Going for a walk

During summer and winter breaks my first two years of college, I had the misfortune of working at a fast food restaurant.

Now I know that career counselors remind us that there is no such thing as a bad job, and that we should view every job as a learning opportunity. They say this because they never had to work in a fast food restaurant, where the chief lessons are that people will buy terrible, tasteless and unhealthy food if it's priced cheaply enough; that your hard work will never be recognized because the manager is either talking on the phone the whole day or just doesn't care how hard you work because he's bitter about working there too, and at his age; that sexual harrassment of female co-workers is acceptable; and that major corporations pay their executives massive salaries by underpaying the hourly workers who make their profits possible. (Today I would add the further lesson that there is nothing like a bad economy for humiliating intelligent adults by forcing them to compete with teenagers for unskilled labor positions.)

All that said, for someone in college who wasn't able yet to land an internship or a work-study arrangement, this wasn't the worst way to make a little pocket money. (Please note the emphasis on "a little.") A typical work day would see me working from 5 or 6 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon.  This in itself was not a Bad Thing. Work usually was busiest during the breakfast and lunch shifts, and there was consequently little time to think about how much I hated my job.

One day on Christmas break my freshman year, I drove home and shambled upstairs to my room.  ("Shambled" is a fairly accurate description of how I walked around after getting up at five in the morning and rushing to work.) After I finally crawled into a change of clothes, I walked downstairs to vegetate in front of something mindless, like "The Squire of Gothos," one of those Star Trek episodes that can be appreciated properly only from a state of mental vegetation.

Star Trek, alas, was not available, but I was not to be denied. Due to the wonders of TV programming, there is always something being broadcast that is suitable for inducing brain death. Admittedly, because it was early afternoon, my choices were limited to soap operas like "General Hospital" and "Days of Our Lives"; watching the muscle  men of the Power Team rip phone books in half for God's glory; or something educational on PBS, like Sesame Street.

Something educational it was, but it wasn't "Sesame Street," which admittedly has some really jamming tunes like "Put Down the Duckie." Instead, it was an episode of the spectacular, original run of "The Electric Company," the show that is remembered for gems like Arthur Crank, Easy Reader and "Fargo North, Decoder," as well as for launching the career of Morgan Freeman with his portrayal of a giant glowworm.

The episode on that afternoon was a gripper. Silent E was committing a host of outrages. As viewers watched in horror, Silent E vandalized the kitchen sink by turning the water tap into a roll of tape. From there it leapt to a hapless boy's head and changed his baseball cap into a cape.

It seemed unbeatable, until it finally met its match in Uncle Sam, who stayed the same and showed that even then, the Children's Television Workshop had a big-government liberal agenda to push.

That was Silent E, but for an episode of "The Electric Company," which had been created to help struggling readers, Silent E was just the beginning.

In one of the most compelling segments of the show, the Evil Spellbinder had just turned Letterman into a pound cake, and all hope seemed lost for our hero.

I heard the Evil Spellbinder cackle in triumph when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my grandmother scouring the living room. The Evil Spellbinder and Letterman would have to wait.

"Grandma, what are you looking for?" I asked her.

"I can't find my hat.  Do you know where my hat is?"

My grandmother had been living with us for the better part of a year. Now in the early stages of senility, she sometimes developed the urge to leave, even though she had nowhere to go. I was at her side in an instant.

 "Uh no, Grandma, I haven't seen your hat for some time.  Why do you want it?" I was stalling for time, trying to find some way to distract her. I have never been very good at this, as my distractions usually help people focus on what they're trying to do, with the result that they finish it much more quickly.

"I'm going for a walk," she said, and with that she turned and headed directly toward her hat.  Just then, my brother Steve came downstairs.

"Step Hen, have you seen my hat?"  Grandma asked him.

Now, my brother's name is spelled "Stephen," with a ph, but it is pronounced the same as "Steven." Because of this, people either spell his name incorrectly, with the result that the post office sends his mail to a Steven Learn serving a life sentence in Cuba, or they pronounce his name "step hen," as in "step on a hen."

This tragically happened to him when he was a child and our parents had taken him to a popular children's pizzeria for his birthday. One of the manager's responsibilities at this particular restaurant was to read over a speaker the names of children celebrating their birthdays.

After flawlessly wishing happy birthdays to awkwardly named children like Yehudah ben O'Shaugnessy, Rado Prbic and Alksandr Raskolnikovichamazov, the manager choked.

"We'd also like to wish a happy birthday to Step Hen Learn, who is eight today," he said.

Steve, who would burst into tears every time he heard the theme song for "The Incredible Hulk," began screaming at once.

"Waaahhh!" he cried. "He called me Step Hen."

He cried so loudly and for so long that the manager finally gave us our meal for free. And now Grandma had called him "Step Hen" and reopened that ancient wound. Already tears were pooling in his eyes, and I had to act quickly to save both him and our grandmother.

"Grandma, isn't that your hat over on the dining room table?"  As she turned to look, I grabbed her hat, and whisked it behind her head to Steve, who snatched it from the air and  tossed it on top of a bag sitting on the top shelf of the coat closet.

"No, I don't see it," she said, and she began walking toward  the closet.  "I guess I'll go for my walk without the hat."

"Grandma, you can't go for a walk without a hat, it's too cold!"  I lied -- it was 65 degrees outside.

"And it's snowing, too," Steve said sadly, still dwelling on being called Step Hen.  Iit hadn't snowed more than half an inch in the past year, but Steve was understandably disoriented.

"Well, then I'll go in the car," my Grandma said.  I deftly positioned myself between her and the door.

There was no need to point out that driving the car without a license is not quite the same as taking a walk.  In fact, since the whole point of going out was for a walk, driving defeated the purpose.

"The cars are both out, Grandma," I lied again.  The car I had driven home from work sat docilely in plain sight in the driveway.

"Well, I'll walk, then."

"Gee, Grandma, why not just wait until my mother comes home?" Steve asked. "She can take you for a walk in the car."

This succeeded where all subterfuge had failed. She could get both her walk and her car ride at the same time. It must have seemed quite a deal, because she took off her coat and went back to her room, just as the hat fell off the bag.

We had managed to keep our grandmother safely inside.  Steve went upstairs and cried until someone finally gave him a free pizza, and I watched the remaining five minutes of the Electric Company.

I never did learn how Letterman was saved from being sold for a dollar seventy-five at the bakery.  I may never know; it continues to be one of life's little mysteries.



Copyright © 1988, 1992, 2012 by David Learn. Used with permission.



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linkedin recommendation

As someone originally from the Northeast, I frequently have been disappointed by the quality of drugs available during my trips to the South. I've never found a dealer who could give me a nice cut of weed, one that didn't give me a headache when I smoked it; the last three times I tried to buy coke, the idiot tried to sell me Mello Yello; and the ecstasy dealers, when they weren't peddling useless shit, were so clueless that they actually preferred to sell E at clubs frequented by the police.

Ms. B., however, has renewed my faith in the South as a place to do illegal drugs. She runs her organization with an efficiency that borders on the brutal. There are no snitches in her organization, although there are several buried beneath parking lots and shopping malls in her area. Delivery of the smack was always prompt, discreet and at competitive rates.

What's more, this is some high-quality shit that she peddles. Smoking even a small dose of the crack that she provides was enough to put the monkey on my back, let me see all my bones, and give me an experience that neither I nor the fifty people I allegedly ran into that night will ever forget.

And the angel dust she sells -- wowza! The police claim that I broke the jaws and ribs of sixteen different officers before they were able to take me down.

I would be remiss not to mention the extensive connections Ms. B. has built up with local, state and federal authorities in Georgia. I attribute this not only to her line of work, which always draws official attention, but to her generous nature, which prompts her to give money, cars, expensive watches, junkets and other gifts to friends in need of them.

In short, you cannot ask for a better employee for your organization than Ms. B. She is going places, and believe me, wherever she is going, she will take a horde of clients in her wake. I would not hesitate to do business with her again, once I am eligible for parole in 2096.



Copyright © 2009 by David Learn. Used with permission. All rights reserved.


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Using humor against thuggery

Not so scary now, is he?

Want to stop an evil man cold? Don't fight him. Laugh at him.

Resistance gives evil people respectability and emboldens their followers, which in turn increases their respectability. Worse, you risk making a martyr of him to his followers. That's a problem, because everyone admires a  martyr. This is true even with the worst of leaders. People still talk about Adolf Hitler with a sort of ironic awe — he was the most evil man alive, he was a brilliant strategist, he was this and that — when the truth is the guy was freaking nuts and belonged in a room with padded walls.

No one follows or respects a walking punchline. It's possible to defang the cobra without taking a swing, if you know how and where to hit them. The cobra won't like being laughed at, and it may bite you, it's true -- but no one who heard the joke will ever fear the cobra the same way again.

Evil exists, and people have a shocking propensity for evil, but only in comic books do we find evil megalomaniacs with much frequency. In the real world evil men are pudgy, are terrible planners, boast about skills that they don't have and often are compensating for all sorts of inadequacies.

The governed often prop up the govern-ers and make their government possible. All that is needed for evil to fail and to fall is for their followers to stop following. Even men like Hitler, Hussein, Milosevic and Ronald Reagan* couldn't do their great evil without the willing partnership and service of people who generally would be considered good-natured, but for their appalling willingness to go along.

So mock evil leaders and evil people without mercy. Identify the weakness in their supposed strength, and make them seem as ridiculous as they really are.

We'll all have a good laugh, and these people will become the punchlines they deserve to be.



Copyright © 2008 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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* That's a joke, son. A punchline. A laugh. You gotta stay with me, boy. I keep pitching them, and you keep dropping them. You gotta keep your eye on the ball. Eye, ball. Eyeball. That's another joke, son. I made another funny.

understanding who jesus was

What sort of person was Jesus?

You could make the case that he was black:

• He called everyone "brother."
• He liked gospel.
• He couldn't get a fair trial.

The traditional answer is that he was Jewish. And you can make a case for that too. After all,

• He went into his father's business.
• He lived at home until he was 30.
• He was sure his mother was a virgin and his mother was sure he was God.

But he also might have been Italian.

• He talked with his hands.
• He had wine with every meal.
• He used olive oil.

And as every hippy will attest, Jesus would have been right at home on the West Coast. Could he be from California?

• He never cut his hair.
• He walked around barefoot all the time.
• He started a new religion.

Or was Jesus Irish?

• He never got married.
• He was always telling stories.
• He loved green pastures.

Or maybe Jesus was an alcoholic.

• He was always going to parties at people's houses.
• He was always filled with the Spirit.
• His first miracle was to turn water into wine.

Probably the most compelling evidence suggests that Jesus was, in fact, a woman.

• He had to feed a crowd at a moment's notice, when there was no food.
• He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn't get it.
• Even when he was dead, he had to get up because there was more work for him to do.

remember to vote

Just to make sure everyone has heard:

Because election officials are expecting a large turnout at the polls for the presidential election, because of the low number of poll workers, and mostly because of the potential for physical altercations between Republicans and Democrats, Congress has decided to alter the election turnout rules:

• Democrats are to vote on Tuesday, Nov. 2.
• Republicans are to vote on Wednesday, Nov. 3.
• Members of third parties are to vote on Thursday, Nov. 4.

This also should allay fears of voter intimidation and tampering, and should eliminate problems of the sort of that jeopardized the 2000 presidential election.

Remember, every vote counts!

Stupid hang-ups I have (and one I don't)

1. I cannot, for the life of me, open a canister of Pillsbury biscuits. As soon as I try, I get a tight feeling across my shoulder blades and find myself cringing just at the thought. For some reason, that Pop! always gets to me and I've become hopelessly conditioned to dread it. (Perhaps it was the unfortunate accident I had as a child.)
2. Makeup in general holds no attraction to me, but lipstick actually grosses me out. Even just the word. I'm fortunate that Natasha has never worn makeup, except for once when she was a teenager. It's not like she needs it, either -- she looks absolutely beautiful without it.
3. I also count steps as I take them. I've heard that that's actually one of the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive behavior, which has always troubled me slightly. So apparently I also have a hangup about possibly having an undiagnosed neurosis.
4. And while we're on the subject of compulsions, I sometimes will stare at the clock, to catch the numbers changing. I get keyed up by the 12:34 thing. I was disappointed when I realized I had missed 12:34:56 on July 8 1990, especially since I had missed 1:23:45 June 7, 1989, the year previously.
5. I also peel dried glue off bottles of glue -- it's been a compulsion of mine since I was in elementary school.
6. My younger brother has long had a hangup about buttons. Even now as a 32-year-old, he can't wear a button-down shirt. I've seen him start choking and gasping for breath in a psychosomatic response to wearing a shirt with buttons. Apparently as a young child he developed a fear that a button would pop off his shirt and go into his mouth. 

job references

A co-worker of mine asked me if I would act as a reference for him in the event he needs one. (Like me, he's fighting desparately to leave the newspaper we work at.) Below are some of the references I told him I would be happy to give:

1. "As long as he remembers to take his medication and keeps away from sharp objects, Brian is a pleasant enough fellow to work with."
2. "I urge you to waste no time in considering Brian for a position with your company."
3. "I am moved to tears whenever I read something Brian writes."
4. "Brian one day will be remembered in the same breath as other great men like Napoleon, Genghis Khan and Idi Amin."
5. "Brian is a great guy to work with. True, he is dim-witted and rude, his table manners leave a lot to be desired, and he has a small, misshapen mind with a body to match, but he ... I'm sorry, I can't remember where I was going."
6. "Brian is a simple, down-to-earth sort of fellow, much like you'd expect from someone whose parents met at a family reunion."
7. "You might have doubts that Brian will be able to handle the responsibilities of the task he is applying for. I assure you that there's nothing to worry about; from everything I've seen here, he'll soon find someone else whom he get manipulate into doing the job for him."
8. "Brian is the only former death-row inmate I know who can handle this job."
9. "Well, I don't want to say too much in case he's got my line bugged, but Brian seems to know an awful lot about munitions and ordnance, and he's been interviewed by the FBI an awful lot lately..."
10. "My God! Pedersen is applying there? Hire him, you fools! The last three people to turn him down all were found three days later, floating face-down in the Hudson."

judas' true motivation revealed

You know why Judas betrayed Jesus? It's simple. He was mortified by Jesus' liberal social views, and was concerned if he did prove to be a political messiah he wouldn't approve massive tax cuts for the rich. Since Judas had squirreled away a nice bit of cash from the treasury -- and remember he only gave lip service to caring for the poor -- he decided it was necessary to nip this new social order in the bud.

one-liners

"My great-grandmother was a strong woman. She buried three husbands, and two of them were only napping."

"Instead of getting married again, I'm going to find a woman I don't like and just give her a house." -Steven Seagal

"The problem with the designated driver program, it's not a desirable job. But if you ever get sucked into doing it, have fun with it. At the end of the night, drop them off at the wrong house." -Jeff Foxworthy

"If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there is a man on base." -Dave Barry

"My Mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, 'Mom, they weren't trying to teach you how to swim.'" -Paula Poundstone

"A study in the Washington Post says that women have better verbal skills than men. I just want to say to the authors of that study: Well, duh." -Conan O'Brien

"Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant? I'm halfway through my fish burger and I realize, Oh my goodness. I could be eating a slow learner." -Lynda Montgomery

"The day I worry about cleaning my house is the day Sears comes out with a riding vacuum cleaner." -Roseanne

"I think that's how Chicago got started. A bunch of people in New York said, 'Gee, I'm enjoying the crime and the poverty, but it just isn't cold enough. Let's go west.'" -Richard Jeni

"My parents didn't want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty, and that's the law."
- Jerry Seinfeld

"Bigamy is having one wife/husband too many. Monogamy is the same." -Oscar Wilde

"You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'My God, you're right! I never would've thought of that!'" -Dave Barry

"When I die, I want to die like my grandfather, who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in her car." -Author Unknown

Advice for the day If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle "Take two aspirin" and "Keep away from children"

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar." -Drew Carey

Tombstone, Ariz., has some great epitaphs, like:
"Here lies Lester Moore
Took three slugs from a .44
No Les, no moore."

"Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way when you do critize him you are a mile away and you have his shoes."

epitaphs

Here also resteth the body of Mr. Thomas Shipphard, who was here interred the 11th July 1771, in the 82nd year of his age. Then follows:

God works wonders now and then; Here lies a lawyer--an honest man.

Source: Historical Gleanings of Bolton And District, 2nd Series, 1882, by B.T. Barton, p. 57

Another one I saw when we visited Tucson two years ago:

Here lies Les Moore,
Took two shots from a .44,
No Les, no more.

Actually, mine probably will be something like, "I told you I was sick," or my last words will be either "Look, honey, I'm not a little kid. Don't you think I know how to change a light bulb?" or "Evangeline, put that down before you hurt someone."

greeting cards

Here are a few cards you will never see in a Hallmark store:

1. So your daughter's a hooker,
and it spoiled your day.
Look at the bright side,
it's really good pay.

2. My tire was thumping.
I thought it was flat.
When I looked at the tire.
I noticed your cat. Sorry!

3. You had your bladder removed
and you're on the mend.
Here's a bouquet of flowers,
and a box of Depends.

4. Happy vasectomy!
Hope you feel zippy!
Cause when I had mine
I got real snippy.

5. Heard your wife left you.
How upset you must be.
But don't fret about it,
She moved in with me.

6. Looking back over the years
that we've been together,
I can't help but wonder:
What the HELL was I thinking?

7. Congratulations on your wedding day! Too bad no one likes your wife.

8. I must admit, you brought religion into my life. I never believed in hell until I met you.

9. As the days go by, I think of how lucky I am that you're not here to ruin it for me.

10. As you grow older, Mom, I think of all the gifts you've given me. Like the need for therapy...

11. Congratulations on your promotion. Before you go, would you like to take this knife out of my back? You'll probably need it again.

12. When we were together, you always said you'd die for me. Now that we've broken up, I think it's time you kept your promise.

13. You are such a good friend that if we were on a sinking ship and there was only one life jacket... I'd miss you heaps and think of you often.

14. Your friends and I wanted to do something special for your birthday, so we're having you put to sleep.

15. Happy Birthday, Uncle Dad!! (available only in Mississippi and Arkansas)

We were so poor growing up

Our whole town was so poor that when no one paid the water company, they turned off our rain.
The local Mafia couldn't afford a Godfather; instead, it was run by an Uncle.

When we went swimming, we couldn't use a pool -- we had to use the neighbor's septic tank.

The schools had to rent their space to the local bars after classes were out so they could meet their operations budget.

We couldn't afford to watch TV. We just stared at the pictures we had hung on the walls instead.

No one in town had telephones either. We would just lean our heads out the window and shout our messages. The neighbor would hear them, and pass them along. It took five hours once to get directions to the corner store.

We couldn't afford canned laughter, either. We were so poor, the only way we could get laughter was to sneak around at night and steal it from people's yards or from fields where it was growing wild.

And I have to say, to this date, I still enjoy wild laughter in moderate amounts. Too much of it can get really annoying, but I find that a helping of wild laughter once in a while keeps me on an even keel.

My family growing up was so poor that I had to take the neighbor's trash can lids to practice the cymbals for the school band.

My family today is so poor that Evangeline's toy drum has a picture of a Quaker on the front.

We're so poor that we don't have a computer. Instead, whenever we want to go online, we have to call the ISP manually and screech into the phone.

We would have considered sunshine to be sheerest luxury. For light, we had to scrape phosphorescent algae off decaying logs and old rocks and gather them in a pile to pretend we had sun, and even then we only got to enjoy for a minutes in the afternoon (the afternoon of July 23, to be specific) before government representatives would come to remove it as part of the sun tax.

(Missionaries love to play a variation on this game, called "My Support Stinks This Month." I was going to downtown Port-au-Prince one day with some other teachers from the school where I taught English to work on our driver's licenses, when a few of them started the game going. I listened for a few minutes, then tossed in, "My support was so low this past month that I had to send my supporters money." Game ended. I won.)