Archives for May 2012

Dear grammar snobs,

I intentionally left off the punctuation at the end of the headline. Some might say that I did it just to aggravate you but that isn’t true. I only like aggravating people who are hard to aggravate.

Ok, maybe that is not true. Maybe I do like aggravating anyone and everyone. My mother says that I shouldn’t do it because people don’t find it charming, but I am 43 years-old which means I don’t have to be charming.

If I was rich I would be eccentric, but I am not. Well, I am rich in many things but not cash wise. These days old Jack is a poor man but that isn’t going to last because I intend to recoup my lost millions. Madoff be damned, I am going to be back on top one day but not because I am materialistic, or should I say overly.

Because the fact is that I like and want certain things that money can provide. For example I very much want a private jet. That is because I like to travel but don’t like flying very much. My shoulder hangs off the side of the seat and I have a dysfunctional digestive system that sometimes requires quick access to the lavatory.

But I don’t always have the access I want because I am too busy doing the bathroom dance in the aisle behind the beverage cart. And inevitably when I get inside I discover where Saddam hid his biological weapons. Man oh man, some of you do things insider there that make me wonder how you can still be standing. Really, when you carry that sort of poison inside your body I have to ask myself how it is that you aren’t dead.

Alternatively I want to know why our armed forces haven’t drafted your ass because you could end the wars. Hell, with that kind of power you could bring about world peace.  Believe me, the warlords in Somalia will surrender before being assaulted your by your ass.

Yes grammar people, I hear your cries. You want to know why I didn’t point out that I was referring to a person’s ass and not a person in their entirety. Maybe it is because I wanted to circle back to our headline and write the following:

1. Can You Write a Funny Post.
2. Can You Write a Funny Post?
3. Can You Write a Funny Post!

If you asked nicely I could write three separate posts based upon those three punctuation marks. At least I could if my juvenile sense of humor wasn’t stuck in the land of scatological humor.

Let me tell you, I have a few stories that will probably make you laugh. I say probably because some of you will be upset by my talking about them in detail, but some of you won’t. Some of you will smile broadly when I talk about these moments.

You’ll nod your head when I say that if you are the sole person in a stall and people walk cover their mouths and cough when they come in you have two choices. You can be embarrassed or proud. You can enjoy your moment and treat them to something that sounds a bit like the horn section of a junior high marching band. It is loud and a bit off key but there is no denying its presence.

Classy Humor

Some years ago someone wrote in and asked me if I could still be funny if I used classy humor.  In my initial response I thanked them for their feedback and said that I appreciate their recognition that I am a funny dad blogger. Don’t know if I am the funniest dad blogger. Can’t say that I am the best dad blogger but I can tell you that I haven’t a clue whether Google Panda or Penguin will penalize me for keyword stuffing.

What is up with the animal names starting with ‘P’ anyway. Why not use platypus. That poor animal got screwed by God or evolution. It is like the big man said “sorry dude, we are out of parts so you get all the left overs.”

So much for being omnipotent, but I digress.

Anyway, the reader who told me that I was funny but wanted to know about classy humor was better than the one who hurt my fragile male ego by saying I am not funny or clever.

But they didn’t communicate effectively because I don’t know what the hell classy humor is. Am I supposed to be snotty and work in jokes about Shelley, Donne, Camus and Nietzche. Or does that refer to my time in school in which I was the scourge of some classrooms where teachers loved and hated me for making people laugh.

And now we are back at the beginning of this post where I am still trying to decide which punctuation mark will receive the honor of being attached to our headline of Can You Write A Funny Post

P.S. Grammar folks, I didn’t punctuate that last line because it is supposed to be funny in a classy sort of way, with classy meaning educational.  😉

I wish that some of you would just shut up. I am not kidding because I really do wish you would just stop blogging. No, I am not being nice and yes I know what your mother said about not speaking if you don’t have anything nice to say.

You can tell mom to just shut up too. Do me a favor tell her twice and say that Jack sends his love. Tell her that I use two spaces after periods because I don’t give a fuck if some typographers get upset about it.

They mean well but I have too many other things that are chafing my hide. I am too busy trying to figure out why our public school system is broken and wondering if I can afford to go see the dentist.

I have health insurance but I don’t have dental insurance. I gave it up so that I could pay for private school for my kids. I couldn’t afford to pay for everyone in the family anyway but I make sure that the kids see the dentist for their regular teeth cleaning.

When mom asks you why I am being rude tell her that I am not really being rude. Tell her that it is rude not to be angry about the homeless guys who are sleeping on the street because they have no other place to go. Tell her that people who are unemployed aren’t all lazy and that lots of them want jobs.

Tell her to be thankful that she has a roof over her head and food on the table. Let her know that there are educated people on the street because shit happens. Let her know that some of them got hit my medical bills that overwhelmed them and that when their companies laid them off they didn’t get severance and that no one wants to hire middle management because they have too much experience.

Let her know that it is time to stop blaming god for why things are good or bad. Tell her that we waste copious amounts of money fighting to stop gay marriage because we need to fight the moral decline here and that the decline of infrastructure isn’t important.

We don’t need to retrofit bridges, repair broken water mains or worry about keeping public libraries open. Tell mom that her dear friend Jack can’t be pigeonholed as a Republican or a Democrat because he has learned to hate both parties.

That is because it has become more important to make the other side look bad than to fix common problems. Tell mom that I will continue to tell people to shut up because they haven’t bothered to learn enough about the issues to explain why supporting or fighting them are important.

Tell mom that I can’t be bothered to listen to another tale about how Bush stole the election or how Obama isn’t really a citizen. Tell her that I can’t listen to Democrats blame every bad thing on Republicans and that I can take listening to Republicans blame the Democrats either.

Just Shut up

Tell mom that in the blogosphere I am sick and tired of blogs where the authors consistently take the easy road because their readers don’t hold them accountable. Not every post is great. Not everyone is a winner. Some posts suck. Sometimes we fall down and we fail.

I say ‘we’ because I include myself in that group. And when mom asks if I have an ego and think I am better than some bloggers you can tell her that I do and I am. Tell her that I don’t claim to have all the answers but that I am trying.

Let her know that the primary reason I am so damn angry is because I don’t see changes. I don’t hear coherent plans for improving things for all of us. Tell her that when I suggest that it is better to have an educated and healthy populace it doesn’t make me a socialist and that if you are going to call me names you need to understand what you are saying and why.

And then tell mom that this isn’t a rah rah speech. It is not me trying to be inspirational. It is just me venting because sometimes people really suck.

Smarter men than I am know that the best way to influence people and win friends is to not tell the mean moms that they need to spend more time with their battery operated toys.

Nor should you tell them that they need to fire their professional trainers and or have their mouths sewn shut. Don’t tell them that sewing their mouths shut will help them save money because their children are less likely to need therapy and that their husbands will never notice because mean moms only do one thing with their mouths and it is not that.

Don’t tell the mean moms that their daughters who aren’t even ten yet are on track to win whiny bitch of the year or suggest that your daughter would be doing them a favor by kicking their little snot nose asses.

Because if you do any of these things they will turn on you and you will be attacked by a gaggle of girls who prefer to be called women but can’t understand why you don’t shy away from confrontation or whither when they level personal attacks upon you. In fact they can’t understand how you can be meaner than they are and use words that make them flinch.

They don’t understand hypocrisy nor do they recognize that their husbands really don’t want to be pitted against you in any sort of contest because they are bunch of limp dick pussies who let themselves be emasculated by their mean wives. They don’t really want to fight because none of them have ever been in one and you have.

But they feel obligated to tell you that you can’t talk to their wives like that and you say that they are right and tell them that you are really sorry that you don’t have the kind of money that they do because if you did maybe your family would be granted a pass to act like an ass.

Those guys can’t figure out what to make of you and they look at you a bit like a rabid dog which may or may not be fair to the dog. Of course the difference is that the mean moms would hug the rabid dog and scratch his neck. And if he was crazy enough to hump their leg they would turn a bit red in the face and push him off but they wouldn’t think of calling the police.

I of course don’t have any personal experience dealing with mean moms and or mean girls so I can’t tell you what would happen if you made a mistake and said these things.

However I can tell you that most women tend not to respond well to this sort of dialogue. They don’t find it funny or consider it to be part of some witty repartee, but there is always hope that you will find the exception to the rule.

What do you think?