Et Tu Brute, David Brenner, and God
To quote Roger Sterling, from Mad Men, Seasons 5, Episode 6, Far Away Places:
"I have an announcement to make. It's going to be a beautiful day."
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I played racquetball tonight to maximum physical exhaustion. One more game might have been my last ever. Those are some of the best times of my life, the times that I see things most clearly. Tonight I have a very clear thought, running through my head over and over, like a mantra- these are the glory days.
March 15, 2024
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Have you seen this absurd thing going around to downplay the Coronavirus severity? "Do YOU know anyone with it?" Let's ignore for a second the fact that people have it and are contagious before they know they have it. Assume we are all acquainted with 350 people. There are 350 million Americans. Is the threshold for concern a million known American infections? That would translate to 20+ million infections worldwide. With a .6% mortality rate, that would leave 120k+ dead as a starting point for concern. If the contagiousness (not the mortality rate) rivals H1N1, there could be 8 million dead and wouldn't it be ridiculous that we weren't more proactive early on to flatten the curve?
March 15, 2020
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Steven Pinker, from Better Angels of Our Nature: “Religious intolerance has been in steady decline as well. In 1924, 91 percent of the students in a middle-American high school agreed with the statement “Christianity is the one true religion and all peoples should be converted to it.” By 1980, only 38 percent agreed. In 1996, 62 percent of Protestants and 74 percent of Catholics agreed with the statement “All religions are equally good,” an opinion that would have baffled their ancestors a generation before, to say nothing of those in the 16th century.”
March 15, 2019
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On the negative side, OUTERNET isn't an acceptable word in Scrabble. On the positive side, I think I just came up with a billion dollar invention.
March 15, 2017
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After I dropped off Gretel at school I peeked in on her through her classroom spy window. She was showing her belly to her teacher...must have an anatomy class.
March 15, 2017
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What did I ever do to deserve this???
March 15, 2016
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The next time you come across a palindrome, please refer to it as a "palinilap." It only makes sense that a palindrome should be a palindrome, right? Yes, of course. The plural will have to be "spalinilaps" though, and that could get confusing.
March 15, 2015
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Ides of March... did you know that if the molecules from the breath of Caesar's last words, "et tu, Brute," were thoroughly mixed with all other molecules in the atmosphere over the last 2000+ years, each one of us inhales one of them with every breath we take?
March 15, 2015
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On this day in 1917, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicated the throne, ending the 304-year Romanov dynasty.
On this day in 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected as the first President of the Soviet Union.
2022, one can hope?
March 15, 2022
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John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath was released on this day in 1940.
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Did you know that if the molecules from the breath of Caesar's last words, "et tu, Brute," were thoroughly mixed with all other molecules in the atmosphere over the last 2000+ years, each one of us inhales one of them with every breath we take?
There's nothing special about Caesar, of course. We're likely breathing in molecules of Elvis singing It's Now or Never, Janet Leigh screaming in the shower in Psycho, and Muhammed Ali telling us he's the greatest.
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Ruth Bader Ginsberg joined us on this day in 1933. As it's been said, excellent Supreme Court Justice, worst possible actuarial statistician.
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It's Michael Scott's birthday, born on this day in 1965.
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Other notable birthdays- Andrew Jackson (1767), Lightning Hopkins (1912), Lawrence Tierney (1919), The Iron Sheik (1943), Dee Snider (1955), Jamie Silbaugh (1974)
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The comedian David Brenner died on this day in 2014. He made 153 appearances in The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He had joked, "I want my tombstone to read- If this is a joke, I don't get it."
Brenner was the inspiration for Jerry Seinfeld's brand of observation humor. On Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Seinfeld reflected on Brenner's death, "Think about all that lost material."
Garry Shandling corrected him- 'It's not the material that matters, it's the person!"
Shandling added, "That material and your material is purely a vehicle for you to express your spirit and your soul and your being. When you saw Robin Williams for the first time, you don't remember everything you said, it was just that: his presence."
True, yet here we are with David Brenner's presence, without even being even aware of it, in the form of modern day humor.
It wasn't all jokes with Brenner, he had this to say about God:
"We cannot attain the presence of God. We're already totally in the presence of God. What's missing is awareness."
I guess that would depend on one's definition of God, but it reminds me of the ending of Woody Allen's Manhattan, and the Arcade Fire lyrics, "Born in a diamond mine, it's all around you and you can't touch it," and David Foster Wallace's This Is Water speech, where two fish are unaware that they are in water. The lesson is that obvious truths can be overlooked.
That was the point of Brenner's comedy, of Seinfeld's comedy, and perhaps it's the point of all comedy.
Brenner had this to say about Mike Huckabee wishing he could pick Jesus as his running mate: "Wow, God forbid anything happens to him, we’ll have a Jewish president."
Haha, Jesus as the first Jewish president, a perfect joke, quintessential David Brenner, it captures his essence. Maybe Shandling and Seinfeld were both right. Maybe the material and the person are essentially the same thing.
I just looked up his grave. This is on the front:
"Here Lies
David Brenner
He Lived He Died
But Man Did He Live!"
On the back it says:
"If this is supposed to be a joke - I don't get it!"
I get it! Good joke.
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H.P. Lovecraft left us on this day in 1937. From The Nameless City:
"That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die."
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Every once in a while when I make a really good cup of coffee I think about that poor bastard Donald Duck when he lived in Nazi Germany. (The sad coffee scene is at 2:15.)
https://youtu.be/wgc2FAhEVHY
March 15, 2014
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Norm Macdonald's coronavirus stand up bit, like a week after anyone ever heard of it, before the shutdown.
https://youtu.be/-skA4GhVX7k
March 15, 2020
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Limit your movement as much as you are able... check out the simulations.
https://wapo.st/corona-simulator?tid=ss_fb
March 15, 2020
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Lucifer Spam- Party
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=368887372425&id=609597425&mibextid=irwG9G
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Lucifer Spam- Pizza
https://m.facebook.com/phreaken96/videos/57042622425/?mibextid=irwG9G
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Philip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint (the narrator referring to an intimate moment with some raw liver)- "Now you know the worst thing I have ever done. I fucked my own family's dinner."
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Cesar Geronimo- “I liked it at seminary, but I really wanted to be a ballplayer, and I knew if I went on to become a priest that would never happen.”
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Anthony Bourdain- "I'm certain of nothing. I'm not even sure I'm certain of that."
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Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe:
"The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
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Aldous Huxley- “What drivel it all is!... A string of words called religion. Another string of words called philosophy. Half a dozen other strings called political ideals. And all the words either ambiguous or meaningless. And people getting so excited about them they'll murder their neighbors for using a word they don't happen to like. A word that probably doesn't mean as much as a good belch. Just a noise without even the excuse of gas on the stomach.”
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Charles Bukowski, Factotum- "If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is."
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Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow- "The illusion that we understand the past fosters overconfidence in our ability to predict the future."
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Penn Jillette's advice for daily living:
Read everything and be kind.
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Mitch Hedberg- "I hate dreaming. Because when you wanna sleep, you wanna sleep. Dreaming is work, you know? Like, there I am, laying in my comfortable bed in my hotel room. It's beautiful. Next thing you know, I have to build a go-kart with my ex landlord."
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