The author said “Everything that features Jeffrey Tambor is GOOD. This is a scientific fact.”

And a commenter snarked back “Huh, I never realized Dr. Phil was on Max Headroom.”

First of all, everyone KNOWS Dr. Phool stole the mustache from Tambor (some reports say literally; I’ve seen a police report).

But EVERYTHING? Two words that prove that even JT is fallible: “The Ropers”. And most everyone has tried to forget “Twenty Good Years” with John Lithgow. I think the rule of thumb is that in his worst roles his character’s name was “Jeffrey”. But if you look at his IMDB page you’ll find a lot more than even devoted Tam-Bros may remember: “Superhero Movie”? That Generic Parody released 15 minutes after Generic Parody Movies had permanently jumped the shark featured a treasure trove of icons gone slumming: Leslie Neilsen, Marion ‘Happy Days’ Ross, Brent Spiner, Robert ‘Airplane’ Hays, Dan Castellanetta, Pamela Anderson… you can’t get more ‘mixed bag’.

And there’s a recent unsold pilot in there that made my jaw drop: “Rex Is Not your Lawyer” with DAVID TENNANT in the title role (a lawyer whose panic attacks force him to work behind the scenes), plus Tambor (as his psychiatrist, natch), Jane Curtin and Jerry O’Connell in the regular cast. AND NBC PASSED ON IT? That network is doomed. (end mini-rant)

Or having touch screen troubles? Get an iPhone Sausage Stylus’, now only US99¢ (plus $4.99 shipping, not for consumption) It’s a world of amazing technology we live in.

And, no, the bidding war for basketballer LeBron James is NOT a sport either.

Semi-Interesting Sidelight: Due to its only counting repeated phrases of 3 words or less, one of today’s Twitter Trending Topics is “Dog Eating Contest”.

But before the trip, I co-wrote a parody of the Declaration of Independence for the project we called “The Declaration of Proclamation”, my most successful comedy collaboration, and of the 3 co-writers, I contributed almost 55% of the actual jokes. We essentially went through line-by-line and deconstructed it, starting with “When in the course of humorous vents, it becomes necessary for one people to learn proper grammar and call him-or-herself ‘one person’ and break up the band which has connected him-or-her to the drummer who can’t keep a beat and the bass player who doesn’t even show up for rehearsal…”

Yes, I also contributed the wording “We hold these truths to be irrelevant” after we voted down “irreverent” as too obtuse, and I WISH I could remember the whole thing or had kept a copy, since I cannot recreate exactly how we made “all men are created equal” into a mix of intentionally awkward gender neutrality, subtle-enough-for-AM-radio reference to dick size and math joke using ‘greater-and-or-equal-to’”, but we (all male and college-age would-be comedians) did. I do recall it had a record number of hyphens for a piece written mostly for radio.

And being the representative of the show to a meeting of the San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce to bring the final caligraphed document to get signatures ala the original was mildly terrifying, but that was when I realized exactly what a beloved character Sweet Dick was in that massive suburb of the more massive L.A. metro area. Most of the leaders of a serious movement for the Valley to secede from the City of L.A. signed it, either unaware or uncaring that the whole stunt was parodying their cause. As well as three local elected officials, including a sitting L.A. City Councilman. Surreal.

Worth remembering: July 4, 1977 was one year after the orgy of American patriotism called The Bicentennial, and the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee (a year-long celebration ending with the 25th anniversary of her coronation in June 1953, which, coincidentally, my mother had been in London for, as a break from her year as an exchange teacher in Wales – she was one of “An estimated three million people lined the streets of London to catch a glimpse of the new monarch” and she did get a little Royal wave.)

On July 4th itself, a Monday and a normal working day in the UK, I made my most absurd side trip to Lloyds of London, the 300-year-old insurance exchange with which my insurance underwriter father had done business with for years, and which he offered to give me access to – how could I refuse. As I showed up with my little cassette tape recorder, my dad’s friend at Lloyds got the PR department to allow me to be the FIRST broadcast media person EVER to record audio inside the massive trading hall. When we returned to L.A. and the tapes were played, my 10+ minutes interviewing my dad’s friend at Lloyd’s was deemed boring (it was) and edited down to a formal greeting and 15 seconds of ambient trading hall noise (I sheepishly sent him the full tape).

So how are you spending YOUR Fourth of July holiday?

Anyway, I’m actually somewhat amused by the fact that ANYBODY is shocked that Gibbers used the “n-word” in the process of insulting his Ex. The words “shocked that he could do even worse” than the 2007 incident actually perplexed me. That bigoted blathering he did then was directed at a cop, for goodness sake, and as drunk as he apparently was at the time, there was no doubt in my mind that he was capable of committing even greater offense in conversation with someone he was (a) close to and (b) had personal issues with, an his Ex certainly qualified on both counts. In fact, there are no doubt dozens of things he has said to her that were even MORE offensive/bigoted/insensitive/stupid than that, but were not uttered within range of a good microphone.

I look forward to hearing all about them.

Of course, “haters gonna hate” is one of the most self-definingly stupid catchphrases of the 21st Century so far (and shows promise of making the Top 30 of the entire century, one of the reasons I’m somewhat relieved I won’t be living that long). This kind of turn of phrase is the reason I attempted a few years ago (failing badly) to popularize the acronym UGOTO, standing for “Uncanny Grasp Of The Obvious”, a quote the illustrious sportscaster and put-down artist Howard Cosell used in reference to one of his cliche-spouting colleagues (extra points to Howie that the target of that bon mot was O.J. Simpson, long before he became REALLY famous). “Haters gonna hate” is, at the face of it, a UGOTO.

But of course, nothing that stupid comes without an almost-equally stupid subtext. Since if you are the target of that phrase, the person blathering it is pointing out that you have been caught being hateful and therefore deserve being labeled, above all other identifiers (such as red-headed, systems analyst, diabetic, stamp collector, regular viewer of “CSI” and walks with a limp) as a HATER!

It really does fail rather badly as a put-down, especially since research shows that 98% of the people using it on others are identifiably hate-filled themselves (73% practicing even more Hate than the person they target)*. It’s one of the verbal attacks for which “I am rubber, you are glue” is appropriate in most occasions.

Then again, being a Hater is not such a terrible thing (as long as you also are red-headed, systems analyst, etc.). While it is one of the most destructive human emotional tendencies, it is also one of the most common. Everybody hates. Or maybe 95% of the human race do**. Those few that don’t are either insufferably smug, out of touch with most of reality or spiritually/philosophically/religiously devoted and disciplined enough to be totally irrelevant.

I remember one of the Top 5 Cringeworthy Songs of the 1970′s was all about the same subject, and, like every other song to sell more than a half-dozen 45s during that time, it has a video on YouTube.

Ladies and gentlemen and haters of all ages, I shamefully present Razzy Bailey’s unfortunately immortal recording: “I Hate Hate”. (Be warned: if you can not withstand 3 minutes of uninterrupted preachiness, do NOT click on the YouTube imbed).

If you’re like me (and are old enough), you just relived one of your seven worst moments of the ’70s.

A few years after that misbegotten record came out, I met a guy who, like me, was trying to break into radio whose last name was Hayter, spelled exactly that way but pronounced exactly the same as Hater. That was the worst name for radio I encountered during those years, and I knew other radio guys named Vanbenthuysen and Sakellarides.

Anyway, I admit to being a Hater, but that is no higher than #58 on the list of things I am, right between #57, Bullwinkle fan and #59, user of three pillows when sleeping. It used to rank much higher, but just in the last few years I found it to be a waste of time and energy that could be better used watching Bullwinkle cartoons for the 50th time. It is still not too difficult for something or someone I consider morally reprehensible to make me “get my hate on”, but I no longer hate the merely obnoxious or annoying. I’m kinda proud of that, but I’m not setting any goal to become spiritually/philosophically/religiously devoted and disciplined enough to be totally irrelevant. Especially since I am already totally irrelevant, and you know what? I totally HATE that.

* figures from a study made by somebody whose names I don’t remember
** figure pulled directly out of my ass

Anyway, from time to time, “AARP MedicareComplete form SecureHorizons” feels the need to send me some printed matter with information on services I may or may not be using and may or may not need. Their latest communique has a front cover that prompted a Level 4 WTF?!? from me. Let’s look at it, shall we?

Okay, point number one, it’s obvious that Insurance Companies, especially those doing business with T’e Fed’ral Guv’mint, are going to engage in public displays of Political Correctness, especially in the use of maximum-multi-ethnic clip art. Which usually doesn’t bug me. Of course, when I was a blonde boy the age of the blonde boy in this picture, I didn’t know three people who looked like the other three people in the picture, but that was the 1960s in the San Fernando Valley suburb of L.A. And then it struck me… blonde boy? Asian girl? Mixed-race child of somewhat indeterminate gender? Only the woman with the paintbrush looks anywhere near the age of 99% of the people Medicare Advantage plans apply to, and that’s only if you look closely, because she is certainly trying to look younger. Frankly, I doubt that very many of AARP MedicareComplete from SecureHorizons’ clients ever find themselves in the presence of three kids of any ethnic background unless they are all grandchildren. So that picture just looked not quite right for the intended audience.

Then I looked at the title that was supposed to describe the contents of this communique: Health or wellness or prevention information Or WTF?!? The first time I read it, my eyes skipped over the second ‘or’, just like you can miss short words that are duplicated like this over here –>

Is this information on how to prevent health or wellness? Even with the second ‘or’, it could be interpreted as giving the option for health/wellness prevention. Now, many people may consider it one of the benefits of America’s pseudo-free-market health care industry that they are not forcing health and wellness on us, but that is exactly the kind of thinking that is the mission of this blog to destroy. Then again, if you think that your wellness or illness should be something you make a conscious choice about, I recommend you choose Cancer.

Then again, just looking at this design disaster from a so-called Health Care Provider makes choosing against health somewhat tempting.

Once semi-reassured I was surviving (as well as I ever do), I noticed that nobody had posted an obit for him at MetaFilter (known for its frequent ‘Obitfilters’ and the practice of comments consisting of a single period “.” to represent a moment of silence) so I did it myself.

Jimmy was best known to Mefites for his brand of sausage, although he sold the company in the ’80s, and was dropped as its spokesman in 2003; its current owner is Sara Lee*. But his musical legacy is sealed by his ‘country rap**’ classic "Big Bad John" (performed live in 2008), often imitated, but never parodied better than with the stereotypical gay hairdresser saga "Big Bruce"*** (info). But to me, he was the guy with the variety show where he spent several minutes every week bantering with the muppet Rowlf****. Here’s Jimmy in Esquire Magazine’s "What I’ve Learned". His final resting place is music-themed, NOT sausage themed. "Here lies one hell of a man."

* Sara Lee’s original namesake is LONG gone but the company recently had a female CEO who is currently on medical leave.
** other MeFites pointed out the formal name for that style of song was “recitation”, but any category of song that includes “Big Bad John”, “A Boy Named Sue” and “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” deserves a cooler name.
*** the Steve Greenberg who did that novelty record was not the same guy who was behind Lipps, Inc. and “Funkytown”, it was oddly appropriate that they had the same name. Another classic Big Bad John parody pointed out by others was “The Ballad of Irving”, but it was more a general satire of folk legend songs.
**** performed by Jim Henson, with Frank Oz giving a hand (literally). The first muppet character to have a regular role in a TV series, ‘Old Brown Ears’ was pivotal in building the brand.

as seen on MetaFilter

* not unlike the phenomenon where a phrase is not considered Oxymoronic until someone has written an article loudly declaring that it "is NOT an Oxymoron".

As seen on MetaFilter.