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there are two types of people in the world – sometimes updated weekdaily

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How a clarinet can destroy a life

People who were in the high school band

People who were not in the high school band.

nuff said.

Metaphors are better than butterflies on a pickup truck full of beets

People who use understandable metaphors

People who say things that make you think they’ve been huffing acetone all weekend

I love metaphors.  I love them like a fat kid loves cake (thanks, Fitty, for that one).  Metaphors are the food that nourishes the soul of conversation.  They’re as precious as diamonds but can fail worse than Clay Aiken’s heterosexuality.  They can wrap bad news in Charmin and make the most boring concepts leap to life.  Ok, you get it.  Metaphor central.

But something’s been bothering me lately.  I think the metaphor is too in-style.  People use them excessively, improperly, and in place of simple statements.  At best, people are taking about 100 words to say what could be said in 4 words (”It feels like a steaming lava sauna outside” vs. “It’s hot”), and at worst, it completely undermines an otherwise intelligent statement (”Using these colors on your web site is like eating leftover pizza with the tin foil still on.”).  If you’re a bad metaphor architect, I implore you to realize that just saying something isn’t a bad thing.  Just tell me it’s cold out, not that Chewbacca’s nipples could cut glass.  Tell me you’re busy, not that you’re being, “mortared from all directions”.  Tell me this is a summary, not a 10,000 foot view, a heads-up-display, a global view, a big picture, a wide-angle, a zoom-out, a landscape or anything else photographic.

In tracing the roots of this wave of metaphor popularity, our good friend, Dr. Phil, came to mind.  This guy has come up with some of the greatest televised verbal nonsense in history.

“Tryin’ to lose weight when you’re going through a divorce is like tryin’ to teach a duck to speak Spanish in a Canadian hospital.  I mean c’mon, people!”

I think that Dr. Phil really popularized the nonsense metaphor in the last 5 years, or so, and is responsible for a lot of people mis-wordsmithing their way through life.  I can’t say that this is always a bad thing, though, because the awkwardness that happens when someone realizes they just said a whole bunch of nonsense is just wonderful.  As I’ve said before, I have a real taste for watching people deal with the reality of their own awkwardness, so while I’d like people to start making more sense, it’s okay by me to watch the struggle every now and then.

Metaphors are a powerful and important tool today.  They’ve existed for thousands of years and have been the signature of every great thinker ever published.  Almost every great quote ever recorded is a metaphor, and I don’t see that stopping any time soon, although I do think that almost every stupid quote recorded these days is also a metaphor.  I guess, metaphorically, metaphors are a double-edged sword.

Well, I’ve got to wrap this one up like a Chinese girl’s foot.  I hope your day is better than a badger on a see saw.

Only dogs are meant to be walked

People who walk their dogs

People who walk other animals

If you live in a reasonably large city, you’re bound to see some ridiculous things happen, especially if you step foot into a city park.  Truthfully, I had this idea sent to me by someone a few months ago, but for lack of personal experience, I shrugged the suggestion off, all the while hoping that I might one day witness the sacred “cat walk.”

The only three letters in the engligh language that can describe this are W, T, and F

Now, we’ve all seen movies where some rich dude takes a tiger for a walk, or some poor girl living in a huge, cluttered New York apartment takes her ferret out for a walk (how do poor female artists in movies always have huge Manhattan lofts?), but I haven’t actually come across this in real life until recently.  And it was a real blessing to my eyes.

So I guess the idea here is that there is only one animal that is appropriate for walking, and that’s a dog.  And I mean a real dog.  If your dog’s legs are less than 4″ long or 1″ thick, you don’t have a dog, you have a genetic Pollock that had to be classified into the dog family for lack of biologists creating a “food for real animals” category.

Don’t mistake this for two types of behaviors.  This really is two types of people.  The type of person (normal) who would walk their dog for exercise / female attention, vs. the type of person who is so out of touch with reality that they think walking a parakeet is any less crazy than dressing up like a ballerina and whirling a baton around Piedmont Park.

Different coloq’s for different folks

People who say “bucket”

People who say “pail”

So the example here is illustrative (did I just say the example is an example?).  It extends to many things:

• “soda” vs. “pop”
• “cart” vs. “buggy”
• “dinner” vs. “supper”
• “line” vs. “queue”
• “bitches” vs. “hos”
• “Setting money on fire” vs. “US Automaker Bailout”

In each case, there is the normal way of saying something and the stupid way of saying the same thing.  This might be over-generalizing, but I’m pretty sure that people who use the words “pail,” “pop,” “buggy,” and “supper” were either raised by a family whose collective grins revealed 5.2 teeth, or they were born in Minnesota.  Deciding which of these things is worse is something I’ll leave up to you.

Just a taste of my condescending attitude to get your day started…

On applause

People who are “safe” clappers

People who are bold clappers

I just got out of a conference today that was about as fun as when the school bully would stab your soccer ball.  The conference was held at the Georgia Aquarium, so here you are thinking you’re going to be able to watch whales swim around while you eat free food and learn about something new, when you walk in the room and see the truth of the situation.  By, “at the aquarium,” they meant, “in a conference room in the parking garage of the aquarium.”  Soccer ball stabbed.

So, here we are in a typical meeting room with those vinyl chairs that make you sound like you’re farting every time you move, no whales, no fish, nothing.  Fortunately, the topic was somewhat interesting, but the speaker went on talking past that point where it doesn’t matter how interesting things are, you have no attention left to give. If a neon orange monkey flew in the room and killed the lecturer, I literally might not have noticed.

Finally, the speaker wraps things up and then comes that magical moment when people ask themselves, “Was that good enough to clap for? I’ll wait and see what everyone else does.”  Then, the pioneer (bold) clapper, whoever they are, gets the round of applause going.  The middle (safe) clappers join in, sensing the time where the clap is running out of gas, and then quit.  Then, the wrap-up (bold) clappers finish it off like those last few kernels of popcorn in the microwave.

I bet the girl in red is a first-clapper.  Most people hate first-clappers.

Now, that’s a standard case, and more or less the way it went today.  But my favorites are when the bold clappers get slapped down.  You know, those times when one person gives about 2 and a half claps and then realizes they are alone.  That’s priceless, as it’s humiliating for both the clapper and the speaker.  Sadly, that did not happen today.

Bold clappers come in a critical third variety (beyond beginning clappers and popcorn clappers): the loud/distinct clapper.  These are the people who cup their hands like they’re trying to crush an ostrich egg or the ones who are capable of making small nuclear explosions in their palms.  The loud clap is not a talent, it is just an ability encoded in the DNA of assholes.  I petition you now: please stop clapping like an idiot.  The beginning/ending clappers have their place in this world: they fill a necessary role.  You bring nothing to the table, just like your father told you when you were 7.

Your ringtone is the third leading cause of misery

People who have completely absurd ringtones

People who have all-too-common ringtones

I’ve been accused, lately, of taking sides, so here’s one where we all lose.  I hope you’re pleased.

About a week ago, I was sitting in a restaurant.  The name of the restaurant isn’t important; what is important is that people must eat something immediately following the purchase of a new cell phone, without fail.  How do I know this?  Because restaurants are the official headquarters of the “find your new ringtone” process.  And with all of that hustle-bustle going on, the new phone buyer is forced to complete their sonic expedition at maximum volume, alerting everyone in the restaurant and neighboring businesses if the phone was purchased at AT&T or T-Mobile with two of the most distinct and annoying series of notes ever put together by man.

Usually, the next ringtone in line tells you if the phone is an iPhone, a Nokia, a Samsung, a Motorola (God forbid), etc.  The Nokia sets always sound like a broken Atari, the Samsungs have various ridiculousness, including cats meowing out jingle bells, giggling Chinese schoolgirls, or the strangely intense music that makes the owner of the handset sound like she’s in Mission Impossible every time Blockbuster calls to remind her that The Birdcage is due.

So this is where the crossroads happens.  Usually at about the same time the bruschetta hits the table, the tone tester has settled down on one of two options: something that will give you instant-onset TMJ, or “Old Phone”.  In my case that day, it was TMJ.  More precisely, it was a T-Pain riff that I was able to successfully get out of my head just 9 short days later.

But on the other side of the coin, “Old Phone” is just as much of a tragedy.  Do you remember those movies in the 90s where a phone would ring and about 20 people would pull their cell phone out and say, “Hello?” at the same time?  Then one person would raise their handset, coiled wire going down to the briefcase-sized carrying case, and say, “It’s mine!”

“Old Phone”, or the ringtone where your mobile sounds like that flesh-tone phone in your grandmother’s house (the one where you have to hold the cord in just the right place to hear and not get that scratching noise), is on the other 50% of humanity’s cell phones, and on 98% of iPhones.

Guys normally have the phone in their pocket, often with the vibrate function on, so it’s easy to tell if it’s theirs or not, but girls with their purses are a whole different story.  If churches wanted to double their tithes, they should play “Old Phone” over the speakers just as the baskets are beginning their round, opening 85% of the purses.  Then, that penetrating stare from the preacher when the girl is caught with her purse open would really be effective.

So the moral of the story is this: there is no happy ending here.  We are all doomed to listen to techno renditions of Canon in D or Old Phone for the rest of our lives.  There is no winner.  There are only losers.  And you’re one of them.

I have “Old Phone”.  What do you have?  $0.01 to the first person to have the singing cats.

Yes, I know this one isn’t funny.  It’s Monday.

The airport bathroom is not a good place for speakerphone

Christmas is a time to tell people you’re better than them

People who write the Christmas update

People who hate the Christmas update, but read them anyhow, out of curiosity

Every year, I get more Christmas cards than I have friends.  When we send Christmas cards out, we usually go to Target, pick up a card that looks festive, and send them off to people who would not ask the question, “Honey, do we know this person?”  I think that’s a pretty sensible approach to pretty much all correspondence.  If a sender anticipates that a recipient may not know them, save the postage.

But of course, we all know that getting cards from people we hardly know isn’t the real crime of the Christmas season.  The real agony is in getting those “here’s what’s going on in our lives” letters that either accompany the card or replace it altogether.  You know, the 14-page account of every time the baby giggled, how the dog’s hips are feeling, and how the husband got lost trying to speak French to some shop owner in Bordeaux.  These updates exist for one reason only: to make you jealous.  During Christmastime, everyone is the Joneses.

Sorry it’s short this year, folks.  We’re just finished refueling the jet and we have to hurry off to Aspen.  To think, it was just 10 days ago we were in Hawaii for our short 7 month vacation.  Little Bobby just graduated Harvard and has started a hedge fund that has doubled every month since he began.  He’s going to sell it to the Japanese and use the proceeds to bring Mother Theresa back from the dead.  Hope all is well with your families, because we’re GREAT!  And as bad as it gets, we’re always better than you!

I am pretty sure that the precise number of people in this world that give a shit what is going on in someone else’s life is exactly equal to the number of women Richard Simmons has made love to.  Despite this, we all sit down with a nice warm glass of “I can’t stand these people” and read every page; every word.  We’re curious.  Has there been any failure in their life since their Shit-zoo learned how to tightrope walk last year?  Has their 15 year old who made the varsity football team last year turned to cocaine?  What about that little Korean girl they adopted – the one who won the state chess tournament when she was 5, and again at 17?  I thought I heard something about her and the tennis coach. . .

But no.  These essays of envy are not honest.  They don’t talk about when mom had too much chardonnay and told her children that daddy had erectile dysfunction.  They don’t talk about how everyone that was there on that family trip hated every minute of their time together.  That every second that passed between shots with the $4,000 digital SLR camera that stays in “Easy Mode” was spent yelling, complaining, and moaning about everything conceivable.  No, these are the Kodak moment essays that represent the true story through a rose lens:

“We refinished the basement”
- Tom spent 4 weekends cussing at the contractor while I wondered if I could trust these Mexicans in my house.

“Tina is adjusting well to college life”
- We haven’t been able to reach Tina in 4 months.  Her roommate said that she’s being released from rehab in a week or so.  We hope it’s a joke, but really aren’t sure.

“We’re loving our matching BMW convertibles”
- Suck it, my friends.  We’ve got it made, and you do not.

So I realize that it’s too late to change things this year, but for the love, give it a break next year.  Just go to Target and get a festive card, send it to people who know who you are, and let us all rest.  Then you’ll have two years to rub in our face when you sit down to figure out how to rhyme your entire Christmas card.

“Honey . . . what rhymes with learjet?”

I support wildlife with my AK-47

People who have “Support Wildlife” license plates

People who do not regularly hunt wildlife with assault rifles

I’ve been working really hard lately on reducing road rage, per my wife’s orders.  I used to see other cars as the enemy: a chaotic moving obstacle fueled by Atlantans’ self-loathing and lost dreams, but now I’ve become less aggressive.  Bruce Lee once said, “Be like the river. Flow.”  I liked to say, “Be like the river.  Crush and annihilate vehicles that stand in your path.  Deliver toxic waste from thousands of miles away.  Look serene, but be home to deadly fish that will eat a man down to the bone.”  

But my quote was too long, so it didn’t stick even though it was far more inspiring.

At any rate, I have toned it down a bit.  Now, I am more Bruce: taking it a little bit slower in traffic, letting it come to me, taking it all in.  And one thing that I’ve taken in, in particular, is the correlation of license plates, vehicles, and drivers.  There is a very interesting relationship between vehicles, their owners, and the choice of license plate.

Growing up in Florida, you learn this early.  Florida is the Baskin Robbins of license plate states.  We had more license plates than we had ethnicities, and that’s saying something.  We had Save the Birds, Save the Panther, Save the Whales, Save the Children, Save Music, Save Gymnastics, Save Trees, Support Firemen, Support Police, Support Breasts, Send All The Cubans Home, “Florida…The New Northeast”, and everything else you could imagine.  And as funny or interesting the plates ever got, the owners that went with them were that much better.

So fast forward to present day Georgia (let’s not forget that Atlanta is in Georgia: a lone Van Gogh in a gallery of Kinkade), where a regular occurrence is seeing a white Chevy Tahoe with those big lights mounted on top and a “Support Wildlife” license plate on the back.  If it’s a Monday, there might still be some deer blood on the hatchback handle.

In trying to “Support Wildlife”, a wooden wall is best.  Drywall is rarely sturdy enough to support wildlife.  Wildlife is simply too heavy.

The Support Wildlife license plate translates a little non-traditionally for those unfamiliar with it.  Georgians use the word “support” in “support wildlife” a lot like Rwandans use the word “cleansing” in “ethnic cleansing.”  While it may seem a little backwards at first, you’ll soon realize that by wiping animals off of the face of the earth, we’re actually helping them.  You know, just like wiping humans off the face of the earth is helpful…right?

But in all fairness, I don’t really think that my fellow Georgians are that ridiculous.  What it probably really comes down to is that these guys wanted a license plate with a picture of a deer on it, and when they went to the DMV, the 400 lb woman named Tameesha told them that the only option was the plate that said “support wildlife”.  Hoping the words would rub off, the hunters bought the tag and took their chances.  Sadly, the letters never did wear off, and they’re stuck with the most self-contradictory vehicle accessory available, but at least they got that deer picture.

They should have just moved to Florida and gotten the “Kill Wildlife and Immigrants” plate.

Fake Christmas trees are for fake families

People who buy real Christmas trees

People who buy fake Christmas trees

We live in a day where everything real has a fake counterpart – for our comfort and convenience, of course.  Are you a lazy turd with little sunlight in your home?  Buy a fake plant.  Want to keep up with the Joneses, but you’re more of a Jefferson?  Buy a fake Gucci purse.  Not sure if she’s really the one?  Cubic z to the rescue.

We have been living in a fake world for a while now.  We are surrounded by countless ways we can improve our lives, our homes, our bodies, and pretty much everything but our minds.  How many times have you heard, “it looks like real wood, doesn’t it?” when your friend shows you around their new home?  How about, “feel them!”?  Zero?  Bummer.

But when it comes to the Christmas tree, fake just doesn’t cut it.

I was walking around Target over the weekend getting lights for our tree when I rounded the corner and stumbled upon the fake tree wonderland.  Now, the first thing that strikes me as odd are these bright pink trees, the silver ones, the ones colored like the American flag, etc.  And there’s always that little Charlie Brown tree with like 7 branches and a single ornament that everyone reaches out to and says “aww, that’s so cute”.  No, that’s not cute.  That’s a dead sapling piece of crap, and on top of that, it’s a FAKE dead sapling piece of crap.  Putting a real one of those in your home says, “I’m broke as hell and my kids are going to cry on Christmas day.”  And putting a fake little POS sapling in your house is just plain stupid.

But the king of kings among the fake Christmas trees was just past the sad little twiggie and the bright silver monstrosity that looks like a sex toy for the Terminator.  It was a plain, regular 6′ tall Christmas tree, but with one detail that just seemed a little off to me.  And I noticed that this was the case with almost all of the fake trees: the trunk has needles on it.

Look at the very bottom – at the trunk.  Yeah, the trunk with needles.  That one.

So I can just picture this now.  Someone makes a call over to the slave labor camps in China and says, “Hey Chen-Suey, this is Earl over in Alabamer.  We need ten zillion of them Christmas trees.  You know, they’re like trees with the prickly leaves all over ‘em.”  And Chen goes to work, making “trees with prickly leaves all over them”, just as he’s been instructed.  Having never seen a Frasier Fir, they’re doing the best they can.  A few months later, Earl opens up the boxes and he’s had too much Evan Williams (fake Jack Daniels) to notice that the tree trunk has bristles, and ships them off to Target for my viewing pleasure.

Folks, it’s time to do “real”.  Stop eating your breakfast bar and sit down with your family.  Stop with the genetically-altered hydroponic pork chops, the KFC that comes from chickens who don’t have feathers or beaks, stop drinking milk that comes from cows pumped full of more hormones than a 13 year old girl at a Timberlake concert.  Stop buying backpacks that have a handle and wheels, put it on your back, and burn 9 calories.  Buy a real damn tree.  Light it your lazy ass self.

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