I Can't Stand The Cold; Where's The Kitchen?

I understand there is much I don't understand, but the main mystery I'm shaking my head at today is why, on a thirty-five degree, barely breezy (not even windy) day such as today, I am so cold when in two months an identical day like today will make me ready to dig out some shorts and start screaming "Play ball!" I was freezing today and it's not even at the freezing mark. I can't be any colder than this, I kept telling myself, trying not to think of the fact that in a couple weeks it will probably be at least twenty degrees colder, possibly for weeks on end. I know, I know, that everything is relative and we all adapt, and it's not as if I haven't survived a couple scores of winters, but my God am I cold today, and to think that it will be so much colder so soon doesn't make any sense. It can't be colder.

Now I'm on record as hating the heat, and I believe I'm on record as saying I'd rather be cold than hot, because the sensation of being warmed up is better than that of being cooled off, but still, heat seems to be a little more lenient than cold. 95 is horrendous (and about as bad as it gets around here--plus some killer humidity), but 75 is Heaven. Why then, when minus 5 is about as bad as we get here (plus some killer wind chill) is 15 so awful, let alone how horrible 35 was today? As awful as heat is, at least its window is pretty small (for my rather timid tastes, it's too hot at 86). But 40 or so degrees of cold cold cold? Seems patently unfair, in a kind of 1% wealth vs. 99% of the rest of us kind of way. Plus, there's hot and heat, an adjective and a noun, whereas there's only cold, both adjective and noun. Cold, the ultimate four-letter word, sums it all up, no spin-offs necessary. Those wise ancestral wordsmiths knew when they had hit perfection on the first swing--cold, nothing more needs to be said.

Now I don't want to launch into a litany of cold laments (there are four more months of blog posts to do that), though that awful getting into and starting a cold car is about the worst, but I will say how psychological it all gets: Yesterday, when I was complaining about all the rain we've been having, but then added, as a predictable end to a predictable conversation about the weather, "but at least it isn't snowing," my co-worker said, in all innocence, and maybe just trying to defend Mother Nature a bit, "Well, it's been a pretty moderate winter so far." Depressed we both were, a minute or two later, when it dawned on me and I reminded her that technically winter doesn't start for another couple weeks. You see what the cold does to our already fragile minds? Fittingly, a man named Blaze said it best:

Ragged But Right Rigamarole, Or, More Garbled Nonsense

As happens, somebody used a colorful word the other day in my presence, and I've been obsessed with it ever since. Rigamarole, or maybe more properly, rigmarole, though I love that extra syllable. How can you not just quake in wonder at that word, a poem in and of itself? Rigamarole--any long, complicated procedure; a set of incoherent or pointless statements; garbled nonsense. Yes, "garbled nonsense" was a close also ran when it came time for me to bestow a name on this humble blog. Unfortunately, rigamarole seems to be a 100% pejorative term these days. "I don't want any of your rigamarole, Lou." "What's all this rigamarole then?" You don't ever really hear something like, "Oh, thrill me with your rigamarole, kind sir," do you? Too bad, because garbled nonsense has quite a literary tradition; I mean, where would the Western Canon be without Tristram Shandy, Finnegans Wake, and all of Jane Austen? And if half the tunes of Bob Dylan and The Band's Basement Tapes aren't the rockingest garbled nonsense of all time, then curse me with having to listen to Journey the rest of my days: nonsense without the essential garble is just nonsense.

But whence the word? Appropriately, its source is found in literature, 1700s literature. It comes from ragman roll: a list, probably a roll used in a medieval game, wherein various characters were described in verse, beginning with Ragemon le bon, Ragman the Good (and no relation to Simon, as far as I can tell). Ragman Roll to rigmarole to rigamarole--makes perfect nonsense sense to me. And, lo and behold!, eighteen months or so before those sainted Basement Tapes, Bob Dylan was beginning his own nonsensical description of characters, "Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again," with these lines: "Awww the Ragman draws circles, up and down the block/I'd ask him what the matter was, but I know that he don't talk." Coincidence? Or did Bob know all about the intricacies of rigamarole? I know my verdict.

Rigamarole. Sounds like what a proud trucker may declare as he sets off for the road in his newly loaded new truck: "Rig-a-ma-roll!" I'm sure some hip bakery somewhere has ripped off the deliciousness of the Everything Bagel and concocted something called a Rigama-Roll, right? And, of course, back to Bob Dylan. In 1972 Rudy Wurlitzer (is there a cooler, non-made-up name?) sent Bob his screenplay for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, hoping Bob would write some music for the movie. Bob not only complied ("Knockin' On Heaven's Door" and the ineffable "Final Theme" among others), but he also was interested in being in the movie. Rudy and director Sam Peckinpah obliged and the character Alias ("Alias anything you please") was born. They rigged him a role.

Well, enough sense. Time to try my hand at a Ragman Roll.

Ragman the Good
Did what he should
Eschewed wood
Built a cabin of food

Bagman the Nasty
His lot cast he
With the mob, see
Now swims with the fishies

Lagman the Slow
Didn't wanna go
Exchanged his turbo
For a stick of pogo

Cragman the Klutz
Navigates the ruts
Up the rock he struts
Splatter go his guts

Hagman the Rich
Hankers for a witch
Nothing but which
Can ever scratch his itch

Dragman the Queen
Does nothing but preen
Never is he seen
In a dress sans sheen

Wagman the Dog
Got lost in the fog
Now that old bog
Has got quite a clog

Sagman the Fool
His pants did kinda drool
Skipped out of school
Tripped and fell uncool

Nagman the Twit
Didn't know how to quit
Started many a snit
Ended in a shallow pit

And finally, there's Riley Puckett, pictured above. With a face like that, but with a voice like his, he certainly knew what was ragged but right. Holy rigamarole, this song:

Press 1 For Weeping Willow

I was on the phone yesterday with a large corporation, going through that modern ritual that somehow must have its roots in all the kindling gathering, blanket shaking, and rubbing two sticks together preparations our ancestors must have endured in order to send out a concise, cogent smoke signal: the "menu selection." As usual it was one of those inevitable "our menu options have recently changed, so please listen carefully" joints. Before I get to my point, let me first register my resentment at the choice of the word "menu." Menu, being such a weird (not a whole lot of words end in "u" do they?) and seductive word, should be used only when presenting a list of things that can be eaten. When I'm on the phone trying like crazy just to speak to a human about a usually pretty basic question I have, I don't need to be reminded that instead I could be spending my time sitting in a chic restaurant mulling food choices, or, with that "our menu options have changed" spiel, at least in my corner Applebee's pondering why they need a new menu every two weeks to tell you about the same old food.

Anyway, there I was, punching all sorts of numbers (by the time a live human being finally answers your call, your phone screen is covered with digits that look like one of those "are you Mensa material" tests with a series of scores of numbers and you have to figure out the sequence and guess the next logical number). But I flatter these corporations' phone systems--there is no logic. Case in point: On my call yesterday, after entering an account number, a zip code, and hitting several numbers to inch closer to the info I needed (and yes, I was guilty of at least one instance of zoning out which led to that two second panic of dead air when you're thinking, "oh no, there is no number for my particular issue, I'm screwed," until finally that voice, which had been irritating but now seems so comforting, offers, "If you would like to hear the menu options again, please press 24," which then yields a "repeat" of the menu options, but I swear they must be playing tricks on me because this time 2 was the obvious option for me, how did I miss it?), and I swear this wasn't an audio hallucination, I heard this option offered to me: "If you would like a tree planted in your name, please press 5."

What? I was not calling the Sierra Society or the Audobon Society or TreeHuggers Anonymous. This was a corporation, one that is probably taking steps to secure its facilities in the event of a flash mob occupy scenario. Is this some kind of joke, I wanted to scream at that automaton's voice. Is this the corporation's idea of community involvement, a "we're going Green" initiative, buried deep inside their automated phone system where only the most clueless, desperate people are ever going to hear it? Some kind of "obviously you don't know what you're doing if you're still on the line without punching an appropriate number, so you might just be the kind of person who wants to sign up to have some alleged tree allegedly planted in your name miles and miles away from where you actually live, what the hell it's the least we could do for making you suffer through all this mindless number punching without getting a satisfactory answer to your trivial question" thing? I felt like a mouse who had taken a dozen wrong turns in a maze only to find himself dead-ended with an ort of dry cheese waiting for him: good try, kid. Now I really like trees, and I have participated in tree-plantings in somebody's name, which are always moving ceremonies, and I would be humbled to have a tree named after me some day (press 3 for elm), but really, I don't need some corporation who can't manage to get me an answer to a simple question without inducing carpal tunnel syndrome and madness doing my tree planting. I think we'd all be better served if, after reaching the dead end of a corporate automated phone system, the automaton bluntly said, "Fine, you're a dimwit. Press 6 and we'll send you a $5.00 gas card. Go smoke a cigarette and try this thing again."

Of Decals, Would-Be Napoleons, And Other Cockamamie Stuff

I admit, beer was involved. Which may be the reason I forget the exact context (though I'm pretty sure the word wasn't directed at me or one of my pontifications), but the other night while socializing with a friend, said friend used the word "cockamamie." Naturally, even without the company of my good friend and the fine product of the Guinness company, just the appearance of such a rich word immediately bumped that conversation into Top Ten status (yes, I keep tabs) for the calendar year that is quickly evaporating.

Now obviously I was aware that the word means "nonsense, ridiculous, pointless, etc.," but of course I was instantly intrigued with where and how such a goofy word came from and into being. As usual, I soon found out I didn't know as much as I thought did: I thought the word was actually cockamanie, figuring it was shorthand for a crazy, probably headless, chicken running amok--ridiculous to the extreme, right? Wrong. It's cockamamie. Getting warmed up to this game of figuring out where words come from, I thought maybe the word was a recent invention, from the 1950s, and had something to do with, "That's a crazy idea, Hugh, you might as well propose punching the First Lady. Cock-a-Mamie, I say." Surprisingly, wrong again.

Here's where it really gets, well, cockamamiacal. Believe it or not, there is a word "decalcomania," which, though seeming to mean a shared obsession with stickers, actually is the "art or process of transferring pictures or designs from specially prepared paper to wood, metal, glass, etc." (that etc. no doubt includes, mainly methinks, skin, which accounts for those great lick-on tattoos, the kind that got me into trouble with a nun in sixth grade when, after applying one, I was pulled aside by said nun and told that I was hanging around the wrong kids). So, in case you were wondering, that's where the word "decal" comes from, which is an easier, though very less poetic, word for cockamamie, which originally meant a "paper strip with an image which could be transferred to skin when moistened" (moist, of course, being a five-star word in itself). Somehow, wordsmiths believe, in America during the 1940s (not too far from the Ike & Mamie 1950s), decalcomania/cockamamie got thrown in a blender with such expressions as cock-and-bull and poppycock, and voila, cockamamie, in its present sense of nonsense, was born. So there you go: Next time somebody accuses you or your ideas as cockamamie, just respond, "No, my ideas and I have absolutely nothing to do with transferring images from paper onto wood, metal, glass, or skin," and walk away in a self-satisfied huff. That'll fix 'em.

Or, better yet, for the sin of using the word cockamamie with no knowledge of its artistic, sticky origins, accuse the person of being a cockalorum (yes, my friends, when looking up one word in your dictionary, make sure you take in the surrounding neighborhood). "Cockalorum" means "a self-important little man," or in general, "bragging talk or crowing." Which, obviously, leads to the possibilty of using what might just end up being my "newly discovered sentence of the year" (yes, I keep tabs)--"Oh, stop all your cockalorum you cockalorum!" Fling that just once at somebody and see if it doesn't become a habit.

All of which leads us, naturally, to Frank Sinatra. Frank, I think the jury's in on this, was a rather self-important and, at 5 feet 7.5 inches tall (sic), little man. But I'm not here to accuse the dead of being a cockalorum. No, more interestingly, in the early 1960s I believe, Warner Bros. Records, to appease Sinatra (I bet that was a long line back in the day) pretty much created the Reprise Records label for Frank. Although it would be fascinating to believe, it doesn't seem that Frank had much input on the artists who wound up on Reprise. Case in point, the great Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, who, in 1970, released on Reprise a great album titled Lick My Decals Off, Baby, the titular song being a sort of anti-Beatles, anti-innocent love song with its memorable opening line, "Rather than 'I wanna hold your hand,' I wanna swallow you whole ... " and proceeds to raunchier, though more philosophical, heights. I guess that if the Captain had known, the song/album might have been Lick My Cockamamies Off, Baby, which would have been quite interesting. Finally to show how much the world has changed in 40 years, it seems Reprise even produced a one minute commercial for the album. Remember, this was before cable TV and the Internet, so I imagine this was an actual network TV commercial. Cockamamie, indeed.

Connect The Dots: Video Version

Did she really pronounce man's best friend as ur-EYE-nal? I love the British. And speaking Britishly, I suppose I could take the piss out of this news segment and the pub, and stand up for a long time and make little comments about streaming video games and such, but in loo lieu of all that, I'll just remind you of this video from 24 years ago, proof once again that R.E.M. was not only ahead of its time but, with their recent break-up, knew when it was time to quit, that their prophetic mission had been finally accomplished.

Where Should We Shelve You?

Some notes from the front line on Black Friday: In a much appreciated decision regarding my beauty sleep, the boss had me work the late afternoon/night shift on the year's biggest shopping day, as opposed to the early, as in 6 a.m., shift, so I missed out on the doorbusters madness. Happy to report, though, that there was no pepper spraying, trampling/trampled customers, or other such ugliness. It seems that the only casualty was the toilet paper dispenser in the men's room. It was busy but not crazy, and the only real difficulty I had was with a customer over the intricacies of the words "may" and "shall" (trust me, too insipid even for me to expound on any further). My best interaction, besides seeing a good old former bookstore colleague I hadn't seen or talked to in years, came early in my shift when I asked a woman, who had the undeniable look of someone looking for something she couldn't find, if she needed any help. "No," she replied, "just tell me where you put my husband." Not as quickly as I might have hoped to qualify as a true witticism, I said, "Antiques?" She chuckled.

Which made me think of a great philosophical question, of the parlor game variety: Where would you be shelved in a pretty comprehensive bookstore? The possibilities are myriad, and I realize the answer for most of us might be subject to change at anytime, given all sets of circumstances, but think about it--if ten of your friends were asked to shelve you in a particular section, what would it be? Self-help? Psychology? Ancient History? Crafts? Science Fiction? Humor? Mystery? New Age? Auto Repair? Clearance? Meditate for three days and get back to me.

Homework Beer? I Never Got That Syllabus





Kids today. Drinking in a computer lab. And complaining about getting caught at it. Try "banging out" your business paper on a manual typewriter and believe me, boy, by the time page 48 comes around you'll be tapping the second keg, if you haven't already passed out due to an OD of liquid paper fumes.

To be honest, though, I almost want to defend the undergrad, because really, what's the harm, but anybody who describes what, from all apparent evidence, seems to be a rather kind and generous security guard's handling of the situation as, "got all up in my grill," needs a little law and order exacted upon him. If your neighbor starts yelling at you about your unmown lawn as you're barbequing some ribs, or if the ghetto drug dealer starts pulling your teeth against your will because you don't have enough money, then the expression "got all up in my grill," qualifies as appropriate. Otherwise, nope, dude. Meander over to the hard science labs and they'll assure you it is physically impossible for the phrases "banging out my business paper" and "got all up in my grill" to coexist anywhere, especially in a computer lab.

Secondly, while I admit I have absolutely no idea what "business capping" is all about (I do give you credit for banging out 48 or so pages on the subject [and readers of this blog think verbosity is a problem!]), let me instruct you in some Latin, as in non sequitur, as in, loosely translated, what the hell does that mean? Look son, grab a twelve pack and write me a 58 or so page paper explaining what this sentence means: "Fact: Drinking in the Donnelly Computer Lab is undeniably frowned upon, making this write-up absolutely valid." Now, sure, I understand the stress of the incident (whose blood pressure doesn't geyser when somebody gets all up in one's grill?) combined with the KO of a Rolling Rock can seriously mess with one's equilibrium, but am I to deduce from this logic that anything that is "undeniably frowned upon" (technically, frowns, and, when you think about it, the act of frowning upon something, are pretty clear-cut entities; has one ever manufactured a deniable frown?), is ergo something that can be validly written-up? Good God, man, unleash the kegs, there's going to be a lot of writing-up around here. Let me clue you in on something, kid: If every interaction between a college kid drinking where he isn't supposed to be and a (perhaps, though I see no evidence of it, overzealous) campus security guard validated a "write-up" from the student, well, the world would have drowned in write-ups about two years after higher education and alcohol first met (which brings up a rather interesting side question, ala chicken and egg: which came first, college or beer?). And congratulations, kid, you're the one billionth beer-drinking college kid in history to have his grill all gotten up into by a campus security guard. Welcome to the club, here's an insulated beer cozy for your efforts.

And furthermore, kid, do you know how lucky you are to being attending college in this PC Age of sensitivity training? My favorite part of this whole thing is that security guard demanded the student save his paper before ushering him to "security." Talk about good cop/bad cop being embodied in one man. One minute the guy's all grill getting up into and the next he's looking out for the kid by "demanding" the kid save his work. Take a stand, son: If The Man demands you save, delete instead. That would be the only valid thing to do, from my 99% viewpoint.

Oh to be young again and so impassioned. I certainly hope the young man treated himself to a diatribe beer after all the all-up-in-his-grilling his homework beer got him.