![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
Do a pair of young but seasoned television comedy writers have any business offering relationship advice to couples? Read Women Are Crazy, Men Are Stupid: The Simple Truth to a Complicated Relationship by Howard J. Morris ("Dream On", "Home Improvement") and Jenny Lee ("Samantha Who?") and perhaps you might find the answer... if you're lucky. And even if not, you'll find yourself involved (if not engrossed) in a thoroughly enjoyable read.
The title to this often very witty book comes from a quote:
Here's all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid."
~ George Carlin
This first appeared (to my recollection) in the comedian Carlin's When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? Using it as a book title is a stroke of pure comedic genius on the parts of authors Morris and Lee. One can only speculate that the late George Carlin would probably agree, were he to read this book.
Hey, Howard said it... and I for one agree.
And other questions for couples are revealed here, such as why does every conversation with a woman lead back to whether or not she's fat? It's hard to say more here without leaving a few spoilers, so I'll stop here and now.
All humor aside, this is a pretty good relationship book for couples, be it one to share with another or for a gift for just that perfect pair that many of us know. Don't expect a lot of serious psychological relationship advice here such as you might find in Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, as there are many books available of that genre (often boring, but some not). This one will surprise you with the way the ongoing dialog goes between the authors, who happen to be a real couple living together in Los Angeles.
Couples, if you have your act together and even the smallest sense of humor, get it and read it as a shared gift. You won't be sorry.
Senator Ted Kennedy is dead at 77.
Love him or hate him, the “Liberal lion” of the Senate no longer walks among us. 
At the time of his death, he was the second most senior member of the Senate, after Robert Byrd of West Virginia, and the third-longest-serving U.S. Senator of all time, serving in that capacity for almost forty seven years.
His political career was nearly derailed by the Chappaquiddick incident, in which his car missed a bridge on the island and plunged into the water on July 19, 1969, killing Mary Jo Kopechne, a former aide to his brother Robert. He didn't report the accident for almost ten hours, explaining afterward that he had suffered a concussion, and that he had become so exhausted while trying to rescue Miss Kopechne that he had immediately gone to bed.
I well remember the incident, and condemned him for years because of it. But times change, and so do opinions.
Although he had been born to one of the wealthiest American families, Ted Kennedy often spoke eloquently for the downtrodden during his public life. He left his mark on legislation concerning health care, education, civil rights, voting rights and labor. He always remained a leading spokesman for Liberal issues, although his best legislative success was often his ability to find Republican allies to get bills passed... and for those efforts, I always admired him.
One of the best books about his life is Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy
Early in 2008, Ted Kennedy's open endorsement of then-Senator Barack Obama helped convince some wavering party leaders to back the Illinois senator. Later, as President Obama pushed health care reform, Kennedy played a key behind-the-scenes role in what had long been a signature issue for him. But the worsening toll of his cancer through 2009 left the President without a key ally as the debate heated up.
Love him or hate him, even into his last years in the Senate, Ted Kennedy continued pushing legislation on the issues of health care, education and poverty.
R.I.P. Mr. Kennedy. You’ll be missed.
- Location:Cyberspace
- Mood:
sympathetic
Fruitcakes
As performed by Jimmy Buffett and Amy Lee, 1994
This is a personal favorite among all of the songs from Jimmy Buffett, with memorable lyrics worth sharing. Please also see the liner and personal notes at the bottom of this page...
Spoken:
You know I was talking to my friend Desdemona the other day she runs this space station and bake shop down near Boomtown. She told me that human beings are flawed individuals. The cosmic bakers took us out of the oven a little too early. And that's the reason we're as crazy as we are and I believe it.”
“Take for example when you go to the movies these days, you know. They try to sell you this jumbo drink, eight extra ounces of watered down Cherry Coke for an extra twenty-five cents. I don't want it. I don't want that much organization in my life! I don't want other people thinking for me! I want my Junior Mints! Where did the Junior Mints go in the movies? I don't want a twelve pound Nestle's Crunch for twenty-five dollars. I want Junior Mints!”
”We need more fruitcakes in this world and less bakers! We need people that care! I'm mad as hell! And I don't want to take it anymore!”
Chorus:
Fruitcakes in the kitchen (Fruitcakes in the kitchen)
Fruitcakes on the street (Fruitcakes on the street)
Struttin' naked through the crosswalk
In the middle of the week
Half-baked cookies in the oven (Cookies in the oven)
Half-baked people on the bus (People on the bus)
There's a little bit of fruitcake left in everyone of us
Paradise, lost and found
Paradise, take a look around
I was out in California where I hear they have it all
They got riots, fires, mud slides
They've got sushi in the mall
Water bars, brontosaurs, Chinese modern lust
Shake and Bake life with the quake
The secret's in the crust
Chorus:
Fruitcakes in the kitchen (Fruitcakes in the kitchen)
Fruitcakes on the street (Fruitcakes on the street)
Struttin' naked through the crosswalk
In the middle of the week
Half-baked cookies in the oven (Cookies in the oven)
Half-baked people on the bus (People on the bus)
There's a little bit of fruitcake left in everyone of us
Spoken:
Speakin' of fruitcakes, how 'bout the government? Your tax dollars at work."
We lost our Martian rocket ship
The high paid spokesman said
Looks like that silly rocket ship
Has lost its cone shaped head
We spent ninety jillion dollars trying to get a look at Mars
I hear universal laughter ringing out among the stars”
Chorus:
Fruitcakes in the galaxy (Fruitcakes in the galaxy)
Fuitcakes on the earth (Fruitcakes on the earth)
Struttin' naked towards eternity
We've been that way since birth
Half-baked cookies in the oven (Cookies in the oven)
Half-baked people on the bus (People on the bus)
There's a little bit of fruitcake left in everyone of us
Religion! Religion! Oh, there's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Here we go now. Alright, alter boys."
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa
Where's the church, who took the steeple
Religion is in the hands of some crazy-ass people
Television preachers with bad hair and dimples
The god's honest truth is it's not that simple
It's the Buddhist in you, it's the Pagan in me
It's the Muslim in him, she's Catholic ain't she?
It's the born again look its the WASP and the Jew
Tell me what's goin' on, I ain't gotta clue...
Spoken:
"Now here comes the big ones. Relationships! We all got 'em, we all want 'em. What do we do with 'em? Here we go, I'll tell ya."
She said you gotta do your fair share
Now cough up half the rent
I treat my body like a temple
You treat yours like a tent
But the right word at the right time
May get me a little hug
That's the difference between lightning
And a harmless lightnin' bug
Chorus:
Fruitcakes in the kitchen (Fruitcakes in the kitchen)
Fruitcakes on the street (Fruitcakes on the street)
Struttin' naked through the crosswalk
In the middle of the week
Half-baked cookies in the oven (Cookies in the oven)
Half-baked people on the bus (People on the bus)
There's a little bit of fruitcake left in everyone of us
Spoken:
The future. Captain's log, stardate two thousand and something."
We're seven years from the millennium
That's a science fiction fact
Stanley Kubrick and his buddy HAL
Now don't look that abstract
So I'll put on my Bob Marley tape
And practice what I preach
Get Jah lost in the reggae mon
As I walk along the beach
Stay in touch with my insanity really is the only way
Its a jungle out there kiddies
Have a very fruitful day
Hey!
Chorus:
Fruitcakes in the kitchen (Fruitcakes in the kitchen)
Fruitcakes on the street (Fruitcakes on the street)
Struttin' naked through the crosswalk
In the middle of the week
Half-baked cookies in the oven (Cookies in the oven)
Half-baked people on the bus (People on the bus)
There's a little bit of fruitcake left in everyone of us
That's right, you too. Yeah those crumbs are spread all around this universe. I've seen fruitcakes. I saw this guy in Santa Monica roller-skate naked through the crosswalk. Down in New Orleans in the French market there are fruitcakes like you cannot believe. New York, forget it. Fruitcake City. Down island, we've got fruitcakes. Spread them crumbs around. That's right, we want 'em around. Keep bakin' baby. Keep bakin'..."
It reached #5 on the Billboard 200 album chart, making it Buffett's first top ten album. The album was also certified "Platinum" by the RIAA on 19 December 2004. The first single from the album, "Fruitcakes" (see lyrics above) charted at #29 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.
The second single, "Frenchmen for the Night," did not chart.
Liner Notes;
When I look back on the causes and effects that have brought me to this stage in my life, I do believe I have kept my guardian angels quite busy. I say angels, because I feel that with the lifestyle I have chosen, more help is required and they have been quite good at providing me with the right kind of help at the right time. Gamble Rogers was the right kind of help. I vividly remember the days I spent traversing the folk club circuit in the Southeast, roaring down two lane black top road with Gamble at the wheel of his black fastback Mustang listening to the glass packs ricocheting through the pines as he offered words of wisdom to an up and coming folk singer from the Gulf Coast.
I would open shows for Gamble in places like The Hub Pub Club in Buoy’s Creek, North Carolina or the Tradewinds in St. Augustine or the Gaslight in Athens watching him weave the magic with just a guitar and a story. Gamble Rogers taught me how to move an audience with dialogue and delivery as much as with the music. I never tired of listening to him expound about the Maitland Turkey Farm Massacre or deliver a history lesson on the Seminole Chief, Osceola, as he sang a Will McClain song. I was the apprentice and he was the master.
As we each continued down our respective paths, we saw less and less of each other, but stayed in touch as good friends do. When the Margaritaville Cafe opened its doors in Key West, it was Gamble whom I asked to initiate the stage and hopefully leave his mark there for others to follow. That week we shared many a good laugh recalling our days together and caught up on the years that were passing so quickly. He had settled into a quieter routine of teaching and doing festival around Florida. I was trying to hold down the fort of the troubadours that was being bombarded constantly by pop culture. I attribute a lot of my ability to remain true to my vision to Gamble Rogers and what he taught me. Many of his tricks of twenty years ago are the same ones I still use today.
So, it was with shock and sadness that I read the account of Gambles’ death in St. Augustine last year. He died trying to save a man from drowning. Just like Gamble, always thinking of the other guy. So with love and respect, I dedicate this collection of song to the memory of James Gamble Rogers, a troubadour and a friend who has gone over to the other side where the guardian angels dwell and has in all likelihood, become one. “
~ Jimmy Buffett, 16 March, Somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico
Personal Note:
I first saw Gamble Rogers and Jimmy Buffett perform at a small nightclub in Gainesville, Florida in the ‘70s. I was taking a full 16-hour course load and working full-time as the sales manager of a large camera store store at the time. A girl that I was dating at the time rushed into the camera store all excited, and was telling me all about the new music duo she had heard, and said, “You’ve got to come see them with me tonight!” I was almost exhausted from work and school, but agreed.
That night we went to see them play, and they were far above what we were used to seeing there. My date had already made friends with Gamble and Jimmy, and after their performance, we adjourned to a very smoky camper for some local refreshments. I often wondered over the ensuing years if Jimmy had thought up the name of his group, the Coral Reefers, right there in the back of that same camper.
We saw them a number of times in the months that followed, especially in St. Augustine, which seemed to be Gamble Rogers’ home port at the time. As time passed, Gamble and Jimmy went their separate ways, as noted in the liner notes above. It was only when I bought my own copy of the Fruitcakes album on CD the week that it was released that I found out that Gamble was no longer with us.
There’s a peaceful place in Florida known as the Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area, a 144 acre State Park located at Flagler Beach, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intra-Coastal Waterway on SR A1A. It is about 18 miles north of Daytona Beach and about 30 miles south of St. Augustine. Between May and early September, Loggerhead, Green and Leatherback sea turtles are among the wildlife of the park.
It seems that while Gamble Rogers was camping at Flagler Beach on October 10, 1991, a frightened young girl ran up to him, begging him to help her father, who was in trouble in rough surf. Compromised by spinal arthritis that had been worsening since childhood, Rogers nevertheless grabbed an air mattress and headed into the ocean in a rescue attempt. Both men died in the surf. Some thought that he was a bit nutty because he was well aware of the crippling spinal arthritis that had affected him severely, but that’s just the way that he lived his life. In honor of his heroism. the Florida Legislature renamed the state park Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area at Flagler Beach.
Yes, there's a little bit of fruitcake left in everyone of us…
- Mood:
pensive - Music:Fruitcakes
I am a verbivore, I'm someone who metaphorically eats words. I am a wordstruck, word fixated, word obsessed, totally shameless verbivore.
Carnivores eat meat; herbivores chomp through vegetables and plants; verbivores devour words. I'm just such a creature. I indulge myself words, ogling over their enticing textures, shapes, and colors. I enjoy dialogs with other wordaholics, lexicomaniacs, and verbivores, people who also eat their words.
The term "verbivore" was coined by author and speaker Richard Lederer in the early 1980s, a man best known for his books on word play and the English language and his use of oxymorons. Dr. Lederer is known for uncovering word origins, pointing out common grammatical errors and fallacies, and exploring palindromes, anagrams, and other forms of recreational wordplay. He has been profiled in magazines as diverse as The New Yorker, People, and the National Enquirer (go figure), and has appeared on radio as a commentator on language. He has written hundreds of articles and more than thirty books, such as Anguished English, a book that spawned an entire best-selling series.
Amongst his other offerings were such titles as Get Thee to a Punnery, Crazy English, A Man of My Words, The Word Circus, The Miracle of Language, The Cunning Linguist, and Word Wizard. His most recent offering was Presidential Trivia. And kids haven’t been forgotten. His offerings have been The Circus of Words (letter play for kids 9-14, for whom hardly anyone writes language fun and skill), and Word Play Crosswords, 50 original crossword puzzles, each with a language theme.
An accomplished speaker, Lederer was the 2002 recipient of the Golden Gavel of Toastmasters International. He also served as the 2007 commencement speaker at Case Western Reserve University. He is a member of American Mensa, and is often a featured speaker at its gatherings.
Dr. Lederer was once asked which of his works was his favorite, and the answer was The Miracle of Language, in which the reader is treated to a collection of fascinating and enlightening essays. Lederer celebrates language as "incomparably the finest of our achievements" and passes along some eloquent testimony on the emancipating power of language in the lives of such people as Helen Keller, Richard Wright, Malcolm X, Anne Frank.
The author identifies William Shakespeare as the most prolific word-maker who ever lived, a man who Shakespeare is credited with the first use of over 1,700 words, nearly eight percent of the different words that he used in his writing. Next is Samuel Johnson who, with his breakthrough dictionary, captured the majesty of English and gave it a dignity long overdue. Others include writers such as Ambrose Bierce, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot, and George Orwell. There's a chapter on the beauty of using short words, that rounds out this a delightful and edifying collection.
A large vocabulary is a great predictor of success, according to the Johnson O'Connor studies and others. I believe that it is also one sign of certain kind of intelligences. It's a matter of simple math. The more words you have, the better you can describe and live in this world. As Holmes said, ‘Language is the skin of living thought.’
~ Richard Lederer
But this is also no dry author, for there’s an amazing amount of humor in many if his works. His interests include uncovering word origins, pointing out common grammatical errors and fallacies, and exploring palindromes, anagrams, and other forms of recreational wordplay. On top of that, he has been elected International Punster of the Year. A few year ago he wrote The Cunning Linguist, a book in which he shows us the naughtier side of wordplay, revealing hundreds of hilarious, ingenious, unabashed, and adults-only puns, jokes, limericks, one-liners, and other adventures in sexual humor. As the author says, this book is "300 pages of good, clean, dirty word play for appreciative punographers." I had to fully agree in my review of this book.
If you like words, if you are a fellow verbivore, then any of these books would probably appeal to you.- Mood: pensive
- Music:Company of Thieves
I've been on LiveJournal for months now, reading the posts and journals of others, and haven't posted a single thing here.
A monkey at a typewriter could do better, so maybe I should get moving and post something. It would be better to be typing the lyrics to a nonsense-verse song here than to just have a blank page that shows nothing. So what have I been doing?
- I’ve been spending a lot of time here, reviewing books and products.
- I’ve been spending far too much time here and on other forums on that site. It’s all to easy to get involved in the back and forth discussions in on-line forums.
- I used to spend far too much time refuting very abusive comments made here by a very nasty troll who had it in for women who chose to breastfeed in public. One has to learn at some point that once cannot argue with a truly ignorant (or bigoted) mind.
- Have been having fun watching my son grow from a boy to a young man. It’s quite enjoyable to see him doing the things that give him pleasure in his world, from making faces at his Beta (fish) and getting responses, to seeing his enjoyment as he plays new games with his Nintendo DS, to seeing the wonderful results that he gets with his digital camera… probably the best creative investment that I ever made.
- Have been eyeing Amazon’s Kindle quite a bit, realizing that it may well be the future of books as we know them.
- Have been enjoying the fact that Spring has sprung, and that I’ll be able to get in more bike time with my son.
It’s amazing what one can come up with when one looks around and thinks for a few minutes.
Maybe it's about time!
- Mood:
embarrassed - Music:Tom Waits
