354. what ever happened to ted haggard?

(just caught teddie haggard on larry king the other night, as shameful a voyeuristic urge as i have had in quite some time. afterwards, i went back into the files to see if i actually had commented on this little sinminister matter. and lo and behold i did. praise the lord.)

the last i heard, the good evangelist took three weeks of intense therapy to cast the devil’s grip of homosexuality from his soul.
and, glory to god, he tested 100% heterosexual, although i have it on reliable sources that it was touch and go there for the tedster on the oral part of the exam.
literally.

295. find me some land, my pilgrim

keaton said, your job is to find us a piece of land, like the pilgrims did.
i asked, for what?
she said, so we can become self-sustaining. it will need plenty of sun, and wind, and water, and rich soil.
i asked, okay. how about down south?
she said, too humid and they’re not quite over the civil war yet.
i asked, how about pennsylvania?
she said, bad roads and the home or rick santorum. enough said.
i asked, how about west of pennsylvania?
she said, that’s the heartland, it’s not where the brains are.
i asked, how about new england?
she said, too cold and that live free or die stuff gives me the creeps.
i said, i know, how about the great northwest? yeah, the northwest!
she said, too many serial killers and besides it’s too far from manhattan.
i said, how about the western hills of new jersey, like right here.
she said, it's too close to home! keep thinking though, you're onto something.
and i thought, whew, this pilgrim stuff is hard work.

583. ruining my life

i said, so keaton and i will be down over night and you can give us that art lesson, but dad is going to have turn the air conditioning on.
ma said, i don't know. you know how your father gets chilled.
so i said, well tell him to put on an extra pair of pajamas.
she added, your father and i don't wear pajamas.
i chuckled and said, what are ya doin'? trying to ruin my life? of course ya do. you're just confused.
ma said, no, i'm quite serious.
my breath became shallow and quick.
then i said, i see. listen, got bad news. can't make it. i forgot i have a weekend load of sessions with my shrink, and right this second, i can't get to them fast enough.

808. a little known fact about henny youngman

it dawned on me that i never hear about stand up comics from the middle ages.
so i did some research.
i executed a proper google search and discovered that henny youngman was such a comic.
apparently he was a regular of the grand banquet tour in the little known resort area, the caspian catskill belt.

some of his best lines included:

• the queen is so fat that when she sits around the castle, she sits around the castle.
• the king took his queen to a queen-swapping party. he had to throw in some treasure just to get her in the door.
• the queen is so ugly when the king brought her on safari, they groundskeeper said thanks for bringing back the elephant.
• the king visited his personal doctor. the doctor said, "you need some blood letting your majesty". the king replied, "i want a second opinion." so the doctor said, "and you're ugly too!"

in fact, so popular was henny with royalty that he was knighted, lord of the laugh.

and to think i got to see him perform at the square in willowbrook mall for free no more than twenty years ago.
gee, i wish i had known.
i would have greeted him "sir youngman", instead of just"hey henny".

807. the man plan

i happened by one of those two minute filler spots on a cable news station recently.
it was a two minute interview with some female author on a promotional tour.
she was hawking her book called, "the man plan".
apparently she had interrogated 250 men between the ages of 22-50 about their women attraction theories and from that guy genius concocted game plans for women on that first date.
(oh baby!)
here's her line of thought.
her interrogations revealed that in general men make up their minds very quickly about whether or not they have an interest in a woman.
it's sorta like the way men shop: they know what they want, they see it, they buy it.
so you see, women need to have a plan for that first date to maximize the man's "buy it" percentages.
hence the name, "the man plan".

the apparent strategy is for the woman to pass the "buy it" test at any cost, and worry about jettisoning the lout later if he turns out not to wear her well.

here's what i think, with plans like these, who needs harmony.com.
really.
for instance, one piece of insider information is that men like perfume with strong vanilla notes because it reminds them of—get this—baked goods!
now nobody but nobody likes baked goods more than yours truly, but if you're gonna depend on my sense of smell to figure out that's what you are up to, forgeddaboudit!
put a couple of cupcakes in your bra and i'm buyin' licketty split if you see what i'm sayin', although i'd settle for a good sense of humor and a plain cruller
then again, as hard as it may be to believe, it's not like i've been a dating machine anyway.
so who am i to say.

honestly, i just feel for woman of the opposite sex, always having to have man plans and all.
i say, "use catch and release for trout, not men?"

806. dumb like a fox news

what is wrong with fox news.
they've gone ballistic.
less than 24 hours into obama's tenure and they are waving the yellow flag of fear over gitmo.
hannity and billo were besides themselves, telling americans to lock down because the attacks from obama freed terrorists are coming.
let's face it, they put the hippo in hippocrits.

they've become unglued.
the whole lot of them.
and as for those three knuckleheads passed off as a news team on saturday morning, total age of 45?
what liberty university teen prayer meeting did they yank them out of?
they were fawning—i mean crawl on the floor gravelling—over "i hope obama fails" limbaugh.
raving about his antics.
one chirping "we'll even cut away from commercial break if he just calls me on my blackberry."
needless to say i didn't hang around to find out.

well, the only certainty is that mainstream press never seemed more fair and balanced.
a heartfelt thanks fox and fiends.

803. the home alone nick nolte syndrome

i've been home alone now for a few days, and i have my home alone beard growth to prove it.
it's quite freeing.
no shaving.
but i'm worried that i'm taking on that nick nolte look.
wild hair, wrinkled clothes, and all.
although it seems to have its benefits.

why just yesterday i went to wegman's and the produce floor manager grabbed a granny smith, handed it to me, and politely showed me out the door.
it was a pretty good apple i must say.
crisp and tart, just the way i like them.
today i'm going back and heading directly to the fish department.
i'm shooting for a pound of chilean sea bass.
tomorrow?
who knows?
kobe beef?
(and what a nutty departure that'll be from the vegan ways of keaton these past months!)

802. rush limbaugh: "i hope obama fails"

yes, he did say it, along with the quiet out (i.e., if success means liberal policies).
yes, it was another well calculated limbaughism for maximum impact: a short, shocking sound bite followed by the quoting discarded disclaimer.

say what you want, the man knows media manipulation and how to drive his naysayers crazy.
i know the latter first hand.
i used to be such a crazed person.
i actually can chuckle these days because the writing of changing demographics is on the wall.
his dominion may not be shrinking so much by number but it sure as hell is by percentage.
and rather than take stock to reassess his failed ideas, he chooses antics of sophomoric attention getters over any substance.

i don't know.
maybe he's just sulking because he wasn't invited over to the conservative pow wow dinner with president obama.
not part of the conservative inner think tank.
on the outs with his own.

reduced to nothing more than just another loud mouth, college drop out, chicken hawk, like his sidekick hannity, whining about the breaches of self defined patriotism, while the rest of us move on to problem solving.

you know, when obama spoke about leaving childish things behind, i think we can start with these big babies.
good riddance pudgy and tubby!

okay, so maybe that's not in the spirit of obama's message.
oh well, gotta work on the "in the spirit" skills i guess.
felt real good though!

801. forty four: a good number for president obama

i like that number, and he should too.
forty four.
has a real balance to it.
it even rhymes with "four more", something that might be quite convenient in a few years.

it's a number to be proud of too.
the number worn by syracuse running back ernie davis, the first black football player to race to collegiate football's prized heisman trophy back in 1961.
the same year when freedom rider buses ran for the equality of a race.

forty four years hence, obama is sworn in on january 4th, 2005, as junior senator from illinois.
and in the forty fourth month following, august 2008, he is nominated as the first black presidential candidate of the democratic party.

and what has happened since, priceless.

now we have number forty four.
and not since bobby kennedy have i felt so wild eyed.
almost crazy optimism really!
and it feels great.
there's even that little extra hop in my step, missing since bobby lay there on that hotel kitchen floor—a young journey ended.

and there's even this dumb smile i have (and it's dumb as dumb can be).
impossible to shake really—a good thing, as it seems just enough to keep the tears at bay.
hell, even my joints don't ache quite as much as they did yesterday.

ah, forty four!
what a number!

and what a great day for one young journey long-ended, reborn in another's grand journey begun!

800. the bush/truman comparison

president bush is going out fancing himself a harry s. truman type.
well, after eight long years, i know george w.
and i hope president truman was no president bush.

799. buy more to save more

i heard this just yesterday during some commercial, "buy more to save more".
now i probably have heard that claim a zillion times before but i finally stopped to take it in and think about it—given the current economic climate and all.
and after much consideration, i've concluded that may be just about the stupidest thing i've ever heard.
more dumb than those wild scientology claims (as if that's possible).

i went through the steps over and over again and i kept landing on the idea that to buy something, i have to spend something.
i'm pretty sure that something i need to spend is money.
and where does the money come from?
assuming it doesn't come from trees (or what we in the states fondly call credit cards),
that money must come from the savings side of the house.

so in a simple example, i have one dollar in my savings.
i grab it and i run over to buy whatever it is they are selling.
i hand over the buck and run back as fast as my little feet can carry me to see my savings account, which was empty when i left it.
and when i get back, low and behold, there are two dollars in the account.
that's what they are claiming.
and if by some stroke of luck, i'm able to buy two, i'll find four dollars in my savings.

the last time i heard logic like this, it had something to do with the more mortgage interest you pay, the less taxes you pay.

it just seems to me that if i want to save more i need to buy less.
oh well, what do i know?
i'm one of the five people who voted for george mcgovern.

272. viking in training

during my recent highlands' walks, i had an opportunity to meet and talk with ralph the viking.
he kept a pretty low profile because the vikings are pretty much at the top of the scotsman hate list (campbells soup and properly operating toilets being 2nd and 3rd).
apparently, for a bunch of centuries the vikings had a propensity to come down from norway to scotland on weekends and pillage willy-nilly until they had their fill.
then they returned home by monday to their day jobs, at which they’d compare ribald stories of plunder around the mead cooler.
anyway, one thing led to another, and ralph the viking offered to make me a viking in training, which appealed to my manly ways.
i was doing fine until i suggested that maybe the weekend pillage trips to scotland would be more comfortable if they added paisley upholstered cushions to the rowing benches.
he took the suggestion back to the council and came back to tell me i was on viking double secret probation.
he told me there might be bloodletting involved as some sort of test of manhood.
i told him i’d get back to him on this.
now i’m thinking that those horned helmets might not be all they’re cracked up to be, that maybe i’d be better off selling the paisley cushion idea to the french navy.
anyway, the viking spiked ball is clearly in my court.

90. the alphabet guys

benny said, it bothers me that r follows q in the alphabet. u should follow q since that is the only letter allowed to follow q in spelling.
andy said, don’t you know? the whole thing was masterminded by some bureaucrat guys in charge of the alphabet. i have it on good authority that they got bored and thought the q r placement would be funny. and then they invented the double-u to really rub it in.
benny said, well, no one’s laughing!
then andy said, yeah, you can say that again!
so benny said, well, no one's laughing!

55. the coffee, dishwashing, lipso-lacko plan to x-y nirvana

i have discovered that if i bring keaton a hot mug of coffee with heated, whipped, non-fat milk just as she wakes in the morning, i can pretty much make all the ‘manstakes’ i’m capable of until dinner time without punishment.
then if i do all the dishes, pans and counters after dinner, i can continue on willy-nilly in my ‘manstake’ ways, which by that time bubble over into a crescendo of tv sports viewing and reruns of seinfeld, until bedtime—again, without fear of reprimand.
and as long as i seal the deal with a little 'lipso-lacko' (aka a goodnight kiss), well then, i have lived another day in x-y nirvana.

797. is this a bad sign?

i received "the dark knight" dvd for christmas.
i have watched it perhaps a few dozen times.
not the whole movie but just my favorite joker moments.
some people sing in the shower, i talk like the joker.
but just not in the shower.
i talk to the dog, to my pc, to other blogs, to mr. television there, to other drivers, to anyone/anything that can't actually hear me.
it starts at 6AM and ends at 11PM.
to partially quote the joker, "it completes me!"

i think this is a bad sign.

795. 2008 diet of the year!

i can't believe it.
now there is "diet of the year".
(can an annual diet awards show be just around the corner? "the slimmies" perhaps?)

i don't know.
it makes me nervous to think that trimming down techniques can come in and out of fashion like skirt lengths.

oh well, to the 2008 best diet announcement.

"the candidates this year are: "the best life diet", "the not so best life diet", "the rather bland best life diet", and "the really good death diet".
and the big fat envelope please.
the winner of the 2008 best diet is: "the best life diet"!"

and who proclaimed this to be so?
none other than my favorite warrior of the waistline, oprah.
and where can you read about it?
in "o!" magazine.
and who a contibuting writer to "o!", as well as frequent guest to the show and pay-to-listen radio station?
bob greene.
and who designed this award winning, fashionable, "best life diet"?
huh—bob greene.

sounds to me like the fix is in, and not very apologetically i might add.

so here we go again.
oprah gains weight!
ohhhh!
oprah loses weight!
ahhhh!
gains—ohhhh!
loses—ahhhh!
if it were set to music it would be pachelbel's canon in d fat.

and the public can't get enough.

so it is with this in mind that i kick off 2009 with a new diet.
the cranelegs group diet!
let's all drop a shared 200 pounds together and immediately.
shed oprah.

794. raising a vegetarian

someone asked me recently if i'd raise a child as a vegetarian.
now i had a son, and we did not.
we subscribed to the full pallet of food sources.
and he seems okay as a result—a little beef ornery maybe, but nothing to write home about.

now, if by some stroke of terrible luck, we had had a baby brontosaurus instead, well then, i wouldn't really have had much choice.
and if you don't think that can happen, then you're just not paying attention to the headlines on those news tabloids in the market checkout line.

793. a breach of the multitask code of conduct

keaton is on the left coast gettin' all smarted up once again.
she enjoys it and that makes me happy.
but happiness can be fleeting at best.

exhibit a: the phone call this morning.

keaton: yeah, so i had fun last night with some of the gang.
me: sounds like things are going well for ya. that makes me hap—

fllaaa ... ooossshhh!

me: what the hell was that? it sounded like a toilet. are you on the toilet?
keaton: i'm multitasking.
me: what? talking to me and taking a dump at the same time?
keaton: well, that's not exactly how i'd put it.
me: there's no other way! some things are not multitask worthy, a bowel movement being one of the top three.
keaton: what are ya talking about, you do the tv guide crossword while you're on the toilet. that's multitasking.
me: yeah, i guess, but i don't know. it's not the same thing. it doesn't draw in other people. there've gotta be some rules. this is a clear breach of the code of multitask conduct.
keaton: breach, shmeach! i consider it a matter of a person's right to choose. i mean, the next thing i know, you'll take away my rights to an abortion.
me: i don't think anytime soon but i see where your goin' with all this. anyway, i don't know, somethings stinks about the whole thing.
keaton: you're tellin' me. that's why i flushed.

then i thought, i'm not so sure about this smartin' her up stuff. her arguments, while technically sound, seem to be void of any common decency.


and talk about happiness being fleeting.
this time it didn't even get past the first syllable.

792. i ams what i ams

when i think of popeye, i don't normally think great philosopher, but few have yet to more elegantly state a true human condition.
"i ams what i ams".
(maybe more eloquently but certainly not as to the point)

and it is with that in mind that i am moved to extrapolate, we ares what we ares.

there are things about all of us we can not shake.
it's as if we are wired like a motherboard to take certain impulses in and push responses out.
and there is little that can be done otherwise.

i am reminded of this by a rather innocent discussion in blogcatalog, started by timethief.
it is about "pruning" excesses in the coming year—you know, those things that redirect the we ares away from the what we ares.

and after much reflection, i concluded and then commented that i needed to prune this notion that i can write humor.
but after a little more thought, i realized i had concluded wrongly.
popeye rang in my ears, i ams what i ams.
i can't help it!
give me an impulse and out comes funny (at least to me).

so what i really need to prune is that which gets in the way of the what i ams.
those would be the utterances and faces of naysayers, and the roots of self doubt they nourish—it's such a what i ams depleter.

hmm, in the words of another great philosopher, gordan ramsay, "what the f#ck are yeh doin' big boy?"

i ams what i ams, gordy!
that's what i'm doin'!

791. a lot more equaler

i was thinking about a few of the things handed to me at birth.
things like: address, family, race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, health, looks, wealth, even left/right handedness.
and then i thought, wow, did i ever hit the jackpot, because by all measures the world has apparently landed on, other than the wealth part, i'm a lot more equaler than so many others.
and the only responsibility i had in all this good fortune was to breathe, eat and sleep.

790. a question about life

a recent discussion question at blogcatalog asked fellow bloggers to define "life" (answering that over a bowl of cornflakes is a great way to start the day).
so i was moved to be the usual wiseguy i tend to be, but instead was struck by this sudden awareness of my existance wedged between two bookcovers on a book shelf that extends in either direction as far as the eye can see.
and i thought, and thought some more, and landed on this.

"my particular life feels like a very brief respite between an existance i don't remember but one i am certain to return to in rather short order. and in the spirit of full disclosure, my respite skills need plenty of work."

789. Readings from Cranelegs Pond the Blook (podcast)

here's a first at the pond.
a reading of posts with commentary by bob.
just click on title 789 above to listen.

the posts read are all from Cranelegs Pond the Blook:

1. benny, the porn again christian
2. the art lesson from ma
3. what happened to my stock
4. a penny for my thoughts
5. dancing
6. a resting place

468. the art of the new year resolution

benny said, i can’t seem to ever keep my new year’s resolution.
andy said, that’s because you come at it all wrong. there are two things you must do for a resolution to work. first, make a resolution about stuff you have half a chance of keeping. like last year, i made a resolution to never drink milk with a dill pickle.
benny thought for a moment.
then he said, i see what you’re sayin’.
then he thought some more and said, i know, this year i’ll never wear a set of my wife’s under garments that don’t match.
then andy said, and the second thing is sometimes it's better to just say you'll lose ten pounds or something. in your case, this would be such a year.

788. an hour or so

i was at a small gathering last night when two older folks let themselves in through the front door.
it would later be confirmed they were self-invited and not necessarily welcomed for this particular affair.
for a bunch of historical reasons, they are considered an embarassment of sorts, best kept a secret within the immediate family, of which i am not.

well, without as much as an introduction, i found myself engaged in a conversation, rather one-sided as it was—used each ear on both sides of my head, but one-sided all the same.
and in the background, mortified onlookers darted in and out of the room, eyeballs rolling and heads shaking to the secret exposed.

but you know, sometimes these conversations are not nearly as bad as others might fret.
this particular one was such a case.
besides, i kind of look at it this way, there is a likelihood that some day i will find myself on the outside looking in for much the same reason.
and my crazy stories will be certain to spin the head off any pair of shoulders i might lean on.
but with any luck, maybe not—maybe someone might just give me an hour or so.

i think we could all use an hour or so once in a while.
so i'm just investing.
that's all.
nothing noble about that.

787. at peace

what is that?
why if i didn't know any better, i'd say i'm at peace.
wow, didn't expect that!
so now what?
"allow it" is one possibility.

it's gone.

boy that was nice while it lasted.