How to please everybody

IMG_6885Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Christians, Jews, Moslems, gays, transgenders, Republicans, handicapped, gun lovers, dog lovers, vegans, witches, ecologists, motorcyclists, feminists, nudists, bassoonists…
Everybody wants recognition and of course special treatment.
Blimey, what is the world coming to?

When I was growing up, there was no such a thing.
We only had capitalists and communists.
Life was much simpler (and blatantly unfair).

But by trying to please everybody, you most likely won’t please anybody.
Soon, like a pride of lions fighting for a piece of zebra, there is going to be nothing left to share but the zebra’s stripes.
Like Greece.

With presidential elections looming on the horizon, candidates of all shapes and forms are also vying for attention.
In my unqualified opinion, the ideal candidate would have to be black, gay, Jewish, handicapped, vegan, belonging to the NRA, and a bassoonist to boot.

Bernie, Hillary, Jeb… are you listening? Do you belong to any oppressed minority? Persecuted millionaires maybe…

But could a guy with Bernie as a first name be nominated to be president?
President Bernie Sanders?
It doesn’t sound very presidential.
Bernie, a word of advice: switch back to Bernard, and we will talk again.

What about Jeb? What kind of name is this anyway? Is it a shortcut for Jebediah (beloved of Yahweh)? No. I just learned that JEB stands for John Ellis Bush.
Isn’t this clever? Everybody tries to emulate JFK.
Jeb still sounds very hillbillish to me. Do we want a Jed Clampett in the Casa Blanca?
Not particularly.

Where, oh where can we find the ideal candidate?
Or can we manufacture one? It has been done before…

What about Rachel Dolezal, the former head of the Spokane NAACP? On top of being black, is she also gay, Jewish, vegan, handicapped? If she is not, it is not too late to become one of those.
To a valiant heart nothing is impossible.

But my point is that we cannot please everybody, so hell with diversity and politically correct stuff.
May the best (regardless of color, gender, religion or sexual orientation) win and lead us to the Promised Land.

If the best happens to be Hispanic, gay or Mormon, I don’t care.
I want the finest the nation can offer for president. Not somebody propped by special interests or by family ties.

Am I just another whining baby?

Alain

If I were a celebrity

Unlike my (many times removed) cousin Zac Efron, I am not a celeb and I am glad that I am not. If I were, my life could be hellish.

If I were a celebrity I would have to wear torn jeans.
kim-kardashian1 - Version 2That’s what they do.
Being a neat freak (in some areas) I couldn’t do that. I absolutely hate well-off people wearing torn jeans (especially when appearing on television).
Because really, what is the message?
I have plenty of dough and I could afford some fancy jeans, but I don’t care about social mores. I do as I please and if you don’t like it, hell with you.
Conceited and disrespectful. Not my style.

If I were a celebrity, I would have to pretend to be mad at paparazzi.
I said pretend, because those guys are the people who keep the flame of celebrities burning bright.
If they didn’t shoot you in every possible situation, your star would quickly tarnish.
So I couldn’t bite the hand that fed me.

I would have to do drugs.
It goes with the territory. In the firmament of newsmakers you are never too high. If you think that you are flying too low, a few snorts of cocaine will boost you back in high orbit.
Not for me. I am leery of height.

I would have to wear dark glasses.
It is the required apparatus of a star’s wardrobe. A celebrity wears them to supposedly go incognito. But oversize dark glasses don’t hide anything. They just emphasize the fact that you desperately want to be noticed.
I couldn’t do that. I am too modest and large specs (Audrey Hepburn style) would make my head (my best feature) look too small.

I would have to hook up with a very young or much older chick.
As a star, I could not have a normal love life. It would be beneath my condition. As a celebrity I would need to shock and a regular girl is not what my business manager would recommend.
Don’t be conventional. Take them young or old. No in-between. It will create a nice buzz.
Nah!

I would have to hop from bed to bed.
No self-respecting “celebrity” sleeps in the same bed every night. If you do that you are utterly bourgeois and don’t belong in showbiz.
Personally I like to sleep in a familiar bed. I don’t want to have to tame a new mattress (and a woman) night after night.
I’ll pass.

I would have to go braless.
If I were a woman, I would have to go braless and have occasional dress malfunctions to boost my ratings.
Nothing like an inadvertent (?) nip slip to rally the paparazzi.
Not for me. My nips are too small and not pert enough.

I would have to be obnoxious and profusely apologize next day (maybe not).
I don’t like obnoxious. It is not my style. I leave this to rockers and rappers. It is their bread and butter.
I don’t want to starve them.

I would have to lose or gain weight regularly.
A no-no. My magnificent body is my temple; I cannot mess with it.

So to sum it up, I don’t want to wear dark glasses, ripped jeans or snort coke.
I am not cut for Hollywood. I am just a guy who is too plain to be famous.
I am just famously plain, and I like it that way!
I you want to adore me, it’s OK but don’t expect me to ever wear torn jeans or go braless.

Alain

The future

“Control your own destiny or someone else will.”
Jack Welch

Like good fairies, relatives and friends gather around the crib of a newborn baby to look at him and to speculate about his/her future.
When he grows up, what is he going to be?
He has big ears, says one; he will be a musician. She has a big mouth, says a dentist, probably a politician. He cries a lot, says a Republican, he will be a Socialist.

IMG_6730But the future is not what it used to be.
When I was a child it was a mirage shimmering on the horizon. Today it is a harsh reality and it is banging on your door.
And you cannot ignore it because nothing is more dangerous than a lack of information.

So, who owns the future?
Techies and lawyers! That’s who. And plumbers! There is gold in them faucets!

[like]

Techies will routinely outperform Jesus in the miracles department.
They don’t speak Aramaic but communicate through a bizarre combination of digits only understood by their own disciples.
Their altar is a keyboard and they worship a Golden Calf who goes by the name of Logic.

Thanks to them, blind people will see (bionic eyes), cripples will walk (bionic prosthetics), deaf-mute will speak (via brain waves) and lepers will be cured (gene therapy).
In an increasingly politically correct world, even wars will fought with “green ammunition”.

“Green bulletgreen ammunition or green ammo are nicknames for a United States Department of Defense program to eliminate the use of hazardous materials from small arms ammunition and from small arms ammunition manufacturing. Initial objectives were elimination of ozone-depleting substances, volatile organic compounds, and heavy metals from primers and projectiles.”

In other words, people will be killed cleanly. This novel idea will definitely please the ecologists.

What about love and emotions?
No worries. Like in India, a machine will pick the right mate for you. And it will do a better job than you would.

So how do we deal with the future?

As Jacques de Chabannes, Lord of La Palice would say, “We must embrace it, because regardless of our age or beliefs the future is here to stay.”

Well said Jacques!

(“…two days before his death / he was still quite alive”.)

Alain