The Lint Screen, Satire/Humor/Etc.

Category: Whatnot

It’s neither fish nor foul nor cattle nor fruit. Whatever it is, it’s something or other.

  • Lint Turns 100

    Everyone’s sharing the good word of The Lint Screen. It’s the fun thing to do!
    Yesterday, The Lint Screen received its 100,000th hit.

    In 22 months, over 100,000 people (or roaming spam-spewing computers) have come by and collected Lint. Four months ago, I started using ClustrMaps (on the home page) to track the countries of origin for hits. To date, 134 different countries have found their way here. Hello, Ethiopia, Isle of Man, Mauritius, Singapore, Poland, Chile, Australia, Pakistan and 126 others– glad to have you!

    100,000 hits pretty much ensures that The Lint Screen is possibly the planet’s most popular website with the words “Lint”, “Screen” and “The” in its title.

    It couldn’t have happened without you, dear reader. Thanks for your grazing eyeballs.

    Here are a few observations after 195 posts.

    1. Satire is an alien concept to many. Much of what I’ve written is satire. It’s sarcastic, ironic, silly smartass stuff that lampoons many of the follies of people in our modern times. But, I’m sad to say, many people have no satirical sense of humor. Too many take everything at face value. It’s a reflection of our times, I’m afraid, when The National Enquirer (which was up for a Pulitzer Prize) and The Daily Show With Jon Stewart do a better job of reporting the news than alleged news outlets do. Unfortunately, traditional media is so riddled with biased points of view and spoon-fed talking points, the masses are lulled into complacency and a diet of information that furnishes the mental attic of their comfortable preconceived beliefs. They take the perspective that if it’s in the media it must be true. No, sometimes there is intentional satire, not reality. Many times I strive for a skewed view that may bring focus to the ridiculousness of a situation. Things are not just black or white, not just politically left or right. Sometimes exposing the extremes shows we need to keep our eyes and minds open. Keep collecting Lint, we’ll work it out and maybe have some laughs along the way.

    2. It’s more fun when others play. Writing is a lonely profession. There’s you, the voice in your head and your fingers trying to keep up with its dictation. When you publish something, you’re pitching words into the void. Feedback is always appreciated at The Lint Screen. It doesn’t matter if it’s praise or criticism (although praise tends to go over better in the writer’s room), commentary makes the blogging process a dialogue, and dialogue is always good. Come, talk, share, play, enjoy.

    3. Arianna Huffington hates me. I have been banned from commenting on The Huffington Post. Why? Because I often pimp some Lint piece that’s relevant to the story HuffPost is publishing. Some sites don’t allow this, some do. The Huffington Post used to allow me to pimp, but now Arianna and her goon squad are giving me the high-hat. Ironically, I learned this technique for pimping my blog from reading The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging. Arianna, make nice and let’s build some fences between Lint and Huff.

    4. Don’t make fun of Susan Boyle and expect to get away with it. One of the most controversial specks of Lint was one I did when the Susan Boyle story first caught fire. I thought it was funny, many did not. Read the comments for a great time.

    5. Wisdom works, too. Sometimes I’ll write something that isn’t entertainment or about monkeys or blacksmithing squirrels. It is something flecked with pearls of wisdom about things like job hunting, freelancing, the great Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in The World campaign, the legend of The Swedish Bikini Team for Old Milwaukee or my 19-part series on hip replacements (read them sequentially to enjoy a ride through surgery and recovery– my pain equals your reading pleasure). These things get good commentary and pass around. That warms me like my hand in a bucket of warm water at night.

    6. Random is hard. From its inception, The Lint Screen was designed to be random in subject matter. This is a recipe for failure in the blogging world. Experts say that one should position oneself as an expert on a subject and use your blog as the bully pulpit to pontificate and build your empire. It sounded boring to me. So, Lint is intentionally random. The hope was people might like the voice and come back to hear it from time to time. It seems to be working– you’re here and maybe you’ll tell some friends and family about it. Sharing Lint is greatly appreciated. It’s the only way The Lint Screen will spread to all nations.

    Thanks for reading and please dive deeper into the archives for interesting Lints you may have missed. Oh, and if you’re a CMO with an ad budget of $100 million (more, or less), please call on Ames Scullin O’Haire. We’ll be happy to help.

  • Easter Bunny Blasts Boy As Socialist

    Bunny lays an egg for commie little boy.
    Fortunately for little Frankie Urbeenor, he sleeps on a very absorbent pillow. The child cried torrents last night after his visit to The Easter Bunny at the East Waverly Heights Mall in Port Arthur, Texas.

    Easter is Frankie’s fifth favorite holiday, after Christmas, his birthday, Halloween and Thanksgiving, so he was looking forward to spending some quality time with Mr. Cottontail. Instead he was subjected to an angry political rant from a bunny who is also a part time Tea Party zealot.

    Spectators reported the following exchange took place between Frankie and the Easter Bunny:
    BOY: Hello, Easter Bunny!
    E. B.: Hello, little boy– what’s your name?
    BOY: Frankie. Frankie Urbeenor.
    E. B.: Well, Frankie, I suppose you’re happy that Obama and his government thugs have taken over the entire freakin’ health care system.
    BOY: Huh?
    E. B.: Sure, what do you care, you’re a little kid and you don’t have to pay taxes so just let me work my freakin’ butt off and support little freeloaders like you so you can get sick and have pre-existing conditions, then use death panels to kill my grandma in Beaumont.
    BOY: Ummm, I don’t know what you’re…
    E.B.: Everyone wants a hand-out, don’t they? You’re all a bunch of socialists. The free market is too tough on you so you want big brother government to spoon feed you entitlement programs, don’t you?
    BOY: I’m scared.
    E.B.: Of course you are, kid. We should all be scared. The country’s being run by the antichrist, who wasn’t even born in this country, and he wants the government to butt into every aspect of our lives, then try to take away my 85 firearms and arsenal of explosives I have for protection.
    BOY: I just want a chocolate bunny for Easter…
    E.B.: Sure you do. Chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, marshmallow chicks, silver dollars and PlayStations, too– you want everything! And you want it all for free, don’t you? And why not, it’s no skin off your nose– just ask, ask, ask and expect others to deliver it with a pretty bow to your door. Well, listen up, kid-o, there ain’t no Santie Claus and you can’t have Christmas every Easter. You want a chocolate bunny, you work for it. There’s no freebies in life, buddy boy!
    BOY: I want to go home, mister, please…

    Fifty-six minutes later, paramedics used the jaws of life to remove the boy from the angry Kung-Fu grip grasp of the Easter Bunny, who was tagged with tranquilizers and taken away in soft handcuffs, designed not to chafe his fur.

    Easter may soon drop from the #5 position of Frankie’s favorite holidays.

  • My Idyllic Nun

    As a kid, I attended St. Patrick’s Elementary School in Hubbard, Ohio. My uniform was sharp-creased navy blue dress pants with a crisp white shirt and clip-on tie. We had ‘lay teachers’ (ordinary civilians), but we were also taught by ruler-wielding nuns who smacked palms into submission. The pain told the brain and body to obey.

    One tormentor-in-habit used to give me an open-hand whack across the chops because she thought I was tormenting her on purpose with my ignorance in math. I wasn’t– I really was that stupid with the ‘new math’, and her instilling fear in me certainly didn’t help matters. I’d laugh at her slaps (being class clown, I had to save face) which only get her angrier. But at least she’d let me sit back down again with one cheek out of four stinging.

    I was subjected to some pretty inventive disciplinary actions by nuns: holding erasers with arms outstretched for long stretches of time or kneeling on the floor and placing my nose into a small circle that the nun had drawn on the blackboard. Gitmo had nothing on the good Sisters.

    ‘Sister Smile’ sang, and I swooned.
    Regardless of my dark nun memories, I have fond memories of my angelic, idyllic nun: The Singing Nun, Sœur Sourire (Sister Smile), AKA: Jeanne-Paule Marie Deckers, a Belgian woman of the beads who recorded an international hit song “Dominique” in the teeth of Beatlemania. She appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show (I remember it and was captivated– it would be years later when nuns would subject me to their disciplinarian ways). They made a movie of her life where a younger, prettier woman played the good Sister–Debbie Reynolds.

    The real Sœur Sourire had a guitar, a song and an angelic voice. The song “Dominique” would occupy a warm cubbyhole in the corridors of my consciousness. Years later, when the real nuns disciplined me, I would hear the joyful song of The Singing Nun and feel comforted. I believed She of the guitar would never have subjected me to pain. But I could have been wrong in my assumption, after all, she never had to teach me math.

    Enjoy the song from the movie and let it take residence in your psyche. If you have a nun tale to tell, do tell. I harbor no ill will at the good nuns, they’re all saints to me. Some of the saints had a mean right cross to the head.

  • Oh, Lady Liberty!

    Why have you brought yourself to this? Standing on the corner, waving a sign to get attention; prostituting freedom to sell income tax services.

    The Lady takes to the streets. The shame of it all…

    You join the huddled masses of other mascots: the wiener in a bun, dancing taco dude, the purple gorilla, twirling condo sale sign guy and all the many mascots pimping their wares.

    May this economy recover quickly so that Lady Liberty can get off the street corners and back to being a beacon of freedom, carrying the torch of everlasting dignity and respectfulness. Amen.

  • Ain’t It The Truth?

    British journalist Charlie Brooker reveals proven tricks of the trade for putting together a news segment. Follow his savvy advice and start your very own news show. It’s easy when you know how! Now, where’d I put my satellite dish…

  • Getting Hipper (Pt. 19)

    While I thought I had pulled the plug on my total hip replacement series, some people have asked for an update. They are either curious, or taking some sick pleasure in my pain. Either way, I’m happy to oblige.

    In week #5 post-surgery, the doc gave me approval to drive. I eased back into work, limping about on a cane and toting a throw pillow to place on seats. Sporting a scruffy beard, I looked like a demented interior designer walking the halls of Ames Scullin O’Haire in search of the perfect place to accessorize with my throw pillow.

    The physical therapy regimen continues…
    In week #6, I began my out-of-home, in-office physical therapy. Aaron, my therapist who re-built me from my first hip replacement, was ready to begin the process all over again on the left side.

    Physical therapy is a lot like torture, except giving vital information will not save you from further pain. But physical therapy and natural muscle healing is all I have to do to get better and be human again. It hurts, but I do as I am told. I’ve heard horror stories of people who went through hip or knee replacement surgery, but didn’t do the necessary therapy and consequently have pain and a store-bought joint because they didn’t heal correctly. No thank you. Bring on the pain, Aaron. He does, he most certainly does.

    It hurts, but I don’t resort to popping muscle relaxers. I’ve eased myself off the goof, cold turkey-ish. If I need pain relief, I pop a couple Aleve and the little blue pills take the edge off in their powerful yet street legal over the counter way.

    … and I am feeling whole again.
    I don’t do sleeping pills either. I now sleep the rest of the exhausted. But, to quote comedy guru Chris Elliott, I “have a bladder like a little girl.” I awake a couple times a night to totter my way to the bathroom, relieve myself and return to bed. I must keep two pillows between my legs to keep the new hip in check and out of harm’s way crossing the evil hip precaution zone (NEVER cross legs in the first three months post-surgery).

    My two pillows are like a fluffy chastity belt.

    My wife begins to ask me how much longer I am going to keep the beard. “It’s prickly,” she says. “Kissing hurts. Besides, it makes you look older.” When you are getting into the region of old fartdom, looking older is not a good thing.

    Ancient bearded me.
    I had never grown a beard before I had had my first hip replacement. I liked the change of pace, the lazy maintenance of it. But, she didn’t much care for it back then and it eventually found its way to the barber’s floor. It was time to begin thinking of a similar fate for this beard. It would be gone very soon.
    Youthful clean-shaven me.

    Week #7, I feel like I have my full energy back and I walk without a cane. Yes, I’m wobbly. Yes, I look like a mad sidewinder. Yes, it hurts somewhat. But I’m walking, dammit–– on two fake hips and a couple weak arthritic knees. It’s not pretty, but it is forward locomotion. I CAN WALK! I’m also climbing stairs with both legs alternately bearing load, like we all learned in step climbing school. No more slowly shuffling up steps on the good leg, descending on the weak one.

    I also leave my pillow behind. I jack up the height of my office chair as high as it’ll go, and I’m extra careful to hoist myself out of chairs with both arms so as not to put undue pressure on my new hip. I don’t tempt fate by sitting in low rider chairs or couches. That’s a fool’s play, one that could send you back under the surgeon’s blade for some hip re-setting. That fear make me obey my hip precautions slavishly.

    I’m ready for my TSA inspection.
    Week #8, I take my hip on a test drive to the airport. I can walk, and now I will fly.

    I make my way through my pals at TSA, I set off their security alarms and indicate I have TWO artificial hips. I get my “male assist” to wand me down. I beep on the left hip, I beep on the right. I’m patted down and deemed safe to pass. I gather my belongings and ask a nearby son to do me a solid and tie my shoes. I can’t do impossible tasks like that yet.

    Life’s getting better all the time. I’m walking stronger on the road to recovery, eventually without a limp.