#1121 Farve Dynasty

English words are hard enough, and when you get to given names they get even harder. Like the surprise you first felt when you saw Wor-ces-ter-shire spelled out and realized it’s nowhere near woostershir. Similarly the words boat-swain, pronounced bo’sun, and the word victuals, pronounced vittles.
So I guess I should understand why they pronounce Brett Favre’s name farve even though it’s spelled fav-re. The R- is very clearly after the V in his name yet all and sundry pronounce the R first. Farrrrrrrve. Even more confusing as his first name is Brett and he’d probably deck you if you called him Bert. Bert Farve is way more consistent.
Like his 3-day growth of beard. Every time I see a picture of Brett Favre he has a 3-day growth of beard. Do you think it’s just as hard to maintain a consistent 3-day growth of beard as it is to shave every day? Maybe he sponge-paints it on...
Speaking of names, the other day I was discussing with a Mormon friend the name of the founder of their religion. He may have been a great man, even a prophet, but what an unfortunate name. Joseph Smith. With all due apologies, “Joseph Smith” just sounds like an alias. Like John Doe or John Smith.
It sounds like a name you use when you’re coming into town on the down-low. Which, due to the early persecution of Mormons, because of beliefs they had like polygamy, he sometimes had to do.
It’s like a name you use when you’re checking into a hotel. “Hi, I’m, um, Joe Smith, and this is my, uh, wife, Mrs. Smith and this is my wife, Mrs. Smith, and this is my wife, Mrs. Smith...”
Names are funny that way, they lead you to all kinds of weird assumptions. Like the new Warren Miller film that’s out this year. It’s called Warren Miller—Dynasty.
I imagine this trailer. Big music. Long shot of a female figure shredding this nearly vertical slope. The figure catches monster air as the announcer intones “Warren Miller— Dynasty.” The camera zooms in and it’s... Joan Collins.
Big Air and Big Hair, It’s Joan Collins in Warren Miller’s Dynasty...
America, ya gotta love it.

#1120 Dumb-ability

So my friend Rick, always the observer when it comes to society’s foibles, made an observation the other day about toilet paper.
Toilet paper has recently been in the enviro-news. Turns out toilet paper not only is white, it isn’t green. The super-plush quilted toilet paper can only achieve its buttockial luxuriance by virtue of the long fibers of old growth trees.
That’s right, some 400-year-old tree gave its all so you could have a comfortable rump rub. The majesty of this great and stately living thing, whose sprout was alive when Jamestown was founded, is reduced to pampering your backend.
I have no position on this issue yet, but I’m certainly inclined to look down on the tissue.
The observation my friend made was that there is now a “triple-ply” toilet tissue. One ply is never enough, and apparently two-ply just wasn’t cutting it. So now, it’s three-ply.
What, are they taking a page from the Gillette Track Two people? (I think they’re up to about fifteen overlapping blades by now.)
But, there’s a limit. You would assume at a certain point adding plies would add stiffness as well, like cardboard, or at least a thickness that brings up another tissue issue altogether.
If you have such thick paper, why not just use reusable cloth? It works for table napkins. Cloth napkins have totally cut down my paper towel use. Can butt-cloths and a bathroom diaper pail arrangement be far behind?
But my friend also pointed out something else on the toilet paper package. It said it was flushable. Well I hope so. Flush-ability is a given when it comes to toilet paper. This is not the thing to be cluttering up the bathroom ash can.
It reminds me of a sign I just saw on the front of a bar. It was advertising some brand of beer and the beer claimed it had “drinkability.”
Well yeah. That would be something you would pretty much expect for a beverage.
I mean, I can’t remember the last time I thought my enjoyment of a beer would be better if I used a fork.
Flushablilty, drinkability, advertisers have such dumbassabilty to point out the obvious.
America, ya gotta love it.

#1119 Clackety Towns

So I was driving along the road and this truck went by me and it had one of those license plate frames on it from a car dealer. And the frame said it was from Clackamas Oregon.
And I thought, we have such cool and bizarre names for towns in the northwest. Clackamas. It sounds so spooky somehow. Like the noise a skeleton makes at Halloween. Or a weird fifties song—Clackety clack, don’t talk back.
Or maybe it’s some weird percussion instrument. Somewhere between the claves and the maracas. “All right, drum section, on this next tune we need someone who can really play the Clackamas. Then George, I want you on the temple blocks and Jimmy you get the ridged fish thingy.
Of course Clackamas also sounds like a devastating social disease. An STI that that gives you crusty sores and creaky bones. Did you hear, he got a bad case of the Clackamas. They’re trying antibiotics and percussive therapy.
But a place like Clackamas is what you’d expect in these parts. After all, we have towns like Humptulips and Tulalip. Both places that sound like some sort of strange horticultural practices. Tu-lay-lip... so is this a place where all the tulips grow laying down? And how about Humptulips? Obviously tulips they only plant at places like the Mima Mounds. A tulip species engineered for optimum growth in hummocks.
Worse, we have a town named Sequim. Put aside for a moment that it’s spelled SEE-quee-im, like the sequins on your disco outfit. It’s pronounced squim. Like squirm but without the R.
And there are no pleasant words the start with the skwih sound. You got the aforementioned squirm. But then you got squiggle, which brings to mind slimy snakes. You got squid, one of the least attractive of animals, a chewy snotball with suckers. Again far from pleasant.
And finally, you got squishy, which sounds for all the world like shoes after you’ve stepped in a puddle.
There’s a civic motto for you. Sequim, we remind you of your shoes after you’ve stepped in a puddle.
America, ya gotta love it.