My Brother's Favorite Story

This was one of my brother’s favorite stories from when we were kids. He often requested to hear it and seemed to thoroughly enjoy it every time I told it; which I think says a lot about his character, since in the story he turns out to be the butt of the joke.

When I was about six and my brother about four our grandfather took us to a local park. Now, as any kid knows, when you go for a ride in a car the most important thing in the world is making sure that you get a window seat. And so, being the big brother that I was, when my grandfather unlocked and opened the passenger door I looked at my brother and ordered, “You get in first.” He obediently climbed in and slid over to sit next to Grandpa. I then climbed in and, secure in my choice position by the window, proceeded to enjoy the changing view as we made our way to the park, oblivious, of course, to my brother’s suffering as he endured the dreaded middle seat.

I don’t remember what we did at the park that day. I assume we played on the swings and the slide and ran amok and made a lot of noise. I do vaguely remember watching some “big kids” as they sat around a picnic table playing “knock-hockey,” an ancient and primitive board game that you could not possibly have ever played. Or even heard of.

After a few hours of wild abandon it was time to leave, and as Grandpa unlocked and opened the car door you could feel the wheels in my brother’s four-year-old head begin to turn. “OK, Lenny, this time you get in the car first!” he said with all the firm resolve that a younger brother is capable of mustering.

Fair’s fair, and with a smile I gleefully hopped into the car and slid across the seat. My brother, feeling quite triumphant I’m sure, followed close behind while I waited in delicious anticipation for realization to dawn. You should have seen the look of absolute confusion on my little brother’s face when my grandfather got into the car and my brother found himself once again stuck in the middle. You see, this time my grandfather had opened the door on the driver’s side of the car.

More Beatle Crap For Sale

Let me begin with a disclaimer: I take a back seat to no man or woman when it comes to my credentials as a fan of the Beatles. To me the world is divided into two groups: those who believe the Beatles were the greatest rock artists ever and those who are wrong. To this day I’ll read any obscure bit of info in the newspaper or on the web if it’s about a Beatle. Ringo just bought a new pair of shoes? Paul has a new vegetarian recipe? Oh, I must learn more about this!

There was another auction this week of John Lennon crap, I mean memorabilia, that fetched $1.75 million. (How come the only time you ever hear the word “fetch” is concerning auctions or dogs? Oh, and something that is attractive is occasionally said to be quite “fetching,” but I suspect that word will be completely out of common usage in about ten years.)

The big-ticket item in the auction was the hand-written lyrics to “All You Need Is Love,” which Lennon had used during the Beatles’ famous and final TV performance in 1967. The sheet of paper, that someone way back when was clever/greedy enough to salvage from Lennon’s music stand, sold for a cool $1 million. For a piece of paper. Do you think that’s nuts? Because frankly, I don’t.

In truth I would love to have bought that piece of paper. In fact there were only two things that kept me from purchasing the famous lyrics for myself. One, I didn’t know where or when the auction was being held and two, the million bucks. Also sold during the auction was a WWI military jacket worn by Lennon during a Life magazine photo shoot. That sold for a paltry $175,000. The auction also including early paintings by Lennon, as well as assorted clothing, eyeglasses and even furniture from the late Beatle’s home.

Here’s what gets me: Say you’re living with someone who is incredibly famous and he or she dies. I’m talking about the real icons here, JFK, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Lennon, James Dean—you know, the short list. Suddenly it’s as if some modern-day King Midas walked into your home and pawed everything in it. Items that would have little or no value had they been owned by some common, everyday slob, such as say you, have now all become valuable treasures.

We love owning things that have been owned, used or touched by the greats. Oh, that’s not just any toothbrush; that toothbrush actually went into John Kennedy’s mouth! Oh, that’s just not any Q-tip; that Q-tip actually went into Marilyn Monroe’s ear! Oh, that’s not just any rectal thermometer; that rectal thermometer actually went up John Lennon’s---OK, you get the picture.

And I’m just as guilty. I just bought the latest book by one of my favorite authors. And why would I pay just $25 for the book when for only a little more than double the price I can get a copy of the very same book on which the author has scrawled his name! Strange behavior, isn’t it?

Well, buying collectibles can be a lot of fun, I guess, but you have to be so careful. Whenever I’m thinking of making some really goofy purchase I always remember Todd McFarlane, who spent a $2.7 million to buy Mark McGwire’s 70th homerun ball. And why not? McGwire had crushed Roger Maris’s long-standing homerun record and there was every reason to believe that this new record would also last at least a lifetime. Except, of course, until it was broken a mere three years later. How many times have I told you kids to leave Daddy alone when he’s drinking? Here, take this old baseball and go outside and play.

The Devil's Rejects--C+

Normally I wouldn’t go to see a movie like this, nor would I listen to what the critics were saying, but I kept hearing so many good, or at least not horrible, things about The Devil’s Rejects that I just had to check it out for myself.

I prepared myself for a stomach-wrenching gorefest of unspeakable horror and I have to tell you that I did leave the theater feeling quite disturbed. What disturbed me, however, was not what I had seen on the screen but my mild, almost non-, reaction to it. Roger Ebert had given the film a thumbs-up but warned that the film was outrageously disgusting, so throughout the entire film I kept waiting for the shocking stuff to start. And for me it never did.

And this is what disturbs me. Has life finally made me so calloused and jaded that I’ve become immune to the most shocking of images? Golly, I sure hope not. Frankly I thought Rob Zombie’s film was entertaining in parts and boring in others, but never particularly shocking or gross. During the film I often found myself imagining what tortures and mayhem would have been depicted on the screen if I had been the one running the show. Believe me by the time I was done Ebert would have abandoned his jumbo-sized bucket of popcorn and two-pound box of Raisinets and gone screaming and retching from the theater. Like I said, it disturbs me.

I never would have guessed it but The Devil’s Rejects almost turns out to be a character-driven movie. I kind of liked the clown-guy, even if he was a psychopathic killer; and the self-righteous sheriff was pretty wild. Director Rob Zombie spends a lot of time training his camera on his wife Sheri’s lovely posterior, which was fine with me, and there was a nice assortment of dead naked chicks to look at. I mean, I knew they weren’t really dead but were just actresses pretending to be dead, so I figure it’s OK to look. Right? Right?

I even almost enjoyed the music to The Devil’s Rejects, which of course was heavy on the Southern Rock that you’d expect in a back-road, trailer park epic such as this, and included songs from hillbillies like Joe Walsh, The Allman Brothers, and The James Gang. And it came as absolutely no surprise to me when the movie’s climactic finale, a bloody but nicely edited Bonnie and Clyde homage, was accompanied by Lynyrd Skynyrd’s eternally revered and vastly overrated Free Bird. Or as I like to think of it, The White Trash National Anthem.

Nah, I can’t really recommend that you go see The Devil’s Rejects, although when you combine the above-mentioned good points with the dry and welcome sense of humor in Zombie’s script it’s not the worst flick out there. Still, if you insist on dragging yourself to see it, let me know if you were really and truly shocked or horrified or severely traumatized. Like I said, I'm not sure but I think there might be something wrong with me.

Death of a Good Guy

If you’re not from New York and of a certain age you’ve probably never heard of Joe O’Brien, who died in a car accident this past Sunday at the age of 90. I, and many, many others I’m sure, do remember Joe O’ Brien and remember him well. And why shouldn’t we, since as kids we had breakfast with him almost every morning?

Joe O’Brien was a radio personality in the 1960’s. Actually, upon reading his biography I discovered that he began his radio career as a teenager in 1934 and continued to work in the field for 66 years, right up until his retirement only five years ago. But it was during the 1960’s that O’Brien is best remembered, at least by me.

O’ Brien did the morning show on WMCA in New York, and was one of the original WMCA Good Guys. The Good Guys were a group of six on-air personalities, and I’m telling you these dudes were popular. I remember having a photograph of the group and trying to memorize the name of each one as if they were some kind of rock group or sports team. The Good Guys made tons of personal appearances together, recorded jingles and even came out with an album. I feel like testing myself tonight, so I’m going to try to remember as many of the six as I can. Let’s see there was Joe O Brien, Harry Harrison, Jack Spector, Dan Daniel, and two others. Dan Ingram? And some Latino news guy, I think. I’ll check my list on the web and get back to you.

Anyway it was Joe O’ Brien who my family listened to while eating breakfast and getting ready for school. WMCA was a Top-40 music station, and it seems almost incongruous to me now that we’d be listening to the latest music from The Beatles, Stones, Animals, Kinks, etc. all introduced by a DJ who at the time was around 50 years old! I remember the family laughing once when an odd little song came on with some whiney-voiced guy singing, “Everybody must get stoned.” Sure we all giggled. To us getting stoned still meant getting drunk. We kids were all twelve years and younger and it was 1966—what the hell did we know?

O’Brien himself said that this era was the most fun he’d ever had on radio. "When a new Beatles song came out, the competition to get it first was amazing. I think we got all but one," he once said in an interview. O’ Brien also did his share to make the mornings fun and even ease the pain of facing yet another interminable day of school. I remember he had an imaginary sidekick named Benny. I also remember arguing with a friend about exactly what sort of creature Benny was. For some reason I insisted that he was a chipmunk or squirrel, probably because he sounded so cartoony-cute. My friend Arthur said he was just a person. And now forty years on I’m almost willing to concede that Arthur might have been right. Around Christmastime each year (and you were allowed to call it Christmas back then—even on the radio) O’ Brien’s gimmick was to allow Benny to recite “The Night Before Christmas.” That is, only if Benny had been good. It was a funny gag that began weeks before Christmas. I can still remember Benny’s high-pitched voice as he begged, “Please Joe, let me recite!”

Another thing about my friend Arthur is that he had won one of the most coveted radio prizes of the time: A WMCA Good Guys sweatshirt. The shirt was orange with a smiling face (not a “smiley face”!) over the words WMCA Good Guy. Oh how I wanted to win that sweatshirt! Now that I think about it not only did Arthur win a Good Guy sweatshirt but so had his sister. I once asked him how they both could have been so lucky, and he said the trick was to mail in a picture postcard, like you’d send from vacation, rather than a regular plain one. Sad to say I never did send in a picture postcard, I think because it felt a little like cheating. And ever sadder to say, I never did get that sweatshirt. (I recently discovered that you can now buy replicas of the original WMCA Good Guy sweatshirts through the world of instant gratification that is the Internet. But where, I ask you, is the fun in that?)

Ok, I just checked on the original WMCA Good Guys. I had some names right, but the actual original Good Guys were brought together a little before my time. They did include most of the names I’d listed, but certainly not Dan Ingram, who worked over at WMCA’s arch-rival, WABC. And the “Latino” guy was Dean Anthony, who I now think might have been Italian. Hey, how about giving me a friggin’ break? It was forty years go.

This week even my fellow New Yorker Howard Stern, who almost always refuses to acknowledge any of his childhood radio influences, said he respected Joe O’Brien as a radio pioneer and a true “good guy.” To me Joe O’Brien will always be the voice on the radio who made my family laugh every morning while at the same time introducing me to the incredible rock music that was to become the soundtrack of my youth.

Hair, There and Everywhere

You know what you need? A hobby, that’s what. And I’ve got a great one for you. How would you like to try your hand at collecting…hair? Yup, if you’ve been hanging around this planet for any length of time you know that people will collect just about any stupid thing that there happens to be more than two of. So it should come as no surprise that there are some folks out there who collect human hair.

Oh come now, of course I’m not talking about some perv who sneaks in at night after the barber shop is closed and gathers bagfuls of freshly clipped hair to bring home for his own twisted amusement. Not that I doubt for a single minute that people like this actually do exist. It’s just that I’m fairly certain that you don’t want to read about them and I’m damn sure that I don’t want to write about them.

No, I’m talking about bits of hair from well-known people; follicles of the famous, if you will. I just went on-line and checked out the tonsorial offerings from some place called Historical Hair and Collectibles and you know what? I don’t think this hair collecting is such a hot idea after all, and for more than several reasons. But since I’ve already brought up the subject and have been in a quiz mood lately, I’m going to ask you a couple of questions. Sound like fun? I didn’t think so either, but too late, here we go:

First, if you want to you can spend a good chunk of your hard-earned pay buying a single strand of hair from each of the people below. (No, the hairs from Marilyn and Kennedy were not collected from the same pillow.) Below you will find the names of four famous people. Using your oh-so-limited powers of deductive reasoning, see if you can rank them by cost, from the most expensive to the least.
A. John Lennon
B. Abraham Lincoln
C. John F. Kennedy
D. Marilyn Monroe

OK, think you’ve come up with the correct order? I doubt it. Not that it’s particularly difficult—I just know your limitations. Anyway, you’d spend the biggest stack of your ill-gotten cash for a single strand of hair that came from the sainted noggin of…(sfx: drumroll)…Abraham Lincoln! The on-line description says that this is hair that was removed from the president on his deathbed to better examine the bullet wound, and that the Lincoln assassination strand is “the most coveted documented hair in the world.” (Yes, more than Ozzy Osbourne.) In second place we have the lovely Marilyn, followed by John Lennon and then JFK.

OK, one more question. This super-valuable, most coveted, blah-blah-blah Lincoln hair: How much do you think it costs, considering that it came right from the doomed head of arguably our greatest president? (I say “arguably” to be fair. Let’s first wait and see how the Bush presidency finishes up. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!)
A. $400
B. $1300
C. $8500
D. $50,000

Don’t you ever get tired of being wrong? The answer is, of course, $1300. Wouldn't you agree that seems awfully inexpensive for such a rare and profound historic artifact? You do? OK, I’ll order it for you. E-mail me your credit card number when you get a chance.

“What about other famous dead folks?” I can almost guarantee you didn’t ask. How does the price of their hair stack up? Well, George Washington’s hair goes for $700, which happens to be the same price as Marilyn’s. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, but I’m not sure what it is. Elvis Presley’s peanut butter-stained hillbilly hair brings a price of $550, which is $50 more than that of the great John Lennon’s, which just bugs the hell out of me. He was a Beatle, for crissake, and Elvis never even wrote a song in his life.

Incidentally, Napoleon’s hair also costs $550, while the least expensive (Not counting mine. Hell, for fifty bucks I’ll send you enough of my unruly mop to stuff a medium-sized throw pillow with enough left over to knit a pair of socks. I got a mortgage to pay, you know.) follicle, at a mere $250, belonged to Ronald Reagan. I suspect the low price is due either to the relatively short time since Reagan’s death, or perhaps because of wide-spread fears that the messy globs of jet-black dye that continue to drip from that historic hair will stain all the furniture or mess up that newly-shined kitchen floor.

Three Card Monte: U.S Presidents

Years ago I was driving with a friend when he had to stop to pick up his six-year-old daughter from school. When the girl was in the car she and her dad started to play a game that they had obviously played before. The daughter told her dad three short stories about herself, two of which were true and one of which was entirely made up. The dad had to guess which one was the fictional story. The goal of the game of course, besides passing time while driving along with a chatty six-year-old, was for the listener to correctly identify the false story and for the storyteller to create a tale realistic enough to fool the listener.

I’ve always thought the game was kind of fun, because as you know I don’t have a life, so tonight I’m launching my own version and calling it Three Card Monte. The reason for the name will either be obvious to you or it won’t. If it is, fine. If not, do some on-line research. It’s late and I don’t feel like doing any more ‘splainin’ (as Ricky Ricardo might say) to you dim-bulbs than I have to.

So below I present you with three stories about tonight’s category, which is U.S. Presidents. And again, because you’re not as quick as you used to be and you never were, I’ll explain that two are factual and one is completely made up by yours truly. All you have to do is pick out the fake. Fun, huh? OK, it’s not nude scuba diving in Belize with Nicky and Paris Hilton, but what else have you got to do? Work? Post your guess in the “Comments” section. The first person who gets it right will be awarded a lovely and outrageously expensive prize, donated by the second person who gets it right.

STORY A

We’ve seen many types pass through the Oval Office, but probably one of the crudest of them all was Lyndon Johnson. Johnson is remembered for holding meetings with his aides while seated on the toilet and with the bathroom door open. It has also been written that Johnson was anything but shy about his, uh, johnson, often urinating in parking lots, even when women were present. He proudly referred to his private part as “jumbo,” and once even asked a male colleague with whom he was meeting, “Have you ever seen anything as big as this?” Now we know what made The Great Society so great!

STORY B

The sexual preferences of Abraham Lincoln has been debated for years and will probably never be resolved What is known, however, is that for four years the young Abe Lincoln shared the bed of his friend Joshua Speed. Although some have argued that in frontier times space was limited and men were often forced to share a bed, other rumors persist. One concerns Lincoln’s supposed liaisons with one of his bodyguards whenever that old killjoy Mary Todd left town. Also, Lincoln had also once shared a bed with a Billy Greene in New Salem, Illinois. Greene is supposed to have used the descriptive and complimentary line, “about as perfect as a human being can be.” What he had been talking about at the time was Lincoln’s thighs. All this and he found time to free the slaves, too!


STORY C

William Howard Taft has the distinction as being the only man to ever have served as both U.S. President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was also the fattest president in history. During his years in the White House Taft sometimes tipped (or crushed!) the scale at over 400 pounds. Stories of his voracious appetite are legendary. Walter Leland, who published a book about the two years he served (1909-1911) as Head White House Chef, recalled the many times he was awakened from a deep sleep in the middle of the night because Taft was once again demanding food. Immediately. On one such occasion the president was bellowing for baked chicken. Taft, growing increasingly impatient and irritated, had seated his gigantic self at a table in the White House kitchen as the sleepy Leland nervously struggled to light the oven. The chicken had barely been in the oven for ten minutes when the ravenous Taft flung open the oven door and consumed nearly every bit of pink meat from the nearly-raw bird. For his troubles Taft was violently ill for the next two days, missing a cabinet meeting and a visit from the Spanish ambassador. Another time Leland came into the kitchen to begin his day’s work to find the corpulent chief executive sitting in front of a huge pile of crackers, onto which he was spreading thick dollops of pure lard from a five gallon drum, and then greedily consuming the heart-clogging concoction, washing the sticky mess down with huge tankards of beer.

The Consult Guy

You know who I think has an unnecessary job? That consult guy at the pharmacy. You know who I’m talking about? First you go up to the counter and you pay for your prescription. The lady in the white smock is holding your drugs, so close you can almost touch them, and then she suddenly yanks them away and utters the dreaded words, “The pharmacist would like to consult with you.”

God damn it! Seconds from getting away with the stash and now you have to stand in another line, the consultation line, and have some old simpleton slowly and methodically again explain what your doctor just finished telling you ten minutes ago.

Things were a lot easier at my previous pharmacy. There the lady would ask, “Have you ever taken this medication before?” and I’d always be ready for her. “Oh you mean these concentrated time-release capsules filled with the extractions taken from the thyroid gland of the rare Peruvian screaming wombat? Oh sure, lots of times!” And just like that I’d be on my way.

Unfortunately my new pharmacy is slicker than that. They don’t ask you, they tell you. “The pharmacist wants to consult with you,” leaving it up to you to insert the unspoken but definitely there, “and if you ever want to see these drugs again you’ll go along quietly and do exactly as you’re told.” This happened to me today and no, I’m not going to tell your nosy ass what the drugs were for. (Let’s just say that if you’re going on a really long flight and you’d like to sleep most of the way, give me a call. I’m only here to help.)

So I finally get up to the window and there he is, the smirking and oh-so-smug consult guy. I think that’s part of what I hate about these guys—they enjoy their job too much. I hate people who enjoy their job. Luckily I don’t come across very many.

“This is called azanyosynthoplasticicine,” he begins.
“Okay.”
“You take one before you go to sleep.”
“I know. My doctor just told me. Plus it’s on the label. ”
“You take it at night because it might make you drowsy.”
“It doesn’t. I’ve taken it before.”
“So you don’t want to take it when you drive.”
Sigh. “Okay.”
“You have three refills.”
“Oh good, I was wondering what that little 3 next to “refills” meant.
“Oh, and it’s very important that if you start vomiting or pass out you should stop taking the pills immediately.”
“No shit?”

How do you figure these loons get to be consult guys, anyway? Are they really trained pharmacists, and if so, why aren’t they up there in the booth counting out pills with all the other trained pharmacists? My theory is they once were, but they got a little senile or forgetful or just weren’t any good at it to begin with. So, in order not to hurt their feelings, a “special” position was created for them. You know, like those 95-year-old greeters at Wal-Mart. (Do they still have them? Do they actually get paid, or do the corporate hotshots figure that the joy of having someplace to go is all the payment these rheumy-eyed coots deserve?)

So now they’ve figured how to keep the consult guy out of the way while letting him feel like he’s still working in his chosen field. And, most importantly, he’s doing no harm. You know when you’re trying to build something and you give the retarded kid a hammer, a few nails and a worthless piece of wood and tell him to go work "over there"? It’s just like that with the consult guy and it leaves everybody happy. Except for me, the defenseless customer. At least, of course, until the consult guy finally shuts up and the drugs begin to kick in.

Farewell, My Lovely

I knew exactly what I was looking for when I found you. Can it really be nine years ago? Friends scoffed at my folly and whispered ugly, cruel words into my ear. Hurtful, mean-spirited words like “totaled” and “salvaged.” I didn’t care. I knew you had a past before I came along, but that didn’t matter to me. Neither did the difference in our cultures. The fact that I was American and you were Japanese meant nothing to me. Or perhaps, I can now admit, it excited me even more. From the first I knew that you had everything I had ever wanted and I saw only the endless joy of our long and wonderful future together.

And what a future it turned out to be. Do you remember the road trips? Just you and I and hundreds and hundred of miles. Do you recall the time we had planned on visiting Lassen National Park and we ended up driving all the way to Sun Valley, Idaho? Or the time we drove for over 100 miles on a desolate dirt road in the middle of Nevada without seeing another car the entire way? I wouldn’t even turn you off when I stopped to take a pee, for fear of being stranded for days or even weeks in the barren desert. I was foolish—you never would have let me down. I know that now. Do you remember the trip to Death Valley? The eerie ghost towns we discovered and the deserted hot springs we explored? It seems like only yesterday, but it was long ago.

I too was not an innocent when we first met. There had been others, many others. Like everyone, I’ll always remember my first. She was a green 1964 Comet. And then the 1968 Valiant who I thought was so special because she made it to 108,000 miles. That seems so funny now. Then there was the cheap Pinto who nearly covered herself with Bondo. And the flashy brand-new Mustang who was so shiny and so fast, but was panting and heaving and practically begging to be taken out of her misery by the time she hit 100,000 miles. Yes, there were others before you, but there were never any like you.

And now they tell me that the time has come for me to find another. Please don’t look at me like that, my love. When they released you today I realized for the first time how much you have aged and that the end is truly drawing near, as it must for all machines and for all men. Your new clutch works fine, they told me, but it is nothing except a quick fix to temporarily stave off the inevitable. And they would know, for they are professionals. They told me, too, that you have only 10% left of your brakes and your axles have grown old and brittle. And you yourself have seen the rust. I know you have.

Yes, love, we had plans to celebrate together when you reached 200,000 miles later this year; perhaps even take another road trip. Now I see it was never meant to be. And so I must tell you something and it will be very difficult for me to do so. I have already started looking for another. No, darling, please don’t weep. Remember your rust. It’s true that I will soon find her and she will be sleek and shiny and have very low miles. And hopefully a CD player. But she will not be, and never could be, you.

And so dearest, I will soon call a charity and they will come and take you away from me. You shan’t be sold, for I could never bear to see you with another. Your final days will be peaceful. And on that fateful morning when your ignition doesn’t catch and your engine refuses to turn over, think of me one final time and remember the happy days. Farewell, my life, my love, my car.

Beer as an Aphrodisiac

It amazed me how easy it was to find. I just looked on the top shelf of my bedroom closet and there was that crumbling cardboard box with the words “old, old, stuff” written on the side in Magic Marker. I looked inside and there it was, wedged between a stack of baseball cards of players now ancient or dead and a dozen or so Beatles 45’s with no covers. (To this day I can’t imagine why I threw out the jackets to these Beatle records. If they ever invent a time machine I’m going to go back and pay a visit to the twelve-year-old me and give him a well-deserved kick in the ass.)

What I was looking for was a copy of a literary journal that I had contributed to when I was in college. It was published by my college much like a campus newspaper, except in digest form and much more egg-heady. It was called The Z. Platt Almanack, a name that I suppose was derived from the town where the college was located, Plattsburgh, New York. To this day I can’t be certain where the staff came up with the name or whether Z. Platt was a real or fictitious person. That’s because I didn’t go to their meetings—I just wanted to write. And this lack of participation almost cost me my literary presence in the journal.

I’ll never forget the hand-written “Letter of Acceptance, Sorta” that arrived in my mailbox one day. It said that my story, “Hansel and Gretel,” had been tentatively accepted for publication in the next issue. The note went on to say that if anything needed to be cut for space, it would be “Hansel and Gretel.” And it was signed by the editor, a fellow student named Warren Ward. (A fake name I’ve just created, and for good reason as you shall see.) That son of a bitch. (Hold a grudge long, Leonard?)

OK, I hadn’t wanted to actually join The Z. Platt Almanack, I just wanted to be published in it. I had no interest in attending their dopey meetings (I did go to one) and sit there as pompous college kids pontificated about writing while pretending to be the second coming of Hemingway or Fitzgerald. (I personally found it much easier to pontificate and be pompous alone in my own room.)

Yet I knew that the kids who worked on the journal and helped to create it stood a much better chance of getting their work published in it. Was this fair? I didn’t think so; I thought publication should be based on merit. Hey, I was just a kid. In addition, another horrible thought had entered my mind: was it possible that out of all the material that was to be published, mine actually was the weakest and therefore truly deserved to be the first to go? No, the idea was simply too preposterous to contemplate!

Hang on, I’ll get to the real reason I dug out my crumpled copy of Z. Platt in just a bit. Before I started writing this tonight I looked at the journal’s masthead to confirm the name of that punk editor who had sent me that insulting letter so very long ago. And then I typed his name into Google. OK, Mr. Hotshot Writer, I thought, let’s see how you’ve done for yourself over the last three decades. Maybe he had been the mighty editor of some crappy college journal in 1974, but now he probably doesn’t write anything except checks for his poor kid’s therapy. At least if you Google my name you can come up with some stuff that was written in this century!

Whoops. Warren Ward’s name did come up. And he came up as a writer. In fact someone named Warren Ward has published six books and recently won a prestigious literary award. Could it be the same Warren Ward? The age was about right. The geographic location was close. Even the picture of him looked vaguely familiar. Many people in this situation would be proud and magnanimous. “Well, good for old Warren! I’m really happy for him!” Not me. I didn’t feel happy for his success. Nor did I feel generous with my praise. Actually, I mostly felt nauseous with jealousy.

And still I felt justified in my reaction. “Tentatively accepted,” indeed. What kind of negative bullshit is that to hang on a sensitive 21-year old aspiring writer such as myself? sniff-sniff. (I’ve since sent an e-mail to this gentleman so that I could find out the truth and then, depending on his answer, either return to getting a good night’s sleep or jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.)

The real reason I pulled this dusty old tome from its hiding place in the closet was neither because of some decades-old hissy fit I can’t let go of nor to re-read my oh-so-clever story that ultimately had been published. (In it Hansel and Gretel find a witch whose house is made out of drugs, and Hansel is always stoned and saying, “Oh wow.” Give me a break—it was 1974.) No, I dug out my battered copy of The Z. Platt Almanack because for thirty-one years I have periodically recalled a short poem that was printed on the flip side of the page that my story was on. (“Hansel and Gretel” ended on page 57, this poem was on page 58.)

I did not know the girl who wrote it, my leaf-mate, though I had always fantasized about bumping into her before graduation and telling her how much I had enjoyed her poem. I also Google’d her name, by the way, but nothing came up. Anyway, I think it’s quite an achievement for a twenty-year-old student to write something that is remembered by a total stranger thirty years later. I read the poem again tonight, as did my wife. I feared that through the eyes and attitudes of a crusty middle-aged man it might now come across as little more than sappy schoolgirl pablum. I was happy to discover that the poem holds up well, and remains as touching and honest as the day it was published. I’m going to print it here, and include the poet’s name. Let me know what you think. And Marilyn, if you’re still out there, thanks.


BEER AS AN APHRODISIAC
By Marilyn Araten

Who was that girl that you kissed last night?
Who was it you held close and warm?
The way you wrap blankets close,
When your head says it’s cold,
And your heart says it’s empty.

Do you remember?
Does she?
Maybe you’ll never know,
That she danced home with the snow flurries,
That she sighed and wondered,
If you did, too.

You’ll see her tomorrow.
Will she understand,
That it could have been someone else,
But she was there,
Warm and smiling,
While the wind was howling,
Blowing virgin snow all over town?


Nice, huh?

Useless Information: Dimes & Quarters

Have you ever wondered why the edges of dimes and quarters have notches while the edges of nickels and pennies are smooth? Of course you haven’t—that’s what you keep me around for.

Before we get to tonight’s exciting answer I have another question for you. Have you ever watched a foreign visitor to our great land fumbling around in confusion as he frantically attempts to count out the correct change? Hilarious, isn’t it? And you know why this terrified, English language-butchering, loud color-wearing intruder is having such a hard time? Because our change, unlike what he’s used to back home, doesn’t make sense. You see, in his country, whether the coins are made of pure gold or compressed cow dung, the larger a coin is the more it is worth. When you try to explain to Umbutu over there that the thin dime he is holding has double the value of that fat nickel, well it just doesn’t compute. It goes against every known law of the universe. Luckily for us we’re Americans. We don’t have to make sense. Or follow the laws of the universe.

I had to do a little research to find out exactly how the nickel got to be so much larger than the dime. (No, I don’t know everything. Just a lot more than you do.) It seems that when the U.S. Mint started making coins they linked the metal content of each (except for the penny) to the silver dollar. In other words a dime would contain 1/10th the silver content of the dollar. The problem was that if they followed this rule with the nickel the resulting coin would be so tiny it would become nearly useless. (I can just see one of your close-eyed, inbred ancestors as a curious but terribly dim child, sticking a tiny nickel up his nose and choking on it. That then would have been the terminus of your questionable bloodline and you and your goofy family wouldn’t even be here today. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.) So they made the five-cent coin larger by using other, less valuable, metals. And since you’re still here, I’ve got a nice simple trivia question just for you: The nickel is made up of mostly which metal? The answer is: Copper. Man, you are just not particularly bright, are you?

OK, let’s get back to the original question to which, once again, you undoubtedly didn’t know the answer. The reason, my knowledge-starved little friend, that dimes and quarters have notched edges is because they’re made of silver. (Or at least they used to be. I was a kid in 1965 when quarters and dimes first began to look like Oreo cookies. They suddenly had two sides made of a shiny, silver-colored plating and were filled with a delicious copper center. I knew even then that here was another early sign of a country that was headed irreversibly downhill. What, now you’re gonna tell me I was wrong?) So to prevent people from shaving down coins in order to accumulate their own personal little piles gold and silver the edges were added.

And finally, because I’m such a sweetheart, I’m going to offer you one more opportunity to redeem your sorry self. Now pay attention. Which has more grooves, the edge of a quarter or the edge of a dime? Wrong again, Chump, it’s the quarter of course. But it is interesting that the quarter has 119 grooves while the dime has 118. So you were really only off by a groove or two. That’s the closest you’ve ever come to being right, isn’t it? Good for you! Here, have a cookie.

My Pal Neil Young

Did I ever tell you about the time I met Neil Young? No? Well gather 'round, Kiddies, and I’ll spin the tale for you. It happened long ago, in that glorious summer of 2004. OK, so that was less than a year ago. So what? Just pay attention.

I’m not by nature a name-dropper. I think the big part of the reason for this is that I have met almost no famous people in my life, and therefore have precious few names to drop. I suspect if you ask any gathering of your friends, “What famous people have you met?” you’d be surprised at how long and varied a list most people can produce. Not me. I once interviewed Kristi Yamaguchi, who you might remember as a champion ice-skater and in Fifth Grade I met Ray Heatherton, who you probably never heard of. When I was a kid he played the Merry Mailman and showed cartoons on afternoon TV. He was also known as the father of sexpot/drug addict Joey Heatherton, who you also may never have heard of, but she was pretty hot stuff in her day. (There was even a haircut called “the joey.”)

And that was about it as far as famous people go. (Oh, how could I forget the Doc? I met Hunter Thompson once and he threw an ice cube at me.) Until last summer, that is. The tiny coastal town of Half Moon Bay, where I live, is about 25 miles south of San Francisco, but you wouldn’t know it. Its main industries are fishing and agriculture, and it has some of the most spectacular scenery I’ve ever seen. I’ve often thought that if the town ever was ever to adopt a slogan it should be, “Half Moon Bay—It’s Like Paradise, Except Colder.” There is, however, one thing that Half Moon Bay doesn’t have (besides ocean water warm enough to stand in without getting painful foot cramps) and that’s a movie theatre. We do have a film society, and once a month movies are shown in one of the local churches.

So when I read that the society would be showing Neil Young’s Greendale I decided I had to go. Not that I cared that much about seeing another movie in that church. (Those pew seats are pretty hard on my delicate heinie.) But I knew that Neil, who lives just up the hill on his ranch in Woodside, just might make an appearance. My hunch was confirmed when the giggly, bespectacled lady who hosted the film night telegraphed it all by announcing that we’d be having a “very special guest.” And then there he was, standing on the altar (or whatever it is that Methodists call “up there”) wearing some kind of dopey elf hat and baggy jacket. (When you’re a genius you can get away with wearing stuff like that. It’s “artsy.” If I tried to wear a hat like that friends and strangers alike would mock me mercilessly until my embarrassed wife made me take it off.)

Neil introduced the film and said he’d be back afterwards to answer questions. The unique aspect of Greendale is that it has no spoken dialogue—all words are lyrics to the songs on the soundtrack, lip-synced by the actors. And great songs they are, of course. I mean, it’s Neil Young! (The movie itself though—not so much.) We did all get a good laugh when the opening shot of the film popped onto the screen. It was an exterior shot of a church, the very same church that were currently sitting in, watching the movie! (Neil had shot the film in and around Half Moon Bay.)

As promised Neil returned after the film and answered questions from the audience. He also talked about what seemed to be his two biggest concerns, the environment and The Patriot Act. At one point he was describing some ecological disaster, though I no longer recall the specifics, and he mentioned that if you could see it for yourself “it would break your heart.”
“I thought only love can break your heart?” I wanted to shout out, but of course I didn’t. (As it is now, I can barely accept that there are a great number of people who already think I’m an asshole. If I had to add Neil Young to that list I just couldn’t go on.)

When there were no more questions the audience applauded politely and began leaving through the back door of the church. Neil and his group, along with a few stragglers, left through the front door. I couldn’t believe it! Why was everybody acting so normal? We had all just been in the same room as Neil Young! Shouldn’t something be happening? What’s wrong with you people?

So naturally I walked toward the front of the church and out the front door. Once outside I looked around but Neil seemed to have vanished. But wait! There on the sidewalk was a circle of four people talking, and one of them was definitely Neil. I mean, there couldn’t have been two hats like that.

“Go meet him!” urged my wife, gently pushing me from behind.
“Uh, what duh huh?” I wittily responded.
“You like him so much. Go!”
And so I did. Half easing and half barging into the small circle (I did say, “excuse me” when I squeezed between two of his friends. Yes, I’m pretty sure I did.) I extended my hand to Neil Young. I don’t think I was imagining that he hesitated for just a beat before he reached up and shook it. (And why shouldn’t he hesitate? Here was the hand that played Cinnamon Girl and Down By The River and Harvest Moon, and now some nut wanted to squeeze it for no apparent reason. Hell, I’d probably hesitate too, if I had musical talent. Or any talent.) My conversation with Neil went something like this:

“I just wanted to thank you for all the great music.” Do you need to be told that this was me talking to Neil, and not the other way around?
I think Neil just nodded and mumbled something. I decide to try and stretch it into a double, since nobody had yet screamed or called the cops.
“Helpless was the first song I ever learned on guitar.” I volunteered.
“All right,” said Neil amiably.” Contact! Now this next part was crucial. I felt like I had reached the point where if I tried to extend the conversation further I might cross the line from respectful admirer to crazed middle-aged stalker.
“Well, good night,” I said. I had met Neil Young and so I happily and politely walked away. I’m sure ol’ Neil breathed a little easier, too.

I was remembering this meeting two months later when I was sitting on a completely drenched blanket in the pouring rain at this year’s Bridge concert, which is a benefit that Neil (like the way I call him Neil, now that we’re old buds?) does every year. I had pretty much given up the idea of ever again going to any more rock concerts, especially outdoor ones, last year when I saw The Who. In the future if I feel the need to hear a bunch of young punks talking on cell phones so loudly that they drown out The Who, for god’s sake, then I’ll just go to the mall. Or the movies.

But Neil had announced that this year’s special guest at the concert would be Paul McCartney and I was hooked. I’d seen McCartney (someday I’ll meet him and then I can call him Paul) in concert and I’d seen Neil in concert, but the idea of seeing them together was more than I could resist. We arrived at 3:00 and laid our blanket out on the grass. The concert started at 7:00. It rained steadily from the moment we got there and we were already saturated by the cold Northern California rain hours before the concert was to start. And there were a lot of performers to go through before the big names came out. I was thinking how ironic it was as I sat there and watched the beads of water drip off my chilled nose. Two months earlier I had been standing less than two feet from Neil Young, shaking hands with him in fact. Now I was sitting in the rain, shivering and soaking wet, waiting to see a miniature version of the same man on a stage hundreds of feet away. It made no sense.

And yet it made all the sense in the world. I would not have come to see Neil in concert. I’ve already seen him in concert several times. Nor would I have come to again see McCartney by himself, legend that he is. I was there for one reason: to witness the nearly surreal experience of seeing two of the greatest songwriters of their generation, and my two personal favorite solo artists, sing a song together. I hadn’t even imagined that these two even knew each other--they seem to live in completely different branches of the rock music family tree. And yet sometime around midnight there they were, Paul McCartney and Neil Young, standing on the stage singing a song together. And happily, for the sake of this article anyway, the song they played was Only Love Can Break You Heart. (I’m pretty sure a lot of you didn’t get that joke I made in the church about 1,000 words ago.)

As I was leaving the concert I listened as some pimply-faced teenager walking near me talked about how he could now “die happy” because he had seen Paul McCartney in concert. And how he had known and sung along with every single one of his songs. As for Neil Young’s songs, he admitted that he hadn’t been familiar with too many of those. That’s OK, Junior, I thought. I too had known every one of McCartney’s songs. I also had known all of my pal Neil’s songs and I had sat in the rain and sung along with every one of them.

Useless Information: Shave and a Haircut

Well, hello there! And welcome to another installment of the hugely popular (well, I like it) Useless Information feature. For you newcomers, all previous UI entries have dealt with obscure bits of trivia that nobody really needs to know but are fun to learn about anyway. Tonight’s entry is a little bit different. It’s still contains information about a subject you may have always wondered about. What makes this entry different is that, unlike the others, it’s just not interesting. At all. In fact, I’d say it’s downright dull, and I have no doubt you’ll agree; that is if you’re foolish enough to continue reading after I’ve been kind enough to warn you away.

You probably all know that familiar seven-note (or eight, depending on your manual dexterity) little tune, though some of you may not know it as “Shave and a Haircut.” You’ve knocked it on doors and beeped it on your car horn, often waiting for the two-note response from somebody on the other side of the door or in another car. Well, haven’t you always wondered how this odd little musical phrase came into being? Me too, so I decided that finding out the answer could be both fascinating and a great deal of fun. Well, you can forget what it says under my name up there at the top of the page. I was way wrong, and now you poor saps are paying the price.

Apparently it all started with a tune from 1899 called “At a Darktown Cakewalk.” This was the first recorded version of our catchy little refrain. How long it was popular before that is anybody’s guess. It should be noted, although at this point I’m not sure why, that only the melody was recorded--there were no lyrics. Those would come later. Oh, I just searched “Darktown” to confirm that the title of this dopey song has the racist connotations I think it does and I actually found a picture of the original sheet music! (Yup, the cover has an illustration showing lots of black people caricatures walking around, with one of them grinning and holding up a cake. You know, I’ve actually seen much worse.)

In 1914 a song was released with the title, “Bum-Diddle-Dee-Um-Bum, That’s It!” by two guys named Jimmie Monaco and Joe McCarthy, whoever the hell they were. (Oh god, what if ninety years from now some smart-ass writes about a an old-timey song and says it was “written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, whoever the hell they were?” Now that’s just too depressing to even think about!)

Fast-forward a quarter of a century to 1939 and we find a song called, “Shave and a Haircut—Shampoo.” The song was co-written, incidentally, by Milton Berle. The line later became “Shave and a haircut, bay rum.” Why? I don’t know. At this point, do you care? Because I sure don’t. Today the musical riff is known as “Shave and a haircut, two bits.” When did this change? Why did this change? Why didn’t I go to med school?

Honestly, I really thought the story of “Shave and a Haircut” was going to be a wonderful tale for you, with all kinds of entertaining twists and turns, and complete with a real socko ending. You know, the “now you know the rest of the story” Paul Harvey kind of crap. It turns out there’s nothing here. Nada. Next time somebody mentions the origin of “Shave and a Haircut,” you probably won’t even remember what you read here. Nor should you. I was wrong to even bring it up and I want to make restitution. (How about this: The next time you see me if you say you read this entire column I’ll give you a dollar.)

You know what is interesting though? The phrase “two bits”! You may already know that two bits is equal to twenty-five cents, so that would make one bit worth 12 ½ cents, which seems like an odd amount to have its own word, don’t you think? Well, back in Colonial times coins were made of gold and silver, and thus very valuable. In order to be able to make change these coins were often cut like a pizza into eight parts or “bits,” (thus the whole ones were called “pieces of eight!”) each bit being worth…OK, you can stop pretending that you’re interested. I’m going to give up now.

Lick Me

Quick, which American would you most like to see on a postage stamp? Ronald Reagan? (Someday someone is going to have to sit me down and explain the attraction of this guy. Is it just that in hindsight he looks pretty good by comparison?) How about a stamp featuring Pamela Anderson? (Insert “lick” joke here.) Jimmy Carter? Madonna? Mike Tyson?

C’mon, tell the truth. Why don’t you just admit that the smiling face you’d most like to see on a postage stamp is…yours! And guess what, my gargantuan ego-ed friend? Now you can! Hop on over to http://www.photo.stamps.com/ and discover that you can order stamps with any picture you want! (Well, of course not any picture. This is, after all, the United States, not Europe.) And yes, it’s real honest-to-god U.S. postage that you can use on all of your boring-ass correspondence.

Just think, now attached to every letter you send to Grandma will be a tiny photo of her snotty, ungrateful grandchildren. An engaged couple can send out their wedding invites with envelopes that feature a shot of the happy couple grinning like the prize pair of blue-ribbon dopes that they are. (It’s so romantic I’m getting nauseous just thinking about it.) You can even mail in your taxes to the IRS with a photo of yourself angrily making an obscene hand gesture. (No you can’t! Did you even bother to read the previous paragraph?)

Ah, but you are no doubt wondering how much it costs to spread all this visual joy, yes? Well, currently the Post Office charges thirty-seven cents to mail a letter. And listen, I happen to think that’s one of the few bargains left in this rapidly fading country. There must be at least a thousand reasons to be angry at the U.S. Government, but believe me the Post Office is not one of them. Thirty-seven cents and I can have a note or picture or clipping delivered to my parents 3,000 miles away! (These days what else can you do with thirty-seven cents? Drive your Hummer twelve feet?) And every single day (except Sundays and rainy days) one of the P.O.’s best and brightest comes to my house to bring me stuff. Books from Amazon. Movies from NetFlix. Porn catalogues. (Which I throw out immediately, of course. I mean, recycle immediately. God, it’s almost impossible to stay correct in 2005.) No, you won’t hear me complaining about the U. S. Post Office.

Oh yes, the cost of the stamps. You purchase these custom stamps in sheets of twenty. The cost of one sheet is $16.99. I’m going to step over to my calculator (Remember slide rules? What the heck did they do, anyway? It just goes to show you that if an entire nation steadfastly refuses to learn something it can be made to disappear. Like the metric system.) and check out the cost per stamp. Holy shit! Almost eighty-five cents a stamp! OK, OK that’s fine. These are custom made, after all. Plus you get a discount if you order more than one sheet.

I’m getting these. How can I not? Sending out letters with pictures of me on the stamp? It’s just too cool to pass up. Do the postal workers know about this yet? I hope they don’t think that they are fakes and return everything I mail out. I guess it will take time for these stamps to catch on and become familiar to our brave men and women in gray. Or whatever the hell color they wear. I don’t care. I’m definitely getting them. I might even use that picture of me that’s up there in my Profile.

Speaking of the postal service—would you like to know how to send a letter through the U.S. Mail for free? Theoretically. Because to do such a thing is, I’m sure, against the law and a Federal crime to boot. And most countries, this one being no exception, seem to be a little bit nutty about folks who violate federal law. Here goes. Remember, it’s just theoretical.

A friend of mine (I’m not admitting to anything here and neither should you. Unless you relish the prospect of being tied to an iron chair in a tiny cement room and tag-teamed with a rubber hose by Rumsfeld and Gonzales.) tested this out and it worked. Let’s say you want to send a letter to Ben Dover at 1234 Main Street in Anytown, California. Well, what you would do (theoretically) is to put Ben’s address where the return address would normally go, usually in the upper left hand corner of the envelope. Then where you would normally put the address of the recipient (You’re way ahead of me aren’t you? You are a slimeball.) simply make up a name and address that couldn’t possibly exist. And, of course, don’t use a stamp.

The Post Office will reject the letter as undeliverable due to lack of postage or non-existent address and promptly “return” it to Anytown and right into the waiting hands of good old Ben! Free delivery! Isn’t that cool? Of course I do not endorse anybody actually attempting this. It’s mail fraud and it’s a crime. And yet now that I think about it, maybe I don’t really need to buy those fancy, over-priced picture stamps. Maybe I don’t need to buy any stamps at all.

The Bathroom Sink: Part II

You bastards. Look at you all reading this through your glistening eyes and rubbing your hands together with evil glee. You want me to tell you it was a complete disaster, don’t you? You want to hear that geysers of water are shooting out off broken pipes and flooding my bathroom and that I dropped the onyx sink, which shattered it into a million pieces while also destroying the floor beneath. You’d love to hear how I slipped and smashed the shower doors or even that I dropped my brand new ten-pound pipe wrench on my bare toes. Well I’m sorry to disappoint you blood-suckers, but there were no disasters this morning during my much-anticipated attempt to single-handedly install a new bathroom sink, so I guess you ghouls will have to find your entertainment elsewhere. So am I telling you that the sink and cabinet have been correctly installed and are functioning properly? Don’t be ridiculous.

My first chore this morning was to remove the old sink. I was about six minutes into this project when I realized I would need a pipe wrench. My toolbox is too small to hold one, so I looked around the garage for about five minutes, though I don’t know why. I knew damn well I didn’t own one. Break time! I got into my car and drove to the hardware store. They had one pipe wrench that cost $14.99 and one that cost $34. What’s the difference you ask? By my calculations, about $19. Do I really need to tell you which one I bought?

Surprisingly, to all of us I’m sure, the dismantling of the old sink was not that difficult. There were lots of screws to take out and plenty of complicated disconnecting to do, but all in all I was fairly proud when I lifted the heavy porcelain sink and carried it triumphantly out of the bathroom. “Big deal, that was the easy part,” cackled that voice that lives inside my head. He hates me, you know.

Next I had to move the very heavy new cabinet into the bathroom. I was able grab some sharp edges, get a nice finger-cutting grip, and then lift it almost all the way in one carry. I came perilously close to dropping it on my bare feet (You would have loved that, wouldn’t you?) but somehow managed to get the monster into the bathroom nook where I guarantee you it will remain for as long as I own this house.

For a second or two I was scared that the thing was too wide to fit in the space allotted. I flashed back to my last career as a TV commercial director, where mocking editors often accused me of not being able to operate a simple stopwatch. Had I now widened my sphere of mechanical incompetence to include tape measures?

It turns out I hadn’t—the cabinet fit into the space with a couple of inches to spare. There was, however, a problem. Without even to try to fit it on, I could already see that the sink wasn’t going to fit onto the cabinet. There was a slab of wood that was almost flush with the top. How was this going to work? It looked more like a vanity with a flat top than a cabinet designed to hold something with the depth of a sink. Had I bought the wrong cabinet? But this was the one they had with the sink on display! They tricked me! I went to take a look at the box and right there on the front was a picture of this very cabinet with a lovely white sink installed on top. Perhaps there was a way that I was supposed to remove the wood if I was installing a sink? I stared at the picture again, totally dumbfounded, until the phrase “Great Bottom Drawer Feature!” caught my eye. Again I wondered if this was the right cabinet. I didn’t see any “Great Bottom Drawer” on the one in my bathroom. In fact the only drawer that looked anything like the one in the picture was actually near the top of the cabinet. Oh. It took me about another ten minutes off heavy lifting to put the cabinet right side up.

So now things were looking pretty good until I noticed a problem. The rear of cabinet would not set flush against the wall because there was a slat of wood that line up exactly with the hot water valve that came out of the wall. Keep in mind nearly the entire back of the cabinet was wide open to allow access for pipes, hoses and other assorted hardware. The only space that was blocked was where this slat was, which just happen to line up perfectly with the valve. What were the odds? We had a problem. I went and fetched the sink to see if maybe there was enough leeway for the sink to still fit flush against the wall and cover all the problems. We had a big problem.

Not to be deterred I went back to the cardboard box that had held the sink to retrieve the hardware that the salesman had sworn was included. “”Everything you need!” he had merrily chirped as he wrote up the order. Now I saw that there was nothing else in the box. Nary a single screw nor washer was to be found. That lying son of a bitch! How was I supposed to get everything hooked up properly without the necessary hardware? How dare he tell me right to my face that everything I needed was in that box? He must have known that the box contained nothing but a sink! I’ll have his job for this! There’s no way I can hook up the new faucet if I don’t have the proper…oh wait. Now I remember. The salesman had said all the hardware was included with the faucet, not the sink. Never mind.

I opened the box containing the faucet and saw more parts than they use on the Space Shuttle. I picked up the instructions, which came written in both English and Chinese. I read the English version, but it turns out it didn’t really matter. It might as well been Chinese. Allow me to present one of the first phrases that caught my eye: “Remove the nut from the pop up body and take off the spring clip from the ball rod and place the nut in the ball rod.” That is English, right? To me it looked like a script from a porno movie.

And then suddenly and without warning a calming peace swept over me and I knew that I was experiencing something akin to Kubbler-Ross’ fifth and final stage of dying: Acceptance. I now realized that this was as far as I was going. The struggle was over. It had ended not in disaster, but with a whimper. For even if I could figure out how to install this hellish faucet it still made no sense for me to continue. The cabinet didn’t fit correctly in the first place and I had no idea how to remedy that situation. I knew that a subtle smile was appearing on my face as I recognized what I had to do. I reached for the one tool that I should have used from the outset, the very last tool I would ever need. And then I dialed it. .

ADDENDUM: The man from the construction company has not returned my call about completing the installation of the bathroom sink. As it turns out I may not even need to call him back. Spike returned home and was actually quite impressed by how much I had actually accomplished. I think she expected to find that the bathroom had been demolished in an apoplectic rage or that I had somehow managed to drown myself in the toilet.

Spike also immediately noticed a difficulty that I too had noticed, but had chosen not to mention. The cabinet was simply too wide for our bathroom. It nearly touched the toilet. I had sat down earlier for a sort of “test drive” and, while the set-up remains quite functional, the alarming lack of right elbow space presents a bit of a problem, esthetics-wise as well as wiping yourself-wise.

I left it to Spike to put into words what I already knew: We needed a smaller cabinet. That depressing news opened up a myriad of new and frightening questions. How would we get the original cabinet back to Home Depot? They had charged us $100 for delivery. Could we pay another $100 for un-delivery? And since we now know we’ll need the cabinet installed (which, you’ll remember, HD does not do) should we go back to Lowe’s? We left them because they didn’t have the cabinet we wanted in stock, but might they have the smaller version that we now required? And if so, it would make sense to have them deliver and install it, right? (Assuming, of course, that they haven’t read the amusing little comments I made about their service in Part I.)

So for those of you who were hoping for that deliciously entertaining bathroom sink disaster, stay tuned. This delightful journey is not over yet, not by a long shot. Perhaps the only real surprise to me is that I had planned to chronicle this experience in two parts. Now it seems that, unless a miracle happens, two scenarios are extremely likely if not absolutely inevitable. One, like some Alabama share-croppers, it looks like Spike and I will be washing up and brushing our teeth in the kitchen sink for quite a long time. And two, this agonizing little tale of woe is going to have to be continued in a Part III. At the very least.

You Say You Want an Evolution?

Are you morally outraged by cloning? Do you think stem-cell research is the Devil’s work? Well then hang on, Cletus, you’re really going to love this!

A committee of scientists has called for restrictions in cutting-edge experiments during which human brain cells are injected into monkey fetuses in order to study the effects. The committee, which is made up entirely of American scientists, (Of course. Exactly when was it again that we became the spoilsports of the universe?) warns that if the fetuses are allowed to grow these experiments could produce monkeys whose brains would be more human than animal. To which I feel compelled to add: How cool is that?

The committee, which is made up of animal behaviorists, lawyers, philosophers, bio-ethicists, neuro-scientists and other assorted tight-assed eggheads, was formed four years ago for the specific purpose of sticking their over-educated noses into the increasing number of human/monkey experiments. To them I say, butt out!

In my humble opinion, a generation of laboratory-created monkeys who not only understand what you are saying but can actually speak back to you is exactly what we need. I’m surprised I even have to waste my valuable time (I could be watching Spongebob, you know) explaining the obvious advantages to you.

First off, we all know that any thriving economy needs plentiful cheap labor. I personally have held more than a few jobs that could have easily been performed by monkeys. And I mean the regular old flea-picking and feces-throwing kind. Imagine all the jobs that could be performed by genetically engineered human-brained monkeys? Drive-Thru Window worker. DMV employee. LASIK surgeon. The list is endless. Plus all you racists out there who are so worried about foreigners coming across our borders can relax: We can now seal them borders up tight—we’ll have all the workers we need!

How about the movies? With pampered actors currently getting $20 million or more per picture it’s no wonder that it now costs more to take your family to the movies than to Europe. So let’s replace these over-paid prima donnas with a cast made up entirely of talking monkeys. You don’t think they could have handled Bewitched? Please. We’ll still pay the scriptwriters, of course, (they practically work for free anyway) and then pass the savings on to you!

And human-brained monkeys would be the perfect solution for couples who want to have children but aren’t able to. Let’s face it, the difference between a monkey and a two-year old child is negligible at best (although the monkeys do tend to smell better) so why not make a deserving couple’s dreams come true? The happy new parents will soon find that they can do anything with the human-brained monkey that they could with a child, including hear his first words. They can take him to the playground. They can take him roller-skating. They can take him to the zoo. (Well, perhaps not the zoo.) They can even take him down to the park to fly a kite. And if the kite happens to get stuck in a tree-no worries, Dad. The monkey can climb up and get it! C’mon people, this plan is foolproof!

So let’s do what we can to stop those backwards-thinking American moral guardians from pissing on the world’s campfire. Write a letter to your Congressman today and demand the immediate creation of a race of human-brained monkeys. And maybe someday, perhaps in our lifetime, a dull-witted simian that is only capable of basic rudimentary speech will even become President of the United States! No, I mean a different one.

The Bathroom Sink: Part I

When we pulled into the Lowe’s Home Improvement parking lot I knew that my time had finally run out. For over two years my wife Spike had been bugging me to replace the bathroom sink in our home with a new one. There is nothing wrong with the one we have, mind you; it’s just that it’s a pedestal sink and there are no cabinets. You need cabinets under your sink, you see, to put things. One wonders why they even bother to make pedestal sinks, with their conspicuous lack of cabinets and all. (And when exactly did I make the transition from writing about cocaine abuse and group sex to complaining about my wife wanting a new sink for the bathroom? How did I manage to go from being Norman Mailer to being Erma Bombeck?)

The next half hour at Lowe’s went something like this: Do you like the white? I like the wood better. I like the white. But everything in our house is already white. It’s like a hospital, but with only two sick people. Sigh, OK, let’s get the wood. Which wood? Did you see the cinnamon? Yeah, I hated it. Why? Because it looks like fucking cinnamon. How about the maple? I like the oak better. The oak is ten dollars cheaper, too. Great. Let’s get the oak. Now we have to pick out a sink. Do you like the white?

And so it went. Eventually we picked out a cabinet, a sink, and even a shiny new faucet. After some military maneuvers too complicated to explain in this limited space we were able to corner a Lowe’s employee named Bill so that we could try to convince him to help us purchase these things. “I’m very busy,” Bill said. “Other helpers will be along shortly.” Now don’t get me wrong; Bill was polite and friendly. He was just the only guy in his department and it was the weekend. Somewhere along the way corporations wised up to the fact that if they employ more people it’s going to cost them more money.

Soon the promised help, Fred, arrived, and we told him what we wanted. “Well, yeah, that’s something you have to tell Bill,” Fred informed us. Yes, but Bill told us we need to write down the serial numbers and take them to Customer Service. “Yes, that’s true,” confirmed Fred ever so vaguely. OK, Fred, then let me ask you this: What the hell do we need you for?

So eventually we found our way to Customer Service and interacted with a third Lowe’s employee. I’m not even going to bother making up a name for her.
“Sir, let me check and make sure we have this item. I don’t want to charge you if we don’t have it.
“You have it. I was just looking at it.”
“Sir, the computer shows that we have two, but we never go by what the computer says.”
“I thought that was the whole purpose of having computers.”
“We should check first. I don’t want to charge you if we don’t have it.”
OK, check. Do what you have to do. What are you staring at me for? Do you want me to put my hand on your head and give you my blessing? OK, go forth child and check on my bathroom sink. And may God be with you. There.

And then suddenly appearing behind the counter like an old friend was Fred. Employee Number Three (I guess I should have given her a name. I didn’t know she’d be around this long.) explained the situation to him. And instantly Fred became Mr. Sympathetic.
“Sir,” (I gotta dye my hair—these ‘sirs’ are killing me) the computer shows that there are only two left.”
“But we don’t go by the computer,” piped in Number Three.
“The only thing to do,” continued Fred, “is to check to see if we have any.”
“Because we don’t want to charge you if we don’t have it.”
OK, I get it! You don’t want to charge me! Go check!

Of course they didn’t have any. The reason we had gone to Lowe’s in the first place was because they delivered and they installed. (Home Depot delivers but they don’t install. Orchard Supply doesn’t deliver or install.) Unfortunately Lowe’s didn’t have what we wanted delivered and installed. Which was just as well: the delivery cost was $100 and the installation cost was $400. Did I mention that the cabinet only cost $230? And further down the rabbit hole we go!

We found the same cabinet at Home Depot and began the same process of finding a compatible sink and faucet. And this time we added something new. We had decided to get the thing delivered, since it wouldn’t fit in my tiny Nissan clown car, but obviously I’d have to install it myself. And so, Dear Reader, I’m delighted to report that at the tender age of fifty-two I became the proud owner of my very first caulking gun! (I did have to have one of the “real” men who worked there help me pick out the correct type of caulk. Did you know there are more kinds than there are flavors of Slurpees?)

And so the cabinet and sink arrived today, unceremoniously dropped outside my door by a friendly guy with a big flatbed truck and a forklift. I rolled (you heard me) the large box into the house, opened the flaps and peeked inside. The first things I noticed were a few slats of wood (is pressboard wood?) and a large bag of nuts, bolts and screws. Which I thought was odd, as the writing on the outside of the box contained the phrase “fully assembled.”

“Please hire somebody to do it,” begged Spike.
“You don’t think I can do this, do you?” I asked.
“We’re all good at different things,” she replied diplomatically.
“I’ve hooked up other stuff around here.”
“Like what?” she challenged.
“Well, I plugged in the hot tub. And I planted the roses. Some of which are still alive, I might add.”
“Please ask Mike next door to help you.”
“Oh, is he a real man?”
“It’s what he does for a living.”
“Yeah, well I’d like to see him try and use those big muscles of his to write a blog!”

So that’s where we are right now. Spike was going to bet me $100 that I couldn’t install the sink and cabinet. (Not to mention remove the old one that seems permanently caulked to the bathroom wall.) The reason she didn’t bet with me was because she knew if I had cash on the line I would never give up and never ask for help, even if I accidentally punched through a wall or flooded the house. Never, I say!

So here’s the deal: As of this writing I am going to attempt to install the cabinet and sink in the bathroom. By myself. I know I have a toolbox around here somewhere; it’s a little red one, I’ve seen it before. And I am going to remember to first shut off the water. So make your little jokes now and place your bets. The project is scheduled for Thursday. Will I completely wreck the plumbing? Will I have to return to Home Depot for a second (or even third) cabinet to replace the one(s) I destroyed? And will I ultimately have to hire a real man at twice the original installation cost to repair all the damage I’ve done? The answers to these questions and many more will be revealed soon, in the exciting conclusion of… The Bathroom Sink!

Ask Mr. Science: The Praying Mantis

I heard it again the other day. A woman on a TV show was saying something like, “Did you know that the female praying mantis eats the head of the male during copulation but continues to mate with him for three days? And then afterwards she eats his entire body.” Well folks, you may not be aware that the purpose of this column is not merely to entertain and amuse, but to educate as well. So once again it falls upon me, your humble narrator, to set the facts straight on a subject that I know you’re all just busting to learn more about. Tonight: The Bizarre Mating Habits of the Praying Mantis.

It was long believed that during sex the female praying mantis did indeed consume the head of her partner. I think the reason this myth was perpetuated for so long was because you women so desperately wanted to believe that it was true. And that’s certainly understandable. How cool would it be for you to simply bite the head off that hairy, sweaty guy when you were done with him rather than always being the one who has to get up to fetch the towel? And the snacks? I thought so. (Incidentally, my research also tells me that the male praying mantis is in possession of what is referred to as “asymmetrical genitalia.” So? I just went and took a gander at myself in the mirror. Who isn’t?)

Scientists once thought that the reason for the decapitation was that it served as a signal to the male that it was time for him release his sperm. I believe that even you most hardened ladies out there would agree that this method leans a bit toward the excessive. Listen, let me go on record right now and say that if I’m ever lucky enough to be in that situation with one of you gals and you want to send me that particular signal, trust me when I tell you that a simple tap on the shoulder will be more than sufficient to do the trick.

Besides, wouldn’t extreme behavior like that, if Darwin is to be believed, create with each new generation more and more premature ejaculating praying mantises? As well as bring a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Don’t bite my head off, I’m coming.” Oh, and at one point the white-smocked eggheads came up with yet another theory that stated that the female decapitated the male to prevent him from leaving too soon. Oh you ladies just love that one, don’t you? “You are going to be spending the night, aren’t you Honey?” “Uh yes, of course Precious. Can I get you a sandwich?”

Today science still faces many unanswered questions about the mating behavior of the praying mantis. Mating pairs studied in the laboratory show that sometimes, not often, the female actually does eat her mate. Some entim-, etymolog-, entemol—bug-watchers believe this may be due to the stress of laboratory confinement or maybe from the lack of sufficient feeding. Others maintain that not only is the male sometimes eaten by his mate, but that he may actually on occasion offer himself up as food! (“That’s so romantic,” sigh at least one of you nutty chicks reading this.)

The scientific explanation as to why the male would sacrifice himself to feed his partner is that it makes no biological sense to mate with a female only to have her die of hunger before she is able to lay her eggs. This theory is, of course, complete and utter nonsense. Because, as we all know, it doesn’t matter if you’re a praying mantis, a human being, or a red-assed baboon: no male of any species anywhere in the animal kingdom is ever going to think like that. Now how about forgetting about all this bug stuff and getting me a snack?

Useless Information: Douglas C. Kenney

Over the years many readers have recognized that the writer I most often steal from, I mean, am influenced by, is Hunter S. Thompson. While it’s true that the late Doc was, until recently, one of my favorite living writers I can’t agree that our writings are that similar. Thompson was a journalist and a madman, throwing himself into each of his stories, living them with a drug-fueled abandon, and thus producing an irresistible literary mix of brilliant humor and brutal honesty.

Me? Sure I’m friggin’ hilarious, but I do it all from the comfort of my well-cushioned seat. (And I’m talking about my chair here, smart-ass.) I don’t “cover” events, I don’t take excessive amounts of drugs (partly, I admit, because I know longer know where to find any) and I am rarely able to remain unemotional and objective enough to write humorously about politics.

But sometimes, perhaps because he himself is mostly forgotten and wasn’t that well known to begin with, I tend to forget about one of my true early influences. His name was Douglas C. Kenney, and on more than one occasion during my high school years his writing made me laugh so hard in the school cafeteria that the milk I was drinking would embarrassingly shoot out of my nose.

Douglas Kenney co-founded the humor magazine National Lampoon in 1970, and contributed a wealth of material to its pages for about seven years. If you’ve never seen National Lampoon’s 1964 High School Yearbook Parody, which he co-edited, do yourself a favor and find one on Amazon. And if you also purchase a copy of The Daily Show’s America, the Book, a parody of a school textbook, you’ll realize that I am not the only person to still be influenced by Kenney’s work today. Kenney also co-wrote the bestseller Bored of the Rings, the hilarious and much needed parody of the Tolkien classic trilogy. (Bored was recently re-released to coincide with the success of the Lord of the Rings movies.)

In 1977 Doug Kenney co-wrote a movie that became, at the time, the biggest grossing comedy in history: National Lampoon’s Animal House. Next time you watch it try to take your eyes off Belushi for a second to get a glimpse of a character named “Stork.” Stork, who has only one line in the movie, was played by Doug Kenney. A couple of years after Animal House Kenney co-wrote the comedy classic Caddyshack, and it was at this point that he became one of the most sought-after comedy writers in Hollywood.

The biggest laugh I ever got from Kenney was no from one of his movie scripts but from a three-word phrase that appeared as a footnote in one of his Lampoon articles. Kenney had already dropped three footnotes in the article, and each time I diligently marked my place with my finger and looked down to read the small print of the footnote at the bottom of the page. They all read like standard magazine article footnotes, being made up of a line or two, except, of course, that they were funny. When I came to the fourth footnote I again looked at the bottom of the page, but this time the only thing that greeted me after the tiny “4” were the words “Eat my shorts.” This, then, was one of the times when the milk shot out of my nose. I, and anybody else who had been carefully reading the article, had been royally set up. One of those readers, of course, must have gone on to become a writer for The Simpsons, as years later “Eat my shorts” became a well-known catchphrase for Bart Simpson. But, although nearly thirty-five years have passed, I still and always will remember where I read it first.

It was in 1980, the same year that Caddyshack came out, that Kenney, while hiking alone in Hawaii, either fell or jumped off a cliff, and plunged to his death. I don’t know if I’m more amazed to realize that this happened nearly twenty-five years ago, or that Kenney was only thirty-two when he died. Had he lived Douglas C. Kenney would today still only be fifty-seven years old. You have to wonder how many more classic comedies or books he would have written and, more importantly, how many more times he would have embarrassed me by making milk shoot out of my nose.*


*Eat my shorts.

Fantastic Four B

OK, let’s get the review part out of the way so we can move on to something really important. I saw Fantastic Four today and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Hey, it’s not Schindler’s List, but it was good, light-hearted entertainment and it’s also one of the funniest movies I’ve seen this year. Fantastic Four doesn’t take itself too seriously and neither should you. (By that I mean you shouldn’t take Fantastic Four too seriously, not that you shouldn’t take yourself too seriously. God, sometimes I hate the English language.)

Good, bing bang boom and just like that we’re done. Now let’s talk about what’s really on my mind regarding the Fantastic Four. I never read the comic book as a kid and was only vaguely familiar with the characters. Through the movie, however, I discovered that this particular set of super heroes possesses, without a doubt, some of the most lame-ass super powers of any comic book characters I’ve ever come across. (And that includes Batman, and he doesn’t even have any super powers!)

For example, Mr. Fantastic can stretch any part of his body, which I guess would come in handy for stealing a candy bar out of the machine, but that seems to be pretty much the end of it. (And why isn’t he named something like Elastic Man or Rubber Boy or Gumby?) The Thing has super strength, but has to permanently lumber around made entirely of stone. Invisible Girl, well even you can figure this one out. And The Human Torch can apparently set himself on fire. Just like Richard Pryor. (Too dated? Yeah, you’re probably right.)

In fact it’s fairly obvious that the creators of The Fantastic Four were so painfully aware that they had given their creatures such anemic powers that they were forced to tack on a couple of bonus abilities. So it turns out The Human Torch can also use the heat he generates to fly, and Invisible Girl emits some sort of sonic wave that can knock a villain on his ass. Big whoop. Superman is only one person and he can do anything these chumps can do and a whole lot more. (He can generate heat by spinning at super speed and he can become invisible also by using super speed. Listen, I wasted a good part of my youth with my nose in his comics so don’t argue with me on this. Well, OK, maybe Superman can’t become elastic but Jesus, why would he need to? He could just smash the machine and take a candy bar if he wanted to. Who’s going to stop him? You?)

Anyway with savage wars, killer hurricanes and terrorist attacks dominating the news it’s only natural that today I spent a good deal of time lost deep in thought. And what I thought about most was which of the Fantastic Four’s powers I would most like to have. To me the choice was so obvious that I decided to really challenge myself intellectually and try to rank these powers in order of personal preference. And aren’t you just dying to know what I came up with? Sure you are. OK, in reverse order, here are my choices for: The Fantastic Four Powers I’d Like to Have:

#4 The Thing. I’m going to play fair here. Having incredible strength wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Off the top of my head I can think of at least one neighbor and a yappy dog or two that I wouldn’t mind tossing into the next county. But if, in order to do this, I’d have to go around looking like something that rolled out of the back of a dump truck--forget it. Sure, it’s always possible that making it with an 800-pound pile of rocks with eyes is a turn-on to some of you gals (frankly I’ve ceased to be amazed by anything you chicks find attractive) but in the end I’m just not willing to take that chance.

#3 Mr. Fantastic. These next two are almost a toss-up. I’m trying to think of cool things I could do if I could stretch my parts to incredible distances. I’ve already mentioned stealing candy bars. Peeping over the walls at a nudist camp? Clipping my toenails without having to bend over? How about never again missing when you toss coins into the toll basket? And that’s about it for this less-than-super power. Pretty weak, huh? You can keep it.

#2 The Human Torch. This power came in at #2 only because of the flying addendum. I had a fever of 101 a few weeks ago and I felt like shit. Who needs the ability to bring up my body temperature to 200 degrees? Maybe creating fire would have been handy in the old days when I was often too stoned to even find the lighter or a book of matches, but why would I need this power now? To make a cup of tea? But the flying, that would definitely be cool.

#1 Invisible Girl. Well, of course. It’s not even close. This is the one we all want, isn’t it guys? I mean, flying would be terrific, but how does that compare with riding planes, trains and every ride at Disney for free, eavesdropping on that cheating girlfriend of yours, playing incredibly cruel practical jokes on your dopey co-workers, helping yourself to the cash drawer or crashing expensive buffets? The list (and the fun) is endless! And Gentleman, what of that Holy Grail of all invisibility fantasies? Dare I even speak its name? Yes, my invisible brothers, our time has finally come: welcome to the erotic Shangri-la that is the women’s locker room!

Or maybe that’s just me. So how would you rank them if you could choose from the powers of The Fantastic Four? Seriously, let me know, because, first, I’m naturally curious about human nature and second, I just re-read this and frankly I’m just a little worried about myself.

Udder Cream?

Honestly, have you ever heard of “Udder Cream?” I have a feeling most of you women reading this are answering, “Of course I have, hasn’t everyone?” Listen, I take great pride in the amount of obscure nonsense that I manage to cram into my already jam-packed noggin, and even I had never heard of this stuff until last week.

My education began when I was on line at one of those discount dollar stores (Well, if you'd buy more of my books I wouldn't have to demean myself by shopping in places like that.) and I noticed that the older woman who was ahead of me was purchasing a jar of something that was labeled “Udder Cream.” Within seconds two or three possibilities of what this substance might be flashed through my overactive, and often quite twisted, mind.

For a second I actually thought this woman was buying a product to rub onto her cow’s udders, but she didn’t really look like the cow-owner type. I even peeked out the window and checked out all the cars in the parking lot. Nope. No cows. And then I thought it might be something that older women rub on their own aging—well, you know what I thought, and I was wrong again. I mean, even if that’s what it was for, why would they use that name? It’s insulting. They’d more likely have to come up with a name that was subtle and wholesome, like other feminine products. Something along the lines of “Spring Nipple Mist” or even better, “Areola Borealis.”

“It’s a hand cream, you idiot,” answered my wife Spike, who knows how I think. For some reason the fact that it was simply for one's hands filled me with a sense of relief, but I still felt the need to find out more. Expiring minds want to know and all that. So it was off to that electronic font of wisdom from which all of Man’s knowledge flows. (For $59.95 a month, of course.) The Internet!

It turns out my first impression was actually close to the truth. No, not that first impression; the other one. (If I had written “the udder one” in that sentence would you have laughed? No, I didn’t think so.) Udder Cream was first developed in response to requests from farmers who wanted something to soothe their cow’s udders, which often grew sore from the frequent milking. How they knew the cow’s udders were sore is never fully explained. It’s not on the Internet and the cows aren’t talking.

Today one of the largest manufacturers of Udder Cream claims that only 10% of their product is used on cows. The rest is used by people just like you and me (well, like you anyway) to soothe a variety of skin irritations, such as dry skin and sunburn. Udder Cream users include gardeners, bicyclists, swimmers, sailors and golfers.

Sailors? I knew it! I can just hear Ensign Billy shrieking from the poop deck, “Yoo-hoo! Which one of you able-bodied seamen took my last jar of Udder Cream?” It may well be a wonderful product, but I think you'll agree that it really needs a new name.

War of the Worlds--B+

I don’t think I want to review movies anymore. There are so many reasons that I’m not good at it. First off, I’m going to enjoy just about every movie I see, at least to some extent. Most of the movies I see are good. A few are great and even fewer actually stink. I’ve been going to the movies since Bambi came out, and in all that time I’ve only walked out of one: Billy Madison. That was the day I sat in the darkened theater and had an epiphany of sorts. I realized that life was precious, and much too short to be spent watching crap like that. But again, that was the only time out of thousands of movies. Congratulations, Adam.

So today I went to see War of the Worlds. My expectations weren’t particularly high, but you figure Spielberg, Cruise—how can you go wrong? And there it is. You expect me to write a review on a film by Steven Spielberg? This guy made E.T., Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Indiana Jones, Close Encounters, etc. and etc. You want me to judge him? Who am I? I’m nothing. I’m less than nothing. I’m scum. I’m lower than snot. I’m not worthy to lick the dirt from between his cinematic toes. I’m like some filthy, slimy, disgusting, crawling thing that doesn’t even deserve—oops! Forgot to take my medication. I’ll be back in a bit.

There, that’s better. And what’s with all this Cruise bashing? Take a look sometime at a list of films this guy has starred in. Oh, he jumped up and down on Oprah’s couch and he belongs to a funny religion? Hey, chump, how about taking a closer look at the tenets of your hotshot religion. “Well, there’s this old man in the sky who watches everything we do, and he has this magical son…” Gimme a break.

Ahem. Anyway, as I was watching the first half of War of the Worlds I was getting that feeling I get when I realize I’m seeing something truly great. From the very start I was interested in the characters and the story. I didn’t even care about the impending arrival of the aliens. And from there the movie just got better and better—until about halfway through.

It seemed to lose steam shortly after Tim Robbins came on, though in no way was it Robbins’ fault. (Robbins is a great actor and he even gets in a good anti-Bush line.) The movie just spent too much time in the cellar hideout with the Robbins character, and from there it became just a standard film. It was also at this point that I realized the movie was not going to be a great one, just a very good one.

Listen, the special effects are great, and so are the characters. I’ve heard a few people complain about the ending, but for that you can’t blame Spielberg or Cruise. Or even Bush. That’s the way the book ended, folks, though perhaps not quite as abruptly. God, I remember spending an interminable weekend agonizing through that thing when I was a kid because I had a book report due on Monday. And unlike you punks today, if I had a book report to write, by golly I made damn sure I read the entire book. (Well, I might have skipped some pages, now that I think about it, but certainly no more than a hundred or so.)

Another reason I think I’m done writing movie reviews is that I never know how to end them. Other reviews usually end with corny clichés such as, “Check it out” or “Don’t miss it!” or with some horrible pun like “Cruise to War of the Worlds today!” Me, I’ll just say it was a good movie, so go see it. I gotta go now. Good-bye.

Lightning

Remember that really big tsunami? No, not the one that hit south Asia last December and killed all those poor people. I mean the other one. What other one you ask? Exactly my point.

One of the many, many problems with you humans is that after a major event occurs you keep looking in the same place for it to occur again. And it usually doesn’t. You even have an expression for it: Lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place. But you don’t listen, do you?

After 9-11 you couldn’t bet a dollar against a doughnut (I guess that expression doesn’t mean much these days, since the dollar is now worth less than a doughnut. I mean, which one would you rather have right now?) that another major terrorist attack was imminent. “It will be even bigger” and “It will make 9-11 look like nothing” all the experts seemed to be shouting. I’m not naïve; I know other attacks will happen. (I know this because all the experts tell me so.) It’s just that a forward-looking gambler could have cleaned up on 9-12 just by betting that there wouldn’t be another major terrorist attack within the next three years.

Once when I was a boy scout (Did you head just snap back from that transition?) we were learning Morse code. I was just as bad at it as the rest of the saps in those dopey uniforms, but I think I had an advantage because I’d use a shortcut. I could get a letter or two and then quickly figure out the word. (It’s a valuable skill that has gotten me far in life, like memorizing state capitals and cracking my knuckles.) Anyway, we were having a contest at this one particular scout meeting. The troop leader (Do they still make the grown-ups wear the boy scout uniforms, because I gotta tell you it is not a good look for anybody, and especially for a fat-assed fifty year old with no hair and a beer belly out to here.) was flashing a word in Morse code.

Our mission was to decipher the word and fetch whatever the signaled object happened to be. I had somehow gotten a letter or two and it didn’t take much to figure out that the secret word was “woman.” (We were a horny bunch of little troopers.) So I got up and wandered the halls of the grade school where the meeting was held until I found me a cleaning lady, explained the situation to her (Cleaning ladies spoke English in those days. Is it so terribly wrong of me to say that?) and dragged my trophy back to the troop leader waiting in the gym.

Soon we were working on the next word, and when I again suddenly stood up I remember a few others stood up with me, one of them saying, “Whoa, we have to go find another woman!” The word this time had actually been “Mr. Jeffries,” who was one of the leaders. I went and found the old bastard and dragged him back to the gym, another trophy for yours truly. What my dim-witted fellow scouts had failed to realize was that they were simply reacting to what had just happened: Of course the troop leader wasn’t going to use the word “woman” twice in a row.”

You still here? I’m feeling extremely verbose tonight (so much so that I’ll even use the word “verbose”) so I think this is going to be a record-long column. You kids don’t have to stick around us old folks if you don’t want to. Go out and play-get some air. OK, here’s one of my favorite stories (at least one of my favorites that I can put in a blog that my mother reads) about the nature of people and how they will endlessly wait for a once-in-a-lifetime event to repeat itself.

Back in the early 80’s (I’m pretty sure that’s when it happened. I don’t feel like going onto the Web to look it up. I’m typing here!) the price of gold and silver skyrocketed, especially silver when taken on a percentage basis. Silver had been sitting at around $2 an ounce (Again, I’m not exactly sure about that number, but I’m secure in the knowledge that you, like me, are too damn lazy to look it up.) and when its meteoric rise ended a short time later silver was over $50 an ounce! (Speaking of meteors, did any of you knuckleheads buy that crap I wrote in last night’s entry? I bet somebody out there did. Ha.) That’s a twenty-five-fold increase in price, for those of you still struggling with second-grade mathematics.

So I was listening to this guy on the radio telling his story about how he had purchased a ton (No, not literally a ton, you ninny, but a lot of it) of silver before the price went up. He was incredibly excited by his good fortune and hurriedly dragged this ton of silver (What did I just tell you? It’s an expression!) to his local coin shop to cash in. When he got there his heart dropped: There was a huge line of people that snaked completely around the building. “I knew this was too good to be true,” he thought to himself. “They’ll run out of cash long before they get to me. By the time I can get to sell my silver the price will be back down.”

He then talked to a guy who was also in line and discovered the actual situation. It turned out that every single person in line was there to buy silver. At $50 an ounce. The man who had brought the silver walked right into the store. He was only the third person that entire day who had come to sell! So our hero cashed in his silver and made a small fortune. The others continued to wait in line, eager to buy their silver and watch it again rise up twenty times its value, as it surely must. Those folks, of course, are still waiting. Silver quickly plummeted to more realistic levels and today, twenty-five years later, it is worth about $7 an ounce. And that’s in 2005 dollars.

So I read in our local paper that they are going to be putting up tsunami warning signs at our local beach. And speakers. The article said that the picture on the sign will depict a man running and a giant wave. (I’m assuming here that the man will be running away from the giant wave. I mean, otherwise people might just mistake it for a sign that means “Surf’s Up!”)

Our beach is relatively unspoiled and retains a lot of its natural beauty. (I’m discounting the many mounds of steaming horse-poop that are regularly dropped by our four-legged equine friends. What delightful creatures they are!) Listen, we don’t need any signs messing up the view. And as for the speakers—my god, what are they going to be saying if a tsunami does come? “Run! Run! C’mon, move your asses!” Believe me, only one person needs to hear of an approaching tsunami and the whole beach will know. (Look how fast the Michael Jackson verdict spread.) And how long do you think it will be before some advertising scumbag starts using those speakers to blare commercials for Coca-Cola and Stay Free Maxi Pads? “Them speakers are just sitting there doing nothing. Why not generate a little moolah for the city!”

“But, but, but,” they whine as their arms flail wildly in panic. “Just last week a 7.0 earthquake shook the Pacific and there was an tsunami warning!” Again, exactly my point. There was a warning. And what happened? A lot of self-important people ran around clutching clipboards and then breathed a collective sigh of relief when their imaginary tidal wave didn’t appear. “We sure were lucky this time, boy howdy.”

Look, maybe the California coast will get hit with a 200-foot wave before I even post this tonight. (I hope not—I’ve really put a lot of time into it when I could have been watching Stella.) I’m just saying that just because a monstrous tsunami happened six months ago halfway around the world doesn’t mean we should be spending all our time and energy expecting that another one is about to hit here. Or waiting for some other bunch of crazed hijackers to knock down another skyscraper. Or buying silver or fetching another cleaning woman.

Oh, rest assured another disaster is on its way. I know it. You know it. It’s going to be huge and cruel and ugly. And it’s going to be, above all, unexpected. You can’t cover all your bases. So fine, keep patrolling the coastline for giant waves and strip-searching every man, woman and child who wants to ride an airplane. You’d be a fool not to. Just remember that while you’re keeping your vigilant gaze focused there and there, the next major event is just around the corner. Except this time it's going to be over there.

We're Saved !

Tonight the world is beginning to share, albeit cautiously, in the joyful exuberance that we witnessed in those deliriously celebratory NASA scientists just a day ago, and with good reason. By now most people are aware that the spacecraft that so successfully and so spectacularly collided into comet Tempel 1 at 23,000 mph was carrying a massive amount of explosives, possibly nuclear, and was sent in an attempt to divert the comet from its current Earth-bound path, and not, as first reported in the press, as part of some vaguely defined "scientific research."

We now know that the comet, some 180 million miles from Earth, was given a 70-85% probability of directly hitting our planet somewhere around mid- September of 2006. Catastrophic climatic changes, similar to those caused by the meteor that many believe led to the extinction of the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago, were considered possible by many scientists, and even likely by some.

The good news, according to the latest leaked information, is that due to the comet's current distance from the Earth, its trajectory needed only to be altered by an estimated 1/10 of a degree. Privately, NASA scientists admit that adjusting the trajectory of a comet half the size of Manhattan at all is a daunting task, and that it will be several weeks before new measurments can be taken and the full effects, if any, of the historic attempt are known. However, it's been reported that most of the people associated with the project are claiming cautious optimism and are, at least among themselves if not publicly, congratulating each other on the success of the remarkable experiment.

So now, at least for the next few weeks, we must wait. Still, whatever the outcome, we should feel very proud of the men and women of NASA and their bold plan to save our planet; and very grateful indeed that this potential cosmic disaster occurred at a time in our history when we are at least not completely helpless to control our own fate. Just think, a mere fifty years ago, had a similar comet had been hurtling towards us to threaten our very existence, there would have been nothing to be done but to look up and await the inevitable. And if it turns out that we have indeed "dodged a bullet" this time around due to the incredible advances in space technology, one can only marvel at the scientific wonders that must truly await us in the next fifty, one hundred or two hundred years. Thank you NASA!

Marlon and Wally: A Love Story

Just got back from visiting my folks in Florida. One day I had a brief conversation with my Mom, which reminded me of a twisted bit of info which seems to have too quickly slipped through the fingers of the national consciousness. (And thus it becomes my job, nay, my obligation to resurrect it) Somehow Marlon Brando came up, and I, always generous about sharing tid-bits from my vast knowledge of stored information (whether invited to or not) asked my Mom if she had heard that Brando had been cremated and his ashes spread with those of Wally Cox. My Mom, like most anybody else who has heard this story, thought it rather strange. "Maybe they were just good friends," offered my Mom. "Yeah," I thought, "and maybe they were really good friends."

Do you even know who Wally Cox was? To older folks he is best remembered as Mr. Peepers, a television comedy from so long ago that even I don't remember it. (Part of the problem there is that apparently Mr. Peepers was performed live, and no taped copies exist. There's a valuable lesson for you kids: You want to be remembered? Be a sculptor.) Later Cox regained some fame on the game show Hollywood Squares. Many of you who have never seen Wally Cox certainly have heard him, as the voice of lovable cartoon super-hero Underdog. "There's no need to fear, Underdog is here!" Remember that? 'Course you do.

Here's the thing: Brando and Cox were friends since they were nine, once lived together and have long been rumored to have been lovers. And, if you believe everything you read on the Internet, and I do, Brando is known to have been bi-sexual. Who cares, right? It's 2005 and what two (or more) people do in the privacy of their own bedroom, blah, blah, blah. What makes this story so intriguiging however, is not that two male actors were homosexual lovers, but that one was a masculine screen legend, perhaps the greatest film actor of all time, and the other was, well...Wally Cox.

This may help you to appreciate why I place this pairing among the oddest of odd couples. Back in the olden days I would often confuse Wally Cox with Woody Allen, or with another comic actor named Arnold Stang. You know Woody, of course, but you may have to surf the web to find pictures of these other two. ( I did install the software that allows me to post pictures here, but what the hell--I gotta do everything?) All three portrayed slight of build, bespectacled men of meek character who back then might have been referred to as "nebishes" but would be known better today as "nerds."

So to imagine Marlon Brando (please stop me, I don't want this image in my head--oops, too late) flagrante delicto (yeah, I had to look it up-so sue me) with Wally Cox is about as ludicrous a picture as I'm ever likely to conjure up. Let me give you a more up to date comparison to illustrate my point. Let's say tomorrow Brad Pitt holds a press conference and comes flouncing out of the closet. Big news and a poor career move to be sure, but not particularly shocking. But, ho! What if Pitt also announces to the world that his one true love is, and always has been, Pauly Shore? No forget that, how about this one: Russell Crowe reveals that he has been playing for the other side for quite some time, and that he will soon be moving to Massachusetts so that he can legally tie the knot with his longtime companion, Steve Urkel!

Now do you get a sense of my confusion here? What Brando did or didn't do with Wally Cox is not the issue. I just find it bizarre to think that Brando, one of the most powerful screen performers and smoldering sex symbols in American film (he's the Godfather for crissake!) might have been fiddling with the sunless areas of this wimpy little four-eyed Mr. Peepers. Don't you? And it certainly doesn't make it least bit more palatable to realize that these two prancing paramours were probably doing it Underdoggie-style, now does it?