Dueling Wise Men

(Harley Davidson Heritage Softail Classic 2016 Blue @seekpng.com)

Overheard in the parking lot of that biker bar and grill I’m obviously spending too much time around:

Biker #1: “I know why I’m here, but I don’t know why you are.”

Biker #2: “I know why you’re here, but I don’t know why I am.”

Biker #3: “I don’t give a fuck about what either of you knows. I’m going home.”

The three of them pulled out their key fobs and growled away on their Harleys. A waitress taking a smoking break looked over her shoulder at me.

Waitress: “Soft tails that don’t need kick starting, with orthodontists riding ’em. Of course this country’s gone to hell!”

I nodded like I knew what she was talking about. I was glad the bikers hadn’t seen me smiling, because only God knows what could’ve happened if they’d gotten a look at my teeth.

(Harley Key Fob – Harley Key Fob Holder @seekpng.com)

A couple of Daily Cartoons that seem to capture me all too well.

What?!

Again?!

How can this be?

Some (many?) of those who come to this blog may not believe me, but I don’t really think everything in the world is about me.

I do, however, keep finding bits of evidence that at least some fairly common things on this planet – like newspaper cartoons – continue to invade my awareness and sum me up better than I ever will be able to.

It happens more and more as I get older. Maybe because the demographic for newspaper readers is becoming not larger – oh no, the stats assure us that’s out of the question – but smaller and older because why would anyone young ever allow themselves to be caught paying attention to anything but the latest media?

Anyway, for better and worse, here I sort of am:

Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson

And here as well, although this at least is a situation affecting (as the host of one of my childhood favorite TV shows, Super Circus, was wont to say), “boys and girls of all ages:”

Reality Check by by Dave Whamond

Oh dear, sorry. I forgot to tell you not to look at the one immediately above. If the world really is all about me, we’ll soon be reading about the alarming drop in sales of everything bagels, don’t you suppose?

LYMI,

LB

LB: Live! From Paradise #220 – “Welcome Twitters”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

The Twitter revolution is here. A tidal wave of short, stark messages is cascading over the Internet, and for many web surfers it’s become a matter of shooting the curl or drowning.

For those who have been doing silly things like reading books or going to concerts and movies or even watching TV and listening to the radio instead of getting their heads irradiated by sitting 18 inches from their computer monitors day in and day out, Twitter is a website where folks can join up and both send and receive short messages to and from their friends…and about a bazillion other people as well.

And when I say short, I mean it. The longest any message can be is 140 characters. That means 140 letters, spaces, and punctuation marks. AKA one or two very short sentences. (And I thought Sesame Street was destroying our attention spans!)

Twitter messages (which for some metaphorical purpose far beyond my ability to understand are called “tweets”) fall into two main categories.

The first category is what can best be described as “The Personal Report.” As in:

“(yawn) Long day of work draws to a close. Happy half hour spent watching Powerpuff Girls before collapsing. 🙂 Night, all!” by a Twitterer called dduane.

The second category is anything but personal. It’s “Salesmanship 101.” As in:

“Webcast your brain surgery? Hospitals see marketing tool…” by well-known Twitterer GuyKawasaki.

I admit to having a Twitter account of my own, and to being fascinated by the haiku-like possibilities of the Tweet. How else can I explain this message I sent a while ago?

“People keep telling us we’re not here. But we know we are. Existential crisis imminent?”

All in all, this short form is fun. It enables me to communicate with people quickly, without having to agonize over every noun, verb, and, especially, adjective. And it enables others to communicate with me in the same easy cavalier way.

But no matter how hard I try to be cutting edge, I’m still hardly the King of Tomorrow. Because what I enjoy receiving most are messages that are about something. And because they’re about something they bring me into the writers’ lives in a way no usual Tweet can.

Messages like this one, from reader Rob O’Hannon:

“My wife and I have a 1995 Saturn…that we both love…230,000 miles, and still a good kick to it…

“Today my mechanic gave me the bad news. The front supports are…rotted out… To repair the damage would probably cost more than the car’s worth. And so, by the end of the month, we need to say goodbye…

“I remember blizzard days when I took the long way home instead of facing the insanity storms bring to highway drivers. Riding down back roads, up and over ice-covered hills, bopping along to the tape deck, she never let me down. We were road warriors together; I could feel through her, and she responded to my needs.

“…She was never the prettiest car in the world. She’s needed some minor, and not so minor, repairs here and there. But I always felt safe in her. And I always knew that when the chips were down, we’d both make it home.

“I’m going to miss that come next winter.”

And this, from fellow Arkansan D.C. Rowlett:

“Out at Possum Trot when I was a boy it was a sure sign of rain when the road grader ran. No matter if there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, if that road grader ran it would rain within a few hours.

“During cotton…picking season I almost worshiped that road grader. When I saw the black diesel smoke and heard the roar of the engine I knew without a doubt I was gonna get a day or so off from the back breaking labor…

“Here on the Ponderosa that magic is still alive, only these days it is not the road grader, nosirree. It is the garden tiller that has the power to summon the rain.

“…Each time I fire up the…tiller we get a gully washer and a toad strangler. Yesterday I fired up the big tiller—oh why didn’t I just use the hoe and little garden weasel thingy?

“Sorry, folks, but I used the…tiller and it is gonna be raining awhile!”

Okay, so neither of these two messages is in the same class as Oprah Winfrey’s first Tweet:

“HI TWITTERS. THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY.”

But, just between us, man, am I glad.

RIP Lisa Marie

In the mid 1980’s I wrote and produced the pilot for a spinoff episode of The Fall Guy called Manhunter that starred Priscilla Presley and Stewart Granger. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was Priscilla’s first TV acting gig.

We got to know each other a bit, and I remember the night I met her daughter, Lisa Marie, at a party in The Valley. She was a shy, quiet, young lady who didn’t speak a word, but the evening was memorable to me for two reasons.

  1. She never smiled.
  2. She gave birth to her first child the next day.

I wish Lisa Marie Presley had had a much longer and happier life.

RIP

LB