matthearn.com

Can someone explain to me why you’re not allowed to smoke anywhere but a specially constructed, hermetically sealed, underground iron box, but it’s perfectly legal for people to drench themselves in cheap perfume and go out in public?

I went to church yesterday; I didn’t have to sing, so for the first time in a while, I sat in the congregation. And it was like a hyacinth was having sex with my sinuses. I thought someone must put a funeral wreath in a blender and then poured it on their clothing. My own clothing I considered burning when I get home, but instead muttered dark incantations as I ran it through the washing machine eighteen times.

Do people really not notice that they smell like a florist’s refrigerator? How dead must your olfactory nerves be that you think 7 squirts of Eau de Rabais is necessary? More to the point, why hasn’t the government intervened? I’m not normally a fan of intrusive regulation, but it seems to me that it should be illegal for someone to put on so much stinkum that it feels like someone has jabbed a hot poker into each of my nostrils, right?

The worst offenders will actually argue with you about what they’re wearing. I knew a wonderful woman who continually came choir rehearsal smelling like a cathouse, and people complained, until the director took her aside and said “You must stop wearing perfume.” She replied, “I’m not!” The next day, she once again smelled like she’d bathed in rose petals, and another choir member said, “I thought you were told not to wear perfume anymore!” Again, like Peter, she denied it, and was asked “So why do you smell like a burning rose bush?”

“Oh, that’s just my body spray,” she replied, and so we had to beat her to death with our hymnals, Your Honor.

Just a quick note: if you like photography at all, check out 2008 in Photographs at boston.com. Some of them are mildly graphic, but they make you click before they’ll load the really nasty ones (a dude with a seriously gushing head wound, and a dead child). Some of them are simply awe-inspiring, but all of them are “make-you-thinkers.”

Get on it.

Oh, and don’t forget parts two and three, the links are on the site.

There’s a thing that’s been floating around Facebook like some kind of social disease wherein everyone goes down a list of movies and checks off the ones they’ve seen. I tend to ignore most Facebook crap (I’m currently 0 for 4,374 on “signing up for stupid applications that people have invited me to”), but this one was so wildly popular that I felt I needed to get in the top floor!

(Note: I am aware that the idiom is “ground floor.” The humor relies on the fact that I’m getting in on this just as it becomes spectacularly unpopular; my participation therein is probably causal. Just wanted you, the reader, to understand my “humor.”)

Supposedly, if you have seen more than 85 of these movies, you are some kind of “movie dork.” Let’s see where I place. My comments are hellatalicized.

(X) Rocky Horror Picture Show – Unfortunately. The best thing about this movie was Susan Sarandon, and I’m going on record to say I’d rather hump a sap hole in a maple tree.
(X) Grease – I hate this movie so much that my testes just completely retracted into my torso.
(X) Pirates of the Caribbean
( ) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest
( ) Boondock Saints
(X) Fight Club
(X) Starsky and Hutch
(X) Neverending Story – Why isn’t this ever on TBS? This movie was so awesome back in the 80s. I’m sure it holds up fine! Right? Right? (Note: I may be the only person in my generation to own and have read the original book, which is SPECTACULAR.)
(X) Blazing Saddles
(X) Airplane

Total: 8

(X) The Princess Bride – Just watched this a few weeks ago. Fantastic. Still holds up.
(X) Anchorman – Also rad.
(X) Napoleon Dynamite – Man, this is like a turkey! (When you bowl three strikes in a row. Because the last three movies are so awesome. Get it? No? You know what? You suck.)
(X) Labyrinth – Hambone!
( ) Saw
( ) Saw II
( ) White Noise
( ) White Oleander
( ) Anger Management
( ) 50 First Dates
( ) The Princess Diaries
( ) The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement – They lost me on the last eight in a row. I wouldn’t watch “White Oleander” if you tied my dingaling to a doorknob.

Total so far: 12

(X) Scream
( ) Scream 2
( ) Scream 3
(X) Scary Movie
(X) Scary Movie 2
( ) Scary Movie 3
( ) Scary Movie 4
(X) American Pie
(X) American Pie 2
( ) American Wedding
( ) American Pie Band Camp

Total so far: 17 – The theme here seems to be: did you like the original? It was okay. Did you see the sequel? What am I, stupid? If you’ve seen “Scream” then you’ve seen Scream 2 and 3. Because the plot is identical. And since nobody gets naked, sadly, I’m out.

( ) Harry Potter 1
( ) Harry Potter 2
( ) Harry Potter 3
( ) Harry Potter 4
( ) Resident Evil 1
( ) Resident Evil 2
(X) The Wedding Singer
( ) Little Black Book
( ) The Village
( ) Lilo & Stitch

Total so far: 18 – With a certain amount of pride, I can report that I have seen no Harry Potter movies, and read no Harry Potter books. I have seen my share of Harry Potter slashfic, but that’s not a topic for a Family Blog.

( ) Finding Nemo
( ) Finding Neverland
( ) Signs
( ) The Grinch
( ) Texas Chainsaw Massacre
( ) Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
( ) White Chicks
(X) Butterfly Effect
( ) 13 Going on 30
( ) I, Robot
( ) Robots

Total so far: 19 – I saw part of Butterfly Effect; probably like 2/3. I’m saying that counts, since I saw the end and then googled the parts I missed.

(X) Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
( ) Universal Soldier
( ) Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
(X) Along Came Polly
(X) Deep Impact
(X) KingPin – Wildly underrated. Randy Quaid takes a dump in a urinal! Priceless.
( ) Never Been Kissed
(X) Meet The Parents
( ) Meet the Fockers
( ) Eight Crazy Nights
( ) Joe Dirt
( ) KING KONG

Total so far: 24 – So far I seem to be at about 50% of the average. This is because I don’t really watch movies. Not least because I hate movie theaters, but also because the number of times in a given year that I have 2 hours to waste can be counted on one hand.

( ) A Cinderella Story
( ) The Terminal
( ) The Lizzie McGuire Movie
( ) Passport to Paris
(X) Dumb & Dumber
( ) Dumber & Dumberer
( ) Final Destination
( ) Final Destination 2
( ) Final Destination 3
( ) Halloween
(X) The Ring
( ) The Ring 2
( ) Surviving X-MAS
( ) Flubber

Total so far: 26 – Some of these I’ve not even HEARD of. And the only Flubber I saw was “Son of Flubber,” the sequel to “The Absent-Minded Professor,” both starring Fred MacMurray. I don’t believe it counts.

(X) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle – BRILLIANT.
( ) Practical Magic
(X) Chicago
( ) Ghost Ship
(X) From Hell
( ) Hellboy
( ) Secret Window
( ) I Am Sam
( ) The Whole Nine Yards
( ) The Whole Ten Yards

Total so far: 29 – I’ve seen the last 15 minutes of Hellboy roughly 7 times. I guess that doesn’t count, because I spend the entire time asking HW, “What the hell is going on?” and she responds “Stop fricking poking me, I’m trying to sleep.”

(X) The Day After Tomorrow
(X) Child’s Play
( ) Seed of Chucky
( ) Bride of Chucky
( ) Ten Things I Hate About You
( ) Just Married
( ) Gothika
( ) Nightmare on Elm Street
( ) Sixteen Candles
( ) Remember the Titans
( ) Coach Carter
( ) The Grudge
( ) The Grudge 2
(X) The Mask
( ) Son Of The Mask

Total so far: 32 – I may have seen Child’s Play and Sixteen Candles and Nightmare on Elm Street all the way through; I just don’t remember. I’m gonna mark Child’s Play and give myself partial credit.

( ) Bad Boys
( ) Bad Boys 2
( ) Joy Ride
( ) Lucky Number Slevin
(X) Ocean’s Eleven
(X) Ocean’s Twelve
( ) Bourne Identity
( ) Bourne Supremecy
( ) Lone Star
( ) Bedazzled
( ) Predator I
( ) Predator II
( ) The Fog
(X) Ice Age
( ) Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
( ) Curious George

Total so far: 35 – The Ocean’s Etc. films always slay me. I think I watched Ice Age all the way through; if not, I definitely saw at least 30 minutes of one of the Bourne movies. Plus I read all the books. It evens out, people, c’mon.

(X) Independence Day
( ) Cujo
( ) A Bronx Tale
( ) Darkness Falls
( ) Christine
(X) ET – The first movie I ever saw in the theater! Do I get double credit? No? Screw you, then.
( ) Children of the Corn
( ) My Boss’s Daughter
( ) Maid in Manhattan
( ) War of the Worlds
(X) Rush Hour
(X) Rush Hour 2

Total so far: 39 – It’s worth noting that I have FAR less than half of the average Joe to this point.

( ) Best Bet
( ) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
( ) She’s All That
( ) Calendar Girls
( ) Sideways
( ) Mars Attacks
( ) Event Horizon
( ) Ever After
(X) Wizard of Oz
(X) Forrest Gump
( ) Big Trouble in Little China
(X) The Terminator
(X) The Terminator 2
(X) The Terminator 3

Total so far: 44 – Let’s just say I don’t own any of these on DVD.

( ) X-Men
( ) X-2
( ) X-3
(X) Spider-Man
( ) Spider-Man 2
( ) Sky High
( ) Jeepers Creepers
( ) Jeepers Creepers 2
( ) Catch Me If You Can
(X) The Little Mermaid
( ) Freaky Friday
( ) Reign of Fire
( ) The Skulls
(X) Cruel Intentions – I watched this entire movie hoping either Sarah Michelle Gellar or Reese Witherspoon would get naked, and neither of them did. We did get treated to a boob shot of the hideous girl, though. Thanks. <SARCASM>Made it all worthwhile.</SARCASM>
( ) Cruel Intentions 2
( ) The Hot Chick
(X) Shrek
( ) Shrek 2

Total so far: 48

( ) Swimfan – I watched up until the hot chick gets busy with the guy in the pool, and then went to sleep. Does that count?
( ) Miracle on 34th street
(X) Old School
( ) The Notebook
( ) K-Pax
( ) Krippendorf’s Tribe
( ) A Walk to Remember – I watched a little of this with my wife, but then I started menstruating.
( ) Ice Castles
( ) Boogeyman
(x) The 40-year-old Virgin

Total so far: 50

( ) Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring
( ) Lord of the Rings The Two Towers
( ) Lord of the Rings Return Of the King – Watched the Battle of Helm’s Deep. Couldn’t care less about anything not involving immediate elven bloodshed.
(X) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
(X) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(X) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Total so far: 53 – Nothing but love for Indy. Haven’t seen the fourth, though. Worried that it’s lame. Is it lame? Wait, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.

(X) Baseketball
( ) Hostel
(X) Waiting for Guffman
( ) House of 1000 Corpses
( ) Devils Rejects
( ) Elf
( ) Highlander
( ) Mothman Prophecies
( ) American History X
( ) Three

Total so Far: 55 – It’s well-documented that “Waiting For Guffman” may be the best movie in the 20th century to not earn a single Oscar nomination.

( ) The Jacket
( ) Kung Fu Hustle
( ) Shaolin Soccer
( ) Night Watch
( ) Monsters Inc.
(X) Titanic
(X) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
(X) Shaun Of the Dead
( ) Willard

Total so far: 58 – Much love for Grail and Shaun. Much hate for Titanic, although at least Leo dies and you get to see Kate’s hooters. I change my mind: a small, but measurable, amount of love for Titanic.

( ) High Tension
( ) Club Dread
( ) Hulk
( ) Dawn Of the Dead
(X) Hook
( ) Chronicles Of Narnia The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
( ) 28 days later
( ) Orgazmo – Ain’t seen it, but am profoundly curious about it!
( ) Phantasm
( ) Waterworld

Total so far: 59

( ) Kill Bill vol 1 – Would love to see this; saw the first 20 minutes or so the other night on TBS or something, but fell asleep. It was late. Anyway, can’t watch it during any hours Charles is awake because I don’t need him learning how to throw knives at people.
( ) Kill Bill vol 2
(X) Mortal Kombat – I just like that the guy that played Johnny Whatever went on to play a guy on Days of Our Lives for a while. Mighta been killed off, though.
( ) Wolf Creek
( ) Kingdom of Heaven
( ) the Hills Have Eyes
( ) I Spit on Your Grave aka the Day of the Woman – This sounds like a quality film in every way.
( ) The Last House on the Left
( ) Re-Animator
( ) Army of Darkness

Total so far: 60

(X) Star Wars Ep. I The Phantom Menace
(X) Star Wars Ep. II Attack of the Clones
(X) Star Wars Ep. III Revenge of the Sith
(X) Star Wars Ep. IV A New Hope
(X) Star Wars Ep. V The Empire Strikes Back
(X) Star Wars Ep. VI Return of the Jedi
( ) Ewoks Caravan Of Courage
( ) Ewoks The Battle For Endor
Total so far: 66 – Wow, I’ve seen most of the Star Wars movies. Scary thought.

(X) The Matrix
(X) The Matrix Reloaded
(X) The Matrix Revolutions
( ) Animatrix
(X) Evil Dead
( ) Evil Dead 2
(X) Team America: World Police – I’m not proud of having seen this.
( ) Red Dragon
(X) Silence of the Lambs
( ) Hannibal

Total: 72

The average is north of a hundo. Wow, I haven’t seen very many movies. I do not consider this much of a failing. Tomorrow: I don’t like Jonas Brothers. Also: get the hell off my lawn!

• If you’re curious about what kind of economic downturn we could be facing, check this out. It’s pretty grim. I’m pretty optimistic, personally, but that will probably change if I, say, get fired and take up alcoholism.
• A couple Youtube clips worth checking out:
  • Widor Toccata. Probably my favorite piece for organ, but holy crap look at the console for that instrument. 154 ranks! 5 divisions! (By comparison, the organ I usually practice on has 19 ranks, I believe.) Jeepers. Plus, best of all, watch when the pedal part starts at about 50 seconds in. That’s right, world-famous organist Frederick Hohman is wearing pants with elastic cuffs. I know what you’re thinking, “Oh, he’s just German, they wear weird things,” but nay nay; he was born in Missouri, people.

    I need to find out if my dad knows him; they would have been at Eastman, studying with the same teacher, at the same time.

    Additionally: wow.

  • I have listened to this Nickel Creek song no less than 40 times in the last 24 hours. I do not exaggerate. The video itself is kinda nice, but unimportant, and in fact doesn’t really pertain to the song (which appears to be about tenuous Christian faith); just open the link, put it in the background in case your boss comes up behind you, and give a listen.

    I know this probably qualifies as “Contemporary Christian” music, which under normal circumstances I despise (I prefer my religious music written for men, boys, and organ, and also I am deeply suspicious of a genre of religious music featuring commercials with culty audiences waving their arms and singing along with their eyes closed), but in this case I make an exception. Not least because the lyrics sort of hit home.

• I am spending altogether too much time playing with toys.
• Whopper-scented body spray for Men. This seems like it’s marketed to the wrong gender. I mean, as much as a guy would enjoy smelling like a burger, wouldn’t he enjoy his wife smelling like one WAAAAY more? I’m not a big fan of perfumes and whatnot, as my wife can attest, but always prefer food-smelling ones (fruit, etc.) to flower-smelling ones, because the latter make my nose clog instantly. But I’ve said for years, if they made a perfume called “Eau de Boeuf” that smelled of Prime Rib, I’d
  1. make sure Sarah had a lifetime supply, and
  2. immediately buy stock in the company.

  Maybe I’m just weird.

Most of my readers (meaning both of them) are probably thoroughly aware of Newsweek’s article, by Lisa Miller, on the religious arguments for and against gay marriage, but on the off chance you missed it, click here. It does a particularly good job of summing up and discarding the conservative religious arguments against same-sex matrimony, so it’s useful information if you find yourself in an argument with a homophobic religious nut. A few salient quotes:

Most of us no longer heed Leviticus on haircuts or blood sacrifices; our modern understanding of the world has surpassed its prescriptions. Why would we regard its condemnation of homosexuality with more seriousness than we regard its advice, which is far lengthier, on the best price to pay for a slave?

and

Religious objections to gay marriage are rooted not in the Bible at all, then, but in custom and tradition (and, to talk turkey for a minute, a personal discomfort with gay sex that transcends theological argument).

As Insty would say, read the whole thing.

UPDATE: More here.

I’ve got a great idea: Delaware should legislate the use of the “Clameur de Haro.” I originally thought that it should be enacted for the entirety of the US, but the more I consider it, the more it makes sense as a Delaware-only law, like how Delaware’s the only state that allows you to incorporate by simply putting “Inc.” after your name, or how it’s legal here to dump sulfurous gasses into the atmosphere as long as nobody’s allowed to smoke anymore.

If you aren’t familiar with the process of Clameur de Haro, here’s how it works. If someone is wronging you, you need to gather some witnesses (ideally by shouting “Hey! Witnesses! Come here!”), drop to your knees, put your hand in the air, and shout:

Haro! Haro! Haro! A l’aide, mon Prince, on me fait tort.

Which translates roughly to: “Haro! Haro! Haro! Come help me, my Prince, because somebody is all up in my BWEEZNASS.”

Then you just have to recite the Lord’s Prayer. In French. If you are unfamiliar with the French words, you can find them here. Once you have completed this task, the person that’s wronging you is required to stop, even if he or she is totally in the right, on penalty of fines and/or imprisonment. Of course, if you raise the Clameur without a valid reason, you are penalized as well (fines, imprisonment, and/or a sound thrashing with the branch of a sycamore).

Then you have to file your complaint with the Greffe Office, whatever the hell that is, within 24 hours. And until the courts have ruled on the matter, whatever your wronger (that sounds like a bell-laden laundry appliance, doesn’t it?) was doing cannot continue.

Wouldn’t this be great? Just think of all the possible uses:

• Keeping Rita from writing you a parking ticket
• Stopping people from going through the express lane with more than 15 items
• Calling a bar bouncer a fat nonce and then making sure he can’t punch you
• Preventing your wife from changing the channel while the Eagles game is on

We need to all write our state representatives immediatement and get them to work on this important piece of legislation.

A few tidbits:

• I wish I hadn’t spent $200+ dollars on “Party Pigs” for my beer because, frankly, they suck. They’re a nice a idea, because bottling beer is a huge hassle and I have a life to live, people, but unfortunately they don’t live up to the hype. They just don’t dispense beer very well. It starts out really, really foamy (like a real keg would), which I can live with, except that before the thing is even 1/2 empty it starts dispensing insanely slowly. Seriously, filling a pint glass takes so long you could time it with a calendar. The reason, as far as I can tell, is the expanding CO2 pouch inside starts blocking the spout, and there’s not a lot you can do about it aside from just taking the thing apart, which you can’t do without losing the beer (the pressure makes it go all over the place). For 40 bones a keg, I’d like to think I could get more than 2 beers out of it that weren’t absolute foam, you know? Weak.
• Charles is very fond of a TV show called “Caillou“, featuring a little whiny bald boy. It’s a pretty lame show, but Charles loves it; it’s full of crap wherein Caillou is afraid to go down the slide, but his mommy helps him, or Caillou is afraid of Santa Claus, but Santa turns out to be cool and likes Caillou’s drawing (when a real mall Santa would be half in the bag and have no time for smarmy baldies). The parents are astoundingly patient; when they ask Caillou to do something and he whines “But I don’t want to!” they commiserate and work out some kind of compromise, when any decent parent would just lightly backhand the brat and say “Just do it before I make you bleed.”

  Why he’s bald is never explained, so Sarah and I have developed this enormous backstory centered on our belief that he has leukemia and they just don’t want to actually cover it. Anyway, as an example of the horrible, horrible things my wife and I can think up: Charles was watching the show, and Sarah and I were at the dining room table. I looked at the TV and noticed that Caillou’s mom looked a little thick, so I said,

  “I think Caillou’s mom is pregnant.”

  To which Sarah replied, “Yeah…you know they need that marrow.”

  We laughed for a good 5 minutes, and then discussed whether that was going to get us into hell, or if the decision had been made years ago.

This morning, Charles requested eggs and bacon for breakfast. I said sure, why not! and started frying up some bacon which turned out to possibly be a bit old. Charles, being Charles, insisted upon “helping” which meant I was turning bacon with one hand and using the other to try and keep him from sticking his hand into the hot fat. Great times.

I said to Sarah, “I bet some toast would keep him out of my hair, do we have any bread?”

“I don’t think so…there was just a little in the bag, but I don’t remember throwing it away…”

“If that was the only loaf, I threw it away the other day,” I said. “I thought we had another lying around.”

“No, that was it.”

“Oh well.”

I continued frying the bacon, while Sarah went to the gym to get her flex and floss on. Charles and I had eggs and bacon, played inside, played outside, played inside, had a couple meltdowns over puzzles and games and stuff because he’s 2, and then Sarah came home, with a bunch of bags of stuff from little shopping stops. I asked her,

“Did you get bread?”

Her responses are paraphrased because it was like 25 minutes ago and I can’t even remember my name for more than 8 minutes at a go, but she said, approximately,

“Why the hell would I get bread?”

“Because we were out of bread!”

“I didn’t go to the store!” she shouted, dropping bags from coffee joints, dollar stores, head shops, crack houses, etc.

“You could have!”

“Why the hell would I go to the store?”

“Because we were out of bread!”

“I only went to the coffee place for a breakfast sandwich!”

“A sandwich would be nice! I’d make one too, but we don’t have any #%&@ing bread!!!“

“Fine, after I finish my %&$#ing sandwich I’ll go to the @$%#ing store and buy you some #%$&ing bread!”

At this point the ratio of expletives to useful information went over the limits of a family website; basically we just started giving each other the finger and getting out our laptops to look up divorce lawyers.

I didn’t notice at the time, but that last post was my 600th entry on this so-called “web site.” I’m not sure what to make of this information, really; this has never been a “blog” in the purest sense, since any decent blog puts up multiple posts a day, or at least a week. Aside from the occasional period when I get ambitious and start throwing up a post a day (I mean that literally), I’ve averaged probably one post a week. So me getting to 600 posts is like Pete Rose getting to 160 home runs. Sure, he got there, but it took him over 4000 games. I’ve been doing this for like seven years.

Oh, don’t worry, this isn’t a “wow, I’ve been doing this a long time, maybe it’s time to call it quits” post. Eff that noise. I have no intention of quitting. In fact, I intend to try and ramp up my output.

I finally realized that if I want to become a writer (one of my many dreams) I need to actually write. And the surest place for me to do that is on my website, where I have 2 readers who won’t hesitate to email me if I say something douchey. It’s completely stupid to think “Wow, I wish I could make my living writing” when I have a captive of audience (of two people) checking my website for updates only to find, to their heart’s dismay, nothing has been posted. If I want to write, I need to, you know, write.

So I’m writing. How do you like it so far?

I’m not making any promises about daily output. My job doesn’t really permit me to do anything like that during the day, and my evenings are occupied with either a paying gig/rehearsal or chasing my tow-headed offspring around. But here is my promise to you: you will see more frequent stuff posted here. It might be a lengthy diatribe, it might be pictures of Sarah Palin making sweet love to an antelope, it might be a musical effort on my part. We will just have to see!

It might even just be a diary-type entry where I talk about stupid crap that happened to me during the day. So you can look forward to all sorts of useful information, on the offchance I become famous and you get on Jeopardy and one of the questions is “On this date, Matt Hearn stepped in poo, wiped it off on a park bench, and watched in horror as, before he could be stopped, his son sat in it.” (This hasn’t happened, but given Charles’s propensity for getting profoundly stained while in my care, it’s only a matter of time. And when it does, you’ll be the first to know. (‘Cause I certainly wouldn’t be telling my wife.))

That’s what I offer you. Poop stains and lies. Enjoy!

Over Thanksgiving, we watched “A Christmas Story,” featuring Peter Billingsley, Scott Farkus, and Bumpus’s Dogs. Great film, which even after watching it all the way through, my wife insists she’s never seen the entirety of. I noted a few strange things (warning: lists within lists a-comin’):

• Miss Shields, Ralphie’s schoolteacher, is kinda sneaky hot. Sure, she’s overweight and dumpy and middle-aged, but she’s got that stern schoolmarm thing going on. That doesn’t turn anyone else on? Just me, huh? Okay, nevermind.
• I don’t know what kind of insanely superpowered BB-gun Ralphie got, but I’ve had lead pellets bounce back at me directly from a wooden target placed roughly 15 feet away, and it was about as painful as getting flogged with a shoelace. Admittedly, lead is soft; BBs are steel (BB does not stand for “Brass Ball,” in case you were wondering). Plus, idiot-boy put his target over a piece of metal, whereas my ammo was bouncing off impact-absorbing plywood. Still. I’m just sayin’, maybe Ralphie could man up a bit and take a round to the face without flying backwards like he’d been hit by a bus. PART OF GROWING UP IS GETTING HIT IN THE FACE BY THE OCCASIONAL PIECE OF FAST-MOVING METAL.
• Did it never occur to the fire department that, instead of yanking or cutting Flick’s tongue off the flagpole, they might simply have poured warm water over it? He showed up back in class looking like they’d freed him with a bandsaw.
• Why don’t men wear hats anymore? I mean, I know the story about JFK giving his inauguration address, or some speech of similar gravitas, without a hat on, and after that hats sorta petered out. But c’mon, dress hats are FANTASTIC. I’d wear one with suits and nice clothes all the time if I could find one that fits my head for a reasonable price. This also got me thinking of a bunch of other things that you never see anymore (and in fact haven’t really seen in my lifetime):
  • Men wearing suits all the time, including to sports events and while gardening. Now you can get a seat in a Michelin 3-star restaurant wearing cutoffs and a T-shirt featuring a picture of Calvin pissing on Che Guevara. THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING, people.
  • Drunken department store Santas. Time was, every Santy was soused to the gills and nobody thought anything of it; dealing with that many unruly children basically REQUIRED it. If St. Nick even has a beer at lunch these days he’d probably be stoned to death by a platoon of Soccer/Hockey/Polo moms while their nannies scurried the children over to the Build-A-Bear workshop so their little Christmas hearts don’t get broken by watching Father Christmas die a messy death.
  • Nobody says “soused” anymore, either. And whatever happened to three-martini lunches? And surreptitious bottles of rye in big mahogany executive desks for a little on-the-job tippling? Nobody drinks rye, for that matter, with the possible exception of me and one other (and he knows who he is, the lush).
  • A few things we DON’T need to bring back from the forties/fifties: pointy brassieres (those’ll REALLY put an eye out), polio, Joe McCarthy, and the various wars in Europe and Asia.
• Last thing: if my next-door neighbors had a pack of dogs that broke into my house and ruined my Christmas turkey, the dogs would be dead and the neighbor would be burying them in the backyard while I ate HIS turkey and drank all his rye.