reside. Maybe I should drink a glass of water? My chair could be more comfortable. Maybe I should write a new treatise on the insanity and violence of modern consumer societies where death is only another movie date away? Naw, not original or imaginative, not pretty, not aesthetic. Nightingales? No, that’s been done, but I could give it a new modern slant and use the nightingale as a metaphor for peace and justice and love–a small noisy bird of no consequence that goes unnoticed by the masses on their way to buy something new. My muse is a wonderful person, but she would think it hokey. Well, she’s gone and told me to work it out, so I’m going to write about nightingales.

On the couch potato

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The life of a couch potato is pretty simple: couch, television, remote, chips, diet soda, chocolate. The average couch potato would probably be content with half of that stuff, but let’s just say our couch potato lives in a perfect world. It is of no importance whatsoever that anything of transcendent value be on television at any given moment. In fact, what could be better than watching “Ground Hog Day” for the fifty-third time? I would say that a couch potato, a truly inert and dedicated one, will watch anything at all as long as it talks and moves. The sofa can be of any age, shape, condition or smell, preferably stained by some unknown liquids that have long since turned into permanent stains. The sofa has to be long enough to stretch out on–no love seats allowed. What is of vital importance, however, are the batteries in the remote. The remote must work consistently or all bets are off–a couch potato will not get up to turn the channel, which is so forty years ago. The television must be huge, although any non-self-respecting couch potato will do with any old set as long as it gets a couple of channels. Today’s plethora of humungous flat screen televisions is pure nirvana for the dedicated couch potato. Eating chips and drinking soda does require an ounce of effort, but if you bring enough chips and soda into the living room, this is generally not a problem: a big box of chips and a two-liter bottle of soda will put the “potato” into the right mood for both Jerry Springer and Suzanne Summers in the same night. If Jerry Springer and Suzanne Summers had children they would sell books about naturally curing couch potatoism, but no one would ever lift a finger to buy one. The dedicated couch potato is adept at actually knowing which station correspond to which numbers on cable. I didn’t say “dial” because television stopped having dials thirty years ago. Between the obesity and the diabetes, the life expectancy of most couch potatoes does not reach beyond about fifty or so. Whether it’s the atrophied mind or the atrophied body that gives out first is anyone’s guess. Yet on lazy Sunday afternoon when all your work is already done for the semester, it’s really hard to be either productive or hard-working when you know that Monday morning is only hours away. If you are a couch potato, great, let it all hang out, but if you aren’t, get out your summer hat and shades and go for a walk. The exercise you do today, will always pay off tomorrow.

On waiting

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It seems rather paradoxical, if not downright wrong, to write about waiting. We all wait–for the bathroom, for food, in line, on the phone, in the doctor’s office, at the grocery store, at the movie theater. We get in line and wait. I guess that’s because we can’t all be first. I have waited for the last plane, the last metro, the last bus. Yesterday I spent time waiting to board several planes, then waited to take off, then waited for my cup of soda, then we all waited to land, and then, of course, we all waited to get off the plane that we had all waited to get on. I waited in line at Starbucks for my coffee. I waited for a cook to make me a hamburger (but a real hamburger–not a fast food hamburger). I had to wait to go to the bathroom. I waited to get my suitcase after I spent the day waiting for everything else. But I am no good at waiting. In fact, I hate waiting for someone else to do their job. Today, I waited for my lunch. I was in good company, but it took forty-five minutes for my lunch to come out (it was worth it–why am I complaining?) Waiting seems to be one of those things that is an inherent part of the human condition: you want something; you have to wait for it. I remember as a small child I saved box tops, filled out the little cardboard form, taped a quarter to it, and mailed it in so I could get some prize that was being advertised on the back of the cereal box. I waited, and I waited, and I waited, and then it finally came when I had almost forgotten that I was waiting for something. Then, once I had the thing–whatever it was–I didn’t think it was a cool as I imagined it would be, and it wasn’t. But I had waited an eternity to get it. I am currently waiting for the bread machine to finish baking some bread. Yet, I hate to wait and am impatient. I get annoyed easily when the person in front of me at the grocery story decides to write a check–I have to wait. Couldn’t they just swipe a credit card? I take a book to the doctor’s office because I know I’ll have to wait—actual planning and scheduling is not a part of any medical curriculum anywhere. Waiting in traffic has got to be a special punishment dreamed up by Dante, but it leaked out of Hell and into the world. What did I ever do to deserve such a punishment as waiting?

On Dark Shadows star Jonathan Frid/Barnabas Collins

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Jonathan Frid, the Canadian actor who played the melancholy vampire of the ultimately campy and strange soap opera, Dark Shadows, died Friday in Hamilton, Ontario. He was 87. The production values were low, the dialogues were melodramatic, and the special effects were horrific, but not because the show was scary. For an eight-year-old, the show was incredibly spooky, frightening, and creepy. I guess the production values for a daily soap opera lent themselves to a campy, gothic, soap opera about witches, werewolves, vampires, ghosts, curses, the undead, and general supernatural salad that probably invented a few new ghouls and goblins. The best part of this outrageous production was watching all the actors play their roles straight as if they believed every word. One often did not know whether to scream in terror or laugh because it was so funny. The show was a parody, a complicated riff as it were, on the whole idea of soap operas: people fall in love, they fall out of love, they are greedy, they fall in love with the wrong person, violence ensues, people disappear, they reappear, somebody gets their arm cut off, there is a fire, a monster lurks somewhere in this dark old house, at least one character turns into a werewolf, somebody lets the vampire out of his coffin, someone gets pregnant, another fire ensues, and so on. Soap operas are played with no specific end in mind. They are continuous, which is particularly interesting if you are a 175 year-old vampire who is looking for a lost love who has been reincarnated, conveniently, in the ravishing 21 year-old daughter of the creaky (creepy) mansion’s patriarch, the great-great-great grandnephew of said vampire. So now we can add incest to the list of creepy behaviors crawling through this soap. Frid fell into this role and became an instant pop icon of the period. In an era before video-taping, people would stay home to watch the soap, which was filmed and shot in a very tantalizing way: never show the monsters or the blood, unless it’s the Friday episode and you want to leave people hanging. The show would be immersed in the most inane dialogues about ghosts and witches and such and the thing would never really progress. Show me the monster! Yet it would progress just enough to keep it interesting, a kind of soap opera striptease. Frid played the role of the melancholy, misunderstood, but blood-thirsty vampire probably better than he ever wanted to. Fangs, cane, strange bangs, ruddy cheeks, he oozed vampire from every pore, and of course, the women watching from home could only guess what those fangs might feel like on their own throats. The show was a campy romp through repressed Victorian sexuality that played quite well on television, and Frid starred in more than six hundred episodes before it finally burned itself out, which is the only logical end for a soap opera this strange. Tip-of-the-hat to a great actor who turned into a pop icon vampire, and only ever flashed a smile when he knew lunch was about to be served. He never drank…wine.