Words of Danny O'Bigbelly My idea of a good time

Back when I used to watch TV with any regularity (back before children, etc) one of my favorite shows was the morning financial report (I think that’s what it was called) on CNN with Deborah Marchini and Stuart Varney. I think it stopped airing at least ten years ago, but I still miss it.

One of the reasons that I used to enjoy it because I thought that Deborah was hot. Not so much her looks (which were just fine) but her voice and her playful inflection. I was pretty sure that female viewers would feel the same way about Stuart. And maybe there was a little something going on between them? They seemed to be having an awfully good time.

I also really enjoy listening to Laura Carlo on WCRB (Boston’s classical musical station, now also serving Cape Cod and the Islands on …) and Bob Pleasants on WUMB (folk music radio) because their voices have such amazing character.

I suspect that Laura Carlo could seduce me in thirty seconds over the phone. It’s like an acoustic pheromone or some such phenomenon. There’s never anything overtly sexy or flirty in her voice — it’s purely professional — but I know that if she ever ended her introduction of a piece with something like “This is really long one, and it gets so lonely here in the station… first man here can have me for thirty minutes” there would be a thousand men reaching for their car keys before the conductor raised his baton.

And there’s something so calming and peaceful about Bob Pleasants voice that I’m amazed it’s available without a prescription.

I made the terrible mistake of going to their stations web sites to make sure that I’d spelled their names correctly and now I know what they actually look like (or their press kit photos, anyway). I’d always imagined Laura to look more like Deborah Marchini, but with darker hair. And Bob Pleasants I imagined like Stuart Varney, but with a pony tail and three-days growth of beard. I was wrong. Dang.

So, who are your favorite on-air personalities, and what do you imagine about them?

Anyone who appears in People Magazine or other similar publications is ineligible; you already “know” too much about them. This is about what’s going on in your head, not about what you read in Tiger Beat or Vogue

Every once in a while, I’ll come across something so notable on the internet that I feel I have to bookmark it so that I can come back and look at it again later or share it.

Let’s start with something mundane, from several years ago:

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/276/2499/1600/freshsalad.jpg

This may be my first exposure to the genre of a photo with something circled and/or arrowed with a “wtf?” inscription. It certainly wasn’t the last.

And there was a link to different crazy vending machines, which is now dead, but I found something like it via google:

http://www.photomann.com/japan/machines/index.htm

I find it somewhat disturbing that alongside the vending machines for kerosene and pr0n, the author lists an honor-system vegetable stand as a crazy idea. Huh? Is there any other way to buy fresh vegetables? Whoever this guy is, he’s clearly never been to farm country.

And here’s a link from much more recently: a David Byrne video that involves a bunch of people getting naked and dancing around in the nude. But fear not–no naughty bits are shown! Your innocence will not be corrupted by watching this video. It’s all censored. Without the censorship, this video would have no purpose. Explaining any more will spoil the surprise. Watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyJR7QlRhM4

If you didn’t smile at that, we need to talk.

I don’t have any memory of how I found this–probably someone sent me a link:

http://www.zenbydesign.com/newchair/tantra.html

Has anyone seen one of these in the real world? How many do you think they’ve sold? But don’t you want one now? Be honest. Aren’t you already thinking of how you’re going to explain this contraption when Aunt Millie comes over for tea? It’s not the kind of thing you can hide in your nightstand.

Personally, I think this looks like it could be fun, except for the fact that I’m married to a woman who can’t look at it without giggling. Plus the kids would probably use it as a jungle gym.

In case you ever need some avant-garde Tees, these guys will fix you up:

http://www.threadless.com/

Lovely stuff.

I’ll always have a bookmark or two for this, just in case:

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/video/whitenerdy

Most of the links in by bookmarks are dead. Oh, well.

So, what about you? What forgotten treasures or eclectic crap do you have bookmarked? What seemed worth a second look?

If this seems familiar, it’s because I’ve cut and pasted it from another site where I used to post stuff like this…

When I was a small lad, growing up in rural nowhere, the meadow next to the house had an enormous blackberry patch at one end. At least half an acre of twisted vines.

If you have never picked blackberries, you can try to imagine their vines as the bastard offspring of roses, wild grapes, and poison ivy. Twisted, intertwined, thorny, six feet tall, and nasty. But covered with sweet, sweet berries.

After the berries around the perimeter have been harvested, the only way to access the interior is by carefully unbraiding the vines and then holding them apart and then entering the core. This can be done by a six-year-old child wearing nothing but shorts and flip-flops — the flip-flops being necessary to shield ones feet from the runners on the ground, and to hold down some of the branches. It’s slow work, but since it takes a while to pick a branch clean, not too tedious.

On a bright June day, dressed in nothing but the aforementioned shorts and flip-flops, bucket in one hand, I entered the patch and began to work my way inside, filling my bucket. As I released the vines, they closed behind me. After 30 minutes or so, I could no longer see my friends who had come picking with me, and I had somewhat lost my bearings. But no worries. I couldn’t be more than two hundred yards away from my house, and if I got stuck, I could call for help and someone would find me. It had happened before.

It was a beautiful day, and blackberries were filling my bucket and my stomach, and I was seeing the inner core of the field for the first time. Strange things lived here — things I didn’t know lived so close, but were kept safe from predators by the nearly impenetrable thicket of thorny bramble. I startled pheasants — and they startled me, bursting up from the ground, their wings whistling. I found rabbit burrows and other burrows — woodchucks? badgers? I’ll never know.

This was all wonderful. I started to sketch out plans for a secret hideout for me and my friends, a clubhouse safe forever from the frightening and cootie-infested girls across the street.

That’s when I stepped on the beehive. But I didn’t realize it right away.

First one bee started pestering me. Not unusual — bees tend to think that redheads are some sort of exotic flower, so I get confused bees pestering me all the time. But then it was two bees, and then it was four, and then it was five billion bees.

This was unwelcome news. We had Africanized bees in the neighborhood — or so we all believed. We knew they’d been killing our cats, anyway. I don’t really care much about the ethnic origins of bees; I just care whether they have an established pattern of stinging things to death.

I weighed my options and made a difficult decision. I made it very quickly. I don’t know what happened next — I have no memory of the thirty seconds it must have taken to retrace my steps. My next memory is running, blood streaming behind me, empty handed and bare footed, up to the kitchen screen door, and slamming it shut behind me, having outrun the main host of bees.

I remember my mother looking somewhat annoyed that I was bleeding all over the linoleum, but then thinking better of sending me back outside. Then I remember her calling the neighbors and asking them to send over as much first aid cream as they had, and call around for more.

My bucket and flip-flops were never found.

Surprisingly, my wounds were superficial and I didn’t get that many stings — maybe a dozen. Perhaps something was looking out for me that day. My injuries weren’t nearly as bad as the time I met a strange cat and somehow decided that it really wanted to be picked up and petted — but that’s another story.

What do you know you have forgotten?

• The name of the kid who sat next to you in fourth grade?
• The phone number you had in college?
• Which aunt gave you which crystal vase as a wedding present?

I know I knew the answers to those inquiries, but I know I don’t know the answers now nor shall anon. With each passing year, I seem to remember remembering things more than I remember things.

For example, I know I saw the movie Xanadu when it came out. And I know at least seven other people saw it–I counted. But now, other than the fact that it involved roller skating, disco, Gene Kelly, Olivia Newton-John, ELO, and the Tubes (how could it not have been memorable?) I can’t really remember much about it, and neither can anyone else I’ve asked.

But it wasn’t until I saw this clip that I realized how much I’d forgotten: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m1UWSD-FaA

Weird Al dancing on a tightrope? A troupe of dancing mimes? Electric blue pirate shirts? Olivia dressed as Ming the Merciless? How could this not have been memorable?

It’s enough to make me think seriously about holing up in a cork-lined room for a few years to jot down what I still do remember, before the rest of it is gone for good.

What about you? What do you remember remembering, and remember no more? And do you miss it?

I’ve tried so many times to tell you all, but at the last minute, I’ve always chickened out. But here it is: I like jerboas. I think they’re pretty neat. They’re my favorite burrowing animal.

I realize that in popular culture, there are many rumors and mistruths out there about what jerboas are and what they do. Perhaps an honest and frank discussion will help you to understand jerboas, and learn to live and work side-by-side with the jerboaphiles in your community. (Someone you know–perhaps someone you love–likes jerboas. There are more of us than most people guess.)

Jerboas are small burrowing animals that appear, at first glance, like a sort of mashup of a mouse and a kangaroo. There is a similar creature, the “kangaroo rat”, that shares many of its characteristics. Some people consider these names synonymous, but I do not believe this to be accurate.

Jerboas also have long hind legs, large ears, big eyes, and a very long, and frequently tufted tail. They look like a mammalian grasshopper, or something out of japanime. The long tail is particularly important because it helps the creature keep its balance and stability during flight.

You read that correctly. I wrote flight. We’ll circle back to that in a moment.

Most species of jerboas live in the desert. One of the most important issues facing diminutive desert denizens today is the prospect of becoming dinner for one of the less diminuative denizens. In the desert, this problem is exacerbated by the relative ease with which a predator can simply follow tracks and/or scent back to your burrow and then nom nom nom its way through you and your loved ones. If you cannot inspire fear and terror in your enemies, like the hamsters of yore, then you must find another way to survive. And several jerboa species have found a way.

Instead of walking up to the front doorstep of their burrows, leaving behind a trail any snack-seeking snack could follow, they pick spots several yards away to serve as their doorsteps. From these spots, using their enormous and powerful legs, they launch themselves into the air and, as gracefully as Guo Jingjing, follow a ballistic path that ends several inches inside their burrows (which are angled vertically in order to make this possible).

I have seen them doing this, and it’s nothing but net every time.

Of course, predators are not entirely dimwitted, and are perfectly capable of following a back trail, so the jerboas exit their burrows in exactly the same manner, often in rapid sequence. The burrow reminds one of a mouse-shooting submachine gun. During certain times of the day, when jerboas are both coming and going, the sky seems to be filled with them.

I was unable to find any clips on youtube of the creatures actually jumping. I’m not sure there would be much to see, anyway. They’re so small and so fast that they just sort of seem to dematerialize in one place and rematerialize a few yards away. But I did find some clips of this fellow, who some of you may find compelling:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hyApZROWWQ

So, what’s your favorite creature?

When I was in grade school, someone in the high school published an “underground” paper (a few mimeographed sheets of typewritten jokes, stories, and badly-drawn cartoons). It was far and away the funniest thing that I had seen up until that point in my life. The name of this paper, of which there was only one issue ever, was “La Mole”. And there was a little mole-like mascot drawn on the letterhead. It was wearing a stetson hat pulled low, and carrying a submachine gun.

I’ve always wanted to create my own underground newspaper to lampoon the surface world, but, well, you know. I don’t think I could ever equal La Mole. Safer not to try.

Early in my professional career, I met a researcher from MIT who told me the story of how the first hamsters were captured and “domesticated” for use as lab animals. Apparently, hamsters were known to be susceptible to a particular disease that humans get but other contemporary lab animals did not, thus making them an important weapon in the war against this disease — a testing vehicle for vaccines and the like, I suppose.

Now, you’d think that acquiring hamsters would just be a matter of going down to the local Hamster Hut and coming back with a few wriggling bags of merchandise, but this was back before the first hamsters had been captured. There were no pet hamsters. Only wild hamsters. And they were very, very wild. Pound for pound, more feared than badgers and more wily than rats. You can’t just dig a hamster out of its burrow. The burrows are too extensive, and hamsters can dig faster than you can. And they’re crafty. The only way to capture them was, apparently, to:

1. locate a field rumored to contain hamsters
2. dig a deep ditch around the field
3. fill the ditch with traps or hamster-grabbing helpers
4. excavate the rest of the field
5. wait for the hamsters to make a run for it
6. wearing huge gloves and gauntlets, scoop up the slowest ones

She gave me a copy of a paper describing the capture of the first hamsters, and I mean every word when I say that it would have made an excellent Indiana Jones movie. If moles are the Kim Philbys of the animal kingdom, hamsters are the Jason Bournes.

So, I have a special place in my heart for moles and hamsters. I also confess a small infatuation with voles, because the name is so fun to say. And, of course, rats, which make excellent pets and which my daughters adore.

What’s your favorite burrowing animal?

Go ahead; don’t be embarrassed if it’s a burrowing owl. We’re all friends here.

You know the old joke: a bunch of junior mathematicians set out to discover the least interesting number. They work for a long time and eventually conclude that a certain number (whose name I won’t mention here — her name has been dragged through the mud too many times already) is the least interesting number in existence. Proud of their discovery, they take the result to their department chair. Without even looking up from his computer screen, where he’s been surfing on TBD all morning, he says: “Least interesting number, eh? Well, that’s a very interesting property.”

So even though it was many years ago yesterday (on January 14th) that singer David Jones made a pivotal career decision and changed his name to “David Bowie” in order to prevent further confusion between himself and Davy Jones, superstar member of the then insanely popular group “The Monkees”, I’m sure that there will be something equally droll and nearly newsworthy that happened on this day in history, unless it truly is the least interesting day of all, but I don’t know what that nugget of interestingness is yet–although I’m sure whatever you can dig up will be more interesting than what I have.

The frightening thing is that that isn’t even one of my longer sentences.