The least interesting man in the world

I must be the antithesis of the Dos Equis 'most interesting man in the world'. Why else would yours truly be typing into the blogosphere void and watching a repeat of Cops on a lovely summer evening?

The neighborhood is empty - folks must be down at the beach. I hate to use the colloquialism 'down the shore.' If it involves sand, it's a beach. And if they are there, then it would follow that they are @ the beach - they're not down the beach, unless they are down the beach from (south of) you, implying that you are up the beach from (north of) them. All clear?

Having fun yet? Ready to watch paint dry with me?

I should close this post with my take on the Dos Equis 'most interesting man' catchphrase: "I don't drink beer but when I did, I preferred whatever was in front of me. Stay thirsty, my friends."

Speaking of which, you really have to visit this great booze movie web site.

My vote for the very best of soused cinema goes to Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend, following the trials and tribulations of Mr. Don Birnam, played with cheese by Ray Milland (many years before reaching the summit of his craft as Rosey Grier's right head man). The score is tops, as are the Bellevue/DT/Rats-on-the-walls special effects. And Gloria, with her loathsome abbreviations. Just leave me my vicious circles, Nat.

Close second is Mickey Rourke's triple hamtastic ('on rye') spin as Charles Bukowsi's alter-ego Henry Chinaski in Barfly. 'Empty bottle. Broken Glass. Euphoria!' Lilly: 'Anyone can be a drunk.' Henry: 'Anyone can be a non-drunk. It takes a special talent to be a drunk. It takes endurance.'

Coming in to show at third is Leaving Las Vegas ('Have you been drinking all day?' 'But of course!'). Ben Sanderson, Sera, and Gooey Blender Drinks. Terri: 'Maybe you shouldn't drink so much.' Ben: 'Maybe I shouldn't breathe so much, Terri - Ha Ha!'

The Office of Ruminant Procurement (I'm trying - real hard Ringo - to be the Shepherd)

'When the governed act like sheep, they beget a government of wolves' - Edward R. Murrow. This quote kicks off the recent book, "The Emperor's New Clothes" by Richard Ben-Veniste (interesting read that is part biography/part dictum on Government Hubris).

And the wolves are only being instinctive when they perpetuate such a ruminant-centric environment, rewarding the 'well behaved' and demeaning those that question authority. Promotion and attrition follow their 'natural' course and before you know it taking a census cures your insomnia (employee surveys are their corollary in corporate nations).

Are your organizations blanketed in wool?

Is Shari Lewis meandering around your cube looking for her Lamb Chop? (Speaking of which, is it just me or did others also have an innate loathing of Shari Lewis and that filthy sock puppet mint-jelly receptacle of hers as a kid? And now her daughter is attempting to perpetrate that insipid creature on another generation of unsuspecting children. Jumpin' Jeziz, No!)

But I digress (again).

Sheep make great coats and diplomas but aren't known for their creativity, intelligence, humor or common sense (that's why it's horse sense, though God knows those filthy beasts are no smarter, except for maybe Mr. Ed and on the odd occasion, Silver).

Of course, participatory government is harder and actually requires, well - governing. It's easy to herd sheep but takes a bit more intelligence to effectively shepherd people.

But enough of this incoherent chatter and back to the herd ...

The return of Eeyore

What ever happened to my childhood hero, Eeyore? Why hasn't there been a Pixar Eeyore movie? It's a sure-fire summer blockbuster waiting to happen. Maybe a live-action take on the character.

Instead of a donkey, Eeyore could be an American Staffordshire Terrier, Winnie the Pooh wouldn't be a bear - he'd instead be a larger, more vicious and hungry canine. Christopher Robin would be played, of course, by noted thespian and animal loving scamp Michael Vick.

Eeyore loses his tail! Pooh finds it for him! Just like the stories Mom used to read me!

But with a modern twist ...

Pooh would follow up the 'de-tailing' by ripping out Eeyore's right eye and sinking his fangs into the vicinity of his jugular, giving him something truly worth complaining about for the first time. Christopher and his many friends would gather round one of his many 'Pits O' Fun' and exchange laughter and money with the other woodland creatures. Eeoyore is no match for Pooh and alas, it just wasn't his night (shades of Terry Malloy).

And when it was all said and done and the Poo had prevailed, Christopher then would gently apply the electrodes to ol' Eeyore's gonads and out go the lights!

What a magical tale for the children!

Teach the kids the value of lowered expectations while they're young. Welcome back to the NFL, already in progress ...

That's right, Mr. Martini. There is an Easter Bunny - Randle Patrick McMurphy

"Somebody once wrote 'Hell is the impossibility of reason'. That's what this place feels like. Hell. "
Oliver Stone's remembrance of his younger self in the person of Platoon's Pvt. Chris Taylor makes this observation in a letter to his Grandma. He's talking about combat in Vietnam during the height of the war but I think we've all come across an 'impossibility of reason' in less traumatic circumstances.

I sometimes think life in a large corporate technology department is largely based on a variant of this premise (not that hell is the impossibility of reason but rather here is the impossibility of reason). We occasionally happen upon an oasis of sanity and that keeps us going. Or maybe we just imagine taking brief gulps of air before the current pulls us under again - maybe that's when we are really the farthest around the bend. I often don't know what side of the dividing line I fall on any given day. Perhaps if I had a Homer Simpson style "Sane" Certificate, I'd be more confident of my lucidity. But to be sure of that means I must be just as positive in the madness of those around me (admittedly, not a stretch).

What were those wise words Grace and the Third President's Flying Machine sang way back when in the good old days? Go Ask Alice, I think she'll know. Indeed. Even when the Red Queen's lost her head.

At least it sounds like Dick Cheney's going to be gainfully employed again.

Yo Quiero - En Memoria De

Drop the Chalupa in silence as we honor the fallen. Those three words meant many things to many people, but when I hear them, I'll always think of Gidget the Taco Bell Chihuahua. She lived a long life, much like her contemporary, Walter Cronkite. Like Walter, Gidget became a trusted figure to middle America, convincing them all to wolf down huge quantities of the southwestern fast food colonoscopy preparation pinatas like they were going out of style. Toilet paper and Plunger manufacturers saw a late nineties boom. Run for the border, indeed - run for the restroom was more like it. The hairless mutt was ahead of her time - well before Jamie Lee decided to become the Activia lady.

But life is for the living and you gotta live it to the fullest while you're here. That's why my new hero is Daniel Suelo. This is a guy taking the bull by the horns and livin' da vida loca. Grasshoppers on the skillet by cave fire light. Drop the Chalupa, indeed.

Giant steps are what you take - Walking on the moon

I'm watching a "repeat" - the 40th anniversary re-broadcast of the moon mission on the History Channel. Nixon just got through talking to Neil and Buzz from the White house and his insincerity and general sliminess shines through as much today as it did in 1969.

From his disheveled appearance, Nixon must have rushed into the Oval Office just before placing the phone call - probably after doing a quick line with Kissinger in the blue room (I'm guessing, judging from the jittery speech pattern and dilated pupils).

He seems in especially high spirits chatting it up with the moonwalkers. Some might attribute the jovial mood to the occasion of our first walk on an alien world and beating the dirty commies to it but given the hour it's more likely that he had just finished his evening "constitutional" (which in his case usually meant a third world musical snuff film double feature with a shot of smack and a tub of buttered popcorn).

That always put him in a giddy frame of mind. Of course, that's just what I heard.

Tricky Dick is truly timeless, kind of like Jack the Ripper.

I was just shy of 7 years old when the moon walk was originally broadcast live but I don't remember it. I'm sure we were glued to the tube like everyone. I remember catching some of the later missions but not particularly that first one. Perhaps I knew even then that it was all staged on some backlot in Van Nuys.

Nothing Nixon was involved with, even indirectly, could possibly be genuine.

The moonshot was indeed real until he placed that congratulatory call and festered himself into what to that point had been a singular moment in history and after which became cheapened and suspect. In that Nixonian instant, the astronauts were teleported from the lunar surface to some sleazy sound stage in Porn Valley guarded by Liddy, Hunt, Colson and the rest of his plumbers and fixit boys. Phonying up the moon mission was merely a prelude to the CREEP activities to come. This was the minor leagues.

But maybe I'm being too hard on the guy. He did give me Watergate, after all, and I *do* remember watching and growing to love those hearings.

They interrupted the normal afterschool shows and I had no alternative options on the days when the weather made playing outdoors unpalatable (this was Seattle and it was pre-cable, children).

Those hearings instilled in me the political beliefs and principles that have stayed with me to this day. So I gotta say 'thanks' to Milhous for that. Were it not for him, I might have grown up to be a Republican.

Now, on to the weekly misadventures of Nancy Botwin (sweet Mary Louise) ... Alanis Morissette (who appeared memorably as God in Kevin Smith's Dogma) continues a guest run tonight as Nancy's baby doc. Weeds jumped the shark prior to first airing but I love it all the same.

Daly and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coats

Boy, the cheese is being applied thick and heavy on ABC's coverage of the British Open: agonizingly long passages of purple prose whispered over wide angled swatches of sea-swept Scottish coastline scenery [Scottish James Earl Jonesish golf whisperer]: "in the land where golf and groundskeepers were born, where kings and kilts and bagpipes and barf-bags share a noble heritage, where the sun and the warmth give way to wind and driving rain, howling like a highlander with his gonads crushed by a caber, we drift back through the sands of time ..." zzzzzzzz - , etc. ad nauseam.

And the endless interviews. And "let's get you caught up on what's happened earlier". No, how about we watch what's happening now. Occasionally, they also have showed some live golf, but that seems almost incidental.

It's all halfhearted anyway. I half expected them to bag it all and simply film Tiger traveling back to Florida instead. "Here we see Tiger at airport Security. He's elected to remove his keys and put them into the tray. He's walking through now. And he's in!"

At least John Daly is keeping the thing dignified with a traditional Scottish outfit that he must have designed himself one morning in the midst of what I imagine is his usual wake-up technicolor yawn into the toilet.

Speaking of colorful, drunken cheese, looks like someone wanted some of Wisconsin's finest on their dog. Problem was she was driving the dog and the yellow stuff must have been chilling in a locked garage icebox. No immediate signs alcohol was a factor but then again, no signs that it wasn't. They don't call it 'Milwaukee's Best' for nothing, after all.

Well, enough of this golf shit - time to head to the driving range and then out for a jog - fun in the sun ...