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Last Week's Funniest Captions

Best Caption:

"I had the Surf and Turf, and she had the Scarf and Barf."

— ­ Posted by Karlo

Runners-up:

”Yeah, he’s nice enough. A sailor. Huge forearms. Anchor tattoo. Screwy laugh. Always winking at me. He insisted I have seafood while he nails a whole plateful of spinach, then starts a fight in the bar. Frightening. Sexy. I’m kind of turned on by it."

— Posted by J. Eaton

”Now where the heck did he go? How rude. As I was saying, Sally. …

— Posted by Scarlett

When Harry walked out on Sally.

— Posted by Bo

COLUMN: Optimism at the Top of the Year

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By Tobin Barnes
Tis the season of optimism.

After all, the days are getting longer—minutely so, but longer nonetheless. The painful process of gradually lightening skies keeps our heads up, tentatively looking forward to spring.

There’s progress in the lengthening day, even if it’s barely detectable amidst the overwhelming darkness, kind of like the difference between ten below zero and nine below zero. Nine below is scientifically warmer, certainly, but who can tell the difference?

Well, an optimist can. It’s a glass that’s a little fuller.

And optimism is absolutely essential for survival this time of the year.

Admit it or not, optimism is etched in our DNA. We wouldn’t have evolved this far otherwise. The caveman would have thrown down his crude mallet and willingly sacrificed himself to the sabertooth tiger without it, would have tried to step into every random stampede of wooly mammoths just to get it over with.

Without the optimism that cave life wasn’t as bad as it seemed and maybe could even get a little better, sabertooths, not us, would now dominate the landscape, this very moment scanning the horizon for another species of disgruntled, mopey prey like the sullen humans he consumed so long ago.

Take my old man for instance. He was a begrudging optimist despite the fact that his joys seemed to come from seeing his predicted turns for the worse pan out. Way too often, he practiced pessimism like a devout monk. “The writing’s on the wall,” was his mantra of impending doom.

Like many children of the Depression, any glimmer of prosperity made him nervous. Unfortunately, I think it was his absolute, all-encompassing childhood poverty and the yoke of defeated parents that seemed to have permanently grayed his outlook.

I’ve never really blamed him for that hardened exterior, knowing what I know of his youth. But I pride myself in not generationally succumbing to such a bleak perspective.

He always seemed to believe that any uptick just couldn’t last.

Yup, “We’re going to hell in a hand basket,” he’d predict. (Despite the gloominess of our supposed fate, I always found that to be a picturesque metaphor. Would we have to get smaller or would the hand basket have to get bigger?)

Even Christmas inspired little merriment in him unless it were his opportunities to say, “Bah, humbug!” with his own practiced brand of twisted glee.

His parsimony seemed to rub off on me sometimes. As a little kid, I naively gave him two packs of cigarettes from his own carton, wrapped and bowed in the holiday spirit. (He was a three-pack-a-day man. I’m lucky to still be alive, growing up in that miasma of carcinogens.)

But when he unwrapped his package of self-owned smokes, a smile and small laugh creased his face. Maybe he was proud to have raised a chintzy son.

I tried giving him a better present another year, but, man, he could suck the fun out of giving a Christmas gift like Grinch himself: “Take it back,” he grumpily responded. So that’s what I did with the Lawrence Welk album I had given him (Could it have been my gift choices?)

After that, I gave up trying to give him anything, and that seemed to make him happier—albeit that’s an exceedingly relative description.

But even my curmudgeon of a dad—as pessimistic and cynical as he could be—even he clung to optimism this time of the year in the face of three more months of winter. “The days are getting longer,” he’d frequently say, no matter what kind of funk of the moment was eating at him.

And when the last snow was melting down to the last surviving patches of stubborn ice, he’d be out there with an ice chopper to break it up into more easily meltable bits to send it on its way just a little bit quicker, totally optimistic that that was the last he’d see of it for months and months. Whether it was or wasn’t.

Of course, in his world, spring always brought its problems, too.

Well Worth 15 Minutes of Your Time

Too Much Time on Their Hands

It's Become a Cliche

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Monologue | Thursday night on CBS: Senior New York Senator Chuck Schumer was on an airplane, and they were flying someplace. And they landed. He called one of the flight attendants a “bitch.” Apparently, there was some ugliness. There were words exchanged. And it got heated and at one point the argument was so loud, it actually woke up the pilot.

Well, here’s good news, I think. The Democrats down in Washington believe they have 60 votes to pass a health care bill. That’s 58 Democrats and the Salahis. They’re going to go in there and vote.

But they don’t think that the health care bill will get passed before Christmas, unless they switch to the Mayan calendar.
Read more…

Monologue | Thursday night on NBC: Well, according to MSNBC, President Obama’s approval rating has now dipped below 50 percent. To tell you how bad it is, people are now finding ways to sneak out of the White House.

Remember the phrase, “hope and change”? They amended it today. Now it’s “don’t give up hope, nothing is going to change.”

Oh, and listen to this. It happened yet again last month. A Georgia couple showed up a day early for a tour at the White House — you know, just regular folks. Showed up to tour the White House, somehow wound up in an invitation-only breakfast with President Obama and the First Lady. Isn’t that amazing? The only two people that couldn’t get in the White House this year were John McCain and Sarah Palin.
Read more…

Where aboot...A?

(Sent by Roy Wilson)

New Yorker Cartoon

Monologue | Thursday night on “The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson” on CBS: Not such a great day for the health care reform. The so-called public option died on the Senate floor today. It could have survived, but apparently it had a pre-existing condition. Read more…

Monologue | Monday night on CBS: President Obama is sending troops to Afghanistan. Well, hell, he ought to be sending them to Tiger Wood’s house. Read more…

COLUMN: Say It Ain't So, Joe

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By Tobin Barnes
“Tiger Admits Transgressions.”

Well…that’s it. It’s time to call in the dogs.

Even Tiger Woods?

I give up. This is the last straw.

Say it ain’t so, Joe. Shoeless Joe Jackson maybe, but Tiger?

I feel like I’m “Losing My Religion.” You know, as in one of R.E.M.’s hit songs?

That’s right. My long-held, but well over-stretched faith in my fellow man has now fallen to an all-time low. Yeah, it’s currently scraping bottom. There’s sparks coming up from the pavement.

We’ve all read, heard, and seen the painful stories.

Heck, how could we avoid them? Since the Tiger Woods brouhaha broke with that crash and the golf club, et al., the story has sometimes even led off the national news programs, which, gees louise, is in itself a farce, for crying out loud. All the things going on in the world, and the Tiger Woods mess is the top story?

Other scandals have surprised me, but I always thought Tiger Woods had too much integrity and had far too much innate discipline to succumb to cheap temptation the way so many others have.

Need I tell you this has created a seismic shift in my outlook.

Ronald Reagan had it right when he said, “Trust your neighbor, but don’t pull down your hedge.” Of course, he was talking about the Soviets then, but now I realize there’s untrustworthy “Soviets” all over the place.

I’ll admit that I used to be a babe in the woods, a naïve innocent (maybe as late as yesterday). But, alas, the Mary Sunshine in me has been sand-blasted away—a casualty of one-too-many revelations, one-too-many sleazy shots over the bow.

The old saw, “Trust everybody, but cut the cards,” has now become my mantra to the extent that I not only want to cut the cards several times, but I want to bring my own deck.

I think I just may have converted into full-fledged cynic. (Where do I get my official membership card? I’m ready to carry it.)

I’m beginning to realize that being a cynic has its advantages. I believe it was the conservative columnist George Will who said, “The nice thing about being a cynic is that you are either right or pleasantly surprised.”

The curmudgeon H. L. Mencken said, “A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.”

Author J. G. Cozzens said, “A cynic is just a man who found out when he was ten that there wasn’t any Santa Claus, and he’s still upset.”

But do I really want to go there?

Do I really want to be that kind of person?

It sounds a little old and hoary, a little decrepit.

One of my literary favorites Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word.”

Carolyn Wells, prolific writer of more than 170 books, said, “A cynic is a man who looks at the world with a monocle in his mind’s eye.”

The famed 19th century minister Henry Ward Beecher said, “The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.”

Do I want to be a mouser for vermin?

Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War during WWII, said, “The only deadly sin I know is cynicism.”

American novelist Fannie Hurst said, “It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to.”

And as sometime cynic himself Oscar Wilde said, “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.”

Okay, okay.

Maybe I’ll hold off on my complete descent into cynicism, but I’m not pulling down my hedge. And, hey, cut those cards!

Recent Picture of Tiger and Elin

(Sent by Roy Wilson)

COLUMN: It May Not Be the Tip You're Looking For

Image by steffofsd via Flickr

By Tobin Barnes
“Never touch a customer. No excuses. Do not do it. Do not brush them, move them, wipe them or dust them.”

That’s advice from “100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do (Part 1)” by Bruce Buschel that recently appeared in The New York Times.

I started talking about it last time but didn’t get very far because I was so busy with the disclaimers. I didn’t want anyone to think I was being snooty just because I found these suggestions interesting. After all, we’ve all become service consumers nowadays.

Besides, what profession, occupation, or job couldn’t use a list of “100 Things You Should Never Do”? Man, I could think of quite a few, starting at the highest paid. How about you?

As far as wait staff are concerned, the writer, Buschell, says, “Veteran waiters, moonlighting actresses, libertarians and baristas will no doubt protest some or most of what follows. They will claim it homogenizes them or stifles their true nature. And yet, if 100 different actors play Hamlet, hitting all the same marks, reciting all the same lines, cannot each one bring something unique to that role?”

Well, that’s pretty good, so let’s go:

“Do not make a singleton feel bad. Do not say, ‘Are you waiting for someone?’ Ask for a reservation. Ask if he or she would like to sit at the bar.”

It’s a lonely world out there. Don’t make it worse. I always hated to eat alone in the dorm dining room. But it was better than being hungry.

“Tables should be level without anyone asking. Fix it before guests are seated.”

Or maybe fix it once and for all.

“Do not lead the witness with, “Bottled water or just tap?” Both are fine. Remain neutral.”

Tap only kind of means I’m cheap.

“Do not announce your name. No jokes, no flirting, no cuteness.”

Please! Even when I’m a “singleton,” that doesn’t mean I’m looking for a friend.

“Do not recite the specials too fast or robotically or dramatically. It is not a soliloquy.
This is not an audition.”

And don’t make the list too long. I probably stopped listening a while ago.

“Do not touch the rim of a water glass. Or any other glass.”

Not when flu is the talk of the town.

“When you ask, ‘How’s everything?’ or ‘How was the meal?’ listen to the answer and fix whatever is not right.”

As for me, I’ve got to learn not to say “Fine” when it isn’t.

“Know before approaching a table who has ordered what. Do not ask, ‘Who’s having the shrimp?’”

It’s really bad when the customer has to say, “Maybe he is. Over at that table.”

“If someone likes a wine, steam the label off the bottle and give it to the guest with the bill. It has the year, the vintner, the importer, etc.”

Don’t worry. You can forget that one here in South Dakota.

“Do not put your hands all over the spout of a wine bottle while removing the cork.”

But I guess I’m going to have to put up with it when you’re twisting the cap off my beer.

“Never let the wine bottle touch the glass into which you are pouring. No one wants to drink the dust or dirt from the bottle.”

Boy, I’d never thought of that one. This might be getting a little over the top.

“Do not drink alcohol on the job, even if invited by the guests. “Not when I’m on duty” will suffice.”

I guess that means you can’t sit next to me either.

“Never say, “Good choice,” implying that other choices are bad.”

Especially after I ordered before the other person and you didn’t say anything to me.

“Do not take an empty plate from one guest while others are still eating the same course. Wait, wait, wait.”

I’ve been hustled out of better places than this.

“Do not bang into chairs or tables when passing by.”

Ya think?

Finally, “Do not call a guy a ‘dude.’ Do not call a woman ‘lady.’”

And please…let “Yo” die out from common use.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Restaurant Common Sense from the NYT (anotherwineblog.com)

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Monologue | Aired Monday night on NBC: The ratings just came in for Sarah Palin’s appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” It earned Oprah her highest ratings since the episode where she reunited the Osmond family. Yeah, viewers who saw both episodes say Palin’s more likable but that Donny and Marie are more qualified to be president.

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Monologue | Aired Monday night on CBS: That evil guy, the evil masterminding terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he is going on trial here in New York City. I will tell you something, this guy is nothing but evil. One time he called CNN and told him that his son was floating away in a balloon. Read more…

COLUMN: If I May Suggest

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By Tobin Barnes
This is a touchy subject.

It’s about advice for waiters and waitresses. Yeah, advice like, “Do not interrupt a conversation for any reason, especially not to recite specials. Wait for the right moment.”

As much as I’d have to agree with this tidbit, I didn’t come up with it, and I admit feeling a little sheepish spouting it.

See, The New York Times ran this article recently: “100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do (Part 1),” which, as indicated, contained just the first 50. The second 50 came in a later article. Evidently, no one has the patience for 100 of anything in one sitting. Actually, though interested, I found even 50 a little daunting.

I say it’s a touchy subject because service people already have their hands full dealing with the public every day without me getting on some bandwagon with The New York Times. Even the suggestion makes me sound kind of elitist and hoity-toity. After all, I’m just some hick who is proud but realistic about living in South Dakota his whole life—not exactly sterling credentials for discussing high class manners and etiquette.

When I was a kid, the only “restaurants” we ever went to were the Zesto or the A&W for maybe an ice cream cone, a nickel root beer, or a foot-long hotdog, but only if the old man was feeling flush. Our dining was almost exclusively done at home or at the relatives, and, yes, our elbows were usually on the table.

Sometimes if we were on a road trip, we’d stop at a more traditional restaurant, but it was always some low-rent greasy spoon. The only tablecloths I ever saw as a kid were on the Cleaver’s dinner table on TV.

The first restaurant I spent much time in was the place I worked the summer after my senior year in high school. I was a bus boy. Uh huh, a great way to quash a cocky teenager’s dreamy delusions of grandeur.

Yeah, I can’t say I really enjoyed the job. For one thing, I worked for a skinflint manager who would have me come in early for the breakfast service, send me home when things slowed down, and had me come back for the busy lunch service. Can you believe it? Unfortunately, I did the whole summer.

Anyway by the end, I knew food service wasn’t for me, although the manager wanted me back the next summer. (And sure, who doesn’t want to hire a fairly hard-working, naive chump? Heck, that’s Business Management 101.)

But one thing I did get out of the experience was an appreciation for the hard work put in by the waitresses. As we all know, some of the hardest physical labor in this country is done by the lowest paid.

Ever since, I’ve tried to be a responsible tipper. I highly respect conscientious service, having seen where it comes from.

And nowadays, in our ever-growing “service” economy, most of us, high or low, are regular consumers of other people’s attention to our needs. Thus, we’ve developed opinions as to how that attention should be served. We’ve all become snooty dukes and duchesses in a way, wondering why there isn’t any good help anymore, as though we were to the manor deservedly born.

Therefore, I richly see the irony of having people serve me as part of their jobs. That being said, I’m sure we’ve all seen service done poorly and have presumed to know how it could have been done better. That’s why I was attracted to this New York Times “100 Things…” article by Bruce Buschel, a guy who writes about running small businesses. Buschel is currently building and starting a seafood restaurant and claims that his staff will be well aware of those 100 things.

I decided to humbly mine some of those “things” from his seemingly exhaustive list, such as, “Never serve anything that looks creepy or runny or wrong.”

Yeah, as David Letterman says, “I’ll take a slice of that.”

But, alas, I’ve already run out of space for more do’s and don’t’s, so I’ll continue this discussion next time (Part 2, in other words).

In the meantime, you can always google that Times title and check some of the tips for your own local waiters or waitresses. But better leave one other good tip, too.

(Sent by Roy Wilson)

Make Your Own Academic Sentence

Parody | Random samples from a “make your own academic sentence” generator on a University of Chicago Web page:

The linguistic construction of post-capitalist hegemony may be parsed as the invention of print culture.

The eroticization of normative value(s) functions as the conceptual frame for the historicization of the gendered body.

The epistemology of praxis recapitulates the fantasy of linguistic transparency.

Try the generator yourself here.

COLUMN: My Dog Is Like Forrest Gump

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By Tobin Barnes
Some of you may remember that last time I talked about our new puppy.

Our good old dog Matty died last April, so we had been gradually ramping up to the idea of getting another dog. We had thought the ramping had a way to go yet, but there was this advertisement, plain as day, for a puppy just like Matty. And there quickly followed the cute-puppy impulse and commitment.

Maybe you’ve been there. You know what I’m talking about.

I say the advertisement was “plain as day” as though it were lettered in intermittent on-off glaring neon lights on our living room wall.

Obviously, that was not the case. The notice was in small print, hiding amidst maybe fifty other pet ads in the local paper.

That’s right. It didn’t hit us over the head. This wasn’t a hostage situation.

It might better be described as an example of foolish free will, freely and cavalierly exercised.

And for better or worse, it’s been all puppy all the time ever since. A puppy does have an inescapable knack for soaking up your attention.

Since Matty, it’s been a while since we’ve been around a puppy. We had forgotten—maybe a form of psychic protection, like after blunt-force trauma—what it was like.

Perhaps the most startling thing about a puppy, other than the enormous amounts of waste it can download in any given day, is the pure energy that can burst forth in nuclear explosions of action.

When our puppy does anything, it’s dead-bolt, head-on.

She’s kind of like Forrest Gump in that way: “When I went anywhere, I was running.”

Yeah, it’s hell-bent-for-leather time with total expenditure of all resources. Every calorie available is devoted to galloping across the garage or tearing hell out of a cardboard box.

There’s no prudent conservation of energy for later possible escapades.

She suffers the tyranny of “Now!”

For a guy deeply ensconced in middle-age, the spectacle of her kineticism is remarkable. Here I am, hoping I can muster the energy to get up, climb the stairs, and go to bed most nights, and there she is, blazing away until she sometimes falls asleep on her feet.

Anyway, we decided to name her Scout, a noble name of long cultural heritage. Maybe the name emerged in our minds from the mists of our youth, having grown up with the daunting exploits of the Lone Ranger, whom Tonto called Kemo Sabe (Trusty Scout). And Tonto was quite a scout, too.

Or maybe it just materialized on a whim.

Whatever.

Little did we know how appropriate this name would be.

When in rare moments of composure, Scout studies us like a technical manual of operating instructions. We can’t make a move without her watching us.

I turn around and there she is, staring at me.

It’s eerie to be watched all the time. It’s like, “Give me a break! I’m not a movie.”

And, of course, there are times when we don’t want her to be aware of anything going on, like when we’re experiencing the divine peace of her being asleep—and we want to keep it that way.

We try to make imperceptible movements so as not to disturb her. We creep around like cat burglars—maybe that’s part of the problem. We sneak around our own house.

It never works.

Every time, she’s immediately aware that someone’s doing something.

“What’s that? Who’s There? Oh, you! Hey, come here. I gotta take a leak.”

It’s uncanny. She’s like a canine motion detector.

Roman slaves were never this much at the beck and call.

DARWIN AWARDS: Look Before You Leak

Confirmed True

April 2008, Florida | Traffic was moving slowly on southbound I-95. Shawn Montero had left a Pompano Beach bar with three friends, and now all four were stuck in traffic. You don't buy beer, you just rent it, and Shawn couldn't wait another moment to relieve himself.

"I need to take a leak."

He was dying to go.

Traffic was deadlocked, so the waterlogged man climbed out, put his hand on the divider, and jumped over the low concrete wall... only to fall 65 feet to his death.

"He probably thought there was a road, but there wasn't," said a Fort Lauderdale police spokesman. His mother shared her thoughts. "Shawn didn't do a whole lot for a living. He got along on his charm, just like his father." Though his death was tragic, it proves the old adage: Look before you leak!

Let's Be More Precise

WRONG:
"Speaking to the press, a neighbor described the accident as unspeakable."
RIGHT:
"Gesturing to the press, a neighbor pantomimed that the accident was unspeakable."

Monologue | Aired Thursday night on NBC: President Obama is traveling to Asia this week. He’ll be making a trip to China. While he’s there, Obama plans to visit the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and America’s money.

Monologue | Aired Thursday night on CBS: Remember the crazy astronaut lady who put on a diaper and drove cross country? She was in love with another astronaut. And I said to myself, well that’s what happens when you mix vodka and Tang.

On Monday, Oprah Winfrey and Sarah Palin will sit down and they’re going to talk for an entire hour. And I was thinking, too bad John McCain didn’t do that with her before he chose her as his running mate.

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?

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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…