Bad Zoologist | Inscrutable Doggerel
Hello situation normies,
Welcome to another edition of Situation Normal! Last Sunday’s piece about trying to live a Kardashian-free life inspired A LOT of comments. The gist is we’re all trying to avoid the Kardashians, but Sharron Bassano and Michele Miles Gardiner aren’t messing around. They scrapped their televisions!
In other media news, Situation Normal has three more paying subscribers! Big thanks to Matt Butler, Bill Roberts, and Christina Gagliano for supporting this nonsense! Paid subscriptions from situation normies like Matt, Bill, and Christina are essential because they free up time in my schedule to amuse you every Wednesday and Sunday.
Bad Zoologist
The other morning, Christina woke and told me she had the “strangest” dream. This was news because Christina usually doesn’t remember her dreams.
“Tell me about it.”
“I was a zoologist,” she said.
“Wow, that’s a real departure from media and technology executive,” I said. “Did you love it?”
“Yes. I felt like I loved being a zoologist!”
“Even going out into the field, where there are no bathrooms, and no cold drinks with ice?”
“No, no. I worked at a zoo. Plenty of bathrooms and plenty of cold drinks.”
“Was it the San Diego Zoo?” I asked. “That’s the Harvard of zoos.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Sure. Let’s say it was the San Diego Zoo. I had a great team, and a really modern lab.”
“I knew it! Even in your dreams, you go big.”
“Well, that’s the thing. I was operating on this gorilla. A silverback gorilla.”
“Badass!”
“We had to put the gorilla under for the procedure.”
“I don’t even want to see the bill for a gorilla anesthesiologist.”
“There was an obstruction in the gorilla’s nose,” Christina continued. “He couldn’t breath.”
“Wow, OK that’s serious. But you cleared the obstruction, right?”
“Damn right, I did. I am a badass zoologist—in my dreams. I got in there with a pair of tweezers. I was all up in that gorilla’s nose, but I got it.”
“What was the obstruction?”
“A butterfly.”
“You pulled a butterfly out of a gorilla’s nose?”
“Yup! Isn’t that a good dream?”
“I don’t know. How was the patient?”
“The gorilla was fine. He woke up and thanked me. Not, you know, verbally, but I could tell he was grateful. It was really satisfying.”
“I’ll bet. That’s a big day for a zoologist.”
“I know. Wasn’t that a good dream?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“The butterfly. What happened to the butterfly?”
Christina looked pained.
“The butterfly didn’t make it.”
“So, you’re kinda batting five hundred as a zoologist.”
“People come to the zoo for the gorillas, Michael.”
“Yeah, but they stay for the butterfly cage.”
Inscrutable Doggerel
Apropos of nothing, I couldn’t stop singing Paul Simon’s Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard. Apropos of that, Christina wanted to know, precisely, what was it that mama pajama saw that was against the law?
We asked Alexa to play the song so that we could analyze the lyrics and determine the nature of the crime that landed “that boy” in the “house of detention.” But the lyrics were vague, and neither the radical priest who got him released, nor Newsweek, shed any light on the matter.
“Only Google knows for sure,” I told Christina.
Well, Google took me to see its partner in crime, Wikipedia, and according to Wikipedia, people have been asking Paul Simon this question for years. Here’s the deal with what mama pajama saw:
The meaning and references in the song have long provoked debate. In a July 20, 1972 interview for Rolling Stone, Jon Landau asked Simon: “What is it that the mama saw? The whole world wants to know.” Simon replied, “I have no idea what it is... Something sexual is what I imagine, but when I say ‘something’, I never bothered to figure out what it was. Didn’t make any difference to me.” More recently, in October 2010, Simon described the song as “a bit of inscrutable doggerel.”
I’m watching here
Christina and I are still watching a lot of horror movies, but we took a break to support my sister. Allison is a casting director, and it’s our mission to watch every show and movie she casts. This weekend, our mission brought us to Bupkis, Pete Davidson’s new show that’s a mix of true and (hopefully) fictional stories from his life. We laughed our butts off watching Bupkis, and if you’re OK with some raunchy humor, you’ll laugh your butt off too.
I’m reading here
I finished Take No Names by Daniel Nieh. I have a soft spot for thrillers with a strong voice, so I enjoyed the first half of the novel. But then the plot went to crazy town, and seemingly out of nowhere the story I thought set in the present day turned out to be a near-future story. That threw me for a loop, and I don’t know if I recovered in time to salvage the story. Also, I realized after finishing Take No Names that it’s the sequel to Beijing Payback—a book I haven’t read—so maybe I’m the problem. At any rate, I’m still trying to scratch that thriller itch, so I picked up a copy of Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay.
I’m writing books here!
Reading Not Safe for Work won’t change your life, but it will make you want to change your underwear. Don’t take my word for it, though.
I laughed so hard, I shit my toga! Seriously, Michael owes me a new toga. Buy his book, so he can buy me a new toga, will you?
— Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, Stoic philosopher, NSFW super-fan.
Stick around and chat!
You know the drill. I’ve got questions, situation normies have answers.
Was Christina’s dream a happy dream, a sad dream, or just a butterfly and a gorilla playing their parts in the cycle of life?
Do you remember your dreams? Share one!
Are you satisfied with the resolution of the mama pajama mystery, or does Paul Simon owe everyone an apology?
What are you reading, and where is NSFW on your TBR?
What are you watching?
Jung said everything in your dream is you. So Christina is the zoologist, AND the gorilla, AND the butterfly AND the tweezers. Just sayin’!
I'm with Christina, it was a Good Dream. That's because i believe all dreams come to us for health and healing. Thanks for sharing.