A Mad Man Bun Tale

Some people, at least, seem to really dislike man buns–be they the top knot, the pineapple, the undercut, or any other random styling of long hair rubber-banded on a guy’s head. But how do you assess the degree of disdain for man buns? The extent of absolute contempt for this coif is notoriously hard to measure.

Here’s one bit of tangible evidence of just how much people despise the man bun. A story circulated widely on social media recently about a guy out in Los Angeles who was allegedly caught after accosting 37 men and cutting off their man buns, saying that he was “doing the Lord’s work.” Of course, the story is fake–an attempt at humor published by a satirical website. The story had obvious elements of implausibility (really, a guy grabbing 37 man bunners and hacking off their offending hairstyles?) and other signs of phoniness, like overtorqued quotes, but some people readily believed it.

I’m guessing that you were far more likely to fall for this ruse if you felt an underlying scorn for the man bun, with your antipathy rendering you especially gullible. People who really can’t stand man buns would be far more likely to accept that another, more extreme bun-hater might be motivated to take forcible bun removal into his own hands. What better evidence of broad bun dislike could there be?

The Fantastic Two-Dog Complete Morning Workout

Mr. and Mrs. America, are you tired? 

Are you tired of being overweight and out of shape?  Are you tired of buying expensive rowing machines, treadmills, and stairsteppers that now just gather dust in your bedrooms and basements?  Are you tired of solitary workouts that simulate some form of martial arts and are performed to stupid music ?  Are you tired of lurching from exercise fad to exercise fad like a young child who can’t make up his mind about which toy he really wants at Christmas?

In short, are you yearning for an exercise regimen that doesn’t require cumbersome machinery, will produce results, provide companionship, add years to your life, and require the kind of disciplined, long-term commitment to exercise that you know is the only way to produce meaningful fitness results?

Let me introduce you to the Fantastic Two-Dog Complete Morning Workout!  It’s all described in this easy-to-read book, The Fantastic Two-Dog Complete Morning Workout.

You start by acquiring two dogs.  We’ve all read the studies that show that people who have a canine companion live longer.  Imagine what having two dogs will do for your life span!  But here is where the science of the Fantastic Two-Dog Complete Morning Workout comes in — because the scientific choice of the two dogs will make your exercise regimen even more meaningful. 

You don’t want two dogs of the same breed, or disposition.  No, Mr. and Mrs. America, you want two dogs that are as different as day and night.  One should be small, shifty, always surging ahead, and completely untrustworthy when it comes to bowel and bladder discharges.  The other should be a heavy, stubborn, slow-moving load.  Let our book help you make the right choice!

Then, when you’ve acquired the dogs, feed them.  This is a crucial step in the Fantastic Two-Dog Complete Morning Workout plan, because we all know the end result that inevitably occurs when dogs are fed.  That’s right — it means you need to walk those dogs and pick up their poop.  And that’s where the sheer magic of the Fantastic Two-Dog Complete Morning Workout really happens, because the process of walking two radically different dogs and picking up, bagging, and tying off their poop combines every known form of exercise in one fantastic workout!

You’ll get the benefits of walking — but at the same time you’ll be pulled in two directions by your tail-wagging friends.  You’ll work the upper body by relentlessly pulling the stubborn, overweight dog on the walk, restraining the energetic dog that wants to run away, then holding back both dogs as they suddenly start lunging and barking at any strange dog that crosses your path.  You’ll also work on your balance, develop ballerina-like grace, and improve your eye-hand coordination as you learn to avoid leash entanglement by dogs that suddenly veer in unpredictable directions and you must spin and transfer leashes from hand to hand behind your back, often also juggling filled poop bags in the process.

Speaking of poop:  your midsection gets a workout from constantly having to bend at the waist to pick up the droppings, and trying to do it as quickly as possibly before the unforgettable odor is permanently embedded in your nostrils.  Then work those fine motor skills by tying off the poop bag as you continue to walk dogs that are never as fast moving as they are immediately after they’ve taken a dump and want to promptly evacuate the tainted area.

And finally, feel the adrenalin surge when the stubborn, overweight dog makes a dead stop at random points during the walk, almost wrenching your shoulder out of its socket and requiring you to pull her forward.  Feel the blood rush scour every scrap of plaque and cholesterol from your veins when your dogs embarrass you by misbehaving when other well-trained dogs walk by.

And know, all the while, that you’ll be doing the Fantastic Two-Dog Complete Morning Workout for every morning, rain or shine, brutally cold or blastingly hot, for as long as your two devoted companions share your little corner of the world.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?  You can get the Fantastic Two-Dog Complete Morning Workout book for only $29.95, a 50 percent discount from our normal price.  Operators are standing by!  Call now, and we’ll throw in, completely free, two sturdy dog leashes and a pack of 50 dog poop bags stamped with the Fantastic Two-Dog Complete Morning Workout so that you’ll think of this great product every time you bend over to do your duty.  Feel the burn!

Finding Lost Sellers

In 1957, Peter Sellers was one of the stars of The Goon Show on the BBC radio network, but he aspired to be something more.  So, he made two short films that were supposed to show his capabilities as an actor on the big screen.

The two movies, each 30 minutes long, were called Dearth of a Salesman and Insomnia is Good for You.  They must have worked, because Sellers went on to a storied and brilliant movie career that included such classics as The Mouse That Roared, Dr. Strangelove, Lolita, a gaggle of hysterical stints as Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther franchise, and his crowning achievement — the timeless portrayal of Chance, the Gardener in Being There.  Sellers’ stunning depiction of the dim-witted yet earnest and good-natured man whose vapid comments were treated as morsels of the greatest wisdom is one of the great acting turns in movie history, and with each passing year Being There becomes an even more compelling satire of the empty-suited, empty-headed culture of the age of TV.

It’s amazing, therefore, that the two short films that helped to launch Sellers’ career were lost and forgotten — and then turned up in abandoned film canisters that were retrieved only because someone thought the canisters themselves might be of value.  Eventually the contents of the canisters were viewed, their important place in film history was recognized, and now the two shorts are being restored and will be screened for the first time in decades at a film festival next spring.

Peter Sellers was a genius.  It’s extraordinary that his early work could be tossed on the dustheap and salvaged only by happenstance, but I’m glad it happened.  So many bits of cinematic history have been lost — and once they are gone, they are gone forever.

A Last Dispatch From Battleground Ohio

The soldier, winded and hunched, ran the last few yards before leaping into the Foxhole that had been dug behind the carcass of Big Bird.  “Sergeant Jones, I’ve got bad news,” he said.  “I think we’ve lost Nesser.”

“Dammit!  What happened, Private Ujay?”

“He was trying to weave through that field of empty chairs when he was knocked down by a fusillade of negative TV ads.  He wasn’t wearing his ear plugs or a gas mask, and he started retching after hearing about the President’s economic record.  The last I saw of him, he was being dragged away by a team of pollsters to participate in a focus group.”

“What the hell!  I’ve told everyone that they need to keep the masks on, because the noise and poisonous messages are more than any man can bear.”

“He said he wanted to breathe free and watch the Buckeyes game on TV, sir.”

“Well, there’s no saving the poor bastard now,” Sergeant Jones said.  She peered over Big Bird’s soiled yellow feathers, scanning the terrain.  “Get down!” she barked, as a fusillade of binders full of women rained down.

“I’ve got more bad news, sir,” Ujay reported.  “Some of the members of the platoon are saying there’s nothing to worry about and no need to get ready for the next attack.”

“Blast!  Didn’t they watch that first presidential debate and see what happens when you start to take things for granted?”

Another soldier appeared and saluted.  “Message from Captain Duhamel, sir.  He says the Bain Capital Brigade is approaching from the east.  He thinks they’re hoping to outsource us all to China.”

“Thanks for the warning, Private Jeff — but we all know that those briefcase-carrying Bain bastards are ruthless.  They’ll stop at nothing once they’ve decided to downsize.”  The sergeant paused for a moment.  “Well, we know that we don’t have enough horses and bayonets to make a stand here.  Time to move out.”

“But Sarge — if we move we’ll lose the cover we’ve got here in this Foxhole.”

“You didn’t build that, Mack!  Now move!”

The bedraggled platoon scrambled out of the Foxhole, past the hulk of Big Bird.  Nearby, hordes of “ground game” campaign workers were dragging reluctant Ohioans to the polls for a final day of early voting.  A black motorcade barreled past, hurling campaign literature about a five-point plan at passersby trying to dodge the Obama volunteers talking about how a 7.9 percent unemployment rate means the economy is on the road to recovery.  A crowd of “campaign surrogates” traded punches on a street corner, and a phalanx of Jeeps carrying members of the 47 Percent Regiment were advancing from the west.  Overhead, the voices of pundits filled the air, raining invective and talking points on the few remaining civilians not under cover.  And Bill Clinton and David Axelrod were spinning like tops, knocking people down as Joe Biden’s Cheshire Cat grin blinded the soldiers and his maniacal laugh echoed off the downtown office buildings.

“My God!  It’s carnage,” Private Ujay shouted, as he ran after Sergeant Jones.  “We’ll never survive this, never!”

“Yes we will,” Sergeant Jones bellowed.  “We’ve done it before, and we’ll do it again.  It’s what you get when you live in Battleground Ohio.”

A Modest Proposal From Ohio

An Ohioan’s vote is worth more than a Californian’s, or a Mississipian’s, or a Rhode Islander’s.  The objective facts prove it.  Every presidential election, the candidates visit daily and their campaigns spend like drunken sailors trying to win our vote.  In the Other America, the campaigns aren’t spending bupkis.

Ohio isn’t just the Mother of Presidents, it’s the Chooser of Presidents.  We’re the swingingest of the “Swing States” — the Don Draper on that blue field of 50 stars.  Every presidential election, we tip the balance.  We know it, you know it, and the candidates know it.

So . . . why not let us capitalize on it?  After all, capitalism is the American Way.  Our Ohio votes are like rich mineral rights or another valuable form of property.  We therefore propose that any Ohio citizen who wishes to do so be allowed to sell their suffrage.  The Ohio Secretary of State would establish an eBay-like website where willing Ohio voters would auction the ability to determine the presidential vote on their early voting ballot to the highest bidder during the bidding period.  Some voters won’t want to participate.  Others will want to sell early and get whatever they can for their previously inalienable right.  Still others will want to hold out until the end, taking the risk that their vote might be worth a lot more — or, if the election is by then in the bag for one candidate or another, worth nothing at all.  All sales would be final and the ballots completed according to the terms of the sale and certified as such by the Secretary of State.

Many strong public policy considerations support this modest proposal.

First, this proposal would teach every American that voting has value.  Americans who live in those boring states where the outcomes of elections are foregone conclusions can, for once, know the heady rush of participating in an election where their specially acquired vote will count and might actually be decisive.  We Ohioans are proud people, but we generously are willing to peddle our franchises and allow our fellow Americans to have that experience — for a price.

Second, this proposal would introduce more certainty in the process.  Ardent supporters of candidates who happen to live in other states will no longer need to fret about which way Ohio is heading, or try to make sense of competing polling data.  Instead, they can just visit the Secretary of State website, check out the “votes for sale” section, and get a running tabulation of the current sold vote totals.

Third, this proposal would eliminate the unseemly spectacle of candidates flipping burgers, bagging groceries, and engaging in other demeaning conduct to win votes.  It would end the inefficient, indirect route of enticing votes, through vicious attack ads, cloying TV commercials, and paid campaign staff, and allow for more direct transactions between motivated buyers and willing sellers.  And, in the process, the reduction in negative ads and harsh mischaracterization of opposing positions might actually increase the chance for productive compromise after the election is over.

Fourth, this proposal would increase the percentage of Americans who actually vote.  In Ohio, the percentage of voters likely would approach 100 percent as even politically disinterested people decide to cash in on their votes.  The increased percentages would please those foreign observers who are monitoring our elections and are accustomed to the free elections in their country, where prevailing candidates routinely receive more than 95% of the vote.

Fifth, this proposal would provide a needed stimulus for Battleground Buckeyes and thereby help our economy.  Why should automakers, “green energy” companies, and asphalt manufacturers hog all the money?  Ohio voters who receive thousands of dollars for their swing votes will put that money right back into the marketplace.

Finally, voters in other states will look at the Ohio experience, see how much their vote can be worth, and perhaps reconsider their hard and fast, down-the-ballot support for one party or another.  New Yorkers, Texans, and South Carolinians might decide that there is value to listening to other viewpoints and letting their votes swing, every once in a while.  That wouldn’t be a bad thing, would it?