A Rock To Tie A String Around

It is Halloween people, time to gorge yourself on pumpkin beer and candy, stay in and watch the yearly Halloween Michael Meyers fest on AMC (seriously, why is that the only horror movie that they play?) I have been trying to think of something to write for Halloween, I thought of a countdown of scary movies, scary books, scary politicians, scary costumes, scary costumes on politicians…. It’s all been done.

The thing about Halloween is that the things that really scare me don’t exist in a book or a movie and they certainly don’t only come out on October 31. I’m talking crazy people. And they’re everywhere, I see them, sometimes they don’t even know they’re crazy.

So, instead of yet another list of scary books and movies, I decided to get practical and outline a couple of the crazy people in my neighborhood that I strongly feel you should avoid.

1. The Rentally Insane Dancing Clown

Westside Rentals, an agency that matches people with apartments here in West LA, has a new and bizarre ad campaign. On National Boulevard they have parked a giant moving van that is all decked out like a boxing ring. On the sides of the van is the slogan ‘Don’t Be Rentally Insane! Call Westside Rentals!’ On top of the van, bouncing around in his fake boxing arena, is a crazy person. The Rentally Insane Dancing Clown is wearing a superhero outfit with cape, boxing gloves and a big clown wig. He bounces around; throwing punches at cars and emitting high pitched squealing sounds.

This is the picture on the van...now the guy who bounces around atop the van...?

I walk this path nearly every day, as it is on route to my son’s, Mr. Adorablepants, preschool. One day while walking past The Rentally Insane Dancing Clown, I was made the mistake of making eye contact. Now, he yells things at me as I pass. I think he thinks I am judging him, as a person. Maybe I am. He yells “Hey! It’s a job you know! I’m paying my bills you know!”
No doubt buddy. That is exactly why I haven’t called Westside Rentals and complained about you. I’m pretty sure you really need this job, and more importantly…I think you’re insane. I only have another week to put up with this. When daylight savings ends, I will no longer be able to walk to Mr. Adorablepants’ preschool, and presumably it will also too dark for you to be dancing around on top of that van.

Plus, I read It like everyone else; I have clown nightmares like everyone else. And you, Rentally Insane Dancing Clown, are freakin’ scary.

Of course, it brings up all sorts of questions. There is a huge flaw in the ad campaign if you ask me. Rentally Insane is a mental illness, albeit an imaginary one. Why would I want to be rentally insane? Maybe I shouldn’t rent anymore, maybe I should buy.

So, if you’re on National Boulevard, and you see a scary dancing clown – don’t make eye contact. Believe you me, you’ll regret it.

2. The Overzealous ADT Salesman

There’s a guy who cruises my neighborhood selling security systems door to door. He has come to my door four times this month, he’s persistent, most crazy people are. He knocks on the door, and then immediately retreats to the yard. When I answer the door he immediately yells “I’m not going to attack you!”

Okay, okay, so the ADT guy doesn't have devil horns, he also doesn't wear a suit....wait, this picture doesn't fit at all.

Whew. That’s good, cause if you hadn’t announced that I might have thought you were a little creepy.

Then from my yard, he tries to sell me on the benefits of installing an ADT security system. I tell him no, then he yells “Well, I can see you don’t care about your family’s security!”

Whoa, don’t make momma bear break out her claws buddy. Momma bear doesn’t take kindly to someone implying that she doesn’t care about her family. She also doesn’t take kindly to overzealous fear pitches that are being transmitted via outside voice from the middle of her yard.

Get off my lawn Overzealous ADT Salesman or I will soon install a security system designed to keep you away. It’s called an angry cat being tossed in your general direction as soon as you approach (not my angry cats, I thought I would grab one of neighbor cats and rile them up…)
I have no intention of buying an ADT security system; I do however like to hatch plots to scare away their salespeople.

Okay, so maybe this cat is more cute than angry....but don't you just want to pinch her little cat cheeks?

That’s it for now; I’ll probably see a few more of the everyday scary people at the big Halloween block party tonight. Remember, people – the truly scary isn’t what jumps out in the dark but what is yelling at your from atop a truck in the middle of the day.

The Husband accused me today of making up expressions, I for one, am deeply offended. One hardly has to make up an expression, there are enough odd ones already out there. Of course, most of us have hardly any idea what we’re actually saying when we use them…. If you break down the derivations of the expressions, they become notably less savory. So I decided to research some of my childhood favorites and also a couple that I have heard lately that make me wonder if people actually know what they’re saying.

Not sure why owls need to be drunk or how they would would even drink....maybe a really long straw?

Here you go, enjoy.

1. Yellow-belly: of loony tunes fame, it means someone who is a coward. I can only relate this expression to Yosemite Sam, and as a kid it never occurred to me that there might be anything derogatory in this whatsoever.

I was wrong. As uncovered by The Phrase Finder at http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/yellow-belly.html, yellow-belly is a reference to Linconshire Fens back in jolly old England who were considered to be so unhealthy that their complexion was a jaundiced as the bellies of the eels for which they are evidently known.

When you offend one eel, you offend them all.

I wonder what Yosemite Same had against the Fens?

The first US usage appears back in the 1840’s and was a direct jab at skin color aimed at Mexicans, not so much in a racial way but rather to indicate that the offending Mexicans appeared unhealthy.

Take that, you damn unhealthy Mexicans.

2. Gypped: I’ve had probably a dozen people in the past month use this expression in conversation. It stood out because prior to this month, the last time I actually heard someone say ‘gypped’ was in elementary school.

As in: “Oh man, this burger looks nothing like it did on TV, I’ve been gypped!”

The explanation, thanks to The Phrase Finder at http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/8/messages/624.html
Isn’t too surprising, it means that you believe a gypsy has tricked you out of your money. I wonder how many of the dozen people in the last month who have used ‘gypped’ in my presence meant to say that.

It is, of course, overtly racist, implying that all gypsies are lying, cheating thieves. It’s also a little oddly specifically racist, especially for us Americans, considering that most of us have never actually met a gypsy. The term gypsy comes from ‘Egyptian’ as the first gypsies arrived from the east and the early Europeans arbitrarily assigned Egypt as their place of origin, as it represented all the suspicious non-European countries such as Turkey, Hungary and of, course, Egypt.

So I suppose you could substitute ‘I’ve been gypped’ with ‘I’ve been Egyptianed’….

I am pretty sure that none of the people who have used that expression lately in my presence have meant to be racist, nor do they really have much of an idea that what they’re saying is, indeed, inherently racist. When I sort of jokingly asked my co-worker what he had against gypsies, he looked at me like I had swallowed a frog.

3. Nit Picking: I use this one all the time myself, although I won’t be after reading about it. Nit Picking has been used by pretty much everyone have ever known to mean that you are being really picky about teeny tiny details.

As in: ‘Jeeze, that bouncer is being so nit picky about the rules, I mean, really, I’m pretty much twenty-one…like in two years….’

Evidently, according to Know Your English at http://englishwithsunil.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/what-is-the-origin-of-nit-picking/, a ‘nit’ is the egg of lice or other parasitic insects. Monkeys and Gorillas ‘nit pick’ each other all the time and eat the fruits of their labor, yum. In this context the phrase sounds pretty innocuous.

Okay, so this does nothing to illustrate my point, but it's really, really cute.

However, during the slave trade it took on an entirely different context at the slaves who arrived in the American colonies had to be ‘nit picked’ for lice and fleas before they could be sold. So the expression changes connotations at some point from monkeys to people, thus making it decidedly distasteful.

My advice is that unless you really are talking about gorillas, or are a gorilla yourself, find another expression.

4. That’s So Gay: I saved the best for last. I work in a high school; my students think everything is ‘gay’. They think that when I assign them a ten page research paper that it’s ‘gay’, they think it’s ‘gay’ that someone would listen to 1980’s pop music, they think taco truck guy is ‘gay’ because he doesn’t give them a discount.

If I ask them, and I do ask them, why they are so intent on bashing homosexuals, they immediately respond with ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that…..’

No one ever does….sigh.

The recent PSA campaign involving the incomparable Wanda Sykes said it best, but if you think something is dumb, just say it. Or come up with any number of actual dumb things in the world to compare the dumb thing that’s just happened to you to.

Wanda Sykes PSA

It’s easy, and fun.

‘Jeeze, that waitress is so twenty-one year old with a boob job whose only goal is to get a regular spot on Jersey Shore.’

Or :

“Man, that is so forty-year old guy desperately trying to cling to his youth by driving a souped up corvette and dating that twenty-one year old waitress with a boob job who’s only goal is to get a regular spot on Jersey Shore”

Or you could shorten it and say:

“That’s so Jersey Shore”

Whenever I'm feeling down, I always remember that things could be so much worse....

My point is this – if we knew where our language came from, we’d all talk a lot less….it’s like chicken nuggets –once you see the pink meat paste coming out of tube on an internet video, you’re much less likely to order off the value menu.

I’m mad at my favorite reading distraction: Charlaine Harris and the Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mysteries. Yes, I’m mad.

I’m willing to forgive a lot of things when it comes to junk fiction. I’m willing to overlook the somewhat overarching use of the term ‘mystery’ when applied to all ten of the Sookie Stackhouse books….in books 1-5ish there was a hint of a mystery, but the thread was lost somewhere round about book 6. I’m okay with that.

I’m all right with the sporadic inconsistencies that plague this series. There are really too many to count, most of them fairly small but still somewhat annoying. I mean, c’mon, really here – you created this world, you made up these characters, even after ten books, is it really that hard to keep the details straight? Really?

For example, there’s a lot of talk about how Vampire Bill was turned into a vampire on his way home from the Civil War. Check my history here but the Civil War ended in 1864. In the last book, Dead in the Family, which has sparked this little rant – we find out that he was turned into a vampire in 1870……how far away did he live from the war that it took him six years to get home?

All that aside, I think if I had more time, I would be less annoyed. But since I have precious few minutes in a day to simply relax and read junk fiction, I expect that junk fiction to be of a certain quality. I will fully admit that I read Sookie Stackhouse for borderline inappropriately detailed vampire sex scenes and cheesy southern dialogue.

Yes, I will admit that.

Did I get that in this last read? No. No, I did not.

I think sometimes successful authors will churn out books simply because they are expected to do so, and perhaps they need to pay for that addition on their house they started with the last book…. Dead in the Family reeks of a new washer and dryer set.

Don’t get me wrong. If I had so many people reading my books that I had the freedom to just take some random crap and fling it at the wall and people would make it a bestseller, I would probably do so. If my water pipes burst and I needed a new roof, or if my butler wanted a raise (cause when I’m rich I’m getting a butler named Fairchild)….I would probably, most definitely have written this exact same book.

To be fair, it’s not a total case of crap on the wall. The Alexei Romanov plot line is interesting, and it’s definitely a good creepy move to introduce an insane vampire child. However, she doesn’t do anything with him. He’s utterly wasted here. I knew he was going to fly off the handle and attack everyone at some point. The fact that he attacks primarily other vampires that can heal themselves kinda takes the steak out of the sizzle.

Part of me says this is so very wrong, part of me wonders where I can order one for Mr. Adorablepants.....

The fact that Sookie and Erik are married has made them utterly uninteresting. The fact that Erik punctuates every conversation with Sookie with such sweet nothings as “Lover, we must make love tonight.” Makes me vomit in my mouth a bit….. But I would be willing to forgive such unadulterated cheese if we could get some play by play vampire lovin’ action as seen in Book 4 – Dead to the World. Shower scene anyone?

Charlaine Harris isn’t the only author to do this, not by a long shot. I think it must be hard to be too successful as a writer. Unless you created Harry Potter, most successful authors aren’t exactly rolling around in cash boy band style. You have a following, and they expect you to keep churning out books. Fair enough. But it doesn’t make the experience of reading your favorite author’s king sized memory-foam mattress book any less painful.

I’ve had this happen with all my favorite authors; Stephen King is also guilty of this one. In fact, in On Writing, he pretty much admits to doing it. I suppose it is entirely debatable as to what you suspect he wrote for the sole purpose of paying off the car loan but my vote is on Cell and Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

I suppose it comes down to the difference in being a working writer and a neurotic artist. We’ve all heard the stories about Toni Morrison rewriting Beloved by hand a decade after it won the Pulitzer, still not content that it was perfect enough. I hope that we can be a little of both at the end of the day, but paying off the visa bill is also tempting…..