Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Notes On A 200th Post



I couldn't reach my 200th blog post without stopping to reflect on what the past two and a half years of blogging have meant to me.  For me,  writing a blog has been much like sex.  Even though with my readership I'm almost always alone,  I still manage to have fun!

From time to time those of you with no lives who read the blog for obscure reasons known only to your lonely selves have asked me a variety of questions.   I usually ignore them because I simply can't be bothered with you, but today because I have no actual premise for this post and have just bombed out with my Dorian Gray and Gay NRA parodies,  I thought I'd tackle a few.

How old is your avatar?  

What gives you the idea it isn't current?  Aside from the small almost indecipherable reference to Matthew Brady in the lower left hand corner?

My avatar is  just eight years old, and later today I'm taking it for water ice and mini-golf. It was cropped from a larger picture taken on an epic hair day in perfect lighting from the optimal nose-minimizing angle after a full-night's rest and a satisfying meal on a day that there was very little trouble in the world and ... I was at Disney World.

And I still, more or less, look like crap.  

What made you decide to start blogging?

Several years ago, I came to the realization that I had many unexpressed thoughts, ideas,  hopes, dreams,  desires, and aspirations.  They are none of your damn business!  So I thought I'd write me some schlock comedy.   

Where do you get your ideas?

Mostly from China.  I also import a smattering of ideas from several other Asian countries and a few from a real funny fat guy in Bolivia.  Don't get me wrong,  I'd love to source ideas from the United States,  but frankly the concept-ship is shoddy and I've gotten zero customer service attempting to get help for an idea that isn't working. 

Why a no-frills blog? 

Well, it's easy to maintain, doesn't require expensive tune-ups, and you'll expect less from me and maybe find the stuff funnier.  And do you really want to see me all dressed up with cutesy fonts and pink frilly graphics? 

Who are your humorist heroes?

Of course I've always admired Woody Allen, but his neurotic Jewish self-deprecating persona starts to wear on you.  Albert Brooks was hilarious in Drive,  a real comedy breakthrough for him. And I'll include Calvin Trillin so you'll think I read.  

Do you have a favorite gentile humorist?

That's such a funny thought!  I'll have to do a bit about a  quote unquote ....  gentile humorist ....  Ha-ha-ha!  See, there's a hilarious concept I've gotten from an American!

Do you have a writing schedule or regimen?

Yes, I do.  

What is it, asshole? 

Oh yeah, sorry!  I awaken at 6:00 A.M.,  have coffee, juice,  and two pieces of plain toast, not buttered.  I listen to the news on NPR, check my e-mail, and go back to bed.  Whenever I get up I write a bunch of stuff if I'm not too nauseous.

Is it true that if you have a successful blog, you didn't build that?

I don't know if you could call my blog successful, but as long as Blogger doesn't repossess the cyberspace,  I'll keep at it for a while.

President Obama may have misspoken,  but he was clearly on to something.  A lot of people have helped and inspired me both with respect to Nouveau Old, Formerly Cute and The Twitter.   Among them are Kd McCrite, Carrie Bailey, Marian Allen, Lexi Revellian, Winonah Drake, Darrelyn Saloom, Brenda Le, Melissa Moore, Diana Herrington,  Michele Young-Stone,  Melanie Sherman, Leona Bushman, Marni Mann, Junying Kirk,  Cheryl Faith Taylor,  Gail Maria Forrest,  and Libby Adams. Thank you, guys!

In the highly likely event I missed someone and you are that someone,  I will make amends either in the form of bestowing sexual favors upon you (if desired, and feasible from a geographic standpoint) or sending you a dollar.  Just tweet me to berate me, and kindly include your preferred choice of reparations.

Now, any of you with no lives got any ideas for the next 200 posts?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
200

Monday, July 30, 2012

Free To Squeeze What We Damn Well Please



Wayne LaPierre of the New NRA;
"Free to squeeze what we damn well please!" 

In a stunning surprise announcement yesterday, the National Rifle Association (NRA) revealed that it is a clandestine organization for closeted gay people so intent on concealing their sexual orientation they have espoused a bogus philosophy regarding guns popularly believed to be "manly." The NRA has in effect since its founding been the world's largest beard, serving to conceal the sexual preferences of its now more than 4 million members.  

"But no more!" proclaimed NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre to a cheering throng at the group's annual convention yesterday.  "We are free to squeeze what we damn well please, and it isn't the trigger any more!"

Mr. LaPierre explained that recent declarations by Anderson Cooper and others had prompted all 4.3 million NRA members to come out of their very large collective closet. 

"Most importantly," stated LaPierre, "we're sickened at how all so many of you believe the ridiculous nonsense we've been forced to spew about guns all these years!  'Guns don't kill people, people kill people?!!'  That's about as credible as 'your check is in the mail,'  'I was just about to call you,' and 'I won't ... actually that third one doesn't need to be credible, even  better if it's not!"  

The NRA will now work vigorously towards implementing sane gun laws throughout the country, although a small splinter group of dissenting NRA members calling themselves the GGNA (Gay Gun Nuts of America) has also formed

Both President Obama and Governor Romney voiced support for the NRA's action, although Mr. Romney indicated regret that he may have blown possible prior opportunities to hold down Wayne LaPierre and cut his hair. "I see no reason for any change in the gun laws," said Governor Romney, "but will reserve judgment until I meet with the GGNA  as to whether they should be further watered down." 

President Obama indicated that he would now strongly support sane and reasonable gun laws, most specifically a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons that come in designer colors, but that he wouldn't have time to get around to it until at least the latter part of 2016  and most likely later. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friday, July 27, 2012

The Tweet of Dorian Block










A dazzlingly new interpretation of the classic tale of decadence and depravity presented in the Age of The Twitter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

His office was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac or the more delicate perfune of the pink-flowering thorn.

Unfortunately there also came through the open office door the stench of an attempted jest so stale, ill-formed, and unfunny it all but served to transmute the earth into a  cavernous abyss devoid of all mirth and merriment, much as does a movie by the Farrelly Brothers.

Dorian Block sat before the personal computing screen staring at the penultimate organ of 21st Century discourse known as The Twitter.  Another tweet which Dorian had typed in an attempt to convey humour and lightness of spirit had gone off into the night unnoticed and unrecognized, its passing mourned by no man,  no woman.

"Crap," Dorian moaned.  "I cannot comprehend the grand scale and prodigious magnitude at which I suck."

Dorian had tempted fate,  desperately hoping  for a response to his limp and lifeless tweet in the form a retweet, a personal response, or even a favoriting which would at least cause it to register favorably in that unsavory repository of dick jokes known as Favstar.   

Alas!  Alack!  Alec Baldwin!   It was not to be!

Presently Dorian had a caller in the person of his longtime associate Henry Lordstein,  a gentleman who always carried with him a cane and a pipe,  but oddly enough,  leaned on his pipe and smoked his cane. Dorian sure could pick 'em!

"How goes The Twitter, Dorian?" inquired Henry. "How many inmates of that curious asylum do you now follow?"

"Enough," replied Dorian "to fully commission an army to invade Carthage and win the Second Punic War."

"And how many follow you back, Dorian?"

"27."

"Are these your humble tweets?" said  Henry Lordstein.  "Ah, yes, I have discerned the problem straight away."

"Which is?"  queried Dorian.  

"Your tweets," said Lordstein, "lack the succulent amusement of true wit and erudition.  In a word, Dorian,  you're about as funny as George Lopez."  

At that moment, however, there arose in Dorian Block a surge of inspiration that blossomed like the sweet rose I made some obscure and pompous reference to in the first paragraph of this overheated literary parody. Dorian swiftly typed out onto the Twitter:

"If there weren't any Jews in the world, Jeff Foxworthy would be a billionaire." 

Henry Lordstein exploded in fits of laughter.  The Twitter lit up like a Christmas Eve in London with responses, retweets, and favoritings to outshine even the finest dick joke in all the Favstar firmament.  It was a tweet at the glorious level of the immortal Oscar Wilde, or even of Oscar Mayer, whose bologna was beloved by all for having a first name.

"I congratulate you, Dorian," said Lordstein. "This is your moment of immortality.  This tweet will remain funny for all time,  while  for the rest of your natural life you personally will continue to be as funny as a descr iptive passage from a novel by Joseph Conrad."

"If it were only the other way!" exclaimed Dorian. 

"If it were I who were always to be funny, and the tweet was to grow unfunny and lame!  For that that --- for that --- I would give everything.  Yes there is nothing in the whole world I would not give, except perhaps for either one of those two bodily parts denoted left and right that come external to the rest of the other parts."

Yes,  I would give my very soul for that!"

In the days and weeks that followed this event, all of Dorian's tweets came to possess the zest and humour of Lewis Black, only less Jewy.  The Twitter soon  lay at his  newly assured feet,  and his praises were sung in 140 characters or less from coast to coast, continent to continent, and Zanzibar to Barkley Square.  A wise literary agent signed Dorian and a rapid fire succession of humorous New York Times Best Selling books made his a household name, like "kitchen" or "spatula."

Record-shattering appearances on television and in motion pictures now brought his fame to such a frenzied degree that hubris stole the heart of Dorian Block. "I have nothing to declare but my genius," he famously said to a Customs Agent as he entered the United States to do The Conan O'Brian Show "along with a ziploc bag for some toothpaste." 

Dorian Block, for his part, could feel his humanity slipping from him.  He thought of the tweet and of his vow.  Was that simple but exquisitely funny tweet the cause of both his new found comedic brilliance and his emerging heinousness?   

Dorian entered his office, switched on The Twitter and rolled it back to the splendid tweet. He found that the tweet had changed! It was no longer the exemplar of brilliant observational humour he had created during that summer's day when the smell of lilac had so deliciously perfumed the air and entranced the senses.  

It was a line of stand-up from Tracy Morgan's  HBO Special "Black and Blue!"

Dorian backed away from the personal computing screen, shrieked as if to wake the gods on Olympus, and ran from the room. He had never seen or experienced anything so sickeningly or horrifically unfunny in his life, and he had followed Sh*t My Dad Says on The Twitter.

Now Dorian's rampaging career began to leave a wide swath of destruction in its wake!   In humbling tribute and supplication Louis C. K. offered Dorian the only two letters in his last name,  complete with their attendant periods.  Jay Leno attempted suicide by impaling himself upon his chin.  In a psychotic fit of sheer madness brought on by his wretched inability to compete with Dorian, Jon Stewart became a Republican.

"This cannot continue!" screamed Dorian.   "A just God will punish me and should.  A five minute time out is fair."

Dorian raced to his office and opened up The Twitter.  Perhaps the tweet had righted itself and had returned to its former glory.  He rolled back the time line to those days of summer when the sweet roses bloomed, the lilacs blossomed, and he couldn't get @Crudface99 to follow him back. 

A cry of pain and indignation broke from him.  The tweet was more foul, loathsome, and unfunny than ever before!  Would he never be free of its monstrous power?  Or at least have a long weekend away from it? 

If he could destroy the tweet, Dorian reasoned, he could yet be free.   He lunged at the personal computing screen intent on highlighting the tweet with a left click of the mouse and then exerting all force upon the Delete key.   At that very moment as Dorian thrust himself forward, however,  the personal computing screen froze,  as was its wont being Microsoft Windows XP

There was a cry heard and a crash.  Passing in the street below was Henry Lordstein  who rushed into the house, banged on the office door,  and when it would not give way, broke it asunder.  When he entered, he  found flickering upon the personal computing screen the splendidly hilarious tweet that Henry Lordstein recognized instantly as the one Dorian had inscribed upon The Twitter those many months ago. 

Lying on the floor was a man who in visage resembled Dorian Block but in personal manner was virtually unrecognizable.  As he bent over him --- writhing deliriously in pools of his own flop sweat --- he heard his pitiful murmurings over and over and over again:

Good evening, Ladies and Germs!

A priest, a minister, and a rabbi walk into a bar ...

Take my wife --- please!    


The End.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Man Up, Perry!



It's kind of hard for me to believe, but in slightly over a month I'll be in Costa Rica with my 17 year old son Brandon.

Ah, Costa Rica!  Land of  lush rain forests, beautiful beaches, exotic waterfalls,  ferocious alligators, venomous snakes, and spiders the size of Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield!

Who am I kidding?  I wasn't designed for the gusto life.  I don't even watch the National Geographic Channel unless the lights are on.  And how am I going to keep up with a 17 year old? When I was 17 years old, Lyndon Johnson was in the White House and I was still wearing orthopedic shoes. 

One of the toughest people I know is writer Carrie Bailey (who tweets as @PeevishPenman),  so I decided to call her for some close-to-the-last minute inspiration and advice. 

"First thing you have to do is believe in yourself,"  said Carrie.

"What's the second thing?"

"The second thing is to stop thinking about yourself as a wimp!"

"But, Carrie, it's on my resume."

"You have to overcome this negativity!" said Carrie. "Build yourself up by focusing on something courageous you actually have done in your lifetime." 

That was easy for Carrie to say.  Less than half my age, Carrie had lived on three continents, single-handedly raised a child to near adulthood, and was now attending graduate school in New Zealand. Descended from a hardy Native American stock known as the Metis, Carrie was a'huntin' and a'fishin' and a'trappin' kind of person. 

By contrast, the only kind of person I am that begins with an apostrophe is a'kvetchin'

"I'm waiting," said Carrie. "Surely you've done one courageous thing in your life." 

"I'm flipping through my lifetime.  I'm up to where I'm getting beaten up by the fifth grade girls." 

"Aren't you forgetting something important?" 

"What?" 

"That time we were together in Paris,  you ... uh ... helped save the world.

"Oh, that?  Everybody gets lucky once in a while."

"Perry, you can change your basic nature if you want to!  Haven't you ever read any existentialism?"

"Yes, but I was predestined not to believe in it." 

Carrie was clearly becoming a bit exasperated.

"Look, Perry," she went on, "I know there is more strength in you than you realize.  Whatever was in your past doesn't have to be your future.  Do one thing each day that scares you."

"I'll try," I said, "as long as it doesn't involve women with facial hair."  

"And don't tell me you're too old!  It's not too late.  It's never too late."

Carrie's words had finally gotten through.  It's good to have a friend who has faith in you even when you don't have it in yourself.  Maybe I can handle the gusto life.  Maybe --- given enough time and a bit of work on myself --- I can handle just about anything!

"Carrie ... thank you!"

"Don't mention it. It's what friends are for."

"Carrie?  One more thing?"

"Sure."

"If I truly do Man Up!, the next time the two of us get together, how 'bout you and me ...." 

"Then again maybe you are just a wimp!  Gotta go, enjoy your trip!"

 Y'know what?

 It's also good to have a friend who sees through your shit too!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Man Up, Perry!"
Carrie Bailey on the Beaches
 of New Zealand

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Pulling A Willard


   
   Perry, you're disgusting!

"Okay, Buddy.  Yeah, you!   

 "Who?  Me?" 

"Yeah, you in the third row!  Pull Over!" 

 "Pull over?" 

 "Sorry, poor choice of words!"

"What seems to be the problem, Officer?"

"I'm booking you on suspicion of Pulling a Willard."  

"That sounds like a poor choice of words too."

"No, no, that's actually the name of the statute." 

"But I haven't done anything!"

"You had your hand in your lap, sir, and you were bringing it up and down, up and down, up and down ....

 "I was eating popcorn!"

"Likely story!  A guy sitting in a movie theatre eating popcorn?!!  I wasn't born yesterday."

"It isn't even buttered."

"Just put down the box, sir, and step away from the popcorn!"   

"But, Officer, this isn't even that kind of movie!"

"I know.  March of the Penguins, indeed!  Don't expect any display of mercy from Morgan Freeman."

"Why did you single out me, Officer?" 

"Well, you're Perry Block.  We have a complete dossier on you starting with your earliest erotic fantasies about Miss Frances from Ding Dong School on NBC in 1953.   We know what you've been doing, Mr. Block."

"But everybody does that!"

"Yes, Mr. Block.  But some people also do other things."

"Well .... I've been lonely!"

"Now, don't make this hard, Mr. Block.  I want you to come right now!  Damn, a double poor choice of words!  

"I want my one call."

"To whom?  Some porno sex line, no doubt?" 

"No.  To my lawyer." 

"I hope he's a good one.  Pulling a Willard in this county can get you 4 to 6 in the slammer!   Crap, poor choice of words again! 

"Tell me something, Officer.  With all the serious problems we have that don't get addressed --- like the senseless tragedy in Colorado --- what kind of person thinks it's important to pass laws like Pulling a Willard and have you spend your valuable time enforcing them?"

"Why, whack-jobs, of course."

"Hey, know what, Officer?"

"What, Mr. Block?"

"That, for once, was a perfect choice of words!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thursday, July 19, 2012

The Next Dark Knight Rising


   
Who will be the next Dark Knight Rising?


As moviegoers flock like winged creatures of the night this weekend to see "The Dark Knight Rises," a question is already rising in the minds of the fans of the Dark Knight himself.  With the Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale trilogy complete, when and where will we see Batman again?  And who will fill the cape and cowl of the Caped Crusader?  

You're in luck.  Casting begins now .....   

Send in the Applicants! 

                                


Wrong Type Entirely.

NEXT!










                       
                    
              Too Short, Too Nuts.

                      NEXT!












Has filled in for another actor before. May have to create new character "Bat-Nurse."   

                         NEXT!









Isn't it enough to fuck up ONE
  superhero movie?


                            NEXT!










         Let me get this straight:
You consider 'Jack and Jill' a 
resume piece for playing
                    Batman?


                          NEXT!









But how can you be both for
   Batman AND the Joker
          at the same time?

                        NEXT!










                         
NEXT!













                
                      Your Highness!
Of course you'd be brilliant!


                            NEXT!








  
Oh, Reg, we've missed you 
                 so much!


                             NEXT!







  Great, we can get Clooney! What? He did what before? 
He did What?!!!         

                     NEXT!











                   
                                  AT LAST!


     The Fresh Face we've
           been looking for!



  Ka-POW!     Ka-BAM!   CRASH!!!


The next Dark Knight has risen! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

I've (Still) Got A Rock 'N Roll Heart


All you need is them!

I've got a rock 'n roll heart, even still  at age 61.

It may not beat quite as loudly as it used to,  but for most Baby Boomers the music never dies and rock 'n roll never forgets.  The manner in which we enjoy the music, though, does seem to go through a change or two.

Once we thought Rock 'n Roll Would Save the World,  but I don't remember that ever happening.  There is still war, crime, poverty, injustice, Martha Stewart, reality TV, deification of the Second Amendment, and a television program called "The Chew." The only thing missing from the world since those golden olden days of yore is my hair.

Similarly Sex and Drugs and Rock 'n Roll is no longer the Mantra of Our Generation.  Most of us are lucky anymore to be pulling down one of the three.

And most Boomers no longer follow the comings and goings of rock stars as they once did. There was a time I could readily tell you that Stevie Winwood went from the Spencer Davis Group to Traffic to Blind Faith and on to a solo career that exploded with Arc of a Diver and that Neil Young traveled from Buffalo Springfield to Crazy Horse and then to the epic Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young and is still doing God-knows-what today.  

Today,  God-knows-what Neil Young is doing today. 

The following represents the wisest commentary on the rock 'n roll this Boomer still loves that I can impart at this stage of my rather advanced game.

Rock 'on, Geezers!

1)  Bob Dylan ought to pick one religion and stick to it.

2)  Old dudes love Steely Dan.  ( ... except for Peg and a few other played out ditties.)

3)  Joe Jackson's song Is She Really Going Out With Him?  is an instant classic with a catchy melody and spot on lyrics expressing the male angst that almost every guy has felt at one time or another:

   "Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street ....  look over there - where? - here comes Jeannie with her new boy friend,  they say that looks don't count for much, and so there goes your proof .... Is she really going out with him?  Is she really gonna take him home tonight?"

And yet everyone jumps up and down over Steppin' Out, a pleasant enough little tune  that sounds like the theme song to a 1970's cop show. There's something going wrong around here!

4)  Mick Jagger must never die.  I never believed Frank Sinatra would die,  and yet he did.  Don't ever die, Mick!  Do it for Frank.

5)  No disco song ever written is as good to dance to as Sugar Magnolia.  

6)  I still play air guitar.  I wouldn't mind if my name were Randy California.   In a way, I'm kind of glad we'll never have to come face to face with a 70 year old Jim Morrison.  WXPN in Philadelphia has got to stop playing You Get What You Give by The New Radicals,  one of the more overrated "rock" songs in recent memory,  cheap pop dressed up as rock with simplistic pseudo revolutionary lyrics.  I can never decide if it's cool to like Todd Rundgren or a guilty pleasure.  I could go on like this forever ..... 

7) The Beatles are the single most important musical group to appear in the second half of the twentieth century.  They changed the music we listen to, they way we think, the way we look, the way we act, and the culture of the world.   Even though today I hate Paul McCartney, I would still die for him.

8)  Some classic rock,  no matter how inherently great,  is as played out as Cher's career.  If you're still going "Oh, Man!," whenever Stairway to Heaven,  Layla (original version), or The Waiting is the Hardest Part comes on the radio,  you've got serious  "It's time to move on, dude!"  issues.

9)                                                               Only love can make it rain,                 
     The way the beach is kissed by the sea.
     Only love can make it rain, 
     Like the sweat of lovers laying in the fields.

    Love Reign o'er me.
    Love, Reign o'er me,
    Reign, o'er me,  Reign, o'er me  ....

OMG!  Kiss Me, You Fool!!!  
(Does it to me every time.)

10)  If it's similarly deep and salient thoughts you want about rock music post year 2000, you'll have to talk to my son Brandon.  Or, better yet, talk to your own kid.

Our rock 'n roll hearts beat on.  And best of all,  are rocking on in a new generation as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Aaron Sorkin Writes a Character Who's Dumb


"Oh, no!  That's our newest cast member?!!"  

Mac:  So, Will:  Are you In or are you Out?

Will:  Excuse me, Mac? 

Mac:  Are you In on our prodigious efforts to make News Night a broadcast whose manifest integrity shines a beacon of truth and rationality unto the body politic of what can yet be a great nation, or are you Out,  intent on spending the rest of your life reporting  on the circumference of Mario Lopez's dimples?

Will:  Frankly,  Mac,  I believe in ultimatums about as much as I believe that Aaron Sorkin could ever craft a character into one of his teleplays or award-winning  motion pictures who doesn't speak like an Oxford don on amphetamines!

Mac:  Since you mention that, my benighted knight in tarnished armor, I'm about to apprise the anchorman himself of the salient fact that a new cast member is joining The Newsroom this very week.

Will:  So what of that? 

Mac:  He's dumb.

Will:  He's .... he's ........ what?

Mac:   Dumb.  As dumb as the love child of Rick Perry and someone who tunes into ABC News thinking David Muir's latest haircut constitutes breaking news.  

Will:  Who is this character?  What assemblage of letters when placed in the proper order and spoken aloud connotes his name?  

Maggie:  (joining the two of them)  Will, Mac .... I'd like you to meet Perry Block!  He's just been written into the show as a commentator on News Night for the Baby Boomer perspective on the news.

Perry:  Howdy, dudes! Peachy to be here.  

Mac:  Peachy, I'm not so sure.  Actually, I think we may have just hit the pits. 

Will:  How do you find our newsroom, Mr. Block? 

Perry:  You ... you .... just walk through those two doors, I  think.  Ummmm ... you know there's lots of hot babes in here! 

Mac:  Maggie, do you realize this is the first character that Aaron's created since he started writing in the third grade who's used the expression "ummm." 

Maggie:  (becoming flustered) I'm so sorry! I didn't know, I couldn't stop it!  Charlie Skinner hired him so there'd be a character in the show almost as old as he is!

Perry:  Old?  Well then,  call me "Methuselah." Just don't call me late for dinner!" 

Maggie:  Oh, my God!  He's an idiot as well as annoying! 

Will:  Don't worry, Maggie.  Seek solace in your boyfriend Don's strong but emotionally empty embrace only to find your deepest needs rebuffed like the applicant to Harvard whose SATs  were under 2400. 

Mac:   .... and ultimately find love and support within the nurturing heart of our producer Jim,  with whom you'll soon become entwined as intimately as a bee becomes entwined with pollen.

Perry:  You mean that Maggie and Jim are going to get it on?  Being that this is HBO, I can't wait to watch those two hit the sack!

Mac:  It's incredible what a dipshit he is.  I can't believe Aaron is going to collect full pay for writing this episode.

Perry:  Hey, Will!  What's the latest on Mario Lopez?  Are those dimples real or what?

Will:  Mac, I'm ready to give you my answer. 

Mac:  Your answer? 

Will:  To your ultimatum.  My answer is that I'm In!

Mac:  You're In?  Now you're In!  Why? 

Will:  Because now we know than that Aaron can write dumb! There's nothing the guy can't do.  I smell Emmys for all of us!

Maggie:  You're right, Will!  I'm In too.

Mac:  And so am I!  I'll bet even this douchebag wins an Emmy!

Perry:  Thank you very much.  Now where can I get me some cheap eats around here?  Say, do you guys know David Muir?  Great haircut!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thursday, July 12, 2012

50 Shades of Polarized Grey


Now that's sexy!

I've never been the kind of person to wear sunglasses.

That's perhaps because I was brought up in an era where sunlight was your friend, the purveyor of Vitamin D,  bestower of glowing tans that bespoke health, and best perceived healer of teen aged zits since Clearasil.      

I also went to a doctor in those days whose opinion was that sunglasses were unnecessary and tended to make your eyes weak and overly sensitive to the sun.  This was the doctor who also told my Kosher-keeping mother that my brother needed bacon to keep himself healthy and growing strong,  no matter what God himself might have to spake in the matter. 

Today, of course, Sunlight is Public Enemy No. 1!   

It is the Lex Luthor of our natural environment, arch villainous fomenter of multiple forms of cancer, skin the consistency of Naugahyde,  and given enough exposure, eyes that bug out of your head like those on a squeeze doll. 
 
Still and all, sunglasses for me remained an afterthought to be worn on only the most blazingly bright days after routing through the drawer for whatever random pair of shades might be available, whether they be an odd pair I found at the playground,  my ten dollar John Lennon aviators (in which I look more like any one of the Lennon Sisters of Lawrence Welk Show fame than John Lennon), or leftovers from my last visit to Dr. Kosloff, the ophthalmologist. 

But now at last I'm getting serious about serious eyeball protection.   Why? 

Because at my age, the eyes no longer have it!   Neither visually nor cosmetically.  Time at last to rethink my optical options.

So I read up a bit and began making the rounds to check out 50 or more shades of polarized grey, or whatever other tint might catch my fancy.  First stop, the sunglasses department in a well-known department store.

No, thanks, I'm interested in eye wear, not retinal implant surgery. 

There are many, many, many kinds and styles of sunglasses,  all of which look goofy on me and probably on you as well.  What's important is to get maximum protection from the sun's UV rays and if desired, polarized lenses to reduce glare from both the sun and the salesperson should you try to punt on polarized lenses in favor of less polarized costs. 

As for cost,  I've learned,  you can probably score yourself a decent though perhaps not wholly durable pair of shades for as little as twenty bucks.

I went to a few different stores and tried on many pairs of sunglasses before finding a pair that did not make me look either like the Mysterious Dr. X,  a refugee from a 1953 showing of House of Wax in 3-D starring Vincent Price, or someone so nerdy even I wouldn't hang with him. 

I delicately took the chosen pair off the rack, implanted them above the bridge of my nose, and made them mine.  There they are below, dramatically depicted in a manner which is frankly quite a bit more dramatic than as depicted when seen actually riding above my nose.   

As for cost, I spent a bit more than $20.  I decided it was important, at least for me,  to opt for both durability and the dual form of glare reduction.

And now I wear my sunglasses everywhere I go where even the slightest scintilla of sunlight short of the inner chamber of a cyclotron is present.  I may never be the kind of person who sees the world rose-colored, but I'm getting used to seeing it in sort of a lazy hazy gray. 

And I'm glad I'm now the kind of person to wear sunglasses.

They cover over half of my  face, including the half with the sunken eyes which I have always had and which as I get older increasingly look like they were formed by an aggressive drunk maliciously grinding two shot glasses into my occipital orbs. 

That leaves visible only one half of a face that is at best 25 years past its last most recently viable Cuteness Date.

Now that's what I call serious eyeball protection! 

Yours and mine.  

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Lookin' Good In These Shades!
Eat your heart out, folks ...