Grace, Thy Name is Bill

No, we're not talking about William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton.

Although a worthy president to illicit comments (and really, who couldn't help but comment), political commentary I leave up the professionals like Dan Rather and Big Bird.

I especially liked the Bird's expose on how the Bush Administration has completely ignored the latest molting figures for migratory avians.

Shocking.

But even more shocking, last night, I realized that my television remote control, which glows in the dark, looks like the Starship Enterprise (no bloody A, B, C or D). As I was flying this glowing image of the Enterprise over my head, and whistling the TOS ("the original series" for the uninitiated) theme song, I was accounted a dork.

Why is this important?

In writing, we call this a segue.

In reality, we call it, "I couldn't figure how to get to the point I wanted to, so I employed a literary device about as subtle as a Mac truck filled with explosives careening off a cliff in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie."

But I digress.

I'm such a Star Trek dork, that I actually get rather upset over the beating that William "Bill" Shatner has taken over the years a professional. To Shatner's credit, he takes it so good-naturedly that he's even played farsical character based on himself. Witness Free Enterprise and Showtime.

So let's look at the illustrious, and oft mocked career of the Shatner and see if we can't tally some kind of accounting that will allow for, and deny, the berating that Shatner has taken over the years for his career and career choices.

Longevity if often cited as a successful key to a "great" professional. Like prophets or sandwiches, those that last the longest are usually some of the best. Jimmy Stewart, Katherine Hepburn, Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Lauren Bacall all had rather lengthy careers.

Shatner has acted, and continues to act, since about 1950, giving him as long a career as almost every name listed above. His most recent movie, Miss Congeniality 2 is due in 2005. Stewart's last movie? Yeah, it came out in 1991, thirteen years ago!

And don't give me that, "But Stewart is deceased," bit either. Olivier recently appeared in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and he's been dead longer than Stewart!

Well, what about quality of work. Of course Stewart and Bacall had long careers because they starred in quality work. Fine, fine. The face that launched a thousand starships has now grown into a multi-billion dollar empire spanning four decades and six, count 'em, six tevevision shows (extra points if you can name them all) and ten movies!

Now what did Olivier ever that allowed for ten sequels worth of scripts, huh?

Nothing, that's what!

He's also starred on stage,

Alright, well what about flexibility then? Some of the greats not only acted, but sang and danced as well. Well, glerbing (a term I'm trying out to reference both males and females interchangably, let me know what you think), perhaps you haven't heard of a little album called "The Transformed Man"?

No, really, you probably haven't heard of it.

Shatner's album is now considered a cult classic. But the man has a resume that would put mine to shame! He's acted on Broadway, worked for charity, breeds horses, speaks fluent French and Esperanto, and actually has a new album out with Ben Folds called Has Been.

Fine, fine, you're thinking but what does all this mean to me?

Oh, you want this to mean something?

Did Moby Dick mean something? Did The Bible mean something? Does the re-election of George Walker Bush to a second term mean something?

They do?

Oh, well then.

What this means is that anyone who has survived for as long and as well as William Shatner has, and turned what is essentially a cult-classic science fiction career into one of the longest running and most celebrated (whether mocking or self-mocking) careers in the history of Hollywood should mean that the man gets a little more then laughter for his effort.

Of course, laughter is what he's given us more often then not. So perhaps a laugh or two is just fine.

Worse Than Gout

Yesterday, as luck would have it, I had a minor medical procedure. Nothing to be alarmed at in the least, just a little check-up. I did, however, have to war one of those wonderful hospital issue gowns. And here is where, as Bruce would say, my rampant gay-gene kicks in. Everyone is aware that the gowns suck cold rocks in the desert at night. No one looks even remotely attractive in these drapes of material, which makes it incredibly difficult to pick up chicks while in the operating room.

Trust me, I know!!

Ok, I don't really know.

Most of my operating room experiences have been while under heavy sedation. This is probably more for the beneift of the operating room staff then for me. I tend to get little punchy under stress, and my jokes, marginal at the best of times, go down in humor by an order of magnitude at least.

But, and here's where I get serious, why don't they make gowns that are reasonably attractive? Perhaps in SOME COLOR other then the white with paisleys. or paisleys with white.

Is that really too much to ask?

Apparently it is.

When Sue, my nurse, asked if I had any questions, I decided (as any good investigative reporter would) to take this opportunity as a gift from the Almighty Reporter. Apparently, Sue didn't see my concern as a valid one, as she laughed off the subject.

Or perhaps that's what she's been TOLD to do!

The old party line seems to be ringing in my ears. And the collaborators aren't talking!

It seems as much a conspiracy as it does simple human (fashion) concern, that a hospital or medical facility would worry about the form over the function. Given the old axiom, obviously gowns are quite functional. They exceed funtion better then a 1969 Corvette on the open roads of Montana where the speed limit is "whatever is reasonable."

So now should come the Guccis and the Tommy Hilfigers, hell, even the Kathy Lee Giffords, for the medical set. They've already set up the medical professionals. And I must say, if you can find a doctor or nurse attractive in scrubs, someone is doing thier job right!

So why not the patients, without whom all this (grand gesture here) wouldn't be possible or even necessary? Why not the seething masses yearning to be free of bad fashion? Why not the tired, the sick, the hungry (usually hungry, because they had to purge their bodies for the previous 48 hours prior to a medical procedure) yearning to be free?

Did I say that last bit twice?

Well, I stand by what I said.

Twice.

That, and I am tired of a room full of people having easy access to what I would otherwise consider my dear and privates. Oh, and something in a nice forest green for me.

It brings out my eyes.

How Thoreau of Me

I like my life simple.

If possible, I’d like it to be simpler.

I’m a simple guy.

Simple life, simple mind. Ahh, simple. I'd go to the woods to live deliberately, but the woods don't have Kim Possible, and I'll admit that I'm hooked.

For example: I drive an automatic. Not because I don’t know how to drive a stick; I do. But I’m not only comfortable with my masculinity to let my gears be shifted for me, but if someone else is doing the shifting, that logically means that I don’t have to.It’s also one less thing to worry about when people are trying to run you off the roads.

Also, I own a DVD player. Not because it’s cutting edge technology, but because when the movie is done, I don’t have anything to rewind. I hit eject, the disk comes out, I put it back where it belongs. I also don’t have to buy acres and acres of storage for my movies, nor do I have to worry about my movies wearing out as they do with magnetic tape.

DVDs are simple.

Rob is simple.

Up until a few months ago, I also liked drive-up windows. I can select from any of my various favorite fast-food solicitors, and without getting out of my car, make the exchange of funds for goods and services with a smile.

See how simple that is?

But not any more. Apparently there is a conspiracy out there that seeks, only, to make my life more complex. Now, as I pull up to a drive-through window, someone comes on and offers me a crunchy-soft-taco-super-sized-original-and-extra-crispy-with-cole-slaw-mashed-potatoes-and-mexi-fies for only $12.95.

What the hell?

All I want is, well pretty much, just one food item duplicated once or twice. I don’t drink most offered beverages because, well, water is simpler. If I wanted fries with that, I would have said, “. . . and I’ll have some fries with that" thus making the service-professional's life as simple as mine. And if I wanted the latest-and-greatest-now-taking-Europe-by-storm-only-for-a-limited-time-at-participating-stores food offering, wouldn’t I have pulled up and asked for that without you having to tell me?

After all, I watch T.V., I know what’s new and exciting.

Watching T.V. is pretty damn simple and commercials are geared to the epitome of simplicity.

They tell me what I want (their product), when I want it (two minutes ago) and why I want it (it will make me younger and get me more sex).

Taco Bell now makes the claim, “We just couldn’t leave well enough alone,” as if this was some kind of bragging right. If I was a more complex man I’d shout back, “Why, for the love of God and all that’s good and holy, why couldn’t you just leave it alone? It was pure, it was simple, it was happy. Why? Why? As God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again.”

Sometimes I get a bit carried away.

It’s like I’m gone . . . with the wind.

You might be saying, “Well, Rob, what are you going to do? It’s an advertising scheme meant to suck more hard earned dollars right out of pockets of coal miners like you.”

Oh, no, little voice inside my Kleenex box, not so!

My mother raised me to be polite, to say “Please” and “Thank you” and “Pass the damn potatoes before I leap across this table and sink my canines into your jugular.” That last, according to mom, should only be used at Thanksgiving and, only after everyone has had at least one helping.

But, as we’ve already demonstrated above, as polite as I am, I’m also rather simple; despite my use of the compound-complex sentence structure above, and a semi-colon to boot.

As I pull up to the drive-through, I now ignore whatever the attendant says until I hear them shouting, “HELLO!? ARE YOU THERE? PLEASE ORDER OR PULL THROUGH AS YOU’RE HOLDING UP THE LINE!” Only then do I make my order. I also ignore completely any instruction on when, when and how to pay. I’ve crumpled up dollar bills with various random coins, some Canadian, and I pull immediately to the window where I know that my food will be delivered to me. When asked for my money, and it’s plainly obvious no food is waiting, I simply say, “No ticky, no laundry!” and return my window to the up position.

After all, when you go out to eat at a restaurant, you don’t order, pay then get your food served. Most places figure that you’re honest enough to not hold your stomach hostage.

When my food is finally delivered (and if the cops haven’t been called by this point) I roll down my window just enough for them to slide, rolled up, the bag. I then throw one or two my crumpled bills through the window and pull away. I figure it will all work out in the wash at some point.Some of my bills are $5’s.

See, simple.

First Post

First posts are so tricky, aren't they?

Especially when undertaking a Blog for the first time.

There's all this pressure knowing that so many other Blogs, like big-time magazine publishers, have ten or even twenty people reading them. Sometimes on a weekly basis!

It's a frightening prospect for someone who's had to beg or alternately threaten violence, usually in the same conversation, to get anything read.

I now know what it's like to be Hunter S. Thompson, except without the fame and the money.

Today I was just randoming checking out some of the nice folk that I know and love at SF-FANDOM. That would be the forum that I help moderator and administrate. I stumbled into Boomer's (aka Boomstick, aka Mark Fortin) blog.

It was nice to read something that someone I knew wrote, but that was totally unrelated to the politics and the policies of the forum.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of the forums. Probably because I carry one of the biggest hammers on the forum. After all, what's the point of power if you aren't going to abuse it? And believe you me, every chance I get, I'm crushing the souls of the innocent and the naive with my big hammer.

But Boomer's blog was just so raw and honest. It was a nice change to see someone use the term "bitch" and mean it in that lovely sense of "I hate you and wish you physical and emotional pain" sense. Also, without my having to worry that some child was going to see that, and SF-FANDOM would be getting a nasty email regarding out lack of moderation. Or worrying about editing the post, sending a nice-but-firm email to the individual, getting some angry retort back, and having to smile while I wrote a response, once again stating that I'm just doing my job, just enforcing the policy, just maintaing the forum for everyone and not just them.

I can, at those times, sympathize with Atlas. Of course, Atlas is busy carrying a larger burden than I do, but metaphorically speaking, Atlas and I are brothers.

Or at least distant cousins several times removed from completely different families.

So, here's my first blog ever. I've been left standing on the Blog train station, ticket in hand, rain pouring down on my fedora and overcoat while the engines pulls away, leaving me there. But here it is, in all it's late-bloom glory.

The Fates Are Against Me

So far in my endevours to move back to Utah, I have met with a reasonable level of success. To wit: I have a job, a place to live, and enough people to help me move.

Yes, I can't help but feel that the fates are against me. Vis-a-vis, the U-Haul (all rights reserved) truck that I rented, while more then adequate to the task at hand, has one shining drawback.

As you may or may not be aware, U-Haul, in an endevour, no doubt, to make America's highways brighter and more friendly, paint state advertising on the side accompanied by something that represents in some what that state. Such as a giant cow for Wyoming. Or perhaps a shoot-out riot for L.A. You know, something cheery.

I got Hawaii.

Hawaii is apparently an evil state.

Why, you may be asking yourself, is Hawaii evil?

Well, I was unaware of the state that I had gotten until I was filling the tank with gasoline (at Michigan's equitable rate of $1.98 this week). What should I see but an EVIL, GIANT, EVIL, GREEN, EVIL SPIDER on the side. This yielded instant sweat, a desire to flee the situation and an irrational need to jump away and scream like a little school girl!!

The latter I did immediately.

It's what I do, OK senator!

For thoseof you who aren't aware, I have a phobia.

A phobia is marked by an IRRATIONAL FEAR of some thing, situation or object. This IRRATIONAL FEAR extended to anything associated with that thing, situations or object. Mine happens to be spiders, and in the vernacular is referred to as arachnophobia. Many people ask me why I am scared of spiders and I reply, "I don't know. It's an IRRATIONAL fear. That's why it's called a phobia."

That are, of course, "cures" for phobias, such as graduated exposure. But the thing about phobias is that you generally attempt to AVOID any situations that would spark the fear. Thus, I AVOID going to any kind of therapy where I would be exposed to spiders. (Even typing the word gives me small shivers of discomfort).

So, at the end of the say, I have a U-Haul (all rights reserved) truck with a giant spider painted on it. This will be fine, I suppose, if I don't think about it too much. And fortunately I won't have to drive the damnable truck for more then four to six hours at a stint.

I will survive.

But why is Hawaii so evil? Why, why, why!?!