Thursday, April 03, 2008

Well, It's About Dang Time...

What did it take, almost two years?


I'm sure most of you still won't get this, but what the heck.
Posted by David Codrea at 4/03/2008 08:28:00 AM

8 comments:

Ken said...

Man, that was nuts!

4/03/2008 9:10 AM
Anonymous said...

LOL!

I'm no stoopy poopy beaver

4/03/2008 12:49 PM
me said...

I never saw that post, could have pointed that in a heartbeat ya spoot head!

Yes, I watch cartoons. I'll claim it's only to stay up on propaganda and not that I like them. I'd make them if I had the skill.

4/03/2008 5:36 PM
Anonymous said...

Nope. Completely lost.

4/03/2008 8:24 PM
David Codrea said...

Jed, I posted a story that I linked to here about an Iraqi Taekwando team kidnapped by terrorists, with the point of illustrating how martial arts cannot save even world-class experts from assailants with guns.

The title I used on that post was "Clear Your Mind of Whimsy," and I challenged readers to tell me where that came from.

A few years back, there was a cartoon show called "The Angry Beavers" about two beaver brothers, Norbert and Dagget.

In the episode "Enter the Dagget," Dagget was tired of the fact that as beavers, their only natural defense was to hide in their dam, so he bought an instructional video on how to be a ninja.

It was basically Oriental-sounding platitudes teaching techniques like "The silent wind of doom......also known as The Headband Thingy!"

Hours into the tape there was another bit of martial art instruction, that is, "Clear your mind of whimsy."

I am "cursed" with an endless number of pop culture things that I enjoy the hell out of, and for those, I seem to have a semi-photographic memory. You get glimpses of those on occasion with obscure references like this one.

In spite of how grim and serious things are, I try to have fun with activism when I can. If I didn't, I wouldn't be able to do this every day. As it is, I always look forward to writing articles and never consider that a chore or something I dread.

Another benefit, and I tell this to my kids when they say they are bored, is I can't remember the last time I was.

I never want to get so old and jaded that I forget how to have fun working--and that means no clearing whimsy out of my mind when I can have fun instead.

That may surprise some who view me as angry and dead serious. I honestly don't know anyone who laughs more on any given day than I do. It beats throwing furniture with some of the outrages I cover on a daily basis.

At the risk of sounding bipolar, I'd reference being "a man of gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirths," another obscure reference that any fantasy fiction fan would instantly recognize.

Unless I miss my guess, I'd be surprised if Hairy Hobbit couldn't complete the line...

4/03/2008 10:14 PM
Ken said...

How about an Oxnard Montalvo Memorial Appleseed for northeast Ohio in 2009?

(Hasten to add: This is not a "let's you and him put on a show" post--I can try to help organize one, though organizing a shoot is all new and entirely Greek to me.)

4/03/2008 11:01 PM
David Codrea said...

In other words, you're volunteering to play Mann Servante?

:)

You could always email them and inquire...

infoATappleseedinfoDOTorg

4/03/2008 11:17 PM
Anonymous said...

I wouldn't consider that a curse at all. I have other friends who have similar powers of recall, and I wish I did too. Too often, I find myself struggling to recall something particularly witty, and coming up with only fragments. And I did notice the scare quotes you used. But, on first reading, I didn't notice the datestamp on Norbert's reply.

OTOH, I suspect I could write down most of the Lyrics to Karn Evil #9, but that's not very whimsical -- well, maybe parts of it are.

4/04/2008 1:29 AM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)