There are those occasional stings by law enforcement whereby criminals at large are enticed to repair to a destination with the juicy bait of supposed money or big ticket consumer goods dangling above their greedy, salivating lips as promised "rewards" for a fabrication about winning lottery tickets or some such poppycock. These are often successful enterprises by the boys in blue or their allies in police work. It's a distinct pleasure to read about, or better yet to view footage of the lowlifes and dimwits involved as they arrive in circumscribed and secure quarters, are unpleasantly surprised and then speedily ensnared in the nets of justice.
But what about the quotidian tedium of folks one unavoidably interacts with who, though not criminals, are so mediocre in the wattage of their collective intellects that one begins to long for a detention of them in a place far away from the rest of us who cogitate with some facility and who do not generally do or say stupid things that interrupt the flow of pleasant, witty and salubrious human exchanges. How I pine for a law that would segregate the likes of a pleasant but thoroughly air headed receptionist (let's call her Amoebarina) from normal society: a gal who,where I once worked (a position that often took me on the road and away from the office) never failed to inform me when returning to the company's reception area, that I had received a telephone call and who also never failed to respond to my query "Who was it?" with the moronic "I don't know." Also unknown to our darling mental cipher was why the person called, whether he or she would call back or what number he or she might be reached at. Seven or eight times this occurred and it at last dawned on me (I was also not terribly sharp on a solution up until then to this state of affairs, I must confess) to inform Amoebarina that she should not inform me of ANY phone calls for me: their importance hopefully assuring that another form of communication would succeed in allowing the interested party to reach me (but one not involving her assistance {?}, "thank you very much anyway, Ms. A."). My irritation with Amoebarina was leavened once when I had the rare opportunity to listen to her while on our shared lunch hour as we sat at our respective desks several yards apart one particularly slow day. A personal call for her, acceptable for these particular circumstances, was, like most "half" conversations, an imperfect tale, i.e. its full comprehension for an audience (me) hobbled by the obvious gaps of the other party's unheard remarks. However, in this case, Amoebarina's replies (and apparently her own creative offerings to supposedly sustain the conversation were especially clueless, as was she, in helping one to get the drift and gist of the talk) were truly virtually indistinguishable and after a short while, very entertaining as an inadvertent comedy skit. Her contributions to enlightenment and to the elevation of human discourse were the following: "I don't know", "Oh, I don't know", "I don't know", "Gee, I don't know", "Well, I don't really know", "No, I don't know" and then to remind us of her virtuosity: "You know, I don't honestly know, you know?" There must be a special place in hell for bad folks, intellectually akin to a Noel Coward, an Oscar Wilde, a Dick Cavett or a William F. Buckley, Jr., where unmatched torments in the persons of billions of little Amoebarina demons echoing their murderously repeated brain-dead utterings ad infinitum, ravage the lost souls of these eternally and uselessly brilliant minds.
What about simple little plans to help someone and that are prospective occasions for non-chaos and satisfaction for a job well done. Today, I learned that several medical reports from a specialist I had recently seen were needed by my general practitioner whom I had scheduled an appointment to see. My xerox machine, a generally reliable convenience, allowed me the chance to prepare the necessary copies with no extra time involved traveling to a copy machine store. Upon arriving at the doctor's office I explained, simply and concisely, that I had made these copies for the doctor's files on me and that I only required one copy made (as one of the pages was an original since my ink cartridge at home had just run dry when I attempted to copy this final page). My M.D.'s receptionist nodded, but she hadn't really heard me. One minute later she handed me back all of the pages I had given her, having made copies of all of them. Minor snafu you say? No need to get upset, you suggest? Sure, but multiply those brief minutes of unthinking and unnecessary behavior by all the other instances every day in American offices all over this land and you get an idea of how the culture of waste may be eating out the core of our collective brains in a slow motion Ebola virus-like way that spells doom to a once habitually smart and focused people.
Ever walk into an office (I did recently, and it happened to be another medical facility) near to the start of lunch hour? Minds are suddenly razor sharp and laser-like in their communication of information and subtle perceptions and decision making. "Does the brown rice come with the sesame sauce?" "Are the steamed dumplings as good as No.1 Wok's was?" "Can I still get the dinner portions?" "Do you have an extra take out menu?" No one is catatonic or somnambulating in these circumstances. Men and women, highly skilled and dedicated (brain surgeons and jet airliner pilots as examples) are those we still trust don't need to be hypnotized with an equation of the enthusiasm for a scrumptious dinner to the gusto to achieve a successful result on the operating table or on a tarmac in order to concentrate wholeheartedly on their jobs. But what of the many who firmly believe that merely showing up for one's job is the equivalent of a job well done?
How about the increasingly imbecilic television commercials inflicted upon us in recent years? They have long since passed the milestone of simply insulting the intelligence of prospective customers. Now, pure garbage and intellectual bankruptcy are standard fare for many a company spending milllions on lies and UNFUNNY pitches for their goods or services. Where is the wit, humor and believability of "blind testing" persons on the street by having them imbibe samples of a liquid and seeing how wisely they have chosen an automobile insurance company thereby? Who are they kidding? Surrealism may have a place in advertising but it needs to be conjoined with at least some basic intelligence. Of course, the "Man on the Street" customer in his unassailable wisdom proclaims the inferiority of the brand "x" auto insurance/drink with very dull normal and repeated utterances of "that's no good", "no good, whatever that is." What is no damned good is this commercial and its abominable failure as entertainment and as anything remotely resembling worthwhile communication. Let's not forget also, another automobile insurance company's spiel that uses the powerfully rich, deep and arresting voice of the actor Dennis Haysbert in a disturbing way. Other actors' characters, when extolling the virtues of the insurance firm to less enlightened characters, suddenly speak with Haysbert's voice and are apparently inhabited by his charismatic soul (or at least his acting chops). The effect is somewhat frightening to this blogger who well remembers the impact of Linda Blair's possessed character in "The Exorcist" of many years ago. Perhaps it is arguably not horrifying, but it is undoubtedly neither fascinating nor terribly interesting as a supposedly masterful device to exploit Haybert's "brand" (his wonderful baritone voice) and close the deal on purchasing this insurance. Another particularly irritating item of some of this company's commercials is the use of a totally unbelievable character for the sole purpose (seemingly) of providing a contrast to the vaunted "reliability" of the firm. To explain: several of the ads feature a crew of "hardhats" working, digging and drilling on a street. One worker advises another about insurance (his voice morphing of course, into Haysbert's), then another pair performs similarly and then the foreman corroborates the great virtues of the company to another worker including praise (yes, while explicitly and auditorily channeling Dennis) for its reliable ways "unlike Randy over there." Randy is a hardhat who has just dropped his jackhammer as if it were akin to one of the demons who tortured Ms. Blair's character. Randy is young, very confused and of course, a Caucasian male. This is what passes for comic relief in 21st century commercials and aside from it being a tad racist it is utterly without humor if only because it does not in the least partake of any veracity. A man who is afraid of or incompetent with a jackhammer would not have been hired in the first place and if he had managed to "slip through the cracks" (the favored modern phrase for bureaucratic cock-ups that implies with its metaphor that one is free from responsibility because of an unknown carpenter's inferior craftsmanship) such a display would have been noted and acted upon with dispatch and not as a grudging tolerance of a fellow worker as retarded family member.
So let's gather the creators and producers of inane television commercials, the bird brained who can't perform the simplest tasks of their job descriptions, and the adequately intelligent or even better who only selectively concentrate on their duties or farm them out to entry level types as they wangle for a little extra R&R on the boss' dime. Nothing drastic, I'm afraid can, or I'll admit, should be done to these dolts. However, a period of forced encampment might prove instructive to these ninnies and may cause some reflection, to the extent that they are capable of such thoughtfulness. There is little hope for Amoebarina, but one can pray for her and keep her away from heavy machinery and avoid, especially any inquiries about her knowledge of ANYTHING. When the legendary German Sgt. Schultz of the classic television show "Hogan's Heroes" protested stubbornly that "I know NOTHING!" when being pumped for information by Allied P.O.W.s, he was dissembling surely, but the delicious entertainment value was based on his intelligence and actual knowledge about any given political situation in the "Stalag", played out against his conflicted character's humanity. More and more, as we retreat further and further from the 20th century the utterance "I know NOTHING!" is at best, a brutally honest confession devoid of any tickling of a funny bone or "stonewalling", its only saving grace being its distinction from a horrible new spectre: the burgeoning legions of those who don't know that they know nothing.
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