Larry Sloan, the co-founder of Mad Libs has died. Thanks for all the laughs. [picture]
Go home bus, you’re drunk. [picture]
“Come here, I want to tell you something.” [.gif]
“Engineering Students” [picture]
The suspense, I can’t take it! [picture]
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The Politics of Laughter
For those readers who are either over 30 or don’t have teenagers who can explain it to us, internet memes are concepts or images that spread quickly online. While memes can include random humor (LOL Cats) or celebrity references (the Ryan Gosling “Hey Girl” series), they’ve also started to pop up in politics. (Google ‘Big Bird’ or ‘You Didn’t Build That’ and you’ll get the general idea.) The most recent meme to catch on like wildfire was “Binders Full Of Women”, from a comment made by Governor Romney in the 2nd Presidential Debate – even if you didn’t watch the debate, even if you had no interest in it, you’ve probably heard about this one, which inspired dozens of Facebook groups (with thousands of fans) before the debate was even over. Part of what gave this unfortunate turn of phrase such legs was that it had all the aspects of a great meme – vast public exposure, a simple, clear visual image, and a huge variety of humorous interpretations. Next came the backlash, commentators complaining that people were making a mountain out of a molehill, or accusing Obama voters of focusing on picky word choices rather than the real issues. But I believe part of why the image caught on so quickly was that it wasn’t just a verbal gaffe, it was emblematic of why Romney has such trouble connecting with women: – His positions are vague (the anecdote about ‘they brought us binders of women’ was what he told instead of answering a direct question about whether he’d support the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act) – He’s patronizing (trying to impress us with how hard he worked to actually find some qualified women, as if he’d never met one in all his years in business?) – He likes to bend the truth (turns out he didn’t actually go out and ask women’s groups, the groups came to him with resumes)
At any rate, it’s hard to resist an on-fire meme, so here’s this week’s song!
We’ve all heard about the KLOUT hype-mania with employers asking job applicants about their KLOUT scores and using it to decide who gets hired….but this is going too far. Depression symptoms include:
 For some people, depression symptoms are so severe that it’s obvious something isn’t right. Other people feel generally miserable or unhappy without really knowing why.But a drop in one’s KLOUT score of 3 or more points within a few weeks is usually an unambiguous sign of major depression—or at least should be!
East End Style. It’s the sports equivalent of a gang fight. Two factions face off like the Bloods and the Crips—but instead of using automatic weapons they settle their differences on the basketball court. Sure it’s a little more civilized way of settling differences—but only a little. It’s still brutal, raw and puts everything on the line in a no-holds-barred free-for-all, where only one side emerges as a winner. Sometimes it’s in teams; sometimes a single player is selected by his “gang” to “represent” the entire gang in a game of one-on-one. It was the latter game that I found myself in the crosshairs of as my gang’s point person on a chilly, overcast morning back in the fall of 1971. The tension between third and fourth graders at St Francis in the Fields was palpable that first day of school—spilling over from last year’s unresolved tension between second and third graders, stemming mostly from tether ball disagreements.
It soon became apparent to me that I was their ringer—and would represent my entire gang, or grade, as we settled our differences Old School. On the basketball court at recess after second period. The fourth grader’s choice of leader was not a choice at all. It was a forgone conclusion that no one dare question. His name was Allen Lavin. Allen was tall, athletic and handsome—and already good with the ladies (not afraid of cooties. In fact, fearless around the threat of cootie exposure.) I remembered him from a year earlier. I could easily picture him in my 8 year old East End mind one day playing in the NBA. I could imagine him dominating both on the court and then off the court wearing a full length mink coat while holding forth at the after party. He just had that charisma and cockiness of a natural leader who couldn’t fathom ever losing. Allen Lavin was from a well-heeled horse breeding family in Oldham County. But don’t be fooled by his pedigree. Lavin was all about street ball—first and last—and everyone in the lower school knew he alone owned the basketball court when it was time for recess. And then there was me. I was a bit of an enigma. A quiet but determined scrappy kid. Short but fast and with a bit of a chip on my shoulder that made me feel I had to prove something. I was the guy that could surprise you. And others felt it. I wasn’t like the Lavins. My family wasn’t part of the Establishment. We were more nouveau riche. Sure we could afford the private school tuition, but as they say on the East End streets, “We hadn’t gotten in country club yet.” And there were external signs of class differences too. I didn’t wear a belt. It wasn’t that we couldn’t afford belts…but rather I didn’t wear them because I had a mild sensory disorder that made some clothing articles, like belts, feel very uncomfortable to me. And then there was the other reason I kept to myself. I felt not wearing a belt gave me an advantage at sports. I wasn’t limited in my range or movement by a belt. There were aerodynamic reasons I chose not to wear a belt. And it made me lighter. And I knew I would need every advantage going up against Allen Lavin. Read the rest of… Got to give them both kudos for self-deprecation and, frankly, some clever jokes. And let’s give credit where credit is due: Romney was Letterman to Obama’s Leno — funnier, harder-edged, less forumlaic. Watch them both and judge for yourself: Let us know who you think was funnier in the comments section below:
That’s how Forrest Gump explains life’s sequences. How we begin something seemingly randomly and it leads to the next thing and that leads on to the next thing. Until a whole chunk of our life is played out and seems not only to make sense to others— but seems perfectly planned out all along. Except it really isn’t. Or is it? I don’t know. But I think Forrest perfectly embodies the beautiful simplicity of living life by a pure and inspired intuition. And if done well—as Forrest does so effortlessly—trying to figure out what the ultimate plan may be seems beside the point. Like an absurd distraction. “And just like that…” is how, I think, we should endeavor to live our own lives. And let the plan take care of itself. I think that may be the most important message in this profoundly simple (or simply profound) movie. The Politics of Laughter
Normal Person vs. Scientist [xkcd] Everyone hates their embarrassing baby pictures. [image] You may have heard that a guy named Felix Baumgartner broke the free fall record this week. He actually faced some stiff competition though. [comic] Film Geek goes to a Fortune Teller [SMBC] I now present 2 Hamsters 1 Wheel [YouTube] Throughout this campaign, Mitt Romney has received a lot of criticism for his position switches, from both the right and the left. However, last week he outdid himself, changing position on abortion multiple times (beginning with his interview in Des Moines). Say what you want about pandering, politicization, etc., and agree or disagree with him, but you’ve got to admit, there hasn’t been a public figure this good at rebranding since Madonna. She’s gone from punk-ish urban girl to Marilyn-esque blonde to Anglophile director (complete with faux British accent), and people applaud her ability to keep up with the times, anticipate public taste, and remain relevant for 3 decades and counting. So give Romney some credit – at least he’s showing his awareness of pop culture, on some level, and maybe his flexibility can be inspiring to the rest of us! If Romney can use flip-flopping to pass himself off as “Moderate Mitt”, then this suburban Jewish mother can rebrand herself as a teen popstar to sing about said flipflops (and to thoroughly embarrass my teenage kids in the process) – “Oops, You Did It Again!”
You know the feeling you get when you oversleep because you were sure you would wake up early enough on your own without a wake-up call to make your flight home from a business trip in a city you’ve never been in before? And then rush frantically getting ready only to realize you didn’t pack a fresh change of clothes for today and have to wear the same shirt you wore on Monday because it’s somehow less wrinkled than the shirts you wore Tuesday or Wednesday and you packed your Dopp kit before shaving but pull out the razor and try to shave enough so it doesn’t look like you didn’t shave? And then you rush through the lobby hoping to find a cup of coffee but they are out and you see a guy from your conference who wants to talk and exchange business cards and you are too flustered to tell him you overslept and are rushing to the airport so you just pretend like you were getting a call just at that moment and had to take it outside and couldn’t talk to him? And then can’t find your car for 6 minutes in the hotel parking lot because you wanted to save money by parking yourself instead of using the valet service and can’t recall where you parked last night after you had a flat tire and it took you an hour to drive 5 miles back to your hotel because you couldn’t use your GPS since your iPhone had died—again? And then you get to the rental car drop off and are told you didn’t buy coverage for the tire and will have to pay for it and will also be charged for running about 5 tolls that you didn’t have change for because you refused to use the EZPass pre-paid service Budget offered you on Monday? And as you watch 3 employees not be able to answer—or even try very hard to answer—a few simple question about how to deal with the toll violations you’ll be receiving you think to yourself how much time they are wasting and how they aren’t working very hard very hard at all and seem to be wasting a lot of time.. And you start to feel mad because your tax dollars are being wasted on slackers like these even though Budget Rental Car isn’t part of the federal government? But you start to sympathize with the Tea Party movement and can see yourself being one on days like today but then think to yourself, “Wow. I guess Tea Party types feel this upset all of the time” and realize you might be able to also if things don’t improve soon. And then you are a little rude to the driver of the rental car shuttle because you are about to miss your plane and are embarrassed when you realize you don’t know which airline you are on but “think” it’s United. But it’s not and United takes 20 minutes to figure that out since they have no idea what you are talking about before United’s ticket agent tells you that you are actually on USAir and you rush down to the USAir ticket counter and an attractive young lady is talking on the phone to another customer while you impatiently wait to tell her your flight departs at 9:19 and it is already 9:02….and when she does get off the phone she decides to try out some new boundary techniques for talking to rude customers like you. And refuses to check if your flight is running late or offering you any ticket credit since it is “You fault” that you are late—and says this several times with a smirk on her face until you snap and tell her loudly in front of another customer and a co-worker that “You are not going to put up with this anymore and that people should not treat other people like this” and you try to run down a list of things she’s done wrong but can’t think of anything, really, except that smirk, and so you finish your unintelligible mini-tirade by adding, “And doing it all with that insulting smirk on your face!” and you realize that now both the other customer and her colleague are watching you and smirking along with her and you realize that they know that even you know how ridiculous you sound and aren’t intimidating anyone and, frankly, are too old and too short for this kind of rant but that it’s too late to stop and so you just hope the “Smirk” comment at the end sounds impressive. And then you try to buy a new ticket from United but they have no flights out but are at least nice about it since they saw the episode several counters over with USAir but you do find a ticket available on Southwest that leaves in an hour later and buy the ticket and then wait endlessly in airport security and are tempted to ask the TSA guard how many finger nail clippers and 5 oz bottles of body lotion they’ve confiscated this week from would-be terrorist but don’t because you had just made a jerk of yourself just a few minutes earlier and want to apologize to the US Air ticket agent but are already though security and really, really, really want a cup of coffee and see a Starbucks sign and walk faster until you realize there is another sign below it saying, “Coming soon?” And then you go into a gift shop that sells coffee and are trying to write about all this to post on Facebook to relieve some of the stress you are feeling but inadvertently delete the first two paragraphs and put down your phone as an older, chipper Chinese Barista is waving funnily at you saying in her broken English “Hello, Hello, Hello, sir.” And you smile a little because she doesn’t understand the social cues of your culture for “Do not be nice to me; I am brooding now” and then a young Indian fellow Barista is embarrassed she can’t understand your order and looks down in shame while laughing to herself—but not smirking. And you start to feel a little lighter as you put the condiments in your coffee and walk out but notice a new book cover sporting Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mug with a contrite and humbled expression on his face but the book is titled something like, “My unbelievable real life story.” And you can hear his thick Austrian accent as you read the title to yourself and think to yourself he really does have a pretty amazing life story. And you realize that no matter how bad your morning was, your year won’t be as bad as Arnold’s was last year. And that we are all really doing about the best we can with what we have— and that s**t does happen and sometimes happens in streams—but even then it’s really no big deal. Not really. And you sit down at your gate and recharge your electronics and think about how nice the person at AAA was last night and how helpful the person was at Southwest and that the people at Budget Rental Car were probably on break and weren’t trying to be difficult. And as you are board your flight you notice a prominent sign on the side of the plan saying, “Wireless Available” and that wireless service wasn’t available on the flight you booked on the original flight on USAir or United or whatever because you asked when you booked and were told no. And you think to yourself, “Maybe my luck is changing today….and despite my tumultuous morning, maybe, just maybe, today is going to be another lucky day for me after all.” If you answered “Yes, you can relate” then all that there is left for me to do is chuckle along with you, pat you on the back (virtually) and say, “Really? Oh my gosh, me too! Just this morning!” And hope that the airborne wireless service is working. Note: The wireless service is working. I am posting this at 10,000 feet. And am feeling like a pretty lucky guy. |
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