Here we are in the heart of August with heat and humidity at amazingly high levels. It has been a wet, lush summer in the Twin Cities and it’s hard to imagine better conditions for promoting the rampant growth of just about any plant. Every time I walk out the door it seems that some new green thing has leapt out of the soil and is tall and vigorous enough to look me in the eye. A lot of these show-offs are common weeds, but I don’t say anything about it. No sense getting the encounter off to a bad start with name calling.

In the middle of a hot day there’s nothing like a piece of fresh watermelon to provide some relief. I enjoy watermelon today but as a child I was tormented by the pit disposal question – do you spit them out or swallow? Spitting was more fun, of course. But if you are hanging out with a group of 8 year olds, once the projectile launching starts escalation happens quickly and in warfare there is no turning back. Better perhaps to unilaterally disarm by gulping down the watermelon seeds, although that had its hazards too. I had my mother’s assurance that a melon wouldn’t sprout in my stomach, but friends, uncles and my brother all told different stories. Parasites were a favorite topic when the guys got together and the descriptions were vivid.

And now comes this story about the 75 year old guy who had a plant growing in his lung. Ron Sveden went to the hospital over Memorial Day weekend because he had lost his appetite and was experiencing bad coughing spells. The x-ray showed an ominous dark spot on his lung, and Sveden and the doctor expected to find a tumor.

Instead, it was a sprouting pea.

What a gift for an older fellow with health issues. No tumor, AND a chance to talk to a national audience about your emphysema and how you feel lethargic and dehydrated. Not to mention the great potential for giving self-gardening tips to people who may not be interested in growing lung peas but may have an interest in esophageal strawberries or abdominal potatoes. Imagine the State Fair horticulture competitions once this idea catches on!

How is your garden growing this summer?

News accounts of the sudden departure of flight attendant Steven Slater from his JetBlue plane on the tarmac in New York City portray him as a besieged worker fed up with the thoughtless treatment he was receiving from passengers. Reports about the reckless endangerment charges facing Mr. Slater usually hint that he has achieved folk hero status among service workers who also feel exasperation at the behavior of the people they are serving.

Personally, I find it hard to laud Mr. Slater. What I’ve heard about his reaction to a boorish passenger (cursing on the intercom, grabbing a beer, hitting the emergency escape chute and sliding to the ground) sounds like a case of a grown man having a childish tantrum. Still, a tantrum will draw attention, and in some cases, fans.

It is not unprecedented in the annals of transportation for irresponsible renegades to win accolades for their foolish mistakes. Casey Jones comes to mind. He’d be unknown today if he hadn’t been driving the train too fast just to get it into the station in time. What was the rush? Back then it was easier to get an ode or a ballad written about you if you had the throttle and died using it.

These days you don’t have to be in charge, you just need to make a Big Gesture.
And it doesn’t hurt to do it in the most news-starved part of summer. Carping about “the public” passes for a type of heroism today. In a different era, Steven Slater’s antics might have led to the creation of a timeless ballad.

Something like this.

Tall tales are told of the trains of old
And their legendary crews.
How they pushed for time is extolled in rhyme
And musicians play their blues.

But there is no doubt that one man stands out.
The conductor, William Lyle.
How one day at work he went quite berserk
When they would not clear the aisle.

Old 98 was four hours late
And the passengers were tense.
They’d been slow to start, but with speed and heart,
They’d arrive an hour hence.

The brave engineer was immune to fear
As his engine gulped for air.
But the brakeman knew, and the fireman too
That these riders didn’t care.

For they filled each bench with the meanest stench.
They were dressed in prison stripes.
And each one was fated – Incarcerated!
For crimes of the foulest types.

These bleak disapproved were all being moved
for the public. To assure
that these reprobates would serve out their dates
In a prison more secure.

And among them strode on this steel rail road
The conductor, William Lyle.
He was not a fool. He had one firm rule
That they must not crowd the aisle.

When the engine died outside Telluride
There was very deep concern.
That these souls in pain would, as one, de-train.
And then never would return.

They were common robbers. Big bank jobbers.
Murderers and thieves.
Shooters. Stranglers. And grammar manglers.
Who all might take their leaves.

Several of them stood. There was no one good
And most couldn’t have been worse.
Going for their duffels, they broke out in scuffles.
They were not afraid to curse.

There was just one force keeping peace, of course.
The conductor William Lyle.
Who said on the spot, “You’re a nasty lot,”
“But you must not crowd the aisle.”

Did they just not hear? In their rage and fear
They became an angry hoard.
The conductor brave, his own life to save
Chose at that point to un-board.

He kicked out the door and dove out before
He could suffer more from fools
Even though his act was a first. In fact,
he broke just as many rules.

He flew out of sight to inky night
Mr. Lyle was heard to rave,
“You’re a lawless bunch but I had no hunch
That you all could not behave!”

When is it right to exit in a huff?

I yield today to former mainstream media reporter Bud Buck, who continues his quest to re-establish himself in this new digital environment by any means necessary, including the time-honored technique of breathless conclusion-jumping and its close companion, baseless fear mongering. He sent the following commentary:

Citizens, it is time to wake up!

I look with increasing alarm upon photos and videos traded back and forth on the Internet under the guise of “memes” or “jokes”, and the callous way people laugh at them without a thought to what is REALLY GOING ON!

The latest one surfaced on You Tube just within the last week, and it is horrible. I hesitate to show it to you here, but I fear I must as a way of jolting a sleeping populace into action. The plain fact is that formerly docile beasts are finding the courage to contest our authority. Prepare yourself for a glimpse of the next monumental challenge to our civilization – an animal-led Armageddon!

What is so funny about this?
An unidentified reindeer (probably Prancer or Blitzen) just ran off with that man’s wife! Apparently this is good for a laugh for many unthinking Americans who are unable to put themselves in the shoes of that unfortunate woman or her powerless, strangely ambivalent husband.
I, for one, am shocked and appalled!

Animals who in the past were content to show their disdain for us by swishing us with their tails, nudging us with their noses and bumping us with their flanks have how taken the next horrible step and are abducting people with increasing regularity! How rapidly is it increasing? Up until yesterday, I had never seen anything like this before. That’s a 100% hike in just the past 24 hours!

And then there’s the ransom note:

Tird of wearng thse dam bells.
Think change time is now.
I hav her in place wher U don’t find.
Meet by glashur to trade wife for food, freedum.
Com alone. No game warduns or Santa.

That note is no less chilling for my having just made it up. I’m sure it will surface just as soon as Dancer learns to hold a Sharpie with his hoof and Rudolph lights the scene so this outrageous demand can be scrawled and sent.

The cheek of these beasts!

No doubt they will point to “global warming” as a justification for their uprising and they will lay it at our feet just as they litter our path with steaming dung, accusing us of carelessness for our hydrocarbon rich lifestyles while ignoring their own wanton methane production.

I know this has just started, but where will it end? I fear a monumental contest has begun and I know we are not prepared. Please, until further notice, don’t turn your back on the animals!

This is Bud Buck!

I told Bud I would run his “commentary” because I had absolutely no other ideas for a blog entry today, and in an ironic twist I would use his “warning” as a caution for all of us to be skeptical of those who would use alarmist techniques to bull rush us into irrational action.

Animal uprising indeed! Stop the nonsense!

After I sent that message to Bud, I turned to my faithful pet and saw this troubling sight. Those startlingly pink lips and razor-sharp buck teeth stood in stark contrast to the sad determination in those dark brown eyes. I suddenly realized I sleep each night with these potentially vicious fangs just a few short feet away.

Her eerie smile will keep me awake, I guarantee it.

Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad? Discuss.

Here’s the flip side of yesterday’s discussion about saying lovely things that people want to hear.

That Guy In The Hat revealed the following bit of information about his role at work:

I am “The Department of No.” I’m the guy that has said to co-workers, “Reality is over here waving ‘hello’ to you. Come join us for a while and then you can go back to where you live.” I’m not a terribly popular person.

Just as it is exceedingly pleasant to deliver the good news that parking is FREE, it can be demoralizing to be forced to play the Messenger of No. I avoid doing it whenever possible, and I know I’m not alone. At the Fringe Festival, venue managers have to stand firm as they enforce the festival’s No Late Seating rule. Rumor has it that harsh words have been exchanged and tears have been shed over this simple regulation.

And yet sometimes “No” is a very useful thing to hear because it can focus your attention. When I was a high school freshman, I wrote a homecoming skit to represent our class at a pep rally competition, but after watching one rehearsal the faculty advisor refused to let us perform it. There was something about the tone and approach that was so wrong he said he would rather that we offer no skit at all than present the one we had prepared. It would hardly matter, he noted, since the juniors or seniors were bound to take first prize anyway. As writer/director, that ticked me off. I had one night to re-write and one morning to rehearse the cast and get approval before we performed our bit for the whole school.

We won, of course.

I doubt that would have happened without a necessary kick in the pants from the Department of No.

When has the word “no” been a blessing in disguise?

I’ve been volunteering at the Fringe Festival the past few days and on Sunday I got the best possible assignment – standing at the entrance of a University Parking Garage to tell people the parking was FREE.

There was no joke or gimmick involved, and no sandwich sign to wear. It was simply an opportunity to make that one – to – one personal connection that means so much.

People would drive up to the ramp with a confused look in their eyes – a look that turned to suspicion when they saw me standing by the ticket machine, and then turned to resignation when they realized I wanted them to roll down their window.

They brightened right up when they heard the message. Parking is FREE!

Why?
It’s Sunday!
Why is the mechanical arm blocking my way?
The garage’s computer thinks the ramp is full, but it’s NOT full!
How do I get in?
You have to go in through the exit! No penalty. Parking is FREE.
OK then. Awesome.

Later, out of fatigue or frustration, the stubborn mechanical arm that was blocking the entrance lifted. Now the people had open access to the FREE parking. I could have walked away at that point but why leave? There might be some lingering confusion or doubt, and I could dispel it with a wave of my hand. So I did. I directed people through the entrance, calling out FREE PARKING as they sailed happily by.

Of course I missed the more intimate human contact of the earlier confused/suspicious/resigned/relieved sequence, but if anything the drivers seemed MORE pleased at receiving this great boon without having to talk to me.

There was no difference in the way people responded to my message. All demographic groups whether sorted by age, sex, skin color, religion, IQ or zip code were delighted to hear that parking was FREE, and I was delighted to tell them. What a lovely afternoon.

I made a promise to myself then and there. I will hesitate to criticize politicians for “telling people only what they want to hear.” I discovered just how much fun it is.

When have you enjoyed the pleasure of bringing good news to strangers?

I’ve had a lot of cards in the mail from politicians lately. Something must be going on! Here’s one that came from Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s liquid 9th district.

Greetings, Constituents!

It’s a beautiful time to be in Minnesota’s 9th, which includes AND is limited to all the water surface area in the state. I agree that it’s an unusual way to draw the lines that divide congressional districts, and if you looked at a map of the 9th it would appear to be a spray of freckles across the face of a perplexed state. But it does make sense on a number of levels.

1 – It brings together many, many sparsely populated areas. There are quite a few Minnesotans who live on the edges of lakes, but their homes are not in my district. The 9th is water surface only, so I represent a lot of houseboat residents and people who list jet skis, pleasure craft and ice-fishing structures as their primary residences.

2- These are often places of relaxation. Beer is the district’s number one beverage all day long, and its effects are cumulative. This makes the 9th a relatively conservative district early in the day, and wildly liberal the closer you get to sundown. After dark, 9th districters rarely say no to anything. It is truly a “swing” district, and the two sides of our personality tend to create a balance.

3 – The boundaries of my district are clear to the naked eye. You can tell exactly where the 9th begins and ends – something that’s not true with other congressional districts in general, even if there are stark political differences on either side of the line. In a logical world, you would be able to tell where Betty McCollum Territory ends and Michele Bachmann Land begins, but you can’t, just by looking at it.

I’m proud to represent Minnesota’s 9th congressional district, and I encourage all residents to get out and vote on Tuesday, August 10th in the state primary.

As an independent, I’m running unopposed this time. But with so few registered voters, even a loosely organized write-in campaign could unseat me. Everybody says incumbents need to look over their shoulders. I am trying to look over both my shoulders at the same time. If you want to know whether I favor the left one or the right one, let’s talk. I can tilt pretty much whichever way you want. That’s public service!

And if you’re visiting the 9th district for summer recreation, have a wonderful time. You should have voted “absentee” in your home district. If you didn’t, please don’t try to vote in our primary unless you’re voting for me, and you think you can get away with it.

Of course I disavow any knowledge of your actions.

Thanks for your kind attention!

Congressman Loomis Beechly.

Are you planning to vote in tomorrow’s primary?

In response to a string of comments from yesterday, here’s an anniversary song for Clyde and the Mrs.

Alongside great art like Paul Robeson singing Shenandoah, the internet is full of strange, inexplicable things that exist only to make you pay attention for a few moments before you share it with your friends. They pay attention for a few moments and send it to THEIR friends, and before long a huge pool of human attention has been collected so it can be sold to advertisers. This is the world we live in.

I’m not making things any better by sharing this with you, but how could I resist?

If this sounds familiar to you, here’s why.

Have a wonderful summer weekend!
Name a song that makes absolutely no sense.

Yesterday’s drier, cooler air was an invitation to open the windows and go outside, so I did. What a lovely world we live in. The outdoor spaces are so inviting, and there’s a lot to do out there!

August 5th was the day I finally decided to put out the garden hoses and bring in the extra long extension cord that had powered 2009’s Christmas lights. While I was outside it occurred to me that the lawn could use its annual springtime feeding. And how “pre” does a pre-emergent weed treatment have to occur? Is it too early to put some down for the emergence scheduled for spring in 2011? 2010 is a lost cause, I’m afraid.

When it comes to yard chores I realize I’m late getting started, but in my defense I should point out that there is a certain balance to my calendar. I usually don’t bring the hoses in until November. But getting the house ready for winter is always a challenge. The week between Christmas and New Year’s comes in handy for that, and I do a lot of my autumn raking in April.

The seasons race ahead while I struggle to keep up.

I’d say it’s a fair bet that my Myers-Briggs results will not identify me as a prime candidate to lead a band of primitive hunter-gatherers. Under my guidance, we’d always be late for the harvest and miles behind the herd. For that matter, I would not have made much headway as a Cro-Magnon man either. It’s tough to be successful on a cave bear hunt if you’re just getting around to sharpening the antler points on your jabbing stick when everybody else is set to go.

We all feel pretty advanced when it comes to comparisons with ancient humans who wore animal skins and hunted with spears, but I wonder. Fred Flintstone dressed in a business suit and magically inserted in a downtown Minneapolis cubicle farm or dropped into a board meeting would probably do better for longer than any one of us were we suddenly transferred to the Upper Paleolithic office for a Wooly Mammoth expedition.

I could have done OK during the Bronze Age though I tend to shy away from molten metals. The Roman Empire might have been a congenial place to land as long as I could manage to stay out of the Gladiator business.

Timing is everything.

Historically, what era is your best “fit”?

Here’s a note that came in late yesterday from marketing guru and idea man Spin Williams, who is always in residence at The Meeting That Never Ends.

We’ve got an exciting project underway right now to help some very smart and enterprising people bring back Airships! Several companies are working on it right now, and we have a difficult and challenging assignment here at Spin Williams Ideas and Marketing! Naming!

We’re very, very excited about traveling in these lighter-than-air craft, but please don’t call them blimps, zeppelins or dirigibles! And whatever you do, don’t refer to them as Hindenburgs! All these names are loaded with heavy baggage and you know how it is when you want to go flying – heavy baggage is costly and it slows you down! These are the drawbacks we face:

Blimp – the name sounds round and slow and goofy. In the minds of Americans, “blimp” will always be associated with a tire manufacturer and/or a sandwich shop.

Dirigible – This word is hard to say properly. DEAR-idg-able? Often it comes out as DIRGE-able, and a dirge is always a downer.

Zeppelin – We love the snazzy “Z” at the beginning of this word and the double “P’s”. It has a very nice look and it flies off the tongue, but like so many things, the Nazis ruined it for us! There’s no going back.

Hindenburg – Speaking of Nazis, this name links to a bad memory, even for people who weren’t there at the time and so they can’t actually “remember” it. This name leads directly to visual and aural images of flames and falling and tragedy – unhappy connections, at least until the Broadway musical comes out.

Our assignment is to come up with a new, more popular name to stick on the next generation of lighter than air ships, although our client doesn’t like “airship”. Too much history, he says, preferring “Hybrid Air Vehicle”.

Obviously he is in desperate need of help.

So far at The Meeting That Never Ends, we’ve floated these ideas:

Floater.
Bubble Craft.
Air Cushion.
Pillowcraft.
Helium Rocket.
Sky Liner.
Fluff Train.
Puff Plane.
Buoyant Bus.
Cloud Cruiser.

Just like taking a trip in a new generation Hybrid Air Vehicle, it’s been great fun to take off, watching the ropes drop away as we rise majestically into a clear blue sky, but we’re a long, long, long way from getting anywhere!

What do you think of our ideas so far? If you have a new suggestion, we’ll consider any reasonable offers, and we’ll even look at the unreasonable ones!

I told Spin I’m a bit partial to “Puff Plane”, but he and his team should also consider “Stout Bird”.

How are you at naming things?

Here’s a note that came in early this morning from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden.

Hi Mr. C.,

Well, it’s August, and that means summer is almost over. Just four weeks to go until Labor Day. Ugh! I can’t believe I wasted almost the whole thing. No summer job. No summer romance. And I still haven’t managed to crack level 100 in Crime Wave Zombie Spree, even though I’ve spent almost ten hours on it every single day!

My folks think I’m throwing my life away, but I think the eye – hand coordination I’m developing by playing video games pretty much nonstop is going to be a real valuable skill now and in the future years to come. With machines doing more and more for us, the jobs of tomorrow are going to be mostly button-pushing and joystick bumping marathons, so even the long hours are really, really good practice!

Mr. Boozenporn said in Econ 201 last year that we would have to compete for work with everybody in China, which is a lot of people to have to go up against. And he said the Chinese people know how to work hard, unlike the lazy slobs who grow up in the lap of luxury here in the USA. And then my friend Danny stood up and told Mr. Boozenporn he should be ashamed of browbeating us and lowering our self esteem. Danny said if we started to think we were total losers, we’d flunk all our tests and next year’s Econ 201 class at Wilkie High would be taught online by Mr. Chin from Shanghai!

Everybody thought that was pretty funny. And we all got detention that day.

Anyway, I read this crazy article that said teenagers get extra grumpy in the summer because they get too much daylight, which makes us just like vampires, which is incredibly cool! So I try to act really surly when my parents are around so they’ll start to think maybe I am part vampire, a little bit. What with all the movies and books on the topic if the rumor gets out that I’m kinda bloodthirsty and bat-like, it could help meet girls! I know what you’re going to say – that it won’t matter if I don’t ever leave the basement. Well here’s a secret just between you and me. I’ve been sneaking out of the house around 2 pm every Tuesday and Thursday to go to a nursing home just down the street. I’m the volunteer bingo caller! B-7! G-4! The old people are cool and for some reason I really like watching ping pong balls roll around inside their wire cage.

But don’t tell anybody. I wouldn’t want the folks to think I’m being unselfish ’cause they’d get all dewy eyed about me doing a good deed and it and it really makes me uncomfortable when they blubber. Plus, it would ruin the whole zombie killer – basement rat – part vampire image I’m trying to build.

Your pal,
Bubby

Ever sneak out of the house as a teenager?