All posts by Dale Connelly

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Ask Dr. Babooner

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Dear Dr. Babooner,

I run a business that many people think is so important, it alone makes the difference between a community being top tier or second-rate. If my company were to move, a lot of people in the town where I sell my product would feel their quality of life and their standing in the world had been diminished somehow.

This is a very good field to be in.

In fact, this business operates on a field. And the field is surrounded by a building that can hold lots and lots of people. The building needs to be a landmark and a showplace, instantly recognizable to folks everywhere. It has to be an attraction because it is a really a machine that removes money from the pockets of people who come sit in it. And they cheer while it’s happening. They get a little drunk, a little hoarse, and when they leave their wallets are virtually empty. Yet for the most part, they’re kind of happy. As you can imagine, that’s a very sophisticated and expensive sort of building to construct.

I already rent a building that kind of does this magical work, but it’s old and worn and it doesn’t remove as much money from the pockets as I’d like to have. Need to have, I mean. Really, really need to have.

That’s what I’ve asked and asked and asked the community to help me build a newer, more efficient kind of money-sucking building. Or else. Well, it’s not really, definitely “or else”, but possibly “or else”. I don’t want to make threats, but if people in another town built me the kind of cash-hoovering structure I want, I’d pick up and go there because that would make it the sort of building that removes money not only from the pockets of people who are sitting in it, but also from people who aren’t sitting in it and never have any intention of going there, ever.

More magic!

I’m a good businessman and pretty up front about what I’m doing. And yet I am not getting much love and very little satisfaction from the people whose money I covet. Why not?

Sincerely,

Lone Wilf

I told Lone Wilf that there is no accounting for public tastes, but a person who hopes to receive large amounts of money, gratitude and love from millions of strangers might do well to dial back their expectations a bit. No matter how important you are, you are not nearly as important as you think you are. That’s my experience, anyway, and I assume it applies to everyone. It must, because why wouldn’t everyone feel the same way I do? My standard advice applies – moderation in all things, and don’t do anything rash. Sleep on it, buster. Whatever it is.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

Songs

Lunar Madness

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Here we are, gathered on this bleak Monday, a band of hardy stragglers huddled together in a sheltered corner of the internet. We are the last survivors of Earth’s weekend “Supermoon” encounter.

Saturday evening’s 14% larger-than-normal full moon came as a boon to photographers, lunatics and doomsayers. The full moon has always had some baggage and is regularly blamed for episodes of weird human behavior. The moon’s elliptical orbit brought it to its closest Earth approach at the same time fullness arrived, causing worldwide consternation even though nothing was out of the ordinary.

© Copyright Adrian S. Pye

But theater people already know what great dramatic effects can be wrought with timing and careful manipulation of the lights. And how little those effects will mean if you perform them while the curtain is drawn, as it was here in the Twin Cities on Saturday night.

Still, we live in a particular place and at a specific time when things that are bigger and brighter than normal are revered. We like the concept of “super-ness”, whether it’s applied to football games or french fries. Even a small fragment of extra power is alluring, and some wondered if a close-approach moon might trigger a rash of earthquakes and tsunamis. It didn’t, but it did shake loose an avalanche of online articles about the “Supermoon”, and how there was really nothing to fear.

In the end, paying closer attention to what goes on in the night sky can’t be bad, and I know some learning happened. For example, until I encountered and made myself pay attention to the “Supermoon”, I was unsure if the word “elliptical” had two or three “L’s”. Now I know!

Here’s a nice educational flyer from space.com with more handy information.

Learn what makes a big full moon a true 'supermoon' in this SPACE.com infographic.
Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

All Supermoon needs now is a song.
Here’s one idea, to the familiar tune of “Moon River”.

Moon … Super! Wider than a mile.
Calamity’s your style … they say.
You seem bigger, you quake trigger.
The closer you look the more we pull away.

Space drifter, raising up our tides
Upsetting our insides, don’t scoff!
Our planet is nearing it’s end! It’s chaos you portend.
You’re a lousy friend, Moon – Super! Back off!

Are you unsettled when someone stands too close?

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I’m A Lumberjack

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Today is Michael Palin’s birthday. He was born on May 5th in 1943. That makes him 69 years old.

He was one of the original Monty Python performers, and is credited for writing many of the landmark sketches, including two of my favorites.

The Lumberjack Song …

… and the Parrot sketch.

Michael Palin was interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air in 1990. He said his father was an engineer by trade who became an export manager of a steelworks in Sheffield, though he didn’t necessarily want to do that. “I think he’d actually have been much happier to be a church organist,” Palin said, “but one was sort of pushed into the professions then.”

Palin’s own professional course has taken him through work as a writer on various British TV shows in the late ’60’s before hitting it big with “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” in 1969. Various television and movie triumphs followed, and in the post-Python years, a different kind of success with a series of travel programs.

Now he is head of Britain’s Royal Geographical Society.

This strikes me as a fairly jolly career path, and you have to be glad for a person who has won accolades in a succession of things that are fun, interesting and important. Unlike his father, Michael Palin was able to follow his passions and excel in the fields of comic absurdity and science – two areas that don’t often intersect. He did not become discouraged, allow himself to be re-directed or get “pushed into the professions”.

Unless, of course, his true dream was to be a lumberjack.

When have you taken on a job you didn’t really want to do?

Poems

Too Many Words!

117 Comments

I have this feeling I’ve written an excessive number of blog posts about clutter.

But every so often it hits me that it would be a great topic! So I go ahead and write about clutter because I’ve temporarily forgotten the other 28 identical posts that are jammed in the back of the old blog drawer. And now I have another one. Sigh.

Because I invest so much time in every precious post, I’m loathe to delete even one in spite of the fact that I know I will never go back to read it again. And neither will anyone else.

I’m not alone in this. The New York Times “Well” blog writer Jane Brody has a new post about clutter that picks up where she left off on an older post about clutter. She doesn’t seem to be bothered by an unsightly accumulation of words on the topic. Maybe that’s because she’s had such success unloading a lot of other useless stuff.

There’s a lot to be said for getting rid of books, even though committed book people feel they lose a little bit of their soul each time they cart one out of the house – especially the favorite volumes of their youth. Brody finds strength as she goes on, learning that it gets easier the more debris you shovel out the door. I’m happy for her.

But a surprising number of reader comments go the other way, decrying the “smug” attitude of anti-clutter fanatics who use tough love to force people to toss things that may someday become family treasures, like old works of art you never look at anymore, ancient photographs and precious hardcover volumes of literature.

I can’t claim to have read many of those classics, though I tried to wade through “Moby Dick” once and found it a tough slog indeed. Too many words. Melville should have read “The Hoarder In You” by Dr. Robin Zasio – a book Brody praises.

“I would say that Dr. Zasio’s book is about the best self-help work I’ve read in my 46 years as a health and science writer. She seems to know all the excuses and impediments to coping effectively with a cluttering problem, and she offers practical, clinically proven antidotes to them.”

That’s 50 words. Nice, but I think it could be done in 35.

Since we can’t clean each other’s closets and it would be wrong to compost someone else’s books, let’s de-clutter texts today. Think how free that old word hoarder Melville would have felt if he’d reduced his opus to a more manageable haiku:

Chasing the White Whale
Captain Ahab lost his leg
And his mind went too.

Or Tolstoy:

“It’s like ‘War and Peace'”
says the thing is “too damn long”.
Whatever it is.

What do you have too much of?

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Complainasaurus Rex

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Now some scientists say dinosaurs were already in decline when their extinction meteor hit.

The common belief is that Earth’s collision with a massive space chunk is responsible for the disappearance of big scaly beasts 65 million years ago. But this notion could be modified by new research which indicates certain varieties of dinosaur were already on the way out when a surprise astro-calamity hastened their demise.

How do we know this? Scientists have their reasons, all very scientific of course. I’m sure they used fancy formulas and brainy calculations, assessing some collection of small details about dietary differences and adaptability. That’s science for you – using undisputed fact to deduce the truth.

Me? I’m a journalist, so I try to turn complicated truths into easy-to-digest over simplifications. As for proof, all I need is another writer to say it. I figure if things were going bad for the dinosaurs, some cranky columnist would have scrawled a whiney op-ed about it.

“Best Days Are Behind Us”
By Sara Topsid

I’ve got this friend Barney who is a duck billed hadrosaur. We both been around a long time and we get along great. We spend a lot of time down by the bog talking, which naturally leads to complaining.

One thing we agree on is that, as a species our best days are behind us.

I know this is hard to hear, but all around me I see signs of decline! For example, a lot of the young dinos now are going in big time for bio-diversity. All kinds of shapes and sizes of dinosaurs are suddenly “acceptable” and have to be “honored”.

Says who? Even their weird dietary habits are supposed to be supported and respected. Like eating different stuff is some kind of a good thing?
Give me a break!

When I was young, all the dinos I knew were herbivores. We all ate plants in large bites, and I still do! Not a lot of sampling and testing and experimenting allowed – you eat what your ancestors ate and don’t ask questions. It was good enough for me and I grew up fine. Plants are plentiful. My neighbors are decent and they all eat plants. Why mess with a good thing?

Now I’m seeing all these smartass young meat eaters hanging around street corners and pushing their omnivore agenda like it’s a normal way to live. Sorry, flesh rippers, but in my book a legitimate meal has always been one dino, and one leafy green plant. No exceptions.

Leafy greens are good for the constitution. Maybe we should make it a rule that everybody has to be the same when it comes to … Hey! What’s that bright thing in the sky?

What (or who) is ruining everything?

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On Strike for More Attention

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Here’s a note that came in last night from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden, forever doing 10th grade work at Wendell Wilkie High School. This is the first-ever mass e-mail I’ve received from Bubby. He’s usually quite chatty and personal, but now he has morphed into an organizer. Or at least he’s trying.

Hey Person on My May Day E-mail List,

Today is a day of non-active Action! I’m calling on all you faceless individuals to stand united with me today as we Rise Up and Sit Down so that we may be counted as The People who Will Not Be Ignored.

I know they call it May Day, but I’m calling it May NOT Day. By that I mean that this is the day when you may NOT do the things you normally do, especially work things, school things and commercial things. It’s the only way to let the others who don’t pay attention to you know that you actually DO something, because as far as they’re concerned, you’re just a useless, sorry load!

It’s like when my mom suddenly stopped doing my laundry because she got tired of what she said was my “… sense of entitlement”. She thought I was taking her for granted and assuming she would just automatically wash my clothes without me ever having to do anything about it – not even taking the trouble to put my blue jeans down the laundry chute. But I really wasn’t taking her for granted at all, because if you’re going to take something for granted, first you have to notice that it’s happening! And I didn’t. I had no idea my clothes were getting washed. Really!

But about a month after she started doing nothing clothes-wise (for me), I did start to notice. Or to be more exact, people at school started to notice. They already think I’m a little weird, but when my clothes started to go to class without me, I heard about it.
And that’s when I started to appreciate my mom a whole lot more – because she really does do a LOT of work and I can’t afford to hire somebody else to take her place. Even the people who will work for nothing want more than I have.

So that’s why we’re going on strike today! To get attention for the things that we do! And in my case, that means helping to put together this protest, which is more work than I’ve ever done in my LIFE. Whew! Organizing large groups of people to do nothing on purpose together is wearing me out! So make my job easier and chill, will you?

Thanks, faceless person. I really appreciate you giving me a break here.

Your friend,
Bubby

Ever go on strike, or stop doing something so someone else would notice you?
How did it turn out?

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Baboons and Blooms

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Back row: Bill Nelson, Robin Nelson, Lisa Sinclair, Krista Wilkowski, Margaret Mazzaferro
Front row: Edith Carlson, Barbara Hassing, Linda Ruecker, Sherrilee Carter

Here at the end of April, we see evidence everywhere that winter is in full retreat and summer is on the way. Occasionally there is a Very Serious bit of hand wringing over the Possibility Of Snow in the forecast, but when the most recent alert came for Saturday, the result was less than impressive.

Let’s face it, tomorrow is May Day and Old Man Winter is kaput – he has Thrown In The Trowel.

And yes, I mean Trowel. A group of kind baboons got together yesterday morning to put an exclamation point on O.M.W.’s demise. We who do yard work are naturally hesitant to get out there to start roughing up the soil too early. Most people I’ve talked to enjoyed our mild March but were too suspicious to take the bait. April is always a beautiful liar – things might be OK but April’s moods can change quickly. There’s really no sense in doing too much garden work when she’s around. But May … That’s the time when the work you do stands a chance of NOT being undone.

Baboons at work in the garden.

So the Baboon crew headed out to Plain Jane’s place to do a good deed for a comrade who suffered a nasty fall last February. She had fractures in her pelvic bone and pain galore, plus a stern admonition from the doctors to not overdo it during recovery.

How does a person who can’t garden get the gardening done? Steve takes it from here:

We met from 9 AM until 2 PM on a semi-overcast, brisk but beautiful day. PJ has made wonderful progress recovering from her accident, and yet she isn’t yet ready to garden. The gardening crew raked, cut out unwanted plants, pulled weeds, and hauled away a lot of refuse. It was all light, rewarding work that went quickly because there was so much good conversation.

After the work was over, about noon, Margaret served a luncheon buffet starring a broccoli soup and smoked trout. Various baboons brought cupcakes, sweet bread, cheeses, crackers, and plenty of red wine. Everyone seemed pleased with the quality, quantity, and variety of food . . . including Margaret’s dog, Pablo, who approved of any leftover he could reach. It was a party from start to end, and we all had a great time.

PJ’s fall happened on February 23rd. Less than a day before she tumbled, she told this story in the comments section of our ongoing conversation.

I have been blessed with numerous angels in my life. One stands out, mainly because his unexpected gift allowed me to go to college. When Bob, who I had met only six or seven times when I was 18 years old, but with whom I had remained in contact via letters, heard that wasband and I had moved to Carbondale, he sent me a check for $2,500.00. His accompanying letter said: “Please accept this loan, to be paid back, at no interest, whenever you can. Apply to the university, you will not be able to find a decent job unless you do. I’ll send you another $2,500.00 in six months. Love, Bob.” I followed Bob’s advice, got a scholarship and a student job, and made it through four years at SIU without any incurring any debt.

When I graduated and we were about to leave Carbondale, I wrote Bob to tell him that I would soon be able to begin repaying the loan. A couple of weeks later I received a letter from Bob’s attorney informing me that Bob had passed away. There was also a note from Bob’s wife stating that Bob had made no mention of, nor any record of this loan; she was sure he intended it to be a gift, and to please pay it forward.

Bob’s gift has enabled me to help two different friends avoid foreclosures, and other small gifts to people who have been in a tight spot. It is a gift that keeps giving forty years after Bob’s death.

Clearly PJ found inspiration in Bob’s gift and faithfully paid it forward, just as our Baboonish Garden Crew was inspired by PJ’s calamity to commit a random act of kindness yesterday.

When have you “paid it forward” or been on the receiving end of someone else’s kindness?

Songs

Happy Birthday, Jean Redpath

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Today is Scottish folk singer Jean Redpath‘s birthday. She was born in Edinburgh on April 28th in 1937. She is (has?) an M.B.E. (Member of the British Empire), which is an exalted title that carries some weight but mostly what it tells us is that everyone agrees she’s the best there is at what she does. The Edinburgh Evening News put it this way:

“To call Jean Redpath a Scottish folk singer is a bit like calling Michelangelo an Italian interior decorator.”

I would have issues with Michelangelo as my decorator, just as I’m sure he would have issues with my interior. I’m not so sure about painted ceilings, but can we talk about the color of the couch?

When Jean Redpath fills a room with a song there is a clear connection to the ancient and ongoing tradition of the Scottish people – their history and poetry come alive through her voice and she taken this all over the world in person and through the airwaves on “A Prairie Home Companion” and other broadcasts.

She has done 40 albums and has recorded at least 180 Robert Burns songs – wonderful tunes that are full of strange Scottish words that sound like throat clearing exercises but they connect to essential human experiences and emotions that cross all cultural barriers.

Perhaps she would like to sing a Lady Gaga tune every now and then, but my guess is that Jean Redpath is completely happy and engaged in the rich artistic realm she inhabits. It must be a great comfort to know so clearly what you are about and to have such success sharing it with other people.

Imagine that you have been anointed as an ambassador to the world of a great cultural tradition. Which one would suit you best?

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Space Mine Balladeer

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I was intrigued by the story this week that some above-average billionaires are proposing to explore space for a way to accumulate even more wealth through the burgeoning not-yet-an-industry of Space Mining. The idea is to find precious metal rich asteroids, and to plunder them with robots.

These machines will then somehow deliver the spoils to Earth where already fat portfolios will swell with an infusion of Space Cash. I suppose that’s the sort of thing you dream of when you’ve already got more money than a person can comprehend – more mind-blowing wealth. But what a sad business plan – to do all this with unfeeling robots cheats the rest of us out of all the melodramatic Space Mining Songs that would be written if humans actually left the planet to do this work.

Of course we’d have to change some of the standard references.
Here’s a Merle Travis original:

And here’s a group called Ryan’s Fancy doing their version that appears to include only Merle’s chorus. But I love it that they’re performing on what looks to be the ruins of a gantry after an especially tumultuous launch from the spaceport.

One could, if one were so inclined, imagine how this classic might be adapted by the poor unfortunates who would rush to find a living by collecting silver in space.

Come all you young fellows so young and so fine
And seek not your fortune way up in the mine
Every mineral is precious and pure – unalloyed.
But it’s hell to dig deep into an asteroid.

It’s dark and it’s cold and it’s desolate too.
Where the gravity’s weak and the comforts are few.
Where the metals are rare and the air is refined.
It’s stark and its grungy way up in the mine

They will tell you at launch that you’re gonna be rich
In a spacesuit there’s no way to scratch at that itch
It’ll claw at your heart, it’ll tickle your mind.
But there’s no satisfaction way up in the mine.

It’s dark and it’s cold and it’s desolate too.
Where the gravity’s weak and the comforts are few.
Where the metals are rare and the air is refined.
It’s stark and its grungy way up in the mine

You’ll feel weightless and nauseous and all kinds of sad.
And you’ll think of your family left back on the pad.
When you total it up and they give you your leave
You will barely earn back what they charged you to breathe.

It’s dark and it’s cold and it’s desolate too.
Where the gravity’s weak and the comforts are few.
Where the metals are rare and the air is refined.
It’s stark and its grungy way up in the mine

What was the least rewarding job you ever did?

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The Baboon Alley Tally

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Yesterday marked post number 600 on Trail Baboon.

That seems like a big number, but it is just one of a mountain of behind-the-scenes statistics related to this site. We’re closing in on the 2 year anniversary (June 3) and this blog has been in business long enough to begin to have some numbers worth crunching.

At the moment the number of comments that follow all the assembled posts comes to a whopping total of 44,642! That’s a lot of chatter.

As I’ve often said, Trail Baboon is interesting for the daily post and also for the conversation that follows the post. In fact, there are officially more registered followers for the comments than there are for the blog itself.

The back-and-forth between baboons ebbs and flows. Our average number of comments-per-post is 74.4, but our gabbiest day happened around the entry “A Few Lines For the Graduates” with 179 opinions and/or observations offered. Clearly we are a community of people who are aching to be invited to be a graduation commencement speaker somewhere, anywhere.

Our quietest day may have been yesterday. As at any dinner party, the volume and the tone of the talk depends on who is at the table, what is on the plate and how everybody is feeling. Weather may be a factor as well.

It probably won’t surprise you to know that WordPress tracks the number of comments from individual sources. This is how we know that tim is the most talkative baboon, contributing 126 of the last 1000 overall comments. Of course we also can deduce this from reading any recent post. A day without tim is like a trip through the wide open west – glorious scenery but there’s a lot of space between the attractions.

In case you’re curious, I have a list of the top 7 recent commenters. After tim, the list reads:

Clyde
PlainJane
Steve in St. Paul
Barbara in Robbinsdale
Renee
Lisa in Minneapolis

Now that I’ve revealed the recent ranking, let me emphasize that there is no prize here for blogular verbosity. Those who speak up and those who sit down are valued equally. It’s just that the presence of quiet ones is harder to gauge.

Still, way to go, tim.

Personally, I’m grateful for all the baboons and their many clever on-topic and off-topic thoughts. Our crew is funny, literate, unpretentious and kind. The one concern I share with several regulars is that the level of familiarity and the pace and wit of the conversation can be intimidating to newcomers. I’ve felt that very thing – a wallflower instinct – at parties where sharp people are gathered at the bar. If you have “lurked”, know that you are welcome to continue to do so here at Trail Baboon. And you are equally welcome to stick your oar in.

Everybody’s nice, really.

At a place where I once worked, I heard complaints from managers about the audience for certain blogs – how the same people camped there and dominated the conversation. I don’t know what the site administrators expected, but it sometimes happens that media organizations obsess over the audience they imagine having and wind up neglecting the audience they’ve already got. Not naming names here, but it is not an unheard of malady.

My intention for post #601 is simply to salute the uncontrolled collaboration that is Trail Baboon. If you are reading this, you are a member of our tribe.

And if you’re not reading this, please raise your hand so I can see you. After all, if you know I’m talking about you without visiting the site, then surely I can watch you without being able to look. Fair is fair.

What moves you to speak up? What leads you to sit quietly?