Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Aunt "Cookie"
She always had that nickname, long before whatever it was that happened to her happened to her. She was....normal, as it were. She had a job; she drove; she was healthy; she was as groovy as anybody could expect anyone to be.
I'm not sure how many years ago now the youngest of my paternal grandmother's three children began her descent into what I can only call mental oblivion. I only saw her two or three times a year to begin with. I'm sure there was plenty of discussion of her as my made my way through school and adolescence. I tend to live in my own little world anyway, so, add those two things, and see you in a decade, more or less. But I did notice when she consistently failed to get Dinah the dog's name right after a number of visits. ("Diane"...."Dayna"....) I had heard about her (Cookie) being in the hospital for a little while, but only sort of in passing. A short time later, we met again, and it was obvious — she was grooming herself very poorly, if at all, and my mother was miffed at being identified by her as "Jim's sister." (As far as I know, Jim was an only child and only ever married to, and divorced from, my other aunt. It's all my father's family in Chicago; all my mother's family is in Israel, England, or Florida, except Mom.)
All this time, Cookie is very much being looked after by her husband. Jack is rather different from most of the family, with motorcycles and guns among his favorite topics, but he loves Cookie. Always has.....still does. He's been by her side all the way.
It went on. A Thanksgiving or two later, after Jim had died, she was a very nervous wreck. She moaned the phrase "Oh no!" at regular intervals when there was nothing apparent happening. At the dinner table, she would ask "Where's [insert family member here]?" of everyone. I don't remember how we responded when she asked about Jim, but I do remember my other aunt saying "I was waiting for her to ask." I was still kind of semi-oblivious, I guess; when she asked about me, I gave a friendly wave, grinned, and went back to eating my drumstick. (We take food seriously in our family.) After the meal, she and Jack found it necessary to have her collapse in my bed for a while. I kept an eye on her as I sat at the computer, which happens to be in that room.
From this point until Christmas of last year, my memory is dim. I don't know when it was that she started falling and badly bruising herself. There are photographs of her in the hospital with nasty bruises and, I think, a number of teeth missing. Not pretty. I believe she's been in "the hospital" ever since. She's changed places a few times. I've only seen her twice since then myself, but I think she was in a place or two that I never saw. Christmas of last year, we went to see her in a place in Glen Ellyn. Or Glendale Heights. Whichever it was, it's three expressways and then some from West Rogers Park. In Chicago snow and ice. But that's beside the point.
When they eventually let us in to see her, the person they presented to us seemed incapable of speech. Of whether or not she recognized everyone we couldn't be certain. Occasionally she would emit a sort of moaning sound, and she often pulled the covers of the kind of mobile easy chair she was in over her face. At the time, the surest sign of the aunt I knew was at the very end of our visit, when I went alone to bid her farewell and she waved.
That was in December of 2009. Fast-forward to May or June, I don't quite remember which, of 2010.
The location now was, and from all reports is, a nursing home in Des Plaines. In the corner of a dimly lit room that smelled unnaturally like a high school chemistry lab lay a figure. She was essentially a skeleton without teeth. She could not make any vocal sounds at all, and she seemed oblivious to our being there. In fact, we stood outside the room for a little while as someone, um, changed her. During that time in the hall, another patient approached us and asked where she was. I told her, "You are wherever you wish to be."
I'm not so sure I believe that, mind you. It sounds nice, spiritual, optimistic, and all that stuff. But I sure didn't want to be seeing my 57 or 58-year-old aunt reduced to what many people cheerfully call a "vegetable."
And, apparently, nobody knows why she's become a vegetable. There is no explanation for her descent from a full-fledged, vibrant adult into mental oblivion. All I hear from my family is that she's "the same," and that "the sooner she goes, the better."
Lest you wonder, Jack still goes to see her about three times a week, or so I'm told. I'm not sure when I last saw Jack, although he does keep in touch over the telephone with my other aunt, who happens to be an award-winning palliative care nurse.
I don't remember much about Cookie's personality as a mentally healthy individual. But the prompt for my posting all this is a dream I had last night, in which a young, healthy Cookie was alive. There were some distant relatives that I'm not sure who they were, but Cookie was alive, and she was pleasant. She smiled, she spoke with just a hint of Chicago accent, and, oddly enough, she was cooking something.
Also starring in my dream was a sweetly curled Lucy. Lucy seemed to be in fine mental shape, if slightly bent and frail physical shape, when she made her midnight exit documented here a few posts down.
After lying in my bed for a while, feeling like I'd been in a matter transference beam that messed up, my head was quite filled with thoughts of life, death, spirits and the threads that make up the fabric of the universe. And so I hope you've been able to dig the expression of my thoughts here in cyberspace; after all, that's what I believe this blog is for.
Peace and love.
I'm not sure how many years ago now the youngest of my paternal grandmother's three children began her descent into what I can only call mental oblivion. I only saw her two or three times a year to begin with. I'm sure there was plenty of discussion of her as my made my way through school and adolescence. I tend to live in my own little world anyway, so, add those two things, and see you in a decade, more or less. But I did notice when she consistently failed to get Dinah the dog's name right after a number of visits. ("Diane"...."Dayna"....) I had heard about her (Cookie) being in the hospital for a little while, but only sort of in passing. A short time later, we met again, and it was obvious — she was grooming herself very poorly, if at all, and my mother was miffed at being identified by her as "Jim's sister." (As far as I know, Jim was an only child and only ever married to, and divorced from, my other aunt. It's all my father's family in Chicago; all my mother's family is in Israel, England, or Florida, except Mom.)
All this time, Cookie is very much being looked after by her husband. Jack is rather different from most of the family, with motorcycles and guns among his favorite topics, but he loves Cookie. Always has.....still does. He's been by her side all the way.
It went on. A Thanksgiving or two later, after Jim had died, she was a very nervous wreck. She moaned the phrase "Oh no!" at regular intervals when there was nothing apparent happening. At the dinner table, she would ask "Where's [insert family member here]?" of everyone. I don't remember how we responded when she asked about Jim, but I do remember my other aunt saying "I was waiting for her to ask." I was still kind of semi-oblivious, I guess; when she asked about me, I gave a friendly wave, grinned, and went back to eating my drumstick. (We take food seriously in our family.) After the meal, she and Jack found it necessary to have her collapse in my bed for a while. I kept an eye on her as I sat at the computer, which happens to be in that room.
From this point until Christmas of last year, my memory is dim. I don't know when it was that she started falling and badly bruising herself. There are photographs of her in the hospital with nasty bruises and, I think, a number of teeth missing. Not pretty. I believe she's been in "the hospital" ever since. She's changed places a few times. I've only seen her twice since then myself, but I think she was in a place or two that I never saw. Christmas of last year, we went to see her in a place in Glen Ellyn. Or Glendale Heights. Whichever it was, it's three expressways and then some from West Rogers Park. In Chicago snow and ice. But that's beside the point.
When they eventually let us in to see her, the person they presented to us seemed incapable of speech. Of whether or not she recognized everyone we couldn't be certain. Occasionally she would emit a sort of moaning sound, and she often pulled the covers of the kind of mobile easy chair she was in over her face. At the time, the surest sign of the aunt I knew was at the very end of our visit, when I went alone to bid her farewell and she waved.
That was in December of 2009. Fast-forward to May or June, I don't quite remember which, of 2010.
The location now was, and from all reports is, a nursing home in Des Plaines. In the corner of a dimly lit room that smelled unnaturally like a high school chemistry lab lay a figure. She was essentially a skeleton without teeth. She could not make any vocal sounds at all, and she seemed oblivious to our being there. In fact, we stood outside the room for a little while as someone, um, changed her. During that time in the hall, another patient approached us and asked where she was. I told her, "You are wherever you wish to be."
I'm not so sure I believe that, mind you. It sounds nice, spiritual, optimistic, and all that stuff. But I sure didn't want to be seeing my 57 or 58-year-old aunt reduced to what many people cheerfully call a "vegetable."
And, apparently, nobody knows why she's become a vegetable. There is no explanation for her descent from a full-fledged, vibrant adult into mental oblivion. All I hear from my family is that she's "the same," and that "the sooner she goes, the better."
Lest you wonder, Jack still goes to see her about three times a week, or so I'm told. I'm not sure when I last saw Jack, although he does keep in touch over the telephone with my other aunt, who happens to be an award-winning palliative care nurse.
I don't remember much about Cookie's personality as a mentally healthy individual. But the prompt for my posting all this is a dream I had last night, in which a young, healthy Cookie was alive. There were some distant relatives that I'm not sure who they were, but Cookie was alive, and she was pleasant. She smiled, she spoke with just a hint of Chicago accent, and, oddly enough, she was cooking something.
Also starring in my dream was a sweetly curled Lucy. Lucy seemed to be in fine mental shape, if slightly bent and frail physical shape, when she made her midnight exit documented here a few posts down.
After lying in my bed for a while, feeling like I'd been in a matter transference beam that messed up, my head was quite filled with thoughts of life, death, spirits and the threads that make up the fabric of the universe. And so I hope you've been able to dig the expression of my thoughts here in cyberspace; after all, that's what I believe this blog is for.
Peace and love.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Who's the more out-of-time....
....the child who sings a song from Frank Zappa's debut in the year 2010, or the child's mother who asks him/her, "Why can't you sing any normal songs?"
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Lucy — 1993 - 2010
“Laughing and crying ... it’s the same release.”
—Joni Mitchell, “People’s Parties” (from Court & Spark)
“Even when you look for [weirdness], you’re never prepared for it.”
—Hobbes the tiger
What a long, strange trip it’s been.
I had been remarking of late that I hardly saw family anymore. It seemed like everyone was either sick, hundreds of miles away, or flown from this mortal plane. I needed to see people. I needed to feel love and life. And what better time to see people than the weekend of my twenty-fourth birthday. My cousin was in town, and we would get to see a couple of lesser-known-to-me relatives in Arlington Heights, as well as a couple of long-time-unseen family friends. And that’s not to leave out some family quadrupeds — Dinah and Stella from downstate, Tazzy and K.C. in the suburbs.........and Lucy.
We talked; we laughed; we smiled; we ate; we caught the end of a rare Cubs victory; all was good.
It’s always abrupt.
I neither heard the cry nor saw the break. For a little while, we all thought everything was fine and all was clear for the consumption of Princess Torte. Then we decided we should check on her.
A forearm should not bend like that when she walks.
The emergency vet’s diagnosis and our resulting decision thwacked me like a one-two punch. How the heck could she get stuck in a chair she should know so well? Had she really been that sick this last week?
It was a bizarre and surreal moment when she came in for the last time, wrapped in a towel with an IV through a bandage on her other leg. She clearly wanted to drift to sleep as we snuggled and admired her one last time. Curiously, she had not shown signs of being in pain since the original cry. I remained fixed on her.
This was more than a house pet; this was the lone representative of my whole conscious life to this moment.
Lucy was adopted as a kitten by my grandmother Lila in 1993, as was her twin brother, Linus. I was in second grade at the time. When Lila died the following year, my uncle Jim took up the young felines. For a few years in the middle, Jim had his own place in the suburbs, and so that’s where Linus and Lucy went. The rest of the time, everyone stayed with Lori......and Loki and Abby.
Lucy tended to take a back seat to the other cats. Loki was the alpha, and he and Abby ruled the upstairs. Of the two “Van Pelts,” Linus, being bigger and more sociable, got the lion’s share of, well, most things. This may explain the distaste that Lucy expressed toward the other cats. But I gave Lucy as much attention as I gave anyone. She was primarily Jim’s cat; anyone else had to specifically look for her if they wanted to see her.
I couldn’t resist that eternally youthful kitten face. She didn’t seem to think me too shabby myself. She was the most enthusiastic of the four about claiming me as hers. The more enthusiastic the rubs and snuggles, the better, I say.
I kind of figured she would outlast all the others — the others being two diabetic big boys and a lady some three-and-a-half years her elder. By the time Jim died, Loki and Abby, the kittens of 89, had also gone, granting the “Van Pelts” the whole house. Lucy’s behavior changed from that point: she became more social, stopped hissing at her brother, and, for some reason, stopped grooming herself. I didn’t think to call her a “Rastafurrian” at the time; I just thought of it now. Anyway, I spent a few hours over time attempting to comb some of the mats out of her fur. She was quite resistant to that the first few times, but I believe she came to realize that it was a “necessary evil,” and so I could get away with it while she napped.
Lucy changed her behavior still when Linus departed. The spotlight was all hers now, and she claimed it calmly, quietly, and gracefully, although one person whose bedroom she now shared would beg to differ about the “quietly” part. She’d get a bit bossy after a while, and, out of the blue, she’d pick up some of Linus’s old tricks. Also, for no apparent reason, she would soak the underside of her face in her water (a long time habit of Dinah the dog, from whose schnauzer beard water drips all over the floor).
That cat had brains. She and I could communicate, and I swear she figured out how to open the basement door.
For about seventeen years out of my twenty-four, Lucy remained, a consistent sweetheart and an anchor to the best of my days.
As we drove back home, just after midnight, I could momentarily see, between the tears, a full (?) moon masked by lightly hazy clouds. I think there was one small lightning fork beneath it as we came down McCormick. I don’t know if it means anything, but it seems somehow poetic.
Lucy changed her behavior with each close death. Now, with Lucy’s passing, perhaps it’s my turn to change behavior just a bit.
Lucy, exact date unknown, 1993 – June 28, 2010.
Rest in peace, my Angel.
(This is my final photograph of Lucy, taken on May 31, 2010.)
—Joni Mitchell, “People’s Parties” (from Court & Spark)
“Even when you look for [weirdness], you’re never prepared for it.”
—Hobbes the tiger
What a long, strange trip it’s been.
I had been remarking of late that I hardly saw family anymore. It seemed like everyone was either sick, hundreds of miles away, or flown from this mortal plane. I needed to see people. I needed to feel love and life. And what better time to see people than the weekend of my twenty-fourth birthday. My cousin was in town, and we would get to see a couple of lesser-known-to-me relatives in Arlington Heights, as well as a couple of long-time-unseen family friends. And that’s not to leave out some family quadrupeds — Dinah and Stella from downstate, Tazzy and K.C. in the suburbs.........and Lucy.
We talked; we laughed; we smiled; we ate; we caught the end of a rare Cubs victory; all was good.
It’s always abrupt.
I neither heard the cry nor saw the break. For a little while, we all thought everything was fine and all was clear for the consumption of Princess Torte. Then we decided we should check on her.
A forearm should not bend like that when she walks.
The emergency vet’s diagnosis and our resulting decision thwacked me like a one-two punch. How the heck could she get stuck in a chair she should know so well? Had she really been that sick this last week?
It was a bizarre and surreal moment when she came in for the last time, wrapped in a towel with an IV through a bandage on her other leg. She clearly wanted to drift to sleep as we snuggled and admired her one last time. Curiously, she had not shown signs of being in pain since the original cry. I remained fixed on her.
This was more than a house pet; this was the lone representative of my whole conscious life to this moment.
Lucy was adopted as a kitten by my grandmother Lila in 1993, as was her twin brother, Linus. I was in second grade at the time. When Lila died the following year, my uncle Jim took up the young felines. For a few years in the middle, Jim had his own place in the suburbs, and so that’s where Linus and Lucy went. The rest of the time, everyone stayed with Lori......and Loki and Abby.
Lucy tended to take a back seat to the other cats. Loki was the alpha, and he and Abby ruled the upstairs. Of the two “Van Pelts,” Linus, being bigger and more sociable, got the lion’s share of, well, most things. This may explain the distaste that Lucy expressed toward the other cats. But I gave Lucy as much attention as I gave anyone. She was primarily Jim’s cat; anyone else had to specifically look for her if they wanted to see her.
I couldn’t resist that eternally youthful kitten face. She didn’t seem to think me too shabby myself. She was the most enthusiastic of the four about claiming me as hers. The more enthusiastic the rubs and snuggles, the better, I say.
I kind of figured she would outlast all the others — the others being two diabetic big boys and a lady some three-and-a-half years her elder. By the time Jim died, Loki and Abby, the kittens of 89, had also gone, granting the “Van Pelts” the whole house. Lucy’s behavior changed from that point: she became more social, stopped hissing at her brother, and, for some reason, stopped grooming herself. I didn’t think to call her a “Rastafurrian” at the time; I just thought of it now. Anyway, I spent a few hours over time attempting to comb some of the mats out of her fur. She was quite resistant to that the first few times, but I believe she came to realize that it was a “necessary evil,” and so I could get away with it while she napped.
Lucy changed her behavior still when Linus departed. The spotlight was all hers now, and she claimed it calmly, quietly, and gracefully, although one person whose bedroom she now shared would beg to differ about the “quietly” part. She’d get a bit bossy after a while, and, out of the blue, she’d pick up some of Linus’s old tricks. Also, for no apparent reason, she would soak the underside of her face in her water (a long time habit of Dinah the dog, from whose schnauzer beard water drips all over the floor).
That cat had brains. She and I could communicate, and I swear she figured out how to open the basement door.
For about seventeen years out of my twenty-four, Lucy remained, a consistent sweetheart and an anchor to the best of my days.
As we drove back home, just after midnight, I could momentarily see, between the tears, a full (?) moon masked by lightly hazy clouds. I think there was one small lightning fork beneath it as we came down McCormick. I don’t know if it means anything, but it seems somehow poetic.
Lucy changed her behavior with each close death. Now, with Lucy’s passing, perhaps it’s my turn to change behavior just a bit.
Lucy, exact date unknown, 1993 – June 28, 2010.
Rest in peace, my Angel.
(This is my final photograph of Lucy, taken on May 31, 2010.)
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Idea For a Corona Ad
For those who haven't seen the Twilight Zone episode "Eye of the Beholder": SPOILER ALERT! (You can look it up on YouTube and watch it before you read on.)
And for those who haven't seen the Corona beer ads on TV here in the States, they tend to base themselves on dialogue-less perspective tricks using the Corona bottles at a relaxed scene on a beach. And the more recent ones involve a couple on the beach (shot from behind) silently going at each other for ogling passing members of the other sex.
Anyway, my idea: Start with that same scene of the couple in their chairs. The camera zooms in kind of semi-slowly on one of the Corona bottles. Eventually, it gets too close and knocks it over. A voice says "Oops!" The camera zooms back out. The couple simultaneously turn their heads to glare at the camera, and it is here that they turn out to have the sort of faces that the majority of the people in the "Eye of the Beholder" world have.
And for those who haven't seen the Corona beer ads on TV here in the States, they tend to base themselves on dialogue-less perspective tricks using the Corona bottles at a relaxed scene on a beach. And the more recent ones involve a couple on the beach (shot from behind) silently going at each other for ogling passing members of the other sex.
Anyway, my idea: Start with that same scene of the couple in their chairs. The camera zooms in kind of semi-slowly on one of the Corona bottles. Eventually, it gets too close and knocks it over. A voice says "Oops!" The camera zooms back out. The couple simultaneously turn their heads to glare at the camera, and it is here that they turn out to have the sort of faces that the majority of the people in the "Eye of the Beholder" world have.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Advertising Round-up (Cinco de Mayo 2010 installment)
I love poking fingers at advertising. It's a nice, reliable target, and I figure any debate that may emerge will be nicely light-hearted and not blow up in a hideous ball of flame. So here I go.......
.....Starting with the Progressive Insurance saleslady. She's annoying. Please, someone make her go away. Fakely (is that a word?) perky salespeople are annoying and, as far as I know, virtually nonexistent in real life. Why would anybody who sells insurance (the very idea of which makes at least one portion of my brain blow up in a hideous ball of flame, but that's my problem) be that perky?
Another highly annoying trend in ads is that of things seeming as though they really ought to be funny.......you guessed it.....but aren't. That brings me to the Dairy Queen "lips" icon. I think I've mentioned that character on here before, but I never really explained why. Lips, if you're out there......you're not funny. Either stop trying or go away. Arby's Oven Mitt and the lady from T-Mobile both seem to have disappeared from our televisions, and I haven't missed either of them. They had the same problem.
One more major irritant to me is any use of the phrase "ooh-la-la" in an advertisement. As soon as I hear that, I make it a point to not buy that product.
And the big one that really seems to be in full swing these days: using words naturally exclusive to one part of speech (noun, verb, etc.) as a different one. I don't know if I ever actually noticed it that much before recently, when I first saw billboards for Droid (whatever exactly Droid is) over Chicago that read "A bare-knuckled bucket of does." When I first saw that, I was confused. I interpreted it for a moment as pronounced "a bare-knuckled bucket of d'ohs." I thought "Uhh...okay. What am I going to do with a bunch of female deer? Lucy doesn't get along with other quadrupeds that well. She hissed at her own brother for years." Then I got closer to the thing and saw at the bottom, in smaller print, "...In a world of doesn't." Suddenly, it all became clear: certain marketing people must be destroyed. I've noticed the phenomenon many times since then. I think Chex Mix is now calling themselves "a bag of interesting." In fact, one of the most recent ads out there features the promoter actually catching itself using "bacon" as a verb. Ironically, it was the Dairy Queen "lips" icon........
....Anyway, I happened to recall an old Calvin & Hobbes strip while I was thinking about that. I go along with Hobbes. Leave it to the cat to be the voice of reason.
All right. Um.....another one I just remembered: the occasional tag line describing something as "being the new (other thing)." That may have been clever once, but now it's just cliché. And confusing at that.
How should one advertise, you ask? Simple. Follow the example of Empire Today carpeting. Describe what you're selling in an easy voice....not shouting. Car dealers, I'm lookin' at you. Then, at the end, have a nice, simple, catchy jingle. Empire's been using the same jingle, recording and all, for I don't know how long. It's gotta be at least from the Sixties. I can tell you this: I don't know if I'll ever actually use Empire's services, but, by golly, I know their phone number by heart, thanks to their jingle.
On radio, meanwhile.........yeah, I still sometimes turn the radio on when my mp3 player's battery runs out or the Cubs game is on.......I understand they once would run programming alternating between one song and one commercial, rather than a handful of songs followed by seemingly interminable commercials. I wouldn't mind bringing that back. Or radio ads could be in the form of nicely crafted songs. I got a few vintage Coke ads by popular bands from back in the day, such as the Who, the Box Tops, the Blues Magoos, and so on. They're probably on YouTube somewhere. But a nicely crafted original song is good. The Kars for Kids song, on the other hand, is one of the most revolting sounds I've ever heard. I change the station as soon as that keyboard plays.
And that can be my ending note for this rambling: kids' singing is not pleasant. Keep that stuff on your own digital cameras, Facebook accounts or whatever. I don't care if he's dead; if Michael and the Jackson Five pop up on my radio, I change the station. If the kid writes their own songs, bleeding angst and oozing creativity, preferably with a psychedelic touch, then maybe I'll consider them. And, while I'm at it, that Just For Men ad with the little girls giving that stuff to their father is just creepy.
Right. Well, I'm off to dinner. I want my baby back baby back baby back baby back ribs. And maybe a Tommy James record.
Actually, no I'm not. I just remembered one more annoying trend in advertising: using re-recorded versions of classic songs in the ad, especially if the lyrics are altered to suit the product. I don't know if there's a connection between the Chili's jingle and "Draggin' the Line", but I haven't seen the Applebee's ads with the bastardized oldies for a while now, and I'm perfectly okay with that. (Although it was pretty laughable when Kentucky Fried Chicken was using "Sweet Home Alabama" for their ads.)
Okay, now I'm done.
(All company names are trademarked in the names of themselves. Blah blah blah.)
Edit, a few days later: I was just reminded of a groovy commercial character earlier when I saw one of the ads: the Miller High Life delivery (or, more frequently, revocation) guy. Go get them rich business @$$#*£&$!
.....Starting with the Progressive Insurance saleslady. She's annoying. Please, someone make her go away. Fakely (is that a word?) perky salespeople are annoying and, as far as I know, virtually nonexistent in real life. Why would anybody who sells insurance (the very idea of which makes at least one portion of my brain blow up in a hideous ball of flame, but that's my problem) be that perky?
Another highly annoying trend in ads is that of things seeming as though they really ought to be funny.......you guessed it.....but aren't. That brings me to the Dairy Queen "lips" icon. I think I've mentioned that character on here before, but I never really explained why. Lips, if you're out there......you're not funny. Either stop trying or go away. Arby's Oven Mitt and the lady from T-Mobile both seem to have disappeared from our televisions, and I haven't missed either of them. They had the same problem.
One more major irritant to me is any use of the phrase "ooh-la-la" in an advertisement. As soon as I hear that, I make it a point to not buy that product.
And the big one that really seems to be in full swing these days: using words naturally exclusive to one part of speech (noun, verb, etc.) as a different one. I don't know if I ever actually noticed it that much before recently, when I first saw billboards for Droid (whatever exactly Droid is) over Chicago that read "A bare-knuckled bucket of does." When I first saw that, I was confused. I interpreted it for a moment as pronounced "a bare-knuckled bucket of d'ohs." I thought "Uhh...okay. What am I going to do with a bunch of female deer? Lucy doesn't get along with other quadrupeds that well. She hissed at her own brother for years." Then I got closer to the thing and saw at the bottom, in smaller print, "...In a world of doesn't." Suddenly, it all became clear: certain marketing people must be destroyed. I've noticed the phenomenon many times since then. I think Chex Mix is now calling themselves "a bag of interesting." In fact, one of the most recent ads out there features the promoter actually catching itself using "bacon" as a verb. Ironically, it was the Dairy Queen "lips" icon........
....Anyway, I happened to recall an old Calvin & Hobbes strip while I was thinking about that. I go along with Hobbes. Leave it to the cat to be the voice of reason.
All right. Um.....another one I just remembered: the occasional tag line describing something as "being the new (other thing)." That may have been clever once, but now it's just cliché. And confusing at that.
How should one advertise, you ask? Simple. Follow the example of Empire Today carpeting. Describe what you're selling in an easy voice....not shouting. Car dealers, I'm lookin' at you. Then, at the end, have a nice, simple, catchy jingle. Empire's been using the same jingle, recording and all, for I don't know how long. It's gotta be at least from the Sixties. I can tell you this: I don't know if I'll ever actually use Empire's services, but, by golly, I know their phone number by heart, thanks to their jingle.
On radio, meanwhile.........yeah, I still sometimes turn the radio on when my mp3 player's battery runs out or the Cubs game is on.......I understand they once would run programming alternating between one song and one commercial, rather than a handful of songs followed by seemingly interminable commercials. I wouldn't mind bringing that back. Or radio ads could be in the form of nicely crafted songs. I got a few vintage Coke ads by popular bands from back in the day, such as the Who, the Box Tops, the Blues Magoos, and so on. They're probably on YouTube somewhere. But a nicely crafted original song is good. The Kars for Kids song, on the other hand, is one of the most revolting sounds I've ever heard. I change the station as soon as that keyboard plays.
And that can be my ending note for this rambling: kids' singing is not pleasant. Keep that stuff on your own digital cameras, Facebook accounts or whatever. I don't care if he's dead; if Michael and the Jackson Five pop up on my radio, I change the station. If the kid writes their own songs, bleeding angst and oozing creativity, preferably with a psychedelic touch, then maybe I'll consider them. And, while I'm at it, that Just For Men ad with the little girls giving that stuff to their father is just creepy.
Right. Well, I'm off to dinner. I want my baby back baby back baby back baby back ribs. And maybe a Tommy James record.
Actually, no I'm not. I just remembered one more annoying trend in advertising: using re-recorded versions of classic songs in the ad, especially if the lyrics are altered to suit the product. I don't know if there's a connection between the Chili's jingle and "Draggin' the Line", but I haven't seen the Applebee's ads with the bastardized oldies for a while now, and I'm perfectly okay with that. (Although it was pretty laughable when Kentucky Fried Chicken was using "Sweet Home Alabama" for their ads.)
Okay, now I'm done.
(All company names are trademarked in the names of themselves. Blah blah blah.)
Edit, a few days later: I was just reminded of a groovy commercial character earlier when I saw one of the ads: the Miller High Life delivery (or, more frequently, revocation) guy. Go get them rich business @$$#*£&$!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Re: One of those random bits that comes up in the upper right, or "Come, all Freudian disciples!"
Specifically: My train of thought hasn't really derailed so much as it has driven into a wormhole in the space-time continuum that opened up on the track, and landed on a strange planet whose predominant life forms closely resemble trains...
I just dreamt about this. The scene opens on a guy who appears to be riding a train that's running alongside another one. He's quite alone, evidently, and he shouts out his situation in the hope that someone will hear him and respond. "I'm an interplanetary explorer, and I've landed on a strange planet. Is there anyone here?" Suddenly, part of the train next to him seems to form a bizarre, kind of olive green face that speaks: "You have no idea how strange it is....." "I just got an idea," responds the human. "Kindly get off my friend," says the train. "Ow! What the hell?" says the train that the man has been riding. The man quite cinematically falls onto the sparse, dusty grass and rolls around until he stops on his back, gazing up at the trains, who have stopped as well. "Is there anything to eat in this place?" says the human. "Funny you should ask....." A lovely action scene ensues, in which the human discovers another "locomotive being," this one with humanoid life forms swarming all over, in and out of, it like an infestation of parasites. None of them speak or display any kind of "intelligence," nor do they notice him.
Flash to: something that appears to be a giant warehouse. Most of the people herein are oblivious to everything. Two are not. They run frantically in search of an elevator, which they eventually find. It seems to close and depart without them, but they manage to jam a bit of it and get in. At the wide-open top level, there's a giant sliding plexi-glass door with a wooden grid throughout—too large for a single person to budge. But, on the other side of the door.......a large group of people. Not sheeple. They work together with the two of us (oh, yeah, did I mention I'm one of the two?) to slide open the door. It gets more difficult the closer we get to opening it, but we do eventually produce a wide-enough crack for the two of us to squeeze through. The lot of us proceed to fly over the dull grey parking lot into the similarly dull grey sky.
I continue to see that grey light unique to a rainy sky. Except everyone else has disappeared. I momentarily remain in the sort of suspension that I sing about in "Frequent Flyer." The light briefly changes color just a little bit, but the same grey remains.....just on the other side of the sheets that have hitherto shielded my suddenly half-open eyes......
Well, I hope you enjoyed that bit of nonsense. Tune in next week when I investigate the printer at the end of the tunnel, or whatever that one says.
I just dreamt about this. The scene opens on a guy who appears to be riding a train that's running alongside another one. He's quite alone, evidently, and he shouts out his situation in the hope that someone will hear him and respond. "I'm an interplanetary explorer, and I've landed on a strange planet. Is there anyone here?" Suddenly, part of the train next to him seems to form a bizarre, kind of olive green face that speaks: "You have no idea how strange it is....." "I just got an idea," responds the human. "Kindly get off my friend," says the train. "Ow! What the hell?" says the train that the man has been riding. The man quite cinematically falls onto the sparse, dusty grass and rolls around until he stops on his back, gazing up at the trains, who have stopped as well. "Is there anything to eat in this place?" says the human. "Funny you should ask....." A lovely action scene ensues, in which the human discovers another "locomotive being," this one with humanoid life forms swarming all over, in and out of, it like an infestation of parasites. None of them speak or display any kind of "intelligence," nor do they notice him.
Flash to: something that appears to be a giant warehouse. Most of the people herein are oblivious to everything. Two are not. They run frantically in search of an elevator, which they eventually find. It seems to close and depart without them, but they manage to jam a bit of it and get in. At the wide-open top level, there's a giant sliding plexi-glass door with a wooden grid throughout—too large for a single person to budge. But, on the other side of the door.......a large group of people. Not sheeple. They work together with the two of us (oh, yeah, did I mention I'm one of the two?) to slide open the door. It gets more difficult the closer we get to opening it, but we do eventually produce a wide-enough crack for the two of us to squeeze through. The lot of us proceed to fly over the dull grey parking lot into the similarly dull grey sky.
I continue to see that grey light unique to a rainy sky. Except everyone else has disappeared. I momentarily remain in the sort of suspension that I sing about in "Frequent Flyer." The light briefly changes color just a little bit, but the same grey remains.....just on the other side of the sheets that have hitherto shielded my suddenly half-open eyes......
Well, I hope you enjoyed that bit of nonsense. Tune in next week when I investigate the printer at the end of the tunnel, or whatever that one says.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Relation or coincidence?
I took the train home yesterday, and I sleeplessly looked out the window most of the trip. I couldn't help but notice that, in a few of the small towns along the railroad and US 45, there's a little blue building next to the tracks. It looks the same in all those towns.....namely, it looks abandoned. I had to wonder if these small towns used to have passenger train stations and, therefore, nice little relatively local trains that stopped there. I'm a fan of public transit, and it seems a pity to not give small-townies the option thereof. I think if I were stuck in one of those small towns, I'd go ins—well, I'm already insane, but—I'd require a straitjacket, yeah. Kind of run-down looking pits of boredom, they seem.
These are the kinds of things you see on public transit.....pitiful small towns, and what seems to be a full square mile of a (one) Wal-Mart outside of Bourbonnais. (See it in Street View on Illinois 50 at "Indian Oaks", just north of the Interstate interchange.)
These are the kinds of things you see on public transit.....pitiful small towns, and what seems to be a full square mile of a (one) Wal-Mart outside of Bourbonnais. (See it in Street View on Illinois 50 at "Indian Oaks", just north of the Interstate interchange.)
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Trend Watch Noticer
MSN changed their homepage recently, which I noticed for the simple reason that one of my e-mail accounts is on Hotmail. They have this thing now in the lower right called a "trend watch," which lists a bunch of nouns and whether those subjects are increasing, decreasing, or remaining steady in apparent popularity.
What would be the purpose of this thing, exactly? Is it a strong suggestion to readers of what to care about? The few times I've seen Chile on there, it's always been accompanied by a red down arrow. Or are they trying to expose the shortcomings of the sort of people who use Twitter? I don't even look at Twitter myself, much less use it, so I can't really offer any comment on the sort of people who use Twitter.
Either way, it seems totally useless to me, so what I think I'll do is add a nonsensical "trend watch" to the side bar of this blog. The graphics won't be as advanced, but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway.
What would be the purpose of this thing, exactly? Is it a strong suggestion to readers of what to care about? The few times I've seen Chile on there, it's always been accompanied by a red down arrow. Or are they trying to expose the shortcomings of the sort of people who use Twitter? I don't even look at Twitter myself, much less use it, so I can't really offer any comment on the sort of people who use Twitter.
Either way, it seems totally useless to me, so what I think I'll do is add a nonsensical "trend watch" to the side bar of this blog. The graphics won't be as advanced, but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Bump: I wonder if, just maybe...
....the story of Noah's Ark refers to an event that's yet to come....
I had a wicked dream about this last sleep....probably influenced by the peculiar amount of snow that the northern hemisphere has seen this winter (and is still seeing). It came on the heels of other dreams involving a stolen car, hopelessly drunken acquaintances (actually nobody to whom I can attach a name I know, but they were acquaintances in the dream), and finally my own being held hostage by a psychotic police state. And I don't mean imprisoned, I mean being in a large house and part of a group of people whose numbers were ever falling.
So I got to thinking once again about the possibility of global warming inducing massive floods to "clean up" the wholly messed-up world we're on. And I don't know if anyone reads this blog regularly, but I do wish that somebody would comment and let me know what they think.
I had a wicked dream about this last sleep....probably influenced by the peculiar amount of snow that the northern hemisphere has seen this winter (and is still seeing). It came on the heels of other dreams involving a stolen car, hopelessly drunken acquaintances (actually nobody to whom I can attach a name I know, but they were acquaintances in the dream), and finally my own being held hostage by a psychotic police state. And I don't mean imprisoned, I mean being in a large house and part of a group of people whose numbers were ever falling.
So I got to thinking once again about the possibility of global warming inducing massive floods to "clean up" the wholly messed-up world we're on. And I don't know if anyone reads this blog regularly, but I do wish that somebody would comment and let me know what they think.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
*sigh* Another one for the "Good ol' Fashioned Stupidity" tag
I should get a laptop.
That way, when I'm out at the record stores, I can instantly look at my other blog and make sure I don't already have something before I buy it again.
That way, when I'm out at the record stores, I can instantly look at my other blog and make sure I don't already have something before I buy it again.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Creepy is....
....Thinking, while supposedly asleep, that you hear your father whispering to you about doing stuff before your mother gets home if he were you.
It must have been the rain or something......
It must have been the rain or something......
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Writing from work....
...Because my home Internet connection is out. Apparently the earliest they can get out to look at it is Thursday (when I'm likely to be in class). So if you miss me, that's why. Cheers.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Latest story idea......
Husband kills wife out of frustration over her failure to pay attention to him because she's wholly engrossed in "Law & Order"-type television shows.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Questions/Answers/Advice about home recording with Audacity?
Feel free to join the technical discussion in the comments of my It's Psych song post. Cheers!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
What the HELL are those new parking machines on the streets of Chicago? Only quarters, dollar coins, and credit cards? What's wrong with dimes and nickels? Or dollar bills, for that matter? Can't these things make change? And what's wrong with individual meters? Was the perk of finding a meter with time on it from the previous car too much of a strain on the economy? (Hey, it's possible...) I suppose I could Google it, but I'm not going to....
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
True Brilliance is....
...A toaster, the lever of which will not get pushed all the way into toasting position unless the thing is plugged in.
We have one of those at home.
We don't have one of those where I am now.
We have one of those at home.
We don't have one of those where I am now.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Idea
Vehicles powered by human waste.
Can it be done?
How awesome would that be? We create our own fuel for our vehicles while finding a practical use for our own "waste."
And, for cryin' out loud, don't tell the suits!
Can it be done?
How awesome would that be? We create our own fuel for our vehicles while finding a practical use for our own "waste."
And, for cryin' out loud, don't tell the suits!
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