Month: March 2021

I don’t know about you, but I’m in desperate need of a catchphrase or a slogan. Not necessarily something I can put on a t-shirt or as a way of merchandising when I brand myself — no matter how painful we all know that can be.

No, I’m just looking for something that will allow me to sum things up so I don’t have to think up a whole lot of new words every time I end a story because, quite frankly, my son has made me tired and because being a parent has caused me to lose functioning brain cells. And words. Lots and lots of words.

Maybe that’s what happened to Donald Trump. He had so many mentally challenged children that he lost his ability to remember words. And concepts. Bigly.

Or maybe he’s just stupid.

Regardless, I’m looking for something that puts a fine point on whatever I’m saying at the end of a conversation that’s better than, say, “So, yeah….” which seems so popular with the youth of today and just about everyone else.

Walter Cronkite had “And that’s the way it is…”

Linda Ellerbee had “And so it goes.”

And Dan Rather had “Courage.” Of course he also said something about a frog having a gun in its hip pocket and guys beating him while saying, “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” so maybe he’s not the best example.

Even so, the question is, what should my phrase be?

I used to say “and the saga continues” and it makes a certain amount of sense when you have a kid with ADHD because you know things really never change, there’s just a different rationale even though it’s really the same one each time.

“What’s the frequency, Kenneth” is interesting, but my name isn’t Kenneth and it makes me think of sex and the answer is usually too depressing to think of.

“All’s well that ends well” is too Shakespearian and, besides, it usually doesn’t.

“C’mon Man” is the slogan the president uses when he deals with the Republicans in Congress and other stupid people.

“Well, ain’t that a kick in the crotch” (or pants) has a certain painful inappropriate appeal to it.

“If you asked me, I wouldn’t have answered” is also kind of fun, but not real helpful. Of course, no one said I had to be helpful all the time.

“These are the times that try men’s souls” seems a little high-fallutin’ if you ask me.

I like the fact that Rachel Maddow’s “Watch this space” leaves open a world of possibility.

“I told you so” is just plain condescending.

I used to like “life’s a bitch and then you die,: but it’s not very hopeful. Funny, but not hopeful.

Oh well, I guess I will continue wandering the land in search of the right one until I finally figure it out.

And the saga continues.

I love the way modern appliances don’t work. 

My watch runs out of power then takes forever to charge and when it does, it doesn’t even come on. And before it runs out of power, it only tells the time. What good is a watch like that, I ask you?

Right before my laptop dies, it tells me to plug it in. Why? If it’s a laptop with a battery, shouldn’t it stay charged? 

My toothbrush has gotten cranky as well. Charging only lasts about a week or so an then it doesn’t even last long enough for me to finish brushing and then I have to run around with a dirty mouth until it recharges. 

But the worst by far is my Toyota Corolla. Maybe because it’s old or maybe because it was built back in 2000, it doesn’t work the way the newfangled cars work. Apparently, there’s a time limit on how long the power lock will work after the ignition is turned off. 

I learned this the hard way recently when I was having an NPR driveway moment. 

I pulled into my driveway ad was listening to a National Public Radio story for another 10 minutes before I was ready to go in. Then I pulled back the door handle, but the door didn’t open because I locked it when I got in. 

No problem, I thought. I’ll just unlock it with the power lock button. 

No such luck. I could hear the button click and the power lock try to engage but there wasn’t any power. I thought maybe I’d done it wrong. So, I hit the opposite end of the switch again. And again. And again. Still, nothing. 

Frustrated, I tried it several times in rapid succession. Still nothing. So I hit the side of the door really hard to engage the motor. 

Nothing. 

Perhaps the driver’s side just cut out, I thought. So, I tried the lock switch on the passenger’s side, but no matter what I tried, the lock wouldn’t go up. 

At this point, I was getting pretty panicked, but I didn’t care. There was no way in hell I was going to embarrass myself by contacting AAA for roadside service or calling my wife inside the house just yards away to get her keys and rescue me because I knew I’d never live it down. 

No, I wasn’t going to give up that easy. 

So, I stopped trying for a few minutes, took a few deep breaths, stared at the lock tab stuck down by my window and tried to figure a way out of my crisis. 

And then it came to me. 

I’d restart the car and see if the lock would work. And it did!

Thank goodness for the power of calm and ingenuity. 

Still, I was reminded of the story of the idiot who called AAA to report that he’d locked his keys in his car. After providing all of the details to the dispatcher, he frantically added, “Please hurry. It’s starting to rain and I left the top down!”

Not too long ago, I downloaded an app called Ham Horn because I wanted to get an airhorn sound for my cellphone. 

Go ahead, call me mean, low or rude, but I am a father who is desperate to find a way to get his ADD son up in the morning and I figured combining the airhorn with a bluetooth speaker would do it. I had been using the speaker to play “You Can’t Stop The Beat” at full tilt, but, unfortunately, he started to like it and just stayed in bed dancing. 

While I was planning with the app one morning I discovered there were other sound effects like a guy yelling, “HAM!” which is hilarious to play in a kosher household. 

It also had movie ship sound (which didn’t sound like a ship or anything else I’d ever heard anywhere), Sad Trombone (which is exactly what you’d think it is) and The Wilhelm. 

I knew what it was even before I played it. 

For the uninitiated, The Wilhelm is the sound of a man screaming that has been used in movies since 1951 whenever a person is shot, pushed from a tall building, dragged into the water by an alligator has an especially painful orgasm or what have you. 

It got me to thinking about The Wilhelm and canned sounds in general, especially canned laughter. 

No, it doesn’t come in a can. It’s just pre-recorded and doesn’t have that so fresh feeling. 

But here’s the thing. The Wilhelm was recorded in 1951 and so were many of the audience laugh tracks that you hear on television shows today, which means Wilhelm and some of the people who are laughing at your favorite sit-com have been dead for years. 

And it made me wonder what they were thinking at the time of the recording and the years after. 

Wilhelm, especially. 

I mean, why is he screaming. 

Had he closed his fingers in a door? 

Was a snake crawling up his leg? 

Was he mourning Germany’s loss in the war? 

What? Too soon? It’s not as if his name were Johnny or James. 

Also, I wondered what he was thinking as he recorded it and heard it in later years. 

“Well, I’m glad that part of the shoot is over”?

“That’s great. Im going to get an extra couple of bucks for doing the voiceover work” or maybe even “Thank god that’s done. If I never hear that recording again, it will be too soon.” 

And, if its the last one, did he put his fingers in his ears when he watched movies that involved screaming knowing what was coming or did he feel the same way that “The Agony of Defeat” skier felt each week when ABC started “The Wide World of Sports” with the phrase “From the thrill of victory” and showed a runner crossing the finish line “To The Agony of Defeat” showing the same skier wiping out on the slopes.

“Look, Lars, it’s you again,” his friends would say and he would just bury his head in his hands and cry. 

Was he ever scared? Did he have to go all method actor and try to remember a time when he was so scared? Or at that point, was he so bored with it, he decided to slap one last one together just to finish it and get the job done so he could move on with his life and forget about it? 

Did he say, “Well, there’s one they’ll never use” as he made a sound he considered so fake that he was embarrassed to have had it come out of his mouth? 

You know, the one that got away? 

Who knows? 

It’s just good to know that the next time you’re watching a horror movie and the yell scares you half to death that the person who’s yelling isn’t as afraid of dying as you are…because he’s already dead.