HinesSight

My guide to happiness: act stupid, then undo your stupidity

Everybody wants to be happy. And everybody has their own ways of accomplishing this.

Recently the New York Times had an interview with a Buddhist monk, Matthieu Ricard. When I saw that the story was called The 'World's Happiest Man' Shares His Three Rules for Life, I got excited.  

Yay! Finally I'd know how to be happy all the time. Sweet. But when I read what Ricard said the three rules were, I felt my Perpetual Happiness Balloon popping. 

You know, once I was on the India Today Conclave. They said, “Can you give us the three secrets of happiness?” I said: “First, there’s no secret. Second, there’s not just three points. Third, it takes a whole life, but it is the most worthy thing you can do.”

Ugh. No secret. Not just three points. Takes a whole life. Bummer.

Then I realized that while I'm far away from being the world's happiest man (I'm not even the happiest sentient being in our house, being eclipsed by my wife and dog, and likely also by the mice who live in our crawl space), I do have a secret to happiness that works for me.

Since a New York Times reporter isn't going to be beating down my door to learn what it is, I figured that I'd share it in this blog post.

Well, I already have in the title above. I ran out of space or I would have made it: Act stupid, then undo the stupidity and feel the bliss of relief.

There's no end of examples that I could offer for how I've applied this (no longer a) secret to aid in my happiness. Here's a good recent one.

Though I live just six miles from the city limits of Oregon's capital, Salem, our neighborhood's primary "broadband" provider, CenturyLink, offers a pitiful 7 Mbps via DSL that travels through ancient copper phone lines. 

When Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet service came online several years ago, I was thrilled to have my application to be a beta tester of Starlink approved. That got us a decent broadband speed.

A few weeks ago Starlink sent me an email saying that because I was an early beta customer, I was entitled to send them $200 for a third-generation router that offered better features than our first-generation router.

OK, I fell for the pitch. I'm always up for a chance to improve our broadband life, especially since in the not-so-good old days of sloooooow DSL, streaming shows on Netflix often had us watching the buffering spinning ball as much as Bridgerton.

The new router arrived a few days ago. After I opened the box, I downloaded a PDF file that had the simple instructions for installing it. 

I read the instructions several times. I laid out the power supply cord and the ethernet cable. Connecting the power supply was a no-brainer. But the ethernet cable had two dissimilar connectors: one long and one short.

The place on the router where one end of the ethernet cable was to be inserted was strangely deep. So deep, I got out a flashlight and looked into the depths of it. My mind thought, "That must be where the long ethernet connector goes." 

I then studied the installation instructions again. Closely. Intimately. The instructions showed where the long connector of the ethernet cable was to go and where the short connector of the ethernet cable was to go. 

Supremely confident that I knew what to do, I inserted the long connector into the deep recess of the router and the short connector into the normal looking hole in the power supply.

Then I expectantly waited for the flashing white light on the router to turn solid, showing that a connection with the Starlink satellites had occurred. After watching the flashing light for a while, I got concerned and reviewed the instructions again.

Which elicited a loud F*CK from me. You can easily fill in the blank.

Somehow I'd gotten the two ends of the ethernet cable in the wrong places. Yes, even though I'd read the instructions several times, paying special attention to the images of the long and short connectors of the ethernet cable.

Worse, the short connector was stuck in the power supply. The little clip used to release an ethernet cable was nowhere to be seen. Or felt. I fiddled with it for a while, but didn't want to break the connector in the power supply.

Panic started to set in. If I couldn't undo what I'd just did, our broadband speed would plummet to near zero, since we have dismal cell service out here in the not-very-wilds of six miles from the Salem city limits.

However, with the aid of a very small screwdriver, I was able to push on the clip and release the short connector of the ethernet cable. Which then fit easily into the router, just as the instructions had said. And the long connector fit easily into the power supply, just as the instructions had said.

All I can figure is that when my brain thought early on that the long connector must go into the deep recess of the router, that erroneous thought won out in an unconscious battle between it and what the instructions said.

The relief I felt when the flashing light on the router turned solid almost immediately after, duh, I'd done what the instructions said, created a jolt of happiness in me which lasted for a long time. 

It's worn off now. But the good news is that it won't be long before I do something stupid again, which, when I undo my stupidity, will make me happy. 

Obligatory warning for those who want to follow in my happiness footsteps: sometimes I do something stupid that can't be undone, which obviously doesn't make me happy.

How a single stink bug cost us $430 today

Bloggers like me have to choose our subjects to write about with care.

Until noon today, I was pondering between a $300 million Salem bond measure, advice on who to vote for in the midterms, and the increased risk of nuclear war due to Putin's Ukraine threats.

But after Tim Paquin of Precision Garage Door Service diagnosed what had caused our garage door opener to stop working, I realized that this was my chance to contribute to the accumulated store of knowledge regarding garage door opener repairs.

In short, consider that a stink bug is the culprit. Here's what Paquin found after taking a look inside the opener in a quest to learn why it had no electrical power.

That stink bug must have really had a grudge against my wife and me, because the repair guy said that the bug managed to fry itself on the part of the circuit board that controls the power supply. 

At first I thought this was funny.

When I learned how much this damn stink bug was going to cost me, the hilarity of the moment was considerably reduced: $75 service call + $304 Linear circuit board + $99 operator service and programming - $48 senior discount = $430.

Sadly, there was no discount for a stink bug committing suicide on the very worst part of the circuit board to die on (from my perspective; maybe the stink bug had a glorious final exit).

Stink bugs have been an annoying part of our life here in rural south Salem, Oregon for quite a few years. It seems like forever, but a Wikipedia article says that they reached Oregon only in 2009. Mostly they cluster on our windows on warm days in late summer or early fall.

Some get inside. We've found that the BugZooka bug catcher, a wonderful invention that lets us suck stink bugs up with ease (unlike flies, they are easy to sneak up on) is the best way to deal with them. A BugZooka is kept handy in a corner of our house.

Stink bugs are adept at getting inside a house or garage. My wife had gotten rid of lots of them in our garage, but obviously we missed the one that cost us $430.

I guess I could ask our State Farm agent if they offer insurance for stink bugs that cause fatal damage to a circuit board, but I suspect their underwriting department doesn't have enough data to calculate the minute odds of this happening. 

Unfortunately, it happened to us.

Silvertongue Apple-peal is a delicious Silverton satire

If you're looking for humor in all the wrong places -- I sure am -- rejoice!

For the 2022 edition of the highly entertaining Silvertongue Apple-peal has hit the streets of Silverton with a satirical nuclear bomb (tactical warfare variety, to avoid complete devastation of the populace due to excessive funny bone tickling).

Fortunately for those of us who aren't anywhere near a Silverton street, the Apple-peal is available for download on the newsletter's web site. Or by clicking on this ever-so-handy PDF file.
Download Apple-peal 2022

To whet your appetite for the Apple-peal, here's a screenshot of the front page headline story.

Gus Frederick is the creative genius behind this satire, though I didn't see him on the staff directory.

Legally, the Apple-peal may be covered by this disclaimer. With an emphasis on may. 

This being an election year, there's some hard-hitting campaign ads in the Apple-Peal.

Since Nike co-founder Phil Knight recently gave $2 million to Betsy Johnson in support of her hopefully ill-fated quest to be Governor of Oregon (Tina Kotek is the person to vote for), I hesitate to say about downloading and reading the 2022 Apple-peal, just do it.

But since I just did it, do it.

Taylor Tomlinson's stand-up comedy heals my frazzled psyche

My big problem with life is... (drumroll please)... LIFE. 

Meaning, insofar as I know what I mean, but now that I just wrote this blog's topic sentence, I'm stuck with explaining it, no matter how many problems get fixed in my life, new ones pop up like a perpetual motion machine designed by a sadist.

I suspect most people feel this way. So what are we to do? 

Sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll only can take us so far, especially if we're (OK, me) so old, sex is starting to  look like the car that zipped by in the other lane and now is so small in the rearview mirror it's barely discernible; drugs are limited to marijuana because dealers of harder stuff are find to find when you're 73; and the last rock band truly worth listening to in your entirely personal opinion was Cream over fifty years ago.

Meditation? Yeah, I've been there and done that for a really long time.

The fact that I'm still as messed up in 2022 as I was in 1969 when I started to meditate every day tells me that based on that extensive flat trend line, the chance of me taking a sudden quantum leap to a blissful state of enlightenment is vanishingly small.

So I'm becoming increasingly convinced that television is the solution to my problems.

After all, when I'm engrossed in a good show, I forget about what was bothering me before I turned the TV on. Sure, those bothers are still going to be there when I turn the TV off, but at least I've had a break from worrying about my medical ailments, my psychological defects, global warming, why our dog won't come when I call her, Trump becoming president again, and a host of other anxieties.

In the realm of television, I'm enamored with certain types of stand-up comedy. The qualities I enjoy are honesty, observational humor as opposed to jokes, self-awareness, and, naturally, a comic's ability to laugh at themselves.

When I find a stand-up comic like that, my problems feel less important not so much because I've hidden them under a Bed of Distraction, but because the comic has laid out their own problems on the bedspread for me and anybody else watching for them to see -- which makes my own vicissitudes seem less serious, since if the comic can laugh at their problems, I can do the same with mine.

Or at least try to do the same with mine. Not surprisingly, I tend to find other people's problems more humorous than my own, though I'm working on looking on my own life as if it was material for a Netflix special.

Like "Look at You" featuring the hugely talented comic Taylor Tomlinson. I learned about her from a newspaper story about leading comedians with televised shows. The description of Tomlinson's act appealed to me the most, so my wife and I watched "Look at You" last week.

We loved it. 

Tomlinson starts off by talking about her mental problems and psychotherapy experiences. I figured that would be worth about five minutes, then she'd be on to other subjects. But no, Tomlinson stuck with that highly personal theme for, I don't know, around 20 minutes of the one hour stand-up show, maybe even longer.

For someone so young, about 25, she's remarkably self-aware. And more importantly, really funny. Tomlinson has an appealing manner about her that makes her easy to watch.

Here's some You Tube videos with material from "Look at You."

Hot bath plus marijuana: a recipe for fainting

Since I'm always on the lookout for fresh grandiose ideas to spice up my senior citizen life, I'm putting out an alert that if someone is looking for a Poster Child, or in my case a Poster Geezer, to be a spokesperson for the danger of mixing a hot bath and marijuana, I'm available!

(Especially if the gig comes with a generous expense allowance, which I can use to pay for our water heater electricity and visits to my favorite cannabis emporium.)

Until last night I was blissfully unaware of what can happen when someone, like me, mixes these seemingly innocuous pleasures in what can be a dangerous combination:

An especially hot bath, which I sat in for longer than usual, while puffing away on my PAX3 vaporizer filled with its typical bathtub dose of indica marijuana, reclining a bit more deeply in the tub than is typical for me.

Re-creation of what befell me last night, minus the hot water and my naked body
(use your imagination to fill in those details, if you dare)

I often feel a bit lightheaded after taking a hot bath. That was the case last night.

But I had no trouble climbing out of the tub, toweling off, getting dressed, and heading into the kitchen to prepare the evening dog treat for Mooka, the family canine, and a bowl of applesauce for me.

The problem came when I felt somewhat dizzy and decided to lean over a kitchen counter until that passed. 

My next recollection was Laurel, my wife, shaking me and saying, "Brian, you fainted."

I had no problem believing her, since I was lying on the kitchen floor. My glasses were askew, with one earpiece bent quite a bit from my fall. 

"You've got a black eye," Laurel said. 

I got up, walked over to the living room couch, and sat there for a while with an ice pack on my eye -- which I later switched to a bag of frozen peas.

Today the swelling around my eye has gone down a lot, though the area under my eye is still black, probably from my glasses being pushed against my face after I fainted. Otherwise, I have no aches or pains.

Which makes me think that my falling down after fainting must have been quite graceful. Sadly, no record of it exists, not even in my wife's memory, since she heard me fall but didn't see it.

Having grown up watching Lassie the Collie do amazing feats, like alerting the family when Timmy fell in a well, I wondered why Mooka the Husky mix wasn't licking my face when I woke up. 

Sadly, Laurel said that Mooka ran downstairs after I fainted, apparently scared by all the commotion. Lesson: don't count on your dog to rescue you from a hot bath/marijuana fainting spell. Unless you have a reincarnation of Lassie.

Some Googling revealed that fainting is fairly common after being in hot water -- shower, bath, hot tub.

Some of the stories were quite horrendous. I guess it all depends on where you are when you faint, sharp corners, deep water, and hard surfaces putting you at greater risk.

The NurseMummy web site informed me that:

As a general rule, hot showers and hot baths can cause dizziness due to a drop in blood pressure caused by the hot water dilating your blood vessels. The hot water increases your blood supply to your legs, arms, feet and hands, and reduces the amount of blood your heart has to pump; less pressure on your vessels and circulatory system. 

And the Mayo Clinic informed me that Hotter Hot Tub Water Poses Increased Fainting Risk.  

Hotter water in hot tubs poses increased health risks from fainting, Mayo Clinic researchers report. Mayo Clinic heart researchers had six subjects soak in 104 degree water (the current recommended temperature for hot tubs) and 106.7 degree water for 21 minutes to see if hotter water caused any ill effects.

They concluded that the higher temperatures posed little health risk from heart or circulation problems. But they found that when the subjects stood up to exit the tub, systolic blood pressure dropped dramatically, nearly twice as much in the hotter water compared to the 104 degree temperature. The result is less blood flow to the brain, which can cause fainting, which in turn might lead to injury by falling or by drowning. The authors point out that in an earlier study 36 hot tub deaths, 25 were found to be caused by drowning.

So the hotter than usual bathtub water, combined with the fact that in older people marijuana temporarily lowers blood pressure, likely caused me to faint.

But I'm about to head off for another bath, just not so hot. At least I'm now aware of what can happen by mixing overly hot water with a relaxing bowl of cannabis.

Which reminds me of something a friend recently told me. He said that one day he was holding a frisbee and suddenly realized that he'd forgotten how to throw it. That worried him until he realized that he'd taken LSD.

Along with me, Oregon football team has #4 ranking

It was tough, but I did it!

Last Saturday I pulled out a win against Ohio State, defying the odds and 100,000 crazed red-clad fans who desperately wanted me to lose so their team could maintain or improve on it's #3 in the nation ranking.

Oh, guess I also need to give some credit to the University of Oregon football team. They were the ones who took the field against Ohio State. 

But the way I felt after the game, I was right there with them -- a 72 year old guy who didn't even play football in high school, yet shared in the Ducks' glory. 

Such is the magic of tribalism, a word I usually use in connection with political affiliations, as in "I'm a proud member of the progressive tribe."
After watching the Oregon-Ohio State game, going through the usual stages of football-viewing "death" when the team you want to win is engaged in a back-and-forth battle that came down to a few key plays -- worry, hope, excitement, despair, impending doom, relief, ecstasy -- I felt absolutely amazing. 

It was as if I'd won the game. I floated through the rest of my day on a cloud of exultation. I'd identified so strongly with the Oregon football team that their amazing victory was my amazing victory.

I replayed in my mind the plays that sealed the win. An interception. A quarterback sack. As I was going to sleep that night, those images appeared in my psyche as fond memories of what the Ducks and I had been able to accomplish.

Sure, the Oregon players were the ones in the Ohio State stadium, while I was the one sitting on my butt in a comfortable chair, watching the game with a remote in my hand. However, the power of football tribalism is so strong, I felt like part of the team.

Which means I'm now #4 in the country, according to a couple of polls. Pretty damn good, but now I'd like to be #1. Just need to get that pesky Alabama out of the way.

Naturally there's a downside to my identification with the Oregon Ducks. If the team goes into a tailspin, my current ecstasy will turn into agony.

I have a clue as to what that would feel like: the oh-so-sad faces of the Ohio State fans as the final seconds ticked off.

The Dreaded ChristmasLess Newsletter is funny and dark

For your holiday amusement, here's the 2020 Christmas letter from Nancy, a friend of my wife. Nancy has a great sense of humor that leans toward the dark side -- which I find highly appealing.

I've changed the names in the letter just in case anyone doesn't want their identity splashed across cyberspace. Enjoy....

The Dreaded ChristmasLess Newsletter

Not much going on this year. I got to know my couch better. Discovered new flavors of Cheetos. Immediately answer all emails, texts, IM, voicemail, tweets, Instagram, GroupMe, anything really as I am just so gosh darn happy to communicate in some form with a human.

On March 16^th, I realized that every type of employment I have involves people. Tried teaching Aqua Aerobics online but appearing in a swimsuit made the internet crash. Wanted to continue playing for churches but it’s against the law.  

Smartly, I began teaching piano online. Acquired lots of students from Russia and Somalia who will be paying me as soon as I forward all my bank account info to them.

Didn’t realize how much I missed being able to smack around a tiny little ball until Squash was forbidden this year. Took up PickledBall, a fun game where you drink 5 shots of tequila and then try to make a useless plastic ball go somewhere. My powerful serves are working well against opponents who fearfully wait from 2 courts away.

On July 26^th, Thomas was born. Never before has a child so bright, athletic, intelligent, handsome, and funny graced our planet. Can’t actually go visit him, but Marissa sends me photos and videos so I know he is not just something else that my mind created. He sleeps well through the night with just a little nip before bedtime.

Sara has single-handedly revived the economy in our area with frequent use of DoorDash and UberEats. By spending $50 on an order of french fries, she supports our local economy. She continues her studies, now entering her 14^th year of university. Not to be outdone, Robert has also gone back to school trying to Master something or other.

Waldo, our seriously solemn stray, likes the pandemic. Sara and I fight over whose turn it is to give him a walk.  With no pesky piano students around trying to pet him or inflict other acts of indulgence, he leads a carefree existence.

As this marks the strangest year ever, I have seen kids begging to go to school, forbidden by their teacher to watch presidential debates and barred from sports fields. For us adults, a night out means dressing up for dinner with a mask, gloves, fleece or fake fur, and then being escorted to a table in the street.  

 Anxiously awaiting the New Year, or really any year except this one, we wish you a Merry Mazel Tov and Happy Blursday.  

Wait, what day is this?

The Dreaded Christmas Letter is a darkly humorous must-read

Every year I look forward to getting The Dreaded Christmas Letter from Nancy, a long-time friend of my wife,  who ives in the San Francisco Bay area and teaches piano, plus water aerobics.

This year Nancy's appealingly funny letter arrived via Facebook today, where it was easy to copy into a blog post where, hopefully, it will receive the worldwide adulation it deserves. 

Enjoy. Since I stole all of the words from her newsletter, I figured I might as well steal the Facebook photos also.

The Dreaded Christmas Newsletter

What fun we had this year!

Walking through walls, being able to see through floors, exposing ourselves to the outdoors and getting better acquainted with all the little insects and animals that populate this earth. Haz mat tents went up and piano students feared for their lives as the dangers of asbestos, mold and lead were cheerfully brought to their attention in bright red letters.

Our new roommate – Murphy – quickly laid down his law and insured that everything that could go wrong, did.

And in case you’re wondering, no, the house remodel is still not finished. Contractors follow the biblical timetable where a minute is a day, an hour is a week and materials that should arrive in 2 weeks do so only after crossing the interspace date removal line.

Following Greta Thunberg’s lead, I am contemplating giving up air travel. Why pay hundreds of dollars to be scanned, searched, deprived of water, forced to stand in endless lines only to then remain motionless in a narrow seat, fearing the norovirus. I’m getting a yacht!

Our California utility company must be the only one in the nation that aims to serve us best by continually cutting off our power. Blackouts have pitted one neighbor against the other as the no-lights glare across the street at the have-lights. Wisely I have stockpiled scented candles gifted to me over the years and the next blackout will, at least, stink nice.

Did you know that a single person’s road trip to L.A. produces 0.3 tons of carbon dioxide? And that it could be halved if there is another person in the car? Savvy girls that we are, Gina and I now use a chauffeur for the trip.

Gina is back in school now getting another degree. Her job at Savers continues to offer her a selection of strangely-abled old men that make her feel desirable and sought after. She is absolutely fearless zipping about town on her scooter, leaving a wake of panicked pedestrians and startled motorists.

Years of lecturing Johnny about safe sex and birth control have paid off. He and his wife Jenny are not procreating. I’m not sure how involved I should be in all this. Gentle suggestions and intimate queries are all met with the same empty stare. His job at the bank is going well and he continues to climb up the corporate ladder without missing a rung as he crashes through the glass ceiling.

Waldo is happy. We pulled out 8 of his teeth and shaved off all his fur while he was asleep. Now he bounds around the house like a new puppy. I hope he never retaliates in kind.

Squash has been good to me this year. I invented an exo-skeleton that I just drop my body into, play a match and then pull out what’s left of it afterward. Not a pretty sight! But definitely better than me teaching aqua aerobics. I have to wear a cloaking device until I get in the water, which I remove after entry. Gives everyone their first heart rate experience of the day!

In addition to playing piano, I am giving nose flute concerts. They have been especially popular in memory care units, where the ability to quickly forget is a plus.

Wishing you a belated Merry Christmas and all the best in the New Year!

Santa Claus must be impeached

My wife and I find no pleasure in sharing four articles of impeachment against Santa Claus in our 2019 Christmas letter. (Well, maybe just a little bit of pleasure.) 

But we couldn't stand by and let the transgressions of Santa go unmentioned.

Here's how we see the case against Santa Claus.
Download 2019 Christmas Letter PDF

I wore socks with sandals and...survived!

As the saying goes, I felt the fear and did it anyway. No, I didn't climb Everest. Nor did I surf a 50 foot wave. My action was way more courageous. 

Two days in a row, I wore socks with sandals out in public. 

And not just any old socks and any old sandals. I went for the gusto, the full enchilada, the maximum shock.

I paired the colorful limited edition version of Teva's Hurricane sandal that's a collaboration with Outdoor Voices, and equally colorful Darn Tough socks that I found at the Salem Summit Company.

Voila! Socks with sandals. 

When I walked into my Tai Chi class in downtown Salem, rocking this combo on my feet, I shared my anxiety about committing a fashion faux pas, noting that I recognized that wearing socks with sandals was a highly contentious issue.

My classmates agreed. No one expressly told me that I was dressing like an ignorant fool, though I had the feeling that some people held this opinion.

Perhaps a bit (or a lot) defensively, I told them that I'd Googled the question of sandals with socks and was pleased to find a 2018 GQ article, "Wearing Socks With Sandals Is Cool Now." 

Now, more than ever, the traditional rules of menswear exist mostly to be broken—and that feels especially true when it comes to footwear. This past year has produced too many wild sneakers to count, fancy new-wave sandals, streetwear-friendly Ugg boots,and fashion-goth clogs.

On top of that, one of the most cardinal style rules—never wearing socks with sandals—has been broken with zero regard by the likes of Kanye West, Justin Bieber, and Tyler, the Creator. And don’t let the fact that the weather is getting chillier by the day stop you from wearing your favorite cozy footwear.

Me and Kanye. Yeah, we're fashion brothers (sort of).

Today I doubled down on my fashion statement after finding another version of the Darn Tough socks on Amazon that the Salem Summit Company didn't carry. 

I liked how perfectly the light blue at the end of the socks matches some of the straps on the sandals. Clearly the universe intended that they go together, and I was an instrument of that cosmic destiny. 

Once again I survived. I didn't hear peals of laughter following me, though my hearing isn't what it used to be.

Doing some additional Googling before I wrote this post, Wikipedia informed me that socks and sandals were being worn by Romans at least 2,000 years ago, and importantly:

Socks and sandals is a regular Pacific Northwest phenomenon. Seattle based insurance company PEMCO used the "Sandals & Socks Guy" character as part of a 2007 advertising campaign that portrayed this as a typically Pacific Northwest fashion. The Daily Dot highlighted "sandals and socks" as a term entered into a web search engine more often by Washingtonians than residents of any other state.

Here's a video of the PEMCO ad.

And here's an entertaining debate on this subject between some young people.

Guess I should mention that one of my motivations for wearing socks with sandals isn't warmth, but rather comfort. I've been wearing really comfortable soft wool shoes from Allbirds and Giesswein for so long, my feet aren't as pleased as they used to be with sandal straps. Socks make my feet happier.

Behold! Laurel and Brian's 2018 Christmas Letter

Once again, we defy the trends of the times by writing a Christmas letter that -- gasp! -- gets printed out and inserted into Christmas cards that are -- double gasp! -- mailed.

Well, that "we" really means me, Brian. But after I cobble together a letter, Laurel reads it and has the opportunity to change it. This year she said, "Should we really talk about our health problems?" 

To which I replied, sure. The problems are as much a part of our life as is our joy at the Democrats taking back the House in the midterms, which is how our letter starts out. 

I strive for both honesty and humor.

Some years one or the other dominates. It depends on the mood I'm in when I decide to write our annual Christmas letter. Today I was feeling pretty good. So if the letter feels a bit dark, hey, it could have been even darker!

Our previous Christmas letters are preserved here. Here's our 2018 letter.
Download 2018 Christmas Letter PDF

My amazing Black Butte Ranch adventure

There are those who talk about doing great things. Then there are those who do great things. I'm pleased to be both "those's." I both do and talk. 

So after canine ZuZu and human Brian explored the far reaches of the mysterious land in the wilds of Black Butte Ranch known as Big Meadow, I was pleased to document our adventure -- just as (well, sort of as) Lewis and Clark chronicled their great journey of discovery.

Behold, and click... 

Today's (sort of) Larry David moment

Amazingly, in the 15 years I've been blogging, I've only written one previous post about a Larry David moment. That was way back in 2004, "Larry David would be proud of me." Excerpt:

I don’t consciously try to emulate Larry David, but perhaps watching so many episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is having some kind of subliminal effect on me, amplifying my inherent Larry David tendencies. Last night we had dinner at a Thai restaurant in Silverton with four friends. So it was two vegetarians, Laurel and me, sitting down to dine with four meat-eaters.

Picking up our menus, my vegetarian radar immediately started picking up some nascent danger signals in the casual pre-ordering conversation. “How about if we go family style? Everybody pick a dish and we’ll share.” “Great, that’s a good idea.” “I’m thinking of this beef curry.” “Noodles and chicken, that sounds good.” My future started flashing before me, and it wasn’t pretty, given how hungry I was. Laurel and I were going to order two vegetarian dishes. The other four people would order four meat dishes. So we would get to eat part of two dishes, and everyone else would get to eat part of six dishes.

The Larry David side of Brian began talking, and even worse, out loud, along the lines of, “OK, we vegetarians can go along with family style, just so long as the rest of the family keeps their meat-eating hands out of our tofu dishes. That’s fine, order what you want, dead cows, dead chickens, whatever you want. We’ll make do. I don’t eat eggs, but maybe I can scrape off the proto-chickens from a few lettuce leaves in the egg salad.” And so on in that vein.

After that I pretty much lost track of what people were ordering, since it was by number, not by name. Amazingly, my Larry David schtick paid off. When the waiter brought all the Thai dishes to our table, every single bowl was vegetarian-friendly. A tofu-bonanza, with not a piece of beef, chicken, or fish in sight. I ate like a (vegetarian) pig. I didn’t feel guilty. Am I a bad person? Is Larry David? These are profound questions, not easily answered in a Sunday evening posting, especially since a pre-dinner nap is calling me.

Interestingly, today's Larry David moment at Lifesource Natural Foods here in Salem, Oregon also featured -- not surprisingly, given the setting -- food. 

I was perusing the offerings in the Deli section where, for $8.99 a pound, you can buy food prepared by LifeSource staff in the adjoining kitchen. Nothing looked appealing except the potatoes.

LifeSource offers up various sorts of potatoes. My favorite is called Classic Potatoes, because they're simple: oven roasted, I believe, with just salt, pepper, and maybe some other seasonings.

Today's potatoes, though, were named Paprika Potatoes.

They looked good, but I was wary of the unfamiliar name. So I did what I usually do with a LifeSource potato purchase -- I put some in the takeout container, then eat just one bite to confirm that they're as good as I expect them to be.

I should explain that some years ago LifeSource used to have tiny round cups that could be used for sampling. Then they put up a sign that said something like "Ask the kitchen staff if you want a sample." Now I believe the sign is gone, so my only option is to sample from a large takeout container.

In the past I've always liked what I sampled. Except today. 

I put a single chunk of Paprika Potatoes in the container, then used my fingers to taste it. Yikes! Too spicy. Not at all like Classic Potatoes.

So it was clear to me that I didn't want to buy the Paprika Potatoes. A lot less clear was what I was going to do with the takeout container, which now contained a smudge in one of the sections where the Paprika Potato sample had rested.

Now, when I told this story to my wife, she said, "I would have thrown the container away." But that option didn't enter my mind. I didn't want to waste the container. I also didn't want to put it back in the stack of takeout containers, even though I'm ashamed to admit the idea briefly occurred to me.

I actually did think, "What would Larry David do?"

He might well, for example, walk over to the kitchen area and say loudly, "Hey, these Paprika Potatoes are so spicy I couldn't stand them. Now I've got a container with a Paprika Potato stain in it. Is it OK if I dump it in the trash? Or do you recycle these things?"

Which, I readily admit, is pretty much just what my wife suggested, minus the talk with the kitchen staff. But my brain came up with a different plan: find some really light food to put in the takeout container.

Looking around, the salad bar caught my eye. Perfect!

I like salads, and salad stuff doesn't weigh very much. So I ended up spending $2.88 to avoid throwing the takeout container away, which, again, I never thought of doing at the time, proving that I'm not really very Larry David-like, since I was so concerned about LifeSource staff seeing me dump the container in a trash bin.

Anyway, I just finished eating the salad, which was tasty. And the takeout container is now in our trash -- along with the tell-tale Paprika Potatoes remnant in the upper left hand corner. 

Next time I'm unsure whether I'll like a LifeSource potato offering, putting a small piece on a napkin might be the easiest taste-test approach. Except now that I think about it, napkins and utensils are kept near the front of the store, not near the Deli area (probably to keep people like me from doing what people like me want to do when they want to taste a deli dish).

Geez. Life is complicated. Especially if you've got a mind that thinks sort of like Larry David's.

Here's some things to look forward to in old age, young people

I'm 69. When I was a youngster of, oh, 50 or so, I'd look upon the age I am now as so impossibly, horribly, inconceivably old, that I'd shudder at the thought of becoming, cursed be the name, a senior citizen. 

So now that I've become what I once dreaded, an old person, I figure it's my duty to point out to young people some of the good things that come with geezer'ness.

In no particular order, young un's, because my mind no longer works well enough to encompass the concept of ranking, here's some of the marvelous delights that await you. 

No more worries about repeating yourself. Everyone has felt the need to introduce a spoken thought with, "Now, be sure to let me know if I've said this before," because it's embarrassing to bore a group with a repeated story.

But here's some great news: after a certain age, you won't need to ever say this again, because not only will you be unable to remember if you'd said something before, none of the people you're talking with will be able to remember either, since old people congregate with other old people, like schools of fish where everyone swims with the aid of a cane.

Say goodbye to fears of being trapped in a room with old people talking about their health problems. This is a nightmare for young folks, having to listen to excruciatingly detailed renditions of how a hip replacement went, or what foods work best to deal with constipation. 

I'm pleased to report that once you become an old person yourself, there's no way you can avoid this, because all of your friends are going to be close to your age, and they'll love to talk about what ails them. So let go of the fear and jump into the deep end of the pool of medical problem obsession. 

Even better, or maybe worse, you'll be way more interested in all this health talk than when you were younger,  since you'll be thinking, "I need to pay attention, since I'm probably going to develop ______ myself before too long."

It's sayonara to sexual performance anxieties. When you're young, it's natural to worry about measuring up (sometimes literally) in the sex department. Am I doing the right thing at the right time in the right way? Yikes! Maybe I'm not!

Well, those worries will fade away to near-nothingness once you're a senior citizen.

Then your sole criterion for "good sex" will be, was that really sex, or something else, like cuddling? Once you pass that low hurdle, you and your partner will feel that any sex is good sex, particularly if no one had a heart attack or threw a joint out of whack. 

You'll no longer ask, Was it good for you too?, because if both of you are still awake at the end of sex, that's an A+ performance. 

Plenty of reasons to tell tall injury tales. Young people are hampered when it comes to telling mind-blowing stories about an injury. First off, and most importantly, they don't have all that many of them. 

Skateboarders and longboarders for example, somehow can have a horrific crash, then walk away laughing. But sometimes young people do get hurt, like when skiing. Then, when a friend asks why you're wearing a knee brace, you can say "Took a tumble on a black diamond run -- hit a patch of ice on the landing after I skied off a cliff." 

OK, maybe that wasn't totally true, but it's believable. Makes for a good story, at least. How often, though, do youngsters get to tell such a tale?

When you get old, your ability to do this will skyrocket. Because after a certain age, you'll hurt yourself just by getting out of bed. Or putting on a sock in the wrong way. And sometimes, actually a lot of the time, you won't even know why part of your body hurts. 

It just will. Then you'll be free to make up a good story about that knee brace. And believe me, other old people will love to hear it. (See the "Say goodbye..." item above.) 

New life goal: be a humorous mindful Taoist stay-at-home

I find many things weird. Most of them reside within my own cranium. After all, that's really the only place weirdness resides -- in a human mind. Like, mine.

One of my weirdnesses is that even though I'm an avid blogger, for the past year I've largely avoided writing about the Central Fact of my life since May 2017.

Namely, my 68 year-old bladder deciding to call it quits during a visit to central Oregon, which led through a series of increasingly disturbing events to my current state of being an Old Man Who Has to Pee Via a Catheter. 

I can sum up my situation in two words: not fun. At one point I could have done this with one word: depressing. Fortunately, I've moved on to not fun, though depending on my mood, at times I'd use stronger language, like fucking awful.

I'm not sure where I am on the Seven Stages of Grief.

I'm past Shock, mostly. Denial is tough to hold onto, since I've been doing my catheterization thing for a year. Anger is there, though not as much as it used to be. There's nobody to Bargain with, since three urologists have told me my damn bladder is never going to recover, and I don't believe in a supernatural being who could, say, accept my immortal soul in trade for a fully functioning bladder.

(Since I don't consider that I have an immortal soul, I'd be glad to surrender that nonexistent thing.)

I've gone past Depression with the aid of a Mirtazapine prescription and the passage of time. So that leaves Testing, since I'm nowhere near Acceptance of a condition that I find annoying, irritating, limiting, and distasteful. 

Testing, says the image above, involves finding realistic solutions. That's a downer, because I'm much more attracted to unrealistic solutions, like staying high or drunk all of the time. 

Given that I've meditated every day for the past fifty years or so, having started during my college Yoga phase in the late 1960's, I've been thinking that more mindfulness could be a step toward a realistic solution, as I wrote about on my other blog in "Mindfulness has become my meditation."

So I've been reading Jon Kabat-Zinn's big thick 600 page book about mindfulness-based stress reduction, "Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness."

One of the things I like about mindfulness approaches is that they don't have the sort of goal-oriented focus that meditation often has. Like, God-realization, a calm mind, emotional control, higher powers, that kind of stuff. Instead, Kabat-Zinn says that mindfulness is simply about remembering as best we can to be present in all our waking moments.

So if I'm sad about having to spend the rest of my life sticking a plastic tube up my uretha five times a day so I can artificially pee and avoid kidney damage, that's OK. I just need to be aware that I'm sad. And because emotions always are changing, at some point I will be less sad. Maybe even happy.

Until I'm sad again.

Which for me these days, doesn't take long. Unless I drink coffee. Then the sadness is temporarily ameliorated, though the urge to pee is hastened. So that's the problem with being high on caffeine all the time, which otherwise strikes me as a fine idea.

It's tough for me to travel long distances given my bladder problem. So I've only left Salem four times in the past year: twice to go to Portland for medical appointments, and twice to central Oregon to spend time at a house in Black Butte Ranch that we have a 1/4 share interest in.

Since mindfulness has roots in Buddhism, and I find Buddhism unduly serious compared to Taoism, I figure that part of my "realistic solution" should be grounded in Taoist philosophy. Here's a quote from the Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English translation of the Tao Te Ching that offers up a semi-spiritual rationale for staying close to home.

A small country has fewer people.
Though there are machines that can work ten to a hundred times faster than man, they are not needed.
The people take death seriously and do not travel far.
Though they have boats and carriages, no one uses them.
Though they have armor and weapons, no one displays them.
Men return to the knotting of rope in place of writing.
Their food is plain and good, their clothes fine but simple, their homes secure;
They are happy in their ways.
Though they live within sight of their neighbors,
And crowing cocks and barking dogs are heard across the way,
Yet they leave each other in peace while they grow old and die.

Sounds good. Aside from the knotting of rope in place of writing part. I'm going to stick with my MacBook Pro. 

Thus now I've got mindfulness and Taoism as two legs of my Testing/seeking realistic solutions stool. It seems like another leg is needed for stability. I'm leaning toward humor, especially of the cynical, self-deprecating variety, to help prop me up while I'm staying mindfully close to home, leaving my neighbors in peace while I grow old and die.

David Sedaris is a good humor model for me to emulate. I read him early on in his writing career, then lost touch with him. Recently I saw Sedaris interviewed by Steven Colbert, and I liked his style. Got to admire a gay guy who wears shorts to an interview on network TV.

Having bought Sedaris' new book, Calypso, I'm feeling more inspired to take a stab at writing about the humorous side of using a catheter. That will wait for another blog post, since I've blabbed on enough in this post about my favorite subject, me. 

I'll simply note that I admire David Sedaris' honesty and sometimes caustic humor. He is marvelously adept at writing about everyday life in ways that simultaneously make me want to laugh and cry. Calypso, I've read, is a bit darker than his other books, which is fine with me, since it matches my mood most days.

Here's a passage from the book that's appealing because my bladder problem has caused me to follow an ironclad rule: I never go anywhere where I can't escape -- for whatever damn reason my body or mind conjures up. Here Sedaris is talking about friends of his partner (maybe husband), Hugh.

His friend Jane saw some ugliness as well, and though I like both her and Sue and have known them for going on twenty years, they fall under the category of "Hugh's guests." This means that though I play my role, it is not my responsibility to entertain them.

Yes, I offer the occasional drink. I show up for meals but can otherwise come and go at my leisure, exiting, sometimes, as someone is in the middle of a sentence. 

My father has done this all his life. You'll be talking to him and he'll walk away -- not angry but just sort of finished with you. I was probably six years old the first time I noticed this. You'd think I'd have found it hurtful, but instead I looked at his retreating back, thinking, We can get away with that? Really? Yippee! 

Fred Meyer, free those organic bananas!

Having been a vegetarian for 48 of my 69 years, I'm attuned to the suffering of sentient animals.

But of late my compassion has been expanding to insentient fruits and vegetables, perhaps due to the intense 10 minutes of daily morning meditation I do via listening to the Daily Calm on my iPhone (some of which I actually stay awake for).

So the sight of these organic bananas I bought today at the South Salem Fred Meyer filled me with such sorrow, I could hardly wait to get home and pour out my feelings via a blog post.

Now, Fred Meyer has been doing this for a while -- taping the ends of banana bunches, along with tape around the entire bunch,  which is virtually impossible to dislodge without a knife or scissors. 

This makes the bananas look imprisoned, confined, even tortured. 

I wouldn't call myself an animist, but for the purposes of this blog post, I will, since it adds to the philosophical foundation for my outrage over how Fred Meyer is treating organic bananas. 

Who can say that bananas don't have some form of minimal consciousness? They are alive. Or at least, were.

Perhaps an advanced alien civilization would look upon us humans as lacking a capacity for suffering, if their consciousness was so much more refined than ours, they couldn't comprehend that we have a rich interior life.

That is, they'd look upon us as we look upon bananas.

Turning from how the bananas might feel, let's consider how Fred Meyer customers feel about the taped bananas. The message I get is, You don't know how many bananas you need, so we're going to decide for you. Take this entire bunch, or don't buy any organic bananas at all.

Which is condescending. And perhaps even unethical.

Fred Meyer sells bananas by the pound (unlike Trader Joe's, which prices each individual banana). So if I want just two bananas, one for me and one for my imaginary pet monkey, I should be able to buy two freaking bananas, not six or seven, the number in the two bunches I brought home today.

And the reason for the tape can't be the PLU code. That code also is on both the big sticker and the little stickers.

I suppose a devious Fred Meyer shopper might be able to affix non-organic banana stickers to organic bananas and save a bit of money, but this is so unlikely, it doesn't warrant confining the freedom of both the organic bananas and shoppers who want to choose exactly how many bananas to buy.

Lastly, I'll point out how LifeSource Natural Foods has begun to handle the sale of broccoli.

When I went there today, after shopping at Fred Meyer, I was pleased to see that (1) the broccoli was being sold in smallish individual pieces, rather than the pieces being bundled together with a rubber band, and (2) the chunky ends of the broccoli had been almost entirely cut off, so customers don't have to do that themselves, nor pay for a part of the broccoli that, I assume, most people don't eat (we'd been feeding the cooked ends to our dog, who enjoys broccoli).

Learn from LifeSource, Fred Meyer! Free your bananas, just as LifeSource has freed its broccoli. 

Here's another dark, twisted, and funny Christmas letter

If you like dark and twisted Christmas letters, and I sure do, you'll love this one that just came from one of my wife's friends. She has a great sense of humor. I changed the names to protect the innocent, aside from my wife's name, Laurel. A previous Christmas letter by the same person that's also darkly funny can be found here. 

The Dreaded Christmas Newsletter

So who wants to be a millionaire? I will soon be one, but I think I must die first. My liquid assets amount to $27 in the bank, but my house is fast approaching the million-dollar range. It’s just a starter home in California that may go up in flames at any moment. If I go up in flames with it, at least life in heaven will be blissful and I will be able to buy whatever I want. Hopefully the kids will get me a comfortable urn.

Robert and Estelle pulled out of the housing game and escaped to Phoenix where the temperatures are hot but the housing market isn’t – yet. Phoenix is a strange place. People are nice. When you want to get on the freeway, you put on your turn signal, and they let you in!!! In the bay area, putting on your turn signal means “I’m not from here, please cut me off”. Robert and Estelle are now in their second decade of making wedding plans, so stay tuned…

Sara has decided that she would prefer to move on from pharmaceutical intake and get into pharmaceutical dispensing. At 28 she still has a whole life ahead of her and can always use more college degrees. Never wearing the same outfit twice, she lives in a stockpile of gently used and seldom hung clothing that she shares with her admirer, Waldo.

Skied twice this year with family, once in January and once on July 4th. My sister decked herself out in patriotic tinsel and bling which looked cool until she was strangled by the skilift. Fortunately, her husband knows CPR and administered it until everyone in line started shouting “C’mon get a room!”.

Then joined friends for a camping trip to Wyoming. The flood waters from the Snake River had receded enough for me to access my campsite where a 27-foot-long snake grudgingly moved aside so I could pitch my tent. I put up my tent and immediately broke the zipper on the door. Thoughts of my new friend nearby, meant nights of wide-eyed terror and I returned home a zombie.

I met up with my agely compatible friends from Wisconsin, who don’t live there, in Oregon. Laurel led us on walks in the rainforest that she has created. We carefully avoided trodding on beetles, slugs and chipmunks, eating wild berries and singing praises to the great Earth Goddess. A lovely time, but I came home with chilblains.

We are harboring a terrorist. She is lovely and open minded and has accompanied me on my daily routine usually involving a trip to the winery. She caused quite a sensation - not too many other women there wearing a hijab.

I went to Washington DC to play in a squash tournament this year. Everyone on my team was over 60 except for one youngster in her fifties. I prevailed by using 2 racquets, one to lean on and one to swing at the ball. One young girl was so appalled at playing decrepit old me that she immediately forfeited the match and went back to upping her GPA in hopes of a better life.

Snooky – our homeless dog is doing well. He has not bitten anyone for 163 days. Once we figured out that he only bites 10-year-old Asian girls with long hair, we posted a sign barring entry to such. This resulted in the immediate loss of all my piano students and a lawsuit by the ACLU. But Snooky is happy.

Fido thrives but is completely deaf. Thus, his singing career has taken a hit. He accompanies me around the yard as we water my drought-resistant plants he in his way and I in mine.

No political commentary this year. Well maybe one. My friends visiting from Cypress said they were amazed by how many people kept apologizing to them for our president. As did I. Only in America!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

My annual Medicare wellness visit had its humorous side

Just to give you young'uns (meaning, anybody under 65) a preview of what you have to look forward to, here's some glimpses of how my annual Medicare Wellness Visit went today. 

First off, this really isn't a physical exam.

My primary care doctor did some perfunctory checking around -- listened to my heart to make sure it was beating, looked in my mouth to see if I had any teeth left, that sort of thing -- but a bigger part of the visit was a nurse asking me a bunch of questions before the doctor came in to the exam room about how I'm handling my 69 year-old activities of daily living .

One of my favorites was, "Have you fallen in the past year?" Which was followed by, "Are you afraid of falling?" I said No, and No.

But what I was thinking about was how I'd recently gotten up on top of our two story house and blown out leaves in the gutters with a Stihl backpack blower while walking along the edge of the roof. I couldn't resist mentioning this to my doctor, just to show how virile, brave, and studly I still am.

However, seemingly she was thinking of a different adjective, stupid, because she told me, "Maybe you should be afraid of falling."

I pretty much aced the other questions. It just was disturbing to be asked about stuff that could be in my decrepit future if I'm lucky, or maybe unlucky, enough to live that long. 

Like, "Can you fix your own meals?" And "Can you do the laundry?" Regarding the latter, I told the nurse, "Sure, but my wife doesn't let me, because I always screw up something, like shrinking her clothes or giving them a new tint by mixing colors together wrongly."

Another not-so-cheery question went like this: "So if you collapsed right now, with your breathing and heart stopped, should I try to resuscitate you with CPR?"

At first I didn't understand what the nurse was getting at.

"Are you asking if I think you know CPR?" I said. "No, I do know CPR. The question is whether you'd want to be resuscitated." I had to ponder this for a while.

My wife has told me that what happens with CPR on TV or in the movies isn't what usually happens in real life. Instead of people being brought back to life all happy and normal, supposedly many, if not most, victims suffer irreversible brain damage. So I told the nurse, "I'd have to think about this. I'm not sure."

That was a decidedly downer question.

After I left the doctor's office I couldn't help envisioning other questions that senior citizen me should have been asked that relate to activities of my daily living that have a heck of a lot more impact on my quality of life than whether I'm able (or allowed) to do the laundry. 

Like...

Are you able to grind marijuana buds and put the pot into the small receptacle of a vaporizer without spilling much on the floor?
Answer: yes. 

When you smoke weed in the bathtub at night, along with drinking a glass of red wine, do you ever feel a bit dizzy when you get out of the hot water?
Answer: damn right. That's a feature, not a glitch.

Do you remember to ask for the senior citizen discount in the check-out lane at Lifesource Natural Foods before your credit card is charged?
Answer: yes. Except when I don't.

When you're watching TV news in your La-Z-Boy chair and Donald Trump is shown speaking, can your fingers find the mute button on the remote control within five seconds?
Answer: absolutely. It's a reflex action.

Are you aware when you've told the exact same stories repeatedly to your granddaughter about how cool it was during your college days in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s -- Summer of Love, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, psychedelics, Vietnam War protests, flower power, etc. etc.
Answer: yes. And I'm going to keep telling those stories anyway.

Do you have any problem with hearing your wife when she is telling you that you aren't loading the dishwasher correctly?
Answer: no. I just pretend that I do.

Are you ever prone to cognitive errors such as believing that when the youthful Starbucks barista smiles at you after handing over a grande nonfat vanilla latte, she has the hots for gray-haired old men?
Answer: sure, all the time. Fantastical thinking is how I'm getting through my senior years.

Men always will be second-class shopping citizens. Happily.

I'm married to a woman who likes to shop. This is, of course, a redundancy. If I had simply said I'm married to a woman,  the corollary who likes to shop is almost a logical necessity.

By and large, men don't like to shop. There are exceptions, of course.

Bob, my brother-in-law, would see a hardware store and make a bee-line to it with as much of a spring in his step as my wife, Laurel, does when she sees a "50% off everything" sign in the window of one of her favorite clothing stores. Me, I can happily spend hours in just about any bookstore. Or, an Apple store.

So my thesis that men don't like to shop mainly refers to clothing stores and what I think of as "cutesy" stores -- filled with items that women gush over with exclamations such as "This is so cute!" and "Don't you think [name of friend or relative] would love this?"

(My honest, yet unspoken answers: Not really and I have no freaking idea.)

I got to thinking about male and female shopping habits after reading a story in our local newspaper about a women's clothing store, Olivia's, taking over a downtown space previously occupied by Shryocks, a men's clothing store. The story said that Shryocks had been open since the 1940's.

Wow. That's amazing.

Of course, men's business attire has changed considerably over the years and decades. What men used to wear on "casual Friday" now often is worn everyday. So I give Shryocks a lot of credit for being one of the mainstays in downtown Salem, Oregon for so long.

The takeaway quote from the Olivia's owner, Sandy Powell, was "We just girl'd it up" -- referring to the Shryocks location.

C'est la vie.

When Laurel and I would be out shopping, I used to be bothered by how many more stores catered to women than to men. I enjoy shopping for clothes more than most men (which is sort of akin to the difference between "like it a bit" and "hate it"). So after going with my wife into the fifteenth consecutive clothing store that had nothing, or next to nothing, for men, I'd toy with the idea of advocating for a federal law, The Equal Shopping Opportunity Act.

It would require that in any mall or downtown shopping area, a certain percentage of stores would have to cater to men. 

That way I'd have something other to do other than act like a male geisha with my wife: shuffling along submissively three steps behind Laurel with my head down, stopping when she saw some clothing that caught her eye, starting to walk again when she moved on to another part of the store.

But in my saner moments, I'd realize that my dream of men achieving shopping equity with women was unrealizable. After all, there's a capitalist free market reason why women's stores vastly outnumber men's stores: like I said, women like to shop much more than men do.

Also, their shopping habits differ.

It isn't wise to use our human evolutionary history to explain modern Homo sapiens behavior, but what the heck, I'll do it anyway. 

After 45 years of marriage (OK, to two women, but not at the same time), I'm convinced that today's females are still motivated by "gathering" habits and males by "hunting" habits when it comes to shopping. My wife loves to just look around a store. And then go to another store, and another, and another, to look around some more.

(Frequent conversation: Me -- "I'm burned out on shopping. Isn't it time for lunch?" Laurel -- "What are you talking about? We just got started!" This is when I get out my iPhone to look for a nearby bookstore where I can meet my wife in an hour or so.)

Male me, on the other hand, pretty much uses my grocery shopping approach when we're out and about. I have a list. My goal is to get everything on the list. Rarely do I come home with an item that wasn't on the list. Laurel, on the other hand, will head down an aisle to get an item when we're grocery shopping together. Ten minutes later I'll go looking for her, wondering why she hasn't brought the item back to our cart.

I'll find her looking at other stuff, reading labels, comparing ingredients.

Laurel will say, "Look, I've never seen this before. I'm going to get it and see if it tastes better than what we've been eating." I'm fine with that, but can't help thinking: I have no problem with what we've been eating. I'm alive, and it tastes OK. So where's the need to try something new?

Likewise, once I find clothing that I like, I'll buy the same thing over and over. Meaning, I know what "prey" I want to hunt down. I'm focused on a familiar item that I've captured before and want to bring back home again. 

Laurel, though, is much more of a browser, a forager, a gatherer who peers into unfamiliar thickets of dresses, tops, shoes, pants, and such hoping to catch sight of a never-seen-before item. So it's no wonder that she spends much more time in a woman-oriented store than I do in a man-oriented store. 

She isn't sure what she is looking for, but she'll know it when she sees it. By contrast, I know what I want, and if it isn't there, I'm ready to move on.

There is, then, a Great Divide between men and women when it comes to shopping, particularly for clothes. 

I've come to understand this well, being not far from my golden anniversary of being married 50 years (yes, as noted before, to two women, but I'm fine with adding 18 years of marriage to 27 years of marriage, especially if I get some great anniversary gifts in five years).

Males and females have different shopping desires. I don't want to shop like my wife does. She doesn't want to shop like I do. Vive la difference. (The other French phrase that I know.) 

Free tickets got me loving Capitol City Theatre comedy club (and Grant Lyons)

Thanks mucho to Los Angeles-area comedian Grant Lyon who got me off my lethargic ass and into a Salem gem that I've been meaning to check out, but hadn't until last Saturday night, the Capitol City Theatre (tagline: serious about comedy).

Here's me and Grant after the show, posing in front of some important information. Salem Has a Comedy Club.

A good one too. I really appreciate Grant emailing me his free ticket offer. Grant  said that he likes to offer them to local bloggers in towns that he visits. Which, after Salem, was a 7-hour drive to Sacramento. 

Yeah, stand-up comedy is a tough gig. Yet Grant and the woman who opened for him, Carmen Morales, both looked fresh and energetic. (Of course, they're a heck of a lot younger than I am.)

The Capitol City Theatre vibe felt exactly right for a comedy club. Dark yet welcoming. Small round tables with chairs close to the stage. Beer, hard cider, popcorn, and other goodies for sale from a friendly staffer. 

I'm not a big laugh-out-loud person. I smile, both inwardly and outwardly. This doesn't make me the best sort of audience for stand-up comedy in a small club, but fortunately I was surrounded by more voluble people.

Grant and Carmen (I now feel like I know them, so like using their first names) clearly enjoyed feeding off of audience reactions. That's part of what made this LIVE stand-up comedy experience more enjoyable than watching comedians on TV, which I do a lot. 

For real -- and I'm not saying this because of the free tickets -- Grant and Carmen were top-notch entertainers. Right here in semi-sleepy Salem. I'll share some You Tube videos of their acts below so you can get a feel for their styles.

(Carmen said she had time before the show to look for witches, but didn't see any; um... you need to head to Salem, Massachusetts, girl.)

Being philosophically minded, I've been pondering a bit what makes stand-up comedy so appealing. Don't want to overthink this -- funny is what feels funny -- but here's a few thoughts spurred by Grant and Carmen. 

I think experiencing stand-up comedy is like looking at the famous duck-rabbit image.

There's one reality here. A drawing. But the mind can see it in two different ways: as a duck or a rabbit. 

What a good comedian does, and for sure both Grant and Carmen fill this bill, is shift our perception of a truth so we see it in a fresh way. 

To me, the important word in what I just said is truth.

Comedy needs to be based on how the world really is, or it isn't funny. For example, Grant had a pleasing bit about global warming and those who deny it. It would have been irritating, not entertaining, if he'd made fun of people who accept the scientific consensus about global warming. 

(Maybe this would have gone over at a Trump rally, but that's a sad commentary on today's reality-denying right-wing politics.)

I can't think of one instance where Grant or Carmen joked about something that wasn't true. Even when they talked about personal things that can't be verified -- like Carmen's father going on embarrassingly about how much he wants to make love to her mother later, during a dinner when Carmen's friends were over -- had a decided ring of truth.

So, yeah, good comedy makes us look at life through laugh-filtered glasses. We still see the same reality. It just looks different. Not less real, but more real in certain ways.

Carmen had an enjoyable bit about twerking. She nailed the animalistic nature of it, riffing about how the first female twerker could have been out picking berries in prehistoric times when she spots a hunky caveman who looks like he'd be good at providing raw meat of several different varieties -- dietary and sexual.

So she turns her ass to him and wiggles it around in a wordless Come take a closer look at this hot stuff, dude message.

Grant, to offer another example of reality-enhancing comedy, talked about how in the course of science getting us to live longer, he didn't want to be a 130 year old guy who gets all crotchety about cultural trends that are passing him by.

Sure, when Grant was younger he was chill with same sex marriage, but being able to marry a clone of yourself -- NO WAY! says old man Grant. 

After the show I complimented Grant on coming up with this creative idea: of how we can't foresee all the social changes that are going to keep arriving, many of which we aren't going to feel comfortable accepting, yet we feel ever so proud of our with-it attitudes toward current changes like legal weed, gay marriage, and using whatever damn bathroom your gender identity demands.

If you get a chance, go see Grant Lyons and Carmen Morales. And if you live in Salem, Oregon, check out the Capitol City Theatre comedy club. "Headliners" on Friday and Saturday nights; open mic night on Thursday. (I'm tempted... ).

Here's the videos of Grant and Carmen.

Lewis Black's profanely funny Elsinore show lightened my Trump-depression

Last night my wife and I saw comedian Lewis Black do his thing at Salem's Elsinore Theatre. His profanity-laced, darkly-intense, rant-filled brand of humor was strangely healing for us and the other mostly-liberal audience members.

I'm a big fan of Black's appearances on The Daily Show, where it seems a miracle that the top of his head doesn't pop off from the display of steaming outrage. (Click here for a comparatively mild example.)

I was wondering how Black would act during a lengthy stand-up show. Answer: pretty much the same, but more entertainingly. He's adept at handling shout-out comments from the audience. So adept, I quickly resolved to keep my mouth shut lest I find myself on the receiving end of a Lewis Black zinger. 

(Though this would have been an honor. Of sorts.)

My main takeaway from the show was this: being a blogger who frequently takes shots at local politicians via Salem Political Snark, after seeing Black blast Trump & Company for the fucking idiots that they are, using that marvelously descriptive word more times in five minutes than I do in five months (publicly, at least), I no longer am going to give a flying shit if some aggrieved denizen of our City Hall considers me a "bombthrower" -- a term intended as an insult, but which I've appropriated as a compliment. 

Compared to Lewis Black's virtual nonstop detonation of verbal nuclear weaponry against clueless politicians, mostly of the Trumpian variety, because that's who is in power now, my citizen activism outbursts are akin to a tiny firecracker with a wet fuse. Black, of course, is from New York City. People in New York have a much different conversational style than we do here in Oregon.

It seemed pretty clear that Black didn't know much about Salem. But he had quite a bit to say about Portland. He loved the mass transit system there, compared to which Salem's lack of even freaking evening and weekend bus service is a major embarrassment for Oregon's capital city.

 

Black spoke about how Portlanders will vote for improving some sort of public service (like the art tax), then some other group will say, "hey, this needs help also," and Portland voters will approve money for that also.  He saw Portland as an appealing blend of capitalism and socialism, so much so he said that Portland really was the capital of the Scandinavian countries like Sweden and Denmark.

 

A couple of times he joked about not wanting to praise Oregon so much that people from other parts of the country are going to want to move here, being one of the few refuges from Trumpist Republicanism. (Oregon is one of just four states where Democrats control the Governorship and both state houses.)

 

Lewis Black is cynical about politics, while also being darkly hopeful in a "this too shall pass" sort of sense. That's the power of political humor.

 

As Black's profane tirades against this-and-that idiocies being promulgated by the incompetents currently in charge in Washington, D.C. washed over me, a deeper realization of the ridiculousness of what the Trump administration is doing felt like a healing massage of my politically frazzled psyche. 

 

I mean, it didn't cure what ails me -- kicking these fools out of office is the only thing that will do that -- but it felt good to have Black say so loudly and powerfully what is obvious: the line between politics and satire has almost completely dissolved with the election of one Donald J. Trump.

 

Black repeatedly said, "The jokes write themselves." Which is clear whenever I watch a Sean Spicer press briefing, or read Trump's tweets. You couldn't make this stuff up, because no one would believe it. Yet it's true.

 

The Elsinore show wasn't 100% political, just mostly so. Black also had apt observations about religion from his "Jewy Jew" perspective, and some almost-serious riffs about mental illness. This video is similar to some of what he said last night.

If you want another serving of Lewis Black, check out “Democrats Are Psychotic, Republicans Are Idiotic.” (video doesn't embed, so click on the link)

Salem Chamber of Commerce brain implants: an April 1 confession

Oh, man.

I got so involved with writing on my new Salem Political Snark blog about what happened today at a highly emotional Chamber of Commerce news conference, I almost forgot to share the post on HinesSight. 

I'm really proud of "Salem Chamber of Commerce admits to using brain implants to control this town." 

This is something that I've strongly suspected for a long time, along with other close observers of this town's political scene. 

Didn't have proof, though. Until a momentous day, April 1, 2016, when Chamber CEO Dan Clem decided to come clean about the brain implants. 

Check out my post about what he said, along with how Mayor Anna Peterson and Statesman Journal executive editor Michael Davis feel about being newly-brain-implant-free.

"We Need Brain" -- GOP prez debate songified in 4 minutes

Damn.

If I'd known this highly creative songified summary of the first GOP presidential debate was coming, I could have saved two-plus hours of valuable remaining-life time and just watched a four minute video.

 

A New York Times piece provides background on the video. I read:

The Gregory Brothers are a music video production group made up of Andrew, Michael, Evan and Sarah Gregory.

How they put the video together so fast is mind-boggling. 

On a related note, I loved this post-debate Trumpanalysis by Ezra Klein. Trump is growing on me, in a decidedly weird way. His saying that he'd support himself and not run as a third party candidate if he gets the GOP nomination fits with Klein's take on Trump's marvelous self-referentialness.

You cannot embarrass Donald Trump. You cannot back him down with questions that make other candidates buckle. And the crowd loves him for it. They love him because he does not back down. The fact that Trump doesn't back down is the core of Trump-ism. It is the answer to how he will negotiate with the Democrats, with China, with Mexico. He will get what he wants because he doesn't back down.

Is it lunacy? Sure. But it's an appealing kind of lunacy. It's the ultimate Green Lantern Theory of the American Presidency. Candidates always promise that by virtue of their force of character, they will be able to do what their predecessors couldn't, while making fewer compromises than their predecessors made. It's what the people want to hear.

But Trump goes further. There is no border or boundary to his self-confidence. He doesn't just tell you he won't back down. He stands up and shows he won't back down. He is a mathematical proof for himself.

Comic says "Money doesn't influence anyone." Funny!

I love Pearls Before Swine's often caustic and cynical humor. Yesterday the comic strip featured Stephen Pastis' take on the Supreme Court's absurd contention that...

"Spending large sums of money in connection with elections... does not give rise to quid pro quo corruption."

Yeah, right. 

In seven panels Pastis destroyed this argument. (click to enlarge)

Of course, this crap also is going on right here in semi-sleepy Salem, Oregon. Wasn't long ago that I blogged about "Salem Chamber of Commerce tries to buy City Council seats." 

I'm so outraged at Jen Selter's "butt selfies," I had to look at them three times

My intellectual interest in Jen Selter arose when I read a piece on Jezebel, "We Need to Talk About 'Butt Selfie Queen' Jen Selter."

Though I noticed two photos of Selter at the top of the page, I hurried past them to study what I hoped would be a serious post-modern feminist critique of the objectification of women -- a practice that I have heard about, but naturally have no personal experience with, given my lifelong heterosexual male practice of paying attention only to a woman's inner essence, not her bodily form.

The article, sadly, turned out to be a complaint that Selter's white girl self-booty-deification was a ripoff of big-ass-worshipping that communities of color have been engaging in for a long time. The author, Kara Brown, felt so strongly about this she wrote it in ALL CAPS.

JENNIFER LOPEZ KICKED OFF THE POPULARIZATION AND ACCEPTANCE OF BIG ASSES IN THE MAINSTREAM–A TRAIT THAT HAS BEEN PRESENT AND CELEBRATED IN BLACK AND LATINO COMMUNITIES IN AMERICA SINCE BASICALLY FOREVER.

So I decided to conduct my own feminist research into the Jen Selter phenomenon, who has been featured in Vanity Fair (this is a photo from the magazine). 

I started with her Instagram account.

Right away I noticed that Jen Selter has over 3,200,000 followers who have ogled her 400+ posts. Wanting to keep tabs of this outrageous objectification of a curvaceous young woman, I increased her "Follow" numbers by one more.

My first pass through her Instagram photos went fairly quickly, since I mainly wanted to get the lay of the land regarding Jen Selter, so to speak. She did indeed emphasize a certain posterior area of her female geography, though her chest came in for close attention also.

I then attempted what I thought might be impossible for me: put myself in the frame of mind of a man who looked upon Selter only as a gorgeous collection of body parts, someone to be fantasized about as a sex object rather than a living, breathing, loving, learning human being.

As difficult as it was for my elevated male-feminist mind to do, I went through Selter's Instagram and Facebook photos more slowly another time, trying to imagine which ones would appeal to me the most if I was the sort of crude ass-and-boobs objectifying man which I so obviously am not.

The top three results of my research follow.

 

I will, of course, continue to monitor Jen Selter's Instagram account and Facebook page for even more egregious examples of her objectification. I've re-checked her photos for a third time, and will keep on doing so in my research efforts regarding her misguided attempt to reign as the "butt selfie queen." 

Hey, someone has to do it. I'm pretty sure most of her 3,200,000 Instagram followers aren't motivated by the pure feminist reasons that led me to spend so much time gazing upon Selter's ass and boobs.

John Oliver rants about Oregon's "fucking idiots"

Hard to disagree with John Oliver: we do have ourselves some fucking idiots in this here state. But, hey, give us some credit. 

It takes a special skill of sorts to spend about $250 million on a Cover Oregon website that is almost completely useless. Achieving that level of abject incompetence is impressive in a certain disturbing way. 

Nice to see that Oregon can be made fun of on a national stage, Oliver's new Last Week Tonight show. A video of his right-on rant can be watched here. (scroll down to bottom of page)

Obama's "Between Two Ferns" video: Prez is good comedian

President Obama sure held his own, comedy-wise, with Zack Galifianakis in this new Funny or Die video: "Between Two Ferns." 

Great delivery, sense of timing, ironic expressiveness. Have a look. It's got a pitch for young people to sign up for Obamacare, but this is a small part of the video.

Kelly Williams Brown's Super Bowl Etiquette Guide

Ah, I remember the days when Kelly Williams Brown was a reporter/columnist for the Statesman Journal newspaper here in Salem. 

You've come a long ways, Kelly. By leaving Salem.

Brown's "Adulting" book is a huge hit. And her Daily Beast pieces are marvelous. Today's offering is "Your Super Bowl Etiquette Guide From Clothes to Food to What Not to Say."

Here's a few of the Q & A's.

Q: How many alcoholic beverages should one consume during the Super Bowl?

A: Just follow this handy formula:

(H+1) X (I-A)

Where H stands for the amount of drinks required for a noticeable hangover, plus one, times the difference between how you wish the game was going (I) and how it is actually going (A). If you are Jim Harbaugh, you may drink to blackout.

Q: I plan on consuming marijuana during the game because, as every single person on the planet has noted, this is the Weed Bowl. What are some stupid puns I don’t need to make?

A: All of them. There is no need to say things like, “Heh, THIS is a real super bowl!” while triumphantly holding a bong shaped like a dragon skull aloft. And while The Daily Beast cannot condone illegal drug consumption, and must ask you to rethink your choices … if you are hosting this sort of party, be sure to double all recipes.

Even with my Ninja Fan, I don't look much like a Geisha

As noted in a post about my visit to the 2013 World Beat Festival here in Salem, I bought an $8 Ninja Fan at a booth in the Asia Pacific area. 

(this is the metal version of the plastic fan I got)

For a long time I've wanted a fan. My Tai Chi instructor knows a fan form, which looks really cool when he does it. The fan snaps open and shut in harmony with his movements. After all, fans can be weapons.

However, when I had a photo of me and my new fan taken by a Statesman Journal SJPix photographer while standing in the middle of a front-page background mock-up, I told the guy "Just a second; I need to channel my inner Geisha." 

The result, though, did not capture the air of demure coquettishness that I was aiming for. So this evening I went into our yard, held my iPhone at arm's length, and tried again on my own.

I leave it to the viewer of these photos to decide how closely I resemble a Geisha girl -- leaving aside extraneous details such as the fact that I am a 64 year old gray haired/bearded man.

We are talking inner essence here. 

If anyone has sufficiently bad eyesight, or good imagination, to see me as a Geisha, I am available for companionship -- if the price is right.

I am able to pour glasses of wine, open pop-tops, and pass around bags of chips with marvelous decorous ease, all the while pretending to listen to you talk about yourself while I think about what I'm going to do with the money you're paying me to do my Geisha gig.

[Update: forgot to mention that my Ninja Fan training hit a setback when, after coming home and snapping the fan open & closed once after buying it at the World Beat Festival, after which our dog with the best hearing jumped and ran for cover, my wife told me "You're not going to play with that in the house!."

Naturally my macho Ninja self said, "Yes, dear." 

However... we Ninjas do not "play" with our fans. Like I said, they are deadly martial arts instruments. Or would be, if I was skilled in using one, and had a metal fan rather than a plastic fan.

I'm beginning to realize that actual Japanese Ninjas and Samurai either weren't married dog owners, or had a relationship with their wives that wasn't founded on "Yes, dear."]

Jay Lake fights terminal cancer with inspiring humor and courage

You've got to love a guy with terminal cancer, Jay Lake, who has a new favorite joke:

"What's the only difference between Jay Lake and a ham?"
"The ham is curable."

Read the entire Oregonian story that was in today's paper. Since it probably will disappear into the paid archives before too long, I've copied the story in its entirety and attached it as a continuation to this post.

Jay Lake probably won't be immortal, but he can damn well have his story live on in cyberspace for as long as possible.

Which I'm sure his web site, jlake.com, will. On his blog, Jay has been writing about his medical condition and life. I plan to be a regular reader. 

I'm not terminal (except in the sense that we all are). But I've thought about how much sense it makes to have a memorial service for me while I'm alive -- when I could enjoy it. I was glad to see that Jay is doing just that. 

A Jay Wake is scheduled for July 27. Sounds like a smiling-time will be had by all. Some excerpts from the Jay Wake page:

You are invited to the pre-mortem wake and roast for Jay Lake, a somewhat morbid, deeply irreverent, but joyous celebration of Jay’s life. This is a time for celebrating Jay’s life, loves, and dark, twisted sense of humor. Bring your stories (hysterical, at Jay’s expense), your tasteless jokes, and any and all expressions gleefully macabre. Come party with the man who has never passed up the chance to poke cancer in the eye and laugh about it.

...The Roast will begin at about 7:30. Be warned: the jokes and stories contained herein will not only push the boundaries of good taste, they will leapfrog over the boundaries blowing a raspberry. This is not a time to say how Jay touched your life. This is a time to say how Jay touched you inappropriately.

Beautiful.

Read on for the Oregonian story. 

Jim Carrey makes fun of Charlton Heston's "Cold Dead Hand"

What's not to like about this Funny or Die video, "Cold Dead Hand with Jim Carrey"? We get to see Carrey make fun of...

Charlton Heston. Gun nuts who compensate for a small male sex organ with big firearms. Theologically challenged Christians who somehow believe that God embraces those who cling to their guns rather than love, faith, charity, and all that weenie Jesus'y stuff.

Best of all, Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity hate this video. That means most reasonable Americans with a sense of humor will like it.

(Watch the video on Funny or Die if you get an annoying banner at the top of this embedded video, like I did when I checked this post after publishing it.)

Cold Dead Hand with Jim Carrey from Jim Carrey

I want to be reincarnated as a cat. Or a street performer.

Though I don't expect any afterlife to follow my death, here's a request in case reincarnation rules the post-last-breath roost:

If I'm headed downward on the evolutionary ladder, being a cat looks like a lot of fun. I'm already messy in the bathroom, like to tease dogs, and am prone to spilling coffee.

Watching this video, I realized I'd be a great cat! (Plus, I can look ever so innocent when I've done something wrong.)

 

Alternatively, if a human body is in my karmic cards, I could see myself being this street performer guy. I like being the center of attention. Crude humor appeals to me. And I wouldn't mind experiencing a life at the opposite end of the white men can't jump balance beam I'm currently standing on.

 

Onion exposes depth of Petraeus sex scandal

Once again, the Onion gives us a wise perspective on current events: "WIdening Petraeus Scandal Reveals Human Race Has Been Having Sex for 200,000 Years."

Excellent analysis. No, more. A penetrating analysis.

Following the recent revelation that former CIA director David Petraeus conducted a protracted extramarital affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell, sources confirmed today that the far-reaching scandal has widened to reveal that mankind, otherwise known as the species Homo sapiens, has been engaging in sexual intercourse for the past 200,000 years.

“While the situation appeared at first to be limited to this one sexual relationship between Gen. Petraeus and Ms. Broadwell, we see now that it is far more extensive than we had initially believed,” said an FBI official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing investigation. “Indeed, evidence shows Gen. Petraeus is, in fact, just one of literally billions of human beings who we now believe have on numerous occasions engaged in sexual intercourse over the last several hundred millennia.”

...“The scope of this scandal is simply astonishing—there is currently enough evidence to implicate individuals from every part of the world, even dating back before the creation of modern international states,” said one source close to the investigation, adding that the FBI has collected millions of first-person accounts of people who have either had sex themselves or witnessed others performing sexual acts. “There are even thousands of hours of video evidence that cyber-security experts in D.C. and Langley have managed to find on the Internet.”

“The real question is, ‘Who knew about this? And for how long?’” the anonymous source added.

According to reports, a comprehensive global probe jointly conducted by the FBI and CIA also revealed that, in addition to Gen. Petraeus, others alleged to have had sex in the past include Leon Panetta, Condoleezza Rice, Ben Bernanke, George Stephanopoulos, John Lennon, Charlotte Brontë, Jack Nicholson, William Shakespeare, Andre Agassi, Plato, Ulysses S. Grant, Queen Elizabeth II, Ted Avery of Dayton, OH, George Washington, Karen Avery of Dayton, OH, every past and present member of the band Chicago, Sir Isaac Newton, Bill Gates, Andie MacDowell, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, Vince Lombardi, and Adolf Hitler.

The Onion's 2001 jab at Bush fits Romney in 2012

Jim, a friend with progressive proclivities like my own, just sent me a link to a marvelous The Onion piece from January 2001: "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Finally Over."

The Onion is all about humor. But it was seriously correct about Bush.

Reminds me a lot of what Romney wants to do to the country: make the 99% of us poorer and more miserable, while making the 1% richer and happier.

Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over."

...Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"

On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further.

So, yeah, we've already gone down this crazy right-wing path of trickle-down economics, trash the environment, slash social spending, expand the military-industrial complex.

Let's not make the same mistake again. Vote for Obama and other Democrats in November.

Creative Portland marriage proposal gets Storm Large's "fuck, yes"

Since I'm a big fan of Storm Large, I wish I could obey her Twitter tweet.

My good friend Amy just got engaged, and..no pressure, boys...but this is how the fuck you do it. http://vimeo.com/42828824 

However, I'm already married.

And my proposal to Laurel some twenty-three years ago was horrible, compared to how the marvelously creative guy who put together this lip-sync'ed marvel did it. Very Portlandia'ish.

When I proposed to Laurel, it was so half-assed Laurel wasn't sure what I was saying. "Are you asking me to marry you?", she said. "Yes," I told her. Not exactly the stuff romance novels are made of.

Oh well.

I'm happy this woman got to enjoy such a great proposal. The look on her face (in the corner of the video) as she watches the dancers is wonderful. Congrats to Isaac Lamb and his bride-to-be. You showed me way up, Isaac. 

Good for you.

According to the Oregonian, your video has gone viral (gotten 1.4 million hits already) and national TV interviews await you. Couldn't happen to a better couple, judging by the six minutes I've known you via the video.

My (cynical) ideas for a Salem, Oregon city slogan

Yesterday Michael Rose, a business reporter for the Statesman Journal, asked in a Twitter tweet, "What would be a good city slogan for Salem Ore.?"

Oh, great question. My mind is cynically-inclined when it comes to describing Salem's positive qualities, or more accurately, lack thereof. So it didn't take me long to respond to Michael with quite a few suggestions.

Waking up this morning, after my brain had unconsciously incubated additional embryonic seeds of cynicism, I came up with some more. This is my current Salem city slogan oeuvre.

Salem, the blandburger sandwiched between Portland and Eugene's spicy buns

Salem, after you visit just once you'll say, "Now I've seen it all!"

Salem, a great place to buy gas on your way to Portland or Eugene

Salem, visit us and your hometown will look so much more exciting

Salem, the town that could, if it would, but hasn't

Salem, gateway to the Woodburn Mall and downtown Albany

Salem, great places to visit are just an hour away in every direction

Salem, the town that never wakes

Salem, where manic-depressives are cured of what ails them before the hyphen

Salem, a state capital where the Governor sometimes wants to live

Salem, come for the prisons and mental hospital, then stay on our streets

Salem, you'll be surprised how close to Boring we are

Salem, lots of downtown free parking, few places you'll want to go

Salem, so special, there's nothing like us between Keizer and north Albany

Salem, home of... um, let me think... oh, lots of homes!

I suspect there's little reason for me to hope that the Chamber of Commerce will phone and say, "We want to make one of your ideas the official city slogan of Salem."

However, scrolling through Wikipedia's list of U.S. city nicknames (both formal and informal), I found there's some precedent for dark humor. For example...

Forestville - Poison Oak Capital of the World
Pacifica - Fog Capital of California
Gallup - Drunk Driving Capital of America 
Utica - The City That God Forgot 
Cleveland - Mistake on the Lake 
Beaver - Cow Chip Capital of the World 
Bellingham - City of Subdued Excitement 
Forest Junction - You Can Get There From Here 

And Salem can't let itself be shown up, humor-wise, by my favorite slogan that I came across in the Oregon category:

Talent - Our name speaks for itself

April 1 -- big day in marijuana news

Of all the news reports that appeared in cyberspace today, April 1, the most interestingly informative I came across was Toke of the Town's "It's a Wild Day in Weed News. Here's the Roundup."

Wow. Who knew? Some samples...

Jazz Musician' Son Brings Brownie To Fourth Grade Class!

Panic broke out this morning at Redwood Elementary School when a local jazz guitarist's son smuggled in through the opened doors of the grammar school a "red" sequestered Tupperware-covered container of evenly-cut Betty Crocker's "More Fudge Than Fun Brownies," for Pebbles Shapiro-Naguchi's birthday party. There'll be no birthday celebration in Room 102 this afternoon because of the quick judgment of a teacher who thinks profiling is more than tracing a child's silhouette.  

...When Mrs. Jonell Christensen, the teacher who first suspected the brownies might be infused with cannabis was asked, "What was the first clue you had that something might not be right with the plastic-covered glass pan that young Dylan was carrying to school?" 

"From the window in the second-floor library, you can ascertain most of the going-ons that take place in this school. Fifteen minutes before the homeroom bell, I spy a long-haired student being dropped off by his long-haired father in a Prius in front of the school with public radio playing and Greenpeace sticker on the bumper. It was just a matter of putting one plus one together and coming up with three, simple," said the political science teacher.

Dick Cheney Vapes!

Former Vice President Richard Bruce (but rightly prefers to be called Dick!) Cheney is now being forced to vaporize cannabis for a post-respiratory condition caused by the recent replacement of the Ex-Number Two's mechanical heart named the 'Vader 214.'

Previously, the Dark Night's scientific pumper has been kept alive and fueled by a secretion attained from the pituitary glands of baby pandas until a new ticker could be found. When it was announced that a heart had become obtainable, the Mr. Potter look-alike was fitted with a fresh, lawfully procured, totally legal, working organ of a 24-year-old that became available last Saturday night around 2 a.m. when the Georgetown clubs let out.

  

Apparently there is some kind of residue in place from the previous owner and the only known treatment is to blow it out with a natural expectorant. Studies have shown that vaporizing cannabis actually breaks up stubborn blockages and allows the patient maybe for the first moment in their sour lives to feel a moment of tranquility that they may have never experienced before.  

Channeling my inner Jean Dujardin, I still look like me

Damn! I tried so hard!

At the West Salem Starbucks today, to let out my inner Jean Dujardin, the marvelously expressive French actor who I loved watching in "The Artist." (And who won the Oscar for Best Actor this year.)

A friend brought the January issue of Salem Weekly. It had a column that I'd written. I think he asked me to autograph the page to provide some literary amusement to his cat when the newspaper is put under fresh kitty litter.

He also wanted to see how well the iPhone 4 camera works. So I handed over my phone and posed with the Salem Weekly for several photos, visualizing how Jean Dujardin would handle a photo shoot.

Sadly, I had to admit that the resulting shots reminded me of other people a lot more than Dujardin.

 This still of an initial video test looks a lot like -- no big surprise -- me.

 Got some George Carlin going on in the next shot. 

 Hadn't thought of that creepy Clockwork Orange scene for a long time. Until I saw this photo. 

 Yikes! Now I'm channeling a Nick Nolte mug shot.

Hmmmm. I don't know. Maybe George Clooney with a beard? (Or do I hear countless women screaming, maybe not!)

PETA warns women about screwing a vegan guy

Geez, I didn't know that us vegan/vegetarian men were so dangerously erotically powerful.

But thanks to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), I've learned the truth about BWVAKTBOOM, "Boyfriend Went Vegan and Knocked the Bottom out of Me." Have a look.

 

Is it true? Of course! You've just learned about this via a blog post on the Internet. Don't you believe everything you come across in cyberspace?

(This woman has a different attitude, but she writes for Slate, which is almost mainstream media. So trust the PETA video; go vegan/vegetarian -- sexually safely, though.)

"Vancouvria" -- sharp satire about the anti-Portland

Man, I'm loving "Vancouvria."

This homegrown You Tube'd video satire of Portland's more conservative neighbor to the north, where the dream of the suburbs lives on, is way better than "Portlandia" -- in my utterly subjective yet totally true opinion.

Two more three-minute'ish episodes have been released, here and here, each as good as the first. Have a look, and a laugh. (In Episode 2, I really like "Ow...it burns!" and the guy continually texting.)

 

 

In 2012, let's elect Canada as president

Great news! The Canada Party has entered our presidential race. I'd vote for Canada to be the leader of the United States, for sure. 

This is a highly persausive campaign video.

 

But seriously... (though I hope, oh, I so dearly hope, Canada will run for president), other countries have a hell of a lot to teach the United States. We aren't #1 in anything related to quality of life. 

It's a fact.

Check out the OECD's Better Life Initiative web site (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). Quality of life rankings for most of the world's developed economies, along with some emerging economies, start off with each topic area ranked equally.

Click on "by rank) in the lower right corner of the display, and you'll see that currently the United States is #7, with Canada #2. Go, Canada! Beat out Australia and you're #1!

So if we were more like Canada, our well-being would be much better. Sure, we'd have to develop a taste for hockey (ugh), but I'm up for that in exchange for universal health care and other Canadian goodies.

See what happens when you leave ten of the quality of life topics at the "1" level, and one by one, give a single topic a "5" (most important). You'll find that the United States isn't tops in anything, notwithstanding how often people in this country erroneously say, "This is the greatest country in the world."

No, we aren't. Canada is. Or maybe France.

Regardless, it makes a lot of sense to elect another country to be our President, since we're way behind other nations in just about everything except incarceration rates.

On a related note, Nicholas Kristof correctly asks why Europe is a dirty word in our political discourse. Beats me. Europeans get to watch much racier and funnier commercials that we do, so let's elect Europe vice-president. 

 

Weight training women, respect egos of older men

Astoundingly, via Google I wasn't able to find a reference to the most important bit of weight training etiquette every buff woman who frequents an athletic club needs to know:

Do not, repeat, do not, leave a higher weight on a machine or piece of equipment than the senior citizen men in the weight room can handle themselves.

This has bothered me for a long time. Today I learned that I'm not alone. Clearly, the time has come to educate women about proper weight training etiquette -- other than the obvious, like here, here, and here.

This afternoon I chatted with a fellow geezer older gentleman at the River Road Courthouse Athletic Club here in Salem, Oregon. Somehow, in our rambling time-to-kill retired conversational way, we got to talking about how nice it is to see attractive fit young women work out in the weight room, yet how irritating it is when we plop down at a machine (I don't do free weights) after an Attractive FIt Young Woman has just used it and find that we need to adjust the weight downward. 

Look, it's tough enough getting old without this added aggravation.

I enjoy getting a Social Security check every month, but that's just about the only glistening part of the so-called "Golden Years" that I can identify. So please, Attractive Fit Young Women, take pity on your elders of the male persuasion.

If you are working out in a room with a gray-haired man who is doing his best to keep himself from falling apart physically more than he already is, shift the weights on the machine you've finished pumping iron on down to a petite, feminine level.

Thirty pounds, say, for an upper body machine. I'll allow you more on a lower body machine, since women tend to be proportionately stronger in that area -- maybe up to 80 pounds. 

That way, the good-looking, distinguished, charismatic, slim, 60-something man (why, I could almost be describing myself) who follows in your weight-training footsteps won't feel mortified when he discovers that an Attractive Fit Young Woman can kick his butt on the machine he's about to use.

Admittedly, this doesn't happen very frequently to me. But once is too often. So ladies, don't be like the woman who crushed my male ego last week.

The warning signs were obvious, in retrospect. She looked like a female version of the buff young guys who venture into the machine room at the athletic club to work on some aspect of their near-perfect anatomy that, apparently, can't be improved by the free weights which usually demand their attention. 

She was wearing gloves, a tip-off of a serious weight trainer. Her makeup was spot-on; her workout attire form-revealing without being excessively flashy. She was slender, yet not skinny. A short-sleeved top revealed biceps that I'd gladly trade for.

I should have known what to do when I sat down at the "back" machine she'd just used: pull out the pin that determines how much weight is being lifted without looking at where she'd had it, then put back the pin at the 150 pound level that I typically use (I could handle more weight, for sure, but choose not to; wanted to get that aside in to fend off any comments along the line of You're a weenie!; to which I'd maturely reply, Saying so doesn't make it so and Takes one to know one, just like I did in third grade).

Instead, I sat down, glanced at the stack of weights, and thought "Oh, screw me! She just did a bunch of reps at 150 pounds, like I'm about to do." Geez. I'm six feet, 180 pounds. Ms. Attractive Fit Young Woman appeared to be about 5' 4" and 120.

She ruined my day. Ruined it. Well, part of it. OK, a tiny bit of it, because I spent the rest of my workout rationalizing away her ability to push the same amount of weight with her back muscles as I can.

Probably just did a few hyper-intense reps at her upper weight limit. Lower back strength is no big deal; who cares? Maybe she lifted at a lower weight and then put the pin back at a level for us macho men to use.

All that rationalizing took energy, though. I needed a longer nap once I got home. So have compassion, women: be aware that whenever you leave a high weight in place at an athletic club, you could be crushing a senior citizen male ego. 

My favorite dark, twisted (and funny!) Christmas letter

Laurel, my wife, has a friend with a deliciously cynical sense of humor. Every year Nancy, which may or may not be her real name, sends out "The Dreaded Christmas Newsletter." 

And every year I rejoice when I read it.

It's always my favorite Christmas letter. Somehow I feel much better after reading her twisted outlook on life, than I do after perusing someone else's description of how much they enjoyed their overseas travels, visits with the grandkids, and the joy of growing older.

I guess it takes the pressure off when Nancy shows me the lighter side, which, strangely, also turns out to be the darker side.

Enjoy. (At least you will, if you share my sense of humor.) I may or may not have changed some names in her newsletter to protect the innocent guilty. It came a few days ago; that explains the altered title this year.

The Dreaded Christmas New Year's Newsletter

Yes, well... Happy whenever this does reach you. As the year closes, I look at my family and think, "We are hella cool!" I've started showing a pregnancy bump just like Jessica Simpson has. Mine is both front and back. As always, my height continues to be a challenge but my weight's fine!

With all the celebrities carrying 5-pound Yorkies around in a tote bag, my son Ethan has succumbed to the trend. It's hard to carry off both tats and a yipping Yorkie but he manages. Seriously -- I think he's in love. He called for the family recipe for Cranberry Pudding, which I fondly remember stealing from a restaurant I once worked at. He wants to impress her folks with it.

Lizbeth moved out and got her own apartment. She is now in her 7th year of college and is majoring in Literature, Spanish, Chemistry, Math and History. I visit every month to wipe away the chemistry experiments that have infested her apartment. Laundry continues to be a challenge as she finds that 83 pairs of underwear are still not enough to cover the semester.

My sister announced that this year was her 25th wedding anniversary. 25 years of sleeping with the same man -- wow! I once spent a year sleeping with 25 different men. Almost the same...

Everyone in my neighborhood has a house that is underwater. Looking back I realize what a wise move it was getting that 84-month car loan. My car is also underwater, which makes parking easier. And Occupy Dublin has begun! Our platform is demanding equal housing values with our upscale neighboring towns. We have all pitched tents in our front lawns, stopped taking showers and throw Hallmark cards at the police. It brings a tear to your eye.

I now teach piano to 137 students. Having discovered that reading piano music involves the simultaneous processing of completely disparate informational series, inter-related in a uniform manner that involves structural dependencies in a randomly predictable progression and, guaranteed to boost your GPA -- well, my business is booming!

Fido is well. The massive fangs in his under bite would suit him better if he would stop wagging his tail so much.

Still haven't had my identity stolen. Tried to auction it off on Ebay. A very nice gentleman from the Cayman Islands contacted me and we have started up a correspondence. He promises to totally change my financial profile. So in the meantime we remain at the same address and wish you all:

Merry Christmas and best of luck for the New Year!

Nancy, Ethan, Lizbeth (& Fido)

 

Help with my .XXX site market research

Until today I'd never considered becoming a purveyor of XXX material.

But I just got an email from my domain name registrar, Dotster, informing me of how important it is to have a .XXX presence now that this top-level domain is available.

Registering a .XXX domain enables you to keep control of your online brand. Landrush is open to members of the Sponsored Community or individuals who qualify to become members. General Availability is open to everyone regardless of whether you are an adult industry professional or simply looking to protect your web presence.

Well, I don't exactly understand what they're talking about. (Suggestion to Dotster: Have a buxom naked woman on a webcam explain how .XXX domain registration works.)

I'm into keeping control of my online brand, though. Which I gather is me, since I'm a blogger.

And given how large the market for porn is, it sure seems like I should be able to come up with a .XXX site that could channel some extra cash into our checking account. "Our" reflects the fact that I'm married, so this circumstance will have at least some slight effect on what sort of porn site I could develop.

I'm thinking of a twist inspired by the popular Porn for Women book, which shows pictures of men cooking, listening, folding laundry, asking for directions, and other outrageous female fantasies. 

The twist would be that I'd aim my .XXX site at the opposite end of the market: women (and, heck, men also, so long as they have a credit card) who are turned on by male messiness. I'd like to embrace cinéma vérité on my porn site, so the most truthful subject I could film -- also, the cheapest -- would be me going about my usual everyday life.

Thus I'm wondering what the worldwide market is for what admittedly would be a narrow niche of the .XXX online offerings: video of a 63 year old man (in good shape!) doing things around the house that would annoy a neatnik, yet (I can only hope) turn on people with a fetish for certain sorts of messiness.

If you're such a person, especially of the female variety, let me know how much you'd pay to have access to regularly updated videos of me:

-- leaving the towels in our bathrooms all askew
-- splashing water onto edges of the kitchen sink without wiping it off
-- tossing clothes on the top of my dresser instead of hanging them up
-- putting my electric toothbrush away with toothpaste still on it
-- not washing the coffee pot for, like, two weeks
-- hanging shirts in my closet so casually they're half falling-off the hangers 
-- stacking mail, books, magazines & notes to myself around my laptop in glorious confusion

Now, I realize that my MessyMan.XXX site will only appeal to a woman who (1) is turned on by male messiness, yet (2) has an exceptionally neat man in her life, so is feeling unfulfilled. (I considered adding "or can't find a messy man," but that sounded ridiculous.)

A small market? Yes.

But with seven billion people in the world and ever-increasing Internet access, a MessyMan.XXX site could be a winner. I await the verdict of responses to this market research blog post. Thanks in advance for your help.

Will our dog fit in a Nissan Leaf?

I have many unanswered questions.I'm still trying to learn the meaning of life, what will happen to me after I die, and why the Kardashian sisters are famous (I do have a guess: they're famous for being famous).

But today I focused on a query assigned to me by Laurel, my wife. "WIll our dog, Serena, comfortably fit into the Nissan Leaf electric car that we're poised to buy?

We'd made a stab at answering this question during our first test drive, learning that the $250 cargo floor organizer included by the manufacturer on the car earmarked for us produces a dog-friendly flat area behind the rear seats -- which otherwise is marked by a cavernous hole.

But after taking another test drive yesterday, my wife came home concerned that the entire cargo area has less vertical room than our Prius when the rear seats are folded. So the question became, "Could our Lab/Shepherd mix stand up in the rear compartment?"

Surprisingly, a Google search of Nissan Leaf large dog fit turned up zero information about how other people had addressed this hugely important issue. It isn't exactly a car-buying deal breaker for us, but we want to be sure that the family pet isn't condemned to awkward crouching when she rides in the Leaf.

Scientific testing clearly was called for.

"I'll take Serena with me to the Corvallis Nissan dealership today," I told Laurel. "I'll measure the height of the cargo space in the rear compartment, comparing it to our Prius, and also put Serena into a Leaf to see how she fits."

Laurel wasn't sure whether the dealership would be wild about having a dog take a "test sit/stand." My attitude, though, was that car salesman probably have experienced weird customer behavior that far surpasses a simple request to see how our dog fits in a Leaf.

After all, we weren't bringing in a bunch of pigs to see how many could be crammed in the cargo compartment. Or a baby elephant.

As I suspected, when I got to the dealership one of the salesmen was happy to unlock "our" car, then stand aside and watch the experiment unfold. I folded the rear seats down, then took Serena's dog pad out of our Mini Cooper and put it in the Leaf to minimize the chance of leaving dog hair all over the car.

The first things I learned were (1) Serena was happy to settle down in the car, (2) So happy, I had no chance of taking a photo with my iPhone while she was still standing up after I'd lifted her into the rear compartment.

So now I knew what was already known: a 65 pound dog can lie down in the back of a Leaf with her head comfortably below the ceiling. But what if the dog stood up? Further experimentation was required.

Which brought me to realization (3): I knew how to make Serena sit by (no surprise) saying "sit," but I had no idea how to make her stand while I stood back, iPhone in hand, ready to take a photo of a standing dog.

"Stand, Serena, stand!" had zero effect. Pulling her up by the collar worked better. However by the time I dashed around to a door and snapped a photo, all I caught was a dog butt at the (appropriately) rear end of the cargo area.

This helped to confirm, though, what I'd already learned from a tape measure. Our dog is about 27 inches tall at the shoulder. The height of the Leaf cargo compartment is about 27 3/4 inches. So if Serena stood up, her body would come close to the ceiling, while she'd have to lower her head a bit.

(The height of the cargo compartment in our 2007 Prius, by contrast, is about 28 3/4 inches, an inch taller -- seemingly because the rear seats aren't as thick, because the rear seat head room in the two cars is exactly the same).

I was still determined to get a photo of Serena standing up close to the front seats. By this time the salesman probably had concluded that he'd already gotten all of the entertainment value from watching me try to maneuver our dog around in the car while clutching my iPhone, so he diplomatically said, "Maybe you'll have better luck if I'm not standing close by."

(Instead of, This is boring the crap out of me, which likely would have been closer to the truth.)

The photo above is a great shot of a dog resisting her owner's urging to stand up in a Nissan Leaf. Serena has her fussy face on as she settles back into a lying position after I got her to briefly semi-stand and rushed to click the camera app on my iPhone.

My next move was to back off from the car, stand by an open rear door, and wait for Serena to stand up on her own. This produced realization (4): our dog is willing to lie on her dog pad in a Nissan Leaf for a considerably longer time than I'm willing to stand next to a car in a dealership's parking lot, iPhone in hand, while customers and employees wonder what the heck is going on.

Eventually I gave up and snapped another photo of our dog stretched out horizontally, which told me nothing new about Serena's ability to comfortably stand up in the car, but at least made me feel that I'd hadn't completely wasted my time in the parking lot.

Moving to the rear compartment, I made a last stab at issuing "Serena, stand!" commands in my best Dog Whisperer voice. As you can see, by this stage in the experiment the family pet had decided to completely ignore me, as evidenced by her haughty German Shepherd'ish you want me to do what, sucker? look.

(Serena's personality is a blend of her Shepherd and Lab sides, independent/aloof while also good natured/gentle.)

In the end I got some good information, though no conclusive photograph evidence of our dog comfortably standing up in the back of a Nissan Leaf. I'm convinced that Serena would fit just fine in the car.

And while driving home to Salem I pondered the fact that when humans get into a car they crouch down before sitting down on a seat. So why are we even worrying about whether our dog can stand up in the car? What if we had a Great Dane? Would we have to buy a van for the dog to travel in, so it could stand up?

However, we probably do need to figure out how to put up a dog barrier in the Leaf that would prevent her from sailing over the front seats in the event of an accident, whether Serena is lying down or standing up.

Bottom line: for $34,795 (before tax credits) it is possible to give a 65 pound Shepherd/Lab mix a ride in a Nissan Leaf. Such is my contribution to automotive science based on today's research.

People with American flags are terrorists

My wife and I get a lot of emails from conservatives and other right-minded folks who want to alert us to threats against America.

It's amazing what we've learned from these messages. I had no idea how far along Obama, Congressional Democrats, and other progressives are in their plans to destroy the United States.

Did you know that the health care reform bill allows Obama to form a private army? Oh, its true. It must be, because I heard about this through the Internet.

Well, we're grateful for these alerts. Now we want to do our part to keep America strong by passing along some IMPORTANT INFORMATION that we've become privy to.

Be sure to share this blog post with your friends, family, co-workers, complete strangers, everybody in your address book, anybody you've ever communicated with since elementary school, all of your Facebook friends, the people in line with you at the grocery store checkout counter, and anyone else you can think of.

Also, all of the people you can't think of. That's how CRUCIAL IT IS to get out this IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

Which is: Everybody who flies an American flag is a terrorist. Also, anybody who wears an American flag lapel pin.

Watch out for these people.

Once your eyes are open, you'll see the terrorists everywhere, hiding in plain sight. It's so obvious, now that their secret has been revealed -- the more patriotic they appear outwardly, the easier it is for them to hatch their terror plans without anybody suspecting.

UNTIL NOW. Thanks to the IMPORTANT INFORMATION we're sharing here.

You might be wondering, "What proof is there that people with American flags are terrorists?" Don't! Don't wonder! DO NOT fall into their trap! This is what THEY WANT -- uncertainty, thinking, skepticism, fact-checking.

If you want certainty, here's what you can be certain about: Almost certainly, if you look closely into the lives of people who brandish American flags, you won't find ANY evidence that they are terrorists.

That's HOW GOOD they are. That's HOW DEEP they've infiltrated themselves into the fabric of our society. They appear EXACTLY like us actual patriotic Americans. Except, they've gone overboard, a FATAL MISTAKE.

During their terrorist training they were instructed to fly American flags at their homes and businesses, and to wear lapel pins with the Stars and Stripes. So this is how we can IDENTIFY THEM!!!

I can't emphasize too much how important it is to TAKE THIS MESSAGE SERIOUSLY. There's an enemy within, masquerading as normal patriotic citizens. They have an astounding number of tricks that they employ to keep their terrorist nature secret. Flying the American flag is just the tip of an iceberg.

If our campaign to SAVE AMERICA takes off, thanks to YOUR HELP in sharing this blog post with everybody in the country, we can expect that the terrorists will fire up a disinformation campaign.

So if your faith in the TRUTH OF THIS MESSAGE ever falters, and you decide to check out Snopes, FactCheck, PolitiFact, or some other tool of those seeking to undermine the American way of life -- DON"T BELIEVE WHAT YOU FIND THERE.

People with American flags are terrorists. That's all you need to know. The truth is simple. Pass it on.

Portland just #3 in pot-smoking -- light up, PDX stoners!

This is embarassing for Oregon.

Our largest city, supposedly oh-so-Green Portland, ranks behind Tallahassee, Florida and Boston, Massachusetts among the "greenest cities for marijuana enthusiasts." So says The Daily Beast in its annual survey of pot use.

Next year, Portlanders, go for #1. The way the Trailblazers are going, you've got a lot better chance of being tops in pot-smoking than in professional basketball.

"Salemia" casting call gets my Inner Actor excited

Oh, man, I want it so bad -- a role in the "Salemia" series that local filmmaker Michael Perron and his posse are planning to make as our city's answer to the Independent Film Channel's "Portlandia."

The Salemia notion started off as a Twitter craze, but is morphing into something more. What that turns out to be is limited only by Perron's wonderful creativity and sense of humor, which is on full display at his You Tube home.

As alluded to below, my top strategy for getting a part in Salemia isn't my acting ability, but my fawning ability. Along that line, check out some of my favorite Michael Perron videos: "Last Call," "Dog Business," and "Bird Identifyin'."

(Perron is a genius. It's a crime that many of his You Tube videos only have 50 or so views, while one of mine has over 21,500. I want to worship at his feet and learn how to make quality videos that are so artistic, they attract little attention.)

Yesterday a casting call went out for would-be Salemia actors. I urge you to get involved, but only if you aren't angling for the CRUSTY TRANSIENT (60s) role. That's me! Just look at the photo above. Doesn't it absolutely scream crusty transient? And I'm 62!

When I learned about the casting call, I rushed to whip out an email to Michael Perron, saying in part:

Here's why you need to cast me in "Salemia, the only-on-You-Tube movie, unless Salem Cinema gets a cameo role in it."

(1) My fawning blog posts about Salemia are top-ranked on a Google "#salemia" search right now. (Look quickly before Google changes its mind about the ranking.) You need me for publicity, because my Fawning Intensity will rise substantially if I have a part in the movie. See: http://bit.ly/i4Q9Ne

(2) I'm 62. It'd be age'ist if you don't have a Social Security recipient in the flick.

(3) I've got a Oregon-generic longish gray hair, short gray beard, fit-but-aging baby boomer, "bring back the '60s," look that often leads people to say, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" To which I reply, "Probably not, but you know guys who look a lot like me." Hence, you'd be getting a universal Platonic form, not just an individual person, if you cast me.

(4) I had a starring role in my Junior Class play in high school. I can dig out a clipping from a 1965 issue of the Woodlake, California weekly newspaper if you want proof.

(5) My dog and wife are available for crowd shots, just so long as they don't upstage me. Dog is a highly attractive Shepherd-Lab mix who oozes a charismatic Oregon vibe. Same with my wife, aside from the Shepherd-Lab mix part, and I'm not just saying that because this is Valentine's Day and I'm going to read this email to her after I finish writing it (though that could be one teeny-tiny reason).

(6) I've contributed quite a few Tweets to the #Salemia cause, some of which even have been understandable by people other than myself.

I look forward to hearing from you. If I don't get a call back, it's good to know that Oregon has an assisted suicide law, not to put any pressure on you. (However, I just watched your video where an endangered species bird is killed with a rock and eaten, so angling for compassion and empathy probably isn't a viable Please Cast Me approach.)

Well, I'll have to wait and see.

My daughter and her family live in Hollywood, so if I'm rejected for Salemia I'll be able to identify with the many depressed, addicted, alcoholic, without-hope actors down there.

Of course, this would only be my first casting call rejection, so probably I'll need to return to more Salemia auditions in order to cultivate a True Artistic Sensibility of fuck them all, they can't recognize real acting if it bit them in the ass.

And I can always watch, and re-watch, and re-re-watch, my own short subject that I starred in, wrote, and mostly filmed. It's genius. (Like you, Michael Perron.)

Meet the talented (and funny) guys behind #Salemia

I hope the fawning title of this blog post gets me a role in a "Salemia" production being planned by Twitter-meme founders Mike Perron and David Jenkins -- even if it just appears on You Tube.

(The competing "Portlandia" is on the IFC cable channel, which isn't exactly highly watched either.)

Gino Corridori, a local cameraman for Portland's KATU, put up a well-done, entertaining interview with Mike and David on, where else, You Tube. Check out hIs "#Salemia: What's it all about?" blog post on the Salem KATU site.

I was thrilled to see one of my OregonBrian #Salemia tweets scroll by on the screen during the video. And also encouraged to see that Salem, bland as its reputation is, has hidden comical creative treasures like Mike and David lurking in the sleepy shadows. (Fawn #2).

My only critique of the video is that the sound could be louder. There's a lot of Social Security recipients like me here in Salem. Turn up the volume, guys! Have a look:

 

For more samples of the clever #Salemia tweets that have been burrowing out of the often-twisted minds of bored residents, head to my blog post of a few days ago.

"#Salemia" sets off capital city Twitter frenzy

Wow, something exciting finally is happening in Salem! Twitter aficionados are tweeting about how un-exciting Oregon's capital is, using the "#Salemia" tag.

I first caught sight of #Salemia on my Twitter feed without knowing what it meant. When I read the tweets, I wasn't sure whether they were for real, or a joke -- which, of course, speaks volumes about Salem's well deserved reputation for being a blandburger sandwiched between spicy Portland and Eugene.

Later in the day I came across Salem blogger Emily Grosvenor's post, "The rise of the #Salemia meme." Thanks to her, I learned what this is all about.

What’s the deal with all of the #Salemia hashtags being typed out by Salem’s most active Tweeps?

The short story is that my filmmaker friend Mike Perron decided it might be fun to envision what a Salem-centric version of the Fred Armisen pet project “Portlandia” might look like. “Portlandia” is an online web series, conceived, written and starring Armisen, that skewers some of the more ridiculous hipster pursuits and lifestyle choices of a city where everyone seems to be a bike messenger/barista/struggling artist/tattoo landscape.

I just spent an enjoyable half hour or so browsing through all of the "#Salemia" tweets that a Twitter search was able to turn up (some of the earliest ones may not have been available, according to a Twitter message).

Below are my favorites, naturally including the three posted by me (oregonbrian) in a burst of #Salemia enthusiasm that swept over me last night. For a while I couldn't stop thinking about ways to capture Salem's boring'osity in 140 characters or less.

Then I got worried that I'd never be able to stop, since there'd be no end to this project. I've lived in Salem for thirty-three years, so have a lot of blah stored in my memories to tweet about. Thus I decided to let others carry on with exploring the further reaches of #Salemia.

The selections below range from most recent to least recent. Some of the best tweets hit the Twittersphere right off the #Salemia bat, so I urge you to read all the way through this list (or start from the bottom and read up).

---------------------------------------------------

PerronBrothers RT @scriptdave: Salem-Keizer School District students learn about the Oregon Trail. Not the pioneer trail, but the food stamps card. 

emilygrosvenor New York Times feature 36 Hours in Salem only features must-hit pawn shops. 

PerronBrothers Drug dealers happy to return to Courthouse Square. Say goodbye to temp jobs at Honeybaked Ham. 

scriptdave In keeping with Portland's "Keep Portland Weird" mantra, Mayor Anna Peterson's staff purposes "Keep Salem Stagnant." 

PerronBrothers Transient snatches $10 worth of beer from Safeway. K-9 Unit rolls out. $1,000 search ensues. 

MnLs To boost tourism, City exploits "Bush" Park, erects statues of GHW and GW, converts Bush House to "G-Dub's Folksy Cowboy Funhouse." 

scriptdave Salem Hospital builds sky tram to help patients locate parking structure.

scriptdave Struggling artist enraged when crayon drawing on butcher paper at Willamette Burger Company is not displayed on wall. 

scriptdave WU Freshman confused why Court Street Dairy Lunch isn't opened for dinner.

oregonbrian Statesman Journal publishes editorial not cleared by Salem Chamber of Commerce. Publisher immediately replaced by Dick Withnell.

oregonbrian National Guard called out for crowd control after opening of 148th Subway Restaurant in Salem creates frenzied joy among locals.

oregonbrian Woman in persistent vegetative state at Salem Hospital makes miraculous recovery after being moved to Portland.

SalemFM WordOfMouth Bistro hires waiting patrons as Valets. Wait time for brunch cut down to 75 minutes.

PerronBrothers Courthouse Square closing "really sucks" according to local meth dealer who considers selling door to door.

GinoCorridori A pet clothing store opens next door to the souvenir shop in the new commercial wing of the state hospital.

KandN Boise Cascade ruins make national top ten list of "best places to Rapel up and Down Walls".

KandN Salem Man discovers Douglas Fir wood fiber is secret ingredient in ALL fast food. Giving new meaning to being a "Tree City".

BillFarmer Train no longer stops in Salem due to lack of pedestrians to hit

KandN West Salem destroys Marion Street Bridge. Changes name to East Rickreall.

GinoCorridori Salem man lost 4 days in Keizer Station parking lot. Saves himself by smoke signal from burning tires. Never gets to Round Table.

aaronjamesyoung fourteen coffee shops open successively in the same location, each lasting about a month and a half

aaronjamesyoung restaurant next to shopping plaza is demolished to make room for... another shopping plaza (oh wait, that's real)

MelinaTomson City of Salem converts hole in the ground left by Boise demolition to a tent city aptly named the hell hole.

GinoCorridori Jerry Seinfeld signs on to play @perronbrothers in #salemia, another sitcom about nothing.

MelinaTomson City of Salem buys the Meridian for $1 and converts to Section 8 housing

GinoCorridori A grassroots campaign in the state penitentiary elects prisoner to the city council.

MelinaTomson Homeowner converts meth lab to grow lab and gets community improvement award.

GinoCorridori CCTV televises Muchos Gracias City Hall grand opening.

MelinaTomson @LaCapitale opens up and Salemites get confused when the word French is used to describe it, and it isn't followed by fries.

MnLs In an effort to combat sex-trafficking reputation, City changes nickname from Cherry City to Cougar Town. Curves memberships soar.

teqstar Man ventures out across U.S. by car. After many wks, he travels back to hometwn just to be cutoff in traffic 1st time since leaving

scriptdave Marion County DA sends Eugene residents to Oregon State Hospital in an attempt to make Salem the second largest city in the state.

PerronBrothers The "Duck In" on State Street hopes to reopen. Waiting for Muchas Gracias customers to stop ordering Goddamn Oregon burritos.

scriptdave The Salem Airport returns non-stop shuttle service to PDX.

kidcapitale Trader Joe's finally opens to overwhelming crowds but soon closes because "the wine was too expensive"

scriptdave Employees at LifeSource Natural Foods protest arrival of Trader Joe's by building a wall of tofu and humus around building site.

scriptdave County also changes motto from "Where Good Things Happen..." to "Where Good Straight Things Happen..." 

scriptdave Polk County changes name to President James K. Polk County for fear of being confused with popular gay street in San Francisco.

scriptdave Blogger discovers Re/Max building on Hawthorne hasn't been occupied in years. City plans to demolish & rebuild @ Courthouse Square.

PerronBrothers City Council votes to go *off the grid*. Pitches out all GPS and remote sensing data. Realigns city map with Mesopotamia overlay.

PerronBrothers City of Keizer fire bombs Salem Library. Salem residents forced to pay $500 per Keizer library card. Take that, bitches!

scriptdave Keizer Station relocates to Albany. City of Keizer vanishes after becoming insignificant.

scriptdave Statesman Journal increases readership by 2% following addition of page 3 dedicated to hipster emos.

ChrisHaganSJ Man with Decemberists ringtone receives call downtown after 6 p.m. Arrested for noise violation.

scriptdave @perronbrothers banned from Cinebarre after sneaking in Word of Mouth bistro burger and bottle of Seagram's 7.

PerronBrothers Salem-Keizer administrator wakes up with slight hangover. Sees snowflake. Announces SNOW WEEK. NO SCHOOL.

scriptdave Parents take autistic child to Vacuum World for birthday. Owner displeased when family only purchases Oreck bags. (True story.)

MnLs Due to state economic crisis, capital city is forced to sell City Hall; converted into a giant Muchas Gracias shortly thereafter.

scriptdave Mormon missionaries mistake Salem Capitol for Mormon temple. Baptisms for the dead in capital mall fountain are quickly halted.

scriptdave Founder of Salem Film Fest takes 30 minutes to introduce a 10 minutes short, leaving audiences comatose.

scriptdave Activists shut down Union Street Railroad Pedestrian Bridge due to pedestrian dander contaminating Willamette River.

PerronBrothers Downtown businesses blast The Book Bin for not stamping *First Wednesday* reminders in the 1/2 price 2011 calendars.

scriptdave The grand opening of a third Adult Shop within city limits brings out an army of gym teachers and former mayor Janet Taylor.

MnLs Visitors mistakenly believe zombie apocolypse has hit the town because shops close and streets empty before dark.

scriptdave Oregon Glove Company on 12th Street receives first customer in two decades. Shop attendant confused & closes store indefinitely.

PerronBrothers Regulars angry that they must wait for a 4:30 pm table after Olive Garden wins "best Italian restaurant" again.

scriptdave Pregnant woman enraged when King's Donuts closes early for the day. Spends afternoon ringing necks of ducks at Mission Mill.

scriptdave Unemployed father of three attempts to buy shells to end life at the Wal-mart on Turner Road. Wait, this sounds familiar...

Sean_Hollenhors 22yr. old woman choosing the right pajamas for going to Winco. At 12:30 in the afternoon.

scriptdave @perronbrothers Hipsters move to park under Center Street Bridge and wait with homeless to get free food from Adam's Rib.

PerronBrothers Flashback: Two sad people attend the candlelight vigil of the closing of TommyJohns (the one patron and John).

kidcapitale A couple of meth heads scratching tickets at a lotto deli.

PerronBrothers Salemia. Opening scene: five hipsters fighting over a half smoked cigarette outside Chelsea's place...