Here's the scenario...You're doing a really important presentation. Like one that determines, say, the future of your entire life. And one of your siblings decides to support you by showing up. In normal families this gesture would be actually appreciated. But I don't come from a normal family.
I come from the crack-up family. Weddings, funerals, business meetings...nothing is sacred. We just remember the crack ups...those moments when you try so desperately not to, but happen to catch a siblings' eye at time that is so inappropriate, and you start to laugh.It just happens. It's actually embarrassing to admit that we rate our crap ups....Joey, Julie and I have done a lot of Def Com III's.Serious crack-ups.
Which brings me to my dilemma. My youngest Annie has to present her Senior Research Project. It's a big deal....lots of research, preparation, and a public presentation. But she invited her SISTER to watch her. Hello Annie??? As if you're going to stand up on a stage and present your project with MADELINE sitting there watching you? And you two aren't going to dissolve into a major crack up as soon as you even GLANCE at each other?
Maybe they'll pull it off without a crack up. But I doubt it.They're Nicolazzo girls...and a major crack up is in their immediate future.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Sunday, December 22, 2013
And The Award Goes To....
It's politically incorrect to use the word "retarded. " I get it. As a technical diagnosis it's been retired, and for many good reasons. But as a lifetime Massachusetts resident, I will not apologize for using the term for people who actually deserve it. I'm referring to people who are not developmentally delayed, but whose stupidity is so mind bending that nothing but head scratching, incredulous, "REALLY?" dumbness earns them the title of "Wicked Retarded."
Since no one is actually reading this, I am announcing an annual Wicked Retarded award. It will be a very important award as soon as my family starts reading my blog. And this very special inaugural Wicked Retarded Award goes to Dennis Rodman.
Why Dennis, you ask? There are so many contenders! But even the most cerebrally challenged, slightly aware person wouldn't purposefully visit.a fat loser kid murderer Stalin Wannabe dictator of a country where people are literally starving to death, sit next to him at a basketball game, and then try to explain to the world press that the chubby sociopath dictator is actually just a really good guy who cares about his family and his people.
So Dennis gets the Wicked Retarded award this year. And his prize? A lifetime stay at one of Kim Jong Ummmmm's Gulag Retreats.
Since no one is actually reading this, I am announcing an annual Wicked Retarded award. It will be a very important award as soon as my family starts reading my blog. And this very special inaugural Wicked Retarded Award goes to Dennis Rodman.
Why Dennis, you ask? There are so many contenders! But even the most cerebrally challenged, slightly aware person wouldn't purposefully visit.a fat loser kid murderer Stalin Wannabe dictator of a country where people are literally starving to death, sit next to him at a basketball game, and then try to explain to the world press that the chubby sociopath dictator is actually just a really good guy who cares about his family and his people.
So Dennis gets the Wicked Retarded award this year. And his prize? A lifetime stay at one of Kim Jong Ummmmm's Gulag Retreats.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Alice's Restaurant and TMI
Global Warning....I spell for shit. I don't know why, but I'm sure it was my third grade teacher Mrs. Jackson's fault, but I'll get to her later. Everything's her fault. But since Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead, I get to say whatever I want about her.
I was driving south on 495 with my daughter Annie on Thanksgiving day. We hit the road fighting at around 11:15, and then I remembered that Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant gets played on the radio every Thanksgiving at noon. I told Annie I wanted her to hear it, but she was pissed at me about something and wanted Radio Control so she could hear the same five songs that they play over and over again and frantically changed the station just in case she missed one of those songs, but I stood firm. I was going to hear Alice's Restaurant whether she liked it or not. But she showed ME, and put her ear plugs in to listen to one of the five songs she might have missed because I wanted to share an experience with her.
I'm an historian...it's in my DNA. I am fundamentally incapable of experiencing anything without attempting to figure out its roots. I'm not PROUD of this fact..it's just the way I'm designed. Alice's Restaurant is a classic....very funny and at the same time very profound. And I would have loved to listen to it with my daughter, but hey, there might have been a Rhianna song on at the same moment.
Despite what the stats say, I'm not a Boomer. But my older siblings are Boomers. I was just a kid who managed to walk directly into moving traffic, drank Drano, and ran through glass doors while my older siblings were busy being Boomers. I was just a witness to their anti-war hippie antics. I worshiped them (my parents made me) and learned a lot on the sidelines.
My brother Michael was just at that age during the Vietnam War where he had a number. Ask any man in their sixties about their number, and about the experience that Arlo Guthrie talked about in Alice's Restaurant, being called up by the military to check if they were fit to fight, walking around some compound with dozens of other men naked, scared shitless, and examined by military doctors. My parents' ardent fight against the Vietnam War might have been personal-their son was not going to go there-but they were actually right. And every person who was responsible for engineering that war hopefully is rotting in Hell.
But I will tell you, as a wide eyed young bystander, what those years were like for me. I was a kid, but I remember seeing a young John Kerry at an Anti-War Rally in Boston Common. I have a weird memory snapshot of him. I remember an Anti-War Rally at my own house, where our livingroom was packed with teenagers wearing black armbands, and my father had to take a phone call from some angry adult who called him a Communist. Yikes! A Communist! That was worse than being called a pedophile at that time! And Mrs. Jackson yelled at me in front of my Third Grade peers, and told me my brothers were "hippies,' who wore "Love Beads." And I couldn't even do a cursive "S" to her satisfaction. Bitch.
I wanted so much for my daughter to listen to Alice's Restaurant. It's twenty five minutes of a guy, with a guitar, so funny, telling his story about the still unresolved irony of young people being asked to fight wars that old people create (SO not my words!) I got a really awesome education growing up (despite Mrs. Jackson). My parents fought for what was right....my other friends' parents were never as brave....and I got to listen to The Who and Joni Mitchell, when everyone else was listening to Donny Osmond..
And as an historian, I will tell you that not much has changed. We need to listen to Arlo Guthrie a whole lot more.
I was driving south on 495 with my daughter Annie on Thanksgiving day. We hit the road fighting at around 11:15, and then I remembered that Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant gets played on the radio every Thanksgiving at noon. I told Annie I wanted her to hear it, but she was pissed at me about something and wanted Radio Control so she could hear the same five songs that they play over and over again and frantically changed the station just in case she missed one of those songs, but I stood firm. I was going to hear Alice's Restaurant whether she liked it or not. But she showed ME, and put her ear plugs in to listen to one of the five songs she might have missed because I wanted to share an experience with her.
I'm an historian...it's in my DNA. I am fundamentally incapable of experiencing anything without attempting to figure out its roots. I'm not PROUD of this fact..it's just the way I'm designed. Alice's Restaurant is a classic....very funny and at the same time very profound. And I would have loved to listen to it with my daughter, but hey, there might have been a Rhianna song on at the same moment.
Despite what the stats say, I'm not a Boomer. But my older siblings are Boomers. I was just a kid who managed to walk directly into moving traffic, drank Drano, and ran through glass doors while my older siblings were busy being Boomers. I was just a witness to their anti-war hippie antics. I worshiped them (my parents made me) and learned a lot on the sidelines.
My brother Michael was just at that age during the Vietnam War where he had a number. Ask any man in their sixties about their number, and about the experience that Arlo Guthrie talked about in Alice's Restaurant, being called up by the military to check if they were fit to fight, walking around some compound with dozens of other men naked, scared shitless, and examined by military doctors. My parents' ardent fight against the Vietnam War might have been personal-their son was not going to go there-but they were actually right. And every person who was responsible for engineering that war hopefully is rotting in Hell.
But I will tell you, as a wide eyed young bystander, what those years were like for me. I was a kid, but I remember seeing a young John Kerry at an Anti-War Rally in Boston Common. I have a weird memory snapshot of him. I remember an Anti-War Rally at my own house, where our livingroom was packed with teenagers wearing black armbands, and my father had to take a phone call from some angry adult who called him a Communist. Yikes! A Communist! That was worse than being called a pedophile at that time! And Mrs. Jackson yelled at me in front of my Third Grade peers, and told me my brothers were "hippies,' who wore "Love Beads." And I couldn't even do a cursive "S" to her satisfaction. Bitch.
I wanted so much for my daughter to listen to Alice's Restaurant. It's twenty five minutes of a guy, with a guitar, so funny, telling his story about the still unresolved irony of young people being asked to fight wars that old people create (SO not my words!) I got a really awesome education growing up (despite Mrs. Jackson). My parents fought for what was right....my other friends' parents were never as brave....and I got to listen to The Who and Joni Mitchell, when everyone else was listening to Donny Osmond..
And as an historian, I will tell you that not much has changed. We need to listen to Arlo Guthrie a whole lot more.
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