Sorry I’m late today. School registration this morning, followed by school-supply buying, followed by FIX THE PRINTER NOW SO I CAN PRINT LIZ’S BIRTHDAY CARD followed by this.
I’ll be late tomorrow, too. Actually, I’ll be gone tomorrow. Doing a little traveling this weekend, off to see the Trowel Tart in Wisconsin. I’m flying. In case you were wondering what it costs for a 75-minute flight from Detroit to Milwaukee, the answer is: Too damn much. Northwest’s heretofore reasonable fares between its Midwestern cities went pfft when it was swallowed by Delta. Still, it offers multiple flights daily and the only non-stops, although I love to see what Travelocity’s bots can cobble together for me — sure, I’d love to go from Detroit to Milwaukee via Atlanta and Houston with a flying time of 11 hours; and I’d save $20? Sign me up.
But never mind the cost — how often do you get to visit your best friend? Never often enough. Plus, a side trip to Madison is on tap, and that includes our other great pal, Dr. Frank. Who is now, a quick Google tells us, is on YouTube. Look at that mop of Irish hair. You’d never know his mother was Eye-talian.
So, with that, I make this a lame-ass fly-by. Let’s go right to some bloggage:
Stories you can’t make up, from the pharma beat: There’s a new drug to treat impotence. It’s made by a South Korean firm called Dong-A Pharmaceuticals.
As of late yesterday afternoon, this guy was on track to be the next Susan Boyle, but what the hell, maybe you haven’t seen it yet. Most excruciating candidate interview ever.
While we’re on the topic of amusing videos, via Hank and Kim Severson, a fine collection of Wendy’s training videos from the ’80s. Go ahead and make fun, but remember — that’s when Wendy’s had its mojo working. Now? Well, Dave is surely spinning like a lathe.
Did you know the case that led to this week’s stem-cell ruling started with a complaint filed by the people behind the “snowflake babies” publicity stunt? I’m sure that had nothing at all to do with it landing on the docket of a right-wing judge. No, not at all.
OK, I’m off to pack and groom. Have a great weekend, all.
Jeff Borden said on August 26, 2010 at 12:35 pm
The decision on stem cell research is great news for Asia and Europe. Scientists and research firms there will attract all the funding and all the top minds, but hey, we’ll be okay. We have God on our side.
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beb said on August 26, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Now would be a great time to watch “Airplane.” Our daughter somehow went 17 years wiithout seeing it, then discovered it was OnDemand. Watched it, cackling all the way. (She has to work on her laugh.) The bit where the in-flight movie was a succession of plane crashes seems so appropriate.
I did not know, but I’m not surprised to find that the people behind the stem cell complaint were behind the snowflake babies thing. It just goes to show that people behind the anti-abortion movement will stop at nothing until all women are barefoot and pregnant all the time.
On a happier note there is a video parody of the video where a woman was caught on tape dumping her cat into a trash bin. She was not only quickly identified but is now in police protective custody because of the threats made to her. Anyway, in this video a man dressed as Sylvester the Cat dumps a woman into a trash bin.
You know people making death threats to someone they’ve never met to throwing away a animal they’ve never petted a bit extreme. The next time you know someone’s going to stab a taxi cab driver because they’re a dog person and not a cat person.
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Jeff Borden said on August 26, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Beb,
You are on the money again. A significant number of pro-lifers would definitely like to see all forms of contraception abolished.
Interestingly, the Tribune yesterday had a story about the falling birth rates in Illinois related to the lousy economy. People who had planned on having three or four kids are stopping at one or two because they worry about how they will provide for a larger family.
If we take this to the extreme, pro-lifers should be supporting a massive stimulus package because it would mean more babies!
On an unrelated note, a segment on “The Daily Show” by Asif Mandi (SP??) the other night was one of the most brilliant I’ve ever seen. A practicing Muslim, he sat down with the woman who is leading efforts in Murfreesboro, Tenn. to prevent an active Muslim community there from building a new, larger mosque. She looks, acts and talks like a Stepford Wife as she details how, no, she is not at all opposed to Islam, it’s just that they are creating a major terror network in mid-Tennessee. In fact, she proudly proclaims, there are already 36 terror training camps nearby. She knows because she read it on the Internet.
I have rarely seen someone as clueless in their hate, prejudice and stupidity as this lady. It’s a very funny segment –they even inserted a few double-takes from the Three Stooges– but it’s also disconcerting because you know the creepy bigot lady is one of millions, maybe tens of millions, who believe this shit.
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Joe Kobiela said on August 26, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Nancy,
Tommorrow time how long it takes you to get from your car to acually being airborne, then multiply that by what a company pays 4-5 middle managers per hour, and I think you will see how much money it actually saves you by having your own aircraft. We here in the charter bussiness are finally seeing a up tick in flights, it has taken 2yr to start to recover after the big three were taken to the woodshed by the highup muckety mucks in d.c. Who by the way probley flew in the same planes they were chastising,not to mention the current President who brags about telling bussiness not to use their aircraft, but has no trouble flying more in 2yrs then the previous President did in 4, then telling everyone how nice it was to have airforce one. I hope you have a great flight but remember, I wouldn’t make you take your shoes off, feel free to use your lap top,and cellphone, you would be #1 for take off in Pontiac.
Greetings from the pilots lounge in Lexington K.Y.
Pilot Joe
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Julie Robinson said on August 26, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Leaving shoes on and not paying $25 to check a bag sounds great, Pilot Joe. What would a charter Detroit-Milwaukee run?
And speaking of absurdities, our daughter has found some Ryanair flights in Europe only cost $7. Yep, these are the people who want to charge for using the in-flight loo. The cost will be less than a Eurail pass, which used to be the standard for backpacking students. As a caveat, she’s been told the airport taxes will run another $20 or so. Oddly enough, within the UK Ryanair, based in Dublin, is costlier than the trains.
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Bob (Not Greene) said on August 26, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Hey, Nance, the wife and I will be dropping off No. 2 son at UW on Saturday. Maybe we’ll bump into each other on State Street. I’ll bring a guitar and put it over my face so you can recognize me.
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Dorothy said on August 26, 2010 at 2:00 pm
beb I think the lady dumping the cat in the trash can was not the owner of the cat, but just lived in the neighborhood. It belonged to her neighbors. For the record I think her punishment should be that SHE gets placed in a dumpster for the same length of time the cat had to sit in one.
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Joe Kobiela said on August 26, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Julie@5,
DTW – MKE around 2500.00 round trip but I can take 5 people for that price. I just checked and a walk up fare on Delta for tommorrow is 985.00 round trip, starts to make sense to charter dosn,t it?
Pilot Joe
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 26, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Or there’s North America’s only coal fired steamship ferry from Michigan to Wisconsin! Joe, I’ll bet you don’t have to stop midflight to shovel clinkers . . .
http://www.ssbadger.com/home.aspx
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Sue said on August 26, 2010 at 3:06 pm
MMJeff: not much longer. We’ve been on that ferry several times and it has until the end of ?? to convert to something a little less polluting or shut down. There’s also a newer ferry out of Milwaukee; as you would expect, they’ve been fighting all along, everything from petty website attacks to this:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/101531088.html
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Linda said on August 26, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Dorothy:
I agree with you entirely. And so do our gravitars.
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judybusy said on August 26, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Nancy and Bob NG, you might not have time, but a visit to L’Etoile in Madison would be worth your while. It was one of the first midwestern restaurants to use local foodstuffs and they are superb. In checking up on them, I see they’ve moved a block away and may have closed their stupendous bakery. The same chef has also opened Graze, a less-expensive “gastropub” next door.
If you like Afghani food, Kabul’s been around for years and in the six years I lived there, I ate there dozens of times.
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Jeff Borden said on August 26, 2010 at 4:28 pm
And the latest episode of “The Wasilla Snowbillies” finds. . .
Revirginized Bristol Palin will be a contestant on “Dancing with the Stars.” One of the other contestants is The Situation from “Jersey Shore.”
You know what the difference is between a gang of con artists and the Palin clan? Nothing. These people –the whole damned family– will do anything for money. Anything.
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Dexter said on August 26, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Saturdays in Madison you do not want to miss the Farmers’ Market at Capitol Square. It is amazing.
http://www.madisonfarmersmarket.com/
That guy was such a clueless asshole, singing along to a cassette tape or whatever, and trying to get a gig with his band “later in the week”. And man, for fun, he likes to hang out in the Catholic church, just for kicks. The reporter did a great job and probably rang her producer’s fucking neck for setting this i-view up.
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LAMary said on August 26, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Money and attention, Jeff.
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deb said on August 26, 2010 at 5:00 pm
thanks for the madison tips, all. and bob, if you’re in the vicinity of The Towers at frances and langdon streets, by all means swing that guitar our way.
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Jeff Borden said on August 26, 2010 at 5:08 pm
LAMary,
Amen, sister. The difference, I think, that while $P absolutely has star power and charisma to burn, it appears those genes did not pass on to the virgin Bristol Palin. This girl is the black hole of dullness.
It will be fun to see if Mama Malaprop’s hordes keep voting her to continue in the competition. Or if she and The Situation hook up.
If William Faulkner was alive, I wonder if he would rename the roguish and rotten Snopes family as Palin. Come to think of it, with names like Eck and Flem, the Palins are halfway there with Track, et.al.
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LAMary said on August 26, 2010 at 5:25 pm
I wonder if she’ll wear the sexy outfits and get a spray tan? I wonder who will babysit little Trich? Will she do motivational abstinence speeches in the LA area during her stay? So many questions.
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Sue said on August 26, 2010 at 5:29 pm
LAMary the celebrity magnet is bound to run into her. Do say hi for us.
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brian stouder said on August 26, 2010 at 5:38 pm
With the freshly hatched Arizona Quayle struggling to take flight, the thought occurs that we may live to see a Palin-Quayle ticket for the White House, someday.
In that case, panels of scholars will debate the technically unexplainable question: which one is smarter?
Aside from that, when Nance said
“School registration this morning“, I shuddered. Our fine young 15 year old son is starting out at South Side High School, and he told me he’s been having nightmares, which gave me flashbacks; I remember that nightmare, and (very specifically) the oppressive feeling of dread, when I first went to high school.
The nightmare, which I had several times, was that I was frantically trying to get down the hallway and into the right class, and with the right books. Invariably, I’d have a horrible time trying to actually find the class, and before finding it I’d learn that I didn’t have the right books in my hand – and would have to try and find my locker. This all came back to me (in Technicolor) as Grant and I walked around the block after the first day of school, and Grant told me how his first day went.
Turns out he hit all his marks, and the day was (in hindsight) a success, but he summed it up with these heartfelt words: “I’m terrified”*. He’s going to my old high school (South Side), and the place is literally gi-normous – very much larger than it was when I (as a terror-struck youth) went there 30 years ago. His class has (800?) members, and the school has about (1700?) students, and more than half the teachers there are also new to the school this year.
The saying “I feel your pain” has definitely come home to me.
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Deborah said on August 26, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Is Bristol’s kid’s name really Trich? As in trichinosis?
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Deborah said on August 26, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Brian, I had the exact same dream while I was in high school. A variation was that I was doing that frantic searching only wearing my underwear. I always woke up in a cold sweat.
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Bob (not Greene) said on August 26, 2010 at 6:44 pm
I love going to Madison, because it reminds me of my carefree days as a grad student/newlywed. No. 1 son was born there in 1990.
Deb, I lived just around the corner from Frances and State at an apartment building at the bend on Langdon. We had a driveway to a rear parking lot that the drunk frat boys used to think was a shortcut to State Street and I had several memorable encounters with them there. I once drove a girl who was completely drunk and lost in the parking lot to Frances Street, where she promptly puked out the window of the car (the old Dodge Colt that died outside of Rockford on July 4, 1988).
I’ve been to Kabul a couple of times, and it is good. I also like Himal Chuli, a Nepalese place a little farther down toward the square. Husnus (also still there, though looking a little long in the tooth) was one of the first Middle Eastern joints on the street. Wethought it was pretty fancy stuff back in the day. I will have to check out L’Etoile now that I have a reason to go up there a little more often.
I’m so jealous of my son. I want to go back to UW for a couple years, too. Those were good, good times.
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LAMary said on August 26, 2010 at 7:18 pm
I was being a smartass Deborah. I was thinking more along the lines of trichomoniasis which is an STD. I think the baby is Trig which is the class Bristol failed in 11th grade.
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Jolene said on August 26, 2010 at 7:43 pm
No, Trig is the name of Sara’s youngest son. Bristol’s son is Tripp.
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Rana said on August 26, 2010 at 7:55 pm
brian, Deborah, I had those “lost at the big school and missing the classes” dreams for years, and they eventually turned into dreams in which I was unable to find the classrooms in which I was supposed to be teaching.
The funny thing is, over time I had so many anxiety dreams set in the same dream school, I eventually figured my way around! That was the end of those dreams. (Whew.)
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Joe Kobiela said on August 26, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Jeff(tmmo),
If I have a clinker over lake Michigan and have to stop. You all will be reading about it in the paper. I’ll be thinking about that Tuesday, I have to go to Rice Lakes Wisconsin.
Pilot Joe
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deb said on August 26, 2010 at 8:35 pm
bob, i have the same feelings — i want be be a student in madison, too. after we dropped my kid off last weekend, he passed a lovely evening with friends on the roof of somebody’s apartment building, playing beer pong and admiring the madison skyline at dusk. ah, youth!
where’s your son living? is this his first year there?
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Bill said on August 26, 2010 at 8:51 pm
We were in Madison last weekend celebrating the 50th wedding anniversary of our dear friends. She was my wife’s roomate at the U. of I (Illinois) and I worked in their dorm as a waiter. Great times, great old friends. They treated us and about 25 other friends to a brunch cruise on Lake Mendota. Awesome!
We also visited Lake Geneva and took the mail boat tour of the lake. Oh, to be young enough to jump from the boat, deliver the mail and jump back on the boat as it continues to move at a brisk pace.
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brian stouder said on August 26, 2010 at 9:10 pm
OK, with apologies to the great movie Sixteen Candles, I clicked on Nance’s link to the Donger’s impotence drug, and I couldn’t get past the lead sentences:
More than 80 per cent of Malaysian men above the age of 60 suffer from premature ejaculation, a new study finds. According to clinical sexologist Dr Martha Lee, a cross-sectional study of erectile dysfunction (ED) prevalence in Malaysia found that 88 per cent of men aged 60 and above reported some sort of premature ejaculation.
BZZZZZT!!! What? Huh? I would have said that there’s a seminal difference between an unresponsive Mr Happy (ie – “ED”), and one that breaks the speed limit (ie – “Wham-bam Thankyou, Ma’am), but this sentence implies that there’s not.
But I suppose that if things malfunction on either end of the spectrum (ie – failure at the green flag, or failure to make it to the checkers), then they can call it “dysfunction” and try and sell you a pill.
One suspects that the 20-25 year old percentage is lower than the 60+ year old percentage only because when they spin into the wall ‘before the checkers’, they can more readily get back up to speed and back into the event.
‘Course, there might possibly be other strategies – besides taking a pill – that a good team manager might successfully employ, but how can a pharma company profit from that?
Rana – I recall one time that the dream seemed to be coming true; it was a first day (might have been junior high, or maybe it was in high school), and I went into a typing class. But it was an error of some sort, and they had me in a Typing-4 class, and I had never taken any typing, at all. “Good God”, I thought, what is happening? All the other students were typing away at the get-go, and I was sitting there ‘like long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs’*. My mouth went dry, as I sat there contemplating what to do. (It wasn’t long before I was headed to the office, and a schedule change!)
*thanks to Dennis Weaver – “McCloud”, approximately eleventy-seven years ago
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basset said on August 26, 2010 at 9:39 pm
“worked in their dorm as a waiter”? and this was at a state university? might expect that in a sorority house at some powdered-ass private school, but I never knew they had such things at places like Illinois.
if we’d had waiters at IU Bloomington I would have been one – lived two years in a co-op dorm where we did kitchen and janitorial work to get a break on the room & board fee.
don’t remember any bad dreams about high school, the real thing was awful enough.
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alex said on August 26, 2010 at 9:42 pm
My only recurring nightmare, which hasn’t been back in quite a few years now, is the one where it’s college finals week and it dawns on me that I signed up for a class but had forgotten about it and never attended it and now had to cram like hell and probably fail it anyway. I’ve heard others recall similar dreams.
Brian, the best parents are those who can remember what it’s like to be a kid and empathize with their own. You have some very lucky children. You’re also giving them an introduction to history that beats the heck out of anything they’ll ever learn in school. Bravo, my brother.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 26, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Hey, if you click over — the Glenn Beck Show is being aired right now on Turner Classic Movies. How about that? Seems like an odd case of cross-programming.
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Julie Robinson said on August 26, 2010 at 9:49 pm
In my version of that nightmare, it’s the final exam and I never went to a single class all semester. But 800 in a class? There weren’t that many in my entire high school. I hope your son can get involved in a group right away to have a sense of community.
Edit: I’m not alone in my dream. Anybody else have dreams where you are searching for a bathroom, then wake up and realize you need to pee?
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A. Riley said on August 26, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Oh yes, the searching for the bathroom dream is classic. See, your subconscious is trying to tell you that the right one is actually just down the hall, so wake up and go there already, will ya?
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A. Riley said on August 26, 2010 at 10:28 pm
My husband has had a series of work-anxiety dreams that use the metaphor of a parking garage. When his old job was at its worst, he dreamed about driving around in the parking garage from hell; when he took a new job that demanded a lot of growth fast, he dreamed about having to park a big car in a small spot.
I always thought that was a pretty slick metaphor.
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Dexter said on August 26, 2010 at 10:40 pm
When I was a kiddie, I’d dream of falling, falling , falling..then I would wake up. In later years in dream-state I could fly, just soar straight up and look down all around the town, then gently will myself down. Very cool dreams.
Typical fucked-up high school dreams haunted me just like Brian and others, desperately searching for a latrine , like Julie, lots of times, yeah.
Lately I have been doing two things: 1) boarding a jumbo-jet with my high school classmates, all aged like me, and we fly around the globe, first stop Paris. I do not know why, but probably because I watch le Tour de France every summer, weeks of it.
2) I also have a dream where my car quits and I have to walk the remaining 20 miles to work. In the dream I walk quickly, nimbly, swiftly, not with a cane like I do when awake.
But really, there are no dreams like the horrifying dreams of boozing it up —of waking up and just knowing you have blown 5 or 10 or 20 years of sobriety which mean everything to you. Slowly you awaken and say “it was only a dream”. For seven years I had those dreams. I quit cigarettes 29 years ago and for 25 of those years I was smoking a Pall Mall or a Lucky Strike or a Camel or Winston at least once a week.
I have never, ever, dreamed good shit like hitting the state lotto or beating a Las Vegas game.
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Joe Kobiela said on August 26, 2010 at 10:49 pm
Mine is Iam suppose to do something fun, play another football game or rugby match or fly a p-51, and I can never get there. I can be fully dressed for a football game but can,t find shoes or my goggles to fly. Calling dr frued.
pilot Joe
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Bill said on August 27, 2010 at 12:48 am
Basset @ 51: “Worked in their dorm as a waiter”? Yeah. Remember this was 52 years ago when dinners were served by waiters. We also cleared tables, etc., for breakfast and lunch. Our wages? Meals and a little cash at the end of the year, assuming you worked enough.
Can’t complain. I got a great education and a wonderful wife out of the deal.
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basset said on August 27, 2010 at 7:20 am
Figured it must have been quite some time ago. I’m moving Basset Jr. in at Middle Tennessee State later today; we were looking at his meal plan the other night, it’s basically a multiple buffet and salad bar, take whatever you want to eat whenever the dining hall’s open, which is most of the day and evening.
I remember having to line up at specified meal times, only choice was what they plopped on the tray… if you didn’t get back to the dorm between 11 and 1 you missed lunch 🙂
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brian stouder said on August 27, 2010 at 7:54 am
Thanks, Alex. Truly, if parenthood didn’t do anything else, it keeps one humble (if only because of all these sorts of memories springing up all the time)
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Sue said on August 27, 2010 at 9:17 am
I’ve had the “never went to a class” nightmare, and it was always a math class, which meant there was no way to make it work at the last minute, absolutely no way.
My recurring nightmare in grade school was getting halfway across Lee Street in Des Plaines, IL on the way to school and having the light suddenly change to red at the same time my legs gave out. There I’d be, trying to crawl to the curb as cars that could not see me were bearing down. I remember it because of the constancy of the details, like location and direction of vehicles.
Weirdly enough, my recurring nightmare these days is forgetting to set up communion, then scrambling to get it done when I realize it halfway through the service. I think it means I’m ill-suited for this task but no one will take it over, despite the mental anguish it causes me. And these people call themselves Christians, I ask you.
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LAMary said on August 27, 2010 at 9:41 am
I used to dream I walked to a final exam, got my test paper and did not recognize anything at all on the paper, as if I had never taken the class.
A later dream was standing up, straphanging on a crowded NYC subway,and realizing I had forgotten to get dressed from the waist down. I figured if I acted cool no one would notice.
Make what you will of these.
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Bob (Not Greene) said on August 27, 2010 at 9:54 am
Deb,
Yes, it’s his first year at UW. He’s living at Elizabeth Waters Hall on Observatory. Kind of an old dorm, but in a good spot and, from what I understand, a bit more subdued than some other dorms. I would’ve hated that, but then again he’s a better student than I was.
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brian stouder said on August 27, 2010 at 9:58 am
Make what you will of these.
hmmmm….train in a tunnel, strap hanging, junk exposed; I think Alfred Hitchcock would write a whole movie around making that one scene!
Or maybe, it would make a good commerical for the Donger company, or the Cialis people. The next instant, after your horrified discovery, would feature syrupy music and the sudden appearance of a flowing stream, along with beams extending across the ceiling of the train, and the walls falling away…
Sue – funny stuff! I have a “and you call yourself Christians?” tidbit for you – a controversy arose in my mother-in-law’s church when some of the ladies decided the church should NOT do funeral dinners for people who weren’t members…! So that, you could be an active member for 40 years, and your non-member spouse could pass away, and (a particular subset of) the church ladies would say “Bah! Humbug!”
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Sue said on August 27, 2010 at 10:03 am
Don’t forget those ridiculous Cialus bathtubs, Brian. Although how Mary’s going to get those on the subway is beyond me.
And re your church ladies, oh, yeah, been there. I always try to get assigned to the kitchen during fundraising dinners etc. – the quality of gossip is remarkably sharp and unchristian, often having to do with the ladies working the dining room. Subset of course is the children of the ladies working the dining room. Most enjoyable.
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Deborah said on August 27, 2010 at 10:31 am
So many of your dreams sound so familiar. Jung must have certainly been on to something. I love it when I have flying dreams. I’m afraid of heights though so when I fly I run and then kind of glide only about 3′ off the ground, it is so much fun. Sometimes during a dream I realize I’m dreaming (I believe they call that lucid dreaming), when that happens I realize I can make myself fly because I’m dreaming.
My foot or ankle is pretty bunged up, it has gotten much worse to the point where I have to keep it as immobile as possible. I think it was caused by twisting it last week while walking to work across a spot on the sidewalk with uneven pavement (thanks mayor Daley). It means I’ve had to take cabs to and from work the last couple of days and I haven’t been getting any exercise at all because of it. Weird though is that it is not swollen and doesn’t hurt to touch the area. I have a very sharp pain just below the ankle while my foot is at an an acute angle during the walking motion. I can bend my foot in an obtuse angle with no pain. I may have to go to the Dr.
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Deborah said on August 27, 2010 at 10:34 am
Sue,
“If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.”
— Alice Roosevelt Longworth
My favorite quote.
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Julie Robinson said on August 27, 2010 at 11:28 am
Sad to say, there is no better place for un-Christian acts as at a church. CS Lewis used this in his masterpiece, Screwtape Letters. The devil is thrilled when his temptee joins a church.
I’m guessing that the funeral ladies are all in their 70’s and 80’s and are getting a little tired. Those dinners are hard work, but there is no better practice of grace than providing mourners with a dinner afterwards. It could almost be argued that it’s a higher calling to provide for non-members than for members. A lot of grief-work happens at the dinners, especially for those coming from out of town who haven’t been around in the last days, and don’t have a gathering place.
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4dbirds said on August 27, 2010 at 12:37 pm
My anxiety dreams always involve the army. Missing formation, too much equipment to carry, can’t find a certain sergeant etc. I wonder if I’ll ever stop having them.
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MarkH said on August 27, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Deborah, I always thought that was Dorothy Parker.
“If you can’t say something nice about someone, come sit by me.”
In Coozledad’s early days at nn.c, after a particularly nasty rant, Nancy had this reply: “Coozledad, come sit by me.” It took me a while to figure out where it came from.
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Sue said on August 27, 2010 at 12:41 pm
I read that Alice had that phrase embroidered on a pillow at her home.
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Dorothy said on August 27, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Deborah, Sue & MarkH:
“You know what they say – ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say about anybody, come sit by me!'”(Clairee Belcher, a character in Steel Magnolias – whom I portrayed in 2004 in Middletown Ohio)
I have two or three recurring dreams but it’s weird, right now I can only think of one. And I haven’t had it in years and years. I used to dream about this giant dragon being on a wheeled flatbed conveyance of some type, being pulled down the middle of Penn Avenue in Wilkinsburg just blocks from our house on S. Trenton Avenue. The rumblings were VERY loud and the dragon would expell fire from it’s mouth and I just remembering absolutely TERRIFIED. I think I watched too much Twilight Zone as a kid.
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moe99 said on August 27, 2010 at 1:31 pm
It was Alice. Dorothy Parker said,
You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.
The only ism Hollywood believes in is plagiarism.
Heterosexuality is not normal, it’s just common.
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.
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MarkH said on August 27, 2010 at 1:53 pm
I had just finished some on-line research when I saw you came to the same conclusion as me, moe. It was Alice, and she did have the pillow with the quote in question. I laughed out loud when I saw Parker’s God and money quote.
But, was this one, also attributed to Alice, about the estimable Ms. Parker?
“Dorothy is the only woman in history who has had her menopause in public and made it pay.”
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paddyo' said on August 27, 2010 at 2:08 pm
And Moe, I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy . . . or is it, ” . . . free bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy”? That’s supposedly Dorothy Parker, too, BTW . . .
And hey, dreamers: Count me in as another with the never-went-to-class-and-now-it’s-final-exam-day anxiety dream. I had that one regularly for several years after finishing college . . . and occasionally, even now, 35 later. Do we EVER grow up?
Pre-HS and college, it was walking-around-in-my-underwear, and oh, yes, driving a car (at, like, age 8 or 10) and not knowing what the hell I was doing. (Some tell me this behavior persists to this day.)
And, of course, in all dreams, any form of movement — walking and running primarily — is always slo-mo . . . but then, I’ve had both knees replaced and so it fits right in.
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moe99 said on August 27, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Mark H, that was *ding, ding, ding* another Dorothy–this time a journalist–Dorothy Thompson.
http://dissidentvoice.org/Oct04/Kurth1026.htm
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Bob (Not Greene) said on August 27, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Hey, Nance, just took a look at the Dr. Frank video, and I see he’s president of St. Mary’s Hospital. That’s where No. 1 son was born! Whaddya know.
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MarkH said on August 27, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Great call, moe. At least it wasn’t OUR Dorothy!
Here’s my favorite part of your link:
“Alice is so funny,” Thompson remarked. She was “a breast-beating Boadicea,” in one report, “wet nurse to destiny,” “our self-appointed anti-fascist Joan of Arc,? combining “the seeing eye of Cassandra and the appearance of Brűnnhilde with the gusto of General Patton and the holy fire of a crusading apostle.” Dorothy Thompson was the model for “Tess Harding,” the chic and sexy, globe-trotting foreign correspondent and newspaper columnist, first portrayed by Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year (1942) — Hepburn’s first film teaming with Spencer Tracy — and later by Lauren Bacall in the Broadway musical Applause.
I just watched “Woman of the Year” on TCM the other night. What a great film; interesting to learn Tess was based on Dorothy.
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Sue said on August 27, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Isn’t Dorothy Parker part of the “Age before beauty/pearls before swine” story?
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Jeff Borden said on August 27, 2010 at 4:41 pm
I’ve always been fond of this quote from Sinclair Lewis:
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
Mr. Lewis would undoubtedly have some interesting things to say these days. I wonder what he would make of Glenn Beck’s Crybaby Carnival this weekend in D.C.? And what would H.L. Mencken make of this blubbering dolt?
I hated high school with a passion and would rather be staked across an ant hill wearing nothing but honey than return to those days. Now, college…that would be great to relive. I cannot recall any particular dreams of school, but the dread that began building on Sunday afternoons was a staple of my adolescence.
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MarkH said on August 27, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Perhaps this Mencken quote:
“Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.”
I still feel the Sunday afternoon dread, Jeff, 40+ years on.
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brian stouder said on August 27, 2010 at 5:17 pm
When facing a rough thing, I’ve always liked:
“When there is no alternative, there is no problem”
(or the colder “all bleeding stops, eventually”)
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Bob (Not Greene) said on August 27, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Jeff, I still get the growing Sunday dread!
I was a swimmer in high school and college, and the dream I remember was that it was very, very windy and I would jump into the air and swim against the wind. I also on several occasions had that walking-into-a-classroom-for-a-final-exam-having-never-gone-to-that-class dream. I hated that dream.
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Deborah said on August 27, 2010 at 6:00 pm
I too hated high school, the only thing worse was junior high. I was a skinny dork, with zero social skills.
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Julie Robinson said on August 27, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Let me raise my hand to say I mostly had a good high school experience, much of which I attribute to a small and safe school and wonderful friends who kept me from going off the rails. Was I a popular cheerleader? Not for a second, but I was involved in band, choir, theatre, speech team and basketball the last two years when girls’ sports started. That’s why it was good–I was always busy and creative and had friends built in with these groups. Of course there were moments of misery, and I only ever went to one dance and hardly dated. But my cohort of musical theatre geeks had parties every weekend where we sang and played games and had lots of goofy fun together. Without any mind altering substances.
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Joe Kobiela said on August 27, 2010 at 7:13 pm
You only have to much gas when your on fire. I would rather have tulips on the organ than roses on the piano.
Pilot Joe
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Deborah said on August 27, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Julie, I went to a gigantic high school, something like 3,500 students in 3 grades, sophs, jrs and srs (jrs looks ok but srs for “seniors” looks weird). I was artsy at a time when no one was artsy, everyone was preppy, sportsy except for the greasers, and greasers didn’t want to have anything to do with me. I was in a few clubs but I’ve never really been a joiner. I had a few good friends that I hung out with and that’s mostly how I’ve been all of my life. My husband has way more friends and if it weren’t for him we wouldn’t have much of a social life. We have more friends in New Mexico where we have land and only go four times a year for a week or so at a time. In Chicago most of my friends are from work. My daughter Little Bird makes friends super easily and knows everyone. We rarely go anywhere in the city where she doesn’t run into someone she knows. She didn’t get that from me.
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Deborah said on August 27, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Jeff B, I so know that feeling of dread that starts building on Sunday afternoons. I call it “doom” and I still have it every Sunday.
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Deborah said on August 27, 2010 at 7:32 pm
Wow, do I sound like Debby Downer today.
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Dexter said on August 27, 2010 at 9:22 pm
huh…I just remembered the last part of my dream where my entire high school class boards a jumbo jet to fly around the world. The plane lands in an unannounced place, I am ordered off , and am forced to strap on a backpack , am given a military rifle, and a platoon of us begins marching in a line across an unending wheatfield. Then I wake up, confused as ever.
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A. Riley said on August 27, 2010 at 9:40 pm
A v. vivid dream I had once when metabolizing out some anesthesia — I was in the near north suburbs (I have a clear dream-Chicago map), smoothly and gracefully skiing down a mountain covered not with snow, but with sweaters. Folded sweaters. All colors.
Keep in mind I hadn’t skied for about twenty years before that dream, and never got much past intermediate beginner when I did.
Hospital grade drugs are amazing, I tell you, amazing.
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basset said on August 27, 2010 at 10:57 pm
Julie Robinson’s post got me to thinking about my own high school experience, rural southwestern Indiana in the early 70s:
>I was involved in band
basketball games should have a band, so the school has a band.
>choir
didn’t have choir, but the basketball team was really good.
>theatre
didn’t have that either, but the basketball team was really good.
>speech team
anyone who can’t make the basketball team should be in the gym cheering.
>and basketball the last two years when girls’ sports started.
didn’t have it back then but I understand they do now, for the girls who can’t be cheerleaders. and the team is probably really good.
>I was always busy and creative
no, you can’t stay in the library. or the art room. it’s pep rally time, get to the gym. what the hell is wrong with you, anyway?
>and had friends
yeah, right.
the assistant basketball coach (small school, there was only one) found my name on the net maybe seven or eight years ago and wanted to connect when he was in town visiting his daughter. so I met him at a Cracker Barrel for breakfast and he started going on about the good old days. reminded him that they weren’t so good for some of us. he turns to me, dead serious, and says “You should have said something to me. We would have given you a tryout.”
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Kirk said on August 27, 2010 at 11:03 pm
The dream about showing up for a final without having cracked the book will never go away, I guess. Seems like high school is the usual locale.
And I keep dreaming about driving cars that I lose control of, and they start flying through the air.
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Dexter said on August 27, 2010 at 11:06 pm
yeah, bassett , maybe you could have bested my 92 points. That’s a total of 160 points scored in two years of varsity basketball, 68 as a junior and 92 as a senior. We played 44 games in those two years, and so I averaged a few points a game, almost all of them when I went in at the end of a non-close game. One time I went in and hit six jumpers in three minutes and then was yanked and didn’t play another second. Go figure.
But we’re all grown up now, and have the answer to China’s traffic jams:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JokMtK8IJFM&feature=related
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basset said on August 27, 2010 at 11:14 pm
I had two pretty large paper routes all the way through junior high and high school, back in the days when paperboys used to deliver on foot. the Bloomington Herald-Telephone would leave a bundle at our house; I’d walk to the other end of town and pass them out on the way, wearing one of those front and back canvas paper bags… once they were gone, I’d pick up a bundle of Bloomfield Evening Worlds at the grocery store and drop those on the way back. Primo service, wedge ’em in the screen in summer, inside the storm door in winter.
Every once in awhile I have a dream that I either can’t find the houses on my route… or I’m trying to collect and don’t have my receipt book and change bag. There’s probably some deep meaning to that, don’t know if I really care to find out what it is.
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basset said on August 27, 2010 at 11:28 pm
Dexter, you don’t get it. not only did I not play, I didn’t even go to the games, which is pretty much social suicide in the kind of place I went to high school. You can talk about being a scrub years later, but have you ever sat on the far side of the gym during a mandatory pep rally and been the only one not cheering? where I was, the basketball program started with uniforms, road games, and cheerleaders in the fifth grade – you either came up through that or you didn’t even get a chance to try out.
The team at the school I attended (I refuse to say “we” or “our team”) won the sectional just about every year and went to the final four in the state the year before I got there… and IU’s team went undefeated and won the NCAAs while I was there… but I avoided every game in high school and only went to one college game, that one because I was taking pictures for the IDS.
I actually played a lot of basketball and was not too bad at it, high school and IU intramurals and in the park, but where I’m from you have to be a rabid fan from the time you’re old enough to talk or there’s something wrong with you. which is one of many reasons I left.
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Julie Robinson said on August 28, 2010 at 10:20 am
Basset, our school was heavily sports-oriented and there were never many resources spent on the arts, but they did exist. I’m really sorry for everyone who had such a bad experience, I was just saying that it isn’t universal. I’m painfully shy and tongue-tied in person, so if I hadn’t had those activities I might have had a crappy time too.
On a happier note, our daughter is home for a few days before leaving on her grand European adventure, and this weekend our son is in a musical, so I’m loving the family time. We’ve been making all her favorite meals and celebrating the wonderfulness of our Sarah. Wherever she is it’s a party.
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Dexter said on August 28, 2010 at 11:56 am
bassett, I get it. I went to a tiny school that graduated 46 students if I remember correctly. We moved there when I was in 5th grade and even then it was hard to break into the jock-world and fight and claw and practice constantly just to make the teams.
The school won just one basketball sectional, ever, in 1960, and they just had their 50th anniversary banquet this year…all players, coaches, and cheerleaders not only are still living, but all attended. Amazing.
At any larger school I would have been denied access to sports and would have hated it for that reality.
I followed my childhood dream of being a professional baseball player up until it stopped before I got to attend a minor league tryout because Uncle Sam threw me into the army. All it was was an invitation to attend a tryout camp sponsored by the Montreal Expos in 1970, and by that time I was in California working in an army hospital; life throws curve balls, doesn’t it?
By the way, I identify completely with your story of the paper route, as I delivered Fort Wayne Journal-Gazettes for three summers and four winters, riding a bicycle or walking when the snow and ice came…maybe three times Dad drove me during fierce weather conditions. Always in a state of deficit collection receipts, I rarely made more than a few dollars each week. Now kids have not had to collect for years. Can you imagine? Oh, the weight of those papers on Sundays and coupon day…hard work.
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prospero said on August 28, 2010 at 7:39 pm
87000 people? Seriously. Hoe msny of these whackjobs are worried about this sort of Gold Coins? Serioudly ehst the hell? This represents some sort of ground roots movement. This is less than a million of a 300, mil adults. People know that this sort of fringe hatred, maybe we’ve got something better to consider.
How many people there found Beck a revolting liar? Beck claiming MLK
This is pretty close to the disturbance outside the Democratic National
convention. I was in
grant Park and I gave as good as I got. I was there totally legally. Whacked around for no reason but my prescence. I found Nixon a spectacular liar in the interest of befouling my country. What Cheney did when he appointed himself after fucking an election.?
These assholes just robbed everthing for the PNAC and spending a few billion on an illgal invasion by lying their assses off. How does anybody that purports to have the slightest idea? They don’t. They sent the PNAC letter to Clinton. You don’t know about that shit? He told them they were full of it.
What I’d like to know is this? If you push through the Bush tax cuts, lame duck, you fucking assholes, and you hit $1trill on military adventurism with some scum, aren’t you the deficit assholes that ever hit the face of the earth? You cannot be the biggest deficit liars that the biggest lying pieces of shit that ever lived? How much of the deficit is actually putting the Invasions on the books?
How difficult is not paying for your invasions difficult to understand?
How difficult is this to understand? Not one dime of the cash spent on the invasions, not one cent of the cash that dissapeared into Halliburton, none of those gigantic sleds of cash, none of that was ever accounted for. It just disappeared.
Republicans want to investigate those two or three Panthers? Acorn? Anytime, anywhere, We’d like opponents that actually had something to claim.
The Panthers, seriously, there were three guys and the way they were dressed up as thugs. What’s so painfully stupid is that white people didn’t vote in that spot. So they were intimidating black people that would have voted for , c are non-esistent. Acorn was 99%% legitimate, The Breitbart shit never failed to make shit up and it’s most assuredly easily proved to any reasonable person. This is such clearly racist shit, it’s almost ridiculous.
Racist shitholes like
Andrew Breitbart that actually thinks he’s clever turning black people against themselves? No. he doesn’t. He’s a sorry racist piece of shit.
Most of us believe in the Constitution. How is there a question? Man, This is like choosing Frank instead of Hawkeye. What sort of disgraceful piece of shit would you have to be.
Funniest thing, it is not a mosque, and without one of those Arnie things, you couldn’t even see it. So if it’s not a mosque and it’s not even visible? Holy shit? They just made this shit up?
How does anybody deal with abject stupidity?y
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prospero said on August 29, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Can somebody point out a single thing this asshole ever said that was remotely close to true? One single thing?
Nope. Just another liar on the internet. But, you know, he said he’s Martin Luther King. You cannot tell a bigger lie when you’re a racist jerkoff jerk. I mean, you could search the world. You could not find a more opprobrious assshole than this asshole. MLK? Seriously? Offensive doesn’t come close. Odious? Nope. This asshole needs his ass kicked. Inexcusable. People buy this shit?
My disenfranchisement program. Listen to and believe in this Century’s version of the truly insane Fr. Coughlin, you’re fucking nuts too and you don’t get to vote anymore. Both these whack-jobs thought they had a direct line. Only one of them believed Catholics weren’t Christians, which is funny, since they invented the whole thing, but if you claim to be Mormon, you should be careful about the cult word.
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