Chrome Domes

Chrome Domes

By Paul Greeley

Whoever is responsible for making the turnaround that bald is beautiful should get the Public Relations of the Year Award. 

I’m sure it must have been a bald guy. I suspect this must be a right wing conspiracy because let’s face it, most right wingers are bald guys.

Talk about turning a negative into a positive! I mean for years, bald guys were disparaged and looked down upon. Less hairy translated into less virile, less sexy, more old.

But now everybody’s going bald--- ball players, actors, no matter the age. The thinking seems to be better to shave it all off before it’s all gone than hang on to the what’s left. I can’t ever see a bald James Bond though.

Hair, especially long hair, used to be revered. Remember the play, Hair? 

“Flowing, showing, long as I can grow it, my hair”! Back in the Age of Aquarius, when I was in college, hair meant something, it identified you politically, it was a sign of where you stood, what you stood for. If you had long hair, you were into sex, drugs, and rock and roll music played real loud. If you had long hair, you probably threw a Frisbee.

If you kept your hair short, you were probably into lifting weights, NASCAR, the Vietnam War, and voted for Nixon. 

There were the freaks who wore their hair long and then there were the straights who cut their hair short. The line was drawn as it were, by the length of your hair. The guys with short hair resented the guys with long hair, and made cracks like, “you look like a girl” or “get a hair-cut”.  I once feel asleep in the barber’s chair only to wake up and find the bald barber had taken liberties and given me a really short hair cut. That was the last time I ever used a barber to cut my hair.

I wanted to grow my hair long like the Beatles. I yearned to be able to toss my long hair back with a jerk of my head. But I had curly hair. Instead of it growing down and long, it grew up and out. My mother’s friends would always say, “Oh Bette, I wish my hair was curly like Paul’s.” I wore hats to bed and used chemicals to try and straighten my hair. The chemicals made my hair sizzle and fry when I applied it. Afterwards, my hair had a slightly burnt smell. But it was straighter!

I admit here publicly that I have an ‘area’ in the back of my head where the hair is especially thinning and in the right light, it appears to be, how do I say it, balding. 

There’s hair there but not enough to cover the skin sufficiently so that you don’t see what appears to be a bald spot. Thankfully, it’s in a location where I can’t see it when I look into a mirror. When I look in the mirror, I see a nice tuft of hair there in the front and on top and plenty on the sides.  And maybe some slight comb-over towards the back.

These days, hair or lack of it doesn’t say anything about you politically. You can’t tell if the bald guy next to you is the most left-wing, tree-hugging liberal there is or if he’s just folliclely-challenged. 

Or maybe he just wants to shave his head. Be natural. I’m bald and I’m proud! There’s even a web site for bald guys called Bald R Us. I’m not kidding; I did the research. Their motto is ‘say no to rugs, drugs and plugs & comb-overs’.  No Rogaine sold here. No pictures of Donald Trump. They have tributes to Bald Man of the Month and Bald Man of the Year. They honor bald men like the actors Ving Rhames and Vin Diesel and other bald guys whose names begins with V. 

Who’s going to tell big, bad, bald guys like Ving Rhames or Vin Diesel that their baldness isn’t beautiful? 

Not me, you can tell by my hair that I’m a pacifist when it comes to violence.

If leaves had value

If leaves had value

By Paul Greeley

Somewhere, we hope teams of experts are working on solutions to problems that will  benefit mankind-an end to cancer, a cure for the common cold, and why cars seem to fall apart the day after the warranty expires.

I’d like to add one more item to that list—find a way to make leaves valuable.

Think of how that would change the world!

More tress will get planted not so much for shade or beauty, but for the revenue source they’ve become.

Instead of blowing your leaves onto your neighbor’s yard when he’s not looking, you’ll be secretly sucking his over to your yard.

People will chase leaves blowing in the wind with the same fervor they might chase dollar bills down the street.

They’ll be more room in land fills for worthy trash like outdated cell phones, record players, election signs, film cameras, encyclopedias, cassette players, bell bottoms, and landline phones. 

People will find secret ways to make their trees produce more leaves like insider traders on Wall Street. 

Busloads of tourists would trek to New England to see piles of leaves with the same fascination as people now go to Ft Knox or the US Mint to see mounds of money.

Lighting your cigar with a big leaf will replace lighting cigars with hundred bills as the ultimate expression of wealth.

If you’re falling behind in your bills, you’ll tell the bill collector that it’s almost fall and you’re expecting a bumper crop of leaves this year.

Nobody will burn leaves any more. That aroma associated with fall will disappear into folklore—remember when people burned leaves?

People will hold signs that say, ‘will work for leaves’.

Banks will look to take advantage---deposit your leaves and get a new toaster.

People will give trees names like cash-cow, money-maker, or bark o’ bucks.

When people mow leaves with mulching mowers, they’ll think of it as changing leaves into smaller denominations. 

And if leaves had value, when your kids ask you for money and you say, ‘you think money grows on trees’, they’ll say, ‘well yeah, dad’. 

Deciphering advertising mumbo jumbo

Deciphering advertising mumbo jumbo

By Paul Greeley

I wish advertisements were more plainly written.

Instead, ads often resort to techno mumbo jumbo in the hopes of getting us to buy. Like the more technical information they can throw at us, the more confused we’ll become until we just give up and fork over the money. And sometimes the ad copy gets so complex, it’s hard to know what the product is.

Can you guess what this is selling: Split technology allows for stability and alignment while providing the best shock absorption. The latest Italian roadster? Or a new Mercedes sedan? Try men’s dress shoes.

Or this one: Developed to exceed all ISO and Ansi Z87-1 high impact test standards and exceed the 622 Ballistics test. Body armor, right, or some sort of bullet-proof vest? Try sunglasses. Good to know if someone goes to shoot you while you’re wearing these, you can yell, “Hey shoot me in the eyes, my sunglasses passed the 622 Ballistics test!”

Close your eyes and imagine what this is describing: Medium to full in body and strength with deep spicy undertones, rich complexity and balance from beginning to end. A fine California sauvignon perhaps? Or an exotic dish of some kind? Try a cigar. Yeah, that’s exactly what a woman would think when a guy fires up a big stogie.  Not gonna happen. More like, “Put that thing out, it stinks.” Or, ”You ain’t kissing me after smoking that!” And this cigar is supposedly so good, it advertises that it’s the result of a collaborative effort between a master blender, a master grower, a master of tobacco, and the cigar composer! A cigar composer? Really! What do you do, lead an orchestra using a cigar!

What do think this product does?  Complex of patented PHA bionics and NeoGlucosamine, Retinal, Peptides, alpha hydroxy acids, and high-potency antioxidants. Is it something you eat, smear on, inject, or the ingredients for a suppository? I’m not telling.

Some ads aimed at women vie to be politically correct. A deodorant promises prescription strength wetness protection. If a woman sweats that much, maybe a deodorant is the least of her problems.

Ads for watches really have to get creative since the time is not exactly a secret. We can all pretty much go through life knowing what time it is every minute of the day without needing a watch.  

One well-known watch company ad boasts its patented chronograph mechanism and bezel with tachometric scale allows race-car drivers to perfectly measure elapsed circuit time and calculate average speed.

Yeah, when was the last time you saw a Formula 1 driver use his watch to gauge his speed? When you’re going 200 miles per hour, the last thing you need to be doing is fiddling with your watch. At 200 miles per hour, I would imagine times moves pretty fast. And when was the last time you saw a race-car driver roaring around the track yell to another, “Hey man, what time you got?”

Another ad for the same watch company bragged that its diver's watch is capable of withstanding depths to 1000 feet.

Wow, it’s nice to know that at 1000 feet your watch will still be ticking, even if you won't be. But hey, at least as you're being crushed by the weight a 1000 feet of water can put on you, you’ll know what time it is.

Got a problem? There’s an e-mail for that.

Got a problem? There’s an e-mail for that.

By Paul Greeley

I’ve found the solution to nearly all of my life’s problems. Actually, the solutions mysteriously find me. Every day, my computer separates them from the regular junk e-mail I get from family and friends and conveniently collects them in an e-mail folder titled, SPAM, which I assume stands for, Stop Paul’s Anxiety Mail.  How does the computer know which is the good e-mail and which isn’t?

Anyway, I can choose which problem I want to solve merely by looking at what’s in the Subject line.

For example, if I need money, not only can I get it, but I have choices depending on how fast I need it. I can get Fast Cash in 60 Minutes, or 400 Bucks in your Checking Account in 1-2 Days, or get it snail-mailed by clicking on The Check’s in the Mail. Government Grant Money is also available if I need it. And with all this free money, I’ll never need to Get an Emergency Loan Fast.

But with these free services, who needs money?

I could get No Charge Cell Phones. But I won’t really need that once I Kiss Phone Bills Goodbye.

Watching TV will be better once I’ve got No More Cable Bills. I won’t hesitate to fix my car because I intend to Never Pay for Auto Repairs Again. And when solicitors knock on my door asking how my roof is doing, I tell them no thanks, because I know How to Get Home Repairs at No Cost.

I can Experience Costa Rica for Free while I enjoy A Cruise Vacation at No Cost.

And since no one cares what I think about anything, even though I offer it free, I’ll turn those into a revenue source when I Get Paid for Your Opinion.

All my horticultural needs are solved here. I can now Get 16,000 Blueberries from a Single Plant. I don’t know how many blueberries you eat, but I’m thinking one plant is all I need. And I can either Get Amazing 8 foot Tall Tomatoes Trees or Produce Up to 180 lbs of Super-Sized Tomatoes. I didn’t know tomatoes grew on trees!

I hate to mow my lawn anytime, so I probably won’t want to Get Beautiful Grass All Year Round.

And it should be so quiet and peaceful in the yard once I forward this to my neighbors, Stop Your Dog from Barking

Local Maids Want to Help Me—I wonder how they know my house needs cleaning.

And I love the invitations. I’ve been invited to join the Playboy Bunny Cyber Club and The Monthly Club for Shoe Lovers.

Since I’m curious about my time on earth, someday I’ll click on When will You Die? Take this Test to Find Out---even though I don’t do well on tests.

I was surprised to see that my Certificate of Achievement is Ready.

And I can get it sent to my house gratis once I click on I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for Free Shipping!

And although I’ve been accused of having a PhD in BS, I still want to Become a Doctor of Anything.

And if you’ve got a problem with that, by all means, e-mail me.

You Gotta be Sick to Watch This!

Watching the network evening news has gotten sickening. It's not Katie or Brian or Charlie or even the news coverage itself that's causing the discomfort--it's the commercials that air during the news that are making me wince.
If someone from another country or another planet's only impression of Americans came from the commercials played during the network evening news, they'd think we were an extremely unhealthy bunch. We're either always in the bathroom or we can't go. Our bones are getting soft and our stools are too hard. Our eyes are always dry and our noses always run. We can't breathe without an inhaler, can't control our cholesterol without a pill. We need a gel to desensitize our teeth, if we're lucky enough to have our own, or stronger glue to keep our fake teeth from falling out. We can't sleep so we take pills to help us nod off, and to relieve the stress we all seem to suffer from, we need special beds that promise ‘nighttime renewal' which is, I suppose, w ay better than a mere goodnight's sleep.
And if all this gives you heartburn, there's a pill for that in a new mint flavor.
As bad as our health conditions are, for which there seems to be endless remedies, some even promising that the first prescription is free, the advertised side-effects are even more sickening. Be prepared to welcome burping, loss of senses, flu-like symptoms, headaches, nausea, temporary hearing and vision loss, nose bleeds, coughing spells, and temporary burning in exchange for the symptoms you used to have. That'll cure what ails ya!
If you're lucky enough to live through all this and get gray hair, don't worry, there's a cure for that. And if you believe the commercials, once you remove that gray, you'll start surfing and playing in a rock band with a trophy wife.
And men, we get the ultimate humiliation as those ubiquitous ads make it appear that we're all erectile dysfunctional! No wonder the demos for the evening network news are so old--- what daughter or son wants to sit through endless commercials that remind them that their parents might still be, well, you know, and that dad probably needs help in that area!
And now there's something new----a daily pill for those with ED, so there's no chance any man will be left with his pants down, so to speak, when it comes to romance. And although those with ED do have that possible 4-hour side-effect to worry about, which probably sells as many of the pills as anything else I can think of, it has eliminated the prospect of any morning desires. Who wants to be calling the boss at 9am explaining why they can't be in the office until lunch time?