Blessed Racquetball Blasts, and Joke Truths

Tonight at racquetball, as I watched from outside the court, an older Indian man got hit right in the face with the ball, and hard. The two stopped playing to see if he was okay, always a solemn moment. He moved his jaw back and forth to check if it worked. 

Now here's the problem. The way he checked if his mouth worked made him look exactly like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, right after the Scarecrow oiled his jaw. I could almost hear the squeaky sound effects. I realized I was in trouble. I was going to start laughing in a situation where I simply couldn't laugh. 

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't funny! The guy might have been hurt. He was checking if his jaw worked for God's sake! That's funny? What kind of monster am I???

But he looked exactly like the goddamn Tin Man! Squeak-squeak-squeak-squeak. It was a perfect. It was like he studied it. I bet he played the Tin Man in a high school play. 

To that point I had been controlling my face but my chest was convulsing. I didn't know what to do. I took a sip of water but it didn't go away. I couldn"t swallow. I approached critical mass. I took sip after sip to give my mouth something to do. I ended up with a whole mouth full of water with nowhere for it to go. 

I forbade myself to think about the Tin Man again, so of course I thought about the Tin Man again. Squeak-squeak-squeak-squeak, and those precise movements, surgical accuracy! I lost it and spit out the whole mouthful. Thankfully I was blessed to end up in a coughing fit which finally diverted my attention. He was fine, and nobody saw me. I got off scot free, without guilt, not unlike Martin Landau in Crimes in Misdemeanors after he murdered his mistress.

Once I got blasted in the face by a wise cracking older guy. That occasion wasn't so solemn though. You know what he told me? He hovered over me, pointed down, and said, "Stay the fuck down!" Somehow he knew that I would appreciate that joke. 

I'm going to have a section in my autobiography about getting blasted with racquetballs. It's a peak life-affirming situation. Shakes away the cobwebs. It's an existential experience, "Oh God that's right, I am alive, with the rest of my life to live however I see fit!" If Marlon Brando can have a page and a half in his autobiography about his pet raccoon that grabbed his butthole when he was sitting on the toilet, then I can have a section in mine about getting hit in the face with racquetballs.

March 24, 2022

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Garry Shandling left us on this day in 2016. Here he is talking about the Buddhist joke he told the Dalai Lama:

So one time I was with the Dalai Lama and he said, “I understand you have some joke about the Buddha.” How would you like to be in this position? …. And you know, he’s looking at me and he’s got the glasses on, and he’s the Dalai Lama. I’m talking to the Dalai Lama. And I’m comfortable with that. And I said, “Well..."

"Buddha never got married ’cause his wife would have said, ‘What are you gonna do, sit around the house like that all day?’

“Well, I’m meditating, honey.”

“Why don’t you meditate while you’re taking out the trash?

And there’s dead silence in this little hut, except for the three American monks, who are laughing hysterically. And so then I explained to him the joke: “In American culture, the husbands and wives sometimes argue because the wife thinks the husband is lazy and sitting around…”

And [the Dalai Lama] goes, “Oh… Funny.”

That’s what you want — you want to have a three-minute gap from when you tell the joke to when you get the laugh.”

He said that at his funeral he wanted a boxing referee to do a count but call it off at 5 and say he's not getting up.

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This guy Trump is pretty interesting, ranting of "death and destruction" if he gets indicted, citing the fact that he used to be the president and that he's very popular, as if he thinks that proves his innocence. Particularly noteworthy is the location he chose for his next event- Waco, Texas. Can't imagine where this is going...

March 24, 2023

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Bertrand Russell- "Either the thing is true, or it isn’t. If it is true, you should believe it, and if it isn’t, you shouldn’t."

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Gretel was so excited about her first tooth falling out that she shimmied up the door frame and looked back at me smiling. Meanwhile Zuzu eats a starfruit in the background, but she keeps accidentally calling it a starfish. So that's what we have going on.

March 24, 2020

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Gretel said she thinks the tooth fairy uses all the teeth to build her fairy house, or to sell them to other fairies. I don't know, that sounds like complete hogwash to me. I keep asking her how she knows this stuff. Apparently, as it turns out, kindergarteners subscribe to Hitler's Big Lie... when a lie is repeated often enough, it becomes accepted truth. (She didn't put it that way, but I could read between the lines.) Nevertheless, I accomplished another rite of passage into parenthood- apparently her teeth are worth $1.50 a piece.

March 24, 2020

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Who is the real coronavirus victim?

Trump tweet: "This is the way The New York Times finished a story on me. “You can see the contrast between the steady, assured, informed and strong leadership that VP Biden (Sleepy Joe) has shown, and the bungling, chaotic and dishonest start-stop approach that Mr. (not Pres.) Trump has shown us since the beginning of this crisis.” They meant the opposite? Forgot to mention that I closed our Country to China (and Europe) very early, long before it was considered acceptable to do so. Sleepy Joe said I was “xenophobic”, but I saved thousands of lives! Fake News!"

March 24, 2020

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti would have been a 100 years old today. Second thought, maybe he's still alive:

Pity the nation whose people are sheep,

and whose shepherds mislead them.

Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,

and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice,

except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero

and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.

Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own

and no other culture but its own.

Pity the nation whose breath is money

and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.

Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode

and their freedoms to be washed away.

My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.

(BTW, I'm more upbeat than him, correctly or incorrectly.)

March 24, 2019

Postscript- He WAS still alive!

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Nothing much to see here... just my grandma as a toddler about a hundred years ago sitting in the sidecar on her dad's motorcycle with a dog and a cat, in a garden.

March 24, 2019

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Someone email Wattie, punk's dead.

Joe Biden- "I shouldn't have said what I said. I shouldn't have brought it up again, because I don't want to get in the mosh pit with this guy."

March 24, 2018

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A key personality flaw of the president, he sees the world as a series of zero-sum games- I win, you lose. We need to strive for win-win. And if their are 99 wins and a bit of a loss for 1, that sounds like a win for society.

March 24, 2017

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The Republicans can't overturn Obamacare! Next year is a midterm election year, let's let the voters decide. I'll call this the Scalia Rule- you can never govern until the next election is over.

March 24, 2017

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The American Health Care Act is dead. Thankfully it will be its only casualty.

March 24, 2017

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Well the president spent a week and a half pushing for health care and he's moving on. Perhaps infrastructure next, for a week. Military for the next 16-19 days. Energy for a few hours. The secretaries will have eradicated the other departments by then, and he'll be able to dedicate three and a half years to golf and/or impeachment.

March 24, 2017

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The Great Negotiator- "My way or the highway."

(Spends the rest of the afternoon playing truck driver.)

March 24, 2017

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Emma- These two cuties have only grown closer in the past year, with Gretel referring to Zuzu as "her baby", and Zuzu already tormenting Gretel with the "barely touching you" game and testing out her WWF moves on big sis.

March 24, 2016

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Who's the more foolish- the fool or the fool who follows him... or the fool who doesn't follow the fool when the fool was found to be unfoolish?

March 24, 2013

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Dick Cheney just had a heart transplant. I wonder if the person it came from would have preferred that it went to someone else.

March 24, 2012

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A Common-Sense Tax Proposal

Nobody likes that their taxes go toward the things that they hate, they want their taxes go toward things they support. My proposal: find someone who believes everything the exact opposite of you and swap tax responsibility with them. If you support the Iraq War and I support NPR, why are we each upset? I’ll claim responsibility of the $2.81 you contributed toward NPR over the last 8 years, and you can claim $2.81 of the $13,000 I paid toward the Iraq War. It’s win-win, except of course for the millions of displaced or dead Iraqis.

March 24, 2011

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Roger Ebert mourning the passing of Elizabeth Taylor.

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On this day in 1832 in Hiram, Ohio, a group of men beat and tar and feathered Mormon leader Joseph Smith. I don't think it worked.

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Breakfast Club Day.

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On this day in 1991, Randy Johnson destroyed a bird with a pitch.

https://youtu.be/DsddjadDL9I

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Harry Houdini, was born in Budapest, Hungary on this day in 1874. I'm reminded of this limerick:

There was a young fellow named Sweeney 

Whose girl was a terrible meanie. 

The hatch of her snatch 

Had a catch that would latch-

And she could only be screwed by houdini.

(I don't believe that is a true story.)

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Norman Fell was born on this day in 1924. To look at him is to laugh at him.

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Happy birthday to Wilson Alvarez, born on this day in 1970. He made his major league debut with the Rangers in 1989, faced five batters, and recorded no outs! He was traded to the White Sox and spent all of 1990 in the minor leagues. On August 11th, 1991, he made his second debut- he threw a no-hitter! After that game his era was infinity in the 80s, and zero in the '90s.

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Tig Notari was born on this day in 1971. Here's a perfect bit, the one Louis CK raved about before anyone knew who she was.

"What’s nice about all of this is you can always rest assured that God never gives you more than you can handle. (Pause) Never. Never. When you’ve had it, God goes, “All right, that’s it.” I just keep picturing God going, “You know what? I think she can take a little more.” And then the angels are standing back, going, “God, what are you doing? You’re out of your mind!” And God was like, “No, no no, I really think she can handle this.” “Why, God, why? Why?” “I don’t know, just trust me on this. She can handle this.” God is insane, if there at all."

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Other notable birthdays- Clyde Barrow (1909), R. Lee Ermey (1944), Louie Anderson (1952), Kelly LeBrock (1960)

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England's Queen Elizabeth I died on this day in 1603. 

Her last words: "All my possessions for a moment of time." 

Remember- right at this moment we are in possession of the most valuable thing in the world to all of those who have come before us.

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Other notable deathdays- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1882), Jules Verne (1905), Richard Widmark (2007)

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Very long, very enjoyable article!

The Onion- Looking Back On My Life, I Guess My Biggest Regret Is Trying To Fight That Alligator 5 Minutes Ago

http://onion.com/1HxabzP

March 24, 2015

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PBS- Universe may be on the brink of collapse (on the cosmological timescale)

Oh crap!

http://phys.org/news/2015-03-universe-brink-collapse-cosmological-timescale.html

March 24, 2015

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PBS- The Vaccine War

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-vaccine-war/

A must watch!

March 24, 2015

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Garry Winogrand

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Bukowski- "Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now."

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Arthur Miller, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan- "Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets."

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William Blake- “Make your own rules or be a slave to another man’s.”

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Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus- "This is the best reason to learn history: not in order to predict the future, but to free yourself of the past and imagine alternative destinies. Of course this is not total freedom – we cannot avoid being shaped by the past. But some freedom is better than none."

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Epictetus- “What upsets people is not things themselves, but their judgements about these things.”

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Wittgenstein- "A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes."

Same with political arguments.

Asimov agrees. "Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments."

Muhammad Ali too. "Jokes? There are no jokes. The truth is the funniest joke of all."

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Errol Morris- "Not to compare myself to Nabokov, but in his books- particularly Lolita and Pale Fire- he managed to combine the profound and the profoundly silly. The notion that the two are incompatible is simply wrong.

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From Seinfeld S07E06 - The Soup Nazi

Sheila: Well, behind every joke there's some truth.

Jerry: What about that Bavarian cream pie joke I told you? There's no truth to that. Nobody with a terminal illness goes from the United States to Europe for a piece of Bavarian cream pie and then when they get there and they don't have it he says, 'Ah, I'll just have some coffee.' There's no truth to that.

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Dumb Short Joke of the Day:

My wife told me I had to stop acting like a flamingo. So I had to put my foot down.

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Addendum:

From Marlon Brando's autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me:

After this experience I decided to buy a chimp, but before I did, my mother gave me Russell, the young raccoon. My mother had a great imagination that went along with her marvelous sense of humor. To make a pet out of a raccoon, you have to start when they are young; as with most animals, it is best to feed a raccoon by hand and handle it until it becomes trusting and familiar with your touch. Raccoons don’t see well, but they have a keen sense of smell and unquenchable curiosity, and their tactile sense is unequaled in the world of animals. When Russell was awake, he never stopped moving, feeling and exploring every crack he could find; once he completely took apart a wristwatch, springs and all. Sometimes he slept down by my feet in my bed, and when he woke up he would stick his paws between my toes and tickle me. He was a sleep wrecker, so I didn’t let him get in bed with me often. We would chase each other around the apartment and play fight and tickle, which he loved.

Russell also loved water and played for hours in the bathtub, which I would fill with stones and any objects that it would be fun to feel. He also enjoyed sitting on my bathroom windowsill and looking at the street five floors below. He was a hit at parties and liked to sit on my shoulders and watch the guests. He would play with my hair or stick his fingers in my ears, then reach around and try to get his paw into my nose or mouth. He was always unpredictable.

It is generally believed that raccoons wash their food, but that’s a misinterpretation; they do this simply because they love water. During their waking hours, they move ceaselessly, putting their paws into cracks and recesses looking for grubs, crayfish or worms.

When I had people over to the apartment or had to leave it, I usually put him in the bathroom. He also slept there because he would tear any other room apart. In the winter the bathroom was cold; I remember going in there one morning, and because I was still sleepy I sat down to piss. Russell was wide awake. He came over and stood on his hind feet and put his freezing cold front paws on the edge of the toilet seat. Then he went around to the back of the John. I had my elbows on my knees and my chin in my hands, trying to stay as close to sleep as possible. The next instant, I found myself shrieking and two feet off the floor. Russell had found the space between my ass and the toilet seat and had put the coldest paw in North America under my behind, giving me the goose of a lifetime, right on target.

Russell spent a great deal of time sitting on the ledge of the bathroom window. During lunch hour more than once he stopped traffic on Fifty-seventh Street and Sixth Avenue. Crowds would gather below the apartment and wonder what they were looking at; to collect a crowd in New York, all you have to do is look up and point. One day I was reading, and the doorbell rang. Usually I never answer the door if I don’t know who it is; my friends always use code knocks. But this time someone was thumping on the door with his fist, so I opened the door. I found myself staring at a belt buckle; then, as my eyes floated upward, I saw a badge and a face. It was one of New York’s finest bulls, and he asked me, “Do you own a wild animal?” I answered, “I, ahh … well, he’s an animal, but he’s not wild.” The cop said, “Do you know where he is?” I said, “He’s in the bathroom.” “No, he isn’t. He’s in your neighbor’s bathroom.” I replied, “What? What’s he doing in there?” “I don’t know, buddy, but you’ll have to get him out of there. Does he bite?” “Oh, my goodness, no, he wouldn’t even bite a cookie,” I replied, lying as fast as my brain would work. (Russell nipped almost everybody who didn’t know how to handle him on the back of their necks.)

I went over to my neighbor’s apartment. The woman was Standing with her hands between her breasts, her mouth open, and she looked at me with Eddie Cantor eyes; she was stunned. “Where is he?” I asked, but she couldn’t speak; she raised her entire arm and pointed toward her bathroom. I went in, and there was Russell playing in the toilet. When I called him and his head popped up, I said, “What the hell are you doing?” and he twittered some raccoon reply. He was soaking wet. I gave him my palm, he put his paws in it and I gripped him. I always carried him around this way. As I left the woman’s apartment, I said, “I’m terribly sorry about this. I don’t know how it could have happened.” While I was apologizing, Russell’s tail was dripping toilet water all over her beige rug. She was still aghast, bewildered and silent. As I passed the giant policeman, I said, “I’m awfully sorry, officer, it will never happen again.” I entered my apartment still mumbling apologies, closed the door and waited for that hamfisted policeman to knock on it with a ticket, but nothing happened. To this day, I cannot understand how Russell got into Mrs. Goldman’s bathroom because both bathroom window ledges were only two inches wide and were separated by a one-foot gap five stories up.

One of the fondest memories I have of Russell was when my mother was showing him off to a couple of snooty ladies. He was sitting on her shoulder, playing with her beads and sticking a paw in each ear, which provoked a titter from the ladies, as well as a proud “Ain’t he cute” smirk from my mother. Then he reached around and was feeling the crevice of her smile when she made the fatal error of opening her mouth slightly to say, “No, dear.” That’s all he needed. He shot his paw into her mouth and out came her false teeth. She grabbed them and tried to put them back in her mouth, but Russell was sure he had a good thing and wanted to keep them out of her mouth just as much as she wanted to keep them in. Her hat went one way and her dignity went the other. Finally she was able to outwrestle him and recovered her dentures, if not her poise. I had a seizure and had to hold on to the kitchen door to remain erect. It was one of the silliest scenes I have ever witnessed.

Eventually as Russell matured, he became uncontrollable. He had thrown all the books out of the bookcase, had peed on every record I owned, and the apartment looked as though it had been through a drug raid. It was time to let Russell go. I took him back to the family farm in Illinois in early winter, when his semihibernating instincts would take over. I carried him out to the barn, made him a nest of some hay and left some food there for him. Every couple of hours I would tiptoe through the snow and peek through a crack in the wall to see him all curled up in a ball. I wanted so much to play with him, but I knew I couldn’t. I had a lump in my throat when I turned away.

When spring came and the sap began to run in the trees, Russell had left the security of the barn for whatever destiny promises a raccoon. He returned every once in a while in hopes of finding a treat in his bowl, but later in the spring his sap was running, too. He must have found some irresistible lady raccoon and begun to raise his family, and I never saw him again. I miss him.