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Rants January 10, 2010

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1. The other day I turned on the TV. It was my plan to watch the evening news. But the evening news had been put on hold. There was a football game on television instead of the evening news. What kind of a country do we live in, when a football game can take precedence over an important news program that is going to tell me in detail about the latest celebrity to say something that wasn’t politically correct, have an affair, go to jail, or die of a drug overdose. Only when it has been taken away do we realize how much we count on our national news service to inform and educate.

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2. I recently emailed an interesting newspaper article to all of the people on my Whine and Snivel mailing list. I didn’t realize that the article really was 100 percent on the money until I got an email back from Professor Mike, one of the biggest rabble rousers in Maine. Mike said, “Yes, this was a fun read.”

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3. There are things in this world I do not understand and many of them have to do with the Internet. I was looking up one of my former (and favorite) students who went on to great fame and fortune by making a movie called Toy Story. I even found what I thought was his personal web page, which I could easily believe, because some of the photographs made me laugh. Then there was a link that said, “Sign my guestbook,” and when I clicked on that it brought up a web site that said, “Charles Manson parole date. Charles Manson parole hearing…. Sign the Guestbook.” Now that I think of it, this might not have anything to do with the idiosyncrasies of the Internet but might be a type of humor he picked up from me when he was a kid in the sixth grade.

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4. When I mentioned that I once got broadsided by a Belfast fire engine that was coming home from a fire, Chief Read sent me this letter. It says, “I was on the Readfield Fire Dep't for 24 years, the last 7, I was Chief. Statistics show that going to a fire and coming back (oddly enough) account for the most accidents, not fighting the fire. Some departments, like St. Louis, don't run lights or use the siren since it just cranks up the firefighters and the siren can't be heard by most people and it can't be located even by people with good hearing. When I watch cop cars fly up the city streets, I wonder they haven't drilled someone on the way. I don't care how many years you've served, adrenaline makes people drive too fast. There is no excuse for a fire truck running a stop sign whether going or coming. There's no excuse for running lights and siren coming home, anyway.”

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5. You have heard me rant about the waste of time entailed in even a cursory perusal of Facebook. Because I’m easily confused by technology, I have always maintained that it is easier to correspond with friends by simple email. A radio friend wrote and pointed out that I had missed the point --- that Facebook was an opportunity for several people to exchange ideas. And his point was well taken. Yesterday I was sucked in by a Facebook letter from a relative in Sweden. As you probably know, the danger of looking at Facebook, or anything else on line, is that you might see something interesting and spend the rest of the day reading about it and that is what happened to me. Listen to the name of this book I stumbled upon: “How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.” Just the title made me laugh and got me off to a great start for the day. And listen to these quotes in a review of that book: “Motivators counsel an upbeat ignorance—the kind of illusory worldview that might, say, convince a president that his soldiers will be greeted as liberators in a foreign state.” And hear this one: … although it is difficult to define happiness, “the suicide rate has been the gold standard of misery.” Perhaps I enjoyed these small scraps of wisdom or common sense so much because I was reading things that I myself wrote years ago --- like this one: If you want to get rich selling pills, get out there and discover a new disease.

See Kerry Howley who wrote the review. She is clever.

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6. Last week I spent a quarter for one of Joseph Cambell’s books on Myths. I have another book by Joseph Campbell but can't remember if I read it or not. He says the artists who get work are not those who waste away perfecting their craft in drafty attics but those who hob nob at cocktail parties. Isn't that true of any business? It's all in the hustle. Seems as I once heard that Tom Brokaw got his job by hanging out at the studio door and making noises.

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7. Isn't the secret of being a guru being able to sit still long enough to scrape together enough platitudes to fill the pages of a book? Are we getting old when we realize that we already know almost everything we read about human behavior? Is this why so many people write books before they are 25? If they were 70 or 80 they wouldn’t bother to write that same book because they’d take it for granted that everybody already knew it.

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8. Here’s an email from Deek and it says: Dear humble, I got your email address from your Christmas card a friend forwarded to me. I really miss listening to your radio program. If it wasn't for the fact that the Republicans took over public radio and made it another outlet for their propaganda you'd still be on the air. Years ago I attended your free lobster picnic. When I said my name is Deek, you said "Deek, how about taking this wheel full of dirty dishes up to the kitchen." That was a great time. I remember that you were addressing the people and said, "Who'd have thought that 300 people would be foolish enough to believe that there's such a thing as a free lobster picnic." … Take care and thanks for the humor all those years on your radio program. From Deek

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9. My friend Winky took his new boat down to the harbor and plowed around for about an hour, but it wouldn’t go over three knots wide open. My wife Marsha was just coming in from Southern Island where she works and she noticed that Winky was having trouble so she comes alongside and says, “What’s the matter?” And Winky says, “I got this new boat with a brand new engine but it’s wicked sluggish. I’m going to take it back to the dealer.” And Marsha says, “That should be easy enough --- you’ve still got it strapped to the trailer.”

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10. The first thing I say on the phone is, “I don’t hear well. Please speak very slowly.” The other day I was talking with one of my friends and I understood every word she said. I thanked her for speaking so clearly. She said, “No problem, I’ve got my teeth in.”

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11. Fiction is often the opposite of what one finds in real life. When we go to the movies we often see two beautiful, perfect people who want to live together, but some silly, unspoken reason keeps them apart. In real life two beautiful people would like to escape a tedious, uneventful marriage, but some silly, unspoken reason keeps them together.

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12. During a coffee break between sessions at the Applied and Therapeutic Humor convention in Panama City, an attractive young girl pressed herself up against me and took me by the hand. Even when I was young, girls didn’t press their bodies up against me, so I was somewhat surprised. I said to her, “What do you do?” And she said, “I’m a hospice nurse. I comfort old men by holding their hands while they are dying.”

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13. You know that I can read seven languages and from time to time we remortgage our farm so Marsha and I can spend two weeks in Europe. There are countless books in as many languages that claim to prepare the traveler for his first days abroad and I have read many of them. But --- the most important phrase you will ever need, no matter where you travel --- is – “My friend will pay.”

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