Jesus Cheers for Notre Dame

Stop me if you’ve heard this one…

Now that I’ve put together a veritable manure pile of blog posts, it’s getting more and more difficult to remember what I’ve posted. I did a quick scan of my post titles. It’s infuriating how often my post title has little or nothing to do with what I put in the post. I’d divorce myself, but who would get custody of the Pop Tarts? Can’t take that chance.

So I’ve been working on a sports parody the last few weeks, and it brought to mind another sports parody I wrote 12 years ago. Almost immediately, my song was out of date. My second stanza of the first verse proclaimed that the Red Sox would never again win the World Series, I referred to the Tampa Bay baseball team as the Devil Rays, I mentioned Vandy – a team that’s gone to bowls the last two years – as a perennial sad sack, I reference Doherty as the North Carolina coach, and I mention Tommy Lasorda who everyone seems to have forgotten.

Thank goodness the Cubs have been consistent so far.

For a few years I tried to keep up – changing the song to reflect the changing nature of sports.

Boy did that get old.

So even if in my growing manure pile, I might have posted this song before – here, for the first time is the original 2002 lyrics (to be sung in a soft lyrical brogue.)

A Jig for Holy Sport’s Fans

(Chorus)

Don't ya know that Jesus

Cheers for Notre Dame?

The Spirit likes les Habitants

The Canadians the same

The heavenly host helped MJ

But the Lakers now they cheer

And the Father above’s a Yankees man

Though their fans drink too much beer

Oh heaven’s not a refuge

If you’re a Cubbie fan

Cheer all you like for the Red Sox

But they’ll never win again

Vandy and Northwestern

Are great with cap and gown

But don’t look to them for football

For they’ll always let you down

(repeat Chorus)

Oh, Mary’d like the Saints now

If she ever saw them play

Teresa was a Celtics fan

Till the poor got in the way

The martyrs don’t like Lions

They remember all the pains

And the Devil cheers the Raiders and

The Miami Hurricanes

The popes, they liked Lasorda

So the Dodgers had a run

The angels would help their namesake

But they don’t think baseball’s fun

The Oilers had a blessing

Till Gretsky left for Hollywood

And no-one likes a Devil Ray

‘Cause they’re just no damn good

(repeat Chorus)

Now Krzyzewski has the blessing

For Doherty is no Smith

The Demon Deacs want Duncan back

That heavenly monolith

And meanwhile all God’s children

From New York to Anaheim

Let mercy slow and evil grow

For on sports we waste our time

(last Chorus)

Don't ya know that Jesus

Cheers for Notre Dame?

The Spirit likes les Habitants

The Canadians the same

The heavenly host helped MJ

But the Lakers now they cheer

And the Father above’s a Yankees man

Though their fans drink too much beer

(spoken in brogue) Like a bunch of Lutherans, they are

(sung slowly) Their fans drink too much beer

Back in the 60s and 70s, My Mother the Car was often referred to as the worst TV show ever.  I wonder if people would still say that today.  There's a lot more really crappy competition out there now.

Life Hacks - Just Helping Out

 So I got this email from Gerontolia Veija from Granville Ohio:

Dear Headley:

Some kind soul sent me this series of pictures they called Life Hacks. I might not have looked at the pictures at all, but I thought it was a misprint for Hicks, and being raised in the country, I thought it would bring back memories.

I can’t make heads or tails of these pictures. Would you please explain them to me?

I’d be glad to, Gerontolia, let’s look at the first one.

 Hmmm, yes, I can see the confusion here. You see what we have here is a very hard form of cheddar cheese. I’m not talking firm, I’m talking about ‘push the crowns right off your teeth as you chew,’ hard. What our hacker is doing here is a clever form of shiatsu fromage massage. It not only softens the cheese, but it makes it easier coming out the other end (if you know what I mean.)

Next slide please.

 Right – got this one. Some smart phones require not only overnight charging, but overnight soaking – preferably in soy sauce. For safety reasons, you should only soak one end of your phone at a time – repeat – NEVER fully immerse your phone in soy sauce. By wrapping your ear buds around a thimble, they have better body and shine, and the picture of the wrecked fishing boat helps give your phone and buds ambiance.

Next.

 Ah, a little known dancing hack. We've all heard the term, ‘warming up.’ In order to dance better, one must warm one’s feet properly, by donning wool socks in your dancing slippers and then blasting them with your hair dryer. You’ll look like Baryshnikov out there.

Next

 This particular hack is for addiction recovery. The addiction we’re dealing with here is Tic Tac addiction, common among school teachers and state employees. The basil and the nutmeg are for light addictions, the cayenne and hard chili peppers are for a more serious problem.

Next

 This is commonly known as the WTF hack. Many of us have acquaintances that feel free to drop in anytime the feel like it. Even those who tell people to “drop in anytime,” really don’t want people to do that. Mounting this little do-dad, particularly the one that appears to be vomiting a Kleenex, will go a long way to make such annoying people feel less welcome.

Next

 This is our empty nest hack. While most children are more considerate now-a-days, living with Mom and Dad into their fifties, there are still insensitive types that leave at 18 or 19 abandoning parents who still have several “sit up straight,” and “don’t slouch like that,” admonitions ready but still unsaid. This little sponge is willing to soak up all that unused parenting.

So – is that the list, Geronlolia? I’m glad I could be of assistance. Here are a few of my favorite hacks to add to your list.

I wish I could hack this blogging thing as well as this honey badger hacks his enclosure.  Here's the video - 

O2

Oxygen to the brain – over-rated, or not? Those of you with remaining grey matter, discuss it among yourselves.

As we get closer (age-wise,) to the big sleep, small sleep becomes more problematic. Sprawling face-down half on the floor, half on the couch after copious beer doesn’t seem to work as well as it did in our late teens.

Now we’re told that alcohol-induced coma is unhealthy and kills brain cells.

And snoring, which was nothing more than a source of amusement to our friends (or annoyance to our partners,) is now a serious symptom of sleep apnea.

Apnea, like alcohol-induced coma, is unhealthy and kills brain cells.

You can’t shut your eyes for a minute without grey matter flying off into the nether regions. No wonder we elect the politicians we do – we are devoid of reasoning material.

Zombies aren’t just a fad on TV - they are us.

I’m not sure if we are more fragile than we were, or have developed a generational obsessive paranoia. Either way, I’m constantly worried that I’m falling apart.

But if this is true of us, shouldn’t it also have been true of generations past?

I remember being a kid watching Dad. Dad would sit in his recliner and snore so loud that he’d wake up the cat. Helix (the cat) looked at Dad with that haughty pissed-off look only disturbed cats can do, and wandered off to find a place where the floor boards weren’t rattling. All of us little Hausers giggled, hoping for another exploit of Dad’s sonorous power like the time his vocalizations vibrated the potted violet off the shelf and shattered the velveteened ceramic Elvis that Uncle Harvey had gotten Mom for Christmas.

The point is back in the sixties and seventies we weren't worried about Dad not breathing – to say nothing about the cat, the violet, or the ugly Elvis effigy. Maybe Dad, being a survivor of the depression and a veteran of WW2, was tough enough to go eight hours a night without O2.

We, on the other hand, are oxygen wimps. I blame Dr. Spock. He spoiled us all.

not

So I guess that not breathing while I sleep is a problem. I don’t want one of those CPAP mini-ventilators, cause I might be confused for a mostly dead organ donor waiting for a patient needing corneas.

Instead, I set a wedge under my pillow, a stiff band-aid across the bridge of my nose, a plastic horseshoe in my nostrils and a gag-inducing retainer in my mouth. I turn on the sound machine to Oceans 2, purge my sleeping area of blue light, and set my air cleaner to “puree.”

If I was capable with all that crap, I might sigh nostalgically, thinking of how little I appreciated Dad’s machismo as he sawed wood in his recliner.

Or my own back in the days of six-pack comas on available couch cushions.

Come to think of it, we really much concerned with brain health in the sixties.

Figs

Here’s one of my least popular columns from 2002. Lucky you!

Does it seem strange to you that the things you just can’t live without, frequently become things it’s hardest to live with? Let’s avoid talking about people, pets, and foods that give heartburn and consider things in the home. In every corner, closet and drawer of your average abode (not to imply that you’re average) there are gadgets, doodads, memorabilia, and whatnots. Of course there are other less descriptive names for them, junk, stuff, clutter, yard sale fodder. Personally, I like to call them figs.

You have a fruit bowl with oranges, apples, pears, bananas, grapes and figs. Days later, the grapes, pears, oranges, apples and bananas are gone and you have left a large bowl only partially filled with…. Yes, you guessed right, Aunt Hortence was right when she told us you were the bright one in the family.

Now, when does a fig go bad? These things were made for transporting across large deserts on the back of a camel;

 do you really think they’re challenged by the air-conditioned comfort that is your over-large fruit bowl? You could put the figs in a smaller bowl and store them in the crisper of your refrigerator until a troupe of hungry Bedouin traders comes to visit. Of course, by storing these figs in the fridge, you’re making a statement. You’re saying that you actually want these figs and are taking steps in the care of them. You are, in a very real sense, making a commitment to the figs. Is that something you want to do? So you leave these figs in the overlarge bowl until someone either eats them or it becomes obvious that they have gone bad enough to justify throwing them out.”

There is now a ‘black hole’ in your living space. This space may never again be available to you because it is now the rightful habitation of an overlarge fruit bowl with 9 or 10 figs in the bottom.

So a fig, is really anything that clutters the home.

An insidious fig is the gadget fig. It looked so good on TV! Imagine if you ever need to poach an egg, while applying wallpaper and rolling pennies, you have the one gadget that can do it all at once! The hidden purpose of these figs is to fill the kitchen and workshop cupboards and workspaces until nothing can be fixed or repaired. I’m waiting for disclosure that “As seen on TV” is actually a cabal of home contractors and delivery restaurants.

The nagging fig is the whatnot that might be useful someday. The box and packing your computer, stereo, air conditioner and K-Tel poach, hang and roll came in. Then there are those three extra screws that came with your build-it-yourself entertainment center and the fifty-seven loose attachments that came with your flo-bee that you never use.

The ultimate figs fit in the memorabilia category. That bowling trophy you worked so hard to earn and were so proud to get and thrilled to display… for a day or two. Slowly, you realize how hideous it truly is. You put it in a spare bedroom or an office thinking that you’ll enjoy looking at it there. 

 Every time you see1 it, you realize that you can never have a guest stay over in your home because they’ll see how your bowling trophy makes your spare bedroom junky. Perhaps you put it in a box with many other figs (baby shoes, yearbooks, old letters) and place the box in your attic or garage. Of course, this virtually guarantees that you will never be able to move no matter how much you come to hate your house, job or neighborhood. You are entirely and completely figundated.

Finally, there’s the stealth fig, the most evil and useless of all figs. The stealth fig has no value, use or purpose. It mixes in with nagging, insidious, and ultimate figs and steals your storage space by mastering the art of camouflage. Stealth figs are broken gadgets, packing slips and indefinable oddments (What is that thing? I don’t know, better save it, we might need it someday) that secretly have developed into sentient creatures. They practice a mind control that only Martha Stewart, Jack LaLane, and Leona Helmsey can resist. You never actually hear them speak but you always hear the message.

“Don’t throw out those ticket stubs to ‘Any Which Way You Can!’ Yes the movie lacked that certain ‘je ne sais qua’ but it was your first date with ___ ___ ___ and if you see her again at some class reunion, she might ask you if you have them.”

What’s that you say? You don’t hear those voices? No, of course not, I don’t hear them either! Here, let me clear a space so you can sit down.

Quick! a video! Something funny, stat!

HHHH Inducts Ben Edlund

It grieves me to do this to someone nearly a decade younger than I am - mostly because it shows what a failure I’ve made of my life. I induct Ben Edlund into the Headley Hauser Hall of Honor (pronounced Haw-nor.) Ben is the fourth inductee into the hall (fifth is you count both the Coen brothers link) along with Douglas Adams link, and Christopher Moore link.

Ben started out small – I mean freakishly small – less than 10 pounds. Knowing that Hollywood would never listen to anyone under 2 feet tall, Ben spent the next decade and a half growing to approximately full size.

This was only the first of his many accomplishments.

It was in High School (shortly after recovering from his ‘small’ disability,) that Ben created, The Tick

 the finest superhero in comedic history. (on the advice of my lawyers, I omitted the words “I’ve ever ripped off in novella form” preceding in comedic history.

While he was studying to do film stuff, New England Comics a local comic company, (on the advice of those guys, I omitted the words “a third-rate, derivative, fly-by-night” preceding the worlds, local comic company,) asked him to do a Tick series because they’d seriously dropped the ball on something else they were going to do. In spite of NEC desperate need for immediate rescue from creative blah-dom, Ben took his time creating issue 1. This served NEC right, but more importantly, it brought The Tick to public awareness.

Sometime afterwards he signed a limited edition #1 for me. It has a crease in the cover – but I don’t completely blame him.

Paired with Richard Libmann-Smith, Edlund created The Tick TV show in 1994. Edlund wrote a number of episodes in this GREATEST ANIMATED TV SERIES OF ALL TIME including the 20 minutes of gold that is: That Mustache Feeling,

as well as the very fine episodes, Grandpa Wore Tights and The Tick vs. Filth.

The Fox network showed how shortsighted they were by cramming The Tick into their Saturday morning line-up instead of putting it on Sunday evening right after the Simpsons. Not surprisingly, the largely adult male audience that gravitated to The Tick bought very little of the Baby-wets-herself type toys advertised as they were too busy buying pizza, beer, and pick-up trucks that Fox might have sold in abundance had they put The Tick in the right time slot. The Tick was cancelled after three seasons.

Freakin’ bean-counters.

A few years later, the bean-counters overcompensated by making a live action version of The Tick for prime time. Although Patrick Warburton was a fine choice to play the big guy, focus-group input insisted on more sexual innuendo which cheapened the product and it was cancelled after just a few shows.

As it turns out, the battle of good vs. evil has similarities to the battle of creative folks vs. beancounters.

Edlund wrote two of the live action episodes - The Tick vs. Justice, and The Terror which were each wonderful quirky throwbacks to the kind of humor all of us beer and pizza consuming, pick-up driving adult males hoped for when The Tick came to prime time.

Then Edlund went on to work with Joss Whedon with the series, Angel, (with that dead guy, David Boreanaz,) and did Firefly, and other Supernatural stuff…

Yada yada yada.

Let’s be honest – I’m inducting Edlund in the Headley Hauser Hall of Honor (pronounced Haw-nor,) because it looks pretty silly to induct a large blue animated fictional character.

So congratulations, Tick

… I mean, Ben!

And now – a YouTube full episode of The Tick!!!!!!! Rejoice, ye with sufficient bandwidth!