Rants for August 18, 2006 Radio Show
1. Confucius say, Man who commutes with horse unhappy when Emperor’s family and friends are in hay business
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2. Another sophisticated terrorist plot foiled. And, as a result, now “For the Protection of the People and the State,” we cannot take a bottle of water onto airplanes. Can you doubt but what you will see emergency legislation enacted soon? But let’s look at the positive side. Who is going to benefit by this threat? First, no food or drinks can be brought on board an airplane. The folks hawking nutrients on airplanes are going to profit. Second, when dictators can’t discover a plot against the state and the people to serve as an excuse to consolidate power, they always invent one. Plots are welcomed by would-be dictators as opportunities to quickly enact legislation “For the Protection of the People and the State” that would be laughed down in Plot-free times. And Third, the author of the most recent book saying that World War Three is part of God’s Plan, and that The End of The World --- Armageddon --- is upon us, is going to make a lot of money. His great-grandchildren will have summer estates on the coast of Maine and winter estates on the Costa Del Sol. Now, let’s ask ourselves --- how sophisticated were these would-be terrorists? They were stupid enough to get caught. Do the really slick professional evil terrorists who are killing and incapacitating Americans, raising our health insurance rates, and making our lives miserable in general get caught? Every year more than 400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. That’s like 1100 Americans dying in plane crashes every day. If Al Qaeda wanted to get serious about killing Americans, they’d send operatives here who would quietly join Rotary and sell cigarettes.
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3. When I was a little kid, there was an evil comic book scientist named Sivana who wanted to take over the world. It was impossible to keep Sivana in jail, because he was so smart he was able to concoct explosives out of his food and blow out the cell wall. Let us fast forward sixty years. This recent airport procedure where guards strip us of our toothpaste and bag balm, which I cannot live without, has produced unexpected consequences. One woman who was interviewed said that before being permitted to board a plane she had to throw her whole face away. From this we could assume that when she got home her husband and children didn’t recognize her and forced her to produce identification before they’d let her in the house. This is not a joking matter. You and I have seen women with enough goo on their faces to produce a bomb capable of taking out the Great Pyramid of Giza. But now that women can’t travel with it, they will have to find another way to disfigure themselves. You probably know that I have always considered any kind of alteration to a woman’s person grounds for divorce. A good looking woman doesn’t need cosmetics and it detracts from the appearance of a plain one. Do you remember hearing that when they scraped the makeup off Tammy Faye Baker, they found Jimmy Hoffa?
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4. My wife took the G wagon down to Falmouth for service and stayed overnight with her daughter so I spent the evening home alone. I’d been out putting up pasture fence for the boy cows and I was too tired to write or copy CDs on my computer. No matter what I do, I’m too tired to do anything in the evening. I knew if I went to bed at 8, I’d be up at 2 and would be up all night. I clicked through the channels on TV. Would you be surprised to hear that there was nothing on? I like Mr. Bean and Colombo and Cops and Jerry Springer, which you have heard me say is no more than a modern version of one of Shakespeare’s comedies, and Archie Bunker and Are You Being Served and Keeping Up Appearances, but there was nothing on. I was alone and I would have settled for anything. Even the history channel was barren. It was one of those nights when I would have even welcomed Return of The Mummy or any of those programs where there is always canned laughter in the background although nobody has said anything funny. So --- while I was eating my supper of beans and hotdogs, which I would take over anything you could serve up in any restaurant in the world, except a hot turkey sandwich at Moody’s Diner or the Crabmeat Rolls at Perry’s Gas Station in Stockton Springs, I watched the First Week in the Life of a Baby Hippopotamus. I’m humble@humblefarmer.com What kind of a country do we live in when a 70 year old man is reduced to learning about the social life of a baby hippopotamus when he eats his supper?
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5. Dear Humble, I was able to listen to your program last week when you mentioned your affliction: Stopping at Stop signs. I too have that recessive gene and don't care about the excuses of those who have trouble with its very uncomplicated definition. Unlike you, I've never been hit, except by a cousin who was playing a joke on us. In those days a bumper had chrome and an air bag was paper and you would blow it up and pop it with your fist. Most who won't stop at stop signs also tend to drive too close to the bumper ahead and or be on their cell-phone, drinking their coffee and counting cars going the other direction or something else so they don't have to gray prematurely by worrying about the traffic congestion. If I can't see their front bumper, I try to give them a four way flasher warning that they are too close. Most take the hint for a few miles anyway. Perhaps they should try a new driving safety tactic. If driving with children or if alone, imagine that they have their children (grandchildren) onboard and pretend that Michael Jackson is in the car ahead to keep a substantial distance. Larry Lewiston P.S. (I've written before. I work with Aaron Dries.) Thank you, Larry. I mention Aaron’s last name here because Aaron and his parents were listening to this program many years ago. Would you be surprised to learn that even that didn’t keep Aaron from marrying my wife’s oldest daughter.
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6. This morning while I was answering my voluminous email from you --- thank you for writing --- I used the words patently and endemic. It was kind of a spooky thing because to the best of my knowledge, I had never used the word “patently” before. And “endemic” is not one of my words. So I’m wondering where they came from. They simply appeared on the screen while I was typing you a letter. You know how the brain works, so perhaps you’ll explain this to me. I wasn’t even sure of what endemic and patently meant, but had I typed them on the page. My question to you is, where did I get them? You certainly don’t hear words like that on the morning news. When you go to college, which I did until I was 34 years of age, being a very slow learner, you are in contact with professors who constantly employ their favorite multi syllabic words, so you gradually accumulate more and more of them. Or you will have a textbook where the author uses the same word over and over. Gleason managed to cram “fortuitous” into one of his textbooks at least four times so I always remembered fortuitous. And then there are words like “litany” which I recently discovered that I had been bandying about for years --- like Archie Bunker and Mrs. Malaprop --- without any idea of what it meant. I’m humble@humblefarmer.com and I would really deprecate your comments.
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7. Where did this foolishness about wondering who you are come from? When I was a kid you never saw people wandering about trying to find themselves. If you were lucky, you were out of high school before you got married and had children, and married couples 23 years old with four children didn’t have time to wonder who they were. Only the children of the very rich went to college. Then, years later, some of us discovered that you could make $3500 a year teaching school and thereby catapult yourself into the upper class. You could earn the $50 a semester college tuition in the summer and by working all day Saturday you could earn the $5 for your off campus room and the $5 it cost you for food every week. You could graduate from Gorham Normal School and buy a house with what you’d earn teaching school in Maine your first year. It took me a while to figure out this road to riches so I was out of high school for 12 years before I even got an undergraduate degree. And although I probably took psychology 101 two or three times, all I remember now is references to the normal distribution curve --- I think that’s the old name for the bell curve --- and Terman and Stanford Binet and IQ. There were no chapters on how to find out who I am. Forty years ago people didn’t realize that they needed to run around wondering who they were. But nowadays if your wife asks you why you don’t get a job, you can tell her that you are trying to find out who you are. If you really don’t know who you are ask your wife. She will probably tell you that either you are a very lazy man or you need thyroid pills.
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8. The Common Ground Fair is almost upon us and the Common Ground Fair is the happening of the year. Don’t miss it. If you don’t have transportation, write to me, humble@humblefarmer.com, and we’ll see if we can find someone in your neighborhood willing give you a ride up and back. Buy them four gallons of gas, and they’ll be calling you. You don’t want to miss the Common Ground Fair. It is the greatest fair going anywhere, and as soon as they ban smoking on the grounds ---- No, I’m not going to say a word about it. All this was brought to mind by a postcard I just got from my many friends at MOFGA, the perpetuators of the Common Ground Fair, and the postcard said that it is time to renew my Mofga membership. I see that if you are an individual it costs $35. I have never thought of myself as an individual. In every application form I have ever filled out I have written: I am a conformist, an agnostic and a conscientious hedonist. I saw no category for conformists on the card, but way down at the bottom --- in very small print that you can’t see without your glasses, is a category for Elder. Now why they should have a category for young men who proselytize and not a category for those of us who are conformists? I called Mofga and guess what? In this case Elder is an euphemism for old people. I’m 70 and do you think I give a fiddlers fanfare if they call me an old man if it gets me a $15 discount? How do you feel about that? If Elder got me $15 off, for $20 I’d sign up for Eldest.
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9. It finally happened. This morning my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, said, “You’re combing your hair up from the side like a bald man.” I want to stress that this is not true. I am genetically disposed to have a reasonable amount of hair and I am combing my hair just the way I did when I was 15 years old. I mean the part is in the same place as it was when I was 15. When I was 15 we combed our hair up in front. We didn’t slick it back on the sides, like the Elvis crowd, so all our hairs, except in that front part that we combed back into a little mound, pointed directly at the ground. Then, when I was 24 I flunked out of music school and went to Sweden. And while in Sweden a girl told me I should not have my hair heaped up in front, but should comb it across the front and deposit it there, lifeless and flat. And even though that girl is probably a skrak-odler by now, I’ve continued to wear my hair that way for over 45 years. But now, if you’ll think about it, and I’m just realizing this --- there is no reason a bald spot would conveniently appear in the middle of your part. It would appear to the top side of the part. So, then --- if you continue to comb your hair the way you did when you were 15, even a disinterested party would have to think that you were combing from the side to cover a bald spot. You can see that there is an answer. Today I started parting my hair one inch further up toward the top of my head. If I am lucky, I will live long enough to part it in the center.
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10. This scrap from David Bright who says he saw it in the Bangor paper. Q106.5 is looking for a full-time NEWS REPORTER & ANCHOR. Must be self-motivator willing to learn ....... David says, “Somehow I have a hard time picturing a self-motivated anchor.”
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2. Another sophisticated terrorist plot foiled. And, as a result, now “For the Protection of the People and the State,” we cannot take a bottle of water onto airplanes. Can you doubt but what you will see emergency legislation enacted soon? But let’s look at the positive side. Who is going to benefit by this threat? First, no food or drinks can be brought on board an airplane. The folks hawking nutrients on airplanes are going to profit. Second, when dictators can’t discover a plot against the state and the people to serve as an excuse to consolidate power, they always invent one. Plots are welcomed by would-be dictators as opportunities to quickly enact legislation “For the Protection of the People and the State” that would be laughed down in Plot-free times. And Third, the author of the most recent book saying that World War Three is part of God’s Plan, and that The End of The World --- Armageddon --- is upon us, is going to make a lot of money. His great-grandchildren will have summer estates on the coast of Maine and winter estates on the Costa Del Sol. Now, let’s ask ourselves --- how sophisticated were these would-be terrorists? They were stupid enough to get caught. Do the really slick professional evil terrorists who are killing and incapacitating Americans, raising our health insurance rates, and making our lives miserable in general get caught? Every year more than 400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. That’s like 1100 Americans dying in plane crashes every day. If Al Qaeda wanted to get serious about killing Americans, they’d send operatives here who would quietly join Rotary and sell cigarettes.
+
3. When I was a little kid, there was an evil comic book scientist named Sivana who wanted to take over the world. It was impossible to keep Sivana in jail, because he was so smart he was able to concoct explosives out of his food and blow out the cell wall. Let us fast forward sixty years. This recent airport procedure where guards strip us of our toothpaste and bag balm, which I cannot live without, has produced unexpected consequences. One woman who was interviewed said that before being permitted to board a plane she had to throw her whole face away. From this we could assume that when she got home her husband and children didn’t recognize her and forced her to produce identification before they’d let her in the house. This is not a joking matter. You and I have seen women with enough goo on their faces to produce a bomb capable of taking out the Great Pyramid of Giza. But now that women can’t travel with it, they will have to find another way to disfigure themselves. You probably know that I have always considered any kind of alteration to a woman’s person grounds for divorce. A good looking woman doesn’t need cosmetics and it detracts from the appearance of a plain one. Do you remember hearing that when they scraped the makeup off Tammy Faye Baker, they found Jimmy Hoffa?
+
4. My wife took the G wagon down to Falmouth for service and stayed overnight with her daughter so I spent the evening home alone. I’d been out putting up pasture fence for the boy cows and I was too tired to write or copy CDs on my computer. No matter what I do, I’m too tired to do anything in the evening. I knew if I went to bed at 8, I’d be up at 2 and would be up all night. I clicked through the channels on TV. Would you be surprised to hear that there was nothing on? I like Mr. Bean and Colombo and Cops and Jerry Springer, which you have heard me say is no more than a modern version of one of Shakespeare’s comedies, and Archie Bunker and Are You Being Served and Keeping Up Appearances, but there was nothing on. I was alone and I would have settled for anything. Even the history channel was barren. It was one of those nights when I would have even welcomed Return of The Mummy or any of those programs where there is always canned laughter in the background although nobody has said anything funny. So --- while I was eating my supper of beans and hotdogs, which I would take over anything you could serve up in any restaurant in the world, except a hot turkey sandwich at Moody’s Diner or the Crabmeat Rolls at Perry’s Gas Station in Stockton Springs, I watched the First Week in the Life of a Baby Hippopotamus. I’m humble@humblefarmer.com What kind of a country do we live in when a 70 year old man is reduced to learning about the social life of a baby hippopotamus when he eats his supper?
+
5. Dear Humble, I was able to listen to your program last week when you mentioned your affliction: Stopping at Stop signs. I too have that recessive gene and don't care about the excuses of those who have trouble with its very uncomplicated definition. Unlike you, I've never been hit, except by a cousin who was playing a joke on us. In those days a bumper had chrome and an air bag was paper and you would blow it up and pop it with your fist. Most who won't stop at stop signs also tend to drive too close to the bumper ahead and or be on their cell-phone, drinking their coffee and counting cars going the other direction or something else so they don't have to gray prematurely by worrying about the traffic congestion. If I can't see their front bumper, I try to give them a four way flasher warning that they are too close. Most take the hint for a few miles anyway. Perhaps they should try a new driving safety tactic. If driving with children or if alone, imagine that they have their children (grandchildren) onboard and pretend that Michael Jackson is in the car ahead to keep a substantial distance. Larry Lewiston P.S. (I've written before. I work with Aaron Dries.) Thank you, Larry. I mention Aaron’s last name here because Aaron and his parents were listening to this program many years ago. Would you be surprised to learn that even that didn’t keep Aaron from marrying my wife’s oldest daughter.
+
6. This morning while I was answering my voluminous email from you --- thank you for writing --- I used the words patently and endemic. It was kind of a spooky thing because to the best of my knowledge, I had never used the word “patently” before. And “endemic” is not one of my words. So I’m wondering where they came from. They simply appeared on the screen while I was typing you a letter. You know how the brain works, so perhaps you’ll explain this to me. I wasn’t even sure of what endemic and patently meant, but had I typed them on the page. My question to you is, where did I get them? You certainly don’t hear words like that on the morning news. When you go to college, which I did until I was 34 years of age, being a very slow learner, you are in contact with professors who constantly employ their favorite multi syllabic words, so you gradually accumulate more and more of them. Or you will have a textbook where the author uses the same word over and over. Gleason managed to cram “fortuitous” into one of his textbooks at least four times so I always remembered fortuitous. And then there are words like “litany” which I recently discovered that I had been bandying about for years --- like Archie Bunker and Mrs. Malaprop --- without any idea of what it meant. I’m humble@humblefarmer.com and I would really deprecate your comments.
+
7. Where did this foolishness about wondering who you are come from? When I was a kid you never saw people wandering about trying to find themselves. If you were lucky, you were out of high school before you got married and had children, and married couples 23 years old with four children didn’t have time to wonder who they were. Only the children of the very rich went to college. Then, years later, some of us discovered that you could make $3500 a year teaching school and thereby catapult yourself into the upper class. You could earn the $50 a semester college tuition in the summer and by working all day Saturday you could earn the $5 for your off campus room and the $5 it cost you for food every week. You could graduate from Gorham Normal School and buy a house with what you’d earn teaching school in Maine your first year. It took me a while to figure out this road to riches so I was out of high school for 12 years before I even got an undergraduate degree. And although I probably took psychology 101 two or three times, all I remember now is references to the normal distribution curve --- I think that’s the old name for the bell curve --- and Terman and Stanford Binet and IQ. There were no chapters on how to find out who I am. Forty years ago people didn’t realize that they needed to run around wondering who they were. But nowadays if your wife asks you why you don’t get a job, you can tell her that you are trying to find out who you are. If you really don’t know who you are ask your wife. She will probably tell you that either you are a very lazy man or you need thyroid pills.
+
8. The Common Ground Fair is almost upon us and the Common Ground Fair is the happening of the year. Don’t miss it. If you don’t have transportation, write to me, humble@humblefarmer.com, and we’ll see if we can find someone in your neighborhood willing give you a ride up and back. Buy them four gallons of gas, and they’ll be calling you. You don’t want to miss the Common Ground Fair. It is the greatest fair going anywhere, and as soon as they ban smoking on the grounds ---- No, I’m not going to say a word about it. All this was brought to mind by a postcard I just got from my many friends at MOFGA, the perpetuators of the Common Ground Fair, and the postcard said that it is time to renew my Mofga membership. I see that if you are an individual it costs $35. I have never thought of myself as an individual. In every application form I have ever filled out I have written: I am a conformist, an agnostic and a conscientious hedonist. I saw no category for conformists on the card, but way down at the bottom --- in very small print that you can’t see without your glasses, is a category for Elder. Now why they should have a category for young men who proselytize and not a category for those of us who are conformists? I called Mofga and guess what? In this case Elder is an euphemism for old people. I’m 70 and do you think I give a fiddlers fanfare if they call me an old man if it gets me a $15 discount? How do you feel about that? If Elder got me $15 off, for $20 I’d sign up for Eldest.
+
9. It finally happened. This morning my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, said, “You’re combing your hair up from the side like a bald man.” I want to stress that this is not true. I am genetically disposed to have a reasonable amount of hair and I am combing my hair just the way I did when I was 15 years old. I mean the part is in the same place as it was when I was 15. When I was 15 we combed our hair up in front. We didn’t slick it back on the sides, like the Elvis crowd, so all our hairs, except in that front part that we combed back into a little mound, pointed directly at the ground. Then, when I was 24 I flunked out of music school and went to Sweden. And while in Sweden a girl told me I should not have my hair heaped up in front, but should comb it across the front and deposit it there, lifeless and flat. And even though that girl is probably a skrak-odler by now, I’ve continued to wear my hair that way for over 45 years. But now, if you’ll think about it, and I’m just realizing this --- there is no reason a bald spot would conveniently appear in the middle of your part. It would appear to the top side of the part. So, then --- if you continue to comb your hair the way you did when you were 15, even a disinterested party would have to think that you were combing from the side to cover a bald spot. You can see that there is an answer. Today I started parting my hair one inch further up toward the top of my head. If I am lucky, I will live long enough to part it in the center.
+
10. This scrap from David Bright who says he saw it in the Bangor paper. Q106.5 is looking for a full-time NEWS REPORTER & ANCHOR. Must be self-motivator willing to learn ....... David says, “Somehow I have a hard time picturing a self-motivated anchor.”
posted by The humble Farmer at 3:48 PM
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