I hope I annoy you as much as you annoy me

Many people are recipients of transient hateful juju from me in the course of daily life. There's the twit in the grocery line who waits until the clerk announces a total before they even begin to look for their wallet, surprised (again!) by the need to pay for the stuff. There are the hosers who can't figure out how a 4-way stop is supposed to work. And dimwits who talk in a movie theater like they're sitting in their living room. All these primitive forms of life get just a fleeting moment of being despicable to me. But there is a special category of annoyer for whom I generate hour upon hour of fresh brewed hatefulness - the person sitting next to me in an airplane.

There must be no common life situation that creates more consistent dissatisfaction than air travel. Let's face it, every aspect of it sucks hard. Having to ride shuttle buses or return rental cars, schlepping bags around, worrying about your 3 ounce fluids, standing in the ticket line, standing in the security check line, fighting through piles of baggage to get a spot in the airport bar, weather delays, no room in the overhead bins - it's just a cornucopia of irritation, and all that before you even get to your seat. And then when you finally do make it to your seat, there's that person (or if you're in the dreaded middle seat, two persons) who have been assigned by God to be my nemesis - the Person Sitting Next To Me. The PSNTM. I hate you.

There have been rare exceptions to the "I hate the PSNTM" rule. Family, mostly, but a few times a person who was actually thoughtful, friendly, and smelled okay, as well as capable of conversation. Otherwise, the PSNTM is a universal cipher, a person just taking up space (especially on the arm rest) and being one of several annoying things:

• (a) too fussy, ringing the flight attendant constantly
• (b) too fidgety, some kind of tweaker who can't sit still
• (c) too out of it, verging on comatose, sleeping with their head on my shoulder
• (d) too friendly, trying to talk to me when I don't care
• (e) not friendly enough, acting like they don't care when I try to talk to them

OK, PSNTM, some part of me knows you are an actual human being who has a family, who has wants and needs, a life outside the airplane, in fact a person who may be delightful to know, a charmer, a mensch, a person I would love to have as a cherished friend. But as long as you are the PSNTM I hate you. The best you can ever be to me is a minor annoyance. It could be Ghandi next to me - just another irritating PSNTM. And hey, Mahatma, your newspaper is infringing into my tray table space, shape up. (Note: if I have met you in the airport bar before boarding, and if you flirted with me (females only, thanks), you may be something better than a minor annoyance. No other exceptions will be made.)

I understand and accept that for the PSNTM I am the PSNTM. I understand and accept that on any given flight I may be (a) (b) (c) and/or (d) and maybe (e) and other letters for the PSNTM. Someday, when I become enlightened, I may not intrinsically hate the PSNTM. And I hope everyone else becomes enlightened and no longer hates me for being the PSNTM. I will keep that hope alive, but I will not hold my proverbial breath.

The King is dead, long live the King

OK, I just turned on the TV and Larry King is getting reactions to Michael Jackson's death by interviewing Jesse Jackson and Donna Summer. I mean, that puts it all in context, you know? I can't wait to hear who's next. Can I?

OK, take two. This week, three celebs have passed on - Ed MacMahon, Farrah Fawcett and now Jacko. It's snarky to be rude to the dead, but if we're honest here, we're talking about three iconic pop culture figures who were sharing about 1.3 person's worth of talent. Ed McMahon was a lovable guy who's only real talent was being in the right place at the right time - that is, connected to Johnny Carson when Johnny hit the big time. And Farrah's biggest talent was the ability to grow a nice head of hair. Ok, she was a hottie in her time, and I had her poster on my wall like 92% of the rest of male America at that time, but she couldn't act, or sing, or dance her way out of the proverbial paper bag. She may have been, the least talented of the original "Charlie's Angels"and that's no mean feat. She may also have been one of the first truly talentless celebrities, a category that is now filled to the brim with the empty suits of reality TV, one trick ponies, and random nimrods having their fifteen minutes of fame.

OK, take three. Michael Jackson did have that special something that makes someone a star. He was magnetic from the age of 11. You wanted to watch him dance and hear him sing. And he took that gift and over 10 years turned it into something kind of sick and perverted and weird. And then over the next 20 years he went from kinda weird to seriously weird and then spun off out of normal earth orbit into the realm of Howard Hughes and Elvis and Elizabeth Taylor and the other elitely freakishly rich and famous, (Note to self: Quit wishing to be freakishly rich and famous.) You lost me, Michael, about 1975, but I hope you RIP. Perhaps you had too much talent to ever be really meaningful, really good, really happy. Anything that comes too easy is not worth having.

Ok, take four. All these people were just doing the best they could. They gave us some pleasure and to some degree suffered, along with prospered, as a result of the personalities they became. Being famous is not an easy gig. Making a lot of money does not offset the psychological damage.

OK. Take five. I have mourned this. Let's move on. How do you think Shaq will fit on with LeBron on the Cavs?...

How my vanity may have saved my life, or at least made it a lot better

Resolved: I am vain. I readily admit to being "excessively concerned of (my) own appearance." I have, for as long as I can remember, wanted to look good. Maybe being a kid who got called "fatty" when I was little contributes to placing an importance on looking good. Or maybe it's my general and ongoing need for approval. In any case, I am vain and I try to make myself look as good as I can.

Resolved: I have a lot of moles. The brown spots on your skin, not the little varmints under the lawn. You can't choose the distribution of your pigment, so what are you going to do? But moles are more than just blips on the radar, they can be annoying to shave around, and as time passes they can get bigger or hairier or just sort of more noticeable in a negative way.

All that said, a few weeks back I started noticing a small mole up near my left eye. It seemed to look different than it once did, and maybe a little inflamed. So being vain, I called up the dermatologist at my HMO and asked if they would snip it off for me.

The doctor checked out this thing (not a mole actually but some other kind of skin thing) and said sure, I'll get rid of it, and no, it's not anything to worry about. But he also wanted to give me the once over, and when I took off my shirt he spotted a couple of moles that looked suspicious. Out came the tools and a few minutes later he's cut one off my abdomen and one off my back. He tells me they are probably nothing but he will call if there's any trouble.

I didn't think much of it. I have never been a big sunbather, and having a couple of funny looking moles out of my crop of dozens, maybe hundreds - well, odds are there are going to be some that look funny. That doesn't mean I've got anything wrong with me. Does it?

Phone rings while I am vacationing in New York. Doctor tells me the biopsy says the mole on my abdomen is a melanoma. He tells me it should be ok, it's been caught early, no chemo needed, but he needs to take a pound of flesh to make sure it's all gone. (Ok, he didn't say a pound of flesh but I have to use my drama major knowledge for obscure references now and then.) So just like that, I have cancer. I am reading things about "survival rates" and whatnot. As the song says, what a difference a day makes.

Melanoma is caused by UVA and UVB rays - they think. But it's also possible to get it in places that never get any sun. Some people say even one really bad sunburn as a kid can set you up for this cancer later. I definitely had a few sunburns over the years - maybe you did too.

Melanoma is the worst type of skin cancer. If you don't get it early, it can burrow down and get you into all kinds of trouble. Odds are I will be fine and this will not be the thing that kills me. But it does feel like the Grim Reaper sort of waved at me from across the room.

Moral of the story #1: Check yourself.
Moral of the story #2: If I had not been vain and wanted to get a blip off my face, this cancer could have gone unnoticed for a long time - maybe too long. So maybe being vain is not the worst thing in the world?

A-hole of the year nominee right here in Napa

This story by Mike Treleven appeared in the May 28, 2009 edition of the Napa Valley Regster...

"Napa County jail is a far cry from the honeymoon suite at a tony wine country inn and spa.

On Tuesday around  5 p.m., Napa County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a call of a fight behind the Villagio Inn & Spa in Yountville.

A woman told deputies that she suffered a cut lip and bruising on her face in a fight with Sean Morris, 27, of Sarasota, Fla. Morris was booked into the Napa jail on suspicion of felony domestic battery. The couple was visiting the Napa Valley on their honeymoon and had gotten married here on Saturday, according to the sheriff’s department."

OK. Let's first clarify that there's nothing humorous about male on female violence. Or female on male violence. Or violence, period. That said...

WTF? Dude, you have JUST been married. You have spent a fair piece of coin to have your honeymoon in Napa Valley. You have probably been enjoying some of the best scenery, food, wine, and (logically) sex you've ever had, because you are on your HONEYMOON. And now it seems like a good time to smack your woman in the face?? Wow, wow, wow. What happened, did she flirt with the spa attendant? Did she question your manhood in some way? Or did she really do nothing at all, but you are just an angry drunk and you like to intimidate women? Unbelievable. You hit your newlywed wife in the face on your HONEYMOON! I am sure I am the first the bring this up, but this may not be a relationship that is built to last. OK, I am sure there have been more than a few couples who have actually had a fight during their honeymooon. But by "fight" I mean an argument, not a punch out. 

I am at the "just got to shake my head in disbelief" stage on this one. 

How I have neglected my blog and the sadness that results

So jeez, I am feeling a little contrite because I have neglected this blog. Feeling a little like I have let an old friend fall by the wayside while I have been spending all my time with someone new.I even got needled by one of my (few) readers today - "Wow, no blog post since April 2!"  Feeling a little frivolous and superficial because my good old reliable Blogger blog here has fallen victim to my other time sucks - namely, Facebook, and of course, what I like to call "real life."

Maintaining a blog is no simple task, my friend. Just mouse up there to the top of the screen, left of center, and start clicking on "Next blog." You will soon soon discover there are lots and lots people who start a blog, make two or three posts, and discover it's kind of demanding. (You'll also discover that about two-thirds of all the random blogs you'll see in the "next blog" mode are in Spanish, which I find strangely fascinating. ) Maybe those whose blogs wither realize they don't have any spare time, or their computer crashes, or (horrors) they realize they don't have that much to say after all. Depressing.

So what have I been doing with all my time when I am obviously not being devoted to this here blog? Well, my good old friend Frank in Iowa wrapped it up nicely (on Facebook, wouldn't you know?) when he wrote:

How in the world do you find the time? Work, politics, blogging, city government, golf, baseball, wine tasting, and now more acting..............what's is your secret to vitality? Must have something to do with clean air and all that quality vino you rave about...??

But of course, the answer is deeper, and less fun, and kind of sad. Somehow it's really all about the relentless, fruitless search for some kind of satisfaction that has always eluded me. Some sense of adequacy, of being good enough, that is like the classic carrot on the stick - always in sight but always out of reach.  Maybe I can be  notable golfer - or a blogger - or really know something about wine. Maybe I can lead the old broken-down men's hardball league in some statistical category. Maybe I can, in fact, act my way out of a paper bag - an underrated skill in today's world. Maybe I can do something that means enough to me that I will accept that I am adequate - God forbid, even good - at something that's meaningful to me. Time will tell. But I think the complete inability to "get no satisfaction" -  that's what gives me "vitality." Got to keep trying.  

I envy people who are satisfied.  How do I get a little of what you've got?

The Straight Dope should get a Nobel or a Pulitzer or whatnot

I know it's kind of a cop out to make a blog entry that is just entirely referential like this, but it just struck me that "The Straight Dope" deserves some props. I get an email once in awhile with some SD teasers, and I almost always take a look. I mean, he/they have been at it for decades, answering the dumbest and cleverest of questions, and never losing the wit. Example:

Dear Cecil:

You may not think the following question is too cosmic, but let's face it, the topics you address in your column seldom are. How come some belly-buttons are "innies" and some are "outies"?

— M.E.L., Los Angeles

Now tell me honestly you aren't itching to know the answer? Okay, it's here. 

SD originated in the Chicago Reader, one of those great free metro weeklies that are mostly ads and always have a nice snarky tone in their editorial content. (One of many things that make big cities more fun that small towns.) Over the years, "Cecil Adams" has developed books, radio features, websites, movies? Religions? I don't know. But he's prolific. "Cecil" is a ficticious character - I think - and the columns are written by a guy named Ed Zotti - I think - but that matters not. It's heinously entertaining for anyone with an inquiring mind. 

Here are a few more teasers - questions that Cecil anwers for you:

• Why do men have nipples?
  
• If I dug up a body, what would it look (and smell) like?
  
• Does the Vatican have the world's largest pornography collection?
  
• My buddies and I want to be blimp pilots. What do we do?
  
• Who or what is the Flying Dutchman?
  
• Why do we twitch while falling asleep?
  

Holy cow, how could one resist seeking more wisdom on these topics at www.straightdope.com. Go now, and thank me later...

What's the deal with hair, anyway?...

Ever consider how much of your time and/or money you spend on hair? Hardly a day goes by you're not doing something to it, for it, about it, or with it - except on those days you can't do a thing with it. You got to trim it, comb it, brush it, shave it, shape it, smear something into it, wash something out of it, cover up the gray in it, curl it, straighten it, apply a chemical to make it grow, apply a chemical to make it fall out, or pluck it out by the roots. Ever stop to consider why we even have the stuff all over us in the first place?

Most of your basic animals that have hair have it all over. If hair is there to keep your body warm enough, it makes sense to have it all over the place. Take a look at your dog. Unless he's got the mange, or he's neurotic and chewing himself raw, he's got hair all over the place. Wouldn't Rover look silly if all he had was a patch of hair on the top of his head and some tufts between his legs? And maybe a little strip of hair under his nose? What a buffoon.  But that look is perfectly acceptable for your Uncle Melvin. Is there some evolutionary logic that explains the "little bit here, little bit there, whole bunch in this spot" condition of hair on the modern home sapien?

I've read somewhere that some specific crops of body hair serve to capture phermones or something. This is essential to attraction, so you might want to think twice about shaving yourself totally and looking like an alien. But riddle me this, Batman - what possible virtue can be derived from the hair that sprouts out of men's ears? If having a mass of hair inside your ear is a good thing, why don't kids and women have it?  You can make a case for nose hair having a purpose - to trap chunks of stuff you don't want to suck into your lungs - but what's with the hair in the ears? If you believe in "intelligent design" over evolution, then is ear hair just one of God's little jollies? Are you having a laugh, Yahweh?

(For those readers who would like to exit here and avoid the rant that is in the roadway just ahead, check out Why Mammal Body Hair Is an Evolutionary Enigma which is actually on a creationist website. I am a Darwinite but always like to read what the other team is saying, even if they're nimrods.)

Now to get more to a practical point on this all-important topic, I invite all of you of the male persuasion to take a good hard look at some specific hair locations and consider your options. Namely, the ear, the nose, and the eyebrow. We all have our opinions about the hair on the head and beards and whatnot, and I will not venture to pass judgement on what any individual prefers in these areas of personal fashion statement (although I will suggest that the dude working at the shoe store last week sporting the full-on Wolverine hair and mutton chops might want to just dial it back a notch unless you are getting paid to appear at some comic book convention) but at the same time, I think there are some hard and fast rules that need to be laid out in regard to the ear, the nose and the eyebrow. (The Ear, The Nose and the Eyebrow - wasn't that C.S. Lewis?) 

Rules on ear hair, nose hair and bushy eyebrows:

Rule #1: Cut it

Rule #2: Cut it some more.

Rule #3: See Rule #2.

Let's face it, while you might be able to make a feeble case that there's something commanding (Stalin) or whimsical (Mark Twain) or mystical (Gandalf) about bushy eyebrows, you've also got Andy Rooney as the offset. Do you really want to look like Andy Rooney? And the monobrow? Please. You don't want to pull them out one-by-one or get waxed - ok, I understand that. How about just lather up between the eyes and take the razor to it? Something must be done. And as far as the ears and the nose go, well, boys, you've just got to get in there with whatever implements are handy and just slash and burn, and you've got to do it just about everyday. The ear hair is like kudzu, it grows about four inches a day in some specimens. Just because you can't see the side of your head and that rain forest of vegetation filling your ear canal, that doesn't mean the rest of us can't see it.