Motivational Phrases

So I'm eating a can of Beefaroni this morning and reading yesterday's paper. On the cover of Parade is Liza Minelli. The combination of Beefaroni and Liza Minelli should have been enough to have me going for some more of the same promethazine I took last Friday (see previous blog). But since I am a glutton for punishment, I found the article and started reading. I got one sentence in and had had enough.

It started something to the effect, "If you got one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow, you aren't living for today". Nice sentiment Liza. I suppose that gives validation to those of your ilk that are impulsive and do whatever they feel like doing today with no regard for tomorrow.......or the past. But I'm going to stick with you analogy Liza. If one of my legs is in yesterday and one is in tomorrow that leaves my 'third leg' in today. That's exactly how I should think. Of course with your picture staring back at me it's pretty much impossible.

There's a whole slew of motivational phrases out there, many of them contradictory or just plain stupid. There is a company called 'Despair' that has a line of products that spoofs just such phrases. I have had calendars from them for the past three years. Check out their website at despair.com and I think you'll agree.

Ms. Minelli's little acorn of wisdom notwithstanding, the phrase I most loathe is "It's better to aim for the stars and miss, than aim for the mud and hit it". There's one thing I find wrong and even offensive about this one. Those of us who have more realistic goals bristle at the notion that they are aiming for the mud. Perhaps we could have NASA retool this phrase. You have to have sub-orbital missions, then orbital, before you attempt the moon. Why, because it is highly unlikely you will make the moon in one shot and billions will be wasted and the lives of the crew will be sacrificed. Of course, people that adhere to the always shoot for the stars philosophy probably wouldn't understand what I just wrote. So keep aiming for the starts children!

As a reference back to the previous blog. Apparently the last part of "The Wrestler" features Mickey Rourke going up against his former arch-nemesis called "The Ayotollah". In the movie he was a guy named Bob who owned a car dealership in Arizona. The reason I dredged this up again, is because there are some Hollywood types visiting Iran this week. And the Iranian government used it as an opportunity to rail against the portrayal of Iranians in movies. They didn't like the stereotypes in "the Wrestler". I suppose someone hadn't explained professional wrestling to these morons. It is a passion play FOR morons. It is about nothing but sterotypes. And this Bob guy probably wasn't named Rafsanjani.

The Iranian government also objected to Persian portrayal in the movie '300'. The Greeks were pious family men, while the Persians were oversexed degenerates. (The few Greeks and Persians I know are all relatively pious family men and women. Including one of the single pharmacists I work with that should try a little sexual debauchery before he marries). Fair enough I suppose, except this happened over 2000 years ago. It would be like me objecting to the portrayal of the Swiss in 'Gladiator'. My Aunt Babetta, if she were still alive, would correctly point out that those filthy barbarians were either Germans or Austrians. Not Swiss.