"E Pluribus Unum" Humor Contest

"E Pluribus Unum" was the original motto of the United States. In fact Wikipedia has an excellent history of the phrase, the motto, and its relationship to ever-evolving lingerie fashions at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pluribus_unum

The Laughorist figures, 50 years is enough. New times and customs demand new mottoes (after all, lingerie from the 1950s ain't the same as today's styles, unless it's a retro kind of thing). (Enough already with the digressions!) (Okay.)

The Contest

Coin an original new motto for the U.S. of A. as she celebrates her birthday.

The Rules

It must be funny and original (at least in the eyes of The Laughorist). The Laughorist is the judge, jury, and executioner on this one (give or take a view friends on the Jersey City waterfront and Brooklyn).

Send entries to spindox@yahoo.com. So it's not tossed away as spam, put Contest in the subject line.

Enter as often as you like....whether you are from the USA or elsewhere (open-minded about it; it's just a freaking humor contest; not "humour" though).

It's free.

Deadline: July 7, 2006.

Prizes

First-prize winner gets to select any one item from The Laughorist Store [see sidebar link].

Second-prize winner gets to select any item under US$15 at the store.

Winners and Honorable Mentions will get cited here.

Have at it.

Non me noce, solus nuntius sum!

Dharma vs. Salma

This Zen mondo from today's Zen Calendar (Workman Publishing):

A monk asked Yun-men:

"What is the pure and clear body of the Dharma?"

Yun-men replied: "Flowery hedge."


The Laughorist replied: "Salma Hayek."

Writing = Garbage?

In browsing through Jon Winokur's delicious The Portable Curmudgeon, my imaginary big toe just stubbed itself on this bit of a boulder in the shoe we now call blogging:

All writing is garbage. People who come out of nowhere to try to put into words any part of what goes on in their minds are pigs. -- Antonin Artaud

Um, Mr. A.A.? That would me moi. Oink. OINK! And the rest of us, I s'pose.

I don't know Artaud's works except for a riveting essay about him by the late Susan Sontag around 1973 in The New Yorker. You could look it up (as Casey Stengel said, and sources say HE was actually mimicking an earlier quote). My anal-rententive mind works that way. (Did you ever see the great T-shirt in Wireless, the public radio catalog, that says something like, "Is anal retentive hyphenated?") I remember Artaud as an anarchist French playwright. I guess. But, whew, how prescient could one be?

...to put into words any part of what goes on in their minds...

That be us, Artie.

Winokur's little gem of a book offers just two more quotes on writing. Here they are:

If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing. -- Kingsley Amis.

That's Martin's Da, the author of Lucky Jim, a fine satire. (I love Martin Amis's Money, as well as other works. I know, not on my Favorites. Who cares.)

And:

If I didn't have writing, I'd be running down the street hurling grenades in people's faces. -- Paul Fussell.

And now a word from our irredeemably shameless sponsor:

Why not hurl slogans in people's faces instead of grenades? Go to The Laughorist Store on the sidebar. (Ain't nothin' like it anywhere else. Lucky us.)

A Slice of Life (Thin)

The Beatles sing "...say the Word..." on my car's speakers just as we pull up across the house, the summer rain now falling harder, tapping on the car roof. I say, "That's my favorite sound in the whole world, I think." I turn the car off. The music from the newly acquired Father's Day CD Rubber Soul goes silent. It is dark. The windshield wipers cease their metronome beat. You say, "My favorite sound is the birds when the sun first rises. I guess we just have different personalities." I sort of hum agreeably. To myself. No sound comes out. No words. Just the plinking rain. Receding now. We open the car doors. And now it is pouring, splashing between the close houses. "That's the sound I like," you say. We agree on that one.

San Francisco 'They Might Be' Giants

Ray Durham's apparently first-ever walk-off homer yesterday brought a thrilling win for my boys. Being on the East Coast, I had been following the game on Yahoo.com. But, oh me of little faith. After the Jints failed to score with runners on first and third, with the team down 7-5 in the 8th, I pretty much gave up and went to walk the dog. (Nice walk. Magic light. Put the game out of mind.)

What a shocker to come back and discover the Giants had snagged a big W!

I've been a fan since 1955.

How's that for timing? (They had just won the 1954 World Series and I asked my older brother Richard who his favorite baseball team was.)

Someday maybe I'll get hypnotized to relive those moments that I probably witnessed as a 5-year-old in front of a black and white TV with a screen the size of a postage stamp, cigarette smoke of adults swirling around us.

They'll never get closer.

Not in my lifetime.

Six outs away in 2002.

Sadly, I agree with Gwen Knapp of the San Francisco Chronicle (www.sfgate.com) that the team's living in the past when it comes to Mr. Bonds. And I agree with the estimable Henry Shulman that this is unfortunately just a .500 team.

Trade Bonds now. Get someone in return for him.

Let's begin the New Era (not an endorsement to the cap company).

By the way, I stuck with the Giants when they moved from New York to San Francisco for two reasons:

Willie

and

Mays.

Attention Deficit Surplus Disorder

I'm b-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ack!

Really, I've never seen my blog show up as one of those "updated blogs" that keeps cycling through at the blogger.com home page like the news scroll at Times Square, so...........

I'll think I'll sign off and see if I can catch me on The Blogger.com Scroll.

ADHD -- Is It Right For Me?

I've been wondering lately about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Is it right for me? When I've read or heard about symptoms of ADHD, I stopped and did something else. Then, when I completed the conversation or reading, I concluded: Hey! That sounds a lot like me! Then I got distracted and did something else. (Which reminds me: one of the funniest entries ever, for me, in The Washington Post's Style Invitational weekly humor contest had to do with funny, albeit inappropriate, children's-book titles. Someone -- perhaps the estimable Stephen Dudzik, my alleged half-brother -- submitted something like this: The ADHD Association's First Book of Geogra --Hey, Let's Go Ride Our Bikes! It was phrased better than that, but you get my point. The Not Ready for theAlgonquin Roundtable Society of Losers

http://www.gopherdrool.com/index.shtml

can correct me and find the exact entry, thank you.)

(It's arguable that even my persistent use of parentheses, this constant self-interrupting, is the most salient symptom of adult ADHD.)

Lest anyone think I'm fabricating all of this, I must confess I did some research (some, not a lot; of course, I did not have the attention span; which reminds me that some have posited the notion of attention surplus instead of deficit; which is alluring, seeing that we certainly have an avalanche of attention-grabbers vying for our focus; but I digress; and use a lot of semicolons; speaking of digression, did T.S. Eliot have ADHD? Think of his great line in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock: "is it perfume from a dress that makes me so digress?"; the answer, T., is yeah!). The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has a fairly concise and pretty informative piece on ADHD in adults at:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/adhd.cfm

In part, it makes a lot of connections between the diagnosis in children and adults and says "the probability that, of children who have ADHD, many will still have it as adults. Several studies done in recent years estimate that between 30 percent and 70 percent of children with ADHD continue to exhibit symptoms in the adult years. These symptomatic adults were retrospectively diagnosed with ADHD after the researchers' interviews with their parents."

Whoa! Hold on! My father is deceased and my mother is nearing 90. What is she going to say? "He was always like that. Well, maybe his brother tended to be more like that, especially before a parade. And he's still sort of..." Wait, Ma, this is about me, remember? Read my post on Solipsism. Please.

It further states:

"Typically, adults with ADHD are unaware that they have this disorder—they often just feel that it's impossible to get organized, to stick to a job, to keep an appointment. The everyday tasks of getting up, getting dressed and ready for the day's work, getting to work on time, and being productive on the job can be major challenges for the ADHD adult."

I don't want to put my job at risk, or anything else, or want my therapist to think I've been holding out on him, but, how can I delicately and professionally phrase this? Th-th-th-th-that's me, folks!

But if Bill Clinton, Robin Williams, and 97,443,228 million other Americans (yes, especially Americans [another dissertation can be inserted here; and another here; et cetera; ad infinitum; plus, see my recent "Age quod agis" post too]) are reading this, might they identify with it and make the same technically clinical "th-th-th-th-th-that's me, folks" conclusion?

The article goes on to say:

"Diagnosing an adult with ADHD is not easy. ...the first time, [those who diagnosed] will begin to understand some of the traits that have given him or her trouble for years—distractibility, impulsivity, restlessness. Other adults will seek professional help for depression or anxiety and will find out that the root cause of some of their emotional problems is ADHD. They may have a history of school failures or problems at work. Often they have been involved in frequent automobile accidents."

Comment: I'm not THAT bad. But, Pawlie, my boy, Isn't that what everyone says, from the active alcoholic to the, um, um, subway groper [today's paper says they ran a sting on NYC subways and arrested a slew of 'em].

It states:

"A correct diagnosis of ADHD can bring a sense of relief. [true] The individual has brought into adulthood many negative perceptions of himself that may have led to low esteem. Now he can begin to understand why he has some of his problems and can begin to face them. This may mean, not only treatment for ADHD but also psychotherapy that can help him cope with the anger he feels about the failure to diagnose the disorder when he was younger."

Well, now I'm a little pissed at the NIMH article writers. I thought psychotherapy was giving me a better handle on my anger, and now you've added a whole NEW reason to be pissed off. Thanks. Thanks a lot, assholes.

"A professional coach can help the ADHD adult learn how to organize his life by using "props"—a large calendar posted where it will be seen in the morning, date books, lists, reminder notes, and have a special place for keys, bills, and the paperwork of everyday life. Tasks can be organized into sections, so that completion of each part can give a sense of accomplishment. Above all, ADHD adults should learn as much as they can about their disorder." [I AM learning about it, I'm just wondering, now, if this is a funny post or an embarrassingly serious one]

Look, I can't afford a professional coach. If you insist, I would settle for an amateur one, but she has to be in her twenties, preferably from either the Czech Republic or Hawaii, and must have at least 36D's -- for the best chance of clinical success, to keep me focussed.

But I like the idea of a coach. I honestly coach myself at work regarding this. And it works. And I am happy to share this truly helpful little tip. If I'm especially scattered, I look at the clock on my computer and tell myself I can't leave my chair for any reason, can't stray from one self-assigned subtask, can't respond to the blip of an incoming email, can't answer the phone unless it is a true business necessity. It helps. It settles me down. It really helps. Which is why I really need a giant poster of Age Quod Agis as an aforementioned prop.

I leave on an upbeat and cheery note; the NIMH piece lists "characteristics of ADHD that are positive—boundless energy, warmth, and enthusiasm."

I like that, but my energy is waning, so I'll stop for now.

A thought pops into my addled little brain: if I don't have "boundless energy, warmth, and enthusiam," now I'm wondering if I'm wrong about the whole self-diagnosis thing.

Which, dear readers, brings us full circle:

Is ADHD right for me?

You decide.

To help, I've added some shameless props of my own:

http://www.cafepress.com/wackyjackystees.45768520

http://www.cafepress.com/wackyjackystees.42632791