Before I get to bloviating about the subject of bloviating, this is a video of Herbie Hancock and the classical pianist Lang Lang collaborating on a performance of Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin, which, in my humble opinion, is one of the 10 best musical compositions of any genre in all of history. In this version, Hancock sneaks in some jazz stylings layered onto the classical composition and a “perfect” performance is the result. This has very little to do with anything except that I want to introduce my readers, few though you may be, to a website: Brain Pickings. I consistently find interesting things on this site on a daily basis, including the following video.
While I’m recommending other websites, please please please bookmark TED talks, which, I believe, is one of the most important places for you to expand your view of the world and enter the realm of thought and ideas. It really is a remarkable resource and if you watch one a day you will — honestly and no shit — become a better person for the effort.
Now, back to “bloviate”. Here’s the internet dictionary definition:
blo·vi·ate (blv-t)
intr.v. blo·vi·at·ed, blo·vi·at·ing, blo·vi·ates Slang
To discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner: “the rural Babbitt who bloviates about ‘progress’ and ‘growth'” (George Rebeck).
There are world class bloviaters, of course, and we all know the names of these obnoxious, self-involved crashing bores. The names of Mohamar Kaddafi and Achmedinajad in the Middle East come to mind, as does Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez in Latin America. In the United States, whether or not you agree with his perorated hate and falsehoods, Rush Limbaugh certainly is up there in the top 10 world-wide.
What brings this up as a topic for this blog is a world-class but little known bloviater right here in Oklahoma City. His name is Phil. He’s a big man, riding that line between grossly overweight and morbidly obese. He drives a blue Volvo station wagon. His favorite bloviation topic is almost always mass transit in OKC, specifically light rail. Once he gets started, I want to chew off my own ears and curse the day God decided to make that physically impossible for me. No amount of insisting that I agree that light rail would be a good idea for this metro area will make him stop talking. I have often tried to politely be released from his conversational grasp and find it impossible. As one measure of his level of obnoxious, he was “86’d” by Galilleo’s some years ago after an incident in which he almost shut down the restaurant with the smell he left in the men’s room and the stink he raised when the line for use of the room had backed up disastrously because of the amount of time he’d tied up the facilities to the point that patrons and staff were pounding on the door. For me, personally, there is even more difficulty because he’s one of those people who ask my legal opinion and then tell me the many ways in which I’m wrong. You see, he’s involved in a multi-year dispute with his siblings over his mother’s inheritance and thinks I must agree with him that all the law, the courts and all lawyers are bloodsucking idiots and if I don’t agree then I am not worthy of being regarded as a human. None of which, of course, prevents him from approaching me with his “stuff” the next time he sees me nor from being offended when I say I don’t especially enjoy his company. All this because he’s back to spending hours at the Evil Empire Starbucks at 65th and N. Western, where I occasionally go for a break in my day. If you see me, eyes glazed and furtively seeking a “way out”, please rescue me. Come tell me my mother’s dead or that my house is on fire or that I’m urgently needed in surgery. Anything will do. I’ll return the favor, I swear I will.
Finally, a commercial break. Generally, I don’t like advertisements, but this one is brilliant!
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While I’m recommending websites, I’m mesmerized by the jaw dropping trainwrecks depicted on WTF Tattoos. I would favor legislation requiring any tattoo requested after 10 p.m. be preceded by a viewing of this website.