For Those About to Calculate Percentages, They Salute You

Who’d a thunk I’d ever be working a job that would require a whole weekend of math with numerators and denominators and all that kind of thing? Not me, obviously, but here it is Sunday night and so I have a safety tip for all my fellow brothers and sisters in the Union of United English Majors.

Yes, we’re a mighty union but let’s face it, we’re not real good at math, so take a tip from a cop who does. Now listen up. I forget what the deal is on a Mac, but on a PC, the calculator has both a C and CE key. The difference is, the C key clears out the whole long string of stuff you’ve been calculating and just screwed up. The CE key on the other hand, just clears out THE LAST ENTRY (CE = Clear Entry) so if you just screw up that one last thing you don’t have to delete the whole mess and start all over again. If you get that safety tip straight before you start into a big long math thing, it can save you some cursing later.

Hey you know how just one more musician comes on stage to join David Byrne after each song in the film Stop Making Sense, and how when Chris Frantz bounds on to join David & Tina to play I forget what, he stands up behind his drums and gives the crowd a happy military salute? So is that a rock drummer thing? Because here you’ll see Martin Chambers stand up and give an identical salute after a really amazing, really good driving time on the kit.

Oh and tell me, Andy, are you locked in the punch?

 

Turn In Your Badge

Not being a rich Republican, or a rich Democrat for that matter, I don't know much about the GOP primaries but I DO know who all these guys remind me of. 

Newt: He's a loose cannon: You're a LOOSE CANNON, Newt, and there's no place for you on the force! I don't care if it goes all the way to the MAYOR'S office! You got your partner killed, and you're gonna get yourself killed! Turn in your badge and your gun, officer! You're supposed to be a COP, not a one man WRECKING MACHINE!



And YOU'RE off the case too, McCarnagle!






Now Mitt, on the other hand ...

... why, if he's not the spittin' image of Sherman McCoy, i'm blind as a bat and lacking the sonar! 




Rick Santorum? Way too easy -- he's Nathan Thurm, of course. Or is it Nathan Thurm is Rick Santorum, or is it ...

 
In conclusion, give me a C, a bouncy C.
 

Ron Paul?

Well see there you go AGAIN, Larry. WHY do you say that's Ron Paul who is running for president? That's not Ron Paul -- that's Ross Perot.

Nick Danger: I'll tell you guys what I'm gonna do! I'll tell you what! I'm gonna get even with every rotten cop in this city!

Paolo: Yeah, me too!

Guido: How you gonna do it, Nick? How you gonna do it?

Nick: I'm gonna ... turn in my badge!

Guido: Yeah! I'm gonna burn my uniform!...

—The Firesign Theatre, How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All?

Poptastrophe 2007

The old Italian ice stand on Pancake Avenue

"Older guy with super dyed black Beatles haircut and those really kind of tight pants and vintage Knack shirt in a sidecar going downhill?

Addicted to Beatlesque rock 'n roll?

"His whole life is basically built around going downhill." -- A caller on Power Pop Pop-Pop's sidecar-based lifestyle.

Once again I have taken the following notes, which should get you past the test tomorrow in second period if you don't have time to listen to the entire Best Show with Tom Scharpling, and here they are:

Captain's Donuts = my favorite watering hole: I hope all this publicity doesn't ruin it ...

quad p = Power Pop Pop-Pop

double p = Power Pop

Poptastrophe 2007

Detective Reginald Fleer and that Italian ice stand on Pancake Avenue

Power Pop Pop-Pop's Power Pop Palace

Pol Pop, the Powerpop Dictator

Q. How does Power Pop Pop-Pop pop you?
A. Well he's got this little, like, weapon, and he calls it ... The Popper?

White Power Pop = great band, but lyrics ... not good
 
 

The Saturday Evening Post, 1932

So for my mom's 80th, my cousin Linda tracked down and gave her a primo copy of the 1932 Saturday Evening Post. This flat-out freaked me out, it's so great. I just wanted to find a quiet corner and read the thing. I couldn't do that, it being a birthday party and all, but I stole some photos of it.

It was just ... I mean in this magazine you could read an article by this guy

that was illustrated by this guy

OK? I mean that's nuts right there. But then I turn a few more pages and hey here's another guy i know. OK, "know of." But no, I kinda know him, too.

Now I have it on good authority that nowadays you can be an "English major" without ever having read this dead white man. It was better in the 60s & 70s, but even then you could get through school thinking this guy never had to sweat a deadline but just sat around on the veranda, stroking his chin & drinking mint juleps and writing novels for English professors.

OK, so maybe Faulkner DID spend a lot of time sitting around on the veranda drinking mint juleps, but that's not my point.

My point is, in 1932 you could plop down a dime & buy a copy of a freaking mass market magazine and read Will Rogers & William Faulkner just like there was nothing to it.

Just another day. No big deal.

And not to mention the car ads - i'll get to those later.

But this is not the first time I have had a keen sense that I was somehow just born in the wrong decade. I am quite sincere when I say I often think I'd have been a better man, albeit much poorer, if I had been a man of the 1920s & 1930s, and not just because I wouldn't be the only one who was into wearing cool hats.

Although that's part of it.

Sound like a hillbilly

The photo's looking out the Chicago living room window of my dear friends Charlie & Ellen, but it reminded me of Dylan at the age of 20, who having left the U the year before to hitchhike to NYC with neither money nor friends, said wintertime in New York town -- the wind blowin’ snow around, walk around with nowhere to go -- he said to rooms even smaller than the small room at Gerdes Folk City, he said: somebody could freeze right to the bone. He said, "I froze right to the bone."