Musing of the Moment: Father's Day Thoughts

There's a common saying that goes, "Happy wife--happy life." 

I don't like that expression at all. It's based on common gender stereotypes that women direct their husbands' happiness and that the husband's (or father's) mainly depends on keeping the woman happy. 

In addition, the expression is heteronormative. 

Just think if there was an expression that started "Happy husband"? 

People might think, "Wait, why is he happy? What's he up to?" 

It's still uncommon for people to think that husbands/father's can be sad, which is a point Bill Burr makes in Drop Dead Years about the "male sadness epidemic."

I too have the "regular depression," not the clinical kind. I can be "sad." 

Today on Father's Day I'll be drinking the last bottle of wine I took from my father's assisted-living apartment after he passed away.

He died years ago. A couple of years I drank the other bottle I had from the apartment, which was a Chardonnay. 

The one I'm drinking today is a Pink Moscato, which isn't really on-brand for me. I'm more of a drinker of Zinfandels, Cabernets, Merlots, Syrahs, and red blends. 

Regardless, cheers to all the sad dads out there. 

And I miss you Virg. 

Random Notes from a Crank

The recent effects of the polar vortex has me thinking about a saying I've heard said before when it's cold as heck: "It's colder than a witch's tit." 

I don't get that. Why would one assume that a witch's tit is cold? She could be horrible, but that doesn't necessarily mean her tits are cold. To that end, does that mean warlocks' tits or dicks are cold? 

Ah, sexist language patterns, you reveal yourselves in so many varied ways.

"The Phrase Finder" website has a bit of research about the saying. 

I've always wondered what exactly makes up these chicken nuggets. Rubber is apparently an option if you're going by the article by The Washington Post: "Tyson Nuggets Recall: 36,000 Pounds May Have Been Contaminated with Rubber."

That's why they might always taste so .... wait, wait, wait, wait for it ............  rubbery. 

Moscow Don has the scientific knowledge and acumen of a seven-year-old to which scientists reponded with a comic to make it simple and understandable: "NOAA Scientists Debunk Trump's 'Global Warming' Tweets with a Cartoon." 

Random Notes from a Crank

As Xmas approaches, I've seen all kinds of jewelry commercials. I don't know why anyone would actually name a jewelry company Jared, an innocuous male name but one that reminds of some bitter late-20s dude who lives in his parent's basement. And Kay jewelers, right... Every kiss begins with them supposedly. How annoying. The portrayal of women is both commercials is the same sexist tripe we see lots of places, but I wonder if "If you liked it, you should have put a ring on it" is not much, if at all, different? 

On one of the InterWeb fora I visit regularly, people were talking about their top five John Cusack movies. Lots of people like Say Anything, but it never blew me away like it has other people. I'm a big fan of one of Cusack's early comedies, Better Off Dead. In the midst of the discussion about Say Anything though, I was reminded of Lloyd Dobler's excellent answer about his career interests. 



I don't have a ton to say about the Phil Robertson interview and suspension, but it's not surprising he holds such dumb, intolerant views. As one of my buddies on FB pointed out, Christians don't pay attention to all kinds of passages anymore, such as the ones that condone slavery, so this seems just to be another case of applying silly passages to the real world. The whole deal reminds me of what either H.L. Mencken said about Christianity (or maybe was it Twain?). I'm paraphrasing here, but the statement was something like this: It's not that Christianity is a bad religion. It's just some of the followers are whack-jobs. 

Nevertheless, here are some quotations about religion by Mencken if you're so inclined: Mencken on religion. 

This statement seems relevant: "The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by person who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame. True enough, even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights. He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force. He has the right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season. He has the right to teach them to his children. But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge."

Random Notes from a Crank

At the end of every Inside the Actor's Studio, a program that I watch on occasion, the host James Lipton ends with a gauntlet of questions he got from some French talk show host (if I remember right). One of those questions is "What is your favorite curse word and why?" I watched the program that featured Tom Hanks when it aired, and his favorite curse word was "horse shit" because, if I recall correctly, it doesn't get used enough and it's very specific. Like Hanks, if I were to pick an underrated curse word, I'd have to go with "dog shit." Lowly old dog crap is what I'd pick. In comparison to Hanks' favorite, the poo of dog is not highbrow at all. Only the wealthy have horses, right? The hoi polloi have dogs, and they shit a lot. That stuff is common. Just think of saying something like, "That proposal is dog shit." That means it not even worthy of horse shit found in stables. It's common shit. 

Recently I picked up some stuffed jalapeno peppers wrapped in bacon at the local supermarket. I won't be doing that again. The bacon was incredibly fatty, even for bacon, and the filling had a bland sausage intermixed with some manner of cream cheese. So, since my bell pepper plants and poblano pepper plant croaked because of a cold spell, I plan to get a jalapeno pepper plant and do my own stuffed peppers, but I'll be using Laughing Cow cheese shoved inside them, and I plan to wrap them in turkey bacon. Healthy choices and all that stuff.

On a TV channel (Inspiration) I had never heard of before until recently, they've been playing episodes of The Brady Bunch. I used to watch that show all the time when I was a kid, and now my kids are watching it too. What an anachronism. One of yesterday's episodes we taped was the Johnny Bravo one when the whole gang becomes a musical group. I was troubled by one episode though that has the plot line of Marcia wanting to a female "Frontier Scout" like her brother Greg. As one would imagine, the plot focuses on Greg making it extra hard for his sister to become a Frontier Scout, but Marcia perseveres. Then in a twist at the end, Marcia suddenly decides not to become a scout because that's "boy stuff," and then Marcia turns to Carol Brady and asks about checking out some "fashion magazine" since she's a girl. Luckily, I usually watch these programs with my kids. After the plot twist, I loudly stated, "That makes me mad. That's wrong" in front of my two kids. My eight-year old daughter asked why, and I went into a diatribe about sexism, about how women can and should have equal opportunities and not have to necessarily do what people consider "girly" things. She agreed and said, "Yeah, that is wrong." Stoopid sexism.

On a more humorous note, I had forgotten about how often "groovy" was used as a descriptor on that program. People are groovy. Events are groovy. All sorts of stuff is groovy. Groovalicious I tell ya.

In addition, there's the hair. Oh, the hair styles. When I went to Alabama from '98 to '02, I thought those Southern fellows had shaggy hair. But the Brady boys, especially Greg and Mr. Brady with those white dude 'fros, that male lineage is lousy with shaggy hair.

I've been listening to The Hold Steady quite a bit recently. Today in the car I was playing the band's latest album Heaven is Whenever, and the opening track on the disc is "The Sweet Part of the City," which is song that's an homage to a certain part of Minneapolis, the band's hometown.

The song got me to thinking about the cities and towns I've lived in and their sweet parts. And these are all personal connections of course, but I thought I'd share. Heck, it's a blog. If you don't like it, get your own blog for your own solipsism.

In Waterloo, I'd have to go with my dad's stores, Virg's Foods and Independence Ave. Liquor, that he was able to start with the grace of small business loans somehow. I spent a lot of my working youth in those two establishments, learned a lot, and grew up in them. Likewise, the practice range at Byrnes has a great deal of significance to me since I at one time in my life was obsessed with golf and being the best golfer I could be, practicing till my hands started to bleed, stressing out about my swing plane, practicing my natural draw, trying to hone mindfulness (because once you get a decent swing, most of the important work in golf is done inside one's head). And the park on the outskirts of town with the concrete dinosaur my friends named "Fugly" is a place that rings of sweetness. I'll admit to a picnic there with one of my girlfriends once that led to spontaneous nookification.

And then the house at 1051 Wisconsin St. I grew up in, of course, a home my parents lived in since the early 50s. They sold it a couple of years ago and now live in an assisted living facility.

In Kirksville where I got my B.A. and M.A., the core places for me were Pickler Library and my fraternity house at 207 E. Normal, a place that was nothing close to normal. We eventually got a new house at 815 S. Davis, but for those of us who went through the chapter during a certain era, the 207 house was our house. It wasn't a pretty place. It got the job done. It worked. From people turning up the volume on our shitty living room TV with a pen because we didn't have a remote and the volume button was broken to our brilliant idea of having a band, aptly named Shaft, play on the front porch mid-afternoon on Friday right in front of Baldwin Hall when classes were in session, it was a good place to be. Now that area is plot of grass next to a parking lot for the university.

Likewise, the place where Mrs. Nasty and I first lived together as a married couple has either been wiped off the face of the Tuscaloosa landscape, or it possibly just was severely damaged. The tornado of April 27 did its diabolical work. Then there's Bryant-Denny, Morgan Hall, and our crappy GA office in Rowand Johnson.

With St. Louis, I'd have to go with my office at Meramec with my good friend. Not an aesthetically pleasing place, but I got a lot of work done there, and we laughed a lot--even wrote parts of my first major published article in that office. I still miss my neighborhood in St. Louis--Lindenwood Park and Francis Park. My daughter doesn't remember St. Louis much at all, but most summers, unless it was raining, we went for a stroller ride to either Lindenwood or Francis Park every day. Our two-bedroom home was/is tiny, but I still really like that house. We were only the third owner of that house that was built in 1939.

As for our current patch of land on Cedar Drive, I'd have to go with the Nasty backyard.  

Candidates' Wives

Since the nitwits at FoxNews love bringing up Michelle Obama in downright strange and rude ways (one moronic commentator calling their fist pound a "terrorist fist jab," another calling Mrs. Obama a "baby mamma"), I thought I'd pass along this article about McCain's wife.

And it's not about Cindy McCain. 

It's about his first wife.

Click HERE for the link.

Same Old Politics

The linked article channels part of my perspective on the race, gender, Clinton, and Obama thingy. Nothing like paying African-American "leaders" to be your surrogates, Hillary. Classy. As Porch is known to say, "Take it sleazy."

"Will They Play the Race Card?" link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011103281.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

On Meet the Press on Sunday, Clinton spent most of her time poor-mouthing Obama's record and murmuring about how her unfair treatment by the media, the same folks who for many months have deemed her a shoo-in for the nomination and who have consistently under-reported or ignored Edwards, a fellow who has say about who wins the nomination either indirectly by sticking in the race or directly through his delegates.

There's been a turn. Obama/Edwards represent/ed the anti-Clinton vote in many ways, but now Hillary (and Bill--don't forget him) are portraying themselves as the anti-Obama vote, with racial tinges.

They're not as bad as Rove's op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal where he talked about how Obama is "lazy" and played too much basketball at Harvard, but Hillary is getting sketchy.