Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride

Well I’ve been told that I write rants. I dunno. Maybe. So I looked up “rant” on the always reliable, never wrong, and certainly never biased Wikipedia. (Did you know that last year Wiki found that a large number of their political entries were being edited by people in government offices? Among the many political pages edited by the government users were “Jedi Light-Saber Battles” and “The Sith.” Your tax dollars at work, folks.)

So here’s what wiki said:A rant (also called harangue or declamation) is a monologue that does not present a well-researched and calm argument; rather, it is typically an attack on an idea, a person. or an institution, and very often lacks proven claims.

Some rants are used not to attack something, but to defend an individual, idea or organization. Rants of this type generally occur after the subject has been attacked by another individual or group.

Historical context of a rant

In Watt’s book “Swoosh” (1908), while planning a raid, a single member of a band of pirates uses emotive language, revealing himself to be of higher intelligence than the Cap’n The angry Cap’n questions his manliness with a monologue with insults and illogic, known as The Cap’n’s Rant:

“Do we have a sashaying pirate on board, a fanciful folly of a fiend? Do ye keelhaul scurvy dogs or do ye serenade them from the crow’s nest? Do ye shake ye cutlass and howl at the moon or do ye shake ye head and faint oh so sweetly at the sight of unkempt hairy men?”

I love pirate-speak! ARRGGGH! Ye sashaying fanciful folly of a fiend! Avast there, ye scurvy dog, get ye on yer internet and don’t show yer mangy face till the sun sets over the yardarm and you’ve edited that Jedi light-saber battle entry!

So I dunno. Rant? What do I have to rant about?

I now present ten classic (rerun) rants:

1- “Tell Brother About Death of Grandmother?”My great grandmother died. Everyone knew it was coming and I had prepared myself for her passing. My mom did not tell my 5 yr old brother about her death. The other day, he overheard me talking to my mom about the funeral and he starting asking questions. Now my mom is mad at me because she didn’t want him to know. And i’m mad at her for not telling me that he wasn’t supposed to know. Personally i think he should have known so we can all deal with this together. Should I say something to my mom or just let it go?

Is your mother an idiot? How is she going to answer all those questions? “Mommy, when’s grandma coming over?” “Mommy, who’s ashes are those in that little vase?” “Mommy, why is Grandpa so sad all the time?” “Mommy, why are you wearing all of Grandma’s jewelry?” He’s a little kid, not a potato. He’ll figure it out when you all go to the cemetery and leave him in the car. Death is a part of life. Start small. Does he have a small pet, maybe a turtle? Something he loves. Take your brother aside and tell him all about life and death. Then take out the beloved pet and kill it. It will be an abject lesson. He will learn about the unpredictability of life, the fragility of our own being. He’ll learn that life can be cruel, but he’ll also learn about death and that was the point, wasn’t it? Kids have to grow up sometime, and Mr. Know-It-All has never met this cute little tyke but he feels that he knows enough about this kid from your letter to make an informed judgment. Take it from your trusted advisor, kill the kid’s pet.

2– Just saw William Shatner on a commercial. What is he, 80 years old? The guy has all the acting skills of a less talented Adam West yet he’s got like a dozen Emmy Awards and love of Trek Geeks worldwide. Aw, who am I kidding- I’d love to be William Shatner! Who wouldn’t? The guy is rich up the wazoo and everybody loves him. (OK, except for the people he worked with. They all hate him. James Doohan’s last words on his deathbed were “fuck Shatner, that bald prick.” What- they weren’t? They should have been. That would have rocked.) Ever hear his version of “Mr. Tambourine Man”?

3- Dear Harriette:

I go to lunch with a business friend every month or so, and we always swap who pays. The next lunch will be my turn, but I’m really tight on cash right now. I’m not sure what to do. On the one hand, I feel awkward admitting I can’t afford to pay for lunch, even though we do have a friendly professional relationship. On the other, it feels weird to cancel lunch. How should I handle this?

Laurianne, Denver, Colo.

Blow job, Laurianne. Blow job.

 4- Just last week I was trying to buy a newspaper in lower Manhattan and some family of tourists, with a pair of cute little twin girls, asked me for directions to FAO Schwartz. They were from Dayton Ohio, they explained, and were here for the holidays. It was little Suzie and Sally’s first Christmas in the city and they wanted to buy them something special. “Get out of my way,” I said. “You’re going to make me miss my train.”

5- We have a new baby boy and I heard something about having to “buy him back from a kohen.” What do I have to do – and how much is this going to cost? I know this from experience. I once had to buy a child back from a coven. It was 1978 and my family and I were driving across the desert. In the middle of nowhere, we were surrounded by a gang of satanic bikers, Hell’s Hellions, and they tied up my wife and forced my infant child into a side-car. I tried to stop them, but- what? You asked me about a coven. “Kohen?” What the fuck is a “kohen”? OK, the best I can do is that, right now, in Cambodia, babies go for about $3 a pound. Hope that helps.

6- DEAR ABBY: I am a professional costume wearer. By that, I mean I have been an elf, a giraffe, a moose, T-Rex and a character for a major hamburger chain. I am presently a character for a major cereal company. Once I am in costume, I am not allowed to speak. . — H.S. IN COLORADO

Adults and older children think nothing of hitting me, kicking me, pulling at parts of my costume, and trying to knock me down. One 12-year-old even tried to “head butt” me while his father looked on and encouraged him!

I am in costume for about an hour or so before I can take breaks. It gets hot and sweaty inside these costumes. I have a limited field of vision and can’t see many of the oncoming attacks. Even if I saw each one, I would not be able to say anything to stop or deflect these random attacks. What I do is have a paid “helper” walk beside me. This is now discouraging such actions by adults and children.

I would ask parents to please remember that there are real people inside these costumes, which are not heavily padded. I feel each and every hit and kick as if I were wearing street clothes. Thanks for printing this

Oh man this is hysterical. Ha! A grown man wearing an elf suit for a living. What a riot! Here is a list of real man jobs- lumberjack, pro wrestler, porn star. Here is a list of not real man jobs- wearing an elf suit, waitress, English teacher. Look feeb, when you put on one of those silly suits you are putting a target on your back. Just go to the real man handbook and look it up- mascots are there to be terrorized, taunted, torn, wedgied, whacked, sodomized, shit on, whatever. Guys who wear those suits are too puny to make it on the team but still want to hang around the locker room, if you know what I mean. Stop being such a cry baby and carry a knife, or better yet a gun. Fire a warning shot over some little kid’s head and he’ll think twice about ripping your tail off.

7- Nosferatu- See? Back on track.- Nosferatu was the first Dracula film. There followed the most famous one, played by Bela Lugosi. I love Bela Lugosi. In a non-gay way, of course. He came from Hungary and was a top theater draw where his most famous role was Jesus Christ. Yes, the famous Jesus Christ of religious repute, not the Jesus Christ who runs the liquor store. Dracula made him a star despite the fact that his accent made Ricky Ricardo swell with pride. He toured the country as that vampire, made appearances as that vampire, and then he turned stupid. I won’t go into the details (because A- every man, woman, and child learns the story of Bela Lugosi in grade school, and B- you don’t care.) but soon afterward he was reduced to starring in one a crappy film after another, with great titles like Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorrilla, (OK, one last italics) which I blathered about in a previous blog.

8-Marcel Marceau- R.I.P.

Marcel Marceau died today. He was 83 years old.

Marceau was the world’s most famous mime. While his face may not have been familiar, everyone knew his trademark striped shirt, bowler hat, and large flower. Frankly, he will not be missed.

He was a mime. And mimes are totally annoying. First of all, they don’t talk. Punch them in the nuts, they won’t groan. They are like the guards at Buckingham Palace, but less funny. Mimes walk around on nice summer days and pretend that they are struggling in the wind. Mimes laugh and cry at little flowers. Mimes get in your face and don’t get out until you give them money. Only pretentious PBS people like mimes. Supposedly they are practitioners of an art that goes back to ancient Greece. Big deal. The ancient Greeks had some funny ideas about young boys too.

But I digress. Marcel Marceau’s funeral was a sight to see. A line of a dozen mimes, side by side, all pretending to be carrying a coffin. The last in line pretended to drop the invisible coffin on his foot and pantomimed a limp the rest of the way. One of them pretended to pull the coffin with an imaginary rope. The eulogy was equally touching. Marcel was remembered by many of the mime community with these touching words: ” .”

Before he was laid to rest, the assembled mimes first struggled to get out of an invisible phone booth, then laid their oversized flowers on the grave.

So Rest In Peace, funny man. Let’s hope the art of mime ends here.

9- Would you like to know the truth about the Yeti? The Yeti is not a hoax, nor is it a sort of prehistoric “ape-man” as the press (well-known as the propaganda arm of the government) would have you believe. The Yeti are in fact a well-organized and well-hidden militia created for the sole purpose of protecting the nation from a Soviet invasion in 1978. In the late 1970’s the Soviet Union prepared a full-scale invasion of The United States using mercenary Indian Monkey-Man soldiers. These soldiers had, among other futuristic technologies, invisibility-rendering pants. Facing a “primate-soldier gap,” the President authorized the creation of “an elite Yeti squadron,” capable of repelling the Soviet mercenary Indian Monkey-Men. These proved more than capable, and all knowledge of the Yeti had been suppressed, often violently. The Yeti remain America’s ever-vigilant first line of national defense.

10- I had the idea of writing a blog in the style of those instructions that you find in foreign toys, the ones that were translated to English via Serbian. Here is a sample:

 SUPER FUN TIME HAPPY BLOG!

Thanking You Consumer Friend! Your readings of “Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride” make much happy to all day, whether lunch or major meal time! Mr. Blog no like rancid milk, why buy it in store? First time have much to blog, much talking with great gestures to sky, air, Germany. (Parenthesis!) And Sir Know All say advice to teens and their appliances. This week good as bad week too.

Letter the First come to mail by email computer “URL” 

I soon found it impossible to keep up. It is really hard to write that stuff well. It is really easy to write that stuff bad, believe me, but to write that well is work. Too much work. And possibly offensive too.

So there ya go, kids. I’ve managed to fill four pages with old stuff. I’ll just end with these words of sage advice: Do we have a sashaying pirate on board, a fanciful folly of a fiend? Do ye keelhaul scurvy dogs or do ye serenade them from the crow’s nest? Do ye shake ye cutlass and howl at the moon or do ye shake ye head and faint oh so sweetly at the sight of unkempt hairy men?I LOVE PIRATE SPEAK!