School is useless. They keep changing all the information after you graduate.
Take dinosaurs for instance.
In the 1980's scientists finally agreed that dinosaurs were more like birds than lizards That finding actually invalidated my first academic work “Age of the Dinosaurs” written in 1967 for Professor Ann Rufner's kindergarten class at Lincoln Street School in Red Bluff, CA.
Anyone who reads that paper now is going to think I’m an idiot.
“Check it out--this moron thought dinosaurs were big lizards! What a dumbass!”
Hey, that’s what they told us!
Back in the sixties there were only five dinosaurs. Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceretops, Pteredactyls, and Tyrannosaurus Rex.
They were all either brown, grey, or dark green. That made it easy to pick a color for your paper mache models. I don't think Tempra-Paints (just add water!) came in any other colors. But now you need every color in photoshop to keep up with all the new dinosaurs. And you have to make them look like birds. Just because they found one stupid feathered dinosaur fossil in China. Like we're supposed to trust the commies. (Just another thing that's changed since I went to school.)
There are also endless papers spouting new theories; Dinosaurs may have been warm blooded, traveled in herds, and (this is my favorite) Tyrannosaurus Rexes were great parents. Apparently the toothy giants made nests, sang lullabies, and used those ridiculously tiny arms to knit baby booties for their hatchlings. T-Rex had better parents than me!
There must be a hundred dinosaurs now. At least. I think this is a mistake. It takes away from the power of The Big Five. Why should a kid care about dumb but lovable Stegosaurus when there are fancy new dinosaurs like Velociraptor? The killing machine. The reptilian terminator. And they work in pairs, sneaky bastards. Thanks a lot, Spielberg. Bad enough I haven't been in the ocean since 1975, but it's been almost twenty years since I gassed up at a Sinclair. You know how hard it is to get across Arizona without doing that?
We didn’t have velociraptors when we were kids. And we certainly didn’t have Mark Knopflerasaursus or Barney or the cute little one that spits on Neuman and makes him drop the shaving cream. It’s oversaturation. Too many damn dinosaurs. I feel sorry for kids these days.
And what am I suppossed to do now that the first thing I ever wrote has been debunked? How embarrassing is that? I feel like that guy who had to apologize to Oprah for lying about himself in his autobiography, crying like a little bitch to keep his book on the Times Bestseller list. Which I would do in a second.
I can’t even be proud of the artwork in "Age of the Dinosaurs". It’s not mine. It was my friend Don Uhl, who went on to become a bitchin’ car artist in fourth grade. He worked in pencil. On his desktop, mostly. Lost to time, like all great art. Except for the rare dinosaur sketches preserved by ditto in our forty-three year old collaborative thesis, now discredited for all to mock.
Ditto. Now there was a technology. And a good word corrupted by Rush Limbaugh. Right wing prudes are always complaining because words like "gay" and "teabag" no longer have their original meaning. Well, just once I'd like to say "ditto" and not have everyone think I'm agreeing with an obese, racist drug addict who probably never had to use anything less than a mimeograph. Mimeograph. Give me a break. Soon someone will publish a study proving Limbaugh is a direct descendant of Brachiosauras (formerly known by the slave name Brontosaurus). Y'know, what with the walnut-sized brain and all. At least asshole still means asshole.
And don't get me started on Pluto....
Posted 1/28/10.
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