bush approval rating Brain Farts Brain Fart brain farts brain fart brain-fart brain-farts brainfart brainfarts LEO Louisville Eccentric Observer parody lampoon satire Louisville Kentucky Kevin Gibson kgramone@aol.com  kgramone humor cat's ass fart anna kournikova zeitgeist  bush approval rating

Brain Farts was a weekly humor column that ran in the Louisville Eccentric Observer from mid-2000 until the summer of 2002. It was, well, eccentric. And occasionally satirical. And sardonic. Some liked it, some hated it; some just didn't get it, and that's OK. There were times when I didn't get it either. I've compiled here some of the archives from Brain Farts for the enjoyment of friends, family and anyone else who happens by. I also have written some new Brain Farts, and added some links and other trivialities that you shouldn't be too concerned with.

Unless you're as bored as I am.

I welcomed the invention of e-mail many years ago, because I believed it would help me to better keep in touch with friends who live far from me, and also because I am in favor of a paperless society. Not that I’m some kind of tree-hugging hippie, but I’m terrible at filing. You should see my desk at work. It’s piled with memos, promotional products and other nonsense that I am too lazy to file or throw away. (Click here to see a re-enactment of my desk.)

But that’s not what I’m here to tell you about. What has me concerned is this: We are a society filled with illiterate morons. I’m serious. Have you ever received an e-mail that read something like ...

“i still not sure how to log onto server will u help me to figure out” or “want to kill that girl in accounting do u have knife I to borrow”

Yeah, no capitalization, no punctuation, and – perhaps worst of all – free use of electronic shorthand. I believe it was Prince and Madonna who started doing this crap in their song titles back in the 1980s (you know, like “I Would Die 4 U,” “I Will Lick UR Face” and other such nonsense). This is just blatant laziness. What’s worse, it’s gaining acceptance as a form of communication.

I recently read an article by New York Times writer Sam Dillon titled “What Corporate America Cannot Build: A Sentence.” If someone has taken the time to write an actual article about this issue (as opposed to just a ranting Brain Fart on some sad website), that’s evidence to me this is a growing problem about which we all should be strongly concerned. (But first, let’s see a show of hands: Who thinks burps are funny? I know I do.)

According to Dillon’s article, a recent survey of 120 U.S. corporations by the National Commission on Writing concluded that a third of employees in America’s blue-chip companies wrote poorly and that businesses were spending as much as $3.1 billion annually on remedial training. The problem shows up not only in e-mail but also in reports and other texts, the commission said.

“It’s not that companies want to hire Tolstoy,” said one executive involved in the study. “But they need people who can write clearly, and many employees and applicants fall short of that standard.”

Another disturbing thing I’ve noticed, even though I’ve personally tortured many of these people myself using fireplace pokers and rancid peanut butter, is that many still write their e-mails in all capital letters. This annoys me so much that I find myself vomiting things that I didn’t even eat.

OK, people, here’s the deal: When you type your e-mails in all-caps, IT MEANS YOU ARE YELLING. I swear, I think I’m about to go deaf from all the virtual yelling I get in my e-mail correspondence. Shut the f*** up, already.

Seriously, someone once sent me a message that said, “HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING LATER? WANT TO MEET FOR SOME WINGS AND A BEER?”

To which I responded, “Listen, you self-important bastard, I don’t know what’s up your ass, but I would appreciate it if you don’t take that tone of written voice with me. I’ve had a hard day; someone stole my kidneys, and on top of that, my butt hurts, so back off!”

Of course, then I had to apologize to my dad for writing that, because he didn’t realize he was yelling. But you get my point: This is an overall lack of communication that plagues us as Americans, slows business processes and creates unnecessary misunderstandings. If we, as a society, cannot communicate effectively, how can we succeed? How can we even survive? It’s not just about business – our very livelihoods are greatly affected by this social and communicative discord. How can we avoid these pitfalls if we cannot effectively reach one another in a meaningful way? In a way that each person can understand and readily pass on to future generations?

Burp. (Hee hee hee.)

Contact the writer at kgramone@aol.com. DO IT. NOW.