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Radio Rants February 17, 2013

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1. Will you permit an old man to tell you that a cynic is an idealist who has been confronted with facts?

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2. Maine people who growl about invaders in million dollar houses with a million dollar view have short memories. Back in 1965 they laughed all the way to the bank when the sucker from Massachusetts paid them $3,000 for Grampy's Point.

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3. Is it true that Maine officials hope to sell Maine’s carbon credits so that other densely populated industrialized areas of our great country may legally continue their unabated pollution of our planet? Selling heroin to children in a far-away state is generally frowned upon, but now we are supposed to compartmentalize our thinking and recognize the carbon credit sellers as economic wizards. You must admit that the concept has potential. For example, here on the coast of Maine on any sweltering July day, the temperature might climb to 68 degrees. If weather were a marketable commodity like pollution, the chamber of commerce in Philadelphia could buy a week of Maine’s July weather to make their Independence Day celebration and visits to the Liberty Bell a bit more attractive to potential visitors. --- Of course the price would be negotiable, as Tenants Harbor residents would gladly throw in two days of their famous fog. Education? No longer do children in manufactured housing areas need to get lower scores than their counterparts in affluent Kennebunk, Falmouth or Cape Elizabeth. Grade scores are no more than numbers on paper and could be traded like pork bellies and other commodities. Crime? Unfortunately there is not enough money in Detroit to buy Bangor’s safe city credits, but with the proper marketing, a buyer could be found. So, the next time someone mentions selling carbon credits, tell them that if they’d like to buy a few of your gene pool credits, your grandfather is 102.

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4. One night I watched a movie called the Graduate. It was made in 1967 and it reflects the protests against the establishment that were so popular at the time. I was in graduate school in 1967, attempting to ascertain if there really is a one to one correlation between acoustic and articulatory parameters, and I remember to get to my classes I had to step over students, who were lying in the corridors protesting one of our endless wars,. But I wanted to say that Dustin Hoffman is a great actor. You could feel his pain when everybody in the world was telling him to do things that he didn’t what to do. He had obviously gone through our school system because he politely did everything that Mrs. Robinson and anyone else told him. Remember the old bumper stickers? “Question Authority?” He didn’t --- until the very end, where he beats them back with a cross and then uses it as a bar to lock them in the church --- which was the only part of the movie that I remembered --- that and the famous “plastics” line. So I squirmed and suffered through the whole Graduate movie, which played without commercials, just to see the last five minutes which I remembered were really good. Yes. I suffered. You’ve seen those movies where someone goes to open a door and you hear the ominous music in the background and you know something bad is behind the door and you’re hollering at the person on the screen, “Don’t open that door.” The Graduate affected me the same way, because I kept hollering, “Don’t do it. Get out of there.” What a fool that young man was to do everything that everyone told him to do. Of course, he finally snapped. But I suppose that is the definition of a nice young man. A nice young man is someone who does everything you tell him to do without questioning you. You and I like young people who do everything what we tell them without questioning us. Oh, you should know that one thing has changed in that Graduate movie. Remember that aged old hag, Mrs. Robinson? If you watch that movie today you’ll notice that she’s still a sleaze but that her complexion has improved, and that she’s about the age of your youngest daughter.

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5. Have you ever seen a movie where someone opens a door to find a creepy looking stranger outside? Do you feel the same way when you get an email letter signed John or Jim or Mary? No mailing address, no phone number, no web site, no nothing but a cryptic letter signed John or Jim or Mary. Perhaps you will tell me why people write these Guess Who letters? Why are your friends afraid to include a phone number and a mailing address on the bottom of their email letters? If they are afraid of identity theft, most any crook worth his salt could get their phone number or mailing address or credit card numbers without looking at their email. Of course, I can understand why anyone would be afraid to send me their home address. They know that most any afternoon I’m very likely to stop by around supper time. I’m the humble farmer at gmail dot com.

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6. You might have read that three people in North Carolina, one in Indiana and one in Ohio were shot when guns went off accidentally at gun shows. I don’t know about you, but I find that pretty hard to believe because all that alleged shooting was done by gun lovers who know how to handle their weapons. One of my radio friends who read about this alleged shooting said that “Criminals, the mentally impaired and very, very stupid people should not be allowed to own weapons.” You want to tell me how you look someone in the eye and tell them you’re not going to sell them a gun because they are very, very stupid? You might have recently read that only a small percentage of the people who shoot others would be considered mentally impaired. And you might have been as surprised as I was to learn this. I don’t have any figures under my fingertips at this moment, but how much of this shooting of people would you guess is being done by not the criminally insane but very stupid people? And what do you do if a stupid person is willing to pay you twice as much for a gun as someone who is very smart? I’m glad I don’t know anything about this gun business. I’m only asking you about it because it’s always on the news. Talk to me.

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7. One day my brother in law Mark called to tell me that in a Mark Trail comic strip, Mark Trail is standing on an oyster bar ankle deep in water, surrounded by hungry sharks. Mark Trail is saying, “I’m in big trouble. I’m surrounded by sharks on this oyster bar and the tide is going out.” My brother in law thought that this was funny and said that Mark Trail wasn’t going to get in trouble as long as the tide was going out. But anyone who thinks about this knows that although only a very few men have been eaten by sharks, many men have been undone after eating a few oysters.

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8. Are we born incompetent or is it thrust upon us? After 20 years of being married to Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, I now wonder how I survived my 20 years between 34 and 54 as a bachelor. I might now be compared to an appendage that has atrophied from lack of use because I no longer know how to do anything. What do you suppose would happen to me if I ran through a load of wash and hung it on the line? There is no way on this green earth that I would do it right. If you’re married to a Type A woman you know what happens when you try to help by making the bed. Yes. She tears it apart and makes it right, with the corners tucked in and the sheet folded down at the top --- even though Martha Stewart couldn’t tell the difference when the bedspread is on. You finally give up because she says it is easier for her to do it the first time than it is to tear your work apart and then do it over again. Mow the lawn and she mows it again the same evening with the blade set down to the dirt so the dust or mud flies. Help her with the dishes? Only if you do want trouble in your marriage. You might have heard some of our young so-called experts bleating the mantra, “You have to work at a marriage. Marriage takes a lot of work and effort.” This is not true. I never worked at our marriage and I never will. For 20 years I have simply stood back and got out of the way.

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9. I’d like to apologize for having a Maine voice here on a Maine radio station. I realize that being from Maine and talking on a Maine radio station makes me somewhat of an abnormality. Please try to bear up. I can’t remember who sent me this news item, but I want to thank you. Senators William B. Spong of Virginia and Hiram Fong of Hawaii sponsored a bill recommending the mass ringing of church bells to welcome the arrival in Hong Kong of the U.S. table tennis team, after its tour of Communist China. The bill failed to pass, which deprived us of the Spong-Fong Hong Kong Ping Pong Ding Dong Bell Bill.

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10. I think about things. If you also think about things, it might be because you don’t have enough to do and I suggest that you find something to occupy your hands. This is why they say idle hands are the devil’s workshop. If you are busy you can’t think and thinking does not always give you a warm, fuzzing feeling of well being. This morning I was thinking about James Bond, which you might agree is about as unproductive as you can get when it comes to thinking. Because you have never wasted your time thinking about Bond, James Bond, you should know that James Bond is a good guy who zips about the globe while fighting powerful evil men. And for years I wondered how evil men like Dr. No and Goldfinger could find seemingly endless cadres of expendable people to aid them in their bloody pursuits of world domination and economic gain. I hope you won’t think about this, because if you do, when you think about the last two dozen elections you will realize that there are millions of people out there in middle America who honestly like them.

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11. When I make a mistake, I’m the first person to admit it. And I made a mistake. A while back a leaky inner tube on my bicycle refused to accept any more patches and I spent 3 or 4 dollars on a new tube. But one day when I was down to the dump I saw a bicycle in the junk iron pile. I said to myself, “I will take that bicycle home with me for spare parts and I will buy big fat bicycle tires and inner tubes no more.” And when I got the bicycle home I said to myself, “The only thing this bicycle needs is a nut on the rear wheel. I wonder what will happen if I put a nut on the rear wheel?” So I pumped up the tires and I put the nut on the rear wheel and I got on it and rode around in the dooryard on this 5 or 10 speed bike and the gears worked and it went slick as a whistle. And it reminded me that back in 1943 or so my grandmother had to cook for Prince Nicimi up on Chestnut Street in Camden --- lived right across from Dougie Green --- and my grandmother had to cook for two weeks or so to earn money enough to buy me a second hand bicycle. So what am I going to do with this bicycle? I did not plan to keep this bicycle, I brought this bicycle home from the dump because the tires looked ok, but now I have no idea of how I am ever going to get rid of it. There is a lesson to be learned here but the only person who knows what it is is a bachelor who has invited a desperate young divorcee into his home for just the weekend.

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12. you miss the good old songs you used to hear? I don’t see any sense in these rap songs they sing nowadays, do you? Back when I was a kid they sang songs like, Chickery Chick, chala chala, chekala romy, in a bananica, bolika wollica – and they made sense. This morning I got to thinking that it had been a long time since I had heard I’m a Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas. You know you’re old when you realize that you miss the good old songs. Old people have always cried that they no longer hear the good old songs. You probably recall Aristophanes’ story about the young man who sneered at his father when the old man requested someone sing one of the good old songs called Simoides' Shearing of the Ram. The kid had to explain to his father that Simoides’ Ram was a corny old song. Do you hear the same thing from your children and grandchildren? Do they listen to music that you can’t understand or appreciate? You might have seen a TV program advertised on which they promised to play the 40 worst songs from last year. Did it make you wonder how they could be sure they got the right ones?

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