Quest for Truth: An Explanation for my Recent Oddities

So, as astute readers may remember, my favorite book in the world is “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson. Anyway, he has a pretty interesting anecdote in there about the “riveting oddity” of Sir Isaac Newton. It is said that in the morning when Newton would awake, he would roll his legs out of bed and then be struck with paralysis by all the thoughts moving through his head. I hear ya Newt, I get that too. Yesterday to be specific.

Now, I’m not saying I am Newton. In fact, this segues nicely with a conversation I had with the Paratrooper of Love at the Milblog conference.

We were fighting about who deserved the Milbloggie award more, TAH or B5.

Blackfive: But if there can be no arrangement, then we are at an impasse.

TSO: I’m afraid so — I can’t compete with you physically. And you’re no match for my brains.

Blackfive: You’re that smart?

TSO: Let me put it this way: have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?

B5: Yes.

TSO: Morons.

Anyway, we decided to resolve the dispute by contest. He filled two mugs with a frothy brown substance.

B5: inhale this, but do not drink.

TSO: It smells like heaven mixed with the tears of Victoria Secret Models.

B5: What you smell is Guinness. It is odiferous, tasty, dissolves instantly in your liver, and is among the more deadly poisons known to man.

Now look, I don’t need to go through the next 7 hours at O’Sullivans to explain what happened. Little did I know that he had spent a lifetime building up a tolerance to Guinness, whereas I got so drunk I even gave Uncle Jimbo a man-hug.

Where was I? Oh yeah, anyway, occasionally I also get stuck in a thought that I simply can not get rid of. Usually it comes in the form of a list. Like, Top 5 reasons that the Patriots are the greatest team ever. Reasons 2 and 1 were: Only known Mascot arrested for prostitution in Rhode Island, and a QB voted Sexiest person alive by 99.07% of both men and women.

Anyway, the one that had me out of sorts:

Top Three Reasons that Blue Oyster Cult is totally not Ghey.

(Ghey, not Gay, meaning faggy, but not in a man-man love affair way.)

Totally popped into my head unbidden. Like the need to see Bea Arthur naked, it was something I could not purge. I think it was kicked off by something I read over at Ace’s shop, but by noon I was totally useless. I totally needed to 1) come up with 3 reasons, 2) find someone to perform an exorcism; or 3) throw myself down those really long stairs in Georgetown. Either that or chase around a greased up deaf guy which also tends to help.

Anyway, reason 1 was obvious.

Although, it does need more cowbell. (Alas, I couldn’t find a good youtube of the cowbell skit that wasn’t backwards, and that one unnerved the hell out of me.)

Reason #2 was self-evident as well, singing a song about a mutant lizard eating little Japanese people and destroying Tokyo Doolittle-style will ALWAYS land you in my top echelon.

But that is where this crazy train went off the rails. I mean, where is #3?

So, I posted 5 different posts, but was still unable to purge my mind of this seemingly mindboggling conundrum. I even threw it out there to my coworkers.

Now, to give you an idea of what I am like at work. I am the weird dude in the corner office that had maintenance turn off the lights and heat, who sits there with his hoodie on listening to weird shit ranging from Steven Hawking books to Jethro Tull covers of John Barleycorn Must Die. (Which incidentally is what I was hearing in my mind as I drank with Pool Cue Jim, Sniper, the Paratroop of love, et al.)

Finally, the cool new chick at work (the one NOT busted for wearing flip flops) responded with:

They do that pretty cool Visa Commercial.

AH! Now, I have no idea what commercial she is talking about, but I’ll take any lifeline or vest thrown to me in a storm. So I googled the shit out of that thing for an hour, and then left to go home. Then I get an email from said cool work chick:

Disregard, that was the Moody Blues.

FUG. So now I am in a funk, still paralyzed mentally, and I have a ton of shit to do. So, I took my gay puggle to the dog park to allow him to mount other male dogs, either for pleasure or so they can chase his dumbass around the park and into the huge mud puddle.

At this point I thought of ending the farce by using my old Cliff Claven standbye of “Name of a band that has never been in my kitchen?” but that would be a cop-out.

At long last salvation came in the form of an email from Superbowl6Romeo, currently on some BS junket to Puerto Rico.

Look, they aren’t nearly as ghey as Cheap Trick, haven’t you ever seen “The Flame”?

So, there you have it. At last I have a solid 3 answers, and I can put this whole sorry, tired debacle behind me.

However, I will be incommunicado for the rest of the week working on some legal stuff. So, if you need me, put up the Guinness Bat Signal, click your heals three times, and don’t bother calling my phone because it will be off. I’ll the douche with the flip flops and hoodie hiding in his office.

UPDATE: My friend M2 suggests that the logo alone should rate them as non-Ghey.

According to wiki:

The hook-and-cross logo was designed by Bill Gawlik[3] in January 1972[10], and appears on all of the band’s albums.[9] Reports that the logo is made from three exclamation marks and a backwards question mark are false. In Greek mythology, “…the hook-and-cross symbol is that of Kronos (Cronus), the king of the Titans and father of Zeus…and is the alchemical symbol for lead (a heavy metal), one of the heaviest of metals.”[11] Sandy Pearlman considered this, combined with the heavy and distorted guitar sound of the band and decided the description “heavy metal”[12] would be aptly applied to Blue Öyster Cult’s musical sound. In Roman mythology, the hook-and-cross symbol represents Saturn, the God of agriculture and fertility.[13] The hook and cross symbol also resembles the Sickle, which is associated with both Kronos (Cronus) and Saturn (both the Planet and the Roman God).[14] The logo’s “…metaphysical, alchemical and mythological connotations, combined with its similarity to some religious symbols gave it a flair of decadence and mystery…” [10]

Category: Politics