Marty on Humor

I like humor. Why, you might even say that I enjoy jocularity. But what's the best type humor?

No red blooded American male will ever say that he doesn't like the slapstick of the Three Stooges. Not. One. But the slapstick towards the end of Home Alone (the first one) is about the most inspired I've ever seen.

I like farce, and both overstated and understated jokes. One of my favorite lines is still, "Wait a minute, Doc. You're telling me you made a time machine...out of a DeLorean?" from Back to the Future. Silly humor can be fun if well done and without self-conscience. I think of the Canadians Wayne and Shuster in that sense. Loved their shtick. Did you know that they were Ed Sullivan's guests more often than any other performers? It's true.

Bob Newhart gets my vote for great understated humor. His stuttering and stammering are priceless. For farcical, outlandish humor it's either Monty Python's Flying Circus or the Marx Brothers. I give Python points for the often inspired cleverness of their insanity (Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!), but the Marx Brothers get the nod on comic timing. Even though it's been done a million, jillion times, you have to see Harpo and Groucho doing the mirror gag in Duck Soup. I still laugh out loud at it. Hell, I'm laughing out loud thinking about it.

Then there's unintended humor. Look up The Room or At Long Last Love for a taste of that. Sometimes people are so serious that it becomes funny. As the then movie critic Michael Medved said, "You haven't lived until you've seen the powder room scene in At Long Last Love." He's right. It's the pinnacle of unintended humor.

Yes, I enjoy jocularity. How about you?

Marty the Ghost Hunter

A storm with high winds knocked out the power awhile back. That was frustrating on several counts, not the least of which was that it reminded one of how much he relies on electricity.

No power? Well, let me check on the status of repairs on the Internet...except with the power out, there's no Internet.

Well, then, I'll watch T...V...

All right, I'll nuke a quick bite of something. Oh, yeah. No electric, no microwave. And you want to leave the fridge and freezer closed anyway.

Okay, I'll read then. Click, click, click on the light switch before remembering, stupidly, no power, no lights.

So you just lay in bed. Of course, you might as well silver lining the outage, right? So I became a ghost hunter.

Whenever I did venture through the house, I used my cell phone to illuminate where I walked. Not the flashlight setting, because that would use too much battery power. I simply flipped on the screen light, which gave just enough glow to light my way.

It also gave the hallways, stairs, and rooms that soft gray green light which ghost hunting shows seem to have patented. Then my mind saw all the movement which managed to escape into the shadows right before I could really see it. I could the feel the cold air presence of the poor souls trapped, doomed to eternal, earthly dwelling. Near whispers emanated from all around me.

Of course I never actually found ghosts. And a good for them, too, because I'd have given them what for if I had.

Shave like Marty does

I saw it on a shelf in a closet as we went through the house we had just bought. It was a boar's hair shaving brush with a orange brown handle and hair which had a black stripe near the tips. At that very moment I knew we'd be good friends. But I closed the door and left it to sit that day.

A few years later I was in a drug store and stumbled upon some cakes of shaving soap. I remembered that mug brush, bought two of those soaps, and came home. My wife gave me a coffee cup with a broken handle, of which the cakes fit into perfectly. From that day on I was fully old school. I have shaved with a mug and brush since.

I think I get a closer shave that way. My face feels better too. Wally, my old barber, said it was because of the oils in the shaving soap. I believe him; that's how he shaved customers. I'm at the point now that shaving with cream makes me feel like I just had a pie smacked onto my face. That might not be so bad if I were Soupy Sales, but I'm not. Even when I travel I just use soap for shaving.

We had a great relationship, that brush and I. Then the hairs popped out of the handle one day awhile back. I was beside myself wondering what to do. I didn't want to buy another brush: we had become too close, me and the old one. But fortunately the hairs came out in one big clump (I suppose I should have expected that they'd all be glued together at their base) and my wife had some waterproof glue which she used to re-attach the bristles to the handle.

Now all is well. I still have my old friend, and I still have the best kind of close shaves.

Pretend you're right here!

Me Grandpa Joe had a way about throwing himself into his work. Sometimes he literally threw himself into it. Or among it, between it; I'm not exactly sure how to describe what I'm about to describe.

I remember a day when I was just 16 and he decided I needed to learn how to back up a trailer. That was fair enough so far as it went. As I worked with him delivering welding equipment and we often delivered smaller machines with a two-wheeled trailer, it was a good idea. Yet his teaching methods left a few things to be desired.

Quiet and tact come immediately to mind. I love that old man and I miss him every day, but he truly subscribed to the concept that the louder he was the better you'd remember and the quicker you'd learn. Higher decibels equaled greater understanding.

The loudness of his screaming instructions did not seem to help me initially. Neither did his insistence on visual examples: I cannot tell you how many times he would jump right in between car and trailer as I vainly tried backing the trailer into place, each time yelling, "Pretend you're right here! Right here!" But you're right there Joe! Right where you're telling me to be!

As I recall, me Pops returned from wherever he was at that point and calmly took over. I soon mastered it, and I do mean mastered it. I could back up that old trailer perfectly into a space with four inches of clearance to each side. And I do wonder if maybe, just maybe, Joe's intensity actually helped.

I do know me Pops calm certainly didn't hurt.

Encino Ike

I had not seen a first run movie in a theater in I didn't know how long. So yesterday, rather than playing catch up at the old barn as I originally intended (honest) I played hooky. I caught an early show at a local movie house and watched Pressure. It's centered on the D-Day Invasion. 

As many of you may already know, D-Day was supposed to be June 5, 1944. Yet the weather wouldn't co-operate (hence the movie title Pressure, a play on barometric pressure and the press to invade France), so the Allies had to wait a day to launch the attack. Although all of the actors were great, I was mostly interested to see Brendan Fraser as General Dwight Eisenhower.

In the 1990s, Fraser played a series of fish out of water roles, and did them quite well, I thought. He was George of the Jungle and Dudley Do-Right in live action remakes of old cartoons, for example. But he started out in Encino Man, a comedy centered on a cave man melted out of an ice tomb who had to learn about the modern world. Not a bad movie, yet it wasn't shortchanged at Oscar time either.

I wanted to see Pressure both as a history wonk but also to see how a cave man might play Ike. And I think he did well, even though I had a little trouble separating the young newcomer I remembered from thirty plus years ago playing a middle aged American military leader. But time does pass, and it's called acting for a reason, isn't it?

Anyway, it's a worthwhile film, I think.

Not Hot

Me Grandpa Joe had a good work ethic and a good moral code. He also liked deals on tools, but they had to be on the level.

One day a guy came by the Shop, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who was known to be shady. He was trying to sell Joe an acetylene torch. Grandpa was skeptical.

Sensing the dilemma, Cloyce sought to reassure me Grandpa. "It ain't hot here, Joe, I stole it in Baltimore!"

Joe didn't buy it. I suspect he invited Cloyce off the property in his own genteel manner.

The Oreo Magnification Hypothesis

Oh, a kid'll eat the middle of an Oreo first. Or will he, if the flavor is waffles and syrup?

Nothing appears sacred anymore. When the most popular cookie in the world feels that it has to try unusual things in order to appeal to the market, as it has recently with waffles and syrup (as well as myriad other flavors), it is easy to wonder just what's going on around here. Sure, there's no evil in trying new tastes per se, and if that's what folks want, well, so be it. After all, waffles and syrup do seem popular with breakfast.

But why do we see all this, I don't know, innovation seems an overwrought term to use. There are lots of tasty treats out there, and sugary ones are prominent. Yet waffles and syrup in cookies? Especially beloved ones such as good old Oreos? The whole idea simply strikes me as bizarre. If you want waffles and syrup, just go get them.

One easy explanation is that the makers of the famous treat, Nabisco, are merely responding to market forces. There's nothing wrong with that, again adding the caveat per se. Markets tend to make things better indeed by offering choices and making improvements on various levels and in various ways which are sometimes heretofore unimaginable. Having said that, I cannot ignore the implications of changing things simply to change them. If the markets are doing nothing more than reflecting such, what does that say about us?

What are we looking for, that we can't be satisfied with good old Oreo cookies? Why ought things change merely to change, merely to be different? To display our individuality? Surely, though, when we have to do things differently solely to display our independence we are in fact the most dependent of creatures. We have to watch society for what it likes and then act differently. At that point we're merely being contrary, if not obstinate and contradictory. Our personalities and outlooks, if dependent on change (which is after all merely doing things differently today than yesterday) are actually rather shallow.

Yes, yes, yes, I realize the hyperbole in what I've just asserted. I know, I've already said, that there's nothing wrong with experimenting with new cookie flavors let alone habits of fashion per se (yes, I must again add that dreaded as such). I'll even readily concede that the flavor of an Oreo isn't substantial in any useful philosophic sense. And I certainly do not want to be the reactionary conservative who opposes simply to oppose, who sees every change as dangerous if not sinful. Those reactionaries can be as wrong in resisting change as the revolutionaries who want to alter everything. I simply want people to understand that what was once accepted en masse, particularly the tried and true, can continue to be accepted without surrendering any valuable individuality on our parts. I want folks to accept the converse of eternal change: a single, basic, underlying outlook which holds all our choices together. That means if you must change what are mere habits, simple personal proclivities, merely to assert your person, you aren't particularly individual at all. You may be becoming something worse.

Buc-ee's

Well, I did a thing. Yesterday morning after leaving a customer pickup call I stopped at the Buc-ee's in Huber Heights, Ohio. I've heard a lot about them, so, why not?

It was impressive but not life changing. Nowhere near, in fact. I had half expected that, from what I've heard of folks losing their minds over Buc-ee's. Indeed I've read that travelers in the U.S. for the World Cup soccer tournament are making special trips to see the combination gas station/stores. 

Really? I mean, it was cool, and it's hard not be impressed with their selection of food and snacks. But to make an excursion out of it strikes me as absurd. To be blunt, how much choice do you need that you elect to go out of your way for it?

Still, the food and drink choices were astounding in variety, although glaringly noticeable was the lack of choice in coffee. I thought the hot food on the expensive side, and as there was no seating area I declined to try any, satisfied with a later sit down breakfast at good old Cracker Barrel. 

If you want Buc-ee's souvenirs and apparel, you'll certainly get that. Yet the most outstanding thing I found were the gas prices. At $3.39 a gallon, it was the best I've seen lately. 

So I'll keep Buc-ee's mind, and I certainly won't turn my nose up at it. But it's overblown. At the end of the day, it's just a fancy gas station/department store.

ASA Interview

Well, look who was interviewed by The Digital Journal, an online news source. Me!

Here's the link: Faith Through Allegory: Charles Martin Cosgriff on Exploring Humanity’s Deepest Questions

It's a bit potboiler, but hey, it's a step forward for my books. Here's hoping!

Duking It Out

Ever since I found Duke's Mayonnaise is available locally I have been using it on nearly all my foods.

Ham and cheese sandwich? Duke's!

Turkey and cheese sandwich? Duke's!

Roast beef sandwich? Duke's!

Corned beef and Swiss sandwich? Duke's!

Tuna sandwich? Duke's!

What do you use with fried fish instead of tartar sauce? Duke's!

You need a dip for potato wedges? Duke's!

Out of milk for your breakfast cereal? Duke's!

Okay, maybe not that last thing. But you get the idea. I'm Duking it out! I bought two more jars already. It's. That. Good

Anticipation

One of my favorite things about baseball is that you can savor moments, at least more so than in many sports. In hockey, and I do like hockey, goals seem to come up suddenly, indeed almost unexpectedly. Blink and you miss. But baseball? The moments allow a certain enjoyment because they tend to build.

Take the Columbus Clippers game which the Ohio Cosgriffs and I were at last Saturday. The home team won, but it was a slog. They weren't hitting very well, and then the second baseman couldn't complete a double play in the top of the seventh inning, which allowed the lead run to score for the visiting Omaha squad. As that night's match could only be seven innings by rule (it didn't start until after 9 PM because of a rain delay, and in the minor leagues any game beginning that late is seven rather than the typical nine innings) that run loomed large. 

Columbus, then, was down 2-1 as they came up for their last at bats. When the first hitter struck out, it looked bad for the Mudville Nine. But the second batter drew a walk, and a pinch runner who was presumably fleet footed was sent to replace him at first base. A bit of hope was felt by the crowd.

Batter three swung mightily at the first pitch he saw yet missed for a strike. But on the next pitch he connected for a moon shot, a huge, arching fly ball which caused the crowd to jump to its collective feet. The ball sure appeared to be a home run off the bat. Yet you must wait and see. You get to anticipate that happiness which you know approaches.

The ball sank around ten rows beyond the left field wall. Cheers erupted. Columbus wins 3-2 on what is known as a walk off homer, because technically the batter doesn't have to jog around the bases, the contest being decided.

He did, of course, and the patrons could revel in that, their patient fandom rewarded with the late victory. 

Sure, walk-offs as such can happen in other sports. But they aren't as magical as in baseball.

Monday Marty Mini-rants

If someone tries to frame you into a Catch-22, do what's right and don't worry about them. No one has the right to put you in an impossible situation. It's the very heart of gaslighting.

If you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, don't. No point working towards damnation.

A stitch in time saves nine. Yeah, I never got that one either.

Sometimes the best thing to do is walk away. You can't let another person's bad attitude affect you.

Lincoln was right: never argue with a fool. People might not be able to tell you apart. 

See what a sleepless night can lead you?

MiLB

The Ohio Cosgriffs and I went to the Columbus Clippers game last night. The Clippers play in the highest baseball minor league, the Triple-A level. It's pretty good ball.

Huntington Park is their home field. It's cozy; seats around 10,000 I'll hazard to guess. It's a nice stadium, pretty much downtown in Ohio's capital.

Baseball brings out the kid in you. Just setting foot in a new arena brings back all those memories of going to games with me Pops and me family. Looking over the old baseball uniforms and equipment on display; the smell of the food; the deep, lush green grass, the bright white bases against the well raked brown soil on the diamond; there's not much better places on Earth than a ballpark. 

I think I'll go again sometime.

82 years

D-Day: June 6, 1944. More than eighty years ago today began the largest amphibious landing of an armed force in world history. As Allied troops hit the beaches at Normandy in the wee hours of the morning, at points code named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword, the liberation of Europe was begun. The high point of the Greatest Generation was underway.

The Greatest Generation stands now at its wane. Its members are all in their 90s now. The celebrations of their accomplishments are becoming fewer, smaller, and less intense. Even with improvements in medicine and diet, only a mere handful will still be around in a decade. Most of their number are gone already.

It is no small compliment to call them the greatest. Has there been any other challenge successfully met by anyone else in any other time? True, we are dealing in immeasurables when we say such things. Yet it's still pretty clear that nothing anywhere close to the magnitude of World War II has occurred in all of human history. Might a greater threat and a greater harm rise? Yes, of course. Indeed, I would expect it at some point. But to date, this is it.

What can we learn from these people? We can learn perseverance, we can learn faith; we can learn to believe that, when a serious threat to home and hearth nears, humanity can rise to meet and defeat it. We can learn the humility which so many of the Greatest have displayed when speaking of their efforts in later years. We can learn that all of history teaches us to respect and remember what those who have gone before us have done for us. We can remember that our lives are here today only because of what they did with their lives, and against terrible odds under unspeakable conditions.

We can learn to respect heroism. We can learn to revere the heroes.

Never forget.

Own It

I recently read an article which claimed that the two sports with the oldest average fan base are baseball and golf. The average baseball fan is 58; for golf, it's 62.

What are two sports I watch far and away more than any others? Baseball and golf.

Old age. I am owning it.

Just Trying for a Picture

As I was enjoying my daily constitutional this morning, I reflected on how pretty nature can be even in the big city. The wispy red clouds which greeted me as I left my house were sublime; a thin mist held sway just above the grounds of nearby Wayne State University. A few minutes later I noticed the morning Sun shining straight down Warren Avenue, wonderfully illuminating even the asphalt pavement in a yellow glow. I decided to try to get a picture of that.

Taking out my phone, I tapped on the camera icon. I sought the best angle for the shot without the bright Sun obliterating the scene. Too much Sun and you wouldn't see anything; it would overpower the lens. Once or twice I tried but things weren't quite right. A third attempt seemed to offer the best picture. 

As I began to take it, other sweet morning sounds came to my ears. There was the blaring of a bugle which may have been a car horn; there was an earnest voice which offered, "Hey old man! Get out of the street you're gonna get killed!"

So maybe morning rush hour traffic isn't the right time to catch nature's beauty. At least not in the middle of Warren in the city of Detroit.

Perchance to Answer

Me Grandpa Joe had a welder rental business which me Pops by and large ran. Dad frequently spoke about two calls. One he refused on principle, the other he nearly refused on a different principle, but took. 

One large company would only call Joe Cosgriff Welding Machine Rentals on weekends, and I mean late on weekends. They'd call at, oh, 11 PM on a Saturday night, all in a dither over some presumed emergency. Joe would grumble, but dutifully take the order and fill it, delivering whatever in the wee hours of a Sunday.

He happened to be out of town one weekend. That company called, and me Pops answered. He refused the rental. "You call somebody else during regular hours but us at off hours. We're not doing business that way," Dad blithely explained to the company rep.

Pops worried a bit what Joe would think, but grandfather sided with his son. Say what you want about Joe, and much can and has been said, when he delegated authority to Pops he never questioned what Dad did. Joe figured, "I told him to run it, so I gotta let him run it."

Another time we were in a recession, and business was bad. That wouldn't stop Joe from taking his trips, so he decided one day to go off on an adventure. Dad, of course, took the reins of the Shop.

He took a call from a very large company (you would recognize it but I won't tell you, just for safety's sake, discretion being the better part of valor) who were notorious for being slow to pay. Me Pops did not like dealing with them. Yet they wanted ten machines asap and there wasn't much other work. Dad opted to take the chance and fill the order, which ballooned into almost every one of the welders Joe owned at the time. At the height of the job, they had 210 units rented.

And, they paid promptly. "I'm glad I took that call!" Dad would say in telling the story. I know Joe did not question his decision on that one.

Poison Girls

I will venture out and say that we have all occasionally heard song lyrics wrong. At times it's simply an honest mistake of the ear. Me brother Phil for example heard the lyric at the start of The Beatles' track Savoy Truffle, which is 'Cream Tangerine, and Montelemar (a French sweet BTW) as, 'Cream Tangerine, go tell your mom'. You get the point.

One of the funniest of such instances came from a friend of mine, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a  name, over the Three Dog Night hit Joy to the World. You know, the song which famously begins, Jeremiah was a bullfrog! The chorus starts, Joy to the world, all the boys and girls. Yet Cloyce heard it as, 'Joy to the world, all the poison girls'.

So there's my gift to you today. An earworm with the wrong words. You're welcome. 

And The Fight Was On

As I take my morning walks these days, I always pass Sam's house. When I do I always think of his relationship with me Grandpa Joe. It was, ah, an interesting friendship.

Sam would come by the old barn regularly. His mission seemed to be to needle Joe. It must be admitted, he was very good at that.

Once Joe had me younger brother painting a car of his with a sponge brush and a can of off the shelf paint. Now, I know that's not the best way to paint a car, but it was Grandpa's car and Patrick didn't mind to get paid to paint it however he was told. Sam happened by and exclaimed emphatically, "You can't paint a car like that!"

"The hell I can't!" Joe replied with an incredibly equal incredulity. And the fight was on.

Another time Sam was paying a visit and Joe was going on about something or other which concerned him. When he finished his rant Sam remarked sullenly, "Ah, I don't care, Joe".

Joe barked in response, an incredibly accurate and proper response, "Yeah, but I do!"

"I just said I don't care!" Sam yelled in reply. And the fight was on.

Similar events occurred countless times over the years. Sam would show up, a conversation would start, sometimes slowly, sometimes explosively, and those two old coots would end up arguing, howling at each other over some kind of nonsense.

The darn thing is, I think they both looked forward to it. I am inclined to think that the more modern term 'frenemies' would describe the situation well.