Grown-ups say the darndest things.
Here’s one I heard recently in a National Public Radio story about the Hollywood writers’ strike. The reporter said the schedule of upcoming awards shows gives the writers extra leverage, because without writers, the producers will have to cancel the Oscars.
The Oscars show uses writers?
I bet I’m not the only movie buff shocked — shocked, I say — to learn that the presenters’ snappy repartee is not the spontaneous product of razor-like intellects trained in the same school that gave us Ronald Reagan, Fred Thompson and Arnold Schwarzenegger (who once modestly remarked, “Maria didn’t marry me for my brains”).
I’m either severely disillusioned, or just miffed that professional writers make obscene multiples of my annual take-home for generating inane banter that would earn two thumbs down in a second-grade production of “Mr. Toothbrush and the Cavity Monster.”
That’s what the writers have to hold over the heads of their Tinsel Town oppressors? Yet these greedy adversaries have the entire nation facing a crisis with potential repurcussions every bit as long-lasting and crippling to the American spirit and economy as the devastating National Hockey League impass of — well, whenever that was.
It almost tempts me to offer my sevices as a literary scab, to rescue the national psyche from the scars that would result from going all spring without at least three hours of Billy Crystal introducing introducers.
How hard could it be?
“Hey, Lindsay, it’s great to see you here tonight! I’ll have to rethink my opposition to work release.”
“Bite me, Leo. Speaking of nail-biting performances, this year's nominees for best supporting actress are …”
And so on. Alas, I don’t cross picket lines, and anyway I’m too busy on a monologue for Letterman.
And another thing. As long as I’m on about odd statements, let’s make a brief visit to Langley, where CIA officials explain the destruction of interrogation videotapes as a security measure to protect their operatives.
Those of us who enjoy sudoku and other brainteasers have had a great time interpreting this one. Does it mean that the tapes show CIA agents comitting crimes, or that the CIA doesn’t trust itself to keep its own sensitive material secure? Difficulty level: 4.
Mirror copy editor Drew Herman is available to write your awards show. Call now for scheduling and rates.
Sunday 30 December 2007
Friday 21 December 2007
Royal Alaska Mail rates to Amerikastan too high
You win, you eBay ignorami and mail order morons — I’m ready to admit Alaska is an island.
After years of fruitless fights with shippers who do not distinguish between “contiguous” and “continental,” I figure it’s probably just easier to cut a canal along the border with the Yukon and let British Columbia annex the Panhandle.
I’m sure you’ve all been there. You find that Howdy Doody lunchbox your uncle always wanted, or try to order a chromed exhaust for your sister-in-law’s Harley. The instructions say the rate applies only for shipping within the continental U.S., and then they bill you an extra twenty bucks for Alaska. You write back explaining that Alaska is continental, sharing North America — however uneasily — with such real American states as Alabama and Chicago, and if the shipper had meant to exclude Alaska, they should have said “contiguous.” Then the shipper writes back saying everyone knows what they meant and anyway it costs them too much to send stuff here. So you write back pointing out how that’s their problem and if they were content to waste their years of schooling by not learning some basic vocabulary so they spend the rest of their lives as illiterate savages, they could at least have the integrity to admit a mistake and pony up the difference, even though the dollar has really tanked against the gruening lately.
At this point, the dialogue and transaction usually end, and the Harley rider gets a gift card worth a few days of double-shot creme de menthe lattes.
Maybe it’s a little disingenuous to make this argument from Kodiak, which has never been either contiguous or continental, but there’s a principle involved — the long established right of Alaska to federal subsidization of a lifestyle utterly unsuited to our location. Maybe we’re not contiguous, and they don’t know we’re continental, but we can at least be contentious.
Hawaii, you’re on your own.
After years of fruitless fights with shippers who do not distinguish between “contiguous” and “continental,” I figure it’s probably just easier to cut a canal along the border with the Yukon and let British Columbia annex the Panhandle.
I’m sure you’ve all been there. You find that Howdy Doody lunchbox your uncle always wanted, or try to order a chromed exhaust for your sister-in-law’s Harley. The instructions say the rate applies only for shipping within the continental U.S., and then they bill you an extra twenty bucks for Alaska. You write back explaining that Alaska is continental, sharing North America — however uneasily — with such real American states as Alabama and Chicago, and if the shipper had meant to exclude Alaska, they should have said “contiguous.” Then the shipper writes back saying everyone knows what they meant and anyway it costs them too much to send stuff here. So you write back pointing out how that’s their problem and if they were content to waste their years of schooling by not learning some basic vocabulary so they spend the rest of their lives as illiterate savages, they could at least have the integrity to admit a mistake and pony up the difference, even though the dollar has really tanked against the gruening lately.
At this point, the dialogue and transaction usually end, and the Harley rider gets a gift card worth a few days of double-shot creme de menthe lattes.
Maybe it’s a little disingenuous to make this argument from Kodiak, which has never been either contiguous or continental, but there’s a principle involved — the long established right of Alaska to federal subsidization of a lifestyle utterly unsuited to our location. Maybe we’re not contiguous, and they don’t know we’re continental, but we can at least be contentious.
Hawaii, you’re on your own.
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