A Few Good Minutes with Chicago Andy

Hello, everyone, I hope you are well today. I must apologize in advance, as I do not know very much about Drag Racing. My cousin Jon has written down some things on three by five cards for me, and has said I'll be fine, just go ahead and 'wing it'.

I don't like that, it sounds un-professional. The phrase 'wing it' has its origins in English theater in the 1880s, and it means the understudy in a play will have to improvise, should he have to take the stage. He should have learned the lines, isn't that his job?  Anyway, the first card Jon left had me confused me at first. It said, "Watch the races in Atlanta". Which ones? Was I supposed to check up on the Chinese, or the Italians?? Then I turned the card over, it continued with "On Fox Sports Network". Well, that's an entirely different matter.

I looked it up in the TV Guide. Funny, for a race that is actually run starting in the morning, it doesn't come on ‘til almost dinner time. WHY IS THAT? Everybody has the instant information available on their phones and such, why didn't they put the thing on earlier? It's old news by dinner.

Anyway, I set the VCR, and watched it the next day. They have two main announcers, a professional spokesman named Brian, and a former racer named Tony. The fellow Brian, man can he talk FAST. He reminds me of a professor I knew once named Dr. Morris Massey, who can speak at the pace that most people THINK. It's exhausting to listen to him! The other fellow, Tony, well talking isn't what he used to do, and as such he doesn't do it very well. After the break-neck speed Brian was going at, I felt like we needed a dentist to come in and pull the words out of Tony’s mouth. The two as a team are like Speedy Gonzalez and Forest Gump. WHY IS THAT? And another thing, the show is constantly explaining the sport. When I watch a baseball game, I don't see them come back from commercial and start droning on, “This is a bat, this is a ball, the mound is sixty feet from home plate.”

If you’re willingly watching this show, you must have an idea of how the sport is conducted. Why are they explaining it, over and over? Why is that?

Jon’s other card says “discuss Facebook.” He’d better be getting me a nice present for Christmas this year, because I do not know much about that either. So, I punched it up on my computer, a good old reliable TRS80 I got from a Radio Shack store. Boy, you don't see many of THOSE anymore. Why is that? I set up an account, and started reading about the hows, whats and whys of this new-fangled thing. Well, for one, it's not even a book. Those things you see behind me, THOSE are books, this Facebook is just people talking on the world wide web. And a lot of the people on it don't even use their FACES! A lot of the users of this just have a blue silhouette, or a picture of their pet.

My first day I got several 'friend requests'. This is someone on the web wanting to be my friend, except there's just one problem, I do not KNOW any of these people! If I were to just randomly walk down the street and approach a total stranger and say be my friend, they'd probably haul me off to Bellevue! Two of the people had names that I don't think were their actual names either. No sane person would name their child Bowla Puddin’ or better yet, Frankie FudgePop.

Now, I did manage to find some interesting things on this contraption, some pages dedicated to fine museums, which I liked, and another that had many pictures of beautiful National Parks. But there was something mentioned, when I was doing my research, that had me intrigued. It said that Facebook was the home of two things, trolls, and something called a 'duck-face'. Now, everyone knows that a troll is what lives under the bridge in the classic Norwegian folk tale of Billy Goats Gruff. The grandchildren love when I read them that story at bedtime!

But the other, made me wonder if this was something I'd forgotten about from one of my favorite science fiction books. When I was a lad I loved a book I read in elementary school, that being H.G. Wells’ classic The Island of Doctor Moreau. That Doctor, he was an evil man, he would cross-morph animals and humans! I was wondering, did he put a duck’s face on a human, and I'd forgotten about it? So, I punched duck-face into the search engine on my computer. Oh MY!! You would not believe the images that popped up, all these girls, with huge puckers on their kissers! At the same time, I noticed I was getting friend requests from young girls, all making this same silly face. And I don't think they were using THEIR birth names either. Nobody would name their daughter Ima Vailable or Yuvanna Bone-me.

I asked the nice young fellow who repairs our furnace about these gals and he told me they sounded like hookers. I responded that they probably didn't even know how to thread a needle, let alone run a loom, and he said, no, sir, they are probably PROSTITUTES! Can you believe that? AT&T once had a commercial urging you to “reach out and touch someone”, but how in the blue-blazes are you supposed to fornicate over a computer?? Some people have strange agendas. Why is that?

Well, I suppose that just about covers everything. I hope you've enjoyed me filling in as much as I've enjoyed being here. I remember how much fun it was when Bob Newhart would fill in for Johnny Carson -- I feel just like that! I still have my copy of the album BUTTON DOWN MIND; what fun that was.

Jon’s signature sign-off is a tad bit of bad grammar, so I'll close this out by saying, I look forward to renewing our acquaintance!