Horace’s Fabulous Blog

I put on my penguin reading glasses (my dears, at my advanced age, I will admit to using bi-focals) and took a gander after many a decade at Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” (Do love the classics.)

And I had forgotten about that opening statement pondered by scholars and PhD’s and other students low these many, many years. (And who am I, a mere penguin to even think about commenting on such an important literary classic, I am Horace Horatio III, that’s who.)

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” (Opening sentence, Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.”)

Well that was back in 1797, (my goodness, written even before I was born) and it is now the year 2007. Quite some time has passed. My.

And when I read that sentence in the year 2007, I thought to myself, “a single man in possession of a good fortune can get pretty much any wife he wants, thank you very much. No matter how ugly or unpleasant he may be, a wealthy man will never die alone, that is if he doesn’t feel like it.”

(And I think that applies to wealthy women as well.)

Such a cynic that my vast and important life has made me.

But it is my observation that this notion of “inner beauty” and “inner wealth,” although much chit chatted about, doesn’t really count for much, or if truth be told, if anything, when it comes right down to this mating thing.

Well, looks help, but wealth is so much more of an marital aphrodisiac.

There’s nothing like a good bankruptcy to find out who your friends really are, or if you end up with any friends at all. So the wealthy out there, do stay solvent and prosper and pick the human of your dreams. Most likely he or she will be most obliging.

Well, I want you to know my dears that because I have lived such a long and vast life (please see my bio, Horace Horatio III) that I know a great deal about a great deal of things. And I know many of you out there in web-land are single, and some of you are in deep despair.

Oh, holidays, those retched, retched holidays, when couples, families look so happy (they look happy, that doesn’t mean they are happy, in fact most of them are absolutely miserable) and you, alas, are all alone. What to do?

Well, my dears, over the years when I have found myself alone on holidays, I instigate what I call a “pajama day.”

I don’t actually wear pajamas, I am a penguin, so I don’t actually wear anything except that delightful bowtie (I’m into red now.) However, what I do on “pajama day” is take off that red bowtie, and not wear it at all. And I have the yummiest slippers especially made for my flipper –feet. They are soft, silky, velvety, black slippers (to match the rest of me) and I simply adore them. On they go on one of these “holiday pajama days.”

So, I suggest you wear your more elegant pajamas, or your more fun pajamas, after all you are making your own pajama day, holiday statement.

The nice thing about pajama days is that you can’t go outside and see all those (what you think are) happy, happy families and couples. No, you are in the cocoon of your own home in your most comfiest and comforting of apparel.

Absolutely nothing of any consequence should be done on a “pajama day holiday.” Nothing high minded. Only personal, utterly selfish frivolity.

Now this is the day when you do what you’ve always wanted to do, but never had the time, or thought it was just too frivolous. Read those murder mysteries, sappy novels, that whole stack of People Magazines, auto magazines, surfing the net, those fun, fun computer games, endless sports on the Telly/TV. You get the idea.

And of course you have yummy things to eat that you’ve gotten at least the day before, because, remember on pajama day holiday, you are not going outside. Yes, get all the stuff you wouldn’t eat any other day. Throw caution, calories and good eating habits to the wind. Get out the chips and salsa, and for goodness sakes the ice cream, cookies, chocolate, etc. You get the idea, my dears.

What’s happening is you are turning that retched, lonely holiday into a “guilty pleasure.” And I assure you, my dears, once you get the hang of it, oh, it is so much fun. You get to the point where you don’t envy all those families and couples out there, because if any of them tried to do what you are doing on this pajama day, guilty pleasure holiday — can you imagine the comments from spouses, children, significant others:

“Have you lost your mind?” “Get up you lazy bum!” “Aren’t you ever going to get dressed?” “You’re eating what?”

No, because you are single or “quirkyalone” on this utterly lovely pajama day holiday, you can do exactly what you want with no guilt ridden commentary from anyone at all.

So enjoy those guilty pleasure, pajama day holidays, my lovelies. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

All this chit chat about psychopaths. There is part of me that is quite jealous that there are actually people out there that have the conscience of Swiss cheese or no conscience at all. One has to think it must be immensely freeing.

I’m not talking about the criminal psychopath, the ones that actually get caught. No, I’m talking about this new breed of psychopath they are calling “the psychopaths living next door,” basically con-men that look like your average human being. These people flit through life, taking no responsibility, cheating people out of their money, breaking their hearts, toying with their emotions and amazingly enough, apparently not taking the consequences at all.

It’s rather spooky thinking that I might know several, if not many psychopaths. Apparently there are far more around than people realized. They now saying that the tell-tale sign of this new psychopath is unbelievable charm combined with a sense of pity.

I have my Horace radar up, I hope you do too.

I have a friend who has an innocuous little website. In the beginning (you know after all your friends have seen the website and then you’re lucky if you get 7 visits a day and 6 of them are actually from you) when she checked her statistics, at the end of every month she had a faithful visitor who happily visited every page of her website (unlike almost everyone else.)

Well, of course she was thrilled. So after 3 months of faithful visitations, she decided to look up the IP number and find out who this lovely person might be.

It turned out to be a certain company. Looking it up on the World Wide Web she found out that one of its biggest customers was none other than the US Government–Homeland Security.

So she figured that it was quite possible that every month the US Government was checking out to see if her innocuous little website was a haven for terrorists. She and I quite agree that this appears to be an incredible waste of time and money.

So when this whole spy thing erupted she and I weren’t the least surprised. We chatted about George Orwell’s book “1984″, the whole Big Brother thing, and decided that maybe Orwell was right after all, except that he was off by 20 years. Orwell should have named his book “2004, Spies are Us”. So easy in hindsight.

I used to like religion, I really did. But I find it terribly difficult now, and it’s all because of the Religious Right.

This messing about of Church and State, so unpleasant, so silly. This us or them thing, kind of the antithesis of Christianity don’t you think?

As far as I’m concerned they’ve been plotting this political potential (I think we can safely call having the House, the Senate and the White House political potential) for decades, it’s been quite calculated, and obviously very successful and I’m quite sure it’s going to get a whole lot worse.

Personally I think this whole Religious Right thing (or the we are right and you are not thing) is really not about righteousness at all, but rather about power and control. Tisk, tisk. “The meek shall inherit the earth,” ring a bell?

Maureen Dowd writes in her new book “Are Men Necessary” (and she doesn’t even answer the question, I was hoping for an answer) that Feminism is dead and has been dead for a long time.

Well what did she think. After thousands and thousands of years everything would be turned around in a decade or so. Bim, bam thank you Mam. Hasn’t anyone ever heard the expression “one step forward, two steps back?”

She could at least have said Feminism is evolving. There was that adorable movie about it, that frothy, pink Valley Girl at Harvard Law. And women now get to choose whether they want boardroom careers or to be yummy mummies.

And then there’s Maureen Dowd herself. No spring chicken, but still quite an attractive lady, with a Pulitzer Prize no less. I don’t see how she can possibly think Feminism is actually dead. Personally I think Feminism appears to be moving forward, a little slow, but advancing nevertheless.

I suppose you think I loved the movie (March of the Penguins), well I hate to tell you I didn’t like it at all.

First of all it made me feel so guilty. Here I am living this cushy life, and these poor things are toddling back and forth in this dreadful place, putting up with ridiculous weather, and not questioning for a minute that they could be living somewhere else.

And this group bonding thing. Oh, it made me ill. Huddling together, protecting the species. No room for individualism. No room for self expression.

And that sex scene. Romantic music as if they got it right the first time, when in reality the poor fellow kept slipping off and looking so silly (he didn’t exactly make us males look good in the uncut version); and the young lady looking up patronizingly as is to say “there, there you nice fellow, next year you’ll do so much better, I just know it.”

Well, the little fellows were cute. And I’m glad they get four years or whatever it was to frolic in the ocean before having to give up their lives to that agony.

That those filmmakers even attempted to make their lives seem romantic and heroic is ridiculous. Some of us just know better.

It’s not too early for other folks to speculate whose going to win the next Republican presidential primary, so why not moi.

I have this theory and I’ve had it for so long. They put that adorable Dick Cheney (see earlier post) in the second spot for a very good reason. They purposefully picked someone too old (of course we all want young studs who know nothing as our top man) to be Commander in Chief, so the Bush folks could have Jeb.

Why should a Monarchy not work here? So what if we sluffed it off in 1776, it doesn’t mean that it’s not a viable option now. Think of it, the next Prince, the line of succession, a true Hollywood story. I have a feeling that some people think a dictatorship would be nice, but would settle for a suitable king.

So look forward to the continuation of the Bush Dynasty. Look forward to Jeb. If the thought makes you feel just a little bit grumpy, at least (on the information we have now) he’s never had a DWI.

Yes, I’m afraid I will be called cynical. They’re maybe a few lovely saints out there but I’m afraid they are few and far between.

The first thing a woman wants from a man is money. There are lovely euphemisms for it, “support”, “caring”, “spoiling”, “treats”, “enjoyment”, but I’m afraid young man, what women really want is your money, and they can be very good at getting it. All that flattery, flirting and fawning…don’t kid yourself, you may think you’re that good looking, but alas, you probably aren’t.

The second thing that women want is the same thing men want–to be taken care of. Feminists you can scream all you want, but I’m afraid it’s true. Oh, yes, work, career, but at the end of the day, women don’t want the buck to stop with them, they want it to stop with you.

So to summarize gentleman, women want money and to be taken care of. Remember those two things and you too will have a chance to “live happily ever after.” Again, good luck to you all.

I am an art consultant and I have a great deal to say about the state of art today.

I’m afraid I don’t like these dreary realistic painters, the ones who paint like it’s 1850 and the 20th Century never happened. I know, I know, I’m so out of touch…they are all the rage.

As far as I’m concerned this way of painting reflects the unbelievable conservative trends in our country. It is as if after 9/11 we want to stick our head in the sand and believe that the 20th Century never happened. I happen to think that the 20th Century was unbelievably innovative and exciting.

It’s as if people want to go back to 1850 and seem to think that things back then were simple and ideal (has anyone forgotten smallpox, polio etc, etc, etc.) I would like to remind everyone that life in 1850 was not a whole lot of fun and besides you’ve got a chance to live a whole lot longer now.

I do want to tell you I do love that Dick Cheney, he looks so much like me. If you don’t believe me take a look at my glorious head shot on my fabulous web page, about me, Horace.

I think it’s just retched the way people pick on that delightful man. So suave, so sophisticated, and we’re so alike in looks.

I am quite distressed that people seemed to disregard the fact that Mr. Bush was an alcoholic frat boy who got a DWI and didn’t sober up until he was somewhere in his 40’s. This is simply, to say the least, not a good role model for the American people. Consequently, someone’s got to run the government, why not Dick.

At least an intelligent individual had the foresight to have an experienced man next to Mr. Bush, with all those divine connections in the oil world and a political buddy of Mr. Bush’s father. I think that we as a country should be grateful, and the fact that he looks so much like me is definitely a plus.

There are so many things on the Internet about how horrible narcissists are. I really think the other side should be told–narcissists can be a great deal of fun.

You’ll find that it can be exciting to be around a narcissist. They live in a wonderful world of fantasy. They can be so out of touch with dingy reality, and it can be a joy to be swept up by their grandiose ideas. When you are around a narcissist it is no longer necessary to live in the real ho-hum world. You can be associated with a famous, fabulous “whatever” and it’s simply so much fun.

When you meet someone and it seems too good to be true, try to ignore the people who tell you to flee, that your heart will be broken, that promises won’t be kept. I know they mean well. If you latch on to the Narcissist like glue and tell him (or her) everything he (or she) wants to hear, your life will be simply glorious.

Remember to flatter, flatter, flatter, and it will be fun, fun, and fun. I am quite sure that great time will be had by all.

I know that all you out there in Web-Land are simply not going to want to hear this and think I’m being really too simplistic and black and white. But I am black and white, check me out, it’s just my inherent nature.

What men really want is to get laid. Yes, ladies, I’m sorry but I’m afraid that’s the bottom line. And yes, and men also like a lot of blow-jobs. So dear girl or young lady, if you haven’t figured that out, it’s really time you knew.

And the other sad fact is that men–young ones, middle aged ones, older ones also like to be taken care of. I hate to disillusion you but if you think they care about your career, the kids, what you wear, you are quite wrong. They’ll pretend for a while to be interested in you, but when they talk about “the honeymoon being over”, that’s what they mean, it’s now all about them. I know this because everything always has to be all about me.

So for the ladies out there, remember these two simple facts, men want is to get laid and be taken care of. And if you do remember them, I’m quite sure you’ll have a chance to “live happily ever after.” Good luck to you all.

If you want to see how wonderful I look you can visit my web page Ask Horace (my headshot is on there) and find out all about me, if you’re that curious. You’ll find out about me anyway if you read this fabulous blog, because I am fabulous. You’ll be fabulous too, because my fabulousness will rub off on you by sheer Internet association.

This blog is all about me, how I feel and what I know. And because whatever I know and feel, you should know and feel too, because I Horace Horatio III am always right.

I’m always running into blogs and you don’t know who is writing them and it simply drives me crazy. Obviously as you read my fabulous blog, you will eventually realize that it couldn’t possibly be written by a witty and dapper stuffed penguin, right?

So we’ll get it right out in the open, right off the bat, here it is: I am a invention of Mary Baker’s imagination. Well, I’m quite relieved that that most pertinent fact is out of the way.