Month: March 2017

French Friday I: (Re-)Intoduction

Friday Feature

One of the many things I enjoyed about my old blog was something I did on Fridays, wherein I featured three items from a particular country. I don’t remember what I called it, but today marks its return, wherein I feature some fine things from la belle France. So who or what prompted the return of this (quite popular, as I recall) feature?

Juliette Binoche, that’s who. Here’s a (recent) pic of this magnificent French creature, at age 53:

Are you kidding me? I’ve had girlfriends in their twenties and thirties who didn’t look this good. And yes, lighting, flattering camera shot blah blah blah. Here’s a closeup from that same occasion:

Yeah, a few more wrinkles… and she still doesn’t look like a woman in her fifties. Now we all know that movie stars are not uncommon visitors to the plastic surgeon’s operating table, but the best part of Ms. Binoche’s appearance is that she hasn’t had any cosmetic surgery — in fact, she’s gone on record as hating the idea. All that, and she’s a brilliant actress too. The hills are alive… with the sounds of ordinary women chanting their envious hatred.

Speaking of hills, and to switch gears for a moment, as it were: here’s a French car I think looks quite sexy too. It’s the Alpine 110 Berlinette of 1968, which makes it a bare four years younger than Juliette:

The original 110 had a tiny 1.1-liter rear-mounted Renault engine, but later models (as pictured) sported a larger 1.3-liter block, and these would dominate the World Rally Championship (WRC) for several years — their reign ended only by the mighty Lancia Stratos in 1974.  I have to tell you all: I love the look of this little beast. It’s quirky and sexy (like Juliette Binoche), and I’d love to drive one around a track — maybe somewhere in the south of France.

And as a final segue in this post, talking of Provence reminds me of possibly my favorite modern movie of all time. It’s Ridley Scott’s A Good Year, starring Russell Crowe and the exquisite Marion Cotillard (Mlle. Binoche’s only contemporary competition in the “Gorgeous French Actress” category). The story is about how a driven, ruthless futures trader (Crowe) inherits a piece of property in Provence, and how the country, the place, and its people change him forever.

I watch this movie about every three months or so, or whenever I want to submerge myself in romance. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should.

La belle France, indeed. And I didn’t even touch on French wine, cheese or bread. Those may come in a later post.

 

Senior Sex

Men & Women

From a longtime friend living behind enemy lines in the south of Frankistan comes this little snippet:

The frequency of sexual activity of senior males depends largely on where they were born.
Statistics just released from Statistics Canada, World Health Organisation and The United Nations B.O.H. Team, reveal that:
North American, Australian, South African, New Zealand and British men between 60 and 75 years of age, will on average, have sex two to three times per week, (and a small number a lot more), whereas Japanese men, in exactly the same age group, will have sex only once or twice per year if they are lucky.
This has come as very upsetting news to a lot of us at the golf club, as none of us had any idea that we were Japanese…

Another part of the study:

Those who have even less senior sex than the Japanese are known as “Jewish”…

Okay, I made the last bit up. Shuddup, Shlomo.

See, I don’t mind talking bout sex when it’s a joke. It’s when people get all serious about it that my trigger-finger starts to twitch. Which makes the post below all the more alarming.

Tightening And Stretching

Men & Women

Someone did a study — a serious one this time — back in 2011 which looked at the reported incidence of surgical “improvements” by men and women on their naughty bits, and ranked the incidence by country. Here they are:

Top 5 countries for vaginal rejuvenation:
1. Colombia
2. Brazil
3. Greece
4. Italy
5. Venezuela

Okay, I have no idea what’s included in “vaginal rejuvenation” and I’m afraid to ask, but apparently it’s something of an issue for South American women.

Even better are the Top 5 countries for penis enlargement:
1. Greece
2. Italy
3. France
4. Spain
5. Netherlands

Clearly, South American men have no equivalent phallic issues to their women’s woo-woos, but those “Latin lovers” appear to be something of a myth, in terms of, shall we say, penetrative powers. (Note that Greece and Italy appear on both sides of the equation, as it were. I don’t know why that would be, but I will welcome the opinions of others, in Comments.)

I have no link for the original, but I read it in the Daily Mail, so it must be true.

Disrespect

Culture

I remember once that Daughter was going out on a date with some guy (whom we hadn’t met), and of course we insisted on meeting him. (I should point out that we told her this a few days before the date, so there’s no excuse for what follows.)

So Date Day comes, the doorbell rings, and Daughter answers the door. Whereupon I hear some furious whispering from her — furious in that I could hear it from down the hall:
“You can’t show up to take me out dressed like that!”
“Why not?”
“I told you my parents are conservative!”
“I’m dressed okay.”
“No, you’re not — Jesus, they’re going to kill you! You have to go back home and change into something nicer! Go, go!” and I heard the door closing.

Of course, I got up and raced over to the library window to see what the kid was dressed like, to Daughter’s extreme embarrassment.

Let’s just say that he looked as though he’d just come from a beach party by way of working on his friend’s car, with dirty cutoff jeans, a ragged tee shirt, and flip-flops. No wonder Daughter had been appalled. And when I asked her, she said that she’d just used us as the excuse: she didn’t want to go out with him dressed like that. Good for her, but that’s not the point. Daughter had told young Slobbo, frequently, that her parents were conservative; so his appearance as a slob on that day was one of two attitudes (or both): “Screw your old-fart parents!” or “Your opinion doesn’t matter: I’ll dress the way I want.” (I should point out that a week later, he was gone from Daughter’s life. After she discovered that he already had a steady girlfriend at university in Houston.)

I don’t know when or how it became acceptable for women to dress up for dates, while their boyfriends think it’s okay to look as though they’ve just come from a beach party by way of working on their friend’s car, with dirty cutoff jeans, a ragged tee shirt, and flip-flops. I don’t even know why young women today put up with it, because at the heart of the matter, if the guy doesn’t care what he looks like when he’s out with her, I can’t help thinking that he doesn’t care what she thinks — surely, no woman would be proud to introduce Skid Row Simon as her boyfriend when he looks like, well, Skid Row Simon.

As with all things, allow me to illustrate with pitchurs. In each case, the girls are dressed exquisitely, while their dates… oy vey.

I should point out that in each case, the men are apparently no longer their boyfriends.

But my question is: what possesses women to answer the door to such slobs, and not say, “I’m not going out with you if you’re going to be dressed like that!” I can understand that less-attractive women may not have the luxury of turning down a date, any date; but the the two above could surely have said something. (For all the invective that Paris Hilton gets — mostly from envious people — you can’t deny that she’s always exquisitely dressed. And she can pick and choose her dates with aplomb, so why this?) And they’re not stupid young girls anymore, either: Paris was in her late twenties or early thirties, I think, when the above pic was taken.

At the heart of the matter is this: dressing like a slob when you go out by yourself is just being a slob, and while I disapprove, I don’t care too much because I have better things to rant about. But to show up for a date dressed like a fucking tramp shows profound disrespect for your partner — like she doesn’t matter — and that I cannot let go by without comment.

Young men need to get their shit together. What was a “statement” during the Dirty-Hippie Era (I was there, I know all about it) is no longer that statement; instead, the statement is: “I’m a tool and an asshole.”

And shame on women who enable this trend, too. I promise you this: if he doesn’t care how he looks to you, you don’t matter to him other than as a cock holster. Raise your standards, FFS, or you’re going to get treated like shit by men for your whole life.

Here’s one last pic to demonstrate the point: on the left, Don Draper and on the right, Jon Hamm. Same guy, different clothes.

If given the choice, a woman would prefer to go out on a date with the guy on the right (and it’s not a beach party), there’s something wrong with her.

For those men who want to update their look by going retro, start here.

Lovely To See You Again, My Friend

General

Yeah, I know: it’s the title of an old Moody Blues song (and one with which they usually open their live shows). But in my case, it resonates with me, and not only because I’ve always loved the Moodies.

I have been astonished at how many of my former Readers — that is to say, Readers from my previous website offerings — have come back to see this latest version of my back porch. More than that, however, is the pleasure I feel at making their acquaintance, again. I recognize the online nicknames, remember the stuff they like to read about, and hell, even their writing styles are familiar to me, some as much as my own.

I’m not a man who requires much validation — as all know, my attitude is “Like me, and stay; dislike me, and feel free to go somewhere else” — so to have all you guys and ladies reappear out of the mists of time gives me not a feeling of validation, but of pleasure, just as one would greet an old school friend.

And yes, while the circumstances of my back porch’s reappearance are lousy, it helps a great deal that so many of you have said, in essence, “We’re truly sorry about the circumstances, but damn, it’s good to have you back.”

Ditto.

When I relaunched my blog, I spoke about needing a reason to live (and I promise, this will likely be the last time I mention this), and I believed that writing was okay, but not a complete reason to do so.

Actually, it is. I wake up each day not with a thought of “What the hell am I going to write about today?” but rather, “What do I feel like writing about today?” The difference between the two questions is profound, and I have to tell you all, the fact that there’s an audience of old friends willing to indulge me in my rants, raves and quasi-intellectual scribblings one more time makes the whole thing easy.

You see, I don’t choose to write; I have to write, have to communicate, and make known all the stuff which pleases me, enrages me and strikes me dumb with its beauty. And of course, there’s the godless Democrats to consider… and in a later post, I will explain the concept behind The Glorious Day.

In the meantime, please let me offer my deepest gratitude to all my Returning Readers for having faith in me after so long an absence, and to the New Readers, with whom I’ll no doubt become as familiar as with the older group, a.k.a the Beer ‘N Treason Set (thank you, Longtime Friend and Reader Jim D, for the name).

It’s good to be alive and writing again. And it is lovely to see you again, my friends.

Now For The Marketing

General

Later today I’ll be doing a walk-through of the old house to see how the reno contractors performed. Then the realtor and I will formulate a marketing strategy to get the house shown in its best light — by “the realtor and I” I mean of course “the realtor”, because this is their métier and I’ve always believed in letting the pros do their job unmolested. She’s going to tell me what she’s going to do, and I’m going to nod sagely and say, “Excellent idea.” I’ve sold maybe two houses in my time, and not locally; she does that every week. Who do you think has the better idea of what sells in our market?

On that topic, by the way, there’s a good rule of thumb that whenever you see a totally shit ad on TV, the chances are excellent that it was either created by, influenced by or produced by the client, and not the ad agency.

I was once responsible for a marketing department which had three ad agencies working on different aspects of the company’s business — one handled all the fresh items (produce, fruit, bakery, floral etc), another did the grocery “dailies” — the everyday ads such as seen in the newspapers and flyers — while the third agency handled hard goods (furniture, clothing, appliances and housewares). Each agency was picked because they specialized in that particular area, all tried ceaselessly to poach parts of each other’s business, and all had their pee-pees whacked (by me) for straying into areas outside their own expertise.

“Leave it to the professionals!” should be every manager’s motto, but sadly, few follow that simple rule. Most think they know better than the pros — like I could perform a laparoscopy on myself better than a doctor simply because it’s my body and I know it better than they do. But businessmen — especially company owners — think they understand the marketing of their business or product better than the pros in marketing- and ad agencies. Without exception, they don’t. Even I, who had once worked at a couple of ad agencies and actually understood the process, generally deferred to the agency because — wait for it — it’s their job to know more about it than the client. The one time I exercised the Client Veto was because they’d misinterpreted the brief, which was — ta-da! — my fault in that I hadn’t communicated the brief properly (a.k.a. GIGO — garbage in, garbage out, as the old pros know).

Likewise, my brief to the contractors (flooring and painting) was simple: “Do what you think is best, make the place look amazing, but stay within the budget — unless I specifically authorize otherwise, because otherwise, you’re going to eat the overage.” I also told them before we started that I am the world’s most understanding client and will leave them alone — right up until somebody fucks up or breaks their word to me, and then I’ll be their worst nightmare. We’ll see how well they did, later in the day.

I love Linda, the realtor, by the way. Consummate professional, very experienced, no-nonsense and smart as hell. Took no shit from me, explained everything fully, brooked no argument; but when I told her why I was selling the place, she teared up. “You must really have loved your wife,” she commented; and when I asked why she said that, she replied, “Because every time you talk about her, what she said and what she did, you have a smile on your face.”

Guilty as charged. Damn, I miss her still more, every day.