This Is Kinda Witty, But What's He Doing in a Cemetery?

COLUMN: One of the Cell Phone Losers

By Tobin Barnes
I just don’t get it with cell phones. In other words, I won’t be preaching to the choir on this one.

Yeah, I’m most definitely in a distinct minority here. Most people seem to love their cell phones. Use them every chance they get. (Minutes, minutes. They need more minutes.)

When not talking or texting, they’re picking out ringtones to identify each caller: “Purple Haze?” What does Grandpa want now?

But I and about six percent of the rest of the population are left, to put it mildly, scratching our heads. We’re wondering, “What’s wrong with us?” We feel so different. We’re like the kids eating by themselves in the lunchroom.

Did we miss the invitation? Where’s the party?

Sometimes we almost feel like we’re batting for the other team. Uh huh, we know what it’s like to be different. When it comes to cell phones, we’re glad there’s a don’t ask, don’t tell policy in place.

What’s the deal? Why don’t we get on the cell as soon as we get in our cars--like most people? Why don’t our phones ring, or at least politely buzz in the middle of a meeting? Why don’t we constantly check our cells for the latest text message?

A few hours ago, I drove past this guy careening along in his jeep, holding a cell phone to his ear with one hand and bringing a drink to his mouth with the other. Of course, no hands were on the wheel.

Who knows? He might have had a lit cigarette stuck in his ear like a pencil, too. Yeah, he had things going on. Me? I was just driving down the street, simply going from point A to point B.

Please, someone tell me. What’s wrong with me that I’m not like that guy? And, for that matter, like most everybody else, who might not be quite as agile but are just as darned talkative in their vehicles.

Why do I think driving a one-ton car down the road takes most of my concentration? Couldn’t I be juggling some bowling pins as well? Or maybe writing this column on my laptop along the way? Hey, I could be stuffing envelopes for someone’s political campaign. Helping to change this country.

Why, unlike most people, aren’t I multi-tasking, busily utilizing this finite burst of life granted to me. I could be doing things AND talking to people. Yes, to people. Sharing our humanity, for goodness sakes. Having witty, stimulating conversations, like:

“Hi, what’re you up to.”

“Not much. How bout you.”

“Nothing here. Just thought I’d call you. What’re you doing tonight?

“Not much. How bout you.”

Yeah, that could be me. Intimately sharing my life with others.

And why don’t I leave the room, class, meeting, movie theatre, you name it several times to answer the latest call. Hey, I’ve got a cell phone--a cheap little Tracfone I use about once every blue moon. I could be like him or her, taking those life-or-death essential calls that absolutely, positively have to be taken right then and there or the world as we know it will come to an end.

Problem is, I don’t know if I’ve had one of those life-or-death essential calls in my life. Not one that I couldn’t have just as well taken at some later time. And, strangely, no dire consequences have ever occurred. But then, I’m not a heart surgeon or even the guy shadowing the President on his trips, carrying the nuclear “football” that could start WWIII.

And why haven’t I ever sat in a restaurant talking to someone on my cell phone while totally ignoring the person sitting right across from me who has taken the time that day to personally be with me?

What’s the deal? Can someone help me?

American Fast Food

After a two-year visit to the United States, Michelangelo's David is returning to Italy...
(Sent by Roy Wilson)

Good Enough

clipped from laughlines.blogs.nytimes.com Aired Tuesday night on CBS:Well, you know, we’re in the middle of a banking crisis. Today on television, President Bush assured Americans that he is taking steps to resolve the financial crisis. Well, that’s good enough for me. Come on, let’s go to the park. Brett Favre says he has reconsidered his decision to retire and he wants to get back in the game. Today Hillary Clinton said, “You can do that?”

SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE: Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheddar-Cheese Hamburgers

COLUMN: Green with Yellow Spots

By Tobin Barnes
My lawn kinda looks like a leopard pelt. That is, if leopards were green with yellow spots. If they were, then my yard would be the spitting image of one of those pelts.

And I’m the guilty one.

This time it wasn’t our dog, although she can lay down some pretty good yellow spots, too. No, this time I’m the one who did it. Dumb as it was.

But it was all well intentioned, like the paving on the road to hell.

You see, we’ve been trying to go organic. Yeah, we believe in going green. Not green with yellow spots, but green in general.

My wife and I are trying to save the planet--two people at a time. Be responsible. Uh huh, we’ve been listening to Al Gore, who’s been listening to the scientists who are studying these things. The scientists scared Al Gore and Al Gore scared us.

Nevertheless, some people like to make fun of Al. No doubt, he has gained some weight. But laugh at your peril. A couple decades from now we could be frying steaks on the sidewalk. (Wait a second. Might not even be any cows by then. More reason to listen to Al.)

So go ahead, laugh. Poor Al won the 2000 election but lost it to Bush. Still laughing about that one, too? Think Bush will ever get a Nobel Prize?

I’ll take Al Gore’s word for it, rotund or not, Internet inventor or not.

Some people like to scoff at the greenhouse scientists, too: “Hey, how about last winter. Froze my patooty off! Har.” But like Ann Landers used to say, “Wake up and smell the coffee.” The polar bears are drowning up in the arctic, for crying out loud.

Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” scared the bejeebers out of me. Best slide show I’ve ever seen. Most slide shows put you to sleep. This one wouldn’t let me sleep.

Consequently, we’re trying to make our carbon footprint smaller. That doesn’t mean we want to go back to caveman days and communicate monosyllabically (although men would once more feel comfortable verbally expressing themselves: “Duh, beer!).

But there’s things you can do, short of becoming Ed Begley. Easiest is driving less. We’re doing wonders there. How about you? Pain at the pump is making conservationists of us all.

Who wouldn’t like to catch an oil executive and run him through a gauntlet of suffering consumers. Let the people spank him with gas nozzles as he scampers by. Might make the whirling dials on the pump easier to stomach.

Let’s see, what else.

How about all the lights people leave on? We’re turning them off and replacing the bulbs. And shopping with reusable bags, rather than paper or plastic.

We’re also eating more organic food. It’s a little expensive, but we’re ingesting fewer chemicals, and we like to think of the happy chickens and cows living more natural, organic lives, laying down their eggs and meat graciously, knowing they’re living in harmony with nature and within mankind’s generous plan for them.

We even thought we’d stop using chemicals on our lawn. Start using organic weed killers instead. Yes, the weeds would be happier dying this way, too.

Problem was, finding an organic weed killer. The local stores don’t carry such a thing.

So we got on the Internet (thanks again, Al) and thought we’d found what we were looking for. Ordered a jug.

I skimmed the label and applied the stuff full force, no diluting, as per directions. A squirt here at this weed, a squirt there at that weed.

Al Gore would have advised a friend of nature to read the directions more fully. After all, earth is in the balance. Then perhaps I would have realized we’d bought an organic weed AND grass killer.

Turned out the stuff wasn’t so hot on the weeds, but it was hell on the grass.

Now my lawn looks like a leopard pelt, if leopards were green with yellow spots.

If Only Soccer Were This Interesting

Fat Cat

Get Your Butt Off the Truck

The Worldwide Dancing Fool

Taking the Low Road to Success

By Tobin Barnes
It’s been a few weeks now since my last column. During that time, I felt like writing nothing, and at that I was wildly successful.
   
Couldn’t have done better.
   
It’s amazing how much more success you can attain when you set your sights low. You can have “I did it!” moments all over the place. For example, I tried to write nothing, and yeah, “I did it!”

Always setting your sights high is a bunch of bunk.
   
Hitch your wagon to a star? Way oversold by Emerson’s “little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” Too often that unedited attitude breeds discontentment and self-contempt.
   
Rather than “I did it!” moments, you get “Great! I failed again” crashes.
   
Who needs it? I much prefer success.
   
So set your sights low once in a while. With low sights you get daily--heck, hourly--fulfillment and fist bumps all around. WooHoo!
   
That’s right. We are not worthy, Homer Simpson.
   
More people should take up your attitude. Particularly at certain times. The world would be better off.
   
I can think of a lot of overachievers who went two or three rungs too far. They kept achieving until they got to a position where all they could do was fail.
   
There’s a name for that syndrome. It’s called the Peter Principle, formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in a 1968 bestseller. The book was meant to be a humorous takeoff on corporate culture, but most can see the validity of its premise.
   
The Peter Principle says that people tend to rise to the level of their incompetence.
  
We’ve all seen it. A person was great at this, that, or the other thing, but they got promoted one time too many, and then they weren’t worth a hoot. 
   
Things would have been fine if they’d stopped rising at some point in their careers. But they kept on going up the ladder--setting their sights higher--until they got to a position where they weren’t good anymore. Now they make a mess of nearly everything they do.
   
It’d be best if they were demoted back down to where they were comfortable again. But that’s seen as failure when actually it could be success.
   
The Peter Principle can be seen at work in management and politics all the time. I’ll let you fill in the names.
   
Those people should have set their sights lower. Achieved success and happiness at more modest levels. Instead, they’re miserable and we’re miserable. Couldn’t leave well enough alone.
   
That’s not going to be me. When my sights get up a little high, I’ll take them down a notch or two. I’m staying competent and content.
   
As you know, my bag is writing ironic takes on the stupid things going on in this world. Oftentimes, I’m my own best material. But sometimes I come up blank. Thinking up stupid stuff to write about every week is tougher than you’d think. When my stupid tank begins to run on empty, I know I need to let it fill up again. I purposely lower my sights.
   
Like just recently. For a while there, I couldn’t think of anything dumb to write a column about, so I knew I needed a break. And I broke well. A darned-near perfect ten. Hit that one out of the ball park. Success.
   
Now my mind’s clear. I can write about stupid things again.
   
Every which way I turn, I can recognize the tell-tale signs of overachievers who have risen to incompetence. All I need to do is report it.
   
Yeah, I feel refreshed, but I can’t say I feel good about it.
   

All that rampant incompetence and its resulting stupidity has the world headed for hell in a hand basket. Look around. It’s downright scary out there, folks. We could be heading for a tipping point. The Peter Principle warned us, and we didn’t listen.
   
But then, if you’re in the stupidity business, like me, it’s not all bad.
   
The world’s beating a path to my door.

Time to Turn Around

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