Memo. Random.

When you get a three-day weekend and it's spring and the weather is pleasant, there's a natural tendency to throw Grandma and the kids in the backseat of the Plymouth and head out to the beach for hot dogs and potato salad and Frisbee without reflecting that you don't much like any of those things, including Grandma and the kids. But that's not what this holiday is about. It's about the people who have sacrificed so much so that we may enjoy our treasured way of life. For instance, the people who wake up early to write short funny prose.

That's the way (uhuh uhuh) I like it.

First Donna Summer, and now Robin Gibb. It's like some terrible Disco Holocaust. For me, this is a chance to contemplate the fun side of mortality. Because no matter what we may accomplish, no matter what our personal triumphs and failures, no matter how many lives we touch in our brief stay here on Earth, we are all heading inexorably toward the absolute finality of eternal oblivion. Yet it is at times like these we can all take comfort in knowing that right now, up in Heaven, the angels are hearing some of the worst music you can possibly imagine.

To my millions of readers:

The head guy at Yahoo is being shown the door for lying on his resume. Here's the thing: He lied about a Bachelor's degree. Seriously, why did he bother? They say he's being forced out for the lie, but the real offense is the lack of vision, the small cheeseparing meanness of his aspirations, his pathetic poverty of chutzpah. Claiming a PhD from a tech school in Kazakhstan would have shown some imagination. Listing “Supreme Commander, Allied Forces” under previous experience would have shown some cubes. Instead, he emitted his sad little lie – no better, really, than the truth.

Seriously. Waterskis?

If somebody asked me, “Do you like chocolate cake?” I would respond in all honesty, “Yes I do. I do like chocolate cake.” And if they said, “Then wouldn't you like to eat chocolate cake while having sex with Rita Hayworth? On waterskis?” Well, I would have to say, “No, actually. All that at once seems a bit much.” That's why I eschew music Fests. I like to listen to music. I like snacks and conversation. I like watching strangers drink so much beer they're oblivious to the melanoma visibly sprouting from their sunburnt flesh. Just not all at once.

Leeches

People used to die all the time from getting bled and cupped and purged by physicians attempting to cure ailments that might easily have resolved themselves. These doctors had theories about what was going on inside the human body that had nothing whatsoever to do with any observable outcomes, and they stuck to these beliefs even when their patients kept dying on them. When reality deviated from their theories, they declared reality to be in error. We don't so much do medicine that way these days, but governance is another story. Ideology makes smart people stupid and stupid people beasts.

Stealth Bummer

Somebody just told me that whole thing of Ninjas always running around in black is wrong. This guy says the idea came from Kabuki theater, when some clever director used a black-garbed stagehand to represent an incredibly stealthy and well-camouflaged assassin, because the audience was conditioned to ignore them. Which makes sense. The key to camouflage is to resemble the expected. That's probably why my crafty “old blind ragged beggar with a tin cup” rig isn't letting me sneak into the movies for free. And why really serious enemies of the Constitution wear charcoal grey suits and big cheerful smiles.

regarding ants

I was looking at some little ants. Really tiny, even for ants. If they got into the nest of some of those large carpenter ants, the big ants would be; “Dang- we got ants.” They were hustling around in a way that looked disconnected, but they were all actually going about the business of the colony. A school of minnows, on the other hand, look like they've perfectly coordinated every move, but really it's just a bunch of identical brains reacting to identical stimulus, without any cooperation or common goal. That's the difference between a mob and a community.