Why TV Makes Me Think About Dying

I'm not afraid to talk about death. In fact, I have never been afraid of death, itself -- at least not up to the point of having a family. Because of them, I now have a healthy dose of fear. I don't want to leave them without a dad and husband.

Still, I love being alive. And I love feeling, thinking and doing -- I love exploring the beauty in the world and I love experiencing the great creations and deeds of the exceptional people who live and who have lived. There is much to love about the world. And I really think there is more good than bad out there.

You know how I know TV is bad, though? When I am watching (as I was last night) and I think to myself: When it is time to die, I won't miss this place much. It will be kind of a relief. This is not to be confused with a wish for death; it is just an resignation that it will, in some ways, be a relief. That's nothing new. But it is a disproportionate reaction to a misrepresentation of reality.

Television, to me, is like the magnifying glass in the sun, held over the top of my head. It is not a true representation of the world, but a focusing of all that is bad in it.

The Media Sage Knows...

We all know how important perspective is. This importance, of course, has given birth to the all-too-often misused cliche, "perception is reality."

A few days ago, a friend on Facebook posted something to the effect of "we live in a sick world." I didn't pursue it, but I can only imagine this was a result of something she had read online or had seen on the news. When I saw this post, it occurred to me that, metaphorically, I think we all instinctively see the computer screen as a window to the world. But it is not a window. It is a magnifying glass.

Whatever my young friend (a former student) had seen, it was a story about something horrible -- about something someone did that was awful. Maybe a "news" story about a mother killing her child or something of the kind.

It seems obvious to say that one sick story doesn't make the world a sick place. But, when we see these stories, human nature seems to be magnified, for better or worse.

"That's, Like, Almost Not Cool..."

I think the troubled trajectory of the future of humankind can be summed up by this video (Hat tip: Scott Stein) Sorry about the ad -- also part of that troubled trajectory:



(Here's the link to it -- doesn't look like CNN wants this to work on mobile devices.)

Behold, the mighty jungle beast.

Behold, the little, vulnerable zebra baby, blissfully ignorant to its endangerment.

The Lingering, Languid Lick

It had been a long day for my eight-year-old son and for me, as well. School all day, then a hard forty-five minutes at the karate dojo for him. We came home to a quiet house -- my wife and other son were off at baseball practice -- and we had a nice, quiet dinner. The boy had one of his faves: cold pasta and meatballs. (I know, I know....) I had that classic combination of a phony vegetable chicken patty on wheat bread and a bowl of reheated pork-fried rice. Nothing but the finest, when daddy provides dinner...

After dinner we partook of a square of leftover birthday cake each. I made my self a nice cup of Earl Grey.

We cuddled up together on the couch for a little TV and, the gods smiling upon us, we found that Raiders of the Lost Ark was being shown on the SciFi Channel. Ahhh! We high-fived and pulled up the blanket.

The upside of Raiders being shown on SciFi: HD quality (I still have the original three dilapidated video tapes I bought years ago). The downside: commercials.

Yvonne DeCarlo; from the
good ol' days when vampiresses
left a little to the imagination.

Yes, commercials. That's when it happened.

You think, as a dad: Commercials. So what? Product ads. Ads for new shows on the channel. Maybe a public service message of some kind with some lame celebrity telling us that we need to save music in schools because music helps kids to be good at math. (Its only really useful purpose, you know.)

But what you don't expect is that, eager to market their shows to a particular (and particularly libido-driven) demographic, the station execs would completely ignore the fact that children might -- through some weird alignment of the cosmic energy channels; some fluke of fate -- be watching Indiana Jones at five o'clock on a Monday night. What you don't expect is to see a horrifying ad for a new vampire series.

But, you figure, "Meh...he didn't react to it, so I guess he wasn't scared. No harm done." Then, the rapid-fire, attention-span corroding edits slow down so that the viewer can focus on a shot -- a slow, languid shot (in glorious HD) of a young, lovely vampire vixen lovingly running her tongue up the cheek of another lovely vampire vixen.

Balancing Passion

I've been thinking about sex since Monday.

I know. That's childish and lame. Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Now, let me state it properly: I have been thinking about sexuality since Monday.

To start this week, I wrote a piece called "Calling All Ladies and Gentlemen." The piece called for renewed attention to manners -- to what is appropriate, partially in reference to the media and its over-the-line depiction of sexuality. A reader, the very insightful and articulate "zmkc," mentioned something extremely important. The comment:

I am so badly brain-washed that, while instinctively I react as you do, I cannot quite bring myself to say that you are right. Or rather, I think you are right, but I fear an extreme reaction in the other direction, leading us back to an emotionally trussed-up world.

Calling All Ladies and Gentlemen . . .



John Jacob Astor IV, who is
said to have put on his tuxedo during
the sinking of the Titanic, so he could
die "like a gentleman."


Read carefully -- there will be a quiz.

Today, I was in the drugstore with my little boys. At the check-out, there was a line of magazines, right at their eye level. Each magazine was graced with a picture of a beautiful woman. Most were wearing low-cut dresses, but one of the women was seductively opening her shirt, exposing most of her bra; her head was thrown back, eyes mostly closed, mouth barely open.

Recently, on the radio, I heard a song. The singer used the "f-word" but they "edited it out," so that he only said: "fffk," in the song.

On Nickelodeon, the children's channel, there is a show called "Victorious," about a bunch of kids in a performing arts high school. Victoria, the main character, sings a song called "Freak the Freak Out." Some lyrics: "What I'm gonna do now is freak the freak out."

What Would "What Would You Do?" Do?

You've probably heard of the show "What Would You Do?" On the show, produced by ABC, they set up scenarios and wait to see, well  . . . what people will do in morally questionable situations. When all is said and done (or not done), John Quinones steps in for an interview.

I've only seen it a few times but, for instance, last Friday, they got actors to portray construction workers who were saying inappropriate things to a pretty girl (also an actress) in front of a New York City lunch truck. Bystanders reacted in various ways, from ignoring the whole thing to offering to do some Picasso-inspired renovations on the construction workers' faces.

I'm Bringin' Shunning Back

hat do you say we try something? Shunning. Let's drag it out of the shadows of religious sects and use it with the media. Here's what we will do:

If someone is annoying, immoral or damaging to those around him, all of the news media shall be in agreement: he will be shunned. This means the offender will have no time on air, in print or online for the rest of his natural life. Think of the problems it would solve! No time wasted on the time-wasters and evildoers means the news media will now be free to deal with important things, like the search for answers and the truth behind important stuff. Quality broadcasting and reporting might actually ensue.

Who would be shunned?

The Wrath of Cyber Christ?

So, this popped up all over Facebook, coincidentally, right after I published my last piece on restraint of expression with spirituality (I cleaned up some of the awful grammar):

Click pic for source

If you believe in Jesus Christ, put this on your wall. Do not just ignore this. In the Bible it says, if you deny me in front of your peers, I will deny you in front of my Father, at the gates of Heaven. This is a simple test. If you love God and are not afraid to show it, put this on...your wall

"This is a simple test"? A test created by what higher authority? Some lonely, Ned Flanders-looking dork at a Dell keyboard in Boise? Or is there an implication that God is now maintaining a Facebook page? (I'm not sure what the ellipses mean before "your wall" but they make me imagine the words like giant cartoon rock letters with cracks in them.)

My first instinct is to react to this with two words, one of them a verb beginning with "F" and the other, a pronoun that sounds like "ewe". But I will restrain my anger. This is just another case of something people mechanically accept but that really burns my biscuits.

Click pic for source

Similarly, I once received a "Christian" email that told me, essentially, that if I didn't forward it, I would wind up like the example people it listed who died a few days after deciding not to forward it. Of course, the email went to great pains to explain that one of the deceased was a father of three-year-old twins. (Incidentally, I lived -- presumably because I don't have twins and because the God of love doesn't like to punish transgressors unless he can ruin the lives of that transgressor's children, too, just so the little bastards don't think of stepping out of line in the future.)

Oh, I admit that I thought about it for a minute, because I do believe in God (for reasons that range from Aquinas to Descartes to C.S. Lewis to the wonders of music to a lifetime peppered with some excellent homilies) and, as a logical fellow, I am sure that he would certainly take me away from my wife and children for not forwarding an EMAIL!! It makes perfect sense that Christ would smite me deader than Lazarus for not "forwarding" and that he would damn me to writhe and gnash in the Eternal Conflagration for not pasting a poorly-written, self-righteous blurb on my Facebook wall.

There's the absurdity dealt with. But how about logic? Nah -- no need for that in electronic evangelism!

First of all, is neglecting to repost that blurb the same as "denial"? Of course not. Denial would be: "Jesus? Nope. Never heard of him. Sorry." Peter stuff. Denial is not refusing to be spooked into reposting a pre-fabricated Facebook post.

And don't make me go all theological about it, 'cause I have connections. A friend of mine who is a priest pointed out that, intrinsic in this blurb of damnation, is the implication that the writer could, by sending this blurb around, cause God to take an action. Even the most rabid of mentally terroristic zealots couldn't think that arrogance was okay.

I understand the concept of spreading the "good news". I get those who dedicate their spare time to preaching, but there is a fine line between wanting to help others see the light and dragging them into in by any means possible. Convincing someone to believe in God (as Lewis and other theologists/philosophers did for me) is fine, but shackling someone to a pew and forcing him to pray at metaphorical gunpoint is ridiculous.

A maniac can force someone to have sex with him through fear and show of strength, but can he force someone to fall in love? So why would anyone want to intimidate or shame someone into faith? Would the Genesis story about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil exist if that were the way the very God that the writer of this Facebook post presumes to speak for thinks?

People believe (or don't believe) in their own fashion. I realize different belief systems place varying evangelical burdens on those who follow them. But I can't believe any denomination would advocate the use of shame and intimidation. It can only yield false results, much in the same way that torture reputedly brings out false answers -- answers given only to stop the pain.

Recollected in Tranquility

There are things that embarrass me that don't embarrass other people. But these things always seem to come from inside. They always seem to involve things I see as intensely personal; something that should burn deep in one's heart and that one should reveal only in a controlled, dignified, selective forms. Wordwsorth called poetry "the spontaneous overflow of emotion recollected in tranquility." In other words, no one wants to read a poem written in the midst of an emotional meltdown -- it is too messy; too undignified; too close. I think a few things in life are like poetry. I think intense feelings need to be filtered before they are released to the world. If they are not, I get downright embarrassed for people.

Spirituality is like this for me. It seems this should be between a person and his chosen deity. I am embarrassed by unfettered displays of spirituality, not because I don't respect the passion of those who perform these displays, but because I feel like an eavesdropper on their spiritual conversations. It feels like I'm in the birthing room of a couple I don't know. Those moments should be intimate, to me; private, not public. (Yet another way in which I am weird, I guess -- people invite their lawn service guys into the birth room now.)

Patriotism is like this, too. Its unabashed, brazen display seems to reduce the profundity of something so important. When people trumpet about patriotism and paint flags everywhere, it feels like cheering at a football game. It is especially tough, for me, in wartime. Obviously, war is so much more than a football game. Unity as a nation is wonderful, but fist-pumping and scowls at cameras meant for anyone "dumb enough to mess with us" is puerile.

I am spiritual and I am patriotic in my own way -- in my personal way. In my heart. And if I am going to display these feelings, it will be with control and restraint.  In short, not like the first video, here, but like the second.

I want to make it clear that the following song is a parody of patriotic songs by a guy named Cledus T. Judd. He is described as "the Weird Al Yankovic of country songs" on You Tube. I did not want to insult anyone's favorite patriotic song. But this makes my point with no harm and no foul. It is called "Don't Mess With America."



"We'll beat you red, white and blue"? Classic.

Now, an example of sensitive patriotism and controlled spirituality in one song -- a song that, in its subtly, taps into the idea of bravery and sacrifice in a way that a million American flag-waving football fans couldn't capture in a century, Gino Vannelli and Roy Freeland's "None So Beautiful as the Brave." The video was made as a tribute to a fallen soldier and, so, focuses on people, not bombs and guns:




Notice the difference even in the images of the video when they are not playing: the first, soldiers. The second: a man who is a soldier. Clearly, a shift in focus.

Maybe my embarrassment is driven by shame for the ways patriotism and spirituality can divide us. One video here uses patriotism as a club with which to beat others; one defines it with real pride in the beauty of bravery and in the wide-eyed dedication to idealism that results in the bittersweet of ultimate sacrifice. But we can only really see the beauty of the human spirit by looking inward. Wearing a flag shirt does not make you a patriot, nor does screaming loudly, stomping your feet, having the World Trade Center airbrushed on your car or parroting "If you don't like America, get out." Loving the spirit of freedom does; really feeling and understanding that spirit does. For Americans, understanding the Constitution does. Voting (when informed) does.

If you love the spirit of freedom, you are a patriot and, strangely, a patriot who could easily belong in many of the free countries of our world. How mystically unifying that sounds.

Art can affect the world for better or worse. Above are examples of both effects. Dignity of expression and intelligence are the defining factors. And they are the elements that I ask for in the expression of others and that I strive for in my own.

So You Think You Can Be President

This is a proposal of the most grave and honest intent.

Here it is. We have two years to get ready for this. I propose that we replace our current system of electing the President of the United States. Instead of the campaign/election process, the President should be chosen based on the call-in votes of Americans during a reality competition television show called So You Think You Can Be President. I submit that we will get better, more reliable results than we get with the current system. Voters will know their candidates much more deeply and they will be more confident and informed in their ultimate voting decisions. But the show must be carefully planned to yield the most reliable results.

First, there will be no party affiliations. Let's get that done from the start, because that is an archaic idea and parties cause more troubles than they abate. Parties are a smokescreen for cowardice and laziness of thought.

Second, all candidates must be over the age of forty and they must carry a master's degree in an academic discipline. (This helps to insure their potential as learners and thinkers.) Career politicians are welcomed to apply, but so are, say, English teachers, laywers, doctors, business people and librarians, etc.

Stage one of the competition:

People from each state who want to be President will upload a five-minute video speech to their state's designated site. They will explain in this speech why they want to and think they can be President. The people in the state will vote and the top vote-getter from each state will be sent to the So You Think You Can Be President White House -- an exact replica of the White House constructed on an undisclosed site. All 50 of the Internet picks will live there until the first big elimination: the American history test.

Stage two:

The American history test will be written by a panel of history professors chosen from American universities. The lowest twenty of the contestants will be sent home after the first episode of the show. The top 30 will remain and they will begin competing.

Our panel of American history professors will be replaced, at this point, by a panel of political science professors. These professors will administer a test, each week, on the Constitution. Any contestant who scores below an 85% on the test for the week will receive a penalty of a 10% decrease in his or her popular call-in votes for the week. Any competitors who receive below a 70%, at any time, will be immediately eliminated from the competition, regardless of their popularity. The test will be as objectively oriented as possible. Interpretation will be left for the ensuing competitions.

The show will be produced, of course, by the producers of American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance. On the show, there will be a panel of commentators who will have nothing to do with the voting process -- they just comment. This panel will consist of John Stewart, Dennis Miller, Glenn Beck, Rachel Maddow and Ben Stein. These judges will comment on the contestants' performance in much the same way as the American Idol judges comment when the votes are in the hands of the public. Since no one will be part of a political party, these judges will not be swayed by preconceptions and their backgrounds should be from diverse enough places that there is a give-and-take in their evaluative process, no matter how asinine or agenda-driven some of them might have been in the past. (It will be interesting to see where they stand on things when there no pre-labeling of contestants. If George Carlin were still with us, he would have been invited to be on the panel as the unwavering voice of reason, though he would undoubtedly have turned the offer down.)

Stage three: The weekly show will consist of challenges in which the contestants have to prove themselves in the areas of 1) ethics, 2) logic, 3) current issues and 4) presidential scenarios. The challenges will be devised by professors in areas related to each of these topics. Representatives of the religions of our country will also be part of the "ethics" element. The professors, clergy and producers will create and present the contestants with challenges and, each week, the public will vote for the winners after the breakdown and commentary of the judges; the three least-voted-for contestants will be eliminated each Friday. (The producers can iron out the process, but you get the point.)

During the process, contestants will be required to keep daily blogs regarding the show's progress. Everyone in the country (and the world) will have access to these blogs twenty-four hours a day.

The winner of the show will be our next President.

The prize: being President. There is no salary. For four years, the President and his or her family will be supplied with food, clothing and a pretty nice place to live in Washington, D.C. After that, he or she is free to compete on the show again, but after the second term, that person is on his or her own. No lifelong salary, no special benefits. The former President is free to work in any area he or she wants, but is no longer to be called "President." The ultimate reward will be to have served the American public, with no personal gain.

After this process we will have a President who is well known by the people before he or she takes office and who was chosen based on a display of intelligence, knowledge, logic, ethics and performance under pressure in simulated presidential scenarios. This person will have been chosen based on his or her ideas and not based on people's prejudice against or for subjective party stereotypes. The President will have been tested by experts in their fields and grilled, publicly, by some insightful comic and political minds. And, perhaps most importantly, the American public will have participated in the electoral process with the same energy they give to dance shows and singing shows, which, by my estimation, is about three-times the attention and thought they give to elections, including those who vote.

All advertising proceeds from the show will go to the country's poor. And me.

WHADDAYOU THINK? Revisions? Other ideas?

The Biggest Loser?

I watch The Biggest Loser sometimes. I usually watch it while enjoying snacks. Fatty snacks. Delicious snacks. But as a person who has to work hard to keep his Olympian figure (hey, you can't see me, so what the hell -- I look like Brad Pitt and I am built like the Bowflex guy), I understand what it means to deal with weight issues, as do the rest of the people in my family, so I can certainly empathize with obese America; I'd be right there with them if not for at least intermittent attention to my diet and exercise. But something about The Biggest Loser bothers me. In fact, it rends me asunder. It makes my superficial Jeckyll deeply critical of my secretly sadistic hide.

Can't we just be nice? Surely, the show has a heart to it and it chases a socially helpful goal. But why can't we stand to watch a show that isn't tainted with scheming and ax-dropping? Must these people be made to eliminate each other? What's with our fascination with "elimination" on our reality TV shows? Can't it just be a contest to see who loses the most weight, in the end? No, it can't. That wouldn't hold the dark appeal that morphs people into cathode ray bathed, TV watching zombies who eagerly devour the rubber-necking, car-wreck gaping joy we all share as if it were freshly harvested brain stew. It seems there is nothing more satisfying than watching fast friends, dripping rivulets of maudlin tears, voting each other out of the only situation that can save their overweight lives.

Stephen King wrote an essay called "Why We Crave Horror Movies" in which he gives his position on our dark natures and how they manifest themselves in creepy behavior. He attempts to explain -- quite well, I might add -- why we are drawn toward death and gruesomeness. Well, my topic is not as extreme, but what I see does throw devil horn shadows on the wall behind us as the blue light from the screen dances around us.

We enjoy seeing people succeed, sure, but we also enjoy seeing people fail. Alarmingly, we enjoy seeing friends getting forced to kick each other out of Camp Salvation. There are paradoxes galore around the show. Even the title implies this with its multiple meanings: He's a loser because he is big; he loses the most pounds, so he is the biggest loser of weight; he fails in his attempt to lose weight, so he is a big loser. Et-freaking-cetera.

When all is said and done, the show wants to help its cast, unless the rest of the cast is forced, by the design of the show, to cut off the help for some big loser who couldn't lose enough that week. (In fairness, I am not sure how much the show sticks with the contestants after they are "kicked off" -- if anyone knows, let me know.)

Then you have, as on other reality shows, reoccurring criticism, by both cast and home viewers, of the person who is doing too much "game playing". This, I do not get. You go on a show to win, right? I mean, the dangling carrot (besides not dying, someday, of cardiac arrest while clipping your toenails) is $250, 000. So, now, we let you on this show and offer you lots of money if you win and we offer you a shot at a new life if you lose lots of weight -- a task that is clearly made easier by the twenty-four hour assistance of the two most famous, successful trainers in the world --  but we expect you not to try too hard to win, because that is mean. Adam, meet the serpent. Serpent, Adam. The rest of us will decide if you continue to deserve this chance to live a long healthy life, thank you oodles and oodles.

(Did someone say "noodles"? Or cupcakes for that matter! Eat twelve of them and you can have a big weight advantage reward. Forget the fact that, every season, you have watched people eat them and then cry because of guilt and because Jillian then scratches out their eyes with a salty pretzel rod in a fit of righteous rage. Stuff those cheeks, pal. It is all a game and this gives you the advantage. Oh, wait -- that's wrong -- it is not a game -- or it shouldn't be. You are here to lose weight and to help your chubby chums do the same thing. So -- I guess don't eat the cupcakes. And hug that poor girl hard before you push her out the door.)

After all is said and done, perhaps it is good enough that when the sappy MIDI music plays at the end of the show and we watch an encapsulated video summary of all of the flab of the past (bouncing and wobbling in dramatic, deeply disturbing slow-motion) turning into the muscles of the bright future, it is all forgotten that, for an entire season, we simultaneously enjoyed seeing people lose ridiculous amounts of weight while dismantling each other's chances of winning (and criticizing them for doing this) all whilst spooning Ben and Jerry's into our gaping, critical, head-shaking, teary-eyed, empathetic faces.

Perhaps we, the audience, are the biggest losers? (In a bad way.)

WHADDAYOU THINK?

A Bloomin' Shame (I Think)

Recently, on Yahoo, there was an article about teenaged cheerleaders in Connecticut who protested their exceedingly revealing uniforms to their school officials. Like anyone else, I cheer the cheerleaders for not wanting to be sex objects, especially when the world around them seems to encourage them to do so. You might imagine that the writer of that article is in their corner, but then you can see that the "read more" link on the opening paragraph says: "see their get ups."

See their get ups? So, the lure for reading the full article about cheerleaders who are protesting being treated like pieces of meat is to tempt the reader into wanting to see . . . more of their . . . meat. Uh, right?

Or, was the writer trying to teach us something about our lascivious selves? Maybe? I dunno.

Within the article, there is a link that entices us to "see professional cheerleaders in action," while, directly above this link, the writer discusses the correlation between anorexia and bare-midriff uniforms worn by college cheerleaders.

But maybe instead of blaming the writer, we should wonder if there is some automated program that shows "relevant" links (as far as the computers know). Are the Yahoo machines finding articles related to cheer leading and, in perfect computer fashion, totally missing the irony of what they are advertising in conjunction with this article about these refreshingly self-respecting girls?

Whatever the source, the melange of messages here is fairly indicative of the shape our cultural morality is in -- maybe that it has always been in. Just loads and loads of paradoxical signals. And loads and loads of arbitrary decisions about what is considered appropriate.

Bloomers, for instance. One day after school, in high school, I was sitting with some friends and some of the cheerleaders in the hallway outside our gym. The cheerleaders were goofing around and one of them turned a handspring in her short uniform skirt, which, of course, flew up. Another cheerleader exclaimed, "Oh, no, Carla! You forgot to put your bloomers on!" Carla turned beat red, and nearly cried, until the other girl revealed that it had been a joke -- she'd had them on. But it got me thinking: What, exactly, was the difference between the bloomers and underwear? Then it occurred to me: a societal definition. That was it.

In short, someone, somewhere, had decided it was okay to do back flips in a short skirt, as long as a girl wears underwear over her underwear. Ah. I get it. This must be the same reasoning that makes it okay to show two people moaning, sweating and bouncing around in a bed (under covers) at one in the afternoon on a soap opera, but makes it not okay to show a woman or a man naked on a Discovery Channel documentary about evolution at eleven o'clock at night.

At any rate, the school board of the Connecticut high school is going to purchase black body suits for the girls to wear under their revealing uniforms. Which makes perfect sense.

Why Your Dad is Like Othello

I'm not a big fan of justifying behaviors by explaining them but I do believe in understanding behaviors in order to help soften their negative blow to our world. 

People have been pointing a certain group out for a few years now: "helicopter parents".  There are jokes about them and horror stories of these clingy parents accompanying their adult children to job interviews.  Every teacher and, these days, every professor, has to deal with them.  They do all the work for their kids, from picking classes to disputing grades -- they even do their homework.  (Oh, yes you do, sir.  I didn't just fall off of the rhubarb truck. )  If they could, they would walk everywhere in front of their kids wielding bubble wrap, deflecting everything from falling acorns to smart bombs.  It's all a result of the intensity of parental love -- a love that some people simply can't handle with reason.

Love can heal cancer, some say, but it can also ruin lives.  Ask Othello.  Oh, wait, you can't because he let his overwhelming obsession with the purity, faithfulness and the well-being of his wife, Desdemona, drive him into insane fits of jealousy, brought on by Iago whose paranoia-inspiring whispers completely cracked the Moor's confidence and ability to think rationally.  So what did he do?  He smothered his wife.  Smuh-thered.  Art thou with me?

So, take out the "romantic" and leave the intense, all-consuming  love and we have parents in the role of Othello and our society and media in the role of Iago.  (Please don't forget the part about taking out "romantic" -- I don't want this to turn Freudian and gross.) The kids?  Smuh-thered. 

Like with Othello, it's crazy, but I do get it.  Iago is constantly telling parents how children are abducted from their front yards; how most child-molesters are members of our own families; how kids get sick and die for no reason; how teachers are no good and lazy and sometimes seduce their innocent students; how all kids rebel and do stupid stuff to impress their friends and sometimes die as a result; and, most horrifically, how our kids will someday no longer be our cuddly little pals who tell the truth and who run to us when the thunder claps . . . 

I mean, we spend about eight years being capable of saving our kids from nearly all harm, then the little ingrates have the gall to start wandering off on their own to friends' houses -- next thing you know they are sneaking kisses with the neighbor's daughter (or son -- let's be fair).  Then what do these rotor-equipped parents do?  They try to control what they can in a desperate attempt to keep protecting the thing they hold dearest -- the precious child that the world wants to kill, maim, make sick and, ultimately, seduce into leaving them. 

The seduction begins with video games and moves to  parties, random independence and, finally, fat, shiny jobs.  That hurts.  So if the parents can't have their children, no one can.  They get jealous.  They control, guide and cover.  Smuh-thered.

Obviously, we need to be stronger than this for our kids.  But let's not go in the other direction, either: "We never wore seat belts and we were okay!"  Who is this "we"?  Not the kid who smashed through the windshield and died in 1949 when his dad bumped the car in front of him at twenty five miles per hour, surely.  Let's just agree not to say stupid crap like that.

So what message can we give to these parents?  Maybe it's that kids are like kites.  You put them together with love, carefully carry them to where the wind is -- taking care not to rip the thin paper or break the balsam bracings -- then you run them into the wind and let them rise up on their own, gently guiding them.  But when they are up so high they are out of sight, you need to sit down in the sand -- still holding the string so they don't fly away and crash somewhere, alone -- and wait there in case they fall and need you to put them back together again.  But take heart: you don't ever have to let go completely.  Not completely.  You just can't fly everywhere with them.

Power Primping

Brothers!  Fellow warriors!  Don't fall for it.  I tell you, there looms a secret conspiracy against all that is hairy and gruff and it wafts through our culture like a dog fart on the breeze.  There is a clandestine effort going on out there to make soft what should be rough; to take those who traditionally have been noted, favorably, for the age-old ability to beat others senseless and to inject us with a poison designed to release its toxic sensitivity into our testosterone rivers, thereby turning the subterranean piranhas of aggression into insipid guppies.  Beware! Whence comes this insidious, dark force?  From advertising, the media and . . . women.

(Ladies . . . stick with me here, please. I realize this an artless way to appeal to one's audience, but I'm reasonably desperate.)

Where has gone the sword?  Where, the battle-axe (yes, with an "e" at the end, dammit)?  Where is the noble stench of grunting contention?  I'll tell you where: scrubbed off or our unnecessarily moisturized skin with a loofah and whirling, perfumed with body wash, down the drains of the full, sloshing tub of glorious blubber that we all once were.  That's where.  But it is not too late.  The power to return us all to our former forest-chested glory is in your (MANICURED?) hands.  Let me lift the veil from your eyes, my bewitched pal . . .

Perfuming and moisturizing, for example.  Would you do this voluntarily?  Of course not.  It's silly.  So the advertisers use manipulative language to smokescreen us.  They seduce our warrior natures with phrases like: "power away dirt" and "defeat dry skin" with "active hydrators".  They bid us to "unleash" the power that lies dormant, as if it were a sleeping dragon's conflagratory breath, in our showers.  For the love of God!  However they package it, you wind up with soft skin.  Do you hear this?  Don't fall for the lies, my friends.  Next thing you know, we'll be tweezing stuff.  (I know, I know -- some dudes already do that.  It's just too horrifying for me to ponder.)

And the women in our lives? (Just to be safe, let's not tell my wife about this post.) These plotting flibbertigibbets want to recreate us in their own image.  I can feel it.  Do you know what I did this morning?  I ate yogurt with fruit in it and a little granola sprinkled on top.  Fruit, I said.  And my wife? She blends stuff up and puts it into milkshakes. (Actually, she blends up just about everything and drinks it.  Check out her site to the right if you don't believe me. I'm thinking of trying it with a hamburger -- no pickles.) Anyway, I enjoyed the most delicious chocolate milkshake the other day, only to discover, afterward, that the scheming wench had blended spinach into it.  I mean, getting me to clean my own crumbs off of the counter is one thing, but slipping nutrition into what remains decadent, mindless yumminess is downright evil.  Just when you think you can trust a girl.  It's affecting me like a drug.  I'm slipping.  I'm playing right into that suburban Circe's hands.  Parfaits, indeed.

But I will not give in.  Nor should the rest of you, my stinking brethren.  If we start softening up, the world could become an unrecognizable place.  Millions of military employees will be out of work.  (Do you think Patton moisturized?) If we wind up healthy, we could very well lose our chance to face cancer with bravado.  If we start caring about personal aesthetics, we could easily wind up doing lunatic crap like buying art or listening to La Boheme.  Danger lurks around every corner, bub.  Beware.  And don't say I didn't warn you when you find yourself giggling as the cuddly puppy of social conditioning licks you into submission.