First World Problems

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who aren't here yet) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse and back scratcher 

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

            "Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder." -Kinky Friedman 

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

I didn't get it when I was a kid -- not even after I morphed into a hormone-saturated adolescent -- and I don't get it now.

I refer to beauty pageants.

According to Wikipedia: "A beauty pageant or beauty contest is a competition that has traditionally focused on judging and ranking the physical attributes of the contestants, although most contests have evolved to also incorporate personality traits, intelligence, talent, and answers to judges' questions as judged criteria."

The reason I bring this up is that recently the Miss America Pageant -- which is what I in my ignorance thought it was called but is, according to their official website, Miss America 2.0 -- was a news story for a minute.

Before I move on, in the interest of full disclosure and so that I can sleep soundly and peacefully, I must confess that I wasn't aware that this absurd anachronism still existed. Hopefully, if I'm granted the dual blessing of great-grandstickies and they actually read what I'm leaving behind for them, they won't know what a beauty contest was. And whatever happened to Ms? I thought Miss was sexist.

In my defense, it's not easy to keep track of the decline of Western Civilization when it's under attack on so many fronts. For example, if you type the phrase Western Civilization into the Wikipedia search box the article that pops up is titled Western Culture. It's hard out here for a crank.


Anyways... the news story was about the fact that going forward the swimsuit competition is no longer a thing, although parading around in evening gowns and high heels still is. It brought to mind a cultural touchstone of the late sixties, "women's libbers" burning their bras on the famous Atlantic City Boardwalk -- which didn't actually happen. Protest, yes, bra burning, no.

[Call it what you will, "fake news" or purple journalism, it's not a new phenomenon. By the way, the famous anti-pageant protest in question happened fifty years ago, howsabout that! fellow boomers.]

Big But...

No shortage of ex-contestants, and women currently involved in the nationwide system of beauty contests that supplies fresh bodies for the annual extravaganza, are up in arms. They don't want the swimsuit competition banned.

Unlike me -- I guess they don't find the thought of young female H. sapiens with too many teeth being mandated to parade across a stage in a bikini in order to participate in "...one of the nations leading achievement programs for young women" -- hi-LAR-ious/ironical/hypocritical/antiquated/etceterated.

Maybe it's me... No, it ain't. I've saved the best for last.


Perhaps there is hope. Although this controversy has riven the nation, both sides (as far as I know) still agree on the fundamental rules governing who can participate in "...one of the nations leading achievement programs for young women." The quote is from Miss America 2.0, (scroll down past the pics of plastic coated mannequins). The following was obtained from a website called Pageant Planet.

- Age: 17 to 24
       But I'm only 25, and I've just been admitted to Harvard Medical School!

- You can't be married, previously married, or divorced.
       But I'm only 18, happily married, and a genius who's about to graduate               from Harvard Medical School, and I've no money for my law degree!

- You must not have a child, be currently or previously pregnant, or be the adoptive parent of any child.
      You're against abortion, or keeping the kid, or keeping someone else's kid?

- You must not have been charged for any minor offenses in the last 24 months.
      It was one joint!

- You can't compete if you've ever been convicted of a criminal offense.
      It was one joint!

 - For all intents and purposes, you will be a slave for a period of one year and go where we tell you to go and do what we tell you to do. If you and your cute, uh, little brain ain't out there raising money to keep our non-profit greased we would have to get real jobs. I paraphrased this last bit...


My late father-in-law, your great, or great-great-grandfather, thought the perfect job was a taste tester in a pie factory. However...

Warning: the following cultural reference may be past its sell-by date

If Clark Griswold, the world famous developer of non-nutritive cereal varnish was still around, he would get a hefty Christmas bonus if he perfected "Perma Pie-Pretty, adds a full extra year of shelf life."

So if I were you, I'd shoot for a job in any given non-profit with a ratio of 80% bonkercockie to 20% real. You need at least 20% real to hide behind if/when the excrement hits the HVAC system. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day.


[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it? There are buttons at the end of every column.]


©2018 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

If you're reading this on my website (where there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other goodies) and if you wish to comment — or react (way cooler than liking, and Facebook doesn't keep track) — please scroll down. 

My First Triggering

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who aren't here yet) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse and back scratcher 

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's" -Mark Twain


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

When I was but a wee lad... No, actually till I was at least in my late twenties, it was possible to engage in heated political discussions, as much for the fun of it as anything else, without feeling that civil war was inevitable.

Not that it was possible to do so with everyone. There's a reason many people recommend against discussing politics (and religion) at the dinner table and elsewhere.

However, with certain relatives and friends, particularly with a bunch of individuals I didn't go to college with, late night political debates, that were often as not fueled by alcohol, were a thing.

Lines had to be drawn and observed but it was the intellectual equivalent of a friendly sports rivalry. No need to take it particularly seriously.


I married in my early thirties after a couple of years managing a fleet of someone else's ice cream trucks in Texas. As to Texas, there was much in way of partying, little in the way of debate, intellectual or otherwise. Hello Tom and Kitty, wherever you are.

Once married the endless party ended. My bride came pre-equipped with a kid and marriage, serious partying, and kids don't mix very well in my semi-humble opinion.

Late night passionate debates didn't make a comeback either. I married a sick chick (I'm talking physically sick, but a veritable force of nature...) and betwixt helping to keep her alive, supporting my daughter (your mother or grandmother) and my gift for working my ass off while avoiding the burdens of financial success -- I usually went to bed early.


Then I blinked three times and I was a widower and a grandfather. One evening I found myself having dinner with a friend and a couple in their mid-twenties early on in the new millennium.

This was my first encounter with triggering someone and triggering wasn't even a thing yet. I've always been a man ahead of my time.

After dinner, and over coffee and pie, a debate broke out over I remember not what. Although there's a slight chance that I may not be entirely correct, I have a vivid memory of intellectually dominating. It was me v. my friend and the male half of the young couple. I confess I neglected to monitor the emotional weather manifesting on the face of the female half. Hooge mistake.


In my defense, her participation in the discussion was virtually nil. However, I still might have been convicted had she charged me with political incorrectness which was, and remains, in vogue. Is political correctness subject to a statute of limitations?

Fortunately, Facebook's user base was composed of students at a small group of upper-crust institutions of higher learning at the time. Trolls were merely malevolent mythological monstrosities. And for that matter, Trigger was the answer to a trivia question. What was the name of Roy Rogers horse?

[Roy who?]

Never mind, Iggy.


Anyways, at some point, while I was not paying the attention that I -- a man who had been successfully married for 21 years and who had learned many lessons the hard way -- should have been paying, there was an explosion and I and my dining companions were riddled with psychic shrapnel.

"She leaped to her feet and stormed out of the restaurant in a huff." That's not a quote from a selection of mediocre fiction, that's exactly what happened. Really.

Although he was young and, relatively speaking, they had not been married very long he knew the rules. He leaped to his feet and followed.

"I think you just pissed her off," said my remaining companion, reacting to the no doubt baffled look on my face.

"Did we just get stuck with the check?" I replied.


My young friends returned to the table as my older friend and I were in the process of splitting the check, calculating the tip, and discussing which one of us, if either, was going to act as a collection agent to recover the cost of their food.

She, said nothing. Although the storm had apparently passed, ominous dark clouds lingered.

He, politely and diplomatically... well, long story short, it was explained to me that she passionately disagreed with me. Although she lacked the rhetorical skill -- and most importantly in my semi-humble opinion a command of the relevant facts to contest whatever it was I was on about -- she knew she was right, and she knew I was a bully.

That's not exactly how he put it but that's exactly what he said.

Although I confess my heart wasn't in it, I apologized for being a boor and fled the scene of the drama ASAP. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day.


[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it? There are buttons at the end of every column.]


©2018 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

If you're reading this on my website (where there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other goodies) and if you wish to comment — or react (way cooler than liking, and Facebook doesn't keep track) — please scroll down. 

Journalism (Part 3)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who aren't here yet) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse and back scratcher 

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"Purple journalism is not a new form of journalism, it's just a name for journalism as it's actually practiced nowadays." -me


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

[Before I forget, King Crank's impending law that will require all news media outlets of a certain size to make a declaration of honesty, will also be expanded to cover the entertainment industry (primarily Hollywood) as well. Details will be worked out by my Privy Council.]

There wasn't supposed to be a part three but a licensed practitioner of the purple press helpfully/recently supplied a perfect example of exactly what I've been on about. Leigh Ann Caldwell, a reporter for NBC News, tweeted out a song that was horribly off key.

["Twitter is the marriage of full-tilt narcissism and full tilt voyeurism that has finally collided in 140 characters." -Adam Goldberg (prior to the 280 update)]

Ms. Caldwell informed the world that the Donald's choice for the newest Supreme, according to the ubiquitous unnamed source, was the result of a secret deal between the Donald and retiring justice Antney Kennedy. (Antney (ant-knee) was how I learned to pronounce Anthony when I was a kid living on the sou'side a Pittsburgh, with an h.)

See, Kennedy agreed to retire while the Donald was in power if he would hire Brett Kavanaugh, one of his former law clerks. She deleted the tweet in short order and then, via yet another tweet, explained how she screwed up, sort of -- without bothering to apologize. Deep purple journalism.

Hoo-boy.

I know it's hard to believe, but the original claim spread like wildfire. Then, of course, the phony/false/mistaken? tweet became a news story unto itself because purveyors of purple journalism delight in attacking other purveyors of purple journalism.

And...

All sorts of kids who hang out on the left side of the playground, who posted the now deleted tweet as factual, didn't risk injuring themselves by running to their keyboards to correct what turned out to be pure bonkercockie.

And then...

An obscure group of kids that call themselves Ultraviolet put out a six-page memo requesting that Senate Democrats investigate the fact that Mr. Kavanaugh once clerked for a Judge Alex Kominski who recently retired after being accused of being a serial groper.

Mr. Kavanaugh clerked for Judge Kominski... for about a year... about two decades ago. So hey, he's probably guilty of something. Let the investigation begin!

That kind of story is the sort of story that would've been perfect for a News That You Can Use Letter. It wound up here because the McClatchy News Service (allegedly professional, objective journalism) reported on the somewhat less than well known Ultraviolets six pages of mudslinging (bright yellow journalism) as if it was an actual news story.

Geez, if I didn't know better I'd think McClatchy was trying to sling mud at Mr. Kavanaugh without getting their hands dirty. That's practicing purple journalism with (semi)plausible deniability. For the record, I read about all this on the PJ Media website.  I'm merely passing along the good work of one Debra Heine. 


Now, given that we're treading water in the Dizzinformation Ocean and that any news that floats by is potentially bogus, the media (and Hollywood) would be performing a public service by declaring their bias up front. 

They could then openly practice advocacy journalism (and entertainment) and commence/continue saving the unenlightened from themselves without the added burden of pretending to be objective. Or, in Hollywood's case, pretending to tell the truth.  

If they were honest and clear about where they are coming from and where they think we should be headed, and why, and admit they're as motivated by profit/regular paychecks as we mere mortals their credibility would improve. Of course when you've got nowhere to go but up... 

[Sorry, sometimes the obvious joke is worth telling.]   


Two more thoughts. First, once the gloves come off they can attack each other, as well as whichever politician/celebrity/freak from the fringes they currently regard as Satan (which they like to do anyway) with unmitigated savagery. No shortage of Citizens of the Republic seem to be able to get enough of this sort of thing. Keep the mob happy and perhaps save a newspaper or two. Win/win. 

Also, just for the fun of it, to make the game more interesting, let's make it illegal to quote unnamed sources of any sort while simultaneously permitting the release of any sort of document -- as long as the H. sapien that leaked it is identified -- while enforcing any and all laws concerning the release of classified information.

Wouldn't that make things interesting... Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day.


[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it? There are buttons at the end of every column.]


©2018 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

If you're reading this on my website (where there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other goodies) and if you wish to comment — or react (way cooler than liking, and Facebook doesn't keep track) — please scroll down.