Making Holes In Fish

Now don't get me wrong. I may not have started my cosmic sojourn on Earth like everybody else but that doesn't mean that I don't have a lot of the same propensities that Earthlings do. Just because I was from Mars in my previous life doesn't mean that I was some little green Namby Pamby who would be afraid to bait a hook, for example.

As a matter of fact, I have made holes in earthworms and meal worms with a fishing hook many times, in the hopes that I might catch a nice Brook Trout or Rainbow Trout that would fry up nice with butter and go good with some fried potatoes and pork and beans. Followed by a cup of coffee and a wedge of blackberry pie which might be followed by a shot of Jack Daniels, a bottle of lager and a big fat cigar.

But I never once considered the "sport" of making holes in fish just for the fun of it. Yeah, I know, it's called "Catch and Release" fishing and it's almost exclusively the summer pastime of American fly fisherman, many of whom are those clothes-horse and gear-horse fisherman who like to fish the way they see people fishing in upscale catalogs that cater to monkey-see monkey-do middle-class Americans with too much disposable income and too much time on their hands. But, giving these "fishermen" the benefit of the doubt, I'll admit that they just might be people who like to catch fish but who don't like to eat fish or smell fish or who can't cook fish or who simply won't take the risk of eating a fish that might be chock-full of PCBs or mercury or E. Coli bacteria. Now, that makes a lot of sense.

What doesn't make sense to me is that making a hole in a fish with a hook just to take it out again is any kind of sport. I think I'm one of the few people who wonder how long that fish that's just had a hole made in it by a "Catch and Release" fisherman has to heal before another "Catch and Release" fisherman makes another hole in it with a fishing hook just to pull the hook out again. As far as the "Catch and Release" fishermen go, I try not to think about them at all.

But, then again, I am originally from the planet Mars, so don't go by me.

Winners and Losers

Now that the belated Super Bowl XLIII is over, I'm wondering all over again about what makes Earthlings, and especially American Earthlings, actually tick. Being a former Martian with almost total recall of a better world that made a lot more sense, I need to be indulged here. Yeah, I know, I said I had total recall in earlier postings, but I've finally caught the Earthling disease that causes memories to become selective to the point where only the good stuff gets remembered. What a nice racket for all the racketeers who will capitalize on our memory losses.

First of all, it would be a hell of a lot easier if Super Bowls were numbered with regular numbers. Then yesterday's match-up between Pittsburgh and Arizona would have been Super Bowl 43. Nice and neat and easy to understand. It has a nice Martian ring to it. And while we're at it, Hollywood could stop dating movies with roman numerals as well. Trying to figure out the year of a Jimmy Cagney gangster movie I recorded earlier wouldn't take up so much time and I could give the rewind and pause button on my VCR a rest. But I'm getting off the track, as usual.

The thing that bothered me the most about the Super Bowl wasn't the stupid Roman numerals or the fact that the Steelers won. I like the Steelers. But I don't dislike the Cardinals, either. I mean, I do wonder at times just where in the hell they came from but then I'm still wondering what the hell happened to the Baltimore Colts, too. As you can tell, I'm not much of a spectator-sports fan. Watching people play with balls on TV is about as exciting to me as watching them cook food on TV. Something is missing, here, and I think it's having the five senses downsized to just seeing and hearing. Watching TV is basically enjoying only two-fifths of real life and that's not saying a whole lot for the couch potato.

But, no, these aren't the big reasons I didn't even watch the Super Bowl. The biggest reason has to do with winners and losers. OK, so the Pittsburgh Steelers are the winners of Super Bowl XLIII and the Arizona Cardinals are the losers. Hmmm. Then that means that all the other great football teams in the NFL are losers, too. Apparently, bigger losers than the Arizona Cardinals who, in the opinion of any former Martian, is now the second-best football team in the NFL.

The World Series is the same deal. The winning team takes home the national baseball title and the second-best pro-baseball team in the world is now nothing but a loser. No matter how many games this World Series loser won in order to get to the World Series, or to even win their league's pennant, they're now losers.

But this isn't the first time I've been totally bewildered and disenchanted by the winners and losers tradition on planet Earth. When I was a young man I used to watch the Miss America Pageant each year with red-blooded, American-boy fervor. And then it started dawning on me that when they crowned Miss America, she was the one and only winner while 49 other beautiful young women suddenly became losers.

Wow. Only on Earth.