From my calender

Still no friggin' sound card.  This is really ticking me off.  But for now let's forget about this, and focus on something amusing.

As I've mentioned, my day-to-day calender this year features a joke each day, taken from the long tenure of Johnny Carson at The Tonight Show.

I'll share three of these today.

On September 20, 1972, he told of a trip he had made to Hollywood Boulevard.  "So I was roaming around up there, and a nice elderly lady stopped me, and she said, 'Did you know, that in Los Angeles, a woman gets molested every sixty seconds?' I said, Well, what do you want me to do about it?' She said, 'You got a minute?'"

On September 26, 1973, Johnny told his audience:  "I found out an interesting fact about Tommy Newsom [a saxophone player in the NBC orchestra]. He's a great musician but not the most exciting man to be around. When he was a kid he didn't have to have his appendix taken out -- it left of its own accord."

On April 2, 1976 there was a bit of an archeology lesson.  "Three thousand years ago they didn't even have any toothbrushes to clean your teeth. Egyptian dentists just took you out during a sandstorm and made you smile."

Wooka wooka wooka.

Hardball Negotiating

Prank phone-calling aside: the unions engaged in this high-profile confrontation with Governor Walker have agreed to the financial concessions involved. According to their offer now on the table, if I understand it, the union members will begin contributing 5.8% of their salaries toward their pensions (versus what the WSJ imprecisely calls "little or nothing" until now).

Also, members will begin paying a minimum of 12.6% of the health care premiums, up from the current average of 6%. Note that wording carefully, for the increase is greater than the numbers alone make it seem -- that is a current "average" on the one hand matched against a minimum on the other.

If Governor Walker's hardball politics, his existential threat to the unions themselves, has been necessary to get that concession, then it has served its purpose. If so, maybe he should withdraw the existential threat and lock in the concession. Then he may go down in the history as the Governor who ensured the solvency of that pension and health-care system.

As this intelligent commentary explains, the bill of which this is a part would "restructure the state's pension model to a more sustainable system."

Fromn that POV, this isn't all that new a development. Its old-fashioned hardball negotiating. Demand ten of something if you want 5. The demand for ten makes sense not on its face but because if you had only demanded 5, the other side would have thought you only really wanted 2.5.

If Walker backs off from his ten and accepts his 5 graciously in the next few days: good for him.

Here's a link to an intriguing book on labor negotiations as dramatic performances.

The Invention of Lying

I finally saw the recent Rick Gervais movie, "The Invention of Lying," on Friday evening.

Here's a link to the wikipedia article, though let this be a 'spoiler' warning before you click it.

Anyway, the movie is very funny. It is also gutsy, because it is an implicit philosophical argument of a sort that would be extremely unpopular in the U.S. were it a tad more explicit. The movie protrays a society much like the contemporary northeastern US within an alternative universe in which humans have never lied, never created any fiction for that matter, and don't even have words to explain the possibility of doing so. Their movies are filmed lectures about dramatic events from the past, and indeed we catch a quick reference to an upcoming film that will be called "The Invention of the Fork."

The protagonist of "The Invention of Lying" evidently has some neurological quirk that makes him different from everybody else, in that he can "say something that isn't," as he puts it at one point, trying to explain it to a friend.

That protagonist, Mark Bellison, played by Gervais, is surprised to discover this difference about himself, and for the most part he uses it benignly. He does con a bank out of some money -- but that is presented as due to desperate circumstances. Later he helps a homeless man, and offers his mother consolation on her deathbed.

Here we get to the crux of the matter. There is no evidence in this film that any sort of religion existed prior to the "invention of lying." His dying mother is expressing the predominant view of this alternate world's human species when she tells him how frightened she is at the imminent prospect of entering "a giant everything of nothingness." Gervais makes her final moments comfortable by telling her that she is going to a wonderful place where all the people she has loved and lost over her lifetime are waiting for her -- a place without pain or want.

It is important to the philosophical weight of this movie that the reason that he starts telling stories about the nice place we all go to after death is a benevolent one, told by a guy with whom we can't help but sympathize. Yet it is still a lie. And one with unexpected consequences.

Unbeknownst to Mark Bellison, the doctor and a handful of hospital staffers are behind him, listening to this conversation. They hear all these things about the life after this one, and since there is no concept of "saying what isn't" in their world, they believe it. They want to tell people this wonderful news. Word spreads, and soon the protagonist is a prophet. Everybody wants to know more.

One incidental oddity that struck me is that their world has a history to it very much like our own. From various references one gathers that there was a "black plague" that took place in the 14th century, and that the use of terms such as "14th century" or "1st century" for that matter, mean pretty much to them what they mean to us. But why, in a world without religion, would the "1st century" be called that? Why would a count have begun then?

Another less-incidental oddity (it may be considered part of the film's message) is that the ability to lie is connected to an ability to consider the subjective aspect of other people. Mark and his love interest (Anna, played by Jennifer Garner) have an idyllic moment in a public park, which turns into his effort to explain to her that people are not solely what they seem -- that, for example, the overweight fellow lying on the grass to their left may not be the lazy loser he seems, but may be "the world's greatest poet," who gets his inspiration in this way.

Over time, Anna grasps the seeing-beyond-the-surface part of Marks' message, although she never does really grasp the 'lying' thing. So: are those two memes closely connected, or not?

There's something else that sticks with me. At some point soon after his first lie, Mark decides to help a homeless man -- a guy who has been sitting on the street with a sign that says, "I don't understand why I'm in the street and you have homes." This fellow is played by Michael Patrick Gough according to imdb. Mark takes him into the bank, says something to the clerk (we can't overhear this bit) and the clerk hands the homeless guy a large chunk of money.

Leter, we see a homeless man again. The shot comes and goes so quickly that I'm not sure whether it was the same guy, and/or the same sign (though another wordy sign was involved). What is the message there? That lying doesn't realy solve social problems? Or does this imply also that money doesn't really solve social probelms, and that even if the money had been given honestly the original homeless guy may have difficulties, such as an expensive addiction, that would have put him back on the street anyway?

A Story and a Joke

Thursday night, I mentioned the gist of the following story to one of my companions at the feast. I've fleshed it out a bit since.

Many years ago, my best beloved, a brave group of harried and godly folk became tired of the game known in the old world as "football."

William Bradford said, "This is a stupid game. Let us travel to a distant place, where we can invent a better game and call IT 'football' instead."

And Captain Standish said, "I will lead the way."

Then said John Alden. "When we get there, we can assign a new lame-sounding name to the game we have rejected -- but I fear I am not the right person to invent the adequate nomenclature."

Priscilla. "Don't be so timid John. I'm sure you can come up with a good idea. Speak for yourself!"

John, emboldened, said: "Ah, then, let us call it 'soccer'! And let us never play it again!"

And they all said "Amen" as they walked aboard the Mayflower.

---------------

And as the holiday drew to a close, I watched a DVD of one of Jerry Seinfeld's old standup routines.

In the funniest bit, he talked about how sky-divers wear helmets. This seems odd to him, since in the event the 'chute doesn't open, the helmet won't save you.

"If the chute doesn't open, you're there as a cushion for the helmet. Later, all the helmets will get together and this one will tell his buddies the story. 'Yes, it was a close call. I would have been smashed up pretty awful if I hadn't had a human strapped beneath me.'"

This might be funny

The new movie, "You Don't Mess with the Zohan," may prove funny. I'm not a big fan of Sandler in general, but the headline on one of the reviews I've seen, "'Shampoo' meets 'Munich'" is a gem in itself.

Sandler plays a Mossad agent turned hairdresser.

Of course the allusion of the headline is on the one hand to this movie and on the other hand to this one.

I'm reminded of a phone conversation I once had with the pr guy for a Canadian company called Mosaid Technologies, a company in the business of developing and licensing semiconductor-related intellectual property.

I first pronounced the company "Mossad." He told me that it's "moss-aid, we're not the Israeli secret service." I apologized. "It's all right. We're confused with Mossad all the time."

Hogan's Heroes

Ivan Dixon died last weekend.

Here's what TIME has to say.

Dixon, of course, was "Kinch," or on formal occasions Sgt. Kinchloe, on the old situation-comedy "Hogan's Heroes." I intend no disrespect, but I'm noting his passing chiefly because it gives me a chance to say something about that sitcom in general.

It operated at two very different levels. There was the in-the-barracks (ITB) stuff, and the in-commandant's-office (ICO) stuff. For the most part, the ICO was superb. You'd have three fine actors: Bob Crane, Werner Klemperer, and usually John Banner as Schultz, playing off one another like old vaudeville partners. At best, it had an improv feel to it.

On the other hand, the ITB stuff was time-filling kitsch. There were the usual ethnic stereotypes -- a Limey, a frog ... then there was the clean-cut Sidney Poitier guess-who's-coming-to-dinner black guy, which was Dixon's role -- and for good measure there was a naive white rural kid whose father ran a drugstore in some unnamed town. (A redneck before Foxworthy had approved of that word for television.)

The stereotypes said the stereotypical things, and the plot creaked forward, relieved only by the moments when the three real talents of the show would find themselves together again, and we'd be back at the ICO level.

I've now displayed the fact taht I've spent much too much of my life watching such stuff, and it may seem that I've been less than gracious to the dearly departed as well. Of course I mean no offense to Dixon, who probably did the best he could with the hackish lines he was given to read.

Rest in peace, then.