The Baboon Congress

Halloween Hijinks

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Today’s guest post comes from tim.

My 13-year-old daughter is very excited that Halloween is on Friday night this year.

She asked me about the origins of Halloween and I being a good recovering Catholic coming from a good Catholic household knew that Halloween is the celebration of the fighting from the spirits on the day before all souls day.

On all souls day heaven comes down and takes the good spirits directly to heaven with no stop in purgatory on the way but if you’re not  a good spirit you may end up going to hell instead.

My father was a person who was involved in activities at the Catholic church and was asked on numerous occasions to spend the night of all souls day in church guarding against the possibility that the spirits could be taken to evil places if they were not guarded properly.  This evolved into our wearing costumes and hiding from the demons.

When people from other parts of the world, and ask what is this Halloween holiday it’s a hard one to explain.

“Well we have the children dressed up as ghosts and goblins and they go knock on peoples doors and threatened that we will trick you if you don’t give us a treat and beg for candy expecting for the house to be prepared for our begging.  Some of the side benefits are that you can go to someone’s house you don’t like and toilet paper their tree sold their windows egg their cars and do awful things to people in the name of the holiday tradition.”

I remember my favorite costume was that of a pirate in fifth-grade complete with big blousey sleeves on my pirate shirt.

In later life I went to the barbershop and got hair clippings to glue on  along with a putty nose to complete my Wolfman attire.

At my house now if I get 10 kids it’s a big year – this is because of my long driveway.

My work associate took great delight in hiding in the bushes outside his house so that when children came to get candy from his wife at the door upon their turning around to leave the house he would spring out with raised hands and yell boo and make them cry and run away sometimes dropping the candy bags they were so scared.

I think any place that allows people to exhibit such behavior should be celebrated.  We are such a predictable anal society today that I think finding an excuse for people to get into costume and take on identities while dangerous is also good therapy.

It makes me think that I should start contemplating my costumes once again.  The only thing that’s kept me from doing it is the realization that it’s just going to be for those 10 kids to come down the driveway.

What would you be if you could?

Media

Talk Show-Offs

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Today is the birthday (in 1925) of Johnny Carson, the undisputed king of American talk show hosts.

Carson is famous for being a very private man who succeeded beyond all expectations in a very public job.

The talk show is a curious institution.  No one could have imagined a need for it in the years leading up to its invention.

Before radio and TV came along people had to provide entertaining late-night talk for themselves.   All that was needed was a bonfire and at least one person with enough self-regard that they couldn’t stay quiet.

Now the many available cable channels and every aspect of the internet work furiously to maintain a steady stream of chatter for everyone (or no one)  to see, hear and read.

What no one produces is a little bit of relief.

I wonder how long it will be before some beleaguered content producer, charged with the monumental task of developing a  multi-platform presentation with the capacity to surprise an exhausted  audience, will at long last hire a cast of bright, attractive people to sit quietly in each other’s company, saying nothing?

In radio, that would have to be the last format frontier – an antidote to our noisy world – continuous broadcast of high quality silence 24/7, in stereo.  With a station like WSPR on the dial, you would have to wonder if those people you see walking around with their headphones clamped tightly over their ears are actually grooving on pure quiet – turned all the way up, of course.
Who is your favorite talk show host?  

 

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Negative Energy

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Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th district – all the water surface area in the state.

Greetings, Constituents,

With the midterm election now less than two weeks away, I just made the startling discovery that I don’t actually have an opponent this time.  The adversary I thought I was facing is a guy who left me a terse note at a bait shop in Leech Lake three months ago saying he was going to make me wriggle like a nightcrawler on the Hook of Truth.

When you hold public office, people say stuff like that to you all the time, so I wasn’t too troubled about being pierced but I took it as a signal to get busy with fundraising.

I have a talent for sizing people up, even over the phone!  Within a few words’ worth of conversation I can accurately name a person’s political persuasion and at lest two hot button issues.   It turns out there are a whole lot of rich people in America who are looking to reward any high official who happens to vote exactly the way they feel at the moment!

And they all live on lakes!

So I managed to collect a decent pile of money and then I realized there was no viable opposition because the Hook of Truth  guy was only good at turning phrases and could not come up with the filing fee.  He isn’t on the ballot after all.

But I know my funders gave me that money so I could mock and disparage someone, and I’m determined not to let them down!  All I had to do was find a person or entity who I could say was unequivocally in the wrong.

That’s when Lockheed stepped forward with a declaration that they have solved the elusive problem of creating massive amounts of energy with a compact device using cold fusion!

And then some other smarties stepped forward to say there’s no way they could have done that!

I don’t understand what any of them are talking about, but it’s not a difficult choice for me – I’m going with the skeptics.

Here’s the script for my first ad:

Music:
A heartbreakingly sad violin plays something classical and brainy.
Image:
A small boy rubs his sleeve on a frosted window to make a peephole, then looks out at the night sky.
Narrator:
Jimmy has dreams about tomorrow.
Image:
We see the boy from outside, his small face pressed against the glass. Camera pans up to see starts twinkling overhead.
Narrator:
He sees spaceships flying to Mars just like airplanes fly coast to coast today.
Image:
Flickering 50’s movies style aliens and spacecraft fill the screen.
Narrator:
Jimmy’s dreams are a harmless fantasy. But Lockheed Martin says his wish is coming true. They claim to have made an advance in cold fusion – something that could, if true, provide power for deep space exploration.
Image:
A woman puts her hand on Jimmy’s shoulder – It’s his mother. She lovingly invites him to go to the piano where we can see sheet music haphazardly stuffed into a little carrying case by the bench.
Narrator:
And for this, Jimmy is neglecting his piano studies. For this, he won’t be in his school orchestra. And for this, he won’t play in a terrible rock band when he hits his ’20’s – a rite of passage, bypassed.
Image:
Jimmy’s face re-appears in the frosted window, except this time it’s a sad, old Jimmy face. His life has been wasted.
Narrator:
Because Lockheed Martin got his hopes up, Jimmy wasted a promising life waiting for compact cold fusion to become a reality. That’s not his fault. It was always just about to happen.
Image:
Jimmy’s tombstone, with engravings that indicate he lived a long, unproductive life, and with a tiny zooming spaceship carved into the granite over his name.
Narrator:
Lockheed Martin’s Cold Fusion Dream: Wrong for Jimmy. Wrong for America.
Beechly:
I’m Congressman Loomis Beechly and I approve this message because I had to use the money against SOMETHING most people don’t understand.

 

I think that’s a great ad, and I’m only a little bit sorry I had to use it against a fine, rich company like Lockheed Martin. I would have much rather used it to attack some other, smaller, less-well-off person, but I just don’t have any opposition this year!

Maybe next year, somebody with deep pockets will fund an opponent for me, so I can really have a good time!

Politically Yours,
Congressman Loomis Beechly

What makes you Go Negative?

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Autumnal Color Riot Mentality

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We are ALL Dr. Babooner

Dear Dr. Babooner,

Every year we have a wonderful Autumn tradition in our little town – a Pumpkin Festival that provides a lot of good old-fashioned fun for families from the surrounding area.

There is something invigorating about standing outside with a nice hot cup of apple cider on a sunny, brisk afternoon. The bright yellows, reds and rusts of the elms and maples frame a glorious display –  the deep blue of an October sky,  punctuated by crimson beams from police cruisers darting playfully through billowing clouds of tear gas!

Vivid piles of orange Jack-o-Lanterns dot the scene.  The sharp, invigorating air is filled with the falling of the leaves and the rising of rocks, skateboards and buckets as they are petulantly hurled at a line of officers in riot gear.

“I love autumn,” I whisper to my sweetheart.  I bury my face in the shoulder of his jacket to keep my eyes from watering.   My ears fill with a chorus of seasonal sounds – the delightful crunch of the leaves, the determined scraping of a bamboo rake,  and the insistent crackle of a bullhorn as the local sheriff orders us to disperse!

Dr. Babooner, I realize that not everyone fully appreciates the beauty of October, but  I always come to harvest time with thoughts of gratitude for being able to witness a remarkable transformation. The bounty is in.  The summer has surrendered.  The landscape erupts with color.  My car is upside down and burning on the street just a few feet from where I left it.

How can I help others embrace the wonder of this remarkable season?

Crisply,
Pumpkin Spice Girl

I reminded PSG that all beauty is in the eye of the beholder – defined not only by the things you see, but what you choose to overlook.
But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

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Apostle of Jazz

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Radio legend, jazz lover and gentleman Leigh Kamman passed away last Friday at 92.

Leigh was a rare individual in many ways, but particularly in the world of radio where the microphone amplifies the voice and also inflates the perceptions of listeners about the qualifications of the person doing the talking. The medium itself adds authority whether you deserve it or not. If you’re just smart enough to walk around the outside edges of a topic, many listeners will assume you know everything inside. Careers have been built on this.

Leigh Kamman was the real deal. With him, you got a radio host who actually knew what he was talking about. When it came to jazz, he was a true devotee, and his primary interest was in sharing the art and uplifting the performers. I can’t recall hearing Leigh say a negative word about anyone except himself. I think about that when I read music reviews where critics use their pedestals to bash performers who don’t live up to their expectations.

As a radio host, I admired Leigh for his ability to set a scene and transport a listener to someplace new. He did the most essential thing when enveloped you in his world. As the Jazz Image theme music – Django’s Castle – began each Saturday night, I waited with great anticipation for the moment when the music would fade and he’d step in with that voice to take us to an unexpected location. “Hanging upside down over the Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth” was my all-time favorite. Just hearing the music by Gerry Mulligan’s band takes me back there – you can listen and fill in with your own Leigh Kamman memory.

I know several people who worked directly with Leigh on his MPR program, The Jazz Image. Each one was grateful for the experience, none more than Tom Wilmeth, who wrote this fine profile for the Jazz Times.

One of my favorite quotes is this one, where Tom captures Leigh’s inherent modesty:

Leigh consistently kept the focus on the music, and never on himself. He had spoken to Duke Ellington on numerous occasions, first as a 17-year-old fan at a train station! But he wouldn’t think of dropping this fascinating nugget into a conversation in order to impress. I had worked with Leigh close to three years before I heard him mention, in passing, about speaking with Charlie Parker. I froze at the tape deck with reel in hand. I asked him to expand a bit, but he drifted away to another subject.

When you know a lot about something you can use that information to intimidate others who are less knowledgable. I have seen smart people who are also enthusiasts of one sort or another wield volumes of minutiae to demonstrate that no matter how big a fan someone else might be, they are a MUCH, MUCH BIGGER fan. I guess there must be a good feeling that comes out of that, but I doubt that it lasts long.

Leigh Kamman was a distance runner – he had lived the life and had the history and the raw material to be that guy who made you feel inadequate and dumb, but he was principled and like a superhero, he used his immense power only for good – opening minds, gaining converts and spreading his love for the art form of jazz.

In what area are you an enthusiast?

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Duck Opener

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Today’s Post comes from Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty.

At ease, civillians!

But at the same time stay very alert, because there are people walking around our lakes and marshes carrying guns, and they’re looking for things to shoot! The Minnesota waterfowl season opened last weekend, and ducks have been in the news ever since.

As a Bathtub Safety Officer, I’m charged with keeping people informed about the hazards associated with slippery, wet, hard surfaces in and around the bathroom, which statistics show is The Most Dangerous Room In The House. You simply can’t combine the disparate elements of water, tile, porcelain, soap, and naked, vulnerable people without taking crazy risks. And this precarious situation was made even less safe by the introduction of rubber waterfowl into the bathroom environment – a move I opposed but people ignored my warnings and now the bathtub duck population has exploded, worldwide!

Where do they come from? No one seems to know! I am deeply worried that there is some sinister force behind the relentless spread of these creatures, which have no official taxonomy but I categorize them as “Bathtub Ebola”.

Rubber bathtub ducks are eye-catching distractions whose distinctive call (“Squeak!”) can be quite alarming to an unsuspecting bather. Unfortunately, these ducks only sound off when they are squeezed or stepped on, usually by a person who has soap in his eyes and is blindly grasping around for a towel. If you are in that situation it means you have probably already lost your balance and injury is imminent!

That’s why I’m declaring a Bathtub Duck season in Minnesota, which commences immediately and ends only when I say so, which is probably going to be never.

Under the guidelines I am making up right now, you can bag as many ducks as you like as long as you remove them from the bathtub area and either pen them up in a safe, non-slippery enclosure, or extract their squeakers and deflate them so they can be of no harm to innocent bathroom users. I realize that this will offend some who think there should be as many of these yellow floaters around as possible, because they are “fun”.

I ASSURE YOU, there is nothing “fun” about these dangerous creatures. Here are two examples:

A giant bathtub duck appeared in Seoul, South Korea this week and after dominating the landscape with its imposing, Godzilla-like presence, it began deflating – much to the delight of the local populace, many of whom took pictures of the weakened rubberfowl. But it has since been pumped up again by its masters, and the people who were momentarily released from its mezmerizing spell have once again fallen silent. Where is the Minnesota duck hunting population when we so desperately need it?

Duck_Comet_2

And scientists got the “go-ahead” this week to land a probe on a rubber-duck-shaped object hurtling through space. Which raises the question – could comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko be the extra-terrestrial source of this Flaxen Scourge? The notion that there is a Rubber Duck Mother Ship rocketing around our galaxy is an admittedly wild idea that can only be tested by landing a probe right on its head. I am not a violent person, but I admit I’m comforted by the thought that the first thing the Philae probe will do once it makes contact is thrust a space-harpoon into the comet’s (hopefully soft) head.

Only then will we begin to understand the true dimensions of what we are really dealing with!

Stay Alert!
B.S.O.R.

What was your favorite childhood toy?

History

Waves From Grain

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The current news is full of fear and paranoia about the Ebola virus, and of course it is a valid concern but still not the most pressing immediate threat to one’s life and limb.

The sad truth is, any number of unlikely occurrences happening in the right order at an unfortunate time can conspire to quite quickly usher you off the planet. Take, for example, this day in 1814, when a host of people died in the undeniably tragic and yet weirdly delicious sounding London Beer Flood.

Enormous pressure inside a large vat of fermenting porter burst some iron hoops that kept the barrel together, causing other large casks to explode in a chain reaction that flooded an impoverished neighborhood. Eight were killed, mostly women and children in the surrounding buildings and streets.

I suppose this was a time and place where neighbors had little to no influence over the business ventures that took up residence in their midst. Some were probably glad they had a brewery on the block, rather than something truly dangerous and repugnant, like a slaughterhouse. Drat the luck!

In one possibly made-up account of the tragedy, flood survivors taken to a hospital caused a stir because they reeked of beer. Other patients, unaware of the reason for the sudden introduction of such a heady fragrance into the atmosphere of the infirmary, became indignant because they weren’t also receiving the same medicine that others were getting – in what smelled like mammoth doses.

I don’t think being a doctor has ever been easy.

What’s your favorite medication?

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Do The Locomotion

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Today’s post comes from marketing wizard and dealmaker Spin Williams, who is always in residence at The Meeting That Never Ends.

Because we’re interested in collecting piles of money, we’re always on the lookout for the next big weight loss fad!

Telling other people how to drop pounds off their frame is one of the great growth industries of our time, which is both true and ironic!

And there are thousands of ways to (supposedly) do it. You can use mechanical devices or take pills or buy a CD or watch a show or adopt a diet with ready-made food in carefully measured helpings.

Fortunes have been won with each of these.

But at The Meeting That Never Ends, we took on what I think is the most difficult weight loss / marketing challenge out there – figuring out how to make money off of simple walking. Because if you don’t sell high-end shoes (and we don’t), there isn’t a lot of equipment needed to go out for a stroll.

At first we thought we’d buy a company that sells electronic step-counters. This works especially well on people who have  bought in to the idea that taking 10,000 steps a day is all you need to do to become thin and sexy.

The problem is there’s very little sexy-time left in your schedule when you have to walk 10,000 steps a day, especially if you’ve spent all that time counting quietly in your head. Sex requires a lot of imagination and the fanciful part of your brain takes a bit of a holiday when you have to count up to 10,000.

But that’s where the step-counting devices come in!

And the sky’s the limit on price point – because people will pay a lot for a thing if they think it will dramatically improve their chances of getting lucky.

We were all set to go but then a bunch of killjoy researchers came along and said 10,000 steps is too much and you can get the same effect with only 6,000 steps. Suddenly our Pricey Love Pedometers were looking less necessary! And then some other prudish lab rats weighed in with the idea that walking won’t help you lose weight at all. All it does is improve your strength, mobility, mood, sleep and overall health.

But what good is that if there’s nothing to sell as part of the bargain?

Fortunately, a lightning bolt struck and I think we’ve stumbled on the next big exercise fad! It happened when I read this article about prehistoric kangaroos. It turns out ancient kangaroos walked around on two legs pretty much like we do. They were big, and the bigger they got, the less hopping they did until they got so huge they had to give up hopping completely!

So in the kangaroo world, walking is what biggies do and hopping is for little cuties. See?

But hopping is complicated. That’s why we’re just about to go to market with wearable kangaroo tails that will provide a counter-weight and balance for body-conscious people who are going to start jumping their way to work, or to the store, or just around the neighborhood for recreation!

Look for it. It’s going to happen! We think getting smaller through hopping is going to be huge.

Again, ironic.

Yours in marketing,
Spin

What makes you jump?

Poems

Thin Soup Celebration

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There was a hopeful sign this week out of a gathering of officials of the Catholic church. They said some things about gays and lesbians that fell somewhat short of complete condemnation.

In a preliminary document produced by some senior clerics at a lengthy Vatican meeting that would otherwise go unnoticed by most of the world, it was acknowledged that “Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community.”

For those who have been waiting for a fundamental shift and an embrace of common sense and simple humanity from a bureaucracy that maintains gays are “intrinsically disordered,” being bestowed with generic “gifts” and unidentified “qualities” can’t be dancing-in-the-streets news.

But it did make me think of how we all feel after a long winter when we’re hungry for the thaw. It’s remarkable how little it takes to cheer you up when one is desperate for a sign of warmth.

No fireworks yet, but I think the moment is worth a three-limerick salute. However I only have two, because I couldn’t think of enough good rhymes for “intrinsic”.

I.
All those Catholic guys who are gays
are “disordered”, the church doctrine says.
But their spirits, it lifts
when it says, “They have “gifts”!
Minor progress – with major delays.

II.
I have scorned you and left you maligned.
But my views have been lately refined.
You’re intrinsically bad,
but that’s not iron-clad!
You have qualities, too, of some kind.

What’s the most watered-down compliment you’ve received (or given)?

The Baboon Congress

Good to the Last Drop

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Today’s guest post comes from Clyde of Mankato.

In an effort to save a couple bucks, I bought a can of Folgers Coffee. Not a can actually, a plastic. Can we call it a plastic? If the English can call a can a tin, I declare that we can. Usually I buy coffee in a bag, the better stuff.

Coffe Bag

 

As far as taste goes, it was an error to buy the plastic. As far as economics go, it was a wise decision, but barely. My mother would have been proud of me. Frugality, punctuality, individuality—the three virtues of Adeline Anne, bless her departed self.

As I opened the plastic, I wondered how farmers would have survived the last century without coffee cans. In our neck of the woods, Duluth’s own Arco brand was the most common. The one pound cans were particularly prized, but that caught my mother at odds–to pay more per ounce for her coffee to have the size of can she and my father wanted. Life is full of dilemmas.

They were everywhere on our farm. Grain scoops, chicken feed scoops, clothes pin holders, grease containers, egg baskets, retainers of nuts and bolts and screws and washers and cotter pins (wonderful word that–cotter pins). In the garden they were watering cans and baby plant protectors. In the house, holders of my mother’s mammoth assortment of buttons, crayon container, coin collector, shoe lace storage (odd ones left over when one broke because they could be used to tie plants to support sticks; my mother was cheap), sewing kit, flower pots, and many more uses. The wonder is that we had that many around, considering how weak my mother made their coffee—frugality again.

Now, of course, I have this plastic, which will be empty in a few weeks. However, I cannot think of a storage use for it. I could keep my cotter keys in it, except I gave up all my cotter keys three years ago. We live in a smallish apartment and have eliminated all the stuff we can, which means we have little to store, and no business keeping a plastic in which to store nothing.

I also have these perfect little tins, which I acquired by ordering an expensive tea. I say tins because tins of tea sounds much more elegant than cans of tea. (Do not, please, tell Adeline Anne I used to order expensive tea instead of buying Lipton’s.)

Tins for Blog

Are not these tins perfect for storing cotter keys or lots of other things? Well, if I stored cotter keys in them, then they would have to be cans. Nope, haven’t found a use yet. But I am keeping them, so help me. Maybe I will go out and buy some cotter keys.

The plastic, is of course, an environmental error as well, unless I can find a permanent use for it. Now that I think frugally about it: I am going to be cremated.

Coffe can

Maybe that’s the true meaning of good to the last drop.

 

What would Adeline Anne think of your spending habits?