Tiny Money Land

QUEER AS TOONS: I was looking for something to talk about today and oh boy, did I find it when a British news site said that Bugs Bunny had been outed by a gay-themed British radio station. I wasn't stunned by the article so much as the appalling lack of detail in the above-linked article, so I tracked the story back to its source.

It's not a poll so much as a tounge-in-cheek top ten list, but it is an interesting conversation starter. For instance, I'm utterly stupefied that Yogi and Boo-Boo made the cut, but confirmed bachelor Snagglepuss isn't on there. Surely he's the Paul Lynde of the classic Hanna-Barbera period. Putting the color scheme aside for a second, Snag didn't have a Cindy Bear to act as his beard, only shacking up with a female lion when economics got the better of him. On top of that, the most recent time I've seen anybody wearing Snag's Bret Maverick-style tie was on Tony Slattery. 'Nuff said.

The fact that Spongebob Sqarepants isn't anywhere near the list is a bit surprising, since he's world-class in a lot of the associated low comedy stereotypes. There definitely is something going on there. Maybe being able to reproduce by budding makes you become a bit camp.

As far as Batman and Robin, there was an article in Paul Krassner's classic counterculture newspaper The Realist, which was anthologized a few years back, using the comic books themselves to prove that Batman and Robin were lovers. Have your librarian track it down, trust me.  

SNOW DAYS REDUX: So the chance of freezing rain or hail that was being called for heading into the weekend turned into hours of snowfall, with a touch of hail as the cherry on top. Roughly five to six inches landed, followed by 18 degree overnight weather. You might not have been able to tell from my pictures, but I live on the lip of where one of the rural parts of the local area begins (the country part of the country, I call it), so while the main roads are probably good, we don't have any of those in my neighborhood. I've seen somebody plow this road exactly twice in my life, which tends to make life very interesting in these conditions.

Right now, the temp is pegged teasingly at 32, and I'm looking at the second day of downtime from work (they're very understanding, but that's probably because they don't remember who I am half the time). I also started teaching myself piano with the unexpected extra time, so life is just getting cornier and cornier. Stay tuned.  

OH BOY: That tiny touch of winter weather that was being called for earlier in the week turned out to be snow, and lots of it. It's not supposed to let up until midnight, and by the end of the day, we're supposed to have five inches, which would probably make it the biggest snowfall we've had in years.

AND YES, I KNOW. We're spoiled weenies down our way. We haven't had twenty below for weeks on end. Two flakes on the ground, and the grocery stores are nothing but empty shelves for weeks. We usually get fair and mild, with stuff like this to break it up every once in awhile; that just how it is. Add to that the short sleeve weather we had yesterday, and you can see how this wasn't the expected end to the weekend. So there.  

GOOD NIGHT, CAPTAIN: Bob Keeshan, network TV's Captain Kangaroo, died Friday at 76. It's raining ping pong balls in Heaven tonight.

(Edit 1/25 @ 1:20pm: One of the reasons that Mark Evanier is on the "trusted others" list is that, as a TV writer (among other things) he comes up with great stories like this one and this other one. Good stuff about the man behind the Captain.)

AND BY THE WAY: I'm reading this story from yesterday morning, about a little stunt Bush pulled in Roswell, NM where he planted himself behind the counter of a local restaurant and ordered some ribs, and when the reporters started peppering him with questions, he challenged them to order something too. This by itself is just standard election year shenanigans, but OH BROTHER, this headline:

BUSH STOPS AT DINER TO BOOST U.S. ECONOMY

Folks, I know a lot of you have been suspecting that something has smelled funny in this country for quite awhile, but when the headlines from the wire services start sounding like the front page of The Onion, it's a sure sign we're utterly, utterly SCREWED.  

SON OF DVD ALERT: I just found some Flintstones DVD news. Should I be scared?

The "original promo spots" are an interesting carrot to dangle in front of us, since I remember Fred and Barney taking a cigarette break one time. I have severe doubts this will be on the DVD set, except possibly as a well-hidden Easter egg. That goes double for the Busch beer promo film. I haven't seen any version of the Flintstones in years, so I might take a pass on this one...for awhile.

OVERTURE...CURTAIN, LIGHTS...: As long as I'm talking about cartoons, I just realized I completely forgot to mention picking up the Looney Tunes Golden Collection right after Christmas, in one of the best-managed post-Christmas rush crowds I've ever seen anywhere (thumbs up to Best Buy...once again, Wal Mart sucks). Lots and lots of great extras, and the long lost segments from the Bugs Bunny Show brought huge chunks of my misspent youth rolling back.

The people who hated this set without hesitation because they didn't topload it with more of the legendary cartoons are out of their minds. Every home should have a copy, even if the singing frog cartoon or "Kill the wabbit" isn't on there. Keep 'em coming, Time-Warner.

FAR TOO MANY CARTOONS IN THIS UPDATE: Oh. My. GOD. It's the motherlode. Of course, now I must have them all. Even Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet The Groovie Ghoulies, which, by most accounts, is an abomination against cartoon nature.  

DVD ALERT: I got hooked on Japanese director Akira Kurosawa through Yojimbo, a gorgeously done action film which inspired the so-called "spaghetti Western" genre, but I kept hearing intriguing things about a film called Ikiru, which finally got it's American DVD release on January 6 (and means "to live", if you were wondering). It's the type of film that makes critics' polls constantly, but not the type that shows up at even the most open-midned Blockbuster, probably because it's a Japanese film without rubber monsters or wide-eyed cartoons with huge guns. That's okay, because if you bite the hook at all, you'll want to own a copy, so you can revisit it without having to hunt it down. It's not a slam-bang "flick" to rush through; at 140 minutes, I don't think taking it in a rush is even possible. Kurosawa takes his time telling his melancholy but ultimately life-affirming story of a terminally ill civil servant and his quest to do one important, lasting thing before he dies.

This is a theme that always resonates with me, especially when it's done with as much care and detail as it is here. I might have a different set of images to carry with me the next time I watch Ikiru, though. Not long after I got through the movie, a woman my mother worked with for years died on the job. They found her in her office fairly soon after she died, and it turned out she had known she had a terminal disease for quite awhile, but never told anybody. The year before, she had treated her entire family to a vacation, and in full hindsight it was obvious she wanted everybody do have one last happy memory of the family together.

When I heard this story, I kept thinking of Mr. Watanabe, the old man fighting the indifference around him and his weakening body to make something good happen in the world, instead of just making pieces of paper move around the office. It was a small thing he wanted to do, but it was something real. The next time I watch the film, I'll probably be thinking of that woman bringing her family together one last time, sharing that week in each other's company while they could.

A little maudlin, I know, but that's what happens at 4 am sometimes...  

I BLAME SLOW NEWS DAYS: Turns out Timothy Dumochel isn't going to sue the cable company after all. He claims he never intended to push a case, he just wanted the cable to go away. Of course, it doesn't have anything to do with all the pointing and laughing. No, sir.

The thing that bugged most of us was that at one point, he said he wanted three computers and a lifetime supply of free Internet service as compensation. As you all must know, it's impossible to become addicted to the Internet. No, sir. Stop laughing.

Anyway, my challenge below still stands. We can top this if we try.  

I BLAME CABLE: Now, y'see, I was going to talk about the jackass who is suing the cable company for "addicting" him, but Something Awful beat me to it (and may I also add that their slogan seems less and less of a joke with every passing year). Of course, they have to be quick on the draw, since they have hundreds and thousands of adoring fans, while I average around 9 hits a day. Some would say that's 8 more than I deserve, and I'd be one of those, but I'm getting off the subject.

He's missing a really obvious one, though; all that extra television made him stupid, too. The evidence: he's suing the cable company for making him a fat, lazy drunkard.

This slot on the parade of idiots has already been taken. Let's push past the obvious ones (TV, fast food, hot coffee, plastic bags and rubber bands) and brainstorm on some real surprises for the McLaw industry. As usual, I'll start:

--The girl at the McDonald's cash register always tells me to "have a great day", but I caught her saying the same thing to the next customer. Should I sue him for alienation of affections? (Yeah, that was lame but I'm just getting warmed up.)

--The music industry, through a concerted promotional effort, is trying to get my friends and me turned on to underaged girls. Mental cruelty? I think a judge should decide.

--One of the local radio stations used to declare "Z-93 IS GONNA MAKE ME RICH!" at every possible opening in the schedule, but it never did. False advertising, plain and simple.

--Speaking of the radio, it plays me love songs all the time, but it won't sleep with me. I can't even get to first base. That's got to amount to something.

--Now, the big one. When I was in high school, there was an orange juice ad where the tagline was "You know you want it, so just DO IT!" That filled my head with thoughts...BAD THOUGHTS. BAD, EVIL, LICENTIOUS THOUGHTS. Definitely not thoughts about orange juice. I can prove in a court of law that I can no longer form healthy adult relationships with women who don't smell like citrus products. It's a real bummer, but God willing, I WILL GET MY DUE.

As always, your comments are welcome...encouraged...pleaded for, even...
 

MY DAY IN REVIEW: Welcome to the sunny south...





(Go fullscreen with your browser if the page cuts off the edge of the pics...)

That was from Friday afternoon (just west of central North Carolina, if I haven't mentioned it lately), when the temperature got to 34, if memory serves. Some of you might notice you can still see the grass sticking up through the dusting, and before you ask, the road was perfectly clear. Still, I'll bet you won't be able to find milk and bread in town for another week. All we usually get these days is ice, so when the flakes fall down, it's a great novelty.

I might have to squeeze off a few other shots (and maybe some pictures, too...HAWHAWHAWstopit) before it all melts. We're just on the lip of where the rural part of the country really gets started, so there's plenty of space around here.  

ANOTHER SHORT ONE: At least it started out that way...I seem to keep tacking bricabrac on, so roll with me here:

-- People say I have too much time on my hands, but I never covered everything in a guy's apartment in tinfoil. Well, at least he'll be safe from mind control.

-- After the lottery woman, it was only a matter of time before somebody gave us something like this. Delightful.

--Choose your own comment here: a) That's more than I made when I worked at Walmart; b) if she was smart enough to run a scam that worked, she wouldn't be working at Walmart; or c) Damn, the cops really knew how to tap that Booty, didn't they?

--And once again, we visit Hillary Country. The first thing I thought when seeing the video of The Joke: Senator Clinton needs better writers and to work on her delivery. I'd regret the Gandhi joke as an unspeakably lame gag first, then as something offensive (see also: the Clone High controversy...the main controversy with me was how it got on the air in the first place).

--AND FINALLY (I think): "Ten million years from now, when the sun burns out and the Earth is just a frozen snowball hurtling through space, nobody's going to care whether or not I got this guy out." --Tug McGraw. I'm not much of a sports person, but I take my hat off out of respect.  

GIVE THE LITTLE FREAK HIS TOY! Just a quickie update this time through: a 7-year-old kid in Wisconsin actually crawled inside one of those claw machines through the 8" by 10" door that kicks out the stuffed animals. "The boy was not injured or traumatized but desperately had to go to the bathroom(.)" I'd have to pee, too, if I squeezed my whole body through a slot the size of a piece of notebook paper. That's a lot of pressure on any system; I don't care what your background is.

I saw a video of this on MSNBC Countdown, and the more I think of that kid in the plexiglass case, the more the Bonsai Kittens come to mind. I'm kind of sick that way, I guess.

As always, more news as it becomes irrelevant.  

IT'S JUST A COMMERCIAL, JERKY: I just saw a delightful ad for Time-Warner Roadrunner high speed service just now. A guy is walking down the aisle of an airplane, waving his ticket in the faces of the seated people, whose smiles dissolve into expressions of shock and jealousy. His wife and kid trail along behind him, the child beaming, the wife shrugging in a "whaddya gonna do" expression, although she's digging the situation quite a bit. The guy and his family are shot in low angles, giving the impression a doughy jackass colossus and his supplicants. We get the seated people in point-of-view shots, so we can share his victory over second class vicariously.

(Full disclosure: Before anybody rags out my business, I'm also a doughy colossus of sorts, although the jackass designation is debatable.)

Then we cut to our hero in his dimly lit computer room, looking up ticket prices on a generic Priceline knockoff, because apparently the ad wizards didn't want to appear partisan to anybody who wasn't signing their checks.

The tagline was what I choked on: LEARN MORE, DO MORE, WIN AT LIFE.

Excuse me? WIN at life? Nobody WINS at life, because nobody gets out of it alive. It's a shallow life when a person walks down the street thinking "VICTORY IS MINE!" every waking moment. Doubly so if it's not in a religious context. "Last jelly doughnut at the Krispy Kreme! AND FRESH COFFEE, TOO! TRIUMPH OVER THE DULLARDS! You may now kiss my ring."

On the topic of learning more, I get the feeling that high speed Internet only helps you to be dumb faster. As for the other point, anybody who's followed this blog from the start knows I want to do BETTER, not necessarily MORE. I'd say MORE BETTER, but I speak muchly better gooder than that there thing.

Anyway, seeing how despised the hardcore jackasses (eventually) are makes me feel blessed that life has conspired to keep me humble. Now arise, my minions, and spread my works across the land like a pestilence.

Whoops, I meant to say that I was done. You may now kiss my ring.  

IN DREAMS: In lieu of a dazzingly new update, here's a classic one from last spring on the message board. I've always had a very unique relationship with my dreams, especially lately, when I'm rarely in them at all. Crack that one, Doctor Freud. Anyway, I feel it's best to post it here before Delphi crumbles to dust, which I've been assured will be any day now.

I'm at my city's shopping mall, and park my car in front of the Sears. It's only 1 minute past 9, but there are no cars in the parking lot; what the parking lot has a lot of are ANGRY MUSLIM CHILDREN; they dress like Afghani kids, but are shooting fireworks and throwing rocks at a service entrance like Palestinians, so naturally I think they're Iraqis (the news that day was filled with stories about Saddam's "little tigers"). I decide to cut out of this scene and head to the relative safety of the food court entrance.

There's a few people loitering around the food court, including several South Park characters. A guy makes a gun out of his hand and sticks his finger in my back, saying "Stick 'em up," and gets arrested immediately. I say to the officer, "Thanks," then add to the guy in an overly exaggerated sitcom voice, "and thanks for not shooting me! Ha ha ha!"

I go inside where the multiplex is, and there are about 50-100 people staring apprehensively at the box office. Kyle (from South Park, remember) has become convinced by the feature playing tonight (PENITENTARY) that the multiplex has been changed into an internment camp. I focus on a young woman who looks all in, and say "Can you believe this kid?" Then I notice she's been crying and her face is all red, so I hold her hand and say, "Don't worry, it'll work out. These things ALWAYS work out." I couldn't help but notice I recognized her from somewhere. When I woke up, I remembered she was in one of those godawful amateur Internet porn movies.

Then I realize I forgot why the hell I'm there in the first place, so I decide to go home. A couple dozen people spontaneously decide to accompany back to my car, singing Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." Then we round the corner and see the children. The people with me start screaming the HEAVEN part of the chorus. "Knock, knock, knockin' on HEAVEN's dooooooor."

The kids see us, and while I'm struck by the solidarity of the jerks' singing, I can't help but notice that not only am I in the lead of the pack as the kids start gathering their rocks for what I assume is an oncoming assault, but the people who were with me are now about three feet behind me.

AND THEN...I woke up...

Do you think my subconscious is trying to tell me something about political discussions?
 

IT'S STARTED ALREADY: Four words...SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: THE MOVIE. Thanksgiving 2004. Mark your calendar. Set your watch. Buy your dried provisions. Dig your bomb shelter. Avoid the rush.  

GOOD RIDDANCE 2003: I'll keep it about as short as I can make it; this wasn't my best year. I spent the year either unemployed or in a placeholder job which gave me absolutely nothing that I was looking for except money (and precious little of that). It felt like every day was exactly like every other day, and then the year ended. By default, 2004 couldn't help but be better, since '03 was a writeoff in a lot of depressing ways.

However, I rang in the new year by finding out that The Brak Show, a favorite of mine, was cancelled. Right after that, I found out that a particularly nasty part of the second "Patriot" Act was signed into law and nobody even noticed. The first, taken by itself, would be a very bad omen for '04; both items together make me want to stay in bed, at least until the election starts.

So I enter this year saying what was almost a mantra for '03: Lord, leave me with a mind.

(Edit @ 1:17pm: I almost forgot that New Year's Day is when Mad TV takes over the 29 hours a day Comedy Central used to reserve for the same ten SNL reruns over and over. I knew it was coming, but I didn't want to think about it, and now...well, it leaves more time for reading, I suppose.)