The Friday Round-Up: 10.09.2015

As it turned out, the northeast did not catch the full wrath of Hurricane Joaquin. Here in Boston it was cloudy, raw and windy, some rainfall, but we escaped unharmed. It got me thinking, though, about the way we name hurricanes. When I was a wee lad, my mother explained to me that hurricanes were named after women, because women, like hurricanes, were unpredictable. That made sense, because women back then actually were unpredictable . . . unlike today, where every woman I’ve met for the last 30 years has been unvaryingly reasonable and easy to anticipate, a shift that occurred right around when men started to be wrong all the time. In the seventies, a women’s rights activist named Roxcy Bolton pushed for a less sexist hurricane nomenclature (she actually liked to call them “himmicanes”), and, due largely to her efforts, male names have been equally mixed in since 1979.

My question is, why can’t we name hurricanes like we do boats or racehorses? Or better yet, sell the naming rights like they do with sports stadiums and college bowls? For as long as a hurricane and its after-effects last, your brand could be right out there. Hurricane Google or Hurricane IKEA. The money for the naming rights (let’s put the value at the cost of fifteen minutes of Super Bowl advertising) could go directly to the recovery.

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Pope Francis has made it clear that during his US visit did he not grant a private audience to Kim Davis, the thrice-divorced town clerk who refused to grant wedding licenses to same-sex couples because she’s a good Christian and thinks marriage should only apply to traditional heterosexual couples (who, by the way, stand a robust 50 percent chance of parting unto death). In fact, he doesn’t even want to get mixed up in her whole dog and pony show, so all the progressive-types who have been hating on the pope for that reason can stand down. Of course, he hasn’t reversed every Catholic rule they don’t agree with yet, so these people still aren’t happy. I am not religious, nor was I raised a Catholic, but the pope by definition is, and because he’s the pope he believes in a lot of the stuff that has been dogma for centuries. Otherwise I don’t think he could be pope. But it’s apparent that Pope Francis is at least willing to bend and listen and reach out to, say, gay people, or women who have had abortions, or victims of disgraced clergy, and so on. I like this pope, I think he’s a good man and doing the best he can, but I’ll never be surprised or dismayed that he’s Catholic.

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Planet Fitness, the gym that charges ridiculously low monthly payments in the hopes that not all their members will show up at once on any given day, has the slogan “Judgement Free Zone.” I want the record to show that, first, I hate how they spell “judgment,” and, second, I would like to point out the irony of their slogan because it makes me judge them. Technically, the extraneous “e” doesn’t mean a misspelling, but it irks this typist nonetheless. And it brings to mind a rant my coworkers have endured from me for years: if enough ignorant people do something ignorant long enough, their ignorant acts become convention and they’re recast as rebels or iconoclasts. To take a recent example, remember “Web site”? The rule stated that it was two words with the first word capped. But enough people wrote it as “website” long enough and they won. I remember being taught in second grade that the plural of “bus” was “buses,” and if you wrote it out as “busses,” you were talking about more than one kiss. Well, the number of my brain cells assigned to store that information went wasted because apparently you can now write it both ways. And all those nouns that have morphed into verbs, like “dialogue” and “office”? Don’t get me started. Mark my words, the day will come when the contraction “they’re” and the possessive “their” will each be allowed the alternate spelling of “there.” U w8 & c.

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I recently read Ian Fleming’s “From Russia With Love,” a book I picked up at a flea market (where I get most of my reading material). I knew that the James Bond in the books differs from the James Bond in the movies, but I didn’t expect the quality of Fleming’s writing to be so good. The book opens by acquainting the reader with the super badass bad guy, the ultimate highly-skilled, cold blooded assassin, in the kind of slow, richly descriptive way you usually don’t find in action stories, more like studying a tableau. The storyline itself is only okay (or so it seems to this modern reader), and the Russian villains are the soulless, bloodless, calculating automatons one expects from 1950s Cold War era central casting, but the measured approach the author takes to every scene, especially those revealing the thoughts of a very human Bond (who doesn’t make his first appearance until well into the book), make it a pleasurable experience. 

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In a moment of uncharacteristic whimsy, I actually sought out a music station the other day instead of the usual talk or news. I landed upon the local oldies/classic hits station, and, as I enjoyed an eighties pop standard that I may have once danced to in a Members Only jacket, I tried to recollect the day when WZLX first went on the air. Before I had time to determine exactly when that was, the DJ came on to announce that 2015 marks the station’s thirtieth year. While processing this sobering reminder of the passage of time, it then occurred to me that the song I just heard couldn’t have been played on that glorious day thirty years ago because it would have been, well, brand new. A moment of quiet reflection ensued.

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I have decided that when time travel becomes possible I will bring my grandfather as he was in the 1940s back to this era. Of the many new experiences I’ll expose him to, last on the list will be Caitlin Jenner and the Kardashians. I just don’t think I could adequately answer any of his questions.

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Buffalo Bills players love their coach, Rex Ryan, because he “lets them be themselves.” Last Sunday, the free-spirited Bills drew 17 penalties with one negating a touchdown. They lost the game, yet Rex is proud of the way they played.

Related: NFL sources indicate that the Patriots win games because they’re mean and don’t care how other teams feel. Maybe Patriots players are pissed because Coach Bill Belichick won’t let them be themselves.

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Another Yahoo editor snoozing while on duty. This is a line from a news article about a shocking child rape: “Their lawyer, Thomas R. Kline, noted that Regusters inferred others were involved but failed to name them when she had her chance Monday.” The word you’re looking for is “implied,” Yahoo. 

Here’s another one: Yahoo was “a little worried when Disney and Pixar announced they would be adding a fourth chapter to the Toy Story trilogy.” So it’s not a trilogy.

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Hillary nailed that sketch on SNL.

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“Sometimes you gotta go back to actually move forward.” — Confucius or Matthew McConaughey. Or Plato. I need to track down the philosopher who said that.

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I recently went to the bike shop to buy a tire. When the kid behind the counter rang me up, he asked me if I needed anything else. I said, “Oh, I’ll be back. I’m starting with this tire, but I’ll eventually build an entire bike around it.” He just kind of looked at me. No one gets my jokes anymore.

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I hate the word “smarmy.” Get rid of it. “Snarky” bothers me, too.

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There was an interesting article on leftovers in “The Atlantic Monthly.” Throughout the 20th century, as the percentage of a family’s income spent on food dropped with increased food production and lower prices, keeping and reusing leftovers became more of a burden than a necessary economic measure. Nowadays, Americans spend just 10 percent of their income on food, as opposed to 40 percent in the early 1900s. But leftovers are making a comeback because people are becoming more aware of what goes into food production and are more appreciative of the resources being used. Not to toot my own horn, but I’ve always been a leftover guy . . . which, incidentally, proves once again that by steadfastly keeping behind the curve I come out ahead of it. The 15-year-old Tupperware container I use for my lunches each day is often crammed with strange combinations. Today it’s a mix of some kind of spicy pasta dish, rice, fried sweet potatoes, saag paneer and bits of fish. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

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There’s a new Peter Pan movie coming out. It’s called “Pan.” I’ve seen the commercials. It’s loaded with action and special effects and Hugh Jackman and big movie studio bucks. It can’t possibly be good.

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That is all.