Posted inHealth Humor

My annual Medicare wellness visit had its humorous side

Just to give you young'uns (meaning, anybody under 65) a preview of what you have to look forward to, here's some glimpses of how my annual Medicare Wellness Visit went today.  First off, this really isn't a physical exam. My primary care doctor did some perfunctory checking around -- listened to my heart to make sure it was beating, looked in my mouth to see if I had any teeth left, that sort of thing -- but a bigger part of the visit was a nurse asking me a bunch of questions before the doctor came in to the exam…
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Posted inHome life Humor

Men always will be second-class shopping citizens. Happily.

I'm married to a woman who likes to shop. This is, of course, a redundancy. If I had simply said I'm married to a woman,  the corollary who likes to shop is almost a logical necessity. By and large, men don't like to shop. There are exceptions, of course. Bob, my brother-in-law, would see a hardware store and make a bee-line to it with as much of a spring in his step as my wife, Laurel, does when she sees a "50% off everything" sign in the window of one of her favorite clothing stores. Me, I can happily spend hours…
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Posted inHumor Salem

Free tickets got me loving Capitol City Theatre comedy club (and Grant Lyons)

Thanks mucho to Los Angeles-area comedian Grant Lyon who got me off my lethargic ass and into a Salem gem that I've been meaning to check out, but hadn't until last Saturday night, the Capitol City Theatre (tagline: serious about comedy). Here's me and Grant after the show, posing in front of some important information. Salem Has a Comedy Club. A good one too. I really appreciate Grant emailing me his free ticket offer. Grant  said that he likes to offer them to local bloggers in towns that he visits. Which, after Salem, was a 7-hour drive to Sacramento.  Yeah, stand-up…
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Posted inHumor

Lewis Black’s profanely funny Elsinore show lightened my Trump-depression

Last night my wife and I saw comedian Lewis Black do his thing at Salem's Elsinore Theatre. His profanity-laced, darkly-intense, rant-filled brand of humor was strangely healing for us and the other mostly-liberal audience members. I'm a big fan of Black's appearances on The Daily Show, where it seems a miracle that the top of his head doesn't pop off from the display of steaming outrage. (Click here for a comparatively mild example.) I was wondering how Black would act during a lengthy stand-up show. Answer: pretty much the same, but more entertainingly. He's adept at handling shout-out comments from…
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Posted inHumor Salem

Salem Chamber of Commerce brain implants: an April 1 confession

Oh, man. I got so involved with writing on my new Salem Political Snark blog about what happened today at a highly emotional Chamber of Commerce news conference, I almost forgot to share the post on HinesSight.  I'm really proud of "Salem Chamber of Commerce admits to using brain implants to control this town."  This is something that I've strongly suspected for a long time, along with other close observers of this town's political scene.  Didn't have proof, though. Until a momentous day, April 1, 2016, when Chamber CEO Dan Clem decided to come clean about the brain implants.  Check…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Humor

“We Need Brain” — GOP prez debate songified in 4 minutes

Damn. If I'd known this highly creative songified summary of the first GOP presidential debate was coming, I could have saved two-plus hours of valuable remaining-life time and just watched a four minute video.   A New York Times piece provides background on the video. I read: The Gregory Brothers are a music video production group made up of Andrew, Michael, Evan and Sarah Gregory. How they put the video together so fast is mind-boggling.  On a related note, I loved this post-debate Trumpanalysis by Ezra Klein. Trump is growing on me, in a decidedly weird way. His saying that he'd…
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Posted inHumor Salem

Comic says “Money doesn’t influence anyone.” Funny!

I love Pearls Before Swine's often caustic and cynical humor. Yesterday the comic strip featured Stephen Pastis' take on the Supreme Court's absurd contention that... "Spending large sums of money in connection with elections... does not give rise to quid pro quo corruption." Yeah, right.  In seven panels Pastis destroyed this argument. (click to enlarge) Of course, this crap also is going on right here in semi-sleepy Salem, Oregon. Wasn't long ago that I blogged about "Salem Chamber of Commerce tries to buy City Council seats." 
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Posted inEntertainment Humor

I’m so outraged at Jen Selter’s “butt selfies,” I had to look at them three times

My intellectual interest in Jen Selter arose when I read a piece on Jezebel, "We Need to Talk About 'Butt Selfie Queen' Jen Selter." Though I noticed two photos of Selter at the top of the page, I hurried past them to study what I hoped would be a serious post-modern feminist critique of the objectification of women -- a practice that I have heard about, but naturally have no personal experience with, given my lifelong heterosexual male practice of paying attention only to a woman's inner essence, not her bodily form. The article, sadly, turned out to be a…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Humor

John Oliver rants about Oregon’s “fucking idiots”

Hard to disagree with John Oliver: we do have ourselves some fucking idiots in this here state. But, hey, give us some credit.  It takes a special skill of sorts to spend about $250 million on a Cover Oregon website that is almost completely useless. Achieving that level of abject incompetence is impressive in a certain disturbing way.  Nice to see that Oregon can be made fun of on a national stage, Oliver's new Last Week Tonight show. A video of his right-on rant can be watched here. (scroll down to bottom of page)
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Posted inHumor

Obama’s “Between Two Ferns” video: Prez is good comedian

President Obama sure held his own, comedy-wise, with Zack Galifianakis in this new Funny or Die video: "Between Two Ferns."  Great delivery, sense of timing, ironic expressiveness. Have a look. It's got a pitch for young people to sign up for Obamacare, but this is a small part of the video.
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Posted inHumor

Kelly Williams Brown’s Super Bowl Etiquette Guide

Ah, I remember the days when Kelly Williams Brown was a reporter/columnist for the Statesman Journal newspaper here in Salem.  You've come a long ways, Kelly. By leaving Salem. Brown's "Adulting" book is a huge hit. And her Daily Beast pieces are marvelous. Today's offering is "Your Super Bowl Etiquette Guide From Clothes to Food to What Not to Say." Here's a few of the Q & A's. Q: How many alcoholic beverages should one consume during the Super Bowl? A: Just follow this handy formula: (H+1) X (I-A) Where H stands for the amount of drinks required for a noticeable hangover,…
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Posted inHome life Humor

Even with my Ninja Fan, I don’t look much like a Geisha

As noted in a post about my visit to the 2013 World Beat Festival here in Salem, I bought an $8 Ninja Fan at a booth in the Asia Pacific area.  (this is the metal version of the plastic fan I got) For a long time I've wanted a fan. My Tai Chi instructor knows a fan form, which looks really cool when he does it. The fan snaps open and shut in harmony with his movements. After all, fans can be weapons. However, when I had a photo of me and my new fan taken by a Statesman Journal…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Humor

Jay Lake fights terminal cancer with inspiring humor and courage

You've got to love a guy with terminal cancer, Jay Lake, who has a new favorite joke:

"What's the only difference between Jay Lake and a ham?"
"The ham is curable."

Read the entire Oregonian story that was in today's paper. Since it probably will disappear into the paid archives before too long, I've copied the story in its entirety and attached it as a continuation to this post.

Jay Lake
Jay Lake probably won't be immortal, but he can damn well have his story live on in cyberspace for as long as possible.

Which I'm sure his web site, jlake.com, will. On his blog, Jay has been writing about his medical condition and life. I plan to be a regular reader. 

I'm not terminal (except in the sense that we all are). But I've thought about how much sense it makes to have a memorial service for me while I'm alive — when I could enjoy it. I was glad to see that Jay is doing just that. 

A Jay Wake is scheduled for July 27. Sounds like a smiling-time will be had by all. Some excerpts from the Jay Wake page:

You are invited to the pre-mortem wake and roast for Jay Lake, a somewhat morbid, deeply irreverent, but joyous celebration of Jay’s life. This is a time for celebrating Jay’s life, loves, and dark, twisted sense of humor. Bring your stories (hysterical, at Jay’s expense), your tasteless jokes, and any and all expressions gleefully macabre. Come party with the man who has never passed up the chance to poke cancer in the eye and laugh about it.

…The Roast will begin at about 7:30. Be warned: the jokes and stories contained herein will not only push the boundaries of good taste, they will leapfrog over the boundaries blowing a raspberry. This is not a time to say how Jay touched your life. This is a time to say how Jay touched you inappropriately.

Beautiful.

Read on for the Oregonian story. 

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Posted inHumor

Jim Carrey makes fun of Charlton Heston’s “Cold Dead Hand”

What's not to like about this Funny or Die video, "Cold Dead Hand with Jim Carrey"? We get to see Carrey make fun of... Charlton Heston. Gun nuts who compensate for a small male sex organ with big firearms. Theologically challenged Christians who somehow believe that God embraces those who cling to their guns rather than love, faith, charity, and all that weenie Jesus'y stuff. Best of all, Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity hate this video. That means most reasonable Americans with a sense of humor will like it. (Watch the video on Funny or Die if you get an…
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Posted inHumor

I want to be reincarnated as a cat. Or a street performer.

Though I don't expect any afterlife to follow my death, here's a request in case reincarnation rules the post-last-breath roost: If I'm headed downward on the evolutionary ladder, being a cat looks like a lot of fun. I'm already messy in the bathroom, like to tease dogs, and am prone to spilling coffee. Watching this video, I realized I'd be a great cat! (Plus, I can look ever so innocent when I've done something wrong.)   Alternatively, if a human body is in my karmic cards, I could see myself being this street performer guy. I like being the center…
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Posted inHumor

Onion exposes depth of Petraeus sex scandal

Once again, the Onion gives us a wise perspective on current events: "WIdening Petraeus Scandal Reveals Human Race Has Been Having Sex for 200,000 Years." Excellent analysis. No, more. A penetrating analysis. Following the recent revelation that former CIA director David Petraeus conducted a protracted extramarital affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell, sources confirmed today that the far-reaching scandal has widened to reveal that mankind, otherwise known as the species Homo sapiens, has been engaging in sexual intercourse for the past 200,000 years. “While the situation appeared at first to be limited to this one sexual relationship between Gen. Petraeus and Ms.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Humor

The Onion’s 2001 jab at Bush fits Romney in 2012

Jim, a friend with progressive proclivities like my own, just sent me a link to a marvelous The Onion piece from January 2001: "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Finally Over." The Onion is all about humor. But it was seriously correct about Bush. Reminds me a lot of what Romney wants to do to the country: make the 99% of us poorer and more miserable, while making the 1% richer and happier. Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation…
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Posted inEntertainment Humor

Creative Portland marriage proposal gets Storm Large’s “fuck, yes”

Since I'm a big fan of Storm Large, I wish I could obey her Twitter tweet. My good friend Amy just got engaged, and..no pressure, boys...but this is how the fuck you do it. http://vimeo.com/42828824  However, I'm already married. And my proposal to Laurel some twenty-three years ago was horrible, compared to how the marvelously creative guy who put together this lip-sync'ed marvel did it. Very Portlandia'ish. When I proposed to Laurel, it was so half-assed Laurel wasn't sure what I was saying. "Are you asking me to marry you?", she said. "Yes," I told her. Not exactly the stuff romance…
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Posted inHumor Salem

My (cynical) ideas for a Salem, Oregon city slogan

Yesterday Michael Rose, a business reporter for the Statesman Journal, asked in a Twitter tweet, "What would be a good city slogan for Salem Ore.?" Oh, great question. My mind is cynically-inclined when it comes to describing Salem's positive qualities, or more accurately, lack thereof. So it didn't take me long to respond to Michael with quite a few suggestions. Waking up this morning, after my brain had unconsciously incubated additional embryonic seeds of cynicism, I came up with some more. This is my current Salem city slogan oeuvre. Salem, the blandburger sandwiched between Portland and Eugene's spicy buns Salem, after you…
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Posted inHumor

April 1 — big day in marijuana news

Of all the news reports that appeared in cyberspace today, April 1, the most interestingly informative I came across was Toke of the Town's "It's a Wild Day in Weed News. Here's the Roundup." Wow. Who knew? Some samples... Jazz Musician' Son Brings Brownie To Fourth Grade Class! Panic broke out this morning at Redwood Elementary School when a local jazz guitarist's son smuggled in through the opened doors of the grammar school a "red" sequestered Tupperware-covered container of evenly-cut Betty Crocker's "More Fudge Than Fun Brownies," for Pebbles Shapiro-Naguchi's birthday party. There'll be no birthday celebration in Room 102…
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