Latest Posts

Liebster? I Hardly Know Her.

Author: March 30, 2016 8 Comments

Shamelessly ripped off from Google's image search.

Shamelessly ripped off from Google’s image search.

So I’ve been given a Liebster Award by the funny and cringeworthy half a 1000 miles, an award which, from my extensive research, is usually given to new bloggers. That’s kind of funny to me because I’ve been doing this for more than twenty years. I’m thankful and would like to thank everyone, and fortunately part of the award includes a list of questions so I’ll just move on to that before the orchestra starts to play me off.

  1. How did you arrive at the name for your blog?

It really started in 1995 with email. I wanted to forward something funny to a group of friends and I discovered I could create and name a distribution list. “Freethinkers” were a 19th century group I read about in a Mark Twain book and I just kind of liked the name. And some of my friends wanted to remain anonymous, so I called the list “Freethinkers Anonymous”.

  1. If all forms of the name had already been taken, what was your second choice?

After twenty-one years of doing this I have absolutely no clue. There are a few places where “Freethinkers Anonymous” has been taken and I have to struggle to come up with something else.

  1. If one day your blog took off, and merely by mentioning and recommending someone else’s blog, they too could become famous, what blogs would you “bring up in the elevator” with you? (I have already thought about this and know my answers, ha).

If I won an Oscar I’d begin my acceptance speech with “I’m sure I’m forgetting someone”. There are a lot of talented, funny bloggers out there I’d love to “bring up in the elevator” but I don’t want to presume that they want to come along for the ride. What I’d like to know is what their goals are and then grant them one wish. Want to publish a book? Quit your day job? Become internet-famous? Ann Koplow, who writes a funny, thought-provoking daily blog has said she’d like it to show up in WordPress’s Freshly Pressed list, although they’ve now replaced “Freshly Pressed” with Discover which sounds a lot more mundane and even overused, but that’s another story. I wish I could help make that happen.

Edited to add:

Blogger Chuck Baudelaire has written a children’s story about monkeys and needs an illustrator. Shawna at No Trade Jack could use more time to create art. Gilly at Anything Except Housework has written movingly about forgotten people and history that desperately needs to be preserved and celebrated. What would Gina at Endearingly Wacko like? A trip back to Russia? This is just a handful of bloggers whose wishes I could help.

  1. What do you wish your non-bloggy friends knew about blogging?

That they need to drop in at least once a day so my stats go up. Hahahaha!

  1. What is your favorite TV show of all time?

That’s like asking “What’s your favorite food?” You’re gonna get tired of crème brulee if you have it all the time. I’m a big Doctor Who and Star Trek fan, but I also love the original Twilight Zone. Yeah, I’m a big geek.

  1. What is your own personal favorite of your own blog posts, and why?

One I wrote about Stephen Hawking and his dire warning about aliens. It’s not the best thing I’ve ever written but it’s ridiculous and silly and meandering and then–spoiler alert!–takes a deadly serious turn. I like to surprise people like that. I just can’t do it every time because then people would expect it.

  1. Rate these in order of what you don’t have enough of right now: Sleep, Peace, Money, Time, Love.

Time, Money, Sleep, Peace, Love. The things that come first are the things I have the least of, right?

  1. What was the hardest part about your first year of blogging?

I started off forwarding stuff other people had written. I enjoyed making friends laugh by sharing funny things but I always hoped to write something original that was as funny as what somebody else had written. I still feel that way.

  1. Where did you spend most of your life, and where are you now?

I’ve spent most of my life in Nashville, Tennessee, which is exactly where I’ve ended up when I’m not tramping through the Sri Lankan jungle or sailing across the Pacific.

  1. What is a “big” blog that you enjoy?

BoingBoing is a newsblog where I may spend too much time. I’ll say to my wife, “I read an article…” and she’ll say, “…on BoingBoing.” But there’s always interesting stuff there and a great community of commenters–some of whom have found their way here which is a huge thrill for me.

  1. I am all about bloggers helping other bloggers. Help us help you. If someone wanted to show your blog some love, what would be your preferred method — a Facebook share? Sharing on Twitter? Subscribing to your blog? Commenting on your blog? Submitting your posts to Stumbleupon? Or something else? Let’s all read their answers and try to make that happen.

Comments. I love getting comments. This blog used to be a website. I wrote the content and would email it but an incredibly nice guy named Scott MacLean did all the maintenance, archiving and adding the stuff I wrote on a regular basis. There was no interaction, though. I never got any feedback other than a handful of emails that said, “You suck!”

After I had a bout with cancer I wrote a piece that prompted another friend to say, “You should open up the site for comments.” Scott did an incredible job transferring all the content to WordPress then handed me the keys. And now there’s a comment section where people can discuss how much I suck.

The best part of comments is I get other peoples’ perspectives and also their stories, and that’s what I’m all about. The great thing is that behind every story there’s another story.

Now here’s where I bend the Liebster Award rules which specify that I’m supposed to pass it on to [number] people. And there are so many I would like to recognize but I also don’t want to saddle them with the responsibility. I think of a person’s blog as being like their home. They get to choose how to decorate it and I don’t want to barge in and say, “I know this doesn’t match your decor but put it in your front window!”

Is that wrong? Is it a cop-out? Why is it called a cop-out and why does no one ever say they’re gonna cop-in? The comments section is open. You know what to do.

Submitted For Your Approval.

The Romanians Of The Day.

Author: March 29, 2016 2 Comments

romaniaThere’s getting off the beaten path and then there’s getting way off track which is what Snoop Dogg did when he posted to Instagram while visiting Bogota, Colombia, and, due to a misspelling, promoted the small Romanian village of Bogata. It was the biggest pop promotion of non-tourist destination since Iggy Pop’s tribute to the Sri Lankan city of Kandy, but that’s another story. Inhabitants of Bogata have been quick to capitalize on their accidental fame with a website that promotes the local stew, a few local attractions, and its natural setting as perfect for “chillin’”.

One commenter responded to Snoop’s error with “there is a lot of hemp there” according to Balkan Insight but the attractions of Romania may be subtler than that. As a country it’s had a difficult history. When the dictator Ceaucescu was overthrown it was the poet Marin Sorescu who was asked to make the announcement because Romanians have a profound love of and respect for poetry. And the TV show Dallas, which the country’s communist leaders broadcast in the hope that it would create disgust with western decadence, may have helped foment rebellion. Ordinary Romanians fell in love with the glamour of the Ewing clan. What I’m getting at is that rap and Romania have some surprising things in common.

Snoop Dogg may or may not take the next flight out of Bogata to the other side of the globe, but if he doesn’t I’d like to make this offer: bring me over there and I’ll promote Bagata. I’ll sing the praises of the local attractions, rave about how perfect the countryside is for chillin’, and, seriously, that stew sounds delicious. Even if we can’t work this out please send me a recipe.

I’m not famous but why should that stand in the way of what could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship?

I understand if we can’t work it out, but the offer stands. And if anyone from Bagota comes over here let me know. I know some great places for chillin’.

 

Ramble With Me.

This Happens Far Too Often.

Author: March 28, 2016 6 Comments

pedestriansDear Driver,

First of all let me say how impressed I am that you could hold your cell phone with one hand, give me the finger with the other, and still manage to keep driving your SUV. Since you didn’t stop even though I was able to pound my fist on your window I wasn’t able to offer some helpful advice, but I’ll give it to you here.

First, if the WALK sign at an intersection is lit that means pedestrians have the right of way. Even if the light is green you, the driver, are still obligated to wait for pedestrians to cross before you make your left turn. Following this advice will allow you to avoid coming within less than an inch of running over someone’s foot or, for that matter, running over someone.

Second, in this state at least there’s no such thing as turning left at a red light without stopping. Heck, even if you’re turning right at a red light you’re supposed to stop first. This is pretty basic information that’s known even to most non-drivers. Based on the way your passenger was putting her hands over her face I’m pretty sure she knew and might have even tried to tell you that red lights apply to you just as much as everyone else.

As a side note I’d like to mention that in the event of an accident there’s a good chance you and your passengers could both be harmed. I know that seems shocking but you might want to think about your own safety even if you don’t care about anyone else’s.

Finally I think you should learn to drive. Obviously you were able to buy a car without a license but just because you could doesn’t mean it was a good idea.

And, hey, right back at ya.

hand

Adventures In Busing.

Do It Again.

Author: March 26, 2016 5 Comments

tag1Earlier this week I went to a talk by Julian Barnes. He read his story The Silence about the last years of Sibelius’s life. I didn’t realize Sibelius wrote seven symphonies and then went silent for nearly thirty years, although Barnes said “about seventeen seconds” of an 8th symphony does exist. As far as is known he wrote very little during that period, although one night late in his life Sibelius’s wife found him burning manuscripts.

Barnes said that made him think about the point in any artist’s career when they should give up because everything after that is going to be “repetition and diminution”. And there have been other cases of artists who created extraordinary work then simply walked away. At thirty-six Duchamp turned his attention almost entirely to chess. Rimbaud wrote more poetry than some poets will produce in their lifetimes before he was twenty-one then walked away from it.

Because I think of art as a compulsion the idea of artists who just quit is something I have a hard time wrapping my head around. And this raises an even tougher question: when artists are known do they feel greater pressure to evolve, to not do the same thing again and again? Or do anonymous artists feel the same pressure to keep challenging themselves? And I realize it must vary from artist to artist.

It’s an interesting question for me because I see a lot of repetition in graffiti. Artists create a distinctive tag that doubles as their work and their signature. They get known by repeating the same thing again and again. Because so many are anonymous, though, it’s tough to track how many change, how many evolve, and how many challenge themselves to keep doing something new.

tag2

 

 

American Graffiti.

It’s A Post About Garry Shandling.

Author: March 25, 2016 13 Comments

As a kid I watched a lot of sitcoms even though I felt like they insulted my intelligence. And, let’s face it, most of them, even the smart ones, did. The idea that the same group of usually “average” people would spend most of their time in one location, usually a living room, making witty remarks at each other is pretty ridiculous. Even the smart ones required a pretty large helping of suspended disbelief because the cast and crew know the biggest joke is the one in plain sight: the idea that this spectacle is supposed to be real. And then one night I tuned into a sitcom that took a sledgehammer to the fourth wall. Actors spoke into the camera and there were even cutaways to the audience. It was one of the rare times I could watch a sitcom knowing the laughter wasn’t canned. With It’s Garry Shandling’s Show Garry Shandling was a sitcom emperor who came out saying, “Yeah, I know I’m not wearing ‘new clothes’. I’m naked,” and invited everyone to laugh.

Some other comedians or actors couldn’t pull it off. They’d either be too sharply sarcastic to sustain the joke or they’d fall prey to the cheap sentimentality that got into other sitcoms. Shandling was a comedic alchemist who could be sharply satirical but likable at the same time. My favorite moment of the show was when Jeff Goldblum was the guest star. Shandling says his “neighbor’s son” is such a huge Goldblum fan “he’s seen The Big Chill fifteen times, he’s seen The Fly seventeen times, and he’s seen almost all of Transylvania 6-5000.” It was hilarious and I’m also pretty sure it was improvised because Goldblum seemed genuinely surprised.

It’s that same alchemy that I think makes Shandling’s film What Planet Are You From? an underappreciated romantic comedy classic. He took an overwrought comedy cliché—the differences between men and women—and broke it down. If you really think it’s as simple as men are from Mars and women are from Venus, Shandling seemed to be saying, you must not be from this planet. Roger Ebert called it “an exercise in feel-good smut” but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Shandling was trying to elevate the most lowbrow kind of humor. Some other comedians wouldn’t have been able to pull off the gag of a hyperactive alien penis, but I think he succeeded because of his comedic alchemy which was so unique I have to wonder, what planet was he from?

Hail and farewell Garry Shandling.

Hail & Farewell.

Brave? No Question.

Author: March 24, 2016 5 Comments

IBEATCANCERI think the adjective “brave” is overused when talking about people who’ve just been diagnosed with cancer or are about to start treatment. We don’t say someone with a cold is brave for staying in bed and eating chicken soup. Surgery and chemo may be a lot harsher but most of us are numb right after we’ve gotten the diagnosis. Even once we get past that all we want is to get better, we want to survive, and we feel there’s no other choice. There’s nothing brave about doing something when it’s your only option. The real test of a person’s bravery comes after the treatment. Real bravery is defined by how a person moves on with their life even if they’re lucky enough to be in remission. Maybe it even takes more bravery to live in remission because there’s no clear path for those of us who’ve fought the crab and won.

Even before her cancer diagnosis Tig Notaro, whose birthday is today, was brave. She pursued a career in standup comedy, voluntarily going into something where there is no clear path. In 2012 just after her diagnosis she did a now legendary live set in which she told the audience she had cancer. Two years later she performed part of a set topless, showing the audience her double mastectomy scars. In her comedy she sometimes strips away pretense, purposely violating the rules of standup, and with that act she confronted people with the reality of life after cancer. She’s been described as dry and unsentimental, a comedian who keeps audiences at a distance, but talking about cancer with inspirational thoughts and platitudes would be the coward’s way out. Tig Notaro made a choice to be brave.

And this is just hilarious.

Fun With Cancer, Happy Birthday.

Peep This.

Author: March 23, 2016 7 Comments

peep1I hate Peeps. To be more accurate I hate marshmallows. I’ve never liked marshmallows. When camping trips would turn to the obligatory toasting of marshmallows I preferred to let mine just turn into flaming goo that would then fall off the stick. S’mores? How about s’nothanks? I’ll just have some chocolate between a couple of graham crackers. A family member made some homemade marshmallows and I thought maybe my problem was only with mass-produced marshmallows.

It isn’t. I hate marshmallows.

And Peeps are marshmallows with a sugar coating.

The library where I work used to have an annual event around this time of year: Peepapalooza. Don’t ask me why but Peeps are a library thing and the event involved serving fruit, Peeps, chocolate—including chocolate fondue for dipping, beverages. I discovered that even when dipped in chocolate, caramel, or guacamole I still don’t like Peeps, but it was fun, especially watching some of my co-workers get three Peeps to the wind.

There was, however, the door prize. By the door was a stack of small sheets. We were supposed to write down something we liked about Peeps and then drop it in a box and there would be a random drawing.

I have a problem with this sort of thing, especially when there’s a prize involved. I can’t limit myself to entering a contest like this just once, but I faced a dilemma. I thought writing down “They burn nicely” would cast a pall over the proceedings if that answer were drawn and since it was a library event I thought there should be some literary submissions. They included:

We real Peeps

We play for keeps

–Gwendolyn Brooks

Because I could not stop for Peeps

They kindly stopped for me.

The basket held but just ourselves

And a chocolate bunny.

–Emily Dickinson

Eat a Peep first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

–Mark Twain

To Peep or not to Peep. That is the question.

-William Shakespeare

I sing of Peeps and the man.

-Virgil

I will arise and go now, and go to to Innispeep

And a small cabin build there of marshmallows made…

-W.B. Yeats

Peeping

Is an art, like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.

–Sylvia Plath

I wrote a few more but there was fruit and chocolate to be eaten. When it came time for the drawing this was the winning entry:

Well it’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. Pastor Inqvist was handing out Peeps during his annual Easter sermon. Marilyn Tollerud is diabetic but she couldn’t refuse in front of the congregation, and things went…

Garrison Keillor wasn’t present so it was suggested I accept the award on his behalf, but I had to decline since the prize was a big box of Peeps.

peep3

Submitted For Your Approval.

In The Dark.

Author: March 21, 2016 6 Comments

darkbusAlthough the change to Daylight Savings Time is a couple of weeks behind us it still means I have a few more weeks of getting up in the dark, which makes me think that maybe instead of changing the clocks twice a year we should make it something like Groundhog Day, except tied to birds or squirrels or aardvarks. If they sing before dawn or lose their nuts or dig up an anthill before dawn on a certain day we’ll have six weeks of getting up an hour earlier and if they don’t—and let’s make it something really unlikely to happen—then we can all sleep late for six weeks. I’m kind of worried about this, though, because the whole joke hinges on a holiday from more than a month ago so I should have come up with all this then. Maybe I can pull it back out next year when everybody’s forgotten this, including me, which means I won’t remember to pull it out until the middle of next March.

Anyway getting up in the dark also means sometimes getting going so early I have to catch the bus in the dark, which I’ve done a few times. And it always amazes me that even when I’m at an unlit bus stop far from the nearest streetlight and also dressed like a ninja bus drivers still see me and stop. How they spot me is a mystery, although those headlights probably help. I’ve never had a bus driver fail to stop in the dark. I have had some zip right by me in broad daylight, though. I must be hard to spot when I’m not dressed like a ninja.

Adventures In Busing.

All Art Is Local.

Author: March 19, 2016 3 Comments

butteryGraffiti is transgressive, anti-social, even violent, right? Maybe it isn’t always. I’ve featured local artist BUTTER here before, but with a smaller, less elaborate tag. For this particular work the artist has gone all out and created something big. And it’s in another part of town from the earlier tag, although I see BUTTER all over the place. And butter, but only in stores. If I saw actual butter, or even margarine, or “oleo” which I think is contractually required to appear at least once in every crossword puzzle ever created, out in the streets that would be weird.

Anyway this got me thinking about how some graffiti artists form a community. Sometimes when I see two or more tags in the same place or close to each other I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they’re the same color. Artists working together in the same area may share materials, even ideas. Generally we may have romantic notions of the lone genius toiling away at a masterpiece but that’s rarely, if ever, the case. Artists work together, they influence each other, and their work becomes part of the community. Even when it’s not sanctioned by the property owner, even when it’s graffiti, art that is publicly on display is part of the community. I realize for some people that’s a concern. They’re bothered that graffiti will just encourage more graffiti. For me, though, that’s why I try as much as I can to highlight graffiti that I think is interesting, that has aesthetic value. I don’t want to encourage anyone to break the law, but if there’s something I can do as a critic I do want to encourage artists to be better.

Yeah, sometimes graffiti is just gang tags, but I think it’s that cool that I see BUTTER all over the place.

American Graffiti.

Acquiring Taste.

Author: March 17, 2016 4 Comments

hotdogs

Take ’em out of the wrapper first!

When I was a kid I had a lot of food aversions. They weren’t allergies. I’ve been lucky to go through most of my life without any allergies until recently I discovered I can’t take the drug Fioricet which most restaurants only serve as a garnish. Mostly I didn’t like condiments–ketchup and mustard especially–although years later a combination of poor sex ed and fear of STDs would cause me to embrace condiments with relish. I even put ketchup on baked potatoes, and even still, well, you know the joke about Buddha going to a hot dog stand and saying “Make me one with everything.” Hot dogs especially were an issue for me. When my best friend Paul invited me over for lunch one day I wasn’t happy to learn we were having hot dogs. I was four years old and even though that’s young I’m pretty sure I’d had hot dogs before then, and yet I’d never really looked a hot dog in the face. Or rather the eye. I’m probably not going to win any endorsements from the Hot Dog Association of America here even though I went through a phase in college when my diet consisted of nothing but hot dogs and, out of necessity, the occasional bowl of bran flakes, but anyway at Paul’s I looked at the puckered end of my hot dog and just couldn’t take a bite. It’s not as bad as you might think. I felt like it was staring back at me. And this went on for years. I really didn’t like hamburgers either which I know drove my parents and teachers nuts, and to make it even worse I’d later learn one of my teachers had an undiagnosed nut allergy. All the adults in my life thought hamburgers were a special treat. Most kids I knew felt that way too. I was weird. It’s a lucky thing I wasn’t born a couple of generations earlier when there would have been something deeply suspicious about a kid who wouldn’t eat frankfurters and hamburgers while we were fighting the Germans, but that’s another story.

I realize there are some children who have genuine food issues, who may have allergies or other problems that cause an aversion to certain foods, and then there are kids like me who are just weird. Eventually I would come around on hot dogs and hamburgers, fortunately before I read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. I don’t know when exactly it happened or how but something just changed and I was fine not only with what, where I grew up, were everyday foods but also with trying new foods. When I was a teenager I tried sushi the first chance I got which horrified my parents even though they’d spent years telling me to eat whatever they served for supper. Then again it was the middle of August in downtown Nashville and the sushi was being served from a sidewalk stand which might not have been the best place to keep raw fish, but it was okay. Actually it was really good. Years later on one of our first dates my wife would reintroduce me to sushi and I think one of the things that confirmed for her that I was worthy was that I didn’t say, “Back home we call that bait” when she offered me a California roll even though there is a long and venerable family tradition of avocado fishing.

What brought all this to mind was thinking about tastes, how we acquire them and even how they change since I don’t think they’re hardwired at birth but evolve and change as we get older. I’m still not a huge fan of tomatoes or green bell peppers but I’ll eat them now even though for most of my life I looked at them with the same sort of revulsion I once felt for hot dogs even though vegetables have only stared back at me on very rare occasions. And I think our tastes are largely cultural even though we assume they’re deeply personal, which may be why we have a hard time accepting that other people don’t like the same foods we like. Some people even take this really personally. It’s weird. A conversation about movies might go like this:

“Hey, wanna watch Bloodbath At The House Of Death?”

“No, I don’t like horror movies.”

“Okay.”

Whereas a conversation about food might go like this:

“Hey, want a slice of zucchini?”

“No, I don’t like zucchini.”

“Have you ever tried zucchini?”

“Yes. I don’t like it.”

“No, your problem is you’ve just never tried a good zucchini.”

Food prejudice might be one of the most pervasive and invisible of all prejudices. Personally I’m fine with it if you don’t like zucchini or bacon or chocolate or sushi or whatever. Some people will go to culinary school and open their palates and plates to new tastes until they learn those hamburgers they loved as a kid really taste like greasy cardboard and some people will learn not to pick the green bell peppers of their pizza. As we grow we sometimes learn to hate things we loved and love things we hated, and while there’s nothing wrong with being willing to try sushi from a tent on a sidewalk in the middle of August there is something very wrong with looking down on anyone who wants to.

 

The Weekly Essay