Barnes Burning

When I Was A Boy, Men Didn't Play Dress Up On Halloween

I hate to dampen everyone's spirits on this spooky morn, but when I was a boy, Halloween was for the youngins. For instance, if my Dad exhaustively spent three weeks tweaking a Larry Bird costume to get it just right (down to the blond mullet and redneck wispy mustache) my Mom would have served him up her own little Halloween surprise: a firm slap in the face. Or maybe divorce papers. But today, grown men all over the country are trudging off to work in G.I. Joe regalia, pirate garb, Peyton Manning uniforms, and an incarnation or two of Satan himself. There's nothing like closing a big business deal with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sitting across the conference room table. Let's not even get into the various 2008 election costumes we're sure to see from the over-30 set. Joe The Plumber anyone? And after work, it's almost guaranteed that you're heading off to a Halloween party, where more than likely, you'll be dressed up as some semi-ironic salute to pop culture and your own devilish wit (I think we can envision a situation where somebody heads to the office as Sarah Palin, and ends up rocking the look all the way through November 4th...all it takes is a little Halloween grog). I'm not excluding myself from this criticism, because I'll spend part of the weekend shuffling around in some half-assed outfit that makes me feel like an awkward 12 year-old again. But none of this is my problem, it's society's. If you think about it, it might be time to grow up.

Love Bytes: Advice For Those Who Live and Love On Facebook

If You've Got Love In Your Sights / Watch Out, Love Bites
- Def Leppard

Time To Hate On The Facebook Status Update

Dear Love Bytes,

I’ve noticed a lot of my Facebook friends trying to out-do each other with their Status Updates. I can’t go five minutes without Joey Debate Captain (last spotted in the first row of AP History with a "kick me" sign affixed to his back) spraying everyone with his quirky take on the global financial crisis. Then we have Walt from Accounts Payable. By day: balding cubicle slave lacking even the most basic social skills; by night: witty purveyor of Family Guy one-liners tweaked oh-so-perfectly to the rolling ups and downs of everyday life. And don’t even get me started on the steaming heap of balderdash related to sports and the 2008 Presidential Election. Oh, and I’d be remiss to leave out the tech nerds who spam the network with blog posts on each and every iPhone hardware and software update…thanks buddy, but I actually don’t carry on intimate relations with my handheld device, so you can leave me off the distribution list for now.

Given this sad state of affairs, what is a normal Facebook user to do?

Thanks,

Frustrated Facebooker

 

Dear Frustrated Facebooker,

There are legions of flaming morons out there. At one time, these poor souls had the good sense to keep their mouths sealed in public. They quietly raised families, worked the 9 to 5, and volunteered in the community. In general, they just shut the hell up. It's very possible that idiotic musings swirled through their minds like a squirt of Hershey’s syrup spooned into a glass of milk....but they kept quiet about it. Then…BOOM! Social networking came along. Suddenly, they had a powerful platform on which to dispense lamely unhilarious observations about the world at large. Alas, we know how the rest of the story goes. The Facebook Status Update is an oil derrick drilling into the collective dunderheadedness of the human race.

A good rule of thumb with the Status Update is to ask the following question: If I spoke these supposedly insightful/funny/meaningful words to a level-headed person on the street, could I reasonably expect to get socked in the jaw? Would a workaday person shake his head in confusion, wondering why I’d wasted precious seconds of his life with my bland, quotidian observation? Might he spit in my face at my laughable half-baked attempt to make like this generation’s Larry David? In the meantime, Frustrated Facebookers everywhere can use the Comment function below Status Updates as a defensive tool against idiocy. If somebody’s blabbering on like a fool, give them a sock in the virtual jaw.

Old Fashioned Loan Sharking May Be Solution To Financial Crisis And Credit Crunch

Banks are failing. The stock market resembles a cosmic yo-yo, rocketing up down with bi-polar ferocity on almost a daily basis. The credit markets are frozen. 401(k) savings and retirement plans are in shambles. The government has sprung into action, but are they doing all they can to stem this financial crisis?

Maybe not. A growing faction of elected officials is beginning to embrace a radical plan to inject liquidity and solvency into the financial system. Quite simply, they believe that Americans should turn to loansharking. "America's network of neighborhood mobsters and two-bit, money laundering hoodlums is an asset that we should not ignore," said a Treasury official who asked to remain anonymous because in his official position, promoting felonious interest rates as high as 55% would be unseemly and ridiculously desperate.

"Think about it," continued the official. "The stock market has disgorged over 40% of its year-over-year value. Jeepers, the S&P 500 was down almost 10% yesterday! At this point it's really a question of who you want to smash in your kneecaps: the goddamn markets or some thug named Bruno with slicked back hair and a maroon leather jacket. At least Bruno is liquid."

In these dire times, nobody (and we mean nobody) actually has the confidence to approve a loan if you're interested in buying a car, fixing up your home, or growing a small business. So as much as it may (literally) hurt to drive down to the scummy part of the city and plead with a Christopher Moltisanti lookalike for a few wads of cash that come with vigorish so crippling that your unborn grandchildren will still be paying off the principal when you croak, what other choice does the average citizen have?

"In the early part of the 20th century, this is how the economy worked," said the anonymous official. "I think most Americans have seen The Godfather II, and that situation wasn't so bad. The crooks on Wall Street will just be replaced with local crooks like Vito Corleone. At least he cared about his community! Is the pinch you're in right now really better than the pinch you'll be in when your hand's in a welding vice because the weekly payment is a little light?"

When Mountain Lions Attack, I Give Up

We went hiking yesterday through Corral Canyon in Malibu. An interesting choice considering Santa Ana winds have been roaring all weekend igniting two massive fires in the Valley that pumped lung-clogging smoke into the canyon. Nothing says cardiovascular health like several thousand metric tons of hot ashy smoking billowing at the speed of a Jonathan Papelbon fastball.

So instead of hiking the top ridge which resembled apocalyptic battlefield aftermath from the movie "300," we drove down (avoiding cascading rock slides loosened by the wind) to a lower elevation hike that wouldn't require a National Forest Service rescue. And while this hike was more of a layman's romp, we got into a noteworthy discussion about hiker's protocol if attacked by any variety of wild, unpredictable beast. As I've made clear, while Samantha and I are no Lewis and Clark when it comes to trekking through the great outdoors, we do have a good deal of experience hiking in the American West...but we truly couldn't recall the different maneuvers required if confronted by mountain lion, bear, bobcat, moose etc. etc. With a mountain lion (the most likely adversary on this Corral Canyon trail) we seemed to think that walking briskly, but not breaking into stride, in the exact opposite direction was the rule. Or wait, are you supposed to duck into a tight ball and play dead? Perhaps you stand completely still, close your eyes tight, and hold your breath so they don't pick up your scent? Or was that what you did with a black bear? What about a brown bear? I think they say to call to a brown bear in a firm, non-confrontational, non-fearful voice "I'm here bear" like you own the trail. And stand your ground. Above all, don't show any fear. But what if you're supposed to run from a brown bear like Usain Bolt and instead you stand there feeding him dopey John Wayne one liners? What if you're supposed to blend into the surrounding fauna as the mountain lion pounces toward you and instead you stand your ground like a slab of Kobe Beef ready for the tasting menu? Of course you could Google "what to do in mountain lion attack" on your iPhone as mother lion comes to shred your jugular, but in that case, you're such a chump that the human race should cheer your mortal demise. Of course I did just that and found this curious nugget of advice:

"Never run away from a mountain lion. Running stimulates a mountain lions natural instinct to chase. Be sure to always make contact with the lion and stand up as tall as possible. By making yourself look larger it intimidates the lion and often makes them turn and run. Open your jacket and flap it about, yell, throw stones but make sure you react so that the cat knows that you are the one in control, not him."

Oh right, making physical contact with a wild lion is my first instinct, as is standing large and tall like an offensive lineman on a steroid binge. Can a suburban office park worker really wrest control of the situation from a scared, aggressively predatory lion? Does anybody really do this stuff, or do they just forget everything and crap themselves, squealing for mercy like a defenseless child?

My best tactic moving forward (instead of hitting the mountain lion "as hard as possible especially to the head area") is to pray to the good lord that I don't get into this situation. Please, please, don't let it happen. And yesterday, it worked out. We were lucky. The only beast we came across was our golden retriever Auggie, who as you can see in the picture above taken after the hike, isn't in the best shape to be attacking his human handlers.