“You were a rotten wife and I’ll never, ever forgive you! . . . Can we have sex, please?” – Abe “Grandpa” Simpson
“Oh, Abe.” – Mona Simpson
“Well, I tried.  What’s for supper?” – Abe “Grandpa” Simpson

There’s even less rhyme and reason than usual to this week’s stochastic smorgasbord of Simpsons links.  But there are two unrelated links that mention “Mother Simpson” so that gets to be the title.  Other than those there’s some nervousness about pronunciation, some fun YouTube, a jerk who doesn’t like Zombie Simpsons but also seems to not like The Simpsons, someone who agrees with us, two links to people who found a little Simpsons joy in their days, and a bunch of usage. 

Enjoy.

Author Mona Simpson reads from newest novel on campus – File this under interesting trivia:

Mona Simpson can boast of having a television show character named after her (Homer Simpson’s mother), courtesy of ex-husband Richard Appel, a writer for “The Simpsons.”  She is currently the Sadie Samuelson Levy Professor in Languages and Literature at Bard College.

Maybe everyone else already knew that, but I sure didn’t. 

Words pronounced incorrectly by me – One of the joys of text is that you don’t need to worry about stressed syllables and all that other bullshit.  Sadly, sometimes we must speak with people:

Do you ever find yourself reading aloud or speaking in public when, to your horror, you come across a word you don’t know how to pronounce? Especially one that you’ve read in your mind as a written word all the time, but you’ve never heard it spoken out loud?

[…]

I was doing fine with "oregano" until Marge Simpson pronounced it o-re-GAH-no. Now I’m always afraid that pronunciation will escape my lips before the proper one.

As for me, my parents never bought me that pony I was always asking for and so I never learned proper pronunciation. 

How to Use The Simpsons to Enhance your Lessons – A rather skeletal guide for teachers on how to use the show. 

How to Speak Like Homer Simpson! – This is a YouTube video of a slightly hyper youngster doing a Homer voice (amongst others).  His Homer’s pretty good. 

The Real Marge Simpson – It’s a real life Marge Simpson on the train.  (Also, nice WordPress theme.) 

The Will to Resist – This person lives in Los Angeles without a car.  Lisa’s struggle against the overwhelming pressure to eat meat springs to mind.  The actual quote is “I can’t fight it anymore!” but this still qualifies as decent usage for being very applicable. 

Marge Simpson is Britain’s favourite TV mother – It’s time for another cheap, holiday tie in.  At least Marge won. 

Let’s use the water we have – This is an article about the stupidity of modern water usage.  It begins:

On a camping and rafting expedition gone haywire, Homer Simpson, Flanders and Bart were stranded at sea with only one canteen of water.  Unfortunately, Homer used the water to wash his socks.  San Diego’s use of water is similarly inefficient.

Excellent reference.

Griffey Junior still swinging for the fences, but with more comedy – All these years later no one can escape the Simpsons vortex:

"[Shoot], I must have done 2,000 takes when I did my lines, I was so nervous," Griffey said of the classic episode from — gasp! — 18 years ago.

I think we can safely presume “shit” at the beginning there.  I’m pretty sure Griffey is the only player still playing from “Homer at the Bat”.  Hell, Mike Scioscia has been managing for a decade and Daryl Strawberry isn’t even in rehab anymore.  Speaking of Straw . . .

Strawberry takes a swing at ‘Apprentice’ – He’ll be on the latest season of Donald Trump’s ongoing vanity project.

MetroRail Good to Go – Austin, Texas gets light rail, and a YouTube of the monorail song to boot. 

Red Carded – This is about wineries giving warning cards, a la soccer, to rowdy tasters.  It concludes thusly:

My limited understanding of soccer is that one red card equal automatic expulsion.  I have already accumulated multiple red cards in both Sonoma and Napa counties.  I face ejection from my both my own and adjoining cities.  I’m reminded of Marge Simpson lamenting to Homer, “Oh Homer, we’re the worst family in the neighborhood.”  He brightly replies, “Maybe we should move to a larger community, dear.”

He’s got his Simpsons backwards there, it actually goes:

Homer: I’m sorry, Marge.  But sometimes I think we’re the worst family in town.

Marge: Maybe we should move to a larger community.

Still, that’s very applicable, relatively well remembered, and I’m a sucker for anyone who quotes Season 1 so I’ll call that good usage. 

Time Change This Weekend – Even by my standards this is tangential, but this guy did put up a picture of a Homer clock and tagged this post “the simpsons”, so it’s fair game.  Behold stupidity:

Honestly, I don’t understand why we “spring forward” so freakin’ early, now. I thought the whole idea was to have more sunlight when we’re doing things outside after work and school. Ok, it’s kinda nice now, but this is Michigan. I don’t know about you, but…I don’t get out in my yard much until it’s well north of 65. And I think I’d rather have the light in the morning when kids are walking to school. They still do that, don’t they? Hey, if the budget crunch gets any worse, they ALL will be. Well, anyway, remember to set your clock FORWARD on Saturday night. And if you have any idea how to work the clock in my truck, then come up here and set it for me. Otherwise, it’ll just be an hour off until we fall back.

I generally try to be subtle about the hundreds of radical right wing messages I insert into every post here, but the rant above is a disgrace that deserves to be called out.  (Granted I don’t know this guy’s politics, but I can tell my own kind, and he 1) works for a country music station, 2) refers to his car as a “truck”, and 3) complains about the budget.)  We move the clocks “so freakin’ early” now because America’s Most Underrated President, our dearly missed Glorious Leader, decided it should be so back in 2005.  Have you forgotten already?  He did this because he had the moral fortitude to trust his gut that it would save energy despite there being only mixed “evidence” in support of that contention.  Now get out of my office. 

…and now for something completely different! – Double your YouTube pleasure here, with a quick clip from “So It’s Come to This” and the argument sketch from Monty Python.  (A lot of the old Flying Circus stuff hasn’t aged well, but that one’s still hilarious.) 

Look Ma no Job, but at least I still got hands! – Life changes are always best accompanied by Kang quotes.  Excellent usage. 

“Its Over, Get a New Show” – Can I agree with part of what someone says and still think they’ve got their head up their ass in general?  Yes, yes I can. 

Josh’s Little Moment of Win – Proof that The Simpsons is still relevant despite what the asshat in the previous link thinks:

I was putting Simpson stamps on the envelopes of bills I was preparing to mail. When I finished, I noticed that I had put a stamp of Homer belching on the envelope for the gas company. IMMD

At least it wasn’t a reply envelope to a wedding invitation. 

Emanon – Another little moment of Simpsons related win:

I was searching for a new desktop picture on Google images and saw one thumbnail that said, "Click to embiggen". IMMD

The comments on this are good too. 

Me Simpsonized – Cool Simpsonized self portrait. 

Improvisation: The Theme from The Simpsons – Click here for a nine minute take on the theme song played on one of those big assed church organs.  I thought I’d just listen to a little of it, but I got hooked and listened to the whole thing.

The Story of “Mother Simpson” – This is about the driest recap of a Simpsons episode I’ve ever read.  It was sort of strangely fascinating though. 

Simpson eh? – Catching Larry King looking a lot like Mr. Burns.

Comics and Cartoons – Serious Business! – This is a long and well read discussion of, like the title says, comics and cartoons.  Happily it includes this:

But cartoons are more tricky aren’t they? It’s hard to come up with a cartoon aimed at adults, not about super-heroes and not totally puerile I can talk about in such hushed tones as Watchmen up there. The most successful examples are obviously The Simpsons and Family Guy but they were never meant to be taken seriously (besides, both have turned into hideous parodies of themselves these days).

“hideous parodies” indeed.