COLUMN: We're Interrogating the Suspects

By Tobin Barnes
It happened a week or so ago, over Halloween weekend, actually.

We were visited by…by…well, some would call it evil.

If I were superstitious, I might consider the two related, but I’m not, so I’m going to use the rational approach to figure this out.

Here’s the current situation:

The house is chaotic, totally without its normal order and symmetry. Yes, it’s uncharacteristically a mess. Things are topsy-turvy. This should be here but it’s over there, and that should be…wait, I forgot where that was before. Anyway, nothing is where it belongs.

Added to that, our psyches have been stretched to the breaking point. We’re sleepless, irritable, and tense.

I keep on hearing this high-pitched plaintive sound, begging for something other than what it’s getting. It goes like this: Yip, yip, yip, hoooowl. But sometimes it’s like this: Yip, yip, yip, and then there’s a peeeeee.

All this echoes through my mind like some demonic harpy infesting my sanity, even when nothing’s happening.

All in all, it’s like some demented scene from Poe.

So what’s the cause of all this domestic madness?

That’s right. You’ve already guessed it.

We got a puppy.

“But why?” you ask, having suffered yourself.

All I can say is…I don’t know.

It was sudden, see, like a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Ka-pow!

Yeah. We were just looking, and all of a sudden the trigger was pulled…I’d like to think unintentionally, accidentally maybe. But, yes, the damage was certainly self-inflicted.

Heck, all we were doing was checking out a pet ad in the paper. Next thing you know we’re driving sixty miles to see a puppy, and then the next thing, well…you know. It was cute.

And now we’re suffering severe gunshot trauma.

Ouch! It hurts.

I think…no, let me start over; we weren’t thinking at all. We were hoping (that’s much more accurate) that this dog would be as easy as our other one that died of old age back in April.

Good old Matty. What a sweetheart! Never—from the very first day—did she give us a lick of trouble, literally or figuratively.

Except for maybe those times…. Nah, those have become vague blips on the consciousness radar.

Uh huh, Matty was always an absolute angel, anyway she was from our skewed, nostalgic, still-mourning point of view.

But those salad days are now long gone, even though we had planned on doing everything right with the new puppy—everything by the book…several of them.

Same breed? Check.

Same gender? Check.

Same age? Check.

Same result? Surprise!

The dog gods must have conspired against us. We had had it too good for too long with the first dog. And, maybe, we hadn’t appreciated her pleasant disposition as much as we should have, like making a daily offering of gratitude—perhaps a daily devotional of, “We are not worthy!”

Something like that might have appeased them.

After all, the dog gods are fickle. Evidently they decided it was payback time. Yes, time to make a substantial deposit in the karma pain bank of restitution.

Monologue | Aired Thursday night on CBS: Do people still bob for apples? Anybody bob for apples for God’s sakes? Bobbing for apples or as Dick Cheney calls it, apple boarding.

I bet you you go to Dick Cheney’s house, trick-or-treating he is one of those guys that tells you you are going to have to spend the night because the bridge is out. Read more…

Ghosts in the San Carlos Hotel?

Tom Aldrich's daughter talks to the media. Tom's a Mitchell homey.

(Sent by Laurie Young)

COLUMN: Do I Want to Be Zombody?

Image via Wikipedia

By Tobin Barnes
It’s that zombie time of the year.

Zombies are a plot-staple of many a horror movie. It seems like Hollywood comes out with at least one or two zombie movies a year ever since “Day of the Living Dead.” One of this year’s editions is “Zombieland.”

Zombies used to be scary. After all, the shock of dead people coming back to life has been in everyone’s nightmare at one time or another, or maybe even a recurring theme if you’re an especially unlucky dreamer.

Scary zombies need to be far-gone decrepit and moldy to be effective. “Well done,” if you want to use a cooking metaphor. Skin tone must be ashen to the point of purply. Hair needs to be unkempt and askew—after all, struggling out of a casket and then a vault and up through several feet of dirt can be a job. And clothes need to be in tatters due to the ravages of time spent moldering in the grave, a la John Brown.

A freshly dead zombie just doesn’t cut the mustard in terms of scare-worthiness. Seems more like an IRS agent.

Yeah, zombies used to be scary, despite the fact that the Zombies came out with one of my all-time favorite songs back in the 60’s: “Time of the Season.” Actually, it’s a lovey-dovey moon, June, and spoon song, but then those were ironic times.

But zombies aren’t scary anymore.

People started realizing they’re just too danged dumb and slow to be of much danger. Unless you’re totally paralyzed with fear, like a teen-aged girl (another horror movie plot-staple), like as not a halfway agile actor can evade their awkward and galumphing grasps. For sure, the average zombie wouldn’t be worth a hoot in a game of Slap Jack or especially Pick-Up Sticks.

Consequently, movie-goers have lost respect for a zombie’s fear-factor effectiveness.
Therefore, zombies have instead morphed into comedic-horror-show punching bags, which is unfortunate considering that any given zombie could be somebody’s grandpa or grandma fiendishly transformed into an embarrassingly unrestful state.

Movies such as “Zombieland” now attempt to discover clever new slapstick ways of dispatching these menacing but clumsy undead. In a preview I saw, they dropped a piano on an unsuspecting zombie. Har!

Woody Harrelson plays a crusty AK-packing zombie killer in search of the last Twinkie on earth. Now is that a funny concept or what? Amongst his zombie-killing arsenal are all kinds of malicious-looking weapons, including one of those sharp, multi-tined, spinning weed diggers you used to see on TV commercials. Can’t wait to see him use that on a zombie. Har! again.

Yup, Zombies just aren’t what they used to be.

And that’s a bummer.

I’ve always known I didn’t have what it takes to be a regular character actor. But, on the other hand, I’ve thought I could probably be an outstanding zombie actor, especially if they shot the scenes in the morning. That’s when I’d be at my best as an award-winning zombie. Most mornings on my way to school, I’m in zombieland myself.

For example, one recent morning I mindlessly pulled into the parking lot and then realized in a galumphing sort of way that I had forgotten my school bag and, more importantly, the sandwich I had packed inside it. So I pulled back out of the parking lot and started driving home only to glance and see my bag had been there all along.
If only a horror-movie casting director had been there watching all this transpire. I would have been hired immediately.

But I’m not sure I’d want to be in a zombie movie like they’re making now. I don’t know if I’d want to be a comic-horror-show punching bag. I’d certainly have to set my sights lower on the Actors Guild dignity scale.

And absolutely I’d want a stand-in when they dropped the piano on me.

Tom Cruise Impersonator on Crack

Good Late Night

Monologue | Aired Thursday night on NBC: Here’s the latest from the Pentagon. The generals are worried that the White House is spreading itself thin by trying to fight a war on two fronts, with Afghanistan and Fox News.

Today, former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Obama of “dithering” over the strategy for the war in Afghanistan. Don’t confuse that with what President Bush used to do. That was doodling. Read more…

COLUMN: He Gabs So I Don't Have To

By Tobin Barnes
Saw my wife’s brother-in-law Chuck last weekend. He married my wife’s sister several decades ago. His antics have been conversation starters ever since.

Many of you have met him before in my columns. Although he’s related by marriage to my wife, he’s not my brother-in-law…technically. And with regards to Chuck, I like to abide by technicalities in case push comes to shove.

As I’ve said before, keeping him out of my immediate family gives me deniability, as in “Hey, I just know the guy, it’s not like I’m related to him.”

Anyway, he and his lovely-but-long-suffering wife were out in the hills visiting his daughter who is an attorney currently living in Rapid City. Uh huh, I’ll likely be seeing a lot of Chuck here in the near future. He’s kind of clingy with the people he’s related to. (Once again, my relationship-phobia point is well made.)

They called us up to see if we wanted to drive down Spearfish Canyon with them to see the fall colors. Unfortunately, or not, depending on how you look at it, we’d just gotten back from doing that very thing. (It’s a fall ritual for us, as with most others around here.) So we told them to stop by the house when they were done.

We thought it would be two, three hours before we’d see them. It would give us a little relaxation time, as well as an opportunity to steel ourselves. So we had time. After all, most people like to slow down while taking in nature’s grandeur in one of the best drives in America.

Chuck, on the other hand, must have run into Mario Andretti there at the head of the canyon and challenged him to a race, he showed up on our doorstep so fast.

“Did you actually see any leaves on your drive,” I asked, somewhat startled by their unexpectedly rapid appearance.

“Yeah, it was nice,” Chuck replied, somewhat underwhelmed.

It sounded like the scene with Chevy Chase in “National Lampoon’s Vacation” where he walks up to the rim of the Grand Canyon, briefly takes a gander, says “Uh huh,” and then walks away to resume the trek to Wally World.

Chuck considers us somewhere left of the average tree hugger.

“What’s that in your garage?” Chuck asked without missing a beat.

“Did we leave the garage door up?” my wife asked. We like to keep it down.

“No. Your cars were parked outside, so I looked in the window.”

We have a couple big boxes in there that we haven’t unpacked yet. But we didn’t want to discuss them at this point, so I tried to sidetrack him with, “How about checking out our medicine cabinets while you’re at it.”

“Later,” he said.

Now don’t get me wrong. We enjoy Chuck’s company. We’ve gone on vacation with him. He’s a gregarious guy, and there’s never a lull in the conversation.

He’s a hit with little old ladies at funerals and weddings. You know...he’s that kind of guy. He’ll take the time to gab with anyone. He reminds me of my old man in that way. Me, on the other hand, I’m a conversational wallflower in comparison.

Nevertheless, I’ve always admired those who are willing to take the time and have the stamina to gab with gabbers.

Chuck’s daughter is living in an apartment in Rapid City. Next door lives a guy who’s literally starving for conversation. Yeah, poor soul. He’ll sit outside by the mailboxes hoping to snare passersby into talking about the weather and whatever else he can get out of them.

Chuck’s daughter is busy right now with her new career. She knows she doesn’t meet this guy’s craving for casual conversation, and, frankly, she doesn’t really want to try. Her relationship with him may have developed into one of those deals where you peek out the drapes before you leave the apartment to make sure the coast is clear.

But almost immediately after Chuck stepped out of the car on the first visit to his daughter, he and the neighbor were like soul mates. It was an immediate competition to see who could talk the other guy’s ear off. Yeah, it became a battle of the Titans, and it will undoubtedly be a continuing epic.

I’m sure Chuck can now tell me all the details of this guy’s life, probably down to underwear preference: boxers or briefs.

But I think I’ll save it for later. In case I’m ever paralyzed and have no other choice. Then I know there will be at least one guy to come visit me—Chuck.

This Is Why You Take 'Creative Writing 101'

Good Late Night

Monologue | Aired Wednesday night on CBS: Now, listen to this. I’m no rocket scientist so far be it from me to tell these people who are rocket scientists how to do their business, but NASA, they’re shooting a missile. They’re going to launch a huge missile — kaboom — right at the moon, looking for water. And I said, “Why not? Now that everything here is taken care of on Earth, why not? We’ve got no problems here. Let’s just go give it a shot.”

So they’re going to attack the moon, and they’re going to be looking for water. And I thought, well, that’s pretty much sounds like our government — bomb first, look for evidence later. That’s the way we do business. Read more…

Good Late Night

‘Could Have Been Worse’
Leno Monologue Aired Friday night on NBC:

Settle down. If you came here tonight for sex with a talk show host, you’ve got the wrong studio.

This guy who was trying to blackmail Letterman was a producer from the show “48 Hours.” It could have been worse. At least it wasn’t a producer from “To Catch a Predator.” That would have been bad.

I’m happy to say that I’ve never had a sexual relationship with any of my staff members. (Band member throws down his drumsticks and storms offstage.)

COLUMN: It Would Be Fair If It Went Both Ways

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

By Tobin Barnes
I’ve got a problem. Well...I’ve got a lot of problems, but there’s one that’s particularly bothering me right now.

But that’s not all bad, I guess. Means I’m still alive and kicking.

As the saying goes, “The only people without problems are in the cemetery.”

Har!

That always makes me feel better, kinda, but just momentarily. After all, a “Har!” is just a microscopic interlude amidst the otherwise seething turmoil of life.

What the cemetery thing really means—and I don’t have to tell you—is that life equals problems. Of course, if all the problems were riddles and puzzles and fun mazes, that would be one thing. But they aren’t.

They’re more like thorny, nasty issues that if left unsolved can create more problems that have thorny, nasty issues.

So here’s my current problem. It just occurred to me the other day. Maybe you can relate to it, too.

My memory seems to be tuned into the negative. Know what I mean?

I can remember negative things about myself much better than positive things. I evidently have stropped my memory to razor sharp preciseness about the negative happenings in my life, while I have blunted my memory to a profound dullness as to the positive happenings.

I think—no, I know—that this hurts my self-esteem. And low self-esteem is one of those thorny, nasty issues. I’m sure I’d feel better if I could turn this around.

Like I said, this just occurred to me the other day when I was thinking of some doofus thing or other that I had done years ago. I don’t even remember what it was—heck, there’s a ton of them, a bottomless pit.

And I can vividly recall them as if they were happening to me right now. It’s almost like lucid dreaming where you can smell, hear, see, touch and taste the event. The negative memories are spooky in their reality.

These past moments involve things that I’ve said and things that I’ve done. I cringe whenever these memories pop into my mind.

Let me give you an example (hey, I’m not proud): I’m just a year or so out of high school at this dance at the Roller Drome in my hometown. I’m with a good friend when I see this girl and decide to ask her to dance. So I take off the jacket I’m wearing and hand it to my friend to hold, like he’s my valet or something.

Well, that was a doofus thing to do! Like I said, it makes me cringe to think of it.
To make matters worse, I start dancing with the girl like I’d seen people dancing at college, except I look like a dork when I’m doing it. And the girl starts to laugh at me. Needless to say, that potential relationship died right there on the dance floor.

Yeah, it wasn’t just a compound doofus double-flip, it was an ultra hangdog doofus moment. And it’s all so vivid to me now, even though it was forty years ago.

And I’m plagued with these lucid, vivid, doofus memories that pop into my head at random, spurred by some devilish latent triggers.

And I guess even that would be okay—might even be my due—if only I’d get some lucid, vivid hero memories as well to balance them.

But I don’t. The positive moments in my life don’t pop into my head nearly so easily.
There had to be a bunch of those bright, shining moments, too, didn’t there? A few, maybe?

Somewhere back there, I must have done something neat, said something brilliant…didn’t I?

Why can’t I remember them as vividly as my doofus moments? Yeah, something’s wrong with this picture. It’s psychologically perverse.

Not only are the positive moments not as vivid…heck, I have to wrack my memory to even find them. Go on mental safaris to hunt them down. And even then they’re only vague and foggy.

Why is that? Did they even happen?

It’s not fair I tell you. This is a problem!

It’s a screwed up mental landscape if I’ve ever seen one.

(Sent by Tom Cooley)

Image by seiuhealthcare775nw via Flickr

By Tobin Barnes
Who knows what the nose knows? So speak beak.

And I will, even though as Yogi Berra said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

But I’m fearlessly going to do it anyway. I know the future. I see it clearly. And I defy anyone to prove my predictions wrong.

I know this might spook some people out, reading the prophetic words of a seer, but stick with me and experience your conversion, eerie though it may be.

Take, for instance, the pending health care legislation before Congress.

My first prediction is that something’s going to pass. Yep, you can take this one to the bank. After working on it all year long, Congress will go thumbs up on at least something. How can they not and keep their fifteen percent approval rating? No way. If not they’d look like fools…again. Something’s got to come out of the pipe, even if it’s a gurgle like after a flush.

My second prediction on health care is that the passed bill will make some people sick and others healthy. Some will get sick because the bill didn’t go far enough, and some will get sick because it went too far. Uh huh, there’s going to be a lot of moaning and groaning amongst the talking heads. Matter of fact, everybody’s going to moan and groan, at least a little.

As far as people getting healthier, well, hey, that’s inevitable. Some people somewhere will be healthier after the passage of this bill.

That’s right. Some people who had bad health before will get healthier later. It happens all the time, and I guarantee you it will happen this time, too. Of course, people will die as well, because everyone who lives dies.

But what can you do? Better health care overall can only do so much. You can’t always blame politicians, although you’d like to.

My third prediction?

Everyone’s going to declare victory on this baby. Just like in Lake Wobegon, in Congress everybody’s above average. So one way or another, everybody’s got to figure out how he or she was a winner in this and every other ideological confrontation. Might take a lot of figuring, but that’s why we pay them.

There will be no losers, even when you’re talking to the losers. It’s kind of amazing really, almost magical.

When health care legislation passes, the Democrats are going to take the credit for it. Once again, progress was made even though Republicans had to be dragged into the Twenty-First Century kicking and screaming. Things are now in the law books that weren’t there before. Woo-hoo! Smiles all around and everybody gets a pen at the signing.

Then they’ll go to bed that night and lie awake, thinking, “Oh my God! What did we do?”

You see, the problem with championing legislation is that you “own it,” as President Obama says. For the next generation or two, people are going to be second-guessing and nit-picking the legislation that Democrats took credit for passing.

Positives naturally carry with them negatives, and negatives naturally carry with them positives. It’s the yin and yang of life. Consult any philosophy professor or talk to your local town drunk.

Nevertheless, your political opposition will always focus on the negatives to your disparagement unless the general population finally comes to a consensus that the positives were worth it after all. So it goes.

Those against progressive legislation will turn out to be winners, too. According to the positives-produce-negatives and vice-versa theory, opposers will be fully equipped with negative ghosts to haunt those who helped pass the legislation. And for a long time, it’ll be fun for them. They’ll be able to dig up all kinds of pertinent, if isolated, horror stories proving they were right to oppose the legislation in the first place.

Now that may lead some to think it best never propose anything and to be against everything. Makes them think the past is always better. Matter of fact, they think, let’s go back to it as soon as we can. “Return to Normalcy.” Yeah, the past is so good, they never want to leave it until maybe after they’re dead.

These things I predict.

So you be the judge. How were those predictions? Spot on?

I told you it would be eerie.

Imma let you finish....

More here …

Madcap Lowlight Reel

(Sent by Roy Wilson) Hope no one got hurt...badly.

COLUMN: It's Not True Till You Realize It

Image via Wikipedia

By Tobin Barnes
My doctor once told me, “It’s tough for us guys in the Fat Boys Club to keep the weight off, isn’t it?”

I remember being offended. Speak for yourself there, Tubby.

I had always tried to think of myself as having an athletic physic…just maybe gone to seed a tad. After all, I’m the son of a former professional football player.

Ramp up the activity a skosh and eat one less deep-pan pizza a year, and I’m back to fit and trim anytime I want.

Fat Boys Club!

Is someone else in this room with you and me, Doc?

Of course, my dad ended up pretty hefty and that was soon after his football and Army days were over. And you couldn’t really call his brothers and sister svelte. Sometimes even “chubby” didn’t really fit the bill.

And, yes, when being honest with myself, I’ll have to admit I’ve certainly inherited his genetic tendencies toward instant weight gain. It doesn’t take much either.

A few days of neglect, and I’m hauling another pound around. Make it a week or two and I’ve got five extra on my body going that way when I’m going this way.

So I guess my doctor was right all those years ago. No doubt, I’m a dues-paying, member-in-good-standing of the Fat Boys Club International. Yes, it’s been a constant battle even though I used to think I was winning overall.

That is, until we got the Wii Fit about eight months ago. On my first weigh-in, my little Mii (the digital icon man that represents me) explosively transformed into a big Mii. Rotund might be the best description.

Whoasa!

Then the munchkin-like, diminutive but intrusive Wii Fit voice declared this about my weight: “That’s obese.”

Obese? I’m not obese.

Obese is the word used to describe those headless, unidentified whale bodies that waddle across the TV screen when they’re illustrating a news story on the fattening of America. Wii Fit must have its calculations screwed up. No self-respecting TV news reporter would use my headless body as a prime example of a shirt-stretching, super-size me, big gulper, would they?

Well, maybe not, but I had certainly gotten chubby. And the evidence was there whether I was willing to admit it or not.

One of the most telltale examples is a blown-up picture of a snapshot I’d placed on one of the bookshelves in my classroom. It was of me amongst some high school girls, given to me by them as a remembrance. I was touched at their thoughtfulness.

But one problem: In the photo I was taking up the space of two of them. When they gave it to me, I had gratefully told them I’d keep that picture forever. It haunts me still up there on the bookshelf.

Since last January, I’ve tried to increase the exercise and reduce the intake. I’ve been bicycling longer distances and taking grueling uphill walks, all the while eating like a pigeon rather than a vulture. I’ve been merciless—to my way of thinking anyway.

I’ve lost close to twenty pounds, but with all the sacrifice, it seems like I should instead weigh only twenty pounds. And even though the Wii munchkin voice doesn’t say I’m obese anymore, it does still say: “That’s overweight.”

So I’d like to lose more and hopefully keep it off.

But I know it’s kind of like Samuel Butler’s quote: “Friendships are like money, easier made than kept.”

Same thing with weight in a mixed metaphor kind of way: It’s easier to take it off than keep it off.

We’ll see.

Our Trip to Lake Tahoe/Early August