The Perfect Game ... Yeah!

You know by now, even if you don’t follow baseball, even if you don’t know the precise definition, you know that San Francisco Giants pitcher, Matt Cain, threw a perfect game last night. Perfect? Isn't that an exaggeration?

Not many sports or other aspects of life can be called Perfect. I guess a bowler can bowl 12 strikes in a row for a perfect 300 score. You can answer every question right and become a millionaire on TV (especially if they tell you the answers beforehand). But every shot a bull’s-eye? Every day of a marriage free from friction? Perfection is a worthy standard, but unattainable, spiritually or in the mini-world of sports. Most of us are stifled by our struggle for perfection. All we do is fail over and over.

Yet Matt did it. The 22^nd person in the 136-year history of baseball, with several coming in very recent times, another this year even, so there were decades without a perfect game. Cain’s spent his whole life preparing for this. He exercises hard every day all year. He tries harder. He’s built himself into a pitching machine capable of perfection. He decided as a child and sticks to the plan as an adult. He made the sacrifices. Did you? No. Rather party with your mates or watch reruns of I Dream of Jeanie? Yeah, thought so. Me too.

Cain got a big contract this year, as did Barry Zito a few years ago. But Zito was crippled by the expectation of perfection that those millions carry and hasn’t pitched well since. Cain chugs ahead like a train, unstoppable, unflappable. He has the toughest mental game I ever saw. That’s where pitchers fall apart. One guy, Russ Ortiz, even forgot how to pitch a few years ago. Weird but true; one day he was good, the next he completely forgot how to do that thing. The mental game rules. For us too. You can psych yourself out every day, fullfilling your loser identity, that’s easy. What’s hard is to roll with the punches, face pressure and stress without cracking, be sensitive but don’t let it get to you. Maintain perspective. Care but not too much.

And the pressure in about the sixth inning must have been nearly unbearable. For all the boys on the field. They caught a couple balls that saved Matt’s game for him, their captain. They didn’t throw wide of first but right on the bag. Buster Posey called the game and Cain did not challenge a single pitch. Posey was the brains; Cain the arm. Near the end any lapse by anyone and it’s over. One dribble hit, a good bunt, one hit batter, a hundred things can blow it. Nobody let any of those happen. I think I would have felt sorry for the losers and subconsciously let one through. That’s why I admire Matt Cain, he showed no weakness while staying always human. The best we can be. Afterwards he said, “Wow.” The victor unashamed and unafraid.

That’s baseball. Where the best are rewarded. Doesn’t work that way in my life, my job, my game. But you show the world what you can do and the best go the Cooperstown, the faulty get sent to the minors. Everyone gets what they deserve. And everyone in the stands is down on the field with the boys like shadows. We pull for them like they're our brothers. We feel for every play. I don’t get that from other sports. I mean, Formula One car racing is an extremely popular sport here in Italy. How do you empathize watching that?

If we like metaphors (may the force …) we might go to the story of Cain and Abel in the Qur’an or Bible. The farmer Cain, though a murderer, was the strongest brother, the winner, the survivor. And without pity, Matt Cain killed those Astros, 27 in a row. I never thought I’d see it happen in my whole life.

Baseball teams don’t have captains, but Matt Cain has been the unofficial leader since he came up from the Giants farm system. Or as baseball fan, Walt Whitman, said:

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting …

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Hello, dear friend, are you excited about the perfecto?

Jeff: Couldn’t care less.
Mutt: Me neither.
Jeff: Got a question that’s been bothering me.
Mutt: Shoot.
Jeff: Bang. Okay, if a mute swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap?
Mutt: Dunno. If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages?
Jeff: Dunno. If a stealth bomber crashes in a forest, will it make a sound?
Mutt: Dunno. If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is he homeless or naked?
Jeff: Dunno. If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?
Mutt: Dunno. If the cops arrest a mime, do they still tell him he has the right to remain silent?
Jeff: Dunno. If the funeral procession is at night, do folks drive with their headlights off?
Mutt: We don’t know much, do we?
Jeff: Dunno.

What's So Funny?

In my constant search for my true self—ain’t we all?—, I asked myself what, or rather who, I think is funny. It’s like a test. I said: Yo, Dude, who do you think is funny? Well, actually, I was jerking around on Youtube, and I bumped into the Smothers Brothers. Oh yeah. I got a few yucks from each vid. Oops, that really dates me, those guys are old men now! But laughs are like gold, dig all you can. You were looking for health pills? You wanted more and better life?

The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (the best), Tommy (the funny one), Dickie (the annoying one), Pat Paulsen (still votable), David Steinberg (better than he ever was), Booga Booga! Now that isn’t so funny now, but in context it was because it was such stupid nonsense, like you could say absolutely anything and get a laugh. Whereas the Smothers always had well-written, well-rehearsed, well-timed bits. They were/are the best. And John Hartford was on the show. And Steve Martin and Albert Brooks.

I’m talking about stand-up comedians that truly got me going: George Carlin, Bill Cosby, Bob Newhart, Rowan & Martin, Woody Allen, Andy Kaufman, Rita Rudner, Monty Python.

You’ll notice lots of names missing from my funny-to-me list: Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, the nightclub types: Don Rickles, Alan King, Mel Brooks, Mort Sahl, Rodney Dangerfield, Joan Rivers, Phyllis Diller, Carol Burnett, Johnny Carson, Cheech & Chong. It’s personal. And it’s a sin to follow the crowd.

You’re saying there are generations of comedians? Duh. Wanna go earlier: Jack Benny, George Burns/Gracie Allen, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Martin & Lewis, Three Stooges, Lucille Ball. Good but few true laughs.

The one I liked most from the pre-60’s was Groucho Marx. And Danny Kaye.

Even before that: Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Laurel & Hardy, W.C. Fields. Clever, sometimes boring and no laughs.

The Saturday Night Live Gang and everyone after 1975, take a lesson. There are lots of funny people nowadays: Ricky Gervais, Stewart and Colbert, Steven Wright, Robin Williams, Bill Mayer, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David (kinda), but watch out for movies. Too many funny people got into unfunny movies and kind of lost themselves along the road to Hollywood: Steve Martin, Dan Ackroyd, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx, Billy Crystal, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock. Movies kill comics.

The obvious deduction from all this is that you like what you heard in high school when you first started laughing at grown-up stuff. Maybe so, but maybe comedy doesn’t get better in quality or quantity as the decades roll on. It’s not like computers. Maybe anyone who wants to minister to the humor needy, to doctor our funnybones, to give out the giggles, should look backwards at the masters from whenever, wherever. Some humor gets old, most doesn’t. I think Mark Twain said that.

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: What’s with the boss, a month of golden silence, was he sick?

Jeff: Yes. Had nothing to say.

Mutt: Why is that a problem?

Jeff: T’ain’t. He’s got no contract.

Mutt: We don’t either. Maybe we should move to Wisconsin. Oh, never mind.

Jeff: Heard any good jokes lately?
Mutt: In Wisconsin?
Jeff: No.

Mutt: “Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world.”

Jeff: Who said that?

Mutt: I just did … okay, Dave Barry.

Jeff: “If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.”

Mutt: Mark Twain?

Jeff: Dave Barry.

Mutt: “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

Jeff: I love Dave Barry.

Mutt: That was Mark Twain. And so is, “Sacred cows make the best hamburger.”

Jeff: No way. I got one: "Time's fun when you're having flies."

Mutt: Mark Twain? Dave Barry? George Carlin?

Jeff: Kermit the Frog.

Mutt: Say goodnight, Jeff.

Jeff: Goodnight Jeff.

The Truth About Baseball

Nawaaz traveled to Los Angeles and was taken to see his first baseball game. He was nine years old, accompanied by his aunt Lopa, a school teacher, and her friends, Wilbur and Veronica, a scholar and a writer. Nawaaz, not being American, knew nothing about baseball, so he asked his hosts: the teacher, the poet and the intellectual, to explain the game to him. Here is what each one said.

The teacher: A baseball is a round ball, and the object is to go ‘round the bases, running counter-clockwise. The innings when the two teams switch positions also go around nine times. So just remember three bases to touch before they let you come back across the plate plus three strikes, that’s when you swing and miss, plus three outs before the sides trade makes nine, the number of turns in each game. It’s really simple!

The intellectual: That’s quite true, but there’s also a leverage thematic problem-based dialogue transforming pitcher and batter, the real-time stakeholders, that operationalizes metacognitive enabling to enhance visionary risk-takers and strategize, even synergize, disintermediate interactive systems. Baseball embraces multidisciplinary objectives assessment to facilitate and orchestrate transformative paradigms by reinventing critical thinking mechanics and extending articulation to benchmark engagement structures, to target cross-contextualized proactive facilitators.

The poet: Baseball is the search for the lost soul’s return home. The foul lines continue into infinity embracing the universe and linking all playing fields, players, spectators as pseudo-players, and imagined or remembered childhood experience mythologized into a legend of the self. The traveler earns his/her reward by overcoming physical limitations and contrasting enemies to arise victorious or fall in shame and disgrace, symbolizing the angst of human endeavor and the metaphorical literature on our Creator-construct. It’s a dance, a ritual, a faith that informs everything else.

Nawaaz nodded and smiled as he enjoyed the game through to the end. Then he went home and called his parents. “Aunt Lopa took me to a show called baseball, and I got three explanations, but I couldn’t understand a word. It was the worst three hours of my life. Please let me come home, so I never have to watch another one of these things ever again!”

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Wanna play twenty questions?

Jeff: No, I don’t.

Mutt: Number one: What's the longest piece of furniture in the world?

Jeff: Seriously?

Mutt: The multiplication table.

Jeff: When does a boat show affection?

Mutt: Dunno.

Jeff: When it hugs the shore.

Mutt: Let’s save time by giving the question and the answer.

Jeff: Even better. Why are rivers always rich? Because they have two banks.

Mutt: Why did the little fella sleep on the chandelier? Because he was a light sleeper.

Jeff: Why do cows wear cowbells? Because their horns don't work.

Mutt: Why does lightning shock people? Because it doesn't know how to conduct itself.

Jeff: Why is your hand similar to a hardware store? Because it has nails.

Mutt: Did you hear about the dyslexic Satanist? He sold his soul to Santa

Jeff: How do crazy people go through the forest? They take the psycho path.

Mutt: How do you get holy water? Boil the hell out of it.

Jeff: What do prisoners use to call each other? Cell phones.

Mutt: What do the letters D.N.A. stand for? National Dyslexics Association.

Jeff: What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work? A stick.

Mutt: What do you call four bull fighters in quicksand? Quatro sinko.

Jeff: What do you get from a pampered cow? Spoiled milk.

Mutt: What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire? Frostbite.

Jeff: What do you get when you cross an elephant and a skin doctor? A pachydermatologist

Mutt: What has four legs, is big, green, fuzzy, and if it fell out of a tree would kill you? A pool table.

Jeff: What is a zebra? 26 sizes larger than an "A" bra.

Mutt: What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches? A nervous wreck.

Jeff: Was even one of those funny?

Mutt: Yeah, one.

Kurt Vonnegut Letter to Drake School Board

In October of 1973, Bruce Severy — a 26-year-old English teacher at Drake High School, North Dakota — decided to use Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse Five, as a teaching aid in his classroom. The next month, on November 7th, the head of the school board, Charles McCarthy, demanded that all 32 copies be burned in the school's furnace as a result of its "obscene language." Other books soon met with the same fate.

On the 16th of November, Kurt Vonnegut sent McCarthy the following letter. He didn't receive a reply.

November 16, 1973

Dear Mr. McCarthy:

I am writing to you in your capacity as chairman of the Drake School Board. I am among those American writers whose books have been destroyed in the now famous furnace of your school.

Certain members of your community have suggested that my work is evil. This is extraordinarily insulting to me. The news from Drake indicates to me that books and writers are very unreal to you people. I am writing this letter to let you know how real I am.

I want you to know, too, that my publisher and I have done absolutely nothing to exploit the disgusting news from Drake. We are not clapping each other on the back, crowing about all the books we will sell because of the news. We have declined to go on television, have written no fiery letters to editorial pages, have granted no lengthy interviews. We are angered and sickened and saddened. And no copies of this letter have been sent to anybody else. You now hold the only copy in your hands. It is a strictly private letter from me to the people of Drake, who have done so much to damage my reputation in the eyes of their children and then in the eyes of the world. Do you have the courage and ordinary decency to show this letter to the people, or will it, too, be consigned to the fires of your furnace?

I gather from what I read in the papers and hear on television that you imagine me, and some other writers, too, as being sort of ratlike people who enjoy making money from poisoning the minds of young people. I am in fact a large, strong person, fifty-one years old, who did a lot of farm work as a boy, who is good with tools. I have raised six children, three my own and three adopted. They have all turned out well. Two of them are farmers. I am a combat infantry veteran from World War II, and hold a Purple Heart. I have earned whatever I own by hard work. I have never been arrested or sued for anything. I am so much trusted with young people and by young people that I have served on the faculties of the University of Iowa, Harvard, and the City College of New York. Every year I receive at least a dozen invitations to be commencement speaker at colleges and high schools. My books are probably more widely used in schools than those of any other living American fiction writer.

If you were to bother to read my books, to behave as educated persons would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in favor of wildness of any kind. They beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are. It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely. That is because people speak coarsely in real life. Especially soldiers and hardworking men speak coarsely, and even our most sheltered children know that. And we all know, too, that those words really don’t damage children much. They didn’t damage us when we were young. It was evil deeds and lying that hurt us.

After I have said all this, I am sure you are still ready to respond, in effect, “Yes, yes–but it still remains our right and our responsibility to decide what books our children are going to be made to read in our community.” This is surely so. But it is also true that if you exercise that right and fulfill that responsibility in an ignorant, harsh, un-American manner, then people are entitled to call you bad citizens and fools. Even your own children are entitled to call you that.

I read in the newspaper that your community is mystified by the outcry from all over the country about what you have done. Well, you have discovered that Drake is a part of American civilization, and your fellow Americans can’t stand it that you have behaved in such an uncivilized way. Perhaps you will learn from this that books are sacred to free men for very good reasons, and that wars have been fought against nations which hate books and burn them. If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.

If you and your board are now determined to show that you in fact have wisdom and maturity when you exercise your powers over the education of your young, then you should acknowledge that it was a rotten lesson you taught young people in a free society when you denounced and then burned books–books you hadn’t even read. You should also resolve to expose your children to all sorts of opinions and information, in order that they will be better equipped to make decisions and to survive.

Again: you have insulted me, and I am a good citizen, and I am very real.

Kurt Vonnegut

Gaga Family Saga

"Why waste your money looking up your family tree? Just go into politics and your opponents will do it for you." -- Mark Twain

As you know, if you know, if you care, if you’re still reading, hello?, I have traced my lineage back to four U.S. presidents (see below: Dropping Names on my Foote). Is that something to brag about? Considering who they are? Curious? Taft was the best. The others are Nixon and the Bushes. Oh well, oh hell, hell’s bells, ding dong.

They say that several hundred thousand, if not million, Americans can trace back to cousinship with George W., so I’m not alone. Barack Obama is another distant relation of his predecessor’s. Okay.

But there’s news, big news! We’re all children of Adam & Eve? No, I found another claim to everlasting fame. Let’s see if I can get this right. My ancestor on my maternal grandfather’s side is Casper Strahl (1729-1799), who was named Casper von Strahlheim in Austria/Germany. His name was changed when he landed in Philadelphia in 1750 as an indentured servant with a contract for eleven years of servitude in exchange for passage. Twelve years later he married Rebecca Barger, a Quaker, who was disowned by the Society of Friends until her husband and children joined the Society. Casper and Rebecca had a son, Phillip, who had a son, Casper.

In 1817, Casper married Mary Todd, 17, in Warren, Ohio. They farmed and raised 8 children and moved to Salem, Iowa in 1844. Mary died in 1869 and Casper in 1873.

Mary Todd was the daughter of Stephen Todd and Sibellia Williams. Stephen was the grandson of John Todd, a Presbyterian minister in Virginia. John Todd was the brother of Levi Todd, grandfather of another Mary Todd, a second cousin to Casper’s wife. She was from one of the leading families of Lexington, Kentucky, but moved to Springfield, Illinois to live with her sister.

After a tempestuous courtship, this Mary Todd married a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln in 1842. They had four children, but only one lived to adulthood. Mary Todd Lincoln was First Lady of the United States from 1861-1865. Her cousin, Mary Todd Strahl (and Casper) had a son named William, who had a son named Charles, who had a son named Jesse Elvin Strahl, my grandfather. He was a sweet quiet man, a Republican like Lincoln. I was 14 when he died, and it was only many years later that I realized how I missed him.

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Name dropper!

Jeff: Don’t you hate that? What is he, better than us just because he has distant relatives who’re famous?

Mutt: You don’t like history, do you?

Jeff: Nah, you?

Mutt: Well, I do know that in 1905 the formula for rouge was reddy.
Jeff: In 1909 rodent traps were invented with hope that a lot of people would gopher them.
Mutt: Also in 1909 the first magician appeared on stage – he was so bad, he made the audience disappear.
Jeff: In 1911 the first radical engine was marketed – the inventor said, “Diesel be very good.”
Mutt: In 1911 the first pill to cure headaches was introduced, but people found it hard to swallow.
Jeff: In 1912 the first ceramic coffee mug was invented by a couple of guys – everyone said they made a nice cupple.
Mutt: In 1913 valentine-shaped candy boxes were made for sweet hearts.
Jeff: In 1914 the Panama Canal locks opened, but they forgot the cream cheese.
Mutt: In 1915 pancake makeup was invented, but most people still preferred syrup.
Jeff: In 1920 the branding iron was invented – the cattle were really impressed.
Mutt: In 1924 Thomas Jack, an Englishman, invented the automated packaging machine – he was known as Jack the Wrapper.
Jeff: In 1925 card playing reached the pinochle of success.
Mutt: In 1931 the first shipment of hot dogs to the U.S. arrived from France – to pay off a foreign debt of 3 million francs.
Jeff: In 1932 a banana-skin briefcase was made – for lawyers who wanted to appeal their cases.
Mutt: In 1933 card playing was first banned aboard naval vessels – ships lost their decks.
Jeff: In 1935 the first greyhound raced behind a restaurant – the biggest bet was made by a man with a hot dog.
Mutt: In 1945 the first all-white Dalmatian dog was spotted.
Jeff: In 1948 the first dentist was hired by the National League to put on baseball caps.
Mutt: In 1949 the first tightrope walker was hired by a circus – he was high-strung.
Jeff: In 1951 vegetable farmers from all over the world held a meeting – it was the first peas conference.
Mutt: In 1958 two men invented the radial tire – everyone said they made a nice spare.
Jeff: In 1961 the skateboard was invented – it was a wheelie good idea.
Mutt: In 1968 pantsuits for women became fashionable, but ladies tried to skirt the issue.

Jeff: I guess that says it all.
Mutt: Oowah!

Jeff: Double Oowah!

Hey, you’re cracking my spine!

I read mostly used books. I’m cheap. I can buy ten used for the price of one new. I only buy new books if they’re written by my friends. And I don’t have that many friends.

Recently I’ve noticed something that I’ve always noticed about used books. That is, I finally asked myself why so many of my used books crack when I open them. That is, these wonderful volumes have clearly never been read. For instance, I just read four old books by John Barth, a fantastic writer. All four broke into pieces in my hands. That’s because the glue from the 1960’s is so old that it’s brittle, one even had a hardback spine that torn in two, but what bothers me is that these books have no signs that they’ve ever been read.

Why do people buy books? Because they feel an obligation to read something? Thanks university instructors for the guilt trip! Or is it because they know they will like the book, but there just isn’t time to read everything. Do they hang onto them for years and then give them away? I suspect the intention of reading is, for many people, stronger than the real reading habit. So if I publish a book and sell, say, ten thousand copies, how many of those are bought but left closed? How many are read by several people? How many wind up in the used book store for scavengers like me to find?

“I buy so many books I can never read them all.”

“You can’t go wrong giving books as presents.”
“We don’t have enough space in the garage for all these books. Chuck ‘em.”
“I’d feel bad just tossing good books into the recycling bin, maybe we could donate them or trade for more books.”

Of course, there are those exceptions that are full of writing, so that you get a double reading experience, yours and the previous owner’s. That’s fun. In the textbooks, the notes are heavy in the first chapter and peter out before mid-way. And then there are the truly read books which even after decades smell like the smoke of the person who enjoyed reading and smoking in bed back before remote controls and tablet internet. I opened a book recently and smelled the boiled fish someone was cooking years ago. Maybe reading in the kitchen. These signs are like a time capsule. That pipe smoker may be dead, but his pages carry on his scent to me across the world.

In my copy of My Ántonia, a story of my grandparents’ Nebraska, some uneducated plains-dweller has written notes with a fountain pen like: ‘she’s so nice’, and ‘I don’t like him’. As if this reader felt like the characters were her neighbors. As if Willa Cather were sharing her journal. This dialog is probably from 1918 when the book came out. Amazing.

Happy reading trials, Martin

Mutt: Ready for some American history?

Jeff: I love American history.
Mutt: Not for long.
Jeff: Well, I know that in 1621 a Plymouth band began playing because they wanted to see Plymouth Rock.
Mutt: In 1634 the first twins were born in America on a two’s day.
Jeff: In 1640 the first calendar was produced – everyone knew its days were numbered.
Mutt: In 1803 the first chimney sweep was hired and everyone said, “Soot yourself!”
Jeff: In 1806 liquor was first made in the U.S. – it soon went into mash production.
Mutt: In 1841 the first suspenders were made, but the company was held up.
Jeff: In 1865 Canada sold the U.S. a herd of 40,000 bison. Then America received a buffalo bill.
Mutt: In 1868 the first dressmaker’s shop opened – it seemed to do very well.
Jeff: In 1869 walnuts were first introduced to America – some thought they weren’t all they were cracked up to be.
Mutt: In 1883 the first bakery opened on the yeast coast.
Jeff: In 1888 chains were made for pocket watches – for people who couldn’t afford to lose time.
Mutt: In 1889 the first lighter-than-air craft departed on its maiden voyage – everyone thought it was a lot of balloony.
Jeff: In 1892 a shipment of fruit was delivered by boat – it was the first water-mailin’.
Mutt: In 1898 the first submarine sandwich was introduced, but the company went under.
Jeff: Okay, and then what happened?
Mutt: One damn thing after another, brother, one damn thing after another.

Desperate Need of Nothing

Mutt: So what’s up with the Boss?

Jeff: Silence is golden.
Mutt: Maybe he doesn’t have anything to say. Ran out of brains.
Jeff: Never stopped him before.
Mutt: I heard he wrote some posts on the current political situation, but is too chicken to publish them.
Jeff: Squawk, squawk.
Mutt: Quack, quack.
Jeff: Did you hear about the two microbes who lived inside of a horse?
Mutt: What? Another microbe joke!
Jeff: They were just barely squeaking out a living by eating any small particles of food that passed by the tiny capillary in which they were living. After discussing it among themselves, they decided to move out to a bigger artery, and then to a large vein, but too late they realized their mistake. They forgot the old maxim: Don’t change streams in mid-horse.
Mutt: Once there was a King who was loved by all of his subjects, especially because of the hunting excursions he shared with them. As will happen, one day he died and his eldest son took the throne. Now this new king was an animal-lover to the core, and immediately outlawed all forms of hunting and fishing. His subjects accepted this for only a short time before they ousted him.
Jeff: So what?
Mutt: So what? Well, this is a truly significant event, because it's the first time a reign was called on account of the game.
Jeff: Every one a winner.
Mutt: Yabba dabba doo.
Jeff: It seems that there were these three pregnant Indian squaws, all due to give birth at about the same time. The first squaw gave birth to a boy, and the birthing was done on a deer hide. The second also gave birth to a boy, but this was done on a bear hide. And the third had twins, two boys, and she did this on a hippopotamus hide.
Mutt: I am really afraid to ask.
Jeff: This shows us that the sons of the squaw on the hippopotamus hide is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides.
Mutt: I don’t get it.
Jeff: Neither do I.
Mutt: For the love of Mike!
Jeff: Oowah!

Copenhagen by Lucinda Williams

Thundering news hits me like a snowball
Struck in my face and shattering
Covering me in a fine powder and mist
And mixing in with my tears,

And I'm 57 but I could be 7 years old,
'Cause I will never be able
To comprehend the expansiveness
Of what I've just learned.

But you, have disappeared
You have been released
You are flecks of light
You are missed.

Somewhere, spinning round the sun
Circling the moon
Traveling through time
You are missed.

Walking through unfamiliar streets
And I'm shaking unfamiliar hands
And I'm hearing unfamiliar laughs
And lovely language I don't understand.

It's late October in Copenhagen
The skies are grey, the snow is falling
I see my breath outside, I'm freezing
I'm motionless, I'm disbelieving.

But you, have disappeared
You have been released
You are flecks of light
You are missed.

Somewhere, spinning round the sun
Circling the moon
Traveling through time
You are missed.


Happy trials, Martin

Neal Under the Tree

This year Neal waited until December 24^th to buy his Christmas tree. That way he would save a lot of money and still have a nice evergreen for the living room. Of course, when he got to the cut tree sale in the shopping center parking lot, most of the ones left were crooked, needle-less and sickly. The heavy snows had made many trees grow into question marks. Yet the fat man and his sons still had plenty of Christmas trees for sale; maybe they’d overstocked.

One flashing thirty-footer was on display at the back end of the lot. The clever idea was that the shoppers would enter from the front and on their way to see the huge decorated tree at the rear would find a darling to set their hearts on. Plus, you could see the tree sales area from miles away.

Many people did buy trees, the cute ones, but by the 24^th there was still half a lot full, half off, 70% off, and make us an offer. Tomorrow they’d all go into the shredder, except the Paul Bunyan model that would go chopped into the fireplace.

When they saw Neal coming, they got ready to make one final deal. One of the kids asked him as he ambled in, “You need a piece of rope to tie up your tree?” And Neal thought that a bit odd but took the offered rope end just in case. He pulled it behind him like a dog leash. What he didn’t realize, because he was distracted looking so hardly at the crumpled trees, was that the boy hadn’t cut the other end of the rope and Neal was trailing the whole spool behind.

In the spirit of the jolly season, in the spirit of eggnog and peppermint schnapps, the fat man and his boys watched as Neal walked around amongst the trees holding the end of a rope that wasn’t cut and kept rolling off the spool by the entrance. They laughed till they held their sides; they cried and made each other laugh even more. The younger boys were bent over double, and the father had a coughing-spitting attack, then continued laughing. Nothing was ever as joyous and merry as this doofus dragging a rope all around their trees.

Neal, on the other hand, was using his keen eye and fine sense of judgment to get the very best of the rejects that remained in the lot. He wouldn’t be cheated, and he planned to get his tree for 80% off, if not more. He arrived at the telephone pole-height lighted tree at the end of the tree lot (out in mid-parking lot). Plus, he had reached the end of his rope.

Neal, who thought he maybe had a six or eight-foot piece of rope, the length used to tie a tree to his car roof, who thought it may have gotten caught under a tree’s tiny x-stand, who stood hidden in a forest of dry aromatic firs, pulled on the rope end to no effect. He was peeved at this stuck rope deal because he had seen several contenders and was trying to remember which tree would look best in his apartment. So he pulled harder. To unstick his rope, Neal leaned back and yanked with all his might.

The hundred foot rope pulled the trees at the entrance; it pulled them over in fact. Those first dominos toppled over the one next to them and the whole forest started to shift. Timber! Neal couldn’t see over the tops near him, but he could hear some shouting and some rumbling. He pulled again, dammit, that rope was really wedged in tight under something! Row after row of trees fell towards our hero. When he finally saw the avalanche he turned to run in panic.

The Christmas trees seemed to be chasing him. Neal cried out like a girl. He turned right around to run as fast as he could away from the tree monsters coming to get him. Blindly he ran smack into the big tall pine trunk with the blue, red, yellow, green lights flashing on it. Neal smacked his hard forehead on the tree so hard that it tottered. People pushing their shopping carts to their cars couldn’t figure out what was happening in the tree lot area, but the trees were all tipped on their sides and the big one was starting to lean. Neal had fallen back onto the ground, knocked out cold, possibly dead. The big tree couldn’t recover its balance and fell out into the parking lot. A white SUV was coming around that lane. People shouted at the mother in the van to stop, but she couldn’t see what was about to crash onto her head.

The tree fell with a thud and a swoosh of dust right in front of the SUV; the woman swerved, avoiding disaster, but then skidded and bashed into a couple parked cars. No one was hurt, except Neal who woke up in an ambulance. There were cops at the E.R. and the fat man who said he’d lost his whole business to the Ropeman and the SUV woman and the parked car owners who had called their lawyers and insurance agents. Neal had a concussion and could not understand much, but none of it was good.

Even though a thunderstorm of trouble would arrive in the coming weeks--four lawsuits against Neal for an accident not his fault--Neal celebrated Christmas at home with a bandaged head and a puny three-foot fake tree the nurses at the hospital had given him. It most likely had belonged to a patient who’d died before he could use it. Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!

Happy trials, Martin

 

Mutt: Good day, partner.

Jeff: And a jolly good day to you old pal.
Mutt: I’ve got a question.
Jeff: Do you now?
Mutt: Is there another word for synonym?
Jeff: Is it possible to be totally partial?
Mutt: Should vegetarians eat animal crackers?
Jeff: Instead of talking to your plants, if you yelled at them would they still grow (only to be troubled and insecure)?
Mutt: I don’t know, but the question bothers me.
Jeff: I’ve got another. Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do ..."practice"?
Mutt: Let’s go to the races.
Jeff: I hear the ponies calling.
Mutt: What do they say?
Jeff: Trifecta, brother, trifecta.

XXXmas

My yearly humbug a month late? Yes, but a diff take on the season this year. For one thing, I sailed to ye good ol’ U.S. of A. for a new look-see.

The United States of America, the great social experiment, the wild, impractical, honorable, nutso experiment in arbitrary and strained co-habitation. Can former enemies, current enemies, haters of other races, religious fanatics, speakers of different languages, live side by side, get along, form friendships, intermarry and reproduce (see Barry O’s folks), become one people, unite? Citizens from everywhere else crammed into somewhere else become united by what they find to share. (sounds like campaign rhetoric there) But we don’t truly share enough and the experiment fails every day.

I’ve wondered what the big deal with the flag is. Then I got it. The common mutual identity of every other country missing, we’re stuck with a marker, a phony symbol of improbable unity. We’re all flag-wavers, at least. Yet there must be more. Do the Russians, Africans, Indians, Indonesians, Portuguese become Americans through partaking in football or fast food? It is a choice, you know, you can live in the country or be of the country, no matter where you were born.

So that brings us to Christmas, an overwhelming holiday. The lights, trees, Santa hats in the supermarket, the soundtrack played all over the radio and public address systems. You cannot escape Christmas in the U.S. Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc., are celebrating with the Christian believers and non-believers. Despite “reason for the season” talk, it is now a universal national month of festivities. That beats the stars and bars any day.

Don’t want to feel good, hum along with the songs, smile at each other, wish strangers well, smile at the colored lights, laugh at the silliness, watch the stupid movies, enjoy the excess of food/drink/gifts/family (when will they leave?)? Tough! You got no choice, everybody does Christmas. It’s the ‘Merican Way. Land of plenty, hell, land of too much and-you-know-it. So go on, get happy, eat candy.

And shopping, ahhh, the shopping season, do your stores a favor, fill that cart and that extra bedroom since the garage is already stuffed to the roof. Buy buy old year—hello new … wardrobe/toy collection/next generation electronic do-dads/food till you cry ‘Uncle’, and so on. Shopping not a hobby? Shopping is the great American pasttime, most evident in December.

I’m reading Willa Cather. New immigrants on the western frontier had nearly nothing, slowly acquired the basic tools for survival, then bought that little sugar lump or ribbon for the girl’s hair. Skim five generations ahead. We don’t fix things, we don’t build things, we don’t entertain ourselves anymore, we don’t walk for the joy of walking, we don’t play (casinos don’t count) – we’re too busy down at the mall! There’s a sale on, everything and everyone is half off! Half off!

At the mall, you see the oldest settlers’ descendents and all the new peoples (in my town they’re Asians and Arabs), who may not have assimilated much yet (first generation, you know, like me), but they’re all down at the mall shopping their American hearts out. Land of plenty, milk and honey, toys ‘r us, candyland, dream come true. Salaries are high enough to give everyone that small or large surplus to spend, so spend baby spend! Bush said it was our patriotic duty; I say it’s the emblem of patriotism, of Americanism (which doesn’t really exist, except in advertising). Merry ca-ching Christmas!

Don’t like it? Find it an empty, valueless, superficial lifestyle? Move to Cuba. But don’t bring a boatload of Cubans with credit cards to a Miami outlet, they’ll go berserk.

Hey, I only call ‘em, like I see ‘em.

Happy ca-ching trials, Martin

Mutt: Including Rudolph, how many reindeer does Santa have?

Jeff: I know this. No I don’t.
Mutt: Ten: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Rudolph and Olive.
Jeff: Olive?
Mutt: Yes, Olive the Other Reindeer.
Jeff: Okay, what did the kids say when they saw Dr. Jekyll the Truant Officer coming?
Mutt: Uhhhh.
Jeff: "Hyde! It's Dr. Jekyll!"
Mutt: Too ambivalent. How can sea captains use amphibians?
Jeff: As froghorns? If a seagull flies over the sea, what flies over the bay?
Mutt: A bagel?
Jeff: What did the kid say when his mother poured oatmeal on him? I’ll tell you: "How can you be so gruel?"
Mutt: Yucky. So how did Colonel Sanders die? Give? He choked on his fingers.
Jeff: If you continue, someday I’ll lose all my respect for you.
Mutt: I lost mine for you three years ago.
Jeff: How do you change tires on a duck? With a quackerjack. I learned that one from a three-year old.
Mutt: I learned this from a two-year old: What colour is a belch? Burple.
Jeff: What did Tarzan say to his wife?
Mutt: Go.
Jeff: "Jane, it's a jungle out there!"
Mutt: How do you tickle a rich girl? You don’t know this? Oh, you should. You say "Gucci Gucci Gucci!"
Jeff: Uncle.

Music in Memorium, 2011

Way too many people died this year. Here are some whose music has given me a kick.

Amy Winehouse

Andrew Gold (see Maria Muldaur)
Benton Flippen
Bert Jansch
Big Jack Johnson
Bill Morrissey
Bill Tapia, ukulele master, 103 (see photo)
Billy Grammer
Bob Burnett (of the Highwaymen)
Carl Gardner
Charlie Craig
Charlie Louvin
Clarence Clemons
Dan Peek
Dan Terry
David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards
Dobie Gray
Don Kirshner
Doyle Bramhall
Eddie Kirkland
Gerry Rafferty
Gil Scott-Heron
Harry Jackson, cowboy singer
Hazel Dickens
Jack Hardy
Jerry Leiber
Jerry Ragovoy
Jessy Dixon
Jimmy Norman
Jimmy Roselli
Jody Rainwater
Joe Morello (Brubeck’s drummer)
John Barry
John Walker
Kenny Baker
Marv Tarplin
Milton Babbitt
Myra Taylor, 94
Nickolas Ashford
Nilla Pizzi
Phoebe Snow
Roger Williams
Sam Rivers
Suze Rotolo (Dylan’s girlfriend)
Wade Mainer, old-time banjo master, 104
Warren Hellman (Hardly Strictly Bluegrass)
Wild Man Fischer (street musician)
Willie “Big Eyes” Smith (Muddy Waters band)
Wilma Lee Cooper

Non-musical deaths:

Andy Rooney
Cliff Robertson
David Nelson
David S. Broder
Giorgio Bocca
Harry Morgan
Jack LaLanne
José Pagan
Ken Russell
Matty Alou
Owsley Stanley
Peter Falk
Richard F. Pedersen  (Uncle Dick)  (see obituary at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/us/01pedersen.html)
Sidney Lumet
Steve Jobs
Theodore Roszak
Tom Keith
Tom Wilson, Sr. (Ziggy)
Vaclav Havel

Poets:
Edwin Honig
Eleanore Ross Taylor
Hugh Fox
John Haines
Lucille Clifton (2010)
Peter Reading
Piri Thomas
Ruth Stone
William Kloefkorn


Happy trials, Martin

Picks of the Flicks, 2011

This is my incomplete list of the best films I saw in 2011 (I watch films on Sky television, so they will likely be from past years):
Cars

Crazy Heart

El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes)

Fair Game

Henry Poole Is Here

Howl

Love and Other Drugs

Moby Dick (2010 mini-series)

Motel Woodstock

Reindeer Games

Shutter Island

Sugar

The Adjustment Bureau

The Concert

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest (Swedish)

The Girl Who Played with Fire (Swedish)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish)

The Road

*The Tree of Life

Too Big To Fail

Up in the Air

*Best ever

That's it, whatcha gonna do?

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Good day, my fine feathered friend.
Jeff: Same to you but more of it.
Mutt: Ready for the funny stuff?
Jeff: When's it start?
Mutt: Now. When women enter middle age, it gives men a pause.

Jeff: So funny I forgot to laugh. How about: Prison walls are never built to scale?

Mutt: Not bad. The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
Jeff: Glad to hear it. If you don’t pay your exorcist you get repossessed.
Mutt: Oh yeah. There was a guy who was fired from the orange juice factory for
lack of concentration.
Jeff: When I was a kid, we were so poor we couldn’t even afford to pay attention.
Mutt: I used to be a tap dancer until I fell in the sink.
Jeff: Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
Mutt: The poet had written better poems, but he’d also written verse.
Jeff: There was a ghost at the hotel, so they called for an inn spectre.
Mutt: Ancient orators tended to Babylon.
Jeff: The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
Mutt: You didn’t hear about the three big holes in the ground? Well, well, well.
Jeff: It was raining cats and dogs. There were poodles all over the road.
Mutt: When chemists die, we barium.
Jeff: And last but not least ... Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.
Mutt: You told that one last year.
Jeff: Hoppy Cassidys to you too.

This Year of Books

This year I read some books I liked a lot, life-changers, teachers of writing. I also started a number of books that just didn't sock it to me. It may be rice wine to you, but it's still sake to me! I gave 'em the standard fifty pages, then retired them to the basement. Reading's too much fun and life too brief to read books that don't zing to your zoul.

Try keeping score yourself, a reading log can mark the paces of your passage through your years. You might take little steps of mildly enjoyable reads or you might mark your life into before and after X.

Plus reading can help you lose weight and keep in shape if done on a treadmill.

Here are the gooduns, excepting research and work stuff.

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole *
bird by bird, Anne Lamott
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
Demonology, Rick Moody
Dude, Where’s My Country? Michael Moore
Many Lives, Many Masters, Brian L. Weiss
Moran of the Lady Letty, Frank Norris
Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
On Moral Fiction, John Gardner
Plan B, Anne Lamott
Ron Carlson Writes a Story, Ron Carlson
The Billboard Guide to Writing and Producing Songs That Sell, Eric Beall
The Challenge of Space, Arthur Louis Joquel II * (my former prof)
The Elements of Storytelling, Peter Rubie
The Inferno, Dante (John Ciardi translation)
The Maytrees, Annie Dillard
The Pacific Crest Trail, National Geographic Society
The Road to Wellville, T. Coraghessan Boyle
The Sot-Weed Factor, John Barth *
The Sweetheart Season, Karen Joy Fowler
The Watch, Rick Bass
The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston
Vineland, Thomas Pynchon
Wild Mind, Natalie Goldberg
* best

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.
Jeff: When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she’d dye.
Mutt: A scientist doing a large experiment with liquid chemicals was trying to solve a problem when he fell in and became part of the solution.
Jeff: If you leave alphabet soup on the stove and go out, it could spell disaster.
Mutt: When they bought a water bed, the couple started to drift apart.
Jeff: A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was a nurse said ‘No change yet’.
Mutt: What did the grape say when it got stepped on? Nothing – but it let out a little whine.
Jeff: A criminal’s best asset is his lie ability.
Mutt: Be true to your teeth, or they will be false to you.
Jeff: If you give some managers an inch they think they’re a ruler.
Mutt: She was only a whisky maker but he loved her still.
Jeff: The optician fell into the lens grinding machine and made a spectacle of himself.
Mutt: Gravity is studied a lot because it’s a very attractive field.
Jeff: Old lawyers never die they just lose their appeal.
Mutt: Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
Jeff: So how are you today, my friend?
Mutt: 'Bout the same, 'bout the same. And you?
Jeff: Ditto likewise.

Chains of Gold: rap against the Wall

Politically inconsistent. I am often glad for serious moderate competent people running things (like the new Monti government in Italy), but my impulse would be toward drastic immediate radical upheaval. Things are so bad! Things are so bad? Compared, say, to the Middle Ages? Compared, say, to an ideal world?

In a moment of certainty, I wrote this rap about the most interesting movement in decades. And happily it’s not even organized. There’s no head honcho, just a bunch of pissed-off people who won’t go away. We haven’t all lost our moral compass.

chorus:  Chains of gold, bought and sold, chains of gold in a stranglehold

Lose your blindfold, you just been rolled, they stole your payroll and sold your household.

The rich never pay, we pay every day.

Gold in rings, rings in rings, forming strings of shiny things

Chains of fun, glittering sun, I want one, I want two for one

Two three four, count out more, more and more, you credit whore

I want my chains, I can’t abstain, it takes no brains, cigars champagne, to maintain this gangsta domain (Wall Street gangsta, that is)

It’s a human trait, what makes us great, you eat a full plate, an’ load on the weight

Weigh me down, oh golden crown, pool of money, I want to drown

Go down, underground, where the gold is found.

Wall street, your elite street, where you cheat neat, now our sweet street

Main street, mean street, easy street, sleazy street,

Your deceit, your conceit, listen to the flock bleat:

You’re obsolete, you’re obsolete, man, get out of the way if you can’t lend a hand

Who’s to blame? Here’s your name:

Citigroup, Bank of A., Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

Morgan Stanley, GMAC, General Motors, AIG

JP … Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, disgrace

Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and old Bear Stearns,

Wachovia, watch the Lehman Brothers burn,

Burn, Money, Burn! Wall Street Fire Sale!

Investment bankers in my rhyme, say, “Brother, can you spare a dime?”

Traders on welfare, o.d.ed on their junk bonds, another big scare for the upper echelons

When we cut your chains of gold, watch your golden parachutes implode

Flying bankers, lost their anchors, we saved your asses, you still rich bastards,

We paid your debt, with our sweat, think we’re pissed off? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

99%, 99%, can’t afford a lobbyist, can’t pay the rent

Tax the rich, the wherewithal, Arab spring, New York fall

Break down the walls, open the halls, fight for your future in the Wall Street brawls

Sick of your greed, heed our need, you see that bull, now watch the stampede!

Globalization against our nation, we invented our own ruination:

Sub-prime mortgage, Ponzi scheme, Corporatocracy, American Dream

Toxic hedge funds, Matrix scheme, Bubbles and scams: the American Dream

Like Uncle Sam is now Scrooge McDuck, screw your neighbors, what the fuck?

We work for peanuts like hamsters on a wheel, for the Madoffs to steal

Wheel and deal, bow and kneel, believe your own spiel, spin the big wheel

Banking fees, got us on our knees, credit card debt, but we’re not dead yet

Lower pensions, lower wages, fewer benefits, smaller cages

Life.com, the assembly line, lining their pockets, never mine

Dwight D. Eisenhower warned, when the military-industrial complex was born

Evil child, mean and wild, don’t be beguiled, by its gentle smile

You broke the unions, you broke the youth, your Fox News sluts broke the truth

Permatemping not professions, time has come for major concessions

If you won’t give a living wage, you’re the one who set the stage

Bars on the banks, bars on the doors, doors on the bars say come in, drink some more

Hey man, if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.

Who me? Who me? I’m the sleeping giant nation.

And you just woke me up!

Homeland security, economic purity, democratic assembly, a sign of maturity

Our Declaration of Independence, the beginning is near, a compassionate world, with no more fear

I am not a number, I am a free man, (ha ha ha) not your property, not your brand

End war, feed the poor, war’s a racket, don’t back it,

Rebuild the dream, that’s the theme

Let’s turn this whole world around, okay?

Nation build in the USA:

1,2,3,4

Easy to see what we’re fighting for:

Healthcare for all

Environmental overhaul

Jobs with dignity

Educational quality

So occupy everything, everywhere, Oakland, Pittsburg, Wilmington, Delaware

It’s our country, it’s our government, we’re the people, the 99%

Peaceful protest is a right, you cops know we’re not here to fight

We’re occupied days and nights, defending our free speech rights

Can you hear us now? Can you hear us now?

How much noise till you awake?

How much pushing does it take?

To break these chains of gold.

Want to hear it? It's on myspace:   http://www.myspace.com/emartinpedersen

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: You up for a good one?

Jeff: No, I'm up for the one you're going to tell no matter what.

Mutt: One day, an elderly woman was walking along the street, coming home from the supermarket. Her bag of groceries was especially heavy that day, and as she passed Nathan Hale's Used Cars, she got an idea that she could drive herself to the store and save a lot of shoe leather, time and aching muscles. She walks into the car dealership and, as it just so happens, gets the owner himself. He asks her what kind of car she wants and she replies,

  "Well, sonny, I can't remember the name exactly, but it has something to do with hate or anger."

  The owner replies, "Well, let's see... Oh yes, you want a Plymouth Fury! We have a couple on the lot. What color do you prefer?"

  The lady has some trouble explaining the exact color to him, so she reaches into her shopping bag, takes out an ear of corn, strips down the shucks and says, "I want this color sonny."

  To which Nathan replies, "Ma'am I'm sorry, but we don't have any in this color. Could I show you a nice blue one?"

  "No son, I want this color."

  "But ma'am, they didn't make that color! Maybe a cherry red one would suit you?" says the owner, obviously worried about losing a sale.

  By this time, the old lady gets mad, and starts throwing things at the owner, thereby chasing him out of the office and into the lot. One of the salesmen, coming into the office from the back door, notices the disruption and asks the secretary what the old woman was so upset about.

  The secretary replies, "Apparently, Hale hath no Fury like the woman's corn!"

Jeff: I should have stayed in bed this morning.