I loved college. It was a wonderful experience. I made some lifelong friends, learned a ton, and generally, it was top-notch, top-drawer, top-shelf, top-flight, top-hat, Topper-Returns, Top-of-the-Pops ... tops.
And I paid handsomely for it. Well, I didn't pay for it -- my dead great aunt did. Either way, I don't see much point in continuing to pay for it.
I know, there are plenty of kids who couldn't afford to pay for college without some assistance. Thing is, my school isn't very interested in them any more. My school gave up on need-blind admissions when I was a sophomore. To me, that's discrimination in favor of the rich. That's one reason I don't give.
Another is that that my school, like most, is actually loaded with dough. They're so rich that they have big wads of cash just sitting in the bank, and they operate by skimming off the top of it. The call it an "endowment," which makes it sound nice, but it's really just a big hoard of money that they should be using to run the school. That money could go towards scholarships. Or maybe reduce tuition so that normal people can actually afford to go. Do other charitable organizations have the luxury of just squirreling money away and living off of interest rather than using it to fund their operations? Do even the richest for-profit businesses get to do that? (I actually don't know, but I would imagine they wouldn't.)
But yet my college keeps coming to us alumni, hat in hand, saying how they need more money. Yeah, sure, and next I'll make out a check to Microsoft. In 2001, my school lost its shirt in the dot-com crash. This left it only a quarter-billion in its endowment. Only a quarter-billion! Mercy me! How do they put gas in their cars?
And despite losing their shirt, relatively speaking, they still had plenty of money to bring about a lot of unecessary improvements. They redid dorm interiors that were already perfectly fine. They added another cafeteria, despite the fact that I don't remember ever feeling I couldn't find a seat in any of the old ones. They added a huge exercise facility even though they already had two, and the school was full of nerds who shouldn't be exercising anyway.
So this is what my charity dollar is supposed to go towards? Giving rich kids fancier places to work out? I could feed a kid in Africa, combat global warming, contribute to AIDS research ... or give a dorm room a new chair. Somehow, I kinda think I'd do more good giving to the kid in Africa. Maybe that's just me.
In fact, comparing a wealthy and successful college to real charities is unfair to the real charities. Real charities don't get to charge exorbitant tuitions -- they make almost all of their money from donations. Colleges are really more like sports teams. They're tons of fun, you love them, they're part of who you are ... and you pay what they charge, and that should be it. As much as I love the Minnesota Twins, I don't think I'll be donating money to them any time soon.
I'll grant that colleges have a higher purpose than sports teams do. But hey, so do governments. We love our alma mater, so we voluntarily pay even more than we're charged, long after we stopping being a member. We also love our towns, our states, our countries -- yet we take every possible angle we can to avoid paying even the regular amount that they ask of us in taxes. And that's while we are still a member of those places, still benefitting from their work. And forget about giving them something extra.
In short, it will be a great day when our governments get all the money they need and our private colleges have to have a bake sale to buy a building.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
My Hard-Hitting Critique of Flags
I love flags. Even if they're kinda useless nowadays. In the days before people could read, they had very practical uses: Flags were the only way to identify yourself as coming from a particular country. People also couldn't talk or hear in those days, so all communication was done through flags. Every nobleman had a flagbearer who would carry about 5,000 different flags, one for each word in the English language at the time. Even the best flag-waver would take about a half hour in between each word to shuffle through his flag collection and find the next flag, so each sentence took about a day. Lots of awkward pauses in those days. If you were a peasant and couldn't afford a flagbearer, you would communicate through punches to the face.
No, not really! Ha ha ha. But flags were a lot more of a practical necessity in those days. And people didn't get all "sacred-relic"-y about their country's flag like they do now. True story: Few people in the United States saw a single American flag for many years after it was adopted, because it really weren't seen as being terribly important. Several years after its adoption, Ben Franklin was quoted as describing the flag wrong, saying it had 13 stripes of red, white and blue instead of red and white. He'd likely seen one or two by then, but just wasn't a big thing at the time. They certainly didn't worry about flag being burnt or touching the ground or being wrapped around penises or whatever people are upset about today. That whole farcically overwrought and overcomplicated flag-folding ceremony was created in the 1970s. Point is, only recently have Americans been all spazzy about the flag.
But anyway, flags are fun. And the American flag is the funnest. It really is the best flag, and I say that not just because I'm a flag-waving, jingoistic, xenophobic white supremacist. It's a unique flag, yet not bizarre. There's lots of good symbolism in there -- the 50 stars for the 50 states, the 13 stripes for the 13 colonies, the white for white people, the red for the blood of white people, the blue for the blood of rich white people. And it's nice-looking too. Here it is:
I bet it's immediately recognizable to just about everyone in the world. In the marketing biz, we call that "good branding." Then we feel icky for using the word "branding," and we reevaluate our choices in life. Then we realize that we have no discernable talent of any kind, so marketing was basically our only option. Then we cry all the way to the bank.
And I really think that should be the number-one qualification for a flag. Attractiveness is important too, but number one in my book is recognizability. If it's easy to remember that a certain flag stands for a certain country, then it's a good flag.
So what would be a counterexample? Basically every flag in Europe. European countries suck at making flags, much as they suck in creating health-care systems, moral values, and people. (Remember, I'm a jingoistic xenophobe.) Pop quiz, hot shot: What country proudly (?) bears this standard atop their mighty whorehouses and "coffeeshops"?
Nope, not France -- France has the same exact colors, except its stripes are vertical instead of horizontal. It's Holland, or, as it's actually called, the Netherlands. What, you didn't recognize it? Maybe because it looks almost exactly like every other fucking flag in Europe?
Here's another pop quiz: what so-called "country" is so perpetually ashamed of itself that it created this flag, apparently in the hope that they would be mistaken for other countries and that no one would notice them ever again?
You guessed it, it's the world's shittiest country, Luxembourg. Luxembourg and the Netherlands even border each other, folks. The Netherlands was so unoriginal that it did the tri-color thing, like every other European country, and used the same colors as France -- and then Luxem-fucking-bourg upped the ante for unoriginality to the stratosphere by using the same flag as its neighbor! They just made one color slightly lighter! That's so unoriginal that it's almost amazingly original!
So both those flags are absolute failures. People who aren't Joe will never come across the Luxembourg flag and be like, "Oh shit, Luxembourg's in the house!" They will instead be all "Is that France's flag? No wait, its stripes are vertical. Eh, it's probably one of those shitty European countries that doesn't even try to pretend that it has enough national pride to make a flag that normal people (i.e., not Joe) can recognize." It's like if the Netherlands had instead called itself Franceland, and then Luxembourg had called itself Francelande.
So where are the good flags? Not Africa, I'll tell you that. As if it wasn't bad enough that they have so many black people there (reminder: I am a racist), their flags are even worse than Europe's. They all use the same freakin' colors, and just arrange them slightly differently. For instance, here's Ghana:
I know, it's like, SO Ghana, isn't it? You think Ghana, and you think about a star, with red, yellow and green stripes. You would never look at that and be all, oh, hey, Guinea-Bissau! However, if you saw this flag ...
... you'd be all, "oh, snap, it's Guinea-Bissau!" A star with red, yellow and green stripes! And it's so symbolic the way one of the stipes is vertical. People in Guinea-Bissau are known for walking while vertical. It's kind of the thing down there.
No, not really! Ha ha ha. But flags were a lot more of a practical necessity in those days. And people didn't get all "sacred-relic"-y about their country's flag like they do now. True story: Few people in the United States saw a single American flag for many years after it was adopted, because it really weren't seen as being terribly important. Several years after its adoption, Ben Franklin was quoted as describing the flag wrong, saying it had 13 stripes of red, white and blue instead of red and white. He'd likely seen one or two by then, but just wasn't a big thing at the time. They certainly didn't worry about flag being burnt or touching the ground or being wrapped around penises or whatever people are upset about today. That whole farcically overwrought and overcomplicated flag-folding ceremony was created in the 1970s. Point is, only recently have Americans been all spazzy about the flag.
But anyway, flags are fun. And the American flag is the funnest. It really is the best flag, and I say that not just because I'm a flag-waving, jingoistic, xenophobic white supremacist. It's a unique flag, yet not bizarre. There's lots of good symbolism in there -- the 50 stars for the 50 states, the 13 stripes for the 13 colonies, the white for white people, the red for the blood of white people, the blue for the blood of rich white people. And it's nice-looking too. Here it is:
I bet it's immediately recognizable to just about everyone in the world. In the marketing biz, we call that "good branding." Then we feel icky for using the word "branding," and we reevaluate our choices in life. Then we realize that we have no discernable talent of any kind, so marketing was basically our only option. Then we cry all the way to the bank.
And I really think that should be the number-one qualification for a flag. Attractiveness is important too, but number one in my book is recognizability. If it's easy to remember that a certain flag stands for a certain country, then it's a good flag.
So what would be a counterexample? Basically every flag in Europe. European countries suck at making flags, much as they suck in creating health-care systems, moral values, and people. (Remember, I'm a jingoistic xenophobe.) Pop quiz, hot shot: What country proudly (?) bears this standard atop their mighty whorehouses and "coffeeshops"?
Nope, not France -- France has the same exact colors, except its stripes are vertical instead of horizontal. It's Holland, or, as it's actually called, the Netherlands. What, you didn't recognize it? Maybe because it looks almost exactly like every other fucking flag in Europe?
Here's another pop quiz: what so-called "country" is so perpetually ashamed of itself that it created this flag, apparently in the hope that they would be mistaken for other countries and that no one would notice them ever again?
You guessed it, it's the world's shittiest country, Luxembourg. Luxembourg and the Netherlands even border each other, folks. The Netherlands was so unoriginal that it did the tri-color thing, like every other European country, and used the same colors as France -- and then Luxem-fucking-bourg upped the ante for unoriginality to the stratosphere by using the same flag as its neighbor! They just made one color slightly lighter! That's so unoriginal that it's almost amazingly original!
So both those flags are absolute failures. People who aren't Joe will never come across the Luxembourg flag and be like, "Oh shit, Luxembourg's in the house!" They will instead be all "Is that France's flag? No wait, its stripes are vertical. Eh, it's probably one of those shitty European countries that doesn't even try to pretend that it has enough national pride to make a flag that normal people (i.e., not Joe) can recognize." It's like if the Netherlands had instead called itself Franceland, and then Luxembourg had called itself Francelande.
So where are the good flags? Not Africa, I'll tell you that. As if it wasn't bad enough that they have so many black people there (reminder: I am a racist), their flags are even worse than Europe's. They all use the same freakin' colors, and just arrange them slightly differently. For instance, here's Ghana:
I know, it's like, SO Ghana, isn't it? You think Ghana, and you think about a star, with red, yellow and green stripes. You would never look at that and be all, oh, hey, Guinea-Bissau! However, if you saw this flag ...
... you'd be all, "oh, snap, it's Guinea-Bissau!" A star with red, yellow and green stripes! And it's so symbolic the way one of the stipes is vertical. People in Guinea-Bissau are known for walking while vertical. It's kind of the thing down there.
And you know, my farcical "Franceland" thing is actually the reality here, because look at Guinea's flag:
Sigh. So you have countries called "Guinea" and "Guinea-Bissau." Already, you're starting with a big similarity problem right there. Then these countries each choose almost the same flag. It's like identical twins who dress the same. Don't you guys want to even try to carve out your own identities? If not, then hell, we're wasting time and money keeping you guys as separate countries. We need to conserve ambassadors and embassy buildings -- did you not you see the Al Gore movie? You're wasting valuable paper and chairs at U.N. meetings by insisting on being different countries.
You know, maybe I actually hate flags. Flags seem to willfully contradict my main qualifications: that they be memorable, unique, and blatantly symbolic. I know that the colors in the African flags are symbolic of Pan-Africanism, but couldn't you think of better symbols than just colors? Colors are very busy things: They are on everything in the world, and each color can symbolize life, death, nature, freedom, ham, and every other possible thing imaginable depending on who you are and where you're from. Can't you go with more concrete and obvious symbols? Can't you be more like Swaziland?
Now there's a fuckin' flag! It's got that kick-ass shield and those spears in the middle, plus a bunch of leaves or pinecones or Tribbles or whatever those things are. Swaziland has no self-esteem problems: With this flag, they're saying to me, "Hey, we're Swaziland, and if you don't like it, we will stab you!" As opposed to Luxembourg or Guinea, who are all "ooh, colors are pretty."
Plus, I think it has a nice look to it. The above representation is not a great one -- usually they use a nice light blue that goes well with the other colors and makes it look like something that a professional artist may have created. I mean seriously, imagine what awesome country flags professional artists could create. They would be attractive, recognizable, unique -- why instead, did most countries just pick a few colors and smack 'em together, with nary a thought toward aesthetics?
But anyway, the all-time greatest flag is Nepal's. They really knew how to "think outside the box" ... literally! (By the way, I am available to speak at your next corporate event. My presentation, "Marketing Lessons from Flag Design: Think Outside the Same Goddamn Boxes of Color That Everyone Else Uses," has inspired countless people to improve their ROI efficiency and upflow their innovationability. Contact me today!)
Yeah, buddy! The people at Nepal said "Hey guys, why don't we innovate? Why don't we break the paradigm and promote a brand identity of young, hip, different, EXTREME?!" So that's what they did, and they have since become the market leader in Nepalese products.
And it's symbolic, too. The sun represents the fact that they have sunlight there. The sun on top of the crescent symbolizes the fact that their Muslims think the sun rises and sets just for them. And the whole shape of the flag symbolizes the extremely pointy breasts that all Nepalese women have.
But I should emphasize that to have a passable flag, you don't have to go as far as Nepal did. You can just put some object in the middle. Mexico's flag (which you should know well, so I'm not putting it in here) is a fine one, I think. Nothing earth-shattering -- basically just Italy's flag with a bird in the middle -- but it's enough to make it memorable. If the Netherlands had stuck a picture in the middle of its flag of a man smoking a joint while being fellated by a prostitute, I would have no problem with it whatsoever.
(For further flag-looking-at: Other good flags include the Marshall Islands, Kenya, Kosovo, Dominica, Seychelles, Montenegro, and St. Lucia. Bad ones include Mali, Lithuana, Hungary, Poland, Indonesia and Monaco (same exact flag for those two), and all those goddamn Scandinavian countries that I can never keep straight. Sweden I can get every time. The rest I can never remember.)
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Movies I Dreamt Up
My dreams take all forms. (Again, I must remind you that by "dreams" I do not mean aspirations. I only use that word when referring to the stuff my brain conjures up when I'm asleep.) When I'm not dreaming painful scenarios that drag my emotions over past failures, I often dream up movie ideas. My brain will make up some weird scenario, and then at some point in mid-dream I realize it's a movie, and as I'm dreaming, I'll form it into a better movie. It's kind of awesome really. I've also come up with songs in my sleep that I was able to remember the next morning. I've never been able to write a song in waking life.
Anyway, here are a few recent movies I dreamt up:
1. "Back to High School"
Glib version of the explanation: Like that Drew Barrymore movie, except better.
It's sorta kinda a lot like that Drew Barrymore movie where a grown-up goes back to high school as an undercover reporter, except a little different. So it starts with our heroine, who we'll call Emily (just to pick a random name), going through high school. This will be a pretty quick introductory segment, in which we run through all the typical characters and themes of all "high school sucks" movies -- there are the popular, rich, mean girls tormenting Emily, there's the charming, cute jock who doesn't have any interest in her, there's the nerd boy who pays attention to her but turns out to be a sex-obsessed jerk, and it's all generally a miserable experience.
All the above is stuffed in one day in which Emily is tired of blending into the woodwork and decides to break out of her shell by wearing these wacky socks that her mother gave her, and that she loves. But instead of getting her noticed in a good way, she gets ridiculed mercilessly. For the rest of high school, she's derisively known as "Socks" Macarthur. (Her last name's Macarthur. That's what my dream told me, so it must be a portentous sign from God.)
So anyway, Emily goes to college, and has a blast. Now she breaks out the wacky socks and everyone loves them. She again becomes known as "Socks," but this time it's a fun nickname. Now instead of wallowing in a crippling fear of people, she relishes their company.
While in college, she becomes fascinated with computers, and creates a few iPhone apps (or something like that -- something in science or technology) that she's then able to market and make a mint off of. After she graduates, she's pretty well set for a while. She's immensely happy.
But she keeps having dreams about how awful high school was. She meets with a therapist, who tells her that there's not much she can do about that one -- there's no aversion therapy for high school. At this point, Socks has become a bit of a perfectionist, obsessed with having a perfect life and no fears or scars. So she says, heck, that's exactly what I'm going to do.
So she goes ... back to high school! (OK, I realize this is a bit cheesy. But it could be fun. And the movie's kinda meant for kids.) She creates a fake identity for herself and enrolls in a different high school. (Maybe some comedy can be mined from having her college buddies pose as her parents. Socks is young-looking, and maybe she gets some bald dude with a beard from college to pose as her dad. Probably shouldn't make her boyfriend do it. That's too icky.)
In high school, she meets exactly the same archetypes as she knew in her high school. At first, she's a bit cowed, but then gathers herself, and acts very confident. She wears her crazy socks all the time. Of course, she gets made of, but she is able to shoot back now, and she becomes pretty popular, one of those rare popular kids who is friends with everyone. This time she actually gets to know all these archetypical characters -- jocks, sex-obsessed nerds, popular girls, etc. Her motives are kinda evil, to befriend them and then find a way to give them a good comeuppance, or at least get them to change from being so terrible to each other. But the more she gets to know them, the more she sees that they're packed with insecurities too, and are just better at hiding them. The popular girl, it turns out, had to fend off sexual advances from a teacher. The nerd has an oppressive family. Et cetera. She ends up being a genuine friend to them, helping them with their problems, but then when they start ganging up on a wallflower girl that reminds her of herself, she can't help herself. She ends up taking revenge on them, and of course it turns out horribly, making things much worse. She tries to atone for what she did, but by then someone discovers her fraud, and she's kicked out. Then everyone feels they've been defrauded and she's demonized and shunned.
She gets a criminal conviction but no jail time (she never did anything icky with any of the high school kids, always telling them she had a boyfriend from another school, which she actually does, and maybe her real boyfriend comes and meets them, and they're just awed by him), and returns to adult life. But maybe eventually, something makes the kids come see her at her cool apartment and there's some sort of tearful admittance that they have changed for the better because of her. So there's sort of a happy ending, somehow. Maybe in the end she becomes a school psychologist. I haven't worked out all the details.
2. "Wall Street Hustlers"
Glib version of the explanation: Chris Rock version of "Wall Street"
OK, I can't really describe this one and not look like an asshole, since I'm a white man. I'll just sound like I'm trying to put on a minstrel show or in some other way be insulting to African-Americans. So I'll resolve this problem by acting all black and shit.
Yo, bitch, what up? Mothafuckin' E to the D here to kick the ballistics on the ultimate balla comedy in the hizzay!!! Peep this .... oh Jesus, I am a horrible human being. I apologize with all my soul to everyone who is African-American, has ever met anyone African-American, or has ever heard of African-Americans. I'm so sorry.
But not sorry enough to not try again. OK, so there's this ghetto businessman who is ruling many of the illicit trades in the neighborhood. Let's call him Joe (just to pick a random name). He's cornered the market on marijuana. But he doesn't sell coke or crack or anything else, because he feels that those destroy the community, and a destroyed community is a dangerous one, and thus bad for business. Marijuana, he says half-jokingly, helps the community, making everyone relax. That's good business. He puts everything in terms of whether it's good or bad for business. He's a charmer, genuinely likable and not smarmy or evil, but he's also a ruthless capitalist, doing whatever it takes to maintain his monopoly. He is an extremely wise businessman, but a mostly amoral one. In a very charming way.
In the beginning he is challenged by an upstart who barges into his office and is shocked by un-fancy it is. Joe lets loose one of his many maxims, something about never looking like you have money. He wears very simple clothes that make him go mostly unnoticed. But he's rolling in money. The pictures on his wall are of Donald Trump, Michael Milken, Ken Lay -- his heroes.
So anyway, this upstart makes bold pronouncements about taking him over, and Joe flashes a genuine smile and says "Well, I welcome the competition! Competition is what makes the system great!" He then asks the upstart about his business plan. Of course, the upstart doesn't really have one. What areas are you going to go into? No idea, but he just spews more bluster instead of answering. How do you intend to get loyalty from the dealers and suppliers? No idea. Joe reveals that he gets their loyalty by always giving them a solid cut and treating them fairly. He even provides health insurance and a 401(k) (which would be a bit of a laugh line). When things get out of hand, which the inevitably do, he has an enforcement team, led by Big Mike, a man who then appears from the shadows and is very large and intimidating. So anyway, the opening scene is mainly meant to establish that Joe is an expert businessman and to set up how he does his thing.
Eventually the upstart goes away, and Joe's smile drops. He's tired of this shit. He wants to move to the next level, to go legit, maybe run some restaurants or other businesses so he can deal with professionals instead of blowhards. People like Trump, or Ken Lay.
Soon after he meets up with old friend from the neighborhood, Chris. Chris was a mathematical genius who got out of the ghetto on a scholarship and ended up working for a major bank. Recently, however, when the financial mess hit, Chris was fired, digraced, and came back to the ghetto.
Despite Chris' fall, Joe is inspired by his rise. Banking! There are no banks in their neighborhood. People go miles out of their way for a bank or just stash their money in mattresses, which often get stolen. Joe, with Chris' help, opens up a bank. It's a different kind of bank, with intense security. Maybe the upstart, who of course never did anything, comes in and tries to rob the place. He pulls out a gun on the teller, and the teller pulls out her own. As does everyone else in the bank. (OK, now you see where the offensiveness comes in. I've been telling it as straightforward as possible, avoiding the jokes, which are often about applying the ghetto world to the "straight" world, but it's hard to do that without playing on stereotypes of ghettos that I'm really not allowed to play on, as a white man. But you get the idea. A black screenwriter could do better on this.)
So anwyay, the bank is a success, and Joe and Chris quickly start opening other franchises. They start to gain some press. Reporters start asking uncomfortable questions about where Joe got all his money to begin with. Chris buts in and starts talking about credit default swaps and derivitatives and such, and that placates everyone. Afterwards, Joe says "What was all that? I don't know what any of that means." and Chris says,"Neither do I. Neither do they. Doesn't matter. It's all a hustle." You get the idea.
So quickly Joe and Chris start building a financial empire, getting into investment banking and all sorts of things. Then maybe they meet the real tycoons, and Joe is of course enthralled. But when he sees what they do, he gradually becomes more and more horrified. They talk casually of laying off thousands just to boost the stock price a bit so that they can then sell their own stashes for a profit. Or they talk of investments like buying up rivers from indigenous South American populations so they an use them for a new type of bottled water. Joe discovers his conscience, and threatens to expose all of their awful deals. The tycoons laugh and tell them that these deals are all well-known, and nobody cares.
Then the tycoons, just to be safe, expose Joe as getting his start in marijuana sales, and Joe is arrested and his businesses destroyed. Maybe at the trial he makes an impassioned speech, asking which is worse -- selling a mostly harmless drug in order to make a system of banks that help the community, or using your riches to destroy communities and people for the sake of gaining slightly more riches. He becomes a folk hero, taking every interview he can get and talking about this stuff. And then there's some happy ending. I don't know what.
So maybe these movies are a bit preachy. I'm so political these days that it would be hard for them not to be. But both would be comedies, with all this stuff underneath it all. What do you think? Neither would be great art, but they could be fun.
Anyway, here are a few recent movies I dreamt up:
1. "Back to High School"
Glib version of the explanation: Like that Drew Barrymore movie, except better.
It's sorta kinda a lot like that Drew Barrymore movie where a grown-up goes back to high school as an undercover reporter, except a little different. So it starts with our heroine, who we'll call Emily (just to pick a random name), going through high school. This will be a pretty quick introductory segment, in which we run through all the typical characters and themes of all "high school sucks" movies -- there are the popular, rich, mean girls tormenting Emily, there's the charming, cute jock who doesn't have any interest in her, there's the nerd boy who pays attention to her but turns out to be a sex-obsessed jerk, and it's all generally a miserable experience.
All the above is stuffed in one day in which Emily is tired of blending into the woodwork and decides to break out of her shell by wearing these wacky socks that her mother gave her, and that she loves. But instead of getting her noticed in a good way, she gets ridiculed mercilessly. For the rest of high school, she's derisively known as "Socks" Macarthur. (Her last name's Macarthur. That's what my dream told me, so it must be a portentous sign from God.)
So anyway, Emily goes to college, and has a blast. Now she breaks out the wacky socks and everyone loves them. She again becomes known as "Socks," but this time it's a fun nickname. Now instead of wallowing in a crippling fear of people, she relishes their company.
While in college, she becomes fascinated with computers, and creates a few iPhone apps (or something like that -- something in science or technology) that she's then able to market and make a mint off of. After she graduates, she's pretty well set for a while. She's immensely happy.
But she keeps having dreams about how awful high school was. She meets with a therapist, who tells her that there's not much she can do about that one -- there's no aversion therapy for high school. At this point, Socks has become a bit of a perfectionist, obsessed with having a perfect life and no fears or scars. So she says, heck, that's exactly what I'm going to do.
So she goes ... back to high school! (OK, I realize this is a bit cheesy. But it could be fun. And the movie's kinda meant for kids.) She creates a fake identity for herself and enrolls in a different high school. (Maybe some comedy can be mined from having her college buddies pose as her parents. Socks is young-looking, and maybe she gets some bald dude with a beard from college to pose as her dad. Probably shouldn't make her boyfriend do it. That's too icky.)
In high school, she meets exactly the same archetypes as she knew in her high school. At first, she's a bit cowed, but then gathers herself, and acts very confident. She wears her crazy socks all the time. Of course, she gets made of, but she is able to shoot back now, and she becomes pretty popular, one of those rare popular kids who is friends with everyone. This time she actually gets to know all these archetypical characters -- jocks, sex-obsessed nerds, popular girls, etc. Her motives are kinda evil, to befriend them and then find a way to give them a good comeuppance, or at least get them to change from being so terrible to each other. But the more she gets to know them, the more she sees that they're packed with insecurities too, and are just better at hiding them. The popular girl, it turns out, had to fend off sexual advances from a teacher. The nerd has an oppressive family. Et cetera. She ends up being a genuine friend to them, helping them with their problems, but then when they start ganging up on a wallflower girl that reminds her of herself, she can't help herself. She ends up taking revenge on them, and of course it turns out horribly, making things much worse. She tries to atone for what she did, but by then someone discovers her fraud, and she's kicked out. Then everyone feels they've been defrauded and she's demonized and shunned.
She gets a criminal conviction but no jail time (she never did anything icky with any of the high school kids, always telling them she had a boyfriend from another school, which she actually does, and maybe her real boyfriend comes and meets them, and they're just awed by him), and returns to adult life. But maybe eventually, something makes the kids come see her at her cool apartment and there's some sort of tearful admittance that they have changed for the better because of her. So there's sort of a happy ending, somehow. Maybe in the end she becomes a school psychologist. I haven't worked out all the details.
2. "Wall Street Hustlers"
Glib version of the explanation: Chris Rock version of "Wall Street"
OK, I can't really describe this one and not look like an asshole, since I'm a white man. I'll just sound like I'm trying to put on a minstrel show or in some other way be insulting to African-Americans. So I'll resolve this problem by acting all black and shit.
Yo, bitch, what up? Mothafuckin' E to the D here to kick the ballistics on the ultimate balla comedy in the hizzay!!! Peep this .... oh Jesus, I am a horrible human being. I apologize with all my soul to everyone who is African-American, has ever met anyone African-American, or has ever heard of African-Americans. I'm so sorry.
But not sorry enough to not try again. OK, so there's this ghetto businessman who is ruling many of the illicit trades in the neighborhood. Let's call him Joe (just to pick a random name). He's cornered the market on marijuana. But he doesn't sell coke or crack or anything else, because he feels that those destroy the community, and a destroyed community is a dangerous one, and thus bad for business. Marijuana, he says half-jokingly, helps the community, making everyone relax. That's good business. He puts everything in terms of whether it's good or bad for business. He's a charmer, genuinely likable and not smarmy or evil, but he's also a ruthless capitalist, doing whatever it takes to maintain his monopoly. He is an extremely wise businessman, but a mostly amoral one. In a very charming way.
In the beginning he is challenged by an upstart who barges into his office and is shocked by un-fancy it is. Joe lets loose one of his many maxims, something about never looking like you have money. He wears very simple clothes that make him go mostly unnoticed. But he's rolling in money. The pictures on his wall are of Donald Trump, Michael Milken, Ken Lay -- his heroes.
So anyway, this upstart makes bold pronouncements about taking him over, and Joe flashes a genuine smile and says "Well, I welcome the competition! Competition is what makes the system great!" He then asks the upstart about his business plan. Of course, the upstart doesn't really have one. What areas are you going to go into? No idea, but he just spews more bluster instead of answering. How do you intend to get loyalty from the dealers and suppliers? No idea. Joe reveals that he gets their loyalty by always giving them a solid cut and treating them fairly. He even provides health insurance and a 401(k) (which would be a bit of a laugh line). When things get out of hand, which the inevitably do, he has an enforcement team, led by Big Mike, a man who then appears from the shadows and is very large and intimidating. So anyway, the opening scene is mainly meant to establish that Joe is an expert businessman and to set up how he does his thing.
Eventually the upstart goes away, and Joe's smile drops. He's tired of this shit. He wants to move to the next level, to go legit, maybe run some restaurants or other businesses so he can deal with professionals instead of blowhards. People like Trump, or Ken Lay.
Soon after he meets up with old friend from the neighborhood, Chris. Chris was a mathematical genius who got out of the ghetto on a scholarship and ended up working for a major bank. Recently, however, when the financial mess hit, Chris was fired, digraced, and came back to the ghetto.
Despite Chris' fall, Joe is inspired by his rise. Banking! There are no banks in their neighborhood. People go miles out of their way for a bank or just stash their money in mattresses, which often get stolen. Joe, with Chris' help, opens up a bank. It's a different kind of bank, with intense security. Maybe the upstart, who of course never did anything, comes in and tries to rob the place. He pulls out a gun on the teller, and the teller pulls out her own. As does everyone else in the bank. (OK, now you see where the offensiveness comes in. I've been telling it as straightforward as possible, avoiding the jokes, which are often about applying the ghetto world to the "straight" world, but it's hard to do that without playing on stereotypes of ghettos that I'm really not allowed to play on, as a white man. But you get the idea. A black screenwriter could do better on this.)
So anwyay, the bank is a success, and Joe and Chris quickly start opening other franchises. They start to gain some press. Reporters start asking uncomfortable questions about where Joe got all his money to begin with. Chris buts in and starts talking about credit default swaps and derivitatives and such, and that placates everyone. Afterwards, Joe says "What was all that? I don't know what any of that means." and Chris says,"Neither do I. Neither do they. Doesn't matter. It's all a hustle." You get the idea.
So quickly Joe and Chris start building a financial empire, getting into investment banking and all sorts of things. Then maybe they meet the real tycoons, and Joe is of course enthralled. But when he sees what they do, he gradually becomes more and more horrified. They talk casually of laying off thousands just to boost the stock price a bit so that they can then sell their own stashes for a profit. Or they talk of investments like buying up rivers from indigenous South American populations so they an use them for a new type of bottled water. Joe discovers his conscience, and threatens to expose all of their awful deals. The tycoons laugh and tell them that these deals are all well-known, and nobody cares.
Then the tycoons, just to be safe, expose Joe as getting his start in marijuana sales, and Joe is arrested and his businesses destroyed. Maybe at the trial he makes an impassioned speech, asking which is worse -- selling a mostly harmless drug in order to make a system of banks that help the community, or using your riches to destroy communities and people for the sake of gaining slightly more riches. He becomes a folk hero, taking every interview he can get and talking about this stuff. And then there's some happy ending. I don't know what.
So maybe these movies are a bit preachy. I'm so political these days that it would be hard for them not to be. But both would be comedies, with all this stuff underneath it all. What do you think? Neither would be great art, but they could be fun.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Things I Hate: The Simpsons
I should clarify. The first seven seasons of "The Simpsons" comprised the best run of TV shows in history. The following 24 years (or whatever) have been dogshit. So 7 years of the best TV ever plus 47 years of detestable shows = hate.
I was reminded of this recently when I made the mistake of watching a recent episode. It started just fine, had twists and turns and satire ... and ended up completely emotionally hollow. Characters were reduced to caricatures and cranked through the pointlessly insane motions of the plot. Not a single moment felt attached to reality or had the least bit of heart. It was all a cynical exercise in churning through jokes.
And older "Simpsons" episodes did have heart. Each started from a place of common understanding, some situation that any family can relate to. The family dog has puppies. The bratty kid goes too far when he shoplifts. The father betrays his wife's trust one too many times and is kicked out. From these starting points, the episodes would often go in hilariously bizarre, absurd directions, but they would usually do it temporarily, and then return to a grounding of relatable human behavior. The last few moments would usually have some sort of sweetness to it. I've cried at many an old "Simpsons" episode. Remember when Homer meets his mom again after decades of estrangement, and when she goes back on the lam, he sits on his car and looks at the stars? It gives me chills just thinking about it.
Nowadays, the show is too busy speeding through the joke-manufacturing machinery of the plot to reveal any emotion or human insights. Instead of starting from relatable premises like "Homer has heart surgery" or "Lisa becomes a vegetarian," now an episode will be "Homer becomes a paparazzo." What? Why? So the "Simpsons" writers can make fun of celebrity culture, basically. And hey, who else on TV is doing that? (Answer: Everybody. There are entire channels that do nothing else.)
Of course, the classic episodes were far from 100% sunshine and light -- they were probably 99% cynicism and negativity. But it was a wonderfully insightful brand of cynical negativity. I don't know if this is the best example, but here goes: In one episode, Bart got one of those little spongy things that you put in water and it's supposed to grow to a big dinosaur. He, of course, imagines it will immediately sprout into a 20-foot-tall T. Rex and start eating Lisa. So he excitedly sprays the hose on it, and it slowly grows about two inches and then coasts into the sewer. I remember going through the exact same experience when I was a kid. It was a funny, pleasant shock to see it on screen.
Granted, the new episodes will have funny moments now and then. Sometimes one will have some sort of tiny insight like the one I just described. But to get to those moments you have to wade through lots of labored, contrived, two-bit satire of innocuous pop culture phenomena. That's the other thing -- they constantly lambaste showbiz nowadays, picking easy targets that even the schmucks on VH-1 can make fun of: Paris Hilton, boy bands, etc. And in the process, they always make fun of Americans for being obsessed with it all -- but by expending so much energy ridiculing the most insignifcant little Hollywood trends, the "Simpsons" writers are clearly just as obsessed, if not more. And by the way, satirizing pop culture ephemera guarantees that your show won't age gracefully. Nobody watches old Rich Little clips any more.
But you can't criticize "Simpsons" episodes without inviting the "Worst. Episode. Ever." response from its defenders. That's the one where they make fun of hyper-critical "Simpsons" fanboys who really need to get a life. And I have seen said fanboys in action on "Simpsons" fan sites, picking apart some of the classic episodes and damning them for a few imagined flaws. That's not what I'm doing here. Apart from most of the first season, in which the show was really just getting its sea legs, I think the first seven seasons are uniformly brilliant. I have my favorites ("Lisa the Vegetarian," "Lisa's Rival" -- I guess I like Lisa), but I really don't have much criticism for any of them.
My point is here that I'm not being petty or grumpy-old-man-ish -- I'm just lamenting the fact that the greatest show ever has become a depressing shell of its former self during the past 150 years or so. It's like if Usain Bolt followed his record-breaking run with 72 solid hours of victory laps. No, it's actually sadder than that -- it's like if Orson Welles gave up on making the greatest movies ever and instead settled for being broken, morbidly obese commercial pitchman ... oh, wait.
And Fox will never stop cranking out the episodes until people stop watching. And people probably won't stop watching, because shitty Simpsons is still better than half the crap on TV. That, and people are idiots. So the Simpsons, as a show, as an entity, will continue on its path from going from the best show in TV history to being the worst. Sigh.
I was reminded of this recently when I made the mistake of watching a recent episode. It started just fine, had twists and turns and satire ... and ended up completely emotionally hollow. Characters were reduced to caricatures and cranked through the pointlessly insane motions of the plot. Not a single moment felt attached to reality or had the least bit of heart. It was all a cynical exercise in churning through jokes.
And older "Simpsons" episodes did have heart. Each started from a place of common understanding, some situation that any family can relate to. The family dog has puppies. The bratty kid goes too far when he shoplifts. The father betrays his wife's trust one too many times and is kicked out. From these starting points, the episodes would often go in hilariously bizarre, absurd directions, but they would usually do it temporarily, and then return to a grounding of relatable human behavior. The last few moments would usually have some sort of sweetness to it. I've cried at many an old "Simpsons" episode. Remember when Homer meets his mom again after decades of estrangement, and when she goes back on the lam, he sits on his car and looks at the stars? It gives me chills just thinking about it.
Nowadays, the show is too busy speeding through the joke-manufacturing machinery of the plot to reveal any emotion or human insights. Instead of starting from relatable premises like "Homer has heart surgery" or "Lisa becomes a vegetarian," now an episode will be "Homer becomes a paparazzo." What? Why? So the "Simpsons" writers can make fun of celebrity culture, basically. And hey, who else on TV is doing that? (Answer: Everybody. There are entire channels that do nothing else.)
Of course, the classic episodes were far from 100% sunshine and light -- they were probably 99% cynicism and negativity. But it was a wonderfully insightful brand of cynical negativity. I don't know if this is the best example, but here goes: In one episode, Bart got one of those little spongy things that you put in water and it's supposed to grow to a big dinosaur. He, of course, imagines it will immediately sprout into a 20-foot-tall T. Rex and start eating Lisa. So he excitedly sprays the hose on it, and it slowly grows about two inches and then coasts into the sewer. I remember going through the exact same experience when I was a kid. It was a funny, pleasant shock to see it on screen.
Granted, the new episodes will have funny moments now and then. Sometimes one will have some sort of tiny insight like the one I just described. But to get to those moments you have to wade through lots of labored, contrived, two-bit satire of innocuous pop culture phenomena. That's the other thing -- they constantly lambaste showbiz nowadays, picking easy targets that even the schmucks on VH-1 can make fun of: Paris Hilton, boy bands, etc. And in the process, they always make fun of Americans for being obsessed with it all -- but by expending so much energy ridiculing the most insignifcant little Hollywood trends, the "Simpsons" writers are clearly just as obsessed, if not more. And by the way, satirizing pop culture ephemera guarantees that your show won't age gracefully. Nobody watches old Rich Little clips any more.
But you can't criticize "Simpsons" episodes without inviting the "Worst. Episode. Ever." response from its defenders. That's the one where they make fun of hyper-critical "Simpsons" fanboys who really need to get a life. And I have seen said fanboys in action on "Simpsons" fan sites, picking apart some of the classic episodes and damning them for a few imagined flaws. That's not what I'm doing here. Apart from most of the first season, in which the show was really just getting its sea legs, I think the first seven seasons are uniformly brilliant. I have my favorites ("Lisa the Vegetarian," "Lisa's Rival" -- I guess I like Lisa), but I really don't have much criticism for any of them.
My point is here that I'm not being petty or grumpy-old-man-ish -- I'm just lamenting the fact that the greatest show ever has become a depressing shell of its former self during the past 150 years or so. It's like if Usain Bolt followed his record-breaking run with 72 solid hours of victory laps. No, it's actually sadder than that -- it's like if Orson Welles gave up on making the greatest movies ever and instead settled for being broken, morbidly obese commercial pitchman ... oh, wait.
And Fox will never stop cranking out the episodes until people stop watching. And people probably won't stop watching, because shitty Simpsons is still better than half the crap on TV. That, and people are idiots. So the Simpsons, as a show, as an entity, will continue on its path from going from the best show in TV history to being the worst. Sigh.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
I Made a Palindrome!
Stab for a car of bats!
This is especially exciting for me because this is a phrase I use all the time! When I exhort people to stab things, I often dangle the incentive of a car full of bats. I can't believe that I never realized it was a palindrome before!
OK, it's not the most sensical palindrome ever. The all-time best, for my money, is "A man, a plan, a canal - Panama." Another famous one is "Able was I ere I saw Elba." But I never liked that one because every word is a word that is a palindrome of another word -- there are no long sequences where you're like, "wait, is that actually a palindrome?"Anyone can do one of these every-word-is-a-palindrome palindromes ... let's see ... "We flog racecar golf, ew!" See? Lame.
When I was in high school, a friend and I would try to make palindromes in our spare time. (We were the coolest kids on school, obviously. We also made flip books of the Large Marge scene in "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure." Instead of say, dating. I look back on those days with absolutely no nostalgia.) But we never came up with anything even as good as the bat-stabbing one. They were always more like "Have a kumquat, Tauqmukaevah!" And then we'd explain that Tauqmukaevah was a fellow who liked kumquats. I think we might have tried this for a day or two before we gave up.
So what do YOU think of my awesome palindrome? Remember, your comment must be in the form of a palindrome.
This is especially exciting for me because this is a phrase I use all the time! When I exhort people to stab things, I often dangle the incentive of a car full of bats. I can't believe that I never realized it was a palindrome before!
OK, it's not the most sensical palindrome ever. The all-time best, for my money, is "A man, a plan, a canal - Panama." Another famous one is "Able was I ere I saw Elba." But I never liked that one because every word is a word that is a palindrome of another word -- there are no long sequences where you're like, "wait, is that actually a palindrome?"Anyone can do one of these every-word-is-a-palindrome palindromes ... let's see ... "We flog racecar golf, ew!" See? Lame.
When I was in high school, a friend and I would try to make palindromes in our spare time. (We were the coolest kids on school, obviously. We also made flip books of the Large Marge scene in "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure." Instead of say, dating. I look back on those days with absolutely no nostalgia.) But we never came up with anything even as good as the bat-stabbing one. They were always more like "Have a kumquat, Tauqmukaevah!" And then we'd explain that Tauqmukaevah was a fellow who liked kumquats. I think we might have tried this for a day or two before we gave up.
So what do YOU think of my awesome palindrome? Remember, your comment must be in the form of a palindrome.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Quick Thought
I've often wondered if we humans are making life so complicated that eventually we won't even be able to navigate our own lives. Every time we find a problem, we add another layer of complexity to solve it. Eventuially the over-complexity becomes a bigger problem than any of the original problems, but we for some reason just can't stop adding to it.
It's like the tax code. We discover that rich people are getting out of paying income taxes, so we add the Alternative Minimum Tax. But oh wait, now there's a penalty for being married. Let's add another thing that fixes that. Eventually it gets to the point where no one can really keep it all straight, and it's hell to try to muddle your way through it each April.
I think that the recent economic collapse is in part due to this phenomenon. As I understand it, mortgages were broken up and sold as derivatives. Then they were packaged with other bits, and futures were sold against them, and then came credit default swaps and other crazy crap, Eventually it got to the point when no one really knew what they were buying or what they were selling. The financial sector made a system that even they couldn't understand, and ended up making very bad, ill-informed decisions as a result. The whole thing collapsed when the exponentially growing complexity surpassed the finite capacity of human beings to understand it.
You deal with this when you deal with health insurance too -- in that case, though, I believe the overcomplications are intentional. Between deductibles and coinsurance and limits and acres of fine print about what's covered and what isn't under what circumstances, they intentionally make everything so complicated that you can't really sign on knowing exactly what you're getting. And then when disaster happens, all they have to do is say, "Well, because of your deductible and coinsurance, you have to pay 90% of the first $5000 and then 25% of the next $3 and then all future expenses in perpetuity, because the full amount only covered on Tuesdays in autumn. It's in the contract that you signed, dummy. What are you going to do, sue? Like you have the time."
And they count on the fact that we either aren't smart enough to grasp it all or don't have the time to sit down and figure it all out. I've seen many news reports about people who got outrageous denials of coverage (one I remember was a woman who fell and broke her arm, and they claimed it was a pre-existing condition -- no joke), and then those people worked what amounted to second jobs to fight the denials. Eventually they won, but what about all the people who don't have the time or smarts to do battle against massive companies that marshal the best minds in the country to find extremely clever ways to screw policyholders out of money? Because that's where their profit motive lies, folks: in not paying your claims, not helping you when you're hurt, not doing the service you essentially contracted them for. They do it all through the time-honored practice of "delay, deny, defend." They put you through crazy hoops, delaying payment, denying coverage, and then defending it in court, all in the hopes you'll give up and just pay it yourself rather than fight. It works like a charm.
I'm not saying health insurance companies are evil -- they're just trying to make a profit. Therefore, they shouldn't be allowed to make profits. The profit motive works for many, many things, but not for health insurance. They make more money when they provide their customers with less. It would like a food producer that profits when it starves people. The answer is to take away the profit motive and make all health insurance companies non-profits. Or make it all run by the government. Hey, we all know that the government isn't perfect, but I'll take a messy, bureaucratic government system over a system that strongly incentivizes screwing consumers any day.
OK, this was not meant to turn into a tirade about health insurance. Sometimes my passionate hatred of health insurance overwhelms me, sorry. Back to the point: In this developed world of ours, are we just piling on more and more systems to navigate and things to learn so fast that eventually we'll reach an event horizon in which no one can get out of bed in the morning? Do we all need to give up, move to Walden Pond and grow peas? What do you think?
It's like the tax code. We discover that rich people are getting out of paying income taxes, so we add the Alternative Minimum Tax. But oh wait, now there's a penalty for being married. Let's add another thing that fixes that. Eventually it gets to the point where no one can really keep it all straight, and it's hell to try to muddle your way through it each April.
I think that the recent economic collapse is in part due to this phenomenon. As I understand it, mortgages were broken up and sold as derivatives. Then they were packaged with other bits, and futures were sold against them, and then came credit default swaps and other crazy crap, Eventually it got to the point when no one really knew what they were buying or what they were selling. The financial sector made a system that even they couldn't understand, and ended up making very bad, ill-informed decisions as a result. The whole thing collapsed when the exponentially growing complexity surpassed the finite capacity of human beings to understand it.
You deal with this when you deal with health insurance too -- in that case, though, I believe the overcomplications are intentional. Between deductibles and coinsurance and limits and acres of fine print about what's covered and what isn't under what circumstances, they intentionally make everything so complicated that you can't really sign on knowing exactly what you're getting. And then when disaster happens, all they have to do is say, "Well, because of your deductible and coinsurance, you have to pay 90% of the first $5000 and then 25% of the next $3 and then all future expenses in perpetuity, because the full amount only covered on Tuesdays in autumn. It's in the contract that you signed, dummy. What are you going to do, sue? Like you have the time."
And they count on the fact that we either aren't smart enough to grasp it all or don't have the time to sit down and figure it all out. I've seen many news reports about people who got outrageous denials of coverage (one I remember was a woman who fell and broke her arm, and they claimed it was a pre-existing condition -- no joke), and then those people worked what amounted to second jobs to fight the denials. Eventually they won, but what about all the people who don't have the time or smarts to do battle against massive companies that marshal the best minds in the country to find extremely clever ways to screw policyholders out of money? Because that's where their profit motive lies, folks: in not paying your claims, not helping you when you're hurt, not doing the service you essentially contracted them for. They do it all through the time-honored practice of "delay, deny, defend." They put you through crazy hoops, delaying payment, denying coverage, and then defending it in court, all in the hopes you'll give up and just pay it yourself rather than fight. It works like a charm.
I'm not saying health insurance companies are evil -- they're just trying to make a profit. Therefore, they shouldn't be allowed to make profits. The profit motive works for many, many things, but not for health insurance. They make more money when they provide their customers with less. It would like a food producer that profits when it starves people. The answer is to take away the profit motive and make all health insurance companies non-profits. Or make it all run by the government. Hey, we all know that the government isn't perfect, but I'll take a messy, bureaucratic government system over a system that strongly incentivizes screwing consumers any day.
OK, this was not meant to turn into a tirade about health insurance. Sometimes my passionate hatred of health insurance overwhelms me, sorry. Back to the point: In this developed world of ours, are we just piling on more and more systems to navigate and things to learn so fast that eventually we'll reach an event horizon in which no one can get out of bed in the morning? Do we all need to give up, move to Walden Pond and grow peas? What do you think?
Friday, October 2, 2009
Amy's Irrational Fears and the Irrational Fear-o-Meter
I’ve noticed that the older I get, the more irrational my fears become. Are irrational fears a byproduct of age? I assume it has something to do with me hearing about other people’s disasters. The longer I live, the more I hear about disasters. Here’s me in 2006: “Nah, bridges never collapse.” And here’s me in late 2007: “Whoa. Watch out for bridges!” Are these budding fears useful or a hindrance? Downhill skiing, while still a fun activity, is hinting at its dangers with each passing experience. When I’m on the chair lift, I think about how much it would hurt to fall off. When I’m scraping my way down the hill, I think about how little I’d like my knee to bend the wrong way until it snaps. Is aging killing my very few joys in life now or is it just making me more careful? I don’t know. Let’s examine some of these fears in-depth:
Fear Number One: My Kitchen Cupboards Can’t Take It Anymore And Come Crashing Down. This is a tough one. I think I have, among other things, 12 dish sets in one upper cupboard above my sink. That’s 12 big plates, 12 little plates, 12 annoyingly big bowls, and 12 seldom-used saucers. The other things are more bowls, some little dishes I swiped from work, and some big heavy decorative dishes my mom gave me. That’s a lot of weight for one small cupboard above a sink. What’s holding that cupboard up? A couple of screws? I don’t see the kind of supports I’d like to see, like the things holding bridges up (even defective ones). As far as I know, my cupboards are just stuck to the wall with some Elmer’s. Why isn’t everyone concerned about this?
Irrationality Level: High. Totally irrational, though? I think not. My friend Lindsey’s ktichen cuboard fell off the wall once, unprovoked. Therefore, it can happen!
Fear Number Two: Mountain Lions. I live in Boulder and there are mountain lions here. I’ve never seen one and I don’t even know if I’ve ever met anyone who has ever seen one, but we know they’re lurking out here somewhere. And they eat people! Maybe they’re in my back yard right now! (As an aside, I really don’t think it should be “backyard.” I think it should be “back yard” and that’s what I’m going to use). I check my back yard every day for mountain lions and while I haven’t seen one yet, I’m not going to stop checking.
Irrationality Level: Medium. I mean, some kid was attacked about four years ago in Boulder and a few weeks ago in Oregon. It can happen!
Fear Number Three: Deciding to Try to Survive for a Summer in a Bus in Alaska and Eating a Poisonous Sweet Pea Plant and Dying Alone of Starvation. Those of you who have read and/or seen Into the Wild will notice that I have too. Since then, I have found myself feeling nervous about somehow accidentally ending up in that situation and I really, really, really don’t want to do that. None of it. I don’t want to live in a bus, I don’t want to eat a poisonous plant, and I don’t want to die of involuntary starvation. I should add a sub-fear, here, which is of eating anything poisonous, even if it’s not in Alaska. I couldn’t even eat this arugula salad I once ordered at a hoity-toity restaurant because it tasted like poison. But anyway, there it is. I really don’t want this to happen to me and just thinking about it gives me the willies.
Irrationality Level: OK, Really High. But you know what, it really did happen! Just not to me.
Fear Number Four: My Front Bicycle Tire Falls Off When I’m Riding Down a Hill. Like the cupboards, what is holding that tire on? Just a little metal? Who put this bike together? Who was the last person to put that wheel on? Me? For heaven’s sake, I don’t know anything about bikes. Who let me put a tire on a bike? Do I KNOW that I did it right? I mean, I think I did it right, it’s really not that hard, but did I tighten the thingies enough? Too much? Is the wheel going to sieze up and stop turning because it’s too tight?
Irrationality Level: I’d Say Medium-Low. Because when I was in high school, it did happen! to a kid I knew and he really got a bad road rash on his face.
Irrational Fear Number Five: My Cell Phone In My Front Pants Pocket Will Give Me Ovarian Cancer. This one eats at me every day. Hopefully not literally. We all know that cell phones give off a little radiation. How much? I don’t know. How much will give you cancer? I don’t know. Does anyone know if these levels are safe? I mean, people used to drink radium thinking it would keep them healthy. Now we know that’s a bad idea. In 30 years, will we look back on our cell phones as cancer cubes (even though they’re never cubes, but “cancer rectangular prisms” is awkward)? I’ve actually thought about carrying my cell phone in my back pocket, thinking that butt cancer would be better. But Farrah Fawcett had a really bad time with anal cancer and we all know how that ended, so that’s probably not a good alternative. (Hey! Maybe a cell phone in the back pocket is how she got it! Did anyone look into that possibility?) A purse would be better, but I hate purses. Getting rid of it would be the best of all, but it really is convenient sometimes. So what do I do? Do you suppose they sell little lead-lined pouches? I just have no answers to this problem. Thankfully, I don’t use my cell phone very much, so I’m strangely not worried about brain cancer.
Irrationality Level: Dammit, Low. Low! I think it’s Low! I think it could happen!
So there we have five of my least-rational fears. What do you think? Is this the first step to becoming the Little Old Lady Who Only Drives a Buick on Sundays or do these fears have merit? It is a case of older-and-wiser or growing instability? I think what gives me some hope and confidence is that I know there are people, maybe even sometime contributers to this blog, who have irrational bee fears. I don’t have an irrational bee fear. They can crawl all over me and I don’t care. Oh, but I am afraid of brown recluse spiders hiding in the fingers of old work gloves and biting me when I put them on. Laugh if you will, I don’t care. It can happen!
Fear Number One: My Kitchen Cupboards Can’t Take It Anymore And Come Crashing Down. This is a tough one. I think I have, among other things, 12 dish sets in one upper cupboard above my sink. That’s 12 big plates, 12 little plates, 12 annoyingly big bowls, and 12 seldom-used saucers. The other things are more bowls, some little dishes I swiped from work, and some big heavy decorative dishes my mom gave me. That’s a lot of weight for one small cupboard above a sink. What’s holding that cupboard up? A couple of screws? I don’t see the kind of supports I’d like to see, like the things holding bridges up (even defective ones). As far as I know, my cupboards are just stuck to the wall with some Elmer’s. Why isn’t everyone concerned about this?
Irrationality Level: High. Totally irrational, though? I think not. My friend Lindsey’s ktichen cuboard fell off the wall once, unprovoked. Therefore, it can happen!
Fear Number Two: Mountain Lions. I live in Boulder and there are mountain lions here. I’ve never seen one and I don’t even know if I’ve ever met anyone who has ever seen one, but we know they’re lurking out here somewhere. And they eat people! Maybe they’re in my back yard right now! (As an aside, I really don’t think it should be “backyard.” I think it should be “back yard” and that’s what I’m going to use). I check my back yard every day for mountain lions and while I haven’t seen one yet, I’m not going to stop checking.
Irrationality Level: Medium. I mean, some kid was attacked about four years ago in Boulder and a few weeks ago in Oregon. It can happen!
Fear Number Three: Deciding to Try to Survive for a Summer in a Bus in Alaska and Eating a Poisonous Sweet Pea Plant and Dying Alone of Starvation. Those of you who have read and/or seen Into the Wild will notice that I have too. Since then, I have found myself feeling nervous about somehow accidentally ending up in that situation and I really, really, really don’t want to do that. None of it. I don’t want to live in a bus, I don’t want to eat a poisonous plant, and I don’t want to die of involuntary starvation. I should add a sub-fear, here, which is of eating anything poisonous, even if it’s not in Alaska. I couldn’t even eat this arugula salad I once ordered at a hoity-toity restaurant because it tasted like poison. But anyway, there it is. I really don’t want this to happen to me and just thinking about it gives me the willies.
Irrationality Level: OK, Really High. But you know what, it really did happen! Just not to me.
Fear Number Four: My Front Bicycle Tire Falls Off When I’m Riding Down a Hill. Like the cupboards, what is holding that tire on? Just a little metal? Who put this bike together? Who was the last person to put that wheel on? Me? For heaven’s sake, I don’t know anything about bikes. Who let me put a tire on a bike? Do I KNOW that I did it right? I mean, I think I did it right, it’s really not that hard, but did I tighten the thingies enough? Too much? Is the wheel going to sieze up and stop turning because it’s too tight?
Irrationality Level: I’d Say Medium-Low. Because when I was in high school, it did happen! to a kid I knew and he really got a bad road rash on his face.
Irrational Fear Number Five: My Cell Phone In My Front Pants Pocket Will Give Me Ovarian Cancer. This one eats at me every day. Hopefully not literally. We all know that cell phones give off a little radiation. How much? I don’t know. How much will give you cancer? I don’t know. Does anyone know if these levels are safe? I mean, people used to drink radium thinking it would keep them healthy. Now we know that’s a bad idea. In 30 years, will we look back on our cell phones as cancer cubes (even though they’re never cubes, but “cancer rectangular prisms” is awkward)? I’ve actually thought about carrying my cell phone in my back pocket, thinking that butt cancer would be better. But Farrah Fawcett had a really bad time with anal cancer and we all know how that ended, so that’s probably not a good alternative. (Hey! Maybe a cell phone in the back pocket is how she got it! Did anyone look into that possibility?) A purse would be better, but I hate purses. Getting rid of it would be the best of all, but it really is convenient sometimes. So what do I do? Do you suppose they sell little lead-lined pouches? I just have no answers to this problem. Thankfully, I don’t use my cell phone very much, so I’m strangely not worried about brain cancer.
Irrationality Level: Dammit, Low. Low! I think it’s Low! I think it could happen!
So there we have five of my least-rational fears. What do you think? Is this the first step to becoming the Little Old Lady Who Only Drives a Buick on Sundays or do these fears have merit? It is a case of older-and-wiser or growing instability? I think what gives me some hope and confidence is that I know there are people, maybe even sometime contributers to this blog, who have irrational bee fears. I don’t have an irrational bee fear. They can crawl all over me and I don’t care. Oh, but I am afraid of brown recluse spiders hiding in the fingers of old work gloves and biting me when I put them on. Laugh if you will, I don’t care. It can happen!
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