Everybody Else Is Overwhelmed By Indifference And The Promise Of An Early Bed
As I was out last night with my family, in one of those restaurants with the mid-level music in the background (you know, not so loud you can't talk over it, but just enough to so you won't be disturbed by the guy at the next table choking to death on his ¡Ay, Caliente! Boneless Buffalo Nacho Fries), surrounded by enough TV monitors to show every single thing on DirecTV that second, I looked at my family at the table around me and I remember thinking quite clearly: laying in bed with a 101-degree temperature for four days doesn't seem too bad in retrospect.

My wife excluded from that last bit of snideness, of course. I spend a lot of time in tacky chain restaurants because they're the only places I can take my kids where if they decide they need to throw themselves on the floor and scream at the top of their lungs, the staff there is mostly OK with that. And unlike fast food places, they'll even make an effort to step over them.

It was the first time I'd been out of the house since about mid-day Wednesday and I was feeling kind of tetchy. I was the one who suggested we get out of there, if only to escape the chiggers and silverfish spontaneously generating in my bed as I wallowed in the accumulated detritus of pestilential convalescence.

Free though I was, the omens were not good. Gas prices had jumped over $3.50/gallon down the street from me. Roger Clemens signed with the Yankees. Most gruesomely and disturbingly, a calf had been born with six legs, a full complement of BOTH gender sex organs and NO RECTUM. You know God is unhappy with something somewhere when you have to surgically build your cows an ass.

The story doesn't say if Sexopus the Heifer can talk or not, but if s/he could, I'm sure the message wouldn't have been any more clear than that which is broadcast by its very existence: Science has got nothing on nature in the genetic freak department.

Also: Beware the destruction of your idols!

It was mostly the second portent I took to heart, and it all made sense when, on a commercial break on the monitor on which was showing (and this is true) a 15-year-old beach volleyball match, I saw this.

Elvis Costello, Lexus salesman.

The only thing that saved me from committing immediate seppuku with my celery garnish was that I could not hear what he was saying. From what I've read, he's not asked to get all "rich Corinthian leather" and that sort of thing, but come on. And I know we can't be Angry Young Men forever, but Lexus? If he was going to break the endorsement cherry, I would have hoped it would have been something far less staid, middle-of-the-road, yuppietastic. Like Mountain Dew. Or Skechers. Or... hey!

How about Pops' Bucket? Sure, he's been my musical hero forever and it crushes me to see him pander to a mass audience in this country that has by and large ignored everything he's done since 1989, but hey, now that I know he's for sale, I might as well put it to my benefit.

Everyone check your couch cushions for spare change and send it in. We're going to buy us a local cable spot.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.7



Pops

Labels: vinculum

- posted by Pops @ 9:40 AM