PLANET OF THE CUTE-EEEEEEE-PYE’S

Commentary by Dean Christopher

 

Many “wannabe” performers and fashion puppies abuse language, although for a variety of reasons. These ludicrous cauliflowers inhabit a milieu where image is simply everything, Darling. So they are driven to call attention to themselves in every way, at all times, at any cost. They desperately try to project the impression of being distinctive; uncommonly talented; oh so very desirable—paragons of the cool du jour. Therefore they concoct names that they believe will instantly deliver stardom.

  

They obstinately ignore reality. Big hair doesn’t make a rock star; it only makes a person with big hair. Holding a Stradivarius doesn’t make you Itzhak Perlman or Joshua Bell; it makes you somebody holding a superb old violin. And weird names (or weird spelling of ordinary names) will not automatically confer charisma or success.

 

Thus Jack or Bonnie do NOT become more creative or more adorable by spelling their names D’jaq, Jjakk, and Chac’c, or Bhåny, B’ànéè, and Bonn-Eeeeee. They become people who are misspelling Jack and Bonnie. When Diane decides to be Døyyäänn she forfeits the right to be offended when someone who doesn’t know her (but who does know Northern European languages) pronounces her name sounding like a stuttering elk.

 

Some people add foreign-language accent marks to their names, or to words on menus or boutique windows. They clearly and clumsily aspire to distinction, charm or gravitas. They usually fail due to their ignorance of the foreign language; because they don’t realize that accent marks have specific purposes—to indicate vowel mutations, misplaced stress, or to distinguish between two words which sound alike. Yet the ignorant and the affected persist in plopping accent marks around like so many marascino cherries; indiscriminately, interchangeably, incorrectly. 

 

   Don’t be like them! If you absolutely must Europeanize your name or that of your business, be sure to have someone who really speaks the language to check your spelling, før Péètëz såkê!

 

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A Bluffer’s Guide to Cool Places

Useful Social Advice from Dean Christopher

 

Everybody likes cool guys. Things always go better for them. They get more girls and better jobs. Cool guys have more fun, more toys and die happy – usually when they’re very old.

 If you want to be a cool guy, we can help. Read on.

 There are many elements to master if you want to be cool. Since space is limited we’ll investigate one of the real biggies – frequenting cool places. “Location, location, location” is a mantra that extends far beyond real estate. Knowing the right places ranks with other guy-skills like nailing sexy women, ordering great wines, knowing which gear to buy and how to sink 20-foot putts or 30-foot jump shots. Whoever said “timing is everything” was only half right. Place is the other half. Knowing when to be somewhere is important, but if you show up at the wrong place you don’t get any cool points.

 A cool place is more than simple geography, more than relative position in physical space. Each cool place is also a state of mind, an attitude, an unexpected revelation, a deliverer of status. A cool place is the very oxygen of coolness. It is where the cool are. Better yet, it is where the uncool aren’t.

 

The Coordinates Of Cool

 

To find cool places, first eliminate uncool places. You’ll be ahead of the game if you realize right now that virtually all places blatantly frequented by celebrities are uncool. If they’re subtly frequented – or even blatantly seldomed – by celebrities, that’s OK, but still borderline. Broadly speaking, any place is uncool if it:

 ·      Was ever a cover feature in a slick magazine named after a city

·      Employs a high profile publicist

·      Valet-parks snazzy imported cars in front, but hides station wagons, pickups and old Buicks in the lot behind a nearby warehouse

·      Has a French name – misspelled – like La Mirage Natural or Le Chéz Môm

·      Has an Italian name – spelled right – but suggesting Mafia connections, like Il Wiseguy, Casa Consigliere, or Big Ferruccio ‘The Smiling Legbreaker’ Sparafucile

·      Has a cutesy name like Skunk Pie Milligan’s, The Srinagar Trampoline Club, or My Sick Old Mother’s Bedside.

·      Features autographed photos of celebrities (real or imagined) in the entryway or on the walls

·      Caters to yuppies with baseball caps on backwards, to anyone wearing sunglasses inside, or lets in wide-eyed tourists in matching white belts and shoes who emerge dazzled and drooling from sightseeing buses

·      Uses coy euphemisms for its toilets, such as Itty-Bitty-Kitty Box, Tennie Splashing Zone or Li’l Ole Gals’ Lounge.

·      Plays loud country music or hip hop while people are trying to eat, drink, talk, think or breathe – in fact, while people are present at all

·      Displays ferns, moose heads, sleds, old tenor saxophones or Tiffany lamps on the walls (or anywhere else)

 

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Be careful to learn about cool places only from proven cool sources, because uncool people (see above) always recommend uncool places. Don’t place your fate in the wrong hands. Would you study bomb defusing with someone who twitches uncontrollably? Would you follow the dietary advice of the grossly obese? Fly with a manic-depressive suicidal alcoholic pilot given to sudden fits of wild thrashing? Accept a blind date from a friend whose own girl friend is terminally unappealing? 

 Of course not. So you will never take “cool place” advice from anyone who:

 ·      Acts or implies that he’s cool – trying to be cool is the ultimate uncool

·      Orders a men’s magazine “drink of the month”

·      Uses discount coupons in restaurants

·      Has travel decals and comical bumper stickers on his car

·      Wears garments with prominent designer labels

·      Watches sitcoms and discusses them avidly the following day

·      Keeps his watch or socks on while making love

·      Sets the car alarm while shopping or at the movies

·      Is impressed by trendy places or high prices. (Trendy places tend to disappear unexpectedly and high prices are only big numbers. If on Tuesday a restaurant assigns a bigger number to its food, it tastes no better than it did on Monday.)

 

 

Okay. You managed to avoid uncool places. But how can you recognize the cool ones? First, almost any place not described above stands a decent chance of being cool. But whom do you trust while you’re learning to make your own informed judgements? Well, for starters, trust us. A place is cool if we tell you it is. But we can’t do that, because spoon-feeding you that information is colossally uncool. Part of being cool is learning to follow your own instincts.

Still, you won’t go far wrong if you remember that cool places:

 

Attract cool people. Remember, cool people are NEVER who uncool people think they are. Hint: They are rarely sports stars and virtually never entertainers!

Rarely look cool at first glance. You need to uncover the subtle cool that lies deep within. Axiom: Any place that looks cool probably isn’t. If the exterior looks designed, and the interior looks decorated – it’s not cool. Corollary: Any place that uncool people think is cool is uncool.

The truth is that cool places are rarely restaurants, clubs or fancy resorts. They are normal places, which your cool attitude turns into cool places.

Using the right combination of zen and common sense, you can convert unlikely locations into cool places. Suggestions:

 Three-day tire stores. Cultivate the sales staff. Be recognized when you walk in with clients or guests. This will get you the best spots at the counter. Learn the nicknames of the stock boys, know your way to the Employees Only toilet without asking. Feel enough at home to serve yourself coffee in staff mugs marked “Curly,” “Red” and “Biffie.” Dazzle your guests with learnèd discussion of multi-ply laminated inner linings, tire bead design, PSI ratios. Wow your friends with your ability to recognize at a glance the tread patterns of a thousand brands. Discuss the relative attributes of off-road radials with the same loving tenderness that others reserve for the finest vintage wines. “An athletic little tire, not entirely unprepossessing…yet a superb sense of balance bordering on the insouciant.” “Uncompromising in its structural integrity, yet lacking a certain je ne sais quoi in terms of road rhythm.”

 Municipal swimming pools. Cool people know that public downtown recreation facilities are where cool lurks. Anyone can pay big bucks to get wet on the beaches of Acapulco, Bali or Cap d’Antibes. But the truly cool can get cool splashing in any neighborhood.

  Membership discount stores. “Buy low, sell high” is no longer just for the investment community. You, too, can buy low at wholesale outlets and 2,500,000-sq.ft membership stores called CheapCo, MarginLand or LowMart – and never worry about selling at all! Invite that special someone for a few hours of cool pleasure among the stacks of paper products, 55-gallon drums of caramel pistachio nuts, flats of Nicky & Edna’s Home Style Creamed Corn. Impress your date, or that out-of-town client, with your shopping cool as you browse the low cost hardware aisles or rummage through bins of very nearly perfect jeans.

 But it’s important to be in the early part of the curve, and out again before the wannabe’s discover these cool places. 

  

Copyright © 2009 by Dean Christopher

 

 

One evening when I was about twenty I dined with friends who were hosting relatives from Florida. Over dessert, the woman from Florida began raving about the brilliance of dolphins – they are just as intelligent in their way as we humans are in ours, she insisted. Why, dolphins even show signs of compassion for humans. “Dolphins help sailors whose ships sink, by pushing them toward shore and safety. Many rescued sailors have said so.”

There was a brief silence while we absorbed this heartwarming information. Then our host spoke. “Of course we never hear from the sailors they push farther out to sea.”

Everybody laughed, but the lesson was clear: it is unwise to make optimistic generalizations from isolated cases. Yet much of what we believe is based on hearsay, superstition or wishful thinking. This sunny nonsense is not rational. It misleads us with false hope and unreasonable expectations that usually bring disappointment and even serious mental problems.

Scientific method requires observable phenomena that are repeatable under controlled conditions. Since it’s unlikely that marine biologists will drop thousands of test-subjects in mid-ocean to record what dolphins really do with them, dolphin “compassion” is likely to remain anecdotal for years to come.

But even without exhaustive laboratory testing, our common sense and everyday observation should provide level-headed recognition of certain facts of everyday reality. For example:

Most prayers are not answered.

Most wishes do not come true.

Most of the time when you unexpectedly think of a distant elderly relative, that relative is not dying or in distress.

Most pets lost during cross-country travel do not show up, months later, at the kitchen door of their owner’s new residence.

Most dreams remain only dreams – unless, of course, they become nightmares.

By far the cruelest delusion hysterically promoted within our well-intentioned society is “You can do anything you want if you focus and work hard enough.” The corollary lie is that “it’s never too late.”

In other words, everything will turn out great if you stay positive.

Really?

I see a far different reality, mocking us from behind billowing clouds of narcotic optimism. It boils down to this:

You can not do anything you want. Most of the time, no matter how hard you try, how desperately you wish, “visualize” or work for something, it will forever elude your grasp. Really, now. Face the truth. You may just not have enough brains, strength, money or powerful friends. There may be insurmountable physical realities to consider. If you have no legs, you can not get a starting spot on the  Olympic High Jumping team. If you are blind, you can not become a jet fighter pilot.

To believe otherwise is unhealthy; indeed, downright delusional. It is often – probably very often – too late to accomplish your goals. Most of the time, in any field that requires formal educational credentials, it is too late to earn advanced degrees. There is simply not enough time, no matter how dedicated you are. For most business careers, the young and promising – less likely to be saddled with family responsibilities and longterm debt – are hired instead of older, more experienced candidates, especially since they can work for less money.

Further, many young people are intelligent, excellent workers; less opinionated, more malleable, more motivated to do more and work longer hours, besides offering companies the agreeable trait of youthful enthusiasm. In most instances, anyone out of work for more than a year will never find equivalent new employment. Ask any guy over 50 hunting a good – even a decent – job in his field. Ask any woman over 40, no matter how brilliant, who has tried to get into a major – even a decent – medical school. Ask any woman of 60, no matter how experienced in the entertainment business, who has tried to get a job in the entertainment business, where they prefer women of 25 with large breasts that do not sag.

And of course it is too late for anything for anyone whose head is in the path of a .45 hollow-point slug moving along at 1200 feet per second.

Sound pessimistic, even cynical? Wake up, friend. Welcome to the chilly world beyond “reality” TV and overpriced motivational seminars. Unless you are prepared to face real world reality, you forfeit the right to profess amazement when you don’t find the mate you want, get the career you think you deserve, become miraculously cured of your disease, or find the emotional or spiritual comfort “they” promised you.

Most of that goo-goo-eyed sunshine so hysterically pushed by televangelists, “psychic counselors” and self-help gurus is tommyrot. Worse, it is harmful tommyrot, virtually guaranteeing increased misery when the unreasonable expecations it raises are not met. It is the cosmic equivalent of “your check is in the mail.”

It is useful to note that, each month, thousands of dolphins drown in fishermen’s drift nets. Although chances are that occasionally a fisherman disentangles one, and pushes him farther out to sea, where he can report to the dolphin community how intelligent and compassionate we humans are.

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