F*cking Rome

My wife and I like the series Rome on HBO. We watched the first season last year and were quickly caught up by the characters, situations and the actors playing the roles. We have watched the first three episodes of Season Two and all I can say is…what the fuck?

I don't remember Season One using the word fuck as much as I've heard it in these three episodes. I know that HBO series use fuck because it's naughty and they can get away with it. You pay for the "privilege" of watching the same lame movies over and over again on HBO, and many of them use the word fuck. So they have extended that to their homegrown series like The Sopranos, Deadwood, and Rome, etc.

Not only was the word fuck overused to the point of silliness in episode 15 (third episode of Season Two), but other situations were overdone, also. Two incidents of buggery, men on other men. Three bare bums of men; the gangster Carbo, his robe pulled up and raped in his bare butt; Mark Antony, walking into the bath with the sexy Atia, shows the actor nude from the rear, and at the end the actor portraying Brutus is shown nude from the back.

As my coworker Peg might say, "Why do they always show guys nude from the back?" Well, they have shown a penis or two on Rome, just not in Season Two…so far, that is. Keep watching, Peg, they may have a surprise for you later and give you a full monty.

I'm demanding some equal time. More boobies along with the butts! Also, my objections to the word fuck remain. I'm not against using it, just not in every scene. Fuck is a word which should be used for emphasis. At the most maybe twice an episode, if even that. C'mon, writers…you're better than this. Is there a reverse censor at HBO? A guy who sits down and watches these programs before they air and says, "We only have 19 uses of 'fuck.' We need more." Is there a requirement for a certain number of times the word fuck has to be used on HBO?

If you're a big Rome fan, don't get after me for my criticisms. I am a fan also. I just think the show can be made entertaining and be just as interesting without all of the language and shock video--killings, including a throat slashing and beheading, and the aforementioned anal sex--because they've got one of the most talented casts of any HBO series, hands down.

Detachable Dick

Like a few million other Americans I watched the State Of The Union address last night. I didn't expect much and didn't get much from our President. He is still off in some Cloud Cuckooland where progress is being made in Iraq, and life's better all around for everyone. Everyone that isn't getting blown up, that is.

The real treat to me was looking past Bush at Cheney and Nancy Pelosi behind him. Besides the fact that Nancy Pelosi is one fine-looking woman, Cheney is always worth looking at just to see if he gives one of his patented sneers or otherwise makes his usual stone face do something remotely human. Last night he winked at someone in the audience. Maybe his wife, maybe his mistress, maybe one of his buddies.

He also popped something into his mouth. At first I thought, "Nitroglycerin." I thought maybe he was having some chest pains, but whatever it is he popped into his mouth, he appeared to keep sucking on it for a long time. I then thought, "Maybe it's a Lifesaver. Maybe when the speech is over he's going to grab Nancy and lay a big wet one on her, sticking his tongue in, putting the Lifesaver in her mouth." No such luck, buddy. I'm sure Nancy has dodged more kisses than a stud like you has ever given.

They also showed pictures of the audience of dignitaries, occasionally identifying a senator or congressman, or even Supreme Court justice. I saw Hillary sitting behind Barack Obama and was hoping she'd put a V with her fingers behind his head, but she was being dignified. I saw Senator Patrick Leahy give a wolfish grin. Maybe he was thinking about setting up a little meeting with Nancy Pelosi. I didn't see anyone picking their noses or doing anything egregious, but I might have missed something because I had to get up and go to the bathroom a couple of times during the speech. Being able to go to the bathroom was something I thought about. All of those people were packed into the gallery and no one could get up and go pee if they had to. Maybe there is a big run in D.C. on Depends undergarments right before the State Of The Union. That wouldn't help if you had to fart, something I can do in my easy chair, but can't do in public. Just gotta hold it, Senator. Only another hour to go and then you can go to your chambers and cut loose.

*******

After the State Of The Union Sally turned the TV to HBO and we watched the last part of a Wanda Sykes special. Wanda is a black female comedian who is known to me mainly from being on the Larry David show, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Wanda did a hysterically funny and obscene bit about how nice it would be if women had "detachable pussies." They could leave them at home when they went out. That way if a guy jumped out of the bushes while they were jogging they could say, "Sorry, my pussy's not here."

I thought how nice it would be if guys had detachable dicks. You could hand it to a woman you wanted to impress, saying, "Take this home, introduce it to your pussy. If they like each other we can go out." You might want to take some Viagra before handing it to her, though. You wouldn't want her to just drop it and say, "Ewwwww, what's this tiny little limp thing, a worm?"

If I was God, I would've designed people that way.

Wanda used the f-word a lot. I really have nothing against the word fuck. I use it occasionally, though, when I really mean it or really feel a compelling need. Unlike some folks I don't use it in casual conversation. Nowadays when I walk into any school on my route I'm apt to hear it, both from boys and from girls. And that's just the elementary schools! High schools it's all over the yard.

A word loses its power when it's overused like the word fuck. If I fuckin' wanted to fuckin' say fuck I'd better fuckin' say it with a fuckin' reason, otherwise it fuckin' loses its fuckin' intensity.

There have been episodes of The Sopranos where I swear (yuk-yuk, no, they swear, not me) they use the word fuck more times than I heard it in two years of the Army, and when I was in the Army I heard it a lot.

So, fuckin' have a fuckin' great day, you fuckin' fuckers.

Ciao for fuckin' now.

Bunco

Whatever happened to the word "bunco"? We who used to watch Dragnet were used to hearing the word when Jack Webb as Joe Friday would open a show by saying, "…my partner Frank Smith and I were working the day watch out of Bunco…" According to www.dictionary.com a bunco, or bunko (short for bunkum) is a swindle or confidence game.

Does anyone even use the word "swindle" anymore? Nowadays I think the words bunco and swindle have been replaced by the words "scam" and "con."

The Internet is still in its wild and wooly phase, where anything is possible and no one seems to have perfected a way to maintain some sort of control over the cretins who come through your monitor from god-knows-where, trying to extract money illegally from you. Everybody remembers the Nigerian e-mails where some lawyer in Lagos, Nigeria tells you somebody died leaving you $2,000,000, and all you have to do is send him $5,000 and he'll make sure you get it. Are those still being sent? I haven't seen one of those in a few years, although I heard just recently about several people who have fallen for it, losing thousands of dollars in the process.

The other bunco/con/scam is "phishing," where some crooks send you an official looking e-mail supposedly from your bank or Paypal or eBay saying there has been an attempt to get into your account, so send us your password, credit card numbers, etc., and we'll make sure it doesn't happen again. Has anyone fallen for that one?

You don't need the Internet to pull a scam. In 2003 Sally and I got a phone call on a Monday from our credit card company asking if we'd authorized some suspicious payments and we hadn't. The week before our son's wedding someone had wiped out our checking account. We went to our bank and reported it and got our money back immediately. We told them what we thought happened. Sally had gone with a friend to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. The waiter had taken her credit card, kept it for what Sally thought was longer than necessary, and then two days later the charges started hitting our account from other states. At the time we were so glad to get our money back we didn't really think much about what could be done about it. The bank didn't seem all that interested, nor did the credit card company. I'm sure it happens so often that they probably just chalk some of it up to the cost of doing business, and of course they add those charges right back to you in forms of increased service fees. So we get scammed by crooks and no one asks who was at fault, and then we end up paying extra for it.

A couple of weeks ago I heard on the local news about a Salt Lake City Quizno's sandwich shop. About 30 customers complained that after they used their debit cards to buy lunch unauthorized charges showed up on their credit card statements. At least the customers knew where the scam originated. Some employee of that particular Quizno's either sold the credit card numbers or used them himself. You don't need the Internet to get ripped off; you can get it by buying lunch.

I wonder if this has happened to anyone else: Last year before my son's birthday my wife bought him an iPod from Amazon.com. While ordering it she read that if she opened up an Amazon.com Visa account and have them put the items she was buying on that card, she could get free shipping. She signed up for the card, never intending to use it. She thought, "I'll get the card, I won't activate it, then when I pay it off in one lump sum I'll cancel the card." She didn't think much of it until she got a credit card statement showing that someone had placed e-trades to a stock broker in the UK on our card. She made some phone calls, signed a statement that the charges weren't made by her, and we never lost anything, but no one accepted responsibility. Amazon.com said it wasn’t their fault, Visa said it wasn't their fault, so how did someone get the credit card number since except for the initial charge for the iPod, the card was never activated? That's just bunco!Ciao for now.

Four of 24

This is a yearbook picture of my dad, Leon, taken when he was in prep school, circa 1936, which would have made him about 15 or 16. He looks very mature for his age, but some of that is because in those days teenagers weren't a separate breed of human like they are today. The clothes they wore were cut down adult wear, not a completely different wardrobe with matching hairstyles, piercings and accoutrements.

My dad's cousin, Lorna, gave me a print of this picture which I re-photographed some years ago. The details are a little murky but you can see right off that dad was a handsome guy.

Years later, when I first joined the school district where I've worked for the past 30 ½ years, I met a lady named Enid. She recognized my name and said she was from my dad's home town. She told me, "Your dad's family was well off compared to the rest of us. We barely made it through the Depression but your dad and his sisters seemed to have everything they wanted. Your dad even went to a private school."

She added, "That Leon, he was the most handsome guy. I used to think he was the handsomest guy in town."

I waited for her to say, "…and you take after your dad." But she didn't. And I don't.

*******

I watched the first four hours of this season's 24 with Kiefer Sutherland. I watch the show--not always, but occasionally--for different reasons than the usual 24 fans. I think it's more like a comedy. The plots are so overcooked, the characters are so earnest, the bad guys so bad, the good guy (Jack Bauer, played by Sutherland) almost as bad, that it makes for caricature rather than character.

This time out they're chasing Arab terrorists who have suitcase nuclear devices. As episode four ended, one of the suitcase nukes had gone off in Los Angeles, and we could see the mushroom cloud rising over the city in the distance. Oboy. What happens next? Tune in next Monday.

I admit that during the last hour my attention started to drift. There's so much activity on screen that my mind starts looking for relief. I pick up a newspaper or magazine to read while the characters are running around, shouting, racing in cars.

Something I've noticed about 24: The cell phones they use (which they are constantly using) always work. There are no drop outs, no dead areas with no reception. The person they're calling is always able to pick up the phone and talk; no voice mail, no missed calls. They are on the road when no one else is out there. In these episodes they were able to follow a terrorist without traffic problems, then switch over surveillance to a satellite. It can be made to swing over from its position in space and look right down on the terrorist's car with just a few keystrokes on a computer somewhere at hq in Washington. Somehow Jack managed to do all that and still get back to rescue a hostage, all within the hour timetable of the show.

There are so many plot elements like that piling up in the episodes that it adds to the surreal atmosphere. I also like that Jack, who has been tortured by Chinese for 20 months but never talked (according to the Chinese, who gave up this information to the Americans without even being asked!) has had his conscience tweaked, so when he tortures a suspect he feels bad. Of course, sometimes that's hard to tell because Kiefer Sutherland has one expression he uses throughout the show. Except when he's yelling, which he does quite a bit.

In one of the episodes (I can't remember which; sorry, they all start running together in my mind), a guy crashes through a glass coffee table and has a big shard of glass sticking out of his leg. A guy gets shot in the leg. Someone is tied up and gets stabbed in the knee as torture. The writers need some new ideas of which body parts to attack.

In 24 no one seems to ever have to stop for a pee break, or to eat a sandwich or have a cup of coffee. I guess when you're saving the world (or at least, the good ol' U.S. of A.) you don't have time for breaks. Personally, I think it would be better if on the episodes where Jack says, "This takes place between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.," he would tell someone, "We need to stop at Starbucks and get a cup. Jeez, I'm gonna drop if I don't get some caffeine."

Ciao for now.

Eat My Shorts, Sasquatch

Here are some odds 'n' ends today. My brain is still semi-frozen from being out in the Arctic-like weather all day.

*******

Hey! Someone has found Sasquatch! Any suspicion that the creature known as Bigfoot--or is it Bigbutt?--doesn't exist should be dispelled by this picture.
*******

Is there anyone else out there who likes a Zero Bar? I found this on the Internet. It's a page from a 1940s candy wholesaler's catalogue. Hollywood Candy still makes Zero Bars but they are hard to find. The only place I have seen them in several years is in Wal-Mart. They might be better distributed in other areas of the country than they are here. I worked with a guy once who used to eat two or three Zero Bars every day for lunch. Not with his lunch…they were his lunch. I wonder if he has any teeth left.I also like Hollywood Candy's Payday, which is also in this 60-year-old catalogue. I don't recognize the Hail Bar on the same page as the Zero.

*******

Back in the 1960s Batman was king…for about 15 minutes. Actually, a year and a half. Still, that short period of Batmania is well remembered. No matter what else was going on I used to park myself in front of the tube two nights a week to watch Batman. I still remember the Neil Hefti theme song, and like other TV show themes from the '60s it is still instantly recognizable. I haven't seen an episode of the Adam West Batman show in years. Is it still in syndication? At the time of its popularity the stores were inundated with merchandise with Batman logos. I really like the shirts on these kids in this old picture. It's probably inspired by the TV show, but it isn't the TV show logo, which was more stylized. This is actually the logo from the old Batman comic books I used to read in the 1950s.
*******

This is one of those really embarrassing events this guy will want to forget as soon as possible, but may haunt him until they shovel dirt on him. When busted for drunk driving he tried to eat his underwear to cover up the alcohol in his system.

Sounds like he's been watching Bart Simpson, "Eat my shorts, man."

*******

George Bush is in so much trouble now I am not going to add to the general outcry. It's more fun to watch his fellow Republicans carve him up like a Thanksgiving turkey. I've done a lot of bitching about Gee Dub since I had a letter to the editor published in my local daily newspaper on December 31, 2000, protesting the results of the Presidential "election." But even as I vow to quit dissing Dubya I can't resist this dig:

Ciao for now.

Happy Birthday

Today is Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Happy birthday, Dr. King.

Where I live, Utah, was the last state to recognize the King holiday as Martin Luther King Day. Before 2000 it was called Civil Rights Day or some other euphemism. African-Americans make up only about 1% of the population and most Utah natives are still not used to non-white faces amongst the mostly Northern European-type residents.

In the 1960s I saw a huge billboard on State Street in Salt Lake City. It had a picture of Dr. King sitting in a chair, in a classroom setting. The headline on the billboard said, "MARTIN LUTHER KING AT A COMMUNIST CELL MEETING!" The billboard was signed by "TACT--The Truth About Civil Turmoil." There really was no way anyone could tell where the picture was taken or when, or whether it was a commie cell meeting or the social committee in the basement of a church. Even people around here who hated King, who hated everything he stood for, didn't swallow that. I remember talk radio programs with people discussing how untrue the billboard looked to them.

Utah, and particularly Utah County, just south of us, was the hotbed of activity for the John Birch Society. It's still the single largest concentration of conservatives in the state. I assume the organization TACT, which I never heard of before or since, was probably either part of the Birchers, or some guy paying for a billboard and calling himself an organization.

I think it was that billboard that was the catalyst to make me pay attention to the civil rights issues going on at the time. I was a teenager, usually just involved with myself and my friends, letting the world go by without thinking about it much. The billboard's message worked for me, but in exactly the opposite way the person who erected it wanted it to. After seeing the naked and libelous hatred in that message I had much more sympathy for what people were out marching for.

It was about a hundred years from the end of the U.S. Civil War until the first Civil Rights Acts were signed by the President, and it might be a hundred more years before people start judging people by "the content of their character and not the color of their skin." I wonder how long it would have taken had there not been a charismatic leader like Dr. King to remind us we're all in this together.

*******During the 1950s or early '60s this comic booklet came out with the story of Dr. King and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, made famous in the history of the civil rights movement. It was distributed in the South, and was a primer on non-violence, including two pages on the Gandhi story. You can find the whole thing posted at this site. There are also some other interesting educational comic booklets posted there; things I'm sure you've never seen before. I know I hadn't.

This particular comic book is well done with excellent illustrations. Organizations found out that people respond positively to information given in this format, which is why it's always been so successful.

*******

Years ago when Martin Luther King Day was being proposed, then implemented, I heard a lot of grousing and complaining. One guy said, "Who the hell wants a holiday in the middle of January?" I told the guy, "People might not accept it as a holiday until the car dealers and furniture stores start using it as a selling tool." Sure enough, this weekend the ads are out, and the "Martin Luther King Day clearance sales!!!" are bursting out of my local newspaper.

Ciao for now.

Renewing Acquaintanceships

This was a week of interesting surprises.

First surprise, interesting but no fun, is how damn cold it's gotten. It's settled over most of the nation so everyone knows about the teeth-rattling chill, but I have to work in it.

********

My wife, Sally, works for an education foundation, which is headquartered in an elementary school. Said school is on my regular school district mail delivery route. Monday night she told me, "I found out the principal, whose name is now Mandy H--, was once Mandy V--, and she went to school with us."

I did a Danny Thomas spit take. Coffee shot out of my mouth. I said, "Mandy V--? I dated her!"

I don't know what would get a spouse's attention more than words like that, but Sally suddenly became all ears. My advice is, if you want to get your husband's or wife's undivided attention, say something about someone you dated.

It really wasn't much of a date, though, but the story has an interesting twist. I got lined up by a mutual friend. Mandy V-- was really cute. She had/has a pretty face with attention-getting eyes. I was a senior and she was a junior. We went on one date in the fall of 1964. I don't remember what happened on the date, but I remember what happened before the date.

Mandy had told me, "Meet me at the Hires Root Beer stand. I'll be inside waiting." I showed up at 7:00 in my 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air two-door hardtop like I was supposed to, went inside the Hires stand, but the only person I saw in there was a hard-looking man sitting at the counter. I was disappointed but went back outside and got ready to drive off. I heard my name in a loud whisper. I looked over and behind a light pole was Mandy, trying to get my attention. I drove to the pole and she jumped in and said, "Get out of here, quick!" I did.

When we were clear of the parking lot she said, "That's my boyfriend in Hires. I didn't want him to see me." Alarm bells went off in my head. Boyfriend…? I asked, "How old is your boyfriend?" She said, "Thirty-three."

I don't know how old you are, but consider when you were 17-years-old, and how other people looked to you. Thirty-three looked to me like real old, real grown-up, real dangerous. My balls shriveled in my pants. The last thing in the world I wanted was to be with someone who had a boyfriend who looked like he could pop my head like a grape. So the rest of the evening is wiped from my mind, but I still remember how I felt when I heard that startling bit of news.

My question now would be, why was a 16-year-old girl going out with a 33-year-old man? Well, we all know why the guy was interested in her, don't we? I wonder what ever happened to that relationship but I won't be asking Mandy, because I don't plan on talking to her. I don't renew acquaintanceships like that, nor would there be a reason. She's management now, I'm still a flunky. She probably doesn't remember me or that night, and thank god for that. Like George Costanza, I don't want to be remembered.

*******

When that happened I told my friend Dave in an e-mail, "I don't renew acquaintanceships," and for the most part that's true. However, later in the week my old e-mail buddy Eddie contacted me. He'd been looking for blogs about Harvey Kurtzman, who was the creator of Mad, and came up with me. It'd been several years since we had written to each other. Unlike Mandy, Eddie I welcomed back in my life.He has a really interesting blog called Chicken Fat, which reminds me a lot of my own blog. But then, I could have gotten the idea from Eddie because of his way of making everyday life sound interesting. Maybe Eddie and I hit it off because we are both observers of other humans, who notice things maybe others don't notice. Or it could be that we share the Zodiac sign of Cancer. Or most likely it's that after reading Mad comics our minds are just twisted and bent into the same configuration.

*******

Lots of folks have spent the week commenting on Gee Dubya's latest Iraq speech. Right now there is the unmistakable smell of desperation. I could practically see the flop sweat rolling off his forehead as he knew what was at stake since he has lost most of his audience and his core group of supporters.

When I was in the Army a sergeant told me the story of why the chevrons that indicate the rank of sergeant are pointing up instead of down. "It's because the Army has never lost a major battle," he proclaimed. Nice story, but what about Little Big Horn? Anyway, not only is the U.S. Army having troubles fighting an enemy in Iraq who is gone like smoke, they will probably never be able to say they won this war, unless getting out with at least some respect from the rest of the world could be counted as winning.

Ciao for now.

Factoid or Fictoid?

This morning I got one of those e-mails that your friends send you, things that they received that they pass along. It was titled Did You Know and included "facts" like "Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand and lollipop with your right." Now who figured that out, and should I believe it? I'm not going to go through the unabridged dictionary typing out words to see if I can make one with my left hand that's longer than the word stewardesses, so it's basically impossible to know if it's true or not.

Suspicious type that I am, I call little factoids like that "fictoids," because I suspect they may be fiction.

I'm willing to accept some things the e-mail says like, "A dime has 118 ridges around the edge," or "Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite," because I believe those facts could be readily checked. I'm not going to go check them by counting the ridges on dimes or blowing myself up with dynamite to see if the taste in my mouth as I die is peanutty, but they sound reasonable. I'm less willing to accept at face value that "the average person's left hand does 56% of the typing," or "women blink twice as much as men." How could I check either of those? Into the suspected fictoid file they go.

One of the lines had a familiar ring to it. "If the population of China walked past you, eight abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction." I heard something similar over 40 years ago when I was in junior high. The teacher who said it to us had a slightly different, more ghoulish, take: "If you lined up all of the Chinese and machine-gunned them as they walked by you you'd never kill them all because they'd reproduce too fast." Those were the years of more open and casual racism. There was the Cold War; China was "Red China," Chairman Mao had his Little Red Book, and fresh in our memories we had the Korean War and thousands of Chinese soldiers coming over the hills in North Korea to engage our guys in battle.My classmate, Richard, who was a smartass like me, piped up: "It'd be hard for them to 'do it' if they were walking." The teacher looked at him for several seconds until the laughter died down. "All right, it would," he conceded, and went on to another subject. I got a mental image of people having sex and babies while lined up, walking, waiting to be machine-gunned to death.

In 2007 I ask, was this fictoid determined before or after the Chinese adopted the one-child to a family rule? They do have a lot of people. According to no less an authority than the CIA China has a population of about 1,300,000,000 people in a land mass a little smaller than the U.S. The U.S. has a population of 300,000,000, or roughly one billion less residents. So would you be able to machine gun all of the residents of America if they'd be so dumb as to march by you and be shot, or would we be reproducing too fast, too?

Whew! That's a lot to think about from one little e-mail.

Here's another factoid that I consider suspicious: "If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of six months waiting at red lights." Awww, c'mon. If you live in Utah like I do you just blow through red lights. That could skew the averages. Over a lifetime Utahns probably only wait three months at red lights. People in Utah do not think of a red light as "stop," but more like a challenge to get through an intersection without being t-boned by another car. Into that alleged fictoid file it goes.

I have no way of knowing if this is true or not (it's the first time I've ever read it, and I've read a lot about Prohibition-era gangsters): "Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer." But I like it. You could sound real smart at a party if you dropped this one into a conversation. "Well, you know," grinning, slowly rotating the ice in your whiskey glass, "Al Capone's business card said that he was a used furniture dealer." Gasps of amazement come from the crowd. Wow, you're suddenly the smartest guy in the room, with the most unusual and arcane trivia. Is it true? They don't care. You don't either.

Ciao for now.

Reverse Resolutions for 2007

If a year had an asshole, it would be January.

*******

We're a week into 2007. How many resolutions did you make, and how many have you broken?

I'm not one to make resolutions, because I know how easily discouraged I can get saying, "I'm going to lose that 20 pounds this year!" or "I'm going to get that better job!" and then end up 10 pounds heavier and in the same crappy job.

What I've decided to do this year is reverse resolutions. That is, I'm going to tell you what resolutions you should have in regard to me.

My first reverse resolution would be to tell you that when driving on the freeway with me make sure you use your turn signals. Also, do not drive on the freeway at 75 mph while talking on your cell phone. This will give me road rage, thereby raising my blood pressure and increasing my anxiety. You resolve to knock off the shit that is pissing me off while you're driving.

Second, you will resolve to treat me with common courtesy. The other day a very elitist and queenly principal in one of the schools I service breezed by me. I was holding the door open for her and she went through it without looking in my direction and without saying, "Thank you." I don't know what Her Majesty was thinking, but if a student did that to her I'm sure she'd have them hung by their thumbs. I'm used to students doing that to me because they're young and dumb, but if an adult does it to me I'm always surprised. So next time I'm holding the door open for you my reverse resolution for you is to at least say "Thanks." You don't even have to be sincere about it, just use common civility.

My third reverse resolution for you is to stop trying to sell me your religion. This past two weeks I've had two attempts by folks to proselytize me on behalf of their churches. To thee I say nay! I'm not interested in religion and I'm especially not interested in your religion. Don't try to convince me by testifying to me that you're convinced of the truth of your faith. I don't care. I don't believe in your testimony any more than I believe in your religion. Don't try to tell me I'm going to hell because I don't accept Christ as my savior. You go ahead and do what you gotta do to make it to heaven, but don't try to make me think I'm going to be punished because I don't believe in your ridiculously strict and baseless dogmatism. My reverse resolution is for you to resolve to leave me alone when you are thumping your bible.

There! I've given my resolutions to you, so let's make sure you make all of them work. We've still got 51 weeks left in this year, lots of time for you to leave me and my atheism alone, don't piss me off on the road, and don't act like I'm your servant when I'm being courteous.

*******

It was my granddaughter Bella's second birthday on December 29. She is such a cutie, as is her little sister, Gabby. I love you, girls.

Ciao for now.

It's Death Week!

Has anybody here seen my old friend Saddam?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walking
Up over the hill,
With Jerry Ford and James Brown.

The Iraqi and U.S. governments stretched a point when Saddam Hussein stretched a rope. James Brown did the Funky Chicken for St Peter, while Jerry Ford tripped past him and through the Pearly Gates. It's Death Week!

*******

So Gerald Ford has died! I admit to having a bias against ol' Jerry for the past few decades. I didn't really have anything against him as President, because he inherited so many problems from his two predecessors. Like the whole Vietnam mess and the usual shenanigans in Congress.

I didn't have a specific problem with him and the Nixon pardon, because that just seemed like business as usual at the top. The good ol' boys taking care of each other. The problems I had with Ford were the Dynamic Duo* of Cheney and Rumsfeld, who both worked for him.
I'm also mad at him for not getting himself elected President. Yeah, that sounds odd since I voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976. Gerald Ford was never elected to anything but Congress, and yet by a couple of strokes of cosmic fate got into the White House. He retired after 2 ½ years with a full Presidential pension, full Secret Service protection, and for nothing more than being in the right place at the right time. He was able to do this by not making waves, by being a good Republican flack and go-to guy his entire political career. He polished the right apples along the way.

Don't feel bad this guy died, folks. He led a charmed life while he was alive. For many years I referred to him as America's highest paid Welfare recipient. I wish I could do something for a couple of years and retire to East Street the rest of my natural life.

*******

He died a bearded reprobate......but he was such a nice-looking young man!

Saddam Hussein was one of those guys you like to read about, but would never want to meet. I read enough about his torture chambers, his climb to power over the dead bodies of his enemies, and his further peccadilloes to know I didn't care much for him.

My favorite gruesome stuff was about his sons, though. In any other country they'd be considered sociopaths and locked away for good. These were a couple of ruthless criminals who literally got away with murder. But, while their dad met the hangman, they met their ends fighting to the death with U.S. forces. Their dad hid in a hole, then when discovered came out declaring he was president of Iraq and wanted to negotiate with George Bush. That alone got him the Chutzpah Award.

*******

The first time I saw I saw James Brown was on the old Lloyd Thaxton TV show, circa 1965 or '66, doing "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag." I wasn't hip to the slang. I wondered what a "brand new bag" was. Maybe a new girlfriend?

Does anybody else remember Lloyd Thaxton, the poor man's Dick Clark? Brown had the most ridiculous bangs I've ever seen. Thaxton asked him about his hairdo and J.B. said, "Got to keep up with the thang, man."

I'm not real big on funk, but I've got to admit, J.B. kept up with the thang.

Ciao for now, El Postino

*Here's the real Dynamic Duo.

Christmas At War

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2006!

I found this picture on a soldier's blog. Sorry for appropriating it, guys, but I want to use you to make a point that with all of the news from and about Iraq, it's easy to forget you are there in Afghanistan, also fighting.

I hope that everyone will be thinking about the tough job our men and women in the armed forces are doing while we open presents, visit with friends and relatives, and eat dinner.

Hey, guys…love your hats, but ditch the cigs. You're in a business that's risky enough.

And lest you have forgotten (like that could happen), here are some folks to remind you of what's home.

*******

In a prior blog I talked about getting a Superman suit for Christmas. My buddy Dave was reminded that he wanted a cowboy outfit with a black hat. He just had to have that black hat. This isn't a picture of Dave, but this boy also got a black hat.

That's one of the things I've noticed…sometimes the really good guys wear black hats, and sometimes the sneaky, crooked bastards will wear white hats to fool you.
Ciao for now, El Postino

Flying Saucer Boy

Comcast Cable's On Demand is showing the 1956 science fiction movie Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers on its Free Movies section. I'd seen it about five years ago but today I took another look.

I like the naïve earnestness of Hugh Marlowe as the leading man, Dr. Marvin. Everyone trusts the military to do the right thing, and they look to Dr. Marvin for guidance, and for their weapons development. That's why they call it science fiction, obviously. The special effects by Ray Harryhausen, even in our era of CGI, are still entertaining. The reviewer for imdb.com commended the sound effects, but they were actually annoying.

This is a very paranoid film done in a paranoid era. That's part of its appeal to me. America was facing down the Soviet Union in a tense standoff, arms proliferation, nuclear bombs, and all of that sort of worrisome stuff. So a threat from outer space had a lot to do with how we were feeling at the time. The flying saucer men were stand-ins for our real external enemies.

Mom took my buddies and me to the movie on my birthday in 1956. She dropped us off and let us sit through 2 ½ showings before coming to pick us up. I think it was because Allen's mom called and asked where the hell he was, and wasn't that damn birthday party over yet? Mom was probably preoccupied, as she often was, by whatever it was the preoccupied her. I never knew.

The subject of flying saucers came up the next day when Allen and I were kicking a ball around in my back yard. We talked about the movie and I said, "Do you think flying saucers are real?" We'd heard a lot about flying saucers--my dad was interested in the subject--but Mom said that people were "seeing things," or "just nuts" when they said they'd seen them. Allen said, "Sure they're real. They fly over us a lot. Like that one, right there."

I looked east into the afternoon sky and saw a large object, which for the life of me, looked like my mom's steam iron flying overhead. I watched it for a short while and it vanished. For a few years I told the story of how I'd seen a UFO and when I said that people would perk up, but groan or laugh when I said it looked like a big steam iron. So I didn't tell the story after a while, and I really only thought of it on occasion. Like when I read in Fortean Times years ago that one of the shapes of UFOs reported by people is, you guessed it, a steam iron.

As an adult I've spent a lot of time thinking about how I thought as a child, hoping to discover why I think the way I do as an adult. I had a really active imagination, fueled by TV science fiction shows and Flash Gordonserials. I read science fiction comic books, and juvenile science fiction novels. As my third grade teacher, Mrs. B., told me the year after I'd moved on from her class, "I thought you'd be on Mars by now." So my mind was bent toward that type of sighting.

Allen, my childhood buddy, was also a trickster. He liked to do things to fool me. Perhaps when Allen pointed to the sky I was primed to see a UFO and wasn't disappointed.

The problem is I had a nine-year-old's mind, and I'm trying to figure it out with my now-adult mind, putting myself in my back yard over 50 years ago, looking up in the sky. I don't recall any sound coming from the object. I realized years later that it could not have been a commercial airliner because that wasn't then, nor is it now, the flight path to our airport. It's too near the mountains. If it had been a helicopter or private plane I think I would have heard something. Was it a hot air balloon? Not very common in those days. Not even these days.

I also know nowadays that the power of suggestion is just that, power. It's easy to make someone believe something when they want to believe it. And memory, as we all know, is the trickiest thing of all and most easily fooled.

As an adult I don't believe in flying saucers. They've been reported now for almost 60 years, and even when people try to sell me on the idea I don't have much patience. No one has come up with any real physical evidence. If you see lights in the sky and instantly translate that into visitors from outer space then you out-imagine me. If, in what's left of my lifetime, a flying saucer lands on the White House lawn and little gray guys step out waving, then maybe I'll believe there are such things.

And as for the little gray guys, don't even get me started on what I think of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens and given anal probes or transmitters implanted in their nostrils. Put down your DVD sets of The X-Files and come back to earth, folks.

For all of that, childish imagination, the power of suggestion, the flying saucer movie I'd seen the day before, my dad's belief in flying saucers, newspaper stories, Allen's statement, "They fly over us a lot," I keep wondering: I did see something. So what did I see in the sky over the east bench of Salt Lake City fifty years ago?

The Super Suit

Mom asked me, "So what do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas?"

My answer was immediate. "I want a Superman suit!"

It was 1953 and I was in the first grade. Superman was a favorite show of mine. I watched it every week with my parents on our 19" 1950 RCA console television. I don't remember what else I asked for that year, but I got my Superman suit.

There weren't any Superman costumes available--or if there were my mom didn't know about them or couldn't afford one--so she made it. When I saw it on Christmas morning it was--hot dang!--a genuine Superman suit all right, with one important difference. Mom had never seen the color Superman comic books. All she'd ever seen was the television character, so she sewed the costume in shades of gray and black.

It's been a lot of years and memory of the actual costume is dim. There aren't any old photos, but I remember the top was a sweatshirt onto which she had sewn an "S" logo in a shield. It seems that I didn't think it looked that much like the one I'd seen on TV, but it was OK. It was my Superman suit, cape and all!
When we went back to school the day after New Year's Day, 1954, the teacher said, "You can bring a favorite Christmas toy to school tomorrow and show the other boys and girls." I knew exactly what I wanted to show them.

We got up individually for show and tell. I don't remember much about the other kids and their toys except that classmate Chris's dad owned a wholesale toy distribution business. So Chris had every damn popular toy made.* Grrr. I hated him.

I got up in front of the class and took off my shirt. Underneath it I had on my Superman shirt and I was really proud! I stuck my scrawny little chest out a half inch. At recess one of the cute girls in the class came up to me while I was still wearing the costume and invited me to sit on the windowsill. She plopped herself onto my lap. Of all my childhood memories that one really sticks out. Talk about feeling really super.

I guess some of the other boys were jealous. They came over and one of them gave me a shove. "Think you're super, huh?" one of them said. Then they all ganged up and pummeled me until the teacher broke it up.

I learned a couple of valuable lessons that day in the first grade. If you look cool girls may like you. If you look cool to girls then other boys will hate you. If you want to look like Superman you'd better be prepared to act like Superman, and not get the crap kicked out of you by the guys.

Despite that I had a lot of fun in that Superman suit, even jumping off the roof of the garage to see if I could fly. I wonder how many kids did that? Must've been a lot, because there was a 16mm short film shown to us in school called Only Superman Can Fly, which featured Superman actor George Reeves explaining why we couldn't jump off roofs or tall buildings and such. Well, duh. I already knew that from my sore ankles and the ass-blistering I got from Mom.

This Christmas Sally is giving me a DVD set of the first season of the Superman TV show. It has been many years since I've seen these old black and white episodes, and I'll be telling you at some point what I think of them.

*Another of my classmates was the grandson of a candy maker. The family owned a local candy factory. Talk about rubbing shoulders with the elite of childhood fantasies…all of the toys you'd want and all of the candy.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Brian Williams, of NBC Nightly News, ran a report tonight on Baby Boomers and their love of the music of their youth. Well, naturally. Everyone loves the music they grew up with. The music that was the background for their first date, first prom, first kiss, first…well, you get the idea.

If I compiled a list of my favorite songs from the 1960s, when I became a teenager and went through so many important--and terrible--events in my life, I'd have to pick the groups that influenced me and everyone else, and top of that list would have to be the Beatles.



What seems incredible now is that the Beatles' most creative period took place over a period of a short five or six years…about 1963 to 1969. That's when the group members themselves were still youngsters in their twenties! Think about what you were doing in your twenties.

I thought of Beatles songs that to me were the best, most representative of what I loved about the group. I picked three…there are lots and lots more, so I had to boil them down to a manageable amount. You can pick your own, but this is my blog and I get to pick mine first.

The first would have to be "She Loves You," which I think is one of the great pop/rock songs of all time. It starts out with Ringo's drums, goes right into the powerful three-part harmony of John, Paul and George, and in a couple of minutes tells a story. When our parents, and those who didn't listen, heard this song what they heard was "Yeah, yeah, yeah," and the Little Richard-like "Oooooo," which got the girlies screaming as the lads shook their mop tops. That was all theater, though. The song is about a guy who is very noble. He has been told by a girl to tell her former boyfriend she still loves him. The guy imparting the information doesn't take advantage, doesn't tell her, "Yeah, well…he doesn't love you, but I do," which would be a ratty thing to do. No, he goes to his buddy and tells him, "You think you've lost her, but you haven't, because she still loves you. Go on, forget your pride and apologize to her. She loves you, and you know you should be glad." Not only is it a great and memorable melody, but the vocals are excellent. John, Paul and George never got their full due when it came to their three-part harmony, but even the Beach Boys would have to admit those guys had some great vocal moves, each voice perfectly complementing the other.

I believe the song owes a lot to George Martin, the producer, and maybe George Martin is the true genius behind the genius of the Beatles. At least I think he is. The way the song ends, not fading out, but with the echo-chambered "Yeah, yeah, yeah…" harmony ending on a slightly discordant note is pure brilliance and is a perfect ending to what I think is a perfect song.

My next favorites would be the tandem of "Strawberry Fields," and "Penny Lane." I heard these songs the day they were debuted on American radio in 1967, while sitting in a basic training barracks, listening to a radio we weren't supposed to have. After nearly 40 years I still remember the power of those two songs, for two different reasons. John's song evoked the mystical, whereas Paul's song evoked nostalgia. George Martin called that record the beginnings of Sgt. Pepper, and I never could figure out why they weren't included on that album. The songs showed the individual directions the artists were taking; that even though the compositions were signed Lennon/McCartney, it was obvious that each song was thought up by a mind going in a different direction from the other. What is amazing to me is that they made those songs work so well, even though you'd probably admit that the other guy's song probably wasn't this guy's cuppa tea. Paul and John worked just as diligently making each other's music sound great as they did on their own. And they had George Martin working on them, polishing away rough edges, making sounds that no one had made before, sharing a vision.

As of the time I write this, I have not yet heard the CD, The Beatles Love, which is done by Martin, deconstructing and then rearranging some of the Beatles songs. I will hear it at Christmas when I give a copy to my wife. Remember, don't tell her I'm giving it to her. I want it to be a surprise. It'll be a surprise to me, too, but I expect to like it, because as much as I love the originals, I don't think a little tinkering will hurt them. This album will be on the shelf with the originals, but will never take the place of the originals.

The Beatles to me don't just represent an era in my personal life. When I think of the Beatles and their great songs I think of the influence they had on all aspects of our culture. Imagine (hey! what a great title for a song!) what music would be like today if it hadn't been for the Beatles.

My musical tastes don't start and end with the Beatles, but they are very large in my life. I see a songwriter like George Gershwin representing his era brilliantly, and I see the Beatles doing the same with their era. Gershwin's songs are still played, still recorded endlessly. But Gershwin didn't sing his songs. The Beatles' songs will live as long or longer than Gershwin's music, but their voices will also be there to remind everyone listening how vital they sounded in their day, and how vital they will always be.

Ciao for now, El Postino

Impact!

A year ago today I was driving home from work, slammed into the car ahead of me, totaled my pickup truck, then laid on my couch for six weeks nursing a fractured sternum.

Isn't this the worst feeling in the world? You're driving along, maybe distracted as we all tend to be, your eyes wander away from the road. When you look up you see the vehicle ahead of you isn't moving. You make a panic stop, just like they taught you in Driver Ed! Foot against the brake as hard and fast as you can, only to realize in that split second you aren't going to stop, you're heading for full-on impact.

I remember the crunching sound of metal against metal when my Nissan hit the Chevy Suburban ahead of me. The very next thing I knew my airbag was deflating. The smell was pungent. I reached for my glasses, groping around until I found them. They had flipped over and were upside down on the back of my head.

I stepped out of my vehicle to see the front end in total ruin. I figured even then it was a total loss. I didn't think anyone could put those pieces back together, and I was right.

The lady I hit, Betty, told me that the traffic light ahead of us was green, but for some unknown reason the car ahead of her came to a complete stop, forcing her to panic stop, which caused me to pile right into her rear end.

The cop investigating the accident believed her, and told me he didn't think it was all my fault, but let's face it, in a rear-end crash the car doing the rear-ending gets the ticket. So I got my first moving violation in over 20 years.

I also noticed at the time I was having a stabbing pain in the center of my chest. I called my wife on my cell phone (the only time I've ever been glad to own a cell phone), told her where I was, come get me.

Betty's Chevy Suburban was hardly damaged. As the guy in the body shop where my car was taken later told me, my pickup truck hit her trailer hitch at exactly the right angle to destroy my vehicle, but barely scratch the chrome on hers. It made me think about what I've heard for years: you're better off in a bigger vehicle than a small one.

Sally drove me to the emergency room against my protestations. I thought I was just sore from the airbag hitting me. As it turned out from an MRI I had a fracture to my sternum. I think when my seatbelt cinched up, as it was supposed to do on impact, my body was thrown sufficiently far forward to cause the fracture to my breastbone.

The ER nurse was a doll; she was very solicitous of me during my time there, and even gave me a big hug when I left. She told me, "You're my best patient. You've never complained." I thought, well, gee, lady, I didn't know I was supposed to! But I took the hug, even though the squeeze put more hurt on my chest.

This is a long story to tell you this: Every time you get in your car and go out onto the road you are at risk of an accident. I got lucky that time, but I think back on how quick I could have been killed. That kind of death you don't get a chance to say goodbye to anybody, just hello to St. Peter. You might be driving along, looking back to yell at your kid in the back seat, finding a CD in your glove box, reaching for a cigarette or answering your cell phone, and the next thing you know you're standing in front of the Pearly Gates saying, "Wha---?!! I can't be here. This is my bowling night!"

It also costs in other ways that are more of this earth. I paid a traffic fine of about $122 for following too close. I took a guilty plea in abeyance and six months later without further mishap my record was cleared. I had to find another car, but I let my wife do all of the communicating with the insurance company. This was all during the Christmas break. We found another car on January 2. Yes, I got a bigger vehicle this time.

I drive for a living. I've been in the driver's seat almost 44 years. I thought I knew all of the tricks, had all of the close calls without damage or injury, but this time the law of averages caught up to me. It can happen to you.

People, be careful. Because I lived I got to see my granddaughter's first birthday, and will see her second if everything goes as planned. Frankly, I'd like to be around to see her graduate with honors from Harvard, but I'm not going to plan that far ahead. I still have a lot of driving to do before I hang up the car keys. There are a lot of other cars on the road, and a lot of distracted drivers, just like I was that day. Wise up. Hands on the steering wheel at 10:00 and 2:00, eyes on the road ahead. Do all of the things they taught you in Driver Ed, and turn off the damn cell phone.

*******

Here are some folks who know the sickening and helpless feeling that something is happening too fast for them to do anything.

Breath Of Death

Sally and I were talking about some people we worked with in the 1970s. Laura Jo worked with Sally. She was a woman in her early twenties, already morbidly obese. Some of the guys who worked around the place called her "Large O."

Laura Jo married Bruce, a skinny guy who was just back from Vietnam. They had corresponded when he was in the Army. I can't imagine his letters could have made much sense, since he couldn't read or write beyond a second grade level. Besides writing, both he and Laura Jo had trouble with fundamentals like brushing their teeth. She always had some problems with that. Bruce's breath was like poison gas because he smoked, and because he ate onions at every meal. He also had sort of a tint to his rotting teeth, hence the name I pinned on him, "Green Teeth"

But I'm getting ahead of myself. In 1974 Sally drove one of Detroit's finest cars ever, a 1971 Chevy Vega (hey, you! I can hear you laughing all the way through the monitor!) Laura Jo gave Bruce a timing light for his birthday, and when Sally's car needed a tune-up he offered to do it. Sally thought, gee, what a nice guy.

When Laura Jo called her and said Bruce had finished with the car Sally got in it to find a note from Bruce. It said:

I WHAT TO MAKY A DATE WHIT YOU.
TO FUNK YOU. BRUCE

…and that's exactly how it was spelled, "to funk you."

Sally was pretty upset, but didn't say anything to me for a couple of days. Finally she came to me and handed me the note. I went to the phone and my conversation went like this:

LAURA JO: Hello?

ME: Hi. Is Bruce there?

LAURA JO: Sure. Just a minute.

BRUCE: Hello?

ME: YOU SON OF A BITCH, YOU BUSTED ASSHOLE. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, GIVING MY WIFE A NOTE LIKE THAT? WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING, YOU SCUZZY SCUM-SUCKING ILLITERATE BASTARD, THAT SHE WAS GOING TO RESPOND TO A NOTE THAT LOOKED LIKE IT WAS WRITTEN BY A CHIMPANZEE? GO FUNK YOURSELF, AND LEAVE MY WIFE ALONE. JERK.

I slammed down the phone.

The next day at work Laura Jo told Sally, "Gee, that was so nice of your husband to call Bruce and tell him thanks for timing your car."

Hey, if life hands you lemons, make lemonade! I had to admit, Bruce was quick on his feet.

When I told my buddy about the incident he said, "It sounds like you came off like a charging rhino." Bruce and I didn't work together at the time, but eventually both of us got jobs at the school district. He didn't last. His personal hygiene was so bad that schools he visited would call his boss and say, "Please don't send that guy to our school anymore." Eventually, for that for other reasons, he was sacked.

At one time his boss told me, "Don't ever hit Bruce in the mouth. You'll get lockjaw from his teeth." His boss pronounced the word as lockjar, which was almost as funny as Bruce's "to funk you" note.

Laura Jo was one of the very earliest patients to have a stomach stapling operation. She lost all of her fat, but her heart gave out when she had to go in for follow-up surgery. Bruce moved back to his hometown in Southern Utah, and I never heard any more about him.

Maybe the Army could find a way to use his Breath Of Death as a secret weapon.

*******

On a more positive note, last night we had some snow, and this morning the pollution sitting over us for days is finally gone. I love the crisp, cold air after a storm. I love to look at the mountains which surround us with their fresh coat of white snow. Lots of people hate snow, and it can be a hassle to drive in. I've done my share of cursing it, but on a day like today, where the sky is bright blue and everything around me is fresh and white, snow is not a hassle but a beautiful thing.

Ciao for now, El Postino

Perversion Is Better Than Inversion

For the past five days Salt Lake City has been helpless in the throes of one of our winter inversions. A high pressure systems sits over us, trapping cold air and pollutants in our bowl-shaped valley. If you're smart you stay inside until the inversion is over; if you have to work in it like me you come away from a day's labor with a splitting headache and a fuzzed-over tongue.

This morning when I left my house it was 17º, and within moments of being out in chilly, polluted air it felt like Brillo pads had been hammered into my sinuses with dirty icicles. It was hard to breathe and when I did the rotten taste of the inversion was in my mouth. I feel our inversion is probably something like the killer fogs that used to settle over London in years past. People with respiratory problems are warned to stay indoors, but c'mon…some of us have to earn a living and we have to be out in that stuff.

I found these pictures on the Internet, taken from some kinky magazine of a bygone era. I could probably use one of these suits with gasmasks, but I'd forego the lacy garter belt, thank you.

Just for the hell of it, who could find these outfits sexy? I don't care how kinky you are, there ain't nobody who could find someone with a gasmask the least bit sexy.I'm familiar with gasmasks. Not these, but the more official military mask. When I was in the Army in the mid '60s I went through gas training five times. The first time was during Basic Training. We were taken into a small building wearing our regulation gasmasks. A form of gas called CS, more commonly known as tear gas, permeated the room. We were given a short lecture, then we had to take off our masks, walk around in single file in a circle and file out the door. If anyone bolted or panicked he was put back into line and we would march again. We hit the open air with tears streaming from our eyes. There was a godawful burning sensation, too. It took a while to clear our eyes, standing with our faces toward any breeze that might be coming by.

The last time I went through the gas chamber a couple of years later I thought I had it down. This time the drill was, according to the sergeant's instructions, take a deep breath, then remove the mask, say name, rank and service number, walk calmly to the door and out. Since I was such a know-it-all I didn't think I needed to listen, so I took off my mask, then took a deep breath. When I opened my mouth to speak all that came out was a squeak. Luckily the sergeant didn't chew my ass, just pushed me out the door. I'm sure I felt about as dumb as I looked.

While our inversion isn't anywhere near as unpleasant as the experiences I went through in the Army, it's bad enough.

Ciao for now, El Postino

Christmas Curmudgeon

Only about three weeks until Christmas, so I guess it's time to break out the BAH, HUMBUG! badge I wear on my coat during the season.

As an American growing up during the baby boomer era I was just as sold on Christmas as everyone else. That's because when we were kids it was all about us. Santa came down the chimney to give toys to us, the kids. We didn't need to give our parents any presents. Santa didn't give them anything, anyway. I never even thought about it until I was a bit older and my mother said, "What would you like to get your father for Christmas?" I said, shocked, "Say what?" I didn't know I was supposed to get presents for anyone else. I thought they all just came to me.

Last year my son talked to his mother and me. He said he didn't believe in getting a whole bunch of junk for his kids for Christmas and he'd appreciate if we didn't either. He called it Excess-Mas, which is probably as good a handle as any to hang on a holiday that promotes greed and gimme-gimme as much as Christmas does. Oh yeah…you hear about all of the folks who want to help other people with meals, and gifts for their poor kids, but the rest of the public is less altruistic. "I bought my wife a diamond necklace, and she better goddam well get me that 52" plasma HDTV!"

We got into this mess because we believed that we were supposed to inundate our children with gifts, and buy expensive stuff for our spouses too. I'm sure if you go back a few decades you'll find the fine hands of retailers in all of this. To them the Christmas spirit is green, as in $$$.

For a few years our local daily newspaper used to run letters from a guy who wrote about Santa Claus. He hated the idea of Santa, hated us lying to our children about Santa. He called Santa Claus the "god of Christmas." At the time I thought the letter writer was another right-wing Christian fundamentalist crank, but now I think the guy hit the proverbial nail on the proverbial head. We do tell our children that there is a man who has a reward for them if they're good. He lives in a place where we can't see him. He is omniscient: he can see what we are doing, misbehaving or behaving. He answers our letters (prayers) by bestowing blessings upon us. He travels by magic/supernatural means. Oh yeah…he has a long white beard, too. I am starting to see that far from being a crank, that letter writer was actually the most observant person among us.

There comes a day when kids find out the truth…there is no Santa Claus. Until that time it seems a harmless enough fiction to tell kids, but it's actually the first of what I call the Three Basic Lies We Tell Kids:

The first lie: there is a Santa Claus. He is a man who gives you something for nothing. You've just got to be good and your rewards will be given to you in the form of toys and candy.

The second and third lies aren't about Christmas, but they have the same sort of pie-in-the-sky quality: You can be anything you want to be when you grow up. Number three is the real kicker: If you work hard and are good, then good things will come to you.

And the other lies always start with the Santa Claus lie.

Christmas is a holiday with a split personality. It is religious. It's secular. It's two (click), two holidays in one! It isn't a bit odd for deeply religious, devout Christians observing Christmas as the anniversary of the birth of Christ, to also tell their kids lies about Santa Claus. The secular is blurred with the religious, and I notice no one, except maybe Larry the Cable Guy, seeing anything strange about lawns decorated with a Nativity scene standing next to a light-up Santa with reindeer.

Now, where's the BAH, HUMBUG! badge of mine?

Ciao for now, El Postino

Click on the pictures for full-size images, taken from Humbug Magazine, January 1958.