Category Archives: Popular Culture

Some Graduation Advice

From P. J. O’Rourke:

Don’t moan. I’m not going to “pass the wisdom of one generation down to the next.” I’m a member of the 1960s generation. We didn’t have any wisdom.

We were the moron generation. We were the generation that believed we could stop the Vietnam War by growing our hair long and dressing like circus clowns. We believed drugs would change everything — which they did, for John Belushi. We believed in free love. Yes, the love was free, but we paid a high price for the sex.

My generation spoiled everything for you. It has always been the special prerogative of young people to look and act weird and shock grown-ups. But my generation exhausted the Earth’s resources of the weird. Weird clothes — we wore them. Weird beards — we grew them. Weird words and phrases — we said them. So, when it came your turn to be original and look and act weird, all you had left was to tattoo your faces and pierce your tongues. Ouch. That must have hurt. I apologize.

So now, it’s my job to give you advice. But I’m thinking: You’re finishing 16 years of education, and you’ve heard all the conventional good advice you can stand. So, let me offer some relief.

Read on. Some of it actually is good advice.

Movie Review Time

Over at Lileks’ place:

Their logo looks like a deformed octopus. We get the picture, though. It’s the Klan. This was still a touchy thing in ’36; this must have irritated the people who thought the film ignored all the good things the Klan did, like community outreach and neighborhood suppers and the occasional potluck where a fella could get together with like-minded Americans and talk freely about the Catholics.

Gee, to what or whom could he possibly be referring?

The Future Is Leon’s Oyster

Well, if not his oyster, at least his dippy dot:

“It seems the legends of 21st-century man’s crude ice cream-eating habits are all true,” Wolcott said. “I see the way you consume these dripping concoctions with protruding tongues, the way the dark cream dribbles down your chins, the way your workers must dig tirelessly with spherical metal ‘scooping’ devices to even obtain this product.”

“Barbarians!” Wolcott added. “Dippin’ Dots can be poured effortlessly into cups. They do not melt or make a mess, and plus they are very fun to eat.”

Now, it would seem to me that this is a man after Leon Kass’ heart. Not to mention, ironically, that it gives this enemy of longevity a reason to live, and see such a marvelous future, in which he will no longer have to suffer the indignity of seeing people licking cones in the street, like so many cats at bath.

The Future Is Leon’s Oyster

Well, if not his oyster, at least his dippy dot:

“It seems the legends of 21st-century man’s crude ice cream-eating habits are all true,” Wolcott said. “I see the way you consume these dripping concoctions with protruding tongues, the way the dark cream dribbles down your chins, the way your workers must dig tirelessly with spherical metal ‘scooping’ devices to even obtain this product.”

“Barbarians!” Wolcott added. “Dippin’ Dots can be poured effortlessly into cups. They do not melt or make a mess, and plus they are very fun to eat.”

Now, it would seem to me that this is a man after Leon Kass’ heart. Not to mention, ironically, that it gives this enemy of longevity a reason to live, and see such a marvelous future, in which he will no longer have to suffer the indignity of seeing people licking cones in the street, like so many cats at bath.

The Future Is Leon’s Oyster

Well, if not his oyster, at least his dippy dot:

“It seems the legends of 21st-century man’s crude ice cream-eating habits are all true,” Wolcott said. “I see the way you consume these dripping concoctions with protruding tongues, the way the dark cream dribbles down your chins, the way your workers must dig tirelessly with spherical metal ‘scooping’ devices to even obtain this product.”

“Barbarians!” Wolcott added. “Dippin’ Dots can be poured effortlessly into cups. They do not melt or make a mess, and plus they are very fun to eat.”

Now, it would seem to me that this is a man after Leon Kass’ heart. Not to mention, ironically, that it gives this enemy of longevity a reason to live, and see such a marvelous future, in which he will no longer have to suffer the indignity of seeing people licking cones in the street, like so many cats at bath.