This post was inspired by Justin Bieber. I know darned near nothing about him. I’m OK with that. Here’s my word for the day:
Negative Knowledge (Noun) – Information so trivial that it passes the event horizon of information and actually makes a person dumber for having learned it.
- I do not know what “twerking” is. I think it’s associated with someone formerly called Hanna Montana and now known as Miley Cyrus? A 3 second Internet search indicates a young lady(?) who apparently divides her time between looking like a teenage boy and acting like fembot who drank too much Red Bull. I don’t care to know more.
- I do not recall the capital of Delaware.
- I do not want to know which Pokemon are water type and which are fire type.
- I do not care what movie is selling the most at the box office. It’s not important. It is never important. Citizen Kayne would be a masterpiece even if it drove Orson Welles bankrupt.
- I don’t care in Orson Welles went bankrupt so don’t tell me about it.
- I do not want to know if someone is offended by a sports team mascot. It is not newsworthy when I am offended by something.
- If a website can only be viewed with Internet Explorer, I don’t need to know what’s on it.
- I do not care that hotels at the Olympics are funky. It’s Russia! Three quarters of a century as a socialist paradise followed by Putin’s iron fist led to the crap you see. If you want clean roomy hotels stay in Cincinnati.
- If you’re from Cincinnati and don’t like my analogy, I don’t want to know that either.
- I don’t want to know how much Bill Gates and Warren Buffet make compared to their secretaries. I don’t want to know how much a quarterback makes compared to a teacher. I don’t want to hear any salary comparison scaled by the best in the planet at some skill.
- If a professional race baiter calls someone racist, this is information of no value.
- I’m perfectly capable of understanding a hurricane without making some doofus stand in the rain with a microphone.
- Do not ever tell me about an athlete who “gives 110%”; I don’t give a shit.
- If the Vatican elects (?) a new Pope, I don’t want to hear a liberal Manhattan atheist journalist’s opinion of what the Pope should do. The Pope doesn’t get his marching orders from that chain of command.
- I don’t want to know who took a selfie. I don’t care if it pissed off Michelle Obama.
- I don’t know how to tweet. The word Twitter doesn’t fill me with curiosity.
Negative knowledge I have adopted into my psyche and will now will ruin yours:
- Captain and Tennille are getting divorced. They sang Muskrat Love! (Yes, the 1970’s sucked. Why do you ask?)
- I know all the words to the Gilligan’s Island theme. You do to. Don’t lie to me. You’re hearing it in your head right now. Bwa ha ha ha ha.
Ginger was 80 yesterday.
Happy birthday. Of course we all know Mary Ann was hotter.
No phone, no lights, no motor car. Not a single luxury.
Yep, you are correct.
Darn you to heck! The rythym of Gilligan’s is taking over my brain! Make it stop! BTW, I used to be first mate on a pontoon boat doing cheap tours of the local lakes. Our appearance did not inspire confidence in our nervous passengers. We would play the theme song as people boarded while we told them {remaining details redacted to protect me, er, I mean, the guilty}. We didn’t care if we got fired…
The Captain and Tenille are divorcing? Say it ain’t so. BTW Mary Ann has a home just a few miles down the road.
Various news sources have reported that the Captain and Tenille are divorcing. A few blogs have broken that the Captain has a form of Parkinson’s disease. By divorcing, they would bypass the marriage penalty on health insurance since each would have a lower individual income and Tenille would no longer be liable for the Captain’s debts should he require nursing home care.
No word if that is actually true, obviously that’s not something you hold a press conference for… “Love will keep us together, and did for 40 years, but hey money talks and my accountant says ditch the crip!” Not going to go over well, I’m thinking…
– Max
I had a buddy who was a Force Recon Marine. Serious bad-ass. Did you know you can sing The Marine Hymn to the tune from Gilligan’s Island? Why yes, yes you can. I’d arrange to meet him at a watering hole or similar, excuse myself for a moment, and call his home from the pay phone (back when pay phones were everywhere). After a delightful evening he would come home to an answering machine message that drove him absolutely nuts.
I’m probably going to hell, aren’t I?
– Max
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale…
Damn you.
When I was much younger I would watch almost anything (I drew the line at I LOVE LUCY or THE PATTY DUKE SHOW). I gradually came to the conclusion that the castaways, with the possible exceptions of the Professor and Mary-Ann, deserved to rot.
I always thought of the Professor as symbolic of smart people everywhere. The guy can make anything out of a coconut but he can’t leave a silly island because his society (and potential labor poor of cooperators) is a handful of morons. He was sentences to endless years in a freshman college group project! (Nobody deserves that!)
Are you ready for this?
The music and lyrics for the theme from “Gilligans Island” and the hymn “Amazing Grace” are interchangeable.
Just…
NO…