Labor Day, and another summer passed into history. To some that means back to school although, barbarically and, I'm sure, unconstitutionally many if not most schools start before Labor Day, apparently without protest. To others, it's time to take the boats out of the water, to close up camps, to go for one last swim or picnic. Still others--and you know who you are--lament the fact that, following sartorial etiquette, they must put away the white belts, white shoes, and probably the whale pants until Memorial Day. That may be the best feature of the holiday, come to think of it.
For me, though, this time of year means my days of walking barefoot are numbered, and I am saddened by that. As Job said, "Naked-footed I came from my mother's womb, and naked-footed I will depart." I may be paraphrasing slightly there, but you get the gist. Being in the condition of barefootedness is natural; being shod is not. Yes, I know, in certain latitudes that's easier to follow than in others, but still: why aren't we all naked-footed as much as possible? I would submit that wriggling bare toes in the sand or in the grass is both soul-freeing and soul-soothing, and that we could substitute soul's homonym and understand the benefits more directly.
Which is why I think it a shame that bare feet are banned in so many places. When I'm at Chautauqua, amid all of the white-belt-and-shoe crowd, I go barefoot everywhere I can: the library, the cafes, the bookstore, throughout the grounds. Basically, everywhere but the Amphitheater, which seems weird to me. It's just a roofed shed, and so basically outdoors, and yet bare feet are prohibited there. And, in truth, near the end of my stay this year I went into the bookstore to buy The Times, and a very officious woman came up to me and told me, in no uncertain terms, that the Chautauqua Bookstore simply couldn't abide bare feet sullying their hallowed floors (again, perhaps a slight paraphrase); I replied that I'd be glad to comply, but they really should have a sign on the door informing prospective patrons that they would not be welcome sans les chaussures, (to make this seem like a learned and thus worthwhile piece).
And yet frequently, as I wandered the grounds, I'd pass people--wearing shoes, of course--who would smile fondly at me and say "Isn't that just the Chautauqua way," or "It's great to see someone barefoot here." I'd just shake my head, bemused. "C'mon along," I'd think, or maybe even say. But it was clear that they wanted a surrogate, someone to be bohemian for them so they could feel that they belonged to a boho community but could still keep their standing in the straight world. So, gang, what say: join me this weekend--and as long as the weather allows--in being rebellious, iconoclastic, barefoot. Your feet'll thank you.
"Barefoot," "feet" and "foot" songs this week, then, among them
Barefoot Days Jackie Leven
Barefoot On The Beach Michael Franks
Barefoot-Dirt Road Mose Allison
Barefootin' Robert Parker
Take A Load Off Your Feet The Beach Boys
Feet Fall On The Road Bruce Cockburn
God Shuffled His Feet Crash Test Dummies
Fall At Your Feet Crowded House
Falling At Your Feet Daniel Lanois
Bad Feet Geoff Muldaur
Two Little Feet Greg Brown
Your Feet's Too Big Hank Jones, Ray Brown
As Soon As I Get On My Feet Jesse Winchester
Even His Feet Look Sad Leo Kottke
Back On My Feet Paul McCartney
Back On My Feet Again Randy Newman
Knocks Me Off My Feet Stevie Wonder
Barefootin' Johnny Winter
Foot Of Pride Dylan
No Footprints Bruce Cockburn
Foot Pattin' Coleman Hawkins
Stink Foot Frank Zappa
Blues For Big Foot Gene Harris
Get On The Good Foot James Brown
Footstompin' Music Grand Funk Railroad
Footloose Kenny Loggins
Footprints Squeeze
Tenderfootin' The Waterboys
All this on Tuesday, noon till two on WOOL FM, 91.5, and wool.fm. See you then. Oh yeah--thanks to Sam R. for suggesting this topic.
The crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe.
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Totally Into This Mystic
Sir George Ivan Morrison--perhaps better known to you as "Van"--turns 70 tomorrow, and by damn I'm going to acknowledge that and celebrate it. I've been a Van Fan since "Brown-Eyed Girl," in 1967, a song I'd be happy never to hear again.
The great Irish tenor John McCormack was once asked what was needed to become a great singer. "The 'yaargh,'" he replied. That is, the ability to convey thoughts and emotions in a way which moves an audience emotionally. It's imagination, passion, intelligence, integrity mixed with a little madness. Van Morrison could sing the phone book and make it interesting and moving. Of course no one under the age of 30 has any idea what a phone book is, but still.
I could say much more about Van's artistry and my fandom, about the fact that he has a well-deserved reputation at one of music's most curmudgeonly curmudgeons, and the fact that he's written more than 350 songs, but I frankly just don't feel like it. What I've decided to do this week is to play the title song from each of his 34 studio albums, an undertaking that will put my show nearer to 4 hours than 2. I was surprised that there were only 2 albums that didn't have a title track or at least the title in a line from the song; in those cases I chose something representative of the album and title, I thought. Here's the exhaustive track listing, in chronological order:
T.B. Sheets
Astral Weeks
Moondance
Street Choir
Tupelo Honey
Saint Dominic's Preview
Hard Nose The Highway
You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push The River
You Gotta Make It Through The World
Wavelength
And The Healing Has Begun
Summertime In England
Beautiful Vision
Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart 1
A Sense Of Wonder
In The Garden
Queen Of The Slipstream
Irish Heartbeat
Avalon Of The Heart
Enlightenment
Hymns To The Silence
Too Long In Exile
Days Like This
How Long Has This Been Going On?
Tell Me Something
The Healing Game
Philosophers Stone
Back On Top
Down The Road
What's Wrong With This Picture?
Magic Time
Pay The Devil
Keep It Simple
Born To Sing
See you Tuesday from noon til whenever on WOOL FM, 91.5, or wool.fm.
The great Irish tenor John McCormack was once asked what was needed to become a great singer. "The 'yaargh,'" he replied. That is, the ability to convey thoughts and emotions in a way which moves an audience emotionally. It's imagination, passion, intelligence, integrity mixed with a little madness. Van Morrison could sing the phone book and make it interesting and moving. Of course no one under the age of 30 has any idea what a phone book is, but still.
I could say much more about Van's artistry and my fandom, about the fact that he has a well-deserved reputation at one of music's most curmudgeonly curmudgeons, and the fact that he's written more than 350 songs, but I frankly just don't feel like it. What I've decided to do this week is to play the title song from each of his 34 studio albums, an undertaking that will put my show nearer to 4 hours than 2. I was surprised that there were only 2 albums that didn't have a title track or at least the title in a line from the song; in those cases I chose something representative of the album and title, I thought. Here's the exhaustive track listing, in chronological order:
T.B. Sheets
Astral Weeks
Moondance
Street Choir
Tupelo Honey
Saint Dominic's Preview
Hard Nose The Highway
You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push The River
You Gotta Make It Through The World
Wavelength
And The Healing Has Begun
Summertime In England
Beautiful Vision
Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart 1
A Sense Of Wonder
In The Garden
Queen Of The Slipstream
Irish Heartbeat
Avalon Of The Heart
Enlightenment
Hymns To The Silence
Too Long In Exile
Days Like This
How Long Has This Been Going On?
Tell Me Something
The Healing Game
Philosophers Stone
Back On Top
Down The Road
What's Wrong With This Picture?
Magic Time
Pay The Devil
Keep It Simple
Born To Sing
See you Tuesday from noon til whenever on WOOL FM, 91.5, or wool.fm.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Time Fades Away
Had an interesting experience yesterday. I was sitting on the bed which belonged to my late mother-in-law, in the room in which she died. All of the photos, paintings, hangings and other works of art collected over a lifetime and carefully hung on her bedroom walls for 30 years had been removed. What lay beneath spoke something to me of the effects of time and light and, yes, chemistry, on human lives and relationships.
Where the various works had hung was revealed the walls' original color, almost azure; the rest of the walls, those portions which had been uncovered all those years, exposed to the passage of time and thus affected by the play of light upon them, were still blue, of course, but a washed-out, faded blue tinged with white, almost, like the horizon on a winter day when snow's on its way. And of course my metaphorical mind leapt into action and started to think about how that so mirrored life and human relations.
The world is changing every moment, even to the very cells that make up our bodies, and yet we usually don't, maybe even can't, notice. Change happens so slowly that it's imperceptible yet undeniable. I look very different from the way I did 20 years ago, and yet the guy I see in the mirror looks just like me. It's only when the veil is lifted, when I see photos of myself from the past that I realize fully the extent of the change time and light and life have wrought upon me.
No one noticed the gradual effect of the change in wall color on Natalee Fogel's bedroom walls, I'm sure, any more than we see day-to-day changes in ourselves or even others around us. But when we see ourselves or others in a different light those effects become impossible to ignore. William Maxwell, the late and noted editor at The New Yorker wrote a novel called Time Will Darken It, in which, really, nothing much happened except the quotidian (love that word, don't get to use it often), mundane events of a daily life. And sometimes time does darken it; I'm sure you've all had the experience of moving a rug or a piece of furniture on a wooden floor and being shocked by how much darker the surrounding, exposed flooring is than that which has been covered. The point is that time and light and events and elements change everything: lives, loves, all experience. Whether for darker or lighter may vary but, of course, the only constant in life is change.
"Fading" or "Faded" songs this week, then, on the radio. Among them:
Daylight Fading Counting Crows
Fading Away James Taylor
Fading Memory Eilen Jewell
Don't Fade Away Dead Can Dance
Don't Fade Away Milla
Don't Fade Away Willie Nelson
Don't Fade On Me Tom Petty
Fade Away Ernest Ranglin
Fade Into Light Boz Scaggs
Fade To Black Dire Straits
Fadeaway The Bodeans
Not Fade Away Rolling Stones
Not Fade Away James Taylor
Book Faded Brown The Band
Faded Ben Harper
Faded Love Delaney & Bonnie
Not Fade Away/Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad Grateful Dead
On Records, The Sound Just Fades Away Greg Brown
Faded From The Winter Iron & Wine
Sweet Dream Fade Laura Nyro
Fade Away Oasis
Fade Away Steve Tibbetts
Fading Love Amos Garrett
Summer Is Fading Jim Capaldi
Tuesday, noon til two on WOOL 91.5 FM, wool.fm on the webs. Hope to see you there.
And remember: rust never sleeps.
Where the various works had hung was revealed the walls' original color, almost azure; the rest of the walls, those portions which had been uncovered all those years, exposed to the passage of time and thus affected by the play of light upon them, were still blue, of course, but a washed-out, faded blue tinged with white, almost, like the horizon on a winter day when snow's on its way. And of course my metaphorical mind leapt into action and started to think about how that so mirrored life and human relations.
The world is changing every moment, even to the very cells that make up our bodies, and yet we usually don't, maybe even can't, notice. Change happens so slowly that it's imperceptible yet undeniable. I look very different from the way I did 20 years ago, and yet the guy I see in the mirror looks just like me. It's only when the veil is lifted, when I see photos of myself from the past that I realize fully the extent of the change time and light and life have wrought upon me.
No one noticed the gradual effect of the change in wall color on Natalee Fogel's bedroom walls, I'm sure, any more than we see day-to-day changes in ourselves or even others around us. But when we see ourselves or others in a different light those effects become impossible to ignore. William Maxwell, the late and noted editor at The New Yorker wrote a novel called Time Will Darken It, in which, really, nothing much happened except the quotidian (love that word, don't get to use it often), mundane events of a daily life. And sometimes time does darken it; I'm sure you've all had the experience of moving a rug or a piece of furniture on a wooden floor and being shocked by how much darker the surrounding, exposed flooring is than that which has been covered. The point is that time and light and events and elements change everything: lives, loves, all experience. Whether for darker or lighter may vary but, of course, the only constant in life is change.
"Fading" or "Faded" songs this week, then, on the radio. Among them:
Daylight Fading Counting Crows
Fading Away James Taylor
Fading Memory Eilen Jewell
Don't Fade Away Dead Can Dance
Don't Fade Away Milla
Don't Fade Away Willie Nelson
Don't Fade On Me Tom Petty
Fade Away Ernest Ranglin
Fade Into Light Boz Scaggs
Fade To Black Dire Straits
Fadeaway The Bodeans
Not Fade Away Rolling Stones
Not Fade Away James Taylor
Book Faded Brown The Band
Faded Ben Harper
Faded Love Delaney & Bonnie
Not Fade Away/Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad Grateful Dead
On Records, The Sound Just Fades Away Greg Brown
Faded From The Winter Iron & Wine
Sweet Dream Fade Laura Nyro
Fade Away Oasis
Fade Away Steve Tibbetts
Fading Love Amos Garrett
Summer Is Fading Jim Capaldi
Tuesday, noon til two on WOOL 91.5 FM, wool.fm on the webs. Hope to see you there.
And remember: rust never sleeps.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
"It's The Donald: Duck!"
Don't you just love Donald Trump right now, or at least what he's doing to the presidential race--or in his case, racist? He's a breath of fresh, petulant adolescent, monumentally egotistic air and hair, don't you think? There's no wetting of index finger to be held up to see where public opinion leads. Nope, since he owns most of the air, he can just take some from his private stash and bloviate at will. Throw some raw meat to the Repugnicant base? Let's call Mexicans rapists, murderers and drug dealers. Stand up for the downtrodden, oppressed white male constituency? Throw some hints and allegations that the reason that Megyn Kelly is being so mean and bitchy toward poor innocent him is because she's on the rag, and we all know how they get then, right, fellas?
I'd call him a buffoon, but that's too charitable, too benign, too clownish; it misses the cynical expediency of his "campaign," which is of course about nothing but Donald Trump (registered trade mark symbol here). Trump clearly ascribes to the "philosophy" attributed to the famed charlatan and self-promoter Phineas T. Barnum, to whom the axiom "There's no such thing as bad publicity" is frequently attributed. Keeping his name, his "brand," is basically the only plank in Trump's platform, a platform, of course, made of 24k gold. Better to call him a self-promoting racist misogynist, I guess, but it's not all that catchy.
On the other hand, if he does stay in the race I'm sure he'll provide us all with more entertaining scenes and opportunities for epithets, all the while dragging the GOP down with him. Sure seems like a win-win to me. In the meantime, some songs that arise from or call to mind The Donald's scintillating public utterances:
The Mexican Connection Billy Joel
Mexican Moon Concrete Blonde
Mexican Home John prine
Colder Than Mexican Snow Dirk Hamilton
Mexican Shuffle Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
Mexican Divorce Ry Cooder
Mexico James taylor
Mexico Cake
Go To Mexico Cassandra Wilson
Going To Mexico Steve Miller Band
Mexico Jefferson Airplane
Mountains Of Mexico Jerry Jeff Walker
Gringo En Mexico Maria Muldaur
Road To Mexico Rory Block
Deportees Arlo Guthrie
Only Women Bleed Alice Cooper
Let It Bleed, Genevieve John Phillips
It's Alright Ma(I'm Only Bleeding) Dylan
Let It Bleed Rolling Stones
Romeo Is Bleeding Tom Waits
Bleed To Love Her Fleetwood Mac
Bleeding Heart Jimi Hendrix
Real Live Bleeding Fingers & Broken Glass Lucinda Williams
The Bleeding Heart Show The New Pornographers
I Bleed Pixies
Bleeders The Wallflowers
Blood In My Eyes Daddy Dylan
I'm Rich Geoff & Maria Muldaur
So get your comb-overs and petulant pouts ready for Tuesday, noon til two, on WOOL FM 91.5 and wool.fm on the webs. And if you don't listen, you're fired!
I'd call him a buffoon, but that's too charitable, too benign, too clownish; it misses the cynical expediency of his "campaign," which is of course about nothing but Donald Trump (registered trade mark symbol here). Trump clearly ascribes to the "philosophy" attributed to the famed charlatan and self-promoter Phineas T. Barnum, to whom the axiom "There's no such thing as bad publicity" is frequently attributed. Keeping his name, his "brand," is basically the only plank in Trump's platform, a platform, of course, made of 24k gold. Better to call him a self-promoting racist misogynist, I guess, but it's not all that catchy.
On the other hand, if he does stay in the race I'm sure he'll provide us all with more entertaining scenes and opportunities for epithets, all the while dragging the GOP down with him. Sure seems like a win-win to me. In the meantime, some songs that arise from or call to mind The Donald's scintillating public utterances:
The Mexican Connection Billy Joel
Mexican Moon Concrete Blonde
Mexican Home John prine
Colder Than Mexican Snow Dirk Hamilton
Mexican Shuffle Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
Mexican Divorce Ry Cooder
Mexico James taylor
Mexico Cake
Go To Mexico Cassandra Wilson
Going To Mexico Steve Miller Band
Mexico Jefferson Airplane
Mountains Of Mexico Jerry Jeff Walker
Gringo En Mexico Maria Muldaur
Road To Mexico Rory Block
Deportees Arlo Guthrie
Only Women Bleed Alice Cooper
Let It Bleed, Genevieve John Phillips
It's Alright Ma(I'm Only Bleeding) Dylan
Let It Bleed Rolling Stones
Romeo Is Bleeding Tom Waits
Bleed To Love Her Fleetwood Mac
Bleeding Heart Jimi Hendrix
Real Live Bleeding Fingers & Broken Glass Lucinda Williams
The Bleeding Heart Show The New Pornographers
I Bleed Pixies
Bleeders The Wallflowers
Blood In My Eyes Daddy Dylan
I'm Rich Geoff & Maria Muldaur
So get your comb-overs and petulant pouts ready for Tuesday, noon til two, on WOOL FM 91.5 and wool.fm on the webs. And if you don't listen, you're fired!
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Hangin' One More Year On The Line
On Wednesday the Earth will complete its 62nd revolution around the sun in my lifetime. While it seems impossible to believe, it doesn't necessarily feel bad, just a little weird. Like most people, I think, I feel a disconnect from how I feel and in my case the fact that my age starts with a "6," and doesn't end there. Eventually, I suppose, it will again, at least mentally.
I was gonna write a long piece about depression, the depression I've been in for years, how to deal with people with depression, how I had the date and method of my suicide worked out, how I then found the absolutely correct blend of meds that saved my life, but it all started to feel like my favorite Gary Larson cartoon "What Dogs Hear:" "Blah blah blah, blah blah blah," repeat ad infinitum and fade. Suffice it to say that I have seen the light through the blackness, that I am once again the person I used to like, and it's a miracle. Let's just listen to some music, then, like this:
Caravan Van Morrison
It's Johnny's Birthday George Harrison
The Happy Birthday Song Andrew Bird
The Birthday Present Loudon Wainwright III
Birthday The Fabs
Birthday Boy Ween
Happy, Happy Birthday Baby The Tune Weavers
Boo Boo's Birthday (Take 11) Thelonius Monk
Sweet And Shiny Eyes Bonnie Raitt
Have A Good Time Paul Simon
Long As I Can See The Light Marc Cohn
Spirit In The Light John Stewart
Shine A Light The Band
What Is The Light? The Flaming Lips
White Light Gene Clark
Different Light Steve Winwood
I Saw The Light Todd Rundgren
Sunlight The Youngbloods
Surrounded By The Light Terry Garthwaite
Arrows Of Light Bruce Cockburn
Light Shine Jesse Colin Young
Gypsy Lights Quicksilver
Heading For Light Traveling Wilburys
I Am The Light Of The World Jorma Kaukonen
The Inner Light The Fabs
Light Michael Nesmith
Light Come Shine John Stewart
The Light That as Lighted The World George Harrison
Shine A Light Rolling Stones
What Light Wilco
So c'mon along and celebrate my birthday a day early and my return to the light years late. Noon til twoish on WOOL FM, 91.5, or streaming around the whole goddam world at wool.fm. See you there.
I was gonna write a long piece about depression, the depression I've been in for years, how to deal with people with depression, how I had the date and method of my suicide worked out, how I then found the absolutely correct blend of meds that saved my life, but it all started to feel like my favorite Gary Larson cartoon "What Dogs Hear:" "Blah blah blah, blah blah blah," repeat ad infinitum and fade. Suffice it to say that I have seen the light through the blackness, that I am once again the person I used to like, and it's a miracle. Let's just listen to some music, then, like this:
Caravan Van Morrison
It's Johnny's Birthday George Harrison
The Happy Birthday Song Andrew Bird
The Birthday Present Loudon Wainwright III
Birthday The Fabs
Birthday Boy Ween
Happy, Happy Birthday Baby The Tune Weavers
Boo Boo's Birthday (Take 11) Thelonius Monk
Sweet And Shiny Eyes Bonnie Raitt
Have A Good Time Paul Simon
Long As I Can See The Light Marc Cohn
Spirit In The Light John Stewart
Shine A Light The Band
What Is The Light? The Flaming Lips
White Light Gene Clark
Different Light Steve Winwood
I Saw The Light Todd Rundgren
Sunlight The Youngbloods
Surrounded By The Light Terry Garthwaite
Arrows Of Light Bruce Cockburn
Light Shine Jesse Colin Young
Gypsy Lights Quicksilver
Heading For Light Traveling Wilburys
I Am The Light Of The World Jorma Kaukonen
The Inner Light The Fabs
Light Michael Nesmith
Light Come Shine John Stewart
The Light That as Lighted The World George Harrison
Shine A Light Rolling Stones
What Light Wilco
So c'mon along and celebrate my birthday a day early and my return to the light years late. Noon til twoish on WOOL FM, 91.5, or streaming around the whole goddam world at wool.fm. See you there.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Bruised Gender: Going Through "The Change" Ain't What It Used To Be
I don't know about you, or at least I'm not willing to divulge how much I know, but when I was a lad, before written language had been invented, when people talked about menopause they euphemized it as "The Change," and yes, you could tell it was s'posed to be Capitalized. "Your mother's going through The Change," they'd tell me in whispers when the hot flashes or shortened temper hit. I didn't have a clue what that meant, but fortunately I was able to find out on the street, whence springs all knowledge and truth.
I opened the paper of record, The New York Times, this morning and was greeted by a photo of Caitlyn nee Bruce in a lacy dress, in profile enough that what stand out most (yes, I did) are a breast and a butt cheek. They're not Kim Kwality or Kwantity, but clearly C/B learned something in all those years as a Kardashian. And granted, the photo was in the "Arts and Leisure" (not sure which of those the pic depicted) section, but still: don't we get enough of this crap from the rest of the media? Does "The Gray Lady" really need to join the cockoffany? Or perhaps She, too, desires "The Change" and wants to become a man--or a Shih Tzu. I'm thinking she'd have to be The Daily News or maybe The Daily Racing Form in order to be macho enough.
So now when we say "The Change" we don't necessarily mean menopause, we may mean "men oh stop; let me be my true self." And, like me, you must have given some thought to the logistics of this Brave New Change; probably, like me, more thought than you want to, which may be "any." But the whole process, as I imagine it, has a certain grisly fascination, particularly the disposal of artifacts. I've also thought of that in terms of breast reduction surgery: What do they do with what's left? I don't know, but here's a proposal:
People of a certain age will remember the movie version of Joseph Heller's wonderful novel Catch-22. In it there's one scene where two nurses, gabbing all the while, attend to a patient wrapped head-to-toe in bandages, only holes for the eyes, and all four limbs in traction. This poor guy has an IV running to his arm, a catheter to another bag hanging on a stand. The IV solution bag is empty, the catheter bag full. You see where this goes, right? Yep: again, without any interruption in their chatter, the nurses swap the bags, pull the curtain to, and continue on to serve the next patient.
Here's what I'm thinkin', then, and I'm sure by now that you can see where this is going, too. Line 'em up side-by-side for the operations, and do a direct exchange, one to the other: out--or off--with the old and in--or on--with the new. The doctors would stand between the two tables and simply pivot, left to right, right to left. Efficiency greatly increased, no muss, no fuss, no waste. If we're trying to cut healthcare costs, here's one small step for a (wo)man, or whichever.
Oh, lighten up. Jonathan Swift once suggested, in apparent seriousness, that the English eat Irish babies. He still wins.
I just hope that Cait is prepared to earn seventy seven cents for every dollar Bruce used to make....
I opened the paper of record, The New York Times, this morning and was greeted by a photo of Caitlyn nee Bruce in a lacy dress, in profile enough that what stand out most (yes, I did) are a breast and a butt cheek. They're not Kim Kwality or Kwantity, but clearly C/B learned something in all those years as a Kardashian. And granted, the photo was in the "Arts and Leisure" (not sure which of those the pic depicted) section, but still: don't we get enough of this crap from the rest of the media? Does "The Gray Lady" really need to join the cockoffany? Or perhaps She, too, desires "The Change" and wants to become a man--or a Shih Tzu. I'm thinking she'd have to be The Daily News or maybe The Daily Racing Form in order to be macho enough.
So now when we say "The Change" we don't necessarily mean menopause, we may mean "men oh stop; let me be my true self." And, like me, you must have given some thought to the logistics of this Brave New Change; probably, like me, more thought than you want to, which may be "any." But the whole process, as I imagine it, has a certain grisly fascination, particularly the disposal of artifacts. I've also thought of that in terms of breast reduction surgery: What do they do with what's left? I don't know, but here's a proposal:
People of a certain age will remember the movie version of Joseph Heller's wonderful novel Catch-22. In it there's one scene where two nurses, gabbing all the while, attend to a patient wrapped head-to-toe in bandages, only holes for the eyes, and all four limbs in traction. This poor guy has an IV running to his arm, a catheter to another bag hanging on a stand. The IV solution bag is empty, the catheter bag full. You see where this goes, right? Yep: again, without any interruption in their chatter, the nurses swap the bags, pull the curtain to, and continue on to serve the next patient.
Here's what I'm thinkin', then, and I'm sure by now that you can see where this is going, too. Line 'em up side-by-side for the operations, and do a direct exchange, one to the other: out--or off--with the old and in--or on--with the new. The doctors would stand between the two tables and simply pivot, left to right, right to left. Efficiency greatly increased, no muss, no fuss, no waste. If we're trying to cut healthcare costs, here's one small step for a (wo)man, or whichever.
Oh, lighten up. Jonathan Swift once suggested, in apparent seriousness, that the English eat Irish babies. He still wins.
I just hope that Cait is prepared to earn seventy seven cents for every dollar Bruce used to make....
Friday, July 24, 2015
Livin' in the "U's" and "A's" (Apologies To Steve Miller)
Greetings, again, from Chautauqua Institution, USA, (mostly) Liberal Gated Community, you oxymoron fans. Chautauqua is located, for you GPS users, at the corner of Indolence and Lassitude, just off Languor Squared, across from Torpor Aerie, where live the sleepy hedges trimmed to the shapes of eagles' nests.
Life is slow here, but maybe not quite slow enough for me to stay out of trouble. Lemme tell you about it, but first some background. Sometime during the aughts, during the rain (not a misprint) of GWB as "president," the Smothers Brothers appeared here, with their wit and political satire intact. At some point Tommy was riffing on Republican'ts and received a smattering of boos. He stopped and said, with some surprise, "Are there some Republicans here tonight?" This time, a smattering of applause, to which he replied "Don't you read the papers?"
When we pulled into our rental on Saturday, one of the first things I noticed was what was obviously a Republican't flag hanging from the porch of the house next door. You know, the classic elephant symbol in red, white and blue. Never saw one, hope to never see another, 'though I expect they'll be a thing. I mean, even if just the Republican't presidential candidates displayed them they'd darken the skies like passenger pigeons used to. Be nice if they, too, became extinct.
Aaanyway, Saturday evening I was listening to music on the porch at a not excessive level when the owner of the flag set out to walk his dog, a yappy little terrier of some sort. He stopped to tell me that what I was doing was not in the Chautauqua spirit, that folks here like it quiet and go to sleep early. I guess so: it was about 8:30. At 62 I'm still getting yelled at for playing my music too loud: "Aw, jeez, c'mon Dad, pleeease?"
As I said, the guy's dog is a yapper. Yesterday she started at about 7:15, as I was lying in bed attempting to read. And the thing is, Mr. Law and Order is an old softy when it comes to his precious: no one attempts to shush it until it goes on for 10 mins. or so. And this behavior went on at intervals throughout the day. So in the evening, as the superhero duo Yapper and Enabler returned from their evening constitutional, or at least the part that elite activist judges haven't overthrown yet, as I was again sitting on the porch listening to music, I stopped him and said "You didn't have any qualms about complaining about my music the other night. I've been coming here for 16 years, and have walked all around the campus this week, and the only dog I've heard barking is yours." His reply as he began to drag the dog toward his house--and I'm not making this up--was "Okay, fine then, I'll just kill her." Perfectly reasonable adult exchange of ideas, eh? For Fox Noise, anyway.
Every once in a while the right rejoinder comes at the right time, not hours later when you're lying in bed. So just before he slammed through the door I said "No, I see that you're a Rebublican: just build a fence around the country and keep her out." It'll be interesting to see what today brings....
Enjoy my vacation, everyone.
Life is slow here, but maybe not quite slow enough for me to stay out of trouble. Lemme tell you about it, but first some background. Sometime during the aughts, during the rain (not a misprint) of GWB as "president," the Smothers Brothers appeared here, with their wit and political satire intact. At some point Tommy was riffing on Republican'ts and received a smattering of boos. He stopped and said, with some surprise, "Are there some Republicans here tonight?" This time, a smattering of applause, to which he replied "Don't you read the papers?"
When we pulled into our rental on Saturday, one of the first things I noticed was what was obviously a Republican't flag hanging from the porch of the house next door. You know, the classic elephant symbol in red, white and blue. Never saw one, hope to never see another, 'though I expect they'll be a thing. I mean, even if just the Republican't presidential candidates displayed them they'd darken the skies like passenger pigeons used to. Be nice if they, too, became extinct.
Aaanyway, Saturday evening I was listening to music on the porch at a not excessive level when the owner of the flag set out to walk his dog, a yappy little terrier of some sort. He stopped to tell me that what I was doing was not in the Chautauqua spirit, that folks here like it quiet and go to sleep early. I guess so: it was about 8:30. At 62 I'm still getting yelled at for playing my music too loud: "Aw, jeez, c'mon Dad, pleeease?"
As I said, the guy's dog is a yapper. Yesterday she started at about 7:15, as I was lying in bed attempting to read. And the thing is, Mr. Law and Order is an old softy when it comes to his precious: no one attempts to shush it until it goes on for 10 mins. or so. And this behavior went on at intervals throughout the day. So in the evening, as the superhero duo Yapper and Enabler returned from their evening constitutional, or at least the part that elite activist judges haven't overthrown yet, as I was again sitting on the porch listening to music, I stopped him and said "You didn't have any qualms about complaining about my music the other night. I've been coming here for 16 years, and have walked all around the campus this week, and the only dog I've heard barking is yours." His reply as he began to drag the dog toward his house--and I'm not making this up--was "Okay, fine then, I'll just kill her." Perfectly reasonable adult exchange of ideas, eh? For Fox Noise, anyway.
Every once in a while the right rejoinder comes at the right time, not hours later when you're lying in bed. So just before he slammed through the door I said "No, I see that you're a Rebublican: just build a fence around the country and keep her out." It'll be interesting to see what today brings....
Enjoy my vacation, everyone.
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