My Sick Mind

Imagine my surprise. They held the Miss America pageant at some point over the weekend. Was it on TV? Maybe it was on that Country Music Channel? I only know because I happened to stumble across an article on page A8 of the local newspaper. I remember a time when the result was front page news, with a big color photo. Now, there's barely a blurb and I couldn't tell you the name of the winner, except that I think she is from Michigan. The times are changing for the better. Maybe next year I can write that they skipped the stupid thing altogether. Meanwhile , some men are figure skating in Minnesota tonight. Men figure skating. Any competition that involves the words "men" and "choreography" are great reasons to tune away. I watched long enough for the commentator (a woman) to spout something about the next skater doing a "Quad jump", and how he nailed it in practice, so we'd better be sure to watch carefully. He fell on his skinny ass. Next. Th...

Subtlety, I have learned, is lost on people. Generally, if you are trying to tell someone something and want to be subtle so you won't hurt their feelings, you may as well not bother, because they won't pick it up. Equally lost is subtlety in artistic expression, because it requires deep thought and analysis, two characteristics missing from the mind of modern man. I have been listening to people on the radio and TV discussing the last episode of The Sopranos for most of the day, and I can assure you that whatever David Chase was trying to accomplish was lost somehow in the artistic translation. Mostly, folks are puzzled about the ending, and many people called their local cable operator complaining about losing their signal when the screen went blank at the end. In this case, their reaction to subtle artistic expression was confusion followed by a complaint. I for one, don't know what all the fuss is about. I don't subscribe to HBO, have never seen The Sopranos, don...