Category: words mean things (Page 48 of 223)

Brushes with greatness

My friend Paul is convinced that David Lynch was sitting a few rows ahead of us at Westgate Cinema tonight during a screening of “Swimming Pool” with Charlotte Rampling (review to follow). Paul maintains that Lynch’s wife is from Madison and Lynch has been known to spend time here.

During the furtive glances I allowed myself, it certainly looked like him: the wacky upswept salt-and-pepper hair, the starched white shirt, khakis and loafers. But my brain finds it hard to reconcile that David Lynch would be catching a movie at Westgate Mall in Madison, Wisconsin. I felt sort of like one of those robots on the original “Star Trek” that were driven to self-destruct by Capt. Kirk’s illogical utterances.

My father (see below) would have thought nothing of going up to Mr. Maybe Lynch and finding out firsthand, and probably engaging him in an amiable 10-minute conversation in the process. Sadly, that part of my dad’s DNA wasn’t passed on to me.

Sitting in the movie theater, I did think of a lot of funny lines I could have used on him:

-“What’s Naomi Watts really like?”
-“I loved ‘Silence of the Lambs,’ Mr. Demme.”
-“You’re that guy! You know, that guy!”
-“Was that Sci-Fi Channel ‘Dune’ a piece of crap, or what?”

Then when we left the theater, Could Possibly Be Lynch and his group were crossing from the mall to the parking lot just as we pulled past in my car. I stopped and waved them on.

Happy Birthday, Dad

Today is my father’s birthday. He was without a doubt the most brilliant, artistic, loving person I’ve ever known. He’s as close to a hero as I’ve ever had. He could also be maddeningly stubborn, contrary and argumentative. I see him in myself more every day. And every day, I realize more clearly how lucky I was to have him as a father. I miss him more than I can express.

One of my best compliments to people I meet is, “I wish you could have met my father. He would have loved you.”

Word of the day

Comstockery.

Many thanks to Mark for indirectly suggesting my new ultrafantastic tagline. And thanks again to Andrea for the last one, even if she didn’t recognize her own words. Can you believe it was up for three months? It was that good.

Lightening the mood

Mrs. Krabapple: Any other questions, children?
Bart: How would I go about creating a half man, half monkey type creature?
Mrs. K: I’m sorry, but that would be playing God.
Bart: God schmod, I want my monkey man!

Will Do Web Design for Food

I need work. Badly. (Do the initials IRS mean anything to you?) Looking around my place, I find to my distress that the only thing worth selling is myself. (No, not *that* way. *That* would barely get me a peanut butter sandwich.) So here’s what I propose, to anyone reading these words: get me some work, and I’ll give you a cut.

What does this mean to you, dear reader? It means, if you refer me to a potential client and I get the job, you get 5 percent of my fee. Simple as that. Even if it’s just a phone call to someone you know, the referral is all you need to do to collect the cash. Sound like a good deal? It is. Cruise on over to my business site for more about what I can do. If you want to hire me, I’ll give you a 10 percent discount just for reading these words.

I look forward to hearing from you, my new business partners.

Back in the fray

I got back into it with Mrs. du Toit today. I’ve changed my thinking about whether posting on her site, and others like hers, is a good thing. It does get my blood going, which maybe isn’t a good thing. But unlike my writing here, where I’m preaching to the choir, I think on her site there might be a reader or two who could take something constructive away from what I’m saying. So I’m not going to feel uncomfortable any more about posting comments when I feel strongly about something. It just might do a little good somewhere.

Andrew Sullivan, bless his little gay Republican heart, points out that not that long ago, in 1967, there was a battle over miscegenation. That year, the Supreme Court struck down state bans on interracial marriage on equal protection grounds. In a Gallup poll the following year, 72 percent opposed such marriages – quite a bit more than the percentages that oppose gay marriage today.

Common sense point No. 526 on “gay marriage”: Just because the public supports it doesn’t make it right.

MADNESS!

The issue of gay marriage was so odious to Mrs. du Toit (once she probably saw it sneeringly derided on Faux News) that she came out of retirement to decry its MADNESS.

(As we all know, important things assert their innate importantness much more when ALL IN UPPERCASE. Like this baffling sentence: ?EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER THE LAW? DOES NOT MEAN ?THE SAME?!!!!)

(Exclamation points can’t hurt, either.)

MDT also wins the Words Mean Things 2003 Slippery Slope Award with this stunner:

“How ’bout animal rights folks: let’s just stop calling cows ‘cows’ and chickens ‘chickens’ and start calling them all “humans,” then we can extend to cows and chickens all the protections given to humans in the Bill of Rights.”

Well, we could do this, but the cows might start getting all uppity, causing an inevitable “anti-cow backlash.”

Ahem.

One thing I think Howard Dean does extremely well is frame the debate not in terms of “gay marriage,” two words that cause conservatives massive conniptions when placed together, but in terms of basic human rights. Look at it this way (and feel free to use this one, Howard): Should the adult loving relationships of Dick Cheney’s two daughters, one gay and one straight, be given different levels of legal protection?

The Rev. G.W. Bush

This is old, and lots of other people have already weighed in. But I have a slightly different take on it, so here goes.

Q: Mr. President, many of your supporters believe that homosexuality is immoral. They believe that it’s been given too much acceptance in policy terms and culturally. As someone who’s spoken out in strongly moral terms, what’s your view on homosexuality?

I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman. And I think we ought to codify that one way or the other. And we’ve got lawyers looking at the best way to do that.

-Presidential press conference, July 30

There’s so much wrong with this, it’s hard to know where to start. But here’s my question: what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is the President of the United States doing talking about who is and who isn’t a sinner, and paraphrasing the Sermon on the Mount, in a press conference? What is he doing talking about the “sanctity” of anything? That really chaps my hide.

A commenter over at Daily Kos was reminded of Helen Thomas’ question to Bush at his first press conference in 2001, after listening to a similar outburst of preaching: “Are you or are you not a secular official?”

Damn good question.