ABOUT AVOCADOS, AGAIN: Fresh, ripe avocados are essential to any rewarding form of human existence, and as such, deserve utmost care and respect. By all means, please don't render them into powder, or partake of powdered-avocado products. To do so breaks faith with basic principles of righteous living.

Grocery stores; don't peddle severely dimpled, well-on-their-way-to-being-spoiled-and-mushy-brown-inside avocados, either. And.....produce manager at my large local chain grocery in West Seattle: when I point out this failing, you really, really don't want to say, even in a breezy, friendly manner, "Oh, we haven't checked those yet."

Because malfortunately that translates as, "umyeah....in truth we really will try to pawn off any horrid old crap we can to customers whom we think are essentially ignorant rubes....in order to pay our high transport costs, manager bonuses, union wages and health care bennies."

Moreover, two days later, in a fit of clueless over-compensation, do NOT replace all your mushy, over-ripe avocados with a whole huge boatload of bright green, totally rock-hard avocados.

I mean, excused me - can anyone here talk to avocados? Or better yet, suppliers? An avocado is like a woman......but, never mind........

DOLTS AT LARGE: I do hereby codify and catalogue as full-fledged asshats all you people who wander out the doors of stores, onto the sidewalk, looking backwards into the store while you blindly galumph into the path of oncoming pedestrians.

My wish: could you quickly go just a bit further in your meanderings? Like, say, straight into traffic? Ah, good, then. And "Thanksbye," as dippy account execs at PR firms everywhere like to say.

PARKING LOT FELONS: You folks who intentionally park your too-precious cars in parts of TWO spaces, in parking lots? I'm not gonna key you, or "accidentally" back into your bumper or fender or door, or take out your sideview mirror with my foot, or heel the of my hand. Nooooo, I'm way past all that, AND road rage. Really, I am, life's just easier that way! But....if some else did? Ah well, I'd smile. There are times when schadenfreude fits like a glove, no?

CRUMMY KID BOOKS: Another thing. About those heinous "Walter The Farting Dog" volumes.

I blogged a while ago about the first one, a smash hit. Well, I read two sequels in the local, progressive, non-violent toy store today - a place I really like, all in all.

In one, Walter the Farting Dog blows away everyone at a yard sale, but is then purchased by an evil clown who uses him in a bank robbery plot, which Walter ultimately foils. In another volume, Walter's gaseous emissions save butterflies imperiled in frigid jet streams.

Really bad writing and stories.

The fart gimmick is all, sadly.

In both franchise-extenders, every page is full of phantasmagoric farts, plus weird day-glo graphics of nasty-looking bug-eyed people.

The Mom and Dad, and everybody really, appear quite strange and off-putting; almost pharmacalogically altered.

Upon questioning, a store employee sheepishy answered that yes, the WaltFart Chronicles are selling like hot cakes.

Yet the whole thing is kind of a big F.U. to buyers....who are sadly so bent on being "with it" that they don't know they're utterly, totally being had.

Or they do.....and as post-ironic progressive urban drones, choose to step and fetch it.

Welcome to the world of Walter: but don't breathe too deeply.

RIPPING GOOD ADVENTURE: My 9.25-year-old, bless him, ended up buying a great Shel Silverstein poetry volume titled, "A Light In The Attic."

As a parent who likes to read to my kids, and likes my kids to read, please, give me NOT "Walter The Farting Dog," but instead something just like Shel's funky verse, OR....."Lad: A Dog," any old day.

We're reading that now, an old classic.

What drama, and what, ah....writing.....anyone remember that?

Thanks Mom; and your grandchildren salute you!

ABOUT TUNEFUL LOCOMOTION: A great big shout out to my new health club: so spacious, clean, well-equipped, and all-around wonderful.

So much better in so many, many ways than the cramped and messy place I used to go.

But about the music, a few points.

"Classic rock" is so, so, sooooo....played. No more Bob Seger, Queen, Doors, or Heart, PLEASE!

The vast majority of the "black music" you play is sappy "black urban contemporary" love ballads and crummy disco. Or hip-hop; about 92 percent of which is musically void.

And why no Jimi, ever? You play Stevie Ray Vaughn and George Fakin' Thorogood for Jah's sakes! How can you NOT program Jimi?

Lord forgive me, but I smell institutional racism.

Something I'm normally quite skeptical about.

BTW, 86.23741 percent of club patrons DON'T have iPods.

PROMISES, PROMISES: I'll have more to gripe about soon. Rest assured.

TECHNORATI TAGS: LAD A DOG, WALTER THE FARTING DOG, AVOCADOS, JIMI HENDRIX, SHEL SILVERSTEIN, PARKING

TO COMMENT: The regular "comment" feature is not in operation. E-mail comments to address under "Contact" on main page masthead, and I'll add them, here.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at November 19, 2005 12:36 AM