Category: .

Q:  Why do some people pronounce strength as strenth?

Q:  Why do self-styled badass, bro-type guys like to shake hands sideways, palms flat?

A:  Likely solved.  A friend suggested to me that it’s a dominating move, especially since their hands are on top, facing downward.

Q:  Why does Pink in the movie Pink Floyd’s The Wall have to break the razor in half in order to shave his eyebrows?

Q:  Why do people on airplanes drink tomato juice?  Tomato juice is rarely consumed elsewhere.

Q:  Why has the word “midget” gone out of fashion?

Q:  What’s the name of that zippy 1960s-era tune that seems to symbolize the 1960s and which was also in The Secretary and which has bedeviled me for 27 years?

A:  Solved.  It’s called Music To Watch Girls Go By by The Bob Crewe Generation.

Q:  Why are those “ziplocs” built into products nowadays not worth a damn?

Q:  Why do so many beefy, bulked-up gym guys have the legs of a 12 year-old girl?

Q:  What is that funny-but-poignant commercial from years ago where children say they want to “become middle management” and “be a yes man,” etc.?

A:  Solved.  It’s an ad for Monster.com.  “When I grow up, I want to file all day.  I want to claw my way up through middle management.  I want to be replaced on a whim.  I want to have a brown nose.  I want to be a yes man.  Yes woman.  Yes sir, coming sir.  Anything for a raise, sir.”

Q:  In some book I read years ago, Boston-born poet Robert Lowell pronounced “poem” as “perm.”  What book was that?  I’ve been looking for this for years.

Q:  Why do short (5’8″ or shorter), stocky guys hold their cellphone-holding arm straight out, nearly horizontal?

Q:  Why do guys wearing blue dress shirts with white collars (think Larry King) look like imperious pricks?  How come adding in reading glasses makes the prickery increase x10?

Q:  Why do people use “proceeded to” as shorthand for “I was wronged”?  Usually it’s part of a snippy anecdote about how they were wronged by a bureaucrat or customer service rep.

Q:  Why does blonde hair on any man over age 40 just doesn’t look right, natural or not?

Q:  How come any guy walking around with his arms crossed looks gay?

Q:  Why is the word “vibrant” a loaded term with political implications that is often used when the writer really wants to say “squalid”?

A:  Solved.  I suppose that, since I’m the only person who has ever written an article on the connection between vibrant and squalid, I am now the world’s authority on the topic.

I love antiquated words. Some of the best stories about the origins of words come from a book called I Love It When You Talk Retro, by Ralph Keyes.

• The word “widget” comes from a 1924 play called Beggar on Horseback, by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly.
• “Taken aback” is a sailing term for those unfortunate times that the wind suddenly turns your sails around.
• The phrase “can’t walk and chew gum at the same time” is really not correct. The real saying came from Lyndon Johnson, who said of Gerald Ford (at that time, a Republican congressman from Michigan) that he couldn’t “fart and chew gum at the same time.” Newspapers cleaned it up for general readers.
• “Bimbo” is another great word. It’s a contraction of the Italian word for baby, “bambino.” And up until the 1920s, “bimbo” referred to men of loose morals.
• “Reading the riot act” to someone comes from King George I’s time, when he demanded Parliament to pass the Riot Act of 1714 “for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies.”

So, a Portland, OR masseuse claims that in 2006, Vice-President Al Gore, groped and man-handled her in a hotel room.

Yeah, whatever; fine and dandy.  The most interesting aspect, to me and apparently also to Alexandra Petri of The Washington Post, is the almost-literary quality of this case–if your literature runs toward cheap and tawdry novels and dusty New Age-speak.

“Mr. Stone”

Apparently, Gore was registered at the hotel under the name Mr. Stone.  Is this his porn-actor name?  In my mind, it’s more like the name of the bad guy in a 1970s John MacDonald/Travis McGee detective novel.  It’s got that Mr. Brown/Mr. Green feeling of The Taking of Pelham-1-2-3.

“Lemon and Cheese Together”

When making a statement to police Detective Molly Daul, the masseuse coughs, laughs, and says, “It’s the lemon and cheese together.”  Huh?

“Crazed Sex Poodle”

Everywhere in the report.  Need I explain this one?

Rich Austria

Rich Austria is Portland Sergeant DPSST #25048.  A David Lynch name, if I’ve ever heard one.

“Big Lummox”

Yes, the masseuse tells Al Gore to get off of her, calling him a “big lummox.”

“Um-Hm” (x500)

At one point, after another of the masseuse’s impossibly long reveries about butt massages and airline pilots, poor Molly Daul can only say, “Um hm.”  Poor Molly Daul utters this about 500 times during the interview, and you can just picture her rubbing her temples to keep the migraine from flaring up.  My thoughts exactly.

“Discretely Draped”

This one tantalizes me.  The masseuse is describing how certain parts of Gore’s body were draped, leaving other parts exposed.  It’s almost certainly a misspelling on part of the police transcriber, and I think they meant to say, “discreetly draped,” as in “with propriety.”  The word “discretely,” different spelling, would mean cordoned off into separate areas.  And you could also say this:  that parts of Gore’s body were draped, others not–discretely.

“Upscale Hotel Lucia”

Not in the police report, but in every single news article about the case, “upscale” and “Hotel Lucia” will forever be linked.  No fucking way.  You mean the Vice President didn’t stay at the Motel Six?  Hotel Lucia might as well apply to the Oregon Dep’t of Corporations right now to register the name Upscale Hotel Lucia.

My Conclusion

This masseuse is a tiresome idiot, the kind of person who pins you down at a bar for 3 hours, telling you her entire life story.  Was she or was she not mauled by Al Gore?  I don’t care.

Holy cow.

Previously, I have written about the Almighty Helvetica and how it was used to convey a sense of faux humility in advertisements in the 1960s.

In fact, I plant the faux humility flag at about 1966.

Turns out I’m not the only joker with this idea.  Gary Hustwit has directed a documentary film all about Helvetica.

Holy shit, Sally Quinn!

I’m reading this profile in Vanity Fair of the ever-sweet -and-easygoing Georgetown (DC) powermeister, Sally Quinn, when this pops up:

“After the firestorm, she entered the concrete meditation labyrinth her husband had built for her on their country estate in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, to think.”

Wha’?  Concrete meditation labyrinth?