SNL 40th Shmortieth

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If you missed NBC’s Saturday Night Live 40th anniversary show, consider yourself fortunate.  A promising evening of entertainment turned out to be a tortuous three and one-half hour  festival of ingratiating ego-pumping and contemporary performance overkill.  Way too heavy on musical productions and way too short on Belushi, Chase, Aykroyd, Radner, Murphy, Murray, and so many others I had been looking forward to watching.   I thought with a 3.5 hour block of time surely I would be treated to a snippet here and there of many, if not most of the classic sketches.  But there was hardly a one.  I can’t tell you how depressing it was to sit through this thing, desperately and patiently waiting for Buck Henry’s portrayal of Lord Douchebag, only to have my hopes crushed by the vocals of Miley Cyrus, Kanye West and Paul McCartney.  The program started out propitiously- Dan Aykroyd and his current rendition of the infamous “Bass-O-Matic” routine.  But the original was way better.  That was “Bass-O-Matic 76.”  I’m not sure what this model number was.  And the commercials had to set some sort of record for fewest minutes between breaks.  There was one every 5 minutes at times during the last hour.

Call me an old geezer but I didn’t do much catching on to whatever point Kanye West was trying to make while he was laying on the floor sing-talking.   I think I got it that he was trying to project an image of himself in a completely different perspective, like he was singing upside-down or something.  But I gotta tell you I was not impressed.  I thought he looked kind of silly.  I know it’s probably just me, but if I wanted to go out and be all showoffie and sing upside down, well I just think if that’s the look you’re going for then do it up right.  For me it would have made sense if he was actually upside-down, like with his knees locked around a trapeze bar, and maybe swinging back and forth.  Now that would lock down a big score with me.  I’de probably give him a solid 9.  But then there was the song itself.  Not my cup of tea.  Probably have to dish him out a 2 on that.  While I was watching all the bazaar ducking and crawling around on the ground I couldn’t help thinking how off target the producers were for not subbing a clip from the last SNL Mick Jagger episode for this shit.  Adding to all the perplexity were those two people that slithered out on all fours and started in contortionating along with Kanye about half way through the performance.  One of them was a fella I didn’t recognize at all, but you could pretty much make out from the way the other person was creeping around that it was a woman,  and I am likewise pretty sure I know who it was.  She was well hidden underneath that scary, nuclear enriched hairpiece that was last worn by one of the gigantic monsters co-starring in a not well known Godzilla movie.  But I am fairly certain it was Beyonce.  We all know about the uncontrollable obsession Kanye has with her.  I can’t figure out how he talked her into donning that ridiculous head-gear though.  I am sure he didn’t want anyone upstaging him, but man I think this was over-kill.  That thing had some serious compression fracture potential.  I hope she’s all right

Self Help Dentisry

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There is an old saying that goes “good things come to those who wait.”  Well, it just so happens that all I was waiting for was my current Netflix DVD.  I don’t have the patience to deal with a streaming set-up.  I’ve been waiting for over a week for my movie.  I can’t remember what movie is supposedly on the way.  It doesn’t matter because I know I have nothing but 4 star titles in my queue.  They should all be winners.  Football is over, so I was really looking forward to watching my movie this week end, but instead what arrived on Friday was a stunning tooth ache.  It really fucking hurts.  So whoever came up with this supposedly sage adage can just kiss my ass.  Ok, sorry.   If the author of this sage adage is someone in the Bible, I am sorry.  I don’t mean to piss you off.  But the pain is fucking excruciating.  Well now I’m embarrassed.  I dropped the “f-bomb” twice here.  Anyone who knows me knows I just don’t throw down that word without reason though.  Well, anyone who has become acquainted with me since college, or maybe ten years after college, would never hear me say that word.  Ok, maybe I slipped up a couple of times at work.  To be absolutely clear, I know I have never used the “f” word when having a conversation with my mother or Father O’Neil.  So there are people out there that know I never use that word.

Anyway back to my tooth ache.  Of course it had to jump-start on Friday evening so I had to suck it up the entire week end.  Luckily my dentist was able to work me in Monday morning. But what a douche-nozzle.  A set of X-rays revealed nothing, he said he couldn’t find anything wrong, and at first wasn’t even sure which tooth was responsible for my pain.  Now as I have explained in the past, I’m not a complainer, at least that was true for the most part before I retired.  Now that that has happened and I have all this time on my hands, I have come to notice there are a lot of things out there that are screwed up, and I don’t mean just here and there.  I mean all over the place.  And as you will find out some day if you are lucky enough to experience the autumn of your life, you will feel the need to establish your place in the domain of the aged, which is basically a large proselytizing platform where old people at least try and seem wise by offering their opinions.  And those can be characterized by a few to be complaints I suppose, but bite my shorts if you actually think that mine are unworthy of consideration.  You have to be some kind of pompous prick to think what I think doesn’t count for anything.

I asked my dentist if he thought I was a pansy or hypochondriac or something, which I assure you I am not.  This, as I said, was some pretty  intense pain and right then I didn’t appreciate the innuendo.  He heaved a big sigh, and after banging and poking around a bit to elicit the proper level of screaming, he said he had a bead on my problem.  He removed and replaced a filling in a back molar and said he was hopeful that would fix the problem.

Well, guess what?  It didn’t.  I have to tell you I am really tired, tired in every sIMG_1572ense of the word tired.  I can’t sleep.  You better believe though that I am not the type to just sit around staring into space when there is a problem to solve.  My father was extremely resourceful, and that trait was handed down to me in spades.  I am pretty sure I have some tools around here that will be all I need to take care of this tooth problem once and for all.  I even have some cool, official-like dental tools I picked up at a garage sale.  The picture above right is what they look like.  But if you look closely, I think you would have to agree these tools would provide way too much poking and not enough prying for my needs. I remember an ice skate blade and a rock seemed to have worked out fairly well fIMG_1573or Tom Hanks when he was stranded on that island for a number of years.  I have plenty of rocks laying around that I am pretty sure would do nicely, but nothing in the way of an ice skate blade.  Just my luck we got rid of an old pair of my daughter’s skates only last summer at our yard sale.  Did’t even make anything on them.  Just gave them away.  But I have all sorts of toolsIMG_1574 in my shop, so I set aside a few of them to show you I am not kidding and alert you to the fact that I do mean business.  The picture above is what they look like.  Oh look!  I think I found just what I need.  Look at this last picture.  It seems to me this would serve my purpose pretty well.  This and my hammer-drill should do the trick.  What do you think?   I’ll let you know how it all turns out.

 

Complaint Restraint

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I hate complainers.  Especially if that’s all they do.  The constant cynicism- who needs it?  Take my neighbor.  He’s always complaining.  He has craftily categorized his personal use of the English language into complaint folders with titles and tabs.  For instance, he has a favorite complaint for each of the four seasons.  Spring will bring a shower of complaints about the pollen count and the unthoughtful behavior of his Kentucky bluegrass that he says he has to mow every five days.  And that complaint involves a lie because he’s lucky to accomplish that in double that time.  You know its summer when every conversation you have with him starts off with complaints about the heat and humidity.  The real head-scratcher occurs in the fall.  Somehow he expects me to keep all the leaves of my trees from blowing into his yard.  I’ve come to appreciate winter.  That’s because that’s the time of year my neighbor more or less hibernates.  For the most part I only run into him if we are both involved in snow removal at the same time.  I consider myself to be  careful and alert to danger, so I have become pretty good at avoiding that scenario.

All the grumbling wears me out.  The thing of it is though, it’s affected my own attitude.  Just look through the previous paragraph.  I am starting to become a complainer!  It’s not just complaints about my neighbor.  Cynicism is creeping into my daily life.  If you had a peek at my “About” tabs, you will notice a couple of things.  First, I am retired, and second, I profess to be a non-complainer, or at least have generally  limited my complaints to the froth of corporate conduct.  But it seems with my retirement I have more time to think about stuff, the kind of stuff that bothers me.  So I’ve started complaining more, like about my neighbor.  And it’s gotten out of hand.  Take the NFL playoff game this year between Green Bay and Seattle.  There is no way the Packers should have lost that game.  Something fishy went on there.  Maybe that ball Seattle used for the on-side kick was under-inflated.  Looking back now, it seems only logical to assume that.  As long as the NFL is scrutinizing the Patriots, why not throw the Seahawks into the mix.  Deep down I suspect Divine Intervention was to blame for that Packer fiasco.  Even with some Seattle shenanigans going on, there’s no way the Packers could look that hapless.  And one thing about me, I like to take my complaints straight to the top.  (See photo below)

church ass 1

You’re probably thinking this reaction is a little over the top.  I’m starting to realize that too.  That’s why I decided to turn over a new leaf.  I am going to get this complaining thing under control once and for all.  Well, maybe not quite once and for all, but I am no longer going to complain just to complain.  Any complaint I have will be constructively contextualized.  And there is a psychological tool I think I can use to help me stay focused.  I got so bogged down in my complaining during this short time I almost forgot about it.  Ask yourself this question: “What are two of the most important things I can do to reduce negativity?”  The two that come to my mind are “thinking happy thoughts'” and “staying relaxed.”

One of the best ways to think happy thoughts is to recollect fond memories.  When I want to tackle that, I start looking at old photographs.  I think this would work well for you also, and for everyone, really.  Take a look at this second photo of me that follows.  See how totally relaxed I am?  Totally.  Andthe morning after talk about happy!  I guess you can’t quite make that out, but believe me I was extremely happy.  This was right after the Packers beat the Cowboys in the playoffs.  Might have been during the game.  I don’t properly recollect.  Anyway, this is my “go-to” prop to help me stay focused.  This is me, in my perfect “non-complain mode.”  If I apply myself and keep recalling the steps I took to get to this level of relaxation, I am very confident you won’t be hearing much in the way of complaining from me.  If you care to, you can share your preferred method of relaxation.