On the local access television station, late at night, you can watch videos of gurus talking to their flocks. These aren’t Indian gurus, they are from other places, and mostly from the USA; some from Wisconsin. I was watching one of these guys last Tuesday night when it dawned on me that it doesn’t seem to take much to just put up a shingle and say you’re a guru. There is a common thread to what they teach and how they talk. You too can become a guru with a little know-how and by putting your imagination to the grindstone, so to speak.

How do they talk, these gurus? If you want to be a guru, you need to know. They speak like they are a cross between a robot and a mental patient, not to demean mental patients. And they have a look in their eyes that is distant yet psychotic. On their faces they wear a plastic smile as if everything they are saying is brilliant and wise. They also speak in a monotone voice, very measured, not because they want to hypnotize you, but because they are insane. Read the rest of this entry »

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I wish I could include a couple of Disney drawings to illustrate this article, but alas, I fear they would send me to the hoosegow for copyright infringement. The big companies are very down on using their depictions even in the interest of science, which this article clearly is…

The title of this article, as you may have noted, is Can A Mouse Own A Dog? Is this such an unreasonable question? I submit to you the idea that Disney’s Mickey Mouse owns a dog named Pluto. And so we have the unique situation wherein a mouse has a dog as a pet. Now think about this: Mickey would either have to be the biggest mouse in the history of the earth, or Pluto would have to be the size of a small radish. Which is it?

I have often seen, in books and films, Mickey Mouse taking Pluto for a walk. Mickey has complete control over the leash, and Pluto looks pretty strong. Mickey speaks in a very high, squeaky voice, which one veterinarian told me, “sounds to a dog like a metal ball thrown into a steel drum.” Poor dog. Poor us, listening to this squeaky voice. The original Mickey voice, by the way, was done by Disney himself. If you are taking enough drugs, you can thoroughly enjoy listening to Mickey speak in the movie Steamboat Willie. It’s fun entertainment for the whole family, but put your dog outside where it’s safe for his ears. Read the rest of this entry »

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One of the oldest axioms (or is it axia?) is to avoid discussing politcs or religion. So I go out on a limb here. My grandfather used to say that you can’t rise to the top in politics without being tainted. Why did he say this? What did he know? Maybe he was right. Who would want to hang in there all the way to the top while being tossed around by criticism, slander, libel, dirty jokes, backstabbing and favoritism? It seems like too much trouble to the sane, normal person. Which leads me to believe that the ones who finally make it are neither. Any more.

Were things different in the days of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson or even Churchill? I don’t know. But politIcs is a magnet for backstabbers and liars. It goes with the territory. So what kinds of people these days are the leaders of the pack? What do they do and how do they act, and knowing the answers to these questions, why would we want them to be our leaders? Read the rest of this entry »

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My mother was a great shopper. She excelled at it. Marketing Professors from Columbia and Harvard used to call her for clarification on weighty problems on how to handle a sale, how to allocate your time and how to avoid the pitfalls. They’d confer with her to explain the difference between a sale and a special, or how to recognize leather from vinyl from across a crowded plaza.

Now that the shoppers’ season is in full bloom, it might behoove all of us to understand the intricacies of this shopping behavior. Let’s begin with “The Sale.”

Do retailers cheat and lie? Yes. They say something is “on sale” when it is really just “for sale.” How do you know the difference? The answer is that serious people study this shopping thing and become experts. It’s like the stock market. They say you shouldn’t play unless you know the difference between a buy, a sell and a put. So, if there’s a shirt that is priced $40, you have to know whether that is the regular price or a bargain. Otherwise, you should stay at home and bake muffins. Read the rest of this entry »

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I find it fascinating to read about men’s feelings and attitudes in and about romantic relationships, especially when such lessons are coming from a female writer or psychologist. Women writing about men’s feelings. It’s like me describing what it’s like to be a duck taking his first swim across a pond. I am no duck, so who am I to say? Before you ladies get out a meat cleaver, be aware that I am far from misogynistic in my views. I just think it’s crazy for women to describe the male thought process as much as it’s nuts for a man to fully understand a woman.

But Erica Rossellini, PhD, disagrees. In her book, How to Stroke His Ego While Wearing Evening Gloves, Dr. Rossellini says she has the secret on how any woman can please her man outside of the bedroom. So, right off of jump street, I am puzzled. What does Dr. Rossellini mean by “please”? Is she talking about sex? No! She says on page two, “Pleasing a man begins long before sex.” But she uses the word “please” and “bedroom” in the same sentence. After I read this I couldn’t think straight. I completely had to reread the next paragraph two more times. Hers was a tough book to get through.

Dr Rossellini is the literary equivalent of Sugar Ray Leonard in his prime. Read the rest of this entry »

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You hear so much about how upset people get every time an immigrant group comes into the country and takes over all the jobs. The big complaint is always that they are taking over everything and they don’t want to learn our customs or speak English. Well, I have news for everyone. I recently read a Secret document from the U.S. Government that should send these people into a tailspin. Essentially, the document is talking about using trained chimpanzees to take over a lot of human jobs. I’m not making this up, so if you’re a doorman, a delivery guy or a waiter, you better take note and tighten your belt. Otherwise, you can be replaced by a hairy stand-in named Bonzo.

The document of which I speak is called CWS-02. It stands for Chimpanzee Worker Substitute, and the “02″ stands for 2002, the year in which this document was drafted. The idea is one that was presented to George W. Bush and pushed through without Congressional approval. There was only one little line about it at the back of the Washington Post in which Bush said, “I’m not sure what all is in it, but if it leads to fewer hirers and firers, then it’s good for Americans.”

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What is a time warp? Is this real or a product of science fiction? Something you’d see on Star Trek? This is a question that nagged me in the middle of the night. Well, actually, in the middle of the night I’ve been nagged by a barking beagle, but this in no way diminishes my need to discover the meaning of a time warp, believe you me. People use the phrase “time warp” all the time now. It’s usually a term of derision, like, “Wow, that guy’s living in a time warp. He still watches television.” That whole diatribe could have been summed up in two words: “He’s old.”

A lot of science fiction is extracted from real science. But what about the time warp? A time warp has come to mean the exhibition of characteristics of an earlier era. Like you’re stuck in a certain period of time and cannot move forward. This seems to happen to older people. They keep talking about their younger days. And they wear clothes that are out of style by about 25 years. They also tend to eat with food on their lips, but this is something else altogether. Read the rest of this entry »

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My son, a wonderful filmmaker, writer, editor and director, introduced me to the term “artificial lighting.” Essentially, when you shoot a movie, you can’t rely on ambient lighting because it doesn’t do the job unless you’re shooting outdoors under ideal conditions. But inside, you have to create your own lighting so you can control the outcome of your film. Filmmaking aside, I started to contemplate the term “artificial lighting.” This led to thinking about other things designated as artificial.

If something is artificial, is it bad or good? Read the rest of this entry »

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The day before yesterday I was sitting on my balcony, computer in hand, sipping a mocha latte cappuchino grande java, a decaf concoction of my own invention, when I came across a blurb about a congressional hearing over rap music. So I clicked on the link and got a glimpse of a truly inspiring notion: that Congress should get a group rate on a labotomy. Lemme splain somethin to yous.

I think our real Congress has been kidnapped and sent to the planet Numbnuts and replaced by what they call walk-ins. Walk-ins are like zombies, but without the disgusting faces, bad breath and vacant look in their eyes. Wait a minute, now that I think about it, there are great similarities. What’s going on with Congress, you may ask? Read the rest of this entry »

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I can’t take any more cute emails. They are no longer cute. They are annoying. You know the ones. A friend sends one to a friend and so on down the line. Then, by the time you get it, there are hundreds of email addresses of friends of friends. You don’t know who they are. You look at some of the names, but you don’t recognize them. How can your friend (the one who sent the email to you) have so many friends you don’t recognize? Is he living a double life? Has he been holding out on you? You start to wonder why you’re not at the top of the list. The whole thing can be very ego-deflating. But I digress as usual. Read the rest of this entry »

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