Attracting the Coloreds

Ever since a bird shat in my eye, I guess you could say I've become... I don't know... interested (?) in birds.

After all, they are interesting, aren't they? And they're all around us, too. Everywhere you look there's a goddamn bird, chirping its beak off or, you know, shitting in your eye (good luck!) and so it's only natural, I guess, to be interested in birds. There are whackjobs out there with binoculars that would make the Israeli army jealous who just sit in tall grass barely farting just waiting to catch a half-second glimpse of a Bavarian parakeet or a red-titted prechaboo.

Some of these people are even married.

Me? I don't know much about birds. But, in recent days, my radar has definitely been perked up a little bit as concerns these fluttery, flittery little jibbits. I was particularly piqued last week when my wife and I were watching some insipid television program and we saw a commercial that left me somewhat baffled.

It was an ad for birdseed, from the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company which, apparently, is "dedicated to a beautiful world." Which is nice for them. This particular commercial was an advertisement for a new kind of birdseed they're peddling called, "Songbird Selections Colorful Bird Blend."

The commercial promises "More Colorful Birds in Every Bag" and, while I question the taste of such a tagline (it conjures an image, in my mind, at least, of a dozen-or-so eviscerated parrots, cardinals, and bluejays dumped together, mass-grave-style, in a Whole Foods sack) I also question, well, everything else about this product.

First of all, how the fuck do these people know what kind of food colorful birds eat? Were questionnaires doled out to the Lilac-Breasted Roller club members at their annual meeting at the Des Moines Holiday Inn? I'm almost frightened to think of how this food was product-tested. Can you picture a robin strapped to a cold, clinical exam gurney (stirrups?) having lots of different birdseed dumped into its forcibly-opened beak until just the right mixture was discerned?

I'm sorry, but I just find it difficult to believe that there is a birdseed out there that gaily-colored birds are all like, "Hot damn! This shit is what we crave!" and other, boring birds are like, "Meh." See, there are product claims that are just too outlandish to be believed, and I think that this kind of speaks for itself. But I'm not so convinced that this is just another case of a company peddling schlock to morons hoping to make a fast buck by making wildly unsubstantiated claims and then putting an asterisk after them to cover their cowardly, pimply asses.

("Attracts up to 2x more colorful birds* *Results may vary by region and/or season. When compared to ordinary wild bird food blends.")

Scott's website claims that "Songbird Selections" products were designed by orinthologists, but I'm not so sure. I'm thinking maybe these wild bird food blends were designed by, oh, I don't know...

RACISTS!

Picture it. You've got a bunch of scientists-- they're all white, of course, maybe an Asian or an Indian thrown in there for good measure-- sitting around a labratory with some birds strapped to gurneys and these d-bags are sitting around reading "Playboy" and smoking cigars-- real "old boys club" kinda deal-- and they're talking some shit about, "What sort of bird food can we concoct to attract, you know-- the coloreds?"

Colorful-- coloreds-- same diff, right?

And so they sit there, making projections and assumptions and judgments about what kind of birdseed colored birds would want to eat.

Have you ever taken the time to examine the ingredients contained in a bag of Scott's Songbird Selections?


Safflower
Black Oil Sunflower (Black, huh?)
Peanuts
Collard Greens
Thistle Seed
Fried Chicken
Niger Seed (that's no joke, people-- Niger Seed-- for real)
Sunflower Chips
Jazz Music
White Millet
Watermelon
Canary Seed
Pam Grier's vagina
Grits
Raisins
Shaquille O'Neal
Chittlins
Red Millet
Juniper Berries

Now, you can't tell me that those ingredients aren't downright racist. I mean-- Juniper Berries? Come on, Scott.

To further my contention that the Scott Miracle-Gro company is manufacturing a racist product, in the 1950s in the Jim Crow South, Scott Miracle-Gro was the leading supplier of food products to segregated diners, restaurants, and luncheon counters. Remember those COLOREDS ONLY signs? Yeah. Thanks, Scott Miracle-Gro. Way to be dedicated to that "more beautiful world."

Not In Their Backyard

There's a problem in Staten Island.

And, no, it's not the twenty-something party girls sporting fake Louis Vuitton bags still living with their parents over some deli or under some underpass.

And, while the problem may be happening in Staten Island, it isn't just their problem. It's our problem. Ours, as in, Americans.

See, there was this church in Staten Island, called Saint Margaret Mary. As is the case with churches all over the country, St. MM is facing a precipitous decline in the number of its parishioners. How do churches survive without the great, tithing masses? The answer is simple: they do not. They dwindle down to several elderly ladies wearing cute hats and barely perambulating behind walkers bearing wicker baskets, and then, well, they become private houses or condos or are repurposed in some other way, or, they are sold to alternative religions to house and comfort their believers.

When Reverend Keith Fennessey signed an agreement last month to sell the church to the Muslim American Society, well, people freaked.

You know, racists.

In the bad old days, these people shrouded themselves under old Sears & Roebuck bedsheets with little eyehole cutouts and paraded in front of burning crosses, shouting retarded epithets into bullhorns.

Today, they attend Civic Association Meetings in their cargo shorts, flip-flops and "WE REMEMBER 9/11" t-shirts, which they wear as cloaks of self-righteous invincibility.

The New York Times quoted an angry racist as begging the question, "Wouldn’t you agree that every terrorist, past and present, has come out of a mosque?”

Really?

Really?!

Um, hi. How about all of the bazillions of people who pray in mosques every day all over the world who aren't terrorists? Also, forgive me, but I'm pretty sure that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols never entered a mosque, not even to use the bathroom. Same with Ted Kaczynski. Same with-- oh, what the fuck is the difference? You can't argue with racists. You can just hope they kill themselves and/or are infertile.

It's a shattering disappointment to me to know that rabid, ribald racism thrives so palpably and so openly in America today, but what is going on in Staten Island, and in other cities and towns all across America is all the proof you need.

Black President? Big fucking deal. We're still the same old fuckjobs here-- and we don't feel compelled to hide beneath white sheets anymore. We've become quite comfortable displaying our hatred, our ignorance, and our prejudice in front of the bright, white lights of the camera.

And that's scary.

One of the venues in which I perform Gilbert & Sullivan operettas is a United Universalist Unitarian Church. It's a small church, theatrically insignificant but architecturally interesting, in a semi-secluded, wooded spot that's just lovely.

This is a smart church.

They don't have a huge worship-base, so their leadership has gotten creative. There is always something happening in this church. There are Japanese Catholics who use the building some evenings, (one of them plays a mean flute), several choirs practice in the sancturary-- there are lots of different colored robes hanging in the closet, there is a "Rocky Horror" night (you bring the brownies-- and the packets of rice, SLUT!), and, in February, the halls are filled with the jubilant, sprightly music of Sir Arthur Sullivan and the rapier-sharp wit of Sir William Gilbert. Yes, they even accept G&S freaks with open arms, those Unitarians.

Oh, and, downstairs, the Muslims run a daycare.

And we all mill around with each other, say excuse me when we scurry past the Muslim women while we carry an armful of tophats and fake flowers, the Japanese Catholics nod to us as they set up for Mass while we wait for our entrances. And I think to myself, "Not in your backyard?"

Why not?

Comics, Comments & Chowderheads

We all have morning routines.

Part of my wife's morning routine is going to http://gocomics.com/ to read the stimulating offerings of some of America's most noteworthy doodlers.

She reads two comics daily: FoxTrot and For Better or For Worse.

It's nice, I think, for gocomics to put comics online for those of us who are too cheap and/or too young to purchase an actual newspaper. It's kind of sad, being in that age and income bracket-- some of my favorite memories of childhood revolved around eating cereal around the dining room table with my sister while getting milk droplets on the comic pages while my father screamed at us for "goddamn crunching" our Cinnamon Toast Crunch or whatever it was too loudly. But, those days are over, and thank God for the internet.

Anyway, not only does gocomics provide a place for you to catch up on the latest antics of G. B. Trudeau's highbrow clan and that sassy black kid from Boondocks, it also allows you to create an account, an avatar and this, then, enables you to leave comments under the comic of your choice after you've finished reading it.

Now why, one might wonder, would you want to do that exactly? Is it because you're bored? Perhaps unemployed? Maybe the power of Christ compels you? Maybe you just love to comment. If that's the case, then get your fat fucking asses over here-- stop wasting time leaving a note every time Hobbes makes a hiney-burp.

Seriously-- why do we need a place to comment on comics webpages? What is it, exactly, about the daily happenings of Paige, Jason, the iguana, and Peter's blind girlfriend that moves people to spend time commenting on? Not only do people comment on the comics, but they engage in discourse and, sometimes, heated argument over a storyline, plot device or piece of dialogue in one of the comics. I mean: look at yourselves. You're commenting... on a comic. You're investing yourselves deeply enough to make an emotional reply based on the products of somebody else's imagination.

Is it just me, or is that a cry for help?

They leave comments for each other, they debate, the interpolate and extrapolate, they take it all far too seriously. Not only that, they leave comments for the cartoonists-- as if Bill Amend or Berkley Breathead (no, it's not pronounced that way) were trolling gocomics regularly, thirsting for the sentiments, requests, criticisms and comments spewed forth from the avatars of their fans. Word to the wise: they don't.

At least... I hope they don't.

Commenting on internet pages is an interesting phenomenon. Everybody wants their voices heard, and the internet, with its endless amounts of space provides room for everyone. This is good and bad. I don't want to talk out of both sides of my mouth, because, well, here I am, but still I feel like not every website in the universe needs a comment function (please comment on this).

Another example is newspaper websites.

You might be too young to remember this, but there once was a time that, if you read an article that moved you or that you didn't like, if something in a newspaper story caught your ire or your fancy, you took fifteen minutes out of your day to compose a letter to the editor. If said letter was even slightly articulate, remotely timely and/or partially logical, in a day or two, it might actually wind up in print in the Editorial/Opinion Page. This, dear children, is how people used to make their voices heard. Now, every slackass shitstain with an IP address and at least one free hand can make an offensive, idiotic, irrelevant, oftentimes abusive comment on a newspaper's webpage.

The Oakland Tribune's website has the following message before each of its comment sections:

"Please keep your comments respectful of others by avoiding name-calling and other inappropriate remarks."

You're tempted to think, is that really necessary? Are we little children? Can we really not be trusted to behave ourselves on the online comment section of a newspaper? Must we be told to "avoid name-calling and other inappropriate remarks?"

Name-calling?

Really?

Really.

I'd post some of the unbelievably obscene, ridiculous, hurtful and just plain fucking stupid comments people made after the four police officers in Oakland were gunned down, but why give these questionable individuals more webspace than they deserve?

I know we all have things to say, and that we're all just dying to be heard, but can't we find more constructive ways to speak our minds than by commenting on the quality of the birthday gift Andy Fox got for her husband-- or by spewing racist venom all over America's failing newspaper websites?

I mean, just who's listening anyway?