info-ential

Professional line-waiters by SOLD, Inc as reported by The Atlantic Monthly

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 05:06:00 +0000

😉👍😁 I'm lovin' it!!! 😜

MY HIGHLIGHTS: from «The Growing Market for Getting Paid to Wait in Line» - The Atlantic

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« Those visiting New York for the first time wouldn’t be completely incorrect if they figured that at its core, the city is just one long line. [....]

[....]

Business Insider profiled the company’s founder, Robert Samuel, earlier this week. Samuel, who can bring in up to $1,000 per week, started the firm after someone on Craigslist took up his offer to wait in line for the iPhone 5 in exchange for $100. The company has since expanded to include about a dozen of Samuel's friends—including one who was subjected to a grueling 43-hour wait for an audition on the TV show Shark Tank. Samuel says his employees are doing “a great job,” though it remains unclear exactly how one could do poorly at standing in line. 🤣😃😄

It didn’t used to be the case that there was appreciable demand for professional line-waiters, but Samuel’s company competes with people from the likes of Task Rabbit, a website for hiring strangers to do odd jobs, and Craigslist, a website for hiring strangers to do odder jobs. His response, then, has been to turn to branding. He’ll show up at long lines just to hand out business cards, and he’ll write his company’s name in chalk on the city’s sidewalks. 👏👏👏👏👏

Executive assistants used to be the province of the wealthy, and the fixed cost of taking the time to seek out someone to do your laundry or buy your groceries every once in a while was too high for most people. But sites like Task Rabbit have streamlined this process to the point where anyone willing to pay $20 an hour can have an executive assistant whenever they'd like.

Of course, unsavory things can happen when people pay others to exempt themselves from mundane tribulations, and maybe not all lines are in need of professional waiters, but companies like SOLD have brought to the middle class banal services previously available only to the wealthy. Samuel’s experience with SOLD attests to this; when Business Insider asked him about his clientele, he described them as “everyday people.” » 👍

Aren't these «professional line-waiters,» though, technically speaking and in spite of the "professional" tag attached to them, what you might otherwise consider, ahem, like, back in the day, good old-fashioned, like, ahem, "BUMS" -- maybe? 😯

I mean, not to put them down or anything, but is there, like, a skill involved? 🤣

hmmmm ... yeah, PATIENCE is a good skill to have! 👍

I can't stand lines. I NEVER wait in line if I can help it. So, I'm sure, sooner or later, one way or another, if I can afford it, I may need to hire a «professional line-waiter»! 😁

nando

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FULL ARTICLE:

The Growing Market for Getting Paid to Wait in Line - The Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/the-growing-market-for-getting-paid-to-wait-in-line/375083/

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@Give_The_Nobel_Prize_for_Literature_AND_Peace_2018_to_Noam_Chomsky_already! Come on, before he dies! Swedish Academy, for once, have some guts!

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Fri, 04 May 2018 19:43:00 +0000

@Give_The_Nobel_Prize_for_Literature_AND_Peace_2018_to_Noam_Chomsky_already! Come on, before he dies! Swedish Academy, for once, have some guts! 😄

MLK: "The SILENCE of our friends."

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 05:11:00 +0000

SF Parking Carjacking: Help me beat this racket!

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 00:59:00 +0000

Shot video as they towed my car away. Put this together to run a crowdfunding campaign to help me get my car back from the JAWS of this racket!

"Mad Max: Madly Caught in the Crosshairs of a Family Feud, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and LOVE the Post-Apocalyptic World!" :-) haha!

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Tue, 19 May 2015 23:35:00 +0000

If a movie could be summed up in four words like a Chinese saying can be summed up in four characters, "Mad Max: Fury Road" would be,

"Never ever give up!" :-)

It's pure non-stop action, and no matter how much CGI there is in this movie --and there's a lot! I could smell the green screen from miles away!-- every action movie director in the world must be kneeling down and going,

"We're not Worthy!!!!"
"We're not Worthy!!!!"
"We're not Worthy!!!!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FucbvoFFy0

to George Miller right now!!! :-)

[Spoiler alert! If you haven't seen it, you may wanna read the rest after you have? :-) ]

Other than that, here are a few "oh, come on!'s":

1. The Villain: This new water-hoarding evil incarnate villain is kind of pathetic: a Hitler who seeks immortality --ahem, his name [wink! wink!] is "Immortan Joe"! Get it?!? :-)-- by perpetuating himself through his "perfect" offspring bred through perfect "breeders".They should call him, "Immoral Joe," instead.

He is a petty caricature comic book villain without any of the charm of a Joker played by Jack Nicholson or Heath Ledger, a perverted Darth Vader without the Dark Side. He even has his own version of "mini me" like Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies. That's how caricature he is. At least, Lord Humongous, in the original Road Warrior, was after gas and looked really scary. This guy is only after "perfect" offspring? Come on!

2. The Gender Politics subtext: We know, we know, we know: we live in a post-feminist world and next year there may be a woman President, but what's up with the gender politics? I bet you anything a lot of hay is going to be made of this movie's pitting the patriarchal society against the matriarchal one in a post-apocalyptic world. Do we really need that as the subtext of such a great action movie? Like one of the villains says, "All this over a family squabble!" :-) Come on!

3. Ok. Back in the early 80's when the world thought it was going to run out of oil (and way before Tesla had come up with a viable electric car), the original Mad Max was a squabble over oil, gas. Today after Australia has survived years of draught and there's a draught in California, "Mad Max: Fury Road" is a squabble over water? Immortan Joe derives his power from hoarding all the water around. Do film directors have to be so cynical and blow with every wind blowing at the time they make a movie?

So, if it turns out that 20 or 30 years from now there's so much rain that there's flooding everywhere, or if a nuclear blast makes the ice caps melt, and instead of shortage of water, the draught, or poisoned water that this movie predicts, there is too much water, the great next sequel to Mad Max is going to be a remake of "Waterworld"?!? :-) Oh, come on!

There is a reason some people have called Ridley Scott a genius. His futuristic vision of L.A. is pretty amazing.

Attachments are

4. The Main Title Character: I thought the "mad" in "Mad Max" was "mad" as in "MAD as hell!" because they killed his family. This new "Mad Max" is "mad" as in "craaaaaaaazy!" Meaning, he gets "flashbacks"! He's not witty and cynical and sarcastic like the great early James Bond and how Mel Gibson played the character in the Road Warrior. Oh, no, now he's got "issues". This Mad Max's got problems. He's like that ridiculous Daniel Craig "James Bond." He can get poisoned and he falls --hard!!-- for Eva Green (James Bond doesn't fall in love! :-) Come on! That's why "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" sucked and tanked!). This Mad Max gets picked up by the brood and gets turned into a "universal blood donor," tattoo and all! Oh, come on!

I guess the owners of these "franchises" figure that, "oh, I guess we need to update our hero a bit for the times, y'know? Make him more vulnerable, more human." Come on! We go to the movies for the FANTASY, to see not people like us but people who are "larger than life." I mean, they really are! They are really like ten feet tall there on the BIG screen! Oh, excuse me, since we're now streaming to any device (TV, laptop, smartphone, tablet), I guess the screen has gotten REAL SMALL, and so have our heroes! Raaaaats!!! :-)

Here's what Tom Hardy, the actor that played the lead role in this movie had to say about the character he was playing:

"Max is kind of like a dog. Things just happen to him, and he sort of has to get through it. Do you remember The Littlest Hobo, did you ever see that TV show? It’s a little bit like that. I always thought of him like that and Wile E. Coyote. Because ultimately, it’s a bit of a sad story with Max; he just wants to go home, and he gets dragged into other people’s drama. And he tries not to connect with them, and then when he does, awful stuff happens. Ultimately he just wants a nice place to rest up. He’s got his own demons. His backstory is still very much there."

http://io9.com/the-making-of-mad-max-fury-road-we-shot-one-scene-fo-1704025550

If this is what the lead actor thinks of his role and this is how he played that role, this is a VERY BAD OMEN for Mad Max. Ooooh, come oooooooon!

This is a DOG-EAT-DOG post-apocalyptic world: NO ONE has ANY "home" to go to anymore! THAT is the whole point! Mad Max is an ex-cop whose family got killed by wild marauders after the apocalypse, the nuclear holocaust, or whatever happened that wiped out civilization. He went a little crazy and took off on the road to battle his demons and battle all the demons he encounters on the road. Mad Max is a road trip without a destination: Getting there, wherever "there" is, is NOT "half the fun." it is ALL the fun!

In that sense, this new mythic "Green Place" that these women seek in this new version of Mad Max is, as they found out, a dead-end destination. Mad Max has to live in the present, because there is no future.

5. The Title: Miller & Co (ahem, Hollywood) got the title all wrong! It shouldn't be, "Mad Max: Fury Road." It should be, "Mad Max: Madly Caught in the Crosshairs of a Family Feud, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and LOVE the Post-Apocalyptic World!" :-) haha!

I hate to be cynical and sarcastic, but George Miller, who started out basically as an "exploitation filmmaker" in Australia with the first Mad Max movie, which was really raw and lovely, has finally totally and completely gone Hollywood and sold out. So, he deserves it! :-)

6. The 1% vs the 99% other Subtext: Oooooooooooh, I get it now! I get it! "Immortan Joe" represents the ONE PERCENT 1%!!! He's the 1% hoarding 99% of the wealth and the power. Oh, well, if so, he's got the wrong symbol, the wrong logo, the wrong icon, all over himself, his minions, and his cave! He's a good old GREEDY capitalist, a robber baron, hoarding it all, all the water, and when he opens up those faucets it TRICKLES DOWN (get it?!?) to the water-starved masses below just like wealth trickles down to the rest of us from the top one percent. It's good ol' "trickle down" capitalist economics down to the last detail! Oh, come on!

7. The characters: "Mad Max: The Road Warrior" was great not only because of the amazing over-the-top action, but also because of the great, funny and craaaaaaaazy characters. So, in between the action, we got funny repartee between the characters. The Road Warrior was RICH in characters just like Pulp Fiction! There was the "Gyro Captain," a snake charmer in a gyrocopter! There was the Feral Kid and his great metal boomerang that sliced fingers in flight! There was gas-greedy Lord Humongous. Fun! Fun! Fun! NON-STOP FUN!!!

In "Mad Max: Fury Road" all the characters except for Emperor Furiosa are PATHETIC, and not funny at all (except for maybe the mad rock guitarist playing the flame-throwing guitar!)! Even the new "MAD Max" is pathetic! Oh, come on!

Ooooh, hold on!!! I kept wondering: where have I seen these eerie-looking, all white and head shaved, rims-around-the-eyes, lance-holding minions before? Hmmmmmmm... lemme think! "Apocalypse Now"?!? This is supposed to be a post-apocalyptic world. Let's make the minions look like the Captain Kurtz-led minions in "Apocalypse Now"! (Get it? Get it?). Oh, come on!

George Miller has not only sold out to Hollywood. He's gone a bit soft in the head with age!

Other than this annoying new stuff Miller & Co have come up with, this is as great an action movie as has ever been made! :-)

If you're into action movies, enjoy the action! But blow off all this other stupid, really stupid (and probably Hollywood-generated) idiotic stuff! :-)

nando

Bertrand Russell: prophetic

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Sat, 28 Mar 2015 01:07:00 +0000

"FEAR OF PUBLIC OPINION, LIKE EVERY OTHER FORM OF FEAR, IS OPPRESSIVE AND STUNTS GROWTH. IT IS DIFFICULT TO ACHIEVE ANY KIND OF GREATNESS WHILE A FEAR OF THIS KIND REMAINS STRONG, AND IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ACQUIRE THAT FREEDOM OF SPIRIT IN WHICH TRUE HAPPINESS CONSISTS, FOR IT IS ESSENTIAL TO HAPPINESS THAT OUR WAY OF LIVING SHOULD SPRING FROM OUR OWN DEEP IMPULSES AND NOT FROM THE ACCIDENTAL TASTES AND DESIRES OF THOSE WHO HAPPEN TO BE OUR NEIGHBORS, OR EVEN OUR RELATIONS. Fear of immediate neighbors is no doubt less than it was, but there is a new kind of fear, namely, the fear of what newspapers [or tabloids or talk shows or gossips on an internet network] may say. THIS IS QUITE AS TERRIFYING AS ANYTHING CONNECTED WITH MEDIEVAL WITCH HUNTS. WHEN THE NEWSPAPER [or tabloids or talk shows or talk radio or gossips on an internet network] CHOOSES TO MAKE A SCAPEGOAT OF SOME PERHAPS QUITE HARMLESS PERSON, THE RESULTS MAY BE VERY TERRIBLE. FORTUNATELY, AS YET THIS IS A FATE WHICH MOST PEOPLE ESCAPE THROUGH THEIR OBSCURITY; BUT AS PUBLICITY GETS MORE AND MORE PERFECT IN ITS METHODS, THERE WILL BE AN INCREASING DANGER IN THIS NOVEL FORM OF SOCIAL PERSECUTION [unbelievable but true: again, like the genius that he was, Russell turned out to be a true prophet here]. THIS IS TOO GRAVE A MATTER TO BE TREATED WITH DISDAIN BY THE INDIVIDUAL WHO IS ITS VICTIM, AND WHATEVER MAY BE THOUGHT OF THE GREAT PRINCIPLE OF THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS [or freedom of speech in America], I THINK THE LINE WILL HAVE TO BE DRAWN MORE SHARPLY THAN IT IS BY THE EXISTING LIBEL LAWS, AND ANYTHING WILL HAVE TO BE FORBIDDEN THAT MAKES LIFE INTOLERABLE FOR INNOCENT INDIVIDUALS, EVEN IF THEY SHOULD HAPPEN TO HAVE DONE OR SAID THINGS WHICH, PUBLISHED [or distributed over the internet or by talk radio or any other means] MALICIOUSLY, CAN CAUSE THEM TO BECOME UNPOPULAR. THE ONLY ULTIMATE CURE FOR THIS EVIL IS, HOWEVER, AN INCREASE OF TOLERATION ON THE PART OF THE PUBLIC. THE BEST WAY TO INCREASE TOLERATION IS TO MULTIPLY THE NUMBER OF INDIVIDUALS WHO ENJOY REAL HAPPINESS AND DO NOT THEREFORE FIND THEIR CHIEF PLEASURE IN THE INFLICTION OF PAIN UPON THEIR FELLOW MEN."

--Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

"Je suis Charlie!!!" Vive la France!!!

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 00:10:00 +0000

"Je suis Charlie!!!"

Vive la France!!!

Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité! FOREVER!!!

Churchill: "his greatness of soul"

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 19:11:00 +0000

LONDON MAYOR BORIS JOHNSON

on WINSTON CHURCHILL

MAYOR BORIS JOHNSON: He did. He was amazingly good at catching the public mood and seeming to, personally, to incarnate, to embody something of the eccentricity of the British - or they like to think of as their own eccentricity - and he was very calculated sometimes in the way he would stall himself with his cigar, his bowties, his slightly mannered way of speaking and he knew that he had this immense theatrical appeal, but he was always very careful and clever in his use of language.

SIMON: What about humor though?

JOHNSON: He certainly understood that the electorate love jokes and they love somebody who seemed able to tell jokes and there's always been a strong, you know, Shakespearean, Fallstaffian tradition in Britain of admiring people who are able to make fun - and also to some extent, make fun of themselves. I mean, there's a famous story of how in the war, a terrible moment when one of his ministers is - I'm afraid, Tory ministers - caught with a guardsmen on a Hyde Park bench at 6 o'clock in the morning in February the dark days of the war and this awful news was brought to Churchill at Chartwell by the Chief Whip who said, you know, very, very bad, I'm afraid you'll have to go. And Churchill paused after hearing this unhappy tale and without looking around he said, you mean to say that so-and-so was caught with a guardsman? Yes, sir. On a park bench? Yeah, I'm afraid so Prime Minister. At 6 o'clock in the morning? That seems to be the case, rather. In this weather? Good God - it makes you proud to be British.

SIMON: (Laughter).

JOHNSON: And I think that not only illustrates his humor, I - for my money, what that tells us about Churchill and the point I was trying to get over in the book is his greatness of soul. You know, that was fundamentally the thing that drew me to him and he really was - there wasn't an ounce of malice in him and most of his political friends and enemies agreed on that. He was remarkable in that respect.

from npr: "London's Mayor On Winston Churchill: He Saved Civilization"

America, too, has/had/has/had/has/had (on-and-off) this "greatness of soul."

Every time, though, she loses this "greatness of soul" and acts with an "ounce of malice,"she loses her soul, her true nature...

Radio Labs' War of the Worlds! Great Radio!

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 18:52:00 +0000

War of the Worlds

If this is not great radio about GREAT radio, I don't know what is! ;-)

Are you listening, Mr Keillor? ;-)

(There must be some reason they did this show from your Fitzgerald Theater in Minneapolis! hahahaha! Your show is cool. It's cool. But it could be even cool-er! ;-) )

"Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"? ;-)

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 21:48:00 +0000

AC/DC Drummer Charged In Murder Plot

hmmmmmmmmmmm... Like I always thought and said, if there had been no rock'n'roll, most rock guys would have ended up in jail! And a lot of them have, actually... Case in point...?

The charges have since been dropped, though...

Murder-For-Hire Charge Dropped Against AC/DC Drummer

Music: A great "Hendrix story": Make it there so they can appreciate you here!

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:30:00 +0000

Eat your heart out, Hasselhoff!

You may "BIG in Germany" but Doug Seegers is HUGE in Sweden! ;-)

Christ may have said it first, "No one is a prophet in his own land."

And Hendrix may have proven it: he had to make it big in England before coming back as a success to make it BIG in his own land.

And now here's Doug Seegers in this npr story, "Homeless In Nashville, Huge In Sweden"

Great interview: Fresh Air: 'All The Truth Is Out'

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Fresh Air:

'All The Truth Is Out' Examines How Political Journalism Went Tabloid

WHO wouldn't fall for THAT? Come on!!! ;-)

LEAVE HIM ALONE!

He's a good guy and he would have made a GREAT President!

[WHO would you rather have had?

BUSH Sr.? Bush Jr.? Come on!!!!]

ANYBODY who engages in tabloid journalism
of any kind, for any reason, about anybody,
is nothing but a low, petty, hypocritical, back-stabbing bastard with NOTHING better to do!
So, there! ;-)

VICE: a different kind of news?

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 19:40:00 +0000

NPR: "Media Group Evolves From Covering Vice To War Zones"

NPR Interview with Shane Smith, Founder and CEO of Vice Media.

How the French Invented Love?

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 22:49:00 +0000

They did?!? ;-)

I kneeeeeeeeeeeeeew it!

News: Alain De Botton's The News: A User's Manual

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 02:33:00 +0000

Great interview: "ALAIN DE BOTTON & ADAM GOPNIK"

[Don't know if it's available on podcast. Heard it on the radio! Fascinating! ;-) ]

News: Gabriel Sherman’s The Loudest Voice in the Room

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 02:21:00 +0000

Great interview with Investigative journalist Gabriel Sherman’s The Loudest Voice in the Room: The Inside Story of How Roger Ailes and Fox News Remade American Politics.

"The Inside Story of Fox News"

Portrait of an Idealist Don Quixote as a Sitting Pragmatist President! ;-)

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 02:10:00 +0000

Great story in the Guardian! How many Mujica's does the world need?

"José Mujica: is this the world’s most radical president?"

Adults Declining! ;-)

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 01:59:00 +0000

"Is Adulthood Dead?"

What thinkst thou?

Singles (see previous post!) are rising and adults are descending?

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... a most interesting turn of events!

;-)

Singles Rising! ;-)

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 01:48:00 +0000

Interesting interview on PRI's The Takeaway with Eric Klinenberg, a sociology professor at New York University and the author of Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.

Hipster = "freelance countercultural capitalist" = "the new gold standard"

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Sun, 14 Sep 2014 22:51:00 +0000

Best definition of "hipster" I've seen so far!

"The hipster mixes hippie ethics and yuppie consumer preferences, communal attitudes and capitalist practices. Unlike prior generational stand-ins-from flappers to beats, punks to slackers-hipsters aren't rebelling against their parents or prior generations; they're mixing and matching the best of what came before and abandoning the baggage that doesn't interest them.

The hipster ideal today is neither a commune nor a life of rugged individualism. It's the small, socially conscious business. Millennials are obliterating divisions between corporate and bohemian values, between old and new employment models-they're not the first to do this, but they are doing it in their own way. Armed with ample self-confidence but hobbled by stagnant prospects, millennials may be uniquely poised to excel in an evolving economy where the freelance countercultural capitalist becomes the new gold standard." [my emphasis ;-) ]

-Elizabeth Nolan Brown, "Rise of the Hipster Capitalist: Selling out? For millennial butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers, that's the whole point." Reason, October 2014.

Italy: Tuscany: Pitigliano: "Little Jerusalem" [Piccola Gerusalemme]

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Sun, 14 Sep 2014 22:29:00 +0000

Great story on npr's Weekend Edition:

Italy's 'Little Jerusalem' Opens The Doors To Jewish History

"Outside of Israel, Italy is believed to have the oldest continuing Jewish presence of any country – more than 2,000 years — with catacombs and a synagogue from ancient Rome, as well as synagogues from the Middle Ages, to the Baroque period and the 20th century.

One of the most unique sites is a medieval town in Tuscany — Pitigliano, also known as Little Jerusalem ."

Great book: "What We See When We Read" by Peter Mendelsund

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 21:39:00 +0000

Monty Python Schizoid: a reflection of us all?

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 22:28:00 +0000

Funny. There's always somebody we just can't stand for some reason. They're different somehow. Or they've been labeled intolerable somehow. They represent the Other. But civilized behavior demands we treat them with politeness. Even when deep down inside, we know we despise them.

Monty Python makes great fun of this schizophrenia we ALL represent (we are all of two minds, no question about it) and how its evil side can spill out verbally. For that's how it all starts: verbally. Then it can potentially escalate to physical violence. Or worse.

It happened in Salem, MA. It happened in Spain during the Inquisition. It happened in Germany. It happened in the American South. In Northern Ireland. It's been happening in the Middle East for a long time. It happened in the Balkans. It's now happening in Iraq and Syria. When the mask of civilization falls, barbarity follows.

Martin Luther King's dream may be a long way off for the whole world. But it is amazing how Christians and heretics, communists and capitalists, Germans and Jews, white and black, Catholics and Protestants, even gay and straight are now friends and live side by side. Forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years ago, all this was unthinkable.

Monty Python - The man who is alternately rude and polite [TMWIARP]

[Customer] "Good morning, I'd care to purchase some chicken, please?"

[TMWIARP] "Don't come here wih that posh talk, you nasty stuck-up twit!"

[Customer] "I beg your pardon?"

[TMWIARP] "A chicken, sir, certainly. Here we are."

[Customer] "And how much does that work out to per pound, my good fellow?"

[TMWIARP] "Per pound, you slimey trollop? What kind of a ponse are you?"

[Customer] "I'm sorry?"

[TMWIARP] "Four six a pound, sire, nice and ready for roasting!"

[Customer] "I see. Can I care to purchase some stuffing in addition, please?"

[TMWIARP] "Use your own, you great poovy ponagger!"

[Customer] "What?"

[TMWIARP] "Oh, certainly, sire, some stuffing!"

[Customer] "Oh, thank you."

[TMWIARP] " 'Oh, thank you,' says the Great Queen like a lah-dee-dah poofter [poof-dah]!"

[Customer] "I beg your pardon?"

[TMWIARP] "That's all I say. Call again."

[Customer] "Excuse me..."

[TMWIARP] "What is it now, you great pillock?"

[Customer] "Well, I can't help noticing that you insult me and then you're polite to me alternately."

[TMWIARP] "I'm terribly sorry to hear that, sir!"

[Customer] "It's alright. It doesn't really matter."

[TMWIARP] "Tough titty if it did, you nasty spotted prancer!"

Sure. It's funny. Until you look at yourself in the mirror and realize you, me, we are ALL just like him, "The man who is alternately rude and polite": we are pretty good actors and pretty potentially horrible, too - even if it's just to "uncle Charlie" or "aunt Rebecca" or some other such relative we can't stand and have to pretend we do and put up with or at least in front on whom we have to put on the mask of politeness over Thanksgiving but against whom we'd let loose if we only could.

Like Holden Caulfield famously said, "The Navy guy and I told each other we were glad to’ve met each other. Which always kills me. I’m always saying “Glad to’ve met you” to somebody I’m not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though." [my emphasis]

"The man who is alternately rude and polite" lives within us all.

As does Holden Caulfield. We know we are ALL just phonies.

And it is here, in humor, in not taking ourselves, or the Other, or life, too seriously that there is hope for us all.

Mazda MPV 2000: Radiator Replacement - Part I [Problem, Diagnosis, Radia...

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Wed, 27 Nov 2013 19:58:00 +0000

["Look, ma'! I did it!" ;-) ]

Must read: Gladwell's "David & Goliath"

noreply@blogger.com (italianesco) — Sun, 24 Nov 2013 04:48:00 +0000

Others, though, might disagree, like Christopher Chabris in Slate:

The Trouble With Malcolm Gladwell: I thought he was sincerely misunderstanding the science, but he knows exactly what he is doing. By Christopher Chabris

Well, judge for yourself!

In my opinion, Gladwell is important not for the science or lack of it, but for the distilling of these ideas into great articles and books. In this case, Malcolm Gladwell, not Christopher Chabris, is the GREAT COMMUNICATOR! ;-)