God bless you, Big Man, and Godspeed.
Year: 2011
Everything I Know About Postmodernism I Learned from the Phillies
This piece now resides here, at Hobart. Do enjoy!
Dad Shorts Revisited, This Time With Photographic Proof
From the summer of 2011.
One of the more humorous facts about the inner workings of this blog is that almost once a day, someone finds their way here by searching “dad shorts.” Just over a year ago, I wrote a short post about how I was shopping for summer clothing and almost talked myself into spending hard-earned Kohl’s Cash on a pair of shorts that were clearly made for men born before 1965. I tried them on. I liked them.
Then I came to my senses. This episode did, however, raise an important question: while I may (always) be too young for shorts that ride that high above my knee (hold your breath, ladies), when does a man become too old to buy the dad shorts’ polar opposite (which are, course, cargo shorts)? One of my friends insists that 30 is the absolute cut-off. I’ll put the question to you, my stylish readers.
In the meantime, I wanted to share an image I captured this very evening:
This display is supposed to say “Thanks, Dad” and “Men’s Shorts.” But we all know what it really says, and what these items really are. Happy Father’ Day, all you dads of America. Wrangler wants no more of your modest, tasteful ways.
By the way, if you go ahead and follow up on that urge to Google “dad sorts,” you’ll find that my post from last year is the second result, which is bizarre. If indeed I coined this term (as now seems obvious), I think Wrangler owes me a piece of this year’s retail action, don’t you? And anyway, I basically kept their “husky” line in production circa 1988. Yes, they actually called them “huskies.”
Mom: “No, honey, they mean husky like the brave strong dogs that pull the sleds.”
Me, in tears: “N…nn…not like husky as in…fat?”
Mom: “No, dear, like the brave and noble dogs that are the lifeblood of the Yukon wild.”
Me: “Well that sounds pretty awesome. And also, I’m hungry.”
You know what? Forget you, Wrangler. And your sneering 1980s product lines.
Yes, Twitter, There is A Connection Between #Dadism and #Dadaism
Today, #dadism is a sponsored trend (that doesn’t make sense) on twitter. A lot of people, your Daily Cocca included, thought at first that #dadaism was the sponsored topic. That would have made even less sense. But, alas, there IS a connection between public life (in this case, twitter), #dadism, and #dadaism. At least according to one of the characters in a cut scene from one of my old works in progress:
Tonight I try to avoid him but he catches my eye and calls me over. He knows it’s a game and he knows how stupid it is, but he does it anyway and I’m sure it cracks him up. Tonight he’s talking about nihilism as some kind of masculine failure, and, like always, I take the bait.
***
“Come on Jim!” he says. “You can’t think it’s a coincidence that this whole movement celebrating the absurdity of life is called dada…”
“Yes, actually, it is, and that’s kind of the point…” Like I said, I can’t seem to help it.
“Right, right, disillusioned by World War I a bunch of artists got together in Zurich and stabbed a French-German dictionary and named the movement they hoped to create after whatever word they landed on. They landed on dada, French for hobby horse, and also a phrase meaning ‘yes, yes,’ in Romanian. Believe what you want, Lord Jim, but it will always be a daddy issue to me.”
Sometimes he made sense.
“If you’re going to bitch about something you have to be ready to be defined by it,” he said. “That’s a decision you don’t make lightly. So you’re afraid to come out swinging because that means you’re giving it all away. You’re affirming that there’s actually order and meaning in the very act, even if everything you’re trying to do and say is aimed at convincing everyone of the opposite. That’s the thing about those dada jerks, they wanted to talk about randomness and meaninglessness and show the world how mad it was, but it’s like, ‘so what?,’ you know? Who cares? The bigger statement would have been to just say nothing. So, anyway, I find it hard to give a damn about much of anything in public, because then there I am, coming out and admitting that there are things worth saying and doing or even fighting for, even when most of me is saying it’s a sign of weakness to stand up for anyone but yourself, vain, foolish nonsense to clamor on about anything you can only ever hold provisionally.”
(copyright Chris Cocca 2011).
MFA Friends, In Case You Misread, this Trending Topic is Not Just For You
Jake Shimabukuro at TED and My Episode at the Thrift Store
A few months ago, my wife and I were listening to a WXPN interview with Hawaiian ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro that was nothing short of awesome. As we were about to get out of the car, Shimabukuro said that he was going to play an original arrangement of “Bohemian Rhapsody” to show just what his four-stringed, two-octave ax could do. Needless to say, we stayed in the car for the next eight minutes.
I just stumbled upon this video of Shimabukuro doing the same thing at TED. It’s fantastic, and you can’t help but believe what he says about the uke and world peace:
https://ted.com/talks/view/id/1063
A few days after the World Cafe session in our car, I found a ukulele at the Salvation Army thrift store. I think they wanted four bucks, and it came with instructions that had clearly been printed before 1970. So I picked it up as a gift and immediately informed the giftee of my impossible find. As I was carrying my new hipster treasure around the store, I noticed two young ladies in my peripheral vision. I sort of got that feeling you get when people are talking about you, and then I heard one of them say “should we say something to him?” My first thought was “my fly must be down. This is embarrassing.”
If only.
The question emerged:
One of them: “How much do you want that ukelele?”
Me: “Like, a lot.”
Them: “Really?”
Me: “Yeah. It’s going to be a gift.”
One of Them: “Oh.”
The Other: “See, I told you you shouldn’t have set it back down.”
Me: “Honesty, I would give it to you if I hadn’t already promised it to someone else.”
Them: “No, that’s cool.”
But I don’t have to tell you how it feels to have a find like this slip through your fingers. Remember the vocab word crestfallen? I would have been, too. Thankfully, they were really cool and didn’t make me feel bad.
Hipster Jesus and the Clone Army of Zach Galifianakis
Remember when I posted that picture of Zach Galifianakis shaving his head that I thought looked a lot like me? Since then, I’ve been accosted at weddings, baseball games, Time Square, and, yes, even Rita’s Water Ice about the resemblance. Mostly it’s the beard, but there are also those fine, chiseled Mediterranean features to consider…if I do say so myself, Zach and I have the eyes and noses of those old Greek and Roman statues (customs didn’t catch us). Once you get below the beard, our physiques diverge a bit from those vaulted forms of classical antiquity. But I digress.
One of the funniest lines from the original Hangover was the sublime, “Come over here handsome. Not you, Fat Jesus!” I haven’t been called Fat Jesus yet, but I have been positively identified in this drawing:
That’s Fat Jesus: 0. Easter Jesus: 1
With my work in sustainability, my MFA, my interest in cycling and my high hopes for downtown Allentown (not to mention my beard), I know I run the Hipster Jesus risk at pretty high levels. I haven’t heard it yet, but I’m probably due. If and when you’re inclined to think of your Daily Cocca as the Hipster Jesus, remember this, friends:
It’s true. You’re cool because he first was cool. I’m pretty sure that’s in one of the Pauline epistles. Found this great image via Chad Crawford. Speaking of Christians, hipsters, and Zach Galifianakia on Twitter, I just saw this from @missional:
Hey, Eric Sylvester: It looks like The Daily Cocca has a new favorite hockey team. Sorry, The Daily Cocca’s wife: it’s still not the Rangers.
Chris Cocca 