Keep your seats, please

Blogging away while wondering why I keep receiving mail-outs from The Scooter Store and a reminder for the Surviving in the 21st Century senior citizens seminar. Perhaps I can drive to the nearest Scooter Store and give them back. Or just cancel my mail.

The weather today was gorgeous. I opened the sunroof, adjusted the rear-view so that I could look at my beard (yeah, that's normal), then drove around listening to cassettes. You just aren't going to find that last sentence anywhere else in the blogosphere, my friends. If you're nice, I'll make you a mix tape. Like many of you I'm sure, days like today make me want to play frisbee. I think that would be one of the best things about being a dog. Playing frisbee. That and not having to work.

However, forgive me if I do seem a bit cantankerous this eve. I'm still not over being submitted to coerced standing ovations Monday night. And having to miss all but ten minutes of 24. I had to attend some chamber of commerce banquet. You know the drill. Every single person who goes up on stage gets a standing ovation. I'm the last person to stand up each time. Because I keep thinking maybe we won't stand up for this one. So I look around to see if anyone isn't standing. Because if just one other person isn't standing, then I won't either. But everyone is. So I give in to peer pressure, sigh very heavily, then act like it's a major chore to stand up and clap. I think maybe I'm developing a few misanthropic tendencies. (I only know that word because it was used to describe Larry David in an article I was reading once.)

It is my opinion that we are giving way too many standing ovations in this country. A standing ovation used to mean something. You had to save a life. Or win a Nobel Prize. Or score a touchdown. But now? It's like the NBA slam dunk contest. It just doesn't mean what it used to. We're giving standing ovations to every Tom, Dick, and President who walk into a room. It's lost its luster. Like a month-old imitation silver watch that your girlfriend gave you. Like the Super Bowl halftime show.

Let me tell you something. If you get a standing ovation, chances are that, at most, five percent of the people really wanted to stand up. The rest are just thinking "here we go again." If I were getting a standing ovation, I would rather just ten or twenty people stand up. Because at least I'd know they meant it.

Contrast all this with Sunday night, when I went to see Merle Haggard in concert. He put on an excellent show. And I was happy to see that he still played and sang very well. A legend. A songwriting genius. He got several standing ovations. Deservedly so.

And the misanthrope in the balcony didn't even sigh.

"Leather boots are still in style for manly footwear. Beads and Roman sandals won't be seen..."