POPCORN

 BY JIM SZANTOR

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric 

and whimsical observations about

 the absurdities of contemporary life 

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--I was a teenage Civil War Re-enactor.

--Nothing exceeds like excess.

--Shortly before Thanksgiving, we entered what I call the “because of the holidays” default alibi/excuse/copout for anything that hasn’t been done, may not get done, and is slow to arrive, despite there being but a mere three days that that constitute what all this inefficiency or just plain slackingoffmanship/paralysis engenders.   

So from late November to Jan. 2, the country is in the grip of this commerce-motivated Ramadan that seems to get worse every year.  (And how many people attend church services on the day that all this dithering is all about? Even though they spent 20 minutes looking for a mall parking space and multiple hours inside the mall looking for a "perfect gift" that may be returned on Dec. 26?)

--Shocker: Here all along I assumed that Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris pretty much sewed things up.  Who thought it would be Joe Rogan . . . for the other candidate? Apparently a scruffy podcaster’s fans “trumped” all those “Swifties.”  You know, the folks who listen to someone for free (or a relative pittance) instead of spending thousands for tickets and travel, etc., to that woman's performances.

Shocker No. 2: A Dec. 1 news story states that Belgian sex workers have gained the right to sick days, maternity pay and pension rights under the first law of its kind in the world. (Slap forehead here!)

--All those who think Donald Trump will last the entire four years, wave your MAGA hats. 

--Political speech I'd love to (but probably never will) hear:  "Win or lose, I promise to have all of my campaign signs and posters taken down the day after the election."

 --During the election season, I heard a lot of blather about the economy.  I see the glass as half full what with all the new businesses sprouting up across America.  All of them seem to have the same name, Space Available.  (Must be a new chain. You know, sort of like those Starbucks that seem to be on almost every block.)

--I'm so old, I knew Captain Kangaroo when he was a lieutenant

--Faded Phrases: When's the last time you heard someone was "in cahoots" with someone?  Is being “in cahoots” illegal?  (“The defendant was charged with Cahooting in the 1^st Degree”.)

--Overheard: "If you rob a bank, it's called a felony; if the bank robs you, it's called a service charge."

--Three TV shows I never watched:  "Project Runway," "Total Divas," and "Babe Winkelman's Outdoor Secrets."

--jimjustsaying's Word That Should Exist But Doesn't of the Month:  Buyercade.  n.  That plastic or rubber bar that separates your items at the checkout from the others.—“More Sniglets,” Rich Hall and Friends.

--"Blood is thicker than water, and much more difficult to get out of the carpet."--Woody Allen

--Count me as one who never paid heed to the Surgeon General’s warning about smoking. Heck, I’ve smoked three packs a day for 47 years, and there’s nothing wrong with my lung!

--"Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius.  A genius is someone like Norman Einstein."--Joe Theismann, former NFL quarterback and commentator.

DRUDGING AROUND:  Iran slashes age of consent to 9 YEARS OLD . . . 14-year-old boy killed-himself to get closer to a chatbot. He thought they were in love  . . .  Can electricity cure our ills? . . . Inside rampant open-sex market where British grandmas go . . . Friends die in Tesla as electronic doors wouldn’t open after crash . . . LED lights on bottom of surfboards may deter shark attacks. (Thanks as always to Matt Drudge and his merry band of aggregators.)

--Literary note:  My high school graduating class had a Jane Eyre and a Thomas Wolfe.  (Can he go home again?)

-- Never eat at a place called Mom's, never play poker with a man named Doc, and never admit to having owned a beanbag chair.

 --Words you see in print that no one ever uses in ordinary speech:  “Bevy,” “passel,” “matriculate.”

--Life was simpler when the color of your car didn’t sound like the color of your wife’s favorite nail polish.  (“Hey, Ralph, what color is your new car?” “Um, I think it’s called Crystal Quartz Metallic.” “Oh.”)

--The only thing I like about country music are the titles.  Favorite: “If the phone don’t ring, you know it’s me.” (Gordon Cormier, lyricist.)

--Updating the opera: “The Stylist of Seville.”  “The Pre-nup of Figaro.”

--If you can tell te difference between beige, tan, bone, off-white, ivory, khaki, ecru and sand, you’re a woman.

--If you flush out your water heater annually or vacuum behind your refrigerator, you are either super-efficient or have way too much time on your hands.

--People always say “bad news (or deaths) come in threes," but they never define the time limit.  If two celebrities die tomorrow, and the next one six weeks—or four months--from now, does that count as the third?  Where’s the cutoff?

.--Strange-ism but Truism of the Week: Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin Lookalike Contest in a theater—and lost!

--Redundancy Patrol: "Combine together," "brief summary," "completely annihilate."

--Finally, science backs up my contention (as stated in my "LOL-i-Gags" book) that bacon is the asbestos of the food world.

--Bacon, ham and sausages rank alongside cigarettes as a major cause of cancer, the World Health Organisation has said, placing cured and process

--It seems as if there's an app for everything these days--for everything you only do once in a while but few if any for what you do daily.   Where, for instance, is the bedmaking app?  The dishwashing app?  The clothes-folding app?   The tooth-flossing app?  The world is waiting.

--I have never had a good feeling about paparazzi.  But cover it with a lot of pesto sauce and Parmesan cheese, and it's not half bad!

--Biz Speak System Flush:

--You know, it's a jungle out there.  Especially when the movers and shakers keep moving the goal posts instead of leveling the playing field, while the rest of us have to have a multitask mind-set while fighting a never-ending learning curve.  So all you can do is hit the ground running, play hardball when you have to step up to the plate, and at the end of the day, pick all the low-hanging fruit. But try not to drink the Kool-Aid!

Let's face it, the fat cats have us on an emotional roller-coaster, no matter how much they try to downsize the elephant in the room.  So we'll cut to the critical mass, take stock of the benchmarks and the Big Picture and come to the realization that we must go back to the drawing board and massage the price point.  But by all means, always try to think outside the box but do not put all your eggs in one basket--assuming it's actionable and not a paradigm shift.  Get granular, by all means, before you run it up the flagpole and put it in the pipeline. It is what it is.  

TODAY’S LATIN LESSON:  Post exacte 15 annos haec est ultima Popcorn columnae.  Gratias omnib! (“After exactly 15 years, this is the last Popcorn column.  Thanks, everyone!”)

Thanks to this month’s Popcorn intern, Hugh Briss