It started one day--or, rather, I noticed it one day--right after I received a really bad haircut...you know, a haircut so bad that you fix it yourself with whatever crude scissors are around. So, I left the barbershop, went home and looked in the mirror. Most of my left eyebrow was gone! Just a few scraggly hairs remained. . .up to then, I had thick eyebrows. All of a sudden---pffffft! I was really steamed at that barber, but there was no way I was going to let him touch up my hair, and the eyebrow would just have to grow back. How did he butcher my eyebrow?
A week or so later, Keelin said "Turn around, Johnnie. What's that on the back of your head?" I turned around and she pulled aside some tendrils of hair. Gleaming there was a GIGANTIC bald spot!! It was about the size of a softball. And it happened literally overnight! I was going bald!!!!! I spent about five hours a day looking at that spot in the mirror. I could feel the wind on it. It always felt cold. And I was sure everyone was always staring at it. It wasn't in the center, but off to the left side. It just flat looked weird. Naturally, I obssessed about it night and day. I found out from some fellow sufferers that I was experiencing Alopecia Areata [1].
It could stay like this. Alopecia! The bald spots usually happened in twos and threes! Two more could sprout up! It could all grow back. It could also cause every single hair on my body, including my eyelashes and nose cilia, to disappear. I would look like a Grey! No one really knows much about Alopecia and there aren't any real treatments. My doctor said it was no big deal. She could refer me to someone. . .but they didn't really have any way to treat it. I wondered if she would have been so cavalier if I had been a woman?
I ranted and raved. My entire being was now focused on those few inches of bald real estate on the back of my head. I checked the spot dozens of times a day, My bald friends were fascinated and highly amused. A couple of months later, I was performing my obsessive scalp observations, and discovered it had now sprouted peach fuzz! Woohoo! All hail the mighty stem cell [see footnote 1]. Within a month, my skull had reforested itself. The eyebrow came back too; not so bushy as it once was. The hair coming back in my eyebrow was white! I dyed it a couple of times. And then my second growth eyebrow slowly darkened, and matched my other eyebrow.
There is nothing that says it won't come back with a vengeance. In fact, Keelin told me yesterday I was tempting fate by just writing about it.
Several years later, there have been no further rogue white blood cell attacks. Excelsior!
/jack
[1] In alopecia areata, your immune system/white blood cells attack the growing cells in the hair follicles. They start thinking your hair is some sort of infection! The affected follicles become small and drastically slow down production. Thank the Lord that the stem cells that continually supply the follicle with new cells do not seem to be targeted and the follicles COULD regrow. But the hair may also fall out again. No one really knows how or why. Some people lose just a few patches of hair, then the hair regrows, and the condition never recurs. Other people continue to lose and regrow hair for many years. A few lose all the hair on their head; some lose all the hair on their head, face, and body.
---o0o---
Monday, December 06, 2004
Sunday, December 05, 2004
I'm My Own Grandpa
I first heard this hilarious song on a Grand Ole Opry compilation, performed by Lonzo and Oscar. Many others have performed it over the years, including Jerry Garcia and David Grisman. It was composed by Moe Jaffee and Dwight Latham[1] , based on an anecdote told by Mark Twain (who outlined the basic premise). On the 'net, I saw these lyrics used as an assignment in a genealogy class: detail the pedigree of the person in this song...
I'm My Own Grandpa
It sounds funny, I know,
But it really is so,
Oh, I'm my own grandpa.
I'm my own grandpa.
Now many, many years ago, when I was twenty-three,
I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be.
This widow had a grown-up daughter who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her, and soon they, too, were wed.
This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life,
My daughter was my mother, cause she was my father's wife.
To complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy,
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy.
My little baby then became a brother-in-law to Dad,
And so became my uncle, though it made me very sad.
For if he was my uncle, then that also made him brother
Of the widow's grown-up daughter, who, of course, was my stepmother.
Father's wife then had a son who kept him on the run,
And he became my grandchild, for he was my daughter's son.
My wife is now my mother's mother, and it makes me blue,
Because, although she is my wife, she's my grandmother, too.
Now if my wife is my grandmother, then I'm her grandchild,
And everytime I think of it, it nearly drives me wild,
For now I have become the strangest case you ever saw
As husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa.
[1] Copyright Moe Jaffe and Dwight Latham, 1947.
---o0o---
I'm My Own Grandpa
It sounds funny, I know,
But it really is so,
Oh, I'm my own grandpa.
I'm my own grandpa.
Now many, many years ago, when I was twenty-three,
I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be.
This widow had a grown-up daughter who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her, and soon they, too, were wed.
This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life,
My daughter was my mother, cause she was my father's wife.
To complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy,
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy.
My little baby then became a brother-in-law to Dad,
And so became my uncle, though it made me very sad.
For if he was my uncle, then that also made him brother
Of the widow's grown-up daughter, who, of course, was my stepmother.
Father's wife then had a son who kept him on the run,
And he became my grandchild, for he was my daughter's son.
My wife is now my mother's mother, and it makes me blue,
Because, although she is my wife, she's my grandmother, too.
Now if my wife is my grandmother, then I'm her grandchild,
And everytime I think of it, it nearly drives me wild,
For now I have become the strangest case you ever saw
As husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa.
[1] Copyright Moe Jaffe and Dwight Latham, 1947.
---o0o---
Saturday, December 04, 2004
Poem: The Absence of Footprints
1.
We're not trilliums or daffodils
That spring back up
After a nap in the dirt.
2.
You told me you wanted
To make the crossing
Over to Cold Island
And I could never believe you.
It wasn't the karmic stain
That bothered me,
But the unfathomable fact
You didn't want to be here;
That all this wasn't enough.
All this is that.
And it wasn't enough.
3.
You stare into the ditch
You spent years unloading.
You are afraid to climb in
And stop,
To take something
That isn't working,
and make it not work forever.
4.
It's
so
quiet
you
hear
dust
motes
six
feet
up
bump
in
shafts
of
sunlight.
---o0o---
jack brummet
We're not trilliums or daffodils
That spring back up
After a nap in the dirt.
2.
You told me you wanted
To make the crossing
Over to Cold Island
And I could never believe you.
It wasn't the karmic stain
That bothered me,
But the unfathomable fact
You didn't want to be here;
That all this wasn't enough.
All this is that.
And it wasn't enough.
3.
You stare into the ditch
You spent years unloading.
You are afraid to climb in
And stop,
To take something
That isn't working,
and make it not work forever.
4.
It's
so
quiet
you
hear
dust
motes
six
feet
up
bump
in
shafts
of
sunlight.
---o0o---
jack brummet
Friendship
"A friend is someone who will help you move; a GOOD friend is someone who will help you move a body." - unknown
Friday, December 03, 2004
Daniel Kurtzman reporting Dan Rather's Resignation
"Not sure whether to wind a watch or bark at the moon, Dan Rather announced his resignation after 24 years as CBS anchor. With his credibility as thin as turnip soup, his legacy shakier than cafeteria Jell-O, and his fingernails beginning to sweat, Rather reached the point where he had his back to the wall, his shirttails on fire, and the bill collector at the door. "
"After being consistently beaten like a rented mule in the ratings, CBS execs apparently decided they'd rather walk through a furnace in a gasoline suit than keep him in the anchor chair. In announcing his departure, Rather insisted his grasp of reality was still spandex tight. But if you believe that, you'll believe rocks can grow. "
Daniel Kurtzman, about.com
"After being consistently beaten like a rented mule in the ratings, CBS execs apparently decided they'd rather walk through a furnace in a gasoline suit than keep him in the anchor chair. In announcing his departure, Rather insisted his grasp of reality was still spandex tight. But if you believe that, you'll believe rocks can grow. "
Daniel Kurtzman, about.com
Cry Me A River: "Post Election Selection Trauma"
I thought this P.E.S.T. thing came from the pages of The Onion. No, it is real: http://www.bocanews.com/index.php?src=news&prid=10127&category=Local%20News%20%20
Democrats flock to encounter groups, support groups, and counseling. They are undergoing hypnosis. Someone even committed suicide over the results. "...feelings of extreme anger, despair, hopelessness, powerlessness, a failure to function behaviorally, a sense of disillusionment, of not wanting to vote anymore – that sort of thing. We’re talking about a deep, unhealthy personal suffering that can best be remedied by intensive short-term therapy."
I'm a P.O.'d, but not despairing Yellow Dog Democrat [1]. I didn't like the election results either. So quit boohooing, and let's even up the score. Quit sending out all the angry red-blue maps marked "Dumbf***istan" and "Jesusland." Stop calling the fiftynine million voters retarded religious wackos. They're your neighbors. And we're going to be asking for their votes very soon!
Wrap up your short-term therapy. Let's win the midterms 23 months from now and bulldoze our way back into The White House in '08.
[1] The term, Yellow Dog Democrat, blossomed during all of the Hoopla which surrounded the 1928 elections, when Al Smith ran for President against Herbert Hoover. During that campaign, Senator Tom Heflin, of Alabama, declined to back his fellow Democrat, Al Smith the Governor of NY. In fact it was much worse than that, Senator Heflin decided to back Herbert Hoover, who would then go on to become President- a Republican President no less. Heflin's controversial actions were considered heresy, especially in the South. As you can imagine, quite a large number of Alabamans vehemently disagreed with Senator Heflin's decision to cross his "Party Lines". Hence, the popular saying, "I'd vote for a yellow dog if he ran on the Democratic ticket" was born! - from William Safire's Safire's New Political Dictionary, (c) 1993
Democrats flock to encounter groups, support groups, and counseling. They are undergoing hypnosis. Someone even committed suicide over the results. "...feelings of extreme anger, despair, hopelessness, powerlessness, a failure to function behaviorally, a sense of disillusionment, of not wanting to vote anymore – that sort of thing. We’re talking about a deep, unhealthy personal suffering that can best be remedied by intensive short-term therapy."
I'm a P.O.'d, but not despairing Yellow Dog Democrat [1]. I didn't like the election results either. So quit boohooing, and let's even up the score. Quit sending out all the angry red-blue maps marked "Dumbf***istan" and "Jesusland." Stop calling the fiftynine million voters retarded religious wackos. They're your neighbors. And we're going to be asking for their votes very soon!
Wrap up your short-term therapy. Let's win the midterms 23 months from now and bulldoze our way back into The White House in '08.
[1] The term, Yellow Dog Democrat, blossomed during all of the Hoopla which surrounded the 1928 elections, when Al Smith ran for President against Herbert Hoover. During that campaign, Senator Tom Heflin, of Alabama, declined to back his fellow Democrat, Al Smith the Governor of NY. In fact it was much worse than that, Senator Heflin decided to back Herbert Hoover, who would then go on to become President- a Republican President no less. Heflin's controversial actions were considered heresy, especially in the South. As you can imagine, quite a large number of Alabamans vehemently disagreed with Senator Heflin's decision to cross his "Party Lines". Hence, the popular saying, "I'd vote for a yellow dog if he ran on the Democratic ticket" was born! - from William Safire's Safire's New Political Dictionary, (c) 1993
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Escalating The War / Remembering LBJ, Tet, and 60,000 Dead
The Pentagon's announcement yesterday that we're shipping 12,000 more troops to Iraq (for a total of 150,000) is troubling. Many of those troops are having their tours extended. It seems that those Iraqi troops we were supposed to train can't do the job -- as John Kerry mentioned several times in the Presidential debates. If you remember, POTUS specifically scoffed at that suggestion in the debates. What a difference five weeks makes.
I don't know if there are real parallels or not, but I have been reading two books on LBJ, Merle Miller's oral history and one of his taped white house conversations (Reaching for Glory: The Secret Lyndon Johnson Tapes, 1964-1965. Michael Beschloss).
You see LBJ get sucked into that war even as he has great misgivings about the whole enterprise. At the end of that book, we are rapidly escalating the troop presence...up to 200,000 by December. Johnson is distressed that we have lost 400 troops. . . a third of the number that have already died in Iraq. We would end up with over 540,000 troops in 'Nam, 60,000 dead American boys and hundreds of thousands injured. Before the end of the war, our helicopters had brought over 400,000 boys to hospitals in Vietnam.
Tet in '68 is when America turned against the war. It was shocking! We were "winning." We won the battles of The Tet Offensive. Technically. We killed half of the Vietcong army, and many tens of thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers. But we lost 6,000 troops in a few days, and 14,000 boys that year. And that was winning! The Vietcong launched a suicide mission hoping to end the war in one sweep. They took heavy, heavy losses, and to Americans it appeared they could do it again and again. Yes, America won Tet, but then General Westmoreland (or Wastenomoreland) asked for 200,000 more troops to be sent over.
Iraq is not Vietnam and The Domino Theory does not apply. One thing I think we do know: The President of the United States intends to finish the war. No matter what the cost. /jack
---o0o---
I don't know if there are real parallels or not, but I have been reading two books on LBJ, Merle Miller's oral history and one of his taped white house conversations (Reaching for Glory: The Secret Lyndon Johnson Tapes, 1964-1965. Michael Beschloss).
You see LBJ get sucked into that war even as he has great misgivings about the whole enterprise. At the end of that book, we are rapidly escalating the troop presence...up to 200,000 by December. Johnson is distressed that we have lost 400 troops. . . a third of the number that have already died in Iraq. We would end up with over 540,000 troops in 'Nam, 60,000 dead American boys and hundreds of thousands injured. Before the end of the war, our helicopters had brought over 400,000 boys to hospitals in Vietnam.
Tet in '68 is when America turned against the war. It was shocking! We were "winning." We won the battles of The Tet Offensive. Technically. We killed half of the Vietcong army, and many tens of thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers. But we lost 6,000 troops in a few days, and 14,000 boys that year. And that was winning! The Vietcong launched a suicide mission hoping to end the war in one sweep. They took heavy, heavy losses, and to Americans it appeared they could do it again and again. Yes, America won Tet, but then General Westmoreland (or Wastenomoreland) asked for 200,000 more troops to be sent over.
Iraq is not Vietnam and The Domino Theory does not apply. One thing I think we do know: The President of the United States intends to finish the war. No matter what the cost. /jack
---o0o---
Lies & Damned Lies
These quotes on lies are not from the book, but ones I've collected around and about...
All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
- John Arbuthnot
The great masses of the people... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.
- Adolph Hitler
I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends...that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them."
- Adlai Stevenson (Democratic Presidential Candidate in 1952 and 1956)
Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.
- Stephen King (from"The Last Gunslinger")
Never lie when the truth is more profitable.
- Stanislaw J. Lec
In order to preserve your self-respect, it is sometimes necessary to lie and cheat.
- Robert Byrne
Oh, what lies there are in kisses!
- Heinrich Heine (1797 - 1856)
How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read.
- Karl Kraus
History is a set of lies agreed upon.
- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821)
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
- Benjamin Disaraeli, British Prime Minister and novelist
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
I Was A Star Wars Virgin, Part 2
I just finished all three of the original Star Wars movies (now called Episodes 4, 5, and 6). I was going to write a review. . .but why bother? These movies have more relentlessly obsessive fans than any art created in our time. Anything I would add would just be noise, and has already been covered by people with more scholarly insight than I could ever bring to bear. Let me just say I liked the movies very much. Much more than I thought I would. And now, we can lay to rest talk of my cultural dwarfism (at least in the geek world). I'm making progress: I even read Lord of the Rings last year! That's another geek staple. Like Star Wars, it has genuine mainstream appeal. . .appeal I doubted because of the geek linkage...
Some random notes in lieu of a review: the movies were both more sublime and silly than I had suspected. They clearly have roots in B Movies, and the characters and situations are often stock characters and plot devices we have seen many times before. I like the movies, but this is not Shakespeare, by any stretch.
The cultural penetration of these films is total: there were few characters I hadn't seen before, and I even knew the names of most of them.
I thought The Empire Strikes Back held together the best as a single film. The third movie, Return of the Jedi was the weirdest, with all the over the top animal/furry confabulations. Putting Carrie Fischer in a bathing suit chained to Jabba The Hut seemed gratuitous and bizarre (that being said, I didn't mind it). I could go on, but I won't. The only real surprise for me in all three movies was at the very end, with the [partial?]redemption of Annikin/Darth Vader, and his reconciliation with his son Luke.
Jabba the Hut was a great piece of business, as was R2D2 and C3PO. Someone told me that this, being pre-CGI, that there was always a person huddled in R2D2. He saved the day many times, and somehow, without language they were able to infuse him with charm. Chewbacca was always interesting, tender and fierce. I really liked the piece of the last movie with the Ewoks. From what I've heard, they were not popular with the hard corse fans. That must explain why I liked them. There was something enjoyable about these teddy bear-like creatures fiercely battling the Imperial Army. But, yeah, I know I don't have a lot of credibility discussing Star Wars, since I waited thirty years to see them!
Looking back at this paragraph, I see that I called out all the major non-humans as my favorite characters. But I guess it's that kind of movie. The human characters were almost so flat/stock that only the inhuman characters were really infused with unique charm. We expect a little more from actual humans.
So, yeah, I give it a big thumbs up. But I probably won't sleep in a tent at The Coliseum theatre for a week to get into the first showing of "Episode 3"! Excelsior! /jack
---o0o---
Some random notes in lieu of a review: the movies were both more sublime and silly than I had suspected. They clearly have roots in B Movies, and the characters and situations are often stock characters and plot devices we have seen many times before. I like the movies, but this is not Shakespeare, by any stretch.
The cultural penetration of these films is total: there were few characters I hadn't seen before, and I even knew the names of most of them.
I thought The Empire Strikes Back held together the best as a single film. The third movie, Return of the Jedi was the weirdest, with all the over the top animal/furry confabulations. Putting Carrie Fischer in a bathing suit chained to Jabba The Hut seemed gratuitous and bizarre (that being said, I didn't mind it). I could go on, but I won't. The only real surprise for me in all three movies was at the very end, with the [partial?]redemption of Annikin/Darth Vader, and his reconciliation with his son Luke.
Jabba the Hut was a great piece of business, as was R2D2 and C3PO. Someone told me that this, being pre-CGI, that there was always a person huddled in R2D2. He saved the day many times, and somehow, without language they were able to infuse him with charm. Chewbacca was always interesting, tender and fierce. I really liked the piece of the last movie with the Ewoks. From what I've heard, they were not popular with the hard corse fans. That must explain why I liked them. There was something enjoyable about these teddy bear-like creatures fiercely battling the Imperial Army. But, yeah, I know I don't have a lot of credibility discussing Star Wars, since I waited thirty years to see them!
Looking back at this paragraph, I see that I called out all the major non-humans as my favorite characters. But I guess it's that kind of movie. The human characters were almost so flat/stock that only the inhuman characters were really infused with unique charm. We expect a little more from actual humans.
So, yeah, I give it a big thumbs up. But I probably won't sleep in a tent at The Coliseum theatre for a week to get into the first showing of "Episode 3"! Excelsior! /jack
---o0o---
Game Off: JFK Reloaded
There is a strange new "game" out (no, not Katamari Damacy!). JFK Reloaded has been hammered with a barrage of harsh criticism, and publicity; I'm sure they love it. The Scottish publisher Traffic says the game is designed to test theories about the 1963 assassination of President Jack Kennedy by providing "a realistic environment for users to test the lone gunman theory." You get to be Lee Harvey Oswald in the tower at Dealey Plaza. They released the game on November 22, the 41st anniversary of the death of JFK.
I played the demo of the game. You see the tip of the rifle, first person shooter-style, and aim at the motorcade. Unlike typical FPSs, however, no one is firing back. You empty your carbine at the limo and then see a slo-mo replay and a ballistics and trajectory analysis of where and who the bullets hit.
Senator Ted Kennedy was, naturally, outraged. Senator Joe Lieberman spoke out against it, too. He "was sickened by the game," according to his spokesman. But Lieberman is probably sickened by some things I consider wholesome fun...so I discount that a little bit. I wasn't really sickened. . .just depressed.
Halo 2 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas also shipped recently. I'm not a big fan, but I can live with them. There's something about this one that really fries me.
My review of the demo itself: it crashed the first time I ran it (not usually a promising sign); the character models were weak; the motion and physics of the cars seemed fair; the environment and sky cube were pretty low-res (especially considering they trumpeted a robust level of detail system). As far as gameplay: this is really just barely even a game. It's difficult to envision any real game from the demo, which is the shortest demo I have ever seen. Either there's not much there, or the game itself is so creepy they don't want to tip their hand before you part with your $$$.
The publisher says their intention is to debunk the myriad conspiracy theories floating around by verifying the Warren Commission's conclusion (that Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots, acting alone). One bullet missed entirely, one hit The President in the neck, and the third went into JFK's head. Traffic will be giving away "up to $100,000 in February" to the person who most closely matches Oswald's shooting. What a cynical piece of dogs**t! I'm not saying let's stop this game from being distributed. I like the first amendment, but let's not encourage these imbeciles. Vote with your wallet. /jack
---o0o---
I played the demo of the game. You see the tip of the rifle, first person shooter-style, and aim at the motorcade. Unlike typical FPSs, however, no one is firing back. You empty your carbine at the limo and then see a slo-mo replay and a ballistics and trajectory analysis of where and who the bullets hit.
Senator Ted Kennedy was, naturally, outraged. Senator Joe Lieberman spoke out against it, too. He "was sickened by the game," according to his spokesman. But Lieberman is probably sickened by some things I consider wholesome fun...so I discount that a little bit. I wasn't really sickened. . .just depressed.
Halo 2 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas also shipped recently. I'm not a big fan, but I can live with them. There's something about this one that really fries me.
My review of the demo itself: it crashed the first time I ran it (not usually a promising sign); the character models were weak; the motion and physics of the cars seemed fair; the environment and sky cube were pretty low-res (especially considering they trumpeted a robust level of detail system). As far as gameplay: this is really just barely even a game. It's difficult to envision any real game from the demo, which is the shortest demo I have ever seen. Either there's not much there, or the game itself is so creepy they don't want to tip their hand before you part with your $$$.
The publisher says their intention is to debunk the myriad conspiracy theories floating around by verifying the Warren Commission's conclusion (that Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots, acting alone). One bullet missed entirely, one hit The President in the neck, and the third went into JFK's head. Traffic will be giving away "up to $100,000 in February" to the person who most closely matches Oswald's shooting. What a cynical piece of dogs**t! I'm not saying let's stop this game from being distributed. I like the first amendment, but let's not encourage these imbeciles. Vote with your wallet. /jack
---o0o---
Keeping Things Balanced
Shelby Metcalf, a basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounts what he told a player who received four F's and one D:
"Son, looks to me like you're spending too much time on one subject."
"Son, looks to me like you're spending too much time on one subject."
Poem: Growing Up
The 1950s were all about
Giving ourselves The American Jitters:
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Huntley Brinkley
The Thing
Ed Murrow
The Blob
Fidel
Godzilla
Senator Joe McCaerthy
Gorgo.
Wild-eyed Nikita pounded his loafers on TV.
He promised to bury us.
The Cold War ignited on Ike's watch
As alarms shrieked duck and cover.
Dad was in the basement
Sandbagging the jam closet
And caching beans and gasoline.
We scared ourselves for good
and grew up to fear nothing
but nothing itself.
---o0o---
jack brummet
Giving ourselves The American Jitters:
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Huntley Brinkley
The Thing
Ed Murrow
The Blob
Fidel
Godzilla
Senator Joe McCaerthy
Gorgo.
Wild-eyed Nikita pounded his loafers on TV.
He promised to bury us.
The Cold War ignited on Ike's watch
As alarms shrieked duck and cover.
Dad was in the basement
Sandbagging the jam closet
And caching beans and gasoline.
We scared ourselves for good
and grew up to fear nothing
but nothing itself.
---o0o---
jack brummet
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