Ranting about failed Rants….

 Posted by at 01:38  Coots Lessons, rants
Dec 232014
 
This is the current logo for The Rant
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Do you see what I have been reduced to this week?  I am actually going to write a rant about another rant.  My brain is getting soft this week, maybe I need to split up the podcasts.

So, the other day I was sent a link to this rant that I have reproduced below.  The audio is not very good, it is not your speakers.  The day that I received this link I didn’t have time to watch it right away.  But I thought, hey, it’s a Bill Murray Rant it has to be good right?

I finally got around to watching it and was sorely disappointed.  Not only was it an extremely poor rant, it was way to scripted and poorly acted.  Not what I expected from a Bill Murray rant.

In fact, it was so bad that I had to go listen to my Denis Leary CD just to get my ears burning with a good rant or two.

What is the point and why would you want to watch this clip now?  Well I don’t have a good answer for that.  I think it is a case of an actor who can really deliver some lines in movies gets pegged to try stand up.  And then doesn’t write it himself.  There is just no soul to it.  I don’t blame Bill Murray, I blame whoever wrote this piece of garbage.

I only agree with the line about R2D2 being a fine actor.  Can’t go wrong with a Star Wars reference.  Here is a tip from me to you, completely free but still a part of the Cantankerous Old Coots University.  If you are going to rant on something, it had better sound real.  You can write it out and memorize it but when you deliver it, it should sound like you are extemporizing and not like you are reading the phone book.

Check out Bill Hicks, Denis Leary, George Carlin and old Dennis Miller for how to do it right.  If you are really adventurous, Sam Kinison awaits you.

Send in your questions for Ask A Coot Saturday and have a great weekend.

-Justin

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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Long Live the Sanctimonious Old Sheep!

 Posted by at 15:26  Coots Lessons, Plain 'ol Cantankerous, principles
Sep 022014
 
Christmas card with Caspar Milquetoast by H. T...

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Today, for a change, we are serious!

You’re accustomed to light hearted, trivial musings about life here at Cantankerous Old Coots but today brace yourself for some deeper thinking. If you thought that checking out the Coots would be mindless diversion, today, the Coots are asking for more.  Change is in the air.  Lick your finger and check which way the wind is blowing.  When you feel secure then read on.

One of the original ideas for the Cantankerous Old Coots was to provide a framework for people to shed their Casper Milquetoast personas and develop an unique brand of what we like to call cantankerousity- letting the chips fall where they may and standing up for yourself in a world that glorifies sheep. (We never said that we weren’t suckers for cliches).

We tried inspiration.

So began the series of Coots Lessons, intended to help people foster an independent frame of mind.  We formulated 16 Coots lessons covering a wide range of life experiences. These lessons were intended to provide the basis for an E-Book and eventually a body of instruction in the Cantankerous Old Coots University.

And then?

Well, life happens, and it seems that Cantankerous Old Coots have just as many problems reading the public as anybody else. We published that E-Book- a beautifully designed primer for getting started on the road to Cantankerosity. The only price for this valuable product was to join our community by signing up for our list. We anticipated that every reader would want to have this helpful document on their very own personal computers for easy reference and encouragement.

We were wrong.

At every step along the road, we sought evidence that somewhere out in cyberspace, there is an audience yearning to break out of the mindless ordinariness of daily life; the dreary monotony of not making waves. Alas, it seems that independent thought is dead in modern society. Instead of an eager audience of cantankerous people or even cantankerous wannabees, it seems that our vast and growing audience of readers is nothing but lookiloos- folks that love the idea of independent thinking but  are too afraid of their shadows (or what other people might think) to actually be independent.

Not Coots but Sheep

At the next Coot’s Convergence (that’s a business meeting for the uninitiated) I’m going to propose that we change the blog’s mission statement to better fit our audience. I’m going to propose that Cantankerous Old Coots be changed to Sanctimonious Old Sheep. Under the new motto we will revise our lessons to help our audience fulfill their destiny to make no waves, get lost in the background and make absolutely no difference in the world for anybody in their life.

The New Agenda

These are the tentative changes to the first five Coots, I mean Sheep, lessons.

Coot Lesson #1 – Let your feeling out!

Sheep Lesson #1 – Embrace the Uniformity!

Coot Lesson #2 – We don’t care what you think.

Sheep Lesson #2 It’s all about them

Coot Lesson #3 – Polite is over rated!

Sheep Lesson #3 – Mind your manners!

Coot Lesson 4- Say It When You Feel It!

Sheep Lesson #4 – Not so Fast

Coot Lesson 5- Let your face show what you think.

Sheep Lesson #5 – Show your happy face.

Give ’em what they want! That’s our new motto.

I’m convinced that this change will bring this blog into convergence with our audience, leaving them safely in their comfort zones and sleeping peacfully each night. I think that mindlessly reinforcing the conformity and bland acceptance that is modern life will grow our audience even faster in the future and provide safe cover for all the sheep out their to join our community and leave their own conventional wisdom in the comment area.

Cantankerous Old Coots is so out of date and 20th century. Long live the Sanctimonious Old Sheep!  Go ahead now sheep, it’s safe to comment!

 

 

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Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Coot Lesson #1 – Let it out!

 Posted by at 18:09  Coot Law, Coots Lessons, principles
Jul 292014
 

Forget what your mother told you.

Here at Cantankerous Old Coots we believe in letting your feelings out. Maybe your mother taught you to be nice. She may have told you “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Well, we say forget what your mother said. How far has your mother’s advice got you anyway. We say, if you feel it, then let it out.

Permit No Time Bombs

The way we see it, those bottled-up emotions are time bombs, wreaking havoc on your health and well-being. Keeping quiet just lets that pressure build up and, even worse, encourages those fools causing all the upset to keep doing what they are doing. Keeping quiet not only makes it bad for you now; it makes it worse in the future.

Niceness is Phoney

All this niceness is phony anyway. You know what people are really thinking. It’s what you are thinking but just not willing to say. They may tell you that you are looking good and that your new grandchild is so cute but you know the truth. Old age never improved anybody’s looks and that grandchild is a wrinkled mess, even if they do say he resembles you. Wouldn’t it be a relief not to have to pretend that you believe them? Don’t you think they deserve the same honesty from you? Of course they do. Do yourself and them a favor and just let it out, tell them the truth.

Like this

“Joe, you old scoundrel, you are even fatter than the last time I saw you. You get any bigger and I’ll have to get you a wheelbarrow to lug that belly around.”

“Sally, you old fool, whoever told you that pink was a hair color? You look like you got your head caught in a cotton candy machine.”

“Dick, you blithering idiot, what makes you think that combing those two hairs over your bald spot will turn you into Fabio?”

Do everybody a favor

You see the point? Friends do not let friends make fools of themselves. So do yourself and them a favor, let it all out. Trust us. You mother was a fool.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Sheep Lesson One: Embracing the Uniformity

 Posted by at 18:09  Coots Lessons, principles
Jul 292014
 
Plunge dipping sheep

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Hello sheep.  Following up on Ralph’s post from last week, I have decided to not just rewrite the fabulous Coot’s lessons, but to start over on the road to uniformity, conformity, and the bland whiteness of looking at a world with the wool pulled over your eyes.  So to speak.

Today I would like to start off with a little bit of conformity.  If Ralph, Bob and I cannot be your guides to Cantankerousness, then we will have to be your shepherds.  And, just a warning, sometimes it takes the stick in order to get an unruly sheep to behave.  Ralph even sent me this picture of him teaching his sons the conformity lesson.

So conformity tells us that we should all be the same.  Everything should be nearly identical in our beige lives under the blue sky.  You.  Over there in the pink shirt.  Go put on the grey uniform.  You.  Over there with the uncombed hair.  Report for haircut and style.  You.  Over there thinking that this is a joke and not really serious.  Get over here and prepare to be beaten into line.

There will be no free thinking anymore.  Previously we have tried to put out lessons and articles that allowed you all to make up your own minds and look at the world freely and go your own way.  Not anymore.  You will go our way.  If you try to go your own way, we will bring you back and make fun of you on Twitter.  If you try to think something different than what we want you to know, we will come over to your house and show you what an electric cattle prod is for.

I hope Heather wants to think differently, because I would love to go to Scotland.  So for now, all of you out there, prepare to follow the norm.  Prepare to follow us.  Prepare to actually be a sheep and follow.  You will never get off of the treadmill and your view will never change.  Enjoy the sameness.

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Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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For Today, a Contest!

 Posted by at 18:09  Coot Law, Coots Lessons, Technology
Jul 292014
 

*** since this post was first published there have been 233270 visitors to it.  There have been a total of ZERO submissions.  c’mon people get on the ball…send us your face!***

Now hear this Current and aspiring Coots!  Very shortly we are going to be putting out our first product.  I know that is exciting enough to make you all pee yourselves with excitement.  You may want to get a doctor to look at that though.  Don’t worry in any case because that’s why they make Depends.

So far we haven’t got a lot of participation  here at COC.  So since you refuse to respond to the sticks we throw, we are going to break out the carrots just this once.  We want your face!  And we are offering a prize for the best face.  There!  That is as nice as we get.

What does your best Cantankerous Coot face look like?

By now you should have mastered the basics for Cantankerosity or maybe you were a natural and had what it takes all along.  It doesn’t matter because we want to see the results.  Show us your best Coot face.  Take a picture and if it doesn’t break the camera send it to us.  We want to see the Cantankerosity that we have inspired.  We want to use your faces in out upcoming E-Book and at the blog. You could be famous.

So scrunch up your face and practice your cantankerousness.  Little children should either laugh or weep at the face you finish with.  Preferably both.  Then take the best picture you can and send it to us.  This contest will end at midnight on July 10th MDT when we get enough submissions to actually have a contest.  Right now, there is all the time in the world You have until next Saturday night to get us a picture.

There will be a prize for the best picture.  That prize will remain a mystery until the contest ends.

Send entries to    contests@cantankerousoldcoots.com Please include your name, address, credit card numbers, pin numbers, measurements,….errrr….Just your name and the picture will be fine.

Now for some fine print.  Any image submitted must be your own image.  We don’t want copyrighted images from other websites that will get us in trouble with the copyright lawyers when we start to sell our own stuff.  Besides we want to see you, our readers.

Second, by submitting an image for the contest you agree that we can do what we want with it.  This includes the website, CantankerousOldCoots.com, and any e-book or print book that we may publish in the future.  Your only compensation for the picture will be a credit to you and probably a link to your own site.

Third, By submitting a picture, you agree that, to the best of your knowledge, this picture does not have any previous copyrights that are being infringed.  If you take the pic yourself, it shouldn’t have any copyright issues at all.

Fourth, unless you tell me not to add you to the list, by submitting a picture you will be automatically added to our email list and be among the first to receive the new e-book when it comes out, and if you are the winner, it will have your picture on it.  You will not be getting a double opt-in confirmation email from us, but unless it says somewhere in your picture email that you don’t want to be on the list, you will be, and this constitutes permission to do so.

Sorry for all of the legal mumbo jumbo but I really can’t afford to get sued by anyone for a silly website contest.

So go out right now and take a picture, preferably in focus, and send it to

contests@cantankerousoldcoots.com

Remember, you have until the sands run out on July 10th to submit!  I hope we can get 1000 entries.  Tell your friends too!

Please retweet, digg, stumble upon, comment, carrier pigeon, morse code or otherwise let people know about this contest!

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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