Empty Nest Syndrome

As you all know, Marina the Nut lives and works in Germany, Europe, Third Rock from the Sun.

So many of her co-workers are Cancers and Leos, apparently, that for the past two or three weeks there has been cake almost every day on the occasion of somebody's birthday. They've been pulling a Laney on her! (That's short for Elaine Benes, obviously.)

Not that she minds!

Anyway, yesterday morning she received this e-mail from a colleague, sent to the whole floor:

Subject: Can it be true??

Yes it can!
Cake today at 3 p.m. at the usual place.

By 3p.m. the following sign had appeared hanging on the door to the “usual place”:

Cake we can believe in!

Who said they didn't have a sense of humor?

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So the price of oil has been going up and up and up and tumbling down and up and down. Ask any smart-ass like us and they will tell you that, obviously, there are forces at work using aggressive speculation to push some players out of the market and create some kind of powerful elite or whatever. Nothing to do with real-time supply and demand. So now we told you and the world is smarter. So what? So what?

Can we do anything? No. Can you? We didn't think so.

Does this sound uncharacteristically depressing?

Oh, don't mind our moods. Something else is bothering us, really.

Nine months of labor on this blog to make Sven famous and... voilà. Mission accomplished. As you know, he has his own blog now. He's out there on his own! He doesn't need us anymore! ***sniff***sigh*** We need a purpose.

Should we give a golden apple to George W. Bush for saying Wall Street was a binge-drinker in a bad hangover? When he thought the world was not listening? Naahhh.. That would be like giving U2 a leaden cucumber for a second-rate bootleg recording.

Great Blunders And Golden Bananas

We are still alive indeed, and we sincerely hope the same for you, dear readers.

More than three weeks on line and we realize that we have given only one Golden Banana through this blog, and that was in this post. We had great fun writing that! Since then, we have watched Sarko's awkward attempts to pat Bush on the back in front of the cameras – like Bush had done to him a couple of times (making him look like a shy and rather touchy self-conscious débutante, the height difference working against him) – and his love declarations to the US made on behalf of the French people. And he still has to push his reforms at home. We are really worried about his welfare. We shall spare him the Golden Banana. We will even give him a tip for free: Talk to Merkel instead! The American Century was Last Century!

We almost had another perfect Golden Banana candidate. We were watching the DVD of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The road to God knows where (by Uli M. Schueppel). Touring America in black and white, with a really useless manager. That was before the Kylie Minogue duet. So Nick Cave is in LA and he's waiting to be interviewed for LA Weekly. What a disaster! This indie-llectual airhead enters, the lights are on but you're not home. Tries to make small talk. She even declares she has “a list of exciting questions” for him. We feel embarrassed in her place, but we don't blame her, she doesn't know better. And then the interview begins. Here is an excerpt:

Journalist (staring at her notes): Seems like there's interest in... I guess inspirational qualities... this kinda like... southern white trash kinda guy that goes... that kind of image of that kinda guy that so many songs are written about... seems like you have that kinda... sometimes that vein kinda comes up in different songs... some particular... just one of the things that you find interesting or...

NC: Well, yeah, I guess I do find that interesting.

Here she is, having the chance to interview the greatest poet anyone she ever knew will ever shake hands with, and this is what she comes up with. Again, this is a tragedy, not just a blunder. Sad. No Golden Banana.

Do you homework, do your homework, do your homework. That's what we say.

The next interview on the DVD looks more professional and we get to hear Nick's voice for a change:

NC: ... I'm not really comfortable with that sort of labeling, actually. I think these songs are written with a fair amount of disgust for things, yeah.

Journalist: Why's that?

NC: Because I'm a pretty disgusted person, really.

In short, we will sit on our Golden Bananas for now, no pun intended. And remember: If you too are a disgusted person, don't suppress it or feel guilty about it. It's healthy, harmless and can produce great art.

Happy Weekend!

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The contest is still going on, see previous post and comment therein. Tip: Start by trying to guess right Nick Cave's contribution.