Funny Songs Funny Stories …by Greg Tamblyn

Recently at Christmas I overheard three of my nephews griping about the toilet paper in their college dorms. Their chief complaint was their school’s cheap tissue is too chafing.

(This is not a subject you would normally bring up at Christmas or in mixed company, but they are, after all, boys in college. And to their credit, the females were on the other side of the room. Also, I was impressed that they knew what “chafing” meant. Obviously, these are college dollars well spent.)

Another gripe was the toilet paper is too flimsy, so they have to use way more of it than the good stuff, which they are certain is costing their university a lot more than would buying better bunwad. (My word, not theirs. I never wrote the word “bunwad” before and I just wanted to see how it felt.)

Anyway, this got me reflecting on the classic conundrum of HOW toilet paper should be mounted on the wall, and the gratifying way that problem was solved for me. This may be something you too have struggled with, and have always wondered about. Not that it’s kept you up at night or anything, but somehow nobody ever mentioned it or you were absent that day in school or whatever. If so, your days of confusion are over.

On the other hand, maybe your mother taught you to mount the toilet paper one way, and one way only, and so for you that was final. My own personal mother, as it happens, is quite hygenic – almost anally so (is that an oxymoron?) – but for some reason she never once mentioned this fundamental piece of housekeeping. Which now that I think about it is astonishing. She certainly let us know the exact right perfect way to do everything else. I feel it was an oversight in our upbringing. (Note to self: Ask Mom why she omitted specific instructions about the tissue issue.)

But back to the basic problem, which is this: do you mount the roll so that it dispenses from the rear, dropping down next to the wall, or do you mount it so the paper comes over the top and unrolls away from the wall?

Before I give you the correct answer and the expert who clarified this for everybody, everywhere and forever, I want you to think about it for a minute. One might argue that the first option is better because the paper unrolls close to the wall and is thus slightly neater and tidier, but possibly a little harder to reach, harder to touch only the paper you want, and harder to tear cleanly. And we all know how frustrating it is to tear the tissue in the middle of a sheet.

Whereas with the second option (outward and over the top, which could apply to this whole blog post) it’s a bit easier to reach, but with a greater chance of spinning the roll out of control, unleashing several yards of toilet paper cascading over the bathroom floor, leaving you with the difficult decision of whether to re-roll it back onto the spool (even though it’s impossible to ever make that look right) or to just gather it all up and throw it away. Which seems wasteful.

It’s a tough choice, I know, but what do you think?

For the one or two of you still reading at this point, here is the correct answer:

The toilet paper should be mounted so that the paper comes over the top and away from the wall.

“Ha!” you say. How can I be so cocksure this is the proper mode of installation?

Because a long time ago on The Tonight show I heard Jerry Lewis expound at length on this very subject while he was guest-hosting for Johnny Carson. I can’t exactly recall his precise arguments right this very minute, but I can assure you he was adamant. He was dead certain the toilet paper should come over the top, away from the wall. And I figure if anybody knows about toilet paper – if anybody should have the final word on toilet paper – it would be Jerry Lewis. So for me, case closed.

As an example of how this can play out, years ago I lived with my brother and his wife for a few months and we shared a bathroom. They always had the toilet paper mounted the wrong way, so whenever I answered the call of nature, I switched it around to the right way. Incredibly, neither of them ever mentioned this. They never brought it up or asked me why I turned the toilet paper around. Instead, they quietly switched it back. I always thought that was weird.

I always hoped one of them would say something. I thought it would be fun to let them know that Jerry Lewis had made the definitive statement on this. (Plus, you would naturally want to be prepared in case Jerry ever dropped by for a visit or an inspection.) But sadly, I never got that opportunity. Maybe now one of them will read this blog post and we can finally bring that dark episode of family history out of the closet.

(By the way, I would never switch the toilet paper at anybody’s house except a family member. That would just be rude.)

One final thing. I once participated in a humor workshop where the leader told us to divide ourselves into two groups: crumplers and folders. We all looked at each other blankly, with no idea what he meant, until he yelled, “People, I’m talking toilet paper!”

It was more than we wanted to know about each other, but funny.

© 2012 Greg Tamblyn

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My song Love Will Come Around (co-written with Lance Cowan) was awarded the “Obelisk of Love” in the category of Personal Transformation (or as I call it, Perpetual Confusion) at the EmPower Posi Music Awards in Orlando Sunday night, January 15. My “competitors” in this category are all fabulous artists / songwriters, and good friends: Jana Stanfield, Karen Taylor-Good, and Freebo. So I was shocked, astounded, and dumbfounded to win. But I confess, happy to accept.

Below are a couple of photos, the lyrics, plus a link at the bottom to hear the song.

This first photo is onstage, performing the song at the awards. I was delighted that the lovely and talented Lisa Firestone agreed to sing harmony with me. As another songwriter at the awards advised, “Greg, it never hurts to have a little eye candy on stage with you.” The way they lit the stage, however, makes Lisa look more like a Dream Angel than eye candy. No matter, she is definitely “ear candy” as well, and her harmonies were beautiful.

This next one is me babbling through some train wreck of an acceptance speech, while holding the “Obelisk of Love” like I don’t know whether to eat it or defend myself with it. (I have no idea what they actually call these. Maybe just the “Posi.” Or the “Posi Statue.” Or the “Posi Pointer.”)

Finally, Love Will Come Around is available on my CD, The Shootout at the I’m OK, You’re OK Corral, and is also available on the EmPower CD of all the nominated songs.

Here’s a link for a listen. It’ll take you to  new page, after which you can hit your Back button if you wanna come back here to comment:

Love Will Come Around

LYRICS:

LOVE WILL COME AROUND
(Greg Tamblyn Lance Cowan)

Ain’t you built that wall
High enough by now
Something that high might fall
And hurt you when it comes down
It wont ease your pain filled heart
Building a wall to keep you apart

Chorus:
Give a little love
When there’s no love to be found
When you give a little of your heart away
Love will come around

People everywhere
Need a helping hand
Show them that you care
And there’s no wall that can stand
I know it’s hard when you don’t feel good
But that is the time when you really should

Chorus:
Give a little love
When there’s no love to be found
When you give a little of your heart away
Love will come around

Bridge:

Love is the only thing I’ve found
When you give it away it keeps coming back
around and around and around

Chorus:
Give a little love
When there’s no love to be found
When you give a little of your heart away
Love will come around

© 1988 Ramblin’ Tamblyn Music and Forrest Hills Music

Feel free to comment below, and if you’ve never commented on this blog before, it’ll take a short time for your comment to be approved, but it’ll show up, I promise.

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As the always amusing NY Times columnist Gail Collins has pointed out with impressive regularity, Mitt Romney once drove his family to Canada for vacation with the family dog strapped to the roof of the car. This is such a bizarre visual (he’s a presidential candidate!) that my friend Bob Kroeker, attorney and cartoonist, felt compelled to illustrate it for those of us who will never be allowed within six time zones and 47 bodyguards of the family photos. Thanks Bob!

Mitt Romney drives the family to Canada on vacation with the dog tied to the roof of the car.

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We all know (hopefully) that humor is an antidote to the seriousness of life. Sometimes we forget it can also be a shock absorber for the occasionally rocky road of romance.

• Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke. (Lynda Barry)

Perhaps you’ve experienced the hormone cocktail we call “falling in love.” The feeling is akin to many chemically induced states. Endorphins get released. There’s a definite high. It’s scientifically measurable. As a psychiatrist friend of mine observed, “You feel good all the time: happy, energetic, confident, like you can do anything. It’s the best drug in the world.”

When he said that, I thought Sure, it’s a great drug, but they never tell you about the side effects!

Ha! We songwriters fall to our knees in gratitude for ideas like that. My co-writer (Richard Helm) and I quickly wrote a new song about some of the stages of relationships – kissing, making love, marriage, and sometimes even divorce – with each stage being like the need for a more powerful drug. At each level we listed all the side effects, just like the pharmaceutical commercials on TV. We called it Common Side Effects Include. (There’s a link below to hear the song.)

(It’s very popular with people who have found relationships to be a growth opportunity. Including therapists.)

* This song went on to win the award – out of 140,000 songs entered – for “Best Humor Song” in the Just Plain Folks Music Awards. The JPF Music Awards are like the Grammys for people you never heard of. Meaning, independent musicians like myself.

People get a kick out of the song because, like a lot of humor, it sets off their truth meter. There are side effects to love! Plus, they see themselves in these love progressions, and wonder if they’ve always jumped in for the right reasons. More importantly, it reminds us that real love is a deeper, more profound experience than the “hormone cocktail,” and healthy relationships aren’t afraid to dive those depths.

Real love makes plenty of room for humor, too. Being able to laugh at ourselves and the issues that come up in relationships is not only a survival tool, it’s essential.

• That the birds of worry and care fly over your head, this you cannot change. But that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent. – Chinese proverb

Humor is an attitude, like gratitude or compassion. It can be developed. It just takes a little practice and willingness to let go of our seriousness at times when a healthy dose humor might turn everything around.

If your staff trainings, annual convention, and/or fundraiser could benefit from some uplifting humor with relevant messages in the form of a Comedy Keynote Concert, please get in touch. We’ll have some fun exploring how I can best be of service.

And if you’d like to hear Common Side Effects Include, just click this link. It’s the second song on the page.

ADVISORY: This song contains anti-depressive lyrics.

http://gregtamblyn.com/listen.html

As always, your thoughts are welcome in the comment box below, and thanks for reading.

© 2011 Greg Tamblyn

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In response to a reader request, I’ve posted “Amazon” here for streaming. When you click the link it should open in a new window and play. After you listen, just bang your “back” button and you’ll be right back here.

09 Amazon

“Amazon” can be found on, “How Could Life Be Better Than This,” a finalist for “Best Contemporary Album” in the Just Plain Folks Music Awards. You can check out all my CDs (or download ‘em digitally) here.

Injoy!

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We all have our “I got unceremoniously dumped” stories, and sometimes there’s more than a modicum of pain involved. Occasionally however, especially if it’s been a short-term thing, it not only doesn’t hurt too much, it can be kind of funny.

As the writer Linda Barry said, “Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.”

So here’s the line I once got dumped with a few years ago:  “My ex-boyfriend, who I broke up with because I was in love with him and he wouldn’t marry me, is now sick and probably dying and begging me to come back, and I can’t say no.”

She delivered this line like she was breaking my heart, but I actually had to keep from laughing because it sounded so much like a bad country song. We hadn’t been dating long, so it was really no big deal.  On top of that, the story went over great in concerts. We got some big laughs out of it.

If you have some relevant words of wisdom, and/or a funny/pathetic/ hilarious/ridiculous break up line or story, lay it on me in the comment box below. Something tells me I’m not alone here….I have a feeling there’s a bunch of good ones.

If we get enough of ‘em, I’ll make ‘em into a song.

(Note: If you’ve never commented here before, your comment will take a short while to be approved by the head fred: me. But it will show up.)

© 2011 Greg Tamblyn

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A friend’s wedding this week has lured me to Paris, France, the City of Light. Also the city of pastry, wine, espresso, chocolate, foie gras, rich sauces, and a bunch of other stuff that will kill you in America but is somehow magically good for you in France. I find myself consuming it in quantities that would embarrass Napoleon.

As Steve Martin used to say, they speak a whole other language over here. They think a bit differently as well. And to paraphrase what the French have famously said about the sexes, vive la difference. So I’ve taken the liberty of doing a quick and dirty comparison (by no means complete) with points awarded, like in ping pong.

[Feel free to add your own items and score them in the comments box below.]

For example:

They get seven weeks vacation, we get two. One point for France.

We invented rock and jazz. They´re still trying to copy them. Point for us.

They have Victor Hugo, we have Mark Twain. Even.

They have the Legion of Honor, we have the Legion of Superheroes. Point for us.

They have the Arc de Triomphe, we have the St. Louis Arch. Point for France.

We have San Simeon, they have Versailles, Mont St. Michel, and the Louvre. Point for France.

France has the Eiffel Tower, we have the Statue of Liberty (but they gave it to us). Even.

We have the Grand Canyon, they have prehistoric cave paintings. Even. (You have to see the cave paintings to get this.)

In France, Jerry Lewis is revered as a great film artist. (One of the great mysteries of the universe.) Point for us.

They eat snails, we eat big macs. I’d call that about even on the disgust-o-meter, but obviously, a lot of people like both. Even.

They have coq au vin, we have chicken fried steak. Depends on the talent of the chef, but again, even.

They drink a lot of wine, we drink a lot of coke. At least wine comes from a real plant. Point for France.

France has the Riviera. we have the Florida Keys and southern California. Being male, I give a point to France on a close call for the prevalence of topless beaches.

They still have a few toilets where you have to stand up to poop. Quaint? Nope. Point for us.

We have baseball, football, hockey, and basketball. They have basketball, sort of. Point for us.

They have free health care for everybody. Point for France.

They have better food, we have better service. Tough call. Depends on how hungry you are. Even.

We have New Yorkers, they have Parisians. Even.

We have New York, they have Paris. (Sorry New York, not even close.) Point for France.

They have Lyon and Marseilles, we have San Francisco and New Orleans. Point for us.

We invented Macbooks, iPhones, and google. They invented Peugeots. Point for us.

In France you can drive a few hours and be in several other countries. In the US you can drive for several hours and still be in Texas. Or Kansas. Tossup on this one, depending on whether you like lots of space, or lots of culture.

The US is made for entrepreneurs. If you have a dream, you can pursue it freely. France has a web of regulations that can strangle even the best business ideas. Point for us.

France has much lower rates of stress, burnout, overwork, and accompanying health problems. (Did I mention the seven weeks of vacation?) Point for France.

French workers go on strike at the drop of a hat, bringing schools, subways, you name it, to a halt. Point for us.

France had Jacques Chirac, we had George W. Bush. At least Chirac could speak English. Point for France.

We rescued them in two World Wars. (The older people in France remember and respect this.) They saved our butts in the American revolution. (Anybody remember learning this?) Even.

We armed Saddam Hussein to the teeth and are in denial about it. They sold all kinds of stuff to Iraq and are coy about it. Again, about even on the disgust-o-meter.

Most of the people I meet in Paris are friendly and helpful. The people I actually know in France say they generally recognize and admire American ingenuity, energy, and efficiency. And in those ways maybe even wish they could be more like us. But they also are far more worldly, more relaxed, far more appreciative of — and take more time for — the simple pleasures of life. Maybe they’re also better able to see different sides of an international situation due to living in close proximity to so many other countries, cultures, and languages.

The bottom line is we have it great in America, but man, do we have tunnel vision sometimes. We need to travel more.

Finally, here’s an old joke about the European difference between heaven and hell.

In Heaven,
the police are British
the mechanics are German
the cooks are French
the lovers are Italian
and the whole thing is run by the Swiss.

In Hell,
the cooks are British
the police are German
the mechanics are French
the lovers are Swiss
and the whole thing is run by the Italians.

© 2011 Greg Tamblyn

36 Comments

It’s now officially the “Summer of Swelter” here in the midwest. We’ve been offering up our body fluids in 100+ degree temperatures for days – in some places, weeks – at a time. Global Warming now seems an inadequate term. It feels more like Global Melting. And it’s not that dry heat* like in Arizona.

* I was in Phoenix last month and it was 115 degrees. Don’t give me that crap about dry heat. It’s still hot enough to fry bacon on your forehead.

We get serious humidity here in Kansas City. Like a steam bath without the fancy towels. It does, however, give us something to talk about with strangers. “Hey, did you hear that humidity is good for your sinuses? Breathe it in, baby…..ahhhhhh.”

So it’s uncomfortable to be outdoors now. You have to be careful with your kids and pets. Weather Channel ratings are leaving the Harry Potter finale in the pixie dust. (Especially without NFL training camp news. Football fans are borderline suicidal.)

The thing is, and I don’t mean to sound like an old geezer, as a kid I just don’t remember worrying about the heat. We still played baseball all day, went swimming, and when it was time to mow lawns for spending money, we strapped on the old grass bag and cranked up the Toro. (Not self-propelled.) The temperature was unpleasant, but irrelevant.

These days, almost everybody here in the good old U.S. of High-Energy-Use has air conditioning. In 99.999% of the history of the world, I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the case. I’m also fairly certain there were plenty of hot summers before freon showed up.* It makes you wonder how anybody got anything done.

* I bet the guy who invented the electric fan made some decent money. And before electricity, how did people ever get ice in the summer?

So griping about the heat seems kinda wimpy. Especially considering:

Yesterday, as I was quickly traversing the short distance from my air conditioned car to an air conditioned store, I saw something that gave me pause, as they say, and stopped me in my toasted tracks to watch.

In the middle of a day with a monstrous 108 degree heat index and a high ozone warning, a beautiful, well-dressed black woman with fabulous cornrows, carrying a heavy-looking ornate satchel, slowly and proudly walked across the scorched pavement of a busy intersection, then made her way up the next steaming block, doing what she had to do to go wherever she needed to be. She also carried a long white pole in front of her.

She was blind.

Whoever you are, Darlin’, God bless you. And thanks for a new perspective.

© 2011 Greg Tamblyn

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Forget all that stuff about trade deficits, unfair currency valuation, and cheap labor. The real reason the Chinese will take over the world is much more fundamental. In fact, it’s genetic.

Several thousand years ago, while the rest of the world was still figuring out how to combine nuts and berries into a decent trail mix, the Chinese discovered rice could be fermented into alcoholic beverages. No doubt this was huge fun, resulting in a lot of antediluvian frat parties, silly dragon jokes, and unplanned pregnancies. (Ever wonder why there are a billion Chinese?)

Fortunately for them, however, their genes were smart enough to determine that if everybody was schnockered, nobody was getting any work done in the form of planting and harvesting. So, according to a recent genetic study, Chinese genes evolved the ability to redirect the effects of alcohol on their hosts from becoming sh*tfaced to simply redfaced.

I’m not making this up. The study said that instead of becoming wobbly and making inadvisable bar bets from too much party punch, Chinese people with this gene will just start turning red in the face.

Since the rest of the human population has been enjoying fermented grains, fruits, and sloe gin for a lot less time, we haven’t evolved this propitious genetic reaction to alcohol. Ergo, in any negotiations with the Chinese, they will simply drink us under the table, and then get us to agree to God knows what.

Don’t say you weren’t warned. Please pass this vital information on to the people who need it most: your representatives in Congress.

© 2011 Greg Tamblyn

2 Comments

I have to let you know right up front, the idea for this tune comes from the lovely and talented Lisa Firestone.  (More about her in a minute*)  It’s one of those clever song ideas that made me laugh, then grabbed me by the brain and wouldn’t let go.

It’s called How ‘Bout That Game, and this is a simple guitar/vocal demo done with Garageband software on a Mac. Garageband is cool, but you gotta know what you’re doing. And as you might already be aware, I possess an Analog Brain In A Digital World.

Still, the song is there and all its parts are in the right order. You can listen by clicking the link below. After you listen, just hit your back button to return here and unleash your esteemed personal opinion in the comment box below. Critique it any way you like. Honesty is optional, but usually preferred.

(If you’ve never commented on this blog before, it’ll take a few minutes for your comment to be approved by the Head Maestro – me – but don’t worry, it’ll show up!)

– FYI –  it’s not meant to be a “comedy” song.  More like a cute/clever love song with a lot of wordplay. Cool?  So what do you think?  Is it finished?  Is it close?  Or do we need to pat it on the head, send it out to the cornfield, and start over?

Thanks for listening!

How ‘Bout That Game

Lisa Firestone is a gifted singer/songwriter who has a wild and beautiful new CD. It’s making some big noise (in a very good way) and you can check her out at her website and her Facebook Fan Page.

© 2011 Greg Tamblyn

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