Spelling Counts!

Valentine’s Day is over; next stop, St. Paddy’s Day. So, as winter clings to the Northern Hemisphere like a drunk clinging to a lamp post, and Mother Nature and Old Man Winter fight it out to see who marks the calendar this month, let’s find a cozy place out of the wind and rain, take a page out of Puck’s book and wonder “what fools [we] mortals be!”

Celebrity tattoos are as common as hen poop in a barnyard, so it’s no big deal that Orlando Bloom got a new one the other day. You remember Orlando Bloom: he’s the “actor” who played Legolas, a Middle Earth elf with an emotional range of .07 on a scale of 1 to 1,000. Anyway, it seems Mr. Bloom was having a little trouble remembering his son’s name (Flynn) and, rather than constantly bother his entourage about it, he decided to get it permanently inked into his arm. Problem solved? Not quite! First of all, Standard Written English wasn’t cool enough for Bloom, so he had it printed in Morse code, a form of communication that’s been dead since Roy Rogers roamed the Earth. Unfortunately, something got screwed up in the translation, and they spelled the name wrong. Okay, a “dot” here, a “dash” there; it was an honest mistake. But here’s the good part. Nobody noticed! Obviously, tattoo artists are not known for their cryptographic skills and there’s no app I know of that spellchecks Morse code, but … here’s the deal!

You’re an A-list (high B-list?) movie star.
You’ve got a ton of people around you every day with nothing better to do than suck up to you.
Every single one of them has an iPhone, iPad, iWatch, iWhatever.
Yet, not one of them, from your publicist to your personal assistant, cared enough about you to take 30 seconds and say, “Siri, what’s Flynn in Morse code?”

That, boys and girls, is a cold and lonely life.

Anyway, the ink dried, and there’s Orlando on Instagram, proud as a puppy with a chewed-up slipper. He’s selfie-d a forearm shiver with what looks like a surgical diagram drawn on it, and the teasing caption reads “new #tattoo can you guess who?”

And here is where we veer off into the land of WTF!

Apparently, Orlando’s Instagram audience includes more than a few people who took the time and trouble to figure out his body art was Morse code (Remember: it’s not a written language.) and then were willing to spend even more time translating it. (I doubt if many people can do Morse code from memory, these days.) Plus, they know enough about the life and times of Orlando Bloom to realize that this was his son’s name and that the dolt had misspelled it. Then, they felt morally compelled to publicly point that out to him – a number of times.

At last glance, Orlando and son are doing fine, despite the looming years of therapy. But honestly, folks! Our world has a bunch of people with way too much time on their hands.

Young People Are Grim

For years, I’ve been trying to figure out why young people are so relentlessly grim. And, I’m not just talking about millennials — the You-Can’t-Have-Any-Ice cream generation. It’s their children as well, now called Generation Z, as if this is the end of the line for the human species. These folks — pretty much anyone born after 1980 — spend their days acting like corporate accountants who’ve just had a root canal. They could give lessons to Puritans, for God’s sake! And (have you ever noticed?) they always laugh with their teeth clenched – kinda like a Terminator trying to smile.

And there’s no reason for it. We live at the apex of human achievement. There’s more good stuff now — and less bad stuff — than at any other time in history. There should be dancing in the streets. So, what’s the deal? Simple: cell phones. Most young people wander around with a stick up their ass because they know if they step out of line, somebody’s going to video record it, and 20 seconds later they’re going to look like total morons – across the entire planet! Plus, the Internet never forgets. Whatever they say or do today, may come back and haunt them, 10 years from now, when social standards change. This is peer pressure to the N^th degree, and the only way to escape it is keep your head down. Don’t give the cybermob an excuse to come after you. In other words, bland is best.

When I was a kid, I did some stupid things. In my generation, we all did. It was part of growing up. You learned, sometimes painfully, not to be a jackass. However, there was no permanent record in those days. My transgressions were shared, laughed at and admonished by a very small group – who (mostly) had my best interests at heart. Now, time on, they’ve been forgotten, except on rare occasions when old friends get together and play Remember When. I carry no brand for strangers to judge.

These days, young people don’t live with that luxury. They’re all sitting under a cyber Sword of Damocles, one upload away from, at best, humiliation and at worst, disgrace and total ruin. They not only have to fly right, right now; they have to see into the future and measure up, and that has got to be a full time job. It’s no wonder they’re all trudging along as if somebody just shot their puppy.

I Refuse

The world is large and it’s full of wonder, but it’s also an obstacle course of nasty. This is the stuff that we know is unfair, stuff we know is a scam, stuff that insults our intelligence and our integrity. In general, we just have to put up with this crap– or spend our entire lives cultivating an apoplectic ulcer. However, there is one way to survive without being totally pissed off all the time: that’s to stop, take three deep breaths and refuse to participate. Here are just a few things I refuse to do. (Some of them are more serious than others.)

I refuse to use Gillette products – A while ago, the multinational boys at Gillette made a video that called me (and every other man) a bad friend, a bad father/brother/uncle, a bad role model, a bad mentor, generally a bad person, certainly a sexist and quite possibly a … anyway … you get the idea. Their only purpose, as far as I can see, was to cash in on trending “toxic masculinity.” So be it. Well, I’ve been called a lot of names over the years, but I’ve never paid anybody for the privilege – and I’m certainly not going to start now.

I refuse to wear short pants – I know it’s uber-fashionable, but in ten years, we’re all going to laugh ourselves stupid at the photographs. Here’s the deal. Unless you’re a swimmer, a diver, a runner, a pole vaulter or an ice hockey player (think about it!) there is no logical reason for a grown man in the northern hemisphere to wear shorts to work. Just sayin’!

I refuse to Tweet – My only mission in life is to communicate, and Twitter is the poster child of communication in the 21^st century. So what’s the problem? Quite simply, Twitter is the meanest, nastiest, most judgemental, disrespectful, petty form of communication since Grog the Caveman grunted obscenities at the Neanderthals down the road. History is going to look at our time and conclude most of our problems came from the horrible way we talked to each other – and I’m not willing to be part of that.

I refuse to eat liver – I have no philosophical quarrel with liver, but I ain’t going to eat it. (This is my mother’s fault.)

I refuse to give money to charity — Sounds hard-hearted and it is, but in my defence, I’ve donated tons of clothing, furniture and food over the years. I’ve recorded radio programs for the blind, cooked pancake breakfasts, swept floors, washed dishes, picked up garbage, sold raffle tickets and taught public speaking in a federal prison – all gratis. When I get to the Gates of Valhalla, I’m not going to have anything to be ashamed of in the good works department. My problem with giving cold hard cash to charity is there’s always a middleman somewhere, and no one is ever willing to tell me how much he’s taking off the top.

And finally

I refuse to be lectured by teenagers – I’ve always worked on the premise that the ideas of young people are fresh. They look at the world with an untrained eye, which gives them a lot of latitude — and that’s a good thing. However, I’m not interested in being berated for my many failures by someone whose biggest accomplishment so far is mastering puberty. The notion that kids bring just as much to the table as the experts who’ve studied the problem for years is ludicrous. Here’s how it works: if your kitchen is flooded, who are you going to call to fix the water pipes – some child fresh out of middle school or a professional plumber? The choice is yours, but I’m going with the plumber.

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