I had a dream. The dream was that I had a single wish that could change the world. In the dream my first reaction was to say,"So people heads stop itching." This lead to the leaders of the world to start fights over who had made their peoples heads stop itching. These fights soon turned into a mass world war.

Oscar, Oscar, Oscar

Here's another way I know I'm getting old. I recently watched the movie The Odd Couple. The original, with Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau. Great film -- a classic. I'd seen it before and used to be an addicted watcher of the sit-com reruns back in the late 70s (channel 11, for a time, was wall-to-wall Felix and Oscar).

Anyway, Netflix has a kind-a lame selection so at this point we're squeezing its database for any missed gems. We're quickly running out. So I sat that night and watched, even though I had seen this movie before, a long time ago.

Here's what was new: when I used to watch the sit-com, and when I first saw the original movie, Oscar's bristling at Felix's eccentricity made perfect sense to me. This time, I found myself very sympathetic to the Felix character. Why was Oscar being such a sadist?

Eh, I'm getting old. Or maybe I just can't stand to see spaghetti thrown against the wall like that. Linguini. Whatever.

There's No Business...

Cookie and Mojo are perfecting the science of psychological torture. Or at least the art of making themselves a pain in my ass.

We were watching a movie not too long ago and I made the mistake of sharing a personal insight.

"That guy used to annoy the shit out of me," I said.

I explained that back in 1986, the actor in question had the same on-campus summer job that I did -- painting dorm rooms. Every day, he and his girlfriend would while away the tedium by singing show-tunes. Like, loud show-tunes. They'd effect a wildly exaggerated Ethel Merman caw and belt them out, one after the other... until I wanted to drown myself in my friggin' paint can.

Advice to parents of pre-teens: never volunteer information like this. It's like the Death Star advertising the location of its vulnerable exhaust ports -- you will be methodically destroyed.

I have since been forced to endure many impromptu performances. They even have friends over to send them in to where I might be quietly reading a magazine. A kid will walk in and start singing "There's no business, like show business...!"

Then the kid apologizes and says, "I don't even want to sing this but they told me to do it." Which is bullshit because he included the high-kicks and jazz-hands.

And so I must find an appropriate way to return the favor. I'll think of something. Until then, this may as well be in your head too. Like mine. Since 1986.

Oh What a Feeling...

I was on the subway earlier this week, a late morning trip into Manhattan on a train where I did happen to get one of the few remaining seats. At Lexington Avenue a couple of youths boarded and announced their intention to dance for us. I glanced at my fellow passengers -- each and every one of them maintain blank stares, straight ahead (just as Alane and I had done at Lolita's that night!).

Anyway, one of the two switched on a portable speaker and the other grabbed the overhead straphanger rails and started... a bizarre parallel-bar gymnastic display. Remember: there's not a whole lot of room on those not-very-wide subway cars. So these guys stayed mostly in a crouch as they flipped and hung and twirled around the upright handrail.

By the time the train pulled into 5th Avenue station they had already gone up and down the car asking (unsuccessfully) for money. They got off and the doors closed. I turned to the woman sitting next to me and said, "Those were the least attractive pole-dancers I've ever seen."

The woman seemed surprised that she would be spoken to. She laughed nervously then quickly went back to staring blankly ahead. I got up because my stop was next. As the train came to a stop I looked up and saw a fresh sneaker-print on the ceiling.

Cookie's Latin Class

Today I went to my first Latin class. Not only was it interesting, but the teacher covered more information on the culture than my Spanish teacher has after teaching me for six years.

We also got to shoot marshmallows at each other during the class, it was great and I cannot wait to go next week.

Making the Blog a Gouda Look

I did a little sprucing up on the blog's layout. Because after all, it has been ten years we've been writing our thoughts onto the old template. Definitely time to...

Cut thuuuh mullet!

Oh yeah...

Noting the Constitutional Collapse

Cookie neglected to mention the other fish the zookeeper put out for the grizzlies -- live ones she dropped them into the bears' pond. But even as she did it we were already shouting at the TV that she should hang them in the tree as she had done with the oranges.

We scream at the TV a lot. More than you'd expect for a family that doesn't have cable. For instance, we were watching Netflix during the Christmas holidays and to make merry we watched a surreal performance of The Nutcracker.

All I wanted was the Russian dance. But we wound up watching many other segments because they were so bizarre. Cookie and I were particularly intrigued by the three-headed rat. I told Alane it reminded me of that horrible movie where they sewed the white guy's head onto Rosie Greer's body. I was shocked and appalled that Alane wasn't aware of this cinematic gem. So of course I had to look it up online.

Because that's what we do around here -- we tie all things to their cultural antecedents.

And I'm happy to say that the boys have developed some skill in this. In fact, as I was telling them of that crazy dream I wrote about last month, Cookie came up with a very interesting legal theory that even I had not considered. You'll recall that in my dream, our bolshevik president came to my house and helped himself to my coffee. In the dream (just as in real life), I really wanted the guy to just go away. But I also didn't want to be impolite.

Cookie skipped right past being polite and was formulating a legal theory -- a constitutional argument -- that would allow me to eject him summarily from my property.

"He's the commander in chief, right?"

"Sadly, yes."

"That's a military position. So couldn't you say he's not allowed to quarter himself in your house?"

Brilliant! Not only has Obama perpetrated flagrant real-life violations of the First and Second Amendments, he has infiltrated my dreamland to violate the Third! And Cookie caught it!

Which just goes to show you -- you really don't want to mess with the law firm of Mastandrea, Mastandrea, Mastandrea & Mastandrea.

Feeding Time

Last night I was watching a documentary on feeding animals. It was all well and good until they froze the fish and gave it to the grizzly bear. He got very frustrated at the " fishcicle" and started stomping on it. That is my story.        

                              THE END

It snowed a lot this weekend. The suckage of that was so bad I even cleared a space in my garage for, yep, my car. I was tired of having to scrape the friggin windshield.

Started reading (well, re-reading) Aldous Huxley's Brave New World today. It was that wacky social engineering idea I recently read that got me to dig out the classic paperback. It's only in the first chapters where they review the procedures at the Hatchery -- breeding and conditioning each successive generation of Julias. Those reactionary authors of the1930s... so prescient!

Eh, I suppose every generation longs for an authoritarian "cure" for the human condition. And as much as the science crowd likes to mock the religion crowd, totalitarian these days always seems to cloak itself in theories -- economics, sociology, psychology. And the more they generate new laws and cultural norms, the worse the problems get, the more the discontented demand an authoritarian cure.

So let's send everyone to the same government schools -- that'll cure it!

Cookie and Mojo are doing pretty well in the Catholic school here. I like to think the education they get is worth the money we spend. Maybe it's an added bonus that it also makes us subversive. Nice. Keep your soma, I'm drinking Pigfandel tonight.