Back in the early days of the 20th Century, as travel became popular, especially cross-country rail travel, entrepreneur Fred Harvey set up hotels and restaurants for the weary travelers to enjoy some amenities away from their homes. the waitresses became known as Harvey Girls and were expected to follow strict policies while in Harvey's employ. Upon mention of a Harvey Girl one will picture the long black dress with starched white apron hanging from neck to hem.
Well, what would happen if these ladies were Lee Harvey Oswald girls? Certainly travelers wouldn't make it much past Dallas before encountering black leather bustier clad goth chicks in fishnet stockings with hardware pierced faces.
THAT would be a wild west for sure; good, bad and such. Just another tidbit from the warped mind that is mine.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
For My Mom
This Mother's Day my Mom is recuperating at a physical therapy rehab facility following knee replacement surgery. It done gave out after 35 plus years of dealing with arthritis. Now, I'm not a smushy "aw isn't that a nice sentiment" card kind of guy. I'm the one who buys the Maxine Shoebox cards kind of humor. So I presented Mom with a card about Good moms letting their kids lick the electric mixer beaters but GREAT moms turn the mixer off first.
She loved it.
BECAUSE once she made a pumpkin pie, but super talented cook that she is pulled the mixer out of the bowl before shutting it off, so pie mix went splattering ALL over the kitchen. 25 some odd years later I still laugh about it, and every once in a blue moon will bring it up to her. (Of course my family has MANY embarrassing moments -- some inappropriate for blogging!)
But on the schmaltzy, romantic, sentimental side of the equation -- despite the pie mess -- I have a great mom fer sure.
She loved it.
BECAUSE once she made a pumpkin pie, but super talented cook that she is pulled the mixer out of the bowl before shutting it off, so pie mix went splattering ALL over the kitchen. 25 some odd years later I still laugh about it, and every once in a blue moon will bring it up to her. (Of course my family has MANY embarrassing moments -- some inappropriate for blogging!)
But on the schmaltzy, romantic, sentimental side of the equation -- despite the pie mess -- I have a great mom fer sure.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Horses, Whiskey, Women & The Loot
A tip of the writer's cap to Tom T Hall, whose lyric I've altered slightly for this title.
It dawned on me listening to his "Faster Horses (the Cowboy and the Poet)" that a lot of the common sense people used to learn came from those who came before's experiences and observations -- a good amount of which was then passed along in song and text. Personally, I can't recall a modern day song which conveys wisdom. In fact, not since the mid 1980s can I put a finger on a tune which might relay some tidbit of education.
I think that lack of passing along such information has contributed to what our Global Society has become. Because of the political correctness of not wishing to offend any one single being, such lines and topics are being shied away from. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it seems to me in casual observation.
Sure, at some point I'll contradict myself and eludicate about how imbibing of that magical amount of alcohol will turn the partaker into a blithering idiot -- I've seen it enough throughout my professional careers -- or how whatever certain topic I feel shouldn't be posed to impressionable beings is readily accessible to them, but hey, that'd be alright so long as they learn the right and wrong of it and make the appropriate decision wisely. Well, that much sounds like a load of Buffalo Chips, but that's my reasoning.
Nowadays, it's all about flash and eye-candy -- and while I'm all about the eye-candy -- lest we not forget how we get to enjoy all of that awesome visual stimulation. It's by being smart, taking the lumps when you have to, working hard for what you believe in, and being true to one's self -- for like the poet who gets called out by the cowboy in "Faster Horses" other people can see through the charade and one will just wind up alienated.
So, irregardless of how embarrassing a situation was to go through, share it with the next generation. Extemporate even the inane, forging past their reactions, for -- as I did growing up -- they do actually listen and figure things out, though it may take longer for some. Though, again, to overly generalize, I fear this rationalization is fading away from society, and I greatly miss it.
Can the mysteries of life be summed into four words? Perhaps not, but every three and a half or four minutes clue us in.
It dawned on me listening to his "Faster Horses (the Cowboy and the Poet)" that a lot of the common sense people used to learn came from those who came before's experiences and observations -- a good amount of which was then passed along in song and text. Personally, I can't recall a modern day song which conveys wisdom. In fact, not since the mid 1980s can I put a finger on a tune which might relay some tidbit of education.
I think that lack of passing along such information has contributed to what our Global Society has become. Because of the political correctness of not wishing to offend any one single being, such lines and topics are being shied away from. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it seems to me in casual observation.
Sure, at some point I'll contradict myself and eludicate about how imbibing of that magical amount of alcohol will turn the partaker into a blithering idiot -- I've seen it enough throughout my professional careers -- or how whatever certain topic I feel shouldn't be posed to impressionable beings is readily accessible to them, but hey, that'd be alright so long as they learn the right and wrong of it and make the appropriate decision wisely. Well, that much sounds like a load of Buffalo Chips, but that's my reasoning.
Nowadays, it's all about flash and eye-candy -- and while I'm all about the eye-candy -- lest we not forget how we get to enjoy all of that awesome visual stimulation. It's by being smart, taking the lumps when you have to, working hard for what you believe in, and being true to one's self -- for like the poet who gets called out by the cowboy in "Faster Horses" other people can see through the charade and one will just wind up alienated.
So, irregardless of how embarrassing a situation was to go through, share it with the next generation. Extemporate even the inane, forging past their reactions, for -- as I did growing up -- they do actually listen and figure things out, though it may take longer for some. Though, again, to overly generalize, I fear this rationalization is fading away from society, and I greatly miss it.
Can the mysteries of life be summed into four words? Perhaps not, but every three and a half or four minutes clue us in.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Look! MORE X-Men
Indeed it's true! I knew 18 months ago I had more good guys than bad guys and that I needed to rectify that situation. Additionally, Feral Female at Thoughts from a Yodelling Goatherder challenged me to do a Nightcrawler. I stepped up to the task and voila:
Kurt Wagner hangs from the eaves of the florist's shop by his prehensile tail awaiting the cue to teleport into the fray below.
And what's a battle with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants without Magneto?
He's as much a staple to the mythos as Cyclops.
So there you have it. Sure the good still out balances the evil, but isn't that how justice prevails?
Kurt Wagner hangs from the eaves of the florist's shop by his prehensile tail awaiting the cue to teleport into the fray below.
And what's a battle with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants without Magneto?
He's as much a staple to the mythos as Cyclops.
So there you have it. Sure the good still out balances the evil, but isn't that how justice prevails?
Friday, March 11, 2011
New Paparazzi TV Show
The fascination the American Public has with their celebrity actors/actresses, sports figures, and entertainers is legendary. That's why the tabloids sell so well and programs like Entertainment Tonight, The Insider, and TMZ garner such a following.
So I thought, why not spill it all? Even the embarrassing little routine stuff in one's life that no one should ever hear or see and mash that with a popular colloquialism for a program called TMI: Too Much Information. It could be an hour long, the first 30 minutes full of snippets and sound/visual bites about gross surgeries or poor private habits when one thinks no one is watching and the second half could be devoted to has been stars who would otherwise wind up on their own self-produced reality show and/or Dancing With The Stars.
And why stop there? Some animals are celebrities too, we can show them watering the backyard -- potty humor still sells.
So I thought, why not spill it all? Even the embarrassing little routine stuff in one's life that no one should ever hear or see and mash that with a popular colloquialism for a program called TMI: Too Much Information. It could be an hour long, the first 30 minutes full of snippets and sound/visual bites about gross surgeries or poor private habits when one thinks no one is watching and the second half could be devoted to has been stars who would otherwise wind up on their own self-produced reality show and/or Dancing With The Stars.
And why stop there? Some animals are celebrities too, we can show them watering the backyard -- potty humor still sells.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Legend in His Own Mind
You might recall the anecdote I shared about gyrating my Underooed hips on the playscape at nursery school. So then it shouldn't come as a surprise that I make acceptible sounds with musical instruments (and have made musical instruments out of other objects by forcing sound from them). Additionally, then, this should come as no surprise:
Made with the Random Album Generator at Mflow (discovered through a link from a link from one of my favorite band's Twitter feed), so I'll hope all rights to the image allow me to continue to display this.
This cover pretty much sums up what my band (if I'd actually had one at the moment) would be like. Funny, trashy, and a scary wreck :-)
Hit Play and turn it up to eleven. Then look for a new place to live because the neighbors will hate you.
Made with the Random Album Generator at Mflow (discovered through a link from a link from one of my favorite band's Twitter feed), so I'll hope all rights to the image allow me to continue to display this.
This cover pretty much sums up what my band (if I'd actually had one at the moment) would be like. Funny, trashy, and a scary wreck :-)
Hit Play and turn it up to eleven. Then look for a new place to live because the neighbors will hate you.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
I Stopped Counting at 31
With my 31st birthday, an undisclosed number of years ago now, age became just a number. In fact, when asked I actually have to stop and do the math; sometimes I'm even wrong -- not even on purpose! Chalk it up to getting older.
What I'm getting to is this: I forget just how long I've been on this earth. My life over the past couple years has brought some stark realizations and friendly reminders that I'm 'getting up there'. For instance, one of my train buds would mention something that happened in the past that he'd read about and I'd reminisce about my own experiences along the tracks in whichever area we'd happen to be discussing -- implying he should recall himself -- except he's ten years younger than I so his reply is "Yeah but you were alive then." I needed a few minutes to reel my eyelids down from my receding hairline after that dosage of reality.
Just tonight at work we happened to be discussing the wonders of the internet and video entertainment providers hosting movies and television programs on the information superhighway. We'd tossed out old tv show names like Airwolf, The A Team, Quantum Leap, Northern Exposure, Greatest American Hero and more; rattling off actors and actresses names and such. During one point in our discussion the shift supervisor made a comment which made me realize I was a couple grades ahead of him in school. Then when I asked if my desk partner remembered "The Mighty Heroes" he said they were before his time. That was my next reminder that there are people younger than my age all around me and the number will continue to grow. But at least it doesn't hurt as bad as the time my disc jockey asked who the Beatles were.
So of course, thank goodness for the internet, I came home from work and searched for Diaper Man, Strong Man, Rope Man, Tornado Man and Cuckoo Man and laughed until I woke up the neighbors. Then it made me realize I'd been ingrained with superheroism from the earliest days of my youth...not that I'd ever complain about it.
I'll leave you with this quote from a friend of mine, who was speaking from experience "You're only young once, but you can be immature forever".
Next time I discuss anything number related in regards to myself it'll be a headspinning doozy. Stay Tuned for "How Many Roads" reprinted and revised. You've been warned.
What I'm getting to is this: I forget just how long I've been on this earth. My life over the past couple years has brought some stark realizations and friendly reminders that I'm 'getting up there'. For instance, one of my train buds would mention something that happened in the past that he'd read about and I'd reminisce about my own experiences along the tracks in whichever area we'd happen to be discussing -- implying he should recall himself -- except he's ten years younger than I so his reply is "Yeah but you were alive then." I needed a few minutes to reel my eyelids down from my receding hairline after that dosage of reality.
Just tonight at work we happened to be discussing the wonders of the internet and video entertainment providers hosting movies and television programs on the information superhighway. We'd tossed out old tv show names like Airwolf, The A Team, Quantum Leap, Northern Exposure, Greatest American Hero and more; rattling off actors and actresses names and such. During one point in our discussion the shift supervisor made a comment which made me realize I was a couple grades ahead of him in school. Then when I asked if my desk partner remembered "The Mighty Heroes" he said they were before his time. That was my next reminder that there are people younger than my age all around me and the number will continue to grow. But at least it doesn't hurt as bad as the time my disc jockey asked who the Beatles were.
So of course, thank goodness for the internet, I came home from work and searched for Diaper Man, Strong Man, Rope Man, Tornado Man and Cuckoo Man and laughed until I woke up the neighbors. Then it made me realize I'd been ingrained with superheroism from the earliest days of my youth...not that I'd ever complain about it.
I'll leave you with this quote from a friend of mine, who was speaking from experience "You're only young once, but you can be immature forever".
Next time I discuss anything number related in regards to myself it'll be a headspinning doozy. Stay Tuned for "How Many Roads" reprinted and revised. You've been warned.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)