A Cold Hard Fact

    Does anyone ever have it easy? I mean, I know there are people out there that have it easier, but does that necessarily mean that they have it easy? People who live in gated communities, in huge mansions with 16 bathrooms, they get depressed, they stress out, they have to deal with unpredictable set backs, right?

   Sure it looks like they get all the breaks and have their every whim catered too, but that's just what we see, that's just what's on the surface. Underneath, even the most privileged of the privilege go through periods of ennui just like me and you.

   They gotta, they just gotta. Everybody has to deal with disappointment on some level, Life takes left turns when you want to go right, no matter who you are - that's the way life is - random, nonsensical, and completely non-partisan.

   Rich or poor, smart or stupid, selfish or altruistic, short or tall, responsible or reckless, none of that can have any bearing on whether or not a person is going to have to deal with an unexpected serious illness or a random accident or a sudden misfortune. Life throws hardballs at everyone.

   Sure, some people have better resources to deal with the vagaries of life, but even billionaires go through divorces and get in car accidents or develop mental illnesses. Even billionaires get scared, sink into paranoid delusions, or go through psychotic episodes.

   Those are realities for each and everyone of us, without exception. It's not possible for me to believe otherwise.

 

Get Down With Your Ret-Conned Wonderful Teen Years

   It's a little disconcerting and a lot disappointing to wake up from a stellar dream about your teenage years, in which you and your friends are in an empty gymnasium dancing to some upbeat, high-energy early '80's new wavish pop tune while taking turns singing the verses as if they apply to each specific individual who is singing, then having a group of girls from some ubiquitous clique sing the pre-chorus, followed by a rousing shout-sing of the main chorus by everyone in the gym, at the top of their joyful lungs while giving each other playful flirtatious glances...and then realizing you're not dreaming about your teenage years, you're dreaming about being a character in some 1980's teen comedy-drama film. 

   Your teenage years were actually pretty dull.

If You Enjoy Dancing The Bossa Nova, Then Hell, Get Those Hips Swaying

   Somedays you want to sit in the sunbaked sand and watch the surf roll in. 

   Somedays all you have in front of you is a yard full of dead leaves that still needs rakin'.

   Somedays you want to read a novel of phantasmagorical  wonder, though more dreamlike than nightmarish.

   Somedays you read and reread the instructions over and over again and still can't figure it out.

   Somedays you hear a song on the radio that makes you want to grab your partner and dance like gravity means nothing.

   Somedays you trip over invisible bumps in the road and barely save yourself from a faceplant. 

  Everyday you have the chance, take that chance.

Ice Hockey & Cigarettes

 

1927 Advertisement For Fatima Turkish Cigarettes

   The advertisement above (which features a great dynamic illustration, artist unknown) begs a couple of questions.

   First off, how big was ice hockey in 1927? Researchers have found proof that the sport evolved a couple hundred years ago in Europe from a game known as Bandy, and became an Olympic event in 1920 (for men - was not contested in the Olympics for women until 1998 - really, 1998).

 

   What we know as modern ice hockey was organized, codified, and realized in Montreal, Canada in the later half of the 19th century (the first ice hockey club was founded at Montreal's  McGill University in 1877) and Lord Stanley's cup was first awarded in 1893 (known as the Dominion Hockey Challenge cup then, it was eventually renamed after the man who sponsored it, Lord Frederick Stanley).

   The first year the Stanley cup was given (as the unofficial trophy) to the NHL Champions was 1926, the year before the above advertisement was printed.

   Second, The advertisement is for cigarettes. Fatima cigarettes, an American brand that was the best-selling cigarette from 1910 to 1920 and had been primarily marketed to well-to-do prosperous sorts as a cigarette of distinction.

   However, Fatima cigarettes were well past their tipping point by 1927 and the manufacturer would discontinue advertising the brand completely during the great depression of the 1930's (though advertising would resume in the1940's and the cigarettes remained in production until 1980).

   Being as how hockey as a professional sport was in it's infancy, and Fatima cigarettes were in a steep decline, why in the world were the two married up in an advertisement?

   I'm going to assume that the above advertisement was an attempt by the manufacturer and whatever ad agency they had hired to reposition the cigarette brand as a unique niche item that would bring an aura of youth and vitality to the discriminating cigarette smoker.

   Because that's what cigarette people do, try to make death-on-a-stick look appealing.

The Least Desirable Yet Absolutely Necessary Quality

    Is there anything more frustrating than not being able to get something accomplished due to the fact that you do not know what you are doing and absolutely refuse to ask for help?

   Not in my experience there isn't.

   And that's because asking for help with something you do not understand or are having difficulty comprehending requires humility and humility is, for all intents and purposes, submission.

   Which is difficult to deal with when submission is not part of your character make-up.

   Being humbled by a task of any kind is not only frustrating, it can also be paralyzing, which means that not only do you not know how to get the task done, but you are standing around stewing in your ignorance not getting the task done.

   That is why it is important to remember that the key to dealing with being forced into humility are these two simple rules: 

1) Ditch your ego

2) Remember at all times that humility doesn't make you any less of a person - in fact, humility is the one sure way to make yourself a better person.

   How's that, you say? Well, once you've humbled yourself into accepting the fact that you need help with something (re: ditched your ego), you're now fertile ground for some learnin'.

   Learnin', as we all know, is what makes us better. Once you've become better at something you've added to your abilities and have enhanced your worth, which also enhances your self-worth.

   Self-worth through humility. Sounds kooky, but it works.  

The Risk Of Speculation (Unheeded Advice From Nearly A Century Past)

    Wistful aspirants for unearned increment often point out to one another that a fortune might have been amassed by any person lucky enough to have bought a few shares of telephone stock, or of Ford motor stock, when the telephone and the Ford car were new and unknown. 

   What these dreamers do not realize is that the public never is given the chance to invest in such genuine bonanzas. 

   When the promoters of an enterprise are really convinced that it will make them rich they do not want to sell stock in it to anybody and everybody. They want to keep that stock snugly in their own hands.

   The commonest assurance offered by the salesman of bogus stocks that "you will double your money" is a plain indication that something is wrong. 

   What man or organization with anything as good as this is passing it around?

The above was written by Keyes Winter, Assistant Attorney General of New York State, and published in Harper's magazine in August of 1928, more than a year before the great Wall Street crash of 1929.

Who Dis? New Phone

  Watching your cell phone fall three stories onto the asphalt paved parking lot below is never a good thing.

   The silver lining of getting a new phone is, well, kinda tarnished by the fact that you now have to learn a new phone - a new phone that comes with the most basic of instructions and even fewer accessories - just a USB-C cord configured for Dual-Role-Data ports, not even a charger.

   Which is exactly what happened to me this past Friday. 

   Oh yay.

   It has been three years since my last new phone (the one that performed the high-dive), so there have been quite a few advances made (the camera is awesome!).

   There also seems to have been a huge uptick in the number of pre-loaded apps. Learning to delete those has become a priority.

Slow Down For The Sleeping Policemen

   For reasons known only to the deepest recesses of my memory, this morning I suddenly recalled my Glaswegian friend Jim referring to the speed bumps in the road that ran in front of his children's elementary school as "sleeping policemen".

   When I asked him why he referred to the speed bumps as "sleeping policemen" he replied that it was due to his English father calling them such. 

   Jim then asked me what we in the states referred to speed bumps as.

   I replied, "We call speed bumps, speed bumps". 

   Jim just nodded and said, "Of course, you Americans lack a bit in the creative naming department". 

What A Pissah!

 

Scrap Metal Man In The Middle Of The Median

 

Predictions For The End Of Oil

   For decades now I have been waiting for all the oil wells to run dry. It is quite possible I have written on this topic before as it is one that is near and dear to my heart - so if I'm repeating myself I beg indulgence. 

   The prospect of the world running out of oil fascinates me to no end.

   Why? Well, when I was an elementary school student a small broadsheet was passed out to the class every week that was named "The Weekly Reader" (clever, eh?). It was full of what were then exciting stories that for whatever reason I cannot forget.

   Stories about the pending implementation of the metric system in the United States, Armand Hammer's plan to deforest the Amazon with a huge floating papermill, the coming population explosion, and of course the impending drying up of the oil fields.

   That last one is the one that cemented itself in my memory. For the past several decades I've sought out and read countless stories about the coming of the end of oil. 

    It is a story that interests me greatly, because it is something I would really, really love to live to see.

   There are two primary reasons for that. 1) I believe that with the end of oil the earth will be able to start recovering from the past 100 or so years of petrochemical pollution, and 2) Without oil, large scale war will pretty much be eliminated.

   The CoVid-19 quarantines, short as they were (in a geological sense), pretty much proved that. During the government mandated six to eight week quarantines, the skies over every major industrial area on the planet lost their ever-present curtains of smog, and warfare was pretty much limited to very regional/local conflicts.

   Those were some unexpected bonuses for the inconvenience of being forced to stay home in order to avoid contracting and potentially spreading a virulent disease.

   The end of oil will do those two things faster and far more permanently than any climate-change activist, negotiating diplomat, or anti-war demonstrator ever could hope to do in the history of climate-change activists, negotiating diplomats and anti-war demonstrators. 

   Large-scale warfare depends on fuel - for jets, ships, tanks, trucks, etc. Once the fuel becomes unavailable for all, it means armies either return to the horse as a means of transportation, or get really creative with bicycle-powered craft.

   It goes without saying that petrochemical pollution depends upon oil, but I have to state it anyway as pointing out the obvious is becoming more and more necessary in this world of red-carpet interviewers who have no idea what "vanity fair" actually means (geez, that was horrendous).

Pre-Oscars Movie Discussion Breakfast

   Went to breakfast at one of the nearby greasy spoons (which is not really a greasy spoon) this past Thursday morning with a friend who also happens to be as much of a movie buff as I am.

   ELT and I hadn't seen each other in close to three years, so after quickly glancing over menus and placing orders with the waiter, we both started rambling on about the movies that had been released since our last go at playing Siskel & Ebert. 

   Prior to 2020, ELT and I regularly got together for a pre-Oscars breakfast, lunch, or dinner, for just such conversation, but as nearly everyone on the planet has experienced since 2020, once a routine is bankrupted it's pretty difficult to get back to it.

   We grumbled in agreement that the quarantine(s) of 2020 caused a viewing disruption that we both are only now being able to overcome and recommended films to each other that were good but received little opportunity for viewing at the time (I insisted that I'm Your Woman and Sylvie's love were the hidden gems of 2020, he insisted that News of the World and Sylvie's Love were - that we both agreed on Sylvie's Love was a surprise).

   Movies released in 2021 and 2022 were much easier to discuss as we both had access to most of them. We shared opinions of what popular movies we mutually liked (Alice Darling, No Time To Die (We are both big James Bond fans), Nomadland, Cyrano, Top Gun Maverick, Shang-Chi & the Legend of the 10 Rings, Dual, Licorice Pizza, The Batman, Our Friend, The Dig) and movies we mutually hated (Slumberland, Poker Face, Georgetown, Ghostbusters Afterlife, Amsterdam, Moonfall, Eternals, Mobius - a movie we both have more hate for than is probably healthy).

   There were a few movies we were divided on (I loved French Dispatch, he thought it was a pretentious bore, ELT loved Dune, I'd rather gargle with bleach than watch that film again) and some gems we both liked (The Al Yankovic bio, I Care A Lot, Concrete Cowboy, The Good Nurse, Violet, Tar, Funny Pages, The Outfit)

   As is usual during our discussions we also brought up movies we had seen on television that had been made long ago but were fresh discoveries for us individually that we thought were great. Westward The Women, which was made in 1951, was one I saw for the first time this year and thought was great, while ELT watched The Kremlin Letter, which was made in 1970, and thought it was great as well.

   Along those same 20/20 hindsight lines we also discuss movies that were made long ago that were bad. ELT said he had watched the musical At Long Last Love, which was made in 1975, and claimed it was the worst musical ever made (it's not - Sgt Peppers, made in 1978, is). I submitted The Day Mars Invaded Earth, made in 1963 and claimed it to be as bad an attempt at science fiction as has ever been made and ELT agreed, having seen it this past year too.

   Which all lead up to us making our predictions for what films we thought would do well at this years Oscars.

   Side note: I've been trying to predict the best picture winner for almost forty years now and have only been correct once.

   ELT's pick for best picture (of the films nominated for the award) was The Fabelmans, mine was Topgun Maverick. Neither of us had even seen the eventual winner, Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.

    Everything, Everywhere All At Once raked in a big haul at this year's Oscars, which means I will now have to track it down and watch it just to see why it snagged so many honors.

   I just hope it's not like Out of Africa, a movie that won a boatload of Oscars in 1985 that was just another tepid fish-out-of-water caught up in an ill-fated-romance story.

   

Waiting For The Light To Go On

    An acquaintance asked me a rather unusual question today. He asked me why a guy like me celebrated Christmas.

   Obviously, the question was rather unusual due to it being March 9th, well past Christmas (or well before Christmas, depending on how you're looking at it).

   Not to mention that prefacing a question with "Why a guy like you..." is a little assumptive, eh?

   Anywhatzit, ignoring what misgivings I had about the timing of the question I replied straightaway, "Because it's the one time of the year when people generally make an effort to be somewhat altruistic and do something for someone other than themselves, and to be a bit peaceful, even with all the crass commercialism and associated bullsh*t."

   "But", my acquaintance retorted, "you're always going on about how much you don't believe anyone is truly altruistic, so that pretty much derails your reason right there."

   "No, " I said with deliberate slowness. "Not in anyway does my refusal to believe that altruism exists derail my reason. If anything, and especially if you think about it for a minute, it adds weight to my reason."

   And that was the end of that conversation. 

A Bright Shining Disaster Of A Man

   He said the only time he's ever really happy is when he's high

It was all I could do to keep unspoken my reply

   What the hell difference would any comment I could make do

It is his life to live it is his life to lose

   This world is not for everyone, not everyone wants this world

He tells me he's not addicted, he can quit anytime he wants to

    And that it's much better than sitting in a bar drinking booze

You gotta tune out and turn on is his battle cry

   Let all that harsh uptight shit go and just get fried

Words he uses to convince himself as he holds his head and hurls

Rustic Resort

 

Justin Gatlin Gatling (Bubble) Gun

 

Marketing people Electric Bubble Guns is apparently a field where celebrity endorsements are desirable. This Chinese made 3 plus years appropriate toy is available at flea markets and swap meets everywhere.

The Gatling Gun, an early version of the machine gun, was invented in 1861 by Richard Gatling (not for the purpose of blowing bubbles).

Justin Gatlin is a 5-time Olympic medalist in the 100m, 200m, and 4 x 100m relay (1 gold, two silver, and two bronze)

I am almost certain the two are not related.

The Gear Sphere

 

   Caught sight of this sculpture in front of a home in Fort Collins. It is fairly large, standing maybe five feet tall, and apparently designed to light up at night (as evidenced by the power cord connected to it on the lower left).

   Yard art in Colorado is fairly creative. 

Totally Awesome Totally '80's Pizza!

   Last month JER and I drove up to Fort Collins to pay a visit to a totally awesome pizza restaurant that goes by the name Totally '80's Pizza.

   Or rather, JER drove up as I sat in the passenger seat making conversation and staring out the side window at stuff I never noticed when I was a regular driver.

   Totally '80's Pizza is a small restaurant located in a shopping center in Fort Collins, Colorado, at 2567 So Shields Street, unit 4C. The restaurant is fairly unique in that it doubles as not only a place to get delicious pizza, but also as a museum that houses the world's largest collection of 1980's Pop Culture memorabilia.

   Alex Graham is the man who spent over a decade collecting the memorabilia that is on display - his love and enthusiasm for all things '80's (as far as Pop Culture goes) is pretty much totally awesome.

   The place has been featured on a couple of local and national television shows and there are a few short videos posted on You Tube (including a clip from the History Channel's featurette) that showcase some of the exhibits.

  Here are a few of the pics from the trip JER and I took for your viewing pleasure:

   Totally '80's Pizza is packed with '80's memorabilia - these pics are just the tip of a big iceberg. Most of the displays will trigger memories galore, especially for Gen Xer's. For the younger kids most of the displays will trigger a lot of questions regarding their parents (or grandparents!) fashion sensibilities and taste in music.

   One thing there is no question about though is how tasty the pizza is. JER and I split an extra-large "New Wave Rave", which we totally devoured.

Celebrate National Strong Positive Attitude Month!

   March is the first month of Spring, and Spring is the season when the daylight hours start to increase causing temperatures to rise and thereby allowing people to start getting outside more to enjoy the fresh air and the aforementioned sunshine.

   Spring is also, historically and literally, the season of rejuvenation, rebirth, renewal, and all kinds of other "re's", most of which make for a far more pleasant environment to be walking around in.

    Which is why I believe March should be declared "National Strong Positive Attitude Month", - it's the perfect time to revisit our collective ups and downs attitude-wise, and resolve to reinvigorate our collective efforts to emphasize the positive!

   It would contribute greatly to the restoration of our collective positive outlook and restrengthen the overall national good vibe. 

   I know what you're thinking - "Cripes, March is already Women's History Month, Irish-American History Month, National Social Work Month, National Craft Month, National Foreign Language Month (which begs the question, is there a specific foreign language we celebrate or do we just pick a favorite?), National Nutrition Month, Endometriosis Awareness Month, Expanding Girls' Horizons in Science and Engineering Month, and maybe eight or a zillion more (possibly - have not verified either of those numbers).

   As well as National Optimism Month, which is kinda the same thing, isn't it?"

   So why should we declare March "National Strong Positive Attitude Month"?

   Well, for starters, March is known to be a month when people start giving up on their New Year's resolutions, as they're generally not experiencing the results they were hoping for quickly enough (I'm of course referring to the most common resolution of losing weight/getting fit).

   See, if we had a National Strong Positive Attitude Month, we could all benefit from everyone walking around and casually making comments like, "Hey, looking good Harper, keep up the good work," or "Wow Terry, you're getting serious results from that gym membership, way to stick to it!"

   And who amongst us couldn't benefit from a little of that? 

   Also, Dr. Seuss's birthday is today, March 2nd, and he wrote generally happy, uplifting and fun books. Books that were generally conducive to a strong positive attitude, even if your second grade teacher made you read aloud from one of them - heck, the rhyme structure was both fun and easy to speak, so take that Ms Gardner.

   Least I forget, March 20th is also the International Day of Happiness - that's a good day to celebrate, wish I would of thought of that one.

   Of course, since March 26th is Make Up Your Own Holiday Day, I can just make that day the second International Day of Happiness - it's not like we all couldn't use a second day of sharing/shared happiness.

   So yeah, March as National Strong Positive Attitude Month, let's make this a thing.

Adage For The Modern Era #275

 

There is nothing so bad that the addition of Lawyers and Journalists can't make it worse.