When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

LESTER: Okay, so long. Have a happy birthday!

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops

CHESTER: I’ll do my best.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, LIL

One Christmas, when I was little, my aunt Lil gave me a book about railroads. It was just the kind of gift I hated. A book. I wanted a toy. Preferably a little car or truck, or maybe a few soldiers; I didn’t ask much. Just some kind of toy a boy could play with every day and not get tired of. No. A boring fucking book about railroads with pictures of fucking trains.

My mother forced me to tell Aunt Lil that I really liked the book; she

made me lie and say “thank you” and all that other drivel-shit parents are constantly trying to push into your head. She didn’t want to hurt Lil’s feelings. (Actually, she didn’t want to look bad in Lil’s eyes.)

Well, I made the mistakecommon in childhoodof listening to my mother and following her advice. I thanked Lil. Guess the result. Right! Every Christmas and every birthday from then on, I got a fucking boring book from my fucking boring aunt fucking boring Lil. First buses, then airplanes, then trucks and then cars. And on and on through the years, until she ran out of conveyances and had to switch to buildings. I weep when I think of all the soldiers I could have had. Probably a battalion or two. Ah, well.

I realize the problem now: I was too young to have learned the following sentence: “Hey Lil! Take your fucking railroad book and stick it up your ass. And get me some goddamn soldiers!” That would have nipped the whole thing in the bud.

TURN DOWN THE RADIO!

Does anybody really listen to that shitty music they play on the radio? FM radio music? What’s it called? Adult contemporary? Classic rock? Urban rhythm and blues? You know what the official business name for that shit is? “Corporate standardized programming.” Just what an art form needs: corporate standardized programming. Derived from “scientific” surveys conducted by soulless businessmen.

Here’s how bad it is: One nationwide chain that owns over a thousand radio stations conducts weekly telephone polls, asking listeners their opinions on twenty-five to thirty song “hooks” they play over the phone; hooks that the radio people have already selected. (Hooks are the short, repeated parts of pop

songs that people remember easily.) Depending on these polls, the radio chain decides which songs to place on their stations’ playlists.

Weeks later, they record the hooks of all the songs they’re currently playing on their stations across the country, label them by title and artist and sell that information to record companies to help create more of the same bad music. They also sell the information to competing radio stations that want to play what the big chain is playing. All of this is done to prevent the possibility of original thinking somehow creeping into the system.

Lemme tell you something: In the first place, listening to music that someone else has picked out is not my idea of a good time. Second, and more important, the fact that a lot of people in America actually like the music automatically means it sucks. Especially since the people who like it have been told in advance by businessmen what it is they’re supposed to like. Please. Save me from people who’ve been told what to like and then like it.

In my opinion, if you’re over six years of age, and you’re still getting your music from the radio, something is desperately wrong with you. I can only hope that somehow MP3 players and file sharing will destroy FM radio the way they’re destroying record companies. Then, even though the air will probably never be safe to breathe again, maybe it will be safer to listen to.

OH SAY, CAN YOU HEAR?

What is the purpose of having a person “sign” “The Star-Spangled Ba

last few lines; the ones from “O’er the land . . .” all the way through “. . . of the brave,” which sometimes can take more than six or seven minutes to complete. Why, I should think a signer would break an arm trying to get that stuff across. Besides, what does the national anthem have to do with sports in the first place? I never understood that. Play Ball!

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

During the Middle Ages, it seems as though every castle had a group of trumpet players who stood in a line and played loud, intricate fanfares whenever something important happened. And it occurred to me that occasionally those guys must have needed to practice. You know, “Fanfare practice, three o’clock, near the moat.” There could be any number of reasons: new guys in the group, new fanfares, the brand-new trumpets came in.

So I’m wondering, when these guys did hold practiceand they kept playing the fanfares over and overwere the people working around the castle required to constantly keep snapping to attention? Did maybe some of them do it anyway, out of force of habit? Or did everyone pretty much ignore the fanfares since they knew it was really only practice?

And, if so, at a time like that, when everyone had been lulled into a false sense of security, what if the king decided to walk across the yard to visit his sister in the dungeon? And they blew a fanfare for him? Half the people would probably just keep on working. Would that piss him off, or would he understand?

And what about coming-to-attention practice? Seems like fanfare practice would be a perfect time to hold it. You know, kill two birds . . . Ah well, fuck it. These are the sort of thoughts that hold me back in life.

JUMP, DON’T SCREAM

Here’s why I’m opposed to singing. Singing strikes me as an indicator of limited language skills. My feeling is that if someone has a valid thought, deserving of expression, but somehow that thought can’t be communicated without the assistance of a banjo or a tambourine, then maybe it’s a thought the rest of us don’t need to hear.