Axe Grampsy

Seeing as how I'm new around here, but also real old - older'n most of you folks will ever be, 'less you eat your greens - I figured you might want to spit backy awhile, hang anchor, chew rope, spin yarn, and axe me some questions about the things I've seen and done in this long, unfeasibly complex and multiform life of mine. Thought you might want to share an old feller's homespun wisdom, and get a taste of how things were back in the days when life spun keen on a whipstick, humming like a Jenny-top on a brisk trade wind, and luck was just a gleam in a mermaid's eye.

u kno the old who used to do wendys commercial? What happen 2 that bro??? Feel like I haven't seem him in awhile

Which war was the best?/worst?/your fav??

How did ppl get around b4 car-utility-vehicle? Horse?? How many horse u own???

do u remember "MCI"

Now, you're going to have to slow down and speak up, otherwise I won't understand what you're saying.

And please, tone down the "jive talk", would you? I swear, ever since Hipster Runoff started up you young 'uns have been making less sense than a cat in a daisy suit. Try to use only words that appear in Webster's Dictionary and Farmer's Almanac.

Now, let's have a look at these questions of yours.

do your balls get wet when you sit on the toilet?

The old man who appeared (between 1981 and 1983) in the Wendy's commercials was a jobbing actor named Jacob Wildensteen. He was actually a classmate of Rock Hudson's, and a practicing horrorsexual, not that I'm saying anything against that. No, the horrorsexuals marched for their rights every Halloween, and I respect them for it.

Anyway, Wildensteen had a bad time in Hollywood and was just about ready to throw it in and become an arms dealer in Colombia (The Method is actually pretty useful for those tough guy roles) when he landed the Wendys job. He'd drunk enough bourbon that they didn't need to age him much in make-up, and he had this raddled way of saying "Where's the beef?" that set your teeth on edge and got your saliva spurtin'.

Unfortunately Wildensteen took the Method thing just a little too far. Hired to play a dying bum on Miami Vice, he actually croaked on set. It was very sad; the horrorsexuals held a somnolent torchlit rally and sang the "Where's the Beef?" song in a specially-commissioned setting by John Adams.

When was the last time you kicked a ball in the street?

Have you ever stuck your cock up the tailpipe of an automobile?

Which war was the best?/worst?/your fav??

Well, now, Bernard, the thing about war is that it's wrong. I know that there are some folks will tell you that it's inevitable, structurally necessary, even hygienic, that there are too many people on the planet, that we throttle the resources of other species and poison the environment and should be wiped out, preferably by a philosopher king with a grip of iron and a flaming sword held in an iron glove. Or even that war is the way the Darwinian selection progress goes ahead, removing the weak of the race, and allowing improvements to establish themselves, and the super-race to establish itself as it rightfully should and must. And there are some who just plain come out and say it: humans are scum, which should be stamped, crushed and flushed out of every filthy crevice it clings to, for the sake of everything good, everything pure, loyal, true and honest.

But I don't agree with that.

How did ppl get around b4 car-utility-vehicle? Horse?? How many horse u own???

Have you ever read Jonathan Swift, Bernard? I have a copy of Gulliver's Travels right here. There's a wonderful chapter which describes horses as noble, intelligent souls. Wait, where is it? Ah yes, here, at the end of Book IV. The Houyhnhnms are horses who have become so aristocratic, so eminently reasonable, that they don't believe in the inherent value of human life if it stands in the way of progress. They only tell the truth, and never break the law. Gulliver is so moved by all this that he weeps as he describes to his noble companions how shabbily horses are treated back in his own country. They are unmoved, since it is in their nature to be unemotional, but they note his concerns. In many respects the Houyhnhnms are Vulcans. Now, would you chain up a team of Vulcans to pull your cart, Bernard? Would you whip Mr Spock?

No, neither would I.

Dear sir, would you be so kind as to divulge your opinion on the bellhop profession? One of our most upstanding young forum members is an aspiring candidate for a career in hopping and the more informed opinions he can read about this, the better. Thank you in advance, respectfully.

do u remember "MCI"

I remember Metropolitan Coal Industries, if that's what you mean. In those days coal mines were right in the middle of cities. Streets seethed with black faces (at least there could be no racial discrimination; there's a silver lining to every cloud). We all had painful hacking coughs that never went away, no matter how much Doctor Weerenger's Patent Throat-Cleansing and Brass-Cleaning Fluid we took. The fogs weren't pea soup, they were black coffee, tar and Quink. You'd stagger out of bed at 4am, open the door, and the black fog would quickly envelop the whole house. Invisible trains clattered around hellish embankments, and above it all, glinting in the dagger-stab glimmer of a resentful moon, were the mine-heads: pits straight to hell.

Now you're all hairdressers and receptionists. Not that I've got anything against that. No, you marched for your rights to cut hair and answer the telephone. Good luck to you, I say.

Here's an easy one: how old are you?

do your balls get wet when you sit on the toilet?

When was the last time you kicked a ball in the street?

I'm going to combine these, for convenience's sake (no pun intended). When toilets were outdoors (and it was the rich ones who even had that) you often got your balls wet and kicked on the street, on the toilet. It was one of the major disadvantages of the 19th century, and it's a wonder the population didn't decline with the hammering those testicles were taking. But humanity - and testicles - have astonishing resilience. And of course you'd give as good as you got, landing a swift jab with a stiletto-toed "shimmy-shoe" whenever you passed a man on a toilet, on the street.

As for the bellhop profession, I assume you are referring to my good friend Brodie? I knew his great-grandfather (and that might give you a clue, Aimless) back in the days when I was working on Britain's secret nuclear test project at Maralinga. The working assumption - and I didn't think it was wrong at the time - was that Australia didn't matter; that you could set off a few H-bombs and if the continent shriveled up like a singed squirrel, well, maybe that was no great loss to the world.

But I think young Brodie - an aspiring bellhop, and I've nothing against that, the bellhops went up and down in elevators for their right to go up and down in elevators - singlehandedly, retrospectively proves that Ministry of Defence attitude wrong. That such pleasant, mannerly, well-spoken and good-natured individuals thrive around these parts (and are even missed when they haven't been seen in a week or two) says a great deal for this community, in my view. That's one reason I decided to join up, despite my advanced age.

Which only leaves...

Have you ever stuck your cock up the tailpipe of an automobile?

I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. You should know that automobiles aren't a fit subject for polite company.

I'd rather not wrestle with vague clues, when I have Grampsy right here to satisfy my insatiable curiosity about his age. In years. Since he was born.

Well, I'm not going to tell you, Aimless, and here's why. An elderly friend of mine got his state pension cut off when he hit 120 because the government didn't believe it was humanly possible to attain that age. They wrote him a letter straight up accusing him of being dead. He wrote straight back telling them to come round and see him in the flesh, and when they got there he gave them such a tongue-lashing that they didn't know whether they were boys or girls (and I've nothing against that).

He told them that the Holy Bible itself lists many figures, such as Methuselah, who lived to a very great age, and did they doubt the Word of God? Well, no, they didn't, they said, but... Well, Methuselah, my friend continued, lived to be 969. The government men had the nerve to reply that the state would be bankrupted if everyone lived to that age, and there had to be some cut-off point, and he had reached his, whether it be his age, or his credibility. And they left.

My friend died a few weeks later. He starved to death. So you'll forgive me for my reticence on this subject. I'm already paper-thin.

I'm already paper-thin.

This strikes me as an appropriate description.

So, let's get down to cases here. When you were young, did old people have a particular smell, and do you now replicate that smell or have a different, more modern old person aroma? If so, why do you think this happened?

When you were young, did old people have a particular smell, and do you now replicate that smell or have a different, more modern old person aroma? If so, why do you think this happened?

Now this is an interesting question, and one I think about a lot now I have ample time in my retirement. How do you smell yourself, when you've been in the same room for over seventy years and gotten used to it? I've tried some experiments, like leaving the room then coming back in very quickly, or holding a paper bag over my head for a minute or two and then suddenly taking it off. But I could never catch my own smell. I even went to the length of capturing air in the room in a bag and marking it with a date, hoping that when I popped the bag the following day I'd catch a whiff of yesterday's smell. But to no avail.

Then I realised that the trick was to study the features of people who enter my room. Since the only person who does that is my cleaning lady, Mrs Wall, I had to use her. I'd study her expression during the first moments after her knock and my response of "Come in, Mrs Wall!" I made notes. Here they are:

Mrs Wall's left eyebrow raises. Slight indentation of the right nostril. Twitch observed at the corner of the lips, on the left side. Spasmodic? Involuntary? Mrs Wall appears to dip her head, as if to hide her face. Sweeps a few loose hairs back from her forehead; possible displacement activity? Possible flushing reflex observed in the balkans of her cheeks. Mrs Wall makes a remark about the dismal weather, moves towards window, opens it. Slight tremulous motion of her left hand, but I know she has arthritic joints there. Waggles her bottom, but I probably shouldn't be looking there.

I can provide more of these notes if you wish, Aimless.

Provide as many as pleases you.

I've got nothing against it. (That's my catch-phrase, by the way.)

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d176/blbcomics/BusterBrownDogTige.jpg

Grampsy, do you, like me, find it hard to believe that the official world's oldest person is only 115? what is your experience (if any) with gerontologists and Guinness researchers knocking on your door and demanding answers?

Grampsy reminds me that Tom Cruise is now the same age that Wilford Brimley was when he did Cocoon.

Grampsy do you feel that Golden Girls was a realistic portrayal of women in their 50s

There's a huge gulf between the ages humans actually live to and the official "oldest living human being" crap you see in government stats and the Guinness Book of Records. We oldsters are inclined to lie about our age, or conceal it. Why? Because people are intrusive, jealous and vindictive, and because when everybody wants something you've got (apparent immortality, in our case), beware! You just have to look at the history of lands with rich oil and mineral resources to see what miseries lie in store for the "disproportionately fortunate".

Nevertheless, anyone who lends any credence whatsoever to The Bible (and that's about 80% of the population of the world's richest and most advanced nation, for a start) knows that humans are capable of living hundreds of years on Earth, then eternally in Heaven. Though why anyone would prefer Earth to Heaven is beyond me. But then I'm an atheist.

Rather than Golden Girls (I never watch TV, life is too short), my role model comes from the world of marine biology. Turritopsis nutricula is "the immortal jellyfish", a creature which - by renewing its own cells - can revert to a pre-adolescent state after attaining sexual maturity. In a process called transdifferentiation, the medusa of the immortal jellyfish is transformed into a new polyps. As Wikipedia explains: "First, the umbrella reverts itself and then the tentacles and mesoglea get resorbed. The reverted medusa then attaches itself to the substrate by the end that had been at the opposite end of the umbrella and starts giving rise to new polyps to form the new colony. Theoretically, this process can go on indefinitely, effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal".

I tried this with my own umbrella (a malacca-caned gents' classic from Jas. Smith of London) and, goddamit, it worked!

Grampsy, if you were responsible for recreating any major Hollywood movie as an open air "On Ice" musical performance, which film would it be?

Grampsy, is it time for the percolator?

Is it alright to kill insects?

Grampsy, if you were responsible for recreating any major Hollywood movie as an open air "On Ice" musical performance, which film would it be?

I think it would have to be Mel Brooks' The 2000 Year Old Man.

Grampsy, is it time for the percolator?

Yes, if by "percolator" you mean genuine empathy between people of all races and nations, and true understanding between isolated individuals wherever they may be. But how the hell do you expect me to understand you if, meaning all that, you end up uttering a word like fucking "percolator"? The world is doomed.

Is it alright to kill insects?

Not at all. If you kill insects you'll surely be reincarnated as one in a future life. Then some future human, killing you, will in turn be reincarnated as an insect. A deadly cycle of insecticide will establish itself, and eventually the whole world will drown in a sea... if not of blood, then of greeny-grey haemolymphic fluid and unidentifiable scraps of eggy, maggoty vomit-sack. Anything left alive will be forced to wade kneedeep through the black dust of a trillion shattered exoskeletons. The birds will love it, though.

hey Grampsy,

do you think it's fair that I find you distastefully self-impressed, and get the distinct feeling that you use ILX more for persona-building and creative writing exercises than to actually interact with people and have conversations?

do you think it's fair that I find you distastefully self-impressed, and get the distinct feeling that you use ILX more for persona-building and creative writing exercises than to actually interact with people and have conversations?

This messageboard sometimes seems to me to be, if not a veil of tears, at least a handkerchief sodden with snot and rough with dried clots of nasal mucus. I am simply trying to bring a little laughter.

I will add that since I was a little boy of greater-than-Mozartian genius, I have found interacting with other people and having conversations with them vastly overrated as forms of amusement. I would prefer to, for instance, build an exact 1:72 scale replica of Schloss Neuschwanstein then people it with talking paraplegic extra-terrestrial seals whose fully-functioning languages, known only to myself and a full-sized porcelain doll called Dolly Parton, I have constructed from basic Sanskrit phonemes and compiled in a secret dictionary no-one will ever, ever find, because I hid it in a phonebooth in Bombay, cunningly disguised as the telephone directory.

cool story bro

don't bait the elderkin

why not, he's batin' all over the board

heh

lol

If ever I fire up ilxor.com and see the ILE motto changed to "If not a veil of tears, at least a handkerchief sodden with snot and rough with dried clots of nasal mucus", I will feel myself completely embraced by this community. What horror! I will press charges, make no mistake.

some dude did you want to drown a puppy too

since I was a little boy of greater-than-Mozartian genius

hoisted on his own petard

Do we know for sure that Grampsy is not Steve Shasta?

greater-than-Mozartian genius

I meant Bill Mozart, the Australian plagiarist. He copied the entire continent of Australia and tried to pass it off as his own work. Transported to Australia as punishment, he had the opportunity to destroy the original using three boxes of Redhead matches and some tumbleweed. Australians were forced to move across to his copy, moored alongside. Mozart was recently pardoned by Australian PM Julia Gillard, who argued that since nobody now living in Australia wants to think of the place as "number two", Mozart should be thought of as Australia's creator rather than its copier. Realising after her speech that "number two" is a euphemism for excrement, Gillard made a follow-up broadcast apologising to the Australian people.

get a blog, quirky Alan Arkin character

^^^^

Going back to blogging would be like riding a magic carpet straight to 2004. I'd much rather hang out here in 2001 with you guys.

Grampsy what do you think about MC HAMMMMMMMMMMAH

Grampsy what do you think about MC HAMMMMMMMMMMAH

I'm down with Hammer. In fact, it's thanks to my constant pleading that he hasn't hurt anyone since 1989.

By the way, anyone curious about my blog should check the Wayback Machine. It was called Last Plane to Encarta and all the entries were about a bluebottle called Mick landing on a damaged copy of Microsoft's ill-fated CD-ROM encyclopedia. It was a Bing Blog Pick in June 2009, with a personal recommendation from Steve Ballmer.

I like Grampsy. Is that a question? Should I turn it into a question by adding punctuation? Okay...
I like Grampsy?

spare a cigarette?

i like to think this loser found some other message board where he got the rapt attention and worship he thinks he deserves