Friday, April 30, 2010.

One of my favorite columnists, Eugene Robinson, wrote a piece for today’s edition of The Washington Post about Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Sue Lowden of Nevada (Courtesy Of Sue Lowden: A Chicken In Every Doctor’s Pot). In his column, Robinson describes Lowden’s highly publicized idea that the Obama administration’s health care protection legislation is flawed to the point where physicians and their patients would be better off using a barter system. Over the course of nearly a month, Lowden publicly defended her stand of returning to a simpler health care payment system in which patients provide livestock or services in a barter system to receive care from doctors. She has finally relented and admitted to having her ideas taken out of context. This is a shame, because she’s been leading incumbent Democrat Harry Reid by double digits for some time. Reid is a polarizing figure and the face of much of the rancor many Americans feel toward passage of health care reform. At this point Lowden could claim that prostitution in return for medical services would be a nice idea and she’d still do great polling numbers.

At this point it would be a cinch, an easy touchdown, for me to go ahead and make fun of Lowden’s chickens for care idea.  Sue Lowden is no idiot, though. She’s had a long career in journalism, the gaming industry and public office. This is an example of an educated individual who got a reaction from a left field statement made at a Republican candidate’s forum and ran with it until the statement was too stupid to continue supporting. Welcome to the new public life. It takes a lot of stupidity to be run off the campaign trail. Fathering children out-of-wedlock while you’re cancer stricken wife is at home is something that might end a campaign, but Chickens For Care? Not so much. Say what you want and keep running. You’ll make the morning roundtable shows and your name will enter the national grist mill.

Having said all that, bartering for health care in the modern world is just a stupid, asinine idea (and Lowden is some kind of genius for sticking to it for a month). Doctor’s can’t keep their practices going now (mine charges me for every time I drive down the road where his office is and $25 for every time the thought enters my mind that I should look up another general practitioner in the phone book). Can you imagine what it would be like if you took a child to the pediatrician and had to move bushels of vegetables to get through the waiting room? Patients need quality affordable care, physicians need to be able to practice without squeezing every dime they can instead of working. In fairness to Lowden, she’s not crazy, despite the arcane nature of her statements. If we could pay cash for services that would be wonderful. The reality is that most people can’t. That’s why health care reform was enacted in the first place. I do suppose the poultry industry would get a boost from Lowden’s ideas, though. Onward and Upward.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010.

Some months ago I wrote with somewhat haughty disdain about my working life in the cafe at a local outpatient surgery center and the joys of making sandwiches and pie for the elderly visitors who frequent the facility (2/03/10 The Ladies). After having been platooned at the little cafe for nearly three months, I’d grown fond of working there and especially of the women who run the place. Each morning I’d go off to the clean, scrupulously organized little shop and try to make the day a little better for the visitors. Each afternoon, I’d arrive home a little bit happier and better adjusted than the last. Day after day of making sandwiches and watching the shadows change shape outside on the sun dappled lawns. That couldn’t last.

Today I went back to work at the hospital. The Big House. It was as if someone had tapped me on the shoulder as a Senior in high school and said that it was time to return to Jr. high.* The smells were overwhelming. Down the basement hallways there was the distinct odor of Formalin. And fish. One of the younger nutrition staffers had left a box of rotting, formerly frozen, breaded fish in a walk in pop cooler. Each time someone would open the door the overpowering stench of rotten scrod wafted up to meet them. The old headache started to come on as I went to find disinfectant and had someone call the food distributor for baking soda. Welcome home, Mel Thompson.

Welcome home indeed and happy to be anywhere. That is the working attitude I’ve taken on. Underneath the sound of co-workers accusing each other of the same misdeeds they were three months ago, you can hear me chuckling. Usually as I go to find a mop and some powerful cleaning agents. By the Grace of God I still have a job. A pretty decent one at that. I still get up earlier than I have to each day, excited by the prospect of weirdness. At some point my career in the basement will end (I keep saying that. Confidence and a dream are also gifts of Grace and I humbly carry them with me). Would I want to be a “suit” and give up the joys of cooking? I get asked that question quite a bit and the answer is that I’d settle for wearing clothes that are still clean by 9:00 in the morning.

One of the “kids” (although at 25, she’d disagree with me using that term) pitched a fit because I get to work at different locations and take on various tasks. I had to chuckle about that idea, as well (naturally, as I went to find a clean mop). Honestly, the thought that I “get to” do anything is absurd. I just go where I’m told to and it’s led to some interesting forays outside the hospital basement. We’ll see how long I’m home this time.

*Jr. High School was a middle-to-late 20th Century institution to which parents voluntarily committed their hormonally insane 13 and 14 year olds for 8 hours each day. These same teenagers went on to become the adults who run society today. Which is why the concept has become outmoded.

Monday, April 26, 2010.

(Here at the blog, we receive quite a few ads hawking new and improved techniques fo r talking to any women we might meet. This is a waste, because if we were to ever visit places where women are, there wouldn’t be any problem holding a conversation with them. For the sake of helping out less confident guys, Mel and Lifestyle Editor Randy Hogg have listed some of their patented flirtation techniques in the following article).

1. Dress appropriately for the situation. This point can’t be stressed enough. It’s not good enough to just wear pants and shoes these days. If you’re going to a supermarket, it’s a good idea to change out of those tired Star Trek pajamas and put on a fresh pair of Clone Wars p.j.’s. Bars are trickier. If you choose to meet woman at the local watering hole, it would be good to go dress casual. A wrinkle free, tropical weight shirt is a good choice. A bad choice is any clothing with slogans on it. Yeah, woman know you’re with stupid. He’s the one wearing your shirt. Toughest of all: meeting women at church and religious social functions. If you have a hard time keeping food off of your clothes, don’t eat. The lighting is usually really great at these events.
2. Start A Conversation With Observation: Notice some small thing about the woman you want to converse with, or about the place where you’ve met. Good Topic: the music being played. Unless it’s Battle Hymn of The Republic, she’ll probably at least acknowledge you. Bad Topic: Physical Features. Don’t dwell on her mustache or peg leg. For that matter, stay out of pirate bars.
3. Stop Staring. Eye contact is a plus, staring is off-putting. Drooling is a no-no, as well.
4. Talk About Her, Not Yourself. Sure, you’re an interesting guy, between living in your mom’s basement and the lack of food stains on your clothes. The reason you are flirting, however, is because she’s interesting to you. Ask pertinent questions about her and avoid the mood killers (“How long have you been a woman?” “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Eve Plumb?”).
5. Keep Your Shirt On. This is one of those mood killers that men often blunder into. The shirt acts as a natural barrier between flab and society. Even at the beach, it’s good idea to cover up. A psychological effect of taking one’s shirt off is that it subconsciously reminds women that they should donate to Save The Whales, or take nieces and nephews to the zoo.
6. Avoid Taboo Topics: Stop yourself from mentioning the following conversation killers: NASCAR, fried meat products,  your mother, your mother’s house, the fact that you live at your mother’s house, Cartoon Network, your favorite soap opera, the fact that you don’t use soap products, and Dr. Who.

Sure, none of this helped. We get it. This of course is why the staff of Spatula In The Wilderness spends most afternoons watching repeats of Kendra and wishing they could talk to women. Best Wishes!

Monday, April 26, 2010.

I don’t put many posts of a personal nature up on the site these days. Most of the time, the esoterica of entertainment and events is more enjoyable to write about and there are only occasional glimpses into what I do in my non-blogging life. Part of this is the result of being happy. Call it a curse, but when a blogger is happily ensconced in the bosom of normalcy (not that a normal person would ever use that phrase), there tends to be less that calls for being written about. I’m one of those happy, pseudo-normal people at the moment and God help us all, because that can’t lead to anything good.

Case in point. I was stuck four cars behind a beer truck while commuting to work on a recent morning, crawling along a two lane highway. In the past, this would have made me angry to the point of foaming incapacitation. The truck was from the local Coors distributor, and for some reason, the Silver Bullet is the slowest moving creature in the universe. Nine minutes to get to work before punching in late and I was four cars back, shivering in my 38 degree Honda that refused to heat. On this morning, I just chose to enjoy the minutes as they ticked away and to think about all of the challenges ahead during the day. No f-bombs, no smashing an empty coffee cup on the steering wheel (I’m told that habit goes back to early childhood when I’d just smack a coffee mug on the side of my crib until mom brewed another pot).

The personal happiness situation could be caused in part by the little uptick in the national economy lately. Spatula was started a year ago as a reactionary recession blog, after all.  Now I find myself dreaming of post-recession shopping again. For instance, last night I dreamt that former Detroit Tigers pitcher Kenny Rogers and I were walking through a retail area in California, buying socks. Yes, the dream says a lot of things.  1. I have to seek psychiatric help.  2. I’m able to purchase things, like  socks.  So, the blog will have to keep up with this new and frighteningly happy period in my life.

This is the new challenge as a year of blogging fades into another. Writing without all the anger and pathos that have powered the Spatula. I suppose it can be done. By the way, the day after I had to tail the Silver Bullet out of town, I got stuck behind another beer truck. This time I did throw out some choice expletives. A man can only revel in so much happiness and personal joy while travelling on a highway no-passing zone.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010.

There has been a photo of actress/singer/American Plastics Council Spokes Gumby Heidi Montag-Pratt making the rounds for the last ten days in which she poses with a beach ball (and an exhausted looking bikini) at the Aria Casino in Las Vegas. The joke accompanying the photo nearly always involves something to do with flotation and her size EE breast implants (“at least she won’t drown. lololol.”). Sadly, she’d have trouble swimming, because the boobie-buoys would keep flipping her. A better joke might be about them exploding and bystanders shock that the fakes were filled with pressurized grape jelly (“Everybody run and get some toast!”).  The Hill’s (Mountains, Domes, Igloos) star has confessed over the past year to interviewers that she suffers body insecurity and that’s the reason she’s gone overboard with cosmetic surgical procedures. Some people get high to mask insecurity, others have surgery. Who am I to judge any woman’s insecurities? I’m actually a proponent of plastic surgery when it’s utilized properly.* I’m also a big fan of the old line “You can’t please everyone, so you gotta please yourself.” If Heidi Montag is happiest carrying EE breasts, than that’s all that counts. Somehow, I think it’s the business she’s in more than her own happiness. Then again, the business is changing, too.

Maureen O’Connor posted a blog yesterday about the Heidi backlash and the idea that more movie directors are banning stripper boobs on their sets. Of course the biggest film of all time, Avatar, was helmed by a director who spent years enhancing the cgi cleavage of his female leads. Despite Cameron (or because of him), An athletic, fit, body-satisfied actress may soon be a role model, rather than a rarity. There is another way to look at the fake vs. real issue: enduring fame and career longevity. Most of Hollywood’s enduring actresses (whether they were great is debatable) were not/ have not been surgically augmented. Examples? Marilyn Monroe (34c). Angelina Jolie (36c). Julia Roberts (34b). Sandra Bullock (33b). Audrey Hepburn (34a). Size really doesn’t matter. Except in  the culture of monster trucks, widescreen high-definition televisions and disgustingly over sized restaurant portions. That’s Heidi Montag’s new place in cultural life. She’s oversized and in charge of the Wal-Mart newsstand. By the time legitimate film makers revisit offering the public stars with 700cc saline implants, Heidi will have exceeded even her Wal-Mart shelf-life. The implants will have come out for health reasons and she’ll be selling jam cozies on mobile phone QVC apps.

I’ve said it many times on this blog, to the point that it goes without saying: I like people for themselves. All the so-called flaws and quirky things that make them unique are wonderful. Breast size should matter about as much as shoe size. Heart matters. Of course, people pay to attend the circus and there’s no telling how long they’ll pay into Heidi culture.

*My child suffers from a congenital craniofacial anomaly and has benefited from numerous plastic surgery procedures. For more information on the good things that reconstructive plastic surgeons are doing, log on to  http://faces-cranio.org

Monday, April 19, 2010. 

One of the perks of posting a (somewhat) regular blog is the ability to write freely about tiny, idiosyncratic behaviors that are pointless to almost everyone. One of these habits nested deep within my cerebral cortex (the part not occupied by a luminescent Maxwell House sign) is a lifelong fascination with the British television series Doctor Who. The science fiction staple, which first aired in 1963, is currently airing a new season of episodes on BBC America. The story follows the adventures of traveling Time Lord, the last of an extinct race of beings. His time machine, the TARDIS, is short circuited and remains in the form of a blue police call box. Each incarnation of the Doctor (he’s assumed the form of 11 different men) travels with companions through various historical periods, dimensions and space itself to fight evil and tilt the moral plane back into balance.

I started watching the Doc with repeats of the classic episodes featuring Tom Baker and Peter Davison during the 1980′s. For some reason, the shows always seemed interminably long. Maybe it was because local PBS affiliates would invariably cut the show off to remind Saturday afternoon viewers that for a generous $25 donation we could have our very own limited edition TARDIS cookie tins (for $50 we could get sets of remastered Beatles albums on Vinyl. Makes me wish that I had a time machine). Tom Baker as Doctor Who always seemed to have this snide, subversive element and  to this day I still carry a little of his cool around with me. As a kid, with no car and not a cent for a cookie tin (or anything else), I’d tire of hanging around on corners pretending to be a hoodlum and skulk home watch Dr. Who. If I’d only watched sports like every regular kid at the time…oh well. The Dr. always had to do battle with the world’s cheesiest villains and the BBC’s woeful special effects budgeting. Many episodes he’d have to save the wretched human race from the Daleks. These, like many of the alien villains on the series, were cobbled together sixties robot monsters with the all too scary flashing light bulbs atop their bodies. In their own weird way, the creators of who still managed to make scarier and more real special effects than anything in George Lucas’ last three Star Wars films.

Doctor Who is said to be able to regenerate 13 times and the new series with Matt Smith as the Doc is the 11th incarnation. The new season (31st-the show was unofficially cancelled in 1989) features a quick-witted, sunnier, Doc and a new, dazzling companion (Karen Gillan as policewoman Amy Pond). While the show is filmed in beautiful 1080i (It’s a guy thing. The companion is merely dazzling, the show is beautiful) at the moment, the special effects are cheesy as always. Sometimes, I suppose a story can suspend belief and fantastic visual effects and just give you entertaining stories and characters built to last 47 years.

Heaven forbid you have to be home on Saturday night, but if you are, then this is a good, old school sci-fi evening with the tellie. Of course, this is my excuse to invest in a DVR.

Sunday, April 18, 2010.

Sheepish and loathe to admit it. That is how I chalk up the fact that my small child keeps better track of scheduling than I do. With i-Carly weekly planner in hand, the little one keeps the household running nearly on time these days. Early last week she reminded me that Friday night was already set up and that her mother and I would be going out.
Confused, I tried to get details out of the child and her Nickelodeon Day Runner. “Really?” i-queried “Are we going to Dairy Queen?” The kid was all business. “No. You and Mom are going out. I’m going to Nana’s house.” How the 7-year old keeps track of these event I’ll never know, but I can only assume that she needs nights off as much as her parents do. The future White House events secretary prepared for a night with her grandparents as my wife Lori and I faced the unusual prospect of a Friday night with other adults. We’re still young enough to remember the days when we could grab the car keys off of the hook and just go somewhere. It didn’t matter where. One Sunday morning we might awake to find ourselves in El Paso, but as long as we made it to work on Monday, nobody really fussed. Then came Al Green.

Part of the reason Lori and I don’t go out as a couple has to do with a fossil I found while building my man-cave. Among the dusty relics of 10 years in our home was Al Green’s Christmas c.d.. Al Green+Christmas=? Not quite Barry White, but it must have done the trick, because our daughter Anna is a September baby. We are in the process of trying to remember all of those good old Friday nights of leaving the house. For starters, I have no idea what to wear, anymore. Khaki (suburban dad camo) is just dorky. When Lori and I met, I was rocking Levi’s button fly 501′s. Now, the model number on my one and only pair of jeans sounds like an income tax form. Shirts are a whole different issue. As an adult, it’s tempting to wear the gimme shirts that come with every gym membership I’ve ever quit and employer that has since moved to El Paso without telling me. My wife has the distinct advantage of looking cute no matter what she wears. I need a diagram that tells me not to put pants over my head.

Beyond the unstained, non-prison issue clothing, is the idea of talking to other adults for extended periods of time. I quit drinking some time ago and the gears moving these conversations have frozen for lack of social lubrication. Having switched to water, most of my conversations are spent hopping around with legs crossed. The water works for me, nonetheless. I stand with glass in hand like the Dos Equis man. Swirl the water, throw in a grape, or some mixed nuts. Nodding a lot helps too. If the adult gathering is loud enough, I’ve learned to just answer every question with Elton John lines. “Hold me closer, tiny dancer” has been a bit tricky on the occasions that guys have actually heard what I was saying. I’d feel awkward, or bad, but Lori has finally learned to just leave me home on Friday evenings, anyway. At least I still have Al Green.

Friday, April 16, 2010.

I’m nearing the end of what has been an extremely relaxing vacation and looking toward the next week of work. Not looking forward, just toward. Today, when I stopped by the hospital, several of the old timers commented that I looked rested and had gotten “some sun.”  Imagine if I’d gotten all of the sun. They asked what I’d been up to, knowing full well that I watch evening TV and post pointless, absurd blogs about it. True, and I’ve watched lots of television over the past two weeks. Mostly commercials.  TV advertising is a frightening (and yet still entertaining) art form. What follows is the report I never completed in fourth grade on how I spent my vacation.

1. Most Obnoxious new pitch person, Version 2010: When Spatula started, I wrote a lot about Progressive Flo. I now take it all back. She’s the epitome of class, the Jackie-O of auto insurance spokespeople. No, my anti-muse is the Metamucil actress on her multitasking treadmill. During Matt Lauer’s recent interview with the crew of Apollo 13, I must have seen her 3 times. Why go on about her? She is, after all, a somewhat attractive woman in her mid-thirties. To begin with, the actress is hawking Metamucil. Is this a product that needs advertising? Is the bulk fiber laxative market so crowded and cutthroat that we need this ad? The actress is an over-seller. She is depicted as a modern, wired woman with i-phone and laxatives in hand. We get close-ups of her acne hammered face telling us that we’re wrong and that Metamucil performs a host of wondrous functions. She holds up a glass and says “See? It’s doing a million things right now.” No, ma’am. Your Metamucil is getting ready to do one thing: blow the seat right out the smart-looking track suit you’ve got on.
   
2. Congratulations on surviving the stalker gurney. Time for love-making! Last year, one of big pharma television advertising’s most creeptastic characters emerged from the shadows. The Plavix gurney. The story was that a 60′s era steel hospital gurney was following a lone, upper middle-aged, female golf enthusiast all over her course. As one salient blogger points out, the damned evil gurney was even in the locker room as the poor woman changed clothes (http://pointlessplanet.com  8/4/09). The actress in the spot is now featured in ads for Cialis. It seems she just wants to paint the ceilings in her home, only to find her husband standing at the foot of the ladder with a dull look on his face (“Nice beaver. Thanks I just had it stuffed.”) She gives in to his unspoken request for sex. We know this, because the roof drifts off the top of the house and the walls fall away. This is  the Cialis post modern three little pigs story (Wolf: “Sorry. Carry on.”) What the poor woman should have said was “Stop looking at me that way, pal. I’ve been followed all over town by the undead spirit of Marcus Welby in the form of a motherhonking gurney. All I want to do is golf and paint in peace!” The couple has relations in the woods. If you look closely, the gurney is behind a tree. One last note. I appreciate the manufacturers concern about blurred vision and back ache. Dunno, ‘sounds like a great afternoon.
   

Thursday, April 15, 2010.

President John Kennedy used one of history’s great throw-away phrases in his famous space agenda address at Rice University in September of 1962. The line has always stuck with me:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

The other things. Nearly 41 years after astronauts set foot on the moon, President Obama is finally addressing those other things that are expected of a space faring nation. We have a timetable for our first manned travel to Mars, a mere 15 years. The week when we commemorate the 40th anniversary of what many consider America’s greatest triumph in manned space flight, the safe return of the Apollo 13 crew, is a perfect time to start considering as a country our space future.

When it was announced recently that the Obama administration was planning the cancellation of previous President Bush’s planned Constellation program (a re-introduction of manned flights to the moon) I experienced real misgivings. I was raised in the years following the Apollo moon triumphs and the heyday of Space Shuttle travel. I remember those bleak months during 1986 and ’87 with no manned space flight.  The idea of losing manned space travel as a country seemed not only preposterous, but heartbreaking. The end of space flight isn’t Obama’s agenda, however. He’s asking NASA and America as a country to once again “do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” We are being asked to once again believe in travel to the stars, not just to the Moon, or Mars, but the reaches of deep space.

When President Obama stated in reference to returning to the moon that “We’ve been there before,”  he was reminding the old guard, the Apollo astronauts protesting his plans, that this nation has to look forward and lead in space. I consider the Saturn IV-B rocket the greatest engineering achievement in the history of mankind and believe that the reusable Space Shuttle fleet designed in the early 1970′s was a technical marvel. They were marvels of their time, the 20th Century. NASA needs to look beyond the heavy lifting capabilities of the Ares rocket and the Orion crew capsule and start developing technology designed for work and life in space. Nations that lead look to the other things and send explorers forward. Not for imperialism, but for the sake of being a nation that exists in more than just history books.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010.

Spoilers Within.

Last night’s episode of Lost (Everybody Loves Hugo) featured another sweetly sideways romance, this time between Hugo “Hurley” Reyes (Jorge Garcia) and his dearly departed, not really insane friend, Libby Smith (Cynthia Watros). On the island, Libby is too good to hang around with the other departed souls who won’t depart (like Michael, who killed her). In sideways Los Angeles, Libby runs into chicken impresario and philanthropist Hugo (along the lines Tom’s Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie, once the boyfriend of departed Lost cast member Maggie Grace. How’s that for turnaround). Libby tries to convince Hugo that they met on the island and are connected and then her doctor sends her back to the institution.  After the strange first meeting, Mr. Reyes looks her up at the asylum and makes a sizable donation to the facility in order to see Libby and ask her out. On their first date, Libby kisses Hugo and he flashes back to life with her on the island. This is the last we see of them.

Several months ago I posted about my involvement in a marriage building class with my wife Lori (Wedded Bliss, 1/7/10) and never wrote about the subject again. You might assume that I ended up sleeping on the couch after that, but no. The couch is reserved for when the good husband screws up. I shoveled a place to sleep out in the driveway and was there for a week. Lori and I are in a new class for the Summer and I’m kind of into it. Still, as I listened to speakers talk about “the happily ever after” syndrome in marriage, when couples are forced to realize that the fairy tale is just that, I thought about Hurley and Libby. I imagine that Hugo in the beautiful dream of sideways L.A. would go all Officer and a Gentleman, and carry Libby out of the asylum while all the patients cheered. Then what? Sure, they have that connection, but is it enough to build a relationship on. Darn you TV, you’ve got me over-thinking again. Say Hugo and Libby decide to marry and continue the fairytale romance. Pretty soon, I think she’d have to address his problem with fried chicken. If chicken is replacing physical intimacy in Hugo’s life, he’d be a skinny man within months (and she’d be tired enough to check back into the institution). He’d have to deal with her emotional baggage, as well. You couldn’t pay a skycap enough to haul all of her baggage problems.

In the end it’s just TV. The realities of real life romance and lasting love relationships are hard enough to deal with. Thank heavens Lori and I don’t have to deal with having been stranded on an island together. I do hope that in the final four episodes of Lost, there aren’t many rekindled romances (no dead Shannon and evil Syid reunion, please) and more cast members being pushed down wells. Less for me to over-think.