Thought Bubbles

Nobody should be thinking these thoughts - Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter

It’s a balmy evening in late June. We were mercifully blessed with a couple of rain showers and high temperatures in the mid 90’s -- a fantastic break from the 100+ dog days we were having. There is still lingering daylight at 8:55PM -- I love Daylight Saving Time. Could probably enjoy the midnight sun of Alaska; it feels like you’re grabbing back a little of life when the sun lazes a bit longer.

For avid readers (ha!) you may have seen my blog from last week, “The End of Everything Big”. It had a lifespan of 12 hours and then I used my editorial prerogative and deleted it. It wasn’t the worst piece I’ve written by far, but it was alternately boring and sarcastic. Sarcasm is a sublimated form of anger and I don’t want my blog to be a place of sarcasm (at least the extreme variety). Also I bit off a huge topic that the combined staffs of Time and Newsweek might find daunting. Sure, I can dispatch it in four paragraphs! (It was about the next possible, major USA tax-funded projects).

Avid readers might also have noticed that my output has slowed -- I post two or three articles a month now. Back in 2007 I was cranking out five a month. Eugene Robinson and Maureen Dowd don’t write that much. I probably covered pet topics and peccadilloes in the first few years and now I’m on a plateau of a mellow sort of monotony. Have thought about doing “a wrap” on this blog but I’m not quite to that point yet. I occasionally have something fun to kick around.

That all being said, I owe you some content dammit. Who really cares about deleted blog articles? I was browsing iTunes the other day and stumbled upon “Classic Music Videos” from the 1960’s. These were all standard-definition clips from the Ed Sullivan show -- a bit fuzzy but still spectacular in content quality. We have the Lovin’ Spoonful, Animals, Beach Boys, Neil Diamond, Petula Clark, Mamas & Poppas, Sonny & Cher and so much more. The clips range from early 60’s black and white to a spectacular, colorful rendition of Aquarius by the Fifth Dimension; this clip even has astronomical special effects. The genius and power of 60’s music astounds me to this day -- 1967’s worst song was better than 2011’s best. I did have to ponder why a young Neil Diamond had a forward comb-over -- what was going on there? I actually bought Gary Puckett and the Union Gap (“Young Girl”). I was as much fascinated by the seaweed green military outfits as the music itself. 1968 was a stand-out year for band attire.

The innocence of the era also impressed me. At my gym (24 Hour Fitness near SMU campus), young men try to look like gansta thugs. They have dreadlocks, tattoos and ankle-length gym shorts. Can only guess that they have pit bulls for pets at home. In the 1960’s, the aim was to be clever and whimsical -- not mean and menacing. You might’ve been a drug dealer but you weren’t trying to look like one. I suppose my middle age is showing… “Those young whipper-snappers”…. The hippie look of 1968 certainly wasn’t well-received by middle-aged people at the time. I’ll wrap this up before I embarrass myself anymore. Let’s face the fact -- I’m an old codger who delights in reliving the 60’s.

Just stay tuned to Strange Fascination … I’m hoping to do a review of a favorite sc-fi movie very soon. Actually the best sci-fi movie ever but you’ll have to wait and see. For a good non-sci-fi indie movie in the mean time, you can’t go wrong with Cedar Rapids now showing as a new release on iTunes. Ed Helms and John C. Reilly bring pathos, humor and even a great moral to a tale of small town insurance brokers meeting at a convention in Cedar Rapids.

That is all of my thought bubbles for today. Aloha.

© 2011 blogSpotter

Weiners and Supermen

Men behaving badly, and otherwise - Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Here in Dallas we’re already having the dog days of summer and it’s not even summer yet! The heat has sapped me of all my energy but I’ll do my best to serve up some commentary. I’m in the Knox-Henderson Starbucks and all the cute people just got up and left. What is an old man to do? Hoping it’s nothing I said or did. ;-) It’s a Saturday twilight hour when any young person with “a life” is probably heading off to a date or a party. How well I remember...

But enough about me. Let’s talk about Obama for just a minute. Earlier on (circa 2009) I accused Obama of being tepid, timid and boring. Then he surprised me by: (1) enacting health care (2) repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and (3) taking out Osama Bin Ladin. He did three Herculean feats that several Presidents prior could not approach doing. He did them all in a relatively short period of time -- complimentary caricatures were surfacing with Obama dressed as Superman, and the analogy does spring to mind. Now having praised him, I’d like to ask Obama to please refocus on something else (I know he reads my blog!)…. His fourth feat of Hercules should be to bring unemployment down to the 6% range. A bad economy is what torpedoed George H. W. Bush in 1992, while his Gulf War victory should’ve made him a shoo-in. A similar thing could happen to Obama if he doesn’t quell this Economy from Hell.

Oman, I hate to borrow from the toolkit of Paul Krugman, a humorless crank who happens to be right about economics. Until we “prime the pump” with government enterprises (a la 1930’s WPA), there won’t be a significant goosing of the labor pool. TARP and similar bailouts did nothing but forgive existing debts and put money in the hands of corporate CEO’s -- no obligation to invest in jobs, factories or research. A WPA project would help repair the nation’s infrastructure while putting good people back to work. But don’t listen to us -- Krugman is a sourpuss and I’m not even an economist by trade. We only *know what we’re talking about*. I will say that Obama has pulled a couple of rabbits out of his hat -- let’s see if he can do it again with the economy.

WEINERGATE

I’m perennially single and fairly liberal in my outlook, so my take on Anthony Weiner’s Twitter pics will fall out of the mainstream I’m sure. Obviously, he shouldn’t have done what he did -- it shows a lack of judgment and discretion. That being said, I don’t think it amounts to a crime. It doesn’t really need a Congressional inquiry to fathom the intricacies of boxer briefs being strained by a Congressional member. Today’s news yields this info: Weiner has agreed to seek professional care and rehabilitation for what “must” be an out-of-control sex obsession… PUH-LEEZE. If sexting is a sign of mental illness then easily 25% of America needs to be institutionalized for Twitter Abuse and/or felonious Facebooking. All Weiner is guilty of is sleaziness and horniness -- traits which attach themselves easily to most of the under-age 60 Web-surfing world. I think Weiner should have his district 9 voters decide his fate in the next election. All of the people out there who harbor no sex fantasies or illicit thoughts -- don’t be too discouraged if he makes a comeback.

STARBUCKS TONIGHT

A second shift has strolled into Starbucks, not as A-List as the first crowd. Lots of jogging outfits and Mav’s fan tee shirts. I just happened by at a weird juncture; in two more hours the beautiful date crowd will hit. They’ll need to have lattes and brownies after watching Hangover Part 2. Unfortunately for me, I don’t even have the “virtual” dating life of Representative Weiner -- my big thrill will be a magazine and a couple of recorded TV shows later tonight. More power to the Weiners of the world; have fun while you can. If you’re a Congressman there is one minor suggestion -- learn the difference between a private message and a public post. Also keep it somewhere in the back of your mind that all electronic communications are traceable. ‘Nuff said.

© 2011 blogSpotter