Reading Sign

Woke this morning to new snowfall. Nothing like recent big storms in other parts of our nation, but still another in a long stretch of frozen water torture. On the drive home this morning, the temperature was reported as seven degrees. Old Man Winter and Mother Nature have certainly teamed up to put the screws to a large portion of the land since December. Folks around these parts (as I have told you before) are desperately looking for a change in the weather.

Well, it's not coming any time soon. Those are the facts. The calendar says we have to make it through February and March (the whole thing, around here). That's a long row to hoe, yo. But, there is hope.

As I listened to the monotonous forecast of windchill advisory and chance of snow and ten below and all that Cold Miser-type crap, I looked up into the pale blue of the dimming Nebraska sky. There, in three separate squadrons, flew chevrons of Canada geese, heading in a roughly northwesterly direction. A first sign that a change is gonna come. It will just be a long time coming.

When Will Buddy Holly Be Coming On?

While the East Coast got hammered with Biblical amounts of snow this weekend (which apparently most denizens of the region seemed to enjoy, according to an unscientific anecdotal study), we here in CS land got anything ranging from four inches of really wet snow to "janky" gray slush (sorry BE). Emotions here are ranging from angry disappointment to angry weariness. We here in Cornopolis have really had enough.

But, even as more fluffy white evil falls from the gray Nebraska skies, we look forward to paying little attention to the out of doors this evening, and enjoying a rousing (non-denominational) American football contest. The contest will also include a halftime performance by half of a legendary (read really kinda old) rock group who probably have never even seen a game of American Football. Yes, The Who will be performing at halftime.

Now, I don't mind that a band whose musical relevance passed into legend thirty years ago is performing on network television. That is almost to be expected in Prime Time. And, really, such performances are often quite enjoyable. Look at Bruce Springsteen's performance last year (admittedly, the Boss is arguably more currently relevant than The Who)--that was a good one. Was it last year? I can't remember. Any way, my point is--and this is a point I have made before--that, as I see it, this isn't just an irrelevant dinosaur from eons past. It's not even the dinosaur they are claiming it is.

I might go so far as to claim that this particular band of hard rocking Brits ended with the death of their ferociously insane imp of a drummer, Keith Moon, in 1978. But, I will give them a bit of wiggle room, since even they realized (after four years and two albums with Kenny Jones) that they were no longer that which they had been before. So, let's give them the last four years of their primary incarnation and say they ended when they say they ended.

However, as these things often do--an extinct rockasaur is a hard animal to keep down--the Who kept at it, appearing sporadically throughout the nineties and the early years of the twenty-first century, almost like the "dying" old man over John Cleese's shoulder in THE HOLY GRAIL: "I'm not dead yet." But, really, they were. Cudgel to the head, please. Thank you.

The cudgel to the head? The death of bassist John Entwistle. We all figure, that's it for them, then. Right? You lose a drummer, no big deal. SPINAL TAP made it clear that the drummer is a place holder, a human metronome. A dime a dozen. (Facetiousness alert! Sarcasm meters should be detecting massive levels of snarkiness.) But, if you lose a whole rhythm section, you are done, ain't ya?

Ummm, apparently not. I guess we can call this the Lynard Skynard paradox. I am still trying to come up with the exact phrasing for this particular popular music theory, but you get the notion, eh?

See, CBS is advertising that The Who will be performing at halftime. But, really, it's Pete and Roger and a couple of other musicians. And that ain't the rockasaur that they are claiming it to be. However, having a zombie rockasaur impostor perform on CBS' halftime show fits right in with the most controversial advertisement. After all, The Who have a right to life, just like little baby Jesus (the 21st century version): Tim Tebow.

Fingers Too Cold to Type Too Much

I will spare you an extended homage to the groundhog. It has been done before, and I don't want to be too predictable. Today, after all, is merely the spectacular end of a long and difficult year for whistle pigs everywhere, a year in which they are mostly disregarded, or hunted and killed, with no real in between. On this day, they are paid tense attention to, with many celebrating, and some berating them. But, on this one day, all their feelings of inadequacy or peril are put away, and they are free to remind us that winter will end, regardless of how much ice or snow we may have endured (or will have to endure).

And that, my friends, is all I have to say about that.

Shiny Things (That Aren't Glitter)

There's this whole big to do here in Cornopolis over Miss Nebraska (a newscaster on one of the local channels), and her experiences out in Las Vegas, where she is participating in the Miss Universe pageant. The front page of the local rag has a teaser of the story in the "insignificant news" section (which is cleverly (and annoyingly) titled "The (402) 411" (as in, the information for the zip code) so hip, so cool, so trendy (I have so lost track of my parentheses)). I will just call it "The 165, 222," since that is the product of 402 x 411. It makes the same amount of sense, doesn't it?

What was I talking about? Oh, the beauty pageant, right. So, there in the 165, 222 is a little article (right under the profile of the engineer who hooked his snow blower up to a motorized wheelchair to make a robot snow blower) about this (predictably) blond young lady having a time in Sin City. A picture shows her and another (genetically cloned) contestant (Miss Massachusetts), sharing a dessert of some sort with the manager of a local franchise anchor restaurant. Miss Nebraska wears a (predictably) red dress. Miss Mass wears a (not-so-predictably-as-it-used-to-be-but-still) blue dress. They both wear sashes and tiaras.

What's wrong with this picture, you ask? Well, at first glance, nothing, I guess. A couple of pretty girls and a handsome guy posing for a publicity still. Representatives of various states of the union sharing and smiling together. Opponents in a contest showing good manners and conducting themselves with respect for themselves and others. What's my problem?

It's those goddamn tiaras! I can't stand it! These are grown women, not six year-olds. They are not "Little Princesses." Yes, I have a sick (as in ill) little piece of my heart that finds all of these sorts of spectacles ridiculous and undermining to women's status as equals in our (still) patriarchal world. And the organizers of these contests can do whatever they want to make it look less like a "let's give the pretty airhead some attention" event. But, as long as the women involved dress like children at a tea party, I am just going to have to be annoyed.

What the Hell?

Yeah, so, January is just clipping along, right? And I am posting, like, every other day, keeping tabs on the ramblings and perambulations of myself, you know? And then, WHAM! Everything just stops. No posts. No nothing. What the hell, man?

It's the same old story, all this stuff that needs to get done. All these other distractions. The other interactivities. But, we can't just let January fizz out like a neglected two-liter of Coke in your grandmother's basement. So, here's some post-y goodness to break the silence.

Except that, I got nothing. It's Friday evening. The State of the Union is old news. JD Salinger is old news. Howard Zinn is old news. Groundhog Day is not until Monday. I can't think of any new news. But, that's the way it is sometimes. Even when you have nothing to say, it doesn't hurt to shout into the abyss every now and again, just so everybody else can be reminded that they are not alone.

I am here! I am here!