IS NOTHING SACRED?

It is socially unacceptable in my neck of the woods to invoke the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in vain.

Such is not the case in godless California where my wife and I recently visited in order to attend the wedding of my nephew Chris. It wasn't the first time I'd been out west but all the same, the values and the lifestyles out there still disturb me. It seems so rudderless, vacant, materialistic and vain. 

We spent most of our time in L.A. and I have to say, even the fat people out there looked slim .

Chris is a good kid who worked his way up from a production assistant on a reality program to becoming what they call a show runner on a popular cable TV sit-com that I have never heard of. He makes good money and lives in a nice place but he has never forgotten who he is and where he came from.

His new wife is another story.

She swears like a longshoreman, doesn't know how to cook, speaks French and does something called Pilates which requires her to wake up every morning at 4:45. Who am I to judge but if you ask me, Chris could have done a lot better.

Anyway, we stayed in a medium-sized hotel with an outdoor pool near the Sunset Strip. The location was about as seedy and smelly as our old Greyhound station here in Elmira. I was leafing through the crisply paginated copy of the Bible one night before going to bed (at least they still kept ol' Gideon tucked away in the nightstand drawer) ruminating on the fury of the Prophets and the grace of the Son when a slip of hotel stationary fell to floor.

Case closed - the defense rests.

NEVER MISS EMILE

My neighbor Derrick thinks he's all high and mighty because he drives a hybrid. 

His wife teaches art history at the college so I suppose he thinks that makes him look smart as well. They've got a lot of books in neat, floor to ceiling ceder shelving but I'm not so sure they ever read any of them. Lot's of folks are like that - lining their walls with books to make themselves feel smart. Anyway, Derrick is always popping off about something or other but what he doesn't realize is that I'm on to him even if nobody else is.

You see, just like Derrick, I too read the New York Times. The thing is, he gets it delivered and I read it online so as far as he knows, I get all my news from CNN and the Star-Gazette.

What Derrick basically is, is a walking summery of that day's paper. If Kristoff is dilating about child labor Derrick is incensed as well. If Brooks finds virtue in the rational application of religious values on secular society then Derrick spends the day quoting Reinhold Niebuhr and Martin Buber. If I get up early enough I can usually predict what Derrick will be talking about with his button-down cappuccino buddies over at The Crest House breakfast bar.

But for all his alleged wisdom and sophistication he hasn't got a goddamn clue on how to raise his snot-nosed kids. There's not a bat or a ball on his entire lot. His boys can hardly ride bikes much less snowboard or skate. He claims the kids are the 'creative' types and prefer sidewalk chalk to bottle-rockets and dart guns. He thinks I don't know who Maria Montessori is and that to me Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a brand of smelly imported cheese.

I say let the kids paint - why not? - just so long as you let them get nailed with a paint ball now and then as well.

ART, DEMOCRACY AND THE EVIL HANDMAIDEN TECHNOLOGY

My good wife bought me a smart phone for Christmas. She said it would help me 'get up to speed' with the 21st century. I reminded her that here in upstate New York among the 40 inch waist-and-above crowd, the average speed was between 15 and 18 miles per hour and that I was doing just fine, thank you very much.

Why the heck do they call these damn things smart if they make the folks who use them look like drooling imbeciles? Forget the fact that they're the single biggest cause of traffic fatalities, inching drunk driving out of first place for the first time since Henry Ford rolled out the ModelT. And what are we supposed to make out of  grown men answering ring tones that are the electronic equivalent of celestial wind chimes?

And not to put too fine a point on the matter but hell's bells, is everyone now supposed to be some sort of amateur Edward Steichen?

TUCK YOU

I remember the first time I started to feel old was when my little brother Stevie was born. I was five.

It eventually hits you that wherever you go you'll always seem old to at least somebody. Could be the guy who comes to repair your phone and calls you 'sir' or the waitress at Denny's who asks if you want to order off the senior menu. The other day some bonehead actually offered me her seat on the bus!

The first real sign of age is when you realize that everyone on the Mets' roster is younger than you. Or when you pass a playground and it looks to you like the set of a sci-fi movie. 

But as they say, considering the alternative, I'm fine getting a little bruised and weather beaten by the years.

What really gets me are all the middle-aged ladies with the mad scientist plastic surgery. Some of these gals look like they're ready to rob a liquor store with a stocking stretched over their face. And what about those aging rock stars who feel the pressing need to look like a teenager?

 I mean, who do they think they're kidding?  

Me, I'll be happy to gracefully grow into my role as the vacant eyed shopping mall Christmas fixture sitting on a long hard bench waiting for the wife to finish with her shopping.

IF IT FEELS GOOD IT IS GOOD

I never understood parents who drag their kids to art museums. Natural History museums are one thing - show a kid a fossil, a dead fish or a dinosaur skeleton and they'll forget about the Mike and Ikes you stashed in your pocket just in case you had to quiet them down. But forcing a child to suffer through a room of crucifixions or worse, mural-size canvases with three splotches of paint mixed with gravel, is a form of abuse they could do without.

It always seems to be the gluten-free lactose intolerant crowd that tow their offspring to these cathedrals of high culture. Like baby carrots and almond milk, looking at art is supposed to be good for you.

If these parents were so concerned about what was good for their kids they would have them vaccinated instead of sending them to chicken pox parties.

Kids like things that move like cars, and dogs and television programs.

 Life is miserable enough. If they're going stare at the wall and crane their necks at least they should be having fun.