By Jim Szantor
Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric
and whimsical observations about the absurdities of contemporary life
--I was a teenage acupuncturist.
--I wish TV stations would tighten up
their definition of BREAKING NEWS and restrict it to explosions, plane crashes,
terrorist attacks, earthquakes and other cataclysmic acts of God,
assassinations of key political figures, etc. "Donald Trump is about
to take the stage at the VFW in Numnutz, Nebraska" does not, in my
estimation, qualify in any sense of the term.
--Overheard: "He was dressed to the fives!"
--I keep hearing about all these
"surrogates" campaigning for their favored candidates. Yet
another example of politics going off the rails. Did FDR, Ike or Barack Obama have to
rely on stand-ins to get their message across?
--Gardeners, don't be distressed if your yield
doesn't look like the stuff in the seed catalogs. Those pictures were
posed by professional vegetables!
--Book Title of the Week (spotted in a pet
tore): "Dachshunds for Dummies."
(There Is order in the universe after all!)
--Someone asked me the other day if something I
had done was on my "bucket list." I was somewhat taken aback,
because I don't really have one. What I do have, however, is a reverse
bucket list, a word that rhymes with "bucket" but is, in fact,
another word and refers to an activity I conceivably might consider for a
nanosecond but would immediately reject.
(“Jim, wanna ride from Chicago to New York and
back in a hot-air balloon?” “Ah, I
suppose I could, but . . . ah, ---- it.”)
--Judging from the media these days--print,
electronic, digital or whatever--the suffixes "ageddon" and
"pocalypse" have replaced "gate" as the new, trendy
rhetorical crutches to describe any crisis, scandal or weather woe that tries
our communal souls. (I know "media" isn't the root of the word
"mediocrity," but at times it seems that way.)
--jimjustsaying's Word That Don't Exist But Should of the Month: Malibugaloo: n.
A dance that affects barefoot beachgoers on hot summer days.--"More
Sniglets" by Rich Hall & Friends
--She said it: “You look ridiculous if
you dance. You look ridiculous if you don't dance. So you might as well
dance.”—Gertrude Stein in “Three Lives.”
--He said it: “I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to be there when it
happens!”--Woody Allen
--jimjustsaying’s
Newspaper Obituary Headline Nickname of the Month: “Spike.” As in, Dr. Richard
“Spike” Herz, Kenosha (Wis.) News, May 12, 2024.
--"What a nice day" some folks said
to me recently when it reached 75. My reply: "Not
really." (The wind, you see, was blowing at about 35 mph, with an
air-quality alert to boot!)
Weather, to me, is like a pizza. You
wouldn't eat raw pizza dough, no matter what else was on it, so why does one
factor--a balmy temperature--automatically make it "a nice
day"?
If you have a nice temperature (the dough)
along with a gentle breeze, low humidity, bearable barometric pressure and
decent air quality (the cheese, the sauce, the toppings, if you
will), then you have a nice day. But damp air, high winds and
an ozone alert can make for a dismal day--whatever the temperature. But for some folks, temperature is the whole
ballgame.
--Overheard: “I was married by a
judge. I should have asked for a jury.”
--Closed Caption Gaffe of the Week, courtesy of
CNN: “New Finland” (instead of Newfoundland).
--Why do auctioneers have to talk that
fast? Are they double parked? That's one reason I don’t go to auctions--I
can’t hear that fast.
--I thought that "No Outlet" and
"Dead End" were two ways of saying the same thing. But
according to Snopes.com: "No Outlet can mean that though other streets may
branch off of the road ahead, they don't lead anywhere either."
--People who say "asterick" instead
of "asterisk" should be jabbed repeatedly with colored hors d'oeuvre
toothpicks. (And what’s so hard about
the word “ask” that leads to you hearing it as “axe” by certain people? I’mjustsayin’.)
--Why is the badger the Wisconsin state
animal? No one I know has ever seen one; 90-year-old hunters and game
wardens have never seen one. These beasts could be extinct for all we know!
(Wisconsin--the Extinct Animal State should
replace America’s Dairyland on the state’s license plates; unfortunately, it
wouldn’t fit. And most notably, California, not Wisconsin, is the
leading product of said products.)
--Product-choice explosion: I counted 10
different varieties of Crest Toothpaste at a Target store the other day.
--I wonder what the demise (or scarcity) of
phone books has done to the printing industry?
Or the cellphone for the phone booth manufacturers? Therefore, jimjustsaying’s
Law of Progress: Every new product or
practice sounds the death knell for someone or someplace else. (One man’s invention is another man’s
insolvency?)
It’s biblical.
There are probably IT people who think they are in the hot new
profession . . . but may find out otherwise sooner than they expected.
--“Only the dead have seen the end of
war.”—Plato
--Three “s” words that sound exactly like their
meaning: Suave, smut and spoof.
--Last year my car had a recall for the thingamajig,
and this year my wife’s car has a recall for the whatchamacallit! Who do I blame, what’shisname?
--Redundancy patrol: "Arson fire," "enter
into," "inner core."
--You know you have a serious problem if your
cholesterol count has a comma in it.
--Rite of passage for Saudi Arabia teenagers”
“Hey, Dad, can I have the camel tonight?”
--Wise words from Nicholas Kristof of the New
York Times:
"Whenever I hear that
America has never been such a mess or so divided, I think not
just of the Civil War but of my own childhood: the assassinations of the 1960s;
the riots; the murders of civil rights workers; the curses directed at
returning Vietnam veterans; the families torn apart at generational seams; the
shooting of students at Kent State; the leftists in America and abroad who
quoted Mao and turned to violence because they thought society could never
evolve.
"If we got through that, we can get through
this."
DRUDGING AROUND: Demise of Red Lobster case
study in how to kill business . . . Supercomputer predicts humans will face
“triple-whammy” extinction event . . . VEGAS SHOCK: “Possessed” murder suspect
ate man’s face, eyeball and ear . . . Rising number of men DON’T want jobs . . .
LA’s dirtiest cop:
Mild-mannered traffic officer who moonlighted as hit man . . . NYPD to use
drones as “first responders” on 911 calls . . . Celeb therapist accused of abusing
client with “laser beam” penis . . . Homes of billionaires in Nantucket falling
into ocean at alarming rate . . . World’s most busted man dies at 74; had more than 1,500 arrests .
. . San Diego cop resigns after alleged backseat sex with suspect . . . Denver
cops say drones will respond to 911 calls instead of cops . . . Judge stunned
as man with suspended license joins Zoom meeting while driving. (Thanks, as always, to Matt Drudge and his
merry band of aggregators.)
jimjustsaying’s favorite baseball oddities:
Eye guy: Pitcher Max Scherzer (Texas
Rangers) has one blue and one brown, a condition called heterochromia.
"Ship outta luck": The great-grandmother of Dodgers
backup catcher A.J. Ellis had a ticket to travel from Hungary to England on the
Titanic but was late and missed the boat..
Smoke 'em inside: The press box in Cincinnati was evacuated on
Opening Day when mop heads caught fire in a dryer.
Strategy Gaffe of the Year: The Yankees throw the first pitch of
an intentional walk to Kendrys Morales of the Angels, change their mind and
pitch to him and suffer the consequences—a three-run homer.
Good break, bad break: The same Kendrys Morales has his
season ended by a fractured leg suffered during the mob celebration at home
plate following his walk-off grand slam.
Time Out: Rockies catcher Miguel Olivo passes a kidney stone while
batting in the 8th inning against Arizona, then returns in the ninth to line a
single.
Matchup throwback: Brian Bannister, son of ex-White Sox
hurler Floyd Bannister, wins a Gavin Floyd-Brian Bannister starting pitcher
duel.
Footloose: Cardinals rookie David Freese, on the Disabled
List with a sprained right ankle, then drops a weight that fractures his left
big toe.
Food fluke: Garrett Jones of the Pirates misses a game when a
piece of meat lodged in his esophagus must be surgically removed.
Food Fluke II: A player suffers a major injury during a postgame
celebration for the second time in the season as Florida's Chris Coghlan tears
a meniscus delivering a shaving-cream pie to the face of Wes Helms.
So close but so far: After 1,571 minor-league games, 33-year-old
John Lindsey makes his Major League debut by pinch-hitting for the Dodgers, but
when a pitching change is made, is removed for another pinch hitter before he
sees a single pitch.
Payroll Schmayroll: Javier Vazquez, at $11.4 million, is the
highest-salaried healthy player ever to be left off his team's post-season
roster.
Last Man Standing: With the team out of options, Phillies ace pitcher
Roy Oswalt plays two innings in left field (the team's first pitcher in 39
years to play another position), catches a flyball and then makes the last out
of the game as a batter in a 16-inning loss to Houston, his former team.
(Thanks to Athlon Sports.Com.)
--And finally, as if being a minor-league
baseball player isn’t bad enough (low pay, long rides on crummy buses), some
now must suffer the indignity of playing for teams with goofy, demeaning names,
the New York Times reports: Such as (and
these are NOT made up), the Danville Dairy Daddies.
Former rookie-league teams like the Burlington
(N.C.) Royals and Pulaski (Va.) Yankees in the Appalachian League re-emerged as
the Sock Puppets and River Turtles.
Teams that maintained their MLB affiliations
have also jumped on the funky name train with hopes of invigorating their
brands. Pick nearly any league, at any level, and there’s a nickname or logo
that will make you stop and gawk. The Carolina Disco Turkeys. The Montgomery
(Ala.) Biscuits (formerly the Orlando Rays). The Minot (N.D.) Hot Tots. The
Rocket City (Ala.) Trash Pandas (formerly the Mobile Bay Bears). The Wichita
Chili Buns (an alternate identity of the Wichita Wind Surge). And there’s also
a Double A affiliate of the San Diego Padres called the Amarillo Sod Poodles.
Today’s Latin Lesson: Quomodo dicturus sum nepotibus meis olim
lusi Sock automata? (“How am I going to tell my grandchildren
I once played for a team called the Sock Puppets?”)
Many thanks to Joe Hannesberg,
this month’s Popcorn intern.
