How to Pass a Folk Legend on to a New Generation
Johnny Appleseed was straight up mentally ill, and I told my second-grade teacher that when she tried to hold him up as some sort of role model.
I saw through the legend of Johnny Appleseed because I was from the Yakima Valley, land of the Red Delicious apple, which I have before referred to as “the crappy fruit that’s name is a lie.” Growing up with that cursed fruit taught me to view anything apple-related with suspicion, as my mother learned the one time she purchased Apple Jacks cereal. Even now I remain highly skeptical as to how much apple that cereal contains.
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How to Differ from Popular Opinion
I forget what book about zombies Missy had read. I’m certain it was not Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
The reason I’m certain of this is that Missy and I have entertained ourselves during this quarantine by binge-watching the 1995 BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice with Collin Firth, then followed it with the 2005 movie with Kiera Knightly.
Both were enjoyable, but very different, with the miniseries employing a more broadly comic approach and the movie having much higher production values.
The message of Pride and Prejudice seems to be that even a socially awkward, emotionally remote man can find love, as long as he’s very good looking and fabulously wealthy.
Note from Missy: Yeah, it definitely wasn’t P&P&Z, because until we watched the miniseries, I’d never experienced Pride and Prejudice. (Though I did read Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter!) For the life of me, I can’t figure out what book this would have been, lo these 7 long years ago.
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How to Fix Something Yourself
When I was a kid, our family had this make and model of vacuum.
How to Explain Your Personal Feelings
This story about James Doohan is true, except for the part about my relatives thinking he was in Star Wars. They all knew he was on Star Trek, though some either called it “the Star Trek” or “Star Track,” I suspect in a deliberate effort to irritate me.
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How to Share an Innovative Idea
During a fit of boredom I gave the first episode of the Netflix series Formula 1: Drive to Survive a chance, ended up binging the whole thing over two weeks, and, heaven help me, I’ve actually recorded a couple of F1 races, despite the fact that F1 racing is generally recognized as a “sport.”
There are three things I find interesting about F1 at the moment.
1. It’s the most high-tech sport.
2. It isn’t just one sport. The drivers try to out drive one another, the mechanics try to out-mechanic the other teams mechanics, and the pit crews engage in what could classify as a sport in its own right. My understanding is that the Red Bull racing team currently has a noticeable advantage because their pit crew can perform a full tire change in 2 seconds, instead of the positively glacial 3 seconds the other teams take.
3. The drivers’ training regimens include exercises that look like clips from a montage in a Will Ferrell movie.
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How to Introduce a Female Version of an Established Male Superhero
I enjoyed the all-female Ghostbusters. I also enjoyed Ocean’s 8.
A lot of guys ask why the teams in those movies had to be all-female. It’s not hard to figure out. When your car is veering left into a ditch you don’t just straighten the wheels out, you steer to the right for a while first to get back on the road. All-female protagonist movies are us course correcting until we can straighten out and center ourselves in our lane (By that I mean, have an even mix of male and female protagonists in movies, the way we should have to begin with). Women are 50% of the population, why shouldn’t they be 50% of our heroes?
The question to ask isn’t why we have all female teams in film reboots now. The question is why the originals had to be all male. The original Ghostbusters had, I think, six speaking roles for women. Aside from Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts, there were the frightened librarian, the student Venkman hit on, the realtor who sold them the firehouse, and Jean Kasem as the tall woman agreeing to dance with Rick Moranis.
It was a different time, and I hate to second-guess Dan Aykroyd, but if dealing with Gozer and Zuul was such an emergency, why not give Janine a pack? You can’t tell me Annie Potts wouldn’t have been funny in an ill-fitting jumpsuit.
I’ve written here more than once about my how much I enjoy Ocean’s Eleven (Clooney, not Sinatra), but why were all eleven men? Again, that movie had five speaking roles for women: two off-camera parole board members, a blackjack dealer who is going on break, a thieving stripper, and Julia Roberts as “The Prize.” (Tess doesn’t split eleven ways!)
There’s no one actor of the team I would single out as needing to be replaced, but almost any of the characters could have been a woman and it wouldn’t have changed the story.
This is only tangentially related, but if they ever do another Ocean’s movie, one where team members from 11, 12, and 13 mix with the cast from 8, I hope that they’ll have Thandie Newton play the wife of Basher (Don Cheadle), and that she will do a terrible American accent.
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How to Not Sell My Wife a Car
This comic was written after a trip to a car dealership. The salesman introduced himself to me and shook my hand. I introduced him to Missy and I told him that she was buying a car for her to drive. Missy also told him this. He asked me what kind of car she was looking for, addressed all of his questions to me, and afterward followed up by contacting me, not her.
We did not buy a car from him.
Note from Missy: I honestly cannot remember which specific experience Scott based this comic on, because it’s happened several times—pretty much every time I’ve shopped for a car, even when I’ve gone alone. Like when I went to test drive a Smart Car, and they tried to steer me to a 4-door sedan and a minivan instead. Or there was the guy who would listen to my questions while looking at Scott, then direct his answers at Scott as well. (Except when he asked about paint color preferences; he definitely directed that at me.)
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How to Justify Your Unjustifiable Actions
At some point in this country, failure to quietly accept other people’s rudeness became viewed as the greater act of rudeness. Expecting people to be civil is often viewed as un-civil.
Also, more and more broad, anodyne statements are capable of being construed as partisan political statements.
Note: I did not say “misconstrued.”
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How to See a Point Where the Path of Your Life Changed
Is there a one-word phrase that means the opposite of bravado? I can’t think of one, but whatever it is, Phil Collins is loaded with it. It’s strange to look back and remember that he was a hit solo artist, lead singer of a hit band, a legendary drummer, producer of several hit albums for other artists, a guest star on popular TV shows, and eventually starred in a movie, all while carrying off his “What, me? I’m just an ordinary balding man in a slightly oversized suit” vibe. That’s a tough trick to pull off. You have to respect it.
I really did want to grow up to be Phil Collins when I was in middle school. Part of it was that he managed to be cool while being bald and physically unimpressive. I had seen my father and my uncles. I knew where things were going. Back in those pre-Picard days, if you wanted a role model who was comfortable with their baldness, your choices were Phil or Telly Savalas.
(Note: This performance has been one my go-to “weird things you can find on the internet” for a few years, but this is the first time I’ve seen this extended version, which shows Telly was performing on a German variety show. Now I wonder if it’s not actually an example of Telly Savalas trying his hardest to be cool, but might be something he was inflicting upon the Germans as revenge for the war.)
Note from Missy: I feel like the opposite of bravado would be cowardice. Which doesn’t quite describe Phil Collins’s particular brand of weepy, freshly-dumped, playing-the-blame-game songwriting.
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