Elocution

The was a time in human hist...when elocution was taught as a r.....of public edu...... This is no longer the case. Many people, at least here in the United Statsububub, have stopped finishing their sent..... It's as if they never learned to take the like whatever in their like whatever and transform it into like whatever thus facilitating communication between whatevers. They either trail off the end and never........, or some, when they lose the thread of their thoughts, will let their speech devolve into nonesebedlcbsuywnxp.... , or they will like whatever the like whatever with "whatever" as if the listener understands what they mean.

Alright, the meta-joke is getting old and I'm getting sick of writing like that. Bottom line: Finish your sentences! Take the thoughts in your head, translate them into recognizable words, and speak them. All of them. There really isn't much that seperates us from animals; not REALLY. Speech is one thing that does. Use it, and use it well. The thoughts in your head are too important to waste.

Things I Don't Understand - Part 1

I'm something of a know-it-all. I am a walking encyclopedia of weird facts, and am constantly reading just enough to make me seem smart (and not a letter more). However, despite the fact that I know a great deal, I understand very little about life, people, and existence. Here, then, is part one of a list of things I don't understand:


There are languages in this world, French and Vietnamese come to mind but I'm sure there are others, that do not pronounce the ends of certain words. They will enunciate the front and then have 3, 4, 5 or more letters that are silent. Why don't they just not have those letters there in the first place?

How did we end up with names of countries in different languages? If you go somewhere and say "What is this place called?" and they say "Nippon.", how does "Japan" happen? If you say "Is this Japan?", isn't the logical response "No, this is Nippon."? Okay, maybe one guy had a speech impediment and couldn't say "Nippon"; all subsequent visitors can't possibly have the same impediment. So why is there a different name for Nippon in every language? The same goes for Espana, Italia, Deutchland, and every other country. Why don't we call it what the locals call it?

Part of growing up awkward, at least from my perspective, is knowing less than those around you about the expectations in social situations. "What am I supposed to be doing in this interaction? What is reasonable? What will make me look like a retard?" The awkwardness occurs when you don't know, but those around you somehow do. So where did the non-awkward learn it? Is there some sort of (metaphorical) behavioral memo that people subscribe to? I fully understand why we awkward types don't get this inside info on social grace; the information isn't readily available. What I don't understand is where do the socially graceful ones learn it?

Guys who regularly do complicated handshakes with one another cannot possibly do it spontaneously. They must learn it ahead of time and execute them at some mutually agreed time. So do they practice then? Do they sit around with their buddies practicing elaborate handshakes and discussing when and where to do them? You never see gay guys doing elaborate shakes but sitting around holding hands with your pals seems more than a little gay to me. How do the fancy handshake guys, a decidedly macho breed of man, humble themselves, dispense with their innate homophobia, and get together to practice? "Say, Bob, why don't you come over Sunday. We'll watch the game, down some brewskies, and practice fancy handshakes." I can't picture it.

It's incomprehensible to me how slowly some people can stand to walk. Now, I'm not talking about the injured or elderly. I'm talking about normal, young, healthy people, that walk like they have all the time in the world. Don't they have somewhere to go? And if not, why are they out walking? Wouldn't they rather get where they are going quickly so that they have more time to do whatever it is they're going there to do? Can't they feel the grim reaper breathing down their neck? They're wasting their own lives. That's suicide.

What's up with the insincerely cheerful people? We've all been in situations where we've had to act happy when we weren't. It's awful. It feels like the emotional equivalent of holding your breathe for longer than you think you can. But these people do it all day, every day. And I'm not talking about the genuinely cheerful people. I'm talking about the insincere ones. You can spot them a mile away and if you look in their eyes, you can see their souls dying. So why don't they just frown? Frown until they don't feel like frowning anymore. Or, more to the point, how can they bear to keep that up?

On a similar topic, what's up with the shmaltzy, saccharine, telephone persona? You know, the people that put in that little mini chuckle before they say "mmmb'bye now."? Or they talk in sing-songy baby talk. Can they not hear themselves?

Why will some people give you their life story in answer to a yes or no question and then never get to the yes or no part?

Why should I, or anybody else care about professional sports? No matter how enjoyable the game is to play, if you are not playing it and no one you know is playing it and you haven't bet money on it, you have no stake whatsoever in who wins. It does not affect your life or the life of anyone you know or are likely to meet. So what moves you to care? It's not civic pride. I know anarchists who care whether "their" team wins. Anarchists by definition cannot have civic pride. It's not support for the people in your community. Professional athletes only live where they live because the team pays them to live there. They draft them from other cities. Then there are the people who root for teams in other cities, some in cities they've never even been to. So much for civic pride and community support. Transference perhaps? Are sports fans laboring under the misapprehension that they are on the team? Seems a little unlikely. Can hundreds of millions of people really be that delusional? Maybe. Look at organized religion.

The 90's

I had a short but interesting conversation the other day with a couple of people about ten years younger than myself. Metallica's Enter Sandman came on the radio and the subject of the 90's came up. I expressed some nostalgia; Honest emotion in music (speaking of Indie not R&B), Seattle the temporary center of the universe, a president who wanted nothing more than a BJ and some fried chicken and wasn't a dangerous psychopath bent on enslaving us all. But the thing that I miss the most is that people weren't so prissy. The younger folks with which I was conversing said "Were people really less prissy?". Yes. Yes, they were. Remember the whole "sex positive" movement with Susie Bright and Annie Sprinkle? Remember, the beginnings of South Park blowing everybody's doors off? Remember Act Up and Queer Nation? Remember loud, passionate music before it was formulaic? Remember when Hip Hop had a harsh political stance and wasn't all about blunts, bling, and bitches? Remember when people used to go to nightclubs in feather boas and white PVC and dayglow green fur? I can't pinpoint the exact moment when it happened but sometime, I think after 9/11, this country became Utah. Coast to coast people young and old suddenly adopted Mormonesque self denial and strident boringness, clinging like a lockjawed pitbull to the middle of the road. Actually, to call it sudden is not accurate. It was sudden when I noticed it. I suspect the change was so glacially slow, nobody noticed, otherwise we would have stopped it. Now I realize, by mentioning this, I'm in danger of becoming one of those guys that you used to see in the 70's (for you younger folks check out Dr. Johnny Fever on repeats of WKRP in Cincinatti), talking about how life was real in the 60's and how "'78's just empty, man. Down with Disco!", but frankly I don't know what to do about it. I feel like Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing lamenting the loss of the heart of the 60's but I don't have a surreal 70's to move into. This millennium really sucks so far. Everywhere I go feels like the unholy lovechild of a strip mall and a Methodist church. Or perhaps it's just me. Maybe I'm secretly resenting the fact that I recently threw out my collection of sparkly party shirts in favor of the dully colored vertically striped shirts that everybody seems to be wearing. Maybe I'm just disappointed that the most progressive and interesting thing in popular music is the talented but essentially dull Black Eyed Peas. Maybe I'm just bored with gays demanding legal, monogamous marriage instead of celebrating the joys of being gay and throwing it in the face of those who lacked the courage to be fabulous. Maybe I just miss Kurt Cobain. Maybe I just haven't gotten laid in several months because the political climate bums me out too much to try. Is it just me? Am I just in denial? Is the new millennium really a golden age? Am I just turning into a grumpy old man 30 years ahead of schedule? Or has something really filed all the edges off the Zeitgeist and turned the concept of an interesting life into monochrome cafeteria food?

Truth! - part 1

The following statements are true:

Surviving on fish sticks, hashbrowns, eggs, and beer for more than 2 days will give you a stomach ache.

An unusually high number of people with accents work in medical administration.

If Christians had any concept of infinity, they would not be so attached to their 'messiah'. Being tortured, reviled, abandoned, crucified, and dying, all within one day (crucifixion usually lasted several days), only to come back and become omnipotent three days later is not a sacrifice. It barely even qualifies as an inconvenience. A day of intense horror in exchange for an eternity of godhead? I'm not impressed, Jesus.

If you are asked what you do for a living and you say "I sell [such and such].", that's okay. If you say "I'm in sales.", you're creepy and probably a sociopath.

Anything worth buying does not require a salesman, just a clerk.

There is no significant difference between the cute aesthetic and the erotic aesthetic. When you see a picture of a cute little baby or puppy or whatever it is, your breeding instincts are involuntarily activated. You desire, and this is a physical desire, to hold and shelter this creature because you have a biological imperative to do so. If you see a picture of an attractive naked woman, man, rock, tree, or whatever you're into, breeding instincts are involuntarily activated. You desire, to impregnate or be impregnated by this creature (or object) because you have a biological imperative to do so. The action is the same, yet one is arbitrarily suitable for public view and one is not. One is lionized and one is demonized. They are both pornographic, because they push your biological buttons, whether you want them to or not.

There is something strange about adults who say they have a 'bedtime'. Having a time when you think it would be a good idea to go to bed, based on your lifestyle, your level of fatigue, and what you plan to do tomorrow, seems normal, but when people actually call it a 'bedtime', I can't help but think they never grew up.

Rules are not made to be broken. If you know me personally, that may seem strange coming from me, but it's true. Rules are not necessarily made to be followed either. They are made to be evaluated on a case by case basis, taking into account the original intent of the rule, and then followed or ignored as the situation dictates. "Rules are made to be broken" sounds suspiciously like a rule to me.

The microscopic organisms on and in your body outnumber the cells of your body by a factor of 10. That means you are walking around with ten times as much "them" as "you". Kinda makes you wonder what it means when you say "me", doesn't it?

Some people live like they're never going to die. You can spot them because they're usually walking slowly down sidewalks or hallways with a mob of exasperated people in a hurry stuck behind them.

I'm becoming convinced that some people are just extras.

Many beautiful memorials are created in honor of complete bastards who want a tax deduction.

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Today is Mexican Independence Day, commemorating the day in 1206 BCE when Cheech Marin, Paul Rodriquez, and Speedy Gonzalez repelled the French army with a tactical master stroke. They ordered their forces to sneak into the enemy's kitchens and fill their sinks with rotten mayonnaise. The smell was so pungent, even to the French, that they were utterly destroyed. That's why France doesn't exist anymore. Hence the name Cinco de Mayo, which means "sink full of mayo". It is normally celebrated on the 3rd Thursday of November, but for some reason they're doing it on May 5th this year. Probably something to do with NAFTA.

In an unrelated topic, I need to get me some lighter friends. My car is in the shop. Something had knocked my exhaust pipe loose and it has been dragging on the ground making sparks. Interesting to to look at, but not something you really want your car doing. I had been making a joke to myself--not to anyone else because it was only mildly funny and rather insulting to my friends--that I've been driving around with too many fat people in my car. An inordinate number of my friends are significantly overweight and do not drive. Now, I'm a little overweight myself, only about 30 pounds or so, and have no wish for the gods to punish my hubris by making me any fatter, so I try to keep the potential fat jokes to a minimum. I have only so much self control, so some do get out, but I try. Andy at Andy's Import Auto (good, honest mechanic and nice guy) informed me this morning that my engine mounts and transmission mounts were broken, and that the subsequent sagging of the transmission is what broke my exhaust pipe. He did not say this in so many words, but if my understanding of gravity and physics is correct (possibly not), it might be that excessive weight and inertia caused a sag in the body of the car and an unusually high burden on the transmission. Put another way, it very well could be that my car was broken by having too many fat guys in it.

Ecce Homo (aka mini-bio part II)

When last we left our hero, he had just gotten divorced and started his real life. I feel compelled to point out an error in my previous entry: I neglected to mention that I got married, hence the divorce. I didn't get divorced without getting married first. That would be silly. After my divorce there was a great deal of wreckage to clean up. The next decade or so was spent doing that, while simultaneously trying to have a life too. As I was a 23 years old male in Seattle in the early 90's, I was required by law to join a band. I played guitar and flute in a band called Mama Lama with my friends Diano and Scotty. That dissolved eventually, which is for the best as I would not become a competant musician for several years yet. After that dissolved, I started acting (you know, the thing I went to college for) quite frequently with Stepping Stone Productions. I also founded Not Named Bob, my forray into radio format comedy (ala Firesign Theatre). It was well received by the 20 or so people that saw it, but unfortunately none of us had any gift for promotion so we just faded into oscurity. However, it was at this time when I started to realize that acting in regular 'plays' was not exactly where my muse wanted me to go; close but not quite. Deep down I was a sketch comedian. It was then that I and my cohort, Aaron, founded Lo Blo, a sketch comedy troup whose primary Modus Operandi was to find the line of good taste, cross it, make fun of the people that did not cross it, piss on it, set it on fire, and then draw a new line somewhere else with the intent of crossing it later. We had some modest success early on, and had a company of around 13 people (not all at once), but due I think primarily to bad press (which is to say, being utterly ignored by the press) our houses dwindled, our reslove faltered and we ceased to function as a unit. It was somewhere around 2001 that Lo Blo faded away, but not before producing our magnum opus, a cinematic tour de force called X-Treme Surfing. I then hopped on the bandwagon of Theatre on the Rocks. To call them sketch is not entirely accurate; it was more of a variety show and excuse to drink cocktails on stage. There was some sketch involved, but there were also guest performers, a house band, games ("Name the Movie, Win Some Crap"), and other stuff. Its founder, Nellis, moved out of town and we decided to keep the group going but retire the name out of respect for him. We rechristened ourselves The 13th Step; somewhere between 'Jefferson Starship' and 'AfterMASH'. We managed to pull off three shows, and had a fair following, until evetually we all started to drift away from the project for no specific reason. I then started to work with Open Circle Theater, drawn primarily to their yearly adaptions of H.P. Lovecraft stories, of which I have written two. I have been working with them ever since and, thanks to them, in a month will be debuting my latest sketch comedy project, THEM!, combining my two great loves, sketch comedy and horror.

So that's my abbreviated biography. I hope you enjoyed it. I have left out a number of things, my love life, my tumultuous relationship with my family, my experiences with the paranormal, travel, specific childhood stories, all of which are topics in and of themselves. My love life itself will probably be a 10 parter. I will be revisiting these topics later.

Also Sprach Zarathustra...

...and hurray for me too! Let the banners wave! Let the fanfares sound! Let the manic depressives cheer, or stay in bed and sigh, as is their wont!

I now have a blog!

I'm sure my email pals will appreciate my acquiring a real outlet for my oooooo so clever bon mots, my histrionic autocritique, my shallow and idealistic political opinions, my angry tirades on religion, society, and grammar (of all things) and my filthy fucking language, and finally leaving them alone.

So, this begs the question of content. "Well, Johnnie-boy, you have a forum to say whatever you want. Whatcha gonna say?" (Truth be told, no one has ever called me "Johnnie-boy", least of all me. I just thought it sounded suitably contemptuous.) I guess I'll start the ball rollling with an incredibly short biography.

I was born in San Diego California in the Fall (despite the lack of anything falling in SoCal) of 1969. I don't remember much about the event, but I'm pretty sure there were hippies involved. Or maybe Nixon. Those '60's were wild, man! My mother was a military nurse, and my father was an engineer for MacDonald-Douglas and occassional contractor for NASA. They were both ex-Navy, and Mom outranked Dad. I had, and still have, a sister a year older ('Irish Twins' as they say). The family moved up to Lake Grove, Oregon (suburb of Portland) in 1972. My sister and I attended Our Lady of the Lake Catholic School from 1st to 8th grade. At some point in 5th grade or so, it occurred to me that Santa did not really exist. At this point I half expected to graduate from Catholic school and go on to the 'real' school, and was rather surprised to discover that this God business didn't go the way of Santa. Santa actualy made more sense to me than God; I got presents from Santa; I never got any presents from God. After 8th grade I attended Jesuit High School. Yes, another Catholic School, all boys. My sister went to the all girls' school. The salient points of high school can be summed up as drawing, sulking, lighting fires, writing excrutiating poetry, masturbating, acting in plays, falling in love with a girl, and there was a brief encounter with some boobs in there too. The one true important event was that I discovered that I wanted to be on stage and that's all I really wanted to do with my life. On to college! I attended Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington, in the Acting Conservatory, met some folks with whom I am still friends, and some with whom I am not, and the woman that would eventually become my ex-wife. Went through college, learned a great deal, sired my son (brilliant kid, you should meet him), graduated, got divorced (and not a moment too soon), and that is when I consider that my life started. Not sure how I did it, but I was born at age 23. I'll continue this mini-biography tomorrow...

Thus Spoke Zarathustra