Things Everyone Should Know

We're not all geniuses, professors, academics, or TV detectives, and I'm okay with that. But by the same token, there are things that human beings who are awake more than they are asleep, who can operate a cell phone while maintaining their balance, and who might have any charge over another human really really should know.

I have conveniently listed a sampling of these bare minimums below.

It just ticks me off to consider the likelihood that someone out there will be actually learning something before the end of this rant-essay.

EVERYONE Should Know:

1. Why centuries are so confusingly named.

I can't stand hearing someone refer to the year 1865, as a component of the ‘Eighteenth Century’. These are the same NASA scientists that have to concentrate before declaring the century in which we now stand.

Why are they so oddly named? To put it simply: Because we didn't start with Year 100. For the treasured few that will benefit from the answer below... shame.

What year did the First Century start with? Answer: 1

What year did the Second Century start with? Answer: 100

Let’s lay this out:
First Century: 1-99
Second Century: 100-199
Third Century: 200-299
Make sense so far? Let’s skip a few
Eighteenth Century: 1700-1799
Nineteenth Century: 1800-1899
Twentieth Century: 1900-1999 (Should be familiar)
Twenty-First Century: 2000-Anybody’s guess

The common problem here is that people want to name it based on its numerical appearance; 1865 looks like it should belong to the Eighteenth Century. The more common problem is stupid people; They are everywhere. My tip for the challenged is to stick with the numerical name: call the 1800s ‘The Eighteen Hundreds’.

While we’re year-ing; Here's a brain-buster: Why was last year (2009) called two-thousand and nine, and the year ten years previous (1999) known as nineteen ninety-nine, not one thousand nine-hundred and ninety-nine? As it follows, why did we not call last year (2009) twenty-0-nine? Do we have a concensus on this new year's name?

Did something in your head just pop?


2. SOMETHING about The Godfather.

I’m not going to claim some cinema elitism or say it’s my favourite movie, but it's not far off. The Godfather and its sequel are probably the two most important films of the contemporary era. I am repeatedly stunned when I encounter someone of my relative age and comparable intelligence looks at me mystified when I say: "I knew it was you, Fredo, and it breaks my heart." That's heartbreaking. Classic movie discussions by this generation should not be beginning and ending with Star Wars, as much as I do love Star Wars.
The Godfather is like literature. Learn it, you'll like it, and you’ll be a better person for it.


3. The difference between Your and You're.

I did a quick entry about this on my blog - Patricktionary. Check out the link in the sidebar.

I see this as a symptom of a larger looming pandemic. Follow the link if you need to learn this rule, and stay for while because there is much you should be learning, and tell the next person you see to call you stupid.

The English Language and all its twisted grammar will outlive this rule-bending text message devolution.


4. Local Time in Time Zones other than your own.

I lived in Vancouver for four and one half years and 90% of the people I would talk to back home, in the old Eastern Standard Time Zone, could not grasp the concept of what time it was where I was when I spoke to them.

To some it was a source of humour. Calling at 4:00 AM PST while they sat down to a nice EST breakfast, and while I assumed that nothing good could come of that long distance ringtone in the middle of the night, never got unfunny to certain characters that will go unmentioned.

To others it was simply uncomputable. There are many people who will never have to reset their watch to a place on the globe where the sun arrives and leaves out of sync with the place they will spend all the days of their life. They don’t travel, they don’t intend to travel, so their mind doesn’t need to bend around where and why it’s earlier and how can one decipher this advanced time-altering formula.

“It’s three hours earlier, Dad. It’s always three hours earlier.” The sun sets in the west, everyday. The time zone to the west of us gets their sunset an hour after us. Every single evening.


5. Some knowledge of how your Car Functions.

I wrote an essay for this blog a couple of years ago called ‘Mr. Fixit’. (Check out the Blog Archive) I was discussing the idea of license; how we have standards for operating certain equipment but rarely do those standards include an awareness of how that equipment works. There was once a time when everyone was responsible for the mechanisms that supported their lives. Then we became a society of consumers and service providers. What would the world be like if when something broke, everyone could offer input on how to fix it?

There are a lot of these fixes that I can forgive. Most people reading this essay don’t know how the devices they count on everyday function, even the slightest. What if your cell phone, refrigerator, computer, furnace, and your gall bladder broke down on the same day in the dead of January winter? Rough day, right? Some dummy out there can fix each one of those and he or she has the same size brain as you. Well, the gall bladder mechanic might be different.

But the automobile is different. This device is integral to our society. This device is dangerous in the hands of everyday people in ways that terrorists, firefighters and action movie stars can’t yet conceive of. This device carries a tank of combustible petroleum, moves like a rocket, and a grand majority of its operators can’t tell you why the pedal on the right makes it go.

This is a lot responsibility to put in the hands of, let’s face it, leagues of moron drivers. Shouldn’t some mechanical knowledge be a prerequisite? If for nothing else, just so we can ensure that these weapons of potential mass destruction are operating as they should.


6. Some of the proper lyrics to the song(s) you spend the day singing.

You know that song you can’t get out of your head? You know how you keep singing that one infectious part over and over? Don’t you know the pain you’re causing? Do you realize the risk you’re taking?

If there is anything worse than the meathead who can’t contain that automatic repeat of the song he heard on his clock radio, it has got to be that same meathead who has a perfectly functioning auto-repeat with the lyrics on the fritz.
If you’re going to cough your music germs in my general direction and risk infecting me, at least pollute my airspace with something more substantial than the disjointed tune or the wrong lyrics.

It’s not even funny, it’s just disrespectful. Drown out the voices in your melon in another manner.


7. To Admit It When You Don't Know

Most people talk shit at some point, it's natural. By 'talk shit' I mean speak to something as though you are claiming you have knowledge of it. Shit comes out of each of our faces at some point, sometimes seeded by ego and sometimes an educated extrapolation. Quite forgivable in the large scale.

Some people 'talk shit' and ask you to trust them. Some other people hold some BS certification that asks you to trust their knowledge for them, or at around the same time.

In my 'day job' I work in a support role, supplying equipment and technical support to 'licensed' technicians that install and service appliances and devices which are integral to how your house functions, and often involve fuels and chemical that are... dangerous, for lack of a better term, and for lack of more talented technicians. Many of these specialists are experts in their craft and a credit to thier field, but sadly are in the vast minority.

I am saddened and scared at some of the questions many of these 'experts' have for me about the basics of how these appliances work. These are questions that should have been covered on Day 2 of trade school. These are services that they are going to your home, after consulting with me, and charging you hundreds to diagnose and repair.

I don't really have a problem with the consultation part. No one can know everything, and we all have our specialty. What I have a problem with is the inability to admit any level of learning or gathering knowledge. I regularly watch grown 'experts' (95% male) go to dashing extremes and savage expense to avoid being caught not knowing something. Sometimes the something is so insignificant, sometimes it costs an innocent homeowner some money, and sometimes it puts people in danger... really, is your masculinity that fragile?

This principle embraces all of the above issues. Nobody knows everything. I don't have a problem with the people who stop for a second when naming a century, I can't stand those who won't evolve and figure it out.

Really, I could go on and on. In fact, I think I just might.

Stay tuned for part two.

Thanks for reading.

A Scalp That Sees The Sun

What is it that truly scares you? What waits around the corner for you veiled in menacing darkness? What is it that sneers an evil grin and embodies all that shatters your soul? As males there is a common demon that lurks and preys and quivers our collective gender’s spine. While we do deal with our own quirks and phobias, tribulations with commitment, emotional accessibility, asking directions in a new town, certain creepy crawlies, and not to mention the fear of public nudity after emerging from a cold swimming pool, we share a fear that can stir us from sleep and have us shrieking like Janet Leigh into a hairy bathtub drain.

I have an old friend that’s lost most of his hair. In high school he had one of those cascading heavy metal-inspired mullets that flouted the very prospect of aging entirely. At thirty-ish and among our group of friends, he happens to be a minority. Though his self-image is unshakable and his problems with the ladies are enviably non-existent, his extra-large forehead is the closest thing I’ve seen to a source of insecurity. In fact, of all the men in the entire world whose scalps see the sun, I can quite confidently say he is among the least affected. Still, to some degree his bald head bothers him, and why shouldn’t it? Very few things, such as the supposed inferiority of the follicly challenged, have been sold to us as convincingly. Bald, baldness, balding, it sounds like an affliction, like a terminal illness. Though we know this is not at all the case, it continues to be treated in such a manner, whispered about like a CANCER, combated with drugs and head carpets. My question is: What’s the big deal?

As many of you read, I am certain of that B-word ringing between your ears, and whether male or female your grimace wrinkles and you reflect on that dread. Below is an explanation of BALD, as found at Encyclopedia.com.

Balding: Thinning or loss of hair as a result of illness, functional disorder, or hereditary disposition; also known as Alopecia. Male pattern baldness, a genetic trait, is the most common cause of baldness among white males. It is carried by females, but they are rarely susceptible inasmuch as it develops under the influence of testosterone, a male sex hormone; women, however, may experience an overall thinning of the hair.

When confronted with this popular definition, how could we think of Alopecia as anything other than some awful pestilent disorder? ‘Illness’ is even the first word to appear under the various results. The truth is that if we’re rounding up these genetic anomalies for the leper colony, why not include people with freckles or Frecklopecia? How about Cantrolltongue-opecia? And finally we must indeed rid ourselves of Cantpronoucepumpkinproperly-atitis. These of course are not ailments, these are gifts. In our continuing and tireless efforts to eventually mold one another into a single cover of Vogue or Gentlemen’s Quarterly, we’ve again forgotten one of nature’s little tricks to keep us looking like individuals; Genetics. If there’s one truism that abounds throughout this ‘modern society’ of ours, and certainly through my little rantings, it is this: We have got to learn to pick our battles. I’m going to start this battle by ridding us of this word; perhaps if I do the definition will follow. Alopecia sounds like something you get from eating bad sushi, I move we more appropriately call this Hairanoia.

It is clear as a people, as a living, breathing, waxing, primping, sexual, social species, that we are somewhat hung up on looks. There are very few understatements as astoundingly obvious. There is a new temple at which we worship and the golden idol changes with every coming spring line and hot new Hollywood hunk. Hair goes along with that, as some sort of crown, sitting perfectly only on a good day, set in a designer’s pleasant-smelling glue.

Getting past the whys, whos, and whatevers of it all for a moment, I would like to look at this Hairanoia for what it is: an anthropological and delusionary need to hang on to our youthful virility and plumage. As we age there are many indicators, such as weight gain and mortgage payments, we are capable of hiding; our heads are not one of them.

Before I go any farther down this path of self-righteous ridicule, I should note that I myself am not an Alopecian, but I do admittedly tend to be a devout follower of another modern altar: the mirror. Though many might find my perspective convenient considering the fact I am not afflicted by this condition, I have felt its influence quite close to my own life. Aside from the formerly mulleted friend mentioned earlier, my father is also hair-imp-haired. If there is anyone more secure in his appearance than my pal, it is my pop. One of his favorite sayings has always been: “God only puts so many perfect heads into the world, the rest he covers with hair.” I spent a great deal of my formative years assuming that losing my own hair was a hereditary inevitability. There was even a period when I thought the process had begun. As it turned out, my hair remained mine and I am left in the position of objective observation and the potential of confronting a bad hair day with every rise of the morning sun. I can accept that there may be harder burdens to bear.

There was a time in our evolutionary progress when humans had far more hair. As part of a means of survival, hair or fur covered more of our bodies, protecting our skin and keeping us warm. Fear not, Subscribers of Divine Creation, I’m referring to the 1970s. Hair then became less a functional organ and more of a decorative symbol, like a lion’s mane. As animal pelts and designer jeans became more the fashion, razor blade manufacturers and body-waxing clinics flourished, ushering in an age of precision grooming not yet witnessed in our solar system. Hair then became another victim of our cosmetic schizophrenia, treasured in some regions and banished from others. A once proud species became a race of hair-farmers, spending thousands to bolster a fertile, professionally colored and manicured crop in one area, and thousands more to have a laser eradicate it in another.

I’m as tempted as a ridiculoholic at this point to spend the next four thousands words chasing around the transparency of wistful trends and ludicrously pricey salonification. In the interest of treasuring temptation in moderation I’ll just say this: Do the men out there have any idea what a woman on the upper half of the Beautification Scale spends on her hair (of various sorts) every year? And how about the growing population of beautified men?

My plan here is to save my loaded ridicule cannon for the unfortunate souls out there that subscribe to Hairanoia at such a degree that they seek out a ‘cure’ from the traveling witch-doctor apothecaries of our time; hair-restoration specialists. These purveyors of the height of cosmetic buffoonery have less to contribute to society than a squeegee kid with no arms.

I have more questions than hairs on my head for these misguided prosthetic hair-hat wearers. What made you abandon dignity? How does it feel to know that you are fostering the very hairanoia you’re hiding from? How can you live under constant threat of your skull mask slipping? Do you see your fur hood as an accessory or a clever deception? Who told you that this illusion was working? Add your own questions here.

I can accept that there is a rarified form of dignity at play here. Many men who attempt the grand artificial hair scheme feel a well of pride in their ‘restored’ self-image. Many will argue that the value found in that pride is worth potentially losing face, in the face of losing out, as it were. I can accept that to a point. While I think everybody deserves to feel great about his or her appearance and accepted in this critical culture of ours, isn’t it our job to protect our friends and loved ones from the toupees of everyday life? Friends intervene when friends can’t see the truth of the path their on. Whether it’s a ridiculous car in a mid-life crisis, breast augmenters that look like pylon cones, or perhaps a more destructive addiction, friends should be there to look their misguided pals in the face and say: “ I can see that squirrel hide on your head coming from Tuesday, get it off before someone tries to buy a used car from you!”

Trends in our trend-worshipping society seem to be moving away from hair. It’s not hair that we love anymore; it’s the color, the color scheme, the shape, and the statement. Below our necks our bodies are increasingly becoming deserts of skin, as we wax and shave with Brazilian abandon. Is this the precursor to the images we’ve been shown on our sci-fi celluloid window to the future? Characters intended to represent the future of humanity and alternate allegorical races always seem to have smooth bald heads and faces. Is it so hard to imagine that an enlightened civilization of the distant future would start to see the pursuit of hair perfection as somewhat futile?

Imagine what could be done with the time and resources put into the maintenance of the strands of dead cells that ironically happen to be situated in pretty close proximity to our brains? Maybe if we put aside this aversion for people who look different because they no longer have all of their hair, perhaps we could start to be okay with other differences that separate us.

Hairanoia is a fairly simple thing to understand when you take away the useless fashionable influences. Losing your hair draws a clear line between youth and maturity, which is a prospect far more frightening for most men than losing any appendage… well I suppose the loss of a certain appendage could be more frightening. Men inherently believe in their hearts that a Superman exists inside him, and with it the potential to smash through a wall, outrun a bullet and save the day. The vital aspect of Superman that keeps him super, aside from a steady diet of ass-kicking and Lois-loving, is that when an adventure comes to a close and the comic book ends there’s nothing that dates him, that tells us a day or a year has passed, and never will a gray hair, or more to the point, less hair indicate that he may one day die. Hair loss is an indicator of mortality and those of us lucky enough to hang to the illusion of youth have mistakenly become the envy of those who should be proud that God believes they have great looking skulls.

It will most likely be beyond my lifetime that we as a society begin to enjoy a toleration not mangled by the worship of fashion and vanity. I don’t want this tendency to evaporate completely. I happen to think there are very tolerable levels of beauty and adoration. We just have to appreciate a person as an individual and not a trend, a force, or a quasi-messiah. I myself am not completely ready for the Star Trek uniforms and moderate boycotts of individuality quite yet.

Starting today I want each of you out there to hug a bald guy. Lay a big smooch on his smooth skull and tell him he’s beautiful and youthful in his own way. Understand that as a man he is genetically incapable of passing the baldness to his son. Give him the respect due to the hair no longer with us and also that hair to come that still valiantly grows around his ears, the back his head, and probably quite prominently over the rest of his body. If you yourself have lost your hair, pass that smile of acknowledgement to another that shares in your plight, and if he has tried to cover his head with someone else’s, let him know he needn’t look so foolish.

There’s nothing wrong with losing your hair, what’s wrong is the thought that some of us are somehow genetically superior for arbitrarily keeping it.

And finally to all my friends both shaggy and shorn: When will vogue finally become a bad word?


The Benefits Of Being Bald and Beautiful:
1. NO BAD HAIR DAYS
2. Trademark Potential: Where would Yul Brenner and Telly Savalas have been with hair?
3. An extremely enviable barber and shampoo budget
4. The women out there who REALLY LIKE IT. (I mean fetish like – fun!)
5. Aerodynamics
6. He who laughs last: Bald may look old at thirty but looks great at fifty.
7. Having just one thing in common with Connery is almost worth it.


Bye… Patrick Hughes.