We were walking the Terry Trueblood trail on October 3, 2022 during the balmy early autumn weather. Sena and I had been looking for a decent picture of Goldfinches all summer long and didn’t catch any.
Sena gently alerted me to a female Goldfinch foraging on a tree right next to the walkway. She was trying to snatch bugs out of the air, and her olive feathers flashed in the sun.
That was right next to Hilde DeBruyne’s orange steel sculpture titled “Wings.” How lucky can you get?
I listen to the KCCK radio station (88.3) Big Mo Blues Show on most Friday nights and the host is John Heim, aka Big Mo. He always mentions a sponsor he calls May Reese hand-battered catfish. There are a couple of slogans which make it sound real.
“It’s better because it’s battered!”
“It’s packed with nitrates!”
“Coming soon to a river near you!”
Nobody but Big Mo ever advertises it and I’m not even sure I’m spelling “May Reese” correctly. In fact, I doubt there is such a person. But it’s fun to listen to Big Mo talk about May Reese’s hand-battered catfish.
Sena bought some breaded catfish nuggets from Hy-Vee, which is about as close to May Reese as we’re likely to get. They’re IQF, which means Individually Quick Frozen. Sena’s just slightly dubious about trying them. But she’s going to cook them, just because Big Mo talks about hand-battered catfish (better because it’s battered!”) and it’s mainly because I get a kick out of the legendary May Reese.
We can’t remember ever eating catfish. When I was a kid, I used to fish for bullhead, which are in the same family as catfish. In fact, they are sometimes called bullhead catfish, which I didn’t even know until today when I looked it up on the web.
I fished for them in a creek in East Park in Mason City where I grew up. I would catch them and throw them back. They were almost always small and sometimes one would manage to squirm enough to sting me with the very sharp spine on its fins.
I never brought bullhead home because Mom made it abundantly clear she would never clean them.
I doubt Sena would ever cook hand-battered bullhead, even if you could find them IQF in the grocery store.
I’m not sure if bullhead would be “packed with nitrates” and I don’t think May Reese would hand batter them—unless she used a baseball bat.
Sena and I were listening to the Mike Waters morning radio show (KOKZ 105.7) this morning and his invitation to listeners was to call in and quote their favorite dumb question. One of the callers recited something which was actually a George Carlin joke. Neither one of us thought we heard it right, but it’s the same framework as the joke I found on the web (only the numbers were changed):
“If you’ve got 24 odds and ends on the table and 23 of them fall off, what’ve you got? An odd or an end?”
This is an example of his wordplay humor.
Carlin’s humor was also marked by satire on American culture and politics, the latter of which has gotten pretty rough. You’ll also find references on the web to Carlin’s past history of substance use, which reportedly included psychedelics.
That reminds me of an opinion piece published in the September issue of Current Psychiatry, by the journal’s editor, Henry A. Nasrallah, MD (From neuroplasticity to psychoplasticity: Psilocybin may reverse personality disorders and political fanaticism. Current Psychiatry. 2022 September, 21(9): 4-6 | doi: 10.12788/cp.0283).
I was a little surprised at Dr. Nasrallah’s enthusiastic endorsement of psilocybin for treatment of personality disorders and political extremism. He acknowledges the lack of any studies on the issue. In the last paragraph of his essay is a sweeping endorsement:
In the current political zeitgeist, could psychedelics such as psilocybin reduce or even eliminate political extremism and visceral hatred on all sides? It would be remarkable research to carry out to heal a politically divided populace. The dogma of untreatable personality disorders or hopelessly entrenched political extremism is on the chopping block, and psychedelics offer hope to splinter those beliefs by concurrently remodeling brain tissue (neuroplasticity) and rectifying the mindset (psychoplasticity).
While I’m not so sure about how effective psilocybin would be for this, I’m all for trying something to reduce the “visceral hatred on all sides.”
Maybe humor could be part of the solution. It doesn’t have to be exactly like that of George Carlin. Both parody and satire have been used by many writers for this.
I like the distinction between parody and satire in one article I found on the web. One recent example of satire (or parody; the distinction is sometimes hard to make since the story was listed as “Iowa Parodies”) was in the news and it apparently fooled at least a few people. It was about the Iowa football coaching staff. The title was “Brian Ferentz Promoted to University President To Avoid Having to Fire Him (Satire): The move was deemed ‘a way easier conversation than having him fired’ by the athletic director. It was written by Creighton M, posted September 5, 2022.
I think the story was originally printed without the word “Satire” in the title. I can’t recall seeing the heading “Iowa Parodies” either. A later version of the story added the word “Satire.”
The story might have been about nepotism in the hiring of Brian Ferentz (he’s the son of head coach Kirk Ferentz) as offensive coach. On the other hand, under Iowa law, it was not illegal to hire Brian Ferentz, who in any case reports to athletic director Gary Barta, not Kirk Ferentz.
I suspect the joke had more to do with negative public attitudes about the performance of the Iowa football offense early in the season.
Is it funny? I guess it depends on your perspective. The Iowa football coaching staff probably didn’t chuckle over it. But it more or less fits the definition of satire. It uses humor to expose flaws in the way we behave. And it avoids direct and nasty confrontation, which usually triggers antagonism rather than collaboration. Will it change the Iowa football program? I doubt it. They’re actually doing pretty good so far.
But satire as a strategy to inform and maybe change the public opinion will endure. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is one of my favorite books and it satirizes governments and the foolishness of people. I first learned about The Onion newspaper while we were in the process of relocating to Wisconsin (a short adventure). It satirizes the Associated Press news style.
One of the most uproarious examples of parody is a TV show which is no longer available on cable television but still offered on a streaming service (I think), Mountain Monsters. It’s a hilarious sendup of all the Bigfoot hunter shows.
The added benefit of parody and satire and other such forms of humor is that they are safer than psychedelics—unless your target was born without a funny bone.
The title of this post is supposedly about progress toward fixing my Dell computer, the one with a mini-helicopter noise in the tower. The Tech drove to my house yesterday from Ouad Cities. He had the parts the Agents ordered for fixing the noise in my PC tower.
The parts were wrong. He drove an hour to get here and was done in about 15 minutes. He looked and listened to the noise before and after removing the case cover. He knew right away it was not a software problem. He ordered the right part and now the next step is for him or another Tech to return on Monday to do the job.
There are Agents and Techs working for Dell. For 2-3 days, Agents pestered me with software shenanigans, even to the point of insisting I reset my PC. Agents never looked at my machine. I sent them the video of the PC and its racket. I’m not sure they listened to it.
I think the Dell Company pays Techs more money than it pays the Agents. That’s probably why Agents spend more time with customers, maybe distracting us with chores like PC resets.
But I’m trying to look on the bright side. The Agents are polite and trying to be helpful. They evidently know a lot about software, which can create problems for which they have a long list of suggestions. The Techs know how computers actually work as machines.
It’s a little like the difference between a couple of the reality TV shows (though the analogy is not exact). Compare the heavy wrecker operators (the tow truck guys) on the shows Highway Thru Hell and Heavy Rescue 401 to the Bigfoot researchers on the show Expedition Bigfoot.
The tow truck guys focus on getting the Canadian highways open and do it with their hands, hooks, chains, and heavy trucks. They have to know something about the physics of the job. It looks real.
The Bigfoot researchers know a lot about Bigfoot lore and what little science there is about it. The only Bigfoot you’ll ever see on the show is a doll the size of GI Joe pinned on a researcher’s backpack.
Keep looking up. You don’t want Bigfoot to drop out of a tree on you.
Special Weather Statement for Iowa today:
“Heat Index Values Between 95 and 100 this Afternoon…
Unseasonably hot temperatures are expected through the afternoon today, ranging between 90 and 95 for most. These hot temperatures will combine with dew points between 65 and 70. Thus, yielding heat index values between 95 to around 100 through the afternoon.
If you plan to be outside, avoid prolonged exposure to the heat or strenuous activity. Drink plenty of fluids to avoid dehydration.”
The University of Iowa, according to U.S. News & World Report is No. 2 for writing in the latest rankings. It’s the only public university in the top 10, behind No. 1 Brown University. It’s out in front of Harvard, Cornell, Duke, and Princeton.
Here’s an updated link to how to get the updated Covid-19 vaccine booster (often called the Omicron bivalent booster). It’s sometimes faster to get this booster at local pharmacies, although there’s less urgency now.
I heard Riveria Paradise by Stevie Ray Vaughn a few minutes ago on the Big Mo Blues Show on KCCK 88.3 radio. I think I may have this CD somewhere in the house. Big Mo really appreciates virtuoso guitar players like SRV. That’s because Big Mo is a guitar player himself.
Another thing Big Mo mentions every Friday night are the show’s sponsors. One is a place I never heard of. He says the name and it sounds like “May Rees (Reese?) hand battered catfish; it’s better because it’s battered.”
I can’t find it anywhere. I’m beginning to think it’s a Big Mo joke. It’s similar to another thing he says every Friday night: “It’s Big Mo with your blue prophylactic, protecting you from the demon seeds of life.”
I’ve been calling local pharmacies in an effort to schedule getting the updated Covid-19 vaccine updated bivalent booster and the flu shot as well. I imagine I’m not the only one encountering the frustrating automated answering machines.
It’s confusing to find out that if I answer the question about how many Covid-19 vaccine shots I’ve gotten (which is 4, including the two initial doses and two boosters), the machine politely sort of congratulates me (“you’re good to go!) and then hangs up. That contrasts with the web-based organization message in large font against a bright red background which assures me that I can schedule a time to get both vaccines—if I set up an on-line account (which always makes me suspicious). It turns out that the old “continue as a guest” alternative puts my personal information at risk. I’m unable to get a live person on the line.
I found a few tactics on the web for bypassing these recordings, but I’m pretty sure they don’t work. Some of them have been around for over 15 years, like pressing zero once or even repeatedly. That can result in the recording automatically hanging up on you.
There are other suggestions for pressing various special characters on your smartphone, which some people swear by.
Speaking of swearing, I even found one suggestion for swearing repeatedly into the phone to get past the automated answering machine. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t work.
I think I’ll just sit tight and wait a while. There’s no rush. But I wish there were some polite and effective way to get a live person on the line when you get the automated answering machine from hell:
Drugs-R-Us Pharmacy: Hello, what would you like to do today? You can say, “vaccine,” “alien abductions,” or “triple fat burger with soggy fries and a cola.”
Customer: Vaccine.
Drugs-R-Us: Thank you! Would you like to do: schedule a new, review a scheduled time, cancel an appointment, or talk about the weather?
Customer: Schedule a new.
Drugs-R-Us: What vaccine would you like to schedule?
Customer: Updated Covid-19 booster.
Drugs-R-Us: Got it! And would you like any other vaccines?
Customer: Flu shot.
Drugs-R-Us: I see; I’ll make a note of that. You can ask the pharmacist at your visit for another vaccine, which would be administered as an intra-ocular injection in the eye of your choice. Now, a booster. I’ll need some more information, including your birthdate, phone number, number of previous vaccinations, distinguishing marks, social security number, all bank account numbers, record of previous arrests, and the name of your first-born child, if any. First, how many vaccines have you received?
Customer: Four.
Drugs-R-Us: You rock! You have all the vaccines you need and that means it’s Beer O’clock for you, dude. Is there anything else?
Customer: But I want the updated Covid-19 booster! Can’t you understand that it’s new and your company says it’s available now?
Drugs-R-Us: Good-bye (click).
Maybe I’ll have better luck next week.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 