Some Things About Me (part four)

76. I have bounced a check or two (or three) in my time. It’s not something I’m proud of. For what it's worth, it was due to poor recordkeeping on my part, not a desire to defraud anyone.

77. Our family had a CB radio in the car back in the 1970s when it was all the rage. My handle was “Texas Tornado.” Copy that, good buddy? 10-4.

78. The stupidest, worst comedy I remember seeing is “Anchorman” with Will Ferrell. It’s one of the few movies in my life I’ve felt like walking out of.

79. I took oil painting lessons in 6th grade, and was getting much better when I had to quit because we moved to another town.

80. When I was in elementary school, my mother made me and my younger brother take etiquette lessons. We were taught how to introduce ourselves and others (“Mr. Jones, may I introduce Mr. Muley.”) We learned which fork was which, how to use napkins, how to insert cufflinks, what to do with finger bowls, and how to bow, among other things. I have forgotten most of what they taught, although I do remember that elbows on the table are a big no-no. Feet on the table, too, as far as that goes.

81. I think O.J., Michael Jackson, Robert Blake and Lizzie Borden are guilty, UFOs and the Bermuda Triangle are bogus, Elvis is dead and Paul McCartney is quite alive. However, I believe there could have been a second gunman in the JFK assassination, and that there are supernatural occurrences that defy human explanation. And the check sometimes is in the mail.

82. I spend more money than I’d like to admit each year at Half Price Books. I have been a customer since my college days, and I can easily spend two or three hours browsing without blinking an eye. My family has learned to drop me off and just arrange a time to meet me later.

83. I also try to periodically sell back books I’ll never read again (or have grown tired of) to Half Price Books. If I was rich and had rows of empty bookshelves I’d probably keep them all, but I have a finite amount of space, so I must purge every now and then to permit me to bring new treasures home.

84. I love to fish, although I don’t end up doing it much.

85. I don’t think there’s a sexier screen performance than that of Grace Kelly in either “It Takes a Thief” or “Rear Window.”

86. The first girl I ever had a crush on was Lisa Counts in the third grade. She was a beautiful Southern belle, and I knew she was something special when she invited me to her birthday party and I learned that she had invited only boys.

87. I have never watched a complete episode of the following TV shows: Alias, 24, Desperate Housewives, Lost, The OC, CSI (any variety), Stargate, The Man Show, Sex in the City, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, Joey, Grey’s Anatomy, South Park, Greatest Race, Survivor...Maybe it would be easier if I just listed the current shows I have watched.

88. I’m jealous of people such as my daughter Rebecca and fellow blogger Jenn who are natural artists and can draw whatever they want so well. I am in awe of people who can draw or paint well.

89. I’m a huge fan of the comedy team of Bob and Ray. They are the kings of dry humor and wit, in my opinion.

90. I prefer books with a straight-on narrative style, and a good, event-filled plot if it’s a work of fiction or autobiography. Books where the author talks for pages about his memories of the smells of pickles and alfalfa on his grandma’s farm drain the life out of me and make me reach for the TV clicker.

91. I’ve had to dig holes to bury two dogs (they were dead at the time) as well as take one cat to the vet to be put to sleep.

92. Based on which TV show makes me laugh out loud the most, the Beverly Hillbillies is the funniest thing on the tube. I knew my wife and I would get along well when I learned she loved both the Beverly Hillbillies and Star Trek.

93. One of my literary goals is to read every book Charles Dickens ever wrote.

94. I accepted Christ as my Saviour during elementary school, although it wasn’t until college that I was baptized.

95. Two historical periods that interest me greatly are the Victorian Age in Britain and the 1920s, the “Jazz Age,” in America.

96. I always wanted to learn how to fly a plane, but my poor eyesight prevented me. Now that I’ve had RK surgery, my eyesight would probably be okay, but I have neither the money nor the time to learn. My dad learned to fly small planes when I was a kid, and he would take me flying with him across Texas. We used to touch down in small rural airports where you had to make sure the cows were off the runway before landing. I'm not kidding.

97. I am doing research for three eventual books right now, all nonfiction books about local history.

98. I celebrated the American Bicentennial on July 4, 1976, by watching a huge fireworks show over Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans.

99. As I’ve grown older, I have learned the value and wisdom of speaking less and listening more.

100. This last fact does not explain why I feel the need to keep a blog.

Twelve Flags, Seven Days, One Hearse

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Muley family took some time off over Spring Break to do a little traveling around Texas. We went with another family from our church we're good friends with and who have girls around the same age as our two daughters.

We made the daring, possibly insane, decision to visit both of the Six Flags Over Texas parks in the state within seven days of each other. We began with a one-day trip to Six Flags in Arlington, where we had to go to pick up our new season passes. Six Flags must be in need of some quick cash, because they have a deal now where you can buy a season pass for the price of a one-day admission. Consequently, there were a bajillion people at the park, most of them new season pass holders like us.

The funniest sight I saw in the Arlington park was one of the musical acts. This was during spring break, and apparently someone in park management figured, "Hey, we'll have oodles of head-bangin' college and high school kids here on Spring Break. We need a band they'll like." So, they hired an aging baby boomer heavy metal band that played songs such as "White Wedding" at a volume that almost jammed the radar at nearby DFW Airport. Here is the band in their full rockin' glory:


Actually, they weren't all that bad. The big problem was that the park officials apparently decided it was okay to place this 100 decibel gang of bangers onstage at the edge of the young kiddie section of the park, right between the log flume ride and the Spongebob Squarepants 3-D Theatre. As a result, there weren't too many screaming college chicks around rushing the stage, but there were a lot of deaf old people and exhausted moms with baby buggies, glad for a chance to sit on a bench, who made up the crowd. Don't they look as though they might form a mosh pit and start tearing off their clothes any minute?


Have you gotten "fed up" with the high prices they charge for food at amusement parks? We have, so we were looking for culinary bargains at Six Flags. We finally found a great deal on some incredibly inexpensive food near the koi pond.


We returned home, and after a few days back in Waco we took off again, this time to Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio. This is the best Six Flags park in Texas, in our opinion, because the rides are better and it's usually less crowded. There was nothing weird to report at Fiesta Texas, except that they asked me to join their latest publicity campaign. (Uh, I'm the one on the left...)


I did get one final laugh out of the trip, although it wasn't at Fiesta Texas. I was doing some browsing at a Borders bookstore while the rest of the crew was out clothes shopping, and when I left and got in my car, I noticed an old hearse across from me in the parking lot.


Now, a retired hearse being put to use as personal transport is not all that uncommon, but what got me to laughing was the vanity license plate attached to the front:


Today's quote:

"It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off."

--Woody Allen

A Smattering of Quotes

The Muley family is getting ready to embark on a long-anticipated Spring Break trip, so I won't be around to check my blog for awhile. And since I've been so busy this week trying to "get ahead" at work, I've not allowed the contemplative, goofy part of my brain to have much of a chance to mull over something that could be crafted into a well-written, witty post.

In place of said well-written post, I'd like to offer you a few quotations to ponder. As I've said before, I collect quotations and enjoy reading them. Here's a few of the ones I've collected in the past few weeks I'd like to share:

"There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ does not cry out, 'This is mine! This belongs to me!'"

--Abraham Kuyper

"Unless we can bring men back to enjoying the daily life which moderns call a dull life, our whole civilization will be in ruins in about 15 years...Unless we can make daybreak and daily bread and the creative secrets of labor interesting in themselves, there will fall on our civilization a fatigue which is the one disease from which civilizations do not recover."

--G.K. Chesterton

"An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way."

--Charles Bukowski

"The world is changing. Those of us who automatically deal out politeness words in suitable contexts are becoming uncomfortably aware that we earn less credit for it than we used to. It is becoming obvious that we are the exception rather than the rule, and that our beautiful manners fall on stony ground. People who serve the public are becoming impervious to rudeness, either because they are young and don't care, or because they are older and have learned to toughen up or suffer a nervous breakdown. Either way, if you attempt to sympathise with a shop-worker who has just served a rude customer, the response is rarely the one you expect. Mainly you will get a blank shrug, which carries the worrying implication: this person doesn't care whether customers are polite or not. This makes it quite hard to go through the ensuing politeness display without feeling self-conscious, or even quaint."

--Lynne Truss
in Talk to the Hand

"I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it."

--Edith Sitwell

"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"

--Abraham Lincoln

Rejected Romance Novel Titles #6

Any of you ladies interested?

Another "Four" Meme

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. I've been tagged with that same ol' "four" meme that's going around the blogosphere now. Here's my answers.

Four things I've never stuck up my nose (all the way):
1. Potting soil
2. Catnip
3. Postage stamps
4. Rodents

Four nicknames I had in grade school:
1. Hey, fathead
2. Yeah, you
3. Boar Hog
4. Goiter Boy

Four mistakes I still regret:
1. Attending junior high
2. Feeding laxatives to seagulls
3. Standing underneath laxative-fed seagulls
4. Wearing Donny Osmond pajamas

Four of my favorite numbers:
1. 87
2. 369
3. -5
4. 87 (I mean, I really like this one)

Four of my pet phrases:
1. Are you gonna eat that?
2. No, really, it's only a fever blister
3. I'm free, and well worth it
4. Yes, dear

Four careers I once considered pursuing:
1. Zoological spoor redistributor
2. Hamster sexer
3. Tanning bed lightbulb installer
4. Archduke of a small East European country noted for exports of phlegm

Four of my worst habits:
1. Biting my fingernails
2. Biting other people's fingernails
3. Collecting Q-Tips used by famous people
4. Wearing fake parrot on my shoulder while at Long John Silver's

More Reasons to Be Happy

I'm stil working on trying to write a few movie reviews, and since I have nothing new to offer today, I've decided to update and re-run a post I did soon after I started blogging last year. Hope it gives you a few laughs.

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

Sixteen years ago, a short but squat little book titled 14,000 Things to Be Happy About hit bookstores. In the book's opening pages, author Barbara Ann Kipfer said that the work was the fruit of a 20-year effort to write down the "little things" that made her happy.

The compact, simple volume has proven to be quite a welcome counterpoint to the public flow of information over the years, seeing as how just about every newspaper and TV news program nowadays could be subtitled 14,000 Things to Feel Crappy About.

I have passed by this book many times in the bookstore, but I finally decided to take it off the shelf and have a look. The way I figured it, if push came to shove I could only name maybe 2,000 things to be happy about, and I thought, why am I missing out on 12,000 others?

I found a lot to agree with in Kipfer's choices. Who among us doesn't have happy thoughts about making love, music, nature walks, rereading a good book, singing old hymns in church, small at-home dinners, opportunity, doing something against all odds, and "this thing called love?" For my personal taste, I was glad to see that Kipfer included such favorites as the Hallelujah Chorus, the Art Institute of Chicago, Bob and Ray and Kahlúa chocolate torte.

Of course, we aren't all made happy by the same things. I guess Kipfer is a different sort of person, or maybe she was running out of obvious ideas and had to stretch, but I find it hard to hop on the Happy Bus for salespeople, the ring of the telephone, loud radios, "morning mouth," listening to the news, cold hands, "food debris under a high chair after an attempted feeding," planning your future with the help of an Ouija board, grass stains, spittoons, Spam, sour milk, seeing a grown man cry, or Gene Shalit's mustache. Especially Gene Shalit's mustache.

A few entries just had me puzzled. Are we supposed to feel emotional one way or the other about brake fluid, isosceles triangles, dial tones, Naugahyde or "the suck of a pump?" And aren't a few of the items a bit dated? Is anyone truly made happy anymore on a consistent basis by mood rings, the Senate Watergate hearings, Senator Howard Baker, Polaroid Land cameras, shower microphone soap, Montgomery Ward, Tab soda commercials, 3 1/2" computer diskettes, AMC Pacers or "boogie dancing?"

In case Ms. Kipfer ever wants to release an updated and expanded version of the book titled 14,030 Things to Be Happy About, I offer her these potential additions free of charge:

* No TV series planned starring Pillsbury Doughboy
* Pouring hot oil on enemy combatants from high atop castle walls outlawed by Geneva Convention
* Barney show no longer inserted between features on U.S. to Asia flights
* Despite rumors to contrary, Jerry Mathers, Paul McCartney and Abe Vigoda still alive and well
* Euell Gibbons televised appeals to begin eating pine trees fell on deaf ears
* Scurvy eliminated in most North American fishing fleets
* Only 70 years until U.S. Tricentennial
* Proposed leisure suit revival killed because of high oil prices
* Treaty of Oregon setting U.S.-Canada boundary still preventing bloodshed after 160 years
* Country singers dying slow, lyrical deaths from TB a thing of the past
* Metric system and Esperanto never caught on in U.S.
* Thanks to commentary translation track by marine biologist on DVD set, Flipper's words now understandable
* Last insurance claims from Krakatoa eruption finally settled
* Despite decades of wobbling, Weebles still do not fall down
* "Dark Side of the Moon" now distributed to all world people groups, including prehistoric tribes in Asia
* Haggis still banned from most U.S. restaurants
* Cloning of zoo pandas will prevent embarrassing public ridicule over mating failures
* Widespread notoriety of classic "pull my finger" prank has greatly decreased its use
* Constitutional ammendment to add Millard Fillmore to Mount Rushmore failed
* Charlie Tuna's death wish still unrequited
* Lakehurst, N.Y., relatively free of fatal blimp accidents since 1936
* William Shatner finally has decent hairpiece
* Slow tectonic forces still centuries away from ripping Florida from U.S. mainland
* Goofus' behavior still considered bad example in "Goofus and Gallant" cartoons
* Reverse of Colorado commemorative quarter will not feature John Denver in granny glasses
* Cancerous test mice denied legal standing by lower courts
* General Francisco Franco still dead
* Banana Splits reunion postponed indefinitely
* Loss of U.S. control of Panama Canal has not prevented timely shipments of Yu-Gi-Oh cards to East Coast
* New series "Star Trek: Shore Leave Tiki Lounge" killed at pilot stage

Today's Quote:

"Once, craftsmen of all kinds were referred to as artisans, people who considered their work to be an art. There's no reason we can't create a life that allows us to approach our work and our lives in this way, as artisans –– people who, in the words of George Bellows, 'make life more interesting or beautiful, more understandable or mysterious, or probably in the best sense, more wonderful.'"

--Paul and Sarah Edwards
from The Practical Dreamer's Handbook

Abortion Steals a Waving Flag

Once again, there's evidence that pro-abortion forces can't stand to be competitive in the marketplace of ideas.

Earlier this week, a pro-life group at Baylor University here in Waco, Texas, planted 3,500 pink and blue flags. Near the flags they posted a sign which read, "In Loving Memory of the 3,500 Children Aborted Daily in the United States." The students, who call themselves Bears for Life, had permission from the administration to put up both the flags and the sign and keep them up through Wednesday.

However, some pro-abortion types snuck out Tuesday night, and in typical fashion (under the cover of darkness) removed all 3,500 flags, replacing them with a sign which read, "Abortion Saves 7,000 Adult Lives Every Day." I guess seeing all those thousands of little flags waving across Fountain Mall for the aborted babies was just too much for them.

In case you're interested, here's the full story from the Baylor student newspaper, the Lariat.

Random Observations and Trivial Events

1. After browsing the spines in the bargain DVD bins at the video store, I have determined that one of the most popular movies on the planet is apparently titled “Security Device Enclosed.” I have never heard of this flick, however, and IMDB has no listing for it. Has anyone seen it who can provide a review? It sounds like something maybe starring Sylvester Stallone or Steven Seagal.

2. I have never read the book, but I found this funny "abridged version" of the Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged while trolling around blogs the other day.

3. I have occasional moments of olfactory epiphany. I’ll get hold of a certain scent –- usually riding on an outdoor breeze or slipping out of some busy kitchen –- and instantly I am transported back in time, to joyous days of childhood or times of adventure or courting. The feeling doesn’t last long, but it is powerful enough to stop me dead in my tracks sometimes.

4. I am somewhat frustrated that so many of the hot series now on TV are sequential instead of episodic. That's a fancy way of saying that each episode continues the story line into the next episode, like a soap opera. I am frustrated because, although I don't get to watch much TV at all, I hear about great shows I might enjoy checking out if only their story lines weren't so far advanced. For example, it seems everywhere I hear what a great, riveting show "24" is. If I just tuned in one night and watched a new episode, I'm sure I would be fatally lost and confused. "Who's that character? And who's that? And why is that guy plotting against that one? Wait a minute, why'd he shoot that guy and not the other one?" To truly get up to speed, I 'd no doubt need to go back and watch the previous four seasons worth of episodes, but who's got time for that?

5. I am so in awe of natural artists such as my daughter Rebecca and fellow blogger Jenn at "My Life is a Cartoon." They can draw just about anything, it seems, and are so creative with not only their pictures but their thoughts. I think I'd die happy if I just had half their talent to draw people and things.

6. I can't seem to find an answer to this burning question: there's "new," and then there's "brand-new." What does the extra word "brand" signify? Why is it there? Is there a real difference between the two words? Don't they mean the same thing?

7. I have finally decided to give up on Little Women halfway into it, and try it again when I'm more in the mood to read it straight through. I will leave you, though, with one excerpt I had marked. It's a very old-fashioned, non-PC bit of advice that Mrs. March gives to her daughters about what they should strive for in life. I think I'll share it with my own daughters when they're a bit older.

"I want my daughters to be beautiful, accomplished, and good; to be admired, loved, and respected, to have a happy youth, to be well and wisely married, and to lead useful, pleasant lives, with as little care and sorrow to try them as God sees fit to send. To be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman; and I sincerely hope my girls may know this beautiful experience. It is natural to think of it, Meg; right to hope and wait for it, and wise to prepare for it; so that, when the happy time comes, you may feel ready for the duties, and worthy of the joy. My dear girls, I am ambitious for you, but not to have you make a dash in the world -- marry rich men merely because they are rich, or have splendid houses, which are not homes, because love is wanting. Money is a needful and a precious thing -- and, when well used, a noble thing -- but I never want you to think it is the first or only prize to strive for. I'd rather see you poor men's wives, if you were happy, beloved, contented, than queens on thrones, without self-respect and peace."

Rejected Romance Novel Titles #5

I'm working up a few movie reviews, but until I finish them, here's another in my series of romance covers you'll never see. This north-of-the-border bodice-ripper might have been made into a movie with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald back in the 1940s.

(By the way, I am not the creative graphic artist who came up with these parodies. I pulled them off a web site somewhere, and if I had saved the URL I would give it to you).



Today's Quote:

"Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise."

--Margaret Atwood
in Cat's Eye

Something or Other Interruptus (But Not That)

Have you ever had a case of interruptus? I mean, do you have problems finishing what you start? For some reason, I've been battling it more than usual lately.

I most notice it in my reading habits. I pick up a new book -- fiction or nonfiction, it matters not -- and begin with excited anticipation, turning pages like an accountant on April 14. But then, by the time I'm halfway through the book, my interest flags. Sometimes I trudge on anyway, thinking, "This is a good book. It's even considered a classic. I should read this and finish what I started." This logic, quite frankly, is what got me all the way through the unabridged versions of both Les Miserables and Moby Dick, books which are great at the beginning and end, but drag terribly by page 726 or so.

But sometimes, I don't even finish. I just give up. I quit. My list of books each year that I start and then don't finish is most assuredly longer than the list of ones I do finish. Maybe this is why I try to read Goodnight Moon at least once a year, to get that feeling of literary completion without a lot of effort.

(I've just re-read this about 10 hours after I wrote it, and on second glance I realize I sound like a bit of a lazy dilettante, starting in on a book and just dropping it on a whim because maybe there aren't any more pretty pictures or because I want to go to sleep and drool on the couch all day. In reality, what occurs is a teaming of two fatal forces: the book becoming a little boring, and my discovering a new book that seems even more exciting and worthy of my limited free time. I'm like an insatiable playboy philanderer who starts dating his new girlfriend before he even gets around to dumping his old one. I know this only in theory, by the way.)

My latest "stuck on the tar baby, caught in the brier patch" book is Little Women. I enjoyed the first quarter a lot, and I appreciate how it paints such a pleasant picture of life. But now I'm smack dab in the middle of the thing, after I've learned the father recovers from his war injuries and little what's-her-name doesn't die of fever, and I'm trying to decide, "Do I want 250 more pages of this?" I haven't touched it in a week or so. The thought of sneaking off to a new book -- maybe a juicy modern mystery or a Wodehouse comedy -- is seducing me like a sultry painted lady of the night. But then I think, what about Jo and the girls? What will I say now if someone ever asks if I've read Little Women? I'll have to answer, "Duh, I've read half of it," as if the prose was just too complicated for me to understand or something.

I do the same thing with movies. It's very rarely that I watch a DVD or even a movie on TV in one, uninterrupted sitting. I'll watch a third or a half, get called away or find something else I want to do instead, and the movie never gets finished. Can you tell me if Rhett and Scarlett live happily ever after? Did they ever figure out what "Rosebud" was? Was Norman Bates' mother the killer in "Psycho?"

Another thing that happens is that I will finish the movie, but I'll do it by watching in 20- or 30-minute segments as I'm running on the treadmill or doing another task. These viewings don't all take place right after each other, so I'm many times popping in a movie and asking myself, "OK, what was going on when I left this a week ago? And who are the characters again?"

I know that this is no way to read books or watch movies. I like to think I have more of an attention span than this would indicate, but maybe I don't.

I'm curious, readers. Do you also have problems with literary or video interruptus? When you get well into a book or movie and it loses its zing, do you drop it and move on, or do you stick with it?

Today's Quote:

"We Christians must simplify our lives or lose untold treasures on earth and in eternity. Modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life all but impossible, The need for solitude and quietness was never greater than it is today."

--A.W. Tozer

Oscar Thoughts

Mrs. Muley and I pointedly didn't watch the Oscars last night because, frankly, there weren't any movies in contention for the big awards that we were interested in. Also, it was readily apparent that this year's nominations were a big poke in the eye to conservative, family values Middle America, with just about every movie filled with appeals for the approval of homosexuality, and views of America as a racially bigoted place run by evil corporations and filled with bloodthirsty, misguided anti-Communists.

I mean, I figured "Brokeback Mountain" would win Best Picture, but did it matter to me if a movie which portrayed us all as foaming homophobes lost to a movie potraying us all as foaming racial bigots? Not really.

Let's face it, a movie I thought was undoubtedly one of the best of the past year -- "Chronicles of Narnia" -- won exactly one Oscar. One. For best makeup. Whoo-hoo!

On the plus side, I see there were some bright spots. I'm glad Reese Witherspoon won Best Actress for her part in "Walk the Line" -- a role and a movie I enjoyed. I'm also glad that two of my favorite movies of 2005 won in lesser categories: "March of the Penguins" for Best Documentary, and "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" for Best Animated Feature.

But what made me most proud, as a consumer of pop culture, as a parent, and as an American, was the winner of the Best Song. I didn't see the show, and I've never heard the song that won, but this description from an AP news story just melted the cockles of my heart:

The raucous hip-hop tune "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from "Hustle & Flow," whose expletive-laden lyrics had to be toned down for performance at the Oscars, won the prize for best song. The song was written by the rap group Three 6 Mafia, aka Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman and Paul Beauregard.

Featuring dancers dressed as hookers and pimps gyrating on stage, the song's performance stood in sharp contrast to the other nominated tunes and the general stateliness of the Oscars.

"You know what? I think it just got a little easier out here for a pimp," joked Oscar host Jon Stewart.

The Lion Story

Alright, it's time for the lion story. You asked for it.

This tale takes place back in the late 1980s, when I was a young reporter with one of Waco's three television stations. I was a general assignments reporter, meaning that I could be covering City Hall or a car accident one day, and doing a feature story on a woman's collection of dolls made from corncobs the next day.

One blustery winter day, I was assigned to take my photographer and do a story about the Waco Zoo. Apparently, there were some new additions that were being contemplated. I must set this story by saying that while Waco now has a beautiful, natural habitat zoo along the Brazos River, the zoo at the time I was a reporter was a pretty shabby affair. It was located on a flat, tiny piece of land near the airport, and was far from a "natural habitat." The animals were crowded in small cages which were lined up next to each other.

I felt good going out to the zoo that day. It was cold but sunny, and I was nice and warm inside my new leather jacket, which I had been saving for out of my measly reporter's salary for quite some time. I must say, I looked good in it, and I knew I would look good on air as well.

We went through the basics of getting the story by interviewing the zoo director and a few visitors, then shooting "B-roll," pretty shots of the zoo and its animals which we'd slap over my narration of the piece before it aired. So far, so good.

There was one final thing we had to do before leaving -- shooting the "stand up." This is the part of a TV news story where you actually see the reporter on camera, holding his or her microphone and making some serious and hopefully intelligent-sounding observation.

After looking the place over, my photographer decided that the most photogenic place to shoot the standup would be in front of the lion cage. There were two lions in there -- a male and a female -- and we would position the shot so that you'd see me backed up near the cage on one side of the TV screen, while over my shoulder you'd see the lions on the other side.

From what I remember, the lions that day were taking a nap when we arrived. Like many animals in zoo cages, they looked as though they spent a lot of their time each day snoozing.

We set up the shot, and there I stood in my new leather jacket, my script improvised on the spot. We did a few run-throughs to let me practice first, and then we were ready to tape.

I did a few takes, but for some reason I can't remember I wasn't happy with them. Maybe I flubbed a word, maybe the wind was blowing hair in my eyes. Anyway, I started the third take with confidence that this would be the one that nailed it.

Soon into my speech, I felt what I thought might have been a light mist blowing against my neck -- sort of like when there's a sprinkler turned on next door, and the wind wafts over some of the spray. It didn't bother me, though, and I kept on talking.

A few seconds later, I felt the mist become a strong stream of liquid hitting me square on the neck and back, as if some kid had one of those Super Soaker water cannons pointed at me, unloading at full power. Not a little angered at my perfect take being disrupted, I jumped back and turned around to see where the offending stream was coming from.

Imagine my shock (and disgust) when I looked at the lion cage, and noticed that Mr. Lion was no longer napping. He had gotten up and backed himself up against the bars, butt first. His tail was lifted high, and a stream of urine was still flying in a high arc toward me. I had no idea a lion could pee like that! If I had been judging for form and distance, I would have held up the card reading "9.8."

Of course, I quickly realized what had happened. I had interrupted Mr. Lion's snooze, so he had decided to give a new definition to the term "mainstream media" and shut me down. When he finally finished his task, he gave me what I swear was a sleepy grin, turned around and then laid back down to sleep.

It was so bizarre that I had to laugh. And even though the photographer was laughing as well, he didn't stop rolling tape the whole time. I soon stopped laughing to turn toward the lion and give him a piece of my mind into the microphone. I'm not happy to confess that I used a few words that would get bleeped if they ever showed up on television.

We eventually calmed down and I ended up completing the standup, albeit a little farther away from the cage. We couldn't wait to get the tape back to the office and see the whole thing again.

When we popped the tape in the machine, we were instantly disappointed. The ancient TV cameras we used back then had tubes in them instead of computer chips -- a blue tube, a red tube and a green tube. If they were correctly aligned, you got natural color. If the tubes were misaligned -- which could be caused by as little as a slight bump to the camera -- then any tape that was recorded ended up looking like a series of red and blue shadows, something like how a 3-D cartoon looks if you don't wear the 3-D glasses. We could still make out me and the lion, and hear every word I said, but the picture was un-airable. Our hopes of submitting it to "America's Funniest Videos" were dashed.

I got some more bad news. Remember my brand-new leather jacket? Well, it was covered in lion pee. Have any of you ever had something urinated on by a little house cat? Remember how acrid (and how hard to deodorize) that stuff is? Well, multiply house cat urine by about 50 and you have lion urine. I could have taken that jacket, dumped it in benzene and then dangled it over Niagra Falls for an hour or so, and the smell still wouldn't have come out. Sadly, I threw my reeking jacket in the trash. My station being the cheap place it was, the management refused to buy me a new one, even though I had been hosed in the line of duty. It was awhile before I could afford another.

So, there's my lion story. I still have the tape of that event, and every now and then I get it out and play it. I'm not sure if I will ever play it for my kids, since it will show them what colorful, descriptive language Daddy used back in his TV days. But Mrs. Muley and I get a kick out of it.

And the lion? Oh, he's probably enjoying strolling through his new, natural habitat home in the Central Texas Zoo. And laughing when he remembers me.

I hope he has fleas and mange.

Bone-a Lisa

Trolling around the Internet yesterday, I came across a web site for a company called Jean's Dog Shop (or Cafe Press, I can't tell which), where they sell various items emblazoned with Photoshopped pictures of the Mona Lisa holding a wide variety of dogs in her lap. Being a Shetland sheepdog owner, I was glad to find a picture of Mona holding both varities of shelties owned by my family.

I'm not advertising for the company (although if they want to, they can send me a free coffee mug or something), but if you're in need of a little cyber fun, mosey on over to Jean's Dog Shop to look at an incredible number of renditions of dogs with ol' Mona.

Here are just a few more examples:

Some Things About Me (part three)

51. I’m an innie.

52. My favorite Stooge is Curly.

53. The first Presidential election I was eligible to vote in was the 1980 contest. For some reason I only vaguely remember now, I couldn’t bring myself to vote for either Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan, and ended up voting for Independent candidate John Anderson instead.

54. I have seen all of the James Bond movies except “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” which is considered to be one of the worst. When I was in kindergarten, I had a James Bond spy briefcase, which featured a rifle barrel that would appear from the side when you pushed a hidden button.

55. During our senior year in high school, my best friend and I were allowed to read the morning announcements over the school PA system. We loved to play jokes, such as reading a fake announcement instructing someone to report to a certain room number, which would end up being a girl’s restroom or a janitor’s closet.

56. I was in Boy Scouts for two years, attaining the rank of Life Scout. I bailed out before I earned my Eagle.

57. I’ve had almost all of the classic bad dreams before –- the caught in public naked dream, the tornado dream, the falling dream, the showing up for a big test totally unprepared dream (I seem to have that one most often). Actually, though, I rarely remember my dreams, and very few of the ones I do remember I’d classify as sexy or even as a form of wish fulfillment.

58. I have a mild to moderate fear of heights, depending on the place and the safety features. This has not, however, prevented me from flying in airplanes or standing atop such high creations as the former World Trade Center, the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Hemisfair Tower in San Antonio or Pikes Peak.

59. I played Little League baseball for six years, basketball for one year in a church league, and football on my 8th grade school team. That’s the extent of my organized sports involvement during grade school.

60. The last time I shaved my upper lip was the day of my high school graduation, and I’ve had a mustache ever since.

61. I have never eaten snails, caviar, sardines, sushi, sheep’s eyeballs or any other nasty foods in the same general category.

62. When I was single and dating, I never had much of a chance getting women to like me through my looks or physique. If I had any chance at all, it was by making them laugh.

63. I have been keeping a daily journal fairly regularly since the early 1990s. I almost never look back and read it, unless my wife and I can’t remember the date of something and need to refer back to the journal to verify the date.

64. I am a big history buff, including family history, which I guess is one reason I keep the journals even though I never read them. They will give my kids and grandkids something not to read some day.

65. I know all the lyrics to the Texas A&M fight song, even though I never went to school there. At the same time, I don’t remember the lyrics to the fight songs of the schools I did attend.

66. I have never been bitten by a snake or stung by a bee or wasp. I have, however, lost gallons of blood to Southeast Texas mosquitoes over the years.

67. When you look at the shirts hanging in my closet, you will find a number of them with bright colors, including a Hawaiian shirt that makes my wife wince every time I get it out.

68. I had some pretty boring summer jobs, including working two summers in the men’s department of Weiner’s department store and stuffing advertising fliers inside newspapers. One summer, however, I got to be a reporter for a weekly newspaper in Pasadena (Texas), covering the city of South Houston. It was fun.

69. My middle name is Mark. If one of the radio or TV stations I worked for had ever insisted that I change my on-air name, I was going to choose “Mark Randall” as my alias. Luckily, I never had to do this.

70. I was big into racing Hot Wheels cars and building airplane models as a kid.

71. I’m told that I don’t speak with a Texas accent, although I do frequently employ Texanisms such as “fixin’ to” and “ya’ll.”

72. When I was quite young, my mom decided that she was going to make me try tomato juice, something I was determined not to do. One Saturday morning, she set a glass in front of me at the breakfast table and told me I couldn’t leave to go watch cartoons unless I’d tried some. I stubbornly refused, and eventually she let me go. I have never liked tomato juice, and I’m not going to try it to see if my tastes have changed.

73. I used to go tubing and rafting all the time in the Guadalupe River when I was younger.

74. I can’t really snap my fingers worth a darn.

75. My 5 o’clock shadow arrives each day about noon.

A Temporary Deflation

Have you ever had one of those days when worries and fears about a host of different things all sort of coalesce into a black hole in your mind? Well, I had one of those kind of days yesterday.

I surely wasn't looking for trouble. It was a normal day, but I guess my trouble started because I consumed more than my usual amount of "news and information" coming in through the media and my trusty computer. By looking at news sites and blogs on my computer, reading the daily paper and listening to a bit of a few radio talk shows, I quite by chance collected a tidy little pile of smoldering information about what a terribly fallen world we live in.

Not any of these stories by themselves were things I hadn't heard before, or are even worth specific mention here. Suffice to say that they were stories demonstrating how far the world has gone from the teachings of Christ, and how the world holds the things of God in contempt -- in Hollywood, in Washington, D.C., in our nation's courts and schools, and among some worldly, super-tolerant, so-called "Christian" clergy.

Again, it was nothing I hadn't heard before, but somehow the sheer number of stories, or maybe the unwavering philosophical agreement in all the stories, caused my soul to reach some sort of critical mass of despair. I allowed myself to doubt there was much of a point in continuing the good fight here, and concluded that the salvation of the Earth was a bit of a lost cause. I began having that delicious recurring daydream of mine, about me and all my fellow believers relocating to a peaceful, private island somewhere, devoid of worldly strife and unbelief. I wanted to be like the singer of Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World," whose desire was to "throw away the cars and the bars and the wars, and make sweet love to you."

Have you had days like that?

Of course, as I was spiraling down, rubbing my palms together and getting ready for a good session of depression and self-pity, I recalled one verse from the Bible that served as a reminder to my fevered brain:

"In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

Another verse was lovingly put into my mind, the one which tells us that Jesus is not necessarily going to win any popularity contests or cause a big worldwide, hand-holding rendition of "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing":

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law — a man's enemies will be the members of his own household." (Matthew 10:34-36)

And then, as if to supplement those Bible verses, I happened (quite by accident?) to come across some quotes from famous Christians shooting down any defense of a retreat to the peaceful island:

"If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest expression every portion of the truth of God, except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I might be confessing Christ."

--Martin Luther

"When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith."

--Abraham Kuyper

"Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you. What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross."

--Flannery O'Connor

Well, all of this was what I needed, if not what I welcomed. It rattled my brain back into realizing that events down here are not eternal truths, and that one day all this will fade away. But it also convicted me of how little I am doing to "push back against the age."

I'm still not totally out of my funk today -- I'm not sure I'm meant to be just yet, since it has caused me to think about some things I was blissfully ignoring just days before. So bear with me if I don't have a humorous post for awhile (although I know that soon I must tell my lion story because some of you have asked nicely for it).

Again I ask, do any of you have days like this from time to time? I'd be interested in hearing about how you met your doubts and fears.

Rejected Romance Novel Titles #4

I've been busy the last few days and haven't had time to do a "proper" post, one of those gems that mines the complexities of life, grapples with moral quandaries and makes people laugh so hard they spew their Yoo-Hoo. As a stopgap measure, here's the fourth part of this continuing series. Would any of you ladies like to be in this romantic position? I think this gal will need a good chiropractor if this keeps up.

Random Observations and Trivial Events

1. I have a great idea if there’s a group of balding middle-aged guys out there who have formed a boomer classic rock band and are trying to come up with a cool name. Are you ready? INVOLUNTARY TONSURE. Mysterious, self-deprecating, and even a bit assonantal. If they’re costume lovers, they could take the stage wearing monk’s hoods. That would get the ladies’ attention.

2. The change of seasons, courtesy of Wal-Mart late one night this past week: an aisle marked “Seasonal,” a girl at one end removing red, forlorn unpurchased Valentine hearts and candy, a second girl at the opposite end, filling shelves with pastel eggs and rabbits. It’s like watching the moon and the tides.

3. I’m excited! Mrs. Muley and I are going to see the movie “Walk the Line” tonight, and I hope it’s as good as everybody says. Right now, I just don’t see Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash, so I’m hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

Rejected Romance Novel Titles #3

I don't know, I see maybe Patrick Swayze or David Hasselhoff in the movie version.

Lovesick

I spent the Day of Love yesterday at home, sick in bed. Luckily, it was nothing more than a bad cold, and I spent the entire first half of the day asleep.

When I finally awoke, I stayed in bed and watched two movies, both of which I can heartily recommend. The first is the 1999 Masterpiece Theatre version of the classic Charles Dickens tale David Copperfield. This three-hour adaptation is broken into two parts. The first part, where David is a boy, features Daniel Radcliffe playing David. Radcliffe, as you probably know, went on to much greater fame playing Harry Potter on the big screen.

The movie is wonderful, mainly for the fine acting of the supporting characters. Maggie Smith, another Harry Potter alum, plays Betsy Trotwood, and Ian McKellum, who played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies, does a perfect job as the cruel schoolteacher Creakle. Bob Hoskins, one of my favorite actors, does a fine job as Mr. Micawber. I will say that the guy who played the grown-up David Copperfield was rather bland, but all of the great supporting turns made up for his somewhat by-the-numbers performance. Highly recommended.

After watching David Copperfield, I saw a highly rated "chick flick" romance I'd been wanting to see for some time, Love Comes Softly. This is based on the book of the same name by Christian fiction author Jannette Oke. It's a quiet, gentle movie set during pioneer days when families were going west in covered wagons to settle the plains. Katherine Heigl, who plays on the TV series "Grey's Anatomy," which I've never watched, is excellent in the leading female role. She plays a young woman who comes west with her new husband, only to lose him during the journey to a freak accident. A widowed farmer makes her an offer to marry him and watch over his young tomboy daughter until the spring, when he'll then pay her passage back east to her home. She accepts, and the movie is about how this woman comes to learn to "bloom where she's planted" and follow God's sometimes unexpected leadings.

Like I said, this movie is considered a "chick flick," but I enjoyed it. There's a sequel titled Love's Enduring Promise which features the same family years later getting eaten alive by a pack of wolves. Just kidding. I want to watch this one as well.

Speaking of "chick flicks," I am in the middle of one of the classics of "chick lit," namely, Little Women. It's a quiet little book, full of grace and class, and though I could see why some might consider it dated in its portrayal of women, I am enjoying it for its spirit and its strong Christian undercurrent.

I'm back at work today, even though the medicine I'm taking makes it hard to stay awake. I'm happy to report that my daughter's basketball team won their first game last night, and my daughter scored the winning basket. She was so happy, it made my feelings of fatigue and illness just melt away. And Mrs. Muley gave me a sweet card and a nice new shirt I really like. A great way to end Valentines' Day.

How was your day?

Some Things About Me (part two)

26. Two foods that a lot of people seem to like (but I hate) are onions and mayonnaise. Two foods that a lot of people seem to hate (but I like) are lima beans and pork rinds.

27. I was a fairly good speech-type person in junior high and high school. I placed second in state in both debate and extemporaneous speaking different years.

28. The only time I’ve stayed overnight in a hospital is when I had my tonsils out when I was five years old. I was upset because I had asked my parents to get the doctors to put my tonsils in a jar that I could take to my kindergarten class for show and tell, but they didn’t come through. I did like all the ice cream, through.

29. I went through three schools and three majors in my tour of the Southwest Conference during college. I started out going for a year at Baylor as an accounting major, then went for a year and a half to the University of Houston as a Radio/TV major, then ended up at the University of Texas as a broadcast journalism major. I graduated with a bachelor of journalism from UT in 1982.

30. I started wearing glasses when I was 12 years old. I tried contacts along the way, but they always bothered my eyes and I gave them up. About 12 years ago, I got RK surgery so I wouldn’t have to wear glasses anymore. By that time, my glasses were almost Coke bottle size and kept slipping down my nose.

31. I got my first kiss in seventh grade during a spin-the-bottle session at a party. The girl’s name was Wendy. I enjoyed the spin-the-bottle concept because at that time in my life, it was the only way I was ever going to get a girl to kiss me without some sort of armed threat. The party might have been a little tawdry and all, but I remember it as a magical night.

32. I am a Dr Pepper addict. I believe they began putting it in my bottles soon after I was weaned from formula, and I’ve been drinking it ever since. If they figured out the volume of all the Dr Pepper I’ve drunk over the years, it would probably float a battleship. If they gave me back all the money I’ve spent on Dr Pepper over the years, I undoubtedly could retire comfortably.

33. I am a decent artist, but I never pursued getting better at it as I probably should have. I can’t draw people worth beans, but I can do graphics and landscapes fairly well.

34. I met my wife when we were both working for a small market television station. When we met, I was a news bureau chief and she worked in production. By the time we married, she had moved up to producer of the 10 p.m. news.

35. When I was being born (the natural way), my big head got “stuck” and I had my oxygen supply threatened. My mom has always claimed that if they hadn’t been able to pull me out with forceps when they did, I would have been born a mongoloid. Some people over the years have said this explains a lot about me.

36. When I was in college, I was in a “band” with some of my friends. We couldn’t play band instruments, and we couldn’t sing very well, but we knew how to use recording equipment. We’d find recorded instrumentals, write our own lyrics to them, then record our singing over the tracks. We even gave a few public “concerts” singing over these instrumentals, including one concert in a large airplane hangar. Youth has no shame.

37. I once entered a poem of mine in a contest run by some blue-haired ladies in a county literary society, and I won. I can’t even remember if I got any money, or if they just knitted me a potholder.

38. The singers or groups that I have seen in concert include Elvis (in the Astrodome as a kid), the Who, ZZ Top, Bruce Springsteen, the Marshall Tucker Band, the Blues Brothers, Amy Grant, Ronnie Millsap, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, and Weather Report.

39. I once was in the same room as George W. Bush. He was the governor of Texas at the time, and he met in his reception room at the Capitol with Abner McCall, the former president of Baylor University, who was being honored. I was there to take video of them shaking hands and talking. To my eternal regret, I did not attempt to shake GW’s hand myself.

40. I took four semesters of Spanish in college, but still can’t speak it.

41. I am a “Trekkie,” albeit the non-obsessive type.

42. From third grade until my junior year in high school I thought I wanted to be a doctor. When I went on a field trip to a hospital and saw the kinds of things I would have to do to learn to be a doctor, like cutting open cadavers, dealing with blood and doing intimate things to people, I changed my mind.

43. If you can believe it, I then decided to get an accounting degree followed by a law degree, and be a corporate attorney. I was thinking how much money I would undoubtedly make, but thankfully I also came to realize that I would end up gnawing through my mahogany desk in boredom.

44. I like to collect quotes and lists of vocabulary words I don’t know.

45. I write haiku for fun.

46. I was in journalism classes at the University of Texas with E.D. Hill, one of the co-hosts of “Fox and Friends” on Fox News in the morning. And when I working as a bureau chief for one station in Waco, she was co-anchoring at another. I seriously doubt she would remember me now.

47. I never owned a leisure suit, but I did once go to a high school prom wearing a white tuxedo with a powder blue ruffly shirt and a honkin’ big blue bowtie. I did it to match my date’s dress, but I felt like the pinch hitter at a gay escort service.

48. The first magazine I ever had a subscription to was Boy’s Life, since I was in both Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. The first magazine I subscribed to out of my own pocket was Mad magazine. I can still remember how I’d be so excited when a new issue, full of twisted humor, would appear in the mailbox.

49. My first car was a 1967 Volkswagen Beetle, which I outfitted with an 8-track tape player as soon as I could.

50. I had a childhood crush on Valerie Bertinelli from the “One Day at a Time” TV show, but then she went and married Eddie Van Halen. Oh, well.

Some Things About Me (part one)

I've always been meaning to do one of these lists, so here goes. I'll break it down in smaller bites so as to not gag anyone.

1. I have blue eyes and brown hair. When I was born, however, my hair was a dirty blonde color.

2. I have lived in Texas all of my life, including stints in Houston, Austin, Friendswood and Waco.

3. I have traveled to 38 of the United States as well as the District of Columbia. I’ve got 12 more states to visit before I die: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Delaware, West Virginia, South Carolina, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, North and South Dakota and Alaska.

4. Sadly, like many Americans, I have only been to two foreign countries: Canada and Mexico.

5. My favorite song as a very young child was “Puff the Magic Dragon” by Peter, Paul and Mary. I still love it.

6. The first LP I ever got my parents to buy me was the second album by the Monkees, “More of the Monkees,” the one with “I’m a Believer” and “(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone." I played it until the grooves disappeared.

7. I have a habit of cracking my knuckles, which unnerves Mrs. Muley.

8. Since I was a somewhat fat child all throughout elementary school, I got the honor of playing Santa Claus in my first grade Christmas play. I didn’t need a lot of extra padding. I had to pantomime to “The Night Before Christmas,” including puffing my pipe and shaking like a bowl of jelly.

9. I became a Houston Astros fan at a young age, back when they routinely occupied the National League cellar. I would listen to the game broadcasts on a little AM/FM radio in my room.

10. I signed up for the “Astros Buddies” club one year, and listed my favorite Astro as Jesus Alou. I got a membership card with his photo on it.

11. Speaking of the Astros, the summer before my freshman year in college I worked in “food service” at the Astroworld amusement park in Houston. I sold soft drinks, made hamburgers and peddled Pink Things out in the blazing Texas sun.

12. I have three brothers, all younger than me. I’m the only one of them who has either married or had kids. One of them still lives at home with my parents. I don’t see them very often.

13. I once was urinated on by a lion in a zoo. I must do a post about that some time.

14. My favorite Charlie’s Angel when the show was on TV was Cheryl Ladd, but now I think I like Jaclyn Smith the best. I was never a big fan of Farrah Fawcett-Majors, especially after she started knocking around with Ryan O’Neal.

15. I played trombone in junior high and high school. At one point I was thinking of switching to trumpet, so I took lessons and learned to play that as well. As a result, I ended up being able to play trombone, trumpet, baritone and tuba.

16. I can also play the triangle.

17. My mother describes my heritage as “Heinz 57 variety.” My ancestors were German, Czech, Polish, English and even Native American. We got around.

18. One of my ancestors supposedly an early Texas settler. As a result, I was accepted into membership to the Sons of the Republic of Texas. I have never been to a meeting, but I’m a member.

19. When I was a radio and TV reporter, some of the famous people I got to interview or ask questions of in news conferences were President Jimmy Carter, Beverly Sills, Merle Haggard, Alexander Haig, Donny and Marie Osmond and Heloise.

20. When I was visiting New York City one time in my bachelor days, I saw novelist John Irving in Central Park. I was a fan of The World According to Garp and a few of his other books, and I thought about approaching him and introducing myself, but he was in a deep conversation with a young woman, and I didn’t think he’d enjoy being interrupted.

21. I started collecting coins as a young boy, and have continued to do so off and on since then.

22. I can name all of the U.S. presidents from memory, and in the order they served. I’ve known how to do this since third grade.

23. I have written one short story that I took the trouble to have copyrighted. It’s called “The Bloody Turnip Diet.” I wrote it in college, and it’s about a kid who hates having to analyze stories to death in English class.

24. I’ve been a Beatles fan almost my entire life, but during college and my 20s I was a huge fan. When John Lennon was murdered in 1980, I wore a black armband to work.

25. As a kid, I once owned a guinea pig named Sassafras.

And Them Ain't Small Potatoes

Here's a little-known piece of Hollywood trivia for you on this rainy Friday afternoon (at least in Waco, Texas).

Actress Marilyn Monroe was photographed wearing just about every conceivable type of clothing during her career, including bib overalls, sailor suits and a few infamous shots wearing "nothing but a smile." At one point, a newspaper columnist remarked that Marilyn would look good even in a potato sack, and she responded by posing in one. The shots of her wearing the "potato sack dress" were a bit hit around the world.

So, what do you think? How does Marilyn Monroe look in burlap?

Random Observations and Trivial Events

1. Did any of you see the Rolling Stones perform during halftime of the recent Super Bowl? I was watching the show with a bunch of other 40-somethings from my Sunday school class, and the initial consensus was that Mick Jagger looked pretty good for someone in his 60s, especially considering how thin he was and how much energy he seemed to have. However, after Mick removed his jacket and started strutting in a T-shirt, a closeup shot revealed the wiggling wattles of fleshy fat dangling from his upper arms, and the women in the room I was in let out a loud, simultaneous “Ewwwwww” of revulsion. I think it ruined for them the whole idea of Mick as a senior citizen sex symbol.

2. People here in Waco were shocked and saddened to learn of the death of one of our local TV weather forecaster’s sons over the weekend. What was unusual was that it was not an accidental death brought on by a car accident or drug overdose, but an accidental death that occurred while parasailing behind a tractor. I didn’t know you could even do this, much less that people do do it. I know the family must be grieving, so please say a prayer for them.

3. Have you heard the incessant ads on radio and TV for some product called “HeightMax?” A father comes on, worrying and fretting aloud about his son’s short stature, and the helpful female announcer asks, “Have you tried HeightMax?” It’s supposedly an “all-natural” supplement full of vitamins and nutrients, according to the company’s website, but my question is, who has the problem here? The kid who might just be a little delayed in his normal development, or the anal retentive dad who is so worried about his child not being as tall as the other boys that he’s willing to try pills hawked over the airwaves? I know a number of buddies of mine who were shrimps in junior high or early high school, and by the time they hit college they were six feet tall or better. Sometimes it just takes time. But I guess I can understand why a person might want to try to help the body along. Society is not very kind to very short men, I don't think. (I'm 6'2", by the way. I was very tall very early, the opposite dilemma).

Muley's Metaphors: The Coelacanth

"The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius."

--Aristotle, Poetics

Okay, now hold it. I'm surely not claiming to be any stripe of genius, but I do love metaphors, and I like to create them in the same way that some people might like to make a quilt or take a pretty photograph.

What usually happens is that I will be thinking about something, usually something puzzling or surprising in my life, and, unbidden, a metaphor will burst out of my subconcious. I will then match it to the situation I'm thinking about to see how well it "fits." If it springs a lot of holes, I discard it. But if it keeps its shape on first examination, I tend to put it in the back of my mind, and then bring it out every now and then to test it again. After passing a number of tests such as these, I'll usually "keep" the metaphor in my permanent storage chest, even if there are a few minor aspects that don't fit perfectly. I mean, how often does any illustration or comparison fit perfectly?

I say all of this to preface the fact that my metaphor chest has gotten a bit crowded, and to air it out I've decided to share a few of my "keepers" with you. That way, you can tell me if I'm spot on, or if my metaphor crafting ability is as full of holes as a donut factory.

Today's metaphor uses the image of something called a coelacanth. That's pronounced SEE-luh-kanth. I first heard the story of the coelacanth when I was a child, and it has always fascinated me.

What, you ask, is a coelacanth? Well, it is a species of fish, representing the oldest lineage of fish known to man. Here's the thing: until 1938, the only examples of the coelacanth we knew of were fossils. The fish was believed to have been extinct since the end of the Cretaceous period (the "Age of Dinosaurs"), which ended 65 million years ago.

So here's the coelacanth, thought vanished from the Earth for 65 million years. But then, in 1938, an amazing thing happened. A strange fish was caught off the east coast of South Africa off the Chalumna River. The local fishing experts couldn't identify this large and somewhat ugly fish, and it finally ended up being shown to a taxidermist. He remembered seeing pictures of the fossil remains of a coelacanth, and positively identified the mystery fish.

It was evident that the reports of the coelacanth's extinction were premature. Since 1938, in fact, a number of other specimens have been caught in various places in Africa and Indonesia.

I have never caught an extinct fish, but I have had a number of "coelacanth moments" in my life with friends and acquaintances. I will meet someone at a certain point in my life -- maybe a schoolmate, a neighbor, a fellow employee, a romantic partner -- and for awhile I am in frequent contact with them. But then, something major happens -- I move, they move, or we both move. Maybe we are good enough friends that we try our best to keep in touch, but we both get busy with new friends and responsibilities, and before long we have disappeared off each other's radar screens entirely. Old photographs and yearbooks might be the only way either of us remember the other at all.

But just when we think that other person is gone, forgotten, blotted off the Earth entirely, BOOM, we turn a corner and run into them. We have had our coelacanth moment, and a person we thought we'd never see or hear from again is now making small talk with us as if only days, not years, have passed.

The number of my coelacanth moments is not large, but the sightings have definitely been more numerous than I'd ever have predicted. The latest one is one of the most surprising. I went to elementary school at a place called Frostwood Elementary School in Houston in the mid- and late 1960s. One of the kids in my classes was a guy named Lyle who was a friend, but not really a close friend. He had a very unusual last name (which I'll not reveal here), and his full name I doubt is shared by anyone else in the United States. I moved from Houston to Friendswood in 1972, and that was the last I saw of Lyle. I thought.

Fast forward to about six weeks ago. My nine-year-old daughter Katelyn has signed up for a new season of youth basketball, and it's the Saturday when she gets to meet her new coach and teammates for the first time. I take her to the gym and proceed to try and guess which middle aged guy on the court is her coach. I point to one man and ask a bystander, "Is that Coach Jones?", and they say "No, that's Lyle _____." I hear that name from my childhood, and I immediately know that there's no way that person can be anyone but my old classmate. I walk up and introduce myself, and sure enough, it's him. We're both a bit amused, I think, to run into each other this way.

Of course, there's a sequel to this story. Last night, my daughter's basketball team, winless so far, was hoping to score their first victory with an easy win against Lyle's team (winless and almost scoreless for the season). Dang it if he and his girls didn't beat us. I was thinking after the game, if I'd only known back in elementary school that Lyle's daughter's team was going to beat my daughter's team, I probably wouldn't have loaned him any pencils.

This is only the latest coelacanth moment I've known. I've been on vacation in faraway cities I've never visited before and run into people I worked with or studied with decades before. I have gotten calls out of the blue from high school classmates I last saw on graduation night more than 25 years ago. I have worked with neophyte reporters in small market television stations, lost track of them after they got better jobs, and then years later found them again, appearing on some national network TV news program. It seems I keep catching those ancient fish, over and over again.

So, what about you? Have you had any coelacanth moments? And if so, were they pleasing, or upsetting? I'm interested to know.

In any case, this was fun. I'll be back with more metaphors from time to time.

When Can We Call Ourselves Artists?

My teenage daughter Rebecca, an aspiring artist, found a book in the shelves on a recent Barnes & Noble excursion called The Art Spirit by Robert Henri. Henri was apparently a famous painter and painting instructor, and the book is a collection of his comments collected from his lectures and letters, published back in 1923. I looked through the book and found a number of thought-provoking observations. Here's how the book opens up:

Art when really understood is the province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing.

When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and he opens ways for a better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it, shows there are still more pages possible.

The world would stagnate without him, and the world would be beautiful with him; for he is interesting to himself and he is interesting to others. He does not have to be a painter or sculptor to be an artist. He can work in any medium. He simply has to find the gain in the work itself, not outside it.

Museums of art will not make a country an art country. But where there is the art spirit there will be precious works to fill museums. Better still, there will be the happiness that is in the making. Art tends towards balance, order, judgment of relative values, the laws of growth, the economy of living -- very good things for anyone to be interested in.

Here's another passage that leaped out at me:

There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual -- become clairvoyant. We reach then into reality. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom.

It is in the nature of all people to have these experiences; but in our time and under the conditions of our lives, it is only a rare few who are able to continue in the experience and find expression for it.

At such times there is a song going on within us, a song to which we listen. It fills us with surprise. We marvel at it. We would continue to hear it. But few are capable of holding themselves in the state of listening to their own song. Intellectuality steps in and as the song within us is of the utmost sensitiveness, it retires in the presence of the cold, material intellect. It is aristocratic and will not associate itself with the commonplace -- and we fall back and become our ordinary selves. Yet we live in the memory of these songs which in moments of intellectual inadvertence have been possible to us. They are the pinnacles of our experience and it is the desire to express these intimate sensations, this song from within, which motivates the masters of all art.

I felt a pang of knowing guilt reading this one:

The habit of digression -- lack of continued interest -- want of fixed purpose, is an almost general failing. It is too easy to drift and the habit of letting oneself drift begets drifting. The power of concentration is rare and must be sought and cultivated, and prolonged work on one subject must not be mistaken for concentration. Prolonged work on one subject may be simply prolonged digression, which is a useless effort, as it is to no end.

And here's one final thought from Robert Henri:

The true artist regards his work as a means of talking with men, of saying his say to himself and to others. It is not a question of pay. It is not a question of willing acceptance on the part of the public. If he is welcomed and paid it is very good, but whether or no he must say his say.

Rejected Romance Novel Titles #2

Random Observations and Trivial Events

1. I just noticed a new entry to the “Dummies” series of books called something like Getting Pregnant for Dummies. Don’t we have enough of this going around already? And do you really need a book to tell you how to do this? I’m wondering what the company will do for an encore. Will there ever be a book in the best-selling “Dummies” series titled Learning Disabilities for Dummies? Or a book in the “Idiot’s” series titled The Idiot’s Guide to Interbreeding?

2. Don’t laugh, but I have just started reading the book Little Women. And no, it’s not because I think it’s a photo book you look at long ways. I’ve heard so much about this American classic, I feel I’ll be missing out on something if I don’t read it. The heroine of the story, Jo, is a tomboy who I’ve heard described as the only woman in 19th century American fiction who was allowed to be opinionated and independent and “get away with it,” meaning that she didn’t have to relinquish it for the sake of some guy. I want to read about her and see how Louisa May Alcott created her (a character very much like her, I’ve been told). Any Little Women fans out there?

3. Speaking of literary classics, there’s a number of others that I’ve so far neglected to read, and this year I’m going to try and tackle at least a few of them. On my 2006 reading list so far:

The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
The four books in The Chronicles of Narnia I haven’t read yet

Any other suggestions for a good "classic" read?

4. Through various sermons I’ve heard lately from three different pastors, I’ve been getting the message that God has a plan for me, and that if I’m not having fun at what I’m doing for a living, God probably wants me doing something lese, something that uses the unique talents he’s given me. I’m on board with this assessment, but my question is – how do I find out what this “perfect work” is? The short, answer, or course, is pray about it, but I seem to be unable to discern God’s will for my life through prayer. I guess that’s my real question here – any tips on how to do this?

5. Finally, I was listening to a few minutes of an A&E “Biography” show on Frank Gifford this morning while I was getting ready for work, and I heard a funny story. The show was talking about how when Kathie Lee married Frank Gifford, he was already old enough to have grandchildren. It mentioned that when Kathie Lee had her first child by Frank, some of his old football and broadcasting pals were a little taken aback. When Frank called Don Meredith to tell him the news, there was a long pause, and then Meredith said “Don’t worry, Frank, I’ll find the guy who did this to her.” Years later, when Kathie Lee was pregnant with their second child, Frank called Meredith with the news, and again heard a long pause, followed by, “Dang it! I killed the wrong guy…”

Rejected Romance Novel Titles #1

Brad and Jen and Angelina, ad infinitum

As a former member of the broadcast news media, I understand a little about what type of story resonates with readers and viewers. A lot of recent stories that made a big splash on TV and in the tabloids I knew would be big, and I could see why. The runaway bride story? No doubt people would be interested in that. A young, healthy sex symbol like Lindsay Lohan showing up looking like a skeleton? I understand why people want to know what happened. The Weekly World News reporting that Bat Boy has run off with Hillary Clinton again? Hey, let me read that.

But there is one story that remains at the top of the news list for TV and magazines that for the life of me I can't understand. It's the story about the love triangle between Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. For those of you just emerging from a 50-year stint in the bomb shelter, here's the basic story: Brad marries Jennifer, Brad takes an interest in Angelina, Brad dumps Jennifer for Angelina. Jen feels bad, Brad and Angelina are happy. Angelina gets pregnant. That's it.

Now, I understand why all of that news would be of great interest to the media eager to fill pages or 30 minutes of air time a night. But why, oh why, is the story still apparently the hottest thing around, long after the big revelations have already been made, and analyzed, and analyzed again? It's been many months now since the original infidelity and subsequent switcheroo took place. So why is this story apparently the No. 1 news event in the solar system?

You think I exaggerate? I do my family's grocery shopping each week, so I see all the tabloids and magazines at the checkout counter. Last night, I wrote down what each one had as its cover story. Not a cover story, but the cover story, the one with the huge headline and the cover photo. Here's this week's roundup:

People: "Brad and Angelina: Inside Their Love"

US: "How Jen Found Out"

Star: "Pregnant Angelina COLLAPSES" (and a secondary cover head: "Humiliated Jen Proposes to Vince!"

In Touch: "What She's Not Telling Brad" (she being Angelina)

Celebrity Living: "Brad and Angelina: TWINS!"

OK!: "Who Really Told Jen?"

There was not a single magazine on the stand that did not have the Brad-Jen-Angelina story as its cover. And believe me, it's like this almost every week. Another story will occasionally grab the covers for a week here and there -- the Lindsay Lohan anorexia revelations, the Jessica and Nick divorce -- but after those stories burn out, it's back to Brad and Jen and Brad and Angelina and Jen and Angelina.

I truly can't fathom that there are significant numbers of people in the United States so caught up in this non-story that they have to spend good money each week to avail themselves of every scrap of gossip and every idle speculation by "unnamed sources" about what Jen might think about what Brad and Angelina are doing, or what Brad might think of what Jen is doing, or what any of them think about anything at all.

Can any of you readers help me figure this out?

I tell you, it's almost enough to make me wish for another O.J. trial.

Spicy Wings and a Prayer

Now, faithful readers, in my time I have heard of ministers and other religious types invoking blessings over all sorts of things, living and inanimate alike: babies, married couples, buildings, pets and who knows what else. I mean, near where I grew up on the Gulf Coast, they even bless the shrimping fleet each year before it goes out to snag unwary crustaceans.

But I have never, until now, heard of a religious official clearing a path through the spicy chicken wings to preside over the blessing of a Hooters restaurant. And lo and behold, it's happening here in Waco, the buckle of the Texas Bible belt. Who says we're a dull town?

Now, I surely don't wish harm on anyone who works in or eats at this Hooters, and it would be proper and Christian to ask God to protect all souls inside from any disaster. But -- am I the only one who thinks that calling on the Lord to bless a restaurant whose appeal and indeed its very name is based on the idea of men coming in to look at women's breasts through tight T-shirts is a bit...oh, I don't know...unseemly? Is there a chart somewhere which lists which types of businesses may or may not receive church blessings? Where do casinos fit into this list? Strip clubs? Peep shows?

Looking Back at Christmas

Now that Christmas 2005 is just a fading memory, I thought I'd take a moment to look back on few things which briefly plopped in my brain pan during the holiday rush.

1. One of the things my kids look forward to every Christmas is to discover what kind of new animated Santa figurine the manufacturers will come up with. In the past, they've given us Santas that dance, snore and sing. This year, I was not surprised to see a "Rappin' Santa" figurine, as well as a Santa who shook his red booty as his pants fell partway down. Is there any limit to where they will go with this? Will we be seeing "Pull My Finger Santa" one day?

UPDATE: I can't even joke about this because they're one step ahead of me. Looking for a photo illustration to accompany this, I found out they already have a "Pull My Finger" Santa doll.

2. Everyone knows that all of the ingredients needed to make the "traditional" holiday foods often get in short supply around Christmas time -- icing and green and red sprinkles for Christmas cookies, frozen tukeys, cans of pumpkin, etc. One thing I was surprised to discover is also in short supply come Christmas time are cans of Rotel tomatoes -- you know, the ones that are a bit spicy and are used in salsa and dips. I never associated this with Christmas, but I found Rotel sold out at store after store on the eve of the big day (I was trying to buy some). I have figured out that lots of people must make the same cheese-and-Rotel dip that we do, and use it not at the Christmas meal, but for snacking at after-Christmas and football watching parties.

3. I won't deny that the lingerie sold by Victoria's Secret has always been attractive to me -- I think that's their entire point, right? -- but at the same time, it always seemed to be presented with at least a tiny bit of Victorian elegance and restraint. From what I saw holiday shopping last month, that restraint seems to have been deemed too tame. Every window I saw at a Victoria's Secret store this holiday season seemed to be one from a raunchier shop instead. The big signs in their windows said "Give Me Sexy," but I think it should have been "Give Me Sleazy." The mannequins were dressed in the naughiest, barest outfits, and placed in poses usually assumed by women either about to give birth or entertain a busload of sailors on shore leave. Don't we already have Frederick's of Hollywood for this?

4. I don't know about you, but I'm getting sick and tired of stores that have to do an in-depth interview with you before they'll ring up your purchase. I've always resented being asked even the simplest information at the counter, including my zip code or my telephone number. This past Christmas, however, it seemed as if salesclerks were instructed to probe further. I was at a Christian book chain store one day, trying to buy some Narnia items for my kids, and I got to listen in as the poor soul in front of me was quizzed for what seemed like minutes by the sales clerk. This guy ended up having to tell the clerk his name, address (including his apartment number), his zip code, his home number and his work number. I was ready for the clerk to come from behind the register, count his teeth and then take a blood sample. I made a decision right then and there: I'm no longer playing this game. At all. When it came to be my turn and I was asked for my address and zip, I said very politely, "I don't give out that information, thank you," and the clerk very politely said "okay."

5. I'm usually on the tail end of trends, so I wasn't surprised when Christmas shopping that I suddenly saw books, games and magazines offering up something called "Suduko," and realized I didn't know what the heck this apparent new hot trend was. I finally picked up a book and learned that Suduko is a new type of crossword puzzle from Japan that uses numbers instead of letters. You look at the numbers that are printed in an unfinished grid and then have to figure out which numbers should be added in where. I bought a book, did one puzzle (at the "obscenely easy and infantile" level) and got it wrong. This dampened my enthusiasm a bit, but I guess I'll try again soon. Do any of you Suduko?

6. This might make me sound like trailer trash, but I wish we could keep Christmas lights up all year round. How they transform dark, dreary neighborhoods into fairy lands! If people got tired of seeing the same things, we could alternate light colors with the seasons and the holidays -- pink and red for Valentine's, pastel colors for Easter, red, white and blue for Fourth of July, etc. Just a thought.

Bye for now.

We Must Not Let Asia Lead in Snake Smooching!

Hear that giant sucking -- I mean hissing -- sound? That's the world snake-kissing record leaving the U.S. for distant shores.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- A kiss is just a kiss, but it may prove to be the kiss of death for a Malaysian snake charmer who will attempt to set a new world record by planting 50 smooches on a venomous snake in 10 minutes.

Shahimi Abdul Hamid, 33, will perform the dangerous feat on March 11 in a bid to break the current record held by an American man who kissed a poisonous snake 30 times in an unspecified time, the national news agency Bernama said Thursday.

Shahini has urged Malaysians to support him in his endeavor, saying he "wants to prove that Asians can also be champions in taming poisonous snakes." He could not be reached for comments.

Bernama said Shahimi displayed his prowess at a news conference late Wednesday by kissing a three-meter long King Cobra 21 times. His bid in March will be filmed by U.S. television show Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Bernama said.

Guess She Was All Shook Up

SYDNEY (Reuters) -- An Australian woman will face court on Tuesday charged with repeatedly stabbing her partner because he played an Elvis Presley song over and over again, police said on Tuesday.

Police said the 30-year-old woman was charged with unlawful wounding after her 35-year-old partner was stabbed with a pair of scissors in the back, shoulder and thigh at Northam, about 100 km east of Perth in Western Australia state on Monday.

The man, whose injuries were described as "non-life threatening", had been repeatedly playing the song "Burning Love," a police spokesman said.

The 1972 song was the U.S. rock great's 40th and last top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.