Christmas Carol big as a barrel, Sandy Claws- a mean fat lobster to make you pause and Rudolph the Red Nose Skunk, always drunk. Some Christmas symbols from an alternate universe.
The biggest birthday party on the planet is upon us from the Prince of Peace in a time of war. The contrasts and contradictions of Christmas are many. When you’re a child, ‘tis the most exciting time of the year with the twin titans- the baby Jesus and Santa Clause- ruling and pulling from opposite sides of the same coin.
There’s the sacred church service and religious celebrations when you’re supposed to sit silently and respectfully in reverence. Then there’s Santa Claus coming down your chimney with your North Pole presents. You’re so excited you can’t sleep and have been bouncing off the walls for weeks.
There’s the star of Bethlehem blazing the way to the manger and the TV weathermen tracking Santa’s sleigh on radar to right under your Christmas tree. There are the three gifts of the Wise Men and the millions of gifts of the Wal-Marts. There’s the Savior of Christianity and the savior of capitalism, where a good or bad Christmas selling season can make or break a corporation.
Without Christmas there would be no Christianity and without Christmas there would be no capitalism, as we know it, for big sales at the end of the year to make the profits. Without it, the stores would have to up the ante on Valentine’s Day and try to make it the biggest buying holiday.
Christmas is the season of love and family, but it’s also the season when the loss of loved ones can make it the worst time of the year for some. We tend to mark our lives in Christmases for better or worse.
Christmas magnifies and wraps our souls in wonderful warmth on a cold December day with family, friends and food. Or it can cast long shadows from the past and dim the light with our losses from divorce, divisions, distance or death.
Christmas is a return to home and family that you may not have seen since the last Christmas reunion. Like a magnet, it pulls the filings of a family together to its center and makes it whole again, if only briefly and brightly.
Christmas can be a time of joy and love or a trial of controlling and cruelty. Families are complex entities with an illogic, all their own, for spreading the most love or the most pain possible, sometimes at the same time.
Christmas gives renewed meaning to passive/aggressive, healing and humiliation, hugging and hatred. It’s the hot red shoe in a black and white world. It’s the pepperoni on the plain pizza. It’s the twinkling stars at night and the burnt out bulbs on the Christmas tree lights.
You start getting ready for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving, but somehow you are never really ready by December 25th. There is still so much to do that you can never do. There are cookies and Wookies, Star Wars’ toys and a joyful noise, hams and yams, fruit pies and bad ties, colorful lights and family fights, phone calls to make and biscuits to bake.
Christmas is a time to try to forget old slights and to remember all the soldiers fighting overseas whose main fear, after being wounded, maimed or killed, is to be forgotten in the crush and rush of Christmas, when they should be home for the holidays.
Then it’s all over for another year and you sit there staring at a frigid January with the credit card bill blues. But until then, Merry Christmas to each and everyone from us to you.
Sunday, December 13
Thursday, November 19
TEAMBUILDING TRAINING AND FUNERALS
We were in a traffic jam. You know the kind where, when it ends, there was no real reason why it should have been. There was no construction, cops or a wreck to tie us up. To destructively pass the time, we complained about the boss and the petty pointless bickering at work as we slowly drove to our teambuilding training.
Teambuilding is a way of overcoming the hostility between co-workers by building a winning team with balls, Styrofoam cups and games. At least, that’s the way it was taught.
The first game was to throw a ball all over the room to people, who then had to stand and say what they hoped to get out of the training. When my good buddy Lance tossed me the ball I baldly declared “The heck with team building, I want more hair!”
Next we were given a Styrofoam cup to invent different things to do with it. I thought of using it for drug tests or, after biting the bottom off, it would make an excellent mini megaphone. But by my turn these two were taken, so I had to feebly come up with a Styrofoam cup eating contest.
We were told that Douglas McGregor in 1960 first devised a teambuilding concept and presented it to General Motors, who turned it down. He then went to Japan where it was accepted and changed their bust economy to boom. So that today Ford and GM are facing bankruptcy, while Americans are buying new Toyotas.
The big American teambuilding success story presented was the Harley Davidson motorcycle company. Harleys initially were known for breaking down often, so their uneasy riders carried wrenches to fix them. In fact, the Harley wave to fellow riders was elbow bent with hand up high, like they were holding a wrench.
Harley’s new owners took a teambuilding approach. When a problem popped up on the assembly line, they shut it down to solve it in brain storming sessions, so they weren’t all revved up with no place to go. This was unheard of at the time, because traditionally an assembly line was never shut down arbitrarily in America. But the quality went up and the wrenches went away.
Finally, we had to tell an inspiring story about some team we’d been on once. I talked about the Sneaker Squeakers, our old last place in D league intramural college basketball team.
We couldn’t dribble, shoot or score and only won one game by forfeit. In fact, one teammate’s sole goal was to foul out, but he couldn’t keep up and was always in the wrong court where the ball wasn’t. But we were so bad and funny that eventually we gained a following, which included girls. So we considered our team a success with the qualities of incompetence and fun.
The day after the training I took the morning off at work to go to Harry’s funeral, my best friend’s father. When I saw Harry lying there in his bright red plaid shirt looking like a large wax dummy I started to sob like some brokenhearted cheerleader. Everyone turned to look at me, since I was the only one crying. I’m a wreck at funerals.
The presiding preacher pumped the family for stories about Harry to tell, as he hadn’t known him. Then he gave a sermon about how if you go to church you’d go to heaven. I never knew of Harry going to church, but the minister assured us he was in a better place. Harry was a WWII vet and got a 21 gun salute send off, then disappeared from the face of the earth forever.
A funeral is the pause that depresses and makes puny are weekly worries. As we rush to our own funerals some day, the years fly by and the days blur like eye drops. I returned to work where a wrong look or word could create life long enemies, where hissy fits exploded like sneezes in the cold and flu season and where scheme building flourished. Back to the battlefield- INCOMING!
Rest in peace. See ya later, Harry.
Teambuilding is a way of overcoming the hostility between co-workers by building a winning team with balls, Styrofoam cups and games. At least, that’s the way it was taught.
The first game was to throw a ball all over the room to people, who then had to stand and say what they hoped to get out of the training. When my good buddy Lance tossed me the ball I baldly declared “The heck with team building, I want more hair!”
Next we were given a Styrofoam cup to invent different things to do with it. I thought of using it for drug tests or, after biting the bottom off, it would make an excellent mini megaphone. But by my turn these two were taken, so I had to feebly come up with a Styrofoam cup eating contest.
We were told that Douglas McGregor in 1960 first devised a teambuilding concept and presented it to General Motors, who turned it down. He then went to Japan where it was accepted and changed their bust economy to boom. So that today Ford and GM are facing bankruptcy, while Americans are buying new Toyotas.
The big American teambuilding success story presented was the Harley Davidson motorcycle company. Harleys initially were known for breaking down often, so their uneasy riders carried wrenches to fix them. In fact, the Harley wave to fellow riders was elbow bent with hand up high, like they were holding a wrench.
Harley’s new owners took a teambuilding approach. When a problem popped up on the assembly line, they shut it down to solve it in brain storming sessions, so they weren’t all revved up with no place to go. This was unheard of at the time, because traditionally an assembly line was never shut down arbitrarily in America. But the quality went up and the wrenches went away.
Finally, we had to tell an inspiring story about some team we’d been on once. I talked about the Sneaker Squeakers, our old last place in D league intramural college basketball team.
We couldn’t dribble, shoot or score and only won one game by forfeit. In fact, one teammate’s sole goal was to foul out, but he couldn’t keep up and was always in the wrong court where the ball wasn’t. But we were so bad and funny that eventually we gained a following, which included girls. So we considered our team a success with the qualities of incompetence and fun.
The day after the training I took the morning off at work to go to Harry’s funeral, my best friend’s father. When I saw Harry lying there in his bright red plaid shirt looking like a large wax dummy I started to sob like some brokenhearted cheerleader. Everyone turned to look at me, since I was the only one crying. I’m a wreck at funerals.
The presiding preacher pumped the family for stories about Harry to tell, as he hadn’t known him. Then he gave a sermon about how if you go to church you’d go to heaven. I never knew of Harry going to church, but the minister assured us he was in a better place. Harry was a WWII vet and got a 21 gun salute send off, then disappeared from the face of the earth forever.
A funeral is the pause that depresses and makes puny are weekly worries. As we rush to our own funerals some day, the years fly by and the days blur like eye drops. I returned to work where a wrong look or word could create life long enemies, where hissy fits exploded like sneezes in the cold and flu season and where scheme building flourished. Back to the battlefield- INCOMING!
Rest in peace. See ya later, Harry.
Sunday, October 18
CHESS MONSTER TAUNTS
CHESS MONSTER AT UNION SQUARE PARK, MANHATTAN- MOVIE “THE PASSER-BYE” TRYING TO GET A TRAUMATISED NEW YORKER TO PLAY CHESS WITH ME, THE HOMELESS GUY, WITH TAUNTS SUCH AS….
This is like fuckin’ a frigid women. I’m making all the moves here, Boris Spassky!
Hey Bobby Fisher, pigeons are gonna start sittin’ and shittin’ on your head, if you don’t start movin’ soon.
I’m going to hell eventually. Don’t make me late.
I’ve got garbage cans to go thru before I sleep. I’m fighting rats for my meals and the dinner rush is coming up.
I’d like to play a game of chess before global warming makes us all extinct.
Somebody set this guy on fire to make him move.
This is like a whole month in Bangkok, Bobby Fisher. We’re here to play chess, not make hemorrhoids!
Pretend this board’s a naked blond and make a move, Boris Spassky.
Hey, they’re bombing the Bowery; make a move before they start strafing Union Square.
My mother moved more at her funeral, than this guy. AND I had more fun.
I’m here to play chess, not think deep thoughts about stem cell research.
Hey, any signs of life over there, or are the brain waves flat lining.
This game of chess is like trying to find life on Mars, one water molecule at a time.
Hey Duffy Square, I got tickets to Mama Mia next decade, I don’t wanna be late.
Hey, I ain’t got all day, Bobby Fisher. I’m gotta panhandle the theater crowd.
Hey Ted Bundy, you’re killin’ me here. Pretend I’m a cute coed and make a move already.
Hey Betty Davis eyes, look at me! It’s your move, moron.
Boris Spassky, it’s your move.
Hey Bobby fuckin’ Fisher, it’s your move.
Hey Day of the Living Dead, it’s your move, motherfucker.
Grand Chess Master Flash, bust a move already.
This is like fuckin’ a frigid women. I’m making all the moves here, Boris Spassky!
Hey Bobby Fisher, pigeons are gonna start sittin’ and shittin’ on your head, if you don’t start movin’ soon.
I’m going to hell eventually. Don’t make me late.
I’ve got garbage cans to go thru before I sleep. I’m fighting rats for my meals and the dinner rush is coming up.
I’d like to play a game of chess before global warming makes us all extinct.
Somebody set this guy on fire to make him move.
This is like a whole month in Bangkok, Bobby Fisher. We’re here to play chess, not make hemorrhoids!
Pretend this board’s a naked blond and make a move, Boris Spassky.
Hey, they’re bombing the Bowery; make a move before they start strafing Union Square.
My mother moved more at her funeral, than this guy. AND I had more fun.
I’m here to play chess, not think deep thoughts about stem cell research.
Hey, any signs of life over there, or are the brain waves flat lining.
This game of chess is like trying to find life on Mars, one water molecule at a time.
Hey Duffy Square, I got tickets to Mama Mia next decade, I don’t wanna be late.
Hey, I ain’t got all day, Bobby Fisher. I’m gotta panhandle the theater crowd.
Hey Ted Bundy, you’re killin’ me here. Pretend I’m a cute coed and make a move already.
Hey Betty Davis eyes, look at me! It’s your move, moron.
Boris Spassky, it’s your move.
Hey Bobby fuckin’ Fisher, it’s your move.
Hey Day of the Living Dead, it’s your move, motherfucker.
Grand Chess Master Flash, bust a move already.
Friday, September 25
THE FIRST REALITY TV COMMERCIAL
(sfx: Some kind of jingle)
ANNCR: Since reality TV shows continue to be popular and may become even more so. Here is the inevitable first reality TV commercial.
THE VOICE: Thank you for calling Verizon. Are you calling about phone number 717-242-9954?
ROD: Yes.
THE VOICE: I did not understand. Are you calling about 717-242-9954?
ROD: Yes I am, doll face.
THE VOICE: 718-954-7694?
ROD: (Sternly) No, 717-242-9954.
THE VOICE: 749-345-9876?
ROD: (Getting angry) No, you got it right before.
THE VOICE: 444-444-4444?
ROD: (Exasperated) No, not all fours. You got it right the last time.
THE VOICE: 999-999-9999?
ROD: (Yelling) No, 717-242-9954. 717-242-9954.
THE VOICE: 717-242-9954?
ROD: (Relieved) Yes, sweet Jesus! Yes.
THE VOICE: OK, to get you to the right place, please indicate. Are you calling about billing and payments, tech support, adding new products or other?
ROD: Tech support.
THE VOICE: Billing and payment?
ROD: What? No, tech support.
THE VOICE: Adding new products?
ROD: (Yelling now) Tech support!! Tech support!!
THE VOICE: Jock support?
ROD: Wha? Are you kidding me?
THE VOICE: I don’t understand the question.
ROD: (Screaming) TECH SUPPORT!! TECH SUPPORT!
THE VOICE: You don’t have to shout, sir.
ROD: But I did have to. (Taken aback) Say, are you a real person?
THE VOICE: OK, tech support. Do you need help with DSL, telephone service or neither?
ROD: DSL
THE VOICE: Come again.
ROD: DSL
THE VOICE: Telephone service?
ROD: (Shouting again) DSL. DSL!
THE VOICE: Go to hell?
ROD: What did you say, you…..
THE VOICE: You want connected to telephone service.
ROD: (Yelling ) NO, NO NO!! I want to talk to a real person. Customer service! Customer service!
THE VOICE: I’m connecting you to telephone service.
ROD: (Out of control) CUSTOMER SERVICE! CUSTOMER SERVICE! CUSTOMER SERVICE!
THE VOICE: If this is not right, please press 5 to return to the main menu.
ROD: (Totally out of control now screaming) It’s not right! It hasn’t been right since I made the damn call. You ass wipe stains on civilization! You rectum robots! You dickless sons of whores! You sodomite salad shooters !
ANNCR: Spend the day getting to know us better. We’re here to help you with all your communication needs, both mass communications and personal. Put Verizon on your horizon.
ROD: (Still screaming) You goat ball lickers! You turd farmers! YOU PUSSY FARTING BASTARDS!!
ANNCR: Since reality TV shows continue to be popular and may become even more so. Here is the inevitable first reality TV commercial.
THE VOICE: Thank you for calling Verizon. Are you calling about phone number 717-242-9954?
ROD: Yes.
THE VOICE: I did not understand. Are you calling about 717-242-9954?
ROD: Yes I am, doll face.
THE VOICE: 718-954-7694?
ROD: (Sternly) No, 717-242-9954.
THE VOICE: 749-345-9876?
ROD: (Getting angry) No, you got it right before.
THE VOICE: 444-444-4444?
ROD: (Exasperated) No, not all fours. You got it right the last time.
THE VOICE: 999-999-9999?
ROD: (Yelling) No, 717-242-9954. 717-242-9954.
THE VOICE: 717-242-9954?
ROD: (Relieved) Yes, sweet Jesus! Yes.
THE VOICE: OK, to get you to the right place, please indicate. Are you calling about billing and payments, tech support, adding new products or other?
ROD: Tech support.
THE VOICE: Billing and payment?
ROD: What? No, tech support.
THE VOICE: Adding new products?
ROD: (Yelling now) Tech support!! Tech support!!
THE VOICE: Jock support?
ROD: Wha? Are you kidding me?
THE VOICE: I don’t understand the question.
ROD: (Screaming) TECH SUPPORT!! TECH SUPPORT!
THE VOICE: You don’t have to shout, sir.
ROD: But I did have to. (Taken aback) Say, are you a real person?
THE VOICE: OK, tech support. Do you need help with DSL, telephone service or neither?
ROD: DSL
THE VOICE: Come again.
ROD: DSL
THE VOICE: Telephone service?
ROD: (Shouting again) DSL. DSL!
THE VOICE: Go to hell?
ROD: What did you say, you…..
THE VOICE: You want connected to telephone service.
ROD: (Yelling ) NO, NO NO!! I want to talk to a real person. Customer service! Customer service!
THE VOICE: I’m connecting you to telephone service.
ROD: (Out of control) CUSTOMER SERVICE! CUSTOMER SERVICE! CUSTOMER SERVICE!
THE VOICE: If this is not right, please press 5 to return to the main menu.
ROD: (Totally out of control now screaming) It’s not right! It hasn’t been right since I made the damn call. You ass wipe stains on civilization! You rectum robots! You dickless sons of whores! You sodomite salad shooters !
ANNCR: Spend the day getting to know us better. We’re here to help you with all your communication needs, both mass communications and personal. Put Verizon on your horizon.
ROD: (Still screaming) You goat ball lickers! You turd farmers! YOU PUSSY FARTING BASTARDS!!
ADULT- PENN STATE STAND UP
How the fuck are you, tweets? My bad. Word. Word up. Word down. Fellow I Pod people. You Tube… socks. WE ARE PENN STATE! WE AIN’T FUCKIN’ PENN STATE!! Cool man. That’s all the kid speak I know to ingratiate myself, a senior citizen, with you drunken college kids out there.
As you can tell, I’m a senior citizen. Or a seasoned citizen as some say. Personally, I like to be seasoned in a Vodka sauce so all I have to do is lick myself to get drunk.
I’m so old I had to carbon date a girl down by the river, cause she was the only carbon based life form I could find. On our dates we used to go a dinosaur graveyard to watch oil being born.
I can remember when the only mass media around was roadside billboards with warnings like “Watch out for the pterodactyls. They’re feeding today.”
I’m so old that Dick Clark was only middle age when I was a baby.
Medicare Rocks, Mother Fuckers!
I just saw a movie called MIRRORS staring Keifer Sutherland where mirrors were evil and the victims’ reflections killed them. I guess the new trend in horror movies is making benign every day objects EVIL.
I can see a movie called SALT SHAKER where a salt shaker, from the depths of hell, raises its victim’s blood pressure so high, it blows off their head in a blast of blood.
Or BUNNY SLIPPERS where the victim can run but can’t hide in his satanic bunny slippers that encircles his ankles and cuts off his feet. Then he bleeds to death while being thrown off a cliff by Mopsey and Flopsey.
Finally, there’s the ultimate horror flick called SPONGE, where a common household sponge attacks faces and after a series of gasping gurgling sounds suffocates its coed victims, who are exfoliating in the shower.
You know I was just wondering...
Today my wife deleted me as a friend from her Facebook page because I’m too grumpy. Does it make you a bad person, when even your wife doesn’t want you for a friend?
When you buy something that’s guaranteed to pay for itself, then why do YOU have to pay for it?
The media is always talking about senseless murders. Well, what in hell is a sensible murder? Oh pardon me sir, I’m so sorry sir, but you’re double parked. KER BLAM!
Don’t you hate toilet paper that smells better than you do?
Don’t you hate people who blow their nose in a handkerchief, then look at it? What the hell do they expect to see in there – REESE’S PIECES???
Which way is clockwise on a digital watch?
Does opportunity still knock or does it just leave a message on your voice mail? Or is it a SPAM e-mail from Nigeria?
Is it called a doctor’s practice because the doctor just can’t quite get it right? So the doc has to practice all the time.
Why do they call it a lawyer’s brief when lawyers always take forever to do ANYTHING?
Now here’s a few parting words of wisdom from your grand dad, that’s me. When life gives you lemons, take a step back and a deep breath, then, then …tell everyone to go SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!
Peace out, Holmes.
As you can tell, I’m a senior citizen. Or a seasoned citizen as some say. Personally, I like to be seasoned in a Vodka sauce so all I have to do is lick myself to get drunk.
I’m so old I had to carbon date a girl down by the river, cause she was the only carbon based life form I could find. On our dates we used to go a dinosaur graveyard to watch oil being born.
I can remember when the only mass media around was roadside billboards with warnings like “Watch out for the pterodactyls. They’re feeding today.”
I’m so old that Dick Clark was only middle age when I was a baby.
Medicare Rocks, Mother Fuckers!
I just saw a movie called MIRRORS staring Keifer Sutherland where mirrors were evil and the victims’ reflections killed them. I guess the new trend in horror movies is making benign every day objects EVIL.
I can see a movie called SALT SHAKER where a salt shaker, from the depths of hell, raises its victim’s blood pressure so high, it blows off their head in a blast of blood.
Or BUNNY SLIPPERS where the victim can run but can’t hide in his satanic bunny slippers that encircles his ankles and cuts off his feet. Then he bleeds to death while being thrown off a cliff by Mopsey and Flopsey.
Finally, there’s the ultimate horror flick called SPONGE, where a common household sponge attacks faces and after a series of gasping gurgling sounds suffocates its coed victims, who are exfoliating in the shower.
You know I was just wondering...
Today my wife deleted me as a friend from her Facebook page because I’m too grumpy. Does it make you a bad person, when even your wife doesn’t want you for a friend?
When you buy something that’s guaranteed to pay for itself, then why do YOU have to pay for it?
The media is always talking about senseless murders. Well, what in hell is a sensible murder? Oh pardon me sir, I’m so sorry sir, but you’re double parked. KER BLAM!
Don’t you hate toilet paper that smells better than you do?
Don’t you hate people who blow their nose in a handkerchief, then look at it? What the hell do they expect to see in there – REESE’S PIECES???
Which way is clockwise on a digital watch?
Does opportunity still knock or does it just leave a message on your voice mail? Or is it a SPAM e-mail from Nigeria?
Is it called a doctor’s practice because the doctor just can’t quite get it right? So the doc has to practice all the time.
Why do they call it a lawyer’s brief when lawyers always take forever to do ANYTHING?
Now here’s a few parting words of wisdom from your grand dad, that’s me. When life gives you lemons, take a step back and a deep breath, then, then …tell everyone to go SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!
Peace out, Holmes.
Sunday, August 30
THE FINE ART OF SNUBBING
Some people play the game of life like they'll win in the end, but that's when we all lose...EVERYTHING!
I didn’t realize, until about the third time over several months, that I was being snubbed. I’d shoot my hand up to wave and say “Hi.” and they turned their heads, their noses ascended into the air and quickly walked the other way.
At first, I thought they hadn’t seen me, although I’m pretty big, bald and shiny. At second, I figured they just forgot who I was, although I’ve known them, to see them, for over 20 years. In fact, we used to be neighbors.
Then at third, I finally realized they were snubbing me. Both husband and wife were going out of their way to ignore and brush me off like a spider on their sleeve. Had my deodorant failed…again? Did I have the worst breath of the day…again? I had no idea why.
I hadn’t really spoken to them in years. I didn’t remember anything I had done to make them mad. Although, you never really know what will tick people off to the point of hating you, while you don’t even realize that anything’s wrong.
People can hold grudges in their hearts that turn to sludge and blocks all good feelings about you forever. You can be rattling along thinking you’re entertaining them with some witty anecdote that is actually anathema to their value system, but you’re so full of yourself and so in the moment you miss their antipathy, mistaking it for amused interest.
Hordes of neighbors and acquaintances could be peeved at you and you might never realize it. On your deathbed you could look back and believe you were wealthy with friends, if not money, and be dead wrong. Pardon the pun.
People spend a lot of time worrying about what other people think of them and often never really know. But snubbing is a good clue that someone doesn’t appreciate your face in their space.
However, snubbing takes an incredible amount of time and effort to show so little. It’s actually harder to snub than to just wave and say hello, to someone you hate, and not really mean it.
The snubbing process can begin with a slight, an insult, a slap to one’s ego, imagined or not. It’s either so slight or so deep that it wasn’t acknowledged at the time. It just festers and inflames like an ingrown toenail on your psyche.
It’s something to share with your partner, who can easily fan the flames by saying “I never really liked the guy anyway.” This tag team approach can then develop into a game plan to snub that person the next time you don’t see him. That’ll show him!
This also requires a good memory and enough vacant space in your mind to hold a good long grudge. If you don’t see the snubee for awhile, then suddenly run across his friendly face, your natural inclination is to return his wave and hello.
Once you’re in the snubbing mode, you have to make a strong conscious effort to change your direction away from the person you’re snubbing as he comes straight toward you, with his hand outstretched.
Sometimes you have to pivot 360 degrees, circle and walk backwards to avoid their horrible self. If you’re with your partner you have to alert them to your decision, in that shorthand arched eyebrow look that couples have, and do double time to get into lock step to execute a tandem snub. Snubbing has all the mechanics of a major military maneuver.
After the snubee finally gets the picture, it becomes easier because you’re both avoiding each other, unless the snubee shouts out “Hey, didn’t you see me? What’s wrong? You mad or something?”
` At that point a good snubber will suddenly smile and say “Hey Bub, didn’t see you there. What’s up, big guy?” A lively exchange then takes place, till the next time when you snub him all over again.
I believe that snubbing is actually a good thing because it’s bitter, short and effective. It puts the other person on the defensive, never really knowing why. It’s an excellent psychological mind bomb.
Not enough people snub today. Instead, when they’re ticked off, they lock and load and track you down with the resulting shooting, wounding, killing and the tragic murder/suicide.
Snubbing is a great alternative to getting even that doesn’t require hospitalization or a funeral home. Everybody feels the way God intended after a good snubbing and lives to snub another day.
I didn’t realize, until about the third time over several months, that I was being snubbed. I’d shoot my hand up to wave and say “Hi.” and they turned their heads, their noses ascended into the air and quickly walked the other way.
At first, I thought they hadn’t seen me, although I’m pretty big, bald and shiny. At second, I figured they just forgot who I was, although I’ve known them, to see them, for over 20 years. In fact, we used to be neighbors.
Then at third, I finally realized they were snubbing me. Both husband and wife were going out of their way to ignore and brush me off like a spider on their sleeve. Had my deodorant failed…again? Did I have the worst breath of the day…again? I had no idea why.
I hadn’t really spoken to them in years. I didn’t remember anything I had done to make them mad. Although, you never really know what will tick people off to the point of hating you, while you don’t even realize that anything’s wrong.
People can hold grudges in their hearts that turn to sludge and blocks all good feelings about you forever. You can be rattling along thinking you’re entertaining them with some witty anecdote that is actually anathema to their value system, but you’re so full of yourself and so in the moment you miss their antipathy, mistaking it for amused interest.
Hordes of neighbors and acquaintances could be peeved at you and you might never realize it. On your deathbed you could look back and believe you were wealthy with friends, if not money, and be dead wrong. Pardon the pun.
People spend a lot of time worrying about what other people think of them and often never really know. But snubbing is a good clue that someone doesn’t appreciate your face in their space.
However, snubbing takes an incredible amount of time and effort to show so little. It’s actually harder to snub than to just wave and say hello, to someone you hate, and not really mean it.
The snubbing process can begin with a slight, an insult, a slap to one’s ego, imagined or not. It’s either so slight or so deep that it wasn’t acknowledged at the time. It just festers and inflames like an ingrown toenail on your psyche.
It’s something to share with your partner, who can easily fan the flames by saying “I never really liked the guy anyway.” This tag team approach can then develop into a game plan to snub that person the next time you don’t see him. That’ll show him!
This also requires a good memory and enough vacant space in your mind to hold a good long grudge. If you don’t see the snubee for awhile, then suddenly run across his friendly face, your natural inclination is to return his wave and hello.
Once you’re in the snubbing mode, you have to make a strong conscious effort to change your direction away from the person you’re snubbing as he comes straight toward you, with his hand outstretched.
Sometimes you have to pivot 360 degrees, circle and walk backwards to avoid their horrible self. If you’re with your partner you have to alert them to your decision, in that shorthand arched eyebrow look that couples have, and do double time to get into lock step to execute a tandem snub. Snubbing has all the mechanics of a major military maneuver.
After the snubee finally gets the picture, it becomes easier because you’re both avoiding each other, unless the snubee shouts out “Hey, didn’t you see me? What’s wrong? You mad or something?”
` At that point a good snubber will suddenly smile and say “Hey Bub, didn’t see you there. What’s up, big guy?” A lively exchange then takes place, till the next time when you snub him all over again.
I believe that snubbing is actually a good thing because it’s bitter, short and effective. It puts the other person on the defensive, never really knowing why. It’s an excellent psychological mind bomb.
Not enough people snub today. Instead, when they’re ticked off, they lock and load and track you down with the resulting shooting, wounding, killing and the tragic murder/suicide.
Snubbing is a great alternative to getting even that doesn’t require hospitalization or a funeral home. Everybody feels the way God intended after a good snubbing and lives to snub another day.
Thursday, August 13
THE OLD SWIMMIN' HOLE BLUES MAN
It was a festering flowing backwash of pure pollution with decomposing varmint carcasses, raw bovine waste sewage, bountiful bacteria, dive bombing bugs and a chaser of potential cholera. It was my beloved swimmin’ hole called the downtown Huntingdon pool.
It was downstream from a covey of cows that used the stream that feed into the pool as a portable toilet. Hence, the floating frothy cow pies festively bobbing upon the current.
Hopefully, you didn’t surface from some underwater exploration of the rocky bottom gasping for breath only to get a mouth full of snicker doodle cow dung and urine for your efforts.
This teeming Petri dish was probably why I got such excruciating ear infections almost every summer I swam there as a boy. Ear pain that plunged down to my jawbone pounded and pulverized me into a fetal position at times.
It became so bad that my doctor actually prescribed a bathing cap for me to wear to swim there. This drug store script was for the Ester Williams Hollywood sparkles’ bathing cap so popular then. OK, I just made that part up to make it sound more special.
It was just a plain rubber girl’s swim cap that more than a few kids said made me look like a sissy- and that was my friends. My boyhood masculinity was at a particular low tide during those bathing beauty days as Wilma the wonder girl/boy.
Our Mifflin St. gang lived at the downtown pool in the summers before we had to work for our fathers or get a summer job somewhere. It was about a 20 block walk from my house to the pool. We paraded down the steaming sidewalks daily carrying our trunks wrapped up in our towels and some suntan lotion like a pride of lions hitting the beach.
Once we got to the pool we changed in the locker room and then went to the adjacent snack bar for a coke and their specialty-a frozen candy bar. It was so ice hard that one big bite could knock a front tooth out faster than a right hook from the school bully.
There was a diving board at the dammed up deep end. Four planks of splintering wood held back the rushing water that you had to climb over to get to the concrete platform of the diving board.
One time I got caught in the current of the planks and was in danger of slipping over the small falls to the rocks below. I hung there dangling while the kids, just inches above me, ran, laughed and jumped off the diving board.
Nobody noticed me. I considered shouting for help, but I was too embarrassed. I decided to just let go and either drown or break my body on the rocks and shattered glass underneath me. Drawing attention to my ridiculous predicament was too much for my fragile ego.
Once I was swept over the planks cutting my feet bloody I heard a kid yell out “Look someone just went over the dam. And he’s wearing a girl’s swim cap!”
Invariably, you never do anything really stupid without an audience. But I returned the next day to swim again. After all, it was my old swimmin’ hole.
THE LEGENDARY BLUESMAN PORK CHOP DRIPPIN’S DUNMIRE
By Elwood P. Tiswilly
Pork Chop Drippin’s Dunmire was a blues legend for the ages. He was born April 1, 1912 on the banks of a bend in the Juniata River down stream from McVeytown’s infamous whirlpool watery grave for lost and delirious dolphins.
Pork Chop Drippin’s was the youngest of 16 children and was always the last one to get the drippin’s from the single pork chop served for their annual Christmas dinner. Hence his nickname “Bill”.
Pork Chop walked 10 miles to school to clean the black board erasers for 10 cents a year. He didn’t have no formal education, but he did graduate from the school of hard loxs and bagels taught by his one time Jewish manager Bernie, which inspired him to write his classic blues song “Mazeltov and Chitlins’ Blues”.
Pork Chop’s ten years in prison for stealing a stray cat to pet once brought forth the following prison blues’ standards “Smashed Tators With Water Gravy Lunch Line Blues”, “Watchin’ Your Cell’s Toilet Overflowin’ Blues”, “The Bad Behavior Sitting in Solitary Blues”, “The 20 to Life Suicide Blues”, “My Cellmate’s Stinky Smelly Feet Blues”, and his most popular prison blues song “Jimmy’s Looking Pretty Good Tonight Love Sick Blues”.
Once he served his time, Pork Chop played the bars in and around central Pa. that even a dead drunk Hank Williams wouldn’t stagger into. This was his most fertile period creatively when he composed such classics as “Women-Can’t Live With “Em, But Can’t Marry Your Dog Blues”, “When a Man Loves a Truck Blues”, “Drink, Drunk,. Drunkard Blues”, “The Whole World’s Spinnin’ But Me, ‘Cause I’m Outta Beer Money Blues” and his masterpiece “Livin’ At The Down ‘N Out Inn Blues”. But let’s not forget his follow up tune “Been Down So Long, Hell’s Fire’s Blisterin’ My Face Blues”.
His records are now collector’s items, particularly as dinner plates. He died dead broke and alone at age 45 after he sold his two string fiddle, Mrs. MaGilacuddy, for some free beer nuts. They saw him coming at the U Goin’ Inn?
However, he sired 57 children. His great great granddaughter “Soccer Moms Mabely” has inherited his musical genius. Her first album “The Grass Is Always Greener Next Door, ‘Cause It’s Chemically Treated Blues” has shot up the hot 1000 charts to number 987. The irony drips like August Mississippi delta chain gang sweat in her first single “Our Credit Card Shaped Pool- Try Repossessing That, You Blood Suckers! Blues”.
TURKEY TROT RACES
The Turkey Trot Races to raise money to send chronically fidgety children to Bruno’s Tap Dance Camp in the Bronx will be held July 4th at Rec Park in Lewistown.
An hour after eating several servings of really greasy art festival food the runners will try to line up, if they can wait that long, for the 20 yard dash to the public toilets. The first one to go wins a change of underwear, a tin of Kettle Corn and a six pack of hot Italian sausage sandwiches with peppers and onions.
Dear Common Ground Magazine:
I have some common ground to sell in the Florida Never Glades. Perhaps you could pass this along to your readers. It’s in the Gateway to Gators’ Promised Land. All offers, reasonable and unreasonable, will be accepted. No need to visit the property. All transactions can be completed on c-Bay, the poor man’s e-Bay.
Love, hugs and cashier’s checks,
Rutherford B. A. Shyster
CEO of Swamplands Inc.
Sink Hole, Florida 172
It was downstream from a covey of cows that used the stream that feed into the pool as a portable toilet. Hence, the floating frothy cow pies festively bobbing upon the current.
Hopefully, you didn’t surface from some underwater exploration of the rocky bottom gasping for breath only to get a mouth full of snicker doodle cow dung and urine for your efforts.
This teeming Petri dish was probably why I got such excruciating ear infections almost every summer I swam there as a boy. Ear pain that plunged down to my jawbone pounded and pulverized me into a fetal position at times.
It became so bad that my doctor actually prescribed a bathing cap for me to wear to swim there. This drug store script was for the Ester Williams Hollywood sparkles’ bathing cap so popular then. OK, I just made that part up to make it sound more special.
It was just a plain rubber girl’s swim cap that more than a few kids said made me look like a sissy- and that was my friends. My boyhood masculinity was at a particular low tide during those bathing beauty days as Wilma the wonder girl/boy.
Our Mifflin St. gang lived at the downtown pool in the summers before we had to work for our fathers or get a summer job somewhere. It was about a 20 block walk from my house to the pool. We paraded down the steaming sidewalks daily carrying our trunks wrapped up in our towels and some suntan lotion like a pride of lions hitting the beach.
Once we got to the pool we changed in the locker room and then went to the adjacent snack bar for a coke and their specialty-a frozen candy bar. It was so ice hard that one big bite could knock a front tooth out faster than a right hook from the school bully.
There was a diving board at the dammed up deep end. Four planks of splintering wood held back the rushing water that you had to climb over to get to the concrete platform of the diving board.
One time I got caught in the current of the planks and was in danger of slipping over the small falls to the rocks below. I hung there dangling while the kids, just inches above me, ran, laughed and jumped off the diving board.
Nobody noticed me. I considered shouting for help, but I was too embarrassed. I decided to just let go and either drown or break my body on the rocks and shattered glass underneath me. Drawing attention to my ridiculous predicament was too much for my fragile ego.
Once I was swept over the planks cutting my feet bloody I heard a kid yell out “Look someone just went over the dam. And he’s wearing a girl’s swim cap!”
Invariably, you never do anything really stupid without an audience. But I returned the next day to swim again. After all, it was my old swimmin’ hole.
THE LEGENDARY BLUESMAN PORK CHOP DRIPPIN’S DUNMIRE
By Elwood P. Tiswilly
Pork Chop Drippin’s Dunmire was a blues legend for the ages. He was born April 1, 1912 on the banks of a bend in the Juniata River down stream from McVeytown’s infamous whirlpool watery grave for lost and delirious dolphins.
Pork Chop Drippin’s was the youngest of 16 children and was always the last one to get the drippin’s from the single pork chop served for their annual Christmas dinner. Hence his nickname “Bill”.
Pork Chop walked 10 miles to school to clean the black board erasers for 10 cents a year. He didn’t have no formal education, but he did graduate from the school of hard loxs and bagels taught by his one time Jewish manager Bernie, which inspired him to write his classic blues song “Mazeltov and Chitlins’ Blues”.
Pork Chop’s ten years in prison for stealing a stray cat to pet once brought forth the following prison blues’ standards “Smashed Tators With Water Gravy Lunch Line Blues”, “Watchin’ Your Cell’s Toilet Overflowin’ Blues”, “The Bad Behavior Sitting in Solitary Blues”, “The 20 to Life Suicide Blues”, “My Cellmate’s Stinky Smelly Feet Blues”, and his most popular prison blues song “Jimmy’s Looking Pretty Good Tonight Love Sick Blues”.
Once he served his time, Pork Chop played the bars in and around central Pa. that even a dead drunk Hank Williams wouldn’t stagger into. This was his most fertile period creatively when he composed such classics as “Women-Can’t Live With “Em, But Can’t Marry Your Dog Blues”, “When a Man Loves a Truck Blues”, “Drink, Drunk,. Drunkard Blues”, “The Whole World’s Spinnin’ But Me, ‘Cause I’m Outta Beer Money Blues” and his masterpiece “Livin’ At The Down ‘N Out Inn Blues”. But let’s not forget his follow up tune “Been Down So Long, Hell’s Fire’s Blisterin’ My Face Blues”.
His records are now collector’s items, particularly as dinner plates. He died dead broke and alone at age 45 after he sold his two string fiddle, Mrs. MaGilacuddy, for some free beer nuts. They saw him coming at the U Goin’ Inn?
However, he sired 57 children. His great great granddaughter “Soccer Moms Mabely” has inherited his musical genius. Her first album “The Grass Is Always Greener Next Door, ‘Cause It’s Chemically Treated Blues” has shot up the hot 1000 charts to number 987. The irony drips like August Mississippi delta chain gang sweat in her first single “Our Credit Card Shaped Pool- Try Repossessing That, You Blood Suckers! Blues”.
TURKEY TROT RACES
The Turkey Trot Races to raise money to send chronically fidgety children to Bruno’s Tap Dance Camp in the Bronx will be held July 4th at Rec Park in Lewistown.
An hour after eating several servings of really greasy art festival food the runners will try to line up, if they can wait that long, for the 20 yard dash to the public toilets. The first one to go wins a change of underwear, a tin of Kettle Corn and a six pack of hot Italian sausage sandwiches with peppers and onions.
Dear Common Ground Magazine:
I have some common ground to sell in the Florida Never Glades. Perhaps you could pass this along to your readers. It’s in the Gateway to Gators’ Promised Land. All offers, reasonable and unreasonable, will be accepted. No need to visit the property. All transactions can be completed on c-Bay, the poor man’s e-Bay.
Love, hugs and cashier’s checks,
Rutherford B. A. Shyster
CEO of Swamplands Inc.
Sink Hole, Florida 172
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