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Filling in for Andy Rooney

There has been alot I COULD write about lately, but honestly, who cares? What I would have to say would be the usual ... hotly provocative today, but five years hence exactly what needed to be said ... oh well, OK here goes, in no particular order:

1) The next time you have a sit-in, have an agenda. Right now its just an annoying smelly pointless party that you would not have dared pull-off during the Bush/Cheney Regime because they would have used real bullets instead of pepper spray, chicken-shits.

2) Men get into athletics to shower with other men. Same goes for the military. If it wasn't so, why else would women be trying so hard to get in on the action?

3) How come on Facebook, people who would let a child starve and complain that he still got away with some of their crumbs, get militant and fall to pieces over the treatment of a poodle?

4) Khaddafi deserved to be humiliated, taunted and then shot in the head. He was a scumbag who inflicted the worst kind of fear and terror upon his people. Although, mind you, I would have emptied the rounds until his head was pulpy, then displayed his body on a spike to be picked at by birds, but that's why I could never qualify for E.U. membership.

5) Asking a Greek or Italian or Spaniard to straighten-up and fly right is like asking ... well ... you supply the rest.

6) Republicans obsess about things that are none of their business, then complain that no one will leave them alone.

I'm sorry, what were you saying?

Well, Fran Leibovitz calls it Writer's Blockade.

Despite a blizzard of activity resulting in a completely new job, I still have had plenty of time to write. Its just that I haven't thought of anything in particular to write about. If I were to start at writing something it would actually be work, rather than effortlessly flow from the fingers like it should.

One subject could be why I am the only person on earth who doesn't care what's going on in anyone else's pants, while for most people this is the most important subject in the universe to the exclusion of all else. Its not that I'm not vaguely interested ...  its just that for me it happens to be a bit further down the list. 

I haven't really taken any pictures lately that for me would rise to the level of "photograph". I have been using my cheap phone cam, which might as well not be there at all. 

Food is fun and always a winner, and I've certainly eaten some good food and participated in making same. 

Yawn.

Seen any good movies lately?

 

Snark Attack

I have come to the conclusion that Yelp is a virtual rogue state for a coven of Cyberbullies. This, after suffering the slings and arrows of a couple of post-adolescent amateur restaurant reviewers online who, upon closer investigation, have turned out to have been "Yelp friends" in collusion all along, and who were both offhand, ill-toned and callow in their criticisms.

For those of you who don't know, Yelp is an online social network where civilians can review their experiences with local businesses. They form friend networks with other like-minded individuals and they award each other stars and what-all for their reviews, and as they progress they are reinforced by rising to an enhanced status on the network.

The concept is an interesting one because forever the public's only recourse against maliciously bad businesses was a report to the Better Business Bureau or the attentions of a hack television or newspaper consumer reporter who may or (probably) may not have take up their cause for redress. Or a picket line.

The problem is that the Yelp business model, as it is set up, encourages and reinforces blatantly bitchy behavior. Feel slighted by the shopgirl at Target? Slime her on Yelp and then twitter gaily with all of your other jujubee friends about it. I guess it gives them a sense of empowerment, but really its just sort of sad.

The one girl who ranted about us from last December was an out-and-out liar, and her friend's recent comments were merely ignorant. Its frustrating because there is no standard of professionalism, opinions are based on only one visit, and there is no honest public recourse for a challenge.

Your response choices are handy buttons that say "Helpful", "Funny" or "Cool".

REALLY?

Please, how about giving us a simple "Unhelpful" as an option? Even this little blog of mine has an open comment link, though its rarely availed of since everyone evidently agrees with me.

There is an owner's response link, but using it only encourages them, so that is a losing proposition no matter how you go at it.

And the really frustrating part is that their so-called "reviews" of businesses carry the same weight as that of a REAL journalist who actually knows what they are talking about, with the added annoyance that, long after they have left their momentary emotion behind for some other drama and forgotten what they were exacting revenge about, their internet shitpiles continuously circle the globe for eternity.

Its like the metaphor about gossip ... tear paper up and throw it to the wind; you never can take it all back and have no control over where it goes or the damage it wreaks.

I really doubt they care anyway. They really don't have to I suppose. They are protected by a network that doesn't allow the exact same public recourse within the same venue, plus they have the added cloak of anonymity.

But I do smell a class action lawsuit somewhere down the line. A cursory google will turn up that a few businesses have gone legal already. The network is eventually going to have to change their policies one way or the other.

But it does bring up an interesting concept ... few businesses aside from movies and theater suffer the lens of criticism more than restaurants ... what if other businesses really WERE reviewed the same way?

Drive-Thru Car Maintenance

So many oils to choose from, and the mechanic could not tell me the terroir or appellation of any of them. Great, so now how do I know if my fossil lubricants are Paleozoic or Cenozoic? What about pairing? Are they sweet or sour? Am I buying local? I may never know.

Toy Store

Really, with a baby in the stroller and two toddlers, you think they could spare an amuse bouche of free candy samples and give a mother a break. Couldn't find anyone to help me with the Legos, although my boy found the Matchbox and Hot Wheels selection was adequate yet overpriced. Doll aisle would be acceptable except that its crowded with annoying little Mommie-Wannabees.

The Big Box Hardware Store

Miles of endless aisles, one could search forever but never find The Truth. Disappointing hammer selection. When I asked the gruff salesman what else he had in the shape of tools, he looked me up and down with disdain and said, "I doubt you could handle it."

I Agree with Every Damn Thing Obama Does

I agree with every damn thing Obama does.

It's as simple as that.

Tired of not being covered for your pre-existing medical condition? Solved!

Hate pissing away our blood and treasure in foreign wars? Ended!

Tired of Wall Street stealing you blind? Reformed!

Oval Office redecoration? Lovely!

It took eight years for this country to be destroyed and it won't be fixed in two, so I don't know what people are bitching about.

UNLESS ...

We've just become soft.

Doughy.

Morbidly Fat and Happy.

We've forgotten how to suffer and be Americans.

We liked getting our yearly $300.00 checks from Bush/Cheney, even though China was picking up the bill. It was kind of cake for the masses. Moon cakes. On a credit card.

We loved fighting wars we didn't have to fight. Shared sacrifice our ass; It didn't have to be our kids. Put that on the card too.

And we adore sucking down a Mexican joint at wine and dine parties with our yuppie friends, never mindful that it costs a few decapitations and mutilated children for the high. Sorry, still cash only.

And that's just off the top of my head ... complain about this President and you betray to everyone just how limp and wimpy you really are ...

My God what happened to you man ... where's your pride?

Twister

A couple of weeks ago we had a tornado in Dallas.

In fifty years I have never seen a tornado in person before, and considering where I live you would think it would be as casual as seeing cows.

Once in Mexico I was indoors and suddenly out of nowhere a cold wind blew through and everything in the garden stood up on its hind legs. Laundry, dust, scrap paper, all of it suddenly whirled-up in the air. I ran outdoors and a funnel passed over the house, and I excitedly pointed up in the air and said, "Tornado! Look!"

"Noooooo Gringo," they said, as lackadaisical as if they'd seen a cow, "It's a remolino." Cold air comes down from the mountains in the afternoon and mixes with the hot desert air in the valleys and creates these 500 foot high whirlwinds.

With civil defense sirens going off that Wednesday and the thickness of the air and the lowness of the scudding clouds, I knew I was going to see a twister. I had even been following it on radar and knew where to look. I saw the wall cloud, but buildings and things were in the way from my vantage point and I couldn't see anything.

As it turns out, it was a very very polite tornado, mostly kicking up dust and debris, then casually flinging an 18-wheeler into a warehouse, and no one was hurt. It was the perfect tornado for Dallas: All of the drama and none of the commitment.

REALLY??

Oh well, the best of intentions ...

After promising to blog more, I went from not only writer's block, to writer's blockade, as Fran Leibowitz once put it. Not that I haven't been busy. A lot of my energy has been channeled into my photography as well as my other work.

It hasn't been for lack of current events to comment upon that I have been not writing, simply that I try not to comment upon the obvious. It is this philosophy which dovetails nicely with my new phavorite popular phrase of late, "REALLY??!"

The word as an economical catch-all has always been there. These days I think it borrows from the Warholian "Really?" that he used to mean all sorts of things, from genuine curiosity to breathless excitement to overt suspicion to outright boredom, as evidenced in Bob Colacello's great book about his Factory tenure, Holy Terror.

Actually, I have always said "Really?" reflexively, as a go-to, a conversational bridge, something to facilitate the flow. A client once told me that my "Really?" sounded like "You expect me to believe that horseshit?" He might have been right.

Which leads us back to to its current usage, recently popularized by the exquisitely brilliant "Really?" segment on Saturday Night Live, in which obvious horseshit is debunked by a punctuated "Really??!" that lands with the force of a battle-ax secretary stamping the morning mail.

After all, subjected to the fantastic lies of the past decade, it is the most mannerly and appropriate response to the horseshit they have been trying to feed us, from "Mission Accomplished" to "The Five Million Gallons of Oil Spilled in the Gulf has Magically Dispersed" to "That drink will be eighteen dollars sir" to "Has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like Ben Affleck?"

REALLY??!

(Full disclosure: OK, that last one I did fall for and it did lead to a happy ending ... what, REALLY?? As if I was gonna walk away?)

Listen closely to young people when they say "Really?" It has that extra layer of feigned innocence, like the promise of Santa Claus coming to town, but its bitter cynicism is palpable.

If they aren't buying the horseshit, then maybe there is hope after all.

Snow Daze

This was taken last night after 24 hours of uninterrupted snow. It was the most snowfall in Dallas since 1924.

Eleven inches.

It would have been thicker but there was a little bit of a melt midday yesterday, and a good thing too because as it is, tree limbs are down all over town and many places are without power.

Common Metal Thieves Strike Again!

I know it is reflexive to think that the recently burgled infamous "Work Makes You Free" sign above the entrance to Auschwitz Concentration Camp was a gesture of hate, now proudly being displayed in some Neo-Nazi's rumpus room, but the fact that it was half-ripped off at one end indicates that it could not have been a relic hunter.

Nope, I assert there was no ideology, yay, no thought of anything whatsoever. I'll lay odds that some heinous metal thief looking for crack money thought he saw the value of the copper and proceeded thusly. 

Probably made twenty bucks.

Great Shakings of Earth

My friend Yoshi from Nagoya, Japan popped-in online to report:

"The severe earthquake happened at 5 AM. It shook terribly."

Sure enough there were simultaneous earthquakes in Japan and under the Indian Ocean an hour previously, with tsunami watches now posted.

Stay tuned!

The Doctor Who Air-Conditioned Dallas With His Mercedes

I've avoided commenting on much of the news the past few months, mainly because it is so hot in this apartment I cannot think straight or move without leaving a sweat stain.

But the heat reminded me of an incident that happened last year. The names are changed to spare the guilty, but the story is absolutely true.

I was hanging out with a girlfriend who works as a nurse. We were across the street in the park walking her dog.

Right then a silver Mercedes purred down the street toward us.

"Oh look, it's Doctor Smith (pseudonym)!" she said.

The car slowed, the dark window sleekly fell away to reveal a pleasant-enough middle aged guy. After the usual hellos, he began raving about how the government and the lawyers were making his life hell because he just couldn't make any money.

I wasn't thrown by the non-sequitor tossed like a bitter lemon into otherwise polite conversation because these days people listen to talk radio almost exclusively and actually believe that bilge is Reality instead of a cynical manipulation in order to sell advertising.

I also don't doubt that making money for him was not simple. Between malpractice threats and chancy medicaid reimbursements and all the rest, the paperwork alone is daunting. And I don't see Harvard MBAs behind the glass partition keeping the records straight.

What struck me was that, while he raved and raved about his suffering, impecunious life, I never learned if he cured anybody of anything or saved a life, and the impeccable Mercedes still idled at nearly $4.00 a gallon and the air-conditioner was blasting away, bringing down the ambient neighborhood temperatures to a reasonable 75 degrees and sunny.

Of course I am exaggerating, but to cut to the chase, he didn't seem to be suffering too much to me. If he was in a smoking 1973 Pinto with rusted quarter panels I probably would have managed a furrowed brow and the occasional sympathetic nod, but honestly ...

There are people much smarter than me addressing and explaining the healthcare debate, but it doesn't take a genius to know that things are not lovely in River City. Healthcare costs too much. Period. People have to travel to Mexico or Canada (or India if they have the deep pockets) to get affordable drugs and healthcare. This is ridiculous.

Why anybody would think this is great is beyond me. Well, yes, the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies thinks it's tickety-boo! And why not? Its the second biggest gravy train in the world next to working on Wall Street. This is no secret. We all know this.

There is just too much money to be made in medicine. It attracts alot of flies. I have a friend who carefully tutored his son to go into a medical field that made him the most money while it gave him the least chance to be exposed to AIDS. Isn't that nice?

Now, I know this is one of those pompous and simple "if I ruled the world" statements, but frankly, in medicine, if you haven't cured old age single-handed, or cancer with a spoonful of sugar, I say you don't get to be rich.

What you get to be is a good ol' cloth coat middle class guy like the rest of us, and you go to work in the morning and do a good job and derive satisfaction from curing the sick and get appropriately rewarded and you live a comfortable unostentatious life like the rest of your neighbors ... well, like Andy Hardy's Dad. He had a nice house, comfortable life, respect in his community, and he made housecalls. What a guy!

Pollyanna, yes, but a goal well-worth aspiring for.

What you DON'T get to do is bitch about your sorry life while your Mercedes air-conditions Dallas.

OKthankyoubye.