The Far Side of the Moon

My but haven't we all felt like this a time or two? This has always been my favorite Far Side comic. I had it hanging in many of my offices throughout the years. At one time, it was re-captioned "Uh-oh, Bill's in one of his moods again."

I identify with the man in this frame. I think I have felt like him fairly often in my life. In still life as imagined by Gary Larson, its author and illustrator, here before the reader is the epitome of the utter frustration one feels when things are so clear in one's head, yet reality simply isn't bearing out the clarity.

We are left to wonder what led up to this character's psychotic break, but based on the expressions on the dog and cat, I can only assume it was animal shenanigans that made this man to feel he had to assert, in the simplest and most overt terms possible, the order of things.

Among the items labeled, all seem to be "less than" the man doing the labeling. Without him, no labeling would be possible. Without him, the labeling would be unnecessary.

So, I've managed to ruin the fun behind the joke by deconstructing it to the point where it makes you think rather than just accept the basic premise as it is presented. But Mr. Larson knows, like many other creative people in this world, it is the joke behind the joke that is really funny.

Was Mr. Larson having a bad day when he drew this? Did he ask for a latte and his assistant brought a mocha instead? Was his agent or artistic consultant giving him flack, or worse, suggestions that were not appreciated and certainly not requested?

I will never know. But this single frame is so instantaneously and utterly relateable to me that it has endured as one of my very favorite pieces of humor of all time. This is only one of many many Far Side panels that resonate with me. Larson is a master of making sure there is more going on that meets the eye. In crude drawings and simple set-ups, he creates entire universes. Some authors need reams and reams of paper and entire series of books what Larson does in a simply drawn panel.

The humor challenges the reader to be on their toes. When you are on your toes and you get the joke, you feel smart and witty. When you don't get the joke, you probably don't even know it, so no harm done.

I don't have a point, other than to express my thanks to Mr. Larson and his twisted Id for expressing so much with so little for so long. My hat is off to you sir.

Monday Miscellani

A Slow Boat From China

Our new iPad is on a slow boat from China. I hate like hell that all this American innovation is made in China, but such is such. I wish we could learn (re-learn) how to make the goods here that we are so good at creating and innovating. Talk about solving a lot of problems. I know prices would be high but people would be working.
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Blow Gabriel, Blow

Glad to know our Jersey peeps were by-and-large left without too much damage from Irene. Irene is a good name for a Hurricane. I think other good names would be Matilda, Lorraine, Gertrude, Florence... you know, all good old fashioned lady names. they remind me of the old ladies that used to piss and moan about me riding across their lawn to deliver their newspapers and then not tip me at Christmas. Old ladies filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing.

What happens when they stop using classical names for hurricanes to get with the times? Can you imagine a hurricane Trevor, Cody, Skylar, Dylan, Trey or Shaquanda?

Me either.

Hurricane Trevor... what, it would only target Ralph Lauren outlets? Hurricane Cody would leave behind unspeakable damage at every BMW dealership up and down the east coast.
I wrote a joke about Hurricane Shaquanda, but the ACLU airdropped Al Sharpton through my window to yell at me for being insensitive and made me buy his DVD entitled "There is nothing funny about anything."
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Cruisin' on a Saturday Afternoon

Saturday we popped in my Sam and Dave cassette and cruised up and down 28th street seeing and being seen. It was great. Perfect weather, fun cars, lots of smiles. Tons of cops. Holy cow. I somehow don't think that was what cruising was like "back in the day", but it is all we have. And it was a great deal of fun. I suppose I will keep the Corvette just to do that once a year.
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See You In September

Many of "My" kids are headed back to school this week, or going for the first time. This is a huge moment in their lives. I remember being so petrified. These kids are either much more confident than I was or they are brilliant actors. Some of them are pretty good actors, but I think they are just better prepared for this than I was.

Someone said at church Sunday to one girl, "Don't do anything you'll regret in 10 years." To which I quipped, "10 years is an eternity away, don't do anything you'll regret tomorrow morning."

Pearls of wisdom from one who had to sit on a lot of grains of sand in his day.

11 Years

Today marks the completion of eleven years of marriage for Em and me. Depending on the day, eleven years has either passed by like the proverbial warm summer day of song or it has been a long rocky road fraught with pitfalls and traps that lead to not a little discomfort.

No one said it would be easy. In fact, her parents and my parents have been married a combined 97 years if my calculations are correct. Good examples of what can be accomplished with love, respect, trust and patience.

At 25 years, my parents renewed their vows in our home. The priest came, there was a small group of attendees. The priest asked my mother "What is one word that describes your marital success?"

"Perseverance," was the response. There was no delay. It was if she had an answer for that question before it was asked. Nay, before it was conceived.

"Perseverance" is a mantra I chant under my breath. "This too shall pass."

The point is, I think our ability to look at each other, shake our heads and let it go is a key to our longevity. A woman I used to work with defined love as, "Knowing exactly which buttons to push, and then not pushing them." Neither of us are especially easy people and we're awfully similar to each other. We are both German, hot tempered (well, I thought I was hot tempered until I met the likes of my dear wife), loud, magnanimous and like to be the center of attention.

It's a recipe for disaster. Or at least that was the popular prediction among our friends at the beginning. I admit, (a little embarrassingly), to a certain amount of schadenfreude that many of those who predicted our demise have since had irreverseable meltdowns of their own institutions. I know it's not nice, and I feel dirty, but it is what it is.

The hardest thing I have ever done was to offer forgiveness when I have been really honked-off. Emily really knows how to honk me off. And I her. Not only am I not good at saying I'm sorry, I'm not good at accepting an apology. Whoever said love means never having to say you're sorry was full of shit. Love means saying it and meaning it.

I am also not good at saying "you're welcome." I am quick with a thank-you, but I have a hard time accepting a compliment. That of course eliminates the compulsion to give compliments. Emily still does. Proving that perseverance is a key to success.

We are both completely and totally rock steady during a crisis. neither of us is prone to panic. There would be no screaming or running around in a storm or in a fire - we would just do what needed to be done. On the opposite side of that, we will snipe and gripe about the smallest insignificant things. In fact, I know there have been times I have actually hated, but for some reason, (and it isn't because I'm all googly and romantic because it's my anniversary - I'm actually in kind of a mood), I can't remember many of them. There are a couple doozies, but they have turned in to fun stories after the fact.

despite all these facts, we're a pretty good match in that neither of us are really capable of living with anyone else. But that sounds like resignation, and that's not right, either. I have grown comfortable with the fact that I cannot understand all that happens in life. I don't understand how we surpassed impossible odds to get and stay together. But when I try to imagine life differently, I can't. Maybe love means never having to say "I wish."

So here's to the last eleven, the next eleven and all the elevens we can manage to squeeze in after that. They won't all be good, they won't all be fun, but I can't wait to see what happens!

I love you, Em. Now, where do you want to go for dinner?

Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show

We went camping this weekend in Pentwater at Lake Michigan Camp, one of many hundreds of thousands of camps the United Methodist Church in West Michigan alone. The Methodists have more camps than the Catholics have cathedrals and alcoholics. Combined.

The town of Ocean Grove where we lived in New Jersey for awhile was a camp meeting town... a place to get away from the city and breath some ocean air while singing music. Just bring a dish to pass and you are in. Seems Methodism was founded upon the tenets of sleeping in tents, (and since "we" tend toward the upper end of the socioeconomic scale, RVs), singing hymns and eating casseroles. It's really a pretty good religion. Hang out on the beach and watch the sunset before spending the dusk and early dark in front of a campfire eating s'mores.

This was my first time camping as a Methodist. I used to camp as a young adult. There were more intoxicants and bigger fires, but essentially it is all the same. That doesn't count unless you camp at a Methodist as a Methodist. I was initiated as a Methodist years ago, but you can't really be a Methodist until and unless you camp. It's somewhere in the red hymnal.

The church's official motto is "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors", which pretty much means come as you are. And I have seen this in practice so it's more than just a slogan. Regardless, people have regarded me with suspicion upon finding out I have never camped. That's all fixed. I Methodist camped, and liked it in a Methodist manner. I plan to go again Methodistly. It was a valuable trip, too since I learned a lot about how things go in the church which I will now share.

Methodists are the kindest people in the world. It's actually borderline annoying. We already explored the official slogan, but the unofficial slogan is "No, you first."

Pursuant to the real slogan, anyone can hold any position in the church. Women, minorities, gay people - Bishops and leaders and preachers, all. But, only men cook breakfast. Do not even enter the kitchen if you have a second X chromosome. The open doors thing is suspended when it comes to breakfast.

Once in the kitchen, the conversation turns to how many years you have been coming to camp. Not any camp, this camp. This is a subtle way of reminding everyone of the pecking order. It's almost like if in the wild, alpha males established dominance by playing chess in the park over tea. There is no weeping or gnashing of teeth, just a sense of resignation and understanding that it is what it is. In this case, being that worst kind of bottom feeding critter on earth, (a newbie), I was the melon cutter, the table mover, the chair setter-upper and the butter plate putter-outer. I will be 50 before I touch the grill.

The Methodists are brilliant at cooking for 100 people. There is something about quantity that brings out the best in Methodists. It's all about numbers and amounts. If your pants aren't tighter by the end of a meal, someone failed. There is no "No, thank you, I'm not hungry" to the Methodists. Read the earlier statement about me eating a s'more. I don't care for them especially. I ate it anyway.

Topics of conversation at meal time run the gamut all the way from "Kids these days...", to "when I was a kid". Occasionally there is a "You would never catch me wearing that..." which is more an indictment on the parents of the subject of the scorn... even if he or she is in their 30's.

Methodists don't take a public political stand, mostly because they are all over the map. It is an "agree to disagree, agreeably" situation. I heard one man guffaw at a joke deriding one side of the political spectrum, and the next day laugh equally as heartily at a joke filled with consternation about the other. Now it's possible that both were worthy of his laughter, but at least one of those jokes made him a little uncomfortable. He didn't show it.

It's O.K. to talk about "adult subjects", it's just not O.K. to do them. For instance, several of us there were avowed fans of brown liquors and classy, expensive cigars. Fine that we spoke of these things around the camp fire, however were any or all of us to tipple and smoke in the real we could face excommunication; which to the Methodists means you would be treated rudely by your wife and demoted to dish duty after breakfast.

It is also O.K. to speak in entendre. "Nice mellons," I said to Gene as he carried the mellons. "Nice Jugs," I said to Brent as he carried the milk and OJ to the dining hall. Laughs all around (probably polite since they are both essentially the same joke and not especially funny). However, bring that into the real world and openly admire the shape of a woman and you will do dishes. For years.

So there you have it. Methodists love to camp, are kind to a fault, generous, social, love to eat, have no opinions, laugh at everything and pay for sins by washing dishes. Well, that's not true exactly, but if you were an alien come to earth to research culture and you were dropped in the middle of Methodist camp you might think it was.

A word to the wise for that alien. Make sure your shorts hit the knee... you wouldn't want us talking quietly about what not to wear over dinner while looking furtively in your direction.

Vacations With a Capitol P

Everyone is bitching about the President going on vacation during a time of crisis in our country. I say, lay off. This is the perfect time to take vacation. Our problems will still be here for him to be not able to fix when he gets back. Except they'll be even bigger. They were going to get bigger anyway, so why not take a couple weeks at the end of summer to decompress for the busy season ahead?

I am talking of course about campaign season. Believe you me, this is a great time to have a crisis. Everyone in Washington wants to be the one to point fingers as to the cause of our national crisis-es, then explain how they have the right plan to fix our national crisis... But they can't tell us what it is until we elect them.

Besides, when has our country not been in crisis? I am a member of the instant factoid, info-tainment, Fox News generation so I don't check facts; but if I did I think I would see that every sitting president has presided over some sort of crisis and none have canceled their vacations. The news only used to report when Bill Clinton was at the White House. That man got around, (the world that is) and no one seemed to complain about that!

They take the whole shooting match with them anyway, people. This would be the worst vacation you could conceive of. Imagine you were the president of a major corporation and to take vacation you had to bring the entire board of directors and your executive management team with you and meet with them for hours every day. Later, if it didn't rain, you could catch a round of golf with an old school buddy of yours that you flew in just to see you, except now he's only a manager and you are the big kahuna and you find it is awkward and you have almost nothing to talk about. On top of this, all your shareholders are there, surrounding you everywhere you go taking pictures and wanting to talk about share price!

Miserable!

Which is exactly the vacation any Washington politicians deserve right now. A miserable one.

I want Stenny Hoyer's Winnebago to pop a flat on Pike's Peak and Barney Frank's hot air balloon to ascend to great heights because he can't stop talking (hot air, get it?).

I want them all to get sunburned - a mere preview of what is in store for many of them should they not change their ways.

I want the mistresses and the wives to be having tea when Mr. Big Shot walks into the drawing room.

I hope Carl Levin loses the Benjamin Franklin look-alike contest he has been practicing for for years.

And as for you, Dutch Ruppersberger, (O.K. I admit I looked that one up), I hope you get a toothpick under your fingernail after eating crab and getting all that crap under your fingernails and trying to clean it out with a toothpick, even though your wife tells you she has the fingernail cleaner thing in her purse but you use the toothpick anyway and poke yourself. Then it starts to bleed a little and hurt really bad and even though you are smiling while eating the ice cream cone all you can think of is "damn, this really hurts" and then realize it's going to leave a big black blood clot under the nail and it's the hand you shake with and people will be grossed out by you for weeks.

Ron Paul - I like you. Dial back the crazy just a notch and you have earned another devotee in me. You have a nice week off. Take some time and scribble some errant thoughts on the back of a cocktail napkin and call it a stump speech. Have your family make some crude signs with esoteric slogans that only 10 people in America get and only 4 of them appreciate. Read Pat Paulsen's Autobiography. Read it again. Repeat.

I say, go ahead, lawmakers. Take all the vacation you want. Disappear for all we care. You got us into this, maybe it is time we start getting us out of it. Go f*ck up your golf game for awhile. Leave my country alone.

The Goodbye Grandma and Hello Maxi

The eagle has landed and Maximilian J. Cooper has entered the fleet.
2011 Kona Blue Ford Flex SEL.










The genesis of the name Maximilan J. Cooper is simple. This is a big car that has similar styling language of the current Mini Cooper, so badged for the eponymous John Cooper, principal of the John Cooper Motor Works. Maxi Cooper... get it? The 'J' is for John as a tribute to Mr. Cooper and his pen.







Note the supple Corinthian... uh, cloth, since leather was not in the budget. But the cloth has a nice hounds tooth pattern and looks like it will wear well. The seats are still heated, which at the end of the day is very important to me.
The stereo is only acceptable, (again the good one was out of budget), but it still has SYNC, (which Ford has done a brilliant job marketing since it is so highly desired but barely works). Overall, there are many good features. Certainly it is no beer can or stripper.



The first car I remember in my youth was my mom's '76 LTD station wagon; banana yellow and as big as the whole outdoors. She must have looked funny with the tweed bench seat cranked all the way up to the dash, clinging to the large diameter but still pencil thin steering wheel. My job was to sit in the "way back" and intercept any cigarette butts that flew back in through the open tailgate window before they burned the whole works down.
I appreciated that car in retrospect. Later she had a mini van and some of the best things that ever happened to me happened in that van (we'll just leave it at that, shall we?). Now I have this cross between the two. I think it is clean, cohesive, fresh and funky. It sure is comfortable, quiet and utile.


Welcome to the family, Maxi. May your 24 months with us be happy! Ha! I'm kidding, that was for my wife who shook her fist at me and said... "That car better still be in the driveway in 4 years!"

Let's be honest, that's a bit of a stretch, but I can almost see it happening.

Squeeky Wheels

I guess I kinda let loose a little on the phone with my parents the other day. I was ranting about how jealous I was they had an iPad and I had, well, not an iPad. They also have an iPhone and something called a Kindle from some fly-by-night internet place called Amazon... whatever that is. Since Barnes and Noble paid my mortgage (well, most of it), for five years, I don't choose to recognize that off-branded stuff.

"I'm too broke! I am tired of being broke! I want, I want, I want!" That's exactly what I said to my parents in my animated man squeal over the phone. Two days later, my Mother called and said they would like to buy us an iPad for our forthcoming anniversary. Well, OK then, finally someone gave the baby his bottle!

And I say; it's about time.

There is a lesson to be learned here, children. That lesson is, if you don't get what you want, complain to someone who can give it to you and keep complaining until you get it. I heard of a study that recently came out that came to the conclusion that men make 18% more money on average when they are a jerk at work. For women the differential is 5%. That's some pretty good cabbage, people and it's all there waiting for you to collect.

We are going camping this weekend with a number of people from church. The "men" according to the information sheet, are making Sunday breakfast. It goes on to list the"men", Steve... Brent... Gene... No Bill. Well, there is a Bill, and he is a strapping bald man with movie star good looks, just like your author. But alas, he is not your author.

I did all I could do. I went about getting results. I complained. When I was told I could help, I said, "Oh, no... I'm going to sleep in, and I will be first in line for breakfast and I am going to complain about everything!" To which another bystander retorted "So it will be just like normal, then."

Touche.

I complained enough to get Emily to acquiesce to letting me get a new car. I put a deposit in today and will pick it up and close the deal tomorrow! Being bitchy works for me!

People, the world is out there waiting to be taken by you! Don't let it pass you by simply by being patient and friendly. Don't be satisfied with your perfectly acceptable lives, go get more! Make people suffer for their insolence if they don't fall at your knees and give you all you demand!

It works for me, it can work for you!
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Ps. Tongue out of cheek, we are really appreciative of your generosity, Mom and Dad. We can't wait to get our iPad!