Category: Short Subjects

The SUV is taking a lot of negative press these days, thanks to a new book out called High and Mighty: SUVs — The World’s Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way. The New Repubic’s January 20th issue has a great critique/companion article on the book, and I just finished reading a humorous online article from SFGate.com. I can only hope this is the peak of the SUV craze, and it is all downhill for them from here on in.

Just as a matter of making things clear, as High and Mighty points out, SUV are more dangerous for their owners than all other cars except sub-compacts and pickups. Traffic death rates were falling until they flatlined due to the popularity of SUVs, despite the fact that safety features were added to all vehicles in that time. The cargo and passenger room in SUVs tends to be smaller than regular automobiles. And car manufactures spend little on designing improved versions of SUVs (except Ford after going through the nightmare of product recalls for poorly designed Explorers), making SUVs one of the cheapest vehicles to manufacture, but then they are sold for a premium and reap huge profits for auto makers. Guess that’s why they don’t bother to improve anything about them.

I just saw Signs on DVD. Part of the reason I didn’t like it, admittedly, was that I had larger expectations for it. Not too large, mind you, just larger than the movie turned out to have. I expected a twist at the end. There was no twist, just the playing out of what the movie called coincidence, but in reality was a set up by M. Night Shyamalan. But the problem with the set up was that there was no reason to care. The causes and events that play a vitally important role in the climax of the film were picked because they played a vitally important role in the climax of the film. The audience is just strung along.

This was only part of the problem, though. What really bothered me about the movie was the total break down of believability. The film held my interest long enough to make me question whether or not the aliens had a terrestrial explanation. We were supposed to feel ambiguity, because fantastic events kept intruding on the main characters’ normal world. But as the film progressed, we were asked to accept that these events were unfolding because of an alien invasion. So the crop circles were a method of navigation used by an interstellar attack fleet? Sure, they can find our needle in a haystack of a planet, no problem, but they can’t coordinate landing over major cities without giving us weeks of advanced warning, and luckily every city is within miles of the cornfields that they used to plot their courses. And is there no better planet to harvest for food? For a hydrophobic creature, they sure picked the wrong big, blue ball of water to land on. And were they not aware of mighty axes that we Earthlings wield? Because that probably would have helped them get through the doors that they were so confounded by.

But there is an explanation for the stupidity of the alien race that crossed thousands of light years just to be beaten back by baseball bats and glasses of water. See, M. Night Shyamalan is a great director (not writer, just director), and like all great directors, he loves movies. So this movie is just a collage of movies that he always wanted to make. So we have the paranoia of War of the Worlds, the creatures from The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the weakness of the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz. What we don’t have with Signs is a good movie.

*cough, cough* Excuse me. Just clearing a small amount of doubt from my throat.

A lesson learned today: My father and I are on a repair job at an Italian-themed chain restaurant. They have a steam table, which isn’t draining. For the reader who hasn’t worked in a commercial kitchen, a steam table is something that keeps sauces and soups warm for quick serving, and works by filling water in a basin and keeping it hot with burners underneath. At the end of the night, the steam table is emptied of its water to prevent corrosion, bacteria buildup, etc. It turns out a penny somehow got stuck in the drain.

Since a penny is not, at last check, food, one has to assume that hijinks somehow played a part in the penny getting sucked into the steam table’s drain.

One penny of mischief: $100 service call.

Lesson learned? The small things can be important, too.

Another small thing: I love the translucent, colorful plastic that coats certain objects, like keys. I just got a spare set of keys with the most candy-like blue plastic coating the tops. I look at it and feel like a five-year old. My brain hums with oooh and aaahs as I touch the smooth plastic and see how the light plays with the color. Shiny. Smooth. Yum!

The first iMacs were these colors, too, no doubt lending to their immidate acceptance. I don’t think I am alone in my love for shiny plastic gumdrops.

And, incedently, colored flood lights are coated with the same material. Another tidbit picked up on the job, today.

Two thing have been on my mind, lately. Allow me to share them with you.

The first is wondering why a lot of folks in my age group get apoplectic when a twenty-year old cashier refers to them as “sir” or “ma’am.” I was waiting all my life for a bit of respect from any commercial establishment, so it doesn’t bother me at all. And when I think of it, I was referring to everyone as “sir” or “ma’am,” constantly in my retail/service-industry days. What exactly is wrong with honorifics? Getting to be thirty or forty is not that big of a deal these days. I don’t know why many of my peers think that they are suddenly so old that kids think of them as elders.

One interesting thing about time is that you’ll always be older than those younger than you. This sounds trite, I know, but it’s deeper than that. No matter what age you live to, you’ll always have a frame of reference that is different from those that may eventually get to the same age. As soon as you are born, you are a relic of your time. I guess this may not be soothing to those who wish to believe that they are young-at-heart, and “with it,” but it should lead to a different point of view. Your experiences are enriched with time, and you will always have a larger world view than those that are younger.

And what’s more, everyone should be using honorifics, anyway. A clerk who is 10 years older than me should still ask, “Can I help you, sir,” just as much as a clerk 10 years younger. Chief, boss, and dude just don’t convey the respect that we should all be giving each other. I was going to write a whole essay about this, but then I said, why bother?

The second thing on my mind is depression. It’s insidious. It used to disable me completely, but, with little stress and decent circumstances in my daily life, depression is just kind of nipping at the back of my head. It covers me like a warm, wet blanket — weighing me down just enough that I feel the burden, but not enough that I can’t go on. I’ve noticed it creep up on me for all of October. Although October is a favorite month of mine, what with all the fall colors and Halloween, it has never been good for my mental state.

Lately, I’ve been feeling weary and fatigued for no apparent reason. I stop working on things, because I believe it to be futile to continue just to disappointment. I fail to start on projects for much the same reason.

But, after all, I do these things all the time. It is possible that this month I’ve just noticed it more.

And this non sequitur is sponsored by Lingua Shapta. We performed for the very first time on stage at the Munchaba Lounge in Levittown, Long Island, New York, USA, Earth. In my unbiased opinion, we did pretty good. In my rockstar persona, we kicked major ass, dudes!!!

We’ll eventually do it again, to be sure, but look for a QuickTime movie to be uploaded in a week or so. That’ll be in Creative, in the special Lingua Shapta section, which doesn’t exist yet.

And being that I only write one blog entry per day, at best, I shall completely change subjects again to point out that I’m linking to a couple of other blogs, Breakfast of Champions and Evilninja, because they’re just fine fine blogs that are updated a helluva lot more often than this one and are funny and interesting and thought provoking and all the good stuff that blogs should be. Breakfast of Champions is run by Erynn, who lives in a mystical land to the north that she calls “Canada.” Evilninja is an American, but secretly so. Share and enjoy.

Chick pea salad is what I’m eating right now. Ah! Bet you thought there was no reason for that. Right? Right?

My back is killing me. Ouch.

So I’ve been fortunate enough to have been a part of “The Carnival of Arts” festivities every Thursday at the Munchaba Lounge in Levittown for the past month. It is an open-mike poetry night, along with a couple of other artistic endeavors. I’ve read “Raw,” “Spring Cleaning,” “Counting Backwards,” and several other of my poems in front of a very generous and responsive audience. It is much fun. Consider this an open invite for any Thursday, around 11 p.m., to come on down and see me, and quite a few other more-talented performers, grace the stage at Munchaba. Need directions? E-mail me.

But wait! Lingua Shapta, the fusion of my poetry with the musical genius of rich(e)rich, will be making it’s first live appearance at Munchaba’s “Carnival of the Arts” in two weeks. That’s Thursday, September 19th. We’ll perform “Raw” and “Song XVI.” Wow!

Last year, my 30th birthday fell on a Saturday. This was great planning on my parents’ part. My mom threw a party for me on a boat that slowly circled a bit of water around Long Beach. I was deliriously ecstatic, because fifty of my family and friends came aboard, many of whom I hadn’t seen in some time, and such occasions, with everyone together, are far and few between. It was exhausting, but I had a wonderful time, and I believe so did everyone else. My thanks to them for attending, be it a year later. I love you all.
This year, in contrast, I had a wonderfully relaxed birthday. Sunday was spent with a small group of friends, and was made particularly special by the efforts of Katherine and her folks. They have been very, very kind to me, in so many ways, and my birthday was no exception. Katherine, you are warm and generous, and your family is constantly surprising me by their own warmth and generosity. So here is a note of my gratitude. Thank you for making me feel so welcome. Thank you for being so kind.

Thirteen years ago this month, I graduated from high school. It should have been June, but I made a couple of mistakes and had to take two courses over in summer school. This seemed like a huge problem at the time, but it really didn’t affect my life negatively in anyway. And, since the classes were a lot simpler and shorter during summer school, my grade point average improved. The four weeks of summer school were actually a pleasure compared to the nightmare of high school, but then I guess everything was a pleasure when compared to nightmare of high school.
Still and all, my English teacher for that short time, Mr. Watson, truly was an inspiration to me. The class consisted of reading four books, one per week, with discussions, watching the film adaptations, and finally a short test. This was a breeze to me, and I got to read, and see, Equus, Butterflies Are Free, Deliverance, and Being There. The latter two remain favorite books of mine, and, since I was kind of stuck in a sci-fi rut back then, nothing like I ever read before, especially in class.
I didn’t really belong in summer school. Mr. Watson knew this, and even told me as much. Most kids there were struggling through his program. The lack of education that they were given has continued to bother me and my bleeding-heart to no end. They weren’t necessarily slow, but they sure were ignored. I, on the other hand, was just a slacking, intelligent, middle-class white kid who had too many absences to pass two classes. The shock of possibly not graduating had forced me to pay attention to my future for a bit, and I seized the opportunity to get something out of my punishment.
So I talked to Mr. Watson. We discussed the books while others were reading silently. I would finish each book before Tuesday just so I could chat with Mr. Watson. He was funny, an iconoclast, startlingly bright, and, dare I believe, aching for someone else to talk to during the three-hour classes.
I swore to visit Mr. Watson again the next year to thank him. But life passes, and, thirteen years later, I don’t think I could even recognize the man if he were next to me. I’ve yet to seize any other opportunity that life throws my way, and I’m still a slacking, intelligent, middle-class white kid. At the least, however, I want to thank the man and let the world know that I still remember him fondly, for just the few weeks that we got to know each other.