Saturday, February 11, 2006
The Marx-Allen Rule
Woody Allen's masterpiece, Annie Hall, begins with the famous Groucho Marx joke about not wanting to belong to any club that would have him as a member - a paradox of Catch-22 brilliance. Of course, Allen uses it to describe his relationships with women - the only women he wants don't want him, and vice versa - and I certainly can relate to that.
But I have this feeling right now, as I listen - painfully - to Reiner Schwarz on JAZZ-FM. This man is so full of shit I can smell it wafting out of my radio. If the average person produces 60 ml. of flatus - gas to you not up on your Latin - in a day, this bozo must churn it out in gallons. In a radio universe not lacking in obnoxious personalities, this guy takes the cake. He is so vain, so self-absorbed, so in love with his own radio-tempered voice, that you want to murder him. That is to say, I want to murder him. Here he is as I write, quoting the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Earlier, he spouted some incomprehensible babble about the current uproar in the Muslim world that managed to say absolutely nothing yet to be vaguely offensive. And now, here he is reminding us (or himself, but a blogster shouldn't go there) that he interviewed Gwendoline McEwen; as earlier he recounted in depth how and when he first interviewed Frank Zappa. Nothing or precious little said about McEwen or Zappa, of course: the point of the story was to remind us of how important Reiner was.
If this show lasts four hours, 240 minutes, and let us deduct, say, 24 minutes for commercials - leaving 216 minutes, I would guess that at least 24 of them - no, more like 30 - are devoted to this man's verbal diarrhea. He has only one show a week, I think, because it takes the other six days to clean the crap out of the studio.
So wherein lies my deep malaise? Oh God, he used that word tonight. Well, the problem is ... I like his taste in music. When he does manage to put a cork in it and actually play something, by and large I like it. (There are exceptions, of course. Sheila Jordan sounded like Reiner singing, with her self-indulgent patter.) So what does that say about me? It is that age-old fear, that we are or are becoming the person we hate.
Oh please, let there be a monitor, a super-ego, a homunculus, who will stand by me and tell me when I have achieved Reinerschwarzhood. And then ... JUST SHOOT ME.
But I have this feeling right now, as I listen - painfully - to Reiner Schwarz on JAZZ-FM. This man is so full of shit I can smell it wafting out of my radio. If the average person produces 60 ml. of flatus - gas to you not up on your Latin - in a day, this bozo must churn it out in gallons. In a radio universe not lacking in obnoxious personalities, this guy takes the cake. He is so vain, so self-absorbed, so in love with his own radio-tempered voice, that you want to murder him. That is to say, I want to murder him. Here he is as I write, quoting the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Earlier, he spouted some incomprehensible babble about the current uproar in the Muslim world that managed to say absolutely nothing yet to be vaguely offensive. And now, here he is reminding us (or himself, but a blogster shouldn't go there) that he interviewed Gwendoline McEwen; as earlier he recounted in depth how and when he first interviewed Frank Zappa. Nothing or precious little said about McEwen or Zappa, of course: the point of the story was to remind us of how important Reiner was.
If this show lasts four hours, 240 minutes, and let us deduct, say, 24 minutes for commercials - leaving 216 minutes, I would guess that at least 24 of them - no, more like 30 - are devoted to this man's verbal diarrhea. He has only one show a week, I think, because it takes the other six days to clean the crap out of the studio.
So wherein lies my deep malaise? Oh God, he used that word tonight. Well, the problem is ... I like his taste in music. When he does manage to put a cork in it and actually play something, by and large I like it. (There are exceptions, of course. Sheila Jordan sounded like Reiner singing, with her self-indulgent patter.) So what does that say about me? It is that age-old fear, that we are or are becoming the person we hate.
Oh please, let there be a monitor, a super-ego, a homunculus, who will stand by me and tell me when I have achieved Reinerschwarzhood. And then ... JUST SHOOT ME.
# posted by Stephen @ 2:44 a.m. 
Comments:
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Stephen aka "Sour Stevie",
I don't know if you've had the pleasure of being held hostage by the shit-show that is Rogers, but I'm pretty sure if you ever do, any resulting blogpost won't be fit for these virgin eyes.
I also humbly request a layman's explaination of your blog's curious title. I, for one was CERTAIN that you weren't Phillipino.
I don't know if you've had the pleasure of being held hostage by the shit-show that is Rogers, but I'm pretty sure if you ever do, any resulting blogpost won't be fit for these virgin eyes.
I also humbly request a layman's explaination of your blog's curious title. I, for one was CERTAIN that you weren't Phillipino.
1. The Philippines is spelled with two Ps and one L. It is named after Philip II of Spain. (The U.S. "won" the Philippines in the Spanish-American War.)
2. A "philippic" is, according to The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, "a bitter verbal attack or denunciation" and is named after Philip II of Macedon who was attacked in several famous speeches by Demosthenes.
3. More to the point, my blog title is the name of a song by Simon and Garfunkel from the "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme" album. It is subtitled "How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission", McNamara being Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War. It's a Bob Dylanish rant - Dylan is in fact mentioned in the song - with brilliant internal rhymes such as "I've been Ayn Randed, nearly branded Communist, 'cause I'm left-handed"; and "I been Phil Spectored, resurrected. I been Lou Adlered, Barry Sadlered"; and "aunt and uncled" with "Art Garfunkeled".
4. No, I've never been held hostage by Rogers. In fact, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that. Were you on a show of theirs?
2. A "philippic" is, according to The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, "a bitter verbal attack or denunciation" and is named after Philip II of Macedon who was attacked in several famous speeches by Demosthenes.
3. More to the point, my blog title is the name of a song by Simon and Garfunkel from the "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme" album. It is subtitled "How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission", McNamara being Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War. It's a Bob Dylanish rant - Dylan is in fact mentioned in the song - with brilliant internal rhymes such as "I've been Ayn Randed, nearly branded Communist, 'cause I'm left-handed"; and "I been Phil Spectored, resurrected. I been Lou Adlered, Barry Sadlered"; and "aunt and uncled" with "Art Garfunkeled".
4. No, I've never been held hostage by Rogers. In fact, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that. Were you on a show of theirs?
Hmm. I vaguely know who Danny Finkelman is, but I only heard him once, briefly. I will take him as typifying a person of wide and fascinating knowledge.
Speaking of self-deception, one problem - one of many - I encounter when playing poker is that I cannot believe when a player I haven't seen before makes what appears to be a bonehead move, that it is just that. I tend to operate on a presumption of sanity. That's fine for the law, but not for gambling. The presumption should really be the reverse: until a player shows you he knows what he's doing, it's probably better to assume he's an idiot. There are, after all, so many around.
And if you don't believe that, consider that people go hunting with Dick Cheney.
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Speaking of self-deception, one problem - one of many - I encounter when playing poker is that I cannot believe when a player I haven't seen before makes what appears to be a bonehead move, that it is just that. I tend to operate on a presumption of sanity. That's fine for the law, but not for gambling. The presumption should really be the reverse: until a player shows you he knows what he's doing, it's probably better to assume he's an idiot. There are, after all, so many around.
And if you don't believe that, consider that people go hunting with Dick Cheney.
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