Bob Dylan Can't Sing and Other Musings on Life

I have the flu. A really yucky life-sucking, strength-sapping kind of sick. The best analogy I can offer is when Michael J. 'Crocodile' Dundee's character explains to city-slicker Sue Charlton about the croc's attempt to take him down for a 'death roll'. I sort of feel like that, although instead of wrestling with an 8 foot reptile trying to drown me, I am dealing with invisible to the naked eye 'germs' who want to wrestle me down through fatigue, ache, a nose that runs like a sieve and a hacky cough that makes me sound like a lifetime pack-a-day smoker.

As a result of said flu, I've been forced to curtail my regular life and confined to my bed for several days. I don't do well an invalid. It's not like I don't enjoy being idle if reading a book, but for some reason sickness and book reading seem to be mutually exclusive, for one thing my eyes (okay my whole face) burn and water excessively, for another it's rather hard to hold a book while simultaneously clutching a box of Kleenex and lastly the explosive sneezing rather upsets my reading materials, not to mention my cats who tend to glare at me expressively while muttering some strange feline epithets as they scurry away from the 'blast zone'.

This and the fact that daytime TV is an abyss of spectacularly bad reality TV, prime-time missteps, and endless classic TV re-runs left me with a lot of time to do nothing other than be miserable and think. The following is sort of an extemporaneous collection of these thoughts. I offer this caveat, these are the musings of a diseased, distraught and extremely bored individual. Read at your own peril. I apologize for nothing:

1. Bob Dylan CANNOT Sing. I mean, think about it. Does anyone actually enjoy that nasally whining incoherent mumbling of lyrics? It's sort of like Stephen Hawking with a hair lip. I'll never deny that he isn't a fantastic songwriter, I just wish he would get someone else to sing.

2. Why is that when reminiscing about music, someone always has to get the upper hand in terms of age or lack thereof, for example I say, "Oh, I love Tears for Fears!' I remember Songs from the Big Chair came out I was in the 6th grade!" Whereupon my companion will invariably say, "Oh that's nothing, I was a junior in High School!"  What's the one-upmanship angle here? Am I supposed to reply by saying, 'Man, you really ARE old!' How does that benefit either of us? The secondary aspect is when I say, "Oh wow, Bryan Adam's 'Everything I do" (atrocious Kevin Costner Robin Hood movie theme song) I remember I was working at First Federal, my first 'real' job when that came out!" To which my companion says, "Really, that was my kindergarten graduation song!" The implication here being that I AM old. Either way you look at it, someone is old or too young. People do yourself a favor and just say no to music reminisces, any way you slice it, it doesn't turn out well.

3. I've been in a decline ever since NBC finally cancelled Chuck. In what kind of sick twisted world do we live in, where a show like Chuck is sacrificed to television oblivion when 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians' goes into it's 800th season? I weep for the future of this country.

4. When I am creating a spreadsheet in Excel, why does the software constantly prompt me to ask, 'do I really want to do x, have I thought about y? I  already know Microsoft is probably smarter than me, but does it have to be so blatant about it? And lastly, if I want to do x, I'm doing it! Even if it does mean that all my formulas will be corrupted with circular references that end up with the dreaded ? or No Value! To hell with x, I'm doing Y! Take that Microsoft! Yeah, I know...I'm sad.

5. American Pickers...(yeah, told you I had time on my hands) why is it that when the 'Pickers' go into some Deliverance-esque town, pull into the home of a red-neck Miss Havisham with the requisite El-Camino up on blocks and paw through the garage that time forgot of someone whose family tree definitely does not fork, upon finding the treasured item(s), 'Uncle Jed' who probably forgot that he even had his brother/uncle's 1948 'Sunoco' Service Station sign begins to act like one of the Keno brothers from Antiques Roadshow when they begin to haggle over price?  For that matter, have the inhabitants of these residences no shame that they are dragging television crews through homes that could be on next week's all new episode of 'Hoarders'? Hmm...here's a thought, why don't they just combine the shows? Check out next week's all new episode where Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz stumble over Miss Jessa's prized collection of 20,000 circa 1985 Domino's plastic tumblers featuring the 'Noid, or her 800-piece collection of 1977 era Tupperware. Mike and Frank could bargain with her intervention counselor over what kind of fee per hour of therapy they could negotiate in exchange for her 10,000 never-read paperback Harlequin romance novels.

6. Duck Dynasty, are we really that hard up for entertainment in this country we find it necessary to follow the exploits of a family that looks like they were plucked out of the extras cast of Coal Miner's Daughter as they find bone-headed ways to spend the million-dollar fortune made from the sale of duck calls? Also is there some kind of oath they've taken that expressly forbids the cutting or trimming of one's hair and or scrofulous beard?

7. Dallas is coming back to TV. Really? Wasn't there enough suspension of reality in 1985 when it was suggested that apparently Pam 'just dreamt' Bobby's death?  To say nothing of resurrecting the cast of a show that went off the air in 1989 and highlights the exploits of Big Oil which thanks to the recession, the drilling moratorium courtesy of the Obama administration and the BP Gulf Oil disaster really isn't so 'Big' anymore. I don't see this becoming 'Must See' TV!

8. What has happened in our culture that suddenly we find eating from a 'Food Truck' so chic where just about 3-4 years ago, people who ate from 'roach coaches' or 'hot dog' stands were mostly blue collar workers and held in mild contempt for being too lazy to 'pack a lunch', are now being patronized by upwardly mobile Manhattanites clutching $4,000 titanium briefcases clad in Manolo Blahniks? How did this happen? Just wondering.

9. Having recently begun a program of 'healthy eating' and exercise myself, I've a theory people that have success in 'dieting' haven't been successful due to any great amount of willpower or self-denial, it's that they have become so bored by the 3-4 things you are actually encouraged to eat, they simply quit eating period. So true dieters aren't really skinny by choice, they've just given up on finding anything good to eat.  For a true life example of this, see Victoria 'Posh Spice' Beckham.

10. Why does the cleaning crew at work insist on moving my wastepaper basket to a new location very day? Is it that they feel I'm too structured and need to break out of my rut? Or is it that they have learnt that the spot I replace it in every day is situated in just such a way that I know the exact trajectory my 80 cal granola bar wrapper has to travel in order for me to dunk it into the wastepaper basket without swiveling my chair and they are just messing with me? It's the things that make you go hmm...

Well kids, that's what I've mostly been thinking, sad but true. No lofty ideals on how to save the world or the planet or even the outcome of the next presidential election, but a sad mash-up of TV and culture musings. You can have contempt for me, you can argue with me, you can delete me, but I won't apologize or change my mind...

And now back to making sure that Kleenex and the pharmaceutical industries have a solid third quarter. Doing my part to aid the economic recovery (snicker)....