Topless: A Poem About Economics

It was a dark
and stormy day
Nobody went out to play

The wind stood up
and flew about
Your roof unfurled and
you ran out

“What luck,” you cried,
as the peak rolled by.
“I’m fully insured,”
and wiped a tear from your eye.

Shaky Ground: Online TV Advertising

Is it just me?

Reebok Easytone

“Tones key leg muscles by using balance pods in the shoes to create natural instability with every step.”

Instability? Really? I picture people looking like those clowns we used to love knocking over as kids. And Weebles. They wobble. No wonder your leg muscles and bum start looking toned; you’re trying to keep from falling over without anybody seeing.

Chase Sapphire

The wife shows off a new dress; husband smiles but wants to say, “What a piece of crap dress you bought, why don’t you just take it off?” Then he finds out she spent all their credit card points on this ugly dress without even consulting him, when clearly he was thinking, “Vacation!” I’m with the husband. Shut up, thoughtless woman, and take off the damn dress.

Dove Nutrium Essentials Nutrients Body Wash

Does the name sound like the ingredients have a whole lot to do with rats to anybody besides me?

Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing

Tiger, Tiger, Tiger. What the hell. Maybe you have great focus, but you still don’t think. Because if you’d thought about it clearly, you wouldn’t have done it. You’re just another guy after all.

Now they say you are a sex addict because the numbers of girls are up to 9 or 10 as of this writing. Like my friend just wrote to me, "Can't anybody just be an ass anymore?"

Do you get now the far-reaching effect your “transgressions” have?

Did you tell yourself that as long as your wife doesn’t find out, it’s all good?

Did you think that the girls you fooled around with were so taken in by your celebrity that they would keep their mouths shut? Did you think they were all starry-eyed and had no agenda of their own but to be there for you when it was convenient for you?

Did you actually think it would never come out? Because, my little brother-in-law, the truth always comes out. You sure were stupid to think it wouldn’t.

Oh yeah, I've already established you didn't think.

And you have children you didn’t think about as well. You might not think now that this will affect them because they are so young. But it’s affecting them already. And it will into the future. When they get to school, they are going to hear things from other kids who heard their parents talking. You have no idea, really, what you've done.

Don’t think you didn’t have a chance at bringing home an STD. You are lying to your wife and your girlfriends; you can be sure your girlfriends are lying to you about their exploits.

Your right to privacy is virtually nonexistent by your actions alone. It has nothing to do with anybody else, not the media, just you. The media has helped make you as rich and popular as you are; did you actually think any action of yours is not news?

Your reputation was one of the best of any celebrity’s. You seemed to be respectful, dignified and always seemed to know what to say in any situation. Did you think there weren’t hordes of people ready to see you fall?

You may feel mired right now in the physical and emotional aftermath of your wife, your mother and other family and friends finding out you are a lying, cheating bastard. You have no idea even yet the effect your stupidity will have.

You have ruined the kind of marriage only a first marriage of two people in love can be. Your marriage has lost the “we are so special; infidelity will never touch us; we will have that happy ending” feeling. Your wife had it. Now she doesn't. The bubble has burst. The trust, man, the trust. So much more important than any other part of marriage.

If you want to keep your marriage now and your wife consents to attempt to stay married to you, there’s a lot of work that you MUST do. You must be willing to spend the rest of your life proving yourself to her. I’m not saying it’s going to take the rest of your life, but you must be willing. You must be willing to be completely transparent from now on. It’s not hard to do. It really isn’t. Lies take on a life of their own, completely out of your famous control.

You must answer your wife’s questions honestly and fully. Really. She’s going to ask a lot of questions at first. She’s going to want to hear the hurtful things you’ve done. She’s going to want the ever-loving truth, man. The full truth. Because no less than the full truth will keep your family together. And she will know. Her senses are acute now, hyper really, and the blinders are off. She knows now many things you think she doesn’t, because there were bells ringing in her head the whole time you were cheating, but she chose to trust you. Now all those bells are like little metal tabs in a slot machine, falling into place, making sense out of every ding. She knows a lot.

Every little thing you did, every text message, every phone call, every card, gift, everything you’ve ever said to her, whispered to her, written to or done for her is suspect. You have made her entire life a sham, a lie. Her entire life with you.

Transparency, man, full disclosure. She deserves no less.

And get yourself a real name.

All My Life's A Circle

I’m almost through with another well-written TV series, this one British, called, “William and Mary.”

Have I said how much I love Netflix?

The show’s about a single dad who is an undertaker and a single mom who is a midwife and how they get together (via a dating service) and all the baggage that goes along with their families.

(I think it should have been the other way around, with the dad the midwife and the mom the undertaker.)

For instance, Mary’s mother spends a couple of episodes trying to get Mary back with Mary’s long-ago ex-boyfriend and she wants nothing to do with him and is very clear about it. You find out soon enough that the mom and the ex have spent so much time together, they’ve actually fallen in love. And the Brits make it all quite all right. They are much less stuffy about those things than us Yanks.

It’s so well done and has me laughing and crying through each episode. It is filmed making the most of the beginnings and endings of life and is not depressing at all, despite the tragedies that occur because they show the best moments right along with the worst. It feels quite real.

Granted, I am still in a weakened condition, but not too weak to know great story lines.

I thought I would have avoided romantic movies and shows right now, and life and death events, seeing as how my marriage so recently became undone, but I am drawn to them by some invisible force. Possibly one of self-flagellation.

I do find it therapeutic, though; watching them gives me a reason to let go with my emotions in a safe place and not keep stuffing my busted heart inside my shirt, with it surreptitiously leaking when I least expect it. It’s so boring when I just cry all the time in front of people—not fun at all.

Shows and movies give me hope.

Celluloid hope, but hope nonetheless. And fake hope becomes real if you hold onto it long enough.

Death lives!

I’ve been watching a short-lived gem-of-an-HBO series using Netflix: “Dead Like Me.” It’s a quirky, entertaining little show, well written, tackling the ever-interesting subject of the after-life.

Ellen Muth stars as George, an 18-year-old, life-avoiding girl who is working the first day of her first job after high school graduation as a file clerk at a temp agency when she goes out during her lunch hour and is killed by a space shuttle toilet seat plummeting to Earth. As you can imagine, she is pretty much blown to smithereens and her mom, dad and 11-year-old sister have to pick up the pieces of their lives and try to go on. But the story isn't about them.

Immediately after death, George finds that she’s a grim reaper, part of a small group of reapers headed up by Rube, played by Mandy Patinkin. She’s known as Toilet Seat Girl, thereby confirming my own suspicion that at least the writers of this show think like me: Life is no different after high school or death. Most people don’t seem to change. (Did I say high school equals death?)

The reapers must take the souls from bodies of people about to die and they do it after getting a name, time and place on a Post-It note from Rube, every morning at a pancake house where they meet.

I'm just saying, hilarious.

They make their way to the place, find a way to discover the person there who is scheduled to die and run their hand along an arm or shoulder, drawing the soul from the body. A moment later, whatever is scheduled to happen to that person takes place and they lead the just-dead person away from the scene and toward his or her “light.” Each reap has a twist of its own.

One kicker: George is a reaper in her hometown, something that is unusual even by reaper standards, and she gets to check in on her family every now and then. She is seen by the living, has to live and work among them, earning money for her expenses as if she was alive.

But reapers don’t look like themselves to the living. George takes advantage of this to visit her family, pretending to be somebody else and see how they are dealing with her death. This is not encouraged by Rube as it can wreak havoc with your focus. There is one day a year—Halloween, natch—when they are seen as they looked when alive.

The stories are great and ironic and interesting. The series ended all too soon, as the good ones all do.

Who dat?

I’ve thought of another grammatical instance that is so frequent I’m sure they’ve stopped teaching the proper usage in school.

It’s the difference between “that” and “who.”

Think of it this way: Are you a who or a that? You may be a “that” but I am a “who.” A person who, not a person that.

I learned this from a guy who worked as my reporter when I was the weekend editor at a local newspaper. It used to drive him crazy when writers didn’t use it correctly and he seemed to find it everywhere. That’s what got me on the lookout for it and now I see and hear it everywhere.

People say it incorrectly on TV much of the time, in dramas and comedies, on talk shows and while delivering the news and such. It’s likely wrong in their scripts and on their teleprompters.

It’s disgruntling. And I’d prefer to be gruntled, which I now can be, dictionary-ily speaking, as that word has morphed into meaning the exact opposite of its original meaning, “to grumble.” Putting “dis” in front of gruntle originally was how one intensified the sense of the word, instead of using it to express the opposite meaning, as “dis” is used today.

That and who may seem small to you. It isn’t.

Ask Dr. Seuss.

M.J.: Not Black Or White

This documentary, "This Is It," culled from the rehearsals from Michael Jackson’s comeback tour earlier this year, generated strong opinions in my family about his guilt or innocence as a child molester. Those who think him guilty are not interested in seeing the movie and don't apologize for it.

I find myself leaning toward his innocence. None of my family has any way to discern the facts and likely we never will. I believe he suffered at his father’s hands, possibly being unable to have any sex life at all. I think he had a real love for children and animals and just didn’t think it possible anybody could think of him as a child molester because he couldn’t hurt a fly.

I find it sad that he couldn’t recreate a good childhood for himself without people taking advantage of him and torturing him with those unthinkable charges in the hopes of a financial windfall. When I hear someone say, “It’s never too late to have a good childhood,” I think sometimes it is.

Being the genius that M.J. was, I think he also was de-compensated for the genius in other ways, although I’m sure I couldn’t say what those ways were, but I see them in other geniuses, your regular, everyday brilliances, not famous ones.

I really liked “This Is It.”

Michael’s incredible talent came through, of course, and there’s nothing unlikable about that. He definitely is a diva-type, without the meanness and histrionics. He's driven to be a perfectionist and he is so soft-spoken and kind.

I kept looking at his wierd face, which I understand a bit more since his death when I heard he thought of it as “art.” Strange, but I get it somehow, although please do not consider me a proponent of that kind of sculpting! I thought he was beautiful as nature made him. He appeared quite thin, his outfits morphed throughout each song, and I had to keep watching, tapping my foot as much as I could throughout.

The dancing was exceptional, just Michael by himself or the dancers, or a combo. Michael spoke about saving his voice throughout and you could see and hear him doing that throughout the different rehearsals. He also made a couple of jokes. He wanted everyone to be at ease, while trying to get the best out of everyone. He was definitely hands-on, once saying, "I want to hear it how I wrote it," in his nonaggressive manner. The dancers spoke mostly about Michael’s inspiration and how they were amazed they were there with him, clearly all in awe.

Getting a glimpse of how they put that show together was revealing and fun. Some people seemed to be sucking up to Michael (I got to calling him "Michael" in my head during the movie; it did not feel strange) but I got the impression he needed to be looked after, as his mind was busy creating. This documentary didn't try to give you the personal glimpse of Michael—I feel it was intended to show the professional instead—but he is such a force in his quiet perfection that it all felt personal.

I ended up feeling badly that the show will never be performed in front of an audience and that the dancers and singers were left in a sort of limbo, never consummating their hard work by showing the world on stage what they were achieving with this show.

I also felt that the military theme that runs through M.J.'s work, and also sister Janet’s, must hearken back to their childhood and their father’s treatment of them. When Michael did the Jackson 5 bit during rehearsals, it brought me right back to being about 13 years old, sitting on my parents’ bed, watching the little TV on my father’s side, just being mesmerized by their stage show.

Michael is still mesmerizing.